The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne

by Kathleen Thompson Norris

  CHAPTER XVI

  It was no pleasant prospect of a reunion at the club, or an eveningwith his old friends, that had taken Barry Valentine so suddenly to SanFrancisco, but a letter from his wife--or, rather, from his wife'smother, for Hetty herself never wrote--which had stirred a vaguedistrust and discomfort in his mind. Mrs. Scott, his mother-in-law, wasa worldly, shrewd little person, but good-hearted, and as easily movedor stirred as a child. This was one of her characteristic letters,disconnected, ill-spelled, and scrawled upon scented lavender paper.She wrote that she and Hetty were sick of San Francisco, and theywanted Barry's permission to sell the Mission Street flats thatafforded them a living, and go away once and for all. Het, her motherwrote, had had a fine offer for the houses; Barry's signature only wasneeded to close the deal.

  All this might be true; it sounded reasonable enough; but, somehow,Barry fancied that it was not true, or at least that it was only partlyso. What did Hetty want the money for, he wondered. Why should hermother reiterate so many times that if Barry for any possible reasondisapproved, he was not to give the matter another thought; they mostespecially wanted only his simple yes or no. Why this consideration?Hetty had always been persistent enough about the things she wantedbefore. "I know you would consent if you could see how our hearts areset on this," wrote Mrs. Scott, "but if you say 'no,' that ends it."

  "Sure, I'll sell," Barry said, putting the letter in his pocket. But itcame persistently between him and his work. What mischief was Hetty in,he wondered. Had some get-rich-quick shark got hold of her; it wasextremely likely. He could not shake the thought of her from his mind,her voice, her pretty, sullen little face, rose again and haunted him.What a child she had been, and what a boy he was, and how mistaken thewhole bitter experience!

  Walking home late at night, the memory of old days rode him like ahateful nightmare. He saw the little untidy flat they had had in NewYork; the white winter outside, and a deeper chill within; little Billycoughing and restless; Hetty practising her scales, and he, Barry,trying to write at one end of the dining-room table. He remembered howdisappointment and restless ambition had blotted out her fresh, babyishbeauty; how thin and sharp her voice had grown as the months went on.

  Barry tried to read, but the book became mere printed words. He wentsoftly into Billy's room, and sat down by the tumbled bed and the smallwarm sleeper. Billy, even asleep, snuggled his hand appreciatively intohis father's, and brought its little fellow to lie there too, andpushed his head up against Barry's arm.

  And there the father sat motionless, while the clock outside in thehall struck two, and three, and four. This was Hetty's baby, and wherewas Hetty? Alone with her little fretful mother, moving fromboarding-house to boarding-house. Pretty no longer, buoyed up by thehope of an operatic career no longer, pinched--as they must bepinched--in money matters.

  The thought came to him suddenly that he must see her; and though hefought it as unwelcome and distasteful, it grew rapidly into aconviction. He must see her again, must have a long talk with her, mustascertain that nothing he could do for the woman who had been his wifewas left undone. He was no longer the exacting, unsuccessful boy shehad left so unceremoniously; he was a man now, standing on his ownfeet, and with a recognized position in the community. The littlefretful baby was a well-brushed young person who attended kindergartenand Sunday School. A new era of respectability and prosperity had setin. Hetty, his newly awakened sense of justice and his newly arousedambition told him, must somehow share it. Not that there could ever bea complete reconciliation between them, but there could be good-will,there could be a readjustment and a friendlier understanding.

  The thought of Sidney came suddenly upon his idle musings with a shockthat made his heart sick. Gracious, beautiful, and fresh, although shewas older than Hetty, how far she was removed from this sordid story ofhis, this darker side of his life! Perhaps months from now, histroubled thoughts ran on, he would tell her of his visit to Hetty. Forhe had determined to visit her.

  Just at dawn he left the house and went out of his own gate. His facewas pale, his eyes deeply ringed and his head ached furiously, but itwas with a sort of content that he took his seat in the early train forSan Francisco. He sank into a reverie, head propped on hand, thatlasted until his journey was almost over; but once in the city, his olddread of seeing his wife came over him again, and it was only after aleisurely luncheon at the club that Barry took a Turk Street car to thedingy region where Hetty lived.

  The row of dirty bay-windowed houses on either side of the street, andthe dust and papers blowing about in the hot afternoon wind, somehowreminded him forcibly of old days and ways. With a sinking heart hewent up one of the flights of wooden steps and asked at the door forMrs. Valentine. A Japanese boy in his shirt-sleeves ushered him into afront room. This was evidently the "parlor"; hot sunlight streamedthrough the bay windows; there was an upright piano against the closedfolding doors, and a graphophone on a dusty cherry table; wind whinedat the window-casing; one or two big flies buzzed against the glass.

  After a while Mrs. Smiley, the widow who conducted this littleboarding-house, who was a cousin of Hetty and whom Barry had knownyears ago, came in. She was a tall, angular blonde, cheerlesslyresigned to a cheerless existence. With her came a keen-faced, freckledboy of fourteen or fifteen, with his finger still marking a place inthe book he had been reading aloud.

