XII
LOST AND FOUND
"Margaret!"
"Jack!"
It was, after all, a simple thing, this meeting with my cousin-brother that I had so dreaded. Save for the fact that he took both my hands in his, any observer of our meeting would have thought that it was but a casual one, instead of being a reunion after a separation of a year.
But this meeting upset me strangely. I seemed to have stepped back years in my life. My marriage to Dicky, my life with him, my love for him, seemed in some curious way to belong to some other woman, even the permission to meet him in this way, which I had wrested from Dicky, seemed a need of another. I was again Margaret Spencer, going with my best friend to the restaurant where we had so often dined together.
And yet in some way I felt that things were not the same as they used to be. Jack was the same kindly brother I had always known, and yet there seemed in his manner a tinge of something different. I did not know what. I only knew that I felt very nervous and unstrung.
As I sank into the padded seat and began to remove my gloves I was confronted by a new problem.
My wedding ring, guarded by my engagement solitaire, was upon the third finger of my left hand. Jack would be sure to see them if I kept them on.
I told myself fiercely that I did not wish Jack to know I was married until after we had had this dinner together. With my experience of Dicky's jealousy I had not much hope that Jack and I would ever dine together in this fashion again.
On the other hand, I had a strong aversion to removing my wedding ring even for an hour or two. Besides being a silent falsehood, the act would seem almost an omen of evil. I am not generally superstitious, but something made me dread doing it.
However, I had to choose quickly. I must either take off the rings or tell Jack at once that I was married. I was not brave enough to do the latter.
Taking my silver mesh bag from my muff, I opened it under the table, and, quickly stripping off my gloves, removed my rings, tucked them into a corner of the bag and put gloves and bag back in my muff. Jack, man-like, had noticed nothing.
Now to keep the conversation in my own hands, so that Jack should suspect nothing until we had dined.
The waiter stood at attention with pencil pointed over his order card.
Jack was studying the menu card, and I was studying Jack.
It was the first chance I had had to take a good look at this cousin-brother of mine after his year's absence. Every time I had attempted it I had met his eyes fixed upon me with an inscrutable look that puzzled and embarrassed me. Now, however, he was occupied with the menu card, and I stared openly at him.
He had changed very little, I told myself. Of course he was terribly browned by his year in the tropics, but otherwise he was the same handsome, well-set-up chap I remembered so well.
I knew Jack's favorite dish, fortunately. If he could sit down in front of just the right kind of steak, thick, juicy, broiled just right, he was happy.
"How about a steak?" I inquired demurely. "I haven't had a good one in ages."
"I'm sure you're saying that to please me," Jack protested, "but I haven't the heart to say so. You can imagine the food I've lived on in South America. But you must order the rest of the meal."
"Surely I will," I said, for I knew the things he liked. "Baked potatoes, new asparagus, buttered beets, romaine salad, and we'll talk about the dessert later."
The waiter bowed and hurried away. "You're either clairvoyant,
Margaret or—"
"Perhaps I, too, have a memory," I returned gayly, and then regretted the speech as I saw the look that leaped into Jack's eyes.
"I wish I was sure," he began impetuously, then he checked himself. "I wonder whether we are too early for any music?" he finished lamely.
"I am afraid so," I said.
"It doesn't matter anyway. We want to talk, not to listen. I've got something to tell you, my dear, that I've been thinking about all this year I've been gone."
I did not realize the impulse that made me stretch out my hand, lay it upon his, and ask gently:
"Please, Jack, don't tell me anything important until after dinner. I feel rather upset anyway. Let's have one of our care-free dinners and when we've finished we can talk."
Jack gave me a long curious look under which I flushed hot. Then he said brusquely, "All right, the weather and the price of flour, those are good safe subjects, we'll stick to them."
The dinner was perfect in every detail. Jack ate heartily, and although I was too unstrung to eat much I managed to get enough down to deceive him into thinking I was enjoying the meal also.
The coffee and cheese dispatched, I leaned back and smiled at Jack.
"Now light your cigar," I commanded.
"Not yet. We're going to talk a bit first, you and I."
I felt that same little absurd thrill of apprehension. Jack was changed in some way. I could not tell just now. He took my fingers in his big, strong hand.
"Look at me, Margaret."
Jack's voice was low and tense. It held a masterful note I had never heard. Without realizing that I did so, I obeyed him, and lifted my eyes to his.
What I read in them made me tremble. This was a new Jack facing me across the table. The cousin-brother, my best friend since my childhood, was gone.
I did not admit to myself why, but I wished, oh! so earnestly, that I had told Jack over the telephone of my marriage during his year's absence in the South American wilderness, where he could neither send nor receive letters.
I must not wait another minute, I told myself.
"Jack," I said brokenly, "there is something I want to tell you—I'm afraid you will be angry, but please don't be, big brother, will you?"
