"Poor Halsey!" she said softly. "Miss Innes, I can not marry him, and I am afraid to tell him. I am a coward--a coward!"
I sat beside the bed and stared at her. She was too ill to argue with, and, besides, sick people take queer fancies.
"We will talk about that when you are stronger," I said gently.
"But there are some things I must tell you," she insisted. "You must wonder how I came here, and why I stayed hidden at the lodge. Dear old Thomas has been almost crazy, Miss Innes. I did not know that Sunnyside was rented. I knew my mother wished to rent it, without telling my--stepfather, but the news must have reached her after I left. When I started east, I had only one idea--to be alone with my thoughts for a time, to bury myself here. Then, I--must have taken a cold on the train."
"You came east in clothing suitable for California," I said, "and, like all young girls nowadays, I don't suppose you wear flannels." But she was not listening.
"Miss Innes," she said, "has my stepbrother Arnold gone away?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, startled. But Louise was literal.
"He didn't come back that night," she said, "and it was so important that I should see him."
"I believe he has gone away," I replied uncertainly. "Isn't it something that we could attend to instead?"
But she shook her head. "I must do it myself," she said dully. "My mother must have rented Sunnyside without telling my stepfather, and--Miss Innes, did you ever hear of any one being wretchedly poor in the midst of luxury?
"Did you ever long, and long, for money--money to use without question, money that no one would take you to task about? My mother and I have been surrounded for years with every indulgence everything that would make a display. But we have never had any money, Miss Innes; that must have been why mother rented this house. My stepfather pays out bills. It's the most maddening, humiliating existence in the world. I would love honest poverty better."
"Never mind," I said; "when you and Halsey are married you can be as honest as you like, and you will certainly be poor."
Halsey came to the door at that moment and I could hear him coaxing Liddy for admission to the sick room.
"Shall I bring him in?" I asked Louise, uncertain what to do. The girl seemed to shrink back among her pillows at the sound of his voice. I was vaguely irritated with her; there are few young fellows like Halsey--straightforward, honest, and willing to sacrifice everything for the one woman. I knew one once, more than thirty years ago, who was like that: he died a long time ago. And sometimes I take out his picture, with its cane and its queer silk hat, and look at it. But of late years it has grown too painful: he is always a boy--and I am an old woman. I would not bring him back if I could.
Perhaps it was some such memory that made me call out sharply.
"Come in, Halsey." And then I took my sewing and went into the boudoir beyond, to play propriety. I did not try to hear what they said, but every word came through the open door with curious distinctness. Halsey had evidently gone over to the bed and I suppose he kissed her. There was silence for a moment, as if words were superfluous things.
"I have been almost wild, sweetheart,"--Halsey's voice. "Why didn't you trust me, and send for me before?"
"It was because I couldn't trust myself," she said in a low tone.
"I am too weak to struggle to-day; oh, Halsey, how I have wanted to see you!"
There was something I did not hear, then Halsey again.
"We could go away," he was saying. "What does it matter about any one in the world but just the two of us? To be always together, like this, hand in hand; Louise--don't tell me it isn't going to be. I won't believe you."
"You don't know; you don't know," Louise repeated dully. "Halsey, I care--you know that--but--not enough to marry you."
"That is not true, Louise," he said sternly. "You can not look at me with your honest eyes and say that."
"I can not marry you," she repeated miserably. "It's bad enough, isn't it? Don't make it worse. Some day, before long, you will be glad."
"Then it is because you have never loved me." There were depths of hurt pride in his voice. "You saw how much I loved you, and you let me think you cared--for a while. No--that isn't like you, Louise. There is something you haven't told me. Is it-- because there is some one else?"
"Yes," almost inaudibly.
"Louise! Oh, I don't believe it."
"It is true," she said sadly. "Halsey, you must not try to see me again. As soon as I can, I am going away from here--where you are all so much kinder than I deserve. And whatever you hear about me, try to think as well of me as you can. I am going to marry--another man. How you must hate me--hate me!"
I could hear Halsey cross the room to the window. Then, after a pause, he went back to her again. I could hardly sit still; I wanted to go in and give her a good shaking.
"Then it's all over," he was saying with a long breath. "The plans we made together, the hopes, the--all of it--over! Well, I'll not be a baby, and I'll give you up the minute you say `I don't love you and I do love--some one else'!"
"I can not say that," she breathed, "but, very soon, I shall marry--the other man."
I could hear Halsey's low triumphant laugh.
"I defy him," he said. "Sweetheart, as long as you care for me, I am not afraid."
The wind slammed the door between the two rooms just then, and I could hear nothing more, although I moved my chair quite close. After a discreet interval, I went into the other room, and found Louise alone. She was staring with sad eyes at the cherub painted on the ceiling over the bed, and because she looked tired I did not disturb her.
CHAPTER XIV AN EGG-NOG AND A TELEGRAM
We had discovered Louise at the lodge Tuesday night. It was Wednesday I had my interview with her. Thursday and Friday were uneventful, save as they marked improvement in our patient. Gertrude spent almost all the time with her, and the two had grown to be great friends. But certain things hung over me constantly; the coroner's inquest on the death of Arnold Armstrong, to be held Saturday, and the arrival of Mrs. Armstrong and young Doctor Walker, bringing the body of the dead president of the Traders' Bank. We had not told Louise of either death.
Then, too, I was anxious about the children. With their mother's inheritance swept away in the wreck of the bank, and with their love affairs in a disastrous condition, things could scarcely be worse. Added to that, the cook and Liddy had a flare-up over the proper way to make beef-tea for Louise, and, of course, the cook left.
