CHAPTER XVIIIMRS. BARON TAKES UP THE GAUNTLET
Havingdecided upon what he conceived to be an admirable plan of action, Baron was unwilling to believe that he ought to be in any hurry to execute his plan.
For the time being Bonnie May was getting along very well indeed. In fact, Baron made a point of looking into this matter with a good deal of thoroughness, from a somewhat new angle, and he was greatly pleased by what he discovered.
Little by little the child had become habituated to the home atmosphere. This, of course, was due largely to the fact that the other members of the family had become habituated to having her about. They no longer felt constrained to utter pleasant nothings, or to hold their tongues, because of her presence. When they forgot her “strangeness,” she ceased to be strange.
She obediently and even intelligently attended when Mrs. Baron gave her her lesson on the piano.
“Though I think,” she confided to Baron on one occasion, “I could get hold of the high places without going through all the funny business she seems to regard so highly.”
Baron spoke in defense of the “funny business,” and presently she agreed with him.
The guest’s wardrobe had been made gloriously complete, and in this relationship another pleasant development was to be noted.
Bonnie May had been painfully accustomed to the use of trunks. Now she made the acquaintance of bureau drawers, and her delight was unbounded. She spent hours in arranging her things. She won Flora’s genuine applause by her skill and taste in this matter.
Flora bought her a hat.
She looked at it in a queerly detached manner for an instant. “Oh, a hat,” she commented. She might have been repeating a word spoken by a travel-lecturer, describing some interesting place which did not seem to concern her. It appeared that she never had owned a hat.
She put it on before the glass. “Oh!” she cried. She thrust impulsive arms about Flora’s neck and hugged her.
Flora enjoyed that experience so much that she bought another hat which she described as “unmade.” Ribbons of gay colors, and white lace, and little silk flowers of various hues, came with it, and the child was given these materials to experiment with as she pleased. Flora gave advice, and was ready with assistance.
Again the result was interesting. Bonnie May experienced a joy which was rapt, almost tremulousin quality. A desert-bred bird, coming upon an oasis, might have regarded its surroundings with the same incredulous rapture.
Baron’s room became hers permanently, and here she developed a keen delight in “housekeeping.” Here also she received Mrs. Baron and Flora as guests, and amazed them by her performance of the part of hostess.
“I call it nonsense,” declared Mrs. Baron to Flora, after the two had paid a formal call. But her face was flushed with happiness and her voice was unwontedly soft.
“Not nonsense,” responded Flora; “it’s just happiness.”
She spent whole afternoons with Mrs. Shepard in the kitchen and dining-room. She learned how to bake little cakes.
It became her duty—by her own request—to set the table, and upon this task she expended the most earnest thought.
Baron commented upon this on one occasion. “Ah, you’re not an artist, after all. You’re a Gretchen,” he said.
“But everything about the table is so pretty and nice,” she responded. “It’s as elegant as a table in a play, and ever so much more sensible. You know something always happens when you sit down to a table on the stage. A servant comes in and says: ‘Beg pardon, mum, but there’s a gentleman—he says he’s your uncle from Green Bay’—andthen everybody gets up in a hurry, because the uncle is supposed to believe his niece has a lot of children he’s been helping to support, when she hasn’t got any at all. Or something like that.”
In brief, there were a hundred accumulating evidences to prove that Bonnie May in the Baron household was the right individual in the right place.
It is true that Mrs. Baron did not forget how Thornburg had called on a certain night to take the child away, and how she had given him to understand—she supposed—that she would expect him back on the same errand some other time. And Baron could not free his mind of the fact that he had voluntarily entered into a compact by which his guest must sooner or later be lost to the household at least a part of the time.
But these were matters which were not discussed in the family.
A week passed—two weeks, and Baron hadn’t seen Thornburg or communicated with him. One day in June the thermometer shot up in real midsummer fashion, and the audiences in most of the theatres were such that all the shrewd managers became listless and absent-minded. The “regular season” was over.
Thornburg closed his theatre and turned his attention to a summer resort where there was an opportunity to launch anal frescoentertainment scheme. “Everybody was leaving town.” Thereremained only the uncounted thousands for whom some lighter form of entertainment must be provided.
