CHAPTER XVTHE WRONG MAN
MRS. Hardin heard from every source but the right one that Rickard had returned. Each time her telephone rang, it was his voice she expected to hear. She began to read a meaning into his silence. She could think of nothing else than the strange coincidence that had brought their lives again close. Orwasit a coincidence? That idea sent her thoughts far afield.
She was thinking too much of him, for peace of mind, those days of waiting, but the return of the old lover had made a wonderful break in her life. Her eyes were brighter; her smile was less forced. She spent most of her days at the sewing-machine. A lot of lace was whipped on to lingerie frocks of pale colors. She was a disciple of an eastern esthete. “Women,” he had said, “should buy lace, not by the yard, but by the mile.”
She had attended his lectures while in New York, acquiring a distaste for all her possessions. He had taught her to disdain golden-oak, to fear bric-à-brac, to forswear all vivid colors. She could see no charm in the tailor-made girl, in Innes’ trig shirt-waists and well-cut skirts. The yellow khakis always outraged her sense of beauty. The girl’s ideas on fitness would have shocked and wounded her.
As her fingers worked among the laces and soft mulls,her mind roved down avenues that should have been closed to her, a wife. She would have protested, had any one accused her of infidelity in those days, yet day by day, she was straying farther from her husband’s side. She convinced herself that Tom’s gibes and ill-humor were getting harder to endure.
It was inevitable that the woman of harem training should relive the Lawrence days. The enmity of those two men, both her lovers, was pregnant with romantic suggestion. The drama of desert and river centered now in the story of Gerty Hardin. Rickard, who had never married! The deduction, once unveiled, lost all its shyness. And every one saw that he disliked her husband!
She knew now that she had never loved Tom. She had turned to him in those days of pride when Rickard’s anger still held him aloof. How many times had she gone over those unreal hours! Who could have known that his anger would last? That hour in the honeysuckles; his kisses! None of Hardin’s rougher kisses had swept her memory of her exquisite delight—delirious as was her joy, there was room for triumph. She had seen herself clear of the noisy boarding-house. Herself, Gerty Holmes, the wife of a professor; able to have the things she craved, to have them openly; no longer having to scheme for them.
It was through Rickard’s eyes that she had seen the shortcomings of the college boarding-house. She had acquired a keen consciousness of those quizzical eyes. When they had isolated her, at last, appealing to her sympathy or amusement, separating her from all those boisterous students, her dream of bliss had begun.
In those days, she had seen Hardin through the eyes of the young instructor, younger by several years than hispupil. Her thud of disappointed anger, of dislike, when the face of Hardin peered through the leafy screen! To have waited, prayed for that moment, and to have it spoiled like that! There had been days when she had wept because she had not shown her anger! How could she know that everything would end there; end, just beginning! Her boarding-house training had taught her to be civil. It was still vivid to her, her anxiety, her tremulousness—with Hardin talking forever of a play he had just seen; Rickard growing stiffer, angrier, refusing to look at those lips still warm with his kisses!
And the next day, still angry with her. Ah, the puzzled desolation of those weeks before she had salved her hurt; with pride, and then with love! Those days of misery before she could convince herself that she had been in love with love, not with her fleeing lover! Hardin was there, eager to be noticed. That affair, she could see now, had lacked finesse.
Rickard had certainly loved her, or why had he never married? Why had he left so abruptly his boarding-house, in mid-term? Doesn’t jealousy confess love? Some day, he would tell her; what a hideous mistake hers had been! She ought not to have rushed into that marriage. She knew now it had always been the other. But life was not finished, yet!
The date set for her summer “widowhood” had come, but she lingered. Various reasons, splendid and sacrificial, were given out. There was much to be done.
“I wish she would be definite,” Innes’ thoughts complained. She was restless to make her own plans. It had not yet occurred to her that Gerty would stay in all summer. For she never had so martyrized herself. “Some one must be with Tom. It may spoil my trip. But Gertynever thinks of that.” She believed it to be a simple matter of clothes. It always took her weeks to get ready to go anywhere.
