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NO. 13 WASHINGTON SQUARE
by
LEROY SCOTT
1914
[Illustration: "I NEVER SUSPECTED I'D END IN SUCH A LITTLE BLAZE"]
CONTENTS
I. THE GREAT MRS. DE PEYSTER
II. ENTER AN AMIABLE YOUNG GENTLEMAN
III. MISTRESS OF HER HOUSE
IV. A SLIGHT PREDICAMENT
V. THE HONOR OF THE NAME
VI. BEHIND THE BLINDS
VII. NOT IN THE PLAN
VIII. THE HONEYMOONERS
IX. THE FLIGHT
X. PEACE--OF A SORT
XI. THE REVEREND MR. PYECROFT
XII. HOME AGAIN
XIII. THE HAPPY FAMILY
XIV. THE ATTIC ROOM
XV. DOMESTIC SCENES
XVI. THE MAN IN THE CELLULOID COLLAR
XVII. A QUESTION OF IDENTITY
XVIII. THE THIRD FLIGHT
XIX. A PLEASANT HERMITAGE
XX. MATILDA BREAKS IT GENTLY
XXI. THE VEILED LADY
XXII. A FAMILY REUNION
XXIII. MR. PYECROFT TAKES CHARGE
ILLUSTRATIONS
"I NEVER SUSPECTED I'D END IN SUCH A LITTLE BLAZE"
"WHAT'S THAT YOU'RE CARRYING?"
"IT IS REALLY A REMARKABLE LIKENESS"
MATILDA UNLOCKED THE SERVANTS' DOOR
"SAME PAPER--SAME HANDWRITING!"
"SO--SO IT'S I--THAT'S--THAT'S DEAD!"
NO. 13 WASHINGTON SQUARE
CHAPTER I
THE GREAT MRS. DE PEYSTER
It was a raw, ill-humored afternoon, yet too late in the spring for
the ministration of steam heat, so the unseasonable May chill was
banished from Mrs. De Peyster's sitting-room by a wood fire that
crackled in the grate; crackled most decorously, be it added, for
Mrs. De Peyster's fire would no more have forgotten itself and shown
a boisterous enthusiasm than would one of her admirably trained
servants. Beside a small steel safe, whose outer shell of exquisite
cabinet-work transformed that fortress against burglarious desire into
an article of furniture that harmonized with the comfortable elegance
of a lady's boudoir, sat Mrs. De Peyster herself--she was born a De
Peyster--carefully transferring her jewels from the trays of the safe
to leathern cases. She looked quite as Mrs. De Peyster should have
looked: with an aura of high dignity that a sixty-year-old dowager of
the first water could not surpass, yet with a freshness of person that
(had it not been for her dignity) might have made her early forties
seem a blossomy thirty-five.
Before the well-bred fire sat a lady whose tears had long since
dried that she had shed when she had bid good-bye to thirty. She
was--begging the lady's pardon--a trifle spare, and a trifle pale,
and though in a manner well enough dressed her clothes had an air
of bewilderment, of general irresolution, as though each article was
uncertain in its mind as to whether it purposed to remain where it had
been put, or casually wander away on blind and timorous adventures.
A dozen years before, Mrs. De Peyster, then in the fifth year of her
widowhood, had graciously undertaken to manage and underwrite the
début of her second cousin (not of the main line, be it said) and had
tried to discharge her duty in the important matter of securing her
a husband. But her efforts had been futile, and to say that Mrs. De
Peyster had not succeeded was to admit that poor Olivetta Harmon
was indeed a failure. She had lacked the fortune to attract the
conservative investor who is looking for a sound business proposition
in her he promises to support; she had lacked the good looks to lure
on the lover who throws himself romantically away upon a penniless
pretty face; and she had not been clever enough to attract the man
so irrationally bold as to set sail upon the sea of matrimony with a
woman of brains. And so, her brief summer at an end, she had receded
to those remote and undiscovered shores on which dwell the poor
relations of the Four Hundred; whereon she had lived respectably, as
a lady (for that she should ever appear a lady was due the position
of Mrs. De Peyster), upon an almost microscopic income; and from which
bleak and distant land of second-cousindom she came in glad and
proud obedience to fill an occasional vacant place at one of Mrs. De
Peyster's second-best dinner parties.
