We went in.
Sun and sweet wind had worked white magic in the long-closed house. Quaint furniture, no longer dust-grimed but lustrous with cleanliness and polish, had quite a different air. Fresh upholstery in cheerful tints, fresh paper on the walls, good rugs, order and daintiness everywhere changed the interior out of my recognition. Already the atmosphere of home and cheer was established.
"Come see your rooms," Phillida invited, enraptured by my admiration. "They are so pretty!"
She ran up the stairs, around the passage, and ushered me into the room of graceful adventure and grotesque nightmare. I stopped on the threshold.
I had ordered the partition removed between the two chambers on this side, giving me one large room. This, with the little bathroom attached, occupied the entire large frontage of the house. This long, spacious room; floors covered by my Chinese rugs, walls echoing the rugs' smoke-blue, my piano in a bright corner, my special easychairs and writing-table in their due places, welcomed me with such familiar comfort that I could not identify the neglected chamber where I had slept one night in the old bed with the four pineapple-topped posts. The windows were opened, and white curtains with their over-draperies of blue silk were swinging in and out on a fresh breeze where the Horror of my dream had seemed to press itself against the black panes. Decidedly, I must have had a bad attack of indigestion that night!
"See how nice?" Phillida was urging appreciation at my side. "We swung those lovely old hangings from the arch, so they can be drawn across the bedroom end of your room, if you like. Although I do not know why you should like, everything is so pretty! Your long Venetian mirror came safely, and all your darling lamps. And—and I hope you like it so well, Cousin Roger, that you will stay here always!"
When she left me alone, I walked to the different windows, contemplating the stretches of lawn dotted with budding apple trees and the lake that lay beyond shining in the sun. Was Phillida's charming wish to become a fact, I wondered? Could this rest and calm hold me content here, where I had meant merely to pause and pass on? I looked at the yellow country road meandering past the lake into unseen distance. Should I ever see my Lady of the Beautiful Tresses come that way, or travel that road to where she lived? If I did meet her, would she forgive me the loss of her braid? There would be a test for the sweetness of her disposition!
When a chiming dinner-gong summoned me downstairs, I found Vere awaiting me beside Phillida. We shook hands, and he made some brief, pleasant speech about their having expected me sooner. If pale, timid Phil had become a surprising butterfly, Vere had taken the reverse progress toward the sober grub. I like him better in outing clothes, although he showed even more the unusual good looks which so unreasonably prejudiced me against him. If he felt any strain in our meeting, his slow, tranquil trick of speech and manner covered it. I hope I did as well! It was then I discovered that his wife's pet name for him fitted like a glove. She called him "Drawls."
The luncheon was good; cooked and served by a middle-aged Swedish woman named Cristina. Afterward, I was conducted into the kitchen by the lady of the house, to view the new fittings and improvements. Most odd and pretty it was to see Phillida in that rôle of housewife, and to watch her pride in Vere and deference to him. Let me record that I never saw the daughter of Aunt Caroline fail in this settled course toward her husband. Whether it was born of revulsion from her mother's hectoring domestic methods, or of consciousness that outsiders might rate Vere below his wife in station and education, so her respect for him must forbid their slight, I do not know. But I never saw her oppose him or speak rudely to him before other people. I suppose they may have had the usual conjugal differings, neither of them being angelic. If so, no outsider ever glimpsed the fact.
We spoke of nothing serious on that first day. They both showed me the various improvements finished or progressing, indoors or out.