  Hetty and her mother were out, it appeared. Mrs. Smiley didn't thinkthey would be back to dinner; in fact, she reiterated nervously, shewas sure they wouldn't. She was extremely and maddeninglynon-committal. No, she didn't know why they wanted to sell the MissionStreet flats. She had warned them it was a silly thing to bother Barryabout it. No, she didn't know when he could see them tomorrow; sheguessed, almost any time.

  Barry went away full of uneasy suspicions, and more than ever convincedthat something was wrong. He went back again the next morning, butnobody but the Japanese boy appeared to be at home. But a visit in thelate afternoon was more successful, for he found Mrs. Smiley and thetall son again.

  "Hetty IS here, isn't she?" he burst out suddenly, in the middle of ameaningless conversation. Mrs. Smiley turned pale and tried to laugh.

  "Where else would she be?" she demanded, and she went back to herinterrupted dissertation upon the unpleasantness of several specifiedboarders then under her roof.

  "It is funny," Barry mused. "What did she say when she went out?"

  "Why--" Mrs. Smiley began uncomfortably, "But, my gracious, I wish youwould ask Aunt Ide, Barry!" she interrupted herself uncomfortably."She'll tell you. She's the one to ask." Aunt Ide was Mrs. Scott.

  "Tell me WHAT?" he persisted. "You tell me, Lulu; that's a dear."

  "Auntie 'll tell you," she repeated, adding suddenly, to the boy,"Russy, wasn't Aunt Ide in her room when you went up? You run up andsee."

  "Nome," said Russell positively; but nevertheless he went.

  "Nice kid, Lulu," said Barry in his idle way, "but he looks thin."

  "He's the finest little feller God ever sent a woman," the motheranswered with sudden passionate pride. Color leaped to her sallowcheeks. "But this house is no place for him to be cooped up reading allday," she went on in a worried tone, after a moment, "and I can't lethim run with the boys around here; it's a regular gang. I don't knowwhat I AM going to do with him. 'Tisn't as if he had a father."

  "He wouldn't like to come up to me, and get broken on the Mail?" Barryqueried in his interested way. "He'd get lots of fresh air, and hecould sleep at my house. I'll keep an eye on him, if you say so."

  "Go on the newspaper! I think he'd go crazy with joy," his mother said.Tears came into her faded eyes. "Barry, you're real good-hearted tooffer it," she said gratefully. "Of all things in the world, that's theone Russ wants to do. But won't he be in your way?"

  "He'll fit right in," Barry said. "Pack him up and send him along. Ifhe doesn't like it, I guess his mother'll let him come home."

  "Like it!" she echoed. Then in a lower tone she added, "You do
n't knowwhat a load you're taking off my mind, Barry." She paused, coloredagain, and, to his surprise, continued rapidly, with a quick glance atthe door, "Barry, I never did a thing like this before in my life, andI can't do it now. You know how much I owe Aunt Ide: she took me in,and did for me just as she did for Het, when I was a baby; she made mywedding dress, and she came right to me when Gus died, but I can't letyou go back to Santa Paloma not knowing."

  "Not knowing what?" Barry said, close upon the mystery at last.

  "You know what Aunt Ide is," Mrs. Smiley said pleadingly. "There's nota mite of harm in her, but she just--You know she'd been signingHetty's checks for a long time, Barry--"

  "Go on," Barry said, as she paused distressedly.

  "And she just went on--" Mrs. Smiley continued simply.

  "Went on WHAT?" Barry demanded.

  "After Het--went. Barry," the woman interrupted herself, "I oughtn't bethe one to tell you, but don't you see--Don't you see Het's--"

  "Dead," Barry heard his own voice say heavily. The cheap little roomseemed to be closing in about him, he gripped the back of the chair bywhich he was standing. Mrs. Smiley began to cry quietly. They stood sofor a long time.

  After a while he sat down, and she told him about it, with thatfaithfulness to inessential detail that marks her class. Barry listenedlike a man in a dream. Mrs. Smiley begged him to stay to dinner to see"Aunt Ide," but he refused, and in the gritty dusk he found himselfwalking down the street, alone in silence at last. He took a car to theocean beach, and far into the night sat on the rocks watching the darkplay of the rolling Pacific, and listening to the steady rush and fallof the water.

