Chapter 5

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER V

_In Which Roger Remembers a Face and Delilah Remembers a Voice--and in Which a Poem and a Pussy Cat Play an Important Part._

Since the night of his arrival, Roger had not intruded upon the family circle. He had read hostility in Barry's eyes as the boy had looked up at him; and Mary, in spite of her friendliness, had forgotten that he was in the house! Well, they had set the pace, and he would keep to it. Here in the tower he could live alone--yet not be lonely, for the books were there--and they brought forgetfulness.

He took long walks through the city, now awakening to social and political activities. Back to town came the folk who had fled from the summer heat; back came the members of House and of Senate, streaming in from North, South, East and West for the coming Congress. Back came the office-seekers and the pathetic patient group whose claims were waiting for the passage of some impossible bill.

There came, too, the sightseers and trippers, sweeping from one end of the town to the other, climbing the dome of the Capitol, walking down the steps of the Monument, venturing into the White House, piloted through the Bureau where the money is made, riding on "rubber-neck wagons," sailing about in taxis, stampeding Mt. Vernon, bombarding Fort Myer, and doing it all gloriously under golden November skies.

And because of the sightseers and statesmen, and the folk who had been away for the summer, the shops began to take on beauty. Up F Street and around Fourteenth into H swept the eager procession, and all the windows were abloom for them.

Roger walked, too, in the country. In other lands, or at least so their poets have it, November is the month of chill and dreariness. But to the city on the Potomac it comes with soft pink morning mists and toward sunset, with amethystine vistas. And if, beyond the city, the fields are frosted, it is frost of a feathery whiteness which melts in the glory of a warmer noon. And if the trees are bare, there is yet pale yellow under foot and pale rose, where the leaves wait for the winter winds which shall whirl them later in a mad dance like brown butterflies. And there's the green of the pines, and the flaming red of five-fingered creepers.

It was on a sunny November day, therefore, as he followed Rock Creek through the Park that Roger came to the old Mill where a little tea room supplied afternoon refreshment.

As it was far away from car lines, its patronage came largely from those who arrived in motors or on horseback, and a few courageous pedestrians.

Here Roger sat down to rest, ordering a rather substantial repast, for the long walk had made him hungry.

It was while he waited that a big car arrived with five passengers. He recognized Porter Bigelow at once, and there were besides two older men and two young women.

The taller of the two young women had eyes that roved. She had blue black hair, and she wore black--a small black hat with a thin curved plume, and a tailored suit cut on lines which accentuated her height and slenderness. Her furs were of leopard skins. Her cheeks were touched with high color under her veil.

The other girl had also dark hair. But she was small and bird-like. From head to foot she was in a deep dark pink that, in the wool of her coat and the chiffon of her veil, gave back the hue of the rose which was pinned to her muff.

But it was on the girl in black that Roger fixed his eyes. Where had he seen her?

They chose a table near him, and passed within the touch of his hand. Porter did not recognize him. The tall man in the old overcoat and soft hat was not linked in his memory with that moment of meeting in Mary's dining-room.

"Everybody mixes up our names, Porter," the girl with the rose was saying as they sat down; "the girls did at school, didn't they, Lilah?"

"Yes," the girl in black did not need many words with her eyes to talk for her.

"Was it big Lilah and little Leila?" Porter asked.

"No," the dark eyes above the leopard muff widened and held his gaze. "It was dear Leila, and dreadful Lilah. I used to shock them, you know."

The three men laughed. "What did you do?" demanded Porter, leaning forward a little.

Men always leaned toward Delilah Jeliffe. She drew them even while she repelled.

"I smoked cigarettes, for one thing," she said; "everybody does it now. But then--I came near being expelled for it."

The little rose girl broke in hotly. "I think it is horrid still, Lilah," she said.

Lilah smiled and shrugged. "But that wasn't the worst. One day--I eloped."

She was making them all listen. The old men and the young one, and the man at the other table.

"I eloped with a boy from Prep. He was nineteen, and I was two years younger. We started by moonlight in Romeo's motor car--it was great fun. But the clergyman wouldn't marry us. I think he guessed that we were a pair of kiddies from school--and he scolded us and sent me back in a taxi----"

The tall, thin old gentleman was protesting. "My dear----"

"Oh, you didn't know, Daddy darling," she said. "I got back before I was discovered, and let myself in by the door I had unlocked. But I couldn't keep it from the girls--it was such fun to make them--shiver."

