We can get used to anything. Morgan says that even the New England
summer is endurable when you learn to dress warmly enough. We come to
endure pain and loss with equanimity; one thing and another drops out of
our lives-youth, for instance, and sometimes enthusiasm--and still we go
on with a good degree of enjoyment. I do not say that Miss Forsythe was
quite the same, or that a certain zest of life and spring had not gone
out of the little Brandon neighborhood.
As the months and the years went by we saw less and less of
Margaret--less and less, that is, in the old way. Her rare visits were
perfunctory, and gave little satisfaction to any of us; not that she was
ungracious or unkindly, but simply because the things we valued in life
were not the same. There was no doubt that any of us were welcome at the
Hendersons' when they were in the city, genuinely, though in an exterior
way, but gradually we almost ceased to keep up an intercourse which
was a little effort on both sides. Miss Forsythe came back from her
infrequent city visits weary and sad.
Was Margaret content? I suppose so. She was gay; she was admired; she
was always on view in that semi-public world in which Henderson moved;
she attained a newspaper notoriety which many people envied. If she
journeyed anywhere, if she tarried anywhere, if she had a slight
illness, the fact was a matter of public concern. We knew where
she worshiped; we knew the houses she frequented, the charities she
patronized, the fetes she adorned, every new costume that her wearing
made the fashion. Was she content? She could perhaps express no desire
that an attempt was not made to gratify it. But it seems impossible to
get enough things enough money, enough pleasure. They had a magnificent
place in Newport; it was not large enough; they were always adding to
it--awning, a ballroom, some architectural whim or another. Margaret had
a fancy for a cottage at Bar Harbor, but they rarely went there. They
had an interest in Tuxedo; they belonged to an exclusive club on Jekyl
Island. They passed one winter yachting among the islands in the eastern
Mediterranean; a part of another sailing from one tropical paradise to
another in the West Indies. If there was anything that money could not
obtain, it seemed to be a place where they could rest in serene peace
with themselves.
I used to wonder whether Margaret was satisfied with her husband's
reputation. Perhaps she mistook the newspaper homage, the notoriety, for
public respect. She saw his influence and his power. She saw that he was
feared, and of course hated, by some--the unsuccessful--but she saw
the terms he was on with his intimates, due to the fact that everybody
admitted that whatever Henderson was in “a deal,” privately he was a
deuced good fellow.
Was this an ideal married life? Henderson's selfishness was fully
developed, and I could see that he was growing more and more hard. Would
Margaret not have felt it, if she also had not been growing hard, and
accustomed to regard the world in his unbelieving way? No, there was
sharpness occasionally between them, tiffs and disagreements. He was a
great deal away from home, and she plunged into a life of her own, which
had all the external signs of enjoyment. I doubt if he was ever very
selfish where she was concerned, and love can forgive almost any conduct
where there is personal indulgence. I had a glimpse of the real state
of things in a roundabout way. Henderson loved his wife and was proud of
her, and he was not unkind, but he might have been a brute and tied her
up to the bedpost, and she never would have shown by the least sign to
the world that she was not the most happy of wives.
When the Earl of Chisholm was in this country it was four years after
Margaret's marriage--we naturally saw a great deal of him. The young
fellow whom we liked so much had become a man, with a graver demeanor,
and I thought a trace of permanent sadness in his face; perhaps it was
only the responsibility of his position, or, as Morgan said, the modern
weight that must press upon an earl who is conscientious. He was still
unmarried. The friendship between him and Miss Forsythe, which had
been kept alive by occasional correspondence, became more cordial and
confidential. In New York he had seen much of Margaret, not at all to
his peace of mind in many ways, though the generous fellow would have
been less hurt if he had not estimated at its real value the life she
was leading. It did not need Margaret's introduction for the earl to be
sought for by the novelty and pleasure loving society of the city; but
he got, as he confessed, small satisfaction out of the whirl of it,
although we knew that he met Mrs. Henderson everywhere, and in a manner
assisted in her social triumphs. But he renewed his acquaintance with
Miss Eschelle, and it was the prattle of this ingenuous creature that
made him more heavy-hearted than anything else.
