For two months Austen Blair and his niece lived on in the big house.
Alexina wondered if her uncle were not different from other people,
for it must be the abnormal human who would not ask one question about
his sister; mere curiosity must have demanded that much, Alexina
thought, having a lively curiosity herself. To be sure, Aunt Harriet,
from Uncle Austen's standpoint, had outraged every convention to which
they had been bred; she had married a man between whom and her family
there had been bitterest enmity, between whom and her brother there
had been personal encounter; she had gone from her brother's roof to
be married in a Catholic institution, by a Catholic priest.
It almost made Alexina laugh when she summed up the enormity of the
offending. She gloried in it herself; she adored Aunt Harriet and
loved her for it.
But the fact that her uncle could thus ignore the whole subject made
it harder for Alexina to go to him about a matter which had arisen
concerning herself.
A letter had come to her from her mother. Though it was eleven years
since she had seen the handwriting, she knew it, as Katy, bringing the
mail, handed it to her.
It seemed to Alexina that her pulses stopped and the tide of her blood
flowed backward. Katy, closing the door as she went, brought her to
herself, and she flung the letter from her the width of the room, her
gaze following it.
She sat like one stunned with horror. Then rage succeeded. "What
right had this--this so-called mother to write to her?"
But she need not read it, and Alexina sprang up and went about her
household duties, as if in interviews with grocery-man and butcher,
with cook and laundress, she could forget that her mother had written
her, that the letter lay up-stairs awaiting her.
She would not read it, she assured herself; but all the while she knew
that she would, and when the time came she opened it quietly and read
it through. Then she put it in its envelope and threw it from her
again across the room, and sat immovable, the lines of her young face
setting as though by some steeling process. Suddenly she caught sight
of her face in the glass. On it was the look of Uncle Austen.
She sprang up and, dragging forth her cloak and hat and furs, fled
from the house. She must turn to some one, she must get away from the
horror that was upon her. She would go to Aunt Harriet.
It was a frosty day and a light fall of snow was on the pavements. She
met Dr. Ransome and Emily Carringford strolling along as though it
were summer. She had introduced him to Emily, and one would say she
had done him a good turn. She smiled as they called to her from across
the street. He admired Emily and it looked as if Emily--but, then,
Emily sparkled and glowed for any man, even for Uncle Austen.
She saw Georgy wave his hat gaily from the platform of a street-car
and look as though he meant to swing off and join her. She was seeing
a good deal of him these days. She shook her head and pointed with her
muff, and a moment later turned in at the Infirmary gate. She had
walked rapidly and felt better somehow. The Major was daily growing
stronger, though the fear was that he might never walk again, but,
rather than accept this verdict, he and Aunt Harriet were going East
for advice or, if need be, to Paris.
Paris! The horror surged back upon her. She stopped short in her very
turning to close the gate and stood engrossed with the misery of it,
for it was from Paris her mother had written to say she was coming to
her.
"I have reached the end of my money, ma chere," she wrote, "as you
come into yours, which Austen, being a Blair, will have cared for. I
will teach you to love life, now that you are grown. When you were a
child you were impossible, you disconcerted and judged me, but it is
unfair to let you taste life according to Blair seasoning only. So
write me, ma fille, mon enfant, of your whereabouts, in the care of
your Uncle Randolph in Washington, for I follow this steamer across."
And then, as though her mood had changed: "In any case, I shall not
trouble you long. It is my lungs, they tell me. It is a curious
sensation, may you never know it, having your furniture seized. Le bon
Dieu and Celeste have stood between me and much."
Celeste! Tall, gaunt, and taciturn--negro mammy to Alexina and to
Molly before her. Celeste! It all stifled the girl. She hated Celeste.
Celeste had chosen to go with the mother, and the child had been left
by both.
And where was M. Garnier, the husband--"the promising young French
poet," as Uncle Randolph had termed him to some one, in the child
Alexina's hearing, those years ago? The letter made no mention of him.
Alexina closed the Infirmary gate and walked up the wide pavement to
the entrance. The little Sister knew her well now and smiled a welcome
as she let her in. Passing along the hall Alexina hesitated before the
marble saint in his niche. Hers was no controversial soul; what she
wanted was comfort. Perhaps the blend of Presbyterianism and
Catholicism may be tolerance. Then she went on through the spotless
halls to the second floor.
As the door opened Harriet looked around. She had been writing by the
Major's couch, and he had fallen asleep, his hand on hers, the
portfolio lying open on her lap. She smiled at Alexina, then nodded at
the hand detaining her.
Could it be the same Aunt Harriet, this yearning-eyed woman? Her
hair, always beautiful, had loosened and drooped over her temple, and
the thought swept upon Alexina, how human, how sweetly dear it made
her look, this touch of carelessness because of greater concern. It
moved the girl, bending to kiss her, to slip to her knees instead and
throw adoring young arms about her.
And then a strange thing happened; the head of the woman drooped for
support against the girl's shoulder and, with a sudden trembling all
through her, Harriet began to cry. Only for a moment; then, lifting
her head and putting the hand of the sleeper gently on the couch, she
arose and drew the girl over to the window.
