But she would not go to the Kings' to tea. "No," she said, her eyes
crinkling with fun, "I'm not going; but you've got to; you promised!
And remember, I have 'a very severe headache.'"
He laughed, with a droll look, and then explained that at home he was
never allowed to tell tarradiddles. "Alice has a perfect mania about
truth," he said ruefully; "it is sometimes very inconvenient. Yes; I'll
enlarge upon your headache, my dear. But why in thunder did I say yes
to that confounded doctor? I'd like to wring your cook's neck, Nelly!"
"You'll have a good supper," she consoled him, "and that's what you
want. They say Mrs. King is a great housekeeper. And besides, if you
stayed at home you would probably have to entertain Mr. Sam Wright."
"I'll be darned if I would," he assured her, amiably, and started off.
He had the good supper, although when the doctor broke to his wife that
company was coming, Mrs. King had protested that there was nothing in
the house to eat. "And there's one thing about me, I may not be
perfect, but I am hospitable, and--"
"Just give them what we were going to have ourselves."
"Now, William! I must say, flatly and frankly--"
"There's the office bell," murmured the doctor, sidling away and
hearing the reproachful voice lessening in the distance--"how hard I
try--nothing fit--"
The office door closed; the worst was over. There would be a good
supper--William had no misgivings on that point. Mrs. Richie would talk
to him, and he would tease her and make her laugh, and laugh himself.
The doctor did not laugh very much in his own house; domestic virtue
does not necessarily add to the gayety of life. During the afternoon
Willy tried on three different neckties, and twice put cologne on his
handkerchief. Then appeared Mr. Pryor to say that Mrs. Richie had one
of her headaches! He was so sorry, but Mrs. King knew what a bad
headache was?
"Indeed I do," Martha said, "only too well. But _I_ can't give way to
them. That's what it is to be a doctor's wife; the patients get all the
prescriptions," Martha said; and William, out of the corner of his eye,
saw that she was smiling! Well, well; evidently Mrs. Richie's defection
did not trouble her; the doctor was glad of that. "But I didn't bargain
on entertaining the brother," he said to himself crossly; and after the
manner of husbands, he left the entertaining to Martha.
Martha, however, did her duty. She thought Mr. Pryor a very agreeable
gentleman; "far more agreeable than his sister," she told William
afterwards. "I don't know why," said Martha, "but I sort of distrust
that woman. But the brother is all right; you can see that--and a very
intelligent man, too. We discussed a good many points, and I found we
agreed perfectly."
Mr. Pryor also had an opinion on that supper-table talk. He said to
himself grimly, that Nelly's bread and jam would have been better. But
probably bread and jam, followed by young Sam Wright, would have seemed
less desirable than Mrs. King's excellent supper.
It was about seven when the boy appeared at the Stuffed Animal House.
Had Mr. Pryor been at home, Helena would, no doubt, have found some way
of dismissing him; as it was, she let him stay. He was bareheaded; he
had seen a bird flapping painfully about in the road, and catching it
in gentle hands had discovered that its wing was broken, so put it
tenderly in his cap and brought it to Mrs. Richie's door.
"Poor little thing!" she cried, when he showed it to her. "I wish Mr.
Pryor would come back; he would tell us what to do for it."
"Oh, is he here?" Sam asked blankly.
"Well, not at this moment. He has gone to take tea at Dr. King's."
Sam's face lightened with relief.
"You mustn't tell anybody you saw me this evening," she charged him
gayly. "I didn't go to Mrs. King's because--I had such a very bad
headache!"
"Is it better?" he asked, so anxiously that she blushed.
"Oh, yes, yes. But before tea I--didn't want to go."
"I'm glad you didn't," he said, and forgot her in caring for the bird.
He ordered a box and some cotton batting--"and give me your
handkerchief." As he spoke, he took it from her surprised hand and tore
it into strips; then, lifting the broken wing with exquisite
gentleness, he bound it into place. She looked at the bandages
ruefully, but Sam was perfectly matter-of-course. "It would have been
better without lace," he said; "but it will do. Will you look at him
sometimes? Just your touch will cure him, I think."
Mrs. Richie laughed.
