CHAPTER XI.GRACE HAYNES.
“Bravo, Miss Leighton! I did not suppose there was so much spirit in you, when I saw you darning madam’s stockings and buttoning her boots. You are a brick and positively I admire you. Neither mamma nor Mrs Hallam needs any one to go with them, any more than the sea needs water. But it is English, you know, to have an attendant, and such an attendant, too, as you. Yes, I admire you! I respect you! Our door was open, and I heard what you said; so did mamma, and she is furious; but I am glad to see one woman assert her rights.”
It was Grace Haynes, who, coming from her bedroom, joined Bertha, as she was walking rapidly down the hall and said all this to her. Bertha had been nearly two weeks at Aix, and, although she had scarcely exchanged a word with Grace, she had often seen her, and remembering what Mrs. Hallam had said of her and Reginald, had looked at her rather critically. She was very thin and wiry, with a pale face, yellow hair worn short, large blue eyes, and a nose inclined to an upward curve. She was a kind-hearted, good-natured girl, of a pronounced type both in dress and manner and speech. She believed in a little slang, she said, because it gave a point to conversation, and she adored baccarat and rouge-et-noir, and a lot more things which her mother thought highly improper. She had heard all that her mother said of Bertha, and, quick to discriminate, shehad seen how infinitely superior she was to Mrs. Hallam and had felt drawn to her, but was too much absorbed in her own matters to have any time for a stranger. She was a natural flirt, and, although so plain, always managed to have, as she said, two or three idiots dangling on her string. Just now it was a young Englishman, the grandson of old Lady Gresham, whom she had upon her string, greatly to the disgust of her mother, with whom she was not often in perfect accord.
Linking her arm in Bertha’s as they went down the stairs, she continued, “Are you going to walk? I am, up the hill. Come with me. I’ve been dying to talk to you ever since you came, but have been so engaged, and you are always so busy with madam since Celine went away. Good pious work you must find it waiting on madam and mamma both! I don’t see how you do it so sweetly. You must have a great deal of what they call inward and spiritual grace. I wish you’d give me some.”
Grace was the first girl of her own age and nation who had spoken to Bertha since she left America, and she responded readily to the friendly advance.
“I don’t believe I have any inward and spiritual grace to spare,” she said. “I only do what I hired out to do. You know I must earn my wages.”
“Yes,” Grace answered, “I know, and I wish I could earn wages, too. It would be infinitely more respectable than the way we get our money.”
“How do you get it?” Bertha asked, and Grace replied, “Don’t you know? You have certainly heard of high-born English dames who, for a consideration, undertake to hoist ambitious Americans into society?”
Bertha had heard of such things, and Grace continued,“Well, that is what mamma does at home on a smaller scale; and she succeeds, too. Everybody knows Mrs. Walker Haynes, with blood so blue that indigo is pale beside it, and if she pulls a string for a puppet to dance, all the other puppets dance in unison. Sometimes she chaperons a party of young ladies, but as these give her a good deal of trouble, she prefers people like Mrs. Hallam, who without her would never get into society. Society! I hate the word, with all it involves. Do you see that colt over there?” and she pointed to a young horse in an adjoining field. “Well, I am like that colt, kicking up its heels in a perfect abandon of freedom. But harness it to a cart, with thills and lines and straps and reins, and then apply the whip, won’t it rebel with all its might? And if it gets its feet over the traces and breaks in the dash-board who can blame it? I’m just like that colt. I hate that old go-giggle called society, which says you mustn’t do this and you must do that because it is or is not proper and Mrs. Grundy would be shocked. I like to shock her, and I’d rather take boarders than live as we do now. I’d do anything to earn money. That’s why I play at baccarat.”
“Baccarat!” Bertha repeated, with a little start.
“Yes, baccarat. Don’t try to pull away from me. I felt you,” Grace said, holding Bertha closer by the arm. “You are Massachusetts born and have a lot of Massachusetts notions, of course, and I respect you for it, but I am Bohemian through and through. Wasn’t born anywhere in particular, and have been in your so-called first society all my life and detest it. We have a little income, and could live in the country with one servant comfortably, as so many people do; but that would notsuit mamma, and so we go from pillar to post and live on other people, until I am ashamed. I am successful at baccarat. They say the old gent who tempted Eve helps new beginners at cards, and I believe he helps me, I win so often. I know it isn’t good form, but what can I do? If I don’t play baccarat there’s nothing left for me but to marry, and that I never shall.”
“Why not?” Bertha asked, becoming more and more interested in the strange girl talking so confidentially to her.
“Why not?” Grace repeated. “That shows that you are not in it,—the swim, I mean. Don’t you know that few young men nowadays can afford to marry a poor girl and support her in her extravagance and laziness? She must have money to get any kind of a show, and that I haven’t,—nor beauty either, like you, whose face is worth a fortune. Don’t say it isn’t; don’t fib,” she continued, as Bertha tried to speak. “You know you are beautiful, with a grande-duchesse air which makes everybody turn to look at you, even the king. I saw him, and I’ve seen those Russians and Greeks, who are here with some high cockalorums, take off their hats when you came near them. Celine told me how they all stand up when you enter thesalle-à-manger. I call that genuine homage, which I’d give a good deal to have.”
She had let go Bertha’s arm and was walking a little in advance, when she stopped suddenly, and, turning round, said, “I wonder what you will think of Rex Hallam.”
Bertha made no reply, and she went on: “I know I am talking queerly, but I must let myself out to some one. Rex is coming before long, and you will know then, if you don’t now, that mamma is moving heavenand earth to make a match between us; but she never will. I am not his style, and he is far more likely to marry you than me. I have known him for years, and could get up a real liking for him if it would be of any use, but it wouldn’t. He doesn’t want a washed-out, yellow-haired girl like me. Nobody does, unless it’s Jack Travis, old Lady Gresham’s grandson, with no prospects and only a hundred pounds a year and an orange grove in Florida, which he never saw, and which yields nothing, for want of proper attention. He says he would like to go out there and rough it; that he does not like being tied to his grandmother’s apron-strings; and that, give him a chance, he would gladly work. I have two hundred dollars a year more. Do you think we could live on that and the climate?”
