The Cheat (Holman)/Chapter 10
"I have been lying awake thinking about you since nine o'clock, Carmelita, and I have concocted the most wonderful plan."
Lucy Hodge, clad in a cool morning gown, was sitting in a fancy wicker chair in Carmelita's dressing room while Carmelita enjoyed the luxury of having her hair done by the efficient Yvonne. It was nearly noon but it was Sunday and the Hodge household was just stirring into life. The warm sunlight was filling the room and Carmelita could turn to the right and look out where the placid blue waters of the Sound glistened invitingly.
"What is the marvelous plan, my Lucy?"
"Well, first, how much did you really win last night?"
"Five thousand dollars." There was a thrill merely in repeating it.
"My, you did have a streak of luck." Lucy seemed to be waiting for the maid to finish and leave.
Yvonne, with a final expert pat, completed her task and Carmelita, delighted with herself in the glass, beamed upon her image in sheer exuberance of good spirits. When the maid had gone she turned to Lucy simply. "I have been lucky ever since I have been here, Lucy. I am lucky to have such a friend as you who can make me so happy and comfortable. But you are spoiling me, I am afraid. It will be hard to go back to a little two-by-four apartment."
"Why go back?" her hostess asked signifieantly. "Dudley is probably having a good time himself. He went to Greenwich, did you say? There are yachts and golf and pretty girls galore there."
"He went on business."
"They all say that."
Carmelita was willing to be indulgent. "You do not know Dudley as I do. He is strictly honorable, splendid, fine. You do not half appreciate him."
Her eyes were shining with her love and Lucy thought it wise to change the subject.
"Well, at least I'm sure he'll be just as keen for the plan I'm about to suggest as you will be. Here it is then: You have five thousand dollars. Well, Knowles, the real estate man at Hedgewood, was telling me the other day that there is a perfect love of a cottage a quarter of a mile down the Drive from here that's for rent. The people who have been occupying it have been unexpectedly forced to vacate and they're willing to sublease, furnished, very reasonably. At least, reasonably for the way prices run out here. Now, why don't you take the place for the rest of the season? If Dudley is so crazy about working he can commute in to the city every day. It's only an hour."
Carmelita was thoughtful. "It sounds interesting," she admitted. How she dreaded going back into that oven of an apartment.
"All right. You hurry now and get dressed and I'll have the runabout out and we'll look the place over before dinner."
"Oh, I should have to ask Dudley before I did anything."
But Carmelita obeyed. If she only were able to spend the rest of the summer in this glorious country of sweeping, shaded roads and velvety grass, with the Sound near and the wrens waking one in the morning. It would be wonderful.
The offered paradise proved to be all that Lucy had pictured it. A nicely arranged brown stucco house with low overhanging imitation thatched roof, set amid spruces and blossoming shrubs and a flower garden of riotous color—Carmelita was captivated at once. True, it was not directly upon the Sound but she could dash over to the Hodges for her swimming and sailing.
Yes, the fussy male member of the family at present occupying the cottage said Knowles was right; they were getting out, forced to, and wanted to sublease. A thousand a month. That was absolutely the lowest. Three or four people had been looking at it. A party was to know definitely to-day; yes, he was quite sure this other party would take it. To-morrow would be too late, he was afraid; place would be gone.
Carmelita's eyes were shining. "Very well," she cried, with sudden reckless decision, "I'll take it." She could manage Dudley somehow, she told herself.
"Fine," said the nervous knickerbockered present tenant with much relief. "I'll get out my car if you like and we'll hunt up Knowles immediately. Don't suppose we can sign any papers to-day because it's Sunday but he can be getting them ready. To-morrow do?"
"Of course you can stay over," Lucy interposed to Carmelita.
Carmelita hesitated. "I suppose so." Dudley would get in late that night; she would telephone him that she was postponing her return a day.
"Can you make a little deposit now?" hinted the man. "It's customary, you know—bind the bargain and all that sort of thing."
"Why—" began Carmelita and then she realized that she had no money with her. Lucy came to the rescue with the Parisian beaded bag which she kept in the seat of her runabout. It was stuffed carelessly with bills.
