BONNIE MAY HIDES SOMETHING
Baron made a wry face when he was told by Doctor Percivald that he had
a very badly sprained ankle, and that he would have to remain on his
back indefinitely.
“Couldn’t it have been something less--ladylike?” he wanted to know.
But Doctor Percivald, being a scientific-minded person, merely glanced
at him impatiently and said nothing.
However, he speedily discovered that being an invalid on what might be
considered a preferred plan was not without its compensations.
He became the pivot around which the affairs of the household revolved.
He was constantly being considered and deferred to. It had been so long
since any member of the family had been disabled that his affliction,
being very limited in extent, was looked upon as a sort of luxury.
However, though the family gathered about his bed occasionally to hold
pleasant discussions, there were times when he lay alone--and these
were the most profitable if not the most pleasant hours of all.
The noises of the street, pleasantly muffled, reached him; movements in
the house were faintly audible and pleasantly homely; the sun shone
with a lonely brilliance against his walls.
During such periods he took an inventory of life from a new angle.
He sat in judgment upon himself like a disinterested person. Baron,
disabled, critically surveyed Baron, able to be about.
“Spendthrift of time and chance--that’s what you are,” decided Baron,
disabled, directing his condemnation against Baron, well and sound.
“You’ve been thinking all the time that to be Baron was something fine.
You haven’t had sense enough to realize that merely being Baron wasn’t
being anything at all. You’ve got to realize that all men must be
measured by just one standard. You’ve got to quit thinking it’s right
for you to do just the pleasant things--the things you like to do. You
have got to go to work, and take orders like any other man.”
Lying in his room, he obtained a new impression of Bonnie May, too.
She did not return to the mansion on the day of his accident. He
thought she might possibly do so after the theatre hour, but the
evening passed and in due time there were the sounds of the house being
closed for the night, and languid voices calling to one another on the
floor below.
The first long night passed, with occasional tapping on the invalid’s
door by Mrs. Baron. A dozen times during the night she came to see if
he needed anything, to be sure that he rested comfortably.
Finally he chided her gayly for disturbing him and herself; then, after
another interval which seemed only of a few minutes, he opened his eyes
again to respond to the tapping on the door, and discovered that the
sun was shining into the room. It was quite late in the forenoon.
“I’ve come with the papers,” said Flora, approaching his bed like a
particularly lovely ministering angel. “Mother’s lying down. She didn’t
sleep very well last night.”
Baron had the odd thought that people must look entirely different if
you looked at them while you were lying down. Never before had Flora
seemed so serene and beautiful and richly endowed with graces of person
and voice. He was so pleased with this view of her that he decided not
to lift his head.
Then, while she arranged the papers, unconscious of his scrutiny, he
read an expression in her eyes which brought him abruptly to his elbow.
“Flora,” he declared, “you’re not happy!”
She laughed softly as if to ridicule such a suggestion, but immediately
there was a delicate flush in her face. “Nonsense!” she said. “And
somebody helpless in the house to worry about? One wouldn’t dance and
sing under the circumstances. I’m trying to behave becomingly--that’s
all.”
Baron disregarded this. “And as soon as I get up,” he said, “I’m
going to see that certain nonsense is ended. He’s a dandy good
fellow--that’s what he is. I can’t imagine what we’ve all been
thinking about.”
“He--” Flora began properly enough, but the conventional falsehood
she meant to utter failed to shape itself. She couldn’t return her
brother’s glance. It occurred to her that the window-shade needed
adjusting.
“I’m going to put a stop to certain nonsense,” Baron repeated. He
rattled the newspapers with decision, covertly regarding his sister,
who did not trust herself to speak again. She kept her eyes averted as
she left the room.
Flora had opened all the papers so that the dramatic reviews came
uppermost, and as Baron glanced from one to another he forgot Flora
completely. By the time he had glanced at the fifth review of the
production of “The Break of Day” he dropped the papers and drew a long
breath. “Holy Smoke!” he exclaimed, and then he returned to his reading.
Baggot’s play had scored an almost unprecedented success. Several
of the dramatic critics had written signed articles in which they
expressed unbounded praise. And from his knowledge of newspaper
writing, Baron knew that even the most hardened of theatregoers had
been swept off their feet by the charm and novelty of the new play.
Baron gathered that a new actress had been added to the group of
notable American artists as a result of the creation of the part of
“The Sprite.” But when he sought from one account to another for
the name of this player, he found only that the rôle of “The Sprite”
had been played “By Herself.” He couldn’t find her name anywhere, or
anything about her.
But after all, the identity of even a very successful player was not
the thing Baron was thinking of most. He was delighted that Baggot had
been successful. It seemed that Baggot had “arrived.”
His reflections were interrupted by his mother. She entered the room
rather hurriedly. Baron realized that something must have happened,
or she wouldn’t have come in like that, rubbing her eyes sleepily and
wearing a loose wrapper.
“They’re telephoning for you down at the newspaper office,” she yawned.
“I didn’t tell them you were--that you couldn’t.... I thought maybe you
might like to do some writing in bed, if they want you to.”
“No, I’m not going to do any writing in bed. I feel as if that is what
I’ve been doing always. I’m going to wait until I can get up, and then
I’m going to work in earnest.”
