Part 8

Colonel Denbigh rose abruptly and stood looking down on Mr. Bernstein from his full height.

“I know the Carters, sir,” he said sternly. “I’ve known Mr. Johnson Carter since I was a young man. His boys played on this place. I have the honor of his daughter-in-law’s acquaintance. You will kindly drop this subject, sir!”

Mr. Bernstein rose also. He was very pale, but the small eyes in the creases of his fat face looked honest. They even looked indignant.

“No offense, colonel,” he said, “no offense. If you’re a friend of the lady, I think you ought to know. Corwin’s been persecuting her before. I’ve heard he drove her out of London. He’s after her again, he means mischief. I know Aristide! If you’re--”

He stopped with his mouth open. The colonel had walked away and left him.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” said Mr. Bernstein, staring after the old man’s erect figure. “I’m darned! Now, Sammy Bernstein, that comes of trying to help a woman. Never again!”

He selected a cigar from the box that Colonel Denbigh had unwittingly left upon the table, and, having lit it with the colonel’s match, he went slowly and thoughtfully away. As he went, he sighed.

“Too bad, too bad!” he muttered. “Take him all around, the lean way he stands--with striped trousers an’ that property coat--he’d make just an ideal close-up! I wonder”--he rubbed his bald head thoughtfully--“I wonder if he’d have dropped if I’d offered him three thousand dollars to play _Uncle Sam_ opposite to Rosy’s _Liberty_?”

XII

MRS. JOHNSON CARTER sat in the old rocker in the library, rocking nervously, her feet tapping the floor. Her usually placid face had of late become as troubled as an inland lake assailed by contrary winds. It was growing full of new puckers and furrows between the eyes.

She crossed and uncrossed her hands in her lap, and glanced absently from time to time toward the window. She happened to be alone in the house except for Miranda. An occasional sound from the region of the kitchen informed her that the colored maid of all work was at the helm; but not even the recklessness of Miranda’s slams and thumps moved Mrs. Carter from her chair. She was waiting for some one to come in--some one to whom she could unbosom herself.

As the time passed and she heard the monotonous ticking of the clock on the mantel, she was seized with a kind of panic. She dreaded Mr. Carter’s arrival. If he came first, she might break down and tell him, and she was afraid to tell him. She wanted Daniel. Unconsciously, in her hour of need, she always turned to Daniel now. William had been her mainstay, but it was obvious that William could not be her mainstay any longer. The old saw about a son marrying a wife held good in his case.

She waited, and the clock ticked tumultuously, as clocks do when you wait. She began to rock violently again, and she nearly upset herself by a tremendous start when the door finally opened. She thought it was Mr. Carter, but it was only Emily with some books under her arm.

Emily came to the door of the library and looked in. She had long ago obeyed her father’s order and washed her face. It was guiltless even of becoming makeup, but she had an unnatural look to her mother for all that.

“What’s the matter, mama?” she asked. “Where’s Fanchon? Has Leigh come in?”

Mrs. Carter shook her head. She had stopped rocking and was staring at her daughter. Emily saw it and retreated.

“I think I’ll go up-stairs,” she said hurriedly. “I passed the exams, mama. Mr. Brinsted says I can go to high school in September.”

A gleam of momentary pleasure shot across Mrs. Carter’s worried face, but she did not withdraw her fixed gaze.

“Emmy, you come here,” she said suddenly. “I want to look at your dress.”

Emily backed.

“Oh, I want to go up-stairs, mama. I’m hot and tired. Mr. Brinsted’s so prosy. Sallie Payson says--”

Mrs. Carter rose and made a dive at the hem of her daughter’s skirt.

“Well, I declare!” she exclaimed. “I couldn’t think what made it hang like that! You’ve been taking it in on every seam to make it narrower.”

Emily pulled away, blushing.

“It was just horrid--all out of style, mama!” she cried. “I hate to--to look like a frump!”

Mrs. Carter straightened up from her consideration of the skirt.

“Where did you get those striped silk stockings, Emily Carter?”

Emily, backing toward the door, looked sullen.

“Dan gave me the money,” she answered shortly. “I wanted something like other girls.”

“I never saw such awful stockings in my life!” replied her mother. “Your legs look like barbers’ poles. You take them off, or I’ll have to tell your father.”

