The Best Short Stories of 1918 Part 26

I didn't, of course, though, gather at her first mention of his coming half that it meant to her. And she wouldn't, I might have known, with her regard for the _nuances_, have let it baldly appear. But I discovered afterward that she had made all sorts of overtures-done her utmost to divert him to Newfair. She didn't know him; had never set eyes on him; but her reputation, which was considerable even then, helped her a good deal. For she solicited news of him from her publishers; and she wrote Mrs. --, whatever her name was, finally, when she learned that that was the real right source to appeal to, a no doubt handsome letter, whence came the reply Miss Haviland had quoted to me, but which, as I also afterward found out, only asked very simply, "in view of the uncertainty of Mr. Oaks's plans," whether or not he could, in case he had to, "spend the night there."

Well, it eventuated, not strictly in accord with her wire-pulling, that Hurrell Oaks's route was changed so he could "run through" in the late afternoon "for a look at the college." He was to be motoring to a place somewhere near, as it happened, and the Newfair detour would lengthen his schedule by only an hour or two. Word of it didn't come to her directly, either; that letter was addressed to the president. But it was humbly referred to Miss Haviland in the course of things, and she took the matter-what was left of it-into her own hands.

"No," she answered, unyielding to the various suggestions that cropped up. "But I'll tell you what I am willing to do: I will give up my own little flat. Living in London as he does, he will feel-quite at home there."

Funny though it is, looking back over it, it had also, when all was said and done-particularly when all was done-its pathetic side. For Hurrell Oaks was the one sincere pa.s.sion of her life. He was religion and-and everything to her. The prospect of seeing him in the flesh, of hearing him _viva voce_, was more than she had ever piously believed could come to pa.s.s.

However much she imitated him-and remember, a large following bears witness to her skill-however she failed in his beauty and poetry and thoroughbredness, she must have had a deep, a discriminating love of his genius to have taken her thus far. No wonder she couldn't, with her precise sense of justice, _not_ be the chosen person at Newfair to receive him. But n.o.body dared question the justice of it, really. Wasn't she the _raison d'etre_ of his coming?-of his being anywhere at all, as some people thought?

Her very demeanor was mellowed by the prospect. She set about the task of preparation with an ardor as unprofessed as it was apparent. She doffed the need of impressing any one in her zeal to get ready to impress Hurrell Oaks.

Her tone became warm and affluent as she went about asking this person and that to lend things for the great day: Mrs. Edgerton's Monet, Mrs.

Braxton's brocades; a fur rug of Mrs. Green's she solicited one noon on the campus as if from a generous impulse to slight no one. And even when Mrs. Green suggested timidly that she would be glad "to pay for having the invitations engraved," Miss Haviland didn't correct her. But-

"No, dear," she said. "I think I won't let you do that much-_really_.

There aren't to be so many, and I shall be able to write them myself in no time."

I can see her now, fingering her pearls and peering as hospitably as she could manage into Mrs. Green's commonplace eyes, and George Norton hurrying across the gra.s.s to catch a word with her without avail. He was the only person whom she was, during those perfervid preliminaries, one bit cruel to.

But him she overlooked entirely. She didn't seem to see him that day at all. She just peered obliquely beyond him, and, engrossed quite genuinely, no doubt, in Mrs. Green's fur rug, took her arm and strolled off. She had lost, for the time being, all use for him. He was left deserted and alone at the teas and gatherings, magnetized from one spot to another whither she moved forgetfully away.

I met him in the park and pitied his shy, inept efforts not to appear neglected.

"Well, I kind of think it may rain," he essayed, half clasping his small hands behind him and looking sociably up around the sky for a cloud.

"But I don't know as it will, after all." And then, "Have you seen Miss Haviland lately?" he asked out in spite of himself.

"Not since yesterday's cla.s.s."

"How's the improvements coming?"

"All right, I guess. The new stuff for the walls arrived, I heard. It hasn't been put on yet."

"Oh-she's papering, is she?"

"And painting."

He tried to sparkle appreciatively. "Well, it takes time to do those things. You never know what you're in for. She's well?"

And he swayed back and forth on his heels, and teetered his head nervously. Poor thing! The gap he had tried so hard to bridge was filled to br.i.m.m.i.n.g now by the promised advent of Hurrell Oaks.

Miss Haviland called me on the telephone one afternoon as the day was approaching to ask if I would lend her my samovar; and she wanted I should bring it over presently, if possible, as she was slowly getting things right, and didn't like to leave any more than was necessary to the last moment. So I polished the copper up as best I could and went 'round that evening to the New Gainsborough to leave it.

The building looked very dismal to me, I recall. A forlorn place it seemed to receive the great guest. It had been a dormitory once, which had been given over, owing to the inconveniences of the location, to accommodate unmarried teachers. It was more like a refined factory than an apartment-house. The high stoop had no railing, and the pebbles which collected on the coa.r.s.e granite steps added to the general bleakness of the entrance. The inner halls were grim, with plain match-board wainscots and dingy paint, and narrow staircases that ascended steeply from meager landings. Miss Haviland's suite was three flights up.

