CHAPTER XIV
A LIGHT SUPPER FOR TWO
AS WAYNE entered his father’s house he saw with surprise that the little reception parlour, adjoining the drawing room, which was usually dark at this hour, was brilliantly lighted. His surprise increased as Mrs. Craighill appeared in the door and gazed at him without speaking.
“Well!” he said.
“Well!” she returned.
“Just home from a party, are you? Where’s father?”
She put her finger to her lips, and indicated the closed library door with a slight movement of the head.
“He’s writing a speech or something. He had a stenographer come up right after dinner. I was de trop, so I have been waiting all this time for you to come home and amuse me. And you are very, very late, you bad boy.”
He followed her into the reception room, a place rendered comfortless by the decorator and furnisher, and Mrs. Craighill resumed her seat in the least forbidding of its chairs. She suffered Wayne to mitigate its severe lines with pillows.
“There are better loafing places in the house,” he observed, as he sat down opposite her and felt for his cigarette case.
“No smoking! You can’t get it out of these draperies.”
“You’ll have to this time.” He dropped the match stick into a Sevres urn at his elbow and looked her over.
“The Colonel’s been at it ever since dinner?”
“Since eight-thirty by the stair clock.”
“You might have gone to bed.”
“Oh, yes, there’s always that; but it’s a bore, going to bed right after dinner. I’ve never been used to it. And besides, you never can tell: I might have been needed; the door might have swung open at any minute and a demand made for a date—at just what hour George crossed the Delaware, and whether it was real or stage ice they put into history so the Father of his Country would look well lithographed in the boat with his cloak pulled round his shoulders.”
“You needn’t trouble about being called in for consultation. When the oration is all done you will be given a chance to attend a dress rehearsal—or two of them. I used to hear those things; but now you’ve cut me out.”
This was the first time since the afternoon of her arrival that Wayne had seen his stepmother alone. He had, in fact, seen little of her. They met usually at the breakfast table, but Wayne was never home at midday and as often as not he dined at the Club. A series of dinners and receptions in her honour had engaged Mrs. Craighill’s attention; her coming had forced the season and these functions were now lagging. Her presentation to the society of the Greater City had, however, been accomplished; and she was now woven into the social fabric, one of its bright figures, discernible to any eye. She was Mrs. Craighill, a sufficient answer to any inquiry. She had met nearly everyone it was necessary to meet; even the small band of recalcitrants who had sworn that she should never cross their thresholds had sat with her at other people’s tables, and taken her hand at larger functions whose charging battalions were recruited from the blue-book.
“What have you been doing?” she asked, after a moment.
“I’m afraid to tell you; you would never believe it of me. I’ve been out to Ironstead seeing how the other half amuses itself in my old friend Paddock’s parish house. There was a boxing-match; a girl recited ‘Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night,’ or enough of it, then a social mix-up with ice cream and coffee.”
“Something new, isn’t it, your going in for that sort of thing?”
“Rather a new shot; but not so tiresome as you might imagine. As a social diversion it would compare favourably with shows I’ve attended in this neighbourhood.”
“I’ve met Mr. Paddock; I’m on the Children’s Hospital committee with him. You see, as Mrs. Craighill I’m ex-officio—is that right?—in a lot of things already. I’d rather prefer to wait a little and be recognized on my own merits, but then——”
“Maybe they’re afraid to wait for your merits to disclose themselves,” he suggested.
“Please don’t say unkind things to me. I’m likely to cry.”
“Don’t do that. Tears wouldn’t add anything to the effect of that gown; it’s one of the most perfect things I have ever seen you wear.”
“It isn’t bad, is it?” she rose with sudden animation and took a turn across the room, looking over her shoulder at her shadow in a long mirror.
“It’s charming. There’s no denying that there’s something very nice about you, Addie. You know how to wear your clothes; this matronly air you’ve been cultivating—the much-married look, isn’t wholly to my taste, but you’ll do. What’s that you’ve been reading?”
