THE HAPPIEST TIME OF THEIR LIVES
BY ALICE DUER MILLER
Author of “Come Out of the Kitchen,” “Ladies Must Live,” “Wings in the
Night,” etc.
1918
TO CLARENCE DAY, JR.
... and then he added in a less satisfied tone: “But friendship is so
uncertain. You don’t make any announcement to your friends or vows to
each other, unless you’re at an age when you cut your initials in the
bark of a tree. That’s what I’d like to do.”
THE HAPPIEST TIME OF THEIR LIVES
CHAPTER I
Little Miss Severance sat with her hands as cold as ice. The stage
of her coming adventure was beautifully set--the conventional stage
for the adventure of a young girl, her mother’s drawing-room. Her
mother had the art of setting stages. The room was not large,--a New
York brownstone front in the upper Sixties even though altered as to
entrance, and allowed to sprawl backward over yards not originally
intended for its use, is not a palace,--but it was a room and not a
corridor; you had the comfortable sense of four walls about you when
its one small door was once shut. It was filled, perhaps a little too
much filled, with objects which seemed to have nothing in common except
beauty; but propinquity, propinquity of older date than the house in
which they now were, had given them harmony. Nothing in the room was
modern except some uncommonly comfortable sofas and chairs, and the
pink and yellow roses that stood about in Chinese bowls.
Miss Severance herself was hardly aware of the charm of the room. On
the third floor she had her own room, which she liked much better.
There was a great deal of bright chintz in it, and maple furniture of
a late colonial date, inherited from her mother’s family, the Lanleys,
and discarded by her mother, who described the taste of that time as
“pure, but provincial.” Crystal and ivories and carved wood and Italian
embroideries did not please Miss Severance half so well as the austere
lines of those work-tables and high-boys.
It was after five, almost half-past, and he had said “about five.” Miss
Severance, impatient to begin the delicious experience of anticipation,
had allowed herself to be ready at a quarter before the hour. Not that
she had been entirely without some form of anticipation since she woke
up; not, perhaps, since she had parted from him under the windy awning
the night before. They had held up a long line of restless motors as
she stood huddled in her fur-trimmed cloak, and he stamped and jigged
to keep warm, bareheaded, in his thin pumps and shining shirt-front,
with his shoulders drawn up and his hands in his pockets, while they
almost awkwardly arranged this meeting for the next day.
Several times during the preceding evening she had thought he was going
to say something of the kind, for they had danced together a great
deal; but they had always danced in silence. At the time, with his
arm about her, silence had seemed enough; but in separation there is
something wonderfully solid and comforting in the memory of a spoken
word; it is like a coin in the pocket. And after Miss Severance had
bidden him good night at the long glass door of the paneled ball-room
without his saying anything of a future meeting, she had gone up-stairs
with a heavy heart to find her maid and her wrap. She knew as soon
as she reached the dressing-room that she had actually hurried her
departure for the sake of the parting; for the hope, as their time
together grew short, of having some certainty to look forward to. But
he had said nothing, and she had been ashamed to find that she was
waiting, leaving her hand in his too long; so that at last she snatched
it away, and was gone up-stairs in an instant, fearing he might have
guessed what was going on in her mind.
She had thought it just an accident that he was in the hall when she
came down again, and he hadn’t much choice, she said to herself, about
helping her into her motor. Then at the very last moment he had asked
if he mightn’t come and see her the next afternoon. Miss Severance, who
was usually sensitive to inconveniencing other people, had not cared at
all about the motor behind hers that was tooting its horn or for the
elderly lady in feathers and diamonds who was waiting to get into it.
She had cared only about arranging the hour and impressing the address
upon him. He had given her back the pleasure of her whole evening like
a parting gift.
As she drove home she couldn’t bring herself to doubt, though she tried
to be rational about the whole experience, that it had meant as much
to him as it had to her, perhaps more. Her lips curved a little at the
thought, and she glanced quickly at her maid to see if the smile had
been visible in the glare of the tall, double lamps of Fifth Avenue.
To say she had not slept would be untrue, but she had slept close
to the surface of consciousness, as if a bright light were shining
somewhere near, and she had waked with the definite knowledge that this
light was the certainty of seeing him that very day. The morning had
gone very well; she had even forgotten once or twice for a few seconds,
and then remembered with a start of joy that was almost painful:
but, after lunch, time had begun to drag like the last day of a long
sea-voyage.
About three she had gone out with her mother in the motor, with the
understanding that she was to be left at home at four; her mother was
going on to tea with an elderly relation. Fifth Avenue had seemed
unusually crowded even for Fifth Avenue, and the girl had fretted
and wondered at the perversity of the police, who held them up just
at the moment most promising for slipping through; and why Andrews,
the chauffeur, could not see that he would do better by going to
Madison Avenue. She did not speak these thoughts aloud, for she had
not told her mother, not from any natural love of concealment, but
because any announcement of her plans for the afternoon would have
made them seem less certain of fulfilment. Perhaps, too, she had felt
an unacknowledged fear of certain of her mother’s phrases that could
delicately puncture delight.