They had been retracing their steps, and were near the hotel, where they met the young Englishman in question, evidently looking for Miss Haynes. He was a shambling, loose-jointed young man, but he had a good face, and there was a ring in his voice which Bertha liked, as he spoke first to Grace and then to herself, as Grace presented him to her. Knowing that as a third party she was in the way, Bertha left them and went into the hotel, while they went down into the town, where they stayed so long that Lady Gresham and Mrs. Haynes began to get anxious as to their whereabouts. Both ladies knew of the intimacy between the young people, and both heartily disapproved of it. Under some circumstances Mrs. Haynes would have been delighted to have for a son-in-law Lady Gresham’s grandson. But she prized money more than a title, and one hundred pounds a year with a doubtful orange grove in Florida did not commend themselves to her, while LadyGresham, although very gracious to Mrs. Haynes, because it was not in her nature to be otherwise to any one, did not like the fast American girl, who wore her hair short, carried her hands in her pockets like a man, and believed in women’s rights. If Jack were insane enough to marry her she would wash her hands of him and send him off to that orange grove, where she had heard there was a little dilapidated house in which he could try to live on the climate and one hundred a year. Some such thoughts as these were passing through Lady Gresham’s mind, while Mrs. Haynes was thinking of Grace’s perversity in encouraging young Travis, and of Reginald Hallam, from whom Mrs. Hallam had that morning had a letter and who was coming to Aix earlier than he had intended doing. Nearly all his friends were out of town, he wrote, and the house was so lonely without his aunt that she might expect him within two or three weeks at the farthest. He did not say what steamer he should take, but, as ten days had elapsed since his letter was written, Mrs. Hallam said she should not be surprised to see him at any time, and her face wore an air of pleased expectancy at the prospect of having Rex with her once more. But a thought of Bertha brought a cloud upon it at once. She had intended removing her from the second-classsalle-à-mangerbefore Rex came, but did not know how to manage it.
“The girl seems contented enough,” she thought, “and I hear has a great deal of attention there,—in fact, is quite like a queen among her subjects; so I guess I’ll let it run, and if Rex flares up I’ll trust Mrs. Haynes to help me out of it, as she got me into it.”
CHAPTER XII.THE NIGHT OF THE OPERA.
It was getting rather dull at the Hôtel Splendide. The novelty of having a king in their midst, who went about unattended in citizen’s dress, and bowed to all who looked as if they wished him to bow to them, was wearing off, and he could go in and out as often as he liked without being followed or stared at. The grand duchess, too, whose apartments were screened from the great unwashed, had had her Sunday dinner-party, with scions of French royalty in the Bourbon line for her guests, and a band of music outside. The woman from Chicago, who had flirted so outrageously with her eyes with the Russian, while his little wife sat by smiling placidly and suspecting no evil because the Chicagoan professed to speak no language but English, of which her husband did not understand a word, had departed for other fields. The French count, who had beaten his American bride of three weeks’ standing, had also gone, and the hotel had subsided into a state of great respectability and circumspection.
“Positively we are stagnating, with nothing to gossip about except Jack and myself, and nothing going on in town,” Grace Haynes said to Bertha, with whom she continued on the most friendly terms.
But the stagnation came to an end and the town woke up when it was known that Miss Sanderson from San Francisco was to appear in opera at the Casino. Everybody had heard of the young prima donna, andall were anxious to see her. Mrs. Hallam took a box for Mrs. Haynes, Grace, and herself, but, although there was plenty of room, Bertha was not included in the party. Nearly all the guests were going from the third floor, which would thus be left entirely to the servants, and Mrs. Hallam, who was always suspecting foreigners of pilfering from her, did not dare leave her rooms alone, so Bertha must stay and watch them. She had done this before when Mrs. Hallam was at the Casino, but to-night it seemed particularly hard, as she wished to see Miss Sanderson so much that she would willingly have stood in the rear seats near the door, where a crowd always congregated. But there was no help for it, and after seeing Mrs. Hallam and her party off she went into the salon, and, taking an easy-chair and a book, sat down to enjoy the quiet and the rest. She was very tired, for Mrs. Hallam had kept her unusually busy that day, arranging the dress she was going to wear, and sending her twice down the long, steep hill into the town in quest of something needed for her toilet. It was very still in and around the hotel, and at last, overcome by fatigue and drowsiness, Bertha’s book dropped into her lap and she fell asleep with her head thrown back against the cushioned chair and one hand resting on its arm. Had she tried she could not have chosen a more graceful position, or one which showed her face and figure to better advantage, and so thought Rex Hallam, when, fifteen or twenty minutes later, he stepped into the room and stood looking at her.
Ever since his visit to the Homestead he had found his thoughts constantly turning to Aix-les-Bains, and had made up his mind to go on a certain ship, when he accidentally met Fred Thurston, who was stopping in NewYork for two or three days before sailing. There was an invitation to dinner at the Windsor, and as a result Rex packed his trunk, and, securing a vacant berth, sailed for Havre with the Thurstons a week earlier than he had expected to sail. Fred was sick all the voyage and kept his berth, but Louie seemed perfectly well, and had never been so happy since she was a child playing with Rex under the magnolias in Florida as she was now, walking and talking with him upon the deck, where, with her piquant, childish beauty, she attracted a great deal of attention and provoked some comment from the censorious when it was known that she had a husband sick in his berth. But Louie was guiltless of any intentional wrong-doing. She had said to Bertha in Boston, that she believed Fred was going to die, he was so good; and, with a few exceptions, when the Hyde nature was in the ascendant, he had kept good ever since. He had urged Rex’s going with them quite as strongly as Louie, and when he found himself unable to stay on deck, he had bidden Louie go and enjoy herself, saying, however:
“I know what a flirt you are, but I can trust Rex Hallam, on whom your doll beauty has never made an impression and never will; so go and be happy with him.”
