How Carlisle screamed, when the Boat upset, or else didn't,
as the Case might be; also of Mrs. Heth, who went down Six
Floors to nail Falsehoods, etc.
Miss Carlisle Heth sat cold and proud in the approaching lifeboat,
picking at her sopping skirts. She ignored, hardly hearing, the
conversation of her rescuer, hinting broadly that she should reveal
these mysteries to him. Revelation, as she understood herself, was the
contrary of her desire. The occurrences of the last quarter of an hour
had actually dazed her; but the net result of them was sufficiently
manifest. Her purpose had been to detach herself unnoticed from
Dalhousie's gay fame. And now:--_Look at the boat pavilion_....
It was the bitterest moment of Miss Heth's well-sheltered young life. Of
notoriety, of a vulgar sensation such as this, of malicious gossip, of
all that was cheap and familiarizing, she had a deep-seated horror. Of
the moment of reckoning with her mother, whose objections to noisy rumor
rather surpassed her own, she felt a wholesome dread. There was also the
matter of her personal appearance, which she conceived to be repulsive:
she was confident that she looked a hideosity and a sight. Her eyes
fastened from afar upon the staring faces on the pavilion. She saw
hungry curiosity stalking there, naked and unashamed, and the sight
sickened her.
For these faces, as individual faces, she felt indifference and
contempt. But in the mass they seemed to assume the enormous importance
of good or ill repute. What these people were saying of her and
Dalhousie to-day, the world would say to-morrow.
To know what this was, she would have given on the spot all the money
she possessed (eight thousand dollars, birthday and Christmas presents,
in United States bonds). But to run the gauntlet of those questioning
faces was just a little more than she could endure. She was quick in
action. She said:
"Land me here, Mr. Wedge. And you must walk with me to the hotel."
As she directed, so it was done. They landed there, and Carlisle and Mr.
Wedge struck out hurriedly up the strand for the main entrance of the
hostelry. When the cunning ruse became plain to the staring gallery, it
was practically too late to do anything about it. You could not have
caught the escaping pair without a sprint. However, each man promised
himself to be the first to interview the boatman ...
After the humiliating cut-and-run, which stretched out interminably,
Carlisle found herself, at length, in the haven of the brilliantly
lighted elevator. Water dribbled from her skirt's edge; she was aware of
the elevator boy's African side-glances. If she had been a different
sort of girl, she could no longer have refrained from bursting into
tears. Fine ending to her rosy journey this!--a sensational "scene"
played out before a house of loafers, and now the babel of
thousand-tongued gossip, linking her name amorously (so she suspected)
with the red-painted ne'er-do-well. Charming background, indeed, for a
remeeting with the heir of the Cannings.
Her plight was crushing to the distracted girl; but her anger, the wild
resentment of a high spirit feeling itself abominably mistreated, made
it impossible for her to be crushed. She would not lie down tamely and
be trampled upon by malicious mischance. She would _not_ ...
Mrs. Heth, just risen from her refreshing nap, heard the sounds of
arrival in the adjoining room and opened the door between. Then she
leaned back against the door-frame, her ladylike eyes starting from
her head.
"_Carlisle!_... Oh, merciful heavens! What?--_What on earth's
happened?_"
Miss Heth, already beginning to free herself of her soaking clothes,
braced for the explanatory ordeal. Having no plan of procedure except to
put herself in as praiseworthy a light as possible (thus avoiding a
useless scene), she began in a hard, dry voice:
"I went out for a little sail. I thought it would be a nice thing to
do, the sea was so smooth and calm. A--a man was out swimming near me,
and he climbed into my boat. I ordered him out, and--and he jumped out,
and--I upset. He swam off--leaving me in the water--and the boatman had
to come out and bring me in. Oh, mamma!--_I'm the talk of the place!_"
Mrs. Heth took two swift strides into the room. She came like a cat,
claws out, ready to pounce. Her splendid hair hung loose about her head,
revealing the birthmark upon the temple, a round spot the size of a
silver half-dollar. Ordinarily dull pink, this spot was slowly mottling
in blues and purples: though evidently not with reference to the perils
of the deep, so narrowly escaped by her only child.
"The talk of the place!--what do you mean?" she asked in a voice that
sounded dangerous. "A man!--what man? Speak? What right did he have to
get into your boat?"
