At almost this same moment Norma's self was the subject of a rather
unusual talk between Christopher Liggett and his wife.
Christopher had come softly into his house, at about half-past ten, to
find Alice awake, still on the big couch before her fire. Her little
bedroom beyond was softly lighted, the white bed turned down, and the
religious books she always read before going to sleep laid in place by
Miss Slater. But Alice had no light except her fire and two or three
candles in old sconces.
She welcomed Christopher with a smile, and he sat down, in his somewhat
rumpled evening dress, and smiled back at her in a rather weary fashion.
He often told her that these rooms of hers were a sanctuary, that he
tested the men and women he met daily in the world by her fine and lofty
standard. It was part of his utter generosity to her that he talked to
her as frankly as if he thought aloud, and it was Alice's pride and joy
to know that this marriage of theirs, which had so sadly and suddenly
become no marriage at all, was not as one-sided as the world might have
suspected. Her clear, dispassionate viewpoint and her dignified
companionship were not wifehood, but they were dear and valuable to him
none the less, a part of his life that he would not have spared. And he
could still admire her, too, not only for the exquisite clearness of her
intellect, her French and Italian, her knowledge of countries and
affairs, but physically--the clear, childish forehead that was as
unwrinkled as Leslie's, the fair, beautifully brushed hair, the mouth
with its chiselling of wisdom and of pain, and the transparent hand from
which she shook back transparent laces. She was always proud, always
fresh and fragrant, always free for him and for his problems, and it was
proverbial in the circle of their intimates that Chris admired Alice
with all his heart, and never felt himself anything but the privileged
guardian of a treasure.
To-night he dropped into a chair before her fire, and she watched him
for five or six restful minutes in silence.
"Stupid dinner?" she ventured.
"Rotten!" he answered, cheerfully. "I was late, but I got in to hear
Hendrick's speech. The Vice-President was there, everyone else I knew. I
cut away finally; I'm done up."
"I thought you picked up Hendrick on your way and went together," Mrs.
Liggett said, sympathetically. "I'm sorry it was dull--I suppose men
have to go to these political things!"
Chris was leaning forward, his locked hands dropped between his knees,
and his eyes on the fire.
"Hendrick and I stopped at your mother's," he said, deliberately, "and
she was so upset that I sent Hendrick on alone!"
Alice's eyes lighted apprehensively, but she spoke very quietly.
"What was it, Chris? Leslie getting saucy?"
"Oh, no, no! It was a complication of things, I imagine!" Christopher
took out his cigarette-case, looked at its moiré surface reflectively,
and selected a smoke. "She was tired--she'd been out in the
snow--Leslie had gone off with Annie to some débutante affair--I daresay
she felt blue. Alice, do you remember a woman named Kate Sheridan?"
The question was sudden, and Alice blinked.
"Yes, I do," she answered, after a moment's thought, "she was a sort of
maid or travelling companion of Mama's. We called her Mrs. Sheridan--she
was quite a superior sort of person."
"What do you remember about her, dear?"
"Well--just that. She came when I was only a child--and then when Annie
was ill in Paris she went abroad with Mama--and I remember that she came
back, and she used to come see me at school, for Mama, and once she took
me up to Grandma's, in Brookline. She was a widow, and she had a
child--or two, maybe. Why, Chris?"
Her husband did not answer, and she repeated the question.
"Well," he said, at last, flinging the end of his cigarette into the
fire, "she came to see your mother to-day."
Alice waited, a little at a loss. To her this had no particular
significance.
"She had her niece with her, young girl about eighteen," Christopher
said.
"Well--what _of_ it?" Alice demanded, with a sort of superb indifference
to anything such a woman might do.
He looked at her through his round eyeglasses, with the slight frown
that many of life's problems brought to his handsome face. Then the
glass fell, on its black ribbon, and he laughed.
"That's just what I don't _get_," he said, good-humouredly. "But I'll
tell you exactly what occurred. What's-His-Name, your mother's
butler----"
"Joseph."
"Joseph. Joseph told me that at about four o'clock this Mrs. Sheridan
came in. Your mother had told him that she was expecting the lady, and
that he was to bring her upstairs. With her came this girl--I can't
remember her name--but it was something Sheridan--Nora Sheridan, maybe.
Leslie carried the girl off for tea, and the woman stayed with your
mother.
"Well, at five--or later, this Mrs. Sheridan ran into the hall, and it
seems--she's all right now!--it seems that your mother had fainted."
"Mama!" Alice said, anxiously, with an incredulous frown.
"Yes, but don't worry. She's absolutely all right now. Leslie,"
Christopher went back to his narrative, "Leslie cried, and I suppose
there was a scene. Mrs. Sheridan and the girl went home--Leslie dressed
and went out--and your mother immediately telephoned Lee----"
"Judge Lee?"
