CHAPTER XI
ON a certain night in April I was in the sitting-room trying to keep awake until Alec came home. His train was not due until midnight. I was awfully anxious to wait up for him, but at ten o'clock I was so sleepy that I couldn't keep my eyes open another minute. So I went to Father's roll-top desk and scribbled this on a piece of paper: "Dear Alec—Be sure and stop at my room when you come in. Bobbie," and fastened it with a wire hairpin on the light that I left burning.
Alec and I were on friendly terms again, and the whole world was smiling for me. I didn't care if the "For Sale" was still hitting me in the face every time I entered the yard, since Alec had put me back in charge of the Household Account. I might have known my cheque-book wouldn't have lied for me. Alec didn't get around to look into my bookkeeping until about the first of January, and then he was so delighted to discover that I hadn't failed in my trust, after all, that he couldn't reinstate me quickly enough. It was so good to be friends again, such a relief to have his faith in me restored and made whole, that I guess he didn't want to risk urging me to explain what I really wanted the seventy-five dollars for. "I know you'll explain all about it, sometime," he said. And I replied, "Sometime, Alec." That was the way our quarrel ended. The next morning I walked to the factory with my brother; the next evening I sat with him by the drop-light and when he went to bed I carried to his room some hot milk and crackers so that he would sleep. Since then we have been nearer to each other than ever before.
There is something beautiful about our relations. I'd die for Alec. I don't believe there ever has been a brother and sister more congenial than Alec and I. I know just how to please him, and he knows better than any one in this world how to manage me. There isn't a prouder girl alive than I, when Alec confides his business affairs to me. I do not understand them very well. Companies and Coöperations, Preferred and Common Stock, Bonds and Bank-notes are all a perfect jumble in my mind. But I've learned long ago, that nothing will shut a man up more quickly than a comment on a girl's part that shows him how ignorant she is. So now I keep still; listen as hard and closely as I can; sympathise with my whole heart when Alec is worried, and rejoice with him when he announces that some Boston bank or other has lent him twenty-five thousand dollars, although I am frightened to death of borrowing. I never give my brother a chance to scoff at a girl's comprehension of business transactions. The result is, he talks to me by the hour, and thinks I understand a great deal more than I do.
Ever since last Christmas Alec has been running down to New York about every two weeks. There was a big order that he was trying to secure, besides some sort of an arrangement he wanted to work up with some rich men down there to increase the capital stock of the business, I think he said. I have an idea, though I never asked, that if he could have worked that arrangement it would have saved the business from peril of failing. Alec used to stay in New York about three days usually, and always came home a little more worried, anxious, and discouraged than when he started.
This time he had been away almost two weeks. I had had only one short note from him written the day after he left home. Since then I had not heard from him until his telegram had arrived announcing he would reach Hilton on the midnight from New York.
It was a cold blustering night for April, and before I went to bed myself, I went up into Alec's third-floor room, turned on the heat, filled a hot-water bag and stuck it down between the cold sheets of his bed.
I must have been sleeping very soundly when Alec stole into my room at twelve-thirty. I didn't know he was in the house, until I felt his hand on my shoulder and his gentle, "Hello, Bobbie!" I woke up with a glad start and found him sitting on the side of my bed. "My, what a sleeper!" he said and leaned down and kissed my forehead.
I knew from the first whiff that Alec must have been sitting in the smoking-car (he doesn't smoke himself) and I drew in a fine, long breath before I spoke.
"Oh, Alec," I exclaimed, "how beautifully New Yorky you smell!"
"Do I, funny Bobbikins?" he laughed at me, and at the sound of that name which Alec had not called me by for six months, a thrill of new courage ran through me.
I sat up.
"Alec," I said, "you've brought good news. I know it! I know it! I knew we couldn't fail. I've felt it all along. I knew Father's dear old business wouldn't go back on us. I had a feeling that this trip to New York would be a lucky one."
"I've been farther than New York, Bobbie. I've been to Pinehurst, North Carolina," Alec announced.
