CHAPTER XIII
THE HAPPY FAMILY
He nodded at the two with an air of deep fraternal affection. And again he gazed with satisfaction about the spacious apartment, indicative of numberless other rooms of corresponding comfort.
His eyes came back to them.
"And now, Matilda, my dear," he resumed, with his pleasant smile, "in the event we spoke of,—neighbors or police dropping in, you know,—in such a case I suppose I ought to be prepared with a correct history of myself. To begin with, might I inquire what our name is?—our family name, I mean."
"Simpson."
"Simpson. Ah, yes; very good. Matilda Simpson—Angelica Simpson—and, let us say, Archibald Simpson. And where was I born, Matilda?"
"You weren't ever born," protested Matilda with frightened indignation.
"Now don't be facetious or superfluous, sister dear," he said soothingly. "Granted for the sake of argument I wasn't ever born. But where might I have been born?"
"I was born near Albany."
"Near Albany is perfectly agreeable to me," said Mr. Pyecroft. "And how many are there in our family?"
"Just Angelica and me."
"Then there really is an authentical Angelica?"
"Yes."
"Excellent. And our parents?"
"They died when I was a child."
"I'm grieved, indeed, to learn of it," said Mr. Pyecroft. "But I'll admit it simplifies matters; there's less to remember. Angelica, our sister here, who is also visiting you, lives near Syracuse I understood some one to say. Married or single?"
"Married," Matilda choked out.
"Her married name?"
"Jones."
"Angelica Simpson Jones. Good. Very euphonious. And how many little nieces and nephews am I the happy uncle of?"
"She—she has no children."
"That's too bad, for I have a particular fondness for children," sorrowed Mr. Pyecroft. "Still, that also simplifies matters, lessening considerably the percentage of chances for regrettable lapses of memory."
He pursued his genealogical inquiries into all possibly useful details. And then he sat meditative for a while, gazing amiably about his family circle. And it was while they were all thus sitting silent, in what in the dim light of the one shaded electric bulb might have seemed to an observer the silence of intimacy, that Jack, who had slipped cautiously downstairs, walked in, behind him Mary.
"Matilda, what's this mean?" he demanded, with a bewildered look. "We've been wondering why you didn't come upstairs."
Mrs. De Peyster turned in her chair, and held her breath, like one beneath the guillotine. Matilda arose, shaking.
"Who's this man, Matilda?" Jack continued.
"He—ah—er—he's—"
"And, pray, Matilda, who is this?" politely inquired the arisen Mr. Pyecroft, blandly assuming command of the situation.
"Who am I? Well, you certainly have nerve—" the astounded Jack was beginning.
"He's Mr. Jack," Matilda put in. "Jack De Peyster."
"Ah, young Mr. De Peyster!" Mr. Pyecroft's eyebrows went up slightly and a shrewd light flashed into his rounded eyes and was at once gone, and again his face was blandly clerical. "It is, indeed, a pleasure to meet you, Mr. De Peyster. And, pray, who is this?" with a suave gesture toward Mary.
"That, sir, is my wife!" Jack announced, stiff with anger.
Again Mr. Pyecroft's eyes flashed shrewdly, and again were clerically rounded.
"My dear sir, that is, indeed, surprising. I have seen no public notice of your marriage. And I watch the marriage announcements quite closely—which is rather natural, for, if I may be permitted to mention it, I myself am frequently called upon to perform the holy rites." His face clouded with what seemed a painful suspicion. "I trust, sir, that you are really married?"
"Why, damn you—"
"Sir, you must not thus address the cloth!" sternly interposed Mr. Pyecroft. "It is our duty to speak frankly, and to make due inquiry into the propriety of such relations. However, since you say so, I am sure the affair is strictly correct." His voice softened, became nobly apologetic. "No harm has been meant, and if any offense has been felt, I assure you of my deepest regrets."
"See here, who the devil are you?" demanded Jack.
Mr. Pyecroft turned to Matilda.
"Matilda, my dear, will you kindly tell young Mr. De Peyster who I am."
Matilda seemed about to choke. "He's—he's my—my brother."
"Your brother!" exclaimed Jack, "I didn't know you had a brother. You never spoke of one."
