CHAPTER XIHOW A CONVEYANCE CAME FOR BONNIE MAY—AND HOW IT WENT AWAY
Trueto his promise, Baron set aside that evening to call on the Thornburgs.
As he emerged from the vestibule and stood for a moment on the top step he noted that the familiar conflict between the departing daylight and the long files of street-lamps up and down the avenue was being waged. In the country, no doubt, this hour would be regarded as a part of the day; but in the city it was being drawn ruthlessly into the maw of night. There was never any twilight on the avenue.
Already countless thousands of people had had dinner, and were thronging the avenue in that restless march which is called the pursuit of pleasure.
He slipped into the human current and disappeared just a moment too soon to observe that an automobile swerved out from its course and drew up in front of the mansion.
A youthful-looking old lady with snowy hair and with small, neatly gloved hands, pushed open the door and emerged. With the manner of one who repeats a request she paused and turned.
“Do come in, Colonel,” she called into the shadowy recesses of the car.
A gray, imposing-appearing man with a good deal of vitality still showing in his eyes and complexion smiled back at her inscrutably. “Go on,” he said, tucking his cigar beneath the grizzled stubble on his upper lip, and bringing his hand down with a large gesture of leisurely contentment. “You’ll be all right. I don’t mind waiting.”
And Mrs. Harrod proceeded alone to make her call.
By the most casual chance Mrs. Baron was standing at her sitting-room window when the car stopped before the house, and when she perceived that it was Mrs. Harrod—Amelia Harrod, as she thought of her—who was crossing the sidewalk, she underwent a very remarkable transformation.
So complete a transformation, indeed, that Bonnie May, who was somewhat covertly observing her, sprang softly to her feet and became all attention.
Mrs. Baron’s face flushed—the child could see the heightened color in one cheek—and her whole attitude expressed an unwonted eagerness, a childish delight.
The truth was that Mrs. Harrod was one of the old friends who had seemed to Mrs. Baron to be of the deserters—one whose revised visiting list did not include the Barons. And they had been girls together, and intimates throughout theirmarried lives—until the neighborhood had moved away, so to speak, and the Barons had remained.
It is true that, despite Mrs. Baron’s fancies, Mrs. Harrod had remained a fond and loyal friend, though she had reached an age when social obligations, in their more trivial forms, were not as easily met as they had been in earlier years. And it may also be true that something of constraint had arisen between the two during the past year or so, owing to Mrs. Baron’s belief that she was being studiously neglected, and to Mrs. Harrod’s fear that her old friend was growing old ungracefully and unhappily.
Then, too, the Harrods had money. Colonel Harrod had never permitted his family’s social standing to interfere with his money-making. On the contrary. The Barons were unable to say of the Harrods: “Oh, yes, they havemoney,” as they said of a good many other families. For the Harrods had everything else, too.
“Oh, it’s Amelia!” exclaimed Mrs. Baron, withdrawing her eyes from the street. She gave herself a quick, critical survey, and put her hands to her hair, and hurried toward her room in a state of delighted agitation.
She had not given a thought to Bonnie May. She did not know that the child slipped eagerly from the room and hurried down the stairs.
Bonnie May was, indeed, greatly in need of a diversion of some sort. Not a word had been said to her touching the clash that had occurred at thetable during the Sunday dinner. She did not know that the machinery necessary to her removal from the mansion had been set in motion; but she had a vague sense of a sort of rising inflection in the atmosphere, as if necessary adjustments were in the making. Perhaps her state of mind was a good deal like that of a sailor who voyages in waters which are known to be mined.
However, she liked to go to the door to admit visitors, in any case. There may have been, latent in her nature, a strong housekeeping instinct. Or, perhaps, there seemed a certain form of drama in opening the door to persons unknown—in meeting, in this manner, persons who were for the time being her “opposites.” She assured herself that she was saving Mrs. Shepard from the trouble of responding from the kitchen; though she realized clearly enough that she was actuated partly by a love of excitement, of encounters with various types of human beings.
On the present occasion she had opened the door and stepped aside, smiling, before Mrs. Harrod had had time to touch the bell.
“Come in,” she said. And when the visitor had entered she closed the door softly. “Will you wait until I make a light?” she asked. “I’m afraid we’ve all forgotten about the light.” The lower rooms had become quite gloomy.
