Kitabı oku: «Rich Man, Poor Man», sayfa 7

XII

In that gay world of leisure that lies in and round the throbbing artery of uptown Fifth Avenue, time ordinarily flits by as if on hurrying wings; but with Bab, it happened, the fortnight that followed dragged as if every hour plodded on leaden feet.

April had come, and one afternoon early in the month half-past one had just struck when Hibberd, the Beestons' second man, padding softly up the stairs, knocked on the door of her sitting-room. In his discreet, deferent voice, the tone of the well-trained manservant, he announced, "Luncheon is served, please." Laying down the book in her hand, Bab arose. It would not do to say she had been reading; she hadn't. The thoughts running in her mind left little room for anything else. And in these thoughts there was little to comfort her. What had happened, she began to feel, was exactly what might have been expected. Had she not been warned? How, indeed, could the whole thing have been made plainer than in the way Beeston had put it to her! It was thus, feeding on itself, that the suspicion roused by Beeston's slurs had gone on growing, a condition that certain remembrances of her own had in no way improved.

She saw it all now – or so she thought. She remembered, for example, that time now long past when she first had noted Varick's rising interest in her. If then he had not openly made love, still his attitude was next door to it! Had he ever lost a chance to be with her? Had he once omitted the opportunity to make himself singularly pleasant? Bab was sure, quite sure, he had not. He had, in short, amused himself at every occasion! For what else but amusement could it be called? Her good looks had always sufficed to interest him, but not until he knew one day she would have money had he ever taken her seriously.

Day by day her resentment had grown. Day by day, too, she had learned to find in it a kind of styptic balm, a bitter salve for the hurt she first had felt. However, that hurt was passing now; and as Bab arose to make ready for luncheon her spirits manifestly had improved. A new color had come to her cheeks, a new buoyancy to her step. It was as if the harvest of her thoughts this morning had at last brought to her a decision long debated, and that now, once she had reached this conclusion, the shadow had been swept resolutely from her mind.

"Never mind my hat, Mawson," Bab told the angular, bony-faced Englishwoman Miss Elvira had provided to wait on her. "I'll run up for it after luncheon."

"Very good, miss," replied the maid; and her eyes alight with their new animation, perhaps just a little hard, too, Bab hurried down the stairs. Rarely had she looked so self-poised.

That afternoon she was to drive out in a new motor, a racing runabout David Lloyd had just bought; and as she passed swiftly down the long stairway Bab was humming under her breath a familiar bar of music. It was by chance an air that once she had heard someone she knew whistling gayly:

 
La Donna è mobile!
 

And singularly, at the remembrance, she smiled as if lightly amused. But then that is the way of it:

 
Quam plume mal vento!
 

She was, indeed, still singing it as she slipped into the living-room, on her way down, to help herself to a flower or two out of a big bunch that stood in a vase on the table. David that morning had sent them to her, and she knew how his face would light when he saw her wearing them. Of late she had begun to notice rather definitely how readily she could please him. And he, too, pleased her. She had not dreamed that one's own cousin – just a relative, you know – could seem always so charming. But then there was a gentleness, a kindliness and consideration about David that endeared him to everyone. Bab, by the time she had reached the dining-room, seemed much like her smiling, pleasant self again.

At the foot of the luncheon table, ensconced behind a huge, hissing, silver tea-urn, sat Miss Elvira. Her turtle-like jaw was at the moment set squarely. Near by stood David's father, and with him was Mrs. Lloyd. Bab, since that memorable Christmas morning when they'd plied her with their questions about Varick, had seen the two only occasionally, and always in Miss Elvira's presence. However, even thus guarded, the Lloyds somehow still had managed to convey to her a subtle sense of their dislike, so that Bab long had learned to watch for them with disquiet. What was it they had against her? Why were they not like David? Once or twice she had been tempted to appeal to Mrs. Lloyd herself. She was not only Bab's aunt, Bab told herself, she was David's mother too. And could not she see how fond David was of his cousin? But Bab had never made that appeal.

As time progressed and her stay in the house turned into weeks, then months, Bab had seen the air of aloofness they displayed grow more marked. Not that they were ever openly rude. But their politeness, the man's especially, had in it something feline, so that gradually the impression grew on Bab that she was being played with, that beneath the velvety paws keen claws were hidden. She could not understand it. Why did they shrink so from her? As she entered the room Lloyd, starting awkwardly, gave his wife a quick, covert signal of warning. Evidently they had just been talking of her. Miss Elvira looked up, then smiled.

"Well, dear," she murmured aimlessly.

