At Home with the Jardines
L >> Lilian Bell >> At Home with the Jardines"Oh, Lord, give me strength to keep out of this row!"
I laughed, of course, and so missed something, for the next thing I
heard, the conversation had become more personal, and Flora was saying:
"Love is an acquisition. The more you have, the more you want."
"Pardon me," said Cary. "To my mind, love is a sacrifice. Yet the
more you give, the more you gain."
"But I don't want to believe that!" pouted Flora, charmingly. "That is
a cruel, ascetic conception of love. It makes me shiver, like reading
the New Testament."
For the first time Artie spoke.
"You prefer, then, the Song of Solomon?" And the Angel brought his
hand down on the table a little heavily, and looked at me.
"Yes, I do!" laughed Flora, thinking she had scored. "And I
know--because I have loved!"
"You have loved, have you?" said Cary, leaning forward to look at her
across Artie's tucked shirt-front. "Then if you have, truly and
deeply, as a woman can, when she meets the man who is her mate, can you
jest so lightly about love being an acquisition? Are you thinking of
his income and what he can give you more than your father has been able
to do? Does your idea of marriage consist of dinner-parties and routs?
Or do you think of the man himself? Of his noble qualities of heart
and mind? Does not the idea of permanent prosperity sometimes fade,
and in its place do you not sometimes see the man you love, poor,
neglected by his friends, and jeered by his enemies? Does he not
sometimes appear to you stretched on a weary bed of sickness? Can you
picture yourself his only friend, his only helper, his only comforter?
If he were crippled for life, would you go out to try to earn bread for
two, rejoicing that Fate had only taken his strength to toil, and not
his strength to love? Would you still count yourself a blessed woman
if you knew that everything were swept away but the love of a man worth
loving like that?"
Flora quailed, and drew back, abashed and a little frightened, but
Artie's face was a study. At a sign from Aubrey, I looked at Mrs.
Jimmie and rose. Just behind me, as I turned, I heard Artie whisper to
Cary:
"Tell me, have _you_ ever loved like that?"
And Cary's murmured reply:
"Not yet, but--I could."
After that, Flora's fascination seemed to wane. Mrs. Jimmie never had
liked her, and as we went into the drawing-room she gave Cary one of
her rare and highly prized caresses, which Cary received gratefully.
As for Artie, he never left Cary's side. He was the first to follow us
to the drawing-room, for as I always let men smoke at the table, we
always leave it _en masse_.
He said little, but he listened to every word Cary spoke, and he
watched her as if fascinated.
I was jubilant, and my sober old Angel almost permitted himself to look
pleased, but not quite. The Angel is never reckless with his emotions.
Dinner had been over about two hours, and Mrs. Jimmie was beginning to
look at the clock, when Aubrey approached and whispered:
"I haven't heard a sound in the kitchen since dinner, and Mary hasn't
entered the dining-room. Don't you think we would better take a look
at her?"
The kitchen was separated from the dining-room by only the butler's
pantry. As we opened the swinging door, a figure holding a
chafing-dish in both hands attempted to rise from the cracker-box, but
sank back again, shaking with laughter.
"It's me, Boss dear! Don't look so scared, but I'm drunk as a fool.
How many of them awful peaches did you eat, Missis?"
"Only one," I said.
"And you, Boss?"
"Only one. How many did you eat?"
"Only half a one, but I finished all the juice in the dish--"
"Juice!" I cried. "Why, Mary, that was brandy and kirschwasser, and
two or three other things."
"Don't I know it? But I never thought, Missis dear, I came here to
rubber at that fight between Miss Farquhar and the little blister--"
"Mary!"
"Not a word more, Missis dear, if you don't like it! But anyhow I came
here to--rest myself, and I began absent-mindedly to take a sip out of
this big spoon here, and soon it was all gone. Then when you all went
into the other room, I tried to get up, but my legs didn't want to,
and, be the powers, they haven't wanted to since, though I've tried 'em
every two minutes or so. I've just set here, helpless as a new-born
babe that can't roll over in its crib. I meant to flag the first one
of you that went past the door, for if somebody would prop me up in
front of the sink, I could begin on a pile of dishes there big enough
to scare a dog from his cats."
Aubrey and I leaned against each other in silent but hysterical
delight. Mary was deeply pleased to see us so diverted.
Her legs recovered sufficiently before we left for her to walk to the
sink, while we went back to our guests.
