divorce, but she was not averse to either. “I think the dinners Anne
goes to must be precious dull. Now, our men and our parties, whatever
they are, they aren’t dull. I never laughed so much in my life as I did
at Rosalka’s stories.”
Clavering’s face grew black. He was no better than he should be
himself, and ethically he made no objection to his daughters’ amusing
themselves in any way but one; but old prejudices and superstitions
made him delicate on the one point upon which he suspected two of his
daughters were the least squeamish. He said nothing, however, nor did
Anne or Reginald; it was a subject none of them cared to discuss. When
luncheon was over, Mrs. Clavering and Anne made ready for their early
Sunday afternoon walk—a time to which Mrs. Clavering looked forward all
the week and with which Anne never allowed any of her own engagements
to interfere.
Meanwhile Clavering himself, interested for the first time in the
tall, shabby house across the way, walked out upon the broad stone
steps of his own place and watched the windows opposite, hoping for
a glimpse of Elizabeth Darrell’s face. While he stood there smoking
and apparently engaged in the harmless enjoyment of a lovely autumn
afternoon, Richard Baskerville approached. Baskerville denied himself
the pleasure of seeking Anne in her own home, but he often found
himself, without his own volition, in the places where he would be
likely to meet her, and so he was walking along the street in which she
lived. Seeing Clavering on the steps Baskerville would have passed with
a cool nod, but Clavering stopped him; and the younger man, thinking
Anne Clavering might be within sight or might appear, compromised
with his conscience and entered into conversation with Clavering.
It was always an effort on Baskerville’s part to avoid Clavering,
whose extraordinary charm of manner and personality was a part of his
capital. Baskerville, deep in the study of Clavering’s career, felt
a genuine curiosity about the man and how he did things and what he
really thought of himself and his own doings. He reckoned Clavering
to be a colossal and very attractive scoundrel, whom he was earnestly
seeking to destroy; and his relations were further complicated with
Clavering by the fact that Anne Clavering was—a very interesting
woman. This Baskerville admitted to himself; he had got that far on the
road to love.
The Senator, with the brilliant smile which made him handsomer than
ever, said to Baskerville, “We may as well enjoy the privilege of
speaking before you do me up in the matter of the K. F. R. land grants.”
The younger man cleverly avoided shaking hands with Clavering, but
replied, also smiling, “Your attorneys say we shan’t be able to ‘do you
up,’ Senator.”
“I hope they’re right. I swear, in that business the amount of lying
and perjury, if placed on end, would reach to the top of the Washington
Monument. Have a cigar?”
Such indeed was Baskerville’s own view of the lying and perjury, but he
opined that it was all on Senator Clavering’s side, and he was trying
to prove it. He got out of taking one of Clavering’s cigars—for he was
nice upon points of honor—by taking a cigarette out of his case.
“I don’t know what you youngsters are coming to,” said Clavering, as he
smoked. “Cigarettes and vermouth, and that sort of thing, instead of a
good strong cigar and four fingers of whiskey.”
“I was on the foot–ball team at the university for three terms, and we
had to lead lives like boarding–school misses,” replied Baskerville,
toying with his cigarette. “Our coach was about the stiffest man
against whiskey and cigars I ever knew—and used to preach to us seven
days in the week that a couple of cigars a day and four fingers of
whiskey would shortly land any fellow at the undertaker’s. I fell
from grace, it is true, directly I was graduated; but that coach’s
gruesome predictions have stuck to me like the shirt of Nemesis, as
your colleague, Senator Jephson, said the other day on the floor of the
Senate.”
“Jephson’s an ass. He is the sort of man that would define a case of
mixed property as a suit for a mule.”
“Hardly. And he’s an honest old blunderbuss.”
“Still, he’s an ass, as I say. His honesty doesn’t prevent that.”
“Well, yes, in a way it does. I’m not a professional moralist, but I
don’t believe there is any really good substitute for honesty.” Then
Baskerville suddenly turned red; the discussion of honesty with a man
whose dishonesty he firmly believed in, and was earnestly trying to
prove, was a blunder into which he did not often fall. Clavering, who
saw everything, noted the other’s flush, understood it perfectly, and
smiled in appreciation of the joke. Baskerville did not propose to
emphasize his mistake by running away, and was prepared to stay some
minutes longer, when the entrance doors were swung open by the gorgeous
footman, and Mrs. Clavering, leaning upon Anne’s arm, appeared for a
walk. When he saw his wife, Clavering’s face grew dark; that old woman,
with her bad grammar and her big hands, was always in his way. He said
good morning abruptly and went indoors at once.
