CHAPTER VIII
The Party
Nobody knew how anybody got dressed for the party, and certainly nobodytook any dinner to speak of. It was laid in the morning-room, and Mr.Leighton said throughout that roystering meal that never again, nomatter how many ribs Cuthbert broke or how much sympathy he excited,would he allow them to have a party.
The occasion became memorable, not only because of Cuthbert or themayonnaise, or the Dudgeons, but because on that night Robin Meredithappeared. Mabel and Jean lately had already in quite a practical mannerbegun to wonder whom Mabel would be obliged to marry. Jean was gettingvery tall, and showed signs of being so near the grown-up stage herself,that she was anxious to see Mabel disposed of, so as to leave the wayclear.
"The eldest of four ought to look sharp," she declared; "we can't allowany trifling."
This seemed rather overwhelming treatment of Mabel, who was onlyseventeen. But viewed from that age, even a girl of twenty-one issometimes voted an old maid, and Mabel was quite determined not tobecome an old maid.
"There seems to be only George Maclean," she had sighed in a dismal way.She was quite different from Elma, who continually dreamed of a duke.George Maclean would do very well for Mabel, only, as Jean complained,"George Maclean is a gentleman and all that kind of thing, but he has noprospects." So they rather disposed of George Maclean, for immediatepurposes at least. Then came Mr. Meredith. After that, in the languageof the Leightons, it was all up with Mabel. She would simply have toget engaged and married to Mr. Meredith.
Mr. Meredith was of middle height, with rather a square, fair face, anda short cut-away dark moustache. He spoke in a bright concise sort ofway, and darted very quick glances at people when addressing them. Hecame in with the Gardiners, and after shaking hands with Mrs. Leightonhe darted several quick glances round the room, and then asked abruptlyof Lucy Gardiner "Who was the tall girl in white?"
Here was the point where the fortunes of the Leighton girls became atlast crystallized, concrete. It is all very well to dream, but it ismuch pleasanter to be sure that something is really about to happen.
None of this undercurrent was noticeable, however, in the generalbehaviour of that imaginative four. They began the evening in adignified way with music. Every one either sang or played. Jean in herusual hearty fashion dashed through a "party piece." Even Elma wasobliged to play the Boccherini Minuet, which she did with the usualnervous blunders.
As Dr. Harry placed the music ready for her, she whispered to him,"Whenever I lift my heels off the floor, my knees knock against eachother."
"Keep your heels down," said Dr. Harry with the immobile air of acommanding officer.
Elma found the piano pedals, and in the fine desire to follow out Dr.Harry's instructions played Boccherini with both pedals down throughout.
"How you do improve, Elma!" said May Turberville politely.
And Elma looked at her with a mute despair in her eyes of which hours oflaughter could not rid them. If only they knew, those people in thatroom, if only they knew what she wanted to play, the melodies that camesinging in her heart when she was happy, the minor things when she wassad! All she could do when people were collected to stare at her was toplay the Boccherini Minuet exceedingly badly. The weight of "evenings"had begun already to rest on Elma. Her undoubted gifts at learning andunderstanding music brought her into sharp prominence with her teachersand family, but never enabled Elma to exhibit herself with advantage onany real occasion.
It was all the more inexplicable that Mabel could at once dash intoanything with abandon and perfect correctness. Technique andunderstanding seemed born in her. In the same way could she,light-heartedly and gracefully, take the new homage of Mr. Meredith, whomade no secret of his interest in her from the first moment of enteringthe drawing-room. Mabel received him as she received a Sonata byBeethoven. With fleet fingers she could read the one as though she hadpractised it all her life; with dainty manners she seemed to comprehendMr. Meredith from the start, as though she had been accustomed torefusing and accepting desirable husbands from time immemorial. It puther on a new footing with the rest of the girls. They felt in quite adecided way, within a few days even, that the old, rather childishfashion of talking about husbands was to be dropped, and that no jokeswere to be perpetrated in regard to Mr. Meredith. It began to be no funat all having an eligible sister in the house.
On this night, however, they were still children. About forty youngpeople, school friends of themselves and Cuthbert, sustained that gaietywith which they had begun the afternoon. Even the musical part, whereMr. Leighton presided and encouraged young girls with no musical talentswhatever to play and sing, passed with a certain amount of lightness.Before an interlude of charades, a strange girl was shown in. Shegiggled behind an enormous fan, and made a great show of canary-colouredcurls in the process. She seemed to have on rather skimpy skirts, andshe showed in a lumbering way rather large shiny patent shoes with flatboys' bows on them.
There was a moment of indecision before Betty broke out with the remark,"You might have had the sense to hide your feet, Lance."
