Читать книгу Butterfly - Kathleen Thompson Norris - Страница 5

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Craig Spaulding came down to the office the next morning, and the entire factory immediately felt the benefit of the new influence in the place. He had a big desk in his uncle’s room, as befitted the president’s son and prospective owner of the plant, but he also had a desk in the outer office, where Hilary and old Kraut spent their days, and, in the beginning, there was hardly an hour when he did not refer to the girl for information or direction.

“She’s remarkable; she ought to be in the city office,” he told his uncle. “We’ll have to do something about that trip to Europe!” But to Hilary he made no sign, except by his always-ready, quiet smile of thanks, and his respectful and appreciative manner. They worked together, side by side, day after day, and Hilary noted that his attitude toward her never changed from the pleasant, friendly aspect he had shown her on the very first night of their acquaintance.

But on her side this was not the case. She was bewildered by the persistence with which her thoughts played with the entirely improbable rôle of her being his wife. Hilary was essentially practical, any good thing that had ever come her way she had always seized, for herself and Dora. Now, against her will, her thoughts were all of the immense advantage of a good marriage—of this marriage. Whether to be most angry or most amused at herself she did not know; what she did know was that Craig must never have cause to suspect that his uncle’s secretary, “like half the other idiot women of his acquaintance,” Hilary phrased it in her thoughts, had fallen in love with him, and was busy with a hundred details of the wedding as she demurely went about his office.

At least, Hilary supposed that what she felt was the process known as falling in love. She had had no other experience with which to compare it. She would never have supposed herself capable of such folly, had not the actual evidence been constantly with her, the quick sense of colour leaving or flooding her face, the bewildering disquiet of her senses, her acute consciousness of Craig’s presence, her ridiculous jealousy when he went away, to be with other people, and above all and under all, an uneasy sense that she must not let this extraordinary opportunity, if it was an opportunity, escape her. His interest, his money and position, would solve the great problem of poverty once and for all. Besides, he was brilliant and charming. His least word to her she remembered, and she eagerly gathered such crumbs as fell from the loaded table of his casual conversation.

He knew everything, and every place, and everyone worth while, she thought. Writers, diplomats, prominent persons of all sorts were his friends. He was at home in the most exclusive houses in the land; phrases about tennis, about books, about travel, as he uttered them, fascinated her.

Like many another pretty woman, Hilary grew actually beautiful in this time of hopes and dreams. She did not seriously analyze the situation herself; there was nothing to analyze. But Dora noted the change in her, the softness in her blue eyes, the glow of her cheeks, the loosened beauty of the rich soft hair that Hilary had always kept so primly close and plain.

“Hilary, what’s the matter with you?” Dora asked more than once.

“Matter?” Hilary would compose her dancing heart and dancing eyes into something like their old decorum.

“Yes. You didn’t hear me! Did the tickets come?”

“The——? Oh, Kronski, of course. Yes, they came.” But Hilary’s smile still held behind it something that baffled Dora. It was as if the elder sister were meditating upon some delectable secret.

She had her bad times. There were hours when the obvious chasm between her lot and Craig’s caused her the keenest depression. What an idiot she was to let herself enjoy this purely accidental propinquity, she would reflect. He knew dozens of girls—hundreds—who could offer him all that she could, and a thousand times more! They haunted him, these fortunate, exquisite girls; they telephoned him from New York, included him in their plans. They bought glorious frocks at the Avenue shops, chattered about concerts and riding-lessons, they were little triumphs of beauty and culture and sophistication and charm! When he went to New York, as he frequently did on Saturday afternoons, Hilary was actually unhappy and uneasy; and with all her old level-headed philosophy she could not laugh herself out of it.

Still, men did fall in love with girls, and marry them, she reasoned. And she was a gentlewoman, and her blood was as good as his own——

But what nonsense, what nonsense, what nonsense! Even had she had anything to build upon, any tender word of admiring glance from Craig, this would be rank treason to what all her life had been building and planning: Dora, and Dora’s trip, must come first. She could not indulge in any personal dream. Had she not promised her father to be loyal to his hopes, and her mother’s hopes, for Dora? Was this ridiculous and baseless dream to make Hilary wretched, and perhaps to wreck Dora’s future as well?

She had nothing to encourage it, she told herself with bitter honesty. There was hardly a woman of his acquaintance whose claim upon Craig was not more substantial than her own. And the world, Hilary, under the impression that she was concluding the topic once and for all, reminded herself—the world was full of amorous stenographers falling in love with their employers. It must stop.

But it did not stop. Hilary was young; younger in this particular phase of her nature than are most girls of twenty-three, and she had never met a man of Craig’s type before. She could only conceal her ridiculous day-dream, and trust that the passing of a few months would restore her to her usual common sense, and effect a complete cure.

One icy afternoon, when Craig had been about three weeks in Mount Holly, they were alone in the office. John Spaulding and his wife were with a married daughter, in Philadelphia, and old Kraut was at home with a heavy cold. Hilary had been quite aware of the situation all day as she went demurely about with invoices and correspondence; Craig had busied himself in the inner office, coming to her door only for an occasional inquiry or comment upon the work of the day.

