Part 5 (1/2)
”I don't believe I _could_ buy mourning, dear,” she said. ”And--oh, if you knew how long I'd wanted a really _blue_ blue suit! Only, it would have been too vivid to wear well--I always knew that--because you can only afford one every other year. And”--Phyllis rather diffidently voiced a thought which had been in the back of her mind for a long time--”if I'm going to be much around Mr. Harrington, don't you think cheerful clothes would be best? Everything in that house seems sombre enough now.”
”Perhaps you are right, dear child,” said Mrs. De Guenther. ”I hope you may be the means of putting a great deal of brightness into poor Allan's life before he joins his mother.”
”Oh, don't!” cried Phyllis impulsively. Somehow she could not bear to think of Allan Harrington's dying. He was too beautiful to be dead, where n.o.body could see him any more. Besides, Phyllis privately considered that a long vacation before he joined his mother would be only the fair thing for ”poor Allan.” Youth sides with youth. And--the clear-cut white lines of him rose in her memory and stayed there. She could almost hear that poor, tired, toneless voice of his, that was yet so deep and so perfectly accented.... She bought docilely whatever her guide directed, and woke from a species of gentle daze at the afternoon's end to find Mrs. De Guenther beaming with the weary rapture of the successful shopper, and herself the proprietress of a turquoise velvet walking-suit, a hat to match, a pale blue evening frock, a pale green between-dress with lovely clinging lines, and a heavenly white crepe thing with rosy ribbons and filmy shadow-laces--the negligee of one's dreams. There were also slippers and shoes and stockings and--this was really too bad of Mrs. De Guenther--a half-dozen set of lingerie, straight through. Mrs. De Guenther sat and continued to beam joyously over the array, in Phyllis's little bedroom.
”It's my present, dearie,” she said calmly. ”So you needn't worry about using Angela's money. Gracious, it's been _lovely_! I haven't had such a good time since my husband's little grand-niece came on for a week.
There's nothing like dressing a girl, after all.”
And Phyllis could only kiss her. But when her guest had gone she laid all the boxes of finery under her bed, the only place where there was any room. She would not take any of it out, she determined, till her summons came. But on second thought, she wore the blue velvet street-suit on Sunday visits to Mrs. Harrington, which became--she never knew just when or how--a regular thing. The vivid blue made her eyes nearly sky-color, and brightened her hair very satisfactorily. She was taking more time and trouble over her looks now--one has to live up to a turquoise velvet hat and coat! She found herself, too, becoming very genuinely fond of the restless, anxiously loving, pa.s.sionate, unwise child who dwelt in Mrs. Harrington's frail elderly body and had almost worn it out. She sat, long hours of every Sunday afternoon, holding Mrs.
Harrington's thin little hot hands, and listening to her swift, italicised monologues about Allan--what he must do, what he must not do, how he must be looked after, how his mother had treated him, how his wishes must be ascertained and followed.
”Though all he wants now is dark and quiet,” said his mother piteously.
”I don't even go in there now to cry.”
She spoke as if it were an established ritual. Had she been using her son's sick-room, Phyllis wondered, as a regular weeping-place? She could feel in Mrs. Harrington, even in this mortal sickness, the tremendous driving influence which is often part of a pa.s.sionately active and not very wise personality. That cert.i.tude and insistence of Mrs.
Harrington's could hammer you finally into believing or doing almost anything. Phyllis wondered how much his mother's heartbroken adoration and pity might have had to do with making her son as hopeless-minded as he was.
Naturally, the mother-in-law-elect she had acquired in such a strange way became very fond of Phyllis. But indeed there was something very gay and sweet and honest-minded about the girl, a something which gave people the feeling that they were very wise in liking her. Some people you are fond of against your will. When people cared for Phyllis it was with a quite irrational feeling that they were doing a sensible thing.
They never gave any of the credit to her very real, though almost invisible, charm.
