Woman Without Love?/Chapter 23
Chapter XXIII
The next week went by so fast, Dorothy couldn't believe it was really gone. Each day she was more captivated by this new aunt of hers, so different from all the other aunts she had ever known. The aunts of her numerous friends. For the most part they used lorgnettes, talked about Palm Beach and Narragansett and tried to outdo each other with their acquired English accents.
"No English king was ever as English," she always insisted, "as those great long-faced Yankee ladies."
Her Aunt Mary didn't have a lorgnette. To make up for it she had several chins and a voice that might have been the envy of a hog-caller. Mary Blaine was absolutely unaffected. She spoke her opinions right out but even in her bitterest remarks there was a suggestion of kindliness.
When Dorothy mentioned this, she replied: "It's due to my breeding. I always kiss a man before I kill him. And all my slayings are done genteelly. Bear in mind, my child, that I have visited many states and acquired the culture of all of them. Once like a damn fool I even went to the Black Hills to climb a mountain. I've been disgusted with myself ever since for being such a stupid ass."
Mary Blaine questioned Dorothy a great deal about Jimmy Whale.
"From keen observation," she said slyly, "I don't think this particular Whale has ever swallowed Jonah but I'm downright sure he has his eye on Dorothy."
"You needn't worry, Aunty," smiled Dorothy. "He doesn't bite."
"Nonsense, the Whale isn't born that doesn't bite."
Mary Blaine met Jimmy a few nights later and the occasion proved a satisfactory one for her. She had ample time and opportunity to study and form an opinion of him.
Mrs. S. Aubrey Swinnerton, a delightful hostess despite her name, had had the almost unbelievable good-fortune to secure the services of Signor Gigi, the renowned Italian tenor, to give a concert at her home. He was en route to Los Angeles where he was to appear in a picture at a fabulous salary. Outside of his one appearance at Mrs. Swinnerton's home, he was not giving any recitals in America. Naturally the incident caused a stir in musical circles and fortunate indeed were those who were numbered among the guests. Mrs. Swinnerton adored Dorothy Blaine. In fact she was desirous of having Dorothy marry her precious boy, Beixidon. Beixidon had no desire to marry Dorothy. He was interested in one of the chorus girls in "The Irving Square Burlesque Stock Company." Had his mother been aware of the infatuation she would have had hysterics.
One of the first people Mrs. Swinnerton invited to the concert was Dorothy Blaine. Jimmy Whale was not invited but Dorothy decided to take him along anyway. She never stood on ceremony.
When Jimmy received his verbal invitation from Dorothy, he stoutly declared that he wasn't going. They couldn't have fought more ardently if they had been married.
"I hate society," he declared fervently, "and I haven't got a dress suit and even if I had one I wouldn't go even if I liked society which I don't."
Dorothy was persistent and at last she wore him down. Grudgingly he promised to hire a full-dress suit. When the night of the concert arrived, Jimmy presented himself at the Blaine home carrying his suit in a large box under his arm.
"I'm going to dress here," he said sulkily to Dorothy. "I wouldn't walk through the streets in such a rig. Everybody would think I'd suddenly gone loony."
"Couldn't you take a taxi?"
"I never thought of it."
He went up to Timothy's room to dress while Dorothy splashed about in her bath. Even though she took unusual care in dressing she was downstairs long before Jimmy. Mary Blaine sat in an armchair before the fire with a quizzical smile on her face. The night was cool and a pine log was blazing on the open hearth.
"I can't understand what's happened to Jimmy," said Dorothy.
Before Mary could answer, Jimmy himself stalked into the room. He was gorgeously arrayed in the full-dress suit but it was several sizes too small for him. The sleeves were creeping up his arms. The trousers were at least two inches from his shoe-tops and in between the trousers and vest was a broad expanse of white shirt.
Dorothy howled with laughter. Jimmy tried to look horrified though secretly he was pleased that he had walked off from the costumers with the wrong suit. Now he wouldn't have to go to that damned concert, in that damned Rolls-Royce with that damned girl.
"You look," said Dorothy hysterically, "as though you'd been caught in the rain and your suit had proven to be a shrinking violet."
"Do you realize this is no laughing matter?" he asked angrily. "I can't go to the concert without a suit."
"Obviously not," agreed Dorothy, "or you'd divert the girls' attention from Signor Gigi."
"What am I to do?"
"You can't do anything. You just can't go."
"Why not stay here with me?" suggested Mary Blaine. "I'm lonesome this evening. I'd love to have companionship."
"All right," he agreed quickly, "I will."
"You're not playing your part very well," commented Dorothy. "You ought at least to show a little remorse. I believe the whole thing is a frame-up between you. I don't trust either one of you."
"Nothing of the sort," said Jimmy. "We don't even know each other."
"Well," said Dorothy dryly, "for perfect strangers you seem to be getting on remarkably well."
After she had gone Jimmy turned to Mary Blaine and grinned.
"I'll go upstairs and change from these frightful things," he said, "otherwise I won't be able to sit down. Then we can snuggle down in comfortable chairs and discuss our pet hates."
"I have stacks of them," Mary told him.
"Mine are in eight volumes," he drawled, "bound in half Morocco."
"With illustrations, I hope?"
"Splendid half-tones."
"It's an excellent idea. I always keep mine lying around loose. Some day I'll start being orderly and paste them in a book so none will get lost. By the way shall I order a pot of coffee and some cheese sandwiches? I have very low tastes. In the good old days, I used to enjoy a pint of beer."
