It was only a moment she had for such reflection, and then the girls came trooping in, and she had barely time to hide the little white card in the folds of her dress before they all demanded to know who sent them. They had not expected her to have such flowers. They were almost jealous of her. She was a brilliant scholar—was not that enough?
She had been popular enough, though too busy to form the friendships that make for many flowers at such a time. They had conceded her right to the place of honor because of her scholarship, but they felt it their right to shine before the public in other ways.
But Bessie was radiantly happy and gave them each a rose, such wonderful roses! They all openly declared there had never been such roses at a high school commencement before in all their knowledge. And she went her way without ever having told them the name of the sender, just vaguely saying, “Oh, from a friend away out West!” and they looked at one another wonderingly as she passed out of the dressing room and into the cool dusk of the night, where her mother waited in the shadow of the hedge for her. Then she had friends out West! Strange she never mentioned anyone before! Yet when they stopped to think, they realized Bessie never talked about herself. She was always quietly interested in the others, when she was not too busy studying to give attention to their chatter. And perhaps they had not given her much opportunity to talk, either. They never realized it before.
Then she passed from their knowledge, except for an occasional greeting on the street. They were fluttering off to the seashore and the mountains, and later on to college. But Bessie went to work.
Her first job was as a substitute in an office where a valued secretary had to be away for several months with an invalid mother.
She did not know shorthand and had only as much skill on the typewriter as one can acquire in high school, and with no machine of one’s own, but she worked so diligently at night school and applied herself so carefully to the typewriter in the office that long before the absent secretary returned, she had become a valued asset to that office.
As fast as a helper in an office can climb, she had climbed,working evenings on a business course, and getting in a little culture also along the way. But she had not had time nor money for parties and the good times other young people had. One cannot study hard in the evening and take courses at a night school, then get up early and work conscientiously all day, and yet go out to dances and theaters.
Moreover, her life interest was not in such things. She had been brought up in an old-fashioned way, in the way that is condescendingly referred to as “Victorian.” She still believed in the Bible and honored her mother. She still believed in keeping the laws of the land and the law of purity and self-respect. She had not bobbed her hair nor put makeup on her face, nor gone to any extreme in dress.
And yet when Murray Van Rensselaer saw her standing on that corner that morning of her twenty-first birthday, waiting for her trolley, she was sufficiently attractive to make him look twice and slow down his speed, even before he recognized her for the playmate of his childhood’s days.
There had been no more roses, no letters even passing between them, and Bessie had come to look back upon her memory of him as a thing of the past, over forever. She still kept the crumpled rose leaves folded away in tissue paper in her handkerchief box and smiled at them now and then as she took her best handkerchiefs out for some formal occasion, drawing a breath of their old fragrance, like dried spices, whose strength was so nearly gone that it was scarcely recognizable. Just sweet and old and dear, like allthe pleasant things of her little girlhood. Life had been too real and serious for her to regret the absence of her former friend or even to feel hurt at his forgetfulness. He had passed into college life and travels abroad. Now and then his name was in the paper in connection with college sports, and later as a guest of some young prince or lord abroad. She and her mother read these articles with interest and a pleasant smile, but there was no bitterness nor jealousy in their thought of the boy who used to find a refuge in their kitchen on many a stormy evening when his family had left him alone with servants, and he had stolen away for a little real pleasure in their cozy home. It was what was to have been expected when he grew up. Was he not Murray Van Rensselaer? He would have no time now, of course, for cozy pancake suppers and simple stories read aloud. His world expected other things of him. He was theirs no longer. But they had loved the little boy who had loved them, and for his sake they were interested in the young man he had become, and now and then talked of him as they turned out their own lights and looked across the intervening alley to the blazing lights in the big house where his mother entertained the great ones of the city.
His coming back to his own city had been heralded in the papers, of course, and often his name was mentioned in the society columns, yet never had it happened that they had met until this morning. And Bessie was heart-whole and happy, not expecting young millionaire princes to drop down on her doorstep and continue a friendship begun in lonely babyhood. She was muchtoo sane and sensible a girl to expect or even wish for such a thing. Her mind now was set upon success in her business world and her ambition to put her mother into more comfortable circumstances.
She met him with a smile of real pleasure, because he had cared to stop and recognize her for old times’ sake, yet there was just the least tinge of reserve about her that set a wall between them from the start. He had recognized her with a blaze of unmistakable joy and surprise on his face and brought his car to such an abrupt stop that a taxi behind him very nearly ran up on the top of his car and climbed over him, its driver reproaching him loudly in no uncertain terms. But Murray had sprung from his car and taken her by the hand, his eyes devouring her lovely face, taking in every detail of her expression. Clear, unspoiled eyes, with the old glad light in them; fresh, healthy skin, like velvet, flushed softly at the unexpected meeting; lips that were red enough without the help of lipstick; and hair coiled low and arranged modishly, yet without the mannish ugliness put on by so many girls of the day; trim lines of a plain tailored suit; unconscious grace, truth, and goodness in her looks. To look at her was like going into the glory of a summer day after the garishness of a night in a cabaret.
