V
“See here, old girl!” he said, as they drew near the house. “Suppose we stay out for dinner? Eh?”
“I’d rather go home, thank you, Frank.”
He sighed.
“Well,” he said, “we’ve got to go some time, of course; but it’s—Madeline!” There was a note in his voice that she had never heard before—an almost panic-stricken appeal. “Madeline!” he repeated. “I hate the thought of going back. She—I can’t realize it. She seemed such a child to me—such a—” He turned away his head. “Only hope the boy’ll turn out well,” he added gruffly.
They walked on in silence. When at last he spoke again, it was in his usual vague, good-humored way. He had recovered himself; yet Mrs. Holland was not glad. There was a strange little ache of regret in her heart, as if she had missed[Pg 415] some irrecoverable opportunity. She wanted to speak, but the moment had passed. He did not need comfort from her now, that was evident.
Hilda opened the door for them, and her face was not pleasant.
“There’s a young lady here, ma’am,” she said, “playin’ the pianner.”
That hardly needed saying, for all the house seemed filled with it—with the austere beauty of a Bach fugue, played with a noble and honest simplicity. It was music like a benediction upon a home. The hall was dim, but through the window on the landing came the glow of sunset. A pool of light lay upon the wine-red carpet; and that glow and color, and the music, were strangely and gravely exalting. The old house had found a voice for its loss—not sorrowful, not weary, but proclaiming a strong, sure hope.
Madeline Holland moved quietly to the doorway, and looked into the drawing-room. No sunset light was there. The long room was shadowy and without color, the roses set about were ghostly white, and their perfume was like a haunting thing. The little figure at the piano was only a shadow, too, with her head thrown back, her profile clear, pale, expressionless.
Mrs. Holland was strangely stirred. She turned toward her husband. The light was too dim for her to see his face clearly, but in the merciful dusk his features had their old romantic quality. He was staring straight before him, motionless as a statue. She stretched out her hand to touch his arm, to recall him from his distant world to herself, when just at that moment he moved abruptly, pressed the switch, and filled the room with light from the chandelier in the ceiling.
The spell was broken. The girl spun around on the stool, sprang up, and came toward Madeline.
“Oh, Mrs. Hol-land!” she cried in her drawling little voice. “I’m afraid I bothered you!”
Yes, the spell was broken now. There was no music in the big, bright room. The rapt young St. Cecilia was only Stella’s daughter, vain, insincere, coquettish.
“Not at all,” said Madeline.
Her tone might have warned the most impervious, but Stella’s daughter was not in the habit of noticing warnings. Instead, she looked at Frank, smiling up into his face; and Mrs. Holland saw his hand go up to his mustache.
“Ask Miss Johnson to play something else for you, Frank,” she suggested.
He did, and she consented archly. She went back to the piano, and he sat down near her.
“Fine technique!” he observed gravely.
Frank talking about “technique!” Frank sitting there, quite unable to conceal his satisfaction in this flattering attention! The girl glanced at him sidelong, dropped her eyes, and bent her head.
“What would you like, Mr. Hol-land?” she asked, timidly.
“Oh—er—anything—anything,” he replied. “Er—what about something operatic? Wagner, eh?”
“Oh, how can he be so idiotic?” thought Madeline. “She’s laughing at him!”
As the girl began to play again, Mrs. Holland went out of the room. It was Rubinstein’s “Melody in F,” but Frank wouldn’t know the difference. He would recognize it as something familiar and “classical,” and would be impressed; but the girl would know. She was laughing at Frank!
For the first time in many years Mrs. Holland felt a desire to bang doors. It would be a positive satisfaction to slam the drawing-room door, and then to go upstairs and slam her own door and lock it. She had done that once, long, long ago. Frank had come running up after her, and had stood outside in the hall, angry himself, but very miserable, and secretly frightened by her obstinate silence. They had “made it up” soon enough in a silly, beautiful, generous young way, each of them insisting on taking all the blame; but of course she wasn’t a foolish, headstrong young thing like that any more. If Frank liked to make himself ridiculous, he was quite at liberty to do so.
At the foot of the stairs she paused, and decided that before going to her room she would see the cook. For the last two mornings the oatmeal had been much too thin, and a tactful remonstrance was needed. She turned back. As she did so, the music stopped, and she could hear their voices in the drawing-room. She could not help hearing.
“Oh, Mr. Hol-land! You look so tired!”
“Well—”
“I’m so sorry for you! It must be awfully sad for you, your daughter getting married, and all![Pg 416]”
“Well—” said Frank again, in the same indulgent tone.
