Through one administrati.., p.51
Through One Administration, page 51
“I will try,” said Bertha. “ And, if I do not, I think he will understand.”
He did understand. The little incident had been no more lost upon him than upon others. He was glowing with repressed wrath, and sympathy, and the desire to do something which should express his feeling. He saw at once the change which had come upon her, and realized to the full all that it denoted. When he bore her off to the supper-room he fairly bristled with defiance of the lookers-on who made way for them.
“Confound the woman!” he said. “If it had only been a man!”
He found her the most desirable corner in the supper-room, and devoted himself to her service with an assiduity which touched her to the heart.
“You have lost your color,” he said. “That won’t do. We must bring it back.”
“I am afraid it will not come back,” she answered.
And it did not, even though the tide had turned, and that it had done so became more manifest every moment. They were joined shortly by Colonel Tredennis and his party, and by Mrs. Merriam and hers. It was plain that Mrs. Amory was to be alone no more; people who had been unconscious of her existence in the ball-room suddenly recognized it as she sat surrounded by her friends; the revulsion of feeling which had taken place in her favor expressed itself in a hundred trifles. But her color was gone, and returned no more, though she bore herself with outward calmness. It was Colonel Tredennis who was her first partner when they returned to the ball-room. He had taken a seat near her at the supper-table, and spoken a few words to her.
“Will you give me a place on your card, Bertha?” he had said, and she had handed it to him in silence.
He was not fond of dancing, and they had rarely danced together, but he wished to be near her until she had had time to recover herself. Better he than another man who might not understand so well; he knew how to be silent, at least.
So they went through their dance together, exchanging but few words, and interested spectators looked on, and one or two remarked to each other that, upon the whole, it appeared that Mrs. Amory was rather well supported, and that there had evidently been a mistake somewhere.
And then the colonel took her back to her seat, and there were new partners; and between the dances one matron after another found the way to her, and, influenced by the general revulsion of feeling, exhibited a cordiality and interest in marked contrast with the general bearing at the outset of the evening. Perhaps there were those who were rather glad to be relieved of the responsibility laid upon them. When the presidential party arrived it was observed that the President himself was very cordial when he joined the group at the end of the room, the centre figure of which was the wife of his friend and favorite cabinet officer. It was evident that he, at least, had not been affected by the gossip of the hour. His greeting of Mrs. Amory was marked in its kindness, and before he went away it was whispered about that he also had felt an interest in the matter when it had reached his ears, and was not sorry to have an opportunity of indirectly expressing his opinion.
The great lady took her departure in bitterness of spirit; the dances went on, Bertha went through one after another, and between her waltzes held her small court, and was glanced at askance no more. Any slight opposition which might have remained would have been overpowered by the mere force of changed circumstances. Before the evening was at an end it had become plain that the attempt to repress and overwhelm little Mrs. Amory had been a complete failure, and had left her better defended than it had found her.
“But she has lost something,” Senator Blundel said to himself, as he watched her dancing. “Confound it! — I can see it — she is not what she was three months ago; she is not what she was when she came into the room.”
Tredennis also recognized the change which had come upon her, and before long knew also that she had seen his recognition of it, and that she made no effort to conceal it from him. He felt that he could almost have better borne to see her old, careless gayety, which he had been wont to resent in secret bitterness of heart.
Once, when they chanced to stand alone together for a moment, she spoke to him quickly.
“Is it late?” she asked. “We seem to have been here so long! I have danced so much. Will it not soon be time to go home?”
“Do you want to go home?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered, almost breathlessly; “the music seems so loud it bewilders me a little. How gay it is! How the people dance! The sound and motion make me blind and dizzy. Philip!”
The tone in which she uttered his name was so low and tense that he was startled by it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“If there are many more dances, I am afraid — I cannot go through them — I think — I am breaking down, and I must not — I must not! Tell me what to do!”
He made a movement so that he stood directly before her and shielded her from the observation of those near them. He realized the danger of the moment.
“Look up at me!” he said. “Try to fix your eyes on me steadily. This feeling will pass away directly. You will go soon and you must not break down. Do not let yourself be afraid that you will.”
She obeyed him like a child, trying to look at him steadily.
“Tell me one more dance will be enough,” she said, “ and say you will dance it with me if you can.”
“I will,” he answered, “and you need not speak a word.”
When the senator found himself alone in the carriage with her his sense of the triumph achieved found its expression in words.
“Well,” he said, “I think we have put an end to that story.”
“Yes,” Bertha answered, “they will not say anything more about me. You have saved me from that.”
She leaned forward and looked out of the window. Carriages blocked the street, and were driving up and driving away; policemen were opening and shutting doors and calling names loudly; a few street-Arabs stood on the pavement and looked with envious eyes at the bright dresses and luxurious wraps of the party passing under the awning; the glare of gas-light fell upon a pretty face upturned to its companions, and a girl’s laugh rang out on the night air. Bertha turned away. She looked at Senator Blundel. Her own face had no color.
