Part 18 (2/2)
III.
At the ball Margaret wore a gown of thin blue lace that belonged to Carla, and yellow roses in her hair, and she carried one of the fans from the fan room, a daintily painted ivory thing which seemed indestructible, since she dropped it twice, and which had a tiny picture of the house painted on its ivory sticks, so that when the fan was closed the house was gone. Mrs. Montague had given it to her to carry, and had given Carla another, so that when Margaret and Carla pa.s.sed one another dancing, or met by the punch bowl or in the halls, they said happily to one another, ”Have you still got your fan? I gave mine to someone to hold for a minute; I showed mine to everyone. Are you still carrying your fan? I've got mine. mine.”
Margaret danced with strangers and with Paul, and when she danced with Paul they danced away from the others, up and down the long gallery hung with pictures, in and out between the pillars which led to the great hall opening into the room of the tiles. Near them danced ladies in scarlet silk, and green satin, and white velvet, and Mrs. Montague, in black with diamonds at her throat and on her hands, stood at the top of the room and smiled at the dancers, or went on Mr. Montague's arm to greet guests who came laughingly in between the pillars looking eagerly and already moving in time to the music as they walked. One lady wore white feathers in her hair, curling down against her shoulder; another had a pink scarf over her arms, and it floated behind her as she danced. Paul was in his haughty uniform, and Carla wore red roses in her hair and danced with the captain.
”Are you really going tomorrow?” Margaret asked Paul once during the evening; she knew that he was, but somehow asking the question-which she had done several times before-established a communication between them, of his right to go and her right to wonder, which was sadly sweet to her.
”I said said you might meet the great-aunt,” said Paul, as though in answer; Margaret followed his glance, and saw the old lady of the tower. She was dressed in yellow satin, and looked very regal and proud as she moved through the crowd of dancers, drawing her skirt aside if any of them came too close to her. She was coming toward Margaret and Paul where they sat on small chairs against the wall, and when she came close enough she smiled, looking at Paul, and said to him, holding out her hands, ”I am very glad to see you, my dear.” you might meet the great-aunt,” said Paul, as though in answer; Margaret followed his glance, and saw the old lady of the tower. She was dressed in yellow satin, and looked very regal and proud as she moved through the crowd of dancers, drawing her skirt aside if any of them came too close to her. She was coming toward Margaret and Paul where they sat on small chairs against the wall, and when she came close enough she smiled, looking at Paul, and said to him, holding out her hands, ”I am very glad to see you, my dear.”
Then she smiled at Margaret and Margaret smiled back, thankful that the old lady held out no hands to her.
”Margaret told me you were here,” the old lady said to Paul, ”and I came down to see you once more.”
”I'm happy that you did,” Paul said. ”I wanted to see you so much that I almost came to the tower.”
They both laughed and Margaret, looking from one to the other of them, wondered at the strong resemblance between them. Margaret sat very straight and stiff on her narrow chair, with her blue lace skirt falling charmingly around her and her hands folded neatly in her lap, and listened to their talk. Paul had found the old lady a chair and they sat with their heads near together, looking at one another as they talked, and smiling.
”You look very fit,” the old lady said. ”Very fit indeed.” She sighed.
”You look wonderfully well,” Paul said.
”Oh, well,” said the old lady. ”I've aged. I've aged, I know it.”
”So have I,” said Paul.
”Not noticeably,” said the old lady, shaking her head and regarding him soberly for a minute. ”You never will, I suppose.” never will, I suppose.”
At that moment the captain came up and bowed in front of Margaret, and Margaret, hoping that Paul might notice, got up to dance with him.
”I saw you sitting there alone,” said the captain, ”and I seized the precise opportunity I have been awaiting all evening.”
”Excellent military tactics,” said Margaret, wondering if these remarks had not been made a thousand times before, at a thousand different b.a.l.l.s.
”I could be a splendid tactician,” said the captain gallantly, as though carrying on his share of the echoing conversation, the words spoken under so many glittering chandeliers, ”if my objective were always so agreeable to me.”
”I saw you dancing with Carla,” said Margaret.
”Carla,” he said, and made a small gesture that somehow showed Carla as infinitely less than Margaret. Margaret knew that she had seen him make the same gesture to Carla, probably with reference to Margaret. She laughed.
”I forget what I'm supposed to say now,” she told him.
”You're supposed to say,” he told her seriously, ”'And do you really leave us so soon?'”
”And do you really leave us so soon?” said Margaret obediently.
”The sooner to return,” he said, and tightened his arm around her waist. Margaret said, it being her turn, ”We shall miss you very much.”
