Part 5 (2/2)
”Or more,” said Margaret, ”for Grandfather Paget was presumably spending money on them all the time.”
”Well, but, Mark--” said Mrs. Paget, laughing as at the vagaries of a small child, ”Father Paget did have twelve children--and Daddy and I eight--” she sighed, as always, at the thought of the little son who was gone,--”and there you are! You can't get away from that, dear.”
Margaret did not answer. But she thought to herself that very few people held Mother's views of this subject.
Mrs. Carr-Boldt's friends, for example, did not accept increasing cares in this resigned fas.h.i.+on; their lives were ideally pleasant and harmonious without the complicated responsibilities of large families.
They drifted from season to season without care, always free, always gay, always irreproachably gowned. In winter there were daily meetings, for shopping, for luncheon, bridge or tea; summer was filled with a score of country visits. There were motor-trips for week-ends, dinners, theatre, and the opera to fill the evenings, German or singing lessons, manicure, ma.s.seuse, and dressmaker to crowd the morning hours all the year round. Margaret learned from these exquisite, fragrant creatures the art of being perpetually fresh and charming, learned their methods of caring for their own beauty, learned to love rare toilet waters and powders, fine embroidered linen and silk stockings. There was no particular strain upon her wardrobe now, nor upon her purse; she could be as dainty as she liked. She listened to the conversations that went on about her,--sometimes critical or unconvinced; more often admiring; and as she listened she found slowly but certainly her own viewpoint. She was not mercenary.
She would not marry a man just for his money, she decided, but just as certainly she would not marry a man who could not give her a comfortable establishment, a position in society.
The man seemed in no hurry to appear; as a matter of fact, the men whom Margaret met were openly anxious to evade marriage, even with the wealthy girls of their own set. Margaret was not concerned; she was too happy to miss the love-making element; the men she saw were not of a type to inspire a sensible busy, happy, girl with any very deep feeling. And it was with generous and perfect satisfaction that she presently had news of Julie's happy engagement. Julie was to marry a young and popular doctor, the only child of one of Weston's most prominent families. The little sister's letter bubbled joyously with news.
”Harry's father is going to build us a little house on the big place, the darling,” wrote Julie; ”and we will stay with them until it is done. But in five years Harry says we will have a real honeymoon, in Europe! Think of going to Europe as a married woman! Mark, I wish you could see my ring; it is a beauty, but don't tell Mother I was silly enough to write about it!”
Margaret delightedly selected a little collection of things for Julie's trousseau. A pair of silk stockings, a scarf she never had worn, a lace petticoat, pink silk for a waist. Mrs. Carr-Boldt, coming in in the midst of these preparations, insisted upon adding so many other things, from trunks and closets, that Margaret was speechless with delight. Scarves, cobwebby silks in uncut lengths, embroidered lingerie still in the tissue paper of Paris shops, parasols, gloves, and lengths of lace,--she piled all of them into Margaret's arms.
Julie's trousseau was consequently quite the most beautiful Weston had ever seen; and the little sister's cloudless joy made the fortnight Margaret spent at home at the time of the wedding a very happy one. It was a time of rush and flurry, laughter and tears, of roses, and girls in white gowns. But some ten days before the wedding, Julie and Margaret happened to be alone for a peaceful hour over their sewing, and fell to talking seriously.
”You see, our house will be small,” said Julie; ”but I don't care--we don't intend to stay in Weston all our lives. Don't breathe this to any one, Mark, but if Harry does as well as he's doing now for two years, we'll rent the little house, and we're going to Baltimore for a year for a special course. Then--you know he's devoted to Dr. McKim, he always calls him 'the chief,'--then he thinks maybe McKim will work him into his practice,--he's getting old, you know, and that means New York!”
”Oh, Ju,--really!”
”I don't see why not,” Julie said, dimpling. ”Harry's crazy to do it.
He says he doesn't propose to live and die in Weston. McKim could throw any amount of hospital practice his way, to begin with. And you know Harry'll have something,--and the house will rent. I'm crazy,”
said Julie, enthusiastically, ”to take one of those lovely old apartments on Was.h.i.+ngton Square, and meet a few nice people, you know, and really make something of my life!”
”Mrs. Carr-Boldt and I will spin down for you every few days,”
Margaret said, falling readily in with the plan. ”I'm glad you're not going to simply get into a rut the way some of the other girls have,--cooking and babies and nothing else!” she said.
”I think that's an awful mistake,” Julie said placidly. ”Starting in right is so important. I don't want to be a mere drudge like Ethel or Louise--they may like it. I don't! Of course, this isn't a matter to talk of,” she went on, coloring a little. ”I'd never breathe this to Mother! But it's perfectly absurd to pretend that girls don't discuss these things. I've talked to Betty and Louise--we all talk about it, you know. And Louise says they haven't had one free second since Buddy came. She can't keep one maid, and she says the idea of two maids eating their three meals a day, whether she's home or not, makes her perfectly sick! Some one's got to be with him every single second, even now, when he's four,--to see that he doesn't fall off something, or put things in his mouth. And as Louise says--it means no more week end trips; you can't go visiting over night, you can't even go for a day's drive or a day on the beach, without extra clothes for the baby, a mosquito-net and an umbrella for the baby--milk packed in ice for the baby--somebody trying to get the baby to take his nap--it's awful!
It would end our Baltimore plan, and that means New York, and New York means everything to Harry and me!” finished Julie, contentedly, flattening a finished bit of embroidery on her knee, and regarding it complacently.
”Well, I think you're right,” Margaret approved. ”Things are different now from what they were in Mother's day.”
”And look at Mother,” Julie said. ”One long slavery! Life's too short to wear yourself out that way!”
Mrs. Paget's sunny cheerfulness was sadly shaken when the actual moment of parting with the exquisite, rose-hatted, gray-frocked Julie came; her face worked pitifully in its effort to smile; her tall figure, awkward in an ill-made unbecoming new silk, seemed to droop tenderly over the little clinging wife. Margaret, stirred by the sight of tears on her mother's face, stood with an arm about her, when the bride and groom drove away in the afternoon suns.h.i.+ne.
”I'm going to stay with you until she gets back!” she reminded her mother.
”And you know you've always said you wanted the girls to marry, Mother,” urged Mr. Paget. Rebecca felt this a felicitous moment to ask if she and the boys could have the rest of the ice-cream.
”Divide it evenly,” said Mrs. Paget, wiping her eyes and smiling.
”Yes, I know, Daddy dear, I'm an ungrateful woman! I suppose your turn will come next, Mark, and then I don't know what I will do!”
CHAPTER IV
<script>