“Hush, Glenn!” his mother expostulated. “I’m tired of all this rudeness. Besides, we all know perfectly well that Grandam is more democratic than any other member of this family.”
Ariel’s face was flushed as Glenn pulled out her chair for her. But it was Mrs. Weyman, not Glenn, who had hurt her. Glenn, noticing the flush, was conscious for a minute of Ariel as a girl as well as an atmosphere. “I’m sorry,” he said, under his breath. “It was my fault. Mother doesn’t mean a thing. She’s just gauche.”
They were hardly seated when a woman dressed in a gray-and-white semi-uniform appeared, carrying some violet pillows and with a wide scarf of violet gossamer floating incongruously from one arm. This was Miss Peters, Grandam’s attendant. She was neither a nurse nor a maid, but a combination of the two. For the attendant of a mystery she was commonplace-looking enough,—strong, wholesome, with pleasantly regular features and becomingly marcelled hair. She was middle-aged and middle everything else, one surmised. She went to the foot of the table—Hugh’s vacant place—and put the cushions one on the seat, two at the back of the big armed chair there. Now it had the look of a throne. It was very impressive.
Every one was looking toward the door, even Miss Peters, expectantly. And Ariel, strangely, experienced again a touch, at least, of the sense of spring coming, the imminence of personal happiness, she had experienced and lost again her first morning at Wild Acres. She remembered the leaf mold where the children had rolled up the snowball and how she had danced across it into the center of spring-happiness. Now, while Miss Peters’ sensible profile was turned away toward the door, and the others waited, napkins half unfolded in their hands, Ariel looked for veils to blow aside—and wonder to appear. Strange, when it was just an old lady who was coming, so old and so feeble that she had to be comforted in her chair with pillows.
Grandam was in the doorway, and every one rose, except Mrs. Weyman. Introductions were made, and then Mr. Enderly and Miss Peters were both holding out the throne chair. When Grandam was established, Miss Peters dropped the scarf over the high back of the throne where it hung like a trailing wing and quietly withdrew.
Grandam was beautiful.... But Ariel had known she would be all the time, though no one had ever hinted it, just as she knew that summer in Wild Acres woods would be beautiful, though it was hidden now from sensible knowing under snow and rain, and no one spoke of it. She was no age at all. To think “well preserved” of her would be too stupid. Here was nothing static, but something glamorously in the process of creation. Hugh’s mother, whom until now Ariel had thought so surprisingly young, was flattened and dulled by contrast with her mother-in-law. It was not Grandam’s clothes or make-up that made her young. They had nothing to do with it but were merely exquisite accessories to the exhilarating, lovely person herself. Her eyes, when she met them, took Ariel’s breath. They were violet, long and enchantingly shaped, under finely drawn, dark eyebrows, and fringed with straight, dense lashes. Her hair was both beautiful and strange. It was cut short and dressed into a close-curling crown that looked like wrought silver in its arbitrary design, a close-fitting crown, worn low. It was a frame for the exquisite small face, with its short straight nose, its lovely, poignant mouth, and those breath-taking, violet, dark-fringed eyes. She was wearing a red-violet frock—or perhaps it was more the color of fireweed than of violets—with long deep sleeves like a nun’s, but unlike a nun’s they were chiffon, and folded her arms like half-spread wings.
Prescott Enderly was as enthralled as Ariel. No one had happened to tell him, any more than her, that Grandam was beautiful.
Mrs. Weyman was saying, “It’s pleasant, having you down again, Mother Weyman. The vacation ends in another two days, and Mr. Enderly wanted to meet you. You will enjoy each other. Mrs. Weyman is a great reader, Prescott. She knew about your book, from the reviews, before I did, and said it must be Glenn’s friend.”
Grandam’s violet eyes rested on the young novelist briefly, but she did not follow her daughter-in-law’s lead and begin speaking of his work. Instead she passed him by for Anne. “I’m sorry you haven’t come up at a time when I could see you, Anne,” she said in a voice which surprised only by being so fitting—a low voice, but light, and casual as a bird’s flight is casual. “I’m glad you’ve had such a jolly vacation. It isn’t often, is it, that Smith’s and Yale’s spring vacations coincide?” Nothing that Grandam said was remarkable, or by the greatest stretch of the fascinated onlooker’s imagination could be thought important. It was all talk of the most everyday things—the weather, Glenn’s and Anne’s plans for the long summer vacation, her daughter-in-law’s plans for some serious landscape gardening at Wild Acres; and Hugh’s protracted absence.
She could not have had a very vital interest in any of these things she talked about and heard talked about during this meal. Yet, when she spoke to any one or listened to any one in particular, that person had a sense of vital contact, of swift, actual sympathy. This was not because Grandam was insincere. Quite the contrary. She was, even in these casual contacts, as sincere as the flight of a bird is sincere, direct, absolutely unstudied, intuitional. As it happened that she looked or listened to Glenn, Mrs. Weyman, Anne, or Prescott, then Glenn, Mrs. Weyman, Anne or Prescott quickened, grew alive—behaved the way those Japanese toy flowers behave when dropped into water; their personalities expanded, took form and pattern. Ariel saw this, and the simile of the Japanese flowers was hers.