The Strange Proposal (18 page)

The girls trooped off cheerfully, and Mary Elizabeth led them to an upper row of bathhouses off the upper back piazza, and there was much fun and laughter getting arrayed in the old-fashioned bathing costumes.

“Girls, I’ve found a peach!” cried out Cissy Ward. “Black, with sleeves to the wrist and a full kilted skirt. And stockings to wear with it, black stockings, as I live! Bloomers, too, that come to the knee. I’m wearing this one, girls, and I’ll be sure to drown, and all the rest of the crowd will have to dive for me and bring me up. Just you wait till you see me. Here’s a sunbonnet, too! What luck. The vintage of 1875!”

The morning passed quickly, Mary Elizabeth having a time of her own, which became almost a race, trying to keep herself in a crowd so as not to let Boothby Farwell isolate her for a private lecture.

She was relieved indeed when the bell rang loud and clear from the front porch as a signal to them to come back and dress, and they swarmed back through the hot sand, laughing and shaking briny drops from their voluminous garments, all talking at once—all except Boothby Farwell, who was trying to show Mary Elizabeth how hurt and angry he was.

B
oothby Farwell tried to walk back with Mary Elizabeth, but she eluded him three times and dashed ahead to speak to somebody else, and at last he gave up and sulked behind the crowd.

When they all were dressed and back on the piazza again they found there were little tables scattered about and pleasant chairs beside them, enough for everybody. The tables were set with spotless white linen squares and everything needful in the way of dishes and silver. There was a plate of salad, cool and inviting, at every place. Mary Elizabeth gave a sigh of relief. Susan and Sam had done wonders.

They were no sooner seated than Sam marched in with a tray of plates, the appetizing odor of fried fish spicing the air and whetting appetites already keen by the plunge into the sea.

Big reserve platters of fish and quaint linen-lined baskets of hot biscuits appeared as soon as there was need of them. Pickles and cheese went the rounds, and approval ran high.

“Say, this is great! You can’t take Elizabeth off her guard! She’s always prepared for an unexpected crowd!” They called out for more butter and to have their glasses of iced coffee replenished again and again.

Sam, going about with trays and pitchers, waiting gravely upon the guests, had the air of an elderly host who disapproved of the company but nevertheless desired to stuff them to their capacity. After the super strawberries and cream and sponge cake were finished with more iced coffee, the little tables disappeared as if by magic, and Sam was seen to saunter by in a brilliant red bathing suit, going in the direction of the beach.

“What about a little drink, Tally?” called out Boothby Farwell as Sam stepped noiselessly by the piazza on the thick turf of the lawn. Sam grinned on the off-side of his mouth. Only he knew that there was no drink. He had carefully investigated while the crowd were swimming in the morning, had dexterously opened each bottle stowed in the cars and sent the contents gurgling harmlessly down the drain behind the house, filled the bottles with good honest water from the hose faucet, cleverly replaced the stoppers, and gone on his way rejoicing in silent revenge for a lost morning. He had silenced his conscience by telling it that he did it so there wouldn’t be any funny business to annoy his cousin, in case Tally Randall took a little too much. Sam was a clever lad. And so he stalked sternly down to the water, dived out into the waves, and planned to be a good way from shore and duck under if anybody came after him to visit a just punishment upon him.

But it happened that Tally and Boothby returned from their visit to the car with empty hands.

“There’s been a mistake in that case of liquor,” announced Boothby in annoyance. “They must have given us a case of bottles that were not properly inspected. I can’t understand it. There’s nothing but water in the rest of them. I can’t understand it. The bottles we opened on the way down seemed all right, didn’t they, girls?”

“They certainly did!” clamored the girls. “Has somebody been tampering with them?” They looked at Mary Elizabeth. “How about it, Mary Beth? What kind of servants do you keep about the place?”

Mary Elizabeth hid a startled look in her eyes with a smile.

“Absolutely impossible!” she said. “Frank and Susan are ardent prohibitionists. And nobody from outside could get in the gate without ringing the servants’ bell.” But Mary Elizabeth’s eyes rested meditatively on a bright spot of red darting among the white-crested waves.

