Come Out of the Kitchen! Part 16

"It's sometimes a good idea to speak the truth, even to servants, Solon," returned Crane. "You are provoking, and no one knows it better than I have known it during the past fifteen minutes. But your powers of being provoking have nothing to do with the matter, except theoretically. The boy has got to go. I want him to be out of the house within an hour. That's all there is to the whole question, Jane-Ellen."

"But, oh, sir, if he is sorry--"

"I doubt very much if he is sorry."

"Oh, why, sir?"

"Because I feel sure that in his place I shouldn't be sorry in the least, except for having failed--if he did fail."

"I know it's a great liberty, sir, but I do wish you could give him another chance." Her look was extraordinarily appealing.

"What in the world is Brindlebury to you, Jane-Ellen?"

"Didn't Mr. Tucker tell you, sir? He's my brother."

"No, he didn't tell me. Did you know he was Jane-Ellen's brother, Solon?"

"Brin told him, himself, sir." She was a little overeager.

Tucker frowned.

"Yes, I believe the boy did say something to that effect. I own I was not much interested in the fact, and I can't say I think it has any bearing on the present situation."

Crane was silent for an instant. Then he said:

"No, it hasn't. He's got to go," and then he added, quite clearly, and looking at his cook very directly:

"But I am sorry, Jane-Ellen, not to be able to do anything that you ask me to do."

She looked back at him for an instant, with a sort of imperishable sweetness, and then went sadly out of the room.

Between Crane and his legal adviser no further words were exchanged.

Crane went and took out one of the motors and rushed at a high rate of speed over the country, frightening one or two sedate black mules, the only other travelers on the roads, and soothing his own irritation by the rapidity of the motion.

More and more he regretted not having been able to grant the favor Jane-Ellen had so engagingly asked, more and more he felt inclined to believe that in Brindlebury's place he would have done the same thing, more and more did he feel disposed to fasten upon Tucker all the disagreeableness of the situation.

VII

HE did not get back until almost dinner time. The meal was not an agreeable one, though Jane-Ellen's part of the performance was no less perfectly achieved than usual. It was evident that there had been a scene between the two ladies. Cora's eyes were distinctly red, and though Mrs. Falkener's bore no such evidence, she looked more haggard than was her wont. Tucker was still feeling somewhat imposed upon, Smithfield's manner suggested a dignified rebuke, Crane felt no inclination to lighten the general tone, and altogether the occasion was dreary in the extreme.

As soon as they had had coffee, Cora sat down at the piano, and drawing Burton to her by a request for more light, she whispered:

"Won't you take me out in the garden? I have something I must say to you."

Crane acquiesced. It was a splendid, misty November night. The moonlight was of that sea-green color which, so often represented on the stage, is seldom seen in nature. The moon concealed the bareness of the garden-beds, lent a suggestion of mystery to the thickets of what had once been flowering shrubs, and made the columns of the piazza, which in the daytime showed themselves most plainly to be but ill-painted wood, appear almost like the marble portico of an Ionic temple.

The air was so still that from the stables, almost a quarter of a mile away, they could hear the sound of one of the horses kicking in its stall, and the tune that a groom was rather unskilfully deducing from a concertina.

Crane whistled the air softly as he strolled along by his companion's side, until she stopped and said with great intensity:

"I want to say something to you, Burton. I'm not happy. I'm horribly distressed. I ought not to say what I'm going to say, at least the general idea seems to be that girls shouldn't--but I have a feeling that you're really my friend, a friend to whom I can speak frankly even about things that concern me."

"You make no mistake there, Cora," he returned.

He was what is considered a brave man, with calm nerves and quick judgment; physical danger had a certain stimulating effect upon him; morally, too, he did not lack courage; though good-naturedly inclined to have everything as pleasant as possible, he was not in the least afraid to make himself disagreeable. But now, at the thought of what Miss Falkener was going to say to him, he was frankly and unmistakably terrified. Why, he asked himself? Young and timid girls could go through such scenes and, it was said, actually enjoy them. Why should he be unreasoningly terrified--terrified with the same instinctive desire to run away that some people feel when they see snakes or spiders? Why should he feel as if prison walls were closing about him?

"Two years ago, when you and I first began to see each other," Miss Falkener went on, in a voice that she kept dropping lower and lower in order to conceal its tremors, "I liked you at once, Burton. I liked you very much. But, aside from that--you know, I'm not always very happy with my mother, aside from liking you, I made up my mind in the most cold-blooded, mercenary way, that the best thing I could do was to marry you."

"Well, I call that a thoroughly kind thought," said Crane, smiling at her, as a martyr might make a little joke about the lions.

"It wasn't kind," said Cora. "It was just selfish. I supposed I would be able to make you happy, but really, I thought very little about you in the matter. I was thinking only of myself. But I've been well repaid for it--" She stopped, almost with a sob; and while she was silently struggling for sufficient self-control to continue, Crane became aware that the front door had opened, letting a sudden shaft of yellow light fall upon them through the green moonshine, and that Tucker had come out on the piazza. He was looking about; he was looking for them. Not a sound did Burton make, but if concentration of thought has any unseen power, he drew Tucker's gaze to them.

"Burton," said Tucker.

There was no answer.

"Burton!" he called again.

Miss Falkener raised her head.

"Some one called you," she said.

Then Crane's figure became less rigid, and he moved a step forward. He was saved for the time, at least.

"Want me, Tuck?" he said.

Solon came down the steps carefully. He had reached an age when the eye does not quickly adjust itself to changes of light.

"Yes," he said, "I do want to see you. I want to ask you one question.

Did you or did you not a.s.sure me the boy Brindlebury had left the house?"

"I did so a.s.sure you," answered Crane, "and I had been so foolish as to hope we had heard the last of him. Smithfield told me before dinner that he left early in the afternoon."

"Smithfield lied to you. The boy is in bed in his own room at this moment."

"How do you know?"

"Go and see for yourself."

Crane was just angry enough at every one to welcome any action. Only a few seconds elapsed before he was in the servants' wing of the house.

All the doors were standing open, disclosing black darkness, except one which was closed, and under this a bright streak was visible.

Crane flung himself upon this, thinking it would be locked, but evidently Brindlebury had not thought any such precaution necessary. The door at once yielded, and Crane entered.