The Street of the City (12 page)

She would go to some man of importance in the defense world and find out just how much Val’s talk really meant. Of course there was some other reason. Couldn’t it possibly be a girl? Another girl than herself? She couldn’t believe that. If she chose to run after a man and honor him with her smiles, of course he would prefer herself to any other girl. That went without saying. She had grown up in that belief and had never seen reason to doubt it. Well, if it was another girl, she must find out the girl and deal with her. There was usually a way. But of course the main thing was to make herself important to the man. She would have to work fast if she had only this one evening to start with, and that cluttered up with music, besides. He would likely be stuffy about talking while the music was going on, too. Well, she would have to do her best. She must just keep him on her mind until she found the way to conquer him.

It was the next day when she was talking with one of her friends at a committee meeting that she began her work. Deborah Hand was one of those girls who always asked questions and managed to find out a great deal about this and that, so Marietta began to talk about the old crowd, but didn’t mention Val Willoughby herself. She knew better than to begin that way if she wanted to find out anything really worthwhile about a person, and also retain her own prestige and importance. But it wasn’t long before Deborah got around to thinking of him herself.

“Do you see much of Val Willoughby since he came back to our neighborhood?” she asked and fixed her keen gray eyes on Marietta knowingly. She and several others of their group had spoken of it a number of times lately, wondering if Marietta had renewed her attentions to Val and if he was succumbing nicely.

“Oh yes,” said Marietta casually, as if it were to be expected. “I see him or talk to him almost every day. He’s looking awfully well, don’t you think? But he’s so horribly busy he can hardly ever get off. Isn’t this war simply horrid, driving some of our men to the ends of the earth and keeping the rest of them so busy you can hardly get to speak with them?”

“Yes, I suppose the war is responsible for the lack of young men these days,” sighed Deborah. “Well, let us hope it will soon be over.”

“Yes, it will be a relief when it’s over,” said Marietta, “but you know I’ve been really interested in what we are all doing. It makes quite a change from the regular monotony of life. And then the uniforms are so attractive on some. I just love mine. And it’s awfully interesting to be doing something really important. Something men respect you for doing, don’t you think?”

“Oh yes,” said Deborah listlessly, “but somehow I’m not so awfully interested. I just loathe making bandages and studying all those first aid things. I never can remember whether you stand up a person who has fainted or lay them down, and it’s gruesome to have to lie down and let them bandage you up as if you had been hurt. I had to do that the last time, and I thought I should die before they finally undid me and let me act like myself. Personally I think it’s silly, don’t you? I never would even try to revive somebody who had fainted. I’d just ring the bell for my maid and make her do it, or send for a doctor and a nurse.”

“Well, you know if there was a raid you couldn’t always get your maid. She might even be hurt herself. Really I think it’s a good thing to know what to do. You could at least tell somebody else what to do.”

“I suppose you could,” said Deborah. “Well, personally I hope it’s soon over, though if the people in charge want to keep on playing the game I suppose it will last as long as they want it to. But to go back to the crowd. I’m glad Val Willoughby is looking well. I haven’t really seen him close enough to tell. Only twice skating on the river with a girl. I thought perhaps it was you till they got nearer to the house and I saw she was smaller than you. She’s a tiny little thing, graceful as a wand, and skates like a bird. Do you know who she is? They go down in the morning together and skate back around five or five-thirty. At least, I’ve seen them twice now, and they do skate divinely together. Last evening I happened to be up in our attic looking down the river at the sunset, and I saw them coming back. They went to a redbrick house on the opposite bank. I thought I’d remember to ask you the next time I saw you who the girl was.”

Marietta had fine control over her facial muscles. She never by so much as a flutter of any eyelash gave evidence that she was astonished at the news she was receiving. The smile on her face was one she often locked there on occasion, not to be lifted till called for, and she turned with imperturbable serenity upon her friend Debbie.

“Why, could it have been one of the Haversett nieces? You know they are growing up fast, and they perfectly adore their uncle Val. Even when they were almost babies they fairly dogged his steps, everywhere he went. I used to think they were a perfect nuisance, myself. You never could go anywhere with Val but they were underfoot.”

