Bobbie, General Manager/Chapter 23
CHAPTER XXIII
HE was making himself entirely at home. He had crossed his feet and had placed them square in the middle of the mahogany seat of my nice little Windsor chair, which he had drawn up in front of him. His toes pointed to the ceiling; his cigarette pointed there too; for he had comfortably pillowed his greasy old head (Breck's hair is jet black and always looks as if it was wet) on the top of the low back of the sofa. The smoke that he blew at times from his nose went straight up like smoke from a chimney on a windless day. I didn't think it was a very pretty attitude for a man to assume in the presence of a young lady. His hands were stuffed in his trousers pockets, and when he spoke the only trouble he went to was to roll his head in Ruth's direction. He's anything but good-looking. He has half-closed eyes like a Chinaman's, and a yellow, unpleasant complexion.
"Come on over here," I heard him say in that kind of guttural voice a man uses when he tries to talk with a cigarette in his mouth, and I saw him shift up one shoulder to motion Ruth to sit down beside him.
I couldn't see my sister but I heard her reply. "I don't feel like it to-night, Breck," she said.
Breck smoked in silence for half a minute, then he asked, removing his cigarette, "Say, what's the matter with you to-night? Are you back again on that old subject which your precious saint of a professor here raised up out of the past? Haven't I explained that to you a dozen times?"
"I wish you wouldn't refer to members of my family in such a way," replied Ruth. "It isn't respectful to me. You're not marrying beneath you, as your manner sometimes seems to imply. My brother-in-law whom you choose to call a saint is a noted man, if you only read enough to know it, Breck. Oh, no, I'm not thinking about that college affair of yours. I'm not a jealous kind of girl. You know that."
"Well, what is it then? It gets me what I've done to deserve such treatment. Weren't they the right kind of flowers?"
"Don't be absurd, Breck. As if ornaments or flowers were what I required! I'll tell you what's the matter, if you want to know," said Ruth. "It's simply this: I don't think you're treating your engagement with proper respect. It seems out-of-order to me that I should have told my family about our intentions before you have told yours. It isn't a bit as it should be. I hate even to speak about so delicate a thing—but, Breck, why hasn't your mother written to me? Why hasn't she set a day for me to come and see her? Here my family are all recognising you as a future member of their group, while your family haven't even as much as made a sign."
"Oh, now, now," replied Breck soothingly. "That's it, is it? Don't you worry, little one. The mater will come around, all right. Give her time. For my part, though, I'd rather step into the Little Church Around the Corner and get it over with in a swoop."
If Ruth was sitting down, I'll wager she stood up now. Her reply came like lightning.
"Breck Sewall," she exclaimed, "that's the third time in a week that you've suggested eloping to me! I wish you'd stop it. It is absolutely insulting!"
Breck looked up surprised.
"Insulting?" he repeated dazed.
"Exactly. Insulting," went on Ruth in hot haste. "I'm not a servant-girl. I require all the proprieties that exist, understand. Why," she added, "until your mother recognises me publicly as your fiancée, I'll never marry you as long as I live!" She stopped suddenly. I knew she was very angry, for Ruth.
Breck chuckled in a horrid insulting sort of way, and lay down his cigarette.
"Say," he broke out, putting his feet down on the floor, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and rubbing his two hands together, "say, you're simply stunning when you're mad." He was looking at Ruth as if he'd like to gobble her up. "You're glorious! You're great! Most of 'em cry and make sights of themselves, but you—you—" He got up. He strode over to Ruth. I suppose she was simply too stunning, too glorious, too great to resist. I don't know. The portière hid her and I was glad of it. I shouldn't enjoy seeing Breck Sewall as much as lay a finger on my sister. I closed my eyes and waited. I should have been afraid of a man like that, myself, but I suppose Ruth suffered herself to be kissed by him with the indifference that she offers her cheek for the same caress to a girl. When she spoke again her anger seemed to have spent itself.
"You're very silly, Breck," she said.
