To-morrow Morning (Parrish)/Chapter 2
AUNT SARAH WHIPPLE'S coachman drove Kate and Joe in the wagonette through the iron gates of Cedarmere, past the lodge, past weeping copper beeches pouring down on the velvet lawn in molten fountains, past wool-work flower beds. There were circles and stars edged with beet-red, cocoa-brown, and yellow-green ornamental foliage, then little rims of Reckett's-blue lobelias surrounding cold pink begonias with wax stems, or heliotrope, widely spaced in rich finely crumbled earth. The earth at Cedarmere was always black and moist, even when other people's flower beds were hard, pale tan. Aunt Sarah kept an eye on her garden. On summer mornings after she had eaten her oatmeal and read the political news in the paper she went out-of-doors, and where the wrens were perching on dipping sprays of grapevine, wrenlike Aunt Sarah perched on green iron grapevines twisted into seats, and made the gardeners, busy in the borders, wish they had never been born.
The lawns, the glimpsed grape house, Henderson's bottle-green livery with its silver buttons, affected Kate so that she began to make polite remarks to Joe and to Henderson's back in her society voice, from nervousness, telling them that it was cold for October, that the days were getting shorter now, and that the sky looked like rain. And when the wagonette rumbled under the porte-cochère and the horses stamped and jingled, her insides fluttered like a flight of birds, and she pushed her hand in its new biscuit suède glove under Joe's comforting arm.
A butler ambled down the steps for their bag—a butler! Joe hadn't told her there was going to be a butler. Oh, Joe, I'm scared to death, but I'll try not to disgrace you, darling. With an uplifted face of disdain she entered the hall.
Carrie Pyne drifted toward them, moaning:
"Well, Kate! Well, Joe! Here you are!"
"Yes, here we are!"
They all laughed vaguely and politely.
"Mrs. Whipple's resting until dinner. She sent her dear, dear love—at least, I know she would have if—Oh, Kate! Did you hurt yourself? Those bears' heads are terrible in the dark corners. I don't suppose you'd care for a cup of tea before you go to your rooms?"
"Oh, no in" Kate began obediently; but Joe broke in, "We would very much, thank you."
"Oh—ah—Harcourt, could you please just bring us some tea?"
"Tea, miss?" said Harcourt in an astonished voice.
"Yes, please, just—yes, please. I don't know why Harcourt's always so surprised. We have it ever so often, but he's always just as— Hm! Hm!"
Harcourt, still looking incredulous, came back with a lace cloth, which he flung on the tea table crooked, to show his disapproval.
"Was it chilly driving out? It seems so cold for October. As I was saying, Harcourt—Hm! Oh dear! I seem to have a frog in my throat. Hm!"
Harcourt slammed down the tea tray, and Carrie began a wavering pouring out, murmuring: "I'm afraid it's pretty strong. Two lumps, Kate? I'm afraid the water isn't very hot"
Kate sat tensely in her low tufted chair of old-gold satin, with its fringe like sausage curls, trying to keep her cup from dripping—Carrie had slopped most of the tea into the saucer. How easily Joe was taking everything, teasing Carrie, sending Harcourt for matches. She would be like him, perfectly natural.
"What a lovely house!" she exclaimed, startling herself by her vehemence.
Now why had she said that? She thought it was the most depressing place she had ever gotten into. Grand, but so gloomy. A stopped clock over an empty fireplace of marble like foie gras full of truffles, family portraits, and paintings of autumn woodlands in heavy gilt frames, these surrounded by plush-lined shadow boxes whose glass turned the dark pictures into mirrors. A marble bust of Uncle Elisha Whipple, ghostly in the cold half light. And those old bearskin rugs, tripping people up.
