CHAPTER X. THE DINNER BILLY GOT
At five minutes of six Bertram and Calderwell came. Bertram gave his peculiar ring and let himself in with his latchkey; but Billy did not meet him in the hall, nor in the drawing-room. Excusing himself, Bertram hurried up-stairs. Billy was not in her room, nor anywhere on that floor. She was not in William's room. Coming down-stairs to the hall again, Bertram confronted William, who had just come in.
“Where's Billy?” demanded the young husband, with just a touch of irritation, as if he suspected William of having Billy in his pocket.
William stared slightly.
“Why, I don't know. Isn't she here?”
“I'll ask Pete,” frowned Bertram.
In the dining-room Bertram found no one, though the table was prettily set, and showed half a grapefruit at each place. In the kitchen—in the kitchen Bertram found a din of rattling tin, an odor of burned food—, a confusion of scattered pots and pans, a frightened cat who peered at him from under a littered stove, and a flushed, disheveled young woman in a blue dust-cap and ruffled apron, whom he finally recognized as his wife.
“Why, Billy!” he gasped.
Billy, who was struggling with something at the sink, turned sharply.
“Bertram Henshaw,” she panted, “I used to think you were wonderful because you could paint a picture. I even used to think I was a little wonderful because I could write a song. Well, I don't any more! But I'll tell you who is wonderful. It's Eliza and Rosa, and all the rest of those women who can get a meal on to the table all at once, so it's fit to eat!”
“Why, Billy!” gasped Bertram again, falling back to the door he had closed behind him. “What in the world does this mean?”
“Mean? It means I'm getting dinner,” choked Billy. “Can't you see?”
“But—Pete! Eliza!”
“They're sick—I mean he's sick; and I said I'd do it. I'd be an oak. But how did I know there wasn't anything in the house except stuff that took hours to cook—only potatoes? And how did I know that they cooked in no time, and then got all smushy and wet staying in the water? And how did I know that everything else would stick on and burn on till you'd used every dish there was in the house to cook 'em in?”
“Why, Billy!” gasped Bertram, for the third time. And then, because he had been married only six months instead of six years, he made the mistake of trying to argue with a woman whose nerves were already at the snapping point. “But, dear, it was so foolish of you to do all this! Why didn't you telephone? Why didn't you get somebody?”
Like an irate little tigress, Billy turned at bay.
“Bertram Henshaw,” she flamed angrily, “if you don't go up-stairs and tend to that man up there, I shall scream. Now go! I'll be up when I can.”
And Bertram went.
It was not so very long, after all, before Billy came in to greet her guest. She was not stately and imposing in royally sumptuous blue velvet and ermine; nor yet was she cozy and homy in bronze-gold crêpe de Chine and swan's-down. She was just herself in a pretty little morning house gown of blue gingham. She was minus the dust-cap and the ruffled apron, but she had a dab of flour on the left cheek, and a smutch of crock on her forehead. She had, too, a cut finger on her right hand, and a burned thumb on her left. But she was Billy—and being Billy, she advanced with a bright smile and held out a cordial hand—not even wincing when the cut finger came under Calderwell's hearty clasp.
“I'm glad to see you,” she welcomed him. “You'll excuse my not appearing sooner, I'm sure, for—didn't Bertram tell you?—I'm playing Bridget to-night. But dinner is ready now, and we'll go down, please,” she smiled, as she laid a light hand on her guest's arm.
Behind her, Bertram, remembering the scene in the kitchen, stared in sheer amazement. Bertram, it might be mentioned again, had been married six months, not six years.
What Billy had intended to serve for a “simple dinner” that night was: grapefruit with cherries, oyster stew, boiled halibut with egg sauce, chicken pie, squash, onions, and potatoes, peach fritters, a “lettuce and stuff” salad, and some new pie or pudding. What she did serve was: grapefruit (without the cherries), cold roast lamb, potatoes (a mush of sogginess), tomatoes (canned, and slightly burned), corn (canned, and very much burned), lettuce (plain); and for dessert, preserved peaches and cake (the latter rather dry and stale). Such was Billy's dinner.
The grapefruit everybody ate. The cold lamb too, met with a hearty reception, especially after the potatoes, corn, and tomatoes were served—and tasted. Outwardly, through it all, Billy was gayety itself. Inwardly she was burning up with anger and mortification. And because she was all this, there was, apparently, no limit to her laughter and sparkling repartee as she talked with Calderwell, her guest—the guest who, according to her original plans, was to be shown how happy she and Bertram were, what a good wife she made, and how devoted and satisfied Bertram was in his home.