She never saw Allan Harrington on any of the Sunday visits. She was sure the servants thought she did, for she knew that every one in the great, dark old house knew her as the young lady who was to marry Mr. Allan.
She believed that she was supposed to be an old family friend, perhaps a distant relative. She did not want to see Allan. But she did want to be as good to his little, tensely-loving mother as she could, and rea.s.sure her about Allan's future care. And she succeeded.
It was on a Friday about two that the summons came. Phyllis had thought she expected it, but when the call came to her over the library telephone she found herself as badly frightened as she had been the first time she went to the Harrington house. She s.h.i.+vered as she laid down the dater she was using, and called the other librarian to take her desk. Fortunately, between one and four the morning and evening s.h.i.+fts overlapped, and there was some one to take her place.
”Mrs. Harrington cannot last out the night,” came Mr. De Guenther's clear, precise voice over the telephone, without preface. ”I have arranged with Mr. Johnston. You can go at once. You had better pack a suit-case, for you possibly may not be able to get back to your boarding-place.”
So it was to happen now! Phyllis felt, with her subst.i.tute in her place, her own wraps on, and her feet taking her swiftly towards her goal, as if she were offering herself to be made a nun, or have a hand or foot cut off, or paying herself away in some awful, irrevocable fas.h.i.+on. She packed, mechanically, all the pretty things Mrs. De Guenther had given her, and nothing else. She found herself at the door of her room with the locked suit-case in her hand, and not even a nail-file of the things belonging to her old self in it. She shook herself together, managed to laugh a little, and returned and put in such things as she thought she would require for the night. Then she went. She always remembered that journey as long as she lived; her hands and feet and tongue going on, buying tickets, giving directions--and her mind, like a naughty child, catching at everything as they went, and screaming to be allowed to go back home, back to the dusty, matter-of-course library and the dreary little boarding-house bedroom!
VII
They were all waiting for her, in what felt like a hideously quiet semicircle, in Allan's great dark room. Mrs. Harrington, deadly pale, and giving an impression of keeping herself alive only by force of that wonderful fighting vitality of hers, lay almost at length in her wheel-chair. There was a clergyman in vestments. There were the De Guenthers; Mr. De Guenther only a little more precise than his every-day habit was, Mrs. De Guenther crying a little, softly and furtively.
As for Allan Harrington, he lay just as she had seen him that other time, white and moveless, seeming scarcely conscious except by an effort. Only she noticed a slight contraction, as of pain, between his brows.
”Phyllis has come,” panted Mrs. Harrington. ”Now it will be--all right.
You must marry him quickly--quickly, do you hear, Phyllis? Oh, people never will--do--what I want them to----”
”Yes--yes, indeed, dear,” said Phyllis, taking her hands soothingly.
”We're going to attend to it right away. See, everything is ready.”
It occurred to her that Mrs. Harrington was not half as correct in her playing of the part of a dying woman as she would have seen to it that anyone else was; also, that things did not seem legal without the wolfhound. Then she was shocked at herself for such irrelevant thoughts.
The thing to do was to keep poor Mrs. Harrington quieted. So she beckoned the clergyman and the De Guenthers nearer, and herself sped the marrying of herself to Allan Harrington.
... When you are being married to a Crusader on a tomb, the easiest way is to kneel down by him. Phyllis registered this fact in her mind quite blankly, as something which might be of use to remember in future....
The marrying took an unnecessarily long time, it seemed to her. It did not seem as if she were being married at all. It all seemed to concern somebody else. When it came to the putting on of the wedding-ring, she found herself, very naturally, guiding Allan's relaxed fingers to hold it in its successive places, and finally slip it on the wedding-finger.
And somehow having to do that checked the chilly awe she had had before of Allan Harrington. It made her feel quite simply sorry for him, as if he were one of her poor little boys in trouble. And when it was all over she bent pitifully before she thought, and kissed one white, cold cheek.