An Ambitious Woman Part 21

"Of course you did. You haven't yet taken in the full enormity of Cornelia's importance. You can't do it until you see her surrounded by her own proper atmosphere--with her foot on her native heath, so to speak. Then you'll understand the ma.s.sive condescension of to-night."

"I think I would just as lief not understand it," laughed Hollister, with his characteristic play of gentle humor. "It doesn't repay you to climb these _very_ big mountains. Everybody says that there's very little to see after you've got to the tops of them."

Mrs. Diggs echoed his laugh. She was looking at Claire, however, with her bright, black, restless eyes. "I think your wife may want to climb,"

she said. "I'll be her guide, if she'll let me. There's a very good view from the summit of cousin Cornelia. You can look down on a lot of smaller peaks."

Claire shook her head. She had got her natural color again, but not her natural manner; she spoke in a tone of preoccupied seriousness that did not harmonize with her light words.

"I shouldn't like to fall down one of her glaciers and be lost," she said.

"Oh, there's no fear of that," cried Mrs. Diggs. "You're too sure-footed."

Somewhat later that evening, when they were alone together, Hollister asked his wife:

"Did that Mrs. Van Horn say anything that hurt you, Claire?"

"Oh, no. What made you think so, Herbert?"

"I.... Well, perhaps I only fancied it.... You had known her brother, hadn't you?"

"Yes. He was a good deal at the Bergemanns' last Spring. He went to Europe afterward. I suppose that was why she wanted to know me better."

Claire said this with a fine composure. She was standing before her dressing-table, disengaging the roses from her breast. Hollister stole up behind her and clasped her in his arms, setting his face close beside hers, and looking with a full smile at their twin reflection, which the mirror now gave to both.

"So you've got among the great people at last, little struggler," he said; "you've begun to be a great person yourself." He kissed her on the temple, still keeping his arms about her. "I suppose you'll make quick work of it now. I'm glad, for your sake--you know I am! You're bound to succeed. I shall be awfully proud of you."

This seemed quite in the proper order of things to Claire. Her husband's approval was a matter-of-course; it was like the roses he gave her every day--like the kiss, the embrace, the loving devotion that had each grown accepted synonyms of Herbert himself. She forgot the words and the caress with careless prompt.i.tude. But she did not forget what Mrs. Van Horn had said to her, downstairs in the great sitting-room. Her sleep that night was perturbed by the memory of it. "Does that woman like me, or does she hate me?" repeatedly pa.s.sed through her mind, in the intervals between sleeping and waking. "Does she feel that she owes me a grudge, and long to pay it? Is she angry that I refused her brother? How strange it would be if I should find myself face to face with some hard, bitter enmity just at the threshold of the new life I want to live."

But the bright morning dissipated these brooding fears. It was a very bright morning, and an unexpectedly cold one. The sea sparkled with the vivid brilliance of real autumn as Claire looked at it from her window on rising, and every trace of its former lazy mist had left the silvery crystal blue of the over-arching sky. A sharp barometric change had occurred during the night. Claire and Hollister effected their toilets with numb fingers and not a few audible shivers. The flimsy architecture of the huge hotel, reared to court coolness rather than to resist cold, had suddenly become an abode of aguish discomfort.

Its occupants fled, that day, in startled scores. Mrs. Diggs was among the earlier departures. She bade farewell to Claire, wrapped in a formidably wintry mantle. Her leave-taking was warm enough, though her teeth almost seemed to chatter while she gave it. Her husband was at her side, looking as though the altered weather had incited him to even a more baccha.n.a.l disregard of his complexion than usual. The chubby-cheeked little girl, her French _bonne_, and the maid of Mrs.

Diggs, were also near at hand. They were all five on the piazza, where Hollister and Claire had also gone, both careless, in their youthful health and vigor, of the rushing ocean wind that blew out into straight lines every shred of raiment that it could seize. Little Louise was whimpering and contumacious; she wanted to break away from Aline, and pulled against the latter's tense clasp of her hand as if the wind and she were in some hoydenish, fly-away plot together. An admonitory stroke of bells had just sounded from the near depot; the train would soon glide off from the big wooden platform beyond. Mrs. Diggs was in a flurry, like the weather; her great wrap could not warm her; she looked more chalky of hue than ever, and the bluish line at her lips had grown purplish. But a defective circulation had not chilled her spirits; she was alive with her wonted vivacity.

