Life spun on. The Bradleys felt that they had never really lived before. They rushed, laughed, played cards, dressed, danced, and sat at delicious meals from morning until night. There were so many delightful plans continually waiting, that sometimes it was hard to choose between them. The Fieldings wanted them to dine, to meet friends from Chicago—but that was the same night that the Roses and Joe Underhill were going in to see the new musical comedy—
"This is Bert—" a voice at Nancy's telephone would say, in the middle of a sweet October morning, "Nance…Tom Ingram picked me up, and brought me in…and he was saying that Mrs. Ingram has to come into town this afternoon…and that, since you do, why don't you have Pierre bring you both in in the car, and meet us after your shopping, and have a little dinner somewhere and take in a show? You can let Pierre go back, do you see? … and the Ingrams will bring us back in their car. Now, can you get hold of Mrs. Ingram, and fix it up, and telephone me later? …"
Nancy's first thought, so strong is habit, might be that she had just secured ducks for dinner, Bert's favourite dinner, and that she had promised Anne to take her with her brothers to see the big cows and prize sheep at the Mineola Fair. But that could wait, and if Anne and the boys were promised a little party, and ice cream—and if Pauline had no dinner to get she would readily make the ice cream—
"Ingram is here… he wants to know what you think…" Bert's impatient voice might say. And Nancy felt that she had no choice but to respond:
"That will be lovely, Bert! I'll get hold of Mrs. Ingram right away.And I'll positively telephone you in fifteen minutes."
The rest of the day would be rush and excitement, Nancy felt that she never would grow used to the delicious idleness of it all. During the week there were evenings that might have been as quiet as the old evenings, nothing happened, and if anybody came in it was only the Fieldings, or Mrs. Underhill and her son, for a game of bridge. But domestic peace is a habit, after all, and the Bradleys had lost the habit. Nancy was restless, beside her own hearth, even while she spangled a gown for the Hallowe'en ball, and discussed with Bert the details of the paper chase at the club, and the hunt breakfast to follow. She would ask Bert what the others were doing to-night, and would spring up full of eager anticipation when the inevitable rap of the brass knocker came.
Saturdays and Sundays were almost always a time of complete absorption. Everyone had company to entertain, everyone had plans. Nancy and Bert would come gaily into their home, on a Saturday afternoon, flushed from a luncheon party, and would entertain the noisy crowd in the dining room. After that the chugging of motors began again on the drive, and the watching children saw their parents depart in a trail of gay laughter.
There was a brief halt when a fourth child, Priscilla, was born. It was in the quiet days that followed Priscilla's birth, that the Bradleys began to look certain unpleasant facts squarely in the face. They were running steadily deeper and deeper into debt. There were no sensational expenditures, but there were odd bills left unpaid, from midsummer, from early fall, from Christmas.
"And I don't see where we can cut down," said Bert, gloomily.
It was dusk of a bitter winter day. Nancy was lying on a wide couch beside her bedroom fire, Priscilla snuffled in a bassinet near by. In a lighted room adjoining, a nurse was washing bottles. The coming of the second daughter had somehow brought husband and wife nearer together than they had been for a long time, even now Nancy had been wrapped in peaceful thought; this was like the old times, when she had been tired and weak, and Bert had sat and talked about things, beside her! She brought her mind resolutely to bear upon all the distasteful suggestions contained in his involuntary remark.
"What specially worries you, Bert?" she asked.
He turned to her in quick gratitude for her sympathy.
"Nothing special, dear. We just get in deeper and deeper, that's all. The table, and the servants, and the car, and your bill at Landmann's—nothing stays within any limit any more! I don't know where we stand, half the time. It's not that!" He pulled at his pipe for a moment in silence. "It's not that!" he burst out, "but I don't think we get much out of it!"
Nancy glanced at him quickly, and then stared into the fire for a moment of silence. Then she said in a low tone:
"I don't believe we do!"
"I like Biggerstaff—and I like Rose and Fielding well enough!" Bert added presently, after profound thought, "but I don't like 'em all day and all night! I don't like this business of framing something up every Sunday—a lot of fur coats and robes, and all of us getting out half-frozen to eat dinners we don't want, all over the place—"
"And hours and hours of making talk with women I really don't care about, for me!" Nancy said. "I love Mary Ingram," she said presently, "and the Biggerstaffs. But that's about all."
"Exactly," said her husband grimly. "But it's not the Ingrams nor theBiggerstaffs who made our club bill sixty dollars this month," he added.
"Bert! It wasn't!"
"Oh, yes it was. Everyone of us had to take four tickets to the dance, you know, and we had two bottles of wine New Year's Eve; it all counts up. But part of it was for Atherton, that cousin of Collins, he asked me to sign for him because he had more than the regulation number of guests!"
"But Bert, he'll surely pay you?"
"Maybe he will, maybe he won't; it's just one of those things you can't mention."
"I could let Hannah go," mused Nancy, "but in the rush last summer I let her help Pauline—waiting on table. Now Pauline won't set her foot out of the kitchen for love or money."
"And Pauline is wished on us as long as we keep Pierre," Bert said, "No, you'll need 'em all now, with the baby to run. But we'll try to pull in a little where we can. My bills for the car are pretty heavy, and we've got a Tiffany bill for the Fielding kid's present, and the prizes for the card party. That school of the boys—it's worth all this, is it?"
Nancy did not answer; her brow was clouded with thought. Doctor, school, maids, car, table—it was all legitimate expense. Where might it be cut? For a few minutes they sat in silence, thinking. Then Bert sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and walked over to look down at Priscilla.
"Hello, Goo-goo!" said he: "You're having a grand little time with your blanket, aren't you?"
"I'll truly take the whole thing in hand," Nancy said, noticing with a little pang that dear old Bert was looking older, and grayer, than he had a few years ago. "When I come downstairs, self-denial week will set in!"
Her tone brought him to her side; he stooped to kiss the smiling face between the thick braids.
"You always stand by me, Nance!" he said gratefully.
There was no stopping half way, however. The current had caught the Bradleys and it carried them on. There was no expense that could be lessened without weakening the whole structure. Nancy grew sick of bills, bills that came in the mail, that were delivered, and that piled up on her desk. She honestly racked her brain to discover the honourable solution; there was no solution. Even while she pondered, Priscilla in her arms, the machinery that she and Bert had so eagerly constructed went on of its own power.
