Part 148 (1/2)
”I should think so. But what do you do with the ebony?”
”Oh, the ebony and gold? That is the adjoining sitting-room--such a pretty contrast.”
”And the teak?”
”It has such a beautiful polish. That is another room. Carmen says that will be our sober room, where we go when we want to repent of things.”
”Well, if you have any sandal-wood left over, you can work it into your Boys' Lodging-house, you know.”
”Don't be foolis.h.!.+ And then the ballroom, ninety feet long--it looks small on the paper. And do you think we'd better have those life-size figures all round, mediaeval statues, with the incandescents? Carmen says she would prefer a row of monks--something piquant about that in a ballroom. I don't know that I like the figures, after all; they are too crus.h.i.+ng and heavy.”
”It would make a good room for the Common Council,” Henderson suggested.
”Wouldn't it be prettier hung with silken arras figured with a chain of dancing-girls? Dear me, I don't know what to do. Rodney, you must put your mind on it.”
”Might line it with gold plate. I'll make arrangements so that you can draw on the Bank of England.”
Margaret looked hurt. ”But you told me, dear, not to spare anything --that we would have the finest house in the city. I'm sure I sha'n't enjoy it unless you want it.”
”Oh, I want it,” resumed Henderson, good-humoredly. ”Go ahead, little wife. We shall pull through.”
”Women beat me,” Henderson confessed to Uncle Jerry next day. ”They are the most economical of beings and the most extravagant. I've got to look round for an extra million somewhere today.”
”Yes, there is this good thing about women,” Uncle Jerry responded, with a twinkle in his eyes, ”they share your riches just as cheerfully as they do your poverty. I tell Maria that if I had the capacity for making money that she has for spending it I could a.s.sume the national debt.”
To have the finest house in the city, or rather, in the American newspaper phrase, in the Western world, was a comprehensible ambition for Henderson, for it was a visible expression of his wealth and his cultivated taste. But why Margaret should wish to exchange her dainty and luxurious home in Was.h.i.+ngton Square for the care of a vast establishment big enough for a royal court, my wife could not comprehend. But why not?
To be the visible leader in her world, to be able to dispense a hospitality which should surpa.s.s anything heretofore seen, to be the mistress and autocrat of an army of servants, with ample room for their evolution, in a palace whose dimensions and splendor should awaken envy and astonishment--would this not be an attraction to a woman of imagination and spirit?
Besides, they had outgrown the old house. There was no longer room for the display, scarcely for the storage, of the works of art, the pictures, the curiosities, the books, that unlimited money and the opportunity of foreign travel had collected in all these years. ”We must either build or send our things to a warehouse,” Henderson had long ago said. Among the obligations of wealth is the obligation of display. People of small means do not allow for the expansion of mind that goes along with the acc.u.mulation of property. It was only natural that Margaret, who might have been contented with two rooms and a lean-to as the wife of a country clergyman, should have felt cramped in her old house, which once seemed a world too large for the country girl.
”I don't see how you could do with less room,” Carmen said, with an air of profound conviction. They were looking about the house on its last uninhabited day, directing the final disposition of its contents. For Carmen, as well as for Margaret, the decoration and the furnis.h.i.+ng of the house had been an occupation. The girl had the whim of playing the part of restrainer and economizer in everything; but Henderson used to say, when Margaret told him of Carmen's suggestions, that a little more of her economy would ruin him.
”Yes,” Margaret admitted, ”there does not seem to be anything that is not necessary.”
”Not a thing. When you think of it, two people require as much s.p.a.ce as a dozen; when you go beyond one room, you must go on. Of course you couldn't get on without a reception-room, drawing-rooms, a conservatory, a music-room, a library, a morning-room, a breakfast-room, a small dining-room and a state dining-room, Mr. Henderson's snuggery, with his own library, a billiard-room, a picture-gallery--it is full already; you'll have to extend it or sell some pictures--your own suite and Mr.
Henderson's suite, and the guest-rooms, and I forgot the theatre in the attic. I don't see but you have scrimped to the last degree.”
”And yet there is room to move about,” Margaret acknowledged, with a gratified smile, as they wandered around. ”Dear me, I used to think the Stotts' house was a palace.”
It was the height of the season before Lent. There had been one delay and another, but at last all the workmen had been expelled, and Margaret was mistress of her house. Cards for the house-warming had been out for two weeks, and the event was near. She was in her own apartments this pale, wintry afternoon, putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches to her toilet. Nothing seemed to suit. The maid found her in a very bad humor. ”Remember,” she had said to her husband, when he ordered his brougham after breakfast, ”sharp seven, we are to dine alone the first time.” It lacked two hours yet of dinner-time, but she was dressing for want of other occupation.
Was this then the summit of her ambition? She had indeed looked forward to some such moment as this as one of exultation in the satisfaction of all her wishes. She took up a book of apothegms that lay on the table, and opened by chance to this, ”Unhappy are they whose desires are all ratified.” It was like a sting. Why should she think at this moment of her girlhood; of the ideals indulged in during that quiet time; of her aunt's cheerful, tender, lonely life; of her rejection of Mr. Lyon? She did not love Mr. Lyon; she was not satisfied then. How narrow that little life in Brandon had been! She threw the book from her. She hated all that restraint and censoriousness. If her aunt could see her in all this splendor, she would probably be sadder than ever. What right had she to sit there and mourn--as she knew her aunt did--and sigh over her career?
What right had they to sit in judgment on her?
She went out from her room, down the great stairway, into the s.p.a.cious house, pausing in the great hall to see opening vista after vista in the magnificent apartments. It was the first time that she had alone really taken the full meaning of it--had possessed it with the eye. It was hers.
Wherever she went, all hers. No, she had desires yet. It should be filled with life--it should be the most brilliant house in the world. Society should see, should acknowledge the leaders.h.i.+p. Yes--as she glanced at herself in a drawing-room mirror--they should see that Henderson's wife was capable of a success equal to his own, and she would stop the hateful gossip about him. She set her foot firmly as she thought about it; she would crush those people who had sneered at them as parvenu. She strayed into the n.o.ble gallery. Some face there touched her, some landscape soothed her. No, she said to herself, I will win them, I do not want hateful strife.
Who knows what is in a woman? how many moods in a quarter of an hour, and which is the characteristic one? Was this the Margaret who had walked with Lyon that Sunday afternoon of the baptism, and had a heart full of pain for the pitiful suffering of the world?