CHAPTER X
Barry had murmured something about "rush of work at the office" when hecame in a few minutes late for Mrs. Burgoyne's dinner, but as theevening wore on, he seemed in no hurry to depart. Sidney was delightedto see him really in his element with the Von Praags, father and son,the awakened expression that was so becoming to him on his face, andhis curiously complex arguments stirring the old man over and overagain to laughter. She had been vexed at herself for feeling a littleshyness when he first came in; the unfamiliar evening dress and thegravity of his handsome face had made him seem almost a stranger, butthis wore off, and after the other guests had gone these four still satlaughing and talking like the best of old friends together.
When the Von Praags had gone upstairs, she walked with him to theporch, and they stood at the top of the steps for a moment, the richscent of the climbing LaMarque and Banksia roses heavy about them, andthe dark starry arch of the sky above. Sidney, a little tired, butpleased with her dinner and her guests, and ready for a breath of thesweet summer night before going upstairs, was confused by having herheart suddenly begin to thump again. She looked at Barry, his figurelost in the shadow, only his face dimly visible in the starlight, andsome feeling, new, young, terrifying, and yet infinitely delicious,rushed over her. She might have been a girl of seventeen instead of asober woman fifteen years older, with wifehood, and motherhood, andwidowhood all behind her.
"A wonderful night!" said Barry, looking down at the dark mass oftree-tops that almost hid the town, and at the rising circle of shadowsthat was the hills.
"And a good place to be, Santa Paloma," Sidney added, contentedly."It's my captured dream, my own home and garden!" With her head restingagainst one of the pillars of the porch, her eyes dreamily moving fromthe hills to the sky and over the quiet woods, she went onthoughtfully: "You know I never had a home, Barry; and when I visitedhere, I began to realize what I was missing. How I longed for SantaPaloma, the creek, and the woods, and my little sunny room after I wentaway! But even when I was eighteen, and we took a house in Washington,what could I do? I 'came out,' you know. I loved gowns and partiesthen, as I hope the girls will some day; but I knew all the while itwasn't living." She paused, but Barry did not speak. "And, then, beforeI was twenty, I was married," Sidney went on presently, "and we startedoff for St. Petersburg. And after that, for years and years, I posedfor dressmakers; I went the round of jewelers, and milliners, andmanicures; I wrote notes and paid calls. I let one strange woman comein every day and wash my hands for me, and another wash my hair, and athird dress me! I let men--who were in the business simply to makemoney, and who knew how to do it!--tell me that my furs must be recut,or changed, and my jewels reset, and my wardrobe restocked and myfurniture carried away and replaced. And in the cities we lived in it'shorrifying to see how women slave, and toil, and worry to keep up. Halfthe women I knew were sick over debts and the necessity for more debts.I felt like saying, with Carlyle, 'Your chaos-ships must excuse me';I'm going back to Santa Paloma, to wear my things as long as they arewhole and comfortable, and do what I want to do with my spare time!"
"You missed your playtime," Barry said; "now you make the most of it."
"Oh, no!" she answered, giving him a glimpse of serious eyes in thehalf-dark, "playtime doesn't come back. But, at least, I know what Iwant to do, and it will be more fun than any play. One of the wisestmen I ever knew set me thinking of these things. He's a sculptor, agreat sculptor, and he lives in an olive garden in Italy, and eats whathis peasants eat, and befriends them, and stands for their babies inbaptism, and sits with them when they're dying. My father and I visitedhim about two years ago, and one day when he and I were taking a tramp,I suddenly burst out that I envied him. I wanted to live in an olivegarden, too, and wear faded blue clothes, and eat grapes, and trampabout the hills. He said very simply that he had worked for twentyyears to do it. 'You see, I'm a rich man,' he said, 'and it seems thatone must be rich in this world before one dare be poor from choice. Icouldn't do this if people didn't know that I could have an apartmentin Paris, and servants, and motor-cars, and all the rest of it. Itwould hurt my daughters and distress my friends. There are hundreds andthousands of unhappy people in the world who can't afford to be poor,and if ever you get a chance, you try it. You'll never be rich again.'So I wrote him about a month ago that I had found MY olive garden,"finished Sidney contentedly, "and was enjoying it."
"Captain Burgoyne was older than you, Sid?" Barry questioned. "Wouldn'the have loved this sort of life?"
