People Like That: A Novel

by Kate Langley Bosher

CHAPTER XXIII

"It's pretty beastly in me to put this on you." Selwyn, who had taken his seat in a chair opposite mine, first leaned back, then forward, and, hands clasped between his knees, looked down upon the floor. "I've kept away from you lest I trouble you with what I have no right—"

"If you did not talk to me frankly I would be much more troubled." I drew the scarf about my shoulders a little closer. I knew what was coming. The thought of it chilled. "Is it about Harrie you are again worried?"

Selwyn nodded. "You knew he had left home? Knew he had taken a bachelor apartment downtown?"

"I heard it day before yesterday. Kitty told me. Billie is pretty upset about him. Being five years older and married, Billie is seeing life rather differently from the way Harrie takes it, and the latter's recklessness—"

Selwyn looked at me, then away. "The boy is beyond comprehension. I haven't seen him but once in nearly two weeks. Five days before Christmas he had his trunk and certain things sent down-town, and wrote me a note telling of the apartment he'd taken. I've been to see him several times, but he's never in and, I'm told, hasn't been in now for over a week. I've written him, made every inquiry likely to lead to information without exciting undue suspicion, and now, unless I go to the police—" Biting the ends of his close-cut mustache, Selwyn stopped abruptly.

"Does Mrs. Swink know he has left home?"

"If she doesn't, she'll know it to-morrow when she gets my answer to this." Taking a letter from his pocket, Selwyn threw it on the table behind me. "Later you can read that, if you've time to waste. I got it to-day. Harrie hasn't been to see Madeleine for over a week. Mrs. Swink wants to know why. Wants to know where he is. So do I."

"Didn't he dine with Mildred on Christmas day? I thought both of you were always there at Christmas."

"We are. When Mildred's Christmas dinner is over I thank God there will be three hundred and sixty-five days before she can have another one. Harrie was all right when he came in, but he took too much egg-nog, too much of other things Mildred had no business having, I tried to make him go home with me, but he wouldn't do it. Then I tried to go with him and he wouldn't let me do that either. Said he had an engagement with Miss Swink. He was not in a condition to fill it, but, thinking if she saw him Mrs. Swink might take in what she so far has failed to understand, I was rather glad he was going to keep his engagement. He didn't keep it."

"What did he do? Where did he go?"

Selwyn's face darkened. "I don't know. Nobody knows. He hasn't been in his apartment since Christmas day. His trunk and clothes are in his rooms, also his suit-cases and bags, and there is no evidence of his having gone off on a trip. I haven't told Mildred. She'd go into hysterics and tell the town Harrie had disappeared. Mrs. Swink, however, had to be told something. Madeleine, I imagine, has given notice and her mother is sitting up." Selwyn's hands made gesture of disgust. "Her letter is inquisitorial and hysterical. My answer will give a bump, I imagine."

"You've clouded visions and waked her from sweet dreaming. She's been seeing herself in the Thorne house as the mother of its mistress. I don't mean to laugh, indeed I don't, but—" I did laugh. Mrs. Swink and Selwyn dwelling under the same roof was a picture beyond the resistance of laughter. Incompatibility and incongruity would be feeble terms with which to designate such a situation, and at its suggestion seriousness was impossible. That is, to me. In Selwyn's face was no smiling.

"If there have been any little dreams I'm glad she wrote me. In reply I had a chance to say what there has been no chance to say before. Were there imaginings that Harrie was to bring his wife to his old home they will cease when she gets my note. No house is big enough for a bride and groom and members of either family, and certainly mine isn't. I limited comment on Harrie to his financial condition; expressed regret at my inability to explain his failure to keep his engagement, and gave her no hint of my uneasiness. Only to you have I given it. Something is wrong. I'm afraid the boy is ill somewhere. The thing has gotten on my nerves. I've got to do something. I can't go on this way."

With eyes in which nervous uneasiness was unrestrained, Selwyn looked at me, asking unconsciously for help I could not give, and for a moment I said nothing. Possibilities of which I could not speak were clutching at my heart and making me cold with fear and horror, for suddenly something I had overheard a girl telling Mrs. Mundy a few days before, as I passed through the hall, came to me with cruel and compelling clearness. "He's a gentleman, all right. Drunk or sober, you can tell that. She ain't left him day or night since he was taken sick, and except the doctor she won't let any one come in the room."

