"Let Papa tiss it!"
"You try it once!"
"Sh-sh! Ma says not so much noise!" hissed Mary Lou, from the floor above, where she had been summoned some hours ago, "Alfie"s just dropped off!"
On Monday a new life began for Susan Brown. She stepped from the dingy boarding-house in Fulton Street straight into one of the most beautiful homes in the state, and, so full were the first weeks, that she had no time for homesickness, no time for letters, no time for anything but the briefest of scribbled notes to the devoted women she left behind her.
Emily Saunders herself met the newcomer at the station, looking very unlike an invalid,--looking indeed particularly well and happy, if rather pale, as she was always pale, and a little too fat after the idle and carefully-fed experience in the hospital. Susan peeped into Miss Ella"s big room, as they went upstairs. Ella was stretched comfortably on a wide, flowery couch, reading as her maid rubbed her loosened hair with some fragrant toilet water, and munching chocolates.
"h.e.l.lo, Susan Brown!" she called out. "Come in and see me some time before dinner,--I"m going out!"
Ella"s room was on the second floor, where were also Mrs. Saunders"
room, various guest-rooms, an upstairs music-room and a sitting-room.
But Emily"s apartment, as well as her brother"s, were on the third floor, and Susan"s delightful room opened from Emily"s. The girls had a bathroom as large as a small bedroom, and a splendid deep balcony shaded by gay awnings was accessible only to them. Potted geraniums made this big outdoor room gay, a thick Indian rug was on the floor, there were deep wicker chairs, and two beds, in day-covers of green linen, with thick brightly colored Pueblo blankets folded across them.
The girls were to spend all their days in the open air, and sleep out here whenever possible for Emily"s sake.
While Emily bathed, before dinner, Susan hung over the balcony rail, feeling deliciously fresh and rested, after her own bath, and eager not to miss a moment of the lovely summer afternoon. Just below her, the garden was full of roses. There were other flowers, too, carnations and velvety Shasta daisies, there were s...o...b..a.l.l.s that tumbled in great heaps of white on the smooth lawn, and syringas and wall-flowers and corn-flowers, far over by the vine-embroidered stone wall, and late Persian lilacs, and hydrangeas, in every lovely tone between pink and lavender, filled a long line of great wooden j.a.panese tubs, leading, by a walk of sunken stones, to the black wooden gates of the j.a.panese garden. But the roses reigned supreme--beautiful standard roses, with not a shriveled leaf to mar the perfection of blossoms and foliage; San Rafael roses, flinging out wherever they could find a support, great sprays of pinkish-yellow and yellowish-pink, and gold and cream and apricot-colored blossoms. There were moss roses, sheathed in dark-green film, glowing Jacqueminot and Papagontier and La France roses, white roses, and yellow roses,--Susan felt as if she could intoxicate herself upon the sweetness and the beauty of them all.
The carriage road swept in a great curve from the gate, its smooth pebbled surface crossed sharply at regular intervals by the clean-cut shadows of the elm trees. Here and there on the lawns a sprinkler flung out its whirling circles of spray, and while Susan watched a gardener came into view, picked up a few fallen leaves from the roadway and crushed them together in his hand.
On the newly-watered stretch of road that showed beyond the wide gates, carriages and carts, and an occasional motor-car were pa.s.sing, flinging wheeling shadows beside them on the road, and driven by girls in light gowns and wide hats or by grooms in livery. Presently one very smart, high English cart stopped, and Mr. Kenneth Saunders got down from it, and stood whipping his riding-boot with his c.r.a.p and chatting with the young woman who had driven him home. Susan thought him a very attractive young man, with his quiet, almost melancholy expression, and his air of knowing exactly the correct thing to do, whenever he cared to exert himself at all.
She watched him now with interest, not afraid of detection, for a small head, on a third story balcony, would be quite lost among the details of the immense facade of the house. He walked toward the stable, and whistled what was evidently a signal, for three romping collies came running to meet him, and were leaping and tumbling about him as he went around the curve of the drive and out of sight. Then Susan went back to her watching and dreaming, finding something new to admire and delight in every moment. The details confused her, but she found the whole charming.
