CHAPTER XVI
THE TRIP TO BOSTON
MRS. CRAIGHILL bore the scrutiny of her new fellow-citizens with dignity, and by the first of December she had ceased to be a curiosity. She had met everyone of importance; even Mrs. Wingfield had been obliged to bow to her at a reception. Those who persisted in their determination to ignore her advent were too few to count. It had been hinted that she would prove loud; that she was dull; that she would make her husband’s money fly—“such women” always did; but no one worth considering was willing at the end of two months to say that she was properly to be classed among “such women.” Her severest critics were those who, habituated to the contemplation of Roger Craighill’s presence in a front pew at church, feared that by marrying one of “such women”—they being young adventuresses headed brazenly for the divorce court—their idol might suffer the pains and penalties of scandal and alimony. Even the most conservative now admitted that if Mrs. Craighill’s motives in marrying her elderly husband had not been the noblest, she was carrying herself well. Members of her own set, who had been among the original doubters, had waited for the complete disclosure of Mrs. Craighill’s wardrobe before committing themselves, but the taste and sobriety of her raiment disarmed criticism; she was not loud. In another of the circles within the Circle it was questioned whether the newcomer was fitted intellectually to be Roger Craighill’s wife, but Fanny Blair vouched for the worthiness of her stepmother’s interests. “Addie reads everything,” declared Mrs. Blair sweepingly, whereupon Mrs. Craighill was promptly nominated for membership in the Woman’s Club. Many were saying that her conduct, in circumstances the most difficult, had been admirable and the frequency with which, in these first weeks, Fanny Blair had gone about with her, advertised the completeness of the new wife’s acceptance in the family. It was even whispered that Wayne had reformed, and this startling announcement, where it found credence, was attributed to his stepmother’s influence.
Roger Craighill and his wife were dining alone at home the evening before the day of their departure for Boston. He had long made a point of dressing for dinner and she wore a gown he had not seen before and whose perfection he praised.
“Your taste is exquisite, Addie. I like you in light things; they seem to be a part of you—to express you. You are the most graceful and charming woman in the world.”
Her face brightened. They had been dining out a great deal and it was a pleasure to have this evening at their own table. She felt again the dignity of her position as Roger Craighill’s wife. She had been hurt deeply by his exclusion of her on the night he had written his address; but she thought now how handsome he was, how well he carried his years, and it was no mean thing to have been chosen by such a man to share his home and fame. She had found it all too easy to take refuge in Wayne’s ready comradeship; the stolen references to their earlier acquaintance that she had suffered him to make had shown her how dangerous it was to trust to his consolations. Wayne must be kept at a distance; she would take care that he did not see her again alone.
In this fresh access of loyalty to her husband she excused and justified his conduct in shutting himself in to prepare his address; very likely it was the way of busy men who thus give their leisure to public service. She must sacrifice her own pleasure just as he did and bring herself into sympathy with these labours of his. There was flattery in his frequent monologues on public matters and public men; she was perforce the listener, but he was older and in her ignorance it was an agreeable relief not to be expected to contribute more than an inquiry, thrown in to lead him on. She resolved to keep a scrap-book of the offerings of the clipping bureau to which he subscribed, that a complete history might be made of his public services. At Boston she expected to hear him speak for the first time; she had seen the programme of the conferences and several men of national prominence were to make addresses.
She poured the coffee and sent the maid away, to prolong the mood of this hour. The quiet service, the substantial appointments of the room, the realization that she bore the honoured name of the man who faced her contributed to her happiness. It was pleasant to be Mrs. Craighill; she was enjoying her position in the thousand ways possible to her nature—the stir of the clerks in the shops when she appeared, the whispered interest her presence occasioned anywhere. She was, indeed, Mrs. Craighill and everyone was anxious to serve her. To be sought first by those persons who are forever seeking victims to act as patronesses; to be asked to head subscription lists; the deference shown her—these things she enjoyed with a pardonable zest and she would not jeopardize her right to them.
