It was the gayest spring that Harriet had ever known at Crownlands, for
even at her best, Isabelle had been socially an individualist, devoting
herself to one man at a time, and to nobody else, and the whole family
had necessarily accepted Isabelle's attitude. Richard had been too busy
to notice or protest, the old lady helpless, and Nina a child.
But now there was a beautiful and gracious woman in Isabelle's place,
and long before the world knew that Harriet Field was really Harriet
Carter, there was a very decided change in the social atmosphere. Nina
would be eighteen in June, and affairs for Nina and her friends began
to assume a more formal air. Ward, who seemed anxious to placate his
father, and convince him of his genuine reform, was almost always at
home, and Madame Carter was willing to accept the comfort and amusement
that Harriet's return brought to the house, and rarely raised an issue
with the triumphant secretary. And, more strange than all, Richard
began to bring his friends to the house; he was proud of his smoothly
running establishment, and proud of the charming woman who neither
flirted with nor ignored the men he brought home. They were plain men
sometimes, business associates who might have been ill at ease at
Crownlands, and voiceless at the dinner table. But Harriet drew them
out, and seemed to have some conversational divining rod by which she
touched with unfailing instinct upon the topic of each in turn.
Always beautiful and always busy, constantly in demand on all sides,
she went about his house like a smiling worker of miracles, and Richard
watched her. When she went home to her sister for a day or two he
missed her strangely, and wandered about the empty rooms with a
desolate sense of loss.
She was presently back, and amused the young people at the dinner table
with a spirited account of her sister's move into a new house--"really
an old house," that she and her family had been watching for years. It
had been auctioned, forfeited by the purchaser, it had figured in a
lawsuit, and now at last it was in the possession of the delighted
Davenports. And the move--with the baby carrying his puppy, and Pip the
goldfish, and the girls wheeling the old baby-carriage full of their
treasures, and Linda whitening her hands with a cut lemon, as she
walked the seven short blocks--! Harriet made them see it all, and
Richard laughed with the children. His mother, always reminiscent,
recalled a move in his own third year, when he had tasted furniture
polish, and made himself ill.
Nina and Amy and Ward had rushed from the dinner table to an early
dance at the club, and Richard, after a talk with his mother on the
terrace, had wandered about with a vague hope of finding Harriet
somewhere with her book. But she was not downstairs.
He went back, and presently accompanied his mother to her door. The old
lady stopped outside of Nina's open door, from which a subdued light
streamed.
"Oh, Miss Field--" said Madame Carter.
"Yes, Madame Carter!" The rich, ready voice responded instantly.
Richard hoped she would come to the door, but his mother's message was
delivered too quickly to make it necessary.
"You're waiting up for Nina?"
"Oh, yes, Madame Carter!" Harriet answered. The two exchanged
good-nights; Richard loitered into his mother's room, left her in her
maid's hands, and went back into the dimly lighted, spacious upper
hall. He felt oddly stirred; there were letters downstairs, his usual
books and amusements, but he felt curiously impelled to try for one
more word with Miss Field.
He opened the door of Nina's room, and went in, and knocked on the
half-open door within that connected it with Harriet's room.
"Come in. Is it you, Pilgrim?" the pleasant, quiet voice said. Richard
stepped to the doorway.
Harriet, seated in a square basket chair, under the soft flood of light
from a basket-shaded lamp, rose precipitately, and stood looking at him
with widened eyes and parted lips, without speaking. She was plainly
frightened, though she made herself smile. She wore a scant,
long-sleeved garment of a deep, oriental blue, that covered her from
her white throat to her feet, and yet that was obviously only for
bedroom wear, and to which she gave a quick, apologetic glance, as the
man came in. He noticed that in this mellow light her blue eyes seemed
to communicate a blue shadow to their neighbourhood, brows and lids,
and the clean arch in which they were set, all wore the same shadowy
blueness. The beautiful room was full of shadows; at the wide-open
windows thin curtains stirred in the cool night air.
"Frighten you?" Richard said.
"Is there something--?" Her eyes were those of a deer that is afraid to
turn.
"Why, I wanted to suggest that we tell our little piece of news to the
family," Richard suggested, after a momentary search for a suitable
subject. "I came very close to telling my mother, just now. Is there
any good reason for further delay?"
"Why, no, I don't--I don't suppose there is!" Harriet stammered.
"You see, my mother had left me in no doubt of her intentions with Mrs.
