GOD'S PUPPETS
"God's puppets best and worst are we,
There is no last or first."
The breakfast-hour in the Anstice household was regularly irregular. A
movable fast, Professor Anstice called it. On the morning of
Thanksgiving Day the hand of the old Dutch clock pointed to nine when
Winifred Anstice entered the dining-room.
A freshly lighted fire blazed on the hearth. The lamp beneath the
silver urn blazed on the table. Toasted muffins and delicate dishes of
honey and marmalade stood upon the buffet.
"Will you wait for Mr. Anstice?" McGregor asked as she entered.
"No, McGregor, I am like time and tide, and wait for no man or woman
either; but you need not hurry, for I will look over my mail while the
eggs are boiling,--just four minutes, remember. I don't want them
bullets, nor yet those odious slimy trickling things which seem only
held together by the shell."
McGregor smiled,--a smile it had cost him twenty years of service in
the best families to acquire,--a smile which expressed respectful
appreciation of the facetiousness intended without any personal share
in it. He never allowed himself to be more amused than a butler should
be.
Winifred Anstice dropped into the chair which he held for her, and
took up, one by one, the letters which lay on the silver tray by her
side. They proved a strange medley, as the morning mail of a New York
woman always is,--a dozen "At Home" cards, Receptions, Teas, "days" in
December, all put aside after a passing glance for future sorting; an
appeal for aid, by a widow who had done washing for the family twenty
years ago, and was sure for the sake of old times Miss Anstice would
lend her a small sum, to tide over the cruel winter when her son could
get no work; a note from Mrs. De Lancey Jones, stating that a few
excellent seats for a performance to be given for the benefit of the
"Manhattan Appendicitis Hospital" could be had from her; there was a
great rush for the tickets, but she wanted if possible to keep a few
for her friends, and would Miss Anstice kindly let her know at once if
she desired any?
Miss Anstice smiled a sceptical smile, which deepened into a laugh
when she picked up the next note, which stated that Mrs.
Brown-Livingston was also holding back a number of the same
much-sought tickets for her friends, but would part with a few to Miss
Anstice if informed at once.
"What frauds these mortals be!" exclaimed Winifred, laying both
requests aside to amuse her father later.
At the next envelope she colored hotly, for she recognized the
handwriting instantly. Indeed it was an easily recognizable
superscription and of very distinct individuality,--a back-hand which
at first glance gave the impression that it must be held up to the
mirror to be read, but on closer scrutiny looked plainer than the
upright round hand of the copy-books. It did not need the "F" upon the
seal to tell Winifred Anstice from whom it came. She opened it, as she
opened all sealed documents, with a hairpin, though two paper-cutters
of silver and ivory lay at her hand on the tray.
The note was brief. It was dated "University Club, Midnight," and had
no beginning, as if the writer could think of none befitting his
feeling.
"I am distracted," it began abruptly, "with the contest of fears and
hopes, regret and satisfaction. If I seem to have unloaded upon you a
burden of responsibility which was justly mine, I beg you to believe
that I did it only because I could see no other way, and even then I
meant only to ask you to share it. In place of this, with
characteristic generosity you insisted upon assuming the whole. This
must not be. Pray name some hour when I may come to you, and let it be
to-morrow. You don't know how far off that seems."
Only that, and then the signature. It was a strange note from a lover;
but to Winifred Anstice it was full of the assurance that the man to
whom she had given her heart (for she admitted it to herself now) was
of a nature large enough to put himself and his own feelings aside and
to believe that she too was capable of the larger vision, the
renunciation of present happiness for pressing duty. The highest plane
upon which those who love can meet is this of united work and united
self-sacrifice.
Winifred's eyes glistened as she read, and when she had finished, she
slipped the note into her pocket for a second reading. As she did so,
Miss Standish entered.
"I declare, Winifred, you get more morning mail than a Congressman."
"Yes," said Winifred, "and my constituents make larger demands."
"It seems to me," said Miss Standish, "that you engage in too many
projects. You do not give yourself time to attend to your own needs
at all."
"Oh, never fear for that!" answered Winifred. "One's own needs pound
at the door; the needs of others only tap. How did you sleep last
night?"
"Finely. I was so tired after that picture exhibition that I could
hardly keep my eyes open. I was glad enough to creep off to bed by
nine o'clock; but do you know I had a confused dream of voices in the
room next mine,--the little one with the green and white hangings. I
thought I heard your voice, and then a stranger's, and I seemed to
catch the word 'Nepaug.' Isn't it curious how dreams come without any
reason whatever?"
