Dolly Leonard's gowns, Dolly Leonard's parties, Dolly Leonard's lovers, were the envy of all womankind. And Dolly Leonard's courtship and marriage were to us the fitting culmination of her wonderful career. She was our ideal of everything that a girl should be. She was good, she was beautiful, she was irresistibly fascinating. She was, in fact, everything that we girlishly longed to be in the revel of a ballroom or the white sanctity of a church.
And now she, the bright, the joyous, the warm, was colder than we were, and would never be warm again. Never again. . . . And there were garish flowers downstairs, and music and favors and ices—nasty shivery ices,—and pretty soon a brawling crowd of people would come and dance because I was eighteen—and still alive.
Into our hideous brooding broke a husky little voice that had not yet spoken:
"Dolly Leonard told my big sister a month ago that she wasn't a bit frightened,—that she had had one perfect year, and a perfect year was well worth dying for—if one had to. Of course she hoped she wouldn't die, but if she did, it was a wonderful thing to die happy. Dolly was queer about it; I heard my big sister telling mother. Dolly said, 'Life couldn't always be at high tide—there was only one high tide in any one's life, and she thought it was beautiful to go in the full flush before the tide turned.'"
The speaker ended with a harsh sob.
Then suddenly into our awed silence broke my mother in full evening dress. She was a very handsome mother.
As she looked down on our huddled group there were tears in her eyes, but there was no shock. I noticed distinctly that there was no shock. "Why, girls," she exclaimed, with a certain terse brightness, "aren't you dressed yet? It's eight o'clock and people are beginning to arrive." She seemed so frivolous to me. I remember that I felt a little ashamed of her.
"We don't want any party," I answered, glumly. "The girls are going home."
"Nonsense!" said my mother, catching me by the hand and pulling me almost roughly to my feet. "Go quickly and call one of the maids to come and help you dress. Angeline, I'll do your hair. Bertha, where are your shoes? Gertrude, that's a beautiful gown—just your color. Hurry into it. There goes the bell. Hark! the orchestra is beginning."
And so, with a word here, a touch there, a searching look everywhere, mother marshalled us into line. I had never heard her voice raised before.
The color came back to our cheeks, the light to our eyes. We bubbled over with spirits—nervous spirits, to be sure, but none the less vivacious ones.
When the last hook was fastened, the last glove buttoned, the last curl fluffed into place, mother stood for an instant tapping her foot on the floor. She looked like a little general.
"Girls," she said, "there are five hundred people coming to-night from all over the State, and fully two-thirds of them never heard of Dolly Leonard. We must never spoil other people's pleasures by flaunting our own personal griefs. I expect my daughter to conduct herself this evening with perfect cheerfulness and grace. She owes it to her guests; and"—mother's chin went high up in the air—"I refuse to receive in my house again any one of you girls who mars my daughter's débutante party by tears or hysterics. You may go now."
We went, silently berating the brutal harshness of grown people. We went, airily, flutteringly, luminously, like a bunch of butterflies. At the head of the stairs the music caught us up in a maelstrom of excitement and whirled us down into the throng of pleasure. And when we reached the drawing-room and found mother we felt as though we were walking on air. We thought it was self-control. We were not old enough to know it was mostly "youth."
My débutante party was the gayest party ever given in our town. We seven girls were like sprites gone mad. We were like fairy torches that kindled the whole throng. We flitted among the palms like will-o'-the-wisps. We danced the toes out of our satin slippers. We led our old boy-friends a wild chase of young love and laughter, and because our hearts were like frozen lead within us we sought, as it were, "to warm both
