II
To Madame Josephine, the modiste who sometimes comes to me with her magic touch, transforming this and that, I confided something of my plans for Calliope, asked her if she would do what she could. Her kindly, emotional nature responded to the situation as to a kind of challenge.
"Bien!" she cried. "We shall see. You say she is slim —petite– with some little grace? Bien!"
So when, next day, Calliope arrived at my house with her parcel brought forth for the first time in sixteen years, she found madame and me both tip-toe with excitement. And from some bewildering plates madame explained how she would cut and suit and "correct" mademoiselle.
"The effect shall be long, slim, excellent. Soft folds from one's waist – so. From one's shoulder – so. A line of velvet here and here and down. Bien! Mademoiselle will look younger than everyone! If mademoiselle would wave ze hair back a ver' little – so?" the French woman delicately advanced.
"Ma'moiselle," returned Calliope recklessly, "will do anything you want her to, short of a pink rose over one ear. My land, I never hed a dress before that I didn't hev to skimp the pattern and make it up less according to my taste than according to my cloth."
That day I sent to the city for a box at the opera. I chose "Faust," and smiled as I planned to sing the Jewel Song for Calliope before we went, and to laugh at her in her surprising rôle of Butterfly. "Ah, je ris de me voir si belle." A lower proscenium box, a modest suite at a comfortable hotel, a little supper, a cab – I planned it all for the pleasure of watching her; and all this would, I knew, be given its significance by the wearing of the anomalous, rosy gown. And I loved Calliope for her weakness as we love the whip-poor-will for his little catching of the breath.
On the day that our tickets came Calliope appeared before me in some anxiety.
"Calliope," I said, without observing this, "our opera box is, so to speak, here."
But instead of the light in her face that I had expected:
"What night?" she abruptly demanded.
"For 'Faust,' on Wednesday," I told her.
And instead of her delight of which I had made sure:
"Will the six-ten express get us in the city too late?" she wanted to know.
And when I had agreed to the six-ten express:
"It's all right then," she said in relief. "They can hev it a little earlier and take the six-ten themselves instead of the accommodation. Hannah and Henry's going to get married a' Wednesday," she explained. "I hev to be here for that."
Then she told me of the simple plan for Hannah Hager's marriage to her good-looking giant. Naturally, Grandma Hawley could not think of "giving Hannah a wedding," so these poor little plans had been for some time wandering about unparented.
"I wanted," Calliope said, "she should be married in the church with Virginia creeper on the pew arms, civilized. But Hannah said that'd be putting on airs and she'd be so scairt she couldn't be solemn. Mis' Postmaster Sykes, she invited her real cordial to be married in her sitting-room, but Hannah spunked up and wouldn't. 'A sitting-room weddin',' s' she to me, private, ''d be like bein' baptized in the pantry. A parlor,' s' she, ''s the only true place for a wedding. And I haven't no parlor, so we'll go to the minister's and stand up in his parlor. Do you think,' s' she to me, real pitiful, 'Henry can respec' me with no place to set m' foot in to be married but jus' the public parsonage?' Poor little thing! Her wedding-dress is nothing but a last year's mull with a sprig in, either. And her traveling-dress to go to the city is her reg'lar brown Sunday suit."
"And they are going to the minister's?" I asked.
"Well, no," Calliope answered apologetically. "I asked them to be married at my house. I never thought about the opera when I done it. I never thought about anything but that poor child. I guess you'll think I'm real flighty. But I always think when two's married in the parsonage and the man pays the minister, it's like the bride is just the groom's guest at the cer'mony. And it ain't real dignified for her, seems though."
I knew well what this meant: That Calliope would have "asked in a few" and "stirred up" this and that delectable, and gone to no end of trouble and an expense which she could ill afford. Unless, as she was wont to say: "When it comes to doing for other people there ain't such a word as 'afford.' You just go ahead and do it and keep some rational yourself, and the afford 'll sort o' bloom out right, same's a rose."
