Martha Wallingford was a young person of direct methods. She scorned
subterfuges. Another of her age and sex might have gone to bed with a
headache, not she. She sat absolutely still beside her window, quite
in full view of the departing members of the Zenith Club, had they
taken the trouble to glance in that direction, and some undoubtedly
did, and she remained there; presently she heard her hostess's tiny
rap on the door. Martha did not answer, but after a repeated rap and
wait, Margaret chose to assume that she did, and entered. Margaret
knelt in a soft flop of scented lingerie beside the indignant young
thing. She explained, she apologised, she begged, she implored Martha
to put on that simply ravishing gown which she had worn the evening
before; she expatiated at length upon the charms of the people whom
she had invited to dinner, but Martha spoke not at all until she was
quite ready. Then she said explosively, "I won't."
She was silent after that. Margaret recognised the futility of
further entreaties. She went down stairs and confided in Wilbur. "I
never saw such an utterly impossible girl," she said; "there she sits
and won't get dressed and come down to dinner."
"She is a freak, must be, most of these writer people are freaks,"
said Wilbur sympathetically. "Poor old girl, and I suppose you have
got up a nice dinner too."
"A perfectly charming dinner and invited people to meet her."
"How did she do her stunt this afternoon?"
Margaret flushed. "None too well," she replied.
"Oh, well, dear, I don't see how you are to blame."
"I can say that Miss Wallingford is not well, I suppose," said
Margaret, and that was what she did say, but with disastrous results.
Margaret, ravishing in white lace, sprinkled with little gold
butterflies, had taken her place at the head of her table. Emma was
serving the first course and she was making her little speech
concerning the unfortunate indisposition of her guest of honour when
she was suddenly interrupted by that guest herself, an image of sulky
wrath, clad in the blue and black costume pertaining to South Mordan,
Illinois.
"I am perfectly well. She is telling an awful whopper," proclaimed
this amazing girl. "I won't dress up and come to dinner because I
won't. She trapped me into a woman's club this afternoon and tried to
get me to make a speech without even telling me what she meant to do
and now I won't do anything."
With that Miss Wallingford disappeared and unmistakable stamps were
heard upon the stairs. One woman giggled convulsively; another took a
glass of water and choked. A man laughed honestly. Wilbur was quite
pale. Margaret was imperturbable. Karl von Rosen, who was one of the
guests and who sat behind Annie Eustace, looked at Margaret with
wonder. "Was this the way of women?" he thought. He did not doubt for
one minute that the Western girl had spoken the truth. It had been
brutal and homely, but it had been the truth. Little Annie Eustace,
who had been allowed to come to a dinner party for the first time in
her life and who looked quite charming in an old, much mended, but
very fine India muslin and her grandmother's corals, did not, on the
contrary, believe one word of Miss Wallingford's.
Her sympathy was all with her Margaret. It was a horrible situation
and her dear Margaret was the victim of her own hospitality. She
looked across the table at Alice Mendon for another sympathiser, but
Alice was talking busily to the man at her right about a new book.
She had apparently not paid much attention. Annie wondered how it
could have escaped her. That horrid girl had spoken so loudly. She
looked up at Von Rosen. "I am so sorry for poor Margaret," she
whispered. Von Rosen looked down at her very gently. This little
girl's belief in her friend was like a sacred lily, not to be touched
or soiled.
"Yes," he said and Annie smiled up at him comfortably. Von Rosen was
glad she sat beside him. He thought her very lovely, and there was a
subtle suggestion of something besides loveliness. He thought that
daintily mended India muslin exquisite, and also the carved
corals,--bracelets on the slender wrists, a necklace--resting like a
spray of flowers on the girlish neck, a comb in the soft hair which
Annie had arranged becomingly and covered from her aunt's sight with
a lace scarf. She felt deceitful about her hair, but how could she
help it?
The dinner was less ghastly than could have been expected after the
revelation of the guest of honour and the blank consternation of the
host, who made no attempt to conceal his state of mind. Poor Wilbur
had no society tricks. Alice Mendon, who was quite cognizant of the
whole matter, but was broad enough to leap to the aid of another
woman, did much. She had quite a talent for witty stories and a
goodly fund of them. The dinner went off very well, while Martha
Wallingford ate hers from a dinner tray in her room and felt that
every morsel was sweetened with righteous revenge.
