I was not expected: no one met me at the station, and, finding no
conveyance, I walked on myself to the place, and entered the grounds not
more than an hour before sunset. Everything was curiously calm and at
peace except the breakers, which moaned against the rocks below as the
tide came in. The shadows were long upon the grass, and looked like
things that had felt life all day, but now had coiled themselves up for
sleep. Beyond the trees the fiery sun still shone, gilding the stately
house with gold and resting lovingly upon the roses which clambered
riotously over embrasures and abutments, lighting up the piazzas and
columns with their bloom. I recognized a change at once in the aspect of
the place: more windows and doors were open than formerly, and the
porticoes showed signs of careless occupancy with their chairs and
afghans, tables and a litter of books, papers and work. I stood before
the door, gazing through the wide-columned vista of the hall, and the
infinite seemed open before my eyes as I saw the blue and opal-tinted
sea. But still there was no sound except the murmur from the shore, and
nothing stirred except the sunbeams as they climbed the carved
balustrade of the great staircase and gleamed on the frozen faces of a
marble group in a niche. I did not ring at first, for it seemed as if my
mother or Helen must come out--that they were close at hand, picking
roses on the terrace or descending from their rooms. But it was Mills
who presently issued from the dining-room and saw me. He greeted me as
if I were one of the family, and ushered me into the library as he had
done at the time of my first visit years before.
Sitting there quietly, I seemed for the first time to realize the fact
of old Mr. Raymond's death. I saw his chair by the fireplace, and the
low seat on which Helen and I had sat together many and many a time. I
had not grieved at the old man's death, but had felt that weeping for
the dead might sometimes be a less dreary task than bearing with the
living; yet here I could not see these beautiful inanimate things, once
his intimate surroundings, without a thrill of regret that he was gone.
A shadow fell across the doorway, and a young girl came in, one of the
sunset gleams reflected from some of the endless mirrors of the house
falling on her and lighting up her face. My first thought was, "She is
almost a woman:" my second was, "I had never expected she would be so
beautiful."
We had not spoken yet: she ran up to me eagerly and looked into my face,
and I clasped her hands. When I saw that she was crying there seemed to
me but one way of greeting the child. I took her in my arms and kissed
her. It seemed strange, I think, to neither of us that we should meet in
this way. But when we looked at each other now, I felt a curious glow
over my face, and she hung her head and was blushing vividly, as I had
never suspected the pale little Helen I had once known so well, with her
aspect of almost severe purity, could ever blush. There was a new sort
of beauty about her: a soft richness of tint and texture seemed added to
cheek and lip, and the old imperious concentration of her glance was,
for the moment, quite gone. Still, although I could easily see that she
was frightened at her own temerity in allowing my more than brotherly
freedom, I could not find it in my heart to repent it.
"Where is my mother, Helen?" I asked, taking her hand in mine to
reassure her, for I saw that something was embarrassing her very much.
"It seems I was not expected to-day?"
"Not so late as this," she explained; and presently I was talking freely
with her, and she was listening without a particle of self-consciousness
in her manner. It appeared that my mother and Mr. Floyd had gone out to
drive, but would presently return to tea--that my mother had been
longing for me, and they had all wondered why I had delayed coming. This
was all very pleasant, uttered in the sweetest voice by my young
hostess, and when she asked me if I would go out and see the sunset from
the terrace, it was very easy to say that I would follow her anywhere.
She was a shy child still, I discovered, despite her tall figure, her
pretty womanly shape and elegant air. My manhood was too recent a
possession not to be rejoiced in when I saw that a woman's blushes came
and went as she felt the weight of my glance. We went out of doors and
saw the surges breaking on the shore, but the waves seemed happy that
night, and lisped joyfully like children at their play. There was no
voice of sorrow in all Nature: the birds circling about their nests
began glad strains, then hushed them only to break forth again into
fresh confused and joyful beginnings which they were too sleepy to
finish. We talked of sorrow and loss, yet I think neither of us was very
sorrowful, although Helen's tears flowed unchecked as she poured forth
the simple narrative of her grandfather's last days--how he had never
been so tender, so self-forgetful, as then; how he could not do enough
to show his deep love for her; and then how, in the night, all at once,
without a last look, word or caress, he was gone and his tenderness was
but a memory.
