The Inner Shrine Part 33

Before she went to bed that night Dorothea was summoned to her father's presence, to receive the commands which should regulate her conduct toward "the young man Wappinger." They could have been summed up in the statement that she must know him no more. She was not only never to see him, or write to him, or communicate with him, by direct or indirect means; as far as he could command it, she was not to think of him, or remember his name. His measures grew more drastic in proportion as he gave them utterance, until he himself become aware that they would be difficult to fulfil.

"I will not attempt to extract a promise from you," he was prudent enough to say, in conclusion, "that you will carry out my wishes, because I know you would never bring on me the unhappiness that would spring from disobedience."

"It's hardly fair, father, to say that," she replied, firmly. "In war, no one should shrink from--the misfortunes of war."

"That means, then, that you defy me?"

She was calmer than he as she made her reply.

"It doesn't mean that I defy you. I love you too much to put either you or myself in such an odious position as that. But it does mean that one day, sooner or later, I shall marry--Mr. Wappinger."

He looked at her with a bitter smile.

"I admire your frankness, Dorothea," he said, after a brief pause, "and I shall do my best to imitate it. If it's to be war, we shall at least fight in the open. I know what you intend to do, and you know that I mean to circ.u.mvent you. The position on both sides being so pleasantly clear, you may come and kiss me good-night."

During the process of the stiff little embrace that followed it was as difficult for her not to fling herself sobbing on his breast as for him not to seize her in his arms; but each maintained the restraint inspired by the justice of their respective causes. When she had closed the door behind her, he stood for a long time, musing. That his thoughts were not altogether tragic became manifest as his brow cleared, and the ghost of a smile, this time without bitterness, hovered about his lips. Suddenly he slapped his leg, like a man who has made a discovery.

"By Gad!" he whispered, half aloud, "when all is said and done, she knows how to play the game!"

XVIII

It was, perhaps, the knowledge that Dorothea could play the game that enabled Derek, during the rest of the summer, to play it himself. This he did without flinching, finding strength in the fact that, as time went on, Dorothea seemed to enter into his plans and submit to his judgment. The first few weeks of pallor and silence having pa.s.sed, she resumed her accustomed ways, and, as far as he could tell, grew cheerful. Always having credited her with common-sense, he was pleased now to see her make use of it in a way of which few girls of nineteen would have been capable. She accepted his surveillance with so much docility that, by the time they returned to town in the autumn he was able to congratulate himself on his success.

On her part, Dorothea carried out his instructions to the letter.

Notwithstanding the opening of the season and the renewal of the usual gayeties, she lived quietly, accepting few invitations, and rarely going into society at all, except under her father's wing. On those accidental occasions when Carli Wappinger came within their range of vision, it was only as a distant ship drifts into sight at sea--to drift silently away again. If Dorothea perceived him, she gave no sign. It was clear to Derek that her spurt of rebellion was over, and that her little experience had done her no harm. The name of Wappinger being tacitly ignored between them, he could only express his pleasure, in the results he had achieved, by an extravagant increase of Dorothea's allowance, and gifts of inappropriate jewels. It would have taken a more weatherwise person than he to guess that behind this domestic calm the storm was brewing.

The first intuition of threatening events came to Mrs. Wappinger.

"I've seen nothing and heard nothing," she declared, in her emphatic way, to Diane, "but I know something is going on."

That was in September. They sat in the shade of the cool flag-paved pergola at Waterwild, Mrs. Wappinger's place on Long Island. The tea-table stood between them, and they lounged in wicker chairs. Framed by marble pillars, and festooned from above by vines drooping from the roof, there was a view of terraced lawns descending toward the sea.

Between the slightly overcrowded urns and statues there were bright dashes of color, here of dahlias in full bloom, there of reddening garlands of ampelopsis or Virginia creeper. It was what Mrs. Wappinger called an "off-day," otherwise she could not have had Diane at Waterwild. In her loyalty toward the deserted woman she seized those opportunities when Carli was away, and she was certain of having no other guests, "to have the poor thing down for the day, and give her a good meal."

Not that people occupied themselves with Diane or her affairs! Her place in the hurrying, scrambling social throng had been so un.o.btrusive that, now that she no longer filled it, she was easily forgotten. Among the few who paid her the tribute of recollection there was the generally received impression that Derek Pruyn, having discovered her relations with the Marquis de Bienville--relations which, so they said, had been well known in Paris, in the days when she was still some one--had dismissed her from her position in his household. That was natural enough, and there was no further reason for remembering her. Having disappeared into the limbo of the unfortunate, she was as far beyond the mental range of those who retained their blessings as souls that have pa.s.sed are out of sight of men and women who still walk the earth. For this very reason she called out in Mrs. Wappinger that motherly good-nature which was only partially warped by the ambition for social success. On more than one of her "off-days" she had lured Diane out of her refuge in University Place, treating her with all the kindness she could bestow without causing disparaging comment upon herself. On the present occasion she was the more desirous of her company because of the fact that, as she expressed it herself, she had "sniffed something going on."

