“I’m only too glad if I have been able to live up to the specifications,” he said earnestly and finished with his delightful grin again.
The people down in the hall looking up said to one another: “Look at those two! They look as if it were their wedding, don’t they? Who is he, do you suppose, and where has he been all this time?”
Sherrill stood with the rest on the wide front veranda watching the bride and groom dash across to their beribboned car, which awaited them. She even threw a few of the pink rose petals with which the guests were hilariously pelting the bridal couple. Even now at this last moment, when she was watching another girl go away with her bridegroom, she must smile and keep up appearances, although her knees felt weak and the tears were dangerously near.
Mrs. Battersea had stationed herself and her lorgnette in the forefront, and she fixed her eagle eye especially on Sherrill. If there was still any more light on the peculiar happening of the evening to be gleaned from a view of the original bride off her guard, at this last minute, she meant to get it.
Sherrill suddenly saw her, and it had the effect of making her give a little hysterical giggle. Then Copeland’s hand on her arm steadied her again, and she flashed a grateful smile up to meet his pleasant grin.
Mrs. Battersea dropped her lorgnette, deciding that of course this was the other lover appeared just at the last minute; only how did they get that other girl?
They were all gone at last. The last guest had joked to Aunt Pat about her wonderful surprise wedding; the last bridesmaid had taken her little box of wedding cake to sleep on and stolen noisily away. Just Aunt Pat and Sherrill and Copeland left standing alone in the wide front hall as the last car whirled away.
Copeland had stayed to the end, as if he were a part of the household, stayed close by Sherrill, taken the burden of the last conversations upon himself as if he had the right, made every second of those last trying minutes just as easy for her as possible, kept up a light patter of brilliant conversation, filling in all the spots that needed tiding over.
“And now,” said he, turning to the hostess as the last car whirled down the lighted driveway, “I have to thank you, Miss Catherwood, for a most delightful evening. Sherrill, it’s been wonderful to have had this time with you. I must be getting on my way. I think your butler is bringing my things.”
Just then the butler came toward them bearing Graham Copeland’s suitcase and high hat. Sherrill looked up in surprise. With what ease he had arranged everything so that there would be no unpleasant pauses for explanation.
But Aunt Pat swung around upon him with a quick searching look at Sherrill.
“Why, where are you staying?” she asked cordially.
“I’m at the Wiltshire,” he answered quickly. “I hadn’t time to get into proper garb before the ceremony, so I brought my things up here, and Sherrill very kindly gave me a place to dress.”
“Well, then why don’t you just stay here tonight? It’s pretty late, I guess. We’ve plenty of rooms now, you know,” and she gave him a little friendly smile that she gave only to an honored few whom she liked.
“Thank you,” he said with an amused twinkle at Sherrill. “That would be delightful, but I’ve an appointment quite early in the morning, and my briefcase is at the hotel. I think I’d better go back to my room. But I certainly appreciate the invitation.”
“Well, then, you’ll be with us to dinner tomorrow night surely. That is, unless you and Sherry have made other plans.”
“I certainly wish I could,” said the young man wistfully, “but unfortunately I am obliged to take the noon train to Washington to meet another appointment which is quite important.”
Aunt Pat looked disappointed.
“I wonder,” said the young man hesitantly, “I’m not sure how long I shall be obliged to stay in Washington—several days, likely, as I have some important records to look up at the Patent Office—but I shall be passing through the city on my way to New York sometime next week probably. Would I be presuming if I stopped off and called on you both?”
“Presuming?” said Aunt Pat with a keen look at Sherrill. “Well, not so far as I know,” and she gave one of her quaint little chuckles.
“I do hope you can,” said Sherrill earnestly with a look that left no doubt of her wish in the matter.
His eyes searched hers gravely for an instant, and then he said as though he had received a royal command: “Then I shall surely be here if it is at all possible. I’ll call up and find out if it is convenient.”
“Of course it’ll be convenient!” said the old lady. “I’m always at home whether anybody else is or not, and I’ll be glad to see you.”
