The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne
Page 19
CHAPTER XIX
Barry went straight up to the Hall, but Sidney was not there. Joannaand Ellen, busily murmuring over "Flower Ladies" on the wide terracesteps, told him that Mother was to be late to supper, and, withobviously forced hospitality and one eye upon their little families ofinverted roses and hollyhocks, asked him to wait. Barry thanked them,but couldn't wait.
He went like a man in a dream down River Street, past gardens thatglowed with fragrant beauty, and under the great trees and the warm,sunset sky. And what a good world it seemed to be alive in, and what afriendly village in which to find work and love and content. A dozenreturning householders, stopping at their gates, wanted the news of hisventure, a dozen freshly-clad, interested women, watering lawns in theshade, called out to wish him good fortune. And always, before hiseyes, the thought of the vanished millions danced like a star. She wasnot infinitely removed, she was not set apart by great fortune, she wasonly the sweetest and best of women, to be wooed and won like anyother. He ran upstairs and flung open the door of the little bare newoffice of the MAIL, like an impetuous boy. There was no one there. Buta wide white hat with a yellow rose pinned on it hung above the new oakdesk in the corner, and his heart rose at the sight. His own desk hadan improvised drop light hung over it; he lowered the typewriter fromhis cramped arm upon a mass of clippings and notes. Beyond this roomwas the great bare loft, where two or three oily men were still toilingin the fading light over the establishing of the old STAR press. Sasheshad been taken from one of the big windows to admit the entrance of theheavier parts; thick pulley ropes dangled at the sill. Great unopenedbundles of gray paper filled the center of the floor, a slim amusedyouth was putting the finishing touches to a telephone on the wall, andSidney, bare-headed, very business-like and keenly interested, waswatching everybody and making suggestions. She greeted Barry with acheerful wave of the hand.
"There you are!" she said, relievedly. "Come and see what you think ofthis. Do you know this office is going to be much nicer than the oldone? How goes everything with you?"
"Like lightning!" he answered. "At this rate, there's nothing to it atall. Have the press boys showed up yet?"
"They are over at the hotel, getting their dinners," she explained."And we have borrowed lamps from the hotel to use here this evening.Did you hear that Martin, of the Press, you know, has offered to sendover the A.P. news as fast as it comes in? Isn't that very decent ofhim? Here's Miss Porter's stuff."
She sat down, and began to assort papers on her desk, quite absorbed inwhat she was doing. Barry, at his own desk, opened and shut a drawer ortwo noisily, but he was really watching her, with a thumping heart.Watching the bare brown head, the lowered lashes, the mouth that movedoccasionally in time with her busy thoughts--
Suddenly she looked up, and their eyes met.
Without the faintest consciousness of what he did, Barry crossed thefloor between them, and as, on an equally unconscious impulse, shestood up, paling and breathless, he laid his hand over hers on thelittered desk, and they stood so, staring at each other, the deskbetween them.
"Sidney," he said incoherently, "who--where--where did your father'smoney go--who got it?"
She looked at him in utter bewilderment.
"Where did WHAT--father's money? Who got it? Are you crazy, Barry?" shestammered.
"Ah, Sidney, tell me! Did it come to you?"
"Why--why--" She seemed suddenly to understand that there was somereason for the question, and answered quite readily: "It belonged to myfather's first wife, Barry, most of it. And it went to her daughters,my step-sisters, they are older than I and both married--"
"Then you're NOT worth eight million dollars?"
"I--? Why, you know I'm not!" Her eyes were at their widest. "Who eversaid I was? _I_ never said so!"
"But everyone in town thinks so!" Barry's great sigh of relief camefrom his very soul.
Sidney, pale before, grew very red. She freed her hands, and sat down.
"Well, they are very silly, then!" she said, almost crossly. And as thethought expanded, she added, "But I don't see how anyone COULD! Theymust have thought my letting them help me out with the Flower Show andbegging for the Old Paloma girls was a nice piece of affectation! If Ihad eight million dollars, or one million, don't you suppose I'd beDOING something, instead of puttering away with just the beginning ofthings!" The annoyed color deepened. "I hope you're mistaken, Barry,"said she. "Why didn't you set them right?"
