The Blue Window/Chapter 11
THE doll, Sarah, serene and trim on top of the bookcase in Sally's room, looked down upon a devastating disorder.
Sally, flung among her pillows, showed a wild mop of copper-colored curls. The silver dress which she had discarded hung precariously on the back of a chair, and small, silk garments lay like pink snow everywhere.
From among her pillows Sally was saying: "I've got to get up, Sarah. I've got to get up."
Sarah's eyes seemed to hold a calm rebuke. "I know," Sally agreed, "you don't approve of me. Well, I don't approve of myself. But what do you expect? I'm like the rest. They all stayed up, didn't they? Until morning?"
Sarah did not open her lips, yet Sally had an impression of speech, "All except Hildegarde."
"Hildegarde? Well, give her time, Sarah. And anyhow she's a prig. Oh, yes, she is. She's the kind that used to be in the old novels—the queen can do no wrong, and all that. And men still fall for it—Crispin and—Merry."
Her voice held on that. She dropped back on her pillows, turned her face to the wall, pulled the rose-colored cover over the mop of curls, and lay still. But she was not asleep. Her mind was on Hildegarde walking home with Crispin in the dawn, and the look that had been in Meriweather's eyes at the sight of her.
No man had ever looked at Sally like that. She had had admirers a-plenty, and many proposals. But that touch of worship! She had not known until this morning how much she wanted it! And so she had flung herself among her pillows.
When Mrs. Hulburt came in later, Sally was having her breakfast on a tray.
"Louis wants us to go abroad next summer," she told her daughter. "What do you think?"
Sally set down her cup of chocolate. "Who is going with him?"
"Hildegarde and Anne."
"And Merry?"
"Probably."
"Then I won't go."
"Sally! Why not?"
"Well, if you think I am going over to watch Merry make love to Hildegarde—"
"My dear child, if you could know how glad I am that he isn't making love to you."
"What makes you say that, mother?"
"You couldn't marry him, if he loved you. He hasn't a cent in the world."
"Do you think I care for that?"
"You ought to care. It is just as easy to love a rich man as a poor one."
"Not if the poor one is Merry."
"Sally, I wish you'd have some reticences. In my day girls didn't admit they loved a man until he asked it."
"In your day girls lied about it, mother."
"Sally."
"Oh, well, I mean that they let concealment prey on their damask cheeks and that sort of thing. We moderns know that suppression of emotion is fatal. That's why I talk about my feelings. I haven't proposed to Merry yet, but I may if I don't say things first to you and Sarah."
Mrs. Hulburt's eyes went to the doll. "I don't see why you like her."
"Don't you?"
Sally had a fleeting wish that her mother wore caps and had a mid-Victorian mind. She felt this morning as if she needed the stimulus of sternness and rigidity. Her mother would scold a bit, but in the end would be that smoothing, feather-bed softness of heart which got nobody anywhere, and meant nothing. Yet at the moment Mrs. Hulburt was trying to do her best.
"I want you to be happy, Sally."
"I know," Sally said, and flung a hand up across her eyes. She sobbed in a dry, gasping fashion.
Mrs. Hulburt bent over her. "My dear, do you really care like that?"
"Oh, mother, I care like the—dickens—" And the thing was not funny, but tragic.
Yet, two hours later, when Sally went down for dinner, she was clothed and in her right mind, and as saucy as ever. After dinner all the young people went for a walk in the snow, and came back to have tea in the drawing-room, rosy with its lights.
Sally flung off her hat and sat down at the piano. She was in knickerbockers and a muffin-colored sweater, and looked like a slender boy. She played a chord or two and then sang softly, a bit here and a bit there from popular musical plays. Crispin, leaning over the piano, looked over a pile of songs and found a group of Chinese lyrics. He chose one.
"Do you know this?" he asked.
Sally nodded, and he set it before her. Her fingers rippled an accompaniment, and as her voice was lifted in the haunting melody, one after another of the people in the room stopped talking, and listened.
Among the others Winslow listened, weighing Sally's charms of sprightliness and sophistication against Hildegarde's youth and innocence.
Hildegarde, behind her tea-table, failed to fill the cups. The great room with its gay groups, its gay lights, its great fire, fell away. She and Crispin were once more out under a wide sky—and the wild geese were overhead—
Across the room her eyes met Crispin's. He lifted his hand in recognition of her glance. He, too, remembered! Somebody brought a cup for more tea, and she poured it, put in lemon, two lumps of sugar, smiled, was to all outward appearances a hostess intent on her duty. Yet her pulses were pounding.
Sally, having finished her song, turned and spoke to Crispin.
"Did you know that Hildegarde is going abroad?"
"No."
"Mother told me this morning. They want us to go with them. And Merry."
He had nothing to say to that, and presently Sally went on.
"If I were you, I wouldn't let her go."
"How can I keep her?"
"Do you think, if I cared for a girl, that I'd let the ocean yawn between us. Not if I had to use caveman tactics. I'd carry her off—Oh, why aren't men like that! I wish somebody would pick me up and run away with me."
"Heaven help him, if it wasn't the right man!" His eyes twinkled.
Sally was wistful. "It is never the right man, is it? It is nearly always the wrong man who does the masterful stunt, and they live unhappily ever after."
Crispin, only half-hearing, was eager to get to Hildegarde. "It's because people don't pray for good wives and husbands."
Sally stared. "Does any woman ever pray for a good husband?"
"Well, is there anything better that she can do?" asked this astounding young masculine.
Then, seeing an empty chair beside Hildegarde, he went to her, while Sally, left behind, wondered if she dared ask the Lord to give her Merry!
