The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  "We're going to have this out," he muttered, viciously.

  Half way up she stopped.

  "You're hurting my arm."

  "You be glad I'm not breaking it for you."

  He climbed in a mounting fury. He almost threw her into her room, and closing the door, he turned the key in it. His face reminded her of her father's the night he had beaten her, and her instinct of self-preservation made her put the little table between them.

  "You lay a hand on me," she panted, "and I'll yell out the window. The police would be glad enough to have something on you, Rudolph Klein, and you know it."

  "They arrest women like you, too."

  "Don't you dare say that." And as he took a step or two toward her she retreated to the window. "You stay there, or I'll jump out of the window."

  She looked desperate enough to do it, and Rudolph hesitated.

  "He was up here. I saw him at the window. I've been trailing you all evening. Keep off that window-sill, you little fool! I'm not going to kill you. But I'm going to get him, all right, and don't you forget it."

  His milder tone and the threat frightened her more than ever. He would get Graham; he was like that. Get him in some cruel, helpless way; that was the German blood in him. She began to play for time, with instinctive cunning.

  "Listen, Rudolph," she said. "I'll tell you all about it. He did come up, but he left right away. We quarreled. He threw me over, Rudolph. That's what he did."

  Her own words reminded her of her humiliation, and tears came into her eyes.

  "He threw me over! Honest he did. That's why I threw his watch out of the window. That's straight, Rudolph. That's straight goods. I'm not lying now."

  "God!" said Rudolph. "The dirty pup. Then - then you're through with him, eh?"

  "I'm through, all right."

  Her tone carried conviction. Rudolph's face relaxed, and seeing that, she remembered her half-dressed condition.

  "Throw me that waist," she said.

  "Come around and get it."

  "Aw, Rudolph, throw it. Please!"

  "Getting modest, all at once," he jeered. But he picked it up and advanced to the table with it. As she held out her hand for it he caught her and drew her forward toward him, across the table.

  "You little devil!" he said, and kissed her.

  She submitted, because she must, but she shivered. If she was to save Graham she must play the game. And so far she was winning. She was feminine enough to know that already the thing he thought she had done was to be forgiven her. More than that, she saw a half-reluctant admiration in Rudolph's eyes, as though she had gained value, if she had lost virtue, by the fact that young Spencer had fancied her. And Rudolph's morals were the morals of many of his kind. He admired chastity in a girl, but he did not expect it.

  But she was watchful for the next move he might make. That it was not what she expected did not make it the less terrifying.

  "You get your hat and coat on."

  "I'll not do anything of the kind."

  "D'you think I'm going to leave you here, where he can come back whenever he wants to? You think again!"

  "Where are you going to take me?"

  "I'm going to take you home."

  When pleading made no impression on him, and when he refused to move without her, she threw her small wardrobe into the suitcase, and put her hat and coat on. She was past thinking, quite hopeless. She would go back, and her father would kill her, which would be the best thing anyhow; she didn't care to live.

  Rudolph had relapsed into moody silence. Down the stairs, and on the street he preceded her, contemptuously letting her trail behind. He carried her suitcase, however, and once, being insecurely fastened, it opened and bits of untidy apparel littered the pavement. He dropped the suitcase and stood by while she filled it again. The softness of that moment, when, lured by her bare arms he had kissed her, was gone.

  The night car jolted and swayed. After a time he dozed, and Anna, watching him, made an attempt at flight. He caught her on the rear platform, however, with a clutch that sickened her. The conductor eyed them with the scant curiosity of two o'clock in the morning, when all the waking world is awry.

  At last they were climbing the hill to the cottage, while behind and below them the Spencer furnaces sent out their orange and violet flames, and the roar of the blast sounded like the coming of a mighty wind.

  The cottage was dark. Rudolph put down the suitcase, and called Herman softly through his hands. Above they could hear him moving, and his angry voice came through the open window.

