The Wide House

by Taylor Caldwell

  Elissa, straining inquisitively to gaze at her friend’s face, saw that look again, fleetingly, as the shoulder of a green mountain flashed by the window. She said: “Are you fatigued, Laurie?”

  Laurie turned her head slowly. A sudden shaft of sunlight struck through the window and glittered on her shining head. She smiled. “No. Do I appear so, Elissa?”

  “You are so quiet.”

  The door of the private coach opened, and Dick Thimble-ton entered. He had been standing on the platform, smoking what Elissa called “one of his vile cigars.” His first glance, as always, was for Laurie, and she regarded him pleasantly. He came to her eagerly, smiling, questioning. But when she only gazed at him with her unchanging graciousness, his thin dark face became thoughtful again. He was a handsome and elegant young man in his thirties, a very eligible and wealthy bachelor, accomplished and distinguished. He had known Laurie for two years, and was completely in love with her. He had pursued her to Europe, proposing, as he said, “regularly every Saturday night.” For a young man naturally so well-bred and reticent, he had been singularly persistent, and had at last won from Laurie a very tentative acquiescence. At least she had not any longer forbidden him to propose, though Elissa suspected this was less from any weakening on Laurie’s part than from a desire not to expend any more on an active refusal. She was inert, but not yielding.

  When Laurie had announced her intention of visiting her family in Grandeville (“where is Grandeville, in the Lord’s name?” Dick had asked) Elissa had suggested that she and her brother accompany the girl. Perhaps, Elissa had thought, if Laurie were away from New York and all the excitement and adulation, she would be able to see Dick for all he was: kind, sincere, thoughtful, gentle and superior. In the atmosphere of a raw frontier city, his accomplishments would shine to the full. In the presence of yokels and farm dolts and coarse men, Dick would appear in his complete brilliance and aristocracy. Elissa shrewdly suspected that Laurie, for all her lethargy, was not entirely insensible to money, when it was about her in quantity. She also was coming to believe that Laurie truly liked Dick Thimbleton, and that she was beginning to depend upon his friendship.

  It was his private coach, all crimson velvet and plush, with dull-blue velvet curtains and fringe at the windows, and heavy flowered carpets upon the floor, which had been attached to the train that was taking them to Grandeville. He had overcome Laurie’s coldly irritable objections. “Why should you travel in discomfort, my love?” he had asked her. “Besides, are you not unreasonable to suggest that my sister and I share such discomfort? Very selfish of you, you must admit.”

  “I must recall to you, my dear Dick, that your journey to Grandeville was not my suggestion in the first place,” Laurie had returned, forbiddingly. And then, quite unexpectedly, she had smiled, and had touched his sleeve gently with her long white hand. She had seemed amused, and he was slightly baffled. Laurie had these moments of inexplicable amusement, and they were not always without cruelty. They gave him twinges of discomfort.

  Sometimes he had thought that she looked at him with hidden compassion. And then she had become restless, the apricot color fading from her cheeks, her mouth compressing. She had had hours of silence, and her eyes had been clouded with a curious regret when they had rested upon him.

  Elissa and Dick had overcome the thousand and one objections she had raised against their accompanying her on her journey home. “We have no fine hotels in Grandeville,” she had informed them, “and my mother’s health is not too good.” She had written to Janie about her guests, fully expecting to receive an irate letter in reply, tartly advising Laurie that she had no time or room for these strangers. But Laurie, who had half forgotten the resourcefulness of Janie, was surprised to receive an enthusiastic demand from her mother that Elissa and Dick be sheltered in her house. Laurie did not know that Janie had made many frank and entirely indiscreet inquiries about the Thimbleton family, and was all wild excitement at the implications of this visit. Laurie had prepared to show her friends an entirely different letter from her mother, thus discouraging them, and was extremely annoyed.

  Laurie’s New York and European triumphs were quite familiar to the citizens of Grandeville. Main Street had been decorated with banners, with festoons of colored paper and large posters. Even the war, now one year old, took second place amid this excitement. The Elmwood Theatre, recently built, was being polished and furbished in the firm determination that she should “render” a few selections for the delight of Grandeville. Of all this Laurie was still innocently unaware, and it was just as well.

