THE CRASH
When Carshaw came, with lightsome step and heart freed from care--for in
some respects he was irresponsible as any sane man could be--to visit
his beloved Winifred next day, he was met by a frightened and somewhat
incoherent Miss Goodman.
"Not been home all night! Surely you can offer some explanation further
than that maddening statement?" cried he, when the shock of her news had
sent the color from his face and the joy from his eyes.
"Oh, sir, I don't know what to say. Indeed, I am not to blame."
Miss Goodman, kind-hearted soul, was more flurried now by Carshaw's
manner than by Winifred's inexplicable disappearance.
"Blame, my good woman, who is imputing blame?" he blazed at her. "But
there's a hidden purpose, a convincing motive, in her going out and not
returning. Give me some clue, some reason. A clear thought now, the
right word from you, may save hours of useless search."
"How can I give any clues?" cried the bewildered landlady. "The dear
young creature was crying all day fit to break her heart after the lady
called--"
"The lady! What lady?"
"Your mother, sir. Didn't she tell you? Mrs. Carshaw was here the day
before yesterday, and she must have spoken very cruelly to Winifred to
make her so downcast for hours. I was that sorry for her--"
Now, Carshaw had the rare faculty--rare, that is, in men of a
happy-go-lucky temperament--of becoming a human iceberg in moments of
danger or difficulty. The blank absurdity of Miss Goodman's implied
assertion that Winifred had run away--though, indeed, running away was
uppermost in the girl's thoughts--had roused him to fiery wrath.
But the haphazard mention of his mother's visit, the coincidence of
Winifred's unexpectedly strange behavior and equally unexpected
transition to a wildly declared love, revealed some of the hidden
sources of events, and over the volcano of his soul he imposed a layer
of ice. He even smiled pleasantly as he begged Miss Goodman to dry her
eyes and be seated.
"We are at loggerheads, you see," he said, almost cheerfully. "Just let
us sit down and have a quiet talk. Tell me everything you know, and in
the order in which things happened. Tell me facts, and if you are
guessing at probabilities, tell me you are guessing. Then we shall soon
unravel the tangled threads."
Thus reassured, Miss Goodman took him through the records of the past
forty-eight hours, so far as she knew them. After the first few words he
required no explanations of his mother's presence in that middle-class
section of Manhattan. She had gone there in her stately limousine to awe
and bewilder a poor little girl--to frighten an innocent out of loving
her son and thus endangering her own grandiose projects for his future.
It was pardonable, perhaps, from a worldly woman's point of view. That
there were other aspects of it she should soon see, with a certain
definiteness, the cold outlines of which already made his mouth stern,
and sent little lines to wrinkle his forehead. He had spared her
hitherto--had hoped to keep on sparing her--yet she had not spared
Winifred! But who had prompted her to this heartless deed? He loved his
mother. Her faults were those of society, her virtues were her own. She
had lived too long in an atmosphere of artificiality not to have lost
much of the fine American womanliness that was her birthright. That
could be cured--he alone knew how. The puzzling query, for a little
while, was the identity of the cruel, calculating, ruthless enemy who
struck by her hand.
There was less light shed on Winifred's own behavior. He recalled her
words: "You want to know if I love you--yes, yes--I want you to stay a
long time this afternoon--don't ask me why I told you that awful fib--"
And then her confession to Miss Goodman: "I am going away to-morrow--for
always, I'm afraid."
What did that portend? Ah, yes; she was going to some place where he
could not find her, to bury herself away from his love and because of
her love for him. It was no new idea in woman's heart, this. For long
ages in India sorrowing wives burned themselves to death on the funeral
pyres of their lords. Poor Winifred only reversed the method of the
sacrifice--its result would be the same.
"But 'to-morrow'--to-day, that is. You are quite sure of her words?" he
persisted.
"Oh, yes, sir; quite sure. Besides she has left her clothes and letters,
and little knick-knacks of jewelry. Would you care to see them?"
For an instant he hesitated, for he was a man of refinement, and he
hated the necessity of prying into the little secrets of his dear one.
Then he agreed, and Miss Goodman took him from her own sitting-room to
that tenanted by Winifred. Her presence seemed to linger in the air.
