EVENING AT THE CRAIGHILLS’
Mrs. Craighill had not relaxed her severity toward Wayne when, with
Jean between them, they sat down to dinner. She continued, however,
her protecting attitude toward the girl, whom she had installed in the
best of the guest chambers adjoining her own room. Any doubts that had
crossed her mind as to the extent of Wayne’s knowledge of the young
woman had been dispelled by Jean herself. She had sought eagerly for
any basis for suspicions, but Miss Morley was apparently all that she
pretended to be; and Wayne’s own manner at the table set the seal of
truth upon his protestations of merest acquaintance as uttered at
the club-house. The girl interested Wayne and it was, Mrs. Craighill
divined, the interest of novelty; she was of an order of woman that
had not heretofore attracted his attention. And seeing his absorption,
noting the pains he took to be entertaining, Mrs. Craighill’s glances
in his direction gained nothing in amiability. He imagined that she
wished to punish him for having been caught in the act of kissing her;
and his acceptance of the situation, and his cool appropriation of the
girl whom she had brought home merely for the purpose of placation,
added to the blackness of his offenses.
The talk, as led by Wayne, fell into lines that served to minimize Mrs.
Craighill’s importance in the trio. She did not care about magazine
illustration, or know very much about Claude Monet; and Miss Morley’s
ignorance of grand opera, and her naïve preferences in the music she
did know called for nothing but occasional smiles of polite indulgence
from Mrs. Craighill. Wayne was making far too much of the girl; it
was unnecessary and unbecoming. Her poverty, proclaimed in her shabby
clothing, her lack of ease, her deficiencies in a hundred other
trifling ways irritated Mrs. Craighill. But if the girl did not know
how to manage her artichoke she was not dull. When she became aware of
her hostess’s silence she made a point of including her in the talk.
It was an event in the girl’s life, this hour at the prettily set
table, with its bowl of roses aglow in the soft candle-light; the
silent service; the leisure born of plenty and secure from the clutch
of time. Her awe passed. Mrs. Craighill had been kind and Jean was
taking her kindness at its face value, and in apparent ignorance of its
ulterior intention. She saw in Mrs. Craighill a woman of the ampler
world, whom the gods had favoured with good looks and fortune, and
Jean studied her with an artist’s eye. Adelaide Craighill’s head, so
admirably set on her pretty neck, had never pleased anyone more. That
half-languorous droop of the lids that withheld the full gaze of her
eyes for sudden, unexpected, flashing contacts, was not without its
fascination. If Jean Morley interested Mrs. Craighill, Mrs. Craighill
interested Jean Morley even more.
Jean’s frankness, now that her diffidence had passed, revealed her
in a new light. Wayne had never placed her, never found an adequate
background for her. In their several meetings he had been satisfied
with what the moment disclosed. A reference to her fondness for walking
served to open a long vista, which his fancy crowded with pictures.
“I was born and brought up in the hills,” Jean said, “but a long way
from here. I don’t belong in the soft coal country--my home is in the
anthracite region. I never was here before, and probably shouldn’t be
here now if it weren’t that I’m able to spend the winter in study at
the Institute. I think I like my own country better than this; I have
never been in cities very much. Just a few times I have been down to
Philadelphia to look at the exhibitions. I should have spent this year
there, but I came here, for several reasons, and now the winter is
going so fast and I have so little to show for it.”
“You can’t do it all in one winter,” Mrs. Craighill remarked
sympathetically.
“No--and you can’t do much in many winters! I’m not a genius--I know
that as well as anybody; but I want to make the most of my little
talent. Bad pictures seem so much worse than anything else--worse than
bad music even. It’s better not to start if you’ve got to go on forever
being an amateur.”
“Well, one has the fun of trying,” murmured Mrs. Craighill. She had
seen American students abroad on their eternal pursuit of fame, and
her words were lightly shaded with her forbearance of all hopeless
aspirants.
“Did you always fancy pictures and drawing?”
“I’m afraid so! It seems absurd to speak of my things at all to people
who know--to those who have seen the great galleries abroad. But I used
to pick up pieces of charcoal and try to draw when I was a child, and
I never seemed able to give it up. I would bribe the little neighbour
children to pose for me; the boys who worked in the breakers were nicer
to draw because if I smutted my picture it didn’t matter--it made it
all the truer to life. When we had the last strike up there in my
country”--she called it “my country,” as though it were detached and
alien and Wayne liked it in her--“a lot of newspaper correspondents
came to report the troubles, and I suppose if it hadn’t been for
the strike I should have lost my courage and given up trying. But I
was sketching some of the children in town one day with charcoal on
wrapping-paper and one of the newspaper men asked me to give him a
few souvenirs. I had a whole trunkful and he helped himself. He sent
them off with an article called ‘The Children of the Breakers’ and it
came out the next Sunday in a Philadelphia paper with my pictures. The
artist on the paper sent me some ink and paper of the kind used in
black and white work and then a check came for twenty dollars. That
helped to spoil me; and then I heard of a free scholarship here and
when I came Mrs. Blair, who’s on the Students’ Aid Committee of the
Institute, was kinder than anyone else had ever been; she’s been lovely
to me!”
