CHAPTER XVII
MRS. CRAIGHILL BIDES AT HOME
WAYNE and Dick Wingfield breakfasted at the Club on the morning of their return. Notwithstanding Colonel Craighill’s skepticism as to the purpose of their excursion, they had really been to Philadelphia to a Mask and Wig entertainment of University men. Wingfield had watched with interest Wayne’s prolonged abstinence and wondered whether it could be possible that his friend had really reformed. Wingfield, himself most abstemious, had been careful not to place temptation in his friend’s way; and he had taken Wayne to Philadelphia the better to keep track of him at a time when, he knew by experience, Wayne was likely to make one of his mad plunges.
They discussed the morning news as they ate.
“I note that your father has shot a broadside into the administration up at Boston. Here are a few yards of the speech.”
“Humph!” grunted Wayne.
“Very likely you enjoyed private rehearsal of the oration, so it isn’t new to you.”
“You flatter me. Father’s speeches are not a subject of family counsel.”
“I suppose Mrs. Craighill will be a great help to your father in his public life.”
“It’s possible,” remarked Wayne, buttering his toast. “She’s getting her first taste of reform now and will, no doubt, go in strong for such things when she gets back.”
“It would be a shame to reform this town; it would be so much less interesting if it turned virtuous. Really, I think I should leave the place if it got good. By the way, how about our friend, Paddock, the fighting parson? Did you know that mother has taken him up? Paddock’s self-sacrifice and devotion to humanity are on the table daily at home—served hot with all meals.”
“Paddock’s all right. He’s a good fellow, but he’s overloaded with sentimentalism. I don’t believe I told you I had been out to look at his joint at Ironstead.”
“You did not, Mr. Craighill. Were you ashamed of me, or were you just afraid I’d contaminate the place?”
“I was afraid you would be bored. I took some risks myself, but it didn’t seem decent to refuse when I’m the oldest friend he has here. It was like the chap to come to town and bury himself in the grime and filth for six months before I heard of him. But I went to his religious vaudeville, which was rather below par as shows go; but the crowd was better than the bill, and you might say, in classic phrase, that a pleasant time was had.”
“Recitations, songs and that kind of things?”
“And a boxing-match that almost ended in a riot.”
“Dear me! I must get in on this Paddock wave. He sounds very promising. The first thing we know they’ll be snatching him up for heresy and I’ve always wanted to know a heretic. It would be quite an experience to attend and comfort a convicted heretic in his last merry moments before they chuck him into a coke oven to sizzle for ever and ever.”
Wayne grinned at this cheerful forecast of Paddock’s immolation.
“They’d better let Paddock alone. He doesn’t pretend to know anything about theology. He has a curious fancy that the man beast can be tamed by kindness and made to feed from the hand. It’s this old brotherhood-of-man business you read about in the magazines.”
“It’s not unpicturesque—a fellow with a private barrel spending his money that way. I must get him to send in a few bunches of his parishioners to hear the orchestra at our expense. Our fat and waddling rich don’t know a symphony from a canvassed ham anyhow. Our chief hope for the fine arts lies in people who draw their dividends in yellow envelopes at the end of a long, hungry line of the horny-handed. I’m disposed to think Paddock may be deeper than appears. I’ve about concluded, myself, that the people we know—the prospering Philistines we see in the clubs and in each other’s houses—are a dreary rotten bore. The human race has really been decadent ever since it dropped by its tail from the ancestral breadfruit tree and wiggled into its first trousers.”
“You feel that way this morning because you had to dress in a sleeper without your usual bath. A shower will set you up. You’re always rather savage when the luxuries of civilization are cut off.”
“You never can tell when a man is going to need the consolations of religion,” resumed Wingfield, reverting to Paddock. “Here I am turned into the forties, which means that I have crossed the summit and started down the shadowy side of the mountain. My last photographs cost me double—such a lot of retouching to keep me from looking like a wrinkled monkey. People are beginning to pick lint off of me—a sure sign of age. The seeds of mortal disease are abroad in my system. At night I often hear a stealthy step behind—the Ancient Destroyer taking my measure. I’m getting on. My old popularity as best man and light-footed usher is waning and I’ve passed from the active to the honorary pall-bearer list—a frank recognition of my senility. The jump from being the gay usher at a church wedding and finding aisle seats for all the prettiest girls, to marching in behind some poor devil who’s gone the long road—it jolts, my dear boy!”
“That’s what you get for being so respectable. I haven’t had any chances to carry the white ribbons since my first year at home. My social career stopped abruptly at about 3 A. M. that morning I cruised in from the country in my first motor and hit a bread wagon.”