She had arrived but the moment before to bid her exalted cousin adieu
and wish her _bon-voyage_, and was now silently gazing in unenvious
admiration at the jewels Mrs. De Peyster was transferring to their
traveling-cases--with never a guess that perturbation might exist
beneath her kinswoman's composed exterior. As a matter of fact, under
the trying circumstances which confronted Mrs. De Peyster, any other
household would have been in confusion, any lesser woman might have
been headed toward hysteria. But centuries of having had its own will
had established the De Peyster habit of believing that things would
eventuate according to the De Peyster wish; it was not in the De
Peyster blood to give way. And yet, though self-control might restrain
worry from the surface, it could not banish it from the private
chambers of her being.
Mrs. De Peyster glanced at the open door of her
bedroom--hesitated--then called: "Miss Gardner!"
A trim and pretty girl stepped in. "Yes, Mrs. De Peyster."
"Will you please call up Judge Harvey's office once more, and inquire
if there is any news about my son. And ask when Judge Harvey will be
here."
Miss Gardner crossed to Mrs. De Peyster's desk and took up the
telephone.
"Why, Cousin Caroline, has Jack--"
"One moment, Olivetta,"--motioning toward the telephone,--"until Miss
Gardner is through."
They sat silent until the receiver was hung up. Mrs. De Peyster strove
to keep anxiety from her voice.
"Well, Miss Gardner,--any trace of my son yet?"
"They have learned nothing whatever."
"And--and Judge Harvey? When will he be here?"
"His office said he was at a meeting of the directors of the New York
and New England Railroad, and that he was coming here straight after
the meeting."
"Thank you, Miss Gardner. You may now go on with the packing. I'll
have the jewels ready very shortly, and Matilda will be in to help you
as soon as she is through arranging with the servants."
"Why, Cousin Caroline, what is it about Jack?" burst out Olivetta with
an excited flutter after Miss Gardner had gone into the bedroom. "I
hadn't heard anything of it before! Has--has anything happened to
him?"
Olivetta, an intimate, a relative, and a worshipful inferior, was one
of the few persons with whom Mrs. De Peyster could bring herself to
unbend and be confidential. "That is what I do not know. About a week
ago Jack suddenly disappeared--"
"Disappeared!"
"Oh, he left a note, telling me not to worry. But not a word has been
heard from him since. Of course, it may only be some wild escapade,
but then he knew we were going on shipboard this evening, and he
should have been home long before this."
"How terrible!" cried the sympathetic Olivetta, pushing into place a
few of the inconstant hairpins that threatened to bestrew the floor.
"Went a week ago!" And then suddenly: "Why, that was about the time
that first rumor was printed of his engagement to Ethel Quintard. And
again this morning--in the 'Record'--did you see it?"
"I never give thought to the newspapers," was Mrs. De Peyster's
somewhat stiff response.
"You have--have told the police?"
"The police, of course not! But I have advised with Judge Harvey, and
he has a firm of private detectives on the case."
"And they have clues?"
"They have nothing, as you just heard Miss Gardner report."
"Cousin Caroline! With all these--these thugs and hold-up men we read
about--and all the accidents--"
"Olivetta! Don't!" And then in a more composed voice: "I am hoping it
is merely some boyish prank. But even that will be bad enough, if he
misses the boat."
"Yes, I see. You told me about arranging with Mrs. Quintard also to
sail on the Plutonia."
"I had counted on the trip--Jack and Ethel being thrown together, you
know."
"Indeed, it was very clever of you!"
"I am hoping it may be only some boyish prank," Mrs. De Peyster
repeated. "You may not have noticed it, Olivetta," she continued,
permitting a sigh to escape her, "but of late Jack has acted at
times--well, rather queerly."
"Queerly! How?"
"He has been far from being himself. In fact, I have observed a number
of things not at all natural to a De Peyster."
"Caroline! What a worry he must be to you!"
"Yes. But I am hoping for the best. And now, please, we will say no
more about it."
They were silent for a moment. Miss Gardner entered, took the jewels
which in the mean time Mrs. De Peyster had finished putting in their
cases, and went again into the bedroom. Olivetta's eyes followed her.
"You are still pleased with Miss Gardner?"
"Thus far she has proved herself competent. I consider myself very
fortunate in finding a secretary who is not above some of the duties
of a lady's maid. It is a very happy combination for traveling."
