Rachael Breckenridge neither liked it nor disliked it. It had been
her home for the seven years of her married life, except for the
month or two she spent every winter in a New York hotel. She had
never had any great happiness in it, to be sure, but then her life
had been singularly lacking in moments of real happiness, and she
had valued other elements, and desired other elements more. She
had not expected to be happy in this house, she had expected to be
rich and envied, and secure, and she was all of these things. That
they were not worth attaining, no one knew better than Rachael
now.
The house was of course a great care to her, the more so because
Billy was in it so little, and was so frankly eager for the time
when she should leave it and go to a house of her own, and because
Clarence was absolutely indifferent to it in his better moods, and
pleased with nothing when he was in the grip of his besetting sin.
The Breckenridges did little formal entertaining, but the man of
the house liked to bring men down from town for week-end visits,
and Billy brought her young friends in and out with youthful
indifference to domestic regulations, so that on Rachael, as
housekeeper, there fell no light burden.
She carried it gracefully, knitting her handsome brows as the
seasons brought about their endless problems, discussing bulbs
with old Rafael in the garden when the snow melted, discussing
paper and paint in the first glory of May, superintending the
making of iced drinks on the hot summer afternoons, and in October
filling her woodroom duly with the great logs that would blaze
neglected in the drawing-room fireplace all winter long. The house
was not large, as such houses go; too much room was wasted by a
very modern architect in linen closets and coat closets, bathrooms
and hall space, dressing-rooms, passages, and nooks and corners
generally. Yet Rachael's guest-rooms were models in their way, and
when she gave a luncheon the women who came were always ready to
exclaim in despairing admiration over the beauty of the gardens,
the flower-filled, airy rooms, the table appointments, and the
hostess herself.
But when they said that she was "wonderful"--and it was the
inevitable word for Rachael Breckenridge-the general meaning went
deeper than this. She was wonderful in her pride, the dignity and
the silence of her attitude toward her husband; she had been a
wonderful mother to Clarence's daughter; not a loving mother,
perhaps--she was not loving to anyone--but a miracle of
determination and clearness of vision.