“The popular construction placed upon that act always seemed most ungenerous,” mused Wingfield. “It was a deed of noblest benevolence, not a freak of inebriety. They are still picking up the buns you scattered from the Allegheny bridge—bread cast upon the waters turning up away down at New Orleans! I have always thought if I were to go in for that sort of thing I should attack milk wagons. They say most of our milk is impure anyhow.
“I suppose,” Wingfield continued, regarding with a frown a speck of soot on his cuff—“I suppose Mrs. Craighill will have a good time in Boston watching her husband at his gambollings with the saviours of the republic.”
“I dare say,” replied Wayne, rising and looking at his watch. “Which reminds me that I must go up to the office and sit on the lid.”
Wingfield rose at once. Wayne’s recent attendance upon his office had puzzled him. Sobriety and industry, as practised by Wayne Craighill, offered food for reflection; he was afraid to comment upon this new course in the usual terms of their raillery; he refrained from remarking upon it at all for fear of breaking the charm—whatever it might be—that had effected this change in his friend. He stood at the window of the reading-room and watched Wayne disappear toward the Craighill building.
At noon Joe reported at the Craighill offices, having brought the car down ostensibly to carry Wayne’s bag to the house, but in reality to make sure that his employer had returned in good order.
“I guess I’ll run up to the house with you and get some clean clothes, Joe. I’ll be down in a minute.”
Joe, satisfied by his inspection, lingered a moment at the door.
“Well?” demanded Wayne, glancing up again.
“The widder’s home, sir!”
“The what?”
“The widder—Mrs. Craighill—she’s home.”
This was Wayne’s first acquaintance with a nickname bestowed upon Mrs. Craighill by Joe, and derived, it appeared, from Joe’s pretended belief that a woman who marries a widower becomes a widow.
“Home? When did she get home?”
“Oh, she never went! She’d brought her trunk to her room to pack but passed it up.”
“That will do, Joe.”
As the door closed, Wayne threw himself back in his chair and stared out at the blurred sky. There was no question but that his father had intended to take Mrs. Craighill with him; the matter had been spoken of several times in his hearing; his father had called the proposed visit their wedding journey; and when he left home there had certainly been no change in his father’s plans. Nothing but illness could account for it, as Mrs. Craighill had been too short a time in the city to be subject to sudden and imperative social demands. He pushed a button and asked the chief clerk what address his father had left. It was brought to him on a tablet in Colonel Craighill’s own handwriting: “Care Colonel Winthrop Broderick, Beacon Street, Boston.”
On the same sheet another address had been written and scratched out, but it could be read: Hotel Beverly.
Wayne laid the tablet on the desk before him and studied it with care for a moment, then a dawning consciousness of what had happened caused him to strike the table with his clenched hand.
“Great Lord, he’s ashamed of her!” he ejaculated, so loudly that he turned guiltily and glanced about to make sure that he was alone. The situation visualized itself sharply before him. Broderick was a name eloquent of wealth and social distinction. He had known one of the sons of the house at the “Tech.” The roots of the Brodericks struck deep into New England soil. Wayne had often heard his father call Colonel Broderick the ideal American citizen; a Harvard overseer high in the councils of the University; spokesman for his city on many notable occasions; author of a history of his regiment, and patron of arts and letters. The Bostonian was everything that Colonel Craighill would like to be. It was utterly incredible that the Brodericks would invite a man to their house whose wife was unacceptable; nor was it a plausible theory that Mrs. Craighill would, on her own motion, abandon a journey that promised pleasure after its attractiveness had been enhanced by an invitation which in itself conferred distinction. He had not read social ambition into Adelaide Craighill’s scheme of life; what she had married for, he had honestly felt, was shelter and protection; but she was young, and to be pardoned a degree of social curiosity. She had shown no disposition to advance herself adventitiously, but here was her first opportunity to try her palate upon the unaccustomed fruits of her new life. As he pondered, with a deep frown on his face, he saw the arc of his own opportunity broaden. His father’s wife had already turned to him once for sympathy; and the possibilities of sympathy in such a situation—the bright line of danger, its hazards and penalties—fascinated him as he dwelt upon the prospect. As an anodyne to his conscience he dwelt upon the humiliating plight of his father’s wife, young, not without her charms and with a right to the enjoyment of life, put aside as though she were a troublesome child. It was his own chivalry, he assured himself, that rose in arms to her defense.