The canary-coloured curls enabled Lance to look becomingly foolish. Inany case, Mr. Leighton could not prevent the intellectual part of theevening from falling to bits. They had no more real music. Instead,they fell on Lance and borrowed his curls, and made some good charadestill supper time.
"I can't help feeling very rocky about that supper," whispered Jean toMabel. "Yet we've everything--sandwiches, cake, fruit and lemonade, teaand coffee. What can go wrong now?"
"Oh! the thing's all right," said Mabel, who was in a severely exaltedmood by this time.
They trooped into the dining-room, where girls were provided in a crushyway with seats round the room, and boys ran about and handed themthings. Mrs. Leighton gave the head of the table to Mabel, who sat inan elderly way and poured coffee. The salad was magnificent. AuntKatharine had come in "to look on." Mrs. Leighton told her how Mabelhad arranged forty-two plates that morning, with water-lily tomatoes cutready and chopped chicken in the centres, and had nearly driven Cooksilly with the shelves she used for storing these things in cool places.
"Wherever you looked--miles and miles of little plates with red waterlilies," said Mrs. Leighton. "It was most distracting for Cook. Iwonder the woman stays."
"What a mess," said Aunt Katharine. "You spoil these girls, you know,Lucy."
"Oh--it's Mr. Leighton," said she sadly.
"I don't think mayonnaise is a very suitable thing for young people'sparties," said Aunt Katharine dingily.
By this time the white cake with "Cuthbert" in pink was handed solemnlyround. Every person had a large piece, it looked so good.
Every one said, "Walnut, how lovely," when they took the first bite.
Every one stopped at the second bite.
"Cuthbert," called out Mrs. Leighton after she had investigated her ownpiece, "I notice that your father has none of the cake. Please take hima slice and see that he eats it."
Mr. Leighton waved it away.
"I do not eat walnuts," said he.
Mrs. Leighton went to him.
"John, this is not fair, this is your idea of a party," she said. "Youought to eat Cuthbert's cake."
"He can't," cried Jean; "nobody can. It's only Mabel who likes icedmarbles."
"You will all have to eat gingerbread," said the voice of Bettyhopefully.
Jean started up in great indignation with a large battered-looking"orange iced cake" ready to cut.
"Betty always gets herself advertized first," she complained. "Pleasetry my orange icing."
They did--they tried anything in order to escape Mabel's walnuts. Itoccurred to the girls that Mabel would be quite broken up at thewretched failure of her wonderful cake--the Cuthbert cake too. It wassuch a drop from their high pedestal of perfection. Even mummy, who hadbeen so much on her own high horse at all their suc
cesses, now becamequite feelingly sorry about the cake. She gave directions for havingthe loose pieces collected and surreptitiously put out of sight, but thelarge dish had to remain in front of Mabel. Mabel was still charminglyoccupied over her coffee cups. She poured in a pretty direct way andyet managed to talk interestedly to Mr. Meredith. He was invaluable asa helper.
"And now, at last," said she in a most winning manner, "you must have aslice of my cake. I baked it myself, and it's full of walnuts. Don'tyou love walnuts?"
"I do," said Mr. Meredith.
May Turberville nudged Betty, and Lance stared open-mouthed at thecourage of Mabel. He would do a good deal for the Leighton girls, buthe barred that particular cake. An electric feeling of comprehensionran round the company. They seemed to know that Mabel was about totaste her own cake and give a large slice to Mr. Meredith. They madelittle airy remarks to one another in order to keep the conversationgoing, so that Mabel might not detect by some sudden pause that everyone was watching her. One heard Julia Gardiner say in an intense mannerto Harry Somerton that the begonias at Mrs. Somerton's were a "perfectdream." And Harry answered that for his part he liked football better.Even Mr. Leighton noticed the trend of things, and stopped discussinghigher morality with Aunt Katharine.
Mabel seemed to take an interminable time. She gave Mr. Meredith alarge piece, and insisted besides on serving him with an unwieldy lumpof pink icing containing a large scrawly "e" from the last syllable ofCuthbert's name.
"E--aw," brayed Lance gently, and Betty exploded into a long series ofhelpless giggles.
"What a baby you are, Lance," said Mabel, amiably laughing. She bitdaintily at the walnut cake.
Mr. Meredith bit largely.
There was an enormous pause while they waited to see what he would do.
Cuthbert and Ronald Martin were near, aimlessly handing trifle and fruitsalad. Mr. Meredith helped with one hand to pass a cup.
"You know, Leighton," he said, "I have a great friend, he was one ofyour year--Vincent Hope--do you remember him?"
Cuthbert stared. One mouthful was gone and Mr. Meredith was cheerfullygulping another.
