IV
Itwas a clear, starry night, and the long black plume of smoke from the engine was plainly visible as the train rounded the curve and came slowly up to the station. It seemed to approach solemnly, with a certain portentous stateliness, its long line of lighted cars mysteriously welded together and suggesting a giant caterpillar suffering from internal conflagration.
The soft spring night, so illusive in its fragrance and its stillness, was suddenly riven by the fierce clamor of the monster’s bell, and the long platform of the station shook and trembled under foot.
Mr. Carter and Daniel waited at the gates, detailed for this painful duty by the panic-stricken Mrs. Carter. The train was late, and they had been waiting fifteen minutes. Daniel patiently leaned on his cane, while his father gripped the iron bars at times with the air of an exasperated tiger looking for a victim. Aware of other people also waiting and within ear-shot, they had said little to each other; but as the train finally approached, Mr. Carter broke out with a suppressed rumble.
“The young donkey!” he said for the hundredth time. “I—I wonder what I’m here for, anyway?”
Daniel, who had borne a good deal already, pulled at his sleeve.
“They’ll hear you. For Heaven’s sake, make the best of it!”
Mr. Carter gave utterance to a sound that seemed to be a cross between a grunt and a bellow, but the thunderous arrival of the engine drowned all other noises, and he fell silent while he stared gloomily down the long aisle between the tracks where the passengers were disembarking.
“There’s William,” said Daniel in his ear.
“Where?” Mr. Carter experienced a strange, sinking feeling around the diaphragm. “Oh, I see!”
The two stood silent, trying to get a good view through the crowd.
“My word, Dan, has he married a kid? She’s no size at all!”
Dan went forward, his halting walk jarring anew on his father. Mr. Carter hated to have one of his boys a cripple, but to-night he felt that Daniel was heroic. He followed in a panic.
William saw them.
“Hello, Dan! How d’you do, father? Here—here’s your new daughter,” he added in a lower,more vibrant tone, drawing his wife forward, pride in his face.
Mr. Carter made a desperate plunge, tried to think of something to say, stumbled badly, and surprised himself and both his sons by suddenly kissing the bride.
“Welcome home!” he said loudly. “We’re all mighty glad to see you. We——”
He stopped short with his mouth open, amazed at his own performance. He had never intended to do anything of the kind. He was suffering from stage fright, his mind became a blank, and he simply stared.
But the bride was not at loss. His greeting seemed to touch her. She held out both hands with a fluttering, birdlike gesture, one to him and one to Dan, and she lifted a lovely, animated face.
“Vous parlez Français?” she cried eagerly, with shining eyes.
Mr. Carter looked about aghast.
“Good Lord, William! Can’t she speak English?”
He was answered with a chorus of laughter. Young Mrs. Carter, William, and Daniel giggled outrageously.
“Of course she does, father! She’s half American,” replied William.
But the laugh had broken the ice. Mr. Carterlooked more narrowly at his daughter-in-law, and discovered that her eyes were lovely. She raised them to his now with a look that suddenly recalled William’s description. They were soft and brown and tender, with something sylvan and untamed in their lucid depths.
“By George, a wild fawn, of course, of course!” thought Mr. Carter, and he offered her his arm.
She took it, clinging to him a little with a touch at once soft and confiding. There was the ghost of an elusive fragrance in her hair, and in the light veil that floated across his shoulder. It suggested violets wet with dew, and even Mr. Carter was intuitively aware that there was something unique, something distinguished and amazing about the small figure, so slight and graceful, and the delicately poised head.
“Of course I speak English,” she murmured softly in his ear as they threaded the crowd, followed by William and Daniel and two porters with innumerable bags. “Mais, hélas!I wanted to speak French to you because I love it. It’s the language of my heart, and you”—there was a lovely tremor in her voice—“you’re so good to me here in this smoky place—like a father! I—oh, I know—je t’adore!”
Mr. Carter, unaccustomed to the language of extravagance, had a pleasurable feeling of elation.Hitherto, his performances in the social line had been unappreciated, even in the bosom of his family. He had frequently felt like a dancing bear, but now all was changed; this little French girl knew a good thing when she saw it.
