The Builders

"And I never saw any one lovelier than Mrs. Blackburn," said Caroline, "she looks like an angel."

"Well, I reckon there is mighty little you can say against Angelica's looks unless your taste runs to a trifle more flesh," responded Mrs. Timberlake drily.

"She ought to be happy," pursued Caroline, with a feeling that was almost one of resentment. "Anyone as beautiful as that ought to be happy."

Mrs. Timberlake turned slowly toward her, and Caroline was aware of a spasmodic stiffening of her figure, as if she were nerving herself for an outburst. When the explosion came, however, it was in the nature of an anti-climax.

"I expect you are going to be very useful to her," she said; and in answer to a hurried summons at the door, she made one of her nervous gestures, and went out into the hall.

"It would be perfect," thought Caroline, "if I didn't have to meet Mr. Blackburn"; and she concluded, with a flash of her mother's unquenchable optimism, "Well, perhaps I shan't see him to-night!"

The sun had set, and almost imperceptibly the afterglow had dissolved into the twilight. Outside, the lawn and the evergreens were in shadow; but from the house a misty circle of light fell on the drive, and on a narrow strip of turf, from which each separate blade of grass emerged with exaggerated distinctness as if it were illuminated. Within this circle, with its mysterious penumbra, human life also seemed exaggerated by the luminous haze which divided it from the partial shadow of the evening. The house stood enclosed in light as in a garden; and beyond it, where the obscurity began, there was the space and silence of the universe. While she stood there, she felt, with a certainty more profound than a mere mental conviction, that this lighted house contained, for her, all the joy and tragedy of human experience; that her life would be interwoven with these other lives as closely as branches of trees in a forest. The appeal of Mrs. Blackburn had stirred her heart and intensified her perceptions. From the bleakness of the last seven years, she had awakened with revived emotions.

"It is just my fancy," she thought, "but I feel as if something wonderful had really happened – as if life were beginning all over again to-night."

The words were still in her mind, when a child's laugh rang out from a window below, and the figure of a man passed from the outlying obscurity across the illuminated grass. Though he moved so hurriedly out of the light, she caught the suggestion of a smile; and she had a singular feeling that he was the same man, and yet not the same man, that she had seen in the motor.

"I do hope I shan't have to meet him to-night," she repeated at the very instant that a knock fell on her door, and an old coloured woman came in to bring a message from Mrs. Blackburn.

She was a benevolent looking, aristocratic negress, with a fine, glossy skin as brown as a chestnut, and traces of Indian blood in her high cheekbones. A white handkerchief was bound over her head like a turban, and her black bombazine dress hung in full, stately folds from her narrow waist line. For a minute, before delivering her message, she peered gravely at Caroline by the dim light of the window.

"Ain't you Miss Carrie Warwick's chile, honey? You ax 'er ef'n she's done forgot de Fitzhugh chillun's mammy? I riz all er de Fitzhugh chillun."

"Then you must be Mammy Riah? Mother used to tell me about you when I was a little girl. You told stories just like Bible ones."

"Dat's me, honey, en I sutney is glad ter see you. De chillun dey wuz al'ays pesterin' me 'bout dose Bible stories jes' exactly de way Letty wuz doin' dis ve'y mawnin'."

"Tell me something about the little girl. Is she really ill?" asked Caroline; and it occurred to her, as she put the question, that it was strange nobody had mentioned the child's malady. Here again the darkness and mystery of the house she had imagined – that house which was so unlike Briarlay – reacted on her mind.

The old negress chuckled softly. "Naw'm, she ain' sick, dat's jes' some er Miss Angy's foolishness. Dar ain' nuttin' in de worl' de matter wid Letty 'cep'n de way dey's brung 'er up. You cyarn' raise a colt ez ef'n hit wuz a rabbit, en dar ain' no use'n tryin'." Then she remembered her message. "Miss Angy sez she sutney would be erbleeged ter you ef'n you 'ould come erlong down ter dinner wid de res' un um. Miss Molly Waver's done 'phone she cyarn' come, en dar ain' nobody else in de house ez kin set in her place."

For an instant Caroline hesitated. "If I go down, I'll have to meet Mr. Blackburn," she said under her breath.

A gleam of humour shot into the old woman's eyes.

"Marse David! Go 'way f'om yer, chile, whut you skeered er Marse David fur?" she rejoined. "He ain' gwine ter hu't you."

CHAPTER IV

Angelica

AT a quarter of eight o'clock, when Caroline was waiting to be called, Mrs. Timberlake came in to ask if she might fasten her dress.

"Oh, you're all hooked and ready," she remarked. "I suppose nurses learn to be punctual."

"They have to be, so much depends on it."

"Well, you look sweet. I've brought you a red rose from the table. It will lighten up that black dress a little."

