“Margaret knows.”
Alice stiffened a little. “That is recent,” she said, “and I have known all the time.”
“Margaret could not have remembered that sentence, I am sure,” Annie said thoughtfully. “Poor Margaret, she was so upset by what happened last night that I am afraid the news did not cheer her up as much as I thought it would.”
“Well, you dear little soul,” said Alice, “I am simply revelling in happiness and pride because of it, you may be sure of that.”
“But you have not had such an awful blow as poor Margaret had,” said Annie. Then she brightened. “Oh Alice,” she cried, “I wanted somebody who loved me to be glad.”
“You have not told your grandmother and aunts yet?”
“I have not dared,” replied Annie in a shamed fashion. “I know I deceived them and I think perhaps grandmother might find it hard not to tell. She is so old you know, and she does tell a great deal without meaning and Aunt Susan likes to tell news. I have not dared, Alice. The publishers have been so very insistent that nobody should know, but I had to tell you and Margaret.”
“It made no difference anyway about me,” said Alice, “since I already knew.”
“Margaret can be trusted too, I am sure,” Annie said quickly.
“Of course.”
Annie looked at her watch. “I must go,” she said, “or I shall be late. Isn't it really wonderful that I should write a successful book, Alice?”
“You are rather wonderful, my dear,” said Alice. Then she rose and put her arms around the slender white-clad figure and held her close, and gave her one of her infrequent kisses. “You precious little thing,” she said, “the book is wonderful, but my Annie is more wonderful because she can be told so and never get the fact into her head. Here is your work, dear.”
An expression of dismay came over Annie's face. “Oh, dear,” she said, “I have only embroidered half a daisy and what will Aunt Harriet say?”
“You have embroidered a whole garden as nobody else can, if people only knew it,” said Alice.
“But Alice,” said Annie ruefully, “my embroidery is really awful and I don't like to do it and the linen is so grimy that I am ashamed. Oh, dear, I shall have to face Aunt Harriet with that half daisy!”
Alice laughed. “She can't kill you.”
“No, but I don't like to have her so disappointed.”
Alice kissed Annie again before she went, and watched the slight figure flitting down between the box-rows, with a little frown of perplexity. She wished that Annie had not told Margaret Edes about the book and yet she did not know why she wished so. She was very far from expecting the results. Alice was too noble herself to entertain suspicions of the ignobility of others. Certainty she was obliged to confront, as she had confronted the affair of the night before. It was, of course, the certainty that Margaret had been guilty of a disgraceful and treacherous deed which made her uneasy in a vague fashion now and yet she did not for one second dream of what was to occur at the next meeting of the Zenith Club.
That was at Mrs. Sturtevant's and was the great affair of the year. It was called, to distinguish it from the others, “The Annual Meeting,” and upon that occasion the husbands and men friends of the members were invited and the function was in the evening. Margaret had wished to have the club at her own house, before the affair of Martha Wallingford, but the annual occasions were regulated by the letters of the alphabet and it was incontrovertibly the turn of the letter S and Mrs. Sturtevant's right could not be questioned. During the time which elapsed before this meeting, Margaret Edes was more actively unhappy than she had ever been in her life and all her strong will could not keep the traces of that unhappiness from her face. Lines appeared. Her eyes looked large in dark hollows. Wilbur grew anxious about her.
“You must go somewhere for a change,” he said, “and I will get my cousin Marion to come here and keep house and look out for the children. You must not be bothered even with them. You need a complete rest and change.”
But Margaret met his anxiety with irritation. She felt as if some fatal fascination confined her in Fairbridge and especially did she feel that she must be present at the annual meeting. Margaret never for one minute formulated to herself why she had this fierce desire. She knew in a horrible way at the back of her brain, but she kept the knowledge covered as with a veil even from herself.
She had a beautiful new gown made for the occasion. Since she had lost so much colour, she was doubtful of the wisdom of wearing her favourite white and gold, or black. She had a crepe of a peculiar shade of blue which suited her and she herself worked assiduously embroidering it in a darker shade which brought out the colour of her eyes. She looked quite herself when the evening came and Wilbur's face brightened as he looked at her in her trailing blue with a little diamond crescent fastening a tiny blue feather in her golden fluff of hair.
“You certainly do look better,” he said happily.
“I am well, you old goose,” said Margaret, fastening her long blue gloves. “You have simply been fussing over nothing as I told you.”
“Well, I hope I have. You do look stunning to-night,” said Wilbur, gazing at her with a pride so intense that it was almost piteous in its self-abnegation.
“Is that your stunt there on the table?” he inquired, pointing to a long envelope.
Margaret laughed carefully, dimpling her cheeks. “Yes,” she said, and Wilbur took the envelope and put it into his pocket. “I will carry it for you,” he said. “By the way, what is your stunt, honey? Did you write something?”
“Wait, until you hear,” replied Margaret, and she laughed carefully again. She gathered up the train of her blue gown and turned upon him, her blue eyes glowing with a strange fire, feverish roses on her cheeks. “You are not to be surprised at anything to-night,” she said and laughed again.
