CHAPTER IX
DOLLY, HOW COULD YOU?
I lay down across my bed at six o'clock that morning, but I was too
tired and worried to sleep, so at seven I got up and dressed.
I was frightened when I saw myself in the glass. My eyes looked like
burnt holes in a blanket. I put on two pairs of stockings and heavy
shoes, for I knew I was going to do the Eskimo act again that day and
goodness knows how many days more, and then I went down and knocked
at the door of Miss Patty's room. She hadn't been sleeping either. She
called to me in an undertone to come in, and she was lying propped up
with pillows, with something pink around her shoulders and the night
lamp burning beside the bed. She had a book in her hand, but all over
the covers and on the table at her elbow were letters in the blue
foreign envelopes with the red and black and gold seal.
I walked over to the foot of the bed.
"They're here," I said.
She sat up, and some letters slid to the floor.
"THEY'RE here!" she repeated. "Do you mean Dorothy?"
"She and her husband. They came last night at five minutes to twelve.
Their train was held up by the blizzard and they won't come in until
they see you. They're hiding in the shelter-house on the golf links."
I think she thought I was crazy: I looked it. She hopped out of bed and
closed the door into her sitting-room—Mrs. Hutchins' room opened off
it—and then she came over and put her hand on my arm.
"Will you sit down and try to tell me just what you mean?" she said.
"How can my sister and her—her wretch of a husband have come last night
at midnight when I saw Mr. Carter myself not later than ten o'clock?"
Well, I had to tell her then about who Mr. Pierce was and why I had
to get him, and she understood almost at once. She was the most
understanding girl I ever met. She saw at once what Mr. Sam wouldn't
have known in a thousand years—that I wanted to save the old place not
to keep my position—but because I'd been there so long, and my father
before me, and had helped to make it what it was and all that. And
she stood there in her nightgown—she who was almost a princess—and
listened to me, and patted me on the shoulder when I broke down, telling
her about Thoburn and the summer hotel.
"But here I am," I finished, "telling you about my troubles and
forgetting what I came for. You'll have to go out to the shelter-house,
Miss Patty. And I guess you're expected to fix it up with your father."
She stopped unfastening her long braids of hair.
"Certainly I'll go to the shelter-house," she said, "and I'll shake a
little sense into Dorothy Jennings—the abominable little idiot! But
they needn't think I'm going to help them with father; I wouldn't if I
could, and I can't. He won't speak to me. I'm in disgrace, Minnie." She
gave her hair a shake, twisted it into a rope and then a knot, and
stuck a pin in it. It was lovely: I wish Miss Cobb could have seen her.
"You've known father for years, Minnie: have you ever known him to be
so—so—"
"Devilish" was the word she meant, but I finished for her.
"Unreasonable?" I said. "Well, once before when you were a little girl,
he put his cane through a window in the spring-house, because he thought
it needed air. The spring-house, of course, not the cane."
"Exactly," she said, looking around the room, "and now he's putting a
cane through every plan I have made. Do you see my heavy boots?"
"It's like this," I remarked, bringing the boots from outside the door,
"if he's swallowed the prince and is choking on the settlement question
he might as well get over it. All those foreigners expect pay for taking
a wife. Didn't the chef here want to marry Tillie, the diet cook, and
didn't he want her to turn over the three hundred dollars she had in the
bank, and her real estate, which was a sixth interest in a cemetery lot?
But Tillie stuck it out and he wouldn't take her without."
"It isn't quite the same, Minnie," she said, sitting down on the floor
to put on her stockings.
"The principle's the same," I retorted, "and if you ask me—"
"I haven't," she said disagreeably, "and when you begin to argue,
Minnie, you make my head ache."
"I have had a heartache for a week," I snapped, "let alone heartburn,
and I'll be glad when the Jennings family is safely married and I can
sleep at night."
I was hurt. I went out and shut the door behind me, but I stopped in the
hall and went back.
"I forgot to say," I began, and stopped. She was still sitting on the
floor, trying to put her heavy boots on, and crying all over them.
"Stop that instantly," I said, and jerked her shoes from her. "Get into
a chair and let me put them on. And if you will wait a jiffy I'll bring
you a cup of coffee. I'm not even a Christian in the morning until I've
had my coffee."
"You haven't had it yet, have you?" she asked, and we laughed together,
rather shaky. But as I buttoned her shoes I saw her eyes going toward
the blue letters on the bed.
