THE LADY OF THE HOUSE.
Daisy, in whose virile young body the habit of sound and healthy sleep
was too firmly established for even an event so epochal as that of the
previous evening to break her rest, awoke next morning, after a night of
undisturbed slumber. A little clock, sounding one of the hours with
chimes instead of the ordinary striking gong, drew her notice. The dial
registered nine.
The first use she made of her opened eyes was to glance, with a thrill,
about that beautiful pink bedchamber; a door at one end showing a little
bathroom, tiled in clean and shining white, with folded towels on a
glass roller above the long porcelain tub. The morning sun came rosily
in through a curtained bow window, that had an alcoved seat piled
comfortably with cushions. A fresh draught coming from another quarter
drew her eyes toward an open way leading to a balcony, with straw
matting, a hammock, and comfortable-looking rattan rocking-chair.
There was some uneasy feeling in the back, as it were, of Daisy's head.
For a moment or two, she could not understand it; then, as she found
herself instinctively glancing about the apartment to see if there were
any corners hard to reach with the broom, the solution of her sensation
of unrest came. It was nine o'clock and she was still in mental habit a
housemaid at the big Harrison villa. By this hour she should have had
all the windows in the sleeping-rooms opened and the blankets and sheets
turned back to air the beds.
Daisy laughed to herself, and snuggled back luxuriously on the deep soft
pillows. Her mind resumed its office of recollection and ratchetted on
over the events of the night before. The evening had been spent, by the
rector's invitation, at his house, adjoining massive St. George's
church. There had been a pleasant little wedding "dinner," during which
Daisy had met a Mrs. Heathcote who had afterwards taken her off by
herself and asked her a good many blunt and, as Daisy thought, rather
intimate questions. She had met one Jessica Heathcote, too, a bird of
slightly different plumage--a companionable, back-slapping girl, who sat
on the edges of tables, or put her feet up on chairs like a man, while
she conversed; haw-hawed and whacked her knee when she heard a good
joke; and was in every way a person to banish misgiving and dolor and,
unaided, to make things hum. Jess was coming over to see her early
to-day.
"You'll need a bit of help, you know, young-un," Jessica had predicted,
"when you face 'Grandmammah'. Yes--rathah!"
After the little family wedding-supper at the Heathcotes', Daisy had
gone home with Sir William in the rector's car. Everybody at the Ware
house had retired when they reached it, for the hour was well on toward
midnight; and Sir William, after--as he jokingly put it, to
Daisy--"smuggling" her up to this apartment, had pushed her playfully
in, and with a squeeze of the hand and a whispered "pleasant dreams,"
had considerately departed to his own rooms.
The air that entered from the balcony was very inviting. Daisy could
hear the whisper of ivy-leaves. Flower-breath came up and in from some
hidden garden below. Fitful rattlings of a mower and the hiss from a
hose-nozzle sounded on the lawn.
Daisy's garments--the white waist, the stuff skirt, the brown stockings,
one with an incipient hole in the heel--lay over the foot of the bed,
where she had yawningly cast them when she disrobed last midnight. They
looked very cheap and poor and out of place in this lovely room; and
Daisy pursed her lips a moment, and wrinkled her brows after a way she
had, as she regarded them. But presently, with that little shrug of the
shoulders that was her customary way of casting off trouble, she hopped
out of bed, dressed up in the old clothes--which somehow, as she
fastened them about her handily, conveyed a comfortable at-home
feeling--and, sticking a pin or two in her hair, stepped out on the
balcony. Leaning her elbows on the rail, she looked down and about.
The Ware house and grounds were very different from the Harrison house
and grounds. No concrete in evidence here--no artificial terracing--no
stone garage. No evidence of money anywhere, except such as was
incidentally shown by possession, in the costly residential section of
the city, of these great broad grounds, with their natural swell and
slope; their big trees, between which here and there a little footpath
wandered wild; their plain white street-fence, twinkling afar through
the shrubbery. The house was frame, ivied from the ground almost to the
chimney-tops (ends of the green runners, as Daisy could see on an
adjoining gable, had climbed right up on the shingles), and with
verandahs everywhere. It was a villa for people who loved fresh air;
whereas the Harrison house, for all its massive and costly ostentation,
was no more airy than a prison. The object in the case of the latter was
display, the manifestation of the Ware place, good-mannered reserve,
with reasonable provision for comfort and health.