The next morning she left for New York and Margaret did not attempt
to detain her although she had a lunch party planned besides the
Sunday festivities. Margaret had had a scene with Wilbur after the
departure of the guests the previous evening. For the first time in
her experience, the devoted husband had turned upon his goddess. He
had asked, "Was it true, what that girl said?" and Margaret had
laughed up at him bewitchingly to no effect. Wilbur's face was very
stern.
"My dear," said Margaret, "I knew perfectly well that if I actually
asked her to speak or read, she would have refused."
"You have done an unpardonable thing," said the man. "You have
betrayed your own sense of honour, your hospitality toward the guest
under your roof."
Margaret laughed as she took an ornament from her yellow head but the
laugh was defiant and forced. In her heart she bitterly resented her
husband's attitude and more bitterly resented the attitude of respect
into which it forced her. "It is the very last time I ask a Western
authoress to accept my hospitality," said she.
"I hope so," said Wilbur gravely.
That night Karl von Rosen walked home with Annie Eustace. She had
come quite unattended, as was the wont of Fairbridge ladies. That
long peaceful Main Street lined with the homes of good people always
seemed a safe thoroughfare. Annie was even a little surprised when
Von Rosen presented himself and said, "I will walk home with you,
Miss Eustace, with your permission."
"But I live a quarter of a mile past your house," said Annie.
Von Rosen laughed. "A quarter of a mile will not injure me," he said.
"It will really be a half mile," said Annie. She wanted very much
that the young man should walk home with her, but she was very much
afraid of making trouble. She was relieved when he only laughed again
and said something about the beauty of the night. It was really a
wonderful night and even the eyes of youth, inhabiting it with fairy
dreams, were not essential to perceive it.
"What flower scent is that?" asked Von Rosen.
"I think," replied Annie, "that it is wild honeysuckle," and her
voice trembled slightly. The perfumed night and the strange presence
beside her went to the child's head a bit. The two walked along under
the trees, which cast etching-like shadows in the broad moonlight,
and neither talked much. There was scarcely a lighted window in any
of the houses and they had a delicious sense of isolation,--the girl
and the man awake in a sleeping world. Annie made no further allusion
to Miss Wallingford. She had for almost the first time in her life a
little selfish feeling that she did not wish to jar a perfect moment
even with the contemplation of a friend's troubles. She was very
happy walking beside Von Rosen, holding up her flimsy embroidered
skirts carefully lest they come in contact with dewy grass. She had
been admonished by her grandmother and her aunts so to do and
reminded that the frail fabric would not endure much washing however
skilful. Between the shadows, her lovely face showed like a white
flower as Von Rosen looked down upon it. He wondered more and more
that he had never noticed this exquisite young creature before. He
did not yet dream of love in connection with her, but he was
conscious of a passion of surprised admiration and protectiveness.
"How is it that I have never seen you when I call on your Aunt
Harriet?" he asked when he parted with her at her own gate, a stately
wrought iron affair in a tall hedge of close trimmed lilac.
"I am generally there, I think," replied Annie, but she was also
conscious of a little surprise that she had not paid more attention
when this young man, who looked at her so kindly, called. Then came
one of her sudden laughs.
"What is it?" asked Von Rosen.
"Oh, nothing, except that the cat is usually there too," replied
Annie. Von Rosen looked back boyishly.
"Be sure I shall see you next time and hang the cat," he said.
When Annie was in her room unclasping her corals, she considered how
very much mortified and troubled her friend, Margaret Edes, must
feel. She recalled how hideous it had all been--that appearance of
the Western girl in the dining-room door-way, her rude ways, her
flushed angry face. Annie did not dream of blaming Margaret. She was
almost a fanatic as far as loyalty to her friends was concerned. She
loved Margaret and she had only a feeling of cold dislike and
disapprobation toward Miss Wallingford who had hurt Margaret. As for
that charge of "trapping," she paid no heed to it whatever. She made
up her mind to go and see Margaret the very next day and tell her a
secret, a very great secret, which she was sure would comfort her and
make ample amends to her for all her distress of the night before.
