CHAPTER XXIII. THE CAUSE AND BERTRAM
February came The operetta, for which Billy was working so hard, was to be given the twentieth. The Art Exhibition, for which Bertram was preparing his four pictures, was to open the sixteenth, with a private view for specially invited friends the evening before.
On the eleventh day of February Mrs. Greggory and her daughter arrived at Hillside for a ten-days' visit. Not until after a great deal of pleading and argument, however, had Billy been able to bring this about.
“But, my dears, both of you,” Billy had at last said to them; “just listen. We shall have numberless rehearsals during those last ten days before the thing comes off. They will be at all hours, and of all lengths. You, Miss Greggory, will have to be on hand for them all, of course, and will have to stay all night several times, probably. You, Mrs. Greggory, ought not to be alone down here. There is no sensible, valid reason why you should not both come out to the house for those ten days; and I shall feel seriously hurt and offended if you do not consent to do it.”
“But—my pupils,” Alice Greggory had demurred.
“You can go in town from my home at any time to give your lessons, and a little shifting about and arranging for those ten days will enable you to set the hours conveniently one after another, I am sure, so you can attend to several on one trip. Meanwhile your mother will be having a lovely time teaching Aunt Hannah how to knit a new shawl; so you won't have to be worrying about her.”
After all, it had been the great good and pleasure which the visit would bring to Mrs. Greggory that had been the final straw to tip the scales. On the eleventh of February, therefore, in the company of the once scorned “Peggy and Mary Jane,” Alice Greggory and her mother had arrived at Hillside.
Ever since the first meeting of Alice Greggory and Arkwright, Billy had been sorely troubled by the conduct of the two young people. She had, as she mournfully told herself, been able to make nothing of it. The two were civility itself to each other, but very plainly they were not at ease in each other's company; and Billy, much to her surprise, had to admit that Arkwright did not appear to appreciate the “circumstances” now that he had them. The pair called each other, ceremoniously, “Mr. Arkwright,” and “Miss Greggory”—but then, that, of course, did not “signify,” Billy declared to herself.
“I suppose you don't ever call him 'Mary Jane,'” she said to the girl, a little mischievously, one day.
“'Mary Jane'? Mr. Arkwright? No, I don't,” rejoined Miss Greggory, with an odd smile. Then, after a moment, she added: “I believe his brothers and sisters used to, however.”
“Yes, I know,” laughed Billy. “We thought he was a real Mary Jane, once.” And she told the story of his arrival. “So you see,” she finished, when Alice Greggory had done laughing over the tale, “he always will be 'Mary Jane' to us. By the way, what is his name?”
Miss Greggory looked up in surprise.
“Why, it's—” She stopped short, her eyes questioning. “Why, hasn't he ever told you?” she queried.
Billy lifted her chin.
“No. He told us to guess it, and we have guessed everything we can think of, even up to 'Methuselah John'; but he says we haven't hit it yet.”
“'Methuselah John,' indeed!” laughed the other, merrily.
“Well, I'm sure that's a nice, solid name,” defended Billy, her chin still at a challenging tilt. “If it isn't 'Methuselah John,' what is it, then?”
But Alice Greggory shook her head. She, too, it seemed, could be firm, on occasion. And though she smiled brightly, all she would say, was:
“If he hasn't told you, I sha'n't. You'll have to go to him.”
“Oh, well, I can still call him 'Mary Jane,'” retorted Billy, with airy disdain.
All this, however, so far as Billy could see, was not in the least helping along the cause that had become so dear to her—the reuniting of a pair of lovers. It occurred to her then, one day, that perhaps, after all, they were not lovers, and did not wish to be reunited. At this disquieting thought Billy decided, suddenly, to go almost to headquarters. She would speak to Mrs. Greggory if ever the opportunity offered. Great was her joy, therefore, when, a day or two after the Greggorys arrived at the house, Mrs. Greggory's chance reference to Arkwright and her daughter gave Billy the opportunity she sought.
“They used to know each other long ago, Mr. Arkwright tells me,” Billy began warily.
“Yes.”
The quietly polite monosyllable was not very encouraging, to be sure; but Billy, secure in her conviction that her cause was a righteous one, refused to be daunted.
“I think it was so romantic—their running across each other like this, Mrs. Greggory,” she murmured. “And there was a romance, wasn't there? I have just felt in my bones that there was—a romance!”