She still had a laughing expression when they were seated in Mrs. Sturtevant's flower-scented drawing-room, a handsome room, thanks to the decorator, who was young and enthusiastic. Margaret had duly considered the colour scheme in her choice of a gown. The furniture was upholstered with a wisteria pattern, except a few chairs which were cane-seated, with silvered wood. Margaret had gone directly to one of these chairs. She was not sure of her gown being exactly the right shade of blue to harmonise with the wisteria at close quarters. The chair was tall and slender. Margaret's feet did not touch the floor, but the long blue trail of her gown concealed that, and she contrived to sit as if they did. She gave the impression of a tall creature of extreme grace as she sat propping her back against her silvered chair. Wilbur gazed at her with adoration. He had almost forgotten the affair of Martha Wallingford. He had excused his Margaret because she was a woman and he was profoundly ignorant of women's strange ambitions. Now, he regarded her with unqualified admiration. He looked from her to the other women and back again and was entirely convinced that she outshone them all as a sun a star. He looked at the envelope in her blue lap and was sure that she had written something which was infinitely superior to the work of any other woman there. Down in the depths of his masculine soul, Wilbur Edes had a sense of amused toleration when women's clubs were concerned, but he always took his Margaret seriously, and the Zenith Club on that account was that night an important and grave organisation. He wished very much to smoke and he was wedged into an uncomfortable corner with a young girl who insisted upon talking to him and was all the time nervously rearranging her hair, but he had a good view of his Margaret in her wonderful blue gown, in her silver chair, and he was consoled.
“Have you readThe Poor Lady?” asked spasmodically the girl, and drove in a slipping hair-pin at the same time.
“I never read novels,” replied Wilbur absently, “haven't much time you know.”
“Oh, I suppose not, but that is such a wonderful book and only think, nobody has the least idea who wrote it, and it does make it so interesting. I thought myself it was written by Wilbur Jack until I came to a sentence which I could quite understand and that put him out of the question. Of course, Wilbur Jack is such a great genius that no young girl like myself pretends to understand him, but that is why I worship him. I tell Mamma I think he is the ideal writer for young girls, so elevating. And then I thoughtThe Poor Ladymight have been written by Mrs. Eudora Peasely because she is always so lucid and I came to a sentence which I could not understand at all. Oh, dear, I have thought of all the living writers as writing that book and have had to give it up, and of course the dead ones are out of the question.”
“Of course,” said Wilbur gravely, and then his Margaret stood up and took some printed matter from an envelope and instantly the situation became strangely tense. Men and women turned eager faces; they could not have told why eager, but they were all conscious of something unusual in the atmosphere and every expression upon those expectant faces suddenly changed into one which made them as a listening unit. Then Margaret began.
Wilbur Edes thought he had never seen his wife look as beautiful as she did standing there before them all with those fluttering leaves of paper in her hand. A breeze came in at an opposite window and Margaret's blue feather tossed in it; her yellow hair crisped and fluffed and the paper fluttered. Margaret stood for an appreciable second surveying them all with a most singular expression. It was compounded of honeyed sweetness, of triumph, and something else more subtle, the expression of a warrior entering battle and ready for death, yet terrible with defiance and the purpose of victory, and death for his foe.
Then Margaret spoke and her thin silvery voice penetrated to every ear in the room.
“Members of the Zenith Club and friends,” said Margaret, “I take the opportunity offered me to-night to disclose a secret which is a source of much joy to myself, and which I am sure will be a source of joy to you also. I trust that since you are my friends and neighbours and associates in club work, you will acquit me of the charge of egotism and credit me with my whole motive, which is, I think, not an unworthy one coming to you in joy, as I would come in sorrow for your sympathy and understanding. I am about to read an extract from a book whose success has given me the most unqualified surprise and delight, knowing as I do that a reading by an author from her own work always increases the interest even though she may not be an able expositor by word of mouth of what she has written.”
Then Margaret read. She had chosen a short chapter which was in itself almost a complete little story. She read exceedingly well and without faltering. People listened with ever-growing amazement. Then Mrs. Jack Evarts whispered so audibly to a man at her side that she broke in upon Margaret's clear recitative. “Goodness, she's reading from that book that is selling so,—The Poor Lady—I remember every word of that chapter.”
Then while Margaret continued her reading imperturbably, the chorus of whispers increased. “That is fromThe Poor Lady, yes, it is. Did she write it? Why, of course, she did. She just said so. Isn't it wonderful that she has done such a thing?”
Wilbur Edes sat with his eyes riveted upon his wife's face, his own gone quite pale, but upon it an expression of surprise and joy so intense that he looked almost foolish from such a revelation of his inner self.
The young girl beside him drove hair pins frantically into her hair. She twisted up a lock which had strayed and fastened it. She looked alternately at Wilbur and Margaret.
“Goodness gracious,” said she, and did not trouble to whisper. “That is the next to the last chapter ofThe Poor Lady. And to think that your wife wrote it! Goodness gracious, and here she has been living right here in Fairbridge all the time and folks have been seeing her and talking to her and never knew! Did you know, Mr. Edes?”
The young girl fixed her sharp pretty eyes upon Wilbur. “Never dreamed of it,” he blurted out, “just as much surprised as any of you.”
“I don't believe I could have kept such a wonderful thing as that from my own husband,” said the girl, who was unmarried, and had no lover. But Wilbur did not hear. All he heard was his beloved Margaret, who had secretly achieved fame for herself, reading on and on. He had not the slightest idea what she was reading. He had no interest whatever in that. All he cared for was the amazing fact that his wife, his wonderful, beautiful Margaret, had so covered herself with glory and honour. He had a slightly hurt feeling because she had not told him until this public revelation. He felt that his own private joy and pride as her husband should have been perhaps sacred and respected by her and yet possibly she was right. This public glory might have seemed to her the one which would the most appeal to him.