She had climbed upon a chair in the drawing-room, and touched a match to the gas-burner beforeshe could be questioned or assisted, and for the moment the caller was only thinking how peculiar it was that the Barons went on relying upon gas, when electricity was so much more convenient.
“Please have a seat,” Bonnie May added, “while I call Mrs. Baron.” She turned toward the hall. “Shall I say who it is?” she asked.
Mrs. Harrod had not taken a seat. When the light filled the room child and woman confronted each other, the child deferential, the woman smiling with an odd sort of tenderness.
“Whoareyou?” asked the visitor. Her eyes were beaming; the curve of her lips was like a declaration of love.
“I’m Bonnie May.” The child advanced and held out her hand.
Mrs. Harrod pondered. “You’re not a—relative?”
“Oh, no. A—guest, I think. Nothing more than that.”
Mrs. Harrod drew a chair toward her without removing her eyes from the child’s face. “Do sit down a minute and talk to me,” she said. “We can let Mrs. Baron know afterward. A guest? But you don’t visit here often?”
“This is my first visit. You see, I have so little time for visiting. I happen not to have any—any other engagement just now. I was very glad to come here for—for a while.”
“You haven’t known the Barons long, then?”
“In a way, no. But you know you feel you’ve always known really lovely people. Don’t you feel that way?” She inclined her head a little; her lips were slightly parted; her color arose. She was trying very earnestly to meet this impressive person upon an equal footing.
“I think you’re quite right. And—how did you meet them? I hope you don’t mind my asking questions?”
“Not in the least. I met Mr. Victor at a—a kind of reception he was attending. He was lovely to me. He asked me to meet his mother.”
“How simple! And so you called?”
“Yes. That is, Mr. Victor came and—and brought me. It was much pleasanter, his bringing me.”
She had wriggled up into a chair and was keeping clear, earnest eyes upon the visitor. She was recalling Mrs. Baron’s agitation, and she was drawing conclusions which were very far from being wholly wrong.
“I think Victor’s a charming young gentleman,” declared Mrs. Harrod. “He’s always doing something—nice.”
“Yes,” responded Bonnie May. She had observed that the visitor paused before she said “nice.” Her eyes were alertly studying Mrs. Harrod’s face.
“And your name is Bonnie May. Is that the full name, or——”
“Yes, that’s the full name.”
Mrs. Harrod pondered. “You’re not of the Prof. Mays, are you?”
“Why, I’m of—of professional people. I’m not sure I’m of the Mays you’re thinking about.” She edged herself from her chair uneasily. “I hope I haven’t forgotten myself,” she added. “I’m sure I should have let Mrs. Baron know you are here. I think you didn’t say what the name is?”
“I’m Mrs. Harrod. I hope you’ll remember. I would be glad if you’d be a friend of mine, too.”
The child’s dilemma, whatever it had been, was past. She smiled almost radiantly. “I’m very glad to have met you, Mrs. Harrod,” she said. She advanced and extended her hand again. “I truly hope I’ll have the pleasure of meeting you again.”
Then she was off up the stairs, walking sedately. It had meant much to her that this nice woman, who was clearly not of the profession, had talked to her without patronizing her, without “talking down” to her.
A strange timidity overwhelmed her when she appeared at Mrs. Baron’s door. “It’s Mrs. Harrod,” she said, and there was a slight catch in her voice. “I mean, Mrs. Harrod has called. I let her in.”
Mrs. Baron, standing in her doorway, was fixing an old-fashioned brooch in place. She flushed and there was swift mistrust in her eyes. “Oh!” shecried weakly. The sound was almost like a moan. “I thought Mrs. Shepard——”
“I didn’t tell her I was—I didn’t tell her who I was. I thought you would rather I didn’t. I was just nice to her, and she was nice to me.”
She hurried away, then, because she wanted to be by herself. For some reason which she could not understand tears were beginning to start from her eyes. Mrs. Baron had not been angry, this time. She had seemed to be ashamed!
She did not know that the old gentlewoman looked after her with a startled, almost guilty expression which gave place to swift contrition and tenderness.
Mrs. Baron did not descend the stairs. She was about to do so when Mrs. Harrod appeared in the lower hall.
