Anne gave her a withering glance and departed with indignation.
“You should see the huzzy!” she told Molly. “Rings on her fingers and jewels on her toes. And the impertinence of her! Offering me money like a porter in a hotel. Well, I wonder what the master’ll be saying now!”
“The master just called up while you was upstairs. He says he may miss the first train and not to wait for him, to go right on and have dinner. I guess she thought he’d like to get out of the fuss of it.”
“Well, I shouldn’t wonder! I wish Miss Athalie were here. Miss Silver hasn’t got back from the Flats yet, has she? She’s a good girl. She would go see to that thing upstairs. Keep watch for her comin’, and tell me. I’ll warn her afore she goes up the stair.”
But Silver was helping an Italian woman to make a little dress for her baby and did not come home until five o’clock. Before that time many things had happened.
Before Athalie arrived, the three o’clock train had come in and a troop of young people—shouting, laughing, hooting at every person they passed, criticizing the houses, jeering at the stores—came pouring down the street. Their baggage followed in Hoskin’s delivery truck, with two men on behind to help and observe. The girls were attired in the most striking outfits, and lolled on the boys’ arms, pulled off each other’s hats and threw them into the street, and in general conducted themselves with great indiscretion. The villagers came to their front windows in astonishment and deep disapproval, and one woman even telephoned for the police who happened to be away from his headquarters at that moment.
They stormed up on the Silver’s front veranda like a hurricane, having inquired of everyone they met where “Greeves” lived, and while they awaited the answer to their continuous and imperious knocking, two girls and a young man had a skirmish in the yard incidentally breaking off three of Joe’s most cherished hyacinth blooms.
Then down the stairs with boisterous laughter tripped the young woman who had arrived in a taxi and opened the door before the scandalized Anne could get farther than the pantry.
“Oh, boy! I guess I put one over on you this time!” screamed the girl.
The horde swarmed in, slinging caps and handbags in every direction.
“Here’s Marcy! I say, that isn’t fair, Marcy! You got the best room! You always do.”
“Come on up and take your choice. There’s not so awful many as I thought there’d be. The old prune that showed me up gave me a sort of servant’s room, but I got rid of her and went around till I found what I wanted. I take the left-hand front, and I’ve got my door locked so you needn’t try to get in. I’ll take Maebeth with me and nobody else. There’s plenty of room. I’ve been everywhere. You two girls better take that other front room. There’s somebody’s things in there, but you should worry. Possession is how many points? I forget. Violet better go with Athe. Her things are in that second door. Say, boys, did you bring the booze? Plenty of it? Isn’t that great. We’ll have a real time! You boys better go up to the third story. There’s five big rooms up there! Come on, Beth, let’s hurry and get dressed before Ath comes. She goes to school! Isn’t that the limit? She must have some old grouch of a governor! Don’t say anything. His clothes must be in this closet, and I’m going down to dinner in his dress suit!”
“Oh, Marcy! Do you dare, Marcy?”
“My soul!” said Anne Truesdale. “What’ll we do? Do you think maybe I better send for the minister? Oh, I wish you had told me Master Pat was on the phone.”
“But you didn’t know it then.”
“Well, no, but I coulda told him about there being company.”
“Well, you didn’t. I guess that harum-scarum’ll be home pretty soon. There she comes now, running! I’d give her a piece of my mind, I certainly would!”
Chapter 25
But before Anne could get into the hall Athalie had stormed up the stairs and there ensued such greetings as made the old house sound like a vaudeville show behind the scenes. The girls in various stages of disarray opened doors to call to her; the boys issued from a cloud of cigarette smoke on the third floor by way of the old mahogany stair rail and came shooting into their midst amid howls and screams and pretended running to cover. Anne hurried up to do something about it and resembled an old hen running from the person who was trying to catch it while she clucked at her young to get out of the way. But she made no impression whatever on the young people until suddenly a great stalwart youth discovered her in his way and stooping over said: “Here, Auntie, what are you doing here?” and picking her up like a child, ran fleetly down the stairs with her in his arms, depositing her on the table in the hall and vanishing up again in three strides.
