ALICE
When Miss Frink went to her room that night, two red spots burned in her
cheeks. She was a creature of habit and proud of it. Her maid had the
bed turned down and prepared for the night as usual. A silk negligée
hung over the back of a chair. The silver carafe of ice water with its
cut-glass tumbler stood by the side of the bed. Her programme would be
to slip off the black satin gown, don the negligée, go to the lighted
bathroom and wind the waves of her front hair back on their crimping
pins, and so proceed to the point of extinguishing the lights, getting
into bed, and going at once to sleep.
The mental picture behind those red spots was of the same envelope which
was absorbing Adèle’s meditations. It had lain directly in the line of
Miss Frink’s bi-focals when Mrs. Lumbard gave it its final flattening.
Miss Frink crossed the room to where the enlarged portrait of her
girlhood’s chum hung on the wall.
“Come on, Alice, let’s talk it over as we used to,” she said, and with a
quick movement unhooking the picture, she sat down in the nearest chair
with it in her lap, and gazed into the eyes. “I want to look at a friend.
I’m seventy-odd, Alice, and you’re still my only one: the only being who
has ever loved me.” She paused in her soliloquy to swallow something.
“I’m not going to make a tragedy of it. I could have adopted a child
after Philip disappointed me. I could have had some one to love me, but
I liked business better than domesticity, so I made my own bed and I’m
not going to complain of it. You told me I was all wrong about Philip,
wrong in not giving him his freedom, wrong to quarrel with him, wrong to
cut myself off from him, I remember now everything you said, though I
haven’t thought of it for years. The book was closed. Nothing could have
surprised me more than to have it opened again. But, Alice”—Miss Frink’s
hand pressed the sides of the picture frame until it hurt—“it is only
my money. That is the humiliation. I couldn’t believe that I would feel
it so.” The soliloquizing lips quivered. “Your Adèle—if she is yours,
something in me cries out all the time that she is not—what interest
would she have had in an Aunt Susanna who was old and poor? She fawns
on me with meek, loving expressions as if I could be fooled. Forgive
me, dear, but you wouldn’t like her, either. There’s Grim, of course;
it’s a religion with him to look after me, but he hasn’t any natural,
spontaneous interest in his fellow-beings. The calf of gold rules his
consciousness. He’s narrow, narrow as I am myself. Oh, Alice, if I had
you here! If I could only do it over again and do it better.” For the
first time in years tears stood in Miss Frink’s eyes. She winked them
away quietly, and fell into meditation. Presently, her thoughts seething
through the past and present, her lips moved again:
“John Ogden is a finished rascal; polished, suave, a real society man.
Full of charm he is, and I wonder how he ran into the boy, and persuaded
him. I’m hurt, Alice. Hugh’s old Aunt Sukey is hurt;—but it’s better to
be hurt than dead, and he didn’t know who he was saving, I have that
comfort. That was no part of John Ogden’s plan; and it makes the boy
more mine than Ogden’s. He hasn’t been happy a minute since he came, and
the why is plain. He hates the double-dealing, while Ogden thinks it is
the best joke going. I hate lies, Alice”—with sudden heat. “You know I
always did; and the humiliation—why does it cut me so that the boy, my
own flesh and blood that I’m mightily near to loving, has cold-bloodedly
entered into some plan that has only my money for its object? I’ve been
a dupe; and, of course, any young person would chuckle over my sympathy
for his delirious longing for Aunt Sukey. Alice!”—suddenly Miss Frink
clutched the picture frame again—“that girl—that photograph—is his
mother. He said Aunt Sukey opposed her tooth and nail, and I asked him if
I could do anything. He said it was too late.”
Miss Frink let the picture slide down into her lap while she followed
this train of thought and looked into space. Presently she propped the
frame up again between her hands.
“Of course, Alice, that single night in which your much-married
granddaughter’s hair turned white might have come before she went over
to France. I’m about as mean to the girl in my thoughts as anybody could
be, and she has made the boy look really happy for the first time in all
these weeks. I ought to give her some credit for that. It was pleasant
down in the drawing-room to-night through her means; but the iron had
entered into my soul, and I felt inside the way Grim looked outside. Poor
Grim, he is not a society man. He doesn’t want our habits changed. Now,
I’m up against another fight, Alice, girl. It’s a long time since I’ve
had to fight. It’s a temptation to say to them all—Ogden, the boy, and
Adèle—‘I know you through and through. I’m not the dupe you think me.
