Hours afterwards, it seemed, a hand touched her shoulder, and there was Matty's fluted organdie cap bending over her. "I'd rather put myself to bed, wouldn't you, Jenny Blair?" asked Bena, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "You slept a long time," she added. "You slept so long you didn't see Mrs. Birdsong run out of the room while the music was playing."
"Did she run far?"
"There, I told you so. You did sleep a long time. Yes, she dropped her partner's arm, and ran straight away while everybody was dancing. But Mr. Birdsong went first. He went out with Miss Delia Barron on his arm. I saw them go down into the garden. They came out on the porch, and I heard him say, 'Have you seen the lanterns down by the lily-pond?'"
"I don't care," Jenny Blair retorted, and she didn't. Even the music and the brilliant colours had ceased to excite her. Her eyelids kept coming down, no matter how hard she tried to keep them up, exactly like the eyes of a wax-doll when the spring that makes them open and shut has been broken. And this broken spring seemed to work within her mind as well as over her eyes. "I don't care," she repeated. "People may run out of dances and go down to lily-ponds as much as they please. I don't believe they are real. One thing I know, I've sat up as long as I want to."
In the nursery the night-lamp was burning low under a dark shade, while the strains of a polka floated merrily from downstairs.
"Mamma says I must let you sleep on the outside of the bed because you are company," Bena explained. "Turn round, and I'll unbutton your dress. Mammy had to go to bed with a headache, and nobody wants Matty about."
Untying the wide blue streamers at her back, Jenny Blair began rolling them smoothly, as her mother had taught her to do. Even if it took a long, long time, every child, when she hasn't a nurse, must see that her sash and hair-ribbons are rolled smoothly, unless she is satisfied to appear a frump at her next party. All the pressing in the world, she insisted urgently, while she went over the blue streamers, could not make rumpled ribbons look as fresh as they did when they were new. "All the pressing in the world," she droned sleepily, when a figure darkened the lighted doorway, and Mrs. Birdsong's voice cried in desperate pain, "Where is Mary Peyton? Oh, children, can you find Mary Peyton?"
An instant afterwards, she crossed the floor and flung herself down on a couch by the bed, while throbs of anguish shuddered through her in a convulsion. Her hair had slipped from its knot and hung in waving masses on each side of her face, which looked wan and stricken, as if it were the ghost of the happy face Jenny Blair had watched, so short a time before, in the assembling figure of the lancers. Even her primrose-coloured draperies were crushed, and clung about her shape in a desolate pattern of grief. As she lay there, shaken by those long, quivering sobs, which shuddered up from the tormented depths of her heart, she reached up quickly and tore the fragile rose-point bertha away from her bosom.
Frightened, yet full of pity and curiosity, the children were shrinking together when the open door shut quickly, and Mrs. Peyton swept in with a dose of medicine in her hand. "Drink this, Eva. It is only ammonia. Nothing in the world has happened," she continued in a soothing tone. "Your imagination is running away with you." Turning hastily, she added, "You'd better undress in myroom, children, and be sure to see that the door into the hall is shut tight."
"Oh, I don't mind the children." Mrs. Birdsong sat up and pushed the measuring glass from her lips. "I don't mind anything." Sobs shook her afresh, and she flung back the waves of her hair with a passionate gesture. "But I cannot bear it. I can never, never, never live through it again."
"You don't do any good by giving way, darling. No woman does." Mrs. Peyton's thin lips wrinkled and tightened, as if they were pulled by a string, and she added in an intense whisper, "You gain nothing in the world by not saving your pride."
"But I saw them, Mary. I saw them with my own eyes--"
"Hush, Eva. It is much wiser to pretend that you didn't. Even if you know, it is safer not to suspect anything."
"I'm flesh and blood. I've sacrificed everything."
"It's for your own sake, dear. Don't think I'm lacking in sympathy. Here, swallow this down quickly, and let me pin up your hair. Your lovely lace is all torn."
"It makes no difference. Nothing makes any difference. Oh, oh, oh, why did I come?"
"But you looked so happy when you were waltzing together. I never saw you more brilliant."
"I was—I was. Where is he now? Can any one find him? I must go home. I feel as if—as if--"
"Then I'll send for him." Mrs. Peyton glanced round with her anxious look, "Children, do you think you can find Mr. Birdsong? No, don't put on your sashes again. Just run downstairs and tell him his wife has been taken ill, and must go home. You needn't wait for the Murrays, Eva," she added, "I'll send you home in my victoria. Bena, as you go down, tell Johnson to order the victoria."
"Oh, I can find Mr. Birdsong," Bena said proudly. "Jenny Blair was fast asleep, but I saw him go down into the garden. I saw him go down to the lily-pond with Miss Delia Barron."
With a choking cry, Mrs. Birdsong started up from the couch. Then flinging herself down again, she sobbed out hysterically, "Oh, run and find him, Jenny Blair. He will come if you tell him I am ill. That I am ill, and must go home."
"Run on, children," Mrs. Peyton commanded, and while they sped toward the staircase, her voice followed them. "The trouble is, Eva, that you expect too much of life. Every woman must learn that sooner or later--"
Tingling with excitement and the piquant suspicion that her unbuttoned dress was showing her underbody in the back, Jenny Blair raced ahead of Bena to the staircase, where she saved time by sliding down as much of the banisters as she dared. From below, as she descended bravely but cautiously, she heard music and laughter and the gay popping of corks.
"It's supper-time," Bena whispered yearningly, as they flitted by, "and they're all wondering what has become of Mamma." After making signs to Johnson, the butler, she seized Jenny Blair's hand and tripped down the porch steps to one of the winding walks that led into the garden. Here the illuminated fountain was still scattering its tinted spray, and the summer night was saturated with cool sweetness. "It isn't real," Jenny Blair thought, pausing a moment to drink in the beauty. "It isn't a bit more real than make-believe." No, it wasn't real. It wouldn't last till to-morrow; but, oh, it was lovely, it was satisfying, as long as you looked at it. Suddenly she said aloud, "The shadows are alive, and you can hear time moving among them. Bena, if you'll only stay still, you can hear time stealing by." But Bena called back spitefully, "No, you can't. It's just the breeze from the river, and our breeze hasn't a bad smell. Besides, you didn't make up that about time. I heard Mrs. Birdsong tell you to listen and hear time going by in her garden."
It was true Mrs. Birdsong had told her that. When she stopped and thought about things, it seemed to her that it was always Mrs. Birdsong who put the loveliest fancies into her mind. Because of this, she ought to love her best of all—but she could not. Their secret had woven a magic tie between her and Mr. Birdsong, and this magic tie was stronger than affection, was stronger than gratitude. A thrill was in it, a deep hidden blow, which made everything start out of a drifting haze, just as the trees, and the dark wings of pigeons, and the whitewashed wall, and Penitentiary Bottom started out, alive and quivering, while they sat, hand-in-hand, on the pile of lumber and watched the last flare of the sunset.
"They are down there. I see them," Bena whispered, as she skipped on the grass walk.