The Heart of Rachael

Vivian Sartoris offered no further remark. Indeed she had drifted

into a low-toned conversation with a young man on the fender.

Elinor Vanderwall was neither pretty nor rich, and she was

unmarried at thirty-four, her social importance being further

lessened by the fact that she had five sisters, all unmarried,

too, except Anna, the oldest, whose son was in college. Anna was

Mrs. Prince; her wedding was only a long-ago memory now.

Georgiana, who came next, was a calm, plain woman of thirty-seven,

interested in church work and organized charities. Alice was

musical and delicate. Elinor was worldly, decisive, the social

favorite among the sisters. Jeanette was boyish and brisk, a

splendid sportswoman, and Phyllis, at twenty-six, was still

babyish and appealing, tiny in build, and full of feminine charms.

All five were good dancers, good tennis and golf players, good

horsewomen, and good managers. All five dressed well, talked well,

and played excellent bridge. The fact of their not marrying was an

eternal mystery to their friends, to their wiry, nervous little

father, and their large, fat, serene mother; perhaps to themselves

as well. They met life, as they saw it, with great cleverness,

making it a rule to do little entertaining at home, where the

preponderance of women was most notable, and refusing to accept

invitations except singly. The Vanderwall girls were rarely seen

together; each had her pose and kept to it, each helped the others

to maintain theirs in turn. Alice's music, Georgiana's altruistic

duties, these were matters of sacred family tradition, and if

outsiders sometimes speculated as to the sisters' sincerity, at

least no Vanderwall ever betrayed another. And despite their

obvious handicaps, the five girls were regarded as social

authorities, and their names were prominently displayed in

newspaper accounts of all smart affairs. While making a fine art

of feminine friendships, they yet diffused a general impression of

being involved in endless affairs of the heart. They were much in

demand to fill in bridge tables, to serve on club directorates, to

amuse week-end parties, to be present at house weddings, and to

remain with the family for the first blank day or two after the

bride and groom were gone.

"Queer fellow, Breckenridge," said George Pomeroy, old Peter's

nephew, a red-faced, florid, simple man of forty.

"Well, he never should have married as he did, it's all in a

mess," a woman's voice said lazily. "Rachael's extraordinary of

course--there's no one quite like her. But she wasn't the woman

for him. Clarence wanted the little, clinging, adoring kind, who

would put cracked ice on his forehead, and wish those bad

saloonkeepers would stop drugging her dear big boy. Rachael looks

right through him; she doesn't fight, she doesn't care enough to

fight. She's just supremely bored by his weakness and stupidity.

He isn't big enough for her, either in goodness or badness. I

never knew what she married him for, and I don't believe anyone

else ever did!"