Blondin had been waiting for her at the church door. Harriet, coming
out, had indicated without a word that he might walk beside her. The
service had been ill-attended, and the few women who drifted away from
it did not walk in their direction, so they found themselves alone.
Harriet had been realizing ever since his arrival that Blondin had lost
none of his unique and baffling charm. His handsome person, his unusual
voice, his fashion of dreamily contributing to the conversation some
viewpoint entirely unexpected and fresh, his utter indifference to
general opinion--these made him a distinct entity in any group, and
would account for Nina's immediately renewed alliance, and for the
general disposition on the part of the household to accept him on his
own terms.
Harriet opened the conversation this morning with a frank yet reluctant
confession.
"I'm so sorry, Roy! But it is only fair to you to say that I've
changed. You will have to do what you think fit about it, of course.
But I can't pretend that I'm--I'm playing your game any longer."
"What game?" Blondin, falling into graceful step beside her, asked
pleasantly.
"I mean any possible--idea you might have of Nina!" Harriet said,
bravely.
"Oh, Nina!" he shrugged his shoulders lightly. "Don't take me too
seriously, my dear Harriet," he said. "Why, whenever we are alone
together, should you promptly begin to cross-question me about that
little person? Look about you--isn't this a divine morning? I always
rather fancy September, somehow. It's dry, panting, finished--and yet
there's something about the mornings and the evenings--"
Harriet made a faint, impatient ejaculation.
"Well, anyway, you know where I stand!" she said.
"And you know where I do," he answered, after a pause. "I can see
Carter has no particular enthusiasm for me--I suppose that's your work."
"I've said nothing definite," she answered, in a troubled voice.
"Then I shall!" Royal said, with sudden feeling. "I'm sick of this
shilly-shallying, and weighing words! If he will accept me as I am,
well and good--if not, I'm done! But he has a high opinion of you,
Harriet; what you say really counts!"
"You know where I stand," she could only repeat. They had reached the
garden now, and were at the foot of the steps.
"I don't quite see how you can take that tone," Blondin hinted. "Do you
expect to marry the boy?"
Harriet did not answer, except by a faint shrug. Her heart was sick
with fright, but there was no reason why he should be informed that she
had definitely broken with Ward. But he had never come so near a threat
before.
"Of course I am entirely at your mercy," she said, simply. Blondin
watched her for a full moment of silence before he said suddenly:
"All I ask you to do is assume, for the time being, that you and I met
as strangers a few weeks ago!"
"Oh, Roy," the girl exclaimed, "as if I were likely to do anything
else!"
She despised herself for the sense of relief that flooded her heart.
"Look here then," he said, after a moment of thought. "I'll make a
bargain with you. If you will consent not to make any allusion
to--well, to ten years ago, I'll do the same. I'll give you my solemn
promise on it. Say what you please about me now. You're under no bond
to protect me. I can hold my own. But the past is dead. Neither you nor
I will speak of it without agreeing to do so. How about it?"
She hesitated, the black lashes dropped, her restless hands twisting
and torturing her handkerchief. It protected her, she thought, while
leaving her free to oppose him.
"I'll agree," she said, finally.
"Promise?"
"Oh, I promise!" She bit her lip, and frowned, as if she would add
something more. But no words came, only her troubled eyes met his fully
and splendidly for a second.
Then with the brief, familiar nod which Richard Carter saw from his
upstairs window, she turned, and without another word went into the
house.
The morning dragged. It was dry and hot, with promise of a storm
later. The men piled into the car, and went off for their golf. It was
ten o'clock before Nina and Amy came chattering downstairs; Royal was
in the music room then, evoking a tangle of dim chords from the piano,
smoking endless cigarettes. Presently Ward and his friend thundered
down to join the girls at breakfast; a maid circled the table with
toast and covered dishes.
Madame Carter's breakfast had been sent upstairs, and Mrs. Tabor had
joined her, for when the old lady sent a message to Harriet, the two
women were together, in elaborate negligee, and a litter of Sunday
papers was scattered about the beautiful bedroom. Upon Harriet's
entrance Mrs. Tabor gracefully rose to go, but she paused for a
pleasant good-morning.
