The Melting of Molly Read online

  Leaf IV.

  Sleep is one of the most delightful and undervalued amusements known tothe human race. I have never had enough yet, and every second of timethat I'm not busy with something interesting, I curl up on the bed andgo dream-hunting--only I sleep too hard to do much catching. But thistorture book found that out about me, and stopped it the very firstthing on page three. The command is to sleep as little as possible tokeep the nerves in a good condition--"eight hours at the most, and sevenwould be better." What earthly good would a seven-hour nap do me? I wantten hours to sleep and twelve if I get a good tired start. To see mestagger out of my perfectly nice bed at six o'clock every morning nowwould wring the sternest heart with compassion and admiration at myfaithfulness--to whom?

  Yes, it was the day after poor Mr. Carter's funeral that Aunt Adelinemoved up here into my house and settled herself in the big south roomacross the landing from mine. Her furniture weighs a ton each piece, andAunt Adeline is not light herself in disposition. The next morning, whenI went in to breakfast she sat in the "vacant chair" in a way that mademe see that she was obviously trying to fill the vacancy. I am sorry sheworried herself about that. Anyhow, it made me take a resolve. Afterbreakfast, I went into the kitchen to speak to Jane.

  "Jane," I said, looking past her head, "my health is not very good, andyou can bring my breakfast to me in bed after this." Poor Mr. Carteralways wanted breakfast on the stroke of seven. Jane has buriedhusbands. Also her mother is our washerwoman, and influenced by AuntAdeline. Jane understands everything I say to her. After I had closedthe door I heard a laugh that sounded like a war-whoop, and I smiled tomyself. But that was before my martyrdom to this book had begun. I getup now!

  But the day after I came from London I lay in bed just as long as Iwanted to, and ignored the thought of the exercises and deep breathingand the icy unsympathetic tub. I couldn't even take very much interestin the lonely egg on the lonely slice of dry toast. I was thinking aboutthings.

  Hillsboro is a very peculiar little speck on the universe; even morepeculiar than being like a hen. It is one of the oldest towns in theNorth, and the moss on it is so thick that it can't be scratched offexcept in spots. But when it does get stirred up to take an interest inanything, it certainly goes the pace. It hasn't had any real excitementfor a long time, and I felt that it needed it. I rolled over and laughedinto my pillow.

  The subject of the conduct of widows is a serious one. Of all the thingsold Tradition is most set about, it is that; and what was decided to bethe proper thing a million years ago this town still dictates shall bedone, and spends a good deal of its time seeing its directions carriedout.

  For a year after the funeral they forget about the poor bereaved, andwhen they do remember her they speak to and of her in the same tones ofvoice they used at the obsequies. Then sooner or later some neighbouris sure to see some man walk home from church with her, or hear somemasculine voice in her front garden. Mr. Blake gave Mrs. Caruther'slittle Jessie a ride in his trap and helped her out at her mother's gatejust before last Christmas, and if the poor widow hadn't acted quicklythe town would have noticed them to death before he proposed to her.They were married the day after New Year's Day, and she lost lots ofgood friends because she didn't give them more time to talk about it.

  I don't intend to run any risk of losing my friends that way, and I wantthem to have all the enjoyment they can get out of it. I'm going toserve out doses of excitement until the dear old place is running as itdid when it was a two-year old. Why get annoyed when people areinterested in you? It's a compliment, after all, and gives them more tothink about. I remembered the two trunks I had brought home with me, andhugged my knees up under my chin with pleasure at the thought of thetown-talk they contained.

  Then just as I had got the first plan well going and was decidingwhether to wear the mauve crepe de Chine or the white chiffon with therosebud embroidery as a first dose for my friends, a sweetness came inthrough my window that took my breath away, and I lay still with my handover my heart and listened. It was Billy singing right under my window,and I've never heard him do it before in all his five years. It wasthe dearest old-fashioned tune ever written, and Billy sang the wordsas distinctly as if he had been a boy chorister doing a difficultrecitative. My heart beat so it shook the lace on my breast, like abreeze from heaven, as he took the high note and then let it go on thelast few words.

  "If you love me, Molly darling, Let your answer be a kiss!"

  A confused recollection of having heard the words and tune sung by mymother when I was at the rocking age myself brought the tears to my eyesas I flew to the window and parted the curtains. If you heard a littleboy-angel singing at your casement, wouldn't you expect a cherub faceupturned with heaven-lights all over it? Billy's face was upturned as heheard me draw up the blind, but it was streaked like a wild Indian'swith decorations of brown mud, and he held a slimy frog in one handwhile he wiped his other grimy hand down the front of his linen blouse.