"I love cheese," he said jubilantly. "I should have been born a mouse. I can hardly wait to climb into my other clothes. Be sure and order plenty of sandwiches."
"And gallons of coffee," said she.
When Jimmy had departed, Mary rang for Timothy. In a few moments he appeared. His face registered his disgust. When Mary told him what she wanted, his nose turned up perceptibly.
As he departed, Mary surveyed his rigid back.
"When I start my book," she muttered, "he'll be the first thing I paste in it."
Jimmy dressed in such haste he forgot his tie. When he went back to look for it, it was gone.
"I don't care," he told Mary. "Ties are a nuisance anyway."
Mary had slipped off one shoe because her bunion hurt.
"We're going to have a change of weather," she said. "These feet of mine are regular barometers. It's a good thing they are because lately they're not good for much of anything else."
Timothy appeared, pushing a tea-cart on which was a large plate of tiny cheese sandwiches and a percolator filled with coffee. He couldn't have looked more sour if he had been seasick.
"Is that all, Madame?" he asked icily.
"Yes, thanks," she said. "If we need more sandwiches, I'll let you know." When he had gone, she turned to Jimmy. "Some day," she confided, "I'm going to have that bird shot and stuffed and fixed up swell in a glass case, suitable for an old-fashioned mantel or a whatnot cabinet."
"This is perfect," exclaimed Jimmy. "Now if I dared smoke my old corn-cob pipe it would be Heaven."
"Go ahead," she said amiably. "Make yourself comfortable. I was trying to decide whether I could risk taking a pinch of snuff."
Jimmy drew out his pipe and stuffed it full of tobacco. Then he threw back his head and laughed heartily.
"You're priceless," he declared.
"Maybe I am now," said Mary shortly, "but I didn't used to be."
The evening was a tremendous success. They devoured all the sandwiches and not a drop of coffee did they waste. Except a couple of spots got on Jimmy's vest.
"I am philanthropic," he chuckled. "My vest shares all my food with me but it has bad teeth and is therefore partial to soups and soft-boiled eggs."
Before the evening was far advanced, Jimmy was telling his innermost secrets. Mary was used to the ways of men and adroitly she led him on. He told of his plans, his hopes, his enthusiasms.
"I might be more of a success," he confessed, "if I catered to popular taste, but somehow I've simply got to write the way I want to. I'm writing a novel, a saga of the soil, perhaps because I know scarcely anything about country life and never lived on a farm. I couldn't even tell an oak tree if I saw it. But this story has bothered me for a long time. It is a story about a house, of how this strange house watches over the little motherless boy who lives in it. The house is his mother. And as I wrote it seemed to me that the plot was larger than my own first conception of it. Already I have planned to have this saga in five or six parts, each one a separate novel. I want to trace the development of one particular farm family, from early Colonial days in Boston clear down to the present day in Illinois. How this one family thrived and developed. What they did for their country, I mean the individual men, and what their country did for them. I guess I'm getting a bit incoherent. I always think so fast when I talk about this story that I get my words all tangled up. The first of the Trents had been a hawker of herbs and drugs in early America, prior to the Revolution. He owned a small farm outside of Boston where he raised the plants and flowers which he used in the concocting of various prescriptions, cough mixtures, liniments, bitters, cure-alls which were almost as successful in effecting cures as the intricate medicines which modern specialists in frock coats, gloomy faces and tortoise-rimmed glasses prescribe for trembling patients. Micajah Trent with his pack-horse took the long road from Boston on the North to the Carolinas on the South. And there were hundreds of people who watched for his coming each Spring as eagerly as small boys years later watched for the coming of the circus. Now and then he pulled aching teeth for unfortunate homesteaders, for pulling teeth was one of his numerous sidelines and occasionally on a Sunday he held devotional services in the open fields."
So Jimmy talked on and on about his story. He grew excited and rose to his feet. He acted some of the parts and walked up and down the room in his excitement.
Old Timothy peeked in through the door at his wild antics and gravely shook his head. Sad days had fallen on that house since the death of the master. Now it was a madhouse in which maniacs disported unrestrained.
But Mary Blaine sitting in her comfortable chair before the open fire fell completely under the spell of Jimmy's words. The boy was a genius. There was no denying it. Completely forgotten was her bunion, and her gold snuff-box slipped to the floor unperceived. Not in twenty years had such a thing happened. Her cosmos was completely shaken.
At last Jimmy paused abruptly. "Fm talking too much," he said. "I always do."
"I've enjoyed listening to you," she said. "I think it will make a wonderful story."
"It'll make me a pauper," he spat out. "I'll never earn a penny from it and I can't help writing it. I've got to. There's some devilish force within me which I can't overcome urging me on. At this rate I'll be a hundred and seven before I'll ever make enough to even think of getting married."
"Think the girl will wait that long?" asked Mary wickedly.
"She isn't waiting at all."
"Oh, you mean she's getting married all the time, sort of careless like."
"I don't mean anything of the sort."
"What do you mean?"
"Simply that she doesn't want me."
"Think she'll want you when you're a hundred and seven?"
"She'll never want me."
"Then why worry?"
"I'm not worrying. I don't like her."
"This is getting rather involved. Am I to understand that you don't like the girl you love?"
"I don't know what I mean!" he cried helplessly. "The fact is that she is rich and she is Dorothy."
"She might get over being rich," mused Mary, "but I doubt if she can get over being Dorothy."
"And I can't get over it either," he sighed as he took the last cheese sandwich.