There was not much more. Sylvia expressed for the twentieth time her entire delight and gratitude for all that had been done to start the house party successfully and parted from Gay with a final kiss and a few warm words about the pleasantness of having a nice little cousin in the house. It was only when the room was dark, that Gay, snuggling resolutely down against icy pillows to sleep, began to review the whole long day with that wearisome thoroughness that is a special attribute of tired, excited eighteen on a winter night.
The flowers, the dusting, the beds, the tramp in the woods, the funny old woman bunching herself along in the snow, the arrival and the tea, and the warm rooms and icy halls, and the splendid dinner and the talk——
Gay ached all over. With her eyelids actually shutting she said to herself in a panic that she was too tired to sleep.
Her big room was dark, cool, full of dim shapes; but a fan of friendly light came through the hall transom, and she could hear men’s voices somewhere, laughing and talking gruffly; David and the boys, there was nothing to fear. Outside the snow fell, whispering, tickling, piling up solemnly and steadily in the dark.
After all, it was the little old woman who had Gay’s last conscious thought. The girl started wide-awake from her first drowsing slipping into unconsciousness, with her heart hammering again, and her wild eyes roving the room for a whole frightened minute, before its familiar peace lulled her into calm again.
That writhing, shadowy white-and-gray thing, in the white-and-gray shadow of the hedge, and in the muffling softness of the curtaining snow. Horse—big dog—child—no, it was a terrible yellow-faced old woman! What a whining cry she had given! And how astonishing later had been her recognition of Flora and Margret!
Well, whether she had walked home in the blizzard or gone up the chimney on a broomstick was, after all, not Gay’s affair. But she had most assuredly not been driven in to Keyport or Crowchester by John! Gay thought that she was meeting this old forlorn, half-witted thing again in the snowy lane—but this time David was with her....
CHAPTER VIII
The rest of the house party was to her a thrilling, but too rapidly flying, dream. The young people walked, rosy and whirled and beaten and shouting with laughter, in the formidable ending of the storm the next day; they ate ravenously, laughed a great deal, and formed a whole new series of those special jokes and phrases that come into being in every successful house party. A dozen small incidents a day sent them into gales of mirth, and the recollection and recounting of these same incidents rendered everyone incoherent and hysterical at meals.
On the third day of the five the sun came out resplendent and dazzling, if not very warm, and the sea turned a clear sapphire, with jade-green lights where the chastened waves broke over the rocks. The sky was pale, high, clear, and bright as enamel, and the snow frozen hard underfoot. Skating was attempted in the old tennis-court; there was snowballing, faces grew hot, and deluges of the soft and silent cotton fell from low branches and spattered the girls’ coats and the men’s shoulders. Maids were always sweeping the mud- and snow-strewn side entry now, and hurrying away with wet wraps.