VIII

Each year the pencil marks to show how much the children had grown crept up and up by the side door, like a rising tide. And then Maggie’s stopped rising, and she was a grown-up young lady; though you wouldn’t have known it from seeing her in the morning, in her shabby old dress, up in the cherry tree helping Albert pick cherries, or galloping around the meadow bareback on Stella, or, in the woods, pulling off her stockings and dew-soaked shoes to wade knee-deep with Victor in the foam-flecked brown brook.

But, when they drove to evening parties, or rolled up their own parlor carpet and sprinkled candle-shavings over the floor, she blossomed out with bustle and chignon, high heels and long earrings; and every bit of her was young lady then, except the little boy feelings inside of her.

The world was flowing in on them⁠—here a little trickle, there a rush. So many more people than there used to be, and so much to do! Dancing and picnics and tableaux⁠—oh, life was such fun!

May tried to pull Mamma’s gown together at the waist while Mamma looked Maggie and Lily over. She knew May would be all right, but the other two were so careless.

Maggie’s straight brown hair was parted in the middle, and brushed, sleek as satin, over a huge bun of chignon. Her cream and brown striped silk dress cocked up like a wren’s tail behind in a big bustle, and then cascaded off into a little train, and Mamma had lent her a lace frill for her open collar.

Lily was in blue, to match her eyes, and her fair flowing hair, crimped except just at the ends from its tight braiding, was pushed back of ears from which dangled balls of silver filigree as big as cherries. Both the girls looked very neat⁠—but, oh dear, what big waists, thought Mamma with a sigh. May was the only one who managed to have a wasp waist. She didn’t mind how hard they pulled her corset strings. Holding on to the bed post, drawing in her breath, she would get Lily to pull on them with all her strength. She didn’t care how much too small her high-heeled slippers were, either, just so she could squeeze her feet into them. Feeling like the princess in the fairy tale who walked barefoot over fire and swords, she would dance all evening, laughing and talking, though when she got home she would burst into tears from pain and exhaustion.

“Don’t slouch, Lily. Will you ever learn to stand properly?” sighed Mamma.

“Well, but Mamma dear! I do get so tired doing that old Grecian bend!”

“Well, remember to when you’re in company, or I shall die of mortification. Back up to me, Maggie, your pannier’s crooked. Now don’t fidget⁠—”

“Pull in, Mamma!” said May, tugging at Mamma’s grey satin. “There! Oh, I wish you’d let me have a low body like yours⁠—I hate these old high necks!”

Mamma took a placid look in the mirror at her bosom and shoulders bulging out of her black lace and grey ruching⁠—bulging, but with such delicious creaminess. She tried to keep her mouth from quirking up at the corners as she remembered that Mr. Alfred Lacey had told his gentlemanly sister Mrs. Thornton, who good-naturedly told Mamma, that he had never seen finer shoulders. She wondered if he would be there tonight⁠—perhaps she’d better wear her garnet necklace. The dark red made her bosom look even whiter.

“Anyway, you might let me have some evening hair,” May complained, pouting, her mouth a bunched red bud. She was the beauty of the family, with her long lashes and deep warm coloring, her tiny waist and round little bosom; but her hair wouldn’t grow long. It just foamed in short curls all over her head, looking so silly and babyish. If only Mamma would let her have some coronet braids or a rippling switch to flow over her shoulder! But Mamma would only laugh and pinch her cheek gently and say fifteen was too young for evening hair.

Young and warm together under the buffalo robes, while the sleigh-bells rang⁠—merry⁠—mournful⁠—they drove from all over the country for miles around, over the snow to the party.

Lily liked best to play the piano while the others danced. She felt shy and awkward, sitting waiting to be asked, not knowing whether she was more afraid that someone would ask her, or that no one would. She could play “Water Lily Waltz” and “Over the Waves” pretty well, and parts of lots of others; but she was a conscientious performer, and when she played parts wrong she would stop and say, “Oh dear! Wait a minute!” and play them over again. It was a relief to the dancers when some good-natured mother would shoo her off the piano-stool.

“Now then, Lily Campion! Run and have a good time with the young people!”

“Oh, I don’t mind playing, Mrs. Austen, really I don’t.”

But she would go docilely, and waltz with kind fathers and little brothers. And often Mamma’s new friend Mr. Lacey would give her a turn, bounding as lightly as a balloon on his neat little feet.

