THE THIRD DEGREE
In the sequel to that night of mischief and misadventure Sarah Manvers
had sound reason to be thankful for the resilient youth which still
animated her body. But of course she wasn't; youth will ever misprize
till it must mourn its blessings.
Yet by virtue of that inestimable attribute alone was she able to do
with only four hours' sleep (when Adele Standish, for example, needed
eight, and then was seedy) and be the first of the household to appear
for breakfast--clear of eye and fresh of colour, with a countenance as
serene as her temper and a temper as normal as her appetite.
As for this last, she made an excellent breakfast, alone in the
sun-bright dining-room. And if at times, as she sat and munched, her
look was pensive and remote, this was due less to misgivings than to
mystification.
The quarrel and reconciliation with Mrs. Standish had cleared the
atmosphere of their relations; henceforward there could be no more
misunderstanding; they hated each other heartily; neither
entertained any illusion as to that; but their interests were too far
interdependent to license any play of private feeling. Sally wanted to
stay on at Gosnold House, and Mrs. Standish was resigned; Mrs.
Standish wanted her insurance money, and Sally would help her get
it--by keeping quiet. Sally might be dealt with severely by the law if
Mrs. Standish said the word, and Mrs. Standish, if Sally spoke, would
suffer not only in her pocketbook, but in the graces of her aunt.
But Sally was not without compunction in respect to the deception
practised on her still prospective employer. It wasn't possible to
know Mrs. Gosnold and not like her; if that personality enforced
respect, it was a lodestone for affection, and Sally meant with all
her heart to serve faithfully and well; if she was to have her way,
neither would know a single regret because of their association until
time and chance conspired to sunder it.
Then, too, sleep had appreciably changed the complexion of her mind
toward the Lyttleton episode. She was not yet able to recall that
chapter of infatuation without a cringe of shame; but that would pass
with time, and the experience had not been without a value already
apparent. For even as she had said to him, she was cured--and more
than cured, she was instructed; she was not only better
acquainted with herself, but had learned to read the Lyttleton
temperament too well ever to require repetition of the lesson. If she
had played the fatuous moth, she had come through cheaply, with wings
not even singed; for what she had taken for flame had proved to be no
more than cheapest incandescence. She felt so sure of all this that
she could even contemplate the affair with some inklings of the
amusement that it would yet afford her. And she was fixed to make this
the key of her attitude toward the man in all such future intercourse
as was unavoidable.
But Trego . . .
Trego was a horse of another colour altogether. The very name of Trego
was hateful in her hearing. There was little she would not willingly
have done, however unjust and unfair, to avoid further communications
with this animal of a Trego.
And yet, as she had learned, the term of his stay at Gosnold House had
still another week to run, and he was in some way a favourite and
intimate of Mrs. Gosnold, apt frequently to figure as her guest; and
since this was so, and Sally herself bade fair (barring accidents) to
prove a fixture in the household, it seemed inevitable that they must
be often thrown together. So she must at all costs school herself to
treat him civilly--at least without overt animosity.
She could imagine no task more difficult or distasteful; short of
forfeiting her place in this new sphere, she would have paid almost
any price for remission of that duty.
The irony of life seemed a bitter draft. Granting it had been
requisite to some strange design of fate, in its inscrutable vagary,
that several persons should suffer a night of broken rest at Gosnold
House, why must they have been those four and none other--Sally, Adele
Standish, Lyttleton, Trego? Especially Trego! Why that one? Palpable
bonds of mutual interest linked the three first named; their common
affliction might conceivably have been ascribable to subtle
psychological affinity. But Trego was well outside the triangle, even
as perceptibly out of sympathy with a majority of Mrs. Gosnold's
guests.
Mrs. Standish was studious in her avoidance of him without appearance
of open slight. His nature and Lyttleton's were essentially
antagonistic. Sally's animus had been well defined from the very
beginning, when she had resented his being both physically and
temperamentally so completely out of the picture of that existence to
which she aspired.
But reconnaissance up that dark alley demonstrated it an indisputable
impasse and Sally gave it up, reserving the grievance for tender
nursing (she had a very human weakness for selected wrongs) and
turned her attention to the puzzle involving Lyttleton's business on
the beach at 2 A. M. and the signals exchanged between yacht and
window.