"I felt at first," said Helen, "as if there were no longer anything for
me to do in the world. It seemed a treason to poor grandpa that I saw
how beautiful the crocuses were as they blossomed in the beds on the
terrace here, and when the mayflowers came I did not dare to pick them
except to put them on his grave. Then, you know, as not even papa knows,
that with all my reverence for my grandfather I had still had a terrible
sense of responsibility mingled with my love for him; and not even yet
can I go out a few hours for a drive or a ride without my feeling every
now and then, through all my pleasure with papa, a sudden pang of dread.
After such times I run to his room: it is easy enough to believe then
that he no longer has any need of me."
"You were all alone at first, Helen, until my mother came to you? Two
weeks alone! It seems dreadful."
"Georgy Lenox was here, you know."
"Georgy Lenox here?" I echoed in surprise. "I never heard anything so
strange. How did it happen?"
Helen looked at me in her turn in astonishment. "Why was it strange?"
she asked, as if regarding the matter in a new light. "She was one of
the family: she came to grandpapa's funeral. Cousin Charles Raymond
himself invited all the Lenoxes, for Mr. Lenox's mother was a
Raymond--was grandpa's own sister, I believe. Why was it strange?"
"Natural for her to come perhaps, but I should not have expected her to
remain. You asked her, no doubt?"
"No-o-o," returned Helen doubtfully. "I don't know how it was. The house
was filled with people for a week: then they went away and Georgy
stayed. She said it was horrid for me to have no lady near me in my
trouble. Cousin Charles was here all the time until your mother came,
but his wife was ill in New York."
"And when my mother arrived Georgy left you?"
"No, indeed: she is still here. You see," said Helen with a little of
her old imperious way when she took control of things, "Georgy was
greatly disappointed at the terms of the will. She had been led to
expect that she would be quite an heiress when grandpa died. I don't
know who taught her to believe in so strange an idea, for, to tell the
truth, grandpapa did not fancy Georgy. Poor girl! everything has gone
wrong with her. She was to have been married to Mr. Holt, you know, but
it is all quite broken off; and she was very unhappy about that. She
hates being in Belfield, because she sees him all the time, and is
reminded of what she is trying to forget. So I asked her to stay here
for a little while. You are not angry to find her here, Floyd?"
I laughed with an indefinable feeling of embarrassment. "I shall be most
happy to see Miss Lenox," I rejoined; "and if I were not, it would be
great impertinence in me to question for a moment the doings of the lady
of the house."
"I am not the lady of the house," said she, a little piqued. "Mrs.
Randolph is that. I give no orders now: everybody goes to papa. He says
I have governed too long, and that I must be a little girl again. It
seems so strange sometimes to have nobody consult me: I do nothing all
day long but enjoy myself."
"But I belong to the old regime," said I, "and to me you will always be
the chatelaine. I remember how you used to give orders to Mills and Mrs.
Black: I can still smell the aromatic odors of the store-room when we
used to make the weekly survey together, and can hear you talking
'horse' solemnly with the coachman down at the stables. I am not at all
sure if I shall like you so well as a gay young lady of pleasure, with
all your thoughts on your dresses and your lovers."
"As if I should ever think about my dresses or my lovers!" she replied
with deep disdain.
"What do you think about?"
"I think about papa," she rejoined, still indignantly: "I think about
your mother and you. I have a great many nice things to think about
without being taken up with those horrid subjects."
"'Horrid subjects'! Good gracious!" I exclaimed: "I intend some day to
be somebody's lover: shall I be a 'horrid subject'?"
She laughed frankly, a delightful girlish laugh which showed her little
pearly teeth. "It depends on how you behave," she said with a little
nod. "Georgy Lenox has lovers: she tells me about them, and I think them
horrid."
"Do they come to the house here?"
"Oh yes. One is a stout man with a red face. He wears a solitaire
diamond in his necktie. Papa knows him: he was in Congress, and his name
is Judge Talbot. Then there is a young man--not so young as you, but
still young. He remembers you: he used to be in Belfield. He is Mr.
Thorpe."
