The Blue Window/Chapter 15
MERIWEATHER had a distinct shock when Sally showed him her ring. Winslow had given her an enormous emerald.
"So the Wolf has caught you?" he said.
"Well, he's rather a nice wolf, and he has such a lovely den."
"Don't!" sharply. "Sally, I can't believe you are selling yourself."
"Why shouldn't I? Oh, don't preach, Merry. It is the chance of my life—mother says so—Neale's giving a costume dance for me on the eighteenth. You must get well and be there."
"I don't want to be there," his arm was aching and, perhaps, his heart. Sally was his little friend.
"My dear," he said earnestly, "I can't bear to think of it."
"Can't you?" coldly. "You might as well. The deed is done. I shall have the plumes and the coach-and-four, and—"
She stopped there. She couldn't go on. Not with Merry's eyes asking questions.
"Wish me happiness," she said wistfully.
"You know I want you to be happy." He took her hand in a tight grip. "I shall miss my pal."
"Don't—" she jerked her hand away. "Neale might come in and think you—loved me. And you don't, Merry."
He was dumb. He knew he did not love her. And he knew that if he did, she would never marry Winslow.
She went away then, leaving him with a strange sense of desolateness. He felt useless, set aside. He was good for neither work nor play, and nobody cared.
He was glad when the others came in and dinner was served. It was at dinner that Winslow announced the engagement. He smiled complacently, and the hairs of his white head sparkled like icicles in the light of the candles. The old comparison of May and December occurred to Meriweather. To see Sally's youth, April-like in a daffodil frock, was to foretell the blight of Winslow's wintriness.
Sally carried it off well, head up, light words flung here and there in answer to congratulations. After dinner she went to the piano and sang love songs with Winslow standing beside her.
"Very bad taste, I call it," said Miss Anne to her niece, "to pretend there's any romance."
Hildegarde blazed. "It's a dreadful thing for her to marry him."
"Oh, Neale's not so bad," Miss Anne defended, "but it is such a clear case of Sally's selling herself."
Mrs. Hulburt bore down on them. "I know you are criticizing me, Anne, for letting Sally do it. But I was as surprised as you when she told me."
"You ought to put her to bed on bread and water."
"My dear, she'll be much happier than to throw herself away on a poor man. I know Sally."
But Mrs. Hulburt did not know the Sally who wept all that night into her pillow, and who, in the early morning, knelt by the window to watch the sun rise.
It was a slow-rising sun, but at last there was a rift of gold through the gray, and another day had dawned for Sally, another day in which she had to know herself bound to a man for whom she cared nothing.
She stood up and cast a wild look around the room. From the top of the chiffonier the doll, Sarah, stared at her.
"Oh, you needn't look so smug," Sally blazed. "It's the way of the world. Why shouldn't I?"
The doll Sarah, voicelessly, "Have you looked into your heart?"
"I haven't any heart," Sally flung back at her, and threw herself face downward on the bed.
After a while she got up, dressed, and had a long ride alone. She came in to breakfast with her cheeks glowing.
"Am I the first?" she asked Sampson.
"Yes, Miss Sally. I done took Mistuh Louis' breakfus up to 'im."
As she sat down, Meriweather came in. He was pale from pain and a sleepless night. A wave of tenderness surged over Sally.
"Little boy, little boy," she said, "come and eat your breakfast."
He dropped into a chair. "I don't want any."
"But you do—I'm going to fix it for you, and you've got to eat it."
She unfolded his napkin, ordered orange juice for him, buttered his toast, broke his egg into its cup and sat beside him—helping when she could to relieve the awkwardness of his left-handed service, for it was his right arm which had been broken.
It was when she brought his coffee, a second cup, with Sampson out of the room, that he surprised a look in her eyes—a mother-look of brooding tenderness. It waked something in his heart for her that had never been there before. Not the feeling he gave Hildegarde, but a wistful longing for what Sally could give, gentle ministration and devoted service.
Winslow, coming in and seeing the two of them there together, was gripped by jealousy. But he did not show it.
"Going to town with me this morning?" he asked Sally.
"Anything special?"
"Decorations for the dance. I'd like to have your taste. Sorry you can't be with us on the great night, Merry."
"Oh, but he can," Sally said. "It will do him good. You didn't think we were going to leave him out of it did you, Neale?"
"I really hadn't thought about it," with a touch of insolence.
"Merry's always the life of the party."
Merry settled it by saying, "I am afraid I shan't be up to a thing like that."
Yet, he did go to the dance. Willingly. Gladly. And not because Sally wanted him, but because of Hildegarde.
