followed the polo game must have been interesting, and could they be
known might afford matter for amusement and study. It must be one of the
chief sources of diversion to the Father of Evil to watch the growth in
human minds and hearts of schemes for mischief. He has the satisfaction
of seeing his own ends served, the entertainment of observing a curious
and fascinating mental process, and all the while his vanity may be
tickled by the reflection that it is he who will receive the credit for
each cunningly developed plot of iniquity. That the fiend had been
agreeably entertained on this occasion was to be inferred from the
proceedings of Mrs. Neligage next morning, when the plans of the night
were being carried into effect.
As early in the day as calling was reasonably possible, Mrs. Neligage,
although it was Sunday, betook herself to see May Calthorpe. May, who
had neither father nor mother living, occupied the family house on
Beacon street, opposite the Common, having as companion a colorless
cousin who played propriety, and for the most part played it unseen.
The dwelling was rather a gloomy nest for so bright a bird as May.
Respectability of the most austere New England type pervaded the big
drawing-room where Mrs. Neligage was received. The heavy old furniture
was as ugly as original sin, and the pictures might have ministered to
the Puritan hatred for art. Little was changed from the days when May's
grandparents had furnished their abode according to the most approved
repulsiveness of their time. Only the brightness of the warm April sun
shining in at the windows, and a big bunch of dark red roses in a
crystal jug, lightened the formality of the stately apartment.
When May came into the room, however, it might have seemed that she had
cunningly retained the old appointments as a setting to make more
apparent by contrast her youthful fresh beauty. With her clear color,
her dark hair, and sparkling eyes, she was the more bewitching amid this
stately, sombre furniture, and in this gloomy old lofty room.
"My dear," Mrs. Neligage said, kissing her affectionately, "how well you
look. I was dreadfully afraid I should find you worried and unhappy."
May returned her greeting less effusively, and seemed somewhat puzzled
at this address.
"But why in the world should I look worried?" she asked.
Mrs. Neligage sat down, and regarded the other impressively in silence a
moment before replying.
"Oh, my dear child," she said dramatically, "how could you be so
imprudent?"
May became visibly paler, and in her turn sank into a chair.
"I don't know what you mean," she faltered.
"If you had lived in society abroad as much as I have, May," was the
answer, delivered with an expressive shake of the head, "you would know
how dreadfully a girl compromises herself by writing to a strange
gentleman."
May started up, her eyes dilating.
"Oh, how did you know?" she demanded.
"The Count thinks the most horrible things," the widow went on
mercilessly. "You know what foreigners are. It wouldn't have been so bad
if it were an American."
Poor May put her hands together with a woeful gesture as if she were
imploring mercy.
"Oh, is it the Count really?" she cried. "I saw that he had a red
carnation in his buttonhole yesterday, but I hoped that it was an
accident."
"A red carnation?" repeated Mrs. Neligage.
"Yes; that was the sign by which I was to know him. I said so in that
letter."
It is to be doubted if the Recording Angel at that moment wrote down to
the credit of Mrs. Neligage that she regretted having by chance stuck
that flower in the Count's coat at the County Club.
"You poor child!" she murmured with a world of sympathy in her voice.
The touch was too much for May, who melted into tears. She was a
simple-hearted little thing or she would never have written the unlucky
letters to Christopher Calumus, and in her simplicity she had evidently
fallen instantly into the trap set for her. She dabbed resolutely at her
eyes with her handkerchief, but the fountain was too free to be so
easily stanched.
"It will make a horrid scandal," Mrs. Neligage went on by way of
comfort. "Oh, I do hate those dreadful foreign ways of talking about
women. It used to make me so furious abroad that I wanted to kill the
men."
May was well on the way to sobs now.
"Such things are so hard to kill, too," pursued the widow. "Everybody
here will say there is nothing in it, but it will be repeated, and
laughed about, and it will never be forgotten. That's the worst of it.
The truth makes no difference, and it is almost impossible to live a
thing of that sort down. You've seen Laura Seaton, haven't you? Well,
that's just what ruined her life. She wrote some foolish letters, and it
was found out. It always is found out; and she's always been in a
cloud."
