Come, My Beloved

  “Hello,” she said, “what do you want?”

  “I am looking for the river,” David said. “I want a swim.”

  “Well, the path goes there.” She pointed with the trowel. “You’ll find some decrepit wooden steps and at the bottom of them is the river. If you don’t trust the steps you’ll have to slide down the cliff. It’s not too steep.”

  “Thanks,” David said and lingered. She stirred his imagination. “What a beautiful house,” he said.

  The girl came toward him and stood a little distance from him. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” she agreed. “It’s my home. We don’t live here in the winter since my father died, but we come as early as we can in the spring, my mother and I, so that I can get the flower beds into shape. Still, it’s July before I get it anything like the way I want it.”

  He restrained his curiosity. Why had she no help? “It’s a job,” he said. “I shouldn’t like to have to do it all myself. Haven’t you any neighbors?”

  “No,” she said rather shortly. She was not thinking of him, that was clear, she was biting the edge of her crimson lower lip. Her mouth was very pretty, almost perfect in its bow, but it was too small. Her smooth olive skin was flawless, and her dark brown eyes were clear. Her hair was straight and she wore it pulled back tightly from her face and knotted rather high from her nape. The hand that held the trowel was small, too, and just now badly scratched and very dirty.

  “The place is for sale,” she said abruptly.

  So that was what she had been trying to say, he thought, she had been trying to decide whether she could bear to say it. He could see that she loved the house.

  “I am sorry to hear that, since it is your home,” he said gravely.

  “Oh, it’s no use!” She made the words a sudden cry and she threw down the trowel. “I know we can’t keep it up. Mother tries to do the housework and I try to do the gardening, and we can’t. We used to have six servants here and they were always busy.”

  “I can imagine that,” he said, wanting to help her not to weep. “We have a place in Maine something like it. My mother is dead, and I don’t think I’ll ever go back there.”

  At this moment his own inspiration came to him. If the house was for sale, why should not his father buy it and make it the center of the school? There could not be a better site, the trees were old and handsome, the gardens ready to cultivate again, and the house had the air of life about it, in spite of its present state. It did not seem remote, it was not a piece of wilderness, it was a place where people had lived and could still live.

  “Look here,” he said to the girl, “this seems very brash, perhaps, but it happens that my father is looking for a place to found a theological seminary as a memorial to my mother, and it occurs to me that this might be the place—if you really must sell, that is.”

  The girl looked at him, her dark eyes penetrating.

  “No?” he asked, half smiling.

  “I am frightened,” she replied. “I was almost daring God to help me, hating him, really, because I am so desperate. I know this is our last summer. My mother can’t go on, and I couldn’t possibly manage alone. But what does one do? I haven’t been taught how to earn my living. And I was just saying, God, if you don’t help me now, I’ll never say another prayer, or I’ll never believe in you again. Then Pilate screeched.”

  “I suppose many a prayer has been answered by coincidence,” David said, hesitating for the right words. The girl was so intense, so vivid in her darkness. “I might say that God answered my prayer, too, that I find the place I wanted to find for my father.”

  His native prudence touched him at this point. The matter of price was not his concern and he must not discuss it, or seem too eager.

  “Come inside,” the girl said. “You’ll want to see the rooms. There are twenty of them, quite large.”

  “I ought to introduce myself—David MacArd.”

  “I am Olivia Dessard.” She put out an earth-soiled right hand and he clasped it for a second. “Mother will be glad to see you. We don’t have guests any more.”

  She led the way along the brick path and up the stately steps to the wide porch beneath the pillars, and then into an immense hall which ran straight through the house and opened upon a wide terrace and the vista of the curving river. “Please wait in the drawing room,” she commanded him with a gesture. “I will find my mother.”

  He went into a room of fading magnificence, a museum of mahogany pieces of French furniture and tapestries. It was clean, the furniture dusted, and upon the center table was a bowl of small white lilies. He sat down in a highback chair and waited. Great windows stretched from ceiling to floor, and at the end of the room a marble mantelpiece supported a group of Watteau figurines. The place was well beloved, he could see that, and the more he looked about him, the more enamored he was of his idea.

  He heard footsteps but no voices, and then Olivia came, holding by the hand a small grey-haired woman with a tired imperious face. “This is my mother, Mr. MacArd.”

  “Mrs. Dessard,” David said. He put out his hand and took a hot swollen little hand, still soapy from dishwashing, he supposed, or scrubbing of some sort.

  “Olivia is so impetuous,” Mrs. Dessard said in a high voice. “I hadn’t time to dry my hands properly. You must excuse the dampness.”

  He decided to come to the point. “Your daughter has told me of your courage, Mrs. Dessard. I admire it immensely.”

  Mrs. Dessard sank down on a satin covered chair. “Olivia says you are interested in buying the house for a religious purpose. That would make me be very happy. I have always been religious, although our faith has been sorely tried in late years. But God works in mysterious ways and maybe this was all planned.” She broke off, her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and she shook her head. “You mustn’t mind me. The loss of my dear husband—” her voice broke on the words.

  “Miss Dessard told me,” David said gently.

