CHAPTER XII

THE SQUARE BECOMES A TRIANGLE

Mrs. Wyndham, Jessamy, and Barbara, with Tom as escort, returned heavy-heartedly from the Warren Street pier, where they had been seeing off Phyllis at the beginning of her first venture into the world. The big _Puritan_, with her colors flying and her band playing, steamed out into the river looking bright and festive, but to those from whom she was bearing one fourth of themselves she seemed a kind of monster.

Violet opened the door to them when they reached home, and Truce arched his back into a furry croquet-wicket in his pleasure on seeing them once more; but Jessamy's tears sprang to her eyes again, remembering that the kitten's dear mistress was sailing away; if Phyllis had gone to Darkest Africa, it could hardly have been more dismally tragic than the short journey to Boston seemed to the two girls who loved her.

"We are a square no more," said Bab, drearily, as they seated themselves at the dinner-table.

"Still we are four," suggested Mrs. Wyndham, with a kindly smile for Tom, toward whom Barbara's manner was distinctly forbidding.

"Oh, I can't take Phyllis's place," said Tom, cheerily; "but I should say you were still as square as ever, since she is bound to be here, no matter where else she is. That sounds slightly occult," he added, laughing. "What I mean is--"

"You mean her heart's in the Highlands wherever she roams," said Barbara. "But that is worse for us all; it makes her homesick, and we miss her just the same. No, we are no longer a square; we are a triangle, and I feel as though we were not even a triangle standing on one of its sides--or whatever you call them--but a triangle standing up on one of its points, and very wobbly."

"We will hope it will not be long before we are squared again," said her mother. "We must not take Phyllis's flight too seriously; we are so unused to separations we cannot realize how trifling this little trip would be to less spoiled people. We shall have a telegram in the morning and such nice letters every day from our dear little girl that perhaps we shall never be willing to let her come home again."

"I don't believe Horace Walpole and Madame Sévigné, melted down and poured out on the tip of Phyl's pen, could bring us to that state of mind," said Jessamy, giving Truce an extra fine bit of lamb for his mistress's sake.

The telegram announcing Phyllis's safe arrival came before luncheon the next morning, and the following day brought her first letter.

"Dearest Auntie, Girls, and Truchi-ki," it began: "Behold me of an arrival--you see, I am inclined to French forms. I had the nicest kind of a journey--so nice that I should be delighted to repeat it to-night--with the steamer's bow headed the other way!"

"Dear old Phyl; telegraph her to do it!" cried Barbara.

"But I am here to stay, and not so homesick as you might think I would be. Mrs. Dean is a dear, and Boston reserve may be as icy as the comic newspapers say, but when it makes up its mind to thaw it really is as warming as port wine, with much of the same rich, dignified quality. Mrs. Dean treats me with what I should call respectful affection, and that is the kind of treatment that makes a snip of a girl, away from home for the first time, feel self-reliant; it puts her on her mettle to be as womanly, contented, and generally pretty-behaved as she is expected to be. Mrs. Dean evidently intends to watch over me, and make me happy if she can, and the least I can do under such goodness is to be happy. She is going to save my self-respect by letting me feel she did not take me for charity, but that she really wanted me for service. My duties are to read to her, attend to her correspondence, and bear her company from her breakfast, at half-past eight, till luncheon, at one. After luncheon she drives for an hour, when I accompany her, after which drive she lies down, and I am free till the seven o'clock dinner. In the evening I sit with her, reading or playing backgammon or cribbage, until nine, except those evenings when her nephews and nieces call, or, as she says with a significant twinkle, when she feels minded to go to a concert or play, as she will sometimes, now that she has a youthful companion to enjoy frivolity as much as she does.

"She is interested in my account of my little hopes, and says I must continue writing while with her, and she will see to it that I have time to do so for hours in the splendid great library. Oh, dear folkses, do you suppose our library at Fortieth Street will be as glorious as this beautiful Greek temple here? Of course, I maintain to Mrs. Dean that it is to be surpassed by the New York library when it is done, but in my heart of hearts I wonder if ours can equal the Boston one.

