BEHIND THE BLINDS
It was the next day.
Olivetta had mailed a few hurried notes to friends about her sudden
departure for a complete rest in the utter seclusion of an unnamed
spot in Maine--Jack De Peyster had moved out--the front door way and
the windows had been boarded up--the house wore the proper countenance
of respectable desertion--and up in her sitting-room, lighted only
by little diamond panes in her thick shutters, sat Mrs. De Peyster
reading a newspaper. From this she gleaned that Mrs. De Peyster had
sailed that morning on the Plutonia, having gone on board late the
night before. Also she learned that Mrs. De Peyster would not be back
as was her custom for the Newport season, but was going to make an
extended motor trip off the main-traveled roads, perhaps penetrating
as far as the beautiful but rarely visited Balkan States.
Mrs. De Peyster was well satisfied as she rested at ease in her
favorite chair. It would not be too much to say that she was very
proud; for hers was certainly a happy plan, a plan few intellects
could have evolved. And thus far it had worked to perfection, and
there was no doubt but that it would work so to the end; for, although
Olivetta, to be sure, was rather careless, the instructions given her,
the arrangements made in her behalf, were so admirable and complete
that any miscarriage could not possibly have Olivetta for its source.
Also Mrs. De Peyster was at heart honestly contented. She had spoken
truly when she had told Olivetta that Europe was old to her and had
become merely a social duty. Of that fatiguing obligation to her
position she was glad to be relieved. The past season, with its
struggle with Mrs. Allistair and that Duke de Crécy affair, had been
a trying one, and she was tired. By the present arrangement, which she
regarded as nothing short of an inspiration, her social prestige was
secure, her financial difficulties were taken care of, and she herself
would have the desired opportunity for a sorely needed rest. She would
have her books, she would have the society of Matilda (for Matilda
had in the long years grown to be more than a mere servant--she was a
companion, a confidant)--her creature comforts would be well seen to
by Matilda,--she would have the whole house to roam over at her will
during the day, and every night she would have the pleasant relaxation
of a drive behind the peerless William.
It seemed to her, as she looked forward to it, the most desirable of
vacations.
Her mind was quite at ease concerning Jack. Severity, as she had said,
had been necessary. A bit of privation would do him good, would bring
him to his senses; she had no slightest doubt of that. And when
they met again, he would be in a mood to fit into the place she had
carefully prepared for him. Of course, she would let him off in the
matter of Ethel Quintard, if he really didn't care for Ethel. There
were other nice girls of good families. She wouldn't be hard on him.
Also she felt easier in her mind in the matter of the quarrel with
Judge Harvey. The sting and humiliation of his words she had now cast
out of her system; she was really superior to such criticism.
There remained only Judge Harvey's offense. Certainly he had been
inexcusably outspoken and officious. Her resentment had settled down
into a calm, implacable, changeless attitude. She would be polite to
him, since they must continue to meet in the future. But she would
keep him coldly at a distance. She would never unbend. She would never
forgive.
Next to the column recording her departure she had noted a few
paragraphs giving the progress of the police in their search for James
Preston, the forger of the Jefferson letters. What a fool Judge Harvey
had been in that affair!...
And yet, in a way, she was sorry. She had liked Judge Harvey; had
liked him very much. In fact, there had been relaxed moods in which
she had dallied pleasantly with the thought of marrying him. She
might, indeed, have married him already had it not been for the
obvious social descent.
Also, she thought for a moment of Miss Gardner. In this matter she
had likewise been quite right. However, aside from the deception Miss
Gardner had practiced, she had seemed a nice girl; and Mrs. De Peyster
was lenient enough to feel a very honest wish that the husband, who
had so rapidly disappeared, was a decent sort of man. Perhaps later
she might favor them with some trifling present.
She had a light luncheon, for it was her custom to eat but little at
midday, and spent part of the afternoon with a comfortable sense of
improvement over one of John Fiske's volumes of colonial history;
popular novels she abhorred as frivolities beneath her. And then she
took upon her lap a large volume, weighing perhaps a dozen pounds,
entitled "Historic Families in America," in which first place
was given to an account of the glories of the De Peysters. Though
premiership was no better than the family's due, she was secretly
pleased with her forebears' place in the volume--in a sublimated way
it was the equivalent of going in first to dinner among distinguished
guests. She liked frequently to glance leisurely through the pages,
tasting here and there; and now, as she did whenever she read the
familiar text, she lingered over certain passages of the deferential
genealogist--whom, hardly conscious of the act of imagination, she
could almost see in tight satin breeches, postured on his knees,
holding out these tributes to her on a golden salver:--
"In 1148 Archambaud de Paster" ... "From an early period of the
fourteenth century the De Peysters were among the richest and most
influential of the patrician families of Ghent" ... "The exact
genealogical connection between the De Peysters of the fourteenth
century and the above-noted sixteenth and seventeenth century
ancestors of the American De Peysters has not been traced, as the work
of translating and analyzing the records of the intervening period is
still incompleted. Sufficient has been ascertained, however, to leave
no doubt of the continual progress of the family in possessions,
social dignity, and public consequence" ... "The first man in New
Amsterdam who had a family carriage" ... "The chief people of the
city and province, and stately visitors from the Old World, were often
grouped together under this roof"....