The words of the girl talking to Mrs. Mundy repeated themselves with such distinctness that it seemed Selwyn would hear the thick beating of my heart and understand its wonder as to who the man was who was ill, who the girl who was nursing him. Did Mrs. Mundy know? Lest he notice that I, too, was nervous I got up and went over to a table in an opposite corner of the room and drank a glass of water. Coming back, I took my seat, but Selwyn remained standing, and, taking out his watch again, looked at it.

"I must go. Had I known you were to have a party"—he smiled faintly—"I should not have come. You are too tired to stay up longer. Forget what I've told you and go to sleep. If tomorrow you can suggest anything— I'm pretty ragged and don't seem able to think clearly. You are keener than I in grasping situations, and quicker in making decisions. Whatever you think might be done—" Again his teeth came down upon his lips, and, looking up, I saw his face was white.

"Give me a day or two in which to see what can be done. And you won't mind if I ask Mr. Crimm's advice?" I seemed pushing the girl I'd heard talking to Mrs. Mundy behind me. "He hasn't been able to find Etta Blake yet. Do you suppose her disappearance could have any connection with Harrie's? It may be he really loves her."

Selwyn turned away. "Love is hardly a term to be used in connection with an acquaintanceship such as theirs. A girl with a past, possibly—"

"How about his past?"

"I think you understand pretty well my opinion of his past. But as long as theories yield to accepted custom a man's past will be forgotten, a woman's remembered. Harrie, if married, would be received anywhere, provided he married a woman of his world. This little girl would have to pay her price and his, were she his wife, for no one would receive her. That's hardly the question before us, however. To find where Harrie is, find if anything is wrong, if he's ill—"

The sharp, sudden ringing of the telephone on the table behind me made me start, and, jumping up like a frightened child, I stood close to Selwyn. "Who on earth— It's half past twelve. Who can want me at this time of night?" I started to take the receiver from its hook, but, laughing at me, Selwyn got it first.

"One would think a spook was going to spring at you. Central's given the wrong number, I guess. Hello! Who is that?"

Watching with as strained eagerness as if I were hearing, I saw Selwyn lean forward, after admitting that the number wanted was the right one, and heard him ask again: "Who is it? Who did you say?"

For the next five minutes there was snatchy, excited, and incoherent conversation over the telephone, during which Selwyn and I alternated in the talking in an effort to learn what Tom Cressy was saying at the other end of the line, and what it was he wanted me to do. Tom's voice was not distinct and caution was making it difficult to understand what we finally got from him, which was that he wanted to bring Madeleine down to spend the night with me; that they had started to go away to be married and missed the train by one minute, owing to an accident to the automobile they were in. The next train did not leave until 4 A.M. Could Madeleine stay with me until train time?

"No, she can't!" Hand over the telephone transmission, Selwyn turned to me. "They've got no business mixing you up in this. You'll be blamed for the whole thing. I'm going to tell him to take her back to the Melbourne. They can make another try some other time. Tom must be crazy!"

"Most people in love are. You've never been desperate." I laughed and took the receiver from him. "Madeleine's courage will be gone after tonight and Tom's afraid to risk waiting. Get up and let me talk."

Over the telephone I could hear Madeleine crying and I told Tom to bring her down. Her two-penny worth of nerve and dash had given out and she was frightened. Incoherently I was told by Tom that Madeleine was being persecuted, and he wouldn't stand for it any longer, and the only thing for them to do was to get married. Hadn't it been for a durned tire—"

"Come on down." I heard a little cry. "And hurry. It's pretty late."

Mrs. Mundy, who had been told of their coming, opened the door for them in dressing-gown and slippers, and piloted them up-stairs and into my sitting-room, where Madeleine, at sight of Selwyn, burst into tears and buried her face on my shoulder. But the ten minutes were not entirely lost which passed before we understood why the venture had been decided upon at this particular time, and how hard luck had prevented its fulfilment. Tears are effective. Selwyn weakened as rapidly as I could have wished.

"I haven't seen Harrie for two weeks. Ever since I've been here he's been writing me he was sick." Madeleine's words came stumblingly, and the corners of her handkerchief were pulled with nervous movements in between the wiping of her pretty brown eyes. "The day after Christmas I wrote him, breaking our engagement. I've never heard from him since. I don't even know that he got my letter." Questioningly she looked at Selwyn, and her face, already colored, crimsoned yet more deeply.

