FullReads

The big house was very still. Lizzie, hitherto un-compromisingly a cook, had so far unbent this summer as to offer to fill the place of waitress as well as her own. Today she had joyously accepted Mary’s offer of a whole unexpected free afternoon and evening. Mary was alone, and rather enjoying it. She walked, trailing her ruffled wrapper, to one of the windows, and looked down on the Drive. It was almost deserted.

While she stood there idle and smiling, a taxicab veered to the curb, hesitated, came to a full stop. Out of it came a small gloved hand with a parasol clasped in it, a small struggling foot in a gray suede shoe, a small doubled-up form clad in gray-blue silk, a hat covered with corn-flowers.

Mamma had arrived, as Mamma always did, unexpectedly.

Mary stared at the apparition with a sudden rebellious surge at her heart. She knew what this meant, but for a moment the full significance of it seemed too exasperating to be true. Oh, how could she!–spoil their last day together, upset their plans, madden George afresh, when he was only this moment pacified! Mary uttered an impatient little sigh as she went down to open the door; but it was the anticipation of George’s vexation–not her own–that stirred her, and the sight of Mamma was really unwelcome to Mary only because of George’s lack of welcome.

“No Lizzie?” asked Mamma, blithely, when her first greetings were over, and the case of Cousin Will had been dismissed with a few emphatic sentences.

“I let her go this afternoon instead of to-morrow, Muddie, dear. We’re going down town to dinner.”

“Oh; that’s nice,–but I look a perfect fright!” said Mrs. Honeywell, following Mary upstairs. “Nasty trip! I don’t want a thing but a cup of tea for supper anyway–bit of toast. I’ll be glad to get my things off for a while.”

“If you LIKE, Mamma, why don’t you just turn in?” Mary suggested. “It’s nearly four now. I’ll bring you up some cold meat and tea and so on.”

“Sounds awfully nice,” her mother said, getting a thin little silk wrapper out of her suit-case. “But we’ll see,–there’s no hurry. What time are you meeting Georgie?”

“Well, we were going to Macbeth’s,–but that’s not important,–we needn’t meet him until nearly seven, I suppose,” Mary said patiently, “only I ought to telephone him what we are going to do.”

“Oh, telephone that I’ll come too, I’ll feel fine in half an hour,” Mrs. Honeywell said decidedly.

Mary, unsatisfied with this message, temporized by sitting down in a deep chair. The room, which had all been made ready for Mamma, was cool and pleasant. Awnings shaded the open windows; the rugs, the wall-paper, the chintzes were all in gay and roseate tints. Mrs. Honeywell stretched herself luxuriously on the bed, both pillows under her head.

“I’m sure she’d be much more comfortable here than tearing about town this stuffy night!” the daughter reflected, while listening to an account of Cousin Will’s dreadful house, and dreadful children.

It was so easy when Mamma was away to think generously, affectionately of her, to laugh kindly at the memory of her trying moods. But it was very different to have Mamma actually about, to humor her whims, listen to her ceaseless chatter, silently sacrifice to her comfort a thousand comforts of one’s own.

After a half hour of playing listener she went down to telephone George.

“Oh, damn!” said George, heartily. “And here I’ve been hustling through things thinking any minute that you’d come in. Well, this spoils it all. I’ll come home.”

“Oh, dearest,–it’ll be just a ‘pick-up’ dinner, then. I don’t know what’s in the house. Lizzie’s gone,” Mary submitted hesitatingly.

“Oh, damn!” George said forcibly, again.

“What does your mother propose to do?” he asked Mary some hours later, when the rather unsuccessful dinner was over, Mamma had retired, and he and his wife were in their own rooms. Mary felt impending unpleasantness in his tone, and battled with a rising sense of antagonism. She tucked her pink hat into its flowered box, folded the silky tissue paper about it, tied the strings.