She had caught Claire's hand, while turning at very brief intervals toward Aline and the child. Her sentences had become spasmodic, polyglot, and parenthetical; they were half addressed to Claire and half to the recalcitrant Louise.

"Now you _won't_ forget just where you're to find me, will you, my dear Mrs. Hollister?... _Sois bonne fille, Louise; nous allons a New York tout de suite_.... I want so much to see you as soon as you can manage to come. Did you ever know anything like this dreadful gale? I'm so cold that I believe it will take a good month to warm me.... _Tais-toi, cherie, tu vas a New York, ou il ne fait pas froid du tout_.... You're going this afternoon, you say? I don't see how you can wait. There's cousin Jane Van Corlear just going inside--I promised to go along with her. Say good-by, Manhattan; the cold weather has made you as red as a turkey-c.o.c.k, hasn't it, dear boy?... _Aline, prenez garde! Elle est bien mechante, elle veut etre absolument perdue...._ Well, good-by, both of you. I do hope you won't freeze before you get off!"

When the Diggs family had disappeared, Claire and her husband went and finished their packing. That afternoon they left the deserted hotel, reaching New York at about dusk. They had themselves driven to the Everett House; Hollister had occasionally lodged there in bachelor days, and proposed it as a temporary place of sojourn.

It proved less temporary than they had expected. Apartments were easy and yet hard to procure. A good many sumptuous suites, in haughty and handsome buildings, were offered them at depressing prices. They found other suites, in buildings far less grand, which pleased them less and suited their purse better, but still left a certain margin as regarded proposed rental expenditure. Five or six days were consumed in these monotonous modes of search. They could obtain lodgment that was too dear, and lodgment that was too cheap; but they could not hit the golden mean of adaptability which would combine delectable quarters with moderate rates.

"It is tiresome work," Claire at length said, "and it is keeping you from your business, Herbert, in a most shameful way. I really don't see what we are to do."

"The apartments in West Thirty-Sixth Street, that we saw yesterday,"

ventured Hollister, genially, "were rather nice, though small, of course."

"Quite too small," affirmed Claire. "Besides, the house itself had a dingy air. It looked so--so economical, Herbert. We don't want to look economical; we want only to _be_ it."

Hollister made a blithe grimace. "I am afraid that to be it and to look it are inseparable," he said. "The grain of the rind tells the quality of the fruit." He put his head a little sideways and glanced at his wife with a quizzical eye. "Now, in the way of downright bargains, Claire,"

he went on, "there is that nice bas.e.m.e.nt house which is for rent entire in Twenty-Eighth Street. The one we drifted into by mistake during our wanderings of yesterday, you remember."

"I'd rather not think of it," said Claire, with a sort of musing demureness. "I liked it very much. I don't believe there is a furnished house to rent in the whole city that could be had for the same terms.

But you know very well that we could not afford to take it, with the need of at least three servants, apart from other expenses."

"True," said Hollister. "That is, unless I get along better--make a hit on the street, you know."

"Oh, well," said Claire, "there is no use in depending upon chance. Of course," she added, slowly, with a grave, affirmative motion of the head, "I should like very much to have the house. You know I should."

"Then, we'll rent it," Hollister struck in, swiftly and with fervor. "It won't be much of a risk, but we'll take what risk there is. The first quarter's rent would be absolutely sure, Claire. Are you agreed?"

He spoke entirely from his loving perception of how much she would like to reign as the ruler of her own establishment. It thrilled him to think of her in this proper, sovereign sort of character.

"It will not be right, Herbert," Claire said. "We made up our minds to spend just so much and no more." ...

But her tones lacked all imperative disapproval. Perhaps she was thinking how pleasant it would be for Mrs. Diggs to find her handsomely installed as the mistress of her own private dwelling.

On the following day Hollister rented the little bas.e.m.e.nt house in Twenty-Eighth Street. Claire accompanied him while he did so. She was frightened when the terms asked were finally accepted. She was still more frightened when she thought of the steady, draining expenses which must follow. But, after all, her alarm only acted as a sort of undercurrent. Above it was the large, delightful satisfaction of foreseeing herself the reigning head of a distinct establishment. It was an extremely pretty house, no less outside than inside. The occupation by its new tenants had been arranged as immediate, and this notable event soon occurred. Claire went herself to hire the three servants. She found a great supply at a certain depot for this sort of demand. She engaged three whom she liked the most, or rather disliked the least. And very soon she and her husband quitted their hotel for good. They became the co-proprietors of the bas.e.m.e.nt house in Twenty-Eighth Street.

