Glasgow Ellen Anderson Gholson
The Builders
Then before a word was uttered, before Mrs. Colfax had time to twitter cheerfully above the awkwardness, Mrs. Blackburn rose from her chair, and the women trailed slowly after her out of the dining-room. As Caroline went, she felt that her heart was bursting with sympathy for Angelica and indignation against her husband. "How in the world shall I ever speak to him after this?" she thought. "How shall I ever stay under the same roof with him?" And glancing pityingly to where Mrs. Blackburn's flower-like head drooped against the rosy shade of a lamp, she realized that Angelica never looked so lovely as she did when she was hurt.
CHAPTER V
The First Night
WHEN the last guest had gone, Caroline went upstairs to her room, and sitting down before the little ivory and gold desk, began a letter to her mother. For years, ever since her first night in the hospital, she had poured out her heart after the day's work and the day's self-control and restraint were over. It was a relief to be free sometimes, to break through the discipline of her profession, to live and love for oneself, not for others.
The house was very still – only from the darkness outside, where the wind had risen, a few yellow leaves fluttered in through the window.
I am here, at last, dearest mother, and I have been longing to tell you about it. First of all, I had a good trip, my train was exactly on time, and Mrs. Colfax met me in the most beautiful car I ever saw, and brought me out to Briarlay. She was very nice and kind, but she looks ever so much older than you do, and I cannot help feeling that, in spite of the loss of so many children and father's dreadful disappointments, your life has been happier than hers. As I get older, and see more of the world – and heaven knows I have seen anything but the best of it these last seven or eight years – I understand better and better that happiness is something you have to find deep down in yourself, not in other people or outside things. It shines through sometimes just as yours does and lights up the world around and the dark places, but it never, never comes from them – of this I am very sure.
I wish I could describe this house to you, but I cannot – I simply cannot, the words will not come to me. It is big and beautiful, but I think it is too full of wonderful things – there are rooms that make me feel as if I were in a museum because of the tapestries and crowded rugs and French furniture. I like English mahogany so much better, but that may be just because I am used to it. I suppose it is natural that Mrs. Blackburn should prefer surroundings that are opulent and florid, since they make her look like a lovely flower in a greenhouse. She is even more beautiful than I thought she would be, and she does not seem the least bit snobbish or spoiled or arrogant. I have always said, you remember, that nursing has taught me not to rely on mere impressions whether they are first or last ones – but I have never in my life met any one who attracted me so strongly in the beginning. It is years since I have felt my sympathy so completely drawn out by a stranger. I feel that I would do anything in the world that I could for her; and though I cannot write frankly about what I have observed here, I believe that she needs help and understanding as much as any one I ever saw. The situation seems worse even than we were led to expect. Of course I have seen only the surface so far, but my heart has been wrung for her ever since I have been in the house, and this evening there was a very painful scene at the dinner table. I shall not write any more about it, though I imagine it will be spread all over Richmond by young Mrs. Colfax.
About Mr. Blackburn I have not quite made up my mind. I do not doubt that everything Mrs. Colfax wrote us is true, and I know if I stay on here that I shall make no attempt to conceal from him how much I dislike him. That will be no secret. I simply could not pretend even to him that I was not heart and soul on the side of his wife. It is so perfectly dreadful when one has to take sides with a husband or wife, isn't it? When I think how wonderful a marriage like yours and father's can be, it makes me feel sorry and ashamed for human nature as I see it here. But you cannot become a nurse and keep many illusions about love. The thing that remains after years of such work is no illusion at all – but the clear knowledge of the reality. A nurse sees the best and the worst of humanity – and the very best of it is the love that some people keep to the end.
As for this marriage, there is not a person in Richmond, nor a servant in the house, who does not know that it is an unhappy one. Mrs. Blackburn cannot be at fault – one has only to look at her to realize that she is too gentle and sweet to hurt any one – and yet I discovered to-night that she does not know how to treat him, that she says the wrong thing so often without meaning to, and that unconsciously she irritates him whenever she speaks. It is impossible to blame her, for she must have suffered a great many things that no one knows of, and I suppose her nerves are not always under control. But nothing could be more unfortunate than her manner to him at times.
