"It's often that way," Harriet smiled. "Only money trouble really seems to have a solid, tangible form," she added, thoughtfully.
"Combined with some other," he surprised her by answering quickly, as if he were quite at home with his subject. "If there isn't sickness--or drink--"
"Oh, you can't say that, Mr. Carter!" Harriet was at home here, too. "Everybody who is respectable and hard working and sober doesn't get rich---"
"No, not rich!" He was really interested. "But our contention isn't that riches are the only happiness, is it?" he countered.
"No, but I say that money trouble is a very real thing," she answered, quickly.
"There is a golden mean, Miss Field, between being rich and being poor!" he reminded her.
"I suppose I am rather bitter," Harriet said, enjoying this confidence more than she could stop to realize, "because I have just been to see my sister in New Jersey. She has four children, pretty well grown now, and her husband is really a good man, and a steady man, too--he is a sort of Jack-of-all-trades on a Brooklyn newspaper. I suppose Fred is paid sixty dollars a week, and they save on that! But--"
"She's unhappy, eh?" asked the man, with a sidewise glance.
"Linda?" Harriet laughed ruefully. "No, she's not! She's too happy," she said, with a little laugh that apologized for the sentiment. "She washes and cooks and plans all day and all night! I'm the one who worries. It makes me sad to have her work so hard for so little--"
She sensed his lack of sympathy, and stopped short, in a little vague surprise. There was a brief silence while he took the car skillfully through a somewhat congested side street, then they were leaving the hot city behind, and the fresh breath of the river was in their faces. Harriet, in self-defence, sketched the Davenport home for him in a dozen sentences.
"You might tell your brother-in-law, from me," Richard Carter said, presently, "that there isn't much that money will buy HIM!"
Harriet flushed. She had had perhaps a dozen brief conversations with Richard Carter before to-day, but they had never touched so personal a note before.
"I sounded mercenary!" she said, a little uncomfortably. "But I didn't mean to be. I suppose it is because I see so many things that money would do for my sister; I'd love so to have the children beautifully dressed and well educated. Little Pip, raking the yard to-day!--when he ought to be in some wonderful Montessori school!"
"Oh, nonsense!" the man said, heartily. "Lord--Lord, I remember Saturday morning, in a little Ohio town, and raking up the leaves, too! That won't hurt them. I wish--I've often wished, that Nina's life ran a little more in that direction," said her father, frankly. "It's hard not to spoil 'em when you have the chance! Girls--well, perhaps it isn't so bad for girls. But I look at Ward, now, and I wonder what on earth is going to keep that boy straight. This Tony Pope, for instance--it's too much, you know! They don't know the value of money, and they don't know the value of life!"
"Ward is too sweet to be spoiled," Harriet ventured, somewhat timidly.
"You like the boy?" his father asked.
"I? Ward?" She was taken unawares, and flushed brightly. "Indeed I do!"
"I'm glad you do," Richard Carter said, in quiet satisfaction. "I've imagined sometimes that you have a good influence on him--he's impressionable." He fell into silence, and for some time there was no further speech between them. Harriet was content to enjoy this restful interval between the hurry and crowding of Linda's house and the currents and cross-currents that she must encounter at Crownlands. She watched the green country go by, the trees silent and heavy with their rich foliage, the villages blazing with the last June roses. It was oppressively hot, yesterday's storm had not much relieved the air, but Harriet was conscious of a lazy feeling that it did not so much matter now, the weather was no longer of importance. A mere accident had made it natural for Richard Carter to drive her home, and yet she was pleasantly thrilled by the circumstance.
They flew by the great gates of the country club, and turned in past Crownlands lodge, and Harriet got out, at the steps, and turned her happy, flushed face toward the man to thank him. A little spraying film of golden hair had loosened under her hat; her cheeks had a summer burn over their warm olive; her eyes shone very blue. Whatever she saw in his face as he smiled and nodded at her pleased her, for she went upstairs saying again to herself, "Oh, you're real----you're honest--I LIKE you!"
It was delightful to get back into the familiar atmosphere, to catch the fragrance of flowers in the orderly gloom downstairs, to take off her hat and her hot, dusty clothing, and have a leisurely hot bath; to put on fresh and fragrant summer wear, and to go down-stairs presently, rejoicing in being young and comfortable, and tremendously interested in life. A maid stopped to question her; there were letters to open; she felt herself instantly a part of the establishment again, and at home here. The significance of Richard Carter's parting look, its honest admiration and friendliness, augmented by her own glance at a chance mirror on her way upstairs, stayed with her pleasantly.
At one end of the terrace there was an awning whose shade fell upon the brick flooring and the jars of bloom; and this afternoon it also shaded Isabelle, in a basket chair, and the big hound, and Tony Pope. Harriet cast them a passing glance, and wondered a little in her heart. The boy was handsome, and fascinating, and rich, but it was just a little unusual to have Isabelle so openly interested in any one. There were no other callers this afternoon; Nina had driven to the golf club with her father, and might be expected to remain there for tea, if any entertainment offered, or to return home when Hansen brought the car back.
The thought of Nina brought Royal Blondin again to Harriet's mind, and she was conscious of a little internal wincing. But that risk must be faced simply, as one of the unpalatable possibilities of life. That Royal would take some step against which she must, in honour bound, protest; that Nina should engage herself to him, and Nina's parents consent; that no fortuitous circumstance should play into Harriet's hands, and that she should be obliged to antagonize him openly was unthinkable on this peaceful, golden afternoon. The canvas was too big, the cast of characters too large, there must be some shifting of scene, some change in plot, before anything so momentous occurred.
Yet the danger, faint though it might be, was already influencing her. She was committed to a certain amount of diplomatic silence now; her position here had subtly changed since the hour that brought Royal Blondin back into her life a few days ago. Linda's concern, and her own agony of apprehension when she first saw him, had shown her just how frail was her hold upon this pleasant and smooth existence, and in self-defence she had begun for the first time to think of making it more definite. If she was to have all the terrors of maintaining a dangerous position, at least she might be sure of its sweets.
Undefined and vague, all this was still somewhere in the background of her thoughts as she returned to Crownlands, and when she met Ward Carter, wrestling with the engine of his own rather disreputable racing car, out in one of the clean, gravelled spaces near the garage. His coat was off, his fresh, pleasant face streaked with oil and earth, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow.
Harriet, who had wandered out idly, felt a little quickening of her pulses as she saw him. There was no mistaking the pleasure in his eyes as she came close.
"Spark plugs?" she asked, with the sympathy of one to whom the peculiarities of the car were familiar.
"She's fixed now; I've just cleaned 'em," Ward announced, flinging away his cigarette, and straightening his back. "She'll go like a bird, now. When did you get back?"
"Your father drove me home, like the angel he is. You came with Nina?"
"Nina and Blondin. Then I drove him on to the Evans's. But she began to act queer on the way home," said Ward, fondly, of the car. "Say--get in and try her, will you?" he asked, eagerly.
"If you could wipe your face---" Harriet murmured, offering a handkerchief. He declined it, but snatched out his own, and distributed the dirt on his face somewhat more evenly. "Come on--come on, be a sport!" he said. But perhaps he was as much surprised as delighted when she very simply stepped into the low front seat. There was a friendly nearness of her fresh white ruffles, and a thrilling fragrance and sweetness and youngness about her this afternoon that was new. Miss Field always, in Ward's simple vocabulary, had been a "corker." But now he gave her more than one sidewise glance as they went dipping smoothly up and down through the green lanes, and said to himself, "Gosh--when she crinkles those blue eyes of hers, and her mouth sort of twitches as if she wanted to laugh, she is a beauty--that's what SHE is!"
