xt74xg9f503k https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt74xg9f503k/data/mets.xml Martin, George Madden, 1866- 1904  books b92-225-31183019 English McClure, Phillips & Co., : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. House of fulfilment  / by George Madden Martin ; illustrated by George Alfred Williams. text House of fulfilment  / by George Madden Martin ; illustrated by George Alfred Williams. 1904 2002 true xt74xg9f503k section xt74xg9f503k 

THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT

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t NA3IE. DEAR 



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THE



HOUSE OF



FULFILMENT

By GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN
    AUTHOR OF EMMY LOU



   NEW YORK
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
    MCMIV

 





























         Copyright, 1904, by
  McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.


     Published, September, 1904



          Second Impression











COPYRIGHT, 1904. By THE S. S. MCCLURE CO.

 














To A. R. M.

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PART ONE

"Love is enough: ho ye who seek saving,
Go no further: come hither: there have been who have
    found it,
And these know the House of Fulfilment of craving;
These know the Cup with the roses around it;
These know the World's Wound and the balm that
    hath bound it."
                             WILLIAM MORRIS.

  -" Elements, breeds, adjustments . .
A new race dominating previous ones."
                             WALT WHITMAN.

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CHAPTER ONE



Harriet Blair was seventeen when she went
with her father and mother and her brother
Austen to New Orleans, to the marriage of
an older brother, Alexander, the father's
business representative at that place. It
was characteristic of the Blairs that they de-
clined the hospitality of the bride's family,
and from the hotel attended, punctiliously
and formally, the occasions for which they
had come. It takes ease to accept hospi-
tality.
  Alexander Blair, the father, banker and
capitalist, of Vermont stock, now the richest
man in Louisville, was of a stern rugged-

 

4      THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
ness unsoftened by a long and successful
career in the South, while his wife, the
daughter of a Scotch schoolmaster settled
in Pennsylvania, was the possessor of a
thrifty closeness and strong, practical sense.
  Alexander, their oldest son, a man of
thirty, to whose wedding they had come, was
what was natural to expect, a literal, shrewd
man, with a strong sense of duty as he saw it.
His long, clean-shaven upper lip, above a
beard, looked slightly grim, and his straight-
gazing, blue-grey eyes were stern.
  The second son, Austen, was clean-
featured, handsome and blond, but he was
also, by report, the shrewd and promising
son of his father, even as his brother was re-
ported before him.
  Harriet, the daughter, was a silent, cold-
looking girl, who wrapped herself in reserve
as a cover for self-consciousness but, observ-

 


ing closely, thought to her own conclusions.
She had a disillusioning way of baring
facts in these communings, which showed
life to her very honestly but without ro-
mance or glamour.
  At the wedding, sitting in her white dress
by her father and mother in the flower-
bedecked parlours of the Randolphs, Harriet
looked at her brother, standing by the girl
of seventeen whom he had just married, and
saw things much as they were. In Molly,
the bride of an hour, with her child's face
and red-brown hair and shadowy lashes, she
saw a descendant of pleasure-loving, ease-
taking Southerners. Molly's father, from
what Austen had said, was the dispenser of
a lavish and improvident hospitality and a
genial dweller on the edge of bankruptcy,
while the mother, a belle of the '40's, some
one had told the Blairs, seemed just the



PART ONE



6

 

THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT



woman to marry her only child to a man
opposed to her people in creed, politics and
habits - which in 1860 meant something-
but son of one of the richest men in the
South.
  Harriet ate her supper close by her father
and mother. She did not know how to mix
with these gay, incidental Southerners, and
sitting there, went on with her comumunings.
She could explain it on the Randolph side,
but why Alexander was marrying Molly she
could not understand. Shy and self-con-
scious, she knew vaguely of a thing called
love. She had met it in her reading rather
than seen its acting forces anywhere about
her. To be sure, her brother Austen had
been engaged to a Miss Ransome of Wood-
ford County, a fashionable Kentucky beauty.
The Blairs were a narrowly religious people.
Harriet, a school-girl then, had stood at the



6

 

