CHAPTER XL
THE BELATED APPEARANCE OF JOHN McCANDLESS BLAIR
THE calendar swings us almost into contemporaneous history. It is September of the Year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Nine. Mrs. John McCandless Blair’s excuse for returning to town so early was the dilatoriness of the workmen who were making over her house. It had been remodelled, so often that only her own ingenuity could have devised further changes, and her long-suffering architect shuddered when he heard her voice on the telephone. She was a terror to contractors, and even plumbers were humble before her. Her husband, John Blair—who has had no chance at all in this chronicle for the simple reason that he was, in all matters that engaged his wife’s attention, a negligible quantity—had thought her safe at York Harbour until the first of October. As one motive was never enough to assign for any of Mrs. Blair’s actions, her husband waited patiently for the disclosure of the real cause of her coming. He was a philosopher, and her appearance did not interrupt his work on the brief he was writing; but he was sorry for the architect, who was a friend of his.
Wayne was at home, and he and Wingfield were teaching Walsh to play golf, and Pittsburg had hardly seen anything funnier than this. Colonel Craighill, who was quite himself again, was with Mrs. Craighill in the Berkshires, at a point convenient to Williamstown, where there was to be a meeting of the executive committee of Something or Other a little later. People had been saying lately that the Colonel was a different man, now that Wayne had given up his evil ways; but Dick Wingfield changed the subject when Wayne’s reformation was broached. He declared that Colonel Craighill would be in the poor-house if Tom Walsh had not fished him out of bankruptcy. But Dick’s opinions were coloured by his prejudices; and besides, he never knew what Wayne did for his father at Walsh’s behest.
John Blair was staying at the Country Club, while the house was out of commission, and Mrs. Blair joined him in his office in the Craighill Building for the motor flight to Rosedale. On the second afternoon following her descent she broke in upon her husband at midday, ostensibly to go to luncheon with him in the ladies’ cafe of the Allequippa, but as he begged her not to disturb the open volumes that bristled on the tables and chairs of his private room, he was aware of a new light in her eye. It was hardly twelve o’clock, and Fanny did not usually care for luncheon. Blair made a place for her, and waited.
“Jean Morley’s coming. She’ll be in at four o’clock. Poor girl! She’s been out in New Mexico in all this heat, doing pictures of Indians. I’ve been wiring her aboard trains for two days to meet me here, and I just now heard from her.”
Blair carefully marked his place in “Dillon on Municipal Corporations” and sighed.
“So that’s it, is it Fanny? I wondered what on earth brought you to town just now.”
“What are you talking about!” she demanded.
John McCandless Blair received large sums from corporations for anticipating the movements of their enemies. His wife’s complex mental processes did not baffle him. They were, however, excellent practice, and they amused him.
“Oh, I see Wayne’s finish now if you’re going to pull the girl off the train here and bring them together. Which one of your protégées is this Jean—the pretty manicurist with the short upper lip you wanted to make a harpist of, or that interesting Swedish girl you launched in the delicatessen business? The manicurist was pleasing to the eye—I won’t deny that she affected me strongly; but I hope it isn’t the Swede. Her creditors still pursue me.”
“You’re so unsympathetic, John. You know Jean Morley well enough. You told me yourself you thought her wonderfully interesting—and Mr. Richardson says she will go far.”
“I dare say she will, Fanny. And now we’re to have her in the family, I hope she’ll be a good sister to me.”
“Please don’t make fun, John. This has all been so terribly tragic. And the girl is so proud! She wouldn’t come to the Harbour this summer for fear of meeting Wayne there and she positively refused to see him in New York.”
“But trapped in Pittsburg, she’s going to see him now if you die in the attempt. I’m for it. Do you want me to ask the Sheriff to help? Maybe I’d better get a ne exeat to hold Wayne—he may have changed his mind.”
He took her to luncheon and received his instructions humbly. Wayne must be asked to dine with them at Rosedale, and it would be a good plan, she thought, to have him come up to the office to ride out with them in their car. In no other way could she be sure her plans would not miscarry. And Blair made careful note of his orders, which included the menu of a dinner for four which he must perforce telephone to Rosedale.
“Wayne’s probably lunching in the general dining room—why not give him a tip now that the adorable one approacheth—he might like a chance to brush up a bit,” he suggested.
“You never understand anything, John Blair! You telephone Wayne that you want to see him at your office at five o’clock, and tell him about dining with us at Rosedale, and by the time I bring Jean to the office he will be there....”
“Fanny, I wish I had your resourceful mind! So my office is to be the rendezvous. The library is at your disposal, but you might wait till we get them to Rosedale and give them a quiet corner of the veranda; the setting would be more romantic.”
“Oh, you stupid! If she sees him first it’s all over! She knows what he wants to say to her and she won’t face it; she believes he’s going to offer himself out of gratitude for what he thinks she’s done for him; it’s all very complicated.”
“It’s too deep for me, Fanny. But you will undoubtedly land them. I see Wayne’s finish—I hear the first strains of the organ in dear old Memorial over the way—Wingfield best man, Wayne scared to death—and ‘Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?’”
“You may do that yourself, dear, if you are good!”
The western train was late so that Blair’s ingenuity was severely taxed by the effort to hold Wayne, who was the least bit surprised to find himself summoned to his brother-in-law’s office to discuss Fanny’s investments, which Blair was perfectly competent to manage without help from him. It was half-past five when Mrs. Blair appeared, so demure and indifferent that Blair almost laughed outright.
“Oh, Wayne!” she cried, “I think I dropped my handkerchief as I came through the library—would you be so kind——”
She herself, admirable woman, closed the door upon them.