Ellen Glasgow - The Sheltered Life

Then suddenly, while she shivered like a mouse in a trap, a voice spoke within her mind, and the dark enemy dissolved and was banished. "We must stand by each other, little sweetheart. We must never, never give each other away." Joy as sharp as light pierced her nerves. Terror had flown. Where Aunt Etta's unhappiness had been there was the bright and comforting smile of Mr. Birdsong. Instantly, she was safe again; she was enfolded in the bliss of his presence. All the black bats had scattered and wheeled out of her thoughts. "There isn't anything to be afraid of," she said aloud, and very dreamily the refrain hummed in her mind, "I know a secret, I know a secret!" The eyes and smile of Mr. Birdsong shone down on her, just as the eyes and smile of her father had shone down on her when she was little and awoke crying from fear in her crib in the old nursery.

When she had dressed Jenny Blair for the party, Mrs. Archbald knotted the blue sash more securely at the waist and said emphatically, "Now, try to be a good girl, and don't make any trouble."

"Do you think we may tiptoe downstairs and peep in while Mr. and Mrs. Birdsong are waltzing?"

"You must ask Mrs. Peyton. Run away now, and don't forget to tell Aunt Etta how sweet she is looking."

"Is she really looking sweet, Mamma, or am I just to pretend?"

"She is looking better than I ever saw her. That dress of mousseline de soie softens her features, and she has washed and crimped her hair beautifully. I hope and pray she will enjoy herself. Have you seen your Aunt Isabella?"

"Oh, Mamma, isn't she handsome? I met her going down into the garden in her pink satin."

"Down into the garden?" Mrs. Archbald's face was blank with astonishment. "Why, what in the world was she doing in the garden?"

"Joseph came back for his saw, and p'raps she wanted him to see her dressed up. I think Joseph is a great help to her—I mean a great help about Thomas."

"Listen to me, Jenny Blair." Mrs. Archbald was speaking in her sternest tone. "I have told you over and over that Aunt Isabella broke her engagement because she was not sure of the state of her feelings. Remember those words—the state of her feelings. If Bena Peyton ever says anything about it, that is what you are to tell her. Aunt Isabella broke her engagement because she was not sure of the state of her feelings. Do you understand what I say?"

"Yes, Mamma." Running eagerly to the door, the child glanced back too soon, and saw her mother, for one instant of blighting reality, with the artificial cheerfulness wiped away from her face. While Mrs. Archbald sank down into her easy chair, her released mind sprang back from the severe strain of keeping up an appearance. Not her duty alone, but love, life, the world, the universe. God,--all these had become suddenly too much for her. Stripped of her pleasant smile, stripped even of her sunny disposition, she was only a tired middle-aged woman, who rested, for one precious hour, from the wearing endeavour to look on the bright side of things and hope for the best.

"Mamma, dear, don't you wish you were going?"

"No, darling." Mrs. Archbald's voice was faint but encouraging. "All I ask is a good night's sleep and a soft bed to enjoy it in."

Stabbed by this new vision of her mother, Jenny Blair whirled round in her party dress, and darting across the room, flung herself sobbing upon Mrs. Archbald's knees. "Oh, Mamma! Oh, Mamma, I've never seen you before!"

"My dear child! My darling child, what is the matter?" Clasping her tenderly but carefully, lest she should rumple the flounces of Swiss muslin, Mrs. Archbald tried to look in her daughter's face. "Have you a pain anywhere? Is your sash tied too tight?"

"Oh, I don't know. I don't know. But I've never seen you before."

"Why, Jenny Blair, how absurd!"

"I've never seen you before, but I love you, Mamma. I love you more than anything in the world."

"My precious child!" Almost sobbing in her turn, for she was genuinely moved in spite of her sentimental evasion, Mrs. Archbald forgot the flounces and the blue sash while she gathered her child to her bosom. "There, there. Mamma knows you love her. There is nothing to cry about."

"I wish you were going, Mamma. I don't want to go and leave you at home."

"But I'd rather be at home, dear. I haven't the strength to stand anything more after helping you and your aunts to dress. Poor Aunt Etta had another bad dream last night, and I had to sit up. Are you perfectly sure you don't feel a pain inside? I hope," she added gravely, "you haven't eaten anything I told you not to."

"It isn't that, Mamma. Oh, it isn't that."

"Then what is it? Has anybody hurt your feelings? You must remember that Aunt Etta is very nervous and sometimes she speaks more sharply than she means to."

"No, it isn't that. Nobody has said anything."

"Well, if there is nothing really the matter, you'd better run on and not keep your grandfather waiting. Mrs. Peyton promised to send you home early in the morning, and then you can tell me about the party."

"Oh, yes, I'll tell you about it." Love and sadness melted together and vanished. Immediately, Jenny Blair began to live in the hope of coming back, primed with news, to describe the evening to her mother. "I'll remember everything that happens, Mamma, and I'll bring you some of the little cakes with pink roses in icing. Bena told me they were going to have hundreds of little cakes, all iced exactly like flowers."

"I know they are lovely, darling. That must be Aunt Isabella's escort ringing the door-bell. I'll come down to see you off as soon as I am able to stand."

As Jenny Blair ran toward the staircase, a door opened, and she caught a glimpse of Aunt Etta, in a cloud of mousseline de soie, touching her cheeks with an artificial red rose-leaf she had borrowed from an old hat. Vividly, the child saw her reflected there in the silver light of the mirror. She saw her flat, slightly stooping figure, puffed out with ruffles across the bosom, and the long sallow face, from which the hair was drawn back over a high, stiff roll, filled, Jenny Blair knew, with a substance that resembled the stuffing of sofas. Something, either the expression straining for sweetness or the dot of black court-plaster near the corner of one wide-open eye, lent to the reflected face an air of indignant astonishment, as if poor Aunt Etta, for all her twenty-five years and platonic friendships, had never really seen the world as it is.

When Jenny Blair entered with a spring, the rose-leaf fluttered into the drawer of the bureau, and Aunt Etta turned away and picked up a shawl of Spanish lace, one of her dearest treasures, from the foot of the bed. Beside the shawl, Mammy Rhoda had laid out a pair of long white gloves, a fan of ostrich plumes, and an embroidered slipper-bag.

"How do I look, Jenny Blair?" Aunt Etta inquired nervously, stopping to pull the gloves over her arms.

"You look sweet," the child replied, with her mother's admonition in mind. But which was really Aunt Etta, the face of startled surprise in the mirror, or the composed lady who picked up her train, flounced with blue silk on the wrong side, and moved with the still fashionable "Grecian bend" to the head of the staircase?

"Do I look too pale, Jenny Blair?"

"Oh, no, you have the loveliest pink in your cheeks, just like a carnation."

"Wait till you see Isabella," Aunt Etta murmured, with a tremulous sound in her voice.

"Well, she doesn't want to go. She is going to save her pride."

A queer little laugh broke from Aunt Etta. "You're a funny child. I sometimes wonder how much you make up and how much you really know."

"I know that much. She doesn't want to go with Aubrey Weare. He is downstairs now waiting for her, and he doesn't know that she is going just to save her pride."