To-morrow Morning (Parrish)/Chapter 1
USUALLY Friday was a day of drooping flowers and fish that had begun to smell, drooping and smelling among dusty gods and goddesses, complained of by those aproned young ladies who were drawing from the antique, and frowned at intently by those whose still-life studies they were. But this Friday the flowers were fresh—snowballs, so hard to arrange æsthetically, dark-blue iris, and heavy-headed peonies, red in the face, brought into town from suburban gardens; and there were no fish except the sardines in the sandwiches on the refreshment table.
The art students, too, were changed and glorified. Mouths that usually were stretched to hold extra paintbrushes under mustaches of charcoal dust smiled sweetly, spoke gently, and bit into sandwiches and macaroons with small ladylike bites, and painting aprons were replaced by best basques and kilted skirts. One girl in particular seemed to shine, from the tips of her bronze slippers to the face bright as pink and light-brown china just washed in hot suds, under a new hat trimmed with pale-tan wings like two slices of cold chicken. It was one of her trousseau hats, really, but she hadn't been able to resist wearing it to-day, ahead of time, to impress the girls.
"Kate Star, I think Mr. Green is simply charming! I think you're the luckiest thing!"
Darling girls! She would miss them so! She would miss Uncle Henry and Aunt Alice, too, of course. She would miss them very much, and never forget how kind they had been. But the girls, and the Art School! Never again to come in on the train with her package of lunch and a cluster of country flowers, never again to wait for criticism with a plunging heart! But I will work, I will go on painting. I'll do something to make you proud of me, Joey
She could see that the girls were really impressed with Joe. They weren't just saying so to be nice. Joe! Joseph Montgomery Green! She looked at him standing by the refreshment table, holding two glass cups in which slid melting lumps of strawberry ice cream, while he talked to a little cluster of people, impressing them all—Joe in his light-gray suit with three wine-colored pinks in his buttonhole. Now he was making them all laugh! Now he was coming to her
She grew weak with that thrilling weakness that flooded her when he was near her. She pressed the warm tingling palms of her hands together, feeling the pulses throbbing in her finger tips. Her heart—no, not her heart, really, but lower down, although it didn't seem nice to admit even to herself that her feeling, as he came to her, was of having been struck a blow in her stomach.
"Whew! Ive been catching it, Kate! They're all down on me for snatching you away from your career."
"My career!" murmured Kate, in modest mockery. Still, with her study of onions and a copper saucepan taking the first prize, and honorable mention for the sketch of Nellie Verlaine in. Grecian costume, she couldn't help feeling—well, contented. She wished Joe had been there when she overheard two perfect strangers saying her still life was the most finished picture in the exhibition, and that the onions stood right out of the canvas.
"Joe, I just had the funniest experience! Two perfect strangers—that fat man and the woman in plum-color—see? No, by the lemonade bowl—well, they were standing here just a minute ago, and she said she thought my still life was the best picture here! Wasn't that ridiculous? And he said the cut onion was so natural it made his eyes water. Of course they hadn't an idea it was my picture—I was simply dying to laugh"
"Well, we're not going to let your gift go to waste, and so I have informed your anxious instructors. They were haunted with visions of you wasting your time sewing on buttons and making pies and generally spoiling your good-for-nothing husband, but I told them that after you were married you wouldn't have to work and worry beyond the work and worry of producing your masterpieces."
"Oh, Joe, I do adore my painting, but I'd give it up in a second, I'd gladly, gladly work my fingers to the bone for you," said Kate, longing for poverty so that she could show Joe how she loved him.
Joe gave the fingers a squeeze, hidden between brown silk and gray cloth. "I know you would, darling, but, thank God, you'll never have to. Oh, Kate—only two more weeks!"
"Only two more weeks—oh, Joe!"
Their wedding was a tiny one. Uncle Henry and Aunt Alice were poor, and Kate was poorer. But Joe with his gardenia and his ways of a larger world shed a glamour, and nothing had ever been seen to equal Kate's bouquet, sent from New York City, as Aunt Alice's Hannah told the next door cook, the girl who was going to open the front door, and the man who brought the ice cream, taking them up on tiptoe for a look at it lying veiled by waxed paper in the bathtub. "Awnge blawsoms! An' de lilies of de valley all shootin' down on little ribbons, an' de maidenhair firm—oh, my! Jes' you smell, Mistah Lee! Stick yo' haid in de tub an' snuff it up. An' ain't it big? Doan see how Miss Kate gwine-a tote it!"
After the honeymoon at Saratoga Springs Joe took Kate to the small town where he had been born and brought up, but that was new to her—Westlake, with all its kind and curious strangers. In their new house she sat at Joe's desk and wrote.
Dear Mrs. Benedict:
Mr. Green and I want to thank you so very, very much for the simply beautiful—
What in the world had Mrs. Benedict given them? Kate put down her pen and looked through the list. Mrs. Benedict, Mrs. Benedict—oh yes, cut-glass berry bowl. Seven cut-glass berry bowls in all, among the wedding presents. Kate loved every one of them, every silver spoon, tea towel, dustcloth; every single thing about 29 Chestnut Street, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Montgomery Green. It was a plain, small house, really, painted olive green with dark-red trimmings, and fragile dark-red balconies, too tremulous to step on, hung outside bedroom windows.