"Oh, Minnie," she said, "if you only knew how peculiar they are in
Europe! They'll never allow a sanatorium in the family!"
"I guess a good many would be the better for having one close," I said.
Well, I left her to get dressed and went to the kitchens. Tillie was
there getting the beef tea ready for the day, but none of the rest was
around. They knew the housekeeper was gone, but I guess they'd forgotten
that I was still on hand. I put a kettle against the electric bell that
rings in the chef's room so it would keep on ringing and went on into
the diet kitchen.
"Tillie," I said, "can you trust me?"
She looked up from her beef.
"Whether I can or not, I always have," she answered.
"Well, can I trust you? That's more to the point."
She put down her knife and came over to me, with her hands on her hips.
"I don't know what you're up to, Minnie," she said, "and I don't know
that I care. But if you've forgotten the time I went to the city and
brought you sulphur and the Lord only knows what for your old spring
when you'd run short and were laid up with influenza—"
"Hush!" I exclaimed. "You needn't shout it. Tillie, I don't want you
to ask me any questions, but I want four raw eggs in a basket, a pot of
coffee and cream, some fruit if you can get it when the chef unlocks the
refrigerator room, and bread and butter. They can make their own toast."
"They?" she said, with her mouth open.
But I didn't explain any more. I had found Tillie about a year before,
frying sausages at the railroad station, and made her diet cook at
the sanatorium. Mrs. Wiggins hadn't wanted her, but, as I told the old
doctor at the time, we needed somebody in the kitchen to keep an eye on
things for us. It was through Tillie that we discovered that the help
were having egg-nog twice a day, with eggs as scarce as hens' teeth, and
the pharmacy clerk putting in a requisition for more whisky every week.
Well, I scribbled a note to Mr. Van Alstyne, telling what had happened,
and put it under his door, and then I met Miss Patty in the hall by the
billiard room and I gave her some coffee from the basket, in the sun
parlor. It was still dark, although it was nearly eight o'clock, and
nobody saw us go out together. Just as we left I heard the chef in the
kitchen bawling out that he'd murder whoever put the kettle against the
bell, and Tillie saying it must have dropped off the hook and landed
there.
We went to the spring-house first, to avoid suspicion, and then across
back of the deer park to the shelter-house. It was still snowing, but
not so much, and the tracks we had made early in the morning were still
there, mine off to one side alone, and the others close together and
side by side. There was a whole history in those snow tracks, mine alone
and kind of offish, and the others cuddling together. It made me lonely
to look at them.
I remember wishing I'd taught school, as I was educated to; woman wasn't
made to live alone, and most school-teachers get married.
Miss Patty did not say much. She was holding her chin high and looking
rather angry and determined. At the spring-house I gave her the basket
and took an armful of fire-wood myself. I knew Mr. Dick would never
think of it until the fire was out.
They were both asleep in the shelter-house. He was propped up against
the wall on a box, with the rubber carriage robe around him, and she was
lying by the fire, with Mrs. Moody's shawl over her and her muff under
her head. Miss Patty stood in the doorway for an instant. Then she
walked over and, leaning down, shook her sister by the arm.
"Dorothy!" she said. "Wake up, you wretched child!" And shook her again.
Mrs. Dicky groaned and yawned, and opened her eyes one at a time.
But when she saw it was Miss Patty she sat up at once, looking dazed and
frightened.
"You needn't pinch me, Pat!" she said, and at that Mr. Dick wakened and
jumped up, with the carriage robe still around him.
"Oh, Dolly, Dolly!" said Miss Patty suddenly, dropping on her knees
beside Mrs. Dicky, "what a bad little girl you are! What a thing for you
to do! Think of father and Aunt Honoria!"
"I shan't," retorted Mrs. Dicky decidedly. "I'm not going to spoil my
honeymoon like that. For heaven's sake, Pat, don't cry. I'm not dead.
Dick, this is my sister, Patricia."
Miss Pat looked at him, but she didn't bow. She gave him one look, from
his head to his heels.
"Dolly, how COULD you!" she said, and got up.
It wasn't very comfortable for Mr. Dick, but he took it much better than
I expected. He went over and gave his wife a hand to help her up, and
still holding hers, he turned to Miss Patty.
"You are perfectly right," he said, "I don't see how she could myself.
The more you know of me the more you'll wonder. But she did; we're up
against that."