William, picking at his dinner—as only a hungry man can pick at a dinner that is uneatable—watched Billy with a puzzled, uneasy frown. Bertram, choking over the few mouthfuls he ate, marked his wife's animated face and Calderwell's absorbed attention, and settled into gloomy silence.
But it could not continue forever. The preserved peaches were eaten at last, and the stale cake left. (Billy had forgotten the coffee—which was just as well, perhaps.) Then the four trailed up-stairs to the drawing-room.
At nine o'clock an anxious Eliza and a remorseful, apologetic Pete came home and descended to the horror the once orderly kitchen and dining-room had become. At ten, Calderwell, with very evident reluctance, tore himself away from Billy's gay badinage, and said good night. At two minutes past ten, an exhausted, nerve-racked Billy was trying to cry on the shoulders of both Uncle William and Bertram at once.
“There, there, child, don't! It went off all right,” patted Uncle William.
“Billy, darling,” pleaded Bertram, “please don't cry so! As if I'd ever let you step foot in that kitchen again!”
At this Billy raised a tear-wet face, aflame with indignant determination.
“As if I'd ever let you keep me from it, Bertram Henshaw, after this!” she contested. “I'm not going to do another thing in all my life but cook! When I think of the stuff we had to eat, after all the time I took to get it, I'm simply crazy! Do you think I'd run the risk of such a thing as this ever happening again?”
CHAPTER XI. CALDERWELL DOES SOME QUESTIONING
On the day after his dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Bertram Henshaw, Hugh Calderwell left Boston and did not return until more than a month had passed. One of his first acts, when he did come, was to look up Mr. M. J. Arkwright at the address which Billy had given him.
Calderwell had not seen Arkwright since they parted in Paris some two years before, after a six-months tramp through Europe together. Calderwell liked Arkwright then, greatly, and he lost no time now in renewing the acquaintance.
The address, as given by Billy, proved to be an attractive but modest apartment hotel near the Conservatory of Music; and Calderwell was delighted to find Arkwright at home in his comfortable little bachelor suite.
Arkwright greeted him most cordially.
“Well, well,” he cried, “if it isn't Calderwell! And how's Mont Blanc? Or is it the Killarney Lakes this time, or maybe the Sphinx that I should inquire for, eh?”
“Guess again,” laughed Calderwell, throwing off his heavy coat and settling himself comfortably in the inviting-looking morris chair his friend pulled forward.
“Sha'n't do it,” retorted Arkwright, with a smile. “I never gamble on palpable uncertainties, except for a chance throw or two, as I gave a minute ago. Your movements are altogether too erratic, and too far-reaching, for ordinary mortals to keep track of.”
“Well, maybe you're right,” grinned Calderwell, appreciatively. “Anyhow, you would have lost this time, sure thing, for I've been working.”
“Seen the doctor yet?” queried Arkwright, coolly, pushing the cigars across the table.
“Thanks—for both,” sniffed Calderwell, with a reproachful glance, helping himself. “Your good judgment in some matters is still unimpaired, I see,” he observed, tapping the little gilded band which had told him the cigar was an old favorite. “As to other matters, however,—you're wrong again, my friend, in your surmise. I am not sick, and I have been working.”
“So? Well, I'm told they have very good specialists here. Some one of them ought to hit your case. Still—how long has it been running?” Arkwright's face showed only grave concern.
“Oh, come, let up, Arkwright,” snapped Calderwell, striking his match alight with a vigorous jerk. “I'll admit I haven't ever given any special indication of an absorbing passion for work. But what can you expect of a fellow born with a whole dozen silver spoons in his mouth? And that's what I was, according to Bertram Henshaw. According to him again, it's a wonder I ever tried to feed myself; and perhaps he's right—with my mouth already so full.”
“I should say so,” laughed Arkwright.
“Well, be that as it may. I'm going to feed myself, and I'm going to earn my feed, too. I haven't climbed a mountain or paddled a canoe, for a year. I've been in Chicago cultivating the acquaintance of John Doe and Richard Roe.”
“You mean—law?”
“Sure. I studied it here for a while, before that bout of ours a couple of years ago. Billy drove me away, then.”
“Billy!—er—Mrs. Henshaw?”
