“Where is Tom?” Anne asked, as we reached the foot of the stairs. “Gone ahead to fix things,” was the answer. But he was not there. At the top of the last flight I stopped, dumb with amazement; the roof had been transformed, enchanted. It was a fairy-land of lights and foliage and colors. I had to stop and rub my eyes. From the bleakness of a tin roof in February to the brightness and greenery of a July roof garden!
“You were the immediate inspiration, Kit,” Dallas said. “Harbison thought your headache might come from lack of exercise and fresh air, and he has worked us like nailers all day. I’ve a blister on my right palm, and Harbison got shocked while he was wiring the place, and nearly fell over the parapet. We bought out two full-sized florists by telephone.”
It was the most amazing transformation. At each corner a pole had been erected, and wires crossed the roof diagonally, hung with red and amber bulbs. Around the chimneys had been massed evergreen trees in tubs, hiding their brick-and-mortar ugliness, and among the trees tiny lights were strung. Along the parapet were rows of geometrical boxwood plants in bright red crocks, and the flaps of a crimson and white tent had been thrown open, showing lights within, and rugs, wicker chairs, and cushions.
Max raised a glass of benedictine and posed for a moment, melodramatically.
“To the Wilson roof garden!” he said. “To Kit, who inspired; to the creators, who perspired; and to Takahiro—may he not have expired.”
Every one was very gay; I think the knowledge that tomorrow Aunt Selina might be with them urged them to make the most of this last night of freedom. I tried to be jolly, and succeeded in being feverish. Mr. Harbison did not come up to enjoy what he had wrought. Jim brought up his guitar and sang love songs in a beautiful tenor, looking at Bella all the time. And Bella sat in a steamer chair, with a rug over her and a spangled veil on her head, looking at the boats on the river—about as soft and as chastened as an an acetylene headlight.
And after Max had told the most improbable tale, which Leila advised him to sprinkle salt on, and Dallas had done a clog dance, Bella said it was time for her complexion sleep and went downstairs, and broke up the party.
“If she only give half as an much care to her immortal soul,” Anne said when she had gone, “as she does to her skin, she would let that nice Harbison boy alone. She must have been brutal to him tonight, for he went to bed at nine o’clock. At least, I suppose he went to bed, for he shut himself in the studio, and when I knocked he advised me not to come in.”
I had pleaded my headache as an excuse for avoiding Aunt Selina all day, and she had not sent for me. Bella was really quite extraordinary. She was never in the habit of putting herself out for any one, and she always declared that the very odor of a sick room drove her to Scotch and soda. But here she was, rubbing Aunt Selina’s back with chloroform liniment—and you know how that smells—getting her up in a chair, dressed in one of Bella’s wadded silk robes, with pillows under her feet, and then doing her hair in elaborate puffs—braiding her gray switch and bringing it, coronet-fashion, around the top of her head. She even put rice powder on Aunt Selina’s nose, and dabbed violet water behind her ears, and said she couldn’t understand why she (Aunt Selina) had never married, but, of course, she probably would some day!
The result was, naturally, that the old lady wouldn’t let Bella out of her sight, except to go to the kitchen for something to eat for her. That very day Bella got the doctor to order ale for Aunt Selina (oh, yes; the doctor could come in; Dal said “it was all a-coming in, and nothing going out”) and she had three pints of Bass, and learned to eat anchovies and caviare—all in one day.