"Tony Thorpe here? What unlikely people I come across! Which is Miss
Lenox's favorite admirer?"
"As if she would have favorites among such admirers! Georgy is the most
beautiful girl in the world. Papa is not fond of her, but even he says
she is a superb creature. Why does nobody like Georgy? Papa does not,
and I am sure Mrs. Randolph does not, nor do you. Yet she is so
beautiful, so winning, so clever!"
"You don't need to pity her for not gaining love," said I gravely. "My
mother may not like her, because she knew her as a faulty child who did
considerable mischief first and last; and Mr. Floyd dislikes her
because--You know why he dislikes her, Helen. But many people love her:
I think few women in the world have won so much devotion. I have just
seen Jack Holt, who had to give her up, and I am far from believing that
nobody likes her."
"But why did he give her up?" questioned Helen.
"Why did she give him up," I returned with heat, "except that he had
lost his fortune, and instead of being able to endow her with all the
good things of life, himself needed aid, sympathy, love and comfort?"
Helen stared at me: "But he told Georgy she was free."
"Suppose," said I passionately, "that a man had loved you from your
earliest childhood, Helen--that instead of your being possessed of
wealth and other facilities for making your life all you wished, you
were poor and obscure, and this man had made every sacrifice to gratify
every desire of your heart. Suppose you had read his soul like a printed
page, and found every thought in it noble, lofty and pure; suppose you
knew that his happiness depended on you--that without you he could not
have one sacred personal hope,--when you found that he was poor instead
of rich, would you throw him over as you put away a glove that is worn
out, even though he told you you were free--that although you had shared
his prosperity he shrank from letting you endure the pains of his
adversity?"
Helen was looking at me with a curious look in her brilliant dark eyes,
and still watched me when I paused.
"Would you have accepted such freedom?" I demanded, impatient that she
did not respond.
"I would have died for him!" she exclaimed abruptly, but she said no
more about Georgy or her lovers.
The sun had set, and the glory of the clouds was all reflected in the
sea. The air grew chilly, and we went in and watched at the front door
for Mr. Floyd and my mother to return from their drive. It seemed
curiously like the old times, and once or twice I started at some sound,
expecting to hear a querulous voice and see old Mr. Raymond with his fur
wrappings crossing the hall leaning on Frederick, who carried his
tiger-skin. Helen was too quick and sympathetic not to understand my
startled look.
"He will never come any more," said she sadly. "He is sleeping up on the
hill beside his wife and all his children. Had it not been for papa I
should have felt that I must go there too, it seemed so strange and
lonely for him."
Presently through the pale gloaming came my mother from her drive, and
when I lifted her from the carriage and almost bore her up the steps in
my arms, I felt a happiness and peace which seemed but the beginning of
a blessed time. My mother had grown perhaps a little older in the last
two years, but surely she had grown more beautiful. It was enough at
first merely to look into her face: then when I followed her up to her
room we told each other many, many things, but I invite none to follow
me over that threshold.
"I took good care of your boy, Mary," said Mr. Floyd, coming up to us
when we descended; and when I met my mother's look I felt again all the
proud humility that a son can feel, beloved as I was beloved.
"He was not such a bad boy," pursued Mr. Floyd, ringing the bell and
ordering tea, "and his faults, such as they were, belonged to his
age.--Don't open your eyes, Helen, as if you expected to hear just what
he did. I shall not betray him. All the world knows that when one is
abroad one may commit enormities which there may be put inside your
sleeve, while here they are as big as a meeting-house."
"I don't believe Floyd did anything wicked," remarked Helen with some
spirit.
"We are at home now, Floyd," pursued he with an air of resignation, "and
our little diversions are over. The eyes of two women are upon us. No
more cakes and ale--nothing but rectitude, cold water, naps in the
evening. I forgot, though, about our charming guest. While Miss Lenox is
here ginger will be hot i' the mouth, and life will have a slight flavor
of wickedness still."
"But where is Miss Lenox?" I asked.
"Miss Lenox is far too brilliant a young lady to stay constantly in a
dull country-house," said Mr. Floyd. "The cottage people over at the
Point _raffolent_, as our friends abroad say, upon the charming Miss
Georgina. We have, after all, very little of her society. She goes on
yachting-parties, to dinners, luncheons, picnics--everywhere, in fact,
where the delicate lavender ribbons of slight mourning may be allowed.
