CHAPTER XIII
A KINNEY LARK AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
“IT’S certainly good to see you again!” Mrs. Kinney exclaimed as Nan met her by arrangement at a confectioner’s. “How much time are you going to give me?”
“Oh, I haven’t any,” laughed Nan. “I’ve run away. Papa isn’t so well to-day and couldn’t take his drive as usual, so I’m truanting—and very naughty. I must be back in the house before five.”
“Well, when I got your message I telephoned Billy to come to the house and he’ll be there as soon as we are. He’s been in the depths for weeks. You know you had got a mighty strong hold on dear old Billy, and when you dropped him it hurt. And we’ve all missed you!”
The Kinneys and their friends had missed her; they had missed her dash, her antics—the Nan she had resolved to be no more. But it was pleasant to be in Mrs. Kinney’s company again. She was a simple, friendly soul who liked clothes and a good time; her capacity for enjoying anything serious was wholly negligible.
“I knew, of course, that Billy was back of your invitation. I saw him Saturday—quite accidentally, and he was bluer than indigo.”
“He spent Sunday with us and told us all about meeting you. He was perfectly furious because you were out skylarking with one of his clerks! But he got to laughing about it,—told us some funny stories about your new suitor,—Jerry, is that the name?”
“Mr. Jeremiah Amidon, please,” laughed Nan. “It was killing that Billy should find me out canoeing with him. Jerry and I were kids together, and he’s grown to be a great consolation to me.”
“He must be a consolation to Billy, too; he says the youngster’s trying to reform him!” Grace suddenly clasped Nan’s hand. “You ought to take charge of Billy! He’s awfully in love with you, Nan. He’s going to urge you to marry him—at once. That’s why—”
“No! No! I’ll never do it,” cried Nan despairingly.
It was another of her mistakes, this yielding to Copeland’s demand for an interview that could have but one purpose. She was thoroughly angry at herself, half angry at Mrs. Kinney for acting as Copeland’s intermediary.
Copeland was pacing the veranda smoking a cigarette when they reached the house.
“It’s mighty nice of you to come, Nan,” he said.
“I’ve heard, Billy, that the haughty John Eaton’s rather attentive to the late Mrs. Copeland,” said Grace, when they had gathered about the tea-table. “She was among those present at a little dinner he gave at the University Club the other night in honor of that English novelist who’s visiting here.”
“You’re bitter because he left you out,” said Copeland indifferently.
“Oh, my bitterness won’t hurt Fanny. I suppose you’ve heard that she’s come into a nice bunch of money—something like a quarter of a million!”
Copeland’s surprise was evident.
“That sounds like a fairy story; but I hope it’s true.”
“I know it’s true,” said Nan quietly. “Mrs. Copeland told me herself.”
Mrs. Kinney had risen to leave them and Copeland had crossed the room to open the door for her. They were arrested by Nan’s surprising confirmation of this report that Mrs. Copeland had come into an unexpected inheritance. Nan vouchsafed nothing more; and at a glance from Copeland Grace left them.
“I didn’t know you and Fanny were seeing each other these days,” he remarked as he sat down beside her. “Something new, isn’t it?”
“Well, papa always admired her and he took me out to see her a little while ago, and then that day you saw her with us at the bank he insisted on taking her home for luncheon. She told us then about the money.”
Copeland smiled grimly.
“Of course, you know what it means—Farley’s sudden affection for Fanny?”
“Oh, he used to see a good deal of her, didn’t he, when you were first married?”
“Mrs. Farley and Fanny exchanged a few calls and we were there for dinner once, while you were still away at school. But this is different; he’s throwing you with her for a purpose, as you ought to see. It does credit to the old man’s cunning. He thinks that if you become good friends with Fanny, he can be sure you’ve dropped me.”
“Rubbish! Papa has always liked her; he likes the kind of woman who can run a farm and make money out of it; he thinks she’s a good example for me!”