"I have not seen much more of the city than the library; not that from the inside. The coachman brought me through Copley Square this morning when I arrived, and this afternoon I went down among the shops with Mrs. Dean. The shops look rather serious after our beauties; indeed, though Boston is handsomer than New York--that is, Commonwealth Avenue and around it, where Mrs. Dean lives, is fine--it is not cheerful and bright like our own queer, big jumble of a city, but looks as though it wore gray, and wore it on principle. We went down in the subway, and I felt dreadfully mortified not to have a hand-bag. Every woman, young and old, except myself, carried a little cloth bag, most of them shaped like school satchels held together by their leather handles. I felt as though I were out without some necessary article of clothing, not a hat or anything that might ever be superfluous, but something as dreadful to want as the waist of my dress, for instance. I certainly must get a bag, if I want to be respectable--I wonder if Boston policemen arrest girls who go out without bags, if they are alone? Mrs. Dean had one, so that may have saved me. Dearest, darlingest family, I hope you miss me--not too much, but a little. And I hope Violet will keep the kitchen and all my dear tins in apple-pie order; tell her I said so. And don't let Trucie miss me, yet don't let him forget me. And I am glad I came away, yet I would give anything to drop down among you as I shall drop this letter into the box. Altogether, I am a bundle of contradictions, you see; but I am doing as well as one could expect me to, and am going to be busy and contented. Write me, one of you, every day; for I love you more than you know, and it is a wee bit hard to be a wandering, prodigal daughter. Especially to such a home body as your spoiled, but loving Phyllis."

"She is homesick, but she doesn't mean to let herself find it out," said Jessamy.

"Dear little Phyllis! It won't hurt her to test herself under new conditions, but I hope she will feel that she can come back to us soon," said Mrs. Wyndham. "Now, your note, Jessamy? From Mrs. Van Alyn, isn't it?"

"I think so," said Jessamy, examining the envelop, with that peculiar carefulness every one bestows on the outside of a letter, instead of opening it and looking at the signature. "Yes, it is, and she wants Bab and me to plunge into society; just listen!" she added, when she finally had opened the note and glanced at its contents.

"'MY DEAR JESSAMY: We are going to have an entertainment, in aid of the Baby's Hospital, that promises to be quite charming. It is to be a Masque of Shakspere. The Mr. Lane whom you met at my house has written or constructed for us a Masque on the lines of those used in the Elizabethan period, in which many of Shakspere's characters, culled from all the plays, are introduced. He has used the Shaksperian text as far as possible, connecting it with original matter to bring out the very simple plot--it is practically but a meeting between all the dear characters whom we know, but who have hitherto never known one another. I beg you to help in this merrymaking, you and Barbara, and implore your mother to allow you to do so. First of all, I need you; secondly, you have been too long recluses from your old acquaintances, from whom mere change of circumstances should not wholly debar you. Jessamy is to be _Miranda_, for good and sufficient reasons, and Babbie will be, if she will, _Beatrice_. She is not quite large enough to realize exactly one's conception of "dear Lady Disdain," but she is admirably adapted for her otherwise, having by nature much of that young woman's ready wit and her loving heart, imperfectly concealed by the saucy tongue. I have asked your Doctor Tom to be _Benedick_--an added reason for our _Beatrice_ to be a success, if my observations the last few times that I have seen Bab with him and marked her snubbing of him are correct. It will be a delightful frolic, for we all love play-acting, and it will be a remarkably pretty affair if it goes well. So don't refuse me, dear Jessamy and Barbara, and tell your mother I say that it is as wrong to hide her daughters in a Harlem flat as to hide her light under a bushel. Say yes at once, and oblige your friend, MARY VAN ALYN.'"

"It sounds beautiful, doesn't it, mama?" said Jessamy. "Do you think it would be wise for us to begin to nibble at forbidden fruit? You know we can't afford the time nor money to be gay very often."

Barbara's cheeks had been rosy red since Jessamy had read the allusion to Tom, which showed that her desire to treat him indifferently had overshot the mark. "It might be rather stupid," she said. "We don't know who will be with us."

