A PLEASANT HERMITAGE
When she awoke, it was with a sweet, languorous sense of perfect
comfort. Heavy-lidded, she glanced about her. Ah! Once more she was
in her own wide, gracious bed--of a different caste, of an entirely
different race, from the second maid's paving-stone pallet, from
that folding, punitive contrivance from whose output of anguish
Mrs. Gilbert managed to extract a profit. Also she was in sweet,
ingratiating linen--the first fresh personal linen that had touched
her in nine days.
It was all as though she were enfolded deep in the embrace of a not
too fervent benediction.
About her were the large, dignified spaces of her bedroom, and beyond
were the yet greater spaces of her sitting-room; and from where she
lay she could see the gleaming white of her large tiled bathroom. And
there were drawers and drawers of fresh _lingerie_; and there were her
closets filled with comfortable gowns that would be a thousand times
more grateful after a week of Matilda's unchanged and oppressive
black. And there on her dressing-table were the multitudinous
implements of silver that had to do with her toilet.
After what she had been through, this, indeed, was comfort.
But as consciousness grew clearer, her forgotten troubles and her
dangers returned to her. For a brief period alarm possessed her. Then
reason began to assert itself; and the hope which the night before had
been hardly more than desperation began to take on the character of
confidence. She saw possibilities. And the longer she considered, the
more and greater the possibilities were. Her original plan began to
re-present itself to her; modified, of course, to meet the altered
conditions. If she could only remain here, undiscovered, then months
hence, when it was announced that Mrs. De Peyster (she sent up a
warm prayer for Olivetta!) was homeward bound, Jack and Mary and that
unthinkable Mr. Pyecroft would decamp, if they had not gone before,
and leave the way clear for the easy interchange by Olivetta and
herself of their several personalities.
As she lay there in the gentle Sabbath calm, in the extra-curled hair
of her ultra-superior mattress, this revised version of her plan, in
the first glow of its conception, seemed alluringly plausible. She
had to be more careful, to be sure, but aside from this the new plan
seemed quite as good as the original. In fact, in her reaction from
the alarms of yesterday, it somehow seemed even better.
Twelve hours before there had seemed no possible solution to her
predicament. And here it was--come unexpectedly to her aid, as was
the way with things in life; and a very simple solution, too.
Lazily, hazily, a poet's line teased and evaded her memory. What was
it?--something about "a pleasant hermitage." That was just what this
was: a pleasant hermitage.
But presently, as she lay comforting herself, and the morning wore
on, she became increasingly conscious of an indefinable uncomfortable
sensation. And presently the sensation became more definite; became
localized; and she was aware that she was growing hungry. And in the
same moment came the dismaying realization that, in their haste of
the night before, she had not thought to plan with Matilda for the
somewhat essential item of food!
She sat up. What was she ever to do? Three months of solitary
confinement, with no arrangements for food! Would Matilda have the
sense to think of this, and if so would she have the adroitness to
smuggle edibles in to her unnoticed? Or was she to be starved out?
The revised plan had lost its first rose-tint.
She got up, and noiselessly foraged throughout her quarters. The total
of her gleaning was a box of forgotten chocolate bon-bons and a box of
half-length tallow candles. She had read that Esquimaux ate tallow, or
its equivalent, and prospered famously upon it; but she deferred the
candles in favor of the bon-bons, and breakfasted on half the box.
Then she went back to bed and read. In the afternoon she ate the
second half of the bon-bons.
Also in the afternoon she discovered that the bliss of lying abed,
which she had thought would be exhaustless, had inexplicably become
transmitted into boredom. And yet she dared not move about, save with
a caution that amounted almost to pain; for she had heard Jack and
Mary and Mr. Pyecroft pass and re-pass her door, and she knew that any
slight noise on her part might result in disastrous betrayal.
Evening drew on. Bed, and sitting noiseless in one spot, grew more
wearisome. And her stomach began to complain bitterly, for as has been
remarked it was a pampered creature and had been long accustomed to
being served sumptuously and with deferential promptitude. But she
realized that Matilda would not dare come, if she remembered to come
at all, until the household was fast asleep.