Indeed, she had been in San Rafael for several weeks before she found the view of the big house from the garden anything but bewildering.
With its wings and ells, its flowered balconies and French windows, its tiled pergola and flower-lined Spanish court, it stood a monument to the extraordinary powers of the modern architect; nothing was incongruous, nothing offended. Susan liked to decide into which room this cas.e.m.e.nt window fitted, or why she never noticed that particular angle of wall from the inside. It was always a disappointment to discover that some of the quaintest of the windows lighted only linen-closets or perhaps useless little s.p.a.ces under a sharp angle of roof, and that many of the most attractive lines outside were so cut and divided as to be unrecognizable within.
It was a modern house, with beautifully-appointed closets tucked in wherever there was an inch to spare, with sheets of mirror set in the bedroom doors, with every conceivable convenience in nickel-plate glittering in its bathrooms, and wall-telephones everywhere.
The girl"s adjectives were exhausted long before she had seen half of it. She tried to make her own personal choice between the dull, soft, dark colors and carved Circa.s.sian walnut furniture in the dining-room, and the sharp contrast of the reception hall, where the sunlight flooded a rosy-latticed paper, an old white Colonial mantel and fiddle-backed chairs, and struck dazzling gleams from the bra.s.s fire-dogs and irons. The drawing-room had its own charm; the largest room in the house, it had French windows on three sides, each one giving a separate and exquisite glimpse of lawns and garden beyond.
Upon its dark and shining floor were stretched a score of silky Persian rugs, roses mirrored themselves in polished mahogany, and here and there were priceless bits of carved ivory, wonderful strips of embroidered Chinese silks, miniatures, and exquisite books. Four or five great lamps glowing under mosaic shades made the place lovely at night, but in the heat of a summer day, shaded, empty, deliciously airy and cool, Susan thought it at its loveliest. At night heavy brocaded curtains were drawn across the windows, and a wood fire crackled in the fireplace, in a setting of creamy tiles. There was a small grand-piano in this room, a larger piano in the big, empty reception room on the other side of the house, Susan and Emily had a small upright for their own use, and there were one or two more in other parts of the house.
Everywhere was exquisite order, exquisite peace. Lightfooted maids came and went noiselessly, to brush up a fallen daisy petal, or straighten a rug. Not the faintest streak of dust ever lay across the shining surface of the piano, not the tiniest cloud ever filmed the clear depths of the mirrors. A slim Chinese houseboy, in plum-color and pale blue, with his queue neatly coiled, and his handsome, smooth young face always smiling, padded softly to and fro all day long, in his thick-soled straw slippers, with letters and magazines, parcels and messages and telegrams.
"Lizzie-Carrie--one of you girls take some sweet-peas up to my room,"
Ella would say at breakfasttime, hardly glancing up from her mail. And an hour later Susan, looking into Miss Saunders" apartment to see if she still expected Emily to accompany her to the Holmes wedding, or to say that Mrs. Saunders wanted to see her eldest daughter, would notice a bowl of the delicately-tinted blossoms on the desk, and another on the table.
The girls" beds were always made, when they went upstairs to freshen themselves for luncheon; tumbled linen and used towels had been spirited away, fresh blotters were on the desk, fresh flowers everywhere, windows open, books back on their shelves, clothes stretched on hangers in the closets; everything immaculately clean and crisp.
It was apparently impossible to interrupt the quiet running of the domestic machinery. If Susan and Emily left wet skirts and umbrellas and muddy overshoes in one of the side hallways, on returning from a walk, it was only a question of a few hours, before the skirts, dried and brushed and pressed, the umbrellas neatly furled, and the overshoes, as shining as ever, were back in their places. If the girls wanted tea at five o"clock, sandwiches of every known, and frequently of new types, little cakes and big, hot bouillons, or a salad, or even a broiled bird were to be had for the asking. It was no trouble, the tray simply appeared and Chow Yew or Carrie served them as if it were a real pleasure to do so.
