MRS. HARRY MORRIS
After that walk to the ledge Connie seemed much happier, and began to
take a lively interest in the Morris villa, the work on which was being
pushed rapidly. Mr. Jones had called upon the deacon for his signature
to Harry’s note for three thousand dollars, payable in six months.
Connie was seated upon the piazza when he came, and through the open
door could not fail to hear the conversation between the three men, Mr.
Jones, the deacon and Kenneth, the latter of whom objected to his
father’s pledging himself for so large a sum.
“I feel sure you will have to pay it. I have heard a rumor that the
place is mortgaged heavily,” he said, while his mother, soft-hearted as
ever where Hal was concerned, pleaded for him, saying he would never see
them injured.
Suddenly a wild impulse seized Connie. She could not tell how or why,
only that it came, and in a moment she was confronting the three men and
startling them with the words: “I will sign that note with you, Guardy.”
She still called him by that name. “I have the means, and if I should
lose it will not hurt me much, I spend so little here. I’ve never seen
Mr. Morris, but I feel interested in him and his bride. I am glad they
are coming, and don’t let a paltry three thousand dollars mar their
happiness.”
It seemed a small sum to her, who knew so little the value of money, but
to the deacon it was a fortune. He was, however, persuaded, and when Mr.
Jones left the house he had both the deacon’s and Connie’s name as
securities on Harry’s note.
“You don’t know how funny I feel since I signed that note,” Connie said
to Kenneth, after Jones was gone. “I don’t know why, except that I feel
funny,—glad, as it were, with a new interest in the house, as if it were
mine.”
She was greatly interested in it, and her interest increased as it
progressed towards the end, and loads of furniture came up from the
freight house in foreign boxes, some from Rome and Florence and Paris
and London. There were pictures and statuary and carpets and rugs and
curtains and tables and chairs and bric-a-brac of every description, and
two men came from Albany to see that they were properly placed. Connie,
however, was the leading spirit, as the men at once recognized her
delicate taste, and not only listened to her suggestions, but consulted
her when she made none. Her special interest was centered in what was to
be Mrs. Morris’ sitting-room and boudoir. Here her ideas were wholly
carried out, and nothing could have been prettier than the general
effect of rugs and hangings and pictures, when all was done and the
rooms ready.
“I feel as if in a nightmare,” she said to herself, as she sat alone for
a few minutes in the boudoir, the day before Hal and his wife were
expected.
And this nightmare kept her awake the most of the night, so that it was
rather a pale face which smiled upon Kenneth the next morning.
“I did not sleep well, that’s a fact,” she said. “I must have been
rather nervous about Mrs. Morris. I intend to like her immensely.”
She was very busy all the morning, arranging and rearranging the rooms
of the villa, and filling them with the flowers she had ordered from
Rocky Point and Millville. It was June, the season of roses, and the
house was full of them, their fragrance permeating every nook, and
making Connie a little faint when she at last sat down to rest, while
thoughts of Interlaken and the bowlder by the running brook came
crowding into her mind, as they had not done since her talk with Kenneth
by the ledge in the huckleberry pasture.
“Once I thought to be happy like Kitty Haynes,” she said, and two great
tears splashed down upon her hands. Then quickly recovering herself, she
thought how glad she was to have a congenial companion, as she was sure
Kitty would be. Of Harry she scarcely thought at all, except that
Kenneth did not quite approve of him. Probably he was a little faster
than Kenneth. He could scarcely have seen as much of the world as he had
and not be. He was very handsome, Mrs. Stannard had said, and her
description of him had reminded her of the bowlder among the Alps and
the man who sat there with her. That man had vanished like a myth, and
Harry Morris was coming that afternoon with his wife.
They had landed in New York two weeks before and been detained there.
Harry had written to Kenneth that he expected to reach Millville on
Thursday afternoon, and asked that his new carriage be sent to meet him.
He had thanked his uncle for signing his note to Jones, but he had made
no mention of Connie’s signature. Probably he did not know of it, or
that she was at the farmhouse, for Kenneth had never mentioned her in
the few letters sent to his cousin since she came. Everything that could
be done to make the house and grounds attractive had been done, and
people had driven for miles to see and admire and wonder that so much
should be expended upon a place which was to be occupied only during the
summer. His winters he should spend in New York or Florida, Hal had
written to Green, his agent, who superintended everything. Three or four
fine horses and two or three carriages had come to the villa, awaiting
Hal’s approbation, and it was in one of the latter that Kenneth went
down to the station to meet the four o’clock train from New York.