Mrs. Neligage did not mention that the letters which the beclouded Miss
Seaton had written had been to a married man and with a full knowledge
on her part who her correspondent was.
"Oh, Mrs. Neligage," sobbed May. "Do you suppose the Count will tell?"
"My dear, he showed me the letter."
"Oh, did he?" moaned the girl, crimson to the eyes. "Did you read it?"
"Read it, May? Of course not!" was the answer, delivered with admirable
appearance of indignation; "but I knew the handwriting."
May was by this time so shaken by sobs and so miserable that her
condition was pitiful. Mrs. Neligage glided to a seat beside her, and
took the girl in her arms in a fashion truly motherly.
"There, there, May," said she soothingly. "Don't give way so. We must do
something to straighten things out."
"Oh, do you think we could?" demanded May, looking up through her tears.
"Can't you get that letter away from him?"
"I tried to make him give it to me, but he refused."
It really seemed a pity that the widow was not upon the stage, so
admirably did she show sympathy in voice and manner. She caressed the
tearful maiden, and every tone was like an endearment.
"Somebody must get that letter," she went on. "It would be fatal to
leave it in the Count's possession. He is an old hand at this sort of
thing. I knew about him abroad."
She might have added with truth that she had herself come near marrying
him, supposing that he had a fortune to match his title, but that she
had luckily discovered his poverty in time.
"But who can get it?" asked May, checking her tears as well as was
possible under the circumstances.
"It must be somebody who has the right to represent you," Mrs. Neligage
responded with an air of much impressiveness.
"Anybody may represent me," declared May. "Couldn't you do it, Mrs.
Neligage?"
"My dear," the other answered in a voice of remonstrance, "a lady could
hardly go to a man on an errand like that. It must be a man."
May dashed her hands together in a burst of impatience and despair.
"Oh, I don't see what you gave it to him for," she cried in a lamentable
voice. "You might have known that I wouldn't have written it if I'd any
idea that that old thing was Christopher Calumus."
"And I wouldn't have given it to him," returned Mrs. Neligage quietly,
"if I'd had any idea that you were capable of writing to men you didn't
know."
May looked as if the tone in which this was said or the words themselves
had completed her demoralization. She was bewitching in her misery, her
eyes swimming divinely in tears, large and pathetic and browner than
ever, her hair ruffled in her agitation into tiny rings and pliant wisps
all about her temples, her cheeks flushed and moist. Her mouth, with its
trembling little lips, might have moved the sternest heart of man to
compassion and to the desire at least of consoling it with kisses. The
more firm and logical feminine mind of Mrs. Neligage was not, however,
by all this loveliness of woe turned away from her purpose.
"At any rate," she went on, "the thing that can't be altered is that you
have written the letter, and that the Count has it. I do pity you
terribly, May; and I know Count Shimbowski, so I know what I'm saying. I
came in this morning to say something to you, to propose something, that
is; but I don't know how you'll take it. It is a way out of the
trouble."
"If there's any way out," returned May fervently, "I'm sure I don't care
what it is; I'm ready for it, if it's to chop off my fingers."
"It isn't that, my dear," Mrs. Neligage assured her with a suggestion of
a laugh, the faint suggestion of a laugh, such as was appropriate to the
direful situation only alleviated by the possibility which was to be
spoken. "The fact is there's but one thing to do. You must let Jack act
for you."
"Oh, will he, Mrs. Neligage?" cried May, brightening at once.
It has been noted by more than one observer of life that in times of
trouble the mere mention of a man is likely to produce upon the feminine
mind an effect notably cheering. Whether this be true, or a mere
fanciful calumny of those heartless male writers who have never been
willing to recognize that the real glory of woman lies in her being able
entirely to ignore the existence of man, need not be here discussed. It
is enough to record that at the sound of Jack's name May did undoubtedly
rouse herself from the abject and limp despair into which she was
completely collapsing. She caught at the suggestion as a trout snaps at
the fisherman's fly.
"He will be only too glad to," said Mrs. Neligage, "if he has the
right."
She paused and looked down, playing with the cardcase in her hands. She
made a pretty show of being puzzled how to go on, so that the most
stupid observer could not have failed to understand that there was
something of importance behind her words. May began to knit her white
forehead in an evident attempt to comprehend what further complication
there might be in the affair under discussion.