"Mrs. Van Alyn will not ask any but acceptable young people, and it seems to me we can hardly refuse anything she suggests for you," said Mrs. Wyndham. "She has been your best friend all your lives--heavenly kind since the trouble came. You will enjoy it, and she is right to draw you into something bright and youthful. I certainly consent, and urge you to take part in the masque. Write your acceptance before you go out."

"I'm only too delighted, if you think it won't upset us, mama," said Jessamy, with a beaming face, as she opened her desk. "I should love to try to act a little, and Mrs. Van Alyn has given us the dearest parts! Bab will be a splendid _Beatrice_, though she is small."

The note of acceptance was despatched, and from that moment the little home was a whirl of excitement. Fortunately, Violet had the talent of her race for cooking, else the Wyndham family might have died of starvation, for neither Jessamy nor Barbara could get her mind down to practical things.

Rehearsals began at once. The masque proved to be very clever and pretty, the plot a dream, in which most of the best-beloved people in Shakspere's plays met, talked, told the story of their lives subsequent to the ending of the play in which they had moved, straightened out tangles, showed that sorrowful events were all a mistake and had never happened, and ended at the last in a beautiful old English dance, which faded away into a background of shadow, in which finally all were lost to sight and were understood to have gone back into the 1623 folio whence they had emerged.

The return of Jessamy and Barbara to the set which had been theirs was hailed by most of their friends with pleasure. Many of them had called on the Wyndhams when misfortune first befell them, but finding them boarding, with no satisfactory place in which to receive their friends, and meeting them no more in the houses and places of amusement they frequented, had ceased making efforts to hunt them up. Many of the girls came out during the winter spent by the Wyndhams at the "Blackboard," and the life of a débutante leaves little time for extra pursuits, even the pursuit of former acquaintances, so the Wyndhams had been suffered to drop out of mind rather through indifference and pressure of interests than from unkindness.

One girl there was--Grace Hammond--who hailed their reappearance with anything but rapture. Grace Hammond's father was an old friend of Mrs. Van Alyn and of her brothers, who had made the fatal mistake of marrying an entirely worldly woman, with a thoroughly vulgar love of mere wealth, and Grace, unfortunately, had inherited her mother's nature, not her father's--a nature carefully fostered by that mother's training. Mr. Hammond's fortune had been swallowed up in a Wall Street venture; he had not been able to get beyond a sufficient income in his efforts to make another, efforts seriously hampered by his wife's extravagance. It was the intention of both Grace and her mother that Mrs. Van Alyn's beautiful house, wealth, social standing, and exquisite breeding should be Grace's backing in her presentation to the world, counting on the claim of old friendship for Grace's father. Under these circumstances, the advent of the Wyndhams was especially provoking, the more so that Grace could not compete with Barbara for prettiness, wit, and charm, while Jessamy was an avowed beauty.

It would not do to betray the envy and bitterness she felt, so Grace did what people of her type generally do--smiled sweetly in public and bided her time to oust or mortify those whom she chose to consider her rivals.

Jessamy and Barbara were not long in discovering that Grace hated them, but Mrs. Van Alyn was blissfully unconscious that one of the young people she loved to have about her was consumed with jealous spitefulness.

The great night came at last; it was the middle of May, and warm. Mrs. Van Alyn's long parlors, where first the play was to have been given, were found inadequate to the guests who applied for tickets, and a small theater, closed for the season, had been secured without cost, as the masque was given for charity; only the lighting and similar expenses were incurred in its use. The prospect of appearing, as Bab said, "really on the boards, and not on carpet politely called the boards," was tremendously exciting. It seemed to change the whole affair, solemnizing it into something little short of professional. All the actors had to have hasty training in speaking and walking on a real stage, given at the last moment by a real actor and actress, who had taken up the masque with enthusiasm, and had done all in their power to perfect the young Shaksperians.

Jessamy and Barbara were wild with excitement. If it had not been for their mother, Phyllis's home bulletins would have been meager and delirious during these thrilling weeks, but Mrs. Wyndham kept "the stray unit of their four times one are four," as she called Phyllis, informed of the progress of the housekeeping and the revels.

