CHAPTER XVIII
What happened on the train after Mrs. Brokenshire and I had left it I heard from Mr. Strangways. Having got it from him in some detail, I can give it in my own words more easily than in his.
I may be permitted to state here how much and how little of the romance between Mr. Grainger and Mrs. Brokenshire Larry Strangways knew. He knew next to nothing—but he inferred a good deal. From facts I gave him once or twice in hours of my own perplexity he had been able to get light on certain matters which had come under his observation as Mr. Grainger's confidential man, and to which otherwise he would have had no key. He inferred, for instance, that Mrs. Brokenshire wrote daily to her lover, and that occasionally, at long intervals, her lover could safely write to her. He inferred that when their meetings had ended in one place they were taken up discreetly at another, but only with difficulty and danger. He inferred that the man chafed against this restraint, and as he had got out of it with other women, he was planning to get out of it again. I understood that had Mrs. Brokenshire been the only such instance in Stacy Grainger's career Larry Strangways might not have felt impelled to interfere; but seeing from the beginning that his employer "had a weakness," he felt it only right to help me save a woman for whom he knew I cared.
I have never wholly understood why he believed that the situation had worked up to a crisis on that particular day; but having watched the laying of the mine, he could hardly do anything but expect the explosion on the application of the match.
When Mr. Grainger had bidden him that morning go to the station and secure a drawing-room, or, if that was impossible, two parlor-car seats, on the five-o'clock for Boston, he had reasons for following the course of which I have briefly given the lines. No drawing-room was available, because any that was not sold he bought for himself in order to set the stage according to his own ideas. How far he was justified in this will be a matter of opinion. Some may commend him, while others will accuse him of unwarrantable interference. My own judgment being of no importance I hold it in suspense, giving the incidents just as they occurred.
It must be evident that as Mr. Strangways didn't know what was to happen he could have no plan of action. All he could arrange for was that he and I should be on the spot. As it is difficult for guilty lovers to elope while acquaintances are looking on, he was resolved that they should find elopement difficult. For anything else he relied on chance—and on me. Chance favored him in keeping Stacy Grainger out of sight, in putting Mrs. Brokenshire next to me, and in making the action, such as it was, run smoothly. Had I known that he relied on me I should have been more terrified than I actually was, since I was relying on him.
It will be seen, then, that at the moment when Mrs. Brokenshire and I left the train Larry Strangways had but a vague idea of what had taken place. He merely conjectured from the swish of skirts that we had gone. His next idea was, as he phrased it, to make himself scarce on his own account; but in that his efforts miscarried.
Hoping to slip into another car and thus avoid a meeting with the outmanoeuvered lover, he was snapping the clasp of the bag into which he had thrust his cap when he perceived a tall figure enter the car by the forward end. To escape recognition he bent his head, pretending to search for something on the floor. The tall figure passed, but came back again. It was necessary that he should come back, because of the number on the ticket, the ulster, the walking-stick, and the golf-clubs.
What Stacy Grainger saw, of course, was three empty seats, with his secretary sitting in a fourth. The sight of the three empty seats was doubtless puzzling enough, but that of the secretary must have been bewildering. Without turning his head Mr. Strangways knew by his sixth and seventh senses that his employer was comparing the number on his ticket with that of the seat, examining the hand-luggage to make sure it was his own, and otherwise drawing the conclusion that his faculties hadn't left him. For a private secretary who had ventured so far out of his line of duty it was a trying minute; but he turned and glanced upward only on feeling a tap on his shoulder.
"Hello, Strangways! Is it you? What's the meaning of this?"
Strangways rose. As the question had been asked in perplexity rather than in anger, he could answer calmly.
"The meaning of what, sir?"
"Where the deuce are you going? What are you doing here?"
"I'm going to Boston, sir."
"What for? Who told you you could go to Boston?"
The tone began to nettle the young man, who was not accustomed to being spoken to so imperiously before strangers.
"No one told me, sir. I didn't ask permission. I'm my own master. I've left your employ."
"The devil you have! Since when?"