She had been dropped at the house by ten minutes after four, and
exactly at a quarter before five she had been in the drawing-room, in
her favorite dress, with her best slippers, her hands cold, but her
heart warm with the knowledge that he would soon be there.
Only after forty-five minutes of waiting did that faith begin to grow
dim. She was too inexperienced in such matters to know that this was
the inevitable consequence of being ready too early. She had had time
to run through the whole cycle of certainty, eagerness, doubt, and she
was now rapidly approaching despair. He was not coming. Perhaps he
had never meant to come. Possibly he had merely yielded to a polite
impulse; possibly her manner had betrayed her wishes so plainly that a
clever, older person, two or three years out of college, had only too
clearly read her in the moment when she had detained his hand at the
door of the ball-room.
There was a ring at the bell. Her heart stood perfectly still, and then
began beating with a terrible force, as if it gathered itself into
a hard, weighty lump again and again. Several minutes went by, too
long for a man to give to taking off his coat. At last she got up and
cautiously opened the door; a servant was carrying a striped cardboard
box to her mother’s room. Miss Severance went back and sat down. She
took a long breath; her heart returned to its normal movement.
Yet, for some unexplained reason, the fact that the door-bell had rung
once made it more possible that it would ring again, and she began to
feel a slight return of confidence.
A servant opened the door, and in the instant before she turned her
head she had time to debate the possibility of a visitor having come in
without ringing while the messenger with the striped box was going out.
But, no; Pringle was alone.
Pringle had been with the family since her mother was a girl, but, like
many red-haired men, he retained an appearance of youth. He wanted to
know if he should take away the tea.
She knew perfectly why he asked. He liked to have the tea-things put
away before he had his own supper and began his arrangements for the
family dinner. She felt that the crisis had come.
If she said yes, she knew that her visitor would come just as tea had
disappeared. If she said no, she would sit there alone, waiting for
another half-hour, and when she finally did ring and tell Pringle he
could take away the tea-things, he would look wise and reproachful.
Nevertheless, she did say no, and Pringle with admirable self-control,
withdrew.
The afternoon seemed very quiet. Miss Severance became aware of all
sorts of bells that she had never heard before--other door-bells,
telephone-bells in the adjacent houses, loud, hideous bells on motor
delivery-wagons, but not her own front door-bell.
Her heart felt like lead. Things would never be the same now. Probably
there was some explanation of his not coming, but it could never be
really atoned for. The wild romance and confidence in this first visit
could never be regained.
And then there was a loud, quick ring at the bell, and at once he was
in the room, breathing rapidly, as if he had run up-stairs or even from
the corner. She could do nothing but stare at him. She had tried in
the last ten minutes to remember what he looked like, and now she was
astonished to find how exactly he looked as she remembered him.
To her horror, the change between her late despair and her present
joy was so extreme that she wanted to cry. The best she knew how to
do was to pucker her face into a smile and to offer him those chilly
finger-tips.
He hardly took them, but said, as if announcing a black, but
incontrovertible, fact:
“You’re not a bit glad to see me.”
“Oh, yes, I am,” she returned, with an attempt at an easy social
manner. “Will you have some tea?”
“But why aren’t you glad?”
Miss Severance clasped her hands on the edge of the tea-tray and looked
down. She pressed her palms together; she set her teeth, but the
muscles in her throat went on contracting; and the heroic struggle was
lost.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” she said, and making no further effort
to conceal the fact that her eyes were full of tears she looked
straight up at him.
He sat down beside her on the small, low sofa and put his hand on hers.
“But I was perfectly certain to come,” he said very gently, “because,
you see, I think I love you.”
“Do you think I love you?” she asked, seeking information.
“I can’t tell,” he answered. “Your being sorry I did not come doesn’t
prove anything. We’ll see. You’re so wonderfully young, my dear!”
“I don’t think eighteen is so young. My mother was married before she
was twenty.”
He sat silent for a few seconds, and she felt his hand shut more firmly
on hers. Then he got up, and, pulling a chair to the opposite side of
the table, said briskly:
“And now give me some tea. I haven’t had any lunch.”
“Oh, why not?” She blew her nose, tucked away her handkerchief, and
began her operations on the tea-tray.
“I work very hard,” he returned. “You don’t know what at, do you? I’m a
statistician.”
“What’s that?”
“I make reports on properties, on financial ventures, for the firm
I’m with, Benson & Honaton. They’re brokers. When they are asked to
underwrite a scheme--”
“Underwrite? I never heard that word.”
The boy laughed.