Billy held her breath. It was what she had meant to say, but now that she had said it, the words seemed very fearsome indeed—to say to Mrs. Greggory. Then Billy remembered her Cause, and took heart—Billy was spelling it now with a capital C.
For a long minute Mrs. Greggory did not answer—for so long a minute that Billy's breath dropped into a fluttering sigh, and her Cause became suddenly “IMPERTINENCE” spelled in black capitals. Then Mrs. Greggory spoke slowly, a little sadly.
“I don't mind saying to you that I did hope, once, that there would be a romance there. They were the best of friends, and they were well-suited to each other in tastes and temperament. I think, indeed, that the romance was well under way (though there was never an engagement) when—” Mrs. Greggory paused and wet her lips. Her voice, when she resumed, carried the stern note so familiar to Billy in her first acquaintance with this woman and her daughter. “As I presume Mr. Arkwright has told you, we have met with many changes in our life—changes which necessitated a new home and a new mode of living. Naturally, under those circumstances, old friends—and old romances—must change, too.”
“But, Mrs. Greggory,” stammered Billy, “I'm sure Mr. Arkwright would want—” An up-lifted hand silenced her peremptorily.
“Mr. Arkwright was very kind, and a gentleman, always,” interposed the lady, coldly; “but Judge Greggory's daughter would not allow herself to be placed where apologies for her father would be necessary—ever! There, please, dear Miss Neilson, let us not talk of it any more,” begged Mrs. Greggory, brokenly.
“No, indeed, of course not!” cried Billy; but her heart rejoiced.
She understood it all now. Arkwright and Alice Greggory had been almost lovers when the charges against the Judge's honor had plunged the family into despairing humiliation. Then had come the time when, according to Arkwright's own story, the two women had shut themselves indoors, refused to see their friends, and left town as soon as possible. Thus had come the breaking of whatever tie there was between Alice Greggory and Arkwright. Not to have broken it would have meant, for Alice, the placing of herself in a position where, sometime, apologies must be made for her father. This was what Mrs. Greggory had meant—and again, as Billy thought of it, Billy's heart rejoiced.
Was not her way clear now before her? Did she not have it in her power, possibly—even probably—to bring happiness where only sadness was before? As if it would not be a simple thing to rekindle the old flame—to make these two estranged hearts beat as one again!
Not now was the Cause an IMPERTINENCE in tall black letters. It was, instead, a shining beacon in letters of flame guiding straight to victory.
Billy went to sleep that night making plans for Alice Greggory and Arkwright to be thrown together naturally—“just as a matter of course, you know,” she said drowsily to herself, all in the dark.
Some three or four miles away down Beacon Street at that moment Bertram Henshaw, in the Strata, was, as it happened, not falling asleep. He was lying broadly and unhappily awake Bertram very frequently lay broadly and unhappily awake these days—or rather nights. He told himself, on these occasions, that it was perfectly natural—indeed it was!—that Billy should be with Arkwright and his friends, the Greggorys, so much. There were the new songs, and the operetta with its rehearsals as a cause for it all. At the same time, deep within his fearful soul was the consciousness that Arkwright, the Greggorys, and the operetta were but Music—Music, the spectre that from the first had dogged his footsteps.
With Billy's behavior toward himself, Bertram could find no fault. She was always her sweet, loyal, lovable self, eager to hear of his work, earnestly solicitous that it should be a success. She even—as he sometimes half-irritably remembered—had once told him that she realized he belonged to Art before he did to himself; and when he had indignantly denied this, she had only laughed and thrown a kiss at him, with the remark that he ought to hear his sister Kate's opinion of that matter. As if he wanted Kate's opinion on that or anything else that concerned him and Billy!
Once, torn by jealousy, and exasperated at the frequent interruptions of their quiet hours together, he had complained openly.
“Actually, Billy, it's worse than Marie's wedding,” he declared, “Then it was tablecloths and napkins that could be dumped in a chair. Now it's a girl who wants to rehearse, or a woman that wants a different wig, or a telephone message that the sopranos have quarrelled again. I loathe that operetta!”
Billy laughed, but she frowned, too.
“I know, dear; I don't like that part. I wish they would let me alone when I'm with you! But as for the operetta, it is really a good thing, dear, and you'll say so when you see it. It's going to be a great success—I can say that because my part is only a small one, you know. We shall make lots of money for the Home, too, I'm sure.”
“But you're wearing yourself all out with it, dear,” scowled Bertram.