"And what became of Romeo?" Porter asked.

"He found another Juliet--a lovely little blonde and they are living happy ever after."

Leila's eyes were round. "But I don't see," she began.

"Of course you don't, duckie. To me, the whole thing was an adventure along the road--to you, it would have been a heart-break."

Her words came clearly to Roger. That, then, was what love meant to some women--an adventure along the road. One man served for pleasuring, until at some curve in the highway she met another.

Lilah was challenging her audience. "And now you see why I was dreadful Lilah. I fit the name they had for me, don't I?"

Her question was put at Porter, and he answered it. "It is women who set the pace for us," he said; "if they adventure, we venture. If they lead, we follow."

General Dick broke in. With his halo of white hair and his pink face, he looked like an indignant cherub. "The way you young people treat serious subjects is appalling;" then he felt his little daughter's hand upon his arm.

"Lilah is always saying things that she doesn't mean, Dad. Please don't take her seriously."

"Nobody takes me seriously," said Lilah, "and that's why nobody knows me as I really am."

"I know you," said her father, "and you're like a little mare that I used to drive out on the ranch. As long as I'd let her have her head, she was lovely. But let me try to curb her, and she'd kick over the traces."

They all laughed at that; then their tea came, and a great plate of toast, and the conversation grew intermittent and less interesting.

Yet the man at the other table had his attention again arrested when Lilah said to Porter, as she drew on her gloves:

"We are invited to Mary Ballard's for Thanksgiving, and you're to be there."

"Yes--mother and father are going South, so I can escape the family feast."

"Mary Ballard is--charming----" It was said tentatively, with an upward sweep of her lashes.

But Porter did not answer; and as he stood behind her chair, there was a deeper flush on his florid cheeks. Mary's name he held in his heart. It was rarely on his lips.

Mary had not wanted Delilah and her father for Thanksgiving. "But we can't have Leila and the General without them," she said to Barry, after a conversation with Leila over the telephone, "and it wouldn't seem like Thanksgiving without the Dicks."

"Delilah," said Barry, comfortably, "is good fun. I'm glad she is coming."

"She may be good fun," said Mary, slowly, "but she isn't--our kind."

"Leila said that to me," Barry told her. "I don't quite see what you girls mean."

"Well, you wouldn't," Mary agreed; "men don't see. But I should think when you look at Leila you'd know the difference. Leila is like a little wild rose, and Delilah Jeliffe is a--tulip."

"I like tulips," murmured Barry, audaciously.

Mary laughed. What was the use? Barry was Barry. And Delilah Jeliffe would flit in and out of his life as other girls had flitted; but always there would be for him--Leila.

"If you were a woman," she said, "you'd know by her clothes, and the pink of her cheeks, and by the way she does her hair--she's just a little too much of--everything--Barry."

"There's just enough of Delilah Jeliffe," said Barry, "to keep a man guessing."

"Guessing what?" Mary demanded with a spark in her eyes.

"Oh, just guessing," easily.

"Whether she likes you?"

Barry nodded.

"But why should you want to know, Barry? You're not in love with her."

His blue eyes danced. "Love hasn't anything to do with it, little solemn sister; it's just in the--game."

Later they had a tilt over inviting Mary's lodger.

"It seems so inhospitable to let him spend the day up there alone."

"I don't see how he could possibly expect to dine with us," Barry said, hotly. "You don't know anything about him, Mary. And I agree with Porter--a man's bank reference isn't sufficient for social recognition. And anyhow he may not have the right kind of clothes."

"We are to have dinner at three o'clock," she said, "just as mother always had it on Thanksgiving Day. If you don't want me to ask Roger Poole, I won't. But I think you are an awful snob, Barry."

Her eyes were blazing.

"Now what have I done to deserve that?" her brother demanded.

"You haven't treated him civilly," Mary said. "In a sense he's a guest in our house, and you haven't been up to his rooms since he came--and he's a gentleman."

"How do you know?"

"Because I do."

"Yet the other day you hinted that Delilah Jeliffe wasn't a lady, not in your sense of the word--and that I couldn't see the difference because was a man. I'll let you have your opinion of Delilah Jeliffe if you'll let me have mine of Roger Poole."