“Yes. I thought I told you. She turned down my tenth-dozen proposal so emphatically that I lost all interest in Boston and took to the tall timber again. But I've come back. A friend of my father's wrote me to come on and consider a good opening there was in his law office. I came on a month ago, and considered. Then I went back to pack up. Now I've come for good, and here I am. You have my history to date. Now tell me of yourself. You're looking as fit as a penny from the mint, even though you have discarded that 'lovely' brown beard. Was that a concession to—er—Mary Jane?”
Arkwright lifted a quick hand of protest.
“'Michael Jeremiah,' please. There is no 'Mary Jane,' now,” he said a bit stiffly.
The other stared a little. Then he gave a low chuckle.
“'Michael Jeremiah,'” he repeated musingly, eyeing the glowing tip of his cigar. “And to think how that mysterious 'M. J.' used to tantalize me! Do you mean,” he added, turning slowly, “that no one calls you 'Mary Jane' now?”
“Not if they know what is best for them.”
“Oh!” Calderwell noted the smouldering fire in the other's eyes a little curiously. “Very well. I'll take the hint—Michael Jeremiah.”
“Thanks.” Arkwright relaxed a little. “To tell the truth, I've had quite enough now—of Mary Jane.”
“Very good. So be it,” nodded the other, still regarding his friend thoughtfully. “But tell me—what of yourself?”
Arkwright shrugged his shoulders.
“There's nothing to tell. You've seen. I'm here.”
“Humph! Very pretty,” scoffed Calderwell. “Then if you won't tell, I will. I saw Billy a month ago, you see. It seems you've hit the trail for Grand Opera, as you threatened to that night in Paris; but you haven't brought up in vaudeville, as you prophesied you would do—though, for that matter, judging from the plums some of the stars are picking on the vaudeville stage, nowadays, that isn't to be sneezed at. But Billy says you've made two or three appearances already on the sacred boards themselves—one of them a subscription performance—and that you created no end of a sensation.”
“Nonsense! I'm merely a student at the Opera School here,” scowled Arkwright.
“Oh, yes, Billy said you were that, but she also said you wouldn't be, long. That you'd already had one good offer—I'm not speaking of marriage—and that you were going abroad next summer, and that they were all insufferably proud of you.”
“Nonsense!” scowled Arkwright, again, coloring like a girl. “That is only some of—of Mrs. Henshaw's kind flattery.”
Calderwell jerked the cigar from between his lips, and sat suddenly forward in his chair.
“Arkwright, tell me about them. How are they making it go?”
Arkwright frowned.
“Who? Make what go?” he asked.
“The Henshaws. Is she happy? Is he—on the square?”
Arkwright's face darkened.
“Well, really,” he began; but Calderwell interrupted.
“Oh, come; don't be squeamish. You think I'm butting into what doesn't concern me; but I'm not. What concerns Billy does concern me. And if he doesn't make her happy, I'll—I'll kill him.”
In spite of himself Arkwright laughed. The vehemence of the other's words, and the fierceness with which he puffed at his cigar as he fell back in his chair were most expressive.
“Well, I don't think you need to load revolvers nor sharpen daggers, just yet,” he observed grimly.
Calderwell laughed this time, though without much mirth.
“Oh, I'm not in love with Billy, now,” he explained. “Please don't think I am. I shouldn't see her if I was, of course.”
Arkwright changed his position suddenly, bringing his face into the shadow. Calderwell talked on without pausing.
“No, I'm not in love with Billy. But Billy's a trump. You know that.”
“I do.” The words were low, but steadily spoken.
“Of course you do! We all do. And we want her happy. But as for her marrying Bertram—you could have bowled me over with a soap bubble when I heard she'd done it. Now understand: Bertram is a good fellow, and I like him. I've known him all his life, and he's all right. Oh, six or eight years ago, to be sure, he got in with a set of fellows—Bob Seaver and his clique—that were no good. Went in for Bohemianism, and all that rot. It wasn't good for Bertram. He's got the confounded temperament that goes with his talent, I suppose—though why a man can't paint a picture, or sing a song, and keep his temper and a level head I don't see!”
“He can,” cut in Arkwright, with curt emphasis.
“Humph! Well, that's what I think. But, about this marriage business. Bertram admires a pretty face wherever he sees it—to paint, and always has. Not but that he's straight as a string with women—I don't mean that; but girls are always just so many pictures to be picked up on his brushes and transferred to his canvases. And as for his settling down and marrying anybody for keeps, right along—Great Scott! imagine Bertram Henshaw as a domestic man!”