And dressing for dinner, some time later, he found himself stopping short, once or twice, with his tie dangling in his hand, or his brushes aimlessly suspended, while he calculated the chances of encountering her again--in the pantry, in one of the hallways, in the side garden, where she often went, at about twilight, with a book.
About a week later they met for a few moments in this very side garden. It was early evening, and twilight and moonlight were mingled over the silent roses, and the trimmed turf, and the low brick walls. The birds had long gone to bed, and the first dews were bringing out a thousand delicious odours of summer-time. Harriet's white gown and white shoes made her a soft glimmering in the tender darkness; Ward was in informal dinner clothes, with the shine of dampness still on his sleek hair, and the pleasant freshness of his scarcely finished toilet still about him.
They came straight toward each other, and stood very close together, and he took both of Harriet's hands.
"Now, what is it--what is it?" the man said, quickly. "I've been waiting long enough. I can't stand it any longer! I can't go away to-morrow, perhaps for two weeks, and not know!" "Ward," the girl faltered, lifting an exquisite face that wore, even in the faint moonshine, a troubled and intense expression, "can't we let it all wait until you get back?"
"I'll keep my mouth shut, nobody suspects us, if that's what you mean!" he answered, impatiently. "But--why, Harriet," and his arm went about her shoulders, and he bent his face over hers, "Harriet, why not let me go happy?" he pleaded.
"You'll see a dozen younger girls at the Bellamys' camp," Harriet reasoned, "girls with whom it would be infinitely more suitable--"
"PLEASE!" he interrupted, patiently. And almost touching her warm, smooth cheek with his own, and coming so close that to raise her beautiful eyes was to find his only a few inches away, he added, fervently, "You love me and I love you--isn't that all that matters?"
Did she love him? Harriet hoped, when she reviewed it all in the restless, tossing hours of the night, that she had thought, in that moment, that she did. It was wonderful to feel that strong eager arm about her, there was a sweet and heady intoxication in his passion, even if it did not awaken an answering passion in return. Under all her reasoning and counter-reasoning in the night there crept the knowledge that she had known that this was coming, had known that only a few days of encouraging friendliness, only a few appealing glances from uplifted blue eyes, and a few casual touches of a smooth brown hand must bring this hour upon her. And back of this hour, and of a man's joy in winning the woman he loved, she had seen the hazy future of prosperity and beauty and ease, the gowns and cars and homes, the position of young Mrs. Ward Carter.
But she told herself that all that was forgotten in that magic five minutes of moonlight and fragrance and beauty in the rose garden; she told herself that she really did love him--who could help loving Ward?--and that she would save him far better than he could save himself, from everything that was not loving and helpful and good, in the years to come.
She had let him turn her face up, in the strengthening moonlight, and kiss her hungrily upon the lips, and she had sent him in to his dinner half-wild with the joy of knowing himself beloved. Harriet had gone in, too, shaken and half-frightened, and with his last whispered prophecy ringing in her ears:
"Wait a year--rot! I'll go to the Bellamys', because I promised to, but the day I come back, and that's two weeks from to-day, we'll tell everyone, and this time next year you will have been my wife for six months!"
CHAPTER VIII
A most opportune lull followed, when Harriet Field had time to collect her thoughts, and get a true perspective upon the events of the past week. On the morning after Ward's departure for the Bellamys' camp she had come downstairs feeling that guilt was written in her face, and that the whole household must suspect her engagement to the son and heir.
But on the contrary, nobody had time to pay her the least attention. Nina was leaving for a visit to Amy Hawkes, at the extremely dull and entirely safe Hawkes mansion, where four unmarried daughters constituted a chaperonage beyond all criticism. Isabelle Carter was giving and attending the usual luncheons and dinners, her husband absorbed in an especially important business deal that kept him alternate nights in the city. The house was quiet, the domestic machinery running smoothly, the weather hot, sulphurous, and enervating.
A letter from Ward brought Harriet's colour suddenly to her cheeks, on the third morning, but there was no one but Rosa to notice her confusion. Ward wrote with characteristic boyishness. They were having a corking time, there was nobody there as sweet as his girl was, and he hoped that she missed him a little bit. He was thinking about her every minute, and how beautiful she was that last night on the terrace, and he couldn't believe his luck, or understand what she saw in him.
There were seven sheets to the letter; each one heavily engraved with the name of the camp, "Sans Souci," and the telephone, post-office, telegraph, and rail directions charmingly represented by tiny emblems at the top of the letter-head. Harriet smiled over the dashing sentences; it was an honest letter. She felt a thrill of genuine affection for the writer; he would never grow up to her, but she would make him an ideal wife none-the-less. She went about his father's home, in these days, with a secret happiness swelling in her heart. It would not be long now before the secretary and companion must take a changed position here. It was not the least of her satisfactions that Ward wrote her that Royal was at the camp, planning a trip to the Orient. But before he went he talked of giving a studio tea for Nina. "I think he is slightly mashed on the kid," wrote Ward, simply.
With Royal in China, Nina safely recovering from her June fever, and Harriet affianced to Ward, the summer promised serenely enough. Harriet answered the letter in her happiest vein. Her reply was but two conservative pages; but she said more in the double sheet of fine English handwriting than Ward had said in three times as much space. A charming letter is one of the fruits of loneliness and reading; Harriet was sure of her touch. His father, his mother, and Nina each had an epigrammatic line or two, and for his grandmother Harriet dared a little wit, and smiled to imagine his shout of appreciative laughter.
She dined as usual alone, that evening, and was surprised, at about eight o'clock, to receive the demure notification from Rosa that Mrs. Carter would like to see her. Harriet glanced at a mirror; her brassy hair was as smoothly moulded as its tendency to curve and ring ever permitted, and she wore a thin old transparent white gown that looked at least comparatively cool on this insufferably hot evening. With hardly an instant's delay she went downstairs.
On the terrace outside the drawing-room windows they were at a card table: Richard, looking tired and hot in rumpled white, Isabelle exquisite in silver lace, and young Anthony Pope. Near by, Madame Carter majestically fingered some illustrated magazines.
It appeared that they wanted bridge; it was too hot to eat, too hot to dance at the club, too hot--said Isabelle pathetically--to live! Harriet had supposed her dining alone with her infatuated admirer, but it appeared that Richard had driven his mother out from the city in time to join them for salad and coffee, and that this angle of the terrace, where the river breeze occasionally stirred, was the only spot in the world that was approximately comfortable.
Obligingly, Harriet took her place, cut for the deal. But her eyes had not fallen upon the group before she sensed that something was wrong, and she had a moment's flutter of the heart for fear that someone suspected her, that she was under surveillance. Had Royal--had Ward--
She turned a card, took the deal, found Anthony Pope her partner, and entered into the game with spirit. Richard's first words to her were reassuring; if there was constraint here, she was not involved in it.
"No trump--says little Miss Field. Well, that doesn't seem to frighten me. Two spades."
"I think we might try three diamonds, Miss Field," Anthony said, gravely and pleasantly, and Harriet felt herself acquitted of any apprehension in that direction as well. It only remained for Isabelle to show friendliness.
