John heard little of the solemn ceremony. He hardly glanced at his daughter and her distinguished bridegroom. He looked fixedly at his guests, and saw his own triumph in their polite and envious faces. It was strange then, that the old sickness assailed him in malignant intensity. And this happened whenever he caught the glassy and smiling eye of Mr. Bob Wilkins.
He saw the distinguished faces of Rufus’ father and mother and relatives. He saw all that he had gained, not by ambition, not by a lust for power or money. But only by hatred. The pain in his head increased to frightful proportions. Mr. Wilkins, as if he knew everything, increased the wideness of his smile.
The rest of the day passed like an evil dream for John, too brilliant, too sickening, too noisy. By the time his daughter and her new husband had departed on their honeymoon, he was desperately ill, and went to his rooms.
It was there that Lilybelle found him, lying across his bed. She said nothing. But she slipped about the room softly, lowering blinds against the late afternoon sun. John seemed unaware of her presence.
She finally returned to him, and silently helped him undress. He submitted to her ministrations. She asked no questions. She brought him a glass of cold punch, plumped up his pillows, and assisted him under the cool sheets.
He reached up for her hand, smiled painfully, and as if ashamed. He put her rough kind palm under his cheek and closed his eyes. He slept. Lilybelle stood patiently beside him until she was certain that he was asleep. Then she bent over and kissed his cheek. There were tears on her face.
CHAPTER 41
In the cool green light of late April, Adelaide was recalled from her hated school to attend the wedding of her sister, Louisa, to Mr. Patrick Brogan.
It was also Louisa’s seventeenth birthday, and so the occasion for a double celebration. There was less confusion about this wedding than there had been at Lavinia’s, for Louisa was more calm, more authoritative, more assured. She had also decided on a less lavish affair, though with much more taste.
John’s consent, for all his reluctant liking for young Brogan, was not easily obtained at the last. But after a long talk with Patrick, anent the religious matter, he consented. There were to be two brief ceremonies, first, by the Bishop, and then in the study of a Catholic priest. John permitted the latter, only after many tears on the part of Louisa, and pleadings by Lilybelle, and demands by Lavinia. He thought the second ceremony degrading and insulting, and was quite open in his opinions.
Patrick, who had no affection for the paving business of his father, and no particular aptitude for politics, that last and most effulent refuge of the Irish scoundrel, had shown considerable desire to enter the enterprises of his future father-in-law. This gave John secret satisfaction. He consulted long and earnestly with Mr. Wilkins, who assured him that the acquisition of another intelligent young man into the firm would “do it good.”
“Now the Brogan lad,” said Mr. Wilkins. “It’ll give new life to the business. Mr. Hastings is clever, and all that, and does a good job. But we need imagination, Johnnie. And Brogan is one as ’as imagination. A lad after me own heart.”
“He’s a rascal,” said John, surlily.
Mr. Wilkins beamed with his old sunniness. “That’s it, Johnnie, that’s it! You’ve got to ’ave rascals these days, or get your throat cut all proper.”
After the ceremony, Lilybelle suddenly had a mysterious attack of hysterics and great grief, something which she had never betrayed before. Nothing would console her for the loss of her “lasses.” Finally, after much impatient urging by John, she confessed that she would literally die if her last little lass were sent back to school. John was obdurate for a while, but he could not endure Lilybelle’s loud wailings and sobbings. It was finally agreed that Adelaide was to remain at home, and have her education completed by a female tutor. Extensive search was made, and all applicants rejected. For Lilybelle, no doubt after subtle hints on the part of Miss Beardsley, finally suggested to her husband that that eminent and erudite lady would be “just the thing for little Addy.”
So, Miss Beardsley, after she had sternly “resisted” all pleadings on the part of her old and beloved pupil, finally condescended to “consider” the matter. Then she came to Lilybelle and severely told her that it was only because she felt it was her duty that she would accept the position. “The girl is most gauche and awkward and immune to education,” she said. “Besides, I am so fond of you, Lilybelle, and I cannot, I simply cannot, refuse to render you this service.”
