The talkers

The hemlock wore its honey-pale tassels; the white pine its waxen candelabra; the spruce its tender terminals; the balsam was veiled in misty blue. June had begun magnificently in the forest; but the dweller in the Villa Gilda and the boy with the blond head had taken their last dip in Mr. Hanford’s pool, swallowed the last mound of Mr. Hanford’s flap-jacks.

The only fishers in the pools were mink and otter; the only frolickers in the forest the red squirrels. In the Villa Gilda, wood-mice prepared to nest; a porcupine promenaded the porch of the Hotel Sutton.

They had come for a week and had remained a month. Not one shadow had fallen across their Eden. Yet, in that month the girl had learned definitely what manner of man she had to deal with; the youth began to discover in the girl her genius for comradeship.

She found that she had to do with the average American man, inartistic, unimaginative, capable, chaste by habit, law-abiding through custom, kind by inclination, brave through heredity.

There was no glimmer about him. The qualities he had, shone. To her they formed a steady aureole. His instinctive cleanliness of mind and person fascinated her. He was 28 but utterly a boy. Only the restlessly intellectual mature and age early, not this average, crisp-blond type with little imagination to worry it, no excesses to over-ripen it, nothing morbid to regret.

The boy-man was normal. He knew his mate when he saw her. And she knew hers. Subtler than he, she had realised it at their first encounter. Perhaps that was why, conscious of non-fulfilment, she had passionately returned his kiss.

Well, their destiny was clear to her now. Earth held for her only this man.

As for Stuart, her unfeigned interest in what interested him was a thrilling revelation.

Timber, the growing of timber, its cutting, its selling—these things had been the principal, the vital interest in his family for generations. It was his principal interest. He wished it to be his son’s. And now, when his lips rested on this young girl’s soft hand, he felt that it would be.

Mentally, to her, he accredited all that was to be intellectually sensitive and imaginatively fine in the visionary family which he so vaguely evoked.

Hers the aspiration of talent and cultivation. She the source of mental exhilaration, the medium through which he was to understand and care for those things of the mind to which he had been unresponsive.

But even so, what a stimulating and delicious comrade had he found to walk with him on his own plane, listen to him, understand him, labour with him, play with him upon the common playground of the average man.

Men of his race loved but once, married fairly early or never. There was no other woman for him. There had been none before her. His ability to love could not survive her. His only chance was this girl. And he must take that chance if it lasted a lifetime.

Thus their mutual conclusion after a month together.

But their journey back to town was not entirely a gay one. There was reaction, defiant, pleasurable, piqued by a sort of indefinable apprehension.

That they had shattered all canons of convention had something to do with their rather excited state of mind, no doubt. That they had nothing else to regret ought to have been a balm.

She said, laughingly, when they reached the Mohawk Valley: “I have a plaguey premonition that we’re going to hear from this escapade.”

“I don’t see how,” he said, forcing a smile but feeling a trifle uncomfortable.

“I don’t, either. Gossip can’t travel through a wilderness. Anyway, those nice men thought no harm of us.”

“Fancy Leggett or Mike thinking scandal,” he said, smiling at her.

“And there wasn’t any,” she added.

They ought to have been mutually reassured.

“I don’t suppose your aunt came back to town?” he ventured.

“I don’t imagine so. But she’ll be coming very soon. She sails from New York.... I never thought to speak to Freda. Do you suppose that woman would tell anybody that I went away for a month with you?”

“Good heavens, no,” he said, a little startled.

Gilda remained silent, her eyes gravely absent.

“What is on your mind, dear?” he inquired uneasily.

“Nothing. I was wondering, for the first time, what that woman really thinks of us.”

“It doesn’t matter, does it?”

“I suppose not.... Still, if she’s got a mind she thinks with it.... I’ve had to write her. I’ve had to send her wages.... I wasn’t concerned at the time but I suppose it would have been more sensible if we hadn’t had the expressman check our hand-luggage from my apartment.”

“Nothing will happen,” he said, more carelessly than he felt.

“No.... Your people are not in town, are they, Stuart?”

“They’re on their way back, I believe——”

A white clad negro bent ceremoniously beside her: “Dinner is served in the dining car, madam,” he murmured; bowed again to Stuart, and continued his ceremonious progress through the car.

They arrived in town at noon on a cloudless day in early June.

Gilda had telegraphed Freda to prepare luncheon for two. No trace of uneasiness remained to cloud the gay excitement of their home-coming. Red-caps piled their taxi with luggage; their vehicle swung into Madison Avenue. It was but a five-minute drive.

Stuart and the driver carried up the baggage. Freda welcomed them with a pale Scandinavian smile.

“Oh, Stuart!” cried the girl, “it does look nice!”

She stood by the piled luggage in the sitting-room, unpinning her hat and looking happily about at the familiar place.

