The only faint comfort Marigold had was a hope that if Clementine had lived to be old she might have become enormously fat like her mother up at Harmony village. A good many Lawrences lived in or about Harmony and none of them, it was whispered, cared very much for Lorraine, though they were always painfully polite to her. Marigold knew this, as she knew so many things older folk never dreamed of her knowing, and always felt whenever old Mrs. Lawrence’s eye rested on her that she had no right to exist. If she could only have believed thoroughly that Clementine would have looked like her mother when she grew old she would not have been jealous of her.
For old Mrs. Lawrence was a funny old dame, and one is never jealous of funny people.
Mrs. Lawrence was very proud of her resemblance to Queen Victoria and dressed up to it. She had three chins, a bosom like a sheep and a harmless, if irritating, habit of shedding hairpins wherever she went. Her favorite adjective was “Christian,” and she had a very decided dislike to being reminded that she was either fat or old. She constantly wore a brooch with Clementine’s hair in it and when she talked of her daughter—as she did very often—she snuffled. In spite of this, Mrs. Lawrence had many good qualities and was a decent old soul enough, as Uncle Klon said.
But Marigold saw only her defects and foibles because that was all she wanted to see in Clementine’s mother; and it rejoiced her when Uncle Klon poked fun at Mrs. Lawrence’s pet peculiarity of saving all her children’s boots. It was said she had a roomful of them—every boot or shoe that her family of four had ever worn from their first little slipper up. Which did nobody any harm and need not have given Marigold such fierce pleasure. But when was jealousy ever reasonable?
2
Uncle Peter’s son Royal had married and brought his bride home to Harmony. She was said to be unusually pretty, and even Aunt Josephine had said she was the most exquisite bride she had ever seen. There had been the usual clan jollifications in her honor, and now Uncle Klon and Aunt Marigold were giving a party for her—a “fancy dress” dance where all the young Fry were to be masked. It sounded very interesting to Marigold and very provocative to Gwennie as they listened to Mother and Grandmother talking it over at the supper-table. Both wished intensely that they could see that party. But both knew that they must go right to bed as soon as Mother and Grandmother had gone.
“And be good little girls,” said Grandmother warningly.
“There’s no fun in being a good little girl,” said Gwennie, with a pout at Grandmother. “I don’t see why we can’t go to that party, too.”
“You were not invited,” said Mother.
“You are not old enough to go to parties,” said Grandmother.
“Your day is coming,” comforted Salome.
Uncle Klon came out from Harmony for them in his car—already dressed in his fancy costume—a great, flowered-velvet coat that had belonged to some Great-great across the sea, a real sword, and a powdered wig. With lace ruffles at wrist and breast. Mother and Grandmother were not wearing fancy dress, but Grandmother was very splendid in velvet and Mother very pretty in brown brocade and pearls. And Marigold felt delightfully that it was just like a bit out of a story, and she wished she could go up the hill and tell Sylvia about it. She had never even seen Sylvia since Gwennie came, and there were times when she was consumed with longing for her. But she never went up the hill. Gwennie simply must not find out about Sylvia.
“Run on in, kidlets, and go to bed now,” said Uncle Klon, grinning rather maliciously, because he knew perfectly well how they hated it.
“Don’t call me ‘kidlet,’” flashed Gwen.
After the car had purred off in the twilight, she sat down on the veranda steps and would not say a word. Such a visitation of silence was rare with Gwennie, but Marigold rather welcomed it. She was glad to sit and dream in the lovely twilight, while Lucifer skulked like a black demon among the flower-beds.
It was not the Lucifer of Old Grandmother’s days. That Lucifer had gone where good cats go. But there had been another Lucifer to step into his four shoes, looking so exactly like him that in a few weeks it seemed just the same old Lucifer. There had been a procession of Lucifers and Witches for generations at Cloud of Spruce, all looking so much alike that Phidime and Lazarre thought they were one and the same and concluded they were the Old Lady’s devils.
Salome, after milking, came along.
“I’m going to bed.” she said. “I’ve got a headache. And its time you went, too. There’s lemonade and cookies for you in the pantry.”
