X
A LADY UNVEILED
She wakened in the morning to some one knocking. She thought the soundhad been going on for a long time, but, now she was finally roused, ithad stopped. This was odd, for no one came to her in the morning exceptMarrika, and it was tiresome to be thus imperatively beset before shewas half awake. Now the knocking came again with a level, unimpatientrepetition, and she called, "Come in!" at which Clara, in a pale morninggown, promptly entered--an apparition as cool and smooth and burnishedas if she had spent the night, like a French doll, in tissue paper.
Clara's coming in in the morning was an unheard-of thing. Flora wastaken aback.
"Why, Clara!" She was blank with astonishment. She sat up, flushed andtumbled, and still blinking. "I hope I didn't keep you knocking long."
"Oh, no, indeed; only three taps." Clara looked straight through Flora'sastonishment, as if there had been no such thing in evidence. She drewup a chair and sat down beside the bed. It was a rocking-chair, but itdid not sway with her calm poise. In the fine finish of her morningattire, with her hands placidly folded on her knee, she made Flora feeltaken at a disadvantage, thus scarcely awake, disheveled and all butstripped. But Clara, if she looked at anything but Flora's eyes, lookedonly at her hands, one and then the other as they lay upon the coverlet.
"It isn't so very late," she said, "but I have ordered your breakfast. Ithought you would want it if you had that ten-o'clock appointment; andthere is something I want to ask you before you go out." Flora wasconscious of a little apprehension. "It's about that place you talked oftaking for the summer." She felt vaguely relieved, though she had had noactual grounds for anticipating an awkward question. "I came uponsomething in the oddest way you can imagine," Clara pursued her subject."Had you any idea the Herricks were in straits?"
"The young Herricks?"
"Oh, no! The old Herricks, _the_ Herricks, Mrs. Herrick whom you so muchadmire! Of course, one isn't told; but they must be, to be willing tolet the old place."
"Not the San Mateo place?" said Flora, with a stir of interest. She feltas astonished as if some Confucian fanatic had set up his joss atauction.
Clara complacently nodded.
"Mrs. Herrick spoke to me herself. They don't want any publicity aboutit, but she had heard that we were looking, and she did me thefavor"--Clara smiled a little dryly--"of telling me first."
Flora looked reflective. "I've never seen it, but they say it'sbeautiful."
"It is, in a way," Clara grudgingly admitted, "but it isn't new; and theridiculous part is that she will let it only on condition that it shallnot be done over. It is in sufficiently good shape, but it stands nowjust as Colonel Herrick furnished it forty years ago."
"Why, I should love that!" Flora frankly confessed, and gave a wistfulglance at the walls around her, wondering how long before the soft, darkbloom of time, of use and wont, should descend on their crude faces.
"Well," Clara conceded, "at any rate we know it's genuine, and that's aconsolation. The number of imitations going about and the way peoplepick them up is appalling! While I was getting that rug for you atVigo's yesterday, Ella Buller came in and bought three imitationBokharas, with the greatest enthusiasm. She buys quantities, and she'salways taken in. It is enough to make one nervous about the people onesits next to at dinner there. One can not help suspecting them of beingsome of Ella's bargains. I wonder, now, where she picked up that Kerr."
This finale failed to take Flora off her guard. "At any rate, he is oddenough to be genuine," she said with a gleam of malice.
"Oh, no doubt of that," Clara mildly assented, "but genuine what?"
"Why, gentleman at large," said Flora, and quickly wanted to recall it,for Clara's glance seemed to give it a double significance. "I mean,"she added, "just one of those chronic travelers who have nothing else todo, and whose way must be paved with letters of introduction"--shefloundered. "At least, that was the idea he gave of himself." She brokeoff, doubly angry that she had tried to explain Kerr, and tried toexplain herself, when the circumstances required nothing of the sort.She was sure Clara had not missed her nervousness, though Clara made nosign. Her eyes only traveled a second time to Flora's hands, as if amongthe flare of red and white jewels she was expecting to see anothercolor. To Flora's palpitating consciousness this look made a perfectconnection with Clara's next remark.
"At least his manners are odd enough! There was a minute last nightwhen he was really quite startling."
Flora felt a small, warm spot of color increasing in the middle of eachcheek. She drew a long breath, as if to draw in courage. Then Clara hadreally seen! That smooth, blindish look of hers, last night, had seeneverything! And here she was owning up to it, and affably offeringherself as a confidante; and for what reason under the sun unless tofind out what it was that had so startled Kerr? Flora felt like cryingout, "If you only knew what that thing may be, you would never want tocome nearer to it!"