"The cleaner's man, Hannah?" Nancy would ask, sighing. "You'll have to give him all those things; the boys' white coats are absolutely no good to them until they're cleaned, and Mr. Bradley really needs the vests. And put in my blue waist, and all those gloves, and the lace waist, too—no use letting it wait!"
"The things to-day came collect, Mrs. Bradley," Hannah might respectfully remind her.
"Oh, of course! And how much was it?—eleven-forty? Heavens! What made it so big?"
"Two suits, and your velvet dress, and one of Anne's dresses. And the man came for your furs this morning, and the awning place telephoned that they would send a man out to measure the porches. Mr. Bradley sent a man back from the station to ask you about plants; but you were asleep, and I didn't like to wake you!"
It was always something. Just as Nancy thought that the household expenses had been put behind her for a few days at least, a fresh crop sprang up. A room must be papered, the spare room needed curtains, Bert's racket was broken, the children clamoured for new bathing-suits. Nancy knew two moods in the matter. There was the mood in which she simply refused to spend money, and talked darkly to the children of changes, and a life devoid of all this ridiculous waste; and there was the mood in which she told herself desperately that they would get through somehow, everyone else did, one had to live, after all. In the latter mood she ordered new glasses and new towels, and white shoes for all four children, and bottles of maraschino cherries, and tins of caviar and the latest novel, and four veils at a time.
"Mrs. Albert Bradley, Marlborough Gardens—by self," Nancy said smoothly, swimming through the great city shops. Sometimes she was a little scared when the boxes and boxes and boxes came home, but after all, they really needed the things, she told herself. But needed or not, she and Bert began to quarrel about money, and to resent each other's extravagances. The sense of an underlying financial distress permeated everything they did; Nancy's face developed new expressions, she had a sharp look for the moment in which Bert told her that he was going to take their boys and the Underhill boys to the Hippodrome, or that he was going to play poker again. Bert rarely commented upon her own recklessness, further than to patiently ejaculate, "Lord!"
"Why do you say that, Bert?" she might ask, with violent self-control.
"Nothing, my dear, nothing!" Bert would return to his newspaper, or his razor. "I was just thinking. No matter!"
Nancy would stand, eyeing him sulphurously.
"But just what do you mean, Bert?" she would pursue. "Do you mean that you don't think I should have gotten the suit? I can't wear that fur-trimmed suit into the summer, you know. The hat was eighteen dollars—do you think there's another woman in the Gardens who pays no more than that? Lots of men haven't four lovely children and a home to support, they haven't wives who make all their friends welcome, as I do. Perhaps you feel that they are better off? If you don't—I don't see what you have to complain about. …" And she would take her own way of punishing him for his air of detachment and superiority. Bert was not blameless, himself. It was all very well for Bert to talk of economy and self-denial, but Bert himself paid twelve dollars a pair for his golf-shoes, and was the first man at the club to order champagne at the dance suppers.
Smouldering with indignation, Nancy would shrug off her misgivings. Why should she hesitate over furs and new hangings for the study and the present for the Appletons, when Bert was so reckless? It would all be paid for, somehow.
"And why should I worry," Nancy asked herself, "and try to save a few cents here and there, when Bert is simply flinging money right and left?"
But for all her ready argument, Nancy was sometimes wretchedly unhappy. She had many a bitter cry about it all—tears interrupted by the honking of motors in the road, and ended with a dash of powder, a cold towel pressed to hot eyes, and the cheerful fiction of a headache. It was all very well to laugh and chat over the tea-cups, to accept compliments upon her lovely home and her lovely children, but she knew herself a hypocrite even while she did so. She could not say what was wrong, but something was wrong.
Even the children seemed changed to her in these days. The boys were nice-looking, grinning little lads, in their linen suits and white canvas hats, but somehow they did not seem to belong to her any more. Her own boys, whose high chairs had stood in her kitchen a few years ago, while she cut cookies for them and their father, seemed to have no confidences to unfold, and no hopes to share with their mother, now. Sometimes they quite obviously avoided the society of the person who must eternally send them to wash their hands, and exclaim at the condition of their knees. Sometimes they whined and teased to go with her in the motor, and had to be sternly asked by their father if they wished to be punished. Pierre took them about with him on week days, and they played with the other boys of the Gardens, eating too much and staying up too late, but rarely in the way.
Anne was a shy, inarticulate little blonde now, thin, sensitive, and plain. Her hair was straight, and she had lost her baby curls. Nancy did what she could for her, with severe little smocks of blue and lemon colour, and duly started her to school with the boys. But Anne cried herself into being sick, at school, and it was decided to keep her at home for a while. So Anne followed Agnes about, Agnes and the radiant Priscilla, who was giggling her way through a dimpled, rose-pink babyhood; the best of the four, and the easiest to manage. Priscilla chewed her blue ribbons peacefully, through all domestic ups and downs, and never cried when the grown-ups went away, and left her with Agnes.
Worse than any real or fancied change in the children, however, was the unmistakable change in Bert. Heartsick, Nancy saw it. It was not that he failed as a husband, Bert would never do that; but the bloom seemed gone from their relationship, and Nancy felt sometimes that he was almost a stranger. He never looked at her any more, really looked at her, in the old way. He hardly listened to her, when she tried to engage him in casual talk; to hold him she must speak of the immediate event—the message Joe had left for him, the plan for to-morrow's luncheon. He was popular with the men, and his wife would hear him chucklingly completing arrangements with them for this affair or that, even while she was frantically indicating, with everything short of actual speech, that she did not want to go to Little Mateo's to dinner; she did not want to be put into the Fieldings' car, while he went off with Oliver Rose in his roadster.
"Are you crazy!" she would exclaim, in a fierce undertone when they were upstairs dressing, "Didn't you see that I don't want to go to-night? I can't understand you sometimes. Bert, you'll fall in with a plan that I absolutely—"
"Now, look here, Nancy, look here! Weren't you and Mrs. Rose the two that cooked this whole scheme up last night—"
"She suggested it, and I merely said that I thought SOMETIME it would be fun—"
"Oh, well, if you plan a thing and then go back on it—"
This led nowhere. In silence the Bradleys would finish their dressing, in silence descend to the joyous uproar of the cars. But Nancy despaired of the possibility of ever impressing Bert, through a dignified silence, with a sense of her displeasure. How could she possibly be silent under these circumstances? What was the use, anyway? Bert was tired, irritable, he had not meant to annoy her. It was just that they both were nervously tense; presently they would find some way of lessening the strain.