“Mrs. Blair is splendid to everyone--so enthusiastic and helpful. You
are fortunate in having her for your friend.”
It was in Mrs. Craighill’s mind that if the girl should tell Mrs.
Blair just how she came to be dining at the Craighill table the
story might require elucidation. Fanny Blair believed her to be in
Boston, and from Boston to the Rosedale Country Club was a far cry.
Her irritation at Wayne increased: he had certainly made a mess of
things; and his absorption in the girl, his ready transfer of interest,
did not mitigate his offense. She was not in the least interested in
Jean Morley’s studies in black and white, and she was considering
the advisability of anticipating the girl by telling Fanny Blair the
Rosedale story first, in a way to protect herself. The prospect did not
please her. She had a high opinion of Fanny Blair’s intelligence, which
caught at truth in zigzag lightning flashes of intuition. And while she
considered these things, Jean Morley, whose character was not involved,
described the landscape of the upper Susquehanna with almost childish
enthusiasm and Wayne, who had no reputation to lose, listened to her
with an attention that would have been excessive if paid to a first
visitor from Mars.
Mrs. Craighill preceded them slightly as they sought the library. Her
fine carriage, her short, even step, the train of her gown that swept
after her detainingly--these trifles added to Jean’s impression of her
hostess as a finished product of the fashionable world.
Before the blazing logs in the library Mrs. Craighill rallied again,
touched to pity by the sight of Jean’s shoes, borrowed of the
housekeeper at Rosedale, which, as she placed her own dainty slippers
on the fender, seemed to shrink in their own humility out of sight
under the girl’s crumpled skirt. Wayne threw up a blind to observe the
weather and called them to see the snow, which lay white under the
electric light of the streets and had transformed the hedge into a
stern barricade of white masonry. The jingle of sleigh-bells stole in
upon them as they turned to the fire.
The storm served a distinct purpose in eliminating from the
possibilities the chance of interruption. People had been in the
habit of dropping in in the evening--it was an attention that Colonel
Craighill liked; but as her departure had been duly gazetted by the
society reporters it was hardly possible, Mrs. Craighill reflected,
that anyone would brave the storm merely to leave a card at the door.
By half-past eight Mrs. Craighill had begun to be bored, and it was
upon this trying situation that the maid entered with Wingfield’s and
Walsh’s cards. These gentlemen had found a sleigh for the journey
and the tinkle of bells in the carriage entrance cheerfully preluded
their arrival. Their appearance had been accomplished with so much
expedition that before Mrs. Craighill could hand the cards over to
Wayne the two gentlemen were within the library portières, rubbing
their hands at the sight of the blaze and exhaling an air so casual and
amiable as to disarm suspicion.
“It was Walsh did it,” began Wingfield. “He took me for a sleigh-ride
and when I complained of being cold he said we’d go into the
Craighills’ on the chance of finding somebody at home. It’s always
Mr. Walsh; you never can say no to him. I’ve undoubtedly contracted
pneumonia and they’ll be pumping oxygen into me before daylight.”
Mrs. Craighill introduced Miss Morley, and Wayne’s astonishment at
seeing the men hardly exceeded his surprise when Walsh, turning from
Mrs. Craighill, spoke Miss Morley’s name distinctly and shook hands
with her.
“I have met Miss Morley before,” he said, and sat down by her.
“You see,” Mrs. Craighill was saying, “the papers tried to send me to
Boston, but here I am, and glad not to be up there in the blizzard.”
“Nothing could be cosier than this! That is hickory; there’s a
particular charm in hickory, but my mother will have none of it; she
sticks to pine knots.”
Nothing had escaped Wingfield’s keen eyes; but the sigh with which he
settled himself was half an expression of relief. The presence of the
third figure in the scene satisfied him of the baseness of Walsh’s
assumption, and added, moreover, an agreeable novelty to the call. Mrs.
Craighill was a clever woman; his interest in her increased; he paid
her the tribute of his sincere admiration. As to the girl’s identity,
he could wait. As he discussed current social history with Mrs.
