The Magpies Nest

by Isabel Paterson

  Later, Hope would take the note, read it with quick carelessness, nod, and speak of other things. Or she might telephone to Allen Kirby, and tell him she could not see him that evening. Then Mary would laugh, and Hope would join her very gaily. Sometimes she merely tore up the missive and said, "Oh, bother!"

  The day before, she had said, as if to herself, "All right," and sat awhile thinking. Mary went away. She was not a mind-reader, or she might have remained to remonstrate. Later, she imagined Hope tearing through the night in the black and brassy eighty-horse power monster with Allen Kirby gravely at the wheel and Edgerton tangling himself up in meaningless words, trying to explain to Hope things about them both which neither understood. In reality that young lady was curled up cross-legged on the deep-red carpeted floor of Edgerton's rooms, beside an open suit-case, neatly folding an assortment of cheerful neckties and carrying on a desultory conversation with the owner of them.

  "Did anyone see you coming?" had been his first apprehensive question as he closed the door sharply behind her.

  "No, I guess not," she replied carelessly. "Do you mind?"

  "I?" he said, and stared at her. But he was aware of the extraordinary recklessness of women. "I don't think I should have let you come here."

  "But it's cold out," she argued. "And I can't have anyone where I live. Besides, I wanted to see, Your room looks like you."

  It did, being large and substantially comfortable, but without originality. There were no books; she commented on that, roaming about and tossing aside a newspaper or so disdainfully. She tried the big leather chairs, and presently insisted on helping him pack. He was going on the midnight train, to be absent a month or more.

  It was characteristic of him to have these expensive rooms. He had furnished them himself; the small, rather shabby hotel annoyed him, and the cost was a matter of indifference to him. But he did think he ought not to have let her come here. He had asked her to appoint a place. Allen told him the car was out of order. She had suggested his office; mere hospitality had prompted this alternative. He felt rather strange when she assented immediately; he didn't know what he felt until she entered, and then he had expressed everything in that first question. He thought of his own daughter. And he made a vow that if ever she needed him he would stand back of her. What else could you do for a girl?

  It gave him a wistful delight to see Hope stroll about, half tiptoe, touching this and that. When she came near him once, he put his arms about her timidly, and gave her a clumsy caress. She squirmed away, laughed, and prodded his broad chest with a slim finger.

  "Aren't you fat?" she teased irrelevantly. "I daresay you wouldn't feel it if I tried to boat you."

  But he did feel it. Good heavens, to be over forty and have sweet and twenty laugh at one! Then she folded his expensive silk shirts and socks, his innumerable ties, his fine linen handkerchiefs, with the care of a child keeping house, and made herself very busy, and said she was sorry he was going. His trunk was enormous; she said she could get into it, and proved the fact. The extent of his wardrobe filled her with frank amazement. People, she reflected, were very interesting, when one saw them thus at first hand, surrounded by the evidences of their own taste and personality. This was so unlike her own room; a bare little cell, with queer sketches of her own on tne walls, one small battered trunk, a highly uncomfortable chair, an imitation couch covered with real cushions, and a pair of Japanese clogs pathetically toeing toward each other in the centre of the room. They were always in the centre of the room, never neatly arranged against the wall. How out of place he would be there. It made her laugh. But he broke in on her thoughts. He had been pacing up and down, lighting and throwing away cigarettes, watching her.

  "Are you going to college?" he asked, at last, abruptly.

  Her own answer surprised her a little, for she said involuntarily:

  "No." And was sorry she felt forced to say it, for he looked generously disappointed.

  "Then what can I do for you?" he asked finally.

  To that she had no answer.

  This refusal had crystallised suddenly in her mind, as the result of long, rather inchoate reflection. Dimly she perceived that college would not give her what she wanted. The end of college would be simply the end of college, not the beginning of anything else. She was seeking her youth, not trying to give it up, to college or anything. What had college given to Mary? She would have read more books. She could read them anyway. She would still have her start to make; the start for that indefinable goal, the heart of life itself.