Nor did she make much headway in this quarter. Instinct indicated a
delicate harmony between those events and the formless shadow to which
Sally had all along been sensitive, of something equivocal in the
pretensions of Mrs. Standish. But that clue played will-o'-the-wisp
with her fancy, leading it ever farther astray in a bottomless bog of
black bewilderment.
None the less, she had just succeeded in establishing to her own
satisfaction the probability that her sponsor had been, if not active
in, at least acquainted with the business of the signals--reasoning
shrewdly upon that lady's high-handed treatment of Sally's insinuation
as inconsequential--when Mr. Trego elected to appear for breakfast.
That unhappy young man had been more wise if he had not taken it for
granted that nine o'clock would be too early for Sally as well as for
everybody else who didn't make breakfast in bed a habit; and a more
diplomatic person would have been at pains to prepare himself against
that inevitable rencontre with a young woman of exacerbated
sensibilities. Nothing could have been more surely predestined to
ghastly failure than his cheerful assumption of a complete
understanding, with the hint implicit that, having done Sally a
signal service, he was willing to let bygones be bygones and take as
tacit a sense of obligation not easy for her to express.
"Hel-lo!" he saluted the charming vision of her with undisguised
pleasure and surprise. "You down already? Why, I made sure I had at
least two hours' lead of the field."
"Yes," Sally agreed quietly; "I am early, I presume."
"Want to be careful," Trego cautioned; "it's hardly the thing, this
early rising, you know; it's not really clawss; it isn't done."
Sally said nothing. It was safer not to. And cheerfully unaware of her
self-restraint, Trego armed himself with a plate and foraged at the
side-table, with its array of silver-hooded hot-water dishes.
"Been for a swim," he volunteered with a thrill of coarse creature
satisfaction in his tone. "Wonderful water along this coast--not too
warm, like the Jersey beaches--to my taste, anyway, and not too
all-fired cold, as it generally is north of the Cape, but just right.
Like bathing in champagne properly chilled. No such pick-me-up in the
world as a dip in the cool of the morning. You should have tried it."
"I dare say," said Sally briefly, and was very glad she hadn't. "But
that dreadfully long climb up from the beach--" she amended,
feeling it obligatory upon her not to seem too short of civility.
"You don't mind that when you come to it after a swim," Trego
declared. "It's only in anticipation, when you're snug between sheets
and debating the rival claims of the distant beach and your handy
bathtub; then, I grant you, the climb up the cliff weighs heavily in
the scale of disadvantages."
He drew out the chair adjoining Sally's and attacked the half of an
iced canteloup, but after the first mouthful put down his spoon.
"Sugar, please," he said with a deprecatory grimace, indicating the
bowl just beyond the girl's place. "I know I ought to go in for salt
if I want to come through as a regular guy; but if you won't tell on
me, I'm going to enjoy this melon in my own primitive Western way.
Thanks."
He committed the unpardonable deed with a liberal hand. "Frightfully
weird, you know," he mimicked with a chuckle, adding: "It takes the
rude, untutored mind of a barbarian to be satisfied with sweetening a
thing with sweetness instead of bitterness, doesn't it'?"
"But I prefer salt myself," said the girl; "it brings out the
flavour."
She concluded her defence in some confusion due to Trego's practically
synchronous utterance of her identical phrase: "it brings out the
flavour." Then she realised that he had deliberately trapped her
and was meanly laughing in the triumph of his low cunning. And she had
to laugh, too, to save her face; but it was an empty laugh and
accompanied by a flush that might have warned the man had he not too
soon returned attention to his melon.
"Never fails," he remarked. "Though, of course, it isn't safe to work
it on anybody in this outfit--not, at least, unless you're pretty
sure there's a trace of human humour in the make-up of the specimen.
I'm making a collection of those stereotypes; it helps a lot. O
table-talk! where is thy sting--when a fellow knows all the answers?"
He rose, set aside the shell of the maltreated melon, and returned
with his plunder from the hot-water dishes, to find Sally on the point
of leaving.
"Not going?" he protested more soberly. "Don't tell me I offended you,
catching you up like that!"