Little Annie Eustace was so very innocent and ignorant of the ways of
the world that had her nearest and dearest been able to look into her
heart of hearts, they might have been appalled, incredulous and
reverent, according to their natures. For instance, this very good,
simple young girl who had been born with the light of genius always
assumed that her friends would be as delighted at any good fortune of
hers as at their own. She fairly fed upon her admiration of Alice
Mendon that evening when she had stepped so nobly and tactfully into
the rather frightful social breach and saved, if not wholly, the
situation.
"Alice was such a dear," she thought, and the thought made her face
fairly angelic. Then she recalled how lovely Alice had looked, and
her own mobile face took on unconsciously Alice's expression.
Standing before her looking-glass brushing out her hair, she saw
reflected, not her own beautiful face between the lustrous folds, but
Alice's. Then she recalled with pride Margaret's imperturbability
under such a trial. "Nobody but Margaret could have carried off such
an insult under her own roof too," she thought.
After she was in bed and her lamp blown out and the white moon-beams
were entering her open windows like angels, she, after saying her
prayers, thought of the three, Margaret, Alice, and Karl von Rosen.
Then suddenly a warm thrill passed over her long slender body but it
seemed to have its starting point in her soul. She saw very
distinctly the young man's dark handsome face, but she thought, "How
absurd of me, to see him so distinctly, as distinctly as I see
Margaret and Alice, when I love them so much, and I scarcely know Mr.
von Rosen." Being brought up by one's imperious grandmother and two
imperious aunts and being oneself naturally of an obedient
disposition and of a slowly maturing temperament, tends to lengthen
the long childhood of a girl. Annie was almost inconceivably a child,
much more of a child than Maida or Adelaide Edes. They had been
allowed to grow like weeds as far as their imagination was concerned,
and she had been religiously pruned.
The next afternoon she put on her white barred muslin and obtained
her Aunt Harriet's permission to spend an hour or two with Margaret
if she would work assiduously on her daisy centre piece, and stepped
like a white dove across the shady village street. Annie, unless she
remembered to do otherwise, was prone to toe in slightly with her
slender feet. She was also prone to allow the tail of her white gown
to trail. She gathered it up only when her Aunt called after her. She
found Margaret lying indolently in the hammock which was strung
across the wide shaded verandah. She was quite alone. Annie had seen
with relief Miss Martha Wallingford being driven to the station that
morning and the express following with her little trunk. Margaret
greeted Annie a bit stiffly but the girl did not notice it. She was
so full of her ignorant little plan to solace her friend with her own
joy. Poor Annie did not understand that it requires a nature seldom
met upon this earth, to be solaced, under disappointment and failure,
by another's joy. Annie had made up her mind to say very little to
Margaret about what had happened the evening before. Only at first,
she remarked upon the beauty of the dinner, then she said quite
casually, "Dear Margaret, we were all so sorry for poor Miss
Wallingford's strange conduct."
"It really did not matter in the least," replied Margaret coldly. "I
shall never invite her again."
"I am sure nobody can blame you," said Annie warmly. "I don't want to
say harsh things, you know that, Margaret, but that poor girl, in
spite of her great talent, cannot have had the advantage of good
home-training."
"Oh, she is Western," said Margaret. "How very warm it is to-day."
"Very, but there is quite a breeze here."
"A hot breeze," said Margaret wearily. "How I wish we could afford a
house at the seashore or the mountains. The hot weather does get on
my nerves."
A great light of joy came into Annie's eyes. "Oh, Margaret dear," she
said, "I can't do it yet but it does look as if some time before long
perhaps, I may be able myself to have a house at the seashore. I
think Sudbury beach would be lovely. It is always cool there, and
then you can come and stay with me whenever you like during the hot
weather. I will have a room fitted up for you in your favourite white
and gold and it shall be called Margaret's room and you can always
come, when you wish."
Margaret looked at the other girl with a slow surprise. "I do not
understand," said she.
