THE WORKS OF KATHLEEN NORRIS
VOLUME XI
TO
DANIEL WEBB NYE
DEAR MAKER OF BOOKS AND FRIENDS
HARRIET AND THE PIPER
Richard Carter had called the place "Crownlands," not to pleasehimself, or even his wife. But it was to his mother's newly born familypride that the idea of being the Carters of Crownlands made its appeal.The estate, when he bought it, had belonged to a Carter, and thetradition was that two hundred years before it had been a grant of thefirst George to the first of the name in America. Madame Carter, as theold lady liked to be called, immediately adopted the unknown owner intoa vague cousinship, spoke of him as "a kinsman of ours," and proceededto tell old friends that Crownlands had always been "in the family."
It was a home hardly deserving of the pretentious name, although it wasbeautiful enough, and spacious enough, for notice, even among themagnificent neighbours that surrounded it. It was of creamy brick,colonial in design, and set in splendid lawns and great trees on thebank of the blue Hudson. White driveways circled it, great stables andgarages 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, amarching line of great maples and sycamores, and a demure lodge besidethe mighty iron gates.
Much of this was as Richard Carter had found it five years ago, butabout the house, inside and out, his wife had made changes, had lentthe place something of her own individuality and charm. It was IsabelleCarter who had visualized the window-boxes and the awnings, the walkswhere emerald grass spouted between the bricks, the terrace with itsfat balustrade and shallow marble steps descending to the river. Greatstone jars, spilling the brilliant scarlet of geraniums, flanked thesteps, and the shadows of the mighty trees fell clear and sharp acrossthe marble. And on a soft June afternoon, sitting in the silence andthe fragrance with boats plying up and down the river, and birdstwittering and flashing at the brim of the fountain, one might havedreamed one's self in some forgotten Italian garden rather than a shorttwo hours' trip away from the busiest and most congested city of theworld.
On one of the wide benches that were placed here and there on thedescending terraces, in the late hours of an exquisite summerafternoon, a man and a woman were sitting. They had strolled slowlyfrom the tennis court, where half-a-dozen young persons were violentlyexercising themselves in the sunshine, with the vague intention ofreaching the tea table, on the upper level. But here, in the clearshade, 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 richlycoloured gown, against the clear cream of the marble, the new green ofthe trees and lawns, and the brilliant hues of the flowers, she mightwell have turned an older head than that of the boy beside her.Brunette, with smooth cheeks deeply touched with rose, black eyes, anda warmly crimson mouth that could be at once provocative andrelentless, she glowed like a flower herself in the sweet andenervating heat of the summer's first warm day. She wore a filmy gownof a dull cream colour, with daring great poppies in pink and black andgold embroidered over it; her lacy black hat, shadowing her clearforehead and smoke-black hair, was covered with the soft pink flowers.She was the tiniest of women, and the little foot, that, in itstransparent silk stocking and