"She seems almost too good to be true," mused Olivetta. "She's really
very pretty. I hope Jack hasn't--"
"Olivetta! How can you! Jack has never paid her the slightest
attention, nor she him."
"Pardon me, Caroline! But she's so pretty, and she's just the sort of
girl who attracts men--and--and"--a bit wistfully--"gets engaged and
gets married."
"Nonsense, Olivetta. When she first came to me I asked her if she were
in love or engaged. She said she was not, and I told her my rules. She
is a very sensible girl."
"At any rate, she must be a great relief after that Marie you had."
Mrs. De Peyster flushed, as though at some disagreeable memory.
"Have you learned yet whether Marie was actually a spy for Mrs.
Allistair?" inquired Olivetta.
"She confessed that she was getting money besides the wages I paid
her. That is proof enough."
"I believe it of Mrs. Allistair! She wouldn't stop at anything to win
your place as social leader. But she could never fill it!"
"She will never win it!" Mrs. De Peyster returned with calm
confidence.
At that moment the door from the hallway opened and there entered a
woman of middle age, in respectable dull-hued black, with apron of
black silk and a white cap.
"Ah, Matilda," remarked Mrs. De Peyster. "The servants, are they all
gone yet?"
"The last one, the cook, is just going, ma'am. There's just William
and me left. And the men have already come to board up the windows and
the door."
"You paid the servants board wages as I instructed, and made clear to
them about coming to Newport when I send orders?"
"Yes, ma'am. And they all understand."
"Good," said Mrs. De Peyster. "You have Mr. Jack's trunks packed?"
"All except a few things he may want to put in himself."
"Very well. You may now continue helping Miss Gardner with my things."
But Matilda did not obey. She trembled--blinked her eyes--choked; then
stammered:--
"Please, ma'am, there's--there's something else."
"Something else?" queried Mrs. De Peyster.
"Yes, ma'am. Downstairs there are six or seven young men from the
newspapers. They want--"
"Matilda," interrupted Mrs. De Peyster in stern reproof, "you are well
enough acquainted with my invariable custom regarding reporters to
have acted without referring this matter to me. It is a distinct
annoyance," she added, "that one cannot make a single move without the
newspapers following one!"
"Indeed it is!" echoed the worshipful and indignant Olivetta. "But
that is because of your position."
"I tried to send them away," said Matilda hurriedly. "And I told them
you were never interviewed. But," she ended helplessly, "it didn't do
any good. They're all sitting downstairs waiting."
"I shall not see them," Mrs. De Peyster declared firmly.
"There was one," Matilda added timorously, "who drew me aside and
whispered that he didn't want an interview. He wants your picture."
"Wants my picture!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster.
"Yes, ma'am. He said the pictorial supplement of his paper a week from
Sunday was going to have a page of pictures of prominent society women
who were sailing for Europe. He said something about calling the page
'Annual Exodus of Social Leaders.' He wants to print that painting of
you by that new foreign artist in the center of the page." And Matilda
pointed above the fireplace to a gold-framed likeness of Mrs.
De Peyster--stately, aloof, remote, of an ineffable composure, a
masterpiece of blue-bloodedness.
"You know my invariable custom; give him my invariable answer," was
Mrs. De Peyster's crisp response.
"Pardon me, but--but, Cousin Caroline," put in Olivetta, with eager
diffidence, "don't you think this is different?"
"Different?" asked Mrs. De Peyster. "How?"
"This isn't at all like the ordinary offensive newspaper thing. A
group of the most prominent social leaders, with you in the center of
the page--with you in the center of them all, where you belong! Why,
Caroline,--why--why--" In her excitement for the just glorification of
her cousin, Olivetta's power of speech went fluttering from her.
"Perhaps it may not be quite the same," admitted Mrs. De Peyster. "But
I see no reason for departing from my custom."
"If not for your own sake, then--then for the artist's sake!" Olivetta
pursued, a little more eagerly, and a little more of diffidence in
her eagerness. "You have taken up M. Dubois--you have been his
most distinguished patron--you have been trying to get him properly
started. To have his picture displayed like that, think how it will
help M. Dubois!"
Mrs. De Peyster gave Olivetta a sharp look, as though she questioned
the entire disinterestedness of this argument; then she considered
an instant; and in the main it was her human instinct to help a
struggling fellow being that dictated her decision.
