How quaint, said Iva.
Whoopee, Baby! Here we are, and Petticoat rescued his bride from the middle of a crowd and yanked her toward his car.
The car was a museum piece, and as Warble caromed into its cushions she felt that her lines had fallen in pleasant places.
That was the way Fate came to Warble. In big fat chunks, in slathers. Unexpected, sudden, inescapablethats Fate all over.
I shall like Mr. LeathershamI shall call him Goldie. Theyre all nice and friendlythe men. But this town! Oh, my Heavens! This Jewel Casketthis Treasure Table! I cant live through it! This Floating Island of a Tipsy Charlotte! Her husband nudged her. You look like you had a pain, he said; Scared? I dont expect you to fit in at first. You have to get eased into things. Its different from Pittsburgh. But youll come to like itlove is so free here, and the smartest people on earth.
She winked at him. I love you for your misunderstanding. Im just dog-tired. And too many chocolates. Give me a rest, dear. Im all in from wear sheeriness.
She laid her feet in his lap and snuggled into the corner of the pearl-colored upholstery.
She was ready for her new home, beautiful, celebrated Ptomaine Haul. Petticoat told her that his mother had been living with him, but had fled incontinently on hearing a description of Warble.
The bride chuckled and smiled engagingly as the car slithered round a corner and stopped under the porte cochère of a great house set in the midst of a landscape.
Neo-Colonial, of a purity unsurpassed by the Colonists themselves.
A park stretching in front; gardens at the back; steps up to a great porch, and a front door copied from the Frary house in Old Deerfield.
A great hallat its back twin halves of a perfect staircase. To the right, a charming morning room, where Petticoat led his bride.
You like it? Its not inharmonious. I left it as it isin case you care to rebuild or redecorate.
Its a sweet home she was touched by his indifference. So artistic.
Petticoat winced, but he was a polite chap, and he only said, carelessly, Yes, home is where the art is, and let it go at that.
In the hall and the great library she was conscious of vastness and magnificent distances, but, she thought, if necessary, I can use roller skates.
As she followed Petticoat and the current shift of servants upstairs, she quavered to herself like the fat little gods of the hearth.
She took her husband into her arms, and felt that at last she had realized her one time dreams of the moving pictures, ay, even to the final close-up.
What mattered, so long as she could paw at the satin back of his shirt, and admire his rich and expensive clothing.
Dearso dear she murmured.
CHAPTER IV
The Leathershams are giving a ball for us to-night, Petticoat said, casually, as he powdered his nose in the recesses of his triplicate mirror.
A ball?
Oh, I dont mean a danceI meanerwell, what youd call a sociable, I suppose.
Oh, aint we got fun!
And, I say, Warble, Ive got to chase a patient now; can you hike about a bit by yourself?
Course I can. Whos your patient?
Avery Goodmanthe rector of St. Judas church. He will eat terrapin made out ofyou know what. And so, hes all tied up in knots with ptomaine poisoning and Ive got to straighten him out. It means a lot to us, you know.
I know; skittle.
Left alone, Warble proceeded systematically to examine the interior of Ptomaine Haul. She gazed about her own bedroom and a small part of its exquisite beauty dawned upon her. It was an exact copy of Marie Antoinettes and the delicately carved furniture and pale blue upholstery and hangings harmonized with the painted domed ceiling and paneled walls.
The dressing table bore beautiful appointments of ivory, as solid as Warbles own dome and from the Cupid-held canopy over the bed to the embroidered satin foot-cushions, it was top hole.
The scent was of French powders, perfumes and essences and sachets, such as Warble had not smelled since before the war.
Can you beat it, she groaned. How can I live with doodads like this? She saw the furniture as a circle of hungry restaurant customers ready to eat her up. She kicked the dozen lace pillows off the head of the bed.
No utility anywhere, she cried. Everything futile, inutile, brutal! I hate it! I hate it! Why did I ever
And then she remembered she was a Petticoat now, a lace, frilled Petticoatnot one of those that Oliver Herford so pathetically dubbed the short and simple flannels of the poor.
Yes, she was now a Petticoatone of the aristocratic Cotton-Petticoats, washable, to be sure, but a dressy Frenchy Petticoat, and as such she must take her place on the family clothesline.
She drifted from oriel window to casement, and on to a great becurtained and becushioned bay, and looked out on the outlook.
She saw gardens like the Tuileries and Tuilerums, soft, shining pools, little skittering fountains, marble Cupids and gay-tinted flowers. This was the scene for her to look down upon and live up to.
I mustnt! I mustnt! Im nervous this afternoon! Am I sick? Good Lord, I hope it isnt that! Not now! Id hate itId be scared to death! Some daybut, please, kind Fate, not now! I dont want to go down now with ptomaine poisoning! Not till after Ive had my dinner! Im going out for a walk.
When Warble had plodded along for six hours, she had pretty well done up the town.
Ptomaine Street, which took its name from her husbands own residence, was a wide, leafy avenue with a double row of fine old trees on each side. They were Lebbek trees, and the whole arrangement was patterned after the avenue which Josephine built for Napoleon, out to the Mena House.
She passed the homes of the most respectable citizens. Often they were set back from the road, and the box hedges or tall iron fences prevented her from seeing the houses. But she saw enough and sped on to the more interesting business and shopping section of Butterfly Center.
She passed Ariel Inn, the hotel being like a Swiss Chalet, perched on some convenient rocks that rose to a height above street level. A few fairly nimble chamois were leaping over these rocks and Warble heard a fairy-like chime of bells as afternoon tea was announced.
A man in an artists smock sauntered across the street. A palette on one thumb, he scratched his chin with the other. A hearse, its long box filled with somebody, crawled down the block. A dainty Sedan with a womans idle face at its window wafted by. From a Greek Temple came the sound of Interpretative Dancing, and the applause of perfunctory hands.
She wanted to elope. Her own ideas of utility, efficiency, and economy were being shatteredbroken in pieces like a potters vessel. Her sense of proportion, her instinct for relative values, her abhorrence of waste motion, her inborn system and method, all were swept away as a thief in the night. Could she reform this giddy whirl? Could she bring chaos out of cosmos? Was her own ego sufficient to egg her on in her chosen work?
She haed her doots.
She maundered down the street on one sideback on the other.
Dudies Drug-store was like unto a Turkish Mosque. Minaret and pinnaret, battlement and shuttle-door, it was a perfect drug-store, nobly planned. The long flight of steps leading up to its ptortal was a masterpiece in the step line.
Inside, the Soda Pagoda was a joy of temple bells and soft, sweet drinks, while at the prescription counter, the line formed on the right, to get Dr. Petticoats prescriptions filled for their ptomaines.