ROUSED into semi-wakefulness by the first shaft of sunlight that
pierced the Bungalow windows, Mr. Jacob Remsen indulged in sleepy
self-communion.
“Who are we this morning? Not our bright and lovely self. That’s a
cinch... Rodney Carteret? No: we shook Rodney in New York... Veyze!
That’s it; Montrose Veyze. _Sir_ Montrose, if you please.... Oh, Lord!
The bride.” Unaccustomed though he was to allow the sun’s early rays to
pry him forth from his slumbers, the man of aliases leapt out of bed,
chuckled himself through his toilet and breakfast, and still emitting
sub-sounds, not so much of glee as of a profound and abiding
satisfaction in life, took the road for Center Harbor. Darcy, still
wrapped in dreams at the Farmhouse, would have made the distance in
better time; nevertheless, his hour-and-a-half was a fairly creditable
performance. In consequence of certain telephonic efforts of the
previous evening, he expected to find an express package at his
destination, wherein he was not disappointed.
At eleven o’clock, Darcy rambled down the long, wooded driveway,
leading from the Farmhouse to the lake. Off to her right, where a
little brook brawled gayly down among rounded boulders, another
dryad-haunted tree burst into soft, familiar music. She answered the
whistled melody with a pipe of her own, as true and sweet.
“Coast clear?” asked the tree, which, for a good American hickory,
spoke with a surprisingly British accent.
“Yes. Come out.”
“Just a minute. What’s my nationality?”
“English, this morning.”
“I thought likely. So I put on the regalia.” The owner of the voice
stepped forth in the full panoply of wig, whiskers, and monocle.
Darcy surveyed him disparagingly. “No,” she decided. “I don’t like it
as well as I did.”
“Perhaps you prefer the original,” he suggested modestly. “I do,
myself. But I was afraid some one might be around.”
“Nobody is likely to be here this morning. And the rig doesn’t fit in
with that great box you’re carrying. What’s in it? More disguises?” He
uncovered the box and held it out to her.
“Grown on the premises,” he lied gayly. “Picked with the dew still on
’em.”
The girl gathered the blooms into her arms and drew them up to her face
with a sudden, tender, mothering gesture which caused the giver’s heart
an unaccustomed and disturbing thrill. He was well repaid for the trip
to Center Harbor.
“How lovely!” she cried. “And how good of you! What kind are they? For
reward you may take off your disguise, but you must hide if the others
come.”
“I will,” he agreed, and answered her question: “They’re bride and
bridesmaid roses. Appropriate to the occasion.”
Darcy had the grace to blush. “Out of date,” she said hastily.
“What! Already?”
“I’ve changed my mind,” was her calm announcement. “I’ve decided that
you’re not my husband.”
[Illustration: “I’ve decided that you’re not my husband”]
“Wedded and Parted—by Bertha M. Clay. Who’s the Bertha M. that’s done
this thing to me:
“I am. As soon as you left I saw that it wouldn’t fit in at all for us
to be married. The servants here probably visit between house and
house. And it was bound to come out that I was at the Farmhouse and you
at the Bungalow, and—well—don’t you see that would look funny if we
were married?”
What Jack Remsen saw was that the girl was like the pinkest of the
bridesmaid roses when she blushed, though a sweeter, warmer pink.
“Didn’t I go to Montreal, then?”
“No. Though you may have to, later. There’s some legal formality to be
gone through yet before we can be married.”
“Oh, then we’re still engaged.”
“Indeed, yes! Don’t think you’re going to get out of it so easily. The
legal papers are in Montreal. So, instead of being married on the 16th,
as we had planned, we’ve had to wait, and you’ve brought me up here, on
your way to Montreal.”
“Is this the genial fiction that you’ve handed out to your friends, the
newly-weds?”
“It is.”
“How did they take it?”
“Hard. Maud—that’s Mrs. Lee—especially feels that she has a terrible
weight of responsibility on her shoulders. She was going to wire Gloria
Greene until I told her that Mrs. Bond, the housekeeper, is Mr.
Harmon’s own second cousin and therefore, a fully equipped chaperon.”
“Is she?” said Remsen in surprise.
“How do I know?” returned the girl innocently. “She might be. I hadn’t
asked her. But I had to invent something to pacify Maud.”
“Invention,” observed the admiring Mr. Remsen, “appears to be mere
child’s play for you.”
“Even so, it didn’t satisfy Maud. She quite insisted on my moving over
to the Cottage, to be under her eye.”
