Ladies Must Live written by Alice Duer Miller

A >> Alice Duer Miller >> Ladies Must Live

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

"Oh, I didn't stir it!"

"What did you do?"

"You didn't tell me to stir it."

"I certainly did."

"No, you said just to watch it."

Riatt looked at her. "Well," he said, "I've heard of glances cutting
like a knife, but never stirring like a spoon. If I were a really just
man," he went on, "I'd make you eat that burnt mess for your supper, but
I'm so absurdly indulgent that I'll share some of my bacon and biscuits
with you."

His tone as well as his words were irritating to one not used to
criticism in any form.

"I don't care for that sort of joke," she said.

"I wasn't aware of having made a joke."

"I mean your attitude as if I were a child that had been naughty."

"It wouldn't be so bad if you were a child."

"You consider me to blame because that wretched cereal chose to burn?"

"Emphatically I do."

"How perfectly preposterous," said Christine, and a sense of bitter
injustice seethed within her. "Why in the world should _I_ be expected to
know how to cook?"

"I'm a little too busy at the moment to explain it to you," Riatt
answered, "but I promise to take it up with you at a later date."

There was something that sounded almost like a threat in this. She turned
away, and walking to the window stood staring out into the darkness. He
was really quite a disagreeable young man, she thought. How true it was,
that you couldn't tell what people were like when everything was going
smoothly. She wondered if he would always be like that--trying to keep
one up to one's duty and making one feel stupid and ignorant about the
merest trifles.

"Well, this rich meal is ready," he said presently.

She turned around. The table was set--she couldn't help wondering
where he had found the kitchen knives and forks--the bacon was
sizzling, the tin of biscuits open, and the coffee bubbling and
gurgling in its glass retort.

She sat down and began to eat in silence, but as she did so, she studied
him furtively. She was used to many different kinds of masculine bad
temper; her father's irritability whenever anything affected his personal
comfort: and from other men all forms of jealousy and hurt feelings. But
this stern indifference to her as a human being was something a little
different. She decided on her method.

"Oh, dear," she said, "this meal couldn't be much drearier if we were
married, could it?"

"Except," he returned, unsmilingly, "that then it would be one of a
long series."

"Not as far as I'm concerned," she answered. "I should leave you on
account of your bad temper."

"If I hadn't first left you on account of--"

"Of burning the cereal?"

"Of being so infernally irresponsible about it."

"Oh, that's the trouble, is it?" she said. "That I did not seem to care?
Well, I assure you that I don't like burnt food any better than you do,
but I have some self-control. I wouldn't spoil a whole evening just
because--" A sudden inspiration came to her. Her voice failed her, and
she hid her face in her pocket handkerchief.

Riatt leant back in his chair and looked at her, looked at least at the
back of her long neck, and the twist of her golden hair and the
occasional heave of her shoulders.

The strange and the humiliating thing was that she had just as much
effect upon him when he quite obviously knew that she was insincere.

"Why," he said gently, "are you crying? Or perhaps I ought to say, why
are you pretending to cry?"

She paid no attention to the latter part of his question.

"You're so unkind," she said, careful not to overdo a sob. "You don't
seem to understand what a terrible situation this is for me."

"In what way is it terrible?"

"Don't you know that a story like this clings to a girl as long as she
lives? That among the people I know there will always be gossip--"

"You're not serious?"

She nodded, still behind her handkerchief, "Yes, I am. This will be
something I shall have to live down, as much as you would if you had
robbed a bank."

She now raised her head, and wiping her eyes hard enough to make them a
little red, she glanced at him.

Really she thought it would save a great deal of time and trouble, if he
could just see the thing clearly and ask her to marry him now.

But apparently his mind did not work so quickly.

"Who will repeat it?" he said. "Not the Usshers--"

"Nancy Almar won't let it pass. She'll have found the evening dull
without you, and she'll feel she has a right to compensation. And that
worm, Wickham; it will be his favorite anecdote for the rest of his life.
I was horrible to him last night at dinner."

"Sorry you were?"

"Not a bit. I'd do it again, but I may as well face the fact that he
won't be eager to conceal his own social triumphs for the sake of my good
name. Can't you hear him, 'Curious thing happened the other day--at my
friends the Usshers'. Know them? A lovely country place--'--"

"I'm awfully sorry," he said. "What a bore! Is there anything I
could do--"

"Well, there _is_ one thing."