"Of course, you don't. You know we have only had enough to live here
as we have done," said Annie with really childish glee, "but oh,
Margaret, you will be so glad. I have not told you before but now I
must for I know it will make you so happy, and I know I can trust you
never to betray me, for it is a great secret, a very great secret,
and it must not be known by other people at present. I don't know
just when it can be known, perhaps never, certainly not now."
Margaret looked at her with indifferent interrogation. Annie did not
realise how indifferent. A flood-tide of kindly joyful emotion does
not pay much attention to its banks. Annie continued. She looked
sweetly excited; her voice rose high above its usual pitch. "You
understand, Margaret dear, how it is," she said. "You see I am quite
unknown, that is, my name is quite unknown, and it would really
hinder the success of a book."
Margaret surveyed her with awakening interest. "A book?" said she.
"Yes, a book! Oh, Margaret, I know it will be hard for you to
believe, but you know I am very truthful. I--I wrote the book they
are talking about so much now. You know what I mean?"
"Not the--?"
"Yes, _The Poor Lady_,--the anonymous novel which people are talking
so much about and which sold better than any other book last week. I
wrote it. I really did, Margaret."
"You wrote it!"
Annie continued almost wildly. "Yes, I did, I did!" she cried, "and
you are the only soul that knows except the publishers. They said
they were much struck with the book but advised anonymous
publication, my name was so utterly unknown."
"You wrote _The Poor Lady_?" said Margaret. Her eyes glittered, and
her lips tightened. Envy possessed her, but Annie Eustace did not
recognise envy when she saw it.
Annie went on in her sweet ringing voice, almost producing the effect
of a song. She was so happy, and so pleased to think that she was
making her friend happy.
"Yes," she said, "I wrote it. I wrote _The Poor Lady_."
"If," said Margaret, "you speak quite so loud, you will be heard by
others."
Annie lowered her voice immediately with a startled look. "Oh," she
whispered. "I would not have anybody hear me for anything."
"How did you manage?" asked Margaret.
Annie laughed happily. "I fear I have been a little deceitful," she
said, "but I am sure they will forgive me when they know. I keep a
journal; I have always kept one since I was a child. Aunt Harriet
wished me to do so. And the journal was very stupid. So little
unusual happens here in Fairbridge, and I have always been rather
loath to write very much about my innermost feelings or very much
about my friends in my journal because of course one can never tell
what will happen. It has never seemed to me quite delicate--to keep a
very full journal, and so there was in reality very little to write."
Annie burst into a peal of laughter. "It just goes this way, the
journal," she said. "To-day is pleasant and warm. This morning I
helped Hannah preserve cherries. In the afternoon I went over to
Margaret's and sat with her on the verandah, embroidered two daisies
and three leaves with stems on my centre piece, came home, had
supper, sat in the twilight with Grandmother, Aunt Harriet and Aunt
Susan. Went upstairs, put on my wrapper and read until it was time to
go to bed. Went to bed. Now that took very little time and was not
interesting and so, after I went upstairs, I wrote my entry in the
journal in about five minutes and then I wrote _The Poor Lady_. Of
course, when I began it, I was not at all sure that it would amount
to anything. I was not sure that any publisher would look at it.
Sometimes I felt as if I were doing a very foolish thing: spending
time and perhaps deceiving Grandmother and my aunts very wickedly,
though I was quite certain that if the book should by any chance
succeed, they would not think it wrong.
"Grandmother is very fond of books and so is Aunt Harriet, and I have
often heard them say they wished I had been a boy in order that I
might do something for the Eustace name. You know there have been so
many distinguished professional men in the Eustace family and they of
course did not for one minute think a girl like me could do anything
and I did not really think so myself. Sometimes I wonder how I had
the courage to keep on writing when I was so uncertain but it was
exactly as if somebody were driving me. When I had the book finished,
I was so afraid it ought to be typewritten, but I could not manage
that. At least I thought I could not, but after awhile I did, and in
a way that nobody suspected, Aunt Harriet sent me to New York. You
know I am not often allowed to go alone but it was when Grandmother
had the grippe and Aunt Susan the rheumatism and Aunt Harriet had a
number of errands and so I went on the Twenty-third Street ferry, and
did not go far from Twenty-third Street and I took my book in my
handbag and carried it into Larkins and White's and I saw Mr. Larkins
in his office and he was very kind and polite, although I think now
he was laughing a little to himself at the idea of my writing a book,
but he said to leave the MSS. and he would let me hear. And I left it
and, oh, Margaret, I heard within a week, and he said such lovely
things about it. You know I always go to the post-office, so there
was no chance of anybody's finding it out that way. And then the
proof began to come and I was at my wits' end to conceal that, but I
did. And then the book was published, and, Margaret, you know the
rest. Nobody dreams who wrote it, and I have had a statement and oh,
my dear, next November I am to have a check." (Annie leaned over and
whispered in Margaret's ear.) "Only think," she said with a burst of
rapture.
