III
iss Decker paced restlessly up and down the sea-room waiting for the mail. Mrs. Pendleton, more composed but equally nervous, lay in a long chair, with expectation in her eyes and triumph on her lips.
“Will they answer or will they not?” exclaimed Miss Decker. “If the mail would only come! Will they be crushed?—furious?—or—will they apologise?”
“I care nothing what they do,” said Mrs. Pendleton, languidly. “All I wanted was to see them when they received my notes, and later when they met to compare them. I hold that my revenge is a masterpiece—to turn the joke on them and to let them see that they could not make a fool of me at the same time! Oh! how dared they?”
“Well, they’ll never perpetrate another practical joke, my dear. You have your revenge, Jessica; you have blunted their sense of humour for life. I doubt if they ever even read the funny page of a newspaper again. Here comes the postman. There! the bell has rung. Why doesn’t Hart go? I’ll go myself in a minute.”
Mrs. Pendleton’s nostrils dilated a little, but she did not turn her head even when the manservant entered and held a silver tray before her.
Four letters lay thereon. She placed them on her lap but did not speak until the man had left the room. Then she looked at Miss Decker and gave the letters a little sweep with the tips of her fingers.
“They have answered,” she said.
“Oh, Jessica, for Heaven’s sake don’t be so iron-bound!” cried her friend. “Read them.”
“You can read them if you choose. I have no interest beyond knowing that they received mine.”
Miss Decker needed no second invitation. She caught the letters from Mrs. Pendleton’s lap and tore one of them open. She read a few lines, then dropped limply on a chair.
“Jessica!” she whispered, with a little agonised gasp, “listen to this.”
Mrs. Pendleton turned her eyes inquiringly, but would not stoop to curiosity. “Well,” she said, “I am listening.”
“It is from Mr. Trent. And—listen:—
“‘Angel! I think if you had kept me waiting one day longer you would have met a lunatic wandering on the Newport cliffs. Last night I attended a primary and made such an egregious idiot of myself (although I was complimented later upon my speech) that I shall never understand why I was not hissed. But hereafter I shall be inspired. And how you will shine in Washington! That is the place for our talents. After reading your reserved yet impassioned note, I do not feel that I can talk more rationally upon politics than while in suspense. What do you think I did? I made it all up with Severance, Dedham, and Boswell, whom I met just after receiving it. I could afford to forgive them. They, by the way, go to Newport to-morrow. Farewell, most brilliant of women, destined by Heaven to be the wife of a diplomatist—for I will confide to you that that is my ultimate ambition. Until to-morrow,
“‘Clarence Trent.’”
“Well! What do you think of that?”
A pink wave had risen to Mrs. Pendleton’s hair, then receded and broken upon the haughty curve of her mouth.
“Read the others,” she said briefly.
“Oh! how can you be so cool?” and Miss Decker opened another note with trembling fingers.
“It is from Norton Boswell:—
“‘You once chided me for looking at the world through grey spectacles, and bade me always hope for the best until the worst was decided. When you were near to encourage me the sky was often pink, but even the memory of the last six months has faded before the agonised suspense of these seven days. Oh! I shall be an author now, if suffering is the final lesson. But what incoherent stuff I am writing! Loneliness and despair are alike forgotten. I can write no more! To-morrow! To-morrow!
“‘Boswell.’”
“Read Severance’s,” said Jessica, quickly.
“I believe you like that man!” exclaimed Miss Decker. “I think he’s a brute. But you’re in a scrape. This is from the lordly Severance:—
“‘An Englishman once said of you, with a drawl which wound the words about my memory—“Y-a-a-s; she flirts on ice, so to speak.” Coldest and most subtle of women, why did you keep me in suspense for seven long days? Do you think I believe that fiction of the delayed letter? You forget that we have met before. But why torment me? Did I not in common decency have to wait six months before I dared put my fate to the test? How I counted those days! I had a calendar and a pencil—in short, I made a fool of myself. Now the chess-board is between us once more: we start on even ground; we will play a keen and close game to the end of our natural lives. I love you; but I know you. I will kiss the rod—until we marry; after that—we shall play chess. I shall see you to-morrow.
“‘S.’”
“Well, that’s what I call a beast of a man,” said Miss Decker.
“I hate him!” said Jessica, between her teeth.
She looked hard at the ocean. Under its grey sky to-day it was the colour of her eyes, as cold and as unfathomable. The glittering Medusa-like ends of her hair seemed to leap upward and writhe at each other.
“I should think you would hate him,” said Miss Decker; “he is the only living man who ever got the best of you. But listen to what your devoted infant has to say. Nice little boy, Teddy:—
“‘Dearest! Sweetest! Do you know that I am almost dancing for joy at this moment? Indeed, my feet are going faster than my pen. To think! To think!—you really do love me after all. But I always said you were not a flirt. I knocked a man down once and challenged him to a duel because he said you were. He wouldn’t fight, but I had the satisfaction of letting him know what I thought of him. And now I can prove it to all the world! But I can’t write any more. There are three blots on this now—the pen is jumping and you know I never was much at writing letters. But I can talk, and to-morrow I will tell you all.
“‘Your own Teddy.
“‘P.S.—Is it not queer—quite a coincidence—Severance, Trent, and Boswell are going to Newport to-morrow, too. How proud I shall be! But no, I take that back; I only pity them, poor devils, from the bottom of my heart; or I would if it wasn’t filled up with you.
“‘T.’”
“Well, madam, you’re in a scrape, and I don’t envy you. What will you do?”
Mrs. Pendleton pressed her head against the back of the chair, straining her head upward as if she wanted the salt breeze to rasp her throat.
“I have been so bored for six months,” she said slowly. “Let them come. I will see each of them alone, and keep the farce going for a week or so. It will be amusing—to be engaged to four men at once. You will command the forces and see that they do not meet. Of course, it cannot be kept up very long, and when all resources are failing I will let them meet and make them madly jealous. It will do one of them good, at least.”
“Well, you have courage,” ejaculated Miss Decker. “You can’t do it. But yes, you can. If the woman lives who can play jackstraws with firebrands, that woman is you. And what fun! We are so dull here—both in mourning. I’ll help you. I’ll carry out your instructions like a major.”
Mrs. Pendleton rose and walked up and down the room once or twice. “There is only one thing,” she said, drawing her brows together: “if I am engaged to them they will want to—h’m—kiss me, you know. It will be rather awkward. I never was engaged to any one but Mr. Pendleton, and he used to kiss me on my forehead and say, ‘My dear child.’ I am afraid they won’t be contented with that.”
“I am afraid they won’t! But you have tact enough. Come, say you will do it.”
“Yes,” said Jessica, “I will do it. In my boarding-school days I used to dream of being a tragedy queen; I find myself thrust by circumstances into comedy. But I have no doubt it will suit my talents better.”