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRAWN BY FRANK CRAIG IT WAS WHAT MRS. WAPPINGER CALLED AN "OFF DAY"]

"As I tell you," she repeated, "I've heard nothing, and seen nothing; I've just sniffed it. If you were to ask me how, I couldn't explain it to you any more than I can say how I get the scent of this climbing heliotrope. But I do get it; and I do know something is in the wind, more than what is told to you and I."

"One can only hope that it will be nothing foolish," Diane murmured, guardedly.

"It _will_ be something foolish," Mrs. Wappinger declared, "and you may take my word for it. Derek Pruyn can't arrogate to himself the powers of the Lord above any more than we can. If he thinks he can stop young blood from running he'll find out he's wrong."

It was the first mention of his name that Diane had heard in many weeks, and at the sound her hand trembled in such a way that she was obliged to put down untasted the cup she had half raised to her lips.

"He's not an unkind man," she found voice to say; "he's only a mistaken one. He has one of those natures capable of dealing magnificently with great affairs, but helpless in the trivial matters of every day. He's like the people who see well at a distance, but become confused over the objects right under their eyes."

"Then the farther you keep away from that man the better the view he'll take of you. It's what I'd say to Carli if he'd ask for my advice."

"Does that mean," Diane ventured to inquire, "that you don't want him to marry Dorothea?"

"I certainly do not. If there were no other reason, she's the sort of girl to make me put one foot into the grave, whether I want to or no; and it stands to reason that I don't want to be squelched one hour before my time."

"Naturally; but I fancy you'd find her a sweeter girl than you might suppose."

"So she may be, dear; but I've spent too much money on Carli to wish to see him force his way into a family where he isn't wanted."

This was the text of Mrs. Wappinger's discourse, not only on the present occasion, but on the subsequent "off-days," when Diane was induced to visit Waterwild.

"Whatever is going on, Reggie Bradford's in it," she confided to Diane some few weeks later.

"Is that the fat young man with the big laugh?"

"Yes; and one of the greatest catches in New York. Carli tells me he's wild about Marion Grimston, and I can see for myself that Mrs. Bayford is playing him against that Frenchman. She'll get the t.i.tle if she can, but if not, she'll fall back on the money."

"It's a pretty safe alternative," Diane smiled, making an effort to speak without betraying her feelings.

"Reggie is a good-natured boy," Mrs. Wappinger pursued, "but a regular water-pipe. If you want to get anything out of him you've only got to turn the faucet. It's just as well that he is; because whatever Carli is up to Reggie knows, and what Reggie knows Marion Grimston knows. If ever you see her--"

"Oh, but I don't--not now."

"That's a pity. If you did, you could pump her."

"I'm afraid I'm not much good at that sort of thing."

"Well, I am, when I get a chance. I'm bound to find out, somehow; and there are more ways of killing a cat than by giving it poison."

A few weeks later still Mrs. Wappinger informed Diane that Dorothea Pruyn was not happy.

"The Thoroughgoods told the Louds," she explained, "and the Louds told me. Her father thinks she has given in to him; but she hasn't--not an inch. He keeps her like a jailer; and she acts like a convict--always with an eye open for some way of escape. That man no more understands women than he does making pie."

"I've always noticed that the really strong men rarely do. There's almost invariably something petty about a man to whom a woman isn't a puzzle and a mystery."

"If it comes to a puzzle and a mystery, I don't know where you'd find a greater one than Derek Pruyn himself. After the way he's acted--and treated people--"

Diane flushed, but kept her emotions sufficiently under control to be able to follow her usual plan of straightforward speaking.

"If you mean me, Mrs. Wappinger, I ought to say that Mr. Pruyn has done nothing for which I can blame him. He was placed in a situation with which only a very subtle intelligence could have dealt, and I respect him the more for not having had it. It's generally the man who is most competent in his own domain who is most likely to blunder when he gets into the woman's; and I, for one, would rather have him do it. I've had to suffer because of it, and so has Dorothea; and yet that doesn't make me like it less."

"No, I dare say not," Mrs. Wappinger responded, sympathetically. "Mr.

Wappinger himself was just such a man as that. He'd put through a deal that would make Wall Street shiver; but he understood my woman's nature just about as much as old Tiger there, wagging his tail on the gra.s.s, follows the styles in bonnets. Only, I'll tell you what, Mrs. Eveleth: it's for men like that that G.o.d created sensible, capable wives, like you and me; and they ought to have 'em."

This theme admitting of little discussion, Diane did not pursue it, but she went away from Waterwild with a deepened sense of Derek's need of her, as well as of Dorothea's. She could so easily have helped them both that the enforced impotence was a new element in her pain. To walk the town in search of work to which she was little suited, when that which no one but herself could accomplish had to remain undone, became, during the next few weeks, the most intolerable part of the irony of circ.u.mstance. The wifely, the maternal qualities of her being, of which she had never been strongly conscious till of late, awoke in response to the need that drew them forth, only to be blighted by denial.

The inactivity was the harder to endure because of the fact that, as autumn pa.s.sed into early winter, there came a period when all her little world seemed to have dropped her out of sight. There were no more "off-days" at Waterwild, and Miss Lucilla's occasional letters from Newport ceased. Between her mother-in-law and herself, after a few painful attempts at intercourse, there had fallen an equally painful silence.