Harriet

“ Free, with the chance and the power of making a name for himself in the world! free from all the debasing associations, free from Routh, from Harriet--from Harriet? Was that idea quite so congenial to his feelings? to be separated from Harriet, the only woman whom, in his idle dissipated days, he had ever regarded with anything like affection, the only woman who--and then the bright laughing face and the golden hair of Clare Carruthers rose before his mind. ”

“ Nina looked her prettiest in a white silk, and the old lady was magnificent in diamonds and brocade. Harriet deliberately selected her handsomest gown, a severe black satin that wrapped her slender body with one superb and shining sweep, and left her white arms and firm, flawless shoulders bare. The weeks of sunshine and fresh air had been good for her, as for the others, and when she was dressed, and stood in the full blaze of the lights, looking at herself, she would not have been human not to be pleased. ”

“ But for a long time she neither slept nor read; her eyes widened at the faintest sound of the summer night; her heart thumped madly when the curtains whispered at the window, or the wicker chairs gave the faintest creak. It had not been only for Richard that the midnight hour of responsibility and informality shared had had its thrill.
One o'clock. Harriet closed her book and snapped off her light. But first she went to the window, and leaned out into the sweet darkness. There was shadow unbroken everywhere; no light in all the big house was burning as late as her own. ”

“ Harriet, her rage curdling into philosophy.
"Ah, but it is the best there is just yet," maintained Miss Anna, stoutly. "By and by we may all be able to do better—those of us who get the chance."
"What shall I care then?" said Harriet, scouting eternity as a palliative of contemporary woes.
"Wait! you are tired and you have lost your temper from thirst: children always do. I'll bring something to cure you, fresh from the country, fresh from Ambrose Webb's farm. ”

“ Harriet’s health was tenderly inquired after, she was solemnly congratulated on her recent appointment, which did her much credit and conferred honor upon her family; but it was soon apparent that there was only one subject, to which, at that moment, Harriet could give her mind. Had she been the mother of the babe, instead of the godmother merely, her impatience to draw aside the curtains of the cradle could hardly have been greater, or her delight in looking upon a ravishing spectacle when she had done so. ”

“ David took Harriet walking in the fresh cold air, a Harriet so beautiful in her furry hat and long coat, with her brilliant cheeks and her blue eyes shining under a blown film of golden hair, that Linda, as she basted the turkey in the hot kitchen, couldn't help a little prayer that that would all come out "right."
"But, Davy dear!" Harriet and David had stopped short in the exquisite, silent woods. "There is a feeling--a something that makes marriage RIGHT! ”

“ I would not for worlds speak to you, Harriet; I would not for worlds approach you! No: I would refuse your offered love! What! brand with infamy thy spotless name! Sink the honourable wife, the virtuous mother to be the sharer of my wretched condition! The companion of a reputed robber, a worthless vagabond; of a being who can claim no affinity but to the earth he treads! No; Harriet, thy Duncan is not yet so poor, so abject! Scorned, and sunk as he may be in your eyes, he yet proudly maintains his claims to the recompense of long suffering and patience. This is not Duncan’s theatre of glory! ”

“ Come now, my dear, you must face this like a woman. Think how your father and Ward will look to you--"
Acting, all of it, said Harriet in her soul. But despite the youthful appetite for heroics, there were real tears in Nina's eyes, as there had been in her grandmother's a few hours ago.
"Yes, that's true!" she said, wiping a swollen face on the handkerchief Harriet supplied. "But oh--I don't believe it, and my father will sue them for libel, you see if he doesn't! My mother's the purest and sweetest and best woman ALIVE--and I'll KILL any one who says any different!" ”

“ Will you put your hand in mine, Harriet?”
The girl over in the shadow felt that her heart would break. And this was love. The great, sad thing was love!
He was talking again. “I never thought, surely, to be a stick of a man like this. I could have made a royal lover, Harriet. A man’s blood at forty is like wine at its fulness. My head—won’t lift—God, that it should come to find me like this! yet, kiss me, will you, Harriet?” ”

