_ Chapter XXII
Maria did not hear Lily laugh again, although the conversation continued. In reality, Lily was in a state of extreme shyness, and was, moreover, filled with a sense of wrong-doing. There had been something about Maria's denial which had not convinced her. In her heart of hearts, the heart of hearts of a foolish but loving girl, who never meant anybody any harm, and, on the contrary, wished everybody well, although naturally herself first, she was quite sure that Maria also loved George Ramsey. She drooped before him with this consciousness when she opened the door, and the young man naturally started with a little surprise at the sight of her.
"Maria has gone to bed with a headache," she faltered, before George had time to inquire for her. Then she added, in response to the young man's look of astonishment, the little speech which Maria had prepared for her. "Her aunt has gone out, and so I came over to stay with her." Lily was a born actress. It was not her fault that a little accent of tender pity for Maria in her lonely estate, with her aunt away, and a headache, crept into her voice. She at the moment almost believed what she said. It became quite real to her.
"I am sorry Miss Edgham has a headache," said George, after a barely perceptible second of hesitation, "but, as long as she has, I may as well come in and make you a little call, Lily."
Lily quivered perceptibly. She tried to show becoming pride, but failed. "I should be very happy to have you," she said, "but--"
"Well, it _is_ asking you to play second fiddle, and no mistake," laughed George Ramsey, "for I did think I would make Miss Edgham a little call. But, after all, the second fiddle is an indispensable thing, and you and I are old friends, Lily."
He could not help the admiration in his eyes as he looked at Lily. She carried a little lamp, and the soft light was thrown upon her lovely face, and her brown hair gleamed gold in it. No man could have helped admiring her. Lily had never been a very brilliant scholar, but she could read admiration for herself. She regained her self-possession.
"I don't mind playing second fiddle," said she. "I should be glad if I could play any fiddle. Come in, Mr. Ramsey."
"How very formal we have grown!" laughed George, as he took off his coat and hat in the icy little hall. "Why, don't you remember we went to school together? What is the use?"
"George, then," said Lily. Her voice seemed to caress the name.
The young man colored. He was of a stanch sort, but he was a man, and the adulation of such a beautiful girl as this touched him. He took the lamp out of her hand.
"Come in, then," he said; "but it is rather funny for me to be calling on you here, isn't it?"
"Funnier than it would be for you to call on me at my own house," said Lily, demurely, with a faint accent of reproach.
"Well, I must admit I am not very neighborly," George replied, with an apologetic air. "But, you see, I am really busy a good many evenings with accounts, and I don't go out very much."
Lily reflected that he had come to call on Maria, in spite of being busy, but she said nothing. She placed Maria's vacant chair for him beside the sitting-room stove.
"It is a hard storm," she said.
"Very. It is a queer night for Miss Edgham's aunt to go out, it seems to me."
"Mrs. Ralph Wright has a tea-party," said Lily. "Maria's aunt Eunice has gone, too. My mother was invited, but mother never goes out in the evening."
After these commonplace remarks, Lily seated herself opposite George Ramsey, and there was a little silence. Again the expression of admiration came into the young man's face, and the girl read it with delight. Sitting gracefully, her slender body outlined by the soft green of her dress, her radiant face showing above the ivory cameo brooch at her throat, she was charming. George Ramsey owned to himself that Lily was certainly a great beauty, but all the same he thought regretfully of the other girl, who was not such a beauty, but who had somehow appealed to him as no other girl had ever done. Then, too, Maria was in a measure new. He had known Lily all his life; the element of wonder and surprise was lacking in his consciousness of her beauty, and she also lacked something else which Maria had. Lily meant no more to him--that is, her beauty meant no more to him--than a symmetrical cherry-tree in the south yard, which was a marvel of scented beauty, humming with bees every spring. He had seen that tree ever since he could remember. He always looked upon it with pleasure when it was in blossom, yet it was not to him what a new tree, standing forth unexpectedly with its complement of flowers and bees, would have been. It was very unfortunate for Lily that George had known her all his life. In order really to attract him it would be necessary for him to discover something entirely new in her.
"It was very good of you to come in and stay with Miss Edgham while her aunt was gone," said George.
He felt terribly at a loss for conversation. He had, without knowing it, a sense of something underneath the externals which put a constraint upon him.
Lily had one of the truth-telling impulses which redeemed her from the artifices of her mother.
"Oh," said she, "I wanted to come. I proposed coming myself. It is dull evenings at home, and I did not know that Maria would go to bed or that you would come in."
"Well, mother has gone to that tea-party, too," said George, "and I looked over here and saw the light, and I thought I would just run in a minute."
For some unexplained reason tears were standing in Lily's eyes and her mouth quivered a little. George could not see, for the life of him, why she should be on the verge of tears. He felt a little impatient, but at the same time she became more interesting to him. He had never seen Lily weeping since the time when she was a child at school, and used to conceal her weeping little face in a ring of her right arm, as was the fashion among the little girls.
"This light must shine right in your sitting-room windows," said Lily, in a faint voice. She was considering how pitiful it was that George had not had the impulse to call upon her, Lily, when she was so lovely and loving in her green gown; and how even this little happiness was not really her own, but another girl's. She had not the least realization of how Maria was suffering, lying in her room directly overhead.