"H'm! Sometimes it is, as you say, very curious; but in this
particular instance there was nothing very miraculous about it, since
you did hear voices and you very likely caught the word 'Nepaug,' for
it was certainly mentioned."
"How's that?" questioned Miss Standish, sharply. She did not relish
the idea of having missed any unusual happenings.
Winifred was a little vexed by the note of curiosity in her voice, and
she answered without undue haste, "Yes, it was I and Tilly Marsden;
you remember her, perhaps,--the daughter of the inn-keeper."
There were two things most exasperating to Miss Standish,--one to be
supposed to know what she did not and thereby to be cheated of
acquiring the information, the other to be suspected of not knowing
what she remembered perfectly.
"Not know Tilly Marsden! Well, you must think I am losing my
faculties. I wish you would not waste your time in telling things I
know as well as you do; but what I would like to hear is how she came
to be in this house."
"Mr. Flint brought her," answered Winifred, with unkind brevity.
"Ah!" commented Miss Standish, with an upward inflection, "and did he
explain how it happened that she was under his protection?"
"I did not insult him by inquiring," flashed Winifred, "and I will not
have him insulted in my presence."
Miss Standish looked at the girl over her glasses, as if she suspected
her of having lost her wits. We are all of us surprised by a response
which seems to us vehement beyond the proximate cause of the present
occasion; we fail to allow for the slow-gathering irritation, the
unseen sources of excitement which collect in the caverns of the mind
like fire-damp ready to explode at the naked flame of one flickering
candle. Winifred had the grace to be instantly ashamed of her
impulsive irritability. She had already set before herself the
standard of self-control which she saw and reverenced in Flint.
"Excuse me," she said. "I was awake almost all night, and am tired and
nervous. Mr. Flint met Tilly Marsden by accident in the street. She
did not know where to go, and so he brought her here. My father
approved," she added a little haughtily.
"But why did she appeal to Mr. Flint?" pursued Miss Standish, who
clung to her inquiries like a burr.
"Because she was in love with him," blurted out Winifred, irritated
beyond the power of silence. "Can't you see! _This_ was why I asked
him to leave Nepaug last summer."
"Tilly Marsden in love with Mr. Flint!" echoed Miss Standish, amazed
beyond the desire to appear to have suspected it all along. "I can't
understand it."
"I can," said Winifred; "I can understand it perfectly. Poor girl! I
am heartily sorry for her."
"Well, you needn't be," responded Miss Standish, with an asperity born
of impatience at her own lack of astuteness. "For my part, I have no
doubt she has enjoyed the situation thoroughly from beginning to end.
No, don't talk to me. I know those hysterical people. All they care
about is making a sensation and being the centre of attention. It is
my opinion that she has made fools of you and Mr. Flint too. As for
her being in love with him, nonsense! She would have fallen in love
with a wax figure at the Eden Musée, if it wore better clothes than
she was accustomed to. It tickles her vanity to fancy herself in love
with a gentleman. It is the next best thing to having him in love with
her."
"Don't you think you're a little hard on her?" asked Winifred, whose
feelings were unusually expansive this morning.
"I think you are entirely too soft about her," Miss Standish answered.
"It is sickly sentimentalism like yours which is filling the hospitals
with hysterical patients. Let 'em alone and they'll come round fast
enough."
"How do you account for my sickly sentimentalism when I have no heart,
as you told me the other day?" commented Winifred demurely, with
downcast eyes.
"Most natural thing in the world," said Miss Standish, rising to an
argument like an old war-horse to the sound of a trumpet.
"Tenderheartedness is touched by the sufferings of others.
Sentimentality is touched by your feeling for them, which is the most
enjoyable form of sadness."
At this point McGregor, who with admirable discretion had retreated to
the pantry, reappeared, served Miss Standish with coffee and eggs, and
again vanished, closing the door behind him.
"Really," cried Winifred, half laughing, half vexed, "you're as bad as
Mr. Flint, with your fine-spun differences."
"There, Winifred, you've said enough. Whatever the provocation, you
could not have hit back harder,--to say I am like Mr. Flint."
"It _was_ rather more than the truth warrants," answered Winifred,
with a little spot of color flaming up in her cheeks like a
danger-signal.
"I hope so," Miss Standish continued, oblivious of the red flag. "I
must say, Winifred, I think you let him come here too much."
"You don't like him?"
"No, I confess I don't."
"Then you needn't like me, either, for _I_ like him so much that I am
going to marry him."
Miss Standish laid down her egg-spoon, and sat staring at Winifred.
"Well!" she exclaimed at length, "this does beat all."