He looked up quickly. If ever terror flashed in a man's eyes, she saw it
then in his. Her heart sank, but her mind worked none the less well.

"It's this," she went on smoothly. "There's a lodge, a sort of
tool-house, only about half a mile down the road. Couldn't you take a
lantern, couldn't you possibly spend the night there?"

"It isn't by any chance," he said, "that you're afraid of having me
here?"

"Oh, no, not you," she answered. "No, I should feel much safer with you
here than there." (If he went her case was ruined, and she was now
actually afraid perhaps he would go.) "I should be terrified in this
great place all by myself. Still, I think you ought to go. It's not so
very far. You go down the road a little way and then turn to the right
through the woods. I think you'll find it. The roof used to leak a
little, but I dare say you won't mind that. There isn't any fireplace,
but you could take lots of blankets--"

"I tell you what I'll do," he said. "No one will come to rescue us
to-night. I'll sleep here to-night, and to-morrow as soon as it's light,
I'll go to this cottage, and when they come, you can tell them any story
you please. Will that do?"

It did perfectly. "Oh, thank you," she said. "How kind you are! And you
do forgive me, don't you?"

"About the cereal? Oh, yes, on one condition."

"What is that?" She was still meltingly sweet.

"That you wash these dishes."

She felt inclined to box his ears. Had he seen through her all the time?

"I never washed a dish in my life," she observed thoughtfully.

"Have you ever done anything useful?"

She reflected, and after some thought she replied, not boastfully, but as
one who states an indisputable fact: "Never."

He folded his arms, leant against the wall and looked down upon her. "I
wish," he said, "if it isn't too much trouble that you would give me a
detailed account of one of your average days."

"You talk," said she, "as if you were studying the manners and customs
of savages."

"Let us say of an unknown tribe."

She leant back in her chair and stretched her arms over her head. "Well,
let me see," she said. "I wake up about nine or a little after if I
haven't been up all night, and I ring for my maid. And about eleven--"

"Don't skip, please. You ring for your maid. What does she do for you?"

Imagine any one's not knowing! Miss Fenimer marveled. "Why, she draws my
bath and puts out my things, and while I'm taking my bath, she
straightens the room and lights the fire, if it's cold, and brings in my
breakfast-tray and my letters. And by half-past ten, I'm finally dressed
if no one has come in to delay me, only some one always has. Last winter
my time was immensely occupied by two friends of mine who had both fallen
in love with the same man--one of them was married to him--and they used
to come every day and confide in me. You have no idea how amusing it was.
He behaved shockingly, but I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for
him. They were both such determined women. Finally I went to him, and
told him how it was I knew so much about his affairs, and said I thought
he ought to try and make up his mind which of them he really did care
for. And what do you think he said? That he had always been in love with
me." She laughed. "How absurdly things happen, don't they?"

"Good Heavens!" said Riatt.

"But even at the worst, I'm generally out by noon, and get a walk. I'm
rather dependent on exercise, and then I lunch with some one or other--"

"Men or women?"

"Either or both. And then after lunch I drive with some one, or go to see
pictures or hear music, and then I like to be at home by tea time,
because that's, of course, the hour every one counts on finding you; and
then there's dressing and going out to dinner, and very often something
afterwards."

"Good Lord," said Riatt again, and after a moment he added: "And does
that life amuse you?"

"No, but it doesn't bore me as much as doing things that are more
trouble."

"What sort of things?"

"Oh, being on committees that you don't really take any interest in." She
rather enjoyed his amazement.

"Now tell me one thing more," he said. "What would you do if you had to
earn your living?"

The true answer was that she would marry Edward Hickson, but, though
heretofore she had been fairly candid, she thought on this point a
little dissembling was permissible. "I should starve, I suppose," she
returned gaily.

"And suppose you fell in love with a poor man?"

She grew grave at once. "Oh, that's a dreadful thing to happen to one,"
she said. "I've had two friends who did that." She almost shuddered. "One
actually married him."

"And what happened to her?"

Miss Fenimer shook her head. "I don't know. She's living in the suburbs
somewhere. I haven't seen her for ages."

"And the other?"

"She was more practical. She married him to a rich widow ten years older
than he was. That provided for him, you see, at least. But it turned out
worse than the other case."

"How?"

"Why, he fell in love with this other woman--"

"His wife, you mean?"

"Yes. Imagine it! Men are so fickle."

"Do you know that you really shock me?"

