Kitabı oku: «The Inner Flame», sayfa 8

That gentleman now appeared, stout and with tousled hair, which suggested that he had just risen from slumber.

"This is Eliza Brewster, Morris, and she has brought us a pet," said Mrs. Wright pleasantly.

The host shook hands with the newcomer with sufficient grace and eyed the basket curiously. Captain James looked benignly on the group.

"Eliza and me have been lookin' backward as we came along," he said. "We used to race and tear around this hill – she says 'twas a hundred years ago, but don't you believe it. I'm goin' to bring a bob-sled, first snow, and sail her down the hill and make her think 'twa'n't more'n yesterday that we did it last."

The smile on Eliza's haggard face but made her fatigue more evident.

"Where's the trunk, Cap'n James?" asked Mrs. Wright.

"I'm goin' to fetch it right up. Git ap, Tom."

"Hurry in, Mrs. Wright," said Eliza, her care-taking instinct asserting itself. "You'll take cold."

"Not a bit of it," was the reply as the hostess led the way in; "I never take anything that doesn't belong to me."

There was a cheerful fire blazing in the living-room and Eliza was at once seated before it and made to feel for a second time like an honored guest.

"I'll let Pluto out, first thing, if you don't mind," she said, and unfastened the basket.

Mr. Wright, his eyes indolently curious under the rumpled grey hair, watched the proceeding.

"A Manx cat," he remarked as the prisoner leaped out. Pluto's green eyes blazed in the moment that he stood and looked about him.

"Here, poor thing," said Eliza, "your troubles are over. There's a fire such as you've never seen in all your days."

But the outraged cat scorned the fire, scorned even Eliza's caressing hand. Leaping from her touch he descried the lounge; and thanking the gods of his Egyptian ancestors that at last he had reached a place where furniture accorded hiding-places, he dashed into the darkest corner its valance concealed.

"He's kind o' put out by all he's been through," said Eliza apologetically.

Mr. Wright went to the couch and stooping lifted the valance.

"Shall I get him for you?" he asked.

Two green eyes blazed at him from the darkness and a vigorous spitting warned him away.

"Please just let him sulk a little while," said Eliza hastily. Supposing Pluto should inaugurate their visit by scratching the host! Awful thought! "He's a real good cat in his way," she added.

"Well, I'm certainly not invited under the lounge," said Mr. Wright, straightening up.

"I didn't know anybody to give him to," went on Eliza, still apologetic. "Mr. Sidney said he would have taken him if he'd known."

"Mr. Sidney. That's Mrs. Ballard's young artist, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Wright, who was boiling a kettle over an alcohol lamp at a tea-table in the corner of the room.

"Yes – we spent our last day with him in his stable."

"His what, Eliza?"

"His stable. He's found one for a studio in a real stylish place up in Gramercy Park where the folks have gone to Europe. He's as tickled as if he owned the whole big house."

"I'm glad he's found a place to suit him. You like him very much, don't you, Eliza?"

"He couldn't be any better," said Eliza simply. "We'd 'a' had a real nice visit only the Fabian children came in, Edgar and Kathleen."

"Oh, how are they?" asked Mrs. Wright with interest.

"They seemed to be all right. I hadn't seen 'em for years."

Mrs. Wright remembered Eliza's criticism of Mrs. Fabian on the occasion of the call she made upon her in New York.

"Just turn your head," she said, "and you can see right from where you are sitting the fine cottage Mr. Fabian built here five years ago in place of the old one his wife owned."

Eliza turned and looked out the window. Far across the field and an intervening wall she could see a house built of boulders, low and broad, and obtained glimpses of its wide verandas.

"It's a charming place," went on Mrs. Wright, "and they have a delightful small yacht. We became acquainted with them during the last fortnight of Violet's stay in the summer and she had a few fine sails with them."

Here the hostess rose and brought Eliza a cup of fragrant tea.

The guest started. "The idea of your waitin' on me, Mrs. Wright," she said humbly.

"Oh, making tea is fun, Eliza; and I want you to drink that before I take you to your room. This isn't any steam-heated apartment, as you remember."

As she spoke, Mrs. Wright took a cup of tea to her husband, who was sitting on the couch, occasionally lifting the valance and peering beneath, apparently vastly entertained by the feline explosions with which Pluto, his sharp teeth bared, spat at the intrusion.

