IV
Rachelwas very tired when she opened the door of her room and found her maid still engaged in folding up and rearranging her clothes.
Bantry, a tall, gaunt, Scotchwoman, was an old servant; she had been in the Leven family before the two girls were born and naturally claimed the privileges of long and faithful service. A glance at her face told Rachel that the end was not yet.
"What is it?" she asked involuntarily.
Bantry closed the door and locked it, her homely face magenta color. "Miss Rachel, that French girl of Miss Eva's ought to be dismissed. I beg your pardon for bringing it to you, but I must,—" the big woman's eyes filled with tears,—"I'm thinking of you, my lamb."
Rachel sank down into the big, winged chair that had received Eva the night before. "I hate servants' gossip, Bantry; is it really necessary to mention it to me?"
"It is so, Miss Rachel, or I wouldn't; she says things that she shouldn't, and I can't stop her!"
Rachel still leaned back in her chair, looking out of the window. This nightmare grew worse every moment; it was like a labyrinth to which she had lost the guiding thread. She could not question a servant, but she knew, intuitively, that Zélie had gossiped of her engagement. It was not hard to divine the curiosity it must have excited, for Belhaven had been a devoted admirer of Eva Astry's and had never before bestowed a glance on her sister. Rachel's cheek reddened at the thought.
"I think we won't discuss it further, Bantry," she said at last.
But the old woman was not satisfied. "You'll speak to Miss Eva, Miss?"
Rachel looked up and met her eyes. "You think it's necessary?"
Bantry nodded. "That girl mustn't stay in this house, Miss Rachel."
Rachel turned away, resting her chin in her hand, and conscious of a thrill of alarm. What did the Scotchwoman mean? She knew that Bantry's intentions were the best,—nothing else would have influenced her to even listen to her suggestions,—but she was filled with disgust at the nearer prospect of the situation. To be the subject of idle gossip, perhaps even of scandal, was degrading. She felt suddenly that the guidance of her affairs had slipped out of her own hands, that in assuming the responsibility for Eva's actions she had lost control of her own. The feeling of unreality, so poignant the night before, was again with her, but it clothed her now with the fantastic shape of a masquerader; her little world was real enough, but she was no longer playing her own part in it. Instead she had assumed a character that she did not even know by heart, and she had the despairing feeling that she was sure to be caught and stripped of her borrowed plumes.
"It's not right to keep the thing in the house," Bantry resumed; "the tongue in her head's a scandal for decent folks to hear. You can take my word for it, Miss Rachel, dear; I wouldn't speak if I didn't have to!"
"Well, we won't say anything more about it," Rachel replied, and her voice, even in her own ears, sounded a long way off. The thing was insufferable, yet, perhaps, she would have to speak to Eva.
Eva had long ago discarded Bantry as too old and too unfashionable; she employed instead a little French girl who wore charmingly appropriate black frocks and coquettish caps and aprons. Sidney Billop had once been caught kissing Zélie in the pantry; he had never done it but once, for it was his mother who caught him. Dr. Macclesfield remarked upon that occasion that some men never went to Hades for punishment, they found a private one in the bosoms of their families. Sidney found his on emerging from the pantry and one scorching was enough; he had occasion afterwards to cherish the ancient apothegm that a burnt child fears the fire.
"Miss Rachel, dear, you're not angry?"
Rachel turned quickly and found that Bantry was in tears. She laid a kindly hand on the old woman's shoulder.
"I'm not in the least angry, but I hate the whole business, Bantry; I don't want to hear about it."
The Scotchwoman sobbed brokenly. "Miss Rachel—oh, for God's sake, darling, it isn't true?"
Rachel's hand fell from her shoulder and she turned very pale. "I don't understand."
"About Mr. Belhaven?"
"You mean about my engagement? Yes, it's true; I'm going to marry him."
Bantry covered her face with her hands and leaned against the wall, sobbing.
Rachel was touched; she knew that the old woman regarded her almost in the light of a foster-child, and she realized that there must be strong reasons for her horror of the approaching marriage. Without even imagining the depths of a kitchen scandal, she experienced a vague feeling of terror, a terror that was chiefly concerned with the danger to Eva. If Bantry felt such grief at the mere thought of her marriage with Belhaven, of what terrible thing had Zélie accused her sister? As yet Rachel's mind, perplexed and dulled with anguish, had not fully realized her own situation; it almost seemed to her that some one else was going to marry Belhaven. But now she began to appreciate her peril; she must not let the old Scotchwoman discover the secret, for not even the faithful Bantry could know that she was saving Eva. She tried to assume a lighter tone.
"I'm sorry my marriage grieves you so much, Bantry, but it won't separate us; I shall keep you with me."
"Oh, Miss Rachel!"
"And," Rachel risked adding this, "I'll speak to Mrs. Astry about Zélie."
Bantry looked at her, almost indignantly, over the top of her crumpled apron. Eva had not been in her thoughts, or Zélie either. In the kitchen, that melting-pot of our social makeshifts, they said that Miss Leven was marrying Belhaven to hush up an imminent scandal, and the old Scotchwoman, in whose heart was a kind of fierce clan loyalty, longed to rescue her favorite, to warn her, but there was something about Rachel, an aloofness, a distinction, that set a gulf between them. Bantry dared not tell her.
