CHAPTER VIII
Christmas in Evansville to some degree reflected the warm holiday celebration of the South, which is not individual but general in scope, not personal but social; making up in its own way for the lack of snow and more vigorous Northern traditions.
Dwindling stores of sherry and bourbon were opened with unreserved bounty, while "white mule" from across the river had its own share in affairs. Old recipes provided for egg-nogg, smooth as silk and strong as black-label Bacardi, or for fruit-cake whose fragrance was an almost forgotten memory, to be passed about by more skilled or fortunate housewives to others. In such matters Dorothy was busy almost from the moment of her arrival, for these delicately adjusted recipes were not left to the hands of servants.
Armstrong found himself engulfed in a whirl of hospitality whose spontaneous gayety and open-hearted sincerity took him back to college days, and banished worry. Having heard nothing from Macgowan, he knew that all was well behind him, and forgot his troubles.
Both Williams and Slosson came down over the holidays from Indianapolis, where their brokerage business was thriving, and called at the Deming residence. Their greeting to Armstrong was heartily cordial, and all the former ill feeling seemed past and forgotten. For this, Dorothy was grateful. Not that she particularly cared for either man, but she did want Armstrong's memories of Evansville to be untroubled by contact with any who were not warm-hearted friends. She need not have worried; Armstrong gave not a second thought to either Slosson or Ried Williams.
The winter of Dorothy's discontent and unrest, however, was ushered in with the dinner dance at the Country Club. It was Friday night, with Christmas only a day away.
The club was in gala dress, with fireplaces blazing merrily, a "string band" of darkies whose music made the toes tingle, a huge tree, and a repast to make Epicurus envious. In the course of the evening, Dorothy was captured by one Joel Giddings, an antique beau who was very deaf, and whose dancing was execrable. Being quite accustomed to requests that he "sit out" a dance, Giddings yielded amiably to Dorothy's wishes and guided her to a very secluded nook behind the Christmas tree.
They sat there, almost hidden from sight, while Giddings rattled on about nothing. Then, as Dorothy listened, she heard another voice—a voice which came from close by, although the glittering tree hid the speaker from sight.
"Armstrong doesn't worry much about showing up here," it said. "I suppose he figures that nobody knows just how he got control of Food Products, anyhow! What I can't understand is why Deming endures him, after the way he chucked Deming out of his own business!"
Dorothy felt the red come flooding into her cheeks, while Joel Giddings rattled obliviously along. She did not need to seek, to know that the voice belonged to Ried Williams. After some inaudible response, it came again, fairly burning into her.
"Perhaps Deming never suspected—there was a good deal he didn't know about the frame-up that Armstrong put over. I shouldn't wonder if he still thinks Armstrong was his best friend that day! It was the same day of Dorothy's wedding, you know. The whole affair was mighty cleverly done, if you ask me! No, of course she never knew anything about it; Armstrong kept the machinery all out of sight. He sure did have it running smooth, too."
The voice died away, as the speaker moved off. Dorothy leaned forward to see with whom Williams had been talking, but she was too late.
Here, then, was the old dreadful thought actually put into words!
She had never entertained a definite suspicion, despite Macgowan's words to her before the wedding. She had never even dared to think of such a thing as had now been bluntly laid before her mind. Her first impulse was to seek Williams, denounce him as a liar, publicly settle this calumny before every one. The fact that his hatred of Armstrong still persisted, for all his hypocritical friendliness, infuriated her.
The impulse was swiftly killed. Doubt killed it; her first doubt of her husband.
Her mind flew back to the wedding-day, to those words from Macgowan, to the honeymoon and the little Armstrong had ever said about the manner in which he had taken over Food Products. She found herself recalling little things, hitherto unnoted; words, acts, looks. Could there be some truth, after all, in the calumny? Had Armstrong really put her father out of the company—was that why he had persistently remained out? Williams ought to know, if any one did.
Shame flamed into her—shame, anger at herself for allowing such thoughts entrance in her mind. Of course it was a lie, a calumny! All of it!