“I think,” she said, — “I think I have been to my last ball.”
“No — no,” he answered. “That’s nonsense. You will dance at many a one.”
“I think,” she said, — “I think this is the last.”
Senator Blundel did not accompany her into the house when they reached it. He left her at the door, almost wringing her small cold hand in his stout warm one.
“Come!” he said. “You are tired now, and no wonder, but to-morrow you will be better. You want sleep and you must have it. Go in, child, and go to bed. Good-night. God bless you! You will — be better to-morrow.”
She went through the hall slowly, intending to go to her room, but when she reached the parlor she saw that it was lighted. She had given orders that the servants should not sit up for her, and the house was silent with the stillness of sleep. She turned at the parlor door and looked in. A fire still burned in the grate, her own chair was drawn up before it, and in the chair sat a figure, the sight of which caused her to start forward with an exclamation, — a tall, slender, old figure, his gray head bowed upon his hand.
“Papa!” she cried. “Can it be you, papa? What has happened?”
He rose rather slowly, and looked at her; it was evident that he had been plunged in deep thought; his eyes were heavy, and he looked aged and worn. He put out his hand, took hers, and drew her to him.
“My dear,” he said. “My dear child!”
She stood quite still for a moment, looking up at him.
“You have come to tell me something,” she said, at length, in a low, almost monotonous voice. “And it is something about Richard. It is something — something wretched.”
A slight flush mounted to his cheek, — a flush of shame.
“Yes,” he answered, “it is something wretched.”
She began to shake like a leaf, but it was not from fear.
“Then do not be afraid,” she said; “there is no need! Richard — has not spared me!”
It was the first time through all she had borne and hidden, through all the years holding, for her, suffering and bitterness and disenchantment which had blighted all her youth, — it was the first time she had permitted her husband’s name to escape her lips when she could not compel herself to utter it gently, and that, at last, he himself had forced such speech from her was the bitterest indignity of all.
And if she felt this, the professor felt it keenly, too. He had marked her silence and self-control at many a time when he had felt that the fire that burned in her must make her speak; but she had never spoken, and the dignity of her reserve had touched him often.
“What is it that Richard has done now, papa?” she said.
He put a tremulous hand into his pocket, and drew forth a letter.
“Richard,” he said, —”Richard has gone abroad.”
She had felt that she was to receive some blow, but she had scarcely been prepared for this. She repeated his words in bewilderment.
“Richard has gone abroad”
The professor put his hand on her shoulder.
“Sit down, my dear,” he said. “ You must sit down.”
There was a chair near her; it stood by the table on which the professor had been wont to take his cup of tea; she turned and sat down in this chair, and resting her elbows on the table, dropped her forehead upon her hands. The professor drew near to her side; his gentle, refined old face flushed and paled alternately; his hands were tremulous; he spoke in a low, agitated voice.
“My dear,” he said, “I find it very hard to tell you all — all I have discovered. It is very bitter to stand here upon your husband’s hearth, and tell you — my child and his wife — that the shadow of dishonor and disgrace rests upon him. He has not been truthful; we have — been deceived.”
She did not utter a word.
“For some time I have been anxious,” he went on; “but I blame myself that I was not anxious sooner. I am not a business man; I have not been practical in my methods of dealing with him; the fault was in a great measure mine. His nature was not a strong one, — it was almost impossible for him to resist temptation; I knew that, and should have remembered it. I have been very blind. I did not realize what was going on before my eyes. I thought his interest in the Westoria scheme was only one of his many whims. I was greatly to blame.”
“No,” said Bertha; “it was not you who were to blame. I was more blind than you — I knew him better than — than any one else.”
“A short time ago,” said the professor, “I received a letter from an old friend who knows a great deal of my business affairs. He is a business man, and I have been glad to entrust him with the management of various investments. In this manner he knew something of the investment of the money which was yours. He knew more of Richard’s methods than Richard was aware of. He had heard rumors of the Westoria land scheme, and had accidentally, in the transaction of his business, made some discoveries. He asked me if I knew the extent to which your fortune had been speculated with. Knowing a few facts, he was able to guess at others”—
Bertha lifted her face from her hands.
“My money!” she exclaimed. “My fortune!”
“He had speculated with it at various times, sometimes gaining, sometimes losing; the Westoria affair seems to have dazzled him — and he invested largely”—
Bertha rose from her chair.
“It was Philip Tredennis’ money he invested,” she said. “Philip Tredennis”—
“It was not Philip’s money,” the professor answered; “that I have discovered. But it was Philip’s generosity which would have made it appear so. In this letter — written just before he sailed — Richard has admitted the truth to me — finding what proof I had against him.”