"A hundred dollars—that will be plenty, will it not?" in a tone that implied it must be. The man accepted it. And Carmelita was bound to her bargain in what seemed to her a mere twinkling of the eye.
It was not until they had located the brisk Knowles in his office and concluded the preliminary business with him and were on their way back to the Hodges that the thought oceurred chillingly to Carmelita. "How shall I explain my sudden wealth to Dudley? I can never admit that I have been gambling."
"That's so," Lucy Hodge, intent upon her task of driving the car through the bustling activity of a typical good Long Island road on a typical summer afternoon, was yet turning things over in her agile mind. "Tell him," she suggested, "that your father has unexpectedly forgiven you and sent a check."
"I couldn't tell him a lie. Besides, how could I be getting mail here from my father?"
"Oh, don't let a little matter like explaining the money worry you. You'll think of something when the time comes."
As a matter of fact Lucy's prophecy was unexpectedly correct.
After Sunday dinner Carmelita declined an invitation to waste the perfectly delightful afternoon by playing bridge and instead joined Rao-Singh and the crowd that was going swimming. In her sleek California bathing suit she was a very striking figure but she enjoyed swimming as exercise rather than as a fashion show and it took the broad-shouldered Rao-Singh, as they sat legs dangling on the side of the Hodge raft, to tell her how beautiful she looked.
"Are you enjoying America?" she asked, ignoring his compliment and descending upon safer and more impersonal ground.
"Very much. And you?"
"Oh, I am a thorough American now," she cried.
"I don't know about that," he gazed at her calculatingly. "You are too full of dash and color and too much in love with life ever to be what they call here a 'one hundred per cent. American.' Americans of your age are in love only with money. They do not fall in love with life until they have made their money and are old and it is too late. It is so foolish. One must be young to really live.
To-day of past Regrets and Future Fears:
To-morrow!—Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.'"
She waited until ten o'clock that night before telephoning Dudley, the last fifteen minutes in a debate with herself as to whether she should try to explain to him over the wire about the cottage she had leased and her plans for the rest of the summer. She decided it was more expedient to tell him face to face. She could explain better. Besides, despite the good time she had been having during the past two days and the endless activity with which her hostess filled her hours, she had missed her husband very much. She did not wish to spoil the deal for the cottage by going in to town the next day to see him but it would seem good to feel his arms around her again—real soon.
She rang up their apartment and fortunately he was at home and answered almost at once. Yes, he had just gotten in from Greenwich. His trip had been successful. Well, the apartment wasn't exactly an iceberg. Going to stay another few days with Lucy?—H'mm. He come out to-morrow night?—well—he was missing her terribly—well—he guessed he could make it. Mail? A letter had arrived for her postmarked Buenos Aires—some law firm's name on the envelope. He would bring it along.
Rao-Singh drove Carmelita to the Hedgewood station the next afternoon to meet Dudley because he had particularly asked her if he might earlier in the day and she had not known how to refuse him. She was quite sure Dudley would be displeased and she wanted him in a good humor that day. But Lucy herself had suggested Rao-Singh's going and Carmelita could not very well decline and ask her hostess for the use of one of her own cars and chauffeur.
So the Hindu Prince and Mrs. Dudley Drake, spick and span in cool sport clothes sat side by side in a shiny roadster as the train rolled in. Dudley, somewhat dampened and fagged out from a hard, hot day in town, brightened up as he stepped from the train and saw Carmelita. But he frowned at the sight of her companion. He could not believe his eyes at first.
Carmelita, determined to pass the scene off gayly, kissed her husband, and exclaimed, "I don't wonder you're surprised, Dudley. I had the shock of my life when I first saw Prince Rao-Singh at Lucy's. He should notify his old friends when he comes to America." She was doing her best to do the honors gayly, but there was a noticeable chill in the air.
Dudley bowed rather coldly and suffered a further decline in spirits when he saw that he was doomed to the rumble seat in back of the one in which Carmelita and the Prince sat. And the fact that she turned around and devoted herself exclusively to him during the fifteen-minute-ride to the Hodge house did not revive him completely.
