HERBERT AND LOUIE
Four years passed, and the Grey Bank had not come to the end of its
rope. Many besides Widow Brown and old maid Smith, and washerwomen
generally, deposited in it, and Mr. Grey seemed to be increasing in
wealth and prosperity.
The new house had long been finished and occupied, and was a model of
simple elegance, outside and in. The Greys had good taste, and whatever
they touched fell into the right place, and harmonized with whatever was
nearest to it. Louie’s artistic eye detected an incongruity at once, and
as she directed the most of her surroundings, people said of the grounds
and the house that they were like pictures in which the outline and
coloring were perfect, while Louie was the fairest picture of all.
She was nearly seventeen, with a face of rare beauty, especially her
eyes, which Herbert White thought the handsomest he had ever seen. She
did not climb fences or trees with him now. She was getting too old for
that, but she went rowing with him on the river, after the white lilies,
and took long rambles in the woods, searching for the early spring
flowers, and later on for ferns and the red sumach berries. Sometimes
she drove with him in the fancy turn-out which his father had given him
on his birthday. But this did not occur often, for such drives were
highly disapproved by Judge White, who read his son many a lecture on
his bad taste in admiring a girl in Louie’s low estate.
“Good thunder, father,” Herbert said to him one morning when the lecture
had been longer than usual, “isn’t Louie Grey as good as I am, if her
father hasn’t quite as much money as you? He is a banker and a
gentleman, and folks like him, and put him in office. Why, he is
President of the village now, and—and—I never told you—but that time Mr.
Smith, our church warden, died and we had to have a new one, they
offered it to Mr. Grey, who refused it, just as he refused being
vestryman, saying he was not good enough. So they took you, because you
had a lot of money, I know; I heard about it. They said you were proud
and overbearing, but on the whole a good man, and if Mr. Grey wouldn’t
take it, there was no one else, so they elected you. I wanted to tell
you then, but you seemed so pleased I didn’t.”
The judge was very pale by the time Herbert finished this statement, and
for a church warden very angry, too. He didn’t swear, but he wanted to,
and did say some things not very complimentary to the church generally
and Mr. Grey in particular. He was proud of being church warden, and
that Tom Grey should have been mentioned in preference to himself was
galling to his pride, and increased his dislike for the man and
everything pertaining to him, while Herbert was again told in strong
terms to let the Grey girl alone.
“Nobody knows what her father was before he came here, or how he lived
either. No business till he opened a bank, I’ve heard it hinted—but I
ain’t going to slander anybody; this I’ll say, though, I don’t believe
Tom Grey’s record is the cleanest that ever was. Needn’t tell me that
one-horse bank of his can pay for the big swath he is cutting. Stands to
reason he has some other way of getting money, and always has had. Time
will tell. Warden of the church! I’d laugh. He had sense enough to
decline, and I’ll resign, too, by the Lord Harry! Took me because I had
money and there was nobody else! Yes, sir! I’ll resign, and let ’em have
Tom Grey if they want him.”
The judge was very red in the face by the time he had finished this
tirade, to which Herbert had listened impatiently. He had seen a plaid
skirt and red waist down the street, and was anxious to get away; but
his father was not yet through, and, after mopping his face and taking
breath, he went on:
“The girl is all right in her place, but my son should look higher, and
remember the kind of family he belongs to. Do you think your cousin,
Fred Lansing, would go scampering round the country with Tom Grey’s
girl? No, sir! There’s a young man who knows how to demean himself, and
it would be well for you to imitate him. He is coming here, too. I’ve
just got a letter from his mother, my sister and your aunt, Mrs. George
Lansing. They will visit us this summer and bring that young lady who
lives with them. There’s a chance for you. What is her name?
Blanche—Blanche—?”
“Blanche Percy—old enough to be my grandmother,” Herbert answered
contemptuously, as he turned on his heel and walked away, declaring he
didn’t care for a hundred Blanche Percys and Fred Lansings. “I have had
him dinged into my ears as a model to imitate ever since I can
remember,” he said to himself as he went rapidly down the street in the
direction of the plaid dress and red jacket.
