Miss Billy Married Page 5

  True, at the very first, Billy had donned a ruffled apron and a bewitching dust-cap, and had traversed the house from cellar to garret with a prettily important air of "managing things," as she suggested changes right and left. She had summoned Pete, too, for three mornings in succession, and with great dignity had ordered the meals for the day. But when Bertram was discovered one evening tugging back his favorite chair, and when William had asked if Billy were through using his pipe-tray, the young wife had concluded to let things remain about as they were. And when William ate no breakfast one morning, and Bertram aggrievedly refused dessert that night at dinner, Billy—learning through an apologetic Pete that Master William always had to have eggs for breakfast no matter what else there was, and that Master Bertram never ate boiled rice—gave up planning the meals. True, for three more mornings she summoned Pete for "orders," but the orders were nothing more nor less than a blithe "Well, Pete, what are we going to have for dinner to-day?" By the end of a week even this ceremony was given up, and before a month had passed, Billy was little more than a guest in her own home, so far as responsibility was concerned.

  Billy was not idle, however; far from it. First, there were the delightful hours with Bertram. Then there was her music: Billy was writing a new song—the best she had ever written, Billy declared.

  "Why, Bertram, it can't help being that," she said to her husband, one day. "The words just sang themselves to me right out of my heart; and the melody just dropped down from the sky. And now, everywhere, I'm hearing the most wonderful harmonies. The whole universe is singing to me. If only now I can put it on paper what I hear! Then I can make the whole universe sing to some one else!"

  Even music, however, had to step one side for the wedding calls which were beginning to be received, and which must be returned, in spite of the occasional rebellion of the young husband. There were the more intimate friends to be seen, also, and Cyril and Marie to be visited. And always there was the Annex.

  The Annex was in fine running order now, and was a source of infinite satisfaction to its founder and great happiness to its beneficiaries. Tommy Dunn was there, learning wonderful things from books and still more wonderful things from the piano in the living-room. Alice Greggory and her mother were there, too—the result of much persuasion. Indeed, according to Bertram, Billy had been able to fill the Annex only by telling each prospective resident that he or she was absolutely necessary to the welfare and happiness of every other resident. Not that the house was full, either. There were still two unoccupied rooms.

  "But then, I'm glad there are," Billy had declared, "for there's sure to be some one that I'll want to send there."

  "Some one, did you say?" Bertram had retorted, meaningly; but his wife had disdained to answer this.

  Billy herself was frequently at the Annex. She told Aunt Hannah that she had to come often to bring the happiness—it accumulated so fast. Certainly she always found plenty to do there, whenever she came. There was Aunt Hannah to be read to, Mrs. Greggory to be sung to, and Tommy Dunn to be listened to; for Tommy Dunn was always quivering with eagerness to play her his latest "piece."

  Billy knew that some day at the Annex she would meet Mr. M. J. Arkwright; and she told herself that she hoped she should.

  Billy had not seen Arkwright (except on the stage of the Boston Opera House) since the day he had left her presence in white-faced, stony-eyed misery after declaring his love for her, and learning of her engagement to Bertram. Since then, she knew, he had been much with his old friend, Alice Greggory. She did not believe, should she see him now, that he would be either white-faced, or stony-eyed. His heart, she was sure, had gone where it ought to have gone in the first place—to Alice. Such being, in her opinion, the case, she longed to get the embarrassment of a first meeting between themselves over with, for, after that, she was sure, their old friendship could be renewed, and she would be in a position to further this pretty love affair between him and Alice. Very decidedly, therefore, Billy wished to meet Arkwright. Very pleased, consequently, was she when, one day, coming into the living-room at the Annex, she found the man sitting by the fire.

  Arkwright was on his feet at once.

  "Miss—Mrs. H—Henshaw," he stammered

  "Oh, Mr. Arkwright," she cried, with just a shade of nervousness in her voice as she advanced, her hand outstretched. "I'm glad to see you."

  "Thank you. I wanted to see Miss Greggory," he murmured. Then, as the unconscious rudeness of his reply dawned on him, he made matters infinitely worse by an attempted apology. "That is, I mean—I didn't mean—" he began to stammer miserably.