He would have stood a long time holding her hand and finding out all that had been happening to her during the interval while they had been separated, but the traffic officer appeared on the scene and demanded that he move his car at once. He was not allowed to park in that particular spot where he had chosen to stop and spring to the pavement.
“Where are you going? Can’t I take you there?” he pleaded, with one foot on the running board and his eyes still upon her face.
She tried to say she would wait for the trolley—it was not far away now—but he waved her excuses aside, said he had nothing in the world to do that morning, and before she realized it she was seated in the beautiful car whose approach she had watched so short a time before. As she sank down upon the cushions, she thought how wonderful it would be if sometime she could buy a car like this. Not with such a wonderful finish, perhaps, but just as good springs and just as fine machinery. How her mother would enjoy it!
The car moved swiftly out of the traffic into a side street, where they had comparatively a free course, and then the young man had turned to look at her again with that deep approval that had marked his first recognition.
“Where did you say you wanted to go?” he asked, watching the play of expression on her face and wondering about it. She did not seem like the girls he knew. She was so utterly like herself as he used to know her when they were children, that it seemed impossible.
“You don’t have to get somewhere immediately, do you?” he asked eagerly. “Couldn’t we have a little spin first?”
She hesitated, her better judgment warning her against it. Already she was reproaching herself for having gotten into the car. She knew her mother would have felt it was not wise. They were not of the same walk of life. It would be better to let him go hisway. Yet he had been so insist
ent, and the traffic officer so urgent to clear the way. There seemed nothing else to do.
“Why, I was going to the library for a book I need this evening in my study,” she said pleasantly. “My employer is out of town and gave me a vacation. I’m making use of it doing some little things I never have time for.”
“I see,” said Murray with his pleasant, easy smile that took everything for granted. “Then I’m sure I’m one of the things you haven’t taken time for in a good many years. You’ll just give a little of your time, won’t you? Suppose we go toward the park, where we’ll have more room.”
While she hesitated, he shot his car up a cross street and was soon whirling on the boulevard toward the entrance of the park, enjoying the light in her eyes as the car rolled smoothly over the asphalt. It was so apparent that she loved the ride! She looked as she used to look when he brought her over the canary in the gold cage that he had bought with some of his spending money one Christmas. He began to wonder why he had let this delightful friend of his drop out of his acquaintance. Why, come to think of it, he had not seen her since the night his mother made him so mad telling him he was disgracing the family by running to play with little “alley” girls, that he was too big to play with low-born people anymore. He remembered how he tried to explain that Bessie did not live in the alley, as his mother’s maid had informed her, but just across the alley, and how he tried to force her to go to the window and look out across the back area, where she could seequite plainly the neat two-story brick house, with the white sheer curtains at the windows, and a geranium between the curtains. It had all looked so pleasant to him he felt sure his mother would understand for once if she would only look. He could not bear that she should think such thoughts about these cozy friends of his who had given so many happy hours to him that his mother would have left desolate. But she shook him off angrily and sent him from the room.
That had been the last time he had seen Bessie. They told him the next day that he was to go to a summer camp, and from there he was sent to boarding school in the far West. It had all been very exciting at first, and he had never connected his mother’s talk with his sudden migration. Perhaps the thought only vaguely presented itself in his mind now as a link in the chain of his life. He was not inclined to analyzing things, just drifting with the tide and getting as much fun out of it all as possible. But now, with Bessie before him, he wondered why it was that he had allowed seven whole years to drift by apart from her. Here she had been ripening into this perfect peach of a girl, and he might have been enjoying her company all this time. Instead he had solaced his idle hours with anyone who happened to drift his way. Bah! What a group they had been, some of them! Something in him knew that this girl was never like those. Something she had had as a little girl that he admired and enjoyed had stayed with her yet. He was not like that. He was sure he was not. He was quite certain he had been rather a fine chap in those early days before the evil of life had beenrevealed to him. A faint little wish that he might have stayed as he was then faltered through his carefree mind, only he flippantly felt that of course that would have been impossible.