“How nice it is of you, Mr. Lyon--may I call you so, to bring back the
old relations?--to come here and revive the memory of the dear old days
when we were all innocent and happy! Dear me, I used to think I could
patronize that little country girl from Brandon! I was so worldly--don't
you remember?--and she was so good. And now she is such a splendid
woman, it is difficult for the rest of us to keep pace with her. The
nerve she has, and the things she will do! I just envy her. I sometimes
think she will drive me into a convent. And don't you think she is more
beautiful than ever? Of course her face is a little careworn, but nobody
makes up as she does; she was just ravishing the other night. Do you
know, I think she takes her husband too seriously.”
“I trust she is happy,” the earl had said.
“Why shouldn't she be?” Carmen asked in return. “She has everything she
wants. They both have a little temper; life would be flat without that;
she is a little irritable sometimes; she didn't use to be; and when they
don't agree they let each other alone for a little. I think she is as
happy as anybody can be who is married. Now you are shocked! Well, I
don't know any one who is more in love than she is, and that may be
happiness. She is becoming exactly like Mr. Henderson. You couldn't ask
anything more than that.”
If Margaret were really happy, the earl told Miss Forsythe, he was glad,
but it was scarcely the career he would have thought would have suited
her.
Meantime, the great house was approaching completion. Henderson's
palace, in the upper part of the city, had long been a topic for the
correspondents of the country press. It occupied half a square. Many
critics were discontented with it because it did not occupy the whole
square. Everybody was interested in having it the finest residence on
the continent. Why didn't Henderson take the whole block of ground,
build his palace on three sides, with the offices and stables on the
fourth, throw a glass roof over the vast interior court, plant it with
tropical trees and plants, adorn it with flower-beds and fountains,
and make a veritable winter-garden, giving the inhabitants a temperate
climate all the cold months? He might easily have summer in the centre
of the city from November to April. These rich people never know what
to do with their money. Such a place would give distinction to the city,
and compel foreigners to recognize the high civilization of America. A
great deal of fault was found with Henderson privately for his parsimony
in such a splendid opportunity.
Nevertheless it was already one of the sights of the town. Strangers
were taken to see it, as it rose in its simple grandeur. Local reporters
made articles on the progress of the interior whenever they could get an
entrance. It was not ornate enough to please, generally, but those who
admired the old Louvre liked the simplicity of its lines and the dignity
of the elevations. They discovered the domestic note in its quiet
character, and said that the architect had avoided the look of an
“institution” in such a great mass. He was not afraid of dignified wall
space, and there was no nervous anxiety manifested, which would have
belittled it with trivial ornamentation.
Perhaps it was not an American structure, although one could find in it
all the rare woods and stones of the continent. Great numbers of foreign
workmen were employed in its finishing and decoration. One could wander
in it from Pompeii to Japan, from India to Versailles, from Greece to
the England of the Tudors, from the Alhambra to colonial Salem. It was
so cosmopolitan that a representative of almost any nationality, ancient
or modern, could have been suited in it with an apartment to his taste,
and if the interior lacked unity it did not lack a display of variety
that appealed to the imagination. From time to time paragraphs appeared
in English, French, and Italian journals, regarding the work of this and
that famous artist who was designing a set of furniture or furnishing
the drawings of a room, or carving the paneling and statuary, or
painting the ceiling of an apartment in the great Palazzo Henderson
in New York--Washington. The United American Workers (who were half
foreigners by birth) passed resolutions denouncing Henderson for
employing foreign pauper labor, and organized more than one strike while
the house was building. It was very unpatriotic and un-American to have
anything done that could not be done by a member of the Union. There was
a firm of excellent stone-cutters which offered to make all the statuary
needed in the house, and set it up in good shape, and when the offer was
declined, it memorialized Congress for protection.
Although Henderson gave what time he could spare to the design and
erection of the building, it pleased him to call it Margaret's house,
and to see the eagerness with which she entered into its embellishment.
There was something humorous in the enlargement of her ideas since the
days when she had wondered at the magnificence of the Washington Square
home, and modestly protested against its luxury. Her own boudoir was a
cheap affair compared with that in the new house.
“Don't you think, dear,” she said, puzzling over the drawings, “that
it would better be all sandalwood? I hate mosaics. It looks so cheap to
have little bits of precious woods stuck about.”
“I should think so. But what do you do with the ebony?”