Every one was leaving, and Artie was taking Cary home. I looked to see
how Flora took it, but her appealing blue eyes were fixed in their most
appealing way upon the Also Ran, who was plainly undergoing thrills of
exquisite torture therefrom. Jimmie gave one look at the tableau, and
turned toward the door with his tongue in his cheek.
After that curious evening, there seemed to be a tremendous emotional
upheaval. Artie hardly came near Flora, and when he did call, appeared
to derive much satisfaction from gazing at her with a quizzical look in
his eyes which seemed to annoy her excessively. The Also Ran was
omnipresent, and was instant in season, out of season. But instead of
arousing Artie's jealousy, this seemed only to amuse him.
Finally the cause of Artie's visits developed. He blurted it out to
me one day with the red face of a shamed schoolboy.
"Faith, I wish you'd do me the favour to ask Cary Farquhar here some
evening, and let me know! I've been going there till I'm ashamed to
face the butler, but I never can see her alone, and the last two times
she has sent down her excuses, and wouldn't see me at all."
I could have squealed for joy, but, mindful of Cary's dignity, I said:
"I don't believe she'd come, Artie. I'm afraid--"
"Afraid that she'd suspect that I would be here too? I don't believe
I've made it as plain as that!" he interrupted.
"Do you mean to say that you are really and truly--?"
"I mean just that," he said, with a new earnestness in his manner, that
I never had noted before.
"Oh, Artie!" I cried. "I'm _so_ glad! But what if she's--"
"Don't say it! It makes me cold all over to think of it. That's why I
want you to ask her here. I've _got_ to see her. Why, Faith,
she's--really, Faith, she's the _only_ girl in the world, now _isn't_
she?"
"So I've thought for years!" I cried, warmly.
"Talk about love being instantaneous," said Artie, plunging his hands
into his pockets, and striding up and down. "I've loved her and loved
her _hard_ ever since she explained what love meant to her that night
at your dinner. Why, if I could get her to love _me_ that way, I'd be
richer than John D! But shucks! She never will! What am _I_, I'd
like to know, to expect such a miracle?"
"You're very nice!" I stuttered, in my haste, "and just the man for
her, both Aubrey and I think, but I'll tell you where the trouble is.
She thinks you belong to Flora."
"Never!" replied Artie, vehemently. "I never _thought_ of marrying
Flora. She--well, she sort of appealed to me--you know how! She
wanted me to help her to understand golf. She said it made her feel so
out of it not to know what people were talking about who played the
game--you know she was a poke at college, and didn't go in for
athletics at all. Well, you can understand it when you look at her.
_She_ couldn't get into a sweater and a short skirt and play
basket-ball, now could she? She'd be wanting some man always about to
hold her things or pitch the ball for her. She is such a dependent
little thing. Then she had always wanted to study law and her people
wouldn't let her--don't blame 'em for it!--but she wanted me to help
her to understand it just for practice, she said, so I tried to. But
as to _marrying_ her! Well, to tell the truth--she--er--she does
things--I mean, I think her emotions are a little too volcanic to suit
_me_, and I'm no prude.
"You'll tell Cary this, won't you, Faith? All but that last. Explain
how I came to get tangled up with the girl. You can do it so she won't
suspect that you're working for me. You can bring it in casually,
without bungling it. Tell her I never gave a serious thought to Flora
in my life."
"I will, and I'll get her here for you!" I cried, as he rose to go.
I followed him to the door, and as I closed it after him the door of
the butler's pantry opened noiselessly, and there stood old Mary with
her finger on her lip. She motioned me to precede her, and she
followed me down the hall to my room and into it, carefully closing the
door behind her. "Missis," she whispered, kneeling down beside my
chair. "Scold me! Do! I've been made the real fool of by that little
blister. Lord, if I wouldn't like to take her across my knee with a
fat pine shingle in my good right hand. Listen! She heard you at the
telephone, and knew you expected Mr. Beguelin this afternoon, so she
comes to me just after lunch and she says to me, 'Mary, Mr. Beguelin is
coming this evening, so I think I'll take a little nap on the couch if
you'll cover me up with the brown rug.' The brown rug, see? Just the
colour of the couch, and the one I always keep put away for the Boss.
Of course I couldn't refuse after she said you said to give it to her--"
"I didn't," I interrupted.
"I know it. I know it now! But the little devil knew that I was going
out, and that you would answer the door yourself--"
"Mary!" I shrieked, in a whisper. "She wasn't in there all the time,
was she?"
"That's just what she was! Listening to every word you said. I just
came in a minute ago, or I'd have let you know. But he got up to go,
just as I had my hand on the door-knob."
