Part 39 (2/2)
”W--w--well, I suppose so,” Magsie answered dubiously, flus.h.i.+ng a sudden red. ”I--don't know what I shall do!”
”But surely you've had an unusually encouraging beginning?”
pursued Rachael comfortably.
”Oh, yes, there's no doubt about that, at least!” Magsie said.
About what was there doubt, then? Rachael wondered.
She deliberately allowed a little silence to follow this remark, smiling, as if at her own thoughts, as she sewed. The younger woman's gaze roved restlessly about the room, she leaned from her chair to take a framed photograph of the boys from a low bookcase, and studied it with evidently forced attention.
”They're stunning!” she said in an undertone as she laid it aside.
”They're good little boys,” their mother said contentedly. ”I know that the queerest persons in the world, about eating and drinking, are actresses, Magsie,” she added, smiling, ”so I don't know whether to offer you tea, or hot soup, or an egg beaten up in milk, or what! We had a pianist here about a year ago, and--”
”Oh, nothing, nothing, thank you, Rachael!” Magsie said eagerly and nervously. ”I couldn't--”
”The boys may be in soon,” Rachael remarked, choosing to ignore her guest's rather unexpected emotion.
This seemed to spur Magsie suddenly into speech. She glanced at the tall old moonfaced clock that was slowly ticking near the door, as if to estimate the time left her, and sat suddenly erect on the edge of her chair.
”I mustn't stay,”' she said breathlessly. ”I--I have to be back at the theatre at seven, and I ought to go home first for a few minutes. My girl--she's just a Swedish woman that I picked up by chance--worries about me as if she were my mother, unless I come in and rest, and take an eggnog, or something.” She rallied her forces with a quite visible effort. ”It was just this, Rachael,”
said Magsie, looking at the fire, and twisting her white gloves in desperate embarra.s.sment, ”I know you've always liked me, you've always been so kind to me, and I can only hope that you'll forgive me if what I say sounds strange to you. I thought I could come here and say it, but--I've always been a little bit afraid of you, Rachael--and I”--Magsie laughed nervously--”and I'm scared to death now!” she said simply.
Something natural, unaffected, and direct in her usually self- conscious and artificial manner struck Rachael with a vague sense of uneasiness. Magsie certainly did not seem to be acting now; there were real tears in her pretty eyes, and a genuine break in her young voice.
”I'm going straight ahead,” she said rapidly, ”because I've been getting up my courage this whole week to come and see you, and now, while Greg is in Albany, I can't put it off any longer. He doesn't know it, of course, and, although I know I'm putting myself entirely at your mercy, Rachael, I believe you'll never tell him if I ask you not to!”
”I don't understand,” Rachael said slowly.
”I've been thinking it all out,” Magsie went on, ”and this is the conclusion--at least, this is what I've thought! You have always had everything, Rachael. You've always been so beautiful, and so much admired. You loved Clarence, and married him--oh, don't think I'm rude, Rachael,” the girl pleaded eagerly, as Rachael voiced an inarticulate protest, ”because I'm so desperately in earnest, and s-s-so desperately unhappy!” Her voice broke on a rush of tears, but she commanded it, and hurried on. ”You've always been fortunate, not like other women, who had to be second best, but ALWAYS the cleverest, and ALWAYS the handsomest! I remember, when I heard you were to marry Greg, I was just sick with misery for two or three days! I had seen him a few weeks before in Paris, but he said nothing of it, didn't even mention you. Don't think I was jealous, Rachael--it wasn't that. But it seemed to me that you had everything! First the position of marrying a Breckenridge, then to step straight into Greg's life. You'll never know how I--how I singled you out to watch--”
”Just as I have singled you out this horrible winter,” Rachael said to herself, in strange pain and bewilderment at heart. Magsie watched her hopefully, but Rachael did not speak, and the girl went on:
”When I came to America I thought of you, and I listened to what everyone said of you. You had a splendid boy, named for Greg, and then another boy; you were richer and happier and more admired than ever! And Rachael--I know you'll forgive me--you were so much FINER than ever--when I met you I saw that. I couldn't dislike you, I couldn't do anything but admire, with all the others. I remember at Leila's wedding, when you wore dark blue and furs, and you looked so lovely! And then I met Greg again. And truly, truly, Rachael, I never dreamed of this then!”
”Dreamed of what?” Rachael said with dry lips. The girl's voice, the darkening room, the dull, fluttering flames of the dying fire, seemed all like some oppressive dream.
”Dreamed--” Magsie's voice sank. Her eyes closed, she put one hand over her heart, and pressed it there. ”Then came my plan to go on the stage,” she said, taking up her story, ”and one day, when I was especially blue, I met Greg. We had tea together. I've never forgotten one instant of that day! He tried to telephone you, but couldn't get you; we just talked like any friends. But he promised to help me, he was so interested, and I was homesick for Paris, and ready to die in this awful city! After that you gave me a dinner, and then we had theatricals, and then Bowman placed me, and I had to go on the road. But I saw Greg two or three times, and one day--one day last winter”--again her voice faltered, as if she found the memories too poignant for speech--”we drove in the Park,” she said dreamily; ”and then Greg saw how it was.”
Rachael sat silent, stunned.
”Oh, Rachael,” the girl said pa.s.sionately. ”Don't think I didn't fight it! I thought of you, I tried to think for us all. I said we would never see each other again, and I went away--you know that!
For months after that day in the Park we hardly saw each other.
And then, last summer, we met again. And he talked to me so wonderfully, Rachael, about making the best of it, about being good friends anyway--and I've lived on that! But I can't live on that forever, Rachael.”
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