Get away all of you and never let me see you again.’ But, Alice, what’s
the use of living seventy years unless you’ve learned to do nothing
impulsively? I look right back to my treatment of Philip Sinclair and
recall the things you said to me then. I shall let you help me, Alice. I
will take the advice that I scorned thirty years ago. Good-night, Alice,
girl.”
Miss Frink didn’t sleep much that night, and the next morning, the
weather having made a sudden start summerward, she felt a new chapter of
her life beginning.
Hugh came down to breakfast with John Ogden, and Adèle was ready with new
ideas for her recital. Miss Frink allowed herself to be carried along on
the tide of their talk until breakfast was over.
“What a lovely morning. Your grounds are charming,” said Ogden.
“Everything is blooming,” returned the hostess. “Let us make a little
tour of inspection.”
She led the way through the small conservatory attached to the
dining-room, and out upon the lawn.
“How beautifully this place is kept,” said Ogden.
“Yes. I have so few amusements,” assented his companion.
“Thoroughness is your watchword, I’m sure.”
“I believe it is,” she agreed. “Whether I was doing right or wrong, I
always seem to have made a clean sweep of it.”
Ogden regarded her in genuine admiration. “All your thoughts must be of
satisfaction, I should think.”
Miss Frink tossed her head with a dissenting gesture. “You’d think wrong
then, man. Let us sit down here awhile.”
She led the way to a rustic seat under an elm tree. “Shan’t I go in and
get a wrap for you?” asked Ogden. The prospect of a tête-à-tête with his
hostess was not without its qualms.
“No, no. This sun is hot.”
“So is this one,” thought Ogden, but he smiled with his usual air of
finding the present situation inspiring.
“I’d like to know how you came to take such an interest in Hugh,” began
his companion without prelude.
“Through liking his father, and loving his sister,” replied Ogden glibly.
“Eh? His sister?”
“Yes, his sister Carol. She couldn’t see me,” continued Ogden cheerfully.
“She married a man named Morrison and went to Colorado. Hugh received
word yesterday that her husband has died. She is left with two little
children” (Miss Frink began to stiffen mechanically, and Ogden saw it),
“but she is a young woman after your own heart. Her husband’s illness was
a long one, and she learned his business in order to carry it on, and she
won’t allow Hugh to come out there or worry himself about her.”
Miss Frink gazed at him with unconscious fixedness. “Yes. His mother’s
name was Carol,” was the thought behind her stiff lips.
“Hugh couldn’t seem to find himself when he came back from France, and
was rather down in the mouth when I got hold of him, so I thought. He is
so young, it would be better for him to learn a business from the bottom
up, and I thought of Ross Graham’s.”
“Oh, you thought of Ross Graham’s.” Miss Frink nodded slowly and
continued to meet her companion’s debonair look. “I wonder why you
thought of Ross Graham’s.”
“I told you in my letter of introduction,” responded Ogden, without
hesitation. “It is just one of the compact pieces of perfection that you
have been bringing about all your life.”
Miss Frink nodded acceptance of the compliment and of his self-possession.
“I should say his nerve was one piece of perfection,” she reflected; and
then her habit of honest thought questioned how she would have received
the frank proposition. If John Ogden had come to her with the information
that she had a robust, handsome, grand-nephew, Philip Sinclair’s son, who
needed a boost toward finding his right place in the world, would she
have listened to him? Would she have received the boy? She would not, and
she knew it.
Ogden was speaking on: “How little I dreamed that I was doing as much for
you as for Hugh when I saw him off on that train.”
“Oh, perhaps some other bystander would have saved the old lady,” she
replied, with sudden rebellion against Ogden’s making a virtue of his
duplicity.
“Really?” he returned suavely. “I have understood that Hugh had the
street all to himself just at that time.”
“Well, I think he did,” said Miss Frink brusquely, looking away.
Ogden’s gray eyes were rather large and prominent, and just now their
gaze irritated her.
“You know it is very interesting to me,” he went on, “that the mere fact
of my choosing Ross Graham’s for Hugh rather than some other concern,
should have saved your valuable life. I believe in Providence, Miss
Frink. Don’t you?”
“I believe that Heaven helps those who help themselves,” she retorted;
“and that’s you, I’m sure, Mr. Ogden.”
“But we’re not talking about me,” he responded with a gay air of surprise.
