No. 13 Washington Square Part 40

Then she went back to bed and read. In the afternoon she ate the second half of the bon-bons.

Also in the afternoon she discovered that the bliss of lying abed, which she had thought would be exhaustless, had inexplicably become transmitted into boredom. And yet she dared not move about, save with a caution that amounted almost to pain; for she had heard Jack and Mary and Mr. Pyecroft pa.s.s and re-pa.s.s her door, and she knew that any slight noise on her part might result in disastrous betrayal.

Evening drew on. Bed, and sitting noiseless in one spot, grew more wearisome. And her stomach began to complain bitterly, for as has been remarked it was a pampered creature and had been long accustomed to being served sumptuously and with deferential prompt.i.tude. But she realized that Matilda would not dare come, if she remembered to come at all, until the household was fast asleep.

Eight o'clock came. She lit one of the candles and placed it, cautiously shaded, in a corner of her sitting-room....

Ten o'clock came.

She looked meditatively at the box of candles. Perhaps the Esquimaux ate them with a kind of sauce. They might not be so bad that way....

Midnight came. Shortly thereafter a faint, ever so faint, knocking sent her tiptoeing--for months she would dare move only on breathless tiptoe!--to the door of her sitting-room, where she stood and listened.

Again the faint knocking sounded.

"Mrs. De Peyster, it's Matilda," whispered an agitated voice.

Mrs. De Peyster quickly unlocked and opened the door. Matilda slipped in and the door was softly closed upon her back.

"Here's some food--just what I could grab in a second--I didn't dare take time to choose." Matilda held out a bundle wrapped in a newspaper. "Take it, ma'am. I don't dare stay here a second."

But Mrs. De Peyster caught her arm.

"How did they take my going?"

"Mr. Jack thought home was really the best place for my sister, if she was sick, ma'am. And Mary was awfully kind and asked me all sorts of questions--which--which I found it awfully hard to answer, ma'am,--and she is going to send you the book you didn't finish. And Mr. Pyecroft got me off into a corner and said, so we'd tried to give him the slip again."

"What is he going to do?"

"He said he was safe here, under Judge Harvey's protection. Outside some detective might insist on arresting him, and perhaps things might take such a turn that even Judge Harvey might not be able to help him.

So he said he was going to stay on here till things blew over. Oh, please, ma'am, let me go, for if they were to hear me--"

A minute later the chattering Matilda was out of the room, the door was locked, and Mrs. De Peyster was sitting in a chair with the bundle of provisions on her exquisitely lacquered tea-table. In the newspaper was a small loaf of bread, a tin of salmon, and a kitchen knife. That was all. Not even b.u.t.ter! And, of course, no coffee--she who liked coffee, strong, three times a day. But when was she ever again to know the taste of coffee!

Never before had she sat face to face with such an uninteresting menu.

But she devoured it--opening the tin of salmon after great effort with the knife--devoured it every bit. Then she noticed the newspaper in which the provisions had been wrapped. It was part of that day's, Sunday's, "Record," and it was the ill.u.s.trated supplement. This she unfolded, and before her eyes stood a big-lettered t.i.tle, "Annual Exodus of Society Leaders," and in the queenly place in the center of the page was her own portrait by M. Dubois.

Her eyes wandered up to the original, which was dimly illumined by the rays of her one candle. What poise, what breeding, what calm, imperturbable dignity! Then her gaze came back to her be-crumbed tea-table, with the kitchen knife and the raggedly gaping can. She slipped rather limply down in her chair and covered her eyes.

A day pa.s.sed--and another--and another. Outside Mrs. De Peyster's suite these days flew by with honeymoon rapidity; within, they lingered, and clung on, and seemed determined never to go, as is time's malevolent practice with those imprisoned. Mrs. De Peyster could hear Mary practicing, and practicing hard--and, yes, brilliantly. As for Jack, Matilda told her on her later visits--and her later bundles contained a larger and more palatable supply of food than had the first package--Matilda said that Jack, too, was working hard. Furthermore, Matilda admitted, the pair were having the jolliest of honeymoons.

