XIX

Maggie hung Victor’s dress-suit on the clothesline to get rid of the smell of camphor. He was going to New York to stay at the Fifth Avenue Hotel where Papa had stayed, and to go to Lucy Hawthorn’s ball. There had been a glazed cream-colored invitation for the girls, too, that Lily kept lying carelessly on the hall table, where everyone could see it; but Maggie said, of course, they couldn’t think of going.

May had thought of it. Just for a moment she saw herself at the ball, dancing, floating in the arms of a tall stranger with a fascinating ugly face⁠—

Not being able to have a new dress wouldn’t matter⁠—she could fix up the eau de Nil corded silk with the coffee stain on the skirt that Aunt Priscilla had given them, and that had been too grand for anything they would be apt to go to. She was so slender she could take that front breadth right out. And she had seen just the trimming for it in Wilmington⁠—bands of tiny shells. Rainbow-colored shells peeping from waves of faint water-green silk⁠—a mermaid come from the foam.

“I have been looking for you all my life. Where have you been hidden away?”

“Where? Where?” the violins cried. “Where?” cried the plucked strings of the harp.

“But now that I have found you⁠—”

But, of course, she knew that they couldn’t afford it. They really couldn’t afford it for Victor, but for him they would manage somehow.

Coming back from the clothesline, Maggie stopped by the bed of lilies-of-the-valley by the porch, such a convenient place for cherry stones. How sweet, how sweet! She never could get by them, even when she had a hundred things to do in the house she must pause before their altar. Now there was Victor’s grey suit to sponge and press for the trip, a cake to make, and lunch to get, but she knelt beside them, breathing their fragrance, loving them. She gathered a spray or two of great white bells, their stems squeaking as she pulled them, and a cool green leaf, to take into the kitchen with her. They had never been so beautiful.

Why shouldn’t Victor take a big bunch of them to Lucy? She suggested it to him when he came strolling out to the kitchen where she was cracking eggs for an omelet.

“I’ll pack them in a nice box with wet cotton, and you take them up just as soon as you get there⁠—Victor, don’t eat those raisins, you’ll spoil your lunch. You’ll see they haven’t anything like these in New York.”

“Oh, well, I guess they’ll have plenty of flowers⁠—I don’t believe I’d bother⁠—I mean, I guess they’ll have enough,” said Victor, dreadfully embarrassed.

“They won’t have any like these, and it won’t be a bit of trouble. I’ll pack the box right in your bag,” Maggie said, killing a currant on the table with great firmness under the impression that it was a fly; and she thought, “If he takes them in the afternoon, they’ll know he’s reached New York, and they’ll certainly ask him to supper, even if it’s just a pickup meal because of the party.”

Oh, she did want him to have a good time! Her heart still ached so for him, because he had not been able to go back to Harvard. She had suffered for him all winter⁠—so hard on him hanging around the place. She would look at him standing in the window watching the falling snow, whistling and rocking back and forth from his toes to his heels, or yawning by the fire over “A Daughter of Heth,” or “Just As I Am,” and think that really he would be happier doing some sort of work. But Victor felt that it was important to wait until just the right position offered itself.

Maggie found a splendid box for the lilies-of-the-valley, but just because it said “1 pr. Corsets, extra heavy boning” Victor was ridiculous, even though she offered to paste a piece of plain paper over the shocking words. So they had to be put in another box, not nearly as good.

He would much rather have let them stay at the hotel, much much rather. But he thought of Maggie going out last night after she had finished the dishes⁠—she wouldn’t let May wash them because of her pretty hands, or Lily, because she broke too many plates⁠—gathering a great burst of them, carillons of silver bells, cool with evening, and bringing them in for him to see and smell, her face shining.

He meant just to leave them at the big brownstone house. He was astonished to hear himself asking the butler, “Is Miss Hawthorn in?”

“Is that the man about the extra chairs?”

Mrs. Hawthorn came into the hall, all sweeping violet silk and foaming lace⁠—was she dressed for the ball already at five in the afternoon, or could it be only a tea-gown?

“Are you the man about the extra chairs?”

“Oh⁠—I’m Victor Campion, Mrs. Hawthorn⁠—I just⁠—I wondered if Lucy⁠—”

“Oh. Mr. Campion. Yes, I remember.” She gave him a finger and said in a preoccupied voice, “I’m sorry, Lucy is lying down.”

