What Will People Say? A Novel

"But what did you dream?" Mrs. Enslee demanded till he explained: "Well, it seemed to be my--er--wedding-day. And I was standing there by Persis--I was--er--fumbling in my pocket for the--er--ring, and feeling like a fool--because she's so much taller than I am--and the preacher said, 'If anybody knows any--er--reason why these two should not be--er--wed, let him speak now, or forever--'" "Yes, yes," said his audience of one. "There was--er--silence for a minute. Then a man stood up in the church--I couldn't see his face--but he was tall, and he called out--er, 'I forbid the banns! She loves me. She is only marrying that man for his--er--money!' I turned to Persis and said: 'Is that true?' And she said: 'I don't know the man. I never saw him.' And then, when she said that, he gave her one look and--er--walked out of the church. And the--er--ceremony went on. But Persis shivered all the time--er--just shivered, and when I kissed her her lips were like--er--like ice. Then the music began, and we marched down the aisle--and then--then we--er--er--no, I won't tell you." "Go on--please go on!" the mother pleaded; but Willie grew embarrassed, and his eyes wandered as he stammered: "Well--at last--we were in our room--and I--er--she shrank away from me as if I were--er--a toad. And she swore she hated me--and loved the--er--other man. Then I saw everything red--I hated her. I wanted to throttle her--to tear her to pieces. But she ran to the window and fell, all--er--tangled up in the veil and the long train. I tried to save her--but I couldn't. And then--when it was too late--my love for her came back, and I cried, 'Persis! Persis!' and--er--woke up. Mother, do you believe in--er--dreams?" "No, no, of course not," said Mrs. Enslee, without conviction. "Or else they go by contraries." "Ugh! How real they are while they last. I can't get over it." "Well, of course, I'm not superstitious," Mrs. Enslee insinuated; "but, if you are, perhaps--I just say perhaps--it might be a sort of omen that you'd better not marry Persis, after all." "Not marry Persis!" Willie gasped. "There are other women on earth," Mrs. Enslee suggested. "Not for me!" Mrs. Enslee pondered a moment before she took up the debate again. "But do you think she loves you as much as you'd like to be loved?" Willie laughed. "Huh! nobody ever loved me like that; nobody ever will." "Except your mother," said Mrs. Enslee, laying her hand on his hair. Willie hated to have his hair smoothed, and he edged away, laughingly bitterly. "I'm afraid even you've found me--er--unattractive, mother. I couldn't have been much to be proud of even as a little brat. I never had a chum as a boy. I never had a girl--er--sweetheart. It wasn't that I didn't like other people, but other people can't seem to--er--like me." He pondered the mystery so tragically that Mrs. Enslee caressed him, and said: "You mustn't say that. I adore you." Willie eyed her with a cynical stare. "Don't be--er--literary, mother. I remember when I was a little boy how lonely I used to get in this big old house. Poor father was so busy heaping up money I hardly knew him by sight. Once he--er--passed me on the street and didn't speak to me! Then at night you used to give big dinners. I had to eat early and alone up in the--er--nursery. But I used to lie awake for hours, and when the doors opened I could hear laughter. And often there was music. You used to go down to dinner after I had gone to bed." "But I always stopped in to kiss you good night, didn't I?" the mother urged, in self-defense. "Sometimes you would forget," Willie sighed. "Then I'd be left there alone with the governess. I didn't want to--er--speak French to a governess. I wanted to--er--talk to my mother. And when you did stop in to kiss me, your lips sometimes used to--er--leave red marks on my cheek." "Willie!" Mrs. Enslee gasped; but he went on: "I couldn't put my arms around your neck for fear I'd--er--disarrange your hair, and even that was--er--dyed!" Mrs. Enslee turned on him in rage. "Willie! How dare you?" He rounded on her fiercely. "You know it was! You know it was!" "You little beast!" Mrs. Enslee cried; but Willie laughed maliciously. "See! See! Now you're showing your--er--real feelings to me." Mrs. Enslee controlled her pain and her wrath, and implored: "Come, my boy, let's be friends." "Oh, that's all right, mother," said Willie. "Friends is the word. It's too late for anything else." "You're in one of your nasty moods, Willie," said Mrs. Enslee, retreating from this hateful situation. "But we were talking of Persis. You must decide about her." "I have decided." "You won't marry her, then?" "Not marry her?" Willie repeated, like a sarcastic echo. "Of course I will. And why not?" Motives are hard tangles to unravel, especially a mother's toward other women. Perhaps Mrs. Enslee was really afraid of Persis. Perhaps she wanted to assure herself of the future ability to say, "I warned you." Perhaps it was just motherly jealousy of the new proprietress of Willie's time and attention. In answer to Willie's "Why not?" she insinuated: "People might say she is marrying you for your money." "Well, what of it? What if she is?" Willie stormed. "What else is there to marry me for? My--er--beauty? What does it matter, so I get her? Why do dukes marry--er--chorus-girls--when they can afford 'em? Because they want 'em! That's why, isn't it? What fools they'd be not to take 'em if they want 'em and can get 'em?" His mother shrugged his troubles from her shoulders and left him to ferment in his own vinegar. But Willie was not happy. He was getting what he asked for, and it was not what he wanted. Perhaps he had never been truly happy in his whole existence. He had been amused at times, but usually then with a cynical delight