"How absurd!" the infuriated girl replied, smiling falsely. "But--"
"Then, if you've nothing pressing on, keep me company for a little. I
want to ask your advice. I'm puzzled. Maybe you can suggest
something."
She couldn't well go, then, without betraying umbrage, so she settled
herself with a resigned temper, and for want of a better lead
contented herself with a conversational stop-gap--"Puzzled?"--spoken
in an encouraging tone.
"Yes. Something I noticed this morning. But it weaves into last
night--maybe. Maybe not. I'm a slow thinker when it comes to puzzles."
He filled a cup with coffee from the shining urn and resumed his
chair.
"You see . . ." Some intimation of his gaucherie made him stumble. "Of
course," he went on, semi-apologetic, "you understand that I'm going
on the assumption that you're as human as I am."
"Thank you," said Sally sweetly.
"Human enough," he explained, "not to think I'm a savage because I've
reminded you of last night."
"I see no reason--" she began with dignity.
"And there isn't any," he argued heartily. "We're both old enough to
behave like grown-ups. Only, a fellow never can tell where he stands
with most of these festive dames. I've been lorgnetted until I'm
scared to open my mouth. But with you--well, it's like meeting
somebody from home to talk to you."
"But the puzzle?" she reminded him with more patience than he knew.
"Oh, yes. I was going to say when I side-tracked myself: what got me
up was Lyttleton. He has the room next mine, you know. I'd just turned
out my bedside light--been reading, you understand--when I heard his
door open very gently and somebody go pussy-footing down the
hall. And for some reason that kept me awake--because it was none of
my business, I guess--waiting for him to come back and wondering what
in thunder took him out on the prowl like that. And when I had
wondered myself wide awake I got up and dressed--thought I'd take a
walk, too, since the night was so fine. I honestly had no idea of
following him--that was all an accident, my butting in the way I did."
Sudden perception of a footing upon ground properly taboo even to
angels caused the man to flush brick-red. His eyes sought Sally's in
honest consternation.
"Hope you don't mind," he mumbled.
"Please go on," she said, conscious of the heat in her own cheeks, and
holding him in an esteem proportionately more poisonous.
"Well. About this morning: As I say, I went down to the beach for a
dip. You know how that beach is--about a twelve-foot breadth of sand
from the bottom of the cliff when the tide's high, with about twenty
feet more when it's low. So foot-prints show until the weather rubs
them out--takes a tolerable storm, as a rule. Below high-water mark
it's different; the sand is covered up and smoothed out twice a day.
Well, then, just below high-water mark--that is, about five feet below
it, or at quarter-tide mark--I noticed the print of a rowboat's
bows on the sand. It had landed there and waited a while--drawn up
only part way out of the water--about three o'clock this morning. Two
men had got out; one waited with the boat, the other went up toward
the foot of the steps and mixed his footprints up with all the others.
I don't know what for and can't imagine; but that's what happened, and
presently he turned round and went back to the boat, and the two of
them shoved her off again--trusting, I guess, to the tide to cover up
the signs of their landing.
"Why they should want to be secret about it, God only knows; but if
they didn't, why three o'clock? It's all private beach along here, and
whereas I believe there are no property rights below high-water mark,
and anybody has a right to land anywhere in an emergency--where was
the emergency? There was no gale last night, and if there had been,
you'd think distressed mariners would have sense enough to come ashore
farther along, toward the village, where they could find shelter--and
all that. The more I think about it, the funnier it looks to me."
He finished his breakfast and his statement at the same time, pushed
back his chair, and produced a cigarette-case.
"You don't mind? Thanks. Now what do you think?"
Sally shook her head and looked blank. "Three o'clock? How can
you be so sure about that?" she inquired obliquely.
"Because it's high tide twice a day--approximately every twelve hours.
I looked up a tide-table in the hall out there and found it was high
at one eleven this morning and low at seven thirty-five--just about
an hour turned when I had my swim, the water-line then about twelve
feet short of the marks of the boat. It'll be high again about one
forty-eight this afternoon--at least noon before water begins to wash
over those marks."
He puffed voluminously. "If there was any shenanigan afoot last night,
a couple of thick-heads footed it--that is, if they cared whether they
left any clues or not."
Constrained to fill in his expectant pause, she made shift with a "How
very odd!" that was a triumph of naturalness.