Adelaide, had she been consulted, would have passionately refused the favour of being educated by her ancient enemy. But she was not consulted. The onerousness of her new teacher’s presence in her home was compensated for by her release from the detested school.
There was a coolness and narrowness in the girl which precluded her from warm and wide friendships, and those easy relationships which make of existence a pleasant and sunny thing, if casual and meaningless. It was in her nature to love very few, but she loved them with, an intensity and depth which were almost grim, and sombrely passionate. Life, indeed, for Adelaide, was a grave and momentous matter, not to be regarded with light smoothness and cheer. She had an immense feeling of responsibility, duty and honour, attributes of those of her temperament, and if she lacked robust humour, she possessed a wry subtlety and hidden wit.
She had never loved, or even liked her sisters, and this in part was the reason for their aversion to her. For it was impossible for any one to guess Adelaide’s true depths of character unless she first loved them. Even then, it was not an easy thing.
When Adelaide had been but a baby, she had understood all about Lilybelle. It did not matter that her mother was stupid and illiterate, graceless and clumsy and vulgar. For, to Adelaide, everything could be forgiven if the other was kind, tender, sympathetic and honest. Lilybelle had true goodness, and for those who were good and pure of heart Adelaide had nothing but adoration and love.
While still very young, she had come to worship her father, for she, of all others except, strangely, Mr. Wilkins, knew that he had no slynesses, no real brutalities or cruelties, no hypocrisies or voracities, no reasonless savageries. She knew, too, that he had not been able to resist circumstance, which had wounded him beyond healing, and if, even as a child, she had thought this weak, she had also thought it tragic. Out of her early pity, she had come to love him passionately, with an incredible depth and devotion and protectiveness. She saw that no one really loved him except herself and her mother.
Now that Lavinia and Louisa were gone, Adelaide began to bloom, to expand. She exhibited a benign gentleness of disposition. She gained flesh, and colour. Her laughter was heard quite frequently about the great and echoing mansion. The thick lashes did not fall so heavily over her brown eyes; her manner was less restrained. Moreover, her silences were less evident, and sometimes she would chat quite readily and volubly to her mother and Mrs. Bowden. Only when she was in the schoolroom with Miss Beardsley did she become again that silent, grim and impassive girl which the noble lady found hateful and unendurable.
May came, sweet and warm and fragrant, and Adelaide felt an increasing peace in herself. It was when she was feeling happiest that the blow fell.
Since the departure of his daughters, (whom he believed loved him passionately) John had become increasingly restless and irascible and disconsolate. The mansion became hateful to him, and he stayed away more and more. He missed his daughters; he missed their laughter, their beauty, their freshness. He felt a deep resentment against the young men excitement, the flutter of their pretty gowns, their jokes and who had taken them away, and so displayed to them, in his offices, an irritability and unreasonableness which the astute Rufus Hastings was not long in analysing.
“The old man misses his daughters,” he said, to Patrick Brogan. “He’ll not have them away. There’s something unhealthy in his feeling for them, and nothing complimentary to us. I’d say he resents us as rivals, who have won out against his superio
r attractions. If it goes on much longer, he’ll be our enemy, and what will happen to us then? With the matters we have in mind,” he added, with an expressionless wink at his brother-in-law.
Patrick Brogan, who was exuberant and heartily simple of temperament, for all his cunning and agreeable duplicity, was puzzled. He could not understand the implications behind Rufus’ words. But he did know that John was daily becoming more sullen and resistive to suggestions, that he sometimes eyed his daughters’ husbands with furtive hatred and resentment. Matters were not proceeding in the offices with that ease and delightful progress which Patrick had anticipated, and hence his perplexity. Being Irish, he might be a plotter or a schemer, but there was little dirtiness in his mind. So he said: “What would you suggest, Rufe?”