He bowed a gracious thanks, then turned to Sherrill as if reluctant to relinquish his office of assistant.
“I’ll hope you’ll be—” He hesitated, then finished earnestly, “All right.”
There was something in his eyes that brought a warm little comforted feeling around her heart.
“Oh yes!” she answered fervently. “Thank you! You were—It was wonderful having you here!” she finished with heightened color.
“Oh, but you’re not going that way!” said the old lady. “Gemmie, tell Stanley to bring the car around and take Mr. Copeland—”
A moment more and he was gone, and Sherrill had a sudden feeling of being left alone in a tumultuous world.
Now she must have it out with Aunt Pat!
Slowly she turned away from the door and faced the old lady, all her lovely buoyant spirits gone, just a weary, troubled little girl who looked as if she wanted to cry.
Chapter 6
Well,” said Aunt Pat with grim satisfaction in her voice, “you never did anything in your life that pleased me so much!”
“Oh, you darling Aunt Pat!” said Sherrill, her face glowing with sudden relief, and quick tears brimming unbidden into her eyes.
“Why, certainly!” said the old lady crisply. “You know I never did like that Carter McArthur. Now, come upstairs to my room and tell me all about it!”
“Oh, but aren’t you too tired tonight, Aunt Pat?” asked Sherrill, struggling under the shock of relief.
“Bosh!” said Aunt Pat. “You know neither you nor I will sleep a wink till we’ve had it out. Run and get your robe on. I suppose you gave the grand new one to that little washed-out piece. Of course she had to have it. But put on your old one with the blue butterflies. I like that one best anyway. Gemmie”—raising her voice to the faithful maid who was never far away—“send up two plates of everything to my room. Everything, I said. We’re hungry as bears. Neither of us ate as much as a bird while that mob was here. No, you needn’t worry, Gemmie; it won’t hurt me this time of night at all. I’m as chipper as a squirrel, and if I’ve stood this evening and all the weeks before it, I certainly can stand one good meal before I sleep. The fact is, Gemmie, things have come out my way tonight, and I don’t think anything could very well hurt me just now.”
“Yes, ma’am!” said Gemmie with a happy glance toward Sherrill.
A general air of good cheer pervaded Aunt Pat’s room when Sherrill, in her old robe of shell pink satin with blue butterflies fluttering over it, and her comfortable old slippers with the lamb’s wool lining and pink feather edges, arrived and was established in a big stuffed chair at one side of the open fire. Aunt Pat, with her silver hair in soft ringlets around her shoulders, sat on the other side of the fire robed in dove-gray quilted silk.
Gemmie brought two little tables and two heaping trays of food, and left them with the lights turned low. The firelight flickered over the two, the young face and the old one.
“Now,” said Aunt Pat, “who is he?” Sherrill looked up, puzzled.
“The other one, I mean. You certainly picked a winner this time if I may be permitted a little slang. He seems to be the key to the whole situation. Begin with him! Where have you been keeping him all this time? And why haven’t I been told about him before? Is he an old schoolmate, to quote Mrs. Battersea, and how long hav
e you known him?”
“I haven’t!” said Sherrill with a sound of panic in her voice.
“You haven’t?” asked her aunt with a forkful of chicken salad paused halfway to her mouth. “What do you mean, you haven’t? You certainly seemed to know him pretty well, and he you.”
“But I don’t, Aunt Pat. I don’t really know him at all.”
“But—where did you meet him?”
“On the street.”
“On the street! When?”
“Tonight.”
“Mercy!” said Aunt Pat with a half grin. “Explain yourself. You’re not the kind of girl that goes around picking up men on the street.”
“No!” said Sherrill with a choke of tears in her voice. “But I did this time. I really did. At least—he says he picked me up. You see, I fell into his arms!”
“Mmmm!” said Aunt Pat, enjoying her supper and scenting romance. “Go on. That sounds interesting.”