"Isn't it?" he agreed. "Now what do you make of it?"
"Nothing," she replied truthfully, for she was entirely at a loss to
fit this new development into the adventures of Lyttleton and the
lighted window--and make sense of it. "I can't imagine--"
"What I want to know is this," Trego propounded cunningly: "had
Lyttleton anything to do with it?" She had prepared for that question,
had settled her answer beforehand; even with any real reason to
suspect Lyttleton of complicity in something underhand, she would not
have betrayed him to this man--if to anybody.
"I'm sure I can't say."
"Well--it's funny, anyhow. Guess we better not say anything about it.
After all, it's no concern of ours."
She couldn't refrain from the question: "But why should you think
he--?"
"Well, what _was_ he doing all that time--?"
He checked and stammered with embarrassment. "I beg your pardon!"
"You needn't. He wasn't--with me--all that time."
The situation grown intolerable, Sally got up suddenly and without a
word of excuse took her scarlet cheeks out of the dining-room and back
to her bedchamber.
On the dot of their standing appointment she found Mrs. Gosnold
unconsciously, perhaps, but none the less strikingly posed in the
golden glow of her boudoir window for the portrait of a lady of
quality on fatigue duty--very much at her ease in a lavender-silk
morning gown and stretched out in a _chaise longue_, a tray with
fruit, coffee and rolls on her left dividing attention with a sheaf of
morning notes on the other side and the portable writing-case on her
knees.
Acknowledging Sally's appearance with a pleasant if slightly
abstracted smile, she murmured: "Oh, is it you, Miss Manwaring? Sit
down, please. Half a minute . . ."
On the _qui vive_ for any indication that Mrs. Standish had been false
to her word or Mrs. Gosnold informed through any other channel of the
secret history of that night and consequently inclined to hold her
secretary in distrust, Sally detected nothing in the other's manner to
add to her uneasiness. To the contrary, in fact. She sat and watched
in admiration, and thought that she had never known a woman better
poised, more serenely mistress of herself and of the technique of
life. If Mrs. Gosnold nursed a secret sorrow, anxiety, or grievance,
the world would never learn of it through any flaw in the armour of
her self-possession.
She wrought busily with a fountain pen for little longer than the
stipulated period of delay, then addressed and sealed a note and
looked up again with her amiable, shrewd smile.
"Good morning!" she laughed, quite as if she had not till then
recognised Sally's presence. "You've slept well, I trust?"
Sally did not hesitate perceptibly; the honest impulse prevailed.
Secretly she was determined to tell no more major lies, though the
heavens fell--only such minor fibs as are necessary to lubricate the
machinery of society. She would do her best, of course, to
preserve the hateful truth that had been so cunningly covered up by
the lies of Mrs. Standish's first invention; but she would do that
best, if possible, more by keeping silence than by coining and
uttering fresh falsehoods.
"Not so well last night," she confessed. "I don't know what was the
matter with me, but somehow I didn't seem even to want to sleep."
"I know," Mrs. Gosnold nodded wisely. "I'm not yet old enough to have
forgotten these midsummer moonlight nights of ours. When I was a girl
and being courted, from this very house, I know I used to wait until
everybody had gone to bed and creep out and wander for hours . . ."
Her pause invited confidences. And momentarily Sally's heart thumped
like a trip-hammer. Did she, then, either know or guess?
"I did that last night," she responded; "but I hadn't your excuse."
"You mean, you're not being courted? Don't be impatient. Once to every
woman--once too often to most. And it's well to take one's time
nowadays. Perhaps it's a sign of age, and I shouldn't own it, but it
does seem to me that the young men of to-day are an uncommonly godless
crew. I should be sorry to have you make a mistake . . ."
She contented herself with that much warning and no more; but
Sally knew their thoughts were one, focused upon a singular though by
no means strange example of the young men of the present day.
"I think," her employer pursued, with a look excusing the transient
keenness of her scrutiny, "our Island air agrees with you. If you have
had one poor night, all the same you're quite another girl than the
one who came here--was it only four days ago? I hope you're quite
comfortable."
"Oh, yes, indeed."
"And would you care to stay on?"
"With all my heart!"
