THE AFFAIRS OF MRS. COPELAND
In a quiet corner of the club veranda Fanny Copeland and John Cecil
Eaton had been conscious of the noisy gayety of Mrs. Kinney’s party,
and they observed Nan Farley’s hurried exit and disappearance.
“Nan doesn’t seem to be responding to encores,” Eaton remarked. “She’s
gone off to sulk--bored, probably; prefers to be alone, poor kid! It’s
outrageous the way those people use her.”
“They have to be amused,” replied Mrs. Copeland, “and I’ve heard that
Nan can be very funny.”
“There are all kinds of fun,” Eaton assented dryly. “She’s been taking
off Uncle Tim again. I don’t see that he’s getting anything for his
money--that is, assuming that she gets his money.”
“If she doesn’t,” said Mrs. Copeland quickly, “she won’t be the only
person that’s disappointed.”
Eaton lifted his eyes toward a stretch of woodland beyond the river and
regarded it fixedly. Then his gaze reverted to her.
“You think Billy wants to get back the money he paid Farley for the
drug business?” he asked, in a colorless, indifferent tone that was
habitual.
John Cecil Eaton was nearing the end of his thirties--tall, lean, with
a closely trimmed black beard. He was dressed for the links, and his
waiting caddy was guarding his bag in the distance and incidentally
experimenting at clock golf. Eaton’s long fingers were clasped round
his head in such manner as to set his cap awry. One was conscious
of the deliberate gaze of his eyes; his drawling voice and dry
humor suggested a man of leisurely habits. He specialized in patent
law--that is to say, having a small but certain income, he was able
to discriminate in his choice of cases, and he accepted only those
that particularly interested him. He had been educated as a mechanical
engineer, and the law was an afterthought. His years at Exeter and the
Tech, prolonged by his law course at Harvard, had quickened his speech
and modified its Hoosier flavor. He passed for an Eastern man with
strangers. He was the fourth of his name in the community, and it was a
name, distinguished in war and peace, that was well sprinkled through
the pages of Indiana history. Though the Eatons had rendered public
service in conspicuous instances they had never been money-makers,
and when John heard of the high prices attained by Washington Street
property in the early years of the twentieth century he reflected that
if his father and grandfather had been a little more sanguine as to the
city’s future he might have been the richest man in town.
Eaton’s interests were not all confined to his profession. He read
prodigiously in many fields; he observed politics closely and was
president of a club that debated economic and social questions; he was
the best fly-fisherman in the State. His occasional efforts to improve
the tone of local politics greatly amused his friends, who could not
see why a man who might have been pardoned for looking enviously upon
a seat in the United States Senate should subject himself to the
indignity of a defeat for the city council. To the men he lunched with
daily at the University Club his interest in municipal affairs was only
another of his eccentricities. He had never married, but was still
carried hopefully on the list of eligibles. By general consent he was
the best dinner man in town--a guest who could be relied upon to keep
the talk going and make a favorable impression on pilgrims from abroad.
Mrs. Copeland’s ironic smile at his last remark had lingered. Their
eyes met glancingly; then the gaze of both fell upon the distant
treetops. Theirs was an old friendship that rendered unnecessary the
filling in of gaps. Eaton was thinking less concretely of her reference
to Billy Copeland’s designs upon the Farley money than of the abstract
fact that a divorced woman might sit upon a club veranda and hear her
former spouse’s voice raised in joyous exclamation within, and even
revert without visible emotion to the possibility of his remarrying.
Times and standards had changed. This was no longer the sober capital
it had been, where every one went to church, and particular merit might
be acquired by attending prayer-meeting. It was a very different place
from what it had been in days well within Eaton’s recollection, before
the bobtail mule cars yielded to the trolley, or the automobile drove
out the sober-going phaëtons and station-wagons that had satisfied
the native longing for grandeur. The roster of the Country Club bore
testimony of the passing of the old order. The membership committee no
longer concerned itself with the ancestry or reputation for sobriety of
applicants, or their place of worship, or whether their grandfathers
had come to town before the burning of the Morrison Opera House, or
even the later conflagration that consumed the Academy of Music. You
might speak of late arrivals like the Kinneys with all the scorn
you pleased, but they had been recognized by everybody but a few
ultra-conservatives; and if Bob Kinney was something of a sport or his
wife’s New York clothes were a trifle daring for the local taste, such
criticisms did not weigh heavily as against the handsome villa in which
these same Kinneys had established themselves in the new residential
area on the river bluff. Curiosity is a stern foe of snobbishness; and
when Mrs. Kinney seemed so “sweet” and had given a thousand dollars
to the new Girls’ Club, besides endowing a children’s room in the
Presbyterian Hospital, many very proper and dignified matrons felt
fully justified in crossing the Rubicon (otherwise White River) for an
inspection of Mrs. Kinney’s new house. Eaton had accepted such things
in a philosophic spirit, just as he accepted Kinney’s retainer to
safeguard the patents on the devices that made Kinney’s cement the best
on the market and the only brand that would take the finish and tint of
tile or marble.
