Colonel Musgrave had smoked a preposterous number of unsatisfying
cigarettes on the big front porch of Matocton whilst Mrs. Pendomer was
absent on her mission; and on her return, flushed and triumphant, he
rose in eloquent silence.
"I've done it, Rudolph," said Mrs. Pendomer.
"Done what?" he queried, blankly.
"Restored what my incomprehensible lawyers call the _status quo_;
achieved peace with honor; carried off the spoils of war; and--in
short--arranged everything," answered Mrs. Pendomer, and sank into a
rustic chair, which creaked admonishingly. "And all," she added,
bringing a fan into play, "without a single falsehood. _I_ am not to
blame if Patricia has jumped at the conclusion that these letters were
written to me."
"My word!" said Rudolph Musgrave, "your methods of restoring domestic
peace to a distracted household are, to say the least, original!" He
seated himself, and lighted another cigarette.
"Oh, well, Patricia is not deaf, you know, and she has lived in
Lichfield quite a while." Mrs. Pendomer said abruptly, "I have half a
mind to tell you some of the things I know about Aline Van Orden."
"Please don't," said Colonel Musgrave, "for I would inevitably beard you
on my own porch and smite you to the door-mat. And I am hardly young
enough for such adventures."
"And poor Aline is dead! And the rest of us are middle-aged now,
Rudolph, and we go in to dinner with the veterans who call us 'Madam,'
and we are prominent in charitable enterprises.... But there was a time
when we were not exactly hideous in appearance, and men did many mad
things for our sakes, and we never lose the memory of that time.
Pleasant memories are among the many privileges of women. Yes," added
Mrs. Pendomer, meditatively, "we derive much the same pleasure from them
a cripple does from rearranging the athletic medals he once won, or a
starving man from thinking of the many excellent dinners he has eaten;
but we can't and we wouldn't part with them, nevertheless."
Rudolph Musgrave, however, had not honored her with much attention, and
was puzzling over the more or less incomprehensible situation; and,
perceiving this, she ran on, after a little:
"Oh, it worked--it worked beautifully! You see, she would always have
been very jealous of that other woman; but with me it is different. She
has always known that scandalous story about you and me. And she has
always known me as I am--a frivolous and--say, corpulent, for it is a
more dignified word--and generally unattractive chaperon; and she can't
think of me as ever having been anything else. Young people never really
believe in their elders' youth, Rudolph; at heart, they think we came
into the world with crow's-feet and pepper-and-salt hair, all complete.
So, she is only sorry for you now--rather as a mother would be for a
naughty child; as for me, she isn't jealous--but," sighed Mrs. Pendomer,
"she isn't over-fond of me."
Colonel Musgrave rose to his feet. "It isn't fair," said he; "the
letters were distinctly compromising. It isn't fair you should shoulder
the blame for a woman who was nothing to you. It isn't fair you should
be placed in such a false position."
"What matter?" pleaded Mrs. Pendomer. "The letters are mine to burn, if
I choose. I have read one of them, by the way, and it is almost word for
word a letter you wrote me a good twenty years ago. And you re-hashed it
for Patricia's benefit too, it seems! You ought to get a mimeograph. Oh,
very well! It doesn't matter now, for Patricia will say nothing--or not
at least to you," she added.
"Still----" he began.
"Ah, Rudolph, if I want to do a foolish thing, why won't you let me?
What else is a woman for? They are always doing foolish things. I have
known a woman to throw a man over, because she had seen him without a
collar; and I have known another actually to marry a man, because she
happened to be in love with him. I have known a woman to go on wearing
pink organdie after she has passed forty, and I have known a woman to go
on caring for a man who, she knew, wasn't worth caring for, long after
he had forgotten. We are not brave and sensible, like you men. So why
not let me be foolish, if I want to be?"
"If," said Colonel Musgrave in some perplexity, "I understand one word
of this farrago, I will be--qualified in various ways."
"But you don't have to understand," she pleaded.
"You mean--?" he asked.
"I mean that I was always fond of Aline, anyhow."
"Nonsense!" And he was conscious, with vexation, that he had undeniably
flushed.
"I mean, then, I am a woman, and _I_ understand. Everything is as near
what it should be as is possible while Patricia is seeing so much of--we
will call it the artistic temperament." Mrs. Pendomer shrugged. "But if
I went on in that line you would believe I was jealous. And heaven knows
I am not the least bit so--with the unavoidable qualification that,
being a woman, I can't help rising superior to common-sense."
He said, "You mean Jack Charteris--? But what on earth has he to do with
these letters?"
"I don't mean any proper names at all. I simply mean you are not to undo
my work. It would only signify trouble and dissatisfaction and giving up
all this"--she waved her hand lightly toward the lawns of
Matocton,--"and it would mean our giving you up, for, you know, you
haven't any money of your own, Rudolph. Ah, Rudolph, we can't give you
up! We need you to lead our Lichfield germans, and to tell us naughty
little stories, and keep us amused. So _please_ be sensible, Rudolph."
"Permit me to point out I firmly believe that silence is the perfectest
herald of joy," observed Colonel Musgrave. "Only I do _not_ understand
why you should have dragged John Charteris's name into this ludicrous
affair----"
"You really do not understand----?"
But Colonel Musgrave's handsome face declared very plainly that he did
not.
"Well," Mrs. Pendomer reflected, "I dare say it is best, upon the whole,
you shouldn't. And now you must excuse me, for I am leaving for the
Ullwethers' to-day, and I shan't ever be invited to Matocton again, and
I must tell my maid to pack up. She is a little fool and it will break
her heart to be leaving Pilkins. All human beings are tediously alike.
But, allowing ample time for her to dispose of my best lingerie and of
her unavoidable lamentations, I ought to make the six-forty-five. I have
noticed that one usually does--somehow," said Mrs. Pendomer, and seemed
to smack of allegories.
And yet it may have been because she knew--as who knew
better?--something of that mischief's nature which was now afoot.