Strange to say (I do not understand why) some people appear to admire him tremendously. I went down to dinner to-night because one of the guests did not come, and Colonel Ashburton – he said he used to know you – talked in the most extravagant fashion about Mr. Blackburn's abilities. The air here is heavy with politics because of the elections, and I tried to listen as closely as I could. I thought how intensely interested father would have been in the discussion. As far as I can understand Mr. Blackburn's way of thinking is not unlike father's, and but for his behaviour to his wife, this would give me a sympathetic feeling for him. I forgot to tell you that he looked very well to-night – not in the least rough or common. His face is not ugly, only he wears his hair brushed straight back, and this makes his features look sterner than they really are. His eyes are the keenest I ever saw – grey, I think, and yet, funny as it sounds, there are times when they are almost pathetic – and his smile is very nice and reminds me in a way of father's. This may have been why I thought of father all the time I was at dinner – this and the political talk which went on as long as we were at the table.
Well, I started to tell you about the elections, and I know you are thinking I shall never go on. It seems that Mr. Blackburn intends to vote for Hughes – though I heard him tell Mr. Chalmers that if he lived in the North he should probably vote with the Democrats. Voting for a man, he feels, is not nearly so important as voting against a section – at least this is what I gathered. There was a great deal said about the war, but nobody, except Mrs. Colfax's brother Charles, who does not count, seemed to think there was the faintest chance of our being in it. Mr. Chalmers told me afterwards that if Wilson should be re-elected, it would be mainly because of the slogan "he kept us out of war." As far as I could discover Mr. Chalmers stands firmly by the President, but I heard Mr. Blackburn tell Colonel Ashburton that what he hoped for now was conduct so flagrant, on Germany's part, that the public conscience would demand a more vigorous policy. By the way, Mr. Chalmers said that the feeling was so strong in New York that he expected the State to go to the Republicans because there was a general impression that to vote with them meant to vote for war. Of course, he added, this was mere German propaganda – but that was only another way of saying he did not agree with it. Opinions change every hour, and just as soon as a new one begins to be popular, people forget all that they believed just as ardently a few weeks before. Don't you remember how complacent we were about our splendid isolation and our pluperfect pacifism and our being "too proud to fight" such a very short while ago? Well, nobody remembers now the way we crowed over Europe and patted one another on the back, and congratulated ourselves because we could stand aside and wait until history showed who was right. That is over and gone now, and "I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier" has joined the dust of all the other rag-time. If the slow coach of history ever does come up with us, it may find us in the thick of the fight after all, and not waiting by the roadside. Mr. Chalmers believes that if the President is re-elected, and can get the country behind him, the Government will declare that a state of war exists – but Mr. Blackburn, on the other hand, is convinced that both Wilson and Hughes are pledged to fulfil their promises of "peace and prosperity." He insists that there was more war spirit over the whole country the week after the Lusitania was sunk, than there has ever been since, and that we were as ready to fight then as we shall be after the elections. It is like being in the midst of electric currents to sit still and listen to these men argue. Can you imagine anything more unlike father's day when all Virginians, except those whom nobody knew, thought exactly alike? Now, though the vote is solid still, and the great majority accepts the policies of the Democrats as uncritically as it accepts Scripture, opinions about secondary issues vary as much as they do anywhere else. There are some who regard the President as greater than George Washington – and others who say that the moment is great, not the man. Mr. Colfax believes that he is a generation ahead of his country, and Colonel Ashburton believes just as strongly that he is a generation behind it – that it is a case where a wave of destiny is sweeping a man on to greatness. I suppose here again we shall have to wait until history shows who is right.
I have not seen the little girl yet – her name is Letty. They have to be careful not to excite her in the evening, and the other nurse is still with her.
Now I must go to bed.
Your devoted child,CAROLINE.
She had finished her letter and glanced at her watch on the bureau – it was one o'clock – when a cry or moan reached her from the darkness and silence of the house, and a few minutes afterwards there came the sound of running footsteps on the stairs, and a hasty knock fell on her door.
"Miss Meade, will you please come as quickly as you can?"
Opening the door, she met the frightened face of a maid.
"What has happened? Is Mrs. Blackburn ill?"
