XII.
ANNE’S sojourn in Washington prolonged itself for a fortnight. Her letters to her mother, though punctual, were inexpressive; but that was not her fault, Kate knew. She had inherited from her father a certain heaviness of pen, an inability to convey on paper shades of meaning or of feeling, and having said: “Isn’t it splendid about Lilla?” had evidently exhausted the subject, or rather her power of developing it.
At length she returned, bringing with her some studies of magnolias that were freer and more vigorous than any of her previous work. She greeted her mother with her usual tenderness, and to Kate her coming was like a lifting of clouds and opening of windows; the mother had never supposed that anything in her life could ever again strike such deep roots as this passion for her daughter.Perfect love casteth out fear!“Does it?How does any one know?” she had often incredulously asked herself. But now, for the first time, love and security dwelt together in her in a kind of millennial quiet.
She grudged having to dine out on the evening of Anne’s return; but Mrs. Porter Lanfrey was celebratingLilla’s betrothal by a big dinner, with music afterward, and Anne, arriving by a late train, had barely time to dress before the motor was announced. There was no way of avoiding the festivity; its social significance was immeasurable. Mrs. Lanfrey was one of the hostesses who had dropped Lilla from their lists after the divorce, and Mrs. Lanfrey’s yea or nay was almost the last survival of the old social code in New York. Those she invited, at any rate, said that hers was the only house where there was a “tradition” left; and though Lilla, at this, used to growl: “Yes, the tradition of how to bore people,” her reinstatement visibly elated her as much as it did her family. To Enid Drover—resplendent in all her jewels—the event had already reversed the parts in her daughter’s matrimonial drama, and relegated all the obloquy to the outraged Gates. “Of course this evening shows what Jessie Lanfrey really thinks of Phil Gates,” Enid whispered to Mrs. Clephane as the sisters-in-law took off their cloaks in the marble hall; and Kate inwardly emended, with a faint smile: “Or what she really thinks of Horace Maclew.”
Mrs. Clephane had entered the vast Lanfrey drawing-room with a shrinking not produced by the presence of most of her own former censors and judges—now transformed into staunch champions or carelessly benevolent acquaintances—but by the dread of seeing, behind Mr. Maclew’s momentous bulk, a slighter figure and more vivid face. But themoment of suspense was not long; Chris was not there; nor was his name announced after her arrival. The guests were all assembled; the dining-room doors were thrown open, and Mrs. Lanfrey, taking Mr. Maclew’s arm, majestically closed the procession from walnut-and-gold to gold-and-marble—for the Lanfrey house was “tradition” made visible, and even themenuwas exactly what a previous transmitter of the faith had thought amenuought to be when Mrs. Lanfrey gave her first dinner.
For a moment Kate Clephane felt herself in the faint bewildered world, between waking and sleeping. There they all were, the faces that had walled in her youth; she was not sure, at first, if they belonged to the same persons, or had been handed on, as part of the tradition, to a new generation. It even occurred to her that, by the mere act of entering Mrs. Lanfrey’s drawing-room, the latter’s guests acquired a facial conformity that belonged to the Lanfrey plan as much as the fat prima-donna islanded in a sea of Aubusson who warbled an air fromLa Toscaexactly as a previous fat prima-donna had warbled it on the same spot years before. It seemed as if even Lilla, seated on a gilt sofa beside her betrothed, had smoothed her rebellious countenance to an official smirk. Only Anne and Nollie Tresselton resisted the enveloping conformity; Kate wondered if she herself were not stealthily beginning to resemble Enid Drover. “This is whatI ran away from,” she thought; and found more reasons than ever for her flight. “And after all, I have Anne back,” she murmured blissfully ... for that still justified the rest. Ah, how fate, in creating Anne, had baffled its own designs against Anne’s mother!
On the way home the girl was unusually silent. She leaned back against the cushions and let her lids drop. Was it because she was tired after her long day, or only because she was holding in her vision? Kate could not tell. In the passing flashes of the arc-lights the head at her side, bound about with dark braids, looked as firm and young as a Greek marble; Anne was still at the age when neither weariness nor anxiety mars the surface.