"It's better to appreciate the way things are."

"It isn't the way things are among decent normal human beings."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, I imagine it is," she said, "only
they're not honest enough to admit it."

He continued to stare at her and, strangely enough, she had never seemed
to him more beautiful.

"And do you mean to tell me," he said, "that people who have the
standards that you describe will attach the slightest importance to an
innocent little adventure like this of ours?"

"Of course. They are the very people who will."

"Nonsense."

"Yes, because they make a point of always believing the worst, or at
least of pretending to."

"Why pretend?"

"Because it makes conversation so much more amusing. Sometimes," she
added thoughtfully, "I have a terrible suspicion that there really isn't
an atom of harm in any of them--that they all behave perfectly well, and
just excite themselves by talking as if they didn't."

"And you call that suspicion terrible?"

"Well, it makes it all seem a little flat. But then sometimes," she went
on brightly, "one does find out something absolutely hideous."

"See here," he said, "it's a crime for a girl of your age to talk like
this. It's a silly habit. I don't believe you're like that at heart."

"You talk," said she, "like Edward Hickson."

"In some communities that would be thought a fighting word," he returned.
"But you haven't yet answered my question. You've told me what your
friends have done; but what would you do yourself, if you fell in love
with a poor man?"

"In the first place, I never should. What makes a man attractive to me is
power, preeminence, being bowed down to. If I lived in a military
country, I'd love the greatest soldier; and if I lived in a savage
country, I'd love the strongest warrior; but here to-day, the only form
of power I see is money. It's what makes you able to have everything you
want, and that's a man's greatest charm."

"And it seems to me that the most tied-down creatures I ever saw are the
rich men I've met in the East."

She was honestly surprised. "Why, what is there they can't do?"
she asked.

He smiled. "They can't do anything that might endanger their property
rights," he answered, "and that seems to me to cut them off from most
forms of human endeavor. But no matter about that. You say you would not
be likely to fall in love with a poor man, but suppose you _did_. Perhaps
it has happened already?"

Miss Fenimer looked thoughtful. "I was trying to think," she said. "Yes,
there was a young artist two years ago that I was rather interested in.
He was very nice looking, and Nancy Almar kept telling me how much he was
in love with her."

"And that stimulated your interest?"

"Of course."

"Just for the sake of information," he said, "do you always want to take
away any man who is safely devoted to another woman?"

Christine seemed resolved to be accurate. "It depends," she answered,
"whether or not I have anything else to do, but of course the idea always
pops into one's head: I wonder if I couldn't make him like me best."

"And do you always find you can?"

"Oh, there's no rule about it; only as a newcomer one has the advantage
of novelty, and that's something."

"And what happened about this artist?"

Christine smiled reminiscently: "I found he wasn't really in love with
Nancy at all: he just wanted to paint her portrait."

"I should think he would have wanted to paint yours."

"He did and gave it to me as a present, and then he behaved very badly."
She sighed.

"What did he do?"

"Well," she hesitated. "He did not really want to give me the picture. He
thought he wanted to keep it himself. It was much the best thing he ever
did. I had to persuade him a good deal, and in persuading him, I may have
given him the impression that I cared about him more than I really did.
Anyhow, after I actually had the portrait hanging in my sitting-room, I
told him I thought it was better for us not to meet any more. Some men
would have been flattered to think I took them so seriously. But he was
furious, and one day when I was out he sent for the portrait and cut it
all to pieces. Wasn't that horrible? My pretty portrait!"

"Horrible!" said Riatt. "It seems to me the one spark of spirit the poor
young man showed."

She glanced at him under her lashes. "What would you have done?"

"I'd take you out to the plains for a year or so, and let you find out a
little about what life is like."

"I don't think it would be a success," she returned. "I don't profit by
discipline, I'm afraid. But," she stood up, "I'm perfectly open minded.
I'll make a beginning. I'll wash the dishes--just to please you."

He watched her go to the kitchen sink, and pour water from the steaming
kettle into a dish pan, saw her turn up her lace-frilled cuffs, and begin
with her long, slim, inefficient hands to take up the dirty plates.
Suddenly, much to his surprise, he found he couldn't bear it, couldn't
bear to see the lace fall down again and again, and her obvious shrinking
from the task.

He crossed the room and took the plates from her, and then with a clean
towel, he deliberately dried her hands, finger by finger, while she stood
by like a docile child, looking up at him in wonder.