“Nonsense! I like it; besides, when I'm doing this I'm not telephoning you to come and amuse me. Just think what a lot of extra time you have for your work!”
“Don't want it,” avowed Bertram.
“But the work may,” retorted Billy, showing all her dimples. “Never mind, though; it'll all be over after the twentieth. This isn't an understudy like Marie's wedding, you know,” she finished demurely.
“Thank heaven for that!” Bertram had breathed fervently. But even as he said the words he grew sick with fear. What if, after all, this were an understudy to what was to come later when Music, his rival, had really conquered?
Bertram knew that however secure might seem Billy's affection for himself, there was still in his own mind a horrid fear lest underneath that security were an unconscious, growing fondness for something he could not give, for some one that he was not—a fondness that would one day cause Billy to awake. As Bertram, in his morbid fancy pictured it, he realized only too well what that awakening would mean to himself.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE ARTIST AND HIS ART
The private view of the paintings and drawings of the Brush and Pencil Club on the evening of the fifteenth was a great success. Society sent its fairest women in frocks that were pictures in themselves. Art sent its severest critics and its most ardent devotees. The Press sent reporters that the World might know what Art and Society were doing, and how they did it.
Before the canvases signed with Bertram Henshaw's name there was always to be found an admiring group representing both Art and Society with the Press on the outskirts to report. William Henshaw, coming unobserved upon one such group, paused a moment to smile at the various more or less disconnected comments.
“What a lovely blue!”
“Marvellous color sense!”
“Now those shadows are—”
“He gets his high lights so—”
“I declare, she looks just like Blanche Payton!”
“Every line there is full of meaning.”
“I suppose it's very fine, but—”
“Now, I say, Henshaw is—”
“Is this by the man that's painting Margy Winthrop's portrait?”
“It's idealism, man, idealism!”
“I'm going to have a dress just that shade of blue.”
“Isn't that just too sweet!”
“Now for realism, I consider Henshaw—”
“There aren't many with his sensitive, brilliant touch.”
“Oh, what a pretty picture!”
William moved on then.
Billy was rapturously proud of Bertram that evening. He was, of course, the centre of congratulations and hearty praise. At his side, Billy, with sparkling eyes, welcomed each smiling congratulation and gloried in every commendatory word she heard.
“Oh, Bertram, isn't it splendid! I'm so proud of you,” she whispered softly, when a moment's lull gave her opportunity.
“They're all words, words, idle words,” he laughed; but his eyes shone.
“Just as if they weren't all true!” she bridled, turning to greet William, who came up at that moment. “Isn't it fine, Uncle William?” she beamed. “And aren't we proud of him?”
“We are, indeed,” smiled the man. “But if you and Bertram want to get the real opinion of this crowd, you should go and stand near one of his pictures five minutes. As a sort of crazy—quilt criticism it can't be beat.”
“I know,” laughed Bertram. “I've done it, in days long gone.”
“Bertram, not really?” cried Billy.
“Sure! As if every young artist at the first didn't don goggles or a false mustache and study the pictures on either side of his own till he could paint them with his eyes shut!”
“And what did you hear?” demanded the girl.
“What didn't I hear?” laughed her lover. “But I didn't do it but once or twice. I lost my head one day and began to argue the question of perspective with a couple of old codgers who were criticizing a bit of foreshortening that was my special pet. I forgot my goggles and sailed in. The game was up then, of course; and I never put them on again. But it was worth a farm to see their faces when I stood 'discovered' as the stage-folk say.”
“Serves you right, sir—listening like that,” scolded Billy.
Bertram laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, it cured me, anyhow. I haven't done it since,” he declared.
It was some time later, on the way home, that Bertram said:
“It was gratifying, of course, Billy, and I liked it. It would be absurd to say I didn't like the many pleasant words of apparently sincere appreciation I heard to-night. But I couldn't help thinking of the next time—always the next time.”
“The next time?” Billy's eyes were slightly puzzled.
“That I exhibit, I mean. The Bohemian Ten hold their exhibition next month, you know. I shall show just one picture—the portrait of Miss Winthrop.”
“Oh, Bertram!”
“It'll be 'Oh, Bertram!' then, dear, if it isn't a success,” he sighed. “I don't believe you realize yet what that thing is going to mean for me.”
“Well, I should think I might,” retorted Billy, a little tremulously, “after all I've heard about it. I should think everybody knew you were doing it, Bertram. Actually, I'm not sure Marie's scrub-lady won't ask me some day how Mr. Bertram's picture is coming on!”
