The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories

by George Barr McCutcheon

  She laughed easily, affecting no confusion. “And I might have accepted you. That’s what you mean?”

  “Well, you might have done worse. But you haven’t,” he added hastily. “Chauncey’s a brick. I’ve approved of him from the start. Always wanted him to get you, Laura.”

  “It’s nice of you to say that, Buzzy,” she said, serious for an instant. Her fine eyes glowed. “I know you mean it, too. Others haven’t been so generous.” Then her manner changed. “Do you really have to marry some one, Buzzy? Are you so hard up as all that?”

  “My dear,” he said, “you are alarming Miss Downing.”

  “Nonsense! Miss Downing knows all about you and all about me. I have no secrets from her. She’s not even wondering how you could have contemplated marrying me without loving me. She knows how rich I am.”

  “Ah,” he sighed, “I wonder if she knows how poor I am.”

  “Every one knows that, Mr. Van Pycke,” said Miss Downing. He stared. “You have a paltry twelve thousand a year. Even the street sweepers get more than that.” Her sarcasm was veiled by a polite smile.

  The bride laughed. He felt a sudden, inexplicable shame.

  “Well, Buzzy, I can’t stop here talking to you all night. We’re leaving, you know, by the 11.30. Thanks, dear boy, for the thought that brought you up tonight, I appreciate the honor.” She extended her hand. “Good luck, my friend. Try further up the street.”

  “Oh, I say, Laura,” he protested. She saw the genuine hurt in his eyes. Instead of withdrawing the hand he had clasped, she suddenly gave his a warm pressure. Her mocking eyes grew sober and earnest.

  “You’re too much of a real man, Buzzy, for that sort of thing,” she said. “Don’t do it. Marry for love, my dear friend, even if it means getting along on twelve thousand a year. I don’t believe, Bosworth Van Pycke, that down in your heart you can see much that is glorious in the spending of a woman’s money. You’re cut out for better work than that.”

  “I’ve just come to the same conclusion, Laura,” he said firmly. “Good luck and God bless you. You’ll be happy: De Foe doesn’t need your money.”

  She dashed off to give orders to the butler and the maids who were waiting in the library beyond. De Foe’s entrance was the signal for another outburst of joyous badinage. He was a handsome, strong-featured man of rather serious mien.

  Bosworth at once shook hands with him, the others looking on curiously. “God bless you and—thank you, old chap,” he said. De Foe was never to know why the young man thanked him, but the attentive Miss Downing understood and favored the speaker with a glance of profound concern.

  He turned to her as De Foe was claimed by the others. An expression of deep uneasiness had come into his eyes.

  “I wonder what keeps father so long,” he said, so quaintly that she laughed aloud. Then both of them turned to watch the preparations for departure.

  The butler tossed the jewel boxes into a stout black bag; the detective took charge of it. Bellows peered from the front windows in quest of the motor cars; everybody chattered and gabbled while they were being bundled into their outer garments by the nimble attendants. One could only think of the anterooms in the Savoy or the Ritz.

  “Now get out, every one of you,” cried the bride. “I insist on being the last to leave the house. It’s for good luck.”

  Bellows said something in a low voice to Mr. De Foe. Any one but Bellows would have betrayed concern.

  “No motors!” exclaimed Mr. De Foe. There was a sudden silence in the room.

  “The blizzard, sir,” said Bellows, briefly.

  “But, hang it all, we must get to the station,” cried the groom. “What the devil’s the meaning of all this?”

  “Don’t blame Bellows, old man,” said Bosworth Van Pycke. “He isn’t a blizzard. And don’t lose your temper, either. Remember it’s your wedding night. Now, I have a big sleigh coming for me at 10.30. Taxis can’t budge in this weather. You and the bride can take my sleigh—”

  He did not finish. Every man in the party had begun to berate the kind of car he owned and every woman was scolding the weather. Then there was a common demand for four-horse sleighs. Bellows received half a dozen orders to telephone to the garages and to the livery stables, all in the same breath, it seemed.

  “Don’t worry, Chaunce. My sleigh is sure to come. The bride is safe.” So spoke the confident Mr. Van Pycke. “All I ask you to do in return is to send it back here for me as soon as you’re safely there.”

