He had been in New York two weeks, enjoying existence in his own fashion, untroubled by any demands, questions, or scruples concerning responsibility, when a passionate letter from Portlaw disturbed the placid interlude:
“Confound it, Louis, haven’t you the common decency to come back when you know I’ve had a bunch of people here to be entertained?
“Nobody’s heard a peep from you. What on earth do you mean by this?
“Miss Palliser, Mrs. Ascott, Miss Cardross are here, also Wayward, and Gray Cardross — which with you and Mrs. Malcourt and myself solves the Bridge proposition — or would have solved it. But without warning, yesterday, your sister and brother-in-law arrived, bag and baggage, and Mrs. Malcourt has given them the west wing of your house. I believe she was as astonished as I, but she will not admit it.
“I don’t know whether this is some sorry jest of yours — not that Lady Tressilvain and her noble spouse are unwelcome — but for Heaven’s sake consider Wayward’s feelings — cooped up in camp with his ex-wife! It wasn’t a very funny thing to do, Louis; but now that it’s done you can come back and take care of the mess you’ve made.
“As for Mrs. Malcourt, she is not merely a trump, she is a hundred aces and a grand slam in a redoubled Without! — if that’s possible. But Mrs. Ascott is my pillar of support in what might easily become a fool of a situation.
“And you, you amateur idiot! — are down there in town, humorously awaiting the shriek of anguish from me. Well, you’ve heard me. But it’s not a senseless shriek; it’s a dignified protest. I tell you I’ve learned to depend on myself, recently — at Mrs. Ascott’s suggestion. And I’m doing it now by wiring Virginia Suydam to come and fill in the third table.
“Now I want you to come back at once. If you don’t I’m going to have a serious talk with you, Louis. I’ve taken Mrs. Ascott into my confidence more or less and she agrees with me that I ought to lay down a strong, rigid policy and that it is your duty to execute it. In fact she also took me into her confidence and gave me, at my request, a very clear idea of how she would run this place; and to my surprise and gratification I find that her ideas of discipline, taste, and economy are exactly mine, although I thought of them first and perhaps have influenced her in this matter as I have in others. That is, of course, natural, she being a woman.
“I think I ought to be frank with you, Louis. It isn’t good form for you to leave Mrs. Malcourt the way you do every week or two and disappear in New York and give no explanation. You haven’t been married long enough to do that. It isn’t square to me, either.
“And while I’m about it I want to add that, at Mrs. Ascott’s suggestion — which really is my own idea — I have decided not to build all those Rhine castles, which useless notion, if I am not mistaken, originated with you. I don’t want to disfigure my beautiful wilderness. Mrs. Ascott and I had a very plain talk with Hamil and we forced him to agree with us that the less he did to improve my place the better for the place. He seemed to take it good-humouredly. He left yesterday to look over Mrs. Ascott’s place and plan for her a formal garden and Trianon at Pride’s Hall. So he being out I wired also to Virginia and to Philip Gatewood, which will make it right — four at a table. Your brother-in-law plays a stiff game and your sister is a wonder! — five grand slams last night! But I played like a dub — I’d been riding and walking and canoeing all day with Mrs. Ascott and I was terribly sleepy.
“So come on up, Louis. I’ll forgive you — but don’t mind if I growl at you before Mrs. Ascott as she thinks I ought to discipline you. And, confound it, I ought to, and I will, too, if you don’t look out. But I’ll be devilish glad to see you.
“Yours,
“W. VAN BEUREN PORTLAW.”
Malcourt, in his arm-chair by the open window, lay back full length, every fibre of him vibrating with laughter.
Dolly Wilming at the piano continued running over the pretty firework melodies of last season’s metropolitan success — a success built entirely on a Viennese waltz, the air of which might have been taken from almost any popular Yankee hymn-book.
He folded Portlaw’s letter and pocketed it; and lay for a while under the open window, enjoying his own noiseless mirth, gaily accompanied by Dolly Winning’s fresh, clear singing or her capricious improvising.
