The silence became unbearable. The guests finished, with great care, the last morsels on their plates, Geoffrey motioned with his head to a servant to refill the wine glasses. Melissa’s throat was dry. She looked at her husband, and blurted out: “Did I say something I ought not to have said?”
Later, Mrs. Littlefield observed to her husband that Arabella had saved the situation with immense magnanimity and finesse by rising and saying to the ladies: “Shall we leave the gentlemen to their cheroots and wine?”
The gentlemen rose and waited for the ladies to rise, which they did with a creak and rustle of silk. Melissa sat dumbly, staring at Geoffrey with confused pleading and bewilderment, for he had not answered her nor looked at her. The ladies, gathering in a cluster at the door, waited for her. Geoffrey said, quietly: “Will you join the ladies, Melissa?” And still he did not turn his eyes in her direction. He was very pale. And there Melissa sat, under the gaze of the ladies, under the noses of the gentlemen, twisting a length of her gown between damp and trembling fingers.
Then she said, faintly: “Why should I join the ladies? I don’t want to. I think I shall go to bed. I’m very tired.”
Again, Arabella gasped, very loudly and theatrically, and touched her lips with her handkerchief. The gentlemen were nonplussed. Geoffrey could not help smiling a little, in spite of his anger and humiliation. He came to Melissa and offered her his arm. “Of course, my dear,” he said, gently. “I am sure our guests will excuse you.”
She rose awkwardly, and took his arm. What should she do next? The situation called for something graceful in the way of regrets. But she did not know what to do or to say. At home, she would merely have left the room, and there would have been no questions. But in this alien environment something was obviously expected, and she did not know what it was. So, hurriedly, and in a loud tone, she exclaimed: “Good night!” She looked at all those closed and avid faces, heard the murmurs of the gentlemen and, louder, the silence of the ladies. She tried to smile. She added: “I am sure we shall see you in the morning.”
The ladies blushed, the gentlemen coughed softly. Melissa, on the arm of her husband, stumbled to the doorway. The ladies parted to clear the exit. Then Geoffrey released his arm and said gravely: “Good night, Melissa.”
She stood there, exposed, alone and baffled, under the embarrassed scrutiny of all eyes. She could think of nothing. She gathered up her skirts and, final ignominy, all saw her great shabby boots under the silk. She turned and fled.
The ladies, mercifully chatting of other matters, followed Arabella. The gentlemen sat down, and a servant closed the door. Amiable conversation was picked up by Mr. Eldridge, tossed to Mr. Littlefield, to Mr. Bertram, to Ravel. He picked it up gracefully. Geoffrey could not speak for several moments. Then he looked up to encounter Ravel’s sardonic smile, and for a moment he wanted to kill Melissa.
CHAPTER 31
Rachel was sitting by the fire in Melissa’s bedroom, sewing swiftly and delicately on the brown velvet destined for tomorrow, when the door burst open and Melissa rushed in with a great noise. Startled, Rachel let the velvet slide from her knees, she stood up and stared at Melissa.
“Is there something you wish, Mrs. Dunham?” she asked, noting Melissa’s hot eyes and air of disorder and rout. What ever had happened to the poor young lady now? She watched in stupefaction as Melissa ran to the dressing-table and began to throw off her jewels with wild haste. “What is the matter, ma’am?” asked the girl in distress, approaching Melissa. “Do you wish to change your jewelry?”
Melissa turned her head jerkily over her shoulder and cried: “No, of course not! I’m just going to bed, that’s all, Rachel. I’m tired.”
Dumfounded, Rachel glanced at the gilt clock on the mantelpiece. It was hardly half-past ten. She saw that Melissa’s hands were shaking. The girl was unpinning her hair, and it suddenly fell in a heavy uncoiling length down her back. “But Mrs. Dunham, they are just starting the music downstairs,” faltered Rachel. It was all very confusing. Melissa, in spite of her feverish color, was apparently in the best of health. One did not leave one’s guests; it was not done even for such a reason as sudden indisposition. And especially not on one’s wedding night. Her bewilderment grew as she stood beside Melissa, who was struggling with the buttons of the blue gown. Automatically, Rachel assisted. The white flesh under her finger tips was hot.