She regarded him dubiously, not understanding at all. “And what shall I
say?” she asked.
“Tell them I’m laid up, and that I’ll be down to see them as soon as
I’m able to be about.”
“Very well.”
“And mother--don’t say I’ve got a sprained ankle. Think of something
else.”
“Something else----” Mrs. Baron succeeded now in opening her eyes to
their normal width.
“It doesn’t sound very impressive. Everybody sprains his ankle. You
might say I’ve broken my leg, if you can’t think of anything else.”
“A sprained ankle is a sprained ankle,” was the answer he received; and
he dropped back on his pillow as limply as if he had been overcome by a
great flash of truth.
Almost immediately, however, he heard a distant commotion on the
stairway and, after an instant of whispering and murmuring in the hall,
his door flew open. To his astonishment, Bonnie May literally ran into
the room.
Her face was colorless; she was staring at him.
“What happened?” she asked in a voice which was unsteady.
“Nothing, child!” he exclaimed sharply. “They’ve alarmed you. It was
nothing at all. Didn’t mother tell you?”
“She told me there had been an accident and that you were in bed. I
didn’t wait for any more.”
“But you can see it’s nothing. I can’t understand your being so
excited.”
She went closer to him, and he could see that her body was quivering.
“Is it something that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t gone away?”
she asked.
“It’s nothing at all--and it would have happened in any case. I’ve only
sprained my ankle. I’m ashamed to mention such a little thing. And for
goodness’ sake, don’t look as if I’d had my head cut off and you were
to blame.”
She sat down a distance from his bed, a strangely unhappy little
creature. Her sharp uneasiness gave place to a dull, increasing apathy.
She was not looking at Baron now.
He couldn’t stand that. “Did you see the play last night?” he asked
pleasantly.
She stared at him. “Did I see it? Certainly not. How could I?”
She was studying his eyes, and swiftly the misery in her own was
multiplied many times.
He almost lost patience with her. “Well, good gracious! Don’t take it
so much to heart. There will be other chances. It made good, you know.
It will have a run sometime. We’ll see it, you and I together.”
“Yes,” she said, and sighed. A settled look of misery returned to her
eyes.
* * * * *
She did not leave the mansion for many days. Her sprightly moods
returned to her occasionally; yet it was not to be ignored that in some
strange fashion she was changed.
She spent much of her time in Baron’s room. She became almost
irritatingly eager to serve him. She seemed to be wishing to atone for
something--to re-establish herself in her own confidence and respect.
That was how it seemed to Baron, after he had observed her studiously a
score of times.
Occasionally he drove her from his room, achieving this by gay
upbraidings. He insisted upon having the daily lessons attended to,
and it was with the liveliest interest that he listened to the little
tinkling melodies she played, slowly and with many an error. He
realized that a great deal of progress was being made. His mother was
patient, and Bonnie May was a painstaking pupil.
Baggot came in in the course of a day or two. He was cultivating a new
sort of manner, in which there was much condescension. His tone seemed
to say: “You see, I succeeded, even if you _did_ fail me.”
“I’m sure the play is going to be a winner,” said Baron.
“Oh, yes--it will go all right. I’m overhauling it a bit. We only gave
it that first performance so I could see just how to finish it, and to
get our copyright, and that sort of thing. It will go on regularly, you
know, this fall.”
Baggot had received his promotion, Baron reflected. He would go forward
now into a more active life. He would probably be seen at the mansion
a time or two again, and that would be the end of him, so far as the
Barons were concerned.
* * * * *
Another visitor during those days was the beer-driver, who came to
inquire about Baron’s condition, and for further manifestations of
kindness, as it appeared.
Baron tried to shake his hand, but the task was too herculean.
“I might go out the back way and slip in a can, if the old lady’s
against it,” he said, flushing readily and smiling.
“It just happens that I don’t care for it,” said Baron. “I’m quite as
much obliged to you.”
He thought it was rather a hopeful sign that he was genuinely pleased
to see this man, who had tried to be a good neighbor.
“August is my name,” said the visitor as he prepared to go. “When
you’re near the brewery, ask for me. You could go to a dance with me
some night. We got a lot of fine fellows. Girls, too.” He said this in
the tone of one who would say: “You’re plenty good enough to go with
me.”
Then he, too, was gone.
* * * * *
The days passed--more days than Baron liked to count. And still Bonnie
May did not go over to the Thornburgs’, but haunted Baron’s room early
and late, between lesson hours, and tried in a thousand ways to serve
him.
He made curious discoveries touching her.
Often she stood by the window looking out, and he marvelled to see her
body become possessed by some strange spirit within her. Her very flesh
seemed to be thinking, to be trying to become articulate. And when she
looked at him, after such a period as this, she suddenly, shrank within
herself and gazed at him with a wistfulness so intense that he felt an
eager wish to help her--yet also a strange helplessness.
Once he cried: “You strange little creature, what is it?”
But she only shook her head slowly and whispered, “Nothing”--though he
saw that her eyes filled with tears.
Finally Doctor Percivald called again--three weeks had passed since the
patient had been put to bed--and announced that if Baron would confine
his activities to the house for a few days longer, he might safely get
up.