“Lemonade and cookies,” said Gwennie scornfully, after Salome had gone in, leaving a couple of minxes at large in Cloud of Spruce. “Lemonade and cookies! And they are having all kinds of ices and salads and cakes at the party.”
“There’s no use thinking about that,” said Marigold with a sigh. “It’s nine o’clock. We might as well go to bed.”
“Bed! I’m going to the party.”
Marigold stared.
“The party? But you can’t.”
“Maybe I can’t. But I will. I’ve been thinking it all out. We’ll just go. It’s only a mile in—we can easily walk it. We must be dressed up ourselves so that if any one sees us they’ll think we belong to the party. There’s heaps of things in those chests in the garret and I’ll make masks. We won’t go in the house—just peep in at the windows and see all the dresses and the fun.”
So far had evil communications corrupted good manners that Marigold felt no qualms of conscience at all. It would certainly be int’resting. And she was quite wild to see that “exquisite bride” and all the wonderful costumes. Uncle Peter’s Pete, she had heard, was going as a devil. The only thing that gave her to think was whether they could really get away with it.
“What if Grandmother catches us?” she said.
“A fig for your Grandmother. She won’t—and if she does, what then? She can’t kill us. Have some gizzard.”
Marigold had lots of “gizzard” and in ten minutes they were in the garret tiptoeing cautiously lest Salome hear them in the retreat of her kitchen chamber. The garret was rather a spooky place by candlelight, and Marigold had never been there after dark before.
Great bunches of dried herbs hung from the nails in the rafters, together with bundles of goose-wings, hanks of yarns and various discarded coats. Grandmother’s big loom, where she still wove homespun blankets, was before the window. An old, old piano was in one corner and there was some legend of a ghostly lady who played on it by times. And there was a chest under the eaves filled with silken dresses in which gay girls had danced years ago. Marigold had never seen the contents of that chest, but Gwennie seemed to know all about them. She must have been rummaging, Marigold thought. Gwennie had—one rainy day when nobody knew where she was—and she knew what was in the big chest, but she did not know—and neither did Marigold—that the little gown of misty green crêpe with tiny daisies sprinkled over it and a satin girdle with a rhinestone buckle in it, which was lying in a box on the top of the contents of the chest, had been a dress of Clementine’s. Marigold knew that Clementine had been buried in her wedding-dress and that old Mrs. Lawrence had taken away the rest of her pretty gowns. But this one had been overlooked; perhaps Mrs. Lawrence did not know it still existed. The first Mrs. Leander had her own reasons for keeping it and it had remained in the box in which she had placed it all those years.
“Here’s the very thing for you,” said Gwen. “I’m going as a fortune-teller, with this scarlet cloak and hood and the pack of cards. They’re all here together—somebody must have worn them once to a fancy ball.”
Marigold fingered the emerald satin of the girdle lovingly. She adored satin.
“But I can’t wear this,” she objected. “It’s miles too big for me.”
“Put it on,” ordered Gwen. “I can fix it for you. I’m a crackerjack at that. Ma says I’m a born dressmaker. Let’s go down to our r
oom. Salome’ll hear us creaking about up here.”
Marigold put on the daisy dress, with its pretty, short sleeves of lace and its round low neck. Oh, it was pretty even if it were old-fashioned and wrinkled. Marigold was tall for her ten years and Clementine had been small and slight; still the dress was too long—and loose. But resourceful Gwennie, with a paper of safety-pins, worked marvels. The skirt was looped up at intervals all around and the pins hidden under clusters of daisies Gwen got off an old hat and which matched the daisies in the dress admirably.
“Now get your good slippers and pink silk stockings,” commanded Gwen, sprinkling her own cloak and the green dress lavishly with Mother’s violet water. “I’ve got to make our masks.”
Which she proceeded to do, slashing ruthlessly into Old Grandmother’s widow “fall” of stiff black crêpe. Then she put on her own red stockings and fixed up a “wand” for herself out of an old umbrella handle with a silvery Christmas-tree ball at the end and a Japanese snake of scarlet paper wreathed around the handle. Nobody could deny that Gwen was past mistress in her own particular brand of magic, and Marigold was lost in admiration of her cleverness. A few minutes later two black-faced figures, one in green and one in red, slipped silently out of Cloud of Spruce and fled along the dark Harmony road, while Salome slept the sleep of the just in the kitchen chamber and Lucifer told the Witch of Endor that he’d be condemned if he ever let that young demon from Rush Hill walk him about the yard on his hind legs again.
