THE SECRETARY GOES HOME
He was chilled to the bone when he awoke, an hour and a half later. The
room was in pitchy darkness. It is only natural to suppose that he did
not know where he was. He felt of himself, surprised to find that he was
not undressed and not in bed. With more philosophy than is usually
exhibited under such puzzling conditions, he fell back in his chair and
forced himself into full wakefulness.
A moment later, with a gasp of dismay, he was on his feet, scraping away
the frost and peering from the black window into the night, his eyes
wide with anxiety. His arms and legs were stiff with the cold; he found
himself shivering as with a mighty chill. Turning his back to the
window, for many minutes he stared dumbly into the opaqueness before
him. The house was as black as the grave and quite as silent. He began
to experience, strangely enough, the same dread of darkness he had felt
when a boy.
A furnace register, he remembered, was near the door leading to the
hall, wherever that might be. His first thought was to seek the comfort
of its friendly, warmth-giving drafts. On second thoughts, he ransacked
his pockets for a match. A clock in the hall struck once, but how was
he to know whether it signified one o'clock or half-past something else?
Finding no match, he started for the register, his hands stretched
before him.
Of one thing he was reasonably sure; the household was wrapped in
slumber. There was not a sound in the house. He was reminded of a
childhood poem in which it was said: "Not a creature was stirring, not
even a mouse." The memory of this line brought a smile to his lips.
His progress was rather sharply checked by bodily contact with one of
the dummies, whose presence he had quite forgotten. Not only was there a
hollow protest from the dummy, but a more substantial one from Mr. Van
Pycke. Not content with a mild encounter with this particular obstacle,
he proceeded, in his confusion, to back into another, which, being less
sturdy, toppled over with a crash that must have been heard in the
attic.
Panic-stricken, the young man floundered on, now intent upon reaching
the hall and making as dignified an escape as possible before the
servants appeared with blunderbusses and tongs. His only desire now was
to find his overcoat and hat and the front steps without butting his
brains out in the darkness.
He brought up against a chair, creating additional racket and barking
his knee into the bargain.
"Good heaven," he muttered, "where am I? Is it a barricade?"
His heart stood still for a second. Distinctly he heard the soft,
suppressed cry of a woman--and then the unmistakable sound of scurrying
fabrics. The sounds came from some remote corner of the room--or
possibly from a room hard by--and were indicative of great alarm on the
part of an unseen person.
Bosworth was not a slow thinker. He took the safest way. Without
hesitation he called out: "It's all right! I am Bosworth Van Pycke!"
There was dead silence for the next sixty seconds. The French clock
ticked them off. He involuntarily counted twenty-five or thirty before a
small, hushed voice responded,--from the library, he was sure,--the
voice of a woman.
"What did you say?"
"I am Mr. Van Pycke. Don't be alarmed. It's--it's all a mistake. I--"
"Mr. Van Pycke? Why--why--"
He recognized the voice.
"Is that you, Miss Downing?"
"Are you--are you sure that you are Mr. Van Pycke? I have my finger on
the call button. Wha--what are you doing here?"
"I am trying to get out," he said, lowering his voice. "Don't you
recognize my voice?"
"Ye--yes, I think I do."
"Where are you?"
"Why didn't you go out before?" asked the voice, a bit querulously he
thought.
"I am not a sleep walker," he said. Realizing that it was a poor time to
jest, he hastily supplemented: "I went to sleep--waiting. Where are
you? What time is it? Is every one in bed?"
The curtains at the opposite end of the room parted very slowly. First,
a strong, red glow appeared beyond, mellow and somewhat fitful; then the
shadowy figure of the girl was silhouetted against the red, framed on
either side by shivering drapery.
She was still wearing the white satin evening gown. He took hope.
"It isn't so late, after all," he cried, starting toward her.
"I hope you will go away at once, Mr. Van Pycke," she said quickly. "It
is half-past one--and every one _is_ in bed. I don't understand why you
are still here."
"I'll tell you all about it," he said, not very confidently. "Don't turn
me out until I've got warm, please. I give you my word, I'm paralyzed
with the cold."
"Really, Mr. Van Pycke, I--I can't have you here--I mean, it is so
terribly late. I--I--"
"Were you horribly frightened?" he asked, somewhat irrelevantly. He had
come up to her by this time, and, peering beyond, saw a splendid fire in
the library grate. There were no lights in the room. A big chair stood
before the fender, invitingly.
His teeth were chattering.
"I was almost petrified," she said rather breathlessly. "If you had not
called out, I--I think my heart would have refused to beat again. Oh, I
am _so_ glad it is you and not a burglar!"