"You won't put your hand under, will you, Mr. Wright?" asked Eliza anxiously. "Pluto's so quick you'd think 'twas lightnin' struck you. I'm ashamed of him with this good fire; but he had an awful time with boys once and that's where his tail went, and I don't feel to blame him so much as if he hadn't ever suffered any. He's scarcely seen any men except Mr. Sidney. He was clever to him always, but I don't know as Pluto'll forgive him now for shuttin' him up in the basket. Oh!" Eliza heaved a sigh of relief, "I'm so glad we've got here."

"I've put an oil-stove in your room, Eliza," said Mrs. Wright, as all three sat sipping their tea.

"That's real nice," returned Eliza. "Mr. Sidney's got an oil-stove. I do hope he won't smoke up everything. I tried to scare him, – told him he'd ruin his pictures."

"We shall watch to see him make the success Mrs. Ballard expected," said Mrs. Wright kindly, seeing that Eliza's heart was much with her dear one's heir.

"He couldn't make anything but a success," responded Eliza.

Presently her trunk arrived and was carried into the bedroom which Mrs. Wright had arranged for her. It was on the ground floor. All the second story of the house was to be left unused in the cold weather.

In the evening Captain James came back a third time to play checkers with Mr. Wright. It seemed to be a daily custom; but soon after the supper dishes were washed, Mrs. Wright insisted on her tired guest getting into bed for a long night's rest.

Pluto had leaped to the shed and thence out into the black darkness of the cloud-laden night.

Eliza went to the door to call him, but her most ingratiating invitations were ignored.

"Oh, go to bed, Eliza," said Captain James, who had just opened the checker-board. "What ye 'fraid of? 'Fraid he'll jump off the bank? He ain't fond enough o' the water, I'll bet. Go to bed and don't worry. Haven't ye ever heard the song, 'The cat came back, he couldn't stay away'?"

"You know, James," said Eliza, ashamed of her anxiety, but nevertheless too much affected by it to seek her pillow while her pet was homeless, "you know it's places, not people, with a cat, selfish critters."

"Well," responded the captain, "he can't get back to New York 'cause the walkin' 's so poor." As he spoke, a dark shadow passed into the light that streamed from the window.

With the quickest movement of her life, Eliza jumped off the doorstep and pounced upon it. It was Pluto, and she held him under her arm with a vice-like grip as she reëntered the house.

"Good-night, all," she said, rather shamefaced.

"Good-night, Eliza," said Mrs. Wright, who had taken up a book. "Your lamp is lighted."

When Eliza had reached her room, she closed the door and dropped the cat, who leaped toward it, and finding exit hopeless, looked up at her, night-fires gleaming in his eyes.

"See here, Pluto," said Eliza severely, "will you stop actin' so crazy? I tell you we're home; home. If ever two folks ought to be filled to the brim with gratitude it's you and me. I'll give you a chance to look around here in daylight and get your bearin's, and then, if you don't behave as if you had some sense, I'll put you in the chicken-house and you shall live there. Do you hear that?"

She stooped to smooth the jetty fur to offset in a measure her severity; but Pluto glided from beneath her hand and took refuge beneath the bed.

"Well, of all the fools!" she soliloquized. Nevertheless she knew what the temperature of the room would be by the small hours, and, taking an old knitted grey shawl from her trunk, she threw it under the bed.

CHAPTER XI
MRS. FABIAN'S GIFTS

Mrs. Fabian had taken her daughter to the train before she appeared to Pat's amazed eyes at the stable door. Her chagrin at discovering the removal of the barrel did not prevent her recognition of the discomforts of Phil's north-lighted chamber. Her nostrils dilated as she looked about her at the rumpled pile of blankets where the artist had evidently slept; the unlighted stove, and the open windows through which came an eager and a nipping air.

"Poor boy! Poor boy!" she said to herself repeatedly.

She had had an unpleasant fifteen minutes with Kathleen in the motor, for the girl had asked her directly if she intended to kidnap the missent barrel, and she had replied in an emphatic affirmative.

"Would you rather have those old dishes than Mr. Sidney's respect?" Kathleen asked her.

Mrs. Fabian looked her surprise. "It sounds very absurd to hear you call Phil 'Mr. Sidney,'" she said, fencing. "Don't you remember your Aunt Mary Sidney?"

"Indeed, I do."