Margaret was quite pale. She sat looking straight before her with a
strange expression. She was tasting in the very depths of her soul a
bitterness which was more biting than any bitter herb which ever grew
on earth. It was a bitterness, which, thank God, is unknown to many;
the bitterness of the envy of an incapable, but self-seeking nature,
of one with the burning ambition of genius but destitute of the
divine fire. To such come unholy torture, which is unspeakable at the
knowledge of another's success. Margaret Edes was inwardly writhing.
To think that Annie Eustace, little Annie Eustace, who had worshipped
at her own shrine, whom she had regarded with a lazy, scarcely
concealed contempt, for her incredible lack of wordly knowledge, her
provincialism, her ill-fitting attire, should have achieved a triumph
which she herself could never achieve. A cold hatred of the girl
swept over the woman. She forced her lips into a smile, but her eyes
were cruel.
"How very interesting, my dear," she said.
Poor Annie started. She was acute, for all her innocent trust in
another's goodness, and the tone of her friend's voice, the look in
her eyes chilled her. And yet she did not know what they signified.
She went on begging for sympathy and rejoicing with her joy as a
child might beg for a sweet. "Isn't it perfectly lovely, Margaret
dear?" she said.
"It is most interesting, my dear child," replied Margaret.
Annie went on eagerly with the details of her triumph, the book sales
which increased every week, the revises, the letters from her
publishers, and Margaret listened smiling in spite of her torture,
but she never said more than "How interesting."
At last Annie went home and could not help feeling disappointed,
although she could not fathom the significance of Margaret's
reception of her astonishing news. Annie only worried because she
feared lest her happiness had not cheered her friend as much as she
had anticipated.
"Poor Margaret, she must feel so very bad that nothing can reconcile
her to such a betrayal of her hospitality," she reflected as she
flitted across the street. There was nobody in evidence at her house
at window or on the wide verandah. Annie looked at her watch tucked
in her girdle, hung around her neck by a thin gold chain which had
belonged to her mother. It yet wanted a full hour of supper time. She
had time to call on Alice Mendon and go to the post-office. Alice
lived on the way to the post-office, in a beautiful old colonial
house. Annie ran along the shady sidewalk and soon had a glimpse of
Alice's pink draperies on her great front porch. Annie ran down the
deep front yard between the tall box bushes, beyond which bloomed in
a riot of colour and perfume roses and lilies and spraying heliotrope
and pinks and the rest of their floral tribe all returned to their
dance of summer. Alice's imposing colonial porch was guarded on
either side of the superb circling steps by a stone lion from over
seas. On the porch was a little table and several chairs. Alice sat
in one reading. She was radiant in her pink muslin. Alice seldom wore
white. She was quite sensible as to the best combinations of herself
with colours although she had, properly speaking, no vanity. She
arranged herself to the best advantage as she arranged a flower in a
vase. On the heavily carved mahogany table beside her was a blue and
white India bowl filled with white roses and heliotrope and lemon
verbena. Annie inhaled the bouquet of perfume happily as she came up
the steps with Alice smiling a welcome at her. Annie had worshipped
more fervently at Margaret Edes' shrine than at Alice's and yet she
had a feeling of fuller confidence in Alice. She was about to tell
Alice about her book, not because Alice needed the comfort of her joy
but because she herself, although unknowingly, needed Alice's ready
sympathy of which she had no doubt. Her interview with Margaret had
left the child hurt and bewildered and now she came to Alice. Alice
did not rise and kiss her. Alice seldom kissed anybody but she
radiated kindly welcome.
