Maris (19 page)

She carried the dress to her own room and closed the door between it and the playroom where Lexie was; she folded the exquisite dress, breath by breath, with its perfect needlework and beautiful lace puffed out by tissue paper till not a fold nor crease was possible.

She looked at it there in the box as it lay, with a little spray of orange blossoms they had bought that last day of shopping together nestled at the throat. It looked so like a lovely personality that had been sinned against, that dress. As if it were glad to be folded away and at rest.

A bright tear sprang into Maris's eye, and she closed the box quietly and tied it up. There must be no tears shed on that dress. Only smiles should greet it if it ever came out again.

She stood on a chair and put the box on the highest shelf of her roomy closet, far back where no one would ever be likely to notice it.

Then Maris went with a swift, soft tread back and forth a few times to bring the lovely dresses that had been prepared for her trousseau. There were not a great many of them, but each one was charming of its kind, and Maris had been pleased with them. But now they must go into seclusion. No one wanted to see the trousseau of a poor dead wedding hanging around. Besides, another nurse was coming now in a few minutes, a night nurse to relieve the first nurse, so that Mother would not be alone a minute. She must hurry and make room for more stiff uniforms. There were a few things still hanging in the other guest room where Father was sleeping at night now. She must get those out of the way before the nurse roused him and sent him to bed in earnest.

So, almost ruthlessly, those garments that had been bought so carefully, one at a time, and admired as each a prize in itself were gathered into a heap on her arm and dumped unceremoniously on her bed to get the other closets empty before anyone discovered what she was doing. She locked her door while she was hurtling them into her own closet, which suddenly seemed to lose its spaciousness as the grand garments were ushered in.

But at least they were all hung up, with a garment bag guarding the entrance. In the morning she would find time to slip them into bags, or under covers, and then later if Mother got well and everything was all right and normal again, she would bring them forth casually one by one as if she had always worn them, and nobody would remember that they had been wedding clothes.

Just then she heard Merrick drive up in Lane Maitland's car. The new nurse had arrived and she must go down and meet her.

But while Maris was showing the new nurse her way about and helping to get her father settled for the night, Gwyneth had hopped into the car beside Merrick and was riding around to the Maitland garage with him.

"I gotta go with you because I gotta ask you something," she declared when he protested that she ought to be in bed.

"Listen, Merrick, isn't our Maris going to get married after all? Because the phone rang and someone wanted her, and I smelled paper burning, so I went out into the kitchen and she was outside at the incinerator burning a whole lot of things, a big bonfire, and it flickered down and almost went out just as I got there. And so I went out to see if it was all safe while she went to the telephone, and I found down in the corner against the stone, just beginning to scorch around the edge, one of her wedding invitations! It was addressed to Tilford's aunt up at Coral Crest, so I knew it was an invitation, and anyway I pulled it out and took out the invitation and saw what it was."

"Oh, that was likely some that got spoiled in the addressing," said the brother lightly. "You've just got one of your spells of romancing. You ought to be in bed."

"No, but truly, Merrick, it was, and there were a lot more little black squares down in the incinerator. I lit a match and looked."

"All right, have it your own way. You'd better get a detective and find out. I don't know anything about it," said Merrick crossly.

"Oh, but don't you wish it was true, Merrie? Don't you wish she wouldn't get married?"

"Oh sure! Anything you want. I wish the sky would rain roses and the grass would grow gold dollars. Now, scram and get to bed before I spank you!"

 

 

Tilford Thorpe went home to his mother and told her he was done with women. He didn't intend to marry ever, and he wanted it thoroughly understood that she needn't fling any of her stupid million-heiresses at him. He told her Maris was a liar, she had broken her word, and she had been stubborn and mulish about foolish things. And in the same breath he informed her that it was all her fault. That she had tried to force a silly dress on a girl who had too much pride to take advice and she had broken his heart, and he would never be happy again. He prattled of suicide and said it would serve his mother right, that she was always trying to manage his life for him and he hadn't a chance in the world to be himself, and a lot of like phrases, until she wept bitterly and wished she had never been born. And when he had exhausted his hurt pride upon her in curses and refused every kind of an offer to help she could think of, telling her if she had kept her everlasting tongue out of the whole matter he would still be happy and soon married and off to Europe, he told her he was going off to get drunk and she needn't try to find him, either. He was his own master and he wouldn't be bound by her any longer.

