CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Among the forgotten fashions of the years from eighteen-eighty to eighty-five was that of giving our parties, evening or afternoon, for young people or old, of whatever kind, in short, in our own homes; the easy hospitality of clubs or fashionable hotels was not yet known. Houses with double-parlours and a dining-room back were considered ideal for any sort of entertainment; and, of course, such an architectural triumph as the old Gwynne house with that splendid ballroom on the third floor, was hors concours. There was not another home in town to compare with it. Mrs. Pallinder could entertain without disturbing a single piece of the peacock-blue and old-gold furniture; she meant, however, to have the whole place floor-clothed the night of the twelfth. "I can't risk my Moquette carpets with a mob of young people tearing around all over the house, you know, my dear," she said with a smiling pretence of severity; and her guests, eying the rich scrolls and garlands underfoot, gravely acquiesced. Everywhere else, all the movables, except the bookcases and piano, were marshalled upstairs or out on the back porch. The little sofas in our parlours generally went into retirement under the stairs at the rear end of the hall. In the afternoons we were just beginning to have progressive euchres, and what we actually called "high teas." It is doubtless impossible for the mind of to-day to conceive of a society so devoid of education and good taste as to call any species of entertainment a "high tea," but such is the appalling fact. You may pick up a Journal or Evening Despatch of that date, and read not one but many notices such as this:
"At Mrs. Henderson P. Gates' high tea on Monday in the fashionable crush were observed:
Mrs. Colonel Pallinder in a toilet of ottoman silk and silk plush in two shades of electric blue, with garniture of chenille and pearl fringes, and a capote of feathers en suite.
Miss Pallinder in wine-coloured surah with sleeves and draperies of spotted silk grenadine.
Miss Ponsonby-Baxter wore a redingote of crushed-strawberry pekin opening over a brocaded front in shades of the same, with panels of——"
No, I have not the heart to go on with the gaudy details of Muriel's panels and passementerie. But I remember that dress well, and, believe it or not, she looked as nobly and placidly beautiful in the crushed-strawberry redingote as had she been draped like the Winged Victory. Mrs. Gates continued her party with a dance that same evening. "The house was all torn up anyhow," Lily Gates told us; "and mamma thought she might just as well go ahead."
Muriel and J. B., or Mr. Taylor, as she decorously called him,—he was only J. B. to college mates or others who knew him well,—were sitting out a waltz on the top step of the Henderson P. Gates' stairs. It was a long flight, turning sharply at a little landing to reach the upper hall; and the musicians penned in the alcove behind the steps on the first floor were discoursing "A Medley of Popular Airs," with admirable command of rhythm and expression. "Wh-i-te Wings," "Swee-ee-t Vi-o-lets," the sounds travelled up to them as through a chimney. There was a smothering scent of lilacs—the house had been decorated with them—and in pauses of the noise one could hear the window-panes shuddering to the assaults of successive blasts of wind and rain commingled. The spring was early that year. A discreet twilight on the top step held out opportunities for flirtation which Mazie Pallinder never would have neglected in the world; but neither J. B. nor Muriel had any notion of taking advantage of them. The girl was absorbed in a certain dilemma; her even delicate brows were slightly drawn as she studied the pattern of her fan, and wondered how she could lead, draw, drag the conversation around to the desired point. And J. B. was thinking that "Pretty Pond-lilies" was a good waltz, and if it hadn't been so hot, and Miss Baxter something of an armful to pull around—and she couldn't reverse—he would have suggested a turn. He looked at her. It would be desirable, I suppose, to record minutely what Muriel wore that night; I refer you to the columns of the Journal; but does anyone remember that full dress in the eighties—in common with dress for all occasions—comprehended those two aids to beauty, "bangs," and "bustles"? Muriel's pretty copper-brown hair was arranged in the fringe down to the eyebrows, the knot low on the nape of her neck, to which a famous stage-beauty had lately given her name; and I am afraid her black lace skirts were crinolined in the height of the fashion. But the young man thought she looked like Juno—Juno with a bustle! They had been talking about Doctor Vardaman.
"The doctor's really awfully fond of his queer old things," J. B. remarked. "If you show the least interest—and it's not put on with me, I am interested—he'll take you around, and explain to you who all the big-bugs, his ancestors in the portraits were, and what they did, and tell you about his first editions, and the old wine he's got laid away, and the autograph-letters to his grandfather from Benjamin Franklin and all the rest of it."
"How odd!" said Muriel.
"Yes, I suppose it's funny to you, but you see over here we don't have all that the way you do. People aren't used to seeing it about them all the time. I expect that's the reason Huddesley fits in with the doctor so well; he cares for everything and understands—the way old family-servants do in novels you know. He's so English——"
"No, he isn't," said Muriel decidedly. "You think so, but none of you know. Nobody talks like that at home."
"Well, not nice people of course, but servants——"