The Heart's Kingdom

And I am in still deeper depths. Nickols is the son of father's first

cousin, and has father's full name, Nickols Morris Powers, and he is the

last of his branch of the house. Father loves him and is proud of him

and nothing ever enters his mind except that I will marry Nickols and

start the family all over again. And this is the tragedy. I love Nickols

and am entirely unsatisfied with him. He is the Whistler nocturne that

my Sorolla nature demands, and he eternally makes me hold out my hand to

grasp--nothing. He stands just beyond. I am unable to decide whether he

does or does not love me. In New York he lives his life among the

artists and fashionable people with whom his highly successful

profession throws him, and I don't see why he cares to come back here

where he was born and reared, in pursuit of a woman like me. I am as

elemental as a shock of wheat back on one of father's meadows and

Nickols is completely evolved. He laughs at race pride and resents mine.

For six months I had been in New York living with Aunt Clara in Uncle

Jonathan Van Eyek's old house down on Gramercy just to go into Nickols'

life with him. I went about in the white lights of both Murray Hill and

Greenwich Village for about one hundred and eighty-five evenings, and

then I fled back to my garden and the poplars--and my anxiety. I thought

I had come home to be free and I found the same old chains. And then

had come Nickols' telegram of pursuit in the midnight after I had stood

by in the shadow and watched a strong man pray and a weak man battle

with himself. I was frightened, frightened at the future, and what was

going to help me?

"I don't actually understand a word of Gregory Goodloe's sermons, really

understand them, I mean, but it helps me to see that somebody truly

believes that there is something somewhere that will straighten out

tangles--in life as well as thread."

Harriet broke in on my still hunt into my own and other people's inner

shrines as she snapped a bit of tangled purple silk thread, knotted it

and began all over again on the violet.

"I don't care what he preaches about--he's soothing and I need a little

repose in my life after--Oh, what is the matter now?" And as she

finished speaking Nell Morgan arose and went with the Suckling asquirm

in her arms to meet the large noise that was arriving down the front

walk.

The delegation was headed by young Charlotte, whose blue eyes flamed

across a very tip-tilted nose that bespoke mischief. Jimmy stolidly

brought up the rear with small Sue clinging loyally to his dirty little

paddie, which she only let go to run and bury her cornsilk topknot in

Harriet's outspread arms, where she was engulfed into safety until only

the most delicious dimpled pink knees protruded above dusty white socks

and equally dusty white canvas sandals. Though within a few months of

four, Sue had discovered Harriet, and never failed to take advantage of

her.