Part 18 (1/2)
Leslie Goldthwaite had been away for three days, staying with her friend, Mrs. Frank Scherman, in Boston. She had found Olivia's note, of Monday evening, when she returned; also, she heard of Rosamond's verbal invitation. Leslie was very bright about these things. She saw in a moment how it had been. Her mother told her what Rosamond had said of who were coming,--the Hobarts and Helen; the rest were not then asked.
Olivia did not like it very well,--that reply of Leslie's. She showed it to Jeannie Hadden; that was how we came to know of it.
”Please forgive me,” the note ran, ”if I accept Rosamond's invitation for the very reason that might seem to oblige me to decline it. I see you have two days' advantage of her, and she will no doubt lose some of the girls by that. I really _heard_ hers first. I wish very much it were possible to have both pleasures.”
That was being terribly true and independent with West Z----. ”But Leslie Goldthwaite,” Barbara said, ”always was as brave as a little b.u.mble-bee!”
How it had come over Rosamond, though, we could not quite understand.
It was not pique, or rivalry; there was no excitement about it; it seemed to be a pure, spirited dignity of her own, which she all at once, quietly and of course, a.s.serted.
Mother said something about it to her Sat.u.r.day morning, when she was beating up Italian cream, and Rosamond was cutting chicken for the salad. The cakes and the jellies had been made the day before.
”You have done this, Rosamond, in a very right and neighborly way, but it isn't exactly your old way. How came you not to mind?”
Rosamond did not discuss the matter; she only smiled and said, ”I think, mother, I'm growing very proud and self-sufficient, since we've had real, _through-and-through_ ways of our own.”
It was the difference between ”somewhere” and ”betwixt and between.”
Miss Elizabeth Pennington came in while we were putting candles in the bronze branches, and Ruth was laying an artistic fire in the wide chimney. Ruth could make a picture with her crossed and balanced sticks, sloping the firm-built pile backward to the two great, solid logs behind,--a picture which it only needed the touch of flame to finish and perfect. Then the dazzling fire-wreaths curled and clasped through and about it all, filling the s.p.a.ces with a rus.h.i.+ng splendor, and reaching up their vivid spires above its compact body to an outline of complete live beauty. Ruth's fires satisfied you to look at: and they never tumbled down.
She rose up with a little brown, crooked stick in one hand, to speak to Miss Pennington.
”Don't mind me,” said the lady. ”Go on, please, 'biggin' your castle.'
That will be a pretty sight to see, when it lights up.”
Ruth liked crooked sticks; they held fast by each other, and they made pretty curves and openings. So she went on, laying them deftly.
”I should like to be here to-night,” said Miss Elizabeth, still looking at the fire-pile. ”Would you let an old maid in?”
”Miss Pennington! Would you come?”
”I took it in my head to want to. That was why I came over. Are you going to play snap-dragon? I wondered if you had thought of that.”
”We don't know about it,” said Ruth. ”Anything, that is, except the name.”
”That is just what I thought possible. n.o.body knows those old games nowadays. May I come and bring a great dragon-bowl with me, and superintend that part? Mother got her fate out of a snap-dragon, and we have the identical bowl. We always used to bring it out at Christmas, when we were all at home.”
”O Miss Pennington! How perfectly lovely! How good you are!”
”Well, I'm glad you take it so. I was afraid it was terribly meddlesome. But the fancy--or the memory--seized me.”
How wonderfully our Halloween party was turning out!
And the turning-out is almost the best part of anything; the time when things are getting together, in the beautiful prosperous way they will take, now and then, even in this vexed world.
There was our lovely little supper-table all ready. People who have servants enough, high-trained, to do these things while they are entertaining in the drawing-room, don't have half the pleasure, after all, that we do, in setting out hours beforehand, and putting the last touches and taking the final satisfaction before we go to dress.
The cake, with the ring in it, was in the middle; for we had put together all the fateful and pretty customs we could think of, from whatever holiday; there were mother's Italian creams, and amber and garnet wine jellies; there were sponge and lady-cake, and the little macaroons and cocoas that Barbara had the secret of; and the salad, of spring chickens and our own splendid celery, was ready in the cold room, with its bowl of delicious dressing to be poured over it at the last; and the scalloped oysters were in the pantry; Ruth was to put them into the oven again when the time came, and mother would pin the white napkins around the dishes, and set them on; and n.o.body was to worry or get tired with having the whole to think of; and yet the whole would be done, to the very lighting of the candles, which Stephen had spoken for, by this beautiful, organized co-operation of ours. Truly it is a charming thing,--all to itself, in a family!
To be sure, we had coffee and bread and b.u.t.ter and cold ham for dinner that day; and we took our tea ”standed round,” as Barbara said; and the dishes were put away in the covered sink; we knew where we could s.h.i.+rk righteously and in good order, when we could not accomplish everything; but there was neither huddle nor hurry; we were as quiet and comfortable as we could be. Even Rosamond was satisfied with the very manner; to be composed is always to be elegant. Anybody might have come in and lunched with us; anybody might have shared that easy, chatty cup of tea.