To-morrow Morning (Parrish)/Chapter 23
AFTER Carrie had put the broom handle through the china-closet door and fallen downstairs with a nest of cut-glass bowls, Kate said it was too lovely a day for her to spend indoors, and she must go out and take a nice walk as far as the Kellys', and ask if Mrs. Kelly could wash the curtains next week. The Kellys' pig was grunting with joy as it rubbed itself against a blossoming peach tree; there was a spatter of blue egg shell by the tumble-down back steps. Carrie's heart swelled with the spring. I must hurry home and help poor Kate, she thought, but she went on, along the path by the edge of the woods that led to Poor Farm Road. There were flowers for her to gather, and the sky was so deep a blue it made her want to cry. Once she had to pass a strange man, and her heart fluttered, but she pretended she had a dog just out of sight in the woods, and called, "Here, sir! Here, Lad! Good dog, then!" and the man went past without even looking at her.
Evelyn was down by the stream, stripping branches from the wild cherry trees that flung themselves in an ecstasy of whiteness against the dark pines. She tore them off; they showered her with last night's rain. Her wet face was bright with excitement.
"Hey-oh, lady love!"
"Hello, Carrie! What were you doing in the woods?"
"That'd be telling," said Carrie, blushing and beaming because Evelyn was laughing at her, friendly and warm—because the cherry trees were so white and the sky so blue. "What's the lady doin' herself?"
"Getting ready to make an impression on an old beau."
"Now 'fess up!"
"Try to stop me! Ralph Levinson"
"Oh, my! The one whose sisters are Lady Clandugald and Lady Waller? That one?" cried Carrie, who never missed Society Across the Sea in the Sunday paper. "Do you know him?"
"Do I? I'll tell you a secret, Carrie—I nearly married him once. But I haven't seen him for a thousand years—not since I married Joe instead. He telephoned from Green Falls that he was motoring through, and he's coming to dinner. I haven't a thing to eat, but Joe has a bottle of really grand Bacardi. Cherry blossoms and cocktails and tender memories ought to see us through, don't you think?"
Carrie twisted off a few blossoming twigs the length of a pencil. "Here, lady dear, and look, you can have my wildflowers, too; there're some blue violets and spring beauties and dogtooth violets—I got them in the woods. Oh, Evelyn, isn't it lovely to-day? I never saw anything such a bright green as the skunk cabbages, only it seems awful to call anything so beautiful such a dreadful name. What was that name Mr. Partridge had for skunks? Or I guess it was polecats. Something funny, and yet it was refined—oh, I know, Pussy Polaris! Listen to the brook. Mercy, how tough these branches are! Isn't it singing a sweet little song? I think it's so restful after all the noise and talk and the rush of life nowadays, just to be quiet and listen to a sweet little song like this. We're none of us quiet enough, are we? There always seems to be something that just has to be done, and it's restful just to get away from everything and let nature talk to us. What do you think that little brook's saying to us? I think it's trying to tell us all sorts of secrets, don't you? It seems most as if you could hear the words, don't it? I'll help you carry these over to the house, and then I must fly. We're right in the middle of house cleaning. I don't like to leave Kate too long, unless I can help you some way? I'd love to, Evelyn!"
Poor old thing, with her muddy shoes and wilting wildflowers, excited because another woman is going to meet a man who loved her once. Evelyn kissed her swiftly, lightly, and she trailed away, tears in her happy eyes.
Hope was playing in the grass by the barn when Joe came home. He was so tall that even when she stood up she had to turn her face right back to look at him. He swung her up, and she threw her arms around his neck and gave him a loud smacking kiss.
"Hello, Dirty-face! Who's been giving you chocolate?"
"Cussing Carrie."
She stiffened in his arms, flung herself backward, and then plunged toward him, with wet sticky kisses. He put her down, and pretended to scrub his face, while she doubled up with laughter, fat little hands on knees, shining silver hair swinging over red cheeks. She enjoyed life so, the miracles of flowers, animals, popping corn, the tracks of meadow mice on the snow, writing fairy tales for a little girl. She and Joe had examined these things together.