"Of course he had _no_ right to get into my boat, mamma," said Carlisle,
dribbling water. "None whatever. That is what I told him, from the
beginning. His name is Dalhousie. I--that part makes no dif--"
"Dalhousie! Colonel Dalhousie's son!--that young sot! Why, you don't
know him, do you?--you never met him in your life--"
"Please don't storm and rant, mamma. It only makes things worse. As I
was saying, when you interrupted, I--I met this man once--a long time
ago. Some one introduced him, I suppose. That must have been it. I--I've
never seen him from that time. He hadn't the faintest right to get into
my boat--not the faintest. He--"
"But what did he do it _for_? What did he want? What was his purpose, I
say?"
Carlisle turned away with a wet skirt to hang. It was certainly very
difficult to explain things to mamma.
"Oh, mamma!--How can I tell you why he wanted to get into my boat? All
this just wastes time. Perhaps he thought he would have a little
flirtation. Perhaps he wanted to rest from his--"
"What did he _say_ when he got in? He didn't just step on like you were
a street car, did he? Speak up! What ex--"
"That's just it! That's just what he did. He climbed in, and didn't say
a word. I at once told him to get out. That is what we talked about
_entirely_. Then at last he got out, in--in an angry way--shaking the
boat, and then I--I went over--"
"It passes belief! The young ruffian, after upsetting you, simply
deserted--Were you in the water long? Are you cold? Do you feel like you
were going to have chills?"
"No--I feel well enough, physically.... But--mamma--"
"You're going to have chills--that's it. No wonder! Wait! I never in my
life!..."
She whisked into her bedroom, and, returning with the travelling-bag,
produced a bijou flask with a silver top that turned into a little
drinking-cup. Into the top she swiftly poured a thimbleful of excellent
French brandy.
"Drink this. It will keep them off." And she added: "It passes
belief...."
And then she walked the floor, her unexpected hands, so oddly stubbed
and thick, clasped before her.
"You called out to him, of course? You screamed for his assistance?"
Carlisle, choking over the inflammatory draught, set the silver top down
on the bureau. There was a gratifying absence of cynicism in her manner.
She was always, as her mother knew, a serious girl at heart. She had to
drink nearly half a glass of water before she could dislodge all the
brandy from her larynx.
"Oh, mamma--how can I remember just exactly what I did? Please be
reasonable. I was too excited and frightened, suddenly plunged into the
water, to think what I was doing. The point--"
"You must have cried out. Of course you screamed for his assistance. And
the young blaggard ... What time is it? Five o'clock? Then Willie's
train is already in ..."
The spoken thought brought a full stop to the good lady's ejaculations,
shot her mind in dead silence round a corner. She stopped walking, stood
intently still. After all, what so serious had happened? Her daughter
was, indeed, the talk of the place, which was an exceedingly undesirable
thing; especially since an "exclusive" girl's name is so tender a bloom,
and Mr. Canning was very probably downstairs listening to it now--the
talk, that is. But, after all, young Dalhousie's dissolute misbehaviors
were so well known, nobody could possibly ...
"They can hardly say anything to reflect upon _you_," the mother summed
up aloud, frowning intently. "You have been foolish, most indiscreet.
How you ever permitted anybody to introduce such a character to you
passes my understanding. However--any attractive girl is likely to draw
the attacks of ruffianly men. His conduct surpass--"
"Yes--but do you think everybody'll understand that?" said Carlisle,
hurriedly, and rather felt that the worst was over. "That's just it,
mamma,--don't you see? How do we know what sort of gossip is being
bandied about downstairs now? You know people _always_ put the worst
possible construction they can on a--an episode like this!..."
Her mother wheeled on her, struck afresh in her dearest possession,
namely: her pride in the prestige of the name of Heth in an envious and
backbiting world.
"How do you mean, construction? What construction could they possibly--"
"Why, anything, mamma!--anything their horrid minds can think of. That
I'm a great friend of this charming man's, for instance,--engaged to
him, perhaps! That this exhibition in the boat was only a refined little
lovers' quarrel--"
"How under heaven could any fool say--"
"Well, you _know_ they'll wonder why he got into the boat in the first
place, and say the hatefullest thing they can think of ... There are
plenty of people who would like to see us h-humiliated."
Mrs. Heth, staring at her with an intake of the breath, then said
slowly: "_Ah--h_!" And she took in a whole range of new possibilities
with one leap of her immensely constructive mind.