Mrs. Holland went on down the stairs to the basement, so angry that her knees trembled. Frank was delighted with that silly girl’s impertinent pretense of sympathy, charmed by her sidelong glances and her self-conscious smiles!
“It’s his vanity,” she thought. “He’s always been like that. Any one could flatter him.”
There was no denying that Frank liked flattery. In his younger days he used to come home and tell her, in the most artless way, of the various compliments he had received. He didn’t do that now, for he was older and wiser; but that didn’t mean that he got no more compliments, or that he had ceased to relish them. He was a remarkably likable fellow. If this girl so brazenly pursued him the first time she met him, there were probably others—
This was so arresting a thought that Madeline stopped halfway down the stairs. After all, how little she knew of Frank’s life outside his home! They were old-fashioned people. He seldom mentioned business affairs to his wife. That was his province, and the home was hers. There was a wall between them—a high wall.
It hadn’t been like that at first. She could remember very well the time when Frank used to talk to her about his business, when she had known the names of all his most important customers and had taken an anxious interest in all his “big deals,” even reading the market reports. Of course, when Joyce was born, everything had changed. She had been absorbed in her baby. That was natural and right, wasn’t it?
But perhaps Frank hadn’t changed when Madeline did. She began to remember more and more of him in those early days. Here, up and down these very stairs, he used to tramp, carrying the tiny Joyce on his shoulders, both of them filling the house with their laughter. In that basement dining room how many makeshift meals he had eaten, so cheerfully, because she and Hilda were both busy with the baby! He had always been so good-tempered about being put aside, so glad and willing to help, so interested in every detail about the marvelous baby!
She had depended upon Frank very much in those days. Then, as she grew older and more competent, she had needed him less and less, and he had been shut out of such domestic concerns. That was right, wasn’t it? A man ought not to be bothered by household matters. He had his work, and she had hers.
“But Joyce belonged to both of us,” she thought. “He always loved her so! He misses her, too.”
A great fear seized her. Frank missed Joyce. He was lonely, and in the moment of his loneliness this pretty young creature had appeared, to flatter and interest him. He was middle-aged and lonely, and Stella’s daughter was so pretty! Suppose this wasn’t a ridiculous and exasperating episode, but a serious thing? Suppose she lost Frank?
“I won’t!” she cried. “I’ll send that girl away! I’ll never let her come here again!”
That was stupid. She couldn’t keep Frank in a glass case. Even if this girl were gone, there were plenty of others in the world, pretty, cajoling, flattering young creatures.
“I’m not young any more,” she thought. “I’m old—old and selfish and dull—a hundred years older in heart than Frank. He’s still a boy. He always will be. If he likes to be flattered, it’s because he’s young enough to believe in people.”
Mechanically, moved by a blind impulse to hurry to Frank, she had mounted the stairs again, and had come to the door of the drawing-room.
“You’re so understanding!” Stella’s daughter was saying.
Mrs. Holland stopped in the dimly lit hall and looked into the room. The girl was sitting on the piano stool, her hands clasped in her lap, her pretty head bent. Frank stood beside her.
“Must be pretty hard for you,” he said gravely.
The girl looked up at him, and her eyes were filled with tears.
“You’re just the k-kindest man!” she murmured uncertainly.
Flattery? Why need it be that? Wasn’t it possible that she really liked Frank, and that he liked her? Oh, how young she was, and how pretty!
All through this long, long day Mrs. Holland had borne herself gallantly, with pride and with fortitude; but they both failed her now. She leaned against the wall and covered her eyes with her hand, shaken by a dreadful weakness and pain.[Pg 417]
“I’m old,” she thought. “I’m old and selfish. I’ve shut Frank out. I haven’t appreciated him—and now I’ve lost him. It’s my own fault!”
A door opened in the basement, and she heard Hilda’s tread on the stairs. Hilda mustn’t see her like this! She was about to go upstairs to her own room when it occurred to her that Hilda might think that was “queer,” so she went into the drawing-room instead.
Frank came a few steps toward her, with his vague smile, but the girl did not rise. She looked at Mrs. Holland with a sort of defiance.
“She’s old!” thought Stella’s child. “There’s gray in her hair, and there are lines around her eyes. She never laughs; and he’s so jolly—much too nice for her!”
“She’s young,” thought Mrs. Holland. “So young, so pretty—and her music is magic!”
They looked and looked at each other, these two.