But—she began to wish that he would not drink quite so much. The other men did, of course, but then they were more used to it than Bert. Perhaps this constant stimulation accounted for Bert's nervous irritability, for the indefinable hardening and estranging. Nancy was not prudish, she had seen wine on her father's table since she was a baby, she enjoyed it herself, now and then. But to have cocktails served even at the women's luncheons; to have every host, whatever the meal, preface it with the slishing of chopped ice and the clink of tiny glasses, worried her. Bert even mixed a cocktail when he and she dined alone now, and she knew that when he had had two or three, he would want something more, would eagerly ask her if she would like to "stir up something" for the evening—how about a run over to the Ocean House, with the Fieldings? And wherever they went, there was more drinking.
"Let's make a rule," she proposed one day. "Let's confine our hospitality to persons we really and truly like. Nobody shall come here without express invitation!"
"You're on!" Bert agreed enthusiastically.
Ten minutes later it chanced that two motor-loads of persons they both thoroughly disliked poured into Holly Court, and Nancy rushed out to scramble some sandwiches together in the frigid atmosphere of the kitchen, where Pauline and Hannah were sourly attacking the ruins of a company lunch.
"It's maddening," she said to Bert, later, when the intruders had honked away into the late summer afternoon, "But what can we do? Such a sweet day, and we have that noisy crowd to lunch, and then this!"
"Well, we're having a lot of fun out of it, anyway!" Bert said, half-heartedly. Nancy did not answer.
But Nancy began to ask herself seriously; was it such fun? When house and maids and children, garden, car, table-linen and clothes had all been brought to the standard of Marlborough Gardens, was the result worth while? Who enjoyed them, who praised them? It was all taken for granted here; the other women were too deep in their own problems to note more than the satisfactory fact; the Bradleys kept the social law.
It was a terrible law. It meant that Nancy must spend every waking moment of her life in thought about constantly changing trifles—about the strip of embroidered linen that curtained the door, about the spoons that were placed on the table, about a hundred details of her dress, about every towel and plate, every stocking and hat-pin she possessed. She must watch the other women, and see how salad-dressing must be served, and what was the correct disposition of grapefruit. And more than that she must be reasonably conversant with the books and poetry of the day, the plays and the political atmosphere. She must always have the right clothing to wear, and be ready to change her plans at any time. She must be ready to run gaily down to the door at the most casual interruption; leaving Agnes to finish Priscilla's bath just because Seward Smith felt in a mood to come and discuss the fairness of golf handicaps with his pretty, sensible neighbour.
She did not realize that she had been happier years ago, when every step Junior and Ned and Anne took was with Mother's hand for guide, but she often found herself thinking of those days with a sort of wistful pain at her heart. Life had had a flavour then that it somehow lacked now. She had been tired, she had been too busy. But what richness the memories had; memories of three small heads about a kitchen table, memories of limp little socks and crumpled little garments left like dropped petals in Mother's lap, at the end of the long day.
"Are we the same people?" mused Nancy. "Have I really my car and my man; is it the same old Bert whose buckskin pumps and whose silk handkerchiefs are imitated by all these rich men? No wonder we've lost our bearings a little, we've gone ahead—if it IS ahead—too fast!"
They were getting from life, she mused, just what everyone wanted to get from life; home, friends, children, amusement. They lived near the greatest city, they could have anything that art and science provided, for the mere buying, no king could sleep in a softer bed, or eat more delicious fare. When Mary Ingram asked Nancy to go to the opera matinee with her, Nancy met women whose names had been only a joke to her, a few years ago. She found them rather like other persons, simple, friendly, interested in their nurseries and their gardens and anxious to reach their own firesides for tea. When Nancy and Bert went out with the Fieldings they had a different experience; they had dinners that were works of art, the finest box in the theatre, and wines that came cobwebbed and dusty to the table.
So that there was no height left to scale; "if we could only afford it," mused Nancy. Belle Fielding could afford it, of course; her trouble was that the Fielding name was perhaps a trifle too surely connected with fabulous sums of money. And Mary Ingram could afford anything, despite her simple clothes and her fancy for long tramps and quiet evenings with her delicate husband and two big boys. Nancy sometimes wondered that with the Ingram income anyone could be satisfied with Marlborough Gardens, but after all, what was there better in all the world? Europe?—but that meant hotel cooking for the man. Nancy visualized an apartment in a big city hotel, a bungalow in California, a villa in Italy, and came back to the Gardens. Nothing was finer than this.
"If we could only appreciate it!" she said again, sighing. "And if we need only see the people we like—and if time didn't fly so!" And of course if there were more money! She reflected that if she might go back a few years, to the time of their arrival at the Gardens, she might build far more wisely for her own happiness and Bert's. They had been drawn in, they had followed the crowd, it was impossible to withdraw now. Nancy knew that something was troubling Bert in these days, she guessed it to be the one real cause for worry. She began almost to hope that he felt financial trouble near, it would be a relief to fling aside, the whole pretence to say openly and boldly, "we must economize," and to go back to honest, simple living again. They could rent Holly Court—
Fired with enthusiasm, she looked for her check book, and for Bert's, and with the counterfoils before her made some long calculations. The result horrified her. She and Bert between them had spent ten thousand dollars in twelve months. Nearly ten times the sum upon which they had been so happy, years ago! The loans upon the property still stood, twelve thousand dollars, and the additional three, they had never touched it. There was a bank balance, of course, but as Nancy courageously opened and read bill after bill, and flattened the whole into orderly pile under a paper weight, she saw their total far exceeded the money on hand to meet them. They could wait of course, but meanwhile debts were not standing still.
It was a quiet August afternoon; the house was still, but from the shady lawn on the water side, Nancy could hear Priscilla crooning like a dove, and hear Agnes's low voice, and Anne's high-pitched little treble. For a long while she sat staring into space, her brows knit. Ten thousand dollars—when they could have lived luxuriously for five! The figures actually frightened her. Why, they should have cleared off half the mortgage now, they might easily have cleared it all. And if anything happened to Bert, what of herself and the four children left absolutely penniless, with a mortgaged home?
"This is wicked," Nancy decided soberly. "It isn't conscientious. We both must be going crazy, to go on as we do. I am going to have a long talk with Bert to-night. This can't go on!"
"Interrupting?" smiled pretty Mrs. Seward Smith, from the Dutch doorway.
Nancy jumped up, full of hospitality.