“Don’t let him fool you about that!” he said petulantly. “He’s an old Shylock and he’s about taken the last ounce out of me. Paying him that last twenty-five thousand has put me in a bad hole. And it’s pure vengeance. If he wasn’t afraid you were going to marry me, he would never have driven me so hard. He thinks if he can ruin me financially you’ll quit me for good. It was understood when I bought him out that he’d be easy about the payments. There’s a frame-up between him and Corbin & Eichberg to force me out of business. And he’s been calling some of the old employees up to see him, and encouraging Amidon to trot up there so he can worm things out of him. I don’t think he gets anything out of Jerry,” he added, taking warning of a resentful gleam in Nan’s eyes. “I think the boy’s loyal to me; in fact”—he grinned ruefully—“he’s full of an ambition to make a man of me! But you must see that it’s all a game to draw you away from me. Farley’s not the sort of man to waste time on a youngster like Amidon for nothing, and this throwing you in Fanny’s way is about as smooth a piece of work as I ever knew him to do.”
“You’re exaggerating, Billy; and as far as Jerry is concerned, papa likes him; he always takes an interest in poor boys. And the fact that Jerry came from down there on the river where he had his own early struggles probably makes him a little more sympathetic with him.”
“The old gentleman’s sympathies,” said Copeland, bending forward and meeting her gaze with a significant look, “are likely to cost you a whole lot of money, Nan.”
“Just how do you make that out, Billy?”
“All the hospitals and charitable concerns in town have been working on Farley to do something for them in his will, and I heard yesterday that he’s promised to do something big for the Boys’ Club people. You’ve probably seen Trumbull at the house a good deal—he’s the kind of fellow who’d make an impression on Farley. I got this from Kinney. He gave them some money last year and they put him on the board of directors. They’re all counting on something handsome from the old man. I assume he hasn’t told you anything about it; it wouldn’t be like him to! He means to die and let you find out just what his affection for you comes down to in dollars.”
“Well, he has a right to do what he likes with his money,” Nan replied slowly, repeating the phrase with which she had sought to console herself since the will fell into her hands. “I suppose he thinks he’s done enough for me.”
The phrases of the will danced before her eyes: Copeland’s intimations squared with the facts as she knew them to be; she had seen tangible proof of their accuracy.
“We have to admit that he’s been kind to you, but he hasn’t any right to bring you up as his daughter and then cut you off. You stand in law as his own child, and if he should die without making a will, you’d inherit everything.”
“Well, the law hasn’t made me his own child,” said Nan bitterly.
Seeing her resentment, and feeling that he was gaining ground, he proceeded cautiously.
“I suppose he’s likely to have a sudden call one of these days?”
“Yes; or he may live several years, so the doctor told me. But I don’t want to think of that. And I don’t like to think of what he may do or not do for me,” she added earnestly.
“Of course you don’t!” he assented. “But he hasn’t any right to stand between you and your happiness. If he had the right feeling about you, he’d want to see you married and settled before he dies. I suppose he’s never told you what he meant to do for you?”
“No. But he’s told me what he wouldn’t do if I married you; he laid that down in the plainest English!”
“I don’t doubt it; but no man has a right to do any such thing. Just why he hates me so I don’t understand. It oughtn’t to be a crime to love you, Nan.”
His hand touched hers, then clasped it tightly.
“I don’t see why we should be talking of these things at all,” he went on. “I love you; and I believe that deep down in your heart you love me. You’re not going to say you don’t, Nan?”
“You know I’ve always liked you a lot, Billy,” she answered evasively.
“Before Farley got the idea that I wanted to marry you for his money and abused me and made you unhappy, you cared; you can’t deny that. And I don’t believe his hatred of me really made any difference.”
It was the wiser course not to abuse Farley. He felt that he was winning her to a yielding mood, and his hopes rose.
She withdrew her hand suddenly and bent her eyes upon him with disconcerting intentness.
“Please tell me, Billy, the real truth about your trouble with Fanny?”
The abruptness of her question startled him. The color deepened in his face and he blinked under her searching gaze. She had never before spoken of his trouble with his former wife.
“That,” he said rallying quickly, “is all over and done. It hasn’t anything to do with you and me.”
“Yes, Billy; I think it has! If you’re really serious in wanting to marry me, I think I ought to know about that.”
“I don’t see how you could doubt my seriousness; you’ve been the one serious thing in my whole life!”
“But Fanny—” she persisted, gently touching his hands that were loosely clasped on his knee.