The sky had been lowering and bleak all day; now the first shy flakes of what promised to be a genuine blizzard began to fall upon the packed and dirty snow of Washington Street; lights shone pinkly out across it from the stores, and shoppers began to hurry home, commenting in neighbourly fashion upon the weather as they piled bundles into Fords, or gathered up shabby reins.

In the outer office Hilary’s air-tight stove was roaring, and the droplights in their dangling green cones made pools of rich light here and there. She was finishing her letters busily at half-past four when Craig came out of the inner office, lighted a cigarette, and sat down comfortably at Kraut’s desk, leaning back in the swivel chair, and watching her idly with smiling eyes.

“Pleasant about that Abbott matter, wasn’t it?” he asked her, when she had reached the stamping stage.

“Thrown out of court—yes, he had no case!” Hilary answered, tranquilly, with her friendly smile. But her heart came to an odd stop, twisted, wrenched itself straight again, and went on at double speed. Perhaps this was the beginning——!

“By the way, my uncle and aunt may go to the Kronski concert on Saturday night,” Craig said, suddenly. “I heard him in New York last week, you know. He made a tremendous hit.”

“You told me,” Hilary said, wishing desperately that she were one of the women who could always say something bright and unexpected.

“How do you go?” Craig pursued.

“On Saturday? We take the two o’clock train for Philadelphia, and have supper there,” Hilary answered.

“And it’s a great event for you and little sister?”

“Oh, rather!” She must interest him, she thought, and not sit here answering him stupidly, like a person filling out a blank. “It’s her career, you know,” she ventured further. “My mother and my father had set their hearts upon Dora’s success!”

“Yes, but what do you personally feel about it,” Craig asked, with his keen air of interest. “Do you think the child has the perseverance and patience in her?”

A week ago Hilary would have answered this with a rush of enthusiastic details; she would have given him all her hopes and plans for Dora in a glad confusion. But she had had her lesson; if he could be reserved, she could be reserved, too.

She hated to remember the few words that had passed between them a week ago. Yet she did remember them, with a flaming face, every night when she was in bed, and many times during the day. It had happened one afternoon when Craig, passing her desk, had looked at Dora’s picture—the clumsy old graduation picture of Dora that made her look fat and hoydenish, and yet that recalled to Hilary all of Dora’s beauty and slimness!—and had asked carelessly:

“Where do you and this prodigy of yours keep yourselves hidden, Miss Collier?”

“In the cottage next to the old Carolan house—what they call the Carolan kitchen down Sugarhouse Lane!” Hilary had answered, she hated to remember how readily. And she had added, “Why don’t you come dine with us some night—we’re all by ourselves—and let us play for you?”

“Thank you. That would be delightful!” Craig had said. But between his quiet words and her own Hilary had had time to realize—or perhaps his expression had enlightened her—just the impropriety of such an invitation, and her heart had been sick within her. She was his uncle’s employee; she knew his aunt merely in a formal way; she was not entertained at the Spaulding house, nor did she move in the Spaulding set.

A town like Mount Holly is merciless in such small social distinctions; full consciousness of them flooded Hilary even as she spoke. She had seemed ready to assume that Craig Spaulding might wish to begin a friendship that would be instantly recognized from one end of the town to the other as highly significant. How could he come to the little house in Sugarhouse Lane from the Spauldings’ mansion, where Hilary was not invited and accepted?

Covered with miserable confusion, she had allowed the conversation to end with no suggestion of a definite date for the proposed dinner, and since that day she had burned with humiliation to realize that Craig had not reopened the subject. She had even fancied that his dignity and inscrutability had been a little more marked than usual since then.

So that to-day’s little overture of friendship was more than normally welcome, and Hilary was on her guard to show no sign of anything in her manner not strictly in accordance with mere business civility.

“That is the only thing that ever worries me,” she admitted now. “Dora. She’s like my father, you know, and he was restless—moody.”

Anything of this sort interested Craig acutely; he had followed up many a charity case, analyzed the personality of the enlisted men under him, marvelled at the miracles of individuality that are incessantly displaying themselves in this curious world.

“Tell me about that—not morbid?” he asked, sympathetically.

“Morbid! Dora?” Hilary echoed, cheerfully. “You never saw anybody so normal and so sweet-tempered most of the time! But that’s just it,” she added, knitting her forehead distressedly, “she’s almost too normal. I want her to be a freak,” Hilary confessed, whimsically. “Freaks succeed. I don’t want her—she’s so pretty!—to fall in love with some man——” She suddenly recalled, and interrupted herself; her tone flattened. “However, she won’t!” she concluded, smilingly.

“And suppose you do?” Craig asked, still watching her with his pleasant, interested expression. This was carrying the war into her camp; Hilary was conscious of a spasmodic action of her heart. “You aren’t supposed to sacrifice your whole life to your little sister, I suppose?” he added.

“T-t-time to think of that when it c-c-comes!” stuttered Hilary. “Why don’t you lock your arms about his neck and kiss him, while you’re about it?” she asked herself, furiously.