"Oh, come in, Mrs. Smith. I was just going over my accounts—"
"You are the cleverest creature; fancy doing that with everything else you do!" the caller said, dropping into a chair. "I'm only here for one second—and I'm bringing two messages from my husband. The first is, that he has your tickets for the tennis tournament with ours, we'll all be together; so tell Mr. Bradley that he mustn't get them. And then, what did you decide about the hospital? You see Mr. Ingram promised fifty dollars if we could find nine other men to promise that, and make it an even thousand from the Gardens, and Mr. Bradley said that even if he only gave twenty-five himself he would find someone else to give the other twenty-five. Tell him there's no hurry, but Ward wants to know sometime before the first. I didn't know whether he remembered it or not."
"I'll remind him!" Nancy promised brightly. She walked with her guest to the car, and stood in the bright warm clear sunlight smiling good-byes. "So many thanks for the tickets—and I'll tell Bert about the hospital to-night!"
But when the car was gone she went slowly back. She eyed the cool porchway sombrely, the opened casement windows, the blazing geraniums in their boxes. Pauline was hanging checked glass towels on the line, Nancy caught a glimpse of her big bare arms, over the brick wall that shielded the kitchen yard. It was a lovely home, it was a most successful establishment; surely, surely, things would improve, it would never be necessary to go away from Holly Court.
Bert was very late, that night. The children were all asleep, and Nancy had dined, and was dreaming over her black coffee when, at nine o'clock, he came in. He was not hungry—just hot and tired—he wanted something cool. He had lunched late, in town, with both the Pearsalls, had not left the table until four o'clock. And he had news for her. He was leaving Pearsall and Pearsall.
Nancy looked at him stupefied. What did he mean? Panic seized her, and under her panic something rose and exulted. Perhaps it was trouble—perhaps Bert needed his wife again!
"I'm going in for myself," said Bert. "Now, don't look so scared; it may be slow for a while, but there's big money in it, for me. I'm going to be Albert Bradley, Real Estate. You see, I've been advising Fred to handle this new proposition, down the Island, but he's young, and he's rich, and his father's an old man. Fred won't keep up the business when old Buck retires. He didn't want to handle it and they both asked me why I didn't go into it for myself. There's a pot of money in it, Nance, if I can swing it. However, I never thought of it until Biggerstaff asked me if I knew about anything of that kind—he's got some money to put in, and so has Ingram. This was last week. Well, I went to see. …"
Nancy listened, frightened and thrilled. Fear was uppermost; before this she had seen something of daring business ventures in her southern childhood. But on the other hand, there was the possibility of "big money," and they needed money! They needed, as Bert said, to get out of the ranks, to push in before the next fellow pushed in. She had a vision of herself telling the other women of the Gardens that Mr. Bradley had gone into business for himself; that the Pearsalls were going to throw anything they could his way. It sounded dignified—Bert with a letter head, and an office in Broadway!
She was lost in a complacent dream when Bert's voice awakened her.
"So that, if Buck does lend it, that means the interest on fifty thousand. …"
"Fifty thousand?" Nancy repeated, alarmed.
"Well, perhaps not quite that. I've got to figure it as closely as I can. …" Nancy's colour had faded a trifle.
"Bert, you would be MAD to get into it, or into anything, as deep as that!" she said breathlessly. Bert, dashed in the midst of his confident calculations, turned something like a snarl upon her.
"Well, what am I going to do?" he asked angrily. "It's all very well for you to sit there and advise me to keep out of it, but what am I going to do? It's a chance, and I believe in taking it. I know my market, I know how these things are handled. If I can swing this in the next three or four years, I can swing other things. It means that we step right into the rich class—"
"But if you fail—?" Nancy suggested, impressed in spite of herself.
"You keep your end of things going," he urged her, in a sombre voice, "and I'll take care of mine!"
"I'll try, Bert, I'll do the best I can." With something of her old, comradely spirit, she laid her hand on his arm. "I'll let Hannah go—at least I will as soon as the Berrys' visit is over. And what about our going to the Sewalls', Bert, that's going to be an expensive trip. Shall I get out of that?"
"No," Bert decided thoughtfully. "I may want to get Sewall into this thing. We'll have to go there—I wish to the deuce we could get rid of Pauline and Pierre; but I don't see myself taking care of the car, somehow!"
"Everyone envies us Pauline," Nancy observed. And seeing that he was still scowling thoughtfully at his black-coffee cup, she touched his hand affectionately again, and set herself seriously to soothe him. "But we'll find ways of economizing, dear. I'll watch the bills, and I'll scold Pauline again about the butter and eggs and meat that she wastes. You must remember that you have a big family, Bert. You're raising four healthy children, and you have a car, and a man, and a beautiful home, and a delightful group of friends, and two or three fine clubs—"
But for once Bert was not easily quieted. He put his head in his hands and gave a sort of groan.
"Don't tell me what I've got—I know it all! Lord, I lie awake nights wondering what would happen to the crowd of you—However!" And dismissing the topic, he glanced at his watch. "I think I'll turn in before anybody comes in, Nance. I need sleep." With a long tired yawn, he started for the big square stairway; paused at her desk. "What're all those?"
"Bills, Bert. I'm sorry to have you see them now. But we ought to pay some of them—I've been going over things, this afternoon. Now, especially if you're going to make a fresh start, we ought to straighten things out. We ought to plan that we can spend so much money, and stick to that."
Bert flipped the pile with a careless finger.
"We never will!" he said morosely. "We never HAVE."
"Oh, Bert—we used to clear everything off on the first of the month, and then celebrate, don't you remember?"
He jerked his head impatiently.
"What's the use of harking back to that? That was years ago, and things are different now. We'll pull out of it, I'm not worried. Only, where we can, I think we ought to cut down."
"Dentist—" Nancy said musingly. She had come over to stand beside him, and now glanced at one of the topmost bills. "You HAVE to have a dentist," she argued.
"Well, I'm too tired to go over 'em now!" Bert said, unsympathetically."Leave 'em there—I'll take them all up in a day or two!"
"But I was thinking," Nancy said, following him upstairs, "That while you are about it, borrowing money for the new venture, you know—why not borrow an extra thousand or two, and clear this all up, and then we can really start fresh. You see interest on a thousand is only fifty dollars a year, and that—"
"That's nonsense!" Bert answered, harshly, "Borrowing money for a business is one thing, and borrowing money to pay for household bills is another! I don't propose to shame myself before men like Biggerstaff and Ingram by telling them that I can't pay my butcher's bill!"