This was not a pleasant thing to say, but it was like Fred Thurston to say it, and he looked curiously at Louie to see how it would affect her. There was a flush on her face for a moment, while the tears sprang to her eyes. But she was of too sunny a disposition to be miserable long, and, thinking to herself, “Just for this one week I will be happy,” she tied on her pretty sea-cloak and hood, and went on deck, and was happy as achild when something it has lost and mourned is found again. At Paris they separated, the Thurstons going on to Switzerland, and Rex to Aix-les-Bains, laden with messages of love to Bertha, who had been the principal subject of Louie’s talk during the voyage. In a burst of confidence Rex had told her of Rose Arabella Jefferson’s photograph, and Louie had laughed merrily over the mistake, saying:
“You will find Bertha handsomer than her picture. I think you will fall in love with her; and—if—you—do——” she spoke the last words very slowly, while shadow after shadow flitted over her face as if she were fighting some battle with herself; then, with a bright smile, she added, “I shall be glad.”
Rex’s journey from Paris to Aix was accomplished without any worse mishap than a detention of the train for three hours or more, so that it was not until his aunt had been gone some time that he reached the hotel, where he was told that Mrs. Hallam and party were at the Casino.
“I suppose she has a salon. I will go there and wait till she returns,” Rex said, and then followed a servant up-stairs and along the hall in the direction of the salon.
He had expected to find it locked, and was rather surprised when he saw the open door and the light inside, and still more surprised as he entered the room to find a young lady so fast asleep that his coming did not disturb her. He readily guessed who she was, and for a moment stood looking at her admiringly, noting every point of beauty from the long lashes shading her cheeks to the white hand resting upon the arm of the chair.
“Phineas was right. She is handsome as blazes, butI don’t think it is quite the thing for me to stand staring at her this way. It is taking an unfair advantage of her. I must present myself properly,” he thought, and, stepping into the hall, he knocked rather loudly upon the door.
Bertha awoke with a start and sprang to her feet in some alarm as, in response to her “Entrez,” a tall young man stepped into the room and stood confronting her with a good deal of assurance.
“You must have made a mistake, sir. This is Mrs. Hallam’s salon,” she said, rather haughtily, while Rex replied:
“Yes, I know it. Mrs. Hallam is my aunt, and you must be Miss Leighton.”
“Oh!” Bertha exclaimed, her attitude changing at once, as she recognized the stranger. “Your aunt is expecting you, but not quite so soon. She will be very sorry not to have been here to meet you. She has gone to the opera. Miss Sanderson is in town.”
“So they told me at the office,” Rex said, explaining that he had crossed a little sooner than he had intended, but did not telegraph his aunt, as he wished to surprise her. He then added, “I am too late for dinner, but I suppose I can have my supper up here, which will be better than climbing the three flights of stairs again. That scoop of an elevator has gone ashore for repairs, and I had to walk up.”
Ringing the bell, he ordered his supper, while Bertha started to leave the salon, saying she hoped he would make himself comfortable until his aunt returned.
“Don’t go,” he said, stepping between her and the door to detain her. “Stay and keep me company. I have been shut up in a close railway carriage all daywith French and Germans, and am dying to talk to some one who speaks English.”
He made her sit down in the chair from which she had risen when he came in, and, drawing another near to her, said, “You do not seem like a stranger, but rather like an old acquaintance. Why, for a whole week I have heard of little else but you.”
“Of me!” Bertha said, in surprise.
He replied, “I crossed with Mr. and Mrs. Fred Thurston. She, I believe, is your cousin, and was never tired of talking of you, and has sent more love to you than one man ought to carry for some one else.”
“Cousin Louie! Yes, I knew she was coming about this time. And you crossed with her?” Bertha said, thinking what a fine-looking man he was, while there came to her mind what Louie had said of his graciousness of manner, which made every woman think she was especially pleasing to him, whether she were old or young, pretty or plain, rich or poor. He talked so easily and pleasantly and familiarly that it was difficult to think of him as a stranger, and she was not sorry that he had bidden her stay.
When supper was on the table he looked it over a moment, and then said to the waiter, “Bring dishes and napkins enough for two;” then to Bertha, “If I remember thetable d’hôtesabroad, they are not of a nature to make one refuse supper at ten o’clock; so I hope you are ready to join me.”
Bertha had been treated as second-class so long that she had almost come to believe shewassecond-class, and the idea of sitting down to supper with Rex Hallam in his aunt’s salon took her breath away.
“Don’t refuse,” he continued. “It will be so muchjollier than eating alone, and I want you to pour my coffee.”
He brought her a chair, and before she realized what she was doing she found herself sitting opposite him quiteen famille, and chatting as familiarly as if she had known him all her life. He told her of his visit to the Homestead, his drive with Dorcas, and his meeting with Phineas Jones, over which she laughed merrily, feeling that America was not nearly so far away as it had seemed before he came. When supper was over and the table cleared, he began to talk of books and pictures, finding that as a rule they liked the same authors and admired the same artists.
“By the way,” he said, suddenly, “why are you not at the opera with my aunt? Are you not fond of music?”
“Yes, very,” Bertha replied, “but some one must stay with the rooms. Mrs. Hallam is afraid to leave them alone.”
“Ah, yes. Afraid somebody will steal her diamonds, which she keeps doubly and trebly locked, first in a padded box, then in her trunk, and last in her room. Well, I am glad for my sake that you didn’t go. But isn’t it rather close up here? Suppose we go down. It’s a glorious moonlight night, and there must be a piazza somewhere.”
Bertha thought of the broad, vine-wreathed piazza, with its easy-chairs, where it would be delightful to sit with Reginald Hallam, but she must not leave her post, and she said so.
“Oh, I see; another case of the boy on the burning deck,” Rex said, laughing. “I suppose you are right; but I never had much patience with that boy. Ishouldn’t have stayed till I was blown higher than a kite, but should have run with the first sniff of fire. You think I’d better go down? Not a bit of it; if you stay here, I shall. It can’t be long now before they come. Zounds! I beg your pardon. Until I saidthey, I had forgotten to inquire for Mrs. Haynes and Grace. They are well, I suppose, and with my aunt?”
Bertha said they were, and Rex continued:
“Grace and I are great friends. She’s a little peculiar,—wants to vote, and all that sort of thing,—but I like her immensely.”
