All that evening amid the babble of voices and din of violins, pianos and cornets, while girls in gorgeous raiment sat beneath Father's picture between dances with their partners on the top stair of the landing, and just below men gathered around the punch-bowl; while Edith and Ruth shone in jewels, and old Dave Campbell blatantly exhibited the latest improvements in the house to all his friends, Father looked down upon it all from his lofty position silently, disapprovingly, a look of censure in his eyes that I couldn't seem to escape. My little hour of triumph was snuffed out by Father's gaze like a candle in a tempest; my sudden self-satisfaction, my burst of eager joy in prosperity and position, born to feel the throb of life but for an hour.
I didn't enjoy the dance. I couldn't. I tried once or twice to "enter in," but it was masquerade. There had been champagne served at the supper. Girls as well as men were full of the spirit of mad merry-making. Everybody was having a glorious time—everybody but me. I hated the hilarious laughter. I don't mean to imply that any one became intoxicated, I don't think they did exactly, but just the same the whole affair seemed to me like a debauch going on in my father's house beneath his very eyes. I stole up to the landing about eleven o'clock when the music was still shrieking, Ruth's cheeks burning with excitement, Oliver laughing so loudly that I could hear him above the music, and switched off the lights above Father's picture. He shouldn't look on at such festivities—mute, unable to speak his mind, tied there in his chair, helpless and forgotten—he shouldn't if I could help it!
Late that same night—or it must have been the next morning—anyway after every one was quiet, and the house was finally dark I stole out of my room and crept quietly down on the landing. The house was dead still. I heard the big clock with the chimes strike a half-hour, and a second after all the other clocks reply. I was in my nightgown wrapped around with an eiderdown bath-robe. I found my way stealthily to the little button behind the portrait. I pushed it. There was a little click and suddenly Father was before me! I went back and sat down on the lowest stair, close up to the railing, and looked up into his comforting eyes. No one had known that I had spent the last six dances shut up in my room. No one had missed me. I had had a horrid time, but no one cared.
There were the remains of the orgy of the night before scattered all about Father's feet—a discarded bunch of violets, a torn piece of chiffon, a half a macaroon, a girl's handkerchief. As I sat there and wondered how Ruth and the twins and Alec could all go peacefully to sleep, unmindful of their strict and rigid bringing-up, forgetful of Father left here in the midst of the confusion of the things he preached against, I heard from somewhere, way off, a queer long laugh. I listened intently, and in a moment I could catch the rumble of voices from behind closed doors. I wondered who could be awake at such an hour, when a door opened downstairs, and as plain and distinct as day, a man's voice exclaimed, "Come on, boys, we'll have to carry old Ol up. Lend a hand, one of you chaps who can walk straight, and don't make any noise. Wake up, Oliver, old pal. We're going to bed." I heard a horrid guttural sort of rejoinder from Oliver, and I shuddered. Some of the men must have been sitting up in the dining-room and drinking! I knew, oh, I knew now, that Oliver must be intoxicated! I was in my nightgown. There was no time to turn out the lights over Father's picture, to shield Father from the awful sight of his son, drunk—horridly, helplessly drunk, being carried upstairs to bed. I glanced up at Father shining there in his frame. He was looking straight down the long broad stairway. In another minute Oliver and Father would meet face to face. I turned and fled back to my room.
CHAPTER XV
FOUR months later. Twelve o'clock at night. Wrapped up in my eiderdown bath-robe. Sitting at my desk.
It is midnight. I cannot sleep. I have been lying wide awake, listening to a strong April wind, howling around the corner of the house, for two hours! I've repeated the twenty-third Psalm over and over again. I've imagined a flock of sheep going over a stile (though I never saw it done) for ten minutes solid. I've swallowed two Veronal tablets. It's useless. I surrender. I don't want to get up. I shall have an awful headache to-morrow, besides heavy lead weights behind my eyes; and to-morrow—to-morrow of all days—I want to be fresh and bright and as beautiful as nature can make me. Moreover, I'd rather not write. But I can't read. There has never been a book printed that could hold my thoughts to-night. My mind goes back to the events of the day like steel to a magnet. I've tried solitaire, and ended by pushing the silly cards on the floor. You see something has happened—something big and actual and real!