“Well, we’re going to,” responded Miss Frink. “I want you to tell me
everything you know about Mrs. Lumbard.”
“Why—” he returned, clearing his throat to gain time, “it’s on the
surface. She is a very pretty woman who is a fine musician. You can tell
by Hugh’s attitude what she meant to the boys over there, and she has a
reputation all through the South.”
“Did you know her before her marriage when she was Miss Morehouse?”
“Yes.”
“What was her father like?”
“Why—” Ogden hesitated. “I understood they were your relatives.”
“No. They’re not. Is her father living?”
“I—I really don’t know; but Mr. Morehouse died only last year.”
“Well, he was her father, wasn’t he?”
“No; he married her mother when the daughter was a child prodigy at the
piano.”
Such a strange change passed over Miss Frink that Ogden was startled. She
gazed at him out of a face as stiff as parchment.
“Mr. Ogden, I am uncanny. My feelings are uncanny,” she said at last.
“You might as well be sitting under an X-ray as by me. I know the whole
truth about you. I know all your double-dealings—”
“Oh, Miss Frink, why should you give me heart failure? I don’t know why
you should be so excited. I hope I haven’t told any tales.” Ogden flushed
to the ears.
“Yes, a great big one, but, oh, the relief it is to me. She has nothing
to do with my Alice. Be careful not to let her know that you’ve told me
this. Once I had a friend, Mr. Ogden, a real friend. She never tried to
get the better of me. She never deceived me. She loved me as herself.”
John Ogden thought he had never looked into such bright eyes, and
their strenuous gaze seeming, as she had claimed, to see absolutely
through him, sent a prickling sensation down his spine. She seemed to
be contrasting him with that single-minded friend, frightfully to his
disadvantage.
“She has died,” went on the low voice, “and I never found another. Now
Mrs. Lumbard has claimed me through her; claimed to be her granddaughter.
I never could believe it, and it seems I was right.”
Ogden frowned and shook his head. “If you’re glad, I suppose I shouldn’t
regret my break; but I wouldn’t for anything have thrown a monkey-wrench
into Mrs. Re—Lumbard’s machinery if I had known.”—“Supposing Miss Frink
knew all!” was his reflection.
His companion nodded slowly. “Let me have the truth once in a while, once
in a while. Don’t grudge it to me. You’ve only clinched my feeling that
she is a liar.”
Ogden looked up toward the porch where Adèle and Hugh were laughing.
“There is one thing I wanted to speak of to you. You take such a kindly
interest in Hugh—”
“That is barely decent,” responded Miss Frink with sudden sharpness.
“What is it you want? When a poor young man saves the life of a rich old
woman, it is to be expected that she gives him a good plump check as
reward, isn’t it?”
Ogden regarded her in surprise. “What the love of money does to people!”
was his reflection. “I shan’t tell Hugh you said that,” he replied
quietly. “He has had enough to bear. You know whether his attitude toward
you is mercenary.”
Miss Frink’s old cheeks flushed in their turn. “Well, I know it isn’t,”
she said bluntly; “but you are his manager, aren’t you?”
“My dear lady! Please don’t spoil this beautiful morning.”
“I’m excited, Ogden. I know it,” she said nervously. She was glad he had
trapped her, but how had he dared to do it, and how could she forgive him!
“This is what I was going to say,” he went on. “The last year before Hugh
went to France he read law. Since hearing that his sister is alone, he
feels that he would like to go on with it. He might be able to help her
some day. Yesterday I met Colonel Duane. He is a lawyer and still has a
good library. What would you think of Hugh’s working at that, evenings?”
“Why evenings?”
“Because I judge you intend to give him a job in the store that will at
least partly pay his board.”
Miss Frink looked off at the fountain where two marble babies were having
an unending water duel, and apparently from their expressions having
great fun over it.
“That is a very good idea,” she said, “to read law with Colonel Duane.”
Ogden accepted her ignoring of the “job.” There was a change in her since
yesterday. She seemed to be smothering and controlling some spite against
himself. If she suspected anything, he must prepare Hugh. The sudden
meeting with Ally and the plan to help her with the recital had changed
the boy’s gloomy, rebellious mood; and certainly nothing had occurred
since last evening, when Miss Frink had been a sufficiently complacent
though passive hostess.
“I will attend to the matter,” she said after a pause, and rose. “I must
go in. Grim will wonder if I am forgetting the mail.”