What Will People Say? A Novel
Willie praised it brought up suspicion. She would prefer to choose
another landscape, one better suited to her and Forbes, not a
second-hand landscape built along some other person's lines.
It would be a joy for Forbes and her to pick out a hundred acres or
more--not too far from New York; perhaps among the hunting and poloing
colonies on Long Island. While they were building they could cruise.
But perhaps Forbes could not afford a yacht. She must not run him into
extravagances. Well, after all, the suites _de luxe_ on some of the
ocean liners were not so bad, with their own dining-saloons attached. By
omitting the yacht they could have a stunning town house. Mrs. Jimmie
Chives wanted to sell her place for a song, and nearly every room in it
was imported bodily from some European castle or mansion. With a few
changes it could be made quite a habitable shack.
And so, while Willie pleaded in his nagging way, her own imagination was
attorney for Forbes. Only it was imagining a Forbes that did not exist,
a fairly rich and decently leisurely Forbes. Down below, looking up to
her with such eyes as lovers in hell cast on their beloveds in heaven,
was the real Forbes, poor, hard-worked, with no financial prospects
beyond a minute increase of wage by slow promotion. And he had only a
few days more of leisure before he resumed the livery of the nation.
CHAPTER XXXI
Luncheon was breakfast again with a few additions. Winifred had lost the
hang of the range, and what successes she had were ruined by her
inability to corral the herd on time. The soup was salted beyond the
sanction of even the most amiable palate. The chickens were guaranteed
not to be resurrections from a cold-storage tomb; but they would have
been the better for a little longer hanging and a little shorter
cooking. The vegetables had not been salted at all, nor warmed quite
through.
"The average is perfect," was Ten Eyck's verdict.
"And the salad's fine, Winifred," said Mrs. Neff, in a desperate effort
to console the despondent cook, who retreated to the kitchen and cried a
little more salt into the soup.
Ten Eyck rubbed his sagging waistcoat and groaned:
"This is the emptiest empty house-party I ever went to."
"It would have been a noble institution in Lent," Persis sighed.
"You would come," Willie snapped.
"Thank heaven," Alice purred, "I have a five-pound box of chocolates in
my room."
Mrs. Neff glared at her. "He'd better save his money. Or has he an
account at Maillard's? You can't live on candy, you know."
"It's quite as nourishing as the Congressional Record," said Alice.
"Deuce all!" cried Ten Eyck. "But family matters aside, we've got to do
something about food. I've survived the fireless and foodless cooking at
breakfast and luncheon, but the dinnerless dinner would finish me.
Winifred can afford to bant, I can't. I'm going to give a party. We'll
all dine over at the Port of Missing Men and have dinner on me; that
will get us through until to-morrow at least."
This was agreed upon with enthusiasm. Winifred was tactfully proffered a
vote of thanks and a vacation. There remained only the afternoon to
kill. Persis thought to steal a few minutes with Forbes, and they struck
out for the sunken gardens, but Willie came panting after them and
constituted himself their guide.
He was like one of those pests that can rob the Pitti Palace of interest
and make the Vatican an old barn. He led them through the gardens, the
greenhouses, the stables, and the kennels. Here a little sea of beagles
flowed and frothed round Persis' feet. They were a relic of the days
before the hunting fever left Westchester for Long Island. They were mad
for exercise, and so were the horses in the stables.
"We must take these poor nags out for a run," said Persis, looking at
Forbes, who accepted with his eyes.
"All right, we will. To-morrow morning," said Willie; and Forbes
resigned with a look.
Unable to shake off Willie, Persis pleaded the need for a little sleep
and retreated to her room. Forbes wandered about, puzzled at the
appalling loneliness he could feel in so beautiful a place with so many
people around and only one missing.
Eventually, however, the sun, which had begun the day with such ecstasy
for him, began to approach the top of the western hill, and the caravan
set out for the Port of Missing Men, which proved to be a little cottage
of an inn set upon the edge of a small mountain and surveying a vast
panorama.
On the piazza the crowd dined well, and returned through the great park
to the homeward roads, for when they reached the Enslee bridge it was
like coming home. The wings of the motor had made it possible to run
twenty-five miles to dinner and twenty-five miles back in almost
negligible time; but the exultant speed of the journey and the multitude
of sights that had fled past fatigued the mind like a long voyage, and
it was once more a subdued company that gathered before the living-room
fireplace.
Silence fell upon them all, and they sat once more staring into the
flames, each finding there the glittering castles of desire.
Prout came in with more logs of wood and tiptoed out, shaking his head
in stupefaction at this latest game of these amazing people.
At some vaguely later hour Persis rose and went into the adjoining
music-room. Forbes longed to follow, but feared to move. She strummed a
few inexpert chords on the piano. Then she went to the victrola and
searched among the black disks. A little later she called out:
"Everything in this house is last year's. There's not a turkey-trot on
the place, or a tango."
A little later she spoke again, "Here's a bit of ancient history." She
cranked up the machine, set the needle to the disk, and "The Beautiful
Blue Danube" came twanging forth from a scarred record that riddled the
melody with curious spatterings.