Jessamy and Barbara set out dinnerless on the night of their "first appearance on any stage," as Jessamy reminded her mother it was, appetite lost in excitement.

She and Bab shared their dressing-room--what a delicious feeling of importance it gave them to know it was a dressing-room used by a real actress during the season!

Jessamy's _Miranda_ costume was most beautiful; perhaps none of the others quite equaled it in poetic beauty, though most of the other costumes were more splendid. It was sea-green and white, hung with pearls and shells and narrow ribbon made to represent seaweed. A gauzy veil, white and filmy as sea-foam, floated from her beautiful hair, which hung, half loose, half confined with pearls, about her shoulders. Little Barbara looked her best in white and gold, with devices for increasing her height, and her hair piled high on her saucy head, held tilted scornfully as became both her actual self and _Beatrice_.

Grace Hammond was _Viola_, not in doublets, but in a short skirt, with sword at side and a rakish cap set boyishly on her dark hair. _Ophelia_--come to life, as the lines explained, for she had not been drowned, but had revived when they laid her in the grave--and _Juliet_ and _Desdemona_, both happily resuscitated after the curtain had fallen on the play, and now come forth to prove it to those who loved and mourned them, _Hermione_, _Rosalind_, _Cordelia_, _Portia_, _Katherine_ the Shrew, and _Katherine_ the Queen, _Queen Constance_, _Titania_, _Hero_, and a few of the lesser known of Shakspere's lovable women, shyly opened their dressing-room doors one by one, and went to the wings to join _Ferdinand_, _Benedick_, _Romeo_, _Bassanio_, _Othello_, _Hamlet_, _Laertes_, _Orlando_, and all the other gallants in velvets, satins, laces, and ribbons, with _Malvolio_, gartered and bedizened, to lead the opening march.

The masque was but half an hour late in beginning, a wonderful feat of promptness for an amateur charitable entertainment. The curtain rose upon the pretty setting and a picturesque grouping of all the characters, which, immediately after the applause greeting it had begun to die away, broke up into a march to display the individual beauty concealed in the whole.

Then the masque proper began. There was, naturally, considerable difference in the talents of the actors, but their training had been good, and none was conspicuously bad. Grace Hammond acted with real ability, although she did not understand the character of _Viola_, construing her by her boyish costume rather after the spirit of _Katherine_. Jessamy's _Miranda_ was the admiration of all beholders--sweet, innocent, alluring--all that a sea princess should be--while Bab charmed the most fastidious with her _Beatrice_, burred like a chestnut exteriorly, but womanly sweet and true of heart within.

Murmurs from the wings, plaudits from the audience, showed Grace that the Wyndhams, and more especially Barbara, whom she disliked more than Jessamy, were carrying off the honors of the evening, and her petty soul was filled with rage and bitterness.

There came a moment when Barbara had her most effective bit of acting. It was _Ophelia's_ entrance, and _Beatrice_ was to rush to her with a glad cry at seeing her return from the grave. Grace, as _Viola_, stood directly in the center. Barbara, from the left of the stage, saw _Ophelia_ crossing from the right, and sprang forward. Grace made a motion as if to free herself from something interfering with her skirt, short though it was, and stepped slightly forward, as she did so contriving to extend the point of her sword toward the swift feet of _Beatrice_. Barbara did not see--indeed, there was no time to see--the malicious act. She bounded forward, and fell headlong, face downward, on the stage. Mr. Lane, in the wings, directing and watching his play with all the nervousness of a young author, said something vigorous and excusable under the circumstances, turning whiter than he was before at the sight of the accident.

"The miserable girl!" he muttered. "She has spoiled the play!"

Tom, as _Benedick_, was not far off; standing near Grace, he saw plainly the entire action. With great presence of mind, he leaped to Barbara's assistance. Stooping, he raised her, helped her free her feet from her entangling skirt, and whispered: "Are you hurt, Bab? For goodness sake, pull yourself together and go on!"