"Well, you can laugh, but it's true. When I am near you I have no pain
and no worry; nothing but happiness." He sat down beside her on the old
claw-footed sofa near the fire, for it was cool enough these spring
evenings to have a little fire. He leaned forward, resting his chin on
his fist, and staring into the blaze. Once he put his hand out and
touched her dress softly, and smiled to himself. Then abruptly, he came
out of his reverie, and spoke with joyous excitement:
"Why! I forgot what I came to tell you about--something extraordinary
has happened!"
"Oh, what?" she demanded, with a sweet eagerness that was as young as
his own.
"You could never guess," he assured her. "Tonight, at supper,
grandfather suddenly told me that he wanted me to travel for a
while--he wanted me to go away from Old Chester. I was perfectly
amazed. 'Go hunt up a publisher for your truck,' he said. He always
calls the drama my 'truck,'" Sam said snickering; "but the main thing,
evidently, was to have me get away from home. To improve my mind, I
suppose. He said all gentlemen ought to travel. To live in one place
all the time was very narrowing, he said. I told him I hadn't any
money, and he said he'd give me some. He said, 'anything to get you
away.' It wasn't very flattering, was it?"
Helena's face flashed into suspicion. "Why did he want to get you
away?" she asked coldly. There was an alarmed alertness in her voice
that made the boy look at her.
"He said he wanted me to 'be able to know cakes and ale when I saw
them,'" Sam quoted. "Isn't that just like grandfather?"
"Know cakes and ale!" she stammered, and then looked at him furtively.
She took one of the little hand-screens from the mantel, and held it so
that he could not see her face. For a minute the pleasant firelit
silence fell between them.
"Oh, listen," Sam said in a whisper; "do you hear the sap singing in
the log?" He bent forward with parted lips, intent upon the exquisite
sound--a dream of summer leaves rustling and blowing in the wind. He
turned his limpid stag's eyes to hers to feel her pleasure.
"I think," Mrs. Richie said with an effort that made her voice hard,
"that it would be an excellent thing for you to go away."
"And leave you?"
"Please don't talk that way. Your grandfather is quite right."
The boy smiled. "I suppose you really can't understand? It's part of
your loveliness that you can't. If you could, you would know that I
can't go away. I told him I was much obliged, but I couldn't leave Old
Chester."
"Oh, please! you mustn't be foolish. I don't like you when you are
foolish. Will you please remember how much older I am than you? Let's
talk of something else. Let's talk about the little boy who is coming
to visit me--his name is David."
"I would rather talk about you, and what you mean to me--beauty and
poetry and good--"
"Don't!" she said sharply,
"Beauty and poetry and goodness."
"I'm not beautiful, and I'm not--poetical."
"And so I worship you," the young man went on in a low happy voice.
"Do please be quiet! I won't be worshipped."
"I don't see how you are going to help it," he said calmly. "Mrs.
Richie, I've got my skiff; it came yesterday. Will you go out on the
river with me some afternoon?"
"Oh, I don't think I care about boating," she said.
"You don't!" he exclaimed blankly; "why, I only got it because I
thought you would go out with me!"
"I don't like the water," she said firmly.
Sam was silent; then he sighed. "I wish I'd asked you before I bought
it. Father is so unreasonable."
She looked puzzled, for the connection was not obvious.
"Father always wants things used," Sam explained. "Do you really
dislike boating?"
"You absurd boy!" she said laughing; "of course you will use it; don't
talk nonsense!"
Sam looked into the fire. "Do you ever have the feeling," he said in an
empty voice, "that nothing is worth while? I mean, if you are
disappointed in anything? A feeling as if you didn't care, at all,
about anything? I have it often. A sort of loss of appetite in my mind.
Do you know it?"
"Do I know it?" she said, and laughed so harshly that the boy drew
back. "Yes, Sam; I know it."
Sam sighed; "I hate that skiff."
And at that she laughed again, but this time with pure gayety. "Oh, you
foolish boy!" she said. Then she glanced at the clock. "Sam, I have
some letters to write to-night--will you think I am very ungracious if
I ask you to excuse me?" Sam was instantly apologetic. "I've stayed too
long! Grandfather told me I ought never to come and see you--"
"_What!_"
"He said I bothered you."
"You don't bother me," she protested; "I mean, when you talk about your
play you don't bother me. But to-night--"
"Of course," said Sam simply, and took himself off after one or two
directions about the bird.
When the front door closed behind him she went back to her seat by the
lamp, and took up her novel; but her eyes did not see the printed page.
Suddenly she threw the book down on the table. It was impossible to
read; Sam's talk had disturbed her to the point of sharp discomfort.