He had, as he had said, not read the book, but he recalled with a sort of rapturous tenderness for Margaret how he had seen the posters all along the railroad as he commuted to the city, and along the elevated road. His face gazing at Margaret was as beautiful in its perfectly unselfish pride and affection, as a mother's. To think that his darling had done such a thing! He longed to be at home alone with her and say to her what he could not say before all these people. He thought of a very good reason why she had chosen this occasion to proclaim her authorship of the famous anonymous novel. She had been so humiliated, poor child, by the insufferable rudeness of that Western girl that she naturally wished to make good. And how modest and unselfish she had been to make the attempt to exalt another author when she herself was so much greater. Wilbur fully exonerated Margaret for what she did in the case of Martha Wallingford in the light of this revelation. His modest, generous, noble wife had honestly endeavoured to do the girl a favour, to assist her in spite of herself and she had received nothing save rudeness, ingratitude, and humiliation in return. Now, she was asserting herself. She was showing all Fairbridge that she was the one upon whom honour should be showered. She was showing him and rightfully. He remembered with compunction his severity toward her on account of the Martha Wallingford affair, his beautiful, gifted Margaret! Why, even then she might have electrified that woman's club by making the revelation which she had won to-night and reading this same selection from her own book. He had not read Martha Wallingford'sHearts Astray. He thought that the title was enough for him. He knew that it must be one of the womanish, hysterical, sentimental type of things which he despised. But Margaret had been so modest that she had held back from the turning on the search-light of her own greater glory. She had made the effort which had resulted so disastrously to obtain a lesser one, and he had condemned her. He knew that women always used circuitous ways toward their results, just as men used sledge-hammer ones. Why should a man criticise a woman's method any more than a woman criticise a man's? Wilbur, blushing like a girl with pride and delight, listened to his wife and fairly lashed himself. He was wholly unworthy of such a woman, he knew.
When the reading was over and people crowded around Margaret and congratulated her, he stood aloof. He felt that he could not speak of this stupendous thing with her until they were alone. Then Doctor Sturtevant's great bulk pressed against him and his sonorous voice said in his ear, “By Jove, old man, your wife has drawn a lucky number. Congratulations.” Wilbur gulped as he thanked him. Then Sturtevant went on talking about a matter which was rather dear to Wilbur's own ambition and which he knew had been tentatively discussed: the advisability of his running for State Senator in the autumn. Wilbur knew it would be a good thing for him professionally, and at the bottom of his heart he knew that his wife's success had been the last push toward his own. Other men came in and began talking, leading from his wife's success toward his own, until Wilbur realised himself as dazzled.
He did not notice what Von Rosen noticed, because he had kept his attention upon the girl, that Annie Eustace had turned deadly pale when Margaret had begun her reading and that Alice Mendon who was seated beside her had slipped an arm around her and quietly and unobtrusively led her out of the room. Von Rosen thought that Miss Eustace must have turned faint because of the heat, and was conscious of a distinct anxiety and disappointment. He had, without directly acknowledging it to himself, counted upon walking home with Annie Eustace, but yet he hoped that she might return, that she had not left the home. When the refreshments were served, he looked for her, but Annie was long since at Alice Mendon's house in her room. Alice had hurried her there in her carriage.
“Come home with me, dear,” she had whispered, “and we can have a talk together. Your people won't expect you yet.”
Therefore, while Karl von Rosen, who had gone to this annual meeting of the Zenith Club for the sole purpose of walking home with Annie, waited, the girl sat in a sort of dumb and speechless state in Alice Mendon's room. It seemed to her like a bad dream. Alice herself stormed. She had a high temper, but seldom gave way to it. Now she did. There was something about this which roused her utmost powers of indignation.
“It is simply an outrage,” declared Alice, marching up and down the large room, her rich white gown trailing behind her, her chin high. “I did not think her capable of it. It is the worst form of thievery in the world, stealing the work of another's brain. It is inconceivable that Margaret Edes could have done such a preposterous thing. I never liked her. I don't care if I do admit it, but I never thought she was capable of such an utterly ignoble deed. It was all that I could do to master myself, not to stand up before them all and denounce her. Well, her time will come.”
“Alice,” said a ghastly little voice from the stricken figure on the couch, “are you sure? Am I sure? Was that from my book?”
“Of course it was from your book. Why, you know it was from your book, Annie Eustace,” cried Alice and her voice sounded high with anger toward poor Annie herself.
“I hoped that we might be mistaken after all,” said the voice, which had a bewildered quality. Annie Eustace had a nature which could not readily grasp some of the evil of humanity. She was in reality dazed before this. She was ready to believe an untruth rather than the incredible truth. But Alice Mendon was merciless. She resolved that Annie should know once for all.
“We are neither of us mistaken,” she said. “Margaret Edes read a chapter from your book,The Poor Lady, and without stating in so many words that she was the author, she did what was worse. She made everybody think so. Annie, she is bad, bad, bad. Call the spade a spade and face it. See how black it is. Margaret Edes has stolen from you your best treasure.”
“I don't care for that so much,” said Annie Eustace, “but—I loved her, Alice.”
“Then,” said Alice, “she has stolen more than your book. She has stolen the light by which you wrote it. It is something hideous, hideous.”
Annie gave a queer little dry sob. “Margaret could not have done it,” she moaned.
Alice crossed swiftly to her and knelt beside her. “Darling,” she said, “you must face it. It is better. I do not say so because I do not personally like Margaret Edes, but you must have courage and face it.”
