AFTER THE OPERA.
The ladies slept late the next morning, and Rex breakfasted alone and
then went to the salon to meet his aunt, as he had promised to do the
night before. It was rather tiresome waiting, and he found himself
wishing Bertha would come in, and wondering where she was. As a young
man of position and wealth and unexceptionable habits, he was a general
favorite with the ladies, and many a mother would gladly have captured
him for her daughter, while the daughter would not have said no if asked
to be his wife. This he knew perfectly well, but, he said, the daughters
didn’t fill the bill. He wanted a real girl, not a made-up one, with
powdered face, bleached hair, belladonna eyes, and all the obnoxious
habits so fast stealing into the best society. Little Louie Thurston had
touched his boyish fancy, and he admired her more than any other woman
he had ever met; Grace Haynes amused and interested him; but neither she
nor Louie possessed the qualities with which he had endowed his ideal
wife, who, he had come to believe, did not exist. Thus far everything
connected with Bertha Leighton had interested him greatly, and the two
hours he had spent alone with her had deepened that interest. She was
beautiful, agreeable, and real, he believed, with something fresh and
bright and original about her. He was anxious to see her again, and was
thinking of going down to the piazza, hoping to find her there, when his
aunt appeared, and for the next hour he sat with her, telling her of
their friends in New York and of his visit to the Homestead, where he
had been so hospitably entertained and made so many discoveries with
regard to Bertha.
“She is a great favorite in Leicester,” he said, “and I think you have a
treasure.”
“Yes, she serves me very well,” Mrs. Hallam replied, and then changed
the conversation, just as Grace knocked at the door, saying she was
going for a walk into town, and asking if Rex would like to go with her.
It was a long ramble they had together, while Grace told him of her
acquaintances in Aix, and especially of the young Englishman, Jack
Travis, and the Florida orange grove on which he had sunk a thousand
dollars with no return.
“Tell him to quit sinking, and go and see to it himself,” Rex said.
“Living in England or at the North and sending money South to be used on
a grove, is much like a woman trying to keep house successfully by
sitting in her chamber and issuing her orders through a speaking tube,
instead of going to the kitchen herself to see what is being done
there.”
Rex’s illustrations were rather peculiar, but they were sensible. Grace
understood this one perfectly, and began to revolve in her mind the
feasibility of advising Jack to go to Florida and attend to his business
himself, instead of talking through a tube. Then she spoke of Bertha,
and was at once conscious of an air of increased interest in Reginald,
as she told him how much she liked the girl and how strangely he seemed
to be mixed up with her.
“You see, Mrs. Hallam tells mamma everything, and so I know all about
Rose Arabella Jefferson’s picture. I nearly fell out of my chair when I
heard about it; and I know, too, about your knocking Miss Leighton down
on the Teutonic——”
“Wha-at!” Rex exclaimed; “was that Ber—Miss Leighton, I mean?”
“Certainly that was Bertha. You may as well call her that when with me,”
Grace replied. “I knew you would admire her. You can’t help it. I am
glad you have come, and I hope you will rectify a lot of things.”
Rex looked at her inquiringly, but before he could ask what she meant,
they turned a corner and came upon Jack Travis, who joined them, and on
hearing that Rex was from New York began to ask after his orange grove,
as if he thought Reginald passed it daily on his way to his business.
“What a stupid you are!” Grace said. “Mr. Hallam never saw an orange
grove in his life. Why, you could put three or four United Kingdoms into
the space between New York and Florida.”
“Reely! How very extraordinary!” the young Englishman said, utterly
unable to comprehend the vastness of America, towards which he was
beginning to turn his thoughts as a place where he might possibly live
on seven hundred dollars a year with Grace to manage it and him.
When they reached the hotel it was lunch-time, and after a few touches
to his toilet Rex started for the _salle-à-manger_, thinking that now he
should see Bertha, in whom he felt a still greater interest since
learning that it was she to whom he had given the black eye on the
Teutonic. “The hand of fate is certainly in it,” he thought, without
exactly knowing what the _it_ referred to. Mrs. Hallam and Mrs. Haynes
and Grace were already at the table when he entered the room and was
shown to the only vacant seat, between his aunt and Grace.
“This must be Miss Leighton’s place,” he said, standing by the chair. “I
do not wish to keep her from her accustomed seat. Where is she?” and he
looked up and down both sides of the long table, but did not see her,
“Where is she?” he asked again, and his aunt replied “She is not coming
to-day. Sit down, and I will explain after lunch.”
“What is there to explain?” he thought, as he sat down and glanced first
at his aunt’s worried face, then at Grace, and then at Mrs. Haynes.
Then an idea occurred to him which almost made him jump from his chair.
He said to Grace:
“Does Miss Leighton lunch in her room?”
“Oh, no,” Grace replied.
“Doesn’t she come here?” he persisted.
“Your aunt will explain. I would rather not,” Grace said.
There was something wrong, Rex was sure, and he finished lunch before
the others and left the salon just in time to see Bertha half-way up the
second flight of stairs. Bounding up two steps at a time, he soon stood
beside her, with his hand on her arm to help her up the next flight.
“I have not seen you this morning. Where have you kept yourself?” he
asked, and she replied:
“I have been busy in your aunt’s room.”
“Where is her maid?” was his next question, and Bertha answered:
“She has been gone some time.”
“And _you_ fill her place?”
“I do what Mrs. Hallam wishes me to.”
“Why were you not at lunch?”
“I have been to lunch.”
“_You have!_ Where?”