And a further thing Matilda told on her third furtive, after-midnight visit. This concerned Mr. Pyecroft. Mr. Pyecroft, it seemed, was becoming an even greater favorite with Jack and Mary--particularly with Mary. He had confided to them that he was weary of his escapades, and wanted to settle down; in fact, there was a girl--the nicest girl in the world, begging Mary's pardon--who had promised to marry him as soon as he had become launched in honorable work. The trouble was, he knew that no business man would employ him in a responsible capacity, and so his last departures from strict rect.i.tude had been for the purpose of securing the capital to set himself up in some small but independent way.

His story, Matilda admitted, had captured Mary's heart.

Judge Harvey, however, still smarting under his indignity, would on his evening calls scarcely speak to Mr. Pyecroft. Nonetheless, Mr.

Pyecroft had continued regretful and polite. Once or twice, Judge Harvey, forgetting his resentment, had been drawn into discussions of points of law with Mr. Pyecroft. To Matilda, who, of course, knew nothing about law, it had seemed that Mr. Pyecroft talked almost as well as the Judge himself. But the Judge, the instant he remembered himself, resumed his ire toward Mr. Pyecroft.

Thus three days, in which it seemed to Mrs. De Peyster that Time stood still and taunted her,--each day exactly like the day before, a day of half starvation, of tiptoed, breathless routine,--days in which she spoke not a word save a whisper or two at midnight at the food-bearing visit of the sad-visaged Matilda,--three dull, diabolic days dragged by their interminable length of hours. Such days!--such awful, awful days!

On Matilda's fourth visit with her usual bundle of pilferings from the pantry, Mrs. De Peyster observed in the manner of that disconsolate pirate a great deal of suppressed agitation--of a sort hardly ascribable to the danger of their situation: an agitation quite different from mere nervous fear. There were traces of recent crying in Matilda's face, and now and then she had difficulty in holding down a sob. Mrs. De Peyster pressed her as to the trouble; Matilda chokingly replied that there was nothing. Mrs. De Peyster persisted, and soon Matilda was weeping openly.

"Oh, my heart's broke, ma'am!" she sobbed. "My heart's broke!"

"Your heart broken! How?"

"Before I can tell you, ma'am," cried the miserable Matilda, "I've got to make a confession. I've done--something awful! I've disobeyed you, ma'am! I've disobeyed and deceived you!"

"What, Matilda," said Mrs. De Peyster severely, "after the way I've trusted you for twenty years!"

"Yes, ma'am. But, I couldn't help it, ma'am! There's feelings one can't--"

"But what have you done?"

"I've--I've fallen in love, ma'am. For over a year I've been the same as engaged to William."

"William!" cried Mrs. De Peyster, sinking back from her erect, reproving posture, and recalling an unforgettable episode.

"Yes, ma'am,--to William. I'm sorry I disobeyed you, ma'am,--very sorry,--but I can't think about that now. For now," sobbed Matilda, "for now it's all off--and my heart is broke!"

"All off? Why?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.

"That's what I can't understand, ma'am," wailed Matilda. "It's all a mystery to me. I've hardly seen William, and haven't spoken to him, since we came back, and he's acted awfully queer to me. I--I couldn't stand it any longer, and this evening I went out to the stable to see him. He was as stiff, and as polite, and as mad as--oh, William was never like that to me before, ma'am! I asked him what was the matter.

'All right, if you want to break off, I'm willing!' he said in, oh, such a hard voice. 'But, William,' I said, beginning to cry, 'but, William, what have I ever done to you?' 'You know what you've done!'

he said."

"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.

"I begged him to explain, but he just turned his back on me and walked away! And now, ma'am," wept Matilda, "I know he'll never explain, he's such a proud, obstinate, stiff-necked man! And I love him so, Mrs. De Peyster,--I love him so! Oh, my heart is broke!"

Mrs. De Peyster gazed at her sobbing serving-woman in chilled dismay.

She was for a moment impelled to explain to Matilda; but she quickly realized it would never, never do for her housekeeper to know that her coachman had made love to her, and had--had even kissed her. Every drop of De Peyster blood revolted against such a degradation.

"I hope it will come out all right, Matilda," she said in a shaking voice.

"Oh, it never can!" Matilda had already started for the door. She paused, hesitant, with the k.n.o.b in her hand. "But you, ma'am," she faltered, "can you ever forgive me for the way I deceived you?"

Mrs. De Peyster tried to look severe, yet relenting.

"I'll try to overlook it, Matilda."

"Thank you, ma'am," snuffled Matilda; and very humbly she went out.

CHAPTER XX

MATILDA BREAKS IT GENTLY