“That's the dickens of it, in a way,” sighed Bertram, with a faint smile. “I am amazed—and a little frightened, I'll admit—at the universality of the interest. You see, the Winthrops have been pleased to spread it, for one reason or another, and of course many already know of the failures of Anderson and Fullam. That's why, if I should fail—”
“But you aren't going to fail,” interposed the girl, resolutely.
“No, I know I'm not. I only said 'if,'” fenced the man, his voice not quite steady.
“There isn't going to be any 'if,'” settled Billy. “Now tell me, when is the exhibition?”
“March twentieth—the private view. Mr. Winthrop is not only willing, but anxious, that I show it. I wasn't sure that he'd want me to—in an exhibition. But it seems he does. His daughter says he has every confidence in the portrait and wants everybody to see it.”
“That's where he shows his good sense,” declared Billy. Then, with just a touch of constraint, she asked: “And how is the new, latest pose coming on?”
“Very well, I think,” answered Bertram, a little hesitatingly. “We've had so many, many interruptions, though, that it is surprising how slow it is moving. In the first place, Miss Winthrop is gone more than half the time (she goes again to-morrow for a week!), and in this portrait I'm not painting a stroke without my model before me. I mean to take no chances, you see; and Miss Winthrop is perfectly willing to give me all the sittings I wish for. Of course, if she hadn't changed the pose and costume so many times, it would have been done long ago—and she knows it.”
“Of course—she knows it,” murmured Billy, a little faintly, but with a peculiar intonation in her voice.
“And so you see,” sighed Bertram, “what the twentieth of March is going to mean for me.”
“It's going to mean a splendid triumph!” asserted Billy; and this time her voice was not faint, and it carried only a ring of loyal confidence.
“You blessed comforter!” murmured Bertram, giving with his eyes the caress that his lips would so much have preferred to give—under more propitious circumstances.
CHAPTER XXV. THE OPERETTA
The sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth of February were, for Billy, and for all concerned in the success of the operetta, days of hurry, worry, and feverish excitement, as was to be expected, of course. Each afternoon and every evening saw rehearsals in whole, or in parts. A friend of the Club-president's sister-in-law-a woman whose husband was stage manager of a Boston theatre—had consented to come and “coach” the performers. At her appearance the performers—promptly thrown into nervous spasms by this fearsome nearness to the “real thing”—forgot half their cues, and conducted themselves generally like frightened school children on “piece day,” much to their own and every one else's despair. Then, on the evening of the nineteenth, came the final dress rehearsal on the stage of the pretty little hall that had been engaged for the performance of the operetta.
The dress rehearsal, like most of its kind, was, for every one, nothing but a nightmare of discord, discouragement, and disaster. Everybody's nerves were on edge, everybody was sure the thing would be a “flat failure.” The soprano sang off the key, the alto forgot to shriek “Beware, beware!” until it was so late there was nothing to beware of; the basso stepped on Billy's trailing frock and tore it; even the tenor, Arkwright himself, seemed to have lost every bit of vim from his acting. The chorus sang “Oh, be joyful!” with dirge-like solemnity, and danced as if legs and feet were made of wood. The lovers, after the fashion of amateur actors from time immemorial, “made love like sticks.”
Billy, when the dismal thing had dragged its way through the final note, sat “down front,” crying softly in the semi-darkness while she was waiting for Alice Greggory to “run it through just once more” with a pair of tired-faced, fluffy-skirted fairies who could not learn that a duet meant a duet—not two solos, independently hurried or retarded as one's fancy for the moment dictated.
To Billy, just then, life did not look to be even half worth the living. Her head ached, her throat was going-to-be-sore, her shoe hurt, and her dress—the trailing frock that had been under the basso's foot—could not possibly be decently repaired before to-morrow night, she was sure.
Bad as these things were, however, they were only the intimate, immediate woes. Beyond and around them lay others many others. To be sure, Bertram and happiness were supposed to be somewhere in the dim and uncertain future; but between her and them lay all these other woes, chief of which was the unutterable tragedy of to-morrow night.
It was to be a failure, of course. Billy had calmly made up her mind to that, now. But then, she was used to failures, she told herself. Was she not plainly failing every day of her life to bring about even friendship between Alice Greggory and Arkwright? Did they not emphatically and systematically refuse to be “thrown together,” either naturally, or unnaturally? And yet—whenever again could she expect such opportunities to further her Cause as had been hers the past few weeks, through the operetta and its rehearsals? Certainly, never again! It had been a failure like all the rest; like the operetta, in particular.