"Which was entirely natural," said Mr. Pyecroft, with an air of pious remorse. "Matilda has been ashamed to speak of me. To be utterly frank—and it is meet that one who has been what I have been should be humble and ready to confess—for many years I was the black sheep of the family, my name unmentioned. But sometime since I was snatched a brand from the burning; I have remained silent about myself until I could give to my family, which had properly disowned me, a long record to prove my reformation. I am now striving by my devotion to make some amends for my previous shortcomings."
Jack stared incomprehensibly at this unexpected clerical brother of Matilda's, with his unquenchable volubility. Mr. Pyecroft gazed back with appropriate humility, yet with a lofty self-respect.
Jack turned away with a shrug, and pointed at the dark figure of Mrs. De Peyster.
"And who is that, Matilda?"
"That, sir," put in Mr. Pyecroft quickly, easily, to forestall any blunder by the hapless Matilda—and deftly interposing himself between Jack and Mrs. De Peyster, "that is our sister."
"The one who lives in Syracuse?"
"Yes; and she is indisposed," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Our sister Angelica Simpson Jones," he elaborated. "Matilda is the eldest, I am the youngest; there are just us three children."
"And might I ask, Matilda, without intending discourtesy," said Jack, eyeing Mr. Pyecroft with disfavor, "how long your brother and sister intend to remain?"
"Matilda invited us for the summer," said Mr. Pyecroft apologetically.
"For the summer!" repeated Jack in dismay. Then he spoke to Matilda, caustically: "I suppose it's all right, Matilda, but has it been your fixed custom, when we've been away for the summer, to fill the house with your family?"
"Please, Mr. Jack, please," imploringly began Matilda, and could utter nothing further.
"Great God!" Jack burst out in exasperation. "Not that I'd object ordinarily to your relatives being here, Matilda. But running this place just now as a hotel, who knows but it may let out the fact that we're here!"
Mr. Pyecroft's eyebrows went up—ever so little.
"Ah, I understand. You wish your presence in the house to be a secret."
"Of course! Hasn't Matilda told you?"
"I only just arrived. She hasn't had time. But of course she would have done so. You are—ah"—his tone was delicate—"evading the police?"
"The police! We don't care a hang about the police, though, of course, we don't want them to know. It's the infernal reporters we care about."
"The reporters?" softly pursued Mr. Pyecroft.
"Yes, but one reporter in particular—a beast by the name of Mayfair, I've had a tip that he suspects something; already he's tried to get into the house as a gas-meter inspector."
At the mention of that indomitable, remorseless, undeceivable newsgatherer, Mayfair, and the possibility of his gaining entrance into the house, Mrs. De Peyster experienced a new shudder.
"What would be the harm if Mr. Mayfair did get in?" Imperceptibly prodded Mr. Pyecroft. "He would merely write a piece about you for his paper."
"And his confounded piece, or the main facts in it, would be cabled to Europe!"
"Ah, I think I see," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Mrs. De Peyster would read about your marriage in the Paris 'Herald' or some other European paper. You do not wish your mother to know of your marriage—yet."
"I supposed Matilda had already told you that," said Jack.
"Ah, so that is why you are here in hiding," said Mr. Pyecroft, very softly, chiefly to himself; and his eyes had another momentary flash, only brighter than any heretofore, and his mouth twitched upward, and he pleasantly rubbed his hands.
At that moment, from the stairway, came the sound of descending steps. Jack and Mary appeared undisturbed. Mr. Pyecroft became taut, though no one could have observed a change, Mrs. De Peyster quivered with yet deeper apprehension. Would the trials and tribulations and Pharaonic plagues never cease descending on her!
Matilda gazed wildly at Jack. "Who's that?" she quavered.
"Only Uncle Bob," Jack answered carelessly.
Only Uncle Bob! Mrs. De Peyster, in her dim corner, tried to shrivel up into yet darker obscurity. Breathlessly she felt herself upon the precipitous edge of ultimate horror. For Judge Harvey—Judge Harvey of all persons—to be the one to discover her amid her humiliating circumstances!
Dimly she heard Jack talk on, explaining in casual tone: "You know, Matilda, Uncle Bob has always had the general oversight of the house when it's been closed during summers; and he's always made it his business to drop in occasionally to see that everything's all right. I got him word we were here, and he dropped in this evening to call on us—and along came this awful rain and we coaxed him to stay the night. Uncle Bob and you are lucky, Matilda, you can both come and go without arousing any suspicion."
