BATTLING OLD BONES
They journeyed to Paris by the night mail. He was waiting for her
on the platform when she descended from the wagon lit in the Gare
du Nord. Sleepy passengers crowded with them into the customs
department. She, alone among them all, was smiling brightly, as if
the world could be sweet at an hour when, by all odds, it should
be sleepiest.
"I was up and on the lookout for you at Amiens," he declared, as
they walked off together. "You might have got off there, you know,"
with a wry grin.
"I shall not run away from you again, Brandon," she said earnestly.
"I promise, on my honour."
"By Jove," he cried, "that's a relief!" Then he broke into a happy
laugh.
"I shall go to the Ritz," she said, after her effects had been
examined and were ready for release.
"I thought so," he announced calmly. "I wired for rooms before I
left London."
"Really, this is ridic--"
"Don't frown like that, Hetty," he pleaded.
As they rattled and bounced over the cobble-stones in a taxi-metre
on the way to the Place Vendome, he devoted the whole of
his conversation to the delicious breakfast they were to have,
expatiating glibly on the wonderful berries that would come first
in that always-to-be-remembered meal. She was ravenously hungry
by the time they reached the hotel, just from listening to his
dissertation on chops and rolls and coffee as they are served in
Paris, to say nothing of waffles and honey and the marmalade that
no Englishman can do without.
Alone in his room, however, he was quite another person. His calm
assurance took flight the instant he closed the door and moodily
began to prepare for his bath. Resolution was undiminished, but
the facts in the case were most desolating. Whatever it was that
stood between them, there was no gainsaying its power to influence
their lives. It was no trifle that caused her to take this second
flight, and the sooner he came to realise the seriousness of
opposition the better.
He made up his mind on one point in that half-hour before breakfast:
if she asked him again to let her go her way in peace, it was only
fair to her and right that he should submit to the inevitable. She
loved him, he was sure of it. Then there must be a very good reason
for her perplexing attitude toward him. He would make one more
attempt to have the truth from her. Failing in that, he would accept
the situation as hopeless, for the time being at least. She should
know that he loved her deeply enough for that.
She joined him in the little open-air cafe, and they sat down at
a table in a remote corner. There were few people breakfasting. In
her tender blue eyes there was a look of sadness that haunted him,
even as she smiled and called him beloved.
"Hetty, darling," he said, leaning forward and laying his hand on
hers, "can't you tell me what it is?"
She was prepared for the question. In her heart she knew the time
had come when she must be fair with him. He observed the pallor
that stole, into her warm, smooth cheeks as she regarded him fixedly
for a long time before replying.
"There is only one person in the world who can tell you, Brandon.
It is for her to decide. I mean Sara Wrandall."
He felt a queer, sickening sensation of uneasiness sneak into
existence. In the back of his mind, a hateful fear began to shape
itself. For a long time he looked into her sombre eyes, and as he
looked the fear that was hateful took on something of a definite
shape.
"Did you know her husband?" he asked, and somehow he knew what the
answer would be.
"Yes," she replied, after a moment. She was startled. Her lips
remained parted.
He watched her closely. "Has this--this secret anything to do with
Challis Wrandall?"
"It has," said she, meeting his gaze steadily.
His hands clutched the edge of the table in a grip that turned the
knuckles white.
"Hetty!" he cried, in a hoarse whisper. "You--can't mean that you--"
"You must go to Sara," she cried hurriedly. "Haven't I told you
that she is the one--"
"Were you in love with that infernal scoundrel?" he demanded
fiercely.
"Sara knows everything. She will tell you--"
"Were you carrying on an affair with him while professing to be
the friend of his wife? Tell me that! Did she find you out and--"
"Oh, Brandon, why will you persist?" she cried, her eyes aflame.
"I can tell you no more. Why do you glare at me as if I were
the meanest thing on earth? Is this love? Is this your idea of
greatness? Isn't it enough for you to know that Sara is my loyal,
devoted friend; that she--"
"Wait!" he commanded darkly. "Is it possible that she did not
discover your secret until the day you left her house so abruptly?
