However, on Sunday she forgot to ask him. The circumstances were so
unexpectedly pleasant as to banish from her head any pre-arranged plan
of procedure. It was a glowing June day, soft, perfumed, and breezy.
The Bradleys went to Butler's Hill, which was "our station," as Nancy
said, and there the agent met them, with a car. He drove them himself
the short mile from the railroad to Marlborough Gardens.
"Isn't it one of those frightfully smart developments?" Nancy asked,
smiling uneasily.
"It's considered the finest home development on Long Island," the agent
admitted readily, "The place I'm going to show you--I'm going to show
you two or three--but the special place I want to show you, was built
for a HOME. There isn't a finer building anywhere. Lansing, the man who
built it, was a splendid fellow, with a lovely wife--lovely woman. But
her mother lives in California, and she got to worrying--"
"Mr. Bradley told me," Nancy said sympathetically.
"Homes, and home-makers," pursued the agent, "That's what we need. The
people we have here are all quiet, home-loving folks, we don't want
show, we don't want display--"
"Well, that's our idea!" Bert approved. And he rather vexed his
inconsistent wife by adding hardily, "Remember that my top figure is
ten thousand, Rogers, will you?"
"Now, you wait and see what I have to show you, and then we'll talk
turkey," the other man said goodnaturedly. Anne, sitting on her
mother's lap beside him, gave him a sudden smile at the word she
recognized.
He wheeled the car smoothly through the great gates of cement, looped
with iron chains, that shut off the village herd from the sacred
ground. Nancy gave Bert an ecstatic glance; this was wonderful! The
scattered homes were all beautiful, all different. Some were actual
mansions, with wide-spreading wings and half a dozen chimneys, but some
were small and homelike, etched with the stretching fingers of new
vines, and surrounded by park-like gardens. Even about the empty plots
hedges had been planted, and underbrush raked away, and the effect was
indescribably trim and orderly, "like England," said Nancy, who had
never seen England.
As they slowly circled about, they caught glimpses of tennis courts,
beyond the lawns and trees, glimpses of the blue water of the bay,
glimpses of white, curving driveways. Here a shining motor-car stood
purring, there men in white paused with arrested rackets, to glance up
at the strangers from their tennis. Nancy looked at Bert and Bert at
Nancy, and their eyes confessed that never in all the months of hunting
had they seen anything like THIS!
Presently they came to the end of the road, and to a richly wooded plot
that formed a corner to the whole tract. A garden had been planted, but
it was neglected now, and weeds had pushed up here and there between
the bricks of the path. The house was low and spreading, under great
locust and elm trees, a shingled brown house, with two red chimneys and
cottage casements. Over one hedge the Bradleys looked down at the
pebbled beach that belonged to all the residents of Marlborough Gardens.
"Lansing called this place 'Holly Court,'" said the agent, leading them
to the front porch door, to which he skillfully fitted a key, "That big
holly bush there gave it its name; the bush is probably fifty years
old. Step in, Mrs. Bradley!"
"But notice the lovely Dutch door first, Bert," Nancy said eagerly.
"See, Anne! On a hot day you can have it half open and half shut, isn't
that cunning?"
"The house is full of charming touches," Mr. Rogers said, "And you may
always trust a woman's eye to find them, Mr. Bradley! Women are natural
home-makers. My wife'll often surprise me; 'Why, you've not got half
enough closets, Paul,' she'll say. There's one open fire-place, Mrs.
Bradley, in your reception hall. You see the whole plan of the house is
informal. You've got another fire-place in the dining room, and one in
the master bedroom upstairs. Here's a room they used as a
den--bookshelves, and so on, and then beyond is another tiled
porch--very convenient for breakfast, or tea. You see Lansing lived
here; never has been rented, or anything like that. He's selling it for
practically what it cost him!"
"And what's that?" asked Bert, smiling, but not quite at his ease.
"Now, you wait a few minutes, Mr. Business Man!" Mr. Rogers said, "What
you think, and what I think, doesn't count much beside what this little
lady thinks. She's got to live in the house, and if SHE likes it, why I
guess you and I can come to terms!"