He stooped and picked up what appeared to be a magazine in a linen cover, stamped with gold letters. She caught at it, but he held it away and opened upon several hundred sheets of typewritten manuscript neatly bound into the case.
He flung it aside, laughing aloud.
“The Colonel’s speeches! Lord, Addie, do you think you have to do it?”
She had coloured, but manifested no resentment at his tone.
“He asked me if I didn’t want to read some of his things, and what was the answer?”
“Yes; what was it? It’s taking a mean advantage though! It was fitting that you should come in here to read those orations; they’re like the furniture—lines of austerest grace, with a little gilt stuck on here and there. You must have had a roaring time of it.”
“Oh, I haven’t done so badly!” She produced a novel and tapped the cover significantly. “I really haven’t felt called on to commit all the speeches to memory. You wouldn’t suggest that, would you?”
“I shouldn’t exclude that from the parental expectations. It would undoubtedly boost you in the Colonel’s regard. It would show a becoming interest in his affairs. A man of ideals must have a sympathetic wife.”
“He’s locked up with his ideals, which are probably quite beyond me—and I’m outside the door,” she concluded plaintively.
“That’s wholly complimentary. You are distracting—never more so than now. You affect my own ideals pleasantly. It was always so. I wonder what would have happened if—well, if your dear mother hadn’t been so obviously and beastly grasping.”
He had not expected it to come so soon, this change—this appeal, this cry, faint though it was, of distress. His eyes brightened as he watched her. A black velvet band clasped her throat and a diamond twinkled in a pendant that swung from it by a tiny chain. The line from her brow, with the brown hair rising abruptly above it, to her fair throat, could not have been improved upon. Though he had never thought of her as common or vulgar, in his assay she had never been of standard weight and fineness; she had been offered at too many prices in too many markets, and he was not sure yet how much alloy lay under the bright surface. On the day of her home-coming he had mistakenly expected to find her ready to meet him on his own terms, but she had rebuffed him. He had felt that she must share in time his own contempt for his father; he had been content to wait for that, and he felt that he had not waited in vain. To-night, with only a month of married life behind her, she had a grievance; she was bored, and eager for sympathy. Her youth and prettiness, her charm, of which she was not ignorant, meant as little to her elderly husband as moonlight to strong, deep-flowing waters. Like a troublesome child she had, in effect, been told to sit in a corner outside the door while her husband gave heed to important matters within. It was inevitable that Wayne, by reason of their old acquaintance, and with the same roof sheltering them, should be her chief dependence in unhappy hours.
She had gathered herself with an effort and frowned; but a smile played about her lips, and she bent her head with a becoming grace.
“I thought I asked you not to think of that. We buried all that that first afternoon.”
“I’m not so sure we buried it. The ghost of it still walks!”
“It had no ghost; it was too dead for that.”
“If it had been dead——”
“Well, what would have happened?” she asked, bending toward him, her elbow on her knee, her chin in her palm, as was her way.
“For one thing, you wouldn’t have sat here all evening in this hideous, stiff room. You have a comfortable sitting room upstairs where you could have taken your ease while the Colonel prepared his oration.”
“I don’t believe I understand,” she said. “You know I am a very dull person, Wayne; I am not a bit—what do you call it?—subtle?”
“You’re a mighty pretty woman; there’s no doubt of that. And knowing I think so and would be likely to mention it, you stayed down here to be sure not to miss me when I came home.”
“Please don’t speak to me like that; it is not what I expected of you. I told you when I came here that I meant to be very, very good. More than that, I asked you to help me. I threw myself on your mercy!”
The tears were bright in her eyes and she leaned back and turned her face away from him.
He rose with a laugh.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t cry! It’s bad for the complexion. Let’s dig in the pantry for something to eat.”
“Splendid!” she cried, jumping up.
He tried to take her hand, but she brushed by him and ran toward the dining room, where she bade him turn on the lights and wait while she foraged.
“Stay right here, please! I will bring the things myself; don’t expect too much, but I think—I think there will be cold chicken.”
“The strong drink is usually kept locked—you must have the key.”
“Nothing but milk, or distilled water! You may have either. You wait here—it would look better.”
