XXXI A New Hilltop
I
Eileen’s strength returned slowly. It was the middle of April before she ventured out to Rye, a pallid wraith of her former self. Griff and Laura were afraid for her ... a fear that was transformed into action by the potent chemistry of a woman’s mind.
“Round up a bunch of Lary’s patrons,” Mrs. Ramsay said in her decisive way, “and convince them that they ought to send him abroad to buy furnishings for their new homes. He and Judith can take Eileen along. The sea voyage will—”
“Capital!” Griff cut in. “Only yesterday I had Parkinson on my neck for an hour, howling about the difficulty of getting draperies and rugs for the stunning place Lary has made of his old junk heap. Commissioned a fellow in Paris to send him some things and—Lord love us! You should have seen the consignment! It wasn’t the price. But Parkinson hates to be laughed at, when he’s been stung.”
“Lary’s orderly mind would take care of the needs of a dozen men like Parkinson, and it would give him a chance to see Europe—right!”
II
Thus it came about that on a serene May morning Judith Trench dismissed the maids, closed the apartment and set her face towards the rising sun. For her it was the real adventure. She had looked at Europe so often. Now she would see through the shell, with Lary’s eyes.
At the Cherbourg pier Mr. Denslow met them. Mamma and the boys could hardly wait to see Judith’s new husband. But after a week Lary’s importance was blurred, sent into almost complete occultation, as Eileen’s vivid youth asserted itself. Ben was her slave from the first. The night after they left her in Brussels, to have a few lessons with Ysaye, and Lary and Judith set forth on their real honeymoon, he confided to his mother that he was going to add another Trench to the Denslow family, as soon as he was sure he could earn a living for two.
“Have you asked her?” Mrs. Denslow quizzed.
“No. She thinks I’m a boy. You might tell her that I’m nearly five years older than she. I thought I’d grow whiskers—to impress her.”
III
From Antwerp to Munich, from Venice to Constantinople, and thence by boat to Naples and the eastern coast of Spain, Lary and the other half of his being wandered, too happy to remember the fiery ordeal wherein their severed selves had been fused again. When they reached Paris, the middle of August, a great pile of letters awaited them. Lary thrust one of them into his inside pocket. It was from his mother. Another he tore open with eager fingers. A moment later he handed it to Judith, his eyes shining. It bore the signature of a discriminating editor:
“I never knew why Renaissance art, with all its brilliance and charm, was unsatisfying to me, until I read your keenly analytical essay. We would be glad to consider a series of essays, covering other architectural periods and styles.”
Mr. Denslow read the letter with indifference, but the accompanying check had weight. He was coming to believe that his daughter had made a first-rate investment when she went to look after her interests in Olive Hill, and incidentally acquired a husband who could make good in New York in six months.
Judith followed Lary to his room, whither he had retreated to read the letters from home. One glance at his face satisfied her that all was not well. A moment he wavered, on the point of thrusting that disturbing letter out of sight. Then he recognized, in his feeling, not loyalty to his mother but a raw personal chagrin. Judith was his wife. She had earned the right to share even his humiliation. Yet he dared not look at her while she read the closely written pages.
His father was breaking. It was his duty to come home and assume the burden, now that the reason for his absence from Springdale, with Judith and Eileen, had been removed by an unhoped-for act of Providence. The building of a great place like the Marksley home was too much for David, who never could shoulder responsibility. She had tried to fire his ambition—make him see how proud he ought to be, to get a chance to put up such fine buildings. It was wasted breath. He went about as if he had a sack of concrete on his shoulders. He would certainly have to forfeit money on the contract. She was outdone with him, and must have help.
“Dearest, cable your father to throw over that contract, no matter what it costs. Can’t she see that his soul is being ground—because of you and Eileen?”
“I couldn’t send such a cablegram, dear. I didn’t want ever to see Springdale again. You and Eileen can stay on here with your mother.”
“But, Lary, I shouldn’t mind Springdale. David and Theo are there—and an arbour with a summer house—and Indian Summer coming. It would be worth all the rest ... a cheap price to pay, for another such afternoon as we had last November, on the road to Littlefield. Is it always as glorious as that, Lary?”
“Usually, but not always. I remember, once when I was a young boy, there was no frost at all until the first week of December. The glorious tints and that silver haze in the air are the result of a heavy frost that catches the foliage in full sap. But that year—it was the winter Theo was born—the trees were a sickly gray-green, and all the shrubs and vines looked as if they were suffering from some wasting disease. The leaves had shrivelled, and still they clung. The morning after the frost they fell like rain. Within three days the branches were stark and bare. It was absolutely startling.”
“You had no crimson and gold, no chiffon webs on the grass?”
“Not that year. It was an open winter, with a frost late in the spring, that killed all the fruit. Don’t set your heart on—I mean, dear, don’t go back to Springdale ... just for the Indian Summer.”
“I was going, Lary, to comfort your father.”
IV
That evening they told Mrs. Denslow that they would book passage for an early return to New York. And that lady, whose plans had been changed so often within the past year, was glad to have her shifting course in life directed by some one with a real necessity. They would all go home together, especially as Ben was eager to get to work. Not at his instance, but rather because the girl promised relief from the boredom that had begun to weigh heavy on her, Mrs. Denslow urged Eileen to spend the winter in New York.
“Papa’s health is failing. He needs me,” was the eminently satisfactory reply. To Judith the girl confided another reason. The apartment overlooking the Hudson held memories she did not wish to revive. She was done with that chapter of her story. She had climbed, with bleeding feet, to a hilltop ... and the future lay misty with promise before her.