A Lost Lady

by Willa Cather

Mrs. Forrester, untied the ponies, and sprang in beside her.

  Without direction the team started down the frozen main street,

  where few people were abroad, crossed the creek on the ice, and

  trotted up the poplar-bordered lane toward the house on the hill.

  The late afternoon sun burned on the snow-crusted pastures. The

  poplars looked very tall and straight, pinched up and severe in

  their winter poverty. Mrs. Forrester chatted to Niel with her face

  turned toward him, holding her muff up to break the wind.

  "I'm counting on you to help me entertain Constance Ogden. Can you

  take her off my hands day after tomorrow, come over in the

  afternoon? Your duties as a lawyer aren't very arduous yet?" She

  smiled teasingly. "What can I do with a miss of nineteen? One who

  goes to college? I've no learned conversation for her!"

  "Surely I haven't!" Niel exclaimed.

  "Oh, but you're a boy! Perhaps you can interest her in lighter

  things. She's considered pretty."

  "Do you think she is?"

  "I haven't seen her lately. She was striking,--china blue eyes and

  heaps of yellow hair, not exactly yellow,--what they call an ashen

  blond, I believe."

  Niel had noticed that in describing the charms of other women Mrs.

  Forrester always made fun of them a little.

  They drew up in front of the house. Ben Keezer came round from the

  kitchen to take the team.

  "You are to go back for Mr. Forrester at six, Ben. Niel, come in

  for a moment and get warm." She drew him through the little storm

  entry, which protected the front door in winter, into the hall.

  "Hang up your coat and come along." He followed her through the

  parlour into the sitting-room, where a little coal grate was

  burning under the black mantelpiece, and sat down in the big

  leather chair in which Captain Forrester dozed after his mid-day

  meal. It was a rather dark room, with walnut bookcases that had

  carved tops and glass doors. The floor was covered by a red

  carpet, and the walls were hung with large, old-fashioned

  engravings; "The House of the Poet on the Last Day of Pompeii,"

  "Shakespeare Reading before Queen Elizabeth."

  Mrs. Forrester left him and presently returned carrying a tray with

  a decanter and sherry glasses. She put it down on her husband's

  smoking-table, poured out a glass for Niel and one for herself, and

  perched on the arm of one of the stuffed chairs, where she sat

  sipping her sherry and stretching her tiny, silver-buckled slippers

  out toward the glowing coals.

  "It's so nice to have you staying on until after Christmas," Niel

  observed. "You've only been here one other Christmas since I can

  remember."

  "I'm afraid we're staying on all winter this year. Mr. Forrester

  thinks we can't afford to go away. For some reason, we are

  extraordinarily poor just now."

  "Like everybody else," the boy commented grimly.

  "Yes, like everybody else. However, it does no good to be glum

  about it, does it?" She refilled the two glasses. "I always take

  a little sherry at this time in the afternoon. At Colorado Springs

  some of my friends take tea, like the English. But I should feel

  like an old woman, drinking tea! Besides, sherry is good for my

  throat." Niel remembered some legend about a weak chest and

  occasional terrifying hemorrhages. But that seemed doubtful, as

  one looked at her,--fragile, indeed, but with such light,

  effervescing vitality. "Perhaps I do seem old to you, Niel, quite

  old enough for tea and a cap!"

  He smiled gravely. "You seem always the same to me, Mrs. Forrester."

  "Yes? And how is that?"

  "Lovely. Just lovely."

  As she bent forward to put down her glass she patted his cheek.

  "Oh, you'll do very well for Constance!" Then, seriously, "I'm

  glad if I do, though. I want you to like me well enough to come to

  see us often this winter. You shall come with your uncle to make a

  fourth at whist. Mr. Forrester must have his whist in the evening.

  Do you think he is looking any worse, Niel? It frightens me to see

  him getting a little uncertain. But there, we must believe in good

  luck!" She took up the half-empty glass and held it against the

  light.

  Niel liked to see the firelight sparkle on her earrings, long

  pendants of garnets and seed-pearls in the shape of fleurs-de-lys.

