Tom stepped into the hall and threw his hat, muffler, and overcoat upon
the hall bench. "Lovely day, isn't it, Norah?" he said to the maid who
had let him in, receiving her "Yes, Mr. Reynolds" with a smile and a
nod, and passing directly into the library.
"Why, hello, Tom," said a girl on the sofa facing the fireplace. Before
her was a tea wagon and she was at present pouring a cup for a slightly
stiff person in knickerbockers.
Tom shook hands with his host, lately Dean of Woodbridge and now, in the
absence of the President, acting in his place. He then turned to the
first gentleman, who, cup in hand, was making slow backward progress to
his seat. "How do you do?" Tom said with a slight bow.
"How are you, Reynolds," the other replied, hardly noticing him.
"Henry and father have just come back from curling and they say it is
perfectly rotten," continued the girl on the sofa. "Let's see, Tom, you
take one lump, don't you?"
He declined on the grounds of just having had tea and retiring to a
table in the rear of the tea group, idly picked up a copy of the _London
Times Literary Supplement_ that was lying on it. Henry, who had
apparently been interrupted, proceeded with a description of the various
characters that had taken part in the curling.
Tom's interest in the _Times_ was not very great, but his interest in
Henry Whitman's story was even less, and he frankly allowed his gaze to
wander over the books that covered the walls of the room. They were one
of the things that fascinated him in the house. They extended from the
floor to the ceiling and encircled the entire room, yielding only to the
wide, high fireplace and the five windows. A small section encased in
glass housed a few of the Dean's first editions and presentation copies,
but Tom rather resented it, breaking as it did the harmony of the whole
and pulling the eye to it with its reflecting panes. He had from the
first made the mental reservation that, were the house his, he should
take away that glass.
The dark blue velours sofa upon which Mary Norris was sitting, facing
the fire, he called "The Bosom of the Norris Family," and when there
were no heavy people like Henry Whitman about, he would occasionally
throw himself upon it, carefully pointing out each time the pretty
significance of his act. Behind the Bosom was a large and weighty desk
covered with a multitude of personal letters, belonging for the most
part to Mrs. Norris, a cheque-book open and face down in mute obeisance
to the blotter, newspaper clippings, spectacle cases, scissors, and ash
trays. In a neighbouring corner stood a table with imperfectly stacked
current magazines, a work basket filled with knitting, and a lamp
crowned by a broad shade of silk with threads hanging from it, which,
when twirled, stood out and looked like a miniature wheat field with the
wind running through it. The lamp on the table by which Tom was sitting
was an old-fashioned silver affair but recently converted to
electricity. Its shade was high and dignified, and it had been
discovered that when lifted from its place it could be worn as a turban.
The fireplace carried on its mantel a running commentary upon the
changing details of family interest. At present, flanking the little
French clock upon its centre was a variety of old glass, Eighteenth
Century rum and whiskey flasks recently collected by Mrs. Norris. There
were, additionally, a porcelain image of two farmers, _dos a dos_, one
with rosy cheeks and flashing eye labelled "water," and the other,
haggard and ill-favoured, labelled "gin"; also a brace of saturnine
china cats. Above the mantel stretched an expanse of oak panelling which
supported the portrait of Mrs. Norris's great-great-grandfather in a
heavy gilt frame. The old gentleman, who looked amiably out from his
starched neckcloth, had been a delegate to the Continental Congress and
a jurist of distinction. Beside him on a table were some papers,
obviously of the first importance, for they were plastered with seals, a
copy of Coke on Lyttleton, and an inkpot with a quill sticking out of
it. His arm was lying lightly on the table, his cherubic face smiling
back at its observer wherever he stood; and Tom imagined that his next
move would be, after the manner of his great-great-granddaughter, to
rise with a sweep and tip over the inkpot.