“You’re not going to do that?” he cried apprehensively.
“And play the goosiest kind of gooseberry? Indeed, I’m not!”
“What comes next? Am I to meet the turtledoves?”
“If you don’t, it will look suspicious.”
“So it will. Let’s get it over with, then. I’ll risk a small bet that
after meeting Sir Montrose Veyze once, they won’t care to repeat the
experience.”
“What are you going to do to them?”
“Treat them to an exhibition of British hauteur and superiority.”
“Hasn’t that sort of thing rather gone out since the war?”
“Not in the family into which you’ve married, my dear young lady. With
the Veyzes nothing ever comes in and nothing ever goes out. Don’t you
think that would be a good line to spring on them?” he added with
animation.
“You mustn’t be too horrid,” enjoined Darcy. “I don’t want them to
think I’m marrying a—a—”
“A lemon,” supplied the other. “Speaking of lemons, don’t you think it
would be a pious idea for you to invite your fiancé to lunch with you?”
“Excellent. And you can practice your accent on Mrs. Bond.”
Profound and awesome was the impression made upon that lady. She found
it only natural that the couple should wander off immediately after the
meal; though she would have been surprised enough at the actual basis
of their desire for seclusion, which was that they might work out their
plan for the encounter with the honeymooning quartette. The boathouse,
which commands the approach to the Farm, was selected for the scene of
the presentation.
About mid-afternoon the Lees and the Woods appeared, motoring up the
lower road, and were halted by Darcy, who, pink and excited, indicated
a figure on the boathouse porch. The figure was tipped back in a chair,
with its feet on the railing, smoking a pipe.
“Come and meet my Monty,” invited Darcy.
Upon their approach, the figure removed its feet from the railing with
obvious reluctance. It did not remove its pipe from its face at all. To
the women it bowed glumly. To the men it offered a flabby half-portion
of hand. Holcomb Lee took it and dropped it. Paul Wood looked at the
fingers presented to him in turn, looked at Darcy, looked at the sky
and observed dispassionately that it looked like rain.
“Vay likely. Beastly weathah!” grunted the other.
“Bad weather makes good fishing, they say up here,” said Helen Wood,
pleasantly. “Have you tried it?”
“Nothin’ but sunfishes and little basses, they tell me. Beastly water!”
“You might find the hunting better,” proffered Maud Lee.
“Huntin’? Where’s one to find a decent mount?”
“Mrs. Lee means the shooting, dear,” explained Darcy, sweetly.
“Haw! Nevah heard shootin’ called huntin’ before. No decent shootin’,
either. Tramped about all mornin’ and flushed one chippin’ squirrel.”
“He means chipmunk,” expounded the helpful Darcy. “Poor Monty finds our
American speech so difficult.”
“Beastly language,” murmured the bogus baronet, resuming his seat.
“But surely,” said the kindly-spirited Helen, “you find the mountains
beautiful.”
“Haw! Too crowded. No chance to turn about without knockin’ people’s
elbows.”
The visitors took a hasty departure.
“Stupid ass!” growled Lee before they were fairly out of earshot.
“Oh, for just one good swing at his fat head,” yearned the husky Wood.
“Did you _ever_ see such a boor!” was Helen’s contribution to the
symposium.
“He’s _old_.” disclosed the observing Maud. “That’s a wig he had on.
I’d swear to it. Poor Darcy!”
Dissolved in mirth, Darcy congratulated the amateur upon a highly
distinguished performance.
“Did Gloria teach you to act like that?” she inquired.
“If Gloria would train me,” he returned, “I could do something. But she
won’t waste time on an amateur. Do you know that she’s one of the very
best coaches in the profession?”
“I know that she’s the most wonderful woman in the world. What she’s
done for me—”
“It’s probably no more than she’s done for hundreds of other people,”
said Remsen, and launched out into a panegyric of the actress which
would have made a press agent feel like an amateur.
With more experience of men, Darcy would have known that this was the
language of the highest type of admiration, but of nothing more. In her
innocence she took it as a final confirmation of the scene she had
witnessed in the studio.
“Gloria wants you to work, doesn’t she?” she asked shyly.
“Gloria’s such a tremendous worker, herself, that she thinks every one
ought to be busy on some job all the time. Doesn’t she get after you?
You look far too much of the lily-of-the-field type to meet her
approval.”
“Lily-of-the-field, yourself!” returned the girl indignantly. “I’ve
brought a lot of work up here with me. Can you say the same?”