Or they all went skating together. Oh, how beautifully the young gentlemen skimmed over the ice, cutting grapevines and figure eights, leaning far over with one leg stuck out behind, showing off to the girls, who glided demurely about with their little hats with pheasant feathers and cascading veils pitched over their noses, and their tiny muffs held tight to their waists beneath their rounded busts.

Maggie skated beautifully⁠—too well to charm the gentlemen. Victor and his young friends darted about like water-bugs, using the others for bases and bumpers. Lily was fat and her ankles were weak, so she stood on the side of her feet and watched the others, most of the time. As for May, the part she liked best was having her skates put on.

“What tiny feet!”

“Oh, now you’re making fun of me, and I think it’s downright mean in you!”

“No, I’m not, on my honor, I never saw such little feet.”

“Goodness, I don’t see why you think my feet are little! I think they’re huge! Yes, I do! Truly!”

Between winter and spring came Lent. They all went to church for the Litany every Wednesday evening; and the Campion girls gave up candy. Lily gave up desserts, too, because she loved them so. She would stand looking at a charlotte russe or a Bavarian cream on the sideboard until she couldn’t bear it another minute and had to rush away, out of temptation. Once, halfway through Lent, she fell. Putting what was left of the Bavarian cream into the slide on Martha’s evening out, she seized a tablespoonful and crammed it into her mouth. But between her haste and the size of the mouthful and her shame at breaking her promise to Lord Jesus, she nearly choked to death.

Then out from the long dark tunnel of Lent into the brightness of Easter. The parlor fragrant with Mamma’s fat sausage-shaped hyacinths of creamy pink and silvery blue⁠—fat ladies with beautiful souls⁠—the eggs that had been boiled tied up in bits of colored calico that dyed them in such charming splotches and blots of color. Victor and Lily ate four apiece for breakfast on Easter morning, and Maggie ate two, but Mamma and May were delicate, and only had one each. And then they drove to church, to sing, happy and self-conscious in their new straw hats:

“ ‘The strife is o’er, the battle done;
The victory of life is won;
The song of triumph has begun.
Alleluia!’ ”

Mr. Lacey sang away in his pew, too, so tidy, so shining, with his pink face, his kind round blue eyes and silky nut-brown whiskers, his neat gloves and beautifully laundered linen, that he looked as if he must be kept under a glass bell from Sunday to Sunday. And as soon as church was over he came hurrying out to help Mamma into the carriage.

When summer came, they all went sailing, and had picnic suppers on the Jersey shore. The girls in their blue flannel boating costumes unpacked the baskets, and made coffee over the driftwood fires the young men built, and pretended they were very busy and mustn’t be bothered. “Ah-h-h” sighed the little waves, coming in over the sand, drawing back. “Ah-h-h⁠—” The breeze brought them the river smell⁠—the cool wet smell of mud and reeds and soaking rotten wood; and over the Delaware hills the sunset deepened, violet, orange and rose. One white star trembled. Victor raced along the shore. Other little boys might be left at home, but not he. He found a dead crab, and chased the girls with it⁠—ugh! the smelly thing!

And everyone was so funny.

“Does your mother know you’re out?” they called to each other; and oh, the laughter when some young lady would cry, “We’ve forgotten the spoons!” The very word spoon, the sight of a spoon, was enough to send the young men off into fits of laughter, while the girls tried to look innocent and demure.

Sailing home through the moonlight the laughter would grow gentle, would die.

“ ‘My Bonny lies over the ocean,
My Bonny lies over the sea,
My Bonny lies over the ocean;
Oh, bring back my Bonny to me!’ ”

Swish, swish! The liquid moon-silver flowed gently, strongly back from the bow of the boat, and young hands groped for young hands, and found them.

“ ‘Bring back, bring back,
Oh, bring back my Bonny to me⁠—to me!
Bring back, bring back,
Oh, bring back my Bonny to me!

“ ‘Last night, as I lay on my pillow,
Last night, as I lay on my bed,
Last night, as I lay on my pillow,
I dreamt that my Bonny was dead!’ ”

And it would have been too sweet, too sad to bear if someone had not sung, mock-tragically:

“Oh, bring back my Bonny, and don’t be so funny⁠—!”