II
Just a month later Tish telephoned one morning for Aggie and myself to go there that afternoon. There was a touch of sharpness in her manner, which with Tish usually means nervous tension.
“And put on something decent, for once,” she said. “There’s no need to look as though you were taking your old clothes for an airing, to keep out the moths.”
Tish was alone when we arrived. I could smell sponge cakes baking, and Tish had put on her mother’s onyx set and was sitting with her back to the light. She looked slightly feverish, and I commented on it, but she only said that she had been near the stove.
When she was called out, however, Aggie leaned over to me.
“Stove, nothing!” she said. “She’s painted her face! And she’s got a new transformation!”
Had Charlie Sands himself appeared wearing a toupee we could not have been more astounded. And our amazement continued when Hannah brought in a tea tray with the Carberry silver on it, silver which had been in a safe-deposit vault for twenty years.
“Hannah,” I demanded, “what is the matter?”
“She’s going to be married! That’s what,” said Hannah, putting down the tray with a slam. “No fool like an old fool!” Then she burst into tears. “She spent the whole morning in a beauty parlor,” she wailed. “Look at her finger nails! And callin’ me in to draw up her corset on her!”
Neither Aggie nor I could speak for a moment. As I have said, our dear Tish had never shown any interest in the other sex. Indeed, I think I may say that Tish’s virginity of outlook regarding herself is her strongest characteristic. It is her proud boast that no man has ever offered her the most chaste of salutes, and her simple statement as to what would happen if one did has always been a model of firmness.