Emily grew tearful.

“I--I think you’re real mean, mama. I hate to be a frump!”

“Who called you a frump?” her mother asked severely.

“N-no one--but Fanchon says the people here are all provincials and frumps--all of them!” stormed Emily. “And I think we’re awful frumps ourselves!”

Mrs. Carter gazed at her in a dazed way; then she retreated to her rocking-chair.

“Emily, you go up-stairs and rip those inside bastes out of that skirt. It looks frightful; it hangs all up and down in waves! And listen--”

Emily, still sniffing violently, was half-way to the stairs.

“Listen, Emily, you take off those stockings, too. They’re vulgar. If you don’t, I’ll have to do it myself.”

“I don’t see why I can’t wear them!” Emily stormed. “I’m grown up, I’m sixteen, and Fanchon has a pair like them.”

Mrs. Carter flushed.

“You go up-stairs and take them off!” she cried, with her first dash of anger. “I don’t want my girl to look like Fanchon!”

Emily grasped the banisters and shouted.

“She’s lovely; she’s stylish! I think you and papa are just awful to her. You’re setting Willie against her, too. Leigh thinks so; he says he’d do anything, he’d die for her!”

Mrs. Carter looked a little startled, but she rallied.

“Leigh’s only eighteen,” she observed dryly. “It’s very easy to die for people at eighteen! You’re impertinent to your mother, Emily. Go up-stairs and study for an hour. Mind you take off those stockings!”

Emily began to cry. She cried easily, large tears rolling out of her light-blue eyes. She went up-stairs looking like Niobe, and she cried all the time she was taking off her stockings.

Mrs. Carter stopped rocking and thought. She thought deeply. Emily’s outburst and Leigh’s devotion were such obvious things, and yet--

She lifted her handkerchief and pressed it against her trembling lips. Was William really being set against his wife? Mrs. Carter was a good woman, and the thought distressed her.

She did not resume her rocking, she sat motionless, looking straight ahead of her, her face red. She was still sitting there when Daniel, returning early from court, stopped at the door and looked in.

“What’s the matter, mother?” he asked pleasantly. “You look out of sorts.”

“Oh, Dan, please come in here a moment; I want to talk to you.”

Daniel looked a little surprised, but he came in obediently, putting a pile of law-books and papers on the table as he sat down to listen. His mother saw the papers.

“Did you win that case, Dan?”

His face lit up.

“Yes. Just heard the verdict. We’ve got it, mother!”

She flushed with pleasure.

“Dan, the judge says you’ll be a great man some day. You’re a born orator!”

“Nonsense!” said Daniel, but he blushed.

It seemed to his mother’s anxious eyes that he was less worn and tired than usual; but her mind was full of other things.

“Dan,” she began in a low, horrified voice, “have you seen anything? I mean--Fanchon and that--that man?”

Daniel shook his head.

“I’m too busy, mother.”

Mrs. Carter sank back in her rocking-chair and looked weak.

“I saw them this morning. I’d been to market. Mrs. Payson came along in her new limousine, and she stopped and picked me up. I don’t know why it had to happen so, but the chauffeur took the short cut for this house--you know, the little lane behind the Methodist church.”

She paused for breath, and Daniel nodded. He was very grave now.

“As we turned the corner we both saw them--I mean Mrs. Payson and I--and of course the chauffeur did, too, come to think of it. Fanchon was talking to that man--I think his name’s Corwin.”

“Well, mother, if she knows him, perhaps she had to speak to him.”

“Speak to him? They were walking up and down in that out-of-the-way corner, and they were quarreling. I’m sure they were quarreling. They didn’t notice us.”

“Quarreling?” Daniel laughed. “I thought you were going to say that he was making love to her.”

“It’s just the same thing--the way they looked. Mrs. Payson thought so, too. Daniel, there’s talk about them; I know there is! What shall I do?”

“Don’t you think you’d better leave it alone, mother?” Daniel suggested. “I’m not sure that we’re not to blame. Fanchon seems to think we are.”

“You’re not taking her part, are you, Dan? Emily--that child’s ridiculous, she’s copying her--Emily says we’re setting Willie against her.”

Daniel smiled.