Does that explain your sudden departure?"
"I can answer that," she said quietly. "She has known everything
from the day I met her. I have not said anything, Brandon, to lead
you to believe that I was in love with Challis Wrandall, have I?"
His eyes softened. "No, you haven't. I--I hope you will forget what
I said. You see, I knew Wrandall's reputation. He had no sense of
honour. He--"
"Well, I HAVE!" she said levelly.
He flushed. "I am a beast! I'll put it in this way, then: Was he
in love with you?"
"You are still unfair. I shall not answer."
He was silent for a long time. "And Sara's lips are sealed," he
mused, still possessed of doubts and fears.
"Until she elects to tell the story, dearest love, my lips are also
sealed. I love you better than anything else in all this world. I
could willingly offer up my life for you, but--well, my life does
not belong to me. It is Sara's."
"For heaven's sake, Hetty, what is all this?" he cried in desperation.
"I can say no more. It is useless to insist, Brandon. If you can
wrest the story from her, all well and good. You will hate me then,
dear love. But it cannot be helped. I am prepared."
"Tell me this much: when you refused to marry Leslie, was your
course inspired by what had happened in--in connection with Challis
Wrandall?"
"You forget that it is YOU that I love," she responded simply.
"But why should Sara urge you to marry Leslie if there is anything--"
"Hush! Here is the waiter. Come to my sitting-room after breakfast.
I have something to say to you. We must come to a definite
understanding. This cannot go on."
He was with her for an hour in that pinched little sitting-room,
and left her there without a vestige of rancour in his soul. She
would not give an inch in the stand she had taken, but something
immeasurably great in his make-up rose to the occasion and he went
forth with the conviction that he had no right to demand more of
her than she was ready to give. He was satisfied to abide by her
decision. The spell of her was over him more completely than ever
before.
Two days later he saw her off at the Gare de Lyons, bound for
Interlaken. There was a complete understanding between them. She
wanted to be quite alone in the Alpine town; he was not to follow
her there. She had reserved rooms at the Schweitzerhof, and the
windows of her sitting-room looked straight up the valley to the
snow-covered crest of the Jungfrau. She remembered these rooms; as
a young girl she had occupied them with her father and mother. By
some hook or crook, Booth arranged by wire for her to have them
again, not an easy matter at that season of the year. Later she
was to go on to Lucerne, and then to Venice.
The slightest shred of hope was left for Booth. Even though he might
accomplish the task he had set unto himself--the conquest of Sara
in respect to the untold story--he still had Hetty's dismal prophecy
that after he learned the truth he would come to see why they could
not be married. But he would not despair.
"We'll see," was all that he said in response to her forlorn cry
that they were parting for ever. There was a grimness in the way
he said it that gave her something to cherish during the months
to come; the hope that he WOULD come back and take her in spite of
herself.
He sailed from Cherbourg on the first steamship calling there.
Awake, he thought of her; asleep, he dreamed of Challis Wrandall.
There was something uncanny in the persistence with which that
ruthless despoiler of peace forced his way into his dreams, to the
absolute exclusion of all else. The voyage home was made horrid
by these nightly reminders of a man he scarcely knew, yet dreaded.
He became more or less obsessed by the idea that an evil spell had
descended upon him in the shape of a ghostly influence.
The weeks passed slowly for Hetty. There were no letters from
Sara, but an occasional line or so from Mr. Carroll. She had made
Brandon Booth promise that he would not write to her, nor was he
to expect anything from her. If her intention was to cut herself
off entirely from her recent world and its people, as she might
have done in another way by pursuing the time-honoured and rather
cowardly plan of entering a convent, she was soon to discover that
success in the undertaking brought a deeper sense of exile than
she could have imagined herself able to endure at the outset. She
found herself more utterly alone and friendless than at any time in
her life. The chance companions she formed at Interlaken,--despite
a well-meant reserve,--served only to increase her feeling of
loneliness and despair. The very natural attentions of men, young
and old, depressed her, instead of encouraging that essentially
feminine thing called vanity. She lived as one without an aim,
without a single purpose except to close one day that she might
begin the next.