"I am afraid he annoyed you, Flora."
The girl looked into the kindly solicitude of Clara's face with a hard,almost passionate incredulity. Was that really all Clara had supposed?
"These Continentals," she went on, now lightly swaying to and fro in herchair, "have singular notions of American women. They take us forsavages, my dear."
"Then isn't it for us to show them that we are more than usuallycivilized? I can't run away from him like a frightened little native."
"Of course not; but that is where I come in; it's what I'm for--to getrid of such things for you." That small, cool smile made Flora feel morethan ever the immature barbarian of her simile. Clara sat throwing theprotection of her superior knowledge and capability around her, like amissionary garment; but Flora could have laughed with relief. Then Claramerely supposed Kerr had been impertinent. Her little invasion had beenreally nothing but pure kindness and protection; and Flora couldn't butfeel grateful for it. Last night she had thought herself so absolutelyalone; and here was a friend coming forward again, and stepping betweenher and the thing above all others she was helpless about--the realworld.
Clara had risen, and stood considering a moment with that same sweet,impersonal eye which Flora found it hardest to comprehend.
"What I mean," she explicitly stated, "is that if he should undertake tocarry out his preposterous suggestion, and call this afternoon, I amquite ready, if you wish, to take him off your hands."
This last took Flora's breath away. It had not occurred to her thatClara had overheard. It shocked her, frightened her; and yet Clara's wayof stating the fact, as if it were the most natural thing in the world,made Flora feel that she herself was in the wrong to feel thus. For,after all, Clara had been most tactful, most considerate and delicate inconveying her knowledge, not hinting that Flora could have been in theslightest degree responsible for Kerr's behavior; but simply sweetlytaking it for granted that they, of course, were banded together toexclude this outlander. Under her sense of obligation, and what she feltought to be gratitude, Flora floundered for words.
"You're very kind," she managed to get out; and that seemed to leave hercommitted to hand Kerr over, tied hand and foot, when she wasn't at allsure she wanted to.
"Then shall I tell Mrs. Herrick that you will consider the house?" saidClara, already in the act of departure. "She is to call to-day to gointo it with me more thoroughly. Thus far we've only played about theedges."
Her eyes strayed toward the dressing-table as she passed it, and as shereached the door she glanced over the chiffonier. It was on the tip ofFlora's tongue to ask if she had mislaid something, when Clara turnedand smiled her small, tight-curled smile, as if she were offering it asa symbol of mutual understanding. Curiously enough, it checked Flora'squery about the straying glances, and made her wonder that this was thefirst time in their relation that she had thought Clara sweet.
But there was another quality in Clara she did not lose sight of, andshe waited for the closing of a door further down the hall before shedrew the sapphire from under her pil
low.
With the knocking at the door her first act had been to thrust it there.The feeling that it was going to be hard to hide was still her strongestinstinct about it; but the morning had dissipated the element of thesupernatural and the horrid that it had shown her the night before. Itseemed to have a clearer and a simpler beauty; and the hope revived inher that its beauty, after all, was the only remarkable thing about it.
Her conviction of the night before had sunk to a shadowy hypothesis. Sheknew nothing--nothing that would justify her in taking any step; and heronly chance of knowing more lay in what she would get out of Kerr; forthat he knew more about her ring than she, she was convinced. She wasafraid of him, yet, in spite of her fear, she had no intention ofhanding him over to Clara. For on reflection she knew that Clara's offermust have a deeper motive than mere kindness, and she had a mostunreasonable feeling that it would not be safe. She felt a little guiltyto have seemed to take her companion's help, while she left her so muchat sea as to the real facts. But, after all, it was Clara who had forcedthe issue.
She thought a good deal about Clara while she was dressing. A good manytimes lately she had looked forward to the fall, the time of hermarriage, when their rather tense relationship would be ended. Thishouse in the country, which was to be her last little bachelor fling,was to be Clara's last commission for her.
Think how she would, she could but feel as if she were ungratefullyabandoning Clara. Clara had done so well by her in their three yearstogether! There surely must be immediately forthcoming for such aremarkable person another large opportunity, and yet she couldn't helprecalling their first encounter in the particularly dull boarding-housewhere Clara was temporarily shelved; where, nevertheless, she had notconceded an inch of her class, nor a ray of her luster to circumstance.This surprising luster was the gloss of her body, the quality of herclothes and accessories, the way she traveled and the way she smiled. Itwas the bloom of luxury she kept about her person through all hervarying surroundings. She had never to rise to the level of a newposition; she was there already; and she never came down.
