Lavinia was in a great pet, flushed with heat and annoyance. Louisa sat calmly near the window, sorting out heaps of billowing petticoats and drawers and bodices. Lilybelle was in despair, a harried look on her big flushed face, which was pricked out with drops of sweat. She was sorting out Lavinia’s French boots and placing them in proper bags. Two maids were there, also, packing enormous trunks with finery.
“Oh, there you are, you loitering little wretch!” cried Lavinia, advancing menacingly upon Adelaide. “Where have you been, for hours? Did you find the proper ribbon?”
She had discarded her outer clothing but her stays and stood in her great white drawers, dripping with wide bands of fine French lace. Her sturdy well-shaped legs were covered by thin black silk stockings. Her full bosom, splendid, and so like her mother’s, appeared about to burst the confines of her lacy chemise. Her large white arms were damp and glistening, her black curls tied high on her head, her face crimson and her black eyes flashing ire and irritability.
She stretched out her hand impatiently for the little package Adelaide gave her. She tore the paper, and stared affrontedly at the coil of ribbon. “Why, this is outrageous! It doesn’t match in the least!” She glared at Adelaide furiously, as if about to strike her. “Where on earth have you been, anyway? Wasting all that time! And then bringing me this abominable trash!”
Mrs. Bowden, who had been buried in a closet among dozens of stiff gowns, now emerged, several garments on her arms. She peered closely at the ribbon in Lavinia’s hot wet hand. “It’s a perfect match, Miss Lavinia,” she said, firmly, adjusting the glasses on her nose. “Certainly it is. Let me show you.”
She took the ribbon, and held it against the ribbon in the lingerie that lay heaped on the sofa. It was indeed a perfect match. Lavinia’s fuming anger was only increased by this. “What do I care! But to waste hours, when we were waiting! Oh, it is intolerable!”
“Lovey, watch your nerves,” urged Lilybelle, wiping her wet forehead with the back of her hand. “The little lass ’as done her best for you. It takes time to match ribbons.”
“Oh—hell!” cried Lavinia, disgustedly, flinging the ribbon on the bed, from which it rolled to the floor. Louisa serenely picked it up, began to snip lengths for the petticoats and lace bodices. She glanced with tender humour at her older sister.
“Such language. Not genteel at all. You will quite shock Mrs. Hastings. There, Linny, do sit down and stop breathing fire. I admit Adelaide’s a trial with her laziness and indifference, but what is one to do? Adelaide, is it possible you can help me with the ribbons? Here is an extra bodkin.”
Adelaide, her lips compressed and her eyes flashing, silently accepted the bodkin, sat on the edge of the bed and began to work. Lilybelle glanced at her with apologetic affection, and after a moment or two, Adelaide smiled at her mother.
Muttering fiercely, Lavinia began to fling the neat piles of frocks about, which the maids had just organized into some semblance of order. “That rag! It is contemptible! Mama, that is your doing. I told you the colour was abominable, but you would insist.”
“It seemed prettier than the green you wanted,” pleaded Lilybelle, exhausted. “Besides, you said it was, yourself, Linny. If you hadn’t wanted it, you could’ve said so.”
“You have no taste, Mama. You know you haven’t. You always look like an overdressed washwoman. Why you insist so obstinately in choosing your own clothes, instead of allowing Aunt Amanda to do so—and she’s offered often enough, God knows—is beyond me. Just consider the gown you’ve chosen for my wedding! It will be the laughter of New York. Violet and pale green! What an odious combination!”
“Miss Beardsley chose it,” said Lilybelle, close to tears. “I didn’t want it. There was such a pretty pink—”
“Pink!” screamed Lavinia, striking an attitude of exaggerated horror, and glaring at Louisa with a shocked expression. “Imagine pink! On Mama! With her hair and cheeks! Oh, how intolerable, how perfectly appalling! Did you ever!” And she burst into raucous and ribald laughter. “Mama, you are excruciating! Pink. You would look like a sunset, I declare you would. No wonder Papa is so humiliated by you, sometimes. You hurt his eyes with your horrible combinations. What a trial you must be to him!”
Adelaide looked up. Her face was white and quietly fierce. “Shut up,” she said in a low and penetrating voice.
Lavinia swung on her, quite paling. “What did you say?” she asked, slowly, clenching her hands.
