Читать книгу The Congressman's Wife - John D. Barry - Страница 5

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“Well, I guess I am mad! I’ve never been treated so in all my life!”

Miss Beatrice Wing swept indignantly down the stairs into the conservatory. The interior of the house, planned after the Colonial fashion, was filled with surprising little flights of steps and with delightful irregularities.

“Still, it was a very good supper,” said Mrs. McShane behind her. She kept hesitating before the younger woman’s elaborate train. Her voice was one of those plaintive little pipes that belong to many small and timid women. Compared with Miss Wing and her radiant millinery, she seemed shriveled and impoverished.

“Oh, what difference does it make, anyway?” This time the voice was loud and sonorous. It came from William Farley, Washington correspondent of the New York Gazette, a thick-set man with a face that was boyish in spite of the fine web of wrinkles around each eye. He looked the personification of amiability, and was plainly amused by the young woman’s indignation.

Miss Wing sank into one of the wicker seats and proceeded to fan herself vigorously, throwing back her head and letting the light flash from the gems on her round, white neck. “Well, I believe in standing on your dignity.”

“I didn’t know we had any,” said Farley, with a laugh.

Miss Wing turned to a young woman who was extravagantly dressed in a gray-flowered silk, and who had just followed Mrs. McShane down the steps. “Listen to that, will you, Emily? I once heard Mrs. Briggs say that she hated newspaper people,” she added, to the group.

Farley looked down from the head of the steps and smiled pleasantly. “That doesn’t sound like Mrs. Briggs!”

Miss Wing sat bolt upright and let her fan drop into her lap. “Well, if I had known we were going to be shoved off for supper to a side room like that, I’d never have come. I didn’t come as a reporter, anyway.”

“What did you come as?” Farley asked, as he slowly descended the stairs, brushing against the tall palms on either side. From the other rooms music came faintly, mingled with talk and laughter.

“I came as a friend of Congressman Briggs,” Miss Wing replied, with spirit.

Farley took a seat at a small table beside the miniature fountain. In the little stream that ran through the grass goldfish were nervously darting. “Wasn’t the invitation sent to the office?” He drew out some sheets of paper and proceeded to make notes. He had the air of not taking the discussion seriously. More important affairs were on his mind.

“No matter. It was addressed to me personally.” Miss Wing turned for corroboration to Emily Moore, who had sunk into the seat near her.

“So was mine,” Miss Moore echoed.

Farley smiled, without glancing up from his writing. “How about yours, Mrs. McShane?”

Mrs. McShane, who always looked frightened, seemed at this moment painfully conscious of the shabbiness of her black silk gown. But she managed to reply: “I found mine in my letter-box this afternoon.”

“It had been sent to the paper, of course,” Farley remarked, decisively, as if expecting no answer.

Mrs. McShane nodded. “I’ve never done anything like this before. I do the temperance column in the Saturday paper, and the news of the churches.”

The young women exchanged glances.

“Oh, well,” Farley remarked, cheerfully, “these ladies will help you out. I’m relying on them for the dresses myself.”

Miss Wing and Miss Moore rose and walked to the farthest corner of the conservatory. By some physical expression they seemed to wish to indicate that a marked difference existed between themselves and the shabby, careworn little figure in black.

Mrs. McShane looked relieved. Her face brightened. “It’s a beautiful reception, isn’t it?” she said to Farley, in an awe-stricken voice.

Farley looked vaguely about the room, as if making an estimate. “Yes,” he said, slowly. “It must have cost Briggs a tidy bit of money.”

Mrs. McShane opened wide her eyes. “And the champagne!” she whispered.

Miss Wing, who had started to walk slowly back to the table, exclaimed to her companion:

“And we didn’t have a chance to see anything!”

“Oh, well, you can go in after they’ve finished,” Farley remarked, good-naturedly.

Miss Wing assumed an air of decision. “I shall complain to Congressman Briggs of the way we’ve been treated.”

“Oh, let him alone,” said Farley. “He’s got enough on his mind. Besides, in our business it doesn’t pay to be ruffled by little things.”

