The Best Man (23 page)

“Oh, how perfectly beautiful! Then you call them up, and just say something pleasant – anything, you know, and then say I’ll speak to Mamma.”

She gave him the number, and in a few minutes a voice from New York said, “Hello!”

“Hello!” called Gordon. “Is this Mr. Jefferson Hathaway?... Well, this is your brother-in-law. How are you all?... Your mother recovered from all the excitement and weariness?... That’s good… What’s that? … You’ve been trying to ’phone us in Chicago?... But we’re not in Chicago. We changed our minds and came to Washington instead…. Yes, we’re in Washington – The Harris Apartments. We have been very selfish not to have communicated with you sooner. At least I have. Celia hasn’t had any choice in the matter. I’ve kept her so busy. Yes, she’s very well, and seems to look happy. She wants to speak for herself. I’ll try to arrange to bring her up to-morrow for a little visit. I want to see you too. We’ve a lot of things to explain to you…. Here is Celia. She wants to speak to you.”

Celia,  her eyes shining, her lips quivering with suppressed excitement, took the receiver.

“Oh, Jeff dear, it’s good to hear your voice,” she said. “Is everything all right? Yes, I’ve been having a perfectly beautiful time, and I’ve something fine to tell you. All those nice things you said to me just before you got off the train are true. Yes, he’s just as nice as you said, and a great deal nicer besides. Oh, yes, I’m very happy, and I want to speak to Mamma please. Jeff, is she all right? Is she perfectly well, and not fretting a bit? You know you promised to tell me. What’s that? She thought I looked sad? Well, I did but that’s all gone now. Everything is perfectly beautiful. Tell mother to come to the ’phone please – I want to make her understand.”

“I’m going to tell her, dear,” she whispered, looking up at Gordon. “I’m afraid George will get there before we do and make her worry.”

For answer he stooped and kissed her, his arm encircling her and drawing her close. “Whatever you think best, dearest,” he whispered back.

“Is that you, Mamma?” With a happy smile she turned back to the ’phone. “Dear Mamma! Yes, I’m all safe and happy, and I’m sorry you have worried. We won’t let you do it again. But listen; I’ve something to tell you, a surprise – Mamma, I did not marry George Hayne at all. No, I say I did not marry George Hayne at all. George Hayne is a wicked man. I can’t tell you about it over the ’phone but that was why I looked sad. Yes, I was married all right, but not to George. He’s oh, so different. Mother you can’t think. He’s right here beside me now, and Mother, he is just as dear – you’d be very happy about him if you could see him. What did you say? Didn’t I mean to marry George? Why Mother, I never wanted to. I was awfully unhappy about it, and I knew I made you feel so too, though I tried not to. But I’ll explain all about it…. No, there’s nothing whatever for you to worry about. Everything is right now and life looks more beautiful to me than it ever did before. What’s his name? Oh;” she looked up at Gordon with a funny little expression of dismay. She had forgotten and he whispered it in her ear.

“Cyril –”

“It’s Cyril, Mother! Isn’t that a pretty name! Which name? Oh, first name of course. That last name?”

“Gordon –” he supplied in her ear again.

“Cyril Gordon, Mother,” she said, giggling in spite of herself at her strange predicament…. “Yes, Mother. I am very, very happy. I couldn’t be happier unless I had you and Jeff, too, and” – she paused, hesitating at the unaccustomed name, - “and Cyril says we’re coming to visit you to-morrow. We’ll come up and see you and explain everything. And you’re not to worry about George Hayne if he comes. Just let Jeff put him off by telling him you have sent for me, or something of the sort, and don’t pay any attention to what he says. What? You say he did come? How strange – and he hasn’t been back? I’m so thankful. He is dreadful. Oh, Mother, you don’t know what I’ve escaped! And Cyril is good and dear. What? You want to speak to him? All right. He’s right here. Good-by, Mother, dear, till to-morrow. And you’ll promise not to worry about anything? All right. Here is – Cyril.”

Gordon took the receiver.

“Mother, I’m taking good care of her, just as I promised, and I’m going to being her for a flying visit up to see you to-morrow. Yes, I’ll take good care of her. She is very dear to me. The best thing that ever came into my life.”