Billy did not mean that any one should know she was crying. She supposed that all the performers except herself and the two earth-bound fairies by the piano with Alice Greggory were gone. She knew that John with Peggy was probably waiting at the door outside, and she hoped that soon the fairies would decide to go home and go to bed, and let other people do the same. For her part, she did not see why they were struggling so hard, anyway. Why needn't they go ahead and sing their duet like two solos if they wanted to? As if a little thing like that could make a feather's weight of difference in the grand total of to-morrow night's wretchedness when the final curtain should have been rung down on their shame!
“Miss Neilson, you aren't—crying!” exclaimed a low voice; and Billy turned to find Arkwright standing by her side in the dim light.
“Oh, no—yes—well, maybe I was, a little,” stammered Billy, trying to speak very unconcernedly. “How warm it is in here! Do you think it's going to rain?—that is, outdoors, of course, I mean.”
Arkwright dropped into the seat behind Billy and leaned forward, his eyes striving to read the girl's half-averted face. If Billy had turned, she would have seen that Arkwright's own face showed white and a little drawn-looking in the feeble rays from the light by the piano. But Billy did not turn. She kept her eyes steadily averted; and she went on speaking—airy, inconsequential words.
“Dear me, if those girls would only pull together! But then, what's the difference? I supposed you had gone home long ago, Mr. Arkwright.”
“Miss Neilson, you are crying!” Arkwright's voice was low and vibrant. “As if anything or anybody in the world could make you cry! Please—you have only to command me, and I will sally forth at once to slay the offender.” His words were light, but his voice still shook with emotion.
Billy gave an hysterical little giggle. Angrily she brushed the persistent tears from her eyes.
“All right, then; I'll dub you my Sir Knight,” she faltered. “But I'll warn you—you'll have your hands full. You'll have to slay my headache, and my throat-ache, and my shoe that hurts, and the man who stepped on my dress, and—and everybody in the operetta, including myself.”
“Everybody—in the operetta!” Arkwright did look a little startled, at this wholesale slaughter.
“Yes. Did you ever see such an awful, awful thing as that was to-night?” moaned the girl.
Arkwright's face relaxed.
“Oh, so that's what it is!” he laughed lightly. “Then it's only a bogy of fear that I've got to slay, after all; and I'll despatch that right now with a single blow. Dress rehearsals always go like that to-night. I've been in a dozen, and I never yet saw one go half decent. Don't you worry. The worse the rehearsal, the better the performance, every time!”
Billy blinked off the tears and essayed a smile as she retorted:
“Well, if that's so, then ours to-morrow night ought to be a—a—”
“A corker,” helped out Arkwright, promptly; “and it will be, too. You poor child, you're worn out; and no wonder! But don't worry another bit about the operetta. Now is there anything else I can do for you? Anything else I can slay?”
Billy laughed tremulously.
“N-no, thank you; not that you can—slay, I fancy,” she sighed. “That is—not that you will,” she amended wistfully, with a sudden remembrance of the Cause, for which he might do so much—if he only would.
Arkwright bent a little nearer. His breath stirred the loose, curling hair behind Billy's ear. His eyes had flashed into sudden fire.
“But you don't know what I'd do if I could,” he murmured unsteadily. “If you'd let me tell you—if you only knew the wish that has lain closest to my heart for—”
“Miss Neilson, please,” called the despairing voice of one of the earth-bound fairies; “Miss Neilson, you are there, aren't you?”
“Yes, I'm right here,” answered Billy, wearily. Arkwright answered, too, but not aloud—which was wise.
“Oh dear! you're tired, I know,” wailed the fairy, “but if you would please come and help us just a minute! Could you?”
“Why, yes, of course.” Billy rose to her feet, still wearily.
Arkwright touched her arm. She turned and saw his face. It was very white—so white that her eyes widened in surprised questioning.
As if answering the unspoken words, the man shook his head.
“I can't, now, of course,” he said. “But there is something I want to say—a story I want to tell you—after to-morrow, perhaps. May I?”
To Billy, the tremor of his voice, the suffering in his eyes, and the “story” he was begging to tell could have but one interpretation: Alice Greggory. Her face, therefore, was a glory of tender sympathy as she reached out her hand in farewell.
