HAPPY HOUSE
In the long, dim, high-ceilinged hall of Happy House Nancy felt very
small and very much afraid. Though Miss Sabrina was standing very
close to her it seemed as though her voice came from a long way off.
It was a cold voice, and although Miss Sabrina was without doubt trying
to be gracious, there was no warmth in her greeting. She was very
tall, with a long Roman nose that gave her entire appearance a
forbidding look.
Following her, Nancy stumbled up the long stairs and down an upper hall
to a door where Miss Sabrina stopped.
"This is the guest room," she explained, as she opened the door.
Someone had opened one of the blinds so here there was more light.
Nancy, looking about, thought that it was the most dreadfully tidy room
she had ever seen. It had a starched look--the heavy lace curtains at
the window were so stiff that they could have stood quite alone without
pole or ring; the stiff-backed cushioned chairs were covered with stiff
linen "tidies," edged with stiff lace; the bureau and washstand were
likewise protected and a newly starched and ruffled strip, of a sister
pattern, protected the wall behind the bowl.
"I think you'll find it comfortable--here. There is a pleasant land
breeze at night and it is quiet," Miss Sabrina was saying.
"_Quiet_!" thought Nancy. Was there any noise anywhere on the whole
Island? She gave herself a little mental shake. She must say
_something_ to this very tall, very stately woman--she was
uncomfortably conscious that a pair of cold gray eyes was closely
scrutinizing her.
"Oh, I shall love it," she cried with an enthusiasm she did not feel.
"And it is so nice in you--to want me!"
The gray eyes kindled for a moment.
"I wanted you to know us--and to know Happy House. In spite of all
that has happened you _are_ a Leavitt and I felt that it was wrong that
you should have grown up to womanhood out of touch with the traditions
of your forefathers. We are one of the oldest families on this
Island--Leavitts have always been foremost in making the history of the
state from the days when they fought side by side with Ethan Allen.
Any one of them would have laid down his life for the honor of his name
and his country. You will want to wash, Anne--the roads are dusty.
And no family in all Vermont is held in higher esteem than the Leavitts
since the first Leavitt came down from Montreal and settled here in the
wilderness. Put on a cooler dress, if you wish, and then come down to
the dining-room. We always eat dinner at twelve-thirty, but B'lindy
has kept something warm. Yes, if you are a true Leavitt you will soon
grow to revere the family pride and honor for which we Leavitts live!"
And with stately steps, as measured as her words, Miss Sabrina withdrew
from the room.
"_Whe-w_! Can you just _beat_ it!" Nancy flung at the closed door.
She turned a complete circle, taking in with one sweeping glance the
heavy walnut furniture, dark and uninviting against the ugly wallpaper
and the equally ugly though spotlessly clean carpet; then threw out
both hands despairingly.
"Well, Nancy, you _are_ in for it--forefathers and everything--family
pride and honor!" she finished with a groan. "So be a sport!" And
taking herself thus sternly in hand she went to the wash bowl and fell
to scrubbing off the dust as Miss Sabrina had bidden her.
The clean, cool water and a change of dress restored her confidence.
At least Aunt Sabrina had accepted her without a question--_that_
ordeal was over. Everything would go easier now. As she opened the
door there came up from below a tempting smell of hot food--Nancy
suddenly remembered that she had not eaten a crumb since her hasty,
early breakfast in Burlington.
The dining-room was as dim and cool as the rest of the house and as
quiet. Miss Sabrina herself placed a steaming omelette at Nancy's
place. Then she sat down stiffly at the other end of the table. The
omelette was very good; Nancy relished, too, eating it from a plate of
rare old blue and white china; her quick eyes took in with one
appraising glance the beautiful lines of the old mohogany highboy and
the spindle-legged chairs which one of the "forefathers" must have
brought over from England, years and years ago.
"The meat pie was cold so B'lindy beat up an omelette," Miss Sabrina
was saying. "I guess you must be hungry, Anne."