When she suggested that he take the ring back to Maris and tell her he would let her put off the wedding until her mother was better, he raved and fairly bit the air and slammed away to haunts known only to himself and his fellow club members. He remained away for three days, getting drunk. Thoroughly. Playing poker for high stakes and losing heavily.

He arrived home at last having run down an old woman carrying home a basket of groceries, and having got himself arrested and bailed out again, and came in looking like a wreck.

"Oh, Tilly dear! Where have you been?" wailed his mother as he entered her bedroom where she had been more or less in her bed, except for a social engagement or two, ever since her encounter with Dr. MacPherson.

"Now don't begin that song and dance!" said the youth insolently. "I've been where I've pleased to be; that's where you are, too, isn't it? I came up here to see if you had any more light on the matter that concerns me most. Has Maris telephoned? I understood you to say that a little silent treatment might bring her around. Has she come?"

"I haven't seen her," said his mother sadly. "No, she hasn't telephoned. I'm afraid you're going to find that your girl is an utter failure in every way. It is as I told you in the first place, Tilly; it is never wise to go out of your own class when you really settle down seriously to get married. And really, my dear, even if she had come, I should not have received her. Not after the treatment I received in her home. They are an utterly worthless lot, my dear, and you are well rid of her!"

Tilford lit a cigarette and flung himself down in a white brocade chair, his hat slung to the back of his handsome head, his haggard eyes fixed angrily on his mother.

"Can that stuff!" he said fiercely. "You don't think I'm going to give her up after all of this, do you? You don't think I'm going to have the whole town see me trampled underfoot and scorned, do you? Not if the whole generation of Mayberrys drive you out of their house. I'm in this thing to win, and I'm not going to be beaten off. After all, you had it coming to you. I told you you wouldn't get anywhere with that stubborn little woman. She's playing to win, but she's going to get the surprise of her life when she sees how things come out. I've got my plans all laid, and
I'm
going to win! Don't ask me anything about it. Just be ready to do whatever I tell you when the time comes. We may not have any wedding on June thirtieth, in their little old dinky church, but we'll have a wedding all right, and don't you forget it. And we're sailing as per scheduled, too. And when she's married and finds herself out on the ocean, I guess she'll sing another tune."

"Now, Tilly!" said his mother with apprehension. "What are you going to do? You mustn't do anything scandalous! You mustn't get us in the papers."

"Oh, no! Don't you worry about that," bragged the young man. "I'll attend to what gets in the papers. I'll send in the write-up myself, just what I want printed. There won't be any scandal except in the eyes of her precious family. I'll fix it so there will be plenty for them to contemplate."

"Oh, Tilford! You frighten me! You haven't been drinking, have you? You don't sound like yourself!"

"Well, if I have, is it your business?" he asked in a surly tone. "I can look out for myself, can't I? You brought me up to drink like a gentleman."

"Oh, Tilford!" wailed his mother. "You are being rude to me. If I brought you up to anything at all, I brought you up to be courteous!"

"Courtesy be hanged! I'm done with the things you brought me up to. I'm going to get my wife the way I please, and you can take the consequences."

"Oh, Tilly! You have been drinking. You never spoke to me like that before! You certainly must be drunk!" wailed his mother, looking at his wild eyes in horror.

Suddenly the father's substantial form loomed large and impressive in the doorway.

"Tilford!" his voice thundered. "You're forgetting yourself! Get out of your mother's room at once! Come with me!"

Tilford turned, bewildered. His father's voice was reminiscent of his childhood days when at rare intervals the usually loving, indulgent father became a stern parent and administered a long-needed chastisement most thoroughly, so that it was not soon forgotten.

