by Basil King
CHAPTER XI
The steps by which I came to be Stacy Grainger's librarian could easilybe traced, though to do so with much detail would be tedious.
After Hugh's departure for New York my position with Mrs. Rossiter soonbecame untenable. The reports that reached Newport of the young man'sdoings in the city were not merely galling to the family pride, butmaddening to his father's sense of pre-eminence. Hugh was actually goingfrom door to door, as you might say, in Wall Street and Broad Street,only to be turned away.
"He's making the most awful fool of himself," Mrs. Rossiter informed meone morning, "and papa's growing furious. Jim writes that every one islaughing at him, and, of course, they know it's all about some girl."
I held my tongue at this. That they should be laughing at poor Hugh wasa new example of the world's falsity. His letters to me were only arecord of half-promises and fair speeches, but he found every one ofthem encouraging. Nowhere had he met with the brutal treatment he hadreceived at the hands of Cousin Andrew Brew. The minute his card went into never so great a banker or broker, he was received with a welcome. Ifno one had just the right thing to offer him, no one had turned himdown. It was explained to him that it was largely a matter of the offseason--for his purpose August was the worst month in the year--and ofthe lack of an opening which it would be worth the while of a man of hisquality to fill. Later, perhaps! The two words, courteously spoken, gavethe gist of all his interviews. He had every reason to feel satisfied.
In the mean while he was comfortable at his club--his cash in hand wouldhold out to Christmas and beyond--and in the matter of energy, he wrote,not a mushroom was springing in his tracks. He was on the job early andlate, day in and day out. The off season which was obviously adisadvantage in some respects had its merits in others, since it wouldbe known, when things began to look up again, that he was available forany big house that could get him. That there would be competition inthis respect every one had given him to understand. All this he told mein letters as full of love as they were of business, written in a great,sprawling, unformed, boyish hand, and with an occasional bit of phoneticspelling which made his protestations the more touching.
But Jim Rossiter's sources of information were of another kind.
"Get your father to do something to stop him," he wrote to his wife."He's making the whole house of Meek & Brokenshire a laughing-stock."
There came, in fact, a Saturday when Mr. Rossiter actually appeared forthe week-end.
"He wouldn't be doing that," Mrs. Rossiter almost sobbed to me, onreceipt of the telegram announcing his approach, "unless things werepretty bad."
Though I dreaded his coming, I was speedily reassured. Whatever theobject of Mr. Rossiter's visit, I, in my own person, had nothing to dowith it. On the afternoon of his arrival he came out to where I wasknocking the croquet balls about with Gladys on the lawn, and was aspolite as he had been through the winter in New York. He was alwayspolite even to the maids, to whom he scrupulously said good-morning. Hiswistful desire to be liked by every one was inspired by the same sort ofimpulse as the jovial _bonhomie_ of Cousin Andrew Brew. He was a little,weazened man, with face and legs like a jockey, which I think he wouldgladly have been. Racin' and ridin', as he called them, were theamusements in which he found most pleasure, while his health was hischief preoccupation. He took pills before and after all his meals and avariety of medicinal waters. During the winter under his roof my ownconversation with him had been entirely on the score of his complaints.
In just the same way he sauntered up now. He talked of his lack ofappetite and the beastly cooking at clubs. Expecting him to broach thesubject of Hugh, I got myself ready; but he did nothing of the kind. Hewas merely amiable and, as far as I could judge, indifferent. Within tenminutes he had sauntered away again, leading Gladys by the hand.
I saw then that in common with the other Brokenshires he considered thatI didn't count. Hugh could be dealt with independently of me. So long asI was useful to his wife, there was no reason why I should be disturbed.I was too light a thing to be weighed in their balances.
Next day there was a grand family council and on Monday Jack Brokenshireaccompanied his brother-in-law to New York. Hugh wrote me of theirthreats and flatteries, their beseechings and cajoleries. He was to cometo his senses; he was to be decent to his father; he was to quit being afool. I gathered that for forty-eight hours they had put him throughmost of the tortures known to fraternal inquisition; but he wrote me hewould bear it all and more, for the sake of winning me.
Nor would he allow them to have everything their own way. That he wroteme, too. When it came to the question of marriage he bade them look athome. Each of them was an instance of what J. Howard could do in thematrimonial line, and what a mess he and they had made of it! He askedJack in so many words how much he would have been in love with PaulineGray if she hadn't had a big fortune, and, now that he had got her moneyand her, how true he was to his compact. Who were Trixie Delorme andBaby Bevan, he demanded, with a knowledge of Jack's affairs whichcompelled the elder brother to tell him to mind his own business.
Hugh laughed scornfully at that.
