CHAPTER XI
MAN PROPOSES
The young men cooled their heels for an hour before word wasbrought down to them that Mrs. Wrandall begged to be excused forthe afternoon on account of a severe headache. Miss Castleton waswith her, but would be down later on. Meanwhile they were to makethemselves at home, and so on and so forth.
Booth took his departure, leaving Leslie in sole possession ofthe porch. He was restless, nervous, excited; half-afraid to staythere and face Hetty with the proposal he was determined to make,and wholly afraid to forsake the porch and run the risk of missingher altogether if she came down as signified. Several thingsdisturbed him. One was Hetty's deplorable failure to hang on hiswords as he had fondly expected her to do; and then there was thatvery--disquieting laugh of Sara's. A hundred times over he repeatedto himself that sickening question: "What the devil was there tolaugh at?" and no answer suggested itself. He was decidedly crossabout it.
Another hour passed. His heels were quite cool by this time, buthis blood was boiling. This was a deuce of a way to treat a fellowwho had gone to the trouble to come all the way out in a stuffytrain, by Jove, it was! With considerable asperity he rang for aservant and commanded him to fetch a time table, and to be quickabout it, as there might be a train leaving before he could getback if it took him as long to find it as it took other people toremember their obligations! His sarcasm failed to impress Murray,who said he thought there was a schedule in Mrs. Wrandall's room,and he'd get it as soon as the way was clear, if Mr. Wrandall didn'tmind waiting.
"If I minded waiting," snapped Leslie, "I wouldn't be here now."
"It's the thing most people object to in the country, sir," saidMurray consolingly. "Waiting for trains, sir."
"And the sunset," added Mr. Wrandall pointedly, with a westwardglare.
"We don't mind that, sir. We rather look forward to it. It meansone day less of waiting for the trains." It was rather cryptic,but Leslie was too deeply absorbed in self-pity to take account ofthe pathos in Murray's philosophy.
"What time is it, Murray?"
"Five-twenty, Mr. Wrandall."
"That's all, Murray."
"Thank you, sir."
As the footman was leaving, Sara's automobile whirled up to theporte-cochere.
"Who is going out, Murray?" he called in surprise.
"Miss Castleton, sir. For the air, sir."
"The deuce you say!" gasped the harassed Mr. Wrandall. It was apretty kettle of fish!
Hetty appeared a few minutes later, attired for motoring.
"Oh, there you are," she said, espying him. "I am going for a spin.Want to come along?"
He swallowed hard. The ends of his moustache described a pair ofabsolutely horizontal exclamation points. "If you don't mind beingencumbered," he remarked sourly.
"I don't in the least mind," said she sweetly.
"Where are you going?" he asked without much enthusiasm. He wasn'tto be caught appearing eager, not he. Besides, it wasn't anythingto be flippant about.
"Yonder," she said, with a liberal sweep of her arm, taking in thewhole landscape. "And be home in time to dress for dinner," sheadded, as if to relieve his mind.
"Good Lord!" he groaned, "do we have to eat again?"
"We have to dress for it, at least," she replied.
"I'll go," he exclaimed, and ambled off to secure a cap and coat.
"Sara has planned for a run to Lenox to-morrow if it doesn't rain,"she informed him on his return.
"Oh," he said, staring. "Booth gets a day off on the portrait then."
"Being Sunday," she smiled. "We knock off on Sundays and bankholidays. But, after all, he doesn't really get a holiday. He isto go with us, poor fellow."
He looked as though he expected nothing. He could only sit backand wonder what the deuce Sara meant by behaving like this.
It was not by way of being a profitable excursion, if we are tojudge by the amount of pleasure Leslie derived from the two hours'spin through the cool, leafy byways of the forest with the objectof his heart's desire on the seat beside him. He tried to screw uphis courage to the point of asking her why he shouldn't kiss herband, which might have opened the way to more profound interrogations,but somehow he felt unable to cope with the serenity that confrontedhim. Moreover, he had a horrible conviction that the chauffeurwas a brute with abnormally long ears and a correspondingly shortsense of honour. No, it was not the time or the place for love-making.He would have to be content to bide his time till after dinner,which now began to lose some of its disadvantages. There was a mostengaging nook, he remembered, in the corner of the garden facingthe Sound, where the shadows were deep; where sentiment could thriveon its own ecstasy; where no confounded menial dared to show hisface--although he had to admit that the chauffeur was most punctiliousin that respect.