"To Pinehurst! Mercy! Whatever in the world—do tell me every word. I'm simply crazy to hear all about it."
"Well—" he began. "Say, Bobbikins," he broke off, "would you be very much surprised to know that it is—all right between Edith and me?"
Alec might as well have struck off on a tangent about George Washington or Joan of Arc.
"Edith?" I gasped.
"Yes," went on Alec gently; "Edith Campbell. Of course you've known I've cared for no one else for the last ten years. The business and our large family have always made it seem rather hopeless. But when I was in New York I had a common little picture post-card from Edith, who was at Pinehurst, and your disgraceful old brother here dropped everything and went down there. I was there for six whole days, and she and her family and I all came home together to-night after two rather nice days in New York. She's actually got a ring in a little blue velvet box which she's going to wear for me a little later, Bobbie." He tried to say it lightly but his whole voice was exulting. "You see, I had to come in and tell my partner, didn't I? She would have to know first of all about such a great piece of news."
He stopped and I sat perfectly silent, stunned for an instant, not knowing quite what had struck me and knocked me down with my breath all gone. Alec waited and I tried to jump up, as it were, and speak, so he would know I wasn't dead.
"Why, Alec Vars!" I managed to gasp, and then the horror of his news flashed over me. The man I loved best in the whole world had just told me that he was engaged to be married to a girl whom I abhorred! I wanted to scream; I wanted to bury my face in my pillow and cry; I wanted to say, "Oh, go away, go away, Alexander Vars. Leave me alone. I want to die." But instead I remarked quite calmly, "You engaged? To Edith Campbell? My goodness, but I'm surprised." And then warned by the choke in my voice, I switched off into something commonplace. "Say, would you mind," I said jovially enough, "just removing your hundred and seventy-five pounds off my left foot there? You're crushing the bones in it."
Alec leaned forward and kissed me hard.
"You little brick of a Bobbie! I knew you'd take it like a soldier."
I gulped down a disgusting sob.
"But wasn't I the goose," I hurried like mad to say, for I was afraid I'd break down and bawl like a baby before his very eyes, "wasn't I the little goose to think it was the business that made you so happy?"
"Oh, the business," Alec announced, "is bound to succeed now."
"Sure," I broke in hastily, "just bound to. It's awfully nice, all around, isn't it? And I—" I floundered on, "I am just—just pleased!"
The hall clock struck one. I grasped the blessed sound like a sinking man.
"Is that twelve-thirty, one, or one-thirty? I haven't the ghost of an idea," I said lightly. Then desperately, at the breaking point, I gasped, "Is it cold out?"
Alec patted my hand.
"Brave girl! I understand. But don't you worry. Everything will work out all right. Now I'll say good-night."
I think Alec must have seen I couldn't hold in much longer. I was, in fact, using every atom of strength that I possessed to fight that pushing, shoving, tumbling crowd of lumps and sobs in my throat. Just as Alec was closing my door I managed to call after him, so that he might know that I wasn't crying, "Be sure and turn out the lights."
"All right, General-manager."
"And say," I added, "you know I think it's perfectly fine."
"Surely! Good-night."
Then my door closed, and I sank down on my pillow, opened the gates wide, and let the torrent of sobs rush through.
Can any one realise the torture of my mind during the long dark hours of that night? I hardly can realise it now, myself. The fact, "ALEC IS ENGAGED TO EDITH CAMPBELL!" glared at me horribly as if it were printed in enormous white letters on a black ground, like a big sign on a factory, and I stared and stared, hypnotised, beyond power of thought. I was so stunned and overcome by the fact itself that at first I was unable to comprehend what it would mean to me. I hated Edith Campbell. All my life I had hated her. She had always treated Alec like the dirt under her feet—forever flaunting Palm Beach and Poland Springs in his face and eyes, parading to church every other Sunday with smart stylish-looking men and planting them down in the pew two rows in front of ours to show them off.