Lloyd, after glancing at the clock, drew out his watch and studied it. Things like this were as near as he came to being rude, but now, it happened, Bab had begun to notice the occurrences. "Four minutes, past!" remarked Lloyd, his tone suggestive; then as crisply he added: "The soufflé will be ruined!"

Miss Elvira looked up swiftly.

"Then don't eat it!" she rejoined; whereat Mr. Lloyd, withdrawing his pale eyes from Bab, gave his wife's aunt a sudden inquiring stare. If he'd planned a retort, however, he instantly reconsidered it. Miss Elvira's mien at the moment did not encourage liberties. Bab all at once was aware something must have occurred. There was an air of tension evident.

At the head of the table old Beeston already had taken his place. Shrugged back in his seat, his gnarled, powerful hands clutching the arms of his chair, he stared fixedly in front of him. His son-in-law he did not seem to see, nor for that matter did he pay much heed to his daughter. It was as if alone and detached he absorbed himself in dour, dark reflection, his sullen, forceful eyes fixed on the vision, whatever it was, that drifted at the moment across the changeful mirror of his mind.

"Hello, dad," murmured Bab.

She paused, bending over his chair, and with both hands patted him on either cheek. Una and the Lion! A grunt escaped him, a deepening rumble, and then the man's dark face, Indian in its swartness, lighted into one of its rare, grudging smiles.

"Hullo, you!" he returned.

Between the two, one saw, all was well again.

Across the room Lloyd had not missed this little by-play. As he seated himself, then picked up his napkin, he shot a covert look at his wife. Mrs. Lloyd, however, was engrossed with Aunt Elvira. It had been planned to give Bab a dance, her first, the week following, and Mrs. Lloyd seemed just to have heard of it. Possibly this accounted for the rather unusual interest she showed.

Beeston suddenly spoke.

"Where's Davy?" he demanded.

"'E'll be down presently, sir. 'E's dressing," the butler informed him. With Hibberd, the second man, Crabbe stood at attention, and bending forward Beeston knocked abruptly on the table. At the signal all but Lloyd became silent.

"A dance?" he was saying. "You giving a dance?"

Beeston, bent forward, had lowered his head; but as his son-in-law's voice raised itself he looked up, his slumberous eyes, in their dark, fierce latency, burning on the speaker. Lloyd in his affected, clipping tone still babbled on.

"Fancy giving a dance to people here!"

With a shock that made the glass and silver ring Beeston's fist struck upon the table.

"Silence!" he said.

He did not raise his voice; he did not need to. The word, spoken with a slow, unhurried evenness, the man's usual rumbling monotone, seemed to crash down upon and obliterate Lloyd much as if he had been hit by a landslide. Shamed and conscious he tugged furiously at his pale mustaches, at the same time glancing guiltily at the two menservants. His eyes, when again they returned to his father-in-law, were hard, angry, resentful. But Beeston did not heed.

"Bless Thou, O Lord, this, food to our use; and make humble our hearts within us. Amen." Then, sitting back abruptly, he stretched out a hand to the glass in front of him. "Some of the '88 Canary, Crabbe; I'll have it with my soup."

Bab raised her eyes. She had been aware of Beeston's opinion of his son-in-law; but behind his contemptuous disdain she detected now an impulse she had not known before – a vindictive wrath, a fury only half hidden. Of that tension in the room Bab from the first had been aware, and now she realized Lloyd must have been the cause of it. What had he been doing? Wondering, she was still sitting there, wrapped in silence, when Mrs. Lloyd broke the uncomfortable pause. About Mrs. Lloyd's bored, impassive voice there was often a sort of disdainful, purring inflection that Bab heard with disquiet. Ordinarily it signaled something disagreeable. Turning to Miss Elvira, Mrs. Lloyd smiled vaguely.

"You haven't told me yet – has that card been sent?"

"What card?" Miss Elvira looked up sharply. Then almost at the same instant she seemed to comprehend. "The card to – to – You mean the one we were talking about?" Her air was obviously uneasy. Beeston, too, seemed interested, for his eye lighted and he glanced sideways at his daughter. Mrs. Lloyd was still smiling vaguely.

"Yes," she returned, "the card for that young man. I'm curious to learn whether he would accept."

Miss Elvira did not reply. In frosty silence she busied herself about the tea-urn; but as Bab sat listening, her interest mildly awakened, she saw Miss Elvira glance swiftly toward her, then away, a signal evidently for the benefit of Mrs. Lloyd. But Mrs. Lloyd, it seemed, had some purpose behind her veiled, vague speeches. She, too, cast a glance at Bab.

"I suggest we send the invitation. At the most he could only refuse. If he accepted we might by chance learn his true attitude toward us."

