Miss Maitland, Private Secretary
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At this thought she subsided against the cushions, and closed her eyes smiling softly. Seen thus, the bright sunlight tempered by filmy curtains, she was a pretty woman, looking very girlish for her twenty-eight years. This was partly due to her extreme slenderness and partly to her blonde coloring. Both had been preserved with sedulous care: the one matter in which she exercised self-restraint was her food, the one occasion on which she showed patience was when her maid was washing her hair with a solution of peroxide.
Every window in the large, luxurious room was open and through them drifted a flow of air, scented with the sea and the breath of flowers. Then rising on the stillness came the sound of voices – a man's and a woman's – from the balcony below. They were Mr. Janney's and Miss Maitland's – the secretary was preparing to read the morning papers to her employer.
Suzanne opened her eyes and sat up, the smile dying from her lips. The dreamy complacence left her face and was replaced by a look of brooding irritation. It changed her so completely that she ceased to be pretty – suddenly showed her years, and was revealed as a woman, already fading, preyed upon by secret vexations.
She rose adjusting her dress, a marvelous creation of thin white material with floating edges of lace. She went to the mirror, powdered her face and touched her lips with a stick of red salve, then studied her reflection. It should have been satisfying, delicate, fragile, a lovely, ethereal creature, with baby blue eyes and silky, maize-colored hair. It was not to be believed that any man could look at Esther Maitland when she was by – and yet – and yet – ! She turned from the mirror with an angry mutter and went downstairs.
On the balcony Miss Maitland was looking over the papers with Mr. Janney opposite waiting to be read to. Suzanne sat down near them where she could command the place in the woods where the path from Council Oaks struck into the lawn. With a sidelong eye she noted the Secretary's hand on the edge of the paper – narrow, satin-skinned, with fingers finely tapering and pink-tipped. Her fingers were short and spatulate, showing her common blood, and all the pink on them had to be applied with a chamois. Miss Maitland began to read – the war news first was the rule – and her voice was a pleasure to hear, cultivated, soft, musical. Suzanne, for all her expensive education and subsequent efforts, had never been able to refine hers; the ugly Pittsburg burr would crop out.
A gnawing fancy that she had been fighting against for weeks rose suddenly into jealous conviction. This girl – a penniless nobody – had a quality, an air, a distinction, that she with all her advantages had never been able to acquire, could never acquire. It was something innate, something you were born with, something that made you fitted for any sphere. Immovable, apparently absorbed in the reading, Suzanne began to think how she could induce her mother to dispense with the services of the Social Secretary.
When the war news was finished Miss Maitland passed on to the news of the day. On this particular morning it was varied and interesting: A Western senator had attacked the President's policy with unseemly vigor; the mysterious murder of a woman in Chicago had developed a new suspect; a California mob had nearly killed a Japanese student; and in the New York loft district a strike of shirtwaist makers had attained the proportions of a riot in which one of the pickets had stabbed a policeman with a hatpin.
Mr. Janney was shocked at these horrors, but he always liked to hear them. Miss Maitland had to stop reading and listen to a theory he had evolved about the Chicago murder – it was the woman's husband and he demonstrated how this was possible. Then he took up the shirtwaist strike with a fussy disapproval – they got nothing by violence, only set the public against them and their cause. Miss Maitland was inclined to argue about it; thought there was something to say for their methods and said it.
Suzanne listened uncomprehending, unable to join in or to follow. She had heard such arguments before and had to sit silent, feeling a fool. The girl didn't know her place, talked as if she were their equal, talked to Dick that way, and Dick had been interested, giving her an attention he never gave Suzanne. Mr. Janney was doing it now, leaning out of his chair, voicing his hope that a speedy vengeance would overtake the picket who had made her escape in the mêlée.
The conversation was brought to an end by the appearance of Mrs. Janney. It was time for the mail; Otto had gone for it an hour ago. Before its arrival Mrs. Janney wanted their answers about two dinner invitations which had just come by telephone. One was for herself and Sam – Sunday night at the Delavalles – and the other was from Dick Ferguson for to-night – all of them, very informally – just himself and Ham Lorimer who was staying there.
Mr. Janney agreed to both and in answer to her mother's glance Suzanne said languidly, "Yes, she'd go to-night – there was nothing else to do."