Bertha lifted her hands and let them fall at her sides.
“Papa,” she said, “ I do not understand this — I do not understand. Philip Tredennis! He gave money to Richard! Richard accepted money from him — to shield himself, to — This is too much for me!”
“Philip had intended the money for Janey,” said the professor, “and when he understood how Richard had involved himself, and how his difficulties would affect you and your future he made a most remarkable offer: he offered to assume the responsibility of Richard’s losses. He did not intend that you should know what he had done. Such a thing would only have been possible for Philip Tredennis, and it was because I knew him so well, that, when I heard that it was his money that had been risked in the Westoria lands, I felt that something was wrong. He was very reticent, and that added to my suspicions. Then I made the discoveries through my friend, and my accusations of Richard forced him to admit the truth.”
“The truth!” said Bertha,—” that I was to live upon Philip Tredennis’ money; that, having been ruined by my husband, I was to be supported by Philip Tredennis’ bounty!”
“Richard was in despair,” said the professor, “and in his extremity he forgot”—
“He forgot me!” said Bertha. “Yes, he forgot — a great many things.”
“It has seemed always to be Philip who has remembered,” said the professor, sadly. “Philip has been generous and thoughtful for us from first to last.”
Bertha’s hand closed itself.
“Yes,” she cried; “always Philip — always Philip!”
“What could have been finer and more delicate than his care and planning for you in this trouble of the last few days, to which I have been so blind!” said the professor.
“His care and planning!” echoed Bertha, turning slowly toward him. “His! Did you not hear that Senator Blundel”—
“It was he who went to Senator Blundel,” the professor answered. “It was he who spoke to the wife of the Secretary of State. I learned it from Mrs. Merriam. Out of all the pain we have borne, or may have to bear, the memory of Philip’s faithful affection for us”—
He did not finish his sentence. Bertha stopped him. Her clenched hand had risen to her side, and was pressed against it.
“It was Philip who came to me in my trouble in Virginia,” she said. “It was Philip who saw my danger and warned me of it when I would not hear him; but I could not know that I owed him such a debt as this!”
“We should never have known it from him,” the professor replied. “He would have kept silent to the end.”
Bertha looked at the clock upon the mantel.
“It is too late to send for him now,” she said; “it is too late, and a whole night must pass before”—
“Before you say to him — what?” asked the professor.
“Before I tell him that Richard made a mistake,” she answered, with white and trembling lips; “that he must take his money back — that I will not have it.”
She caught her father’s arm and clung to it, looking into his troubled face.
“Papa,” she said, “will you take me home again? I think you must, if you will. There seems to be no place for me. If you will let me stay with you until I have time to think.”
The professor laid his hand upon hers and held it closely.
“My dear,” he said, “ my home is yours. It has never seemed so much mine since you left it; but this may not be so bad as you think. I do not know how much we may rely upon Richard’s hopes, — they are not always to be relied upon, — but it appears that he has hopes of retrieving some of his losses through a certain speculation he seems to have regarded as a failure, but which suddenly promises to prove a success.”
“I have never thought of being poor,” said Bertha; “I do not think I should know how to be poor. But, somehow, it is not the money I am thinking of; that will come later, I suppose. I scarcely seem to realize yet”—
Her voice and her hand shook, and she clung to him more closely.
“Everything has gone wrong,” she said, wildly; “everything must be altered. No one is left to care for me but you. No one must do it but you. Now that Richard has gone, it is not Philip who must be kind to me — not Philip — Philip last of all!”
“Not Philip?” he echoed. “Not Philip?”
And, as he said it, they both heard feet ascending the steps at the front door.
“My child,” said the professor, “that is Philip now. He spoke of calling in on me on his way home. Perhaps he has been anxious at finding me out so late. I do not understand you — but must I go and send him away?”
“No,” she answered, shuddering a little, as if with cold, “it is for me to send him away. But I must tell him first about the money. I am glad he has come. I am glad another night will not pass without his knowing. I think I want to speak to him alone — if you will send him here, and wait for a little while in the library.”
She did not see her father’s face as he went away from her; he did not see hers; she turned and stood upon the hearth with her back toward the door.
She stood so when, a few minutes afterward, Philip Tredennis came in; she stood so until he was within a few feet of her. Then she moved a little and looked up.
What she saw in him arrested for the moment her power to speak, and for that moment both were silent. Often as she had recognized the change which had taken place in him, often as the realization of it had wrung her heart, and wrung it all the more that she had understood so little, she had never before seen it as she saw it then. All the weariness, the anxious pain, the hopeless sadness of his past, seemed to have come to the surface; he could endure no more; he had borne the strain too long, and he knew too well that the end had come. No need for words to tell him that he must lose even the poor and bitter comfort he had clung to; he had made up his mind to that when he had defended her against the man who himself should have been her defence.