“I’m afraid Emmy’s right,” he said quietly. “It’s too bad, mother.”

“We never meant to do that--I mean your father and I!” cried Mrs. Carter with emotion. “I can’t see why those two children adore her so. Emmy says Leigh would die for her!” she added with a tremulous laugh.

“She’s got Leigh twisted about her finger--that’s true enough,” said Daniel, smiling grimly. “I found a poem of his the other day. It was addressed to ‘my soul-mate’! The mate was plainly Fanchon. Poor Leigh--he’ll survive it!”

“I don’t think Willie really cares about her! I’ve been watching and watching. He’s sickened of it all, poor dear boy! I know he’s always loved Virginia Denbigh,” she added with conviction.

Daniel was silent for a moment, and then he spoke with determination.

“He has no right to care for Virginia or any one now but this poor girl. He’s married her, and--” He paused, and added more quietly: “Mother, I think she needs him.”

“There! She’s got you on her side with those--those fawn eyes of hers!”

Daniel laughed.

“She calls me her enemy,” he replied dryly.

Mrs. Carter looked exasperated.

“That’s just like her! She’s so absurd, so stagy--in a quiet family like ours, too! She makes me hot all over.” She shuddered. “I can’t forget that dance and those ministers.”

“Wasn’t it rather biblical, mother?” asked Daniel, and for the first time he laughed happily.

Mrs. Carter rose from her rocking-chair and walked absently to the window, blinking a little as she looked out into the sunshine. She sighed.

“Daniel, do you think I ought to tell your father?”

“Tell him what, mother?”

“About Fanchon and that man behind the church.”

“Good Heavens, no!”

“I’ve always told your father things that--that concerned us all.”

“Mother, you know what father would do--he’d storm at William, and William’s right on edge now. For Heaven’s sake, let them alone--those two, I mean!”

She drew a breath of relief.

“I’d rather not tell,” she confessed; “only I felt--I felt as if I should.”

“What good would it do!” her son asked her gravely. “It would only make matters worse.”

“But, Danny”--she called him Danny sometimes, as she had when he was two years old--“she’s Willie’s wife, and she’s being talked about!”

“Hush!” said Daniel, lifting a warning hand.

Unheard by either of them, the front door had opened and closed. Fanchon crossed the hall lightly, her quick ear catching their voices. She came to the door now and stood there with flashing eyes.

“You were talking about me,” she said with her amazing and terrible frankness. “I heard you!”

“Oh, good gracious!” Mrs. Carter fled hastily to the door that opened into the kitchen pantry. “I’ve got to go and see Miranda,” she panted, and went out and shut the door.

Daniel, left alone, rose from his chair. He was flushed, but his eyes twinkled.

“We can’t help it, Fanchon,” he said amiably. “You’re the kind, you know. You don’t leave any neutrals in your territory.”

She came in and flung her hat down on the table, uncovering her lovely, spirited head. She was dressed in a pale-yellow, clinging garment that seemed to reveal every line of her small figure, and certainly displayed her ankles, in silk stockings as amazing as Emily’s.

“You’re awfully good people,” she said bitterly. “_Mon Dieu_! I’d rather meet some bad ones--who’d let me alone. You’re helping to make my husband hate me!”

Daniel’s face sobered.

“You’re doing William an injustice,” he said quietly. “I’m sure he doesn’t hate you. I’m very sure, too, that I’m not trying to make him.”

She lifted her eyes slowly to his face and scanned it. Then she bit her lip.

“No, I don’t think you are,” she replied with emphasis; “but your mother does, and so does your father. And there’s no need of it--there’s enough without that!”

Daniel, who was still standing, leaned against the mantel, supporting himself and watching her gravely, unsmilingly.

“Fanchon,” he said gently, “you don’t understand. It’s been your misfortune to come to us without knowing us. We’re just old-fashioned, stodgy people, and you amaze us. You’re like a bird of paradise in a chicken-yard. Give us a little time, Fanchon.” He paused and then added soberly: “My brother loves you.”

She tossed her head, her bosom rising and falling stormily.

“Leigh does!” she cried in a choked voice. “The boy--Leigh!”

“I mean William,” said Daniel.

She stared at him, breathing hard.