Kate Clephane always respected her daughter’s silences, and never felt herself excluded from them; but she was glad when, as they neared their door, Anne’s hand stole out to her. How many old breaches the touch healed! It was almost as if the girl had guessed how often Kate had driven up to that door inertly huddled in her corner, with her husband’s profile like a wall between her and the world beyond the windows.
“Dear! You seem to have been gone for months,” the mother said as they reached her sitting-room.
“Yes. So much has happened.” Anne spoke from far off, as if she were groping through a dream.
“But there’ll be time for all that tomorrow. You’re dead tired now—you’re falling with sleep.”
The girl opened her eyes wide, in the way she had when she came out of one of her fits of abstraction. “I’m not tired; I’m not sleepy.” She seemed to waver. “Can’t I come in and sit with you a little while?”
“Of course, dear.” Kate slipped an arm through hers, and they entered the shadowy welcoming room, lit by one veiled lamp and the faint red of the hearth. “After all, this is the best hour of the twenty-four for a talk,” the mother said, throwing herself back luxuriously on her lounge. It was delicious, after her fortnight of solitude, to think of talking things over with Anne. “And now tell me about everything,” she said.
“Yes; I want to.” Anne stood leaning against the chimney-piece, her head on her lifted arm. “There’s so much to say, isn’t there? Always, I mean—now that you and I are together. You don’t know the difference it makes, coming home to you, instead—” She broke off, and crossing the hearth knelt down by her mother. Their hands met, and the girl leant her forehead against Kate’s shoulder.
“I’ve been lonely too!” The confession sprang to Kate’s lips. Oh, if at last she might say it! But she dared not. The bond between her and her daughter was still too fragile; and how would suchan avowal sound on her lips? It was better to let Anne guess—
Anne did guess. “Youhavebeen happy here, haven’t you?”
“Happy? Little Anne!”
“And what a beautiful mother you are! Nollie was saying tonight that you’re younger looking every day. And nobody wears their clothes as you do. I knew from that old photograph that you were lovely; but I couldn’t guess that you hadn’t grown any older since it was taken.”
Kate lay still, letting the warmth of the words and the embrace flow through her. What praise had ever seemed as sweet? All the past faded in the sunset radiance of the present. “Little Anne,” she sighed again. The three syllables summed it all up.
Anne was silent for a moment; then she continued, her cheek still pressed against her mother: “I want you to stay here always, you know; I want the house to belong to you.”
“The house—?” Kate sat up with a start. The girl’s shoulder slipped from hers and they remained looking at each other, the space between them abruptly widened. “This house—belong to me? Why, what in the world—”
It was the first time such a question had arisen. On her arrival in America, when Landers, at Anne’s request, had tentatively broached the matter of financial arrangements, Kate had cut him short withthe declaration that she would gladly accept her daughter’s hospitality, but preferred not to receive any money beyond the small allowance she had always had from the Clephane estate. After some argument Landers had understood the uselessness of insisting, and had doubtless made Anne understand it; for the girl had never spoken of the subject to her mother.
Kate put out an encircling arm. “What in the world should I do with this house, dear? Besides—need we look so far ahead?”
For a moment Anne remained somewhat passively in her mother’s embrace; then she freed herself and went back to lean against the mantel. “That’s just it, dear; I think we must,” she said. “With such years and years before you—and all that lovely hair!” Her eyes still lingered smilingly on her mother.
Kate sat upright again, and brushed back the lovely hair from her bewildered temples. What did Anne mean? What was it she was trying to say? The mother began to tremble with an undefined apprehension; then the truth flashed over her.
“Dearest—you mean you may be married?”
The girl nodded, with the quick drop of the lids that called up such memories to her mother. “I couldn’t write it; I’m so bad at writing. I want you to be happy with me, darling. I’m going to marry Major Fenno.”