Arkwright stirred restlessly as he spoke up in quick defense:
“Oh, but he is, I assure you. I—I've seen them in their home together—many times. I think they are—very happy.” Arkwright spoke with decision, though still a little diffidently.
Calderwell was silent. He had picked up the little gilt band he had torn from his cigar and was fingering it musingly.
“Yes; I've seen them—once,” he said, after a minute. “I took dinner with them when I was on, a month ago.”
“I heard you did.”
At something in Arkwright's voice, Calderwell turned quickly.
“What do you mean? Why do you say it like that?”
Arkwright laughed. The constraint fled from his manner.
“Well, I may as well tell you. You'll hear of it. It's no secret. Mrs. Henshaw herself tells of it everywhere. It was her friend, Alice Greggory, who told me of it first, however. It seems the cook was gone, and the mistress had to get the dinner herself.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“But you should hear Mrs. Henshaw tell the story now, or Bertram. It seems she knew nothing whatever about cooking, and her trials and tribulations in getting that dinner on to the table were only one degree worse than the dinner itself, according to her story. Didn't you—er—notice anything?”
“Notice anything!” exploded Calderwell. “I noticed that Billy was so brilliant she fairly radiated sparks; and I noticed that Bertram was so glum he—he almost radiated thunderclaps. Then I saw that Billy's high spirits were all assumed to cover a threatened burst of tears, and I laid it all to him. I thought he'd said something to hurt her; and I could have punched him. Great Scott! Was that what ailed them?”
“I reckon it was. Alice says that since then Mrs. Henshaw has fairly haunted the kitchen, begging Eliza to teach her everything, every single thing she knows!”
Calderwell chuckled.
“If that isn't just like Billy! She never does anything by halves. By George, but she was game over that dinner! I can see it all now.”
“Alice says she's really learning to cook, in spite of old Pete's horror, and Eliza's pleadings not to spoil her pretty hands.”
“Then Pete is back all right? What a faithful old soul he is!”
Arkwright frowned slightly.
“Yes, he's faithful, but he isn't all right, by any means. I think he's a sick man, myself.”
“What makes Billy let him work, then?”
“Let him!” sniffed Arkwright. “I'd like to see you try to stop him! Mrs. Henshaw begs and pleads with him to stop, but he scouts the idea. Pete is thoroughly and unalterably convinced that the family would starve to death if it weren't for him; and Mrs. Henshaw says that she'll admit he has some grounds for his opinion when one remembers the condition of the kitchen and dining-room the night she presided over them.”
“Poor Billy!” chuckled Calderwell. “I'd have gone down into the kitchen myself if I'd suspected what was going on.”
Arkwright raised his eyebrows.
“Perhaps it's well you didn't—if Bertram's picture of what he found there when he went down is a true one. Mrs. Henshaw acknowledges that even the cat sought refuge under the stove.”
“As if the veriest worm that crawls ever needed to seek refuge from Billy!” scoffed Calderwell. “By the way, what's this Annex I hear of? Bertram mentioned it, but I couldn't get either of them to tell what it was. Billy wouldn't, and Bertram said he couldn't—not with Billy shaking her head at him like that. So I had my suspicions. One of Billy's pet charities?”
“She doesn't call it that.” Arkwright's face and voice softened. “It is Hillside. She still keeps it open. She calls it the Annex to her home. She's filled it with a crippled woman, a poor little music teacher, a lame boy, and Aunt Hannah.”
“But how—extraordinary!”
“She doesn't think so. She says it's just an overflow house for the extra happiness she can't use.”
There was a moment's silence. Calderwell laid down his cigar, pulled out his handkerchief, and blew his nose furiously. Then he got to his feet and walked to the fireplace. After a minute he turned.
“Well, if she isn't the beat 'em!” he spluttered. “And I had the gall to ask you if Henshaw made her—happy! Overflow house, indeed!”
“The best of it is, the way she does it,” smiled Arkwright. “They're all the sort of people ordinary charity could never reach; and the only way she got them there at all was to make each one think that he or she was absolutely necessary to the rest of them. Even as it is, they all pay a little something toward the running expenses of the house. They insisted on that, and Mrs. Henshaw had to let them. I believe her chief difficulty now is that she has not less than six people whom she wishes to put into the two extra rooms still unoccupied, and she can't make up her mind which to take. Her husband says he expects to hear any day of an Annexette to the Annex.”