“Why, you see, it was this way. I parked my car in a hurry to get up into the gallery, and when I went to get out, I caught my toe in one of those long ruffles, or else I stepped on it; anyway, I fell headlong out on the pavement. Or at least I would have if this man hadn’t been there and caught me. I guess I was so excited I didn’t really realize that I was pretty well shaken up. Perhaps I struck my head; I’m not sure. It felt dizzy and strange afterward. But he stood me up and brushed me off and insisted on going across the road with me. I guess I must have been unsteady on my feet, for when he found I wanted to go upstairs to the gallery, he almost carried me up, and he was very nice and helpful. He took that note down to you and then got me a drink of water.”
“Hmm!” said Aunt Pat with satisfaction. “He’s what I call a real man. Nice face! Makes me think of your father when he was young. I couldn’t make out how you’d take up with that little pretty-face McArthur nincompoop after seeing a man like this one.”
“Why, Aunt Pat!” said Sherrill in astonishment. “I never knew you felt that way about Carter! You never said you did!”
“What was the use of saying? You were determined to have him. But go on. How did this Graham fellow get up here, and how did he get to calling you by your first name, and you him?”
“Well, you see, I slipped out just before the ceremony was over. He said I wasn’t fit to drive; he’d either drive himself or get some friend if I said so. But I was in a hurry so I let him drive. I wasn’t thinking about formalities then. I knew I ought to get back home quickly. Anyhow, he was so respectful I knew he was all right.”
“Hmm! There are respectful crooks sometimes! But never mind; go on.”
“But really, Aunt Pat, I don’t know what you’ll think of me! I haven’t had time before this to think what a dreadful thing it was I did, a total stranger, but it didn’t seem so then. It seemed just a desperate spot in life. You’d let a stranger pull you out of the street when a mad dog was coming or something like that. I’m afraid you’ll be horrified at me. But he was really very kind. He offered to do anything in the world, said he was a stranger in town with the evening to pass, before he met a business appointment in the morning, and if there was any way at all he could help—”
“For mercy’s sake, child, stop apologizing and tell things as they happened. I’m not arraigning you.”
“Well, I let him come home with me. I knew it would be easier if there was someone that everybody didn’t know, and I let him come.”
“Hmm!” said the old lady with a thoughtful smile that the firelight showed off to perfection. “Well, he certainly was clever enough. But how did he get a dress coat?”
“Oh, we stopped at the hotel and got his suitcase. He’d been to a dinner the night before in Cleveland. I let him dress in the little room at the end of the back hall.
We came in up the fire escape just before the first car arrived.”
“Hmm! Clever pair!” commented the old lady as she took delicate bites of her creamed mushrooms. “Well, now, get back to your story. How long have you known about this other girl, Artie—was that her name?”
“Arla.”
“Silly name! But go on. How long has this double business been going on?”
“I don’t know,” said Sherrill wearily. “Always, I guess.”
“I mean, when did you find it out?”
“Just after you left the house for the church,” answered the girl with downcast eyes. Now she was at the beginning of the real story, and it suddenly seemed to her as if she could not possibly tell that part.
The old lady gave her a startled look. She knew that they were now come to the crux of the matter. Sherrill had been so brave up to this point and had carried matters off with such a spirit that she had somehow hoped that Sherrill was not so hard hit. Hoped against hope, perhaps, that the final discovery was but the culmination of long suspicions.
“You don’t say!” said the old lady, her usual seriocomic manner quite shaken. “But how? I don’t see what—How—!”
Sherrill shut her eyes and drew a quick deep breath, then began.
“I was all ready. So I made Gemmie hurry on to the church. I wanted her to be there to see it all, and I wanted to go and see Mary the cook. I’d promised her to come after I got dressed. I knew Gemmie would try to stop me, so I wouldn’t let her wait as she wanted to. As soon as she was gone, I unlocked my door into the next room and went softly through toward the back hall.” Sherrill had to stop for another deep breath. It seemed as though she was about to go through the whole terrible experience again.
“Well?” said the old lady sharply, laying down her fork with a click on the china plate.