“I have not courage enough,” said Annie and she felt that she had not, for it was one of the awful tasks of the world which was before her: The viewing the mutilated face of love itself.
“You must,” said Alice. She put an arm around the slight figure and drew the fair head to her broad bosom, her maternal bosom, which served her friends in good stead, since it did not pillow the heads of children. Friends in distress are as children to the women of her type.
“Darling,” she said in her stately voice from which the anger had quite gone. “Darling, you must face it. Margaret did read that chapter from your book and she told, or as good as told everybody that she had written it.”
Then Annie sobbed outright and the tears came.
“Oh,” she cried, “Oh, Alice, how she must want success to do anything like that, poor, poor Margaret! Oh, Alice!”
“How she must love herself,” said Alice firmly. “Annie, you must face it. Margaret is a self-lover; her whole heart turns in love toward her own self, instead of toward those whom she should love and who love her. Annie, Margaret is bad, bad, with a strange degenerate badness. She dates back to the sins of the First Garden. You must turn your back upon her. You must not love her any more.”
“No, I must not love her any more,” agreed Annie, “and that is the pity of it. I must not love her, Alice, but I must pity her until I die. Poor Margaret!”
“Poor Annie,” said Alice. “You worked so hard over that book, dear, and you were so pleased. Annie, what shall you do about it?”
Annie raised her head from Alice's bosom and sat up straight, with a look of terror.
“Alice,” she cried, “I must go to-morrow and see my publishers. I must go down on my knees to them if necessary.”
“Do you mean,” asked Alice slowly, “never to tell?”
“Oh, never, never, never!” cried Annie.
“I doubt,” said Alice, “if you can keep such a matter secret. I doubt if your publishers will consent.”
“They must. I will never have it known! Poor Margaret!”
“I don't pity her at all,” said Alice. “I do pity her husband who worships her, and there is talk of his running for State Senator and this would ruin him. And I am sorry for the children.”
“Nobody shall ever know,” said Annie.
“But how can you manage with the publishers?”
“I don't know. I will.”
“And you will have written that really wonderful book and never have the credit for it. You will live here and see Margaret Edes praised for what you have done.”
“Poor Margaret,” said Annie. “I must go now. I know I can trust you never to speak.”
“Of course, but I do not think it right.”
“I don't care whether it is right or not,” said Annie. “It must never be known.”
“You are better than I am,” said Alice as she rang the bell, which was presently answered. “Peter has gone home for the night, Marie said,” Alice told Annie, “but Marie and I will walk home with you.”
“Alice, it is only a step.”
“I know, but it is late.”
“It is not much after ten, and—I would rather go alone, if you don't mind, Alice. I want to get settled a little before Aunt Harriet sees me. I can do it better alone.”
Alice laughed. “Well,” she said, “Marie and I will stand on the front porch until you are out of sight from there and then we will go to the front gate. We can see nearly to your house and we can hear if you call.”
It was a beautiful night. The moon was high in a sky which was perceptibly blue. In the west was still a faint glow, which was like a memory of a cowslip sunset. The street and the white house-front were plumy with soft tree shadows wavering in a gentle wind. Annie was glad when she was alone in the night. She needed a moment for solitariness and readjustment since one of the strongest readjustments on earth faced her—the realisation that what she had loved was not. She did not walk rapidly but lingered along the road. She was thankful that neither of her aunts had been to the annual meeting. She would not need to account for her time so closely. Suddenly she heard a voice, quite a loud voice, a man's, with a music of gladness in it. Annie knew instinctively whose it was, and she stepped quickly upon a lawn and stood behind a clump of trees. A man and woman passed her—Margaret Edes and her husband—and Wilbur was saying in his glad, loving voice, “To think you should have done such a thing, Margaret, my dear, you will never know how proud I am of you.”
Annie heard Margaret's voice in a whisper hushing Wilbur. “You speak so loud, dear,” said Margaret, “everybody will hear you.”
“I don't care if they do,” said Wilbur. “I should like to proclaim it from the housetops.” Then they passed and the rose scent of Margaret's garments was in Annie's face. She was glad that Margaret had hushed her husband. She argued that it proved some little sense of shame, but oh, when all alone with her own husband, she had made no disclaimer. Annie came out from her hiding and went on. The Edes ahead of her melted into the shadows but she could still hear Wilbur's glad voice. The gladness in it made her pity Margaret more. She thought how horrible it must be to deceive love like that, to hear that joyful tone, and know it all undeserved. Then suddenly she heard footsteps behind and walked to one side to allow whoever it was to pass, but a man's voice said: “Good evening, Miss Eustace,” and Von Rosen had joined her. He had in truth been waiting like any village beau near Alice Mendon's house for the chance of her emerging alone.
Annie felt annoyed, and yet her heart beat strangely.
“Good evening, Mr. von Rosen,” she said and still lingered as if to allow him to pass, but he slowed his own pace and sauntered by her side.
“A fine evening,” he remarked tritely.
“Very,” agreed Annie.
“I saw you at the evening club,” said Von Rosen presently.
“Yes,” said Annie, “I was there.”
“You left early.”
“Yes, I left quite early with Alice. I have been with her since.”
Annie wondered if Mr. von Rosen suspected anything but his next words convinced her that he did not.
“I suppose that you were as much surprised as the rest of us, although you are her intimate friend, at Mrs. Edes' announcement concerning the authorship of that successful novel,” said he.