"I can mind my own business, Jack, and still keep an eye on yours,seeing that you and Pauline are the talk of the town. If she doesn'tdivorce you within the next five years, it will be because you'vealready divorced her. Even that won't be as big a scandal as your goingon living together."
Mr. Rossiter intervened on this and did his best to calm the youngerbrother down:
"Ah, cut that out now, Hugh!"
But Hugh rounded on him, shaking off the hand that had been laid on hisarm.
"You're a nice one, Jim, to come with your mealy-mouthed talk to me.Look at Ethel! If I'd married a woman as you married her--or if I'd beenmarried as she married you--just because your father was a partner inMeek & Brokenshire and it was well to keep the money in the family--ifI'd done that I'd shut up. I'd consider myself too low-down a cur to bekicked. What kind of a wife is Ethel to you? What kind of a husband areyou to her? What kind of a father do you make to the children who hardlyknow you by sight? And now, just because I'm trying to be a man, anddecent, and true to the girl I love, you come sneaking round to tell meshe's not good enough. What do I care whether she's good enough or not,so long as she isn't like Ethel and Pauline? You can go back and tellthem so."
Jack Brokenshire came back, but I think he kept this confidence tohimself. What he told, however, was enough to produce a good deal ofgloom in the family. Though Mrs. Rossiter didn't cease to be nice to mein her non-committal way, I began to reason that there were limits evento indifference. I had made up my mind to go and was working out somepractical way of going, when an incident hastened my departure.
Doing an errand one day for Mrs. Rossiter in the shopping part ofBellevue Avenue, I saw old Mrs. Billing going by in an open motorlandaulette. She signaled to me to stop, and, poking the chauffeur inthe back through the open window, made him draw up at the curb.
"I've got something for you," she said, without other form of greeting.She began to stir things round in her bag. "I thought you'd like it.I've been carrying it about with me for the last three or fourdays--ever since Jack Brokenshire got back from New York. Where thedickens is the thing? Ah, here!" She handed me out a crumpled card."That's all, Antoine," she continued to the man. "Drive on."
I was left with the card in my hand, finding it to be an advertisementfor the Hotel Mary Chilton, a place of entertainment for women alone, ina central and reputable part of New York.
By the time I got back to Mrs. Rossiter's I had solved what had at firstbeen a puzzle, and, having reported on my errand, I gave my resignationverbally. I saw then--what old Mrs. Billing had also seen--that it wastime. Mrs. Rossiter expressed no relief, but she made no attempt todissuade me. That she was sorry she allowed me to see. She didn't speakof Hugh; but on the morning when I went she gave up her engagements tostay at home with me. As I said good-by she threw her arms round my neckand kissed me. I could
feel on my cheek tears of hers as well as tearsof my own, as I drew down my veil.
Hugh met me at the station in New York, and we dined at a restauranttogether. He came for me next morning, and we lunched and dined atrestaurants again. When we did the same on the third day that sense ofbeing in a false position which had been with me from the first, andwhich argument couldn't counteract, began to be disquieting. On thefourth day I tried to make excuses and remain at the hotel, but when heinsisted I was obliged to let him take me out once more. The people atthe Mary Chilton were kindly, but I was afraid they would regard me withsuspicion. I was afraid of some other things, besides.
For one thing I was afraid of Hugh. He began again to plead with me tomarry him. Even he admitted that we couldn't continue to "go roundtogether like that." We went to the most expensive restaurants, heargued, where there were plenty of people who would know him. When theysaw him every day with a girl they didn't know, they would draw theirown conclusions. As in a situation similar to theirs I would have drawnmy own, I brought my bit of Bohemianism to a speedy end.
There followed some days during which it seemed to me I was deprived ofany outlook. I could hardly see what I was there for. I could hardly seewhat I was living for. Never till then had I realized how, in normalconditions, each day is linked to the day before as well as to themorrow. Here the link was gone. I left nothing undone when I went tobed; I had nothing to get up for in the morning. My reason for existinghad suddenly been snuffed out.
It was a time for the testing of my faith. I was near the end of my_cul-de-sac_, and yet I saw no further development ahead. If thecontinuous unfolding of right on which, to use Larry Strangways'sexpression, I had banked, were to come to a stop, I should be left notonly without a duty, but without a law. Of the two possibilities it wasthe latter I dreaded most. One can live if one has a motive theorywithin one; without it-- And then, just as I was coming to the laststretches of what seemed a blind alley and no more, my confidence wasjustified. Larry Strangways called on me.
I have not said that on coming to New York I had decided to let myacquaintance with him end. He made me uneasy. I was terrified by thethought that he might be in love with me. Why I was terrified I didn'tknow; I only knew I was. I did not tell him, therefore, when I left Mrs.Rossiter; and in the whirlpool of New York I considered that I wasswallowed up. But here was his card, and he himself waiting in thedrawing-room below.