Craighill he appraised Jean with a connoisseur’s eye. Wayne had been
tinkering the fire, and when he rose he sat down between Mrs. Craighill
and Wingfield.
Walsh, his face reddened by the wind, was giving his attention to
Miss Morley, and the others caught only occasionally a word of their
conversation.
“So your grandfather’s still in town? I supposed he would be going home
before this.”
“He’s waiting to finish up the Sand Creek matter. He wants to know
what is going to be done about that before he goes back. It’s worried
him a great deal, and he feels that he must press it now while he can.
He’s an old man, and not well. I’ve tried to get him to abandon it
altogether, but it’s on my account he’s doing it. He wants to get the
money for my sake, but I’m afraid he will only be disappointed.”
“Have you ever seen Colonel Craighill yourself? Do you know what he
says to your grandfather?”
“Only that he puts him off--he never really tells him anything.”
“Um!”
Walsh rubbed his bald pate reflectively. The trio nearer the fire were
well launched in frivolous talk. Wayne seemed in excellent spirits;
Mrs. Craighill had entered into the spirit of Wingfield’s banter with
zest, and Wingfield was enjoying himself immensely.
“I didn’t know you were acquainted with the family in this way. Does
Wayne know?” continued Walsh.
“It’s just an accident, my being here. It was Mrs. Craighill’s
kindness--I had never seen her before; and Mr. Wayne Craighill I knew,
slightly. I met him at Ironstead, at Father Paddock’s settlement there.”
Walsh bent closer, as though he had not understood, and when she
repeated her last sentence he drew his hand slowly down his cheek.
“Um! Is Wayne going in for that kind of business? I hadn’t heard of it.”
“He was out there one night when Father Paddock had an entertainment.
Mr. Craighill brought me and a friend of mine home in his motor.”
Walsh found a handkerchief and blew his nose vigorously. When he had
settled his pudgy frame back in his chair he asked abruptly:
“What do you think of him?”
“Why--I don’t think!” said the girl, and her laugh reached Wayne--her
light laugh of real mirth that had the ease of a swallow’s flight.
“Are you afraid of him?”
“No; I’m not afraid of him. We’re hardly acquainted. I’ve only seen him
three or four times.”
“Oh! The meeting at Paddock’s place wasn’t the first?”
“No. I had seen him before--the first time at the Institute; you know
I’m studying there.”
“He didn’t hesitate to speak to you without an introduction, did he?”
persisted Walsh, though with a good-humoured twinkle in his little eyes.
“No, Mr. Walsh, he did speak to me, but it was all right. The
circumstances made it all right.”
He was amused by her readiness to defend Wayne, who was just then
chaffing Wingfield about something for Mrs. Craighill’s edification,
wholly unconscious that he was being discussed.
“They always do,” said Walsh.
He turned round in his chair so that he looked directly into the girl’s
face. There was no insolence in his gaze; it was merely his direct,
blunt way of looking at anything he wanted to see. His eyes were not
satisfied with surface observations; they bored in like gimlets. Jean
met his scrutiny for a moment and turned away; but Walsh’s eyes dwelt
still on her head, then he glanced toward Wayne, then back to Jean
again. He seemed satisfied with this inspection and asked her how she
was getting on with her studies. When she had answered, his “Um” was so
colourless that she smiled; his mind had been on something else all the
while.
“Your grandfather had never talked to Wayne about the Sand Creek
affair, I suppose?”
“Yes,” she replied with reluctance; but on second thought she answered
him fully. In spite of Walsh’s gruffness and his grim countenance,
people trusted him. His sources of information were many because
he never betrayed a confidence. His mind was a card catalogue. If
an obscure corner grocer at Johnstown mortgaged his home to buy
an automobile, Walsh knew it first. The office systems that Roger
Craighill delighted in installing had always annoyed Walsh. Now that
he was managing his own business his office was conducted with the
severest simplicity. He checked his own trial balances; he would,
without warning, throw up a window and demand of a startled drayman
the destination of a certain crate or cask, to which he pointed with a
sturdy, accusing forefinger.
It was not for Jean Morley to withhold information from Tom Walsh; it
seemed the most natural thing in the world to be imparting it.
“These people have no idea that I am related to Grandfather Gregory.
Mr. Wayne Craighill has no idea of it; Mrs. Blair doesn’t know it--she
knows me only officially, you might say; she’s on a committee of the
Institute that looks out for young women students who have no homes
here. It’s strange that I should have fallen in their way; and now
I’m here in Colonel Craighill’s house! It wouldn’t do for grandfather
to know that--it would make him angry. But grandfather talked to Mr.