"Du hast diamonten and perlen, you two. I can see that! You're down, Harriet!" Mrs. Carter said, thoughtfully. Harriet began thoroughly to enjoy herself! If they were all furious, at least it was not with her. She speculated, as she gathered in her tricks. Was it conceivable that Richard did not enjoy the discovery of the tete-a-tete dinner? But Isabelle had often been equally indiscreet, and he had never seemed to resent it before. Harriet knew that Isabelle was ill at ease; she suspected that Tony was furious. The old lady was obviously quivering with baffled interest and curiosity.
In the little pool of light over the card table the air seemed to grow hotter and hotter; there was suffocation in the velvet darkness. A distant rumble of thunder broke heavily on the silence, the sky glimmered with shaking light, and the great leaves of the sycamores turned languidly in a hot breeze. Harriet, the only interested player, was unfortunate with Tony, unfortunate with Isabelle. After three rubbers the game ended suddenly; Richard said he had some letters to write, and was keeping Fox waiting in the library; Anthony scribbled a check, said brief and unfriendly good-nights; Isabelle merely raised passionate dark eyes to his. She was languidly gathering in her spoils when the lights of his car flashed yellow on the drive and he was gone. Harriet, who had lost more than twenty dollars, gave a rueful laugh. The old lady watched everyone in expectant silence.
But when Richard spoke it was only to Harriet, and then in an undertone almost fatherly:
"You lose no money when we ask you to oblige us by playing, my dear. I won't permit that! Twenty dollars and forty cents, was it? Consider it paid."
"Oh, but truly--" she was beginning to protest. The grave look in his eyes, the authoritative nod, interrupted her, and with a pleasant little sensation of protection and of friendliness she had to concede the point. Immediately afterward he said good-night to his mother and wife, and went in to his study. Madame Carter followed him in, and went upstairs, but Isabelle sat on moodily shuffling and reshuffling the cards, in the bright soft light of the terrace lamps.
"Wait a minute, Harriet," she said, briefly, and Harriet obediently loitered. But Isabelle seemed to have nothing to say. Her eyes were on the cards, her beautiful breast, exposed in the low-cut silver gown, rose and fell stormily, and Harriet saw that she was biting her full under lip, as if anger seethed strong within her. In the gleam of the lamps her dark hair took the shine of lacquer; there were jewelled combs in it to-night, and the jewels winked lazily.
Bottomley, the butler, came out, and began discreetly to adjust chairs and to supervise the carrying away of ashtrays and coffee-cups.
"Come upstairs to my room; I want to speak to you!" Isabelle said, suddenly. Harriet followed her upstairs, and they entered the beautiful boudoir together. Here Isabelle dropped into a chair, sitting sidewise, with one bare arm locked across its rococo back, and stared dully ahead of her, a queen of tragedy. Her silver scarf fluttered free, and the toe of a spangled slipper beat with an angry, steady throb on the floor.
Germaine came forward, evidently more accustomed to this mood than Harriet was. Like a flash the high-heeled shoes, the silver gown, and the brocaded stays were whisked away, and a cool, loose silk robe enveloped Isabelle, and she took a deep, cretonned chair by the window. The lights were lowered, Isabelle nodded Harriet to the opposite chair. Then at last she spoke.
"Can that creature hear?"
Harriet, thrilled, glanced toward the dressing room, and shook her head.
"I ask you," said Isabelle, with a great breath of anger restrained, "I ask you if any woman in the world could stand it!"
"I knew something was wrong," Harriet murmured, as the other made a dramatic pause.
"Wrong!" Isabelle echoed, scornfully. "You saw the way Mr. Carter acted. You saw him make me ridiculous--make a fool of me! The boy will never come to the house again."
"Oh, I don't think that!" Harriet said, in honesty.
"Mr. Carter stalked in upon us, at dinner--" his wife said, broodingly. She fell into thought, and suddenly burst out, "Harriet, my heart aches for that boy! My God--my God--what have I done to him!"
She rested her white full arms on the dressing table, and covered her face with her hands. Harriet saw the frail silk of the dressing gown stir with her sudden dry sobbing.
"My God--if I could cry!" Isabelle said, turning. And Harriet realized, with a shock, that she was not acting. "Mr. Carter only sees what I see," she added, "that it must stop. But I am afraid it will kill him. He isn't like other men. He--" She opened a drawer, fumbled therein. "Read that!" she said.
Harriet took the sheet of paper, pressed it open.
"'My heart,'" she read, in Tony Pope's handwriting. "'I will go away from you if I must. But it will be further than India, Isabelle, further than Rio or Alaska. While we two live, I must see you sometimes. Perhaps outside the world there is a place big enough for me to forget you!'"
"Now--!" said Isabelle, rising and beginning restlessly to walk the floor. "Now, what shall I do? Send him away to his death, or risk Mr. Carter's insulting him again, as he did to-night! Anthony Pope means it, Harriet--I know him well enough for that. His whole life is one thought of me. The flowers, the books, the notes--he only wakes in the morning to hope for, to plan, a meeting, and the days when we don't meet are lost days. You don't know how I've been worrying about it," said Isabelle, passionately, "I'm sick with worry!"
She fell silent. Germaine appeared with a tray, and began to loosen and brush the dark hair, and Isabelle went automatically to the business of creaming and rubbing, still shaken, but every minute more mistress of herself. With the thick, dark switch gone, Harriet was almost shocked by the change in the severely exposed forehead and face. Isabelle looked fully her age now, more than her age. But the younger woman knew that however honest her desire to disenchant her young lover, no woman ever risks his seeing her thus. Isabelle might weep, and pray, and suggest supreme sacrifice, but it would be the corseted and perfumed and beautiful Isabelle from whom Tony parted, whom Tony must renounce.
"Well!" said the mistress, sombre-eyed still, and with a still heaving breast. "There was something else, Harriet--Gently, please, Germaine, my head aches frightfully. Oh, Harriet, will you see what this Blondin man wants with Nina? She tells me he suggested some sort of summer party in his roof garden; I don't know quite what it is. But her heart is set on it. They seem to understand each other--I always felt that when Nina's affairs did begin, she would pick out freaks like this! But," Nina's mother sighed, resignedly, "that's all right. He's interesting, and everyone's after him, and if it pleases her--! And will you go to the Hawkes' for her in the morning? Hansen is going at--I don't know what time, in the big car. Don't--" Germaine had gone to the bathroom for a hot towel, and Isabelle dropped her voice, almost affectionately--"don't worry about this little scene, Harriet. It will be quite all right!"
"Oh, surely!" The companion's voice was light and cheerful; she went upstairs only pleasantly excited and thrilled. And at the breakfast table next morning Harriet could show the head of the house the same bright assurance. She was young. Life was like a fascinating play. Richard had come downstairs early, and they had their coffee alone.
"Nina?" asked her father.
"She comes back to-day," Harriet said. "Mrs. Carter is going to have her masseuse, so she won't be down. She asked you to remember that you are dining at the Jays' to-morrow. There's to be tennis at about four."
"Finals," he said, nodding. "Jim Kelsoe and one of the Irvins--"
"Judson Irwin," the girl supplied.
"Was it?" Richard Carter went out to his car apparently well pleased with himself and his life. Harriet started for the Hawkes' with a philosophic reflection or two as to the ephemeral quality of married quarrels.
She brought Nina back at noon, a garrulous and complacent Nina, who could pity the elder Hawkes as girls who "never had admirers." When they reached the driveway of Crownlands, Harriet recognized the car that was already there, and said to herself that Anthony Pope would join them for luncheon. But just as she and Nina were about to enter the cool, wide, dark doorway, Anthony himself passed them. He was almost running, and apparently did not see them. He ran down the shallow steps and sprang into his car, which scattered a spray of gravel as he jerked it madly about, and was gone before she and Nina had ended their look of surprise. Harriet detected a magnificent astonishment in Bottomley's mild elderly glance as well; she went slowly upstairs, with a dim foreboding far back in her heart.