Carmelita was the first out of the car and as Dudley and Rao-Singh stood together for a moment, the latter offered, "There's no reason why you and I shouldn't be friends, Drake, especially as we're to be neighbors. No doubt, Carmelita has told you that I was in love with her at one time also. But you were the lucky man—and all's fair in love. I hold no grudge."
The cheeky devil—once in love with Carmelita indeed, thought Dudley and disliked him more than ever. There was something dangerous behind those beady black eyes. What did he mean by "neighbors" Was the Prince about to move into New York? Dudley was so anxious to rejoin Carmelita that he thought little more about this at the time.
"I have nothing especially against you," the American said but made no advance to shake hands or follow up Rao-Singh's offer of friendship. The two men walked silently up to the piazza where Lucy received Dudley with moderate cordiality and some curiosity as to what he and the Hindu had been talking about alone.
In their room Dudley handed his wife the South American letter he had told her about over the telephone. Carmelita was excited at once. The name on the envelope was that of the lawyers who had handled the de Cordoba's affairs since she could remember. Was her father relenting? As if to bear this out, a check dropped from the envelope as she slit it open. Dudley stooped and picked it up without reading it. The amount, Carmelita saw, was seven hundred and fifty dollars. Then she read the letter and learned that the money was from the estate of her mother.
Theresa de Cordoba had bequeathed three thousand dollars to her four sisters, who had not married nearly as well as herself. She had believed, of course, that her millionaire husband would take care of their daughter until she married wealth, probably Pablo Mendoza. Now one of the sisters, whom Carmelita had never seen, had died and her share, according to the will, was being forwarded to Carmelita.
Three days ago Carmelita would have considered it a godsend. It would have bought new clothes, replaced Laura with an efficient maid, secured untold pleasures. But now it would not pay for one month, the rent of this cottage she had fallen in love with and signed the lease on that very morning. Nevertheless—Carmelita was thoughtful—she must make some explanation of sudden wealth—she wondered if she dared—it was really a cheque and Dudley had not seen the amount—a small white lie at the most.
He was taking a shower-bath and she waited until, refreshed by the stinging cold water and the fresh linen he had changed into, he announced himself ready to descend to the Hodges and dinner. Rao-Singh, mercifully, Dudley thought, was not staying, and the rest of the week-end guests had departed that morning.
"Do you like this section of the country, Dudley?" Carmelita began. "Don't you think it's perfectly darling?"
"Great," he admitted. "Wish I could afford a place down here. Some day we shall, Carmelita, if my present plans go through."
"There's the sweetest little place down the road a bit. Just ideal for us. I'm going to take you down to see it after dinner."
Declining Lucy's offer to provide a ear, she repeated to Dudley after dinner the suggestion that they take a walk. He was not interested particularly in "the sweetest little place," but eager for air and exercise and relief from the shallow presence of the Hodges. So Carmelita and he strolled down the hedged road toward a very beautiful sunset. At the entrance to the drive leading to Carmelita's cottage she stopped while she extolled its merits. He listened tolerantly.
"It looks very nice," agreed Dudley, "but why are you so tremendously interested in the place?"
Carmelita hesitated, then plunged. "Well, I have a big surprise for you. It is ours for the rest of the summer."
"I don't understand." His voice was ominously quiet.
"Why, I've rented it—signed the lease to-day."
He looked at her in amazement. "But, my dear, you must realize that we can't afford a place like this—yet. It's ridiculous. I know something about what such houses rent for. They get a thousand a month for some of them. You must be joking."
There was a childlike pout upon Carmelita's flower-mouth and she came closer to him in the gloaming and fingered the lapel of his coat. "I'm not doing anything extravagant, dearest. I have the money. When you telephoned me that there was a letter home from my father's lawyers, I knew what it was. It was money due me from my mother's estate. More than enough to pay for this house for the entire season and give me much more besides. Why, I'm rich, Dudley. I had set my heart upon the cottage and when I knew I could afford it I went right out and signed the lease. So, you see, everything is all right."