Tabor," Richard said, smiling. "I'll give Mrs. Tabor credit for being
as innocent as I am in the matter," he added, simply. "But there's a
plan for a Montreal trip--I believe Ida arrives for a week to-morrow,
and so on. I should be very glad to let the world know that--my
arrangements--in the line, are already made. It will be fairer to you,
too, I think. Gardiner asked me last night if the coast was clear--Ward
asked me if I thought there was any use in his trying again--"
"There will be talk," said Harriet with distaste, as he paused.
"I suppose so," he answered, simply. "But what we do is our own affair,
after all. I shall explain to my mother that for us both it seemed a
practical and a--well, not unpleasant solution. There need be no change
here, but you will simply have a more assured position--"
She had been watching him, with all June in her face. But as he went on
the colour slowly drained away, and about her beautiful eyes a look of
strain and even of something like shame gradually deepened. When she
spoke, it was as if the muscles of her throat were constricted.
"Yes, I see. Certainly, I see. We will have to let them talk. This
is--simply the best arrangement possible under the circumstances!"
"It is an arrangement that a man perhaps has no right to ask of a
woman," Richard said. "Love means a great deal in a girl's life, and I
suppose there is nothing else that makes up for the lack of it. But you
are not an ordinary woman, and I assure you that in every way that I
can I mean to prove to you how deeply I appreciate what you are doing
for us all."
"Thank you!" Harriet said, almost inaudibly.
"Simply change your name on your checks," Richard said, thoughtfully.
"I shall have Fox step into the bank with the authenticated signature.
And if there is anything else, use your own judgment. Perhaps, if I
tell my mother, you would like to write to certain friends--? You can
continue to draw on the Corn Exchange, that's simplest, and I hope
you'll remember that you have a large personal credit there," he added,
with a smile. "It occurred to me to-night that you--you mustn't let
your sister worry about that new house. If you want your own car--"
"Oh, good heavens, Mr. Carter!" Harriet said, suffocating.
"Ask me anything that puzzles you," the man said. And with a brief
good-night he was gone. Harriet, who had dropped back into her chair,
sat absolutely motionless for a long, long time. Her eyes were fixed on
space; she hardly breathed; it almost seemed as if her heart was
stopped.
Richard went downstairs, surprised to feel still vaguely unsatisfied.
He had had his word with Harriet, had said indeed much that he had not
expected to say. However, it was much better to let the world know
their relationship; he was perfectly satisfied to have it so. But
still, as he settled himself to an hour's reading, the plaguing little
impulse persisted. He would like to go upstairs again; he missed her
companionship.
There was something very appealing about this woman, thought Richard,
suddenly closing his book. Her beauty, her silences, her complete
subjugation of her own interests to his, he found strangely
fascinating. She had looked extremely beautiful in that long, dark blue
bedroom gown, reading Shakespeare. He wondered why she read Shakespeare.
"By George, she has made a most interesting woman of herself!" Richard
decided, opening his book again. "She ought to be right in the middle
of things, that girl!"
He was still reading when Nina and Amy came in, and yawned him
good-nights from the library doorway. He heard them go upstairs, heard
a burst of laughter and nonsense, and then Harriet's rich voice, and
then the closing door. Then there was silence. Richard discovered that
he was sleepy, and went upstairs, too.
A day or two later Madame Carter came out to the terrace at eleven
o'clock, beautifully groomed and gowned, and with an imperative hand
arrested Harriet, who was tumbled and sunburned from the tennis court
and was going toward the house.
"Just a moment, Miss Field," said she, magnificently. Harriet
obediently stood still, and watched Madame Carter's magnificence settle
itself slowly in a basket chair. The old lady freed an eyeglass ribbon
deliberately, straightened a ruffle, laid her magazine beside her on a
table. "There was a little matter of which I wished to speak to you,"
she said, suavely, bringing her distant glance to rest dispassionately
for a moment upon Harriet's face.
Harriet waited, amused, annoyed, impatient.
"I understand," Madame Carter said, "that you and my son--for some
reason best known to yourselves--have entered into a secret marriage?"
"Your first object, my dear, is not to antagonize his mother!" Harriet
reminded herself. Aloud she said mildly: "You have no reason to
disbelieve it, have you?"
"No reason to disbelieve my son!" his mother echoed, scandalized. "Why
should I have! Mr. Carter is the soul of honour--absolutely the soul.
