During those effervescent moods of abandon which fairly intoxicated all those who saw Thurley under their spell—back in the Corners—she had always rushed down to the emporium and coaxed Dan away on a frolic—a picnic, if summer, or skating, if winter. They would sit, these two, on the porch of a deserted lake mansion dreaming dreams of a lyric quality with a sincerity which made both the boy and the girl the better for having dreamed them! Thurley would weave garlands of wild flowers—Dan gathering them—and she would come home to Betsey Pilrig, her cheeks like roses and her eyes like stars, singing a spring song and causing Betsy to lapse into Ali Baba’s favorite expression, “Land sakes and Mrs. Davis—Thurley, be you from another world?”
The joyous moods, these days, came very seldom. To some degree they happened when Ernestine told her that Hobart was pleased with her progress or when Polly Harris kissed her and said she was a little sister to the great; some faint imitation of them was experienced when Caleb took her motoring and told her his humorous troubles or when she went with Miss Clergy and Hobart to the first opera—“Rigoletto”—and saw with the grave, conceited eyes of youth herself outshining the present Gilda—herself standing with outstretched arms to acknowledge the applause. The wild joy was felt for half an instant when Collin Hedley said he would paint the infant before her début—there would be no fun at all in painting her when she was famous and unapproachable, waving engagement tablets at a mere artist.
Thurley came to realize clearly the difference in the inspiration of her joy—the joy which had been her solace during the gray, hungry days of childhood. In Birge’s Corners supreme mirth came from smell of new mown hay, with sunshine sparkling all about, or the summer breeze kissing the little curls at the delicious nape of her white, soft neck—it was generated by the discovery of the first violets or the exhilaration of a skating party with Dan, by some baby’s laughing face or Betsey’s pleased smile—and most of all by Dan’s ardor. Thurley told herself with almost shamed admission that her values had changed.
But if Thurley changed quickly during the winter, Miss Clergy stayed the same feeble, at times querulous, ghost lady, always willing for Thurley to go to places without her, trusting the girl as one would trust a matron, content, now that she had roused from her neurotic lethargy, to lapse into a semi-doze with a vigilant eye for only two things—to have Thurley succeed as a spinster and to have no one become personally acquainted with her own withered self lest memories be unearthed over which she mourned in vain.
So Thurley came and went at will and the family became used to the fact that the infant’s benefactress was a “character.” For that matter the family themselves were characters with pet “phobias” and hobbies and theories, to say nothing of scars, cotton-wooled and well protected from the bromidic world.
It was Christmas week when Thurley experienced a savage mood—anger really the stimulus—for she had bought a supply of frocks and hats preparatory to the “family’s” Christmas festivities when Ernestine wrote her a note from Chicago, where she was playing engagements, saying that she would not be home until January and she was writing before Christmas purposely because she never had believed in the holiday and neither gave nor accepted gifts; therefore she wished the child-Thurley all good things and to work as hard as she could; she would see her within a few weeks.
The savage mood began to manifest itself as Thurley read the careless note. Like the writer, its force and decision were unquestionable. Thurley had prepared gifts for all members of the family in the same impulsive fashion as for every one she had loved back at the Corners. She went to the bureau drawer and opened it to examine them—they seemed garish and absurd. She was not yet at the topnotch of fame which allows one to do whatsoever one will and have it accepted. If she had made her début and chosen to present Ernestine Christian with one of those gilded rolling pins with a regiment of hooks which hung on the doors of many of the best families in the Corners, it would have been received in resigned silence. As it was, the purse she had chosen for Ernestine was probably not at all what she would have liked; Thurley would give it to the room maid instead. She would think it quite wonderful and carry it for shopping or Sunday mass!
She looked at the handkerchiefs she had for Polly Harris—but Polly would probably make some sarcastic squib at their expense and never be seen with one protruding from her smock pocket. No, the handkerchiefs would do for the social secretary and the antique leather box for Caleb she would press upon the gymnast, while the book on art originally intended for Collin would be relegated to the scrap heap! Thurley laughed aloud as she thought of giving Collin a book on art—when Collin, foremost portrait painter in America, had written a book on art which was used as an authority by the younger school ... well, it had not been so very long since she had bought her gifts at Dan’s store with Dan refusing her money and had done them up in white tissue and the reddest of red ribbon, flying about like a good fairy on Christmas Eve to leave them at doorsteps! After re-reading Ernestine’s note, Thurley came to the conclusion that Christmas was not for those afflicted with exaggerated ego but merely for those who held good jobs.
She had bought no present for Sam Sparling or Mark Wirth, the latter still abroad, and as for Bliss Hobart, her fingers fearfully touched the carved idol—a metal Buddha mounted on teakwood. Why she had selected it, after endless excursions to endless shops, Thurley did not know—perhaps it was because she had never seen one in his office where there was everything else under the sun from a Filipino kris to a bibelot which had belonged to Marie Antoinette. Or perhaps there was another reason—at any rate, she had recklessly bought the idol and sacrificed her spending money for a month to come, blushing furiously each time she planned what to write on the accompanying card.
She could hardly give the Buddha to a bellboy and she had purchased black gloves for Miss Clergy, the presents for Betsey, Ali Baba and Hopeful being on their way.