“Well, I can’t,” Hyde asserted scornfully, “nor nobody else neither.”
The two men smoked in silence.
After a while Lindsay made the motions preliminary to rising. He knocked the ashes out of his pipe; put his pipe in his pocket; withdrew his feet from their comfortable elevation on the piazza rail. Finally he assembled his full height on the floor, but not without a prolonged stretching movement. “Well,” he said, halfway through the yawn, “I guess you can tell that brother of yours that I’m going to hire the Murray house for the season.”
Hyde was equally if not more dégagé. He did not move; nor did he change his expression. “All right,” he commented without enthusiasm, “I’ll let him know. How soon would you like to go in, say?”
“As soon as I can buy a bed.” Lindsay disappeared through the doorway.
Two days later Lindsay found himself comfortably settled at Blue Meadows. Upstairs—he had of course chosen Lutetia’s room—was a cot and a bureau of soft wood. Downstairs was a limited assortment of cheap china; cheaper cutlery; the meagerest possible cooking equipment.
But there was an atmosphere given to Lindsay’s room by Lutetia’s own picture hanging above the bureau. And another to the living-room by Lutetia’s own works—a miscellaneous collection of ugly-proportioned, ugly-colored, late-nineteenth-century volumes—ranged on the broad shelf above the fireplace; by Lindsay’s writing materials scattered over the refectory table. Economical as he had been inside, he had exploded into extravagance outside. A Gloucester hammock swung at the back. A collection of garden materials which included a scythe, a spade, a sickle, a lawn-mower, and a hose filled one corner of the barn. Already—his back still complained of the process—he had cut the spacious lawn.
He was at one and the same time sanely placid and wildly happy.
Every morning he awoke with the sun and the birds. Adapting himself with an instant spiritual content to the fact that he was no longer in France and would not have to fly, he turned over to take another nap. An hour or two later, he was up and eating his self-prepared breakfast. The rest of the day was reading Lutetia; musing on Lutetia; “scything” or “sickling,” as he called it in his letters to Spink, in the garden; reflecting on Lutetia; exploring the neighborhood on foot; meditating on Lutetia; reading and rereading the mass of Spink’s data on Lutetia; hosing the garden; making notes on Spink’s data on Lutetia and thinking of his notes on Spink’s data on Lutetia. He awoke in the morning with Lutetia on his mind. He fell asleep at night with Lutetia in his heart. He had come to realize that Lutetia, the author, was even better than he had supposed her. His college thesis had described her merely as the Mrs. Gaskell of New England. Now, mentally, he promoted her to its Jane Austen. His youth had risen to the lure of her color and fecundity, but his youngness had not realized how rich she was in humor; how wise; what a tenderness for people informed her careful, realistic detail. It was a triumph to find her even better than the flattering dictum of his boyish judgment.