_Candour_
Miss Carrington, seated before the hearth in her sitting room and
enjoying the wood fire partly because it crackled; partly because it
was too warm for the day, heard Minerva moving about in her dressing
room and called her.
“Isn’t Helen back yet?” she asked.
Minerva appeared in the doorway, disapproval in every line of her black
taffeta gown.
“Miss Abercrombie came in three quarters of an hour ago; she went to
her room and it’s likely is resting there, though not having seen her I
am not able to say positively,” she replied.
“Oh, well, Minerva, it will never come to a trial for perjury,”
observed Miss Carrington. “Ask her if she will not join me?”
Minerva withdrew and shortly there appeared in the same doorway a
figure in sharp contrast to Minerva’s. It was Helen’s, tall and lithe,
swathed in a pale blue Japanese negligée, heavily embroidered in white
and faintest pink. Her golden hair was dishevelled; one hand carried a
box of chocolates, the other clutched her robe and a novel.
“Want me?” she asked, and crossed the room as Miss Carrington invited
by a gesture to a chair at her side.
Helen took it and piled three down pillows around her, twisting her
body into perfect agreement with the pillows.
“How inconsiderate you are not to come without a summons!” Miss
Carrington reproached her. “Aren’t stay-at-homes always eager for
bulletins from abroad?”
“I thought you’d be napping, or would come into my room if you wanted
me,” said Helen. “There isn’t much to report; a perfectly ordinary
visit. Of course the most interesting things about it aren’t those that
happened.”
“Precisely. And your keen eyes would see them,” agreed Miss Carrington.
“First of all, is there the least ground for my suspicion of Kit?”
“Oh, dear me, yes,” said Helen, promptly. “I more than suspect him, but
he doesn’t suspect himself. He is attracted by the girl; he likes her,
is ready to range himself on her side if any one doesn’t unreservedly
admire her, but the feeling has not taken on alarming proportions. I’m
sure he has no notion that he’ll fall in love with her if he isn’t
careful, that the ‛goblins will git him if he don’t watch out!’ He
doesn’t think she’s a goblin, and he isn’t clever enough to watch out.
Please don’t mind me, because you know what I think of Kit! She’s a
pretty little thing enough, but not more than pretty. And she has a
gentle, amiable way with her, unsophisticated and all that. One of
those _good_ girls! Men are drawn by sweetness and goodness at
first, and then, when they have to live with it, they are sure to be
drawn by the other thing! Beauty unadorned, beauty of character, is
pretty deadly daily diet, Aunt Anne-elect!”
Miss Carrington laughed. “These are not original remarks, Helen, though
they may be the result of your original research,” she said. “The point
is not how wise you are, nor how accurate a prophet, but what Kit
thinks of her.”
“Oh, well, do you suppose Kit thinks of her?” Helen asked, lightly.
“It strikes me that it is only that she is here, and nobody else is,
most of the time. There must be lots of pretty girls in a place this
size, but this little brown thing is new. I suppose she must have
brains, for Richard Latham finds her the greatest help; he spoke of
her as marvellously perceptive, says her criticisms are a great help
to him. But Kit has been drawn to her simply because--he is! That’s
the only reason it ever happens, of course! And I don’t imagine he has
thought about her; not actual, appraising thoughts. She is essentially
feminine. I am dead sure he is attracted to her, but I’m also sure he
isn’t analyzing himself, nor her, and it ought to be possible to divert
his attention. Have a chocolate?” Helen extended her box.
Miss Carrington accepted a chocolate with a twinkle in her eye and a
laugh that was not wholly flattering to her guest.
Helen’s embroidered robe had fallen to the floor on each side of her;
her white skin gleamed above and through the thin crêpe and lace of her
underclothing; her white, lace-trimmed skirt was drawn tight above her
knees as she sat back in the chair; her thin, lustrous silk stocking
outlined the beautiful curve of her leg.
“If Kit could see you now he might be diverted,” said Miss Carrington.
In her youth, with girls of her own age, she had never been so
unreserved.