She has attended a dejeuner to-day, and we are every moment expecting
that our gates of pearl will unclose and admit a celestial visitant."
"Now, papa," said Helen, "you shall not make fun of Georgy. Nobody does
her justice."
"Don't they?" returned Mr. Floyd dryly. "_Fiat justitia_, then! _Ruat
caelum!_ One would follow the other in this case, I fear.--She generally,
Floyd, brings home one or two in her train. You remember Antonio Thorpe?
That young man is so often here that I am beginning to regard him as one
of the regular drawbacks to existence, like draughts, indigestion, bills
and other annoyances outrageously opposed to all our ideas of comfort,
yet inevitable and to be borne with as good grace as may be."
"What on earth is Tony doing at the Point?"
"He dresses well," returned Mr. Floyd reflectively: "his hands are soft,
his nails clean. I don't think he follows any occupation which demands
manual labor. I can generally tell a man's business by his hands or his
coat; but on Tony's irreproachable broadcloth not one shiny seam
discloses what particular grist-mill he turns."
"Of course he has no grist-mill," said Helen. "I thought he was a man of
fortune."
"I was the guardian of his youth," observed Mr. Floyd, "and when he was
twenty-one I paid over to him intact the sum of money left to him by his
father. It had originally been less than fifteen hundred dollars, but by
lying untouched for nine years at compound interest it had nearly
doubled. That was several years ago, and with the utmost frugality on
his part I can't see how he could have worn such decent coats on the
interest of that money all this time."
"But you put him into business half a dozen times," interposed my
mother: "I suppose he made money."
"No, he never made any money. The only way Tony will make money honestly
is by marrying a rich girl. Not that I assume him to be dishonest or a
sharper, for I do think him a gentleman, after the fashion of Sir
Fopling. He probably is considerably in debt, but floats himself from
all danger of sinking by speculation or the like. Five times I set him
at work to make his living: five times he was returned on my hands. His
character possesses all the drawbacks of great genius, without any of
its resources: he is proud, discontented, misunderstood, with a talent
for failure."
"Is he a suitor of Miss Lenox's?" I asked. "He was never in the habit of
admiring her."
"You can make up your mind," said Mr. Floyd with a shrug, thus
dismissing the subject.--"Helen, my child, looking at this young man
impartially and judicially, what do you think of him?" and he put his
hand on my shoulder.
We were at tea, which was always an informal meal at The Headlands.
Helen sat among the tea-cups, my mother had a little table by her sofa,
and Mr. Floyd and I walked about carrying cream and sugar and cakes. I
was on my way for a fresh cup when this question was put, and I went up
to Helen and sat down beside her.
"Impartially and judicially," said I, "what do you think of me?"
Mr. Floyd took his seat on the other side of her, put his face close to
hers and began to whisper all sorts of nonsense in her ear about me.
"Tell him," said he, "to begin with, that he is a prig."
"But I don't know what a prig is."
"A prig is a handsome fellow born to create disturbance among the
ladies."
She looked around at me and laughed. "Isn't he a goose?" she asked in a
pretended whisper. "Where was it in Europe that he lost his brains? He
has brought none of them home."
"It may have been at Damascus," said Mr. Floyd. "Did I tell you that
after I fell through the trapdoor in Damascus and broke my ribs, they
put a railing about the place and asked a piastre for a look at the spot
where the American gentleman almost came to an untimely end?"
But Helen did not laugh: she put her arm about his neck and brought his
cheek to her lip, and kept it there, giving it mute caresses now and
then, while she smoothed his hair about his temples with her little
hand.
"I'll take some more tea, if you please," remarked Mr. Floyd after a
while in a meek voice.--"I'm obliged to endure a good deal of this sort
of thing, my boy: it's not so unpleasant as it may look, but
nevertheless it requires some stimulant to keep up an emotion of
agreeable surprise. By the bye, what do you think of my little girl, now
that she is quite grown up?"