Winifred opened her lips to reply, when her attention was called to
the maid who came hurrying into the room with her cheesecloth duster
in one hand and a folded piece of paper in the other.
"The young woman, mum, as you said I was to call at nine,--well, she
isn't in her room, and the bed doesn't look as if it had been slept in
at all, and I found this on the bureau."
Winifred caught at the paper and read it breathlessly. It was
addressed to herself.
"Good-by," it said, "and thank you for taking me in. I suppose I ought
to be very grateful. I came here because I could not help it, and I am
going away without taking a meal, or sleeping in your bed. I don't
like being taken on charity. If it had not been for you, Mr. Flint
might have cared for me, same as the hero did in 'The Unequal
Marriage.' I saw last night it was you he was talking about when he
said there was somebody he wanted to marry who wouldn't have him. My
heart is broken; but I mean to have _some_ enjoyment, which I
couldn't, if I stayed here with you and that poky Miss Standish. I
think it was real mean of Mr. Flint to bring me here anyhow."
Yours truly,
"MATILDA MARSDEN"
She tossed the letter across the table to Miss Standish, and touched
the bell under her foot.
"McGregor," she said, as the man appeared, "did you hear any one go
out of the house this morning?"
"I thought I did, Miss Winifred, about six o'clock, before
light,--that is, I was justly sure I heard the front door shut; but
when I got there it was all right, except the outer door was unlocked,
and that often happens when your father is at the Club. He do forget
now and then."
"Three hours' start!" said Winifred to herself, then aloud: "McGregor,
go at once to 'The Chancellor' and leave word for Mr. Flint to come
here. Wait--I will send a note. Oh dear! why didn't I foresee this
possibility?"
"Come!" said Miss Standish, who, even in her excitement, could swallow
the last of her cup of hot coffee,--"come, let us go upstairs and see
if the foolish girl has not left some clew!"
As Winifred and Miss Standish passed out at the parlor door, Master
Jimmy entered from the hall, sleek and smiling in his holiday attire.
"Great Scott!" he ejaculated. "What started Miss Standish off like
that? Our stairs make the old lady puff when she takes 'em on the
slow, and at this rate Fred will have to carry her half-way.
Something's up, that's evident. Never mind, I'm not in it. McGregor,"
he called, "bring on those griddle-cakes; I smell 'em cooking. Quick
now, while there's no one here to count how many I eat! Hurrah for
Thanksgiving!"
McGregor failed to appear at Master Jimmy's call, and when Maria came,
she said he had been sent out on an errand.
"What's up?" asked Jimmy, between mouthfuls.
"Oh, nothing--nothing--I wonder will they have the police?"
"Cops!" cried Jimmy, waking up for the first time to a genuine
interest in the family excitement. "Has any one gone off with the
spoons? It would be just my luck to have had a burglar in the house
last night and me never got a pop at him with my air-gun loaded and
close by the bed."
"It's no burglar," said the maid, with mystery in her tones.
"Not McGregor drunk!" shouted Jimmy, with a scream of delight. "That
would be too good a joke."
"McGregor drunk, indeed!" sniffed Maria, indignantly. "If every one as
came to this house was as good as McGregor, it would be a fine thing;
but when it comes to takin' in all sorts and making a Harbor of Refuge
out of a respectable home--I'm not surprised _whatever_ may happen."
"Oh, hold your tongue, Maria. Don't be a fool! Get me some more cakes,
while I go up and ask Fred what's the matter. It won't take _her_ half
an hour to get it out, I'll bet."
With this cheerful observation Jimmy vanished, and Maria disappeared
down the kitchen stairs, declaring that that boy was "a perfect
gintleman."
When Flint entered the Anstices' drawing-room a little later, Winifred
was standing by the window, and though she turned away quickly, it was
evident that she had been watching for him.
The thought thrilled him.
"What shall we do? Oh, what shall we do?" she broke out, as he came up
to her.
He took her hands; they were burning hot.
"First of all, I will tell you what _not_ to do," Flint answered. "You
are not to work yourself into a fever of distress over this
unfortunate business. The responsibility is not yours but mine, and
the burden of anxiety is to be mine and not yours."
"Oh, never mind me! What about Tilly Marsden? It is dreadful to think
of her wandering about this great city entirely alone--and she such a
simpleton. Of course, it's hopeless to try to find her. Papa says so."