Whoever ordered for the Saunders kitchen--Susan suspected that it was a large amiable person in black whom she sometimes met in the halls, a person easily mistaken for a caller or a visiting aunt, but respectful in manner, and with a habit of running her tongue over her teeth when not speaking that vaguely suggested immense capability--did it on a very large scale indeed. It was not, as in poor Auntie"s case, a question of selecting stewed tomatoes as a suitable vegetable for dinner, and penciling on a list, under "five pounds round steak,"
"three cans tomatoes." In the Saunders" house there was always to be had whatever choicest was in season,--crabs or ducks, broilers or trout, asparagus an inch in diameter, forced strawberries and peaches, even pomegranates and alligator pears and icy, enormous grapefruit--new in those days--and melons and nectarines. There were crocks and boxes of cakes, a whole ice-chest just for cream and milk, another for cheeses and olives and pickles and salad-dressings. Susan had seen the cook"s great store-room, lined with jars and pots and crocks, tins and gla.s.ses and boxes of delicious things to eat, brought from all over the world for the moment when some member of the Saunders family fancied Russian caviar, or Chinese ginger, or Italian cheese.
Other people"s brains and bodies were constantly and pleasantly at work to spare the Saunders any effort whatever, and as Susan, taken in by the family, and made to feel absolutely one of them, soon found herself taking hourly service quite as a matter of course, as though it was nothing new to her luxury-loving little person. If she hunted for a book, in a dark corner of the library, she did not turn her head to see which maid touched the b.u.t.ton that caused a group of lights, just above her, to spring suddenly into soft bloom, although her "Thank you!"
never failed; and when she and Emily came in late for tea in the drawing-room, she piled her wraps into some attendant"s arms without so much as a glance. Yet Susan personally knew and liked all the maids, and they liked her, perhaps because her unaffected enjoyment of this new life and her constant allusions to the deprivations of the old days made them feel her a little akin to themselves.
With Emily and her mother Susan was soon quite at home; with Ella her shyness lasted longer; and toward a friendship with Kenneth Saunders she seemed to make no progress whatever. Kenneth addressed a few kindly, unsmiling remarks to his mother during the course of the few meals he had at home; he was always gentle with her, and deeply resented anything like a lack of respect toward her on the others"
parts. He entirely ignored Emily, and if he held any conversation at all with the spirited Ella, it was very apt to take the form of a controversy, Ella trying to persuade him to attend some dance or dinner, or Kenneth holding up some especial friend of hers for scornful criticism. Sometimes he spoke to Miss Baker, but not often. Kenneth"s friendships were mysteries; his family had not the most remote idea where he went when he went out every evening, or where he was when he did not come home. Sometimes he spoke out in sudden, half-amused praise of some debutante, she was a "funny little devil," or "she was the decentest kid in this year"s crop," and perhaps he would follow up this remark with a call or two upon the admired young girl, and Ella would begin to tease him about her. But the debutante and her mother immediately lost their heads at this point, called on the Saunders, gushed at Ella and Emily, and tried to lure Kenneth into coming to little home dinners or small theater parties. This always ended matters abruptly, and Kenneth returned to his old ways.
His valet, a mournful, silent fellow named Mycroft, led rather a curious life, reporting at his master"s room in the morning not before ten, and usually not in bed before two or three o"clock the next morning. About once a fortnight, sometimes oftener, as Susan had known for a long time, a subtle change came over Kenneth. His mother saw it and grieved; Ella saw it and scolded everyone but him. It cast a darkness over the whole house. Kenneth, always influenced more or less by what he drank, was going down, down, down, through one dark stage after another, into the terrible state whose horrors he dreaded with the rest of them. He was moping for a day or two, absent from meals, understood to be "not well, and in bed." Then Mycroft would agitatedly report that Mr. Kenneth was gone; there would be tears and Ella"s sharpest voice in Mrs. Saunders" room, pallor and ill-temper on Emily"s part, hushed distress all about until Kenneth was brought home from some place unknown by Mycroft, in a cab, and gotten noisily upstairs and visited three times a day by the doctor. The doctor would come downstairs to rea.s.sure Mrs. Saunders; Mycroft would run up and down a hundred times a day to wait upon the invalid. Perhaps once during his convalescence his mother would go up to see him for a little while, to sit, constrained and tender and unhappy, beside his bed, wishing perhaps that there was one thing in the wide world in which she and her son had a common interest.
