MISTRESS AND MAID
"Miss Felicity," said Cardington, standing before her with a humorous
suggestion in his manner of presenting arms to a superior officer, "I
have come to perform what is both a duty and a pleasure; I have come,
in short, to--pay my bet." With these words he carefully laid a box of
candy upon the table.
"You have my sympathy, Mr. Cardington," she returned, "not so much
because you have lost the bet, as because you were under the necessity
of ending your sentence with such an insignificant word. I saw that
you were groping for a polysyllabic finish." She was in the best of
spirits, and prepared for the exchange of quibbles in which they
sometimes indulged.
"But my finish is best expressed by just that abrupt and insignificant
monosyllable!" he cried, his solemnity swept away by a mood of
extravagant banter. "Now, you know, since we have elected a
professional baseball player to the mayor's office, I foresee great
possibilities unfolding in municipal affairs. I rather anticipate that
the city fathers will seek recreation from their arduous labours by
indulging in an occasional game of ball in the park. I hope to have
the pleasure of applauding our respected mayor as he walks up to the
plate as of yore and knocks out a home run. Not a bad idea, bishop, is
it?" For Bishop Wycliffe had entered the room quietly and stood behind
his daughter, listening to the speech with a wide, appreciative smile.
"It is extremely probable," he now answered. "I shall be surprised if
some such innovation is not introduced. And why not? _Tempera
mutantur_, my friend. We have a President who so far forgets the
traditions of his office as to beguile his spare moments by whacking
the heads of his friends in a game of singlestick. Why not a mayor who
plays baseball in the park? What an old fogy you are, Cardington!"
"Old!" Cardington echoed ruefully. "My dear bishop! And you baptised
my infant head after you came to your Episcopal office!"
"Ah, but I was young then," the bishop retorted, "or I should never
have assumed that responsibility."
They were still laughing at this sally when the maid appeared in the
door to announce that dinner was served. Seeing a late caller, she
hesitated, and Cardington broke in.
"I must go now," he announced. "Remember, Miss Felicity, not to overdo
the matter of eating sweetmeats. There would be a certain unnecessary
redundancy in such an indulgence, a carrying of coals to Newcastle, so
to speak."
"No, you must stay to dinner," she urged, "and afterward smoke one of
father's cigars to solace you for the loss of the box you might have
had if the election had gone the other way."
"Might have had!" he retorted. "You mean would have had. I hope there
was no doubt of your intention to pay your honest debts."
"Come," the bishop interrupted, taking him by the arm and marching him
away, "enough of these quibbles. You must stay, of course."
"But this is the irony of fate," he continued, glancing back fondly at
his daughter, "that in spite of all my preaching, I have not been able
to convince the one nearest me of the iniquity of gambling."
"I am reminded of that historic occasion," Cardington answered, "when
you preached a sermon against the putting on of apparel and the
plaiting of the hair, and extolled the inward adornment of a meek and
quiet spirit, quoting St. Peter and Tertullian with singular effect"--
"But how was I to know," Miss Wycliffe put in, "that the return of that
sermon from the bottom of the barrel would coincide with the appearance
of my new hat?"
"It was just that lack of cooperation between you and your right
reverend father which scandalised the congregation," Cardington
commented.
"It was a beautiful hat," she mused regretfully. "Every one admired
it."
"Yes, yes," said the bishop. "'And a man's foes shall be they of his
own household.'"
Strange to say, this quotation, so lightly uttered, was destined to
strike the keynote of the dinner. The subject of the mayor-elect was
too vividly present in the minds of all three to be long absent from
their conversation, and a discussion inevitably followed a reminder
from Cardington that this was the evening in which the people were to
celebrate their victory by a procession. Miss Wycliffe jestingly
proposed an illumination of the house; but her father's patience with
her perversity was exhausted. Doubtless the triumph of the cause he
hated intensified his emotion. Had the judge been elected, he could
easily have been magnanimous, or could have twitted her with good
humour. But there comes a time, even to the most philosophical parent,
when the independent judgment of a child seems a personal affront, an
ingratitude "sharper than a serpent's tooth." He loved the beautiful
old city in which his life had been spent, and wished to see it ruled
always by men of his own class. To him the outcome of the election was
really a significant calamity, the beginning of the end of the
aristocratic democracy he cherished. Not Lincoln, the dissenter and
man of the people, but Washington, the gentleman and Churchman, was his
ideal of an American statesman. It is perhaps not too much to say that
he would prefer to see the wheels of government falter for a while in
the hands of an aristocrat rather than to see them turn smoothly under
the propelling power of a plebeian, were it in his suffrage to make the
choice.