"Since this morning. I couldn't tell you, because when you left the office after I'd given you the tickets you didn't come back."
"And do you call that decent to a man who's— But no matter!" He pointed to the seat next his own. "Where's the—the lady who's been sitting here?"
Mr. Strangways raised his eyebrows innocently, and shook his head.
"I haven't seen any lady, sir."
"What? There must have been a lady here. Was to have got on at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street."
"Possibly; I only say I didn't see her. As a matter of fact, I've been reading, and I don't think I looked round during the entire journey. Hadn't we better not speak so loud?" he suggested, in a lower tone. "People are listening to us."
"Oh, let them go to— Now look here, Strangways," he began again, speaking softly, but excitedly, "there must be some explanation to this."
"Of course there must be; only I can't give it. Perhaps the porter could tell us. Shall I call him?"
Mr. Grainger nodded his permission. The colored man with the flashing teeth came up on the broad grin, showing them.
"Yep," he replied, in answer to the question: "they was two ladies in them seats all the way f'um Ne' Yawk."
"Two ladies?" Mr. Grainger cried, incredulously.
"Yes, gen'lemen. Two different ladies. The young one she got in at the Grand Central—fust one in the cyar—and the ole one at a Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street."
"Do you mean to say it was an old lady who got in there?"
"Yep, gen'lemen; ole and cranky. I 'ain't handled 'em no crankier not since I've bin on this beat. Sick, too. They done get off at Providence, though they was booked right through to Boston, because the ole lady she couldn't go no farther."
Mr. Grainger was not a sleuth-hound, but he did what he could in the way of verification.
"Did the young lady wear—wear a veil?"
The porter scratched his head.
"Come to think of it she did—one of them there flowery things"—his forefinger made little whirling designs on his coffee-colored skin—"what makes a kind of pattern-like all over people's face."
Because he was frantically seeking a clue, Mr. Grainger blurted out the foolish question:
"Was she—pretty?"
To answer as a connoisseur and as man to man the African took his time.
"Wa-al, not to say p'ooty, she wasn't—but she'd pa-ss. A little black-eyed thing, an' awful smart. One of 'em trained nusses like—very perlite, but a turr'ble boss you could see she'd be, for all she was so soft-spoken. Had cyare of the ole one, who was what you'd call plumb crazy."
"That will do." The trail seemed not worth following any further. "There's some mistake," he continued, furiously. "She must be in one of the other cars."
Like a collie from the leash he bounded off to make new investigations. In five minutes he was back again, passing up the length of the car and going on to examine those at the other end of the train. His face as he returned was livid; his manner, as far as he dared betray himself before a dozen or twenty spectators, that of a balked wild animal.
"Strangways," he swore, as he dropped to the arm of his seat, "you're going to answer for this."
Strangways replied, composedly:
"I'm ready to answer for anything I know. You can't expect me to be responsible for what I don't know anything about."
He slapped his knee.
"What are you doing in that particular chair? Even if you're going to Boston, why aren't you somewhere else?"
"That's easily explained. You told me to get two tickets by this train. Knowing that I was to travel by it myself I asked for three. I dare say it was stupid of me not to think that the propinquity would be open to objection; but as it's a public conveyance, and there's not generally anything secret or special about a trip of the kind—"
"Why in thunder didn't you get a drawing-room, as I told you to?"
"For the reason I've given—there were none to be had. If you could have taken me into your confidence a little—But I suppose that wasn't possible."
To this there was no response, but a series of muttered oaths that bore the same relation to soliloquy as a frenzied lion's growl. For some twenty minutes they sat in the same attitudes, Strangways quiet, watchful, alert, ready for any turn the situation might take, the other man stretched on the arm of his chair, indifferent to comfort, cursing spasmodically, perplexity on his forehead, rage in his eyes, and something that was folly, futility, and helplessness all over him.
Almost no further conversation passed between them till they got out in Boston. In the crowd Strangways endeavored to go off by himself, but found Mr. Grainger constantly beside him. He was beside him when they reached the place where taxicabs were called, and ordered his porter to call one.