“Where I always take it.”
“And _where_ is that?”
There was something in Rex’s voice and manner which told Bertha that he
was not to be trifled with, and she replied, “I take my meals in the
servants’ hall, or rather with the maids and nurses and couriers. It is
not bad when you are accustomed to it,” she added, as she saw the
blackness on Reginald’s face and the wrath in his eyes. They had now
reached the door of Mrs. Hallam’s room, and Mrs. Hallam was just leaving
the elevator in company with Mrs. Haynes, who very wisely went into her
own apartment and left her friend to meet the storm alone.
And a fierce storm it was. At its close Mrs. Hallam was in tears, and
Rex was striding up and down the salon like an enraged lion. Mrs. Hallam
had tried to apologize and explain, telling how respectful all the
couriers and valets were, how much less it cost, and that Mrs. Haynes
said the English sent their companions there, and governesses too,
sometimes. Rex did not care a picayune for what the English did; he
almost swore about Mrs. Haynes, whose handiwork he recognized; he
scorned the idea of its costing less, and said that unless Bertha were
at once treated as an equal in every respect he would either leave the
hotel or join her in the second-class salon and see for himself whether
those rascally Russians and Turks and Frenchmen looked at her as they
had no business to look.
At this point Bertha, who had no suspicion of what was taking place in
the salon, and who wished to speak to Mrs. Hallam, knocked at the door.
Rex opened it with the intention of sending the intruder away, but when
he saw Bertha he bade her come in, and, standing with his back against
the door, went over the whole matter again and told her she was to join
them at dinner.
“And if there is no place for you at my aunt’s end of the table there is
at the other, and I shall sit there with you,” he said.
He had settled everything satisfactorily, he thought, when a fresh
difficulty arose with Bertha herself. She had listened in surprise to
Rex, and smiled gratefully upon him through the tears she could not
repress, but she said, “I cannot tell you how much I thank you for your
sympathy and kind intentions. But really I am not unhappy in the
servants’ hall, nor have I received the slightest discourtesy. Browne,
our courier, has stood between me and everything which might have been
unpleasant, and I have quite a liking for my companions. And,”—here her
face hardened and her eyes grew very dark,—“nothing can induce me to
join your party as you propose while Mrs. Haynes is in it. She has
worried and insulted me from the moment she saw me. She suggested and
urged my going to the servants’ hall against your aunt’s wishes, and has
never let an opportunity pass to make me feel my subordinate position. I
like Miss Haynes very much, but her mother ——” there was a toss of
Bertha’s head indicative of her opinion of the mother, an opinion which
Rex fully shared, and if he could he would have turned Mrs. Haynes from
the hotel bag and baggage.
But this was impossible. He could neither dislodge her nor move Bertha
from her decision, which he understood and respected. But he could take
her and his aunt away from Aix and commence life under different
auspices in some other place. He had promised to join a party of friends
at Chamonix, and he would go there at once, and then find some quiet,
restful place in Switzerland, from which excursions could be made and
where his aunt could join him with Bertha. This was his plan, which met
with Mrs. Hallam’s approval. She was getting tired of Aix, and a little
tired, too, of Mrs. Haynes, who had not helped her into society as much
as she had expected. Lady Gresham, though civil, evidently shunned the
party, presumably because of Grace’s flirtation with Jack, while very
few desirable people were on terms of intimacy with her, and the
undesirable she would not notice. In fresh fields, however, with Rex,
who took precedence everywhere, she should do better, and she was quite
willing to go wherever and whenever he chose. That night at dinner she
told Mrs. Haynes her plans, and that Rex was to leave the next day for
Chamonix.
“So soon? I am surprised, and sorry, too; Grace has anticipated your
coming so much and planned so many things to do when you came. She will
be so disappointed. Can’t we persuade you to stop a few days at least?”
Mrs. Haynes said, leaning forward and looking at Rex with a very
appealing face, while Grace stepped on her foot and whispered to her:
“For heaven’s sake, don’t throw me at Rex Hallam’s head, and make him
more disgusted with us than he is already.”
The next morning Rex brought his aunt a little, black-eyed French girl,
Eloïse, whom he had found in town, and who had once or twice served in
the capacity of maid. He had made the bargain with her himself, and such
a bargain as he felt sure would ensure her stay in his aunt’s service,
no matter what was put upon her. He had also enumerated many of the
duties the girl was expected to perform, and among them was waiting upon
Miss Leighton equally with his aunt. He laid great stress upon this,
and, in order to secure Eloïse’s respect for Bertha, he insisted if the
latter would not go to the same table with Mrs. Haynes she should take
her meals in the salon. To this Bertha reluctantly consented, and at
dinner she found herself installed in solitary state in the handsome
salon and served like a young empress by the obsequious waiter, who,
having seen the color of Reginald’s gold, was all attention to
Mademoiselle. It was a great change, and in her loneliness she half
wished herself back with her heterogeneous companions, who had amused
and interested her, and to some of whom she was really attached. But
just as dessert was served Rex came in and joined her, and everything
was changed, for there was no mistaking the interest he was beginning to
feel in her; it showed itself in ways which never fail to reach a
woman’s heart. At his aunt’s earnest entreaty he had decided to spend
another night at Aix, but he left the next morning with instructions
that Mrs. Hallam should be ready to join him whenever he wrote her to do
so.
“And mind,” he said, laying a hand on each of her shoulders, “don’t you
bring Mrs. Haynes with you, for I will not have her. Pension her off, if
you want to, and I will pay the bill; but leave her here.”