“Of course you may,” she cried. “Come any time after to-morrow night, please,” she smiled encouragingly, as she turned toward the stage.
Behind her, Arkwright stumbled twice as he walked up the incline toward the outer door—stumbled, not because of the semi-darkness of the little theatre, but because of the blinding radiance of a girl's illumined face which he had, a moment before, read all unknowingly exactly wrong.
A little more than twenty-four hours later, Billy Neilson, in her own room, drew a long breath of relief. It was twelve o'clock on the night of the twentieth, and the operetta was over.
To Billy, life was eminently worth living to-night. Her head did not ache, her throat was not sore, her shoe did not hurt, her dress had been mended so successfully by Aunt Hannah, and with such comforting celerity, that long before night one would never have suspected the filmy thing had known the devastating tread of any man's foot. Better yet, the soprano had sung exactly to key, the alto had shrieked “Beware!” to thrilling purpose, Arkwright had shown all his old charm and vim, and the chorus had been prodigies of joyousness and marvels of lightness. Even the lovers had lost their stiffness, while the two earth-bound fairies of the night before had found so amiable a meeting point that their solos sounded, to the uninitiated, very like, indeed, a duet. The operetta was, in short, a glorious and gratifying success, both artistically and financially. Nor was this all that, to Billy, made life worth the living: Arkwright had begged permission that evening to come up the following afternoon to tell her his “story”; and Billy, who was so joyously confident that this story meant the final crowning of her Cause with victory, had given happy consent.
Bertram was to come up in the evening, and Billy was anticipating that, too, particularly: it had been so long since they had known a really free, comfortable evening together, with nothing to interrupt. Doubtless, too, after Arkwright's visit of the afternoon, she would be in a position to tell Bertram the story of the suspended romance between Arkwright and Miss Greggory, and perhaps something, also, of her own efforts to bring the couple together again. On the whole, life did, indeed, look decidedly worth the living as Billy, with a contented sigh, turned over to go to sleep.
CHAPTER XXVI. ARKWRIGHT TELLS ANOTHER STORY
Promptly at the suggested hour on the day after the operetta, Arkwright rang Billy Neilson's doorbell. Promptly, too, Billy herself came into the living-room to greet him.
Billy was in white to-day—a soft, creamy white wool with a touch of black velvet at her throat and in her hair. The man thought she had never looked so lovely: Arkwright was still under the spell wrought by the soft radiance of Billy's face the two times he had mentioned his “story.”
Until the night before the operetta Arkwright had been more than doubtful of the way that story would be received, should he ever summon the courage to tell it. Since then his fears had been changed to rapturous hopes. It was very eagerly, therefore, that he turned now to greet Billy as she came into the room.
“Suppose we don't have any music to-day. Suppose we give the whole time up to the story,” she smiled brightly, as she held out her hand.
Arkwright's heart leaped; but almost at once it throbbed with a vague uneasiness. He would have preferred to see her blush and be a little shy over that story. Still—there was a chance, of course, that she did not know what the story was. But if that were the case, what of the radiance in her face? What of—Finding himself in a tangled labyrinth that led apparently only to disappointment and disaster, Arkwright pulled himself up with a firm hand.
“You are very kind,” he murmured, as he relinquished her fingers and seated himself near her. “You are sure, then, that you wish to hear the story?”
“Very sure,” smiled Billy.
Arkwright hesitated. Again he longed to see a little embarrassment in the bright face opposite. Suddenly it came to him, however, that if Billy knew what he was about to say, it would manifestly not be her part to act as if she knew! With a lighter heart, then, he began his story.
“You want it from the beginning?”
“By all means! I never dip into books, nor peek at the ending. I don't think it's fair to the author.”
“Then I will, indeed, begin at the beginning,” smiled Arkwright, “for I'm specially anxious that you shall be—even more than 'fair' to me.” His voice shook a little, but he hurried on. “There's a—girl—in it; a very dear, lovely girl.”
“Of course—if it's a nice story,” twinkled Billy.
“And—there's a man, too. It's a love story, you see.”
“Again of course—if it's interesting.” Billy laughed mischievously, but she flushed a little.
“Still, the man doesn't amount to much, after all, perhaps. I might as well own up at the beginning—I'm the man.”
“That will do for you to say, as long as you're telling the story,” smiled Billy. “We'll let it pass for proper modesty on your part. But I shall say—the personal touch only adds to the interest.”
Arkwright drew in his breath.
“We'll hope—it'll really be so,” he murmured.