Certain new tasks occupied Claire. She quickly performed them. Her administrative faculty now showed itself in clear and striking relief.

Her penurious past had taught her unforgotten lessons; she went into her new place with none of a neophyte's unskilled rawness; her fund of domestic, of managerial experience was like an unused yet efficient well; she had only to give a turn of the hand and up came the buckets, moistly and practically laden. True, she worked under the most altered conditions; she was no longer a drudge but a supervisor; and yet the very grimness of that early apprenticeship had held in it a radical value of instruction. She who had known of the prices paid for inferior household goods, could use her knowledge now to fine profit in the purchase of better ones. Having swept with her own toil floors that were clad coa.r.s.ely, she could in readier way discern uncleanly neglect on the part of underlings who swept floors clad with velvet.

Her responsibility was borne with great lightness. "I think I am a sort of natural housekeeper," she soon told her husband. "It all comes very easy. I find that my daily leisure is increasing at a rapid rate." She directed with so much system, discipline, and keen-sightedness, that speed was a natural result. Her detection of negligence and fraud was prompt and thorough. She discouraged the least familiarity in her servants. On this point she was severely sensitive; she maintained her dignity in all intercourse with them, and sometimes it was a dignity so positive and accentuated that it blent with her personal beauty in giving the effect of a picturesque sternness. The secret of its exercise lay wholly in her former life. She had once been socially low enough for these very employees to have treated her as an equal. All that was dead and in its grave. She wanted to keep it there forever. Instinctively she stamped down the sods, and even held a vigilant foot upon them.

She was soon prepared to seek out Mrs. Diggs and pay her a long, intimate visit. She found her new friend in a small but charming home.

The drawing-room into which she was shown displayed a great deal of good taste, and yet it had not a touch of needless grandeur. Its least detail, from the cushion of a sofa to the panel of a screen, suggested permanent and sensible usage. It was a room that shocked you with no inelegance, while it invited you by a sort of generally sympathetic upholstery and appointment.

Mrs. Diggs was delighted to hear of the new Twenty-Eighth Street residence. She took Claire's gloved hand in both of her slim, bony ones, and proffered the most effusive congratulations.

"It's so much nicer, don't you know, to be a real _chatelaine_, like that--to have your own four domiciliary walls, and not live in a honeycomb fashion, like a bee in its cell, with Heaven knows how many other bees buzzing all about you. I'm inexpressibly glad you've done it.

Now you are _lancee_, don't you know? You can entertain people. And I'm sure, my dear, that you do want to entertain people."

Claire gave a pretty little trill of a laugh. "I have no people to entertain, yet," she said.

Mrs. Diggs was still holding her hand. "Oh, you sly mouse!" she exclaimed. "You've got great ideas in your head for the coming winter.

Don't tell me you haven't. Remember our talks at Coney Island. And you're going straight for the big game. You're not of the sort that will be content with a small, low place. Not you! You want a large and a high one. It's going to be a great fight. Now, don't say it isn't. I know all about you. I dote on you, and I know all about you. You intend to try and be a leader. You've got it in you to be one, too. I believe you'll succeed--I do, honestly! I'll put my money on you, as that dear Manhattan of mine would say of a horse.... You're not annoyed at me?"

"Not at all," smiled Claire. "But everything must have a beginning, you know. And I have no beginning, as yet. I have only met yourself and" ...

She paused, then, looking a little serious.

Here Mrs. Diggs dropped Claire's hand, and burst into a loud, hilarious laugh. Her mirth quite convulsed her for several seconds.

"Cornelia Van Horn!" she presently shouted in a riotously gleeful way.

"Myself and Cornelia Van Horn! That is what you mean. Isn't it, now?

_Isn't_ it?"

She was looking at Claire with both hands in her lap and her angular body bent oddly forward. She gave the idea of a humorous human interrogation-mark.

"Well, yes," said Claire, soberly, and a little offendedly; "I do mean that. Pray what is there so funny about it?"