Anne, when she recovered her breath crept fearsomely into the pantry white and spent, her dignity drooping like a broken feather, and while she stood panting, her hand on her heart, her back against the swing door, a gentle hand pushed it, and Silver’s voice said: “It’s only me, Anne. What is the matter upstairs?”
“It’s a ‘ouse party!” sobbed Anne, and buried her face in Silver’s neck. “They’ve took the master’s room, and Miss Lavinia’s. I don’t know what the master’ll say when he comes. And your things! They maul everything they lay their hands on, Miss Silver. Oh, I oughta have prevented this! I oughta! I oughta! I’m no housekeeper at all to let this come behind his back. I’m getting old! I’m no good anymore—”
“There, there, Anne, don’t feel so badly. There isn’t any harm done. They are only a parcel of kids out having a good time, and it’s gone to their heads. Don’t worry. Father won’t blame you. It’s Athalie, I suppose. Let’s try to see what we can do to make everything move off quietly. How long are they going to stay? Just for dinner?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know! She said a ‘ouse party, that first one that come. How long does that last? As long as the ‘ouse stays together, I’m thinking, and that’ll not be long if they carry on as they have been goin’. They’ve slid down my nice polished stair rails, and there’ll be scratches on everything. And I’ve kept it all so nice all the years! Oh, dear, oh dear!”
“Never mind, Anne, it won’t be half so bad as it seems. Cheer up, and get dinner ready. Are you going to try to have tea?”
“Deary knows! Miss Athalie ordered cake made before she left this morning. And me a-thinkin’ she was that good a girl to please her father an’ invite the neighbor’s children home from school to have a good time an’ make ‘em forget how she treated ‘em Saturday afternoon!”
“Well, never mind. I’ll go upstairs and see if I can’t stop that noise.”
Silver went, but her arrival proved no more than if she had been a fly on the wall. The girls and boys were having a scuffle in the hall, and one girl’s dress was half pulled off of her. They did not even glance at Silver as she hurried by them to take refuge in her room and think what she ought to do. But two other girls were in there attired in lacy lingerie, and one was smoking a cigarette.
“I beg your pardon,” she said pleasantly. “I think someone has made a mistake. This room is occupied. If you will let me help you gather up your things I will show you to another room.”
Silver did this, not because she was so disturbed at having her room taken as because Anne had felt so strongly about Miss Lavinia’s sacred chamber being desecrated.
The girls simply stared. “Who are you?” asked the girl who was powdering her face at the glass.
“I am Miss Greeves. Athalie’s sister. You must be her school friends.”
“Oh, I know who you are. You’re that baby that was given away. Your name isn’t Greeves at all. It’s Jarvis. Ath told us all about you. You needn’t bother about us; she put us here and we’d rather stay. You can take your own things out if you want to.” The girl turned back to the mirror with an air of having dismissed her. Silver reflected for an instant. What chance had she to maintain her rights against such insolence? She would frustrate her desire of quieting the company and getting control of things if she wa
s not a perfect lady. She was amazed that girls could say such things. There must be a whole school of them, bred in the same atmosphere.
The color had fluttered into her face at the insulting words, but her sense of humor came to her assistance, and as once before she had foiled insolence by her silvery laugh, so now she let it out again until the visiting girls turned and stared. They even grew a little red. They had intended to make her angry, and now she laughed!
With a quick turn Silver went out of the room and closed the door.
“Boys!” she said, placing a firm hand on the arm of the scuffling gentleman nearest her, “I know where there’s some awfully good cake.
If you’ll follow me and be perfectly quiet about it, I’ll get it for you!”
Instantly every boy of the six was surrounding her and clamoring with all his might, even attempting to lift her off her feet and carry her down the stairs.
