So it stood there, bright and new, a few hundred yards from the Elks Club—a symbol of a change that was coming slowly to pass, a sign that the women and the younger generation had grown a little weary of a world composed entirely of noise and soot and clouds of figures. Men like Judge Weissmann saw it as the beginning of the end. Judge Weissmann (himself an immigrant from Vienna) called it “a sign that the old thrifty spirit of the pioneer was passing. The old opera house was good enough for concerts and shows.” And secretly he calculated how much all that white limestone and carving had cost him in taxes.
It was into this divided world that Ellen, who had known only a community that was solid in its admiration for smoke and bigness and prosperity, returned. They were good to her, despite all the things they had to say regarding her affectations. They considered her dog (Callendar’s dog) ridiculous, and they disapproved of the uncompromising Miss Schönberg who demanded her cash guaranty for the concert almost as soon as she stepped from the train. In certain benighted circles (which is to say those not associated with the flamboyant Country Club set) it was even whispered that she drank and smoked. They wondered how gentle Miss Ogilvie received such behavior, for Ellen stayed with Miss Ogilvie, who watched her bird’s-nest parlor grow blue with the smoke of Ellen’s and Rebecca’s cigarettes without ever turning a hair. Was she not entertaining a great artist? If she herself had had the courage, might not she have been smoking cigarettes and drinking champagne? Had she herself not failed because she was afraid of what people would say? None of them knew the spirit of rebellion, smoldering for so many years, that now leapt into flame beneath the mauve taffeta dress which she wore every day during Ellen’s visit.
The bird’s-nest parlor, with all its pampas grass and coral and curios, must have set fire to strange memories in the breast of Ellen. She sat again in the same chair where she had sat, abashed but proud, awkward yet possessed of her curious dignity, on the night of the elopement. The little room was filled with memories of Clarence. She must have seen him again as he had been on that first night (so lost now in the turmoil of all that had gone between) ... sitting there, frightened of old Harvey Seton, ardent and excited in his choked, inarticulate fashion, a man who even then had seemed a little ridiculous and pitiful.
And once Miss Ogilvie had summoned him to life when she said to Ellen, “Poor Mr. Murdock. If only he could be here to see your success.”
The little old woman had the best intentions in the world. The meager speech was born of sympathy and kindness alone. She could not have known that each word had hurt Ellen intolerably. Poor Clarence! He would not have liked it. It would have made him even more insignificant and wretched. The husband of Ellen Tolliver. That’s what I’ll be! The words echoed ironically in her ears. And Clarence had never known Lilli Barr, who was born years after he died.... Lilli Barr who had nothing to do with poor Clarence. So far as the world was concerned he had never existed at all.
She had her triumph. There were set floral pieces with the words “Welcome Home” worked in carnations and pansies. And there was a welcoming speech by Mrs. McGovern, president of the Sorosis Club (who had downed Cousin Eva Barr only after a fierce struggle for the honor). And they had cheered her. It was a triumph and in a poor, inadequate fashion it satisfied her. But she was not sure that it was worth all the pain.
She did not go into the empty, echoing rooms of Shane’s Castle. She saw it, distantly, veiled in the smoke and flame of the Flats, from Miss Ogilvie’s back window on the hill, the one monument of her family in all the Town. She could not have borne it to enter alone the door which on each Christmas Day for so many years had admitted a whole procession.
And she came to understand that it was not alone the Town which she was driven relentlessly to escape. It was the Babylon Arms, Thérèse Callendar and all her world, even her own family, all save Fergus—she must escape forever any tie that bound her, any bond which gave her into possession.
On the day after the concert Miss Ogilvie gave a reception. Crowds of women and a few intimidated men thronged the tiny parlor. They passed in and out in an endless stream, until Rebecca, who could bear it no longer, invaded the virgin privacy of Miss Ogilvie’s bedroom and fell into a perfect orgy of smoking while she read Holy Living and Dying, the only book at hand to divert her. Hansi, shut in an adjoining room, howled and howled in his solitude.
Long after the winter twilight had descended, at a moment when Ellen thought she could endure the procession no longer, it began to abate and as the last guest departed she saw, coming up the neat brick walk between the lilacs and syringas, the figure of a plump dowdy woman surrounded by a phalanx of children. In truth there were but four in the phalanx but in the fading light their numbers seemed doubled. As the woman came nearer there rose about her an aura of familiarity ... something in the way she walked, coquettish and ridiculous in a woman so plump and loose of figure. And then, all at once in a sudden flash, Ellen recognized the walk. The woman was May Biggs. Years ago May had moved thus, giggling and flirting her skirts from side to side while she walked with her arm about Ellen’s waist. Only now (Ellen reflected) there was twice as much of her to wriggle and the effect was not the same.