  His disappointment was evident. He lit another cigarette, threw it away, and stood irresolute. She jumped up and ran to him.

  "Never mind, never mind," she comforted him. "It was lovely of you. And I have no sense at all," she concluded gravely.

  "Not a bit," he agreed. "I think I'll put you in my trunk again, and carry you about, and look after you. Oh, Hope!" He crushed her in his arms, ruffling her hair and temper, smothering her.

  She felt cross, and sorry for him, all at once; aware of a conflict within him, but not alarmed. That beauté du diable which she still possessed in its freshest bloom drew him powerfully by the double bonds of tenderness and passion, and he suffered more than she could have guessed. It divided his soul and body like a sword, and he did not know himself what shook him so. Before now he had sought refuge from his wife's perverse coldness in the favours of other women, women of the world; had taken carelessly what they had given freely, and forgotten. But he had never experienced anything like this extraordinary recrudescence of half-forgotten boyish emotions.

  Nor was it solely her youth that drew him. After all, youth could be bought in the market, like any other commodity.

  He never held her but he knew she wished to be free; the inner resistance was there, even while instinct or courtesy kept it from expression. But he did know she did not evade him to enhance her value, like those shrewder creatures who can drive a bargain from the cradle. Like his wife.

  Not that he had these thoughts. Only a part of his brain was active; the part which he used in the making of money. He trained that.

  He kissed the crest of her hair, while she sighed ostentatiously and was rigidly unresponsive, repulsing him with her mind rather than with her body. So he let her go. She went out. He heard the soft click of her high heels down the hall, and hoped fervently that no other ears might be listening.

  There was no warmth in his heart at the prospect of going home. He finished packing, and locked up his baggage, feeling singularly alone. His wife probably would not be at home; she might be in town, shopping, or visiting; she loved living in huge hotels in a glare of publicity. Ten days before he had sent her a wonderful sapphire ring for their wedding anniversary. She had not even acknowledged it. She was not a beautiful woman, nor charming, nor brilliant, but her very hardness had given her a long ascendency over him. Despite himself, he was essentially a faithful man, craving affection, easily rebuffed. And there is something in the name of wife that gives a woman possession of certain keys to a man's inner nature, if he has anything fine in him at all. She was his wife, and in his young manhood he had given her those keys. Nor can any gift be wholly revoked; the period of possession can never be effaced.

  His daughter was the only thing he had got out of it all—a jolly little tomboy, slowly changing now into an unusually frank and lovable young woman. Perhaps she could come with him on his next trip. It might save him from—he did not know quite what. From trying, perhaps, to thrust unwelcome gifts on another than his wife.

  Now why would not Hope accept? He could not see that it was, over again, his giving her the dollar. She could not buy anything with it. She wanted chocolates, and could not reach the market. But this time neither could he buy them for her. And yet it was a perfectly good dollar he was offering her. If it puzzled her, it puzzled him still more. He thought her exquisitely foolish—the more lovable for her imbecility. He was the acquisitive type. He refused nothing of value, reached out
always for more, no matter whether he could buy anything with his dollar or not.

  Well, it was train time. With a final thought of her, a fatuous hope that she slept sound, he went out.

  Though he could not know it, she was far from sleeping. The car was miraculously recovered of its late affliction. It streamed through the night like a wandering earth-bound star; the pale-grey, dusty road rushed into its devouring radius of light and was instantly swallowed again by the dark, endlessly, a delight and a fascination to Hope. She was at the wheel, and Allen, beside her, kept a ready hand to correct the errors of her fearful joy. He must reach his arm about her to do it, but she had grown accustomed to his quiet presence and it did not trouble her. They talked, intermittently, cheek to cheek so they might hear. Once she turned suddenly and felt his long lashes brush her face, and laughed. She liked Allen, and one reason was his forthright honesty, which credited hers, so that they stood on firm ground with each other. He gave her less disquiet than any man she ever knew. He was not stolid, either; he merely controlled himself as perfectly as he did the big machine In their expeditions they found themselves in perfect accord, intent on the one thing, the magic of the moment's chance. Their speech had the awful candour of utter, uncalculating youth.