Then he talked on indifferent subjects until Mrs. Hallam was heard coming along the hall, panting and talking loudly, and evidently out of humor. The elevator, which Rex said had been drawn off for repairs, was still off, and she had been obliged to walk up the stairs, and didn’t like it. Bertha had risen to her feet as soon as she heard her voice, while Rex, too, rose and stood behind her in the shadow, so his aunt did not see him as she entered the room, and, sinking into the nearest chair, said, irritably:
“Hurry and help me off with my things. I’m half dead. Whew! Isn’t that lamp smoking? How it smells here! Open another window. The lift is not running, and I had to walk up the stairs.”
“I knew it stopped earlier in the evening, but supposed it was running now. I am very sorry,” Bertha said, and Mrs. Hallam continued:
“You ought to have found out and been down there to help me up.”
“I didn’t come any too soon,” Rex thought, stepping out from the shadow, and saying, in his cheery voice, “Halloo, auntie! All tuckered out, aren’t you, withthose horrible stairs! I tried them, and they took the wind out of me.”
“Oh, Rex, Rex!” Mrs. Hallam cried, throwing her arms around the tall young man, who bent over her and returned her caresses, while he explained that he did not telegraph, as he wished to surprise her, and that he had reached the hotel half an hour or so after she left it.
“Why didn’t you come at once to the Casino? There was plenty of room in our box, and you must have been so dull here.”
Rex replied: “Not at all dull, with Miss Leighton for company. I ordered my supper up here and had her join me. So you see I have made myself quite at home.”
“I see,” Mrs. Hallam said, with a tone in her voice and a shutting together of her lips which Bertha understood perfectly.
She had gathered up Mrs. Hallam’s mantle and bonnet and opera-glass and fan and gloves by this time; and, knowing she was no longer needed, she left the room just as Mrs. Haynes and Grace, who had heard Rex’s voice, entered it.
The ladies slept late the next morning, and Rex breakfasted alone and then went to the salon to meet his aunt, as he had promised to do the night before. Itwas rather tiresome waiting, and he found himself wishing Bertha would come in, and wondering where she was. As a young man of position and wealth and unexceptionable habits, he was a general favorite with the ladies, and many a mother would gladly have captured him for her daughter, while the daughter would not have said no if asked to be his wife. This he knew perfectly well, but, he said, the daughters didn’t fill the bill. He wanted a real girl, not a made-up one, with powdered face, bleached hair, belladonna eyes, and all the obnoxious habits so fast stealing into the best society. Little Louie Thurston had touched his boyish fancy, and he admired her more than any other woman he had ever met; Grace Haynes amused and interested him; but neither she nor Louie possessed the qualities with which he had endowed his ideal wife, who, he had come to believe, did not exist. Thus far everything connected with Bertha Leighton had interested him greatly, and the two hours he had spent alone with her had deepened that interest. She was beautiful, agreeable, and real, he believed, with something fresh and bright and original about her. He was anxious to see her again, and was thinking of going down to the piazza, hoping to find her there, when his aunt appeared, and for the next hour he sat with her, telling her of their friends in New York and of his visit to the Homestead, where he had been so hospitably entertained and made so many discoveries with regard to Bertha.
“She is a great favorite in Leicester,” he said, “and I think you have a treasure.”
“Yes, she serves me very well,” Mrs. Hallam replied, and then changed the conversation, just as Graceknocked at the door, saying she was going for a walk into town, and asking if Rex would like to go with her.
It was a long ramble they had together, while Grace told him of her acquaintances in Aix, and especially of the young Englishman, Jack Travis, and the Florida orange grove on which he had sunk a thousand dollars with no return.
“Tell him to quit sinking, and go and see to it himself,” Rex said. “Living in England or at the North and sending money South to be used on a grove, is much like a woman trying to keep house successfully by sitting in her chamber and issuing her orders through a speaking tube, instead of going to the kitchen herself to see what is being done there.”
Rex’s illustrations were rather peculiar, but they were sensible. Grace understood this one perfectly, and began to revolve in her mind the feasibility of advising Jack to go to Florida and attend to his business himself, instead of talking through a tube. Then she spoke of Bertha, and was at once conscious of an air of increased interest in Reginald, as she told him how much she liked the girl and how strangely he seemed to be mixed up with her.
“You see, Mrs. Hallam tells mamma everything, and so I know all about Rose Arabella Jefferson’s picture. I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard about it; and I know, too, about your knocking Miss Leighton down on the Teutonic——”
“Wha-at!” Rex exclaimed; “was that Ber—Miss Leighton, I mean?”
“Certainly that was Bertha. You may as well call her that when with me,” Grace replied. “I knew youwould admire her. You can’t help it. I am glad you have come, and I hope you will rectify a lot of things.”
Rex looked at her inquiringly, but before he could ask what she meant, they turned a corner and came upon Jack Travis, who joined them, and on hearing that Rex was from New York began to ask after his orange grove, as if he thought Reginald passed it daily on his way to his business.
“What a stupid you are!” Grace said. “Mr. Hallam never saw an orange grove in his life. Why, you could put three or four United Kingdoms into the space between New York and Florida.”
“Reely! How very extraordinary!” the young Englishman said, utterly unable to comprehend the vastness of America, towards which he was beginning to turn his thoughts as a place where he might possibly live on seven hundred dollars a year with Grace to manage it and him.
When they reached the hotel it was lunch-time, and after a few touches to his toilet Rex started for thesalle-à-manger, thinking that now he should see Bertha, in whom he felt a still greater interest since learning that it was she to whom he had given the black eye on the Teutonic. “The hand of fate is certainly in it,” he thought, without exactly knowing what theitreferred to. Mrs. Hallam and Mrs. Haynes and Grace were already at the table when he entered the room and was shown to the only vacant seat, between his aunt and Grace.
“This must be Miss Leighton’s place,” he said, standing by the chair. “I do not wish to keep her from her accustomed seat. Where is she?” and he looked up and down both sides of the long table, but did not see her,“Where is she?” he asked again, and his aunt replied “She is not coming to-day. Sit down, and I will explain after lunch.”
“What is there to explain?” he thought, as he sat down and glanced first at his aunt’s worried face, then at Grace, and then at Mrs. Haynes.
