More Diplomacy.
I now verily believe that Jennie from the first had made up her mind
that we were to settle in Wheathedge. Though I never liked the
country, she did. And I now think that summer at Wheathedge was her
first step toward a settlement there. But she never hinted it to me.
Not she. On the contrary, she often went down to the city with me,
and shortened the car ride by half. We kept the city house open. She
exercised a watchful supervision over the cook. The sheets were not
damp, the coffee was not muddy, the library table was not covered
with dust. I blessed her a hundred times a week for the love that
found us both this Wheathedge home, and made the city home so
comfortable and cosy. Yet I came to my house in the city less and
less. The car ride grew shorter every week. When the courts closed
and the long vacation, arrived I bade the cook an indefinite
good-bye. My clients had to conform to the new office hours, 10 to
3, with Saturdays struck off the office calendar, and, in the dog
days, Mondays too. Yet I was within call, and business ran smoothly.
The country looked brighter than it used to do. I learned to enjoy
the glorious sunrise that New Yorkers never see. I discovered that
there were other indications of a moonlight night than the fact that
the street lamps were not lighted. Harry grew fat and rosy, and his
little chuckle developed into a lusty laugh. Jennie's headaches were
blown away by the fresh air that came down from the north. I found
the fragrance of the new mown hay from the Glen-Rridge meadow more
agreeable than the fragrant odors which the westerly winds waft over
to Murray Hill from the bone boiling establishments of the Hudson
river. Every evening Jennie met me at the train with Tom--Mr. Lines'
best horse, whom I liked so well that I hired him for the season;
and we took long drives and renewed the scenes of five years before,
when Jennie was Jennie Malcolm, and I was just graduating from
Harvard law-school. And still the diplomate never hinted at the idea
of making a home at Wheathedge.
But one day as we drove by Mr. Sinclair's she remarked casually,
"What a pretty place!"
It was a pretty place. A little cottage, French gray with darker
trimmings of the same; the tastiest little porch with a something or
other--I know the vine by sight but not to this day by name--creeping
over it, and converting it into a bower; another porch fragrant with
climbing roses and musical with the twittering of young swallows who
had made their nests in little chambers curiously constructed under
the eaves and hidden among the sheltering leaves; a green sward
sweeping down to the road, with a few grand old forest trees
scattered carelessly about as though nature had been the landscape
gardner; and prettiest of all, a little boy and girl playing horse
upon the gravel walk, and filling the air with shouts of merry
laughter--all this combined to make as pretty a picture as one would
wish to see. The western sun poured a flood of light upon it through
crimson clouds, and a soft glory from the dying day made this little
Eden of earth more radiant by a baptism from heaven.
I wonder now if Jennie had been waiting for a favorable opportunity
and then had spoken. I do not know; and she will never tell me. At
all events the beauty so struck me, like a landscape fresh from the
hand of some great artist--as it was indeed, fresh from the hand of
the Great Artist--that I involuntarily reined in Tom to look at it.
"It's for sale, too," said I, "I wonder what such a place costs."
The artful diplomate did not answer. The books and newspapers talk
about women's curiosity. It's nothing to a man's curiosity when it
is aroused. Oh, I know the story of Bluebeard very well. But if Mrs.
Bluebeard had been a strong minded woman, and had killed her seven
husbands, I wonder if the eighth would not have taken a peep. He
would not have waited for the key but would have broken in the door
long before. If men are not curious why do the authorities always
appoint them on the detective police force?
"Mr. Lines," said I that evening at the tea table, "you know that
pretty little cottage on the hill just opposite the church. I see
there is a sign up 'for sale.' What is the price of it, do you
know?"
"No," said Mr. Lines. "But you can easily find out. It belongs to
Charlie Sinclair; he lives there and can tell you."
Three days after that, as I was driving up from the station, it
struck my fancy I should like to see the inside of that pretty
house. "Jennie," said I, "let's go in and look at the inside of that
pretty cottage." But I had no more idea of purchasing it than I have
now of purchasing the moon.
"It would hardly be the thing for me to call," said the diplomate.
"Mrs. Sinclair has never called on me."
"I don't want you to make any call," said I. "The house is for sale.
I am a New Yorker. I am looking about Wheathedge for a place. I see
this place is for sale. I should like to look at it. And of course
my wife must look at it too."
"Oh! that indeed," said my wife, "that's another matter. I have no
particular objection to that."
"Besides," said I, "I really should like to know the price of such a
place in Wheathedge."