PART ONE



window of the stately new stone house in
Louisville which the Blairs called home, and,
watching the fashionable world flow in and
out of the high old brick cottage across the
street, where Miss Ransome spent much
time with a great-aunt, had wondered.
  But love had not proved such a factor
after all. Austen's engagement had been
broken.
  Harriet went back to Kentucky with the
question of Alexander and Molly still open.
  A year later her father went South again.
War was loudly threatening, and he had
large interests in Louisiana and Mississippi.
There was a certain sympathy and under-
standing between the stern, silent man and
his daughter, and he suggested that she go
with hint and see the child newly born to
Alexander and Molly.
  But, reaching New Orleans to find his son



7

 

8      THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
gone to Mobile, concerning these same in-
terests, Mvfr. Blair decided to join him, and
Molly being about to leave for her father's
plantation with the baby and nurse, that she
might the more rapidly convalesce, it was
decided that Harriet accompany her.
  The two weeks at Cannes-Brulee were
strange to the girl, thus introduced to a
Southern house overflowing with guests and
servants, and she moved amid the idling and
irresponsibility, the laughter andpersiflage,
with a sense of being outside of it all, and the
fault, try as she would, her own.
  This feeling was strongest that Sunday
afternoon when the gaiety and badinage
seemed to centre about a new arrival, a
handsome, silver-aureoled Catholic priest,
confessor to half the parish. Genial, pol-
ished, and affable, his very charm seemed to
the Calvinistic-bred Harriet to invest him

 

PART ONE



the more with the seductions of Romanism,
as she had been taught to regard them.
  There were music, cards, a huge bowl
frosted with the icy beverage within, and to
the stunned young Puritan the genial little
priest in the midst seemed smiling a bac-
chanalian benediction over all.
  Suddenly, above chatter and music Mol-
ly's voice arose, gay but insistent, Aolly
there in the big chair, pale and big-eyed, her
strength so slow to return, herself a child in
her little muslin dress.
  "Baby is four weeks old," Molly was de-
claring, " and here is Father Bonot from ser-
vice at Cannes-Brulee and so with his vest-
ments. I'm here and Harriet's here, and
mamma's here, and everybody else is a
cousin or something. I'm sure I don't
know when I can get to church. P'tite shall
be baptized here, now."



9

 


10    THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
  And before the slower comprehension of
the dazed Harriet had grasped the meaning
of the ensuing preparations - the draping
of the pier-table, the lighting of waxen can-
dles - a sudden silence had fallen; the gay
abandon of these mercurial Southerners had
given place to reverent awe, even to tears, as
the new-born representative of the Puritan
Blairs was brought in, in robes like cascades
of lace, while of all that followed, the one
thing seeming to reach the comprehension of
Harriet was the chanting monotone of
Father Bonot saying above the child, " Mary
Alexina --
  Later Molly and Harriet went back to
New Orleans, to find Alexander there but
his father gone up to Vicksburg. Molly was
to keep Harriet with her until his return.
  Only the girl knew what it meant to find
herself near her brother. It was as if here

 

                PART ONE               11
was something sane, rational, stable, by
which to re-establish poise and standards.
Harriet would have trembled to oppose her
brother, so that to see Molly and Alexander
together was a revelation. His sternness
and his displeasure alike broke as a wave
upon Molly, and as a wave receded, leaving
her, as a wave would leave the sand, pretty
and sparkling and smiling. Other things
were revelations to Harriet, too.
  Going down to breakfast one morning, she
found her brother clean shaven, immaculate,
monosyllabic, awaiting the overdue meal.
The French windows were open to the scent
of myriads of roses outside, and also to the
morning sun, far too high. The negro ser-
vants were hurrying to and fro, Molly no-
where visible.
  Later, as the dishes were being uncovered,
she appeared, her unstockinged little feet

 

12     THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
thrust into pretty French slippers, and her
cambric nightgown by no means concealed
by a negligee, all lace and ribbons, hastily
caught together. Yet she was pretty, pretty
like a lovely and naughty child.
  Nor did the embarrassment of Harriet,
the presence of the servants, or her husband's
cold preoccupation with his breakfast dis-
turb Molly, who trailed along with apparent
unconcern until, reaching his elbow, she
threw a wicked glance at Harriet, then kissed
hini on that spot on his head which, but
for a few carefully disposed strands, must
have been termed bald.
  At the thing, absurd as it was, there swept
over Harriet the hot shrinking of one made
conscious of sex for the first time. With
throbbing at throat and ears, she gazed into
her plate, her feeling, oddly enough, cen-
tring in keen revulsion against her brother.

