 | IV Steadfast Falters |  |
4. IV
Notwithstanding Elizabeth's forebodings, the weeks that followed the Crosbys' move to Windy Bluff, their place at Newport, passed rapidly and almost happily for her. Of course there were times when the realization of what she had lost by her father's death overcame her with almost unbearable pain; but as day followed day she became more or less accustomed to the loneliness which at first seemed insupportable. She learned to watch the gay life about her with eyes that no longer shrank from the sight as from an overpowering light,
At first Mrs. Crosby had declined the invitations showered upon her, but by degrees she slipped back into the social swing, encouraged by the fact that Elizabeth seemed to take her going out as a matter of course. But the girl resolutely refused to enter into the pastimes of her aunt's pleasure-loving friends. She spent her time at the grand piano in the music-room, with a book on the
Her uncle and aunt treated her with affectionate consideration, not pressing her too hard when they found that she was adamant in her desire for seclusion, but making her feel that her presence was at all times a pleasure to them. It was only when Norman, after much letter-writing and telegraphing on the part of his mother, at last appeared at Windy Bluff that Mrs. Crosby interfered with the girl's wish for solitude.
"It isn't right, dear, for a girl of your age to spend so much time alone," she expostulated one afternoon when, after careful manipulation, she had succeeded in persuading Norman to ask Betty to take a sail with him in his sloop — an invitation which Betty bad politely declined. "And then, too, Betty dear, Norman is very fond of you, and I think you might try to make his vacation pleasant. It's so long since he's had a chance to get any outdoor sport, and he needs the fresh air."
So Betty pinned on a wide-brimmed hat and accompanied her cousin to the little white boat bobbing serenely on the sparkling waters of the harbor.
"Betty," said Norman, after the sails had been raised and the boat had slipped away from her moorings, "do you like that?"
He indicated the fast-retreating shore with a toss of his head.
"What?" asked Betty innocently.
"That," and again he gave the contemptuous toss.
"Do you mean Newport?"
An amused look crinkled the corners of her eyes. Norman nodded and glanced up at the white sail stretching like a great wing above them.
"I do and — I don't," replied Betty thoughtfully. "As a specimen of social life, it's perfection; as a specimen of human life, it's — " She paused, and her face assumed an expression of deep seriousness.
"Rotten!" supplemented Norman understandingly. "Just what I think. How the mater can be so daffy about it is more than I can see. Dad, too — he's not so bad, of course; but in his inmost heart, in spite of the fact that he pretends it bores him, he loves it, too. Look out! You're going to jibe!"
Betty shifted the tiller, and the boat danced along on her course, leaving two curling white waves bubbling behind her. The rush of the exhilarating air on her face, the feeling of the boat under her controlling hand, brought a bright flush to her cheeks, and at least temporarily lightened the heavy burden of her sorrow.
"Now this — this is great!" exclaimed Norman enthusiastically. "You feel as if you were doing something! Gee, Betty, it's fine having you to play with!"
In the few days he had been with them his eyes had partly lost their hunted, bloodshot look, and his pasty cheeks had begun to fill out and glow with a semblance of health.
"You're such a bully sort," he went on. "You've a way about you that gets me — as if you had plenty of ballast aboard, and a gust of wind wouldn't be apt to capsize you!"
Betty laughed. In spite of his dissipations, she was fond of her cousin, for she realized intuitively that his weakness of character was largely due to his defective bringing up.
Immersed in the social life about them, his pleasure-loving parents had left the boy to the care of servants during the early part of his life, and to even less desirable companions, most of whom were unknown to them, as the lad grew into manhood. It was hardly to be wondered at that, with plenty of money, an inherited taste for excitement, and practically no supervision or restraining influence, he should have succumbed to the temptations which surrounded him.
"I suppose it's due to father," she answered. "He was so wonderful — so keen for a good time, and yet he always seemed to know just when to stop. `Drink the top and leave the dregs,' he used to say; and, after all" — she looked brightly into the face beside her, with its weak chin and loose lips — "the top is good enough, without the nastiness of the dregs!"
"It's so hard to stop, though, when you once get started."
"I know," assented Betty gravely; "but that's where you show the stuff you're made of — whether you're just sand, or sand and cement."
She smiled gently into the boy's troubled face.
"But suppose — suppose the cement has been entirely left out of your make-up!
Norman moved restlessly and wound the sheet he held around his thin hand.
