ISABELLA TAKES ONE MORE RIDE
Henrietta Marne looked curiously at the envelope bearing the stamp of
Hugh Gordon's business firm. "There is always a letter from Mr. Gordon
just before Mr. Brand gets back," she said to herself, "so I suppose
he'll be here some time today. If he does I'll have to decide about
leaving him. But there'll be such a lot of work to do it won't be fair
for me to say anything about going till we get things straightened out
again."
On that same June morning Penelope Brand was reading a letter in a
similar envelope. She was out of doors, in her wheel-chair, in the
shade of that same tree from which she had fallen, years before, to
such pitiful maiming of her body and her life. Beside her was a little
table holding some books, a pad of paper and a pencil and her
work-basket. For here she spent the greater part of every fine day,
by turns reading, making notes, writing, sewing, and talking with her
mother. The roses that grew along the fence were in bloom and a few
steps in the other direction was the little vegetable garden where her
mother worked when the sun was not too hot, so near that they could
speak to each other now and then.
Penelope was beginning to find a new pleasure in life, the deepest of
all pleasures to the woman-heart, the pleasure of service. For Hugh
Gordon had been sending her books treating of the sociological
questions in which she had long taken an intellectual interest and had
asked her to make digests of them for him, to tell him what she
thought of them and to write him at length upon such of their contents
as seemed to her of particular consequence. She had had a number of
letters from him discussing these things and outlining plans upon
which he wanted her opinion.
All this was affording her the keenest satisfaction. Her mother, who
had never seen her so genuinely happy and contented, beamed with shy
delight over the new pleasure that had come into their lives. For her
it was sadly darkened by her son's violent antagonism to their new
friend. They had learned that they must not mention Hugh Gordon's name
to him even in letters, and when he last came to see them, on one of
his brief and infrequent visits, they had trembled with anxiety during
the whole of his stay lest they might inadvertently approach too near
the subject that now loomed so large in the narrow round of their
lives and had brought such freshening and broadening of their
interests.
They speculated much as to the cause of the animosity between the two
men, and it was evident to Mrs. Brand, in all their talk, that her
daughter's sympathies were with Hugh Gordon. For Penelope, deep in her
heart, well concealed from her mother, had long harbored a feeling
toward her brother that was very near distrust and contempt. Mrs.
Brand had found in Hugh Gordon and the affection he plainly longed to
give and receive, a young man fashioned so much more after her spirit
than was her own son that her mother-heart yearned to enfold him also
in its love. It grieved her deeply to know how intense was the
bitterness between them.
"If they could only both be my boys, and be good friends," she said to
Penelope, with brimming eyes.
As Penelope opened her letter from Hugh Gordon she gazed with
astonishment at the check it contained, a check for a bigger sum than
she and her mother had ever possessed.
"Dear Sister Penelope," she read. "For you didn't say that I
mustn't call you sister, and so I shall, because you know
that is the way I think of you. I am very happy just now
thinking how surprised you will be when you see this check.
It is some money that I borrowed of Felix last winter when I
wanted to start in business. I am now paying it back to you
and your mother instead of to him, because I know that he is
not taking care of you as he ought, and also because I know
that if I pay it to him he will merely make some bad and
wasteful use of it. Enclosed you will find a memorandum of
the date, the principal, rate, interest and amount. I shall
tell him that I have sent it to you.
"I have wanted very much to see you during this last month,
for there are many things to talk over with you at more
length than is possible by letter. But I knew what a rage it
put Felix into when he learned about my being there the last
time and how unhappy his anger and violent talk made both of
you, and especially your mother, and I didn't want to
subject you to such an experience again.
"But the time is coming soon when I shall be able to visit
you as often as you will let me. I am looking forward to
that time with such anticipations of happiness as I hardly
dare tell you about. If you should decide against me, if you
should not feel toward me as I hope you will--but, no, that
would not be possible. And so I shall go on thinking of the
happy times we shall have when I run over often to see you
and when I take both of you upon little trips--to the
seashore, to New York, wherever you think you would like to
go. For we can make that sort of pleasure possible for you,
Penelope, if you want to undertake it.
"It will all be decided and everything explained the next
time I see you. But to prepare the way for all that I shall
have to tell you, so that you will be ready to listen to it
understandingly, I am sending you a book to read in the
meantime. You will find in it one of the wonder stories of
modern science, and in its light that quick, keen mind of
yours will go to the heart of this matter at once. You will
see clearly through the essentials of the mystery you have
already sensed in the relations between Felix and me. But I
hope you will not make up your mind about it until I can
explain to you the whole matter, from beginning to end. I
think that will be soon, within two or three weeks. In the
meantime, you will not hear from me again, for I shall have
to go away for a while."
The rest of the letter was taken up with matters about which they had
been conferring for some time. But Penelope was not able to find in
them her usual interest, so deep was her absorption in Gordon's
mystifying allusions and promises.
The anxious wonder they aroused in her, however, was hardly greater
than the trepidation and the sense of mystery which descended upon
Henrietta Marne as she studied, that same morning, the envelope of
Gordon's letter to Felix Brand. Why should such a letter always herald
Brand's return from these unaccountable absences, which grew ever
longer and of darker omen? What had Hugh Gordon meant by those two or
three curt, unconsidered sentences that seemed to hint at some uncanny
fate toward which Brand was hastening? And what would be the
architect's demeanor now? Would it be such that she could not stay
longer in his employ? With all the financial risk involved would she
yet feel that she must go forth and look for another position?
