The Fifth Wheel (Prouty)/Chapter 32
CHAPTER XXXII
BOB DRAWS CONCLUSIONS TOO
IT was Edith who told me the news about Mrs. Sewall. I ought to have been prepared for anything. Ever since Ruth had been employed as secretary to Mrs. Sewall there had been something mysterious about their relations. Ruth had never explained the details of her life in the Sewall household—I had never inquired too particularly—but whenever she referred to Mrs. Sewall there was a troubled and sort of wistful expression in her eyes which made me suspicious. She admired Mrs. Sewall, no doubt of that. She felt deep affection for her. Several times she had said to me during our intimate talks together, of which we had had a good many lately, "Oh, Lucy, I wish the ocean wasn't so wide. I'd run across for over a Sunday." I knew, without asking, that Ruth was thinking of Mrs. Sewall. She was living in London.
Edith called me on the telephone early one Monday morning. She frequently is in Boston, shopping. From the hour, evidently she had just arrived from Hilton.
"Well," she began excitedly, "what have you got to say?"
"Say? What about?"
"Haven't you seen the paper?" she demanded.
"Not yet," I had to confess. "I've been terribly rushed this morning."
"You don't know what has happened, then?"
"No. What has? Out with it," I retorted a little alarmed. Edith's voice was high-pitched and strained.
"The old lady Sewall has died."
"Oh, I'm sorry," I replied, relieved, however.
"In London—a week ago," went on Edith.
"Really? What a shame! Does Ruth know?"
"She ought to. It rather affects her."
"How's that?"
"How's that!" repeated Edith. "Good heavens, if you'd read your paper you'd understand how. The old lady's will is published. It's terribly thrilling."
The color mounted to my face. "What do you mean, Edith?"
"Never you mind. You go along and read for yourself, and then meet me at one o'clock—no, make it twelve. I've got to talk to some one—quick. I never saw the article myself until I was on the train coming down. I'm just about bursting. Good gracious, Lucy, hustle up, and make it eleven o'clock, sharp."
We agreed on a meeting-place and I hung up the receiver, went upstairs to my room, sat down, and opened the paper. I found the article Edith referred to easily enough. It was on the inside of the front page printed underneath large letters. It was appalling! The third sentence of the headlines contained my sister's name. There must be some mistake. Wasn't such news as this borne by a lawyer with proper ceremony and form, or at least delivered by mail, inside an envelope sealed with red wax? Ruth had known nothing of this three days ago when I called to see her. It could not be true. All the way into Boston on the electric car, I felt self-conscious and ill-at-ease. I was afraid some one I knew would meet me, and refer to the newspaper announcement. I would dislike to confess, "I know no more about it than you." I hate newspaper notoriety anyhow.
Edith greeted me as if we hadn't met for years, kissed me ecstatically and grasped both my hands tight in hers. Her sparkling eyes expressed what the publicity of the hotel corridor, where we met, prevented her from proclaiming aloud.
"Where can we go to be alone for half a minute?" she whispered.
"Let's try in here," I said, and we entered a deserted reception-room, and sat down in a bay-window.
"Did you telephone to Ruth?" was Edith's first remark.
I shook my head. "No. I didn't like to," I said.
"Nor I," confessed Edith. "She's always been touchy with me on the subject of Mrs. Sewall since the row. Isn't it too exciting?"
"Can it be legal, Edith?" I inquired.
"Of course, silly. Wills aren't published until they're looked into. Legal? Of course it is. I always said Ruth would do something splendid, one of these days, and she has, she has—the rascal."
"You've got so much money yourself, Edith, why does a little more in the family please you so?" I asked. Edith was extremely excited.
"A little. It isn't a little. It's a lot. But it isn't just the money. It's more. It's what the money does. There has always been a kind of pitying attitude toward us in Hilton since that Sewall affair of Ruth's, for all my efforts. This clears it up absolutely. Haven't you read the way the thing's worded? Wait a minute." She opened her folded paper. "Here, I have it." Her eyes knew exactly where to look. Ruth's name appeared in the will at the very end of a long list of bequests to various charitable institutions.