"Get in," he said, then.
Larry Strangways protested.
"I'm going to—"
I must be sufficiently unlady-like to give Mr. Grainger's response just as it was spoken, because it strikes me as characteristic of men.
"Oh, hell! Get in. You're coming with me."
Characteristic of men was the rest of the evening. In spite of what had happened—and had not happened—Messrs. Grainger and Strangways partook of an excellent supper together, eating and drinking with appetite, and smoking their cigars with what looked like an air of tranquillity. Though the fury of the balked wild animal returned to Stacy Grainger by fits and starts, it didn't interfere with his relish of his food and only once did it break its bounds. That was when he struck the arm of his chair, saying beneath his breath, and yet audibly enough for his secretary to hear:
"She funked it—damn her!"
Larry Strangways then took it on himself to say:
"I don't know the lady, sir, to whom you refer, nor the reasons she may have had for funking it, but may I advise you for your own peace of mind to withdraw the two concluding syllables?"
A pair of fierce, melancholy eyes rested on him for a second uncomprehendingly.
"All right," the crestfallen lover groaned heavily at last. "I may as well take them back."
Characteristic of women were my experiences while this was happening.
Bundled out into the station at Providence no two poor females could ever have been more forlorn. Standing in the waiting-room with our bags around us I felt like one of those immigrant women, ignorant of the customs and language of the country to which they have come, I had sometimes seen on docks at Halifax. As for Mrs. Brokenshire, she was as little used to the unarranged as if she had been a royalty. Never before had she dropped in this way down upon the unexpected; never before had she been unmet, unwelcomed, and unprepared. She was bouleversée—overturned. Were she falling from an aeroplane she could not have been more at a loss as to where she was going to alight. Small wonder was it that she should sit down on one of her own valises and begin to cry distressfully.
That, for the minute, I was obliged to disregard. If she had to cry she must cry. I could hear the train puffing out of the station, and as far as that went she was safe. My first preoccupations had to do with where we were to go.
For this I made inquiries of the porter, who named what he considered to be the two or three best hotels. I went to the ticket-office and put the same question, getting approximately the same answer. Then, seeing a well-dressed man and lady enter the station from a private car, which I could discern outside, I repeated my investigations, explaining that I had come from New York with an invalid lady who had not been well enough to continue the journey. They told me I could make no mistake in going to one of the houses already named by my previous informants; and so, gathering up the hand-luggage and Mrs. Brokenshire, we set forth.
At the hotel we secured an apartment of sitting-room and two bedrooms, registering our names as "Miss Adare and friend." I ordered the daintiest supper the house could provide to be served up-stairs, with a small bottle of champagne to inspirit us; but, unlike the two heroes of the episode, neither of us could do more than taste food and drink. No kidnapped princess in a fairy-tale was ever more lovely or pathetic than Mrs. Brokenshire; no giant ogre more monstrously cruel than myself. Now that it was done, I figured, both in her eyes and in my own, not as a savior, but a capturer.
She had dried her tears, but she had dried them resentfully. As far as possible she didn't look at me, but when she couldn't help it the reproach in her glances almost broke my heart. Though I knew I had acted for the best, she made me feel a bad angel, a marplot, a spoil-sport. I had thwarted a dream that was as full of bliss as it was of terror, and reduced the dramatic to the commonplace. Here she was picking at a cold quail in aspic face to face with me when she might have been. . . .
I couldn't help seeing myself as she saw me, and when we had finished what was not a repast I put her to bed with more than the humility of a serving-maid. You will think me absurd, but when those tender eyes were turned on me with their silent rebuke, I would gladly have put her back on the train again and hurried her on to destruction. As the dear thing sobbed on her pillow I laid my head beside hers and sobbed with her.
But I couldn't sob very long, as I still had duties to fulfil. It was of little use to have her under my care at Providence unless those who would in the end be most concerned as to her whereabouts were to know the facts—or the approximate facts—from the start. It was a case in which doubt for a night might be doubt for a lifetime; and so when she was sufficiently calm for me to leave her I went down-stairs.