  "I say, Molly, look at the frog I bringed you!" he exclaimed as he cameclose under the sill, which is not high from the ground. "If you putyour face down to the mud and sing something to 'em, they'll come out oftheir holes. A beetle comed, too, but I couldn't ketch 'em both. Lift meup, and I can put him in the waterglass on your table." He held up onemuddy hand to me, and promptly I lifted him up into my arms. From theembrace in which he and the frog and I indulged my lace and cambric cameout much the worse.

  "That was a lovely song you sang about 'Molly darling,' Billy," I said."Where did you hear it?"

  "That's a good frog-song, Molly, and I believe I can git a squirrel withit, too, if I sing it quite low." He began to squirm out of my armstoward the table and the glass.

  "Who taught it to you, sugar-sweet?" I persisted as I poured water in onthe frog under his direction.

  "Nobody taught it to me. Father sings it to me when Tilly, nurse, noryou aren't there to put me to bed. He don't know no good songs like'Black-eyed Susan' or 'Little Boy Blue.' I go to sleep quick 'cause hemakes me feel tired with his slow tune what's only good for frogs andthings. Get a piece of cloth to tie over the top of the glass, Molly,quick!"

  I found some, and I don't know why my hand trembled as I handed it toBilly. As soon as he got it he climbed out of the window, glass, frogand all, and I saw him and the old setter go down the garden walktogether in pursuit of the desired squirrel, I suppose. I closed theblinds and drew the curtains again and flung myself on my pillow.Something warm and sweet seemed to be sweeping over me in great waves,and I felt young and close up to some sort of big world-good. It wasdelicious, and I don't know how long I would have stayed there justfeeling it if Jane hadn't brought in my letter.

  He had written from London, and it was many pages of wonderful thingsall flavoured with me. He told me about Miss Clinton and what goodfriends they were, and how much he hoped she would be in Hillsboro whenhe got here. He said that a great many of her dainty ways reminded himof his "own slip of a girl," especially the turn of her head like a"flower on its stem." At that I got right out of bed like a jack jumpingout of a box and looked at myself in the mirror.

  There is one exercise here on page twenty that I hate worst of all. Youscrew up your face tight until you look like a Christmas mask to getyour neck muscles taut, and then wobble your head round like a new-bornbaby until it swims. I did that one twenty extra times and all theothers in proportion to make up for those two hours in bed. HereafterI'll get up at the time directed on page three, or maybe earlier. Itfrightens me to think that I've got only a few weeks more to turn from acabbage-rose into a lily. I won't let myself even think "perfect flower"and "scarlet runner." If I do, I get warm and happy all over. I try whenI get hungry to think of myself in that blue muslin dress.

  I haven't been really willing before to write down in this wretchedvolume that I took that garment to the city with me and what MadameRene did to it--remade it into the loveliest thing I ever saw, only Iwouldn't let her alter the size one single inch. I'm hono
urable, as allwomen are at peculiar times. I think she understood, but she seemed notto, and worked a miracle on it with ribbon and lace. I've put it awayon the top shelf of a cupboard, for it is a torment to look at it.

  * * * * *

  You can just take any recipe for a party and it will make a gooddebut for a girl, but it takes more time to concoct one for a widow,especially if it is for yourself. I spent all the rest of the day doingalmost nothing and thinking until I felt light-headed. Finally I hadjust about given up any idea of a party and had decided to leak outin general society as quietly as my clothes would let me, when a realconflagration was lighted inside me.

  If Tom Pollard wasn't my own first cousin I would have loved himdesperately, even if I am a week older than he. He was about the onlyoasis in my childhood's days, though I don't think anybody would thinkof calling him at all green. He never stopped coming to see meoccasionally, and Mr. Carter liked him. He was the first man to noticethe white ruche I sewed in the neck of my old black silk four or fivemonths ago, and he let me see that he noticed it out of the corner ofhis eyes as we were coming out of church, under Aunt Adeline's veryelbow.

  And when that conflagration was lighted in me about my debut, Tomdid it. I was sitting peaceably in my own summer-house, dressed inthe summer-before-last that Jane washes and irons every day whileI am deciding how to hand out the first sip of my trousseau to theneighbours, when Tom, in a dangerous blue-striped shirt, with a tie thatmelted into it in tone, jumped over my fence and landed at my side. Hekissed the lace ruffle on my sleeve while I reproved him severely andsettled down to enjoy him. But I didn't have such a good time as Igenerally do with him. He was too full of another woman, and even afirst cousin can be an exasperation in that condition.

