XBEATRICE IN CHAINS
Inany city but New York, and even there in any set but the one to which they belonged, the Kinnears would have been regarded as rich. But in the company they kept, their strainings and strugglings to hold the pace were the subject of many a jest and gibe. Had they not been of such superior birth—not merely Colonial but Tory and forced to do exceeding shrewd and heavy bribing to get back the estates forfeited to low-born Patriots—they would have ranked almost as hangers-on. Another generation, another dividing up of those meager millions, and the Kinnears would cease to make any part of the blaze of plutocracy’s high society, would shine as modest satellites, by reflected light. Thus, it was necessary that lovely Alicia Kinnear marry money—big money. Beatrice Richmond’s brother Hector was about as good a catch as there was going; so, Beatrice and Allie became friends at school—Alicia, being a sensible girl sensibly trained from the cradle, needed no specific instruction from her mother in the noble and useful art of choosing friends. The friendshipgrew into intimacy, and Alicia saw to it that nothing occurred to produce even temporary coolings—this, with not the least show of sycophantry, which would immediately have disgusted Beatrice; on the contrary, what Beatrice most admired in dear Alicia was her independence, her absolute freedom from the faintest taint of snobbishness. If Beatrice had been more experienced she might perhaps have become suspicious of this unalloyed virtue. There is always good ground for suspicion when we find a human being apparently entirely without a touch of any universal human failing; Nature has so arranged it that each of us has a little of everything in his composition, and the elements that show in a character are rarely so important as those deep out of sight. However, Alicia was a sweet and generous girl, and gave a very pleasant and praiseworthy quality of liking where she felt that her station and circumstances permitted her to like—and how many of us can make a better showing?
When Beatrice, with Valentine, her maid, and two trunks, entered the big, old house in Park Avenue where the Kinnears maintained upper-class estate, Alicia was waiting with open arms. “Your telegram only just came,” said she, hugging and kissing Beatrice delightedly. “But the rooms are ready—your rooms—and we’ve got Peter coming to dinner to-night.”
“Peter!” Beatrice made a face. “Give me anyone else—anyone else.”
Alicia’s blue eyes—beautiful eyes they were, so clear, so soft, so delicately shaded—opened wide. “Why, Trixy, I thought——”
“So it was,” cut in Beatrice. “But that’s off. Close the door”—they had just entered the sitting room of the charming suite set aside for “darling Beatrice”—“and I’ll tell you all about it—that is, all I can tell just now.”
“Oh, you and Hanky will make it up——”
“Never! Whoever I may marry, it’ll not be he.”
Alicia looked shocked, grieved. And she was shocked and grieved. But underneath this propriety of friendly emotion she had already begun to consider that, if this were really true, Peter would return to the ranks of the eligibles—and he was through Harvard, while Heck Richmond was a junior and only a few months older than herself. An inexcusable duplicity—that is, inexcusable in any but a human being circumstanced as was Alicia.
Beatrice laughed at her bosom friend’s mournful expression. “Oh, drop it,” cried she. “You know Peter is no real loss. He’s all right, of course—a clean, decent fellow, with a talent for dressing himself well. But no one would ever get excited about him.”
“Does anybody get excited about anybody, nowadays?” laughed Alicia.
Beatrice nodded; into her eyes and out again flashed a look that could not but put so shrewd and sympathetic a friend as Allie into possession of her secret.
“Who?” said Allie breathlessly. “The Count? Oh, Trixy, you’re not going to marry away off——”
“Not the Count,” was Beatrice’s quick, disdainful interruption. “What do you take me for? He’s shorter than I and horribly old—over forty.”
“I don’t think age matters in aman,” observed the charitable Alicia.
“I do,” retorted Beatrice. “Not, of course, if one’s marrying for—for other things than love. But I couldn’t love an elderly man.”
“Is forty elderly?”
“Isn’t it?” replied Beatrice.
“But who is he?” implored Allie, all a-quiver with curiosity.
Beatrice permitted a beatific expression bordering on fatuous folly to overspread her fair, young face. “Do you remember—down at Red Hill—the last time you were there—the biggest, grandest, handsomest man you ever saw——”
“The artist!” cried Allie in dismay. “Oh, dearest, I thought you were just flirting. And you are.You wouldn’t— Your mother’d never—never—consent. Isn’t he—poor?”
“How can you talk like that?” exclaimed Beatrice, with all the new convert’s energy in indignation.
“Well—one has got to live, you know,” urged Allie. “And if he’s poor—and your father doesn’t consent——”
Beatrice laughed curtly—she had many mannerisms that reminded one of her father. “I’m not married yet—nor engaged.”
“Have you talked with your father and mother?” inquired her worldly wise friend.
Miss Richmond again gave a sweetened and feminine version of her father’s sardonic laugh. “That’s why I’m here. I’ve broken with father.”
“Oh, Trixy!” exclaimed Allie in terror. “Youcan’tdo that!”
“Oh, yes, I can. I have.” She beamed on her friend. “And I’ve come to ask you to give me shelter for a few days—till I can look about. Father wanted me to marry Peter. I refused. He insulted me. Here I am.”
Alicia kissed her with enthusiasm. “What astrongdear you are!” cried she. This remark seemed to her a wise and friendly—and discreet—compromise. It did not approve unfilial conduct. It did not encourageBeatrice to weaken her opposition to Hanky Vanderkief. It did not commit the Kinnears to anything whatsoever. “But you must dress for dinner. Of course I’ll give you another man. I’ll change my man to you and take Peter. It’s good to have you here. Imustrush away to dress.”
But Miss Kinnear was not in such mad haste that she could not look in on her mother, who was being hooked up by her maid. “I’ll finish mamma, Germaine,” said Alicia. “I want to say something to her.” And the instant they were alone she came out with it: “Beatrice has broken with her father because she doesn’t want to marry Peter. And she has come to stay with us.”
Alicia hooked; her mother stood patiently, apparently studying in the long mirror the way Germaine had done her soft, gray hair. Of all the women in New York who led the fashionable life, not one was able to invest the despicable arts of prudence and calculation with so much real grace and virtue as Mrs. John Kinnear.
“What shall I do, mother?” Alicia finally asked.
“Nothing,” replied Mrs. Kinnear, in the tone of one who has deliberated and decided. “We’ll wait and see. Certainly, that dreadful, dangerous devil of a father of hers can’t object to us giving his daughtershelter—while we wait for him to try and get her back.... Beatrice is very obstinate.”
“Like iron—like steel. She says she’s in love with an artist. He is terribly handsome, but not the sort of man one would marry.”
“Foreigner?”
“No, American. I never heard of him. I can’t remember his name.”
“Good Lord, the girl’s crazy,” said Mrs. Kinnear. “Why did Mrs. Richmond let a man of that sort have a chance to get well acquainted with her daughter? Still, who’d have thought it of Beatrice? I’d as soon have expectedyouto do it.”
“Beatrice has got a queer streak in her,” explained Alicia. “You know, her father is—or was—very ordinary.”
“No, that’s not it,” replied Mrs. Kinnear reflectively. “Those things aren’t matters of birth and breeding. I’ve seen the lowest kind of tastes in people of excellent blood.”
“How sweet you look!... I must dress. You advise me to do nothing? She didn’t want Peter at dinner. So—I’ll take him.”
That little rest between the “so” and the “I’ll” was an excellent instance of the way mother and daughter had of conveying to each other those things impossibleof speech—the things that sound vulgar or shocking or basely contriving if put into words. And in no respect does the difference between the well bred and the common display itself so signally as in these small-large matters of what to say and what to imply. By this significance of silences mother and daughter were in the position—the happy position—of being able most sincerely and most virtuously, to deny even to themselves any and all intent of subtle or snobbish or intriguing thought. To impute such thoughts to such people is to excite their just indignation. As Allie departed to dress, her mother sent after her a glance of admiring love. She had brought her daughter up not as daughter, but as bosom friend, and she was reaping the rich reward; for Allie Kinnear, caring so little about everyone else that at bottom she neither strongly liked nor strongly disliked anybody, reserved and poured upon her mother all the love of her heart.
When the five women at the dinner were in the drawing-room afterwards waiting for the men, Mrs. Kinnear found an opportunity to say to Allie: “Richmond telephoned just before I came down. He is delighted that Beatrice is with us—wants us to keep her until he comes.”
“She says she won’t see him,” said Alicia.
“I think I can persuade her.”
Mrs. Kinnear was right. When Richmond called the following afternoon and Beatrice reiterated her refusal, Mrs. Kinnear said in her inimitable way, sweet, sensible, friendly: “My dear, don’t you see that you are putting yourself in the wrong?”
“Why quarrel with him?” objected Beatrice. “Why stupidly repeat again and again that I will not marry Peter? My mind is made up. I shall not change, and he knows it.”