After a time, she went on to Lucerne. Here the life on the surface
was gayer, and she was roused from her state of lethargy in spite
of herself. Once, from her little balcony in the National, she
saw two of her old acquaintances in the chorus at the Gaiety. They
were wearing many pearls. Another time, she met them in the street.
She was rather quietly dressed. They did not notice her. But the
prosperous Hebraic gentlemen who attended them were not so careless.
One day a card was brought to her rooms. For the next two weeks
she had a true and unavoidable friend in Lucerne. It would appear
that Mrs. Rowe-Martin had not been apprised of the rift in the
Wrandall lute. She had no reason to consider the exclusive Miss
Castleton as anything but the most desirable of companions. Mrs.
Rowe-Martin was not long in finding out (though how she did it,
heaven knows!), that Lord Murgatroyd's grandniece was no longer
the intimate of that impossible person, Sara Gooch. She couldn't
think of Sara without thinking of Gooch.
But at last Mrs. Rowe-Martin departed, much to Hetty's secret
relief, but not before she had increased the girl's burthens by
introducing her into a cold-nosed cosmopolitan set from which there
were but three ways of escape. She refused to marry one of them,
denied another the privilege of making love to her, and declined
to play auction bridge with all of them. They were not long in
dropping her, although it must be said there was real regret among
the men.
From Mrs. Rowe-Martin and others she heard that Mrs. Redmond Wrandall
and Vivian were to be in Scotland in October, for somebody-or-other's
christening, and that Leslie had been doing some really wonderful
flying at Pau.
"I am SO glad, my dear," said Mrs. Rowe-Martin, "that you refused
to marry Leslie. He is a cad. Besides, you would have been in a
perpetual state of nerves over his flying."
Of Sara, there was no news, as might have been expected. Mrs. Rowe-Martin
made it very clear that Sara was a respectable person,--but heavens!
The chill days of autumn came and the crowd began to dwindle. Hetty
made preparations to join in the exodus. As the days grew short and
bleak, she found herself thinking more and more of the happy-hearted,
symbolic dicky-bird on a faraway window ledge. His life was neither
a travesty nor a tragedy; hers was both of these.
Something told her too that Brandon Booth had wormed the truth out
of Sara, and that she would never see him again. It hurt her to
think that while Sara believed in her, the man who loved her did
not. It is a way men have.
On the eve of her departure, an event transpired that was to alter
the whole course of her life; or, more properly speaking, it was
destined to put her back into an old groove.
She was walking along the quay, in the dusk of early evening, her
mind full of the next day's journey over the mountains to Milan.
The wind was cold; about her neck there was a boa of white ostrich
feathers, one end of which fluttered gaily over her shoulder. She
was continually turning half-way about against the wind to reclaim
the truant end of the boa. It was in the act of doing so on one
occasion that her attention was drawn to two men who sauntered
across the avenue from the approach to the Schweitzerhof.
She stopped still in her tracks, petrified by amazement--and alarm,
if we may anticipate the sensation by a second or two.
One of the men was Leslie Wrandall, the other--her own father!
In a flash came the impulse to avoid them, to fly before they
recognised her. But even as she turned and started off with a
sudden acceleration of speed, a shout assailed her ears, and then
came the swift rush of footsteps over the hard pavement.
"Hetty! As I live!" cried Leslie, planting himself in front of
her. His astonishment alone kept him from laying hands upon her,
to make sure that she was really there. "Well, of all the--"
She extended her hand. "This is a surprise," she said, with admirable
control. "I hadn't the faintest notion you were in Lucerne."
"By Jove!" he mumbled, shaking hands with her but still dazed and
uncertain. He suddenly remembered his companion. Turning with a
shout, he brought the soldierly, middle-aged gentleman about-face
with scant ceremony. "Hey! Colonel Castleton! See who's here!