She was a lonesome, nervous little lady, and at these times only a little more fidgety than ever. Sometimes she cried because of Kenneth, in her room at night, and Ella braced her with kindly, unsympathetic, well-meant, uncomprehending remarks, and made very light of his weakness; but Emily walked her own room nervously, raging at Ken for being such a beast, and Mama for being such a fool.
Susan, coming downstairs in the morning sunlight, after an evening of horror and strain, when the lamps had burned for four hours in an empty drawing-room, and she and Emily, early in their rooms, had listened alternately to the shouting and thumping that went on in Kenneth"s room and the consoling murmur of Ella"s voice downstairs, could hardly believe that life was being so placidly continued; that silence and sweetness still held sway downstairs; that Ella, in a foamy robe of lace and ribbon, at the head of the table, could be so cheerfully absorbed in the day"s news and the Maryland biscuit, and that Mrs.
Saunders, pottering over her begonias, could show so radiant a face over the blossoming of the double white, that Emily, at the telephone could laugh and joke.
She was a great favorite with them all now, this sunny, pretty Susan; even Miss Baker, the mouse-like little trained nurse, beamed for her, and congratulated her upon her influence over every separate member of the family. Miss Baker had held her place for ten years and cherished no illusions concerning the Saunders.
Susan had lost some few illusions herself, but not many. She was too happy to be critical, and it was her nature to like people for no better reason than that they liked her.
Emily Saunders, with whom she had most to do, who was indeed her daily and hourly companion, was at this time about twenty-six years old, and so two years older than Susan, although hers was a smooth-skinned, baby-like type, and she looked quite as young as her companion. She had had a very lonely, if extraordinarily luxurious childhood, and a sickly girlhood, whose princ.i.p.al events were minor operations on eyes or ears, and experiments in diets and treatments, miserable sieges with oculists and dentists and stomach-pumps. She had been sent to several schools, but ill-health made her progress a great mortification, and finally she had been given a governess, Miss Roche, a fussily-dressed, effusive Frenchwoman, who later traveled with her. Emily"s only accounts of her European experience dealt with Miss Roche"s masterly treatment of ungracious officials, her faculty for making Emily comfortable at short notice and at any cost or place, and her ability to bring certain small possessions through the custom-house without unnecessary revelations.
And at eighteen the younger Miss Saunders had been given a large coming-out tea, had joined the two most exclusive Cotillions,--the Junior and the Browning--had lunched and dined and gone to the play with the other debutantes, and had had, according to the admiring and attentive press, a glorious first season.
As a matter of fact, however, it had been a most unhappy time for the person most concerned. Emily was not a social success. Not more than one debutante in ten is; Emily was one of the nine. Before every dance her hopes rose irrepressibly, as she gazed at her dainty little person in the mirror, studied her exquisite frock and her pearls, and the smooth perfection of the hair so demurely coiled under its wreath of rosebuds, or band of shining satin. To-night, she would be a success, to-night she would wipe out old scores. This mood lasted until she was actually in the dressing-room, in a whirl of arriving girls. Then her courage began to ebb. She would watch them, as the maid took off her carriage shoes; pleasantly take her turn at the mirror, exchange a shy, half-absent greeting with the few she knew; wish, with all her heart, that she dared put herself under their protection. Just a few were cool enough to enter the big ballroom in a gale of mirth, surrender themselves for a few moments of gallant dispute to the cl.u.s.tered young men at the door, and be ready to dance without a care, the first dozen dances promised, and nothing to do but be happy.
But Emily drifted out shyly, fussed carefully with fans or glove-clasps while looking furtively about for possible partners, returned in a panic to the dressing-room on a pretense of exploring a slipper-bag for a handkerchief, and made a fresh start. Perhaps this time some group of chattering and laughing girls and men would be too close to the door for her comfort; not invited to join them, Emily would feel obliged to drift on across the floor to greet some gracious older woman, and sink into a chair, smiling at compliments, and covering a defeat with a regretful:
"I"m really only looking on to-night. Mama worries so if I overdo."