Melissa jerked away at the girl’s touch. “I can manage, Rachel. And what are you doing here, anyway? Why aren’t you in bed?”
“Why, ma’am, I am supposed to remain here until you come, to assist you, no matter what the time,” said Rachel.
“Oh, what nonsense!” cried Melissa. “Do you mean,” she continued, arrested in her haste by the outrageous idea, “that if I didn’t arrive until midnight, or later, you’d just sit here, yawning and tired, until I came?”
“Why, certainly, ma’am. That is my duty.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Melissa, roundly. “You just leave here at once and go to bed, Rachel.”
Rachel’s confusion mounted. She glanced hopefully at the door, expecting Mr. Dunham. But the door remained blandly closed. Melissa had reached an acute stage in her undressing, and was waiting impatiently for Rachel to leave. She had seated herself on a stool and had taken off her boots, which she now tossed aside with a clatter. Her hot agitation was growing, and this was so intense a contrast with her frozen misery and dumbness of the morning that Rachel was alarmed.
“Ma’am, what is wrong?” asked the girl, impulsively. She let herself drop on the edge of the chair she had vacated, and fumbled absently with the heap of brown velvet beside it. “Has something happened?” she added, hoping that Melissa would not consider her impertinent.
But Melissa did not think Rachel impertinent in the least. Her snobbery was not social, but intellectual, and as she considered Rachel seriously she felt an immense confidence in her servant and an inexplicable desire to unburden herself and find an answer to the puzzling events of the night. She lifted her hands from her stocking, and clenched them in her shimmering lap. She appeared very young and bewildered and vaguely frightened, on her stool, with her hair on her shoulders, her cheeks very pink, and her eyes very wide and baffled.
“Rachel,” she said, “I have done something terrible downstairs, but I don’t know what it is. Anyway, they are all stupid and obtuse, and they bored me horribly. Except Mr. Littlefield. Who is a poet,” she added, with a touch of enthusiasm. “He understood. I’m sure he did, but they were all so shocked, and it was all so tiresome, and they were all so dull, that I am afraid he was infected by them. I wouldn’t have cared, but Mr. Dunham was hurt, in some way.” She pushed the hair back from her forehead, and frowned, and sighed. “No one explained. I thought Mr. Dunham would be glad when I joined the dinner conversation, for I felt that he thought me very tedious, just stitting there and not finding anything to say. So I joined the conversation.”
Oh, dear, thought Rachel. And what did the poor young lady say?
She clasped her hands on her knees, and her queer affection for Melissa made her round dark eyes soft and receptive. She waited.
Melissa was becoming excited and baffled again. “They were talking about books, and publishing, and the indifference of people to classic works of art, Rachel. Mr. Dunham caught Mr. Littlefield in an argument about Balzac.” She paused. “What do you think of Balzac, Rachel? My father thought him an impossible scribbler, and meretricious.”
“I am sure Mr. Balzac, then, must be a very poor sort of gentlemen,” said Rachel. “He cannot have been a man of breeding,” she went on, wondering what “scribbler” and “meretricious” might mean. But she made her voice disapproving, to match the scorn on Melissa’s face. Apparently she had said the right thing, though Melissa remarked: “Well, I don’t know or care whether he was a gentleman or not. That doesn’t matter. It is his books which matter. The man is unimportant. The point is, has he contributed anything of immortal value to the world, or
is he just a passing sensation?”
“Only time will tell,” said Rachel sententiously, and with intuitive genius.
Melissa nodded vigorously, pleased. “Naturally, time is the test of all things. But there are definite signs, just now, that the man’s works are of no value. My father pointed them out to me, and his judgment was always infallible.” Her mouth saddened, then she lifted her head proudly.
“Well,” she said, “I do not condemn Mr. Littlefield too severely for his admiration for Balzac. Even the best minds can be dazzled and led astray, temporarily, in the face of public clamor, which, of course, cannot be trusted in the least. But Mr. Dunham quite caught him in a trap, and it was most inconsiderate. Moreover, the argument was fallacious.