So for Hannah, Calliope had caused things to "bloom right, same's a rose," as one knew by Hannah's happy face. On Tuesday she was helping at my house ("Brides always like extry money," Calliope had advanced when I had questioned the propriety of asking her to iron on the day before her marriage) and, on going unexpectedly to the kitchen I came on Hannah with a patent flat-iron in one hand and a piece of beeswax in the other, and Henry, her good-looking giant, was there also and was frankly holding her in his arms. I liked him for his manly way when he saw me and most of all that he did not wholly release her but, with one arm about her, contrived a kind of bow to me. But it was Hannah who spoke.
"Oh, ma'am," she said shyly, "I hope you'll overlook. We've hed an awful time findin' any place to keep company, only walkin' 'round the high-school yard!"
My heart was still warm within me at the little scene as I went upstairs to see Calliope in her final fitting of the rose-pink gown, the work on which had gone on apace. And I own that, as I saw her standing before my long triple mirrors, I was amazed. The rosy gown suited the little body wonderfully and with her gray hair and delicate brightness of cheeks, she looked like some figure on a fan, exquisitely and picturesquely painted. The gown was, as Calliope had said that a gown should be, "all nice, slim lines and folds laid in in the right places, and little unexpected trimmings like you wouldn't think of having them if you wasn't real up in dress." It was a triumph for skillful madame, who had wrought with her impressionable French heart as well as with her scissors.
Calliope laughed as she looked over-shoulder in the mirrors.
"My soul," she said, "I feel like a sparrow with a new pink tail! I declare, the dress looks more like Lyddy Eider herself than it looks like me. Do you think I look enough like me so's you'd sense it was me?"
"Mademoiselle," said Madame Josephine simply, "has a look of another world."
"I wish't I could see it on somebody," Calliope said wistfully; and since I was far too tall and madame not sufficiently "slendaire," Calliope cried:
"There's Hannah! She's downstairs helping, ain't she? Couldn't Hannah come upstairs a minute and put it on? We're most of a size!"
And indeed they were, as I had noted, cast in the same mold of proportion and prettiness.
So, with madame just leaving for the city, and I obliged to go down to the village, Calliope and Hannah Hager were left alone with the rose-pink silk gown, which fitted them both. Ought I not to have known what would happen?
And yet it came as a shock to me when, an hour later, as I passed Calliope's gate on my way home, she ran out and stood before me in some unusual excitement.
"Do they take back your opera boxes?" she demanded.
"No," I assured her, "they do not. Nor," I added suspiciously, "do folk take back their promises, you know, Calliope!"
"Well," she said miserably, "I expec' I've done wrong by you. The righter you try to do by some folks seems 's though the wronger it comes down on others. Oh," she cried, "I wish't I always knew what was right! But I can't go to the opera and I can't sit in the box. Yes, sir – I guess you'll think I'm real flighty and I dunno but what I am. But I've give my pink silk dress to Hannah Hager for her wedding. And I've lied some. I've said I meant she should hev it all along!"
III
The news that Calliope was to "give Hannah Hager a wedding" was received in Friendship with unaffected pleasure. Every one liked the tireless little thing, and those who could do so sent something to Calliope's house for a wedding-gift. These things Calliope jealously kept secret, intending not to let Hannah see them until the very hour of the ceremony. But when on Wednesday, some while before the appointed time, I went to the house, Calliope took me to the dining-room where the gifts were displayed.
"Some of 'em's real peculiar," she confided; "some of 'em's what I call pick-up presents – things from 'round the house, you know. Mis' Postmaster Sykes she sent over the rug with the running dog on, and she's hed it in her parlor in a dark corner for years an' Hannah must have cleaned it many's the time. Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss sent her old drop-leaf mahogany table, being she's got a new oak. The Liberty girls sent two of their chickens, live, for the wedding lunch, and I dassent to kill them – I'm real queer like that – so I hed to send for the groom, and he run up noon-hour and done it. And so on. But quite a few things are new – the granite iron and the drip coffee-pot and the sweeper's all new. And did you hear what Gramma Hawley done? Drew five dollars of her burial money out of the savings bank and give it to Hannah right out. You know how Gramma fixed it – she had Zittelhof figger up her funeral expenses and she banked the sum, high and dry, and left herself just bare enough to live on coming in. But now she drew the five out and give Zittelhof to understand he'd hev to skimp some on her coffin. Hannah told me, crying like a child at the i-dee."