And here she would feel out of the current indeed, hopelessly shelved.
Who would come looking for a partner in this quiet corner, next to old Mrs. Chickering whose two granddaughters were in the very center of the merry group at the door? Emily would smilingly rise, and go back to the dressing-room again.
The famous Browning dances, in their beginning, a generation earlier, had been much smaller, less formal and more intimate than they were now. The sixty or seventy young persons who went to those first dances were all close friends, in a simpler social structure, and a less self-conscious day. They had been the most delightful events in Ella"s girlhood, and she felt it to be entirely Emily"s fault that Emily did not find them equally enchanting.
"But I don"t know the people who go to them very well!" Emily would say, half-confidential, half-resentful. Ella always met this argument with high scorn.
"Oh, Baby, if you"d stop whining and fretting, and just get in and enjoy yourself once!" Ella would answer impatiently. "You don"t have to know a man intimately to dance with him, I should hope! Just GO, and have a good time! My Lord, the way we all used to laugh and talk and rush about, you"d have thought we were a pack of children!"
Ella and her contemporaries always went to these b.a.l.l.s even now, the magnificent matrons of forty showing rounded arms and beautiful bosoms, and gowns far more beautiful than those the girls wore. Jealousy and rivalry and heartaches all forgot, they sat laughing and talking in groups, cl.u.s.tered along the walls, or played six-handed euchre in the adjoining card-room, and had, if the truth had been known, a far better time than the girls they chaperoned.
After a winter or two, however, Emily stopped going, except perhaps once in a season. She began to devote a great deal of her thought and her conversation to her health, and was not long in finding doctors and nurses to whom the subject was equally fascinating. Emily had a favorite hospital, and was frequently ordered there for experiences that touched more deeply the chords of her nature than anything else ever did in her life. No one at home ever paid her such flattering devotion as did the sweet-faced, low-voiced nurses, and the doctor--whose coming, twice a day, was such an event. The doctor was a model husband and father, his beautiful wife a woman whom Ella knew and liked very well, but Emily had her nickname for him, and her little presents for him, and many a small, innocuous joke between herself and the doctor made her feel herself close to him. Emily was always glad when she could turn from her mother"s mournful solicitude, Kenneth"s snubs and Ella"s imperativeness, and the humiliating contact with a society that could get along very well without her, to the universal welcome she had from all her friends in Mrs. Fowler"s hospital.
To Susan the thought of hypodermics, anesthetics, antisepsis and clinic thermometers, charts and diets, was utterly mysterious and abhorrent, and her healthy distaste for them amused Emily, and gave Emily a good reason for discussing and defending them.
Susan"s part was to listen and agree, listen and agree, listen and agree, on this as on all topics. She had not been long at "High Gardens" before Emily, in a series of impulsive gushes of confidence, had volunteered the information that Ella was so jealous and selfish and heartless that she was just about breaking Mama"s heart, never happy unless she was poisoning somebody"s mind against Emily, and never willing to let Emily keep a single friend, or do anything she wanted to do.
"So now you see why I am always so dignified and quiet with Ella," said Emily, in the still midnight when all this was revealed. "That"s the ONE thing that makes her mad!"
"I can"t believe it!" said Susan, aching for sleep, and yawning under cover of the dark.
"I keep up for Mama"s sake," Emily said. "But haven"t you noticed how Ella tries to get you away from me? You MUST have! Why, the very first night you were here, she called out, "Come in and see me on your way down!" Don"t you remember? And yesterday, when I wasn"t dressed and she wanted you to go driving, after dinner! Don"t you remember?"
"Yes, but---" Susan began. She could dismiss this morbid fancy with a few vigorous protests, with a hearty laugh. But she would probably dismiss herself from the Saunders" employ, as well, if she pursued any such bracing policy.
"You poor kid, it"s pretty hard on you!" she said, admiringly. And for half an hour she was not allowed to go to sleep.
Susan began to dread these midnight talks. The moon rose, flooded the sleeping porch, mounted higher. The watch under Susan"s pillow ticked past one o"clock, past half-past one--