And so he was satisfied to sit back in the corner of the seat andfeed his senses on the lovely creature before him. He had never seenher so beautiful, so utterly worth having as now. He was consciousof a great, overwhelming sense of pride, somewhat smothering inits vastness. She was a creature to be proud of! His heart was veryfull.
They returned at seven. Dinner was unusually merry. Sara appearedto have recovered from her indisposition; there was colour in hercheeks and life in her smile. He took it to be an omen of goodfortune, and was immeasurably confident. The soft cool breezes ofthe star-lit night blew visions of impending happiness across hislively imagination; fanned his impatience with gentle ardour; filledhim with supressed sighs of contentment, and made him willing toforego the delight of conquest that he might live the longer inserene anticipation of its thrills.
Ten o'clock came. He arose and stretched himself in a sort ofecstasy. His heart was thumping loudly, his senses swam. Walkingto the verandah rail he looked out across the moonlit Sound, thendown at the selected nook over against the garden wall--spot tobe immortalised!--and actually shivered. In ten minutes' time, oreven less, she would be down there in his arms! Exquisite meditations!
He turned to her with an engaging smile, in which she might havediscerned a prophecy, and asked her to come with him for a strollalong the wall. And so he cast the die.
Hetty sent a swift, appealing look at Sara's purposely avertedface. Leslie observed the act, but misinterpreted its meaning.
"Oh, it is quite warm," he said quickly. "You won't need a wrap,"he added, and in spite of himself his voice trembled. Of courseshe wouldn't need a wrap!
"I have a few notes to write," said Sara, rising. She deliberatelyavoided the look in Hetty's eyes. "You will find me in the library."
She stood in the doorway and watched them descend to the terrace,a sphinx-like smile on her lips. Hetty seemed very tall and erect,as one going to meet a soldier's fate.
Then Sara entered the house and sat down to wait.
A long time after a door closed stealthily in a distant part ofthe house--the sun-parlour door, she knew by direction.
A few minutes later an upstairs door creaked on its hinges. Someone had come in from the mellow night, and some one had been leftoutside.
Many minutes passed. She sat there at her father's writing tableand waited for the other to come in. At last quick, heavy footfallssounded on the tiled floor outside and then came swiftly down thehall toward the small, remote room in which she sat. She looked upas he unceremoniously burst into the room.
He came across and stood over her, an expression of utter bewildermentin his eyes. There was a ghastly smile on his lips.
"Damn it all, Sara," he said shrilly, "she---she turned me down."
He seemed incapable of comprehension.
She was unmoved. Her eyes narrowed, but that was the only sign ofemotion.
"I--I can't believe--" he began querulously. "Oh, what's the use?She won't have me. 'Gad! I'm trembling like a leaf. Where's Watson?Have him get me something to drink. Never mind! I'll get it fromthe sideboard. I'm--I'm damned!"
He dropped heavily into a chair at the end of the table and lookedat her wit
h glazed eyes. As she stared back at him she had thecurious feeling that he had shrunk perceptibly, that his clotheshung rather limply on him. His face seemed to have lost all of itssmart symmetry; there was a looseness about the mouth and chin thathad never been there before. The saucy, arrogant moustache slopeddejectedly.
"I fancy you must have gone about it very badly," she said, pursingher lips.
"Badly?" he gasped. "Why--why, good heavens, Sara, I actually pleadedwith her," he went on, quite pathetically. "All but got down on myknees to her. Damn me, if I can understand myself doing it either.I must have lost my head completely. Begged like a love-sick school-boy!And she kept on saying no--no--no! And I, like a blithering ass,kept on telling her I couldn't live without her, that I'd make herhappy, that she didn't know what she was saying, and--But, goodLord, she kept on saying no! Nothing but no! Do--do you think shemeant to say no? Could it have been hysteria? She said it so often,over and over again, that it might have been hysteria. I neverthought of that. I--"
"No, Leslie, it wasn't hysteria, you may be sure of that," she saiddeliberately. "She meant it, old fellow."
He sagged deeper in the chair.
"I--I can't get it through my head," he muttered.
"As I said before, you did it badly," she said. "You took too muchfor granted. Isn't that true?"
"God knows I didn't EXPECT her to refuse me," he exclaimed, glaringat her. "Would I have been such a fool as to ask her if I thoughtthere was the remotest chance of being--" The very thought of theword caused it to stick in his throat. He swallowed hard.
"You really love her?" she demanded.
"Love her?" There was a sob in his voice. "I adore her, Sara. Ican't live without her. And the worst of it is, I love her now morethan I did before, Oh, it's appalling! It's horrible! What am I todo, Sara? What AM I to do?"