There was a moment's silence. Arkwright seemed to be hesitating what to say.
“Well?” prompted Billy, with a smile. “We have the hero and the heroine; now what happens next? Do you know,” she added, “I have always thought that part must bother the story-writers—to get the couple to doing interesting things, after they'd got them introduced.”
Arkwright sighed.
“Perhaps—on paper; but, you see, my story has been lived, so far. So it's quite different.”
“Very well, then—what did happen?” smiled Billy.
“I was trying to think—of the first thing. You see it began with a picture, a photograph of the girl. Mother had it. I saw it, and wanted it, and—” Arkwright had started to say “and took it.” But he stopped with the last two words unsaid. It was not time, yet, he deemed, to tell this girl how much that picture had been to him for so many months past. He hurried on a little precipitately. “You see, I had heard about this girl a lot; and I liked—what I heard.”
“You mean—you didn't know her—at the first?” Billy's eyes were surprised. Billy had supposed that Arkwright had always known Alice Greggory.
“No, I didn't know the girl—till afterwards. Before that I was always dreaming and wondering what she would be like.”
“Oh!” Billy subsided into her chair, still with the puzzled questioning in her eyes.
“Then I met her.”
“Yes?”
“And she was everything and more than I had pictured her.”
“And you fell in love at once?” Billy's voice had grown confident again.
“Oh, I was already in love,” sighed Arkwright. “I simply sank deeper.”
“Oh-h!” breathed Billy, sympathetically. “And the girl?”
“She didn't care—or know—for a long time. I'm not really sure she cares—or knows—even now.” Arkwright's eyes were wistfully fixed on Billy's face.
“Oh, but you can't tell, always, about girls,” murmured Billy, hurriedly. A faint pink had stolen to her forehead. She was thinking of Alice Greggory, and wondering if, indeed, Alice did care; and if she, Billy, might dare to assure this man—what she believed to be true—that his sweetheart was only waiting for him to come to her and tell her that he loved her.
Arkwright saw the color sweep to Billy's forehead, and took sudden courage. He leaned forward eagerly. A tender light came to his eyes. The expression on his face was unmistakable.
“Billy, do you mean, really, that there is—hope for me?” he begged brokenly.
Billy gave a visible start. A quick something like shocked terror came to her eyes. She drew back and would have risen to her feet had the thought not come to her that twice before she had supposed a man was making love to her, when subsequent events proved that she had been mortifyingly mistaken: once when Cyril had told her of his love for Marie; and again when William had asked her to come back as a daughter to the house she had left desolate.
Telling herself sternly now not to be for the third time a “foolish little simpleton,” she summoned all her wits, forced a cheery smile to her lips, and said:
“Well, really, Mr. Arkwright, of course I can't answer for the girl, so I'm not the one to give hope; and—”
“But you are the one,” interrupted the man, passionately. “You're the only one! As if from the very first I hadn't loved you, and—”
“No, no, not that—not that! I'm mistaken! I'm not understanding what you mean,” pleaded a horror-stricken voice. Billy was on her feet now, holding up two protesting hands, palms outward.
“Miss Neilson, you don't mean—that you haven't known—all this time—that it was you?” The man, now, was on his feet, his eyes hurt and unbelieving, looking into hers.
Billy paled. She began slowly to back away. Her eyes, still fixed on his, carried the shrinking terror of one who sees a horrid vision.
“But you know—you must know that I am not yours to win!” she reproached him sharply. “I'm to be Bertram Henshaw's—wife.” From Billy's shocked young lips the word dropped with a ringing force that was at once accusatory and prohibitive. It was as if, by the mere utterance of the word, wife, she had drawn a sacred circle about her and placed herself in sanctuary.
From the blazing accusation in her eyes Arkwright fell back.
“Wife! You are to be Bertram Henshaw's wife!” he exclaimed. There was no mistaking the amazed incredulity on his face.
Billy caught her breath. The righteous indignation in her eyes fled, and a terrified appeal took its place.
“You don't mean that you didn't—know?” she faltered.
There was a moment's silence. A power quite outside herself kept Billy's eyes on Arkwright's face, and forced her to watch the change there from unbelief to belief, and from belief to set misery.
“No, I did not know,” said the man then, dully, as he turned, rested his arm on the mantel behind him, and half shielded his face with his hand.
Billy sank into a low chair. Her fingers fluttered nervously to her throat. Her piteous, beseeching eyes were on the broad back and bent head of the man before her.