"What a digestion the man has," he thought, and next was plungedpolitely in reminiscent conversation regarding his College days.
Mabel sat crunching quite happily at the despised walnut cake.
Lance approached her timidly.
"For Heaven's sake," he said, "give me a large cup of coffee for theostrich. The man will die if he isn't helped."
"Who on earth do you mean, Lance?" asked Mabel innocently.
"Meredith. Don't you see he has eaten the cake."
Mabel looked conscience-stricken. Her own slice had not dwindled much.
"It is rather chucky-stoney, isn't it?" she asked anxiously.
"It's terrific," said Lance sagely.
Mabel looked quite crushed for a moment, so crushed that even Lance'smischievous heart relented.
"Never mind, Mabel," he comforted her. "If Meredith can do that muchfor you without a shudder, he will do anything. It's a splendid test."
A golden maxim of Mrs. Leighton's flashed into Mabel's mind, "You neverknow a man till he has been tried." It made her smile to think thatalready they might be supposed to be getting to know Mr. Meredithbecause of her villainous cake.
"The piece we tested wasn't so bad," she explained to Lance, quiteforgetting that she had skimmed that quantity in order to get plenty ofchopped walnuts into the "real" cake.
A few people in the room seemed fearfully amused, and poor Mabel in anundefined manner began to feel decidedly out of it. Lance went aboutlike a conspirator, commenting on the appearance of "the ostrich." Heapproached Cuthbert, asking him in an anxious manner how long the signsof rapid poisoning might be expected to take to declare themselves aftera quadruple dose of walnut cake. Mr. Meredith unruffled, still handedabout cups for Mabel.
Jean was in a corner with her dearest friend Maud Hartley.
"Isn't it wonderful what love can do?" she remarked quite seriously. Itwas a curious thing that Elma, who dreamed silly dreams about far-awaythings, and was despised for this accordingly by the robust Jean, didnot become romantic over Mr. Meredith at all. She merely thought thathe must be fearfully fond of walnuts.
The supper was hardly a pleasure to her--or to Betty. Every dish was ananxiety. They could almost count the plates for the different coursesin their desire to know whether each had been successfully disposed of.There was no doubt about the trifle.
"What a pity Mabel didn't make it," sighed Jean. After all, Mabel hadonly inspired the chicken salad, and even there Dr. Harry had made themayonnaise.
"It isn't much of a start for her with Mr. Meredith," she sigheddismally, "if only we hadn't told anybody which was which."
Mr. Meredith took a large amount of trifle, praising it considerably.
This alarmed Lance more than ever.
"One good thing does not destroy a bad thing," he exclaimed. "The firstaxiom to be learned in chemistry is that one smell does not killanother. It is a popular delusion that it does. Meredith seems to havebeen brought up on popular lines."
He posed in front of Cuthbert with his hands in his pockets.
"We are running a great risk," said he. "To-morrow morning Meredith maybe saying things about your sisters which may prevent us men from beingfriends with him--for ever."
Above the general flood of conversation, Aunt Katharine's treble voicemight now be heard.
"Mabel," she said in a kind manner, "I must compliment you. When yourmother told me about this ridiculous party, I told her she was spoilingyou as she always does. In my young days we weren't allowed to beextravagant and experiment in cooking whenever a party occurred. Webegan with the 'common round, the daily task.'" Aunt Katharine sighedheavily. "But I never knew you could make a trifle like this."
Mabel had been sitting like the others, trying to subdue the merrimentwhich Aunt Katharine's long speeches usually aroused. The wind-up tothis tirade alarmed her however. She would have to tell them all, withMr. Meredith standing there, that the trifle was not her trifle. Shewould have to say that it was Betty's.
Before she could open her mouth however, the whole loyal regiment ofLeightons had forestalled her.
"Isn't it a jolly trifle!" they exclaimed. Mabel could even hearBetty's little pipe joining in.
"Oh, but I must tell you," she began.
Cuthbert appeared at the doorway.
"Drawing-room cleared for dancing," said he. "Come along."
That finished it, and the girls were delighted with themselves. But onelittle melancholy thing, for all her partisanship, disturbed Jeanconsiderably. Mr. Meredith, on giving his arm to Mabel for the firstdance, was heard distinctly to remark, "You make all these deliciousthings as well as play piano! How clever of you."
And Mabel looking perfectly possessed floated round to the first waltzas though she had not made a complete muddle of the walnut cake.
Jean did not regret their generosity, but she was saddened by it.
"It all comes of being the eldest," she confided to Maud, "We may standon our heads now if we like, but if anything distinguished happens inthe family, Mabel will get the credit of it."
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