“Humph!” grunted Calderwell, as he turned and began to walk up and down the room. “Bertram is still painting, I suppose.”
“Oh, yes.”
“What's he doing now?”
“Several things. He's up to his eyes in work. As you probably have heard, he met with a severe accident last summer, and lost the use of his right arm for many months. I believe they thought at one time he had lost it forever. But it's all right now, and he has several commissions for portraits. Alice says he's doing ideal heads again, too.”
“Same old 'Face of a Girl'?”
“I suppose so, though Alice didn't say. Of course his special work just now is painting the portrait of Miss Marguerite Winthrop. You may have heard that he tried it last year and—and didn't make quite a success of it.”
“Yes. My sister Belle told me. She hears from Billy once in a while. Will it be a go, this time?”
“We'll hope so—for everybody's sake. I imagine no one has seen it yet—it's not finished; but Alice says—”
Calderwell turned abruptly, a quizzical smile on his face.
“See here, my son,” he interposed, “it strikes me that this Alice is saying a good deal—to you! Who is she?”
Arkwright gave a light laugh.
“Why, I told you. She is Miss Alice Greggory, Mrs. Henshaw's friend—and mine. I have known her for years.”
“Hm-m; what is she like?”
“Like? Why, she's like—like herself, of course. You'll have to know Alice. She's the salt of the earth—Alice is,” smiled Arkwright, rising to his feet with a remonstrative gesture, as he saw Calderwell pick up his coat. “What's your hurry?”
“Hm-m,” commented Calderwell again, ignoring the question. “And when, may I ask, do you intend to appropriate this—er—salt—to—er—ah, season your own life with, as I might say—eh?”
Arkwright laughed. There was not the slightest trace of embarrassment in his face.
“Never. You're on the wrong track, this time. Alice and I are good friends—always have been, and always will be, I hope.”
“Nothing more?”
“Nothing more. I see her frequently. She is musical, and the Henshaws are good enough to ask us there often together. You will meet her, doubtless, now, yourself. She is frequently at the Henshaw home.”
“Hm-m.” Calderwell still eyed his host shrewdly. “Then you'll give me a clear field, eh?”
“Certainly.” Arkwright's eyes met his friend's gaze without swerving.
“All right. However, I suppose you'll tell me, as I did you, once, that a right of way in such a case doesn't mean a thoroughfare for the party interested. If my memory serves me, I gave you right of way in Paris to win the affections of a certain elusive Miss Billy here in Boston, if you could. But I see you didn't seem to improve your opportunities,” he finished teasingly.
Arkwright stooped, of a sudden, to pick up a bit of paper from the floor.
“No,” he said quietly. “I didn't seem to improve my opportunities.” This time he did not meet Calderwell's eyes.
The good-byes had been said when Calderwell turned abruptly at the door.
“Oh, I say, I suppose you're going to that devil's carnival at Jordan Hall to-morrow night.”
“Devil's carnival! You don't mean—Cyril Henshaw's piano recital!”
“Sure I do,” grinned Calderwell, unabashed. “And I'll warrant it'll be a devil's carnival, too. Isn't Mr. Cyril Henshaw going to play his own music? Oh, I know I'm hopeless, from your standpoint, but I can't help it. I like mine with some go in it, and a tune that you can find without hunting for it. And I don't like lost spirits gone mad that wail and shriek through ten perfectly good minutes, and then die with a gasping moan whose home is the tombs. However, you're going, I take it.”
“Of course I am,” laughed the other. “You couldn't hire Alice to miss one shriek of those spirits. Besides, I rather like them myself, you know.”
“Yes, I suppose you do. You're brought up on it—in your business. But me for the 'Merry Widow' and even the hoary 'Jingle Bells' every time! However, I'm going to be there—out of respect to the poor fellow's family. And, by the way, that's another thing that bowled me over—Cyril's marriage. Why, Cyril hates women!”
“Not all women—we'll hope,” smiled Arkwright. “Do you know his wife?”
“Not much. I used to see her a little at Billy's. Music teacher, wasn't she? Then she's the same sort, I suppose.”
“But she isn't,” laughed Arkwright. “Oh, she taught music, but that was only because of necessity, I take it. She's domestic through and through, with an overwhelming passion for making puddings and darning socks, I hear. Alice says she believes Mrs. Cyril knows every dish and spoon by its Christian name, and that there's never so much as a spool of thread out of order in the house.”