Anne greeted Baskerville with a charming smile, and introduced him
at once to her mother. Something in his manner to Mrs. Clavering
revealed the antique respect he had for every decent woman, no matter
how unattractive she might be. He assisted Mrs. Clavering down the
great stone steps as if she were a young and pretty girl instead of a
lumbering, ignorant, elderly woman; and Mrs. Clavering found courage to
address him, a thing she rarely did to strangers.
“I guess,” she said diffidently, “you’ve got an old mother of your own
that you help up and down—you do it so easy.”
“No, I wish I had,” answered Baskerville, with a kindness in his voice
that both the old woman and the young felt. “My mother has been dead
a long time; but I have a fine old aunt, Mrs. Luttrell, who makes me
fetch and carry like an expressman’s horse, and then she says I am not
half so attentive to her as I ought to be. Perhaps Miss Clavering has
told you about her—I had the pleasure of dining with Miss Clavering at
my aunt’s last night.”
“Yes, she did, and she told me you were all real nice,” answered Mrs.
Clavering—and was appalled at her own daring.
Anne and Baskerville talked about the dinner, as they walked along
the sunny, quiet street. Anne had enjoyed every moment spent in Mrs.
Luttrell’s house, and said so. Mrs. Clavering walked with difficulty,
and the young man’s arm at the street crossings was a real assistance
to her; and without talking down to Mrs. Clavering or embarrassing her
by direct remarks, he skilfully included her in the conversation.
Mrs. Clavering felt increasingly comfortable. Here was a man who did
not scorn a woman because she was old and plain. For once the poor
woman did not feel in the way with another person besides Anne. She
ventured several remarks, such as: “People ought to be kind to poor
dumb brutes, who can’t tell what ails them,” and “Washington is a great
deal prettier for having so many trees, because trees make any place
pretty,”—to all of which Baskerville listened with pleasant courtesy.
He began to see in this ordinary, uneducated woman a certain hint of
attractiveness in her gentleness of voice and softness of eyes that
were reflected and intensified in the slim and graceful daughter by her
side. Anne turned her soft, expressive eyes—her only real beauty—on
Baskerville with a look of gratitude in them. Her life at home was
one long fight for the happiness and dignity of her mother, for whom
no one of her family had the least respect, except herself and her
brother Reginald; and Reginald was but a poor creature in many ways.
If Baskerville had sat up all night for a month, trying to devise a
plan to ingratiate himself with Anne Clavering, he could not have done
it better than by his courtesy to her mother. And he, appreciating
the strong affection, the courage, the absence of false pride, the
unselfishness, of Anne Clavering in this particular, admired her the
more.
As they walked slowly along and talked, a kind of intimacy seemed to
spring into being between them. Gratitude is a strong incentive to
regard on both sides, and Baskerville’s attitude toward Mrs. Clavering
touched Anne to the heart. Their objective point was Dupont Circle,
which at that hour was tolerably free from the colored gentry and
the baby carriages which make it populous eighteen hours out of the
twenty–four. But Mrs. Clavering was destined to receive further
distinguished attentions during that episode of the walk. When she was
seated comfortably on a bench Baskerville proposed to Anne that he show
her, on the other side of the Circle, a silver maple tree in great
autumnal glory.
“Now do go, my dear,” said Mrs. Clavering. “I’d like to set here
awhile. Do, Mr. Baskerville, take her off—she ain’t left me an hour
this day, and she oughter have a little pleasure.”
“Come, obey your mother,” Baskerville said; and Anne, smiling, walked
off with him.
Mrs. Clavering, good soul, was like other mothers, and as her darling
child went off with Baskerville she thought: “How nice them two look
together! And he is such a civil–spoken, sensible young man. Anne
deserves a good husband, and if—“
This train of thought was interrupted by General Brandon. He, too,
after his luncheon, was out for a Sunday airing, and passing the
bench on which Mrs. Clavering sat, the good woman, with new–found
courage, looked up at him and actually ventured upon a timid bow.