Naturally my first question was as to how he had found me out. This helaughed off, pretending to be annoyed with me for coming to the citywithout telling him. I could see, however, that he was in spirits muchtoo high to allow of his being seriously annoyed with anything. Lifepromised well with him. He enjoyed his work, and for his employer hehad that eager personal devotion which is always a herald of success.After having run away from him, as it were, I was now a little irritatedat seeing that he hadn't missed me.
But he did not take his leave without a bit of information that puzzledme beyond expression. He was going out of Mr. Grainger's office thatmorning, he said, with a bundle of letters which he was to answer, whenhis master observed, casually:
"The young lady of whom you spoke to me as qualified to take MissDavis's place is at the Hotel Mary Chilton. Go and see her and get heropinion as to accepting the job!"
I was what the French call _atterree_--knocked flat.
"But how on earth could he know?"
Larry Strangways laughed.
"Oh, don't ask me. He knows anything he wants to know. He's got theflair of a detective. I don't try to fathom him. But the point is thatthe position is there for you to take or to leave."
I tried to bring my mind back from the fact that this important man, atotal stranger to me, was in some way interested in my destiny.
"What can I do but leave it, when I know no more about it than I do ofsailing a ship?"
"Oh yes, you do. You know what books are, and you know what rare booksare. For the rest, all you'd have to do would be to consult thecatalogue. I don't know what the duties are; but if Miss Davis is up tothem I guess you would be, too. She's a sweet, pretty kitten of athing--daughter of one of Stacy Grainger's old pals who came togrief--but I don't believe she knows much more about a book than thecover from the print. Anyhow, I've given you the message with neithermore nor less than he said. Look here!" he exclaimed, suddenly. "Whyshouldn't you put on your hat and walk down the street with me, so thatI could show you where the library is? It's not ten minutes away. I'venever been inside it, but every one knows what it looks like."
Consulting my wrist-watch, I objected that it was but twenty minutes tothe time when Hugh was due to come and take me to walk in Central Park,returning to the hotel to tea.
"Oh, let him go to the deuce! We can be there and back in twentyminutes, and you can leave a message for him at the office."
So we started. The Mary Chilton is in one of the cross-streets betweenFifth and Sixth Avenues. I discovered that Stacy Grainger's house was onthe corner of Fifth Avenue and a corresponding cross-street a littlefarther down-town. It is a big brownstone house, in the eighteen-seventystyle, of the type which all round it has been turned into offices andshops. All its many windows were blinded in a yellowish holland staff,giving to the whole building an aspect sealed and dead.
I shuddered.
"I hope I shouldn't have to work there."
"No. The house has been shut up for years." He named the hoteloverlooking the Park at which Stacy Grainger actually lived. "Anybodyelse would have sold the place; but he has a lot of queer sentimentabout him. Of the two or three devotions in his life one of the mostintense is to his father's memory. I believe the old fellow committedsuicide in that house, and the son hallows it as he would a grave."
"Cheerful!"
"Oh, cheerful isn't the word one would associate with him first--"
"Or last, apparently."
"No, or last; but he's got other qualities to which cheerfulness is assmall change to gold. All I want you to see is that he keeps thisproperty, which is worth half a million at the least, from motives whichthe immense majority wouldn't understand. It gives you a clue to theman."
"But what I want," I said, with nervous flippancy, for I was afraid ofmeeting Hugh, "is a clue to the library."
"There it is."
"That?"
He had pointed to a small, low, rectangular building I had seen ahundred times, without the curiosity to wonder what it was. It stoodbehind the house, in the center of a grass-plot, and was approached fromthe cross-street, through a small wrought-iron gate. Built ofbrownstone, without a window, and with no other ornament than a friezein relief below the eave, it suggested a tomb. At the back was a kind ofcovered cloister connecting with the house.
"If I had to sit in there all day," I commented, as we turned backtoward the hotel, "I should feel as if I were buried alive. I know thatstrange things would happen to me!"
"Oh no, they wouldn't. It's sure to be all right or a pretty littlething like Miss Davis couldn't have stood it for three years. It'slighted from the top, and there are a lot of fine things scatteredabout."
He gave me a brief history of how the collection had been formed. Theelder Grainger on coming to New York had bought up the contents of twoor three great European sales _en bloc_. He knew little about theobjects he had thus acquired, and cared less. His motive was simply thatof the rich American to play the nobleman.
He was still talking of this when Hugh passed us and turned round.Between the two men there was a stiff form of greeting. That is, it wasstiff on Larry Strangways's side, while on Hugh's it was the nearestthing to no greeting at all. I could see he considered the tutor of hissister's son beneath him.
