THE HONEYMOONERS
Again Jack's arm tightened about Mrs. De Peyster in his convulsive
glee, and again he exclaimed, "Oh, Matilda, won't it be a lark!"
Only the embrace of Jack's good left arm kept Mrs. De Peyster from
subsiding into a jellied heap upon her parqueted floor. It had ever
been her pride, and a saying of her admirers, that she always rose
equal to every emergency. But at the present moment she had not a
thought, had not a single distinct sensation. She was wildly, weakly,
terrifyingly dizzy--that was all; and her only self-control, if the
paralysis of an organ may be called controlling it, was that she held
her tongue.
Fortunately, at first, there was little necessity for her speaking.
The bride and groom were too joyously loquacious to allow her much
chance for words, and too bubbling over with their love and with the
spirit of daring mischief to be observant of any strangeness in her
demeanor that the darkness did not mask. As they chattered on, Mrs.
De Peyster began to regain some slight steadiness--enough to consider
spasmodically how she was to escape undiscovered from the pair, how
she was to extricate herself from the predicament of the moment--for
beyond that moment's danger she had not the power to think. She had
decided that she must somehow get away from the couple at once; in the
darkness slip unobserved into her sitting-room; lock the door; remain
there noiseless;--she had decided so much, when suddenly her wits were
sent spinning by a new fear.
The real Matilda! Mrs. De Peyster's ears, at that moment frantically
acute, registered dim movements of Matilda overhead.
Suppose the real Matilda should hear their voices; suppose she should
come walking down into the scene! With two Matildas simultaneously
upon the stage--
Mrs. De Peyster reached out and clutched the banister of the stairway
with drowning hands.
The pair talked on to her, answering themselves. They would take the
rooms above Mrs. De Peyster's suite, they said--they would give her,
Matilda, no trouble at all--they would attend to their own housework,
everything--and so on, and so on, with Mrs. De Peyster hearing
nothing, but reaching aurally out for Matilda's exposing tread. To
forestall this exposure, she started weakly up the stairs, only to be
halted by the slipping of Jack's arm around her shoulder. The couple
chattered on about their household arrangements, and Mrs. De Peyster
the prisoner of Jack's affectionate arm, stood gulping, as though her
soul were trying to swallow itself, ready to sink through her floor at
the faintest approach of her housekeeper's slippers.
And then again the arm of the exuberant Jack tightened about her. "Oh,
say, what a wild old time we're going to have! Won't we, Matilda?"
"Ye--yes," Mrs. De Peyster felt constrained to answer.
"But it's mighty dangerous!" cried the little figure, with a shivery
laugh.
"Dangerous!" chuckled Jack with his mischievous glee. "Well, rather!
And that's half the fun. If the newspapers were to get on to the fact
that the son of _the_ Mrs. De Peyster had secretly married without
his mother's knowledge, and that the young scamp and his wife were
secretly living in her house--can't you just see the reporters
jimmying open every window to get at us!"
"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster faintly.
"Really, Jack," protested the girlish voice, "I think it's scandalous
of us to be doing this!"
"Come, now, Mary, nobody's going to be any the worse, or any the
wiser, for it. We're just using something that would otherwise be
wasted--and we'll vanish at the first news that mother's coming back.
But, of course, Matilda, we've certainly got to be all-fired
careful. I'll leave the house only in the early mornings--by the
back way--through Washington Mews--either when the coast is clear
or there's a crowd. There are so many artists and chauffeurs and
stablemen coming and going through the Mews that I'm sure I can manage
it without being noticed. And I'll come back in the same way; and our
food I'll smuggle in of nights."
"And I, Matilda, I shall not mind staying in at all," bubbled the Mary
person. "It will give me a splendid chance to practice. You see, I
hope to go on a concert tour this fall."
"By the way, Matilda, about the row Mary'll be making on the piano.
Couldn't you just casually mention to anybody you see that mother had
bought one of these sixty-horse-power, steam-hammer piano-players and
you were the engineer, running it a lot to while away the lonesome
months?"
"Do you want to intimate, sir," demanded Mary with mock hauteur, "that
my playing sounds like a--"
"What I want to intimate, madam, is that I'd like to avoid having our
happy home raided by the police. Matilda, you could do that, couldn't
you--just casually?"
"Yes--M--Mr. Jack," mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.