"Besides," Rachel went on in a low voice, "I don't want you to listen to all this talk; keep it from the servants. Whatever it is, it's false, but falsehoods are often believed; don't listen to them."
Bantry bent suddenly over Rachel's evening gown, folding it with careful hands, her eyes still full of tears.
"Very well, Miss," she said, "I—I've only told you the truth."
"I know it; I won't forget that, Bantry."
"It's only right for you to believe me, Miss."
"I always believe you!"
Bantry's answer was inaudible; she bent low over the clothes on the lounge to allow Rachel to pass without seeing that she was still crying, for Bantry was storming in her heart against Mrs. Astry. It had always been so, she told herself. Eva had always traded on her sister's generosity and abused her affection.
"Jealous little cat!" the grim old Scotchwoman said to herself, "selfish isn't the name for her; she's like an Angora when it's got all the cream."
Meanwhile Rachel made her way to young Mrs. Astry's room. She entered the boudoir, which opened on the balcony outside her own window, and she shuddered involuntarily at the thought of last night. Eva had come up from tennis and had just been dressed for luncheon, and the French maid courtesied and left the room as her sister entered.
Rachel came in gravely and closed the door. "Eva, you must dismiss Zélie."
Eva looked up with a violent start, her pretty face wet with tears. "Why?" she exclaimed, and there was a thrill of terror in her voice.
Rachel did not notice it; she told her quite simply all that Bantry had said. "She mustn't stay a day longer in this house, Eva. Dismiss her with a month's wages in lieu of notice. I'm sure she doesn't deserve it, but I'd do that."
Eva trembled; she knew that Rachel was inexorable and she knew also that she was in Zélie's power. She could not tell Rachel the whole truth, she could not refuse to dismiss Zélie, and she dared not resist her sister, so she temporized.
"Wouldn't it be better to keep her a while? If we dismiss her, she'll talk more—"
"Of what? If you keep her, you practically admit that you're afraid of her, the servants will believe her, and the end will be a scandal. Eva, you must dismiss her; I insist upon it."
"I—I can't!"
"You can't? Why?" Rachel's face flushed deeply.
Eva saw it; she busied herself arranging and rearranging the little silver articles on her toilet-table, though her fingers trembled.
"Well, for one thing, don't you think it's just old Bantry's spite? She's always jealous of a new servant."
"I think Bantry's immensely good and honest; she wouldn't accuse Zélie falsely. You haven't an idea how she feels; she's crying in my room now."
"Then, of course, it's all jealousy; she can't bear to have you marry and set up a household; she's afraid you'll take Zélie."
"She knows I wouldn't; besides I haven't thought of the household—oh, Eva, how can you talk of it?"
Eva covered her face with her hands. "It's killing me!" she sobbed.
Her sister looked at her with sudden contrition. She had been suffering so much herself that she had forgotten how much Eva must have to endure, and her cheek reddened again at the thought that Eva loved Belhaven, that to see him marry her would be bitter. Yet there was nothing she could say that would make it any easier to bear, and it was impossible to let this French girl make matters worse.
"You really must send Zélie away," she persisted. "I'm sure that Bantry's right about it."
Eva twisted in her chair, afraid to tell Rachel any more. "I hate to dismiss a servant," she said weakly.
Rachel could understand this, for she hated to do it herself, but sometimes even surgical operations are necessary and she was willing to concede something to Eva's nervous condition.
"I'll dismiss her for you," she said quietly.
Eva shivered, watching her as she moved to the door.
"Now?" she gasped.
"At once," said Rachel, but before she could touch the bell some one knocked at the door.
It was Pamela Van Citters. "I've come to say good-by," she explained. "Paul and I are going to drive back to town this afternoon."
Eva rose hastily from the dressing-table and threw herself into Pamela's arms. "Don't go!" she cried.
"It's sweet of you to ask me to stay, my dear, but think of my offspring. I haven't seen the baby for three days."
"What of it? He'll be all the more delighted to see you and he'll have cut a new tooth. Oh, Pamela, stay; Rachel's going to leave me."
Pamela turned large, startled eyes upon Rachel. "As soon as that?"
Rachel nodded; she could not speak, she felt as if a net had been spread around her feet,—a long, floating net, like those she had seen the fishermen draw up in the Sound, and that it was closing in.
Eva turned her head on her friend's shoulder. "Johnstone thinks it's best to have it soon."
Pamela tried to look vacant. "Of course it's the best way," she admitted; "a wedding does hang over one so. I nearly turned gray with fright while I was thinking of mine; it took the whole family to screw up my courage, and poor, dear Paul says he was in a perfect funk. Do you remember what a crush it was? I'd never have another like it; that's what I tell Paul when I want to frighten him. I suppose Lottie Prynne is rehearsing to duplicate hers; Paul says she's engaged to my cousin. You remember John Charter, Rachel?"
But Rachel was gone; she had stolen out of the room while Pamela was talking to Eva.