"May I come in and get warm?" he pleaded. She saw that he was shivering.
With a quick glance over her shoulder she stood aside and allowed him to
pass.
"You _are_ cold," she said. "Sit down by the fire. I'll poke it up a
bit. Just for a few minutes, and then you must go. I wonder if the
racket alarmed the servants. You see, I am the only person in this part
of the house, Mr. Van Pycke."
He looked up from the grate, over which he was holding his hands. "By
the way, why are you not in bed? I distinctly remember you said good
night--and started."
She hesitated. "I wasn't sleepy," she said.
"On the other hand, I slept very soundly," he said. "Have you been down
here all this time?"
"Since twelve o'clock. I love a grate fire."
"Won't you sit down? Do."
"No, thank you. I'll wait till you have gone. If I sit down now, you'll
stay, I'm afraid."
He moved the big chair and drew up another for himself beside it. She
watched the proceedings without approval or resentment. When the two
chairs stood side by side before the fender, he motioned for her to sit
down. She was now gazing at him fixedly, a somewhat detached smile on
her lips. After a moment she shrugged her shoulders and sat down. He
promptly dropped into the other chair and stretched out his feet to the
fire.
"You said something that surprised me, just as you left me--two hours
ago," he remarked, after a long silence. "A year's vacation on full
pay," he repeated.
"I am Mrs. De Foe's secretary," she said quietly. He turned to look at
her.
[Illustration: "'I am Mrs. De Foe's secretary,' she said quietly."]
"Secretary? I didn't dream of that, Miss Downing."
"Have I fallen in your estimation?" she asked, meeting his gaze
steadily.
"I think you've risen," he said slowly.
"You may not remember me, but I crossed on the steamer with you from
Liverpool when I was eight years old. You were eleven, I think you said.
I was a very pretty little girl. You said that, too. Do you remember?"
He was cudgeling his brain. "I can't say that I do, to be perfectly
candid. Still, I've been wondering where I've seen you. I recall the
voyage, but as for little girls, I remember but one. Ah, she was a
little beauty. I was so desperately in love with her that I dare say I
had thoughts or eyes for no one else. I'm sorry."
"Do you remember her name?"
"Perfectly. It wasn't so long ago, you know. I'm twenty-five. She had a
perfectly ungovernable nurse. I was obliged to do my worshiping from a
distance. By Jove, that reminds me, her father was put down and out a
few years ago in Wall Street. I think he had a stroke of paralysis, or
something, poor devil, afterwards. Lost everything. I wonder what has
become of her. I never saw her after we landed in New York."
"Was her name Pembroke?"
He started. "Yes,--Mary Pembroke! You knew her? Why, I believe--" He
stared hard.
"I am Mary Pembroke," said she, leaning back and smiling. His
astonishment was unqualified.
"You? Yes! I can see it now. All evening there has been some vague thing
about you that has puzzled me. Why, it is wonderful--positively
wonderful. I--" He stopped suddenly, a look of concern in his eyes. "I
hope I didn't say anything just now to hurt you,--I mean, about your
father."
"You spoke of him as the world speaks, Mr. Van Pycke. And you did say
'poor devil.' That was something. He is--still a helpless invalid.
Perhaps you did not know that."
"I'm sorry--very sorry." He hesitated for a moment. "Is that why you are
Mrs. De Foe's secretary?"
"We are quite poor, Mr. Van Pycke. So poor that I am unwilling to take
from the slender annuity that keeps us together--my father, my two
little sisters and me. There is enough for him to live on to the end of
his poor, desolated life. I am strong, and I love him too well to take
from that little store. Mine hasn't been such a trying position, after
all. Mrs. Scoville is an old friend. I've known her since I was a little
girl. She's been very kind and very generous. I don't mind the work.
It's much better than marrying some one for his money, I'm sure. Have
you ever read of Lily Bart? She had a very much harder time than I, poor
thing, in her house of mirth. She did not deserve it, but she served as
a warning to me."
"I dare say you remember that I told Mrs. Scoville I had come up here
to-night to propose to her," he said ruefully. She nodded, and her eyes
narrowed.
"You are not so brave as I am, Mr. Van Pycke," she said. "I thought you
were very brave and very manly as a little boy."
"Well, I didn't ask her, after all," he said, resenting her tone. "I
don't believe I could have done it, if it had actually come to the test.
I couldn't do it now to save my very soul. I'm going to marry for love
or not at all. Money be hanged."
"Oh, don't say that!" she cried. "You forget how rich you are!"
"Rich! I'm a pauper."