"Don't you want to reform me?" she asked plaintively.

"No," he answered shortly.

"Why not?"

"Because you would be too dangerous," he returned. "Now you have every
charm except goodness. If you turned good and gentle you'd be supreme."

"I never thought goodness was a _charm_," she objected.

"And that's just what I hope you will never find out."

She laughed. "I don't believe there's much danger," she said. "I think I
shall go on being wicked and mercenary and selfish to the day of my
death, and probably getting everything I want."

"I hope not. I mean I hope you won't get what you want."

"Oh, why are you so unkind?"

"Because I shall want to use you as a terrible example to my
grandchildren."

"Do you think you will remember me as long as that?"

"I feel no doubt about it."

She smiled. "It seems rather hard that I have to come to a bad end just
to oblige your horrid little grandchildren," she said. "As a matter of
fact, I shall probably run them down in my motor as they go to work with
their little dinner-pails. And as I take their mangled forms to the
hospital, I'll murmur: 'Riatt, Riatt, I think I once knew a half-hearted
reformer of that name.'"

"You think you, too, will remember as long as that?"

"I have an excellent memory for trifles," she returned, and rose yawning.
"And now I think I'll go to bed--unless there's anything more you want to
know about our tribal customs. Are you going to write a nature book about
us: 'Head-hunting Among the Idle Rich'?"

"'The Cannibals of the Atlantic Coast' is the title," he answered as he
gave her a candle. "I'll leave your breakfast for you in the morning
before I go. And by the way, if some one comes to rescue you, don't go
off and leave me in the tool-house, will you?"

"Oh, I'm not really as bad as that."

He shook his head as if he didn't feel sure.

She went away well satisfied with her evening's work. There had been
something extremely flattering in his mingled horror and amusement at her
candid revelations. Holding up the candle she looked at her own image in
her mirror. "I wonder," she thought, "if that young man knows what a
dangerous frame of mind he's in?"

He had some suspicion, for as he dragged a mattress downstairs and laid
it before the kitchen fire, he kept repeating to himself, as if in a
last effort to rouse some moral enthusiasm: "What a band of cut-throats
they are!"

Christine woke the next morning to find the sun shining on an unbroken
sheet of snow. The storm had passed in the night. She dressed quickly and
went down to find the kitchen empty, and the track of footsteps in the
snow leading away in the direction of the tool-house. Her coffee was
bubbling and slices of bacon neatly laid in the frying pan were ready for
cooking. She thought he might have stayed and cooked it for her.

"No one will come as early as this," she thought, plaintively.

But hardly had she finished her simple meal, when the sound of sleigh
bells reached her ears, and running to the window she saw that Ussher and
Hickson in a two horse sleigh were driving down the slope.

A moment later they were in the kitchen. And after the minimum time had
elapsed during which all three talked at once recounting their own
individual anxieties, Ussher asked:

"Where's Max?"

Christine cast down her eyes with a sort of Paul-and-Virginia expression,
as she answered: "Oh, he is sleeping in the tool-house!"

"Well, I call that damned nonsense," said Ussher. "Let a man freeze to
death! Upon my word, Christine, I thought you had more sense." And he
strode away to the back door. "Yes, here are his tracks, poor fellow."
Ussher went out after him, and Hickson turned back.

"But _you_ think I was right, don't you, Edward?" said Christine, for she
had never failed to elicit commendation from Edward.

But now his brow was dark. "But, I say, Christine," he said, "there's one
thing I don't understand. These tracks of his footsteps in the snow."

"He didn't fly, Ned, even if he is an aviator."

"Yes, but it didn't stop snowing until four o'clock this morning."

How irritating the weather always is, Christine thought. For though she
was willing to use scandal as a weapon over Riatt, she was not sure that
she wished to put it into Hickson's hands.

She thought hard, and then said brightly:

"Oh, perhaps he came back for his breakfast before I was up."

Hickson shook his head: "They only lead one way," he said.

In the face of the tactlessness of hard facts, Christine decided to
create a diversion.

"I can't stand here gossiping about the conduct of an aviator," she said,
"when there's so much to be done. Look at all these dirty plates. What
ought to be done with them, Edward, dear?" she appealed to him as to a
fountain of wisdom, and he did not fail her.

"They ought to be washed," he said. "Give me a towel. I'll do it." And
he felt more than rewarded when, as she handed him a towel, her hand
touched his.