"Ethel!"

It was Miss Elvira that spoke. Like her brother, she did not raise her voice; neither did she much change its tone. But even so Miss Elvira managed to convey with it a significant something not to be overlooked. Mrs. Lloyd, who was just about to speak again, paused. However, after an inquiring look she began anew: "As I was saying – "

"One lump or two, Ethel?" Miss Elvira abruptly interrupted.

"What? Oh, why two, please. As I was saying – "

"Cream?" asked Miss Elvira.

"Please. As I said – "

"Hibberd, hand me the toast," Miss Elvira again interposed.

In mild wonder Hibberd said there was no toast – should he order some sent up? No, it was not worth while; Miss Elvira did not need it so much as that.

"Cream and sugar, Barbara?" she inquired.

"Yes, please, Aunty Vi," returned Bab. Her aunt's strategy she had not missed. It added to her growing curiosity. Something was going on.

Mrs. Lloyd again glanced at her husband. The two having exchanged a look, Mrs. Lloyd once more applied herself to her aunt. Some strong resolution seemed now to have armed her with determination.

"Aunt Vira, I was just speaking to you," she announced.

Without looking up from the teacups Miss Elvira murmured, "Were you?"

"I asked you," returned Mrs. Lloyd, "whether you'd sent that invitation."

"Yes, I heard you perfectly," Miss Elvira replied calmly.

"Well?"

"Well, what?" was the rejoinder.

An impasse evidently! Obviously the question Mrs. Lloyd seemed so determined to have answered Miss Elvira was just as determined she wouldn't answer. Bab's bewilderment grew. She had a curious feeling that somehow she had intimately to do with the matter, though what it was, so far she had not the slightest inkling. Why should anyone's presence at her dance disclose that person's motives? And the motives, what were they? She was still wondering, her face puckered into a frown, when she heard the thump of David's crutches in the hall, and a moment later David himself appeared at the door.

"Hello, everyone!" he greeted.

Passing toward his chair, he halted long enough to give his grandfather a friendly tap on the shoulder.

"Hello, you!" Beeston growled amiably.

Crabbe had pulled out the chair next to Bab's, and David, having handed the butler his crutches, skillfully sat himself down. Then, as soon as Crabbe had turned away, David reached over surreptitiously and gave Bab's hand an affectionate pat.

"Well, Babs," he remarked.

The color stole faintly into Bab's face and her eyes lighted, animated now that she had him there to talk to. Just as she was about to speak David seemed to divine the trouble in the air.

"I say, what's the row?" he asked abruptly.

There was a moment's pause. Then, as if determined to force matters to a finish, Mrs. Lloyd spoke.

"There's no row. I wish you wouldn't use such words! I merely asked your Aunt Vira a question. I wished to know whether she'd sent a card" – she glanced, as she spoke, at Bab – "an invitation to Bayard Varick!"

Varick? Bab heard the name in vague astonishment. So he was the man they'd been discussing? Yes, but why all Mrs. Lloyd's strange interest in him? Why all her curiosity concerning Varick's attitude? Did all this concern her – Bab? Was that it?

She sat there outwardly unmoved, her face inexpressive of the tumult that went on within her. Strangely, it was not of the motives she thought. In her mind ran rioting another thought – a thought that shouted clamorously, its mockery evident. A party and Varick at it? Her party too? With that vividly clear-cut minuteness of detail that mental conflict so often engenders, a memory, a vision leaped into her mind and stood there, graphic, boldly limned.

It was in Mrs. Tilney's dining-room that she saw herself. Dinner was at half-past six; it shortly would be served; and the table set, her task completed, Bab sat with her chin on her hands. Across on the hearthrug stood Varick. He was in evening clothes, and Bab had just tied his tie. "Tell me," she'd said, "if tonight things were changed, and I – I was up there – If you, you – " Ah, yes; if things were changed! If they were changed, indeed, and she could be there, uptown, with him, would he then not think her as pretty, as charming, as desirable as those other girls he knew? That was the question, the one she'd half asked, then had not dared to finish! A dance! A party with him there! At the thought then how her heart had leaped! To be there with him! To have him dance with her! She still could recall her first exhilaration. Yes, but that had been weeks ago! There was a difference now; and Bab, a queer look in her eyes, glanced swiftly, perhaps guiltily, at the man who sat beside her. It was the first acknowledgment to herself, that glance, of how far in the past had fallen that romance of hers at Mrs. Tilney's. Far indeed!

Still sitting there, her face inexpressive, she had looked away, when of a sudden she heard Beeston speak.

"Varick, eh?" he growled. "That fellow asked here!"

