GORDON BECOMES ENGAGED
Frances and I started away on the trip, immediately, for there was not a
moment to lose. That letter must at once be retrieved. The dreadful
woman had evidently seized upon one never meant for her, and must be
bearded in her den. From her the missive must be rescued, by force of
arms if necessary; it must be snatched from the burning, seized and
brought back, even at the cost of bloodshed.
This, it may be, is but the vague impression I gathered from the profuse
and simultaneous conversation of my two dear friends. When I humbly
suggested again that the Jersey person might perhaps have a perfect
equity in the document, they looked at me with the pitying condescension
accorded the feebleminded and the very young by the gentler sex. Also, I
proposed to hie me to Little Ferry alone, interview the termagant in
question and make her disgorge, in case she was illegally detaining
words meant for another.
This was once more met by a look from Frieda to Frances, and vice-versa,
which was then turned upon me and made me feel like an insignificant
and, I hope, a harmless microbe.
"My dear Dave," said Frieda, tolerantly, "you are not Madame Paul
Dupont. Why should that abominable woman give up the letter to you?"
"When she sees me and Baby," declared Frances, "she will not have the
heart to refuse."
The upshot of it was that we departed, leaving Frieda behind. For the
first time in his life little Paul was shot through a tunnel, emerged in
Jersey, none the worse for his experience, and was taken aboard a train.
Soon afterwards we were observing the great meadows and the Hackensack
River, a vacillating, sluggish stream, running either up or down, at the
behest of a tide that always possesses plenty of leisure, through banks
winding in a great valley of cat-tails and reeds among which, in the
summertime, legions of grackles and redwings appear to find a plenteous
living. But at this time the stream was more than usually turbid, filled
with aimlessly floating cakes of ice, and the green of fairer weather
had given place to a drab hue of discouraged weeds awaiting better
days. While waiting at the station, I had found that the Telephone
Directory contained at least a dozen Duponts, that the City Directory
held a small regiment of them, and considered that New Jersey had a
right to its share of citizens of that name.
The train stopped, and we got out in a place that was mostly constituted
by a bridge, small houses lining a muddy pike and a vista of many houses
partly concealed among trees. After consultation with a local butcher,
followed by the invasion of a grocer's shop, we were directed to a neat
frame cottage within a garden. I opened the gate and walked in, first,
deeming it my duty to face the dangers and protect the convoy in my
rear.
There was no need to ring a bell. The front door opened and a
white-haired woman appeared, her locks partly hidden under a white cap
that was the counterpart of many I had seen in the Latin Quarter, among
janitresses or ladies vending vegetables from barrows. Her form was
concealed in a wide, shapeless garment, of the kind adopted by French
women whom age has caused to abandon the pomps and vanities. I believe
they call it a _caraco_. The cotton skirt was unadorned and the
slippers ample for tender feet. Also, the smile on her face was
welcoming in its sweetness. Near her a fat blind dog wheezed some sort
of greeting.
"Madame Paul Dupont?" I asked.
"_Pour vous servir_," she answered politely.
So this was the Gorgon in question, the purloiner of correspondence, to
be placated if possible and defeated _vi et armis_ in case of rebellion!
Frances hastily pushed me to one side, though with all gentleness. She
spoke French very fluently. I easily understood her to say that she was
also Madame Paul Dupont, that her husband had been to the war, that she
had heard of his being killed, that--that----
She was interrupted. The white-bonneted old woman took her to her bosom,
planting a resounding kiss on her cheek, and clamored in admiration of
the baby.
"Come in the house," she said. "I am delighted to see you. I shall have
to ask Paul if he ever had any cousins or nephews who came to this
country. But no; he would have told me. I am sorry that Paul is not here
to see you. He is the pastry-cook at the Netherlands; you should taste
his puff-paste and his _Baba au Rhum_. He did not go to the war because
he is fifty-nine and has a bad leg. But I have a son over there. He has
killed many Boches. I have thirty-seven postal cards from him."
"But, Madame," I put in, "we came on account of a letter written in care
of the Consulate, and we were informed----"
"That was a letter from my niece Petronille, whose husband keeps a
_cafe_ in Madagascar. She wanted to let me know of the birth of her
fourth daughter. Have you ever seen a letter from there? It is a country
very far away, somewhere in China or Africa. I will show you."
She sought her spectacles, looked over a large and orderly pile of
papers, and brought us the document.
"Please read it," she said, "it is very interesting."
Frances glanced over it, looking badly disappointed, and passed it to
me. It contained vast information as to Petronille's growing family and
the price of chickens and Vermouth in Antanarivo, also certain details
as to native fashions, apparently based on the principle of least worn,
soonest mended.
Before we left, we were compelled to accept a thimbleful of _cassis_,
most delectable, and to promise to return very soon. Her husband would
make us a _vol-au-vent_, for which he had no equal. He would be sorry to
have been absent. She wished her son had been married to such a nice
woman as Frances and had possessed a son like Baby Paul. Alas! She might
never see the boy again, and then there would be nothing left of him, no
little child to be cherished by the old people. It was such a pity!