Deborah looked thoughtful.

“Oh, perhaps it was one of them,” she mused, “but—he stooped over and unfastened her skates, and she went up the steps and into that little brick house that has been empty so long. He went up the steps, too, and went in. You know someone is occupying that house now. Some working people, I suppose.”

“Oh, very likely they were going after a cleaning woman then, for her mother.”

“But I thought those nieces were off at boarding school somewhere.”

“Why, yes, they were,” said Marietta calmly, “but they often come home for the weekend, or a party here among their set, or something like that, you know.”

“Oh! Well, that might have been the explanation. But if you ask me, that girl didn’t look like either of those nieces. She seemed older, more sophisticated. Well, perhaps not sophisticated, I wouldn’t use that word for a girl that lived on that side of the river—not in a little tumble-down house like that brick one. However, I saw him go skating with her twice, and that wouldn’t be likely to happen with his nieces twice, would it, and have them stop at the same place? Well, I don’t know. I always thought Val Willoughby was a pretty decent sort of a fellow, with such an aunt and all, but of course boys do go wrong and get silly over a pretty face. Of course, I didn’t see this girl close by, and she might not be pretty at all, but I did think his attitude looked very attentive.”

“Nonsense!” said Marietta sharply. “Val Willoughby isn’t at all that sort of fellow. I know him too well. He hates anything sordid like that. I’ve heard him say so. And besides, remember how well I’ve known him since childhood. That would be practically impossible, for Val to have an affair with a common sort of girl.”

“Yes—well, I thought you knew him pretty well, and that’s why I mentioned it. I knew you would know whether it could be so or not. And then, of course, if he was tempted by some pretty face that works in his office or something, I thought perhaps we ought to rally around him and keep him out of temptation. We might get up a skating party and go down to meet him nights or something. I imagine that would drive away any little cheap girl that was attempting to interest him.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary in the least, Deb. I tell you I know Val! And anyway if one attempted to break up anything that way and take him by storm it would simply work the other way with him. We’d have to be very subtle about anything we did. He’s sharp, Val is, and he’d see right through anything like that and resent it. No, Debbie, I’m certain there’s some very simple explanation to all this. I’ll try and find out about it myself. I’m going out with him tomorrow night, and I’ll ask a few simple questions that will bring the situation out in the open. If there’s anything going on, I’ll nip it in the bud, and don’t you worry about it. I know Val too well, and he knows better than to try to deceive me. We’ve known each other too long and too well.”

“Well, I shall be just dying to find out who it was he has been skating with,” said Deborah Hand. “But I’m not so sure as you are that Val isn’t capable of a little sly flirtation now and then. That holy look he wears so much would crack sometime if he didn’t have any chance to relax now and then.”

“You’re talking as if Val were a hypocrite,” said Marietta, “and he’s anything but that. It shows you don’t know him very well.” Marietta’s tone was cold and indifferent in the extreme.

“Oh well, you needn’t take that tone, my dear,” said Deborah indignantly. “One would think it was a personal matter with you, and I never thought you cared enough for him for that.”

“Of course not,” said Marietta with contempt in her voice, “but you know really, he is a very old friend, and I don’t like to hear him maligned.”

“Well, I didn’t malign him, my dear. I just said I saw him with a strange girl and I wondered who she was. But, of course, you know Val Willoughby always was kind to every stray kitten he found in the alley. Always insisted they had a right to play with us all as much as if they were one of us. Don’t you remember that child of the scrub woman who always had to play hide and seek with us on Wednesdays because Val thought she was lonely? But you know, Marietta, that’s a dangerous position for a young man to take. If he carries that out in his life his wife will certainly have plenty of heartaches. And somebody ought to warn him. He’ll get into something very unpleasant if he doesn’t look out. A breach of promise case or something like that. You know those cabaret beauties are utterly unscrupulous.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, shut up won’t you, Debbie! I simply won’t hear you talk that way about a friend you’ve known for as many years as I have. I’m ashamed of you. Val has sense enough to look out for himself, I’m quite sure, and what’s more he’s principled against such sordid things.”