Alone with her determined old enemy, Harriet assumed her usual air of
respectful readiness. Madame Carter had sent for her?
"Yes," said the old lady, looking aimlessly about her before gathering
her garments together, and sinking into a chair. "I wanted you to know
that the young people propose to drive to Easthampton, at about two
o'clock--my granddaughter has been here, teasing Granny for the plan,
and I have consented. They will dine there and be back at about--well,
after dinner."
"But won't that tire you?" Harriet asked.
"I? Oh, I shall not go. Ward will chaperon his sister, and Nina, Amy.
Mr. Blondin will see that they get home in time. It's quite all right,
Miss Field; I am entirely satisfied. They--"
"But, Madame Carter!" Harriet interrupted her as she had expected to be
interrupted. "Surely it would be better--"
"We won't discuss it, please, Miss Field!"
Harriet's cheeks reddened; she was silent.
"Your devotion to my son and his family is extremely praiseworthy,"
said Madame Carter, coldly. "But, as Mrs. Tabor, who is of course a
woman of the world, and comes of a very fine family--she was a Kingdon,
the Charleston family--as Mrs. Tabor was saying, Richard is just the
sort of chivalrous, splendid man who is perfectly helpless in his own
house!"
Harriet smiled, with a touch of scorn.
"When Mr. Carter is dissatisfied with me, Madame Carter, I shall of
course consider myself--dismissed. But until that time I am very glad
to make his own house comfortable for him."
The hard, angry colour of old age had been rising in Madame Carter's
face during this speech, and now she was quite obviously enraged.
"You are hardly in a position to dictate to me in this matter!" she
said, shaking. Harriet watched her gravely as she rose from her chair,
made a few restless turns about the room, opened and shut bureau
drawers, dropped and plucked up handkerchiefs and newspapers. In a dead
silence the girl asked:
"Was that all?"
A sort of sniff was the answer, and, leaving the room, Harriet saw the
door of Mrs. Tabor's room, adjoining, open cautiously. The ally was
creeping back for news of the fray, thought the girl, with a little
grin at the thought of the two women's discomfiture. But she sighed
again as she entered her own suite to find Nina and Amy complacently
dressing themselves for the afternoon's run.
"We're going to Easthampton, Miss Harriet; Granny said it was all
right," Nina said, in great spirits. "I know you won't feel hurt,
because the car simply won't accommodate more than five, and it's too
long a run to sit on laps--"
"But, dearie child," Harriet said, in her friendliest manner, "I don't
believe you had better do that! You're all pretty young, in case
anything occurred--"
A mutinous line marked Nina's babyish mouth. She would not yield to any
nursery control before Amy!
"Granny said it was all right, Miss Harriet, so just don't bother your
head about us!" she said, airily.
"Yes, I know, dear. But Granny's ideas are old-fashioned--"
"Old-fashioned people are apt to be even more rigid than we are, aren't
they?" Amy submitted lightly and sweetly.
Harriet, a trifle nonplussed by this determined resistance, stood
looking from one to the other, pondering.
"Anyway, I'm going!" Nina muttered, lacing high white buckskin shoes,
with some shortening of breath. "Granny says a girl's brother--"
Harriet paid no further attention to them, and the two developed a
splendid case for themselves. But she went down to find Ward, and took
him partially into her confidence. Would he please be a darling, and
see that there was no nonsense? She could not well cross his
grandmother and Nina without his father to back her. She disliked to
call his father at the club and make too much of the whole thing. Would
he promise her that they would be home by ten o'clock, at latest?
Somewhat comforted by Ward's affectionate loyalty, Harriet went up to
dress for the one o'clock luncheon, and while she was dressing a new
idea came to her. For a few minutes she shook her head, stood thinking,
with a face of distaste.
"I COULD do that!" she said, aloud. And she picked up the gingham dress
that she had laid on the bed.
But there was a prettier dress in Harriet's wardrobe, a gift from
Isabelle, that she had never worn. It was a flowered silk mull, of a
soft deep blue that was exactly the colour of Harriet's eyes, and at
the throat and wrists it had frills of transparent lace. The soft
ruffles that made the skirt were cunningly edged with black, and there
was a great open pink rose at the belt.