“That’s all right, you’re William’s wife,” said Mr. Carter, “and I’m mighty fond of William. His mother thinks he’s a chip of the moon, I’ll tell you that!”
“Tiens!” The girl drew in her breath quickly. “Then I’m afraid—she will never like me!”
Mr. Carter, who felt that this time he had really put his foot in it, covered his confusion by hustling her into a waiting taxi. Daniel and he had secured one, but it was necessary to take another for the hand-luggage, and Daniel rode home in that, alone with the bags and umbrellas, while his father and William sat with the bride.
Daniel, who had exchanged a word or two with his brother as they crossed the station together, was aware of William’s uneasiness. In the familiar station, confronted with his father and his brother, and all the old realities of his home life, William must have suffered some kind of a shock. He had even said, rather thickly, as they walked along:
“How are they all? Judge Jessup, Dr. Barbour—the—the Denbighs?”
Daniel, staring straight before him, had answered shortly. All their friends were in good health, he said. But he had previously caught William’s eye, and something in its expression rankled in Daniel’s mind. He glanced moodily at the heap of luggage in the cab with him, topped by a small green-leather bag with the initials “F. L. F.” in silver on the flap. She was pretty; he had perceived the subtle charm of the small, irregular face and the beautiful, wild eyes. Yet he was not reassured; he was, in fact, vaguely uneasy.
Then he reflected bitterly that he was a prejudiced judge. He had never been able to get the look in Virginia Denbigh’s eyes out of his mind. He could see them still as he gave her the first warning. The blood went up to Daniel’s ears and burned there; he abhorred that little green bag.
Both taxis slowed down at the Carters’ door, a stream of light flowed out of the house, and Mrs. Carter, frightened and tearful, appeared at the threshold, supported on either hand by Leigh and Emily.
Daniel, busying himself with directions about the hand-luggage, escaped the ordeal of the greeting, but he caught a glimpse of his mother trying to be nice to the bride and then crying on William’s shoulder. When Daniel finally entered the house, the young stranger had taken off her hatand tossed aside the light furs that she had worn with such a daring effect of style. Her brother-in-law was almost startled, she looked so small, so delicate, and so young. Her hair was fluffy and dusky and riotously pretty; it escaped into curls about her little ears and on the nape of her white neck. Her dress, too, in the extreme of the prevailing mode, was a little daring in its display of both neck and ankles.
As Daniel entered, she had discovered Emily, a gawky girl of sixteen, and was displaying a flattering interest in her that covered the embarrassed Emily with blushes. Mrs. Carter tried to save the situation by urging her daughter-in-law to come up-stairs.
“I’ve got the very best room ready for you, my dear,” she said tremulously. “You’ll want to arrange your things and come right down. We’ve waited supper for you.”
“How sweet of you,maman! I may call youmaman, mayn’t I?” She laid a light hand on Mrs. Carter’s arm, raising her soft eyes to her face. “If I’m good I may call you that—toujours—toujours, n’est-ce-pas?”
“For Heaven’s sake, Fanchon, don’t talk French to mother!” her husband exclaimed. “She doesn’t know a word of it—and you can speak English.”
“I used to speak French quite a little, Willie,” Mrs. Carter protested, coloring faintly; “but I—I’m a little rusty!”
Mr. Carter laughed.
“Mama can just about say, ‘oui, oui,’ like a pig,” he said bluntly. “You women hurry up; I want my supper.”
Fanchon, with one foot on the stairs, turned and kissed her hand to him.
“I’m coming,” she declared. “I’m starving, too. I won’t be ten minutes!”
“She means two hours,” said William, his eyes following the small figure with a look that did not escape either his father or Daniel.
“She’s turned his head,” the latter thought moodily, not unaware of the charm of the light, hurrying voice and the accent, delicate and sweet, that made her English so exotic.
At the moment, too, Leigh appeared, laden with Fanchon’s luggage. Like a beast of burden he toiled up behind the women, plainly captivated. William, seeing it, grinned and laid his hand on Daniel’s shoulder. Daniel was the only one who had, so far, shown no signs of capitulation.
“Well, Dan, got any of those old cigarettes in your room?” he asked jocularly.