"What shall I do?" I murmured, distractedly. Then, after a pause, I
said, "Perhaps she was asleep and didn't hear!"
Mary gave me such a contemptuous look that I hurriedly apologized.
Then the Angel came in, and I told Mary to go, and then I told him
everything. He thought quite awhile before speaking.
"Do you care for her very much, Faith dear?" he said, in his dear,
gentle way.
"If she has done the abominable thing that Mary says, I'll--hate her!
I'll turn her out of the house!" I cried, viciously.
"Ah!" said Aubrey, in a satisfied tone. He knows I wouldn't, but it
does do me so much good to threaten to do the awful things I'd like to
do if I were a cruel woman.
He rose and left the room. I started to follow him, but he waved me
back.
"I won't be gone a moment. Wait for me here."
I waited three or four years, and then, when I had grown white-haired
with age, he came back.
"Begin at the beginning, tell everything, and don't skip a word," I
demanded.
"Well," he began, obediently. "She was sobbing gently--not for effect
this time. I went in softly, and asked her what the matter was. She
said she had been out all the afternoon to see a friend who had just
been obliged to place her mother in a lunatic asylum, and she was
crying for sympathy. Then, as she saw me look at my rug, she said Mary
had left the rug out for her to take a nap early in the afternoon, and
that she had intended to, but had decided to go out instead. Now what
I object to is the style of her lying. I admire a good lie, but a
clumsy, misshapen, rippled affair like that one is an abomination in
the sight of the Lord."
I stood up with a flaming face.
"Don't get excited," said Aubrey. "She is going home to-morrow. Keep
calm to-night, and the next time you see Artie, he will relieve all
your feelings by what he will say."
"Why? What does he know?"
"Well, the Also Ran admires athletic girls, you know, not being able to
sit astride a horse himself, and through his boasting Artie has
discovered that Flora is a crack golf player--won the cup for her
college in her junior year."
I fell on the bed in a fit of hysterical laughter.
"If that's the way you are going to take it, I feel that I can tell you
the worst," said Aubrey, with a relieved face. "The fact is, I believe
that that girl has a game on with the Also Ran."
"Oh, _no_, Aubrey!" I cried. "I know that she is too desperately in
love with Artie to care about anybody else. She is so fascinating I
have but one fear, and that is that Artie will come under her sway
again. If he does, Cary would never forgive it."
"You are barking up the wrong tree, my dear," said my husband. "It is
far more likely that Artie has already gone too far with Flora for Cary
to forgive, and that's why she won't see him."
At that, I tossed my head, for I felt that I knew how both Cary and
Flora loved better than Aubrey did. Flattering myself, also, that I
knew men pretty well, I had my doubts about the strength of Artie's
character. It takes real courage for a man to be true to one woman, if
another woman has pitted her fascinations against him.
I intended to avoid Flora, but I found her lying in wait for me, and
beckoning me from the doorway. I went in, and at once, in order to
seem natural, remarked upon her red eyes. But it seems that that was
exactly what she wanted me to do. The girl had no pride. She _wanted_
me to pity her.
"I'm ready to kill myself!" she cried. "I am perfectly sure that Artie
has only been flirting with me and that some one has come between us.
You can't want Cary to have him, or why did you invite me here, and
arrange for me to see so much of him, and try so hard to bring us
together? You are not two-faced like that, I hope?"
I was too bewildered to speak. Yet how could I answer her questions?
Before I left her, I was convinced that it was all my fault. I told
Aubrey so.
"Nonsense!" he said, quite roughly for him. "I think Mary's name for
Flora is a good one. She is a little blister."
"No," I said, "she is not bad at heart. She is simply an impulsive,
uncontrolled little animal, and more frank in her loves than most of
us. That's all."
I saw the Angel set his lips together as if he could say something if
he only dared, but his way of managing me is to give me my head and let
circumstances teach me. He never forces Nature's hand.
Flora's visit was to have terminated the next day, but, to Aubrey's
intense disgust and my utter rout, she begged for just three days more,
and before I knew it I had consented. As I hurriedly left the room
after consenting, I turned suddenly and met her gaze. Her eyes were a
mere slit in her face, so narrowed and crafty they were. And the look
she shot at me was a look of hatred.
Too bewildered by this curious girl's inexplicable actions to try to
unravel my emotions and come to a decision regarding her, I kept out of
her way all I could. I was simply waiting--waiting impatiently for the
three days to pass. I only hoped that Artie would not come again while
she was here.