3
Marigold, who was never frightened in the dark if she had any one with her, enjoyed the walk to the village. It was a fairy night, with eerie pixie voices in the bracken. Why were the clouds racing across the moonlit sky in such a hurry? To what mysterious sky-tryst were they hastening? An occasional rabbit frisked across the moonlit road. Marigold was half sorry when they reached the village.
Luckily Uncle Klon’s house was in the outskirts, so they had no need of traversing the streets. They slipped up the side lane, squirmed through a gap in the privet hedge, boldly walked across the lawn and found themselves at the window of the big room where the dancing was going on. It was open and the blind was up, and they had a full view of the inside.
Marigold caught her breath with delight. Oh, it was fairyland. It was like a little glimpse into another world. For the second time in her life Marigold thought it might be really quite nice to be grown up. She remembered the first time. Long ago, when she had been only six, curled up on the ottoman in the spare room, watching an eighteen-year-old cousin dressing for a dance. When would she be like that? Not for twelve years. She groaned aloud.
“What’s the matter, Sugar-pie? Sick?”
“No. It’s only—it takes so long to grow up,” sighed Marigold.
“Not so long as you think,” remarked Grandmother, passing through the hall.
And now again, for a moment, Marigold felt that it really took too long to grow up.
The room was rosily lighted by a gay enormous Chinese lantern hung from the ceiling. The floor was filled with dancers in the most wonderful dresses. There was gaiety in the very air. Lovely low laughter was everywhere, drifting out over the lawn in front and the flower-garden behind. Aunt Marigold’s dog was howling heart-brokenly to the music in his kennel. Such flowers—such lights—such music—such dresses. Most of the younger guests were masked but few of the older ones were, and Marigold liked best to watch them because she knew them. There was Aunt Anne, in gray lace over amber silk—Marigold had never seen Aunt Anne so magnificent before! Cousin Jen, with a diamond wreath in her hair, and Cousin Barbara, who always had runs in her stockings, and Cousin Madge, who was the best dancer in the Lesley clan. Her very slippers would have danced by themselves the night through. Aunt Emma, who still wore her hair pompadour and old Uncle Percy, whose wife had her hair bobbed three months before he ever noticed it. Old Uncle Nathaniel, with his great shock of gray hair reaching to his shoulders and looking, so Uncle Klon was wont to say, like a lion that had eaten a Christian who disagreed with him. And, sitting maskless by Aunt Marigold in the palm corner, a creature so lovely, in her gown of pale pink chiffon embroidered with silver, with her hair folded about her head like a golden hood, that Marigold felt at once that this was the “exquisite bride.” Exquisite was the word. Marigold could hardly drag her eyes from her. It had been worth it all, just to see her.
Mother was dancing—actually dancing—and Grandmother was sitting by the wall, looking as if she didn’t think much of fox-trots and tangos. Beside her, a stately old dowager in mauve satin, with hair arranged a la Victoria, and a cameo brooch with Clementine’s hair in it. The sight of Mrs. Lawrence spoiled things for Marigold. She was quite ready to turn away when Gwen said,
“We’ve seen all we can see here. Let’s take a sneak around to the dining-room and have a look at the supper.”
But the dining-room blinds were down and they could see nothing.
“We’ll go right in and see it,” said Gwen.
“Oh, do you think it’s safe?”
“Of course, it’s safe. Look at all the rigs here. We’ll never be noticed. I’m going to see all that’s to be seen, you bet.”
In they went. As Gwen said, nobody noticed them. The supper-table proved such a dream that they hung over it breathlessly. Never in her life had Marigold seen such pretty eats—such dainty cakes and cakelets, such wonderful striped sandwiches, such beautiful dishes. Cloud of Spruce could put up a solid banquet, but this alluring daintiness was something new. Gwen perceived sourly that there was no chance of “swiping” anything—there were too many waitresses around, so, after they had looked their fill, she pulled Marigold grumpily away.
