meantime, several hundred miles away, the two objects of all this criticism and speculation were not so apprehensive for their future as were the gossips of new munich, though it must be confessed that the prospective bridegroom, in spite of his jubilant happiness, did have one or two misgivings on certain points, and that the bride, while wholly ignorant of the real calibre of the man she was about to marry, and having no conception of such a domestic and social environment as that from which he had sprung, nevertheless did not even imagine herself romantically in love with him.
that a girl like margaret berkeley could have become involved in a love affair and an actual betrothal with a man like daniel leitzel, while apparently inexplicable, becomes, in view of her unique history and present circumstances, not only plausible, but almost inevitable.
her entanglement with him may be dated from a certain evening just twenty-four hours before she met or even heard of him, when a little episode, trivial enough in itself, opened her eyes to an ugly fact in her relation with her sister to which she had been rather persistently blind.
she had been radiantly happy all that day because of the unusual circumstance that she had something delightful to anticipate for the evening. her godmother, who lived in charleston, had 'phoned out to berkeley hill to invite her to go with her to see nazimova in "hedda gabler"; and as margaret had seen only three plays in all the twenty-five years of her life (though she had avidly read every classic drama in the english and french languages) she was greatly excited at the prospect before her. so barren had her girlhood been of youthful pleasures, so sombre and uneventful her daily routine, and so repressed every natural, restless instinct toward brightness and happiness, that the idea of seeing a great dramatic performance loomed big before her as an intoxicating delight. all day, alone in her isolated suburban home, in charge of her elder sister's three small children and of the two rather decrepit negro servants of the great old place, she had gone tripping and singing about the house. she had been quite unable to settle down to the prosaic work of mending the week's laundry, or of wrestling with the intricacies of henry james' difficult style in "the golden bowl" in which, the night before, she had been passionately absorbed.
she could scarcely wait for her sister harriet to come home from town, where she was attending a young matrons' luncheon party, so eager was she to tell her of the treat she was going to have.
"she will be so glad for me. i've scarcely been outside the hedge for a month, and she has been having such a gay time herself—she's so popular. she'll be so glad i'm going!" she repeated to herself, trying to ignore the doubt in her heart on that point.
but when at half-past four in the afternoon harriet returned, the blow fell upon margaret.
"harriet, dear!" she exultantly greeted her sister with her splendid news the moment the latter came into the house, "aunt virginia is going to take me to see nazimova to-night! oh!" she laughed aloud, and danced about the spacious hall in her delight, while her sister, a very comely young matron of thirty-five, leisurely removed her wraps.
"but walter and i are going," harriet casually remarked as she tossed her cloak over a carved, high-backed chair. "the editor of the bulletin gave walter two tickets as part payment for some legal business walter did for him. of course you and i can't both be away from the children. has the baby had her five o'clock bottle?"
"it isn't quite five yet."
"will you see that she gets it, dearie? i'm so dead tired, i'll have to rest before dinner if i'm going into the city again to-night. will you attend to it?"
"yes."
"that's a dear. i'm going up to lie down. don't let the children come to my room and wake me, will you, dear?" she added as she started languidly upstairs.
"but, harriet!"
"what?" harriet asked, not stopping.
"i accepted aunt virginia's invitation and she is coming out in her motor for me!"
"too bad! i'm awfully sorry. you'd better 'phone at once or she will be offended. tell her that as we are much too poor to buy tickets for the theatre, we can't possibly refuse to use them on the rare occasions when they're given to us!" harriet laughed as she disappeared around the curve of the winding stairway.
margaret sprang after her. "oh, harriet! i can't give it up!" her voice was low and breathless.
"but if you 'phone at once aunt virginia won't be cross. you know, dearie, you shouldn't make engagements without first finding out what ours are." and harriet moved on up the stairs to her bedroom.
margaret was ashamed of her childishness when at dinner that evening walter, her brother-in-law, inquiring, in his kind, solicitous way, the cause of her pallor and silence, she burst out crying and rushed from the table.
walter, looking shocked and distressed, turned to his wife for an explanation. but harriet's face expressed blank astonishment.