"And he wants you too, Miss Maitland," said Mrs. Janney, turning to the Secretary. "You'll come, won't you?"
Miss Maitland said she would and that it was very kind of Mr. Ferguson to ask her. Mr. and Mrs. Janney exchanged a gratified glance; they were much attached to the Secretary and felt that their lordly circle ignored her existence more than was necessary or kindly. Suzanne said nothing, but the edges of her small upper teeth set close on her under lip, and her nostrils quivered with a deep-drawn breath.
Mrs. Janney gave orders for messages of acceptance to be sent, then sank into a chair, remarking to her husband:
"I'm glad you'll go to the Delavalles. It's to be a large dinner. I'll wear my emeralds."
To which Mr. Janney murmured:
"By all means, my dear. The Delavalles will like to see them."
Mrs. Janney's emeralds were famous; they had once belonged to Maria Theresa. As old Sam thought of them he smiled, for he knew why his wife had decided to wear them. In her climbing days, before her marriage to him had secured her position, the Delavalles had snubbed her. Now she was going to snub them, not in any obvious, vulgar way, but finely as was her wont, with the assistance of himself and Maria Theresa.
The motor came into view gliding up the long drive and the waiting group roused into expectant animation. Mr. Janney rose, kicking his trouser legs into shape, Miss Maitland gathered up the papers, and Mrs. Janney went to the top of the steps. In the tonneau, her body encircled by Annie's restraining arm, Bébita stood, waving an electric torch and caroling joyfully:
"It's come – it's come. It was sent to me, in a box, with my name on it."
She leaped out, rushing up the steps to display her treasure, Annie following with the mail. There was quite a bunch of it which Mrs. Janney distributed – several for Sam, a pile for herself, one for Suzanne and one for Miss Maitland. They settled down to it amid a crackling of torn envelopes, Bébita darting from one to the other.
She tried her mother first:
"Mummy, look. You just press this and the light comes out at the other end."
Suzanne's eyes on her letter did not lift, and Bébita laid a soft little hand on the tinted cheek:
"Mummy, do please look."
Suzanne pushed the hand away with an angry movement.
"Let me alone, Bébita," she said sharply and, getting up, thrust the child out of her way and went into the house.
For a moment Bébita was astonished. Her mother, who was so often cross to other people, was rarely so to her. But the torch was too enthralling for any other subject to occupy her thoughts and she turned to her grandfather, reading a business communication held out in front of his nose for he had on the wrong glasses. She crowded in under his arm and sparked the torch at him waiting to see his delighted surprise. But he only drew her close, kissed her cheek and murmured without moving his eyes:
"Yes, darling. It's wonderful."
That was not what she wanted so she tried her grandmother:
"Gran, do look at my torch."
Gran looked, not at the torch at all but at Bébita's face, smiled into it, said, "Dearest, it's lovely and I'm so glad it's come," and went back to her reading.
It was all disappointing, and Bébita, as a last resource, had to try Miss Maitland, who, if not a relation, was always sympathetic and responsive. The Secretary was reading too, holding her letter up high, almost in front of her face. Bébita laid a sly finger on the top of it, drew it down and sparked the torch right at Miss Maitland.
In the shoot of brilliant light the Secretary's face was like that of a stranger – hard and thin, the mouth slightly open, the eyes staring blankly at Bébita as if they had never seen her before. For a second the child was dumb, held in a scared amazement, then backing away she faltered:
"Why – why – how funny you look!"
The words seemed to bring Miss Maitland back to her usual, pleasant aspect. She drew a deep breath, smiled and said:
"I was thinking, that was all – something I was reading here. The torch is beautiful; you must let me try it, but not now, I have to go. I've read the papers to Gramp and I've work to do in my study."
Any one who knew Miss Maitland well might have noticed a forced sprightliness in her voice. But no one was listening; Suzanne had gone and Mr. and Mrs. Janney were engrossed in their correspondence. She stole a look at them, saw them unheeding and, with a farewell nod to Bébita, rose and crossed the balcony. As she entered the house, the will that had made her smile, maintained her voice at its clear, fresh note, relaxed. Her face sharpened, its soft curves grew rigid, her lips closed in a narrow line. With noiseless steps she ran through the wide foyer hall and down a passage that led to the room, reserved for her use and called her study. Here, locking the door, she came to a stand, her hands clasped against her breast, her eyes fixed and tragic, a figure of consternation.