Doesn't this bowl you over completely?"
Colonel Castleton, sallow, ascetic, deliberate in his movements,
raised his glass to his eye as he came toward them.
"'Pon my soul!" burst from his astonished lips a second afterward.
He stopped short and his jaw dropped in a most unmilitary fashion.
"'Pon my soul! It CAN'T be my daughter!" He seemed to be having
difficulty not only with his head but with his feet; neither appeared
to be operating intelligently. As a matter of fact, he stood for an
instant on his toes and then on his heels. He was perilously near
to being bowled over completely and literally.
Hetty was the first to recover. She advanced with a fair assumption
of warmth in her manner. Her heart, belying her, was as cold as
ice.
"Father!" she cried, holding out her hands.
He grasped them, and looked wildly about.
"Kiss me!" she whispered imperatively.
He stooped and brushed her cheek with his long moustache.
"Good God!" he muttered, still incredulous.
She turned to the excited Leslie with a quavering smile on her
lips.
"We haven't seen each other in twelve years, Mr. Wrandall," she
said.
"'Pon my soul!" added her father for the third time, thereby reaching
the limit of emphasis, having placed it differently each time.
Leslie surprised himself by rising to the occasion. It occurred to
him that they would like to be alone for a little while at least.
"Then, I'll stroll on, Colonel," he said. "By Jove!" The mild
expletive was a tribute to Providence.
Not a word was spoken by father or daughter until Wrandall was many
rods away.
"Where did you meet Leslie Wrandall?" she demanded, showing which
way her thoughts ran. They were far from filial.
"Aviation field--somewhere," said he in a vague sort of way. "Pau,
I dare say. What are you doing here? I hear you've cut loose from
Wrandall's sister-in-law. Was that a sensible thing to do?"
"I fancy you've been misinformed," said she in an emotionless voice,
but offered no further word of explanation.
"Shan't we sit down here on this bench, my dear?" suggested the
Colonel, distinctly ill at ease.
"For the sake of appearances, yes," she assented.
Leslie, looking over his shoulder from a distance, saw them sitting
together on one of the outer benches.
"By Jove!" he said to himself once more, this time with accumulative
perplexity.
"See here, Hetty, my child," began the Colonel nervously, "it's all
nonsense your taking the stand you do toward me. I am your father.
I repeat, it's all nonsense--damned nonsense. You've got to--"
"Has it taken you all these years to find out that it's nonsense?"
she demanded, her eyes flashing. "It's no good arguing, father. I
don't like you. There is a very good reason why I should despise
you. We won't go into it. After this meeting, we go our separate
ways again. This, it seems, was unavoidable. I shan't ask anything
of you, and I advise you to ask nothing of me."
"My God, that a child should utter such words to a father!" he
groaned.
"A father!" she cried so scornfully that he must have shrivelled
had he been any one else but Colonel Castleton of the Indian Corps.
As it was, he had the grace to turn a very bright red. "A noble
father you have been! And what a splendid, self-sacrificing husband
you were. No! I can't forget how my mother lived and died. You
call it nonsense. Well, I call it something else. You took a most
effective way to punish my poor mother for having the temerity to
marry an English gentleman. Thank God, I have my mother to look
back to for my own ideas of gentility."
"You never understood the way things went wrong between your mother
and me," he said harshly. "She wasn't all you may be pleased to
think she was. She--"
"How dare you insinuate--"
"She chucked me. That's the sum and sub--"
"Oh, I was old enough to know that she left you--chucked you, if
you will--and to know why she did it. I--I suppose you are looked
upon by--these people here--Leslie Wrandall and every one else, as
a fine English gentleman, a cousin of the great Lord Murgatroyd.
Are you?"
"Confound you, Hetty, how dare you use such a tone in speaking to
me?" he exclaimed.
"They THINK you are a gentleman, do they?"
"THINK? Why, dammit, I am a gentleman. The only ungentlemanly thing
I ever did in my life was to--" He checked the angry words, biting
his lips to keep them down.