  Some girls might have tossed the floundering man a straw in the shape of a light laugh intended to turn aside all embarrassment—but not Billy. Billy held out a frankly helping hand that was meant to set the man squarely on his feet at her side.

  "Mr. Arkwright, don't, please," she begged earnestly. "You and I don't need to beat about the bush. I am glad to see you, and I hope you're glad to see me. We're going to be the best of friends from now on, I'm sure; and some day, soon, you're going to bring Alice to see me, and we'll have some music. I left her up-stairs. She'll be down at once, I dare say—I met Rosa going up with your card. Good-by," she finished with a bright smile, as she turned and walked rapidly from the room.

  Outside, on the steps, Billy drew a long breath.

  "There," she whispered; "that's over—and well over!" The next minute she frowned vexedly. She had missed her glove. "Never mind! I sha'n't go back in there for it now, anyway," she decided.

  In the living-room, five minutes later, Alice Greggory found only a hastily scrawled note waiting for her.

  "If you'll forgive the unforgivable," she read "you'll forgive me for not being here when you come down. 'Circumstances over which I have no control have called me away.' May we let it go at that?

  "M. J. ARKWRIGHT."

  As Alice Greggory's amazed, questioning eyes left the note they fell upon the long white glove on the floor by the door. Half mechanically she crossed the room and picked it up; but almost at once she dropped it with a low cry.

  "Billy! He—saw—Billy!" Then a flood of understanding dyed her face scarlet as she turned and fled to the blessedly unseeing walls of her own room.

  Not ten minutes later Rosa tapped at her door with a note.

  "It's from Mr. Arkwright, Miss. He's downstairs." Rosa's eyes were puzzled, and a bit startled.

  "Mr. Arkwright!"

  "Yes, Miss. He's come again. That is, I didn't know he'd went—but he must have, for he's come again now. He wrote something in a little book; then he tore it out and gave it to me. He said he'd wait, please, for an answer."

  "Oh, very well, Rosa."

  Miss Greggory took the note and spoke with an elaborate air of indifference that was meant to express a calm ignoring of the puzzled questioning in the other's eyes. The next moment she read this in Arkwright's peculiar scrawl:

  "If you've already forgiven the unforgivable, you'll do it again, I know, and come down-stairs. Won't you, please? I want to see you."

  Miss Greggory lifted her head with a jerk. Her face was a painful red.

  "Tell Mr. Arkwright I can't possibly—" She came to an abrupt pause. Her eyes had encountered Rosa's, and in Rosa's eyes the puzzled questioning was plainly fast becoming a shrewd suspicion.

  There was the briefest of hesitations; then, lightly, Miss Greggory tossed the note aside.

  "Tell Mr. Arkwright I'll be down at once, please," she directed carelessly, as she turned back into the room.

  But she was not down at once. She was not down until she had taken time to bathe her red eyes, powder her telltale nose, smoothe her ruffled hair, and whip herself into the calm, steady-eyed, self-controlled young woman that Arkwright finally rose to meet when she came into the room.

  "I thought it was only women who were privileged to change their mind," she began brightly; but Arkwright ignored her attempt to conventionalize the situation.

  "Thank
you for coming down," he said, with a weariness that instantly drove the forced smile from the girl's lips. "I—I wanted to—to talk to you."

  "Yes?" She seated herself and motioned him to a chair near her. He took the seat, and then fell silent, his eyes out the window.

  "I thought you said you—you wanted to talk, she reminded him nervously, after a minute.

  "I did." He turned with disconcerting abruptness. "Alice, I'm going to tell you a story."

  "I shall be glad to listen. People always like stories, don't they?"

  "Do they?" The somber pain in Arkwright's eyes deepened. Alice Greggory did not know it, but he was thinking of another story he had once told in that same room. Billy was his listener then, while now—A little precipitately he began to speak.

  "When I was a very small boy I went to visit my uncle, who, in his young days, had been quite a hunter. Before the fireplace in his library was a huge tiger skin with a particularly lifelike head. The first time I saw it I screamed, and ran and hid. I refused then even to go into the room again. My cousins urged, scolded, pleaded, and laughed at me by turns, but I was obdurate. I would not go where I could see the fearsome thing again, even though it was, as they said, 'nothing but a dead old rug!'

