The Builders

"But that is exactly why you ought to know." As Daisy leaned nearer her purple wing brushed Caroline's face. "It is all over Richmond, Miss Meade," her voice rang out with fluting sweetness, "that David Blackburn kept Letty's condition from Angelica because he was so crazy about her being in those tableaux. They say he simply made her go, and that she never knew the child was in danger until she got back in the night. Mrs. Mallow declares she heard it straight from an intimate friend of the family, and somebody, who asked me not to mention her name, told me she knew positively that Doctor Boland hadn't any use in the world for David Blackburn. She said, of course, he hadn't said anything outright, but she could tell just by the way he looked. Everybody is talking about it, and I said to Robert at breakfast that I knew you could tell exactly what happened because we heard from Cousin Matty that you never left Letty's room."

"But why should Mr. Blackburn have wanted her to go? Why should he care?" Though Daisy's sprightly story had confused her a little, Caroline gathered vaguely that somebody had been talking too much, and she resolved that she would not contribute a single word to the gossip.

"Oh, he has always been wild about Angelica's being admired. Don't you remember hearing her say at that committee meeting at Briarlay that her husband liked her to take part in public affairs? I happen to know that he has almost forced her to go into things time and again when Doctor Boland has tried to restrain her. Mother thinks that is really why he married Angelica, because he was so ambitious, and he believed her beauty and charm would help him in the world. I suppose it must have been a blow to him to find that she couldn't tolerate his views – for she is the most loyal soul on earth – and there are a great many people who think that he voted with the Republicans in the hope of an office, and that he got mad when he didn't get one and turned Independent – "

The flood of words was checked for a moment, while the chauffeur came to ask for a direction, and in the pause Caroline remarked crisply, "I don't believe one word – not one single word of these stories."

"You mean you think he didn't make her go?"

"I know he didn't. I'm perfectly positive."

"You can't believe that Angelica really knew Letty was so ill?" her tone was frankly incredulous.

"Of course I can't answer that. I don't know anything about what she thought; but I am certain that if she didn't understand, it wasn't Mr. Blackburn's fault." Afterwards, when she recalled it, her indignant defence of David Blackburn amused her. Why should she care what people said of him?

"But they say she didn't know. Mrs. Mallow told me she heard from someone who was there that Angelica turned on her husband when she came in and asked him why he had kept it from her?"

The hopelessness of her cause aroused Caroline's fighting blood, and she remembered that her father used to say the best battles of the war were fought after defeat. Strange how often his philosophy and experience of life came back to inspirit her!

"Well, perhaps she didn't understand, but Mr. Blackburn wasn't to blame. I am sure of it," she answered firmly.

Mrs. Colfax looked at her sharply. "Do you like David Blackburn?" she inquired without malice.

Caroline flushed. "I neither like nor dislike him," she retorted courageously, and wondered how long it would take the remark to circulate over Richmond. Mrs. Colfax was pretty, amiable, and amusing; but she was one of those light and restless women, as clear as running water, on whose sparkling memories scandals float like straws. Nothing ever sank to the depths – or perhaps there were no depths in the luminous shoals of her nature.

"Well, the reason I asked," Daisy had become ingratiating, "is that you talk exactly like Cousin Matty."

"Do I?" Caroline laughed. "Mrs. Timberlake is a very sensible woman."

"Yes, mother insists that she is as sharp as a needle, even if it is so hard to get anything out of her. Oh, I've kept you an age – and, good Heavens, it is long past my appointment at the dentist's! I can't tell you how glad I am that I met you, and you may be sure that whenever I hear these things repeated, I am going to say that you don't believe one single word of them. It is splendid of you to stand up for what you think, and that reminds me of the nice things I heard Roane Fitzhugh saying about you at the Mallow's the other night. He simply raved over you. I couldn't make him talk about anything else."

"I don't like to be disagreeable, but what he thinks doesn't interest me in the least," rejoined Caroline coldly.

Daisy laughed delightedly. "Now, that's too bad, because I believe he is falling in love with you. He told me he went motoring with you and Angelica almost every afternoon. Take my word for it, Miss Meade, Roane isn't half so black as he is painted, and he's just the sort that would settle down when he met the right woman. Good-bye again! I have enjoyed so much my little chat with you."