She had a half-feeling that it wasn't the sporting thing to do. What had she ever given the Lord that He should grant her this great favor?
When Crispin came up to Hildegarde, he said:
"Can't I get you away from these people? I want to talk to you."
"I mustn't now. But I could dress early and come down."
"Good. I'll wait for you in the library."
After that Crispin moved about in a dream, saying pleasant things in his gay young voice. One woman described him afterward:
"That young Harlowe is as vivid as a torch. He positively lights the room."
Moving, too, among the guests, was Winslow. He was not vivid, nor did he light the room like a torch. Yet he shed around him a sort of artificial brightness, like steel or the surface of a shallow pool. And as he and Carew stood in the big window talking together, there was about him a baleful glitter.
"We must settle the thing before we go to Stabler's tonight, Louis. Suppose you meet me in the library after you are dressed for dinner."
"I hate to use Stabler—"
"You are not using him. You are simply bringing two friends together for their mutual benefit."
"For your benefit, Neale."
"Stabler will get something out of it. And anyhow why should you worry?"
"Because I am in your power."
"Nonsense!" Winslow's hand came down on his shoulder. "What have I done that you should think that, Louis?"
"If it wasn't for Hildegarde, I'd cut the whole thing. She couldn't have come to me at a more inopportune moment. But now that she is here, I shall keep her, and if I keep her I've got to have more money."
Thus did Carew quiet his conscience. He was, he argued, asking all this for his daughter. He did not face the fact that if his daughter had not been there, he might have asked it for himself.
It was Hildegarde who came into the library before the others. When she entered, there was no light in the room but that which shone from the crystal cat. It seemed an eerie thing to see the cat in her cold, white beauty, curled up in her eternal sleep. The fire on the hearth had died down to pale ashes.
Hildegarde went to the window to draw the curtain. A little moon sailed in a sky that was clear after the snows. She sat on the window-seat and looked out at the moon, and because it was cold she drew the velvet curtain about her.
And so it happened that when the library door opened, her light dress was hidden. She was, indeed, completely screened as, when she saw who had entered, she drew back behind the hangings.
It was Winslow. He crossed to the hearth and stood rubbing his hands by the fire, making a dry sound. It seemed to Hildegarde that in the dim room, lighted only by the pale glow from the white cat and from the ashes, he was more than ever sinister.
She hoped he would go out. It would be most embarrassing if he should find her. She drew closer within the shelter of the curtain and waited.
When her father arrived, she felt that all hope was gone. They would sit and talk, and Crispin would come. And, oh, what was she going to do about it?
The best way seemed to do nothing. . . .
Carew sat down. "I very nearly stayed upstairs, Winslow. I hate the whole thing."
"Don't be a fool, Louis. This is the best way out for you. You know that, and I know it."
"But Stabler is my friend. And to go to him to-night. Accept his hospitality!"
"You've said all that before. It isn't going to hurt him, I tell you, Louis."
"Perhaps not. But it's the idea of the thing. If I can pull it off with him, you'll pay me for it. That's putting it straight, Neale. I'll be selling my influence for money."
Winslow would not argue. He simply asked a question. "What's the alternative?"
Louis' voice raged. "Oh, I know. I know. You've got me."
After that they made their plans, and Hildegarde, curled up in the window-seat, had to listen. She had to see her father, trapped like a hunted thing, yield bit by bit. She had to know him weak. She had to learn that he was if not actively dishonest, at least acquiescent in the dishonesty of another.
And in the back of her mind was always the thought that if Crispin came, she might be discovered. And that if discovered, her father would have to know she had heard!
Yet when Crispin came, she was not discovered. He stood in the door. "Have you seen Hildegarde?" he asked the men.
"No." Carew's voice had a touch of impatience. "She's not down."
Crispin lingered for a moment, then went away. And when, after a few minutes, Winslow was called to the telephone, Carew sat alone.
He was, as he stared into the fire, a tragic figure. Above the mantel his bright-eyed ancestor met the world with a straight glance. Hereafter Carew would look at no man like that. He had broken the code of those who had preceded him. However he might excuse it, he was not one of them.
Hildegarde had a sense of revolt. She didn't want a weak father. She wanted him strong, brave, his head up, fighting. Her mother had been like that. She wondered what her mother would have thought of the man she loved, if she had seen him now.
Would she still love him? And why should he expect to be loved? One loved people for the fine things that were in them— Yet . . . oh, she was sorry for that tired, tragic father by the fire. She wanted to go up to him, to put her arms about his neck, to ask him to let her help to free him from the coils that Winslow had wound about him.
She forced herself sternly to stop being sorry. One should not forgive weakness or love a weakling. . . . She was swept by a sense of desolation. She had hoped for so much and had found so little. It was dreadful to remember all that she had hoped. She felt as if the world had fallen about her, and that she walked alone amid the wreck of it.
When at last Carew left the room, and she came out from her hiding place, she felt her knees weak under her. She sank down in a chair. . . .
And after what seemed a long time, she heard Crispin's voice saying:
"Hildegarde, what's the matter? What has happened?"
"I thought you were never coming."
"I came, and you weren't here."
"I was here. Hidden in the window-seat."
"Hidden?"
"I was sitting in the window when Mr. Winslow came, and I didn't want to see him. So I covered myself with the curtains. And then father came, and—they talked."
Her voice dropped away into silence. "I can't tell you," she told him finally, "what they said. But it changes—everything. Crispin, I want to go back."
He did not understand. "Go back?"
"To Aunt Catherine and Aunt Olivia. I can't stay here any longer. I've got to—get away—"