"I wish you wouldn't take that tone with me," Nancy said, sharply, "I merely meant to make a suggestion that might be helpful—"
A bitter quarrel followed, the bitterest they had ever known. Bert left the house without speaking to his wife the next morning, and Nancy looked out into the still August sunshine with a heavy weight on her heart, as, scowling, he wheeled the car under the maples, and swept away. She went about all day long silent and brooding, answering the children vaguely, and with occasional deep sighs. She told Mrs. Smith that Mr. Bradley would let her know about the hospital money right away, and planned a day at the tennis tournament, and a dinner after it, between periods of actual pain. It was all so stupid—it was all so sad and hopeless and unnecessary!
Bert had not meant what he said to her; she had not meant what she said to him, and they both knew it. But an ugly silence lasted between them for several days. They spoke to each other civilly, before other people; they dressed and went about with an outward semblance of pleasantness, and at home they spoke to the servants and the children.
No formal reconciliation ended this time of discomfort. Guests came to the house, and Bert addressed his wife with some faint spontaneity, and Nancy eagerly answered him. They never alluded to the quarrel; it might have been better if they had argued and cried and laughed away the pain, in the old way.
But they needed each other less now, and life was too full to be checked by a few moments of misunderstanding. Nancy learned to keep absolutely silent when Bert was launched upon one of his favourite tirades against her extravagance; perhaps the most maddening attitude she could have assumed. She would listen politely, her eyes wandering, her thoughts quite as obviously astray.
"But a lot you care!" Bert would finish angrily, "You go on and on, it's charge and charge and charge—SOMEBODY'LL pay for it all! You've got to do as the other women do, no matter how crazy it is! I ask you—I ask you honestly, do you know what our Landmann bill was last month?"
"I've told you I didn't know, Bert," Nancy might answer patiently.
"Well, you ought to know!"
"I know this," Nancy sometimes said gently, "that you are not yourself to-day; you've been eating too much, drinking too much, and going too hard. You can't do it, Bert, you aren't made that way. …"
Then it was Bert's turn to be icily silent, under the pleasant, even tones of his wife's voice. Sometimes he desperately planned to break the rule of hospitality, to frighten Nancy by letting guests and neighbours see that something was wrong with the Bradleys. But he never had courage enough, it always seemed simpler and wiser to keep the surface smooth. Nancy, on her part, saw that there was nothing to gain by a break of any sort. Bert was not the type to be intimidated by sulks and silences, and more definite steps might quickly carry the situation out of her hands. The present with Bert was difficult, but a future that did not include him was simply unthinkable. No, a woman who had four young children to consider had no redress; she could only endure. Nancy liked the martyr role, and frequently had cause, or imagined she had cause, for assuming it.
"The whole trouble is that Bert loves neither the children nor myself any more!" she decided bitterly, on a certain August afternoon, when, with three other young wives and mothers, she was playing bridge at the club. It was a Saturday, and Bert was on the tennis courts, where the semi-finals in the tournament were being played. Nancy had watched all morning, and had lunched with the other women; the men merely snatched lunch, still talking of the play. Nancy had noticed disapprovingly that Bert was flushed and excited, her asides to him seemed to fall upon unhearing ears. He seemed entirely absorbed in what Oliver Rose and Joe Underhill were saying; he had lost his own chance for the cup, but was in high spirits, and was to umpire the afternoon games.
After luncheon Nancy rather discontentedly settled down to bridge, with Elsie Fielding, Ruth Biggerstaff and a young Mrs. Billings who had only recently come back to her home in the Gardens, after some years of travel. They were all pretty and gracious women, and just such a group as the Nancy of a few years ago would have envied heartily.
But to-day she felt deeply depressed, she knew not why. Perhaps watching the tennis had given her a slight headache; perhaps Bert's cavalier treatment of her latest idea of economizing, submitted to him only a few hours ago, still rankled in her breast.
"Bert," she had said to him suddenly, during a breakfast-table dissertation in which he had dwelt upon the business capability of some women, and the utter lack of it in others, "Why not rent Holly Court and go somewhere else for a year or two?"
Even as she spoke she had been smitten with a sudden dread of all this must entail for herself. But before she could qualify it, Bert's angry and impatient answer had come:
"Don't talk nonsense! Do you want everyone to think that, now I'm out for myself, I can't make a go of it? What would Ingram and Biggerstaff think, if I began to talk money tightness? I didn't leave the firm, and strike out for myself to give in this soon!"
Nancy had shrunk back, instantly silenced. She had not spoken to him again until Oliver Rose called, to remind them of the tennis, and then, hating herself while she did it, Nancy had forced herself to speak to Bert, and Bert had somewhat gruffly replied. Once at the club, all signs of the storm must be quickly brushed aside, but the lingering clouds lay over her heart now, and she felt desolate and troubled. She did not want to excuse herself and go home, she did not want to go out and watch more tennis, but she felt vaguely that she did not want to play bridge, either. The other women bored her.
Dummy again. She seemed to be dummy often, this afternoon. They were playing for quarter cents, but even that low stake, Nancy thought irritably, ran up into a considerable sum, when one's partner bid as madly as young Mrs. Billings bid. She was doubled, and redoubled, and she lost and lost; Nancy saw Elsie's white hand, with its gold pencil, daintily scoring four hundred—two hundred—three hundred.
"I thought I might as well try it," said Mrs. Billings blithely, "but you didn't give me much help, partner!"
"I didn't bid, you know," Nancy reminded her.
"Oh, I know you didn't—it was entirely my own fault! Well, now, let's try again. …"
Suddenly it seemed to Nancy all wrong—her sitting here in the tempered summer light, playing cards throughout the afternoon. Inherited from some conscientious ancestor, shame stirred for a few minutes in her blood and she hated herself, and the club, and the women she played with. This was not a woman's work in the world. Her children scattered about their own affairs, her household in the hands of strange women, her husband playing another game, with other idle men, and she, the wife and mother and manager, sitting idle, with bits of pasteboard in her hands. She was not even at home, she was in a public club—
She laughed out, as the primitive wave of feeling brought her to the crude analysis. It was funny—life was funny. For a few strange minutes she felt as curiously alien to the Marlborough Gardens Yacht Club as if she had been dropped from another world on to its porch. She had been a tired, busy woman, a few years ago; by what witchcraft had she been brought to this? Mrs. Billings was playing four hearts, doubled. Nancy was too deep in uneasy thought to care much what befell the hand. She began to plan changes, always her panacea in a dark mood. She would give up daytime playing, like Mary Ingram. And she would never play except at home, or in some other woman's home. Nancy was no prude, but she was suddenly ashamed. She was ashamed to have new-comers at the club pass by, and see that she had nothing else to do, this afternoon, but watch a card game.