In Nina's room were three flowers from Royal Blondin. Nina said hastily, and in rapture: "Water lilies!" but a ten-year-old memory told Harriet that they were lotus blooms. Another girl had had lotus blooms years ago; Harriet wondered if Royal always sent them to the women he admired, or rather, to the one whose favour was, for the moment, to his advantage.
Nina had no such thoughts. Radiantly and amazedly she turned to Harriet.
"Oh, Miss Harriet, look! They're from Mr. Blondin! Oh, I do think that is terribly nice of him. The idea! The IDEA! We were speaking of a poem called 'The Lotus Flower'. Did you ever? I think that is terribly decent of him, don't you? Shan't I write him? Would you? Hadn't I better write him right now? Will you help me? I do think that is terribly decent of him, don't you?"
And so on indefinitely. Harriet felt rather sorry for the gauche little creature who flung aside her hat and wrap, and sat biting her gold pen-handle, and spoiling sheet after sheet of paper. But there was protection in Nina's absorption, too; she was far too happy to know or care that Harriet felt somewhat worried, or to make any comment when they went down to lunch to find that Isabelle begged to be excused. They lunched alone with the old lady.
At about three, when the important note was written, and Harriet and Nina were idling on the shady terrace, with the hound, the new magazines, and their books, Hansen brought one of the small closed cars to the side door. Five minutes later Isabelle, in a thin white coat, a veiled white hat, and with a gorgeous white-furred wrap over her arm, came out. Germaine was with her, carrying two shiny black suitcases. Isabelle, Harriet thought, looked superbly handsome, but Germaine had evidently been scolded, and had red eyes.
Isabelle came over to give her daughter a farewell kiss.
"Mrs. Webb has telephoned for me, ducky. Your father isn't coming home to-night, but have a happy time with Miss Harriet, and I'll be back in a day or two."
"I thought that you were dining to-morrow at the Jays'!" Harriet said. That she had not been mistaken did not occur to her until she saw the colour flood Isabelle's face.
"I forgot it. But I wonder if you will be sweet enough to telephone to-morrow morning, and say that I am obliging an old friend?" Isabelle said, smoothly. "I shall be with Mrs. Webb in Great Barrington, Harriet. She made it a personal favour, and I couldn't refuse! Good-bye, both of you. All right, Hansen!"
They swept away, leaving Harriet with a strange sense of nervousness and suspense. The summer air seemed charged with menace, and the silence that followed the noise of the car oddly ominous. She looked about nervously; Nina was drifting through Vanity Fair, the sun was warm, and the air sweet and still. But still her heart was beating madly, and she felt frightened and ill at ease.
Madame Carter was on the terrace when they came back at five from an idle trip to the club, reporting that her son had just returned unexpectedly from the city, and had gone in to change for golf.
Nothing alarming here, yet Harriet experienced a sick thrill of apprehension. Something abnormal seemed to be the matter with them all this afternoon!
"Did you call me, Mr. Carter?" She hardly knew her own voice, as he came down the three broad steps from the house. Her hands felt cold, and she was trembling.
"Do you happen to know where Hansen is, Miss Field?"
"Driving Mrs. Carter to the Webbs' at Great Barrington," the girl answered, readily. "Will young Burke do? Mrs. Webb telephoned, and Mrs. Carter left in a hurry. She did not expect you to-night. Hansen ought to be back at about seven, I should think--"
He was not listening to her; abruptly left her. When Harriet went into the house she saw nothing of him. But she knew he had not gone away for the usual golf, and was conscious still of that odd fluttering of mind and soul, that presage of ill. She made her usual little round, spoke briefly to a maid about some fallen daisy petals, consulted with the housekeeper as to the new cretonne covers. A man was to come and measure those covers this very afternoon--perhaps this was he, modestly waiting at the side door.
But no, this man briefly and simply asked to be shown to Mr. Carter, remarking that he was expected. He disappeared into the library; Harriet saw no more of him for an hour, when he silently appeared beside her, and asked to see the chauffeur Hansen as soon as he came.
Richard brought the strange man to the dinner table; but there was nothing in that to make the dinner so unnatural. To be sure Richard ate little, and spoke hardly at all; but this Mr. Williams was quite entertaining, and the old lady in good spirits. Nina, pleased at being downstairs, as she and Harriet usually were when her father and mother were not at home, or when there was no company, also contributed some shy remarks. But Harriet was beset with sudden fits of nervousness, and oppressed by a heavy sense of impending disaster. She said to herself that she wished heartily the weather would break and clear, she felt like "a witch."
At eight Hansen was back, presenting himself in his dusty road-coat; Mr. Carter immediately drew him with Williams into the library. Nina loitered up to bed, but the old lady and Harriet remained downstairs. They did not like, but they sometimes amused, each other. Suddenly came the summons: would Miss Field please step into the library?
Hansen was going out as she came in; Richard was at the big flat-topped desk, the man Williams standing somewhat in shadow. Harriet's heart leaped; they were going to ask her about Royal.
"Just a moment, Miss Field," Richard said. "Will you sit down?" And as Harriet, looking at him in frightened curiosity, did so, he began quietly: "We are in some trouble here, Miss Field. I hardly know how to tell you what we fear. Did you notice anything strange about--Mrs. Carter's--manner to-day?"
"I thought I did," Harriet admitted.
"Did you think of any reason for it?"
Harriet gave the stranger a glance that made him an eavesdropper.
"I fancied that it was connected with--with what distressed her last night, Mr. Carter."
"You may speak before Mr. Williams," Richard said. He looked down; was silent. "I asked him to help me," he added, slowly. "Was young Mr. Pope here to-day?"
"This morning, I don't know how long," Harriet said, with a great light, or darkness, breaking in upon her mind, "he was leaving when Nina and I came home."
Richard gravely considered this, and nodded his head.
"And immediately afterward Mrs. Carter went away?"
"Not immediately. Not until three."
"Do you know who took the telephone call from Mrs. Webb?" Richard said.
"No, because nobody did. No person named Webb called from Great Barrington, or anywhere else, to-day," said Williams, breaking in decidedly, his voice a contrast to Richard's hesitating tones. "As a matter of fact, Hansen didn't drive to Great Barrington. Two miles from your gate here, Mrs. Carter gave him other directions."
"What directions?" Harriet asked, antagonized by his manner, and feeling her cheeks get red. The man evidently had small respect for womanhood.
"He drove to New London," Richard supplied. "Pope's yacht is there."
His manner was very quiet, he spoke almost wearily, but Harriet felt as if a cannon had exploded in the study. She turned white, looked toward Williams, whose mouth was pursed in a silent whistle, looked back at Richard, who was making idle pencil marks on a tablet of paper.
"I've had New London on the wire," said Mr. Williams. "Mr. Pope had been getting ready for a cruise. The chances are that they have already weighed anchor."
"On the other hand," Richard said, glancing at his watch, "we have an excellent prospect of finding them there. I was not supposed to come home until to-morrow night. I found Mrs. Carter's message at five, twenty-four hours earlier than she expected me to. Williams may be mistaken, of course," he finished, with a glance at the detective.
"Not likely!" said Williams, with a modest shrug.