"It isn't fair," said Carlisle, nervously, slipping into a pretty pink
negligee. "And you know how a gossipy story flies, growing all
the time--"
"I know," murmured her mother, intensely, as one who has suffered much
from just that demeanor of stories....
The falling sun shot a ray into the white-and-cherry bedroom; peeped at
the lovely girl sitting stiffly on the bed's edge, turned thick
mote-beams upon the lady of deceptive delicacy who stood, with flowing
brown hair and still more flowing robe de chambre, silent upon her peak
in Darien. The leather-shod clocklet, which always accompanied these two
upon their travels could now be heard ticking. Carlisle looked at her
mother, and there were both apprehensiveness and dependence in her look.
She herself was the cleverer of the two women, but very comforting it
was to her to feel this rock-like support behind her now.
Into Mrs. Heth's gray eyes had sprung a kind of glitter, the look of a
commanding general about to make an exterminative rush upon the enemy.
Hugo Canning to be maliciously informed that _her_ daughter was, had
been, or ever should be engaged to Jack Dalhousie! Not while she
retained her love of justice, and the power of locomotion in her limbs.
"Oho!" said she. "Well, I'll fix _that_ ... I'll stamp upon their
miserable lies ..."
The room telephone rang loudly, hastening decisions. Carlisle winced
visibly. In her mood of acute sensitiveness, she was for not answering
at all. But Mrs. Heth, the fighting man now in full possession of her,
tossed off the receiver with a brigadier air.
"Well?" demanded she sharply; and then, continuing: "Yes. Oh, yes!
Howdedo, Willie ... You've arrived, have you? (It's Willie Kerr, Cally.)
What? Oh, yes. She's quite well, though naturally somewhat upset by the
shock. It is a most unpleasant occurrence, and I feel deeply for the
young man's father, and his friends if he has any. Certainly, Willie. We
want the whole affair perfectly understood. Our position demands it.
Yes. I want to talk with you about it, at once. Will you meet me in the
Blue Parlor in ten minutes? Very well. Mr. Canning came with you, I
suppose?... Ah, yes ... What? _No_, Willie! Not a _line_! You must put
your foot down on that! This is entirely a personal matter and I will
not allow a piece in the paper about it. I won't have it.... Ah. All
right, then. I'll trust that to you. In ten minutes, Willie...."
The capable little general turned from the telephone to find the eyes of
the lieutenant or private fixed fearfully upon her.
"Willie," she explained, hurriedly, "says there's a newspaper reporter
hanging about--think of it!--trying to pick up something scandalous for
his wretched sheet. Willie has promised to attend to _him_. He says he
knows the editor or correspondent or whoever it is, and there won't be
the slightest trouble in shutting him up. There shan't be either. Now to
business."
At her best in action, mamma glided through the door into her own room,
slipping off her robe as she glided. In an amazingly short time she was
back again, breathing hard, and dressed for no-quarter affray.
"You didn't talk downstairs, Cally? No one pumped you as to what had
happened?"
"No, I spoke to no one."
Mrs. Heth wielded hatpins before the mirror, the glitter surviving in
her eyes.
"I am putting on a hat," she threw out, "to give matters a casual air. A
public hotel's a hotbed of gossip. Everything depends on the story's
being started right--on just the right note.... Thank God, I'm here!"
"Lie down," added Mrs. Heth, and Carlisle lay down.
The most exhaustive details of the affair had not, perhaps, been
laboriously collected as yet, but luckily Mrs. Heth was not the sort
that requires a mass of verbose testimony and dull statistics. The right
note awaited her touch six floors below, and time was pressing. Already
her mind had flown well ahead, perceived with precision just what was
required. Willie must be seen, and at least two ladies, of different
sets, great gossips, for preference; and to these she would confide,
with some little just indignation but without excitement, the astounding
truth about the young blackleg who, having boarded and upset her
daughter's boat, turned coward and scuttled off, ignoring her frightened
cries. Nor would she fail to express her sincere sympathy for Colonel
Dalhousie, whose heart (she understood) the behavior of his degenerate
son had broken before now....
"Do you want Flora with you?"
"No--I'd rather be alone."
"Remain quietly here till I return."
Briefly framed in the doorway, Mrs. Heth added: "You must get some
sleep to be fresh for the evening ... _I'll_ nail their slanderous
falsehoods."