  "Finally, one day, my uncle took a hand in the matter. By sheer will-power he forced me to go with him straight up to the dreaded creature, and stand by its side. He laid one of my shrinking hands on the beast's smooth head, and thrust the other one quite into the open red mouth with its gleaming teeth.

  "'You see,' he said, 'there's absolutely nothing to fear. He can't possibly hurt you. Just as if you weren't bigger and finer and stronger in every way than that dead thing on the floor!'

  "Then, when he had got me to the point where of my own free will I would walk up and touch the thing, he drew a lesson for me.

  "'Now remember,' he charged me. 'Never run and hide again. Only cowards do that. Walk straight up and face the thing. Ten to one you'll find it's nothing but a dead skin masquerading as the real thing. Even if it isn't if it's alive—face it. Find a weapon and fight it. Know that you are going to conquer it and you'll conquer. Never run. Be a man. Men don't run, my boy!'"

  Arkwright paused, and drew a long breath. He did not look at the girl in the opposite chair. If he had looked he would have seen a face transfigured.

  "Well," he resumed, "I never forgot that tiger skin, nor what it stood for, after that day when Uncle Ben thrust my hand into its hideous, but harmless, red mouth. Even as a kid I began, then, to try—not to run. I've tried ever since But to-day—I did run."

  Arkwright's voice had been getting lower and lower. The last three words would have been almost inaudible to ears less sensitively alert than were Alice Greggory's. For a moment after the words were uttered, only the clock's ticking broke the silence; then, with an obvious effort, the man roused himself, as if breaking away from some benumbing force that held him.

  "Alice, I don't need to tell you, after what I said the other night, that I loved Billy Neilson. That was bad enough, for I found she was pledged to another man. But to-day I discovered something worse: I discovered that I loved Billy Henshaw—another man's wife. And—I ran. But I've come back. I'm going to face the thing. Oh, I'm not deceiving myself! This love of mine is no dead tiger skin. It's a beast, alive and alert—God pity me!—to destroy my very soul. But I'm going to fight it; and—I want you to help me."

  The girl gave a half-smothered cry. The man turned, but he could not see her face distinctly. Twilight had come, and the room was full of shadows. He hesitated, then went on, a little more quietly.

  "That's why I've told you all this—so you would help me. And you will, won't you?"

  There was no answer. Once again he tried to see her face, but it was turned now quite away from him.

  "You've been a big help already, little girl. Your friendship, your comradeship—they've been everything to me. You're not going to make me do without them—now?"

  "No—oh, no!" The answer was low and a little breathless; but he heard it.

  "Thank you. I knew you wouldn't." He paused, then rose to his feet. When he spoke again his voice carried a note of whimsical lightness that was a little forced. "But I must go—else you will take them from me, and with good reason. And please don't let your kind heart grieve too much—over me. I'm no deep-dyed villain in a melodrama, nor wicked lover in a ten-penny novel, you know. I'm just an everyday man in real life; and we're going to fight this thing out in everyday living. That's where your help is coming in. We'll go together to see Mrs. Bertram Henshaw. She's asked us to, and you'll do it, I know. We'll have music and everyday talk. We'll see Mrs. Bertram Henshaw in her own home with her husband, where she belongs; and—I'm not going to run again. But—I'm counting on your help, you know," he smiled a little wistfully, as he held out his hand in good-by.

  One minute later Alice Greggory, alone, was hurrying up-stairs.

  "I can't—I can't—I know I can't," she was whispering wildly. Then, in her own room, she faced herself in the mirror. "Yes—you—can, Alice Greggory," she asserted, with swift change of voice and manner. "This is your tiger skin, and you're going to fight it. Do you understand?—fight it! And you're going to win, too. Do you want that man to know you—care?"

  Chapter VI - "The Painting Look"

  *

  It was toward the last of October that Billy began to notice her husband's growing restlessness. Twice, when she had been playing to him, she turned to find him testing the suppleness of his injured arm. Several times, failing to receive an answer to her questions, she had looked up to discover him gazing abstractedly at nothing in particular.

