What Will People Say? A Novel
"Small chance of meeting Persis and Willie here. They said they'd try to
keep off the busiest roads, and Willie has probably got himself lost
somewhere in the twists and turns of Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow is
just where Willie belongs, all right; he is the most headless headless
horseman that ever threw a pumpkin. I'll bet he turns up late to
luncheon and makes a spectacular entrance on the back of his neck."
Ten Eyck was as nearly right as a prophet is required to be.
The car reached its destination without encountering Persis or Willie.
More majestic than the usual country club, that of Sleepy Hollow was
approached by a stately entrance gate. The road wound between broad
lawns, where children played among tropical thickets of veteran
rhododendrons tall as trees, and studded with flowers as big and
brilliant as Chinese lanterns. The club-house was a pile of creamy
brick, tall and spacious as a hotel. The servants were in livery, some
of them already in summer white, with dark collars and lapels--"to
distinguish them from the members," said Ten Eyck.
Ten Eyck and Winifred offered Forbes a racquet in their tennis game, but
he preferred to be alone with his loneliness. He accepted Ten Eyck's
suggestion, however, that he might care to go round the links, and Ten
Eyck procured him a bag of clubs and a caddy, promising him ample time
for at least nine holes before Persis could arrive.
Mrs. Neff, meanwhile, had vanished with Alice. She had learned that
Senator Tait was on the golf-course, and had dragged Alice forth. Mrs.
Neff loathed walking, but to-day she announced a determination to
reform. Alice went along with double reluctance. She lost her chance to
get word to Stowe Webb, who did not know she was coming, and she feared
she might find him on the links in some spot exposed to her mother's
far-sweeping vision.
Forbes, left to his own devices, and feeling like a dolt for golfing in
horse costume, dawdled about marveling at the luxury of the club and the
splendor of the views that met the eye everywhere within or without its
walls. At length he reached the golf-grounds squired by a lean little
caddy, who might almost have crawled into the bag of sticks and passed
for one of them.
With the usual luck of beginners and re-beginners at a game, Forbes did
his best work at the start. His first drive from the first tee drew such
a white arc across the sky that even the caddy was moved to an
exclamation of applause, hitched his sack on his shoulder, and set off
in search of the ball with vicarious pride.
The ball waited for Forbes in a position so good as to be almost
suspicious. It was an ideal brassy lie; but Forbes, thinking now of his
form, just missed it with surprising nicety, and sent gouts of turf
flying. According to the rules, he was to replace them; and, according
to custom, he affected not to see them. His score mounted rapidly while
he mauled the air and the grass around the ball, and when he finally got
away he had lost his temper and the respect of the caddie irretrievably.
As he worked his way up a steep ridge green and vast as the back of a
tidal wave he saw at the top of the height a bunker thrusting out into
the sky like the comb on the top of a Spanish woman's head. He paused
for his approach, to let two women clear the way. He recognized Mrs.
Neff and Alice, but they did not see him. Mrs. Neff seemed to be in a
mood of displeasure. There was vexation in her very heels.
Thinking the pathway clear, Forbes mumbled "Fore," and, picking the ball
up neatly in his iron, sent it over the edge of the bunker with a
hurdler's economy of gap. And just as it escaped the top a head arose,
followed by a pair of shoulders.
Forbes shrieked an _ex post facto_ "Fore!" but it was drowned in the
snort of pain and rage from the man, whose left shoulder-blade stopped
the ball.
As Forbes ran forward with abject apologies a glaring face peered over
the bunker and roared out:
"Damn it, man! Where do you think you--Why, it's you! Harvey, my boy!"
"Senator Tait!" Forbes cried, darting for one corner of the bunker as
Senator Tait dashed for the other. They paused, turned back, and made
for the opposite ends, stopped short foolishly in the middle, and
laughingly clasped hands over the ledge.
"I'll come round," said Forbes; and the Senator met him, put his arms
about him, and hugged him with a fatherly roughness. After he had told
Forbes how much he had grown and how fine he was, and Forbes had
exclaimed how young the Senator looked, the Senator hugged him again.
"I can't believe that you are yourself. The first time I saw you was in
your father's arms; you were about half an hour old, and your father
said you were very handsome. I couldn't see it at the time, but you've
improved. I wish he could see you now. I was with him, you know, when
his horse fell with him and--"
"Yes, I know," Forbes murmured. "You were his best friend--our best
friend."
"It's a shame that we've lost sight of each other. We mustn't any more.
Life's too short to waste in not seeing people we love. I must say,
though, I'm rather hurt at your not looking me up before. Mrs. Neff has
just told me you've been in town nearly a week."
"I--I've been very busy," Forbes stammered.
"So I hear, you young scoundrel!" Tait growled, jovially. "You're at the
heartbreaking, heartaching age, and no time to spend on old duffers like
me when young beauties are drooping on every bough. But what's this Mrs.
Neff tells me about your being rich? I hadn't heard it. I hadn't
expected it, either, for your father was a better fox-hunter than a
financier. What did you do--invent some new explosive--or a new gun?"
Forbes smiled bitterly and explained the foolish mistake, too foolish to
correct at first, and later embarrassing.
The Senator stared at him a moment searchingly with a tender
inquisition, then said:
"Unless you're golf-hungry, let's send the caddies back and have a
talk."