“Call him in,” suggested Helen. “I’ll tell you in confidence, Miss
Carrington, that I never found a trusting youth hard to divert, if I
went about it.”
“What did Thackeray say? That any woman could marry any man if she had
sufficient opportunity and had not a positive hump? Something like that
in _Vanity Fair_.”
“Anticipating G.B.S.? I remember Shaw better than Thackeray. I read
_Vanity Fair_ when I was about fourteen. Of course everyone admits
that the woman chooses, but how about two women choosing the same man,
each with the ‛sufficient opportunity?’ Then it does seem as though the
man cast the deciding vote, though that would be only another way of
saying that one woman had the stronger attraction. I never heard that
threshed out. It’s interesting, opens out vistas. The only thing I’ve
heard that might bear on it is that once seven women laid hold of one
man. I don’t know what came of that. I haven’t read the Book that’s in
much, not even at fourteen!” Helen laughed, throwing herself back and
crossing her ankle on her knee as if she had been a man.
Miss Carrington did not smile. Her brow contracted slightly, and her
eyes did not applaud Helen.
“You funny old dear!” Helen cried. “When you are so emancipated, boast
of your modernity, read the books, novels and philosophy, love the
plays you do, why do you suppose you are half-scared of me at times?
And you are. I jar you.”
“A matter of taste, Helen,” admitted Miss Carrington. “I was bred up
in old-fashioned conservatism. I can theorize; I don’t mind the new
ideas in print, on the stage, provided they are cleverly put, but I
admit that I like to see young women what I was trained to consider
well-mannered. I don’t defend my inconsistency; I’m explaining myself.”
“Atavism; Shintoism,” said Helen, carelessly. “No one is consistent.
Taste is stronger than principles, I’ve always noticed that. It will
take two generations to get our mental clothing fitted, and by that
time the fashion will probably swing back; that’s the way it works.
You’ve got your grandmother’s and mother’s minds grafted on your mind.
You’ve survived; you were born before the old ways had passed. But to
return to our muttons, which means the Dallas lambkin: Richard Latham
is in love with her himself.”
“Oh, Helen, do you think so?” cried Miss Carrington.
“Know so,” Helen corrected her. “And I warned Kit. I went so far as
to try to ingraft upon his trusting mind the suggestion that no one
would snatch her from a man so important to the world, so afflicted as
the poet. I hoped that it would seem to him later that he had thought
of that himself. And, really, Miss Carrington, Richard Latham is a
peach of a man, aside from his poetry. He is charming; modest, clever,
gentle, and you feel that he is stainless. I wondered for a moment
if it wouldn’t be worth while rescuing him, instead of Kit, from the
little Dallas? I could put him on a pinnacle, give him the rewards of
his genius while he lived, instead of after he is dead. I could do it
alone, and I am always plus father. But I decided it would be a pity to
waste my looks on a blind man.”
“Your conceit is so colossal, Helen Abercrombie, that it is raised
above ordinary weaknesses,” declared Miss Carrington, energetically.
“Dear Aunt-elect, you are quite right. I do not think that I am in
any way a small woman. If you call it conceit, so be it. But if I did
not know that I am handsome I should be a fool, and like the fool say
in my heart that ‛all men are liars.’ I am clever. Experience teaches
me that, and my will is not easily downed. You may call it colossal
conceit, but I call it an intelligent appraisal of myself. I know
that I can do for the man I marry what few women can do, and that I
shall do it, and I do think it would be a pity if my husband could not
see me.” Helen ended her frank speech with a downward glance at her
generously displayed beauty. It was her complete disregard of any sort
of concealment that shocked the elder woman, who had been trained in
the reserved manners of what used to be called “a gentlewoman.” Miss
Carrington realized that in this she was at variance with her views
which admitted freedom, equality, the right of every human being to be
and to do what he, and she, as much, saw fit. But the application of
the theory, especially in the case of a fair young girl, hurt her.