"I must be plain," the widow said, after a slight, hesitating pause.
"What I have to say is as awkward as possible, and of course it's
unusual; but under the circumstances there's no help for it. I hope
you'll understand, May, that it's only out of care for you that I'm
willing to come here this morning and make a fool of myself."
"I don't see how you could make a fool of yourself by helping me," May
said naïvely.
The visitor smiled, and put out a trimly gloved hand to pat the fingers
of the girl as they lay on the chair-arm.
"No, that's the truth, May. I am trying to help you, and so I needn't
mind how it sounds. Well, then; the fact is that there's one thing that
makes this all very delicate. Whoever goes to the Count must have
authority."
"Well, I'm ready to give Jack authority."
"But it must be the authority of a betrothed, my dear."
"What! Oh, Mrs. Neligage!"
May sat bolt upright and stiffened in her chair as if a wave of liquid
air had suddenly gone over her.
"To send a man for the letters under any other circumstances would be as
compromising as the letters in the first place. Besides, the Count
wouldn't be bound to give them up except to your _fiancé_."
"That horrid Count!" broke out May with vindictive irrelevancy. "I wish
it was just a man we had to deal with!"
"Now Jack has been in love with you for a long time, my dear," pursued
Jack's mother.
"Jack! In love with me? Why, he's fond of Alice."
"Oh, in a boy and girl way they've always been the best of friends. It's
nothing more. He's in love with you, I tell you. What do you young
things know about love anyway, or how to recognize it? I shouldn't tell
you this if it weren't for the circumstances; but Jack is too delicate
to speak when it might look as if he were taking advantages. He is
furious about the letter."
"Oh, does he know too?" cried poor May. "Does everybody know?"
Her tears began again, and now Mrs. Neligage dried them with her own
soft handkerchief, faintly scented with the especial eastern scent which
she particularly affected. Doubtless a mother may be held to know
something of the heart and the opinions of her only son, but as Jack had
not, so far as his mother had any means of knowing, in the least
connected May Calthorpe with the letter given to Count Shimbowski, it is
perhaps not unfair to conclude that her maternal eagerness and affection
had in this particular instance led her somewhat far. It is never the
way of a clever person to tell more untruths than are actually needed by
the situation, and it was perhaps by way of not increasing too rapidly
her debit account on the books of the Recording Angel that Mrs. Neligage
replied to this question of May's with an evasion,--an evasion, it is
true, which was more effective than a simple, direct falsehood would
have been.
"Oh, May dear, you don't know the horrid way in which those foreign
rakes boast of what they call their conquests!"
The idea of being transformed from a human, self-respecting being into a
mere conquest, the simple, ignominious spoils of the chase, might well
be too much for any girl, and May became visibly more limp under it.
"The simple case is here," proceeded the widow, taking up again her
parable with great directness. "Jack is fond of you; he is too delicate
to speak of it, and he knows that this is a time when nobody but a
_fiancé_ has a right to meddle. If you had a brother, of course it would
be different; but you haven't. Something must be done, and so I came
this morning really to beg you, for Jack's sake and your own, to consent
to an engagement."
"Did Jack send you?" demanded May, looking straight into the other's
eyes.
Mrs. Neligage met the gaze fairly, yet there was a little hesitation in
her reply. It might be that she considered whether the risk were greater
in telling the truth or in telling a lie; but in the end it was the
truth that she began with. Before she had got half through her sentence
she had distorted it out of all recognition, indeed, but it is always an
advantage to begin with what is true. It lends to any subsequent
falsifying a moral support which is of inestimable value.
"He knows nothing of it at all," she confessed. "He is too proud to let
anybody speak for him, just as under the circumstances he is too proud
to speak for himself. Besides, he is poor, and all your friends would
say he was after your money. No, nothing would induce him to speak for
himself. He is very unhappy about it all; but he feels far worse for you
than for himself. Dear Jack! He is the most generous fellow in the
world."
"Poor Jack!" May murmured softly.
