In the open country near a southern village of Connecticut, not over a
brisk morning’s walk to the Sound, sat a smallish farmhouse which was
probably a century old. It was an innocent and ordinary enough looking
house from the road. It topped a swell of land that was somewhat higher
than its immediate surroundings and bare of large trees except for a
single magnificent elm halfway between the house and the road. The
lawn was allowed to grow wild, but nearer the house and covering the
approach to its graceful old doorway were several shrubs in more or
less cultivated condition placed on a few feet of clipped sod. In the
spring the lawn and the fields which rolled out downward from the house
were thickly starred with buttercups whose tiny yellow bowls glistened
like lacquered buttons in the sun. Later the same meadows turned to a
waving lake of red clover.
Potter Osprey, when upbraided by his friends for not making more of
his handful of acres, declared he was no gardener. He could neither
adorn nature nor gain his feed from her by his own hands, for she was a
wild beast whose moods and colours and contours he had struggled with
all his life, and there was no quarter between them. To all offers to
prettify her in his immediate neighbourhood he was politely deaf. He
wanted her rugged and plain as his plastic, solid canvases liked to
interpret her, and that way he could love her as one loves a worthy foe.
On the house itself he had lavished more care. Eight years of his own
proprietorship had made it, without any great loss of its ancient
character, a place of personal charm inside. In the rear the hill
fell sharply from the foundation, and here he had built up a broad
concrete terrace, looking northward to an unbroken view of horizon
and low hills. Above the terrace for ten or twelve feet in height and
almost as wide, rose a vertical sheet of heavy, transparent glass in
narrow panels, and this gave light to a large room, which had been made
by knocking out walls and upper flooring so that half of it was two
stories high. The house practically consisted of this room, a cellar
under it, and some small bedrooms above. Outhouse and kitchen stepped
away to the west.
From Osprey’s north terrace could be seen a smaller house on the
eastern slope, nestling in a very old, gnarled and worn-out orchard.
Some of its trees reminded one of those anatomical designs in
physiological books; they were half bare-branched skeleton and half
green, waving body.
To the larger house Moira Harlindew came one morning in answer to an
advertisement in a New York paper, describing a “small, furnished
house in the country with conveniences.”
She was admitted by the painter himself, a man of medium height, who
showed his fifty years more in his figure, his careless gait, and
the way he wore his old clothes, than in the face, which was of no
definite age, so Moira thought. What lines had been worn upon it made
the man seem more youthful. The eyes were candid and reposeful, but
extremely responsive to passing moods. This she detected in his look
of anxiety as he first opened the door for her, and in the evident
relief that followed his swift inspection. The mouth, under a gray
wisp of moustache that tended to turn upwards at the ends, slanted a
bit so that more than half of the smile was on one side. There was a
suggestion of the satirical in it. Yet Moira found the face, on the
whole, a pleasant one to look at, especially when he had recovered his
composure and was welcoming her.
“Come in,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’ve come to see the house for rent.”
“Good. You’re early. I hardly expected any answers to-day before
noon. It’s quite a little way to come from the city, you know. By the
way, I’m at my breakfast. Suppose you come along and sit down while I
finish. Do you mind?”
He led her into the studio and she sank into a large chair, a little
tired after the long, warm walk from the station. She felt instantly
and completely happy. The big room, with its cool, even light, its
smell of wood and paint, and its thousand and one objects familiar
and dear to her trade, drove everything else from her mind, even the
anxiety she had felt lest the place be taken--for it was Monday morning
and all day Sunday had elapsed since she had seen the advertisement. He
noticed her fatigue and glanced at her dusty shoes.
“You’ve walked up,” he exclaimed, surprised. “Well, perhaps you will
join me.” He sat down before a low table which gleamed with silver and
yellow china. “Coffee? My morning tipple is tea, but Nana always has
some coffee because she loves it herself.”
“If you really have it,” said Moira, “I’d like some coffee.”
A large, impassive negress soon served her.
“It isn’t much of a house you’re going to see,” he went on. “I call
it the orchard bungalow and it is nearly as decrepit as the orchard
itself. But it will shed the rain.”
“And it’s not taken?” asked Moira warmly.
“Well, no--not exactly. But I’m afraid it’s too--well, unpretentious
for you.”
“It couldn’t be that,” she laughed. As he finished his toast her gaze
went on embracing the room with frank pleasure, and she was aware he
took sly glances at her.
“Do you paint?” he asked suddenly.
Moira had been afraid of the question. Though her host had only given
his last name she had read it on pictures in the studio, and knew
now that he was an American painter of reputation whose work she had
worried over at various exhibitions. She felt extremely humble, but her
fear arose from the suspicion that a successful painter might object to
having irresponsible and immature dabblers running about in his near
neighbourhood. She could not hide in the immediate safety of a lie.
Eventually that would be found out, though it tempted her.
“I’m just a student,” she replied, and went on quickly, “but the real
reason I want a country place is because I’ve two young children. Do
you mind that? I’m sure they will not bother you.”
“Not at all,” he said cordially. “On the contrary.... However,” he
added, rising, “I think we had better look at this humble dwelling
before you grow too enthusiastic, my dear young lady.”
As Moira had entered the place, her mind’s eye had pictured the
four-year-old Miles playing among those buttercups, and learning
things he might never get to know if he grew much older in the city.
Now every step confirmed her in the desire to live here at any cost.
The nostalgia for Thornhill which she had felt in many a solitary hour
during these last ten years, together with a flood of early memories,
swept over her. The orchard, upon which a few apple blossoms lingered,
was enchantingly old and weird. Standing in the high grass beneath
it one could see a pattern of winding stone fences crisscrossing the
fields, and up a near-by hill danced three pale birches like a trio of
white-legged girls with green veils trailing about them. Even a bit of
decayed brown board by the path made her sentimental. She wanted to run
after a butterfly or to lie full length in the grass of the meadow,
letting the sun drink her up....
The house was small, but a moment’s speculation and mental
rearrangement convinced her that it was adequate. She and the genial
owner found themselves making plans together for the comfort of the
Harlindew family.
“I don’t see what you are going to do with your maid,” said he, “unless
she sleeps on the couch out here in the sitting room.”
“I shan’t have a maid,” Moira replied, and he looked at her with
another of his glances of wondering curiosity.
“But,” he began, and then stopped, thinking better of what he had
intended to say. “Well, there’s my Nana. She often has time lying heavy
on her hands and she doesn’t object to an occasional extra fee. No
doubt she can help you.”
“Oh, that will be splendid,” she cried. The suggestion did solve a
minor problem in her mind, but she had no patience just now with minor
problems. “I love the old furniture you have in here.”
“Most of it was here when I came, in the house up above. I made one
room out of three when I built the studio, and these are the handful
of pieces I could not use. If you haven’t enough, there are a few more
odds and ends stored away.”
“You’re going to let me take it, then?” asked Moira breathlessly.
He seemed surprised at the question, as though the matter had been
settled between them, and then laughed.
“I’ll tell you the truth now, Mrs. Harlindew. There have been several
other applicants but I put them off somehow--I didn’t like any of
them.... But!” he exclaimed suddenly--“but my dear girl! Well, well!”
She was crying after all, as she had feared she would in the orchard,
ten minutes before. Tears that she could not keep back rolled down her
smiling cheeks....