  She was the only woman he knew who wore earrings; they hung

  naturally against her thin, triangular cheeks. Captain Forrester,

  although he had given her handsomer ones, liked to see her wear

  these, because they had been his mother's. It gratified him to

  have his wife wear jewels; it meant something to him. She never

  left off her beautiful rings unless she was in the kitchen.

  "A winter in the country may do him good," said Mrs. Forrester,

  after a silence during which she looked intently into the fire, as

  if she were trying to read the outcome of their difficulties there.

  "He loves this place so much. But you and Judge Pommeroy must keep

  an eye on him when he is in town, Niel. If he looks tired or

  uncertain, make some excuse and bring him home. He can't carry a

  drink or two as he used,"--she glanced over her shoulder to see

  that the door into the dining-room was shut. "Once last winter he

  had been drinking with some old friends at the Antlers,--nothing

  unusual, just as he always did, as a man must be able to do,--but

  it was too much for him. When he came out to join me in the

  carriage, coming down that long walk, you know, he fell. There was

  no ice, he didn't slip. It was simply because he was unsteady. He

  had trouble getting up. I still shiver to think of it. To me, it

  was as if one of the mountains had fallen down."

  A little later Niel went plunging down the hill, looking exultantly

  into the streak of red sunset. Oh, the winter would not be so bad,

  this year! How strange that she should be here at all, a woman

  like her among common people! Not even in Denver had he ever seen

  another woman so elegant. He had sat in the dining-room of the

  Brown Palace hotel and watched them as they came down to dinner,--

  fashionable women from "the East," on their way to California. But

  he had never found one so attractive and distinguished as Mrs.

  Forrester. Compared with her, other women were heavy and dull;

  even the pretty ones seemed lifeless,--they had not that something

  in their glance that made one's blood tingle. And never elsewhere

  had he heard anything like her inviting, musical laugh, that was

  like the distant measures of dance music, heard through opening and

  shutting doors.

  He could remember the very first time he ever saw Mrs. Forrester,

  when he was a little boy. He had been loitering in front of the

  Episcopal church one Sunday morning, when a low carriage drove up

  to the door. Ben Keezer was on the front seat, and on the back

  seat was a lady, alone, in a black silk dress all puffs and

  ruffles, and a black hat, carrying a parasol with a carved ivory

  handle. As the carri
age stopped she lifted her dress to alight;

  out of a swirl of foamy white petticoats she thrust a black, shiny

  slipper. She stepped lightly to the ground and with a nod to the

  driver went into the church. The little boy followed her through

  the open door, saw her enter a pew and kneel. He was proud now

  that at the first moment he had recognized her as belonging to a

  different world from any he had ever known.

  Niel paused for a moment at the end of the lane to look up at the

  last skeleton poplar in the long row; just above its pointed tip

  hung the hollow, silver winter moon.

  FOUR

  In pleasant weather Judge Pommeroy walked to the Forresters', but

  on the occasion of the dinner for the Ogdens he engaged the

  liveryman to take him and his nephew over in one of the town

  hacks,--vehicles seldom used except for funerals and weddings.

  They smelled strongly of the stable and contained lap-robes as

  heavy as lead and as slippery as oiled paper. Niel and his uncle

  were the only townspeople asked to the Forresters' that evening;

  they rolled over the creek and up the hill in state, and emerged

  covered with horsehair.

  Captain Forrester met them at the door, his burly figure buttoned

  up in a frock coat, a flat collar and black string tie under the

  heavy folds of his neck. He was always clean-shaven except for a

  drooping dun-coloured moustache. The company stood behind him

  laughing while Niel caught up the whisk-broom and began dusting

  roan hairs off his uncle's broadcloth. Mrs. Forrester gave Niel a

  brushing in turn and then took him into the parlour and introduced

  him to Mrs. Ogden and her daughter.