Harriet put on this enchanting garment, and as she did so she felt some
half-forgotten power rise strong within her. There was one trump in her
hand that she had never thought to play in a game with Nina Carter, but
she was glad to find it now.
She went downstairs, and found Royal Blondin lounging in the billiard
room, and idly knocking balls about. The second thing he said to her
was of the gown, the third of her eyes. Harriet stood beside him,
raising the eyes in question, and smiling. When she turned and went
slowly away, Blondin went after her.
At half-past two o'clock the car was at the side door, and Nina and Amy
came downstairs with their wraps, and Saunders and Ward ran about
laughing and confusing things. Blondin watched the performance lazily
from a basket chair on the porch, but when Nina called him a
half-laughing, half-daring, "We're ready, Mr. Blondin!" he sauntered
down to the car with his pleasantest expression, but with the regretful
statement that he was not going: a vicious headache had developed since
luncheon.
Whatever the effect on Amy and the young men, to Nina this was a
staggering blow. Harriet felt sorry for her as she saw the girl try to
meet it gallantly; she knew that the heart died from Nina's day there
and then. Nina had triumphed all through luncheon, had laughed and
chattered, had made Ward telephone a dinner reservation for five, and
had assumed a hundred coquettish airs. Now all this crumpled, faded
away, and Harriet knew, as she stood beside the car looking down at the
folded light rug on her arm, that she was ready to cry.
"No, you'll have a far nicer time without me," said Royal, throwing
away his cigarette, and resting one arm on the car. "I wouldn't
interfere, because I knew you'd all give it up! You just all have a
perfectly wonderful time, and I'll be down next week-end and hear about
it!"
Nina stood irresolute; too choked with sudden disappointment to risk
her voice. It was all hateful, maddening, horrible! Those two boys and
Amy--ah, there would be no "fun" now! She loathed Amy, getting in so
briskly, and saying, "Come on, Nina!" She hated Ward, she wished that
they were all dead, and herself, too. It was impossible that she should
be carried farther and farther away from him--after last night and
to-day!
The storm came at Good Ground, and they all had to scramble with
curtains, "smelly" curtains, Nina called them. And the dinner was eaten
in warm, sticky half-darkness on a hotel porch, with horrible music
making a horrible racket, according to the same authority. Saunders and
Amy held hands all the way home, too, and Nina thought it was
disgusting; everyone was too tired to talk, they bounced along silently
and crossly.
And upon getting home, Miss Harriet came out of the shadows on the
porch, looking perfectly exquisite in her new gown, sweetly interested
and cheerful. She said that she was so sorry the dinner was poor, they
had had such a nice dinner at home, and that she had had a talk with
their father, and they were to go back to Crownlands next week. Nina
did not see Blondin; she heard his voice from the smoking room, but her
arrival caused no cessation of the men's laughter and voices in there,
and the only news she had from him that night was from her grandmother,
who was in a bad temper, and reported that he and Miss Field had been
walking half the afternoon. Nina, for the first time in her life, cried
herself to sleep.
"Never mind, my dear," said the old lady with terrible insight, "if I
ask my son to choose between me and any other woman, I have no doubt of
the outcome!"
Harriet had assuredly triumphed, but it was on terms that for more than
one reason did not entirely please her. To affect a confidential
intimacy with Royal Blondin was utterly distasteful, and to have poor
little Nina sulky and silent far from pleasant. But most disquieting of
all was the immediate result of old Madame Carter's meddling.
For Richard, finding the pretty secretary prettier than ever in her
blue gown, and warmed by a relaxed day at the club and a mood of
friendliness, had specifically instructed her that she was to dine with
the family on all occasions, and to dress as the others did, and to
regard herself as "a member of the family." And this, Harriet was quick
to realize, really did place her in a peculiar position, made difficult
by Richard's kindly championing no less than his mother's hostility, by
the adoring sympathy of the servants, and the affectionate
familiarities of the Carter children. Richard's friends took their cue
from him, as was natural, and in the first early winter dinner parties
at Crownlands Harriet could not but sparkle and lead; she had reached
her own level at last.