Rufus pretended to give the matter deep consideration and thoughtfulness. He pursed his thin and livid mouth, and narrowed his slits of green eyes. In the meantime. Patrick studied him cunningly, with a half smile. The young Irishman was not capable of virulent and unremitting hatreds; his temperament was too full of humour, and he had an innate laziness which precluded him from sustained enmities. Nevertheless, he was no fool, and was quite aware of the disguised implacability and rapacity of his brother-in-law. On the surface, they appeared great friends and confidants. Rufus had apparently overcome his aversion for the low birth and antecedents of Louisa’s husband, and they worked together in charming amiability and efficiency, each recognizing the abilities of the other, and planning to use those abilities. No longer did Rufus condescend to Patrick. In the first place, that would have been impolitic under the circumstances, and in the second place, Patrick had a disconcerting habit of being loudly amused by such condescensions. Moreover, Patrick was of compelling handsomeness, and of commanding height and build, quite casting the dun and aristocratic Rufus Hastings into the shade.
Rufus, then, might cast his plotting nets with dexterity, but Patrick saw all the throws, and discerned, under the surface, the shadows of the fish which his astute brother-in-law had in mind to catch. He began to smile.
He waited while Rufus affected to give the matter close and serious thought. He was not surprised when Rufus sighed resignedly, and said, with a humorous shrug: “I presume the only thing I can do is to consent to return to that mausoleum on Fifth Avenue with Lavinia. At least, for a time. I haven’t yet approached Lavinia with the idea, and I don’t doubt I will have a struggle with her. She adores our new home, and has just finished furnishing it.” He sighed again, and appealed with a wry smile to Patrick, for his sympathy.
Patrick was intensely titillated. He bit his lip to keep his smile from broadening. He even controlled himself enough so that he was able to nod sombrely, and then narrowed his little bright blue eyes and stared grimly into space.
“You’re quite right, Rufe,” he admitted, reluctantly. He pretended to hesitate. “Now that you mention it, I’ve got a thought of my own. Louisa, the little love, has been complaining of loneliness. She’s often mentioned returning home. She misses her parents. Her Papa worshipped her, you know. So, I’ll give it some thought, myself. It would be convenient for all of us, wouldn’t it?”
You filthy Irishman, thought Rufus, fixing those wicked green eyes of his on Patrick, who returned the look with bland enthusiasm and great innocence.
You dirty little Machiavelli, thought Patrick, his expression becoming smoother and more boyish each instant.
“Splendid!” cried Rufus at last, with genteel pleasure, and striking his long bloodless hands together. He allowed his pleasure and enthusiasm to make his mask-life face quite mobile and brilliant for a moment. He thrust out his hand with an affectation of generous if restrained delight. Patrick took his hand, and shook it heartily. They beamed at each other with the most engaging affection, and understood each other completely. Rufus was enraged. Patrick was highly diverted.
They had their mutual schemes, their common villainy. They had hardly become relatives through their marriages before they had begun to plot. So far, the plots were still in a very nebulous state, but the outline of them was large on the horizon. Nevertheless, though they needed each other, and the harmony and consent of each other if each was to succeed in his plots, they were mortal enemies, and each would have destroyed the other with immense satisfaction.
Rufus returned to the handsome if small house on East Ninth Street, and had a long consultation with his energetic and black-eyed wife. He told her everything, having a high opinion of her shrewdness, and her ability to visualize a situation.
“So you see, my dear,” he ended in a tone of gloomy regret, “it will be necessary, for at least a time, to return to your old home. Your father will be delighted. If we do not—and God knows I don’t wish it, myself—Pat will be there, with your sister. Now,” he continued, closely watching the dark and enraged sparkle in Lavinia’s eyes, “I have all brotherly regard for your dear sister, of course. But we must not blind ourselves to the dangers in the situation, Louisia is—er —a charming lady, who prefers herself first over any one eke, even her devoted sister. She and Patrick will be in an excellent position to influence your father, to our later detriment. I would not adore you, my love, so much, if I did not have your just interests at heart, and a passionate desire to see to it that you are not forgotten, and pushed aside by the more immediate presence of your sister in your father’s house. I am not implying that the thought originated with Louisa; I believe she is too gentle of temperament to plot and scheme to rob her beloved older sister. Females know nothing of business affairs, so how is it possible for her to originate these schemes? The fault lies with that cunning and conscienceless Irish scoundrel, Patrick Brogan. It is he who plans to do you in, and very completely, my love.”