“Don’t come down!” called the latter. “I mean to have my visit with you in your sitting-room.” She was climbing the stairs. “I don’t intend to be treated like a stranger, even if I haven’t been able to come for such a long time.” Shadows and restraints seemed to be vanishing utterly before that advancing friendly presence. And at the top of the flight of stairs she drew a deep breath and exclaimed:
“Emily Boone,whois that child?” She took both Mrs. Baron’s hands and kissed her. “I told the colonel I simply wouldn’t go by without stopping. He had an idea we ought to go to see—what’sthe name of the play? I can’t remember. It gave me a chance to stop. I seem never to have the opportunity any more. But do tell me. About the child, I mean. Do you know, I’ve never seen such a perfect little human being in my life! She’s so lovely, and so honest, and so unspoiled.Whois she?”
Mrs. Baron felt many waters lift and pass. Bonnie May hadn’t done anything scandalous, evidently. And here was her old friend as expansive, as cheerfully outspoken as in the days of long ago.
She found herself responding happily, lightly.
“A little protégée of Victor’s,” she said. “You know what a discoverer he is?” They had entered the sitting-room. Mrs. Baron was thinking again how good it was to have the old bond restored, the old friend’s voice awaking a thousand pleasant memories.
But as Mrs. Harrod took a seat she leaned forward without a pause. “Now do tell me about that—that cherub of a child,” she said.
In the meantime, Victor Baron was experiencing something like a surprise to discover that Thornburg, the manager, seemed a new, a different, sort of person, now that he was in his own home. He had quite the air of—well, there was only one word for it, Baron supposed—a gentleman.
The Thornburg home was quite as nice, even in the indefinable ways that count most, as any home Baron was acquainted with. There was an impressionof elegance—but not too much elegance—in the large reception-room. There was a general impression of softly limited illumination, of fine yet simple furniture. The walls had a kind of pleasant individuality, by reason of the fact that they were sparsely—yet attractively—ornamented.
A grandfather’s clock imparted homeliness to one end of the room; there was a restful suggestion in the broad fireplace in which an enormous fern had been installed. Baron’s glance also took in a grand piano of a quietly subdued finish.
Mrs. Thornburg alone seemed in some odd way out of harmony with the fine, cordial picture in which Baron found her. She was a frail, wistful woman, and because her body was ailing, her mind, too—as Baron speedily discovered—was not of the sound, cheerful texture of her surroundings.
“Ah, Baron!” exclaimed Thornburg, advancing to meet his guest as the latter was shown into the room. “I’m glad to see you here.”
As he turned to his wife, to introduce the visitor, Baron was struck by something cautious and alert in his manner—the manner of a man who must be constantly prepared to make allowances, to take soundings. He presented an altogether wholesome picture as he looked alternately at his wife and his guest. His abundant, stubborn gray hair was in comfortable disorder, to harmonize with the smoking-jacket he wore, and Baron looked at him more than once with the uncomfortable senseof never having really known him before. He thought, too, how this brusque, ruddy man seemed in a strange fashion imprisoned within the radius of an ailing wife’s influence.
“Mr. Baron is the man who carried that little girl out of the theatre the other day,” explained Thornburg. He turned again to Baron with a casual air: “Do you find that your people still want to let her go?”
He was playing a part, obviously; the part of one who is all but indifferent. Mrs. Thornburg scrutinized the visitor’s face closely.
“Yes, I believe they do,” replied Baron.
“I’ve been talking to Mrs. Thornburg about the case. She understands that I feel a sort of responsibility. I think I’ve about persuaded her to have a look at the little girl.”
Mrs. Thornburg seemed unwilling to look at her husband while he was speaking. Baron thought she must be concealing something. She was gazing at him with an expression of reproach, not wholly free from resentment.
“Hasn’t the child any relatives?” she asked. She seemed to be making an effort to speak calmly.
“I really can’t answer that,” said Baron. “She seems not to have. She has told me very little about herself, yet I believe she has told me all she knows. She has spoken of a young woman—an actress—she has travelled with. There doesn’t appearto have been any one else. I believe she never has had a home.”
Mrs. Thornburg withdrew her gaze from him. She concerned herself with the rings on her thin, white fingers. “How did you happen to be with her in the theatre?” she asked.
“I was in one of the upper boxes. I don’t know how she came to be there. I believe she couldn’t find a seat anywhere else.”
“And you’d never seen her before?”
“Never.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Both Thornburg and Baron were looking interestedly at Mrs. Thornburg, who refused to lift her eyes. “I wonder how you happened to take her to your home?” she asked finally.
