DISCUSSING A SISTER-IN-LAW
"You remember my sister-in-law, don't you, Brandy?" was the question
that Leslie Wrandall put to a friend one afternoon, as they sat
drearily in a window of one of the fashionable up-town clubs, a
little more than a year after the events described in the foregoing
chapters. Drearily, I have said, for the reason that it was Sunday,
and raining at that.
"I met Mrs. Wrandall a few years ago in Rome," said his companion,
renewing interest in a conversation that had died some time before
of its own exhaustion. "She's most attractive. I saw her but once.
I think it was at somebody's fete."
"She's returning to New York the end of the month," said Leslie.
"Been abroad for over a year. She had a villa at Nice this winter."
"I remember her quite well. I was of an age then to be particularly
sensitive to female loveliness. If I'd been staying on in Rome, I
should have screwed up the courage, I'm sure, to have asked her to
sit for me."
"Lord love you, man, she's posed for half the painters in the world,
it seems to me. Like the duchesses that Romney and those old chaps
used to paint. It occurs to me those grand old dames did nothing but
sit for portraits, year in and year out, all their lives. I don't
see where they found time to scratch up the love affairs they're
reported to have had. There always must have been some painter or
other hanging around. I remember reading that the Duchess of--I
can't remember the name--posed a hundred and sixty-nine times, for
nearly as many painters. Sara's not so bad as all that, of course,
but I don't exaggerate when I say she's been painted a dozen
times--and hung in twice as many exhibits."
"I know," said the other with a smile. "I've seen a few of them."
"The best of them all is hanging in her place up in the country,
old man. It's the one my brother liked. A Belgian fellow did it a
couple of years ago. Never been exhibited, so of course you haven't
seen it. Challis wouldn't consent to its being revealed to the
vulgar gaze, he loved it so much."
"I like that," resented Brandon Booth, with a mild glare.
"Lot of common, vulgar people do hang about picture galleries, you
will have to admit that, Brandy. They visit 'em in the winter time
to get in where it's warm, and in the summer time they go because
it's nice and shady. That's the sort I mean."
"What do you know about art or the people who--"
"I know all there is to know about it, old chap. Haven't we got
Gainsboroughs, and Turners, and Constables, and Corots hanging all
over the place? And a lot of others, too. Reynolds, Romney and
Raeburn,--the three R's. And didn't I tag along with mother to
picture dealers' shops and auctions when every blessed one of 'em
was bought? I know ALL about it, let me tell you. I can tell you what
kind of an 'atmosphere' a painting's got, with my eyes closed; and
as for 'quality' and 'luminosity' and 'broadness' and 'handling,'
I know more this minute about such things than any auctioneer in the
world. I am a past master at it, believe me. One can't go around
buying paintings with his mother without getting a liberal education
in art. She began taking me when I was ten years old. Challis
wouldn't go, so she MADE me do it. Then I always had to go back
with her when she wanted to exchange them for something else the
dealer assured her she ought to have in our collection, and which
invariably cost three times as much. No, my dear fellow, you are
very much mistaken when you say that I don't know anything about
art. I am a walking price-list of all the art this side of the
Dresden gallery. You should not forget that we are a very old New
York family. We've been collecting for over twenty years."
Both laughed. He liked Wrandall best when he affected mockery
of this sort, although he was keenly alive to a certain breath of
self-glorification in his raillery. Leslie felt a delicious sense
of security in railing at family limitations: he knew that no one
was likely to take him seriously.
"Nevertheless, your mother has some really fine paintings in the
collection," proclaimed Booth amiably, also descending to snobbishness
without really meaning to do so. He considered Velasquez to be the
superior of all those mentioned by Wrandall, and there was the end
to it, so far as he was concerned. It was ever a source of wonder
to him that Mrs. Wrandall didn't "trade in" everything else she
possessed for a single great Velasquez.