For the remainder of that evening, Dorothy was in turmoil. She made no mention of all this to Armstrong. Later, while he slept, she lay beside him wide-eyed and sleepless, and there fought out the decision within her own heart.
It did not occur to her that Ried Williams might have directed those words at her ear, instead of being ignorant that she overheard them.
It was perhaps unfortunate for Dorothy that she had never been one of the "wise virgins" who predominate in social life. She was not one of those charmingly sophisticated damsels who find in wedded life nothing very new or startling, and who are almost as conversant with the symptoms and experiences of motherhood before the fact as they are after it. Dorothy's education and nurture had all trended in the other direction; in the direction of old-fashioned delicacy, of hopelessly antiquated reverence for the facts of life. With all the charm of her upbringing, the moderns could have argued that she had been left a little too ignorant, for to her there were yet countless mysteries unguessed and depths unfathomed.
Convinced of her own expectant motherhood, it was perhaps for this reason that she found herself a prey to shrinking timidity, to a mental fear and terror which had small basis in actual fact. On some unremembered occasion, from some half-understood conversation, she had received an implanted seed which now blossomed and bore dark fruit. She firmly believed that a woman in a "delicate condition" was liable to strange mental reactions, was subject to delusions and obsessions. She had a terrible fear lest some such delusion take hold upon her.
She did not know that this fear might in itself provoke the thing that was feared.
"I must say nothing of all this to Reese," she thought, firmly pressing the resolve into her whole self, as she lay there staring into the darkness. "I must dismiss it, forget it! I know that it is a contemptible lie. I must never think of it again. It is too low, too utterly despicable, too unclean, ever to gain harborage in my mind. So is that man Williams. I shall never think of him again. I shall shut my mind to the whole thing; it is unworthy of me, unworthy of Reese! Unless I do, it may become an obsession, it may make me cruel and unjust and may hurt the little one—"
She drew a deep breath, closed her eyes, forced herself by sheer exertion of will into calm. And presently she fell asleep, secure in her resolution.
One cannot, unfortunately, altogether eject a lodger from the cells of the brain, however unwelcome that lodger may be, as the Freudian experiences of St. Anthony bear witness. Its presence may be forgotten; it may be lulled into sleep; but no writ of ejection is valid when issued against the brain.
Upon the following morning Deming went downtown to take care of some last-minute purchases. He went by street car, since Mrs. Deming had need of the limousine to distribute her quota of egg-nogg and fruit cake.
Dorothy was to aid in this laudable task, and Armstrong volunteered to accompany them and to serve as burden-bearer. It was nearly eleven when he helped the chauffeur carry out the baskets and beribboned packages to the car. Dorothy and her mother were already leaving the house.
A screech of brakes from the street caused Armstrong to turn. He saw a taxicab dash wildly to the curb before the house, the driver snatching at a greenback extended from the car window. The door flew open, and a figure fairly leaped from the cab and began to run up from the street to the house.
"Hey, Jimmy!" shouted Armstrong in astonishment. "Jimmy Wren! Come around to the side!"
Wren halted, stared about, changed his direction. Armstrong, here getting his first sight of the man's face, was inexpressibly shocked. Wren was white as a sheet, hollow-eyed, upon his countenance the look of one who has been plunged into some living hell.
"Glad to see you, Jimmy!" exclaimed Armstrong, meeting him with extended hand. "But what's the matter with you, old man? Sick?"
"Got to see you—quick—alone!" panted Wren. Panic was in his eyes, and fright, as they roved about. For a moment Armstrong thought him drunk.
"Brace up," he commanded sharply. "Here's Mrs. Deming—mother, this is my friend Jimmy Wren. You've heard me speak of him—"
Wren removed his hat, mumbled something, looked at Dorothy with terrified eyes, and then turned upon Armstrong a glance of terrible and unutterable appeal.
"Must see you—quick!"
"I'll give up the trip," said Armstrong to Mrs. Deming. "Something must have come up; Wren has news for me. You'll excuse me? Come into the house, Jimmy."
They started inside. Dorothy, after a word to her astonished mother, joined them in the doorway.
"I'm staying home too,"' she said simply. "Has something happened, Jimmy?"
Wren uttered a groan.