Wayne about the Sand Creek Company matter just a few days ago. Colonel
Craighill wouldn’t see grandfather; he sent word to him that he could
do nothing and that he’d better see a lawyer. Mr. Wayne met grandfather
leaving the building and took him back to his own office. He was very
friendly and offered to help arrange a settlement; but grandfather
refused. He’s very indignant at Colonel Craighill and says he’s going
to make him settle. It’s because he’s known him a long time--many,
many years, I suppose--that he’s so bitter. He says it isn’t the money
now--it’s the injustice of it.”
The girl had spoken eagerly and she paused now and turned to see if the
others were observing them. She concluded in a lower tone:
“I don’t know about it; it may not be a just claim. I sometimes think
grandfather isn’t sane on the subject; he acts queerly and keeps coming
to town to see Colonel Craighill. I went with him to see you in the
hope that you might tell him to quit bothering about it. He didn’t
understand that, having been with Colonel Craighill so long, you
wouldn’t want to discuss his affairs, now that you have left him. And
you couldn’t do anything about the claim--of course.”
“Um! I couldn’t do anything for your grandfather; that would be bad
faith to the Colonel; but--Um!--I might do it for you. That would be
different!”
He looked at her kindly, enjoying her mystification.
“I will tell you this, just as a favour to you and because--because you
are not afraid of Wayne Craighill; I’ll tell you that the claim against
the Sand Creek property is good in law. Wayne knows it; the Colonel’s
lawyer told him so; but the Colonel is so high and mighty that he
doesn’t want to pay any attention to it. He’s a great negotiator, the
Colonel; he wants to wait until Mr. Gregory gets real hungry, then fix
it up with him in a large spirit of generosity--do the noble thing for
an old friend in adversity. But this is treason, young woman, right
here in the Colonel’s own house. Your grandpa had better take Wayne’s
offer. I think we’ll move over there with the others.”
He rose in his heavy fashion and Wingfield, who had been waiting his
opportunity, sat down beside Jean. Wingfield’s face showed the least
annoyance when, a moment later, having seen that Mrs. Craighill and
Walsh were taking care of themselves, Wayne drew in beside him.
“It’s well you joined us; we were about to say the most dreadful things
of you, weren’t we, Miss Morley? But now we’ll discuss the diplodocus
in the museum, the greatest of Pittsburg topics. Mrs. Craighill has
just been telling me of your studies. Can you enlighten me as to
whether you students of the graphic arts really take an interest in
music--and the other way around? I have my doubts of it; one art’s
enough at a time.”
“Oh, the students at the Institute all go to the concerts because they
like music and it helps. I went to the Wagner matinée and it quite
inspired me; I wasn’t so bad for several days.”
“Ah, you were there at that matinée! I had expected to go myself, but
my nerves had been screwed up like a fiddle-string by the rumour that
the harpist was threatened with a felon on her thumb; I couldn’t have
stood that. The troubles of an orchestra are innumerable, I assure you,
Miss Morley. I’m always bailing out some fiddler who has beaten his
wife. And the oboe is a dreadful instrument; they say men who elect it
as their life work always go insane: the strain of piping into so small
a hole bursts blood vessels in the brain. Think of a man giving his
whole life to perfecting himself on an instrument that sends him, just
as he pipes his most perfect note, to a mad-house for his pains.”
“For mad-house you might substitute jail,” remarked Wayne. “The oboe is
not my favourite instrument.”
“You don’t know an oboe from a parlour melodeon. Please don’t take Mr.
Craighill’s musical criticisms seriously, Miss Morley. He and I are
on the programme committee--perhaps it’s only fair to the rest of the
community to say that we are it! We wrestle with the conductor about
what we shall give the dear people, and because we don’t give ‘request’
programmes every time with Sousa and Beethoven hashed together, the
newspapers jump on us hard.”
When at ten o’clock the door closed upon the callers, Mrs. Craighill
declared that she was tired, and carried Jean off to bed. Wayne
understood perfectly, however, that he was to await Mrs. Craighill’s
further pleasure, and he lighted a cigar and made himself comfortable
before the fire. In a few minutes he heard the murmur of her skirts on
the stair, and she entered quickly with accusation in her eyes. He
rose and leaned against the mantel-shelf. She was very angry in her
pretty, pouting way. She flung herself into a chair and broke out at
once:
“What do you think of _that_? Wasn’t the girl enough without those two
men? The most hateful, hideous persons I ever met!”
“But, Addie, you don’t suppose I asked them here? You’ve got to be
reasonable about this. The girl _was_ unfortunate; but if we hadn’t
picked her up we should have been in a box if these men had come here.