Nancy threw her husband a glance full of all amused tolerance at this,
but in her secret soul she rather liked it.
They went upstairs, where there were hardwood floors, and two
bathrooms, and mirrors in the bathroom doors. There was another
bathroom in the attic, and a fourth upstairs in the garage, with two
small bedrooms in each place. They must expect us to keep four maids,
Nancy hastily computed.
There was an upstair porch; "To shake a rug, Mrs. Bradley, or to dry
your hair, or for this young lady's supper," said the delightful Mr.
Rogers. A back stairway led down to tempting culinary regions; a sharp
exclamation burst from Nancy at the sight of the great ice box, and the
tiled sinks.
They walked about the plot, a large one. At the back, beside the
garage, they could look over a small but healthy hedge to more beach,
clustered with unusual shells at low tide, and the straggling outskirts
of the village. From the front, they looked straight down a wide
tree-shaded street, that lost itself in a peaceful vista of great trees
and vine-smothered stone walls. "Holly Court" was quiet, it was
naturally isolated, it seemed to Nancy already like home.
Even now, however, Mr. Rogers would not talk terms. He drove them about
again, passing other houses, all happily and prosperously occupied. He
told Nancy about this family and that.
"What'd that house cost?" Bert would demand.
"Ah well, THAT. That belongs to Ingram, of the Ingram Thorn Coal
people, you know. I suppose Mr. Ingram has invested forty or fifty
thousand dollars in that place, in one way and another. The tennis
court--"
And so on and on. Presently they passed the pretty, unpretentious
club-house, built close to the water. A few light sails were dipping
and shaking on the bay, children were gathered in a little knot beside
an upturned canoe, on the shore. Several cars were parked on the drive
outside the club, and Nancy felt decidedly self-conscious as she and
Bert and the children walked onto the awninged porch that was the tea
room.
"Now this club belongs to the place," Mr. Rogers said, "You're buying
here--and I don't mind telling you, Mr. Bradley, that I want you to buy
here," he broke off to admit persuasively--"because you and your wife
are the sort of people we need here. You won't find anything anywhere
that is backed by the same interest, you won't. However, about the
club. Your buying here makes you a member of this club----"
"Oh, is that SO!" Nancy exclaimed, in delighted surprise.
"Oh, yes," said the agent. "The dues are merely nominal--for the upkeep
of the place."
"Of course!" said the Bradleys.
"Your dues entitle you to all the privileges of the club--I believe the
bathhouses are a little extra, but everything else is yours. You can
bring a friend here to tea, give a card party here--there are dances
and dinners all winter long."
"Mother, are we coming here to live?" asked Junior, over his chocolate.
"I don't know," Nancy answered, feeling that she could cry with
nervousness. She hardly tasted her tea, she hardly saw the men and
women that drifted to and fro. Her heart was choking her with hope and
fear, and she knew that Bert was nervous, too.
At last Mr. Rogers returned to the subject of "Holly Court," he wanted
to know first what they thought of it. Oh, it was perfect, said Nancy
and Bert together. It was just what they wanted, only-- Good, the agent
said. He went on to say that he would have bought the house himself,
but that his wife's father had an old home in Flushing, and while the
old gentleman lived, he wanted them there. But he belonged to the
Marlborough Gardens Club, and kept a boat there. Now, he had been
authorized to put a special price on this place of Lansings, and he was
going to tell them frankly why. They knew as well as he did that a
hundred foot square plot, and trees like that, so near the water, COST
MONEY. He digressed to tell them just how property had soared in price,
during even his own time.
"The truth is," he said, "that Lansing, when he picked that site,
picked it for trees, and quiet, and view--it didn't make any difference
to him that it was a corner site, and a little out of the main
traffic----"
"But I LIKE that about it!" Nancy said eagerly. "I love the isolation
and the quiet. Nobody will bother us there----"
Bert saw that she was already moving in. He turned a rather anxious
look from her to the agent.