The once world-victorious rhapsody had almost a dirge-like tameness now;
but it brought Willie to his feet, and he began to circle the room with
Persis. She drooped over his inferior shoulders like a wilted flower.
Ten Eyck scooped Alice off the floor and danced in double time. Forbes
bowed to Winifred, but she waved him away with a heavy hand. Mrs. Neff
beckoned him.
"I'd rather be second choice than a wallflower. That music takes me back
a thousand years."
She glided with an old-time dignity. Forbes tried to keep his eyes from
Persis and heed Mrs. Neff's reminiscences.
"Waltzes, waltzes!" she wailed. "How much they meant once to me. There
are no dances like the old dances."
"There never were," said Forbes. "I reckon that twenty years from now
old folks will be shaking their heads and telling how sweet and
dignified the turkey-trot was compared with the epileptic crawl and the
hydrophobia skedaddle they'll be doing then."
"I reckon so," said Mrs. Neff. "I can just remember when the polka was
considered immoral."
Other waltzes were played, but Willie's appetite for them was quenched
after the first. He sank into a chair by the living-room table and took
up a story in an old magazine.
Persis waltzed with Forbes more often than with the others; but Willie
never knew. In fact, it was not long before his head grew heavier and
heavier, and finally, with his chin in his necktie, he slept.
The dancing, the copious wine, and the sudden warmth of the weather soon
led to the opening of doors. From the music-room one stepped out into a
kind of cloister opening on the lawn.
Eventually Persis set a two-step record whirling on the machine. Forbes
asked her to dance with him. As they were passing one of the doors a
little gust of summer-night air blew upon them so appealingly that
Forbes swung Persis across the sill and stepped out into the cloister,
where the moonlight streamed like a distant searchlight.
The music followed them, but muffled, by the pat of their feet along the
tiled floor. To silence this noise Forbes danced across the margin of
stone out upon the smooth, short, silent grass. Persis made no
resistance, and he danced always a little deeper into the lawn, a little
farther from the house. He danced her round the inky plumes of a
cluster of cedars. These shut out the lights from the door. The music
was quite lost here, and Persis hummed the tune herself; seemed to croon
it into his very heart.
The music must have stopped in the house long before they knew it, and
some one must have put on a disk in whose hard-rubber surface was
embedded the voice of Sembrich singing a waltz-song of Chopin's.
This angelic melody floated on the air as if it came from nowhere and
everywhere, and Forbes and Persis fell into the swift rhythm of it. They
must needs dance furiously fast to keep up; but the music brought with
it some of its own resistless energy.
Out here in this moon-world they seemed to be utterly aloof from the
earth. They seemed to whirl like twin stars in a cosmic dance to the
music of the spheres, the song the stars sing together. The Milky Way
was but moonlit dew on the lawn of the sky. And they darted between the
planets in a divine rhythm on a vast orbit, until at last a
breathlessness of soul and body compelled Persis to end the occult rite.
The moonlight fell about her in a magic veil, and Forbes could not let
her go. He caught her closer to him. But before his lips could brush her
cheek, she broke his clasp and said:
"We must get back."
"Oh, please!" he implored.
"The others will wonder."
"What of it?"
"We can't afford to set them talking."
"We can't afford to waste a night like this in a stuffy room."
"There will be other moonlight nights."
"How do you know? We can't be sure."
"The moon is pretty regular in its habits."
"But we may not be alive. It may rain to-morrow. And the day after I
must be getting back to my post."
"Really? Oh, that is too bad!" There was such deep regret in her words
that he took courage to say:
"If we could only walk together a long, long distance! Doesn't the moon
seem to--to command you to march?"
"Yes; but--but my slippers are all wet with the dew."
"You could change them."
"And what would the others say?"
"Must they know?"
"How could they help knowing?"
"If you told them all good night and went to your room and changed your
slippers, and came out later, and I met you--"
It was a very elaborate conspiracy for him, and she gasped:
"Do you think I'm quite mad?"
"I know I am, or it seems that I'll go mad unless I can be with you in
this wonderful light."
"It is wonderful, but--even if I were crazy enough to do as you say you
would spoil it all--you wouldn't be good."
"Oh yes, I would. I promise."
"Solemnly?"
"I solemnly promise that I will not annoy you. I will not presume to--to
kiss you unless you ask me to."
"That ought to be safe enough," she laughed. "Well, I'll think it over.
And now we really must get back. Alice and Murray are at the door
looking this way."
They returned slowly to the cloister, discussing the beauty of the night
and the brilliance of the moon. Persis told on herself; confessed that
she had been foolish enough to dance on the grass, and her shoes and
stockings were drenched.
Willie, who was partially awake, supplied the necessary excuse for
absence. He demanded that she change at once and not risk pneumonia.
"If I'm sent to my room I won't come back," said Persis, and yawned
convincingly. This set up a contagion of yawns. Everybody was instantly
smitten with sleepiness. There was no necessity to keep awake, and they
were all easy victims of the demands of long-deferred sleep.
There was some flurry over the nightcap drinks, and a leisurely exit of
all except Persis, who left immediately. When the rest went up to their
rooms Forbes went to his.