Adelaide flung aside the petticoat she was decorating with ribbon. She stared at her sister with an expression quite terrible in its intensity and anger.
“I said,” she repeated clearly, “‘shut up.’”
Lavinia gasped. Louisa lifted her head with an angelic smile of amusement. The two maids, repressing titters, stood in eager silence, looking from one girl to the other. Mrs. Bowden smiled to herself, continued about her business. As for Lilybelle, she was so frightened that she remained fixed in her attitude near the trunks, kneeling, her hands dropping to her sides.
Lavinia advanced with slow menace upon her younger sister, and Adelaide stood up to meet that advance. The two girls confronted each other in a sudden sharp silence. Lavinia was much taller than Adelaide, overpowering in her luscious figure, her black eyes on fire, her full ripe lips bared to display her glistening teeth.
“Why, you little wretch, you snivelling foul little creature!” she said, in a low voice of vicious wonder. “I should slap your face, pull your ugly hair!”
“Try it,” said Adelaide quietly. Her own eyes were dilated, filled to the sockets with intense and dangerous light. “You’re a coward and a beast, Lavinia. You attack Mama all the time. I’m tired of it. I said ‘shut up.’ I mean it. And, if you touch me, I tell you you’ll regret it.”
She suddenly reached down to the bed and picked up a long pair of pointed shears. It gleamed in her hand like a savage knife. Lilybelle screamed faintly, and put her fingers to her gaping mouth. Mrs. Bowden quickly and quietly reached Adelaide’s side, but she made no attempt to take the scissors. The two maids, paralysed with terror and delight, stood with their arms full of garments, and stared joyously. As for Louisa, she laid her hands calmly on the underwear, and waited, with a sweet expression of evil.
Lavinia, enraged and beside herself, still could not move. She looked down at Adelaide, and was suddenly quite aghast at that small and appalling face, so white and fixed, with the eyes gleaming like steel. She saw murder in those eyes, wild and cold, and a thin icy tremor ran down her hot and sweating back.
Now Lavinia was no coward, no fool, nor was she truly vicious. She was not excessively frightened by this sudden glacial violence of her younger sister. Rather, Adelaide’s look and attitude really gave her pause in the midst of her fury, and made her think. Very slowly, her cheeks resumed their florid tint, her eyes lost their fire, Her face began to manifest some shame, some sullen embarrassment.
She did not retreat. Her embarrassment increased. Then a dimple appeared near her pouting lips, and she regarded her little sister sheepishly.
“Oh, Addy, don’t be a fool,” she stammered awkwardly. “Do put down those shears. You might hurt yourself, or me, with them, when you don’t intend any such thing.” She paused. The dimple deepened, and her embarrassment made her eyes twinkle. “I’m sorry. I am a beast.” She turned her head to her mother. “Mama, forgive me. I’m so damned hot, and things go wrong, and I say things I shouldn’t.”
Lilybelle burst into tears. She stumbled heavily to her feet, and came to her daughters. There was no diminution in Adelaide’s wild and terrible look as she stared at her sister. Lilybelle put her burning wet hand on the girl’s rigid arm.
“Lovey, it doesn’t matter. It don’t indeed, my pet. Your sister’s tired. It’s ’ard on females, getting married. Look, lovey, Linny’s sorry.” She gently laid her hand on the scissors, and tried to remove them. Adelaide’s fingers were stiff and icy cold. One by one, Lilybelle lifted those fingers, and took
away the scissors. Adelaide closed her eyes, but the stony whiteness of her face did not lessen. She felt the pressure of her mother’s hand on her shoulders, and she sat down as if suddenly robbed of all strength.
Louisa laughed lightly and musically. “What bathos,” she commented, in her sweet and trilling voice. “Do go on, Linny, with your work. What a vulgar display. Not that I blame you, Linny. The girl’s exasperating. She deserved to be punished. And now, do try on this petticoat which I’ve finished.”
Lavinia turned on her amiable sister with a gust of ferocity. “Shut up!” she shouted. “You and your honey! You’re a pig, and I know all about you! Mind your own business, or I’ll slap your teeth out!”
Louisa laughed with gentle restraint. She shook out the petticoat and extended it to her sister. “Now, don’t be vulgar, there’s a dear. Let me see if I’ve made the band narrow enough.”