Then an idea occurred to him which almost made him jump from his chair. He said to Grace:
“Does Miss Leighton lunch in her room?”
“Oh, no,” Grace replied.
“Doesn’t she come here?” he persisted.
“Your aunt will explain. I would rather not,” Grace said.
There was something wrong, Rex was sure, and he finished lunch before the others and left the salon just in time to see Bertha half-way up the second flight of stairs. Bounding up two steps at a time, he soon stood beside her, with his hand on her arm to help her up the next flight.
“I have not seen you this morning. Where have you kept yourself?” he asked, and she replied:
“I have been busy in your aunt’s room.”
“Where is her maid?” was his next question, and Bertha answered:
“She has been gone some time.”
“Andyoufill her place?”
“I do what Mrs. Hallam wishes me to.”
“Why were you not at lunch?”
“I have been to lunch.”
“You have!Where?”
“Where I always take it.”
“Andwhereis that?”
There was something in Rex’s voice and mannerwhich told Bertha that he was not to be trifled with, and she replied, “I take my meals in the servants’ hall, or rather with the maids and nurses and couriers. It is not bad when you are accustomed to it,” she added, as she saw the blackness on Reginald’s face and the wrath in his eyes. They had now reached the door of Mrs. Hallam’s room, and Mrs. Hallam was just leaving the elevator in company with Mrs. Haynes, who very wisely went into her own apartment and left her friend to meet the storm alone.
And a fierce storm it was. At its close Mrs. Hallam was in tears, and Rex was striding up and down the salon like an enraged lion. Mrs. Hallam had tried to apologize and explain, telling how respectful all the couriers and valets were, how much less it cost, and that Mrs. Haynes said the English sent their companions there, and governesses too, sometimes. Rex did not care a picayune for what the English did; he almost swore about Mrs. Haynes, whose handiwork he recognized; he scorned the idea of its costing less, and said that unless Bertha were at once treated as an equal in every respect he would either leave the hotel or join her in the second-class salon and see for himself whether those rascally Russians and Turks and Frenchmen looked at her as they had no business to look.
At this point Bertha, who had no suspicion of what was taking place in the salon, and who wished to speak to Mrs. Hallam, knocked at the door. Rex opened it with the intention of sending the intruder away, but when he saw Bertha he bade her come in, and, standing with his back against the door, went over the whole matter again and told her she was to join them at dinner.
“And if there is no place for you at my aunt’s end ofthe table there is at the other, and I shall sit there with you,” he said.
He had settled everything satisfactorily, he thought, when a fresh difficulty arose with Bertha herself. She had listened in surprise to Rex, and smiled gratefully upon him through the tears she could not repress, but she said, “I cannot tell you how much I thank you for your sympathy and kind intentions. But really I am not unhappy in the servants’ hall, nor have I received the slightest discourtesy. Browne, our courier, has stood between me and everything which might have been unpleasant, and I have quite a liking for my companions. And,”—here her face hardened and her eyes grew very dark,—“nothing can induce me to join your party as you propose while Mrs. Haynes is in it. She has worried and insulted me from the moment she saw me. She suggested and urged my going to the servants’ hall against your aunt’s wishes, and has never let an opportunity pass to make me feel my subordinate position. I like Miss Haynes very much, but her mother ——” there was a toss of Bertha’s head indicative of her opinion of the mother, an opinion which Rex fully shared, and if he could he would have turned Mrs. Haynes from the hotel bag and baggage.
But this was impossible. He could neither dislodge her nor move Bertha from her decision, which he understood and respected. But he could take her and his aunt away from Aix and commence life under different auspices in some other place. He had promised to join a party of friends at Chamonix, and he would go there at once, and then find some quiet, restful place in Switzerland, from which excursions could be made and where his aunt could join him with Bertha. This was his plan,which met with Mrs. Hallam’s approval. She was getting tired of Aix, and a little tired, too, of Mrs. Haynes, who had not helped her into society as much as she had expected. Lady Gresham, though civil, evidently shunned the party, presumably because of Grace’s flirtation with Jack, while very few desirable people were on terms of intimacy with her, and the undesirable she would not notice. In fresh fields, however, with Rex, who took precedence everywhere, she should do better, and she was quite willing to go wherever and whenever he chose. That night at dinner she told Mrs. Haynes her plans, and that Rex was to leave the next day for Chamonix.
“So soon? I am surprised, and sorry, too; Grace has anticipated your coming so much and planned so many things to do when you came. She will be so disappointed. Can’t we persuade you to stop a few days at least?” Mrs. Haynes said, leaning forward and looking at Rex with a very appealing face, while Grace stepped on her foot and whispered to her:
“For heaven’s sake, don’t throw me at Rex Hallam’s head, and make him more disgusted with us than he is already.”
The next morning Rex brought his aunt a little, black-eyed French girl, Eloïse, whom he had found in town, and who had once or twice served in the capacity of maid. He had made the bargain with her himself, and such a bargain as he felt sure would ensure her stay in his aunt’s service, no matter what was put upon her. He had also enumerated many of the duties the girl was expected to perform, and among them was waiting upon Miss Leighton equally with his aunt. He laid great stress upon this, and, in order to secure Eloïse’srespect for Bertha, he insisted if the latter would not go to the same table with Mrs. Haynes she should take her meals in the salon. To this Bertha reluctantly consented, and at dinner she found herself installed in solitary state in the handsome salon and served like a young empress by the obsequious waiter, who, having seen the color of Reginald’s gold, was all attention to Mademoiselle. It was a great change, and in her loneliness she half wished herself back with her heterogeneous companions, who had amused and interested her, and to some of whom she was really attached. But just as dessert was served Rex came in and joined her, and everything was changed, for there was no mistaking the interest he was beginning to feel in her; it showed itself in ways which never fail to reach a woman’s heart. At his aunt’s earnest entreaty he had decided to spend another night at Aix, but he left the next morning with instructions that Mrs. Hallam should be ready to join him whenever he wrote her to do so.
“And mind,” he said, laying a hand on each of her shoulders, “don’t you bring Mrs. Haynes with you, for I will not have her. Pension her off, if you want to, and I will pay the bill; but leave her here.”