"why, i can't imagine! unless she's tired out from having had the children all day. i was at mrs. duncan's luncheon, you know. i didn't get home until nearly five. i'll tell margaret to go to bed early to-night and rest up."
walter eastman, searching his wife's face keenly, shrugged his big shoulders at the impenetrability of its innocent candour. no use to try to get at the truth of anything from harriet. she wasn't exactly a liar, but she had a genius for twisting facts to suit her own selfish ends—and all harriet's ends were selfish. even the welfare of her children was secondary to her own comfort and convenience. walter had no illusions about the wife of his bosom and the mother of his three children. he knew perfectly well that she loved no one as she loved herself, and that this dominating self-love made her often cold-blooded and even sometimes a bit false, though always, he was sure, unconsciously so. he was still quite fond of her, which spoke well for them both, considering that they had been married nine years. of course, after such a length of time they were no longer "in love." but harriet was an easy-going, good-natured woman, when you didn't cross her; and as he was also easy-going and good-natured, and never crossed her when he could avoid it, they got on beautifully and had a pretty good time together.
walter wondered sometimes what harriet would do if placed in circumstances where her own inclinations would have to be sacrificed for those of another. for instance, if she and margaret had to change places.
"take margaret to the play with you to-night and i'll stay home with the kiddies, harriet," he suggested, looking at his wife across their beautifully appointed dinner-table with its old family china and silver. harriet, in her home-made evening gown, graced with distinction the stately dining-room furnished in shining antique mahogany, its walls hung with interesting portraits. "if margaret's had charge of the children all day, she ought not to have them to-night."
"no." harriet shook her head. "margaret ought not to go out to-night, she's too tired. and i want you with me, dear. margaret is not my husband, you know. that's the danger of having one of your family living with you," she sighed. "it is so apt to make a husband and wife less near to each other. i am always resisting the inclination, walter, dear, to pair off with margaret instead of with you. i resist it for your sake, for the children's sake, for the sake of our home."
"i shall feel a selfish beast going to a play and leaving that dear girl alone here with the babies. they're our babies, not hers, you know."
"she loves them like her own; she's crazy about them. they are the greatest pleasure she has, walter."
"because she hasn't the sort of young pleasures she ought to have. and because she's so unselfish, hat, that she lets herself be imposed upon to the limit! i've been thinking, lately, that we ought to do more than we do for margaret; she ought to know girls of her own age; she ought to have a bit of social life, now that the year of mourning is over. it's too dull for her, sticking out here eternally, minding our children and seeing after the house."
"but she's used to sticking out here and seeing after the house. when she lived here with uncle osmond she had a lot less diversion and life about her than she has now, and you know how deadly gloomy it was here then. we've brightened it up and made it a home for margaret."
"the fact that she had to sacrifice her girlhood for your uncle is all the more reason why she shouldn't sacrifice what's left of it for our children."
"if margaret doesn't complain, i don't see why you need, dear."
"she'd never complain—she never thinks of herself. your uncle osmond took care not to let her form the habit! for that very reason we should think for her a bit, hattie, dear. i say, we've got to let margaret in for some young society."
"when i can't afford to keep up my social end, let alone hers? and if we should spend money that way for margaret, where would the children come in?"
"oh, pshaw!" said walter impatiently. "you're bluffing! you care no more about the money side of it than i do. you're not a yankee tight-wad! margaret need not live the life of a nursemaid because we're not rich, any more than you do, honey. it's absurd! and it's all wrong. what you're really afraid of, hat, is that if she went about more, you'd have to stay at home now and then with your own babies. eh, dear?"
but he was warned by the look in his wife's face that he must go no further. he was aware of the fact that harriet was distinctly jealous of his too manifest liking for margaret. being something of a philosopher, he had felt occasionally, when his sister-in-law had seemed to him more than usually charming and irresistible, that a wife's instinctive jealousy was really a providential safeguard to hold a man in check.
he wondered often why he found margaret so tremendously appealing, when undoubtedly his wife, though ten years older than her sister, was much the better looking of the two. he was not subtle enough to divine that it was the absolutely feminine quality of margaret's personality, the penetrating, all-pervasive womanliness which one felt in her presence, which expressed itself in her every movement, in every curve of her young body—it was this which so poignantly appealed to his strong virility that at times he felt he could not bear her presence in the house.
he would turn from her and look upon his wife's much prettier face and finer figure, only to have the fire of his blood turn lukewarm. for he recognized, with fatal clearness, that though harriet had the beautiful, clear-cut features and look of high breeding characteristic of the berkeley race, her inexpressive countenance betrayed a commonplace mind and soul, while margaret, lacking the berkeley beauty, did have the family look and air of breeding, which gave her, with her countenance of intelligence and sensitiveness, a marked distinction; and walter eastman was a man not only of temperament, but of the poetic imagination that idealizes the woman with whom he is at the time in love.