Eight o'clock came. She lit one of the candles and placed it,
cautiously shaded, in a corner of her sitting-room....
Ten o'clock came.
She looked meditatively at the box of candles. Perhaps the Esquimaux
ate them with a kind of sauce. They might not be so bad that way....
Midnight came. Shortly thereafter a faint, ever so faint, knocking
sent her tiptoeing--for months she would dare move only on breathless
tiptoe!--to the door of her sitting-room, where she stood and
listened.
Again the faint knocking sounded.
"Mrs. De Peyster, it's Matilda," whispered an agitated voice.
Mrs. De Peyster quickly unlocked and opened the door. Matilda slipped
in and the door was softly closed upon her back.
"Here's some food--just what I could grab in a second--I didn't
dare take time to choose." Matilda held out a bundle wrapped in a
newspaper. "Take it, ma'am. I don't dare stay here a second."
But Mrs. De Peyster caught her arm.
"How did they take my going?"
"Mr. Jack thought home was really the best place for my sister, if she
was sick, ma'am. And Mary was awfully kind and asked me all sorts of
questions--which--which I found it awfully hard to answer, ma'am,--and
she is going to send you the book you didn't finish. And Mr. Pyecroft
got me off into a corner and said, so we'd tried to give him the slip
again."
"What is he going to do?"
"He said he was safe here, under Judge Harvey's protection. Outside
some detective might insist on arresting him, and perhaps things might
take such a turn that even Judge Harvey might not be able to help him.
So he said he was going to stay on here till things blew over. Oh,
please, ma'am, let me go, for if they were to hear me--"
A minute later the chattering Matilda was out of the room, the door
was locked, and Mrs. De Peyster was sitting in a chair with the bundle
of provisions on her exquisitely lacquered tea-table. In the newspaper
was a small loaf of bread, a tin of salmon, and a kitchen knife. That
was all. Not even butter! And, of course, no coffee--she who liked
coffee, strong, three times a day. But when was she ever again to know
the taste of coffee!
Never before had she sat face to face with such an uninteresting menu.
But she devoured it--opening the tin of salmon after great effort with
the knife--devoured it every bit. Then she noticed the newspaper in
which the provisions had been wrapped. It was part of that day's,
Sunday's, "Record," and it was the illustrated supplement. This she
unfolded, and before her eyes stood a big-lettered title, "Annual
Exodus of Society Leaders," and in the queenly place in the center of
the page was her own portrait by M. Dubois.
Her eyes wandered up to the original, which was dimly illumined by
the rays of her one candle. What poise, what breeding, what calm,
imperturbable dignity! Then her gaze came back to her be-crumbed
tea-table, with the kitchen knife and the raggedly gaping can. She
slipped rather limply down in her chair and covered her eyes.
A day passed--and another--and another. Outside Mrs. De Peyster's
suite these days flew by with honeymoon rapidity; within, they
lingered, and clung on, and seemed determined never to go, as is
time's malevolent practice with those imprisoned. Mrs. De Peyster
could hear Mary practicing, and practicing hard--and, yes,
brilliantly. As for Jack, Matilda told her on her later visits--and
her later bundles contained a larger and more palatable supply of food
than had the first package--Matilda said that Jack, too, was working
hard. Furthermore, Matilda admitted, the pair were having the jolliest
of honeymoons.
And a further thing Matilda told on her third furtive, after-midnight
visit. This concerned Mr. Pyecroft. Mr. Pyecroft, it seemed, was
becoming an even greater favorite with Jack and Mary--particularly
with Mary. He had confided to them that he was weary of his escapades,
and wanted to settle down; in fact, there was a girl--the nicest girl
in the world, begging Mary's pardon--who had promised to marry him as
soon as he had become launched in honorable work. The trouble was, he
knew that no business man would employ him in a responsible capacity,
and so his last departures from strict rectitude had been for the
purpose of securing the capital to set himself up in some small but
independent way.
His story, Matilda admitted, had captured Mary's heart.
