THE GIRL WHO WASN'T WANTED
If any one wronged George, defrauded him of money or credit, he was
always ready to forgive, agreeing that perhaps half the fault had been
his. This was not a sign of weakness, but of a sense of justice too well
leavened with mercy. Humanity errs in the one as much as in the other,
doubtless with some benign purpose in perspective. Now, it might be that
this charming woman had really never received his letter; such things
have been known to go astray. In any case he could not say that he had
written. That would have cast a doubt upon her word, an unpardonable
rudeness. So, for her very beauty alone, he gave her the full benefit of
the doubt.
"You mustn't let the matter trouble you in the least," he said, his
helmet now nicely adjusted under his arm. "It was so long ago I had
really forgotten all about it." Which was very well said for George.
"But I haven't. I have often wondered what you must have thought of me.
Monte Carlo is such a place! But I must present my daughter. I am Mrs.
Chedsoye."
"I am glad to meet you, Mr. Jones;" and in the sad eyes there was a
glimmer of real friendliness. More, she extended her hand.
It was well worth while, that hundred and fifty pounds. It was well
worth the pinch here and the pinch there which had succeeded that loan.
For he had determined to return to America with a pound or two on his
letter of credit, and the success of this determination was based upon
many a sacrifice in comfort, sacrifices he had never confided to his
parents. It was not in the nature of things to confess that the first
woman he had met in his wanderings should have been the last. As he took
the girl's hand, with the ulterior intent of holding it till death do us
part, he wondered why she had laughed like that. The echo of it still
rang in his ears. And while he could not have described it, he knew
instinctively that it had been born of bitter thought.
They chatted for a quarter of an hour or more, and managed famously. It
seemed to him that Fortune Chedsoye was the first young woman he had
ever met who could pull away sudden barriers and open up pathways for
speech, who, when he was about to flounder into some _cul-de-sac_,
guided him adroitly into an alley round it. Not once was it necessary to
drag in the weather, that perennial if threadbare topic. He was truly
astonished at the ease with which he sustained his part in the
conversation, and began to think pretty well of himself. It did not
occur to him that when two clever and attractive women set forth to make
a man talk (always excepting he is dumb), they never fail to succeed. To
do this they contrive to bring the conversation within the small circle
of his work, his travels, his preferences, his ambitions. To be sure,
all this is not fully extracted in fifteen minutes, but a woman obtains
in that time a good idea of the ground plan.
Two distinct purposes controlled the women in this instance. One
desired to interest him, while the other sought to learn whether he was
stupid or only shy.
At last, when he left them to change his clothes and hurry down to
Cook's, to complete the bargain for the Yhiordes, he had advanced so
amazingly well that they had accepted his invitation to the polo-match
that afternoon. He felt that invisible Mercurial wings had sprouted from
his heels, for in running up the stairs, he was aware of no gravitative
resistance. That this anomaly (an acquaintance with two women about whom
he knew nothing) might be looked upon askance by those who conformed to
the laws and by-laws of social usages, worried him not in the least. On
the contrary, he was thinking that he would be the envy of every other
man out at the Club that afternoon.
"Well?" said Mrs. Chedsoye, a quizzical smile slanting her lips.
"You wish my opinion?" countered the daughter. "He is shy, but he is
neither stupid nor silly; and when he smiles he is really good-looking."
"My child," replied the woman, drawing off her gloves and examining her
shapely hands, "I have looked into the very heart of that young man. A
thousand years ago, a red-cross on his surtout, he would have been
beating his fists against the walls of Jerusalem; five hundred years
later, he would have been singing _chant-royales_ under lattice-windows;
a paladin and a poet."
"How do you know that? Did he make love to you?"
"No; but I made love to him without his knowing it; and that was more to
my purpose than having him make love to me," enigmatically. "Three days,
and he was so guileless that he never asked my name. But in Monte Carlo,
as you know, one asks only your banker's name."
"And your purpose?"
"It is still mine, dear. Do you realize that we haven't seen each other
in four months, and that you haven't offered to kiss me?"
"Did he go away without writing to you about that money?"
Mrs. Chedsoye calmly plucked out the inturned fingers of her gloves. "I
believe I did receive a note inclosing his banker's address, but,
unfortunately, in the confusion of returning to Paris, I lost it. My
memory has always been a trial to me," sadly.
"Since when?" coldly. "There is not a woman living with a keener memory
than yours."
"You flatter me. In affairs that interest me, perhaps."
"You never meant to pay him. It is horrible."
"My dear Fortune, how you jump at conclusions! Did I not offer him a
draft the very first thing?"
"Knowing that at such a moment he could not possibly accept it?"
derisively. "Sometimes I hate you!"
"In these days filial devotion is a lost art."
"No, no; it is a flower parents have ceased to cultivate."