"However, even if he is right," Richard resumed, "the chances are that they are still there, and if they are, I will bring--my wife back with me to-night. Meanwhile, I leave the house in your care, Miss Field. I needn't tell you that my mother and Nina must be kept absolutely ignorant of what we suspect. You'll know what to tell them, in case I should be longer away. If our calculations are wrong, there's no telling where I may follow Mrs. Carter. I leave this end of things to you!"
The trust he placed in her, and something tired and patient in his tone, brought the tears to Harriet's eyes.
"I'm sorrier than I can say," she said, huskily.
"I know you are! It's--" Richard passed his hand over his forehead--"it's utter madness, of course. But, please God, we can keep it all hushed up. She has Germaine with her; Hansen I can trust. We're off now, Miss Field. I'll keep you informed if I can."
Harriet went back to the drawing room with her heart big with pride. He had mentioned Hansen and Germaine, but he KNEW that he could trust her! The event was sensational enough, was horrifying enough. But back of the excitement lay the joy of being needed and being trusted.
"Mr. Carter going away again?" said Madame Carter.
"Mr. Williams came up from the city to consult him about something," Harriet explained, smoothly. "They may have to go back."
"To-night!" ejaculated the old lady. And immediately she added, suspiciously, "What'd he want Hansen for?"
"Doctor and Mrs. Houghton," Bottomley announced, in his soothing undertone. Harriet could have embraced the uninteresting elderly couple who entered smilingly. They beamed that it was so hot--they were going up to the club; couldn't the Carters join them?
"Mrs. Carter went to visit a friend in Great Barrington," Madame Carter explained, "and my son has one of his clerks here, and may have to return to the office to-night. Too bad!"
"But how about another lesson in bridge, Doctor Houghton?" Harriet ventured. The old wife was instantly enthusiastic.
"Yes, now, Doctor! This is a splendid chance, for I know Madame Carter isn't too good a player to be patient."
"I don't want to bore this pretty girl to death!" protested the old man, gallantly. But Harriet had already signalled the attentive Bottomley, and when Richard Carter came to say good-night a few minutes later they were on the terrace, and hilarious over the beginner's mistakes. Even Madame Carter enjoyed this; she was a poor player, but she shone beside the Houghtons, and Harriet took care to consult her respectfully, and agree seriously as to bids and leads.
"Good-night, Mother!" said Richard, touching with his lips the cool old forehead, next to the white hair. "Wish I could play with you fellers and girls!"
"You!" said old Mrs. Houghton, archly. "You'd scare us to death!"
Richard went smiling to the car, hearing Harriet murmur as he went: "I think he has a two heart bid, don't you Madame Carter? You bid two hearts, Doctor ..."
CHAPTER IX
That Isabelle's madness would run its full gamut did not occur to Harriet until the next day. Then, as the serene hours moved by, and there was no word and no sign from Richard, the possibilities began to suggest themselves. It seemed to her incredible that any woman would risk all that Isabelle had, for the sake of a fiery boy's first love, and yet, on the other hand, there was the memory of Isabelle's suffering two nights ago, and here were the amazing facts to prove it.
The girl went about in a dream, sometimes imagining the meeting of husband and wife, sometimes trying to fancy Isabelle with her lover. As was inevitable, the older woman seemed to lose something charming and intangible in this confession of definite weakness. To be adored by any man merely adds to her glory, but the instant she concedes him an inch, the Beauty throws down her halo, the whole affair becomes mundane and vulnerable. Harriet might have envied Isabelle once, now she saw her frail, forty, her woman's pride weakened by admitted passion, and was sorry for her. She had had all men at her feet, now she must feel herself fortunate if she could hold one.
And with Isabelle's shame came a wholesome sting of shame to Isabelle's companion. Harriet had seen nothing harmful in this affair a few days ago; it was the way of this world of theirs. But she felt within her now the awakening of something clean and stern; she found in her mind odd phrases and terms--"a married woman's duty," "her sense of honour," "owing it to her husband and children."
It was for few women to enjoy the popularity that Isabelle had known. But any woman might run away with a rich admirer. Harriet's admiration for the cleverness with which Isabelle conducted this pretty playing with fire disappeared, and in its place came the sharp conviction that old-fashioned women like Linda had some justification, after all; it was "dangerous," it did "lead to sin," it could indeed "happen once too often."
Harriet felt her own lapsing morality regaining its standard. Just now, when Nina most needed her mother, when Richard was struggling with difficult business conditions, when Ward was engaged--
She interrupted her thoughts here, and tried to make herself feel like a woman engaged to be married. Somehow the fact persisted in baffling her. There was an unreality about it that prevented her from tasting the full sweet. Engaged--to a rich man, and a rich man's son. Well, perhaps when Ward came back, it would seem more believable.
But Ward might come back to a changed home. Harriet fancied a quiet wedding, herself afterward as the true head of the disorganized family. She would be Nina's natural chaperon, then, her father-in-law's--for Richard would be that!--natural confidante. The prospect, and every hour of this warm and silent day seemed to make it more definite, brought the wild-rose colour to her face, and made her heart beat faster. It was certainly a life full and gratifying beyond her dreaming, and it was almost settled now! If Ward did not figure very prominently in this bright dream, she told herself that Ward should have no cause for grievance. He should always be first in everything; but if his wife enjoyed her position, her connections, her place in the family, surely there was no harm in that! There was but one stumbling block: Royal Blondin. Her heart stopped at him.
She had been standing at one of the hall windows, a window deep set in the brick wall, and commanding through elms and beeches the path to the tennis court. Down this path Nina and Francesca Jay had recently disappeared, with their rackets, for some practice. The sun was high, and the sky cloudless; under the trees there was a softly mottled pattern of light and shade. Outside the window the hound was lying, his nose on his paws, his eyes shut. Harriet remembered walking in such a summer wood, years and years ago, a little girl with yellow braids, holding tight to her mother's hand. They had sat down on the ground, and her mother and father had talked, and the little girl had lain on her back for what seemed hours, looking at the sky.
There seemed to be no time for idle walks and dreaming in the woods nowadays. Harriet had been four years at Crownlands, and had looked out at this wood a thousand times, but she had never lost herself in it, or lain staring up through branches there. She was always too busy: the business of eating, and of amusing the others, and of keeping the machinery moving, had always absorbed her. Personalities, microscopic buzzing of midges, had blotted out the beautiful arches and aisles; and if ever Harriet walked through the wood now, she was with chattering women; she was wondering if this one, or that one, or the other one, was hurt, or neglected, or piqued, was paired with the wrong person, or had really intended the meaning that might be read into a look or tone.
--Hands pressed her eyes tight, and she came back to the present moment with a start. Ward Carter was behind her. He laughed at her confusion, and they sat down on the window seat together. Yes, he was going back to the Bellamys', and so was Blondin, but they had both come in just for lunch and the drive. They had driven a hundred and twenty miles that morning, what? And they were going to drive back that afternoon, what-what? And how about eats, old dear?
Instantly he brought reassurance to her. Ward was such a dear! Of course she loved him.
"But you weren't a very good boy last night!" she said. Their hands were locked; but she had shaken a negative when he would have kissed her. Bottomley was everywhere at once.
"Rotten!" he confessed, easily. "I played poker, too. No man ought to do that when he's edged. Sorry--sorry--sorry. Bad, bad, bad little Edward! I lost two hundred to Bates, a curse upon him. But that was nothing; once, there, I was over twelve hundred in. Listen. When we're married it's all off. No smoking, drinking, gambling, wine, women, or song, what?"