"I can't imagine any one, even if he doesn't acknowledge it, not wanting to stand up against what he knows will sooner or later be his ruin. Father used to say that life was like any other business. Everything we do goes down in the day-book on either the debit or the credit side. Every once in a while we have to balance the book to find out how we stand in our bank-account. It must be a horrid experience to find one has overdrawn!"
The boy did not reply, and kept his head resolutely turned away.
"Betty," he said at last, "if you found out that some one you thought was on the level had played you a dirty trick, what would you do?"
"Some one I really cared for?"
Betty's eyes searched his face thoughtfully. Norman nodded, his eyes still fixed on the glistening expanse of water.
"Why, I don't know, I'm sure." Betty hesitated. "You'd have to take so many things into consideration — the reason the person had for wronging you, the motives, I mean. If it were done simply to injure you, why, of course, it would be hard; but if it were the result of some overwhelming force, some terrible temptation that had swept him off his feet, that would be different, and much easier to forgive. Why do you ask?"
She looked at him curiously. Norman moistened his dry lips.
"Oh, nothing! I was just wondering," he replied evasively.
When they got back to the house they found Mr. and Mrs. Crosby on the broad veranda, Mrs. Crosby busying herself with the tea things, which had just been brought in. In their absence George Crosby had returned from a flying trip to New York.
He looked unusually worn and exhausted. In the past few weeks he had lost weight, and his skin hung loosely on his cheeks. His eyes were hollow, and unnaturally bright and restless; and he had acquired a habit of tearing stray bits of paper, which his wife found extremely trying.
"There's a letter for you on the table, Betty," remarked her aunt, after a searching glance at the faces of the two young people.
Elizabeth picked up the letter, which was addressed in Beatrix Hunnewell's handwriting, and moved toward the steps leading to the ocean path.
"No tea?" called Mrs. Crosby.
"Not this afternoon, thank you, aunt."
A little flush had crept into her face, and her eyes were luminous. She walked quickly down the gravel path to her favorite spot among the rocks and, sinking down on a smooth stone, opened the letter. It ran: DEAR BETSY:
When are you coming to us? I'm longing to see you, for I have so much to tell you that I can't very well write.
As I told you in my last letter, your friend, Fairfax Cary, has joined the club, and I'm seeing a great deal of him. We play tennis together nearly every afternoon, and he very often comes back with me to dinner. I don't know when I've met a man I admire so much. He's so entirely free from all meannesses, and has such a wonderfully broad outlook! He's coming this afternoon to take me for a ride in his new car, for he says it's too hot for me to play tennis.
I must stop now to dress. I want to look my best, for I find Fairfax very exigeant! Write soon. As ever, affectionately, TRIXIE.
As if scorched by a devastating heat, Elizabeth drooped against the rock behind her. The flush ebbed out of her face, and her eyes took on the pained look of a wounded fawn. The hand which held the letter fell into her lap, and she turned her eyes toward the harbor, where the gorgeous lights of the sunset lay reflected in molten masses of color. Great angry clouds obscured the sun, without entirely hiding it, as it sank slowly into their embrace; and a silence breathless with sinister expectancy hovered over the waters.
The scene before her accorded perfectly with Betty's mood, and a very passion of revolt seized her. Slowly her mind grasped the import of the letter. Its air of joyous possession of a new-found happiness stole over her like the insidious poison of a tropical plant, benumbing her senses, but leaving her brain alert. With it came the feeling that Trixie, in spite of her protestations of friendship, had taken advantage of her absence to appropriate that which she knew Betty prized above all else.
But did she know? A thin frown of perplexity fluttered over Betty's straight brows. Had even Betty herself known?
Scene after scene of her intercouse{sic} with Fairfax Cary sprang up vivid and lifelike before her, culminating in the hour that he had spent with her after her father's death. With a little start of surprise, she was forced to admit that even she herself had not guessed the nature of her feeling for him.
"What a fool! What a fool!" she murmured, clenching her hands impotently. "And now it's too late!"
A wild desire to test the sincerity of his promise to come to her at any time or place swept over her; but even as she planned the meeting she knew it would never take place.
For a long time she sat motionless, her pale face turned toward the fading light. Little by little the flaming brilliance softened into cool pinks and lilacs, melting at last into blue and neutral gray. And then, out of the shadows, as if hung by an invisible hand, shone the light of the evening star. Clearer and clearer it burned, with a steady effulgence that acted like balm on her wound; and at last a semblance of peace settled down upon her. With a little sigh she roused herself and walked listlessly back to the house.
In the privacy of Mrs. Crosby's boudoir a stormy scene had been taking place.