 



  But Molly was dragging a chair to his
elbow.  "What's the fricassee made of,
Alexander  "
  Her husband vouching her no reply, she
slipped an arm about his neck, and, lean-
ing over, drew his fork to her mouth and
tasted the morsel thereon.
  Then she turned her head sideways to re-
gard him. "Don't frown it back, Alec, the
smile I mean. I adore you when you don't
want to and have to let it come. Acknowl-
edge now, this is the way to breakfast."
  And Hlarriet. who had been led to regard
playfulness as little less than vice, was con-
scious of Molly trying to force a ripe fig be-
tween Alexander's lips, repressed, thin lips
upon which softening sat as if afraid of itself
and her.
  " You see," Molly was explaining, " I
couldn't get down sooner. P'tite was mak-



PART ONE



13

 

14     THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
ing the most absurd catches at her mosquito
bar, and Celeste refusing to laugh at her.
You haven't finished your breakfast Why
must you always hurry off No "- her
hand against his mouth, he, risen now, she
on a knee in her chair, clinging to him
"don't tell me any more about Sumter hav-
ing been fired upon, and your being worried
over business. I hate business. What's
anything this moment, if you would only see
it, compared with me, and ripe figs dipped
in cream."
  And then the triumph of her laugh as, his
arms suddenly around her, he grasped her,
lifted, enfolded her for a moment, then as
fiercely put her from him and went out, leav-
ing Harriet sick, shaken, at this sight of
human passion seen for the first time.
  The following day Harriet's father re-
turned and she went home.

 

PART ONE



  When she next saw her brother it was
in Louisville, where he was driven back to
his own people by reason of his Northern
creed and sympathies. His father-in-law
had been among the first to fall in defence
of the Confederacy, and with Alexander,
now, was his mother-in-law, widowed and
dependent, and a wife in this sense changed
from. child to woman -- that she was a
fiercely avowed Southerner to the fibre of
her.
  With his little family he remained in
Louisville a year. If his own people won-
dered at the extravagance of his wife and
mother-in-law at a time when incomes were
so seriously shrunken, Alexander was too
much a Blair for even a Blair to approach
the subject.
  The child was sent daily to his mother's -
he saw to that  a pretty baby, the little



15

 

16    THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
Mary Alexina, and robed like a young prin-
cess; but beyond this he seemed to discour-
age intimacy between the households. Cer-
tainly there was no common ground, the
business judgment, large experience, and the
integrity of the Blairs being in the constant
service of the government, while rumor had
it that the home of young Mrs. Alexander
Blair was the social rallying place for South-
ern sympathizers generally.
  Suddenly, in the midst of big affairs, Alex-
ander arranged otherwise for the mainte-
nance of his wife's mother, whom it was his
to support for the few remaining years of her
life, and went to Europe with Molly and the
child. Long after it came to Harriet's hear-
ing that the frequent presence of a young
Confederate officer at his house had led to
the step.
  It was four years from this time, in 1867,

 

PART ONE



that Alexander Blair, the senior, died, to be
shortly followed by his wife.
  Though the son Alexander returned to
Louisville of necessity, following these
events, lhe left Molly and the child in Wash-
ington with some of her people there. And
though his interests became centred in
Louisville again, he never brought his f amily
back, but went and came between the two
places. In domestic infelicity it is our own
people we would hide it from longest. It
was two years after, in '69, that Alexander
met his end with the shocking suddenness
of accidental death as he was returning East
to Molly and the child.



17.

 









CHAPTER TWO



The leisure of a summer evening had fallen
with the twilight. Along that street in Louis-
ville wherein stood the Blair house, with its
splendid lawn, and its carriage driveway
issuing through a tall, iron gate, front doors
were opening and family groups gathering.
The yards wore the fresh green of June. A
homecoming crumple-horn ambled by, her
bag swinging heavily. In the South, in
1870, cities were villages overgrown.
  In the parlour of her home Harriet Blair
sat, awaiting the arrival of her brother Aus-
ten from Washington, where he had gone to
bring back their dead brother's child.

