CHAPTER IX
MAITLAND TAIT
The only difference between the houses in West Clydemont Place andmuseums was that there was no admission fee at the front door.Otherwise they were identical, for the "auld lang syne" flavor greetedyou the moment you put foot into that corner of the town. You knewinstinctively that every family there owned its own lawn-mower andreceived crested invitations in the morning mail.
Yet it was certainly not fashionable! Indeed, from abutler-and-porte-cochere standpoint it was shabby. The business ofowning your own lawn-mower arises from a state of mind, rather thanfrom a condition of finances, anyway. We were poor, but aloof--andstrung high with the past-tension. The admiral, the ambassador andthe artist rubbed our aristocracy in on any stray caller who lingeredin the hall, if they had failed to be pricked by it on the point ofgrandfather's jeweled sword in the library.
I saw 1919 through a new vista as I came up to it in the late dusk,following the Flag Day reception, and I wondered what the effect ofall this antiquity would be on the mind of a man who so clearlydisregarded the grandfather clause in one's book of life. I hoped thathe would be amused by it, as he had been by the long-tailed D. A. R.badge on my coat.
"You'd better have a little fire kindled up in the library, Grace,"mother observed chillingly just after lunch that next afternoon. "It'strue it's June, but--"
"But the day _is_ bleak and raw," I answered, with a sudden cordialsense of relief that she was on speaking terms with me again."Certainly I'll tell Cicely to make a fire."
"The dampness of the day has nothing at all to do with it," she kepton with frozen evenness. "I suggested it because a fire is a safeplace for a girl to look into while her profile is being studied."
"Mother!"
Her sense of outraged propriety suddenly slipped its leash.
"It keeps her eyes looking earnest, instead of _eager_," she burstout. "And any girl who'd let a man--allow a man--to run away from aparty whose very magnificence was induced on his account, and take heroff to tea in a public place, and come to see her the very nextafternoon--a stranger, and a foreigner at that--is--is playing withfire!"
"You mean she'd better be playing with fire while he's calling?" Iasked quietly. "We must remember to have the old andirons polished,then."
She stopped in her task of dusting the parlor--whose recesses withoutthe shining new player-piano suddenly looked as bare and empty as ashop-window just after the holidays.
"You wilfully ignore my warning," she declared. "If this man left thatparty yesterday and comes calling to-day, of course he's impressed!And if you let him, of course _you're_ impressed. This much goeswithout saying; but I beg you to be careful, Grace! You happen to havethose very serious, _betraying_ eyes, and I want you to guard themwhile he's here!"
"By keeping my hands busy, eh?" I laughed. "Well, I'll promise,mother, if that'll be any relief to you."
So the fire was kindled, as a preventative measure; and at fouro'clock he came--not on the stroke, but ten minutes after. I was gladthat he had patronized the street railway service for this call, andleft the limousine in its own boudoir--you couldn't imagine anythingso exquisite being kept in a lesser place--or I'm afraid that ourlittle white-capped maid would have mistaken it for an ambulance andassured him that nobody was sick. Gleaming blue limousines were scarcein that section.
"Am I early?" he asked, after we had shaken hands and he had glancedtoward the fire with a little surprised, gratified expression. "Iwasted a quarter of an hour waiting for this car."
Now, a woman can always forgive a man for being late, if she knows hestarted on time, so with this reassurance I began to feel at home withhim. I leaned over and stirred the fire hospitably--to keep my eyesfrom showing just how thoroughly at home I felt.
"No--you are not early. I was expecting you at four, and--and motherwill be down presently."
He studied my profile.
"I was out at the golf club dance last night," he said, after a pause,with a certain abruptness which I had found characterized his moreimportant parts of speech. I stood the tongs against the marblemantlepiece and drew back from the flame.
"Was it--enjoyable?" I asked politely.
"Extremely. Mrs. Walker was there, and she had very kindly forgivenme for my defection of the afternoon. In fact, she was distinctlycordial. She talked to me a great deal of you and your mother."