"Getting back to Sara,--my sister-in-law,--why don't you ask her to
sit for you this summer? She's not going out, you know, and time
will hang so heavily on her hands that she will even welcome another
portrait agony."
"I can't ask her to--"
"I'll do the asking, if you say the word."
"Don't be an ass."
"I'm quite willing to be one, if it will help you out, old man,"
said Leslie cheerfully.
"And make one of me as well, I suppose. She'd think me a frightful
cub after all those other fellows. After Sargent, ME! Ho, ho! She'd
laugh in my face."
"If you could paint that smile of hers, Brandy, you'd make Romney
look like an amateur. Most wonderful smile. It's a splendid idea.
Let her laugh in your face, as you say; then paint like the devil
while she's doing it, and your reputation is made for--"
"Will you have another drink?"
"No, thanks. I can change the subject without it. What time is it?"
Both looked at their watches, and put them back again without
remark to resume the interrupted contemplation of Fifth Avenue in
the waning light of a drab, drizzly day. A man in a shiny "slicker"
was pushing a sweep and shovel in the centre of the thoroughfare.
They wondered how long it would be before a motor struck him.
Brandon Booth was of an old Philadelphia family: an old and wealthy
family. Both views considered, he was qualified to walk hand in
glove with the fastidious Wrandalls. Leslie's mother was charmed
with him because she was also the mother of Vivian. The fact that
he went in for portrait painting and seemed averse to subsisting on
the generosity of his father, preferring to live by his talent, in
no way operated against him, so far as Mrs. Wrandall was concerned.
That was HIS lookout, not hers; if he elected to that sort of
thing, all well and good. He could afford to be eccentric; there
remained, in the perspective he scorned, the bulk of a huge fortune
to offset whatever idiosyncrasies he might choose to cultivate.
Some day, in spite of himself, she contended serenely, he would
be very, very rich. What could be more desirable than fame, family
and fortune all heaped together and thrust upon one exceedingly
interesting and handsome young man? For he would be famous, she was
sure of it. Every one said that of him, even the critics, although
she didn't have much use for critics, retaining opinions of her
own that seldom agreed with theirs. It was enough for her that he
was a Booth, and knew how to behave in a drawing-room, because he
belonged there and was not lugged in by the scruff of an ill-fitting
dress-suit to pose as a Bohemian celebrity. Moreover, he was a
level-headed, well-balanced fellow in spite of his calling; which
was saying a great deal, proclaimed the mother of Vivian in opposition
to her own argument that painters never made satisfactory or even
satisfying husbands: the artistic temperament and all that sort of
thing getting in the way of compatibility.
He had been the pupil of celebrated draughtsmen and painters in
Europe, and had exhibited a sincerity of purpose that was surprising,
all things considered. The mere fact that he was not obliged to
paint in order to obtain a living, was sufficient cause for wonder
among the artists he met and studied with or under. At first they
regarded him as a youth with a fancy that soon would pass, leaving
him high and dry and safe on something steadier than Art. They
couldn't understand a rich man's son really having aspirations,
although they granted him temperament and ability. But he went
about it so earnestly, so systematically, that they were compelled
to alter the time-honoured tune and to sing praises instead of
whistling their insulting "I-told-you-sos." To the disgust of many,
he had a real purpose supported by talent, and that was what they
couldn't understand in a rich man's son. They hated to see their
traditions spoiled. The only way in which they could account for
it all was that he was an American, and Americans are always doing
the things one doesn't expect them to do, especially along grooves
that ought to be kept closed by tradition.
When he said good-bye to his European friends and masters, and set
his face toward home, they took off their hats to him, so to speak,
and agreed that he had a brilliant future, without a thought of
the legacy that one day would be his.
His studio in New York was not a fashionable resting place. It was
a work-shop. You could have tea there, of course, and you were sure
to meet people you knew and liked, but it was quite as much of a
work-shop as any you could mention. He was not a dabbler in art,
not a mere dauber of pigments: he was an ARTIST. People argued that
because he was a thoroughbred and doomed to be rich, his conscious
egotism would show itself at once in the demand for ridiculously high
prices. In that they happily were fooled, not to say disappointed.