"There is something I'm going to tell you first," Jack smiled tenderly at me, "and that is that this big brother stuff is done for, as far as I'm concerned. In fact, I've been just faking the role for two or three years back, because I knew you didn't care the way I wanted you to. But this year out in the wilderness has made me realize just what life would be to me without you. I've been kicking myself all over South America that I didn't try to make you care. I've just about gone through Gehenna, too, thinking you might fall in love with somebody while I was gone. But I saw you didn't wear anybody's ring anyway, so I said to myself, 'I'm not going to wait another minute to tell her I love her, love her, love her.'"
Jack's voice, pitched to a low key anyway, so that no one should be able to hear what he was saying, sank almost to a whisper with the last words.
I sat stunned, helpless, grief-stricken.
To think that I should be the one to bring sorrow to Jack, the gentlest, kindest friend I had ever known!
"Oh, Jack, don't!" I moaned, and then, to my horror, I began to cry. I could not control my sobs, although I covered my face with my handkerchief.
"There, there, sweetheart, I'll have you out of this in a jiffy," Jack was at my side, helping me to rise, getting me into my coat, shielding me from the curious gaze of the other diners.
"Here!" He threw a bill toward the waiter. "Pay my bill out of that, get us a taxi quick, and keep the change. Hurry."
"Yes, sir—thank you, sir." The waiter dashed ahead of us. As we emerged from the door he was standing proudly by the open door of a taxi.
"Where to, sir?" The chauffeur touched his cap.
"Anywhere. Central Park." Jack helped me in, sat down beside me, the door slammed and the taxi rolled away.
The only other time in my life Jack had seen me cry was when my mother died. Then I had wept my grief out on his shoulder secure in the knowledge of his brotherly love. As the taxi started, he slipped his arm around me.
"Whatever it is, dear, cry it out in my arms," he whispered.
But at his touch I shuddered, and drew myself away. I was Dicky's wife. This situation was intolerable. I must end it at once. With a mighty effort, I controlled my sobs and, wiping my eyes, sat upright.
"Dear, dear boy," I said. "Please forgive me. I never thought of this or I would have told you over the telephone."
"Told me what?" Jack's voice was harsh and quick. His arm dropped from my wrist.
There was no use wasting words in the telling. I took courage in both hands.
"I am married, Jack," I said faintly. "I have been married over a month."
"God!" The expletive seemed forced from his lips. I heard the name uttered that way once before, when a man I knew had been told of his child's death in an automobile accident. It made me realize as nothing else could what Jack must be suffering.
But he gave no other sign of having heard my words, simply sat erect, with folded arms, gazing sternly into vacancy, while the taxi rolled up Fifth avenue.
Huddled miserably in my corner, I waited for him to speak. I had summoned courage to tell him the truth, but I could not have spoken to him again while his face held that frozen look. It frightened and fascinated me at the same time.
A queer little wonder crossed my mind. Suppose I had known of this a year ago. Would I have married Jack, and never known Dicky? Would I have been happier so?
Then there rushed over me the realization that nothing in the world mattered but Dicky. I wanted him, oh how I wanted him! Jack's suffering, everything else, were but shadows. My love for my husband, my need of him—these were the only real things.
I turned to Jack wildly.
"Oh, Jack, I must go home!"
"Margaret." Jack's voice was so different from his usual one that I started almost in fear.
"Yes, Jack."
"I don't want you to reproach yourself about this. I understand, dear. The right man came along, and of course you couldn't wait for me to come back to give my sanction."
"Oh! Jack! I ought to have waited: I know it. You have been so good to me"
"I've been good to myself, being with you," he returned tenderly. "But I almost wish you had told me over the telephone. You would never have known how I felt, and it would have been better all around"
He bent toward me, and crushed both my hands in his, looking into my face with a gaze that was in itself a caress.
"Now you must go home, little girl, back to—your—husband." The words came slowly.
"When shall I see you again, Jack?" I knew the answer even before it came.
"When you need me, dear girl, if you ever do," he replied. "I can't be near you without loving you and hating your husband, whoever he may be, and that is a dangerous state of affairs. But, wherever I am, a note or a wire to the Hotel Alfred will be forwarded to me, and, if the impossible should happen and your husband ever fail you, remember, Jack is waiting, ready to do anything for you."
My tears were falling fast now. Jack laid his hand upon my shoulder.
"Come, Margaret, you must control yourself," he said in his old brotherly voice. "I want you to tell me your new name and address. I'm never going to lose track of you, remember that. You won't see me, but your big brother will be on the job just the same."
I told him, and he wrote it carefully down in his note-book. Then he looked at me fixedly.
"You would better put your engagement and wedding rings back on," he said. "Of course I realize now that you must have taken them off when you removed your gloves in the restaurant, with the thought that you did not want to spoil my dinner by telling me of your marriage. But you must have them on when you meet your husband, you know."
How like Jack, putting aside his own suffering to be sure of my welfare. I put my hand in my muff, drew out my mesh bag and opened it.
"Jack!" I gasped, horror-stricken, "my rings are gone!"
"Impossible!" His face was white. He snatched my mesh bag from my grasp. "Where did you put them? In here?"