CHAPTER III – ANOTHER LETTER AND WHAT FOLLOWED IT
Suzanne, her letter crumpled in her hand, had gone directly to her own room. There she read it for the second time, its baleful import sinking deeper into her consciousness with every sentence. It was in typewriting and bore the Berkeley postmark:
"Dear Mrs. Price:
"This is just a line to give your memory and your conscience a jog. Your bridge debts are accumulating. Also, I hear, there are dressmakers and milliners in town who are growing restive. If there was insufficient means I wouldn't bother you, but any one who dresses and spends as you do hasn't that excuse. Perhaps you don't know what is being said and felt. Believe me you wouldn't like it; neither would Mrs. Janney. It is for her sake that I am warning you. I don't want to see her hurt and humiliated as she would be if this comes out in The Eavesdropper, and it will unless you act quickly. 'There's a chiel among you takin' notes' and that chiel's had a line on you for some time. So take these words to heart and as the boys say, 'Come across.'
"A Friend."Ever since the opening of the season the summer colony of which Berkeley was the hub had been the subject of paragraphs – more or less scandalous – appearing in The Eavesdropper. The paper, a scurrilous weekly, had evidently some inside informer, for most of the disclosures were true and could only have been obtained by a member of the community. Suzanne, whose debts would make racy reading, had quaked every time she opened it. So far she had been spared, and she had hoped to escape by a gradual clearing off of her obligations. But she had not been able to do it – unforeseen things had happened. And now the dreaded had come to pass – she would be written up in The Eavesdropper.
Though her allowance had been princely she had kept on going over it ever since her marriage and her mother had kept on covering the deficit. But last autumn Mrs. Janney had lost both patience and temper and put her foot down with a final stamp. Then the winter had come, a feverish, crowded winter of endless parties and endless card playing, and Suzanne had somehow gone over it again, gone over – she didn't dare to think of what she owed. Tradespeople had threatened her, she was afraid to go to her mother, she told lies and made promises, and at that juncture a woman friend acquainted her with the mystery of stocks – easy money to be made in speculation. She had tried that and made a good deal – almost cleared her score – and then in April all her stocks suddenly went down. Inquiries revealed the fact that stocks did not always stay down and reassured she set forth on a zestful orgy of renewed bridge and summer outfitting. But the stocks never came up, they remained down, as far down as they could get, against the bottom.
She felt as if she was there herself as she reviewed her position.
She couldn't let it be known. She would be ruined, called dishonest; the yellow papers might get it – they were always writing things against the rich. Dick Ferguson would see it, and he despised people who didn't pay their bills; she had heard him say so to Mr. Janney, remembered his tone of contempt. There would be no use lying to him for she felt bitterly certain that Mr. Janney had told him what her mother gave her. There was nothing for it but to go to Mrs. Janney and she quailed at the thought, for her mother, forgiving unto seventy times seven, at seventy times eight could be resolute and relentless. But it was the one way out and she had to take it.
When no engagements claimed her afternoons Mrs. Janney went for a drive at four. At lunch she announced her intention of going out in the open car and asked if any of the others wanted to come. All refused: Mr. Janney was contemplating a ride, Suzanne would rest, Miss Maitland had some sewing to do on her dress for that evening. Both Suzanne and Miss Maitland were very quiet and appeared to suffer from a loss of appetite. After the meal the Secretary went upstairs and Suzanne followed.
She waited until Mr. Janney was safely started on his ride, then, feeling sick and wan, crossed the hall to her mother's boudoir. Mrs. Janney was at her desk writing letters, with Elspeth, her maid, a gray-haired, sturdy Scotch woman, standing by the table opening packages that had just arrived from town. Elspeth, like most of Mrs. Janney's servants, had been in her employ for years, entering her service in the old Pittsburg days and being promoted to the post of personal attendant. She knew a good deal about the household, more even than Dixon, admired and respected her mistress and disliked Suzanne.
