IX
Changes occurred in view of the altered relations between Franz and Margaret.
It came to be Perkins' nightly custom to formulate labored excuses that would enable him to retire to his own apartments, for as he said to Philip: “Just suppose it was one of us!”
Nor did the change stop here. Mrs. Perkins suddenly found it convenient to spend her evenings in the back parlor where the arrangement of lights was more to her taste and where she could sew without straining her eyes.
Perkins was treating himself to a few remarks one evening before taking Philip—who had just come in—up-stairs for a smoke:
“I think I got off a very good thing to-day,” he was saying, “not too amusing, but very bright and to the point. When you take into account that it comes from a fellow who lays no claim to being a wit, why it's not half bad. If you are all dying to hear, I might be induced to repeat it.” He did not wait for their entreaties however. “You see, it was this. It's quite complicated and calls for a lot of explanation. I was at Bessie's this afternoon and a Mrs. Cavendish came in. Philip and Franz know her, but, of course, you don't.” This last was to Margaret. “Well, we were talking about family. Mrs. Cavendish is great on family—she has been separated from her husband—that is part of the story, and it's got to be remembered.” Perkins came to a stand-still. “Now, isn't it strange that only the most gifted intellects can master the intricacies of a funny story. Really, you know, I am getting it all wrong. Oh, yes, this is it. Bessie was speaking of some one—I forget who, luckily that doesn't matter—and Mrs. Cavendish said—'He was a connection of mine by marriage.' And I said—to Bessie of course, 'I suppose she would call him a disconnection by divorce now.'.rdquo;
Philip turned to Margaret: “Have you met Bessie yet?”
“No; Ballard refuses to bring her to the house.”
Perkins shook his head. “My mother and Bessie don't get on.”
“Is it settled, Perkins?” Philip asked laughingly.
“I suppose it is. You see a fellow hasn't a ghost of a chance when a girl and her mother regularly set out to marry him. When that's the case he might just as well beg them to name the day—for they are bound to divide the spoils. Yes,” with placid resignation, “I really suppose I am as good as done for. I know it from the way their cook treats me. When the cook treats you with a deference you suppose she would only bestow on the heavenly host, you may be altogether positive your intentions have been discussed in the kitchen by members of the family.”
Philip turned from Perkins to gaze gloomily into the fire. He was wondering, as he had many times of late, how he would ever summon the resolution to tell Mr. Gerard of his altered fortunes.
Perkins, surveying the faces of his friends with an angelic smile upon his own freckled features, noted his abstraction.
“What's the matter, Philip?” he asked. “Nothing. I am simply in the depths to-night. I fear I am not very desirable to have about in my present mood.”
“Is it the work?” asked Margaret.
“It's everything!” He roused himself with an effort. “Utter and complete dissatisfaction with my surroundings for one thing—the feeling that I am dying with dry rot. I suppose to you it seems fresh and interesting. You can't fancy what it is to those who have to live here. The narrowness and meagerness of it all!”
“It's not so bad,” Perkins said. “The town has lots of intelligent and charming people and if you didn't go about with a chip on your shoulder, you would find them out.”
“I detest intelligence,” Philip retorted. “We have filled up the valleys by pulling down the mountains—when we get a dead level the millennium will be reached. All that will be left for the unfortunates who live then to do, will be to lie down and long for death.”
“I say,” said Perkins interrupting him, “what's wrong with intelligence, anyhow?”
“Everything's wrong with it. I can respect ignorance. As with any deformity it has its own pathetic dignity, but this thin spread of middle-class intelligence, which is one part enlightenment to nine parts of stupid prejudice, goes far to make me an ardent supporter of gaggings, clubbings and burnings at the stake.”
Margaret laughed: “Is intelligence so dreadful as that?”
“I think it is——” then he stopped abruptly, for the door opened and Geoffrey Ballard appeared upon the threshold.
With an attempt at dignity he moved toward his sister's chair. No one spoke. The surprise was too intense. But they observed that he walked as though tired.
Margaret shrank from him, her face paling. Every particle of happy color had fled from it when he entered the room. As Geoff bent and kissed her, Franz came to his feet with what sounded like a smothered oath upon his lips. After the perfunctory greetings with his sister were disposed of, Geoff swung around languidly to the others. First, he shook hands with Perkins with much cordiality. Next he saluted Philip:
“I am very glad to see you again, Mr. Southard,” he said.
“Thanks awfully,” growled Philip. He resented this intrusion. Besides he was not in a good humor. He didn't propose to be decent to a man he disliked. That was asking too much.
Silently and avoiding the danger of words, Franz and Geoff acknowledged each other's existence. They consoled themselves with looking their hate.
