“Do you mind if I go out for a walk?” asked the crestfallen Lexy; for
that was her instinct in any sort of trouble—to get out into the fresh
air and walk.
“No,” answered Mrs. Enderby; “but I shall ask you to return in half an
hour. There is much to be done.”
“Done!” cried Lexy. “But what can be done—now?”
“That I shall tell you when you return,” said Mrs. Enderby. “In the
meantime, I trust you to say nothing of all this to any person
whatever. You understand, Miss Moran?”
Miss Moran certainly did not understand, but she gave her promise to
keep silent, and, putting on her hat and coat, hurried out of the
house. Mighty glad she was to get out, too!
“But why make a mystery of it like this?” she thought. “Every one has
to know, sooner or later, and it’s so—so ghastly, pretending that
Caroline’s there! Oh, it doesn’t seem possible, Caroline running off
like that, and I never even dreaming she was the least bit interested
in any man! I don’t see how she could have seen any one or written to
any one without my knowing it. It doesn’t seem possible!”
She had reached the corner of Fifth Avenue, and was waiting for a halt
in the traffic, when she became aware of a young man who was standing
near her and staring at her. She glanced carelessly at him, and he
took off his hat, but he got no acknowledgment of his salute. He was a
stranger, and she meant him to remain a stranger. The bright-haired,
sturdy little Lexy was a very pretty girl, and she was not
unaccustomed to strange young men who stared. She knew how to handle
them.
As she crossed the avenue, he crossed, too. When she entered the park,
he followed. Now Lexy was never tolerant of this sort of thing, and
to-day, in her anxiety and distress, she was less so than ever. She
turned her head and looked the young man squarely in the face with a
scornful and frigid look; and he took off his hat again!
“Just you say one word,” said she to herself, “and I’ll call a
policeman!”
Yet, as she walked briskly on, something in the man’s expression
haunted her. He didn’t look like that sort of man. His sunburned face
somehow seemed to her a very honest one, and the expression on it was
not at all flirtatious, but terribly troubled and unhappy.
“Perhaps he thinks he knows me,” she thought. “Well, he doesn’t, and
he’s not going to, either!”
And she dismissed him from her mind.
“When did Caroline go?” she pondered, continuing her own miserable
train of thought. “While I was doing cross words in the library? If
she went out by the front door, she must have gone right past the
library. She must have known I was there—and not even to say good-by!”
It hurt. She had grown very fond of the shy, quiet Caroline, and she
had firmly believed that Caroline was fond of her. What is more, she
had thought Caroline trusted her.
“She didn’t though. All the time, when we were so friendly together,
she must have been planning this and—_what_?”
She stopped short, her dark brows meeting in a fierce frown, for the
unknown man had come up beside her and spoken to her.
“Excuse me!” he said.
Lexy only looked at him, but he did not wither and perish under her
scorn.
“I’ve _got_ to speak to you,” he said.
“It’s—look here! I’ve been waiting outside the house all morning. Look
here, please! You’re Lexy, aren’t you?”
This was a little too much!
“If you don’t stop bothering me this instant—” she began hotly, but he
paid no heed.
“_Where’s Miss Enderby?”_ he cried.
Lexy grew very pale. Those were the words she had heard over the
telephone last night, and this was the same voice.
For a moment she was silent, staring at him, while he looked back at
her, his blue eyes searching her face with a look of desperate
entreaty. All her doubts vanished. She had not been wrong. She had
been right—she was sure of it. She knew that something had
happened—something inexplicable and dreadful.
“Please tell me!” he said. “You don’t know—you can’t know—she told me
you were her friend.”
“But who are you?” cried Lexy.
His face flushed under the sunburn.
“I—” he began, and stopped. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” he went on.
“I’d like to, but, you see, I can’t. If you’ll just tell me where
Car—Miss Enderby is! She’s safe at home, isn’t she? She—of course she
is! She _must_ be! She—she is, isn’t she?”
“Well,” said Lexy slowly, “I don’t see how I can tell you anything at
all. I don’t know what right you have to ask any questions. I don’t
know who you are, or anything about you.”
“No,” he replied, “I know that; but, after all, it’s not much of a
question, is it—just if Miss Enderby’s all right?”
Lexy felt very sorry for him, in his obvious struggle to speak quietly
and reasonably. She wanted to answer him promptly and candidly, for
his sake and for her own, because she felt sure that he could tell her
something about Caroline; but she had promised Mrs. Enderby to say
nothing.
“It’s so silly!” she thought, exasperated. “If I could tell him, I
might find out—”
“Find out what? Hadn’t Caroline written to say that she had gone away
to get married? In a day or two, probably to-morrow, they would learn
all the details from Caroline herself. This unhappy young man couldn’t
know anything. Indeed, he was asking for information. Who could he
possibly be? A rival suitor? Lexy remembered Caroline’s pitifully
restricted life. _Two_ suitors of whom she had never heard? It wasn’t
possible!
