one had met me at the railroad station, save the chauffeur and footman, so I assumed that the Van Wyck household was conducted on formal lines. I held my mind open for informing impressions, and suddenly, rounding a curve, we came within sight of the house.
I knew the Van Wyck home was called Buttonwood Terrace, but when I saw it I felt a whimsical impulse to call it All Gaul—for it was so definitely divided into three parts. The enormous rectangle that had originally formed the main dwelling had later received the addition of two also rectangular wings. But these were not attached in the usual fashion; they were jauntily caught by their corners to the two rear corners of the main house. These lapping walls impinged but a few feet, or just enough for communicating doors. Thus, the wings, with the back or southern side of the house, formed three sides of a delightful terrace, from which marble steps and grassy paths led to formal gardens beyond, where one could wander among fountains, statues, and rare and beautiful plants.
The West wing held the many kitchens and other servants’ quarters, and the East wing,—I judged from its long, almost church-like windows,—was a great hall of some sort.
For some reason, the car circled the house before pausing at the front entrance, and, enthralled by the beauty and wonder of the place, I was ready to forgive Anne Mansfield her much-criticized marriage. The door was opened to me by an obsequious personage in livery, and I was at once shown to my room. This was on the second floor, at the front of the house, and on the East side. It was a marvel of good taste and comfortable, even luxurious appointments, but I scarcely noticed it, as I caught sight of the view from my windows.
The Berkshire hills rolled above and beyond one another, in what seemed a very riot of mountainous glee. The spring green had appeared early, and the tender verdure of the young leaves contrasted with the deep greens and purples of the mountain forests. It was nearly sunset, and a red gold glow added a theatrical effect to the glorious landscape.
I leaned out of my East window, and glanced toward the back of the house. I saw again that great East wing, so peculiarly attached to the corner of the main dwelling, and concluded it had been built later. It had almost the appearance of a chapel, for the long windows were of stained glass, with arched tops and ornate casings. The fact that these windows reached from the roof nearly to the ground, proved the wing apartment to be a lofty one, fully the height of two ordinary stories. So interested in the matter was I, that I asked the man who was unpacking my things, if the East wing might be a chapel.
“No, sir,” he answered; “it’s Mr. Van Wyck’s study.”
He volunteered the further information that tea was now being served there, and that I was to go down as soon as I was ready.
Shortly after, I followed my guide through the halls and rooms of the enormous house. Drawing-rooms and reception rooms were furnished with quiet elegance; and the heavy hangings, though of brocades and tapestries, were never obtrusive in coloring or design.
Through the halls we went, until we reached the doorway that formed the sole connection between the main house and the East wing. Here, after a murmured announcement of my name, the servant left me, and I found myself in the study of David Van Wyck.
I think I have never seen a more impressive room than this study at Buttonwood Terrace. Its domed ceiling of leaded glass was perhaps thirty feet high, but so large was the room and so graceful its lines that the architecture gave the effect of perfect proportion.
The walls were panelled between the stained-glass windows, and at the West end of the room was a small balcony, like a musicians’ gallery, reached by a spiral staircase. At the same end of the room, under the balcony and opening on the terrace, were large double doors; and there was no other entrance save the single door that connected with the main house through the lapped corners.
There were perhaps a dozen people present, and though, of course, I recognized my hostess, I went to greet her with a face that, I am sure, showed an expression of incredulity.
Anne Van Wyck laughed outright.
“It’s really I,” she said; “you seem unable to believe it”
But even before I could reply she turned to welcome another newcomer, and I stood alone, a moment, waiting for her to turn back to me.
The scene was a picturesque one. The contrast of the modern garbed society people, their light laughter and gay chatter, with the dignity and grandeur of the old room and its antique furnishings, made an interesting picture. Everywhere the eye rested on carvings and tapestries worthy of a baronial hall, and yet the gay occupation of afternoon tea seemed not amiss in this setting. It was late in May, and though the great doors stood open to the terrace, the blaze of an open fire was not ungrateful.
My hostess did not herself preside at the tea-table, but left that to her step-daughter Barbara, while she graciously dispensed charming smiles of greeting or farewell to the guests who came or went. After a few moments came a lull in her duties and with a fascinating smile she invited me to sit beside her and talk over old times.
“Remembering our schoolmate days, may I call you Anne?” I asked, taking my place by her on a divan.
“I suppose I really oughtn’t to allow it, but it is pleasant to feel you are an old friend,” she smiled.
“It is—though a bit hard to realize that the little school-girl I used to know is now mistress of all this grandeur.”
“It is a fine old place, isn’t it?” she returned, evading the personal equation. “And, perhaps because of its picturesque possibilities, I pride myself on my house-parties. I adore having guests, and I invite them with an eye to their fitting into this environment.”
“Thank you for the implied compliment,” I murmured, but I brought back my gaze from my surroundings, to look more attentively at Anne’s face.
It seemed to me I had caught a plaintive note in her voice, and I looked for a corresponding expression in her eyes. But she dropped her long lashes, after a swift glance that was a little roguish, a little wistful, and entirely fascinating. Suddenly I wondered if she were happy. My vague impression of her husband was that he was tyrannical and possibly cruel; I felt intuitively that Anne's lightheartedness was assumed, and covered a disappointed life.
But meantime she was chatting on, gaily. “Yes,” she declared; “I select my house-parties with the utmost care. I have an exactly proper admixture of married people and unmarried, of serious-minded and frivolous, of geniuses and feather-heads.”
“In which class am I?” I asked, more for the sake of making her look at me than for a desire for information.
“It’s so long since we last met, that I shall have to study you a bit before I can classify you. But please be as frivolous as you can, for I want you to offset a very serious guest”
“I know,” I said, following Anne’s glance across the room; “the long girl in pale green. I shall have to be a veritable buffoon to average up with that serious-minded siren! She looks like a Study of a Wailing Soul.”
“Yes—isn’t she Burne-Jonesey? That’s Beth Fordyce, and she’s the dearest thing in the world, but she has a sort of aesthetic pose, and goes in a little for the occult and such ridiculous things. But you’ll like her, for she’s a dear when she forgets her fad.”
“Does she ever forget it?”
“Yes; when she’s thinking of clothes. Indeed, sometimes I think she prefers clothes to soulfulness,—but she’s terribly devoted to both.”
“She certainly makes a success of her raiment,” I observed, looking at the long, sweeping lines of Miss Fordyce’s misty, green draperies.
I suppose it was only a touch of the Eternal Feminine, but Anne seemed to resent my compliment to the green gown, and quickly turned the subject.
“The frizzy blonde lady next her is Mrs. Stelton,” she went on; “she’s a young widow who’s terribly in love with Morland, my step-son. To tell the truth, I invited her because I want him to find out that he really doesn’t