“Well, we’ll have to report this when we get back to the city,” said Boothby with annoyance. “They certainly must have made a mistake and given us a broken case. That makes it very awkward. We can’t get anything worth drinking this side of Allenby’s Lodge, and that’s quite out of our way. We’ll have to be starting pretty soon if we must go that far. Come, Elizabeth, change into something for evening and come with us. We’re not going to let you off. We’ve had a royal time and a delicious lunch, but we came down to get you, and we don’t mean to leave you behind! Get down to the basement and give your orders to your electrician if you must, but make it snappy! We ought to be moving out of here in half an hour if we mean to make the Crestmont Inn in time for an eight o’clock dinner, and we oughtn’t to be later than that, for there are special attractions there all the latter part of the evening that we don’t want to miss.”

Mary Elizabeth recalled her eyes from the bobbing red bathing suit and set her lips sweetly but firmly.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” she said, “but it is absolutely impossible. I have other plans!”

Boothby Farwell flashed her a look of displeasure, but his firmly set lips showed he had no intention of giving up, and presently he asked her to show him about the house and grounds. The whole company started out together to wander about the lovely grounds, which though not extensive, had a sweet quaintness about the shaded walks and neatly kept drives and garden groups of perennials that at least made it an excuse for a walk.

Mary Elizabeth tried to make this an affair of the whole company, but Boothby Farwell drew her away from the group to a vista that had a view straight to the sea. He began to urge her once more to marry him, even taking out that gorgeous diamond and begging her to let him place it upon her finger. But something seemed to have changed within Mary Elizabeth’s mind. The ring no longer drew her. The prospect of a leisurely life of pleasure in Boothby Farwell’s company, drifting about the world wherever an attraction was offered, no longer seemed to her possible even of consideration. Finally she looked at him steadily, giving him that clear, frank gaze that she so seldom gave to any but those who knew her well.

“I can’t marry you, Boothby, not
ever
,” she said. “I’m sorry you feel the way you do about it. I’m sorry I didn’t know sooner myself, although you’ll have to own that I never gave you encouragement. But I know that I shall never change about this, and I wish that you would promise me to put the whole thing out of your mind finally and never speak to me about it again.”

The man looked at her sternly, deeply offended.

“You are going a little too far, Elizabeth,” he said sternly. “I have come a long way today to get you, and you refuse to go with me. Now you are trying to put off our marriage again, and the time has come when I must refuse you. I insist that you come out in the open and acknowledge our engagement and that you set a near date for our marriage. I am not willing to be played with any longer.”

Mary Elizabeth was white with annoyance, and there were dangerous lights in her eyes.

“Engagement?” she said in astonishment. “There has never been any engagement between us!”

“You wore my ring!” challenged the man.

“For one brief hour,” said the girl. “I am not sure it was even so long. I put it on as you asked in the letter you sent with the ring, as an experiment to see how it would feel to wear it. That was what you asked. I never really expected to wear it longer than that evening, but I did as you requested, put it on and tried honestly in my heart to think how it would seem to have it belong to me, with all that it would mean if I should accept it. And I found”—Mary Elizabeth’s eyes softened with a memory that still seemed like a fairy dream—“I found that it was quite impossible. As soon as I was back in the car I pulled off my glove and removed it. Boothby, you and I were never engaged, and you know it perfectly well. You know that I have always refused to even consider such a thing. We have been friends. Just good friends. But if you will not put this thing out of your mind, if you still go on insisting that I shall marry you—well, we shall have to cease to be even friends.”

“Nonsense!” said the man, with a sneer on his lips. “You don’t mean that! You don’t suppose for a minute that I am going to take this seriously!”

Mary Elizabeth lifted her chin a little and looked at him haughtily, her lips closed in a thin, firm line. She said no word, but there was battle in her eyes. Before her steady gaze the man’s cold eyes shifted almost uneasily at last, and he said, his tone still angry, “You act exactly like a kitten playing with a costly crystal ball.”

“You being the ball?” asked Mary Elizabeth and suddenly laughed, uncontrollably.

