The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories Part 10

Strowbridge glanced about in search of Miss Williams. She was not in the room. He sauntered out to the garden and saw her coming from the dairy.

She wore a black alpaca frock and a dark ap.r.o.n. Her face was weary and sad.

"Could any one look more hopeless!" he thought. "The selfish old curmudgeon, not to leave her independent! How her face can light up! She looks almost young."

For she had seen him and hastened down the path. As he asked after her health and said that he had been looking for her, she smiled and flushed a little. They sat down on the steps and chatted until approaching voices warned them that both pleasure and duty were over. She found herself admitting that she had been bitterly disappointed to learn that she was still a dependant, still chained to the gloomy mansion by the lake. Yes; she should like to travel, to go to places she had read of in the doctor's library--to live. She flushed with shame later when she reflected on her confidences--she who was so proudly reticent. And to a stranger! But she had never met any one so sympathetic.

Many were the comments of the visitors as they drove away.

"Upon my word!" exclaimed Mrs. Holt; "I do believe Marian Webster will become stuck-up in her old age."

"Four millions are a good excuse," said Mrs. Meeker, with a sigh.

"That dress did not cost a cent under three hundred dollars," remarked a third, with energy. "And it was tried on four times, if it was once. She is evidently open to consolation."

But Miss Webster had by no means ceased to furnish material for comment.

A month later Mrs. Meeker burst in on Mrs. Holt. "What do you think?"

she cried. "Old Miss Webster is refurnishing the house from top to bottom. I ran in just now, and found everything topsy-turvy. Thompson's men are there frescoing--frescoing! All the carpets have been taken up and are not in sight. Miss Webster informed me that she would show us what she could do, if she was seventy-odd, but that she didn't want any one to call until everything was finished. Think of that house being modernized--that old whited sepulchre!"

Mrs. Holt had dropped the carriage-blanket she was embroidering for her daughter's baby. "Are you dreaming?" she gasped. "Hiram will haunt the place!"

"Just you wait. Miss Webster hasn't waited all these years for nothing."

Nor had she. The sudden and stupendous change in her fortunes had routed grief--made her dizzy with possibilities. She had no desire to travel, but she had had a lifelong craving for luxury. She might not have many more years to live, she reiterated to Miss Williams, but during those years her wealth should buy her all that her soul had ever yearned for.

In due course the old exclusive families of the infant city received large squares of pasteboard heavily bordered with black, intimating that Miss Webster would be at home to her friends on Thursdays at four of the clock. On the first Thursday thereafter the parlor of Webster Hall was as crowded as on the day of the funeral. "But who would ever know the old barrack?" as the visitors whispered. Costly lace hid the window-panes, heavy pale-blue satin the ancient frames. The walls were frescoed with pink angels rising from the tinting clouds of dawn. The carpet was of light-blue velvet; the deep luxurious chairs and divans and the portieres were of blue satin. The wood-work was enamelled with silver. Out in the wide hall Persian rugs lay on the inlaid floors, tapestry cloth hid the walls. Carved furniture stood in the niches and the alcoves. Through the open doors of the library the guests saw walls upholstered with leather, low bookcases, busts of marble and bronze. An old laboratory off the doctor's study had been transformed into a dining-room, as expensive and conventional as the other rooms. There a dainty luncheon was spread.

Miss Webster led the lakeside people up-stairs. The many spare bedrooms had been handsomely furnished, each in a different color. When the guests were finally permitted to enter Miss Webster's own virgin bower their chins dropped helplessly. Only this saved them from laughing outright.

The room was furnished as for a pampered beauty. The walls were covered with pink silk shimmering under delicate lace. The white enamel bed and dressing-table were bountifully draped with the same materials. Light filtered through rustling pink. The white carpet was sprinkled with pink roses. The trappings of the dressing-table were of crystal and gold. In one corner stood a Psyche mirror. Two tall lamps were hooded with pink.

All saw the humor; none the pathos.

The doctor's room had been left untouched. Sentiment and the value of the old mahogany had saved it. Miss Williams's room was also the same little cell. She a.s.sisted to receive the guests in a new black silk gown. Miss Webster was clad from head to foot in English crepe, with deep collar and girdle of dull jet.

That was a memorable day in the history of the city.

Thereafter Miss Webster gave an elaborate dinner-party every Sunday evening at seven o'clock. No patient groans greeted her invitations.

Never did a lone woman receive such unflagging attentions.

At each dinner she wore a different gown. It was at the third that she dazzled her guests with an immense pair of diamond earrings. At the fourth they whispered that she had been having her nails manicured. At the fifth it was painfully evident that she was laced. At the sixth they stared and held their breath: Miss Webster was unmistakably painted. But it was at the tenth dinner that they were speechless and stupid: Miss Webster wore a blond wig.