He stared about him, his dull eyes threatening, a deep color crowding into his face.

"Well, why don't you answer?" he demanded. "Who asked that fellow? I've told you, haven't I, I'll have no Varick in my house!"

It was David who replied.

"No one's asked him," he said quietly. "I've been trying to decide if I should."

"You?"

It would be difficult to give his inflection. It expressed doubt, incredulity, as if Beeston distrusted his own ears.

"You trying?"

"Why, yes," said David, his air puzzled; "why not? Varick's a friend of mine, isn't he? I only wondered whether he'd care to come." Then with an unexpectedness that made her gasp David added: "Besides, I thought Bab might like to have him. They were friends at Mrs. Tilney's, you know."

Friends? Bab with difficulty managed to hide the conflict of her emotions. Again she glanced swiftly at David. She wondered, had he known all, whether he would even consider asking Varick. But this was the least of it. Did she herself want him? Was she ready to see him again? It was queer that though she had resolved to evict him from her mind the mere thought of him should so confuse her! Just then she was aware that Beeston shot a glance at her. Afterward he gazed at David briefly.

His air was absorbed. It was as if he debated something, as if some disclosure hovered on his lips. And what the disclosure was Bab had little doubt. She had not forgotten yet what had occurred the day she had driven with him alone. Was that what he meant to divulge? What indeed seemed curious was her hope that he would not blurt it out before David. Why that hope? Why her dislike to have David hear? After all he was only her cousin – nothing but a relative. Guardedly Bab watched old Beeston.

"H'm!" he said presently. "Then you haven't asked him yet?"

David said no. He was waiting, he said, to decide, and again Beeston grunted.

"Decide? Decide what?" he asked. "Whether you want him? That's it, isn't it?" he mumbled.

David shook his head.

"No," he said, "it's whether Bab wants him."

She did not move, start; she merely raised her eyes. Bab could not have told, had her life depended on it, how she managed to keep back the color from her face. She decide? Deep down in his throat Beeston gave vent to a sudden chuckle, sardonic, mocking, a laugh stifled as swiftly as it was given. Then, his eye gleaming, he stared at her.

"Well, that seems to settle it! Do you want him asked, my girl?"

Bab smiled back at him quietly.

"Not if you don't," she replied.

There was a sudden movement. Beeston, again sitting back in his chair, stared before him, a lurking gleam of triumph in his eyes.

"That's good!" he said. "If that fellow ever sets foot in my house now I'll bundle him neck and crop out of doors!" Then he beckoned roughly to Crabbe, the butler. "You hear me, Crabbe? Don't you ever let him inside my door!"

XIII

"Pass the relish, please!"

It was Miss Hultz who spoke. Attired in a smart spring poplin, indisputably chic exquis as advertised, the lady from Bimberg's flashed all her handsome front teeth in a smile directed across the napery of Mrs. Tilney's dinner table. Varick, plunged in a reverie, awoke abruptly.

"I beg pardon?" he inquired.

"The relish," repeated Miss Hultz.

Like others at the boarding house, the lady had of late begun to regard Varick with a new interest, a feeling of sympathy tinged deeply with regret. It was as if something in his aspect had aroused this, and that her heartstrings, touched by it, twanged in a responsive chord:

 
Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
 

Not that Varick was either wan or pale, or that fortune had failed to smile on him. On the contrary, at the bank he recently had been promoted, his pay doubled as well. But Miss Hultz had her suspicions of what was in the air; and with her little finger elegantly extended, her manner nice, she was pronging into the relish jar when again she spoke. The pickles, it appeared, had been merely a pretext, a preface.

"Seen the piece in the paper, Mr. Varick?" Varick said no, he hadn't read the evening paper; and hearing this Miss Hultz, her air now arch, impaled a pearly onion on her fork. The piece, she said, was in the society column; and she added: "It's all about a little friend of yours, Mr. V."

In brief it was an account of Bab's dance that absorbed Miss Hultz. Tonight was the night it was to be given.

"Indeed?" Varick remarked.

He sat listening idly, while with a great particularity of detail, as if nothing were too trivial, nothing too insignificant, Miss Hultz related all she had gleaned from the newspaper's account.

"It's to be a dinner dance!" she announced. "You get me, don't you!" Then having let the table grapple with this compelling fact, Miss Hultz leaped to the next illuminating detail. "Covers" – it was the reporter she quoted – "covers will be laid for twenty couples!"

Nor was this all! As Varick sat there, his manner politely attentive but his wits far afield, there sounded dully in his ears all that plethora of sickly, silly inanities with which the society reporter embellishes his spindling effort. "Exclusive! Select! Our Younger Set! Gotham's Upper Tendom!" Bab, little Bab, was to have her dance; and with a growing sorrow at what it signified and in the end must inevitably involve, Varick listened, hardly hearing, while Miss Hultz buoyantly prattled on.