"Don't dare to tell," said Helen. "I'm dreadfully vain all at once, for
papa flatters me so that the rugged courtesy of the outside world would
seem hard to me. Still, papa's compliments count for very little. When
Georgy comes in presently just listen to what he says to her."
And precisely at this juncture there was a little commotion in the hall,
and Miss Lenox did come in with Tony Thorpe. She had spoken to my
mother, kissed Helen and answered Mr. Floyd's badinage before she saw
me, yet when her eyes did turn toward me she showed no surprise.
"Have you come at last?" she inquired coolly, holding out her hand. "I
am glad to see you again, Mr. Randolph."
I greeted her as calmly, and said, "How are you, Thorpe?" to her
companion, with another shake of the hand. And then everybody sat down,
and there was fresh tea brought. I noticed that Thorpe was quite
assiduous in his attentions to Helen over the cups and saucers, and
seemed as much at home in the house as a tame spaniel. Meanwhile, Miss
Lenox had sat down by my mother and begun telling her the events of the
day. The dejeuner had been given on a yacht in the bay, and had begun in
mistake and ended in disaster: the wrong people had come, while the
right ones had been kept away, like the invited guests in the Gospel.
The sun had been too warm, the breeze too cool, the men who talked to
her garrulous and stupid, and the women abominably over-dressed.
"Dear Helen," cried Georgy with effusion, "I have wished myself at home
with you all day.--Dear Mrs. Randolph, tell me what you have been doing
with yourselves;" and she wasted a slight caress on my mother.
"Our doings were nothing remarkable in themselves," said my mother
gently, with a little smile--one of those smiles which women keep for
use among themselves, and rarely give to men.
"Papa and Mrs. Randolph and I sat under a tree until dinner-time," said
Helen. "We have been very idle, but had a delightful time nevertheless."
"Praying all the time that Miss Lenox was enjoying herself at the
dejeuner," drawled Mr. Floyd.
Georgy had risen and was crossing the room, and now, passing Mr. Floyd,
paused and looked down into his face as he surveyed her with a slightly
satirical air.
"I am glad of anybody's prayers," she returned, quite unruffled, "but I
am afraid, Mr. Floyd, yours are merely a pretty figure of speech."
Mr. Floyd suddenly sprang to his feet and walked up and down the room
with a restless way he had. "I have it! I have it!" he exclaimed with a
triumphant air. "It is a picture of a Wili of whom you remind me, Miss
Lenox. I saw it in R----'s studio at Rome.--Don't you remember it,
Floyd?"
I knew it very well, and was aware, besides, that R---- had got the face
from Dart's sketch-book.
"What is a Wili?" inquired Georgy, looking at me. "You know I used to go
to you for all my bits of knowledge when I was a little girl, Mr.
Randolph."
I rose and crossed the room to her side. "A Wili," said I, "is a
betrothed maiden who dies before her wedding-day. Your knowledge of your
sex may tell you why it is that she is never at peace in her grave, but
is impelled by some unconquerable love of life to rise every night and
dance till morning."
"With whom does she dance? Her unfortunate lover?"
"Oh, where Wilis live you see them dancing together in the woods and
fields by moonlight and starlight, their white arms wreathed about each
other and their long hair floating. When a Wili meets a youth abroad in
the night-time she beseeches him to dance with her; and the voice of the
Wili is so sweet, her eyes so terribly beautiful, her clasp so horribly
close, that whether he will or not he must join the fatal dance and keep
pace with her eager, frenzied movements. When morning comes the Wili has
gone back to her grave."
"And where is the young man?" asked Georgy.
"They find him dead on the grass," put in Thorpe, who was standing
behind Helen's chair. "It is death to dance with a Wili."
"Both of you seem very experienced young men," remarked Miss Lenox
calmly. "Did either of you ever meet with a Wili?"
"I have frequently met them on flowering meads," I returned, laughing,
"but when they invite me to dance I tell them I am unable to dance with
even the prettiest of live women, I am such a miserable cripple."
"It's rather a pretty story," mused Georgy, "but I don't quite see what
it means.--Do you, Helen?"
"It seems to be a sort of warning to young men to keep in o' nights,"
returned Helen with a droll little air.