"Poor Jack!" the widow echoed, with a deep-drawn sigh. "It frightens me
so to think what might happen if he hears the Count boasting in his
insolent way. Foreigners always boast of their conquests! Why, May,
there's no knowing what he might do! And the scandal of it for you! And
what should I do if anything happened to Jack?"
Perhaps an appeal most surely touches the feminine heart if it be a
little incoherent. A pedant might have objected that Mrs. Neligage in
this brief speech altered the point of view with reckless frequency,
but the pedant would by the effect have been proved to be wrong. The
jumble of possibilities and of consequences, of woe to Jack, harm to
May, and of general inconsolability on the part of the mother finished
the conquest of the girl completely. She was henceforth only eager to do
whatever Mrs. Neligage directed, and under the instigation of her astute
counsellor wrote a note to the young man, accepting a proposal which he
had never heard of, and imploring him as her accepted lover to rescue
from the hands of Count Shimbowski the letter addressed to Christopher
Calumus. It is not every orator, even among the greatest, who can boast
of having achieved a triumph so speedy and so complete as that which
gladdened the heart of Mrs. Neligage when, after consoling and cheering
her promised daughter-in-law, she set out to find her son.
XVI
THE DUTY OF A SON
Simple were this world if it were governed by frankness, albeit
perchance in some slight particulars less interesting. Certainly if
straightforwardness ruled life, Mrs. Neligage would have fared
differently in her efforts that morning. She would have had no
opportunity in that case of displaying her remarkable astuteness, and
she would have left the life-threads of divers young folk to run more
smoothly. Knots and tangles in the lives of mortals are oftener
introduced by their fellows than by the unkindly fingers of the Fates,
although the blame must be borne by the weird sisters. The three might
well stand aghast that forenoon to see the deftness with which Mrs.
Neligage wrought her mischief. A fisherman with his netting-needle and a
kitten playing with the twine together produce less complication of the
threads than the widow that day brought about by the unaided power of
her wits.
Jack Neligage had chambers with Fairfield in a semi-fashionable
apartment-house. Both the young men had a certain position to maintain,
and neither was blessed with means sufficient to do it without much
stretching. Fairfield was industrious and Neligage was idle, which in
the end was more favorable to the reputation of the former and to the
enjoyment of the latter. Jack fared the better in material things,
because the man who is willing to run into debt may generally live more
expensively than he who strives to add to an inadequate income by the
fruit of his toil.
On this particular morning Dick had gone to church in the vain hope of
seeing May Calthorpe, while Jack was found by his mother smoking a
cigarette over the morning paper. He had just finished his late
breakfast, and opened his letters. The letters lay on the uncleared
breakfast table in various piles. The largest heap was one made of bills
torn to bits. Jack made it a matter of principle to tear up his bills as
soon as they came. It saved trouble, and was, he said, a business-like
habit. The second heap was composed of invitations to be answered; while
advertisements and personal letters made the others. Jack received his
mother with his usual joyous manner. It had been said of him that his
continual good nature was better than an income to him. It certainly
made him a favorite, it procured for him many an invitation, and it had
even the effect of softening the hard heart of many a creditor. He was
in appearance no less cheerful this morning for his talk with Wilson at
the County Club or for the mysterious hints of ill which his mother had
given him. It was all confoundedly awkward, he had commented to
Fairfield before retiring on the previous night, but hang it, what good
would it do to fret about it?
"Good-morning, mater," he greeted her. "You must have something mighty
important on your mind to come flying round here at this time in the
day."
"I have," she said, "and I want you to try for once in your life to take
things seriously."
"Seriously!" was his answer. "Don't I always take things seriously? Or
if I don't, it can't be in me, for I'm sure I have enough to make me
serious. Look at that pile of bills there."
Mrs. Neligage walked to the table, inspected first the invitations,
which she looked over with truly feminine attention, and then began to
pick up pieces of the torn-up bills.
"How in the world, Jack, do you ever know what you owe?" she asked.
"Know what I owe? Gad! I wouldn't know that for the world. Sit down, and
tell me what disagreeable thing brought you here."
"Why is it necessarily disagreeable?" she demanded, seating herself
beside the table, and playing with the torn paper.
"You said yesterday that you were in a mess."
