XXXIII

Lily didn’t really mind getting old. Not that sixty-six was old, but it certainly wasn’t young. Sometimes, when the house was cold and she shivered in spite of her shabby blue sweater, or when her mayonnaise “went back on her,” or she couldn’t put off going to the dentist any longer, she was sad. But there were market days when she stayed in Wilmington and had a chocolate sundae at Reynold’s for lunch, and bought a quarter of a pound of bitter-chocolate peppermints to eat at the movies. There were happy nights of early to bed, with a hot-water bag and a moving picture magazine⁠—beautiful Mr. Valentino in a sash and a broad-brimmed hat, Barbara La Marr’s velvet mouth, and stories about how much those nice Talmadge girls loved their mother, the innocence of darling little Jackie Coogan, and what a good husband Mr. Menjou was in spite of his lifted eyebrows. “How good everybody is, when you really know,” thought Lily. And there were the stars’ bedrooms⁠—she pored over every detail. Dolls in hoopskirts that hatched out telephones, cushions trimmed with bunches of silk fruit⁠—rather knobby for the head? Still, as they were mostly strewn about the floor, perhaps you weren’t meant to put your head down on them.

And going to the post office was exciting⁠—not many letters, but she sent for so many things that there was almost always mail for her. Samples of perfumes, of cold cream, of note paper, “Orchid” and “Willow-Green” and “Straw,” catalogues of Dutch bulbs and peasant furniture, booklets about trips around the world.

And there was always church, the changing of the colored hangings, flowers on the altar, the luxurious warm bath of the soul of her prayers.

But Victor hated growing old, and fought against it, jumping off cars before they stopped, and walking jauntily away, refusing to wear an overcoat when he was blue with cold⁠—wanting to be young.

“I will do exercises and take cold plunges,” he decided, not for the first time. “That’s the way for a fellow to keep young.” And morning after morning, Lily heard him puffing, panting, granting⁠—thump⁠—thump⁠—thump⁠—heard the water roaring into the tub, and then the splash that meant most of it was leaping out again, hastily followed by Victor. She was dreadfully worried about the parlor ceiling.

“Wonderful the feeling of vitality it gives you,” he told the bored men at the office. “I get the greatest reaction out of an ice-cold plunge, just as cold as it comes, no lukewarm baths for yours truly, I leave those for the old fellows.” He would stop the most casual acquaintances to tell them about his exercises and cold baths. “Why don’t you try it, old man?”

But gradually they tapered off and stopped. He began to drink buttermilk. He had read somewhere that buttermilk would keep you young practically forever.

His clothes were getting old, too. There was his fur-lined coat, with the fur collar, that he hadn’t realized wasn’t still something to be proud of, until one day someone said to him:

“You ought to give that coat back to the rat and let it finish it.”

It was as scrubby as that! So scrubby that a friend could think he was just wearing it to be funny. And he pretended he was. He thrust a hand into its breast, put out one foot, and declaimed:

“Methinks, you wot not that you address Hamfat, the famous tragedian!”

But his heart was crying.

There weren’t as many invitations as there used to be. People weren’t entertaining as much as they had entertained before the war, he told himself. But he went everywhere he was asked, and he paid a great many calls.

Four members of Dorothy Spear’s house party were playing Mah Jongg at the top of their lungs, four more were dancing to “It Ain’t Goin’ to Rain No More,” played by the gramophone. Dorothy herself lay stretched on the sofa, slender legs in flesh-colored silk stockings showing to the knees, waving a cigarette in a long holder at Gregory Hart to emphasize a few remarks on suppressed desires.

“Love your cigarette holder, Dot!” Bunny Tempest called as she foxtrotted past.

“You ought to see Edwina’s⁠—hers is so long she has to have a flute case to carry it in. Throw us another Lucky, Tommy!”

Two more friends appeared in the doorway, the girl slender and straight as a pencil, her painted baby face framed in a tight cloche and a great roll of fur collar, the boy voluminous in raccoon coat, with much pale blue muffler.

“Hello, you dumbbells!”

“Hello, yourselves! Don’t you look Ritzy? Take off a few clothes⁠—oh, my dear, what a perfect boyish bob! Oh, it looks simply darling, I’m crazy about it!”

“She looks like a drowned kitten.”

“Oh, ankle along, you Victorian! Don’t pay any attention to him, Mariette, if he is your fiasco!”

Mrs. Spear paused at the door on the way upstairs for a nap, and said resignedly:

“Dorothy, your legs.”

“Nice, aren’t they?”

“Pull down your skirt, darling.”

“Listen to my precious mother! She’s a scream, boys and girls. Don’t you think she’s a scream? You are, you know, Ma!”

“Play something else⁠—‘Doo Wacky Doo’ or something.”

“Come and dance, Dot.”

The hurrying excitement of the music shook them⁠—a queer stab went through her as Gregory held her closer. She was almost too breathless to say mockingly:

“Oh, you passionate orchid-crusher!”

“Look at King Tut coming up the drive!” someone called from the window seat, and someone else cried, “What is it? I ask you, what is it?”

Dorothy looked over their heads. Mr. Victor Campion in his high silk hat, out making Sunday afternoon calls.

“Oh, my dears, he’s our hardy perennial bachelor. Stop the music⁠—grab Thompson, someone, before he gets to the door⁠—if we once let him in he’ll stay to tea and Lord knows how much longer. Thompson⁠—Thompson⁠—not at home⁠—”

She watched him turn away, and an unexpected pang of pity stirred in her heart.

“This used to be his home⁠—it must be queer to have us in it. He and three old maid sisters used to live here. One of them went dippy from sex repression⁠—just like what we were talking about, Greg. Too bad they didn’t have her psyched. There’s only one left, and she certainly is the hole in the doughnut. Well⁠—might as well turn on the music.”

Victor walked down the drive. Had he heard smothered giggling when the door was opened? There was the beech tree they used to play under, Maggie and May and Lily and he. Should he make some more calls? No, he was tired, and it was chilly and late. There was snow in that sky, though a cold pink colored the west. Sunset. Soon it would be dark.

Lily was watching for him at the window, standing over the register, her skirts ballooning with heat. She ran to the door to let him in.

“Oh, Victor, you did look so nice coming along the road! I always think there’s no one in the world looks as nice in a silk hat as you!”