Upon my word, I don't understand you!"
"I said you have no reason to disbelieve him," Harriet repeated. "You
said that you UNDERSTOOD that we had been married. It is true!"
And she looked off toward the river with an expression as composed as
that of Madame Carter herself.
"I suppose you know that old saying: 'A secret bride has a secret to
hide!'" the older woman pursued, pleasantly.
"I never heard it. I did not play much with the children of the
neighbourhood when I was a child," Harriet answered. "My father was
very anxious to protect us from picking up expressions of that sort!"
There was a silence. Harriet, beginning to be ashamed of herself, did
not look at her companion.
"A girl of your age has a great deal of confidence when she marries
into a family like mine," the old lady said, presently, in a tone that
trembled a little. "My son is a rich man--he is a prominent man. He has
used his own judgment, of course. But I confess that in your place I
should not carry myself with quite so much an air of--triumph! It seems
to me--"
Harriet had had time to reflect that such an opening would certainly
lead to tears and hysteria now, and might easily begin an estrangement
that would sadden and disappoint Richard. A few more such exchanges,
and his mother would retire worsted to her room, might possibly leave
his house, and punish Harriet cruelly through him. She determinedly
regained her calm, and taking the chair next to the enraged old lady,
quietly interrupted the flow of her angry words.
"I hope I have shown no air of triumph, Madame Carter," Harriet said.
"You yourself--and most wisely!--pointed out to us a few months ago
that the arrangement here was unconventional--"
"Everyone was talking, if you mind that!" the old lady snapped. But she
was slightly mollified, none-the-less. "But upon my word, you'd think
marrying into the family was something to be done every day--!" she was
beginning again, when Harriet interrupted again.
"No--no," she said, soothingly, conceding the last words an amused
smile that itself rather helped to placate her companion. "It is, of
course, the most serious step of my life! But the secrecy--as of course
you will appreciate--was because there has been so much terrible
notoriety this year! Why, Mr. Carter tells me that never in the history
of all the Carters--"
This fortunate lead was enough. Madame Carter launched forth superbly
upon a description of the usual Carter weddings, the ceremony, the
state. In perhaps twenty minutes she was blandly patronizing Harriet,
giving her encouraging little taps with her eyeglasses, warning her of
mistakes that Isabelle had made with Richard. Harriet knew that before
three days were over her terrible mother-in-law would be telling the
world just how wise, under the trying circumstances, the whole thing
was, and just how clearly she had foreseen it. She was still listening
respectfully, if a trifle confusedly, when Ward bounded from the house,
and gave her an effusive embrace.
"Hello, Mamma!" Ward said. Harriet laughed, as she pushed away the
filial arm. Hardly knowing what she said or did she made her way to the
house, and up to her own room.
But here, in Nina's room, were Nina and Mrs. Tabor, and from their
eyes, as she came in, she knew that they knew. Nina got up, and came
forward with a sort of sulky graciousness.
"I hope you'll be very happy, Miss Harriet--I suppose I oughtn't to
call you Miss Harriet any more," Nina said, with an effort to smile
that Harriet thought quite ghastly. She gave Harriet one of her big
hands, and hesitated over a kiss. But they did not kiss each other. Ida
Tabor watched them with the half-closed eyes of a cat.
"Confess you took my breath away," she said, frankly, "because it
doesn't seem the sort of thing that Dick Carter does! Always knew he
idolized Isabelle, poor girl, and never dreamed he'd put any one in her
place! Of course, Dick's a rich man, and he's the dearest fellow in the
world, at that, but knowing, as I do know--for I've known him since we
were kiddies--exactly what a firebrand Dick always has been-mad as a
hatter when he was in love, and consequently this talk of a sensible
arrangement--"
She had a quick, vivacious way of speaking, this pretty little angry
and disappointed woman, that often carried an offensive very
successfully. As she spoke, in an innocent voice, she glanced in and
out of the magazine she had caught up, and was apparently unconscious
of Harriet's blazing cheeks and darkening eyes. But now Harriet
interrupted her.
"I don't quite see the point, Mrs. Tabor," Harriet said, bravely and
deliberately, "you speak of Mr. Carter's being a rich man, and of his
love for his wife, and his having been a fiery young man. What has that
to do with me? I was here in his house as his daughter's companion--
"As far as being a companion to ME was concerned," Nina interpolated,
rapidly, in an airy undertone, and with a toss of her head. But Harriet
suppressed her with a glance.