“But I won’t wait any longer than next week. If she does not go then, I will. Absurd for us both to be here.” It was already fiercely hot.
Gerty, meanwhile, had been wondering how she could suggest to her sister-in-law that her trip be taken first. Without arousing suspicions! Terribly loud in her ears sounded her thoughts those days.
Her husband flung a letter on the table one evening. “A letter to you from—Casey.”
She tried to make the fingers that closed over the letter move casually. She could feel them tremble. What would she say if Tom asked to see it?
It was addressed to her in her husband’s care. Hardin had found it at the office in his mail. And she going each day to the post-office to prevent it from falling into his hands! She gave it a quick offhand glance.
“About the drive, of course. Supper’s getting cold. Look at that omelet. Don’t wait to wash up. It will be like leather.”
When she had finished her meal, she read her letter with a fine show of indifference. “He sets a date for the drive.” She put the letter carelessly into her pocket before her husband could stretch out his hand. It would never do for jealous Tom to read that: “Your letter was received two weeks ago. Pardon me for appearing to have forgotten your kindness.”
“The nerve,” growled Tom again, his mouth full of Gerty’s omelet. “To take you up on an invitation like that. I call that pretty raw.”
“You must remember we are such old friends,” urged his wife. “He knew I meant it seriously.”
“Just the same, it’s nerve,” grumbled Hardin, helping himself to more of the omelet, now a flat ruin in the center of the Canton platter. His resentment had taken on an edge of hatred since the episode of the dredge machinery. “To write to any one in my house! He knows what I think of him; an ineffectual ass, that’s what he is. Blundering around with his little levees, and his fool work on the water-tower.”
“The water-tower?” demanded his sister. “What’s he doing with that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” rejoined Tom largely, his lips protruding. He had been itching to ask some one what Rickard was up to. Twice, he had seen him go up, with MacLean and Estrada. Once, there was a large flare of light. But he wouldn’t ask! Some of his fool tinkering!
His sister’s gaze rested on him with concern. He had too little to do. She guessed that his title, consulting engineer, was a mocking one, that his chief, at least, did not consult him. Was it true, what she had heard, that he had made a fluke about the machinery? He was looking seedy. He had been letting his clothes go. He looked like a man who has lost grip; who has been shelved.
She knew he was sleeping badly. Every morning now she found the couch rumpled. Not much pretense of marital congeniality. Things were going badly, there—
“Everybody has accepted,” Gerty was saying. “They have been waiting for me to set the date.”
“And you cater to him, let him dangle you all. I wonder why you do it, unless it’s to hurt me.”
“Hurt you, Tom,” cried his wife, her deep blue eyeswide with dismay. “How can you say such a thing? But if it is given for him, how can I do anything else than let him arrange the day to suit himself? It would be funny for the guest of honor not to be present, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t see why you want to make him a guest of honor,” he retreated, covering his position.
Gently, Gerty expressed her belief that she was doing the best thing for her husband in getting up a public affair for his successor. She did think that Tom would see that it showed they had no feeling.
“I think it a fine idea,” agreed Innes heartily. “I’m sure Tom will, too, when he thinks about it.” But she did not give him any chance to express himself. “How are you going to manage it, Gerty? You said it was going to be progressive?”
“We shall draw for partners,” said Mrs. Hardin. “And change every half a mile. The first lap will be two miles; that will give some excitement in cutting for partners.” Easy, being the hostess, to withhold any slip she pleased, easy to make it seem accidental!
“When is this circus coming off?” inquired her husband.
“Mr. Rickard says he will be back on the first; that he’ll be free on the second.”
Hardin scraped his chair over the pine-board floor which Gerty had helped Sam to treat until it looked “hard.” Each alternate strip had been stained dark, the whole waxed and rubbed until it almost gave a shadow, the housekeeper’s idea of elegance.