I wished to set Mr. Dunham to rights, and mentioned my father’s works, how poorly they had been received by the people. I also mentioned that I did not quite believe this. I’ve had a suspicion for some time that his works sold better than reported by Mr. Dunham, and I shall suggest, tomorrow, that Mr. Dunham make a personal investigation of his ac count books. Chicanery is not unknown in the publishing business, Rachel,” added Melissa, darkly. “I believe Mr, Dunham, himself, is being cheated, in his own offices.” Rachel was not following all this very clearly, but she caught enough of the import to be aghast. “Oh, ma’am,” she murmured, “did you actually say someone was cheating Mr. Dunham?”
Melissa considered acutely, staring into space. Then she bit her lip. “I am very sorry,” she said, uncertainly. She stared again. “However, I only expressed my opinion. Everyone has a right to his opinion.”
She pulled off her stockings, and flung them from her. Then, becoming aware of Rachel’s silence, she exclaimed defensively: “How can they be so sensitive and absurd? Mr. Dunham, too? I thought he was a man of sense. Is it forbidden to express an opinion? Must one always watch one’s words? Such hypocrisy! No wonder the world is filled with liars and mendacious rascals! I, for one, will never subscribe to such mealymouthed conventions. Besides, I didn’t say outright that anyone was cheating, least of all, Mr. Dunham.” “Then what happened, ma’am?”
“Oh, it was all so ridiculous! I saw I had, in their opinion, done something outrageous. What does one do then? Why, one removes oneself. It is simple. So I said I was going to bed, and that I didn’t want to join the ladies. Why should I have ‘joined the ladies’? They are all very stupid, I am sure that I should have found their conversation tiresome, and why should anyone allow himself to be bored by anyone else? Life is too short, as my father used to say. He would say that if you found yourself in tedious company you owed it to yourself and to your integrity to withdraw. So, I did.” Oh, heavens, sighed Rachel to herself. She moistened her lips, said gently and bravely: “But ma’am, that—that isn’t customary. A lady is supposed to remain with her guests, and not to leave them.”
“But they aren’t my guests,” said Melissa, with sharp simplicity. “I don’t know them. I didn’t invite them. They were here when I came. They are Arabella’s friends. Let her entertain them. What have I to do with it?”
“But you are mistress of this household now, ma’am,” ventured Rachel, seeing that Melissa had no idea that her maid was “impudent,” or was “forgetting her place.”
Melissa was appalled. “Ought I to have remained, Rachel? Honestly, now? Ought I to have gone into the drawing-room, with those odious dull females, as was suggested? What a waste of time! How absurd! When there are so many important things to do!”
She was outraged at the very thought. But her eyes, fixed on Rachel, were uncertain and troubled. “If you are right, and I cannot think you are, then Mr. Dunham must be very annoyed with me.”
“There are certain social customs, ma’am,” said Rachel, full of pity. She had an impulse to go to Melissa and kiss her, an impulse which immediately shocked her.
Melissa looked at her boots and stockings. “Ought I to go down at once, then?”
“I think it would only make matters worse, ma’am,” sighed Rachel, with a vision of Melissa suddenly rushing back into the drawing-room where the ladies were doubtless avidly enjoying themselves at the poor girl’s expense.
“It is a quandary,” said Melissa, frowning. Then she was vexed again. “How foolishly matters are handled here! I foresee a very entertaining life for me,” she added, with gloom. Her face hardened. “Well, I shall do no more than is necessary. No one can ask more. I have my own life to live, and I have work to do.” She was full of vigor again, she glanced at the white-and-gold chest which held her father’s manuscripts. “I must be becoming hypocritical. I told them, and you, that I was going to bed. That is untrue. I have no intention of going to bed. I am going to work.”
“You told the guests you were going to bed?” faltered Rachel. She colored faintly. “On your wedding night, ma’am? What did Mr. Dunham say?”