"You may not know it, but you never spoke a truer word!" the girl said. His shout of laughter was pleasant to hear.
"Listen. Does the Mater know it? About us, I mean?"
"Oh, Ward--nobody knows it! Hush!" His mention of his mother brought back realization with a rush, and she added uncomfortably, "She's at Great Barrington."
"Oh, darn! I wanted to see her! She wrote me, and told me she loved me, and that she didn't think she had been a very good mother to me!" He laughed, youthfully, with a bewildered widening of his eyes. "I thought she was sick. Well, maybe we can stop there going back."
"Where did you leave Mr. Blondin?"
"He beat it down to the tennis court. Say, listen, is there a chance that he's stuck on Nina? It looks to me like what the watch comes in!"
Harriet glanced at her wrist before she answered him. Her heart was sick within her. Close upon her radiant dream had come this shadow, far more a shadow now, when her responsibility had infinitely increased, and when she had had proof of the love and respect in which they held her here.
"I don't think so!" she said, briefly. "I'll find Bottomley, and have lunch put ahead."
"You don't like him!" Ward said, watching her closely.
"I don't like him for Nina!" she amended.
The boy followed her while she gave her order. Then they went out into the blazing day together.
"Nina isn't going to have more than a scalp a day," said her brother, fraternally.
"Nina has a fortune!" the girl remarked, drily, opening her wide white parasol.
But Ward was rapidly squandering an equal amount, and it was not impressive to him.
"Lord, he could marry a girl with ten times that! Look here, you don't think a man like Blondin would consider that!" he protested.
"I would rather see Nina dead and buried!" The words burst from Harriet against her will, against her promise to Royal. There was no help for it, her essential honesty would have its way. "I make a splendid conspirator!" she said to herself, in grim self-contempt.
"Talk to him!" Ward, fortunately, was not inclined to take her too seriously. "You'll like him! Gosh, he certainly has a good effect on me," added the youth, modestly. "He doesn't drink, and he talks to me--you ought to hear him!--about character being fate, and all that! Say, listen, before we get out of the woods--?"
His sudden sense of her nearness and beauty belied the careless words. Harriet found his arms tight about her, her face tipped up to the young, handsome face that was stirred now with trembling excitement. The quick movement of his breast she could feel against her own, and the passion of his kisses almost frightened her; she was held, bound, half-lifted off her feet.
"Ward!" she gasped, freed at last, and with one hand to her disordered hair, while the other held him at arm's-length. "Dear! PLEASE!"
It was no use. Soul and senses were enveloped again, and close to her ear she heard his whisper: "I'm mad about you! Do you know that! I'm mad about you!"
"I think you are!" she stammered, breathless and laughing. "You mustn't do that! You mustn't do that! Why, we might be seen!"
Breathless, too, he flung back his hair, and stooped to pick up her parasol.
"Do you think I care!" he panted, indifferently. "I wouldn't care if the whole world saw!"
"Sh--sh!" By the magic only known to youth and womanhood Harriet had gathered herself into trimness and calm again. She took her parasol composedly. Her eyes told him the whole story. Nina and Royal Blondin were two hundred feet away, coming up from the tennis court.
The four met cheerfully; apparently all at ease. Nina was stammering and blushing a trifle more than usual, but Royal's presence would account for that. Ward burst into a stream of idiotic conversation; Harriet found herself sauntering ahead of the young Carters, discussing Sheringham fans with the dilletant.
"You fool--fool--fool!" she said to herself. What had they seen? What new twist to the situation would Nina's suspicions afford? Richard Carter trusted her; this was no time to tell him that she loved his son. Did she love Ward?--or with his keen and kindly eyes would Ward's father see exactly what she saw in the marriage? Caught kissing in the woods--like Rosa or Germaine; it was unthinkable! She, with her hard-won prestige of dignity and reserve, exposed to Nina's laughing insinuations, or, worse, Nina's prim disapproval. How she had weakened her position here! How she had risked--her heart contracted with pain--severing of her association with Crownlands.
Luncheon, under its veneer of gaiety and foolishness, offered fresh terrors. For old Madame Carter had come down, and it occurred to Harriet that if Nina had seen anything in the wood, she might naturally interest her grandmother with an account of it. Nina rarely had so interesting a topic of conversation. The old lady would go instantly to her son. And Richard--Harriet could imagine him, tired, harassed, heartsick over the recent inexplicable weakness of his wife, having to face another woman's treachery, having to listen to the demure announcement of the little secretary's engagement to his son.
Perhaps not treachery, exactly, thought Harriet, as the birds, and the asparagus, and the crisp little rolls went the rounds. She ate, hardly knowing what she tasted, and spoke with only a partial consciousness of what she said. No, not treachery exactly, especially if she went to Richard first with the news.
But break in upon his painful speculations with the blithe announcement? What must he think of such utter lack of consideration? He was experiencing the most overwhelming shock of all his life now; he must shortly be exposed to all the whirl of scandal: the silenced gossip, the averted eyes of his world, the weeklies with their muddy insinuations, the staring fact headlined above his breakfast bacon. This was her time to efface herself and the household, to help him to lift the load.
"I'm afraid I wasn't listening, Mr. Blondin?"
"Miss Nina and I want to know what day we may have our party?" Royal repeated.
"The studio party?"
"The roof-garden party. We're going to have it from half-past six to half-past seven only, because then it won't be too hot. We shall only ask the people we like! Gira Diable will come and dance for us, and Tilly will read something--"
"That's Unger Tillotson, the actor!" Nina interpolated, ecstatically.
"We're not sure that we'll let Francesca and Amy come," Blondin pursued. "Maybe we won't let them know anything about it! And everybody has to wear costumes, so that the picture won't be spoiled."
"He doesn't like Amy and Francesca," Nina confessed, with a guilty little laugh.
"Not at all. I like them very much." Blondin's languid, rich voice corrected her. Nina shrank sensitively. "I think they're very charming little schoolgirls. But I don't want them for my friends!"
At this Nina blossomed like the rose. Emotion choked her, and she looked down at her plate with a fluttering laugh. This was irrefutable; before Miss Harriet and Ward and Granny, too.
"That's what I meant!" she murmured, thickly.
"Why not have it at night, with lanterns?" Harriet said, quite involuntarily. And again a pang of self-contempt swept over her. It was hateful, it was incredible, but she was playing his game as calmly as if doubts and reluctance had never entered her heart.
"People won't go to the city, summer evenings," Royal explained, "but a great number are there in the afternoons. And then twilight, over the city, and the bridges lighting up--I assure you it's like fairyland!"
"I wonder if I am to be invited to this party?" said Madame Carter, royally. She had been watching this exchange of pleasantries with approval.
"You? You're the queen of the whole affair!" Royal assured her. "You don't have to costume unless you feel like it."
"Oh, Granny'll have the nicest there!" Nina predicted, gaily. Her grandmother bridled complacently, although shaking a magnificent head. Harriet knew that she would spend as much time upon her dress as the youngest and most beautiful woman who attended.
"Come," said Madame Carter, brightly, "you didn't think I was going to let you carry out this little plan without a chaperon!"
If there was a self-conscious second after this remark it was no more than a second. Harriet's quick colour rose, but before Nina's nervous little laugh had died away Blondin said easily:
"Ah, we'll surround the Little Duchess with chaperons; I'm not going to be a party to her losing her heart anywhere around MY diggings!"