And there was in the tone a strained note which described an intense
longing to be loved. For if George Percival Algernon Jones was a lonely
young man, it was the result of his own blindness; whereas Fortune
Chedsoye turned hither and thither in search of that which she never
could find. The wide Lybian desert held upon its face a loneliness, a
desolation, less mournful than that which reigned within her heart.
"Hush! We are growing sentimental," warned the mother. "Besides, I
believe we are attracting attention." Her glance swept a half-circle
complacently.
"Pardon me! I should be sorry to draw attention to you, knowing how you
abhor it."
"My child, learn from me; temper is the arch-enemy of smooth
complexions. Jones--it makes you laugh."
"It is a homely, honest name."
"I grant that. But a Percival Algernon Jones!" Mrs. Chedsoye laughed
softly. It was one of those pleasant sounds that caused persons within
hearing to wait for it to occur again. "Come; let us go up to the room.
It is a dull, dusty journey in from Port Saïd."
Alone, Fortune was certain that for her mother her heart knew nothing
but hate. Neglect, indifference, injustice, misunderstanding, the chill
repellence that always met the least outreaching of the child's
affections, the unaccountable disappearances, the terror of the unknown,
the blank wall of ignorance behind which she was always kept, upon these
hate had builded her dark and brooding retreat. Yet, never did the
mother come within the radius of her sight that she did not fall under
the spell of strange fascination, enchaining, fight against it how she
might. A kindly touch of the hand, a single mother-smile, and she would
have flung her arms about the other woman's neck.
But the touch and the mother-smile never came. She knew, she understood:
she wasn't wanted, she hadn't been wanted in the beginning; to her
mother she was as the young of animals, interesting only up to that time
when they could stand alone. That the mother never made and held
feminine friendships was in nowise astonishing. Beauty and charm, such
as she possessed, served immediately to stimulate envy in other women's
hearts. And that men of all stations in life flocked about her, why, it
is the eternal tribute demanded of beauty. Here and there the men were
not all the daughter might have wished. Often they burnt sweet flattery
at her shrine, tentatively; but as she coolly stamped out these
incipient fires, they at length came to regard her as one regards the
beauty of a frosted window, as a thing to admire and praise in passing.
One ache always abided: the bitter knowledge that had she met in kind
smile for smile and jest for jest, she might have been her mother's boon
companion. But deep back in some hidden chamber of her heart lay a
secret dread of such a step, a dread which, whenever she strove to
analyze it, ran from under her investigating touch, as little balls of
quicksilver run from under the pressure of a thumb.
She was never without the comforts of life, well-fed, well-dressed,
well-housed, and often her mother flung her some jeweled trinket which
(again that sense of menace) she put away, but never wore. The bright
periods were when they left her in the little villa near Mentone, with
no one but her old and faithful nurse. There, with her horse, her books
and her flowers, she was at peace. Week into week and month into month
she was let be. Never a letter came, save from some former schoolmate
who was coming over and wanted letters of introduction to dukes and
duchesses. If she smiled over these letters it was with melancholy; for
the dukes and duchesses, who fell within her singular orbit, were not
the sort to whom one gave letters of introduction.
Where her mother went she never had the least idea. She might be in any
of the great ports of the world, anywhere between New York and Port
Saïd. The Major generally disappeared at the same time. Then, perhaps,
she'd come back from a pleasant tram-ride over to Nice and find them
both at the villa, maid and luggage. Mayhap a night or two, and off
they'd go again; never a word about their former journey,
uncommunicative, rather quiet. These absences, together with the
undemonstrative reappearances, used to hurt Fortune dreadfully. It gave
her a clear proof of where she stood, exactly nowhere. The hurt had
lessened with the years, and now she didn't care much. Like as not, they
would drag her out of Eden for a month or two, for what true reason she
never could quite fathom, unless it was that at times her mother liked
to have the daughter near her as a foil.
At rare intervals she saw steel-eyed, grim-mouthed men wandering up and
down before the gates of the Villa Fanny, but they never rang the bell,
nor spoke to her when she passed them on the street. If she talked of
these men, her mother and the Major would exchange amused glances,
nothing more.
If, rightly or wrongly, she hated her mother, she despised her uncle,
who was ever bringing to the villa men of money, but of coarse fiber,
ostensibly with the view of marrying her off. But Fortune had her
dreams, and she was quite content to wait.
There was one man more persistent than the others. Her mother called him
Horace, which the Major mellowed into Hoddy. He was tall, blond,
good-looking, a devil-may-care, educated, witty, amusing; and in evening
dress he appeared to be what it was quite evident he had once been, a
gentleman. At first she thought it strange that he should make her,
instead of her mother, his confidante. As to what vocation he pursued,
she did not know, for he kept sedulous guard over his tongue; but his
past, up to that fork in the road where manhood says good-by to youth,
was hers. And in this direction, clever and artful as the mother was,
she sought in vain to wrest this past from her daughter's lips. To the
mother, it was really necessary for her to know who this man really was,
had been, knowing thoroughly as she did what he was now.
