Title:  The Heart of Rachael

Author:  Kathleen Norris

Release Date:  January, 2004 [EBook #4915] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 26, 2002]

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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THE WORKS OF KATHLEEN NORRIS

THE HEART OF RACHAEL

VOLUME VI

TO MY TERESA

BOOK I

THE HEART OF RACHAEL

CHAPTER I

The day had opened so brightly, in such a welcome wave of April sunshine, that by mid-afternoon there were two hundred players scattered over the links of the Long Island Country Club at Belvedere Bay; the men in thick plaid stockings and loose striped sweaters, the women’s scarlet coats and white skirts making splashes of vivid color against the fresh green of grass and the thick powdering of dandelions.  It was Saturday, and a half-holiday; it was that one day of all the year when the seasons change places, when winter is visibly worsted, and summer, with warmth and relaxation, bathing and tennis and motor trips in the moonlight, becomes again a reality.

There was a real warmth in the sunshine to-day, there was a fragrance of lilac and early roses in the idle breezes.  “Hot!” shouted the players exultantly, as they passed each other in the green valleys and over the sunny mounds.  “You bet it’s hot!” agreed stout and glowing gentlemen, wiping wet foreheads before reaching for a particular club, and panting as they gazed about at the unbroken turf, melting a few miles away into the new green of maple and elm trees, and topped, where the slope rose, by the white columns and brick walls of the clubhouse.

Motor cars swept incessantly back and forth on the smooth roadway; a few riders, their horses wheeling and dancing, went down the bridle path, and there was a sprinkling of young men and women and some shouting and clapping on the tennis-courts.  But golf was the order of the day.  At the first tee at least two scores of impatient players waited their turn to drive off, and at the last green a group of twenty or thirty men and women, mostly women, were interestedly watching the putting.

Mrs. Archibald Buckney, a large, generously made woman of perhaps fifty, who stood a little apart from the group, with two young women and a mild-looking blond young man, suddenly interrupted a general discussion of scores and play with a personality.