"It's only a makeshift, until we decide just what and where we want to build," Joe told her that first day, opening the front door with its ground-glass panels of stags in the forest, while Miss Smith next door peeped through scrim curtains, and Mrs. Hoagland Driggs, in the big stone house across the street, adjusted her opera glasses. This is just our little pied-à-terre."
"It's lovely—lovely!
"One thing I do think you'll like—a surprise, Katie! Shut your eyes and let me lead you!"
She shut her eyes. She would have let him lead her anywhere. A bead portière parted, slid over her, fell together again like tinkling rain; they climbed a flight of stairs, a door opened and shut.
"Now, Kate! Look!"
She looked, and saw the studio that Joe had gotten ready for her, for a surprise—the skylight, starred with a patter of summer rain; the most elaborate easel she had ever seen, all screws and shelves; the fireplace framed in glazed caramel-colored tiles. She saw Joe's shining face, and burst into tears, flinging her arms around his neck, smashing the cornflowers in his buttonhole, covering him with wet, worshiping kisses.
"Oh, Joe, you angel! I'll paint something wonderful here, you see if I don't!"
And she began his portrait the next week. But it didn't get along very fast, there was so much to do—the house to put in order, thank—you notes still to write, callers coming all the time. She couldn't settle to anything in the afternoons, when any minute the doorbell might ring and Lizzie in her clean apron would bring up more cards on the Sèvres plate that had been Nellie Verlaine's wedding present.
Aunt Sarah Whipple came, inclosed in her coupé like a priceless antique only shown to the public in a glass case, and with her came her Victorian-ringleted spaniel, and her companion, Carrie Pyne, like a woman made of ashes of roses, who would hold together—just—until some one touched her, or a breeze blew on her. Joe's sister-in-law Lulu came, in her mourning for Tom Green, dropping a black-bordered handkerchief, a vinaigrette, black gloves, a card case, a long scarf, here and there about the house as she and her sturdy little daughter Charlotte were shown its beauties. From the cocoa-brown stone house across the street, with Driggs cut into the mounting block, where a fountain spattered on an iron umbrella held by two iron children, and the broad plate-glass windows were veiled in lace, came Mrs. Hoagland Driggs, fat, jolly, sparkling with diamonds, full of sly jokes about brides that made Kate blush. Not quite a lady, Kate thought, but she liked Mrs. Driggs in spite of herself, she was so kind, sending over green peas from the garden, and fresh chocolate cakes, and telling so much scandalous gossip. About Mrs. Martine, for instance.
Kate couldn't bear Mrs. Martine. She was sure she put stuff on her eyelashes to make them black. And she called Joe Joey. Joey, indeed! When Kate told Joey, severely, that Mrs. Martine had called, he looked as bland as butter and said she was a fine little woman. Little! Kate nearly burst! Joe calling that woman little, when she would have made two of him—well, not quite two, but she must have been nearly three inches the taller.
Miss Smith, who kept boarders next door, was too humble to come to the front door and pay a real call. But over the back fence she gave Kate clumps of larkspur for her garden, and warnings as to how closely you had to watch Mr. Turben, or he'd sell you moldy raspberries and eggs that had been kept too long. Plunkett's was better, but terribly high.
Too high for her, Kate decided, after Joe explained sunnily that "just for the moment" he was rather hard up. But not too hard up for surprises. Joe would never be that.
One day a patent lawn sprinkler that was supposed to twirl about, twisting and weaving its ropes of water, but which never sprinkled for them beyond a few reluctant tears, except for one unforgotten gush as they bent above it. One day five pounds of chocolates and pink and yellow and pale-green bonbons, with candied cherries and violets filling up the cracks, and lace-paper mats, too pretty to throw away, and silver tongs. One day Mr. Minty, from the Lakeside Studio, to take photographs of the studio at 29 Chestnut Street.
Mr. Minty was charmed with everything, especially the carved Italian chair, the kimona embroidered with sea turtles, and the paintbrushes in a ginger jar, all of which he moved into each picture—the one of Kate with palette and painting apron in front of the easel holding Joe's portrait, the one of Kate reading on the denim-covered divan, the one of Kate pouring tea—pouring air, really—before the fireplace.
"Very, very artistic!" Mr. Minty sang, leaping out from his dark cloth, running forward with tiny steps as if in a moment he was going to spring up on one toe and begin his dance. "The drapery falling a Jee-tle more careless—there! And the head supported by the hand, easy and relaxed"
Kate instantly became an iron woman.
"Eee-sy and graceful! Just eee-sy and graceful!" Mr. Minty implored, making weeping willows of his hands before he dove under his cloth. Click! Kate could look at Joe and burst out laughing. Everything was so absurd and heavenly.
"Now a livelier pose—more joy de veev, more" Mr. Minty's head went on one side, his eyebrows arched, his thumbs and forefingers pulled an imaginary Christmas cracker in the air. Click! It was a splendid afternoon.