  To-night he knew she had been saying good-bye to Edgerton.

  "Kinda mean of me," he meditated, "to sneak the car his last night. Only a block to the station, though. Did he say anything about it to you?" "How did you know I was there?" she asked, skidding abruptly into a rut.

  "Telephoned—you were out. Waited for you. I followed you home." He laid a restraining finger on the wheel.

  "Well, you shouldn't have. That was mean."

  "Oh, shucks! I knew you went there sometimes." His drawl accepted the fact without comment, reprobation or innuendo.

  She shook her head. "Never did, before. This is more fun."

  "Aren't you his girl?" questioned Allen directly.

  "His girl? No, I don't think so. He's been nice to me. I like him, of course. How do you mean?"

  "The limit," said Allen.

  She took it in presently. It came to her in the light of a problem. Why should he have thought so? Not being a hypocrite, she made no pretence of anger. Though she did not realise it, that was because of Allen's acceptance of her right to her own choice. Because he had never made it an excuse to be hatefully presumptuous. But why...?

  She asked him.

  "Oh, well—he likes you, too. And he doesn't get on with his wife.. And he hasn't got a girl here." This was elemental logic with a vengeance. But the force of it could not appeal to any unawakened girl.

  "Well, I don't see," she murmured vaguely. "I think he's nice. He is to me. Has he got..."

  "Sure, he's all right," said Allen. "He had a girl in St. Paul, I believe. But that was awhile ago."

  "I'm not his girl," affirmed Hope.

  "All right," said Allen. Allen played the cards as they fell. "I believe you, if you say so. You can't ever tell. I wish you liked me."

  "I do," she said instantly.

  "Oh, shucks!" said Allen. "You're a funny girl, aren't you?" And he retreated into silence for a time.

  "You talk," she said finally, with a rather hopeless air, "as if one had to..."

  "Oh, well, not just exactly that," he admitted. "But —life's pretty lonesome. ... I like a girl . . . near me. ... I used to know a lot of chorus girls in Chicago; jolly kids. . . "

  He was sufficiently explicit, until she mutely signed "enough." Yet there was something primitively clear in his confession. She regarded him with utter astonishment, unaware that she had often aroused the same sentiment in him.

  "I think I rather like being alone, mostly," she said at last.

  "Sure, I know," he assented. "I can feel it. You're away off. You're a funny girl."

  It was two o'clock. And there was her front gate.

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE dressing-room was uncomfortably crowded; Hope found herself in a corner, remote from a mirror and reluctant to take off her wrap lest her assurance should go with it. The dreadful feeling of being alone in a crowd assailed her; she felt gooseflesh rising on her bare shoulders, and looked about: despairingly for Mrs. Patten and Mary. They had promised to be there, and were late. Eleanor Travers nodded casually, and went on powdering her nose. Mrs. Shane appraised her with a long, insolently inexpressive look and then turned, with an air of contempt, and adjusted her gown over her hips with a slight wriggling movement. Hope decided she would be no more beautiful for seeing her own reflection once more, and made her way to the door.

  While she waited, drawing on her gloves, she could see Ned Angell at the door of the other cloak-room, evidently not yet expecting her; he had his hand on the shoulder of another youth, and they were both laughing, but in a confidential manner, as over a private joke. So it was, rather, though of course Hope could not know; they had just returned it to Ned's topcoat pocket. Ned was in flannels, as were many of the younger men: he even had a cummerbund instead of a waistcoat, but he carried off his dandyism extremely well, as a few men can, by appearing unconscious of it. Hope thought she had never seen anyone look quite so "finished" as he did; she ever forgave him for wearing a seal ring on his little finger, and that his hard was too small for a man's. His mouse-coloured hair, brushed very sleek, had a high light to it, like lacquer. He looked incredibly useless and gay; and was both But for a cavalier at a dance, he was all one could ask, and more, Hope felt, than one so country-cousinish as herself had a right to. Now he saw her, and came across the room, and carried her off on his arm.