"Not so hopeless as you think," said Flint, with a trifle more
assurance than he felt in his inmost heart. "New York stands for two
things to a girl like her,--the shops and the theatres,--her ideas of
the 'amusement' she speaks of in the note you sent me would be limited
to one of these. Now, as this is a holiday, none of the shops would
be open, and that limits it to the theatres. I shall have detectives
at the door of every theatre this afternoon."
"How clever you are," murmured Winifred, "how clever and how
sympathetic! You have such feeling for everybody in trouble."
This was too much for even Flint's sense of humor, which had suffered
somewhat, as every one's does, from the process of falling in love.
His lips twitched.
"Then I am not more obtuse than any one you ever saw, when the
sufferings of others are involved?"
"Don't, pray, don't bring up the things I said that night!" cried
Winifred, blushing rosy red.
"This is no time for jesting, dear, I know," Flint answered, coming
close to her as she stood against the filmy lace curtain. "No time
either for jesting or hoping; only your words did give me a gleam of
encouragement to think that perhaps a girl who changed her mind so
much in a few weeks might have wavered a little in a few days. Is it
possible--Winifred, before I go away, as I must at once--could you
find it in your heart to say 'I love you'?"
Winifred made him no answer, at least in words; but she came close to
him, and laid both hands on his arm with a touching gesture of
trustful affection.
So absorbed were they in one another that they did not notice how near
they stood to the window, or that the curtain was too diaphanous quite
to conceal them from view. Suddenly into their world of ecstatic
oblivion came a crash, a sound of falling glass, a dull thud against
the wall opposite to the window.
"Great Heavens!" cried Flint, looking anxiously at Winifred. "What was
that? Are you sure you're not hurt, my darling?"
Even as he spoke, another report was heard outside, and, throwing open
the curtains, they saw a man on the other side of the street stagger
and fall. Flint rushed to the door, down the steps and across the
sidewalk. A crowd had already collected.
"He is dead,--stone dead," said one, kneeling with his hand over his
heart.
"Queer, isn't it--on Thanksgiving Day too?" said another.
"Who is he?--a countryman by his looks," said a third. "Fine-looking
chap, too, with that crop of curly hair and these broad shoulders."
"Faith!" murmured an old woman, "it's some mother's heart 'ull bleed
this day." And pulling out her beads, she knelt on the sidewalk to say
a prayer over the parting soul.
The prostrate form lying along the pavement had a certain tragic
dignity, almost majesty, in its attitude. One arm was pressed to the
heart, the other thrown out in a gesture of abandonment to despair.
The revolver, which had dropped from the nerveless hand, lay still
smoking beside the still figure. From a wound in the left temple under
the dark curls the blood trickled in a red stream. Death was in his
look. The lips were turning blue, and the eyes glazing rapidly.
Flint came close to the dying man, and then shrank back with an
involuntary start of horror. "Leonard Davitt!" he murmured below his
breath. In an instant the whole situation was clear to him. By one of
those flashlights which the mind sometimes sheds on a scene before it,
making the hidden places clear and turning darkness to daylight, he
grasped the truth. He knew that by some unlucky chance Leonard had
come to New York, had seen him and Tilly Marsden in conversation, had
seen them come here together, had fancied that he was wronged. Then
this morning again he must have seen him with Winifred at the
window,--Winifred mistaken for the girl he loved,--and then jealousy
quite mastered the brooding brain, and the end was _this_.
As Flint stood over the boy's body, a great weight of sadness fell
upon him. He felt like one of the figures in a Greek tragedy, innocent
in intent, but drawn into a fatal entanglement of evil, and made an
instrument of woe to others as innocent as himself. The blue sky above
in its azure clearness seemed a type of the indifference of Heaven,
the chill of the pavement a symbol of the coldness of earth. These
thoughts, chasing each other through his brain with lightning
rapidity, still left it clear for action.
"Stand away there, and give the man air!" he cried, clearing a little
space. "Go for a doctor, somebody,--quick!"
"Oh, can it be Leonard Davitt!" whispered Winifred under her breath,
as pale and trembling with emotion she drew near the edge of the
crowd. "Poor boy! What shall we say to his mother?"
"Hush!" Flint answered. "May we carry him into the house?"
"Of course--of course. Oh, do hurry with the doctor. Perhaps he is not
dead, after all."
With that ready adaptiveness which in Americans so often supplies the
place of training, four of the men stepped forward, and lifting the
body gently bore it up the steps and through the open door into the
drawing-room, and laid it on the lounge just under the bullet-hole in
the wall.
A doctor bustled in, box in hand. He made no effort to open his case,
however. One look was sufficient.
"Death must have been instantaneous," he said. "What a queer thing,--a
suicide on Thanksgiving Day!"