“Indeed, Helen, I know that you will do for your husband more than
other women can,” Miss Carrington said, almost humbly. “That is why I
want you for Kit, as you understand quite well. But just why do you
want my boy? He is a fine, honest, loyal lad; has a good mind, nice
manners; would be no end fond and unselfish, and he is personable--I
like that word!--but there are others far richer, others with famous
names, better placed in the world. I am glad that you do want Kit,
but--why do you? I am sure you are too candid to mind telling me.”
Helen sat erect, drew her drapery around her, and leaned her elbows on
her knees to elucidate.
“Aunt Anne,” she said with considerable earnestness, and omitting the
restrictive word in the elder woman’s title, “I suppose no one quite
understands these things. I don’t altogether. But I have decided that
when I say I want Kit that about covers it. It’s precisely what I said
awhile ago about Anne Dallas. Attraction attracts, and you can’t define
wherein it lies. Kit’s strong, virile beauty--he really is an awfully
well-set-up chap--attracts me. Others may have it, in fact they have;
the average college boy gets a lot of it if he trains, but in Kit I
like it best. I like the way he nods at me when he says something which
he thinks is profound and which I’ve always known. I especially like
the way his hair grows in the back of his neck, and he has one funny
ear lobe, sort of kinky--ever notice it? He doesn’t know what fear is,
either physical or moral; doesn’t stop to find it out that it exists.
He has a dandy voice in talking, and he says deliciously fool things
about girls! He’s strong, clean--I could do a lot with him if he’d love
me. And I’m pretty sure he’d get taught how to love me if I married
him. I’d put myself out to teach him, and I know how to teach! I think
that’s about all there is to it. As I say, it comes to the one thing
with which I started: I want Kit Carrington!”
Miss Carrington always sat straight in a straight chair, so she could
not be more erect than she had been, yet she had the effect of sitting
straighter as she listened to Helen; she became alert.
“Helen, child, all that you say must mean, it _does_ mean, that
you are in love with Kit! I never dreamed that you were in love with
him, but you surely are. I am glad of it. This atavism of mine, as you
call it, makes it easier for me to carry out our bargain knowing that
you are in love with the boy,” she cried.
“Oh, come, now, Miss Carrington,” laughed Helen. “I play the game
with you, cards face up on the table. You are the sort of woman with
whom one can do that; you can’t with most of them. I’m not in love
with Kit sentimentally; there isn’t a drop of the Elizabeth Barrett
Browning slush in it! What’s that thing she wrote? ‛Unless you can
muse in a crowd on the face that fixed you?’ Heavens! When I’m in the
midst of a crowd I’m busy seeing to it that it knows I’m there! And
no face ever fixed me--sounds like a spitted chicken! Stuff! If I get
Kit--and I mean to--I’ll be as pleased as Punch, and so shall he, I
promise you. But if I don’t get him I’ll take someone else and make a
good thing of it. What I won’t do is to fail in life. I want Kit, do
you see? He suits me; I want him. I like all the things about him that
I enumerated, and then some. Simply and truthfully, I want Kit. We’d
make a corking pair. He’s good material. As far as this is worth, I am
in love with Kit. But you and I are wide-awake women, with the right
labels on ourselves and our world, only I’m beginning to think I’m
the elder, you nice old Anne Carrington! Help me to capture your boy
and we’ll never repent it, you nor I, nor that silly Christopher, who
thinks, or will think if we don’t straighten his thoughts for him, that
he wants that demure mouse! She would make him gruel, possibly, but she
would surely make any clever man who had to put up with her monotony
sick to the point of needing gruel! She’s just the average woman since
Eve, Aunt Anne!”
“There’s no such thing as an average woman, Helen Abercrombie!” laughed
Miss Carrington. “Untold millions of them since Eve, and every one of
them a special creation--ending with you, who are, I confess, the least
average of any I have known.”
Helen laughed with her and said:
“Helen fired Troy; it’s queer if she can’t set Kit afire. See here,
Miss Carrington, why aren’t we riding, Kit and I? Don’t you know that
on a horse I inevitably ride to victory?”