“You’ll hear it a good many times if our acquaintance continues.” Then
more gravely, but quite parenthetically, he added: “If a firm puts up
money for a business, they want to know all about it, of course. I tell
them. I’ve just been doing a report this afternoon, a wonder; it’s what
made me late. Shall I tell you about it?”
She nodded with the same eagerness with which ten years before she
might have answered an inquiry as to whether he should tell her a
fairy-story.
“Well, it was on a coal-mine in Pennsylvania. I’m afraid my report is
going to be a disappointment to the firm. The mine’s good, a sound,
rich vein, and the labor conditions aren’t bad; but there’s one fatal
defect--a car shortage on the only railroad that reaches it. They can’t
make a penny on their old mine until that’s met, and that can’t be
straightened out for a year, anyhow; and so I shall report against it.”
“Car shortage,” said Miss Severance. “I never should have thought of
that. I think you must be wonderful.”
He laughed.
“I wish the firm thought so,” he said. “In a way they do; they pay
attention to what I say, but they give me an awfully small salary. In
fact,” he added briskly, “I have almost no money at all.” There was
a pause, and he went on, “I suppose you know that when I was sitting
beside you just now I wanted most terribly to kiss you.”
“Oh, no!”
“Oh, no? Oh, yes. I wanted to, but I didn’t. Don’t worry. I won’t for a
long time, perhaps never.”
“Never?” said Miss Severance, and she smiled.
“I said _perhaps_ never. You can’t tell. Life turns up some awfully
queer tricks now and then. Last night, for example. I walked into that
ballroom thinking of nothing, and there you were--all the rest of the
room like a sort of shrine for you. I said to a man I was with, ‘I
want to meet the girl who looks like cream in a gold saucer,’ and he
introduced us. What could be stranger than that? Not, as a matter of
fact, that I ever thought love at first sight impossible, as so many
people do.”
“But if you don’t know the very first thing about a person--” Miss
Severance began, but he interrupted:
“You have to begin some time. Every pair of lovers have to have a first
meeting, and those who fall in love at once are just that much further
ahead.” He smiled. “I don’t even know your first name.”
It seemed miraculous good fortune to have a first name.
“Mathilde.”
“Mathilde,” he repeated in a lower tone, and his eyes shone
extraordinarily.
Both of them took some time to recover from the intensity of this
moment. She wanted to ask him his, but foreseeing that she would
immediately be required to use it, and feeling unequal to such an
adventure, she decided it would be wiser to wait. It was he who
presently went on:
“Isn’t it strange to know so little about each other? I rather like
it. It’s so mad--like opening a chest of buried treasure. You don’t
know what’s going to be in it, but you know it’s certain to be rare and
desirable. What do you do, Mathilde? Live here with your father and
mother?”
She sat looking at him. The truth was that she found everything he said
so unexpected and thrilling that now and then she lost all sense of
being expected to answer.
“Oh, yes,” she said, suddenly remembering. “I live here with my mother
and stepfather. My mother has married again. She is Mrs. Vincent
Farron.”
“Didn’t I tell you life played strange tricks?” he exclaimed. He sprang
up, and took a position on the hearth-rug. “I know all about him.
I once reported on the Electric Equipment Company. That’s the same
Farron, isn’t it? I believe that that company is the most efficient for
its size in this country, in the world, perhaps. And Farron is your
stepfather! He must be a wonder.”
“Yes, I think he is.”
“You don’t like him?”
“I like him very much. I don’t _love_ him.”
“The poor devil!”
“I don’t believe he wants people to love him. It would bore him. No,
that’s not quite just. He’s kind, wonderfully kind, but he has no
little pleasantnesses. He says things in a very quiet way that make you
feel he’s laughing at you, though he never does laugh. He said to me
this morning at breakfast, ‘Well, Mathilde, was it a marvelous party?’
That made me feel as if I used the word ‘marvelous’ all the time, not
a bit as if he really wanted to know whether I had enjoyed myself last
night.”
“And did you?”
She gave him a rapid smile and went on:
“Now, my grandfather, my mother’s father--his name is Lanley--(Mr.
Lanley evidently was not in active business, for it was plain that
Wayne, searching his memory, found nothing)--my grandfather often
scolds me terribly for my English,--says I talk like a barmaid,
although I tell him he ought not to know how barmaids talk,--but
he never makes me feel small. Sometimes Mr. Farron repeats, weeks
afterward, something I’ve said, word for word, the way I said it. It
makes it sound so foolish. I’d rather he said straight out that he
thought I was a goose.”
“Perhaps you wouldn’t if he did.”
“I like people to be human. Mr. Farron’s not human.”
“Doesn’t your mother think so?”
“Mama thinks he’s perfect.”
“How long have they been married?”
“Ages! Five years!”
“And they’re just as much in love?”