“As you haven’t seen Boston in late years,” Colonel Craighill was saying, “you will find much to interest you while we are there for the municipal conferences. Though I haven’t the slightest ancestral claim on New England I feel a certain kinship with her people. If we were not so firmly planted here I should like to move to Boston to spend my last years there. Contact with some of her fine, public-spirited citizens would be an inspiration. Some of my best friends are Bostonians, friends I have made through my connection with public work. People ask me—and they will be asking you from time to time—why I spend so much time on these movements for the public welfare; but they have been a great resource to me. I have been well repaid for all I have done. I have had my perplexities and worries, a modern business man is ground in a hard mill; but I am conscious of having done my little toward bettering our political and social conditions, and nothing in my life makes me happier than that thought. Do you know,” and he smiled depreciatingly, “I heard from one or two quarters that Harvard was going to confer a degree on me next year for my work in behalf of civic reform; it was only an intimation, but one of my friends, whom I have learned to know well at our annual conferences, is a prominent alumnus, and he has remarked several times that they’d have to make a Harvard man of me somehow.”
“I think it is so remarkable,” said Mrs. Craighill, “that you never went to college. You seem like a college man.”
“I have regretted more than I can tell you my lack of systematic education. My father was hardly more than well-to-do and I went into business at eighteen. But I have been a diligent reader; you might say that I have always been a student. It’s possible that I should have fared poorly in college; my disposition was always, even when a boy, to brush away details and seek the broader view. I think I owe my success in life to that—the ability to climb upon the hills and see the lights afar off.”
He stirred his coffee with the care we give in our ease to unimportant things. He was satisfied with himself and the world; when he spoke she felt as though she were eavesdropping upon a reverie.
“It is a great joy to have you here by my side—the house has brightened since you came. If only Wayne would take the place to which he was born in the community I should not have a care!”
“But Wayne is doing well; I thought you said yourself that he was attending very regularly at the office, that he had really begun to take an interest in business.”
“He’s a boy of moods, poor Wayne! Just now he’s going to the office every day. His cleverness is amazing when he applies himself; but let a new kind of motor catch his eye and off he goes! He’s struck a new humour lately—devoting himself to the study of a lot of most complicated legal matters—contracts and the like. Such things are best left to the lawyers. But he has kept straight for some time and that’s something. It’s a good deal, and I’m grateful for it. I have always let him do as he pleased at the office in the hope that he would some day find something that interested him.”
“He’s very bright—and likable,” said Mrs. Craighill. “Fanny says he’s a genius.”
“Fanny can see no wrong in her brother, and I’m glad of it; but she has kept me ignorant of many of his worst escapades and I have simply never been able to get near him. We are very unlike.”
“Isn’t that strange! I’ve been thinking that in so many ways you and he are much alike.”
“Physically, yes; he has my build. I rather fancy that I’m still as erect as he is!”
He smiled and waited for her acquiescence, but she had been thinking intently and did not at once meet his eyes.
They had rarely spoken of Wayne; it could hardly be said that they avoided mentioning him; but his life was outside theirs; his sleeping in the house and eating one meal a day with them left him a tolerated tenant whose ways it were wiser not to question. Mrs. Craighill observed with interest that her husband seemed willing to take credit for his son’s admirable physical proportions, but that his paternal pride stopped there. Her attitude toward her husband was so wholly sympathetic to-night that she saw Wayne with his eyes. It must indeed be a grievous thing to have lived an honorable life, to have made a place for one’s self and to find both name and position brought low by a profligate son.
“Fanny is very happy,” continued Colonel Craighill. “John is a splendid fellow—steady as a rock, and with high ideals. A woman like Fanny needs such a man to check her exuberances.”
“Oh, she’s most delightful and she has certainly been kind to me! She might have made it hard for me if she had wanted to.”
“Oh, she’s kind!” smiled Colonel Craighill, though his tone implied that allowances must be made for Fanny. “There’s a good deal of the Wayne in her, just as there is in her brother.” He shook his head and sighed. As they left the dining room her husband placed his arm about her. These intimations of his secret feeling toward his children seemed to have knit her closer into his life; she felt the ground solider under her feet. She was not without her sensibilities and she had realized that a second wife does not at once wear her new robes easily. It is as though she blundered upon a stage whose scene has been set by another hand. Its mechanism, its lights, its exits are unfamiliar. She is haunted by the dread of missing her cue and of hearing a ghostly prompter’s voice mocking her off stage.