He drew the top down upon the disorder of his desk and was soon whirling homeward.
Mrs. Craighill sat in her upstairs sitting room, sewing. A wood fire crackled cosily; about her were the countless trifles with which a woman invites comfort and ease. The impression of smartness that Mrs. Craighill always gave was not lacking to-day. It may be inferred that she knew her own decorative values. The subdued blue of her gown matched the wallpaper—or seemed to. Her delicate features, the soft curve of her cheek, her fair round arms, free from the elbow, the careful disposition of her hair, swept high from her forehead, were items calculated to charm any eye. She turned her head a trifle, hearing a motor in the driveway below, and her hands fell to her lap with the bit of needlework she was engaged upon. When the car passed on to the garage she resumed her work, bending her head so that her neck presented its prettiest arch to the open door. She hummed softly as she heard Wayne’s step drawing near. When his voice sounded behind her she did not turn, but held up one hand, and waved it, calling a careless, familiar “hello” to his own greeting.
He walked to the fire and swung round, facing her, his hands thrust in his pockets.
“Well?”
“I didn’t expect you home for luncheon. How did you leave Philadelphia?”
“Oh, I left it with pleasure; the usual way.”
“I suppose the amusing Mr. Wingfield took good care of you?”
“He did. He’s an exemplary person. He took me to call on his mother’s relations—all a thousand years old—which is hardly what might be called devilish.”
She continued to bend with a pretty gravity to her work, while he watched her, amused at the pains she took to ignore the fact that there was anything remarkable in her being in the house; then he laughed and stood close beside her, taking one of her hands. She caught it away quickly and nodded toward a seat, continuing to affect absorption.
“Sit down, won’t you? I’m very, very busy, and this is most particular work; if I should make a mistake——”
He obeyed, studying her with pleasure shining in his eyes for a moment of silence, then broke out laughing.
“Sh-h!” She laid a finger on her lips, with a slight inclination of her head toward the door.
“Did you tell them downstairs that you would be here for luncheon? Then ring for Annie and I’ll send word.”
Until this was done she continued her refusal to meet his eyes. She inquired of the maid as to whether Mr. Wayne’s room was in order, and when the girl had gone she dropped her needle and said carelessly, as though the matter were of the lightest importance:
“I had a cold and thought I’d better not risk the trip to Boston. You know I’m not used to this fly-by-night sleeping-car travel.”
“Indeed? It’s very unfortunate that you were obliged to deny yourself so great a pleasure. I thought you were not subject to colds!”
“I suppose it’s the change of climate—coming here so far inland. They say it does make a great difference.”
“But this is an unusually open winter; it’s perfectly delightful outdoors to-day. And the sky would be blue if you could see it.”
She raised her eyes to the window to verify his statement.
“I suppose,” he said, without changing the key of their dialogue, “that we could keep this up for several days if it seemed necessary.”
“I think so myself!” she affirmed; “it would be interesting to see how long one could go on being perfectly stupid. It’s a great resource, talking stupid talk.”
“The only trouble is that it’s such a waste of time. There are so many interesting things to say!”
“Do you mean that you would say them? How very odd!”
She threaded a needle, with the pretty solicitude, the graceful, bird-like intentness with which a woman performs this slightest office, and he was aware of his joy in the nimbleness of her fingers, and their steadiness as they answered the quick searching of her eyes with the point of thread.
“Would you rather not refer to it at all?” he asked.
“Oh, my not going? Why should anything be said about a matter that has already been fully explained? You are a man; you have been on a journey; you have been down in the city all morning; have you nothing to say to an unfortunate slave, who has been shut up here with her needle three long days?”
“The slavery of the needle is too satisfying a spectacle in itself to admit of any coarser topic. I should judge”—and he bent nearer—“I should judge, if my dull masculine eye is competent to pass on such a thing, that your industry has been of rather recent date. You hadn’t been at work on that thing all morning.”
“Oh, no! But I have had ever so many other things to do this morning; this is a large establishment and the housekeeping—the making sure that there is sugar for the coffee and coffee for the sugar—takes a lot of time.”
“One has always the neighbours in case of shortage. If your abandonment of the Boston excursion is a painful topic, we will drop it. Besides, I know the real reason you didn’t go.”
“Is it possible? Then you ought to give mind-reading exhibitions. I’ve begged Fanny to teach me how to do table tipping; I’ve heard that she’s a wonder at it; and they say it runs in families.”
“Have you seen Fanny?”
“Why, no! I dare say she imagines I went away. The newspapers had it that I had gone, and of course they are always right.”
