I
IT was early in the following December before Mrs. Allestree again came
face to face with the situation which was so intimately connected,
though in such different ways, with the happiness of two members
of her family, her son and her nephew. The long months that had
intervened, however, had not dulled her remembrance of that vivid
scene in Margaret’s bedroom, or lessened the degree of her secret
sympathy--which was in exact opposition to her judgment.
It was a long time indeed before she could recur to that scene
without a poignant feeling of guilt; her conscience pinched her with
self-righteousness; she had found the mote in her sister’s eye without
seeing the beam in her own, she had judged without experience. However,
after awhile, this sensitiveness was enveloped in a thicker moral
coating, and she began again to view the affair with horror. The two
little White children were constant spectacles in the parks with their
two French nurses and their general air of bewildered desolation; it
was perfectly well known that Estelle had raised a terrible outcry for
her mother and refused to be comforted, in spite of the conscientious
efforts of poor old Mrs. White who, whatever her faults, was sincere in
her devotion to the two poor little waifs of wealth.
Mr. White, meanwhile, had created fresh scandal by his open devotion
to Lily Osborne, and would probably have been still more outrageous
if that astute young woman had not judiciously absented herself from
the city at the very moment when society had reached the limit of its
endurance; but her disappearance from the surface scarcely arrested
White’s downward career; he was plunging deeper and deeper, and there
were many rumors of scandals connected with his administration which
would lead to his dismissal from the Cabinet. Some secret information
from the Navy Department had found its way into the hands of a foreign
government, and the way of its passage through White’s careless hands
to Lily Osborne’s and from hers to the representative of the foreign
power was unfortunately made altogether too plain to be ignored except
on the surface of things, to hush scandal.
December found Washington a little aghast; Congress had just
re-assembled, Wicklow White had somewhat hastily resigned, almost
on the date which, in the previous year, had seen the retirement of
Wingfield, and one of the ambassadors had been as hastily recalled,
clearing the atmosphere of an international situation with the
accustomed scapegoat! That the Cabinet would have to be reorganized was
evident, and Berkman’s prophecy of eight months before was apparently
on the eve of fulfilment. The very atmosphere, surcharged with
excitement, seemed to breathe the name of William Fox; only those who
knew the secret of Margaret’s divorce, which had just been granted in
Omaha, divined the fatal combination of circumstances.
Fox had been absent for months in his own state, taking part in a
campaign of unusual bitterness and importance, and his remarkable
powers of organization, his keen policy, his magnetic eloquence, had
carried all before him. There had been, in fact, a storm of applause;
every newspaper in the country had discussed him as a possible
candidate for the Presidency in the following year, his own party
with triumphant confidence, and the opposing faction with reluctant
admission of his great strength. If anything had delayed his invitation
to take a seat in the Cabinet, it was openly hinted to be the jealousy
of the Administration and an uncertainty whether such a position would
conveniently shelve him or increase his popularity.
To those who knew the whole truth Fox’s position was almost tragic, but
the man had returned more than usually brilliant and untiring.
Rose had sailed for Europe in the previous June in charge of an elderly
cousin and Aunt Hannah, and no one knew the secret of that parting or
the cost of it to Fox; no one indeed even surmised it but old Mrs.
Allestree.
The last six months had been trying ones to her and she was meditating
upon them, sitting before the open fire in her drawing-room, her
tea-table at her elbow, waiting for Robert.
She measured the tea into the old Canton tea-pot, she looked at the
lamp under the kettle, and then she turned back to her knitting,
working fast without looking at it, counting stitches now and then and
making an elaborate pattern with incredible swiftness, her knitting
needles flashing in and out as the work slipped from one to the other
and back again. The glow of the fire played on her face and showed the
soft lines there, the alert bright eyes, the snowy hair on the temples.
The clock struck six and she looked up expecting Robert, but instead
her parlormaid opened the door to admit Mrs. O’Neal.
“Why, Martha, I’m delighted to see you! It’s such a bitter evening I
didn’t expect a call. Sit down and have a cup of my tea.”
“I don’t take much tea now, I hear that it’s bad for the complexion;
but you can give me some hot water and lemon, Jane,” replied her
visitor, seating herself with a rustle of silks and a rattle of chains
which made a distinct sensation in the quiet room.