Only the Judge!... Yet, for all her horror, a new phase of the general predicament filtered into such consciousness as she now possessed. Judge Harvey, irate purchaser of autograph letters, and Mr. Pyecroft, alias Thomas Preston, profuse producer of the same, were under the same roof and were about to meet. What would happen when they came face to face?—for she remembered now that a bad likeness of Thomas Preston had several times appeared in the papers. She turned her head toward the doorway and peered through her veil, waiting.
When Judge Harvey entered, Mr. Pyecroft started. Upon the instant he had recognized Judge Harvey. But the next moment Mr. Pyecroft was himself. Jack gave the necessary introductions, the one to Angelica Simpson Jones at long distance, and gave a brief explanation of the presence of the two guests. During this while Judge Harvey repeatedly glanced at Mr. Pyecroft, a puzzled look on his countenance.
"Excuse me, Mr. Simpson," he remarked presently, "but your face seems elusively familiar to me. I seem to know it, yet I cannot place it. Haven't I met you somewhere?"
"Perhaps you were a lay delegate to the recent Episcopal Convention in New York?" politely suggested Mr. Pyecroft.
"No. I did not even attend any of the sessions."
"Then, of course, it could not have been there that you saw me," said Mr. Pyecroft.
"Perhaps it will come to me," said Judge Harvey.
"Perhaps," said Mr. Pyecroft.
Mrs. De Peyster, for all her personal apprehension, could but marvel at this young man of the sea who had fastened himself upon her back. Most amazing of all, he seemed to like the taste of his danger.
"Judge Harvey, Mr. De Peyster was remarking when you came in," Mr. Pyecroft continued without permitting a lull, "that he wished his presence in this house to remain unknown. Also I had just told him and his young wife that my earlier years were given over to a life for which I have been trying to atone by good works. Now I have a very humiliating further confession to make to you all. Recently there has been—may I call it a recrudescence?—an uncontrollable recrudescence of my former regrettable self. For a disastrous moment the Mr. Hyde element in me, which I thought I had stifled and cast out, arose and possessed me. In brief, I have been guilty of an error which the police consider serious; in fact, the police are this moment searching for me. So you see, I am in the same situation as Mr. De Peyster: I prefer my whereabouts to remain unknown. Since we are in each other's hands, and it is in our power each to betray the other, shall we not all, as a quid pro quo, agree to preserve Mr. De Peyster's and my presence in this house a secret? For my part, I promise."
"I'm willing," said Jack.
"And I," said Mary. "Anyhow, I never get a chance to tell, for I haven't been out of this house once."
"And you, Judge Harvey? You will—ah—protect me?"
Judge Harvey bit the end of his mustache. "I don't like this bargaining over a matter of justice. But—for Jack's sake, yes."
"Thank you, Judge Harvey," Mr. Pyecroft said in a soft, grateful voice, and with a slight, dignified bow.
Mrs. De Peyster drew a deep breath. He certainly was a cool one.
"There's something that's just been occurring to me," spoke up Jack. "It's along of that infernal reporter Mayfair who's snooping around here. He's likely to get in here any time. If he were to find me here alone, there'd be nothing for him to write about. It's finding me here, married, that will give him one of his yellow stories, and that will put mother next. Matilda, since you already have so large a family visiting you, I suppose you wouldn't mind taking on one more and saying that Mary here was something or other of yours—say a niece?"
"Oh, that would be delicious" laughed Mary.
"Why, Mr. Jack,—I! I—" The flustered Matilda could get out no more.
"Mr. Simpson, couldn't you say she was your daughter?" queried Jack.
"I would be only too delighted to own her as such," said Mr. Pyecroft. "But I am not married and I am obviously too young. However,"—moving closer to Mrs. De Peyster,—"our sister Angelica is married, and I am sure it will be a great pleasure to her to claim Mrs. De Peyster as her daughter. Angelica, my dear, of course you'll do it?"
Mrs. De Peyster sat rigid, voiceless.
"What's the matter?" asked Mary, in deep concern.