“Well, old girl!” said Frank.
Mrs. Holland turned, startled by his tone; and the sight of his face filled her with an intolerable emotion. All the old tenderness there, all the old kindliness and loyalty, not changed, not lost.
“Frank!” she cried.
“Tired, eh?” said he. “Well, sit down, my dear—sit down! Hard day, eh?”
“No,” she said; “a beautiful, a very wonderful day!”
“That’s the way to look at it,” he replied approvingly. “That’s the spirit, eh?”
Stella’s daughter had risen now, and was looking at Holland with angry eyes and a trembling lip. He had forgotten all about her, just because Mrs. Holland had come in! The way he looked at his wife, as if he didn’t even know that there were lines around her eyes and gray in her hair! The way she looked at him, as if she were so proudly and gratefully sure of him and of herself!
“I’m going home!” the girl announced vehemently.
They both turned toward her, a little surprised, so that she felt like an ill mannered child; and indeed she was a child, with only a child’s crude weapons—a poor, ignorant, reckless child.
“My dear,” said Madeline gently, “tell your mother I’ll come to see her to-morrow, and we’ll talk things over—about your music, and so on.”
The girl gave one last glance at Holland, but she knew it was useless. When Mrs. Holland was there, she simply didn’t count with him.
“Good night!” she said in a sulky, unsteady voice.
“Good night!” their kind, grown-up voices answered in unison.
The front door closed vigorously behind her. Madeline sat still, and Frank stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder. The house was very quiet, but it was not empty. Life was still going on in it. Life never stopped, while the heart beat.
“Frank,” she said, “I think we’d better go out to dinner, after all.”
“If you feel up to it, my dear.”
“We’ll have to go out more together, Frank. Now that Joyce has gone—”
She stopped, and for a moment he was afraid that she would break down; but when he bent and looked into her face, he saw that she was smiling a very lovely smile.
“Joyce has gone,” she said, “but you’re here, Frank!”
He patted her shoulder, and, glancing up, she saw his hand raised to his mustache. In all simplicity, he was pleased, because she had remembered that.[Pg 418]
MUNSEY’S
MAGAZINE
JULY, 1926
Vol. LXXXVIII NUMBER 2
The Compromising Letter
A ROMANTIC AFTERMATH OF THE RARE OLD DAYS WHEN CHARMING LADIES WIELDED A FACILE QUILL
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
MR. RONALD PHILLIPS was an authority upon Mme. Van Der Dokjen; indeed he was the greatest living authority.
He was also the sole authority. His fellow countrymen knew little about Mme. Van Der Dokjen, and seemed to care less. He was not sorry for this.
He had written a book called “Mme. Van Der Dokjen and Her Milieu,” in which he gave as much information as he thought suitable for the public; but he had a large collection of her letters and so on. He was thankful that there were no other authorities to go snooping around and finding out the things he did not choose to publish.
Not that the lady had any guilty secrets in her life. She was perfection. Only, there were little things, what you might call trifling inconsistencies, things pardonable, even charming in themselves, but foreign to her austere and energetic character.
For instance, that letter written to her sister in 1777, in which she described, with such unexpected enthusiasm, a certain young captain in General Washington’s army. Mme. Van Der Dokjen was at that time forty-three years of age. No doubt her interest in the young soldier was pure patriotism.
But Mr. Phillips preferred not to publish that letter; so squeamish was he, that he did not even make use of the recipe it contained for quince conserve, which illustrated her splendid housewifely talents.
Indeed, he grew nervous about Mme. Van Der Dokjen. He lived in dread lest some one should discover new documents concerning her. It was for this reason that he went to live in the historic cottage on the banks of the Hudson, in which she had ended her days. He thought that perhaps there were documents hidden in it.
It was as historic a cottage as one could wish to see. There were in it a spinet, a frame for making candles, a spinning-wheel, and other interesting objects. He set to work at once upon a new book to be called “When Home Was Home,” which would depict Mme. Van Der Dokjen living in this cottage, making conserves and candles, playing upon the spinet, and entertaining the illustrious men of the age.
Mr. Van Der Dokjen was there, too, but Phillips did not care much for him. A dull dog, he must have been.
In this book, Phillips was going to kill two birds with a pretty heavy stone. He was going to give more highly valuable information about Mme. Van Der Dokjen, and he was also going to show how lamentably had the home declined since that day. Home life had degenerated, and home life was the very foundation of morality.
And the foundation of home life was—thrift. There was no virtue he admired more. There was a great deal about thrift in his book.