“Yes,” said Annie faintly.
“Of course you had no idea that she had written it?”
“No.”
“Have you read it?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think of it? I almost never read novels but I suppose I must tackle that one. Did you like it?”
“Quite well,” said Annie.
“Tell me what is it all about?”
Annie could endure no more. “It will spoil the book for you if I tell you, Mr. von Rosen,” said she, and her voice was at once firm and piteous. She could not tell the story of her own book to him. She would be as deceitful as poor Margaret, for all the time he would think she was talking of Margaret's work and not of her own.
Von Rosen laughed. After all he cared very little indeed about the book. He had what he cared for: a walk home with this very sweet and very natural girl, who did not seem to care whether he walked home with her or not.
“I dare say you are right,” he said, “but I doubt if your telling me about it would spoil the book for me, because it is more than probable that I shall never read it after all. I may if it comes in my way because I was somewhat surprised. I had never thought of Mrs. Edes as that sort of person. However, so many novels are written nowadays, and some mighty queer ones are successful that I presume I should not be surprised. Anybody in Fairbridge might be the author of a successful novel. You might, Miss Eustace, for all I know.”
Annie said nothing.
“Perhaps you are,” said Von Rosen. He had not the least idea of the thinness of the ice. Annie trembled. Her truthfulness was as her life. She hated even evasions. Luckily Von Rosen was so far from suspicion that he did not wait for an answer.
“Mrs. Edes reads well,” he said.
“Very well indeed,” returned Annie eagerly.
“I suppose an author can read more understandingly from her own work,” said Von Rosen. “Don't you think so, Miss Eustace?”
“I think she might,” said Annie.
“I don't know but I shall read that book after all,” said Von Rosen. “I rather liked that extract she gave us. It struck me as out of the common run of women's books. I beg your pardon, Miss Eustace. If you were a writer yourself I could not speak so, but you are not, and you must know as well as I do, that many of the books written by women are simply sloughs of oversweetened sentiment, and of entirely innocent immorality. But that chapter did not sound as if it could belong to such a book. It sounded altogether too logical for the average woman writer. I think I will read it. Then after I have read it, you will not refuse to discuss it with me, will you?”
“I do not think so,” replied Annie tremulously. Would he never talk of anything except that book? To her relief he did, to her relief and scarcely acknowledged delight.
“Are you interested in curios, things from Egyptian tombs, for instance?” he inquired with brutal masculine disregard of sequence.
Annie was bewildered, but she managed to reply that she thought she might be. She had heard of Von Rosen's very interesting collection.
“I happened to meet your aunt, Miss Harriet, this afternoon,” said Von Rosen, “and I inquired if she were by any chance interested and she said she was.”
“Yes,” said Annie. She had never before dreamed that her Aunt Harriet was in the least interested in Egyptian tombs.
“I ventured to ask if she and her sister, Miss Susan, and you also, if you cared to see it, would come some afternoon and look at my collection,” said Von Rosen.
Nobody could have dreamed from his casual tone how carefully he had planned it all out: the visit of Annie and her aunts, the delicate little tea served in the study, the possible little stroll with Annie in his garden. Von Rosen knew that one of the aunts, Miss Harriet, was afflicted with rose cold, and therefore, would probably not accept his invitation to view his rose-garden, and he also knew that it was improbable that both sisters would leave their aged mother. It was, of course, a toss-up as to whether Miss Harriet or Miss Susan would come. It was also a toss-up as to whether or not they might both come, and leave little Annie as companion for the old lady. In fact, he had to admit to himself that the latter contingency was the more probable. He was well accustomed to being appropriated by elder ladies, with the evident understanding that he preferred them. He would simply have to make the best of it and show his collection as gracefully as possible and leave out the rose-garden and the delicious little tête-à-tête with this young rose of a girl and think of something else. For Karl von Rosen in these days was accustoming himself to a strange visage in his own mental looking-glass. He had not altered his attitude toward women but toward one woman, and that one was now sauntering beside him in the summer moonlight, her fluffy white garments now and then blowing across his sober garb. He was conscious of holding himself in a very tight rein. He wondered how long men were usually about their love-making. He wished to make love that very instant, but he feared lest the girl might be lost by such impetuosity. In all likelihood, the thought of love in connection with himself had never entered her mind. Why should it? Karl in love was very modest and saw himself as a very insignificant figure. Probably this flower-like young creature had never thought of love at all. She had lived her sweet simple village life. She had obeyed her grandmother and her aunts, done her household tasks and embroidered. He remembered the grimy bit of linen which he had picked up and he could not see the very slightest connection between that sort of thing and love and romance. Of course, she had read a few love stories and the reasoning by analogy develops in all minds. She might have built a few timid air castles for herself upon the foundations of the love stories in fiction, and this brought him around to the fatal subject again almost inevitably.
“Do you know, Miss Eustace,” he said, “that I am wishing a very queer thing about you?”
“What, Mr. von Rosen?”
“I am wishing, you know that I would not esteem you more highly, it is not that, but I am wishing that you also had written a book, a really good sort of love story, novel, you know.”
Annie gasped.
“I don't mean because Mrs. Edes wroteThe Poor Lady. It is not that. I am quite sure that you could have written a book every whit as good as hers but what I do mean is—I feel that a woman writer if she writes the best sort of book must obtain a certain insight concerning human nature which requires a long time for most women.” Von Rosen was rather mixed, but Annie did not grasp it. She was very glad that they were nearing her own home. She could not endure much more.