CHAPTER XIV.AT THE BEAU-RIVAGE.
“Beau-Rivage, Ouchy, Switzerland, August 4, 18—.“ToMiss Bertha Leighton, Hôtel Splendide,Aix-les-Bains, Savoie.“Fred is dying, and I am ill in bed. Come at once.“Louie Thurston.”
“Beau-Rivage, Ouchy, Switzerland, August 4, 18—.“ToMiss Bertha Leighton, Hôtel Splendide,Aix-les-Bains, Savoie.“Fred is dying, and I am ill in bed. Come at once.“Louie Thurston.”
“Beau-Rivage, Ouchy, Switzerland, August 4, 18—.“ToMiss Bertha Leighton, Hôtel Splendide,Aix-les-Bains, Savoie.“Fred is dying, and I am ill in bed. Come at once.“Louie Thurston.”
“Beau-Rivage, Ouchy, Switzerland, August 4, 18—.
“ToMiss Bertha Leighton, Hôtel Splendide,
Aix-les-Bains, Savoie.
“Fred is dying, and I am ill in bed. Come at once.
“Louie Thurston.”
This was the telegram which Bertha received about a week after Rex’s departure for Chamonix, and within an hour of its receipt her trunk was packed and she was ready for the first train which would take her to Ouchy. Mrs. Hallam had made no objection to her going, but, on the contrary, seemed rather relieved than otherwise, for since the revolution which Rex had brought about she hardly knew what to do with Bertha. The maid Eloïse had proved a treasure, and under the combined effects of Rex’spourboireand Rex’s instructions, had devoted herself so assiduously to both Mrs. Hallam and Bertha that it was difficult to tell which she was serving most. But she ignored Mrs. Haynes entirely, saying that Monsieur’s orders were forhisMadame andhisMademoiselle, and she should recognize the rights of no third party until he told her to do so. In compliance with Rex’s wishes, very decidedly expressed, Mrs. Hallam now took all her meals in the salon with Bertha, but they were rather dreary affairs, and, although sorry for the cause, both were glad when an opportunity came for a change.
“Certainly it is your duty to go,” Mrs. Hallam said, when Bertha handed her the telegram, while Mrs. Haynes also warmly approved of the plan, and both expressed surprise that Bertha had never told them of her relationship to Mrs. Fred Thurston.
They knew Mrs. Fred was a power in society, and Mrs. Haynes had met her once or twice and through a friend had managed to attend a reception at her house, which she described as magnificent. To be Mrs. Fred Thurston’s cousin was to be somebody, and both Mrs. Hallam and Mrs. Haynes became suddenly interested in Bertha, the latter offering her advice with regard to the journey, while the former suggested the propriety of sending Browne as an escort. But Bertha declined the offer. She could speak the language fluently and would have no difficulty whatever in finding her way to Ouchy, she said, but she thanked the ladies for their solicitude and parted with them, apparently, on the most amicable terms. Grace accompanied her to the station, and while waiting for the train said to her confidentially, “I expect there will be a bigger earthquake bye-and-bye than Rex got up on your account. Jack and I are engaged. I made up my mind last night to take the great, good-natured, awkward fellow and run my chance on seven hundred dollars a year. It will come off early in the autumn, and we shall go to Florida and see what we can do with that orange grove. Jack will have to work, and so shall I, and I shall like it and he won’t, but I shall keep him at it, trust me. Can you imagine mother’s disgust when I tell her? She really thinks that I have a chance with Rex. But that is folly. Play your cards well. I think you hold a lorehand. There’s your train. Write when you get there, Good-bye.”
There was a friendly parting, a rush through the gate for the carriages, a slamming of doors, and then the train sped on its way, bearing Bertha to a new phase of life in Ouchy.
Thurston had been sick all the voyage, and instead of resting in Paris, as Rex had advised him and Louie had entreated him to do, he had started at once for Geneva and taken a severe cold on the night train. Arrived at the Beau-Rivage in Ouchy, he refused to see a physician until his wife came down with nervous prostration and one was called for her. Louie had had rather a hard time after Rex left her in Paris, for, as if to make amends for his Jekyll mood on the ship, her husband was unusually unreasonable, and worried her so with sarcasm and taunts and ridicule that her heart was very sore when she reached Ouchy. The excitement of the voyage, with Reginald as her constant companion, was over, and she must again take up the old life, which seemed drearier than ever because everything and everybody were so strange, and she found herself constantly longing for somebody to speak a kind and sympathetic word to her. In this condition of things it was not strange that she succumbed at last to the extreme nervous depression which had affected her in Boston, and which was now so intensified that she could scarcely lift her head from the pillow.
“I am only tired,” she said to the physician, a kind, fatherly old man, who asked her what was the matter. “Only tired of life, which is not worth the living.” And her sad blue eyes looked up so pathetically into his face that the doctor felt moved with a great pity for thisyoung, beautiful woman, surrounded with every luxury money could buy, but whose face and words told a story he could not understand until called to prescribe for her husband; and then he knew.
Thurston had made a fight against the illness which was stealing over him and which he swore he would defy. Drugs and doctors were for silly women like Louie, who must be amused, he said, but he would have none of them. “Only exert your will and you can cheat Death himself,” was his favorite saying, and he exerted his will, and went to Chillon, rowed on the lake in the moonlight, took a Turkish bath, and next day had a chill, which lasted so long and left him so weak that he consented to see the doctor, but raved like a madman when told that he must go to bed and stay there if he wished to save his life.
“I don’t know that I care particularly about it. I haven’t found it so very jolly,” he said; then, after a moment, he added, with a bitter laugh, “Tell my wife I am likely to shuffle off this mortal coil, and see how it affects her.”
He was either crazy, or a brute, or both, the doctor thought, but he made him go to bed, secured the best nurse he could find, and was there early the next morning to see how his patient fared. He found him so much worse that when he went to Louie he asked if she had any friends near who could come to her, saying, “If you have, send for them at once.”
Louie was in a state where nothing startled her, and without opening her eyes she said, “Am I going to die?”