“But I—I don't see how you could have helped—knowing,” she stammered at last. “I don't see how such a thing could have happened that you shouldn't know!”
“I've been trying to think, myself,” returned the man, still in a dull, emotionless voice.
“It's been so—so much a matter of course. I supposed everybody knew it,” maintained Billy.
“Perhaps that's just it—that it was—so much a matter of course,” rejoined the man. “You see, I know very few of your friends, anyway—who would be apt to mention it to me.”
“But the announcements—oh, you weren't here then,” moaned Billy. “But you must have known that—that he came here a good deal—that we were together so much!”
“To a certain extent, yes,” sighed Arkwright. “But I took your friendship with him and his brothers as—as a matter of course. That was my 'matter of course,' you see,” he went on bitterly. “I knew you were Mr. William Henshaw's namesake, and Calderwell had told me the story of your coming to them when you were left alone in the world. Calderwell had said, too, that—” Arkwright paused, then hurried on a little constrainedly—“well, he said something that led me to think Mr. Bertram Henshaw was not a marrying man, anyway.”
Billy winced and changed color. She had noticed the pause, and she knew very well what it was that Calderwell had said to occasion that pause. Must always she be reminded that no one expected Bertram Henshaw to love any girl—except to paint?
“But—but Mr. Calderwell must know about the engagement—now,” she stammered.
“Very likely, but I have not happened to hear from him since my arrival in Boston. We do not correspond.”
There was a long silence, then Arkwright spoke again.
“I think I understand now—many things. I wonder I did not see them before; but I never thought of Bertram Henshaw's being—If Calderwell hadn't said—” Again Arkwright stopped with his sentence half complete, and again Billy winced. “I've been a blind fool. I was so intent on my own—I've been a blind fool; that's all,” repeated Arkwright, with a break in his voice.
Billy tried to speak, but instead of words, there came only a choking sob.
Arkwright turned sharply.
“Miss Neilson, don't—please,” he begged. “There is no need that you should suffer—too.”
“But I am so ashamed that such a thing could happen,” she faltered. “I'm sure, some way, I must be to blame. But I never thought. I was blind, too. I was wrapped up in my own affairs. I never suspected. I never even thought to suspect! I thought of course you knew. It was just the music that brought us together, I supposed; and you were just like one of the family, anyway. I always thought of you as Aunt Hannah's—” She stopped with a vivid blush.
“As Aunt Hannah's niece, Mary Jane, of course,” supplied Arkwright, bitterly, turning back to his old position. “And that was my own fault, too. My name, Miss Neilson, is Michael Jeremiah,” he went on wearily, after a moment's hesitation, his voice showing his utter abandonment to despair. “When a boy at school I got heartily sick of the 'Mike' and the 'Jerry' and the even worse 'Tom and Jerry' that my young friends delighted in; so as soon as possible I sought obscurity and peace in 'M. J.' Much to my surprise and annoyance the initials proved to be little better, for they became at once the biggest sort of whet to people's curiosity. Naturally, the more determined persistent inquirers were to know the name, the more determined I became that they shouldn't. All very silly and very foolish, of course. Certainly it seems so now,” he finished.
Billy was silent. She was trying to find something, anything, to say, when Arkwright began speaking again, still in that dull, hopeless voice that Billy thought would break her heart.
“As for the 'Mary Jane'—that was another foolishness, of course. My small brothers and sisters originated it; others followed, on occasion, even Calderwell. Perhaps you did not know, but he was the friend who, by his laughing question, 'Why don't you, Mary Jane?' put into my head the crazy scheme of writing to Aunt Hannah and letting her think I was a real Mary Jane. You see what I stooped to do, Miss Neilson, for the chance of meeting and knowing you.”
Billy gave a low cry. She had suddenly remembered the beginning of Arkwright's story. For the first time she realized that he had been talking then about herself, not Alice Greggory.
“But you don't mean that you—cared—that I was the—” She could not finish.
Arkwright turned from the mantel with a gesture of utter despair.
“Yes, I cared then. I had heard of you. I had sung your songs. I was determined to meet you. So I came—and met you. After that I was more determined than ever to win you. Perhaps you see, now, why I was so blind to—to any other possibility. But it doesn't do any good—to talk like this. I understand now. Only, please, don't blame yourself,” he begged as he saw her eyes fill with tears. The next moment he was gone.
Billy had turned away and was crying softly, so she did not see him go.