“Oh, the trouble was that we were never suited to each other. She’s quiet, domestic—a country-town girl, and never fitted into things here. She wanted to sit at home every evening and sew and expected me to wait around for her to drop a spool so I could get excitement out of scrambling for it. And she didn’t like my friends, or doing the things I like. Her idea of having a gay time was to go to the state fair once a year and look at live stock! I think she hated me toward the end.”
“But that other story about her—about another man; she doesn’t look like that sort of woman, Billy.”
He shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
“That wasn’t in the case at all. The divorce was given for incompatibility. Whatever else there may have been didn’t figure. I made it as easy for her as possible, of course. And I’ve no doubt she was as glad to quit as I was!”
“But you didn’t think—you didn’t honestly believe—”
“Well, I thought she was interested in Manning; and we had some trouble about that. He used to come here a good deal. He was an old friend of mine and his business brought him to town pretty often for a couple of years. He’s a fellow of quiet tastes—just her sort—and I hoped when I got out of the way she’d marry him. I want you to be satisfied about everything, Nan. I tell you everything’s over between Fanny and me.”
She rose and took a turn across the room, paused at the window, glanced out upon the lawn and the strip of woodland beyond. He became impatient as the minutes passed. Then she faced him suddenly.
“It’s no use, Billy,” she said.
He was eagerly protesting when Mrs. Kinney appeared at the door.
“What are you two looking so glum about? You need cheering up and I’ve got a fine surprise for you!”
“I must go,” said Nan, relieved at the interruption.
“Not much, you’re not! Bob has just telephoned that the Burleys of Chicago are in town and they’re coming out for dinner. And I’ve telephoned the Liggetts and the Martins and George Pickard and Edith Saxby and the Andrews. It will be like old times to have the old crowd together once more!”
“Of course, Nan will stay! She’s been making me miserable lately and that will help her square herself,” said Copeland.
“I must go, really,” Nan reiterated, suspecting that the party had been arranged in advance.
“Please don’t!” cried Copeland. “You can telephone home that you’ve been delayed—you can arrange it someway.”
“When I went downtown on an errand! I don’t see it!”
“Dinner’s at six; the Burleys have to go into town early,” said Mrs. Kinney.
“Oh, let her go!” exclaimed Copeland. “Our Nan isn’t the good sport she used to be, and she doesn’t love any of us any more. She’s gone back on all her old friends.”
“Oh, no, she hasn’t. I never knew her to take a dare! I don’t believe she’s going to do it now.”
Nan surveyed them defiantly and looked at her watch.
She felt that she had finally dismissed Billy, and her last word to him had left her elated. It might be worth while to wait, at any hazard, to ease his discomfiture, and to show the Kinneys and their friends that she had not cut them; and, moreover, she was unwilling to have them know how greatly her old freedom was curtailed. The time had passed quickly and she could not reach home before seven even if she left immediately. Miss Rankin had covered up her absences before and might do so again.
“Let me telephone and I’ll see how things are going.”
The nurse’s report was reassuring. Farley, who had rested badly for several nights, was sleeping. He might not waken for an hour—perhaps not for several hours. Miss Rankin volunteered to explain Nan’s absence if he should call for her.
“All right, Grace, you may a lay a plate for me!” she announced cheerfully. “But I must be on my way right after dinner. You understand that!”
“It’s great to see you on the good old cocktail route again, Nan!” declared Pickard. “We heard you’d taken the veil!”
The cocktails were passed before they went to the table; there were quarts for everybody, Grace assured them. The men had already fortified themselves downtown against any lack of an appetizer at the house. Mocking exclamations of surprise and alarm followed Nan’s rejection of her glass.
“That’s not fair, Nan!” they chorused, gathering about her. “You used to swallow six without blinking an eye.”
“She’s joined the crape-hangers for sure! I didn’t think it of our Nan!” mourned Pickard.
“Oh, anything to stop your crying!” Nan took the glass Kinney had been holding for her. “There! I hope you’re satisfied. It’s silly to make so much fuss about a mere cocktail. No, thanks; not another! There’s no point in taking the same dare twice!”