While they were thus engaged, Perkins stood on tiptoe at Philip's side and said in a hoarse whisper: “What business has he coming here sticking in and spoiling our fun! Damn him! Why doesn't he stay away? I should like to punch his head for him jolly good and well. That's what I would! I came mighty near doing it, too, when he shook hands with me.” And Perkins bristled pugnaciously.
Such was the prodigal's return and such his welcome.
Not many days elapsed before there dawned upon him a premonition of what had happened during his absence, and a chilly and uncomfortable premonition it was.
Most assuredly an understanding had been established between Margaret and the German. Whether it was love or a deepened friendship, he could not decide and he was reluctant to inquire. Until now he had never felt the least wish to familiarize himself with the emotions that swayed her, and he did not know just how to begin.
Geoff finally hit upon Perkins as a likely source of information. He sought him out and asked to be enlightened as to the relationship between his sister and “that Dutchman,”—and Perkins informed him,—becoming more and more pleased as gloom spread over the face of his questioner. Geoff was seriously alarmed. But if any one thought that after selling his sister at so great an advantage to himself as he had done he was going to sit supinely down and not endeavor to save the purchase money, they did him a rank injustice.
He began to urge upon his sister the advisability of their being domiciled elsewhere. He didn't demand any radical move to start with, simply that they obtain a house. This he urged on the grounds that they were wearing out their welcome at the Perkinses.
“We can't impose upon their good nature much longer, you know,” he said. “And since you are so very well satisfied here, don't you think we had better settle ourselves in some more permanent fashion?”
Margaret demurred, but what he said about the Perkinses made an impression upon her.
“I think,” Geoff continued, “you would enjoy a home of your own, where you could be mistress. Russell could, of course, relieve you of every burden. She is fully competent to order a much more extensive establishment than you will care to maintain. I find there is just such a place as you would fancy. It is furnished and ready for occupancy. The owner is holding some political office in Washington, his family is with him, and their home is for rent, providing a proper tenant can be found.”
He did not think it worth while to explain that he had learned the chief reason why the house stood vacant was that the location was unhealthful, especially during the winter months. He was positive he should experience no ill effects from this and he could afford to take a few risks with his sister.
“I wish you would think it over, Margaret,” he urged.
“Why can't you remain here?” said Margaret. And her glance wandered wistfully over the room. He was asking a great deal. She was very happy.
“I don't begin to have your knack at getting on with people. I trust you will not speak of this until you know what you will do.”
All this while Geoff was wonderfully circumspect. Never before had he been so considerate or kind. He seemed to have undergone a thorough reformation. He knew if he did not accomplish what he was striving for he would find himself face to face with ruin. This steadied him astonishingly. He showed no inclination to leave and for the moment conquered his tendencies to dissipation. He even ceased to be disagreeable to either Perkins or Philip, but he made it his duty to see that the interviews his sister had alone with Becker were few and far between—and as brief as possible.
So it happened, when one afternoon in December Margaret announced she had taken the lease of a house and intended going into it immediately,—that Perkins and his mother listened to her in horror-stricken amazement. They could scarcely believe it.
“What!” cried Perkins: “what! leave us, you know! A house of your own! Why, you can have all of this one if you will only include mother and me in the bargain.”
“What place is it?” Mrs. Perkins asked.
Margaret turned to her brother: “What did you say the name was, Geoff?”
Geoff braced himself mentally as he answered: “The Springer property.”
He was tolerably sure they knew the house and its reputation. Nor was he in error. What people in a town of ten thousand or less don't know of their neighbors' affairs isn't worth mentioning. They knew all there was to know of the house in question.
“Why, look here!” Perkins stuttered, his words falling over one another in their haste for utterance. “You can't go there, you know. It will never do, you see. The house is damp as all get out from cellar to garret, and it's so mildewy in some of the rooms that the paper won't stick to the walls. I have been there lots of times and have seen it. Why, I say, you should just see the Springer children. They are sick all the time. You can't go there. We won't let you.” And he fell to pacing the floor, his thumbs tucked in his waistcoat, as was his wont when nervous or excited.
Geoff watched him from between narrowed lids. There was a steely glitter in the look, and a baleful twitching at the corners of his mouth, as though he had it strong within him to express a good deal more than was policy just then.
“You have been most kind to us,” he said; “you overwhelm us with your goodness. Still I know my sister will be better contented in her own home. As for the dampness of which you speak, I will see to that. It is a small matter and can be readily overcome.”
“Aren't you contented here?” Mrs. Perkins asked quickly, turning to Margaret. “You know we will do anything for you—anything.”
Margaret seized both her hands and clasped them to her breast, then raised them to her lips while her eyes glistened: “I have never been so happy. Not in all my life. Oh, you are so dear and kind! How shall I ever thank you for all you've done for me!”
