Bessie, exhausted, finally gave it up.
“We’ll just have to let Murray know, Mother, and I hate that. Won’t you call up?”
“No, I will not!” said Mrs. Chapparelle crisply. “Let them wait for their things till the shop comes after them again. It’s not your fault that they insisted on bringing them here. We’re not responsible. If Murray hadn’t run away from you, I might feel differently, but as it is, I think it is not necessary for either you or me to run after them. People who have dresses like that can exist for another night without one more.”
“But Mother, he was very anxious to have them delivered tonight. I heard him tell the saleswoman.”
“That makes no difference, child; you are going to bed. I’lltie those boxes up and take good care of them, and tomorrow I’ll telephone Grevet’s to come for their property, but you are not to worry another minute about them. Now let me help you upstairs, and I’ll give you an arnica rub, and you may tell me very briefly how you came to be riding in Murray Van Rensselaer’s automobile. Then we’re going to thank the heavenly Father and go to sleep. Now come, darling.”
Chapter 21
But the morning brought no solution to the difficulty. Madame Grevet professed to be too busy to come to the telephone and sent a snippy service girl to negotiate.
Mrs. Chapparelle spoke to her gently, as a lady should, taking it as a matter of course that she would wish to set a mistake right. The girl was insolent, and when at last Mrs. Chapparelle’s continued protest brought the Madame to the telephone, things were even worse. The Madame declared that it was not for her to meddle in all Mr. Van Rensselaer’s many love affairs. The clothes were paid for and the money in the bank. Her responsibility was at an end. They would have to settle their lovers’ quarrel themselves. No, she could not on any consideration take back the things. She did not do business in that way. If they wanted money, they must apply to Mr. Van Rensselaer himself for it, not to her. With which insult she hung up the receiver sharply.
Bessie, standing near the telephone, had heard it all. Her face was very white and haughty. Her eyes seemed darker, almost black, with a kind of blue fire in them. She began to dress at once, rapidly, in spite of her mother’s protests.
“What are you going to do, Bessie—you mustn’t get up! You are not fit to be out of bed.”
“I must, Mother. Don’t you see I must? I cannot have that woman thinking those things.”
“But Bessie, you can’t carry those boxes down there yourself. You oughtn’t to go out today at all.”
“I’ll hire a taxi and take them down, Mother. Now, don’t you worry about me. I’m quite all right. I only needed this to strengthen me. No, you don’t need to go with me,” she protested, as her mother began to unfasten her work dress and take down her Sunday crêpe de chine. “I think it is just as well that you shouldn’t. I’m not going to make a scene. I’ll be a lady, Mother dear. But that woman has got to understand that I am not that kind of a girl!”
Bessie finished dressing hastily and looked every inch a lady herself as she ran downstairs to call a taxi.
She obediently drank the glass of milk her mother handed her and let the driver carry out her boxes, departing in state, with a promise to return immediately.
She walked into Grevet’s clad in righteous indignation, quietly, almost haughtily. She was not wearing the bargain coat this time. She had chosen to put on a little matching suit that her mother had made her from a beautiful piece of dark blue silk material, atouch of exquisite embroidery on the tunic where it showed in front, a touch of really fine fur on the collar. In lines and style it might have come from Grevet’s itself, so unique and pleasing was the whole effect. The salespersons were puzzled and looked at her with new respect. Madame came forward smiling before she recognized her and halted half perplexed. The driver had set the boxes down inside the door and touched his cap with a smile for the tip she had given him. This girl had an air about her that somehow took the condescension from Madame’s manner.
“There has been some mistake,” Bessie said gravely. “I came here yesterday with Mr. Van Rensselaer to help him select a gift for a friend. The purchase has been sent to me instead of the lady for whom it was intended. I have brought it back. I am sorry I cannot give you the correct name and address, but Mr. Van Rensselaer did not happen to mention it. I have a kind of dim memory that he called her Gertrude, if that will help you any, but I am not quite sure. It didn’t matter to me to remember, you know.”
Bessie spoke with a grave air of finality.
Madame regarded the girl with a lenient, knowing smile.
“I think you will find the garments are yours, my dear. Mr. Van Rensselaer distinctly told me they were to be sent to you and wrote out your address himself while you were changing.”
Bessie drew herself up with heightened color.
“Then he wrote it absent-mindedly,” she said. “Mr. Van Rensselaer does not buy clothes for me. We are just acquaintances, old schoolmates. I haven’t seen him in years till I met him on thestreet yesterday, and he asked me to stop a few minutes and help him select this gift for his friend. You will find he will be very much annoyed about this if he finds out you have sent it to me. I brought it right back so that you might call him up and ask him at once to give you the address again. I would not care to have him know it had been sent to my house.”
The madame smiled again that aggravating smile.
“Mademoiselle had better call him up herself, and then she will discover that what I have told her is true.”
“I do not wish to call him up,” said Bessie haughtily, “and I decline to have anything further to do with the matter!” She turned toward the door.
Madame took one step toward her.