“Oh, the ebony and gold? That is the adjoining sitting-room--such a
pretty contrast.”
“And the teak?”
“It has such a beautiful polish. That is another room. Carmen says that
will be our sober room, where we go when we want to repent of things.”
“Well, if you have any sandal-wood left over, you can work it into your
Boys' Lodging-house, you know.”
“Don't be foolish! And then the ballroom, ninety feet long--it looks
small on the paper. And do you think we'd better have those life-size
figures all round, mediaeval statues, with the incandescents? Carmen
says she would prefer a row of monks--something piquant about that in a
ballroom. I don't know that I like the figures, after all; they are too
crushing and heavy.”
“It would make a good room for the Common Council,” Henderson suggested.
“Wouldn't it be prettier hung with silken arras figured with a chain of
dancing-girls? Dear me, I don't know what to do. Rodney, you must put
your mind on it.”
“Might line it with gold plate. I'll make arrangements so that you can
draw on the Bank of England.”
Margaret looked hurt. “But you told me, dear, not to spare
anything--that we would have the finest house in the city. I'm sure I
sha'n't enjoy it unless you want it.”
“Oh, I want it,” resumed Henderson, good-humoredly. “Go ahead, little
wife. We shall pull through.”
“Women beat me,” Henderson confessed to Uncle Jerry next day. “They are
the most economical of beings and the most extravagant. I've got to look
round for an extra million somewhere today.”
“Yes, there is this good thing about women,” Uncle Jerry responded, with
a twinkle in his eyes, “they share your riches just as cheerfully as
they do your poverty. I tell Maria that if I had the capacity for making
money that she has for spending it I could assume the national debt.”
To have the finest house in the city, or rather, in the American
newspaper phrase, in the Western world, was a comprehensible ambition
for Henderson, for it was a visible expression of his wealth and his
cultivated taste. But why Margaret should wish to exchange her
dainty and luxurious home in Washington Square for the care of a
vast establishment big enough for a royal court, my wife could not
comprehend. But why not? To be the visible leader in her world, to be
able to dispense a hospitality which should surpass anything heretofore
seen, to be the mistress and autocrat of an army of servants, with ample
room for their evolution, in a palace whose dimensions and splendor
should awaken envy and astonishment--would this not be an attraction to
a woman of imagination and spirit?
Besides, they had outgrown the old house. There was no longer room
for the display, scarcely for the storage, of the works of art, the
pictures, the curiosities, the books, that unlimited money and the
opportunity of foreign travel had collected in all these years. “We must
either build or send our things to a warehouse,” Henderson had long
ago said. Among the obligations of wealth is the obligation of display.
People of small means do not allow for the expansion of mind that
goes along with the accumulation of property. It was only natural that
Margaret, who might have been contented with two rooms and a lean-to
as the wife of a country clergyman, should have felt cramped in her old
house, which once seemed a world too large for the country girl.
“I don't see how you could do with less room,” Carmen said, with an air
of profound conviction. They were looking about the house on its last
uninhabited day, directing the final disposition of its contents. For
Carmen, as well as for Margaret, the decoration and the furnishing of
the house had been an occupation. The girl had the whim of playing the
part of restrainer and economizer in everything; but Henderson used to
say, when Margaret told him of Carmen's suggestions, that a little more
of her economy would ruin him.
“Yes,” Margaret admitted, “there does not seem to be anything that is
not necessary.”
“Not a thing. When you think of it, two people require as much space
as a dozen; when you go beyond one room, you must go on. Of course you
couldn't get on without a reception-room, drawing-rooms, a conservatory,
a music-room, a library, a morning-room, a breakfast-room, a small
dining-room and a state dining-room, Mr. Henderson's snuggery, with his
own library, a billiard-room, a picture-gallery--it is full already;
you'll have to extend it or sell some pictures--your own suite and Mr.
Henderson's suite, and the guest-rooms, and I forgot the theatre in the
attic. I don't see but you have scrimped to the last degree.”
“And yet there is room to move about,” Margaret acknowledged, with a
gratified smile, as they wandered around. “Dear me, I used to think the
Stotts' house was a palace.”