Such august and ample phrases could but nourish and exalt her sense
of worthiness; could but add to her growing sense of satisfaction.
She closed the ceremonious volume, and her eyes, lifting, rested for
a gratifying moment on a framed steel engraving from the painting of
Abraham De Peyster, Mayor of New York from 1691 to 1693. The picture
pleased her, with its aristocratically hooked nose, its full wig, its
smile of amiable condescension. But fortunately she had forgotten, or
perhaps preferred not to learn, that when this ancestor was New York's
foremost figure, the city had had within its domain somewhat less than
one one-thousandth of its present subjects.
And then her eyes wandered to the three-quarters portrait of herself
by M. Dubois, hung temporarily in this room. Yes, it was good. M.
Dubois had caught the peculiar De Peyster quality. One looked at it
and instinctively thought of generations processioning back into a
beginningless past. "In 1148 Archambaud de Paster" ...
Toward five o'clock she rose and, a stately figure in lavender
dressing-gown, strolled through the velvet hush of the great darkened
house: over foot-flattering rugs, through silken hangings that rustled
discreet homage at her passing, by dark tapestries lit with threads of
gold, among shadowy bronzes and family portraits and pier-glasses and
glinting cut-glass candlesticks and chandeliers. So exaltative yet so
soothing, this opulent silence, this spacious solitude!
And for an almost perfect hour she sat in her rear drawing-room,
lightly, ever so cautiously, touching bits of Grieg and Tschaikowsky
out of her Steinway Grand--just dim whispers of music that did not
breathe beyond the door. She played well, for she loved the piano and
had a real gift for instrumentation. Often when she played for her
friends, she had to hold herself in consciously, had to play below her
ability; for to have allowed herself to play her best might have been
to suggest that she was striving to be as good as a professional, and
that would have caused comment and been in bad taste.
Her piano was going to be another comfort to her.
She was complacent--even happy--even exultant. It was all so restful.
And before her were three months--three beautiful months--of this
calm, this rest, this security.
At seven o'clock Matilda announced that her dinner was ready, and
she swept back into the great dining-room, high-ceilinged, surfaced
completely with old paneling of Flemish oak. The room was dimly
illuminated by a single shaded electric bulb. The other lighting had
all been switched off; during the summer the illumination would,
of course, have to be unsuspiciously meager. To a mortal of a less
exalted sphere the repast would have seemed a banquet. Mrs. De
Peyster, though an ascetic at noon, was something of an epicure at
night; she liked a comfortable quantity, and that of many varieties,
and these of the best. Under the ministrations of Matilda she
pleasurably disposed of clear soup, whitebait, a pair of squabs on
toast with asparagus tips, and an alligator pear salad.
"Really, Matilda," she remarked with benign approval as she leisurely
began on her iced strawberries, "I had quite forgotten that you were
such a wonderful cook. Most excellent!"
"Thank you, ma'am," In her enjoyment Mrs. De Peyster had not noticed
that throughout the meal her faithful attendant had worn a somewhat
troubled look.
"Just give me food up to this standard, and I shall be most happy,
my dear. My summer may grow somewhat tedious toward the end; I shall
count a great deal on good meals to keep it pleasant."
"Of course--of course--" and then a salad plate slipped from Matilda's
hands. "Oh, ma'am, I--I--"
"What is the matter, Matilda?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster, a trifle
stern at this ineptness.
"Nothing, ma'am. Nothing at all. I'll see that you get it, b--but I
don't know how I'll get it."
"Don't know how?"
"You see, ma'am, the butcher, the grocer, everybody thinks I'm the
only person in the house. We've always traded with these same people,
and I've stayed here alone now for fifteen summers, and they know I
eat very little and care only for plain food. And so to-day when I
ordered all these things, they--they grinned at me. And the butcher
said, 'Living pretty high, while the missus is away.'"
Mrs. De Peyster had dropped her dessert spoon, and was staring at her
confederate. "I never thought about food!" she exclaimed in dismay.
"Nor did I, ma'am, till the butcher spoke. And, besides, William
received the goods, and--and he smiled at me and said--"
"It does look suspicious!" interrupted Mrs. De Peyster.
