Part 35 (1/2)
”That isn't the question--”
”No, but it's _a_ question. I presume you don't mind my asking it?”
”You may ask me anything, darling--of course. But this is your uncle Jarrott's affair, and yours. It wouldn't do for me--”
”Oh, that's so like you Miriam. You'd exasperate a saint--the way you won't give your opinion when you've got one. I wish I could ask Billy.
He'd know. But of course I couldn't, when he thinks I'm still engaged to _him_.”
”What do you want to ask him, Evie, dear?”
”Well, he's a lawyer. He could tell me all about what it's all about. I'm sure _I_ don't know. I didn't think it was anything--and yet here's Uncle Jarrott writing as if it was something awful. He's written to Aunt Queenie, too. Of course I must stand by Herbert, whatever happens--if it isn't very bad; but you can see yourself that I don't want to be mixed up in a--a--in a scandal.”
”It would hardly be a scandal, dear; but there would be some--some publicity about it.”
”I don't mind publicity. I'm used to that, with my name in the paper every other day. It was in this morning. Did you see it?--the Gresley's dance.
Only I do wish they would call me Evelyn, and not Evie. It sounds so familiar.”
”I'm afraid they'd put more in about you than just that.”
”Would they? What?” Her eyes danced already, in antic.i.p.ation.
”I can't tell you exactly what; but it would be things you wouldn't like.”
Evie twitched about the room, making little clicking sounds with her lips, as signs of meditation.
”Well, I mean to be true to him--a while longer,” she said, at last, as if coming to a conclusion. ”I'm not going to let Uncle Jarrott think I'm just a puppet to be jerked on a string. The idea! When he was as pleased as Punch about it himself. And Aunt Helen said she'd give me my trousseau. I suppose I sha'n't get that now. But there's the money you offered me for the pearl necklace. Only I'd much rather have the pearl--Well, I'll be true to him, do you see? We're leaving for Newport the day after to-morrow. They say there hasn't been such a brilliant summer for a long time as they expect this year. Thank goodness, there's something to take my mind off all this care and worry and responsiblity, otherwise I think I should pa.s.s away. But I shall show Uncle Jarrott that he can't do just as he likes with me, anyhow.”
Evie and Miss Jarrott went to Newport, and it was the beginning of July before Miriam heard from Ford again. Once more she read to Conquest such portions of the letter as she thought he would find of interest.
”It is all over now,” Ford wrote, ”between Stephens and Jarrott and me.
I'm out of the concern for good. It was something of a wrench, and I'm glad it is past. I didn't see the old man again. I wanted to thank him and say good-bye, but he dodged me. Perhaps it is just as well. Even if I were to meet him now, I shouldn't make the attempt again. I confess to feeling a little hurt, but I thoroughly understand him. He is one of those men--you meet them now and again--survivals from the old school--with a sense of rect.i.tude so exact that they can only see in a straight line. It is all right. Don't think that I complain. It is almost as much for his sake as for my own that I wish he could have taken what I call a more comprehensive view of me. I know he suffers--and I shall never be able to tell him how sorry I am till we get into the kingdom of heaven. In fact, I can't explain anything to any one, except you, which must be an excuse for my long letters. I try to keep you posted in what I'm going through, so that you may convey as much or as little of it as you think fit to Evie. I can't tell her much, and I see from the little notes she writes me that she doesn't yet understand.
”The cat seems to be quite out of the bag in the office, though I haven't said a word to any one, and I know Mr. Jarrott wouldn't. Pride and sore feeling will keep him from ever speaking of me again, except when he can't help it. I don't mean to say that the men know exactly what it is, but they know enough to set them guessing. They are jolly nice about it, too, even the fellows who were hardly decent to me in the old days. Little Green--the chap from Boston who succeeded me at Rosario; I must have told you about him--and his wife can't do enough for me, and I know they mean it.”
There was a silence of some weeks before he wrote again.
”I shall not get away from here as soon as I expected, as my private affairs are not easily settled up. This city grows so fast that I have had a good part of my savings in real estate. I am getting rid of it by degrees, but it takes time to sell to advantage. I may say that I am doing very well, for which I am not sorry, as I shall need the money for my trial. I hope you don't mind my referring to it, because I look forward to it with something you might almost call glee. To get back where I started will be like waking from a bad dream. I can't believe that Justice will make the same mistake twice--and even if she does I would rather she had the chance. I am much encouraged by the last reports from Kilcup and Warren. I've long felt that it was Jacob Gramm who did for my poor uncle, though I didn't like to accuse him of it when the proofs seemed all the other way. He certainly had more reason to do the trick than I had, for my uncle had been a brute to him for thirty years, while he had only worried me for two. He wasn't half a bad old chap, either--old Gramm--and it was one of the mysteries of the place to me that he could have stood it so long. The only explanation I could find was that he had a kind of affection for the old man, such as a dog will sometimes have for a master who beats him, or a woman for a drunken husband. I believe the moment came when he simply found himself at the end of his tether of endurance--and he just did for him. His grief, when it was all over, was real enough.
n.o.body could doubt that. In fact, it was so evidently genuine that the theory I am putting forward now only came to me of late years. I think there is something in it, and I believe the further they go the more they will find to support it. Now that the old chap is dead I should have less scruple in following it up--especially if the old lady is gone too. She was a bit of a vixen, but the husband was a good old sort. I liked him.”
Some weeks later he wrote:
”I wander about this place a good deal like a ghost in its old haunts.
Everything here is so temporary, so changing--much more so than in New York--that one's footprints are very quickly washed away. Outside the office almost no one remembers me. It is curious to think that I was once so happy here--and so hopeful. There was always a kind of h.e.l.l in my heart, but I kept it banked down, as we do the earth's internal fires, beneath a tolerably solid crust. Yesterday, finding myself at the Hipodromo, I stood for a while on the spot where I first saw Evie. It used to seem to me a bit of enchanted ground, but I feel now as if I ought to erect a gravestone there. Poor little Evie! How right you were about it all. It was madness on my part to think she could ever climb up my Calvary. My excuse is that I didn't imagine it was going to be so steep. I even hoped she would never see that there was a Calvary at all. Her notes are still pitifully ignorant of the real state of things.
”And speaking of gravestones, I went out the other day to the Recoleta Cemetery, and looked at the grave of my poor old friend, Monsieur Durand.
Everything neat, and in good order. It gives me a peculiar satisfaction to see that the decorum he loved reigns where he 'sleeps.' I never knew his secret--except that rumor put him down for an unfrocked priest.