He began by painting the portrait of a well-known society woman of
great wealth, who sat to him because she wanted to "take him up,"
and who was absolutely disconsolate when he announced, at the end
of the sittings, that his price was five hundred dollars. She would
not believe her ears.
"Why, my dear Brandon, you will be ruined--utterly ruined--if it
becomes known that you ask less than five thousand," she had cried,
almost in tears. "No one will come to you."
He had smiled. "A master's price is for a master, not for a tyro.
If they want to pay five thousand dollars for a portrait, I can
recommend a dozen or more gentlemen whose work is worth it. Mine
isn't. Some day I hope to be able to say five thousand with a great
deal more assurance than I now say five hundred, Mrs. Wheeler, but
it won't be until I have courage, not nerve."
"But NOBODY will sit for a five hundred dollar portrait," she
expostulated. "Really, Brandon, I prefer to pay five thousand. I
can't--I simply cannot tell people that I paid only five--"
"Will you give six hundred?" he asked, his smile broadening.
"Absurd!"
"Seven hundred?"
"Why, it sounds as if you were jewing me up, not I trying to jew
you down," she cried, dismayed.
"That's the point," he said, with mock gravity. "If my price isn't
what it ought to be in your opinion, it is only fair that I should
make concessions. My picture is worth five hundred dollars, but I
am willing to do a little better than that by you. I will make it
seven-fifty to you, but not a cent more."
"Can't I jew you up any higher, dear boy?"
"No," with a smile; "but if you will consent to sit to me ten years
from now, I promise faithfully to ask five thousand of you without
a blush."
"Ah, but ten years from now I should blush to even think of having
my portrait painted."
"Ten years will make no change in you," said he gallantly, "but I
expect them to make quite another artist of me."
And so his price was established for the time being. He offset
the chilling effect of the low figure by deliberately declining
commissions to paint women who fell below a rather severe standard
of personal attractiveness. Gross women were not allowed to crowd
his canvases; ugly ones who succeeded in tempting him were surprised
to find how ugly they really were when the portrait was finished.
He made it a point never to lie about a woman, not even on canvas.
It made him very unpopular with certain ladies who wanted to be
lied about--on canvas.
As the result of his rather independent attitude, he had more
commissions than he could fill. When it got about that he cared to
paint only attractive women, his studio was besieged by ladies of
a curious turn of mind. If they discovered that he was willing to
paint them, they blissfully dropped the matter and went happily on
their way. If they found that his time was so fully occupied that
he could not paint them they urged him to reconsider--even offering
to quadruple his price if he would only "do" them. One exceedingly
plain woman, who couldn't be reconciled to Nature, offered him
twenty thousand dollars if he would paint her for the Metropolitan
Museum. Another asked him if he was a pupil of Gainsborough. Finding
that he was not, she asked WHY not, with all the money he had at
his command.
He had been in New York for the better part of two years at the
time he is introduced into this narrative. Years of his life had
been spent abroad, yet he was not a stranger in a strange land
when he took up his residence in Gotham. Society opened its arms
to him. It was like a home-coming. Had he been a bridge player,
his coronation might have been complete.
Booth was thirty,--perhaps a year or two older; tall, dark and
good-looking. The air of the thoroughbred marked him. He did not
affect loose flowing cravats and baggy trousers, nor was he careless
about his finger-nails. He was simply the ordinary, everyday sort
of chap you would meet in Fifth Avenue during parade hours, and
you would take a second look at him because of his face and manner
but not on account of his dress. Some of his ancestors came over
ahead of the Mayflower, but he did not gloat.
Leslie Wrandall was his closest friend and harshest critic. It
didn't really matter to Booth what Leslie said of his paintings:
he quite understood that he didn't know anything about them.