  The daughter was a rather pretty girl, Niel thought, in a pale pink

  evening dress which left bare her smooth arms and short, dimpled

  neck. Her eyes were, as Mrs. Forrester had said, a china blue,

  rather prominent and inexpressive. Her fleece of ashy-gold hair

  was bound about her head with silver bands. In spite of her fresh,

  rose-like complexion, her face was not altogether agreeable. Two

  dissatisfied lines reached from the corners of her short nose to

  the corners of her mouth. When she was displeased, even a little,

  these lines tightened, drew her nose back, and gave her a

  suspicious, injured expression. Niel sat down by her and did his

  best, but he found her hard to talk to. She seemed nervous and

  distracted, kept glancing over her shoulder, and crushing her

  handkerchief up in her hands. Her mind, clearly, was elsewhere.

  After a few moments he turned to the mother, who was more easily

  interested.

  Mrs. Ogden was almost unpardonably homely. She had a pear-shaped

  face, and across her high forehead lay a row of flat, dry curls.

  Her bluish brown skin was almost the colour of her violet dinner

  dress. A diamond necklace glittered about her wrinkled throat.

  Unlike Constance, she seemed thoroughly amiable, but as she talked

  she tilted her head and "used" her eyes, availing herself of those

  arch glances which he had supposed only pretty women indulged in.

  Probably she had long been surrounded by people to whom she was an

  important personage, and had acquired the manner of a spoiled

  darling. Niel thought her rather foolish at first, but in a few

  moments he had got used to her mannerisms and began to like her.

  He found himself laughing heartily and forgot the discouragement of

  his failure with the daughter.

  Mr. Ogden, a short, weather-beaten man of fifty, with a cast in one

  eye, a stiff imperial, and twisted moustaches, was noticeably

  quieter and less expansive than when Niel had met him here on

  former occasions. He seemed to expect his wife to do the talking.

  When Mrs. Forrester addressed him, or passed near him, his good eye

  twinkled and followed her,--while the eye that looked askance

  remained unchanged and committed itself to nothing.

  Suddenly everyone became more lively; the air warmed, and the

  lamplight seemed to brighten, as a fourth member of the Denver

  party came in from the dining-room with a glittering tray full of

  cocktails he had been making. Frank Ellinger was a bachelor of

  forty, six feet two, with long straight legs, fine shoulders, and a

  figure that still permitted his white waistcoat to button without a

  wrinkle under his conspicuously well-cut dinner coat. His black

  hair, coarse and curly as the filling of a mattress, was grey about

  the ears, his florid face showed little purple veins about his

  beaked nose,--a nose like the prow of a ship, with long nostrils.

  His chin was deeply cleft, his thick curly lips seemed very

  muscular, very much under his control, and, with his strong white

  teeth, irregular and curved, gave him the look of a man who could

  bite an iron rod in two with a snap of his jaws. His whole figure

  seemed very much alive under his clothes, with a restless, muscular

  energy that had something of the cruelty of wild animals in it.

  Niel was very much interested in this man, the hero of many

  ambiguous stories. He didn't know whether he liked him or not.

  He knew nothing bad about him, but he felt something evil.

  The cocktails were the signal for general conversation, the company

  drew together in one group. Even Miss Constance seemed less

  dissatisfied. Ellinger drank his cocktail standing beside her

  chair, and offered her the cherry in his glass. They were old-

  fashioned whiskey cocktails. Nobody drank Martinis then; gin was

  supposed to be the consolation of sailors and inebriate scrub-

  women.

  "Very good, Frank, very good," Captain Forrester pronounced,

  drawing out a fresh, cologne-scented handkerchief to wipe his

  moustache. "Are encores in order?" The Captain puffed slightly

  when he talked. His eyes, always somewhat suffused and bloodshot

  since his injury, blinked at his friends from under his heavy lids.

  "One more round for everybody, Captain." Ellinger brought in from

  the sideboard a capacious shaker and refilled all the glasses

  except Miss Ogden's. At her he shook his finger, and offered her

  the little dish of Maraschino cherries.

  "No, I don't want those. I want the one in your glass," she said

  with a pouty smile. "I like it to taste of something!"

  "Constance!" said her mother reprovingly, rolling her eyes at Mrs.

  Forrester, as if to share with her the charm of such innocence.

  "Niel," Mrs. Forrester laughed, "won't you give the child your

  cherry, too?"