Begonias bloomed in a riotous row on the sill, nodding gently in the river-wind which also fluttered the flags and sails on yacht, schooner, and sloop under the wall of the Palisades.
That day the North River was more green than blue — like the eyes of a girl he knew; summer, crowned and trimmed with green, brooded on the long rock rampart across the stream. Turquoise patches of sky and big clouds, leafy parapets, ships passing to the sea; and in mid-stream an anchored island of steel painted white and buff, bristling with long thin guns, the flower-like flag rippling astern; another battle-ship farther north; another, another; and farther still the white tomb — unlovely mansion of the dead — on outpost duty above the river, guarding with the warning of its dead glories the unlovely mansions of the living ranged along the most noble terrace in the world.
And everywhere to north, south, and east, the endless waste of city, stark, clean-cut, naked alike of tree and of art, unsoftened even by the haze of its own exudations — everywhere the window-riddled blocks of oblongs and cubes gridironed with steel rails — New York in all the painted squalor of its Pueblo splendour.
“You say you are doing well in everything except French and Italian?”
Dolly, still humming to her own accompaniment, looked over her shoulder and nodded.
“Well, how the dickens are you ever going to sing at either Opera or on the road or anywhere if you don’t learn French and Italian?”
“I’m trying, Louis.”
“Go ahead; let’s hear something, then.”
And she sang very intelligently and in excellent taste:
“Pendant que, plein d’amour, j’expire à votre porte, Vous dormez d’un paisible sommeil—”
and turned questioningly to him.
“That’s all right; try another.”
So, serenely obedient, she sang:
“Chantons Margot, nos amours, Margot leste et bien tournée—”
“Well, I don’t see anything the matter with your French,” he muttered.
The girl coloured with pleasure, resting pensively above the key-board; but he had no further requests to make and presently she swung around on the piano-stool, looking at him.
“You sing all right; you are doing your part — as far as I can discover.”
“There is nothing for you to discover that I have not told you,” she said gravely. In her manner there was a subdued dignity which he had noticed recently — something of the self-confidence of the very young and unspoiled — which, considering all things, he could not exactly account for.
“Does that doddering old dancing-master of yours behave himself?”
“Yes — since you spoke to him. Mr. Bulder came to the school again.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I told him that you wouldn’t let me sing in ‘The Inca.’”
“And what did Bulder say?”
“He was persistent but perfectly respectful; asked if he might confer with you. He wrote to you I think, didn’t he?”
Malcourt nodded and lighted a cigarette.
“Dolly,” he said, “do you want to sing Chaské in ‘The Inca’ next winter?”
“Yes, I do — if you think it is all right.” She added in a low voice: “I want to do what will please you, Louis.”
“I don’t know whether it’s the best thing to do, but — you may have to.” He laid his cigarette in a saucer, watched the smoke curling ceilingward, and said as though to himself:
“I should like to be certain that you can support yourself — within a reasonable time from now — say a year. That is all, Dolly.”
“I can do it now if you wish it—” The expression of his face checked her.
&nbs
p; “I don’t mean a variety career devoted to ‘mother’ songs,” he said with a sneer. “There’s a middle course between diamonds and ‘sinkers.’ You’ll get there if you don’t kick over the traces.... Have you made any more friends?”
“Yes.”
“Are they respectable?”
“Yes,” she said, colouring.
“Has anybody been impertinent?”
“Mr. Williams.”
“I’ll attend to him — the little squirt!... Who are your new friends?”
“There’s a perfectly sweet girl in the French class, Marguerite Barret. I think she likes me.... Louis, I don’t believe you understand how very happy I am beginning to be—”
“Do people come here?”
“Yes, on Sunday afternoons; I know nearly a dozen nice girls now, and those men I told you about — Mr. Snyder, Mr. Jim Anthony and his brother the artist, and Mr. Cass and Mr. Renwick.”
“You can cut out Renwick,” he said briefly.
She seemed surprised. “He has always been perfectly nice to me, Louis—”
“Cut him out, Dolly. I know the breed.”