But when I got inside it, I couldn't believe my eyes.

Her door was slightly ajar-it was the way Miss Haviland avoided the bother and the squalor of having to let people in-and at my knock she called out in a restrained, serene tone, "Come!" And I stepped through the tiny vestibule into the study.

It was amazingly attractive-Hurrell Oaks himself would have remarked it, I'll wager. n.o.body except Marian Haviland could have wrought such a change.

Of course there were Mrs. Edgerton's Monet, and Mrs. Braxton's brocades, and-yes-Mrs. Green's fur rug, to say nothing of numberless other borrowed _objets_, to help out the lavishness of the effect; but the synthesis was magnificent. Everything looked as if it had grown there.

One might have been in an Italian palace. And Miss Haviland, seated at her new antique walnut desk with the ormolu mounts, looked veritably like a chatelaine. She had always, too-I ought to have seen it before-a little resembled a chatelaine, a chatelaine without a castle.

But she had for the moment her castle now-enough of it to complete the picture, at any rate. There was a low smoldering fire on the hearth, and the breeze that played through the open window just swayed the heavy damask hangings rhythmically. My samovar, as I set it down on a carved consol near the door, looked too crude and cra.s.s to warrant the excuse of my coming.

She read my dazed approval in a glance and laid down her pen, and, with one experienced _coup d'il_ over the ma.n.u.script before her, leaned back, clasping the edge of her desk with both hands and staring at me.

She was wearing one of those black evening gowns, and a feather fan was in easy reach of where she sat; and I noticed all at once that the string of pearls was dangling from the gas-jet above her head.

"The new fixtures-the electric ones-will be bronze," she hastened to say.

I shall never forget, not to my dying day, the sight I had of her sitting there; in that room, at that desk, in a black evening gown-_writing_! And the string of pearls she had slung across the condemned gas-jet by way of subtle disarmament for her task! The whole place had the hushed grand air of having been cleared for action by some sophisticated gesture; as if-the thought whimsically struck me-she might have just rung for the "second man" and bidden him remove "all the Pomeranians" lest they distract her.

"It's too lovely, Miss Haviland; I can't tell you what I think it is," I exclaimed, blankly.

She stood up, reached for the rope of pearls, and slipped them over her head.

"I want you to see the hall," she said. "Isn't it _chic_?... And the bedrooms. The men will leave their hats in the south chamber-my room-in here; and the women will have the other-this one."

She preceded me. She was quite simple in her eagerness to point out everything she had done. Her childlike glee in it touched me. And she looked so tired. She looked, in spite of her pomp and enthusiasm, exhausted.

"How he-how Mr. Hurrell Oaks will love it," I cried, sincerely. "If he only realized, if he only could know the pains you've taken for him."

"_Pains?_"

She leaned forward and let me judge for myself how she felt. Her eyes glowed. I had never seen her with all the barriers down.

"It isn't a _crumb_ of what's due him," she pleaded. "Do you think I expect he'll love it? No. It's only the best I could do-the best I _can_ do-to save him the shock of finding it all awful. Oh, I didn't, I so don't want him to think we are-barbarians!"

She gave it out to me from the depths of her heart, and I accepted it completely, with no reservations or comments. It was the one real pa.s.sion of her life, as I've said. She was laying bare to me the utmost she had done and longed to do for Hurrell Oaks.

"To think that he is coming here!" she murmured. "I've waited and hoped so to see him-only to see him-it's about the most I've ever wanted. And it's going to happen, dear, in my own little rooms. He is coming to me!

Oh, you can't know what he's meant to me in all the years-how I've studied and striven to learn to be worthy of him! _All_-the little all I've got-I owe to him-everything. He's done more than anybody, alive or dead, to teach me to be interested in life-to make me happy."

She threw her long arms around my shoulders and pressed me to her, and kissed me on the forehead. The chapel clock struck ten.

"You'll come, too, won't you?" she asked, stepping back away from me in sudden cheerfulness. "For I want you to see how wonderful he will be."

She put her arms about me once more, and went with me to the door when I left. In her forgetfulness of all forms and codes she had become a perfect chatelaine. She opened the door almost reluctantly, and stepped out on to the meager landing, and stood there waving her hand and calling out after me until I had got well down the narrow staircase.

The day dawned at last. The hour had been set at five o'clock, as Miss Haviland's Shakespeare course wasn't over until three-thirty, and the faculty hadn't seen fit, after "mature consideration," to give her pupils a holiday. But the elect of Newfair were talking about the event, and discussing what to wear, and whether they ought to arrive on the dot of five or a few minutes after, or if they wouldn't be surer of seeing him "at his best" by coming a few minutes before.

I met Professor Norton again in the park that morning.

"All ready for this afternoon?" I asked him.

His lips went tight together, and quivered in and out over his small round beard as he tried to face me. And then he looked down away, and began digging another hole in the gravel walk with the broad toe of his congress boot. He shot a glance at me, in a moment, and gazed off at the falling leaves.

"Aren't you interested in Hurrell Oaks?" I persisted.