"And you—you're as cold as a little fish," he replied as tenderly as he knew how. I really think he loved Ruth, though I was convinced that she didn't have an emotion of any kind for him. "But I'll wake you up, you little marble statue," he went on. "I'll make you care for me. Women are all alike. See if I don't."
"It's more important," I heard Ruth reply, "to make your mother care for me. You see, Breck, if we hope to get married in October you had better tell her your news as soon as possible. Why not to-night when you go back to the hotel? She has been here now three days with you and if she wants me to call I can go to-morrow, or the next day, before I go home. You say she came on so as to make arrangements to open Grassmere this year. Certainly the engagement must be announced immediately, so that I shall be received by your mother properly this summer."
"You seem to care more about my mother than about me," objected Ruth's lover.
Ruth laughed prettily.
"Poor abused creature!" she mocked. "Poor sulky boy! If I showed my feelings for you, Breck, all the time, you wouldn't care for me half so much. I understand men. You call me a little fish and that's what I am—always slipping out of your fingers, always evading capture, for I know that once a man gets his fish and puts it in his little basket, the cat can eat it then for all he cares."
"You're a clever little piece," said Breck admiringly. "Half the time I don't know what you're driving at."
Just here I saw Ruth walk over to the table and pick up Breck's gold cigarette box. I don't remember that I have ever been so shocked in my life as when, staring like a cat out of my dark corner, I saw my sister—my own little sister Ruth, over whose bed hung the pure, clean-cut profile of my mother, in whose heart must dwell the memory of the best, the noblest, the finest father a girl ever had—select a cigarette, light it, and actually place it between her lovely lips! I wanted to call out, "Ruth Chenery Vars, what are you doing? Have you lost your mind? Are you crazy?" I saw her sit down on the corner of the sofa that Breck had left empty and lean her head back in much the same luxurious fashion. I saw her blow a fine little ribbon of smoke up to the ceiling. I waited until I saw Breck cross the room to her side, and then, too sick to endure the awful spectacle another instant, I turned and groped my way upstairs to bed.
I couldn't sleep for hours and hours. I turned over at intervals of four to eight minutes, until it began to grow light. I may have dropped off into semi-consciousness. I don't know. Anyhow my dreams were one continuous nightmare of my waking vision. Had it been Ruth whom I had seen with my own eyes smoking a cigarette in my living-room? Had it been my own little sister? Had she done it before? Did she do it often? If I had been anxious to save Ruth from Breck before my horrible discovery, now I was determined. She shouldn't share such a life as his. She shouldn't! She shouldn't! I waited impatiently for the morning light. I was eager to be about my undertaking. I had a disagreeable task before me, and haunted by the dread of it, very much as we are visited by the fear of an operation that must be undergone, I wanted to get it over with and out of the way as soon as possible.
After Will had left for the university and I, as usual, had carried the breakfast-tray to Ruth (lying as sweet and fresh as a carnation in her white sheets—you would never have dreamed she had ever tasted a cigarette) I went upstairs to my room, put on my best eighty-five-dollar Boston tailor-made suit, and grimly set out for town.
It was ten-thirty when I sent up my name to Mrs. F. Rockridge Sewall at the Hotel St. Mary, where I knew Breck had been stopping since his arrival in town. The clerk behind the yellow onyx counter that enclosed the office of this exclusive hotel, had informed me that Mrs. Sewall had just breakfasted and therefore could assure me that she was in. He asked for my card and summoned a bell-boy. I withdrew to the rose-brocade writing-room at the left, and five minutes later into the envelope in which I placed my card I slipped a note that read something like this:
"My dear Mrs. Sewall,"It occurs to me that you may not remember who I am from my card, or if so, be quite at a loss to know what prompts this call. I have come to consult with you on a matter that concerns your son, and would be greatly obliged if you will see me.
"Lucy Maynard."
I must confess my heart acted like a trip-hammer, as I waited for my answer. I experienced a moment of misgiving and apprehension, as I gazed at the pattern of the rose brocade on the walls. I had not confided to Will my intention of a consultation with Mrs. Sewall, and just for a moment as I sat there on the edge of a formal little gilt-trimmed chair, I wondered if my intuitions were leading me into a dreadful social blunder.
