Part 4 (1/2)
She knew how one should look for dinner because there was Maman's portrait over the drawing-room fireplace, in the frock she'd worn when she had dined ”with her family in France--” Mademoiselle had dressed Octavia for that wonderful party and she had never tired of telling Felicia how beautiful the eighteen-year Octavia had been.
”It is a woman's duty to think of her charms,” Mademoiselle had said, ”that is what the husband of Julie, Madame Recamier, said, it is what Madame Louise taught Miss Octavia--”
And so Felicia naively parted her hair and brushed it satin-smooth and coiled it neatly on the nape of her white neck with the same big carved coral Spanish comb tucked into the s.h.i.+ning ma.s.s that Octavia had worn when she sat for the portrait. Sometimes she wore the lovely black lace shawl, sometimes the creamy white embroidered silk one, and always the delicate coral and silver jewelry. Yet she couldn't possibly have known from the pale image that stared back at her from the dim s.h.i.+mmer of the drawing-room mirrors, how exquisitely lovely she was, not even when the Major bent over her hand and said, as he had said so often to her mother,
”You are very charming today, my dear!”
He did not know himself, the grim old stoic, how much he adored her.
At length there came a certain spring, seductive, too early warm, when the Major grew thoughtful, when Certain Legal Matters came frequently in the evening and left Felicia to ponder over her embroidery frame or wander restlessly in the bit of garden. She was seventeen now, a glowing, radiant seventeen, so divinely happy that the Major smiled whenever he looked at her.
For it had come, the Beautiful, Wonderful time when they were going to the House in the Woods! Already the rooms were filled with trunks and packing boxes, Marthy and Zeb and the housemaids were sorting and folding incessantly. And around them, wandered, starry-eyed, a useless young person who hugged to her heart a joyous dream of a woman in a garden--a woman in a little lace cap and a trailing rose-colored dressing-gown, a woman who would say,
”Oh Felicia! I hope you'll be happy today in the garden!”
You mustn't blame the Major too much that he did not know what a cruel thing he had done--he did not even dream that Felicia believed she was going to find Octavia in the garden. Those long ago evasions that had silenced her little-girl questions he had forgotten. Indeed I think he never let himself remember those days in which the child had asked, ”Where is she gone?”
And so they had come to the last night of all, the night before they should start their journey.
Inside the gloomy library grandfather and Certain Legal Matters discussed stupid details about where the furniture should go to storage and whether they should change the route and instead of going around the coast by steamer and down the St. Lawrence, travel part of the way overland--they consulted long yellow time-tables.
Felicia drifted across the dismantled library. She was pulling Octavia's adorable white lace shawl about her firm young shoulders, the flickering gas lights made her rather pale.
”It's hot--” she remarked plaintively. ”I think I'll go into the garden--” Her grandfather nodded. She slipped through the French windows out to the narrow balcony and down the circular iron stairway.
A thousand million stars above her, s.h.i.+ning through the tops of the old trees of heaven--a tender breeze that blew Marthy's curtains ever so gently and let the wistaria banners stream back and forth--if she shoved it carefully, that smallest iron bench, and then stood tiptoe upon it, she could peer through the top of the gate into the rectory yard.
Fairy land! A score of merry young humans das.h.i.+ng about--a babble of noise and laughter and the dyspeptic choir master nearly wild with the confusion--”Order! Order!” he screamed, ”Ladies and gentlemen! Boys!
Kindly remember this is the last rehearsal, the final rehearsal! When the organist begins the choir should file in very slowly--the princ.i.p.als remain outside until the choir is in--I would like the tenor and the baritone soloists' voices to sound as far off as possible as they approach--will those gentlemen be so good as to stand at the extreme end of the yard?”
Felicia, behind the ivied gate, caught her breath. For as the rather disorderly procession drifted away through the arch the soloists moved easily toward her. One of them was disgracefully fat, he puffed as he mopped his brow, but the other walked lightly, tossing his cap boyishly as he walked. Close to the wall, he laughed, a youthful, buoyant laugh,
”Jove!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, ”Now I _have_ done it--my cap's on top of the wall--”
The music was growing softer, fainter, the fat man had cleared his throat for singing.
Felicia's heart stood still. The moon shone gloriously, it made little white eyes of the narcissi that stared up at her from the garden border. The wind stirred in the ivy. Felicia sighed. His head, beautifully rumpled, topped the wall, he was still laughing softly, talking to the man below.
”Second cap I lost here, lost one when I was a little shaver--there was a girl--”
He was looking straight into her eyes now, he caught at the rusty top of the gate and stared.
”Why--girl!” he murmured.
Oh! if you could have seen Felice! Felice, with her hair coifed smoothly on her dear little head! Felice, with the big carved Spanish comb holding that hair in place! And her white, white throat and the tangle of old lace about it! He stared into her grave young eyes, he looked at that lovely young mouth of hers, that mouth that was wide enough for laughter but small enough for kisses. They swayed toward each other, those two, as naturally as a b.u.t.terfly sways toward a flower. He kissed her.
As she leaned toward him the treacherous bench toppled too far. She dropped away from his caress as suddenly as a star falls in the heavens. She lay in a little crumpled heap crus.h.i.+ng the sweetness of the narcissi. She didn't know what had happened to her, she just lay there and laughed softly and put her hand to her mouth gently.
A perfect din of voices blotted out her consciousness. After all you know, a sprained ankle is a sprained ankle even if you don't know you have it.