“No,” was the doctor’s reply, and she continued, “Is my husband?”
“I hope not, but he is very ill and growing steadily worse. Have you any friend who will come to you?”
“Yes,—my cousin, Miss Leighton, at Aix,” Louie answered; and she dictated the telegram, which the doctor wrote after asking if she had no male friend.
For a moment she hesitated, thinking of Reginald, who would surely come if bidden, and be so strong and helpful. But that would not do; and she answered, “There is no one. Bertha can do everything.”
So Bertha was summoned, and the day after the receipt of the telegram she was at the Beau-Rivage, feeling that she had not come too soon when she saw how utterly prostrated Louie was, and how excited and unmanageable Thurston was becoming under the combined effects of fever and his dislike of his nurse, who could not speak a word of English, while he could understand very little French. Frequent altercations were the result, and when Bertha entered the sick-room there was a fierce battle of words going on between the two, Victoire trying to make the patient take his medicine, while Fred sat bolt upright in bed, the perspiration rolling down his face as he fought against the glass and hurled at the half-crazed Frenchman every opprobrious epithet in the English language. As Bertha appeared the battle ceased, but not until the glass with its contents was on the floor, where Thurston had struck it from Victoire’s hand.
“Ah, Bertha,” he gasped, as he sank exhausted upon his pillow, “did you drop from heaven, or where? and won’t you tell this idiot that it is not time to take my medicine? I know, for I have it written down in good English. Blast that French language, which nobodycan understand! I doubt if they do themselves, the gabbling fools, with theirparleysandwe-we’s.”
It did not take Bertha long to bring order out of confusion. She was a natural nurse, and when the doctor came and she proposed to take Victoire’s place until a more suitable man was found, her offer was accepted. But it was no easy task she had assumed, and after two days and nights, during which she was only relieved for a few hours by John, Thurston’s valet, when sleep was absolutely necessary, she was thoroughly worn out. Leaving the sick man in charge of John, she started for a ramble through the grounds, hoping that the air and exercise would rest and strengthen her. The Thurston rooms were at the rear of a long hall on the second floor, and, as the other end was somewhat in shadow, she only knew that some one was advancing towards her as she went rapidly down the corridor. Nor did she look up until a voice which sent a thrill through every nerve said to her, “Good-afternoon, Miss Leighton. Don’t you know me?” Then she stopped suddenly, while a cry of delight escaped her, as she gave both her hands into the warm, strong ones of Rex Hallam, who held them fast while he questioned her rapidly and told her how he chanced to be there. He had joined his party at Chamonix, where they had stayed for several days, crossing the Mer-de-Glace and making other excursions among the mountains and glaciers. He had then made a flying trip to Interlaken, Lucerne, and Geneva, in quest of the place to which he meant to remove his aunt, and had finally thought of Ouchy, where he knew the Thurstons were, and to which he had come in a boat from Geneva. Learning at the office of his friend’s illness, he had started at oncefor his room, meeting on the way with Bertha, whose presence there he did not suspect. While he talked he led her near to a window, where the light fell full upon her face, showing him how pale and tired it was.
“This will not do,” he said, when he had heard her story. “I am glad I have come to relieve you. I shall write to Aix to-day that I am going to stay here, where I can be of service to Fred and Louie, and to you too. You will not go back, of course, while your cousin needs you. And now go out into the sunshine, and bye-and-bye I’ll find you somewhere in the grounds.”
He had taken matters into his own hands in his masterful way, and Bertha felt how delightful it was to have some one to lean upon, and that one Rex Hallam, whose voice was so full of sympathy, whose eyes looked at her so kindly, and whose hands held hers so long and seemed so unwilling to release them. With a blush she withdrew them from his clasp. Leaving her at last, he walked down the hall, entering Louie’s room first and finding her asleep, with her maid in charge. For a moment he stood looking at her white, wan face, which touched him more than her fair beauty had ever done, for on it he could read the story of her life, and a great pity welled up in his heart for the girl who seemed so like a lovely flower broken on its stem.
“Poor little Louie!” he said, involuntarily, and at the sound of his voice Louie awoke, recognizing him at once, and exclaiming:
“Oh, Rex! I was dreaming of you and the magnolias. I am so glad you are here! You will stay, won’t you? I am afraid Fred is going to die, he is so bad, and then what shall I do?”
She gave him her hand, which he did not hold as longas he had held Bertha’s, nor did the holding it affect him the same. Bertha’s had been warm and full of life, with something electrical in their touch, which sent the blood bounding through his veins and made him long to kiss them, as well as the bright face raised so eagerly to his. Louie’s hand was thin and clammy, and so small that he could have crushed it easily, as he raised it to his lips with the freedom of an old-time friend, and just as he would have done had Fred himself been present. He told her he should stay as long as he was needed, and after a few moments went to see her husband, who was beginning to grow restless and to fret at Bertha’s absence. But at sight of Reginald his mood changed, and he exclaimed joyfully:
“Rex, old boy, I wonder if you know how glad I am to see you. I do believe I shall get well now you are here, though I am having a big tussle with some confounded thing,—typhoid, the doctor calls it; but doctors are fools. How did you happen to drop down here?”
Rex told him how he chanced to be there, and that he was going to stay, and then, excusing himself, went in quest of Bertha, whom he found sitting upon a rustic seat which was partially concealed by a clump of shrubbery. It was a glorious afternoon, and Rex, who was very fond of boating, proposed a row upon the lake, to which Bertha consented.
“I have had too many races with Harvard not to know how to manage the oars myself,” he said, as he handed Bertha into the boat, and dismissing the boy, pushed off from the shore.
It was a delightful hour they spent together gliding over the smooth waters of the lake, and in that time theybecame better acquainted than many people do in years. There was no coquetry nor sham in Bertha’s nature, while Rex was so open and frank, and they had so much in common to talk about, that restraint was impossible between them. Poor Rose Arabella Jefferson was discussed and laughed over, Rex declaring his intention to find her some time, if he made a pilgrimage to Scotsburg on purpose. Then he spoke of the encounter on the ship, and said:
“I can’t tell you how many times I have thought of that girl before I knew it was you, or how I have wanted to see her and apologize properly for my awkwardness. Something seems to be drawing us together strangely.” Then he spoke again of his visit to the Homestead, while Bertha became wonderfully animated as she talked of her home, and Rex, watching her, felt that he had never seen so beautiful a face as hers, or listened to a sweeter voice. “I wonder if I am really falling in love,” he thought, as he helped her from the boat, while she was conscious of some subtle change wrought in her during that hour on Lake Geneva, and felt that life would never be to her again exactly what it had been.