Muttering savagely, Lavinia snatched the garment, pulled it over her head, while Louisa regarded her with affectionate amusement. The maids resumed their work. Mrs. Bowden began to pack once again. But Lilybelle sat on the edge of the bed beside her youngest daughter, her big fat arm about those thin shoulders.
“Don’t take on so, lovey,” she murmured tearfully. “There now, don’t be so stiff. It’s nothing, my pet. Nothing at all. Your Mama loves you.”
But Adelaide, without a word or a look, rose and went from the room. Hardly seeing her way, she entered her own bedroom, and threw herself on the bed. Then, abruptly, she rose, and fled into the bathroom, where she was violently sick.
She returned to her bed and flung herself upon it, sinking her head deeply in the ruffled pillows. She felt deathly ill, prostrated. A still vast horror was in her heart, and a terrible sick anger. She lay there a long time.
She did not hear the door open, but at last she became aware that some one had rustled to the bed. She heard an embarrassed cough. Sluggishly, she lifted her head and looked dazedly at Lavinia, who was standing beside her.
“Look here,” said Lavinia, sullenly. “I’ve said I was sorry. Now, why are you carrying on so, Addy?”
Adelaide pushed herself to a sitting posture with her thin and trembling arms. She gazed steadfastly at her sister. “I might have killed you,” she said, quietly. “Yes, I’m sure I would have killed you if you had touched me. I wanted to kill you, Linny.”
Lavinia stared down at her, incredulously. “Well, I’m damned,” she said in a hushed voice. “I believe you. Why, Addy, you’re a criminal at heart! Now, I’ve wanted to smack people, often, and black their eyes, but I never wanted to kill any one!”
She stammered with real horror: “Why, Addy, that isn’t Christian!”
Adelaide said nothing. Then all at once she began to smile whitely. She passed her hand over her cold cheeks and ruffled hair.
Lavinia was truly horrified. Her violences were quick and hot, but never murderous. She moved a step away and regarded her sister with naively distended eyes.
“You’re a murderess at heart, Addy,” she said, in a subdued tone. Her face puckered as if she wanted to cry. “Oh, it’s terrible. And I made you feel like that, Addy! I’m sorry, so very sorry. It was all my fault.”
She suddenly thrust out her hand. In the palm lay one of her prized treasures, a beautiful cameo brooch surrounded by pearls and diamonds. Adelaide gazed at it, uncomprehending.
“I want you to have it, Addy. I brought it to you, because I was sorry,” stammered Lavinia, flushing. “It will look so pretty with your yellow bridesmaid’s gown. Right at the throat. Won’t it?”
“I don’t want your best brooch, Linny,” said Adelaide. Her voice was faint and abstracted.
Lavinia laid it on the girl’s lap. “Don’t be an idiot. I want you to have it. I really do, Addy. I—I never liked it anyway. It’s not my style. I knew it when Uncle Bob Wilkins gave it to me,” she added, lying with generous hardihood.
Adelaide took the brooch in her hands. Then slow quiet tears stole down her cheeks. Lavinia, with rare timidity, approached her again, bent and awkwardly kissed her.
“We’re beasts to you, Addy. Really we are. But, I do—like—you, Addy. I wouldn’t let any one hurt you, even if I hurt myself.”
Then she shouted angrily: “But you ought to be whipped! Wanting to kill your own sister! You ought to be whipped, you little wretch!”
Adelaide began to laugh. She could not stop. She fell back on the bed, in her extremity of unusual mirth. And Lavinia stared at her, affronted and outraged.
CHAPTER 40
The wedding, held in the beautiful and formal gardens of the Turnbull mansion, was a magnificent affair. There were one hundred guests only. John spared nothing. For weeks, carpenters had been busy erecting flower-covered arbours in the gardens, stringing the trees with Chinese lanterns and transplanting rare shrubs and draining little ponds to be filled with fresh water and goldfish. The guests, who had fled to the seashore and other resorts to escape the heat, returned to the city for the ceremony.
The mansion was a bower of blooms, ferns and potted plants. In the vast dining-room a repast had been laid out that inspired wonder and envy. A river of champagne was damned up in its gilt bottles waiting for the moment of celebration. In another room, on a long white table, the gifts were laid out, gold and silver and laces like cobwebs, sedulously guarded by special constables. Every archway was festooned with flowers. Special red carpets were laid over the Oriental rugs.