Miss Anne had insisted that Hildegarde must have something exceptionally charming in a costume.
"It will really be your introduction to Baltimore society. And everybody is interested in Louis' daughter."
The two of them were in Miss Anne's room. Miss Anne, by the window, was working on a needle-point chair-back. Hildegarde was curled up on the couch, her arms about her knees.
"Aunt Anne, aren't we extravagant, Daddy and I? Aren't we spending too much money?"
"All the Carews are extravagant. I am. But I'm not in debt, if that's what you mean."
"I do mean it. I can't be comfortable. It doesn't seem quite—honest."
"It wouldn't be honest, if you weren't a Carew. But the Carews are buccaneers, doing the thing rather grandly."
Hildegarde surveyed her with puzzled eyes. "You aren't in earnest?"
"Well, there does seem to be a different code," Miss Anne admitted. "If you're a gentleman of Louis' type, the world owes you a living and all that sort of thing."
"Mother was a lady," Hildegarde said practically, "and she wasn't in debt."
"And you want to be a lady out of debt—even if Louis is a gentleman in debt?"
"I want Daddy to be out of debt, too."
"I see. But I am planning to pay for the costume, Hildegarde."
"I'd rather have you pay for other things. You really shouldn't have to pay for anything. Daddy and I ought to live on our income."
"Or lack of it?" Miss Anne studied her embroidery thoughtfully, and threaded a needle before she went on. "There are two ways to economize, if we can get Louis to agree."
"I can make him agree," Hildegarde said. "Tell me what they are."
Miss Anne looked at her. "How can you make him agree," she said in a surprised voice.
"I'll tell him I won't stay—that I'll go back to the farm—"
"Do you think he'd believe that?"
"Why not?"
Miss Anne, shading the crewels for a fat plum from damson to deep purple, answered after a moment: "You could never go back, my dear. You couldn't endure the hardships."
"My mother endured them."
"She was different. You have a lot of Louis in you. You love luxury and lovely things."
"Mother said that. She said that I had Daddy's gaiety—his faun-like quality of enjoyment."
Miss Anne nodded. "You belong in this environment."
Hildegarde hesitated, then flung out, "But I can't be happy at the price of dishonor."
Miss Anne laid down her work. "What do you mean?"
Hildegarde told her what she had heard behind the curtain. "Aunt Anne, I felt as if Mr. Winslow was a spider and was weaving a web about Daddy."
"Louis is to blame," there was red in Miss Anne's cheeks, "for weakly letting himself be used. Sometimes I feel as if my patience is at an end." She stopped, then went on more quietly. "The thing to do is to go abroad. Louis won't live with me in Baltimore. He says all the world would think he was down and out. But if we were in France or Italy, one establishment would do for all us. Neale will marry Sally in June, and she ought to keep him occupied until we get Louis' affairs straight. I've an antique or two I can sell, if necessary, and there's a bunch of bonds in the safe deposit."
"And my pearls." Hildegarde's breath came quick.
Miss Anne shook her head. "We won't be up-stage. We'll do our best for our bounding buccaneer without sacrificing our treasures. If the worst came to worst, there's the crystal cat—she's worth thousands and ought to be shut up in a glass case in a museum. But Louis would rather owe all the trades-people in the world than go into the library and find that space empty. His great-grandfather put the cat there—and there it will stay until the crack o' doom!"
Hildegarde, turning that over in her mind, said, "Things don't mean so much to me. Perhaps because I've always been poor. The most precious thing I had at the farm was a little ship in a bottle. It was made by a seafaring brother of my grandfather and was brought from the East. It always stood on the mantel in the parlor, and I used to go in and look at it. It seemed very wonderful to me. And mother used to tell me then about the crystal cat and the bronze turtle—and they were like something in a fairy tale."
It was growing dark, and Miss Anne laid her work aside. "If Elizabeth could have stayed with Louis," she said, "she would have been a great help to him. And you can be a help. I'll talk to him about Europe. And of what life over there would mean to you. It would never do to approach him on the angle of economy. It would simply make him obstinate."
They talked then about the costume dance. "This will be our last fling, Hildegarde," Miss Anne said, "our final extravagance. I won't let you go unless you can look your best. And what you said just now has given me the key to your costuine. You shall go as a dryad and Louis as a faun—oak leaves and a green gown for you, and pointed ears and a goatskin for Louis. The thing will be enchanting."
So it was settled, and the order for the gown given—floating, lovely chiffon and silk oak leaves—emerald and fawn and silver—the whole thing was exquisite.
And as for the cost, who cared? It was the final extravagance. Henceforth and forevermore, the Carews of Round Hill were dedicated to economy!