Gaslight Sonatas Part 52

"Selene, Selene, ain't it coming to gramaw, after all her years' hard work helping us that--she should be ent.i.tled to go back with her wreaths for the graves? Ain't she ent.i.tled to die with that off her poor old mind? You bad, ungrateful girl, you, it's coming to a poor old woman that's suffered as terrible as gramaw that I should find a way to take her back."

"Take her back. Where--to jail? To prison in Siberia herself--"

"There's a way--"

"You know gramaw's too old to take a trip like that. You know in your own heart she won't ever see that day. Even before the war, much less now, there wasn't a chance for her to get pa.s.sports back there. I don't say it ain't all right to kid her along, but when it comes to--to keeping me out of the--the biggest thing that can happen to a girl--when gramaw wouldn't know the difference if you keep showing her the bank-book--it ain't right.

That's what it ain't. It ain't right!"

In the smallest possible compa.s.s, Miss Coblenz crouched now upon the floor, head down somewhere in her knees, and her curving back racked with rising sobs.

"Selene--but some day--"

"Some day nothing! A woman like gramaw can't do much more than go down-town once a year, and then you talk about taking her to Russia! You can't get in there, I--tell you--no way you try to fix it after--the way gramaw--had--to leave. Even before the war Ray Letsky's father couldn't get back on business. There's nothing for her there, even after she gets there. In thirty years, do you think you can find those graves? Do you know the size of Siberia? No! But I got to pay--I got to pay for gramaw's nonsense. But I won't. I won't go to Lester if I can't go right. I--."

"Baby, don't cry so--for G.o.d's sake, don't cry so!"

"I wish I was dead!"

"'Sh-h-h! You'll wake gramaw."

"I do!"

"O G.o.d, help me to do the right thing!"

"If gramaw could understand, she'd be the first one to tell you the right thing. Anybody would."

"No! No! That little bank-book and its entries are her life--her life."

"She don't need to know, mama. I'm not asking that. That's the way they always do with old people to keep them satisfied. Just humor 'em. Ain't I the one with life before me--ain't I, mama?"

"O G.o.d, show me the way!"

"If there was a chance, you think I'd be spoiling things for gramaw? But there ain't, mama--not one."

"I keep hoping if not before, then after the war. With the help of Mark Haas--"

"With the book in her drawer, like always, and the entries changed once in a while, she'll never know the difference. I swear to G.o.d she'll never know the difference, mama!"

"Poor gramaw!"

"Mama, promise me--your little Selene. Promise me?"

"Selene, Selene, can we keep it from her?"

"I swear we can, mama."

"Poor, poor gramaw!"

"Mama? Mama darling?"

"O G.o.d, show me the way!"

"Ain't it me that's got life before me? My whole life?"

"Yes--Selene."

"Then, mama, please--you will--you will--darling?"

"Yes, Selene."

In a large, all-frescoed, seventy-five-dollar-an-evening-with-lights and cloak-room-service ballroom of the Hotel Walsingham, a family hostelry in that family circle of St. Louis known as its West End, the city holds not a few of its charity-whists and benefit musicales; on a dais which can be carried in for the purpose, morning readings of "Little Moments from Little Plays," and with the introduction of a throne-chair, the monthly lodge-meetings of the Lady Mahadharatas of America. For weddings and receptions, a lane of red carpet leads up to the slight dais; and lined about the brocade and paneled walls, gilt-and-brocade chairs, with the crest of Walsingham in padded embroidery on the backs. Crystal chandeliers, icicles of dripping light, glow down upon a scene of parquet floor, draped velours, and mirrors wreathed in gilt.

At Miss Selene Coblenz's engagement reception, an event properly festooned with smilax and properly jostled with the elbowing figures of waiters tilting their plates of dark-meat chicken salad, two olives, and a finger-roll in among the crowd, a stringed three-piece orchestra, faintly seen and still more faintly heard, played into the babel.