Her daughter's glance upon her was touched with a flash of admiration,
the more striking in that she herself was quite unconscious of it.
Exact definition of desire and a simple strength of purpose from which
all aims of others bound back stone-dead: what brilliance of genius or
quintessence of mother-wit can hope to outdo this immortal combination?
Echo, solitary, answers ...
Mrs. Heth's return to the upper regions, an hour later, trumpeted
complete victory. The right note was struck; all was settled. Carlisle,
it appeared, had trusted insufficiently to the virtue of the Heth name.
Of horrid gossip there had been, at the worst, no more than a bare hint
or two, an attenuated suggestion. Malicious as the world was, few,
indeed, had dreamed any justification of Dalhousie's blackguardism.
Already, it appeared, the hotel rang with objurgations of it, and him.
Still, Mrs. Heth had struck the note, and struck hard.
Carlisle was bidden to sleep, after her trying experiences, to regain
her poise and color for the evening....
Alone again in the twilight bedroom, the girl snuggled beneath a pretty
pale-blue quilt, and absently scrutinized her pink and very shiny little
finger nails. After the excitement and strain of the last hour and a
half, she felt that she was now at peace. Nothing at all was going to
happen. Nobody could say anything the least bit horrid about her, the
least bit injurious to her position. She stood exactly where she had
stood when she went out for the sail. She was not even going to have
chills ...
She decided to dismiss it all from her mind and go to sleep, but her
mind for a time refused to come into this agreement. Though that was
exactly what she had meant not to do, the girl presently found herself
thinking back over the whole occurrence, from the moment when she first
saw Dalhousie in the water. In time vague doubts gathered and clouded
her perfect brow. She became a little oppressed by the recollection of
certain variations between what she had said and really intended to say
to her mother upstairs, and what her mother appeared to have said to
Rumor downstairs. For instance, she had never said that Dalhousie
_literally_ upset her boat, or even that he was exactly _in_ the boat
when it upset; and _never_ said that she had screamed again and again
for his help when she found herself in the water. No, she had
particularly avoided saying those things, for justly angry and excited
though she was, she hadn't considered it right to say anything that
wasn't strictly true. Mamma just jumped right on ahead, though, paying
no attention to what you said.
The whole thing had happened very unfortunately, she saw that clearly
now. Of course, she couldn't tell mamma that she and Jack Dalhousie had
quarrelled terribly in the boat and he had looked as if he meant to
strike her, for then mamma would have asked, How could you have had such
a terrible quarrel with a man that somebody barely introduced to you
once, a long time ago? And if she had said pointblank, No, I don't think
I screamed, mamma would have asked, Why under heaven didn't you
scream?--and all this would have meant stopping for a long explanation
right there, just when there was so much else to think about, and mamma
almost bursting a blood-vessel as it was.
Still, she wished now that it had all been started differently. In the
excitement, of course, she had not had time to think out every single
thing carefully and definitely. It occurred to her now, after some
meditation, that she might simply have said to mamma: "He had frightened
me so by getting into my boat, that when I upset and I knew I wasn't
going to drown, I didn't want to call him back"....
Darkness crept into the white-and-cherry bedroom. Till now, what with
nearly drowning and mamma and everything, she had really thought very
little about it from Dalhousie's point of view. Now it came over her,
rather dubiously, that what everybody seemed to be saying of him
downstairs did put him in quite a disagreeable position. But then, of
course, everybody was a little worked up and excited just now. In a day
or two they would forget about it, and the whole thing would blow over.
Besides, he deserved the severest punishment for the way he had treated
her; and as for anything he might say now (though as a gentleman he
would hardly say anything and try to blacken a lady's character), of
course nobody would listen to him for a minute.
And as far as that went, nobody would listen to her either. People never
did. She regretted the whole occurrence as much as any one, but you
could _never_ correct flying gossip; everybody knows that. People always
arrange the little details as they want them arranged, according to what
makes the most exciting story, and they never pay the smallest attention
when you come in with a just, mathematical face and say: "You haven't
got it quite right _there_. There's a little mistake _here_...."
Worry, clearly, was out of place. It never does any good, as all
philosophers agree; and besides, it brings wrinkles in or near the
forehead. Carlisle turned on her other side and snuggled with more
relaxation beneath the pale-blue quilt. Drowsiness stole over her,
seducing thought. Presently she slept, and dreamed of Mr. Canning.