  "Now, Mrs. Molly, truly did you ever see such a flower as she is?" hedemanded after I had expressed more than a dozen delighted opinionsof Miss Clinton. His use of the word "flower" riled me, and before Istopped to think, I said, "She reminds me more of a scarlet runner."

  "Now, Molly, don't be jealous just because old Wade has taken her outdriving behind the greys after kissing your hand under the lilacsyesterday, which, fortunately, nobody saw but little me! I'm not sore,why should you be? Aren't you happy with me?"

  I withered him with a look, or rather _tried_ to wither him, for Tomis no mimosa bud.

  "The way that girl has managed to wake up this little old town is amarvel," he continued enthusiastically. "Let's don't let the folks knowthat they are off until I get everybody in a full swing of buzz over myqueen." I had never seen Tom so enthusiastic over a girl before, and Ididn't like it. But I decided not to let him know that, but to get towork putting out the Clinton blaze in him and starting one on my ownaccount.

  "That's just what I'm thinking about, Tom," I said with a smile that wasas sweet as I could make it, "and as she came with messages to me fromone of my best old friends I think I ought to do something to make herhave a good time. I was just planning a gorgeous dinner-party I want tohave for her when you came so suddenly. Do you think we could arrange itfor Tuesday evening?"

  "Good gracious, Molly, don't knock the town down like that! Let 'em havemore than a week to get used to this white rag of a dress you've beenwaving in their faces for the last few days. Go slow!"

  "I've been going so slow for so many years that I've turned round andI'm going fast backward," I said with a blush that I couldn't help.

  "Help! Let my kinship protect me!" exclaimed Tom in alarm, and hepretended to move an inch away from me.

  "Yes," I said slowly, and as I looked out of the corner of my eyes fromunder the lashes that Tom himself had once told me were "too long andblack to be tidy," I saw that he was in a condition to get the fullshock. "If anybody wakes up this town it will be I," I said as I flungdown the gauntlet with a high head.

  "Here, Molly, here are the keys of my office, and the spark-plug to thecar; you can cut off a lock of my hair, and if Jane has got a cake I'lleat it out of your hands. Shall it be Switzerland or Japan? And I prefer_my_ bride served in light grey tweed." Tom really is delightful. Thenwe both laughed and began to plan what Tom called a conflagration. ButI kept that delicious rose-embroidered treasure all to myself. I wantedhim to meet it entirely unprepared.

  I was glad we had both got over our excitement and were sittingdecorously drinking tea, when the judge drew the greys up to the gate,and we both went out to the kerb to ask him and the lovely long lady tocome in. They couldn't; but we stood and talked to them long enough forMrs. Johnson to get a good look at us from across the street, and I wasafraid I should find Aunt Adeline in a faint when I went into the house.

  Miss Clinton was delightfully gracious about the dinner--I almostcalled it the debut dinner--and the expression on the judge's face whenhe accepted! I was glad she was sitting beside him and couldn't see.Some women like to make other women unhappy, but I think it is best foryou to keep them blissfully unconscious until you get what you want.Anyhow, I like that girl all over, and I can't see that her neck is soabsolutely impossibly flowery. However, I think she might have been alittle more considerate about discussing Alfred's triumph over theItalian mission. As a punishment I let Tom take my arm as we stoodwatching them drive off, and then was sorry for the left grey horsethat shied and came in for a crack of the judge's irritated whip.

  Then I refused to let Tom come inside the gate, and he went down thestreet whistling, only when he got to the purple lilac he turned andkissed his hand to me. That, Mrs. Johnson just couldn't stand, and shecame across the street immediately and called me back to the gate.

  "You are tempting Providence, Molly Carter," she exclaimed decidedly."Don't you know Tom Pollard is nothing but a scatter-brained fly-away?As a husband there'd be no dependence on him. Besides being your cousin,he's younger than you. What do you mean?"

  "He's just a week younger, Mrs. Johnson, and I wouldn't tie him forworlds, even if I married him," I said meekly. Somehow I like Mrs.Johnson enough to be meek with her, and it always brings her to a higherpoint of excitement.

  "Tie, nonsense; marrying is roping in with ball and chain, to my mind.And a week between a man and a woman in their cradles gets to be fifteenyears between them and their graves. Well, I must go home now to seethat Sally cooks up a few of Mr. Johnson's crotchets for supper." Andshe began to hurry away.