My heart sank. It always does when I find that my women friends havebeen talking a great deal about me.
"Oh, did she?"
"She is very fond of you, it seems--and very puzzled by you."
"Puzzled because I work for the _Herald_?"
I spoke breathlessly, for I wondered if Mrs. Walker had told of theGuilford Blake puzzle, as well; but after one look into the candidhalf-amused eyes I knew that this information had been withheld.
"Well, yes. She touched upon that, among other things."
"But what things?" I asked impatiently. At the door I heard the maidwith the tea tray. "I suppose, however, just the usual things that peopletell about us. That we have been homeless and penniless--except forthis old barn--since I was a baby, and that, one by one, the pomps ofpower have been stripped from us?"
He looked at me soberly for a moment.
"Yes, she told me all this," he said.
"And that our historic rosewood furniture was sold, years ago, to Mrs.Hartwell Gill, the grocer's wife who used the chair-legs asbattering-rams?"
He smiled.
"Against Oldburgh's unwelcoming doors? Yes."
"And that--"
"That you belonged to the most aristocratic family in the wholestate," he interrupted softly. "So aristocratic that even thepossession of the rosewood furniture is an open sesame! And of coursethis state is noted for its blooded beings, even in my own country."
"Really?" I asked, with a little gratified surprise.
"Indeed, yes!" he replied earnestly. "And Mrs. Walker told mesomething that I had not in the least thought to surmise--that you area descendant of the famous artist, Christie. I don't know why Ihappened not to think about it, for the name is one which anEnglishman instantly connects with portrait galleries. He was veryfavorably known on our side."
"Yes. He had a very remarkable--a very pathetic history," I said.
Turning around, he glanced at a small portrait across the room.
"Is--is this James Christie?" he asked.
"Yes. There is a larger one in the hall."
He walked across the room and examined the portrait. After aperfunctory survey, which did not include any very close examinationof the strong features--rugged and a little harsh, and by no means theglorious young face which had been a lodestar to Lady Frances Webb--heturned back to me. For a moment I fancied that he was going to saysomething bitter and impulsive--something that held a tinge ofmass-hatred for class, but his expression changed suddenly. I sawthat his impulse had passed, and that what he would say next would bean afterthought.
"Do you care for him--for this sort of thing?" he asked, waving hishand carelessly toward the other portraits in the room and toward thesword, lying there in an absurd sort of harmlessness beneath its glasscase. "I imagined that you didn't."
He spoke with a tinge of disappointment. Evidently he was sorry tofind me so pedigreed a person.
"I do--and I don't," I answered, coming across the room to his sideand drawing back a curtain to admit a better light. "I certainly carefor--him."
"The artist?"
"Yes."
"But why?" he demanded, with a sudden twist of perversity to his bigwell-shaped mouth. "To me it seems such a waste of time--thissentiment for romantic antiquity. But I am not an unprejudiced judge,I admit. I have spent all the days of my life hating aristocracy."
"Oh, my feeling for him is not caused by his aristocracy," I madehaste to explain. "And indeed, the Christies were very commonplacepeople until he elevated them into the ranks of fame. He was not onlyan artist of note, but he was a very strong man. It is this par
t ofhis history that I revere, and when I was a very young girl I'adopted' him--from all the rest of my ancestors--to be the one I'dcare for and feel a pride in."
He smiled.
"Of course you don't understand," I attempted to explain with a littleflurry. "No _man_ would ever think of adopting an ancestor, but--"
He interrupted me, his smile growing gentler.
"I think I understand," he said. "I did the selfsame thing, years agowhen I was a boy. But my circumstances were rather different fromyours. I selected my grandfather--my mother's father, because he wasclean and fine and strong! He was--he was a collier in Wales."
"A collier?" I repeated, wondering for the moment over theunaccustomed word.
"A coal-miner," he explained briefly. "He was honest andkind-hearted--and I took him for my example. He left me no heirloomsthat--"
I turned away, looking at the room's furnishings with a feeling ofreckless contempt.
