He had had his fill long ago of the noisy friendly
parties at Highbank, with coasting, ice-boating, sleighing,
long tramps in the snow, and a general flavour of
mild flirting and milder practical jokes. He
had just received a box of new books from his London
book-seller, and had preferred the prospect of a
quiet Sunday at home with his spoils. But he
now went into the club writing-room, wrote a hurried
telegram, and told the servant to send it immediately.
He knew that Mrs. Reggie didn’t object to her
visitors’ suddenly changing their minds, and
that there was always a room to spare in her elastic
house.
Newland Archer arrived at the Chiverses’ on
Friday evening, and on Saturday went conscientiously
through all the rites appertaining to a week-end at
Highbank.
In the morning he had a spin in the ice-boat with
his hostess and a few of the hardier guests; in the
afternoon he “went over the farm” with
Reggie, and listened, in the elaborately appointed
stables, to long and impressive disquisitions on the
horse; after tea he talked in a corner of the firelit
hall with a young lady who had professed herself broken-hearted
when his engagement was announced, but was now eager
to tell him of her own matrimonial hopes; and finally,
about midnight, he assisted in putting a gold-fish
in one visitor’s bed, dressed up a burglar in
the bath-room of a nervous aunt, and saw in the small
hours by joining in a pillow-fight that ranged from
the nurseries to the basement. But on Sunday
after luncheon he borrowed a cutter, and drove over
to Skuytercliff.
People had always been told that the house at Skuytercliff
was an Italian villa. Those who had never been
to Italy believed it; so did some who had. The
house had been built by Mr. van der Luyden in his
youth, on his return from the “grand tour,”
and in anticipation of his approaching marriage with
Miss Louisa Dagonet. It was a large square wooden
structure, with tongued and grooved walls painted
pale green and white, a Corinthian portico, and fluted
pilasters between the windows. From the high
ground on which it stood a series of terraces bordered
by balustrades and urns descended in the steel-engraving
style to a small irregular lake with an asphalt edge
overhung by rare weeping conifers. To the right
and left, the famous weedless lawns studded with “specimen”
trees (each of a different variety) rolled away to
long ranges of grass crested with elaborate cast-iron
ornaments; and below, in a hollow, lay the four-roomed
stone house which the first Patroon had built on the
land granted him in 1612.
Against the uniform sheet of snow and the greyish
winter sky the Italian villa loomed up rather grimly;
even in summer it kept its distance, and the boldest
coleus bed had never ventured nearer than thirty feet
from its awful front. Now, as Archer rang the
bell, the long tinkle seemed to echo through a mausoleum;
and the surprise of the butler who at length responded
to the call was as great as though he had been summoned
from his final sleep.