It was not often that many people were there at that time of day, and
Kenneth was surprised at the crowd he found waiting. They had all been
through the handsome house and grounds, and heard of the handsome wife,
and were there to see her and Harry, who, with so much grandeur, was
invested with an added importance to their minds. The train was on time
and only stopped a moment to deposit six or eight trunks and three
people,—a middle-aged colored woman wearing a red turban and carrying a
bundle which looked very much like a baby; another colored girl loaded
with parcels, and a young lady, who stood looking timidly around at the
crowd staring curiously at her, and wondering where her husband was.
Kenneth saw her and hurried towards her, noticing that she was a
brunette with a brilliant complexion and soft dark eyes, which lighted
up wonderfully the moment she saw him.
“Mrs. Morris?” he said, and she replied, “Yes, and you are Dr. Kenneth,
Harry’s cousin, I am sure, and I am so glad to meet you. I’m not used to
travelling alone, and Harry had to stay in New York at the very last on
that tiresome business, I don’t know what it is. I wanted to stay, too,
but he said I must come, and I’m here. He is coming in a few days.”
She talked rapidly and kept her eyes fixed upon the turbaned woman, whom
she called Cindy, and who was hushing the white bundle in her arms with
a cooing kind of sound. Kenneth was looking at her, too, and at the
bundle, which was certainly alive. Detecting the surprise in his face,
the lady said: “It’s our baby, three months old. Harry wouldn’t write
it, as he wanted to surprise you all. She is a little beauty. Come here,
Cindy, and show the baby. There! Isn’t she lovely?” she continued, when
the flimsy covering was removed, showing a little round baby face in
which Kenneth saw a look like his cousin. “She has such a pretty name,
too,” the proud mother continued, “Constance, though we call her
Connie.”
“Constance!” Kenneth repeated in surprise, while Kitty replied: “Yes, it
was Harry’s idea. She was born in Constance, and that made him think of
it.”
“We have a Constance here, whom we call Connie,” Kenneth said, as he led
the way to the brougham, and while they were on the way to the villa he
explained who she was and said: “You are sure to like her.”
“I know I shall,” Kitty answered, “and I am so glad she is here. I was
afraid I might be rather lonely. Harry said there was no—no——”
She stopped suddenly, while Kenneth rejoined: “No ladies of just your
kind? You are right, Mrs. Morris, but Connie is different. Connie is——”
“Yes, I see. I understand what Connie is, but please call me Kitty. I’m
your cousin, you know,” Kitty said, and added, “funny baby should be
called Connie, too; but I’m glad that she is.”
She was a bright, sparkling little woman, and talked all the time during
the drive until they came in sight of the house, when she sprang up and
clasped her hands with delight.
“Oh, is this really the place? I never dreamed it was so grand and
lovely. And how could he afford it? He has told me so much that I must
be economical, now father has failed.”
She said frankly what she thought, and Kenneth watched her admiringly,
contrasting her with Connie and giving the latter the preference, of
course. He knew Connie was to be at the villa with his father and
mother, and as the carriage entered the gate he saw her standing on the
steps, looking like some fair lily in her white gown and blue ribbons,
with a single rose in her belt.
“That’s Connie, I know, and she’s Paris all over. I shall like her,”
Kitty said, springing from the carriage the moment it stopped and going
up to the group waiting for her. “I don’t need to be introduced. I know
this is Aunt Mary, and this Uncle Ephraim, and this Connie; may I call
you that?” she said, kissing each in turn, and holding Connie’s hand as
she continued: “I didn’t know about you until Kenneth told me, and I am
glad that you are here and that baby has your name. Funny, isn’t it? And
Harry didn’t know you either.”
They were all around the baby now, and Connie, who loved children
dearly, took it in her arms and held its soft face against her own and
thought she saw in it a likeness to something she had seen, and wondered
why that bowlder among the Alps should come up to torment her when she
was going to be so happy with Kitty and the baby. It did not take Kitty
long to explain, as well as she could, why her husband was not with her.
He would come within a week, surely, and then they would all be so
happy. She was older than Connie, but seemed younger, she was so small,
and she flitted about the house like a humming bird, delighted with
everything and especially with Connie, who, she insisted, should stay
altogether at the villa until her husband came.
“And Dr. Kenneth, too, if he will, and Aunt Mary and Uncle Ephraim, I
want you all,” she said, in her soft Southern voice, with a bit of
foreign accent in it. “You can stay, and we will worship the baby
together.”
She seemed to think the baby the centre of interest, as it was, but no
one took to it as readily as Connie, who spent the night at the villa,
and who, after the baby was undressed, rocked it to sleep, and then sat
a long time looking into its little face and wondering whose features
she saw so plainly mirrored there.