She pressed a gift on him now—a hot handful of stemless dandelions. How he adored his child! Playing alone, trying to pick up a much too big ball with a much too small hand, sitting down unexpectedly; her pink face when she had been naughty; asleep, wrapped away from him in innocent mystery.
Evelyn, an apron over her mauve gown, was gazing at herself in the hall mirror. She turned as they came in, her eyes shining. There was a note in her voice that he had not heard for a long time.
"Joe, Ralph Levinson's coming to dinner. Will you make some cocktails? I got out the Bacardi and lemons and things. Hope, you piggy-wiggy! Come and let mother wash you. What have you been doing to get so dirty, darling?"
"Evelyn, Hartley Harrison's coming out to dinner, too."
"Oh, damn!"
"He came in to see me, and talked so much about how lonely he was. His little motherkin and his teeny-weeny infinitesimal grandmotherkin are off on a visit, so I"
"Oh, well, never mind! I don't care. Effa's here getting dinner. Your mother sent her. Did you ever hear of anything so angelic? And they're right in the middle of house cleaning, too. Effa and the asparagus came taxicabbing out together. Carrie was here, and she told Mrs. Green Ralph was coming and we didn't have anyone. Strong cocktails, Joey! Kiss me! Come on, Hope!"
Hartley's ladylike coupé followed Ralph's long olive-green car, and Hartley stood waiting, pretending to admire the first star above the pines, as Evelyn welcomed Ralph. She was startled by the pang that shot through her as he kissed her hand.
"You look like a branch of dewy lilac," he said.
"And see, I'm wearing your shawl! A subtle compliment."
"H'm! I hope I'm not intruding," said Hartley. Patience was all very well, but it had its limits.
"Mercy, no, Mr. Harrison! I need you to keep Joe occupied while Mr. Levinson and I whisper in a corner. Ralph, I'm not at all shy with you, but I am with your overwhelming chauffeur. What do we do with him? I've forgotten how to behave with chauffeurs you call Martindale; I've gotten used to the kind you call Charlie—really I'm used to the kind you call Joe and Evelyn. Oh, he's gliding scornfully away—what a relief! Look at the place we live in, Ralph! Crazy? Mr. Harrison tried hard to get me to live somewhere else, didn't you? I don't mean he's invited me to elope—you've been very slow about that, Mr. Harrison. Here's my beautiful baby. Say, 'How do you do, Mr. Levinson?', darling."
"How do, Mittah Lev's on darling?" inquired Hope, fizzing with laughter.
"Mrs. Green—h'm—h'm—Mrs. Green. Joe didn't tell me it was going to be a dinner party, or I would have worn my Tuck."
"It isn't a dinner party, and you're dazzling compared to Joe. Listen!"
"They could hear ice in a cocktail shaker. That's Joe, making that noise—and he does it all with his hind legs! Joe! Oh, Ralph, I really am excited, though I'm hiding it so well!"
"Thank you, I don't indulge," said Hartley, as Joe passed around a tinkling tray of frosty amber glasses. "No, I don't smoke, sir, but don't let me stop you."
The orange curtains were drawn; firelight and shaded lamplight threw quivering fragile shadows of cherry branches on wall and ceiling. "New dwess!" cried Hope to Ralph, lifting the brief lemon-yellow frock Kate had made, so high that Evelyn caught her up, laughing. "Darling! A lady doesn't show a gentleman her panties, even when she has a new dress!"
"H'm! H'm!" coughed Hartley, trying to cover the unfortunate word.
"Now say good night. No, baby, can't have a cocktail! Ralph, isn't she an angel?"
She went in Effa's arms, kissing an outspread hand to them. Joe watched her go out of the bright room, up the shadowy stairs. He had been an inarticulate poet, an artist dissatisfied with his creative power, aching all his life with things he could not express, until everything was expressed in this little gold and silver daughter.
I must be broad-minded, Hartley told himself, digging into his melon. There have been some very cultured Jews. Mendelssohn—yes, indeed, Mendelssohn. I'll just mention him sometime during the course of the evening. I think that ought to please Mr. Levinson. What other famous Jews were there? "Christ" popped into his head, but he dismissed the thought as sacrilegious. But I hope I can remember not to tell any Hebrew jokes!
