Part 37 (1/2)
And Eleanor would impatiently thrust her letter into a desk drawer and go downstairs, where she would invariably get so interested in what Quin had to say to her or to show her that she would forget to come up again.
Sometimes they went out to Valley Mead together for week-ends. On those days Eleanor not only failed to write to Harold, but also failed to think about him. The excitement of seeing what new wonders had been wrought since the last visit, of scouring the woods for nuts and berries, of going on all-day picnics to a neighboring hill-top, made her quite forget her castles in the air. She descended from the clouds of art and under Quin's tutelage learned to fry chops and bacon and cook eggs in the open.
She got her face and hands smudged and her hair tumbled, and she forgot all about enunciating clearly and holding her poses. So abandoned was she to what Harold called her ”bourgeois mood” that she was conscious of nothing but the sheer joy of living.
Often when she and Quin were alone together, she longed to take him into her confidence. She was desperately in need of counsel, and his level head and clear judgments had solved more than one problem for her. But she realized that, in spite of the heroic effort he was making to keep within bounds, he was nevertheless liable to overflow into sentiment with the slightest encouragement. Confession of her proposed flight, moreover, involved an explanation of her relation to Harold Phipps, and upon that point Quin could not be counted to sympathize.
With the first of November came a letter that brought matters to a crisis. Claude Martel wrote that he must know immediately the date of her arrival in New York, since the place he had bespoken for her at the Kendall School of Expression could no longer be held open; he must also give a definite answer about the apartment.
Eleanor received the letter one Sat.u.r.day as she was starting to a tea.
All afternoon she listened to the local chatter about her as a lark poised for flight might listen to the twittering of house sparrows. Her mind was in a ferment of elation and doubt, of trepidation and joyful antic.i.p.ation. The moment she had longed for and yet dreaded was at hand.
Returning across Central Park in the dusk, she rehea.r.s.ed what she was going to say to her grandmother. The moment for approaching her had never seemed more propitious. Ever since she had accepted Quin's advice and ”cottoned up” to the old lady, relations between them had been amazingly amicable. Her willingness to stay at home in the evening and take Miss Enid's place as official reader and amanuensis had placed her in high favor, and Madam, not to be outdone in magnanimity, had allowed her many privileges.
Now that there seemed some ground for the hope that she might gain her grandmother's consent to the New York proposition, Eleanor realized how ardently she wanted it. It was not the money alone, it was her moral support and approval--hers and Aunt Isobel's. Aunt Enid would understand, had understood in a way; so would Uncle Ranny and Aunt Flo. As for Quin Graham----
She heard a cough near by, and turning saw a couple sitting on a bench half hidden in the heavy shrubbery. Their backs were toward her, and she noticed that the girl's hand rested on the man's shoulder and that their heads were bent in intimate conversation. The next instant she recognized Rose Mattel's hat and the dim outline of Quin's troubled profile.
Turning sharply to the right, she hurried up through the pergola and out into the avenue. She wondered why she was so unaccountably angry. Rose and Quin had a perfect right to sit in the square at twilight and talk as much as they liked. It was not her business, anyhow, she told herself; she ought to be glad for poor Rose to have any diversion she could get after being in that hideous store all day. She didn't blame Rose one bit.
But if Quin thought as much of somebody else as he pretended to, she couldn't see what he would have to say to another girl out here in the park at twilight, especially a girl that he saw three times a day at home! Could there be anything between them? She had scorned the idea when it was once tentatively suggested to her by Harold Phipps. Of _course_ there couldn't. And yet----
So preoccupied was she with these disturbing reflections that she almost forgot the real business in hand until she stood on her own doorstep waiting to be admitted.
”Old Miss says for you to come up to her room the minute you git in,”
Hannah said, with an ominous note in her voice.
”What's the matter, Hannah? Uncle Ranny?”
”Lord, no, honey! Mr. Ranny's behavin' himself like a angel. Hit was somethin' that come in the mail. Miss Isobel she don't know, and I don't know; but Old Miss certainly has got it in fer somebody.”
Eleanor's new-found confidence promptly deserted her, and she hastily took stock of her own shortcomings. Of course she was writing daily to Harold, but the matter of her private correspondence had been threshed out during the summer and she had emerged battered but victorious. Aside from that, she could think of no probable cause she had given for offense.
In the hall she met Miss Isobel.
”Mother has been asking for you, dear,” she said in a voice heavy with premonition. ”She's very much upset about something.”
Eleanor anxiously mounted the stairs. It was evidently not a propitious moment to present her case; and yet, Papa Claude must have an answer within twenty-four hours. At the door of Madam's room she hesitated. Then she took the small remnant of her courage in both hands and entered.
Madam was sitting at her desk under the crystal chandelier, with a severity of expression that suggested nothing less than a court martial.
Without speaking she waved Eleanor to a seat, and began searching through her papers. The light fell full on her high white pompadour and threw the deep lines about her grim mouth into heavy relief.
”Do you remember,” she began ponderously, ”a check I gave you the day of Enid's wedding?”
”Yes, grandmother.”
”Well, where is the bag you bought with it?”
Evasion had so often been Eleanor's sole weapon of defense that she seized it now.