He grinned at Miss Patty, and after a minute Miss Patty smiled back. But
it wasn't much of a smile. I was unpacking the breakfast, putting the
coffee-pot on the fire and getting ready to cook the eggs and make
toast. But I was watching, too. Suddenly Mrs. Dick made a dive for Miss
Patty and threw her arms around her.
"You darling!" she cried. "I'm so glad to see you again—Pat, you'll
tell father, won't you? He'll take it from you. If I tell him he'll have
apoplexy or something."
But Miss Patty set her pretty mouth—both those girls have their
father's mouth—and held her sister out at arm's length and looked at
her.
"Listen," she said. "Do you know what you have done to me? Do you know
that when father knows this he's going to annul the marriage or have Mr.
Carter arrested for kidnaping or abduction?—whatever it is." Mrs. Dick
puckered her face to cry, and Mr. Dick took a step forward, but Miss
Patty waved him off. "You know father as well as I do, Dolly. You know
what he is, and lately he's been awful. He's not well—it's his liver
again—and he won't listen to anything. Why, the Austrian ambassador
came up here, all this distance, to talk about the etiquette of the—of
my wedding, something about precedence, and he wouldn't even see him."
"He can't annul it," said Mr. Dick angrily. "I'm of age. And I can
support my wife, too, or will be able—soon."
"Dolly's not of age," said Miss Patty wearily. "I've sat up all night
figuring it out. He's going to annul the marriage, or he'll make a
scandal anyhow, and that's just as bad. Dolly,"—she turned to her
sister imploringly—"Dolly, I can't have a scandal now. You know how
Oskar's people have taken this, anyhow; they've given in, because he
insisted, but they don't want me, and if there's a lot of notoriety now
the emperor will send him to Africa or some place, and—"
"I wish they would!" Mrs. Carter burst out suddenly. "I hate the whole
thing. They only tolerate you—us—for our money. You needn't look at
me like that; Oskar may be all right, but his mother and sisters are
hateful—simply hateful!"
"I'll not be with them."
"No, but they'll be with you." Mrs. Dicky walked over to the window and
looked out, dabbing her eyes. "You've been everything to me, Pat, and
I'm so happy now—I'd rather be here on a soap box with Dick than on
a throne or a dais or whatever you'll have to sit on over there, with
Oskar. I want to be happy—and you won't. Look at Alice Thorne and her
duke!"
"If you really want me to be happy," Miss Patty said, going over to her,
"you'll go back to school until the wedding is over."
"I won't leave Dicky." She swung around and gave Mr. Dick an adoring
glance, and Miss Patty looked discouraged.
"Take him with you," she said. "Isn't there some place near where he
could stay, and telephone you now and then?"
"Telephone!" said Mrs. Dick scornfully.
"Can't leave," Mr. Dick objected. "Got to be on the property."
Miss Patty shrugged her shoulders and turned to go. "You're both
perfectly hopeless," she said. "I'll go and tell father, Dorothy, but
you know what will happen. You'll be back in school at Greenwich by
to-night, and your—husband will probably be under arrest." She opened
the door, but I dropped the toast I was making and ran after her.
"If he is arrested," I said, "they'll have to keep him on the place. He
can't leave."
She didn't say anything; she lifted her hand and looked at the ruby
ring, and then she glanced back into the room where Mr. Dick and his
wife were whispering together, and turned up her coat collar.
"I'm going," she said, and stepped into the snow. But they called her
back in a hurry.
"Look here, Miss—Miss Patricia," Mr. Dick said, "why can't we stay
here, where we are? It's very comfortable—that is, it's livable.
There's plenty of fresh air, anyhow, and everybody's shouting for fresh
air nowadays. They've got somebody to take my place in the house."
"And father needn't know a thing—you can fix that," broke in Mrs. Dick.
"And after your wedding he will be in a better humor; he'll know it's
over and not up to him any more."
Miss Patty came back to the shelter-house again and sat down on the soap
box.
"We MIGHT carry it off," she said. "If I could only go back to town!
But father is in one of his tantrums, and he won't go, or let me go.
The idea!—with Aunt Honoria on the long-distance wire every day, having
hysterics, and my clothes waiting to be tried on and everything. I'm
desperate."
"And all sorts of things being arranged for you!" put in Mrs. Dick
enviously. "And the family jewels being reset in Vienna for you and all
that! It would be great—if you only didn't have to take Oskar with the
jewels!"
Miss Patty frowned.