So Mary compromised by having Roger down for the evening. "We shall be just a family party for dinner," she said. "But later, we are asking some others for candle-lighting time. We want everybody to come prepared to tell a story or recite, or to sing, or play--in the dark at first, and then with the candles."

His pride urged him to refuse--to spurn this offer of hospitality from the girl who had once forgotten that he was in the house!

But as he stood there on the threshold of the Tower Rooms, her smile seemed to draw him, her voice called him, and he was young--and desperately lonely.

So as he dressed carefully on Thanksgiving afternoon, he had a sense of exhilaration. For one night he would let himself go. He would be himself. No one should snub him. Snubs came from self-consciousness--he who was above them need not see them.

When at last he entered the drawing-room, it was unillumined except for the flickering flame of a fire of oak logs. The guests, assembling wraith-like among the shadows, were given, each, an unlighted candle.

Roger found a place in a big chair beside the piano, and sat there alone, interested and curious. And presently Pittiwitz, stealing toward the hearth, arched her back under his hand, and he reached down and lifted her to his knee, where she stretched herself, sphinx-like, her amber eyes shining in the dusk.

With the last guest seated, Barry stood before them, and gave the key to the situation.

"Everybody is to light a candle with some stunt," he explained. "You know the idea. All of you have some parlor tricks, and you're to show them off."

There were no immediate volunteers, so Barry pounced on Leila.

"You begin," he said, and drew her into the circle of the firelight.

She looked very childish and sweet as she stood there with her unlighted candle, and sang a lullaby. Mary Ballard played her accompaniment softly, sitting so near to Roger in his dim corner that the folds of her velvet gown swept his foot.

And when the song was finished, Leila touched a match to her candle and stood on tiptoe to set it on the corner of the mantel, where it glimmered bravely.

General Dick and Mr. Jeliffe came next. Solemnly they placed two cushions on the hearth-rug, solemnly they knelt thereon, facing each other. Then intently and conscientiously they played the old game of "Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold." The General's fat hands met Mr. Jeliffe's thin ones alternately and in unison. Not a mistake did they make, and, ending out of breath, the General found it hard to rise, and had to be picked by Porter, like a plump feather pillow.

And now the candles were three!

Then Barry and Delilah danced, a dance which they had practiced together. It had in it just a hint of wildness, and just a hint of sophistication, and Delilah in her dress of sapphire chiffon, with its flaring tunic of silver net, seemed in the nebulous light like some strange bird of the night.

And now the candles were five!

Following, Leila went to the piano, and Porter and Mary gave a minuet. They had learned it at dancing-school, and it had been years since they had danced it. But they did it very well; Porter's somewhat stiff bearing accorded with its stateliness, and Mary, having added to her green velvet gown a little Juliet cap of lace and a lace fan, showed the radiant, almost boyish beauty which had charmed Roger on the night of the wedding.

His pulses throbbed as he watched her. They were a well-matched pair, this young millionaire and the pretty maid. And as their orderly steps went through the dance, so would their orderly lives, if they married, continue to the end. But what could Porter Bigelow teach Mary Ballard of the things which touch the stars?

And now the candles were seven! And the spirit of the carnival was upon the company. Song was followed by story, and story by song--until at last the room seemed to swim in a golden mist.

And through that mist Mary saw Roger Poole! He was leaning forward a little, and there was about him the air of a man who waited.

She spoke impetuously.

"Mr. Poole," she said, "please----"

There was not a trace of awkwardness, not a hint of self-consciousness in his manner as he answered her.

"May I sit here?" he asked. "You see, my pussy cat holds me, and as I shall tell you about a cat, she gives the touch of local color."

And then he began, his right hand resting on the gray cat's head, his left upon his knee.

He used no gestures, yet as he went on, the room became still with the stillness of a captured audience. Here was no stumbling elocution, but a controlled and perfect method, backed by a voice which soared and sang and throbbed and thrilled--the voice either of a great orator, or of a great actor.

The story that he told was of Whittington and his cat. But it was not the old nursery rhyme. He gave it as it is written by one of England's younger poets. Since he lacked the time for it all, he sketched the theme, rounding it out here and there with a verse--and it seemed to Mary that, as he spoke, all the bells of London boomed!

