What Will People Say? A Novel
"We got off the main road," Persis said, as she climbed the steps,
followed by Forbes, "and the horses were tired and--"
"I was awfully anxious. I was about to start out to look for you."
"There was no occasion to be anxious."
"Besides, your father telephoned you."
"My father! Is he back in New York?"
"No; he telephoned from Chicago. He was just leaving on the twenty-hour
train. He couldn't wait till you got back."
"What did he have to say?"
"Lots." Willie looked uneasily at Forbes, as if he were in the way.
"I'll be changing for dinner," Forbes said, with uncomfortable haste.
"You'd better be cooking the dinner," Willie said. "Winifred is counting
on your soldierly experience to help her out."
So Forbes went to the kitchen to salute and report for duty. As he
entered the house he looked back to see Enslee leading Persis toward the
marble steps to the little temple where he proposed regularly.
Forbes' heart thudded heavily in his breast. He felt helpless to protest
or intervene in any way. Persis was up at auction. He had bidden her in
under a misapprehension of the upset price, and she was put back for
sale again.
CHAPTER XXXIX
As she mounted the steps with Willie, Persis felt something of Forbes'
regret. She was a slave on the block, and the man she wanted for owner
was crowded from the mart.
"What did father have to say?" she asked, in a dull tone already
despairing.
"I--I--it wasn't very pleasant."
"Hand it to me."
"He said to break it to you gently."
"Well, speak up, Willie. Break it! For the Lord's sake, break it!"
"Sit down, won't you?" He led her to a bench in the temple. "I hardly
know where to begin."
"Begin at the ending."
"Well, you see, your poor governor--"
"Has lost all his money?"
"Well, yes--in a way."
"It's getting to be rather a habit with the poor old boy, isn't it? Is
he smashed up badly?"
"Pretty badly."
"The house in town and the country place will have to go?"
"I'm afraid so."
"The cars and the horses--my car, too?"
"Looks like it."
"Then I needn't worry about it's being a last year's model," she
laughed. Willie stared at her admiringly.
"Gad, but you're a good loser."
"I try to be; an easy winner, an easy loser. I'm awfully sorry for
father, though. Did you--did you tell him anything?"
"I told him we were engaged."
She shivered and mumbled, "What did he say to that?"
"He seemed immensely relieved. He said, 'God bless her.' His voice was
very faint, but I think that's what he said."
"Perhaps he said, 'God help her.'"
"Maybe he did," Willie sighed. "Anyway, we're to meet him in town
to-morrow."
He stared at her with hungry eyes, and his little lean fingers crept
toward the exquisite hand of hers that lay supine, relaxed, with
upturned fingers like the petals of an open rose. He took that flower in
his hands timidly. She looked down into his famished eyes and smiled
pitifully--perhaps a little for him, certainly for herself.
He overestimated the tenderness in her gaze and squeezed her fingers in
his. She winced and drew her hand away.
"I'm awfully sorry I hurt you," he said.
"It was this ring again," she explained, though she had not meant to say
the "again."
"My ring? Our ring?" he murmured, with such joy that her sportsmanship
compelled a last effort at playing fair.
"Under the circumstances," she said, "I think I'd better return it to
you--with thanks for the loan."
"I don't want it back!" he gasped. "I won't have it back."
"You didn't agree to marry a beggar."
"I want to marry you--just you," he pleaded. "The engagement stands."
"You're terribly polite, but I can't--not for charity."
"Charity--bosh!" he stormed. "I can't get along without you. You
couldn't get along without a lot of money, Persis. If--if you'll let the
engagement stand I'll put your father on his feet again. I'll--I'll do
anything."
"How put him on his feet? I thought he was smashed?"
"He went to Chicago to raise a lot of money. He couldn't. He's coming
back to face the music. It's a funeral march unless--unless--well, I
could take up his obligations. I don't understand it very well myself,
to say nothing of explaining it to you. But I've got a lot of money, and
money is what your father's enemies want. He'll be all right if he's
tided over the shallow places. So for my sake and your governor's, let
me announce the engagement."
"Think what people would say. It looks so hideously mercenary on my
part."
"We can prove that we were engaged before this thing threatened.
Everybody will have to confess it's a true love match on both sides.
Please, please, Persis! pretty please!"
She resigned herself to all the shames she foresaw, and sighed:
"All right, Willie, it will brace Dad up a bit."
"Is he the only one you think of?" Willie pouted. "Haven't you a word
of--of love for me?" He wrung her hands in his little claws again, and
they set her nerves on edge. She wanted to shriek her detestation of her
plight; but she controlled herself enough to keep down her feelings. She
could not, however, mimic love where she felt loathing--the best she
could do was to mumble:
"We can't very well play a love scene up here before everybody, can we?
I may feel more enthusiastic when I've had a bath and a change of
costume."
She broke from him and hurried down the steps. He overtook her half-way
to plead:
"Let me announce our engagement now--to the people here."
"Not now," she pleaded; "not here!" And she ran on. But he followed
chuckling. He had a great dramatic idea.
CHAPTER XL
That was an extraordinary dinner. The famished aristocracy hovered about
the kitchen porch like waifs, pleading for the privilege of assisting.
Ten Eyck wanted to scour the cake-dish or put raisins in something. He
and the rest were set to work dusting the palatial dining-hall and
bringing forth the best Enslee plate. Willie stood by and warned them to
be careful. He was in so triumphant a humor that he felt nearly like
breaking something himself.