She rushed off to her car, while Caroline turned quickly into a cross street, and hastened to meet Angelica at the office of a new doctor, who was treating her throat. A few drops of rain were falling, and ahead of her, when she reached Franklin Street, the city, with its church spires and leafless trees, emerged indistinctly out of the mist. Here the long street was almost deserted, except for a blind negro beggar, whose stick tapped the pavement behind her, and a white and liver-coloured setter nosing adventurously in the gutter. Then, in the middle of the block, she saw Angelica's car waiting, and a minute later, to her disgust, she discerned the face of Roane Fitzhugh at the window. As she recognized him, the anger that Mrs. Colfax's casual words had aroused, blazed up in her without warning; and she told herself that she would leave Briarlay before she would allow herself to be gossiped about with a man she detested.

While she approached, Roane opened the door and jumped out. "Come inside and wait, Miss Meade," he said. "Anna Jeannette is still interviewing old skull and cross-bones."

"I'd rather wait in the office, thank you." She swept past him with dignity, but before she reached the steps of the doctor's house, he had overtaken her.

"Oh, I say, don't crush a chap! Haven't you seen enough of me yet to discover that I am really as harmless as I look? You don't honestly think me a rotter, do you?"

"I don't think about you."

"The unkindest cut of all! Now, if you only knew it, your thinking of me would do a precious lot of good. By the way, how is my niece?"

"Very well. You'd scarcely know she'd been ill."

"And she didn't see the tableaux, after all, poor kid. Well, Anna Jeannette was a stunner. I suppose you saw her picture in the papers. The Washington Examiner spoke of her as the most beautiful woman in Virginia. That takes old Black, I bet!"

Caroline had ascended the steps, and as she was about to touch the bell, the door opened quickly, and Angelica appeared, lowering a net veil which was covered with a large spiral pattern. She looked slightly perturbed, and when she saw Roane a frown drew her delicate eyebrows together. Her colour had faded, leaving a sallow tone to her skin, which was of the fine, rose-leaf texture that withers early.

"I can't take you to-day, Roane," she remarked hastily. "We must go straight back to Briarlay. Miss Meade came in to do some shopping for Letty."

"You'll have to take me as far as Monument Avenue." He was as ready as ever. "It is a long way, Anna Jeannette. I cannot walk, to crawl I am ashamed."

"Well, get in, and please try to behave yourself."

"If behaviour is all that you expect, I shall try to satisfy you. The truth is I'm dead broke, and being broke always makes a Christian of me. I feel as blue as old Black."

"Oh, Roane, stop joking!" Her sweetness was growing prickly. "You don't realize that when you run on like this people think you are serious. I have just heard some silly talk about Miss Meade and you, and it came from nothing in the world except your habit of saying everything that comes into your mind."

"In the first place, my dear Anna, nothing that you hear of Miss Meade could be silly, and in the second place, I've never spoken her name except when I was serious."

"Well, you ought to be more careful how you talk to Daisy Colfax. She repeats everything in the world that she hears."

He laughed shortly. "You'd say that if you'd heard the hot shot she gave me last night about you and Blackburn. Look here, Anna Jeannette, hadn't you better call a halt on the thing?"

She flushed indignantly. "I haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about."

"Oh, it's all rot, I know, but how the deuce does such tittle-tattle get started? I beg your pardon, Miss Meade, I am addressing you not as a woman, but as a fount of justice and equity, and in the presence of Anna Jeannette, I ask you frankly if you don't think it's a bit rough on old Black? We had our quarrel, and I assure you that I have no intention of voting with him; but when it comes to knifing a man in the back, then I must beg the adorable Daisy to excuse me. It takes a woman to do that – and, by Jove, old Black may be a bit of a heavyweight, but he is neither a coward nor a liar."

"I think you are right," responded Caroline, and it was the first time that she had ever agreed with an opinion of Roane's.

"I wish I knew what you are talking about," said Angelica wearily, "Roane, do you get out here?"

"I do, with regret." As he glanced back from the pavement, his face, except for the droop of the well-cut lips and the alcoholic puffs under the gay blue eyes, might have been a thicker and grosser copy of Angelica's. "Will you take me to-morrow?"

Mrs. Blackburn shook her head. "I am obliged to go to a meeting."