“But how does Cyril stand it—the trials and tribulations of domestic life? Bertram used to declare that the whole Strata was aquiver with fear when Cyril was composing, and I remember him as a perfect bear if anybody so much as whispered when he was in one of his moods. I never forgot the night Bertram and I were up in William's room trying to sing 'When Johnnie comes marching home,' to the accompaniment of a banjo in Bertram's hands, and a guitar in mine. Gorry! it was Hugh that went marching home that night.”
“Oh, well, from reports I reckon Mrs. Cyril doesn't play either a banjo or a guitar,” smiled Arkwright. “Alice says she wears rubber heels on her shoes, and has put hushers on all the chair-legs, and felt-mats between all the plates and saucers. Anyhow, Cyril is building a new house, and he looks as if he were in a pretty healthy condition, as you'll see to-morrow night.”
“Humph! I wish he'd make his music healthy, then,” grumbled Calderwell, as he opened the door.
CHAPTER XII. FOR BILLY—SOME ADVICE
February brought busy days. The public opening of the Bohemian Ten Club Exhibition was to take place the sixth of March, with a private view for invited guests the night before; and it was at this exhibition that Bertram planned to show his portrait of Marguerite Winthrop. He also, if possible, wished to enter two or three other canvases, upon which he was spending all the time he could get.
Bertram felt that he was doing very good work now. The portrait of Marguerite Winthrop was coming on finely. The spoiled idol of society had at last found a pose and a costume that suited her, and she was graciously pleased to give the artist almost as many sittings as he wanted. The “elusive something” in her face, which had previously been so baffling, was now already caught and held bewitchingly on his canvas. He was confident that the portrait would be a success. He was also much interested in another piece of work which he intended to show called “The Rose.” The model for this was a beautiful young girl he had found selling flowers with her father in a street booth at the North End.
On the whole, Bertram was very happy these days. He could not, to be sure, spend quite so much time with Billy as he wished; but she understood, of course, as did he, that his work must come first. He knew that she tried to show him that she understood it. At the same time, he could not help thinking, occasionally, that Billy did sometimes mind his necessary absorption in his painting.
To himself Bertram owned that Billy was, in some ways, a puzzle to him. Her conduct was still erratic at times. One day he would seem to be everything to her; the next—almost nothing, judging by the ease with which she relinquished his society and substituted that of some one else: Arkwright, or Calderwell, for instance.
And that was another thing. Bertram was ashamed to hint even to himself that he was jealous of either of those men. Surely, after what had happened, after Billy's emphatic assertion that she had never loved any one but himself, it would seem not only absurd, but disloyal, that he should doubt for an instant Billy's entire devotion to him, and yet—there were times when he wished he could come home and not always find Alice Greggory, Calderwell, Arkwright, or all three of them strumming the piano in the drawing-room! At such times, always, though, if he did feel impatient, he immediately demanded of himself: “Are you, then, the kind of husband that begrudges your wife young companions of her own age and tastes to help her while away the hours that you cannot possibly spend with her yourself?”
This question, and the answer that his better self always gave to it, were usually sufficient to send him into some florists for a bunch of violets for Billy, or into a candy shop on a like atoning errand.
As to Billy—Billy, too, was busy these days chief of her concerns being, perhaps, attention to that honeymoon of hers, to see that it did not wane. At least, the most of her thoughts, and many of her actions, centered about that object.
Billy had the book, now—the “Talk to Young Wives.” For a time she had worked with only the newspaper criticism to guide her; but, coming at last to the conclusion that if a little was good, more must be better, she had shyly gone into a bookstore one day and, with a pink blush, had asked for the book. Since bringing it home she had studied assiduously (though never if Bertram was near), keeping it well-hidden, when not in use, in a remote corner of her desk.
There was a good deal in the book that Billy did not like, and there were some statements that worried her; but yet there was much that she tried earnestly to follow. She was still striving to be the oak, and she was still eagerly endeavoring to brush up against those necessary outside interests. She was so thankful, in this connection, for Alice Greggory, and for Arkwright and Hugh Calderwell. It was such a help that she had them! They were not only very pleasant and entertaining outside interests, but one or another of them was almost always conveniently within reach.