At the table the talk at once became animated. Nan had been away from them so long that she had half forgotten their range of interests. Burley’s expensive new machine, in which he had motored down from Chicago; “shows” they had seen; a business scheme—biggest thing afoot, Burley threw in parenthetically, with a promise to tell Kinney more about it later; George Pickard’s attentions to the soubrette in a musical comedy, and references to flirtations which the married men present had been engaging in—these things were flung upon the table to be pecked at and dismissed.
“You people are the only real sports in this dismal swamp of a town! I don’t know how you live here among so many dead ones!” said Burley.
Kinney declared that he intended to move to New York as soon as he got rid of his patent suits; he was tired of living in a one-horse town. This suggested a discussion of the merits of New York hotels—a subject which the Kinneys everywhere west of Manhattan Island find endlessly exciting.
When champagne was served, Burley rose with elaborate dignity and invited the other men to join in a toast to the ladies; they were the best girls in America; he defied anybody to gainsay him. He wished they might all travel about together all the time hitting only the high places; and he extended a general invitation to the company to meet him at Palm Beach the next winter for what he promised should be a grand time.
“He’d make it Japan if he’d only had a few more drinks,” his wife remarked to Nan.
By the time salad was served George Pickard thought it well to justify his reputation as a “cut-up.” His father, a successful lawyer, had left him a comfortable fortune which George was rapidly distributing. George had rebelled against the tame social life of the town in which he was born; he was bored by respectability, and found the freedom of the Kinneys’ establishment wholly to his liking. He went to the living-room for the victrola and wheeled it in, playing the newest tango, to a point just behind Nan’s chair.
“Got to have music; got the habit and can’t eat without music!”
This was accepted as a joke until Copeland protested that he couldn’t stand the noise and began struggling with Pickard, who bitterly resented his effort to push the machine out of the room. The music was hushed presently and Pickard resumed his seat with the understanding that he might play all he pleased after dinner.
“And we’ll have a dance—I haven’t danced a step in ages!” cried Nan, entering into the spirit of the occasion.
She had always excused their vulgarity on the ground that they were at least cheerful, and that probably they were just as good as the people who frowned upon them. Their admiration was evident from the frequency with which they invited her opinion on the questions under discussion; and it was a relief to escape from the invalid air of home and from what she had convinced herself was Farley’s hostility.
Several times her fingers touched the stem of her wineglass, only to be withdrawn quickly. Copeland, sitting beside her, noticed her indecision and drew the glass toward her.
“Just one, for old times’ sake, Nan?”
“All right, Billy!”
She emptied her glass, and then, turning to Copeland, laid her fingers lightly across the rim.
“That’s all; not another drop!” she said in a low tone.
He laughed and held up his glass for inspection; he had barely touched his lips to it.
“I had only one cocktail and I haven’t taken any of this stuff,” he said with a glance that invited approval. “I can do it; you see I can do it! I can do anything for you, Nan!”
The furtive touch of his hand seemed to establish an understanding between them that they were spectators, not participants in the revel.
THE FURTIVE TOUCH OF HIS HAND SEEMED TO ESTABLISH AN UNDERSTANDING
BETWEEN THEM THAT THEY WERE SPECTATORS, NOT PARTICIPANTS
IN THE REVEL
“I know you can, and you must, Billy.”
The noise and confusion increased. Edith Saxby had begun to cry—Nan remembered that Edith usually cried when she was tipsy. She was bewailing the loss of her salted almonds which she charged Andrews with appropriating. Andrews thereupon went to the sideboard and brought the serving-dish of almonds and poured the contents upon the girl’s head.
Pickard leaned across the table to wipe away her tears with his napkin. In attempting this feat he upset the wine-glasses of his immediate neighbors, causing a wild scamper to escape the resulting deluge. Liggett and Burley retaliated by pushing him upon the table, where he crowned himself with the floral centerpiece. Boisterous expressions of delight greeted this masterstroke.
“This is getting too rotten!” shouted Copeland.
He seized Pickard and dragged him from the table amid general protests.
“Biggest joke of all,” cried Kinney, pointing at Copeland, “that Billy’s sober. Everybody else drunk, but Billy sober’s a judge!”