"--that position I could not keep," she pursued, "but for Ward's sake
and Nina's there had to be some social life. My birth," said Harriet,
steadily, "is quite the equal of theirs; I was well able to fill that
place. Mr. Carter took the step that made it possible. That's all!"
There was a silence when she finished speaking. Ida Tabor was outfaced,
and she knew it. Her cheeks burned scarlet, and she was able to gasp
only the feeblest response.
"Thank you for your kind explanation!" she said, somewhat breathless,
and with a bow. Nina, giving Harriet a resentful glance, went over to
put her arm about her friend, who had risen, and was facing Harriet.
"It need make no difference with us, Ladybird!" Nina said in passionate
loyalty.
"Why, of course not," Harriet hastened to assure them. "Why should it?
It has been just as true since December, only you didn't know it!"
"THANK you!" Mrs. Tabor said again, with another twitch of countenance
intended for a smile.
"Will you want both these rooms now?" Nina said, insolently. "I don't
want to be in your way!"
"Be careful, Nina!" Harriet said with ominous calmness. And going into
her own room she added, in her usual quiet manner, "There will be no
changes, dear!" She realized that her heart was beating fast with
anger, but it died down rapidly, and she consoled herself with some
prophecies that the next few days were to justify to the fullest
extent. Nina's inseparable Ladybird would find little to interest her
in Crownlands now, Harriet suspected, and they would not long be
troubled by her company. She smiled as she heard Nina and Ida in the
next room.
"Put on your yellow gown, sweetheart," Ida said. "We're going to the
Bellamys' after lunch."
"Oh, I don't feel like going anywhere!" Nina said, pathetically. "Would
you just as soon stay here--and just read and talk, and fool around as
we did yester-day?"
"Just as soon do anything!" But there was a tiny edge to Ladybird's
tone that had not been there yesterday. "Only, dearest girl," she
added, lightly, "we're expected!"
For answer Nina only gave her rich, mischievous laugh, and Harriet knew
that she was embracing her friend.
"But a lot you and I care for that, don't we? We'll get into wrappers
and be comfortable. I'll have Bottomley simply telephone after lunch,
and say that we are unexpectedly detained. I can't get over it," Nina
said, luxuriating in surprise. Her voice sank to speculation, and the
two murmured awhile. Then Harriet heard Ida return the attack. "But
about the Bellamys, dear," and smiled a little sadly, to think of the
swiftness with which, to calculating Mrs. Tabor, the Carter stock was
declining, and the Bellamy market looking up.
"That crazy man who--you said--admired me last night," Nina was
presently saying, "tell me again what he said. I don't see how he could
have said I was picturesque, for there's nothing picturesque about that
old blue rag. I don't know, though, it's always been awfully smart. But
I'll tell you honestly, Ladybird, I'd rather be picturesque than almost
anything else."
"You're certainly that!" said Ida's bored voice.
"Well, if you say so, I'll believe you!" Nina said. Harriet knew that
they had been aware of her nearness, but now she very deliberately
closed the door.
At luncheon everything was exactly as usual; Richard had gone to the
city, not to return for a night or two, and several social engagements
distracted the young people from the contemplation of their father's
affairs.
Harriet had not dared to hope that they would accept the situation so
quietly, or that the world would. There were callers on the terrace
every afternoon, there were pleasant congratulations and good wishes,
there were a few paragraphs in the social weeklies. Richard had for
years been too busy for mere entertaining, and the dinner parties and
luncheons to the new Mrs. Carter, it was generally felt, must wait
until next season.
Meanwhile, the speculating world saw her going quietly about the house,
advising Nina, conferring with the domestic staff, laughing with Ward.
She immediately formed a habit of going into the old lady's room every
morning: Madame Carter had quite accepted her as a member of the great
house of Carter now, and came to depend upon the half-hour of morning
gossip. The world saw her in a box at the theatre, with the young
Carters, saw that Richard presently joined them, and laughed, in the
shadowy back of the box, at something his beautiful new wife said to
him over her shoulder. The world was obliged to decide that the little
secretary took her promotion very coolly, that there was something
queer about it.
But inwardly the little secretary was thrilled to her heart's core.