This last question did not long remain unanswered in her mind. Brand's
manner, it was true, had not lost entirely its habitual suavity and
polish. Formerly she had thought these to be the genuine expression of
the innate refinement and kindness of his nature. But now, as if some
inner corrosion were eating its way outward, she found that they had
ceased to be anything more than the thinnest veneer, through which
often broke, in words, or manner, or look, peevish irritation or
sullen anger.
"It's as if he were just seething inside," said Henrietta to herself
after he had been back several days, "about something or other that
makes him too angry to control himself. Well, that's no reason why he
should take it out on me, as he did today. I wish I could see Mr.
Gordon again. Well, anyway, I can't stand this any longer. I'm sure
he'd advise me not to. Mr. Brand is much worse than he was before he
went away, and he looks as if he were the bad, base man that Hugh
Gordon says he is. I shall tell him at once that he'll have to find
another secretary."
When she told her mother and sister that she had decided to look for
another position, she had to face a chorus of amazed protests and she
found it difficult to convince them of the soundness of her reasons.
"He seems to have lost all sense of honor," she told them. "In all the
business that he carries on through me by correspondence and sometimes
by my seeing people, too, he lies and cheats even when I can't see,
sometimes, that he expects to gain anything by it. And I don't want to
be a party to that kind of thing any longer, even if I am only a sort
of a machine. And he is growing so ill-tempered and irritable and rude
that I really can't endure it."
"Oh, well, don't worry about it, Harry," said Isabella with her usual
optimism. "You'll soon get another position. Please make it part of
your bargain next time that your employer must come over here and take
me out motoring quite frequently, if not oftener."
"That reminds me, Bella, that I want to ask you not to go with Mr.
Brand again. I'm sure he's not the kind of man we've always thought
him."
"Oh, nonsense!" Bella rejoined, breezily. "Don't be alarmed for your
handsome Felix Brand. It doesn't do him a bit of harm and I have a lot
of fun. Don't worry about me, Harry. I'm not an infant. And I don't
suppose I'll be offered any more perquisites of that sort, now that
you're going to leave him. Poor little me!"
Henrietta found her employer in a particularly trying mood the next
morning. He looked tired and worn, as though he had not slept, and
his mobile countenance, always so eloquent of his state of mind that
every changing emotion shone through it as through a window into his
soul, told of secret harassment. So also did his tense nerves, which
seemed wrought up almost to the snapping point. They vented themselves
in frequent bursts of irritability and snarling anger. His secretary
noticed that he started at every sudden sound, and sometimes also when
she had heard nothing, and that then he would look round him in an
alarmed, furtive way, as if he expected to see some menace take form
out of the air. To her relief he did not return to the office after
luncheon. If she had known that he was speeding in his automobile
toward her home she would have taken less comfort in her quiet
afternoon.
"Bella, dear, do you think you'd better go?" said her mother. "Harry
seems so anxious about it, and she knows him better than we do. Hadn't
you better tell you have an engagement, and then take me out for a
little walk?"
"Oh, just this one more time won't make any difference, mother! I
guess my chatter is good for him, for he always seems blue when we
start out, but by the time we come home he's in as good spirits as I
am. So it would really be unkind not to go, wouldn't it, mother?"
"Well, dear, if you think best. But I shall be anxious about you, so
please ask him to bring you back as soon as he can."
When they returned in the late afternoon Isabella caught a glimpse, as
the automobile stopped and she glanced up toward her mother's room, of
a man's figure standing beside Mrs. Marne's chair, near the window.
Brand helped her out, and then, casting a keen glance at her, with a
little laugh he took her by the arm and guided her up the path and
across the porch to the door. Fumbling with her key, she scarcely
noticed his departure and by the time she stepped inside, his machine
was disappearing down the street.
As she entered the hall she saw a man descending the stairs. Looking
up uncertainly, she staggered back a little and leaned against the
wall.
"Bella!" he cried joyfully, and again, "Bella, darling!" and ran down
the steps.
She gave a maudlin giggle. "Warren! Warren! Such s'prise! S' glad t'
see you!" she muttered thickly and, lurching toward him, would have
fallen had he not caught her.
"Bella! What is the matter?" he exclaimed in anxious tones, and then,
in a moment, sudden disgust ringing in his voice: "Bella, you're
drunk! My God! And I meant to marry you next month! Motoring with a
man and coming home drunk! Good-bye, Miss Marne! It's lucky I
discovered my mistake in time!"
He snatched his hat from the rack and slammed the door behind him; and
she, as understanding of what had happened dawned upon her, fell
forward upon the banister with a long, agonized cry.
Mrs. Marne, lying down to rest in smiling happiness, with her heart
full of pleasure as she thought of her dear one's surprise and joy,
heard that shriek and hurried in alarm to the head of the stairs.
"Bella!" she called. "What is the matter? Where is Warren?"
Isabella, suddenly sobered, lifted a white, drawn face: "Oh, mother,
he's gone! He's left me! Oh, mother, mother! It's all over!"
She turned with sudden resolution and fled toward the dining room, so
absorbed in her own wild misery that she heard and saw nothing as her
mother cried out, swayed to and fro, and then toppled to the floor.