"Very good," said Jennie.
So we drove up to the gate, fastened the horse, and inquired of Mrs.
Sinclair, who came in person to the door, if we could see the house.
Certainly. She would be very happy to show it to us. And a very
pretty house it was--and is still. There was a cozy little parlor
with a bay window looking out on the river, there was an equally
cozy little dining-room, and there was an L for a sitting-room--which
I instantly converted in my imagination into a library--which looked
with one window on the river and with another on the mountains.
There was a very convenient kitchen built out in a wing from one end
of the dining-room, and three chambers over the three downstairs
rooms, from the larger one of which, over the sitting-room, we could
take in at a glance the Presbyterian church, the blacksmith's shop,
and the country store, with the wandering and aimless road, and a
score or two of neighbor's homes which lay along it; for the cottage
was on the hillside, and elevated considerably above the main
roadway. It was charmingly furnished too, and was full of the
fragrance of flowers within, as it was embowered in them without.
Besides looking at the house we asked the usual house-hunting
questions. Mr. Sinclair was in the city. He wanted to sell because
he was going to Europe in the spring to educate his children. He
would sell his place for $10,000 or rent it for $800. For the
summer? No! for the year. He did not care to rent it for the summer,
nor to give possession before fall. Would he rent the furniture?
Yes, if one wanted it. But that would be extra. How much land was
there? About two acres. Any fruit? Pears, peaches, and the smaller
fruits--strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Whereupon Jennie
and I bowed ourselves out and went away.
And nothing more was said about it till the next February. The
diplomate still kept her own counsel.
Then I opened the subject. It was the evening of the first day of
February. I had been in to pay my rent. "Jennie," said I, "the
landlord raises our rent to $2,500.
"What are you going to do?" said she quietly; "pay it?"
"Pay it!" said I. "No. It's high at $2,000.--We shall have to move."
"Where to?" said Jennie.
I shrugged my shoulders. I had not the least idea.
"What are you going to do next summer?" said she.
"Glen-Ridge?" said I interrogatively.
"I am afraid I shall have to be in my own home next summer," said
Jennie. "The mother cannot leave her nest to find a home among
strangers when God sends her a little bird to be watched and tended.
And I hope, John, God is going to send another little bird to our
nest this summer."
"You shall have your own home, Jennie dear," said I. "I will tell
the landlord to-morrow that we will keep it. But it is an
imposition."
"I am so sorry to give up our summer at Wheathedge," said she. "We
did enjoy ourselves so much, John, and Harry grew and thrived so."
"It can't be helped, Jennie," said I.
"No"--said she slowly, and as if thinking to herself; "no--unless we
took the Sinclair cottage for the summer."
"I hadn't thought of that," said I.
"What was the rent?" asked the diplomate. She knew as well as I did.
"Eight hundred dollars a year," said I.
"That is a clear saving of $1,700 a year," said Jennie.
"That's a fact," said I.
"If we did not like it we could come back to the city in the fall,
and get a house here; if we did we could stay later and come in to
board for three or four months. I shouldn't mind if we did not come
at all."
"No country in the winter for me, thank you," said I; "with the wind
drawing through the open cracks in your country built house half
freezing you, and when you try to keep warm your air-tight stove
half suffocating you; with the roads outside blocked up with great
drifts, and the trains delayed just on the days when I have a
critical case in court."
"Very well," said Jennie. She is too much of a diplomate to argue.
"When the snow comes we can easily move back again, as easily as
find a new house now. To tell the truth, John, I have no heart for
house-hunting now."
"Well," said I. "I will see Sinclair to-morrow. And if his house is
in the market, Jennie, we we will move there as soon as the spring
fairly opens."
It was in the market. He was anxious to be rid of it. I hired it for
the year, together with the furniture, at $800,--and he agreed that
if I bought it in the Fall the half year rent should go on the
purchase money. I did not pay him any rent. I did not move into the
city when the snow came. The diplomate had her own way as she always
does. We live in the country; and I--I am very glad of it. I can
harness Katie on a pinch. I am not afraid of the cow. I am not
skilful with the hoe, but I am as proud of my flower garden as any
of my neighbors. And as to the relative advantages of city and
country, I am quite of the opinion of Harry.
"Harry," said his grandfather the other day, "don't you want to go
back to the city and live?"
"No!" said Harry, with the utmost expression of scorn on his face.
"Why not, Harry?"
"It smells so."