Mr. Thorpe's large, strong hand laid hold on his son's arm and propelled him out of the room and down the hall to his own room.

"Now!" he said, eyeing the young man with mingled sorrow and disgust. "See if you can get yourself sobered up. You're not fit to be around decent people, and when you're sober, perfectly sober, I've something to say to you that will be to your advantage!"

"Now look here, Dad, you've no right to treat me this way. I'm a man! I have rights!"

"Oh, are you? You don't look like one! Look at your clothes. You appear to have been on a brawl for several days! You need a bath and some clean clothes. But even they wouldn't make a man of you, I'm afraid. Take off those clothes! Get under a cold shower and come to your senses. Get in there, I say!" And he took hold of his son's arm and literally shoved him into the luxurious bathroom.

"Let me alone! You've no right--!" protested the angry son.

"Oh, haven't I? Well, we'll see!" And the father deliberately took the key out of the door and put it into the other side of the lock.

"Now, stay in here until you've had a bath and are fully sober!" he said. "I'll be back in half an hour, and if you have come to yourself, I'll let you out." The father shut the door and turned the key in the lock, then strode down the hall again to his own domain, called by his wife a "den," and shut himself in.

A moment later, Mrs. Thorpe in an elaborate, frilly dressing gown of grass green, her feet thrust into green satin mules that flapped as she waddled so that she had to change them for bed socks because they made too much noise, stole cumbersomely down the hall, with a furtive backward glance toward the den. She arrived breathlessly at her son's door, tried it and entered, gave a frightened glance about, and immediately located a sound in the bathroom. She hurried to the door and found it locked.

"Tilford!" she whispered softly. "Mother's precious boy!"

"Oh,
shut up
!" roared Tilford angrily. "Will you get out? Can't I take a bath without being trailed?"

Mrs. Thorpe heard the far sound of an opening door up the hall and beat a hasty retreat, making a dive into the sewing room and coming back with a pair of scissors and a thimble in her hand as if she had gone after them, in case she met her husband.

But the door of the den was closed again and she was not bothered. She retired to her bedroom to sob over the sorrows of the woman who had an ungrateful child and couldn't do anything about it.

Exactly half an hour afterward, Tilford sat in a big comfortable chair in his own room, clothed and to a degree in his right mind, sulking.

His father entered the room, but he did not look up or notice him.

His father sat down in a straight chair, clasped his hands firmly together in front of him, leaned forward a little, and gazed steadily at the graceful form of this handsome youth attired in a costly silk dressing gown and expensive shoes. There was something unutterably wistful in his father's expression as he looked at his boy and saw in retrospect the whole span of his life so far from babyhood. There was a depth of sadness in his eyes that told how much of a bitter disappointment that young life had been to him, the father.

When Mr. Thorpe broke the silence that was becoming painful to them both, his voice had a businesslike crispness that belied his expression.

"Now, Tilford, have you recovered your sanity enough to understand what I am about to say, or shall I have to wait until you have had a sleep?"

"Don't be an ass!" was the boy's disrespectful reply.

"That will do. Don't add to your troubles by being insolent to your father. Are you sober yet?"

Tilford summoned all the dignity belonging to past generations.

"Certainly. I have been sober all the time."

"No, you were not sober. If you had been, you should certainly suffer more than I am going to mete out to you at present. But I want you to understand that you cannot speak to your mother in the way I heard you speak. It is inexcusable, and I will not stand for it. If it is ever repeated, you will discover that I have power to make you exceedingly sorry that you ever did it. Your fortune, you know, is all in my hands, and I shall certainly not leave a cent to a young man who does not treat his mother decently."

"Oh, Dad! How tiresome you are! Mother's such a fool! She won't let a fellow alone!"

"Exactly. According to you, your father's an ass and your mother's a fool. Then may I ask,
what are you
? I think it might be well for you to reflect for a while over that question, when you have a little leisure from your own important affairs."