“We can not possibly add to the sense of gratitude beneath which we are already struggling,” Geoff interposed. He spoke coldly and insolently. He wished to stop this burst of sentiment or else it might go to dangerous lengths. He succeeded in mortally offending Perkins, who said hotly and with the bottled-up acrimony of many days in his tones:
“Why do you cut in when my mother and Margaret are talking! You are always cutting in where you haven't any right to.”
This outburst quieted things down for the moment and no more was said about Madame Dennie's plans for the future, but in two minds at least the thought of her pending departure was uppermost.
When Geoff quitted the library a few minutes later, Mrs. Perkins, excusing herself to Margaret, followed promptly in his wake, and at once returned to the charge with unabated zeal.
“Are you going to take that child there and selfishly jeopardize her health? Are you? Answer me.”
“That's exactly what I am going to do, my dear Mrs. Perkins, and the sooner the better, if you will allow me to say so.”
“Then,” said Mrs. Perkins, “you are the most contemptible—the most thoroughly contemptible of living creatures! That's what I think of you, and I am the easier for having said it!”
“Don't you think, my dear Mrs. Perkins, that you rather strain the case?” Geoff retorted. “After all, one's own business is about the only business one should undertake.”
Mrs. Perkins flushed, but she put a check upon herself. “I positively decline to quarrel with you. I don't, for I see through you. I won't quarrel no matter what you do and you needn't try to make me.”
“Your conception of what constitutes incompatibility would prove entertaining,” Geoff replied. “I have the impression that that stage of disagreement has already been reached. The only course open for my sister is to leave.”
Mrs. Perkins fairly gasped at the deftness with which he made their dislike of him embrace Margaret as well, but being of an emotional temperament she trusted herself to speak no further and retired to her own rooms where she could weep in solitude.
And so it was decided that Margaret should leave the Perkinses.
When the day came—and it came quickly, as Geoff's patience was all but exhausted—she wept as she passed out through the wide doors that had opened so hospitably to receive her.
“We shall see a great deal of each other, shall we not?” she said to Mrs. Perkins. “You will come to me whenever you can? I fear the cold will keep me somewhat confined, but you won't mind it as I shall, and you will come often to see me?”
Perkins and his mother went down to see that she was properly installed in her home, and then sadly took their leave of her just as the night came on. Geoff, being inordinately elated by his success, was absent, celebrating his victory in a spree.
In spite of the fires and a superheated furnace below stairs, the house had a musty odor and the big rooms held a damp chill that could not be warmed out of them.
Finally Geoff came in, with unsteady step and bloodshot eyes, to add what he could to the load resting on the poor little shoulders, which for years had been so weighted down with care and weariness. He found her lonely, miserable and in tears. This exhibition of weakness, as he termed it, he took in very bad part.
The initial dinner was a meal long remembered, with Geoff, stupid and maudlin from too much drink, constantly going to sleep and as constantly waking to growl his complaints.
When it was finished, he took himself from his sister's sight, while Margaret waited for Perkins and Franz to come as they had said they would.
Eight o'clock brought them and the evening was passed pleasantly enough.
Madame Dennie had been suffering from a cold for some days, and the next morning she was quite ill. Her brother took no notice of this, and for several days did nothing but press forward to the goal at which he aimed. He pursued his former tactics with the utmost industry, seeing that his sister never had a moment alone with her friends; and wishing to discourage their devotion, was aggressive and rude to such an extent that Philip made just one call on Margaret and then in unmistakable language announced his intention of not repeating the experiment.
“I don't intend to walk half-way across the town simply for the delirious joy of letting that fellow insult me!” And he kept to his word.
To be sure, with Perkins and Franz, it was different. They were blind to affronts and proof against the insufferable. For Margaret's sake they were willing to endure the unendurable, but the ordeal was too much for them to live down without an inward revolt at least.
Franz became habitually morose and sullen. Perkins waxed shockingly profane and his mother spent most of her time on the verge of tears; and all this while Margaret's condition grew rapidly worse.
When brother and sister were alone it was the eternal harping on the one theme. Geoff wished her to go East with him—anywhere. He gave her no peace. Morning, noon and night, he stuck to the dreary round of argument and objection.
This continued for a week. Margaret's cold developed into an alarming cough. She was confined to her room and could see no one but Mrs. Perkins and Russell.
Having space for deliberation, Perkins was seized with a brilliant conception: a project that anticipated nothing less than the getting of Geoff drunk and starting him on what Perkins called “a protracted spree.”
He reasoned that a man of his cousin's inclinations could only hold up so far in combating the unholy charms of a properly presented temptation.
But Perkins was not called upon to assume the tempter's rtle. Geoff accomplished his downfall himself.
There was one fatal quality in all his plotting. He invariably gave out before the final blow was dealt.
He now exemplified this by going away when there was most cause for his remaining. He could not stand the quiet longer. He would have one bout, he told himself,—just one. When it was over with he would return and Margaret should go with him where he pleased. He felt almost safe in leaving: she was so ill.