Sam Biggerstaff came to the door, and nodded to his wife. Nancy smiled at him; "Will I do?" No, he wanted Ruth.
So his wife put her cards in Nancy's hand, and went out to talk to him.Nancy laughed, when she came back.
"You score two tricks doubled, Ruth. I think that's too hard, after I played them!"
"Shameful!" said Mrs. Biggerstaff, in her breathless way, slipping into her seat. Two or three more hands were played, then Mrs. Fielding said suddenly:
"Is the tennis finished? Who won? Aren't they all quiet—all of a sudden?"
The other two women glanced up idly, but Mrs. Biggerstaff said quietly:
"I dealt. No trumps."
"Right off, like that!" Nancy laughed. But Mrs. Billings said:
"No—but AREN'T they quiet? And they were making such a noise! You know they were clapping and laughing so, a few minutes ago!"
"They must have finished," Mrs. Fielding said, looking at her hand quizzically. "You said no trump. Partner, let's try two spades!"
"Billy was going to come in to tell me," persisted Mrs. Billings, "Just wait a minute—!" And leaning back in her chair, she called toward the tea-room. "Steward; will you send one of the boys down to ask how the tennis went? Tell Mr. Billings I want to know how it went!"
The steward came deferentially forward.
"I believe they didn't finish their game, Mrs. Billings. The fire—you know. I think all the gentlemen went to the fire—"
"Where is there a fire!" demanded two or three voices. Nancy's surprised eyes went from the steward's face to Mrs. Biggerstaff's, and some instinct acted long before her fear could act, and she felt her soul grow sick within her.
"Where is it?" she asked, with a thickening throat, and then suspiciously and fearfully. "Ruth, WHERE WAS IT?" And even while she asked, she said to herself, with a wild hurry and flutter of mind and heart, "It's our house—that's what Sam stopped to tell Ruth—it's Holly Court—but I don't care—I don't care, as long as Agnes was there, to get the children out—"
It was all instantaneous, the steward's stammering explanation, Ruth Biggerstaff's terrified eyes, the little whimper of fear and sympathy from the other women. Nancy felt that there was more—more—
"What'd Sam tell you, Ruth? For God's sake—"
"Now, Nancy—now, Nancy—" said the Mrs. Biggerstaff, panting like a frightened child, "Sam said you weren't to be frightened—we don't know a thing—listen, dear, we'll telephone! That's what we'll do—it was silly of me, but I thought perhaps we could keep you from being scared—from just this—"
"But—but what did you hear, Ruth? Who sent in the alarm?" Nancy asked, with dry lips. She was at the club, and Holly Court seemed a thousand impassable miles away. To get home—to get home—
"Your Pauline telephoned! Nancy, wait! And she distinctly said—Sam told this of his own accord—" Mrs. Biggerstaff had her arms tight about Nancy, who was trembling very much. Nancy's agonized look was fixed with pathetic childish faith upon the other woman's eyes. "Sam told me that she distinctly said that the children were all out with Agnes! She asked to speak to Bert, but Bert was watching a side-line, so Sam came—"
Nancy's gaze flashed to the clock that ticked placidly over the wide doorway. Three o'clock. And three o'clock said, as clearly as words "Priscilla's nap." Agnes had tucked her in her crib, with a "cacker"—and had taken the other children for their promised walk with the new puppy. Pauline had rushed out of the house at the first alarm—
And Priscilla's mother was here at the club. Nancy felt that she was going to get dizzy, she turned an ashen face to Mrs. Biggerstaff.
"The baby—Priscilla!" she said, in a sharp whisper. "Oh, Ruth—did they remember her! Oh, God, did they remember her! Oh, baby—baby!"
The last words were no more than a breath of utter agony. A second later Nancy turned, and ran. She did not hear the protest that followed her, nor realize that, as she had taken off her wide-brimmed hat for the card-game, she was bare-headed under the burning August sun. She choked back the scream that seemed her only possible utterance, and fought the deadly faintness that assailed her. Unhearing, unseeing, unthinking, she ran across the porch, and down the steps to the drive.
Here she paused, checkmated. For every one of the motor-sheds was empty, and not a car was in sight on the lawns or driveway, where usually a score of them stood. The green, clipped grass, and the blossoming shrubs, baking in the afternoon heat, were silent and deserted. The flame of geraniums, and the dazzle of the empty white courts, smote her eyes. She heard Mrs. Fielding's feet flying down the steps, and turned a bewildered, white face toward her.
"Elsie—there's not a car! What shall I do?"
"Listen, dear," said the new-comer, breathlessly, "Ruth is telephoning for a car—"
But Nancy's breath caught on a short, dry sob, and she shook her head.
"All the way to the village—it can't be here for half an hour! Oh, no,I can't wait—I can't wait—"
And quite without knowing what she did, or hoped to do, she began to run. The crunched gravel beneath her flying feet was hot, and the mile of road between her and Holly Court lay partly in the white sunlight, but she thought only of Priscilla—the happy, good, inexacting little baby, who had been put in her crib—with her "cacker"—and left there—and left there—
"My baby!" she said out loud, in a voice of agony. "You were having your nap—and mother a mile away!"
She passed the big stone gateway of the club, and the road—endless it looked—lay before her. Nancy felt as helpless as one bound in a malignant dream. She could make no progress, her most frantic efforts seemed hardly more than standing still. A sharp pain sprang to her side, she pressed her hand over it. No use; she would only kill herself that way, she must get her breath.
Oh, why had she left her—even for a single second! So small, so gay, so helpless; how could any mother leave her. She had been so merry, in her high chair at breakfast, she had toddled off so dutifully with Agnes, when Nancy had left the doleful boys and the whimpering Anne, to go to the club. The little gold crown of hair—the small buckskin slippers—Nancy could see them now. They were the real things, and it was only a terrible dream that she was running here through the merciless heat—
"Get in here, Mrs. Bradley!" said a voice. One of the Ingram boys had brought his roadster to a stop beside her. She turned upon him her tear-streaked face.
"Oh, Bob, tell me—what's happened?"
"I don't know," he said, in deep concern. "I just happened to go into the club, and Mrs. Biggerstaff sent me after you! I don't know—I guess it's not much of a fire!"