"Twenty years older, yes; but he wouldn't have lived here for one DAY!"she answered vivaciously. "He was a diplomat, a courtier to hisfinger-tips. He was born to the atmosphere of hothouse flowers, andsalons, and delightful little drawing-room plots and gossip. He lovedpolitics, and power, and women in full dress, and men with orders. Ofcourse I was very new to it all, but he liked to spoil me, draw me out.If it hadn't been for his accident, I never would have grown up at all,I dare say. As it was, I was more like his mother. We went toWashington for the season, New York for the opera, England for autumnvisits, Paris for the spring: I loved to make him happy, Barry, and hewasn't happy except when we were going, going, going. He wasexceptionally popular; he had exceptional friends, and he couldn't goanywhere without me. My babies were with his mother--"
She paused, turning a white rose between her fingers. "And afterwards,"she said presently, "there was Father. And Father never would spend twonights in the same place if he could help it."
"I wasn't drawn back here as you were," said Barry thoughtfully, "Iliked New York; I could have made good there if I'd had a chance. Itmade me sick to give it up, then; but lately I've been feelingdifferently. A newspaper's a pretty influential thing, wherever it is.I've been thinking about that clubhouse plan of yours; I wish to theLord that we could do something for those poor kids over there. You'reright. Those girls have rotten homes. The whole family gathers in theparlor right after dinner. Pa takes his shoes off, and props his socksup before the stove; Ma begins to hear a kid his spelling; and otherkids start the graphophone, and Aggie is expected to ask her young manto walk right in. So after that she meets him in the street, and thegirls begin to talk about Aggie."
"Oh, Barry, I'm so glad you're interested!" Standing a step above him,Sidney's ardent face was very close to his own. "Of course we can doit," she said.
"We!" he echoed almost bitterly. "YOU'LL do it; you're the one--" Hebroke off with a short, embarrassed laugh. "I was going to cut thatsort of thing out," he said gruffly, "but all roads lead to Rome, itseems. I can't talk to you five minutes without--and I've got to go. Isaid I'd look in at the office."
"You seem to be afraid to be friendly lately, Barry," said Mrs.Burgoyne in a hurt voice, flinging away the rose she had been holding,"but don't you think our friendship means something to me, too? I don'tlike you to talk as if I did all the giving and you all the taking. Idon't know how the girls and I would get along without your advice andhelp here at the Hall. I think," her voice broke into a troubled laugh,"I think you forget that the quality of friendship is not strained."
"Sidney," he said with sudden resolution, turning to face her bravely,"I can't be just friends with you. You're so much the finest, so muchthe best--" He left the sentence unfinished, and began again: "You havea hundred men friends; you can't realize what you mean to me. You--butyou know what you are, and I'm the editor of a mortgaged country paper,a man who has made a mess of things, who can't take care of his kid, orhimself, on his job without help--"
"Barry--" she began breathlessly, but he interrupted her.
"Listen to me," he said huskily, taking both her warm hands in his, "Iwant to tell you something. Say that I WAS weak enough to forget allthat, your money and my poverty, your life and my life, everything thatputs you as far above me as the moon and stars; say that I could dothat--although I hope it's not true--even then--even then I'm not free,Sidney. There is Hetty, you know; there is Billy's mother--"
There was a silence. Sidney s
lowly freed her hands, laid one upon herheart as unconsciously as a hurt child, and the other upon hisshoulder. Her troubled eyes searched his face.
"Barry," she said with a little effort, "have I been mistaken inthinking Billy's mother was dead?"
"Everyone thinks so," he answered with a quick rush of words thatshowed how great the relief of speech was. "Even up in Hetty's hometown, Plumas, they think so. I wrote home that Hetty had left me, andthey drew their own conclusions. It was natural enough; she was neverstrong. She was always restless and unhappy, wanted to go on the stage.She did go on the stage, you know; her mother advised it, and she--justleft me. We were in New York, then; Bill was a little shaver; I washaving a hard time with a new job. It was an awful time! After a fewmonths I brought Bill back here--he wasn't very well--and then I foundthat everyone thought Hetty was dead. Then her mother wrote me, andsaid that Hetty had taken a stage-name, and begged me to let people goon thinking she was dead, and, more for the kid's sake than Hetty's, Ilet things stand. But Hetty's in California now; she and her motherlive in San Francisco; she is still studying singing, I believe. Shegets the rent from two flats I have there. But she never writes. Andthat," he finished grimly, "is the last chapter of my history."
Sidney still stood close to him, earnest, fragrant, lovely, in herwhite gown. And even above the troubled tumult of his thoughts Barryhad time to think how honest, how unaffected she was, to stand so,making no attempt to disguise the confusion in her own mind. For a longtime there was no sound but the vague stir of the night about them, thefaint breath of some wandering breeze, the rustling flight of somesmall animal in the dark, the far-hushed, village sounds.
"Thank you, Barry," Sidney said at length. "I'm sorry. I am glad youtold me. Good-night."
"Good-night," he said almost inaudibly. He ran down the steps andplunged into the dark avenue without a backward look. Sidney turnedslowly, and slowly entered the dimly lighted hall, and shut the door.
The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne Page 10