Daniel yielded, returning his smile, and thetwo brothers, anxious perhaps for a little talk together, went up-stairs.
Left alone—marooned, as it were—on the old Turkey rug in the hall, Mr. Carter prowled about for a moment, his mind in a maze. He looked into the dining-room, wondered if supper was ready, and finally went into the library and sank heavily into his favorite chair. He had a confused feeling of amazement that the room looked just as usual—the same old books around the walls, the same old portrait of an ancestral Carter over the fireplace, and the guttered chairs, looking as homelike and shabby as ever. Even the litter on the table—it hadn’t set itself in order, this corner of the house having escaped the cleaning up for the bride. There was the same old lamp in the center, and his old brier-wood lay there, too.
He sighed, slowly rubbing the back of his head with one hand, while he gazed reflectively at the other. He was confusedly aware of an elusive fragrance about his fingers, the ghost of a perfume, and he had a dazzled consciousness of those wild-fawn eyes, and the red lips, and little pointed chin. He had a guilty recollection, too, of calling his son a young donkey.
He was still sitting there, staring into the vacant fireplace, when he heard the rustle of skirts and felt his wife’s entrance. He did not look up;he seemed to feel an unsympathetic atmosphere, and he heard Mrs. Carter drop into a chair by the table with a heaviness that suggested collapse after an ordeal.
He waited, expectant, but nothing happened. The silence, in fact, grew rather thick. Mrs. Carter sat there, saying nothing, though she swallowed once or twice rather audibly. Unable to endure it any longer, her husband broke the pause.
“She’s mighty pretty,” he said at last, apparently addressing the fireplace.
His wife said nothing. She only turned a slow, absent look toward him, her mind at work on some problem too deep for him.
“Maybe it’ll turn out better than we thought, mama,” he ventured again.
“Maybe,” she assented reluctantly. “Poor Willie.”
“Poor fiddlesticks! He’s in love.” Mr. Carter frowned heavily. “I reckon a man has a right to pick his own wife, anyway,” he decided finally.
Mrs. Carter gave him another mysterious look—a look that seemed to deplore his ignorance. Then she rose, murmured something about supper, and left the room. She was going up the front stairs, but she heard William coming down, and, for the first time in her life, she avoided her first-born. With a feeling of guilty panic, she fled upthe back stairs. She could hear the bride still moving about in the best parlor chamber, and she slipped past it and crept softly into Emily’s room.
At the moment her daughter was standing in front of the looking-glass, staring fixedly into it, but Mrs. Carter did not notice this. She shut the door behind her with the air of a conspirator. Her knees felt weak under her, and she needed sympathy, the sympathy of her own sex. Of course, Emily was a child, but she was a girl child.
Mrs. Carter drew a long breath and put her finger on her lip. Her astonished daughter viewed her a moment in alarm; then a look of understanding dawned in Emily’s eyes, and she stood quite still, waiting. Mrs. Carter tiptoed across the room and whispered:
“Emily, do you think she paints her eyes?”
Emily shook her head.
“It’s her eyelashes. I looked hard at ’em, mama, and she does something to them. They look thick and soft like feathers. I think they’re just lovely!”
“Emily!”
“I do! That’s why her eyes look so nice. I’m going to find out how she does it, too.”
“Emily Carter, aren’t you ashamed of yourself? I—oh!” Mrs. Carter wiped her eyes. “I’m soashamed—for Willie! My son’s wife with make-believe eyelashes! It—it isn’t respectable!”
“I wish I knew how she did it,” said Emily. “Anyway, I’m going to find out.”
Mrs. Carter, having dropped into a chair, buried her face in her handkerchief. She had been longing for a good cry, and this was her first moment of real enjoyment. Her comfortable shoulders rose and fell convulsively, and her daughter caught the muffled sounds of grief. Emily did not heed them, but turned again to her mirror. She had short, blond eyelashes, a good two shades lighter than her blond hair. She viewed them now with the cold eye of an unbiased critic.
“Light eyelashes are horrid,” she said to herself with a glitter of determination in her eye. “I must find out how she does it.”
“My daughter-in-law!” sobbed Mrs. Carter under her breath. “My Willie’s wife, and—and she chalks her nose—I saw it myself!”