And then, because there had been the slightest tremble in the older
woman's voice Nancy realized, in a flash, that Miss Sabrina was as
nervous as she! Of course she had dreaded the coming of this strange
grand-niece whom she had invited to Happy House merely from her sense
of duty to Leavitt traditions. In her relief Nancy wanted more than
anything to laugh loudly--instead she flashed a warm smile and said
coaxingly:
"I wish you'd call me Nancy! Everyone does and it sounds--oh, jollier."
But Miss Sabrina's long face grew longer. She shook her head
disapprovingly. "We've never called Anne Leavitts anything but Anne
since the first one and I guess in every generation there's been _one_
Anne Leavitt! My mother gave the name to an older sister who died when
she was a baby. My own name is Sabrina Anne. Eat the strawberries!
Jonathan says they're the last from the garden."
Rebuked Nancy bent her head over the fruit. "I am ashamed to know so
little--of my family! You will forgive me, won't you, when I seem
ignorant? I _do_ want to learn." And she said this with all her
heart, for unless she could either get Aunt Sabrina quickly away from
the beloved subject of family or learn something about them, she was
sure to make some dreadful blunder.
Making little patterns on the tablecloth with the end of one thin
finger, Miss Sabrina cleared her throat twice, as though she wanted to
say something and found it difficult to speak. Her eyes, as she
levelled them upon Nancy, turned steely gray with cold little glints in
their depths.
"As I wrote to you, I believe, I struggled--for a long time--with my
conscience before I took the unwarranted step of inviting you to Happy
House. Now I must make one command. Never, while you are here, are
you to mention the name of your father or grandfather--and I likewise
will refrain from so doing!" She stood up stiffly as she finished her
singular words.
Nancy had lifted a round strawberry to her lips. She was so startled
that the hand that guided it dropped suddenly and the berry rolled over
the cloth, leaving a tiny red trail across the white surface.
Was there ever anything in the world as strange as this? Why shouldn't
she mention Anne's father or her grandfather? To be sure, as all she
knew about them was the little Anne had told her during the last two
weeks, she was not likely to want to say much about them--nevertheless
she was immensely curious. Why _should_ Miss Sabrina make such a
singular command and _why_ should she be so agitated?
Nancy knew she must say something in reply. "I--I'll be glad to do
just--what you want me to do!" she stammered. "I just want to--make
you like me--if I can."
Nancy said this so humbly and so sincerely that it won a smile from
Miss Sabrina. Nancy did not know, of course, that the old woman had
been trying hungrily to find something in Nancy's face that was "like a
Leavitt!" And as Nancy had spoken she had suddenly seen an expression
cross the young face that, she said to herself, was "all Leavitt!" So
her voice was more kindly and she laid an affectionate hand upon the
girl's shoulder.
"I am sure I shall grow very fond of you, my dear. Now I must leave
you to amuse yourself--this is my rest hour. Make yourself at home and
go about as you please!"
Nancy did not move until the last sound of her aunt's footstep died
away. A door shut, then the house was perfectly still. She drew a
long, quivery breath.
"Thank goodness--she _does_ have to rest! Nancy Leavitt, how are you
ever going to stand all that pomposity--for days and days. Wouldn't it
be _funny_ if I took to talking to myself in this dreadful stillness?
Happy House--_Happy_, indeed."
It was not at all difficult for Nancy to know what each room, opening
from the long hall, was or what it looked like. The parlor opened from
one side, the sitting-room from the other; the dining-room was behind
the sitting-room and the kitchen in a wing beyond that. The parlor
with its old mahogany and walnut furniture, its faded pictures and ugly
carpeting was, of course, just like the sitting-room, except that, to
give it more of a homey air, in the sitting-room there were some waxed
flowers under a glass, a huge old Bible on the marble-topped table, a
bunch of peacock feathers in a corner and crocheted tidies on the
horsehair chairs--and the old mantel that had come from England, Webb
had said, was in the "sittin'-room."
She tip-toed through the hall and opened the door on the right.