And yet in his heart he had a great admiration for his cousin Fred, who
was six years his senior, and every way his equal in money and position
and pedigree, if indeed he was not his superior. His mother was a White,
with all the prestige of the White lineage, while on the Lansing side
was a long line of judges and governors and bishops, and two generals,
both in the Confederate army. One of them was Fred’s father, who was a
Virginian, and had been killed at Gettysburg. Judge White was very proud
of his connection with the Lansings and very proud of his nephew Fred,
who had been to college, and travelled round the world, and carried
himself as if he had in his veins the blood of a hundred kings. He had
not been often in Merivale, and it was two or three years since Herbert
last saw him, in Washington, where his mother had lived for some time,
and where her house was a resort for the best society in that
cosmopolitan city. But he was coming now, and Herbert felt a thrill of
pride as he thought of showing off his distinguished relatives to the
plain people of Merivale.
“I wonder what he will think of Louie, and what she will think of him,
and what father meant about Mr. Grey’s record,” he said to himself, as
he turned a corner and met the girl face to face.
“Hallo,” he said, and she replied, “Hallo,” as if they were talking
through a telephone; and then, unmindful of his father’s orders that he
should let the Grey girl alone, Herbert continued: “Come on down to the
river. I have a lot to tell you.”
It did not take them long to reach the river, and the boat which Herbert
had named for Louie was soon floating out upon the water, with the two
young people in it.
“Well, what is the lot you have to tell me?” Louie asked, removing her
hat with one hand, and letting the other hang over the side of the boat
in the river.
Once or twice Herbert had heard insinuations from his father and a few
others with regard to Mr. Grey’s career before he came to Merivale, and
of the possible way in which he was running his bank and having so much
money to spend, and had always been very angry.
“I’ll ask Louie some time,” he had thought, but had never brought
himself to do it until now, when his father’s hints were fresh in his
mind. It was rather an awkward thing to do, and he hesitated a moment
before he began:
“What did your father do before he came to Merivale?”
It was a strange question, and Louie looked her surprise as she replied,
“Do you mean, how did he get his living?”
“Why, yes, I guess that is what I mean. Was he a banker, or merchant, or
what?”
Louie’s brown eyes looked steadily at him, and her face flushed as she
replied very frankly:
“I hardly know what he did; there were so many things, and he did not
stay long in any. Got tired and tried another. He was in a bank for a
while, and in a store and insurance office, and I don’t know what else;
a rolling stone, mother used to call him, but he managed at times to
make a lot of money, which he spent very freely, and then didn’t have
much till he made some more. He is doing a great deal better now. Why do
you ask me? Have you any particular reason?”
Louie’s eyes were very bright, and Herbert felt his own droop beneath
them. He had not realized all his question might lead to, and was
wondering how to answer her, when she again said to him:
“What is it? Tell me!”
“Oh, nothing much,” he began. “There are a heap of liars in the
world—jealous pates—who hint that your father is—a—or was—a—”
Here he came to a dead stop, for Louie’s eyes were getting dangerous.
“Is—er—was—er—what? Speak out, or I’ll get up and go straight home.”
“I’d like to see you do it,” Herbert answered laughingly. “Don’t bounce
about so. You’ll upset the boat, and I can’t swim.”
“I can,” she said, contemptuously; “and what is it? What do the liars
say of father? That he is a thief, or murderer, or gambler, or what?”
“Why, no—or, yes—er—you’ve hit it partly,” Herbert stammered, but got no
farther, for Louie sprang to her feet with a movement as if she were
going to jump overboard, and did nearly upset the boat.
“Sit down, Louie. Sit down. Don’t be so peppery, and I’ll tell you. Some
folks do say that he gambled before he came here, and speculates now.”
“It’s false!” Louie exclaimed. “It’s false!” and she struck her hand in
the river with such force that great splashes of water were thrown into
the boat.
“Of course it’s a lie, I know that,” Herbert said, trying to quiet her.