“No,” she thought. “There’s something queer—something wrong!”
“Look here!” the young man said again. “Aren’t you going to answer me?
Just tell me she’s all right, and—”
“What makes you think she isn’t?” asked Lexy cautiously.
He looked straight into her face.
“You’re playing with me,” he said. “You’re fencing with me, to make me
give myself away; and it’s a pretty rotten thing to do!”
“Rotten?” Lexy repeated indignantly. “Rotten, not to answer questions
from a perfect stranger?”
“Yes,” he said, “it is; because that’s a question you could answer for
any one. I’ve only asked you if Miss Enderby is—all right.”
This high-handed tone didn’t suit Lexy at all. He was actually
presuming to be angry, and that made her angry.
“I shan’t tell you anything at all,” she said, and began to walk on
again.
He put on his hat and turned away, but in a moment he was back at her
side.
“Look here!” he said. “Caroline told me you were her friend. She said
you could be trusted. All right—I am trusting you. I’ve felt, all
along, that there was—something wrong. I’ve got to know! If you’ll
give me your word that she’s safe at home, I’ll clear out, and
apologize for having made a first-class fool of myself; but if she’s
not, I ought to know!”
Lexy stopped again. Their eyes met in a long, steady glance.
“I can’t answer any questions this morning,” she told him. “I promised
I wouldn’t.”
“Then there is something wrong!” the young man exclaimed.
He was silent for a long time, staring at the ground, and Lexy waited,
with a fast beating heart, for some word that would enlighten her. At
last he looked up.
“I’ve got to trust you,” he said simply. “Caroline meant to tell you,
anyhow. You see”—he paused—“I’m Charles Houseman, the man she’s going
to marry.”
“Oh!” cried Lexy.
“Now you’ll tell me, won’t you?”
She stared and stared at him, filled with amazement and pity. Such a
nice-looking, straightforward, manly sort of fellow—and such a look of
pain and bewilderment in his blue eyes!
“But—did she _say_ she would marry you?”
“Of course she did! She—look here! You don’t know what I’ve been
through. It was I who telephoned last night. I—”
“But why did you? Oh, please tell me! I am Caroline’s friend—truly her
friend. I want to understand!”
“All right!” he said. “I telephoned because I was waiting for her, and
she didn’t come.”
“Waiting for—Caroline?”
“We had arranged to get married last night. She was to meet me, but
she didn’t come,” he said, a little unsteadily. “Perhaps she just
changed her mind. Perhaps she doesn’t want to see me any more. If
that’s the case, I’ll trust you not to mention anything about me—to
any one. You see now, don’t you, that I—I had to know?”
Lexy’s eyes filled with tears. Moved by a generous impulse, she held
out her hand.
“I’m so awfully sorry!” she cried.
“Why? You mean—for God’s sake, tell me! You mean she has changed her
mind?”
“I can’t tell you—not now.”
“You can’t leave it at that,” said he. He had taken her outstretched
hand, and he held it tight. “I ought to know what has happened. I
can’t believe that Caroline would let me down like that. She—she’s not
that sort of girl. Something’s gone wrong. She wouldn’t leave me
waiting and waiting there for her at Wyngate.”
“Wyngate!” cried Lexy. “But that was—”
She stopped abruptly. Caroline’s letter had been postmarked “Wyngate.”
She had gone there to meet—some one. She had married—some one.
“I can’t understand,” Lexy went on. “It’s terrible! I can’t tell you
now; but I’ll meet you here this afternoon, after lunch—about two
o’clock—and I’ll tell you then.”
She turned away, then, in haste to get back to Mrs. Enderby, but he
stopped her.
“Remember!” he said sternly. “I’ve trusted you. If Caroline hasn’t
told her people about me, you mustn’t mention my name. I gave her my
word that I would let her do the telling. I didn’t want it that way,
but I promised her, and you’ve got to do the same. If she hasn’t told
about me, you’re not to.”
“Oh, Lord!” cried poor Lexy. “Well, all right, I won’t! Now, for
goodness’ sake, go away, and let me alone—to do the best I can!”
V
Lexy was late. The half hour had been considerably exceeded when she
ran up the steps of the Enderbys house. She rang the bell, and the
door was opened promptly by Annie.
“Mrs. Enderby would like to see you at once, miss,” the parlor maid
said primly.
But Lexy stopped to look covertly at Annie. Did she know anything? It
was possible. Anything was possible now. Lexy was obliged to admit,
however, that Annie had no appearance of guilt or mystery. A brisk and
sober woman of middle age, who had been with the family for nearly ten
years, she looked nothing more or less than disapproving because this
young person had presumed to keep Mrs. Enderby waiting for several
minutes.