"There, everything's settled. We'll go up to our rooms. You wouldn't
mind helping us a bit, Matilda?"
Mrs. De Peyster had one supreme thought. If they went upstairs, they
might run into the other Matilda. The frantic, drowning impulse to put
off disaster every possible moment caused her to clutch Jack's arm.
"There's--something to eat--in the dining-room. Perhaps you'd like--"
"Great idea, Matilda! Lead on."
Mrs. De Peyster gave thanks that all the lights but one had been
switched off. And fortunately the light from that one shaded bulb was
almost lost in the great dining-room. Subconsciously Mrs. De Peyster
recalled Matilda's injunction to "be humble," and she let her manner
slump--though at that moment she had no particular excess of dignity
to discard.
Jack sighted the food Matilda had left upon the table. With a swoop he
was upon it.
"Oh, joy! Squabs! Asparagus!" And he seized a squab by the legs, with
a hand that was still bandaged. "Here you are, my dear," tearing off a
leg and handing it to Mary, who accepted it gingerly. With much gusto
Jack took a bite of bird and a huge bite of bread. "Great little
wedding supper, Matilda! Thanks. But I say, Matilda, you haven't yet
spoken up about _meine liebe Frau_. Don't you think she'll do?"
"Now, Jack dear, don't be a fool!"
"Mrs. Jack de Peyster, I'll have you understand your husband can't be
a fool! Come now, Matilda,--my bonny bride, look at her. Better lift
your veil."
Mrs. De Peyster did not lift her veil. But helplessly she gave a
glance toward this new wife Jack had thus brought home: a glance so
distracted that it could see nothing but vibrating blurs.
"Well? Well?" prompted Jack. "Won't she do?"
"Yes," in a husky whisper.
"And don't you think, when mother sees her, she'll say the same?"
"I'm sure--I'm sure--" her choking voice could get out no more.
"Oh, but I shall be so afraid!" cried Mary, again with that shivery
little laugh.
"Nothing to be afraid of, Mary. Mother's really a good sort."
"Jack! To call one's mother a 'good sort'!"
"Why not? She's bug-house on this social position business, but aside
from that she's perfectly human."
"Jack!" in her scandalized tone. "Isn't he awful Matilda?"
"Ye--yes, ma'am."
"Don't call me 'ma'am,' Matilda. Since we're to be together constantly
this summer, call me Mary."
"Yes, ma'a--Mary."
"That's right, Matilda," put in Jack. "We're going to run this place
as a democracy. You're to have all your meals with us."
"And I'll help you get them!" Mary cried excitedly. "You'll find me
tagging around after you most of the time. For, think of it, you're
the only woman I'm going to see in months!"
"Ye--yes, Mary."
"Jack, you run along, there's a dear," commanded Mary, "and unpack
your things. Matilda and I want to have a little chat."
"Married six hours, and bossed already," grumbled Jack happily. "All
right. But that bit of a squab I ate was nothing. I'm starved. I'll
be back in five minutes and then we'll get a real supper down in the
kitchen."
"Yes, all three of us," agreed Mary.
Jack picked up his bag. Frantically Mrs. De Peyster tried to think of
some way of holding him back from a possible damnatory encounter with
Matilda upon the stairway. But she could think of nothing. Jack went
out.
Mary ordered Mrs. De Peyster into a chair, and sat down facing her.
Mrs. De Peyster strained her ears for the surprised voices that would
announce the disastrous meeting. But there sounded from above no
startled cries. Jack must have got to his room, unnoticed by Matilda.
Mrs. De Peyster breathed just a little easier. The evil moment was put
off.
"Matilda," began Mary, "I want you to tell me the honest truth about
something. I think Jack's been trying to deceive me. To make me feel
better, the dear boy, he's been telling me there'd not be the least
doubt about his mother being reconciled to our marriage. Do you think
she ever will be?"
"Well--well--"
"Please! Will she, or won't she?"
"You can only--only hope--for the best."
"I hope she will, for Jack's sake!" sighed Mary deeply. She picked
up an evening paper Jack had brought in. "Did you know his mother was
very ill at the time she sailed? This paper says she was so sick that
she was unable to see a single one of her friends who came to see her
off. That was too bad, wasn't it!" There was a great deal of genuine
feeling in the voice of the small person.