"the man that marries margaret will never fall out of love with her—she's magnetic to her finger-tips! what's more, there's something in her worth loving—worth loving forever!"
at this stage of his reflections he usually pulled himself up short, uncomfortably conscious of his disloyalty. harriet, he knew, was wholly loyal to him, proud of him, thinking him all that any woman could reasonably expect a husband to be—a gentleman of old family, well set up physically, and indeed good-looking, chivalrous to his wife, devoted to his children, temperate in his habits, upright and honourable. she did not even criticise his natural indolence, which, rather than lack of brains or opportunity, kept his law practice and his earnings too small for the needs of his growing family; but harriet preferred to do without money rather than have her husband be a vulgar "hustler," like a "yankee upstart."
it was this same indolence of walter's, rather than want of force of character, which led him to stand by passively and see his sister-in-law constantly imposed upon, as he distinctly felt that she was, though he realized that margaret herself, dear, sweet girl, never seemed conscious of it. her unexpected outburst at dinner to-night had shocked and hurt him to the quick. he was sure that something really outrageous on harriet's part must have caused it. yet rather than "raise a row" with harriet, he acquiesced in her decision to leave margaret at home. it must be said in justice to him that had his astute wife not kept him in ignorance of their aunt virginia's invitation to margaret he would undoubtedly have taken a stand in the matter. harriet, carefully calculating the limit of his easy forbearance, knew better than to tell him of that invitation; and she could safely count upon margaret not to put her in the wrong with walter.
margaret, meantime, locked in her room, had quickly got over her outbreak of weeping and was now sitting upright upon her bed, resolutely facing her quandary.
it was harriet's assumption of authority, with its implication of her own subservient position, that was opening margaret's eyes this evening to the real nature of her position in her sister's household.
"suppose i went straight to her just now, all dressed for the theatre, and told her in an off-hand, careless, artistic manner that i couldn't possibly break my engagement with aunt virginia!"
margaret, perched turk-fashion on the foot of her bed, her hands clasped about one knee, her cheeks flushed, her eyes very bright, contemplated in fancy harriet's consternation at such an unwonted procedure on her part—and she knew she would not do it. not because, like walter, she was too indolent to wrestle with harriet's cold-blooded tenacity; nor because she was in the least afraid of her sister. after living eight years with uncle osmond she would hardly quail before harriet! but it was that thing harriet had said to her this afternoon—that awful thing that burned in her brain and heart—it was that with which she must reckon before she could take any definite stand. "you should not make any engagements without first finding out what ours are," harriet had said, which, in view of all the circumstances, simply meant, "being dependent upon us for your food and clothes, your time should be at our disposal. you are no more free to go and come than are the cook and butler."
now of course harriet would never admit for an instant that she felt like that. margaret knew perfectly well that her sister did not begrudge the little it cost to keep her with them. harriet was not so thrifty as that. this attitude, then, was probably only a pretext to cover something else which harriet was no doubt unwilling to admit even to her own soul, that something else which margaret, herself, had tried so long not to see, which made her presence at berkeley hill unwelcome to both walter and harriet. and harriet, too proud to acknowledge her true reason for wishing her sister away, pretended to an economic one.
"suppose i said to her, 'you must not make engagements without first finding out what mine are?' now if she had only said, 'we should not make engagements without first consulting with each other.' but she put all the obligation where she tries to persuade herself that it belongs."
when presently margaret heard her sister and walter leave the house to go to the theatre she got up from her bed and went to harriet's room adjoining the nursery, to keep guard over the three sleeping children until their parents came home.
lying on a chintz-covered couch at the foot of harriet's huge four-posted bed, she thought long and earnestly upon every phase of her difficult situation, determined that before she slept she would solve the apparently impossible problem of how she might leave berkeley hill.