She pursed her lips and bent her head with the slightest of inclinations toward the library.
When he heard her at the swinging pantry door a moment later he sprang up and flung it open. She carried a fowl and bread, and told him he might fetch knives and forks and other essentials of their feast. She was in a laughing mood now, and in the midst of their preparations, she ran to the hall door and listened, like a child about to ravish the jam pots. The grace of her slight figure, her pretty way of catching up her skirts, the mockery of her anxiety lest they be discovered, brought them into a new and delightful intimacy.
“Do you remember?” asked Wayne, crossing his legs at ease and nibbling the sandwich she had made for him, “do you remember our little picnic on the rocks up there at Struby’s Cove, when we got lost on the drive home? There was chicken then—perhaps it was a distant cousin of this one. All chickens are sacred henceforth!”
“And there was a new moon and the wind blew in cold from the sea and the pine grove by the shore was dark and sad.”
“And I kissed you that night—the first time!”
She was serious instantly and held up her hand warningly.
“Don’t be naughty; that was a long time ago!”
“Two years last August, which is not so very long!”
“Long enough to be forgotten, though.”
“I am not in the habit of forgetting pleasant things. You were a being to worship that night.”
“Your worship was pretty short; you took that Philadelphia widow driving the next day.”
“But we didn’t have a picnic and get lost.”
“Decidedly not, as she was from Philadelphia!” And they laughed softly, in the subdued key of their talk.
A little later Colonel Craighill was heard at the library door bidding the stenographer good night. Mrs. Craighill rose, clutching her plate and glass.
“Service was for one only,” she whispered, and on this hint Wayne restored her chair to its place against the wall, and with a little nod, a shrug of her shoulders, a pretty lifting of the brows, she vanished through the pantry door and took flight upward by way of the back stairs. Wayne heard the click of the buttons in the hall as his father turned off the lights, and a moment later Colonel Craighill appeared at the door with a handful of papers.
“You up, Wayne? I thought a burglar was entertaining himself. I really believe I’m hungry, too. I’ve delayed writing a statement I was asked to prepare of the educational conditions of the South, and there was a lot of statistical matter to go over. I think I have it the way I want it though.”
He stretched himself at ease in a chair, while Wayne brought a plate and cut him a slice of the fowl.
“What have you been up to to-night?”
“I went out to Ironstead to a show at Paddock’s parish house.”
Colonel Craighill’s face expressed surprise and pleasure.
“I’m glad to hear it; Paddock’s a good man for you to cultivate.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that!” said Wayne, instantly resentful. “I’m not sure but he’s a dangerous character.”
“No man who gives his life for the good of mankind can be any other than a useful member of society.”
“I suppose that’s so, but if Paddock should lead his ragged legion in an attack on the banks downtown and raid the shops it would be less admirable.”
“We must take a hopeful view of society; every school-house in the land is an outpost of democratic ideals,” declared Colonel Craighill impressively, plucking, Wayne guessed, a phrase from the address he had been preparing.
“Here at home we’re going to need a good many school-houses to knock the spirit of democracy into the riff-raff of Europe. When do you go away again?”
“Oh, not till early in December, when I go to Boston for the conference of the Municipal Service League. Adelaide will go with me.”
“I have intended speaking to you about one or two matters. Since Walsh left I’ve been going over all our affairs.”
Colonel Craighill stared at his son in frank surprise.
“You have been checking over the securities? If you had asked me I could have saved you a good deal of bother. I have them all tabulated so that their salient features can be seen at a glance of the eye.”
“Yes; I have a copy of your synopsis and have been checking it.”
“I have had that done from time to time so that it has been kept up to date. I’m glad, however, that you are taking an interest in these matters.”
“The whole story is not told in your list,” said Wayne, ignoring his father’s approval.
“Very likely; only the more important items are noted.”
“In the case of that Gregory property you put into the Sand Creek combination, Gregory maintains that he has a claim—I don’t quite understand what it is. He’s a hard one to get anything out of.”