“As I stepped into the end room, which was dark,” she began again, trying to steady her voice, “I saw that the door into the middle room was open and the light streaming across the floor. I listened for an instant but heard nothing. I was afraid some of those strange servants would be snooping about. Then I stepped softly forward and saw Carter standing before the long mirror arranging his tie.”
“Yes?” said the old lady breathlessly.
“I watched him just a second. I didn’t want to stir lest he would hear me, and I wanted him to see me first as I came up the aisle—”
Sherrill’s voice trailed away sorrowfully. Then she gathered strength again.
“But while I watched him, I saw the door beside the mirror open noiselessly, and that girl came in!”
“Hmm!” said Aunt Pat, allowing herself another bite of oyster patty but keeping her eyes speculatively on her niece. “She must have come up the fire escape or somebody would have seen her.”
“She did,” said Sherrill wearily, putting her head back and closing her eyes for an instant. Somehow the whole thing suddenly overwhelmed and sickened her again. It seemed she could not go on.
“Well?” said the old lady impatiently. “Did she see you?”
“No.” Sherrill’s voice was almost toneless. “No, but—”
“There, there, child! I know it’s hard, but it’s got to be told once, and then we’ll close it over forever if you say so.”
“Oh, I know,” said Sherrill, sitting up and taking up her tale with a little shudder that seemed to shake her whole slender self.
“No, she didn’t see me. She was looking at him. She went straight to him and began to talk, and I could see by his whole attitude that they were old friends. He was shocked when he saw her, and very angry. He ordered her out and scolded her, but she pled with him. It was really heartbreaking. Just as if he had been nothing to me. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, though I thought her—Oh, at first I thought her the lowest of the low. Then I recognized her as his secretary, and of course I guess I thought still less of her, because she would have known that he was engaged.”
“Yes, of course!” said Aunt Pat in a spritely tone. “Well, what else?”
“Well, she began pleading with him to go away with her. She reminded him that he had promised to marry her, and in his answer he acknowledged that he had, but oh, Aun
t Pat! It is too dreadful to tell!”
“That’s all right, Sherrill; get it out of your system. No way to do that like telling it all, making a clean sweep of it! Besides, sometime you’ll want to look back on it and remember that you had the assent of someone else that you did the right thing. Even though you’re sure you’re right, there will come times when you will question yourself perhaps.”
“I know!” said Sherrill quickly with that sharp intake of breath that shows some thought has hurt. “I have already!” Her aunt gave her a sharp keen look.
“Poor kiddie!” she said gently.
“Oh, I know I never could have married him,” went on Sherrill heartbrokenly. “Only it is so dreadful to have my life all upset in one awful minute that way! To know in a flash that everything you’ve ever counted on and trusted in a person had no foundation whatever! That he simply wasn’t in the least what I had thought him. Why, Aunt Pat, he had the nerve to tell her that it didn’t matter if he was marrying someone else—that wouldn’t hinder their relation. He reminded her that after he got home from the wedding trip, he would spend far more time with her than with me, and that whenever he wanted to get away for a few days, it would be entirely possible! Oh, Aunt Pat—it was too dreadful! And I standing there not daring to breathe! Oh!” Sherrill put her face down in her hands and shook with suppressed sobs.
“The dirty little puppy!” said Aunt Pat, setting down her plate with a ring on the table. Then she got up from her big chair and came across to Sherrill, laying a frail roseleaf hand on her bowed head.
“You poor dear little girl!” she said tenderly, more tenderly than Sherrill had ever heard her speak before.
For a moment then the tears had full sway, let loose by the unusual gentleness of the old lady’s voice, till they threatened to engulf her. Then suddenly Sherrill lifted her face all wet with tears and drew Aunt Pat’s hand to her lips, kissing it again and again.
“Oh, Aunt Pat! It’s so wonderful of you to take it this way! You’ve done so much to make this a wonderful wedding, spent all this money, and then had it finish in a terrible scandal like this!”
The Beloved Stranger Page 8