"Be a man for a little while, that's all," she said coolly.
"Don't joke with me," he groaned.
"Go to bed, and when you see her in the morning tell her that youunderstand. Thank her for what she has done for you. Be--"
"Thank her?" he almost shouted.
"Yes; for destroying all that is detestable in you, Leslie,--yourself-conceit, your arrogance, your false notions concerningyourself,--in a word, your egotism."
He blinked incredulously. "Do you know what you're saying?" hegasped.
She went on as if she hadn't heard him.
"Assure her that she is to feel no compunction for what she hasdone, that you are content to be her loyal, devoted friend to theend of your days."
"But, hang it, Sara, I LOVE her!"
"Don't let her suspect that you are humiliated. On the contrary,give her to understand that you are cleansed and glorified."
"What utter tommy--"
"Wait! Believe me, it is your only chance. You will have to learnsome time that you can't ride rough-shod among angels. Think itover, old fellow. You have had a good lesson. Profit by it."
"You mean I'm to sit down and twirl my thumbs and let some otherchap snap her up under my very nose? Well, I guess not!"
"Not necessarily. If you take it manfully, she may discover a newinterest in you. Don't breathe a word of love to her. Go on as ifnothing had happened. Don't forget that I told you in the beginningnot to take no for an answer."
He drooped once more, biting his lip. "I don't see how I can evertell mother that she refused--"
"Why tell her?" she inquired, rising.
His eyes brightened. "By Jove, I shan't," he exclaimed.
"I am going up to the poor child now," she went on. "I dare sayyou have frightened her almost to death. Naturally she is in greatdistress. I shall try to convince her that her decision does notalter her position in this house. I depend on you to do your part,Leslie. Make it easy for her to stay on with me."
He mellowed to the verge of tears.
"I can't keep on coming out here after this, as I've been doing,Sara."
"Don't be silly! Of course you can. This will blow over."
"Blow over?" he almost gasped.
"I mean the first effects. Try being a martyr for a while, Leslie.It isn't a bad plan, I can assure you. It may interest you to knowthat Challis proposed to me three times before I accepted him, andyet I--I loved him from the beginning."
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, coming to his feet with a new light inhis eyes. The hollows in his cheeks seemed to fill out perceptibly.
"Good-night!"
"I say, Sara dear, you'll--you'll help me a bit, won't you? I mean,you'll talk it over with her and--"
"My sympathy is entirely with Miss Castleton," she said from thedoorway. His jaw dropped.
He was still ruminating over the callousness of the world in respectto lovers when she mounted the stairs and tapped firmly on Hetty'sdoor.
His hopes began to revive. A new thought had entered in and lodgedsecurely among them, bracing them up amazingly. "By Jove," he saidto himself, staring hard at the floor, "I dare say I did go aboutit badly. Sara was clever enough to see it. I must have taken heroff her feet with my confounded earnestness. Girls do lose theirheads, bless 'em, if you go at them with a rush. I'm sure she'lllook at it differently when she's had time to compose herself."He was perplexed, however, over something he had not revealed toSara, and his sudden frown proved that it was still disturbing him."I can't for the life of me understand why she should have been sodamned horrified at the idea."
He started for the dining-room, recalling his need of a drink,but changed his mind in the hall. Grabbing up his hat and stick,he darted out of the house and was soon swinging briskly down themoonlit avenue. He had come to the conclusion that a long walkwould prove settling; and moreover it wasn't a stupid idea to goover and have his drink with Brandon Booth. The longer he walked,the more springy his stride. Sara was quite right; he HAD goneabout it badly. He'd go about it differently next time.
Half way to Booth's cottage his pace slackened. A disconcertingthought struck him, almost like a dash of cold water in the face:Was she in love with Booth? He sat down on the rugged stone fenceto ponder. A cold perspiration broke out all over him. When henext resumed his walk, his back was towards Booth's cottage. Heattributed the perspiration to the violence of his exercise.
Hetty Castleton was standing in the middle of her room when Saraentered. From her position, it was evident that she had stoppedshort in her nervous, excited pacing of the floor. She was verypale but there was a dogged, set expression about her mouth.
"Come in, dear," she said, in a manner that showed she had beenexpecting the visit. "Have you seen him?"
Sara closed the door, and then stood with her back against it,regarding her agitated friend with serious, compassionate eyes.
"Yes. He is terribly upset. It was a blow to him, Hetty."
"I am sorry for him, Sara. He was so dreadfully in earnest. But,thank God, it is over!" She threw back her head and breathed deeply."That horrible, horrible nightmare is ended. I suppose it had tobe. But the mockery of it--think of it, Sara!--the damnable mockeryof it!"