Of course I had guessed that Alec had liked Edith Campbell. As long ago as I can remember he used to call on her when she came home from her fashionable New York boarding-school. Alec invited her to be his special guest, at his Class-Day, when he graduated from college. But she elected to go with somebody else, and pranced down there with a millionaire's son. Poor Alec didn't invite any other girl. I was in knee skirts then, but I was old enough to hate her for it. Not that I wanted such a creature to be nice to Alec. I didn't. I knew my brother was miles too good for her, but I couldn't bear to have such a flashy, worldly, inferior girl show scorn toward a prince. I never understood why Alec had admired her. She's absolutely opposite from my brother in every possible way. She has the most confident, cock-surest manner I ever witnessed. Her clothes are dreadfully flashy and her father is a mere upstart who squeezes money out of everybody he knows. Hilton used to criticise Edith Campbell before it commenced bowing and scraping to her. When she came home from boarding-school, she let it be known that her intimate friends lived outside of Hilton. She advertised that she visited at some of the big places in the Berkshires. She merely tolerated Hilton and its people.
Oh, I hate her! I never saw why men ran after her so frantically. It used to make me absolutely sick when the younger girls in Hilton got the Edith Campbell craze. They used to try to copy everything she wore. But I didn't. I wouldn't as much as turn my head to look at her. I was delighted when Alec stopped going to see her. I had thought, when Alec announced his engagement to me, that that little romance of his had been dead and buried for five years. It hadn't even worried me.
When I awoke the morning after Alec told me his astonishing news, and saw the sun shining in a square on the wall opposite me, I lay very still for a moment. "You've had a horrible dream," I said. "Alec didn't come home last night. Just a minute, and things will get themselves fixed." I sat up, but the dream didn't fade. There was the tell-tale towel with which I had bathed my eyes; there the glass of water; there the dissipated-looking candle burned down to its very last; here the confused tossed bed-clothes, and when I staggered to the mirror, there were my swollen red eyes and awful tangled hair. I dressed slowly, with a very heavy heart, and unable to cry any more, smiled at myself once or twice in the glass out of grim spite.
I had not gone to sleep until it had begun to grow light. I remembered now. And it was nine o'clock when I went downstairs for an attempt at breakfast. Ruth was devouring eggs when I went into the dining-room. I had thought she would be at school, but I had forgotten that it was Saturday. Alec had already gone to the factory. His eggy plate and half-filled coffee-cup stood at his deserted place.
"My, but you're late," said Ruth, emptying the cream-pitcher into her coffee. "Say, isn't it corking about Alec? We've been sitting here hours talking about it. I think it's simply dandy. Just imagine—Edith Campbell!"
I became very busy fixing my cuff-link, for I was ashamed of my swollen eyes; but Ruth was sure to see them. She glanced up.
"I might have known you'd take it like that," she broke out, though I hadn't said a word; "always acting like a thunder-cloud, and throwing wet blankets on everything. Now why in the world shouldn't Alec get married?"
"I didn't say he shouldn't," I murmured.
"Well," went on Ruth, "Edith Campbell is great. I can't get over the fact, that with all the men she's known, she likes Alec better than any of them. She's dreadfully popular. I'll bet she's had a dozen proposals. Oh, I think Al's done awfully well. The Campbells have piles of money. I know her younger sister Millicent, and their house beats anything I ever saw. You ought to see it. And besides, Edith Campbell is the best-looking thing! She's stunning on a horse."
Ruth always antagonises me when she talks about people she admires.
"I think," I said in a low voice, "that Edith Campbell is common and loud and vulgar."
"Oh, nonsense!" retorted Ruth. "I'm simply wild about the whole thing. The Campbells are going to do this tumbledown old ark all over, for a wedding present, and Al says her father is going to insist on Edith's bringing her horses with her. I don't call that common or vulgar. I call it generous!"
"Is she going to live here?" I gasped.