The many duties of which she had just spoken seemed suddenly to have
melted away, for she sat down quite idly and watched him.

"How well you do it, Edward," she said, not quite honestly, for she
compared his slow gestures very unfavorably with Riatt's deft hands.
"It's quite as if you had washed dishes all your life."

"Ah, Christine," he answered, looking at her sentimentally over a
coffee-cup, "I shouldn't ask anything better than to wash your dishes for
the rest of my life."

"Thank you, Edward, but I think I should ask something a good deal
better," she answered.

It was on this scene that Ussher and Riatt entered, and the eyes of the
latter twinkled.

"Engaged a kitchen-maid, I see," he said in a low tone to Christine.

"I think it's so good for people to do something useful now and then,
don't you?"

"A form of education that you offer almost every one who comes near you."

Hickson did not hear everything, but he caught the idea, and said
severely:

"I don't suppose any one would ask Miss Fenimer to wash dirty dishes."

Riatt laughed: "No one who had ever seen her try."

Ussher, who had been fuming in the background, now broke out:

"Upon my word, Christine, that tool-house was like a vault. It was
madness to ask any one to spend the night in such a place."

"Did you spend the night in the tool-house?" said Hickson with unusual
directness.

"There are worse places than the tool-house," said Riatt, as he and
Ussher hurried down to the cellar to put out the furnace fire.

Hickson turned to Christine. "The fellow didn't answer me," he said.

"Perhaps he thought it was none of your business, Edward, my dear,"
she answered.

"Everything connected with you is my business," he returned.

"Oh, Edward, what a dreary outlook for me!"

"Christine, answer me. Did or did not this man make advances to you?"

"Edward, he did."

"What happened?"

"He gave me a long, tiresome, moral lecture and, judging by you, my dear,
that is proof of affection."

"You're simply amusing yourself with me!"

"I'm not amusing myself very much, Edward, if that's any comfort."

"You drive me mad," he said and stamped away from her so hard, that
Ussher came up from the cellar.

"What's Edward doing?" he said.

"He says he's going mad," returned Christine, "but I thought he was
washing the dishes."

"There's no pleasing Edward," said Ussher. "He was in my room at six
o'clock this morning trying to get me to start a rescuing party (and I
needn't tell you, Christine, we none of us had much sleep last night),
and now that he is here and finds you safe, he seems to be just as
restless as ever." And Ussher returned to the cellar still grumbling.

"You know why I'm restless, Christine," Hickson said when they were
again alone.

Christine seemed to wonder. "The artistic temperament is usually given as
the explanation, but somehow, in your case, Edward--"

He came and stood directly in front of her.

"Christine, what did happen last night?"

Although not a muscle of Miss Fenimer's face moved, she knew very well
that this was a turning-point. She had the choice between killing the
scandal, or giving it such life and strength that nothing but her
marriage with Riatt would ever allay it. She knew that a few sensible
words would put Hickson straight, and Hickson would be a powerful ally.
On the other hand, if he came back plainly weighted with a terrible
doubt, no one would ask any further evidence. The question was, how much
would Riatt feel the responsibility of such a situation. It was a
fighting chance. Themistocles when he burnt his ships must have argued in
very much the same way, but probably not so rapidly.

"There are some things, Edward," Christine said in a low shaken voice,
"that I cannot discuss even with you."

Hickson turned away with a groan.

CHAPTER III

Christine had been right when she told Riatt that Nancy Almar would be
resentful after a dull evening at the Usshers'.

The evening, as far as Nancy was concerned, had been very dull indeed. To
be bored, in her creed, was a confession of complete failure; it
indicated the most contemptible inefficiency, since she designed the
whole fabric of her life with the unique object of keeping herself
amused. Nothing bored her more than to have the general attention
centered on some one else, as all that evening it had been focussed on
the absent ones. Not only did she miss the excitement of her contest with
Christine over the possession of Riatt, but she was positively wearied by
the Usshers' anxiety, by her brother's agony of jealousy and fear, and by
Wickham's continual effort to strike an original thought from the
dramatic quality of the situation.

She was finally reduced to playing piquet with Wickham, and though she
won a good deal of money from him--more, that is, than he could
comfortably afford to lose--she still counted the evening a failure, bad
in the present, and extremely menacing to the future. For with her
habitual mental candor, she admitted that by this time Christine, if not
actually frozen to death--which after all one could not exactly hope--had
probably won the game. The chances were that Riatt was captured.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10