She had recognized him from the first time she had seen him, when
she moved into their new and splendid house; and she had a perfectly
clear recollection of the old sutler days, when General Brandon was a
handsome young captain, who always had a polite word for the sutler’s
wife. But she had never before, in the two years they had lived
opposite each other, had the courage to speak to him. Her success
with Baskerville emboldened her, and as General Brandon made her an
elaborate, old–fashioned bow Mrs. Clavering said:—
“This used to be Cap’n Brandon—a long time ago, just before the war
broke out.”
“Yes, madam,” replied General Brandon; “and you, I believe, are Mrs.
Clavering. I remember quite well when Mr. Clavering brought you, a
blooming bride, to the post.”
Mrs. Clavering sighed. She was so lonely in the big house, so
continually snubbed by her husband, by her daughters Élise and Lydia,
by the uppish footman and the giggling maids; she was so cut off from
everything she had known before, that the sight of persons connected
with those early days was like water in the desert to her. She smiled
a deprecating smile, and answered: “I’ve seen you on the streets often
enough. You live opposite our house, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said General Brandon. Then Mrs. Clavering made a faint
indication that he should sit down, and he placed himself on the bench
by her side. “I recognized both you and Senator Clavering,” he went on,
“but as neither of you showed any recollection of me I hesitated to
speak.”
Mrs. Clavering sighed. “You are the first person since I came to
Washington that I ever seen as far back as them days at the army post.”
General Brandon, the most chivalrous of men, saw in Mrs. Clavering
the timid longing to talk about old days and old ways, and he himself
had a fondness for reminiscences; so the pair of old fogies entered
into talk, feeling a greater degree of acquaintanceship in meeting
after that long stretch of years than they had ever known before. When
Anne and Baskerville returned, twenty minutes later, quite an active
conversation was going on.
“Anne, my dear,” said Mrs. Clavering, actually in a self–possessed
manner, “this is General Brandon, who lives opposite our house. I knew
him in them old times at the army post; and he’s got a daughter, a
widder, come home from England, to live with him. Anne, you must go and
call on her.”
“I shall with much pleasure,” replied Anne, bestowing on General
Brandon her charming smile. Then, after a little more talk, it was
time to return. General Brandon gallantly offered Mrs. Clavering his
arm, and the poor lady, embarrassed but pleased, was escorted with
courtly grace to her door. Anne and Baskerville had meanwhile made vast
strides in intimacy. It was not, however, enough for Anne to repeat her
invitation to call, but Mrs. Clavering, when she arrived at the door
which was by courtesy called hers, plucked up extraordinary courage and
said:—
“I hope, Mr. Baskerville, you will favor us with your company on
Thursday, which is our receiving day. General Brandon has promised to
come, and I’ll be real disappointed if you don’t come, too.”
It was the first invitation that Mrs. Clavering had ever given on her
own initiative, and she gave it so diffidently, and in such simple good
faith, that a man would have been a brute to decline it. So Baskerville
accepted it with thanks, wondering meanwhile whether he were not a
rascal in so doing. But he wanted very much to see Anne Clavering
as often as he could, and the Montague and Capulet act came to him
quite naturally and agreeably—the more so when he saw the gleam of
gratification in Anne’s eyes at his acceptance. She said simply:—
“I shall be glad to see you;” and then, turning to General Brandon,
she added, “We shall, I hope, have the pleasure then of meeting Mrs.
Darrell.”
“My dear young lady, you are most kind,” answered General Brandon,
“but my daughter is so lately widowed—not yet a year and a half—that
I feel sure it will be quite impossible to her feelings for her to
appear at all in society now. Nevertheless, I shall give her your kind
invitation, and she will be most gratified. I shall do myself the honor
and pleasure of attending your Thursday reception.”
And then they parted, Anne and Baskerville each reckoning that day to
have been one of the pleasantest of their lives, and wondering when
they should have the good fortune to meet in that sweet, companionable
manner again.
_Chapter Ten_
At dinner that night General Brandon told Elizabeth about his meeting
with Mrs. Clavering, and the renewal of their acquaintance. “The poor
lady seemed much pleased at meeting some one associated with her former
life,” said the General. “She invited me to call on Thursday, which is
their first reception day of the season, and especially urged that you
should come. I believe their receptions are large and brilliant—the
newspapers are always full of them; so I told her that owing to your
very recent mourning it would be impossible for you to go to any large
or gay entertainment. I have no doubt Sara Luttrell will ask you to
many of her parties,—she keeps a very gay house,—and it is a source
of the keenest regret to me that you cannot for the present accept
invitations. But another winter I shall hope, my dear child, that you
will have the spirit to enter once more into the society you are so
admirably fitted to adorn.”