“It seems to be understood that they’re waiting for Farley to die so
they can be married comfortably,” Eaton remarked. “But Farley’s a tough
old hickory knot. He’s capable of hanging on just to spite them.”
“He was always very kind to me. I saw a good deal of him and his wife
after I came here. He was proud of the business and anxious that Billy
should carry it on and keep developing it.”
“I always liked the steamboating period of Farley’s life,” said
Eaton, ignoring this frank reference to her former husband, in which
he thought he detected a trace of wistfulness; “and he’s told me a
good deal about it at times. It was much more picturesque than his
wholesale-drugging. He never quite got over his river days--he’s always
been the second mate, bullying the roustabouts.”
“He never forgot how to swear,” Mrs. Copeland laughed. “He does it
adorably.”
“There was never anything like him when he’s well heated,” Eaton
continued. “He never means anything--it’s just his natural way of
talking. His customers rather liked it on the whole--expected him to
commit them to the fiery pit every time they came to town and dropped
in to see him. When he got stung in a trade--which wasn’t often--he’d
go into his room and lock the door and curse himself for an hour or two
and then go out and raise somebody’s wages. A character--a real person,
old Uncle Tim!”
The thought of the retired merchant seemed to give Eaton pleasure; a
smile played furtively about his lips.
“Then it must have been his wife who used to lure him to church every
Sunday morning.”
“Not a bit of it! It was the old man himself. He had a superstitious
feeling that business would go badly if he cut church. He never
swore on Sundays, but made up for it Monday mornings. He’s always
been a generous backer of foreign missionaries on the theory that by
Christianizing the heathen we’re widening the market for American
commerce. We’ve had worse men than Farley. I suppose he never told
a lie or did an underhanded thing through all the years he was in
business. And all he has to leave behind him is his half million or
more--and Nan.”
“And Nan,” Mrs. Copeland repeated with a shrug of her shoulders. “I
suppose Mr. Farley knows what’s up. He’s too shrewd not to know. Clever
as Nan is, she could hardly pull the wool over his eyes.”
“She’s much too clever not to know she can’t fool him; but he’s
immensely fond of her, just as his wife was. And we’ve got to admit
that Nan is a very charming person--a little devilish, but keen and
amusing. She’s too good for that crowd she’s running with--no doubt
of that! If Uncle Tim thought she meant to marry Billy, he would take
pains to see that she didn’t.”
“You mean he wouldn’t leave her the money?” she asked in a lower tone.
“I suppose he’d have to.”
Eaton shook his head.
“He’s under no obligation to give it all to Nan. If he thought there
was any chance of her marrying Billy--”
“She’s been led to believe that it would all be hers. The Farleys
educated her and brought her up in a way to encourage the belief. It
would be cruel to disappoint her; he wouldn’t have any right to cut her
off,” Mrs. Copeland concluded with feeling.
“It might be less cruel to cut her off than to let her have it all and
go on the way she’s started. She came about ten years too late upon the
scene. It’s only within a few years that a party like we’ve listened
to in there would have been possible in this town. If Nan had reached
her twentieth year a decade ago, she’d have been the demurest of little
girls, and there would have been no question of her marrying a man who
had divorced his wife merely to be free to appropriate her.”
[Illustration: “A VERY CHARMING PERSON--A LITTLE DEVILISH, BUT KEEN AND
AMUSING”]
Mrs. Copeland opened and closed her eyes quickly several times. No
other man of her acquaintance would have dared to speak of her personal
affairs in this blunt fashion. Eaton had referred to the divorce that
had severed her ties with Copeland quite as though she were not an
interested party to that transaction. He now went a step further, and
the color deepened in her face as he said:--
“I don’t understand why you didn’t resist his suit. I’ve never said
this to you before, and it’s too late to be proffering advice, but
you oughtn’t to have let it go as you did. Billy’s whole conduct was
perfectly contemptible.”