  “You’re an angel, Buzzy,” cried the bride from the depths of her sables.

  Just as the sleigh was announced, half an hour later, a diversion was created by the entrance of Mr. Van Pycke, senior. He was dressed for the street, fur-coated and gloved. The shout which greeted him brought him up just inside the door. He glared at the crowd.

  “Where are you, Bosworth?” he called out, his voice husky with emotion.

  “Here, father. Are you ready to go?” His son stepped forward rather quickly.

  “Do you think I’m going to stay all night?” snapped the old gentleman. “I’m—I’m damned if I do!”

  Every one was rushing for the doors. The bride took time for a few words with the latest arrival.

  “How late you are, Mr. Van Pycke!” she cried, grasping his hand. “I’m so sorry we must be going. Catching a train, you know. By the way, Buzzy, we’re sailing for the Azores day after tomorrow. When you’re in Paris, be sure to look us up. Thank God, I’m never coming back to New York. Now you know why I don’t care a snap what people say or think about my wedding guests. Good-bye, my dear. Good-bye, Mr. Van Pycke. Thanks, so much, for the roses you sent up today. Be sure we get the right sleigh, Bellows. Come, Mary, dear, kiss me. I know you’ll look me up when you come to Paris.”

  She enveloped the pretty Miss Downing in her arms, kissed her warmly, and then rushed off into the hall, where the crowd was being shooed out into the storm ahead of her.

  Bosworth observed that Miss Downing was not attired for the street.

  “You’re not going?” he asked quickly.

  “Not till tomorrow,” she said. “I’m staying overnight.”

  “Bosworth,” put in Mr. Van Pycke, in deadly tones, “where is your cab?”

  “Stuck in the snow, dad. My sleigh will be back in half an hour. Take off your coat. Miss Downing won’t mind our staying here a while longer. She—”

  “Not another minute, sir!” snapped Mr. Van Pycke. “You don’t know what I know. You—”

  “I don’t believe you know what I know, either, dad,” said his son, dryly.

  Bellows entered. “Your sleigh will return in half an hour, Mr.—Mr. Bosworth. Will you wait, sir?”

  “No, he won’t wait,” said Mr. Van Pycke. “Get his coat and hat, Bellows. I’m—I’m going to take him away.”

  “You’ll be lost in the snow, sir,” said Bellows, mildly. “It’s worse than the Alps, sir.”

  “Alps? Confound you, you’ve never seen the Alps!”

  “No, sir,” said Bellows. “But Stokes, the butler, has, sir.”

  “Send Stokes to me, Bellows,” said Miss Downing, quietly. “I will give orders for tonight and tomorrow morning. I hope you will forgive me, Mr. Van Pycke, if I retire at once. I am very tired. It has been a busy day and—a rather wearing night.”

  “Please don’t go just yet,” he begged. “You promised to tell me about the—” He was going to say wedding, but his father interrupted.

  “If you’re not coming at once, Bosworth, I’ll leave you here. I’ll walk. I’ll have pneumonia anyhow, so what’s the sense of taking care of myself? I’ve been insulted, outraged, humiliated in this—But, I can’t talk about it now, not in the presence of a lady—for I’m sure she is a lady. I can tell ’em by the sound of their voices. What, in God’s name, are you doing here? That’s the thing that puzzles me. ‘Gad, if I did the proper thing, I’d take you away at once, storm or no storm.”

  “Dad, you don’t understand,” began
Bosworth.

  “Are you coming away with me?” roared his father, stamping the floor.

  “Do they still hurt you?” asked his son, with a solicitous glance at the old gentleman’s feet.

  Mr. Van Pycke sputtered. “I have my own on, sir. But I’m crippled for life, just the same. Thank God, I got my trousers in the end.” He passed his hand nervously over his brow.

  “In the end?” murmured Bosworth. Miss Downing turned to the fireplace.

  “I—I can’t tell you about it now,” said his father in a constrained manner. “’Gad, it was—it was awful! Bellows! Where the deuce is the man? Ah, here you are. Bellows, call me a cab or something at—”

  “Mr. Stokes will be here directly, Miss,” said Bellows. “Very good, Mr. Van Pycke. A four-wheeler?”