Maria suffered as she had never suffered before. George Ramsey was her first love; the others had been merely childish playthings. She was strangling love, and that is a desperate deed, and the strangler suffers more than love. Maria, with the memory of that marriage which was, indeed, no marriage, but the absurd travesty of one, upon her, was in almost a suicidal frame of mind. She knew perfectly well that if it had not been for that marriage secret which she held always in mind, that George Ramsey would continue to call, that they would become engaged, that her life might be like other women's. And now he was down there with Lily--Lily, in her green gown. She knew just how Lily would look at him, with her beautiful, soft eyes. She hated her, and yet she hated herself more than she hated her. She told herself that she had no good reason for hating another girl for doing what she herself had done--for falling in love with George Ramsey. She knew that she should never have made a confidant of another girl, as Lily had made of her. She realized a righteous contempt because of her weakness, and yet she felt that Lily was the normal girl, that nine out of ten would do exactly what she had done. And she also had a sort of pity for her. She could not quite believe that a young man like George Ramsey could like Lily, who, however beautiful she was, was undeniably silly. But then she reflected how young men were popularly supposed not to mind a girl's being silly if she was beautiful. Then she ceased to pity Lily, and hated her again. She became quite convinced that George Ramsey would marry her.
She had locked her door, and lay on her bed fully dressed. She made up her mind that when Aunt Maria came she would pretend to be asleep. She felt that she could not face Aunt Maria's wondering questions. Then she reflected that Aunt Maria would be home soon, and a malicious joy seized her that Lily would not have George Ramsey long to herself. Indeed, it was scarcely half-past eight before Maria heard the side-door open. Then she heard, quite distinctly, Aunt Maria's voice, although she could not distinguish the words. Maria laughed a little, smothered, hysterical laugh at the absurdity of the situation.
It was, in fact, ludicrous. Aunt Maria entered the sitting-room, a grotesque figure in her black skirt bundled up under Maria's waterproof, which was powdered with snow. She wore her old black bonnet, and the wind had tipped that rakishly to one side. She stared at Lily and George Ramsey, who both rose with crimson faces.
"Good-evening," Lily ventured, feebly.
"Good-evening, Miss Stillman," George said, following the girl's lead. Then, as he was more assured, he added that it was a very stormy night.
George had been sitting on one side of the stove, Lily on the other, in the chairs which Maria and Lily had occupied before the young man's arrival. They had both sprung up with a guilty motion when Aunt Maria entered. Aunt Maria stood surveying them. She did not return their good-evenings, nor George's advance with regard to the weather. Her whole face expressed severe astonishment. Her thin lips gaped slightly, her pale eyes narrowed. She continued to look at them, and they stood before her like culprits.
"Where's Maria gone?" said Aunt Maria, finally, in a voice which seemed to have an edge to it.
Then Lily spoke with soft and timid volubility. "Maria said her head ached so she thought she had better go to bed, Miss Stillman," she said.
"I didn't hear anything about any headache before I went away. Must have come on mighty sudden," said Aunt Maria.
"She said it ached very hard," repeated Lily. "And when the door-bell rang, when Mr. Ramsey came--"
"It's mighty queer she should have had a headache when George Ramsey rang the door-bell," said Aunt Maria.
"I guess it must have ached before," said Lily, faintly.
"I should suppose it must have," Aunt Maria said, sarcastically. "I don't see any reason why Maria's head should begin to ache when the door-bell rang."
"Of course," said Lily. "I suppose she just felt she couldn't talk, that was all."
"It's mighty queer," said Aunt Maria. She stood quite immovable. She was so stern that even her rakishly tipped bonnet did not seem at all funny. She looked at Lily and George Ramsey, and did not make a movement to remove her wraps.
Lily took a little, faltering step towards her. "You are all covered with snow, Miss Stillman," she said, in her sweet voice.
"I don't mind a little snow," said Aunt Maria.
"Won't you take this chair?" asked George Ramsey, pointing to the one which he had just vacated.
"No, thank you," replied Aunt Maria. "I ain't going to sit down. I've got on my best black silk, and I don't ever sit down in it when I can help it. I'm going to take it off and go to bed."
Then George Ramsey immediately made a movement towards his coat and hat, which lay on the lounge beside Lily's wraps. "Well," he said, with an attempt to laugh and be easy, "I must be going. I have to take an early car to-morrow."
"I must go, too," said Lily.
They both hustled on their outer garments. They said good-evening when they went out, but Aunt Maria did not reply. She immediately took off Maria's water-proof and her bonnet, and slipped off her best black silk gown. Then she took the little lamp which was lighted in the kitchen and went up-stairs to Maria's room. She had an old shawl over her shoulders, otherwise she was in her black quilted petticoat. She stepped softly, and entered the spare room opposite Maria's. It was icy cold in there. She set the lamp on the bureau and went out, closing the door softly. It was then quite dark in the little passageway between the spare room and Maria's. Aunt Maria stood looking sharply at Maria's door, especially at the threshold, which was separated from the floor quite a space by the shrinkage of the years. The panels, too, had their crevices, through which light might be seen. It was entirely dark. Aunt Maria opened the door of the spare room very softly and got the little lamp off the bureau, and tiptoed down-stairs. Then she sat down before the sitting-room stove and pulled up her quilted petticoat till her thin legs were exposed, to warm herself and not injure the petticoat. She looked unutterably stern and weary. Suddenly, as she sat there, tears began to roll over her ascetic cheeks.
"Oh, Lord!" she sighed to herself; "to think that child has got to go through the world just the way I have, when she don't need to!"
Aunt Maria rose and got a handkerchief out of her bureau-drawer in her little bedroom. She did not take the one in the pocket of her gown because that was her best one, and very fine. Then she sat down again, pulled up her petticoat again, put the handkerchief before her poor face, and wept for herself and her niece, because of a conviction which was over her that for both the joy of life was to come only from the windows of others. _