His eyes traveled to the chair from which she rose with that glad
crooning cry when he came to her so few hours earlier.
On the table lay her tiny writing-case. In it, unopened, and hidden by
the discouraging missive from the bookbinder's, rested the note from the
dramatic agent, with the thrice-important clue of its plain statement:
"I have made no appointment for you at any house near East Orange."
But Miss Goodman had already thrown open the door which led to
Winifred's bedroom.
"You can see for yourself, sir," she said, "the room was not occupied
last night. Nor that she could be in the house without me knowing
it, poor thing. There are her clothes in the wardrobe, and the
dressing-table is tidy. She's extraordinarily neat in her ways, is Miss
Bartlett--quite different from the empty-headed creatures girls mostly
are nowadays."
Miss Goodman spoke bitterly. She was fifty, gray-haired, and a hopeless
old maid. This point of view sours the appearance of saucy eighteen with
the sun shining in its tresses.
Carshaw swallowed something in his throat. The sanctity of this inner
room of Winifred's overwhelmed him. He turned away hastily.
"All right, Miss Goodman," he said; "we can learn nothing here. Let us
go back to your apartment, and I'll tell you what I want you to do
now."
Passing the writing-desk again he looked more carefully at its contents.
A small packet of bills caught his eye. There were the receipts for such
simple articles as Winifred had bought with his money. Somehow, the mere
act of examining such a list struck him with a sense of profanation. He
could not do it.
His eyes glazed. Hardly knowing what the words meant, he glanced through
the typed document from the bookbinder. It was obviously a business
letter. He committed no breach of the etiquette governing private
correspondence by reading it. So great was his delicacy in this respect
that he did not even lift the letter from the table, but noted the
address and the curt phraseology. Here, then, was a little explanation.
He would inquire at that place.
"I want you to telegraph me each morning and evening," he said to the
landlady. "Don't depend on the phone. If you have news, of course you
will give it, but if nothing happens say that there is no news. Here is
my address and a five-dollar bill for expenses. Did Miss Bartlett owe
you anything?"
"No, sir. She paid me yesterday when she gave me notice."
"Ah! Kindly retain her rooms. I don't wish any other person to occupy
them."
"Do you think, sir, she will not come back to-day?"
"I fear so. She is detained by force. She has been misled by some one. I
am going now to find out who that some one else is."
He drove his car, now rejuvenated, with the preoccupied gaze of one who
seeks to pierce a dark and troubled future. From the garage he called up
the Long Island estate where his hacks and polo ponies were housed for
the winter. He gave some instructions which caused the man in charge to
blink with astonishment.
"Selling everything, Mr. Carshaw!" he said. "D'ye really mean it?"
"Does my voice sound as if I were joking, Bates?"
"No-no, sir; I can't say it does. But--"
"Start on the catalogue now, this evening. I'll look after you. Mr. Van
Hofen wants a good man. Stir yourself, and that place is yours."
He found his mother at home. She glanced at him as he entered her
boudoir. She saw, with her ready tact, that questions as to his state of
worry would be useless.
"Will you be dining at home, Rex?" she asked.
"Yes. And you?"
"I--have almost promised to dine _en famille_ with the Towers."
"Better stop here. We have a lot of things to arrange."
"Arrange! What sort of things?"
"Business affairs for the most part."
"Oh, business! Any discussion of--"
"I said nothing about discussion, mother. For some years past I have
been rather careless in my ways. Now I am going to stop all that. A good
business maxim is to always choose the word that expresses one's meaning
exactly."
"Rex, you speak queerly."
"That shows I'm doing well. Your ears have so long been accustomed to
falsity, mother, that the truth sounds strangely."
"My son, do not be so bitter with me. I have never in my life had other
than the best of motives in any thought or action that concerned you."
He looked at her intently. He read in her words an admission and a
defense.
"Let us avoid tragedy, mother, at least in words. Who sent you to
Winifred?"
"Then she has told you?"
"She has not told me. Women are either angels or fiends. This harmless
little angel has been driven out of her Paradise in the hope that her
butterfly wings may be soiled by the rain and mud of Manhattan. Who sent
you to her?"
"Senator Meiklejohn," said Mrs. Carshaw defiantly.
"What, that smug Pharisee! What was his excuse?"