"From what I said at luncheon, I hope you didn't imagine that I thought there was anything--well, in questionable taste, in your coming to Nina's party!" said Madame Carter to Harriet an hour later, when the men had started on their long run back to camp, and she was about to go upstairs for her daily siesta.
"Not at all; I understood perfectly!" Harriet assumed an air of abstraction, of pleasant unconcern. Her red lips were firm, and closed firmly after the brief answer. The smoky blue eyes regarded Madame Carter with innocent expectancy. The girl was amazingly handsome, thought the old lady reluctantly.
"Of course, if Mrs. Carter can spare you, and considers it suitable, you will be there!" said Madame Carter, amiably, mounting the first stair.
"Surely!" Harriet said, with a murderous impulse. She watched the erect, splendid old figure ascending. What was there about this old lady that could put her, and indeed almost any one else who chanced to be marked by her dislike, into a helpless fury of anger? "If I were once safely married to Ward," the girl said to herself, "if--"
It was a tremendous "if," of course. There were a great many things now that might turn the scales one way or another. Richard's attitude was supremely important. He might feel that his son was taking a wise, a desirable step. He might feel that to have the boy settled was to lift just one care from the many that burdened his shoulders. On the other hand, was it more probable that this untimely announcement, with its accompanying merry-making and rejoicing, would utterly exasperate and antagonize him? Harriet fancied him asking, with weary politeness, just what their plans were? Did Ward propose to finish college? Had he formed any idea of the means by which he should earn his living? He had his uncle's legacy, of course, the larger part of it. Did the young people propose to begin with that?
Harriet perfectly understood Richard's attitude to the average son of the average wealthy family. She had heard his caustic comments upon them often enough. He had earned his own education; he showed for Isabelle's spoiling of her son the patience of helplessness. To make a man of Ward, in his father's estimation, would have meant a readjustment of their entire scheme of living and thinking. It was simpler, pleasanter, to sacrifice Ward to the general comfort, especially as he, Richard, was very busy, and as there was always a possibility that the women were right, and would make a man of him anyway. Harriet's keen eyes saw, if Isabelle's did not, that Ward had been steadily gaining in his father's good graces for the last year or two. His cheerful, casual manner masked no weakness, every muscle in the young, big body was hard from tennis and baseball. If there were sins of self-indulgence, natural to youth and money and charm, Ward never brought them home with him. Lately he had begun to talk of getting out of college at Christmas time, and "getting started." His father watched him, Harriet saw, almost wistfully. Was the lad really becoming a man, in a world of men?
"The probability is that he will favour our engagement," Harriet reflected. But this was no time to risk the chance of crossing him. She must wait. She must choose the lesser risk of Nina making mischief with old Madame Carter; the contingency was there, but it was a remote contingency.
CHAPTER X
At four o'clock Richard came home, and the instant Harriet saw his face she realized, with a shock even sharper than the original moment of incredulity, that he had had no success in his search. He was alone.
She was standing in one of the doorways of the lower hall when he crossed it, but he did not see her. His face was drawn and gray, he looked hot and rumpled and utterly weary; more, he who had always been the pink of well-groomed perfection looked old. He asked Bottomley briefly if Madame Carter was in her room, and, being informed that she was, went hastily upstairs.
Harriet could only imagine, later, that he had gone in to see his mother before brushing and changing, or perhaps to avoid Nina, who with Amy catapulted down the stairway a few seconds after he went up. At all events, it was to the old lady's beautiful sitting room that Harriet was summoned a few minutes later. She knew at once that he had told his mother all he knew and feared.
Madame Carter was shockingly agitated. She had a deep sense of the dramatic, but she was not entirely acting now. Her face was pale under its rouge, and the painful tears of age stood in her eyes. She was sitting erect in a chair beside the divan where Richard sat; he did not look up as Harriet came in, but continued to stroke his mother's hand.
"Miss Field!" said Madame Carter, "we have just had a most terrible--a most unexpected--blow!"
Harriet simulated expectancy.
"There is every reason to believe," pursued Madame Carter, majestically, "that my unfortunate daughter-in-law, Mr. Carter's wife, Isabelle, has yielded to the passion of her lover! No, let me talk, Richard," she interrupted herself, as the man raised haggard eyes to watch her impersonally, "far better to face the facts, my dear! My son tells me, Miss Field the--the well-nigh incredible statement that--forgetting the honour of womanhood, and the tender claims of maternity--"
"Miss Field," Richard did not have the manner of interruption, but his quiet voice dominated the other voice none-the-less. Madame Carter fell silent, and watched him with mournful pride. "Miss Field," he said, "we want your help. The facts are these: Williams had all the roads watched; they did not go by motor. Mrs. Carter reached New London at five o'clock yesterday; Pope's boat, the Geisha, pulled out at half-past six. From what Williams' men picked up, at the dock, Pope did not expect her, was to have sailed this morning. She arrived, and evidently he thought it wise to hurry their start. The pier had a dozen boxes for the Geisha on it, groceries and what not, that they left behind! They will probably skirt the coast for a few days, and put in somewhere for supplies. But that"--he passed his hand wearily across his forehead--"that doesn't concern us now. We got there at ten last night--hours too late, of course." His voice fell, he mused, with a knitted brow. "Well!" he said, suddenly recalling himself. "Now, Miss Field, I want you to get hold of Ward. I want the boy home at once! He must know. But there is of course a chance that Mrs. Carter is--is planning to return. There may be a woman friend with her--it's not probable, but it's possible. I don't want any one in the house, or out of it, to suspect, and if you think it is possible, I should like Nina protected!"
"I understand," Harriet said, quietly, in the silence.
"You will remember, Richard," Madame Carter said, in the accents of Lady Macbeth, "that this is exactly what I always expected! I told you so, twenty years ago. You brought it on yourself, my dear. A Morrison--who ever heard of the Morrisons?--their mother--Mrs. Banks tells me--was a school teacher! I have always felt--!"
Harriet heard the man's patient murmur as she slipped away. She crossed the hall, and for the first time in four years entered Isabelle's suite unannounced. It was in exquisite order; streams of late afternoon light were falling on the gay walls and the bright chintzes. The novels Isabelle had been skimming, the gold service of her dressing table, the great four-poster with its deeps of transparent white embroideries over white, all spoke of the beautiful woman who had spent so many hours here. On the dressing table, with its splendid length doubled in the mirror, was the great fan that her hand had idly wielded, only a few days ago, in an hour of domestic felicity and happiness. And the inanimate plumes, that Harriet picked up and idly unfurled, had played their little part in the drama that had ended that bright scene once and for all.
What to tell Nina?--Harriet wondered, going downstairs. But Nina proved pleasantly indifferent to the maternal absence when she and Amy came up from the tennis court for tea. To the guest or two who came calling Harriet, installed quite naturally now behind the cups and saucers, explained that Mrs. Carter was visiting with friends--having a beautiful time, too, apparently. To an accidentally direct remark from Amy she answered that she believed they were taking a motor trip just at the moment, but she would forward a note, if Amy liked. Madame Carter did not come out for tea; they were very quiet on the terrace. But Richard was there, and Amy and Nina were developing their youthful conversational arts upon him, when a maid came to stand respectfully beside Harriet. "If you please, Miss Field, Mr. Bottomley would like to know if you are to have your dinner downstairs to-night, please," said Pauline, incidentally feeling as if she was in a dream of bliss. Her last position had been in a well-to-do stationer's family in Newark, and consesequently she might have entered into the feelings of Miss Field far more intelligently than either imagined.