But there was something about Silver when she chose to be like that that awed every boy in the vicinity. Her spirit face suddenly could become grave and stern, with a power of command that arrested the attention and demanded respect.
“No, you’ve got to be perfectly quiet!” she said smilingly. “The spell won’t work unless you do! No quiet, no cake!”
Athalie had forgotten when she summoned all these gorgeous young hoodlums to dissipate her gloom and informed them well about her unbeloved sister, that Silver was a girl and that a boy will “fall for anything” sometimes, as she said with a shrug that very evening. To the amazement of the other girls the boys became tame at once and Silver led them all off quietly down the stairs and to the drawing room where she rang the bell and said in low tone: “Anne, dear, would you bring that cake now?”
The “Anne dear” got it. Anne brought the cake in bountiful supply, and Silver improving the brief and shining hour got all their names and made quite a little ceremony learning them so she would remember.
The boys were quite pleased with her, and she held them there with talk about things boys like. Dogs and athletics and national games. She had seen some big ones. She talked familiarly about some of the fraternities they longed to be called to join, she spoke of college, and with just that rare flattery of smile and camaraderie that touches a boy of seventeen and brings him to her feet, she sat on a low divan and chatted with them bringing burst after burst of gruff laughter and winning them thoroughly as her friends.
In the middle of an exciting recital of how a famous baseball team got ahead of an opposing team that was employing unfair measures to win the game, they all became aware of a hostile presence standing on the stairs.
Athalie had come down in gorgeous array in a short dress of gold tissue strapped over the shoulders and down the skirt in floating panels with peacock feathers. Around her forehead was bound a band of green and blue sequins, and the gold tissue of which her stockings were composed was so exceedingly sheer as to give the effect of bare skin above the tiny jeweled gold shoes. Nobody would have bought such an outfit for a young girl, but Lilla had been regal in it once upon a time, and the long pendulum earrings that dangled from the ears of her daughter and gave her such an Egyptian-princess effect had been especially designed in jewels to match the costume for some great occasion. It might be possible that Lilla on the high seas knew nothing of the whereabouts of some of her most-valued possessions. Athalie had helped herself as she chose before her departure.
But Athalie’s face was marked with disdain, jealousy, hate in startling lines. Silver rose quickly with a smile that faded as she saw the girl’s fixed look as if she were not there at all. Athalie was determined to ignore her among these her friends. How could she put up any kind of a front against that? And yet she must for her father’s sake, and keep things within bounds if possible until his return. It occurred to her that she might telephone Bannard and ask him to dinner. He would help her and know what to do, but supposing anything unforeseen should occur, anything out of the conventional order that should get out, it might not be good that the minister should be known to have been there. She had been brought up to think of those things. She had not been a minister’s granddaughter for nothing. Therefore she shut her firm young lips and determined to fight it out alone.
She was wearing a crêpe de chine dress of soft gray the right tint to bring out the pink in her cheeks and the gold in her hair and lashes. It was simple of line and girded with a sash, itself heavily fringed and knotted at one side hanging a little below the deep hem of her skirt. She wore no jewelry and the elbow sleeves and round neck were without decoration. It was scarcely a dinner gown for a formal affair, yet she could not have changed if she wished since the invasion of her room, and she would not if she could. There were more important things at hand.
Her sister’s attitude plainly dismissed her, but she rose and deliberately turned her conversation to one of the boys nearest her, ignoring the look, and finally Athalie spoke, as one speaks to an inferior: “You don’t need to eat with us, Alice Jarvis. It will make an uneven number. We have just men enough to go around.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Silver with a careless smile, “Father’ll be here pretty soon, you know” and went on talking to the admiring boy, although her heart was beating wildly, and she wished herself far away from this scene of dissension and frivolity.
“Oh, very well. Suit yourself!” said Athalie with her haughtiest voice and began to devote herself to the entire group and attract them all from Silver.