"An illumination of the house," he echoed bitterly. "We might put some
flaming hoops out in the street, so that the clown can turn a
somersault through them as he passes by."
The taunt was greeted by Cardington with something of excessive
appreciation, and the bishop, softened by his success, threw back his
head and smiled broadly at his daughter, regarding her through
half-closed eyes.
It was evident that Miss Wycliffe did not relish the absurd picture of
her _protégé_ thus presented to her mind, and a reply in kind seemed to
hover in the scornful curves of her lips; but she was a woman of finer
mettle than to show either her anger or her hurt.
"Mr. Cardington," she said with subtle mockery, "your part in the
performance is plain"--
She broke off, attracted by the unusual manner of the maid, whose hand,
as she placed a plate before her mistress, shook violently, so that she
overturned a glass of wine. Miss Wycliffe glanced up, surprised at
this awkwardness in one usually so adroit, and pushed back her chair to
avoid the crimson stain that was slowly spreading toward the edge of
the table. Unconsciously all three suspended their conversation to
watch the simple operation of putting salt upon the cloth. Cardington,
turning his eyes toward his hostess with an anticipatory relish for the
rest of her sentence, was suddenly struck by an inexplicable change.
Her face had become white in a moment, and she was regarding the maid's
trembling hands with curious intensity.
"You were saying, Miss Felicity,"--he reminded her.
"What was it?" she asked, recovering herself with an effort. "Oh, yes.
I was about to suggest that your height marks you out as the proper
person to hold up the hoops."
"Agreed!" he cried. "If you will stand by and hand them up."
This raillery was only a passing incident, for Miss Wycliffe's mood had
suffered a permanent eclipse. The bishop returned more reasonably and
with perfect seriousness to the subject of the election, and finally
launched upon a long diatribe after the Platonic fashion, with the
professor as a sympathetic interlocutor. His daughter refrained from
combatting him openly, but he divined and resented her unexpressed
opposition. Her attitude was one of finality; her silence indicated an
indifference to his opinions more exasperating than words. It was the
young astronomer, he reflected, who had helped to crystallise her
strange views. His lurking fear that she might one day marry and leave
him was aroused at the thought, and his heart contracted with jealousy.
She possessed in his eyes something of the sanctity of a vestal virgin,
one who must not be profaned by marriage. In such an event, also, his
cherished hope that she might complete the quadrangle of St. George's
Hall was likely to be frustrated forever. These fears moved him to
argue with a bitterness that served only to defeat his purpose the more.
Cardington's participation displayed an animus which hitherto had been
absent from his remarks upon the subject, as if the result of the
election had stirred him deeply, also.
"I have heard," he remarked, "that Emmet would never have been elected
if it had n't been for the support of Bat What's-his-name and the gang
that makes his saloon a rendezvous."
Whether this insinuation produced some effect upon the maid, or whether
the nervousness she had exhibited during the whole evening culminated
coincidently, none present could know, but no sooner had the words left
his lips than a finger-bowl which she held fell from her hands and
broke in a hundred glittering fragments on the carpet. At this second
proof of incompetence the bishop started irritably, and looked at her
without a word. That look was sufficient. A professor unexpectedly
roared out upon by his class, a clergyman breaking down in a sermon,
could scarcely have experienced a keener sense of professional failure
and humiliation than the unfortunate girl knew at that moment. To the
bishop's astonishment, she suddenly raised her apron to her eyes and
burst into tears.
"That will do, Lena," Miss Wycliffe said quietly. "We 've had enough
excitement for one evening. You may go; and send Mary in your place."
"What's the matter with the girl?" the bishop asked, when the door had
closed behind her. There was an odd blending of annoyance and
compassion in his tone.
"Lena hasn't been well," his daughter replied, "for some days."