"I don't know. She hasn't undressed and she is too ill to speak. I left her on the couch, and ran upstairs to call you."
They were already in the hall, and while they hurried to the staircase, Caroline asked a few questions in a whisper.
"Is there any medicine that she is accustomed to take?"
"I give her ammonia sometimes, but to-night it didn't do any good."
"Does she faint often?"
"I'm not sure. She has these attacks, but only after – after – "
The woman paused in confusion, and before she could recover herself, Caroline had opened the door and walked swiftly to the prostrate figure, in white chiffon, on the couch in front of the fire. Bending over she felt Angelica's pulse and lowered her head, with its loosened amber hair, on the pillows.
"Your pulse is good. Do you feel better now?" she asked tenderly, for, in spite of the quiet competence of her professional attitude, her heart was aching with pity.
"I was sure I could count on your sympathy." As she answered, Mrs. Blackburn stretched out her hands until they rested on Caroline's arm. "Has Mary gone out of the room?"
"Your maid? Yes, she has just gone. What can I do for you?"
Even in the midst of the emotional crisis, Angelica's manner had not lost a trace of its charming self-possession, its rather colourless sweetness. Her grey eyes, drenched in tears which left no redness on the firm white lids, were as devoid of passion as the eyes of a child.
"I cannot tell you – I cannot tell any one," she said after a moment, not in answer to the other's question, but with a plaintive murmur. Then she began to cry very gently, while she clung to Caroline with her lovely hands which were as soft and fragrant as flowers.
"I think I know without your telling me," responded Caroline soothingly. "Let me help you." All her years of nursing had not enabled her to watch suffering, especially the suffering of helpless things, without a pang of longing to comfort. She was on her knees now by the couch, her smooth dark head bending over Angelica's disarranged fair one, her grave, compassionate face gazing down on the other's delicate features, which were softened, not disfigured, by tears.
"The worst is about Roane – my brother," began Angelica slowly. "He came here to-night, but they – " she lingered over the word, "sent him away before I could talk to him. He is downstairs now on the terrace because he is not allowed to come into the house – my brother. I must get this cheque to him, but I do not like to ask one of the servants – "
"You wish me to take it to him?" Caroline released herself from the clinging hands, and rose quickly to her feet. Here at last was a definite call to action.
"Oh, Miss Meade, if you would!" Already Angelica's eyes were dry.
"I will go at once. Is the cheque written?"
"I carried it down with me, but I could not get a chance to give it to Roane. Poor boy," she added in a low rather than a soft tone, "Poor boy, after all, he is more sinned against than sinning!"
Drawing the cheque from under the lace pillows, she gave it into Caroline's hand with a gesture of relief. "Go through the dining-room to the terrace, and you will find him outside by the windows. Tell him that I will see him as soon as I can, and ask him please not to trouble me again."
She had rung for her maid while she was speaking, and when the woman appeared, she rose and waited, with a yawn, for her dress to be unfastened. Then suddenly, as if she had forgotten something, she gave Caroline a smile full of beauty and pathos. "Thank you a thousand tunes, dear Miss Meade," she exclaimed gratefully.
It was dark downstairs, except for a nebulous glow from the hall above and a thin reddish line that ran beneath the closed door of the library. Not until she reached the dining-room did Caroline dare turn on the electric light, and as soon as she did so, the terrace and the garden appeared by contrast to be plunged in blackness. When she opened one of the long French windows, and stepped out on the brick terrace, her eyes became gradually accustomed to the starlight, and she discerned presently the shrouded outlines of the juniper trees and a marble fountain which emerged like a ghost from the quivering spray of water. As she went quickly down the steps to the lower terrace, she felt as much alone in her surroundings as if the house and Mrs. Blackburn had receded into a dream. Overhead there was the silvery glitter of stars, and before her she divined the simplicity and peace of an autumn garden, where the wind scattered the faint scent of flowers that were already beginning to drop and decay.
When she approached the fountain, the figure of a man detached itself from the vague shape of an evergreen, and came toward her.
"Well, I've waited awhile, haven't I?" he began airily, and the next instant exclaimed with scarcely a change of tone, "Who are you? Did Anna Jeannette send you?"