Accustomed now to the prevailing dimness, her eyes swept immediately to
the old fireplace. The marble mantel stood out in all its purity
against the dark wall; age had given a mellow lustre to its glossy
surface. Nancy, remembering Webb's story about that Anne Leavitt who,
ages ago had placed it there, went to it and touched it reverently.
"H-a-p-p-y H-o-u-s-e," she spelled softly, her finger tracing the
letters graven into the marble. Doubtless it had come across the sea
on one of those slow-sailing ships of long ago--that other Anne Leavitt
had waited impatiently months and months for it!
Had that Anne Leavitt, like poor old Aunt Sabrina, worried and fussed
over Leavitt traditions? Of course not--she had _made_ them.
A curiosity seized Nancy to find B'lindy. Webb had said she knew
everything. She must be somewhere beyond that last closed door in the
long hallway--the omelette had come from that direction.
Under Nancy's pressure the door opened into a pantry and beyond, in a
big, sunny kitchen, shiny in its spotlessness, stood B'lindy before a
table, putting the last touches to a pie. She turned at the sound of
Nancy's step. Nancy paused in the doorway.
"May I come in?" she asked. "Are you B'lindy?" She imitated Webb's
abbreviation.
"Yes," the woman at the table answered shortly. "And you're the
niece." She gave Nancy a long, steady look. "Ain't a bit like a
Leavitt's I can see! Miss Sabriny would have you come, I hope you'll
like it."
"The hateful creature," thought Nancy. Why couldn't _some one_ in
Happy House act natural and kind and jolly?
Like Miss Sabrina, B'lindy was tall and almost as old; her forbidding
manner came not from a Roman nose but from heavy brows that frowned
down over deep-set eyes--eyes that pierced in their keenness. Like
Miss Sabrina she had a certain dignity, too, which seemed to set her
apart from her fellow creatures--the result, no doubt, as Nancy
thought, of having been born in the Leavitt household.
"Of course I'm going to love it. It's so--so quiet! And that omelette
you made me was delicious. I was dreadfully hungry. And oh, there is
so much I want to know about Happy House. Webb told me--coming
here--that you knew everything. I've just gone in and looked at the
old fireplace. Tell me all about that Anne Leavitt."
Nancy's coaxing tone covered the fire that was within her heart. To
herself she was saying: "The old iceberg--I'll thaw her out now or
never!"
B'lindy set her pie down; her voice warmed a little. She rested her
hands on her hips and assumed what Webb would have called her "speakin'
air."
"Well, now, if it's _pryin'_ B'lindy Guest don't know nothin', but if
it's hist'ry--Webb's just about right. Justin Leavitt brought Anne
Leavitt down from Montreal 'slong ago as 1740, when there was first a
settlement up to Isle la Motte. He bought most this whole Island, I
guess, from the Indians and when they wanted a home Anne Leavitt laid
her finger on this very spot we're sittin' on. Justin built the house
out of the stone they dug from the Island itself. And she planned that
there mantel--just set her heart on it and it seems how a Leavitt could
have anything--anyways they hed it made in England and brought over
here jest's she planned with Happy House spelled on it all carved like
'tis now. And she helped put it up with her own little hands. The
house's been changed a lot sence but no one's ever touched that mantel!"
"And then she died," put in Nancy, breathlessly.
"Yes--she was just nothin' more'n a child and delicate at that and
wa'n't built to stand them pi'neer hardships, hidin' from the Indians
and eatin' corn and roots and the like when she was used to food as
good as the king's, for noble blood she had--the book over at North
Hero says so! She just seemed to live 'til that there mantel come and
she saw it with her very own eyes. She was brave as any man and she
hung on spite of everything 'til she'd got that done and then jest 'sif
she was tuckered out she laid down and died!"
"In what room, B'lindy?"