So was the Saturday afternoon when, instead of posing as he had promised, Joe brought home the livery-stable runabout and took her for a drive. Lizzie and Miss Smith and Mrs. Driggs were all at their windows to see them start off, and Kate waggled a hand at fat little Hoagland Driggs, Jr., tricycling on the sidewalk. Joe in his light coat with its big pearl buttons looked as if he were driving the blue-ribbon winner at the Horse Show, instead of O'Leary's old Bessie, and Kate wore puff-sleeved dark-red cloth, for the first September coolness was in the crystal air. Her head was straighter than if a photographer's vise held it, a more than queenly expression of graciousness glowed through her veil. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Montgomery Green rolled along under the elm trees, bowing kindly to acquaintances, and out Poor Farm Road to the hills beyond.
"There's the haunted house, Katie."
The house was tall, gray, and silly-looking. It wore an expression of reproachful astonishment, of eyes and mouth open and protesting, like a thin dingy lady, timid and garrulous. Some of its broken windowpanes were stuffed with old quilts—the lady had put cotton in her ears against the autumn winds. It stood foolishly near the road, though all the world lay empty behind it, so their carriage nearly ran over its doorstep toes. "Goodness!" it seemed to be crying. "Oh, mercy!" with its wide crazy eyes and its open mouth. By the broken doorstep a clump of larkspur sent up blue spikes of second blooming, a promise to despair.
"I never saw such a spooky place in my life! Does anyone live there?"
"An old woman, half cracked. She spends her life cutting paper into patterns—they say the house is full of it."
"Well, I wouldn't go in there for a million dollars! Oh, Joe, isn't this fun? But we ought to have saved the money."
"Shut your eyes, Kate. Keep them shut till we go round this curve. Now!"
There was the town below them, a few white and colored shells lying quietly at the bottom of the ocean of blue air.
Joe made her a present of it. "There you are! There's Westlake for you. See the Congregational steeple? There's Cedarmere—Aunt Sarah's—over on the other side of the lake. See the sun shining on the conservatory?"
"Where's our house? Oh, I see it!"
"How does this prospect please my lady?"
"It's heavenly."
"What would you think of a house just here?"
"Mercy! Wouldn't it be divine!"
"Then that's settled."
"Joe, what do you mean?"
"I've had this site in mind for some time, but I wanted to be sure you liked it before I entered into any negotiations."
"But, Joe—we couldn't possibly ever afford"
Joe laughed indulgently. "I didn't say we were going to start building this week, Mrs. Green, but things are looking up for me, the future looks pretty bright. I knew you'd like the idea. How about a terrace just here, for the sunsets—the mansion—ahem!—here, of course—we might get DeCourcey Johnson to draw us some suggestions, just tentatively—the stables and kennels hidden by these pine trees"
Kate gave a loud sigh, to keep from bursting with delight. And then she sighed again, with happy sadness. How could she bear to leave the house where they had been so blissful? Good-by, little house, dear little house. I will never forget you.
How strange to know what was under that roof as well as if she had lifted it off by its pale-blue feather of smoke. Lizzie chopping up cold mutton to cream for supper (at least, Kate hoped she was), the teapot round as the silver moon, the place in the tub where the fresh paint had come up with Joe after a hot bath, their great dark bed with all its carved rosettes. Strange to see inside her home from this high hill; to see inside other houses, that looked so placid in the September sunshine; to know that in one Mr. Thornton lay dead, in one Miss Smith had a toothache that made her face look like a squirrel with its cheeks full of nuts. In one the three Misses Mortimer lived a life of terror with their mad old mother; in another Mrs. Driggs had just discharged her cook for drinking the cooking sherry. Better to look at the town from far away, from above, only seeing peace in the sunlight.
She must try to see life that way, too, to see the peace and love between Joe and her instead of letting her worries blot out everything. The worry of Mr. Turben, smiling and anxious about the bills for the last two months. She had been rather haughty with Mr. Turben, because she was sure Joe had said he had paid the July bill, and then it turned out that she must! have misunderstood him. The worry of having Lizzie cross as two sticks because of so many dinner parties. Joe would ask people, and say, "Give them whatever we're going to have ourselves," and then at the last moment bring home things like lobsters and mushrooms, and want wine sauces whose recipes were so complicated they made Lizzie mutter under her breath and slam the oven door so the plaster nearly fell from the ceiling. She wasn't cross in front of Joe, of course. Servants never were. She took it out on Kate. And Joe would only say, magnificently: "Is the house to be run to suit us, or to suit Miss Lizzie Kelly? I merely ask for information." The worry of not being pretty, like that Mrs. Martine, with her old black eyelashes!
And here was Joe, thinking of her, loving her, taking her out to drive, planning a beautiful home for her—she was ashamed of herself. How could he love her? It was a miracle. Everything was miraculous to-day; a burning bush of orange and vermilion berries with a sheen of purple on them, burning against the passionate sky, a little blue-green beetle that lit on her sleeve, O'Leary's old Bessie, flinging her hoofs about, carrying them home again. Joe.