  The vivacious and clever Elissa had not been able to elicit much information from Laurie about her family. She had given only the barest and most indifferent outline. Her mother was a widow, a Scotswoman. She had a brother who was a judge, another brother who had married a wealthy German girl, and was now assistant manager in some shops in which the family was, vaguely, interested. There was still another brother. Here Laurie’s face had changed, almost imperceptibly. Bertie. Bertie did nothing but delight his mother. He was a gentleman. Laurie’s wide rich mouth had curled just a trifle. She had said nothing more. But Elissa, always shrewd and quick, had perceived that Laurie’s attachment to her family was very tenuous, and even disdainful, and that she had no affection for them. Why, then, was she returning to Grandeville for “a rest”? The “fatigue” was only a pose.

  Laurie must have been thinking these thoughts also, for Elissa caught her sudden swift glance, curious, hard, diverted. It was not a pleasant glance. It was even a little merciless and malicious. Troubled, and slightly affronted, Elissa tossed her black ringlets, and looked away. She was a young woman in her late twenties, a widow for nearly two years, and very elegant and fashionable in her dark-green satin gown and green satin slippers. A cloak of white ermine was thrown over her shoulders. She was not in the least pretty, for her somewhat sallow long face was very narrow, her mouth mobile and wry, her nose too aquiline, her figure too thin. But all this was relieved by her big black eyes, full of deviltry and naughty laughter and awareness, and by her matchless style. She had that aura of accustomed wealth, culture and fashion which is never acquired, but is inbred.

  The large and ornate chairs of the coach, covered with crimson scrolled velvet, were set at angles on the rolling floor. The three were alone. Laurie’s and Elissa’s maids rode in the public coach just ahead. At one end of the coach was a thick and discreet curtain of thick red plush, beyond which were the beds of the two young women, and their travelling necessities. Near the platform were the sleeping quarters of Dick Thimbleton. Heavy mahogany tables, anchored to the floor, were scattered at the opposite side of the coach, each with its fingreed brass lamp. A crystal chandelier swung from the domed carved roof. There was even a bookcase available, and a polished music-box. Now, as the day darkened, a maid entered and lit the lamps, and the landscape faded from the windows. Elissa could see the faces of her brother and Laurie mirrored dimly in the glass, and the reflection of the lamps was superimposed on the wild scene of mountain and endless meadow and valley.

  Elissa, quite suddenly, began to dislike Laurie. She had at intervals these moments of dislike. Then she would have liked to believe that Laurie was stupid, inert, lethargic. But her innate honesty prevented this. What did Laurie want? Apparently she wanted nothing.

  Laurie was an enigma. Poor Dick, thought Elissa, with angry and unaccustomed indignation, he ought not to be involved with this strange creature. For in these moments of acuteness, Laurie seemed indeed a stranger, and completely unknowable.

  Laurie lay back in her chair, and Elissa, disliking her more and more, and admiring her with equal energy, and loving her, was fascinated by her friend’s grace. There was not a single faulty line in the curve of her full young breasts, in the molding of her throat, in the indentation of her waist above the billowing blue taffeta of her skirts. The golden hair, with its hint of ruddiness, was smooth as if carved from metal. There was a large serenity about her, as sh
e slowly turned her head to smile at the ardent if quiet Dick, who leaned forward to talk to her from his own chair. Wagner, the wonderful and terrible Wagner, had looked at Laurie for the first time, and had screamed: “Brünnhilde! Walküre!” It had been excessive, of course, and very extravagant, which was the way with foreigners. Yet, Elissa admitted, she could now see what had provoked Wagner to such ecstasy, and had lighted such a flame in his eyes.

  What so absorbed Dick now in Laurie’s slow and languid conversation? Laurie had never been noted for swift repartee or originality. Yet Dick leaned towards her, a light on his lean and clever features. Elissa bent forward, also, to hear what so engrossed him.

