Читать книгу Rose MacLeod - Alice Brown - Страница 4

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Electra was crossing the veranda with her springing step, bearing a glass of beaten egg and milk on a little tray. Madam Fulton signed to her to place the tray on a table, evidently ready for such ministrations, and then presented her friend. Electra greeted him with a smile of bright acceptance. She knew his standing, and his air of worldly ease quite satisfied her.

"May I bring you—?" she began, with a pretty grace.

"I should like a glass of water," said Billy, "if you will be so good."

When she had gone, Madam Fulton spoke in impressive haste:—

"How long can you stay, Billy? All day? All night?"

"I've got to run back to New York for a bit, but I shall be in America all summer, one place or another. I'll stay to luncheon, if you'll let me."

"We must avoid Electra! If she comes back and settles on us, I shall simply take you to walk. We can go over to Bessie Grant's. You remember her. She married the doctor."

"I remember."

Electra had returned with a glass and pitcher, and ice clinking pleasantly. She took occasion to explain to Madam Fulton, with some civil hesitation,—

"I have a committee meeting, grandmother. I had planned to go in town."

The old lady responded briskly.

"Go, my dear, go. Mr. Stark will stay to luncheon. We'll look out for each other."

When Electra had rustled away, after the pleasantest of farewell recognitions between her and the guest, Madam Fulton heaved a sigh.

"Billy," said she, "that's a dreadful girl."

"She's a very handsome girl. What's the matter with her?"

"She's so equipped. First, she's well born. Her grandmother was a Grace and her mother was a Vanderdecken. See her teeth. See her hair, and her profile. Dreadful!"

"They're very beautiful, in a correct way. She's as well made as a grand piano."

"That's it, Billy. And she has done nothing but polish herself, and now you can see your face in her. Fancy, Billy, what these modern creatures do. They go to gymnasium. They can take a five-barred gate, I believe, in their knickerbockers and what they call sneakers. They understand all about foods and what's good for them and what's good for the aged, and if you're over seventy they buy condensed foods in cans and make you take it twice a day."

"You haven't tasted your grog."

"I shan't. Want it?"

He accepted the glass, and sniffed at it critically.

"That's good," he commented. "That's very good. There's a familiar creature in that." He tasted, and then drank with gusto.

"Well," said the old lady disparagingly, "you wouldn't have said so if it had been one of the foods. I have them before I go to bed."

He spoke persuasively: "Florrie, let's talk a little more about the book."

"There's nothing more to say. I've told you the whole story, and I know you won't tell anybody else."

"Don't you think you'd better make a clean breast of it to Gilbert and Wall?"

"What for?"

"Well, I don't know exactly: only it seems to me publishers and authors are in a more or less confidential relation. Being a publisher myself, I naturally feel rather strongly about it."

"I don't see it in the least," said the old lady decisively. "All this talk about the paternal relation is mere poppycock. They print me a book. If it takes a start, they back it. They're as glad as I am. But as to telling them my glorious little joke, why, I can't and I won't."

"But, dear woman, they're printing away with full confidence in having got a valuable book out of you."

"So they have. It's selling, isn't it?"

"Madly. Specialists want it for honest data. The general reader has got an idea from the reviews that there's personal gossip in it, more or less racy. So it goes."

"Well, let it go," said the old lady recklessly. "I shan't stop it."

"No, but I can't help thinking Gilbert and Wall ought to be in the secret."

"Do you imagine they'd stop printing?"

"I don't imagine anything. I believe, to speak temperately, they'd drop dead. I only say it's a fearful and wonderful situation, and they ought to know it. You see, dear woman, you've not only played a joke on the public; you've played a joke on them."

"Well, for goodness' sake, why not? What's a publisher, anyway? Has he got to be treated like a Hindu god? Billy Stark, I wish you'd stayed in London where you belong."

Again Billy felt himself wheezing, and gave up to it as before. She watched him unwinkingly, and by and by she chuckled a little and then joined him, in an ecstasy.

"Florrie," said he, "you're simply a glorious portent, and you've no more moral sense than the cat."

"No, Billy, no!" She was answering in a happy acquiescence. "I never had any. I've always wanted some fun, and I want it to this day." Her old face changed surprisingly under a shade of gravity. "And see where it's led me." It was natural to conclude that her verdict embraced wider evidence than that of the erring book. Billy, quite serious in his turn, looked at her in candid invitation. She answered him earnestly and humbly: "Billy, I always took the wrong road. I took it in the beginning and I never got out of it."

"There's a frightful number of wrong turnings," Billy offered, in rather inadequate sympathy, "and a great deficiency of guideposts."

"You see, Billy, the first thing I did was to give up Charlie Grant and marry Mark Fulton. I was only a country girl. Charlie was a country boy. I thought Mark must be a remarkable person because he was a professor in Cambridge. I thought Charlie was going to be a poor little country doctor, because he was studying medicine with another country doctor, and he couldn't go to college to save his skin. There were eight children, you know, younger than he. He had to work on the farm. Well, Billy, I made a mistake."

Stark marveled at the crude simplicity of all this. He forgot, for the moment, that she was an old woman, and that for a long time she had been conning over the past like a secret record, full of blemishes, perhaps, but not now to be remedied.

"You did like Charlie," he ventured. "I knew that."

"I liked him very much. And I've never quite escaped from his line of life, if that's what they call it. Since Electra was alone and I came here to stay with her, I've been thrown with his widow. Bessie's an old woman, too, you know, like me. But she's a different kind."

"She was a pretty girl. Rather sedate, I remember, for a girl."

"Billy, she's a miracle. She lives alone, all but old Mary to do the work. She's stiffened from rheumatism so that she sits in her chair nearly all day, and stumps round a little, in agony, with two canes. But she's had her life."

"How has she had it, Florrie? In having Grant?"

"Because all her choices were good choices. She took him when he was poor, and she helped him work. They had one son. He married a singer, a woman—well, like me. Maybe it was in the blood to want a woman like me. Then this boy and the singer had two sons—one of them clever. Peter Grant, you know. I suppose he's a genius, if there are such. The other has—a deformity."

"I know," he nodded. "You wrote me."

"I didn't write you all. He wasn't born with it. He was a splendid boy, but when he had the accident the mother turned against him. She couldn't help it. I see how it was, Billy. The pride of life, that's what it is—the pride of life."

"Is he dwarfed?"

"Heavens! he was meant for a giant, rather. He has great strength. Somehow he impresses you. But it's the grandmother that built him up, body and brain. Now he's a man grown, and she's made him. Don't you see, Billy? she's struck home every time."

"Is she religious?"

"Yes, she is. She prays." Her voice fell, with the word. She looked at him searchingly, as if he might understand better than she did the potency of that communion.

"She's a Churchwoman, I suppose."

"No, no. She only believes things—and prays. She told me one day Osmond—he's the deformed one—he couldn't have lived if she hadn't prayed."

"That he would be better?"

"No, she was quite explicit about that. Only that they would be taught how to deal with it—his trouble. To do it, she said, as God wished they should. Billy, it's marvelous."

"Well, dear child," said Billy, "you can pray, too."

Her old face grew pinched in its denial.

"No," she answered sadly, "no. It wouldn't rise above the ceiling. What I mean is, Billy, that all our lives we're opening gates into different roads. Bessie Grant opened the right gate. She's got into a level field and she's at home there. But I shouldn't be. I only go and climb up and look over the bars. And I go stumbling along, hit or miss, and I never get anywhere."

He was perplexed. He frowned a little.

"Where do you want to get, Florrie?" he asked at length.

She smiled into his face engagingly.

"I don't know, Billy. Only where things don't bore me; where they are worth while."

"But they always get to bore us—" he paused and she took him up.

"You mean I'm bored because I am an old woman. I should say so, too, but then I look at that other woman and I know it isn't so. No, Billy, I took the wrong road."

Billy looked at her a long time searchingly.

"Well," he said at last, "what can we do about it? I mean, besides writing fake memoirs and then going ag'in our best friends when they beg us to own up?"

She put the question by, as if it could not possibly be considered, and yet as if it made another merry chapter to her jest. Billy had gathered his consolatory forces for another leap.

"Florrie," said he, "come back to London with me."

"My dear child!"

"You marry me, Florrie. I asked you fifty odd years ago. I could give you a good sober sort of establishment, a salon of a sort. I know everybody in arts and letters. Come on, Florrie."

Fire was in the old lady's eye. She rose and made him a pretty courtesy.

"Billy," said she, "you're splendid. I won't hold you to it, but it will please me to my dying day to think I've had another offer. No, Billy, no. You wouldn't like it. But you're splendid."

Billy, too, had risen. They took hands and stood like boy and girl looking into each other's eyes. There was a little suffusion, a tear perhaps, the memory of other times when coin did not have to be counted so carefully, when they could open the windows without inevitable dread of the night, its dark and chill. The old lady broke the moment.

"Come over and see Bessie Grant. What do you say?"

"Delighted. Get your hat."

But she appeared with a gay parasol, one of Electra's, appropriated from the stand with the guilty consideration that the owner would hardly be back before three o'clock. The old lady liked warm colors. She loved the bright earth in all its phases, and of these a parasol was one. They went down the broad walk and out into the road shaded by summer green, that quivering roof-work of drooping branches and many leaves.

"Billy," said she, "I'm glad you've come."

"So am I, Florrie; so am I."

It was not far to the old Grant house, rich in the amplitude of its size, and of the grounds, where all conceivable trees that make for profit and delight were colonized according to a wise judgment. The house was large, of a light yellow with white trimmings and green blinds, and the green of the shrubbery relieved it and endowed it with an austere dignity. There was a curving driveway to the door, and following it, they came to the wide veranda, where an old lady sat by herself, dozing and reflecting as Madam Fulton had done that morning. The two canes by her chair told the story of a sad inaction. She was of heroic stature and breadth. Her small, beautifully poised head had thick white hair rolled back and wound about in a soft coil. Her face, pink with a persistent bloom, soft with a contour never to break or grow old, was simply a mother's face. It had the mother look,—the sweet serious eyes, the low brow, for beauty not for thought, the tranquil mouth. She was dressed in a fine cambric simply made, with little white ruffles about her neck and above her motherly hands. Madam Fulton saw her debating as they came, frowning a little, wondering evidently about the stranger. She called to her.

"Who is this, Bessie Grant?"

The other woman laid a hand upon her canes, and then, as if this were an instinctive movement, yet not to be undertaken hurriedly, smiled and sat still, awaiting them. When they were at the steps, she spoke in an exceedingly pleasant voice. It deepened the effect of her great gentleness.

"I'm sure I don't know. Come right up and tell me."

They mounted the steps together, and Stark put out his hand. Mrs. Grant studied him for a moment. Light broke over her sweet old face.

"It's Billy Stark," she said.

"Of course it is," triumphed the other old lady. "Billy Stark come back from foreign parts as good as new. Now let's sit down and talk it over."

They drew their chairs together, and, smiles and glances mingling, went back over the course of the years, first with a leap to the keen, bright time when they were in school together. The type of that page was clear-cut and vivid. There were years they skipped then, and finally they came to the present, and Billy said,—

"You have two grandsons?"

"Yes. One lives with me. The other is coming home to-morrow. He's the painter."

"Engaged to Electra," added Madam Fulton. "Did you know that? They are to be married this summer. Then I suppose he'll go back to Paris and she'll go with him."

Mrs. Grant was looking at her with a grave attention.

"We hope not," she said, "Osmond and I. Osmond hopes Peter will settle here and do some work. He thinks it will be best for him."

"There's no difficulty about his getting it," said Billy. "I saw his portrait of Mrs. Rhys. That was amazing."

The grandmother nodded, in a quiet pleasure.

"They said so," she returned.

"It will do everything for him."

"It has done everything. Osmond says he has only to sit down now and paint. But he thinks it will be best for him to do it here—at least for a time."

"How in the world can Osmond tell before he sees him?" objected Madam Fulton. "You haven't set eyes on Peter for five years. He may be Parisian to the backbone. You wouldn't want to tie him by the leg over here."

"So Osmond says. But he hopes he won't want to go back."

"I can tell him one thing," said the other old lady; "he'd better make up his mind to some big centre, Paris or New York, or he won't get Electra. Electra knows what she wants, and it isn't seclusion. She is going to be the wife of a celebrated painter, and she'll insist on the perquisites. I know Electra."

Mrs. Grant smiled in deprecation; but Stark had a habit of intuitive leaps, and he judged that she also knew Electra. His mind wandered a little, as his eyes ran over the nearer features of the place. It hardly suggested wealth: only comfort and beauty, the grace that comes of long devotion, the loving eye, the practiced hand. Somebody's heart had been put into it. This was the labor that was not hired. He had a strong curiosity to see Osmond, and yet he could not ask for him because Madam Fulton had once written him some queer tale of the man's sleeping in the woods, in a house of his own building, and living the wild life his body needed. One thing he learned now: Osmond's name was never out of his grandmother's mouth. She quoted his decisions as if they stood for ultimate wisdom. His ways were good and lovely to her.

The forenoon hour went by, and finally Madam Fulton remembered.

"Bless me!" she said. "It's luncheon time. Come, Billy."

The road was brighter now under the mounting sun. Madam Fulton was a little tired, and they walked silently. Presently, at her own gate, she suggested, not grudgingly, but as if the charm of goodness was, unhappily, assured,—

"I suppose she's lovely!"

"Great! She's one of those creatures that have good mother-stuff in them. It doesn't matter much what they mother. It's there. It's a kind of force. It helps—I don't know exactly how."

"Now can't you see what I mean? That woman has had big things. She had one of the great loves. She built it up, piece by piece, with Charlie. He kept a devotion for her that wasn't to be compared with the tempest he felt about me. I'm sure of that."

Stark looked at her as they walked, his eyes perplexedly denying the evidence of his ears.

"Do you know, Florrie," he said, "it's incredible to hear you talk so."

"Why?"

"You have a zest for life, a curiosity about it. Why, it's simply tremendous."

"No, Billy, no. It's not tremendous. It's only that I am quite convinced I haven't got my money's worth. Late as it is, I want it yet. I'll have it—if it's only playing jokes on publishers!"

They ate together in the shaded room, and Madam Fulton, looking out through the windows at the terrace, realized, with an almost humble gratitude, that the world itself and the simple joys of it were quite different tasted in comradeship. She forgot Electra and the irritated sense that her well-equipped granddaughter was wooing her to the ideals of a higher life.

"Billy," she said again, "I'm uncommon glad you came."

Billy's heart warmed with responsive satisfaction He had expected a more or less colorless meeting with his old love, a philosophic reference here and there to vanished youth, a twilight atmosphere of waning days; but here she was, living as hard as ever. And he had brightened her; he had given her pleasure. The complacency of it reacted upon him, and he sought about in his clever mind for another drop to fill the beaker. By the time they had finished their coffee, he knew.

"Florrie," said he, "what if you should put on your hat and take the train with me?"

"My stars, Billy! Run away?"

"Come up to town. We'd scare up some kind of a theatre this evening, and in the morning you could see Gilbert and Wall."

"And 'fess? Not by a great sight! But I'd like to go, Billy. Leave out Gilbert and Wall, make it you and me, and I'm your man."

"Come along."

"Worry Electra to death!" she proffered brightly. "I'll do it, Billy. Here's the key of my little flat, right here on the writing-desk. I never stayed there alone, but there's no reason why I shouldn't. You can come round in the morning, to see if I've had a fit, and if I haven't we'll go to breakfast. But we must take the three o'clock. She'll be back by four."

She got her bonnet and her handbag, and when Electra did come back at four, her grandmother had flown, leaving a note behind.