# The Blue Window/Chapter 16

ABOUT ten days before Winslow's dance a letter came to Meriweather. It was from his uncle and contained surprising matter.
"My dear Boy:
I know you've given me up as a narrow and not-to-be-considered person. We did not agree about the War, and that was enough for you. Hot blood and youth cannot always see the reasons which age advances for tolerance. However that may be, I am not well, and I want to see you. I have asked this before, and you have refused to come. I hope you won't refuse this time, for the doctors are not encouraging, and I feel a loneliness that has made me put pride in my pocket and write to you. And if you need more assurance of the change that has come over me, you may find it in this—that I am glad you fought in France. I am not so cold-blooded as you may think, and I have thrilled more than once at the thought of a hero in the family.
Is this apology enough? Well, let it go at that, and come to me. I am winding up my affairs in Baltimore and shall go up to the old house in Harford. It is as good a place as any, and there's pleasure in the thought that I shall end my days where other Buchanan Meriweathers have died. I am glad you have the name, too, ​Merry, and while you are my nephew and not my son, it will be my hope that some day your son will carry on the name and the traditions of the family. All that I have will be yours, but I know you well enough to understand that your coming to me will not be affected by what I have to give you. You have demonstrated your independence.
What about this week-end? And telephone me if you will. I am rather impatient—it may be a matter of blood pressure which makes me anxious to have news of you as soon as possible, but again it may be a matter of affection. My heart will beat a bit quicker at the thought of seeing you. Perhaps, you thought I hadn't a heart. But I have, and I am, therefore,
Affectionately, your
Uncle Buck."
Meriweather laid the letter down with a feeling of intense emotion. So there it was. The old chap really had a heart. Who would have believed it? Was it the thought of what was ahead that had changed him? Some of the fellows had been like that on the eve of battle—revealing themselves for the first time. Had his uncle, brought face to face at last with that dark opponent, found his fighting blood?
Something he had felt as a boy for the man for whom he was named rushed back upon Merry. It would' seem good to go up to the old house—to be at peace once more with this remaining member of the family. And anyhow, who could resist that poignant appeal?
Three days later the two men dined alone in the oak-beamed dining-room, with a tenant's wife to wait on them.
​"I've made arrangements for Minnie and her husband to take care of me—and I'd like to have you with me as much as possible, Merry."
"I'll come up every week-end," Meriweather offered.
He felt he should have promised more than that—to keep the old man constant company. Yet he had not the strength to divorce himself utterly from the life at Round Hill—not with Hildegarde under that roof and with the chance of winning her.
After dinner they talked of business, and Merry heard the details of his financial future. He had not dreamed Uncle Buck had accumulated so much. He found himself protesting, when he was made to understand that he would inherit everything.
"It doesn't seem as if I ought to have all that."
"Why not? It is not in any sense a fortune. Only enough to make you comfortable if you marry."
"But I may not marry, Uncle Buck."
"Why not?"
"I am in love with a girl who isn't in love with me. If she should marry some one else—there would never be another in my life."
Silence for a long moment, then: "Don't carry constancy to the extreme, Merry. I did it. I've wanted a home—wife and children."
Meriweather shook his head. "It's Hildegarde for me, or nobody. Carew's daughter. I want you to see her. Perhaps some day I can bring her up here. You'd find her charming."
"There was a lot of talk about it at the Club," old Meriweather said, "when people learned that Louis ​had a daughter living. And there's much curiosity to see her."
"Well, society will have a chance at Winslow's ball," Merry told him. "Miss Anne is counting on the sensation she will make. She looks like Louis, but she isn't like him—finer; takes after her mother, I fancy."
"I knew her mother—a wonderful type. Utterly thrown away on Louis. Couldn't we have Hildegarde here, Merry, for a visit? Perhaps we could make her see what it would be like to be mistress of this old mansion."
Merry, going up that night with his candle, had a vision of Hildegarde ascending the steps ahead of him—high-held head, crown of smoky hair. How wonderful it would be to see her turn and smile down at him—to kiss her on the stairs!
When he went back to Round Hill, he said little of what had happened. He spoke of his uncle and of their reconciliation.
"We have let bygones be bygones," he told Hildegarde. "He needs me, and his illness has made him very different."
Of the chances of his inheritance he said nothing. Dead men's shoes! The thought was distasteful. He wanted Uncle Buck to live as long as he could. He earnestly and honestly wanted it. He saw in the old man's attitude toward the inevitable something heroic. It entitled him to respect. It entitled him, too, to love.