  “You will have a very dull time, I am afraid, in Grandeville,” Laurie was saying. “Farmers with round beaver hats, and smelling of the stables, and swarms of strange creatures from outlandish places in Europe, and slaughter-houses and sausage factories and grain elevators and Lake steamers. It’s a very stupid town, and a completely gross one. As for my family,” and she shrugged her large and exquisite shoulders, “they have never been noted for their sophistication or wide interests. Except, perhaps, Robbie. He is married to a charming girl, the daughter of the Mayor, but even he has that certain harsh outline of the provincial.”

  Then that queer restlessness came over her again, and she turned away from Dick. “This dreadful war! It was supposed to have been over in six months! What exuberant nonsense! Now when the people realize it is not a lark at all, not all trumpets and banners and fine uniforms, they are restive. Was it really true that many people were killed in the draft riots in New York, Dick?”

  The young man’s expression became grave. He talked quickly. If the war continued much longer, he would apply for a commission. Laurie’s hand absently smoothed a fold of her dress; her head was turned away from him. “The people love fine ideals, and are quite stirred by them,” said Dick. “But when they are called upon to sacrifice, to fight, and even to die for those ideals, they begin to lament, to accuse, to deny, to protest. Do they think the love of country should be confined to the maxims in copy-books, and the love of justice and God to the pages of the Bible? Don’t they realize that if a thing is not worth fighting for or dying for then it has no reason for existence, even in words?”

  Laurie did not answer, and Dick continued with quiet vehemence: “This Republic was not founded by men who considered their safety and their comfort above justice and freedom and manhood. It was founded by those who had a vision, who believed in the rights of man and the fatherhood of God, who hated tyranny and injustice and oppression. Where are their sons now? Where are their voices, in this sullen and resistive Republic?”

  He could see only Laurie’s profile, and it told him nothing. He put his hand on hers. “Will you miss me, if I go into the Army?” he asked softly.

  She moved her hand gently from under his. She smiled. But her voice took away something of the caustic quality of that smile. “Certainly I shall miss you, Dick. But I do hope you will not be too precipitous.”

  His face darkened. He leaned back in his chair.

  He talks to a creature without sensibility, thought Elissa, with angry resentment. What does Laurie care about America? What does she care about anything? She has no heart. Why, then, do I love her? I am a woman, and her beauty does not move me in the least, except, perhaps, to an occasional jealousy. She makes no effort to be charming and agreeable, not even to me. Yet I love her.

  Laurie turned to her, and said: “I do hope, Elissa, that you will be comfortable in my mother’s house. It is not grand in the least. Somewhat uncomfortable and countrified.” She hesitated, then laughed a little, inexplicably. “But I do think you will enjoy Ma!”

  As the belching train moved steadily northward, the hills fell away, and low flat land, sometimes empty, sometimes massed with trees, took their place. Moreover, the green became more sparse in the meadows, which had great patches of brown spread through them, and the trees became less lush. They were still hardly in bud, and there was a harsh chill light in the sky, and a look of bleak cold on the earth. Elissa was surprised to see that the streams across which they roared had edges of sharp crystal ice, and that, in the distance, the higher land was patched with old snow. She could feel the cold breath of the North as it filtered through the cracks about the windows, and she ordered the stoves to be replenished. It was a desolate country, she thought fretfully, and she wondered whether her wardrobe would be adequate for it.

  CHAPTER 53

  It had snowed in the night, not the brief bright April snow of the more southern country, which merely enhanced and refreshed the new lush green of the earth. This was the April snow of the North, accompanied by dark and somber skies, and it had the grim insistence of winter. The trees, which bore only slightly swollen buds, were freckled with hard white fragments, and their scarred trunks were veined with that whiteness. The earth was still brown, though faintly greening in spots. The snow covered these spots, so that only the withered deadness was revealed.

  It was only three in the afternoon, but the lamps had had to be lighted. Fires burned with winter amplitude, ruddy and hot on the hearths. About the house the wind groaned and howled, and the skies darkened rapidly. Laurie looked up from her needlework, and glanced indifferently through the glass. She was accustomed to Northern springs, and never heeded them. But poor Elissa was confined to her bed with a bad sniffling cold, and her brother was solicitously with her. Two days in Grandeville had been quite enough for Elissa. The turpentine stupes on her sore chest, her swollen red nose, the desolate scene outside, and the narrow vaulted room in which she lay, had all convinced her that the sooner she left this place the better. Laurie smiled to herself, bent her head a little closer over her needlework.