  “Take the subway, dad,” interposed Bosworth, glaring at Bellows. “Next corner below. But, think it over. You’d better wait for me.”

  Stokes came in, and Miss Downing, with a significant glance at Bosworth, retired to the library with the butler.

  “Has everybody departed?” asked Bosworth of Bellows, who was turning off some of the lights in the lower end of the room. The young man dropped into a chair, opened his cigaret case, and then, first looking at the portières obscuring the library, yawned prodigiously.

  “Yes, sir,” said Bellows, caught in the middle of an illy-suppressed yawn. “The detective, my mistress’s maid, and Mr. De Foe’s man, with the bags, sir, went away with the ‘appy couple in your sleigh. It was a bit crowded, sir, for the driver.”

  “Bellows,” hissed Mr. Van Pycke, “who instructed you to take my trousers out to press ’em?”

  “They needed it, sir, badly,” explained Bellows.

  “And my shoes, sir,—I did not ask to have them polished, did I?”

  “No, sir. As I remember it, you did not.”

  “It wouldn’t have been so bad,” almost moaned the unhappy gentleman, turning to his son, “but I didn’t discover their absence until after I had, in my ungovernable rage, thrown those confounded wax figure’s garments from an upstairs window. And then, by Gad, sir, I couldn’t find my own trousers. What’s more, I couldn’t find the bell button to call for Bellows. There I was, in a strange bedroom without—Oh, I’ll never forget it, Bosworth—never! What the devil are you laughing at, sir?”

  Miss Downing had quietly reentered the room and was standing just inside the door, a growing smile of appreciation on her lips.

  “Wha—what did you do, sir?” asked Bosworth, controlling himself heroically.

  “Do? What could I do? Demmit all, trousers don’t grow on chandeliers, do they? I couldn’t pick off a pair, à la Santa Claus, could I? There was only one thing left to do. That was to shout for Bellows. Just as I was on the point of stealing out to the head of the stairs, I heard voices—a man’s and a woman’s. I dashed back into the bedroom. ‘Gad, sir, what do you think? Those people were in the next room, and the door, which I hadn’t noticed before, was partly ajar. At any minute they might come in and find—ahem! I didn’t see you, Miss Downing.”

  “Please go on,” she said.

  “Only to convince you what kind of a house we have all gotten into,” he explained, after a moment of indecision. “Well, I quickly entered a clothes closet near by. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Miss Downing, but the lady in the next bedchamber was your friend, Mrs. Scoville. The man was that confounded De Foe chap. I—I can’t tell you what they were saying to each other. It was sickening, I’ll say that much. No, no—I won’t go into details. It seems there was a maid in there, hooking her up, but they didn’t mind her. When the maid went out, I distinctly heard five or six kisses—ahem! Hang it all, Bosworth, I couldn’t help eavesdropping. There were people in the hall outside. It was the most brazen thing I’ve ever known. Unfortunately, I had to sneeze.”

  He stopped to blow his nose. Bellows also blew his, but for a different reason.

  “Yes, I sneezed. The exhibition ceased. I had just time to shut the closet door before De Foe came into the room, looking about. He said something about ‘confounded servants,’ and then went back to her. Then I heard him call her ‘sweetheart’ and ask her if she wouldn’t tie his necktie for him, like a little darling. By Gad, sir, it was worse than I thought. I—”

  Bosworth coughed violently, and Miss Downing found it necessary to fleck some dust from a bronze bit at her elbow—somewhat to the rear of it, to be perfectly accurate.

  “You don’t understand, father—” began Buzzy, nervously.

  “Confound it sir, I’m not deaf. I’ll pass over the next half hour, except to say that they billed and cooed without cessation. I give you my word, that closet was like an ice-chest. I demmed near froze to death. At last they went away. Bellows came back with my trousers and shoes. After he’d gone, I stole out and got into ’em. There’s a lot more I could tell, but—what’s the use? I want to get out of here. Just to think that I came up here in all this storm to ask that creature to be my wife! ‘Gad, I wouldn’t ask her now if she was the last woman on earth. Open the door for me, Bellows! I’m going next door to the Lackaday, for the night, Bosworth. Call up by ‘phone in the morning to see if I have pneumonia.”