"I don't often go to dinner parties," said Caroline while she pinned on the rose. "Will there be many people?" There was no shyness in her voice or manner; and it seemed to Mrs. Timberlake that the black gown, with its straight, slim skirt, which had not quite gone out of fashion, made her appear taller and more dignified. Her hair, brushed smoothly back from her forehead, gave to her clear profile the look of some delicate etching. There was a faint flush in her cheeks, and her eyes were richer and bluer than they had looked in the afternoon. She was a woman, not a girl, and her charm was the charm not of ignorance, but of intelligence, wisdom, and energy.

"Only twelve," answered the housekeeper, "sometimes we have as many as twenty." There was an expression of pain in her eyes, due to chronic neuralgia, and while she spoke she pressed her fingers to her temples.

"Is Mr. Wythe coming?" asked Caroline.

"He always comes. It is so hard to find unattached men that the same ones get invited over and over. Then there are Mr. and Mrs. Chalmers. They are from New York and the dinner is given to them – and the Ashburtons and Robert Colfax and his wife – who was Daisy Carter – she is very good looking but a little flighty – and Mr. Peyton, old Mrs. Colfax's brother."

"I know – 'Brother Charles' – but who are the Ashburtons?"

"Colonel Ashburton is very amusing. He is on Mr. Blackburn's side in politics, and they are great friends. His wife is dull, but she means well, and she is useful on committees because she is a good worker and never knows when she is put upon. Well, it's time for you to go down, I reckon. I just ran up from the pantry to see if I could help you."

A minute later, when Caroline left her room, Mary Blackburn joined her, and the two went downstairs together. Mary was wearing a lovely gown of amber silk, and she looked so handsome that Caroline scarcely recognized her. Her black hair, piled on the crown of her head, gave her, in spite of her modern dash and frankness, a striking resemblance to one of the old portraits at The Cedars. She was in high spirits, for the ride with Alan had left her glowing with happiness.

"We'd better hustle. They are waiting for us," she said. "I was late getting in, so I tossed on the first dress I could find."

Then she ran downstairs, and Caroline, following her more slowly, found herself presently shaking hands with the dreaded David Blackburn. He was so quiet and unassuming that only when he had taken her hand and had asked her a few conventional questions about her trip, did she realize that she was actually speaking to him. In evening clothes, surrounded by the pink silk walls of Angelica's drawing-room, his face looked firmer and harder than it had appeared in the motor; but even in this extravagant setting, he impressed her as more carefully dressed and groomed than the average Virginian of her acquaintance. She saw now that he was younger than she had at first thought; he couldn't, she surmised, be much over forty. There were deep lines in his forehead; his features had settled into the granite-like immobility that is acquired only through grim and resolute struggle; and his dark, carefully brushed hair showed a silvery gloss on the temples – yet these things, she realized, were the marks of battles, not of years. What struck her most was the quickness with which the touch of arrogance in his expression melted before the engaging frankness of his smile.

"I'm glad you've come. I hope you will get on with Letty," he said; and then, as he turned away, the vision of Angelica, in white chiffon and pearls, floated toward her from a group by the fireplace.

"Colonel Ashburton is an old friend of your mother's, Miss Meade. He took her to her first cotillion, and he is eager to meet her daughter." There followed swift introductions to the Ashburtons, the Chalmers, and the Colfaxes; and not until Caroline was going into the dining-room on the arm of Mrs. Colfax's "Brother Charles," was she able to distinguish between the stranger from New York, who looked lean and wiry and strenuous, and the white-haired old gentleman who had taken her mother to the cotillion. She was not confused; and yet her one vivid impression was of Angelica, with her pale Madonna head, her soft grey eyes under thick lashes, and her lovely figure in draperies of chiffon that flowed and rippled about her.

Though the house was an inappropriate setting for David Blackburn, it was, for all its newness and ornate accessories, the perfect frame for his wife's beauty. She reminded Caroline of the allegorical figure of Spring in one of the tapestries on the dining-room walls – only she was so much softer, so much more ethereal, as if the floral image had come to life and been endowed with a soul. It was the rare quality of Mrs. Blackburn's beauty that in looking at her one thought first of her spirit – of the sweetness and goodness which informed and animated her features. The appeal she made was the appeal of an innocent and beautiful creature who is unhappy. Against the background of an unfortunate marriage, she moved with the resigned and exalted step of a Christian martyr.