“Well, principles don’t always save people from bad breaks. I think if you’re a good friend of Val’s you ought to warn him!”

“How about doing it yourself, if you think you know so much about him? As for me, I don’t believe any such tales as you’re trying to spread, and I’d rather not talk about it any longer. Suppose you tell me what they did at the class last night. I simply couldn’t get away from home. I was waiting for a long-distance call from New York, and it didn’t come till very late. Who did they use for the victim last night? Clara? My word! She must have been a handful to roll over after they got her bandaged. Aren’t these first aid classes simply a scream? I always enjoy them, and I’m learning a lot, too.”

And so no more was said about Val Willoughby, but neither girl forgot the matter. Deborah had watched her victim sharply as she insinuated some things that she did not really know, or see; and Marietta with all her nonchalance resolved to search this matter through and find out just who that girl was—if there was really a girl. She didn’t half believe it. For Val had been known for years as the boy who never had had a crush on a girl.

Skating! Could that be where he went, that he disappeared so utterly just before closing time from his office?

And if so, could it be some secretary or some worker in his plant with whom he went up the frozen way? But she had always understood that there were no women in that plant, even as secretaries. She had made particular inquiries about that, thinking she might even apply for something herself. Not that she was fitted for anything really practical, in lines needed in an office. That was the trouble with Marietta. She thought she could succeed anywhere, just by being her lovely self, a wealthy, popular asset to any business to which she condescended to lend her exquisite presence.

But this skating girl, she really had to be tracked down and investigated. She couldn’t have any common girl poaching on her preserves, and Val certainly was that. She could remember Auntie Haversett telling her to give the dear little boy a sweetheart kiss, “Just one little sweetheart kiss, baby dear.” And she could remember the stolid look on the face of the little boy during the transaction, for even at that age Marietta registered definitely those things which had to do with her popularity. She could still remember the challenge in his angry red face after her kiss had been administered, for he had not received it graciously. Indeed he had jerked away and said, “No! No! I don’t wanta!” and he had rubbed his fat red cheek indignantly with a crumby black hand that erased even the memory of her delicate touch. So, ever since, she had been in the position of setting the seal of her rights upon the reluctant young man.

Certainly this skating girl must be investigated!

So Marietta set herself to investigate.

The little old run-down brick house! She cast an eye across the frozen river. The little brick house was over there down river from where she lived. It had been there always, but she had never given particular attention to it. It was dark now, except for a tiny blue light in the second story front window. Why should they have a light like that? A night light? Was the girl sitting up reading? But one could not read by a blue light of that sort. She must find out about this. Perhaps it was a spy who lived there and that light was a signal. Marietta had fantastic ideas sometimes, especially if someone she disliked were connected with it. If she could only prove that that girl was a spy and was trying to find out some secret from Val about his plant, her way would be clear before her. For Val was loyal to his country. She was sure he was. He wouldn’t have anything to do with a girl who was a spy, if he knew it. So she stood for a long time looking out her window and trying to think out a plot by which she could rid Val of the girl, when she didn’t even know the girl by sight yet. But underneath it was a boiling rage that Val should dare refuse to go places with her and yet take up with a girl of “this sort.” Of course she did not know just what she meant by “this sort,” as the whole thing was made of her imagination. But she decided not to let another day go by without finding out about that girl, and she spent a good deal of her brain energy planning just how she was to go about it.

In the end she decided to go to the house on one of the canvases connected with defense drives. Selling bonds! Could she get these people to feel that they must buy some bonds from her?

The Red Cross. That would be a good number to urge, and when she once got into the house she would be able to find out a lot of things. Marietta was not shy about prying into other’s affairs, especially if they belonged to what she termed “the lower classes.” And of course these people, or this girl, whoever she was, belonged to the lower classes or she wouldn’t be living in a little old ramshackle house like that. And on the “other side” of the river, too. The only thing she couldn’t seem to fathom was Val’s taking up at all with a girl from the other side of the river. He was aristocracy and had no right to as much as look at a girl from the other side of the river. Not when he had plenty of nice girls to choose from on the right side.