"Dead women never trouble me," said Thorpe, "but I have had no end of
charming dances with live ones.--Do you waltz, Miss Floyd?"
"Oh yes. Miss Lenox and I waltz together whenever we can get any one to
play for us."
"That must be a tame amusement," rejoined Thorpe with an ineffable air
of conceit.
"Thanks for the neat compliment," said Georgy, "but neither Miss Floyd
nor myself suffer from the tameness."
"Oh, allow me to explain--"
"We are not so dull but that we can understand even the most stupid
bungle at a compliment of any awkward man," yawned Georgy. "Some time,
by and by, when I am very rich, and so old that I don't care what
happens nor how I offend my admirers, I intend to give to the world a
woman's opinion upon the fascinations of men."
"Bravo! I hope I may live a hundred or so years in order to hear it,"
said Mr. Floyd. "However, Miss Georgy, it would be safe enough for you
to tell us now that you hold men contemptible, only practising your
coquetries upon them for your own amusement, quite indifferent whether
your shafts hit or go astray. We could bear the ordeal, for we should
know very well that circumstances must vindicate us. We are, after all,
superior to even the highest simian types, and our poor fascinations
shine by comparison with those of even the most intelligent baboon; so
we should be certain that, in spite of your opinion of us, you would go
on making yourself beautiful for our approbation to the end of your
life, because you have, in fact, no other object worth spending your
energies upon."
"I confess," said Georgy, with a peculiar glance at Mr. Floyd, "some men
are worth any effort."
Thorpe, after many vain attempts to engage Helen in conversation, took
his leave, and when I went to the door with him he begged me to stroll
down the grounds to the gate. He had a three-mile walk before him for
his pains in coming home in the carriage with Miss Lenox, but he vowed
that the pleasure he always found at The Headlands recompensed him for
any labor. He burst into enthusiastic talk about the old times at
Belfield: he remembered the charm of my mother's house, he said, and the
good times we boys had enjoyed together. How was Holt now-a-days? and
where was Dart? Was it true that Jack himself had thrown Miss Lenox
over, or was the fault on her side? "She is much admired," he went on.
"How do you think her looking? She has many lovers and two or three
suitors. There is Judge Talbot, with his mind set on winning her."
"What category of her admirers do you come in?"
"I am neither lover nor suitor," he rejoined lightly. "Miss Lenox and I
are on excellent terms of camaraderie--no more. Were I to admire any
woman from my heart, it would be the one I have just left. Is she not
the rarest, sweetest, dearest Lady Disdain in the world?"
"I cannot guess to whom you refer," said I, "for I am at a loss how to
excuse the familiarity of your speech in reference to any lady in the
house except Miss Lenox."
"Now, Randolph," exclaimed Thorpe, putting his hand on my shoulder, "you
shall not bluff me off so. I would cut my tongue out before I used it
too freely in praising a young lady like Miss Floyd. I knew her as a
child: her father is my best friend, my benefactor. Remember, if I spoke
too freely, that my Southern blood gives me more trouble than the chilly
currents in your Northern veins."
He spoke so eagerly, and with such perfect temper, that I was ashamed of
my momentary outburst. I shook hands with him cordially at the gate, and
walked back slowly, looking at the heavy bank of fog lying in the east
over which the moon was peering, and thinking of my mother, of Helen,
perhaps a little of Georgy, although my heart was swelling with anger
toward her still: so I told myself again and again. Yet how beautiful
she was, with a new and bewildering tenderness in her manner! What had
softened her? Was it suffering?
When I returned to the parlor she had gone up stairs, tired with her
excursion, I heard, and longing for a night's rest. I sat down by my
mother, and we talked until midnight, while Helen sang ballads to her
father in the next room in a rare contralto voice which had gained
strength and richness since I heard it last.
When, finally, Mr. Floyd--who always put off going to bed as a final
necessity--allowed me to go up stairs, I found inside my dressing-case a
folded paper on which these lines were written: "The prettiest hour of
the day at The Headlands is at seven o'clock in the morning, down among
the rocks."
I should have felt no doubt whose hand had put the notelet there even if
it had failed to breathe the perfume of violets, which no one who knew
Georgy Lenox could hesitate to recognize.