He appeared to catch at the idea. "Then perhaps Miss Meade and Letty may take pity on me?"

A worried look sharpened Angelica's features, but before she could reply, Caroline answered quickly, "We are not going without Mrs. Blackburn. Letty and I would just as soon walk."

"Ah, you walk, do you? Then we may meet some day in the road." Though he spoke jestingly, there was an undercurrent of seriousness in his voice.

"We don't walk in the road, and we like to go by ourselves. We are studying nature." As she responded she raised her eyes, and swept his face with a careless and indifferent glance.

"Take your hand from the door, Roane," said Mrs. Blackburn, "and the next time you see Daisy Colfax, please remember what I told you."

The car started while she was speaking, and a minute later, as Roane's figure passed out of sight, she observed playfully, "You mustn't let that bad brother of mine annoy you, Miss Meade. He doesn't mean all that he says."

"I am sure that he doesn't mean anything," returned Caroline with a smile, "but, if you don't mind, I'd rather not go to drive with him again."

The look of sharpness and worry disappeared from Angelica's face. "It is such a comfort, the way you take things," she remarked. "One can always count on your intelligence."

"I shouldn't have thought that it required intelligence to see through your brother," retorted Caroline gaily. "Any old common sense might do it!"

"Can you understand," Angelica gazed at her as if she were probing her soul, "what his attraction is for women?"

"No, I can't. I hope you don't mind my speaking the truth?"

"Not in the least." Angelica was unusually responsive. "But you couldn't imagine how many women have been in love with him. It isn't any secret that Daisy Colfax was wild about him the year she came out. The family broke it up because Roane was so dissipated, but everybody knows she still cared for Roane when she married Robert."

"She seems happy now with Mr. Colfax."

"Well, I don't mean that she isn't. There are some women who can settle down with almost any man, and though I am very fond of dear Daisy, there isn't any use pretending that she hasn't a shallow nature. Still there are people, you know, who say that she isn't really as satisfied as she tries to make you believe, and that her rushing about as much as she does is a sign that she regrets her marriage. I am sure, whatever she feels or doesn't feel, that she is the love of poor Roane's life."

It was not Angelica's habit to gossip, and while she ran on smoothly, reciting her irrelevant detail as if it were poetry, Caroline became aware that there was a serious motive beneath her apparent flippancy. "I suppose she is trying to warn me away from Roane," she thought scornfully, "as if there were any need of it!"

After this they were both silent until the car turned into the drive and stopped before the white columns. The happiness Caroline had once felt in the mere presence of Angelica had long ago faded, though she still thought her lovely and charming, and kind enough if one were careful not to cross her desires. She did not judge her harshly for her absence on the night of Letty's illness, partly because Letty had recovered, and partly because she was convinced that there had been an unfortunate misunderstanding – that Blackburn had failed to speak as plainly as he ought to have done. "Of course he thought he did," she had decided, in a generous effort to clear everybody from blame, "but the fact remains that there was a mistake – that Mrs. Blackburn did not take it just as he meant it." This, in the circumstances, was the best she felt that anybody could do. If neither Blackburn nor Angelica was to blame, then surely she must shift the responsibility to that flimsy abstraction she defined as "the way things happen in life."

Upstairs in the nursery they broke in upon a flutter of joyous excitement. Mary had just returned after a month's absence, and Letty was busily arranging a doll's tea party in honour of her aunt's arrival. The child looked pale and thin, but she had on a new white dress, and had tied a blue bow on her hair, which was combed primly back from her forehead. Mammy Riah had drawn the nursery table in front of the fire, and she was now placing a row of white and blue cups, and some plates of sponge cake and thinly sliced bread and butter, on the embroidered cloth she had borrowed from Mrs. Timberlake. The dignified old negress, in her full-waisted dress of black bombazine and her spotless white turban, was so unlike the demented figure that had crouched by the hearth on the night of Letty's illness, that, if Caroline had been less familiar with the impressionable mind of the negro, she would not have recognized her.