The young woman's first remark was addressed to her, and, curtly imperious, was of a kind that fed the dislike:
"Go. I want to talk to Mrs. Janney."
"That'll do, Elspeth," said Mrs. Janney quietly. "Thank you very much. I'll finish the others myself." Then as the woman withdrew into the bedroom beyond, "I wish you wouldn't speak to Elspeth that way, Suzanne. It's bad taste and bad manners."
Suzanne was in no state to consider Elspeth's feelings or her own manners. She was so nervous that she blundered into her subject without diplomatic preliminaries, gaining no encouragement from her mother's face, which, at first startled, gradually hardened into stern indignation.
It was a hateful scene, degenerated – anyway on Suzanne's part – into a quarrel, a bitter arraignment of her mother as unloving and ungenerous. For Mrs. Janney refused the money, put her foot down with a stamp that carried conviction. She was even grimmer and more determined than her daughter had expected, the girl's anger and upbraidings ineffectual to gain their purpose as spray to soften a rock. Her decision was ruthless; Suzanne must pay her own debts, out of her own allowance. Yes, even if she was written up in the papers. That was her affair: if she did things that were disgraceful she must bear the disgrace. The interview ended by Suzanne rushing out of the room, a trail of loud, clamorous sobs marking her passage to her own door.
When she had gone Mrs. Janney broke down and cried a little. She had thought the girl improved of late, less selfish, more tender. And now she had been so cruel; the charge of a lack in love had pierced the mother's heart. Mr. Janney, returned from his ride, found her there, looking old, her eyes reddened, her voice husky. When he heard the story, he took her hand and stroked it. His tact prevented him from saying what he felt; what he did say was:
"That bridge money'll have to be paid."
"It will all have to be paid," Mrs. Janney sighed, "and I'll have to pay it as I always have. But I'm going to frighten her – let her think I won't – for a few days anyway. It's all I can do and it may have some effect."
Her husband agreed that it might but his thoughts were not hopeful. There always had to be a crumpled rose leaf and Suzanne was theirs.
He accompanied his wife on her drive and was so understanding, so unobtrusively soothing and sympathetic, that when they returned she was once more her masterful, competent self. Noting a bank of storm clouds rising from the east, she told Otto to bring the limousine when he came for them at a quarter to eight. Inside the house she summoned Dixon and said as the family would be out "the help" – it was part of her beneficent policy to call her retinue by this name when speaking to any of its members – could go out that night if they so willed. Dixon admitted that they had already planned a general sortie on "the movies" in the village. All but Hannah, the cook, who had "something like shooting pains in her feet, and Delia, the second housemaid, who'd got an insect in her eyes, Madam. But it wasn't the hurt of it that kept her in, only the look which she didn't want seen."
At seven the storm drove up, black and lowering, and the rain fell in a torrent. It was still falling when Mr. and Mrs. Janney descended the stairs, a little in advance of the time set, for, while dressing, Mrs. Janney had decided that her costume needed a brightening touch, which would be suitably imparted by her opal necklace. This, being rarely worn, was kept with the more valuable jewels in the safe of which Elspeth did not know the combination. Of course Mrs. Janney did, and at the foot of the stairs she turned into a passage which led from the foyer hall into the kitchen wing. It was a short connecting artery of the great house, lit by two windows that gave on rear lawns, and at present encumbered by a chair standing near the first window. Mrs. Janney recognized the chair as one from her sitting room which had been broken and which Isaac, the footman, had said he could repair. She gave it a proprietor's inspecting glance, touched the wounded spot, and encountering wet varnish, warned Mr. Janney away.
In the wall opposite the windows the safe door rose black and uncompromising as a prison entrance. It was large and old fashioned – put in by the former owner of Grasslands. Mrs. Janney talked of having a more modern one substituted but hadn't "got round to it," and anyway Mr. Janney thought it was all right – burglaries were rare in Berkeley. The silver had already been stored for the night, the bosses of great bowls, flowered rims, and filagree edgings shining from darkling recesses. The electric light across the hallway did not penetrate to the side shelves and Mr. Janney had to assist with matches while his wife felt round among the jewel cases, opening several in her search. Finally they emerged, Mrs. Janney with the opals which after some straining she clasped round her neck, while Sam closed the door.