"When does Mrs. Wrandall return?" asked the painter, after a long
period of silence spent in contemplation of the gleaming pavement
beyond the club's window.
"That's queer," said Leslie, looking up. "I was thinking of Sara
myself. She sails next week. I've had a letter asking me to open her
house in the country. Her place is about two miles from father's.
It hasn't been opened in two years. Her father built it fifteen or
twenty years ago, and left it to her when he died. She and Challis
spent several summers there."
"Vivian took me through it one afternoon last summer."
"It must have been quite as much of a novelty to her as it was to
you, old chap," said Leslie gloomily.
"What do you mean?"
"Vivian's a bit of a snob. She never liked the place because old
man Gooch built it out of worsteds. She never went there."
"But the old man's been dead for years."
"That doesn't matter. The fact is, Vivian didn't quite take to Sara
until after--well, until after Challis died. We're dreadful snobs,
Brandy, the whole lot of us. Sara was quite good enough for a much
better man than my brother. She really couldn't help the worsteds,
you know. I'm very fond of her, and always have been. We're pals.
'Gad, it was a fearful slap at the home folks when Challis justified
Sara by getting snuffed out the way he did."
Booth made an attempt to change the subject, but Wrandall got back
to it.
"Since then we've all been exceedingly sweet on Sara. Not because
we want to be, mind you, but because we're afraid she'll marry some
chap who wouldn't be acceptable to us."
"I should consider that a very neat way out of it," said Booth
coldly.
"Not at all. You see, Challis was fond of Sara, in spite of everything.
He left a will and under it she came in for all he had. As that
includes a third interest in our extremely refined and irreproachable
business, it would be a deuce of a trick on us if she married one
of the common people and set him up amongst us, willy-nilly. We
don't want strange bed-fellows. We're too snug--and, I might say,
too smug. Down in her heart, mother is saying to herself it would
be just like Sara to get even with us by doing just that sort of
a trick. Of course, Sara is rich enough without accepting a sou
under the will, but she's a canny person. She hasn't handed it back
to us on a silver platter, with thanks; still, on the other hand,
she refuses to meddle. She makes us feel pretty small. She won't
sell out to us. She just sits tight. That's what gets under the
skin with mother."
"I wouldn't say that, Les, if I were in your place."
"It is a rather priggish thing to say, isn't it?"
"Rather."
"You see, I'm the only one who really took sides with Sara. I forget
myself sometimes. She was such a brick, all those years."
Booth was silent for a moment, noting the reflective look in his
companion's eyes.
"I suppose the police haven't given up the hope that sooner or
later the--er--the woman will do something to give herself away,"
said he.
"They don't take any stock in my theory that she made way with
herself the same night. I was talking with the chief yesterday. He
says that any one who had wit to cover up her tracks as she did,
is not the kind to make way with herself. Perhaps he's right. It
sounds reasonable. 'Gad, I felt sorry for the poor girl they had
up last spring. She went through the third degree, if ever any one
did, but, by Jove, she came out of it all right. The Ashtley girl,
you remember. I've dreamed about that girl, Brandy, and what they
put her through. It's a sort of nightmare to me, even when I'm
awake. Oh, they've questioned others as well, but she was the only
one to have the screws twisted in just that way."
"Where is she now?"
"She's comfortable enough now. When I wrote to Sara about what she'd
been through, she settled a neat bit of money on her, and she'll
never want for anything. She's out West somewhere, with her mother
and sisters. I tell you, Sara's a wonder. She's got a heart of
gold."
"I look forward to meeting her, old man."
"I was with her for a few weeks this winter. In Nice, you know.
Vivian stayed on for a week, but mother had to get to the baths.
'Gad, I believe she hated to go. Sara's got a most adorable
girl staying with her. A daughter of Colonel Castleton, and she's
connected in some way with the Murgatroyds--old Lord Murgatroyd,
you know. I think her mother was a niece of the old boy. Anyhow,
mother and Vivian have taken a great fancy to her. That's proof of
the pudding."