The Harrison house was like a striped shirt, a broad-check suit, a
scarlet tie, with a blatbump figure housed in them, thumbs in
sleeve-holes, striding toe-out, gold chain-links dangling, diamond stud
flashing, tongue blathering, along the main street. The Ware place was
like one quietly-dressed and thoughtful, strolling in a grassy lane.
Down below Daisy was a tuft of shrubbery, and behind this the
garden-hose was going merrily, with a sound like fat frying. A spray of
water came out from a point near the base of the foliage; and, where it
fell, the grass and the scattered coin-like yellow flowers glistened in
the morning sun. These soft-petalled wild-flowers were the only manner
in which gold or its effect was displayed on the Ware grounds.
Presently the nozzle of the hose came into view, and behind it the
rubber tube emerged until Daisy could see a black-sleeved arm, with
white cuffs turned back at the wrist. Then, following the arm, there
passed into sight a statelily-moving, moderately stout, slightly stooped
old lady, with a white lace cap pinned on her gray hair.
Lady Frances Ware, who, for more than three-score of her eighty-two
years--ever since, in fact, she had become a member of the Ware
household--had been an absolute ruler, possessed a face in which every
lineament was almost mesmerically masterful. Beneath the silvered hair
that on either side of its straight central parting, was drawn back
smoothly under her cap, a forehead, puckered in a Frontenac-like way
between the brows, sloped up and forward. Behind her glasses her eyes,
keen, dark-blue, and eagle-like, looked out level-irised. Her mouth was
bent down at the corner, and, beneath the underthrust lower lip, the
chin was gathered tensely.
Evidently she had that uncanny faculty, peculiar to those long
habituated to directing a household, of instantly and by instinct
detecting the irregular; for she was barely in view, before her eyes
travelled up to the balcony where Daisy leaned. Lady Frances adjusted
her glasses; looked hard at the girl a moment; then turned off the
nozzle of the garden-hose, folded her hands across one another at a
point just below her waistband, and glanced off across the lawn toward
where the mower was clattering.
"Will," she said, "come here--at once."
The mower stopped obediently; and Daisy, who had drawn back a little,
saw the tall figure of Sir William come into view between the trees. He
was in his shirt-sleeves, and his neatly-cropped head was bare.
"Yes, mother," he said, as deferentially as though he were ten years
old.
"Who," said Lady Frances, "is that--up there? Or do you know?"
Sir William, as he glanced up to the balcony and saw Daisy, gave a
little start. Then he nodded and smiled at the girl; and, appearing to
square his shoulders a little, turned again to the old lady.
"That, mother," he said, simply and with a dignity equal to Lady
Frances' own, "is--my wife."
The dictatress of the Ware household lifted her eyes again, and regarded
Daisy for nearly three minutes. Then she faced her son, took off her
glasses, and looked at _him_ for a short period. As, at the conclusion
of this survey, she inhaled preparatory to speaking, Sir William had an
odd sensation of tingling down the backs of his legs, as in the days
when his mother had prepared to supplement reproof with liberal
administration of the tawze.
"Have you gone quite daft?" she demanded; then, with an imperious motion
of her finger, she said, "Now, exactly what do you mean by this, Will?
If you were not speaking seriously, I may tell you at once that I wish
no trifling on such a subject. Now, answer me immediately."
"Well," responded Sir William, a little lamely, "we were married last
night, mother--that's all. I don't know that there is much more I can
say."
"I differ from you on that point," Lady Frances' voice was formal; "I
think that there is a very great deal more to be said. I take it for
granted, however, that in a man of your years, this step was not
necessary, or considered so, because of previous unwise conduct. Where
did this affair take place?"
"In the Cumberland Cafe," Sir William said, redly as a lad.