 



  Harriet, at twenty-six, in lustreless mourn-
ing, was handsome and, some might have
said, cold. Her face was finely chiselled. and
framed with light hair waving from its part-
ing in curves regular as the flutings of a
shell. There was a poise, a composure
about this Harriet, making her unlike the
tall, shy girl of nine years before.
  As the bell rang she laid down her book
and rose, and a second later Austen entered,
leading a little girl with a round, short-
cropped head. His eyes met his sister's in
greeting, then he loosed the child's hand.
"This is your Aunt Harriet, Alexina," lie
said, and stepped across the room to stand
before the mantel and watch the two.
  Harriet bent and kissed the smallcheek.
Demonstration, even to this extent, meant
much for a Blair. Then she crossed the
room. She was more than ordinarily tall



PART ONE



19

 

20    THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT



for a woman, with form proportioned to
length of limb, and the beauty of her car-
riage gained by her unconsciousness of it.
  Having pulled the bell-cord she came
back, smiling, calmly expectant, looking
from Austen to the child, who, seated now on
the edge of a chair, was regarding her with
grave eyes.
  "She has a strong look of Alexander,"
said Harriet, consideringly, " and a little
look of you -- and of me. She is a Blair,
though I can see her mother, too, aboutthe
mouth."
  The child moved under the scrutiny, but
her gaze, returning the study, did not falter.
  Harriet laughed; was it at this impertur-
bability  "I think," she decided, " we may
consider her a Blair." Then to the white
maid-servant entering: " You may order
supper, Nelly, for Mr. Blair and myself.

 

                PART ONE               !I
This is Alexina, and, I should say, tired out.
Suppose you give her a warm bath and let
her go right to bed - have you her trunk
key, Austen -- and I will send a tray up
with her supper afterward."
  Then, as Nelly took the key and went out,
Harriet addressed her brother. " For, apart
from the hygienic advantages of the bath
before the supper, I confess "- with faintly
discernible amusement -" to a fancy for the
ceremony as a form, so to speak, emblematic
of a moral washing and a fresh start." She
ended with a raising of her brows as she re-
garded her brother.
  Austen Blair had no use for levity. Mild
as this was, he dismissed it curtly. " I
would suggest," he said, "that you avoid
personalities; it can but be injudicious for
any child to hear itself discussed."
  Again Harriet laughed; she was provok-

 

22     THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
ingly good-humored. " Coming from her
nine years of life beneath Molly's expansive
nature., I don't think you need fear for what
she'll gather from me." She took the child's
hand and lifted her from the chair. "Here
is Nelly, Alexina; go with her and do what
she says. Say good-night to your uncle.
Supper, Austen."
  The dining-room being sombre, one might
have said it accorded with the master, whose
frown had not all cleared away.
  Harriet was speaking. "What of Molly
Was there a scene at parting with her volun-
tarily given-up offspring For her moods,
like her tempers, used to delight in being
somewhat inconsistent and mixed."
  " She has in no way changed," replied
Austen. Was it this flat conciseness in all
he said that made levity irresistible to Har-
riet in turn "My interview with her was

 

PART ONE



confined to business. That ended, she told
me, as an afterthought, apparently, that the
coloured woman was going to remain with
her, and she supposed Alexina could, manage
on the train. She also told me that her hus-
band had severed connection with the lega-
tion and was going back to Paris. Alexina
was riot with them at the hotel, but with her
uncle, Senator Randolph, from whose house
Molly was married."
  " And Molly's parting with the child -"
  "'Was a piece with it all, tears and relief,
just as you would have expected."
  " And the husband's, this Mr. Garnier's,
attitude 
  "Was enigmatical; how far he under-
stands the situation I had no means of
judging."
  "I'm sorry for the child, though," said
Harriet suddenly, "for if there is anything

 