"I am Letty's new nurse – Miss Meade."
"What! A spirit yet a woman too!" His voice was full of charm.
"Mrs. Blackburn sent me with this." As she held out the cheque, he took it with a gesture that was almost hungry. "She asked me to say that she would see you very soon, and to beg you not to trouble her again."
"Does she imagine that I do it for pleasure!" He placed the cheque in his pocket book. "She cannot suppose that I came here to-night for the sake of a row."
Though he was unusually tall, he carried his height with the ease of an invincible dignity and self-possession; and she had already discerned that his sister's pathos had no part in the tempestuous ardour and gaiety of his nature.
"She didn't tell me," answered Caroline coldly. "There is nothing else, is there?" Her features were like marble beneath the silken dusk of her hair which was faintly outlined against the cloudier darkness.
"There is a great deal – since you ask me."
"Nothing, I mean, that I may say to your sister?"
"You may say to her that I thank her for her message – and her messenger."
He was about to add something more, when Caroline turned away from him and moved, without haste, as if she were unaware that he followed her, up the shallow steps of the terrace. When she reached the window, she passed swiftly, like a dissolving shadow, from the darkness into the light of the room. Nothing had been said that she found herself able to resent, and yet, in some indefinable way, Roane's manner had offended her. "For a trained nurse you are entirely too particular," she said to herself, smiling, as she put out the light and went through the wide doorway into the hall. "You have still a good deal of haughtiness to overcome, Miss Meade, if you expect every man to treat you as if you wore side curls and a crinoline."
The hall, when she entered it, was very dim, but as she approached the door of the library, it opened, and Blackburn stood waiting for her on the threshold. Behind him the room was illuminated, and she saw the rich sheen of leather bindings and the glow of firelight on the old Persian rug by the hearth.
"You have been out, Miss Meade?"
"Yes, I have been out." As she threw back her head, the light was full on her face while his was in shadow.
"Do you need anything?"
"Nothing, thank you."
For an instant their eyes met, and in that single glance, charged with an implacable accusation, she made Angelica's cause her own. Grave, remote, dispassionate, her condemnation was as impersonal as a judgment of the invisible Powers.
"That is all, then, good-night," he said.
"Good-night."
While he watched her, she turned as disdainfully as she had turned from Roane, and ascended the stairs.
CHAPTER VI
Letty
IN the breakfast room next morning, Caroline found the little girl in charge of Miss Miller, the nurse who was leaving that day. Letty was a fragile, undeveloped child of seven years, with the dark hair and eyes of her father, and the old, rather elfish look of children who have been ill from the cradle. Her soft, fine hair hung straight to her shoulders, and framed her serious little face, which was charming in spite of its unhealthy pallor. Caroline had questioned Miss Miller about the child's malady, and she had been reassured by the other nurse's optimistic view of the case.
"We think she may outgrow the trouble, that's why we are so careful about all the rules she lives by. The doctor watches her closely, and she isn't a difficult child to manage. If you once gain her confidence you can do anything with her, but first of all you must make her believe in you."
"Was she always so delicate?"
"I believe she was born this way. She is stunted physically, though she is so precocious mentally. She talks exactly like an old person sometimes. The things she says would make you laugh if it wasn't so pathetic to know that a child thinks them."
Yes, it was pathetic, Caroline felt, while she watched Letty cross the room to her father, who was standing before one of the French windows. As she lifted her face gravely, Blackburn bent over and kissed her.
"I'm taking a new kind of medicine, father."
He smiled down on her. "Then perhaps you will eat a new kind of breakfast."
"And I've got a new nurse," added Letty before she turned away and came over to Caroline. "I'm so glad you wear a uniform," she said in her composed manner. "I think uniforms are much nicer than dresses like Aunt Matty's."
Mrs. Timberlake looked up from the coffee urn with a smile that was like a facial contortion. "Anything might be better than my dresses, Letty."
"But you ought to get something pretty," said the child quickly, for her thoughts came in flashes. "If you wore a uniform you might look happy, too. Are all nurses happy, Miss Miller?"
"We try to be, dear," answered Miss Miller, a stout, placid person, while she settled the little girl in her chair. "It makes things so much easier."