“I don’t know why I told you, only I wanted to contradict it.”
“You may. You can. He never gambled, and as to speculating, lots do that
all the time in New York and Chicago and everywhere. You would do it if
you could make money by it. But I don’t believe father does. I know he
never gambled; that’s different,” Louie answered vehemently; then,
suddenly, as if some wave of memory had swept over her, there came a
hard look into her eyes, and drops of sweat stood around her lips, which
were very white, as was the rest of her face.
Herbert thought she was going to cry, but she only said very low:
“Let’s go home.”
“No, no—not yet. It is so nice out here,” Herbert replied. “There is
more I want to tell you.”
“If it is about father, I do not wish to hear it,” Louie said.
“It isn’t,” Herbert replied. “It is about my cousin, Fred Lansing. You
have heard of him?”
Louie had heard of him, as a relation of whom Herbert was very proud,
but in her excitement she cared to hear nothing more. She wanted to go
home, she said; but Herbert pulled farther up the river toward a bed of
white lilies, and kept talking to her of Fred and his Aunt Esther, who
were coming, with a Miss Blanche Percy, to whom his Uncle Lansing had
been guardian, and who lived with his aunt. This Miss Percy, he said,
was born in Richmond, where his aunt lived before the war. She once had
a twin brother, he had heard, who killed himself, or was killed, or
something. They never talked about it. She was a great heiress, and his
father would like him to marry her.
At this point Louie began to show a little interest, and looked up
quickly, while he continued:
“But that’s absurd. She is as old as Fred, if not older. Boys don’t
marry their grandmothers, do they?”
“I should think not,” Louie replied, and her head went up a little more
squarely on her shoulders. “When are these fine folks coming?” she
asked.
“Before long, I guess, and then there’ll be some grand times in town,
you bet. I heard mother say once that if the Lansings ever came here
she’d give a party which would astonish the natives. She’d have a brass
band and a string band and a caterer and everything O. K., and have
people from Worcester and Springfield, and only the very first in town.”
“Then I shall not be invited,” Louie said, with a snap in her voice
corresponding to the snap in her eyes.
“Why not?” Herbert asked in surprise.
“Because you would not invite the daughter of a gambler to meet your
fine friends, and that is what you said my father was,” Louie answered.
“I said nothing of the sort,” Herbert responded hotly. “I told of some
hints I wanted to contradict. I am sorry I told you, and I know it isn’t
true.”
To this Louie made no reply, but there came into her eyes a second time
the same hard look which had been there once before as she talked of her
father. Ordinarily she would have been greatly interested in the party,
of which there were never many in Merivale, but she was too anxious to
get home and confront her father with what she had heard, to care much
for Fred Lansing, or Blanche Percy, or the party to which she probably
would not be bidden.
Herbert was now rowing back to the boathouse, and almost before the
landing was reached Louie sprang on shore, and, without a word, sped
away like a deer in the direction of her home.
Her mother was out, but she found her father in the little room he
called his den, where he spent a good deal of his leisure time smoking
and reading, and looking over papers and letters, of which he had a
great many.
Louie never hesitated when a thing was to be done, and, rushing in upon
him, she startled him with the question:
“Father, are you a gambler?”
If she had knocked him down, Mr. Grey could not have been more
surprised.
“A gambler!” he repeated, the pen with which he was writing dropping
from his hands and his face white as a corpse. “What do you mean? Who
has said this of me?”
“It does not matter. I have heard that it was hinted. I said it was a
lie, and it is. You are not a gambler. If I thought you were and that
the money you give us so freely was obtained that way, I’d—I’d—burn my
dresses! I’d smash the furniture! I believe I’d set fire to the house!”
She looked like a little fury, with her flashing eyes and flushed, eager
face, and Mr. Grey drew his chair back from her as if afraid she might
do him bodily harm.
Two or three times he tried to speak, but the words he wanted to say
were difficult to utter and his lips twitched nervously.
“Say, father,” she continued, “are you a gambler?”