Barbara was shaken by the force of her fall, and mortified almost beyond bearing. Tom's voice steadied her a little, and she managed to whisper: "Not seriously, Tom; but what shall I do?"

"Don't let that beast of a girl down you," he whispered back. "Say something in reply to me." Then, aloud, he said, laughing: "'Tis the first time, dear Lady Disdain, I have caught you tripping. That I should live to see the day that proud _Beatrice_ throws herself at my feet! But, faith, dear lady, I have long guessed you liked me well."

Barbara tossed her head in approved _Beatrician_ fashion. "'Tis my feet, and not my head, hath tripped, good my lord. 'Twas joy at sight of sweet _Ophelia_ there somewhat overcame me, and at her feet, not yours, I lie prostrate. _Ophelia, Ophelia_, and are you really among the living?" And from this point the dialogue continued as in the manuscript.

There were many among the audience who understood what had happened, and the rest guessed; everybody recognized and admired the pluck that carried Barbara through a humiliating situation. The entire house rose and shouted, and from the wings came applause no less hearty. Mr. Lane was beside himself with delight. "Such a girl!" he cried rapturously to the world in general. "I never saw such grit! And she saved my play--she and Leighton, bless 'em! Her voice was shaking when she spoke, yet she got herself in hand and went on! I tell you, I never _saw_ such grit."

At the end of the play, Barbara and Tom had to reply to a separate recall, an honor that made Grace set her teeth hard. Her spite had turned against herself; she was furious, humiliated, for many knew that she had acted as she had done purposely, and she felt sure that her chance of Mrs. Van Alyn's favor had gone forever.

A little supper served later to the actors at Mrs. Van Alyn's gave Bab her opportunity for revenge, and perhaps won for her more than the plaudits of the evening, delightful though they had been. In a few moments' talk snatched with Jessamy, she had decided that it would be both kind and finer to shelter Grace from the consequences of her own meanness. Not one of the actors but stood aloof from the girl after the fatal moment when she had thrust out her sword to trip Barbara and had upset her own reputation. At the supper, looking at Grace's crimson, sullen face, Barbara began actually to pity her, fortified in Christian sentiments by the petting she herself was receiving on all hands, and the way Grace was shunned.

As they rose from the table, Bab slipped around to Grace's chair. "I'm sorry you hate me, Grace," she said. "I think I never harmed you; but if we are not friends, at least on the surface, all these people will imagine you put out that sword purposely, and you will be dropped by every one you care to know. Be friends with me, Grace; I will help you, and you will be glad later that the little slip of temper was covered up."

Grace looked up, and Grace looked down. It had not seemed possible that she could be redder than before, but a fresh wave of color spread to her hair, then receded, leaving her deadly white. Something good there was in the girl, and Barbara had touched it. She turned and kissed Bab, then burst out crying before them all. "Barbara Wyndham is a saint and a trump," she sobbed. "I was jealous of her--"

"There, never mind," interrupted Bab, this time with no need of effort in her kindness, for her warm little heart was melted. "Grace and I are friends, so if I am satisfied, surely no one else need ask what happened, nor imagine she meant to harm me. You are all her friends too, aren't you; and we all think she was a great _Viola_, don't we?"

"Splendid! Fine! Lovely!" murmured the guests, and Barbara kissed Grace before them all.

Tom took Barbara home that night, while Mr. Lane was the escort of the _Miranda_, whom he seemed to think embodied the charms of land and sea sprites. The girls begged to be allowed to walk a little way toward home, longing for fresh air after the exciting evening, and Mrs. Van Alyn made an exception for once to her rule of allowing no young guest to leave her house late except in her carriage.

"I can't tell you how I respect and admire you to-night, Bab," said Tom, earnestly, as he shook her hot little hand in parting. "You are a first-rate actress, but you're more--a first-rate lady."

"Don't praise me, Tom," said Bab, gently; she seemed to have played out her rôle of "dear Lady Disdain" for the time. "It was less goodness than a desire to be above all such meanness, I am afraid. I'm rather proud, Tom, and that is not creditable."