  Janie sat near her, close to the fire. The two women were silent now. They had had a desultory conversation, and it had all concerned Europe and New York and Laurie’s triumphs. Janie eyed her daughter. All this grand talk of the Princess Metternich, of King Ludwig, of Queen Victoria, and of the graciousness of President Lincoln! All these casual accounts of ovations at the Astor Place Opera House and Castle Gardens! Janie’s lips twisted sourly. She would have liked to believe that the lass was exaggerating, that she was boasting with puerile vanity. But Laurie had spoken of it all with indifference and disinterest, and only on the insistence of her mother. Nevertheless, her smile had been queer, and she had not been as taciturn as Janie had known her to be. She had even volunteered information about herself and her triumphs. Had there been a malevolent and amused satisfaction in those cold blue eyes, and a curious derision in the slow and lovely voice?

  Janie’s gaze narrowed at Laurie. Laurie sat near the fire, tall, large, too handsome, too chill, too remote, in her dark blue cashmere with the thick cluster of cream-colored ruching at the high neck, her hoops exaggerated in what was doubtless the latest Parisian style. She wore, at the throat, a huge sunburst of diamonds, pearls and rubies, which she had negligently stated, upon Janie’s questioning, had been given to her by King Ludwig himself. Upon her wrist was a matching bracelet, almost two inches wide, ablaze with the same gems, and in her ears were the rings which completed the set. Janie wet her lips. King Ludwig, no less! He was very “kind,” Laurie had said, nonchalantly, without a smile, and Laurie had been his guest. Janie shook her head as if in sullen denial. It was not possible. Laurie Cauder, daughter of Janie Driscoll and Robin Cauder, obscure farming provincial and wild Highland blood. Laurie had shown her mother other jewels, also, a golden medal personally bestowed upon her by Queen Victoria, a necklace of pearls from Princess Metternich, rings and unbelievable bangles and brooches and tiaras from the “crowned heads of Europe.” Janie wet her lips. She must not forget a detail of all this tomorrow, when she would give the astounding news to the Grandeville Courier. Had not Janie, herself, seen the contracts presented to Laurie in New York, she would have believed none of it. She had screwed up her eyes at the letters from illustrious personages, though she had not
been able to read a word of them, written as they were in French, German or Russian. But she had well understood the coats of arms which had emblazoned them, and the casual signatures. She had been astounded, shaken, thunderstruck, for she had only half-believed the accounts in the New York newspapers, convinced that in “this country” the blatant press was always exaggerating. She had wanted to believe it exaggeration. But the newspaper clippings from London papers had taken her aback.

  Laurie had not been in the least reticent, when urged to tell her stories. Why? She had always been enigmatic and secretive, Janie remembered, frowning. What had opened that beautiful grim mouth? Then Janie sat upright. She stared at her daughter. Why, she thought, the lass hates me! She flings these things in my face, not to make me proud, but to cow and confound me!

  She said, in a stately voice: “But, after all, you are glad to be home, are you not, lass?”

  Laurie looked up calmly from her work. She said: “Yes. Why else am I here?”

  “You’ve not forgotten us, then, with all your wonderful friends, and the grand houses, and the dukes and nobles and kings?”

  Laurie looked at her steadfastly. Again she smiled her cold and peculiar smile. “No. I’ve not forgotten, Ma.”

  Janie summoned an expression of judicious sternness to her face. “They may bow and scrape before you, Laurie, and clap and give you flowers and these gew-gaws, but I’m still your mother, and to me you’re just my little lass that I used to cuff about when you were in pinafores. I don’t see you as the marvelous Miss Cauder, but as my own child whom I had to correct out of her witless ways.”

  Laurie did not speak. But she regarded her mother steadily. And there was something in her regard that startled Janie, made her uneasy. She said: “Don’t look at me like that, lass! It’s as if you hated me.”