“Anyhow, I can’t ask her,” thought Lexy. “That’s the worst part of all
this— I can’t ask anybody anything without breaking a promise to
somebody else; and yet everybody ought to know everything!”
In miserable perplexity, she went upstairs to Mrs. Enderby’s sitting
room. Only one thing was clear in her mind, and that was that she must
be freed from her weak-minded promise not to mention Caroline’s
absence.
“And that’s not going to be easy,” she reflected, “when I can’t
explain to her. There’ll be a row. Well, I don’t care!”
She did care, however. She respected Mrs. Enderby, and in her secret
heart she was a little afraid of her. She felt very young, very crude
and blundering, in the presence of that masterful woman; and she
doubted her own wisdom.
“But what can I do?” she thought. “He said he trusted me. I _can’t_
tell her! No, first I’ll get her to let me off that promise, and I’ll
go and tell that young man. Then I’ll make him let me off, and I’ll
come and tell her. Golly, how I hate all this fool mystery!”
Mrs. Enderby was writing at her desk as Lexy entered the room. She
glanced up, unsmiling.
“You are late,” she said. “I asked you to return in half an hour.”
“I’m sorry,” Lexy replied meekly.
“Very well! Now you will please to come with me.”
She rose, and Lexy followed her down the hall to Caroline’s room. Mrs.
Enderby unlocked the door, and, when they had entered, locked the door
on the inside.
“In fifteen minutes the car is coming,” she said. “I wish you to put
on Caroline’s hat and coat and a veil, and leave the house with me.”
“You mean you want me to pretend I’m Caroline?” cried Lexy.
“I wish it to be thought that you are Caroline,” Mrs. Enderby
corrected her. “Please waste no time. The car will be here—”
“Mrs. Enderby, I—I can’t do it!”
“You can, Miss Moran, and I think you will.”
But Lexy was pretty close to desperation now. Her honest and vigorous
spirit was entangled in a network of promises and obligations and
deceptions, and she could not see how to free herself; but she would
not passively submit.
“No,” she said, “I can’t. I’ve found out something—I can’t tell you
about it just now, but this afternoon I hope—”
“This afternoon is another thing,” said Mrs. Enderby. “In the
meantime—”
“But it’s important! It’s—”
“You think I do not know? You think this letter sets my mind at rest?”
Mrs. Enderby demanded, with one of her sudden flashes of temper. “That
is imbecile! I know how serious it is that my child should leave me
like this; but I know what is my duty—first, to my husband. That
first, I tell you! It is for me to see that no disgrace comes upon his
house, no scandal—that first! Then, next, I must see to it that the
way is left open for Caroline to come back—if she wishes.” She came
close to Lexy, and fixed those black eyes of hers upon the girl’s
face. “I tell you, Miss Moran, there will be no scandal!”
In spite of herself, Lexy was impressed.
“But suppose—” she began.
“No—we shall not suppose. I have told the servants that to-day Miss
Enderby goes into the country, to visit her old governess for a few
days. Very well—they shall see her go. If there is no other letter
to-morrow, I shall tell Mr. Enderby.”
“Doesn’t he know?”
“Please make haste, Miss Moran!” said Mrs. Enderby.
As if hypnotized, Lexy began to dress herself in Caroline’s clothes;
but, as she glanced in the mirror to adjust the close-fitting little
hat, the monstrousness of the whole thing overwhelmed her. She had so
often seen Caroline in this hat and coat!
“Oh, I can’t!” she cried. “I can’t! Suppose something terrible has
happened to her, and I’m—”
“Keep quiet!” said Mrs. Enderby fiercely. “I tell you it shall be so!
Now, the veil. No, not like that—not as if you were disguising
yourself! So!”
She unlocked the door, and, taking Lexy by the arm, went out into the
hall. Together they descended the stairs, Mrs. Enderby chatting
volubly in French, as she was wont to do with her daughter. None of
the servants would think of interrupting her, or of staring at her
companion. It was an ordinary, everyday scene. Annie was crossing the
lower hall.
“Miss Moran will be out all day,” said Mrs. Enderby. “There will be no
one at home for lunch.”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Annie.
The maid would not notice when—or if—Miss Moran went out. There was
nothing to arouse suspicion in any one.
They went out to the car. A small trunk was strapped on behind.
Everything had been prepared for Miss Enderby’s visit to the country.
The chauffeur opened the door and touched his cap respectfully, the
two women got in, and off they went.
“Now you will please to dismiss this subject from your mind,” said
Mrs. Enderby. “I do not wish to talk of it.” She spoke kindly now.