Sitting silently between the flippant "Brother Charles" and the imposing Colonel Ashburton, who was still talking of her mother, Caroline tried to follow the conversation while she studied the faces and the dresses of the women. Mrs. Chalmers, who was large and handsome in a superb gown of green velvet, appeared heavy and indifferent, and Mrs. Ashburton, an over-earnest middle-aged woman, with a classic profile and a look of impersonal yet hungry philanthropy, was so detached that she seemed, when she spoke, to be addressing an invisible audience. In spite of her regular features and her flawless complexion, she was as devoid of charm as an organized charity. On her right sat Allan Wythe, a clean-cut, good-looking chap, with romantic eyes and the air of a sportsman. Though Caroline had heard that he wrote plays, she thought that he needed only a gun and a dog to complete his appearance. "He is the only good-looking man here," she concluded. "Some people might think Mr. Blackburn good-looking, but I suppose I know too much about him." And she remembered that her father had said a man's character always showed in his mouth.

Next to Alan there was Mrs. Robert Colfax – a beautiful Spanish-looking creature, straight as a young poplar, and as full of silvery lights and shadows. She had no sooner sat down than she began to ask Angelica, with an agreeable though flighty animation, if she had seen somebody since he had come back from his wedding trip? For the next quarter of an hour they kept up an excited interchange of gossip, while Mr. Chalmers listened with polite attention, and Caroline tried in vain to discover who the unknown person was, and why his wedding trip should interest anybody so profoundly.

"Well, I never thought he'd get another wife after his last misadventure," rippled Mrs. Colfax, "but they tell me he had only to wink an eyelash. I declare I don't know a more discouraging spectacle than the men that some women will marry."

At the other end of the table, Mrs. Blackburn was talking in a low voice to Mr. Chalmers, and the broken clauses of her conversation were punctuated by the laughter of the irrepressible Daisy, who was never silent. Though Angelica was not brilliant, though she never said anything clever enough for one to remember, she had what her friends called "a sweet way of talking," and a flattering habit, when she was with a man, of ending every sentence with a question. "I'm sure I don't see how we are to keep out of this war, do you, Mr. Chalmers?" or "I think the simplest way to raise money would be by some tableaux, don't you, Colonel Ashburton?"; and still a little later there floated to Caroline, "I tell Mary she rides too much. Don't you think it is a pity for a woman to spend half her life in the saddle? Of course if she hasn't anything else to do – but in this age, don't you feel, there are so many opportunities of service?"

"Oh, when it comes to that," protested Mrs. Colfax, in the tone of airy banter she affected, "There are many more of us trying to serve than there are opportunities of service. I was telling mother only the other day that I couldn't see a single war charity because the vice-presidents are so thick."

A lull fell on the table, and for the first time Caroline heard Blackburn's voice. Mrs. Chalmers was asking him about the house, and he was responding with a smile that made his face almost young and sanguine. His mouth, when he was not on guard, was sensitive and even emotional, and his eyes lost the sharpness that cut through whatever they looked at.

"Why, yes, I built it before my marriage," he was saying. "Dodson drew the plans. You know Dodson?"

Mrs. Chalmers nodded. "He has done some good things in New York. And this lovely furniture," she was plainly working hard to draw him out. "Where did you find it?"

He met the question lightly. "Oh, I had a lot of stuff here that Angelica got rid of."

From the other end of the table Mrs. Blackburn's voice floated plaintively, "There isn't a piece of it left," she said. "It made the house look exactly like an Italian hotel."

The remark struck Caroline as so unfortunate that she turned, with a start of surprise, to glance at her hostess. Could it be that Mrs. Blackburn was without tact? Could it be that she did not realize the awkwardness of her interruption? Yet a single glance at Angelica was sufficient to answer these questions. A woman who looked like that couldn't be lacking in social instinct. It must have been a casual slip, nothing more. She was probably tired – hadn't old Mrs. Colfax said that she was delicate? – and she did not perceive the effect of her words. Glancing again in Blackburn's direction, Caroline saw that his features had hardened, and that the hand on the tablecloth was breaking a piece of bread into crumbs.

The change in his manner was so sudden that Caroline understood, even before she saw the twitching of his eyebrows, and the gesture of irritation with which he pushed the bread crumbs away, that, in spite of his reserve and his coldness, he was a bundle of over-sensitive nerves. "He was behaving really well," she thought. "It is a pity that she irritated him." Though she disliked Blackburn, she was just enough to admit that he had started well with Mrs. Chalmers. Of course, no one expected him to appear brilliant in society. A man who had had no education except the little his mother had taught him, and who had devoted his life to making a fortune, was almost as much debarred from social success as a woman who knew only trained nursing. Yet, in spite of these defects, she realized that he appeared to advantage at his own table. There was something about him – some latent suggestion of force – which distinguished him from every other man in the room. He looked – she couldn't quite define the difference – as if he could do things. The recollection of his stand in politics came to her while she watched him, and turning to Mr. Peyton, who was a trifle more human than Colonel Ashburton, she asked:

"What is this new movement Mr. Blackburn is so much interested in? I've seen a great deal about it in the papers."