"So I'm back," said Mary, looking at them with her kind, frank glance, as they entered. She was still in her travelling clothes, and Caroline thought she had never seen her so handsome as she was in the smartly cut suit of brown homespun. "Letty is going to give me a party, only she must hurry, for if I don't get on a horse soon I'll forget how to sit in the saddle. Well, Angelica, I hear you were the whole show in the tableaux," she pursued in her nice, slangy manner, which was so perfectly in character with her boyish face and her straight, loose-limbed figure. "Your picture was in at least six magazines, though, I must say, they made you look a little too spectral for my taste. How are you feeling? You are just a trifle run down, aren't you?"

"Of course Letty's illness was a great strain," replied Angelica. "One never realizes how such shocks tell until they are over."

"Poor lamb! Look here, Letty, who is coming to this feast of joy? Do you mind if I bolt in the midst of it?"

"Father's coming and Aunt Matty," replied the child. "I couldn't have anybody else because mammy thought mother wouldn't like me to ask John. I like John, and he's white anyway."

"Oh, the footman! Well, as long as you haven't invited him, I suppose there'll be only home folks. I needn't stand on formality with your father and Cousin Matty."

"And there's mother – you'll come, won't you, mother? – and Miss Meade," added Letty.

"Yes, I'll come," responded Angelica. "I'm dying for my tea, dear, isn't it ready?"

"May I pour it for you? I'll be very careful, and I know just how you like it."

"Yes, you may pour it, but let Mammy Riah help you. Here's your father now, and Cousin Matty."

"Hallo, David!" Mary's voice rang out clearly. "You look just a bit seedy, don't you? Letty's illness seems to have knocked out everybody except the youngster herself. Even Miss Meade looks as if she'd been giving too much medicine." Then she turned to embrace Mrs. Timberlake, while Blackburn crossed the room and sat down near the fireplace.

"Well, daughter, it isn't a birthday, is it?"

Letty, with her head bent sideways, and her small mouth screwed up very tight, was pouring Angelica's tea with the aid of Mammy Riah. "You mustn't talk to me while I am pouring, father," she answered seriously. "I am so afraid I shall spill it, and mother can't bear to have it spilt."

"All right. I'll talk to your Aunt Mary. Any news, Mary?"

"Yes, there's news, David. Alan is coming in for his own, and it looks as if his own were enough for us."

"You mean the old man in Chicago – ?"

"He died last week, just as he was celebrating his ninetieth birthday. At ninety one couldn't reasonably have asked for very much more, do you think?"

"And is Alan his heir?"

"His one and only. To be sure he wrote a will a few weeks ago and left every cent of it – I can't begin to remember the millions – to some missionary society, but fortunately he had neglected or forgotten to sign it. So Alan gets the whole thing, bless his heart, and he's out there now in Chicago having legal bouts with a dozen or more lawyers."

For the first time Angelica spoke. "Is it true that Alan will be one of the richest men in the West?" she asked slowly. "Thank you, Letty, darling, my tea is exactly right."

"If he gets it all, and he is going to unless another will and a missionary society come to light. My dear Angelica, when you see me a year hence," she continued whimsically, "you won't recognize your dependent sister. Alan says he is going to give me a string of pearls even finer than yours."

She spoke jestingly, yet as Caroline watched Angelica's face, it occurred to her that Mary was not always tactful. The girl ought to have known by this time that Angelica had no sense of humour and could not bear to be teased.

"It's funny, isn't it, the way life works out?" said Mrs. Timberlake. "To think of Mary's having more things than Angelica! It doesn't seem natural, somehow."

"No, it doesn't," assented Mary, in her habitual tone of boyish chaffing. "But as far as the 'things' go, Angelica needn't begin to worry. Give me Alan and a good horse, and she may have all the pearls that ever came out of the ocean."

"I read an account in some magazine of the jewels old Mrs. Wythe left," remarked Angelica thoughtfully. "She owned the finest emeralds in America." Her reflections, whatever they were, brought the thin, cold look to her features.

"Can you imagine me wearing the finest emeralds in America?" demanded Mary. "There's a comfort for you, at any rate, in the thought that they wouldn't be becoming to you. Green isn't your colour, my dear, and white stones are really the only ones that suit you. Now, I am so big and bold that I could carry off rubies." Her laughing tone changed suddenly, "Why, Angelica, what is the matter? Have you a headache?"

"I feel very tired. The truth is I haven't quite got over the strain of Letty's illness. When does Alan come back, dear? I suppose you won't put off the wedding much longer? Mother used to say that a long engagement meant an unhappy marriage."