The flight of time, the inevitable march of events, brought to Baron a realization of the fact that there was a promise he must keep. And so one day, during an hour in the attic, he spoke to Bonnie May.
She didn’t seem to pay any attention at all to his preliminary words. It slowly dawned upon her that what Baron was saying concerned her in a special way.
“... people you will be interested in, I am sure,” Baron was saying. “Thornburg, the name is.” He glanced at her; but the name had made no impression. “Mrs. Thornburg is not very strong, and a cheerful visit ought to be just the thing to help her. Mr. Thornburg is a theatrical man. Why, it was his theatre I met you in. They have a beautiful home.”
“Oh, that makes me think,” was all the reply he received. “What became of the man who had a play?”
“Eh—a play?”
“You remember—when I first came. He had the first act and read it to you in the library, and I had to go to bed.”
“Oh—Baggot. He’s probably forgotten all about it by this time. Or writing another that he’ll never finish.”
She shook her head, unconvinced. “He was so enthusiastic,” she objected.
So for the time being there was an end to the discussion of her visit to the Thornburgs.
Another week passed, and then Baron had an extraordinarily busy day.
In the forenoon came a letter from one of the dramatic editors for whom Baron had done special work occasionally.
“They are launching some sort of a dramatic stock enterprise out at Fairyland to-night,” the letter ran, “and I’m hoping you can do it for me. Thornburg is managing it. I don’t hope it will be much as a dramatic proposition, but you might be able to get some readable impressions. Please let me know.”
A later mail brought a communication from Thornburg.
The sight of the manager’s signature brought Baron up with a jerk—but he was reassured by the first few lines. Thornburg wasn’t charging him with bad faith. Instead, he was enclosing an order for an unlimited number of seats for the Fairyland opening.
“I understand,” ran a pencilled line by way of postscript and explanation, “that you are to represent theTimesto-night.”
Also there was a letter from Baggot. Baggot’s play had reached a stage where it needed Baron’sinspection. The budding playwright asked no questions. He merely declared his intention of calling that night.
Baron went up into the attic to look at the morning paper. He wanted to know what they were doing out at Fairyland, and who was doing it.
And while he noted one impressive name after another, he was arrested by an altogether amazing sound down in his mother’s sitting-room. Mrs. Baron had been giving Bonnie May her music lesson, and now, the lesson done, she was singing for her pupil.
The thin old voice faltered on some of the notes, but the words came clear enough:
“... She’s all the world to me,And for bonnie Annie Laurie....”
“... She’s all the world to me,And for bonnie Annie Laurie....”
“... She’s all the world to me,
And for bonnie Annie Laurie....”
Baron smiled and shook his head.
“What was it,” he mused, “about a plan of reconstruction?”
Then he went down-stairs to telephone his acceptance to the man on theTimes.
Baggot he completely forgot.
When Baron entered the dining-room at dinner-time that evening Flora looked at him with mild surprise.
“All dressed up and nowhere to go,” said she.
“But there is somewhere to go. I’m going towrite up the Fairyland opening. Would you like to go with me?”
“No, thank you.”
It was clearly understood that Baron’s question had been put in a spirit of jest. It was understood that Flora and her kind did not go to the Fairylands—and their kind.
But Bonnie May failed to grasp the situation.
“What’s Fairyland?” she inquired.
“A large enclosure occupied entirely by mad people, and with a theatre in one corner.”
She ignored the reference to mad people. “Oh! a theatre. What are they playing?”
“A piece called ‘The Second Mrs. Tanqueray,’” said Baron.
She sat up, swiftly erect, and clasped her hands. “How fine!” was her comment. “Do you think you could take me?”
“I should say not!” Baron responded without thinking. His unthinking refusal was a result of the habitual Baron attitude. But as he regarded her thoughtfully, and noted the puzzled inquiry in her glance, he couldn’t quite understand why he had been so emphatic, so confident of being right. “It’s not a play a little girl would care for,” he added, now on the defensive.
She smiled indulgently. “The idea! I mean,anybodywould be interested in it.”
“What’s it about?” challenged Baron.
“A lady who died because they were unkind toher—even the people who loved her. It’s about a lot of snobs and a—a human being.” She spoke with feeling. She sensed the fact that again she was being required to stand alone.
Baron frowned. “How in the world did you find out anything about a play like that?”