Blackburn, who had been looking out on the terrace and the formal garden, turned and bowed stiffly as he came to the table. It was evident that he was not in a talkative mood, and as Caroline returned his greeting with the briefest acknowledgment, she congratulated herself that she did not have to make conversation for him. Mary had not come in from her ride, and since Mrs. Timberlake used language only under the direct pressure of necessity, the sound of Letty's unembarrassed childish treble rippled placidly over the constrained silence of her elders.
"Can you see the garden?" asked the child presently. "I don't mean the box garden, I mean the real garden where the flowers are?"
Caroline was helping herself to oatmeal, and raising her eyes from the dish, she glanced through the window which gave on the brick terrace. Beyond the marble fountain and a dark cluster of junipers there was an arch of box, which framed the lower garden and a narrow view of the river.
"That's where my garden is, down there," Letty was saying. "I made it all by myself – didn't I, Miss Miller? – and my verbenas did better than mother's last summer. Would you like to have a garden, father?" she inquired suddenly, turning to Blackburn, who was looking over the morning paper while he waited for his coffee. "It wouldn't be a bit more trouble for me to take care of two than one. I'll make yours just like mine if you want me to."
Blackburn put down his paper. "Well, I believe I should like one," he replied gravely, "if you are sure you have time for it. But aren't there a great many more important things you ought to do?"
"Oh, it doesn't take so much time," returned the child eagerly, "I work all I can, but the doctor won't let me do much. I'll make yours close to mine, so there won't be far to go with the water. I have to carry it in a very little watering-pot because they won't let me lift a big one."
A smile quivered for an instant on her father's lips, and Caroline saw his face change and soften as it had done the evening before. It was queer, she thought, that he should have such a sensitive mouth. She had imagined that a man of that character would have coarse lips and a brutal expression.
"Now, it's odd, but I've always had a fancy for a garden of that sort," he responded, "if you think you can manage two of them without over-taxing yourself. I don't want to put you to additional trouble, you know. After all, that's just what I hire Peter for, isn't it?"
While the child was assuring him that Peter had neither the time nor the talent for miniature gardening, Miss Miller remarked pleasantly, as if she were visited by a brilliant idea, "You ought to make one for your mother also, Letty."
"Oh, mother doesn't want one," returned the child: "The big ones are hers, aren't they, father?" Then, as Blackburn had unfolded his paper again, she added to Caroline, with one of the mature utterances Miss Miller had called pathetic, "When you have big things you don't care for little things, do you?"
As they were finishing breakfast, Mary Blackburn dashed in from the terrace, with the Airedale terriers at her heels.
"I was afraid you'd have gone before I got back, David," she said, tossing her riding-crop and gloves on a chair, and coming over to the table. "Patrick, put the dogs out, and tell Peter to give them their breakfast." Then turning back to her brother, she resumed carelessly, "That man stopped me again – that foreman you discharged from the works."
Blackburn's brow darkened. "Ridley? I told him not to come on the place. Is he hanging about?"
"I met him in the lane. He asked me to bring a message to you. It seems he wants awfully to be reinstated. He is out of work; and he doesn't want to go North for a job."
"It's a pity he didn't think of that sooner. He has made more trouble in the plant than any ten men I've ever had. It isn't his fault that there's not a strike on now."
"I know," said Mary, "but I couldn't refuse to hear him. There's Alan now," she added. "Ask him about it."
She looked up, her face flushing with pride and happiness, as Alan Wythe opened the window. There was something free and noble in her candour. All the little coquetries and vanities of women appeared to shrivel in the white blaze of her sincerity.
"So you've been held up by Ridley," remarked Blackburn, as the young man seated himself between Mary and Mrs. Timberlake. "Did he tell you just what political capital he expects to make out of my discharging him? It isn't the first time he has tried blackmail."
Alan was replying to Mrs. Timberlake's question about his coffee – she never remembered, Caroline discovered later, just how much sugar one liked – and there was a pause before he turned to Blackburn and answered: "I haven't a doubt that he means to make trouble sooner or later – he has some pull, hasn't he? – but at the moment he is more interested in getting his job back. He talked a lot about his family – tried to make Mary ask you to take him on again – "
Blackburn laughed, not unpleasantly, but with a curious bluntness and finality, as if he were closing a door on some mental passage. "Well, you may tell him," he rejoined, "that I wouldn't take him back if all the women in creation asked me."