“You will have a pleasant day in the country.”
“Day!” said Lexy. “But what time will we get back?”
“Before dinner.”
“Oh, I’ve got to get back this afternoon! I’ve got to see some one!
It’s important—terribly important!”
Mrs. Enderby smiled faintly.
“The chauffeur must see you descend at Miss Craigie’s house,” she
said. “Once we are there, I have a hat and coat of your own in the
trunk. I shall explain what is necessary to Miss Craigie, who is very
discreet, very devoted. You can change then, but you must go home
quietly by train; and I think there are not many trains.”
Lexy had a vision of the young man waiting and waiting for her in the
park that afternoon—the young man who had trusted her, who was waiting
in such miserable anxiety for some news of Caroline.
“Mrs. Enderby,” she protested, “I can’t come with you. I’ve got to get
back this afternoon.”
“No,” said Mrs. Enderby.
Lexy made a creditable effort to master her anger and distress.
“It’s important—to you,” she said. “I have to see some one about
Caroline—some one who can tell you something.”
This time Mrs. Enderby made no answer at all. There she sat, stout,
majestic, absolutely impervious, looking out of the window as if Lexy
did not exist. What was to be done? She couldn’t communicate with the
chauffeur except by leaning across Mrs. Enderby, and a struggle with
that lady was out of the question.
“But I’m not going on!” she thought.
She waited until the car slowed down at a crossing. Then she made a
sudden dart for the door. With equal suddenness Mrs. Enderby seized
her arm.
“Sit down!” she said, in a singularly unpleasant whisper. “There shall
be no scene. Sit down, I tell you!”
“I won’t!” replied Lexy, but just then the car started forward, and
she fell back on the seat.
“You will come with me,” said Mrs. Enderby.
That overbearing tone, that grasp on her arm, were very nearly too
much for Lexy. She had always been quick-tempered. All the Morans
were, and were perversely proud of it, too; but Lexy had learned many
lessons in a hard school. She had learned to control her temper, and
she did so now. She was silent for a time.
“All right!” she agreed, at last. “I’ll come. I don’t see what else I
can do—now; but after this I’ll have to use my own judgment, Mrs.
Enderby.”
“You have none,” Mrs. Enderby told her calmly.
Lexy clenched her hands, and again was silent for a moment.
“I mean—” she began.
“I know very well what you mean,” said Mrs. Enderby. “You mean that
you will keep faith with me no longer. I saw that. You wished to run
off and tell your story to some one this afternoon. I stopped that.
After this, I cannot stop you any longer. You will tell, but I think
no one will listen to you. I shall deny it, and no one will be likely
to listen to the word of a discharged employee.”
Lexy had grown very pale.
“I see!” she said slowly. “Then you’re going to—”
“You are discharged,” interrupted Mrs. Enderby, “because I do not like
to have my daughter’s companion running into the park to meet a young
man.”
“I see!” said Lexy again.
And nothing more. All the warmth of her anger had gone, and in its
place had come an overwhelming depression. For all her sturdiness and
courage, she was young and generous and sensitive, and those words of
Mrs. Enderby’s hurt her cruelly.
She sat very still, looking out of the window. They had left the city
now, and were on the Boston road. It was a sweet, fresh April day, and
under a bright and windy sky the countryside was showing the first
soft green of spring.
Lexy remembered. She remembered the things she had so valiantly tried
to forget—the dear, happy days that were past, spring days like this,
in her own home, with her mother and father; early morning rides on
her little black mare, and coming home to the old house, to the people
who loved her; her father’s laugh, her mother’s wonderful smile, the
friendly faces of the servants.
She was not old enough or wise enough as yet, for these memories to be
a solace to her. They were pain—nothing but pain. There was no one now
to love her, or even to be interested in her. She had cut herself off
from her old friends and gone out alone, like a poor, rash, gallant
little knight-errant, into the wide world to seek her fortune.
Caroline had disappeared, and Mrs. Enderby had dismissed her with
savage contempt. She would have to go out now and look for a new job.
She straightened her shoulders.
“This won’t do!” she said to herself. “It’s disgusting, mawkish
self-pity, and nothing else. I’m young and healthy, and I can always
find a job. What I want to think about now is Caroline, and what I
ought to do for her.”
So she did begin to think about Caroline. The first thought that came
into her head was such an extraordinary one that it startled her.
“Anyhow, she’s a pretty lucky girl!”
Lucky? Caroline, who had lived like a prisoner, and who had now so
strangely disappeared, lucky—simply because a sunburned, blue-eyed
young man was so miserably anxious about her?
“I suppose he’s thinking about her this minute,” Lexy reflected; “and
I’m sure nobody in the world is thinking about me. Well, I don’t
care!”