“I have just been re-writing my will, and I have taken pains to eliminate, so far as human foresight can do so, the possibility of any trouble when I am gone. You will have many years beyond my expectation of life and I want nothing to mar them. It will be unnecessary for you to deal with my children in any way. I have designated our strongest trust company—a concern in which I have long been director—to administer the estate. Of course I hope your relations with my children will always continue friendly, but it is best not to mingle family interests in such a case. And now”—he rubbed his hands together as though freeing himself of every care—“now we may dismiss the future to take care of itself.”
“I don’t like to think of such things,” she murmured. “I’m just beginning to appreciate all that you have done for me. It means more to me, Roger, than you have any idea of. You have been most kind and considerate, and generous in every way. I have never been so happy—I never expected such happiness to come to me. It doesn’t seem that I deserve it.”
She sat down on a stool beside him and he took one of her hands and held it on his knee and stroked it fondly. This tenderness, keyed to the domestic tone of the hearthside, soothed and exalted her. He believed in her, she belonged to him; she wished that this hour might never end, so perfect were its peace and happiness. He talked to-night with a new freedom, and she felt the years diminish between them. He told her many anecdotes of old times in the city, describing the humble beginnings of some of his fellow-townsmen: “When I first knew him he was only a truck driver, and now!”—the familiar phrases of American biography. The hours passed swiftly. At half-past ten a motor stopped at the side door, and a moment later Wayne’s key snapped the lock.
“I’ll tell him to come in here,” said Addie, rising. He answered her summons cheerily, and came in and stood with his back to the fire. His high spirits caused his father to eye him carefully, but Wayne, as though in answer to this silent inquiry, straightened himself and stood erect with arms folded for inspection.
“I’m off for a little trip to-night. Wingfield wants me to go over to Philadelphia with him to see a Mask and Wig show. We’ll come back in three or four days.”
“Are you sure it isn’t a prize fight?” quizzed Colonel Craighill. “I’m always a little suspicious of Dick’s expeditions. When you and he leave town I usually find there’s been a prize fight at the other end of the line.”
“Oh, I can’t believe such things of Mr. Wingfield!” cried Addie; “he talks to me only of pictures and music. I can’t imagine him watching men pound each other.”
“He’s a fellow of first-rate ability,” observed Colonel Craighill, to whom Wingfield was a deplorable idler who had made no use of his talents. “But he has never justified his right to exist.”
“Why should he work merely to please his critics? If he took a job, it would throw somebody else out. What would you have him do?” Wayne demanded.
“Our rich young men have had too much notoriety; they have brought scandal upon the city!” ejaculated Colonel Craighill wrathfully and with unmistakable application.
“You oughtn’t to believe all you see in the yellow papers. Besides, Dick’s about the decentest man I ever knew. He doesn’t pretend to sole ownership in all the virtues. That’s why I like him so well.”
Colonel Craighill had frequently made these thrusts at Wingfield and to-night Wayne resented them more than usual. He turned to Addie, who had sought a book on the table and was studying the title page attentively during this interchange. She thought Wayne had not shown his father proper respect and the disturbance of the room’s tranquillity annoyed her.
“When do you head for the Hub, Addie?” Wayne asked.
“It’s to-morrow night, isn’t it, Roger?”
“Yes; to-morrow evening,” answered Colonel Craighill reaching for a magazine.
“Dick and I spend only a few days assailing the impenetrable fastnesses of the Philadelphia mind. Is there anything special coming up, father?”
“Nothing out of the usual run; I think Gregory may come in, but you needn’t trouble about him. Tell him I’ll see him when I come back.”
“He was in to-day, now that I think of it,” remarked Wayne, thrusting his hands into his pockets, “and waited an hour for you.”
