Part 16 (2/2)

The woman who opened it was rather good looking, but also she looked--well, if the captain had been ordered to describe her general appearance instantly, he would have said that she looked ”tousled.” She was fully dressed, of course, but there was about her a general appearance of having just gotten out of bed. Her hair, rather elaborately coiffured, had several loose strands sticking out here and there. She wore a gold pin--an oval brooch with a lock of hair in it--at her throat, but one end was unfastened. She wore cotton gloves, with holes in them.

”Good mornin',” said the captain.

The woman said ”Good morning.” There was no ”r” in the ”morning” so, remembering what he had heard concerning Mrs. Isaac Berry's rearing, Kendrick decided that this must be she.

”This is Mrs. Berry, isn't it?” he inquired.

”Yes.” The lady's tone was not too gracious, in fact there was a trace of suspicion in it, as if she was expecting the man on the step to produce a patent egg-beater or the specimen volume of a set of encyclopedias.

”How do you do, Mrs. Berry,” went on the captain. ”My name is Kendrick.

I'm your neighbor next door, and Judge Knowles asked me to be neighborly and cruise over and call some day. So I--er--so I've cruised, you see.”

Mrs. Berry's expression changed. She seemed surprised, perhaps a little annoyed, certainly very much confused.

”Why--why, yes, Mr. Kendrick,” she stammered. ”I'm so glad you did.... I am so glad to see you.... Ah--ah---- Won't you come in?”

Captain Sears entered the dark front hall. It smelt like most front halls of that day in that town, a combination smell made up of sandal-wood and Brussels carpet and haircloth and camphor and damp shut-up-ness.

”Walk right in, do,” urged Mrs. Berry, opening the parlor door. The captain walked right in. The parlor was high-studded and square-pianoed and chromoed and oil-portraited and black-walnutted and marble-topped and hairclothed. Also it had the fullest and most satisfying a.s.sortment of whatnot curios and alum baskets and whale ivory and sh.e.l.l frames and wax fruit and pampas gra.s.s. There was a majestic black stove and window lambrequins. Which is to say that it was a very fine specimen of a very best parlor.

”Do sit down, Mr. Kendrick,” gushed Mrs. Berry, moving about a good deal but not, apparently, accomplis.h.i.+ng very much. There had been a feather duster on the piano when they entered, but it, somehow or other, had disappeared beneath the piano scarf--partially disappeared, that is, for one end still protruded. The lady's cotton dusting-gloves no longer protected her hands but now peeped coyly from behind a jig-sawed photograph frame on the marble mantelpiece. The ap.r.o.n she had worn lay on the floor in the shadow of the table cloth. These habiliments of menial domesticity slid, one by one, out of sight--or partially so--as she bustled and chatted. When, after a moment, she raised a window shade and admitted a square of suns.h.i.+ne to the grand apartment, one would scarcely have guessed that there was such drudgery as housework, certainly no one would have suspected the elegant Mrs. Cordelia Berry of being intimately connected with it.

She swept--in those days the breadth of skirts made all feminine progress more or less of a sweep--across the room and swished gracefully into a chair. When she spoke she raised her eyebrows, at the end of the sentence she lowered them and her lashes. She smiled much, and hers was still a pretty smile. She made attractive little gestures with her hands.

”I am _so_ glad you dropped in, Mr. Kendrick,” she declared. ”So very glad. Of course if we had known when you were coming we might have been a little better prepared. But there, you will excuse us, I know.

Elizabeth and I--Elizabeth is my daughter, Mr. Kendrick.... But it is _Captain_ Kendrick, isn't it? Of course, I might have known. You look the sea--you know what I mean--I can always tell. My dear husband was a captain. You knew that, of course. And in the old days at my girlhood home so many, _many_ captains used to come and go. Our old home--my girlhood home, I mean--was always open. I met my husband there.... Ah me, those days are not these days! What my dear father would have said if he could have known.... But we don't know what is in store for us, do we?... Oh, dear!... It's such charming weather, isn't it, Captain Kendrick?”

The captain admitted the weather's charm. He had not heard a great deal of his voluble hostess's chatter. He was there, in a way, on business and he was wondering how he might, without giving offence, fulfill his promise to Judge Knowles and see more of the interior of the Fair Harbor. Of the matron of that inst.i.tution he had already seen enough to cla.s.sify and appraise her in his mind.

Mrs. Berry rambled on and on. At last, out of the tumult of words, Captain Sears caught a fragment which seemed to him pertinent and interesting.

”Oh!” he broke in. ”So you knew I was--er--hopeful of droppin' in some time or other?”

”Why, yes. Elizabeth knew. Judge Knowles told her you said you hoped to.

Of course we were delighted.... The poor dear judge! We are _so_ fond of him, my daughter and I. He is so--so essentially aristocratic. Oh, if you knew what that means to me, raised as I was among the people I was.

There are times when I sit here in this dreadful place in utter despair--utter.... Oh--oh, of course, Captain Kendrick, I wouldn't have you imagine that Elizabeth and I don't like this house. We _love_ it.

And dear 'Belia Seymour is my _closest_ friend. But, you know----”

She paused, momentarily, and the captain seized the opportunity----

”So Judge Knowles told you I was liable to call, did he?” he queried.

He was somewhat surprised. He wondered if the Judge had hinted at a reason for his visit.

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