"Was to desert your wife," she supplied scathingly.
"No! To marry her!" He blurted it out in his rage.
"Oh!" she cried, shrinking farther away from him, cut to the quick.
He regarded her with cold, fishy eyes. She was uncommonly pretty,
he was bound to admit that. Her mother's eyes, her mother's exquisite
skin, but singularly like certain Castleton portraits that he knew.
It somehow galled him to find that there was quite as much of the
blue-blooded Castleton in her as there was commonplace Glynn; galled
him more particularly because she was his own flesh and blood after
all and, in spite of that, could taunt him with it.
"I didn't mean to hurt you, Hetty," he said, to his own surprise.
The touch of tenderness had a brief life. He scowled an instant
later. "We won't discuss the past, if you please. God knows I don't
want to dig up rotten bones. You are against your own father. That's
enough for me. I shan't impose myself upon you. You--"
"Why couldn't you have treated her with--" began Hetty hotly.
"Sh! No more of that, I say. I will not be upbraided by my own child.
Now, see here, what do you mean by letting a chance like that get
away from you?" He jerked his head in the direction Leslie had
taken.
"Chance?"
"Yes. This Wrandall fellow. 'Gad, I've known him less than
a fortnight and he's told me every secret he ever knew. Why don't
you marry him? He's not a bad sort."
"That is my affair," said she coldly.
"I'd take him like a shot if I was a gel in your shoes."
"He told you I had refused to marry him?"
"A hundred times."
"Did you reward his confidence by relating the WHOLE history of
the Castleton family?"
He stared at her. "Good Lord, do you think I'm an ass?"
"What have you told him?"
"Nothing. I permitted him to do all the telling. He gave me a highly
commendable account of myself, of you, of the fine old family of
Glynns and--God knows what all. He restored my pride, 'pon my soul
he did." The Colonel laughed as he twisted his moustache with ironic
fondness.
She was quite still for a minute or two. "I heard you were in
England," she said, changing the subject.
"It may interest you to know that the old man overlooked us
completely," he said, striking the calf of his leg with his thin
walking-stick.
"Why should he leave anything to you?"
"And why not, curse him?" he growled. "Am I not his brother's son?
What do you mean by asking a question like that?"
"I think I will say good-bye to you now, father," she said
deliberately. "We may never see each other again." She arose and
stood before him, cold and proud, without a spark of emotion in
her eyes.
He sat still, looking up at her in surprise. "Do you think you're
doing the right thing, Hetty?" he asked, annoyed in spite of
himself. "Remember that I am your father. I can and will overlook
all you have said and done--"
"If you will go to her grave and kneel there and ask her pardon, I
may think differently of you because, after all, I am your daughter.
You will not find her buried among the stately Castletons, but in
a poor little spot far, far away from them. I can tell you how to
find it. You have never inquired, I suppose?"
His eyes narrowed. "By Jove, you are a mean little beggar!"
"Mean?" she cried, clenching her hands. Then she laughed suddenly,
shrilly. "Oh, if my mother could hear you say that to me!"
"Damme!" he exclaimed, coming to his feet in considerable agitation.
"Do you want people to hear us ragging each other? Don't go into
hysterics, Hetty! See here, do you forget that I have written to
you--loving letters they were--from the heart--written, I say, over
and over again and what do I get in return? Not a single stroke of
the pen from you, except the note a year ago telling me where you
were and--"
"And that was merely to relieve your anxiety when you found I'd
given up my work on the stage and might become a burden on you.
Oh, I read between your lines."
"Nothing of the sort. I never wanted you to go on the stage. Why
have you persistently refused to answer my subsequent letters?"
"Because I read between the lines in all of them," she said levelly.
"You have no right to say that I expected you to get money out of
that bally Wrandall woman--the goods merchant's daughter. That's
downright insulting in you. I shan't let it go undefend--"
"You knew I couldn't lend you a thousand pounds, father," said she,
very slowly and distinctly.
He coughed, perhaps in apology to her but more than likely to
himself.