"Of course she is. Where else? And Alec says that you and I will each have a perfectly lovely room, and divide our time between here and Tom's. I tell you what, I'm glad for one, that we won't have to live like pigs any more. Edith Campbell is used to piles of servants!"
I don't know why Ruth's words made me so terribly angry.
"Ruth Chenery Vars," I said, "I hate Edith Campbell, and I'll never live under the same roof with her. I never will. Do you hear me? I never will!"
Ruth glanced up and met my fiery eyes.
"Mercy," she said, simply disgusted, "why get so everlasting mad?"
I shoved back my chair and left the table quietly, hurried up the stairs straight to my disheveled room, and locked the door tight. My mind was clear now all right; I could comprehend the meaning of the awful black and white sign now, without any difficulty. I was no goose not to know perfectly well that Alec's engagement meant that Miss Lucy Vars would be requested to hand in her resignation as General-manager, Keeper-of-the-Household-Account, Bosser-of-the-meals, Mother-of-the-family, and oh, too, Partner-of-Alec. Why, I had poured the coffee at our table ever since the day Father had put me there in Mother's empty chair. I had always sat there, pushed the bell, and told the maid to take off the plates for dessert. My place had always been opposite Father, and after he had gone, Alec had sat there. Ever since, he and I had held the reins together. There wasn't a chair nor a rug, nor a table in the house that I hadn't put in position. There wasn't a pound of sugar, nor a half-dozen oranges in the pantry that I had not ordered. For five years there hadn't been a servant engaged by any one but me. Now, suddenly, all such an arrangement was to be at an end. Ruth was delighted; Alec was supremely happy; the twins, who worship anything that means more cash, would be transported with joy. Everybody, in fact, would delight in a change in administration—everybody but the poor old dethroned ruler, who was locked in her desolate room trying to find consolation in vigorously making her bed.
When Alec came home at noon I saw him scanning my impassive face, for I had not been crying since the night before, and the trace of tears was gone. After our regular Saturday boiled dinner he asked me to come into the sitting-room. He closed the doors carefully and sat down beside me on the couch. I wished he wouldn't take my hand for it was chapped and red, and of course he had held hers, for which he had bought the beautiful ring in the little blue velvet box, and hers would be soft and white. I drew mine away. Alec talked to me gently and told me about the arrangements. I heard him say with a dull shock, that they would be married in the early fall. I remember wondering how they had decided such details in the course of ten days. I soon discovered that they had managed to go over the whole ground. There seemed to be no question undecided, no points untouched. Ruth, he said, would start in at boarding-school in the fall; the twins of course would continue at college and their vacations would, as usual, be spent at home. He repeated what I already very well knew that after the twins graduated they would probably go out West and start into one of Tom's lumber camps.
"So there'll just be me left," I hurried to say, kind of to help him out.
"And, of course, you'll live right along here with us," he said, "except, once in a while, when Tom and Elise want you there with them."
"I'm worse to dispose of than a mother-in-law," I half laughed, sorry in a moment that I had spoken so, for Alec looked hurt, and exclaimed, "Oh, Bobbie dear!"
"Oh, I'll try, Alec, I really will," I reassured him, for Alec always brings out the best in me.
"And go and see Edith very soon?" he said, following me up cruelly. "She'll be expecting you."
"Oh, yes, I'll try," I murmured, biting my trembling under lip.
"Good girl! I knew I could count on you. You'll like Edith," he said. "And she wants to be awfully kind to you and Ruth. I know you'll try and make it easy for her, Bobbie," he added, and left me as cheerfully as a summer's breeze.
Late that afternoon, about five I think, I started out for a walk in Buxton's woods, a quarter of a mile back of our house. I hadn't been gone very long when I heard a step behind me, and turning around I saw, mounted on her stunning black Kentucky thoroughbred, Edith Campbell, coming toward me. I wanted to run away, to hide perhaps behind a tree and let her pass, but I couldn't for she had caught sight of me.