Nancy did not answer. She shut her lips tight, and turned her eyes toward the curve in the road. Even while they rushed toward it, a great mushroom of smoke rose and flattened itself against the deep blue summer sky, widening and sinking over the tops of the trees. Presently they could hear the confused shouts and groans that always surround such a scene, and the hiss of water.
A turn of the road; Holly Court at last. Her escort murmured something, but Nancy did not answer. She had only one sick glance for the scene before them; the fringe of watchers about the house, the village fire-company struggling and shouting over the pitifully inadequate hose, the shining singed timbers of Holly Court. A great funnel of heat swept up above the house, and the green under-leaves on the trees crackled and crisped. From the casement windows smoke trickled or puffed, the roof was falling, in sections, and at every crash and every uprush of sparks the crowd uttered a sympathetic gasp.
The motor, curving up on the lawn, passed the various other vehicles that obstructed the drive. As the mistress of the house arrived, and was recognized, there was a little pitiful stir in the crowd. Nancy remembered some of this long afterward, remembered seeing various household goods—the piano, and some rugs, and some loose books—carefully ranged at one side, remembered a glimpse of Pauline crying, and chattering French, and Pierre patting his wife's shoulder. She saw familiar faces, and unfamiliar faces, as in a dream.
But under her dream hammered the one agonized question: The children—the children—ah, where were they? Nancy stumbled from the car, asked a sharp question. The villager who heard it presented her a blank and yet not unkindly face. He didn't know, ma'am, he didn't know anything—he had just come.
She knew now that she was losing her reason, that she would never be sane again if anything—anything had happened—
The crowd parted as she ran forward. And she saw, with a lightning look that burned the picture on her brain for all her life, the boys blessed little figures—and Anne leaning on her father's knee, as he sat on an overturned bookcase—and against Bert's shoulder the little fat, soft brown hand, and the sunny crown of hair that were Priscilla's—
Blinded with an exquisite rush of tears, somehow Nancy reached them, and fell on her knees at her husband's side, and caught her baby to her heart. Three hundred persons heard the sobbing cry she gave, and the flames flung off stars and arrows for more than one pair of sympathetic eyes. But she neither knew nor cared. She knew only that Bert's arms and the boys' arms were about her, and that Anne's thin little cheek was against her hair, and that her hungry lips were devouring the baby's sweet, bewildered face. She was crying as if there could be no end to her tears, crying happily and trying to laugh as she cried, and as she let the waves of relief and joy sweep over her in a reviving flood.
Bert was in his shirt sleeves, and Priscilla still had on only the short embroidered petticoat that she wore while she slept; her small feet were bare. The boys were grimed with ashes and soot, and Anne was pale and speechless with fright. But they were all together, father, mother, and children, and that was all that mattered in the world—all that would ever count, for Nancy, again.
"Don't cry, dearest!" said Bert, the tears streaming down his own blackened face. "She's all right, dear! We're all here, safe and sound, we're all right!"
But Nancy cried on, her arms strained about them all, her wet face against her husband's, and his arm tight across her shoulder.
"Oh, Bert—I ran so! And I didn't know—I didn't know what to be afraid of—what to think! And I RAN so—!"
"You poor girl—you shouldn't have done it. But dearest, we're all right now. What a scare you got—and my God, what a scareIgot! But I got to her, Nance—don't look so, dear. I was in plenty of time, and even if I hadn't been, Agnes would have got her out. She ran all the way from Ingrams' and she was only a few minutes after me! It's all right now, Nance."
Nancy dried her eyes, swaying back on her knees to face him.
"I was playing cards—Bert, if anything had happened I think I should never have been sane again—"
"I was on the court, you know," Bert said. "Underhill's kid came up, on his bicycle. He shouted at me, and I ran, and jumped into the car, Rose following. I met Agnes, running back to the house, with the children—I called out 'Where's Priscilla?' and she shouted back—she shouted back:' Oh, Mr. Bradley—oh, Mr. Bradley—'" And overcome by the hideous recollection, Bert choked, and began to unbutton and button the top of his daughter's little petticoat.
"We were all out walkin'," Ned volunteered eagerly. "And Joe Underbill went by on his bike. And he yelled at us, 'You'd better go home, your house is on fire!' and Anne began to cry, didn't you, Anne? So Agnes said a prayer, right out loud, didn't she, Junior? And then Dad and Mr. Rose went by us in the car on a run—we were way up by Ingrams'—and then Anne and Agnes cried, and I guess we all cried some—"
"And mother, lissun," Junior added. "They didn't get the baby out until after they got out the piano! They got the piano out before they got Priscilla! Because Pauline ran over to Wallaces', and Hannah was walking into the village for the mail, and when Dad got here and yelled to the men, they said they hadn't seen any baby—they thought the house was empty—"
Nancy turned deathly pale, her eyes reaching Bert's, her lips moving without a sound.
"I tried the front stairway, but it was—well, I couldn't," Bert said. "I kept thinking that she must have been got out, by somebody—but I knew it was only a question of minutes—if she wasn't! All the time I kept saying 'You're a fool—they couldn't have forgotten her—!' and Rose kept yelling that she must be somewhere, with someone, but I didn't—somehow I didn't dare let the few minutes we had go by without making sure! So I ran round to the side, and got in that window, and unlocked that door; Hannah must have locked it. I ran upstairs—she was just waking up. She was sitting up in her crib, rubbing her eyes, and a little bit scared and puzzled—smoke was in there, then—but she held out her little arms to me—I was in time, thank God—I thought we'd never get here—but we were in time!"
And again overcome by the memory of that moment, he brushed his brimming eyes against Priscilla's bright little head, and his voice failed.
"But Baby couldn't have burned—Baby couldn't have burned, could she, Mother?" Anne asked, bursting suddenly into bitter crying. Her anxious look had been going from one face to another, and now she was half frantic with fright.
Nancy sat down on a box, and lifted her elder daughter into her lap.
"No, my precious, Daddy was in time," she said, in her old firm motherly voice, with her comforting arms about the small and tearful girl. "Daddy and Mother were both rushing home as fast as they could come, that's what mothers and fathers are for. And now we're all safe and sound together, and you mustn't cry any more!"
"But our house is burned down!" said Junior dolefully. "And you're crying, Mother!" he added accusingly.
Nancy smiled as she dried her eyes, and dried Anne's, and the children laughed shakily as she exhibited the sooty handkerchief.