The colour in the room was chiefly contributed by the deep red curtains
which hung beside the windows and which brought out and emphasized each
object of kindred colour in the room. In this way were made conspicuous
the turban-like shade, a lacquered calendar rest upon the desk, a
footstool, and even the British Colonies on a globe hiding unobtrusively
in a corner. The heavy Persian rugs echoed the note so generously that
the books with reddish bindings stood out from their fellows and played
their part in giving to the whole a richness that made the room
remarkable.
Tom gazed at the group before him. Henry Whitman, Assistant Professor of
Economics at thirty, a member of Grave, was telling a story of an
Italian in Whitmanville who, when he curled, used only the broadest
Scotch. When Tom had met Henry in his ingenuous days he threatened to be
overwhelmed by the calm indifference of Henry's manner. The Whitman Air,
inherited from a line of distinguished forebears, all but swamped him.
It was as perfect and finished as some smooth old bit of jade, and as
hard; a "piece" to be carefully handled, admirable only to the
initiated. Tom had not yet, in the course of his initiation, come to
find it admirable, although he quite appreciated its authenticity.
Harry's father, of the same name, had been one of the College's chief
luminaries in the preceding Administration, known wherever Political
Economy, as such, was known. _His_ father before him had produced the
Whitman Woollen Mills, which supported Whitmanville, and though they
were at present in the hands of an uncle and various cousins, their
beneficent influence was obviously felt by Henry. Everything about him
suggested comfort and nourishment. There was in his eye a look which
implied intimacy with beagle-hunting in Derbyshire, and the way he used
his hands positively suggested candle light at dinner. The
knickerbockers that he wore gave out a delightful heathery smell, a
smell which is at its best when mingled, as at present, with the smell
of superior pipe tobacco. His stockings would naturally be objects of
curiosity to anyone familiar with the Whitman Mills, just as the pearls
around the neck of a famous jeweller's wife would be, or the soap in the
tub of a famous soap-maker. They were, as a matter of fact, excellent
stockings of the heaviest, woolliest kind, and Whitman had bought them a
year and a half ago in Scotland, whither he had gone after his wife's
death. He still wore a mourning band about his arm in her honour, and a
black knitted tie; and there was every reason to believe that he would
continue to do so another year and a half. For the Whitmans always had
mourned hard.
The girl on the sofa was a thoroughly healthy person of twenty-four. She
played excellent female tennis, and her golf was better than that of
half of the male members at the club. Yet she had none of the mannish
mannerisms that so often accompany an "athletic" girl. At the present
time she was submitting herself to a rigorous course in "housekeeping"
majoring in cooking and minoring in accounting, and she had taught
Sunday School ever since she had been graduated from Miss Hammond's
School at Mill Rock some six years ago. People instinctively liked her
unless they were bored by obvious wholesomeness. And although no one
ever thought of her as being particularly pretty--she was somewhat too
dumpy to be thought that--people noticed her hair, which was a most
fashionable shade of red. Then, of course, in as much as she had Mrs.
Norris for a mother, one could never be entirely sure that she might not
burst forth in some altogether unexpected and delightful manner. Her
impromptu _bataille des fleurs_, for example, was still remembered in
Woodbridge although it took place nearly sixteen years ago. Somewhere
her attention had been caught by the picture of a cherub, or possibly
seraph, perched on a cloud and pouring from a cornucopia great masses of
flowers upon the delighted earth. The idea seemed such a lovely one that
when, in the spring, her mother gave a card party out on the terrace,
she determined to give the ladies a delightful surprise. For weeks
before it she despoiled the garden, keeping her plans miraculously
secret, and storing her treasures away in a waste-basket, in lieu of the
cornucopia. And then, when the ladies were twittering away happily
beneath, she stepped out upon her porch clad only in a Liberty scarf
borrowed from her mother's wardrobe--the young creature in the picture
confined itself to a ribonny dress which floated charmingly about
it--and discharged her flowers. She was prepared for astonishment in her
audience, and her reception was all she could ask; but what she was not
prepared for was the insidious decay which had set in among the blooms,
and which robbed them entirely of their natural colour and fragrance,
transforming them into a composition recognized by polite people only
upon their lawns. It had been Mary's first encounter with the baffling
thaumaturgy of chemistry; and to the end of her days her confidence in
it was never wholly restored.