Calliope paused impressively, and shook her head at space.
"But wouldn't you have thought," she demanded, "that Lyddy Eider might have give Hannah a little something to wear? One of her old dresses for street would have sent Hannah cloud-high, and over. I s'pose you heard what she did send? Mis' Postmaster Sykes run over to tell me. A man from the city come up by trolley sense noon to-day, bringing a rug from Lyddy. Well, of course a rug's a rug," Calliope admitted, "but it ain't a dress, seem's though. Hannah knows about Gramma's an' Lyddy's, but she don't know a word about the other presents. I do admire a surprise."
As for me, I, too, love a surprise. And that was why I had sent to the station a bag packed for both Calliope and me; and I meant, when the wedding guests should have gone, to take no denial, but to hurry Calliope into her "black grosgrain with the white turnovers," and with her to catch the six-ten express as we had planned aforetime. For pink silk might appear and disappear, but "Faust" would still be "Faust."
There were ten guests at Hannah's wedding, friends of hers and of Henry's, pleasantly excited, pleasantly abashed.
"And not one word do they know about the pink silk," Calliope whispered me. "Hannah's going to come with it on – I let her take my tan ulster to wear over her, walking through the streets, so. Do you know," she said earnestly, "if it wasn't for disappointing you I wouldn't feel anything but good about that dress?"
"Ah, well, I won't be disappointed," I prophesied confidently.
Grandma Hawley was last to arrive. And the little old woman was in some stress of excitement, talking incessantly and disconnectedly; but this we charged to the occasion.
"My head ain't right," she said. "It ain't been right for a while back – it hums and rings some. When I went in the room I thought it was my head the matter. I thought I didn't see right. But I did – I did, Hannah said I did. My head felt some better this mornin', an' that was there, just the same. I thought I'd be down flat on my back when I got m' feet wet, but I'd be all right if m' head wa'n't so bad. I must tell Hannah what I done. Why don't Hannah come?"
Hannah was, as a matter of fact, somewhat late at her wedding. We were all in some suspense when we saw her at last, hurrying up the street with Henry, who had gallantly called to escort her; and Calliope and I went to the door to meet her.
But when Hannah entered in Calliope's tan ulster buttoned closely about her throat, she was strangely quiet and somewhat pale and her eyes, I was certain, were red with weeping.
"Is Gramma here?" she asked at once, and, at our answer, merely turned to hurry upstairs where Calliope and I were to adjust the secret wedding-gown and fasten a pink rose in her hair. And, as we went, Henry added still further to our anxiety by calling from the gay little crowd about him a distinctly soothing:
"Now, then. Now, then, Hannah!"
Up in Calliope's tiny chamber Hannah turned and faced us, still with that manner of suppressed and escaping excitement. And when we would have helped with the ulster she caught at its collar and held it about her throat as if, after all, she were half minded to depart from the place and let her good-looking giant be married alone.
"Oh, Miss Marsh, ma'am," she said, trembling, "oh, Miss Marsh. I can't dare tell you what I done."
With that she broke down and cried, and Calliope promptly took her in her arms, as I think that she would have liked to take the whole grieving world. And now, as she soothed her, she began gently to unbutton the tan ulster, and Hannah let her take it off. But even the poor child's tears had not prepared us for what was revealed.
Hannah had come to her wedding wearing, not the rose-pink silk, but the last year's mull "with the sprig in."
"Well, sir!" cried Calliope blankly. "Well, Hannah Hager – "
The little maid sat on the foot of the bed, sobbing.