Persistent he undeniably was, but never coarse nor rude. Since that time
he had come bade from the casino at Monte Carlo, much the worse for
wine, she feared him; yet, in spite of this fear, she had for him a
vague liking, a hazy admiration. Whatever his faults might be, she stood
witness to his great physical strength and courage. He was the only man,
among all those who appeared at the Villa Fanny and immediately
vanished, who returned again. And he, too, soon grew to be a part of
this unreal drama, arriving mysteriously one day and departing the next.
That a drama was being enacted under her eyes she no longer doubted; but
it was as though she had taken her seat among the audience in the middle
of the second act She could make neither head nor tail to it.
Whenever she accompanied her mother upon these impromptu journeys, her
character, or rather her attitude, underwent a change. She swept aside
her dreams; she accepted the world as it was, saw things as they were;
laughed, but without merriment; jested, but with the venomed point. It
was the reverse of her real character to give hurt to any living thing,
but during these forced marches, as the Major humorously termed them,
and such they were in truth, she could no more stand against giving the
cruel stab than, when alone in her garden, she could resist the tender
pleasure of succoring a fallen butterfly. She was especially happy in
finding weak spots in her mother's armor, and she never denied herself
the thrust. Mrs. Chedsoye enjoyed these sharp encounters, for it must be
added that she gave as good as she took, and more often than not her
thrusts bit deeper and did not always heal.
Fortune never asked questions relative to the family finances. If she
harbored any doubts as to their origin, to the source of their
comparative luxury, she never put these into speech.
She had never seen her father, but she had often heard him referred to
as "that brute" or "that fool" or "that drunken imbecile." If a portrait
of him existed, Fortune had not yet seen it. She visited his lonely
grave once a year, in the Protestant cemetery, and dreamily tried to
conjure up what manner of man he had been. One day she plied her old
Italian nurse with questions.
"Handsome? Yes, but it was all so long ago, _cara mia_, that I can not
describe him to you."
"Did he drink?" Behind this question there was no sense of moral obloquy
as applying to the dead.
"Sainted Mary! didn't all men drink their very souls into purgatory
those unreligious days?"
"Had he any relatives?"
"I never heard of any."
"Was he rich?"
"No; but when the signora, your mother, married him she thought he was."
It was not till later years that Fortune grasped the true significance
of this statement. It illumined many pages. She dropped all
investigations, concluding wisely that her mother, if she were minded to
speak at all, could supply only the incidents, the details.
* * * * *
It was warm, balmy, like May in the northern latitudes. Women wore white
dresses and carried sunshades over their shoulders. A good band played
airs from the new light-operas, and at one side of the grand-stand were
tea-tables under dazzling linen. Fashion was out. Not all her votaries
enjoyed polo, but it was absolutely necessary to pretend that they did.
When they talked they discussed the Spanish dancer who paraded back and
forth across the tea-lawn. They discussed her jewels, her clothes, her
escort, and quite frankly her morals, which of the four was by all odds
the most popular theme. All agreed that she was handsome in a bold way.
This modification invariably distinguishes the right sort of women from
the wrong sort, from which there is no appeal to a higher court. They
could well afford to admit of her beauty, since the dancer was outside
what is called the social pale, for all that her newest escort was a
prince _incognito_. They also discussed the play at bridge, the dullness
of this particular season, the possibility of war between England and
Germany. And some one asked others who were the two well-gowned women
down in front, sitting on either side of the young chap in pearl-grey.
No one knew. Mother and daughter, probably. Anyhow, they knew something
about good clothes. Certainly they weren't ordinary tourists. They had
seen What's-his-name tip his hat; and this simple act would pass any one
into the inner shrine, for the general was not promiscuous. There, the
first-half was over. All down for tea! Thank goodness!
George was happy. He was proud, too. He saw the glances, the nods of
approval. He basked in a kind of sunshine that was new. What an ass he
had been all his life! To have been afraid of women just because he was
Percival Algernon! What he should have done was to have gone forth
boldly, taken what pleasures he found, and laughed with the rest of
them.
There weren't two other women in all Cairo to compare with these two.
The mother, shapely, elegant, with the dark beauty of a high-class
Spaniard, possessing humor, trenchant comment, keen deduction and
application; worldly, cynical, high-bred. The student of nations might
have tried in vain to place her. She spoke the French of the Parisians,
the Italian of the Florentines, the German of the Hanoverians, and her
English was the envy of Americans and the wonder of the Londoners. The
daughter fell behind her but little, but she was more reserved. The
worldly critic called this good form: no daughter should try to outshine
her widowed mother.
