“Well, there’s one thing sure, it never in all its Vineclad life saw anything like you, Mrs. Lynette Garden, who-can’t-possibly-be-our-mother!” declared Jane.
“Some of our guests will adore you, and some of them will detest you; your gown is too magnificent for a small place like Vineclad to stop halfway,” said Mary, displaying her understanding of small places. “Of course our own friends will be in raptures over you,” she added, seeing her mother’s face cloud.
A carpet rug had been spread at one end of the lawn side of the garden; on this Mrs. Garden, her daughters, and Mrs. Moulton were to stand to receive the guests. The invitations had run “from five to nine.” This allowed the heat of the day to be over when the first guests came, and it gave three hours of sunset light to show the beauty of the scene at its best, and one hour in which the Japanese lanterns, hung from tree to tree throughout the great garden, might burn to transform it into fairyland for the close of the garden festival. It was funny to see the arrival of the guests. Vineclad held certain families, like the Moultons and the Gardens themselves, which for generations had been accustomed to the best society, at home and abroad; but the majority of its citizens were the average small-town type, upright, good people, refined in taste and principles, ambitious to grasp opportunity as it was offered to them, but wholly inexperienced in the ways and standards of a larger, better-equipped world.
When these women, in their “best dresses,” eloquent of the home use of paper patterns, secure, most of them, in being silk, decorated with a fichu of machine-made lace, came up to greet the Garden girls and be presented to the princess who looked scarcely older than they, and yet was introduced to them as “my mother,” their faces were a study. The struggle between diffidence, pride, and amazement was so easily read that Mrs. Garden grew younger every instant, finding herself once more taking part in a play, and the rôle assigned to her far from easy.
But Florimel, with her overflowing fun, Mary, with her sweetness and tact, beloved as she was by the entire community, high and low, threw themselves into the task of entertaining, and were seconded by some of their girl friends and some older ones, and most of all by Win, who knew precisely how to set everybody at ease and to make them forget themselves in a laugh. Jane never could be at her best in a crowd, so she stayed at her post beside her mother, leaving the entertaining to the others.
The people whom Mrs. Garden had known when she had lived her brief married life in Vineclad came later than the others and instantly Mrs. Garden renewed her slight acquaintance with them, chatting and laughing so prettily that they were enchanted with her. Jane, close at her elbow, made mental notes of how to be a social success.
The refreshments were delicious, the young waitresses served them deftly, Anne and Abbie directing them, and to their boundless relief, the Garden girls saw that all their guests were, at last, having a thoroughly good time. Win and Mark commanded a selected force of young men, or big boys, as one liked better to regard them, and lighted the lanterns when the last radiance of the beautiful June afterglow faded away. Ray by ray the myriad little lights began to gleam over the garden, made more vast, and transformed into mystery, by the deep shadows waving between these stationary fireflies, swinging with their particoloured shapes in all directions. The guests knew that they were expected to go, but still lingered, entranced by the beauty of the scene which the sunset had made lovely beyond words, but which the lanterns now, beneath the stars, revealed in a new and more fascinating beauty.
“If only I could sing! Can’t you start them singing, Jane?” whispered Mrs. Garden.
Always ready to sing, Jane raised her voice, and from all over the great garden the chorus joined her, till at last, realizing that they were exceeding the time limit of their invitations by almost an hour, the guests sang the good-night song: “Good-night, Ladies,” and melted away.
With one of her characteristic changes of mood the tears ran down Mrs. Garden’s cheeks in the shadow of the tree against which she leaned, and fell on her glorious gown. She could no longer sing; she was so tired; she had had a happy time; the garden was full of sweet odours, brought out by the night; it was all wonderful, mysterious, lovely—and she could no longer sing! Mary, quick to see every movement of her new, absorbing charge, noted the droop of her body and went to her, slipping both arms around her mother’s slender waist.