For the time being, the conversation ended while the two women, Lily in her smart suit from the Rue de la Paix and Hattie Tolliver in shiny black alpaca with apron and dustcloth, stood in the doorway reverently surveying the vast old room, so dead now and so full of memories. The rosewood chairs, shrouded like ghosts, appeared dimly in the light that filtered through the curtained windows. In the far end, before the long mirror, the piano with its shapeless covering resembled some crouching, prehistoric animal. Above the mantelpiece, the flaming Venice of Mr. Turner glowed vaguely beneath layers of dust. Cobwebs hung from the crystal chandeliers and festooned the wall sconces; and beneath the piano the Aubusson carpet, rolled into a long coil, waited like a python. The room was the mute symbol of something departed from the Town.
Silently the two women regarded the spectacle and when Lily at length turned away, her dark eyes were shining with tears. She was inexpressibly lovely, all softened now by the melancholy sight.
“I suppose it will never be opened again,” observed Mrs Tolliver in a solemn voice. “But I mean to clean it thoroughly the first time I have an opportunity. Just look at the dust.” And with her competent finger she traced her initials on the top of a lacquer table.
For a moment Lily made no reply. At last she said, “No. I suppose it is closed for good.”
“You wouldn’t come back here to live?” probed her cousin with an air of hopefulness.
“No. Why should I?” And a second later Lily added, “But how quiet it is. You can almost hear the stillness.”
Mrs. Tolliver closed the door, seizing at the same time the opportunity to polish the knobs on the hallway side. “Yes, it’s a relief not to hear the Mills. But there are other noises now ... riots and machine guns, and at night there are searchlights. Only last night the police clubbed an old woman to death at the foot of the drive. She was a Polish woman ... hadn’t been harming any one. I wonder you didn’t see the blood. It’s smeared on the gates. Irene can tell you all about it.” For a moment she polished thoughtfully; then she straightened her vigorous body and said, “But I got back at them. I gave one of the hired policeman a poke he won’t soon forget. It’s a crime the way they behave.... It’s murder. No decent community would allow it.” And she told Lily the story of the rescue at the corner saloon.
As Lily made her way up the long stairway, Mrs. Tolliver paused in her work to watch the ascending figure until it reached the top. Her large honest face was alive with interest, her eyes shining as if she now really saw Lily for the first time, as if the old Lily had been simply an illusion. The beautiful stranger climbed the stairs languidly, the long, lovely lines of her body showing through the trim black suit. Her red hair glowed in the dim light of the hallway. She was incredibly young and happy, so unbelievably fresh and lovely that Mrs. Tolliver, after Lily had disappeared at the turn of the stair, moved away shaking her head and making the clucking sound which primitive women use to indicate a disturbance of their suspicions.
And when she returned to dusting the library under the handsome, malignant face of John Shane she worked in silence, abandoning her usual habit of humming snatches of old ballads. After the Ball was Over and The Baggage Coach Ahead were forgotten. Presently, when she had finished polishing the little ornaments of jade and crystal, she fell to regarding the portrait with a profound interest. She stood thus, with her arms akimbo, for many minutes regarding the man in the picture as if he too had become a stranger to her. She discovered, it appeared, something more than a temperamental and clever old reprobate who had been indulgent toward her. Her manner was that of a person who stands before a suddenly opened door in the presence of magnificent and incomprehensible wonders.
Lily found her there when she came down-stairs.