Upstairs Flora counted out the beautiful heavy linen sheets, aired the blankets, hung fringed towels upon the balcony railings to lose their scent of camphor. From the dining-room mantel projected a new and ugly but eminently satisfactory airtight stove, and the crackle of wood within it and the delicious corresponding softness in the cool heavy air of the room gave Gay one of the pleasantest sensations she had had at Wastewater. In the big square pantry the maids washed and piled china and glass; some of it Gabrielle had never seen before: pink Doulton, green and pink Canton, fine Old Blue.
Downstairs in the kitchen region was pleasantest of all, for Trude had a free hand at last, and she and Hedda often broke into their own ecstatic tongue under the novelty and excitement of it, remembering old days in Bruges, when they had made Christmas cakes and had stuffed fat geese for the oven. Trude chopped mincemeat, made her famous damp, dark, deliciously spiced dried-apple cake “by the yard,” Gabrielle said, prepared great jars of sauces and mayonnaise and stored them in the vault-like regions of the cellar, ready for the onslaught of young appetites and unexpected meals between meals. The grocer’s boy from Crowchester delivered whole crates of cereals and vegetables, and from Boston came hams and bacon, raisins and nuts, meats and oysters in boxes and kegs that dripped with ice.
Yet it was not to be so very large a party, after all. There would be Laura and Gwen Montallen, the nice Canadian girls from Quebec; Bart Montallen, their cousin from England; Arthur Tipping, “who will be Lord Crancastle some day”; and Bart Montallen’s chum, a man named Frank du Spain, from Harvard. All three of the men were in college together, and the three girls had been classmates for years. David would of course join them, making seven, and “Gay eight,” wrote Sylvia, kindly, “and we may have an extra man for good measure, if I find just the right one, so that we’ll be just ten, with you, Mamma dear. And that’s just right. Now please don’t go to making too elaborate preparations, these are all the simplest and least exacting of people, as you’ll instantly see. They want to walk, talk, have some music perhaps—ask Gay to be ready, for Mr. Tipping sings—have good meals, and in five days it will all be over, and then you and I can have some real talks and make up for lost time. Of course, if we could dance, one of the nights, that would be wonderful, in the old parlour where the Neapolitan boy is, for the ballroom’s much too big for so few. But I confess the thought of the music daunts me——”
The thought of it, however, did not daunt Flora. There was even a triumphant little smile on her face when she came to this line. A four-piece orchestra should of course come down from Boston; the square piano was wheeled into the ballroom, and two days before Sylvia’s expected arrival two men with mud and ice on their boots, and mittens crusted with ice, and red, frost-bitten faces, came out from Crowchester with a whole truckload of potted palms and shining-leafed shrubs, all boxed and sacked, tagged and crated carefully for their return trip to Boston when the festivities should be over.
Gabrielle caught the joyous excitement of it, or perhaps created it to a large extent, and in a shabby linen uniform and an old sweater of David’s rushed about with dusters and buckets, nails and strings, climbed ladders, rubbed silver, and flung herself into the preparations generally with an enthusiasm that warmed even Aunt Flora. Flora had loitered, coming out from church on the Sunday previous, and had quite composedly asked a score of the nicest young persons in Crowchester to the dance; invitations that, to Gabrielle’s surprise, were pleasantly and informally worded and invariably accepted by mothers and aunts with much appreciation. One day, when they were filling a great jar with the spreading branches that bore polished fine leaves of wild huckleberry, Flora said suddenly:
“What frocks have you, Gabrielle?”
“Well, I have my uniforms, and my new suit that I wear to church,” Gabrielle responded, readily, “and my velvet for afternoons, and my brown lace, and my three blouses.”
Flora said nothing at the time; she struggled with the branches silently, removed the rough gloves that had covered her hands, and called Daisy to sweep up the pantry floor. But later in the day she showed Gabrielle one of the wardrobes that held Sylvia’s clothes.
“It will be a small dance, of course,” she said, “and your lace dress is just from Paris, after all. But it’s possible that you might wear one of these—some of them Sylvia hasn’t had on this year.” And she drew out a limp skirt or two, a pink satin, a white net with pink roses flouncing it, a brocaded scarlet and gold.
“All the rose colours!” Gabrielle said, smiling.