“Well, I don’t see why newspaper work should prevent us from keeping our self-respect!” Miss Wing exclaimed, excitedly. “To be treated like a lot of servants!”

“Or like people who have forced themselves in, without being invited!” Miss Moore added.

Farley, however, kept on writing. “To do newspaper work,” he commented, with exasperating coolness, “you mustn’t have any feelings.”

“The people you meet certainly don’t!” snapped Miss Moore.

Miss Wing turned in the direction of the drawing-room, where, from the sound of voices, most of the guests seemed to be gathering. “Well, I’d like to know who these people are, that they presume to treat us so,” she said, speaking in a loud voice, as if she wished to be overheard. “Who is Mrs. Briggs, anyway? And who are all this rag-and-bobtail? The Wings of Virginia have something back of them. They haven’t got their respectability from political trickery, anyway.”

Mrs. McShane, who had been sitting, with bewilderment in her eyes, as if hardly knowing what to do, suddenly appealed to Farley. “I’ve got to get my copy in by one o’clock at the latest,” she said in a whisper. “It must be nearly twelve now.”

“Come and get down to work, then, before anyone comes in here,” Farley replied. “I suppose you have the list of guests that young Fullerton passed round?”

As Mrs. McShane and Farley bent over the table, the butler entered, bearing a tray covered with cups of coffee. Mrs. McShane and Farley took coffee, which they sipped as they worked. The others refused it. As Farley took his cup he said, “Good-evening, Michael,” and the man smiled and replied, “Good-evening, sir.”

“I feel like tearing up my list,” said Miss Wing, as she held the printed slip in her gloved hand. “I see,” she went on, addressing Miss Moore, “they’ve got the Westmorelands down. Is Lady Westmoreland here?” she asked, as Michael was about to ascend the steps.

“She’s been here, ma’am, but she went away before supper.”

Miss Wing’s lip curled. “Oh, well, they got her, didn’t they?” Before Michael had time to vanish she cried: “And is Stone here?”

“Who, ma’am?” the servant asked, turning again. His manner subtly conveyed resentment and dislike.

Miss Wing repeated: “Mr. Stone.”

“He’s in the drawing-room, ma’am; I just saw him in there.”

Miss Wing turned to her companion. “Just think of their having Stone here! Suppose we go and see if we can find him? I’d like to see how he looks in society. I shouldn’t be surprised to find him in his shirt sleeves. Well, Congressman Briggs knows which side his bread is buttered on. He keeps solid with the Boss.”

Farley stopped work for a moment. “I wonder who prepared this list!” he said to Mrs. McShane. “Good idea!”

“How do you happen to be doing society work, Mr. Farley?” the old woman asked.

Farley smiled. “Well, it is rather out of my line, I must admit. If I had to do this sort of thing very much I’d quit the business. But our little Miss Carey is sick, and she was afraid she’d lose her job if she didn’t cover this.”

The wistful look deepened in Mrs. McShane’s face. “So you said you’d do it! You must have a kind heart, Mr. Farley. Oh, I wish they’d give a description of the dresses with the list of guests!” she added, despairingly. “It would save us a lot of bother.”

“I’ve a good mind to fake my stuff about the frocks,” Miss Wing interposed.

Mrs. McShane looked shocked. “But suppose your managing editor should find it out?”

“Pooh! What do editors know about frocks?” Miss Wing spoke with a fine superiority. “I’ve noticed that they always like my faked things best, anyway.”

“You have a wonderful imagination, dear,” Miss Moore remarked, admiringly.

“Well, I don’t know how I’d ever get through my articles if I didn’t. The last time I went over to New York I called on all the leading women tailors and dressmakers, and I couldn’t get a thing out of them, and the next day I had to write five thousand words on the new Spring fashions.”

Miss Moore rolled her eyes. “What in the world did you do?” she said, with an affectation of voice and manner that suggested years of practice.

Miss Wing smiled. “Well,” she replied, after a moment, “I had a perfectly beautiful time writing that article. I made up everything in it. I prophesied the most extraordinary changes in women’s clothes. And do you know, some of them have really come about since! I suppose some of the other papers copied my stuff. And then, I actually invented some new materials!”