“There was no sense in making a fight if he wanted to quit. The law
couldn’t widen the breach; it was there anyhow, from the first moment I
knew what was in his mind.”
“He acted like a scoundrel,” persisted Eaton in his cool, even tones;
“it was base, rotten, damnable!”
“If you mean”--she hesitated and frowned--“if you mean that he let the
impression get abroad that I was at fault--that it was I who had become
interested elsewhere--it’s only just to say that I never thought Billy
did that. I don’t believe now that he did it.”
He was aware that he had ventured far toward the red lamps of danger.
This matter of her personal honor was too delicate for veranda
discussion; in fact, it was not a matter that he had any right to
refer to even remotely at any time or place.
“Of course, unpleasant things were said,” she added. “I suppose they’re
always bound to be. Manning was his friend, not mine.”
Eaton received this impassively, which was his way of receiving most
things.
“By keeping out of the way, that gentleman proved that he couldn’t have
been any friend of yours. If he’d been a gentleman or even a man--”
She broke in upon him quietly, bending toward him with tense eagerness.
“He offered to: I have never told that to any one, but I don’t want you
to be unfair even to him. My mistake was that I meekly followed Billy
when he began running with the new crowd. I knew I was boring him,
and I thought if I took up with the Kinneys and the people they were
training with, he might get tired of them after a while and we could go
on as we had begun. But I hadn’t reckoned with Nan. I allowed myself to
be put in competition with a girl of twenty--which is a foolish thing
for a woman of thirty-five to do.”
She carried lightly the thirty-five years to which she confessed, but
sometimes, in unguarded moments, a startled, pained look stole into
her brown eyes, as though at the remembrance of a blow that might
repeat itself. There was a patch of white in her hair just at one side
of her forehead. Its effect was to contribute to her natural air of
distinction. She was of medium height and her trim figure retained
its girlish lines. Her face and hands were tanned brown, and the color
was becoming. She wore to-day a blue skirt and a plain blouse, with a
soft collar opened at the throat. She had walked to the clubhouse from
her home, a mile distant, and her meeting with Eaton had been purely
incidental. After her divorce she had established herself as a dairy
farmer on twenty acres of land that she had inherited from her father,
a banker in one of the smaller county seats, who had been specially
interested in dairying and had encouraged her interest in the diversion
he made profitable. To please him she had taken a course in dairying
at the State Agricultural School and knew the business in all its
practical aspects. Copeland had first seen her at a winter resort in
Florida where she had gone with her father in his last illness, and
their common ties with Indiana had made it easily possible for him to
cultivate her better acquaintance later at home. Billy Copeland was
an attractive young fellow with good prospects; his social experience
was much ampler than hers, and the marriage seemed to her friends an
advantageous one. When after ten years she found herself free, she rose
from the ruins of her domestic happiness determined to live her life
in the way that pleased her best. She shrank from adjusting herself to
a new groove in town; the plight of the divorced woman was still, in
this community, not wholly comfortable. There was little consolation
in the sympathy of friends--though she had many; and even the general
attitude, that Copeland’s conduct was utterly indefensible, did not
help greatly. She realized perfectly that in following Copeland’s lead
unprotestingly when he caught step with the quicker social pace set by
the Kinneys,--a name that stood as a synonym for noiser functions and
heavier libations than the community had tolerated,--she had estranged
many who were affronted by the violence with which the town was
becoming kinneyized.
Two years had passed and her broken wings again beat the air with
something of their early rhythm. The pathos of her isolation was more
apparent to her old friends in town than to herself. Whether she had
dropped out of the Kinney crowd, or whether it was more properly an
ejectment, there was all the more reason why women who had regarded the
intrusions of that set with horror should manifest their confidence
in her. If she had been poor, a _divorcée_ lodged in a boarding-house
and in need of practical aid, she might have suffered from neglect;
but having an assured small income which her investment in the dairy
farm in no wise jeopardized, it was rather the thing to look in on
her occasionally. Young girls in particular thought her handsome and
interesting-looking, and risked their mothers’ displeasure by going to
see her. And there were women who sought her out merely to emphasize
their disapproval of Copeland and the scandal of his divorce, which
they felt to be an affront to the community’s dignity in a man whose
father had been of the old order of decent, law-abiding, home-keeping,
church-going citizens. They admired the courage and dignity with
which she met misfortune and addressed herself uncomplainingly to the
business of fashioning a new life.
