Part 26 (2/2)
Of course there were Mrs. Edgerton's Monet, and Mrs. Braxton's brocades, and-yes-Mrs. Green's fur rug, to say nothing of numberless other borrowed _objets_, to help out the lavishness of the effect; but the synthesis was magnificent. Everything looked as if it had grown there.
One might have been in an Italian palace. And Miss Haviland, seated at her new antique walnut desk with the ormolu mounts, looked veritably like a chatelaine. She had always, too-I ought to have seen it before-a little resembled a chatelaine, a chatelaine without a castle.
But she had for the moment her castle now-enough of it to complete the picture, at any rate. There was a low smoldering fire on the hearth, and the breeze that played through the open window just swayed the heavy damask hangings rhythmically. My samovar, as I set it down on a carved consol near the door, looked too crude and cra.s.s to warrant the excuse of my coming.
She read my dazed approval in a glance and laid down her pen, and, with one experienced _coup d'il_ over the ma.n.u.script before her, leaned back, clasping the edge of her desk with both hands and staring at me.
She was wearing one of those black evening gowns, and a feather fan was in easy reach of where she sat; and I noticed all at once that the string of pearls was dangling from the gas-jet above her head.
”The new fixtures-the electric ones-will be bronze,” she hastened to say.
I shall never forget, not to my dying day, the sight I had of her sitting there; in that room, at that desk, in a black evening gown-_writing_! And the string of pearls she had slung across the condemned gas-jet by way of subtle disarmament for her task! The whole place had the hushed grand air of having been cleared for action by some sophisticated gesture; as if-the thought whimsically struck me-she might have just rung for the ”second man” and bidden him remove ”all the Pomeranians” lest they distract her.
”It's too lovely, Miss Haviland; I can't tell you what I think it is,” I exclaimed, blankly.
She stood up, reached for the rope of pearls, and slipped them over her head.
”I want you to see the hall,” she said. ”Isn't it _chic_?... And the bedrooms. The men will leave their hats in the south chamber-my room-in here; and the women will have the other-this one.”
She preceded me. She was quite simple in her eagerness to point out everything she had done. Her childlike glee in it touched me. And she looked so tired. She looked, in spite of her pomp and enthusiasm, exhausted.
”How he-how Mr. Hurrell Oaks will love it,” I cried, sincerely. ”If he only realized, if he only could know the pains you've taken for him.”
”_Pains?_”
She leaned forward and let me judge for myself how she felt. Her eyes glowed. I had never seen her with all the barriers down.
”It isn't a _crumb_ of what's due him,” she pleaded. ”Do you think I expect he'll love it? No. It's only the best I could do-the best I _can_ do-to save him the shock of finding it all awful. Oh, I didn't, I so don't want him to think we are-barbarians!”
She gave it out to me from the depths of her heart, and I accepted it completely, with no reservations or comments. It was the one real pa.s.sion of her life, as I've said. She was laying bare to me the utmost she had done and longed to do for Hurrell Oaks.
”To think that he is coming here!” she murmured. ”I've waited and hoped so to see him-only to see him-it's about the most I've ever wanted. And it's going to happen, dear, in my own little rooms. He is coming to me!
Oh, you can't know what he's meant to me in all the years-how I've studied and striven to learn to be worthy of him! _All_-the little all I've got-I owe to him-everything. He's done more than anybody, alive or dead, to teach me to be interested in life-to make me happy.”
She threw her long arms around my shoulders and pressed me to her, and kissed me on the forehead. The chapel clock struck ten.
”You'll come, too, won't you?” she asked, stepping back away from me in sudden cheerfulness. ”For I want you to see how wonderful he will be.”
She put her arms about me once more, and went with me to the door when I left. In her forgetfulness of all forms and codes she had become a perfect chatelaine. She opened the door almost reluctantly, and stepped out on to the meager landing, and stood there waving her hand and calling out after me until I had got well down the narrow staircase.
The day dawned at last. The hour had been set at five o'clock, as Miss Haviland's Shakespeare course wasn't over until three-thirty, and the faculty hadn't seen fit, after ”mature consideration,” to give her pupils a holiday. But the elect of Newfair were talking about the event, and discussing what to wear, and whether they ought to arrive on the dot of five or a few minutes after, or if they wouldn't be surer of seeing him ”at his best” by coming a few minutes before.
I met Professor Norton again in the park that morning.
”All ready for this afternoon?” I asked him.
His lips went tight together, and quivered in and out over his small round beard as he tried to face me. And then he looked down away, and began digging another hole in the gravel walk with the broad toe of his congress boot. He shot a glance at me, in a moment, and gazed off at the falling leaves.
”Aren't you interested in Hurrell Oaks?” I persisted.
<script>