"I see no reason why you shouldn't. I like you very well; you're quick
and willing--and you humour my weakness for the respect of my
associates. I don't ask for their dependence. If you like, we'll say
your engagement begins to-day, the first of the week."
"You are very kind."
"I'm very selfish. I like intelligence, prettiness, and youth--must
have them at any cost! So that's understood. Of course, there are
certain questions to be settled, arrangements to be made. For example,
I assume responsibility for your losses at bridge, because playing
when I wish you to is one of your duties. But these matters adjust
themselves as they come up from time to time."
"Thank you," said Sally in a tone that, though little more than a
whisper, was more eloquent of her gratitude than the mere phrase could
possibly have been.
"So now I shall stop calling you Miss Manwaring."
"Please do."
"It's much too formal, considering I'm old enough to be your mother."
"Oh, no!" Sally protested involuntarily. "That isn't possible."
"I'll not see fifty-five again," Mrs. Gosnold announced. "But that's a
boudoir secret."
"I'll never--"
"And a secret of Polichinelle besides," the other laughed; "everybody
I know or care a snap for knows it. At the same time, no woman cares
to have her age discussed, even if it is public property and she quite
old enough to be beyond such vanity. No matter; I'm going to call you
Sara, if you've no objection."
"Why not Sally?" the girl suggested tentatively. "That's my name--I
mean, what I'm accustomed to."
"Thank you; I like it even better," Mrs. Gosnold affirmed. "I'm
conservative enough to favour old-time names. My own, for instance,
Abigail, pleases me immensely, though I seldom meet a young woman
these days who can hear it without looking either incredulous or
as though she doubted the sanity of my sponsors in baptism."
She stayed the obvious reply with an indulgent toss of a hand still
fair.
"Now to work. I've mapped out a busy morning for you. To begin with,
here are a dozen or so notes to deliver. You may take the
dog-cart--no, to save time, one of the motors. We must give these good
people as much time as possible, considering it's a spur-of-the-moment
affair. That is why, you understand, there are so few
invitations--because I'd no time to write and post a number. But each
of these is a bid to some friend with a houseful of people to come and
bring all her guests.
"Oh!" she laughed, catching the look of puzzlement on the girl's face,
"I haven't told you what it is. Well, my dear, it's an old woman's
whim. Every so often I break loose this way and keep my memory green
as one who, in her day, never entertained but in some unique fashion.
I was once famous for that sort of thing, but of late years I haven't
exerted myself except when bored to extinction by the deadly
commonplace amusements most people offer us.
"For some time I've had this in mind, and everything prepared; you
may, if you like, call it a spontaneous masquerade by moonlight. Half
the fun of such affairs comes of the last-moment, makeshift
costumes; if you give people much time to think them up it is always a
stiff and frigid function. Moreover, it demands a perfect night--and
we can't count on our Island weather twenty-four hours in advance. But
to-day is perfect, and to-night will be fair with the moon at its
full. You may dance on the veranda or make love on the terrace, just
as you please, from ten o'clock till three--or later. Supper will be
served from midnight on. At one we shall unmask.
"As I say, all preparations had been made, weather permitting; I had
merely to telephone the caterers, electricians, and musicians, and
scribble these invitations. I'd advise you to arrange your day to
include a good long nap before dinner, for you'll be up till all hours
very likely. I fancy I can promise you some fun."
Mrs. Gosnold ceased upon a note of mischievous enjoyment in
anticipation that would have suited a girl of sixteen, then analysed
the trouble behind Sally's perturbed countenance.
"As for your costume, you're not to give it a thought! I have arranged
for it to be brought to your room at half past nine, and I pledge you
my word you'll find it becoming. I have only two requests to make of
you: that you refrain from unmasking or admitting your identity until
one o'clock, and that if you recognise me, you hold your tongue.
Is it a bargain?"
"You're so good to me," said Sally simply, "I can't think how to thank
you."
"Leave that, too, to me. It's quite possible I may suggest a way."
Mrs. Gosnold smiled curiously as at a thought reserved. "Now run
along--order the car and put on your prettiest hat. But a moment!"
She illustrated the process of taking thought by puckering her brows
and clipping her chin between a thumb and forefinger.