"Poor Leslie!" sighed the other. "Poor old Leslie."
Hetty's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, I AM sorry for him. He didn'tdeserve it. God in heaven, if he really knew everything! If he knewwhy I could not listen to him, why I almost screamed when he heldmy hands in his and begged--actually begged me to--Oh, it wasghastly, Sara!"
She covered her face with her hands, and swayed as if about to fall.Sara came quickly to her side. Putting an arm about the quiveringshoulders, she led the girl to the broad window seat and threw openthe blinds.
"Don't speak of it, dearest,--don't think of THAT. Sit here quietlyin the air and pull yourself together. Let me talk to you. Let metell you how deeply distressed I am, not only on your account, buthis."
They were silent for a long time, the girl lying still and almostbreathless against the other's shoulders. She was still wearingthe delicate blue dinner gown, but in her fingers was the exquisitepearl necklace Sara had given her for Christmas. She h
ad taken itoff and had forgotten to drop it in her jewel box.
"I suppose he will go up to the city early," she said monotonously.
"Leslie is a better loser than you think, my dear," said Sara,looking out over the tops of the cedars. "He will not run away."
Hetty looked up in alarm. "You mean he will persist in--in hisattentions," she cried.
"Oh, no. I don't believe you will find him to be the bugbear youimagine. He can take defeat like a man. He is devoted to you, heis devoted to me. Your decision no doubt wrecks his fondest hopein life, but it doesn't make a weakling of him."
"I don't quite understand--"
"He is sustained by the belief that he has paid you the highesthonour a man can pay to a woman. There is no reason why he shouldturn his back on you, as a sulky boy might do. No, my dear, I thinkyou may count on him as your best, most loyal friend from this nighton. He has just said to me that his greatest pain lies in the fearthat you may not be willing to accept him as a simple, honest,unpresuming friend since--"
"Oh, Sara, if he will only be that and nothing more!" cried thegirl wonderingly.
Sara smiled confidently. "I fancy you haven't much to fear in thatdirection, my dear. It isn't in Leslie Wrandall's make-up to courta second repulse. He is all pride. The blow it suffered to-nightcan't be repeated--at least, not by the same person."
"I am so sorry it had to be Leslie," murmured Hetty.
"Be nice to him, Hetty. He deserves that much of you, to say theleast. I should miss him if he found it impossible to come here onaccount of--"
"I wouldn't have that happen for the world," cried the girlin distress. "He is your dearest friend. Send me away, Sara, ifyou must. Don't let anything stand in the way of your friendshipfor Leslie. You depend on him for so much, dear. I can't bear thethought of--"
"Hush, dearest! You are first in my love. Better for me to loseall the others and still have you."
The girl looked at her in wonder for a long time. "Oh, I know youmean it, Sara, but--but how can it be true?"
"Put yourself in my place," was all that Sara said in reply, andher companion had no means of translating the sentence.
She could only remain mute and wondering, her eyes fixed on thatother mystery: the cameo face in the moon that hung high above thesombre forest.
"If it were not for the trip to Lenox," she murmured plaintively.
"The trip is off," announced Sara. She too was staring at thecloudless sky. "There will be rain tomorrow."
"It is very clear to-night, Sara."
"Do you hear that little wail in the trees--as if a child werewhimpering out there? That is the plaint of the fairies who livein the buds and twigs, in the flower cups and mosses. They famish,their gods will hear. Their gods hear when ours is deaf. You willsee. There will be clouds over us to-morrow and we will breathethe mist."
The girl shivered.
Many minutes afterward she said, as one who marvels: "I hear thepromise in the wind, Sara,--the new, cool wind."
"The gods are whispering. Soon the fairies and elves will comeforth to revel. Ah, what a wonderful thing the night is!"
"The fairies," mused the girl. "You believe in them?"
"Resolutely."
"And I too."
"We will never grow old, my dear," said Sara. "That is what thefairies are for: to keep those who love them young."
Hetty had relaxed. Her soft young body was warm again; that ineffablyfeminine charm was revived in her.
"Poor Leslie," murmured Sara, a long time afterward, a dreamy notein her voice. "I can't put him out of my thoughts. He will neverget over it. I have never seen one so stricken and yet so brave.He would have been more than a husband to you, Hetty. It is in himto be a slave to the woman he loves. I know him well, poor boy."
Hetty was silent, brooding. Sara resumed her thoughtful observations.