24     THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
of Molly in her, life according to the Blair
standard may pall, and," whimsically, "her
mixture of natures be vexed within her."
  Austen took the Blairs seriously, and at
any time he disliked the personal or the
playful. He spoke coldly. "Having given
the child over to you from the moment of ar-
rival, of this initiatory tone you are taking
I shall say no more. Duties you assume you
do best your own way."
  Harriet arched her brows. "You mean,
having found better results followed the
withdrawal of your over-sight of me as mis-
tress of our house, you are going to let me
alone in this "  
  "Exactly," said her brother, " and there-
fore on the subject, now or hereafter, I shall
say no more." And it was eminently char-
acteristic of him that he never did.
  Meanwhile up-stairs the child had gone

 

PART ONE



through with the bath and the supper like
an automaton in Nelly's hands.
  " She said 'yes' when I asked her any-
thing," Nelly reported later to the cook;
" or she said 'no'. And her lips were set
that hard she might a'most have been MIr.
Austen's own child."
  And that was all Nelly saw in the little
creature she tucked into the huge, square
bedstead under the bobinet mosquito bar.
But no sooner had Nelly's footsteps ceased
along the hall than the child, as one throwing
off an armour of repression, rolled out of the
high bed and from under the bar. flinging
and disarranging the neat covers with pass-
ionate fury, sobbing wildly. A bead of gas
lit the room. She pattered across the floor
to the opened trunk, and when the little
figure, stumbling over its gown, stole back
to bed, a heartrendingly battered, plaster-



125

 

26    THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
headed doll was clasped in its arms. And,
as the voices of children at play on the side-
walk came up through the open windows,
the child, shaken with crying - the more
passionate because of long repression
was declaring: " Sally Ann, baby, I couldn't
never have given you up, not even if I was
your own truly mother, Sally Ann, I couldn't,
never."

 









CHAPTER THREE



Down-stairs the evening passed as evenings
usually did when Harriet and Austen were
alone. There were not even the varyings
from parlour to front door that the heat
seemed to necessitate for the rest of the
neighbourhood. Front porches are sociable
things. The Blairs' was the only house on
the street without one.
  The evening passed with the brother and
sister at opposite sides of the black, marble-
topped table in the long parlour, she em-
broidering on a strip of cambric with nice
skill, he quickly and deftly cutting the wrap-
pers and pages of papers and magazines

 

es    THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT



accumulated in his absence. To undertake
just what he could do justice to and keep
abreast of it, was the method by which he
accomplished more than any two men, in
business, in church affairs, in civic duties,
for the man took his citizenship seriously.
Both brother and sister had been raised to
economy of time, yet sometimes she mocked
at herself for her many excellencies and
sometimes sighed, while he--
  At ten o'clock Harriet rolled her work to-
gether and said good-night, ascending the
crimson-carpeted stairway with the unhur-
ried movement of an Olympian goddess;
that is, if an Olympian goddess could have
been so genuinely above concern about it.
  Her room, a front one on the second floor,
had a look of spaciousness and exquisite
order. She moved about, adjusting a shade,
setting a gas-bracket at some self-imposed

 


angle of correctness, giving the sheets of the
opened bed a touch of adjustment.
  It was the price paid for the free exercise
of individuality. Already, at twenty-six,
ways were becoming habits.
  These things arranged, she passe(l to the
adjoining room, front to-night given to
Alexina. Turning up    the gas, Harriet
glanced about at Nelly's disposition of
things, then moved to the bed.
  Whatever were the emotions called forth
by the relaxed little form, softly and regular-
ly breathing against a battered doll, or by
the essentially babyish face with the fine,
flaxen hair damp and clinging about the
forehead, the Blairs were people to whom
restraint was second nature. Whatever
Harriet felt showed only in solicitude for the
child who had thrown aside all cover. But
as she drew the sheet an(l light l)lankett up,



PART ONE



Q 9

 

s0    THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT



her hand touched the smoothness of a bared
little limb. It brought embarrassment. She
had but once before touched the bareness of
another's body, and that her mother's, and
in death.
  Was it shame, this surging of strange hot-
ness through her
  The refuge of a Blair was always action.
She stepped to the bay of the room and drew
the shutters against the night-wind.
  Between the windows stood the bureau.
Harriet paused, arrested by a daguerreo-
type in a velvet case open upon it. The
child must have left it there. She sat down
and laying the picture on her knee, regarded
it, her chin in her palm.
  It was the face of the father of the sleep-
ing child, dead less than a year, for whom
his sister was wearing this black trailing in
folds about her.