"Heirlooms are--are a nuisance to keep dusted!" I declared quickly.
"Yet you evidently like them," he said, as we took our places againbefore the fire, and the little maid, in her nervous haste, made anunnecessary number of trips in and out. The firelight was glowingruddily over the silver things on the tea-table, and looking up, Icaught his eyes resting upon the ring I wore--Guilford's scarab. "Thatring is likely an heirloom?"
"Yes--the story goes that Mariette himself found it," I elucidated,slipping the priceless old bit of stone off my hand and handing it tohim to examine.
But as I talked my head was buzzing, for grandfather was at one earand Uncle Lancelot was at the other.
"Grace, you ought to tell him!" grandfather commanded sharply. "Tellhim this minute! Say to him: 'This ring is an heirloom in the familyof my betrothed.'"
"_Rot_, parson!" came in Uncle Lancelot's dear comforting tones."Shall a young woman take it for granted that every man who admiresthe color of her eyes is interested in her entire history?--Why, itwould be absolutely indelicate of Grace to tell this man that she'sengaged. It's simply none of his business."
"You'll see! You'll see!" grandfather warned--and my heart sank, forwhen a member of your family warns you that you'll see, the sad partof it is that you _will_ see.
"It's a royal scarab, isn't it?" Maitland Tait asked, turning theancient beetle over and viewing the inscription on the flat side.
"Yes--perhaps--oh, I don't know, I'm sure," I answered in a bewilderedfashion. Then suddenly I demanded: "But what else did Mrs. Walker tellyou? Surely she didn't leave off with the mention of one illustriousmember of my family."
"She told me about your great-aunt--the queer old lady who left JamesChristie's relics to you because you were the only member of thefamily who didn't keep a black bonnet in readiness for her funeral,"he laughed, as he handed me back the ring.
"They were just a batch of letters," I corrected, "not any otherrelics."
"Yes--the letters written by Lady Frances Webb," he said.
It was my turn to laugh.
"I knew that Mrs. Walker must have been talkative," I declared. "Shedidn't tell you the latest touch of romance in connection with thoseletters, did she?"
He was looking into the fire, with an expression of deepthoughtfulness; and I studied his profile for a moment.
"Late romance?" he asked in a puzzled fashion, as he turned to me.
"A publishing company has made me an offer to publish those letters!To make them into a stunning 'best-seller,' with a miniature portraitof Lady Frances Webb, as frontispiece, I dare say, and theoftenest-divorced illustrator in America to furnish pictures ofColmere Abbey, with the lovers mooning 'by Norman stone!'"
He was silent for a little while.
"No, she didn't tell me this," he finally answered.
"Then it is because she doesn't know it!" I explained. "You see,mother is still too grieved to mention the matter to any one bytelephone--and it happens that she hasn't met Mrs. Walker face to facesince the offer was made."
"And--rejected?" he asked, with a little smile.
"Yes, but how did you know?"
The smile sobered.
"There are some things one _knows_," he answered. "Yet, after all,what are you going to do with the letters? If you don't publish themnow how are you going to be sure that some other--some futurepossessor will not?"
"I can't be sure--that's the reason I'm not going to run any risks," Itold him. "I'm going to burn them."
He started.
"But that would be rather a pity, wouldn't it?" he asked. "She wassuch a noted writer that I imagine her letters are full of literaryvalue."
"It would be a cold-blooded thing for _me_ to do," I saidthoughtfully. "I've an idea that some day I'll take them back toEngland and--and burn them there."
"A sort of feeling that they'd enjoy being buried on their nativesoil?" he asked.
"I'll take them to Colmere Abbey--her old home," I explained. "To methe place has always been a house of dreams! She describes portions ofthe gardens in her letters--tells him of new flower-beds made, of newwalls built--of the sun-dial. I have always wanted to go there, andsome day I shall bundle all these letters up and pack them in thebottom of a steamer trunk--to have a big bonfire with them on the verysame hearth where she burned his."
Amazing Grace, Who Proves That Virtue Has Its Silver Lining Page 9