“IsThe Poor Ladya love story?” inquired Von Rosen.
“There is a little love in it,” replied Annie faintly.
“I shall certainly read it,” said Von Rosen. He shook hands with Annie at her gate and wanted to kiss her. She looked up in his face like an adorably timid, trustful little child and it seemed almost his duty to kiss her, but he did not. He said good-night and again mentioned his collection of curios.
“I hope you will feel inclined to come and see them,” he said, “with—your aunts.”
“Thank you,” replied Annie, “I shall be very glad to come, if both Aunt Harriet and Aunt Susan do not. That would of course oblige me to stay with grandmother.”
“Of course,” assented Von Rosen, but he said inwardly, “Hang Grandmother.”
In his inmost self, Von Rosen was not a model clergyman. He, however, had no reason whatever to hang grandmother, but quite the reverse, although he did not so conclude, as he considered the matter on his way home. It seemed to him that this darling of a girl was fairly hedged in by a barbed wire fence of feminine relatives.
He passed the Edes' house on his way and saw that a number of the upper windows were still lighted. He even heard a masculine voice pitched on a high cadence of joy and triumph. He smiled a little scornfully. “He thinks his wife is the most wonderful woman in the world,” he told himself, “and I dare say that a novel is simply like an over-sweetened ice-cream, with an after taste of pepper, out of sheer deviltry.” Had he known it, Margaret Edes herself was tasting pepper, mustard and all the fierce condiments known, in her very soul. It was a singular thing that Margaret had been obliged to commit an ignoble deed in order to render her soul capable of tasting to the full, but she had been so constituted. As Karl von Rosen passed that night, she was sitting in her room, clad in her white silk negligee and looking adorable, and her husband was fairly on his knees before her, worshipping her, and she was suffering after a fashion hitherto wholly uncomprehended by her. Margaret had never known that she could possibly be to blame for anything, that she could sit in judgment upon herself. Now she knew it and the knowledge brought a torture which had been unimaginable by her. She strove not to make her shrinking from her husband and his exultation—her terrified shrinking—evident.
“Oh, Margaret, you are simply wonderful beyond words,” said Wilbur, gazing up into her face. “I always knew you were wonderful, of course, darling, but this! Why, Margaret, you have gained an international reputation from that one book! And the reviews have been unanimous, almost unanimous in their praise. I have not read it, dear. I am so ashamed of myself, but you know I never read novels, but I am going to read my Margaret's novel. Oh, my dear, my wonderful, wonderful dear!” Wilbur almost sobbed. “Do you know what it may do for me, too?” he said. “Do you know, Margaret, it may mean my election as Senator. One can never tell what may sway popular opinion. Once, if anybody had told me that I might be elected to office and my election might possibly be due to the fact that my wife had distinguished myself, I should have been humbled to the dust. But I cannot be humbled by any success which may result from your success. I did not know my wonderful Margaret then.” Wilbur kissed his wife's hands. He was almost ridiculous, but it was horribly tragic for Margaret.
She longed as she had never longed for anything in her life, for the power to scream, to shout in his ears the truth, but she could not. She was bound hard and fast in the bands of her own falsehood. She could not so disgrace her husband, her children. Why had she not thought of them before? She had thought only of herself and her own glory, and that glory had turned to stinging bitterness upon her soul. She was tasting the bitterest medicine which life and the whole world contains. And at the same time, it was not remorse that she felt. That would have been easier. What she endured was self-knowledge. The reflection of one's own character under unbiased cross-lights is a hideous thing for a self-lover. She was thinking, while she listened to Wilbur's rhapsodies. Finally she scarcely heard him. Then her attention was suddenly keenly fixed. There were horrible complications about this which she had not considered. Margaret's mind had no business turn. She had not for a moment thought of the financial aspect of the whole. Wilbur was different. What he was now saying was very noble, but very disconcerting. “Of course, I know, darling, that all this means a pile of money, but one thing you must remember: it is for yourself alone. Not one penny of it will I ever touch and more than that it is not to interfere in the least with my expenditures for you, my wife, and the children. Everything of that sort goes on as before. You have the same allowance for yourself and the children as before. Whatever comes from your book is your own to do with as you choose. I do not even wish you to ask my advice about the disposal of it.”
Margaret was quite pale as she looked at him. She remembered now the sum which Annie had told her she was to receive. She made no disclaimer. Her lips felt stiff. While Wilbur wished for no disclaimer, she could yet see that he was a little surprised at receiving none, but she could not speak. She merely gazed at him in a helpless sort of fashion. The grapes which hung over her friend's garden wall were not very simple. They were much beside grapes. Wilbur returned her look pityingly.
“Poor girl,” he said, kissing her hands again; “she is all tired out and I must let her go to bed. Standing on a pedestal is rather tiresome, if it is gratifying, isn't it, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” said Margaret, with a weary sigh from her heart. How little the poor man knew of the awful torture of standing upon the pedestal of another, and at the same time holding before one's eyes that looking-glass with all the cross-lights of existence full upon it!
Margaret went to bed, but she could not sleep. All night long she revolved the problem of how she should settle the matter with Annie Eustace. She did not for a second fear Annie's betrayal, but there was that matter of the publishers. Would they be content to allow matters to rest?
The next morning Margaret endeavoured to get Annie on the telephone but found that she had gone to New York. Annie's Aunt Harriet replied. She herself had sent the girl on several errands.