"What the devil were you walking with that fellow for?" he asked, afterMr. Strangways had left us and while we were continuing our way up-town.He spoke, wonderingly rather than impatiently.
"Because he had come from a gentleman who had offered me employment. Ihad just gone down with him to look at the outside of the hou
se."
I could hardly be surprised that Hugh should stop abruptly, forcing thestream of foot-passengers to divide into two currents about us.
"The impertinent bounder! Offer employment--to you--my--my wife!"
I walked on with dignity.
"You mustn't call me that, Hugh. It's a word only to be used in itsexact signification." He began to apologize, but I interrupted. "I'm notonly not your wife, but as yet I haven't even promised to marry you. Wemust keep that fact unmistakably clear before us. It will preventpossible complications in the end."
He spoke humbly:
"What sort of complications?"
"I don't know; but I can see they might arise. And as for the matter ofemployment, I must have it for a lot of reasons."
"I don't see that. Give me two or three months, Alix!"
"But it's precisely during those two or three months, Hugh, that Ishould be left high and dry. Unless I have something to do I have nomotive for staying here in New York."
"What about me?"
"I can't stay just to see you. That's the difference between a woman anda man. The situation is awkward enough as it is; but if I were to go onliving here for two or three months, merely for the sake of having a fewhours every day with you--"
Before we reached the Park he saw the justice of my argument.Remembering what Larry Strangways had once said as to Hugh's belief thathe was stooping to pick his diamond out of the mire, I reasoned thatsince he was marrying a working-girl it would best preserve thedecencies if the working-girl were working. For this procedure Hughhimself was able to establish precedent, since we were in sight of thevery hotel where Libby Jaynes had rubbed men's nails up to within anhour or two of her marriage to Tracy Allen. He pointed it out as if itwas an historic monument, and in the same spirit I gazed at it.
That matter settled, I attacked another as we advanced farther into thePark.
"And Mr. Strangways is not a bounder, Hugh, darling. I wish you wouldn'tcall him that."
His response was sufficiently good-natured, but it expressed thatBrokenshire disdain for everything that didn't have money whichspecially enraged me.
"Well, I won't," he conceded. "I don't care a hang what he is."
"I do," I declared, with some tartness. "I care that he's a gentlemanand that he's treated as one."
"Oh, every one's a gentleman."
"No, Hugh, every one isn't. I know men right here in New York who couldbuy and sell Mr. Strangways a thousand times, perhaps a million timesover, and who wouldn't be worthy to valet him."
His small wide-apart blue eyes were turned on me questioningly.
"You don't know many men right here in New York. Who do you mean?"
I saw that he had me there and, not wishing to be driven into a corner,I beat a shuffling retreat.
"I don't mean any one in particular. I'm speaking in general." As we hadreached an empty bench and the afternoon was hot, I suggested that wesit down.
We had been silent a little while, when he asked the question I had beenexpecting.
"Who was the person who offered you the--the--" I saw how he hated theword--"the employment?"
I had already decided to betray no knowledge of matters which didn'tconcern me.
"It's a Mr. Grainger," I said, as casually as I could.
As he sat close to me I could feel him start.
"Not Stacy Grainger?"
I maintained my tone of indifference.
"I think that is his name. Do you know him? He seems to be some one ofimportance."
"Oh, he is."
"Mr. Strangways has gone to him as secretary and, I suppose, knowingthat I was out of a situation, he must have mentioned me."
"For what?"
"As I understand it, it's librarian. It seems that this Mr. Grainger hasquite a collection--"
"Oh yes, I know." As he remained silent for some time I waited for himto raise objections, but he only said at last: "In that case youwouldn't have much to do with him. He's never there."
"No, I fancy not," I hastened to agree, and Hugh said no more.
He said no more, but I could see that it was because he was wrestlingwith a subject of which he couldn't perceive the bearings. As far as Iwas concerned he plainly considered it wise not to tell me that which,as a stranger and a foreigner, I wouldn't be likely to know. Heconsequently dropped the topic, and when he talked again it was oftrivial things.
A half-hour later, as we were on our way homeward, he exclaimed,suddenly, and apropos of nothing at all:
"Little Alix, if you were to love anybody else I'd--I'd shoot myself."
His innocent, boyish, inexperienced face wore such a look of misery thatI laughed. I laughed to conceal the fact that I was near to crying.
"Oh no, you wouldn't, Hugh. Besides, you don't see any likelihood of mydoing it."
"I'm not so sure about that," he grumbled.
"Well, I am, Hugh, dear." I laughed again. "I've no intention of lovingany one else--till I've settled my account with your father."