“Miss Barry did it in Denver one time—when she was with a stock company. I can’t understand why you speak as if there was something wrong about it. I think it’s great. You can cry like anything when you see it—because it seems as if what happens couldn’t have been helped. It isn’t one of those things that’s been screwed around to make everybody feel as if they’d been eating caramels. You remember it!”
Baron, Sr., engaged in carving the roast, twinkled somewhat darkly.
“You might get her to shape your criticism for you, Victor,” he suggested.
“I don’t know if the editor would stand for ‘screwed around,’” said Baron, “but upon my soul, I think she’s right.”
“Well, don’t you think you could take me, then?” asked Bonnie May.
“It really isn’t possible. You see, I must hurry down to the office right after the performance—to write it, you know.”
The child leaned toward Mrs. Baron, a very real shadow trembling on her face. “Couldn’t you go, so you could bring me home?” she asked. Hervoice was nearly inaudible, through fear of disappointment. “I haven’t been for such a long time. You can’t think how dearly I’d like to go.”
Mrs. Baron was provoked by the child’s intense earnestness. “Oh—impossible!” she said. She noted the look of despair in Bonnie May’s eyes. “There wouldn’t be enough tickets, anyway,” she added weakly.
Baron leaned back in his chair as if he had lost his appetite. What was the matter with them all, anyway, that they were afraid to get down into the crowd once in a while? Plenty of really nice people went to all manner of places—in search of novelty, for diversion, in order to get into touch with mankind. He had spoken of mad persons out at Fairyland. That was merely a silly cynicism. They weren’t any madder than other people. Surely they were saner, since they were willing to enjoy the best that life afforded.
“I’ve got plenty of seats, mother,” he said. He returned to his dinner, smiling somewhat maliciously.
“Victor!” exclaimed Mrs. Baron. She flushed angrily. “You know very well I won’t go to such a place.”
Bonnie May’s voice trailed away to a whisper—almost to a whimper. “Nice people can go anywhere they want to go,” she said. “It’s only silly people who need to be afraid, because they don’t know how to think for themselves.”
She tried very hard to eat her dinner then, and to say no more. But presently she said, faintly, “Please excuse me,” and ran, weeping in true childish abandon, from the room.
It was the first time she had really lost control over herself!
Baron, Sr., was the first to speak. “She’s only a child,” he said, as if anything more would be superfluous.
An ensuing silence was broken by the sound of the telephone-bell, and Mrs. Baron was glad to respond, as a means of putting the finishing touches to an uncomfortable episode.
But the telephone seemed only to create other difficulties. The group at the table were quite at a loss to know what could have brought such an extraordinary sharpness into Mrs. Baron’s voice. She was soon grasping the receiver angrily, and they heard her saying, with uncomfortable intervals between her words and phrases: “To-night? Bonnie May? Mr. Baron? Why should he do anything of the kind? No, I don’t understand at all. No....” She turned around in quick displeasure. “Victor,” she appealed, “will you see what they want?”
And Baron hurried to the phone and took up the broken conversation.
“Oh, Mrs. Thornburg!” he began. Then, after a pause, “Yes, that was the understanding. There wasn’t any definite time set—” A pause. “Yes,I know he is. I’m going out there, too.” Another pause, and then, “Well, I suppose it might be managed. I’ll askher. I promised—we both agreed—that she should do as she pleased——”
He turned back to the table with a brave attempt at briskness. But the inquiring glances bent upon him were disconcerting.
Mrs. Baron went and unceremoniously hung up the receiver. She had, it seemed, understood quite accurately what the person at the other end of the phone had been saying.
“It’s an invitation for Bonnie May,” said Baron, trying to shake off the feeling that he was a guilty wretch. “Mrs. Thornburg particularly wishes her to come over this evening, because she’s to be alone.”
“Well!” was Mrs. Baron’s comment. “Why should she go over there, I’d like to know?”
Baron hesitated. “The fact is, I entered into a sort of compact with Thornburg——”
“Yes, I gathered something of the kind,” said Mrs. Baron angrily. “I suppose I have nothing to say, one way or another.”