"Sit down, little Annie," she said, "I am glad you have come. My aunt
and cousin have gone to New York and I have been alone all day. We
would have tea and cake but _I_ know the hour of your Medes and
Persians' supper approaches instead of my later dinner."
"Yes," said Annie, sitting down, "and if I were to take tea and cake
now, Alice, I could eat nothing and grandmother and my aunts are very
particular about my clearing my plate."
Alice laughed, but she looked rather solicitously at the girl. "I
know," she said, then she hesitated. She pitied little Annie Eustace
and considered her rather a victim of loving but mistaken tyranny. "I
wish," she said, "that you would stay and dine with me to-night."
Annie fairly gasped. "They expect me at home," she replied.
"I know, and I suppose if I were to send over and tell them you would
dine with me, it would not answer."
Annie looked frightened. "I fear not, Alice. You see they would have
had no time to think it over and decide."
"Yes, I suppose so."
"I have time to make you a little call and stop at the post-office
for the last mail and get home just in time for supper."
"Oh, well, you must come and dine with me a week from to-day, and I
will have a little dinner-party," said Alice. "I will invite some
nice people. We will have Mr. von Rosen for one."
Annie suddenly flushed crimson. It occurred to her that Mr. von Rosen
might walk home with her as he had done from Margaret's, and a
longing and terror at once possessed her.
Alice wondered at the blush.
"I was so sorry for poor Margaret last night," Annie said with an
abrupt change of subject.
"Yes," said Alice.
"That poor Western girl, talented as she is, must have been oddly
brought up to be so very rude to her hostess," said Annie.
"I dare say Western girls are brought up differently," said Alice.
Annie was so intent with what she had to tell Alice that she did not
realise the extreme evasiveness of the other's manner.
"Alice," she said.
"Well, little Annie Eustace?"
Annie began, blushed, then hesitated.
"I am going to tell you something. I have told Margaret. I have just
told her this afternoon. I thought it might please her and comfort
her after that terrible scene at her dinner last night, but nobody
else knows except the publishers."
"What is it?" asked Alice, regarding Annie with a little smile.
"Nothing, only I wrote _The Poor Lady_," said Annie.
"My dear Annie, I knew it all the time," said Alice.
Annie stared at her. "How?"
"Well, you did not know it, but you did repeat in that book verbatim,
ad literatim, a sentence, a very striking one, which occurred in one
of your papers which you wrote for the Zenith Club. I noticed that
sentence at the time. It was this: 'A rose has enough beauty and
fragrance to enable it to give very freely and yet itself remain a
rose. It is the case with many endowed natures but that is a fact
which is not always understood.' My dear Annie, I knew that you
wrote the book, for that identical sentence occurs in _The Poor Lady_
on page one hundred forty-two. You see I have fully considered the
matter to remember the exact page. I knew the minute I read that
sentence that my little Annie Eustace had written that successful
anonymous book, and I was the more certain because I had always had
my own opinion as to little Annie's literary ability based upon those
same Zenith Club papers. You will remember that I have often told you
that you should not waste your time writing club papers when you
could do work like that."
Annie looked alarmed. "Oh, Alice," she said, "do you think anybody
else has remembered that sentence?"
"My dear child, I am quite sure that not a blessed woman in that club
has remembered that sentence," said Alice.
"I had entirely forgotten."
"Of course, you had."
"It would be very unfortunate if it were remembered, because the
publishers are so anxious that my name should not be known. You see,
nobody ever heard of me and my name would hurt the sales and the poor
publishers have worked so hard over the advertising, it would be
dreadful to have the sales fall off. You really don't think anybody
does remember?"
"My dear," said Alice with her entirely good-natured, even amused and
tolerant air of cynicism, "the women of the Zenith Club remember
their own papers. You need not have the slightest fear. But Annie,
you wonderful little girl, I am so glad you have come to me with
this. I have been waiting for you to tell me, for I was impatient to
tell you how delighted I am. You blessed child, I never was more glad
at anything in my whole life. I am as proud as proud can be. I feel
as if I had written that book myself, and better than written it
myself. I have had none of the bother of the work and my friend had
it and my friend has the fame and the glory and she goes around among
us with her little halo hidden out of sight of everybody, except
myself."