"Matilda, you may give the man a photograph of the picture. And as I
treat the papers without discrimination, you may give photographs
to all the reporters who wish them. But on the understanding that M.
Dubois is to have conspicuous credit."
"Very well, ma'am."
"And send all of them away."
"I'll do what I can, ma'am." And Matilda went out.
"What time does the Plutonia sail?" inquired Olivetta, with the haste
of one who is trying to get off of very thin ice.
"At one to-night. Matilda will get me a bit of dinner and I shall go
aboard right after it."
"How many times does this make that you've been over?"
"I do not know," Mrs. De Peyster answered carelessly. "Thirty or
forty, I dare say."
Olivetta's face was wistful with unenvious envy. "Oh, what a
pleasure!"
"Going to Europe, Olivetta, is hardly a pleasure," corrected Mrs. De
Peyster. "It is a duty one owes one's social position."
"Yes, I know that's true with you, Cousin Caroline. But with me--what
a joy! When you took me over with you that summer, we only did the
watering-places. But now"--a note of ecstatic desire came into
her voice, and she clasped her hands--"but now, to see Paris!--the
Louvre!--the Luxembourg! It's the dream of my life!"
Mrs. De Peyster again gave her cousin a suspicious look.
"Olivetta, have you been allowing M. Dubois to pay you any more
attention?"
"No, no,--of course not," cried Olivetta, and a sudden color tinted
the too-early autumn of her cheeks. "Do you think, after what you
said--"
"M. Dubois is a very good artist, but--"
"I understand, Cousin Caroline," Olivetta put in hastily. "I think
too much of your position to think of such a thing. Since you--since
then--I have not spoken to him, and have only bowed to him once."
"We will say no more about it," returned Mrs. De Peyster; and she
kissed Olivetta with her duchess-like kindness. "By the by, my dear,
your comb is on the floor."
"So it is. It's always falling out."
Olivetta picked it up, put it into place, and with nervous hands tried
to press into order loose-flying locks of her rather scanty hair.
Mrs. De Peyster arose; her worry about her missing son prompted her
to seek the relief of movement. "I think I shall take a turn about the
house to see that everything is being properly closed. Would you like
to come with me?"
Olivetta would; and, talking, they went together down the stairs.
As they neared the ground floor, Matilda's voice arose to them,
expostulating, protesting.
"What can that be about?" wondered Mrs. De Peyster, and following the
voice toward its source she stepped into her reception-room. Instantly
there sprang up and stood before her a young man with the bland,
smiling, excessively polite manner of a gentleman-brigand. And around
her crowded five or six other figures.
Matilda, pressing through them, glared at these invaders in helpless
wrath, then at her mistress in guilty terror.
"I--I did my best, ma'am. But they wouldn't go." And before punishment
could fall she discreetly fled.
"Pardon this seeming intrusion, Mrs. De Peyster," the foremost young
man said rapidly, smoothly, appeasingly. "But we could not go, as
you requested. The sailing of Mrs. De Peyster, under the attendant
circumstances, is a piece of news of first importance; in fact, almost
a national event. We simply had to see you. I trust you perceive and
appreciate our professional predicament."
Mrs. De Peyster was glaring at him with devastating majesty.
"This--this is an outrage!"
"Perhaps it may seem an outrage to you," said the young man swiftly,
politely, and thoroughly undevastated. "But, really, it is only our
duty. Our duty to our papers, and to the great reading public. And
when newspaper men are doing their duty they must necessarily fail,
to their great personal regret, in the observance of some of the nicer
courtesies."
Mrs. De Peyster was almost inarticulate.
"Who--who are you?"
"Mayfair is my name. Of the 'Record.'"
"The 'Record'! That yellow, radical paper!"
Mr. Mayfair stepped nearer. His voice sank to an easy, confidential
tone.
"You are misled by appearances, Mrs. De Peyster. Every paper has got
to have a policy; we're the common people's paper--big circulation,
you know; and we so denounce the rich on our editorial page. But as
a matter of fact we give our readers more live, entertaining, and
respectful matter about society people than any other paper in New
York. It's just what the common people love. And now"--easily shifting
his base--"about this reported engagement of your son and Miss
Quintard. As you know, it's the best 'romance in high life' story of
the season. Will you either confirm or deny the report?"
"I have nothing whatever to say," flamed out Mrs. De Peyster. "And
will you leave this house instantly!"