Mrs. Fabian's mind was of the sort which associates social status indissolubly with money. She had always felt that in winning a millionaire for a husband, she had married above her; and, shaking off her own humble family connection wherever possible, had tried to be as nearly all Fabian as circumstances permitted. Her step-children had therefore never been expected or requested to adopt her relatives as their own. She now referred to the one memorable visit of Phil's beautiful mother to their island home, for Kathleen's persistent formality in referring to the artist brought a flush to her cheeks.

If Kathleen, the proud, the reserved, the self-contained, were to pronounce upon the young man unfavorably, she should have nothing to say to the contrary, though she would continue to be kind to Mary's child in private.

"I was only thinking," she continued, "that if you still remember his mother in your thoughts as your Aunt Mary, it seems rather formal to tack a Mr. upon Philip. You know, Kathleen," Mrs. Fabian's flush deepened, "I did not ask you to go to see him. I wanted Edgar to go, for the looks of the thing, since Phil is an entire stranger, and when I found he never would go by himself, I was thankful that you took him. You have been so – so grouchy ever since, that I'm sorry you went; but I don't see why you should blame me for it. It was your own proposition."

"I know, mother," returned the girl; "and if you will promise not to go over there and take the tea-set I'll not be grouchy." The dark eyes lifted wistfully to Mrs. Fabian's astonished countenance.

"What do you mean by my forfeiting Phil's respect?" she asked. "Do you mean that he wants them so much? Why, they'll be smashed or stolen in that rough place. They'll be nothing but a nuisance to him."

"They belong to Eliza," pleaded Kathleen.

"They belong to me!" retorted Mrs. Fabian explosively. "Philip will see that at once."

Kathleen's lips closed. They had arrived at the station, and she said no more; but she departed with one consoling thought. Mrs. Fabian had misdirected herself and Edgar the day before. Perhaps she could not find the place to-day; but that lady, as soon as the car door was closed on her child, spoke through the tube to the chauffeur.

"Drive," she said, "to the same place in Gramercy Park where you took Miss Kathleen yesterday."

Soon she was face to face with Pat, and presently standing in Phil's forlorn apartment. The pieces of Mrs. Ballard's bedstead were still leaning against the wall.

She pictured Kathleen the fastidious, the dainty, perching on that pile of blankets; but if the girl had despised the poverty-stricken art-student, why was she so strenuous and persistent as to retaining his respect? Why had she left for the studio in the best of spirits, and returned distrait, behaving in an absent-minded manner ever since.

"Kathleen is a great deal more tenderhearted than she appears. I believe she pitied Phil so much it made her blue, and she couldn't bear to have me take away the only pretty things he had. Well, it seems I'm not going to!"

Mrs. Fabian even opened the closet door. A few suits of clothes hung within, but the rest was chaos; and in that chaos no welcome curves of a barrel were to be found. Her alert eyes made a hasty but comprehensive search of the room.

"The boy drank his coffee out of that mug!" she decided. "He is not in a mountain camp and he shall not live as if he were. He shall see that he is not dependent on Eliza Brewster for the decencies of life!"

Then followed her descent upon Pat, her catechism, and her magnificent departure.

Scarcely had Phil received the Irishman's account of the visit and gone up to his room that afternoon, when he heard a knocking on the stable door; and when Pat had opened it, a violent expletive from somebody.

Phil stood still to listen. Surely he could not be connected with the present invasion, whatever it might be. His circle of acquaintance in Gotham had come, done its best and its worst, and departed for all time.

"Misther Sidney, sor," yelled Pat from the foot of the stairs. "'T is the barr'l come back. Sure, and is it worth while totin' it up, whin it can't be at rest!"

"It isn't for me," called Phil, coming out in his little hallway. "I refuse to live in such a whirl of excitement."

"It is fer you, else all the money spint on me eddication is gone fer nothin' – and faith there's more to follow," added Pat, in a tone of such sudden surprise that Phil ran downstairs faster than he had gone up. A couch was approaching the stable door. This was followed by several large packages, upon one of which was tied a letter, and at last a Morris chair entered upon the scene.

"Ye're the very soul of extravagance," said Pat severely, when the delivery man had departed. "If ye're a poor art-shtudent, say so; but if ye're a prince in disguise, out with it!"

"This is a surprise party if I ever had one," declared Phil slowly, staring around at the objects.