What did old Mr. Wright mean by "knowing cakes and ale"? And his leer
yesterday had been an offence! Why had he looked at her like that? Did
he--? Was it possible--! She wished she had spoken to Lloyd about it.
But no; it couldn't be; it was only his queer way; he was half crazy,
she believed. And it would do no good to speak to Lloyd. The one thing
she must not do, was to let any annoyance of hers annoy him. Yet below
her discomfort at Sam's sentimentality and his grandfather's strange
manner lay a deeper discomfort--a disturbance at the very centres of
her life.... _She was afraid._
She had been afraid for a long time. Even before she came to Old
Chester she was a little afraid, but in Old Chester the fear was
intensified by the consciousness of having made a mistake in coming.
Old Chester was so far away. It had seemed desirable when she first
thought of it; it was so near Mercer where business very often called
him. Besides, New York, with its throngs of people, where she had lived
for several years, had grown intolerable; in Old Chester she and Lloyd
had agreed she would have so much more privacy. But how differently
things had turned out! He did not have to come to Mercer nearly so
often as he had expected. Those visions of hers--which he had not
discouraged--of weekly or certainly fortnightly visits, had faded into
lengthening periods of three weeks, four weeks--the last one was more
than six weeks ago. "He can't leave his Alice!" she said angrily to
herself; "_I_ remember the time when he did not mind leaving her." As
for privacy, the great city, with its hurrying indifferent crowds, was
more private than this village of insistent friendliness.
She leaned back in her chair and pressed her hands over her eyes; then
sat up quickly--she must not cry! Lloyd hated red eyes. But oh, she was
afraid!--afraid of what? She had no answer; as yet her fear was without
a name. She picked up her book, hurriedly; "I'll read," she said to
herself; "I won't think!" But for a long time she did not turn a page.
However, by the time Mr. Pryor came back from the tea-party she was
outwardly tranquil, and looked up from her novel to welcome him and
laugh at his stories of his hostess. But he was instant to detect the
troubled background of her thoughts.
"You are lonely," he said, lounging on the sofa beside her; "when that
little boy comes you'll have something to amuse you;" he put a
caressing finger under her soft chin.
"I didn't have that little boy, but I had another," she said ruefully.
"Did your admirer call?"
She nodded.
"What!" he exclaimed, for her manner told him.
"He tried to be silly," she said. "Of course I snubbed him. But it
makes me horribly uncomfortable somehow."
Lloyd Pryor got up and slowly scratched a match under the mantel-piece;
he took a long time to light his cigar. Then he put his hands in his
pockets, and standing with his back to the fire regarded his boots.
Helena was staring straight ahead of her with melancholy eyes.--("Do
you ever have the feeling," the boy had said, "that nothing is worth
while?")
Lloyd Pryor looked at her furtively and coughed. "I suppose," he
said--and knocked the ashes from his cigar with elaborate care--"I
suppose your adorer is a good deal younger than you?"
She lifted her head sharply, "Well, yes;--what of it?"
"Oh, nothing; nothing at all. In the first place, the health of our
friend, Frederick, is excellent. But if this fellow were not younger;
and if apoplexy or judgment should--well; why, perhaps--"
"Perhaps what?"
"Of course, Helena, my great desire is for your happiness; but in my
position I--I am not as free as I once was to follow my own
inclinations. And if--"
"Oh, my _God!_" she said violently.
She fled out of the room with flying feet. As he followed her up the
stairs he heard her door slam viciously and the bolt slip. He came
down, his face flushed and angry. He stood a long while with his back
to the fire, staring at the lamp or the darkness of the uncurtained
window. By and by he shook his head and set his jaw in sullen
determination; then he went up-stairs and knocked softly at her door.
There was no answer. Again, a little louder; silence.
"Nelly," he said; "Nelly, let me speak to you--just a minute?"
Silence.
"Nelly!"
Silence.
"Damn!" said Lloyd Pryor, and went stealthily back to the parlor where
the fire was out and the lamp flickering into smoky darkness.
A quarter of an hour later he went up-stairs again.
"How _could_ you say it!" "I didn't mean it, Nelly; it was only a
joke." "A joke! Oh, a cruel joke, a cruel joke!" "You know I didn't
mean it. Nelly dearest, I didn't mean it!" "You do love me?" "I love
you.... Kiss me...."