“Oh, that’s all right! I just brought a few lilies-of-the-valley, they aren’t anything really, but we thought⁠—”

He followed her into the drawing-room, cleared of most of its furniture, and sat on the edge of a small gilt chair, not wanting to stay, but afraid she would be hurt if he went right away. He felt his face getting red. “It’s warm today, isn’t it?” he asked, laughing a little, nervously.

“Heavens, will the goose never go?” thought Mrs. Hawthorn; and she let a moment pass before she answered:

“Very warm.”

He had never seen such a grand parlor. The high sky-blue ceiling was painted with clouds and cupids, and from it hung gas globes like giants’ eggcups, with the profiles of Roman emperors clear on the ground glass. Long mirrors reflected over and over again the firescreen of terra-cotta silk embroidered with bullrushes, the marble lady looking down at a butterfly perched on her shoulder, Mrs. Hawthorn’s violet draperies, and his own best grey suit and flaming face.

Would it be all right to go now? He didn’t know how late you could get supper at the hotel, and he felt as if he had been sitting there for hours. There was a clock on the mantelpiece, but it was so fancy, its hands were such delicate traceries of golden frost-work against a golden moon of background that he couldn’t read it at all.

“Well, I think maybe I’d better⁠—”

And somehow he was out of the house, on the street. What a relief!

“Mercy!” cried Mrs. Hawthorn, flapping her hands with exasperation, as she hurried into the dining-room for a last look at the table before the florist’s men left. All white and palest green, lilies-of-the-valley, masses and masses of them.

Lucy, rosy with sleep, came trailing down, wrapped in a dressing gown of pale blue silk trimmed with swansdown, like fluffy white clouds in a summer sky, and helped herself to a glacé pear from a dish on the table.

“Your rustic admirer has been here,” said her mother. “That Campion young man. He left a box of something or other for you somewhere, and he hopes we’ll understand why his sisters couldn’t come. Lucy Hawthorn, those extra chairs aren’t here yet!”

“Oh, Mother! To think of Victor’s coming all the way here for my ball! Oh, can’t we ask him to the dinner?”

Her flower-blue eyes filled with tears as she thought of his lonely dinner at the hotel, her hand went out for a piece of crystallized pineapple.

“No we can’t⁠—there really isn’t room for him. I’m sorry, but good gracious! Who would have dreamed of the goose coming all that distance? Now, Lucy, don’t cry, or you’ll spoil your eyes, and don’t eat any more candied fruit, or you’ll spoil the looks of the table.”

Should he dress before dinner, or after? He couldn’t decide, and this time he couldn’t call over the stairs and ask one of the girls. If he could only go down and look first, to see what other people did. Perhaps, if he got dressed up, he’d be too conspicuous.

And for one weak moment he thought, “I don’t believe I want any dinner. They’ll be sure to have refreshments at the Hawthorns’.” But he did go down.

Everything on the menu in French! He knew what some of the words meant, and he could have pronounced them splendidly to the girls, but pronouncing them to the waiter who had been fairly sputtering French to another waiter was different.

“Er⁠—how is this today?”

The man stopped humming a little song up above Victor’s head, and asked meanly, ignoring his pointing finger:

“How is what, sir?”

How purposeful and efficient the other diners looked, how perfectly clear about everything. He finished his first course, moved his glass to hide a spot of gravy on the table cloth, and waited for his chocolate ice-cream.

He waited and waited. Other people who had come in after him finished their dinner and went. He wouldn’t stand it! He frowned, drumming on the table, and looked at his watch. Well, he had a long, long time before he need leave the hotel, but still he wasn’t going to sit there and be ignored. He tried to see his waiter among those who skated past with bowls of salad or tureens of soup, who set down the dishes with a flourish that was almost a caress.

He wouldn’t stand it another minute! And he said meekly to a waiter so young and inexperienced that he allowed his eye to be caught:

“Oh⁠—would you mind telling my waiter I’m ready for my ice-cream now?”

And all of a sudden, for the first time, he really felt, he really believed that in two or three hours he was going to see Lucy. He could feel his heart thumping; he was dizzy, dreamy with happiness.

“Anything more, sir?”

“Oh-a⁠—what?”

He must have eaten his ice-cream without ever noticing it, lost in thoughts of Lucy, for there was the saucer in front of him, with just a few pale brown streaks left in it.