  Niel promptly crossed the room and proffered the cherry in the

  bottom of his glass. She took it with her thumb and fore-finger

  and dropped it into her own,--where, he was quick to observe, she

  left it when they went out to dinner. A stubborn piece of pink

  flesh, he decided, and certainly a fool about a man quite old

  enough to be her father. He sighed when he saw that he was placed

  next her at the dinner table.

  Captain Forrester still made a commanding figure at the head of his

  own table, with his napkin tucked under his chin and the work of

  ca
rving well in hand. Nobody could lay bare the bones of a brace

  of duck or a twenty-pound turkey more deftly. "What part of the

  turkey do you prefer, Mrs. Ogden?" If one had a preference, it was

  gratified, with all the stuffing and gravy that went with it, and

  the vegetables properly placed. When a plate left Captain

  Forrester's hands, it was a dinner; the recipient was served, and

  well served. He served Mrs. Forrester last of the ladies but

  before the men, and to her, too, he said, "Mrs. Forrester, what

  part of the turkey shall I give you this evening?" He was a man

  who did not vary his formulae or his manners. He was no more

  mobile than his countenance. Niel and Judge Pommeroy had often

  remarked how much Captain Forrester looked like the pictures of

  Grover Cleveland. His clumsy dignity covered a deep nature, and a

  conscience that had never been juggled with. His repose was like

  that of a mountain. When he laid his fleshy thick-fingered hand

  upon a frantic horse, an hysterical woman, an Irish workman out for

  blood, he brought them peace; something they could not resist.

  That had been the secret of his management of men. His sanity

  asked nothing, claimed nothing; it was so simple that it brought a

  hush over distracted creatures. In the old days, when he was

  building road in the Black Hills, trouble sometimes broke out in

  camp when he was absent, staying with Mrs. Forrester at Colorado

  Springs. He would put down the telegram that announced an

  insurrection and say to his wife, "Maidy, I must go to the men."

  And that was all he did,--he went to them.

  While the Captain was intent upon his duties as host he talked very

  little, and Judge Pommeroy and Ellinger kept a lively cross-fire of

  amusing stories going. Niel, sitting opposite Ellinger, watched

  him closely. He still couldn't decide whether he liked him or not.

  In Denver Frank was known as a prince of good fellows; tactful,

  generous, resourceful, though apt to trim his sails to the wind; a

  man who good-humouredly bowed to the inevitable, or to the almost-

  inevitable. He had, when he was younger, been notoriously "wild,"

  but that was not held against him, even by mothers with marriageable

  daughters, like Mrs. Ogden. Morals were different in those days.

  Niel had heard his uncle refer to Ellinger's youthful infatuation

  with a woman called Nell Emerald, a handsome and rather unusual

  woman who conducted a house properly licensed by the Denver police.

  Nell Emerald had told an old club man that though she had been out

  behind young Ellinger's new trotting horse, she "had no respect for

  a man who would go driving with a prostitute in broad daylight."

  This story and a dozen like it were often related of Ellinger, and

  the women laughed over them as heartily as the men. All the while

  that he was making a scandalous chronicle for himself, young

  Ellinger had been devotedly caring for an invalid mother, and he was

  described to strangers as a terribly fast young man and a model son.

  That combination pleased the taste of the time. Nobody thought the

  worse of him. Now that his mother was dead, he lived at the Brown

  Palace hotel, though he still kept her house at Colorado Springs.

  When the roast was well under way, Black Tom, very formal in a

  white waistcoat and high collar, poured the champagne. Captain

  Forrester lifted his glass, the frail stem between his thick

  fingers, and glancing round the table at his guests and at Mrs.

  Forrester, said,

  "Happy days!"

  It was the toast he always drank at dinner, the invocation he was

  sure to utter when he took a glass of whiskey with an old friend.

  Whoever had heard him say it once, liked to hear him say it again.

  Nobody else could utter those two words as he did, with such

  gravity and high courtesy. It seemed a solemn moment, seemed to

  knock at the door of Fate; behind which all days, happy and

  otherwise, were hidden. Niel drank his wine with a pleasant

  shiver, thinking that nothing else made life seem so precarious,