He was glad she put the question that way, and answered her clearly and
distinctly:
“No, daughter, I am not.”
“I knew it, and I’m so glad,” and Louie’s arms were around his neck, and
she was smothering him with kisses, each of which seemed to burn the
spot it touched, as he tried to disengage himself from her, and asked
her to tell him what she had heard.
She told him all at last, and although it was not much, it was the first
breath of suspicion which had reached him in his prosperous career, and
it struck him harder than Louie ever dreamed.
“Don’t tell your mother,” he said. “It is not necessary to trouble her.”
“Of course not,” Louie answered, “but what are you going to do? Won’t
you arrest ’em? Sue ’em for slander, or something?”
Mr. Grey laughed and answered: “Sue whom? That boy, or his father, from
whom, I think, the whole story started, because he is jealous of my
success? No, Louie, that is not my nature, and it is the wiser plan to
pay no attention to a story which will die of itself if it is given
nothing to feed upon. I am not a gambler. Perhaps I speculate a little
now and then in a safe, legitimate way, but that is very common. And now
go.”
He was quite himself again, and, with a load lifted from her mind, Louie
went out to meet her mother, who had just come in.
She did not see Herbert again, to speak with him, that day or the next,
although he passed the house two or three times very slowly, and she
knew he was hoping to get a sight of her. The next day a new wheel came
to her, and, anxious to show it and try it, she started out for a spin,
going past the White house, at which she looked almost as anxiously as
Herbert had looked for her the day before, and with better success, for
she had scarcely turned from that street into the Boulevard when she
heard the whir of a wheel behind her, and Herbert came scorching to her
side, nearly running her down in his headlong haste.
“I say, Louie,” he began, “where have you kept yourself? It’s an age
since I saw you. I hope you are not mad at what I told you. I wish my
tongue had been cut out before I did it; and isn’t your wheel a dandy?
Don’t ride so fast. I want to see it. Are you mad?”
“No,” Louie answered curtly, stopping short. “I told father what you
said, and it isn’t true, and if you ever hint it again, I’ll have you
arrested, and your father, too. I know he is at the bottom of it,
because he is jealous of father, and I’ll never speak to you again if
you don’t contradict it every time you hear it. My father a gambler! Not
much!”
She had said what she had to say, and was ready to forgive and be
forgiven, and to talk of her wheel, which, she said, had cost
seventy-five or a hundred dollars, she didn’t know which.
“It was not bought with gambling money, either,” she continued with a
toss of her head. “Father gave a check on his bank.”
Herbert thought of some things he had heard with regard to the
management of the bank, but wisely forebore any comment. He was too glad
to have Louie back on any terms, and the two were soon bowling far out
into the country, Louie keeping a little in advance, but near enough to
Herbert to hear what he was telling her of the Lansings, who, he said,
were coming the next day on the two o’clock train from New York. The
party was a sure thing, for his father and mother had settled it that
morning at breakfast. They decided, too, that no one in Merivale should
be invited except those to whom his mother was indebted and those who
called upon Mrs. Lansing and Miss Percy. “So you be sure and call with
your mother,” he added.
Louie laughed, and said she shouldn’t trouble herself to call upon such
old people, nor would they expect it, but she would tell her mother.
Then she made a long, rapid sweep, and turned towards home, followed by
Herbert, who with all his scorching could scarcely keep up with her, for
she seemed to fly, and her wheel was proving worthy of its name, “The
Flyer,” stamped upon it in silver letters, with the date of its gift to
her.
“I don’t suppose I shall see you while your grand folks are here,” she
said as she dismounted at her gate.
“Oh, but you must see Fred,” Herbert replied, and the last thing she
heard from him as he went down the road was something about Fred, the
best fellow in the world.
The next day, when Louie heard the New York train, she took a book, and
seating herself upon the piazza, waited for the White carriage. She had
seen it go by with Herbert in it, and in the course of half an hour it
came back, with Herbert and a young man on the front seat, and two
ladies behind them, presumably Mrs. Lansing and Blanche Percy. The
former was short and fat and sat very erect, looking curiously about her
through a gold-handled _lorgnette_.