"Mother's crying for joy and gratitude and relief, Junior!" she said. "Why," and her reassuring voice was a tonic to the children, "Why, what do Dad and I care about an old house!" she said cheerfully. "We'd rather have ten houses burn down than have one of you children sick, even for a day!"
"Don't you care?" exulted Anne between two violent kisses, her lips close to her mother's, her thin arms tight about her mother's neck.
"We care about you, and the boys, and the baby, Anne," said Bert, "but that's all. Why, I sort of think I'm glad to see that house burn down! It used to worry Mother and me a good deal, and now it won't worry us any more! How about that, Mother?"
And his reddened eyes, in his soot—and perspiration-streaked face, met Nancy's with the old smile of fun and courage, and her eyes met his. Something the children missed passed between them; hours of conciliatory talk could not have accomplished what that look did, years of tears and regret would not so thoroughly have washed away the accumulated burden of heartache and resentment and misunderstanding.
"Then we're going to be gipsies, aren't we?" exulted Junior.
His mother had straightened her hair, and turned the box upon which she sat for the better accommodation of Anne and herself. Now she was placidly watching the flames devour Holly Court; the pink banners that blew loose in the upswirling gray fumes, and the little busy sucking tongues that wrapped themselves about an odd cornice or window frame and devoured it industriously. She saw her bedroom paper, the green paper with the white daisies—Bert had thought that a too-expensive paper—scarred with great gouts of smoke, and she saw the tangled pipes of her own bathroom curve and drop down in a blackened mass, and all the time her arm encircled Anne, and the child's heart beat less and less fitfully, and Nancy's soul was steeped in peace.
"You'll get some insurance, Bert?" asked one of the many neighbours who were hovering about the family group, waiting for a suitable moment in which to offer sympathy. The first excitement of the reunion over, they gathered nearer; Fielding and Oliver Rose coatless and perspiring from their struggles with the furniture, a dozen others equally concerned and friendly.
"Fourteen thousand," grinned Bert, "and I carry a thirteen-thousand loan on her!"
"Gosh, that is tough luck, Brad! She's a dead loss then, for she's gone like paper, and there won't be ten dollars' worth of salvage. You had some furniture insurance?"
"Not a cent!" Bert said cheerfully. He glanced about at his excited sons; his wife, bareheaded, and still pale, if smiling; his daughter just over her tears; and his baby, plump and happy in her little white petticoat. "I guess we got most everything out of the house that I care much about!" smiled Bert.
For two hours more the Bradleys sat as they were, and watched the swift ruin of their home. Nancy's hot face cooled by degrees, and she showed an occasional faint interest in the details of the calamity; this chair was saved, that was good; this clock was in ruins, no matter. She did not loosen her hold on Anne, and the little girl sat contentedly in her mother's lap, but the boys foraged, and shouted as they dashed to and fro. Over and over again she reassured them; it was too bad, of course, but Mother and Dad did not mind very much. She thanked the neighbours who brought chairs and pillows and odd plates, and piled them near her.
She and Bert were wrapped in a sort of stupor, after the events of the hot afternoon. Bert seemed to forget that a meal and a sleeping place must be provided for his tribe, and that his face was shockingly dirty, and he wore no coat. He found it delicious to have the placid Priscilla finish her interrupted nap in his arms, and enjoyed his sons' comments as they came and went. Neither husband nor wife spoke much of the fire, but a rather gay conversation was carried on and there was much philosophical laughter of the sort that such an occasion always breeds.
"I might know that you would save that statue, Jack," said Bert to one of the young Underhills. "We've been trying to break that for eleven years!"
"If that's the case," the youth said solemnly, and Nancy's old happy laugh rang out as he flung the plaster Psyche in a smother of white fragments against the chimney.
"I suppose it would be only decent for me to get started at something," she said, after a while. "It seems senseless to sit here and merely watch—"
"For pity's sake sit still if you can," old Mrs. Underbill said affectionately. "The fire company's going, and people are all leaving now, anyway. And we've got to go, too, but Joe will be over again later—to bring you back with us. Just try to keep calm, Nancy, and don't worry!"
Worry? Nancy knew that she had not been so free from actual worry for a long, long time. She remembered a dinner engagement with a pleasant reflection that it could not be kept. To-morrow, too, with its engagement to play cards and dine and dance, was now freed. And Monday—when she had promised to go to town and look for hats with Dorothy, and Tuesday, when those women were coming for lunch—it was all miraculously cancelled. A mere chance had loosed the bonds that neither her own desperate resolution nor Bert's could break. She was Nancy Bradley again, a wife and mother and housekeeper first, and everything else afterward.
What would they do now—where would they go? She did not care. She had been afraid of a hundred contingencies only this morning, fretted with tiny necessities, annoyed by inessential details. Now a real event had come along, and she could breathe again.
"I wonder what I've been afraid of, all this time?" mused Nancy. And she smiled over a sudden, mutinous thought. How many of the women she knew would be glad to have their houses burned down between luncheon and dinner on a summer Saturday? She turned to Bert. "Pierre and Pauline may now consider themselves as automatically dismissed," she said.
"They have already come to that conclusion," Bert said, with some relish. "I am to figure out what I owe them, and mail them a check. Some of their things they got out—most of them, I guess. I saw someone putting their trunk on a wagon, awhile back, and I imagine that we have parted forever."
"Hannah transfers herself this night to the Fielding menage," Nancy added after a while. "Which reduces our staff to Agnes. I never want to part with Agnes. You can't buy tears and loyalty like that; they're a gift from God, Where do we spend the night, by the way?"
Bert gazed at her calmly.
"I have not the faintest idea, my dear woman!" Then they laughed in the old fashion, together.
"But do look at the sunlight coming down through the trees, and the water beyond there," Nancy presently said. "Isn't it a lovely place—Holly Court? Really this is a wonderful garden."
"That's what I was thinking," Bert agreed. It had been many months, perhaps years, since the Bradleys had commented upon the sunlight, as it fell all summer long through the boughs of their own trees.
Gradually the crowd melted away, and the acrid odour of wet wood mingled with the smell of burning. And gradually that second odour gave way to the persuasive sweetness of the summer evening, the sharp, delicate fragrance that is loosed when the first dew falls, and the perfumes of reviving flowers. Holly Court still smoked sulkily, and here and there in its black ruins some special object flamed brightly: Nancy's linen chest and the pineapple bed went on burning when the other things were done. It was nearly sunset when the Bradleys walked slowly about the wreck, and laughed or bemoaned themselves as they recognized what was gone, or what was left.