 

PART ONE



  And looking on his face, she recalled an-
other, exquisite in pallor, with shadowy
lashes, the face of Molly, who ten months
after Alexander's death had married again;
who not only married but gave up her child.
Had it been the purpose of Alexander to test
her for the child's sake She had been
given her third and the child the same, with
Austen as executor and guardian. In the
event of Molly marrying again, she had been
given choice. She might relinquish all right
in the remaining third and keep the child, or
by giving up the child could claim the por-
tion. And the estate was large. In ten
months Molly had chosen.
  And yet, thinking of these things, Har-
riet bade herself be just, chief tenet in the
Bliur creed. Was she so certain Alexander
ha(1 been altogether unhappy in his mar-
riage  May not compensations arise out of



.31

 

32     THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
a man's own nature if he cares for the
woman For Harriet no longer asked why
her brother had married Molly. She knew,
knew that the thing called love is stronger
than reason, than life - some even claimed,
than death. Not that she knew it of herself,
this calm, poised Harriet, but, watching,
she had seen its miracles.
  And out of this, Alexander may have
drawn his compensation, for, stronger than
the hourly friction of his daily life, stronger
than the hurt of outraged conventionality,
thrift, and pride, stronger that the jealousy
which must have often assailed him, had
not love survived in Alexander to the end,
love that protected and concealed Molly's
failings from his own people 
  Suddenly, over Harriet swept the breath
of roses coming into an open breakfast
room, and she saw a stern-lipped man lift,

 

PART ONE



enfold a child-woman to him for a moment,
and as fiercely put her from him and go
out.
  Harriet, breathing quickly, put her broth-
er's picture back, and going to the bed, lifted
the bar and drew the sheet again over the
child. Then she stood looking down. What
manner of little creature was this child of
Alexander and Molly
  Glancing about to assure herself all was
in order, she put the light out, andl, with
hand outstretched against the darkness,
moved to the door, when there swept over
her again the vision of Molly clinging to
Alexander, and again she felt the surrender
of the man, the fierce closing of his arms,
and again she was shaken by his passion.
  And even after she reached her room
and sat down at her desk to the ledger of
household accounts, it came over her, and-



33

 

34     THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
she paused, her hand pressed to her hot
cheek.
  But that a little creature had cried itself to
sleep in the next room she did not dream.
She would have cried herself, had she known
it, she, to whom tears came seldom and hard.
But she was a slow awakening soul, groping,
and she did not know.

 









CHAPTER FOUR



The next morning Harriet sat in Alexina's
room putting crisscross initials on a pile of
unmarked little garments. It was part of
the creed that clothes be marked.
  Presently, as the child came to her aunt's
knee for a completed garment, Harriet laid
a hand on the little shoulder. Demonstra-
tion came hard and brought a flush of em-
barrassment with it.
  "Alexina," she said, "you haven't men-
tioned your mother!"
  The child stood silent but there came a
repeated swallowing in her throat while a
slow red welled up over the little face.

 

36    THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
  Harriet had a feeling of sudden liking and
understanding. "You would rather -you
prefer not  "
  The child nodded, but later, as if from
some fear of appearing unresponsive, she
brought an album from her trunk and spread
it open on Harriet's knee. She seemed a
loyal small soul to her kinsfolk, mainly her
mother's people, and turning the leaves went
through the enumeration.
  At one page -" Daddy," she said.
  "Daddy" applied in a baby's cadenceto
Alexander! Daddy! It was a revelation of
that part of her brother's life which Harriet
had forgotten in accounting assets. " Dad-
dy," called fearlessly, with intonation an-
consciously dear and appealing. AndAlex-
ander had been that to his child!
  There was no picture of Molly, but there
was a torn and vacant space facing Alex-

 