“I’ve been keeping you from your game,” she said, rising abruptly; “and
I must be getting home.”
They walked down the veranda toward the entrance and reached the door
at a moment when Copeland, who had been keeping company with a tall
glass in the rathskeller below, waiting impatiently for Nan’s return,
lounged out.
He stopped short with a slightly challenging air. Eaton bowed and
tugged at the visor of his cap. Copeland lifted his straw hat and
muttered a good-afternoon that was intended for one or both as they
chose to take it. Mrs. Copeland glanced at him without making any sign;
she did not speak to Eaton again, but as they parted near the first
tee and she started across the links toward the highway, she nodded
quickly and smiled a forlorn little smile that haunted him for some
time afterward.
Half an hour later, standing erect after successfully negotiating a
difficult putt, he said, under his breath:--
“By George! She’s still in love with him!”
He glanced around to make sure no one had overheard him, and crossed to
the next tee with a look of deep perplexity on his face.
Nan, having returned to the clubhouse, sauntered down the veranda
toward Copeland, wearing a demure air she had practiced for his
benefit. Her indifference to his annoyance at her long absence added to
his vexation.
“Well, what have you been up to?” he demanded irritably. “The others
skipped long ago.”
“Oh, I was tired and went down to the river to rest. I’m going home
now.”
“You can’t go home; Grace expects us to stop at her house; they’ll all
be there in half an hour.”
“Sorry, but I must skip. You run along like a good boy, and I’ll hop on
the trolley. I must be home by five, and I’ll just about make it.”
“That’s not treating Grace right, to say nothing of me!” he
expostulated. “I’m getting sick of all this dodging and ducking. I’m
coming up to the house to-morrow and have it out with Farley.”
“You’re a nice boy, Billy, but you’re not going to do anything
foolish,” she replied.
He found the kindness of this--even its note of fondness--unsatisfying.
He read into it a skepticism that was not flattering.
“We’ve been fooling long enough about this; we’ve got to announce our
engagement and be done with it.”
“But, Billy, we’re not engaged! We’re just the best of friends. Why
should we stir up a big fuss by getting engaged?”
“What’s got into you, anyhow!” he exclaimed, eyeing her angrily. “This
talk about not being engaged doesn’t go! I’m getting tired of all this
nonsense--being kicked about and held off when I’ve staked everything
I’ve got on you.”
“You mean,” she said steadily, “that you divorced your wife, thinking I
would marry you; and now you’re angry because I’m not in a hurry about
it, and don’t want to trouble papa, who has been kinder to me than
anybody else ever was--”
“For God’s sake, don’t cry here! We’ve been talked about enough; I
don’t understand what’s got into you to-day.”
“I just mean to be sensible, that’s all. We’ve had some mighty fine
times, and you’ve been nice to me; but there’s no hurry about getting
married--”
“No hurry!” He stared at her, unable in his impotent rage to deal with
the situation as he thought it deserved. “Look here, Nan, I can stand a
lot of this Irish temperament of yours, but you’re playing it a little
too far.”
“My Irish temperament!” she repeated poutingly. “Well, I guess the
Irish is there all right; I don’t know about the temperamental part of
it. A good many people call it something very different.”
“When am I going to see you again?” he demanded roughly.
“How should I know! You see me now and you don’t like me. You’d better
go downtown and do some work, Billy; that’s what I should prescribe
for you. And you’ve got to cut out the drink; it’s getting too big a
hold on you. I’m going to quit, too.”
Standing near the entrance, they had been obliged to acknowledge the
greetings of a number of new arrivals. It was manifestly no place for
a prolonged serious discussion of their future. Mrs. Harrington, whose
husband’s bank, the Phœnix National, was the soundest in the State,
climbed the steps from her motor without seeing Nan and her companion.
Until Farley retired, the Copeland-Farley account was carried by the
Phœnix; when Billy Copeland took the helm he transferred it to the
Western, as likely to grant a more generous credit.