Margaret could only wait. She feared lest Annie might not return before Wilbur and in such a case she could not discuss matters with her before the next day. Margaret had a horrible time during the next six hours. The mail was full of letters of congratulation. A local reporter called to interview her. She sent word that she was out, but he was certain that he had seen her. The children heard the news and pestered her with inquiries about her book and wondering looks at her. Callers came in the afternoon and it was all about her book. Nobody could know how relieved she was after hearing the four-thirty train, to see little Annie Eustace coming through her gate. Annie stood before her stiffly. The day was very warm and the girl looked tired and heated.
“No, thank you,” she said, “I can not sit down. I only stopped to tell you that I have arranged with the publishers. They will keep the secret. I shall have rather a hard task arranging about the checks, because I fear it will involve a little deceit and I do not like deceit.”
Annie, as she spoke, looked straight at Margaret and there was something terrible in that clear look of unsoiled truth. Margaret put out a detaining hand.
“Sit down for a minute, please,” she said cringingly. “I want to explain?”
“There is nothing whatever to explain,” replied Annie. “I heard.”
“Can you ever forgive me?”
“I do not think,” said Annie, “that this is an ordinary offence about which to talk of forgiveness. I do pity you, Margaret, for I realise how dreadfully you must have wanted what did not belong to you.”
Margaret winced. “Well, if it is any satisfaction to you, I am realising nothing but misery from it,” she said in a low voice.
“I don't see how you can help that,” replied Annie simply. Then she went away.
It proved Margaret's unflinching trust in the girl and Annie's recognition of no possibility except that trust, that no request nor promise as to secrecy had been made. Annie, after she got home, almost forgot the whole for a time, since her Aunt Harriet, and Aunt Harriet was the sister who was subject to rose-colds, announced her determination to call at Mr. von Rosen's the next afternoon with Annie and see his famous collection.
“Of course,” said she, “the invitation was meant particularly for me, since I am one of his parishioners, and I think it will be improving to you, Annie, to view antiquities.”
“Yes, Aunt Harriet,” said Annie. She was wondering if she would be allowed to wear her pale blue muslin and the turquoise necklace which was a relic of her grandmother's girlhood. Aunt Susan sniffed delicately.
“I will stay with Mother,” she said with a virtuous air.
The old lady, stately in her black satin, with white diamonds gleaming on her veinous hands, glanced acutely at them. The next day, when her daughter Harriet insisted that the cross barred muslin was not too spoiled to wear to the inspection of curios, she declared that it was simply filthy, and that Annie must wear her blue, and that the little string of turquoise beads was not in the least too dressy for the occasion.
It therefore happened that Annie and her Aunt Harriet set forth at three o'clock in the afternoon, Annie in blue, and her aunt in thin black grenadine with a glitter of jet and a little black bonnet with a straight tuft of green rising from a little wobble of jet, and a black-fringed parasol tilted well over her eyes. Annie's charming little face was framed in a background of white parasol. Margaret saw them pass as she sat on her verandah. She had received more congratulatory letters that day, and the thief envied the one from whom she had taken. Annie bowed to Margaret, and her Aunt Harriet said something about the heat, in a high shrill voice.
“She is a wonderful woman, to have written that successful novel,” said Aunt Harriet, “and I am going to write her a congratulatory note, now you have bought that stationery at Tiffany's. I feel that such a subject demands special paper. She is a wonderful woman and her family have every reason to be proud of her.”
“Yes,” said Annie.
“It is rather odd, and I have often thought so,” said Aunt Harriet, moving alongside with stately sweeps of black skirts, “that you have shown absolutely no literary taste. As you know, I have often written poetry, of course not for publication, and my friends have been so good as to admire it.”
“Yes, Aunt Harriet,” said Annie.
“I realise that you have never appreciated my poems,” said Aunt Harriet tartly.
“I don't think I understand poetry very well,” little Annie said with meekness.
“It does require a peculiar order of mind, and you have never seemed to me in the least poetical or imaginative,” said her aunt in an appeased voice. “For instance, I could not imagine your writing a book like Mrs. Edes, andThe Poor Ladywas anonymous, and anybody might have written it as far as one knew. But I should never have imagined her for a moment as capable of doing it.”
“No,” said Annie.
Then they had come to the parsonage and Jane Riggs, as rigid as starched linen could make a human being, admitted them, and presently after a little desultory conversation, the collection, which was really a carefully made one, and exceedingly good and interesting, was being displayed. Then came the charming little tea which Von Rosen had planned; then the suggestion with regard to the rose-garden and Aunt Harriet's terrified refusal, knowing as she knew the agony of sneezes and sniffs sure to follow its acceptance; and then Annie, a vision in blue, was walking among the roses with Von Rosen and both were saying things which they never could remember afterward—about things in which neither had the very slightest interest. It was only when they had reached the end of the pergola, trained over with climbers, and the two were seated on a rustic bench therein, that the conversation to be remembered began.
The conversation began, paradoxically, with a silence. Otherwise, it would have begun with platitudes. Since neither Von Rosen nor Annie Eustace were given usually to platitudes, the silence was unavoidable. Both instinctively dreaded with a pleasurable dread the shock of speech. In a way this was the first time the two had been alone with any chance of a seclusion protracted beyond a very few minutes. In the house was Aunt Harriet Eustace, who feared a rose, as she might have feared the plague, and, moreover, as Annie comfortably knew, had imparted the knowledge to Von Rosen as they had walked down the pergola, that she would immediately fall asleep.