  They read and walked and talked together, to be sure, and Bertram's devotion to her lightest wish was beyond question; but more and more frequently these days Billy found him hovering over his sketches in his studio; and once, when he failed to respond to the dinner-bell, search revealed him buried in a profound treatise on "The Art of Foreshortening."

  Then came the day when Billy, after an hour's vain effort to imprison within notes a tantalizing melody, captured the truant and rain down to the studio to tell Bertram of her victory.

  But Bertram did not seem even to hear her. True, he leaped to his feet and hurried to meet her, his face radiantly aglow; but she had not ceased to speak before he himself was talking.

  "Billy, Billy, I've been sketching," he cried. "My hand is almost steady. See, some of those lines are all right! I just picked up a crayon and—" He stopped abruptly, his eyes on Billy's face. A vaguely troubled shadow crossed his own. "Did—did you—were you saying anything in—in particular, when you came in?" he stammered.

  For a short half-minute Billy looked at her husband without speaking. Then, a little queerly, she laughed.

  "Oh, no, nothing at all in particular," she retorted airily. The next moment, with one of her unexpected changes of manner, she darted across the room, picked up a palette, and a handful of brushes from the long box near it. Advancing toward her husband she held them out dramatically. "And now paint, my lord, paint!" she commanded him, with stern insistence, as she thrust them into his hands.

  Bertram laughed shamefacedly.

  "Oh, I say, Billy," he began; but Billy had gone.

  Out in the hall Billy was speeding up-stairs, talking fiercely to herself.

  "We'll, Billy Neilson Henshaw, it's come! Now behave yourself. That was the painting look! You know what that means. Remember, he belongs to his Art before he does to you. Kate and everybody says so. And you—you expected him to tend to you and your silly little songs. Do you want to ruin his career? As if now he could spend all his time and give all his thoughts to you! But I—I just hate that Art!"

  "What did you say, Billy?" asked William, in mild surprise, coming around the turn of the balustrade in the hall above. "Were you speaking to me, my dear?"

  Billy looked up. Her face cleared suddenly, and she laughed—though a little ruefully.

  "No, Uncle William, I
wasn't talking to you," she sighed. "I was just—just administering first aid to the injured," she finished, as she whisked into her own room.

  "Well, well, bless the child! What can she mean by that?" puzzled Uncle William, turning to go down the stairway.

  Bertram began to paint a very little the next day. He painted still more the next, and yet more again the day following. He was like a bird let out of a cage, so joyously alive was he. The old sparkle came back to his eye, the old gay smile to his lips. Now that they had come back Billy realized what she had not been conscious of before: that for several weeks past they had not been there; and she wondered which hurt the more—that they had not been there before, or that they were there now. Then she scolded herself roundly for asking the question at all.

  They were not easy—those days for Billy, though always to Bertram she managed to show a cheerfully serene face. To Uncle William, also, and to Aunt Hannah she showed a smiling countenance; and because she could not talk to anybody else of her feelings, she talked to herself. This, however, was no new thing for Billy to do From earliest childhood she had fought things out in like manner.

  "But it's so absurd of you, Billy Henshaw," she berated herself one day, when Bertram had become so absorbed in his work that he had forgotten to keep his appointment with her for a walk. "Just because you have had his constant attention almost every hour since you were married is no reason why you should have it every hour now, when his arm is better! Besides, it's exactly what you said you wouldn't do—object—to his giving proper time to his work."

  "But I'm not objecting," stormed the other half of herself. "I'm telling him to do it. It's only that he's so—so pleased to do it. He doesn't seem to mind a bit being away from me. He's actually happy!"

  "Well, don't you want him to be happy in his work? Fie! For shame! A fine artist's wife you are. It seems Kate was right, then; you are going to spoil his career!"

  "Ho!" quoth Billy, and tossed her head. Forthwith she crossed the room to her piano and plumped herself down hard on to the stool. Then, from under her fingers there fell a rollicking melody that seemed to fill the room with little dancing feet. Faster and faster sped Billy's fingers; swifter and swifter twinkled the little dancing feet. Then a door was jerked open, and Bertram's voice called: