Читать книгу Cherry Square - Grace S. Richmond - Страница 4

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"Schuyler! What a send-off! It looks like the stateroom of a popular débutante."

Dr. Schuyler Wendell Chase drew his wife Sally inside the door and closed it. "Never mind what it looks like," he said. "I'll soon have most of it distributed in the steerage. The thing that comes over me just now is that you're not going with me."

He set three baskets of flowers, five hampers of fruit, and a package of books and magazines out of the way, so that he and Sally could sit down. He hadn't taken the trouble to scan the accompanying cards; he knew well enough which of his parishioners were likely to have demonstrated their regret at parting and their good wishes for the voyage in this marked way. That largest basket with the biggest bow of ribbon was sure to be from Miss Adler, and the hint of a frown between his handsome eyebrows suggested her clergyman's distaste. To the credit of Doctor Chase he didn't much enjoy the conspicuous worship of women, but there seemed no way to avoid it wholly. At forty-two he was still so young, so good-looking, and withal so unquestionably able, that his popularity was a thing which followed as the dust the chariot.

"Just throw a kiss at the places we've been together," commanded Sally, "as you pass by. And when you come to Nice——"

"When I come to Nice," promised Schuyler Chase, "I'll write you such a letter as you've never had yet. Sally, I wouldn't go without you, if——"

"If I didn't make you. Yes, I know that. Well, I am making you because you need to get away, not only from the church and its Miss Adlers and Mrs. Brabants and the other devotees, but from me, myself."

He smiled. "I know you think so, and probably you're right. You usually are. The converse of that statement must be equally true—or more so. And you're a trump about it. But I'll be so eager to get back to you I'll probably jump off the ship and swim in when we come up the bay."

"I'll swim out to meet you, Schuy," she promised him.

Except for a long minute which they spent in each other's arms, that was all the real leave-taking they could indulge in. Almost at once the stateroom was besieged by the bearers of more flowers, more fruit, more sheaves of magazines. A great bundle of letters and telegrams was brought to Doctor Chase. A group of people came down to see the quarters of the three clergymen who were to occupy the commodious stateroom together. The other two clergymen summoned Schuyler Chase back to the deck to receive the hails and farewells of a large delegation of men from his church—much larger than those from their own churches, though they were well known, too. Altogether——

"It's enough to spoil him," said one friend to another, watching the scene. He was not a devotee—his head was too level.

The other nodded. He also had a level head. "He carries it very well, but he's only human, and I sometimes think he shows the strain of trying not to seem spoiled. If it weren't for that sensible, charming wife of his—— Look at her now. Flattery'll never turn her head, and she won't let it turn his. It would be a fool who could look her in the eye and say, 'See how popular I am.' She'd laugh at him. I presume she laughs at Chase just often enough to keep his brain cool."

Sally Chase, looking fresh and fit in her street clothes, was standing by her husband in the midst of the group which surrounded him.

"What shall we do without him so many months!" sighed one large woman, elegantly turned out and obviously sentimental. Mrs. Schuyler Chase showed her a smiling face.

"Extremely well, I know, Mrs. Brabant," she said. "And think how he needs to do without us for a time."

"My dear! . . . But I know he must be fearfully tired. I've thought he's looked so worn these last few weeks. His face is more beautiful than ever, through his weariness. More saint-like—I could have wept to look at him last Sunday, when he said good-bye to us. I felt at first I couldn't come down to see him off, and then I thought—we must be with him to the last—make him feel he's taking us with him."

"Heaven forbid!" thought Sally Chase. Mrs. Brabant was one of her pet aversions, anyway; and just now she seemed rather more absurd than usual. "My idea is to have him feel he isn't taking us with him." Schuyler Chase's wife couldn't resist sounding this note again. "Every man, particularly every minister, needs to get away from the thought of his parish for a while. Never mind"— she was aware of Mrs. Brabant's growing indignation—"he'll be as delighted to come back as he is to go."

"You ought to be going with him, Mrs. Chase," put in another woman, a tall, thin person with a pointed nose, who had been listening with unmixed pleasure to Mrs. Brabant's little discomfiture at the hands of the minister's wife. "Of course you would be, if it weren't for the dear children."

"I'm sure I shouldn't, really, Mrs. Crosby," declared Sally. "I believe so thoroughly in sending husbands off on vacations, as well as ministers."

They were used to their minister's wife, and knew her to be kind as well as frank. She was the happy possessor of so much personal charm that she seldom really offended. They watched her now, with peculiar interest mixed with envy. It must be very wonderful, thought these admiring ones, to be the wife of such a husband; no wonder she could be gay. Though how she could be gay to-day was difficult to see. Wasn't she losing—him?

After all, and in spite of the too zealous ones, it was a pleasant scene. Tall Schuyler Chase, slender and elegant in clothes unclerical, his heavy chestnut hair smooth and gleaming under the May sunlight, his beautifully cut lips parting over a flash of white teeth as he sent to one and another his quick-witted replies and retorts, was a figure to command attention. Only his wife was likely to note the slight twitch in the upper lip, the tiny involuntary jerk of the comely head, which to her betrayed her husband's tension. He was always taut under any publicity—how well she knew that! And he was tired from the long strain of the year's work—tired and thin, and of late nearly sleepless. It was time he got away.

Preaching to such audiences as he commanded meant that he went into his pulpit strung to the highest pitch. Though his pulpit manner was so poised and natural that he seemed to be absolutely at his ease, Sally knew it to be the result of the sternest self-control. And when he chose to exercise that peculiar attraction of his, which fairly compelled many of his hearers to his point of view by its own all but hypnotic power, he did it always at a cost. There was such prodigal expense of nerve and sinew that afterward—an hour afterward—when she saw him at home, he was limp and pallid, and the touch of his hand was coldly damp. All the spring he had been showing what seemed to her a more than normal exhaustion after each public appearance. Yes, it was time he got away, even from her, upon whom he depended for help in restoring his balance when it had been upset in a way no member of his great congregations even dreamed of. His physician, Dr. Richard Fiske, to whom he now and then applied, when his occasional spells of insomnia became too frequent, understood this clearly.

Yes, Sally was glad to see him go, though when the moment of parting came she felt the wrench poignantly, as she had known she would. People crowding round left her the chance only for the brief clasp and kiss permitted to good taste even in shipboard farewells, but she felt that Schuyler hated leaving her, and that was all she needed to be sure of. Their eyes clung for a moment as they drew apart, and Schuyler murmured: "God keep you, dear." She nodded, smiling her most splendid smile. Then she was rushed off the ship by a friendly pillar of the church who especially admired Mrs. Schuyler Chase, and who took her in charge with a distinct thrill of pleasure in his mature breast. From the pier she waved back at Schuyler until his face was lost in the dimming blue of distance, then turned with Mr. Pierpont and hurried back to her car, into which he put her in his most gallant manner.

"Yes, I suppose the country is the best place for you and the children," he said, leaning in at the window of her motor, his striking iron-gray head bare in the May sunshine. "But we shall miss you from the Manse. Where did you say you were going? Cherry Hills? Cherry trees there, or some long-established family, to give it the name?"

"My mother's family, Mr. Pierpont. My aunt—Mother's sister—left the old place to me; I used to visit there with the greatest joy when I was a girl."

"You still look like one, Mrs. Chase." His admiring gaze rested upon Sally's fair colouring and the exquisite texture of her skin. "You'll merely be the oldest of your children as they romp about the country. I hope you have saddle horses there?"

"I shall find some. I mean to spend much time with the children, as you suggest. Life in the Manse doesn't leave me many hours for them, and they're growing so fast."

"Forget all the organizations and the complications of the city parish," he advised. "They're harder on the minister's family than most people guess. You've been an ideal wife for your genius of a husband—you've earned a vacation, too. See that you take it, if you want us who are devoted to you both to be satisfied."

Sally's eyes responded to this pleasant little speech, and she gave back the friendly pressure of the hand offered her—that of a magnate in worldly affairs who found much time to give to the church as well.

"When you come motoring through Cherry Hills with Mrs. Pierpont this summer, be sure to look us up. Or are you going abroad?"

"My wife and daughters probably will, as usual. Not I—I can't get my rest that way. I'll be glad to hunt up Cherry Hills and pay you a call. The name sounds enticing."

"It's really quite lovely there. We'll expect you."

She looked after his erect, massive figure as he turned away, hat still in his hand, and thought gleefully how good it was going to be to escape for a time from all these familiar contacts, full of kindness though they were. Not to have to be thoughtful of consequences over every smallest word or deed; not to have to consider each step she took, to give her time when she had none to spare, her smiles when she felt like frowning, her advice when she knew she needed it more than those who came to confide in her. She would be off for the country as fast as she could finish the packing and go! She had not meant to leave till to-morrow—she would speed things up and get away to-night. Plenty of time—the ship had sailed at ten in the morning. With Schuyler gone the dignified dark walls of the Manse would be gloomy enough; she would forsake them before the sun set.

It took all her executive ability to accomplish this plan—and she was famous for that in the parish, and could rush a group of women through a business meeting with as little loss of time as is possible when there are several divergent opinions and the will to speak them. She telephoned Norah O'Grady first of all, and though she got back a somewhat flurried: "I'll be doin' the best I can, Mrs. Chase, an' I'll be ready someways," she turned away with a sense of being already almost at her goal.

"Just have the beds made, and some sandwiches and milk," she had directed, and had smiled to realize that she was already comfortably letting down in her requirements. The Manse had to be ready for visitors at any moment of the day, almost of the night; at Cherry House she meant to be as vagabond as a fastidious preference for order would permit.

And she was taking nobody with her except the children and the servants. . . . Blessed, glorious vacation!

(From Josephine Jenney's Note-book

Made dash to see Julian. Told him of coming adventure. He went straight up into the air.

"No! My Lord, no! Jo, you can't—shan't! I won't have it!"

"Yes, you will, dear. It's exactly the thing. I'm wildly excited about it. I'll write you all sorts of funny letters—you'll love getting them."

"I'll hate them! I tell you I won't have it! Stop it—stop the thing! Oh, Jo!—--"

Got him quieted and fairly reasonable at last. Left him with his head in his hands—tragic Julian! . . . But he'll see how wise a plan it is, presently. No other would keep me in Cherry Hills, where I need to be.