"Oh, Miss Marsh, ma'am," she said, "you know – don't you know, ma'am? – how I was so glad about the dress you give me't I was as weak as a cat all over me. All las' night in the evenin' I was like a trance an' couldn't get my supper down, an' all. An' Gramma, she was over to Mis' Sykes's to supper an' hadn't seen it. An' Gramma an' I sleep together, an' I went an' spread the dress on the bed, an' I set side of it till Henry come. An' I l-left it there to hev him go in an' l-look at it. An' we was in the kitchen a minute or two first. An' nex' we knew, Gramma, she stood in the inside door. An' I thought she was out of her head she was so wild-like an' laughin' an' cryin'. An' she set down on a chair, an' s' she: 'He's done it. He's done it. He's kep' his word. Look – look on my bed,' s' she, 'an' see if I ain't seen it right. Abe Hawley,' s' she, 'he's sent me my pink silk dress he wanted to, out o' the grave!'"
Hannah's thin, rough little hands were clinched on her knee and her eyes searched Calliope's face.
"Oh, Miss Marsh, ma'am," she said, "she was like one possessed, beggin' me to look at it an' tell her if it wasn't so. She thought mebbe it might be her head. So I went an' told her the dress was hers," the little maid sobbed. "I was scairt she'd make herself sick takin' on so. An' afterwards I couldn't a-bear to tell her any different. Ma'am, if you could 'a' seen her! She took her rocker an' set by the bed all hours, kind o' gentlin' the silk with her hands. An' she wouldn't go to bed an' disturb it off, an' I slep' on the dinin'-room lounge with the shawl over me. An' this m-mornin' she went on just the same. An' after dinner Lyddy sent a man from town with a rug for me, an' I set on the back stoop so's not to see him, I was cryin' so. An' when I come in Gramma hed shut the bedroom door an' gone. I couldn't trust me even to l-look in the bedroom for fear I'd put it on. An' I couldn't take it away from her – I couldn't. Not with all she's done for me, an' the five dollars an' all. Oh, Miss Marsh, ma'am – " Hannah ended helplessly.
It seemed to me that I had never known Calliope until that moment.
"Gracious," she said to Hannah calmly, "crying that way for a little pink silk dress, and Henry waiting for you downstairs! Wipe up your eyes this instant minute, Hannah, and get to 'I will'!"
I think that this attitude of Calliope's must have tranquillized the wildest. In spite of the reality of the tragedy, it was no time at all until, having put the pink rose in Hannah's hair, anyway, Calliope and I led the little bride downstairs. For was there not a reality of happiness down there?
"After all, Henry was marrying you and not the dress, you know," Calliope reminded her on the landing.
"That's what he keeps a-sayin'," consented Hannah with a wan little smile, "but oh, ma'am – " she added, for Hannah was all feminine.
And when the "I will" had been said, I loved the little creature for taking Grandma Hawley in her arms.
"Did they tell you what I done?" the old woman questioned anxiously when Hannah kissed her. "I was savin' it to tell you, an' it went out o' my head. An' I dunno – did you know what I done?" she persisted.
But the others crowded forward with congratulation and, as was their fashion, with teasing; and presently I think that even the rosy gown was forgotten in Hannah's delight over her unexpected gifts. The graniteware, the sweeper, the rug with the running dog – after all, was ever any one so blessed?
And as I watched them – Hannah and her great, good-looking adoring giant – I who, like Calliope, love a surprise, caught a certain plan by its shining wings and held it close. They say that when one does this such wings bear one away – and so it proved.
I found my chance and whispered my plan to Hannah, half for the pastime of seeing the quickening color in her cheek and the light in her eyes. Then I told the giant, chiefly for the sake of noting how some mischievous god smote him with a plague of blushes. And they both consented – and that is the way when one clings to the wings of a plan.
So it came about that in the happy bustle of the parting, as Hannah in her "regular brown Sunday suit" went away on Henry's arm, they two and I exchanged glances of pleasant significance. Then, when every one had gone, I turned to Calliope with authority.
"Put on," I bade her, "your black grosgrain silk with the white turnovers – and mind you don't slit it up the back seam!"
"I'm a-goin' to do my dishes up," said Calliope. "Can't you set a spell and talk it over?"
"Hurry," I commanded, "or we shall miss the six-ten express!"