"She will see you; suite thirty-three. The boy will show you up," suddenly broke in on my reflections, and in another moment I was silently shooting up the elevator shaft, gazing at a row of brass buttons on the bell-boy's coat and estimating their number, to keep myself calm.
The room into which I was conducted was empty when I entered it—a typical hotel-suite drawing-room, furnished with elaborate and very puffy looking stuffed furniture. I chose the only straight chair in the room, and sat down and waited again. I had met Mrs. Sewall only once in my life, quite formally at a party of some sort at Edith's. We may have exchanged a half dozen words, not more. I had never been invited to her grand house, and most of my knowledge of the lady had come through hearsay, and the social columns in the papers. It was necessary to keep my mind pretty closely fastened on the cigarette spectacle, or else I might have lost courage, and quietly withdrawn before Mrs. Sewall appeared. She kept me waiting in torture for at least fifteen minutes (I can tell you the subject of every one of the engravings on the wall, I am sure) but the queer thing is, that when she finally joined me and I rose to speak, I forgot to be afraid. Will says that such an experience is very common with him in making an after-dinner speech.
"You don't know me, Mrs. Sewall," I began.
"I fear I do not," she replied, smiling formally. She was dressed very plainly, but elegantly too. Her iron-grey hair looked as if it were cut out of marble not a wisp astray; and you simply felt, so perfect was everything about her, that the nail of her little finger was as nicely pointed, polished, and pinked as all the rest.
"But your card," she went on, "your name sounds familiar."
Of course it did—she probably had seen it signed after Will's articles in the magazines, I thought—but I replied simply, "You met me before I was Mrs. William Ford Maynard—in Hilton—several years ago. My name was Lucy Vars."
I was quite prepared for the expression of hostility that crossed Mrs. Sewall's face at this remark.
"Vars," she repeated a little vaguely. "Oh, yes, I remember. There was, I believe, a Ruth Vars. Are you related?" Then as if she had forgotten it up to this time, she suddenly asked, "Won't you sit down?"
I thanked her and did so, she herself sinking into a voluminous tufted armchair opposite.
"I am Ruth Vars' sister," I explained, "and it is about Ruth and your son that I have come to talk with you."
Mrs. Sewall raised her brows.
"Your sister? My son? Really? How extraordinary!"
"Why, yes. You must know," I went on, "that your son is seeing a great deal of Ruth lately."
Mrs. Sewall smiled in a very patronising manner and replied, "It is very difficult for a mother to keep track of all a young man's fancies."
"This is more than a fancy, Mrs. Sewall. Ruth and your son are engaged to be married," I announced calmly.
A slight flush spread over Mrs. Sewall's face to the very roots of her marcel wave, but her voice showed no emotion when she spoke.
"Would it not have been more delicate to have allowed my son to have told me this piece of news," she asked me cuttingly.
"I was not thinking much about the delicacy of my call, I'm afraid."
"Evidently," she agreed.
"I have come simply to find out if you approve of this engagement and, if not, what we can do about it."
Mrs. Sewall looked me up and down deliberately, then:
"You seem to be a very courageous young person," she said, "but I fear this interview cannot alter my opinion. Your sister is no doubt a very charming young girl, but I have other ambitions for my son, Mrs. Maynard."
"I thought so. I guessed it from a conversation I overheard, and that is why I have come this morning. I thought we could work better together than alone."
"I plainly see," said Mrs. Sewall, gazing pityingly upon me, "that it will be necessary to be quite blunt with you. Did you never suspect that I closed Grassmere three years ago, simply to separate my son from your sister? As soon as I learned that my son actually intended to marry Miss Vars I was forced to take him to a different environment. When you consider that I have fought against this attachment for so long, you will see how absurd it is for you to hope to win my approval now, however bold your attempt."
"Oh," I flushed, "it isn't to win your approval that I am here. You have misunderstood me. It is to win, or rather to assure myself of your disapproval. You see I'm not in favour of the marriage either."
"You're not in favour of it?" Mrs. Sewall ejaculated.