Alan received this with his usual ease and flippancy. "The fellow appears to have got the wrong impression. He told me that Mrs. Blackburn was taking an interest in his case, and had promised to speak to you."
"He told you that?" said Blackburn, and stopped abruptly.
For a minute Alan looked almost disconcerted. In his riding clothes he was handsomer and more sportsmanlike than he had been the evening before, and Caroline told herself that she could understand why Mary Blackburn had fallen so deeply in love with him. What she couldn't understand – what puzzled her every instant – was the obvious fact that Alan had fallen quite as deeply in love with Mary. Of course the girl was fine and sensible and high-spirited – any one could see that – but she appeared just the opposite of everything that Alan would have sought in a woman. She was neither pretty nor feminine; and Alan's type was the one of all others to which the pretty and feminine would make its appeal. "He must love her for her soul," thought Caroline. "He must see how splendid she is at heart, and this has won him."
In a few minutes Blackburn left the table, while Letty caught Caroline's hand and drew her through the window out on the terrace. The landscape, beyond the three gardens, was golden with October sunlight, and over the box maze and the variegated mist of late blooming flowers, they could see the river and the wooded slopes that folded softly into the sparkling edge of the horizon. It was one of those autumn days when the only movement of the world seems to be the slow fall of the leaves, and the quivering of gauzy-winged insects above the flower-beds. Perfect as the weather was, there was a touch of melancholy in its brightness that made Caroline homesick for The Cedars. "It is hard to be where nobody cares for you," she thought. "Where nothing you feel or think matters to anybody." Then her stronger nature reasserted itself, and she brushed the light cloud away. "After all, life is mine as much as theirs. The battle is mine, and I will fight it. It is just as important that I should be a good nurse as it is that Mrs. Blackburn should be beautiful and charming and live in a house that is like fairyland."
Letty called to her, and running down the brick steps from the terrace, the two began a gentle game of hide-and-seek in the garden. The delighted laughter of the child rang out presently from the rose-arbours and the winding paths; and while Caroline passed in and out of the junipers and the young yew-trees, she forgot the loneliness she had felt on the terrace. "I'll not worry about it any more," she thought, pursuing Letty beyond the marble fountain, where a laughing Cupid shot a broken arrow toward the sun. "Mother used to say that all the worry in the world would never keep a weasel out of the hen-house." Then, as she twisted and doubled about a tall cluster of junipers, she ran directly across the shadow of Blackburn.
As her feet came to a halt the smile died on her lips, and the reserve she had worn since she reached Briarlay fell like a veil over her gaiety. While she put up her hand to straighten her cap, all the dislike she felt for him showed in her look. Only the light in her eyes, and the blown strands of hair under her cap, belied her dignity and her silence.
"Miss Meade, I wanted to tell you that the doctor will come about noon. I have asked him to give you directions."
"Very well." Against the dark junipers, in her white uniform, she looked like a statue except for her parted lips and accusing eyes.
"Letty seems bright to-day, but you must not let her tire herself."
"I am very careful. We play as gently as possible."
"Will you take her to town? I'll send the car back for you."
For an instant she hesitated. "Mrs. Blackburn has not told me what she wishes."
He nodded. "Letty uses my car in the afternoon. It will be here at three o'clock."
In the sunlight, with his hat off, he looked tanned and ruddy, and she saw that there was the power in his face which belongs to expression – to thought and purpose – rather than to feature. His dark hair, combed straight back from his forehead, made his head appear distinctive and massive, like the relief of a warrior on some ancient coin, and his eyes, beneath slightly beetling brows, were the colour of the sea in a storm. Though his height was not over six feet, he seemed to her, while he stood there beside the marble fountain, the largest and strongest man she had ever seen. "I know he isn't big, and yet he appears so," she thought: "I suppose it is because he is so muscular." And immediately she added to herself, "I can understand everything about him except his mouth – but his mouth doesn't belong in his face. It is the mouth of a poet. I wonder he doesn't wear a moustache just to hide the way it changes."