Even to glance at the gold ring on her finger made Harriet feel as if a
happiness almost shameful was bared to view. Her new position, modestly
as she filled it, was yet a high position. She saw Richard's growing
affection and trust, if he did not. She could afford to wait.
She visited Linda, almost afraid to show new gowns and new generosity,
almost afraid of the constant "Mrs. Carter."
"They'll be ruined!" Linda laughed, of the children's summer gowns and
the camera and wrist watch that transported Julia and Josephine to
Paradise. This rustling and perfumed Harriet, with the flowered little
French hat, and the filmy little odd gowns, was almost bewildering.
Decorously having tea on the terrace in the June afternoons, knowing
herself the centre of interest, Harriet's heart sang with a wild inward
delight. She smiled; she could afford the friendliest interest for
everyone's affairs. When her own were touched, there was a youthful
flushing, a deprecatory smile. But she took no one into her confidence.
"But when are you and Dick Carter going to dine with us?" Mary Putnam
said, one afternoon, at tea. Madame Carter, whose Victorian ideal of
romance was not at all dissatisfied with the idea of the employer
marrying his daughter's beautiful governess, smiled significantly.
"They're very odd lovers, my dear," she said to Mary with an eloquent
glance. Mary laughed, and looked at Harriet, whose face was suddenly
crimson, though she tried to laugh, too. The visitor, with instant
kindness, covered the little break.
"Whenever they're ready, they're going to dine with me!" she said,
patting Harriet's hand with real affection and understanding. The
arrival of a group from the tennis court, Nina, Ida, Ward, Francesca
Jay, and their friends, changed the subject immediately, the old lady
was distracted, and Harriet busy. But Mary was free to reflect. She had
the eyes of a contented woman, freed from her own problem for those of
others. "And Harriet is certainly mad about Richard," Mary mused.
But with the rest of the world she had to decide that there was
something in the affair that she did not understand.
When everyone else had gone from the terrace, and the late afternoon
light was throwing clear shadows across the warm red bricks, Nina and
Ida Tabor remained, talking. Nina had seated herself on the arm of her
friend's chair, and was chattering away in happy ignorance of the fact
that the older woman was seething within. Nina saw no reason for
jealousy because Harriet had just had an hour's petting from everyone,
had dominated the scene in her striped blue muslin, had finally
sauntered to the house between no more important persons than Granny
and Ward.
But to Ida it was insufferable, and she could only revenge herself upon
her innocent admirer.
"And now we positively must go in, Nina!" she said. "We've wasted this
whole afternoon!" And she added, of the embracing arm: "Don't! It's too
hot."
"Is playing tennis and talking with me WASTING an afternoon, Ladybird?"
Nina asked, archly.
"You know I don't mean that!" Mrs. Tabor said, impatiently, if fondly,
freeing herself. "But I have to get packed if I'm going to the Jays'!"
"But you're not going to the Jays'!" Nina said in soft, sweet,
confident reminder.
"But I must, darling!"
"Not if I ask you not to!" Nina persisted.
"Truly I must," Mrs. Tabor said, wearily.
"No, you mustn't!"
"But, dearest, I truly have to---"
"But, Ladybird," Nina laughed, happily, "I sent them a message this
afternoon that you were staying with me! So now," she finished,
triumphantly, "that's settled! And we'll go to bed early, with books,
and talk, and maybe creep down for something to eat about eleven, as we
did that other night--"
"Nina," Mrs. Tabor said, in a new voice, interrupting her, "you didn't
telephone Mrs. Jay, did you?"
"Indeed I did!" Nina was still smiling over the thought of her midnight
raid on the pantry with a flattering and laughing and girlish Ladybird,
a Ladybird who had simply "never gotten over" that chance encounter
with Father in the upper hall, and who had talked of it, and of their
slippered feet and kimonos, through hours of delicious giggling and
embarrassment.
"Well, then, you were extremely impertinent and officious," said a new
voice, that Nina hardly recognized.
Poor Nina! Harriet found her sobbing on her bed, half an hour later,
and took it for a sign that the wound would cure, that Nina did not
resent her sympathy and comfort. Nina was still heaving with deep sobs,
albeit taking steps toward a hot bath and a becoming gown, when Ida
went away. Her farewells were made only to the composed interloper, who
went with her pleasantly to the hall door, and turned back with some
remark for Bottomley that was in the perfect tone of the mistress.
Ida's heart was hot within her as she looked her last at Crownlands, in
the mellow light of the summer twilight.