"I'm not in favour of it," I repeated. "Ruth doesn't love your son. She's marrying for position—and I want to save her from such unhappiness. I don't want her to marry any one she doesn't love," I hastened to add.
"Well, well," Mrs. Sewall interrupted, "this is a novel experience for me. I wonder," she broke off in a sudden burst of friendliness, sarcasm and patronage gone from her voice, "I wonder I never discovered you in Hilton, Mrs. Maynard." Then she added with an amused twinkle in her eyes, "You are rather unlike your very enterprising sister-in-law, Mrs. Alexander Vars."
"Yes," I smiled, "perhaps a little. I have rather old-fashioned ideas on marriage, I suppose."
"I trust," Mrs. Sewall went on, "that you are sincere in saying you are opposed to this affair between your sister and my son."
"Sincere? Oh, yes, truly. Perfectly sincere." I blushed in spite of myself.
"I believe you—oh, I believe you," Mrs. Sewall reassured me quickly. "I know without your saying so that there may be other grounds why you object to your sister's engagement. You know," she smiled, "there is a different code of morals for every class of society that exists."
"I know," I murmured.
"But we won't go into that. It is sufficient that you do object. And now that we discover ourselves to be, instead of enemies, fellow soldiers, fighting together on the same side for the same cause, I am going to be very frank and tell you how low my ammunition is. I am powerless to do anything to influence this affair, I fear. A mother's wishes are of little account these days—my advice, my desires, not worth consideration. There are some things, I am learning, that I cannot control. A determined and hot-tempered young man in love with an ambitious girl, who sees wealth and position in her lover's proposals, is a combination beyond hope of breaking up."
"Oh, no, it isn't," I interrupted.
She shook her head.
"I have opposed and opposed. My son knows my hostile and bitter attitude toward the whole affair. It does not make the slightest dent upon his intentions. I have talked by the hour; I have cajoled; I have threatened; but to no avail. Mrs. Maynard, my son ought to marry a girl with money. His fortune is greatly overestimated, and until he ran across your sister again—oh, by the merest chance three months ago on Fifth Avenue—he was devoted to his cousin, Miss Gale Oliphant, whom you may have read about when she made her brilliant début last season. I heartily approve of such a match—appropriate in every way."
"Of course," I tucked in. "Why, Ruth has barely enough to buy her necessary clothes."
"Exactly," Mrs. Sewall sighed. "Oh, I don't know how it all will work out; I really don't know. At least your sister is a nice girl. My son might have chosen some one who wasn't educated or cultured—he has had so many fancies—and I shall have the satisfaction also, I suppose, of having avoided the notoriety of an elopement. My consent was forced from me, but it seemed the only way."
"Have you consented?" I asked alarmed.
"Reluctantly. Why, I could do nothing else. Breckenridge threatened a month ago that if I didn't consent he would elope with Miss Vars. At least, if the marriage must take place, it had better be decently. When he disappeared from home a week ago, I thought the worst had happened. I was so relieved when I placed my son at this hotel and found he was still single, that I decided to accept the inevitable with as much grace as possible now that I had been given a second opportunity. Breckenridge says your sister will marry him at any time if he but says the word, and he assures me he will say it unless my note of welcome reaches Miss Vars—to-morrow. So—" She shrugged her shoulders.
"That isn't true!" I replied. "Not a word of it! Ruth wouldn't elope for anything in the world. She's awfully proud, Mrs. Sewall. I ought not to have done it, but I listened to a private conversation between Ruth and your son. I heard Ruth say, when your son suggested a secret marriage, that the idea was absolutely insulting to her. She was awfully angry, and that was only last night at eleven o'clock."
"You heard her say that? Last night? You are sure?"
"Yes," I went on quickly, "and what is more I heard her say she would never marry Breck in this world till you accepted her publicly as his fiancée. It was when I heard that, that I decided to come and talk with you."
"Breckenridge has been misrepresenting the situation," Mrs. Sewall remarked.
"Ruth is ambitious," I went on. "Ruth is fond of wealth and position, but she's the proudest girl I ever knew. I thought if you understood how important a part you and your attitude played in the engagement, you could act accordingly. Ruth would break it off herself, if—it sounds awfully disloyal to her—but if you made the situation uncomfortable enough for her. I'm sure of it."