"He said you were the talk of the clubs--that Helen Tower--"
"She, too! Thank you. I see the drift of things now. It was heartless of
you, mother. Did not Winifred's angel face, twisted into misery by your
lies, cause you one pang of remorse?"
Mrs. Carshaw rose unsteadily. Her face was ghastly in its whiteness.
"Rex, spare me, for Heaven's sake!" she faltered. "I did it for the
best. I have suffered more than you know."
"I am glad to hear it. You have a good nature in its depths, but the
canker of society has almost destroyed it. That is why you and I are
about to talk business."
"I am feeling faint. Let matters rest a few hours."
He strode to the bell and summoned a servant. "Bring some brandy and two
glasses," he said when the man came.
It was an unusual order at that hour. Silently the servant obeyed.
Carshaw looked out of the window, while his mother, true to her caste,
affected nonchalance before the domestic.
"Now," said he when they were alone, "drink this. It will steady your
nerves."
She was frightened at last. Her hand shook as it took the proffered
glass.
"What has happened?" she asked, with quavering voice. She had never seen
her son like this before. There was a hint of inflexible purpose in him
that terrified her. When he spoke the new crispness in his voice shocked
her ears.
"Mere business, I assure you. Not another word about Winifred. I shall
find her, sooner or later, and we shall be married then, at once. But,
by queer chance, I have been looking into affairs of late. The manager
of our Massachusetts mills tells me that trade is slack. We have been
running at a loss for some years. Our machinery is antiquated, and we
have not the accumulated reserves to replace it. We are in debt, and our
credit begins to be shaky. Think of that, mother--the name of Carshaw
pondered over by bank managers and discounters of trade bills!"
"Senator Meiklejohn mentioned this vaguely," she admitted.
"Dear me! What an interest he takes in us! I wonder why? But, as a
financial magnate, he understands things."
"Your father always said, Rex, that trade had its cycles--fat years and
lean years, you know."
"Yes. He built up our prosperity by hard work, by spending less than
half what he earned, not by living in a town house and gadding about in
society. Do you remember, mother, how he used to laugh at your pretty
little affectations? I think I own my share of the family brains,
though, so I shall act now as he would have acted."
"Do you wish to goad me into hysteria? What are you driving at?" she
shrieked.
"That is the way to reach the heart of the mystery--get at the facts,
eh? They're simple. The business needs three hundred thousand dollars to
give it solidity and staying power; then four or five years' good and
economical management will set it right. We have been living at the rate
of fifty thousand dollars a year. For some time we have been executing
small mortgages to obtain this annual income, expecting the business to
clear them. Now the estates must come to the help of the business."
"In what way?" she gasped.
"They must be mortgaged up to the hilt to pay off the small sums and
find the large one. It will take ten years of nursing to relieve them of
the burden. Not a penny must come from the mills."
"How shall we live?" she demanded.
"I have arranged that. Your marriage settlement of two thousand five
hundred dollars a year is secured; that is all. How big it seemed in
your eyes when you were a bride! How little now, though your real
needs are less! I shall take a sufficient salary as assistant manager
while I learn the business. It means two thousand dollars a year for
housekeeping, and I have calculated that the sale of all our goods will
pay our personal debts and leave you and me five thousand each to set up
small establishments."
Mrs. Carshaw flounced into a chair. "You must be quite mad!" she cried.
"No, mother, sane--quite sane--for the first time. Don't you believe me?
Go to your lawyers; the scheme is really theirs. They are good business
men, and congratulated me on taking a wise step. So you see, mother, I
really cannot afford a fashionable wife."
"I am--choking!" she gasped. For the moment anger filled her soul.
"Now, be reasonable, there's a good soul. Five thousand in the bank,
twenty-five hundred a year to live on. Why, when you get used to it you
will say you were never so happy. What about dinner? Shall we start
economizing at once? Let's pay off half a dozen servants before we sit
down to a chop! Eh, tears! Well, they'll help. Sometimes they're good
for women. Send for me when you are calmer!"
With a look of real pity in his eyes he bent and kissed her forehead.
She would have kept him with her, but he went away.
"No," he said, "no discussion, you remember; and I must fix a whole heap
of things before we dine!"