"They can just talk all they like," said the lady to her companion that last night, as she sat before her mirror regarding her aged charms. "I have four millions, and I shall do as I please. It's the first time I ever could, and I intend to enjoy every privilege that wealth and independence can give. Whose business is it, anyway?" she demanded, querulously.

"No one's. But it is a trifle ridiculous, and you must expect people to talk."

"They'd better talk!" There was a sudden suggestion of her brother's personality, never before apparent. "But why is it ridiculous, I should like to know? Hasn't a woman the right to be young if she can? I loved Hiram. I was a faithful and devoted sister; but he took my youth, and now that he has given it back, as it were I'll make the most of it."

"You can't be young again."

"Perhaps not, in years; but I'll have all that belongs to youth."

"Not all. No man will love you."

Miss Webster brought her false teeth together with a snap. "Why not, I should like to know? What difference do a few years make? Seventy is not much, in any other calculation. Fancy if you had only seventy dollars between you and starvation! Think of how many thousands of years old the world is! I have now all that makes a woman attractive--wealth, beautiful surroundings, scientific care. The steam is taking out my wrinkles; I can see it."

She turned suddenly from the gla.s.s and flashed a look of resentment on her companion.

"But I wish I had your thirty years' advantage. I do! I do! Then they'd see."

The two women regarded each other in silence for a long moment. Love had gone from the eyes and the hearts of both. Hate, unacknowledged as yet, was growing. Miss Webster bitterly envied the wide gulf between old age and her quarter-century companion and friend. Abigail bitterly envied the older woman's power to invoke the resemblance and appurtenances of youth, to indulge her lifelong yearnings.

When the companion went to her pillow that night she wept pa.s.sionately.

"I will go," she said. "I'll be a servant; but I'll stay here no longer."

The next morning she stood on the veranda and watched Miss Webster drive away to market. The carriage and horses were unsurpa.s.sed in California.

The coachman and footman were in livery. The heiress was attired in l.u.s.treless black silk elaborately trimmed with jet. A large hat covered with plumes was kept in place above her painted face and red wig by a heavily dotted veil--that crier of departed charms. She held a black lace parasol in one carefully gloved hand. Her pretty foot was encased in patent leather.

"The old fool!" murmured Abby. "Why, oh, why could it not have been mine? I could make myself young without being ridiculous."

She let her duties go and sauntered down to the lake. Many painted boats were anch.o.r.ed close to ornamental boat-houses. They seemed strangely out of place beneath the sad old willows. The lawns were green with the green of spring. Roses ran riot everywhere. The windows of the handsome old-fashioned houses were open, and Abby was afforded glimpses of fluttering white gowns, heard the tinkle of the mandolin, the cold precise strains of the piano, the sudden uplifting of a youthful soprano.

"After all, it only makes a little difference to them that they got nothing," thought the companion, with a sigh.

A young man stepped from one of the long windows of the Holt mansion and came down the lawn. Miss Williams recognized Strowbridge. She had not seen him for several weeks; but he had had his part in her bitter moments, and her heart beat at sight of him to-day.

"I too am a fool," she thought. "Even with her money my case would be hopeless. I am nearly double his age."

He jumped into a boat and rowed down the lake. As he pa.s.sed the Webster grounds he looked up and saw Abby standing there.

"Hulloa!" he called, as if he were addressing a girl of sixteen. "How are you, all these years? Jump in and take a row."

He made his landing, sprang to the sh.o.r.e and led her to the boat with the air of one who was not in the habit of being refused. Abby had no inclination to suppress him. She stepped lightly into the boat, and a moment later was gliding down the lake, looking with admiring eyes on the strong young figure in its sweater and white trousers. A yachting-cap was pulled over his blue eyes. His face was bronzed. Abby wondered if many young men were as handsome as he. As a matter of fact, he was merely a fine specimen of young American manhood, whose charm lay in his frank manner and kindness of heart.

"Like this?" he asked, smiling into her eyes.

"Yes, indeed. Hiram used to row us sometimes; but the boat lurched so when he lost his temper that I was in constant fear of being tipped over."

"Hiram must have been a terror to cats."

"A what?"

"Beg pardon! Of course you don't know much slang. Beastly habit."

He rowed up and down the lake many times, floating idly in the long recesses where the willows met overhead. He talked constantly; told her yarns of his college life; described boat-races and football matches in which he had taken part. At first his only impulse was to amuse the lonely old maid; but she proved such a delighted and sympathetic listener that he forgot to pity her. An hour pa.s.sed, and with it her bitterness. She no longer felt that she must leave Webster Hall. But she remembered her duties, and regretfully asked him to land her.

"Well, if I must," he said. "But I'm sorry, and we'll do it again some day. I'm awfully obliged to you for coming."

"Obliged to me?--you?" she said, as he helped her to sh.o.r.e. "Oh, you don't know--" And laughing lightly, she went rapidly up the path to the house.