“I’ll have them here in the morning, Helen,” said Miss Carrington.
“Make Kit start early enough to ride to the Daphne Woods. It’s the most
exquisite, the most emotional road I’ve ever seen, here or abroad.”
“Its name is all of that; I remember it from other visits. I always
thought there must have been a poet here before Mr. Latham’s time to
name those woods. All right; Daphne Woods it shall be for Kit and me
to-morrow morning. And thanks, Miss Carrington, for this satisfactory
confession I’ve made. Do I understand that I am shriven?” Helen asked,
rising.
“Of what you intend to do? Even an old pagan like me knows that you
can’t be shriven of an intention to act, unless you give up the
intention. And I hope you will not abandon your plan to steal Kit!”
“Not I!” declared Helen, her soft silks gathered into a spring-like
mass of blue and white and blush pinks, turning to wave her hands, thus
filled, from the doorway. “I’ll be an improved robber, not with a kit
to steal, but a stolen Kit!”
* * * * *
Early the next morning the horses were at the door, Kit’s own horse, a
fine-skinned, chestnut sorrel, and one that Miss Carrington had secured
for Helen’s riding, a spirited black horse, high-headed, high-stepping,
whose magnificent strength made a perfect pedestal for the girl’s
blonde grace.
Helen came down the stairs in her golden-brown riding clothes, russet
boots, trousers and full-skirted coat of russet-coloured cloth,
wearing a silk beaver hat of the same colour, and russet gauntlets,
her ivory-handled stock under one arm. Her hair glinted below her
hat, brought down low and held by a net in golden masses above her
high white collar and white cravat. Not everyone could have triumphed
over this uniformity of tint, but it turned Helen into an autumnal
sun-goddess, and Kit, buttoning his gloves as he waited for her,
uttered a note of satisfaction on beholding her.
“You’re a sight, Helen!” he said, opening the door for her to pass.
“There are sights and sights, Kits! It doesn’t as a rule convey
anything complimentary to call a person a sight, you know!” Helen said,
gaily. She had decided that her rôle for that ride was to be youthful
light-heartedness, that of the girl revelling in sunshine, air, and
contentment.
Kit gave Helen a hand to mount, which she did not require, swung into
his own saddle, and they were off with a wave of their stocks to Miss
Carrington, who was smiling on them from the piazza.
“They are a glorious pair; Helen is right, and it does seem as though
Kit must perceive the value of such a mate,” she thought.
After they had passed out of the city streets they trotted and galloped
by turns eastward. The apple trees were in full blossom, and the
orioles, those bits of flame amid the sweet delicacy of the springtime
bloom, were singing their ecstatic warbling note.
“The May Day of the world and the heyday of youth, Kit! Aren’t we lucky
to be so young, prosperous, well-mounted, healthy, and handsome among
this ravishing beauty?” cried Helen. “I go into the world so much--the
world in the other sense--that I often feel almost old; I see and learn
so much that is not a part of youth. But when I come here and am out
with you, a healthy, wholesome boy, though you are a year older than
I am, it all falls away from me, and I feel like a nice little girl
rolling her hoop!”
“Poor old Nell,” said Kit. “You are mixed up with a whole lot that
you’d be better without. I’m glad that you get sips of the Fountain
of Youth here. I seem to hate worldliness, do you know it? Now I know
people here, Antony Paul and his fine little wife and that wife’s
family; oh, you saw the child, little Anne, yesterday! They’re the most
unworldly people----”
“Oh, well, you know, Kit, one mustn’t go to extremes,” interrupted
Helen. “It’s a good thing to get the finish and knowledge given by
contact with the world. I don’t like unworldliness. That’s only another
name for stupidity. It’s no better than a badly furnished room, or
poor music, or fake art, or any other ignorance. My idea is to conquer
the world, to get the best it has to give you and rise superior to
it; to be--what’s that trite way of putting it?--in it but not of it?