"Listen. 'All the rest, residue, and remainder of my property, wheresoever and whatsoever, including my house in New York City, my house in Hilton, Massachusetts, known as Grassmere; my furniture, books, pictures and jewels, I give, devise, and bequeath to the former fiancée of my son, now deceased, in affectionate memory of our relations. This portion of my estate to be used and to be directed, according to the dictates of her own high discretion, during the term of her natural life and at her death to pass to her lawful issue.' Did you ever hear anything to equal it?" demanded Edith. "Don't you see the old lady recognizes Ruth before the world? Don't you see, however humiliated I was at that distressing affair three or four summers ago, it's all wiped off the slate now, by this? She makes Ruth her heir, Lucy. Don't you see that? And she does it affectionately, too. I can't get over it! I don't know what made the old veteran do such a thing. I don't care much either. All I know is, that we're fixed all right in Hilton society now. Grassmere Ruth's! Good heavens—think of it! Think of the power in my hands, if only Ruth behaves, to pay back a few old scores. I only wish Breck was alive. She'd marry him now, I guess, with all this recognition. I wonder whatever she'll do with Grassmere anyhow."
"Turn it into some sort of institution for making women independent human beings, I'll wager." I laughed, recalling Ruth's words of scarcely a fortnight ago.
"If only she hadn't gotten so abnormal, and queer!" Edith sighed. "Perhaps this stroke of good luck will make her a little more like the rest of us. We must all look out and not let Ruth do anything ridiculous with this fortune of hers."
····· Will and I went over to see Ruth that evening.
"Why, hello!" she called down, surprised, through the tube, in answer to my ring. "Will and you! Really? Come right up."
"She doesn't know," I told Will, pushing open the heavy door and beginning to mount.
"Guess not," agreed my husband. "Here's her evening paper in her box, untouched."
We found Ruth just finishing with the dishes. The maid-of-all-work was out, and Ruth was alone. She called to me to come back and help her, and sang out brightly for Will to amuse himself with the paper. He'd probably find it downstairs in the box.
Five minutes later Ruth slipped off her blue-checked apron, and we joined Will by the low lamp in the living-room. My sister looked very pretty in a loose black velvet smock. Her hair was coiled into a simple little knot in the nape of her neck. There were a few slightly waving strands astray about her face. Her hands, still damp from recent dish-washing, were the color of pink coral.
"I'm tired tonight," she said, sighing audibly, and pulling herself up on the top of the high carved chest. She tucked a dull red pillow behind her head, and leaned back in the corner. "There! This is comfort," she went on. "Read the news out loud to me, Will, while I sit here and luxuriate." She closed her eyes.
"All right," Will agreed. "By the way," he broke off, as unconsciously as possible, a minute or so later, "Have you heard anything from Mrs. Sewall lately?"
There was a slight pause. The lady's name invariably clouded my sister's bright spirit. She opened her eyes. They were wistful.
"No," she replied quietly, "I haven't. She's in England. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I was just wondering," my husband replied, losing his splendid courage. "I suppose you two got to be pretty good friends."
"Yes, we did," Ruth replied shortly. There was another pause. Then in a low, troubled voice Ruth added, "But not now. We're not friends now. Something happened. All her affection for me has died. I have never been forgiven for something."
"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure," belittled Will, making violent signs to me to announce the news we bore.
I had a clipping in my shopping-bag cut from the morning paper. I took it out of the envelope that contained it.
"Ruth," I began, "here's something I ran across today."
The telephone interrupted sharply.
"Just a minute," she said, and slid down off the chest and went out into the hall. "Hello," I heard her say. "Hello," and then in a changed voice, "Oh, you?" A pause and then, "Really? Tonight?" Another pause, and more gently. "Of course you must. Of course I do," and at last very tenderly, "Yes, I'll be right here. I'll be waiting. Good-by."