Light, glitteringly filtered through the gla.s.s prisms, flowed down upon the dais; upon Miss Selene Coblenz, in a taffeta that wrapped her flat waist and chest like a calyx and suddenly bloomed into the full-inverted petals of a skirt; upon Mr. Lester Goldmark, his long body barely knitted yet to man's estate, and his complexion almost clear, standing omnivorous, omnipotent, omnipresent, his hair so well brushed that it lay like black j.a.panning, a white carnation at his silk lapel, and his smile slightly projected by a rush of very white teeth to the very front. Next in line, Mrs. Coblenz, the red of a fervent moment high in her face, beneath the maroon-net bodice the swell of her bosom, fast, and her white-gloved hand constantly at the opening and shutting of a lace-and-spangled fan. Back, and well out of the picture, a potted hydrangea beside the Louis Quinze armchair, her hands in silk mitts laid out along the gold-chair sides, her head quavering in a kind of mild palsy, Mrs. Miriam Horowitz, smiling and quivering her state of bewilderment.

With an unfailing propensity to lay hold of to whomsoever he spake, Mr.

Lester Goldmark placed his white-gloved hand upon the white-gloved arm of Mrs. Coblenz.

"Say, Mother Coblenz, ain't it about time this little girl of mine was resting her pink-satin double A's? She's been on duty up here from four to seven. No wonder Uncle Mark bucked."

Mrs. Coblenz threw her glance out over the crowded room, surging with a wave of plumes and clipped heads like a swaying bucket of water which crowds but does not lap over its sides.

"I guess the crowd is finished coming in by now. You tired, Selene?"

Miss Coblenz turned her glowing glance.

"Tired! This is the swellest engagement-party I ever had."

Mrs. Coblenz shifted her weight from one slipper to the other, her maroon-net skirts lying in a swirl around them.

"Just look at gramaw, too! She holds up her head with the best of them. I wouldn't have had her miss this, not for the world."

"Sure one fine old lady! Ought to have seen her shake my hand, Mother Coblenz. I nearly had to holler, 'Ouch!'"

"Mama, here comes Sara Suss and her mother. Take my arm, Lester honey.

People mama used to know." Miss Coblenz leaned forward beyond the dais with the frail curve of a reed.

"Howdado, Mrs. Suss.... Thank you. Thanks. Howdado, Sara? Meet my _fiance_, Lester Haas Goldmark; Mrs. Suss and Sara Suss, my _fiance_.... That's right, better late than never. There's plenty left.... We think he is, Mrs.

Suss. Aw, Lester honey, quit! Mama, here's Mrs. Suss and Sadie."

"Mrs. Suss! Say--if you hadn't come, I was going to lay it up against you.

If my new ones can come on a day like this, it's a pity my old friends can't come, too. Well, Sadie, it's your turn next, eh?... I know better than that. With them pink cheeks and black eyes, I wish I had a dime for every chance." (_Sotto_.) "Do you like it, Mrs. Suss? p.u.s.s.y-willow taffeta.... Say, it ought to be. An estimate dress from Madame Murphy--sixty-five with findings. I'm so mad, Sara, you and your mama couldn't come to the house that night to see her things. If I say so myself, Mrs. Suss, everybody who seen it says Jacob Sinsheimer's daughter herself didn't have a finer. Maybe not so much, but every st.i.tch, Mrs.

Suss, made by the same sisters in the same convent that made hers....

Towels! I tell her it's a shame to expose them to the light, much less wipe on them. Ain't it?... The goodness looks out from his face. And such a love-pair! Lunatics, I call them. He can't keep his hands off. It ain't nice, I tell him.... Me? Come close. I dyed the net myself. Ten cents'

worth of maroon color. Don't it warm your heart, Mrs. Suss? This morning, after we got her in Lester's Uncle Mark's big automobile, I says to her, I says, 'Mama, you sure it ain't too much?' Like her old self for a minute, Mrs. Suss, she hit me on the arm. 'Go 'way,' she said; 'on my grandchild's engagement day anything should be too much?' Here, waiter, get these two ladies some salad. Good measure, too. Over there by the window, Mrs. Suss.

Help yourselves."

"Mama, 'sh-h-h! the waiters know what to do."