The man’s face flushed angrily.

“Or else,” he added with a sneer on his lips, “like a naughty woman who is playing with another man!”

At that Mary Elizabeth flashed him a cutting glance of scorn.

“That will be about all!” she said coldly and got up to go.

“No, that is not all, Elizabeth!” said the man, as if he had the right to rule over her. “I do not propose to give you up to any other man, no matter who he is, whether friend, fiancé, or husband. I always get what I want, and I never give up what I choose to keep. You will find it will not be easy to get away from me. And there are more ways than one to carry out that promise. Everyone has a weak spot somewhere.”

Mary Elizabeth looked at him for a moment, and a procession of emotions swept over her face, the final look being utter contempt. And she said, in a clear, cold voice, “If I had needed anything further to make me know that I would rather be lying dead than marry you, you have furnished it in that remark!” And she marched away from him and went into the house.

The other guests were gathering again to the piazza, sitting about smoking, laughing, beginning to be a little bored and quite thirsty, but Mary Elizabeth was in the house telephoning to a carpenter. They could hear her quite distinctly from the booth in the hall, where she had purposely left the door open a crack. She was arranging with the carpenter to come and adjust the garage door and to be there early the next morning. They ceased their indifference and looked at one another inquiringly. They looked out toward the rustic gazebo where their hostess had been seated but a moment since with Boothby Farwell and found nothing but a rustic seat smothered with summer roses. Boothby Farwell was not in sight. He presently came around the corner of the house from the direction of where the cars had been parked. He was frowning, his eyes still filled with fury.

“What has become of Elizabeth?” he asked one of the girls.

“She just went into the house,” said Cissy, watching him curiously. “She seems to be talking to a carpenter. Isn’t she going with us?”

But just then Mary Elizabeth came out, a cool little smile on her lips and in her eyes. She had gained control of herself again, but she did not look at Boothby Farwell as he stood there cold and forbidding, eyeing her with retribution plainly written on his handsome face.

“It is time we left,” he said haughtily to his party. “Get your belongings. Tally and I’ll have the cars around here at once! We haven’t any time to waste if we want to be up the coast in time for the performance!”

He turned on his heel and marched around the house, out of sight.

“Of all the grouches!” cried out Cissy. “Do let’s hurry and get the dear baby a drink! That’s what’s the matter, of course! He won’t rest till he’s had all he wants! Liz’beth, aren’t you really going with us? Oh, why not? You’ll miss the time of your life. Come on and be a sport! I’ve got two evening frocks along, if you haven’t your togs down here. I didn’t know which I liked best so I brought both. You can have your choice! Come on and play the game!”

Mary Elizabeth gave them a bright little enigmatic smile and shook her head.

“I really couldn’t,” she said cheerfully, “though it’s darling of you to be so generous.”

“You better run along, Cis, and get your hat, or Farwell will bite when he sees you’re not ready!” admonished Tally, whirling his car around the corner of the house and coming to a noisy stop.

There was a scurrying of feet up the stairs, a quick powdering of noses and adjusting of smart, silly little hats, all the girls talking at once, pitying Mary Elizabeth, gushing over the nice lunch and the swim, and then a fluttering downstairs again, a clamoring and laughter as they adjusted themselves in the cars.

But Boothby Farwell did not come up on the porch again. He did not bid his hostess good-bye, nor say he had had a good time, not even in the modern patter of the day did he do the courteous thing. He stood dourly in the driveway assisting the ladies into the cars, but he did not once turn his eyes toward Mary Elizabeth until they were driving away. Then he turned and gave her such a look of menace and hate as she would not soon forget. It was like a threat.

But Mary Elizabeth kept her lovely color, the shine of her eyes, the serene smile of her lips, until the cars had swept away around the curve of the drive, out the big iron gate, up the coast road, and disappeared like two wild specks in the distance. Then she suddenly dropped limply in one of the porch rockers, put her burning face down in her cold hands, and began to laugh.

She laughed until the tears began to come, and then, lifting her face to brush them away, she became aware of a stubby young figure in a wet red bathing suit, with dripping hair and a look of terror on his face.