  "What you want?"

  "Come down. It's Rudolph."

  But when he turned Anna was lying in a dead faint on the garden path, a crumpled little heap of blissful forgetfulness. When Herman came down, it was to find Rudolph standing over her, the suitcase still in his hand, and an ugly scowl on his face.

  "Well, I got her," he said. "She's scared, that's all." He prodded her with his foot, but she did not move, and Herman bent down with his candle.

  He straightened.

  "Bring her in," he said, and led the way into the house. When Rudolph staggered in, with Anna in his arms, he found Herman waiting and fingering the leather strap.

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  Audrey had found something to do at last. It was Captain Sloane who had given her the idea.

  "You would make a great hit, Audrey," he had said. "It's your voice, you know. There's something about it - well, you know the effect it always has on me. No? All right, I'll be good."

  But she had carried the idea home with her, and had proceeded, with her customary decision, to act on it.

  Then, one day in May, she was surprised by a visit from Delight Haverford. She had come home, tired and rather depressed, to find the Haverford car at the door, and Delight waiting for her in her sitting-room.

  Audrey's acquaintance with Delight had been rather fragmentary, but it had covered a long stretch of time. So, if she was surprised, it was not greatly when Delight suddenly kissed her. She saw then that the girl had brought her some spring flowers, and the little tribute touched her.

  "What a nice child you are!" she said, and standing before the mirror proceeded to take off her hat. Before her she could see the reflection of Delight's face, and her own tired, slightly haggard eyes.

  "And how unutterably old you make me look!" she added, smiling.

  "You are too lovely for words, Mrs. Valentine."

  Audrey patted her hair into order, and continued her smiling inspection of the girl's face.

  "And now we have exchanged compliments," she said, "we will have some tea, and then you shall tell me what you are so excited about."

  "I am excited; I - "

  "Let's have the tea first."

  Audrey's housekeeping was still rather casual. Tidiness of Natalie's meticulous order would always be beyond her, but after certain frantic searches for what was needed, she made some delicious tea.

  "Order was left out of me, somehow," she complained. "Or else things move about when I'm away. I'm sure it is that, because I certainly never put the sugar behind my best hat. Now - let's have it."

  Delight was only playing with her tea. She flushed delicately, and put the cup down.

  "I was in the crowd this morning," she said.

  "In the crowd? Oh, my crowd!"

  "Yes."

  "I see," said Audrey, thoughtfully. "I make a dreadful speech, you know."

  "I thought you were wonderful. And, when those men promised to enlist, I cried. I was horribly ashamed. But you were splendid."

  "I wonder!" said Audrey, growing grave. Delight was astonished to see that there were tears in her eyes. "I do it because it is all I can do, and of course they must go. But some times at night - you see, my dear, some of them are going to be killed. I am urging them to go, but the better the day I have had, the less I sleep at night."

  There was a little pause. Delight was thinking desperately of something to say.

  "But you d
idn't come to talk about me, did you?"

  "Partly. And partly about myself. I want to do something, Mrs. Valentine. I can drive a car, but not very well. I don't know a thing about the engine. And I can nurse a little. I like nursing."

  Audrey studied her face. It seemed to her sad beyond words that this young girl, who should have had only happiness, was facing the horrors of what would probably be a long war. It was the young who paid the price of war, in death, in empty years. Already the careless gayety of their lives was gone. For the dream futures they had planned they had now to substitute long waiting; for happiness, service.

  "The Red Cross is going to send canteen workers to France. You might do that."

  "If I only could! But I can't leave mother. Not entirely. Father is going. He wants to go and fight, but I'm afraid they won't take him. He'll go as a chaplain, anyhow. But he's perfectly helpless, you know. Mother says she is going to tie his overshoes around his neck."

  "I'll see if I can think of something for you, Delight. There's one thing in my mind. There are to be little houses built in all the new training-camps for officers, and they are to be managed by women. They are to serve food - sandwiches and coffee, I think. They may be even more pretentious. I don't know, but I'll find out."