The pupils of Miss Moore’s eyes expanded in admiration. “I wish I had your nerve!” she said, earnestly.

Under the warmth of flattery Miss Wing began to brighten. “And what do you suppose happened?” she said, exultantly. “The paper had a whole raft of letters asking where those materials could be bought. One woman out in Ohio declared she’d been in New York, and she’d hunted everywhere to get the embossed silk that I’d described.”

Farley smiled grimly. “That woman’s going to get along in the world,” he muttered to Mrs. McShane. “In five years she’ll be a notorious lobbyist, with a hundred thousand dollars in the bank.”

By this time Miss Wing had tired of the isolation of the conservatory. The interest of the evening was plainly centred in the drawing-room. “Come, dear,” she said, drawing her arm around Miss Moore’s, “let’s walk about and get a look at the people.”

As the two women started to mount the steps they were met by Franklin West, whose smiling face suddenly lost and resumed its radiance as his eyes caught sight of them. The effect was not unlike that of the winking of an electric light. The women either did not observe, or they deliberately ignored the effect upon him of the encounter, or possibly they misinterpreted it. At any rate, it made no appreciable diminution of their own expression of pleasure.

Miss Wing extended her hand. “Why, how do you do, Mr. West?” Miss Moore only smiled; in the presence of her companion she seemed instinctively to reduce herself to a subordinate position.

Franklin West took the gloved hand, that gave a pressure somewhat more prolonged than the conventional greeting. “I’m delighted to see you here,” he said, the radiance of his smile once more firmly established. His face, Miss Wing noticed, was unusually flushed. She suspected that he was ill at ease. As he spoke he showed his large white teeth, and his brown eyes, that would have been handsome but for their complete lack of candor, wore a friendly glow. Miss Wing considered West one of the most baffling men in Washington, and one of the most fascinating. His features were strong and bold; his chin would have been disagreeably prominent but for the good offices of his thick black mustache, which created a pleasant regularity of outline. His complexion was singularly clear for a man’s, and he had noticeably long and beautiful hands. Miss Wing had often wondered how old he was. He might have been forty; he might have been fifty; he could easily have passed for a man of thirty-five. His was plainly one of those natures that turn a smiling front on life. In fact, Franklin West had long since definitely formulated an agreeable system of philosophy: he liked to say that it was far better for a man not to try to adjust circumstances to himself, but to adjust himself to circumstances; that, after all, was the only true secret of living, especially—but he usually made this comment to himself alone—of living in a city like Washington. At this moment he was adjusting himself to a most unpleasant circumstance, for in his attitude toward women he had a few decided prejudices, one of the strongest of which was typified by the Washington woman correspondent.

“Where are you going?” he asked, when he had offered his hand to Miss Moore, vainly searching for her name in the catalogue of newspaper acquaintances. These newspaper people were great bores; but he must be civil to them.

“Well, we felt like going home,” Miss Wing pouted. “But now that you’re here, perhaps we’ll stay.”

West looked at her with an expression of exaggerated solicitude. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“We’ve been neglected—shamefully,” Miss Wing replied.

“They put us in a side-room,” Miss Moore interposed, “with the reporters.”

“It’s a mistake, of course,” West remarked. “Mrs. Briggs will be very sorry when she hears about it. Have you been through the rooms?”

Miss Wing shook her head. “We haven’t been anywhere,” she said, plaintively.

“Then let me take you into the drawing-room. Mrs. Briggs is——”

“She’s always near where you are, Mr. West,” Miss Wing interrupted, with a malicious smile. “I feel as if I had no right to appropriate you.” She glanced affectionately at her companion. “Shall we go, dear, or shall we send him back to our hostess?”

“I think we ought to send him back,” Miss Moore replied, taking her cue.

Miss Wing turned to West, her face shining with generosity. “So run along. We’ll be generous—for once.”

For a moment West looked confused. Then he recovered himself. “I certainly do admire Mrs. Briggs, but that doesn’t keep me—” he assumed his most intense look—“from admiring others.”

Miss Wing threw back her fine shoulders. “Oh, if you’re going to pay compliments, we’ll certainly keep you. Come along, dear.”