Good General Brandon was quite unconscious that in the society to
which Elizabeth had been long accustomed a year was considered the
period of a widow’s mourning. He never dreamed for one moment that she
could have been induced to go into society at that time. As a matter
of fact, it was the one thing which Elizabeth really hoped might rouse
her from her torpor of mind and heart into which she had sunk in the
last few months. She had a good and comprehensive mind, which had been
much improved by reading under Pelham’s direction. Then had come that
brilliant year in London, in which she had really seen the best English
society and had liked it, as every one must who knows it. During her
whole married life she had taken part in the continual round of small
gayeties which prevail at army posts all over the world. Her belle–ship
had made this particularly gratifying and delightful to her. Society
had become a habit, although very far from a passion, with her, and she
had expected to return to it, as one resumes one’s daily habits.
She had taken a strange interest in the Claverings from the very
beginning—they constituted her first impressions of Washington; and she
would have found some diversion from her sad and wearying thoughts in
Mrs. Luttrell’s brilliant and interesting house. But it was impossible
for her to go against her father’s implied ideas of propriety. He had
always assumed that she was properly and dutifully heart–broken at
her husband’s death. She did indeed mourn good, brave, honest, stupid
Jack Darrell as a woman mourns a husband for whom she feels gratitude
and tenderness, without being in the least in love with him; all the
sentiment which belongs to love she had secretly and hopelessly given
to Pelham. She often thought that if she had not been so young, so
ignorant, she never would have married Darrell.
“I think you should force yourself, however painful it may be to
your feelings, to go to see Sara Luttrell some day when she is not
formally receiving,” said General Brandon, thinking he was proposing a
tremendous sacrifice to Elizabeth; and he felt quite triumphant when
she agreed to go.
When the Thursday afternoon came, there was no need to tell Elizabeth
that the Clavering receptions were large and brilliant. By four o’clock
carriages came pouring into the street, and by five there was almost an
_impasse_. Great numbers of stylish men, both foreigners and Americans,
passed in and out the splendid doors.
While Elizabeth was watching this procession with curious interest,
Mrs. Luttrell’s great old–fashioned coach, with the long–tailed black
horses, stopped before the tall, shabby house, and Serena brought
up Mrs. Luttrell’s and Baskerville’s cards. Mrs. Luttrell, although
militant, was not the sort of woman to hit another woman when she was
down, and was most gracious when Elizabeth appeared. The sight of the
dingy drawing–room, of Elizabeth’s pallor and evident signs of stress
and trial, touched Mrs. Luttrell. She mentioned to Elizabeth that a
card would be sent her for a large dinner which she was giving within a
fortnight, and when Elizabeth gently declined Mrs. Luttrell was really
sorry. Baskerville was sincerely cordial. He had liked Elizabeth as a
girl, and her forlornness now touched him as it did Mrs. Luttrell.
When the visit was over and they were once more out of the house, Mrs.
Luttrell exclaimed: “That’s Dick Brandon’s doings—that poor Elizabeth
not going to a place and moping in that hole of a house. If she would
but go about a bit, and leave her card at the British Embassy, where
she would certainly be invited, she could see something of society and
recover her spirits and good looks. By the way, I think she’s really
more enticing in her pallor and her black gown than when she was in the
flush of her beauty. Of course she looks much older. Now, as I’m going
into the Claverings’ I suppose you will leave me.”
Baskerville, with a hangdog look, replied, “I’m going into the
Claverings’, too.” Mrs. Luttrell’s handsome mouth came open, and her
ermine cape fell from her shoulders without her even so much as knowing
it. “Yes,” said Baskerville, assuming a bullying air, now that the
cat was out of the bag, “Mrs. Clavering asked me last Sunday, and I
accepted.”
“Where on earth, Richard Bas—“
“Did I see Mrs. Clavering? I met her out walking with Miss Clavering.
Mrs. Clavering is a most excellent woman—quiet and unobtrusive—and I
swear there is something of her in Miss Clavering.”
“Richard Baskerville, you are in love with Anne Clavering! I know it; I
feel it.”