Well, that’s the thing. I’d not give up the sense of power, moulding
things and people, being one of the worth-while things in the world,
for--well, for the world!”
She paused to laugh at herself, but went on: “Don’t you think, Kit,
that what my father can do, and what he can put me into the way of
doing, is great? And what’s the matter with using one’s advantages to
improve things? Isn’t that quite possible, and isn’t that a worthy
ambition? Frumpy folk can’t do anything for the keen old world; it
knows a good thing when it sees it. You may be sure, Christopher,
my son, that half the unworldliness is self-delusion. It is
lazy-mindedness, or else an instinct that warns of unfitness for the
world; that the person can’t play a part in it. He thinks he’s superior
and renouncing; in reality, he’s inferior and thrown out.”
“Honest, Helen, that’s true!” cried Kit; he looked at Helen with
cordial admiration. “I often wonder if I’m not too commonplace to
amount to a whole lot, and so I think that I don’t want to make a
splash. I never saw this side of you; that you cared to help and all
that. You are a wonder, Nell; I take off my hat to you. There isn’t
much that you couldn’t do or be. I’m one of your ‛frumpy folk’ and
couldn’t keep step with you.”
Helen drew up her horse beside his; she leaned toward him with her
bright hair close to his face, her beauty within his reach.
“Ah, Kit,” she said, softly, “you are not frumpy! You are a dear,
humble-minded fellow; all truly great men are humble; they are
simpler than women. There is nothing that you might not do, if you
would see yourself as your friends see you. Let me inspire you to
self-confidence! Let me feel that when you are a man honoured by others
for your benefits to the world, your achievements--for I am sure, Kit,
that you could be a power for good with your clear vision and your
simple incorruptibility--let me feel that I kindled in you the desire
that bore such fruit. Even though after all is said I am but a pretty
girl, yet I am one that can love what is worth loving though you think
me only a shallow, vain creature!”
Helen’s face bent forward; she dropped her lids over her eyes as if to
hide their flame, or their tears; her voice thrilled, her beautifully
trained, silvery voice.
Kit’s hand went out as if to draw her to him; the space between them
was slight. He flushed and quivered to her beauty as to her emotion.
Then there arose before him a small figure, simply clad; a low, broad
brow and beneath it steady eyes of brown, like a fire on a home hearth,
and sweet, firm lips moved to let a soft alto voice say in memory to
him again:
“It would be a pity for you to fail with your life, because you can use
it well if you follow your instincts. And what is counted gain is often
tragic failure.”
Kit straightened himself in his saddle.
“You are mighty kind, Helen,” he said. “I don’t mistake myself; you see
I have my own measure fairly accurately. Miss Dallas was saying the
other day what came to almost the same thing that you’ve just said,
only she didn’t get it from the same angle. I’ll try to play up when
the time comes.” Helen’s horse leaped at the sudden pull which she gave
the curb and the blow that she dealt him. The horse dashed away and Kit
rapidly followed.
“Say, Helen, don’t give Jack-of-Spades surprise parties; he’s one of
the sensible sort that doesn’t care for them, and he’s capable of
giving a return surprise party,” Kit warned her, regaining his place at
her bridle.
“I can conquer any fool brute I ever attempted!” said Helen, her colour
high, her eyes flashing. Then she conquered herself.
“Did I scare you, good old Kit? You were the one I meant to surprise.
Isn’t your aunt a dear to get me a horse like this? Isn’t she an old
darling, anyway? She’s truly fond of me, I’m gratefully sure of that.
It’s a big thing to win the love of a lonely old woman. She loves me
next to you, Kit, and I’m not unappreciative. How these horses keep
pace! What a pleasant thing it is to ride at the same gait, in unison
of hoofbeats! That’s a sermon in brief, though unintentional, and it’s
for you to draw the moral. So this is Daphne Woods! It’s the loveliest
spot I ever saw. I’m glad that you are showing me this shadowy, green,
mystic loveliness for the first time. We have many memories in common,
my dear old pal. Daphne Woods is a dream. Don’t let me waken, Kit!”