                PART ONE                37
ander. Had the child removed one She
bore resentment then  Harriet had no idea
how far a child of nine could comprehend
and feel the situation.
  She would have been surprised at other
things a child of nine can feel. If the rou-
tine of the house dragged dully to Alexina,
Harriet never suspected it. The personal
attention was detailed to Nelly, who divined
more - Nelly, the freckle-faced, humorous-
eyed house girl, taken from the Orphans'
Home and trained by HIarriet's mother. But,
then, Nelly had been orphaned herself, and
had known those first days following asylum
consignment and perhaps had not forgot.
Her sympathy expressed itself through the
impersonal, the Blair training not having
encouraged the other.
  " Such a be-yewtiful dress," said she, lay-
ing out the clothes for her charge.

 

3      TTIHE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
   Which was true; no child of Molly's
would have suffered for clothes, Molly lov-
ing them too well herself.
  "And such be-yewtiful slippers," said
Nielly, with Alexina in her lap, pulling up
the little stocking and buttoning the strap
about the ankle.
  Alexina's hand held tight to Nelly's hard,
firm arm, steadying herself. Perhaps she
divined the intention. "Can I come, too,
when you go to set the table" she asked.
  But Harriet never suspected. Nor again,
that evening while she and Austen read un-
der the lamp, did Harriet know that Alexina,
standing at the open parlour window gazing
at the children playing on the sidewalk, was
fighting back passionate tears of an out-
raged love and a baffling sense of injustice.
  All at once a child's treble came in from
the pavement.

 

PART ONE



  "Can't you come play"
  Alexina turned, with backward look of
eager inquiry to her aunt, who had come be-
hind her to see who called.
  "As you please; go if you want," said
IHarriet good-humouredly.
  Austen, too, glanced out. Tiptoe on the
stone curbing of the iron fence perched a
little girl, spokesman for the group of chil-
dren behind her.
  "Who is the child " he asked his sister.
  "Her name is Carringford. She is a
grand-daughter of the old Methodist minis-
ter who lives at the corner; secretary of his
church board, or something, isn't he I've
noticed two or three little Carringfords play-
ing in the yard as I go by, and all of them
handsome."
  Austen placed them at once. The child's
mother was the daughlter of the old minis-



S9

 

40    THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
ter, and, with husband and children, lived
in the little brown house with him. An in-
terest in the details of the human affairs
about him was an unexpected phase in
Austen's character. He liked to know
what a man was doing, his income, his
habits, his family ties.
  " I know  Carringford," he remarked;
"he is bookkeeper for Williams, a good,
steady man. As you say, a handsome child,
exceedingly so."
  Harriet watched until the little niece
joined the group outside. " Gregarious little
creatures they seem to be," she remarked.
There was good-humour in her tone, but
there was no understanding.
  The next day was Sunday. On Monday
it rained. Tuesday evening Alexina stood
at the parlour window as before, looking out.
The little figure looked very solitary.

 



  "May I go play" suddenly she asked.
The voice was low, there was no note even
of wistfulness, it was merely the question.
There are children who suffer silently.
  " Why not" Harriet rejoined, looking up
from her magazine. She was the last per-
son to restrict any one needlessly.
  The little niece went forth. The children
had not come for her again. Perhaps they
did not want her, but, even with this fear
upon her, go she must.
  At the gate she paused and with the big
house in its immaculate yard behind her,
gazed up and down.
  It was a quiet street with the houses
set irregularly back from fences of varying
patterns, and the brick sidewalks were raised
and broken in places by the roots of huge
sycamores and maples along the curbs.
  But the cropped head of Alexina turned



PART ONE



41

 

42     TIHE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
this way and that in vain. The street was
deserted, the stillness lonesome. She swal-
lowed hard. She knew where the little girl
named Emily Carringford lived, for she had
pointed out the house that first evening as
they ran past in play, so Alexina slowly
crossed the street, hoping Emily might be
at her gate.
  But first, as she went along, came a wide
brick cottage, sitting high above a base-
ment, a porch across the front. She gazed
in between the pickets of the fence, for it
seemed nice in there. The ground was
mossy under the trees, and the untrimmed
bushes made bowers with their branches.
She would like to play in this yard. Her
ey