"Then let her rest awhile," he said; "and call the doctor, if it's
necessary." The incident seemed to distract him entirely from his
previous thoughts. "It is just such a scene as this," he continued,
"that reminds one of the hidden tragedies going on all the time in the
lives about us. Lena is usually a very quiet and skilful girl, and it
has been a pleasure to have her about. Perhaps she's going through
some love affair, as big a thing in her existence as the chief events
in ours are to us. Girls of that class so often acquire a certain
gentleness and breeding from association, and then marry some rough
coal-heaver or mechanic. It's a pity--a great pity."
"She's pretty enough to meet a King Cophetua," Cardington remarked
judicially.
The observation was directed at Miss Wycliffe, and was an effort to
make her forget the conversation in which his animus had led him to
transgress even his elastic limits with her. There was something
almost comical in the concerned expression of his light blue eyes, no
longer fierce, as he gazed at her. But she met this dumb appeal coldly.
"If you will excuse me, father," she said presently, "I 'll go up to
Lena's room, and see whether she 's really ill."
The two men, left alone, drank their coffee, and then went into the
bishop's study to smoke. As the door remained open, Cardington seated
himself in a chair that commanded a vista of the drawing-room, and
lingered on in the hope of Felicity's return, until the first lights of
Emmet's triumphal procession began to flash past the windows from the
street beyond.
"Here comes the Imperator up the Via Sacra!" he commented, rising. "I
must go out and see whether he has a slave behind him to whisper in his
ear, _Memento te hominem esse_."
But it would appear that his curiosity concerning the procession was
short-lived, for when he reached the scene, he plunged contemptuously
between the straggling columns, and gained the further curb. Then he
turned down a side street, without one backward look, and took his way
forlornly toward St. George's Hall.
The bishop, not sorry to be left to his meditations, had made no effort
to detain his visitor. Now he extended his hand for another cigar,
changed his mind, and sat thinking. Genuinely indifferent to the
procession passing by with torches and transparencies and bands of
music, he remained with his back toward the windows, his head sunk upon
his breast. He was steept in a depressing consciousness of having
mismanaged the situation with his daughter, of having widened the
breach he had meant to close. His tact had failed him because his
affections and interests were too intimately concerned, much as a
surgeon's hand might falter in an operation upon one of his own family.
What was the meaning of this strange interest which Felicity had taken
in the career of a man normally beyond the radius of her acquaintance
and sympathy? At first it had seemed a jest, then a sentimental
charity maintained in foolish pride, but only recently had it created
anything approaching estrangement between them. And this situation was
the more difficult to bear because of their long intellectual and
artistic companionship. She was more to him than a son, for he had a
priestly appreciation of the subtlety of women. He had watched her
mind unfold in foreign travel, little dreaming that this experience
with him was sowing the seeds of discontent with her narrow environment
which were now beginning to bear such bitter fruit. Something of a
celibate by nature, he loved to think of her as an eternal priestess,
who would consecrate herself and her fortune to the work of the Church.
Going back in his mind, he could date the acute stage of the present
situation pretty accurately from the inception of her acquaintance with
the young professor of mathematics. Leigh had disclosed a certain
Western democracy that first evening, and had established immediately
some sort of understanding with his hostess. The bishop had seen them
together at Littleford's house, and had drawn his own conclusions.
Divination of the hidden interests and emotions of others was one of
his gifts, a gift he had so fostered that sometimes his moves in the
intricate game of life were like strokes of genius. He did not doubt
now that Leigh was in love with his daughter, and for the first time he
was seriously doubtful of her attitude toward a young man. Proud and
beautiful, she had always held herself aloof, with something of fine
scorn, from the frock-coated, silk-hatted, conventional men of her
acquaintance, as if she shared her father's opinion of her worth, as if
she secretly sympathised with the plans she knew he cherished
concerning the completion of the college quadrangle. Was she now to
decline to the level of this fortune hunter, this crude young Westerner?
As for Cardington, of course he loved her, too; but the bishop knew her
too well to suppose that the professor would ever captivate her
imagination. He had always been within her horizon, and he served the
useful purpose, from the bishop's point of view, of distracting her
attention from more formidable aspirants.
That hour of reflection resulted in at least one definite resolve:
Leigh's connection with the college should cease at the expiration of
the year for which he was engaged. Meanwhile, the bishop might need a
rest, and might take Felicity with him to Bermuda, leaving the affairs
of the diocese in the hands of his coadjutor.