“Of course, if you wish.”
He looked at her, convinced in spite of himself. “Always ask me about people. If I don’t know I can find out.”
“I always do,” she said.
“Yes, I believe you do.... You’re all right, Dolly — so far.... There, don’t look at me in that distressed-dove fashion; I know you are all right and mean to be for your own sake—”
“For yours also,” she said.
“Oh — that’s all right, too — story-book fidelity; my preserver ever! — What? — Sure — and a slow curtain.... There, there, Dolly — where’s your sense of humour! Good Lord, what’s changing you into a bread-and-butter boarding-school sentimentalist! — to feel hurt at nothing! Hello! look at that kitten of yours climbing your silk curtains! Spank the rascal!”
But the girl caught up the kitten and tucked it up under her chin, smiling across at Malcourt, who had picked up his hat, gloves, and stick.
“Will you come to-morrow?” she asked.
“I’m going away for a while.”
Her face fell; she rose, placed the kitten on the lounge, and walked up to him, both hands clasped loosely behind her back, wistfully acquiescent.
“It’s going to be lonely again for me,” she said.
“Nonsense! You’ve just read me your visiting list—”
“I had rather have you here than anybody.”
“Dolly, you’ll get over that absurd sense of obligatory regard for me—”
“I had rather have you, Louis.”
“I know. That’s very sweet of you — and very proper.... You are all right.... I’ll be back in a week or ten days, and,” smilingly, “mind you have your report ready! If you’ve been a good girl we’ll talk over ‘The Inca’ again and — perhaps — we’ll have Mr. Bulder up to luncheon.... Good-bye.”
She gave him her hand, looking up into his face.
“Smile!” he insisted.
She smiled.
So he went away, rather satiated with the pleasures of self-denial; but the lightly latent mockery soon broke out again in a smile as he reached the street.
“What a mess!” he grinned to himself. “The Tressilvains at Portlaw’s! And Wayward! and Shiela and Virginia and that awful Louis Malcourt! It only wants Hamil to make the jolliest little hell of it. O my, O my, what an amusing mess!”
However, he knew what Portlaw didn’t know, that Virginia would never accept that invitation, and that neither Wayward nor Constance Palliser would remain one day under the roof that harboured the sister of Louis Malcourt.
CHAPTER XXV
A CONFERENCE
When Malcourt arrived at Luckless Lake Sunday evening he found Portlaw hunched up in an arm-chair, all alone in the living-room, although the hour was still early.
“Where’s your very agreeable house-party?” he inquired, looking about the empty room and hall with an air of troubled surprise.
“Gone to bed,” replied Portlaw irritably,— “what’s left of ‘em.” And he continued reading “The Pink ‘Un.”
“Really!” said Malcourt in polite concern.
“Yes, really!” snapped Portlaw. “Mrs. Ascott went to Pride’s and took Wayward and Constance Palliser; that was Friday. And Gray and Cecile joined them yesterday. It’s been a horrible house-party; nobody had any use for anybody else and it has rained every day and — and — to be plain with you, Louis, nobody is enchanted with your relatives and that’s the unpleasant truth!”
“I don’t blame anybody,” returned Malcourt sincerely, removing his driving-gloves and shaking off his wet box-coat. “Why, I can scarcely stand them myself, William. Where are they?”
“In the west wing of your house — preparing to remain indefinitely.”
“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Malcourt. “What on earth shall we do?” And he peered sideways at Portlaw with his tongue in his cheek.
“Do? I don’t know. Why the devil did you suggest that they stop at your house?”
“Because, William, curious as it may seem, I had a sort of weak-minded curiosity to see my sister once more.” He walked over to the table, took a cigarette and lighted it, then stood regarding the burning match in his fingers. “She’s the last of the family; I’ll probably never see her again—”
“She appears to be in excellent health,” remarked Portlaw viciously.
“So am I; but—” He shrugged and tossed the embers of the match onto the hearth.
“But what?”