"You are not going to marry him," she said, with a glance at Mr. Dick,
who, with his coat off, was lying flat on the floor, one arm down in the
hole where the things had been hidden, trying to hook up a can of baked
beans. "If it doesn't turn out well, you and father have certainly done
your part in the way of warning. It's just as Aunt Honoria said; the
family will make a tremendous row beforehand, but afterward, when it all
turns out well, they'll take the credit."
Mr. Dick was busy with the beans and I was turning the eggs. Mrs. Dick
went over to her sister and put her arm around her.
"That's right, Patty," she said, "you're more like mother than I am.
I'm a Jennings all over—except that, heavens be praised, I've got the
Sherwood liver. I guess I'm common plebeian, like dad, too. I'm plebeian
enough, anyhow, to think there's been a lot too much about marriage
settlements and the consent of the emperor in all this, and not enough
about love."
I could have patted Mrs. Dicky on the back for that, and I almost upset
the eggs into the fire. I'm an advocate of marrying for love every time,
although a title and a bunch of family jewels thrown in wouldn't worry
me.
"Do you want me to protest that the man who has asked me to marry him
cares about me?" Miss Patty replied in an angry undertone. "Couldn't
he have married a thousand other girls! Hadn't a marriage been arranged
between him and the cousin—"
"I know all that," Mrs. Dicky said, and her voice sounded older than
Miss Patty's, and motherly. "But—are you in love with him, Pat?"
"Certainly," Miss Patty said indignantly. "Don't be silly, Dolly."
At that instant Mr. Dick found the beans, and got up shouting that we'd
have a meal fit for a prince—if princes ate anything so every day as
baked beans. I put the eggs on a platter and poured the coffee, and we
all sat around the soap box and ate. I wished that Miss Cobb could have
seen me there—how they insisted on my having a second egg, and was my
coffee cold, and wasn't I too close to the fire? It was Minnie here and
Minnie there, and me next to Miss Patty on the floor, and she, as you
may say, right next to royalty. I wished it could have been in the
spring-house, with father's crayon enlargement looking down on us.
Everybody felt better for the meal, and we were sitting there laughing
and talking and very cheerful when Mr. Van Alstyne opened the door and
looked in. His face was stern, but when he saw us, with Miss Patty on
her knees toasting a piece of bread and Mr. Dicky passing the tin basin
as a finger-bowl, he stopped scowling and looked amused.
"They're here, Sallie," he called to his wife, and they both came in,
covered with snow, and we had coffee and eggs all over again.
Well, they stayed for an hour, and Mr. Sam talked himself black in the
face and couldn't get anywhere. For the Dickys refused to be separated,
and Mrs. Dick wouldn't tell her father, and Miss Patty wouldn't do it
for her, and the minute Mr. Sam made a suggestion that sounded rational
Mrs. Dick would cry and say she didn't care to live, anyhow, and she
wished she had died of ptomaine poisoning the time she ate the bad
oysters at school.
So finally Mr. Sam gave up and said he washed his hands of the whole
affair, and that he was going to make another start on his wedding
journey, and if they wanted to be a pair of fools it wasn't up to
him—only for heaven's sake not to cry about it. And then he wiped
Mrs. Dicky's eyes and kissed her, she being, as he explained, his
sister-in-law now and much too pretty for him to scold.
And when the Dickys found they were not going to be separated we had
more coffee all around and everybody grew more cheerful.
Oh, we were very cheerful! I look back now and think how cheerful we
were, and I shudder. It was strange that we hadn't been warned by Mr.
Pierce's square jaw, but we were not. We sat around the fire and ate and
laughed, and Mr. Dick arranged that Mr. Pierce should come out to him
every evening for orders about the place if he accepted, and everybody
felt he would—and I was to come at the same time and bring a basket of
provisions for the next day. Of course, the instant Mr. Jennings left
the young couple could go into the sanatorium as guests under another
name and be comfortable. And as soon as the time limit was up, and the
place was still running smoothly, they could declare the truth, claim
the sanatorium, having fulfilled the conditions of the will, and confess
to Mr. Jennings—over the long-distance wire.
Well, it promised well, I must say. Mr. Stitt left on the ten train that
morning, looking lemon-colored and mottled. He insisted that he wasn't
able to go, but Mr. Sam gave him a headache powder and put him on the
train, anyhow.
Yes, as I say, it promised well. But we made two mistakes: we didn't
count on Mr. Thoburn, and we didn't know Mr. Pierce. And who could have
imagined that Mike the bath man would do as he did? |