As Fortune sat beside the young collector that afternoon, she marveled
why they had given him Percival Algernon. Jones was all right, solid
and substantial, but the other two turned it into ridicule. Still, what
was the matter with Percival Algernon? History had given men of these
names mighty fine things to accomplish. Then why ridicule? Was it due to
the perverted angle of vision created by wits and humorists in the comic
weeklies, who were eternally pillorying these unhappy prefixes to
ordinary cognomens? And why this pillorying? She hadn't studied the
subject sufficiently to realize that the business of the humorist is not
so much to amuse as to warn persons against becoming ridiculous. And
Percival Algernon Jones was all of that. It resolved itself into a
matter of values, then. Had his surname been Montmorency, Percival
Algernon would have fitted as a key to its lock. She smiled. No one but
a fond mother would be guilty of such a crime. And if she ever grew to
know him well enough, she was going to ask him all about this mother.
What interest had her own mother in this harmless young man? Oh, some
day she would burst through this web, this jungle; some day she would
see beyond the second act! What then? she never troubled to ask
herself; time enough when the moment arrived.
"I had an interesting adventure last night, a most interesting one,"
began George, who was no longer the shy, blundering recluse. They were
on the way back to town.
"Tell it me," said Mrs. Chedsoye.
He leaned over from his seat beside the chauffeur of the hired
automobile. (Hang the expense on a day like this!) "A fellow brought me
a rug last night, one of the rarest outside the museums. How and where
he got it I'm not fully able to state. But he had been in a violent
struggle somewhere, arms slashed, shins battered. He admitted that he
had gone in where many shapes of death lurked. It was a bit irregular. I
bought the rug, however. Some one else would have snatched it up if I
hadn't. I wanted him to recount the adventure, but he smiled and
refused. I tell you what it is, these eastern ports are great places."
"How interesting!" Mrs. Chedsoye's color was not up to the mark. "He was
not seriously wounded?"
"Oh, no. He looks like a tough individual. I mean, a chap strong and
hardy enough to put himself out of pretty bad holes. He needed the
money."
"Did he give his name?" asked Fortune.
"Yes; but no doubt it was assumed. Ryanne and he spelt it with an 'ne,'
and humorously explained why he did so."
"Is he young, old, good-looking, or what?"
Mrs. Chedsoye eyed her offspring through narrowed lids.
"I should say that he was about thirty-five, tall, something of an
athlete; and there remains some indications that in the flush of youth
he was handsome. Odd. He reminded me of a young man who was on the
varsity eleven--foot-baller--when I entered my freshman year. I didn't
know him, but I was a great admirer of his from the grand-stand. Horace
Wadsworth was _his_ name."
Horace Wadsworth. Fortune had the sensation of being astonished at
something she had expected to happen.
Just before going down to dinner that night, Fortune turned to her
mother, her chin combative in its angle.
"I gave Mr. Jones a hundred and fifty pounds out of that money you left
in my care. Knowing how forgetful you are, I took the liberty of
attending to the affair myself."
She expected a storm, but instead her mother viewed her with appraising
eyes. Suddenly she laughed mellowly. Her sense of humor was too
excitable to resist so delectable a situation.
"You told him, of course, that the money came from me?" demanded Mrs.
Chedsoye, when she could control her voice.
"Surely, since it did come from you."
"My dear, my dear, you are to me like the song in _The Mikado_," and she
hummed lightly--
"'To make the prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment,
Of innocent merriment!'"
"Am I a prisoner, then?"
"Whatever you like; it can not be said that I ever held you on the
leash," taking a final look into the mirror.
"What is the meaning of this rug? You and I know who stole it.
"I have explicitly warned you, my child, never to meddle with affairs
that do not concern you."
"Indirectly, some of yours do. You are in love with Ryanne, as he calls
himself."
"My dear, you do not usually stoop to such vulgarity. And are you
certain that he has any other name?"
"If I were I should not tell you."
"Ah!"
"A man will tell the woman he loves many things he will not tell the
woman he admires."
"As wise as the serpent," bantered the mother; but she looked again into
the mirror to see if her color was still what it should be. "And whom
does he admire?" the Mona Lisa smile hovering at the corners of her
lips.
"You," evenly.
Mrs. Chedsoye thought for a moment, thought deeply and with new insight.
It was no longer a child but a woman, and mayhap she had played upon the
taut strings of the young heart once too often. Still, she was unafraid.
"And whom does he love?"
"Me. Shall I get you the rouge, mother?"
Still with that unchanging smile, the woman received the stab. "My
daughter," as if speculatively, "you will get on. You haven't been my
pupil all these years for nothing. Let us go down to dinner."
Fortune, as she silently followed, experienced a sense of disconcertion
rather than of elation.