”I shall miss shall miss you, you,” he said, with a manly air of resignation.
They danced two waltzes, after which the captain escorted her handsomely back to the chair from which he had taken her, next to which Paul and the old lady continued in conversation, laughing and gesturing. The captain bowed to Margaret deeply, clicking his heels.
”May I leave you alone for a minute or so?” he asked. ”I believe Carla is looking for me.”
”I'm perfectly all right here,” Margaret said. As the captain hurried away she turned to hear what Paul and the old lady were saying.
”I remember, I remember,” said the old lady laughing, and she tapped Paul on the wrist with her fan. ”I never imagined there would be a time when I should find it funny.”
”But it was was funny,” said Paul. funny,” said Paul.
”We were so young,” the old lady said. ”I can hardly remember.”
She stood up abruptly, bowed to Margaret, and started back across the room among the dancers. Paul followed her as far as the doorway and then left her to come back to Margaret. When he sat down next to her he said, ”So you met the old lady?”
”I went to the tower,” Margaret said.
”She told me,” he said absently, looking down at his gloves. ”Well,” he said finally, looking up with an air of cheerfulness. ”Are they never never going to play a waltz?” going to play a waltz?”
Shortly before the sun came up over the river the next morning they sat at breakfast, Mr. and Mrs. Montague at the ends of the table, Carla and the captain, Margaret and Paul. The red roses in Carla's hair had faded and been thrown away, as had Margaret's yellow roses, but both Carla and Margaret still wore their ball gowns, which they had been wearing for so long that the soft richness of them seemed natural, as though they were to wear nothing else for an eternity in the house, and the gay confusion of helping one another dress, and admiring one another, and straightening the last folds to hang more gracefully, seemed all to have happened longer ago than memory, to be perhaps a dream that might never have happened at all, as perhaps the figures in the tapestries on the walls of the dining room might remember, secretly, an imagined process of dressing themselves and coming with laughter and light voices to sit on the lawn where they were woven. Margaret, looking at Carla, thought that she had never seen Carla so familiarly as in this soft white gown, with her hair dressed high on her head-had it really been curled and pinned that way? Or had it always, forever, been so?-and the fan in her hand-had she not always had that fan, held just so?-and when Carla turned her head slightly on her long neck she captured the air of one of the portraits in the long gallery. Paul and the captain were still somehow trim in their uniforms; they were leaving at sunrise.
”Must you really leave this morning?” Margaret whispered to Paul.
”You are all kind to stay up and say goodbye,” said the captain, and he leaned forward to look down the table at Margaret, as though it were particularly kind of her.
”Every time my son leaves me,” said Mrs. Montague, ”it is as though it were the first time.”
Abruptly, the captain turned to Mrs. Montague and said, ”I noticed this morning that there was a bare patch on the gra.s.s before the door. Can it be restored?”
”I had not known,” Mrs. Montague said, and she looked nervously at Mr. Montague, who put his hand quietly on the table and said, ”We hope to keep the house in good repair so long as we are able.”
”But the broken statue by the lake?” said the captain. ”And the tear in the tapestry behind your head?”
”It is wrong of you to notice these things,” Mrs. Montague said, gently.
”What can I do?” he said to her. ”It is impossible not to notice these things. The fish are dying, for instance. There are no grapes in the arbor this year. The carpet is worn to thread near your embroidery frame,” he bowed to Mrs. Montague, ”and in the house itself-” bowing to Mr. Montague, ”-there is a noticeable crack over the window of the conservatory, a crack in the solid stone. Can you repair that?”
Mr. Montague said weakly, ”It is very wrong of you to notice these things. Have you neglected the sun, and the bright perfection of the drawing room? Have you been recently to the gallery of portraits? Have you walked on the green portions of the lawn, or only watched for the bare places?”
”The drawing room is shabby,” said the captain softly. ”The green brocade sofa is torn a little near the arm. The carpet has lost its l.u.s.ter. The gilt is chipped on four of the small chairs in the gold room, the silver paint scratched in the silver room. A tile is missing from the face of Margaret, who died for love, and in the great gallery the paint has faded slightly on the portrait of-” bowing to Mr. Montague, ”-your great-great-great-grandfather, sir.”
Mr. Montague and Mrs. Montague looked at one another, and then Mrs. Montague said, ”Surely it is not necessary to reproach us us for these things?” for these things?”
The captain reddened and shook his head.
”My embroidery is very nearly finished,” Mrs. Montague said. ”I have only to put the figures into the foreground.”
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