"Yes--she said so. Lee's up in Westchester with his daughter, she
couldn't get him----"
"But, Chris, why did she want her lawyer?"
"That's just it--_why_? Well, then she telephoned here for me--I was on
my way there, as it happened, and just before eight Hendrick and I went
in. I could see she was altogether up stage, so I sent Von on and had it
out with her."
"And what was her explanation, Chris?"
Christopher laughed again.
"I'll be darned," he said, thoughtfully, "if I can make head or tail of
it! It would be funny if it wasn't that she's taking it so hard. She was
in bed, and she had been crying--wouldn't eat any dinner----"
"But, Chris," Alice said, worriedly, "what do you _make_ of it! What did
she _say_?"
"Well, she clasped my hand, and she said that she had an opportunity to
undo a great wrong--and that I must help her--and not ask any
questions--she was just acting as you and I would have her act under the
circumstances----"
"What circumstances?" Alice said, at an utter loss, as he paused.
"She didn't say," he smiled.
"Oh, come, now, Chris, she must have said more than that!"
"No, she didn't. She said that she must make it up to this girl, and she
wished to see Lee about it immediately."
"To change her will!" Alice exclaimed.
"She didn't say so. Of course, it may be some sort of blackmail."
Christopher looked whimsically at his wife. "As I remember my
father-in-law," he said, "it seems to me improbable that out of the past
could come this engaging young girl--very pretty, they said----"
"Father! Oh, nonsense!" Alice exclaimed, almost in relief at the
absurdity. "No, but it might be some business--some claim against the
firm," she suggested.
"Well, I thought of that. But there are one or two reasons why it
doesn't seem the solution. I asked your mother if it was money, and she
said no, said it positively and repeatedly. Then I asked her if she
would like this Sheridan woman shut up, and she was quite indignant.
Kate!--Kate was one of the most magnificent women God had ever made, and
so on!"
"Well, I do remember Mrs. Sheridan as a lovely sort of person," Alice
contributed. "Plain, you know, but quite wonderful for--well,
_goodness_. It's funny--but then you know Mama is terribly excitable,"
she added, "she gets frightfully worked up over nothing, or almost
nothing. It's quite possible that when Kate recalled old times to her
she suddenly wished that she had done more for Kate--something like
that. She'd think nothing of sending for Judge Lee on the spot. You
remember her recalling us from our wedding-trip because she couldn't
find the pearls? All the way from Lake Louise to hear that they had been
lost!"
"I know," Christopher smiled. "She is--unique, _ma belle mère_. By
George, I'll never forget our rushing into the house like maniacs, not
knowing what had happened to Leslie or Acton, and having her fall
sobbing into your arms, with the pearls in her hands!"
"Mama's wonderful," Alice laughed. "Chris, did you eat any dinner?"
He considered.
"But I'm really not hungry, dear," he protested.
Alice, superbly incredulous, rang at once. Who was in the kitchen? Well,
she was to be asked to send up a tray at once to Mr. Liggett. "Now that
you asked me, the dinner had reached the point of ice-cream in a paper
tub, as I sat down," he remembered. "You're a little miracle of healing
to me, Alice. When I came in here I didn't know _what_ we were up
against, as a family. Your mother wished the girl pensioned----"
"Oh, Chris, not really?"
"I give you my word!" But he was enough his usual self to have taken his
seat at the piano, now, and was looking at her across it, while his
fingers fitted themselves lazily to chords and harmonics.
"I'll tell you something, if you'll promise to stop playing the instant
your supper comes up!"
"I'll promise!"
"Well, then--the new Puccini is there!" She nodded toward the
music-shelves, and he turned to the new score with an eager exclamation.
Fifteen minutes later she had to scold him to bring him to the fire
again, and to the smoking little supper. While Alice sipped ginger ale,
Christopher fell upon his meal, and they discussed the probable
presentation of the opera, and its quality.
But an hour later, when she was in bed, and Christopher was going back
to the piano for another half-hour of music, she caught his hand.
"Chris, you're not worried about this Sheridan matter?"
"Worried? No, dearest child, what is there to worry about? It isn't
blackmail, apparently it's nothing but an overdose of imagination on
your mother's part. If the girl really was promised something, or
has--for example!--old stock, or if her father was an employee who did
this or that or the other--Mrs. Sheridan's husband was employed by your
father at the time of his death, by the way--why, it's easy enough to
pay the claim, whatever it is! The girl seems to have made a nice
impression--your mother tells me she's sold me books, but that doesn't
mean much, I buy books everywhere! No, I don't think you'll ever hear of
her again. But your mother will be here in a day or two; see what you
can make of it all!"
"Oh, of course, it's nothing _wrong_!" Alice said, confidently.
And Christopher returned to his beloved piano, relieved in mind by his
wife's counsel, refreshed in body by the impromptu supper, and ready for
the music that soothed in him all the restless and unsatisfied fibres of
his soul.