Having reached this conclusion, he became aware of the fact that the
procession had long since passed, that the house was very still, and
that Felicity had evidently retired to her room for the night. He got
up and walked aimlessly out into the drawing-room, where the lights
were turned low. He listened at the foot of the stairs, and thought to
call her, but the silence seemed ominous, and for some reason he
forbore. Was she really so deeply hurt that she would not return and
bid him good-night? They had never been demonstrative, but neither
were such affectionate courtesies ever omitted between them. He could
not seek her now and demand an explanation. From such a scene he
shrank instinctively. To-morrow he would begin on a new tack. He
would relegate this absurd difference of opinion between them to the
obscure corner it deserved, where he trusted it would soon die of
neglect. It was indeed fortunate for the bishop's rest that night that
his conjecture concerning his daughter's state of mind fell so far
short of the truth.
When Lena Harpster left the dining-room at her mistress's command, she
was in a condition bordering upon hysteria. Her burst of tears
expressed the culmination of a long strain. She had dared to disobey
her lover, driven to desperation by the increasing importunities of the
young man of the house in which she served, and had fled to Miss
Wycliffe's as to a refuge. But her letter of explanation to Emmet had
remained unanswered. Was it not her love for him that had driven her
to disobey? She even refrained from signing her appeal for pardon, as
a concession to his desire for secrecy. Either he was too much
absorbed, or his wrath was implacable, and a fortnight had passed
without a sign. Would he seize this pretext, now that he had been
elected mayor, to cast her off forever, as an impediment to his
progress in the world? This doubt had so preyed upon her nerves that
Miss Wycliffe was not far from the truth when she explained to her
father that the maid was ill. But it was the vilification of her
lover, to which she was forced to listen in silence, that had brought
her emotions to a disastrous climax.
Once in her little room, she threw herself upon the bed and sobbed
without restraint, but her abandonment to grief was short. She arose
hastily and bathed her eyes in cold water, moved by the reflection that
tears only served to mar her beauty, the sole dower she possessed.
There came into her mind also the sudden resolve to go out and see the
parade. She would stand near one of the electric lights, and perhaps
her lover would see her and give some sign, a smile, a wave of the
hand, whose significance would be known to them alone.
Fired by new hope, she discarded her apron and cap and donned her
prettiest skirt. Then, standing in front of her little mirror, she
applied a dash of colour to her pale cheeks with a few deft touches,
spreading it into an appearance of nature with a bit of chamois skin.
She opened the bureau drawer and threw a white silk waist upon the bed.
But now a perplexing question arose. Which riband should she wear
about her throat? She selected two, and laid them before her for
consideration. This one she wore when he first kissed her; but the new
one was prettier. Which would he prefer? Or was it possible that he
would not see her at all in the crowd? While these thoughts ran
through her mind, she smoothed her eyebrows with her pink little thumb,
and paused to reflect that she would like to have a tiny eyebrow brush
with an ivory handle, such an one as she had seen among the toilet
articles on her mistress's dressing-table. Then she glanced at the
ring on her finger which Emmet had given her, and for a while she
forgot everything else, fixed in contemplation.
The ring was one whose peculiar value Lena was far from realising: a
Maltese cross of old gold, set with four uncut emeralds. Seen by
gaslight the stones lacked brilliancy, and she thought the ring itself
awkward and heavy. From the first she had regarded the gift
superstitiously, as if the dull green stones, like four dull eyes,
emitted a baleful influence. It was significant of her utter lack of
religious associations that the cross itself suggested no counter
charm. Had she been a Catholic, that shape alone would have made the
ring a talisman, but her people were Congregationalists, to whom
religious symbols were anathema, and she herself had seldom gone to
church. In fact, Lena was vaguely disappointed in the ring, and even
ashamed of it. If her lover were as rich as he said, why had he not
bought her a diamond? But repentance followed hard upon this
questioning. The ring was not what she desired, but it was a pledge of
his love, and she raised it to her lips.
She was in this attitude, her thin, white shoulders glimmering bare, a
graceful and nymph-like figure, when a light tap at the door froze her
into immobility, and then she saw her mistress's face reflected in the
mirror. With a little cry of embarrassment, she turned and leaned
against the bureau, lifting one hand with that instinctive gesture
which Greek sculptors have immortalised in many a lovely statue.
"I did n't mean to frighten you, Lena," Miss Wycliffe said quietly,
when she had shut the door carefully behind her and taken a chair. "I
thought you might be ill, and came to see whether I could do anything
for you."