He was almost on the Hawthorns’ steps before he decided that he was too early. So he took a long walk; and, when he came back, music was pouring from the open windows, carriages were rolling up and away, and a small crowd was watching gentlemen in crush hats and ladies in swansdown sortie des bals skim over the scarlet carpet from carriage to door. He followed them in more haughtily than any king.

Out of the blur, among all the people to whom he gave his beaming smile and dazzled blue gaze, he saw only Lucy⁠—Lucy with her silky hair and apple-blossom skin, wearing a blue satin gown hand-painted with daisies, with a tight little basque buttoned down the front and a great, long grownup train pouring out from masses of puffs and drapings.

The pianist flung up his hands and scattered a shower of silver drops. Flute, harp, and violin awoke; and at last Victor and Lucy were dancing together.

One, two, three, and a one, two, three!

He wished it had been a waltz⁠—there was something so brisk about a polka. And what a crowd! Bump! “Excuse me, Lucy!” Bump! “Excuse me!”

Flowers everywhere⁠—roses, carnations, heliotrope. And masses and masses of lilies-of-the-valley⁠—his were a drop in the sea, lost.

Bump!

“It’s such a jam, let’s go to the conservatory,” Lucy suggested a little breathlessly. “Doesn’t the fountain sound cool? Oh, Victor, thank you so much for the beautiful flowers⁠—see, I’m wearing a little bunch of them, they’re so much bigger and sweeter than the ones that came from the florist’s!”

Her hand poised above his flowers among the laces at her bosom, touched them lightly as a hovering white butterfly. The darling! The darling! His heart swelled with gratitude and love.

“Why, they aren’t anything⁠—really! I just thought⁠—”

“Oh, dear, there’s the music⁠—I must fly!”

“Lucy⁠—how soon can I have another dance?”

“Oh, Victor, I’m terribly sorry, but⁠—”

“Oh, that’s all right!” he assured her, too quickly, too eagerly.

“But I’ll introduce you to some nice girls.”

“Damn some nice girls!” he wanted to shout. But what he said was:

“That’ll be fine.”

“But didn’t I meet you at dinner?” asked the first nice girl.

“At dinner?”

“Yes, here at Lucy’s dinner tonight?”

“Oh⁠—no! No, I couldn’t get here to dinner,” Victor assured her. “I was unavoidably detained.”

Bump!

“Suppose we go to the conservatory⁠—it’s lots too crowded for dancing,” said the nice girl. She stole a look at her new pink satin slippers⁠—he had danced all over them! She pulled up her gloves, settled her bangles, and unfurled her fan with the swansdown edge.

“Doesn’t the fountain sound cool, Mr.⁠—eh⁠—?”

He had never felt so forlorn and homesick in his life. The music rose and fell sadly⁠—a waltz, this time. Stay with me, my love, my love! No, I cannot stay.

He squeezed his hands in their new white kid gloves between his knees. “The fountain sounds cool, doesn’t it?” he asked.

Maggie had said, “Don’t come home the day after the dance⁠—stay two nights. As long as you’re in New York you might as well really see it. And if the Hawthorns ask you to spend a few days, just you do it!”

So no one was expecting him as he bumped up the porch steps with his bag the afternoon after the ball. The lilies-of-the-valley perfumed the air⁠—he was almost surprised that they were still in bloom, it seemed so long since he left home yesterday morning. How strange to see the house when he was supposed to be miles and miles away, looking just as it would have looked if at this minute he had still been in New York. May’s flower scissors and a litter of wet stems and leaves, Lily’s old shade hat with its muslin bow, Maggie’s muddy overshoes, and Maggie herself coming up from the chicken-yard.

“Victor!” And then the delight changed to lamenting. “Oh, I told the butcher not to stop today!”

At her cry May and Lily came bursting out of the house to welcome him, to ask him a hundred questions.

“Have they an elegant house?”

“Didn’t they like the lilies-of-the-valley?”

“Did Lucy look nice? What did she wear?”

“Oh, white, I think, or blue⁠—something, anyway.”

“Well, I should hope so!”

“What was the entertainment? Just salad and ice-cream, or did you have lobster? Do tell us!”

And as he answered he became confident, self-possessed, a man of the world kindly amused at all this feminine flutter. They saw him the center of the ball, the master of ceremonies, the strong oak for those three ivies, Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorn and Miss Hawthorn, to cling to. He almost saw himself so, through their eyes.