“Nothing at all,” replied Melissa, missing the implication entirely. “Naturally, he could not leave with me, for, as you said, they are his guests.” She was proud of her new knowledge of etiquette. “Even though he complained to me today that Arabella was the one who really invited them, not he. But it would have been rude for the host, however involuntarily he was host, to walk off and leave his sister alone to entertain these tiresome people.”
Rachel had been well grounded in the subject of social usage, and now, listening to Melissa, she felt dazed. Here was a young woman, obviously well-bred and of good family, educated and patrician, speaking in the accents of the best drawing-rooms, and yet she was as ignorant of custom as a baby in arms. It was not to be understood. Her arguments, too, were so crystalline, so forthright and simple, that it was hard to meet them with conventional objections. She would not have comprehended in the least I must teach her, thought Rachel, for her own sake, poor young lady. What innocence!
Melissa was now tired of the subject, which she considered petty and time-wasting. She had work to do. Never had she felt so wide awake, so urgent and clear-minded. She could work for hours!
“Do go to bed, Rachel,” she said, starting up. “I want to get undressed, and then I shall sit at that desk, yonder, and get to work. I have wasted enough time as it is, and it is desperately necessary for me to complete my father’s manuscripts.”
“You are going to work, ma’am? Now?” asked Rachel, incredulously. A young and ingenuous bride going to bed, to await her bridegroom with blushings and trepidation, was not too out of the ordinary, but a bride who, on her wedding night, fled to her bedroom for the sole purpose of working, was not to be accepted by a sane mind.
“Certainly, I am going to work. I’ve idled away enough time,” said Melissa, eyeing her maid with open impatience. Whatever she had thought that afternoon in her tub was completely forgotten now, her single-hearted intent fixed only on one object. She was incapable of harboring more than one idea at a time. She was like a sword with a single edge, incapable of cutting in more than one direction. “Do run along, Rachel. How can I undress if you linger here?”
Still disoriented and incredulous, Rachel said: “But I am supposed to help you undress, ma’am, to lay out your nightdress, and to put away your gown.”
“Oh, how nonsensical!” cried Melissa. “Am I ill, or a cripple? And why should you, a woman, do such degrading things for me, another woman, quite capable of taking care of herself? Am I a parasite, a sybarite?” She paused. “Do you mean,” she added, disbelievingly, “that other women permit such services, debasing alike to the servant and to the one served?”
“It is customary, ma’am, if a lady can afford a personal maid,” answered Rachel, wearily.
“Well, I shall certainly not permit it,” said Melissa, roundly. “Go away at once, Rachel. You look very tired. Heat a glass of milk for yourself, put in plenty of loaf sugar, and go to bed. It will help you get a good night’s sleep.”
Rachel glanced at the fire. “If you will permit it, ma’am, I should like to remain here and finish this dress, and replenish the fire when you ne
ed it.”
“Will you go away?” exclaimed Melissa, angrily. “Of course, you mustn’t stay here. I couldn’t work with you in the room. And there’s plenty of coal. I can throw on some more, if I need it. Besides, this room is too hot. Heat stultifies the mind.”
Rachel, in silence, went to a chest, brought out a foam of lace and silk and ribbons and laid it on Melissa’s bed. “What’s that?” demanded the girl, approaching.
“Your nightgown, of course, ma’am.”
Scornfully, and with an exclamation, Melissa lifted up the delicate cloud and held it at arm’s length. “This? I never heard of such a thing! The room will grow too cold, later on, and I should get lung fever. So flimsy and ridiculous. Do women actually wear such things? Where are my flannel nightgowns, Rachel?”
Rachel faltered: “Why, Mr. Dunham told me to throw them away, ma’am.”
Melissa colored, with anger and embarrassment. “He saw them, Rachel? You showed my nightgowns to him?”
“No, Mrs. Dunham. He opened the chest and inspected them, himself.”
“How dared he! Why, this is outrageous! How could he have brought himself to invade my privacy?” Melissa’s embarrassment was gone. She was full of umbrage at Geoffrey’s calm insolence.