Though I had not referred to it again, I had made a mental note of the fact that Mr. Brokenshire was at Newport. If at Newport I knew he could be nowhere but in one hotel. Within fifteen minutes I was talking to him on the telephone.
He was plainly annoyed at being called to the instrument so late as half past ten. When I said I was Alexandra Adare he replied that he didn't recognize the name.
"I was formerly nursery governess to your daughter, Mrs. Rossiter," I explained. "I'm the woman who's refused as yet to marry your son, Hugh."
"Oh, that person," came the response, uttered wearily.
"Yes, sir; that person. I must apologize for ringing you up so late; but I wanted to tell you that Mrs. Brokenshire is here at Providence with me."
The symptoms of distress came to me in a series of choking sounds over the wire. It was a good half-minute before I got the words:
"What does that mean?"
"It means that Mrs. Brokenshire is perfectly well in physical condition, but she's tired and nervous and overwrought."
I made out that the muffled and strangled voice said:
"I'll motor up to Providence at once. It's now half past ten. I shall be there between one and two. What hotel shall I find you at?"
"Don't come, sir," I pleaded. "I had to tell you we were in Providence, because you could have found that out by asking where the long-distance call had come from; but it's most important to Mrs. Brokenshire that she should have a few days alone."
"I shall judge of that. To what hotel shall I come?"
"I beg and implore you, sir, not to come. Please believe me when I say that it will be better for you in the end. Try to trust me. Mrs. Brokenshire isn't far from a nervous breakdown; but if I can have her to myself for a week or two I believe I could tide her over it."
Reproof and argument followed on this, till at last he yielded, with the words:
"Where are you going?"
Fortunately, I had thought of that.
"To some quiet place in Massachusetts. When we're settled I shall let you know."
He suggested a hotel at Lenox as suitable for such a sojourn.
"She'd rather go where she wouldn't meet people whom she knows. The minute she has decided I shall communicate with you again."
"But I can see you in the morning before you leave?"
The accent was now that of request. The overtone in it was pitiful.
"Oh, don't try to, sir. She wants to get away from every one. It will be so much better for her to do just as she likes. She had got to a point where she had to escape from everything she knew and cared about; and so all of a sudden—only—only to-day—she decided to come with me. She doesn't need a trained nurse, because she's perfectly well. All she wants is some one to be with her—whom she knows she can trust. She hasn't even taken Angélique. She simply begs to be alone."
In the end I made my point, but only after genuine beseeching on his part and much repetition on mine. Having said good-night to him—he actually used the words—I called up Angélique, in order to bring peace to a household in which the mistress's desertion would create some consternation.
Angélique and I might have been called friends. The fact that I spoke French comme une Française, as she often flattered me by saying, was a bond between us, and we had the further point of sympathy that we were both devoted to Mrs. Brokenshire. Besides that, there is something in me—I suppose it must be a plebeian streak—which enables me to understand servants and get along with them.
I gave her much the same explanation as I gave to Mr. Brokenshire, though somewhat differently put. In addition I asked her to pack such selections from the simpler examples of Mrs. Brokenshire's wardrobe as the lady might need in a country place, and keep them in readiness to send. Angélique having expressed her relief that Mrs. Brokenshire was safe at a known address, in the company of a responsible attendant—a relief which, so she said, would be shared by the housekeeper, the chef, and the butler, all of whom had spent the evening in painful speculation—we took leave of each other, with our customary mutual compliments.
Though I was so tired by this time that fainting would have been a solace, I called for a Boston paper and began studying the advertisements of country hotels. Having made a selection of these I consulted the manager of our present place of refuge, who strongly commended one of them. Thither I sent a night-letter commandeering the best, after which, with no more than strength to undress, I lay down on a couch in Mrs. Brokenshire's room. When I knew she was sleeping I, too, slept fitfully. About once in an hour I went softly to her bedside, and finding her dozing, if not sound asleep, I went softly back again.
Between four and five we had a little scene. As I approached her bed she looked up and said:
"What are we going to do in the morning?"