"Let me see. Have I remembered everybody?" She conned, half aloud, a
list of names. "But no! What an oversight! I should never have
forgiven myself--or have been forgiven. And my fountain pen needs
refilling. No"--as Sally offered to take the pen--"sit there at the
desk and write at my dictation. I will sign it."
Obediently Sally took her place at the escritoire, arranged a sheet of
the monogrammed note-paper used by Mrs. Gosnold for correspondence
with personal friends (as distinguished from the formal letter-head of
Gosnold House, with its bristling array of telephone numbers and
telegraph, post-office, railroad and steamboat addresses), dipped a
pen, and waited with a mind preoccupied by visions of the night to
come. Her first ball! Her first real function in Society!
"My dear friend," Mrs. Gosnold enunciated deliberately in a
colourless, placid voice. "(Colon, dash, paragraph) It was only late
last night, and then by merest chance, I learned you had come to the
island yesterday instead of sailing last week, in accordance with your
announced intention (period). So I cannot decently begin by berating
you (dash) as I should, had you been here twenty-four hours without
personally letting me know (period)."
A pause. Sally dreamed a beautiful dream of a crinoline costume,
beflowered and beflounced, such as Vogue had lately pictured as a
forecast of autumn fashions, an iridescent bubble of a dream shattered
by the query: "Where was I, please?"
"'Letting me know,'" she quoted absently.
"Oh, yes. (Paragraph.) I hope with all my heart your change of plans
was not brought about by any untoward accident (semicolon); but
Italy's loss is the island's gain (semicolon); and I am looking
forward with the keenest pleasure to seeing you again (period,
paragraph). May I hope that it will be not later than to-night (point
of interrogation)? I have arranged an impromptu masquerade by
moonlight on the terrace (period). It should be a pretty sight
(period). From ten o'clock till any time you like (dash) masks until
one (period). Do come and help make the evening a happy one for me
(period)."
Another contemplative pause. But this time Sally did not dream. She
sat quite still in speculative wonder, troubled with a vague alarm as
disturbing as the sound of distant thunder in the evening, of an
August day.
"Cue, please?"
The girl replied in a low tone: "'Evening a happy one'--"
"Yes. Add: affectionately yours--or wait! Have you written--?"
"'Affectionately yours'--yes."
"No matter; leave a space for my signature, and add this: P. S. You
will be glad to see, no doubt, that your letter to Adele has borne
fruit (period). Miss Manwaring does splendidly as an amanuensis
(period). Your judgment was always trustworthy (period). And address
the envelope, of course, to Mrs. Cornwallis English. She is stopping,
I hear, with the Lorimers at Bleak House--the grey stone house on the
hill at the end of West Harbor Drive."
After a time Mrs. Gosnold said almost sharply: "Well, Miss Manwaring!
You have little time to waste. Bring me the note, please, and a pen."
With a gesture of despair the girl twisted in her chair and showed the
woman a stricken face.
"Are you sure--?" she stammered.
"Yes?" Mrs. Gosnold prompted with an accent of surprise. "What is it,
Sally?"
The girl gulped hard, and mechanically put a hand to her throat,
rising as she spoke.
"Are you sure Mrs. English is on the Island?"
"What of it? Why, I presumed you would be glad of the opportunity to
thank her for that letter of--"
"There was no letter!"
"I beg pardon?" Mrs. Gosnold opened wide her eyes.
"I say," Sally faltered, yet with determination, "there was no letter.
Mrs. Standish--that is--we both lied to you. I don't know Mrs.
English; I never spoke a word to her in all my life. I didn't take any
letter to Mrs. Standish. That was a story manufactured out of whole
cloth to account for me--get me this position here."
"Oh, yes," Mrs. Gosnold assented coolly. "I felt quite sure of that in
the beginning. You never could believe a word Adele said from the time
she was able to talk. Even if the truth would have served as well and
with less trouble, she was sure to disfigure it beyond identification.
And Walter's just as bad. But you, my dear, will never make a good
liar; the first words we spoke together I saw your eyes wince, and
knew you were tormented by something on your conscience. Moreover, the
last person Edna English would send anyone with a letter of
recommendation to is my niece, who has not yet been proved guilty
of one unselfish act. So I thought I'd test the story. Now you
may tear up that note--Mrs. English is in Italy this very day, to the
best of my belief--and tell me what it's all about."