Jack turned the mesh bag inside out. A handkerchief, a small coin purse, two or three bills of small denominations, an envelope with a tiny powder puff—these were all.
"Are you sure you put them in here?"
"Yes." I could hardly articulate the word, I was so frightened.
"Have you opened your bag since?"
I thought a moment. Had I? Then a rush of remembrance came to me.
"I took out a handkerchief when I cried in the restaurant."
"You must have drawn them out then, and either dropped them there, or they may have been caught in the handkerchief and dropped in the taxi." We searched without success and Jack's face darkened as he ordered the chauffeur to speed back to Broquin's. "We must hurry, dear. This is awful. If you have lost those rings, your husband will have a right to be angry."
Neither of us spoke again until the taxi drew up in front of the restaurant. Then Jack said almost curtly:
"Wait here. I don't think it will be necessary for you to go inside, and it might be embarrassing for you."
He fairly ran up the steps and disappeared inside the door.
So anxious was I to know what would be the result of his inquiry that I leaned far forward in the machine, watching the door of Broquin's for Jack's return.
I did not realize my imprudence in doing this until I heard my name called jovially.
"Well! well, Mrs. Graham, I suppose you are on your way to our shack.
Won't you give me the pleasure of riding with you?"
Hat in hand, black eyes dancing in malicious glee, I saw standing before me, Harry Underwood, of all people!
At that instant Jack came rushing out of the restaurant and up to the taxi.
"It's no use, Margaret. They can't find them anywhere."
"Jack, I want you to meet Mr. Underwood, a friend of my husband's," I said hastily, hoping to save the situation. "Mr. Underwood, my cousin, Mr. Bickett."
The two men shook hands perfunctorily.
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Bickett," Harry Underwood said, in his effusive manner. "Have you lost anything valuable? Can I help in any way?"
"Nothing of any consequence," I interrupted desperately.
"Oh, yes, I see, nothing of any consequence," he replied meaningly. His eyes were fixed upon my ungloved left hand, which showed only too plainly the absence of my rings.
"But don't worry," he continued. "Your Uncle Dudley is first cousin to an oyster. Wish you luck. So long," and lifting his hat he strolled on up the avenue.
Jack was consulting his note-book. I heard him give the address of my apartment to the driver. "Drive slowly," he added.
"Who was that man?" he demanded sternly. "He is no one you ought to know."
"I know, Jack," I said faintly. "I dislike him, I even dread him, but he and his wife are old friends of Dicky's and I cannot avoid meeting him."
"He will make trouble for you some day," Jack returned. "I don't like him, but there is nothing I can do to help you. I've messed things enough now."
"What shall I do, Jack?" I wailed. All my vaunted self-reliance was gone. I felt like the most helpless perfect clinging vine in the world.
"We're going straight to your home to see your husband," he said. "You will introduce me to him and then leave us. I shall explain everything to him."
"Oh, Jack," I said terrified, "he has such an uncertain temper, and, besides, he isn't at home. He was to take dinner at the Underwoods at 2 o'clock."
"Well, we must go there, then," returned Jack. "Put on your gloves, then the absence of the rings won't be noticed until I have a chance to explain about them."
I picked up the gloves and unfolded them. Something glittering rolled out of them and dropped into my lap.
"Oh, Jack, my rings!" I fairly shrieked. Then for the first time in my life I became hysterical, laughing and sobbing uncontrollably.
* * * * *
That night I told Dicky the whole story—not one word did I keep back from him—and when I came to the loss of my rings and the meeting with Harry Underwood, there developed a scene that I cannot even now bring myself to put down on paper. But at last Dicky managed to control himself enough to ask what I had told Harry Underwood.
"I told him that my rings had not been lost, that my gloves were too tight and that I had removed them to put on my gloves."
"Good!" Dicky's voice held a note of relenting. "That's one thing saved, any way. Wonder your conscience would let you tell that much of a lie."
His sneer aroused me. I had been speaking in a dreary monotone which typified my feeling. Now I faced him, indignant.
"See here, Dicky Graham, don't you imagine it would have been easier for me to lie about all this? I didn't need to tell you anything. Another thing I want you to understand plainly and that is my reason for not telling Jack at first that I was married.
"If I had had a real brother, you would have thought it perfectly natural for me to have waited for his return before I married. Now, no brother in the world could have been kinder to me than was Jack Bickett. We were indebted to him for a thousand kindnesses, for a lifetime of devotion. I never should have married without first telling him about it. Do you wonder that realizing this I delayed in every way the story of my marriage until I could find a suitable opportunity? I give you my word of honor that I did not dream he cared, and I expect you to believe me."
I walked steadily toward the door of my bedroom. I had not reached it, however, before Dicky clasped me in his arms, and I felt his hot kisses on my face.
"I'm seventeen kinds of a jealous brute, I know, sweetheart," he whispered, "but the thought of that other man, who seems to mean so much to you, drives me mad. I'm selfish, I know, but I'm mad about you."
I put my arms around his neck. "Don't you know, foolish Dicky," I murmured, "that there's nobody else in the world for me but just you, you, you?"