She insisted on seeing us all the way back to the station and on
carrying Paul, whom she parted with after many embraces. Peace be on her
good old soul, and may the son come back safely and give her the little
one her heart longs for!
"She is a darling," said Frances sorrowfully, "and, oh! I'm so terribly
disappointed."
The poor child had so hoped for news, for some details as to the manner
in which her own Paul had been sacrificed to his motherland, and this
visit made her very sad. For many days afterwards her thoughts, which
had perhaps begun to accept the inevitable with resignation, turned
again to the loved one buried somewhere in France.
Neither Frieda, who came in after suppertime, nor I, was able to give
her much consolation. Again, I wished I had never seen that announcement
and deplored my well-intended folly in calling her attention to it. She
seemed very weary, as if the short trip had been a most fatiguing one,
and retired very soon, alleging the need to rise early to do some
mending of Baby's clothes, and acknowledging the fact that she felt
headachy and miserable.
Frieda looked at me indulgently, but I suspect that she blamed me
strongly for the whole occurrence. Doubtless, I ought not to have looked
at that paper, I should not have spoken of it, and my permitting Frances
to go to Jersey had been a sinful act of mine.
But, after all, Frieda is the best old girl in the world, I believe and
declare. She patted my shoulder as if I had promised her never to be
wicked again, and permitted me to see her home, as some snow had fallen
and she was dreadfully afraid of slipping. I prevailed on her to accept
pair of old rubbers of mine and, once in the street, she grasped my arm
with a determination that left a blue mark next day.
"So she is going again to the studio," she said, after I had piloted her
to her flat, which she invited me to invade. "Do you really think that
Gordon has the slightest idea that he can improve on that first
picture?"
"I suppose that he just hopes to," I replied. "Whenever I begin a new
story, I haven't the slightest idea whether it will be good or not.
Sometimes, I don't even know after it is finished. Take the 'Land o'
Love,' for instance; I really thought it a good piece of work, but
Jamieson looks positively gloomy about it."
"He must be a very silly man," said Frieda, unswerving in her loyalty to
me, but swiftly changing the subject. "Baby Paul is becoming very heavy.
He'll be seven months old, come next Friday, and Frances looks
dreadfully tired. It is hard for her to take him every day to that
studio and back."
"I could get up early in the morning and help her," I suggested
recklessly.
"And then you could wait outside for two or three hours and help her
back," she laughed. "No, Dave, it isn't so bad as all that. But I'm
afraid she's badly discouraged. That little Dr. Porter is still fiddling
away at her throat, training it, he calls it, but she's not a bit
better. In fact, she thinks it's getting worse. And she says she can
never pay him for all he's done and she might as well stop going. On
Sunday morning he says he's going to do something to it, that may hurt a
little, and she's afraid. She asked me to go with her."
"I'll go with you, if she will let me and Porter doesn't chase me out,"
I proposed. "I have great confidence in that boy."
"So have I, but he hasn't assured her that it will bring her voice
back."
I told her that this showed the man was not a cocksure humbug, and
expressed fervent hopes as to the result, after which Frieda made a
disreputable bundle of my rubbers and I left with them, in a hard flurry
of snow. My room, after I reached it, seemed unusually cold. The
landlady's ancient relative sometimes juggles rather unsuccessfully with
the furnace, and she bemoaned before me, yesterday, the dreadful price
of coal. Hence, I went to work and warmed myself by writing the outline
of a tale with a plot unfolding itself during a hot wave of August. So
kindly is my imagination that, by midnight, I was wiping my brow and
sitting in my shirt-sleeves, till a sudden chill sent me to bed. This, I
am glad to say, had no serious consequence. I remember wondering about
the new picture Gordon would begin and, before I fell asleep, some trick
of my mind presented the thing to me. It was a queer composite of the
Murillo in the Louvre, of Raphael's Madonna of the Chair and of Frances
herself. From the canvas she was looking at me, with lids endowed with
motion and smiling eyes. There came to me, then, a dim recollection of
some strange Oriental belief, to the effect that on the Day of Judgment
sculptured and painted figures will crowd around their makers, begging
in vain for the souls that have been denied them. But I felt that
Gordon's "Mother and Child" will never thus clutch despairingly at their
painter's garment. The very soul of them is in that picture, already
endowed with a life that must endure till the canvas fritters itself
away into dust.
When I awoke, I found, with shamed dismay, that it was nearly ten
o'clock. On leaving my room I saw that the door opposite was wide open,
with Mrs. Milliken wrestling with a mattress. Frances was gone, bearing
her little Paul, through the still falling snow, to that studio where
Gordon would again spread some of her beauty and soul on the magic
cloth.
A few hours after, she returned in a taxicab.
"He insisted that I must take it," she explained. "He came downstairs
with me and told the man to charge it to him, at the club. The light was
very poor and he could do no painting. Spent the time just drawing and
rubbing the charcoal out again. I think he must be working very hard,
for he looks nervous and worried. No, I'm not hungry. He made me take
lunch at the studio, while he went out to the club. He--he seems very
impatient when I hesitate or don't wish to--to accept his kindnesses,
and becomes very gruff. He hardly said a word from the time when he
returned, till he bade me go home in the taxi. And--and now I must do
some sewing."