Bessie was enjoying her ride. She exclaimed over the beauty of the foliage, where some of the autumn’s tints were still left clinging to the branches. She drank in the beauty of cloud and distant river, and her cheeks took on that delicate flush of delight that he had noticed in her long ago. He marveled that a human cheek could vary in its coloring so exquisitely. He had unconsciously come to feel that such alive-looking flesh could only be on the face of a child. Every woman he knew wore her expressions like a mask that never varied, no matter what emotion might cross her countenance. The mask was always there, smooth and creamy and delicate and unmoved. He had come to feel it was a state that came with maturity. But this girl’s face was like a rose whose color came and went in delicate shadings and seemed to be a part of the vivid expression as she talked, as the petals of a rose showed deeper coloring at their base when the wind played with them and threw the lights and shadows in different curves and tintings.
Murray as a rule did little thinking, and he would have been surprised and thought it clever if someone had put this idea into words for him. But the impression was there in his mind as they talked. And then he fell to wondering how she would look in beautiful garments, rich silks and velvets and furs. She was simply and suitably dressed, and might be said to adorn her garments, but she would be superb in cloth of silver and jewels. How he wouldenjoy putting her in her right setting! Here was a girl who would adorn any garment, and whose face and figure warranted the very greatest designers in fashion’s world.
An idea came to Murray.
They often came that way by impulse, and sometimes they had their origin in the very best impulses. He leaned toward her with a quick, confidential air. They were on their way back now, for the girl had suggested that she had taken enough of his time.
“I wonder if you won’t do something for me?” he said in his boyish, pleasant tone that reminded her of other days together.
“Why, surely, if I can,” she complied pleasantly.
“You certainly can,” he answered cheerfully. “No one could do it better. I want you to come with me to a shop I know and help me to select something for a gift for a friend of mine. You are her figure to an inch, and you have her coloring, too. I want to see how it will look on you before I buy it.”
There was perhaps just the least shade of reserve in her voice as she graciously assented. Naturally she could not help wondering who the gift was for. Not his mother, or he would have said so. He had no sister, she knew. A cousin, perhaps? No, he would have called her cousin. Well, it was of no consequence, of course. It gave her just the least little bit of an embarrassed feeling. How could she select something for one in his station of life? But she could at least tell what she thought was pretty. It was on the whole quite exciting, come to think of it, to help in the selection of something where money did not have to be considered—just for once to let her taste rule. It would be wonderful!
Then they turned from the avenue onto the quieter street and drew up suddenly before Grevet’s. She drew her breath with pleasure. Ah! Grevet’s! She had often wondered what a shop like this was like inside, and now she was to know! It was like playing a game, to have a legitimate reason for inspecting some of the costly wares that were here exclusively displayed. She stepped from the car with quiet composure, however, and no one would have dreamed that this was her first entrance into these distinguished precincts.
Chapter 14
In a little cottage on the outskirts of a straggling town about half a mile from the scene of the railroad wreck, a sick man lay tossing on a hard little bed in a small room that could not easily be spared from the needs of a large family. A white-capped nurse, brought in by the railroad, stooped over him to straighten the coarse sheet and quilt spread over him, and tried to quiet his restless murmurings.
“Teller!” he murmured deliriously. “Teller!”
“Tell who?” asked the cool, clear voice of the nurse.
“M’ry!” he mumbled thickly. “Teller!”
“You want me to tell Mary?” asked the nurse crisply.
The heavy eyes of the man on the bed opened uncomprehendingly and tried to focus on her face.
“Yeh! Teller! M’ry. Bank!”
“Mary Banks?” asked the nurse capably. “You want me to send word to Mary Banks?”
The patient breathed what seemed like assent.
“Where?” asked the nurse clearly, taking up the pencil that lay by her report and writing in clear little script, “Miss Mary Banks.”
“Bank!” said the patient drowsily. “Bank! Teller!”
“Yes, I will tell her,” responded the nurse. “Where—does—she—live?” enunciating slowly and distinctly.
The man’s head paused in its restless turning, and the eyes tried to focus on her face again, as if he were called back by her words from some far wandering.
“M
arlborough!” He spoke the word clearly and drowsed off again as if he were relieved.
That night by the light of a sickly gas lamp whose forked flame she had shaded with a newspaper from the patient’s eyes, she wrote a note to Mary Banks in Marlborough, telling her that a young man with curly red hair and a tweed suit was calling for her and asking that she be told that he had been injured in a wreck. She stated that the patient’s condition was serious and that if he had any friends, they had better come at once. It was impossible to find any clue to his name, as he wore no coat when he was picked up, having evidently pulled it off to assist others worse injured than himself and having fainted before he got back to it. The pockets of his trousers had nothing in them but a little money, a railroad ticket, a knife, a few keys, and a watch marked with the initials A.M.