Flora knew it was for just her air of being ready that she had trustedClara, and for the three years of their association she had never failedto find her companion ready wherever their common interests wereconcerned. She had no reason for not trusting Clara now, except theknowledge that, by her own approaching marriage, their interests wouldbe separated, and her feeling that Clara's prudence must already be byway of looking out for itself alone.
Yet Clara would do a kindness if it did not inconvenience her, andsurely this morning she had been kind. Still Flora felt she didn't wantto reveal anything until she was a little surer of her own position.When she knew better where she stood she would know what she couldconfide to Clara. Meanwhile, if there was any one to whom she could turnnow it would surely be Harry.
Yet, if she did, what a lot of awkward explanations! She could notreturn the sapphire without giving a reason, and what a thing toexplain--that she had not only worn it, but, in a freak, shown it to theone of all people he most objected to.
Nevertheless the most sensible thing clearly was to go through with itand confess to Harry. Then she must communicate with him at once.No--she would wait until after breakfast. There was plenty of time. Kerrwould not come until the afternoon. But after breakfast, she wondered ifit wouldn't be as well to ring him up at luncheon time? Then she wouldbe sure of finding him at the club.
Meanwhile she dared not let the sapphire out of her grasp; and yet shecould not wear it on her hand. She had thought of the tear-shaped pouchof gold which it was her custom to wear; but the slender length of chainthat linked it to her neck was too frail for such a precious weight. Atlast she had fastened it around her neck on the strongest chain sheowned, and thus she carried it all the morning under her bodice with aquieter mind than had been hers on the first day she had worn it, whenthere had been nothing to explain her uneasiness.
She was quite sure she was going to give back the sapphire to Harry, yetshe couldn't help picturing to herself what her meeting with Kerr wouldhave been, supposing she had decided differently. As the morning slippedby she found herself doubting that he would come at all. Her attitude ofthe night before had surely been enough to discourage any one. Yet if hedidn't come she knew that she would be disappointed.
She was alone at luncheon, and in a dream. She glanced now and then atthe clock. She rose only ten minutes before the hour that Harry was inthe habit of leaving the club. She went up-stairs slowly and stopped infront of the telephone. She touched the receiver, drew her hand back andturned away. She shut the door of her own rooms smartly after her.
She did not try to--because she couldn't--understand her own proceeding.She merely sat, listening, as it seemed to her, for hours.
But when at last Kerr's card was handed in to her, it gave her a shock,as if something which couldn't happen, and yet which she had all alongexpected, had come to pass.
In her instant of indecision Marrika had got away from her, but shecalled the girl back from the door and told her to say to Mrs. Brittonthat Mr. Kerr had called, but that Miss Gilsey would see him herself.
She started with a rush. Half-way down the stairs she stopped, horrifiedto find what her fingers were doing. They were closed around the littlelump that the ring made in the bosom of her gown, and she had not knownit. What if she had rushed in to Kerr with this extraordinarymanifestation? What if, while she was talking to him, her hand shouldcontinue to creep up again and yet again to that place, and close aroundthe jewel, and make it evident, even in its hiding-place? The time hadcome when she must even hide it from herself. And yet, to creep back upthe stair when she made sure Kerr must have heard her tumultuousdownward rush! It would never do to soundlessly retreat. She must goback boldly, as if she had forgotten nothing more considerable than apocket handkerchief.
Yet before she reached the top again she found herself going tiptoe, asif she were on an expedition so secret that her own ears should not hearher footsteps. But she went direct and unhesitating. It had come to herall in a flash where she would put the sapphire. The little buttonedpocket of her bath-robe. There it hung in the bath-room on one unvaryingpeg, the most immovable of all her garments, safe from the excursions ofMarrika's needle or brushes, not to be disturbed for hours to come.
She passed through her bedroom, through her dressing-room into thebath-room. The robe was hanging behind the door. It took her a moment todraw out the ring and disentangle its chain, and while she was doingthis she became aware of movings to and fro in her bedroom. She drew thedoor half open, the better to conceal herself behind it, and at the sametime, through the widened crack of the jamb, to keep an eye on thedressing-room, and hurried lest Marrika should surprise her. Butnevertheless she had barely slipped the ring into the little pocket andrefastened the flap, when Clara opened the bedroom door and stoodlooking into the dressing-room.