Harriet hesitated, glanced at Richard, wondering if he had heard. More rested on this decision than there was any estimating. She dared not decide.
"Miss Field will dine downstairs," Richard said, without glancing in their direction. And when the maid had gone he said with pleasant authority, "I wish you and Nina would do that regularly, Miss Field, when you have no other plan."
"Thank you," Harriet said, with her heart singing.
Perhaps Nina suspected that something about his high-handed domestic readjusting was unusual. She looked from her father to Harriet, and after a moment's silence asked abruptly:
"When is Mother coming back?"
"I don't know!" her father answered, quickly.
"Say, listen, are we going to dress?" asked Amy. Nina, instantly diverted, suggested that they go in. Nina's awkward bigness and Amy's mousy neutral tones were as well displayed in one garment as another, but both girls debated over pinks and blues, crepes and mulls, every evening, as if the world was watching them alone. Harriet lingered for only a word.
"Mr. Carter, it occurred to me that old Mrs. Singleton is going to California, in her own car, to-morrow. Would it be possible to let Nina and Amy and the household generally think--"
"Yes?" he encouraged her as she paused dubiously. He had risen to his feet, and fixed his tired eyes on her face.
"I was wondering if we might confide in Mrs. Singleton--she was always very fond of Mrs. Carter--and give out the impression that Mrs. Carter had suddenly decided to make the trip with her."
"That's an idea," Richard said, thoughtfully. "I could see Mrs. Singleton to-night--and--and talk it over."
"It might serve for only a few days," Harriet submitted.
"Yes, I see," he agreed, slowly.
"Well, I can give Nina a hint now!" Harriet said, going. The late golden sunshine struck her bright hair to an aureole, as she went up the brick steps and disappeared.
But it was too late for any soothing deception of Nina. A scene was in full progress in Nina's bedroom, and Harriet's eye had only to go from the prone form on the bed to the crushed newspaper that had drifted to the floor, to know that the secret was out. Isabelle's face, radiant and happy, looked out from the page. It was flanked by two smaller pictures, Richard's and Anthony Pope's. Harriet could see the big letters: "Young Millionaire--Wife of Richard Carter." The deluge was upon them.
"Oh--it's a lie--it's a lie! My beautiful little mother!" Nina was sobbing. "Oh, no, it's not true! It's a lie! Oh, how shall I ever hold up my head again--to be disgraced--now just when I'm so young--and ha-h-happy!"
"Nina, my child, control yourself!" Harriet, ignoring the staring and pale-faced Amy, sat down on the edge of the bed, and shook the girl slightly. "You mustn't give way! Come now, my dear, you must face this like a woman. Think how your father and Ward will look to you--"
Acting, all of it, said Harriet in her soul. But despite the youthful appetite for heroics, there were real tears in Nina's eyes, as there had been in her grandmother's a few hours ago.
"Yes, that's true!" she said, wiping a swollen face on the handkerchief Harriet supplied. "But oh--I don't believe it, and my father will sue them for libel, you see if he doesn't! My mother's the purest and sweetest and best woman ALIVE--and I'll KILL any one who says any different!"
"Oo--oo, to see it in the paper there, right on the bed," said Amy, in her reedy, colourless little voice, as Nina stopped suddenly. "Oo--oo, I thought Nina would die!" Nina began to cry again, but more quietly. "I guess I had better go--" Amy finished, plaintively.
"Oh, no!" said Nina in a choked voice, as she clung to her friend. "No, darling! you stay with me. Oh, I must go see my father, and my poor, poor grandmother! Oh, Amy, perhaps you HAD better go, for my family will need me to-night. My mother--!" said Nina, crying again.
She and Amy parted solemnly, with many kisses.
"It's a thing that might happen to me, or to any girl," said Amy, gravely. Harriet had an upsetting vision of stout, high-busted Mrs. Hawkes, panting as she discussed the details of the Red Cross drive, but she was very sympathetic with the young girls, and even agreed with Nina, when Amy was gone, that it would be much more sensible to take her bath, and put on her white organdie, and then go find her father.
They dined almost silently, and were about to disperse quietly for the night, after an hour of half-hearted conversation in the drawing room, obviously endured by Richard simply for his mother's sake, when Ward burst in. He had travelled almost four hundred miles by motor that day, his face was streaked with dirt and oil, and ghastly with fatigue. He went straight to his father.
"Say, what's all this!" he said, in a voice hardly recognizable. Harriet saw that he had been drinking. "I got your wire, and we started. I thought the Mater was sick, perhaps. My God--THAT worried me!" he broke off bitterly. "Blondin came with me; we stopped on the road for dinner, and the man had a paper there. Is that what you wanted me for--I don't believe it! It's a dirty lie, and the bounder that put that in the paper--"
"I'm glad you came home, my boy," Richard said. "I've been waiting for you--"
Harriet heard no more; she slipped from the room. There were genuine tears in her own eyes now; for the boy had flung himself face downward against a great chair, and was crying. All the household knew it; Harriet could read it in Bottomley's carefully usual manner and quiet speech. In the little music room across the hall Royal Blondin was waiting.
"This is a terrible thing!" he said, seriously.
"Oh, frightful!" Harriet agreed. A rather flat silence ensued. She seemed to have nothing to say to Royal now.
But she was not surprised when a moment later Nina came softly in, the picture of girlish distress, with her wet eyes and fresh white gown.
"I thought it best to leave Ward with Granny and Father," Nina said, in vague explanation, going straight to Blondin, who rose, dusty and weary, but with a solicitous manner that was infinitely soothing.
"I hoped you wouldn't mind just seeing me," he said in a low tone. "I'm not quite family, and yet I felt myself nearer than all the neighbours and friends, eh?"
"I shan't see any one for ages," Nina murmured, plaintively, "but you--you're different."
"And shall we talk about her sometimes?" Royal pursued, still close to her, and holding both her hands. "As she was, beautiful and sweet and good. For who are you and I, Little Girl, to judge what passion--what love will do with human hearts?"
"Yes, I know!" Nina, who never could keep pace with him, said mournfully.
Harriet could hear the undertones, and imagine what they said. She felt extremely uneasy. If this unforeseen calamity had lifted her suddenly in the family estimation, it would appear to be drawing Royal Blondin closer as well.
His manner, she had grudgingly to admit, was perfection. When Richard and Ward joined them a few moments later, he expressed himself with manly brevity to the older man. He realized, said Blondin simply, that he was absolutely de trop; he had merely imagined, as "the lad" had imagined, that the sudden summons from camp meant illness or ordinary emergency, or he would not have intruded at this time. He would not express a sympathy that must sound extremely airy to the stricken family. And now, if they would lend him Hansen, he would go over to the club----
"Nonsense!" Ward said. "You're all dirty and tired and hungry, and so am I. We'll clean up, and then we'll have something to eat first! Miss Harriet'll look out for us."
"And I'd like to see you for a moment in the library, Miss Field," Richard said, rather wearily. He had been obviously displeased at seeing the stranger, but Blondin's manner would have won a harder heart than his. "I want something sent to the papers," Richard explained, in an undertone.
Ah--they all wanted her, and needed her! How quick, and how efficient, and how self-effacing Harriet was, as she went about the business of making them all comfortable! She and Nina talked with the young men while they demolished the cold roast and drank cup after cup of coffee. Then Blondin selected several books, and went upstairs, and Harriet and Nina disappeared in their own rooms; but Ward came downstairs again, and he and his father settled in the library for a talk.