Chapter XIV: Mrs. Harry Morris

After that walk to the ledge Connie seemed much happier, and began to take a lively interest in the Morris villa, the work on which was being pushed rapidly. Mr. Jones had called upon the deacon for his signature to Harry’s note for three thousand dollars, payable in six months. Connie was seated upon the piazza when he came, and through the open door could not fail to hear the conversation between the three men, Mr. Jones, the deacon and Kenneth, the latter of whom objected to his father’s pledging himself for so large a sum.

“I feel sure you will have to pay it. I have heard a rumor that the place is mortgaged heavily,” he said, while his mother, soft-hearted as ever where Hal was concerned, pleaded for him, saying he would never see them injured.

Suddenly a wild impulse seized Connie. She could not tell how or why, only that it came, and in a moment she was confronting the three men and startling them with the words: “I will sign that note with you, Guardy.” She still called him by that name. “I have the means, and if I should lose it will not hurt me much, I spend so little here. I’ve never seen Mr. Morris, but I feel interested in him and his bride. I am glad they are coming, and don’t let a paltry three thousand dollars mar their happiness.”

It seemed a small sum to her, who knew so little the value of money, but to the deacon it was a fortune. He was, however, persuaded, and when Mr. Jones left the house he had both the deacon’s and Connie’s name as securities on Harry’s note.

“You don’t know how funny I feel since I signed that note,” Connie said to Kenneth, after Jones was gone. “I don’t know why, except that I feel funny,—glad, as it were, with a new interest in the house, as if it were mine.”

She was greatly interested in it, and her interest increased as it progressed towards the end, and loads of furniture came up from the freight house in foreign boxes, some from Rome and Florence and Paris and London. There were pictures and statuary and carpets and rugs and curtains and tables and chairs and bric-a-brac of every description, and two men came from Albany to see that they were properly placed. Connie, however, was the leading spirit, as the men at once recognized her delicate taste, and not only listened to her suggestions, but consulted her when she made none. Her special interest was centered in what was to be Mrs. Morris’ sitting-room and boudoir. Here her ideas were wholly carried out, and nothing could have been prettier than the general effect of rugs and hangings and pictures, when all was done and the rooms ready.

“I feel as if in a nightmare,” she said to herself, as she sat alone for a few minutes in the boudoir, the day before Hal and his wife were expected.

And this nightmare kept her awake the most of the night, so that it was rather a pale face which smiled upon Kenneth the next morning.

“I did not sleep well, that’s a fact,” she said. “I must have been rather nervous about Mrs. Morris. I intend to like her immensely.”

She was very busy all the morning, arranging and rearranging the rooms of the villa, and filling them with the flowers she had ordered from Rocky Point and Millville. It was June, the season of roses, and the house was full of them, their fragrance permeating every nook, and making Connie a little faint when she at last sat down to rest, while thoughts of Interlaken and the bowlder by the running brook came crowding into her mind, as they had not done since her talk with Kenneth by the ledge in the huckleberry pasture.

“Once I thought to be happy like Kitty Haynes,” she said, and two great tears splashed down upon her hands. Then quickly recovering herself, she thought how glad she was to have a congenial companion, as she was sure Kitty would be. Of Harry she scarcely thought at all, except that Kenneth did not quite approve of him. Probably he was a little faster than Kenneth. He could scarcely have seen as much of the world as he had and not be. He was very handsome, Mrs. Stannard had said, and her description of him had reminded her of the bowlder among the Alps and the man who sat there with her. That man had vanished like a myth, and Harry Morris was coming that afternoon with his wife.

They had landed in New York two weeks before and been detained there. Harry had written to Kenneth that he expected to reach Millville on Thursday afternoon, and asked that his new carriage be sent to meet him. He had thanked his uncle for signing his note to Jones, but he had made no mention of Connie’s signature. Probably he did not know of it, or that she was at the farmhouse, for Kenneth had never mentioned her in the few letters sent to his cousin since she came. Everything that could be done to make the house and grounds attractive had been done, and people had driven for miles to see and admire and wonder that so much should be expended upon a place which was to be occupied only during the summer. His winters he should spend in New York or Florida, Hal had written to Green, his agent, who superintended everything. Three or four fine horses and two or three carriages had come to the villa, awaiting Hal’s approbation, and it was in one of the latter that Kenneth went down to the station to meet the four o’clock train from New York.