“Don’t be a fool, Sara Luttrell. Because I happen to pay a visit at a
house where I have been asked and could have gone a year ago, you at
once discover a mare’s nest. That’s Sara Luttrell all over.”
“And what becomes of the doubtful propriety of your going to Senator
Clavering’s house? And suppose you succeed in driving him out of public
life, as you are trying to do?”
“I swear you are the most provoking old woman in Washington. Hold your
tongue and come along with your dutiful nephew.”
Grasping her firmly by the arm, Baskerville marched Mrs. Luttrell
up the broad stone steps of the Clavering house. The splendid doors
were opened noiselessly by gorgeous footmen who looked like the
prize–winners at a chrysanthemum show. The entrance was magnificent,
and through the half–drawn silken draperies of the wide doorways they
could see the whole superb suite of rooms opening upon the large
Moorish hall. Great masses of flowers were everywhere, and the mellow
glow of wax lights and tinted lamp globes made the winter twilight
softly radiant.
Half a dozen butterfly débutantes were serving tea in the huge dining
room, furnished with priceless teak–wood and black oak, bright with
pictures and mirrors, a magnificent Turkish carpet on the parquet floor
and chandeliers from a royal palace lighting the dim splendor of the
room. Here, brilliant with candelabra, was set out a great table, from
which an expensive collation was served by more gorgeous footmen. This
was the doing of Élise and Lydia, who overruled Anne’s desire for a
simple tea–table set in the library. There, however, a great gold and
silver bowl was constantly replenished with champagne punch, and over
this Élise and Lydia presided, much preferring the champagne bowl to
the tea–table.
The library was thronged with men, old and young, native and foreign.
Élise and Lydia, their handsome faces flushed and smiling, their
elaborate gowns iridescent with gold and silver embroidery and spangles
sweeping the floor, laughed, talked, and flirted to their hearts’
content. They also drank punch with a great many men, who squeezed
their hands on the sly, looked meaningly into their large, dark eyes,
and always went away laughing.
Mrs. Luttrell, escorted by Baskerville, and meeting acquaintances
at every turn, entered the great drawing–room, which was a symphony
in green and gold. Near the door Anne Clavering, in a simple gray
gown, stood by her mother, who was seated. Anne received the guests,
and then introduced them to Mrs. Clavering, who made the pretence of
receiving, looking the picture of misery meanwhile. The poor soul
would much rather have remained upstairs; but on this point Anne was
inexorable—her mother must show herself in her own drawing–room. A
handsome black gown, appropriate to an elderly lady, showed Mrs.
Clavering at her best, and Anne, with perfect tact, grace, and
patience, silently demanded and received for her mother the respect
which was due her and which there was occasionally some difficulty
in exacting. As Anne caught sight of Mrs. Luttrell, she smiled with
obvious pleasure; but on seeing Baskerville her face lighted up in a
way which by no means escaped Mrs. Luttrell’s sharp eyes.
Mrs. Clavering was nearly frightened out of her life on the rare
occasions when the redoubtable Mrs. Luttrell called, but on this
afternoon Mrs. Luttrell was as soft as milk and as sweet as honey
itself. Mrs. Clavering was not the least afraid of Baskerville, and
said to him earnestly, as he took her hand, “I’m real glad to see you.”
“And I am very glad to be able to come,” answered Baskerville. Then,
seating himself by her side, he began to talk to her so gently on
subjects the poor lady was interested in that she was more delighted
with him than ever. A soft flush came into Anne’s delicate cheeks; she
appreciated the sweet and subtle flattery in Baskerville’s attitude. It
was not interest in Mrs. Clavering’s conversation, nor even the pity he
might have felt for her forlorn condition, which induced him to spend
twenty minutes of his visit in talking to her.
Meantime the dusk was deepening. Many visitors were departing and few
coming. Mrs. Luttrell was entertaining a select coterie of men around
the large fireplace at the other end of the room, and Baskerville was
the only person left near Anne and Mrs. Clavering.
“Will you be kind enough,” he said to Anne, “to go with me to get a cup
of tea? I see a table in yonder, but I am afraid of so many young girls
at once. I think I can count six of them. Now if you will go with me, I
shall feel as brave as a lion.”
The temptation was strong, but Anne looked down at her mother.
Apprehension was written on Mrs. Clavering’s simple, homely face at the
notion of being left alone.