"On twelve thousand a year? I consider myself quite well off on the
fifteen hundred Mrs. Scoville pays me. You are fabulously rich."
"You are laughing at me," he exclaimed, shamed.
"Who am I to laugh at the wonderful Buzzy Van Pycke, prince of the
dandies in--"
"Please don't." He clenched his hands and set his jaw, leaning forward
to gaze into the bed of coals. She studied his averted face.
"You have a strong face," she said at last, voicing her thoughts.
"Thanks," he muttered.
"You don't know _how_ to work. Is that it, Mr. Van Pycke?" she asked.
"Oh, I fancy I could earn a living," he said, without looking up.
"And then you could save the twelve thousand intact," she observed. He
looked up curiously. "In ten years you would have at least one hundred
and twenty-five thousand. You could buy a yacht with that much money.
Just think what fun it would be to spend it all in an hour."
"It may interest you to know that I _am_ going to work," he said,
conscious of a burning sensation in his face.
"Are you in earnest?"
"Certainly. I'm tired of this sort of thing."
"Splendid! And what are you going to do? Something gentlemanly, I hope,
such as selling bonds on commission. Gentlemen who go to work always do
that, don't they, whether they're qualified or not?"
"You're a bit sarcastic, aren't you? I _was_ going to sell bonds, having
been solicited to do so, but I've changed my mind. I'm going to get a
job with an undertaker."
They laughed, at first rather half heartedly, then merrily. For ten
minutes they talked of the past, the present, and the future. He
gathered that she had assumed the name of Downing for secretarial
purposes only; that she kept herself very much in the background in Mrs.
Scoville's establishment; that she had watched his social career with
unflagging interest; that she was returning to her own home on the
following day, with a check for fifteen hundred in her possession; that
she expected to marry if the right man came along; that Mrs. Scoville
had made her a present of the gown--and so on and so forth. They
discussed the wedding and the hullabaloo it was to create. They united
in deprecating the impulse which robbed the marriage of its natural
sanctity, but they agreed that she was a lovely bride.
"And now you must go home," she said at last. The clock chimed a quarter
after two.
"That reminds me," he said. "You said you were going to your own home in
the morning, early enough to avoid the reporters, who are to be managed
by Stokes. May I inquire where your own home is, Miss Pembroke?"
"We live in Princeton, Mr. Van Pycke."
"Princeton? Why, I was there four years, you know. Strange I never saw
you."
"You forget we were living in Fifth Avenue or Mayfair until two years
ago. The house in Princeton is all that is left of the Pembroke
millions. It was my mother's."
"By Jove, I remember you came out three years ago. I--I was asked,
wasn't I?"
"You were. And you didn't come."
"I'd like to come to Princeton, if it isn't too late."
"If it doesn't interfere with your work, you mean."
"Oh, come now!" he protested.
"We have to consider everything," she said.
"I'll try to get a job in the faculty. I remember distinctly that I knew
more than any man in the faculty at one time. That would simplify
matters, wouldn't it?"
"Do you really feel the need of that eyeglass, Mr. Van Pycke?" she
asked, again veering off, much to his annoyance.
"Not at all." He calmly tossed the monocle upon the coals. She cried
out.
"Oh, I didn't mean you to do that. I _love_ monocles!"
"The deuce! Why didn't you say so?" he lamented.
"It's too bad," she sighed. "You would have needed it so much, too,
looking for work."
"By Jove, I like you!" he cried. "You're a plucky girl and a
philosopher. You do something toward the support of a whole family,
while I--well, look at me! What good have I done? I have not earned ten
dollars in my whole life by honest toil. I'm ashamed. I am--"
"Please, please," she interposed despairingly. "Don't go into that
again. It's too late. I am really very sleepy now. I hate to turn you
out in the storm, but you _must_ go. If the servants should--heavens,
please go!"
"You're right! I'm off. I'll be as quiet as a mouse, so don't worry.
This has been the most gallant night of my life. I'll live it over a
hundred times in my dreams. By the way, what train do you take in the
morning?" He was shaking hands with her, standing beside her chair.
There was a new light in his eyes.
"The ten-fifteen, if it isn't snowbound. Why?"
"Never mind. I just asked," he said. He was thinking of violets and a
trip to the ferry.
"Don't do anything so absurd, Mr. Van Pycke," she said severely, trying
to read his thoughts. He laughed blithely, full of certain early morning
enterprise. "Good-bye. Oh, just listen to the wind!"
She shuddered.
"Don't leave the fire," he said. "And _do go to bed_! Remember, you are
to catch the ten-fifteen."