"Hold on," she called. "Wait a minute," and she drew up beside me. "Hello, Lucy," she said in her familiar, breezy way. "Now isn't this luck?" Her dark, crisp hair was neat and firm beneath the little black derby—an affectation in dress that no one wears riding in Hilton except Edith Campbell. She didn't have them on to-day, but usually she wears long green drop-earrings, screwed on, I think—too New Yorky for anything. "Wait a jiffy," she laughed, "and I'll walk along with you. Pierre here, can mosey along behind." She sprang down from her saddle like a sporty horse-woman, came up and thrust out a gauntlet-gloved hand to me. She gave me a Hercules grip. "Has Al told you?" she asked, plunging straight ahead, with no delicacy.
"Yes, he has," I stammered, "and—I congratulate you both," I finished desperately.
It did sound stiff and formal and schoolgirlish, but I was angry with Edith Campbell when she laughed at me and exclaimed, "You funny old-fashioned child!"
She arranged one pair of reins over her horse's neck and used the other pair for a lead, slipping her arm through the loop.
"Come on now, let's walk," she said and put her free arm through mine, a familiarity from the wonderful Edith Campbell for which even sensible Juliet would envy me. I wanted to edge away from her. "Alec," she went on, "thinks the world and all of you, Bobbie," (as if she had to inform me!) "and I want you to know right off, you won't be losing a brother, simply gaining a sister." (Usual, meaningless words! As if Ruth wasn't more than enough anyhow. "And another thing," she ploughed ahead, "there will always be a room in our house for Bobbie. One of the things I told Alec was that he must look out for his sisters."
"Alec would do that anyway," I said.
"Of course. Nice old Al! He's as good as gold."
I couldn't bear her patronising manner. She has always treated Alec like that, just because she had money and he had nothing but goodness. I turned to her seriously.
"Miss Campbell," I asked, "how did you come to want to marry Alec?"
"You amusing chicken!" she laughed, then pinching me disgustingly on the arm, she added in a sly way, "You wait, you'll know when the right one comes."
I flushed but held my peace.
"I was only wondering," I said. "Alec has so little money, and you—I mean our business—our success is so uncertain."
"Alec is bound to succeed now," she replied in her cock-sure way. "I told Al there was no such word in my vocabulary as failure. Besides Father is going to look into the business, and Father never touched a thing that wasn't successful."
"Your father!" I gasped with the colour again in my face. Her father used to collect junk-iron. "Our business!"
"Oh, come, come. Just like Al at first. This Vars pride! Don't you see, my dear, that, independent of weddings, a man can put a little life into a dead business if he wants to?"
"My father's business isn't dead," I exclaimed, now filled with indignation.
"Oh, come, Bobbikins!"
"Don't call me that, please," I said and drew away my arm.
"Tut, tut! Come now! You and I are going to be friends." She treated me as if I were aged five. "You know," she went on, "when I come, I think there'll be an extra saddle horse, in one of the stalls in your stable." She used that mysterious tone you do to children when talking about Santa Claus. "I think if you will look very hard you will find your initials on him somewhere, Bobbie."
"I wouldn't touch it, Miss Campbell. I wouldn't touch one hair of the horse; and please call me Lucy."
We were breaking out of the narrow wood-path, and coming to a travelled road. We walked in silence till we reached the highway. It was almost dark. Suddenly Edith Campbell spoke.
"I must be hustling homeward," she said glibly, and as if nothing unpleasant had occurred between us she asked, "Lend me your hand, will you, Bobbie, please?"
I helped her mount, in silence.
"That's the way," she said. "Thanks. Now look here, poor little childie," she broke off, looking down at me like a queen from her saddle, "whenever you're ready to be friends, remember, so am I. All right, Pierre!" and she cantered off in the dusk.
I stood quite still for a moment, and then right to that lonely, empty road, I said out loud, "I can't live with her. I can't—I can't! Dear Alec, I tried. Dear Father and Tom and Elise, I tried, but I can't, I can't!" And all the dark way home, all the long night through, I ran over and over the words like a squirrel in a revolving cage.