  Inside the ball-room, a long bare apartment meagrely festooned with dusty-looking bunting and forlorn strings of Japanese lanterns against a glaring white wall, she hesitated again, not knowing whither Ned was guiding her but aware of some immediate duty on his mind. He was taking her to the patronesses, and she stumbled her way past them in an agony of embarrassment, tearing a flounce on the sharp heel of her slipper as she bowed to them. She got another glance of appraisal there, from Mrs. Dupont, who was Cora Shane's bosom friend—a simile which in that respect implied an amplitude of affection on the part of both. A new girl to them was a thing to be considered. Mrs. Dupont, who looked like a Spanish beauty well past her prime, dealt in masculine "futures," and was gowned from Paris. Ned Angell had bored her with accounts of Hope. It gave her and Cora a certain satisfaction to perceive the girl, on her entrance, a dim little thing, obviously gauche.

  Dim she was, gasping for breath, like a fresh-landed minnow, in her new element. Ned could not strike a spark from her, and he did like coruscations, fireworks. A part of Hope's prettiness was her waxen delicacy of complexion; even her mouth was only pink. When she felt dashed or ill it was as if a fine grey ash had fallen on her. It fell on her now; she looked forlorn, and the odd gown she had chosen, admirably suited to her glowing mood, seemed somber. It was of black lace, and her slippers were of blue satin; a Ridiculous blue rose blossomed on her shoulder; a black chiffon band encircled her head, with a fluffy bow that was meant to be perky. It had slipped a bit, and sat over one eye, making her look lost and neglected, but very quaint. Ned, beside her, felt humorously despairing. He would have to hand her over to the men she must dance with like—like a sick kitten, instead of permitting them the privilege. He did not apply the epithet harshly; no one could feel harsh toward a poor little sick kitten.

  He wondered why she attracted him at all. Sometimes so did she. Undoubtedly the attraction existed; more, perhaps, in her absence than otherwise. He always went back to her, as if to look at her once more and confirm a previous impression, or perhaps hoping that at last she might realise some subtle anticipation. That she literally never heeded him at all, neither his comings nor his goings, was part of the charm. He could not imagine her waiting for him, even unconsciously. During an interim she would go on about her own affairs, just being herself. And it might be she would develop a new phase, and he ought not to miss it. He had had so many lov
e affairs of all kinds, he was not sure but this was a new kind —when he was away from her.

  They danced the first together, of course; her blue satin shoes were light on the floor, at least. As her card was not half-filled, he left her then to remedy the matter. She subsided into a seat, pale, but evidently of stoic courage. She was looking at the patronesses, with a touch of sly deliberation in her eye, when Mary and Mrs. Patten found her and swept down on her with subdued rustlings and laughter. It was charming to see her eyes at once darken and light up and the animation flow back to her face. The missing colour note was supplied to her tonal ensemble. And she wanted to kiss Mary and Lisbeth; her eyes said it, her mouth said it, without words. That kissing expression was what made Tony Yorke, who had been watching her with mingled pity and amusement, get up from his chair and go in search of Ned. He decided suddenly he wanted to be presented to her.

  "Thank heaven," Hope was saying to Mary. "Now I want you to impress all these people indelibly on my mind by telling me something horribly scandalous about each of them. Begin with the patronesses."

  They did begin with the patronnesses, who represented every shade of the town's evolution toward "society," as Mary explained. From Mrs. Manners, small, withered, terrifically dignified in her venerable Vandyke gown of black velvet draped with real, if soiled, old lace—who. had brought her county traditions with her from England along with the gown and preserved them inviolate through twenty years of struggle with the rawness of a frontier town—to Mrs. Lockwood, a walking advertisement of her husband's trade as to avoirdupois, and his prosperity as to diamonds, they presented a complete social microcosm.

  "Who," asked Lisbeth, "is that small fair woman with Mrs. Lockwood? Have I ever seen her before?"