Henry Whitman at last finished his story and rose to go. The Dean, who
was a genial soul, and who, with his generous embonpoint and his
knickers, looked at present a little like Mr. Pickwick, regarded him
affectionately. He had retired from the college two years before, but
upon the President's departure for Europe on a six months' leave, he had
been called from retirement to act in his place because of the great
respect the College had for his temperate judgment, a quality at that
time particularly useful in college affairs, stirred as they were by the
contentions of the advocates of a larger Woodbridge. It was the Dean's
duty to keep these malcontents, these radicals--some of whom were
powerful--in their places. Quality not quantity had ever been the
Woodbridge cry, and it should remain so as long as he had any power. In
other respects, however, he was as gentle as one could well be. In the
matter of motoring, for example, he was so gentle that to the untutored
eye he might seem almost timid. He had viewed the rise of the motor car
with all the misgivings of a lover of the Old Ways, long refusing to
accompany his wife on her hectic flights, but at last he had consented
to buy an electric. For three dreadful weeks he ran it in agony or
apprehension. It was not that he might run into people: there was no
danger there, for even if he had bumped into some one, the damage would
have been only very trifling. No, the terrible thought was what the
reckless people might do who would crash into him. So at the end of the
three weeks he abandoned the lever and, bringing Murdock in from the
stable, definitely transformed him into his chauffeur. The picture that
he presented was, he realized, somewhat sedate, but at least he was no
longer taking foolhardy chances, and he could now, furthermore, see
something as he went along. "When are you expecting Nancy?" he asked
Henry.
"Oh, I supposed Mary had told you. Why, she is coming day after
tomorrow. Henry Third is very much excited. He has been making a
collection for her as a present. I didn't know anything about it until
the other day when Annie told me. It seems that he has been very much
impressed by a postal card from his Aunt Nancy showing a California
orange grove, and so he has been collecting orange pips ever since! He
now has over ninety and he is afraid she will arrive before he can get a
hundred. It seems to be a rule of the collection that his pips can only
be taken from oranges he's eaten, and as he only gets one a day at his
breakfast, there is no help for him."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Henry, send him up here and I'll let him eat out
his hundred," said Mary.
"Fine person you are," laughed Whitman, "ruining my son's good habits."
They had passed out into the hall when the bell rang violently two or
three times.
"That must be mamma," said Mary, and going to the door, she opened it
for a majestic lady who swept into the room, talking volubly as she
began peeling off the shawls and capes in which she was wrapped.
"Why, Henry, dear, what on earth are you doing here? You never come to
see us any more, and I am so anxious, too, to ask you all about the
stabilized dollar and these new vitamines. Susan!" she called suddenly
in the general direction of the upper floors. Then, addressing no one in
particular, "I must find out about the salted almonds that the Dean
asked for last night," and she started for the kitchen.
"I ordered them this morning, Gumgum, myself, when I was ordering
everything else. I had them on my list."
"You did?" and Mrs. Norris burst into the most contagious laughter.
"Tom, I wish you'd stop my daughter calling me that horrid name. It's
disgusting. I'm going to call her 'Snuffles.'"
"I really must go, Aunt Helen," said Whitman, starting for the door. The
"Aunt" was a heritage of an earlier and more innocent day and not an
indication of blood relationship. "Uncle Julian" had, however, been
allowed to lapse, upon Henry's accession to the Woodbridge Faculty.
"Oh dear," replied Mrs. Norris. "Well, I'm coming down to see Nancy as
soon as she gets back, and then you've got to come up here for dinner.
It will be such a relief having her here for the party. And now," she
added, putting her arm through Tom's, "I must have a little talk with
Tom. I suspect he needs a pill, and I'm going to give it to him. Come
here, Tommy, dear, and let me look at you," and she pulled him back into
the library.