"Why should you let what happened months ago stand in the way of--"
She got no farther than that. With an exclamation of horror, thegirl sprang away from her and glowered at her with dilated eyes.
"My God, Sara!" she whispered hoarsely. "Are you mad?"
The other sighed. "I suppose you must think it of me," she saiddismally. "We are made differently, you and I. If I cared for a man,nothing in all this world could stand between me and him. My lovewould fortify me against the enemy we are prone to call conscience.It would justify me in slaying the thing we call conscience. Inyour heart, Hetty, you have not wronged Leslie Wrandall by any actof yours. You owe him no reparation. On the contrary, it is not farout of the way to say that he owes you something, but of course itis a claim for recompense and resolves itself into a sentimentaldebt, so there's really no use discussing it."
Hetty was still staring. "You don't mean to say you would have memarry Challis Wrandall's brother?" she said, in a sort of stupefaction.
Sara shook her head. "I mean this: you would be justified inpermitting Leslie to glorify that which his brother desecrated;your womanhood, my dear."
"My God, Sara!" again fell in a hoarse whisper from the girl'slips.
"I simply voice my point of view," explained Sara calmly. "As Isaid before, we look at things differently."
"I can't believe you mean what you have said," cried Hetty."Why--why, if I loved him with all my heart, soul and body I couldnot even think of--Oh, I shudder to think of it!"
"I love you," continued Sara, fixing her mysterious eyes on thoseof the girl, "and yet you took from me something more than a brother.I love you, knowing everything, and I am paying in full the debthe owes to you. Leslie, knowing nothing, is no less your debtor.All this is paradoxical, I know, my dear, but we must remember thatwhile other people may be indebted to us, we also owe somethingto ourselves. We ought to take pay from ourselves. Please do notconclude that I am urging or even advising you to look with favourupon Leslie Wrandall's honourable, sincere proposal of marriage. Iam merely trying to convince you that you are entitled to all thatany man can give you in this world of ours,--we women all are, forthat matter."
"I was sure that you couldn't ask me to marry him. I couldn'tbelieve--"
"Forget what I have said, dearest, if it grieves you," cried Sarawarmly. She arose and drew the girl close to her. "Kiss me, Hetty."Their lips met. The girl's eyes were closed, but Sara's were wideopen and gleaming. "It is because I love you," she said softly,but she did not complete the sentence that burned in her brain.To herself she repeated: "It is because I love you that I wouldscourge you with Wrandalls!"
"You are very good to me, Sara," sobbed Hetty.
"You WILL be nice to Leslie?"
"Yes, yes! If he will only let me be his friend."
"He asks no more than that. Now, you must go to bed."
Suddenly, without warning, she held the girl tightly in her arms.Her breathing was quick, as of one moved by some sharp sensationof terror. When Hetty, in no little wonder, opened her eyes Sara'sface was turned away, and she was looking over her shoulder as ifcause for alarm had come from behind.
"What is it?" cried Hetty anxiously.
She saw the look of dread in her companion's eyes, even as it beganto fade.
"I don't know," muttered Sara. "Something, I can't tell what, cameover me. I thought some one was stealing up behind me. How sillyof me."
"Ah," said Hetty, with an odd smile, "I can understand how youfelt."
"Hetty, will you take me in with you to-night?" whispered Saranervously. "Let me sleep with you. I can't explain it, but I amafraid to be alone to-night." The girl's answer was a glad smileof acquiescence. "Come with me, then, to my bedroom while I change.I have the queerest feeling that some one is in my room. I don'twant to be alone. Are you afraid?"
Hetty held back, her face blanching.
"No, I am not afraid," she cried at once, and started toward thedoor.
"There IS some one in this room," said Sara a few moments later,when they were in the big bedroom down the hall.
"I--I wonder," murmured Hetty.
And yet neither of them looked about in search for the intruder!
Far into the night Sara sat in the window of Hetty's dressing-room,her chin sunk low in her hands, staring moodily into the now opaquenight, her eyes sombre and unblinking, her body as motionless asdeath itself. The cooling wind caressed her and whispered warningsinto her unheeding ears, but she sat there unprotected againstits chill, her night-dress damp with the mist that crept up withsinister stealth from the sea.
In the flats below, a vast army of frogs shrilled in ceaselesschatter; night birds and insects responded to the bedlam challenge;the hoarse monotonous grunts of a fog-horn came up from the Sound.There were people out there, asleep in passage.
A cat mewed piteously somewhere in the garden. She was curiouslydisturbed by this. She hated cats. There had never been one on theplace before.