Silver slipped out of the room and went back upstairs. If she could keep the bunches of girls and boys apart till dinner was ready it might help. She went from room to room offering help. Had they all the towels they needed? Could she help them with their dresses, or play ladies’ maid in any way? Would they like ice water? Her insistent, pleasant service met with no response except silence. They whispered behind her back and exchanged glances. She saw that the way ahead was to be most unpleasant, but she went steadily on ignoring the meaning of their attitude. She was the pleasant elder sister waiting on her younger sister’s guests.
But she had committed what was to them an unpardonable sin. She had taken their devoted admirers away from them and interested them herself. That could never be forgiven.
Silver was very tired when at last the scene changed to the dinner table. She had placed herself at the head and was there as they came into the room, acting the part of hostess. Athalie stopped and looked furiously at her but finally decided to get her revenge some other way and, leaving the other end seat unoccupied, proceeded to seat her guests to suit her own purposes. The chairs were all filled but one.
“Marcy! Where are you? You sit at the corner next to Dad’s seat. Hurry. I’m starved.”
Marcella Mason, who had just ripped downstairs and was entering from the hall, paused a moment lifting up a monocle on a long silk cord.
“Good evening, gents and women!” she saluted elegantly. “So glad you all could come!”
Every eye turned toward the doorway, and then a shout arose, gradually growing into a roar.
“Marcy! Marcy! Look at Marcy!”
For Marcella Mason was attired in Patterson Greeves’s full dress suit—broad white shirtfront, patent leather shoes, and all—and looked the very personification of impudence and daring.
Silver and Anne Truesdale had agreed before dinner was served that whatever happened they would keep their composure and not look shocked nor horrified. Poor Anne Truesdale scuttled hurriedly into the pantry. This was too much for her. Silver struggled with her irritation and mastered a grave little smile. It was rude of course, impudent, but only a prank, after all. It was not for her to deal with a thing like this. Her father would be here pretty soon. Oh, that he might arrive at once!
From the start the hilarity was uproarious. Several times bits of bread went whizzing back and forth across the table that had for years seen gathered around it grave and dignified and honored men and women. Anne trembled for the delicate long-stemmed glasses in which the
delicious fruit nectar was served.
The dinner progressed through a rich cream soup, roast chicken with vegetables, homemade ice cream with crushed strawberries, and great plates of delectable cake.
The little cups of black coffee were being served when Athalie reached under her chair and brought out a lacquered box, which she passed around. Cigarettes! Strange Silver had not thought that might happen! And the guests were all taking them, girls, too, and lighting them. Little curls of smoke rose delicately in the stately dining room, and six little flappers pursed their painted lips and blew six more wreaths of smoke into the air.
Silver took her coffee cup and toyed with it thoughtfully. What would her father say to this? She was not quite sure whether the time had come for her to take a stand or not. But when at a signal from Athalie one of the boys rose and stepping out of the room brought back two tall bottles of dark liquid, then she knew her time had come. He had pulled out the cork and was filling an empty glass by one of the girl’s plates. The fumes of the liquor rose hotly to her sensitive nostrils. What chance had she against so many? Her face was white and stern like a spirit as she rose from her chair and faced them. “Stop!” she commanded to the astonished boy who held the bottle. “Joe, will you remove these bottles at once? And Anne, will you kindly take that tray and gather up the cigarettes and throw them out? My father does not allow such things to go on in his house nor around his table!” she said, addressing the company in a clear ringing voice. “If you want to smoke and drink you must go elsewhere!”
Then Athalie rose suddenly with her glass of water in her hand and flung its contents at her sister.
“Shut up!” she said roughly. “It’s none of your business what we do. This is my party, and I’m the daughter in this house.”
“Athalie! What does all this mean?”
Patterson Greeves was standing in the doorway, his hat still on his head, his hands still cluttered with packages of books as he had come in, his face stern with anger.