  "I'll do anything," said Delight, and got up. It was then that Audrey realized that there was something more to the visit than had appeared, for Delight, ready to go, hesitated.

  "There is something else, Mrs. Valentine," she said, rather slowly. "What would you do if a young man wanted to go into the service, and somebody held him back?"

  "His own people?"

  "His mother. And - a girl."

  "I would think the army is well off without him."

  Delight flushed painfully.

  "Perhaps," she admitted. "But is it right just to let it go at that? If you like people, it seems wrong just to stand by and let others ruin their lives for them."

  "Only very weak men let women ruin their lives."

  But already she began to understand the situation.

  "There's a weakness that is only a sort of habit. It may come from not wanting to hurt somebody." Delight was pulling nervously at her gloves. "And there is this to be said, too. If there is what you call weakness, wouldn't the army be good for it? It makes men, some times, doesn't it?"

  For a sickening moment, Audrey thought of Chris. War had made Chris, but it had killed him, too.

  "Have you thought of one thing?" she asked. "That in trying to make this young man, whoever it is, he may be hurt, or even worse?"

  "He would have to take his chance, like the rest."

  She went a little pale, however. Audrey impulsively put an arm around her.

  "And this - woman is the little long-legged girl who used to give signals to her father when the sermon was too long! Now - what can I do about this youth who can't make up his own mind?"

  "You can talk to his mother."

  "If I know his mother - ? and I think I do - it won't do the slightest good."

  "Then his father. You are great friends, aren't you?"

  Even this indirect mention of Clayton made Audrey's hands tremble. She put them behind her.

  "We are very good friends," she said. But Delight was too engrossed to notice the deeper note in her voice. "I'll see what I can do. But don't count on me too much. You spoke of a girl. I suppose I know who it is."

  "Probably. It is Marion Hayden. He is engaged to her."

  And again Audrey marveled at her poise, for Delight's little tragedy was clear by that time. Clear, and very sad.

  "I can't imagine his really being in love with her."

  "But he must be. They are engaged."

  Audrey smiled at the simple philosophy of nineteen, smiled and was extremely touched. How brave the child was! Audrey's own courageous heart rather swelled in admiration.

  But after Delight had gone, she felt depressed again, and very tired. How badly these things were handled! How strange it was that love so often brought suffering! Great loves were almost always great tragedies. Perhaps it was because love was never truly great until the element of sacrifice entered into it.

  Her own high courage failed her somewhat. During these recent days when, struggling against very real stage fright, she made her husky, wholly earnest but rather nervous little appeals to the crowds before the enlisting stations, she got along bravely enough during the day. But the night found her sad, unutterably depressed.

  At these times she was haunted by a fear that persisted against all her arguments. In Washington Clayton had not looked well. He had been very tired and white, and some of his natural buoyancy seemed to have deserted him. He needed caring for, she would reflect bitterly. There should be some one to look after him. He was tired and anxious, but it took the eyes of love to see it. Natalie would never notice, and would consider it a grievance if she did. The fiercely, maternal tenderness of the childless woman for the man she loves kept her awake at night staring into the darkness and visualizing terrible things. Clayton ill, and she unable to go to him. Ill, and wanting her, and unable to ask for her.

  She was, she knew, not quite normal, but the fear gripped and held her. These big strong men, no one ever looked after them. They spent their lives caring for others, and were never cared for.

  There were times when a sort of exaltation of sacrifice kept her head high, when the thing she was forced to give up seemed trifling compared with the men and boys who, some determinedly, some sheepishly, left the crowd around the borrowed car from which she spoke, and went into the recruiting station. There was sacrifice and sacrifice, and there was some comfort in the thought that both she and Clayton were putting the happiness of others above their own.

  They had both, somehow, somewhere, missed the path. But they must never go back and try to find it.

