Poppea of the Post-Office

by Mabel Osgood Wright

The ladies themselves could hardly have told when the thinning iron-gray hair had been first subtly concealed, and then replaced by a wig of its own exact shade; nor did they know that he had abandoned billiards at the club in favor of whist or piquet, because following the course of the red or white balls over the vivid green cloth with eyes slow to focus had twice given him a fit of vertigo. As for riding, Oliver Gilbert, hip-crippled as he was, could still throw himself across the old white horse and follow the cow to its hill pasture, while the very thought of riding made William Esterbrook dizzy; so wide apart is the life natural from the life artificial.

The afternoon reception, Poppea found, was to be general, the Bridgeton band supplying outdoor music; the evening function, an affair in costume combined of music, dancing, and a half-dozen tableaux of the seasons. To the latter the residents of the hill and their guests, together with the Feltons' more intimate neighborhood acquaintances, were bidden.

Before leaving home, Poppea had resolved to decline Miss Emmy's invitation to the evening party. Hugh being away and also Jeanne Latimer, she was not in the mood for going among strangers, as they would largely be. Then, too, a sense of depression had hung over her of late, as she realized for the first time that the comparative luxury and special privileges that her contact with the Feltons had surrounded her, were not only not hers by right, but that at any time she must become, at least in part, the financial protector of the man who had for twenty years protected her.

Virtually she was living under false pretences when she went to the Feltons and mingled with their guests. As a child it had been different; now it must stop, and the sooner the better. She did not find it easy to carry out her resolutions at once when she found that Miss Emmy took it for granted that she would sing half a dozen of the songs that Stephen Latimer said few others could sing so well, either from point of phrasing or simple pathos. Besides, Miss Emmy argued, New York friends would be there who might help her to turn her music to account, and as for the costume, anything dainty and summerish would do. There was a chest full of old muslins and flowered organdies in the attic from which Poppea could surely select something, and Nora should help her fashion it if she herself lacked time.

Under such circumstances how could Poppea refuse those who had made music possible, as well as given all her education, even to the final lessons in French pronunciation that made the Creole songs fall from her lips in such perfection. So saying to herself, "only this once," she had gone to the attic chest in question, and selected from it a soft green muslin with embroidered fern fronds scattered over it, a relic of the days when skirts were six yards full and further amplified by three flounces; then declining Nora's help, she took it home to brood over.

As she went slowly down the stairs, the muslin gathered into a hasty bundle, Miss Emmy called to her from her morning room where she was sealing some invitations, the social secretary not, as yet, having become an institution. As she waited for the notes, Poppea, glancing idly about the room, caught sight of a colored print of Gainsborough's Mrs. Robinson as Perdita, in her pretty furbelows. This gave her an idea that once at home she quickly put into form with scissors, thread, and needle.

To the muslin bodice, made a trifle low, frills falling from the half sleeves, she added an open-fronted over-skirt, which, being caught back below the waist, gave somewhat the appearance of the print. Then, other matters calling her, she put the dress away until the day came for the party. By this time she had forgotten how Perdita had arranged her hair, and she had also discovered that the even green of the muslin looked monotonous by lamplight. Ah me, what could she do? Mrs. Shandy, being appealed to, with true bucolic British taste could suggest nothing but "red ribbons, and plenty of them, to liven of yourself up, Miss."

Walking about the room at a loss how to proceed, Poppea picked up the miniature of her "little mother" as she called her to herself, that other Poppea with the wreath of fragile summer poppies in her hair. It had become almost a habit, this looking at the picture in moments of perplexity either serious or trivial, as though the laughing eyes and parted lips could in some way respond. In this instance, the reply, though indirect, was instantaneous.

"The poppies twisted in the hair and bunched at the neck; could anything be better!" cried Poppea, "and the garden is full of the fall sown ones, open and in bud. Frail as they are, if I pick buds this morning and put them in water in the bright sun, they will be open by afternoon and keep open if I do not let them see the dark. The leaves are the color of the muslin, only of a lighter shade. Thank you, little mother!"

As Poppea dressed that evening, taking the flowers that she had transferred from sun to lamplight to put in her hair when she arrived, she again turned to the miniature, talking to it as if it were a person.