“Of course she will find it out; Fanny knows everything!”
“I hadn’t thought of telling her; it seemed to me that this was a fine chance to get a rest—to play at leading a very, very lonely life, not letting anyone know I am here by myself.”
“But that has lost its point, now that I am here. The king has gone a-hunting; the prince—if I may so honour myself—has come to defend the citadel. How do you like that way of putting it?”
“I don’t think I care for it. The citadel doesn’t need defending. When the king comes riding home he will find the drawbridge up and the water in the moat as quiet and peaceful as when he thundered forth to war.”
“But the lady in the tower—what of her?”
“She’ll be knitting—just as the king left her.”
“Admirable!”
She rose suddenly, wearied of this banter, flung her sewing aside and ran from the room.
When she came down to luncheon her mood was high. She led the talk into many channels, but dwelt chiefly upon matters remote and unrelated. His being there, he was well aware, was something that the servants would not overlook any more than Mrs. Craighill’s detention—when all had known of the projected journey—would pass unremarked by the shrewd eyes of the back stairs. A sense of this scrutiny, and of their being there together, gave zest to the propinquity of the luncheon table. It was an addendum to the supper they had eaten together on the night Colonel Craighill sought seclusion for the writing of his speech; it had the same quality of a clandestine pleasure, but with the element of fear eliminated. Wayne did not question that she had counted on his coming, any more than he doubted the impulse that had led him home at this unusual hour. His senses tingled with the delight of facing her thus at the table. She poured the tea with which, she said, she always cheered herself at noon. He met her eyes at intervals, eager for the smile that rose, beyond question, from a happy heart.
In the library, where he followed her, she continued to talk gaily while he smoked.
“Well,” she said after half an hour, “don’t let me keep you. It must be time for you to go back; though I suppose you stay at the Club all afternoon when you lunch there.”
“I don’t hear the call of business shouting very loud.”
“Oh, of course you must go back; it would never do for you to stay here! That would make it necessary for me to go away—to Fanny’s—or anywhere.”
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t sit here and talk all afternoon if we want to. We are at home here; we can do as we like.”
“Oh, no, we can’t. That is exactly what we can’t do.”
“But if you were to do as you like what would you propose?”
“Taking a long walk in the country—I think that would be splendid. But I should have to go alone.”
“I have a better plan: take the car and go into the country—then walk! There’s no fun in walking in town. The roads are frozen, so there’s no mud. We could take a hamper and have a picnic.”
She eyed him with incredulous amusement.
“I thought you were a bright young man, and yet you propose that? We should undoubtedly meet our pastor and all the elders in our church and I’m not a bit anxious to scandalize the community. We’d look nice motoring out the front gate together!”
“There are more ways than one of reaching the wildwood. I should take the machine myself, and start toward town; you would lightly board the trolley and ride to the end of the line; and then what would be more natural than that I should pick you up?”
“That’s a delightful plan—ingenious and all that; but, my dear boy—suppose we should get smashed in the machine; then how would it look in the newspapers?”
“It would look very well in the Boston papers to-morrow morning,” he said watching her narrowly. “It would serve notice on the Brodericks of your existence, which it is only polite to assume has not otherwise been brought to their attention.”
“What else do you know?” she asked.
“Oh, I know nothing. I’m only guessing. As you say, I’m something of a mind-reader. They’d probably forgotten that there is a Mrs. Craighill; they invited the Colonel to their house; he thought it might be awkward to have to bring Mrs. Craighill into it—to ask to have her included in the invitation—they being so eminent—so Mrs. Craighill, being the most amiable of wives, stays at home and knits!”
“That does very well for an amateur.”
“But what young woman of spirit”—he assumed an oratorical manner that suggested his father’s way of discoursing upon large topics—“what young woman of spirit, I ask, left forlorn with her knitting, would tamely submit to being snubbed? Does she not owe it to herself, to her womanhood—to the sex we all revere and love—to show her resentment and seek in any fashion that may please her the solace of companionship, the consolation of Nature!”
She laughed with guarded mirth at this imitation of her husband. He had drawn close to her, and he bent down and took her hands.
“You will go, won’t you? It will be just like those old times——”
“Please don’t! Run away and stand over there, and I’ll tell you whether I like your plan or not.”
When he had posted himself by the window, as far away as possible, she rose and went to the door, where she stood debating archly and watching him, biting her lip, tapping the floor lightly with her foot, her eyes dreamily bent upon him.
“If you will be good—very, very good—I think I shouldn’t mind!”