"I think it does, ma'am."
"If you keep on having so much food sent in--"
"And such high quality, ma'am."
"Some one may suspect--become curious--and might find out--might find
out--"
"That's what I was thinking of, ma'am."
Mrs. De Peyster had risen.
"Matilda, we cannot run that risk!"
"Perhaps--perhaps, ma'am, we'd better change our butcher and grocer."
"That would do no good, for the new ones would find out that there was
supposed to be only a single person here, No, such ordering has got to
be stopped!"
"If you can stand it, I think it would be safer, ma'am. But what will
you eat?"
There was a brief silence. Mrs. De Peyster's air grew almost tragic.
"Matilda, do you realize that you and I have got to live for
the summer, for the entire summer, upon the amount you have been
accustomed to ordering for yourself!"
"It looks that way, ma'am."
The epicure in Mrs. De Peyster spoke out in a voice of even deeper
poignancy.
"Two persons--do you realize that, Matilda!--two adult persons will
have to live for three months upon the rations of one person!"
"And what's worse," added Matilda, "as I told you, I don't eat much.
I've usually had just a little tea and now and then a chop."
"A little tea and a chop!" Mrs. De Peyster looked as though she were
going to faint. "A little tea and a chop!... For three months!...
Matilda!"
It seemed plain, however, that this was the only way out. But standing
over the remains of the last genuine meal she expected to taste until
the summer's end, her brow began slowly to clear.
"Matilda," she said after a moment, in a rebuking tone, "I'm surprised
you did not see the solution to this!"
"Is there one, ma'am? What is it?"
"You are so fixed in the habit of sending your orders to the
tradespeople that your mind cannot conceive of any other procedure.
You are to go out in person, at night, if you like, to shops where
you are not known, pay cash for whatever you want, and carry your
purchases home with you. It is really extremely simple."
"Why, of course, ma'am," meekly agreed Matilda.
With the specter of famine thus banished, confidence, good humor, and
the luxurious expectancy of a reposeful summer returned to Mrs. De
Peyster. Soon she was being further diverted by the mild excitement of
being dressed in one of Matilda's sober housekeeper gowns, the twin
of the dress Matilda now wore, for her evening ride with William. They
were fortunately of nearly the same figure, though, of course, there
was a universe of difference in how those two figures were carried.
Matilda, the competent, skilled Matilda, was inexplicably incompetent
at this function. So clumsy, so nervous was she, that Mrs. De Peyster
was moved to ask with a little irritation what was the matter. Matilda
hastily assured her mistress that there was nothing--nothing at
all;--and buttoned a few more buttonholes over the wrong buttons. As
she followed the fully garbed and thickly veiled Mrs. De Peyster, now
looking the most stately of stately housekeepers, down the stairway,
her nervousness increased.
"I wish--I wish--" she began at the door. "What _is_ the matter with
you, Matilda?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster severely.
"I--I rather wish you--you wouldn't go out, ma'am."
"You are afraid I may be recognized?"
"No, I wasn't thinking of that, ma'am. I--I--"
"What else is there to be afraid of?"
"Nothing, ma'am, nothing. But I wish--"
"I am going, Matilda; we will not discuss it," said Mrs. De Peyster,
in a peremptory tone intended to silence Matilda. "You may first clear
away the dishes," she ordered. "But I believe I left a squab and some
asparagus. You might put them, and any other little thing you have, on
the dining-room table; I shall probably be hungry on my return from my
drive. And then put my rooms in order. I believe the tea-tray is still
in my sitting-room; don't forget to bring it down."
"Certainly, ma'am. But--but--" "Matilda"--very severely--"are you
going to do as I bid you?"
"Yes, ma'am,"--very humbly. "But excuse me for presuming to advise
you, ma'am, but if you want to pass for me you must remember to be
very humble and--"
"I believe I know how to play my part," Mrs. De Peyster interrupted
with dignity. Then she softened; it was her instinct to be thoughtful
of those who served her. "We shall both try to get to bed early, my
dear. You especially need sleep after last night's strain in getting
Olivetta away. We shall have a long, restful night."
Mrs. De Peyster opened the door, unlocked the door in the boarding and
locked it behind her, and stepped into her brougham, which had been
ordered and was waiting at the curb. "Up Fifth Avenue and into the
Park, William," she said. She settled back into the courtly embrace of
the cushions; she breathed deep of the freedom of the soft May night.
The carriage turned northward into the Avenue. Rolling along in such
soothing ease--a crowd streaming on either side of her--yet such
solitude--so entirely unknown.
Restful, yes. And spiced with just the right pinch of mild adventure.
It really could not possibly have been better.