"Poor art-shtudents don't buy iligant couches with box springs long enough fer the lord mayor!" said Pat, unconvinced. "What brings ye to a stable whin ye've the Queen o' Sheby fer an aunt?"

At the word a light illumined the situation.

"For a fact, Pat! You did tell me my aunt was here!" And in a flash Phil's mind reverted to Kathleen with a sensation of gratitude. In some way she had prevented the disagreeable details of yesterday from angering her mother.

"Give me a hand up, Pat," he said. "I'll guarantee this barrel will stay where it's put."

When they had all the articles upstairs, Phil found himself possessed of a springy bed with ample clothing for the night, and ample couch cushions for day; well-selected dishes, alcohol lamp and copper kettle, and a table on which to stand them, a reading-lamp, and the easy-chair.

"What do you think of it?" he said, looking about half-dazed.

"I think ye're in the wrong box, bein' in a stable," answered Pat, scratching his head in perplexity.

"No, no," Phil laughed; "a box stall for me. Wait till you see me scattering paint around here."

"Faith, I have me doubts o' you," said Pat.

His Irish dislike of voicing the unpleasant withheld him from expressing his thought; but as he regarded Phil now, standing coatless, and with tossed hair, looking about his transformed apartment, he decided that he was viewing the black sheep of a wealthy family, the masculine members of which had left him to his own poverty-stricken devices, while his softer-hearted female relatives were surreptitiously ameliorating his hard lot. It was difficult to see Phil in the rôle of black sheep, but Pat was sophisticated and knew that appearances were deceitful.

"Pat," said the perplexing tenant suddenly, "I begin to believe I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I'm the happiest fellow in the world."

"Sure a man doesn't say that till his wedding-day," objected Pat.

Phil smiled confidently. "I told you I had the girl; and she's the faithfullest of the faithful."

"You bet she is," returned the Irishman devoutly. "Whativer you've done, the gurr'l gets her hands on you once'll niver let go."

"Whatever I've done? What do you think I've done?" laughed Phil. "Here's my mother. Want to see her?" And he sorted several leaves from the pile of sketches and laid them out on the new table.

"It's swate she is!" said the Irishman, gazing with interest; and, perceiving the expression in the artist's eyes as he looked upon the pictures, he spoke suspiciously: "She ain't the gurr'l ye're talkin' of?"

"No, no," returned Phil, "but she entirely approves of the match."

"That helps, ye know," said Pat benevolently. "'Tis well to get airly settled in life, thin if" – he made a lenient gesture – "if ye've played too many cards or made any other mistakes, ye soon lave thim behind ye and there's little time wasted."

That evening Phil called up the Fabian house, and, finding that Mrs. Fabian was to be at home, soon presented himself in that lady's boudoir.

Mrs. Fabian, in a becoming négligée, sat before an open fire; a soft lamp at her elbow, and a French novel in her hand.

"You know the naughty things in a French story are so stimulating, Phil," she explained, when he commented on her book. "You wouldn't think of reading the same things in English; but you get so curious to know what it's all about, that you work, and study, and I find it very helpful. Excuse my not rising to greet you. I've had an exhausting day; so as Edgar wasn't coming home, and Mr. Fabian had to attend a banquet, I had my dinner brought to me here."

"I'm sure it is I who have exhausted you," said Phil, drawing his chair close to the luxurious downy nest which was embracing her plump person. "I don't know what to say to you, Aunt Isabel," he added gratefully, regarding her as she half-reclined, a living example of what can be accomplished by beauty-doctor and accomplished maid.

She placed her white hand, with its perfect rosy tips, for an instant on his, then she patted the folds of her violet gown.

"Now, don't say a word, my dear," she returned, complacency lighting her countenance. Her husband had little time for compliments, Edgar was uniformly ungrateful, and Phil was very handsome. She remembered how charming had seemed to her the relation between him and his mother; and she felt a longing to evoke something like that affection for herself.

"But, indeed, I shall say a great deal," he declared. "You've turned my camp over there into the lap of luxury. I go on accepting things, everybody seems in a conspiracy to prevent my having any hardships, so I suspect I'm going to catch them at the school."

"Aren't the teachers agreeable?"

"Well, I've been there only a few days, but I see already that doctors disagree there as they do elsewhere. One comes and tells you you're all right, and the next declares you're all wrong; but I'm after the fundamental training I've never had, and I'm going to get it if I make their lives a burden to them."