"The Cumberland Cafe!" The old lady repeated the words slowly and with
stress. "Will, I think you should be in a sanitarium--I do, really. Now,
go up and bring that young woman downstairs at once. Meet me in the
library with her. To say that I am astounded, and disappointed in you,
would be to put it in the mildest possible way--the mildest possible
way!"
When Sir William, his arm through Daisy's, entered the long
drawing-room, Lady Frances had taken a seat near the window. The baronet
led the girl over.
"This," he said, "is Daisy, mother. Dear--my mother."
"How do you do," said Lady Frances Ware, evenly. "Sit down." The words
were plain, but without any inflection to make Daisy feel ill at ease.
Lady Frances Ware, no matter what the provocation, never descended to
the plebeian level of scolding or bullying.
As the girl took the high-backed chair by the window, a puff of the
morning breeze bulged the great lace curtain, laying a fold of it across
her knee. Bending forward to release the curtain, Daisy, in the
necessary glance toward her coarse black skirt, became for the first
time acutely conscious of her clothes. She had always moved in circles
where people thought of clothes as entirely indexing the person. If she
had had on a fine dress at that moment, Daisy could have faced a queen
unabashed.
But Lady Frances never even glanced toward her new-made
daughter-in-law's dress. She was concerned completely with the girl's
face. Without any ostentatious flourish of lorgnette, but simply and
quietly and thoroughly, she studied it.
"You have a frank expression, at any rate," she said, half to herself;
then, more directly, she added, "How old are you?"
"Seventeen past," said Daisy, as though to a schoolmistress.
"Ah!" said Lady Frances. "Very young indeed to be away from home. But
the viewpoint as to that is, I have noticed, different in this country.
Where are your parents?"
"At--at home," said Daisy, a little confusedly. She wanted to avoid, for
the present at least, explaining that she had run away from home.
"Quite so," commented the old lady, a little dryly; "and where is your
home?"
"Out in the country--on a farm."
Lady Frances seemed relieved. "That is very satisfactory," she said,
"highly so. There are--possibilities--in young people who have been
brought up out of contact with the city. And you are only--how old?"
"Seventeen, ma'am," Daisy repeated.
"You must not, of course, say 'ma'am'. But externals can be attended to
gradually. Do you care for your--for my son?"
"I guess so," said Daisy.
Lady Frances, for an instant, looked at her so freezingly that Daisy
moved her knees uncomfortably.
"That answer," said the old gentlewoman, "pleases me less than anything
you have said, up to this point. I had hoped to find more
enthusiasm--much more enthusiasm. In fact, it will be quite necessary to
convince me that you are frankly enthusiastic in this matter before we
shall get along at all."
"Daisy," put in Sir William, shrewdly, "is non-committal by nature,
mother. You yourself know that you prefer that to evasiveness or
untruthfulness. We shall be able to reassure you...."
"I shall most decidedly expect to be reassured," said Lady Frances Ware.
She rose energetically to her feet.
"You may go now," she said, glancing in Daisy's direction. "Return to
your room until I have Ada look you up something to put on. Will, I
should like to see you again before you go downtown."
With these words, Lady Frances Ware returned to her duties among the
flowers and hedges and shrubbery, in the fresh air that had brought her
to past fourscore with full retention of middle-aged vigor in faculty
and body. As she passed down the outer hall, she instructed the maid as
to Daisy's attire.
"I think we shall go along very finely, dear," Sir William said as he
went upstairs with an arm about Daisy's shoulder. "Now, as soon as Ada
is through with you, I shall take you out for a spin--just our two
selves. Can you drive a motor? No--then we'll have a lesson this very
morning. It will be fine sport.... And, by the way, talking of 'going
out' suggests going away. Where shall we go, for a bit of a wedding
trip?"
"No place--not just now," Daisy looked up, then set her head on one
side, put a finger under Sir William's lapel, and dropped her lashes, "I
tell you what I _would_ like to do, though, sir."
"Not 'sir'," put in Ware. "Say 'Will'. And don't flirt, even with your
husband. In the first place, it's bad form; in the second place, I won't
have it. Now, what's this you would like to do?"
"I would like," said Daisy, "to go over to Harrisons' for dinner, on
Sunday, with you."