Afraid to tell her all I had put in train, I gave my ideas in the form of suggestion.
"No, I sha'n't do that," she said, quietly.
She lay quite still, her cheek embossed on the pillow, and a great stray curl over her left shoulder.
"Then what would you like to do?"
"I should like to go straight back."
"To begin the same old life all over again?"
"To begin to see him all over again."
"Do you think that after last night you can begin to see him in the same old way?"
"I must see him in some way."
"But isn't the way what you've still to discover?" I resolved on a bold stroke. "Wouldn't part of your object in going away for a time be to think out some method of reconciling your feeling for Mr. Grainger with—with your self-respect?"
"My self-respect?" She looked as if she had never heard of such a thing. "What's that got to do with it?"
"Hasn't it got everything to do with it? You can't live without it forever."
"Do you mean that I've been living without it as it is?"
"Isn't that for you to say rather than for me?"
She was silent for a minute, after which she said, fretfully:
"I don't think it's very nice of you to talk to me like that. You've got me here at your mercy, when I might have been—" A long, bubbling sigh, like the aftermath of tears, laid stress on the joys she had foregone. "He'll never forgive me now—never."
"Wouldn't it be better, dear Mrs. Brokenshire," I asked, "to consider whether or not you can ever forgive him?"
She raised herself on her elbow and looked at me. Seated in a low arm-chair beside her bed, in an old-rose-colored kimono, my dark hair hanging down my back, I was not a fascinating object of study, even in the light of one small, distant, shaded bedroom lamp.
"What should I forgive him for?—for loving me?"
"Yes, for loving you—in that way."
"He loves me—"
"So much that he could see you dishonored and disgraced—and shunned by decent people all the rest of your life—just to gratify his own desires. It seems to me you may have to forgive him for that."
"He asked me to do only what I would have done willingly—if it hadn't been for you."
"But he asked you. The responsibility is in that. You didn't make the suggestion; he did."
"He didn't make it till I'd let him see—"
"Too much. Forgive me for saying it, dear Mrs. Brokenshire; but do you think a woman should ever go so far to meet a man as you did?"
"I let him see that I loved him. I did that before I married Mr. Brokenshire."
"You let him see more than that you loved him. You showed him that you didn't know how to live without him."
"But since I didn't know how—"
"Ah, but you should have known. No woman should be so dependent on a man as that."
She fell back again on her pillows.
"It's easy to see you've never been in love."
"I have been in love—and am still; but love is not the most important thing in the world—"
"Then you differ from all the great teachers. They say it is."
"If they do they're not speaking of sexual love."
"What are they speaking of, then?"
"They're speaking of another kind of love, with which the mere sexual has nothing to do. I'm not an ascetic, and I know the sexual has its place. But there's a love that's as much bigger than that as the sky is bigger than I am."
"Yes, but so long as one never sees it—"
I suppose it was her tone of feeble rebellion that roused my spirit and made me speak in a way which I should not otherwise have allowed myself.
"You do see it, darling Mrs. Brokenshire," I declared, more sweetly than I felt. "I'm showing it to you." I rose and stood over her. "What do you suppose I'm prompted by but love? What urges me to stand by Mr. Brokenshire but love? What made me step in between you and Mr. Grainger and save him, as well as you, but love? Love isn't emotion that leaves you weak; it's action that makes you strong. It has to be action, and it has to be right action. There's no love separable from right; and until you grasp that fact you'll always be unhappy. I'm a mere rag in my own person. I've no more character than a hen. But because I've got a wee little hold on right—"
She broke in, peevishly, as she turned away:
"I do wish you'd let me go to sleep."
I got down from my high horse and went back, humbly, to my couch. Scarcely, however, had I lain down, when the voice came again, in childish complaint:
"I think you might have kissed me."
I had never kissed her in my life, nor had she ever shown any sign of permitting me this liberty. Timidly I went back to the bed; timidly I bent over it. But I was not prepared for the sudden intense clinging with which she threw her arms round my neck and drew my face down to hers.