Perhaps the master of the house but dimly saw the truth of this, but he
did see a most charming and pretty woman at the head of his
establishment, his daughter and son protected, his affairs capably
managed, and such hospitality and entertainment as he felt suitable
well handled. She and Nina shared Isabelle's old rooms, and Harriet
balanced Nina's first evening gowns with discreet but dignified black.
A sense of well-being and happiness began to envelop Richard Carter for
the first time in many years. He was conscious of a desire to express
his appreciation to Miss Field. It was natural that this should take
the form of money; a little present, in the form of a check. She had a
sister who was not rich; she would like to go home with laden hands.
But the question was, how much?
He was musing over this very point and other matters of deeper moment
one morning when Harriet herself came in. She returned his smile with
her usual bright nod, but he thought she looked pale and troubled.
"Mr. Carter," she said, bravely going to the point, "do you think Nina
is able, with your mother's help, to manage your house?"
Richard looked at her silently for perhaps two minutes. Then he said,
quietly:
"Mr. Blondin, eh?"
The girl looked bewildered.
"My mother has given me a hint, indeed I've seen, that he would want to
take you away from us!" Richard said.
Harriet, without any show of emotion, looked down, and was silent in
her turn. But it was not, he saw with surprise, the silence of
confusion. On the contrary, she seemed simply a little thoughtful and
puzzled.
"Mr. Carter," she said, presently, "I have reason to believe that Mr.
Blondin would be a very bad husband for Nina. I had no scruple in--in
diverting his thoughts. But if he was the only man in the world"--and
to his surprise, she slowly got to her feet, and spoke as if to
herself, her eyes fixed far away--"I would sooner kill him than marry
him!" she said.
Richard sat genuinely dumfounded. Her beauty, her assurance, and the
cleverness with which she had managed that Blondin's allegiance should
be temporarily shifted from his own daughter, held him mute. It was
with the charm of watching perfect acting that he followed this
extremely amusing and unexpected woman.
"I confess that I am glad to hear it!" he said, drily.
"Nina is very angry at me," Harriet said. "Well, I have to stand that!"
And she gave Nina's father a whimsical and friendly look.
"But what then?" Richard asked. Harriet immediately became serious
again.
"But this," she said, "you know your mother is right. You're all too
kind to me; I am really a member of the family. I love it. I love to
dress for dinner, and order the car, and charge things to your
accounts! But--it's not possible. You see that?"
Richard was quietly looking down. Now he made several parallel lines
with a pencil before he looked up.
"No. I don't see that!"
"Mary--Mrs. Putnam, for instance, who is very fond of me, and Mrs. Jay.
They want to ask me to dinner--to Christmas parties--and they're not
quite comfortable about it. I am not a member of your family even
though you are kind enough to treat me as one. I am a paid employee,
and Madame Carter naturally resents their treating me as anything else.
But most of all," said Harriet, seeing that she was not making headway,
"it's myself. Nina, and your mother, and Mrs. Tabor--it's just a hint
here and there--nothing at all! But it undermines my position--even
with Bottomley. I dress, I entertain your friends, I join you in town;
it makes talk. And I can't--I can't--"
She stood up, and turned her back on him proudly, and he knew that she
was crying.
"Just a minute," Richard said, finding himself more shaken than he
would have believed. "It is--you're sure it isn't Blondin?"
"Royal Blondin!" There was in her tone a pleasant, childish scorn and
indignation that again he thought amusing. She sat down facing him
again, and quite openly dried her eyes, and smiled. "No, it's more
serious," Harriet said. "It means constant irritation for your mother.
It means that she is always in a state of exasperation. I think--I
don't know, but I have reason to think--that she made it a choice, for
Mary Putnam, between us!"
"She has no right to do that," said Richard, soberly.
"I'm not--you know that!--criticizing," Harriet said. The man sighed,
and tossed a few papers on his desk.
"Sometimes I have hoped," he began, on a fresh tack, "that you and the
boy might fancy each other. I'm not satisfied with Ward. He needs an
anchor. That would be a solution for us all!" It was a random shot, but
to his surprise she flushed brightly.