Mrs. Watson had been glad enough, I think, to turn Louise over to our care, and Thomas went upstairs night and morning to greet his young mistress from the doorway. Poor Thomas! He had the faculty--found still in some old negroes, who cling to the traditions of slavery days--of making his employer's interest his. It was always "we" with Thomas; I miss him sorely; pipe- smoking, obsequious, not over reliable, kindly old man!
On Thursday Mr. Harton, the Armstrongs' legal adviser, called up from town. He had been advised, he said, that Mrs. Armstrong was coming east with her husband's body and would arrive Monday. He came with some hesitation, he went on, to the fact that he had been further instructed to ask me to relinquish my lease on Sunnyside, as it was Mrs. Armstrong's desire to come directly there.
I was aghast.
"Here!" I said. "Surely you are mistaken, Mr. Harton. I should think, after--what happened here only a few days ago, she would never wish to come back."
"Nevertheless," he replied, "she is most anxious to come. This is what she says. `Use every possible means to have Sunnyside vacated. Must go there at once.'"
"Mr. Harton," I said testily, "I am not going to do anything of the kind. I and mine have suffered enough at the hands of this family. I rented the house at an exorbitant figure and I have moved out here for the summer. My city home is dismantled and in the hands of decorators. I have been here one week, during which I have had not a single night of uninterrupted sleep, and I intend to stay until I have recuperated. Moreover, if Mr. Armstrong died insolvent, as I believe was the case, his widow ought to be glad to be rid of so expensive a piece of property."
The lawyer cleared his throat.
"I am very sorry you have made this decision," he said. "Miss Innes, Mrs. Fitzhugh tells me Louise Armstrong is with you."
"She is."
"Has she been informed of this--double bereavement?"
"Not yet," I said. "She has been very ill; perhaps to-night she can be told."
"It is very sad; very sad," he said. "I have a telegram for her, Mrs. Innes. Shall I send it out?"
"Better open it and read it to me," I suggested. "If it is important, that will save time."
There was a pause while Mr. Harton opened the telegram. Then he read it slowly, judicially.
"`Watch for Nina Carrington. Home Monday. Signed F. L. W.'"
"Hum!" I said. "`Watch for Nina Carrington. Home Monday.' Very well, Mr. Harton, I will tell her, but she is not in condition to watch for any one."
"Well, Miss Innes, if you decide to--er--relinquish the lease, let me know," the lawyer said.
"I shall not relinquish it," I replied, and I imagined his irritation from the way he hung up the receiver.
I wrote the telegram down word for word, afraid to trust my memory, and decided to ask Doctor Stewart how soon Louise might be told the truth. The closing of the Traders' Bank I considered unnecessary for her to know, but the death of her stepfather and stepbrother must be broken to her soon, or she might hear it in some unexpected and shocking manner.
Doctor Stewart came about four o'clock, bringing his leather satchel into the house with a great deal of care, and opening it at the foot of the stairs to show me a dozen big yellow eggs nesting among the bottles.
"Real eggs," he said proudly. "None of your anemic store eggs, but the real thing--some of them still warm. Feel them! Egg-nog for Miss Louise."
He was beaming with satisfaction, and before he left, he insisted on going back to the pantry and making an egg-nog with his own hands. Somehow, all the time he was doing it, I had a vision of Doctor Willoughby, my nerve specialist in the city, trying to make an egg-nog. I wondered if he ever prescribed anything so plebeian--and so delicious. And while Doctor Stewart whisked the eggs he talked.
"I said to Mrs. Stewart," he confided, a little red in the face from the exertion, "after I went home the other day, that you would think me an old gossip, for saying what I did about Walker and Miss Louise."
"Nothing of the sort," I protested.
"The fact is," he went on, evidently justifying him self, "I got that piece of information just as we get a lot of things, through the kitchen end of the house. Young Walker's chauffeur--Walker's more fashionable than I am, and he goes around the country in a Stanhope car--well, his chauffeur comes to see our servant girl, and he told her the whole thing. I thought it was probable, because Walker spent a lot of time up here last summer, when the family was here, and besides, Riggs, that's Walker's man, had a very pat little story about the doctor's building a house on this property, just at the foot of the hill. The sugar, please."
The egg-nog was finished. Drop by drop the liquor had cooked the egg, and now, with a final whisk, a last toss in the shaker, it was ready, a symphony in gold and white. The doctor sniffed it.
"Real eggs, real milk, and a touch of real Kentucky whisky," he said.
He insisted on carrying it up himself, but at the foot of the stairs he paused.
"Riggs said the plans were drawn for the house," he said, harking back to the old subject. "Drawn by Huston in town. So I naturally believed him."
When the doctor came down, I was ready with a question.
"Doctor," I asked, "is there any one in the neighborhood named Carrington? Nina Carrington?"
"Carrington?" He wrinkled his forehead. "Carrington? No, I don't remember any such family. There used to be Covingtons down the creek."
"The name was Carrington," I said, and the subject lapsed.
Gertrude and Halsey went for a long walk that afternoon, and Louise slept. Time hung heavy on my hands, and I did as I had fallen into a habit of doing lately--I sat down and thought things over. One result of my meditations was that I got up suddenly and went to the telephone. I had taken the most intense dislike to this Doctor Walker, whom I had never seen, and who was being talked of in the countryside as the fiance of Louise Armstrong.
I knew Sam Huston well. There had been a time, when Sam was a good deal younger than he is now, before he had married Anne Endicott, when I knew him even better. So now I felt no hesitation in calling him over the telephone. But when his office boy had given way to his confidential clerk, and that functionary had condescended to connect his employer's desk telephone, I was somewhat at a loss as to how to begin.
"Why, how are you, Rachel?" Sam said sonorously. "Going to build that house at Rock View?" It was a twenty-year-old joke of his.
"Sometime, perhaps," I said. "Just now I want to ask you a question about something which is none of my business."