"Ah, Miss Quintard's mother would not deny it either," commented Mr.
Mayfair with his polite imperturbability. His sharp eyes glinted with
satisfaction. Young Mr. Mayfair admired himself as being something of
the human dynamo. Also it was his private opinion that he was of the
order of the super-reporter; nothing ever "got by him." "And so,"
he went on without a pause, "since the engagement is not denied,
I suppose we may take it as a fact. And now"--again with his swift
change of base--"may I ask, as a parting word before you sail, whether
it is your intention next season to contest with Mrs. Allistair--"
"I have nothing whatever to say!"
"Quite naturally you'd prefer not to say anything," appeasingly
continued the high-geared Mr. Mayfair, "but of course you are going
to fight her." Again his sharp, unfoilable eyes glinted. "'Duel for
social leadership'--pardon me for speaking of it as such, but that's
what it is; and most interesting, I assure you; and I, for one,
trust that you will retain your supremacy, for I know--_I know_," he
repeated with emphasis--"that Mrs. Allistair has used some methods not
altogether--sportsmanlike, may I say? And now"--rapidly shifting once
more--"I trust I will not seem indelicate if I inquire whether it is
in the scope of your present plans, perhaps at house-parties at the
estates of titled friends, to meet the Duke de--"
"I have nothing whatever to say!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster, glaring with
consuming fury.
"Naturally. We could hardly expect a categorical 'yes' or 'no.' We
understand that your position requires you to be non-committal; and
you, of course, understand that we newspaper men interpret a refusal
to speak as an answer in the affirmative. Thank you very much for the
interview you have given us. And I can assure you that we shall all
handle the story with the utmost good taste. Good afternoon."
He bowed. And the next moment the place where he had stood was vacant.
"Of--of all the effrontery!" exploded Mrs. De Peyster.
"Isn't it terrible!" shudderingly gasped the sympathetic Olivetta. "I
hope they won't really drag in that horrible Duke de Crécy!"
Mrs. De Peyster shuddered, too. The episode of the Duke de Crécy was
still salt in an unhealed social wound. The Duke had been New York's
most distinguished titled visitor the previous winter; Mrs. De
Peyster, to the general envy, had led in his entertainment; there
had been whispers of another international marriage. And then, after
respectful adieus, the Duke had sailed away--and within a month
the papers were giving columns to his scandalous escapades with a
sensational Spanish dancer of parsimonious drapery. Whereupon the
rumors of Mrs. De Peyster's previously gossiped-of marriage with the
now notorious Duke were revived--by the subtle instigation, and as an
act of social warfare, so Mrs. De Peyster believed, of her aspiring
rival, Mrs. Allistair. And there was one faint rumor, still daringly
breathed around, that the Duke had proposed--had been accepted--had
run away: in blunt terms, had jilted Mrs. De Peyster.
"We will not speak of this again, Olivetta," Mrs. De Peyster remarked
with returning dignity, "but while the matter is up, I will mention
that the Duke did propose to me, and that I refused him."
With a gesture she silenced any comment from Olivetta. In a breath or
two she was entirely her usual poiseful self. Too many generations
had her blood been trained to ways of dignity, and too long had she
herself been drilled in composure and self-esteem and in a perfect
confidence in the thing that she was, for an invasion of newspaper
creatures to disturb her for longer than a few moments.
She was moving with stately tread toward the dining-room when Matilda
came hurrying up from the nether regions of the house. "Did you know,
ma'am," Matilda fluttered eagerly, "that Mr. Jack is home?"
"My son back!" There was vast relief in Mrs. De Peyster's voice. "When
did he come?"
"A few minutes ago."
"Did--did he say anything?"
"I haven't seen him, ma'am. He came in the back way, through the
stable. William told me about it."
Mrs. De Peyster's voice became composed, severe. "I shall see what he
has to say for himself." Majestically, somewhat ominously, she turned
and began to mount the stairs, followed by Olivetta and Matilda. But
as she passed the library's closed door, she heard Miss Gardner's
voice and a second voice--and the second voice was the voice of a man.
Startled, she paused. She caught a few fragments of phrases.
Indignation surged up within her. Resolutely she stepped to the door;
but by instinct she was no eavesdropper, and she would not come upon
people in compromising attitudes without giving them fair warning. So
she knocked, waited a moment--then opened the door and entered.