"What's now the guest room--so the book says." B'lindy ignored Nancy's
stifled, "Oh, goodness me!" "That next year the Indians attacked all
the settlers and Justin Leavitt and his brother Remembrance was killed
along with a half-dozen other pi'neers beatin' back the red men while
Robert's wife and the other women folk escaped in an open boat across
the lake and Robert's wife hid little Justin under her cape. Then
Happy House was empty 'til little Justin growed up and came back."
"And had the Indians gone then?"
"No, but they were friendly like and a good thing it was for they'd
never been worse en'mies than the Yorkers was then. I guess Ethan
Allen, and his Green Mountain Boys slept right here many a time, for
there wasn't much they did fightin' the Yorkers without consultin' a
Leavitt! But here I am rattlin' on and the oven waitin' for them pies."
"Oh, B'lindy--it's like a wonderful story! Will you show me the book
that tells all about it? I'm so glad my name is Anne, too. If you're
busy I'll run out and look at the garden--and find Jonathan. Webb told
me about him, too."
Nancy's spirits were soaring; instinctively she felt that she had won
B'lindy! It was a good beginning. She opened the great oak door and
stepped out upon the path. At one time the grounds of Happy House must
have been pretentious--they were quaintly beautiful now in their age
and half-neglect. Flowering perennials had crept out from their old
beds and had spread unchecked around among the giant trunks of the
trees so that from hedge to hedge there was a riot of color.
Among the gay blossoms Nancy picked her way, skirting the walls of the
house to discover what might lie beyond. In the back she found
Jonathan pottering among some raspberry bushes that bordered the
flagged walk. He was very bent and very old and very wrinkled; his
eyes twitched and blinked as he lifted his head to look at her.
"Good afternoon! I am Anne Leavitt," Nancy called blithely. He was
such a perfect part of the old, old garden that she loved him on the
spot.
"Wal, wal--little Anne Leavitt," and he nodded and blinked at her.
"I wish you'd call me Nancy," Nancy ventured. "Everyone does, and I
don't seem nearly big enough to be Anne. I love your flowers and oh,
what a lot of berries you are going to have!"
The old man straightened his shoulders--at least he tried to! His
flowers were his children.
"In my younger days this here garden was the show of the Island," he
answered proudly. "Folks come from all round to look at it!
Thirty-two kinds of posies and that want countin' the hollyhocks that
grew like trees--taller'n I am. And vines and berries and vegetables.
But I can't work like I used to, and Miss Sabriny don't like anyone but
me to touch things. So things have to go abit. Miss Nancy, huh! Ye
_are_ a little thing." But his smile was kindly. "And I hope ye bring
some sunshine to Happy House."
Suddenly Nancy exclaimed: "Oh--the lake! I didn't realize how close we
were to it."
Beyond the raspberry patch and the kitchen garden stretched an old
orchard. Through the trees Nancy had glimpsed the sapphire blue of
Lake Champlain.
"Is that orchard ours?" she asked Jonathan.
"That it is. I helped my father plant those thar trees myself and
they're the best bearin' on the hul of Nor' Hero!"
Nancy stood irresolute. She wanted to explore further--to run out
among the apple trees to the very cliff of the lake. But she was
bursting to write to Claire--there was already so much to tell her.
So with one long, lingering look she retraced her steps back to the
house. As she passed slowly under the trees she was startled by the
movement of a single slat in one of the upstairs blinds. And
instinctively she knew that an eye peeped at her from behind it.
Miss Milly--it must, of course, be the "poor Miss Milly" of whom Webb
had spoken!
Nancy closed the front door softly behind her that it might not disturb
Miss Sabrina's hour of rest. Then she tiptoed up the long stairway.
It took but a moment's calculating to decide which door led to the room
where the blind had opened. She stopped before it and tapped gently
with one knuckle.
"Come in," a voice answered.
Opening the door, Nancy walked into a room the counterpart of her own,
except that a couch was drawn before the blinded windows. And against
it half-lay a frail little woman with snow-white hair and tired eyes,
shadowing a face that still held a trace of youth.
As Nancy hesitated on the threshold a voice singularly sweet called to
her:
"Come in, my dear! I am your Aunt Milly."