It strikes me that we’re in the greatest luck.”
“But why did the men come at all? That man Walsh doesn’t go to people’s
houses; he’s a malevolent old fellow; he has the most dreadful eyes I
ever saw. And your friend Wingfield, how often does he call here in the
course of the year? I doubt if he was ever here before. You told him I
was away, didn’t you? Please answer me that!”
“Why, yes, Addie, I believe I did,” and he paused blankly. There was
no doubt but that he had told Wingfield of Mrs. Craighill’s absence
that morning when he fully believed that she had gone; but that fact
only added plausibility to Wingfield’s story that he and Walsh had
been driving and had dropped in for a brief respite from the storm.
Wingfield did the most unaccountable things; this was undoubtedly one
of them. Having said as much, he felt that the matter might be dropped,
but the evidence in rebuttal was immediately thrust upon him. Mrs.
Craighill picked up four visiting cards and held them out for his
inspection.
“They asked for your father and me at the door--I called the maid
upstairs to ask. Why do you suppose they did that if they just came in
here to get warm or to see you?”
“My dear Addie, it’s as plain as daylight that they were driving; that
Wingfield--it’s just like him--got cold, and Walsh suggested that they
come into the house to get warm; and Wingfield--well, you simply don’t
know Dick--he’s the most formal person alive. And when you come to
think of it he did the right thing in asking for everybody. If we were
all in Egypt and Dick stopped at the house to warm himself he would
leave his cards. He would have a feeling about it; Dick’s a fellow of
nice feeling; and besides, it would only be decent to the servants.
Please don’t worry over this! You’re attributing motives to those
fellows that are beneath them. Do you suppose they would have turned
up here to-night if they had thought you and I were just sitting here
playing checkers together. Not on your life, Addie! And assuming for an
instant the preposterous idea that they came thinking we were alone,
why, they must have felt pretty cheap when they found that you had a
young lady guest in the house. There’s nothing to trouble over, I tell
you.”
“I like your cheerful way of disposing of the whole business! It
doesn’t seem to me so easy as you think. Did you ever hear of those
men going calling together before? I don’t believe you ever did.”
“Well, there are lots of things I don’t know about Walsh, and
Wingfield, too, for that matter. Dick’s always studying somebody. He’s
as bad as Fanny for fads, though he chases his in gum shoes; and just
now he thinks he’s struck a new type in Walsh. Oh, Lord, but it’s
funny! It’s a cinch that Walsh has Dick under the microscope. Those
fellows going sleigh-riding is too sweetly pastoral for any use. It’s
enough to make Walsh’s thoroughbreds laugh.”
Mrs. Craighill shrugged her shoulders and her eyes brightened with a
rekindling of her anger, coloured now by what seemed to be a genuine
fear.
“Wayne,” she cried, “what is there about that man? He’s an evil being
of some kind. That first time I saw him at Fanny’s he affected me just
as he did to-night. I have a feeling of suffocation, of smothering,
when he looks at me and those little eyes of his dance like devils.”
“Oh, now, Addie, that’s coming pretty rough! Walsh is a bully old
fellow. He can’t help not being handsome, but he’s the real thing;
there’s no punk in Tom Walsh. He’s a rare fellow and he’s been mighty
kind to me. You’d better forget all this--it’s all right. That girl
can be relied on--she isn’t going to blab--why should she? And Walsh
and Wingfield are not out on snowy nights looking for a chance to
injure anybody. Don’t work yourself into a morbid frame of mind about
these things; we all had a good time and let it go at that. Why, old
Tom Walsh made a point of talking to you; he isn’t the fellow to bore
himself, I can tell you!”
“Oh, Walsh!” she wailed. “That hideous monster! What do you think he
has asked me to do!”
“Well, not to elope with him; I’ll wager he didn’t propose that.”
“He asked me to go driving with him! He said there would be such
sleighing to-morrow as we rarely see any more. He said he would show me
the hills and that I’d see we had winter scenery here just as good as
Vermont.”
She offered this, it seemed, as a last proof of Walsh’s depravity, and
having launched it in half-sobs she waited for Wayne to mitigate its
evil if he could. The laughter with which he greeted her announcement
added an unneeded straw to her burden and she wept bitterly, bending
her head upon the mantel-shelf. She was an effective study in grief,
but Wayne’s humour had been too sincerely touched to leave any room for
pity.
“Oh, Addie! Walsh asked you to drive with him! He asked you--he asked
you----”
He exploded again, but when, tearful and scornful, she turned toward
him, he subsided to demand:
“Well, what did you say?”
“Oh, I said I’d go! I was afraid to say no!”