Betty reached her part of the Adirondacks late at night. There were two
miles between the station and the house, and Jack Emory and Sally
Carter came to meet her. They told her the recent news of the family as
the horses toiled up the steep road cut through the dark and fragrant
forest.
"Aunt is unusually well and seems to enjoy interminable talks with
Major Carter," said Emory. "Harriet is very much improved; she holds
herself regally and sometimes has a colour. She studied until the last
minute, and even here is always at her books. I don't say she hasn't
intervals of laziness," he added with a laugh, "but she always pulls
up; and it is very creditable of her, for she is full of Southern
indolence. She would like to lie in the sun all day and sleep, I am
sure; although she won't admit it."
"Does she seem any happier? She had suffered too much privation to have
become really happy before I left."
"I am sure she is--" Jack began, but Sally interrupted him.
"I think she is one of those people who hardly know whether they are
happy or not. She seems to me to be in a sort of transition state. One
moment she will be gay with the natural gayety of a girl, and the next
she will look puzzled, and occasionally tragic. I think there must be a
big love affair somewhere in her past."
"I am sure there is nothing of the sort. Have the Norths come?"
"Mrs. North is here, and the Senator brought her, but he had to go
back; for that disgraceful Tariff bill still hangs on. I believe we are
to pay for the very air we breathe: a Trust company has bought it up.
Oh, by the way, you have a new housekeeper;" and both she and Emory
laughed. "Do you mean that old Mrs. Sawyer has left? She was
invaluable."
"Her son wanted her to keep house for him, and she secured the services
of a female from a neighboring village. Miss Trumbull is forty-odd and
unmarried. She has a large bony face, the nondescript colouring of the
average American, and a colossal vanity. We amuse ourselves watching
her smirk as she passes a looking-glass. But she is an excellent
housekeeper, and her vanity would be of no consequence if she would
keep her place. The day we arrived she hinted broadly that she wanted
to sit at table with us, and one night when John was ill and she had to
help wait, she joined in the conversation. She's a good-natured fool,
but an objectionable specimen of that 'I'm-as-good-as-you-are'
American. I've been waiting for you to come and extinguish her."
"I certainly shall extinguish her."
"She victimizes poor Harriet, whom she seems to think more on her
level," said Miss Carter, not without unction.
Betty could feel her face flush. "The sooner she puts that idea out of
her head the better," she said coldly. "I am surprised that Harriet
permits a liberty of that sort."
"Harriet lacks pride, my dear, in spite of her ambition and what Nature
has done for her outside. She is curiously contradictory. But that lack
is one which persons of Miss Trumbull's sort are quick to detect and
turn to their own account. Your housekeeper's variety of pride is
common and blatant, and demands to be fed, one way or another."
Mrs. Madison had not retired and was awaiting her daughter in the
living-room. Betty found the household an apparently happy one. The
Major was a courtly gentleman who told stories of the war. Harriet in
her soft black mull with a deep colour in her cheeks looked superb, and
Betty kissed and congratulated her warmly; as Senator North had
predicted, the physical repulsion had worn away long since. The big
room with its matting and cane divans and chairs, heaped with bright
cushions, and the pungent fire in the deep chimney--for the evenings
were still cold--looked cosey and inviting; no wonder everybody was
content. Even Jack looked less careworn than usual; doubtless the
pines, as ever, had routed his malaria. Only Sally's gayety seemed a
little forced, and there was an occasional snap in her eye and dilation
of her nostril.
When Betty had put her mother to bed and talked her to sleep, she went
to her own room and opened the window. She could hear the lake
murmuring at the foot of the terrace, the everlasting sighing of the
pines; but it was very dark: she could hardly see the grim mountains
across the water. Just below them was a triple row of lights. He should
have been behind those lights and he was not. For the moment she hated
politics.