"'_Flos Mercatorum_,' moaned the bell of All Hallowes,
'There was he an orphan, O, a little lad, alone!'
'Then we all sang,' echoed happy St. Saviour's,
'Called him and lured him, and made him our own.'"

And now they saw the little lad stealing toward the big city, saw all the color and glow as he entered upon its enchantment, saw his meeting with the green-gowned Alice, saw him cold and hungry, faint and footsore, saw him aswoon on a door-step.

"'Alice,' roared a voice, and then, O like a lilied angel,
Leaning from the lighted door, a fair face unafraid,
Leaning over Red Rose Lane, O, leaning out of Paradise
Drooped the sudden glory of his green-gowned maid!"

Touching now a lighter note, his voice laughed through the lovely lines; of the ship which was to sail beyond the world; of how each man staked such small wealth as he possessed; "for in those days Marchaunt adventurers shared with their prentices the happy chance of each new venture."

But Whittington had nothing to give. "Not a groat," he tells sweet Alice. "I staked my last groat in a cat!"

"'Ay, but we need a cat,'
The Captain said. So when the painted ship
Sailed through a golden sunrise down the Thames,
A gray tail waved upon the misty poop,
And Whittington had his venture on the seas!"

The ringing words brought tumultuous applause. Pittiwitz, startled, sat up and blinked. People bent to each other, asking: "Who is this Roger Poole?" Under his breath Barry was saying, boyishly, "Gee!" He might still wonder about Mary's lodger, he would never again look down on him. And Delilah Jeliffe sitting next to Barry murmured, "I've heard that voice before--but where?"

Again the bells boomed as the story swept on to the fortune which came to the prentice lad--the price paid for his cat in Barbary by a king whose house was rich in gems but sorely plagued with rats and mice.

Then Whittington's offer of his wealth to Alice, her refusal, and so--to the end.

"'I know a way,' said the Bell of St. Martin's.
'Tell it and be quick,' laughed the prentices below!
'Whittington shall marry her, marry her, marry her!
Peal for a wedding,' said the Big Bell of Bow."

Roger stopped there, and with Pittiwitz in his arms, rose to light his candle. All about him people were saying things, but their words seemed to come to him through a beating darkness. There was only one face--Mary's, and she was leaning toward him, or was it above him? "It was wonderful," she said.

"It is a great poem."

"I don't mean that--it was the way you--gave it."

Outwardly calm, he carried his candle and set it in its place.

Then he came back to Mary--Mary with the shining eyes. This was his night! "You liked it, then?"

For a moment she did not speak, then she said again, "It was wonderful."

There were other people about them now, and Roger met them with the ease of a man of the world. Even Barry had to admit that his manners were irreproachable, and his clothes. As for his looks, he was not to be matched with Mary's auburn Apollo--one cannot compare a royal stag and a tawny-maned lion!

During the rest of the program, Roger sat enthroned at Mary's side, and listened. He watched the candles, an increasing row of little pointed lights. He went down to supper, and again sat beside Mary--and knew not what he ate. He saw Porter's hot eyes upon him. He knew that to-morrow he must doff his honors and be as he had been before. However, "who knows but the world may end to-night," he told himself, desperately.

Thus he played with Fate, and Fate, turning the tables, brought him at last to Delilah Jeliffe as the guests were saying "good-bye."

"Somewhere I've heard your voice," she said with the upsweep of her lashes. "It isn't the kind that one is likely to forget."

"Yet you have forgotten," he parried.

"I shall remember," she said. "I want to remember--and I shall want to hear it again."

He shook his head. "It was my--swan song----"

"Why?"

He shrugged. "One isn't always in the mood----"

And now it was she who shook her head. "It isn't a mood with you, it's your life."

She had him there, so he carried the conversation lightly to another topic. "I had not thought to give Whittington until I saw Pittiwitz."

"And Mary's green gown?"

Again he parried. "It was dark. I could not see the color of her gown."

"But 'love has eyes.'" The words were light and she meant them lightly. And she went away laughing.

But Roger did not laugh.

And when Mary came to look for him he was gone.

And up-stairs, his evening stripped of its glamour, he told himself that he had been a fool! The world would _not_ end to-night. He had to live the appointed length of his days, through all the dreary years. _

Read next: Chapter 6

Read previous: Chapter 4

Table of content of Contrary Mary


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book