"By all means," Forbes agreed; and even as he cast his glance about in
search of his caddy he looked farther to see if Persis were not visible
somewhere from this Pisgah height. He was fond of the old man, but he
loved the young woman.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Forbes' caddy was standing by the ball, and came in with it, cannily
claimed his pay and tip for the full course, and hurried back with the
Senator's caddy to pick up other fares. They took both the golf-bags
with them to put away.
Tait and Forbes strolled aside from the traffic of the golf-course and
found a quiet seat in the shade.
"And now tell me," the Senator said; "but first have a cigar?"
He took out a portly wallet stuffed with brown backs, the famous cigars
made expressly for him in Havana. Forbes accepted one and sniffed its
bouquet.
"It's a shame to waste these in the open air," he said, and sprung a
cigar-lighter he carried, holding the flame to Tait, who waived it with
a sigh:
"Doctor's orders."
"Then I won't."
"Go on; I carry them for my friends. I love to see others enjoy what I
can't. Well, I will smoke just one to celebrate the prodigal's return."
And he took a cigar from the case as tenderly as if it were forbidden
ambrosia. As Forbes made a light again, he asked:
"What's this about doctor's orders? You're the kind of picture that goes
with the testimonials--after taking."
"I'm a hollow sham, my boy; bad heart, bad liver, fat and sluggish,
ordered to Carlsbad, but I hate to go. May have to," he puffed. "Did you
see my daughter Mildred at the club-house?"
"No, I don't think so. I don't suppose I'd know her. She was a little
tike in short skirts when I saw her last."
"She's a big woman now--regular old maid--fanatic on charities--fine
mind--great heart. Thinks too much about the poor and the downtrodden to
be very cheerful company; but somebody ought to look after 'em, I
suppose. She's one of those hotheads that are trying to make the world
over. Sounds hopeless, but they do get a lot done. She thinks poverty is
no more necessary than slavery was. And she says the same of the oldest
profession in the world.
"Good Lord, Harvey, what that child knows! Her mother to her dying day
never heard of half the things that young spinster discusses, and has
never had a flirtation so far as I know. Her conversation is really what
has turned my hair white. Things that used to be kept for the medical
books or smoking-room conversation she tosses off glibly, earnestly,
and--to me! And spends my money, too, on scientific rescue work among
women who--whew! And to think her mother and I didn't dare to tell her
things! Now she tells 'em to me! She knows more about the seamy side
than I do. But she's wonderful, Harvey. I'm afraid of her, but I do
admire and love her. Women like her make these mad tango-trotters look
pretty cheap."
Forbes resented the unintended criticism on the wonderful soul the tango
mania had enabled him to meet and know so well so soon. He murmured
something formulaic about his eagerness to see Mildred, and then he
added, with a little hint of raillery:
"You congratulated me on my wealth. Am I to congratulate you the same
way for your success with little Miss Neff?"
The Senator stared at him. "My success with little Miss Neff? What do
you mean? Who's little Miss Neff? Alice?"
"Yes."
"The girl that was just here with her mother?"
"Yes."
"What success should I have with her?"
Forbes was confused, and tried to back out, but Tait would know, and
Forbes at last explained: "Alice says that her mother is trying to marry
her off to you."
Tait's eyes popped, and his mouth gaped stupidly, then he swore with
sonority, and blurted out: "Do you mean that that old harridan of a
Cornelia Neff has gone mad enough to--Why, Alice is younger than
Mildred! I thought of her as a little tot. I tweaked her cheek and told
her how sweet she was, and never dreamed she'd grown up yet. So that's
why Cornelia has been so hospitable to me. I had a kind of sneaking fear
that she wanted to add me to her own regiment of husbands. But it's her
daughter, eh? Well, I'll be double--Is Alice in on the game, too?"
"Oh no; Alice is crazy to marry Stowe Webb."
"Poor old Jim Webb's boy, eh?" Forbes nodded. "Well, why doesn't she?"
"He has no money."
"Oh, she's one of those."
"He hasn't even a job."
The Senator puffed like an unmufflered cut-out, and he frowned like a
pirate, then he began to chuckle in the manner of a pirate ordering the
plank put over the side.
"He hasn't a job, eh? Well, I'll get him one. I'll pay that old lady in
her own coin. Make a fool out of me, will she? Well, we'll see what an
old politician can do to countermine an old lady."
"Speaking of politics," said Forbes, "the papers are full of the
possibility of your being an ambassador somewhere. Is there anything in
it?"
"Well, my old friend the President has written me a few letters and
whispered it in my ear, but I don't want to go. I'm too old. I like my
own country and my own slippers. Foreign languages and foreign cooking
and all that would play the devil with me. I don't want to go."
Forbes laughed at the spectacle of a big, rich man pouting like a
reluctant child against having a sweetmeat forced on him.
"Then why are you going?" he grinned.
"How did you know I was?"
"Because you said you didn't want to. We only say, 'I don't want to'
when we're just about to."
Tait looked at him in surprise. Forbes was not the type from whom one
expects epigrams and generalizations. That was among his chief
attractions. Tait laughed sheepishly.
"Well, I'll tell you, Harvey. There's just one reason--I'm worried about
Mildred. She's getting in too deep with her crusades and causes. She's
done enough. She mustn't lose her own life as a woman--a wife--a mother.