in somebody's misfortunes or mistakes. How could he have been thoroughly happy when he had never been truly well? What health he had was a negation, a convalescence; it was at best a not being sick. He was of a fabric that broke down and wore through constantly. He could understand the definition of happiness as "having a splinter in your finger and getting it out." But the joy that comes from bounding arteries, glowing skin, a galloping heart, a volcanic desire to laugh because the soul is bursting with laughter, or to sing for mere song's sake, or to be an instrument in the symphonic universe when it is playing one of its mighty ensembles--that cosmic happiness was unknown to Willie Enslee. When he found a rapture he always found something the matter with it; there was a worm in the apple, a slug in the salad, a fly in the ointment, a flaw in the diamond. And so it was with his one big ambition--Persis. He had won his choice of all the world's women. And now his mother was asking if he thought she loved him, and if people would not question her motives. She was already perhapsing and better-notting. And he was dreaming dreams that somebody else had a priority in her heart. Of course, dreams were follies. According to some superstitions, they went by contraries. But they are as hard to disbelieve as a convincing play. One may not be sure that Josephine was untrue to Napoleon; but he knows that Mrs. Tanqueray II. had a most inconvenient lover, and that her past spoiled her husband's daughter's future. So Willie, emerging from the playhouse of his nightmare, wondered who it was that was likely to interrupt his wedding with Persis. He suspected everybody except Forbes. Him he canceled at once from the list, because Forbes had met Persis only a week ago, and had never seen her alone, and had, furthermore, devoted himself to Mrs. Neff. He set Forbes down as a fortune-hunter willing to marry a much older woman of moderate means. He doubted if he were important enough for an invitation to the wedding. He could not decide upon any other man to fit the faceless vision of his nightmare, that shadowy being who stood up in the dream-cathedral and claimed Persis for his own. He was tempted to ask Persis. But he was not tempted long. Naturally she would deny it; but what if she should confess? Then he would have to give her up. And he wanted her more than anything else on earth. He resolved that the one safe step was to get Persis safely married at once and take her away from all of her acquaintances. Aboard his yacht would be one secure asylum. When they tired of that they could travel Europe, and the moment any old friend appeared he could decamp with her overnight. He chuckled triumphantly over this plot, and set about its perfection. He rejoiced to be in a position to compel Persis by way of her father's necessities. The support he had advanced to the "old flub" he could threaten to withdraw unless the wedding were hastened. That would clinch it. And then he glowed with the imagined scenes of the honeymoon. Persis might not love him as he wished, but he would have her for his own. He would have as much of her as any man could be sure of in possessing a woman. He knew he was not handsome, but he knew handsome men whose homely wives were notoriously false to them. Did he not know of wild romances that had ended in mutual contempt? Did he not know of unpromising beginnings that had ended in happiness? Monogamy was a gamble at best. And at worst he should have Persis for his own for a while. CHAPTER XLVII When Willie's mother left him in the aftermath of his nightmare she went to pay her duty call on Persis, to welcome her formally into the family and proffer her the use of the family name. There was the most gleaming cordiality on the surface of their meeting, but the depths of both streams were a trifle murky. Willie's mother understood now why her own husband's fierce old mother, known as "Medusa" Enslee, had received her with such constraint on a similar occasion. That mother had had to give up part of her name, too, and step back from being queen to being queen-mother, with endless confusion in the newspapers, the invitations, the correspondence, and the gossip. The present Mrs. Enslee felt now a sympathy for the old woman she had hated. But it crowded out the sympathy she should have felt for Persis, who was suffering what she had suffered as a young-woman-afraid-of-her-mother-in-law. It was bitter for Willie's mother, still beautiful, feeling herself as young as ever, to realize that henceforth she must be the "the elder," or, worse yet, the "old Mrs. Enslee." Perhaps in a year or two a grandmother! It would be just like Persis to hasten that ghastly day. At present Persis was not thinking of motherhood. She would have called it quite a ghastly day herself--one to be postponed by every ingenuity and subtlety known to American womanhood. She was thinking of her new name. "You'll be Mrs. Enslee, and I suppose I'll be Mrs. William Enslee, or Mrs. Little Willie, sha'n't I, mama? Do you want me to call you mama, or shall I stick to Mrs. Enslee?" "As you like, my dear," said Mrs. Enslee, with a little shudder at being "mama" to a strange woman and a rival. Persis rattled on in ill-managed embarrassment. "It will be pretty mixy with two Mrs. William Enslees, won't it? Like two in a single bed--pardon me! I'll have to be awfully good or awfully careful, sha'n't I, for fear my letters may fall into your hands? But I'll promise not to give away what I find in yours if you won't tell on me." Mrs. Enslee was rather pleased than offended at this. At least it credited her with the ability to create scandal. She was like Mrs. Neff in hating to get too old to be suspected. She smiled at Persis with Spanish coquetry, and offered her aid in the