I looked at Will, and he lifted his eyebrows. Ruth came back and stood in the doorway. There was a peculiar, shining quality about her expression.
"That was Bob," she said quietly.
"Bob?" I exclaimed.
"Bob Jennings?" ejaculated Will.
Ruth nodded and smiled. Standing there before us, dressed simply in the plain black smock, cheeks flushed, eyes like stars, she reminded me of some rare stone in a velvet case. The bareness of the room, with its few genuine articles, set off the jewel-like brightness of my sister in a startling fashion.
"You don't mean to say old Bob's turned up," commented Will.
"Tell us," bluntly I demanded, "what in the world is Robert Jennings doing around here, Ruth?"
"Bob's been in town for several days," she replied. "He has just telephoned that he is called back on business. His train leaves in a little over an hour. He's dropping in here in ten minutes."
"Why, I didn't know you even wrote to each other," I said.
Ruth came over to the table and sat down in a low chair, stretching out her folded hands arms-length along the table's surface, and leaning toward us.
"I'm going to tell you two about it," she announced with finality. "I wrote to Bob," she confessed, half proud, half apologetic. "I wrote to Bob without any excuse at all, except that I wanted to tell him what I'd found out. I wanted to tell him that I had discovered that this sort of thing," she opened her hands, and made a little gesture that included everything that those few small rooms of Oliver's epitomized, "that this sort of thing," she resumed, "was what most women want more than anything else in the world. Any other activity was simply preparation, or courageous makeshift if this was denied. I made it easy for Bob, in my letter, to answer me in the spirit of friendly argument if he chose, but he didn't. He came on instead. We're going to be married," she said, in a voice as casual as if she were announcing that they were going out for dinner.
"You're going to be married?" I repeated.
"Yes," she nodded. "After all these years! Once," she went on in a triumphant voice, "our fields of vision were so small that our differences of opinion loomed up like insurmountable barriers. Now the differences are mere specks on our broadened outlooks. Oh, I know," she went on as if inspired, "I've been a long journey, simply to come back to Bob again. But it hasn't been in vain. There was no short cut to the perfect understanding that is Bob's and mine today."
"And when," timidly I inquired, "do you intend to be married, Ruth?"
My sister's expression clouded. She smiled, and shook her head. "I don't know," she said, "I wish I did. Years are so precious when one is concealing a little nest of gray hairs behind one's left ear. Bob and I have got to wait. You see Bob wasn't planning for this. He had some idea a career would always satisfy me. He hasn't been saving. He has put about all he has been able to earn into fighting for clean politics. I myself haven't been able to lay by but a paltry thousand. Madge comes home in May. I shall then probably have to look up another job for myself somewhere or other, while Bob's establishing himself and making ready for me out there."
Will cleared his throat and coughed. He had simply stared until now. "I suppose," he said, as if in an attempt to lighten the conversation with a little light humor, "I suppose a legacy of some sort wouldn't prove unwelcome to you and Bob just about now."
It must have struck Ruth as a stereotyped attempt at fun. But she smiled and replied in the same vein, "I think we'd know how to make use of a portion of it." Then she rose. The door bell had rung sharply twice. "There he is," she explained. "There's Bob now. I'll let him in."
She went out into the hall and pressed the button that released the lock of the door three floors below.
I knew how fleeting every minute of last hours before train-time can be. I motioned to Will, and when Ruth came back to us I said, "We'll just run down the back way, Ruth."
She flashed me an appreciative glance. "You don't need to," she deprecated.
"Still, we will," I assured her, and then I went over and kissed my radiant sister.
Her face was illumined as it used to be years ago when Robert Jennings was on his way to her. The same old tenderness gleamed in her larger-visioned eyes.
"When he comes read this together," I said, and I slipped the envelope, with the clipping inside it, into her hands.
Then Will and I went out through the kitchen, and down the back stairs.
THE END