“You think so? _Voilà!_ You haven’t heard him quarrel, you haven’t seen how he takes your mother’s side and your father’s side against me! And”--she laughed wildly--“you haven’t seen him alone--under the horse-chestnut tree--with that paragon, Virginia Denbigh!”

Daniel’s arm fell from the mantel. He said nothing. He walked slowly to the table and picked up his books and papers. But Fanchon was stinging with anger. She had seen Mrs. Carter’s face, she had been treated with cold politeness by Mr. Carter, her whole wild, stormy nature was up in arms. Because she saw it hurt, she struck and struck deeply.

“I tell you she’s stealing his heart away from me. _Mais hélas_, it doesn’t matter, she’s a paragon and I’m a dunce! She--”

Daniel walked past her out of the room without a word. But Fanchon followed him to the door, white with rage.

“_Mon Dieu!_ You needn’t feel like that!” she cried shrilly. “She says she’s sorry for you because you’re a cripple.”

Daniel did not pause. He heard her, but he went on, toiling slowly upward. He never once looked back at the little creature in the doorway, but went steadily on with a white face and haggard eyes.

XIII

FANCHON did not go up-stairs. She flung herself face downward on the lounge in the library and writhed there, beating the old silk cushions with her small, furious fists. In the bitterness of her heart she thought she hated them all, every Carter who was ever born! Because she was so angry, so wilfully hurt, she had wreaked her vengeance upon Daniel. She had told him a falsehood, and now, thinking of it, she tore at the cushions and wept hot tears.

She had no idea why she had done it. She hated Virginia Denbigh, because she knew the Carters loved Virginia. They had wanted William to marry her, and she believed they were making William hate his wife. She believed it from the bottom of her soul. But why had she struck at Daniel?

Perhaps it was because he was William’s brother; perhaps it was because Fanchon had divined that he loved Virginia.

Virginia, with her calm, lovely face, had become a nightmare to Fanchon. She quarreled with her husband, and she goaded and teased him, because the Carters did not like her, because their attitude was so superior. Then she laid it all to Virginia!

Fanchon had done nothing lately but quarrel with William. He had objected to Corwin, had forbidden her to have him at the house. Fanchon, who feared Corwin, might have rejoiced had she not resented her husband’s tone. He had been set on, she thought, by Mr. Carter.

Since that fatal dance Mr. Carter had been coldly civil. He hadn’t considered it his duty to scold his daughter-in-law, but he snubbed her. Fanchon, carrying her head high, had nevertheless been cut to the heart by it. She loved admiration, she loved applause, she lived on excitement, and she had none of these things, unless she counted the admiration of Leigh and Emily--two children, as she thought scornfully, who didn’t know any better!

As she lay there on the old lounge, strange, ancestral passions stirred in her, wild impulses of rage and melancholy. She had had a bitter time. The very place was intolerable; she hated it, and she knew that the place hated her. The stodgy, monotonous domestic life--she had to face that, too--three meals a day with the Carters!

If they had liked her, if they had even made her welcome and forgiven her unconventional ways, it might have been different, she thought; but now she hated them. She knew that Mrs. Carter had seen her in the church lane with Corwin. Mrs. Carter had no idea of the quarrel she had with Corwin, or her fear of him, but she must think ill of her and run home to tattle about it!

Fanchon sat on the old lounge and dashed hot tears from her eyes. She pictured herself sitting at the luncheon-table with the family. She could see them! Mr. Carter and William would not be at home; but there would be Leigh, making moon eyes, a sentimental boy, and Emily with her white eyelashes and her honest, snub-nosed face, and Mrs. Carter, her fair hair fading in ugly streaks, and her absence of eyebrows. Daniel, too, his dark, handsome head bent and his eyes indifferent--he had never liked her! Even Miranda, moving around cumbersomely with the dishes, would show the whites of her eyes when she looked at her, as if she was watching something strange and outlandish.

“I might be a Fiji Islander, from the way they look at me!” Fanchon sobbed angrily, staring about the old room with its familiar, guttered armchairs, its littered library-table--where Mr. Carter’s pipe lay beside his accustomed place--and at the dull, ancestral Carter over the mantelpiece.

The portrait filled the latest Carter bride with a kind of fury. She rose from the lounge and went and stared at it.