Since the afternoon when she had brought David Lloyd to see Mr. Mapleson, Varick had not heard from Bab, either through the little man or otherwise. Nor had Mr. Mapleson heard either. A fortnight since then had passed; but to the two, in their growing uneasiness, each hour of that time had seemed an age. Nor had Varick's reflections during the fortnight been exactly those of a lover. The condemned awaiting the hour of execution could not have felt more depressed.

It was not only what Bab had said to him, her denunciation, that had swept him off his feet, but it was Mr. Mapleson's revelation about David Lloyd. David a suitor? He had been quick to see what that involved; David, indeed, might be a cripple, but the appeal, the attraction of David's character would go far to obscure the one blemish, his infirmity. Varick knew that. He knew, too, the pity, the compassion, that would warm Bab toward David Lloyd, she with her warm-hearted, impulsive tenderness. He had but a single consolation. That was the thought, the grim reflection, that were ever the fraud found out David's family would at once effectually put an end to any romance. David's father was a perpetual guarantee of that! He let his son marry a nobody – an impostor into the bargain? And there was Beeston too! When Varick thought of him again he smiled grimly, a vision before him of what would happen once Beeston learned the imposture! Yes, but what if Beeston never learned?

Varick was in the midst of this reflection, his brow moist with it, when again Miss Hultz addressed him. About his vis-à-vis there was nothing mean, nothing malicious. Her curiosity for the moment had merely got the better of her. However, that did not in the least alter the awkwardness of the question that Miss Hultz now put to him.

"I say, Mr. Varick," she said. "You're going tonight, of course, ain't you?"

Then, when Varick said no, that he was staying at home, Miss Hultz gave an exclamation.

"Not going?" she ejaculated.

It was so. Bab had not asked him, and if she had he would not have gone. However, Varick saw no reason why all this need be explained, and he was searching in his mind for some evasive answer when of a sudden there was an interruption. Jessup was its author.

"Varick!" said Jessup abruptly.

Having caught Varick's eye then, with a guarded glance he indicated the head of the table where Mr. Mapleson sat. Throughout the colloquy with Miss Hultz the little man had displayed every sign of distaste, not to say disquiet. Now, however, shrugged down in his chair, his face blank, he was staring at a scrap of pasteboard, a visiting card, that Lena, the waitress, had just handed him. Varick, as he looked, felt his heart knock fiercely.

Many seconds passed while Mr. Mapleson sat huddled in silence, gazing at the card. Manifestly what it portended was momentous, for presently he gave vent to a stifled breath, a wheeze. Then with the same suddenness a change sped over him. It was as if some thought, some swift, compelling resolution, had sprung into his mind to steel him and, thrusting back his chair, he arose, his face molded into a look of unflinching determination. Heroic – that was his air! Mr. Mapleson for once looked noble. Walking to the dining-room door, he turned and beckoned to Varick.

"Let me speak to you," said Mr. Mapleson, his voice strongly composed; then passing out into the hall he stood waiting, his face still firm. His eyes, too, were gleaming resolutely. Varick joined him hurriedly. "Look!" said Mr. Mapleson.

His tone was dead, his air quite impassive, as he held out to Varick the visiting card. Varick glanced at it swiftly. Then with Mr. Mapleson at his heels he went up the stairs to see the man who waited in Mrs. Tilney's parlor. It was Lloyd, Beeston's son-in-law.

He was in evening dress, but in his air was nothing that accorded with that festive attire. Planted on the hearthrug, his hat in one hand, his other tugging at his pale mustache, he gave Varick and Mr. Mapleson as they entered a sudden, piercing look. In it was contempt, that and animosity mixed with satisfaction. Lloyd, Senior, one saw, felt triumph.

"Good evening," said Varick quietly.

The gentleman did not even trouble himself to reply. Transferring his glance to Mr. Mapleson, he looked him up and down.

"Are you John Mapleson?" he inquired.

Then when Mr. Mapleson, after moistening his lips, had said yes, Lloyd, his manner brisk, wasted no time in coming to the point.

"I'll be brief with you, Mapleson!" he said brusquely, and as he spoke he turned to Varick. "Varick, I'll be brief with you as well. Unless tonight you two take that girl away from my father-in-law's house uptown I'll see to it myself that she's turned out, bag and baggage! What's more, tomorrow morning I'll turn you all over to the police!"

Then he strode toward the door.

"That's all!" said Mr. Lloyd.