As they reëntered the main hall Suzanne came down the stairs, tripping daintily with small pointed feet. She was very splendid, her slenderness accentuated by the length of satin swathed about her, from which her shoulders emerged, girlishly fragile. She was also very much made up, of a pink and white too dazzlingly pure. With her blushing delicacy of tint, her angry eyes and sulkily drooping mouth, Mr. Janney thought she looked exactly like a crumpled rose leaf.
"Where's Miss Maitland?" she said to him, ostentatiously ignoring her mother.
Before he could answer Esther's voice came from the hall above:
"Coming – coming. I hope I haven't kept you," and she appeared at the stair-head.
The dress she wore, green trimmed with a design of small, pink chiffon rosebuds and leaves, was the realized dream of a great Parisian faiseur. It had been Mrs. Janney's who, considering it too youthful, had given it to her Secretary. Its vivid hue was singularly becoming, lending a warm whiteness to the girl's pale skin, bringing out the rich darkness of her burnished hair. Her bare neck was as smooth as curds, not a bone rippled its gracious contours; the little rosebuds and leaves that edged the corsage looked like a garland painted on ivory.
It was a good dinner, but it was not as jolly as Dick Ferguson's dinners usually were. Before it was over the rain stopped and a full moon shone through the dining room windows. Suzanne had hoped she and Dick could saunter off into the rose garden and have that talk about Chapman, but he showed no desire to do so. They sat about in long chairs on the balcony and she had to listen to Ham Lorimer's opinions on the war.
As soon as the motor came she wanted to go – she was tired, she had a headache. It was early, only a quarter past ten, and the night was now superb, the sky a clear, starless blue with the great moon queening it alone. Mr. Janney would have liked to linger – he always enjoyed an evening with Dick – but she was petulantly perverse, and they moved to the waiting car with Ferguson in attendance.
Mrs. Janney settled herself in the back seat, Suzanne, lifting shimmering skirts, prepared to follow, while Miss Maitland waited humbly to take what room was left among their assembled knees. She was close to Ferguson who was helping Suzanne in, and looking up at the sky murmured low to herself:
"What a glorious night!"
Ferguson heard her and dropped Suzanne's arm.
"Isn't it? Too good to waste. Does any one want to walk back to Grasslands?"
Suzanne, one foot on the step, stopped and turned to him. Her lips opened to speak, and then she saw the back of his head and heard him address Esther:
"How about it, Miss Maitland? You're a walker, and it's only a step by the wood path. We can be there almost as soon as the car."
"You'll get wet," said Mrs. Janney, "the woods will be dripping."
Mr. Janney remembered his youth and egged them on:
"Only underfoot and they can change their shoes. Dick's right – it's too good to waste. I'd go myself but I'm afraid of my rheumatism. Hurry up, Suzanne, and get in. They want to start."
Miss Maitland said she wasn't afraid of the wet and that it would not hurt her slippers. Suzanne entered the car and sunk into her corner. As it rolled away Mr. and Mrs. Janney looked back at the two figures in the moonlight and waved good-byes. Suzanne sat motionless; all the way home she said nothing.
CHAPTER IV – THE CIGAR BAND
Esther and Ferguson walked across the open spaces of lawn and then entered the woods. Ferguson had set the pace as slow, but he noticed that she quickened it, faring along beside him with a light, swift step. He also noticed that she was quiet, as she had been at dinner; as if she was abstracted, not like herself.
He had seen a good deal of her lately and thought of her a good deal – thought many things. One was that she was interesting, provocative in her quiet reserve, not as easy to see through as most women. She was clever, used her brains; he had formed a habit of talking to her on matters that he never spoke of with other girls. And he admired her looks, nothing cheap about them; "thoroughbred" was the word that always rose to his mind as he greeted her. It seemed to him all wrong that she should be working for a wage as the Janneys' hireling, for, though he was "advanced" in his opinions, when it came to women there was a strain of sentimentality in his make-up.
On the wood path he let her go ahead, seeing her figure spattered with white lights that ran across her shoulders and up and down her back. They had walked in silence for some minutes when he suddenly said:
"What's amiss?"
She slackened her gait so that he came up beside her.