“One moment, mademoiselle! Does mademoiselle realize that if she leaves the goods here the gentleman will know nothing except that she has received them? The goods are paid for, and my responsibility is at an end.”
“Your responsibility is not over until you have let him know that the purchase was not accepted at the address to which you sent it.”
Bessie looked steadily at her adversary and spoke in a controlled voice. She was almost on the verge of tears, and she felt herself trembling from head to foot, but she managed to open the door and walk steadily out and down the street.
She felt degraded. To think that that woman had dared to place her on a footing with those women of another world thanhers, who lived like parasites on what they could get out of their various lovers! It was maddening that she could not succeed in convincing the woman that she had made a mistake. The worst of it was, though, that she was almost convinced herself that it was not a mistake. Deep in her heart had crept a wild fear that it was true that Murray had sent those things as a gift to herself. That he had dared to insult her that way! To set her down as one of the cheap little butterflies with whom rumor said he played around continually. He had thought he could take her for a ride and toss her a costly gift and have her at his feet whenever he wanted her! He had not remembered the days of their childhood, when they played and read together and respected the fine things of life. He had professed to love her mother and to feel a warm comradely friendship for her, and here now he had shown that he did not even respect her. He thought because she lived in a small two-story house at the back of his father’s grand mansion that he could treat her as he pleased!
Well, if he had dared to do this thing, of course it had been easy for him to run away from her in the hospital after he had been the cause of her getting all shaken up that way! Her heart felt like lead as she walked along slowly in the sunshine of the bright November morning. She realized that she had been struggling against all evidence to excuse Murray for not having brought her home, or come to tell her mother about the accident, or even calling up on the telephone this morning to find out if she was all right. She could not understand it. Murray! Her old friend, turned yellowlike this! Disgusting! Terrible! Why believe in anybody anymore? But the
n she ought to have known better than to expect anything from a spoiled boy who had had no upbringing and too much money all his life. It was just what was to be expected every time with a mother like that beautiful doll-faced Mrs. Van Rensselaer. After all, she had known for years that Murray would never be anything to her, not even a friend. Why mourn this way, just because for a brief hour he had chosen to revive old acquaintance, amuse himself with his former playmate, and then vanish?
So reasoning, she went toward home, but her mind was by no means at rest. Another spirit kept continually whispering to her:
“But suppose that Murray was hurt himself! Suppose he is lying now in a hospital, unconscious perhaps, while you are enraged at him? This is not a Christian way to look at the matter. And besides, somehow you have got to let him know that you did not keep those dresses. If he really did try to present them to you, he has got to be made to understand that you are not that kind of girl.”
When she reached home it was all to be argued over again with her mother, who was as disturbed as she about the matter. That anybody should dare to misunderstand her dear girl! That was more than the mother could bear. For Murray Van Rensselaer the boy she had always had a tender place in her heart, but for Murray Van Rensselaer the young man who had apparently forgotten his old friends for years, and now that he had chanced upon them again for an hour, had insulted them, she had littlecharity. It was the way of his world, of course, but she resented it. She did not covet his friendship for her girl, for well she knew how far apart they would have grown, and well she knew the follies and temptations of the life that he with his money and his fast friends had in all probability lived. No, if she had known of his proximity she would have hidden her girl, if it had been possible, rather than have had her come into contact with him again, rather than run the risk of Bessie’s heart being touched by one who could never be anything more than an acquaintance to her.
But now that they had met, and he had tried to open the friendship once more by asking her to ride with him, the mother resented hotly both the way in which he had left her alone in the hospital and also the gift that he had presumed to send her. For that he had intended it for Bessie she was now well convinced. Did he think to bind her to him by costly gifts, yet toss her aside whenever the fancy took him? Did he consider her so low that he might pay off an obligation of courtesy by one of money? Having decided in her heart that he probably was worse than good for nothing, she proceeded to cast him out of her love, although she had really loved him when he was a little boy. He had seemed so lonesome, so interesting, so manly besides, and he had taken so kindly to her mothering. Well, that was past, and she must protect her precious girl at all costs. He was a child of luxury now. He was spoiled, and that was all there was to it. If he had been born to a different family, or his parents had lost their money and their prestige when he was small, there might have been some hope forhim, but of course it was a foregone conclusion that he would be spoiled, and only of the world. What could one expect?
They argued ways and means for a long time, and finally Bessie sat down and wrote a frigid little note:
My dear Mr. Van Rensselaer:
I feel that you ought to know that the purchases you made at Grevet’s yesterday were by some strange mistake sent to my address. The delivery man insisted upon leaving them here with my mother before I reached home, though she told him they were not ours. I took them back this morning, and the woman was very disagreeable about it and declared you had given no other address. I advised her to communicate with you at once. I hope your friend has suffered no inconvenience from the delay.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Chapparelle
After the note was dispatched, Bessie felt better. Surely Murray could not misconstrue such a letter into an invitation to open the friendship again. If he tried that, she could easily show him that she wanted nothing from him. But she had done her duty toward the beautiful clothes, and now she could perhaps adjust her mind to think better of him. If possible, she wanted to think well of him because as an old friend he had figured largely in her childhood days, and she did not like to have anything haloed by her schooldays turn out to be common clay. He might go his way and forget her forever if he would only let her think well of him. She wanted to respect him with all her heart, but she did not see exactly how she was ever going to do it again. Supposing even that he had not meant to insult her with a costly gift without asking permission—and such a gift—a gift of clothing! There was still the fact that he had deserted her after getting her into an accident. She would not have supposed even a spoiled heartless flirt would do a thing like that to an old friend. Yet he seemed to have done it.