He tiptoed into the hall. There was not a sound in the house. A minute
later the outer doors closed behind him, gently. He was out in the cold,
bitter night, plowing his way through snowdrifts three and four feet
deep, bound for the hotel next door, the nearest place of refuge.
In the office he left a call for seven o'clock. Not in ten years had he
done anything so amazing.
"She helps to support a family--a helpless father and two small
sisters," he said to himself as he crept into bed. "But, it wouldn't be
the same thing supporting my governor. _I should say not!_" Later on,
very drowsily: "I was sure I had seen her before. Little Mary Pembroke!
How I adored her! But it seems to me her hair was yellow then. It's
black now. Still, I dare say that's better than if it had been black
then and yellow now. Seven o'clock! What an ungodly hour to get up. But
I'll have to get used to it."
Miss Pembroke resisted the desire to look after him from the front
window. She couldn't bear the thought of scraping the frost from the
window pane with her fingernails, for one thing; for another, he might
take it into his head to look back.
So she went to bed, thinking of him--as she had been doing for an hour
or more before his amazing second appearance.
"He was such a shy boy," she reflected. "But he was the best looking
thing. Dear me, how long ago it seems! And those silly love letters I
wrote to him and never mailed. What funny things children are!"
At nine o'clock the next morning she was called to the telephone. She
was at breakfast, and her bag was ready for the train. An early glance
from the window had filled her with misgivings. The street was
absolutely impassable, it seemed to her.
"I won't talk to the reporters," she said to Stokes.
"It isn't a reporter, Miss. It's a gentleman."
"Don't be a snob, Stokes. Who is it?"
"It's Mr. Van Pycke, Miss."
She started. Then she flushed warmly.
"Say to him, Stokes, that I have gone," she said, after a moment.
"Very good, Miss. Anything else?"
She pondered. "Yes, Stokes. Ask him to hold the wire."
"Hold the wire, Miss?"
"Yes, while you run to the door to call me back."
A moment later she was in the telephone room, quite out of breath.
"Who is it?" she called. She compelled him to repeat the name four
times. Eventually he got her serious attention.
"No trains until this afternoon?" she cried despairingly. "Why, the
children will be at the station to meet me."
"Trains all snowbound," he announced quite cheerfully. "I've been
telephoning."
"It's awfully good of you. I'll call up the Pennsylvania--"
"Don't bother," he called. "I've seen to all that. There's only one
thing to do. Go to the ferry at one o'clock and wait. They'll get a
train out as soon as possible. I'm glad it's to be no earlier than one.
This is my busy day, you see."
"What has that to do with it?"
"I think I can be at liberty at one o'clock, that's all. I'm at my rooms
now, writing letters of resignation to eleven clubs and declining
invitations to four Christmas house parties on Long Island. I'm going
down to see Thrush and Wrenn, the publishers, at eleven."
"Indeed?"
"Yes. I'm thinking of writing a book exposing New York society. They're
all the rage now. This will be the literary remains of a fizzle."
"Are you jesting?"
"It depends," he said. "At ten I am to see George P. Krosson, the
capital king. You see I _have_ been telephoning. I got him out of bed at
seven-thirty. He says he didn't know I had it in me to be so energetic.
He's an old friend, however, so it's all right. He--"
"Please tell me what it's all about. I know who he is, so don't
enlighten me. He once was an old friend of ours."
"Well, he's always said he'd take me as a secretary, if I'd agree to
buckle down to it. I'm going to try it on."
"You--to be a secretary?"
"Don't be so surprised, please! It's only a starter, you know. His last
secretary owns a bank now, and the present one is going to Congress. But
I'll tell you about it--at the ferry."
She tried not to appear to be looking for him when her fretting taxicab
finally struggled up to the ferry building at Twenty-third Street, just
before one o'clock. Nearly an hour had been spent in the trip from the
Scoville home to the ferry. There were times when she thought the effort
would have to be abandoned.
He was there. In fact he opened the door and assisted her to alight from
the vehicle. There was a brief discussion with the driver over the
register's showing. Then they hurried into the ferry building, pursued
by three bags and a "Much obliged, Miss," from the surprised chauffeur.
[Illustration: "He was there. In fact he opened the door and assisted
her to alight."]
"You were very reckless, giving him a dollar," he criticised severely,
but not forgetting that he had given five the night before. He had been
wondering all the morning if _she_ had noticed the cocktails.
"It is so good of you to come down," she said, a color in her cheeks
that was not from the cold. He was marveling. Never, in all his life,
had he seen any one so pretty as this trim, proud young person in the
Persian lamb coat and ermine stole and muff. She gauged his thoughts.