"I'm starved, Evelyn," Ralph was saying. "We reached Westlake earlier than I expected, and I tried to get some tea. They sent me to a ghastly place with females dressed as Dutch windmills"
"Goff's."
"My windmill tried her best to get me to take ice cream—at five in the afternoon!"
"Oh, now, Ralph, you've eaten bombettas with me at worse hours than that!"
"Bombettas? I don't quite—" Hartley put in.
"Oh, ice cream and squish and stuff, in St. Mark's Square in Venice."
"Ah, yes, Palazzo San Marco!"
"It makes me homesick to think of it, Ralph. Not homesick, just the opposite. Is the dwarf who sells tuberoses still there? I must be honest. You never did eat the bombettas; I always ate mine and yours, too. Go on about this afternoon. Did you get any tea?"
"I got warm water and a cheesecloth bag to dip into it, and some cakes like sea anemones stuffed with sawdust."
"Tck, tck!" Hartley looked sympathetic. "Too bad you didn't know about Come On Inn. They serve a very dainty afternoon tea with waffles, and it's run by two very lovely girls, the Misses Fosby. In fact one of them, Miss Hazel, is going to be Josephine in the benefit 'Pinafore' we're rehearsing for the hospital. A very sweet voice. I happen to have seen quite a little of her lately, as I have the honor of being—h'mm—Rafe Rackstraw. H'm!
He beat time with a fork from which a stalk of asparagus dangled.
Light of my life. Joe smiled at Evelyn; she smiled at him.
"Are you interested in music, Mr. Levinson? Personally, I'm devoted to it, as I think our good host and hostess will testify. Not jazz—that I think goes without saying—but real music. Take Mendelssohn, for instance—there was a real Jew!"
The word echoed in his horrified ears. Of course he had meant to say "there was a real musician!" Ralph began to talk to Evelyn about Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, every glance, every gesture, saying, "How exquisite you are!" "Seen any good motion pictures lately?" Hartley asked Joe, feebly. But soon he had recovered enough to explain to the table that he was going to buy a vacuum cleaner for the little mother's birthday present.
"In fact, that's what I owe this very delicious dinner and delightful company to. . . . No, thank you, no potato. I find it's better for me to cut out the starches. Personally, I always think it's better to go to the fountain head, so when I thought of a vacuum cleaner I thought of Joe Green, and went to see him about it. Isn't that the case, Joe? I plan to tie a bunch of carnations to the handle—we know the ladies appreciate having things prettied up, don't we, sir? Our host and I are both in businesses that have real romance in them, to my way of thinking, the romance of home building. I supply the home, Mr. Green here lightens the task of the home maker. What is your line, sir?"
"I'm a dilettante."
"I see. Ah! Strawberry shortcake! Now how did you know that was my favorite dessert, Madame Hostess? By the way, I was very much interested in the glimpse I caught of your crest, on your automobile, Mr. Levinson. I got very much interested in the whole subject when I was hunting up the Harrison crest sometime ago—a boar's head"
Evelyn choked into her glass of water. Joe had to glare at her severely. How he adored her; warm, laughing, absurd, as she hadn't been for so long. How close they were, in their imperative need of each other.
"I hope you'll forgive me for running away so early," said Hartley, after he had refused coffee for fear it would keep him awake. "But before I knew I was to have the pleasure of this very delightful occasion I arranged with Miss Hazel Fosby to run over our duets for 'Pinafore,' and I don't like to disappoint her. Very happy to have met you, sir!" And he archly and daringly sang:
very high, as he shook hands with Evelyn.
"Boil your sugar and water until it spins to a thread, and then you have J. Hartley Harrison's voice," Evelyn said. "You see, I've learned to read cookbooks, Ralph."
Joe took Effa back to Westlake, and stayed to answer Kate's eager questions. There was no hurry. Evelyn would want to hear about her old friends. Ralph had gone when he reached home, and for a moment he thought Evelyn had been crying. But, arms so tight about his neck that she nearly strangled him, she told him over and over again how perfectly happy she was and how she loved him.