"Alan gets back next week, I hope, and as for the wedding – well, we haven't talked it over, but I imagine we'll settle on the early summer – June probably. It's a pity it has to be so quiet, or I might have Miss Meade for a bridesmaid. She'd make an adorable bridesmaid in an orchid-coloured gown and a flower hat, wouldn't she, Cousin Matty?"

"I'd rather dress you in your veil and orange blossoms," laughed Caroline. "Diana or I have pinned on almost every wedding veil of the last five years in southside Virginia."

"Oh, is Aunt Mary really going to be married at last?" asked Letty, with carefully subdued excitement, "and may I go to church? I do hope I shan't have to miss it as I did mother's tableau," she added wistfully.

"You shan't miss it, dearie," said Mary, "not if I have to be married up here in the nursery."

Angelica had risen, and she stooped now to pick up her furs which she had dropped.

"Your tea was lovely, Letty dear," she said gently, "but I'm so tired that I think I'll go and lie down until dinner."

"You must pick up before Alan gets back," remarked Mary lightly. "He thinks you the most beautiful woman in the world, you know."

"He does? How very sweet of him!" exclaimed Angelica, turning in the doorway, and throwing an animated glance back into the room. Her face, which had been wan and listless an instant before, was now glowing, while her rare, lovely smile irradiated her features.

When she had gone, Mary went to change into her riding clothes, and Caroline slipped away to take off her hat. A few minutes later, she came back with some brown yarn in her hand, and found that Blackburn was still sitting in the big chintz-covered chair by the hearth. Letty had dragged a footstool to the rug, and she was leaning against her father's knee while he questioned her about the stories in her reader.

"I know Miss Meade can tell you," said the child as Caroline entered. "Miss Meade, do you remember the story about the little girl who got lost and went to live with the fairies? Is it in my reader? Father, what is the difference between an angel and a fairy? Mrs. Aylett says that mother is an angel. Is she a fairy too?"

"You'd think she was sometimes to look at her," replied Blackburn, smiling.

"Well, if mother is an angel, why aren't you one? I asked Mrs. Aylett that, but she didn't tell me."

"You could scarcely blame her," laughed Blackburn. "It is a hard question."

"I asked Miss Meade, too, but she didn't tell me either."

"Now, I should have thought better of Miss Meade." As Blackburn lifted his face, it looked young and boyish. "Is it possible that she is capable of an evasion?"

"What does that word mean, father?"

"It means everything, my daughter, that Miss Meade is not."

"You oughtn't to tease the child, David," said Mrs. Timberlake. "She is so easily excited."

Caroline and the old lady had both unfolded their knitting; and the clicking of their needles made a cheerful undercurrent to the conversation. The room looked homelike and pleasant in the firelight, and leaning back in his chair, Blackburn gazed with half-closed eyes at the two women and the child outlined against the shimmering glow of the flames.

"You are like the Fates," he said presently after a silence in which Letty sank drowsily against him. "Do you never put down your knitting?"

"Well, Angelica promised so many, and it makes her nervous to hear the needles," rejoined Mrs. Timberlake.

"It is evidently soothing to you and Miss Meade."

"The difference, I reckon, is that we don't stop to think whether it is or not." Mrs. Timberlake was always curt when she approached the subject of Angelica. "I've noticed that when you can't afford nerves, you don't seem to have them."

"That's considerate of nature, to say the least." His voice had borrowed the chaffing tone of Mary's.

As if in response to his words, Mrs. Timberlake rolled up the half-finished muffler, thrust her long knitting needles through the mesh, and leaned forward until she met Blackburn's eyes.

"David," she said in a low, harsh voice, "there is something I want to ask you, and Miss Meade might as well hear it. Is Letty asleep?"

"She is dozing, but speak guardedly. This daughter of mine is a keen one."

"Well, she won't understand what I am talking about. Did you or did you not think that you had spoken plainly to Angelica that evening?"

He looked at her through narrowed lids.

"What does she say?"

"She says she didn't understand. It is all over town that she didn't know Letty's condition was serious."

"Then why do you ask me? If she didn't understand, I must have blundered in the telling. That's the only possible answer to your question."