“Guilty! I’m jobless, except as your present slave.”
“Have you ever done anything worth while in the world?” Darcy
challenged; but the smile with which she accompanied the words was
indulgent.
He took silent counsel with himself. “At a class reunion I once chased
a trolley-car on a dromedary,” he said hopefully. “That made life
temporarily happier for a good many people, including the dromedary,
who was conducting the performance.”
“Sir Monty—my real Sir Monty—used to be an officer in a camel corps,”
fabricated Darcy dreamily.
“Now, why drag in my fellow fiancé, just as I was beginning to forget
him?” he expostulated.
“We—you—he isn’t to be forgotten,” said the girl hastily.
“Of course not. I’m sorry. Tell me about him.”
Attempting to do so, Darcy found that the flavor had unaccountably
oozed out of her lie. Pretense and falsification with this man who had
unprotestingly let himself in for an indefinite career of both on his
own account, to aid a girl whom he didn’t even know in what, for all he
could tell, might be only an unworthy prank—well, it simply went
against the grain.
“No; I don’t believe I will just now,” she returned. “I might confuse
him with your masterly impersonation.”
“Then tell me about yourself. What would you have done if you hadn’t
found a readymade Englishman on the bridal train?”
“Heaven only knows! Committed suicide, I think. I may have to come to
that yet,” she said dismally. “Oh, dear! The further it goes, the worse
it gets. You’ve helped me out, for the present, but—”
“Then let me help you out some more,” he urged. “Murder, arson,
forgery, bigamy, anything you wish. I’m an outlaw, anyway, and a crime
or two makes no difference to me.” Underneath his lightness, she
divined the deeper wish to be of service.
“Take off your disguise,” she said quietly, “I want to look at the real
you.”
He obeyed, and endured the scrutiny of her intent eyes, smiling.
“Yes,” she decided. “You’d be a real friend. I could trust you. And I
want to. Oh, I do want to. I’m in an awful mess.”
“Probably it isn’t nearly as bad as it looks. Trot it out, and let’s
examine it.”
“But it isn’t my secret, alone. I’ve got a—a partner.”
“The ‘wicked partner’?”
“She _isn’t_ wicked.”
“Oh, it’s a she! The shadows deepen.”
“And I’ve promised a hope-to-die promise.”
“Beg off from it.”
She jumped up, clapping her hands like a child. “I’ll try. You go home
now, and don’t touch your telephone, for it’s a party wire and I’m
going to phone a night letter to my partner.”
This is the night-letter which went to Gloria Greene.
Will you release me from promise and let me tell one person, very near
to you, who can help? Also, may I tell same person that I know about
you two?
Darcy
The entire telegram puzzled the recipient more than a little,
particularly the last portion. Not understanding, she took the wisest
course and played safe by wiring a veto. The wording of her reply
caused much painful puzzlement in the virginal breast of the lady
telegraph operator who, on the following morning, thus ’phoned it to
Miss Darcy Cole:
“This the Farmhouse?... That Miss Cole?... I gotta telegram f’r you,
Miss Cole, an’ I d’knowz I ken make it all out. Sounds queer t’ me.
Shall I get a repeat?... Give it t’ you first? All right. Jussuz you
say. Ready?...’_Miss Dassy Cole, The Farm, Boulder Brook. No. Don’t
dare trust you with the truth. You do too well with the other thing_’
Get that?... yes’s funny, ain’t it? There’s funnier comin’. Ready?...
‘_Keep it up till you hear from me by following letter._’ Now comes the
queer part. ‘_Don’t be a damp hool._’ Get that?... Yes; hool... Me?
don’t know what a hool is. Spell it? D-a-m-p; got hat?... H-double o-l.
Got that? Well, mebbe it is funny, but _I_ don’t get no laughter out of
it. What?... Oh, yes; of course. Signed _Gloria_. Want me to get a
repeat? No. Jussuz you say; I’m sat’sfied if you are. But theh ain’t no
sech a word in _my_ dictionary. I jest looked it up.”
Miss Darcy Cole, gazing out into a worldful of rain, mused upon the
message, with its definite inhibition. For a moment she was tempted to
derive some compensating mirth from the telegram by calling up the
telegraph lady, advising her to re-read the cryptic sentence which had
so disturbed her professional calm, by dividing the two words after the
_m_ instead of the _p_—and then listening for the reaction to the
shock. But this she dismissed as not worth while.
“But I think I _am_ one,” she reflected drearily, “not to make Gloria
release me, anyway.”