Mrs. Kinnear had already debated—without letting herself know what she was about—whether or not to do all in her power to maintain the strained relations of father and daughter, “and help save poor Beatrice from the misery of marriage with a man she hates—a man who deserves a good wife.” She had decided against siding with the girl because of the dangers in incurring the relentless wrath of powerful Richmond. So, her reply now was: “Dear Beatrice, you needn’t beafraidof your father.”
She had calculated well. Beatrice reared proudly. “Perhaps it does look as if I were afraid to face him,” said she, all unconscious that Mrs. Kinnear was bending her to her will as easily as a basket maker bends an osier withe. “Yes—I’ll go down.”
And down she swept, to pause in statuelike coldness upon the threshold of the drawing-room, where hersmall, wiry father was pacing agitatedly. “Well, father?” said she.
They looked at each other in silence—measuring each other—or, rather, daughter submitting calmly to her father’s keen, measuring eyes, while she wondered how a man so strong and daring as he could have such a pitiful weakness as snobbishness. At last Richmond said pleasantly: “Beatrice, I’ve come to take you back home.”
She advanced to a chair, into which she dropped with graceful deliberation. “I thought you had come to apologize.” Her tone was a subtle provocation.
He flushed a little—a faint glow upon his dry, wrinkled face with its huge forehead, its huge nose and its dwindling and wily little chin. “That, too,” said he with astonishing self-restraint. “I was so mad yesterday that I lost my head. My digestion isn’t what it once was. My nerves are frayed out.”
“You admit you wronged Roger Wade?”
Richmond winced, but held to the game he had decided upon. “I admit I know nothing about him—except, of course, what D’Artois said. But I can’t honestly say I believe in him. I still feel he is a fortune hunter.”
“I can understand that,” said Beatrice, unbending a little. “I suspected him, myself.”
“Trust to your intuition, Beatrice,” cried Richmond cordially. “It always guides right.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” observed his daughter. “For my intuition was that he was simple as a baby about money matters. The nasty suspicion came afterwards—when I was piqued because he had refused me.”
Richmond made a large, generous gesture, strove—not unsuccessfully—to accompany it with a large, generous expression. “Well—that’s all past and gone. Are you ready to go home?”
“I am not going home, father,” said Beatrice in an ominously quiet tone.
Richmond ignored. “Oh, you want to stay with Allie a few days? Why not take her down with you?... The fact is”—Richmond cleared his throat—“the place seems lonely without you.”
Beatrice’s glance fell. Her sensitive, upper lip moved nervously—the faintest tremor quickly controlled.
“My car’s at the door,” he went on, an old man’s fear-laden eagerness in his voice. “It’ll take us straight to the station.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll be in time for that first express.”
Beatrice did not dare look at him. She said insistently: “You will say nothing more about my marryingPeter? You leave me free to marry whom I please?”
Richmond drew down his brows. Temper began to tug at the corners of his cruel mouth. Really, this insurgent child of his was exceeding the outermost limits of fond, paternal forbearance. “You’ve had time to think things over,” said he in a voice of restraint. “You’re a sensible girl at bottom. And I know you have decided to act sensibly.”
Beatrice rose. “Yes, I have,” said she.
“Then—come on,” said Richmond, though he knew perfectly well that was not what she meant.
“You read my note to mother?”
“I pay no attention to hysteria. I waited for your good sense to get a hearing.”
“I shall stay in New York,” she said gently. “I am of age. I intend to be free.”
“What nonsense!” cried he, with an attempt at good humor. “Where’ll you stay?”
“Here for the present.”
“Do you think the Kinnears will harbor you?”
“I’m always welcome here.”
“As my daughter. But just as soon as they—any of the people you know, for that matter—find out that I regard anyone who’s receiving you as abetting you in your folly and disobedience——”
“The Kinnears aremyfriends,” said Beatrice coldly. “You exaggerate yourself, papa—or, rather, your money.”
Richmond laughed—a vain, imperious, ugly laugh. “I can make the old woman upstairs put you out of the house in two minutes—and Allie will be afraid to speak to you.”
Beatrice gave a disdainful smile.
“These Kinnears—and about everyone you know—have large investments in the things I control.” And his tone and the twinkle in his eyes made the words conjure dire visions of possible catastrophe.
“Oh!” exclaimed Beatrice, paling. She looked at him with startled eyes. “I see.... I see.” She was calm and self-contained again. “I must not get my friends into trouble. Yes—I’ll leave at once. I’ll go to a hotel.”