"Our sister probably did not hear, she is slightly deaf," Mr. Pyecroft explained. He bent over Mrs. De Peyster, made a trumpet of one hand, and raised his voice. "Angelica, if any other person comes into the house, you are to say that young Mrs. De Peyster is your daughter. You understand?"
Mrs. De Peyster nodded.
"And of course you'll say it?"
For a moment Mrs. De Peyster was again rigid. Then slowly she nodded.
The spirit of the masquerade seized upon Mary. "Oh, mother dear,—what a comfort to have you!" she cried with mischievous glee; and arms wide as if for a daughterly embrace she swept toward Mrs. De Peyster.
Mrs. De Peyster shriveled back. She stopped living. In another moment—
But the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft, alias Archibald Simpson, alias Thomas Preston, alias God knows what else, stepped quickly between her and the on-coming Mary, and with an air of brotherly concern held out an intercepting hand.
"No excitement, please. The doctor's orders."
"Is it anything serious?" Mary asked anxiously.
"We hope not," in a grave voice. "It is chiefly nervous exhaustion due to a period of worry over a trying domestic situation."
"That's too bad!" Very genuine sympathy was in Mary's soft contralto. "But if she's unwell, she ought to have more air. Why don't you draw up that heavy veil?"
"S-s-h! Not so loud, I beg you. If she heard you speak of her veil, it would pain her greatly. You see," Mr. Pyecroft unhesitatingly went on in a low, compassionate tone, "our sister, while trying to light a gasoline stove—It was a gasoline stove, was it not, Matilda?"
"Ah—er—ye-yes," corroborated Matilda.
"A gasoline stove, yes," continued the grave voice of Mr. Pyecroft. "It was during the very first year after her marriage. The explosion that followed disfigured her face frightfully. She is extremely sensitive; so much so that she invariably wears a heavy veil when she goes out of her own house."
"Why, how terrible!" cried Mary.
"Yes, isn't it! All of our family have felt for poor Angelica most deeply. And furthermore, she is sensitive about her deafness—which, I may add, was caused by the same accident. And her various misfortunes have made her extremely shy, so the less attention that is paid to her, the happier the poor creature is."
Mary withdrew among the others. Slowly Mrs. De Peyster returned once more to life. She hardly knew how she had escaped, save that it had been through some miracle of that awful Mr. Pyecroft's amazing tongue.
"By the way, Matilda," she heard Mary remark, "did you read in to-night's papers about Mrs. De Peyster's voyage? You know she landed to-day."
"No, ma'—Mary," said Matilda.
"The paper said she was so ill all the way across that she wasn't able to leave her stateroom once." Mary's voice was very sympathetic. "Why, she was so ill she couldn't leave the boat until after dark, hours after all the other passengers had gone."
"I never knew mother to be seasick before," said Jack, in deep concern.
Judge Harvey said nothing, but his fine, handsome face was disturbed. Jack noted the look, and, suddenly catching the Judge's hand, said with a burst of boyish frankness:—
"Uncle Bob, you're worried more than any of us! You know I've always liked you like a father—and—and here's hoping some day mother'll change her mind—and you'll be my father in reality!"
"Thank you, Jack!" the Judge said huskily, gripping Jack's hand.
Over in her corner, beneath her veil, Mrs. De Peyster flushed hotly.
They talked on about the distant Mrs. De Peyster, and she listened with keenest ears. They were all so sympathetic about her—sick—alone—in far-off Europe. So sympathetic—so very, very sympathetic!
As for Mr. Pyecroft, standing on guard beside her, he looked appropriately grave. But inside his gravity he was smiling. These people had no guess that in a way he was connected with the great Mrs. De Peyster of whom they talked—that "Miss Gardner" who was the companion to the ailing social leader in France was something more than just Miss Gardner. And he felt no reason for revealing his little secret.... Clara, the dear little Puritan, would be scandalized by this his wildest escapade—by his having used, after all and despite her prohibition, Mrs. De Peyster's closed house as a retreat; but when she came back from Europe, and he made her see in its proper light this gorgeous and profitable lark, she would relent and forgive him. Why, of course, she would forgive him.
He was very optimistic, was Mr. Pyecroft; and the founder of his family must have been a certain pagan gentleman by the name of Pan.