“It was when you were still of the belief that Bonnie May couldn’t be—quite comfortable with us, and Thornburg.... I don’t think I was wholly unjustified in what I promised. You remember you said that as soon as she could be got ready—” He was floundering painfully now, with the eyes of everybody in the room turned upon him accusingly. “Mrs. Thornburg says she hasa room ready, specially fitted up for her, and she only asks that she may spend the night——”
Mrs. Baron had a vision of that room that had been “specially fitted up” for the child, who was now away somewhere grieving because she had been refused a greatly coveted privilege. No doubt the Thornburg woman had spent whole weeks and no end of money in fitting up that room. And she thought with a sinking heart of the gloom of the mansion, and its threadbare aspects.
“Victor Baron,” she cried angrily, “I wish you would tell me just what agreement you made with that theatre man. I want to know where I stand.”
And Baron explained—or, rather, he failed to explain very clearly. The idea of “a sort of duel” not only failed to delight his auditors as it had delighted Thornburg, but they looked as if they considered it a type of criminal and unseemly folly.
“You see,” persisted Baron, “the Thornburgs are rich people. They may go so far as to adopt Bonnie May, if the thing works out satisfactorily. I know how that sounds, but we’ve got to think of—ofherinterests, as well as our own whims.”
“Whims!” This, witheringly, from Mrs. Baron.
“I think it was mostly whims at first, anyway.”
“You’re speaking for yourself—not for me.”
“And the Thornburgs are not bad people. I don’t see why they shouldn’t make her quite happy. I’m not at all sure we could do as much, if we undertook to keep her here constantly.”
“That,” said Mrs. Baron “is your mean way of reminding me of what happened just a little while ago!”
“Oh, no, mother! But she’s such a joyous little thing! I think she’ll like us all the better for seeing other people once in a while.”
Mrs. Baron gazed at her son silently, her face darkening. He realized that her mind was filled with scorn, with resistance, with misgivings. “And I suppose,” she said, “that everything in their house is the newest and brightest and costliest!” She enumerated these qualities as if she were pointing out so many of the cardinal sins.
Baron pretended not to understand. “They live nicely,” he said. “But as far as Bonnie May is concerned, I don’t think you need fear that the things the Thornburgs have will give them any advantage over us.”
“Well, I don’t want her to go,” declared Mrs. Baron.
Baron was standing in indecision when, happily, there was an interruption.
The front door closed rather noisily, as it did when Mrs. Shepard was not in a very good humor, and there was the sound of Baggot’s voice in the hall.
Baron groaned. He had forgotten about Baggot. He went out into the hall and confronted the playwright apologetically. “I’d really forgotten,” he began, but Baggot cut him short.
“It’s all right,” remarked that young man. “Come on up to the library. I needn’t keep you long. But it’s simply necessary—” He was leading the way up-stairs as if he were in his own house.
“Look here, Baggot,” remonstrated Baron, “I’ve got to go out to-night, in half an hour—in fifteen minutes. You’ll have to come back some other night.”
“Where you going?”
Baron gasped at the man’s rudeness.
“I’ve got to review a play, out at——”
“Fine! I’ll go with you!”
Baron sank into a chair. There really wasn’t any reason why Baggot shouldn’t go with him. “But I’m going on the street-car,” he explained. “We couldn’t read a play——”
“It’s not ready to be read, most of it. I’ve only got a couple of acts and the scenario. But there are certain things....” He pulled his chair closer to Baron’s and began an eager discussion of his play.
Time passed, and Flora appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were inscrutable. “Mother wishes to see you before you go out,” she said.
“Will she come up here?” pleaded Baron. He wanted to hide behind Baggot and escape a further scolding.
“I’ll ask her,” replied Flora.
Baggot, leaning forward and speaking with great intensity, continued on the subject which obsessed him.
Time flew, and Baron found himself nervously jerking out his watch. Then there was a faint rustle of dresses out in the sitting-room.
Mrs. Baron appeared in the doorway.
She was dressed with all the exquisite, subtle attention to detail which never failed to make Baron proud of her. He took in the quiet, old-fashioned jewelry, sparingly displayed; the softened dignity of costume; the fine severity of her beautiful hair. Surely she was every inch a gentlewoman of whom any son might be proud.
She held Bonnie May, smiling serenely, by the hand.
“I just wanted you to know,” she said, standing impressively erect and speaking with quiet resolution, “that we are ready to go to the play.”