"I don't pretend to know anything about art, Phil," said the hostess complacently, "and I'm not going to add that I know what I like, either, so you needn't smile at the fire; but from those sketches of yours that I saw out at the mine I could see that you were bound to accomplish something if you had free rein. Kathleen was delighted with them."

"I was much pleased to meet Miss Fabian," said Phil.

"Dear me, why should you children be so formal!" exclaimed his hostess. "'Miss Fabian'! 'Mr. Sidney'! It's ridiculous when you consider your mother and me – more like sisters than cousins as we are."

Philip bit his lip. The description struck him as diverting, considering the lapse of years during which his mother had heard nothing from this cousin.

"I shall be very glad if Miss Fabian will let me know her better," he said.

"It's a very, very strange thing, Phil," went on Mrs. Fabian, shaking her waved head and gazing at the fire, "to be a step-mother. I should have always said that environment was more powerful than heredity; but I've had those children almost from babyhood," – the speaker challenged Phil with impressive eyes, – "and yet I look at them, yes, I assure you, I look at them as a hen might look at the ducks she had hatched."

Phil saw that he was intended to respond, so he changed his position and made a soft, inarticulate exclamation.

"Those children," declared Mrs. Fabian, "would probably both claim that they understood me from a to z; but I am frank enough to state that I understand neither of them. Now, I'm going to tell you, Phil, that I am hanging great hopes upon your influence over Edgar."

"My dear Aunt Isabel!" ejaculated the visitor. Phil's gratitude to this relative did not blind him to her characteristics, or as to how her idle and fashionable life had reflected in the bringing-up or coming-up of her son.

"Now, don't say no, Phil," she went on. "I don't expect that you found any kindred spirit in Edgar, but I'm going to be frank, his father is so out of patience with him that he is severe, and I am hoping that the sight of your economy will show Edgar that something beside extravagance can bring happiness; and the sight of your industry will rebuke his idle tastes."

"I can't conceive of myself as an example to the young," laughed Phil uncomfortably. "I half suspected yesterday that you had been holding me up before Edgar. There aren't any comparisons to be made between a gilded youth and a painter, and I assure you it is no lofty principle that makes me care little where I live and eat. It is only a desire to do a certain thing, so intense that it dwarfs every other need."

"He has overpowering desires, too," said Mrs. Fabian bitterly; "but it is to go yachting and play polo and drink champagne." She sighed. "I suppose I haven't known how to be a good mother," she added with dejection, "but there," – her voice grew suddenly argumentative, – "look at Kathleen! I've brought them up alike, but she is the other extreme. She has no taste for pleasure. She's a natural student and bookworm; and what I am to do with her when she graduates, Heaven only knows. I shall insist upon her coming out," added Mrs. Fabian virtuously. "She must go through the same form as the other girls in her set, and it may be that a reaction will set in and she will find a normal satisfaction in it. It will break my heart if she drops out and becomes one of these poky oddities. Well," – another sigh, – "I mustn't borrow trouble. Were you surprised at my early morning call at your room, Phil? I hoped I should be early enough to catch you."

"I was surprised; but it was a lucky visit for me, even though I was not there."

"I'm glad you're pleased with those little comforts; but I shall be frank, – it was to try to get my grandmother's silver that I went. If you had known you were working against me, Phil, you wouldn't have helped that crazy Eliza to carry the things away."

"They belong to her, she tells me," said Phil simply. "Aunt Mary seemed to think you were living in an embarrassment of riches anyway."

"Then you should have shipped them to your mother. It's quite indecent that a servant should have them. It reflects upon your mother and me. Can't you see that, Phil?"

He stirred his broad shoulders uncomfortably.

"I'm glad you aren't going to blame me for it anyway," he returned, looking at his hostess with a frank smile. "After all they're only things, you know. The important part is how Aunt Mary felt about them, isn't it? You know probably what sort of thoughts she had about you in her last days."

Mrs. Fabian looked at him with quick suspicion as he rose to go. Was he rebuking her in spite of his smile?

"Some people marry into a family," she said after the pause. "Some marry out of one. I did both. I married a man with children, and a big establishment. I simply married out of my family. I didn't have time to attend to both, and any right-minded person can see where my duty lay!"

The virtuousness in the speaker's face and voice were so enveloping that they created an atmosphere in which Phil was able to make his adieux without further embarrassment.