Flora experienced a sharp start of surprise, and then of wonder. Herewas Clara again seeking her out! Here she stood, brushed and polished,and finished to a pitch of virtue, again taking Flora at a disadvantage,hiding behind her own door. But at the least she was grateful that Clarahad not seen her. She stood a minute collecting herself. She wasn'tdoing anything she need be ashamed of, or that she need explain, or thatneed even awaken suspicion. But before she could take her courage inboth hands and come out of her retreat, Clara had reached the middle ofthe dressing-room, and stood still.
Her lifted veil made a fine mist above the luster of her eyes. She wasperfect to the tips of her immaculate white gloves, and she wore thesimple, sober look of a person who thinks himself alone. Then it wasn'tFlora, Clara was looking for! She was looking all around--over thesurface of every object in the room. Presently she went up to thedressing-table. She laid her gloved hands upon it, and looked at thesmall objects strewn over its top. She took a step backward and openedthe top drawer. She reached into it, and delicately explored.
Flora could see the white gloves going to
and fro among her whitehandkerchiefs, could see them find, open and examine the contents of herjewel-box. And the only thing that kept her from shrieking out was thefeeling that this abominable thing which was being enacted before hereyes couldn't be a fact at all.
Clara took out an old pocket-book, shiny with years, shook from it ashower of receipts, newspaper clippings, verses. She let them lie. Shetook out a long violet box with a perfumer's seal upon it. It held abunch of dried violets. She took out a bonbonniere of gold filigree. Itwas empty. A powder box, a glove box, a froth of lace, a handful ofjewelers' boxes, a jewel flung loose into the drawer. This she pouncedupon. It was a brooch! She let it fall--turned to the chiffonier;upended the two vases of Venetian glass, lifted the lids of jars andboxes, finally came to the drawers. One by one she took them out, turnedthe contents of each rapidly over, and left them standing, gaping whiteruffles and lace upon the floor. She took up daintily, in her white kidfingers, slippers, shook them upside down. She opened the door of thecloset, and disappeared within. There was audible the flutterings of allthe distressed garments, with little busy pauses. Then Clara came out,with her hat a little crooked; and stood in the middle of the room stillwith her absorbed and sober face, looking over the gaping drawers,pulled out and rifled, with their contents heaped up and streaming overthe floor.
Her eye fell upon the waste basket. She turned it upside down, andstooped over the litter. She gathered it up in her white gloves anddropped it back. Then, for the first time, she glanced at the bath-roomdoor; stood looking at it, as if it had occurred to her to look in thesoap dish. Then she turned again to the room, to the dressing-table. Sheput back the paste-board jewelers' boxes, the jeweled pin, the laces,which she shook out and folded daintily, the glove and powder boxes, thegold bonbonniere, the long violet box, the leather pocket-book,--eachdeftly and unhesitatingly in the place from which she had taken it, andall the heaps of white handkerchiefs.
One by one she laid back in the chiffonier drawers, the garments,properly and neatly folded, that she had so hastily snatched out ofthem. The sun, streaming full into the room, caught gleams in her palehair, and struck blindingly upon the heaps of white around her, and madetwo dazzling points of her gloved hands that moved as deftly as handsuncovered. She slid back the last drawer into the chiffonier, and rosefrom her knees, lightly dusting off the front of her gown; went to thecloset door and closed it. She stood before it a moment with a faceperplexed and thoughtful, then turned alertly toward the outer door. Asshe passed the mirror she looked into it, and touched her hat straightagain, but the action was subconscious. Clara wasn't thinking of it.
Flora stood as if she were afraid to move, while Clara crossed herbedroom, stopped, went on and closed the outer door behind her. And evenafter that soft little concussion she stood still, burning, choking,struggling with the overwhelming force of an affront whose import shedid not yet realize. Out in her sunny dressing-room all the outragedfurniture stood meek and in order, frauding the eye to believe thatnothing had happened! She felt she couldn't look things in the face amoment longer. She hid her face in the folds of her dressing-gown.
Why, she had thought that such things couldn't happen! She had thoughtthat people's private belongings, like their persons, were inviolable.They all always talked, she had talked, about such things as if theywere mere nothings. They had talked about the very taking of the CrewIdol as if it were a splendid joke! But she had not dreamed what suchthings were like when they were near. When they were held up to younaked they were like this! In the shame of it she could no more havefaced Clara than if she had surprised Clara naked.
She snatched the ring out of the pocket of her gown and clutched it inher hand. Was there no place in the world where she could be sure ofsafety for this?
With trembling fingers she fastened it again to the chain about herneck. She thought of Kerr down-stairs waiting for her. Well, she wouldrather keep it with her. Then, at least, she would know when it wastaken from her. Still in the fury of her outraged faith, she passedthrough her violated rooms, and slowly along the hall and down thestairs.