"Neither do I." Selwyn's voice was gentle. Indignation at his and my involvement in what was not an affair of ours seemed to have vanished. "I redirected a number of letters to his new address, but—"

"His new address?" Madeleine looked puzzled. "I didn't know he had a new address."

"He is not living at home just now." The flush in Selwyn's face deepened also. "I have not seen him since Christmas day. But go on. I did not mean to interrupt you."

"Three days ago Madeleine told her mother she'd broken with Harrie and was going to marry me." Tom was no longer to be repressed. "She's had the devil of a time ever since, and yesterday I told her she shouldn't stand it any longer, and neither would I. Harrie has hypnotized her mother. She thinks—"

"I'm unkind and unsympathetic and hard and cruel to give him up
because he is not well. It isn't that. You know it isn't that—"
Madeleine's fingers twisted in appeal and again her eyes were on
Selwyn. "You think it's dreadful in me not to marry your brother—"

"No, I don't. I think it would be much more dreadful in you if you did marry him." Selwyn's hands made gesture. "However, we'll leave that out. You say you told your mother you intended to marry Tom?"

Handkerchief to her lips, she nodded. "I told her, and Tom wrote her, asking her consent. She wouldn't give it, and said I was ungrateful and had no ambition, and that if she had a stroke I'd be the cause. She's never had a stroke and is very healthy, but—"

Bursting into fresh tears, Madeleine this time hid her face in her hands, and Tom, wanting much to comfort, miserably ignorant of how to do it, and consciously awkward and restrained in the presence of witnesses, stood by her side, his hand on her shoulder, and at sight of him I reached swift decision.

"I'm glad you told her. You've been open and square and asked her consent. One can't wait indefinitely for consent to do things." I got up and took Madeleine by the hand. "Come in my room and take off your hat and coat. When we come back we'll talk about what is best to do."

Five minutes later we were back and, eyes bathed and face powdered, Madeleine gave evidence of fresh injections of courage, and quickly we began to plan. The 4 A.M. train was the best to take, but for half an hour we talked of whether Shelby or Claxon was the better town to go to for the marriage ceremony, which at either place could be performed without the consent of parent or guardian, and irrespective of the age of the applicants for the same. Though preferring Shelby, Tom agreed to Claxon on my insisting on the latter place, which was the Mecca for runaway couples from our section of the state. If I were going with them—

"Going with them?" The inflection in Selwyn's voice was hardly polite. "You don't intend—"

"Yes, I do. They've made a mess of the first try and they'll be caught and brought back if somebody isn't there to keep them from being held up. I'm going with them."

"How do you expect to hold off—the holding up?" Selwyn was staring at me and anxiety concerning Harrie was for the time in abeyance. He needed something to distract him. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"I don't know—don't have to know until to-morrow—I mean later to-day." I motioned toward the hall and, following me into it, he partly closed the door behind us. "We'll let those children have a chance to say good night, and then please go home. And don't look at me like that! I don't approve of runaway marriages any more than you do. I'd never be a party to one, because I wouldn't marry an angel-man before I was twenty-one. Afterward running away wouldn't be necessary. Tom and Madeleine are not entirely to blame."

"The blame for this will be put on you. Mrs. Swink will credit you with the instigation and carrying out of the whole affair. You mustn't go with them, Danny. It isn't necessary."

"Maybe it isn't, but I'm going. I can't let a girl of Madeleine's age leave the house alone at half past three in the morning, and certainly I cannot let Tom come here for her. We will get to Claxon at ten o'clock and by that time Mrs. Swink will have finished her swooning and be working the wires. They'll certainly be held up at Claxon."

"Then why go there? Why not go on to Shelby?"

I shook my head. "Claxon is the better place. I don't know how it's going to be managed, but if one couldn't outmanoeuver mother Swink—. It doesn't matter about my being blamed for helping them. Long usage has accustomed me to large shares of blame." I held out my hand. "I'll be back to-morrow night. Come Thursday. I think by then—"

"There are few things you will let me share with you, but the blame that will come from this I am going to share whether you let me or not. I've gotten you into it and we'll see it through together. If you are going with them, I am going also. Good night." He dropped the hand he was holding and turned away. "Tell Tom I'm waiting, will you?"