But, alas, the very next morning I was at the telephone when I heard
Flora run to the door to let somebody in, and before I could speak I
heard her say, in that surprised, complaining tone of hers, "Aren't you
going to kiss me?" and then--well, I got up and slammed the door so
hard that the key fell out.
What a fool Artie was? What fools _all_ men were, not to be able to
keep faith with a woman, and such a woman as Cary Farquhar! I rushed
from the study into my room, and burst into a storm of tears, in the
midst of which Aubrey found me.
"Poor little Faith! Poor, discouraged, little match-maker!" he said,
smoothing my hair. But at that last I sat up and shook his hand off.
"It's so _disgusting_ of him!" I stammered. "If you could have heard
him when he was talking about Flora!"
"How do you know it was Artie who came in?" said Aubrey, gently.
I opened my mouth and simply stared at him. Then I went to the glass,
smoothed my hair and straightened my belt.
"Where are you going?" asked my husband.
"I am going to _see_!" I exclaimed. "And if it _isn't_ Artie--if she
is kissing every man that comes into this house, I'll--I'll _kill_ her."
"What! You'll kill her if you find that Artie is not the faithless
wretch you were crying about?"
"Oh, Aubrey! How _can_ you?" I cried.
He tried to catch me as I flew past, but I eluded him, and started
firmly down the long hall. But in spite of myself, my feet dragged.
What was Flora attempting? Did she hate me as her look implied? Did
she love Artie as she declared, or was she simply endeavouring to get
married, and so save herself from a life of teaching, which she openly
detested?
I kept on, however, goaded by my righteous indignation. To my
astonishment I found, not Artie, but the Also Ran, with Flora frankly
in his arms.
They sprang up at my swift entrance, and the man had the grace to look
furiously confused. Flora never even changed colour. I asked no
questions. I simply stood before them in accusing silence. But my
look was black and ominous. Flora gave one swift glance at my
uncompromising attitude, and then, with a modesty and grace and sweet
appealing humility impossible to describe, she came a step toward me,
holding out her arms and saying, plaintively:
"Won't you congratulate me? We are engaged."
I was struck dumb--that is, I would have been struck dumb, if I had not
been rendered not only speechless, but unable to move by the actions of
the man. Entirely unmindful of my presence, he sprang toward Flora,
stammering, brokenly:
"Do you mean it, dear? Have you decided already? You said six months!
You are sure you mean it?"
Then, not seeing the angry colour flame into Flora's pale, calm face,
he turned to me, saying, brokenly:
"Oh, Mrs. Jardine! She has teased me so! I never dreamed she would
decide so quickly. And I--you will forgive me! but I love her so!"
I looked away from his twitching face to Flora, and mentally resolved
never to call him an Also Ran again. He did not deserve it. I am
seldom sarcastic, but I knew Flora would understand.
"Flora," I said, distinctly, "you are to be congratulated."
Then I turned and left them.
The very day that Flora left, Cary came back to me.
"Well," she said, tentatively, "what do you think of her?"
"Well," I answered, cautiously, "I don't know."
Cary looked at me in disgust.
"Your loyalty amounts to nothing short of blindness and stupidity," she
remarked, severely. "As for me, I am going to look at the nest the
viper has left."
So saying, she got up and went into the blue room, Aubrey and I meekly
following.
Pinned to the pillow was a note directed to me. Cary unpinned and
handed it to me.
"Cleverest and best of women," it began, "Many thanks for your
delightful hospitality. I have enjoyed it to the full--far more,
indeed, than you know. Look under the mattress of this bed and you
will understand."
We tore the bed to pieces without speaking. Then Aubrey and Cary
looked at each other and laughed.
"_Now_ will you believe," said Cary.
There were cigarette-boxes full of nothing but butts and ashes. There
were three of my low-cut bodices. There were some of Aubrey's ties and
a number of my best handkerchiefs.
I said nothing. I simply stared.
"We all knew of these things, Faith dear," said Aubrey, "but even if
you had caught her wearing your clothes or smoking, we knew she would
lie out of it, so we waited."
"We knew she hated you so that she couldn't help telling you," added
Cary.
"Hated me?" I murmured. "What for?"
Cary blushed furiously, and looked at Aubrey.
"Has Ar-- Have you--" I stammered, eagerly.
Cary nodded and Aubrey looked wise. Then Cary and I rushed for each
other.