Judge Harvey, however, still smarting under his indignity, would on
his evening calls scarcely speak to Mr. Pyecroft. Nonetheless, Mr.
Pyecroft had continued regretful and polite. Once or twice, Judge
Harvey, forgetting his resentment, had been drawn into discussions
of points of law with Mr. Pyecroft. To Matilda, who, of course, knew
nothing about law, it had seemed that Mr. Pyecroft talked almost as
well as the Judge himself. But the Judge, the instant he remembered
himself, resumed his ire toward Mr. Pyecroft.
Thus three days, in which it seemed to Mrs. De Peyster that Time stood
still and taunted her,--each day exactly like the day before, a day
of half starvation, of tiptoed, breathless routine,--days in which she
spoke not a word save a whisper or two at midnight at the food-bearing
visit of the sad-visaged Matilda,--three dull, diabolic days dragged
by their interminable length of hours. Such days!--such awful, awful
days!
On Matilda's fourth visit with her usual bundle of pilferings from the
pantry, Mrs. De Peyster observed in the manner of that disconsolate
pirate a great deal of suppressed agitation--of a sort hardly
ascribable to the danger of their situation: an agitation quite
different from mere nervous fear. There were traces of recent crying
in Matilda's face, and now and then she had difficulty in holding
down a sob. Mrs. De Peyster pressed her as to the trouble; Matilda
chokingly replied that there was nothing. Mrs. De Peyster persisted,
and soon Matilda was weeping openly.
"Oh, my heart's broke, ma'am!" she sobbed. "My heart's broke!"
"Your heart broken! How?"
"Before I can tell you, ma'am," cried the miserable Matilda, "I've got
to make a confession. I've done--something awful! I've disobeyed you,
ma'am! I've disobeyed and deceived you!"
"What, Matilda," said Mrs. De Peyster severely, "after the way I've
trusted you for twenty years!"
"Yes, ma'am. But, I couldn't help it, ma'am! There's feelings one
can't--"
"But what have you done?"
"I've--I've fallen in love, ma'am. For over a year I've been the same
as engaged to William."
"William!" cried Mrs. De Peyster, sinking back from her erect,
reproving posture, and recalling an unforgettable episode.
"Yes, ma'am,--to William. I'm sorry I disobeyed you, ma'am,--very
sorry,--but I can't think about that now. For now," sobbed Matilda,
"for now it's all off--and my heart is broke!"
"All off? Why?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
"That's what I can't understand, ma'am," wailed Matilda. "It's all a
mystery to me. I've hardly seen William, and haven't spoken to him,
since we came back, and he's acted awfully queer to me. I--I couldn't
stand it any longer, and this evening I went out to the stable to see
him. He was as stiff, and as polite, and as mad as--oh, William was
never like that to me before, ma'am! I asked him what was the matter.
'All right, if you want to break off, I'm willing!' he said in, oh,
such a hard voice. 'But, William,' I said, beginning to cry, 'but,
William, what have I ever done to you?' 'You know what you've done!'
he said."
"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
"I begged him to explain, but he just turned his back on me and walked
away! And now, ma'am," wept Matilda, "I know he'll never explain, he's
such a proud, obstinate, stiff-necked man! And I love him so, Mrs. De
Peyster,--I love him so! Oh, my heart is broke!"
Mrs. De Peyster gazed at her sobbing serving-woman in chilled dismay.
She was for a moment impelled to explain to Matilda; but she quickly
realized it would never, never do for her housekeeper to know that
her coachman had made love to her, and had--had even kissed her. Every
drop of De Peyster blood revolted against such a degradation.
"I hope it will come out all right, Matilda," she said in a shaking
voice.
"Oh, it never can!" Matilda had already started for the door. She
paused, hesitant, with the knob in her hand. "But you, ma'am," she
faltered, "can you ever forgive me for the way I deceived you?"
Mrs. De Peyster tried to look severe, yet relenting.
"I'll try to overlook it, Matilda."
"Thank you, ma'am," snuffled Matilda; and very humbly she went out.