“I don’t recall just the terms of that arrangement, but the old fellow’s become a great nuisance. The whole Sand Creek field used to be covered with shafts sunk by small operators who were killing each other by preposterous competition. When we organized the Sand Creek Company and took them all over, we were obliged to shut down two-thirds of the old shafts to make anything out of any of them. As I remember, I made the deal with Gregory myself, more out of kindness to him than anything else. I had known him many years and he had been unfortunate. It has always been my policy to deal generously with such cases. The vein through his acreage is poor, the coal inferior and with many ugly faults in it.”
“But there’s a lower vein that is all right. I found the engineer’s report with an estimate of the amount of coal in his hundred acres.”
“Well, it’s a matter we must look into. We’ll take it up before the end of the year. There’s never any use in being in a hurry about such things. I have always remembered what your grandfather Wayne said to an anxious young real estate agent once, in your grandfather’s old age. The young man was trying to sell your grandfather a lot downtown somewhere and became offensively persistent. One day your grandfather turned round on him and said—the thing impressed me, for your grandfather was exceedingly wise: ‘Young man, I have never made any money by being in a hurry.’ I have thought of that remark a thousand times!”
“I remember with equal distinctness,” said Wayne, smiling a trifle, “that once when grandfather was teaching me to play checkers he said never to imagine that the other fellow in any game was a fool.”
“Quite characteristic; he had almost Emerson’s way of shooting into the bull’s eye. I wish there were more men like Andrew Wayne; he was faithful in all his obligations, a man of absolute exactness in all his dealings. I used to hope you had inherited some of his traits.”
Colonel Craighill’s eye rested on the glass of water which stood by his son’s plate. The significance of the glance was not wasted on Wayne. With an almost imperceptible movement he pushed the glass away from him.
“You have been very regular at the office lately: I want you to know that I have noticed it, and that it has pleased me very much—very greatly indeed. I have sometimes wondered, Wayne, whether Dick Wingfield’s influence has been the best for you. I’m afraid he doesn’t take life very seriously. With his intelligence and leisure he might be of great help in our reform work.”
“Dick’s interested in the fine arts and not in politics. I’m sorry you don’t approve of him; he’s the best friend I’ve ever had. He’s the only man in town who hasn’t kicked me at some time or other. I probably need kicking, but it’s nice to know there’s one human being who withholds his foot.”
“You will find, if you follow your present course, and practice sobriety and industry, that you will not lack friends.”
“I suppose so, but it’s the sinner that needs friends, not the saint. But in this Gregory matter—if you are going to be gone next week——”
“I’ll write to Gregory and tell him to come in later on and we’ll talk over his case. He’s always appreciated the fact that I took care of him at the time we formed the Sand Creek Company. I’ll fix that up with him; he’ll have to be reasonable. He’s a simple old fellow and if he sees the absurdity of his claim he’ll be glad to settle.”
He yawned and looked at his watch. “Dear me, it’s half-past one! Will you put out the lights?”
Wayne heard his father’s door close, but he sat smoking and pondering. His interview with him had left him irritated and restless. He was well aware that Mrs. Craighill had found relief and pleasure in his company, and he smiled as he recalled her hurried flight through the pantry at his father’s approach. The incident lacked dignity, but his father’s treatment of her had lacked, too, and she was a young woman and admiration was sweet to her. The girl at the parish house stole across the smoke-dimmed horizon of his dreaming, in her gingham apron, with the towel and cup in her hands. Her friend had called her Jean—Jean, dearest of names, with its hint of Scottish mists and moors and heatherbloom; and Jean seemed the inevitable name for her, predestined of all time. Simplicity and sincerity were in the haunting tones of her voice. His ready imagination threw a bright glamour round her. She suggested all manner of pictures; perhaps it was the remembrance of her against Sargent’s masterly portrait that prompted this; at any rate she was the most vivid person he had ever known, and his memory flung him back sharply upon that first meeting, and he saw the anger in her eyes and heard her saying: “I don’t care for your acquaintance, Mr. Wayne Craighill.”
He turned off the lights impatiently and went to bed.