It was not often that many people were there at that time of day, and Kenneth was surprised at the crowd he found waiting. They had all been through the handsome house and grounds, and heard of the handsome wife, and were there to see her and Harry, who, with so much grandeur, was invested with an added importance to their minds. The train was on time and only stopped a moment to deposit six or eight trunks and three people,—a middle-aged colored woman wearing a red turban and carrying a bundle which looked very much like a baby; another colored girl loaded with parcels, and a young lady, who stood looking timidly around at the crowd staring curiously at her, and wondering where her husband was. Kenneth saw her and hurried towards her, noticing that she was a brunette with a brilliant complexion and soft dark eyes, which lighted up wonderfully the moment she saw him.

“Mrs. Morris?” he said, and she replied, “Yes, and you are Dr. Kenneth, Harry’s cousin, I am sure, and I am so glad to meet you. I’m not used to travelling alone, and Harry had to stay in New York at the very last on that tiresome business, I don’t know what it is. I wanted to stay, too, but he said I must come, and I’m here. He is coming in a few days.”

She talked rapidly and kept her eyes fixed upon the turbaned woman, whom she called Cindy, and who was hushing the white bundle in her arms with a cooing kind of sound. Kenneth was looking at her, too, and at the bundle, which was certainly alive. Detecting the surprise in his face, the lady said: “It’s our baby, three months old. Harry wouldn’t write it, as he wanted to surprise you all. She is a little beauty. Come here, Cindy, and show the baby. There! Isn’t she lovely?” she continued, when the flimsy covering was removed, showing a little round baby face in which Kenneth saw a look like his cousin. “She has such a pretty name, too,” the proud mother continued, “Constance, though we call her Connie.”

“Constance!” Kenneth repeated in surprise, while Kitty replied: “Yes, it was Harry’s idea. She was born in Constance, and that made him think of it.”

“We have a Constance here, whom we call Connie,” Kenneth said, as he led the way to the brougham, and while they were on the way to the villa he explained who she was and said: “You are sure to like her.”

“I know I shall,” Kitty answered, “and I am so glad she is here. I was afraid I might be rather lonely. Harry said there was no—no——”

She stopped suddenly, while Kenneth rejoined: “No ladies of just your kind? You are right, Mrs. Morris, but Connie is different. Connie is——”

“Yes, I see. I understand what Connie is, but please call me Kitty. I’m your cousin, you know,” Kitty said, and added, “funny baby should be called Connie, too; but I’m glad that she is.”

She was a bright, sparkling little woman, and talked all the time during the drive until they came in sight of the house, when she sprang up and clasped her hands with delight.

“Oh, is this really the place? I never dreamed it was so grand and lovely. And how could he afford it? He has told me so much that I must be economical, now father has failed.”

She said frankly what she thought, and Kenneth watched her admiringly, contrasting her with Connie and giving the latter the preference, of course. He knew Connie was to be at the villa with his father and mother, and as the carriage entered the gate he saw her standing on the steps, looking like some fair lily in her white gown and blue ribbons, with a single rose in her belt.

“That’s Connie, I know, and she’s Paris all over. I shall like her,” Kitty said, springing from the carriage the moment it stopped and going up to the group waiting for her. “I don’t need to be introduced. I know this is Aunt Mary, and this Uncle Ephraim, and this Connie; may I call you that?” she said, kissing each in turn, and holding Connie’s hand as she continued: “I didn’t know about you until Kenneth told me, and I am glad that you are here and that baby has your name. Funny, isn’t it? And Harry didn’t know you either.”

They were all around the baby now, and Connie, who loved children dearly, took it in her arms and held its soft face against her own and thought she saw in it a likeness to something she had seen, and wondered why that bowlder among the Alps should come up to torment her when she was going to be so happy with Kitty and the baby. It did not take Kitty long to explain, as well as she could, why her husband was not with her. He would come within a week, surely, and then they would all be so happy. She was older than Connie, but seemed younger, she was so small, and she flitted about the house like a humming bird, delighted with everything and especially with Connie, who, she insisted, should stay altogether at the villa until her husband came.

“And Dr. Kenneth, too, if he will, and Aunt Mary and Uncle Ephraim, I want you all,” she said, in her soft Southern voice, with a bit of foreign accent in it. “You can stay, and we will worship the baby together.”

She seemed to think the baby the centre of interest, as it was, but no one took to it as readily as Connie, who spent the night at the villa, and who, after the baby was undressed, rocked it to sleep, and then sat a long time looking into its little face and wondering whose features she saw so plainly mirrored there.