Copeland flushed angrily at the slight; Nan bit her lip.
“I’m off!” she said. “Be a good boy. I’ll see you again in a day or
two. And for Heaven’s sake, don’t call me on the telephone; papa has an
extension in his room, you know, and hears everything. Tell Grace I’m
sorry--”
“Let me run you into town; I can set you down somewhere near home. The
trolleys are hot and dusty. Besides, I want to talk to you; I’ve got a
lot to say to you.”
“Not to-day, Billy. Good-bye!”
Eaton found Nan waiting for him at the fourth green.
“I was praying for a mascot, and here you are,” he remarked affably. “I
can’t fail to turn in a good card. Glad to see you’ve taken up walking;
there’s nothing like it--particularly on a humid afternoon.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I hope to catch the four-thirty for town.
What are my chances?”
“Excellent, if you don’t waste more than ten minutes on me. You’ve
never given me more than five up to date. How is Mr. Farley?”
“He’s been very comfortable for a week; really quite like himself.
You’d better come and see him.”
“I meant to drop in often all winter, but was afraid of boring him.”
“You’re one of the few that couldn’t do that. He likes to talk to you.
You don’t bother him with questions about his health--a sure way of
pleasing him.”
“A rare man, Farley. Wiser than serpents, and stimulating. I’ve learned
a good deal from him.”
They reached his ball, that had accommodatingly effected a good lie,
and after viewing it with approval he glanced at Nan and remarked:--
“You’d better urge me to come to see you, too. It’s just occurred to me
that it might be well for us to know each other better. I may flatter
myself; but--”
“That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard to-day! Please come soon.”
“Thank you, Nan; I shall certainly do that.”
“I met a friend of yours a while ago,” she said, “who pronounced you
the greatest living man.”
“Ah! A gentleman, of course; I identify him at once; he’s the only
person alive I fool to that extent--Jeremiah A. Amidon! I can’t imagine
why he hasn’t mentioned his acquaintance with you. I shall chide him
for this.”
He viewed her in his quizzical fashion through the thick-lensed
spectacles he used for golfing. In his ordinary occupations these gave
place to eyeglasses that twinkled with a sharp, hard brightness, as
though bent upon obscuring the kindness that lay behind them.
“I hadn’t seen him lately--not since I was a child. We used to be
neighbors when we were children, and he was a very, very naughty boy.”
“I dare say he was,” Eaton remarked, with his air of thinking of
something else. “I suppose you didn’t find him at all backward in
bringing himself to your notice. Shyness isn’t his dominant trait.”
“On the other hand, he was rather diffident and wholly polite. I
thought his manners did you credit--for he said you had been coaching
him.”
“He must be chidden; his use of my name in that connection is utterly
unwarranted. He was one of Mrs. Kinney’s party, I suppose,--very
interesting. I’m glad they have taken him up!”
He was watching, with the quick eagerness that made him so
disconcerting a companion, the passing of a motor toward the clubhouse,
but she understood perfectly that this utterance had been with ironic
intent. She laughed softly.
“How funny you are! I wish I weren’t afraid of you.”
“I’ve made a careful study of the phobias, and there is nothing in
the best authorities to justify a fear of me. I’m as tame as buttered
toast.”
“Well, it’s clear Mr. Amidon isn’t afraid of you!”
“I’m relieved--infinitely; I’m in mortal terror of _him_. He’s fixed
standards of conduct for me that make me nervous. I’m afraid the
young scoundrel will catch me with my visor down some day; then smash
goes his poor idol. I’m glad you spoke of him; if he wasn’t at your
luncheon--a guess you scorned to notice--I suppose you met by chance,
the usual way.”
“It was just like that,” she laughed. “Very much so!”
“H’m! I warn you against accepting the attentions of just any young
man who strolls up the river. A girl of your years must be discreet.
Your early knowledge of Mr. Amidon in the loved spots your infancy knew
won’t save you. You’d better refer all such matters to me. Pleasant
as this is, you’re going to miss your car if you don’t rustle. And
Harrington’s bawling his head off trying to fore me away. Good-bye!”
With a neat stroke he landed his ball on the green and ran after it to
raise the blockade. When Nan had halted the car and climbed into the
vestibule, she waved her hand, a salute which he returned gallantly
with a sweep of his cap.