"You are at liberty," she went on, "to tell Mr. Leslie Wrandall
all there is to tell about me. He doesn't know, but it won't matter
much if he does have the truth concerning me. Tell him all if you
like."
"My child," said he, with a fine display of wounded dignity, "I am
not quite the rotter you think I am."
He did not feel called upon to explain to her that he had already
borrowed a thousand pounds from her disappointed suitor, and was
setting his nets for another thousand or two.
"It really won't matter," she said wearily. "Good-bye. I am leaving
at nine to-morrow for Italy."
"See you at dinner? Or afterward, just for a--"
"I think not. I do not care to see Mr. Wrandall."
"Think it over again, Hetty. Don't--"
"Oh, father! How can you say such things to me?" she cried, a break
in her voice.
"Good God, my dear, isn't it natural for a father to want to see
his daughter well provided for?"
She turned away.
"I am contemplating a visit to the States shortly," he remarked,
following after her.
She whirled on him. "What!"
"Young Wrandall has asked me over for a month or two about the
first of the year. His people are in Scotland now, I hear."
"Are you THROUGH with India?" she asked in a very low voice.
"Resigned," said he succinctly.
"TRULY?"
He flushed and muttered an oath. She understood. He had been "kicked
out!"
"Hello!" called out a sprightly voice from the gathering darkness,
and the next moment Leslie joined them. "Have dinner with us
to-night, Hetty? Just the three of us. Please do."
"No, thank you, Mr. Wrandall. I am getting ready to leave to-morrow.
Packing and all that sort of thing."
"Did Colonel Castleton tell you that I'm off for New York on Saturday?
Mother and Viv are to get the boat at Southampton. I thought you'd
be interested to know what's just turned up over there?"
"What has happened?" she cried quickly.
Leslie hesitated. A curious gleam stole into his eyes. Was it of
triumph?
"Father's got rather old-fashioned ideas about certain things," he
observed, by way of preface. "He writes that Sara is contemplating
a second venture into the state of wedded bliss."
Hetty stared at him. "I--I don't believe it," she said flatly. "How
can it be possible? She sees no one."
He laughed. "You're wrong there," said he mendaciously. "She's been
seeing a great deal of a certain mutual friend of ours--all summer
long."
"You mean?"
"Brandon Booth. Father says that rumour has it they are to be
married after the holidays. I fancy he needed consolation, after
what happened to him earlier in the year. He was pretty hard hit,
believe me." After a moment, he went on boldly: "I ought to be in
a position to sympathise with him, I suppose, but I don't. It isn't
in me to--"
"You say they are to be married?" cried Hetty, dazed and bewildered.
They had fallen behind Colonel Castleton, who walked on stiffly
ahead of them.
Leslie treated her to his most engaging smile.
"Looks very Goochy, doesn't it? I'm coming to believe more than
ever that blood will tell. Sara knew what she was doing when she
cleared her decks for action a few months ago. 'Gad, I understand
now why she was so eager to bring off the--well, another match we
know about. Pretty canny, eh?"
"It is incredible," said she, with unnecessary vehemence.
"Not in the least. Clever person, Sara is. Sets her heart on a thing,
and--woof! she gets it, whether or no. Now, don't misunderstand
me. I'm fond of Brandon Booth. We all are. We don't object to him
as a sort of family attachment. But if she's going to marry him,
we want to know where we stand in a business way. You see, he will
not only step into my brother Chal's shoes at home, but at the
office. And, heaven knows, Brandy is not a good business man. He's
great on portraits, but--I beg pardon!"
"I must leave you here, Mr. Wrandall. Good-bye!"
"Oh, I say, can't we see something of--"
"I am afraid not."
He kept pace with her through the hall.
"I suppose your father told you that I--I haven't altogether given
up hope of--you."
"He spoke of going to America with you, if that's what you mean,"
she said coldly, and left him at the foot of the staircase.
Leslie's hand trembled as it went up to his moustache. "I can't
understand her beastly obstinacy," he said to himself.