“I don’t know why it need be Europe, myself,” Craig pursued, with interest. “We have some remarkable people in New York now—the war has driven hundreds of them to us. She could do just as well in New York, with her music, I should think. And then—saying for the sake of argument that you married—” he smiled brilliantly, “it seems to me that you could do even more for her than you can now!”

“Perhaps so,” Hilary answered, suffocating. She turned to her desk, opened a drawer, fumbled within it, and wheeled back to face him again. This was definite enough! This was something to remember, and to hug to herself to-night, when the light was out!

“And by the way, have you heard from Kronski?” the man asked, suddenly.

“No, not yet,” she answered, serenely. But she and Dora meant to take the Amati into Philadelphia anyway; they would surely see him after the concert. “You see, his mother knew my mother,” she reiterated, confidently.

Craig, who knew something, he thought, of famous musicians and their demoralizing popularity, was not so sure. Better men than Kronski had ignored stronger claims. He hoped that there was not a bitter disappointment in store for ardent, interesting Miss Collier, with her shining blue eyes and her demure little velvet dresses. She was rather non-committal to-night, for some reason. That or some other cause made him unusually interested in drawing her out.

“Just what are your plans for Europe? Have you considered what it means?” he asked.

“To the last penny!” she laughed. “Butterfly—I mean my sister Dora—and I have spent nights and nights and nights covering paper with calculations. My father told me that we should need a thousand a year——”

“A year!” Craig exclaimed. “A month, don’t you mean?”

“Oh, hear him!” she said, amusedly. “No, indeed, I mean a year. And I don’t believe it’ll be that in Germany now. Then there’s passage—another three hundred, for I shan’t dare go actual steerage—although I know we could, perfectly. But we’ll go second. My father said that we needn’t worry about more than three years—Butterfly’ll have concert work, after that, even if I should sit around doing nothing! But I’m ready for four years, in case of sickness, or some unexpected expense——”

“You mean you’ve got four thousand dollars saved?” Craig demanded. He had done settlement work in college, he had followed budgets, reports, average incomes and expenditures through a generous press; he knew something of America’s besetting weakness.

“I will have more than that; almost five,” she answered, proudly, a little ashamed of her practicability, and a little afraid, in this unsuspected first instant of his real admiration of her as an individual, that she might be losing some vaguely defined glamour or charm in his eyes.

“You—but how much of it have you saved?” Craig demanded.

“Well, almost all. My father left insurance, but then we hadn’t finished paying for the house when he died; I had to go on with that. And Butterfly was ill, and I had to pay old Mrs. Poett twenty-two dollars a month for—oh, for years. She took care of us, and the house——”

“But—but what does my uncle pay you, in the name of all that’s sensible!”

“I came in at seven dollars a week—just fruit-season extra help, you know. But then they kept me on at forty a month, and then fifty.”

“Which you couldn’t live on?” he said.

“Which of course we could and did live on!” Hilary answered, amused.

Craig continued to regard her, absorbed.

“And now we are paying you ... ?” he said.

“Oh, now! Forty a week,” she told him proudly.

That was all. Craig made some rather non-committal comment, looked at his wrist-watch; Hilary glanced at her own. Five o’clock and she must go home to Dora, she thought. Five o’clock, thought Craig, and he must get home to dress for that accursed dinner at the Dwyers’ twenty-two miles away.

But Hilary was content. To-morrow was the great date of the Kronski concert; and to-night she and Craig Spaulding had approached something nearer friendship than they had even known. Life, she thought, could be very wonderful!

Her contented generalities rapidly developed into definite details; there was a great deal to do about costumes, for to-morrow. Dora met her at the door with a bright and eager face.

“Hilary, tell me—must you go to the office to-morrow?”

Compunction, almost shame, smote Hilary. She had planned to ask for a holiday to-morrow, the better to prepare for the afternoon’s excitement. And she had not quite forgotten it. But she had not really wanted to lose an office day, with its breath-taking possibilities of a few words here and there with Craig.

“Why don’t you take it?” Dora urged, seeing her omission in her face. “Oh, go on! Old Kraut wasn’t there to ask, and Mr. Spaulding is in Philadelphia. Craig Spaulding won’t care—he’s going to Bermuda anyway, next week, with the Vanderworts!”

“Who said he was?” Hilary asked, her heart turning to lead. There it was again, his utter superiority to anything in Mount Holly, or in her little sphere.

“Maude Underwood did—I met her in the post office. She said that he was simply crazy about young Mrs. Reggy Vanderwort, even before she was married——”

“Oh, gracious, I wish people wouldn’t talk to you that way, Butterfly!” Hilary exclaimed. Dora’s bright face grew a little rosy; she looked hurt.

“Maude said that Craig Spaulding gave a big dinner at some New York club when he was in town last week. ...” Dora pursued, innocently. A perfectly unreasonable ache of jealousy seized Hilary; she wished to hear no more. To put on her old gingham kitchen dress, and begin to putter with bowls of cold rice and icy, sticky stewed prunes seemed almost a physical impossibility to-night.