While we still had our arms around each other crying for joy, Mary
appeared at the door with her apron filled with the neat little jars of
jellies and marmalades I had got for Flora's breakfasts. They had not
been opened. Mary regarded me with grim but whimsical defiance.
"The little blister never got a blamed one of 'em, Missis!" she said.
CHAPTER VII
THE PRICE OF QUIET
Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie were among our frequent visitors in the new
apartment. Jimmie can never realize that I am really married, and in
view of our manifold travelling experiences together he regards the
Angel with an eye in which sympathy and apprehension are mingled.
His congratulations at the wedding were unique. "I'd like to
congratulate you, old man," he said, wringing the Angel's hand, "but
honestly I think you are up against it."
To me at their first call he said:
"What will you do with such a man--you, who have gone scrapping through
life, browbeating gentle souls like myself into giving you your own way
on every point, and letting you ride rough-shod over us without a
protest? _He_ requires consideration and tact and a degree of
courtesy--none of which you possess. And you can't drag him away from
his writing to go to the morgue or a pawn-shop with you the way you did
me in Europe. And most of all he must have quiet. Gee whiz! There
will be hours together when you must hold your tongue. You'll die!"
"No, I won't," I declared. "You don't know him. He is an Angel." And
with that the argument closed, for Jimmie went off into such a fit of
laughter that he choked, and his wife came in a fright to find me
pounding him on the back with unnecessary force.
"But why," said Jimmie, when order had been restored, "did you take an
apartment, when Aubrey's chief requirement is absence of noise!
Furthermore, why do you live in New York, that city which reigns
supreme in its accumulation of unnecessary bedlam?"
"Ah, we have thought of all those things," I said, proudly. "First, we
avoided a street paved with cobblestones. Second, we took the top
floor. Third, there are no houses opposite--only the Park."
"But best of all," said the Angel, speaking for the first time, as
Jimmie noted, "it is in the lease that no children are allowed, for
children, after all, are the most noise-producing animals which exist.
So if an apartment can be noise-proof--"
"Exactly," cut in Jimmie. "If!"
"That's what I say--if it can," said the Angel, "this one should prove
so. Faith and I certainly took sufficient pains in selecting it."
"Well, I don't want to discourage you," said Jimmie, and then, after
the manner of those who begin their sentences in that way, he proceeded
to discourage us in every sort of ingenious fashion which lay at his
command. Verily, friends are invaluable in domestic crises!
Nevertheless, his gloomy prophecies disturbed us. We tried to make
light of our fears--to pooh-pooh them--to pretend a scorn for Jimmie's
opinions, which in secret we were far from feeling, for the fact
remained that the Jimmies were experienced and we were not. "Living in
an apartment," Jimmie had declared, "is like driving. You may have
perfect control over your own horse, but you have constantly to fear
the bad driving of other people."
These words kept ringing in our ears. We never forgot for a moment
that there were people under us. We crept in gently if a supper after
the theatre kept us out until two in the morning. We never allowed the
piano to be played after ten in the evening nor before breakfast. We
gave up the loved society of our dog, and boarded him in the country
because dogs, cats, and parrots were not allowed.
But day by day we found that each one of these self-inflicted maxims
was being violated by all the other residents. Singing popular songs,
a pianola, half a dozen fox terriers, laughing and shouting good nights
in the corridors kept us awake half the night, and worst of all, what
we patiently submitted to as visitors with children, we, to our horror,
discovered were residents with children, and children of the most
detested sort at that. Five of these hyenas in human form lived below
us. Their parents were of the easy-going sort. They had all come from
a plantation in Virginia, and they had brought their plantation manners
with them.
Now, ordinary children are bad enough, and even well-trained ones at
that, in the matter of noise, but the noises made by the Gottlieb
children were something too appalling to be called by the plain,
ordinary word. They had never learned to close a door. They slammed
it, and every cup and saucer on our floor danced in reply. When their
mother wanted them, she never thought of going to the room they were in
to speak to them. She sat still and called. They yelled back defiant
negatives or whining questions, and then the negro nurse was sent, and
she hauled them in by one arm, their legs dragging rebelliously on the
floor and their other arm clutching wildly at pillars or furniture to
delay their reluctant progress.
They had a piano, and all five of them took piano lessons. Out of the
kindness of their hearts they invited the three children who lived
opposite them on the same floor to practise on their piano, so that
from seven in the morning until nine at night we were treated to
five-finger exercises and scales. Their favourite diversion was a game
which consisted of the entire eight racing through their apartment,
jumping the nursery bed, and landing against the wall beyond. They had
hardwood floors and no rugs.