"Ward knows that there is no chance of that," she said, quickly,
"dearly as I love him!"
Richard's eyes widened with whimsical amusement again.
"So you've refused Ward, have you?"
"Long ago," she answered, simply. The man laughed; but a moment later
his face grew dark and troubled again as he said:
"I hardly know what to do! The girl is the first consideration, of
course, and she needs you. I feel that she is not only safe, but happy,
when you are here. My mother needs you, too; she would pay, like the
rest of us, for worrying you out of the house. She couldn't manage
it--bringing Nina into town, ordering her clothes, entertaining the
boy's friends, answering letters--I know what it is! I've unfortunately
reached a place where I've got to feel free. You've heard us all talk
of this new asbestos merger--my dear girl, that will keep me going like
a slave for months, perhaps years! I won't know when I am to be home,
or what I shall have to cancel. I wish I could convince you that a
woman of seventy-five and a girl of seventeen are not exactly a jury--"
"This is the jury!" Harriet said, touching her own breast lightly. He
looked at her sombrely.
"I suppose so! I suppose I can't convince you how badly we need you. My
mother--well, she has always taken life that way; she can't change now.
I shall have Ida Tabor as a fixture here, I suppose, Nina running wild,
Ward never home! You--you give me exactly what I want here! Good
dinners, fires, hospitality, a good report from Nina and Ward; I can
bring men home, I can--" He mused, with a smile touching his fine,
tired face. "In short, I wish there was some fortunate young man
somewhere to make you Mrs. Smith or Jones, Miss Field, and let you come
back to the Carters immediately again!"
Harriet laughed, sighed sharply immediately upon the laugh.
"Unfortunately, there isn't such a man," she said. And she added, "Even
a widow, sometimes, is vulnerable!"
Richard smiled, but some sudden thought made the smile but an absent
one, and he sat quite obviously plunged in meditation for a long
minute. The clock and the fire ticked sleepily, and outside the high
windows the first tentative flutter of snow was melting on bare boughs
and brick walls.
"Here's another suggestion, Miss Field," he said, suddenly, looking up,
"I don't know how this will strike you; it has occurred to me before.
Gardiner hinted it--or I thought he did, and the more I think of it,
the more possible it seems. You are a business woman, and I am a
business man. You know exactly what I am, exactly what occurred in my
married life, after twenty-two years. That--that sort of thing is over,
of course. But there is that way of settling it, if you care to
consider it--"
He paused, with a questioning look of encouragement, embarrassment, and
affectionate interest. Harriet had grown pale, and had fixed her eyes
upon his as if under a spell.
"You mean--" Her voice failed her.
"I mean marriage. I mean that you and I shall quietly get married in a
few weeks, when I am free," he answered. "I have just indicated to you
what it would mean to me. I hope," he added, watching her closely, as
she sat stunned and silent, "I hope that it would also have its
advantages to you. Your position then would be unquestionable, my
mother--Nina--the world, would have nothing to say. I think you know
how thoroughly we all like you, and that my share of our--our business
partnership would be to make you as happy as was in my power. Your
influence on Ward is the one thing that may save the boy. Of Nina we've
already spoken. My mother--I know her!--would immediately become the
champion of her son's wife. There would be a three days' buzzing--that
would end it!"
The swift uprushing of joy in Harriet's heart was accompanied with the
first agonies of renunciation, was perhaps all the more poignantly
sweet because of them. She had not come to this hour without knowing
what he meant to her, this quiet man with the splendid mouth and the
keen gray eyes, and she trembled now with an exquisite emotion that
seemed to drown out all the past and all the future--everything except
that she loved him, and he needed her! But when she spoke it was as
coolly as he:
"Mr. Carter--what of your wife?"
His eyes met hers wearily.
"Divorce proceedings were instituted immediately it was definitely
established she had gone with young Pope. The decree will be absolute."
"But that will not--cannot alter the situation--" Harriet faltered.
"You mean--" the man hesitated "--you mean you--that you regard me as
married still?"
Harriet, mute with emotions absolutely overpowering, nodded without
speaking.