It was the height of the season before Lent. There had been one delay
and another, but at last all the workmen had been expelled, and Margaret
was mistress of her house. Cards for the house-warming had been out for
two weeks, and the event was near. She was in her own apartments this
pale, wintry afternoon, putting the finishing touches to her toilet.
Nothing seemed to suit. The maid found her in a very bad humor.
“Remember,” she had said to her husband, when he ordered his brougham
after breakfast, “sharp seven, we are to dine alone the first time.” It
lacked two hours yet of dinner-time, but she was dressing for want of
other occupation.
Was this then the summit of her ambition? She had indeed looked forward
to some such moment as this as one of exultation in the satisfaction of
all her wishes. She took up a book of apothegms that lay on the table,
and opened by chance to this, “Unhappy are they whose desires are all
ratified.” It was like a sting. Why should she think at this moment of
her girlhood; of the ideals indulged in during that quiet time; of her
aunt's cheerful, tender, lonely life; of her rejection of Mr. Lyon?
She did not love Mr. Lyon; she was not satisfied then. How narrow that
little life in Brandon had been! She threw the book from her. She hated
all that restraint and censoriousness. If her aunt could see her in all
this splendor, she would probably be sadder than ever. What right had
she to sit there and mourn--as she knew her aunt did--and sigh over her
career? What right had they to sit in judgment on her?
She went out from her room, down the great stairway, into the spacious
house, pausing in the great hall to see opening vista after vista in the
magnificent apartments. It was the first time that she had alone really
taken the full meaning of it--had possessed it with the eye. It was
hers. Wherever she went, all hers. No, she had desires yet. It should
be filled with life--it should be the most brilliant house in the world.
Society should see, should acknowledge the leadership. Yes--as she
glanced at herself in a drawing-room mirror--they should see that
Henderson's wife was capable of a success equal to his own, and she
would stop the hateful gossip about him. She set her foot firmly as she
thought about it; she would crush those people who had sneered at them
as parvenu. She strayed into the noble gallery. Some face there touched
her, some landscape soothed her. No, she said to herself, I will win
them, I do not want hateful strife.
Who knows what is in a woman? how many moods in a quarter of an hour,
and which is the characteristic one? Was this the Margaret who had
walked with Lyon that Sunday afternoon of the baptism, and had a heart
full of pain for the pitiful suffering of the world?
As she sat there she grew calmer. Her thoughts went away in a vision
of all the social possibilities of this wonderful house. From vaguely
admiring what she looked at, she began to be critical; this and that
could be changed to advantage; this shade of hanging was not harmonious;
this light did not fall right. She smiled to think that her husband
thought it all done. How he would laugh to find that she was already
planning to rearrange it! Hadn't she been satisfied for almost
twenty-four hours? That was a long time for a woman. Then she thought of
the reception; of the guests; of what some of them would wear; how they
would look about; what they would say. She was already in that world
which was so shining and shifting and attractive. She did not hear
Henderson come in until his arm was around her.
“Well, sweet, keeping house alone? I've had a jolly day; lucky as old
Mr. Luck.”
“Have you?” she cried, springing up. “I'm so glad. Come, see the house.”
“You look a little pale,” he said, as they strolled out to the
conservatory together.
“Just a little tired,” she admitted. “Do you know, Rodney, I hated this
house at five o'clock--positively hated it?”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don't know; I was thinking. But I liked it at half-past six. I
love it now. I've got used to it, as if I had always lived here. Isn't
it beautiful everywhere? But I'm going to make some changes.”
“A hanging garden on the roof?” Henderson asked, with meekness.
“That would be nice. No, not now. But to make over and take off the new
look. Everything looks so new.”
“Well, we will try to live that down.”
And so they wandered on, admiring, bantering, planning. Could Etienne
Debree have seen his descendant at this moment he would have been more
than ever proud of his share in establishing the great republic, and of
his appreciation of the promise of its beauty. What satisfies a woman's
heart is luxury, thought Henderson, in an admiring cynical moment.
They had come into his own den and library, and he stood looking at the
rows of his favorite collection shining in their new home. For all its
newness it had a familiar look. He thought for a moment that he might be
in his old bachelor quarters. Suddenly Margaret made a rush at him. She
shook the great fellow. She feasted her eyes on him.
“What's got into you to look so splendid? Do you hear, go this instant
and dress, and make yourself ten times as fascinating.”