The words were kind, but there was something in the speaker's manner
that was less assuring. Her face was pale, and her eyes were bright,
but not with compassion. Confronting each other thus, they presented a
striking contrast. The mistress's dark, rich beauty made the other's
prettiness seem ephemeral, without reducing it to the level of the
commonplace; for Lena was not common as servants are, either in her
personality or in the atmosphere she created in her room. Even her
visitor, absorbed as she was in her own purpose, was not unconscious of
the cleanliness of the place, of the artistic aspiration represented by
the few prints on the walls.
"I did have a turn, Miss Wycliffe," Lena stammered, "but I feel better
now. I thought, perhaps, if I went out to get the fresh air"--
"And saw the procession?" her mistress suggested, with a curious smile.
Lena nodded guiltily, and a flush quickly spread beyond the limits of
colour which art had fixed in her cheeks.
"Perhaps that would do you good," Miss Wycliffe remarked. Then, with a
penetrating regard, she added, "And I suspect you have a personal
interest in the parade, Lena."
"I want to see Mr. Emmet," the girl confessed, as if she could not
resist the inquisition of the stronger nature confronting her. But
there was pride, too, as well as implication, in the admission.
"Perhaps it was Mr. Emmet who gave you that odd ring?" Miss Wycliffe
continued relentlessly.
"Yes," in a voice that was almost a whisper.
"And you regard it as an engagement ring?"
"He did n't say so definitely, Miss Wycliffe. He told me not to wear
it yet, and I did n't until tonight. And he made me promise not to
tell--anything. You will keep my secret, Miss Wycliffe, until--until"--
"No, child, I won't tell, but I 'm sorry to say that I shall have to
deprive you of the ring, as it happens to be one of my own. I noticed
it on your hand at dinner, and while I was sorry to think of taking it
back, I could n't help feeling that a fortunate chance had restored it
to me."
Lena drooped pitifully, and her mistress deigned to explain further,
though her tone was hard and cold.
"If the ring were of no special value, I shouldn't mind, but it
belonged in the family, and I prized it highly. Undoubtedly I lost it
in the car, where it was found by Mr. Emmet. Let me see it; I 'm sure
I can't be mistaken."
She held out her hand imperiously, and resistance to her will was
impossible. At that moment the head of the procession could be seen
through the trees, and the sound of music floated up to the little
room. Lena held the ring in the palm of her hand, forgetting that she
had ever thought it less than beautiful, and her tears began to drop
slowly. Then she surrendered it with an impulsive movement, like that
of a conquered child. Her heart failed her. The necessity of giving
up the ring seemed prophetic of the future; and moreover she was now
too late to see him pass.
"Yes," Miss Wycliffe said coolly, "I was right. The cutting and
arrangement of the stones is peculiar, and there's not another like it
in Warwick." She arose to her feet, the ring gripped in her hand till
the edge of the cross almost cut her tender palm. "And one thing more,
Lena. I have a reason for asking it. Do you love Mr. Emmet?"
There was no need to answer, and indeed the girl could not utter a
word, so intense was her misery, so overpowering her assurance of
impending disaster.
"And do you suppose he loves you, just because he has kissed you and
given you this ring which he picked up in the car?"
There was still no answer, and the next words came like the voice of
fate.
"Well, I feel it my duty to tell you that a man in his position can
only be amusing himself when he pays attention to a girl in yours. You
must have nothing more to do with him. It's better for you to know it
now, and to have done with this infatuation, for I tell you plainly, he
means nothing that an honest girl can accept."
Left alone, Lena tottered as if she would have fallen; then sank upon
her knees and crept to the window. With trembling fingers she raised
the sash and let in the cool night air upon her bare neck and
shoulders. She let in also a fuller burst of music and cheering, and
through her tears she saw the lights dancing wildly, like a procession
of fallen stars. Somewhere in that stream of splendour and sound he
sat in his carriage, proud and triumphant, and with no thought of her.
In her own room Miss Wycliffe stood before her mirror, looking now at
the white reflection of her face, and now at the recovered ring which
she had tossed upon the bureau, while in her splendid eyes blazed the
light of a great and implacable anger. For the man who was at that
moment passing by in the street, who had taken her gift and bestowed it
upon a servant, had been her husband for more than two years.