A great hush descended on the fevered mansion on the day of the wedding. Lavinia slept till noon in her enormous white bedroom. The maids rustled about on tiptoe with dusters and mops, adding a last glitter to the rooms. Lilybelle was up at dawn, superintending the cooks in the kitchens, meticulously inspecting every corner of the house. Louisa, dreaming of Patrick Brogan, nestled in her silken sheets, her yellow hair a shaft of sunshine on her white pillows. Adelaide assisted her mother, her gray linen frock stained with wet flower-stems and dust, her light brown locks pinned high on her head. From the gardens came a last moment tapping of hammers, and the voices of workmen. It promised to be a fine hot day. The sky was already pale and glowing with morning heat. Delivery wagons rolled up the gravelled driveway, and men bustled out with baskets and delayed gifts. Confusion reigned in the kitchens, but the other great rooms of the mansion were hushed and dimmed and fragrant.
John wandered restlessly about the gardens, and inspected the white altar which was being covered with flowers for the ceremony. He sat for a few minutes at a time under the tall and bending trees, their green leaves already shimmering with a patina of golden dust. The grass breathed out its hot and poignant breath in the morning quiet. The silk-shrouded windows threw back rays of brilliant light.
John’s dark and violent face was a little relaxed today. He seemed less feverish, less haunted and chronically wretched. He exchanged light words with the workmen, put his hand often in his pockets for extra tips. He gazed frequently at the rear of his great mansion with grim satisfaction. He tried not to think at all, to forget the constant nagging ache at the back of his head.
In the marriage of his daughter to Rufus Hastings there was a triumph. All his life had been a brutal flaunting in the face of his enemies. He had won against them. It was strange, therefore, that there was an unremitting sickness and ache in him, like a mortal disease. He saw the whitening of his hair, the furrows in his savage face, the tremor of his hands. His triumph was killing him, and he knew it, and hated the world more for it.
He would not think of Eugenia today, he had promised himself. For he knew when he thought of her the sickness increased in him. She was like a drug to him, which was destroying him, but which he could not resist, and which he had persuaded himself he would die without. But her face floated before him everywhere, and the old sick fever burned in his veins.
At noon, Lavinia was awakened, and the house seemed to stand on its feet in an uproar. Confusion rioted upstairs. Feet ran everywhere. There were shouts and wails, and much cursing from the
bride. She cursed the heat, the fumbling of maids, her mother’s stupidity, Adelaide’s ineptness, Louisa’s calm smiles, Mrs. Bowden’s mild scolding. Miss Beardsley, in brown satin, arrived in the midst of the riot. She took charge, as always, and under her sternness and efficiency Lavinia regained some composure. Maids became more swift, Mrs. Bowden compressed her lips and ceased her scolding, Lilybelle miraculously became handier with needle and scissors, and Adelaide was packed off to dress. The musicians arrived, began to tune up in the gardens under the shade of the dusty trees.
After many repowderings, Lavinia managed to get into her bridal finery. The wedding-dress was a marvel of French lace and ivory silk, bustled and draped lavishly. Miss Beardsley had lent her mother’s ancient lace veil for the occasion, and it billowed about Lavinia like a diaphanous cloud. Guests were arriving, filling the gardens with brightly coloured gowns, laughter, gleaming tall hats and canes. The tempo of the mansion increased deliriously. Louisa appeared in her soft green and lace, a tiny bonnet of forget-me-nots on her golden hair. Adelaide, harried and commandeered, wore a linen apron over her yellow silk. Lilybelle was florid and resplendent in her violet and green, her big red face stained with sentimental tears. She embraced the vexed Lavinia frequently, not intimidated by pettish cries and thrustings-off.
The girl was flamboyantly beautiful in her wedding dress and veil. She was obliged to coat her face with talc to subdue its brilliant colour. But she was pleased by her appearance, for she was tall and lavish of figure, and her black hair curled entrancingly.
Now the strains of the wedding march sounded from the garden. John knocked on the bedroom door for his daughter. The gardens bloomed hotly in the sun, crowded with guests. There was a last moment fluster, then Lavinia burst from the room, took her father’s arm and descended the marble and gilt stairway. Her sisters followed her. They were joined by the other bridesmaids in the hall below.
Rufus was waiting for his bride at the altar, where the Episcopal bishop also waited in his black and white. The bridegroom, in black broadcloth, was a cool and elegant figure, his narrow green eyes smiling, his manner composed. The music swelled triumphantly.
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