But if she expected Dudley to be satisfied, she was doomed to disappointment. Strong pride was one of his characteristics. He had determined to make good in business for Carmelita's sake, and he would be soon, he felt now, in a position to give her almost anything she wanted. Just a few months more. Her family's wealth and his own pennilessness had been the only thing that had prevented him from telling her he loved her that first night he met her in Paris. Was the de Cordoba money to come between them again now—when he would soon have so much of his own? Why couldn't she have waited? His lips became a thin, firm line.
"There is one thing a healthy American man can't do, Carmelita," he said slowly, "and that is, live on his wife's money."
Carmelita was vexed, exasperated as she saw her plans endangered, and her voice echoed this. "Oh, don't let your silly old pride spoil everything, Dudley. We can be so happy down here together and you can pay me back the amount of the rent later as far as that goes."
He looked at her with a whimsical smile. She was so like a petulant child who thinks the world will come to an end if one of her pet projects goes wrong. He put his arm affectionately around her. "I know it's been hard for you the past year, dearest," he said, "and you've been a very good sport about it."
"Well, I'm afraid I couldn't go on being a sport, Dudley, if I had to go back to that stuffy old apartment in this scorching weather when I have a perfectly gorgeous and cool home here that I've signed the papers for and couldn't get out of taking if I wanted to." Carmelita had ceased arguing. She was simply going to have her way or—
"Besides," she continued, "the money is mine and if I choose to spend it this way, I really don't see why I should allow you to stop me." In spite of her bravado, she knew if he eame back with any sort of a flat ultimatum, she would yield.
Dudley was troubled and uncertain what to do. He had come down here eager to see her and to enjoy a tranquil evening and night by the Sound, and it seemed to him that he had come upon a crisis in their relations together. Here in this elaborate "cottage," in this environment of ease and wealth with the Hodges and Rao-Singh was the old world in which Carmelita had been brought up, to which she responded as a rose responds to the warmth and lazy sun of a hothouse. And back there in that scorching Greenwich Village apartment was the new world to which he had brought her, where she had learned to sacrifice the old world for her love. He hoped to take her soon from this new world of discomforts to a still newer world that would be her old world somewhat expurgated—comforts and luxuries but sans Lucys and Rao-Singhs. But now she wanted to slide back and he feared that in doing so she would slip away from him.
Luxury never seems so important as when we have had to abandon it for a time. He himself even now could feel the allure of it. He had lived in Lucy's world himself in the days when he was spending every cent he could earn or borrow. He could see Carmelita's point of view. And, as she said, it was her money. The de Cordobas were tremendously wealthy. Doubtless the inheritance from her mother amounted to several hundred thousand dollars. He had not asked her the amount and she did not volunteer it. Dudley was uncertain what to do.
They had turned around and were walking back toward the Hodges, talking as they sauntered along. The sun had set and a full moon was rising over the high hedge that bordered the red shale road. Out on the Sound a yacht sounded eight bells. Dudley walked along a few minutes in silence.
"Very well," he said finally with the ghost of a smile, "we'll try it out. You go through with your lease and take the house. And I'll come out week-ends as sort of a regular guest." As he saw her about to protest, "Even if we took the place together and I were paying for it, as I feel I should be, I couldn't get out any oftener than that. I am frightfully busy at the office and it would take me nearly an hour and a half to get in from here."
"You'll really let me have it, then?"
He nodded. With a little cry of delight she put her arms ecstatically around him and kissed him many times with no one but the austere moon to see. The rest of their walk back was occupied by Carmelita in enthusiastic recital of her plans.
"And I'll come up every few days to town and have lunch with you," she promised. He patted her hand at this as if to say, "Yes, of course," but he knew, with Lucy Hodge and her friends and all the other diversions in this delightful region, she would probably do nothing of the kind. But he was tired of bickering and was willing to do almost anything now to make her happy and contented. But there was Rao-Singh. He would be her neighbor also. For an instant Dudley's brow darkened.