Then, too, it pleased her to think that she was furthering the pretty love story between Alice and Mr. Arkwright. And she was furthering it. She was sure of that. Already she could see how dependent the man was on Alice, how he looked to her for approbation, and appealed to her on all occasions, exactly as if there was not a move that he wanted to make without her presence near him. Billy was very sure, now, of Arkwright. She only wished she were as much so of Alice. But Alice troubled her. Not but that Alice was kindness itself to the man, either. It was only a peculiar something almost like fear, or constraint, that Billy thought she saw in Alice's eyes, sometimes, when Arkwright made a particularly intimate appeal. There was Calderwell, too. He, also, worried Billy. She feared he was going to complicate matters still more by falling in love with Alice, himself; and this, certainly, Billy did not want at all. As this phase of the matter presented itself, indeed, Billy determined to appropriate Calderwell a little more exclusively to herself, when the four were together, thus leaving Alice for Arkwright. After all, it was rather entertaining—this playing at Cupid's assistant. If she could not have Bertram all the time, it was fortunate that these outside interests were so pleasurable.
Most of the mornings Billy spent in the kitchen, despite the remonstrances of both Pete and Eliza. Almost every meal, now, was graced with a palatable cake, pudding, or muffin that Billy would proudly claim as her handiwork. Pete still served at table, and made strenuous efforts to keep up all his old duties; but he was obviously growing weaker, and really serious blunders were beginning to be noticeable. Bertram even hinted once or twice that perhaps it would be just as well to insist on his going; but to this Billy would not give her consent. Even when one night his poor old trembling hands spilled half the contents of a soup plate over a new and costly evening gown of Billy's own, she still refused to have him dismissed.
“Why, Bertram, I wouldn't do it,” she declared hotly; “and you wouldn't, either. He's been here more than fifty years. It would break his heart. He's really too ill to work, and I wish he would go of his own accord, of course; but I sha'n't ever tell him to go—not if he spills soup on every dress I've got. I'll buy more—and more, if it's necessary. Bless his dear old heart! He thinks he's really serving us—and he is, too.”
“Oh, yes, you're right, he is!” sighed Bertram, with meaning emphasis, as he abandoned the argument.
In addition to her “Talk to Young Wives,” Billy found herself encountering advice and comment on the marriage question from still other quarters—from her acquaintances (mostly the feminine ones) right and left. Continually she was hearing such words as these:
“Oh, well, what can you expect, Billy? You're an old married woman, now.”
“Never mind, you'll find he's like all the rest of the husbands. You just wait and see!”
“Better begin with a high hand, Billy. Don't let him fool you!”
“Mercy! If I had a husband whose business it was to look at women's beautiful eyes, peachy cheeks, and luxurious tresses, I should go crazy! It's hard enough to keep a man's eyes on yourself when his daily interests are supposed to be just lumps of coal and chunks of ice, without flinging him into the very jaws of temptation like asking him to paint a pretty girl's picture!”
In response to all this, of course, Billy could but laugh, and blush, and toss back some gay reply, with a careless unconcern. But in her heart she did not like it. Sometimes she told herself that if there were not any advice or comment from anybody—either book or woman—if there were not anybody but just Bertram and herself, life would be just one long honeymoon forever and forever.
Once or twice Billy was tempted to go to Marie with this honeymoon question; but Marie was very busy these days, and very preoccupied. The new house that Cyril was building on Corey Hill, not far from the Annex, was almost finished, and Marie was immersed in the subject of house-furnishings and interior decoration. She was, too, still more deeply engrossed in the fashioning of tiny garments of the softest linen, lace, and woolen; and there was on her face such a look of beatific wonder and joy that Billy did not like to so much as hint that there was in the world such a book as “When the Honeymoon Wanes: A Talk to Young Wives.”
Billy tried valiantly these days not to mind that Bertram's work was so absorbing. She tried not to mind that his business dealt, not with lumps of coal and chunks of ice, but with beautiful women like Marguerite Winthrop who asked him to luncheon, and lovely girls like his model for “The Rose” who came freely to his studio and spent hours in the beloved presence, being studied for what Bertram declared was absolutely the most wonderful poise of head and shoulders that he had ever seen.