Mrs. Liggett, a stout blonde, shrilly resenting this as an imputation upon her character, attempted to retaliate by slapping Kinney, who began running round the table to escape her. This continued with the others cheering them on until she tripped and fell headlong amid screams of consternation from the women and roars of delight from the men.
“This is what I call a real ball!” declared Burley.
After Mrs. Liggett had been carried to a divan in the hall to recuperate, they decided that the possibilities of the table had been exhausted and returned to the living-room where the victrola was again set going.
Nan, lingering in the hall, found Andrews beside her.
“Always meant to tell you I loved you, Nan; now’s a good time,” he blurted. “No girl like you, Nancy!”
His wife appeared suddenly at the door and screamed at him to behave himself, while the others laughed loudly.
“Rules all suspended to-night; nobody going to be jealous!” cried Burley encouragingly.
“Got to kiss me, Nan,” Andrews resumed; “kiss everybody else but you never—”
She pushed him away in disgust. Kinney entertainments, viewed soberly, clearly lacked the zest she had found in them when exhilarated. She looked at her watch. She must leave immediately. Copeland beckoned to her and she turned to him with relief.
“It’s half-past eight, Nan; how soon must you go?”
“At once; I shouldn’t have stayed in the first place.”
“Well, I’ll be glad enough to shake this bunch! Get your things and I’ll go for the car.”
He had been a very different Billy to-night. It was clear that he meant to be kind and considerate. The butler passed them bearing a jingling tray to answer a demand for high-balls from the living-room. Billy was the only sober man in the company, and she gave him full credit for his abstemiousness. They were calling her insistently to come and do some of the “stunts” that she had always contributed to their parties.
She walked to the open door and laughed at them mockingly.
“I’m all in, dead tired! Billy’s going to take me home!”
The sight of them, flushed, rumpled, maudlin, increased her desire to escape as quickly as possible. She bade them good-night amid their loud reproaches, went for her hat and coat, and was soon in Copeland’s white roadster spinning toward town.
“Well, Nan, this is fine. We can go on with our talk now.”
“But we finished that, Billy. We can’t go back to it again!”
“Oh, yes, we can; there’s only one way to end it! That sort of thing”—he jerked his head toward the Kinneys’—“isn’t for you and me. I’ve cut it out; passed it up for good. I’m going to live straight and try to get back all I’ve lost: I know everybody’s down on me—waiting to see me take the count. But with you everything will be different. You know that; you understand it, Nan!”
Nan’s thoughts were sober ones. She did like Billy; his good conduct at the party was encouraging; he could be a man if he would. He was a boy—a big, foolish boy, kind of heart, and generous, with a substratum of real character. The actual difference in years did not matter greatly; he was as slim and trim as a youngster just out of college. From the beginning of their acquaintance they had got on amazingly well together. And he loved her; she was honestly convinced of this. Like many young girls she had found the adoration of an older man flattering. A Farley had been cruelly unjust to her; there was always that justification. Even after she had given him her solemn assurances that she would not marry Billy, he had deliberately planned to give the bulk of his fortune to charity.
After the scenes at the Kinneys’ she found infinite relief and comfort in the rush of the cool night air, and in the bright shield of stars above. Billy was the only person in all the world who cared, who understood! In her anxiety to be just, she gave to his good conduct during the evening an exaggerated importance and assured herself that there was a manliness in him that she had never appreciated.
“Dear old Billy!” she said softly, and laid her hand lightly on his arm.
“Oh, Nan!”
With a happy laugh he brought the machine to an abrupt stop.
“Dear little girl! Dear little Nan!” he murmured, his arms clasping her. “You belong to me now; nobody’s ever going to take you away from me. I love you; you’re dearer to me than all the world; and I’m so happy and proud!”
They talked for a time in subdued tones of the future. Yes; she had made the great decision. It seemed, now that she had given her word, that it had been inevitable from the beginning. There would be no more uncertainty, no more unhappiness. His arms were a happy refuge. No one had ever been as kind to her as he had been. She no longer questioned his good faith, or doubted his love.
“Oh, Billy, we must hurry! I’m in for a bad time, if I’m caught.”
When she reached the house the nurse let her in. Farley had wakened once and asked for her, Miss Rankin said, but he had been satisfied with an explanation that Nan had gone early to bed.