Then a mother’s blessing came thrilling over the wires, and touched the handsome, manly face with tenderness.

“Thank you,” he said. “I shall try always to make you glad you said those words.”

They returned to looking in each other’s eyes, after the receiver was hung up, as if they had been parted a long time. It seemed somehow as if their joy must be greater than any other married couple, because they had all their courting yet to do. It was beautiful to think of what was before then.

There was so much on both sides to be told; and to be told over again because only half had been told; and there were so many hopes and experiences to be exchanged; so many opinions to compare, and to rejoice over because they were alike on many essentials. Then there were the rooms to be gone through, and Gordon’s pictures and favorite books to look at and talk about, and plans for the future to be touched upon – just barely touched upon.

The apartment would do until they could look about and get a house, Gordon said, his heart swelling with the proud thought that at last he would have a real home, like his other married friends, with a real princess to preside over it.

Then Celia had to tell all about the horror of the last three months, with the unpleasant shadows of the preceding years back of it. She told this in the dusk of the evening, before Henry had come in to light up, and before they had realized that it was almost dinner-time. She told it with her face hidden on her husband’s shoulder, and his arms close about her, to give her comfort at each revelation of the story. They tried also to plan what to do about George Hayne; and then there was the whole story of Gordon’s journey and commission from the time the old chief had called him into the office until he came to stand beside her at the church altar and they were married. It was told in careful detail with all the comical, exasperating and pitiful incidents of white dogs and little newsboy; but the strangest part about it all was that Gordon never said one word about Julia Bentley and her imaginary presence with him that first day, and he never even knew that he had left out an important detail.

Celia laughed over the white dog and declared they must bring him home to live with them; and she cried over the story of the brave little newsboy and was eager to visit him in New York, promising herself all sorts of pleasure in taking him gifts and permanently bettering his condition; and it was in this way that Gordon incidentally learned that his wife had a fortune in her own right, a fact that for a time gave him great uneasiness of mind until she had soothed him and laughed at him for an hour or more; for Gordon was in independent creature and had ideas about supporting his wife by his own toil. Beside, it seemed an unfair advantage to have taken a wife and a fortune as it were unaware.

But Celia’s fortune had not spoiled her, and she soon made him see that it had always been a more incident in her scheme of living; a comfortable and pleasant incident to be sure, but still an incident to be kept always in the background, and never for a moment to be a cause for self-congratulation or pride.

Gordon found himself dreading the explanation that would have to come when he reached New York and faced his wife’s mother and brother. Celia had accepted his explanations, because, somehow by the beautiful ways of the spirits, her soul had found and believed in his soul before the truth was made known to her, but would her mother and brother be able also to believe? And he fell to planning with Celia just how he should tell the story; and this led to his bringing out a number of letters and papers that would be worth while showing as credentials, and every step of the way, as Celia got glimpse after glimpse into his past, her face shone with joy and her heart leaped with the assurance that her lot had been cast in goodly places, for she perceived not only that this man was honored and respected in high places, but that his early life had been peculiarly pure and true.

The strange loneliness that had surrounded his young manhood seemed suddenly to have broken ahead of him, and to have opened out into the glory of the companionship of one peculiarly fitted to fill the need of his life. Thus they looked into one another’s eyes reading their life-joy, and entered into the beautiful miracle of acquaintanceship.

The next morning quite early the ’phone called Gordon to the office. The chief’s secretary said the matter was urgent.

He hurried away leaving Celia somewhat anxious lest their plans for going to New York that day could not be carried out, but she made up her mind not to fret even if the trip had to be put off a little, and solaced herself with a short visit with her mother over the telephone.

Gordon entered his chief’s office a trifle anxiously, for he felt that in justice to his wife he ought to take her right back to New York and get matters there adjusted; but he feared that there would be business to hold him at home until the Holman matter was settled.

The chief greeted him affably and bade him sit down.

“I am sorry to have called you up so early,” he said, “but we need you. The fact is, they’ve arrested Holman and five other men, and you are in immediate demand to identify them. Would it be asking too much of an already over-worked man to send you back to New York to-day?”

