"You were right about my going to the club too much," replied she. "I shall stay at home more. But I must have something to occupy me. These are my plans for making over the house and grounds. Please don't try to stop me. I am going to explain it all to you, and I ask you to be considerate and polite enough to listen."
Her manner was compelling; the exhibit was interesting. And he looked and listened as she talked, rapidly, intensely, yet clearly and calmly, describing the whole scheme in minutest detail, not forgetting expense which she demonstrated would be small. He asked several questions—enough to show that he was giving his attention. When she finished she was trembling all over. He continued to inspect the water colors that showed how things would look when the changes had been made. After a while he smiled and nodded at her. "Very clever," he said. "Really, I had no idea you could do anything like this."
Her mouth and throat were dry; her eyes gleamed. She was giving out the force that flows from a soul in desperate earnest—the force that sweeps away any opposition not already aggressive, before it has a chance to gather. "I may try it?" she asked.
"That's another matter," reflected he aloud. "I ought to say no, for I'm sure you'll be disappointed and your mistakes'll have to be covered up." Now that he was reminded of it he was ashamed of the curt ill-humored way he had issued his orders about her going to the club. "But you can only learn by trying. So, I've no objections to your making a start." He laid his hands on her shoulders. "A little at a time—remember!" he cautioned. "A very little."
With that unconsciousness of her being intelligent enough to see his thoughts in his expression—an unconsciousness to which she had long since got used, but never hardened—he was showing that he wished to refuse her, but that, being taken by surprise, he in his kindness of heart could not frame a pretext. His manner took from her all desire or ability to thank him. "I'll be careful," said she.
The smile in his eyes was like a parent's at a precocious child. He kissed her, patted her cheek, went back to his work. He had read the anthropologies, all written by men. Anthropology being out of his line, he accepted as exact science the prejudice and baseless assertion and misleading "statistics" there set down as "laws." Nature had made man active, woman passive; thus, action in woman was contrary to nature, was inevitably abortive and whimsical, was never, except by rare accident, valuable. "She's clever," thought he, by way of finis to the subject. "But she'll soon tire of this thing and drop it. Well, I suppose a few more years'll wash away the smatter she got at college, and this restlessness of hers will yield to nature, and she'll be content and happy in her womanhood. A few more children would have an excellent effect. She's suffering from the storing up of the energy that ought to have outlet in childbearing. As grandfather often said, it's a dreadful mistake, educating women beyond their sphere. But it hasn't done the dear child any permanent harm. She's far too womanly."
V
By the time Winchie was four years old—and in looks and health, in truthfulness and self-reliance a credit to her—she had about completed the transformation of house and grounds. The Vaughan place was no longer an example of those distressing attempts to divorce beauty from its supreme quality, use, that are the delight of the unfortunates whose esthetic faculty has been paralyzed by the mediæval monastic education still blighting the modern world. It was, throughout, beauty applied to use, use achieved in beauty. She had no theory in doing this; she followed the leadings of a courageous and unspoiled taste which was thoroughly practical, as practical as that of the artists of the age of Pericles, a taste which abhorred the bizarre and the blatant. The results would not have pleased Colonel Achilles; they would not have stirred the enthusiasm of anyone who has been enslaved by false education to admire only what has been approved by tradition. But charm no one could have denied. Winter and summer the house, livable and restful in every corner, bloomed within—for over no other part of nature is man's dominion so complete as over the plant kingdom. From early spring through the last warm days of autumn the grounds were delightful to behold; it was as if summer were living there freely and at ease, with no restraint upon her except keeping her clear of the restraint of her own profuse and careless litter. In winter the lawns and clumps and hedges were by no means dead or filled only with evergreen's mortuary suggestions; there are many plants that bloom with bright berries and leaves in the midst of snow and ice, and Courtney knew about them. Winter indoors seemed a millennium in which winter and summer lived amicably together. There were snows and icy storms without, huge open fires within; the windows were gay with blossoming plants, and from a conservatory she built and stocked at surprisingly small cost there came cut flowers for vases and bowls as well as plants that replaced those which had done service and needed rest. Courtney was one of those for whom things grow; her own vivid life seemed to radiate throughout her surroundings and infect all things with the passion to live vividly. With the flowers, as with Winchie, she was patient, intelligent, understanding—never expecting too much, always encouraging to the least disposition to develop.
All this wonder of transformation was not wrought in a day, nor by dreaming. It came as the result of tireless and incessant labor of brain and hand. She had dreamed her dream; she was determined that it should be realized. Failure did not daunt her; it taught her. Nor was she halted by her sense, rather than experience, of a latent reluctance in Richard about giving her money he wanted for the laboratory; for, as his work there expanded, its expenses grew rapidly heavier. She did not ask him for the money; she did not let him know she needed it; she got along without it. In such work as she was doing it takes a vast deal of thought, of planning and contriving, to take the place of money. She did that necessary thinking. When she could get a little money, she spent it to amazing advantage; when she could not, she went on without it. Some of her most satisfying results came through the work made necessary by lack of money. Very powerful, too, was the influence of this upon her character—in developing self-reliance and self-respect which come only through successful independent action.
Now, after nearly three years of days of toil that was also play, since she loved it, she saw, but a short distance ahead, a time when she would have little to do beyond taking care that Jimmie and Bill kept the grounds up, and that Nanny and Mazie and Lizzie did their work properly in the house. There would be minor changes, new features; but the task as a task was almost done. And, in spite of Nanny's opposition, she had put the household on a systematic basis, so that with a little daily attention every part of the routine went smoothly, each servant doing his or her share of the work in the same way always and at the same time. She was about to have many hours each day liberated—and this, in a quiet place, where time refuses to take wings, but insists upon being definitely employed every moment of it.