"I! Why, I thought so too!"
"Oh, Barry! What a hypocrite you must have thought me!" She buried herrosy face in her hand for a moment. Presently she rushed on, halfindignantly, "--With all my talk about the sinfulness of Americanwomen, who persistently attempt a scheme of living that is far beyondtheir incomes! And talking of the needs of the poor all over the world,with all that money lying idle!"
"I thought of it chiefly as an absolute and immovable barrier betweenus," Barry said honestly, "and that was as far as my thinking went."
Her eyes met his with that curious courage she had when a difficultmoment had to be faced.
"There is a more serious barrier than that between us," she remindedhim gravely.
"Hetty!" he said stupidly. "But I TOLD you--"
But he stopped short, realizing that he had not yet told her, andrather at a loss.
"You didn't tell me anything," she said, eyeing him steadily.
"Why," Barry's tone was much lower, "I meant to tell you first of all,but--you know what a day I have had! It seems impossible that I onlyleft San Francisco this morning."
He brought his chair from his own desk, and sat opposite her, and,while the summer twilight outside deepened into dusk, unmindful oftime, he went over the pitiful little story. Sidney listened, herserious eyes never leaving his face, her fine hands locked idly beforeher. The telephone boy and the movers had gone now, and there wassilence all about.
"You have suffered enough, Barry; thank God it is all over!" she said,at the end, "and we know," she went on, with one of her rarerevelations of the spiritual deeps that lay so close to the surface ofher life, "we know that she is safe and satisfied at last, in Hiscare." For a moment her absent eyes seemed to fathom far spaces. Barryabruptly broke the silence.
"For one year, Sidney," he said, in a purposeful, steady voice that wasnew to her, and that brought her eyes, almost startled, to his face,"for one year I'm going to show you what I can do. In that time theMail will be where it was before the fire, if all goes well. And then--"
"Then--" she said, a little unsteadily, rising and gathering hat andgloves together, "then you shall come to me and tell me anything youlike! But--but not now! All this is so new and so strange--"
"Ah, but Sidney!" he pleaded, taking her hands again, "mayn't I speakof it just this one day, and then never again? Let me think for thiswhole year that PERHAPS you will marry a country editor, and that weshall spend the rest of our lives together, writing and planning, andtramping through the woods, and picnicking with the kiddies on theriver, and giving Christmas parties for every little rag-tag andbob-tail in Old Paloma!"
"But you don't want to settle down in this stupid village," she laughedtremulously, tears on her lashes, "at the ugly old Hall, and amongthese superficial empty-headed women?"
"Just here," he said, smiling at his own words, "in the sweetest placein the world, among the best neighbors! I never want to go anywhereelse. Our friends are here, our work is here--"
"And we are here!" she finished it for him, laughing. Barry, with agreat rising breath, put his arms about the white figure, and crushedher to him, and Sidney laid her hand on his shoulder, and raised herface honestly for his first kiss.
"And now let me go home to my neglected girls," she said, after aninterval. "You have a busy night ahead of you, and your press boys willbe here any minute."
But first she took a sheet of yellow copy paper, and wrote on it, "Oneyear of silence. August thirtieth to August thirtieth." "Is thisinclusive?" she asked, looking up.
&
nbsp; "Exclusive," said Barry, firmly.
"Exclusive," she echoed obediently. And when she had added the word,she folded the sheet and gave it to Barry. "There is a little reminderfor you," said she.
Barry went down to the street door with her, to watch her starthomeward in the sweet summer darkness.
"Oh, one more thing I meant to say," she said, as they stood on theplatform of what had been the old station, "I don't know why I haven'tsaid it already, or why you haven't."
"And that is, Madam--?" he asked attentively.
"It's just this," she swayed a little nearer to him--her laughing voicewas no more than a whisper. "I love you, Barry!"
"Haven't I said that?" he asked a little hoarsely.
"Not yet."
"Then I say it," he answered steadily, "I love you, my darling!"
"Oh, not here, Barry--in the street!" was Mrs. Burgoyne's next remark.
But there was no moon, and no witnesses but the blank walls andshuttered windows of neighboring storehouses. And the silent year hadnot, after all, fairly begun.