Yet, though he would not let himself count on it, the fact that he might some day be financially independent ​lay in the back of Merry's mind. Some day he would have a home to offer Hildegarde. It increased his determination to win her. Happiness would come to him in such a consummation, and it would please Uncle Buck. As for Crispin Harlowe, he could take care of himself.
It was because, therefore, of this secret and stimulating knowledge that he had a right to woo, that he went gladly and willingly to Winslow's dance.
He talked about it to Hildegarde one night as they sat on the wide seat under the Blue Window.
"What are you going to wear?"
"It's a secret, Merry."
"You might tell me."
"Well, then—I'm to be a dryad—a green one. You've never seen anything so lovely as my dress."
"I'm not sure I like it. Dryads haven't souls—and you are all fire and spirit."
"Sally says souls aren't fashionable!"
"Poor Sally!"
"I feel that way about her, too, Merry. But the queer thing is, she seems to be happy. She says Neale's house is a dream."
"Haven't you seen it?"
"No. But I shall on the night of the ball. I can hardly wait."
"It's a gorgeous place, and in good taste. Neale knows all about tapestries and pictures, and old china and old books. And since he has made money, he has indulged himself. And Sally fits in with the rest. That's why he wants her—she's the final art object to complete his decorations."
​Merry felt his point was proved when, on the night of the ball, he came down early and had the place quite to himself. He was a house guest. Winslow had, of late, been friendly enough to his rival. The time for jealousy seemed past. The Wolf was, indeed, secure in the thought that he was making Red Ridinghood happy. Sally, lapping up luxury as a kitten laps cream, had not time for old love affairs. And Winslow knew enough of human nature to realize that the less emphasis he placed on his fiancée's feeling for Merry the better. If he were slighted and set aside, she might feel called upon to come to his defense.
So Merry, alone in the ballroom, studied the decorative effect and once more commended Winslow's taste. The whole scheme was French—garlands of roses tied with lover's-knots of blue, gold chairs, pale brocades, thousands of candles in crystal chandeliers. Electricity there was, of course, for additional illumination but the thing was so cunningly accomplished that the effect was of sunlight, and the shepherdesses and shepherds on the Fragonard panels seemed bathed in it.
Sally, too, as she came into the room, was a shepherdess bathed in light—her hair powdered, rose silk panniers over azure, patches on her pink cheeks, a little hat with floating ribbons,= a ribbon-tied crook. She had been wise enough not to let Winslow load her with jewels, or perhaps it had been his taste to show her to society in elegant simplicity.
Merry's own costume was simple—a dark wig tied at the back with a ribbon, black satin coat and knee ​breeches, a lace frill, paste buckles on his shoes, a black scarf over his broken arm.
"What do you represent?" Sally asked him.
"I am, I hope, a Gentleman."
"You're stunning, if you want my opinion."
"Thank you, I could say more than that, but I won't. You'll have enough compliments without mine."
"They wouldn't be worth much without yours," Sally said with a seriousness she rarely showed. "Please be nice and friendly tonight, Merry. I need it."
"Has anything happened?"
"Only this," she waved her hand to include the great empty room. "It's going to be mine. And I am wondering what I am going to do with it."
Under the high ceiling, and in that vast desert of polished floor, the two of them seemed no bigger than china figures set on a shelf. Sally with her crisp silks, and Merry with his lace frills, might have been made of Dresden porcelain, so utterly artificial were they and so absolutely in keeping with the rose garlands and the Fragonard panels.
Then, suddenly, in the arched entrance to the ballroom appeared a figure that was not in keeping—a figure which belonged not between walls, but to the out-of-doors—to summer twilights with a thin moon gleaming—to spectral midnights with a wild wind blowing—to clear, white dawns in a birch forest—!
It was Hildegarde!
"Oh," she said, when she saw them, "everybody is ​asking for you, Sally. I came to see the ballroom—I had heard so much about it. I couldn't wait—"
She was talking with an excitement which was not usual. She was lighted, too, by excitement. She seemed incandescent. The effect was startling. Merry's breath came quick at the sight of her beauty.
"Sally," she was saying, "I never dreamed of such a house. It's wonderful."
But Sally was not interested in talk of the house. "Hildegarde," she demanded, "who planned that costume for you?"
"Aunt Anne."
"Do you know what she's done to you? You're utterly perfect. Everybody will be mad about you won't they, Merry?"
Meriweather nodded. He had no words. He had known her lovely, but this—a wreath of oak-leaves binding her smoky locks, her eyes lighted by that new look, her slender body sheathed in the bright green of young trees washed by spring rains, with more oak leaves bordering the hem—with the curl of a leaf on each shoe for a buckle below her silver hose—this was loveliness with a difference. And that new look in her eyes? Where had he seen it?
All in a moment he had it! Carew's eyes were like that when he entered upon some new adventure! He had marked it a thousand times, luminous, eager, almost uncanny.
Winslow joined them. "Our guests are waiting, Sally," and gave her his arm.
He wore a court costume which linked him with Sally's panniers and patches. It was all of white ​brocade with many glittering stones—and it made him more than ever an icicle.
There were a dozen guests for dinner, and there were other dinner parties whose guests would come on for the dance. Hildegarde, sitting next to Meriweather, ate and drank like a person in a dream. Winslow's great house had been a revelation. It was so beautiful it made her heart beat almost to suffocation. All the things she had ever read, all the poems, seemed packed into it. Its richness, fragrance, color, gave her tonight a feeling of pure ecstasy.
When she came later into the ballroom with her father, she was aware of the attention they attracted. Yet even she could not know the full effect of the sensation their appearance made—he with his furry cap with pointed ears, his goat's skin and his Pan's pipes, his wild gaiety of manner, his lighted eyes; she, reflecting the wild charm of him, and adding to it her own naiveté and young beauty.
Everybody was talking about them. So this was Carew's daughter! She looked like Louis. Was like him. What a pair they made—faun and dryad!
Louis, elated over Hildegarde's success, told Meriweather: "It's surprising how she keeps her head. She might have done this sort of thing all her life. Nothing awkward about her. Blood will tell, Merry."
Merry was not dancing—his arm made it impossible. When he left Carew, he went up to the balcony which overhung the ballroom. Many of the older guests were there, but he found a corner where he could sit alone and gaze down upon the dancers. If he could not dance with Hildegarde, he wanted at least ​to look at her. And she had promised to eat supper with him, which was a pleasant thing to contemplate.
The ballroom floor was crowded, but he saw only one figure—the one that belonged to moonlit groves, to silver pools among white birches. Oh, who could have dreamed of this when he gazed from the window at Round Hill and saw her coming up the road on that warm October morning?
All at once he missed her from the floor. His eyes swept the room, but she was nowhere to be seen. He decided to search for her, and took his leisurely way down the balcony stairs.
There was another stairway, the grand one which led up from an entrance court to the galleries which surrounded it. This was remote from the ballroom and was at the moment empty, except for a figure in floating green which fled lightly up until it reached the third landing.
Hildegarde could not have told why she had left the others. She knew that at this very moment a partner was hunting for her—one of the brilliant youths who had been making much of her since her spectacular introduction to them all.
She had simply felt that she must get away, still the beating of her heart, take stock of herself, find the Hildegarde she had always known. She was half-frightened by this new Hildegarde—this wild, gay creature! Her real self was quiet, a little sad, looking back somewhat wistfully, wanting her mother, longing for Crispin, hating Winslow and all his ways. Surely that Hildegarde must be waiting somewhere on the ​stairs? And this other Hildegarde would at once give way to her.
For this couldn't last, this throbbing, triumphant sense of her own powers. How could it? Life wasn't like that, a game, a mad dance while Pan piped. Oh, the enchantment of the moment when her father had played the pipes, and he and she had danced together!
Breathing rapidly, she ascended another step and stood facing a great mirror set into the wall opposite. It gave back her reflection, full-length.
Poised on tip-toe, she leaned forward.
"Oh," she said in a tense whisper, "am I like that? Am I?"
Oak leaves—flaming cheeks—emerald sheath—and silver slippers. A vision came to her of a girl in a red sweater who had walked with Crispin in an October twilight. That was the old Hildegarde. Did she want to be again like that? She saw herself in her little black dress and her mother's black cloak. How intent she had been on wearing black!
Oak leaves . . . flaming cheeks . . . emerald sheath . . . and silver slippers. . . . This was the new Hildegarde! Well, why not? Why not be admired and sought after, submerged in unthinking gaiety?
"You're a darling," she said to the girl in the mirror.
Then she turned and sped down the stairs, and as she went, all the beauties of the big house which was to be Sally's seemed to shout at her—the tapestries, the shimmering rugs, the priceless paintings, the pale marbles. "You belong here," they vociferated. "How could you ever think of going back to the farm?"
It was queer how the thought of the farmhouse was ​like looking through the small end of an opera glass and seeing it dim and distant, with two dwarfed, dark figures moving about. . . .
As she entered the ballroom, her searching partner rushed to meet her. Other eyes were upon her. The people in the balcony craned their heads.
Carew's daughter had come back!