Edith Wharton - SSC 10 (27 page)

 
          
Cousin
Syngleton turned a deeper purple. “Oh, I’ll take his seat too, will I? Well,
why not? Isn’t this my anniversary as much as it is yours, Martha Little? I
suppose you think I’d better follow after you and carry your train, eh?”

 
          
Miss
Little
drew herself up to a height that seemed to
overshadow every one around her. Warbeck felt her shaking on his arm like a
withered leaf, but her lips were dangerously merry.

 
          
“No;
I think you’d better push the Mayor out of the way and give
me
your arm, Syngleton Perch,” she flung
back gaily.

 
          
“Well,
why not?” Mr. Perch rejoined, his innocent smile meeting her perfidious one;
and some one among the lookers-on was imprudent enough to exclaim: “Oh,
wouldn’t that be too lovely!”

 
          
“Oh,
uncle Syngleton,” Lyddy appealed to him—”do you really suppose you
could?”

 
          
“Could—could—could,
young woman? Who says I can’t, I’d like to know?” uncle Syngleton sputtered,
his arms and legs gyrating vehemently toward Miss Little, who now stood quite
still on Warbeck’s arm, the cane sustaining her, and her fixed smile seeming to
invite her rival’s approach.

 
          
“An
interesting experiment,” Warbeck heard some one mutter in the background, and
Miss
Little’s
head turned in the direction of the
speaker. “This is only a rehearsal,” she declared incisively.

 
          
She
remained motionless and untrembling while the Antigone and Lyddy guided cousin
Syngleton precariously toward her; but just as Warbeck thought she was about to
detach her hand from his arm, and transfer her frail weight to Mr. Perch’s, she
made an unexpected movement. Its immediate result—Warbeck could never say
how—was to shoot forward the famous ebony stick which her abrupt gesture (was
it unconsciously?) drove directly into the path of uncle Syngleton. In another
instant—but one instant too late for rescue—Warbeck saw the stick entangled in
the old man’s wavering feet, and beheld him shoot wildly upward, and then fall
over with a crash. Every one in the room gathered about with agitated questions
and exclamations, struggling to lift him to his feet; only Miss
Little
continued to stand apart, her countenance unmoved,
her aged fingers still imbedded in Warbeck’s arm.

 
          
The
old man, prone and purple, was being cautiously lifted down from the platform,
while the bewildered spectators parted, awe-
struck,
to
make way for his frightened bearers. Warbeck followed their movements with
alarm; then he turned anxiously toward the frail figure on his arm. How
would she
bear the shock, he asked himself, with a leap of
the imagination which seemed to lay her also prone at his feet. But she stood
upright, unmoved, and Warbeck met her resolute eyes with a start, and saw in
their depths a century of slow revenge.

 
          
“Oh,
cousin
Martha—cousin
Martha
,” he breathed, in a whisper of mingled terror and
admiration…

 
          
“Well,
what? I told you it was only a rehearsal,” said Martha
Little
,
with her ancient smile.