Harriet and the Piper

Kathleen Thompson Norris

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• Publié par: mising
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 14
• Langue: English

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Piper, by Kathleen Norris #10 in our series by
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Title: Harriet and the Piper (Norris Volume XI)Author: Kathleen Norris
Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5006]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of
schedule] [This file was first posted on April 8,
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Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK HARRIET AND THE PIPER ***
Produced by Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.THE WORKS OF KATHLEEN
NORRIS
HARRIET AND THE PIPER
VOLUME XI
TO
DANIEL WEBB NYE
DEAR MAKER OF BOOKS AND FRIENDSHARRIET AND THE PIPERCHAPTER I
Richard Carter had called the place "Crownlands,"
not to please himself, or even his wife. But it was
to his mother's newly born family pride that the
idea of being the Carters of Crownlands made its
appeal. The estate, when he bought it, had
belonged to a Carter, and the tradition was that
two hundred years before it had been a grant of
the first George to the first of the name in America.
Madame Carter, as the old lady liked to be called,
immediately adopted the unknown owner into a
vague cousinship, spoke of him as "a kinsman of
ours," and proceeded to tell old friends that
Crownlands had always been "in the family."
It was a home hardly deserving of the pretentious
name, although it was beautiful enough, and
spacious enough, for notice, even among the
magnificent neighbours that surrounded it. It was
of creamy brick, colonial in design, and set in
splendid lawns and great trees on the bank of the
blue Hudson. White driveways circled it, great
stables and garages across a curve of green
meadows had their own invisible domain, and on
the shining highway there was a full mile of high
brick fence, a marching line of great maples and
sycamores, and a demure lodge beside the mighty
iron gates.
Much of this was as Richard Carter had found it
five years ago, but about the house, inside andout, his wife had made changes, had lent the place
something of her own individuality and charm. It
was Isabelle Carter who had visualized the window-
boxes and the awnings, the walks where emerald
grass spouted between the bricks, the terrace with
its fat balustrade and shallow marble steps
descending to the river. Great stone jars, spilling
the brilliant scarlet of geraniums, flanked the steps,
and the shadows of the mighty trees fell clear and
sharp across the marble. And on a soft June
afternoon, sitting in the silence and the fragrance
with boats plying up and down the river, and birds
twittering and flashing at the brim of the fountain,
one might have dreamed one's self in some
forgotten Italian garden rather than a short two
hours' trip away from the busiest and most
congested city of the world.
On one of the wide benches that were placed here
and there on the descending terraces, in the late
hours of an exquisite summer afternoon, a man
and a woman were sitting. They had strolled slowly
from the tennis court, where half-a-dozen young
persons were violently exercising themselves in the
sunshine, with the vague intention of reaching the
tea table, on the upper level. But here, in the clear
shade, Isabelle Carter had suddenly seated
herself, and Anthony Pope, her cavalier, had
thrown himself on the steps at her feet.
She was a woman worthy of the exquisite setting,
and in her richly coloured gown, against the clear
cream of the marble, the new green of the trees
and lawns, and the brilliant hues of the flowers, shemight well have turned an older head than that of
the boy beside her. Brunette, with smooth cheeks
deeply touched with rose, black eyes, and a
warmly crimson mouth that could be at once
provocative and relentless, she glowed like a flower
herself in the sweet and enervating heat of the
summer's first warm day. She wore a filmy gown of
a dull cream colour, with daring great poppies in
pink and black and gold embroidered over it; her
lacy black hat, shadowing her clear forehead and
smoke-black hair, was covered with the soft pink
flowers. She was the tiniest of women, and the little
foot, that, in its transparent silk stocking and
buckled slipper, was close to Anthony's hand, was
like a child's.
The man was twice her size, and as dark as she,
earnest, eager, and to-day with a troubled
expression clouding his face. It was to banish that
look, if she might, that Isabelle had deliberately
stopped him here.
She had been behaving badly toward him, and in
her rather irresponsible and shallow way she was
sorry for it. Isabelle was a famous flirt, her
husband knew it, everyone knew it. There was
always some man paying desperate court to her,
and always half-a- dozen other men who were
eager to be in his place. Now it was a painter, now
a singer, now one of the men of her husband's
business world. They sent her orchids and sweets,
and odd bits of jewellery, and curious fans and
laces, and pictures and brasses, and quaint pieces
of china. They sent her tremendously significantletters, just the eloquent word or two, the little
oddity of date or signature or paper that was to
impress her with an individuality, or with the depth
of a passion. Isabelle lived for this, went from one
adventure to another with the naive confidence of a
woman whose husband smiles upon her playing,
and whose position is impregnable.
But this boy, this Anthony, was different. In the first
place he was young, he was but twenty-six. In the
second place he was, or had been, her own son's
closest friend. Ward Carter was twenty- two, and
his mother nineteen years older.
Yes, she was forty-one, although neither she nor
her mirror admitted it readily. Anthony, she
thought, must realize it. He must realize that his
feeling for her was unthinkable, not to say absurd.
It had taken her by surprise, this last conquest.
She had known the boy only a few weeks. Ward
had brought him home for a visit, at Easter, but
Isabelle, besides admiring his unusual beauty and
identifying him with the Pope fortune, had paid him
small attention. She had been absorbed then in the
wretched conclusion of the Foster affair. Derrick
Foster had been distressing and annoying her
unmercifully. After the warm and delightful
friendship of several months, after luncheons and
teas, opera and concerts in the greatest harmony,
Derrick Foster had had the daring, the impudence,
to imply—to insinuate—
Well, Isabelle had gotten rid of him, although she
could not yet think of him without scarlet colour inher cheeks. And it had been on a particularly trying
afternoon, when the unshed tears of anger and
hurt pride had been making her fine eyes heavier
and more mysterious than usual, that this nice boy,
this handsome friend of Ward, had gone riding with
her, and had shown such charming sympathy for
her dark mood. They had had tea at the Country
Club, and Tony, as she had begun at once to call
him, had been wonderfully amusing and soothing.
Isabelle, when they came back to the house, had
turned impulsively in the hall, had laid her small
hand, in its dashing gauntlet, upon his big shoulder.
"You've carried me over an ugly bog, Little Boy!"
she had said. "I like you—such a lot!"
That was six weeks ago, but in those short six
weeks the little boy that she had patronized had
entirely upset her preconceived ideas of him. He
was young, and he was absurd, but he did not
know it, and Isabelle began to feel the difficulty of
keeping the whole world from discovering it before
he did. He made no secret of his passion. He came
straight to her in any company; he never looked at
anybody else. The young girls to whom she
introduced him bored him, he was rude to them. To
her own daughter Nina, seventeen years old, his
attitude was almost paternal; he ignored Ward as if
their friendship had never been. Toward Richard
Carter, who was pleasantly hospitable toward the
lad, he showed an icy and trembling politeness.
Isabelle saw now that she had made a mistake.
She should have killed this affair at the very