“For half an hour, I’ll listen to Mrs. Youngberg tell me how hard it is to have to do without servants, as she’s never done it in her life before. For another half-mile,Mrs. Hatfield will flirt with me, and Mrs. Middleton will tell me all about ‘her dear little kiddies,’ Sounds cheerful. Why didn’t you choose cards? No one has to talk then.”
There was an interval when his wife appeared to be balancing his suggestion. “No, I think it will have to be a drive; for I’ve told every one about it.”
“Well,” remarked her husband, “I only hope something will happen to prevent it.”
“Tom!” exclaimed Gerty Hardin. “What a dreadful thing to say. That sounds like a curse. You make my blood run cold.”
“Shu!” said Hardin, picking up his hat. “That was no curse. You wouldn’t go if it rained, would you?”
“Oh, rain!” She shrugged at that possibility.
“Well, you wouldn’t go if the wind blows!” retorted Hardin, leaving the room.
A minute later he stuck his head through the door.
“Mrs. Youngberg’s outside.”
“Mrs. Youngberg!” cried Gerty, pleasantly fluttered. She ran out into the street without waiting to pick up a hat. “For I’ll make her come in this time,” she thought. “I won’t stand craning my neck and squinting up at her as if she were the great high executioner.”
Mrs. Youngberg leaned out from the box buggy, and kissed her. “How are you these days?” Her voice was solicitous.
“Oh, splendid!” Gerty smiled gaily toward the occupant of the buggy, but the desert sun deflected the smile into a grimace. “Won’t you come in to-day? Do tie up, and have a little visit.”
“Oh, I can’t this morning. I have a hundred errands to attend to, and I must get back in time to get lunchfor my family. I lost my maid; isn’t it terrible down here? You can’t keep a girl for a week. I don’t mind cooking for my husband, but I do draw the line at being cook for the hired men. And the coarse things they like! You can’t always cook a double meal. And I lost one of the best workers we ever had, that was when we first came here, because he didn’t like the food I gave him. Stuffed eggs, and Waldorf salad. What do you think of that? It’s quantity they want, and that man went off and said I’d starved him.”
“Do come in,” urged Gerty, squinting at the sun.
“I can’t. I’d like to, but I can’t. My husband likes his meal prompt, and the men simply come in and sit down, and watch you until it’s ready.”
“Yes, I know,” interposed the other, half-blinded. “But surely you can stay a minute. I have so many things to tell you.”
“I, too. I want to have the ladies of the Improvement Club in to tea before I go out; I think it will be Friday. After I sound the ladies a little, I’ll let you know.”
“Last year, she would have hadmeset the day.” Gerty was on the outlook for stings; she felt that she had lost her position in the valley set.
“Of course, that includes Miss Hardin,” added Mrs. Youngberg, drawing up the reins.
“I wanted to talk to you about the drive,” cried Mrs. Hardin. “It is to be on the second. Will you take this as the invitation, or must I write to you?”
“Please, don’t write.” And Mrs. Youngberg was driving off when a thought seemed to strike her.
“I saw the levee as I was driving past. What in the world is that for? Does Mr. Hardin think there will bebigger floods than we’ve had already? Isn’t the New River deep enough to carry all the flood waters?”
Mrs. Hardin had never had her tact so completely taxed. She balanced her answer carefully, with apprehension. Almost anything would sound wrong quoted as from her. She was Hardin’s wife; his success or failure must still involve her. She could hear her answer quoted to Mr. Rickard. “Mr. Hardin hoped it would not be necessary.” And then warmly she praised Rickard’s foresight in case anything did happen!
She went into the house, flushed and blinking and uncomfortable, revolving a better, more diplomatic answer. She was convinced that that last question had been the object of the visit. These top-buggy visits, as Innes called them, annoyed her. It was an irritation to all the women of the towns, for Mrs. Youngberg never had time to get out; she always would keep them standing restive under the glare of desert sun. From the wife of Youngberg, they would never have endured it. Senator Graves made the situation a trifle delicate.