"You go to-morrow?" asked Alexina.
"Yes; Dr. Ransome has arranged to go with us then. I don't know why I
cry, for he's better. He's been dictating an editorial. I'm unnerved,
I suppose, and it's beginning to tell."
"You are worn out with the two months of strain, Aunt Harriet, and the
worry and unhappiness."
"Unhappiness?" Harriet laughed a little wildly. "Unhappiness? I
thought you understood better than that. I'm happy, for the first time
in all my easy, prosperous, level life. It's out of the depths we
bring up happiness, Alexina. And come what may, I've known, am knowing
it--nothing can take the knowledge from me now."
She was crying again, her head bent against the window pane. "I never
knew how to get near to any one; I've been alone all my life till now.
Maybe you have been lonely all along. I didn't know. Living with
Austen and me--oh, I'm sorry for you, Alexina. I'm going away now with
Stephen; but when we come back I mean to make it up to you and see
that you have opportunities and friends. Oh, Alexina, we do all
require it, the joy of having some one needing us. And you'll be nice
to Louise for me, won't you, while we're gone?"
Louise was the sister of Stephen, and she and the babies were to
remain in Louisville in the house the Major and Harriet had taken
against their return, an unpretentious house on a cross street.
"Stephen has arranged it all," Harriet was saying; "he won't let me do
a thing. He will not consider for a moment that he isn't going to be
able to keep his position on the paper; they're filling it for him
among themselves still. If he wasn't so--so fiercely proud! It's
Austen that rankles, you see."
There was a movement on the couch. Harriet went swiftly over to the
waker. It is on Olympus they take time for deliberate and stately
progression; Harriet had come down to the human world.
"It's a soporific thing," quoth the Major, "listening to one's own
editorials. I never heard one through before. You there, Alexina?
Where have you been these two days? I hope you're not holding it
against us that Georgy is sending all his flowers to me? It's his
delicate way, you see; reaching round through me via Harriet to you."
There was a tap and the little Sister entered. It was company. It was
always company. The Major's life had been close to the heart and
centre of things. It was laughable to see the reserved Harriet's pride
in his popularity. It was a certain judge this time, and with him an
old comrade-at-arms, come up from the Pennyroyal to see him.
"But had you better?" Harriet expostulated.
The Major caught her hand and laughed at her. "But these are fond
farewells, you see, dear lady," he explained.
Was he drawing her to him by the hand he held? For suddenly Harriet
bent over and kissed him; nor did Alexina feel any consciousness or
shame, and the little Sister went out softly with glistening eyes.
So it came about that Alexina did not open her heart to Harriet after
all, and the aunt went away next day without knowing.
Yet Harriet influenced the girl in her decision.
Alexina, standing at her window, watched a sparrow tugging at some
morsel that had fallen upon the snow and essaying to fly upward and
away with it. She was lonesome; the house was so big; it seemed so
empty. She was thinking about Aunt Harriet, who was giving her
strength out to some one, who had opened her arms to Louise and the
babies, whose days were full of thought and planning, and through
whose eyes shone something never there before.
Alexina left the window and re-read the postscript of her letter. "In
any case I shall not trouble you long. It is my lungs, they tell me.
It is a curious sensation, may you never know it, having your
furniture seized. Le bon Dieu and Celeste have stood between me and
much."
It was to her uncle after all that Alexina went with the matter that
night. He was in the parlour reading and laid down his paper to give
attention. The substance of the letter heard, the two perpendicular
lines between his brow relaxed, for it was a case of his judgment
being justified, and a man likes to feel he has been right.
"It is what I expected," he said, "only it has been longer coming. She
has her father's people in Washington, she has no claim on you." He
lifted his paper.
"But--" said Alexina.
He lowered it and waited.
Her mouth grew set. He always made her stubborn. Fingering the
upholstery of his chair, she looked at him, though it took courage to
look at Austen Blair under some circumstances. She found herself
suddenly disposed to defend her mother. "But if I feel a claim, Uncle
Austen? I wanted to tell you I think I ought to write to her to come."
"Come where?" asked Austen Blair.
To be sure--where could she write her to come? There fell a silence.
Then he spoke, and curtly. "In three months you will be of age, a fact
which no doubt your mother has remembered. Until then I forbid it;
after that it is your affair. In the interim, it has been my
intention, and I meant to say as much to you, to make you acquainted
with your affairs. I had expected you to live on in my house. Under
the conditions you propose you will, of course, make your own
arrangements."
Alexina, listening, looked at him. One would have said tears were
welling. Had he raised his eyes to hers, put out a hand--
But he returned to his paper.
Her cheeks blazed, her head went up, and something ran like a
vivifying flame over her face. It was a pity Austen did not see her
then. He demanded beauty in a woman. He should have seen his young
niece angry. Then she turned and went up to her room and wrote her
mother to come. But, the letter written, she leaned upon the desk and
broke into wild and passionate crying.