"Margaret knows."
Alice stiffened a little. "That is recent," she said, "and I have
known all the time."
"Margaret could not have remembered that sentence, I am sure," Annie
said thoughtfully. "Poor Margaret, she was so upset by what happened
last night that I am afraid the news did not cheer her up as much as
I thought it would."
"Well, you dear little soul," said Alice, "I am simply revelling in
happiness and pride because of it, you may be sure of that."
"But you have not had such an awful blow as poor Margaret had," said
Annie. Then she brightened. "Oh Alice," she cried, "I wanted somebody
who loved me to be glad."
"You have not told your grandmother and aunts yet?"
"I have not dared," replied Annie in a shamed fashion. "I know I
deceived them and I think perhaps grandmother might find it hard not
to tell. She is so old you know, and she does tell a great deal
without meaning and Aunt Susan likes to tell news. I have not dared,
Alice. The publishers have been so very insistent that nobody should
know, but I had to tell you and Margaret."
"It made no difference anyway about me," said Alice, "since I already
knew."
"Margaret can be trusted too, I am sure," Annie said quickly.
"Of course."
Annie looked at her watch. "I must go," she said, "or I shall be
late. Isn't it really wonderful that I should write a successful
book, Alice?"
"You are rather wonderful, my dear," said Alice. Then she rose and
put her arms around the slender white-clad figure and held her close,
and gave her one of her infrequent kisses. "You precious little
thing," she said, "the book is wonderful, but my Annie is more
wonderful because she can be told so and never get the fact into her
head. Here is your work, dear."
An expression of dismay came over Annie's face. "Oh, dear," she said,
"I have only embroidered half a daisy and what will Aunt Harriet
say?"
"You have embroidered a whole garden as nobody else can, if people
only knew it," said Alice.
"But Alice," said Annie ruefully, "my embroidery is really awful and
I don't like to do it and the linen is so grimy that I am ashamed.
Oh, dear, I shall have to face Aunt Harriet with that half daisy!"
Alice laughed. "She can't kill you."
"No, but I don't like to have her so disappointed."
Alice kissed Annie again before she went, and watched the slight
figure flitting down between the box-rows, with a little frown of
perplexity. She wished that Annie had not told Margaret Edes about
the book and yet she did not know why she wished so. She was very far
from expecting the results. Alice was too noble herself to entertain
suspicions of the ignobility of others. Certainty she was obliged to
confront, as she had confronted the affair of the night before. It
was, of course, the certainty that Margaret had been guilty of a
disgraceful and treacherous deed which made her uneasy in a vague
fashion now and yet she did not for one second dream of what was to
occur at the next meeting of the Zenith Club.
That was at Mrs. Sturtevant's and was the great affair of the year.
It was called, to distinguish it from the others, "The Annual
Meeting," and upon that occasion the husbands and men friends of the
members were invited and the function was in the evening. Margaret
had wished to have the club at her own house, before the affair of
Martha Wallingford, but the annual occasions were regulated by the
letters of the alphabet and it was incontrovertibly the turn of the
letter S and Mrs. Sturtevant's right could not be questioned. During
the time which elapsed before this meeting, Margaret Edes was more
actively unhappy than she had ever been in her life and all her
strong will could not keep the traces of that unhappiness from her
face. Lines appeared. Her eyes looked large in dark hollows. Wilbur
grew anxious about her.
"You must go somewhere for a change," he said, "and I will get my
cousin Marion to come here and keep house and look out for the
children. You must not be bothered even with them. You need a
complete rest and change."
But Margaret met his anxiety with irritation. She felt as if some
fatal fascination confined her in Fairbridge and especially did she
feel that she must be present at the annual meeting. Margaret never
for one minute formulated to herself why she had this fierce desire.
She knew in a horrible way at the back of her brain, but she kept the
knowledge covered as with a veil even from herself.