Mrs. Allestree poured out the hot water and put in the lemon. “I’m
eighty-one,” she remarked, with a queer little smile, “and I’ve rather
forgotten my complexion.”
“A mistake, my dear Jane,” replied Mrs. O’Neal calmly, taking the
steaming cup and slipping back her sables; “I keep young by constant
attention to such details; I have my face massaged every day, and even
study my bonnets and veils with that point in view.”
Mrs. Allestree cast a covert glance at the vibrating head under the
large, flaring bonnet with its cascade of ostrich feathers and said
nothing, instead she knitted violently.
“I suppose you’ve heard the news?” Mrs. O’Neal remarked, after she had
sipped the hot water with a slightly wry face; “Margaret White has
returned.”
Mrs. Allestree dropped a knitting needle. “When?” she exclaimed rather
hastily, while she tried to recover the fugitive.
“Yesterday; she’s taken the apartment that she had last spring.” Mrs.
O’Neal mentioned one of the more expensive but quiet apartment houses;
“have you any idea how much alimony she got?”
“Good heavens, no!” exclaimed Mrs. Allestree; “Gerty wrote me that
White was disposed to be very liberal, and he ought to be!”
Mrs. O’Neal nodded. “He’ll marry Lily Osborne, of course, and I shall
cut them dead.”
“I should hope so!”
“Well, of course Lily’s footing was slippery enough at the best and
this passes endurance. Mrs. Wingfield told me that it is absolutely
certain that she got money from Von Groten for some kind of
information; Lily has no conscience and she’s only half an American,
thank Heaven! Mrs. Wingfield says she saw the check--”
“Martha, that woman will say anything!”
Mrs. O’Neal shrugged her shoulders. “So does everybody! If Margaret had
only let her get into society she wouldn’t have been so bitter now that
she’s got her chance; I often think that it pays to be polite to these
parvenus! I only hope Margaret doesn’t expect me to hold her up until
this blows over.”
Mrs. Allestree smiled involuntarily. “I can’t imagine Margaret in the
light of a suppliant,” she said quietly.
“A mere _façon de parler_, of course, on my part,” Mrs. O’Neal
retorted; “but, Jane, this is all a bad business, it will have to be
patched up, but--” she set down her cup and looked earnestly at Mrs.
Allestree--“Jane, does she mean to marry your nephew?”
Mrs. Allestree dropped her knitting and held up both hands. “Heaven
knows, not I!” she replied; “of course she can’t be in the fashion
unless she marries again.”
“But to marry Fox! That will create a perfect _furore_. Did you know
he’s been offered the portfolio of State?”
A quiver of excitement passed over Mrs. Allestree’s pale face.
“Actually--or only metaphorically, Martha?”
“Actually, to-day--I had it from two Cabinet officers.”
Mrs. Allestree’s hands fell on her knitting, and she sat looking into
the fire. What a nightmare of a complication! To marry Margaret would
ruin him, yet not to marry her--
“It isn’t generally known yet that he may marry Margaret; if he does--”
Mrs. O’Neal held up her hands this time, and her plumes trembled.
“I don’t know anything about it, Martha,” Mrs. Allestree said
judiciously.
Martha O’Neal looked at her shrewdly and smiled, but she changed the
subject as she gathered up her furs again preparatory to departure.
“Lily Osborne is reported to have made twenty thousand at bridge at
the Hot Springs,” she observed casually; “I wish I didn’t entertain an
awful doubt of her integrity.”
Mrs. Allestree looked up weakly. “You can’t mean she cheats at cards?”
Mrs. O’Neal laughed. “She’d be caught at that, my dear, and ostracized.
She only happens to know who to fleece, you can see how rich she grows.”
“I heard; Gerty told me that Senator Turkman had advised her
judiciously in placing some money in mining shares and there has been a
rise; Lily told her.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Mrs. O’Neal, finally catching the other end of her
sable boa; “it’s rather odd, isn’t it, that Senator Turkman didn’t make
any money for himself at the same time? He’s terribly embarrassed.”
Mrs. Allestree leaned back in her chair and laughed silently. “Martha,”
she said finally, “you’re a sinner and a publican, let me alone! I
haven’t heard so much gossip in a year.”
“My dear Jane,” retorted the other woman dryly, “you live under a
hill.”