Blblb! What strong tea! It puckered her mouth—smocked it! And it was lukewarm. But the rich little cakes were delicious, and Carrie's being more nervous than herself was comforting. She was happy and excited as Joe hooked her into her best dress of orange-pink corded silk. Her hair shone like a horse-chestnut, catching the light where it turned in a French twist or sprang over her forehead in a small curve of bang; her cheeks glowed from a surreptitious scrubbing with a bath towel while Joe was grandly crackling into his shirt in his dressing room. But when Harcourt beat a crescendo diminuendo on the gong that hung in the hall between two life-sized Siamese warriors, she was in a panic again.
Very different now in the drawing-room, with the gold-brocade curtains drawn, and custard-yellow flowers brought in from the conservatory and put about on the small gilt tables. In the fireplace the voices of the fire spoke together—one like silk fluttering in the wind, one like rain pattering on dead leaves. Aunt Sarah sat in a straight chair before it, in black lace and watered silk, and on the back of the chair a parrot, with feathers the color of grass-green banana leaves and eyes surrounded by wrinkled white kid, danced from side to side, pausing now and then to make a sound like a popping cork or to scream, "Carrie!"
"Well, Joseph. Well, Kate. Don't kiss me; Benjie would bite you. Don't step on Mopsa, Kate; she's the color of the rug."
"Ca-a-a-ree! Oh dear! Ca-a-a-ree!"
"Yes, you're quite right, Benjie; she should be down. We won't wait— Oh, here you are! We were just going in."
"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Whipple," Carrie gasped, shedding a faint-pink scarf that looked as if it had been wet and then rolled into a tight ball. "My hair just wouldn't do— Oh, Joe! Oh, thank you"
"At my right, Kate. Joseph must act as host."
They sat silent while Harcourt brought the soup, shaking out the glossy napkins, almost as big as tablecloths. Clean napkins for every meal, at Aunt Sarah's, not a napkin ring in the house. The things the Greens had for company, Aunt Sarah had just for herself—finger bowls at every meal, coffee after dinner, the beds changed all at once, instead of the top sheet turning into the bottom sheet.
Harcourt poured the sherry, and simultaneously Kate, Joe, and Carrie began to talk.
"How are your"
"What lovely"
"Why, Joe—er-ah"
"I beg your pardon!"
"I beg yours!"
"You were going to say?"
"Oh, nothing, really"
"Oh, please"
"Joseph must show you the stables to-morrow," said Aunt Sarah, her faint dry voice crackling lightly through the polite tumult. "Are you fond of horses?"
"Oh yes, indeed I am!" cried Kate, who had never plucked up courage to give a horse an apple or a lump of sugar, and whose nearest approach to one was a drive with Joe behind old Bessie.
"You and Joseph can have a good gallop to-morrow, then. Kenyon tells me Gypsy Queen needs riding, so perhaps she'll be spirited enough for you, but don't tell me that you're such a sportswoman that you ride astride."
"No, indeed, I don't; in fact I don't"
"A more ridiculous exhibition I can't imagine. They say it's less dangerous and tires them less. As if there weren't worse things than exhaustion or falling off a horse!"
"Well, I don't"
"I was famous for my riding when I was a girl, and I should as soon have thought of riding on my head as riding astride."
Harcourt murmured in Kate's ear, and she answered, haughtily:
"Yes, please."
"I said red or white wine, madam?"
With head high, drooping lids, and lips that hardly opened, she chose red.
"I hear that that Mrs. Martine rides astride. I shouldn't be at all surprised. She looks very coarse."
Dear, intelligent Aunt Sarah! Dear Carrie, not so intelligent, but even dearer, moaning: "Oh yes, I'm afraid she is; such a loud voice and such high color"
"Oh, now, come, Aunt Sarah; she's just a fine, jolly little woman."
"Oh, indeed!"
"Impulsive, so that she's misunderstood sometimes by the other ladies, but the kindest heart in the world."
"And that's so lovely," said Carrie. "She always did seem to me so sort of—well—kind-hearted."