Mrs. De Peyster remained silent.
"Why, you don't seem at all sympathetic, Matilda!"
Mrs. De Peyster put a hand to her lips. "I'm--I'm very sorry, ma'am,"
she mumbled between her fingers, trying to assume Matilda's humility.
"Why, what's the matter with your voice? It seems husky."
"It's just"--Mrs. De Peyster swallowed--a little summer cold I caught
to-day. It's--it's nothing, ma'am."
"I'm sorry!" exclaimed the little person. "But, Matilda, how many more
times have I got to tell you I don't like your 'ma'aming' me. Call me
Mary."
"Very well--Mary."
"That's right. And now, as to Jack's mother; the paper says society is
very much concerned over her condition."
On the whole, Mrs. De Peyster's concern over her condition was rather
more acute than society's. But she had begun to recover in a degree,
and was now, though palpitant within, making a furtive study of Mary.
Such light as there was fell full upon that small person. Mrs. De
Peyster saw a dark, piquant face, with features not regular, but ever
in motion and quick with expression--eyes of a deep, deep brown, with
a glimmer of red in them, eyes that gave out an ever-changing sparkle
of sympathy and mischief and intelligence--and a mass of soft dark
hair, most unstylishly, most charmingly arranged, that caught some of
the muffled light and softly glowed with a reddish tone. If there was
anything vulgar, or commonplace, about Jack's wife, the shaded bulb
was too kindly disposed to betray it to Mrs. De Peyster's scrutiny.
Suddenly Mary laughed--softly, musically.
"If Jack's mother ever dreamed what Jack and I are doing here! Oh--oh!
Some day, after she's forgiven us--if ever she does forgive us--You've
said you're sure she'll forgive us, Matilda; do you honestly, truly,
cross-your-heartly, believe she will?"
"Y-e-s," said Mrs. De Peyster's numb lips.
"I do hope so, for Jack's sake!" sighed the little person. "After she
forgives us, I'm going to 'fess up everything. Of course she'll be
scandalized--for what we're doing is simply awful!--but all the same
I'll tell her. And after she's forgiven us, I'll make her forgive you,
too, Matilda, for your part in harboring us here. We'll see that you
do not suffer."
Mrs. De Peyster realized that she should have expressed thanks at this
point. But silence she considered better than valor.
"This paper prints that picture of her by M. Dubois again. Really,
Matilda, is she as terribly dignified as that makes her look?"
Mrs. De Peyster had to speak. "I--I--hardly, ma'am."
"There you go with that 'ma'am' again!"
"Hardly, Mary," mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.
"Because if she looks anything like that picture, it must simply scare
you to death to live with her. Did she ever bend her back?"
Silence.
"Or smile?"
Silence.
"Or forget that she was a De Peyster?"
Silence.
"The lady of that picture never did!" declared the little person
with conviction. "She's just dignity and pride--calm, remote, lofty,
icebergy pride. She can say her ancestors backwards. Why, she's her
family tree, petrified!"
Mrs. De Peyster did not feel called upon to add to these remarks.
"I don't see how she can possibly like me!" cried the little person.
"Do you, Matilda?"
"I suppose--you can--only wait--and see," replied Mrs. De Peyster.
"I haven't got any dignity, or any money, or any ancestors; only a
father and a couple of grandfathers--though I dare say there were some
Morgans before them. No, she'll never care for me--never!" wailed the
little person. "She couldn't! Why, she's carved out of a solid block
of dignity! She never did an un-De-Peyster thing in her life!"
Mrs. De Peyster felt herself choking. She had to get out of the room,
or die.
Just then Jack walked back in. For a few moments she had forgotten
Jack. The terror arising from the menace upstairs returned to her.
But Jack's happy face was assurance that as yet he knew nothing of the
second Matilda.
Yes, she had to get out, or die. And Jack's reappearance gave her
frantic mind a cue for an unbetraying exit.
"I'll go to the kitchen--and start supper," she gulped, and hurried
into the butler's pantry.
"Jack," she heard Mary's perplexed voice, "Matilda, somehow, seems
rather queer to me."
"She doesn't seem quite herself," agreed Jack.