In the meantime, though, he had to eat to live. He could not himself make conserves and candles; there must be a womanly spirit to look after all this. So he invited his Cousin Winnie to become his housekeeper.
She said that life could hold no greater joy, but that she could not leave her only child. This was natural and admirable, and, as the child was a daughter of twenty, who would not be likely to scratch the furniture or steal the conserves, he said to bring her.
In that branch of the family, Ronald Phillips was supreme. Not only was he rich, but he was rich in the correct way—mysteriously. Everybody knew exactly how much he had inherited from his father,[Pg 420] but nobody knew how much he had now, or how much he spent—or how he intended to leave his fortune. Cousin Ronald’s money was one of the best and brightest topics in the family.
Also he was literary. He was rich, he was literary, and he had great natural distinction. He disapproved of more things than any one else in the family. He was tall, and handsome, in a distinguished way; he had gray hair parted in the middle, a gray goatee, and a fine voice. Cousin Winnie admired him profoundly.
Her child, though, the young Lucy, belonged to a more critical generation. She saw certain flaws. But she said nothing. She came with her mother to the historic cottage, prepared to do her best.
She had studied domestic science; she was energetic and healthy, and she thought that she and her mother could make Cousin Ronald very comfortable. She wished to do so; that was her nature. She was a kind little thing.
She was a pretty little thing, too. Cousin Ronald admitted it. Not in the Mme. Van Der Dokjen style, but she was young yet. The years might bring her more of the dignity, the calm of that matchless woman.
And, as it was, she had her good points; she had clear, steady blue eyes, and very satisfactory light hair, and she had a pleasing sort of gayety about her. She sang while she was working. It was agreeable to hear her.
She had faults, undoubtedly, but they were, Cousin Ronald thought, more the faults of her deplorable generation than anything inherent. He thought they might be cured. He interpreted Mme. Van Der Dokjen to her, also the significance of home life.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, Cousin Ronald, I know it’s lovely. But, you see, I don’t have much time during the day, and in the evening I do like to read or write letters.”
“Mme. Van Der Dokjen wrote letters,” he pointed out. “An astounding quantity of letters, when one considers her unflagging devotion to her domestic duties, and her truly brilliant social life. There is no doubt but that many of these letters—models of the epistolary art—were written by the light of candles, Lucy.”
“Yes, I know!” Lucy agreed. “But she was different.”
“I concede the point,” said Cousin Ronald, with a trace of severity. “Where, I ask, in the modern world, can one find a woman who is not different—deplorably different? But I should like to point out to you, Lucy, that this habit of continually saying—‘I know!’—gives a quite false impression of your character. I do not believe you to be one of these intolerable modern young women who fancy they ‘know’ everything.”
“Yes, I know!” said Lucy. “I mean—I know that what you say is right, Cousin Ronald. Only, I thought that just one oil lamp—”
He told her that even one oil lamp would utterly destroy the “atmosphere” of the historic cottage.
“All right!” Lucy replied.
He remembered how Mme. Van Der Dokjen was wont to reply to the requests or commands of her elders. “You must be assured, Hon’d Sir, of my pleasure in conforming to y’r lightest wish.” “All right!” That was the modern way. He sighed.
“And now your dinner’s ready,” Lucy announced. “Something awfully nice, too.”
He sighed no more. These meals which Cousin Winnie and her child prepared for him were charming; he had never enjoyed anything more. They had the real old-fashioned homeliness; plain food, but beautifully cooked, and plenty of it. Cousin Ronald had spent his life in modest hotels; and this was his first experience, since childhood, of home life.
“You have been here one month to-day, Cousin Winnie,” he remarked, as he finished his fried chicken. “I must thank you. It has been—for me, that is—a most delightful month.”
“I’m sure, Cousin Ronald, it has been a pleasure,” said Cousin Winnie. Tears came into her eyes. It was so touching to see Cousin Ronald grateful.
By common consent they omitted Lucy from the compliments. Like most persons of middle-age, they knew that it is not wise to praise the young; they remember what you say, and use it against you later on. Cousin Ronald knew this by instinct, but Cousin Winnie knew from experience.
She was a thin, worn little lady, with a gentle and pretty face. It was the general opinion in the family that she had been the helpless victim of a cruel fate, and certainly she had had many undeserved misfortunes. But she had survived them. She[Pg 421] had kept upon the surface of the stormy sea, like a cork. She could stand a good deal.
This was a good thing, for fresh trials were approaching.