“Let’s take a peep at the other room again and get out.”
Hitherto all had gone well. They were reckless with success. Boldly they crossed the hall and boldly they stood in the doorway of the dancing-room. The floor was not so crowded now. The August night was warm and many of the dancers had gone out to the moonlit lawn. More of the old folks were sitting around the room. Mrs. Lawrence was more Queen-Victorian than ever as she languidly plied a huge ostrich fan of the vintage of the nineties. Old Uncle Percy was down at the end of the hall telephoning, and shouting at the top of his voice as usual. Marigold thought of the clan story about him and snickered.
“What is that racket?” a caller in Uncle Percy’s office had once asked.
“Oh, that’s only old Mr. Lesley talking to his wife down in Montague,” the junior partner had replied.
“Well, why doesn’t he phone her instead of yelling across the Island like that?” said the caller.
Gwen turned to see why Marigold was shaking with laughter. Then the end of the world came. Gwen stepped on a small ball that somehow happened to be lying under the fringe of the portiere, shot wildly into the room and fell with a curdling scream. As she felt herself shooting she grabbed Marigold—who did not fall but went staggering across the room on the slippery floor and there sat neatly down at the very feet of old Mrs. Lawrence, who had just begun to tell Grandmother how many times she had had the flu.
The next moment Mrs. Lawrence was all but in hysterics, and the room was full. Marigold had scrambled to her feet and was standing there dazedly, but Gwen was still sprawled on the floor. It was Uncle Klon who picked her up and stripped the mask from her face.
“I knew it was you.” He stood her beside Marigold, from whose face someone else had removed the mask.
“Oh, Marigold,” cried Mother in horror. But old Mrs. Lawrence was still the center of attraction. Until she could be revived and calmed nobody had any time to spare for Gwen and Marigold.
“Clementine’s dress—Clementine’s dress,” Mrs. Lawrence was shrieking and sobbing. “The dress—she wore—when she came—in to tell me she had just—promised to marry—Leander Lesley. I didn’t think—you’d let—your daughter—insult me so—Lorraine.”
?
??Oh, I had nothing to do with it—truly I hadn’t,” almost sobbed Mother.
“My heart broke—when Clementine died—and now to have it brought up like this—here—” people made out between Mrs. Lawrence’s yoops. “Oh—I shouldn’t—have come. I had a presentiment—one of my dark—forebodings came to me.”
“Calm yourself, Mrs. Lawrence—here, try a sip of water,” said Aunt Marigold.
“Calm—myself! It’s—enough—to kill me. We all—die—sudden—unexpected—death—Oh, Lorraine—Lorraine—you took her place—but your daughter—might have left—her dress—her sacred—little—dress—alone.”
“Oh, I didn’t know,” cried Marigold. She wanted to cry—but cry she would not before all those people. Had not Old Grandmother once said that a Lesley should never cry before the world? Yet it was plain to be seen she had involved Mother in some terrible disgrace. All the sense of mystery and romance had fled. She felt that she and Gwennie were only naughty, silly children who had been ignominiously found out.
Mrs. Lawrence yooped more wildly than ever.
“You’d better have her carried upstairs,” said Aunt Marigold. “She really has a weak heart—I’m afraid—”
“Oh, Clementine—Clementine,” wailed Mrs. Lawrence. “To think—of the dress—you wore—being here. That—dreadful—child—Lorraine—how could you—”
Gwen, who had hitherto been rather dazed and sobered by the suddenness of the catastrophe, now wrenched her shoulder from Uncle Klon’s restraining hand and sprang forward.
“Shut your face, you old screech-owl,” she said furiously. “You’ve been told Aunt Lorraine had nothing to do with it. Neither had Marigold. It was me found that moldy old dress and made Marigold put it on. Now, get that through your dippy old head and stop making a fuss over nothing. Oh, glare—glare! You’d like to boil me in oil and pick my bones, but I don’t care that that for you, you fat old cow.”
And Gwen snapped her fingers under outraged Queen Victoria’s very nose.