The International and Congo Rubber Company, in which, at Norman's suggestion, George Crosby had invested heavily, was not proving the gold-mine of promise. It was more like a bottomless pit which swallowed with avidity the funds fed to it, and demanded more with ever-increasing insistence. To save what he had already invested, George Crosby desperately staked all that he could lay hands on.
The last statement of the concern had been the reason for his hurried trip to New York, and the unsatisfactory conditions that he found on his arrival at the company's offices had caused his worst fears to be realized. Nearly all of Betty's fortune was already swept away.
He was pacing up and down the floor now, his face drawn, his eyes staring wildly from beneath his contracted brows. Mrs. Crosby sat tense and rigid in a big chair by the window, and her son leaned against the mantelpiece. Their faces were ghastly, and a frightened look lurked in Norman's eyes.
"George! How could you have been so foolish?" demanded his wife, her angry eyes fixed on her husband.
George Crosby turned furiously to her.
"For Heaven's sake, Maude," he exclaimed between his teeth, "try not to make it any harder for me than it already is! You know perfectly well why I did it — it was to save this young scoundrel from State's prison!" He pointed a trembling finger at Norman, who cowered under the lash of his words. "And now," he went on bitterly, "it looks as if I should have to take his place!"
"Can nothing be done?"
George Crosby spread out his hands hopelessly.
"I don't see any way out," he groaned, sinking into a deep chair.
The sight of his collapse galvanized Mrs. Crosby into action.
"Very well, then, I'll find a way!" she exclaimed grimly. "If you think I'm going to sit calmly by and accept the ruin you two men have brought on me, you have a very inadequate conception of my character. I decline to be either the wife or the mother of a jailbird!"
Both men shrank from the scorn in her voice, but neither answered her. Her husband took up an empty envelope and began feverishly tearing it to pieces, but at her "George, put that down!" he obediently laid the scraps in a neat little pile on the table at his elbow.
"How much of Randolph's money is gone?" she asked in a voice like ice.
"Practically all."
"You put everything into this rubber speculation?"
"All but the fifty thousand I had to refund the firm."
Norman shivered under the biting contempt in his father's voice and eyes.
"Well, Norman," said his mother coldly, "as far as I can see, as you are the one responsible for this catastrophe, you'll have to be the one to get us out!"
"How?" The word came in a husky whisper, barely audible.
"By marrying Betty."
Norman gave a hoarse, mirthless laugh and looked for an instant with haggard eyes into his mother's face.
"Marry Betty!" he jeered. "Why, that girl would as soon think of marrying me as
"Why?" demanded his mother.
"Why? Because she knows I'm not fit to sit in the same room with her, much less marry her!"
"How does she know? Have you been such a fool as to confide your — er — escapades to her?"
"Hardly!" A sneer curled the boy's lips.
Give me credit for some sense!"
"You haven't led us to believe you had overmuch!" retorted his mother contemptuously.
The muscles of the boy's mouth tightened, and he glared for a moment at the pitiless face below him. Then he shrugged his shoulders impatiently and returned to his moody contemplation of the rug.
"There is nothing," Mrs. Crosby went on impressively, "that a girl of Betty's temperament likes better than to reform a man. I think if you could impress on her how much her influence could do for you, you would find that she was far from averse to marrying you. I know she's extremely fond of you. In fact, she told me so only this morning."
Evidently Norman doubted the truth of his mother's words; but, taught by long experience, he refrained from arguing the point with her.
"Did you ever stop to think that it's a pretty bum deal we're giving her?" he asked grimly.
"It's no time to think of that now," answered his mother impatiently. "She will surely marry some one, and there's no reason on earth why she shouldn't be as happy with you as with any one else — that is, if you choose to make her so."
"Perhaps she would," assented the young man dubiously. "But I can't help feeling sorry for her."
"Sorry for her! Sorry for her! Naturally I'm sorry for her, too; but — how about your mother?" broke in Mrs. Crosby hotly. "Aren't you sorry for her?"
Norman was silent. He knew that even the comparatively few years he had lived had made him unfit to be the husband of any woman. Genuinely fond as he was of Elizabeth, the idea of injuring her beyond what he had already done was repellent to him, realizing as he did that even her influence could not wean him from the life that had ensnared him.
He was on the point of declining to fall in with his mother's plans when his eyes fell on the stricken figure of his father, huddled in the big chair, George Crosby's face was gray with the unearthly pallor of a mortal illness, and Norman stared at him in remorseful silence.
"All right, mother," he said huskily. "I'll do my best." He hastily left the room.
| IV Steadfast Falters | |