Billy tried, also, these days, to so conduct herself that not by any chance could Calderwell suspect that sometimes she was jealous of Bertram's art. Not for worlds would she have had Calderwell begin to get the notion into his head that his old-time prophecy concerning Bertram's caring only for the turn of a girl's head or the tilt of her chin—to paint, was being fulfilled. Hence, particularly gay and cheerful was Billy when Calderwell was near. Nor could it be said that Billy was really unhappy at any time. It was only that, on occasion, the very depth of her happiness in Bertram's love frightened her, lest it bring disaster to herself or Bertram.
Billy still went frequently to the Annex. There were yet two unfilled rooms in the house. Billy was hesitating which two of six new friends of hers to choose as occupants; and it was one day early in March, after she had been talking the matter over with Aunt Hannah, that Aunt Hannah said:
“Dear me, Billy, if you had your way I believe you'd open another whole house!”
“Do you know?—that's just what I'm thinking of,” retorted Billy, gravely. Then she laughed at Aunt Hannah's shocked gesture of protest. “Oh, well, I don't expect to,” she added. “I haven't lived very long, but I've lived long enough to know that you can't always do what you want to.”
“Just as if there were anything you wanted to do that you don't do, my dear,” reproved Aunt Hannah, mildly.
“Yes, I know.” Billy drew in her breath with a little catch. “I have so much that is lovely; and that's why I need this house, you know, for the overflow,” she nodded brightly. Then, with a characteristic change of subject, she added: “My, but you should have tasted of the popovers I made for breakfast this morning!”
“I should like to,” smiled Aunt Hannah. “William says you're getting to be quite a cook.”
“Well, maybe,” conceded Billy, doubtfully. “Oh, I can do some things all right; but just wait till Pete and Eliza go away again, and Bertram brings home a friend to dinner. That'll tell the tale. I think now I could have something besides potato-mush and burned corn—but maybe I wouldn't, when the time came. If only I could buy everything I needed to cook with, I'd be all right. But I can't, I find.”
“Can't buy what you need! What do you mean?”
Billy laughed ruefully.
“Well, every other question I ask Eliza, she says: 'Why, I don't know; you have to use your judgment.' Just as if I had any judgment about how much salt to use, or what dish to take! Dear me, Aunt Hannah, the man that will grow judgment and can it as you would a mess of peas, has got his fortune made!”
“What an absurd child you are, Billy,” laughed Aunt Hannah. “I used to tell Marie—By the way, how is Marie? Have you seen her lately?”
“Oh, yes, I saw her yesterday,” twinkled Billy. “She had a book of wall-paper samples spread over the back of a chair, two bunches of samples of different colored damasks on the table before her, a 'Young Mother's Guide' propped open in another chair, and a pair of baby's socks in her lap with a roll each of pink, and white, and blue ribbon. She spent most of the time, after I had helped her choose the ribbon, in asking me if I thought she ought to let the baby cry and bother Cyril, or stop its crying and hurt the baby, because her 'Mother's Guide' says a certain amount of crying is needed to develop a baby's lungs.”
Aunt Hannah laughed, but she frowned, too.
“The idea! I guess Cyril can stand proper crying—and laughing, too—from his own child!” she said then, crisply.
“Oh, but Marie is afraid he can't,” smiled Billy. “And that's the trouble. She says that's the only thing that worries her—Cyril.”
“Nonsense!” ejaculated Aunt Hannah.
“Oh, but it isn't nonsense to Marie,” retorted Billy. “You should see the preparations she's made and the precautions she's taken. Actually, when I saw those baby's socks in her lap, I didn't know but she was going to put rubber heels on them! They've built the new house with deadening felt in all the walls, and Marie's planned the nursery and Cyril's den at opposite ends of the house; and she says she shall keep the baby there all the time—the nursery, I mean, not the den. She says she's going to teach it to be a quiet baby and hate noise. She says she thinks she can do it, too.”
“Humph!” sniffed Aunt Hannah, scornfully.
“You should have seen Marie's disgust the other day,” went on Billy, a bit mischievously. “Her Cousin Jane sent on a rattle she'd made herself, all soft worsted, with bells inside. It was a dear; but Marie was horror-stricken. 'My baby have a rattle?' she cried. 'Why, what would Cyril say? As if he could stand a rattle in the house!' And if she didn't give that rattle to the janitor's wife that very day, while I was there!”
“Humph!” sniffed Aunt Hannah again, as Billy rose to go. “Well, I'm thinking Marie has still some things to learn in this world—and Cyril, too, for that matter.”
“I wouldn't wonder,” laughed Billy, giving Aunt Hannah a good-by kiss.