When at last the board was decked, the candelabra alight, fresh flowers
lavished everywhere, and chairs arranged, the guests were ravenous.
"Do we dress for dinner?" said Ten Eyck. Winifred threw a boiled potato
at him. It grazed Mrs. Neff, who swore splendidly and was prepared to
respond with a mop when disarmed.
It was one of the necessities of the feast that the entire body of
guests should be also the corps of waiters. The service would have
appalled the shabbiest butler. There were woeful collisions at the
deadly swinging doors; wine-glasses that had been made in Bohemia and
monogrammed there were splintered. A wonderful soup-tureen of historic
associations was juggled and lost. It fell on a venerable rug of every
color except spilled soup. The tureen was picked up empty and badly
dented.
But nothing could check the riot. There were battles around the
serving-tables in the kitchen and the pantry and at the sideboard. Those
who got their plates filled rushed to their places like fed dogs
dispersing each with its bone.
Winifred was exhausted by her long day's work. She made no pretense of
toilet, but followed her viands in and slumped into her chair with
sleeves rolled up, knees apart, and the general collapsed look of cooks.
Forbes had taken off his coat for his kitchen work. Winifred would not
let him put it on again.
"My butler and footmen eat with their livery on the back of their
chairs," she said. "We'll make this a regular banquet in the servants'
hall."
The idea pleased everybody but Willie. They had all happened into the
servants' dining-rooms during the meals of those weary ministers, so now
they sprawled and gobbled and chattered in the best imitation they could
improvise.
"Our own people are probably eating at our own tables at home," said
Mrs. Neff, "and passing scandal with every plate."
"There's the one thing missing to make this a true servant's soiree,"
said Ten Eyck--"a lot of down-stairs gossip. I am now Willie's man:
'Whatever do you suppose I turned up this morning whilst I was unpacking
the mahster's bag after his trip to Philadelphia--a receipted bill for
five-and-twenty dollars for Mr. and Mrs. William Jones, one night's
lodging, so 'elp me!'"
Everybody glanced at Willie, but he giggled. "You flatter me."
Alice, with the sophistication that young women have apparently always
had except in fiction, put up her hand reprovingly to Ten Eyck.
"No depravity, no depravity! Remember my young mother is present. Now
I'm our second man talking to my maid: 'My Missus, for all she's so
crool to her darling dorter Aluss, do you knaow the hour she come in
lawst night? Nao? Four o'clock this mornin', she did! Strike me if she
didn't!'"
Mrs. Neff smiled and retaliated: "Now I'm Alice's Hibernian maid: 'At
that the ould shrew had nothin' on Miss Aluss. Whilst her mother was
toorkey-trattin', wasn't the darlin' child after tahkin' four dollars'
worth of baby-tahk over the telephone to that young bosthoon of a Stowe
Webb.'"
"How on earth did you find out?" said Alice.
Mrs. Neff's answer was further revelation of the domestic secret
service: "It's a nice little colleen, Aluss is, and pays me liberal for
smooglin' notes in and out of the house. And then the ould woman pays me
still more liberal to bring the notes to her first. It's a right careful
mother she is."
Alice stared in horror, and Mrs. Neff tee-hee'd like a malicious little
girl. Winifred came to Alice's rescue with a cross-fire:
"Now I'm Mrs. Neff's secretary talking to my little niece's governess."
"Help, help!" cried Mrs. Neff. "No fair, Winifred. I had to discharge
the cat. If you dare, I'll give an imitation of your laundress talking
to--"
"I surrender," said Winifred, hastily.
"Go on," said Ten Eyck. "As Connie Ediss sang, 'It all comes out in the
wash.'"
Mrs. Neff put up her hand. "As official duenna of this family, I think
we'd better change the game or put out the lights."
"That's a fine idea!" said Ten Eyck. "A game of tag in the dark."
"Not in my dark!" said Willie, sternly, with a calm incisiveness that
surprised everybody and ended the project before it was begun.
Ten Eyck complained: "We came here to be rid of the spying servants, and
we've been more respectable than ever."
"Crowds are almost always respectable," said Mrs. Neff, "unless they're
drunk."
"Everybody is almost always respectable," said Ten Eyck. "Even the worst
of us only sin for a few minutes at a time. A murder takes but a
moment, and thieves are notorious loafers. This talk of a life of sin is
mostly rot, I think. Sin is a spasm, not a life."
"It's the remorse and the atonement that make up the life," said Mrs.
Neff.
"Good Lord, how funereal we are," said Persis, "talking about sin and
spasms and remorse when the flowers are blooming and the moonlight is
pounding on the windows! We ought to be--"
"Washing the dishes," said Winifred, rising. "Come on, the all of youse,
clear up this mess and get into the suds. Persis and Mrs. Neff and Alice
are the dish-washing squad to-night, and Willie and Murray can wipe them
dry."
"We haven't had our smoke yet," protested Mrs. Neff. A respite was
granted for this.
Everybody smoked but Alice.
"What's the matter with you, Alice?" said Winifred. "Sore throat?"
Alice shrugged her shoulders and answered, "Ask my awful mother."
Mrs. Neff flicked the ashes off her cigarette. "My father always used to
tell my brothers that tobacco wouldn't hurt them if they didn't smoke
till they were twenty-one. I think it applies to women also."
"Great heavens!" said Winifred, pretending to put away her cigarette,
"I've ruined my life. No wonder I'm wasting away."