Mrs. De Peyster sank into a chair beside the door, and sat there
motionless, hardly daring to breathe--shattered by the narrowness of
her escape, and appalled by this new situation that had risen around
her--too appalled even to consider what might be the situation's
natural developments. Soon amid the wild churning of various emotions,
anger began to rise, and outraged pride. Such cool, dumbfounding
impudence!
Then curiosity began to stir. Instinct warned her, incoherently, for
all her faculties were too demoralized to be articulate, that this was
no place for her. But those two persons in there--her son, and
this daughter-in-law who had burst out of a fair cloud upon her--a
daughter-in-law whom she would never recognize--what were they doing?
Cautiously, ever so cautiously, she pushed open the pantry door till
there was a slight crack giving into the other room.
Jack had his arms about Mary's shoulders.
"Well, little lady," she heard him ask with tremulous fondness--the
young fool!--"What do you think of our honeymoon?"
"I think, sir, that it's something scandalous!" (Not such an
unpleasant voice--but then!)
"U'm! Has the fact occurred to you"--very solemnly--"that you haven't
kissed me since we have been in this room?"
"Was it written in the bond that I had to kiss you in every room?"
"No matter about the bond. A kiss or a divorce. Take your choice."
"It isn't worth divorcing you, since you may be too poor to pay
alimony. So"--sighing and turning her face up to him.
(Sentimental idiots!)
"Mary"--after a moment of clinging lips--"you think you can really be
happy with me?"
"I know I shall be, dear!"
"Even if things don't go right between mother and me, and even if for
a long time I shall be awfully, awfully poor?"
"It's just you I care for, Jack,--just you!"
Jack stared at her; then suddenly:
"Do you know what I feel like?"
"No."
"Like kissing you again."
"Now don't be--"
"Mary!"
His voice was tremulous. Slowly their lips came together; they
embraced; then drew apart, and holding hands, stood gazing at each
other.
"You're a dear, dear fool!" said Mary softly.
"And you're a dear, dear another!" softly said Jack.
(Outrageous fools, both! agreed Mrs. De Peyster.)
They were still gazing at each other when in the wide doorway at their
back appeared Matilda, carrying the tray of tea-things that had been
in Mrs. De Peyster's sitting-room. For the last few moments Mrs. De
Peyster's danger had been forgotten in her indignation. But at sight
of Matilda, regained its own.
Matilda stopped short. The tea-things almost rattled from the tray.
Jack wheeled about.
"Hello, Matilda. Thought you'd gone down to the kitchen."
"Why--why--if it isn't Mr. Jack!" stammered Matilda.
Mrs. De Peyster trembled. What more likely than that Matilda, in her
amazement, should reveal the house's secret? But the half-light of the
room was a very obliging ally against such unsuspicion as her son's.
"Of course, it's Jack," said he. "Who else did you suppose it was? But
say, what's the matter, Matilda?"
"Yes, what's the matter, Matilda?" asked Mary with great concern.
"Ma'am--ma'am"--staring wildly at Mary--"I--I don't know, ma'am."
"What, have you already forgotten what I told you about calling me
Mary!"
"Ma--Mary?" gasped Matilda blankly.
"Jack," said Mary in a low voice, "I said awhile ago that she seemed
queer."
"Where have you put your head, Matilda? Yes--Mary!--Mary!--Mary! Mary
De Peyster--Mrs. Jack De Peyster--my wedded wife--whom it cost me four
thirty-nine to make my own. Understand?"
"P-per-perfectly, Mr. Jack."
"Well, that's happy news. What's that you're carrying?"
"It's--ah--er--my breakfast," explained Matilda.
"Your breakfast!" exclaimed Jack. "What are you doing with it here?"
"I was--I was--er--was going to--to get it all ready to--to take up to
myself to-morrow."
Jack took the tray from Matilda's nerveless hands.
[Illustration: "WHAT'S THAT YOU'RE CARRYING?"]
"Sit down, Matilda," firmly pressing her into a chair. "Mary, have you
some salts in that bag."
"Yes, Jack." In an instant Mary had a bottle from her bag and was
holding it beneath Matilda's nose. "You'll be all right in just a
moment. Take it easy. The surprise must have been too much for you.
For it was a big surprise, wasn't it?"
"Yes, ma'am," replied Matilda, for the first time speaking with no
hesitancy.
"Matilda, it's almost provoking the way you ignore my request to call
me Mary."
"Ah--er--" staring wildly--"yes, Mary."