“It looks jolly comfortable,” he admitted, tossing hat and light coat on the sofa. Gilda flung her hat after them, caught his hand, and walked him slowly about the apartment.

“Why shouldn’t we like it?” she murmured. “You told me you loved me in this room. Every thing means you, here.”

They looked soberly at the four walls which had witnessed already so much that had been happy and tragic in their brief existence together. They walked into her bedroom and she seated herself before her mirror and began to unpin her ruddy hair.

“Scrub first, if you like, darling,” she said; “and try to remember which tooth-brush is yours.”

At luncheon it was arranged that he should go down town to the office, stop at his own house on the way back and dress, call for her and take her to the Ritz for dinner.

“I’ll leave my luggage now, and carry it home tonight,” he said. “I’m going to take the subway to the office.... You look wonderfully fit, Gilda,” he added, lingering sentimentally.

“I’ll have a fit if you don’t go,” she said. “I’ve simply got to look over my wardrobe if you expect me to dine out with you, darling.”

But when he opened the door to go she detained him, wound her arms tightly around his neck.

“You have given me the most beautiful month in my life,” she said. “I hope God will let me make it up to you—a year for every day of happiness you gave me....”

At the office of Sutton & Sons he nodded smilingly right and left in return for greetings.

In the outer office Miss Tower smiled primly upon him.

“Mr. Sutton senior is here,” she said.

“What!” he exclaimed.

“Your father is here, Mr. Stuart.”

“Where?”

“In the private office, sir.”

He found his father there talking with Mr. Connolly, department chief. Amenities were exchanged; Mr. Connolly left.

“Well, for heaven’s sake, dad! I didn’t expect you and mother until Thursday.”

“We came on. We got here day before yesterday. When did you arrive from the forest, Stuart?”

“Just now. We—I got in about noon.”

“Oh. You lunched at home.”

“No——”

“Oh. You haven’t seen your mother?”

“I had no idea she was home.”

“She’ll know you are by your luggage,” remarked his father.

Stuart reddened violently, went over to his desk and fumbled the mail.

“Well,” said his father, “you put over the new deal, I hear.”

“I did. How did you hear, dad?”

“One of their surveyors from Chazy was in here a little while ago.”

“Which?” asked the boy involuntarily.

“Anderson.”

Stuart’s face pulsated with hot, surging colour as he bent lower over the papers on the desk. His father, twirling his eyeglasses by the silk cord, was looking out of the window.

“Did you and mother have a good time in California?” the boy managed to inquire.

“Very.... Who did you take to the Forest, Stuart?”

“What?”

“Who was it you had up there?” repeated his father, not looking at him.

“I’m not quite sure I understand you,” said the boy.

“Didn’t you have some people as guests up there?” inquired Sutton senior, glancing casually at his only son.

“Yes.”

“Do you mind saying who they were?”

“There was only one.”

“Oh. I thought you had a girl or two in the party.”

Silence was too nearly a lie. The boy said: “There was a girl.”

“So I heard from Jock Anderson. Is she anybody your mother and I know?”

“No.”

His father said carelessly: “All right. No doubt she was well looked after.”

Silence, again, was conniving at untruth.

“There was nobody else,” said the boy, “—no other woman.”

After a silence:

“Well, old chap, wasn’t that rather idiotic?” suggested his father calmly.

“It really wasn’t, dad.”

“It really was,” retorted Sutton senior. “Do you care to talk about it, Stuart?”

“Yes.... Not now.”

“At your convenience, my son.”

He got up: “Glad to see you back, Stuart. Glad to be back. Heron Nest must be charming. I think your mother and I will go up this week. Will you be home to dinner?”

“I’ll see mother. I’m dining out.”

“Come in for tea then. We have a guest. It would be civil to speak to her.”

“All right, dad; I’ll be home by five.”

They shook hands—his father dropped one hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Don’t ever be afraid of me, Stuart.”

“No.... Besides, dad, I have nothing to be afraid of.... I was going to tell you all about it anyway ... when the proper time arrived.... I’m all right, you know.”

“Yes, I do know.... And if you’d been an ass, you’re my son.... Also, you are Sutton & Son.... You talk to me when you’re ready. That’s what I’m for.”

“You’re a corker, dad.... What did Anderson say?”

“Well, to be plain, he said you had a very pretty girl up there named Miss Greenway, occupying the shanty next to yours.”

“It sounds rather awful, doesn’t it?” said the boy.

“Well——”

“Don’t mention it to mother, will you?”

“I didn’t intend to,” replied his father drily.

“I’ll tell her myself some day. It’ll be all right. Don’t worry, dad.”

They exchanged a hand-grip. His father went out.

Stuart tried to read his mail, but couldn’t. This business was going to worry Gilda. Not that it could matter, ultimately. But there had been obstacles enough without adding this one.