“Ugly old thing!” she cried angrily. “You’d hate me, if you could!”

She felt a sudden sensation of suffocation. The place was too small for her; she couldn’t breathe in it. She went to the window and leaned out, staring blankly at the peaceful scene. The Carter house was well on the outskirts of the town, and she could glimpse a distant meadow where a spotted cow moved placidly. A few red chickens crossed her vision, picking in the grass. A colored maid in the next house was pinning some clothes on the line. Down the quiet street an ice-cart trundled its sober, dripping way. It was quiet again when the sound of wheels receded; then suddenly a rooster crowed. He crowed tremendously in a fine, deep bass.

“_Mon Dieu!_” cried Fanchon.

She drew back from the intolerable prospect, and heard Miranda setting the table for luncheon. The faint jingle of glasses and the occasional rattle of china warned her. The domestic meal was approaching with its unfailing regularity. She could not bear it. She ran out of the room, and had one foot already on the lowest step of the stairs, when the door opened and Leigh came in.

“Fanchon!” he cried eagerly, his boyish face flushing to the hair.

An imp of perversity stopped her. She stood balanced, one hand on the banisters, looking back over her shoulder. There was at least one Carter she could manage, and she knew it. Those fawn eyes softened and glowed.

“Leigh!” she responded softly. “_Mon brave garçon!_”

He put his books down and came toward her with shining eyes.

“Oh, Fanchon, what mites of feet you’ve got!” he exclaimed, looking at the foot that she was displaying on the step. “I never saw a foot as small as that.”

She smiled.

“You think so, _chéri_?”

She moved the small foot a bit, looking down at it, pensive, aware that he could see also the charming sweep of those dark lashes. Leigh, long since subjugated, dropped on one knee beside the lowest step.

“If I were a prince, I’d follow that shoe,” he laughed up at her, his boyish eyes adoring. “I’ve read some French about a lady’s feet--in a novel. It fits your feet, Fanchon.” He blushed. “I’m not sure I pronounce very well, but it was this: ‘_Petits pieds si adorés!_’”

For a moment her lips trembled, half mirthful, half tearful. She leaned toward him and stroked his hair caressingly, her light, soft fingers thrilling him.

“_Je t’adore, mon Leigh!_” she whispered.

Then she laughed elfishly, put one of her slender fingers on her lip and ran up-stairs like a whirlwind.

Leigh slipped out of her mind in an instant. She did not even see the adoring look that followed her. She was bent on escaping that stodgy family meal, and she was in hot haste. She had thought of a way to evade it--to evade them all for a while.

She was fond of riding on horseback, and William had taken her out on several occasions. He would have taken her more frequently if her modish habit had not shocked the sobriety of the old-fashioned town. It had been made in Paris, and it had startled the streets through which they rode. After one or two experiences William had quietly let the rides drop. Fanchon knew why he had done so, and it made her angry. To-day she thought of it again, and she longed for the fresh air in her face and the swift gallop. Even the stupid country roads were tolerable for the sake of that.

She went to her closet and dragged out the famous breeches and riding-coat. She was putting on the stylish leggings when Miranda knocked.

“Please, ma’am, Miz Carter, she say ain’t you-all comin’ down t’ luncheon? De chops is gettin’ cold.”

“I don’t want any luncheon,” Fanchon called to her without opening the door. “Say that I’ve got a headache.”

She heard Miranda retreating heavily; then she slipped on her riding-habit, found her hat, and, opening the door softly, stole down-stairs. She could hear Mrs. Carter talking to Daniel in a hesitating voice, and she heard Leigh answer something. She did not want them to talk to her. She could not bear it. She opened the door gently, slipped out, and started almost at a run for the livery-stable where she knew William had hired the horses.

Mr. Carter had lunched down-town. He did so when he was very busy, and he was on his way back to his office when he encountered Judge Jessup. The judge halted him and shook hands.

“Dan’s won the case!” he said with elation. “Why weren’t you in court to hear your son plead, Carter?”

Mr. Carter reddened a little. He had been thinking of William and William’s wife, and this was a keen relief. He relaxed.

“I was busy. How did the boy get on, judge?”

The judge clapped his big hand on his old friend’s shoulder.