“Dumpy and Frumpy and Proud,” was Louie’s mental verdict of her; then
she scanned the lady beside her, who was tall and slender and fair, and
dressed in mourning, with a look of care or fatigue, or both, on her
face, which was very pale and very sweet: “Rather pretty, with an air
about her,” Louie thought, and turned next to the young man, Fred
Lansing, who was sitting on the side of the open carriage nearest to
her.
As he was looking another way, she could not see his face until, from
something Herbert said to him, he turned quickly and she saw a pale,
refined face, with perfectly regular features and a pair of large, dark
eyes, which met hers, while his hat was lifted for a moment, as she
bowed to Herbert, who had removed his cap and was waving it towards her.
“I believe he is a gentleman, but proud, of course. I wonder if Herbert
will tell him what people say of my father,” she thought, and grew hot
and dizzy as she recalled the insult.
“The Lansings are here,” she said to her father when he came home to
lunch.
“The Lansings? Who are they?” he answered abstractedly.
“Why, the grand relations of Judge White,” Louie replied; “his sister,
Mrs. Lansing, and her son Fred. They live in Washington now, but they
did live in Richmond before the war, and there’s a Miss Blanche Percy
with them, a great heiress and Mr. Lansing’s ward before he died. She
had a brother who was killed, or something, and I guess that is why her
face is so sad. I saw her just a minute as she went by,” Louie added,
too intent upon her strawberries and cream to notice the change in her
father as she talked, from one of indifference to absorbing interest.
The Lansings made no impression upon him, but when Blanche Percy was
mentioned, he became all attention, and had Louie been observing him,
she would have seen a pallor about his lips as he listened.
“Blanche Percy—from where?” he asked, and Louie replied, “From
Washington now—from Richmond formerly, where I told you the Lansings
lived. They are Southerners, and big swells, Herbert says.”
To this her father made no comment, but asked, “What was it about the
brother? What did you say his name was?”
“I didn’t say. I don’t know—Percy, most likely,” Louie replied. “Herbert
told me she had a twin brother who killed himself, or was killed—the
latter probably; those Southerners are so hot-headed.”
As Mr. Grey made no reply, Louie branched off upon the big party the
Whites were to have in honor of their guests, and to which no one was to
be invited from the town except those to whom Mrs. White was indebted,
and those who called upon Mrs. Lansing and Miss Percy.
“You’ll call, mother, won’t you? I want you and father to attend the
party, and tell me about it,” she said.
There was a sudden movement as of dissent from Mr. Grey, but before he
could speak his wife replied:
“I don’t think I shall trouble myself. I was here five years before Mrs.
White called upon me, and then she came when I am certain she knew I was
out. When I returned it, she was engaged, and she has never been near me
since. I shall not call on her or the Lansings.”
“Of course not,” Mr. Grey rejoined, with an asperity of manner unusual
with him.
He did not seem himself at all. He had a headache, he said, and,
declining the strawberries Louie urged upon him, left the table and went
to his room, where his wife found him lying upon the couch, either
asleep or pretending to be, for he neither spoke nor moved when she
entered the room. He was subject to headaches, and they had increased in
frequency within the last few years. This one seemed harder than usual,
and it was not till the next day that he went to the bank, before which
the White carriage was standing, with two ladies in it, Mrs. Lansing and
Blanche Percy, while Judge White was just coming down the steps to join
them.
Mr. Grey would rather have passed them unnoticed, but he never forgot to
be a gentleman, and in response to the judge’s rather gruff “good
morning, Grey,” he answered pleasantly and lifted his hat politely to
the two ladies.
“Who is that splendid-looking man?” Blanche asked as the judge entered
the carriage.
“That? Oh, that’s Tom Grey, the one-horse banker who has set up business
right under my nose; but he can’t run long, you’ll see,” the judge
replied, as they drove away, while the one-horse banker looked after
them till they were out of sight, with thoughts from which Louie would
have shrunk aghast if she could have known them.