The Heart of Rachael

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.