Jack moved to the wall near the door, where were several buttons.
"Mary, I'm going to ring for William--we'd better take him into this
thing straight off, or he may stumble on the fact that extra people
are in the house and call in the police."
At her crack in the pantry door, Mrs. De Peyster grew even more
apprehensive.
Jack and Mary cooed; Matilda sat all of a heap; and presently William
walked in. To her other emotions, Mrs. De Peyster had added a new
shock. For William the peerless--fit coachman for an emperor--William,
whom till that night she could not have imagined, had she imagined
about such things at all, other than as sleeping in a high collar and
with all his brass buttons snugly buttoned--William was coatless, and
collarless, and slouching from his mouth was an old pipe!
He came in with a haughty glower, for he had supposed the ring to
be Matilda's. But at sight of Jack and Mary his face went blank with
amazement.
"Why, why, Mr. Jack!" Hastily he jerked his pipe into his pocket and
began buttoning the open collar of his shirt. "I--I beg pardon, sir."
"Hello, William! This is Mrs. Jack, William. Just married. We've come
to spend the summer with you."
"Yes, sir."
"But on the quiet, William. Understand? If you leak a word about our
being here--well, I know about the heart-throb business between you
and Matilda. If you drop one word--one single word, I put mother next
to what's doing between you two."
"Yes, sir."
"Just wanted you to know we were here, William, so you wouldn't by any
chance throw a surprise that would give us away. That's all. Keep mum
about us"--with a sly wink at him and another at Matilda--"and you two
can goo-goo at each other like a popular song. Good-night."
Jack turned his back; and Mary, whose heart went out to all lovers,
delicately turned hers.
"William," fluttered Matilda, taking an eager, hesitating step toward
him.
He stared at her haughtily--as haughtily as is in the power of a mere
mortal who has no collar on.
"William," she cried bewildered, "what is it?"
"I believe you know what it is, Miss Simpson," he replied witheringly,
and stalked out under full majesty.
She stood dumbfounded; but only for a moment.
"Matilda," spoke up Jack, "have you got supper things started yet in
the kitchen?"
"Er--er--what?" stammered poor Matilda.
"Say, see here--what the dickens _is_ the matter with you?" Jack
exploded in exasperation. "You just promised to start supper in the
kitchen, and now--"
"Of course--of course," gulped Matilda, "I forgot. I'll do it right
away."
Matilda was reeling. But she perceived that here was her chance to
get out of the room--and for the moment that was her supreme and only
desire. She started for the door of the butler's pantry.
"We'll be down with you in about five minutes," Jack called after her.
In the darkness of the pantry a hand fell upon her arm. "Matilda,"
breathed her mistress's voice, and Matilda had enough control not
to cry out, or was too far gone. Clutching hands, they went down the
winding stairs that led from the butler's pantry to the kitchen.
"Oh, ma'am, ma'am!" moaned Matilda in the darkness.
"Matilda"--in awed breathlessness--"isn't this terrible?"
"Oh, ma'am! ma'am!"
"If Jack should learn that I am here--" She could not express the
horror of it.
"Oh, ma'am!"
Mrs. De Peyster's voice rang out with wild desperation.
"Matilda, there is only one thing to do! We must leave the house!"
"I think we'd better, ma'am," Matilda snuffled hysterically, "for with
all of you here, and this keeping up, I--I don't think I'd last a day,
ma'am."
"And we must leave at once! We've not a second to spare. They said
they were coming right down. We must be out of the house before they
come!"
"Oh, ma'am, yes! This minute! But where--"
"There's no time to think of anything now but getting out," cried Mrs.
De Peyster with frantic energy. "Slip up the front stairway, Matilda,
and get your hat. And here are my keys. Lock my sitting-room, so they
can't see any one's been living in it. You can manage it without them
seeing you. And for heaven's sake, hurry!"
Two minutes later these things were done, and Matilda, bonneted, was
hurrying forward hand in hand with Mrs. De Peyster through the black
hallway of the basement. Behind them, descending the stairs from
the butler's pantry, sounded the chatter and laughter of the larking
honeymooners; and then from the kitchen came the surprised and
exasperated call: "Hello, Matilda--See here, where the dickens are
you?"
But at just that moment the twin, unbreathing figures in black slipped
through the servants' door and noiselessly closed it behind them.