I left her, having an appointment with my literary agent, who has asked
me for a story for a new magazine. I reached his office and was asked
to wait for a few minutes, as he was busy with an author whose words are
worth much gold.
On the oaken table in the waiting-room, among other publications, there
was a weekly of society and fashion. I took it up for a desultory glance
at the pages. The first paragraph my eyes fell upon stated that the most
distinguished of our younger painters, it was whispered, was about to
announce his engagement to a fair Diana whose triumphs over hurdles, on
the links and on the tennis courts were no less spoken of than her
wealth and beauty.
I supposed that Gordon had seen those lines, for he takes that paper.
According to Frances, he is worried and nervous. How can this be? She
must surely be mistaken. He has captured and safely holds the bubble of
reputation, his work commands a reward that seems fabulous to such as I,
and now he is to marry beauty and wealth. Can there be any hitch in his
plans?
After I had finished my business with my agent, I strolled out with a
commission to write a five thousand word story. My way then led me up
Fifth Avenue, to the place where I get the tea Frieda and Frances so
greatly appreciate. At the Forty-Second Street crossing my arm was
seized from behind.
"Hold on, old boy. Those motors are splashing dreadfully," said Gordon,
rescuing me from a spattering of liquid mud. "Come with me to the club."
I followed him with the sheeplike acquiescence that is part of my
nature, feeling rather glad of the opportunity to talk with him and
perhaps congratulate him. As usual, he was most spick and span. His fur
coat had a collar of Alaska seal and the black pearl in his necktie was
probably worth a couple of square feet of his painting, though the
general effect was quiet and unobtrusive.
We sat down in the most deserted corner he could find and looked at one
another in silence, for a few moments. It is to be presumed that my
patience outlasted his.
"You're the dullest old curmudgeon ever permitted to come into polite
society," he declared, looking aggrieved.
"I was serenely waiting for your announcement," I replied.
"Oh! So you've seen that thing also!" he retorted, with evident
annoyance.
"Well, my dear fellow, I wanted to know whether to congratulate you or
whether the information was somewhat premature. Come, Gordon, I used to
think that we were a replica of Damon and Pythias! Won't it do you a bit
of good to talk it over? Do you never feel the need of confiding in a
friend, nowadays?"
For a moment he looked down at his boots, after which he deliberately
placed both elbows on the little table that separated us and stared at
me.
"The announcement is all right. Bought a solitaire for her last week. I
suppose that she is wearing it. There is to be a reception soon, and
you'll get a card to it."
I pushed my hand over to him and he took it, rather lukewarmly.
"Oh! That's all right! I know you wish me happiness. Well, I'm getting
it, am I not? I'm just as merry as a grig. Here, boy!"
The lad in buttons took his order for whiskies and soda, after which
Gordon glared at the portrait of the club's distinguished first
president.
"Rotten piece of work, I call it. Chap who did it used a lot of beastly
bitumen too, and it's cracking all over. Awful rubbishy stuff."
"I suppose so," I assented, on faith.
"Ben Franklin was a shrewd old fellow," he continued, with one of his
habitual lightning changes. "Tells us that a man without a woman is like
half a pair of scissors. I'm to be the complete thing, now. Stunning
girl, Miss Van Rossum, isn't she? She talks of having a studio built at
Southampton, for effect, I presume. How the deuce could a fellow expect
to paint with a parcel of chattering women around him?"
"Oh! I daresay you might get used to it," I told him, soothingly.
"I won't! She is going to read books about painting. Told me she wanted
to be able to talk intelligently about it, and I advised against it.
People don't talk intelligently about painting, they only pretend to.
They must insist on airing their views about futurists, or the influence
of Botticelli or such truck. They make me yawn, and I try to turn the
conversation, but it's a tough job. Why the deuce are you looking at me
like that?"
He snapped the question out so quickly that I was somewhat taken aback,
and he began again, without waiting for an answer.
"Oh! It's no use trying to make a practical man of the world out of a
sentimental writer of impossible love stories. You're staring at me
because I don't answer to your preconceived ideas of a fellow
contemplating the joys of matrimony. Why the deuce should I?"
"I don't know, old fellow," I confessed. "I acknowledge that I have
always regarded wedded life in the abstract, but I must say that my----"
"I know. Your ideal is a freckled youth with a left shoulder upholding
the head of a pug-nosed girl, who weeps tears of joy in his bosom, the
while he gazes up at the heavens in thankfulness. I'm all right, Dave!
I've accomplished all that I was aiming at, and there are no problems
left to solve. Where's that devilish boy with those drinks?"
I could not help looking at him again, for I was becoming more and more
convinced that he was far from representing the happy man I had been
eager to congratulate. Our beverages came, and he tossed his down,
hurriedly, as if it furnished a welcome diversion to his thoughts. Five
minutes later, I was walking alone to the shop where I buy my tea.
"I wonder what's wrong?" I asked myself, pushing the door open.