"Yes," she replied slowly; "but that was yesterday."
"Does that mean that you are out of it? So much the better."
Mrs. Neligage clasped her hands in her lap, and regarded her son with a
strong and eager look.
"Jack," she began, "I want you to listen to me, and not interrupt. You
must hear the whole thing before you begin to put in your word. In the
first place, you are engaged to May Calthorpe."
The exclamation and the laugh which greeted this piece of information
were so nearly simultaneous that Jack might be given the benefit of the
doubt and so evade the charge of swearing before a lady.
"Why in the world, mother," he said, "must you come harping on that
string again? You know it's of no use."
"You are engaged now, Jack, and of course that makes a difference."
"Oh, bother! Do speak sensibly. What are you driving at?"
The widow regarded him with a serene face, and settled herself more
comfortably in her chair.
"I came to congratulate you on your engagement to Miss May Calthorpe,"
she said, with all possible coolness and distinctness.
"Indeed? Then I am sorry to tell you that you have wasted your labor. I
haven't even seen May since we left the County Club yesterday."
"Oh, I knew that."
"What in the world are you driving at, mother? Perhaps you don't mind
telling me who told you of the engagement."
"Oh, not in the least. May told me."
"May Calthorpe!"
It was not strange that Jack should receive the announcement with
surprise, but it was evident that there was in his mind more
bewilderment. He stared at his mother without further word, while she
pulled off her gloves and loosened her coat as if to prepare herself for
the explanation which it was evident must follow.
"Come, Jack," she remarked, when she had adjusted these preliminaries,
"we may as well be clear about this. I made an offer in your name to
May, and she has accepted it."
Jack rose from his seat, and stood over her, his sunny face growing
pale.
"You made an offer in my name?" he demanded.
"Sit down," she commanded, waving her hand toward his chair. "There is a
good deal to be said, and you'll be tired of standing before I tell it
all. Is there any danger that Mr. Fairfield may come in?"
Jack walked over to the door and slipped the catch.
"He is not likely to come," he said, "but it's sure now. Fire away."
He spoke with a seriousness which he used seldom. There were times when
lazy, good-tempered Jack Neligage took a stubborn fit, and those who
knew him well did not often venture to cross him in those moods. The
proverb about the wrath of a patient man had sometimes been applied to
him. When these rare occasions came on which his temper gave way he
became unusually calm and self-possessed, as he was now. It could not
but have been evident to his mother that she had to do with her son in
one of the worst of his rare rages. Perhaps the vexations of the
previous days, the pile of torn bills on the table, the icy greeting
Alice Endicott had given him yesterday, all had to do with the sudden
outbreak of his anger, but any man might have been excused for being
displeased by such an announcement as had just been made to Jack.
"I'm not going into your financial affairs, Jack," Mrs. Neligage
remarked, with entire self-possession, "only that they count, of
course."
"I know enough about them," he said curtly. "We'll take them for
granted."
"Very well then--we will talk about mine. You've hinted once or twice
that you didn't like the way I flirted with Sibley Langdon. I owe him
six thousand dollars."
If the widow had been planning a theatrical effect in her coolly
pronounced words, she had no reason to be disappointed at the result.
Jack started to his feet with an oath, and glared at her with angry
eyes.
"More than that," she went on boldly, though she cast down her glance
before his, "the money was to save me from the consequences of--"
Her voice faltered and the word died on her lips. Jack stood as if
frozen, staring with a hard face and lips tightly shut.
"Oh, Jack," she burst out, "why do you make me shame myself! Why can't
you understand? I'm no good, Jack; but I'm your mother."
Actual tears were in her eyes, and her breath was coming quickly. It is
always peculiarly hard to see a self-contained, worldly woman lose
control of herself. The strength of emotion which is needed to shake
such a nature is instinctively appreciated by the spectator, and affects
him with a pain that is almost too cruel to be borne. Jack Neligage,
however, showed no sign of softening.
"You must tell me the whole now," he said in a hard voice.
The masculine instinct of asserting the right to judge a woman was in
his tone. She wiped away her tears, and choked back her sobs. A little
tremor ran over her, and then she began again, speaking in a voice lower
than before, but firmly held in restraint.