Carrie really is an awful goose, Kate thought, helping herself to entrée. What's in this? Mushrooms and sweetbreads, but what else? I wonder if I could show Lizzie. Oh dear, I hope I haven't drunk too much wine, my head feels queer. I don't a bit like the way that butler looks at me—I know he's laughing, stuck-up thing. How could I hear him, mumbling?
"Are you doing much painting, Kate?"
"Well, not so much as I should be doing, we've been so busy, but I'm really going to get to work now."
"I imagine there was a good deal to do to make your house livable."
"We thought we wouldn't do very much, since we may begin building almost any time."
"Oho! So you're thinking of building, Joseph?"
"It's a dream, Aunt Sarah, when our ship comes in."
"Well, please see to it that the whole fleet comes in at the same time. You know Joseph takes care of my investments, Kate, and of Lulu's, since his Uncle Elisha and Thomas died. We women lean heavily on Joseph. That's the penalty of being the only man in the family."
Kate turned a proud beam on Joe. Oh, bother! There went her napkin again! Maybe she could pick it up between her toes without anyone noticing. No, Harcourt had gone after it once more, and must be given a cold inclination of the head. Another long pause, while the gold-incrusted wineglasses were refilled, and dark-blue plates with gold latticework and monograms changed for plates with claret-colored borders surrounding ladies in chiffon scarfs on clouds. Joe didn't seem to mind the silences. He sat there eating grapes like plums, smiling a little at his own thoughts. Kate sipped her wine nervously, and then remembered that she hadn't meant to drink any more.—Was her face red? It felt like fire. What could she say? "How beautiful your dahlias are!" "What enormous grapes!" "Doesn't it seem strange to think that winter will soon be here?" She was torn between shyness at the sound of her own voice and nervousness at the pauses in the conversation.
"Doesn't it—?" and "Did you—?" she and Carrie began together, and then with polite cries and laughter dodged to look at each other from side to side of the high centerpiece. She was homesick, impressed, nervous, and tense, and she wouldn't have been missing it for anything.
But the next day was pure bliss, drawing up to 29 Chestnut Street with stamping and jingling, the wagonette like black looking-glass drawn by bay looking-glass horses, Henderson touching his looking-glass hat and really beaming at Joe's tip and Kate's gracious good-by. Joe had shown her the wonders of Cedarmere that morning—the tidy potting sheds; the cold frames where big violets pressed their faces to the moisture-beaded glass like children looking out of windows; the grape houses with their childhood smells, growth, earth, damp warmth; and the gardener had cut them the grapes and flowers they were bringing home.
Beautiful home, so small and inconvenient, how Kate loved it! She ran all over it, free and relaxed, making as much noise as she liked. Up to their room—everything unchanged, although she felt as if they had been away for years; the bureau with its little balconies and terraces, whose mirror had reflected such an anxious face yesterday as she put on her hat; the volume of Tennyson with which she had tried to calm herself, still open in her chair where she had left it when she leaped at Joe's call, stopping in mid-verse, stopping here:
For a love that never tires?
O heart, are you great enough for love?
She read it again, with soft bright eyes. Oh, please, God, make my heart great enough to love Joe that way always! Make us both like that.
Then down to the kitchen, to show off graciously to Lizzie, making cup custards for supper.
"Did you ever see such grapes, Lizzie? I'm just going to slip over to Miss Smith's with a bunch, and a few of these roses. Of course Mr. Green's aunt has wonderful conservatories. "You must have a little bouquet for your room—there! And a piece of heliotrope, that smells so sweet! Smell! Isn't that delicious? I think I'll just take Mrs. Driggs a bunch of grapes, too. You can't get Black Hamburg greenhouse grapes like these at the store, no matter how much you're willing to pay, but of course Mr. Green's aunt— That leaves one bunch for us, and we'll have that for dessert to-night. Oh, but you've made those nice little cup custards! Maybe we'd better have those to-night. I think Mr. Green's a little tired of hothouse grapes, we had so many, and we can save this bunch for to-morrow."