"I think Vivian mentioned a companion of some sort."
"You wouldn't exactly call her a companion," said Leslie. "She's
got money to burn, I take it. Quite keeps up with Sara in making it
fly, and that's saying a good deal for her resources. I think it's
a pose on her part, this calling herself a companion. An English
joke, eh? As a matter of fact, she's an old friend of Sara's
and my brother's too. Knew them in England. Most delightful girl.
Oh, I say, old man, she's the one for you to paint." Leslie waxed
enthusiastic. "A type, a positive type. Never saw such eyes in all
my life. Dammit, they haunt you. You dream about 'em."
"You seem to be hard hit," said Booth indifferently. He was watching
the man in the "slicker" through moody eyes.
"Oh, nothing like that," disclaimed Leslie, with unnecessary promptness.
"But if I were given to that sort of thing, I'd be bowled over in
a minute. Positively adorable face. If I thought you had it in you
to paint a thing as it really is, I'd commission you myself to do
a miniature for me, just to have it around where I could pick it
up when I liked and hold it between my hands, just as I've often
wanted to hold the real thing."
"Come, come! You're dotty about her."
"Get Vivian to tell you about her," said Leslie sweepingly. "Come
down and have dinner with me to-night. She'll bear out--"
"I'll take your word for it. Thanks for the bid, but I can't come.
Dining at the Ritz with Joey and Linda. I think I'll be off."
He stretched himself, took the final, reluctant look of the artist
at the "slicker" man, and moved away. Leslie called after him:
"Wait till you see her."
"All right. I'll wait."
Sara Wrandall returned to New York at the end of the month,
and Leslie met her at the dock, as he did on an occasion fourteen
months earlier. Then she came in on a fierce gale from the wintry
Atlantic; this time the air was soft and balmy and sweet with the
kindness of spring. It was May and the sea was blue, the land was
green.
Again she went to the small, exclusive hotel near the Park. Her
apartment was closed, the butler and his wife and all of their
hastily recruited company being in the country, awaiting her arrival
from town. Leslie attended to everything. He lent his resourceful
man-servant and his motor to his lovely sister-in-law, and saw to
it that his mother and Vivian sent flowers to the ship. Redmond
Wrandall called at the hotel immediately after banking hours,
kissed his daughter-in-law, and delivered an ultimatum second-hand
from the power at home: she was to come to dinner and bring Miss
Castleton. A little quiet family dinner, you know, because they
were all in mourning, he said in conclusion, vaguely realising all
the while that it really wasn't necessary to supply the information,
but, for the life of him, unable to think of anything else to say
under the circumstances. Somehow it seemed to him that while Sara
was in black she was not in mourning in the same sense that the
rest of them were. It seemed only right to acquaint her with the
conditions in his household. And he knew that he deserved the scowl
that Leslie bestowed upon him.
Sara accepted, much to his surprise and gratification. He had been
rather dubious about it. It would not have surprised him in the
least if she had declined the invitation, feeling, as he did, that
he had in a way come to her with a white flag or an olive branch
or whatever it is that a combative force utilises when it wants to
surrender in the cause of humanity.
Leslie was a very observing person. It might have been said of him
that he was always on the lookout for the things that most people
were unlikely to notice: the trivial things that really were
important. He not only took in his father's amiable blunder, but
caught the curious expression in Hetty's dark blue eyes, and the
sharp almost inaudible catch of her breath. The gleam was gone
in an instant, but it made an impression on him. He found himself
wondering if the girl was a snob as well as the rest of them.
The look in her eyes betrayed unmistakable surprise and--yes, he
was quite sure of it--dismay when Sara accepted the invitation to
dine. Was it possible that the lovely Miss Castleton considered
herself--but no! Of course it couldn't be that. The Wrandalls were
good enough for dukes and duchesses. Still he could not get beyond
the fact that he HAD seen the look of disapproval. 'Gad, thought
he, it was almost a look of appeal. He made up his mind, as he
stood there chatting with her, that he would find out from Vivian
what his mother had done to create an unpleasant estimate of
the family in the eyes of this gentle, refined cousin of old Lord
Murgatroyd.