“ Blondin said, "was one of satisfaction. I thought to myself that my own cause, with Nina, was safe now. That you trusted me, and I had every reason to trust you."
Harriet looked away for a brief silence, brought her eyes to his face. She felt suddenly sick.
"Roy, you're not still serious about Nina?"
"I have never been anything else," he said, delicately.
"But--but why?" Harriet asked.
"I like the girl," he reminded her pleasantly. "I hope she is not entirely indifferent to me--"
"Indifferent! She's at the age that marries anybody!" Harriet said, indignantly. ”

“ Thy favor of the 12th reached me yesterday, requesting such reminiscences as I could give respecting the remarkable labors of Harriet Tubman, in aiding her colored friends from bondage. I may begin by saying, living as I have in a slave State, and the laws being very severe where any proof could be made of any one aiding slaves on their way to freedom, I have not felt at liberty to keep any written word of Harriet's or my own labors, except in numbering those whom I have aided. ”

“ But Harriet shook her head.
"You're very clever, you know," Isabelle smiled, through a cloud of pale smoke. "You're always in character, Harriet!"
Harriet smiled her inscrutable smile; there was just the suggestion of a shrug. She had her own cigarette-case, and not infrequently used it in Isabelle's presence. But at this hour, when Richard or Ward or Nina, or even Madame Carter, might come in, she felt any familiarity unsuitable. Isabelle, the least affected of women, for all her spoiling and vanity, perfectly appreciated this, and liked Harriet for it. ”

“ Oh, Miss Field!" he called, after Harriet's discreetly retreating back, "the car's downstairs. Wait for me there; I'll run you home in half the time the train takes. I'm playing in the tennis finals, Mother--"
Harriet, turning for just a nod and smile, heard no more. His voice dropped to a filial undertone, and he sank into a low chair, with his hands still clasping the old lady's hand. But as she entered the lift, the girl said to herself, with a passionate sort of gratitude: "Oh, I like you! You're the only genuine and unselfish and kind-hearted one in the whole crowd!" ”

“ Harriet smiled over the dashing sentences; it was an honest letter. She felt a thrill of genuine affection for the writer; he would never grow up to her, but she would make him an ideal wife none-the-less. She went about his father's home, in these days, with a secret happiness swelling in her heart. It would not be long now before the secretary and companion must take a changed position here. It was not the least of her satisfactions that Ward wrote her that Royal was at the camp, planning a trip to the Orient. But before he went he talked of giving a studio tea for Nina. ”

“ And a romancer might have wondered what paths had led her, in the superb realization of her beautiful womanhood, at twenty-seven, to this subordinate position in the home of a self-made rich man, and this conventional tea table on a terrace over the Hudson. The smoky blue eyes to-day were full of an idle content; the rounded breast rose and fell quietly under the plain checked gown with its transparent frills at wrists and throat. Harriet may have had her moments of rebellion, but this was not one of them. ”

“ If I could go to him, tell him what he means to me, if we were poor--if we could take a little place next to Linda--never see Nina or his mother or Ward or Roy again--Oh, what Heaven! How I should love it, planning for things together, as Linda and Fred did, having him come home to me every night!
"But it isn't that way," Harriet suddenly recalled herself sensibly, "and it is folly even to think about it! He is a rich man, and a married man, and that ends it. That ends it." ”

“ The balm of those words worked through Harriet's veins like a poison of joy. So long as a single human being expresses faith in us, what matters an unbelieving world? Harriet regularly visited Miss Anna to hear these maddening syllables. ”

“ Harriet. Indeed, I do not know any one I have a particular desire to see this morning, except yourself.
Maria. You forget Mr. Loveyet, when you say so.
Harriet. Poh! I am not talking of men.
Maria. No; but it is very probable you are thinking of a man.
Harriet. And pray what reason have you to think, that my thoughts run upon such an improper subject?
Maria. Improper subject,—ha, ha, ha. So my very discreet, prudish little Harriet never lets man enter into her head; tho' it is pretty notorious somebody has enter'd into her heart long ago. ”