  He stormed into the hall without saying good night to Miss Downing. They heard him swear roundly as Bellows opened the door to the vestibule. Then there was a slam of the outer door. Together the young man and woman walked to the front window, and, side by side, they saw him fight his way down the steps and across the thirty feet of snowbank that lay between the house and the street entrance to the hotel bar.

  Mr. Van Pycke did not know, until he saw it in the papers next day, that there had been a wedding. It may be well to add in this connection that it was a long time before New York heard the last of that wedding and its amazing guests by proxy.

  “Good night,” said Miss Downing, as they turned away from the window.

  “Oh, please, not yet,” he cried.

  “I am so tired,” she pleaded.

  “The sleigh will be back in twenty or thirty minutes.”

  “I’ll stay ten minutes,” she agreed. “Come and sit before the fire in the library. You may have a cigar or a cigaret—but nothing to drink.” He started guiltily.

  At the end of ten minutes, despite the fact that he was very amusing, she rose from the deep, comfortable chair before the fender, and said good night once more. “I hear sleigh bells in front,” she said.

  “When are you leaving?” he asked, looking into her eyes with all of the new interest that had come into his own.

  “Tomorrow. I’m to have a year’s vacation on full pay,” she said quite clearly. His eyes flew very wide open. “Isn’t it nice, Mr. Van Pycke?”

  She was gone. He stood perfectly still, listening to the rustle of her gown as she sped up the stairs beyond. Something like a soft laugh came back to him from the dome of the hall. His face was a study.

  “By thunder!” he murmured, prior to a long, intent contemplation of the blazing coals. At last, shrugging his shoulders in dire perplexity, he turned and slowly made his way to the front windows.

  The sleigh was not in sight. He glanced at his watch. Eleven-twenty. With sudden exasperation he jammed his hands into his pockets and said something softly. Kicking a chair to the window, he sat down and glared at the snow-covered glass. Outside, the wind shrieked louder than ever.

  When Bellows came in to turn out the lights at a quarter to twelve, Bosworth did not hear him, nor did Bellows observe the limp figure in the chair. Mr. Van Pycke was sound asleep, and the footman did not have far to go to reach the same state.

  A sleigh came up, banked with snow, waited awhile in front of the dark house, and then departed.

  CHAPTER IV

  THE SECRETARY GOES HOME

  He was chilled to the bone when he awoke, an hour and a half later. The room was in pitchy darkness. It is only natural to suppose that he did not know where he was. He felt of himself, surprised to find that he wa
s not undressed and not in bed. With more philosophy than is usually exhibited under such puzzling conditions, he fell back in his chair and forced himself into full wakefulness.

  A moment later, with a gasp of dismay, he was on his feet, scraping away the frost and peering from the black window into the night, his eyes wide with anxiety. His arms and legs were stiff with the cold; he found himself shivering as with a mighty chill. Turning his back to the window, for many minutes he stared dumbly into the opaqueness before him. The house was as black as the grave and quite as silent. He began to experience, strangely enough, the same dread of darkness he had felt when a boy.

  A furnace register, he remembered, was near the door leading to the hall, wherever that might be. His first thought was to seek the comfort of its friendly, warmth-giving drafts. On second thoughts, he ransacked his pockets for a match. A clock in the hall struck once, but how was he to know whether it signified one o’clock or half-past something else? Finding no match, he started for the register, his hands stretched before him.

  Of one thing he was reasonably sure; the household was wrapped in slumber. There was not a sound in the house. He was reminded of a childhood poem in which it was said: “Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” The memory of this line brought a smile to his lips.

  His progress was rather sharply checked by bodily contact with one of the dummies, whose presence he had quite forgotten. Not only was there a hollow protest from the dummy, but a more substantial one from Mr. Van Pycke. Not content with a mild encounter with this particular obstacle, he proceeded, in his confusion, to back into another, which, being less sturdy, toppled over with a crash that must have been heard in the attic.

  Panic-stricken, the young man floundered on, now intent upon reaching the hall and making as dignified an escape as possible before the servants appeared with blunderbusses and tongs. His only desire now was to find his overcoat and hat and the front steps without butting his brains out in the darkness.

  He brought up against a chair, creating additional racket and barking his knee into the bargain.