“Well, I’m going to take a vacation pretty soon — a sort of voyage, and a devilish long one, William. That’s why I wanted to see her again.”
“You mean to tell me you are going away?” demanded the other indignantly.
Malcourt laughed. “Oh, yes. I planned it long ago — one morning toward daybreak years ago.... A — a relative of mine started on the same voyage rather unexpectedly.... I’ve heard very often from him since; I’m curious to try it, too — when he makes up his mind to invite me—”
“When are you starting?” interrupted Portlaw, disgusted.
“Oh, not for a while, I think. I won’t embarrass you; I’ll leave everything in ship-shape—”
“Where are you going? — dammit!”
Malcourt looked at him humorously, head on one side. “I am not perfectly sure, dear friend. I hate to know all about a thing before I do it. Otherwise there’s no sporting interest in it.”
“You mean to tell me that you’re going off a-gipsying without any definite plans?”
“Gipsying?” he laughed. “Well, that may perhaps describe it. I don’t know; I have no plans. That’s the charm of it. When one grows tired, that is the restful part of it — to simply start, having no plans; just to leave, and drift away haphazard. One is always bound to arrive somewhere, William.”
He had been pacing backward and forward, the burning cigarette balanced between his fingers, turning his handsome head from time to time to answer Portlaw’s ill-tempered questions. Now he halted, dark eyes roving about the room. They fell and lingered on a card-table where some empty glasses decorated the green baize top.
“Bridge?” he queried.
“Unfortunately,” growled Portlaw.
“Who?”
“Mrs. Malcourt and I versus your — ah — talented family.”
“Mrs. Malcourt doesn’t gamble.”
“Tressilvain and I did.”
“Were you badly stung, dear friend?”
Portlaw muttered.
Malcourt lifted his expressive eyebrows.
“Why didn’t you try my talented relative again to-night?”
“Mrs. Malcourt had enough,” said Portlaw briefly; then mumbled something injuriously unintelligible.
“I think I’ll go over to the house and see if my gifted brother-in-law has retired,” said Malcourt, adding carelessly, “I suppose Mrs. Malcourt is asleep.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” replied Portlaw. And Malcourt was free to interpret the remark as he chose.
He went away thoughtfully, crossing the lawn in the rainy darkness, and came to the garden where his own dogs barked at him — a small thing to depress a man, but it did; and it was safer for the dogs, perhaps, that they sniffed recognition before they came too near with their growls and barking. But he opened the gate, disdaining to speak to them, and when they knew him, it was a pack of very humble, wet, and penitent hounds that came wagging up alongside. He let them wag unnoticed.
Lights burned in his house, one in Shiela’s apartments, several in the west wing where the Tressilvains were housed. A servant, locking up for the night, came across the dripping veranda to admit him; and he went upstairs and knocked at his wife’s door.
Shiela’s maid opened, hesitated; and a moment later Shiela appeared, fully dressed, a book in her hand. It was one of Hamil’s architectural volumes.
“Well, Shiela,” he said lightly; “I got in to-night and rather expected to see somebody; but nobody waited up to see me! I’m rather wet — it’s raining — so I won’t trouble you. I only wanted to say good night.”
The quick displeasure in her face died out. She dismissed the maid, and came slowly forward. Beneath the light her face looked much thinner; he noticed dark shadows under the eyes; the eyes themselves seemed tired and expressionless.
“Aren’t you well?” he asked bluntly.
“Perfectly.... Was it you the dogs were so noisy about just now?”
“Yes; it seems that even my own dogs resent my return. Well — good night. I’m glad you’re all right.”
Something in his voice, more than in the words, arrested her listless attention.
“Will you come in, Louis?”
“I’m afraid I’m keeping you awake. Besides I’m wet—”
“Come in and tell me where you’ve been — if you care to. Would you like some tea — or something?”
He shook his head, but followed her into the small receiving-room. There he declined an offered chair.
“I’ve been in New York.... No, I did not see your family.... As for what I’ve been doing—”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 400