She had a beautiful new gown made for the occasion. Since she had
lost so much colour, she was doubtful of the wisdom of wearing her
favourite white and gold, or black. She had a crepe of a peculiar
shade of blue which suited her and she herself worked assiduously
embroidering it in a darker shade which brought out the colour of her
eyes. She looked quite herself when the evening came and Wilbur's
face brightened as he looked at her in her trailing blue with a
little diamond crescent fastening a tiny blue feather in her golden
fluff of hair.
"You certainly do look better," he said happily.
"I am well, you old goose," said Margaret, fastening her long blue
gloves. "You have simply been fussing over nothing as I told you."
"Well, I hope I have. You do look stunning to-night," said Wilbur,
gazing at her with a pride so intense that it was almost piteous in
its self-abnegation.
"Is that your stunt there on the table?" he inquired, pointing to a
long envelope.
Margaret laughed carefully, dimpling her cheeks. "Yes," she said, and
Wilbur took the envelope and put it into his pocket. "I will carry it
for you," he said. "By the way, what is your stunt, honey? Did you
write something?"
"Wait, until you hear," replied Margaret, and she laughed carefully
again. She gathered up the train of her blue gown and turned upon
him, her blue eyes glowing with a strange fire, feverish roses on her
cheeks. "You are not to be surprised at anything to-night," she said
and laughed again.
She still had a laughing expression when they were seated in Mrs.
Sturtevant's flower-scented drawing-room, a handsome room, thanks to
the decorator, who was young and enthusiastic. Margaret had duly
considered the colour scheme in her choice of a gown. The furniture
was upholstered with a wisteria pattern, except a few chairs which
were cane-seated, with silvered wood. Margaret had gone directly to
one of these chairs. She was not sure of her gown being exactly the
right shade of blue to harmonise with the wisteria at close quarters.
The chair was tall and slender. Margaret's feet did not touch the
floor, but the long blue trail of her gown concealed that, and she
contrived to sit as if they did. She gave the impression of a tall
creature of extreme grace as she sat propping her back against her
silvered chair. Wilbur gazed at her with adoration. He had almost
forgotten the affair of Martha Wallingford. He had excused his
Margaret because she was a woman and he was profoundly ignorant of
women's strange ambitions. Now, he regarded her with unqualified
admiration. He looked from her to the other women and back again and
was entirely convinced that she outshone them all as a sun a star. He
looked at the envelope in her blue lap and was sure that she had
written something which was infinitely superior to the work of any
other woman there. Down in the depths of his masculine soul, Wilbur
Edes had a sense of amused toleration when women's clubs were
concerned, but he always took his Margaret seriously, and the Zenith
Club on that account was that night an important and grave
organisation. He wished very much to smoke and he was wedged into an
uncomfortable corner with a young girl who insisted upon talking to
him and was all the time nervously rearranging her hair, but he had a
good view of his Margaret in her wonderful blue gown, in her silver
chair, and he was consoled.
"Have you read _The Poor Lady_?" asked spasmodically the girl, and
drove in a slipping hair-pin at the same time.
"I never read novels," replied Wilbur absently, "haven't much time
you know."
"Oh, I suppose not, but that is such a wonderful book and only think,
nobody has the least idea who wrote it, and it does make it so
interesting. I thought myself it was written by Wilbur Jack until I
came to a sentence which I could quite understand and that put him
out of the question. Of course, Wilbur Jack is such a great genius
that no young girl like myself pretends to understand him, but that
is why I worship him. I tell Mamma I think he is the ideal writer for
young girls, so elevating. And then I thought _The Poor Lady_ might
have been written by Mrs. Eudora Peasely because she is always so
lucid and I came to a sentence which I could not understand at all.
Oh, dear, I have thought of all the living writers as writing that
book and have had to give it up, and of course the dead ones are out
of the question."
"Of course," said Wilbur gravely, and then his Margaret stood up and
took some printed matter from an envelope and instantly the situation
became strangely tense. Men and women turned eager faces; they could
not have told why eager, but they were all conscious of something
unusual in the atmosphere and every expression upon those expectant
faces suddenly changed into one which made them as a listening unit.
Then Margaret began.