The hours went by, and she lay on the bench in the kitchen and pretended to read, but in reality she was listening for a ring at the door or the telephone. Yet none came. She stayed on the bench for two reasons. First, to satisfy her mother, who persisted in being anxious about her on account of the accident, and second, because she really felt quite weak and shaken up. Tomorrow her employer would be back in the office, and she must go to work again. The precious two days’ vacation was going fast, and had all been spoiled. She felt almost bitter about it; there had been so much joy in its anticipation, but she did not want her mother to realize that. Mother was happy in just having her home with her.
So the letter was mailed, and Bessie waited, thinking surely when he got it he would call up or come around with a belated apology. She could not fully rest until she knew he understood that she was not the kind of girl to whom he could send such presents.
Days passed. A week. Two weeks. Three. Nothing was heard of Murray. Bessie and her mother began to wonder whether afterall they ought not to have taken the boxes around to the Van Rensselaer house. Finally Bessie settled down to the belief that Murray was angry that she had not accepted his presents and had decided to drop her. Well, so she was content. She wanted no friendship with a man like that. She was glad if he felt that way. She was glad he knew he could not treat her the way he evidently treated other girls.
She settled back into the pleasant routine of her life, with the big ambition ahead to put her mother into more comfort, with opportunity for rest, and she succeeded pretty well in forgetting the one bright day with her old friend that had ended so disastrously. Only far back in her mind was a little crisp disappointment that her only old friend, whom she had so long idealized, had turned out to be such a hopeless failure, and sometimes in the dark at night when she was trying to go to sleep, her cheeks burned at the thought that she had accepted him so readily and jumped into his car at the first bidding. How she would like to go back to that bright twenty-first-birthday afternoon and haughtily decline that invitation to ride! Sometimes her pride fairly cried out for the chance.
Then one morning Mrs. Chapparelle, scanning the paper as was her habit for bits of news to give her child while she ate her breakfast before going to the office, came upon a little article tucked down in the society columns.
It is beginning to be an interesting question, “What has become of Murray Van Rensselaer?” He isn’t at his home, and he hasn’t gone abroad, at least not according to any of the recent sailing lists of vessels. He is not registered at his club, and he has not been seen at any of the popular southern resorts. His family decline to talk. Polo season is coming on, and Murray Van Rensselaer has disappeared! Everybody is asking what are we going to do without Murray? Perhaps a certain lively countess could give information! Who knows?
Bessie looked up, startled, indignant.
“That’s disgusting!” she said darkly. “No matter what he is, they haven’t a right to meddle in people’s private affairs that way and print it all out before the public!”
She did not eat any more breakfast. She began hurriedly to prepare for the office. Her mother watched her anxiously. Could it be possible that Bessie was still thinking about Murray? If so, she was glad she had stumbled on the article. She ought to understand fully just what he was. That
detail about the countess, of course, might not be anything but a bit of venom from a jealous rival. But she was glad she had read it.
“Bessie,” she began anxiously as the girl went to the hall closet for her overshoes, “are you sure you are dressed warmly enough for this stormy day?”
“Mother,” said the girl crisply, “don’t you think it would be a good thing if you began to call me Elizabeth now?”
There was a grown-up pucker on the white brow as if the child were feeling her years. The wise mother looked up quickly and smiled, sensing the feeling of annoyance that had come upon her since the reading of the article about her old friend. How her mother’s heart understood and sympathized. Another mother might have felt hurt, but not this one, who had been a companion to her child all the way and understood every lifting of a lash, every glint in the deep blue of her eyes, every shade of expression on the dear face.
“Well, maybe,” she agreed pleasantly. “I used to wonder whether we wouldn’t be sorry we had nicknamed you. I don’t know if I ever could get used to Elizabeth now. Bessie was a sweet little name when he called you that. It just fitted you!” There was wistfulness in her voice that reached through the clouds over her daughter’s spirit.
“You dear little mother, you needn’t ever try. So it is a sweet little name, and I don’t ever want to change it. I wouldn’t like you to say ‘Elizabeth’ anyway. It would sound as if you were scolding. Now, I’m not cross anymore. Good-bye, Mother dearie, and don’t you even dare to think Elizabeth while I’m gone.”
She kissed her mother tenderly and was gone, but all day the mother turned it over in her mind. Had it been wrong that she took that little lonely boy in years ago and let him be her daughter’s playmate for a while? Was it going to blight her bright spirit after all this time? No. Surely it was only a bit of pride that was hurt, not her sweet, strong spirit!