Lavinia was so choked with rage that she could not speak for a moment, and her round and handsome face turned crimson. Rufus smiled, and shrugged sadly.
“It is not that we’d be beggars, if your father forgot us completely, my dearest one. But there is the element of justice in this case. I cannot stand by and see your interests jeopardized. Nevertheless, if you do not desire to return to your father’s house, I will accept your decision with, I confess, relief. I love our little home and our privacy too much, I am afraid.”
Then Lavinia exploded with her violent rage. She shouted: “Make your excuses for Louisa, you fool! You, like all men, are taken in nicely by large blue eyes and yellow hair and hypocritical sweetness! But I tell you, it isn’t Pat who plots all this. It is that smiling snake of a Louisa! Such a greedy baggage, you have no idea! Such a crafty scheming minx! I won’t have it, I tell you.” And she pounded her white fist on the arm of the chair. “We’ll go back. And very soon, I can promise you that!”
Then she began to smile. “Besides, it is so tedious to manage a household and dilatory and impudent servants. It will be a relief to relegate all that to Mama again.”
And Patrick said to his charming and gracious young wife: “So, my dear, you see how it is. He tried to pretend it was a disagreeable idea to him, to get on the ground floor of influence over your father. When I also suggested that we return, he could have murdered me. Indeed, if looks could have killed, you’d have been a widow by now. What do you say, then?”
Young Mrs. Brogan considered it all with the greatest care and thoroughness. She said at last, with meditative slowness: “It is not Lavinia, of course. Not that she is burdened by too many scruples, where her own advantage is concerned. But she has that loud and vulgar sort of temper which is neither clever nor malevolent. We have always been fond of each other, and she is really quite generous. I have no doubt that she would have repudiated, with much noise, any suggestion from Rufus that she enter into any conspiracy with him to rob me. In fact,” Louisa added with an amused smile, “she would have doubtless rushed to me and told me all about it, with considerable anger. She never could keep her own counsel.”
Ruus knew this also, so he took the precaution of warning Lavinia that she was not, by the slightest
smile or word or flicker of eye, to allow her sister and Patrick to suspect that he, Rufus, had detected their “schemes.” “Let them spin their rope until it is long enough to hang them,” he advised.
So it was, then, that John was approached by the two young gentlemen, who assured him, in an effective chorus, that their wives were quite going into a decline over their grief at being separated from their beloved father.
“Louisa scarcely touches her plate,” said Patrick, gravely.
“Lavinia is so irritable that I dare not invite guests,” added Rufus.
To less wretched young rascals, John’s sudden expression of joy and delight would have seemed pathetic. But these two merely exchanged glances of contemptuous amusement and congratulations. Neither of the two gentlemen was excessively happy in the situation. Rufus had intended that he and Lavinia, alone, return to John’s house. When Patrick had also expressed his intentions to do likewise, Rufus had been infuriated, and had dared not retract his decision. Had he not been justly afraid of Patrick, he would have retreated, and remained in his own home. But he dared not do this. Patrick, too, was in the same position. So now they were caught in their own onerous plottings, and neither had the advantage. By nature, they preferred their own establishments. But their own scheming had forced them to abandon those establishments, without compensating advantages over each other.
Lilybelle, too, was overcome wth delight at the return of her “lasses.” She gave up her own spacious and fine apartments to Lavinia and Rufus, and took much smaller and less convenient quarters on the third floor. John, in his generous pleasure, gave up his apartments to Louisa and Patrick, and contented himself with a single large room at the rear of the mansion. Lavinia expressed a desire for a sewing-room of her own, apart from the community sewing-room which she had shared with her sisters and mother, So Adelaide was compelled to surrender her pleasant bedroom to Lavinia. The two young matrons had become fond of their own personal maids, and so these dependents shared Adelaide’s sitting-room. Adelaide was moved up to the fourth floor, where the servants, grumbling, were obliged to give up their sitting-room to be made into a bedroom for the girl. Lavinia, then, had four excellent rooms of her own, Louisa and Patrick three enormous rooms, not counting Adelaide’s sitting-room which had been converted into a chamber for the new smart French maids.
The Turnbulls Page 48