“I’m perfectly aware of that,” snapped Colonel Craighill. “I was busy and sent word for him to see Morehead. He’s so persistent lately that he’s lost any claim he had as an old acquaintance and we’ll let him face the facts squarely with our lawyer.”
He spoke with considerable irritation, but he controlled himself and adjusted his glasses to read.
It was the first time that he had shown anger before his wife. She had wondered whether anything could shatter his perfect poise and affability, and his display of temper frightened her, much as exhibitions of anger in adults alarm and dismay children.
“I must get my bag; I’m holding the car,” said Wayne to Addie. “I hope you’ll have a fine outing.”
“Wayne,” interposed Colonel Craighill, “your man Joe doesn’t seem quite essential to this establishment. It seems to me we might get along with one chauffeur between us.”
“Then,” grinned Wayne, “you had better fire yours. Joe has been here longer, and we must stick to the merit system if the heavens fall.”
“Joe’s a sporting character; my man is a trained mechanic. A number of men have spoken to me of Joe’s reckless driving of your machines.”
“They ought to speak to me. If you don’t want Joe on the place I’ll move my car to a public garage.”
“I’ll trouble you not to speak to me in that tone. I’m not questioning your right to use the garage; I merely suggested an economy and getting rid of an idle fellow who is bound to get you into trouble.”
“You don’t know Joe. You couldn’t push him into trouble!” laughed Wayne, with a return of his good humour. He received a reproachful look from Addie as he shook hands with her. His father rose and bade him good-bye with formality.
“We shall be gone about a week,” he remarked; “my address will be the Beverly if you should wish to communicate with me.”
While Wayne was packing his bag Colonel Craighill continued to turn the pages of his magazine. Addie moved restlessly about, softly opening and closing the book-cases and listlessly glancing at titles. The display of ill-feeling between father and son had spoiled what had been at the moment of Wayne’s entrance, the happiest evening of her married life. If sides must be taken, she would, of course, stand with her husband; but she was displeased that Wayne had made it necessary for her to take sides at all. Wayne’s unreasonableness had caused the domestic sanctuary lamp to flicker just at the moment when it had flamed most auspiciously. With sudden access of feeling she crossed the room and laid her hand gently on Colonel Craighill’s arm.
“Roger,” she murmured softly, “I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t trouble, dear; it’s too bad you had to witness my humiliation; but it’s inevitable, I suppose, that you should know.”
She saw that her sympathy was grateful to him; she felt his response to it in the soft stroking of her hair as she knelt beside him. They remained thus until they heard Wayne running downstairs humming softly to himself. He stood at the door a moment later, suit case in hand.
“Good night!” he called, and as he went for his coat and hat she followed him to the door. He waved his hand to her and as the motor rolled toward the street she returned to her husband.
Colonel Craighill was again turning the leaves of a periodical, and he threw it down with a yawn.
“It must be bedtime.” He paused and listened. “Isn’t that the door bell? I’ll go myself.”
He returned carrying a special delivery letter, and opened it with a paper cutter which she handed him from the table.
“Why,” he exclaimed, his face lighting, “it’s from Colonel Broderick.”
When he had finished reading he turned back to the beginning again, murmuring his pleasure, and read aloud:
“I had expected to write earlier, asking you to stay with us during the meetings of the conference but, in Mrs. Broderick’s absence, I was afraid to assume the responsibilities of host. She will, however, be at home to-morrow so I am asking you and Senator Tarleton of Virginia to accept our shelter. I am very anxious for you to know Tarleton as he wields great influence in the South and this is the first time he has lent his countenance to our work. Mrs. Broderick will allow the three of us full liberty to sit up all night and pass final judgment on all the things that have so long been dear to you and me. I hope your annual address is good and salty; the attitude of this administration toward the civil service has been a keen disappointment and I look to you to launch a vigorous and effective protest.”