Baron laughed uneasily. “I’m wondering myself,” he said. “Nobody seems to approve of what I did. But if you could have seen her! She’s really quite wonderful. Very pretty, you know, and intelligent. But that isn’t it, after all. She is so charmingly frank. I think that’s it. It’s unusual in a child.”
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Mrs. Thornburg. “Unusual in any one, I should say.”
“Why, perhaps it is,” agreed Baron simply. He was not a little puzzled by something in Mrs. Thornburg’s manner.
“And why don’t you want to keep her?” she wanted to know.
“We meant to. But it turns out that she and my mother are—well, antagonistic.”
“That’s unfortunate, isn’t it? Please pardon me—you see, I’m really handicapped. But—what kind of woman is your mother?” She put the question so softly that it did not seem offensive.
Baron hesitated. “Perhaps it will explain if I say that she is elderly? There haven’t been any children in the house for a good many years. She believes—what is the familiar saying?—that children ought to be seen and not heard.”
Mrs. Thornburg hesitated. “That wouldn’t be quite the reason,” she said. “Your mother is—is orthodox, I suspect, in her friendships and ways. I’m sure you see what I mean.”
“Yes,” admitted Baron. “I think you are getting closer to the facts than I did.”
A pretty, delicate hue warmed the woman’s face, and her voice softened almost to tenderness. “I think I know,” she went on. “The little girl of the stage, out of some unknown place in Bohemia—she must seem quite disturbing, hopelessly out of harmony....”
“You put the case much better than I did. Yet you know all that’s scarcely fair to Bonnie May. She’s not really bold and impertinent, in the usual sense of those words. She hasn’t had the kind of training other children have. She has never associated with other children. You can see that instantly. She assumes that she has the sameright to her opinion that older people have to theirs. She never means to offend. I have an idea she’s really quite affectionate. I have an idea if you once won her over——”
Mrs. Thornburg turned toward her husband and leaned forward in her chair, her eyes filled with a soft, generous impulse. When she spoke her voice vibrated with feeling.
“Bring her home!” she said.
Baron fancied there was an expression of triumph in the manager’s bearing. “You mean now—to-night?” he asked.
“Why not to-night? I’m eager to have her; really eager, now that I’ve decided.”
“It’s quite simple,” declared Thornburg. “I suppose you’ll have to—to get a few things ready?”
Her whole being became tremulous—she who had had no children of her own, and who knew nothing about them. “Nothing to-night, to speak of. To-morrow....” She clasped her hands and looked into vacancy, as if visions were coming to her.
But Thornburg was already in an adjoining room at the telephone, ordering his machine.
Baron regarded Mrs. Thornburg thoughtfully. He was surprised and touched by her intensity. Then she looked at him, mutely appealing. There was a long moment during which two minds tried to meet across a barrier of emotion and a lack of mutual knowledge. Then Mrs. Thornburg spoke.
“You know,” she explained, “we’ve both been disappointed, deeply disappointed, because we hadn’t any of our own.”
When Thornburg’s automobile stopped before the Baron mansion, half an hour later that evening, and the manager and Baron got out, something happened.
Mrs. Baron, her gray hair stirring slightly in the spring breeze, stood on the front steps for all the world like an alert sentinel.
“Well, Victor?” she demanded, as her son advanced toward her. Her voice was sternly challenging.
“This gentleman has come to take Bonnie May away,” replied her son. He derived a certain satisfaction from her disturbed state.
“Where to?”
“To her new home, with Mr. and Mrs. Thornburg.”
“Do you mean you’ve brought that machine to take her away to-night?”
“Why, yes—certainly.”
“Well, you can just send it away. You won’t need it to-night.”
“I don’t believe I understand, mother!”
Baron had approached the lowest step and Thornburg had taken a position close to him. Mrs. Baron, from her superior height, frowned down upon them as if they were two kidnappers who must be held at bay.
“You probably don’t,” replied Mrs. Baron. “It isn’t necessary that you should, either. But you’ll grasp my meaning when I tell you that child shall not be taken away in the dead of night, as if she were being stolen, and she shall not leave this house until she has been decently clothed and made ready to go. I never heard of such an outrageous thing in my life.” She turned with fear, yet with severity, toward Thornburg. When she spoke again it might have seemed that she regarded the manager as a kind of trained wolf over whom her son might possess an influence. “Victor, tell him to go away!” she commanded. “When I want him to come back I’ll let you know.”
She turned with the air of a queen who had been affronted. In an instant she had disappeared. The door had been quite unmistakably slammed behind her.