  The next day he saw his wife's mother, and at the sight of herfrightened, fat little face, and the sound of the high voice he knew sowell, the last shred of his anger and disgust vanished, and he couldonly pity her. He remembered how welcome she had made him to the littlecottage in Plumas, those long years ago; how she had laughed at hisyouthful appreciation of her Sunday fried chicken and cherry pie, andthe honest tears she had shed when he went, with the dimpled Hettybeside him, to tell her her daughter was won. She was Billy'sgrandmother, after all, and she had at least seen that Hetty wasprotected all through her misguided little career from the breath ofscandal, and that Hetty's last days were made comfortable and serene.He assured her gruffly that it was "all right," and she presentlybrightened, and told him through tears that he was a "king," when itwas finally arranged that she should go on drawing the rents of theMission Street property for the rest of her life. She and Mrs. Smileypersuaded him to dine with them, and he thought it quite characteristicof "Aunt Ide" to make a little occasion of it, and take them to acertain favored little French restaurant for the meal. But Mrs. Smileywas tremulous with gratitude and relief, Russell's face was radiant,his adoring eyes all for Barry, and Barry, always willing to accept asituation gracefully, really enjoyed his dinner.

  He stayed in San Francisco another day and went to Hetty's grave, highup in the Piedmont Hills, and took a long lonely tramp above thecollege town afterward. Early the next morning he started for home,fresh from a bath and a good breakfast, and feeling now, for the firsttime, that he was free, and that it was good to be free--free to workand to plan his life, and free, his innermost consciousness exulted torealize, to go to her some day, the Lady of his Heart's Desire, andtake her, with all the fragrance and beauty that were part of her, intohis arms. And oh, the happy years ahead; he seemed to feel thesweetness of spring winds blowing across them, and the glow of winterfires making them bright! What of her fabulous wealth, after all, if hecould support her as she chose to live, a simple country gentle-woman,in a little country town?

  Barry stared out at the morning fields and hills, where fog andsunshine were holding their daily battle, and his heart sang within him.

  Fog held the field at Santa Paloma when he reached it, the stationbuilding dripped somberly. Main Street was but a line of vague shapesin the mist. No grown person was in sight, but Barry was not ten feetfrom the train before a screaming horde of small boys was upon him,with shouted news in which he recognized the one word, over and over:"Fire!"

  It took him a few minutes to get the sense of what they said. He staredat them dully. But when he first repeated it to himself aloud, itseemed already old news; he felt as if he had known it for a very longtime: "The MAIL office caught fire yesterday, and the whole thing isburned to the ground."

  "Caught fire yesterday, and the whole thing is burned to the ground:yes, of course," Barry said. He was not conscious of starting for thescene, he was simply there. A fringe of idle watchers, obscured in thefog, stood about the sunken ruins of what had been the MAIL building.Barry joined them.

  He did not answer when a dozen sympathetic murmurs addressed him,because he was not conscious of hearing a single voice. He stoodsilently, looking down at the twisted great knots of metal that hadbeen the new presses, the great wave of soaked and half-burnednewspapers that had been the last issue of the MAIL. The fire had beentwenty-four hours ago, but the ruins were still smoking. Lengths ofcharred woodwork, giving forth a sickening odor, dripped water still;here and there brave little spurts of flame still sucked noisily. Atwisted typewriter stood erect in steaming ashes; a lunch-basket, witha red, fringed napkin in it, had somehow escaped with only a wetting.Barry noticed that the walls of the German bakery next door were badlysinged, that one show-window was cracked across, and that the frostedwedding-cake inside stood in a pool of dirty water.

  He was presently aware that someone was telling him that nobody was toblame. Details were volunteered, and he listened quietly, like adispassionate onlooker. "Hits you pretty hard, Barry," sympatheticvoices said.

  "Ruins me," he answered briefly.

  And it dawned upon him sickly and certainly that it was true. He wasruined now. All his hopes had been rooted here, in what was now thismass of wet ashes steaming up into the fog. Here had been his chancefor a livelihood, and a name; his chance to stand before the communityfor what was good, and strong, and helpful. He had been proud becausehis editorials were beginning to be quoted here and there; he had beenkeenly ambitious for Sidney's plans, her hopes for Old Paloma. How vainit all was now, and how preposterous it seemed that only an hour ago hehad let his thoughts of the future include her--always so far abovehim, and now so infinitely removed!

  She would be sympathetic, he knew; she would be all kindness andgenerosity. And perhaps, six months ago, he would have accepted moregenerosity from her; but Barry had found himself now, and he knew thatshe had done for him all he would let her do.

  He smiled suddenly and grimly as he remembered another bridge, justburned behind him. If he had not promised Hetty's mother that herincome should go on uninterruptedly, he might have pulled something outof this wreckage, after all. For a moment he speculated: he COULD sellthe Mission Street property now; he might even revive the MAIL, after awhile--

  But no, what was promised was promised, after all, and poor little Mrs.Scott must be left to what peace and pleasure the certainty of anincome gave her. And he must begin again, somehow, somewhere, burdenedwith a debt, burdened with a heartache, burdened with--His heart turnedwith sudden warmth to the thought of Billy; Billy at least, staunchlittle partner of so many dark days, and bright, should not be counteda burden.

  Even as he thought of his son, a small warm hand slid into his with areassuring pressure, and lie looked down to see the little figurebeside him. Moment after moment went by, timid shafts of gold sunshinewere beginning to conquer the mist now, and still father and son stoodsilent, hand in hand.