Mr. Trench did not go at once to the office of Trench & Son, architects
and general building contractors. It was important to his domestic
peace that some definite step be taken towards the renting of the
cottage. He would stop, he thought, at the office of the Argus, and
insert a three-time advertisement. He could bring the matter up with
Henry Marksley, for whom he always had some construction work on hand.
But second thought deterred him. It might be disastrous to have young
Hal Marksley next door, if only for a few months. Hal was a senior in
the Presbyterian college. His recent attentions to Eileen Trench, just
approaching her sixteenth birthday, had been disquieting to her father,
none the less because of her mother’s unconcealed approval.
Eileen was impressionable. A youth of Hal Marksley’s--David searched
his mind for the word. Disposition? He was more than amiable.
Principles? Not quite that, either. In short, there was nothing he
could urge against the young man that had not been set at naught by
Eileen’s mother. Money had lifted the Marksleys above the restrictions
imposed upon common people. Their life had been unconventional, at
times positively scandalous. Eileen’s iconoclastic spirit would grasp
at anything to justify her revolt against the conventional trammels of
her home, the puritanical regulations which served Lavinia in lieu of
religion. There was enough friction in that quarter already.
As he passed the college campus, with its motley group of
buildings--dingy red brick of forty years’ standing, and the impudent
modernity of Bedford stone with trimmings of terra cotta and Carthage
marble--he caught sight of Dr. Schubert’s mud-bespattered buggy. The
grey mare, these ten years a stranger to the restraining tether, nosed
contentedly in the snow for the succulent sprigs that were already
making their appearance among the exposed roots of the huge old elms.
From the opposite side of the street the family physician waved a
driving glove.
“Wait a minute, David.” He made his way cautiously through the ooze of
the crudely paved avenue. “I was on my way out to your house. Stopped
to look in on a pneumonia that kept me up nearly all night. Does Mrs.
Trench still want to rent the cottage? Or is it true that Sylvia and
Penrose are coming back?”
“They are well pleased with Detroit. And my wife is most anxious for a
tenant. You know, Doctor, she draws the line on children and dogs.”
“We ought to be able to close a very satisfactory deal. My old friend,
Griffith Ramsay, spent the night with us. He’s out here from New
York--some legal business connected with the mines at Olive Hill, for a
client of his, a Mrs. Ascott. The lady is recently widowed, and in need
of some kind of diversion. I had been telling him about my experiments,
my need for a competent assistant in the laboratory, and he arrived
at the conclusion that these two needs would neutralize each other.
Mrs. Ascott, having a large financial stake in the mines, would be
interested in the possibility of increasing the value of soft coal. The
more he though about it, the greater his enthusiasm. The one thing in
the way, he thought, would be a suitable place for her to live. That
was when Vine Cottage popped into my mind. I’ll send him around to the
office to talk over the details of the lease with you.”