  Delight's visit left her thoughtful. There must be some way to save Graham. She wondered how much of Clayton's weariness was due to Graham. And she wondered, too, if he knew of the talk about Natalie and Rodney Page. There was a great deal of talk. Somehow such talk cheapened his sacrifice and hers.

  Not that she believed it, or much of it. She knew how little such gossip actually meant. Practically every woman she knew, herself included, had at one time or another laid herself open to such invidious comment. They had all been idle, and they sought amusement in such spurious affairs as this, harmless in the main, but taking on the appearance of evil. That was part of the game, to appear worse than one really was. The older the woman, the more eager she was often in her clutch at the vanishing romance of youth.

  Only - it was part of the game, too, to avoid scandal. A fierce pride for Clayton's name sent the color to her face.

  On the evening after Delight's visit, she had promised to speak at a recruiting station far down-town in a crowded tenement district, and tired as she was, she took a bus and went down at seven o'clock. She was uneasy and nervous. She had not spoken in the evening before, and in all her sheltered life she had never seen the milling of a night crowd in a slum district.

  There was a wagon drawn up at the curb, and an earnest-eyed young clergyman was speaking. The crowd was attentive, mildly curious. The clergyman was emphatic without being convincing. Audrey watched the faces about her, standing in the crowd herself, and a sense of the futility of it all gripped her. All these men, and only a feeble cheer as a boy still in his teens agreed to volunteer. All this effort for such scant result, and over on the other side such dire need! But one thing cheered her. Beside her, in the crowd, a portly elderly Jew was standing with his hat in his hand, and when a man near him made some jeering comment, the Jew brought his hand down on his shoulder.

  "Be still and listen," he said. "Or else go away and allow others to listen. This is our country which calls."

  "It's amusing, isn't it?" Audrey heard a woman's voice near her, carefully inflected, slightly affected.

  "It's rather stunning, in a way. It's decorative; the white faces, and that chap in
the wagon, and the gasoline torch."

  "I'd enjoy it more if I'd had my dinner."

  The man laughed.

  "You are a most brazen combination of the mundane and the spiritual, Natalie. You are all soul - after you are fed. Come on. It's near here."

  Audrey's hands were very cold. By the movement of the crowd behind her, she knew that Natalie and Rodney were making their escape, toward food and a quiet talk in some obscure restaurant in the neighborhood. Fierce anger shook her. For this she and Clayton were giving up the only hope they had of happiness - that Natalie might carry on a cheap and stealthy flirtation.

  She made a magnificent appeal that night, and a very successful one. The lethargic crowd waked up and pressed forward. There were occasional cheers, and now and then the greater tribute of convinced silence. And on a box in the wagon the young clergyman eyed her almost wistfully. What a woman she was! With such a woman a man could live up to the best in him. Then he remembered his salary in a mission church of twelve hundred a year, and sighed.

  He gained courage, later on, and asked Audrey if she would have some coffee with him, or something to eat. She looked tired.

  "Tired!" said Audrey. "I am only tired these days when I am not working."

  "You must not use yourself up. You are too valuable to the country."

  She was very grateful. After all, what else really mattered? In a little glow she accepted his invitation.

  "Only coffee," she said. "I have had dinner. Is there any place near?"

  He piloted her through the crowd, now rapidly dispersing. Here and there some man, often in halting English, thanked her for what she had said. A woman, slightly the worse for drink, but with friendly, rather humorous eyes, put a hand on her arm.

  "You're all right, m'dear," she said. "You're the stuff. Give it to them. I wish to God I could talk. I'd tell 'em something."

  The clergyman drew her on hastily.

  In a small Italian restaurant, almost deserted, they found a table, and the clergyman ordered eggs and coffee. He was a trifle uneasy. In the wagon Audrey's plain dark clothes had deceived him. But the single pearl on her finger was very valuable. He fell to apologizing for the place.