"Presents from Mrs. Scoville--in advance of Christmas," she said dryly.
He was properly embarrassed. "Now, I must ask about the trains."
"It's all attended to, Miss Pembroke," he said. "I got here at half-past
twelve, lunchless. Boat in ten minutes, train out of Jersey City at two
o'clock, positively. We can have luncheon on the train." He seemed a bit
embarrassed, as he ought to have been, in truth.
She stood still and looked at him. "On the train?" she murmured.
"Yes, Miss Pembroke. I have an afternoon off. I'm going to Princeton.
Oh, by the way, don't bother about the tickets. I have them. Come along,
please, or we'll miss the boat."
Of course she protested. She was very much annoyed--or, at least, that
is what she meant to be.
He explained, in a burst of confidence meant to cover the unique
trepidation he felt, that he was not to assume his duties as secretary
to Mr. Krosson until the following Monday. "This is my last free week.
Don't begrudge me an excursion. It's to take the place of four house
parties."
She held out stubbornly, for appearance's sake; it was not until they
were in the middle of the Hudson that she said it would be very nice,
and he could catch the five o'clock train back to New York.
It would be difficult to relate all that they said during the tortuous
trip to Princeton. Naturally they discussed his prospects.
"I'm not sure that I know what a secretary has to do," he confessed.
"But," with a determined gleam in his eyes, "whatever it is, I'm going
to do it. I don't expect Mr. Krosson to give me a year's vacation on
full pay, and I'm not looking for furs in my stocking at this or any
other Christmas, but I do mean to live on what I earn. I'm to have
twenty-five hundred a year, in the beginning."
"Goodness, that _is_ a lot of money," she said. They were at luncheon in
the private dining car.
"I'll retain my membership in two clubs. I'm starting out to-morrow to
find a couple of cozy rooms in a genteel apartment hotel."
"Have you broken the news to your father?"
He laughed. "No. I stopped at his room to see if he had pneumonia. He
said he was asleep and couldn't tell--and for me to go to the devil."
From the car window they watched the great white sea through which they
were gliding. Their hearts were free and their hearts were sparkling.
Constantly recurring in their thoughts were the little forgotten things
of that memorable voyage across the Atlantic. It was he, however, who
presumed to steal surreptitious glances in which wonder was uppermost;
she steadfastly declined to be led by her impulses.
"You've never heard anything particularly terrible about me, have you?"
he demanded, rather anxiously, once in course of a duet of
personalities.
"Only that a great many women are in love with you."
"It's funny I've never heard that," he said dolefully.
"Men say that you are an exceptionally decent chap and it's too bad
you'll never amount to anything."
"Oh, they do, do they?" indignantly.
"I think they'll be stunned when they hear of your latest move."
"Well, I'll show 'em what I'm made of."
"Splendid! I like to hear you speak in that way."
"You do?" he asked eagerly. "You _do_ think I'll make good, don't you?"
"What station is this?" she asked deliberately.
"Rahway," he said, leaning close to her in order to see the name on the
station.
"I think I'll have a holiday on Christmas," he ventured carefully.
"That's next week, you know. May I come down to Princeton for the
afternoon and evening?"
"To see me?" She seemed surprised.
"Yes," he said simply. She had expected some frivolous reply. Her gaze
wavered ever so slightly as it met his.
"It will be a very dull way to spend Christmas," she said.
"Christmas is always a dull day," he said, so imploringly that she
laughed. He came very near to adding, irrelevantly, that she was
prettier than ever when she smiled.
"When there are no children about," he succeeded in saying, as an amend
for his slip.
"There are two in our house, besides myself," she said gayly.
"Splendid!" he cried enthusiastically. "Can't we have a tree?"
On the platform at Princeton he was introduced to two small and very
pretty young ladies, six and eight, and to a resentful gallant aged
nine, who seemed to look upon him with disfavor. It afterwards developed
that he was the characteristic neighbor boy who loves beyond his years.
He adored Miss Pembroke.
"Mr. Van Pycke is coming down for Christmas," announced Miss Pembroke,
in course of time, drawing her little sisters close to her side and
smiling upon the dazzled gallant, aged nine.
"Will you play bear for me?" asked the young lady aged six, after a sly
look at her nurse.
"The whole menagerie," said Mr. Van Pycke, most obligingly. Then, having
occupied a perilously long time in shaking hands with the girl in the
Persian lamb, he rushed off in response to the station master's
satirical warning that last night's train was just pulling out for New
York.
"I know just what's going to happen to me," he said to himself,
jubilantly, as he waved to her from the window. "I can feel it coming."