“ She never took her aching eyes for one second from the wonderful white thing. She scorned to watch the ground. With a magnificent faith she walked, her head lifted, her heart too full to know if she stumbled. In the clear places, always where there were no branches, the white guide flew and Harriet walked after with her staff. ”

“ While preparing this second edition of Harriet's story, I have been much pleased to find that that good man, Oliver Johnson, is still living and in New York City. And I have just returned from a very pleasant interview with him. He remembers Harriet with great pleasure, though he has not seen her for many years. He speaks, as all who knew her do, of his entire confidence in her truthfulness and in the perfect integrity of her character. ”

“ Harriet went swiftly over to the waker. It is on Olympus they take time for deliberate and stately progression; Harriet had come down to the human world.
“It’s a soporific thing,” quoth the Major, “listening to one’s own editorials. I never heard one through before. You there, Alexina? Where have you been these two days? I hope you’re not holding it against us that Georgy is sending all his flowers to me? It’s his delicate way, you see; reaching round through me via Harriet to you.” ”

“ At four o'clock she dressed herself again, half-mad with headache and fatigue, and went out into a world that was just beginning to brighten into faint shapes and colours. The fresh cold air of morning struck her jaded senses with a delicious chill; she went noiselessly across the terrace and down toward the water, her big soft coat brushing spider-webs from the dim rosebushes as she went. The world lay silent, fragrant, saturated with dew. Yet under its chill Harriet felt the pervading warmth of the day that had gone, and the day that was to come. ”

“ And presently the sun came out for Harriet in the arrival of a tall, swiftly moving, dark-eyed woman some ten years older than she was herself: Mary Putnam, one of the real friends the girl had gained in the last four years. Young Mrs. Putnam, Harriet used to think, with a little natural jealousy under her admiration, had everything. She was not pretty, but hers was a distinguished appearance and a lovely face; she had the self-possessed manner of a woman whose whole life has been given to the social arts; she had a clever, kindly, silent husband who adored her ”

“ No matter, Richard said, in an aside to Harriet, accepting the situation philosophically, there was no need for suddenness. Harriet tried to be philosophical, too. Richard was bringing two men down for golf this week-end, and with Saunders and Amy, Royal and Madame Carter and Mrs. Tabor, the house would be filled. She had plenty to do with the managing, the endless details that were brought her mercilessly, hour after hour, by maids and housekeeper. And yet under her quiet busyness and her happy hours with the young people there lurked incessantly a fretted sense of danger approaching. ”

“ His face was keen and somewhat lined under a smooth crest of slightly graying hair; he smiled very rarely, but there was a certain kindliness in his gray eyes, when Nina or Ward or his wife turned to him, that Harriet liked. He came and went quietly, absorbed in his business, getting in and out of his cars with a murmur to his chauffeur, disappearing with his golf sticks, presiding almost silently over his own animated dinner table. He was always well groomed, well dressed without being in the least conspicuous; always more or less tired when she saw him. ”

“ Guided by Harriet, who was familiar with the place, they slipped through the hallway, and out a side door, crossing the lane that led down to the garage, and striking into a splendid old quiet roadway barred now by the shadows of elms and sycamores and maples, and filled with soft green lights from the thick arch of new leaves. They had no sooner gained the silence and solitude it afforded them than the man began deliberately:
"Harriet, I've not thought of anything else since I came upon you yesterday, after all these years. I want you to tell me that you--you aren't angry with me." ”

“ A charming letter is one of the fruits of loneliness and reading; Harriet was sure of her touch. His father, his mother, and Nina each had an epigrammatic line or two, and for his grandmother Harriet dared a little wit, and smiled to imagine his shout of appreciative laughter.
She dined as usual alone, that evening, and was surprised, at about eight o'clock, to receive the demure notification from Rosa that Mrs. Carter would like to see her. Harriet glanced at a mirror ”