Miss Severance looked at him.
“In love?” she said. “At their age?” He laughed at her, and she added:
“I don’t mean they are not fond of each other, but Mr. Farron must be
forty-five. What I mean by love--” she hesitated.
“Don’t stop.”
But she did stop, for her quick ears told her that some one was coming,
and, Pringle opening the door, Mrs. Farron came in.
She was a very beautiful person. In her hat and veil, lit by the
friendly light of her own drawing-room, she seemed so young as to be
actually girlish, except that she was too stately and finished for
such a word. Mathilde did not inherit her blondness from her mother.
Mrs. Farron’s hair was a dark brown, with a shade of red in it where
it curved behind her ears. She had the white skin that often goes with
such hair, and a high, delicate color in her cheeks. Her eyebrows were
fine and excessively dark--penciled, many people thought.
“Mama, this is Mr. Wayne,” said Mathilde. Here was another tremendous
moment crowding upon her--the introduction of her beautiful mother to
this new friend, but even more, the introduction to her mother of this
wonderful new friend, whose flavor of romance and interest no one,
she supposed, could miss. Yet Mrs. Farron seemed to be taking it all
very calmly, greeting him, taking his chair as being a trifle more
comfortable than the others, trying to cover the doubt in her own mind
whether she ought to recognize him as an old acquaintance. Was he new
or one of the ones she had seen a dozen times before?
There was nothing exactly artificial in Mrs. Farron’s manner, but, like
a great singer who has learned perfect enunciation even in the most
trivial sentences of every-day matters, she, as a great beauty, had
learned the perfection of self-presentation, which probably did not
wholly desert her even in the dentist’s chair.
She drew off her long, pale, spotless gloves.
“No tea, my dear,” she said. “I’ve just had it,” she added to Wayne,
“with an old aunt of mine. Aunt Alberta,” she threw over her shoulder
to Mathilde. “I am very unfortunate, Mr. Wayne; this town is full
of my relations, tucked away in forgotten oases, and I’m their only
connection with the vulgar, modern world. My aunt’s favorite excitement
is disapproving of me. She was particularly trying to-day.” Mrs. Farron
seemed to debate whether or not it would be tiresome to go thoroughly
into the problem of Aunt Alberta, and to decide that it would; for she
said, with an abrupt change, “Were you at this party last night that
Mathilde enjoyed so much?”
“Yes,” said Wayne. “Why weren’t you?”
“I wasn’t asked. It isn’t the fashion to ask mothers and daughters to
the same parties any more. We dance so much better than they do.” She
leaned over, and rang the little enamel bell that dangled at the arm of
her daughter’s sofa. “You can’t imagine, Mr. Wayne, how much better I
dance than Mathilde.”
“I hope it needn’t be left to the imagination.”
“Oh, I’m not sure. That was the subject of Aunt Alberta’s talk this
afternoon--my still dancing. She says she put on caps at thirty-five.”
Mrs. Farron ran her eyebrows whimsically together and looked up at her
daughter’s visitor.
Mathilde was immensely grateful to her mother for taking so much
trouble to be charming; only now she rather spoiled it by interrupting
Wayne in the midst of a sentence, as if she had never been as much
interested as she had seemed. Pringle had appeared in answer to her
ring, and she asked him sharply:
“Is Mr. Farron in?”
“Mr. Farron’s in his room, Madam.”
At this she appeared to give her attention wholly back to Wayne, but
Mathilde knew that she was really busy composing an escape. She seemed
to settle back, to encourage her visitor to talk indefinitely; but when
the moment came for her to answer, she rose to her feet in the midst of
her sentence, and, still talking, wandered to the door and disappeared.
As the door shut firmly behind her Wayne said, as if there had been no
interruption:
“It was love you were speaking of, you know.”
“But don’t you think my mother is marvelous?” she asked, not content to
take up even the absorbing topic until this other matter had received
due attention.
“I should say so! But one isn’t, of course, overwhelmed to find that
your mother is beautiful.”
“And she’s so good!” Mathilde went on. “She’s always thinking of things
to do for me and my grandfather and Mr. Farron and all these old, old
relations. She went away just now only because she knows that as soon
as Mr. Farron comes in he asks for her. She’s perfect to every one.”
He came and sat down beside her again.
“It’s going to be much easier for her daughter,” he said: “you have to
be perfect only to one person. Now, what was it you were going to say
about love?”
Again they looked at each other; again Miss Severance had the sensation
of drowning, of being submerged in some strange elixir.
She was rescued by Pringle’s opening the door and announcing:
“Mr. Lanley.”
Wayne stood up.
“I suppose I must go,” he said.
“No, no,” she returned a little wildly, and added, as if this were the
reason why she opposed his departure. “This is my grandfather. You must
see him.”
Wayne sat down again, in the chair on the other side of the tea-table.