  Marriage is the only worm in the bud of Mrs. Johnson's life, and herlaugh has a snap to it even if it is not very sugary sweet.

  When I told Jane about the dinner-party and asked her to get her motherto come and help her, and her nephew to wait at table, she smiled sucha wide smile that I was afraid of being swallowed. She understood thatAunt Adeline wouldn't be interested in it until I had time to tell herall about it. Anyway, Aunt will be going over to Springfield on apilgrimage to see Mr. Henderson's sister next week. She doesn't know ityet; but I do.

  After that I spent all the rest of the evening in planning mydinner-party, and I had a most royal good time. I always have had lotsof company, but mostly the spend-the-day kind with relatives, or morerelatives to supper. That's what most entertaining in Hillsboro is like,but, as I say, once in a while the old slow pacer wakes up.

  I'll never forget my first real party. I was bridesmaid for CarolineEvans, when she married a Birmingham magnate, from which Hillsboro hasnever yet recovered. It was the week before the wedding. I was sixteen,felt dreadfully unclothed without a tucker in my dress, and saw Alfredfor the first time in evening clothes--his first. I can hardly standthinking about how he looked even now. I haven't been to very manyparties in my life, but from this time on I mean to indulge in themoften. Candle-light, pretty women's frocks, black coat sleeves, cutglass and flowers are good ingredients for a joy-drink, and why not?

  But when I got to planning about the gorgeous food I wanted to give themall, I got into what I feel came near being a serious trouble. It waswriting down the recipe for the nesselrode pudding they make in myfamily that undid me. Suddenly hunger rose up from
nowhere and grippedme by the throat, gnawed me all over like a bone, then shook me untilI was limp and unresisting. I must have astralised myself down to thepantry, for when I became conscious I found myself in company with aloaf of bread, a plate of butter and a huge jar of jam.

  I sat down at the long table by the window and slowly prepared to enjoymyself. I cut off four slices and buttered them to an equal thickness,and then more slowly put a long silver spoon into the jam. I even pausedto admire in Jane's mirror over the table the effect of the cascade oflace that fell across my arm and lost itself in the blue shimmer ofMadame Rene's masterpiece of a _negligee_, then deep down I buriedthe spoon in the purple sweetness. I had just lifted it high in the airwhen out of the lilac-scented dark of the garden came a laugh.

  "Why, Molly, Molly, Molly!" drawled that miserable man-doctor as he cameand leaned on the sill right close to my elbow. The spoon crashed on thetable, and I turned and crashed into words.

  "You are cruel, cruel, John Moore, and I hate you worse than I ever didbefore, if that is possible. I'm hungry, hungry to death, and now you'vespoiled it all! Go away before I wet this nice crisp bread and jam withtears, and turn it into a pulp I'll have to eat with a spoon. You don'tknow what it is to want something sweet so bad you are willing to stealit--from yourself!" I fairly blazed my eyes down into his, and moved asfar away from him as the table would let me.

  "Don't I, Molly?" he asked softly, after looking straight in my eyes fora long minute, that made me drop my head until the blue bow I had tiedon the end of my long plait almost got into the scattered jam. Even atsuch a moment as that I felt how glad Madame Rene would have been tohave given such a nice man as the doctor a treat like that blue silk_chef-d'oeuvre_ of hers. I was glad myself.

  "Don't I, Flower?" he asked again in a still softer voice. Again I hadthat sensation of being against something warm and great and good, andI don't know how I controlled it enough not to--to--

  "Well, have some jam then," I managed to say with a little laugh, as Iturned away and picked up the silver spoon.

  "Thank you, I will, all of it, and the bread and butter, too," heanswered, in that detestable friendly tone of voice, as he drew himselfup and sat in the window. "Hurry, Flower, if you are going to feed me,for I'm ravenous. I've been attending Sam Benson's wife, and I haven'thad any supper. You have; so I don't mind taking it all away from you."

  "Supper," I sniffed, as I spread the jam on those lovely, lovely slicesof bread and thick butter that I had fixed for my own self. "I am sotired of that apple-toast combination now that I forget it if I can." AsI handed him the first slice of drippy lusciousness, I turned my headaway. He thought it was from the expression of that jam, but it was fromhis eyes.

  "Slice up the whole loaf, Flower, and let's have a feast. Forget--" Hedidn't finish his sentence, and I'm glad. We neither of us said anythingmore as I cut that whole loaf; but why should I want to be certain thathe touched the lace on my sleeve as it brushed his face when I reachedacross him to catch an inquisitive rose that I saw peeping in the windowat us?