  Olivia interrupted. “Is your father David Hardworth MacArd? Mother asked me.”

  David turned to her. “Yes, he is,” he said unwillingly.

  “We read about your mother’s death,” Mrs. Dessard said. She had got the better of her tears. “We met once or twice, I think, at Mrs. Astor’s parties. But we have lived very much abroad. My dear husband was French, not Catholic, however. His family was Huguenot, but they did not emigrate further than Holland, and then they went back again. Mr. Dessard had business in New York and Paris. Olivia is our only child, though we lost an infant son—”

  “Mother, Mr. MacArd is not interested in our family history,” Olivia said.

  Mrs. Dessard bridled. “I am sure he is, Olivia. It is important to know with whom one deals and he will want to tell his father. Mr. Dessard lost his fortune in the panic, Mr. MacArd; else we would never have been left as we are now. We could live in Paris, of course, and indeed we own a small house there, inherited from Olivia’s grandfather Dessard, but she loves America. She will not live in France.”

  “I love this house,” Olivia said wilfully.

  Mrs. Dessard turned to her with the impatience of old unended argument. “I know, my dear, and so do I, but what can we do?”

  Olivia turned to David impetuously. “Will you let us come and visit you sometimes?”

  He laughed. “Of course, but the house is still yours. My father will want to make up his own mind.”

  It was time to go. The two ladies, each wilful after her own fashion as he could see, must not take for granted that the house was sold. He got up and put out his hand to each in turn.

  “Good-by, Mrs. Dessard, good-by, Miss Dessard.”

  “Oh, but you must see the rooms,” Olivia cried.

  He had forgotten. “Ah yes, though perhaps we could wait until my father—”

  “No, now,” Olivia declared, “then we will feel we cannot change our minds.”

  She began to walk away as she spoke, and he was compelled to follow while Mrs. Dessard looked after them
.

  “This is the living room,” Olivia said, throwing open a closed door, “and here is the dining room. The other side of the house is taken by the library and behind that the ballroom. The kitchens are connected but they are in separate buildings above which are the servants’ quarters.”

  He looked at one vast room after another.

  “The man who built this house had a perfect sense of proportion,” he observed.

  “You notice that?” Olivia asked eagerly. “It was my father. He built the house for my mother when they were married. He thought then that they would move to America altogether and he sold his possessions in France and built this house for her and furnished it with heirlooms from his family. Mother was an orphan and she lived with her grandmother. Do you know—?” She named a famous old name of New York.

  “Indeed I do,” he said respectfully.

  “She is the last of that family,” Olivia said. “I of course am a Dessard. Now come upstairs.”

  The staircase was double, winding spirally from each side of the hall, seemingly unsupported, and he followed her up the right side and into a circular upper hall, from whence heavy doors gave into bedrooms.

  “There are eight bedrooms on this floor,” she said, “and six on the floor above. My father wanted a big family and he loved to have guests. You cannot imagine what this house was when I was a child. We lived here the year around, and my father had his own road built to the railroad station. It would have to be repaired, but the roadbed is still good.”

  She was a competent and clever girl, he could see, besides being handsome. She had a proud carriage in spite of a manner almost unsophisticated, but she was not in the least like the girls he knew in New York, the daughters of Fifth Avenue families, and the children of his mother’s friends. She had perhaps been educated abroad, and yet he did not believe so. Perhaps she had simply grown up with her parents here. He could not remember her name among the debutantes of any recent years, but then he had been much away from home.

  “This is my own room,” she said throwing open a door. “I like it better than any place in the world.”

  He looked about half shyly; he had never looked into a girl’s room before, and this was one strangely feminine for so strong a young girl. The color was rose, the canopied bed was draped in rosy curtains and rose and net were at the windows. The carpet was a bed of flowers.

  “It is very pretty,” he said.

  “I love—I love—I love it,” she said passionately.

  “I wish you could stay here,” he said.

  “But I can’t,” she rejoined, pressing her lips together.

  She shut the door abruptly. “I won’t show you Mother’s room—she wouldn’t like it because she hasn’t made her bed. She doesn’t like me to make it. I make mine before I go outdoors. You see how neat my room is? I am like that.”

  “Beautifully neat,” he agreed with a glint of laughter.

  She suspected the laughter and frowned quickly. “There is no need to show you the kitchens. Everything is done well and you would not need to make changes, unless you had many people here.”

  “Such changes could be made later,” he agreed.

  They went downstairs, and Mrs. Dessard was still sitting in the chair. She had gone to sleep, however, her head leaning against the cushioned back.

  “Poor petite Mama,” Olivia whispered. “She is always tired. Yes, we must sell this house. I see it, and I thank God you came today. It makes up my mind.”

  They tiptoed out of the house and he stood on the terrace overlooking the river.

  “Are you religious?” Olivia asked suddenly.

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly.

  “I also do not know,” she said. “Before my father died, I was not religious, but somehow his death has made me wish to be so, if I know how. That is, I feel now that I would like to believe in God, I mean, really to believe.”

  “I know,” David said.

  He turned to her and saw in her dark eyes an honest yearning. He had never met a girl like this, someone so naive and yet so adult.