There seemed to be no point in telephoning her about the episode. They’d dine, then he’d tell her.

He turned again to his letters but the depression persisted. He was sorry his father had first learned about Gilda in that way. He felt a hot animosity toward Anderson. Probably the fool meant no mischief—yet he might have, too. He was just one of the vast brotherhood of Talkers—low in the scale because he had only petty gossip to detail—low enough to be stupid—too low to know, instinctively, when to hold his gabbling tongue.

He went up town about five and walked across to his own house, using his latch-key to enter.

From the east drawing-room came social noises—modulated voices, the clink of the tea cup.

He laid his hat on the console and walked in.

There were a number of people there. He kissed his mother, paid his compliments to her friends. One woman he had not met, but approached in his friendly, boyish way.

“My son, Stuart,” said his mother, smilingly; and, to him: “Lady Glyndale, Stuart, with whom we came East.”

He took a cup of tea beside Lady Glyndale.

“Do you like California?” he asked politely.

“Yes, excepting the natives,” she replied with British frankness.

“I thought them rather nice,” he said, smiling.

“I daresay there are few nice ones. The natives are a poor lot, poor farmers, slothful, stupid. The Japanese are far more interesting, better farmers, better tenants. It’s rather extraordinary your wishing to get rid of them.”

“I don’t know very much about the squabble between California and Japan,” he admitted.

“You should,” she remarked.

Which was perfectly true, and the young man winced.

He talked to others, exchanged a few words with his mother, when opportunity offered.

Sideways he inspected Lady Glyndale and found her typical—arched eyebrows and small, flat feet; high bridged nose and little gouty hands; high-coloured and flat as a board at the back; and with that indefinable something that slightly irritates, slightly amuses, and wholly commands respect—the unmistakable aura of race and breeding.

He thought: “Whatever you think of them you can count on them every time.”

He asked her if she’d had any tuna fishing at Catalina.

She did not warm but became seriously animated. They discussed tuna and tarpon.

Then, having to dress, he made his adieux, regretted his inability to dine at home, and expressed his pleasure that Lady Glyndale was to be their guest.

“You shall tell me more about your tuna,” she said. “I read late in your climate. I don’t know how anybody sleeps at all in your American air.”

When he was dressed he went out into the June evening and hailed a taxi. All the western streets were bathed in the rosy glory of the setting sun.

In dinner coat and straw hat he felt the happy relaxation of informal summer; lay back in the open vehicle to savour a cigarette and gaze at the familiar streets in their new June setting.

At the door of Gilda’s abode he got out and told the driver to wait.

Freda admitted him. He caught sight of Gilda on the sofa, and went to her. She gave him a rather pale smile and a listless hand.

“Are you all right, dear?” came his invariable and anxious question.

“Yes.... Sit here near me.” She took his hand again, absently, the faint smile still on her lips.

“You’re tired from the journey,” he concluded.

“No.... My aunt came in somewhat unexpectedly.”

“When?”

“About two o’clock.”

There was a silence.

“Well—did it upset you?” he asked.

“A little.... Our luggage lay there where we left it. Your overcoat, too.”

“Oh, Lord!”

She touched his palm, lightly, reflectively, with each finger-tip in turn.

“It was awkward.... I had a bath. I was still in my bath-robe. The bell rang and I heard Freda go.... It was too late to instruct her.

“She showed my aunt in and brought me her card.... So I got into a boudoir robe.... There she sat—with all that damning luggage under her very nose—and your overcoat and stick.... I’d forgotten it. I turned scarlet-hot to my toes.”

“What happened?” he asked, miserably.

“Nothing much. She’d arrived here three days ago. She’d been here every day. Freda forgot to mention it. But yesterday she told my aunt that a telegram had come and I was to arrive today.”

“What did your aunt say?”

“She asked me where I’d been.”

“Did you tell her?”

“Yes. But I didn’t go into details.”

“What did she say about the luggage?”

“Nothing. But I knew she had noticed it.... Stuart, she wants me to sail with her on the 6th.”

He forced a smile: “Are you going to?”

“I was wondering.... I’d like to consult an attorney.”

“Why?”

“About securing my freedom.... If it would help any for me to go abroad——”

The telephone rang on the table beside her. She picked up the receiver.

“Yes?... Yes, this is Miss Greenway.... Oh, I didn’t recognise your voice, Dr. Pockman.... Yes, I have been away nearly a month.... What?.... No, I had no means of knowing it.... Is he seriously ill?... Do you mean he is not going to recover!!!”

For a full minute she sat with the receiver pressed to her ear, terribly intent on what she heard. Then:

“Yes, I’ll come.... Who?... Did he ask for him?... He is here now.... You had better speak to him yourself, Dr. Pockman.”

She passed the receiver to Stuart. Her hand trembled slightly.

“Sadoul is dying,” she said.