Gordon almost sprang from his seat in pleasure.

“It just exactly fits in with my plans, or, rather, my wishes,” he said, smiling. “There are several matters of my own that I would like to attend to in New York and for which of course I did not have time.”

He paused and looked at his chief, half hesitation, marvelling that the way had so miraculously opened for him to keep silence a little longer on the subject of his marriage. Perhaps the chief need never be told that the marriage ceremony took place on the day of Holman dinner.

“That is good,” said the chief, smiling. “You certainly have earned the right to attend to your own affairs. Then we need not feel so bad at having to send you back. Can you go on the afternoon train? Good! Then let us hear your account of your trip briefly, to see if there are any points we didn’t notice yesterday. But first just step here a moment. I have something to show you.”

He flung open the door to the next office.

“You knew that Ferry had left the Department on account of his ill-health? I have taken the liberty of having your things moved in here. This will hereafter be your headquarters, and you will be next to me in the Department.”

Gordon turned in amazement and gazed at the kindly old face. Promotion he had hoped for, but such promotion, right over the heads of his elders and superiors, he had never dreamed of receiving. He could have taken the chief in his arms.

“Pooh! Pooh!” said the chief. “You deserve it, you deserve it!” when Gordon tried to blunder out some words of appreciation. Then, as if to cap the climax, he added:

“And, by the way, you know some one has got to run across the water to look after that Stanhope matter. That will fall to you, I’m afraid. Sorry to keep you trotting around the globe, but perhaps you’ll like to make a little vacation of it. The Department’ll give you some time if you want it. Oh, don’t thank me! It’s simply the reward of doing your duty, to have more duties given you, and higher ones. You have done well, young man. I have here all the papers in the Stanhope case, and full directions written out, and then if you can plan for it you needn’t return, unless it suits your pleasure. You understand the matter as fully as I do already. And now for business. Let’s hurry through. There are one or two little matters we must talk over and I know you will want to hurry back and get ready for your journey.” And so after all the account of Gordon’s extraordinary escape and eventful journey home became by reason of its hasty repetition a most prosaic story composed of the bare facts and not all of those.

At parting the chief pressed Gordon’s hand with heartiness and ushered him to out into the hall, with the same brusque manner he used to close all business interviews, and Gordon found himself hurrying through the familiar halls in a daze of happiness, the secret of his unexpected marriage still his own – and hers.

Celia was watching at the window when his key clicked in the lock and he let himself into the apartment his face alight with joy of meeting her again after the brief absence. She turned in a quiver of pleasure at his coming.

“Well, get ready,” he said joyfully. “We are ordered off to New York on the afternoon train, with a wedding trip to Europe into the bargain; and I’m promoted to the next place to the chief. What do you think of that for a morning’s surprise?”

He tossed up his hat like a boy, came over to where she stood, and stooping laid reverent lips upon her brow and eyes.

“Oh, beautiful! Lovely!” cried Celia, ecstatically. “Come sit down on the couch and tell me all about it. We can work faster afterward if we get it off our minds. Was your chief much shocked that you were married without his permission or knowledge?”

“Why, that was the best of all. I didn’t have to tell him I was married. And he is not to know until just as I sail. He need never know how it all happened. It isn’t his business and it would be hard to explain. No one need ever know except your mother and brother unless you wish them to, dear.”

“Oh, I am so glad and relieved,” said Celia, delightedly. I’ve been worrying about that a little, - what people would think of us, - for of course we couldn’t possibly explain it all out as it is to us. They would always be watching us to see if we really cared for each other; and suspecting that we didn’t, and it would be horrid. I think it is our own precious secret, and nobody but Mamma and Jeff have a right to know, don’t you?”

“I certainly do, and I was casting about in my mind as I went into the office how I could manage not to tell the chief, when what did he do but spring a proposition on me to go at once to New York and identify those men. He apologized tremendously for having to send me right back again, but said it was necessary. I told him it just suited me for I had affairs of my own that I had not had time to attend to when I was there, and would be glad to go back and see to them. That let me out on the wedding question for it would be only necessary to tell him I was married when I got back. He would never ask when.”