"What do you mean?" she asked in alarm.
"Leave everything," said I. "There's a box waiting for us at the opera to-night. And supper afterward."
"You ain't – " she said tremulously.
"I am," I assured her firmly, "and so are you. And Hannah and Henry are going with us. Hurry!"
IV
"He promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons"
is, in effect, the spirit of the "Ah, je ris de me voir si belle" of "Marguerite" when she opens the casket of jewels. As we sat, the four of us, in the dimness of the opera box – Calliope in her black silk with the white turnovers, Hannah in her "regular brown Sunday suit," and Henry and I, it seemed to me that Marguerite's song was really concerning the delight of rose-pink silk. And I found myself grieving anew for the innocent hopes that had been dissolved, immaterial as Abe Hawley's message from the grave.
Then the curtain fell on the third act and the soft thunder of applause spent itself and the lights leaped up. And immediately I was aware of a conspicuously high-pitched voice at the door of the box, a voice which carried with it some consciousness of elaborate self-possession.
"Really!" said the voice. "Of all people! My dear Hannah – and Calliope Marsh! You butterflies – "
I looked up, and at first all that I saw was a gown which "laid smooth down – and then all to once it'd slimpse into folds, soft as soft – and didn't pucker nor skew nor hang wrong"; a gown that was "dressmaker made"; a gown, in short, such as Lydia Eider "always hed on." And there beside us stood Lydia Eider herself, wearing some exquisite, priceless thing of pink chiffon and old lace, with a floating, glittering scarf on her arms.
I remember that she seemed some splendid, tropic bird alight among our nun-like raiment. A man or two, idling attendance, were rapidly and perfunctorily presented to us – one, who was Lydia's adopted brother, showing an amused cordiality to Henry. And I saw how the glasses were instantly turned from pit and boxes toward her – this girl who, with Calliope and Hannah, had been cast in one mold of prettiness and proportion and who alone of the three, as I thought, had come into her own.
And Lydia said:
"Will you tell me how on earth Grandma Hawley came to send me a pink silk dress to-day? You didn't know! But she did – on my honor. It came this afternoon by the man I sent out to you, Hannah. And so decently made – how can it have happened? Made for me too – positively I can wear it – though nearly everything I have is pink. But how did Grandma come to do it? And where did she get it? And why – "
She talked on for a little, elaborating, wondering. But I fancy that she must have thought us uncommonly stupid, for none of us had the faintest suggestion to offer. We listened, and murmured a bit about the health of Grandma Hawley, and Henry said some hesitating thanks, in which Hannah barely joined, for the wedding gift of the rug, but none of us gave evidence. And at last, with some gracious word, Lydia Eider left the box, trailing her pink chiffon skirts and saying the slight good-by which utterly forgets one.
But when she had gone, Calliope laughed, softly and ambiguously and wholly contagiously, so that Hannah, whose face had begun to pucker like a child's, unwillingly joined her. And then, partly because of Henry's reassuring, "Now then, now then, Hannah," and partly at the touch of his big hand and in the particular, delicious embarrassment which comes but once, Hannah tremulously spoke her conclusion:
"I don't care," she said, "I don't care! I'm glad– for Gramma."
Calliope sat smiling, looking, in her delicate color and frailty and the black and white of her dress, like some one on a fan, exquisitely and appropriately painted.
"I was thinking," she said brightly to Hannah, "going without a thing is some like a jumping tooth. It hurts you before-hand, but when it's gone for good all the hurt sort of eases down and peters out and can't do you any more harm."
But I think they both knew that this was not all. For some way, outside the errantry of prettiness and proportion, Calliope and Hannah too had come into their own.
I looked at Calliope, her face faintly flushed by the unwonted hour; at Hannah, rosy little bride; and at her adoring giant over whom some god had cast the usual spell of wedding blushes.
Verily, I thought, would not one say there is rose pink enough in the world for us all?
As the curtain rose again Calliope leaned toward me. "I don't believe any dress," she said, "pink silk or any other kind, ever dressed up so many folks's souls!"