"Will you--will you let me think about it?" she faltered. A sudden
brightness came into his face. "You know how I was brought up to think
of divorce," she went on, pleadingly. "I've made plenty of mistakes in
my life, but I've never deliberately done what I felt was wrong."
"And this would be?" Richard asked, slowly.
"Well--I haven't thought about it!" she answered, slowly. "My
people--my sister and her husband--would say so! I--I would have said
so of some other woman!"
"This would not be an ordinary marriage; you would be entirely your own
mistress," Richard said, with quiet significance. "It would be a
marriage only in the eyes of the world. You--have a higher tribunal!"
"My own, you mean?" she asked, thoughtfully.
"Your own. You would know exactly why this marriage was not in
violation of any code of yours! The world might not acquit you, but you
would know in your own heart."
"I see," she said. "I--I must have time to think about it!"
"As long as you like!" She had risen, and now he rose, too, and went
with her to the library door, and opened it for her. "When you decide,
come and tell me," he said, bowing.
She turned to give him a parting smile, with a desperate wish to tell
him half the honour and joy she would feel in taking his name, in
sharing his responsibilities, but the pleasantly impersonal nod he gave
her chilled the words unspoken. Harriet fled to her room, and to the
porch beyond it, and flinging herself into a basket chair, covered her
face with her two hands, and for half an hour rocked to and fro audibly
gasping, half-laughing, half-crying, almost beside herself with
amazement and excitement.
To be Mrs. Richard Carter--to be Mrs. Richard Carter--to be mistress of
Crownlands, to command the cars and the maids, to enter the opera box
and the big shops--recognized, envied, triumphant--ah, it was a
prospect brilliant enough to dazzle a far more fortunate woman than
Harriet Field! To sign "Harriet Carter," to enter his office with
assurance, to say at the telephone, "Mrs. Carter, if you please--!"
"My chance," whispered Harriet, pressing her cold finger tips to her
hot cheeks again, "my chance at last--and I can't take it! No, I can't
take it--I don't care what his world does or thinks--my world doesn't
permit it! My father would never have spoken to me again--Linda
wouldn't! No--I can't. Not a divorced man, not a man with a living
wife! I've been a fool--I've been wrong, plenty of times, but I've
never committed myself to folly and wrong!"
She stared blindly ahead of her. After awhile she spoke again,
half-aloud:
"Oh, but why does it have to be this way! If I could go to him, tell
him what he means to me, if we were poor--if we could take a little
place next to Linda--never see Nina or his mother or Ward or Roy
again--Oh, what Heaven! How I should love it, planning for things
together, as Linda and Fred did, having him come home to me every night!
"But it isn't that way," Harriet suddenly recalled herself sensibly,
"and it is folly even to think about it! He is a rich man, and a
married man, and that ends it. That ends it."
A great desolation swept her spirit. She fell from bitter musing to
weakening. The law permitted it, after all. Plenty of good women had
shown her the way. The family needed her; she might do good here. And
above all, she loved him. Again the dream triumphed, and she was Mrs.
Carter, young, beautiful, and radiant, taking her place beside him. How
she would watch him, how she would guard him, what a life she would
build for him!
"But no, I mustn't think of that," Harriet said, sternly. "It would be
even different if he loved me. But he made that very clear! He made
that extremely clear! And the fact is this: that I marry a divorced man
the week he is free, a man who does not love me, but who can give me an
establishment! No--no--no--everything I've tried for all my life counts
for very little if I can do that!"
She heard a stirring in the bedroom.
"What time is it, Rosa?" she called, suddenly aware of weakness and
fatigue.
"My goodness, how you frightened me, Miss Field! It's just noon."
"Do you happen to know if Mr. Carter is still downstairs?"
"Yes'm, he is; he's expecting Mr. Fox to come!"
Harriet smoothed her tumbled hair, and went slowly downstairs.
"But I love him!" she said, suddenly standing still on the landing, to
look out at the softly falling snow with brimming eyes. "I love him
with all my soul!"
A moment later she knocked at the library door, opened it in answer to
his call, and went in, closing it behind her.