Thurston was very ill with typhoid fever, which held high carnival with him physically, but left him mentally untouched. One afternoon, the fifth after Rex’s arrival,the two were alone, and for some time Fred lay with his eyes closed and an expression of intense thought upon his face. Then, turning suddenly to Rex, he said, “Sit close to me. I want to tell you something.”
Rex drew his chair to the bedside, and Fred continued, “That idiot of a doctor has the same as told me I am going to die, and, though I don’t believe him, I can’t help feeling a little anxious about it, and I want you to help me get ready.”
“Certainly,” Rex answered, with a gasp, entirely misunderstanding Fred’s meaning, and wishing the task of getting his friend ready to die had devolved on some one else. “We hope to pull you through, but it is always well to be prepared for death, and I’ll help you all I can. I’m afraid, though, you have called upon a poor stick. I might say the Lord’s Prayer with you, or, better yet,” and Rex grew quite cheerful, “there’s a young American clergyman in the hotel. I will bring him to see you. He’ll know just what to say.”
“Thunder!” Fred exclaimed, so energetically that Rex started from his chair. “Don’t be a fool. I shall die as I have lived, and if there is a hereafter, which I doubt, I shall take my chance with the rest. I don’t want your clergy round me, though I wouldn’t object to hearing you say, ‘Our Father.’ It would be rather jolly. I used to know it with a lot of other things, but I quit it long ago,—left all the praying to Louie, who goes on her knees regularly night and morning in spite of my ridicule. Once, when she was posing beautifully, with her long, white dressing-gown spread out a yard or so on the floor, I walked over it on purpose to irritate her, but didn’t succeed. I never did succeed very well with Louie. But it is more my fault thanhers, although I was fonder of her than she ever knew. She never pretended to love me. She told me she didn’t when she promised to marry me, and when I asked her if any one stood between us she said no, but added that there was somebody for whom she could have cared a great deal if he had cared for her. I did not ask her who it was, but I think I know, and she would have been much happier with him than with me. Poor Louie! maybe she will have a chance yet; and if she does I am willing.”
His bright, feverish eyes were fixed curiously on Rex, as he went on, “It’s for Louie and her matters I want help, not for my soul; that’s all right, if I have one. Louie is a child in experience, and you must see to her when I am gone, and stand by her till she goes home. There’ll be an awful row with the landlord, and no end of expense, and a terrible muss to get me to America. My man, John, will take what there is left of me to Mount Auburn, if you start him right. Louie can’t go, and you must stay with her and Bertha. If Mrs. Grundy kicks up a row about your chaperoning a handsome girl and a pretty young widow,—and, by Jove, Louie will be that,—bring your aunt to the rescue; that will make it square. And now about my will. I made one last summer, and left everything to Louie on condition that she did not marry again. That was nonsense. She will marry if the right man offers;—wild horses can’t hold her; and I want you to draw up another will, with no conditions, giving a few thousands to the Fresh Air Fund and the Humane Society. That will please Louie. She’s great on children and horses. What is it about a mortgage on old man Leighton’s farm? Louie wanted me to pay it and keep Berthafrom going out to service, as she called it. But I was in one of my moods, and swore I wouldn’t. I am sorry now I didn’t. Maybe I have a soul, after all, and that is what is nagging me so when I think of the past. I wish I knew how much the mortgage was.”
“I know; I can tell you,” Rex said, with a great deal of animation, as he proceeded to narrate the particulars of the mortgage and his visit to the Homestead, while Fred listened intently.
“Ho-ho,” he said, with a laugh, when Rex had finished. “Is that the way the wind blows? I thought maybe—but never mind. Five hundred, is it? I’ll make it a thousand, payable to Bertha at once. You’ll find writing-materials in the desk by the window. And hurry up; I’m getting infernally tired.”
It did not take long to make the will, and when it was finished, Rex and Mr. Thurston’s valet John and Louie’s maid Martha, all Americans, witnessed it. After that Fred, who was greatly exhausted, fell into a heavy sleep, and when he awoke Bertha was alone with him. He seemed very feverish, and asked for water, which she gave him, and then bathed his forehead and hands, while he said to her faintly, “You are a trump. I wish I’d made it two thousand instead of one; but Louie will make it right. Poor Louie! she’s going to be so disappointed. It’s a big joke on her. I wonder how she will take it.”
Bertha had no idea what he meant, and made no reply, while he continued, “Say, how does a fellow feel when he has a soul?”
Bertha felt sure now that he was delirious, but before she could answer he went on, “I never thought I had one, but maybe I have. I feel so sorry for a lot ofthings, and mostly about Louie. Tell her so when I am dead. Tell her I wasn’t half as bad a sort as she thought. It will be like her to swathe herself in crape, with a veil which sweeps the ground. Tell her not to. Black will not become her. Think of Louie in a widow’s cap!”
Weak as he was, he laughed aloud at the thought of it, and then began to talk of the prayer which had “forgive” in it, and which Rex was to say with him.
“Do you know it?” he asked, and, with her heart swelling in her throat, Bertha answered that she did, and asked if she should say it.
He nodded, and Rex, who at that moment came unobserved to the door, never forgot the picture of the kneeling girl and the wistful, pathetic expression on the face of the dying man as he tried to say the words which had once been familiar to him.
“Amen! So be it! Finis! I guess that makes it about square. Tell Louie I prayed,” he whispered, faintly, and never spoke again until the early morning sunlight was shining on the lake and the hills of Savoy, when he started suddenly and called, “Louie, Louie! Where are you? I can’t find you. Oh, Louie, come to me.”
But Louie was asleep in her room across the long salon, and when, an hour later, she awoke, Bertha told her that her husband was dead.