He was quite as quick to detect the satirical smile in Sara's frank,
amused eyes as she graciously accepted the invitation to the home
whose doors had only been half-open to her in the past. It scratched
his pride a bit to think of the opinion she must have of the family,
and he was inexpressibly glad that she could not consistently class
him with the others. He found himself feeling a bit sorry for the
old gentleman, and hoped that he missed the touch of irony in Sara's
voice.
Old Mr. Wrandall floundered from one invitation to another.
"Of course, Sara, my dear, you will want to go out to the cemetery
to-morrow, I shall be only too ready to accompany you. We have
erected a splendid--"
"No, thank you, Mr. Wrandall," she interrupted gently. "I shall
not go to the cemetery."
Leslie intervened. "You understand, don't you, father?" he said,
rather out of patience.
The old gentleman lowered his head. "Yes, yes," he hastened to
say. "Quite so, quite so. Then we may expect you at eight, Sara,
and you, Miss Castleton. Mrs. Wrandall is looking forward to seeing
you again. It isn't often she takes a liking to--ahem! I beg your
pardon, Leslie?"
"I was just going to suggest that we move along, dad. I fancy you
want to get at your trunks, Sara. Smuggled a few things through,
eh? Women never miss a chance to get a couple of dozen dresses
through, as you'll discover if you become a real American, Miss
Castleton. It's in the blood."
Mr. Wrandall fell into another trap. "Now please remember that we
are to dine very informally," he hastened to say, his mind on the
smuggled gowns. It was his experience that gowns that escaped duty
invariably were "creations."
Leslie got him away.
As soon as they were alone, Hetty turned to her friend.
"Oh, Sara, can't you go without me? Tell them that I am ill--suddenly
ill. I--I don't think it right or honourable of me to accept--"
Sara shook her head, and the words died on the girl's lips.
"You must play the game, Hetty."
"It's--very hard," murmured the other, her face very white and
bleak.
"I know, my dear," said Sara gently.
"If they should ever find out," gasped the girl, suddenly giving
way to the dread that had been lying dormant all these months.
"They will never know the truth unless you choose to enlighten
them," said Sara, putting her arm about the girl's shoulders and
drawing her close.
"You never cease to be wonderful, Sara,--so very wonderful," cried
the girl, with a look of worship in her eyes.
Sara regarded her in silence for a moment, reflecting. Then, with
a swift rush of tears to her eyes, she cried fiercely:
"You must never, never tell me all that happened, Hetty! You must
not speak it with your own lips."
Hetty's eyes grew dark with pain and wonder.
"That is the thing I can't understand in you, Sara," she said
slowly.
"We must not speak of it!"
Hetty's bosom heaved. "Speak of it!" she cried, absolute agony in
her voice. "Have I not kept it locked in my heart since that awful
day--"
"Hush!"
"I shall go mad if I cannot talk with you about--"
"No, no! It is the forbidden subject! I know all that I should
know--all that I care to know. We have not said so much as this
in months--in ages, it seems. Let sleeping dogs lie. We are better
off, my dear. I could not touch your lips again."
"I--I can't bear the thought of that!"
"Kiss me now, Hetty."
"I could die for you, Sara," cried Hetty, as she impulsively obeyed
the command.
"I mean that you shall live for me," said Sara, smiling through
her tears. "How silly of me to cry. It must be the room we are in.
These are the same rooms, dear, that you came to on the night we
met. Ah, how old I feel!"
"Old? You say that to me? I am ages and ages older than you," cried
Hetty, the colour coming back to her soft cheeks.
"You are twenty-three."
"And you are twenty-eight."
Sara had a far away look in her eyes. "About your size and figure,"
said she, and Hetty did not comprehend.