Mrs. Sewall got up and walked over to the little mahogany desk.
"I was afraid the maid had already mailed it," she exclaimed, holding up the little square envelope with Ruth's name and my address upon it. "It was a note of—" she smiled wryly—"of welcome to your sister. How fortunate," she added, "that you called just when you did. It throws a different light on the matter."
I remained with Mrs. Sewall until nearly twelve o'clock. We talked the situation threadbare before I left. I told her all I knew of Ruth's hopes and visions of the future. I repeated my sister's speech to Will of the peculiar demands of her temperament. I discussed her as freely as if she were a patient with important symptoms, and Mrs. Sewall the physician. I explained the situation in Hilton, Edith's influence upon Ruth, at what a high value my sister-in-law placed Mrs. Sewall's recognition, how persistently she preached the advantage of a connection by marriage. In the face of the force of Edith's influence, I pointed out Ruth's saving traits of pride and self-esteem. Ruth was as haughty as the highest. I enlarged on the absolute impossibility of an elopement as far as my high-spirited sister was concerned. Oh, I urged Ruth's humiliation as the only hope for success!
Before I left I had the satisfaction of seeing Mrs. Sewall tear up my sister's card of introduction to the Sewall family, and deposit the remains in the waste-basket. As I rose to go Mrs. Sewall took my hand in both of hers. Edith, I am sure, would have been surprised if she could have witnessed such intimacy between grand Mrs. F. Rockridge Sewall and Bobbikins.
"I am so glad you came," she said. "I owe you so much. I haven't entirely decided on my exact course, but if you later hear of my opening Grassmere, do not be surprised. There may be method in my madness."
"I'll leave it all with you," I reassured her. "Only I hope you won't make it any worse for Ruth than necessary."
"I won't, my dear; and by the way, sometime when you are in Hilton, will you let me know? Or by any chance in New York? After this we surely must be friends."
"Instead of connections?" I asked.
"You would be delightful as both," she laughed, and I bade her good-bye.
I felt like a traitor that night at dinner. Ruth never seemed sweeter. She had explained as she sat down to our evening meal that she was going to visit with Will and me alone that night. She was returning to Hilton in two days and she had told Breck that one evening at least, she intended to devote to her sister. I felt dreadfully guilty. But for me, her long-looked-for, much-coveted note of welcome from Mrs. Sewall would now be on its way to her; but for me, her bright visions of a social position being placed upon her head like a crown would have become a reality. I wished she wouldn't keep on piling coals of fire upon my head. She started in on her appreciation of my hospitality right after dinner. She said she would always remember her nice little breakfasts that I had served her in bed, whatever her future life might be (and she implied that it promised to be rather grand); she remarked she hoped I didn't believe all that she said to Will the first night she was with us; she assured me that my quiet and gracious acceptance of Breck had made an impression that she would never forget. She kissed me good-night of her own accord.
I told Will about my call on Mrs. Sewall as soon as we were safely in our room. I wanted to get the secret knowledge of it off my mind. I was beginning to feel a little apprehensive and doubtful. I really don't know what right I have to snatch Ruth's life away from her and treat it as if it were mine. But Will always reassures me.
"Well," he said, "if you do succeed in breaking off this disreputable affair, Lucy, I'll take off my hat to you, and so will Ruth—some day."
"Oh, do you think she will?" I asked relieved.
"Know it. My, but what a girl I did marry! You do take the bull by the horns. If you had had a son what a staver he would have been."
I forgot Ruth and her affairs in a twinkling.
I wilted like a flower plucked from its stem.
"You used to say that in the simple future, and now it's past subjunctive," I trembled.
Will laughed at me. "Don't like my tenses! What a particular person! Well, how's this? Here's a sentence in the simple present. It always has been present tense, always will be present." He leaned and whispered something in my ear.
"Pooh!" I scoffed, smiling for his sake. "That's too easy. It's the first tense of the first verb given in every grammar of every language in the world!"