“Aunt Harriet always goes to sleep in her chair after a cup of tea,” Annie had said and had then blushed redly.
“Does she?” asked Von Rosen with apparent absent-mindedness but in reality, keenly. He excused himself for a moment, left Annie standing in the pergola and hurried back to the house, where he interviewed Jane Riggs, and told her not to make any noise, as Miss Eustace in the library would probably fall asleep, as was her wont after a cup of tea. Jane Riggs assented, but she looked after him with a long, slow look. Then she nodded her head stiffly and went on washing cups and saucers quietly. She spoke only one short sentence to herself. “He's a man and it's got to be somebody. Better be her than anybody else.”
When the two at the end of the pergola began talking, it was strangely enough about the affair of the Syrian girl.
“I suppose, have always supposed, that the poor young thing's husband came and stole his little son,” said Von Rosen.
“You would have adopted him?” asked Annie in a shy voice.
“I think I would not have known any other course to take,” replied Von Rosen.
“It was very good of you,” Annie said. She cast a little glance of admiration at him.
Von Rosen laughed. “It is not goodness which counts to one's credit when one is simply chucked into it by Providence,” he returned.
Annie laughed. “To think of your speaking of Providence as ‘chucking.’”
“It is rather awful,” admitted Von Rosen, “but somehow I never do feel as if I need be quite as straight-laced with you.”
“Mr. von Rosen, you have talked with me exactly twice, and I am at a loss as to whether I should consider that remark of yours as a compliment or not.”
“I meant it for one,” said Von Rosen earnestly. “I should not have used that expression. What I meant was I felt that I could be myself with you, and not weigh words or split hairs. A clergyman has to do a lot of that, you know, Miss Eustace, and sometimes (perhaps all the time) he hates it; it makes him feel like a hypocrite.”
“Then it is all right,” said Annie rather vaguely. She gazed up at the weave of leaves and blossoms, then down at the wavering carpet of their shadows.
“It is lovely here,” she said.
The young man looked at the slender young creature in the blue gown and smiled with utter content.
“It is very odd,” he said, “but nothing except blue and that particular shade of blue would have harmonised.”
“I should have said green or pink.”
“They would surely have clashed. If you can't melt into nature, it is much safer to try for a discord. You are much surer to chord. That blue does chord, and I doubt if a green would not have been a sort of swear word in colour here.”
“I am glad you like it,” said Annie like a school girl. She felt very much like one.
“I like you,” Von Rosen said abruptly.
Annie said nothing. She sat very still.
“No, I don't like you. I love you,” said Von Rosen.
“How can you? You have talked with me only twice.”
“That makes no difference with me. Does it with you?”
“No,” said Annie, “but I am not at all sure about—”
“About what, dear?”
“About what my aunts and grandmother will say.”
“Do you think they will object to me?”
“No-o.”
“What is it makes you doubtful? I have a little fortune of my own. I have an income besides my salary. I can take care of you. They can trust you to me.”
Annie looked at him with a quick flush of resentment. “As if I would even think of such a thing as that!”
“What then?”
“You will laugh, but grandmother is very old, although she sits up so straight, and she depends on me, and—”
“And what?”
“If I married you, I could not, of course, play pinocle with grandmother on Sunday.”
“Oh, yes, you could. I most certainly should not object.”
“Then that makes it hopeless.”
Von Rosen looked at her in perplexity. “I am afraid I don't understand you, dear little soul.”
“No, you do not. You see, grandmother is in reality very good, almost too good to live, and thinking she is being a little wicked playing pinocle on Sunday when Aunt Harriet and Aunt Susan don't know it, sort of keeps her going. I don't just know why myself, but I am sure of it. Now the minute she was sure that you, who are the minister, did not object, she would not care a bit about pinocle and it would hurt her.”
Annie looked inconceivably young. She knitted her candid brows and stared at him with round eyes of perplexity. Karl von Rosen shouted with laughter.
“Oh, well, if that is all,” he said, “I object strenuously to your playing pinocle with your grandmother on Sunday. The only way you can manage will be to play hookey from church.”
“I need not do that always,” said Annie. “My aunts take naps Sunday afternoons, but I am sure grandmother could keep awake if she thought she could be wicked.”
“Well, you can either play hookey from church, or run away Sunday afternoons, or if you prefer and she is able, I will drive your grandmother over here and you can play pinocle in my study.”
“Then I do think she will live to be a hundred,” said Annie with a peal of laughter.
“Stop laughing and kiss me,” said Von Rosen.
“I seldom kiss anybody.”
“That is the reason.”
When Annie looked up from her lover's shoulder, a pair of topaz eyes were mysteriously regarding her.
“The cat never saw me kiss anybody,” said Von Rosen.
“Do you think the cat knows?” asked Annie, blushing and moving away a little.
“Who knows what any animal knows or does not know?” replied Von Rosen. “When we discover that mystery, we may have found the key to existence.”
Then the cat sprang into Annie's blue lap and she stroked his yellow back and looked at Von Rosen with eyes suddenly reflective, rather coolly.
“After all, I, nor nobody else, ever heard of such a thing as this,” said she. “Do you mean that you consider this an engagement?” she asked in astonishment.
“I most certainly do.”
“After we have only really seen and talked to each other twice!”
“It has been all our lives and we have just found it out,” said Von Rosen. “Of course, it is unusual, but who cares? Do you?”
“No, I don't,” said Annie. They leaned together over the yellow cat and kissed each other.