The Merivale banks

by Mary Jane Holmes

The Grey house was the centre of many gatherings where hospitality was dispensed with a liberal hand, and all who chose to come were welcome. But there were few parties or receptions, and when it was rumored that Mrs. White was intending to give one, the town awoke to great activity of speculation as to who would be invited and who slighted. Somehow the news got abroad that only those who called upon the guests were to be honored, and at once the tide set in toward the White house, where there were more calls made and more cards left than had been left and made in a year. Mrs. White was very reserved in manner and had no intimate friends. She had her days when she was at home to those who chose to call. Sometimes three or four came, and sometimes none, and she was equally pleased either way, as she preferred the quiet of her own room to society, if she were expected to exert herself. On the two occasions when as president she had felt obliged to entertain the Guild, and Herbert, who was socially inclined, had invited everybody, she had been greatly bored and scandalized by the crowd which came, glad of a chance to see the inside of the grand house and say they had been there. She did not suppose there were so many common people in the Episcopal Church, she said. She thought they belonged somewhere else, and after she resigned her office as president of the Guild she withdrew from it and thus freed herself from the obligation to entertain it again. And still she liked the bustle and excitement of watering places and fashionable life—if she could be in it and not of it—could see it go on, and not feel obliged to talk to anyone unless she chose to do so.

People called her proud, and Herbert called her indolent, and she was both. Now, however, with the advent of the Lansings she roused up and opened all her treasures. They dined in the state dining-room. The best silver and glass and linen were brought out. The carriage and horses stood at the door at all hours. She went to Worcester and interviewed the best caterer and the best florist there, and then with Herbert sat down to address the invitations for the party which was to astonish the people in Merivale, and so far eclipse a little party which Mrs. Grey had given the previous winter that people who attended it would never know they had been there. To this gathering Mrs. White had not been bidden, as Mrs. Grey had confined her invitations to those to whom she was indebted, or who had been polite to her. Mrs. White would have scorned to acknowledge that she cared for being left out. “Why should I be invited?” she had said to Herbert, who was expressing his surprise and saying he knew there was a mistake, “Why should I be, when I scarcely know Mrs. Grey?”

“It is your fault and loss, too,” Herbert replied, while his father, who was present, chimed in, “Invited by the Greys, who used to live in White’s Row with Nancy Sharp! I’d laugh! They have come up like mushrooms, the Lord only knows how, but I can guess. I consider it a compliment not to be invited to their blow-out. Music from Springfield, with a caterer and flowers by the bushel! Must have cost him a pretty sum, decorator and all!”

“They did not have a decorator,” Herbert had said. “Louie did it herself. She has more taste than half the decorators in the country, and they say the party was elegant every way, and Mr. and Mrs. Grey were ideal host and hostess. I wish I had been there, but young folks like me were not in it.”

“Glad you wasn’t. I believe you are Grey mad, and everybody else, but I tell you I won’t have it! No, sir, I won’t have it!” The judge growled as he left the house.

This was in the winter, and not long after the Grey party, which had been much talked of as recherché in every respect. Notwithstanding what the judge and Mrs. White had said, their slight had secretly rankled and increased their prejudice against the Greys. And now that the White party was in progress, there was a chance not only to retaliate, but to outdo all the Greys had done.

“If we are to have a blow-out we’ll do it brown and beat the Greys. The idea! That one-horse banker riding over my head!” the judge said to his wife when discussing the matter with her. “If the Greys had their truck from Springfield, do you go to Boston or Worcester, and get the best there is to be had. Don’t stop at prices. Did the Grey’s have a brass band? No, only a string for dancing? Then we will have a brass—two if you like. Beat the Greys anyhow! That’s all I ask. Judge White is good for any amount. We haven’t had a party for years, and the Lansings don’t come every day.”

This was the judge’s attitude, with which his wife sympathized to a certain extent. She really had more good sense than her husband, but she was largely dominated by his opinion, and when she at last sat down with Herbert to direct the cards of invitation, two facts were prominent to her mind. Her party was to surpass that of the Greys, and the Greys were not to be invited. “We will take the townspeople first,” she said, and began to read the names upon her list, hesitating over some and crossing some out as not quite worthy to meet the Lansings.

Herbert had jotted down several names, which he submitted to his mother, and among them were those of two Sheldon girls in the country, who, he said, were good dancers and ought to be invited. Mrs. White shook her head. She did not know the Sheldons. She had already exceeded the limit set at first to her invitations, and had drawn the line on all country people except the Gibsons, whose son had called on Fred, with whom he had been in college. The Sheldons were thrown into the wastepaper basket, with others who had preceded them, and Mr. and Mrs. and Miss Grey were next suggested.

“Certainly not,” his mother said, more decidedly than she had to the Sheldons. “I scarcely know Mrs. Grey, and have never been in her house, nor has she been here, and your father has a strong dislike to Mr. Grey.”