“That really is a very great compliment, Addie. Colonel Broderick is one of the leading citizens—if not, indeed, the first citizen of Boston. I have always been a little afraid that he looked on my relations with him as purely official and not quite—not wholly social. You see, your Bostonians have their notions of such things, and they are entitled to what they would themselves call their point of view. Mrs. Broderick is, even more than he, the New England aristocrat, a very cultivated woman; and she was enormously rich. It is the greatest possible honour to be asked to stay there. I won’t conceal it from you, Addie, that I’ve rather feared once or twice, when I’ve been in Boston, that Broderick avoided asking me to the house!”
“Why should he?” asked Mrs. Craighill coldly.
“Well, after all, I’m a Western man, and our city has seemed—I would confess it to no one but you—to have lost its early social dignity.”
“You could hardly expect it to be another Boston any more than you could make Paris of it.”
“But now that the invitation has come in this perfectly cordial way, it’s too bad they still look on me as a widower. They certainly had cards.”
“Maybe you were not expected to understand; it’s merely a matter of fact.” Her words were accompanied by a smile, so slight as to be almost imperceptible, and a narrowing of the lids as she watched and studied him.
“Of course they didn’t know of my marriage; you may be sure it was not by intention.”
“I should say that the invitation leaves room for that doubt. The Brodericks were certainly on the list of people to whom cards were sent; I noticed the name the other day when I was looking over my calling book.”
“But, my dear Addie! What motive would they have for ignoring the fact, assuming that they knew of my marriage?”
“Then, of course, if it’s an error, they would be grateful to have it corrected.”
She started to speak further, but bit her lip upon a renunciation of the trip. She had resolved to see what solution of the matter he would himself suggest. He pondered a moment.
“I hope you won’t misunderstand me, Addie, but I really don’t quite see how I could suggest their asking you. In fact, it is clearly by intention that Tarleton and I are being brought together there quietly, and while it’s a bit awkward to be asked in this way so shortly after our marriage, I hardly feel—the Brodericks being what they are and all that—that I ought to——”
He broke off with a light laugh and a graceful outward fling of the hands, in despair of these complications.
“It would be a pity for you to miss the opportunity of visiting so distinguished a family—with Mrs. Broderick being the rare woman she is, and all that!”
“Of course there is that side of it,” he agreed, with bland eagerness. He did not see that she was laughing bitterly at him. “But I really don’t see how that takes care of you!”
“Oh, you musn’t think of that! I should undoubtedly be bored to death. I always hate visiting; when I’m away from home I much prefer going to a hotel.”
“Well, I’m not thinking of myself so much—it’s whether visiting Broderick that way and meeting Tarleton in the intimate way he suggests, I shouldn’t be able to effect alliances of real value in one way and another.”
“Why, of course,” she acquiesced with ironical readiness. “It’s a masculine affair entirely; the fewer women the better. I know nothing of such things, but Mrs. Broderick is a reformer herself, isn’t she? I think I have read her name in the newspapers in connection with meetings of various kinds—I don’t remember just what it was—but of course she is interested in large affairs, and must be a great help to her husband.”
She broke off in a pretty reverie, wide-eyed and with lips parted—an expression that marked a fine shading of delicate mockery. “You are not going there for fun, but to aid your reform work.”
“That is precisely it! I’m glad to see how you catch the spirit of the matter. If it were not that I really believe I am doing my little mite of good I should be unable to justify myself in giving so much time to these things. But, this is really awkward! It is generous of you to wish me to go——”
“Generous? Nonsense! It’s a wife’s first duty to be a help to her husband. Just now it’s important for you to stay with the Brodericks while you’re in Boston. I should be only an encumbrance——”
“No! I can’t allow you to say that! It’s merely a matter of your abandoning the trip to——”
“To help the cause!” she supplied.
“I really appreciate this more than I can tell you, Addie. And in proof of it I’m going to take you to Bermuda for Easter.”
“No, indeed! You musn’t feel that I have to be bought off—that would spoil it all. You go to Boston and get all you can out of the experience. You must remember to tell me just what they have for breakfast, and about Mrs. Broderick’s gowns.”
“Fancy me!” he laughed.
He went out with the note in his hand to telephone his acceptance to the telegraph office. When he had shut himself in with the telephone she laughed; a light, mirthless laugh.