  “I wish we might be friends.” He spoke these words with an eagerness not usual to him.

  “I would like that also,” she said frankly. “I have never had a friend. When Papa was alive we were always coming and going, there was no time.”

  They clasped hands suddenly and strongly. “I will come back,” he promised and he left her standing there on the terrace gazing after him.

  He reached home late and tired. “Where’s my father?” he asked Enderby as the door opened.

  “In the liberry, sir,” Enderby answered. Reproach was heavy in his voice. “He’s fit to be tied.”

  “I’ll go to him first,” David said.

  So he went straight to the library and there found his father waiting in motionless anxiety. He knew very well that still terror. He had seen his father waiting like that when his mother died.

  MacArd looked up grimly. “Well,” he grunted. He took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead. “You’re late.”

  “Terribly,” David said, “I should have telephoned, but there was a train waiting when I reached the station, the last, they said, until ten o’clock. I jumped on and thought to explain when I got here.”

  “You had better get washed and come into the dining room,” MacArd said. “The dinner must be dried up.”

  “You shouldn’t have waited, Father.”

  To this MacArd did not reply. He walked away slowly. He felt weak, exhausted by fright. His quick imagination, so valuable when he was making a plan, could be a curse when it came to someone close to him, the only one close to him since Leila died. He had not imagined it possible for her to die, and since she had, the existence of his son seemed fragile. Yet he must not protect David, it would ruin him. He ought to have had a dozen children. It was impossible to substitute for one’s own flesh and blood, but the sooner he got on with his project the better, it would take his mind off himself and his vulnerability.

  In the dining room Enderby pulled out the heavy oak chair at the head of the table and rang for the soup to be brought in. He stood looking solemn and thinking that Mr. MacArd should not wait longer for his meal. He was not as young as he once was and the death of his wife had aged him too fast. The second man brought in the tray with the soup tureen and Enderby took up the silver ladle, and filled a plate and put it before his master. At the same moment David came into the room, his face red from quick scrubbing and his hair wet.

  “I didn’t take time to change, Father,” he said in apology.

  “Doesn’t matter for once,” MacArd replied gruffly. He began to eat his soup, an excellent beef broth laced with a dry sherry—very comforting. The plate was empty before he spoke again.

  “Well?” he inquired.

  David smiled at his father. “What have I been doing all day, I suppose? I think I’ve found the spot. Of course you have to see it.”

  “Barton said something about it,” MacArd said in the same gruff voice.

  David hastened on. “Yes—well, I saw the spot he meant, it’s very fine, but I found another nearer the river and it seems to me even better. There’s already a road to the railroad station, only about two miles, I walked it and it wasn’t bad. There’s a house on the spot already, it’s for sale, a mansion I ought to call it, twenty rooms, pillared porch, you know the sort of thing—”

  “Come, come, catch your breath,” MacArd commanded.

  Enderby took the soup plates away and the second man brought in a fish filet and steamed potatoes. Enderby put down fresh plates and served the second course.

  “Now,” MacArd said, “go back and tell me exactly what you found.”

  David, between bites, told him, dwelling upon the magnificence of the house set upon a leveled hill above the sweeping curve of the Hudson. He described the rooms, the plenteous lands about it, space enough to build a dozen dormitories and halls, the great oak trees and maples, the view acros
s the river for a hundred miles.

  “And who did you say owns the house?” MacArd asked.

  He had eaten his fish in silence and now Enderby took the plates away and the second man brought in roast beef and vegetables in covered silver dishes.

  “A Mrs. Dessard and her daughter,” David said. “Mrs. Dessard said she had met Mother at Mrs. Astor’s house.”

  “Dessard—Dessard,” MacArd said, reflecting. “Where have I heard that name?” But he could not remember.

  “The family was originally French, though of course now they are American,” David said. “Mr. Dessard failed in the panic, and then he died, and they have struggled along ever since. They have a small house in Paris but Olivia—”

  MacArd frowned. “Olivia?”

  “I should have said Miss Dessard,” David said hastily.

  MacArd ate for a while without speaking and David devoted himself to his plate. He ate slowly and fastidiously and his father ate quickly, and disliked to be kept waiting.

  “I suppose,” MacArd said at last, “I had better have Barton go and see the place.”

  “Perhaps I should have told Dr. Barton about it first,” David said.

  “Nonsense,” MacArd retorted. “He can come over tonight.”

  Enderby took away the dinner plates, replaced them with service plates and then sent for the dessert. It was strawberry shortcake with whipped cream and he served it tenderly.

  “Will you have coffee now or later, sir?” he asked MacArd.

  “Later,” MacArd ordered. “Serve it in the library. I shall ask Dr. Barton to join us.”

  “Yes, sir,” Enderby murmured.

  David did not speak. They ate their dessert and then MacArd got up abruptly and David followed. They had not taken coffee in the drawing room since his mother died. The doors of the room were closed, and they passed it and went on into the library. The second man had already put the tray on the table and Enderby served the coffee. MacArd took up the telephone and in a few minutes had reached Dr. Barton.

  “Come along over now if you can,” he suggested in so forcible a tone that it was a command.