At this he lost patience. “You force me to be severe with you,” said he, coming close to her and shaking his fist in her face. “Now listen, young lady. You are going home with me. And you are going to marry Vanderkief within six weeks.”
Beatrice’s expression was, in its way, quite as unpleasant as her father’s. “You can’t ruinme, father,” said she with an ugly little laugh. “What you gave me is invested in Governments.”
Richmond ground his teeth. “Don’t remind me of my infernal folly. But I’ve had a valuable lesson. Not another cent do I give away till I’m dead.”
“As soon as I can support myself,” said Beatrice, “you’ll get back what you gave me.”
“Support yourself!” Richmond laughed—with real heartiness. He was surveying her standing there, in a fashionable carriage dress and looking engagingly fine and useless. “What couldyoudo?”
“That remains to be seen,” said Beatrice, flushing with mortification.
“Enough of this!” cried Richmond. “You certainly can’t think me so weak and meek that I’d let you marry that fortune-hunting painter chap. I’ll explain.”
“Not to me,” said Beatrice, walking calmly to the door. “Good-by, father.”
“If you don’t do as I say,” exclaimed Richmond, “I’ll ruin him.”
Beatrice stopped short. She did not turn round, but from the crown of her head to the sweep of her skirt her whole figure expressed attention.
“He has a small competence—left him by an aunt,” pursued Richmond, tranquil now. “I’ll wipe it out. I’ll make him a beggar, and then I’ll see that he is driven from the country.”
Beatrice turned round. “You—would do—that!” she said slowly.
“Just that—and probably more,” her father assured her genially. “I think I have a little power—despite the belief of certain members of my family to the contrary.”
“But he has done nothing!” cried she. “I’ve told you he refused me—again and again. He has done everything to discourage me. He has wounded my pride. He has trampled on my vanity. He has told me plainly that in no circumstances would he burden himself with me.”
“Then why do you persist?” said her father shrewdly.
She did not answer. Her head drooped.
Richmond laughed. “You see, your story doesn’t hold together. This is Rhoda and Broadstairs over again. They conspired together to bleed me out of more than he had asked in the first place. I let them do it. But I knew what they were about. This is a different case.” White and shaking, he waved outstretched arms at her. “You and your vagabond will never get a cent out of me, living or dead. And he knows it. I told him.”
“You saw him?” said Beatrice eagerly. “What did he say?”
Richmond grew fiery red at the recollection of that interview, thus brought vividly back to him. “No matter,” said he roughly. “You’ll find that he wants nothing more to do with you. And when I get through with him he’ll be glad to hide himself in some dark, cheap corner of Paris. He’ll have to beg his passage money.”
“Father, I told you the truth,” said the girl with passionate earnestness. “He has never sought me. I have no hope of marrying him. I persisted—persist—because”—she drew her figure up proudly—“I love him!”
“A lot of prideyou’vegot,” sneered her father.
“Yes, I have,” replied she. “I love him so much that I’d not be ashamed for the whole world to know it. I’m not one of those milk-and-water, cowardly women who have to wait till they’re loved before they begin to give what they call love. I love him because he is the best all-round man I ever saw—because he is big and broad and simple—because he’s honest and sincere—because he—because Ilovehim!”
Richmond was silenced. She looked fine as she said this—the sort of woman an intelligent, appreciative man is mighty proud to have as a daughter. He was moved so powerfully that he could not altogether conceal it. But that was an impulse from a part of his naturedeeply sepulchered and almost dead—quite dead so far as influence upon action or practical life was concerned. “You’re stark mad, Beatrice!” he cried. “This has got to be cured at once. Come home with me!”
“Father,” she pleaded, “you never denied me anything in my life. And this I want more than all——”
“I thought you said you had no hope,” cried her father, encouraged to see weakness in the feminine pathos of her tones. “Now, drop this nonsense! Come with me and marry Vanderkief or I’ll beggar that artist and drive him out in disgrace. Take your choice. And be quick about it. I’ll not make this offer again, and I’ll not stop the wheels once I set them in motion. In two days I can have him made penniless.”
Beatrice looked at her father; her father looked at her. She laughed—a quiet, cold laugh. “You win,” said she. “I’ll go.”
And five minutes later she, having passively submitted to Allie’s and Mrs. Kinnear’s farewell embraces, descended to enter her father’s automobile. Richmond took the seat beside her with an expression of mere tranquility upon his shrewd, dangerous face.
He had accomplished only what he felt assured in advance he would accomplish. Whenever he played trumps they won.