Maris (28 page)

Mrs. Mayberry lifted troubled eyes.

"Maris!" she said piteously. "Maris!"

"Maris has gone out," said Nurse Bonner. "She went for a little ride."

The troubled eyes searched her face.

"Getting--married?" The slow lips formed the words earnestly.

"Oh, no. Nothing like that!" said the nurse.

But the eyes were still troubled, puzzled.

"Her--wedding--day--!" murmured the sick woman.

"Oh, no. Not at all. You've gotten mixed in your dates. Maris isn't getting married today at all. She wouldn't be married till you were able to be at the wedding. Now be a good little mother and shut your eyes and go to sleep. I'll take care of Maris when she comes and tell her you sent her your love."

She got the sick woman quieted at last and then stole in to see about Lexie, for she had left her door ajar, and now there seemed to be a lot of restless turning over and sighing.

She found the little girl crying.

"I called and called my sister, and she didn't come!" said Lexie with whispered sobs. "I vanted a dwink of vater."

"Well, that's too bad!" said Nurse Bonner. "Your sister had to go out for a little while, but she'll be back pretty soon, I guess. I'll get you the drink of water, and then you will go to sleep like a good little girl, won't you?"

"Wes."

Downstairs Merrick was having troubles of his own. A call had come from the Maitland house. The housekeeper said the little boys had woken up and were demanding Mr. Maitland. So Merrick had to call them to the telephone and give them Lane's message. They responded loyally as Lane had known they would, but their voices sounded most dejected as they said good night. It touched their older brother, and he promised to be over first thing in the morning and let them know how soon Lane would return, and perhaps they could get ready some kind of a celebration to welcome him home. They'd talk it over in the morning.

So at last the little boys went back to their beds, cheered by the thought of a festivity to come. They planned to pick enough strawberries for strawberry shortcake for lunch and then wondered if Lane would object to their decorating with a lot of little flags they had found in the attic.

And Merrick reflected on what a lot of different kinds of troubles there were in the world, all at once, when life had until then been such a jolly affair. He decided it was all because of Tilford Thorpe and that blamed wedding.

***

The ship sailed out on a silver sea, and the New York harbor became a speck in the distance.

Tilford Thorpe turned from watching the shore and, with lips set with determination, went to his stateroom. He was expecting to have a bad time for a few minutes with Maris. She would probably be stubborn for a while. But when she found that they were off on their honeymoon actually, and there was no turning back, she would easily come around. Maris had always been so sweet and yielding!

He hoped she would be fully recovered from the sleeping tablet that had been given to her and see the immediate necessity of submitting to the marriage service that he had arranged with the captain to take place soon after the starting of the ship.

He ascended the steps to his suite with pleasant anticipation. He had Maris now where she couldn't oppose him. He meant to be very kind and loving to her--after she once came to herself and realized that he had been right--just to make up for taking her away forcibly. Of course, she might be a bit upset at that at first, but he would show her such a good time that she would soon forget it. He was glad he had had his mother buy those two evening dresses. They would have a grand time on board, and when they got to Paris they would stock up on some really smart clothes for her. Of course, she would likely be disappointed not to have her own things that she had prepared for her trousseau, but they wouldn't be much loss. Anything she would have brought would have been far below the standard of what his wife should wear, anyway.

Then he reached his stateroom and opened the door.

There on the bed lay a heap of satin and lace, tossed aside, ripped and torn, as if it had been jerked off in great haste. Half crushed at one side lay the priceless wedding veil, an heirloom in the Thorpe family and yellow with age. It drooped from the coronet of orange blossoms dejectedly, and sparkling out of its ethereal folds there lay the great diamond ring, its prisms flashing brightly with a startled air, as if surprised that it had been rejected.

Tilford stared down on it, scarcely believing his senses. She had torn off the wedding dress and gone! She had flung his ring back at him again! But how was this possible? Mrs. Trilby, the woman he had hired to attend her and dress her, had told him just now that she wasn't awake yet. That it would likely be another hour before she was fully free from the sleeping tablet. Had the woman double-crossed him? Sometimes these low-down hirelings did that. Only he had been so sure of this woman. She was to receive another hundred dollars at her home if he found everything all right when he went to his stateroom! And it wasn't conceivable that Maris had bribed her, because Maris would have nothing to bribe with. Maris was penniless.

He stepped forward, incredulous, to lift the ring from the folds of lace, half believing he would yet find Maris beneath the heap of finery, but he stumbled over a little silver shoe and plunged his arms deep into the lace and satin, the ring evading him and slithering out of sight, as if it enjoyed tantalizing him.

By the time he had found the ring, he was thoroughly himself and very angry, trying to plan out how he could get revenge on Maris for thus evading him. He could not understand how she managed to get away. He was sure Mrs. Trilby could not have been down on the deck more than three minutes before the ship sailed. He had himself been standing close at hand when the gangplank was hauled in. Maris had not passed him, he was positive. Besides, how could she get away without any clothes? He had told Mrs. Trilby to take with her the garments Maris was wearing when they took her. She had left the wedding dress behind! She could not have gone without clothes!

He strode to the pile of baggage heaped in the corner. Not one suitcase had been disturbed. The expensive outfit that he had made his mother buy was still locked up in those suitcases, and he had the keys in his pocket. He counted everything over. Nothing disturbed. She could not have gone in such a state as that.

He tossed the things on the bed aside. Not even a sheet or blanket was gone! It was unexplainable.

She must be somewhere about, perhaps playing a practical joke on him! Well, in that case he would forgive her, of course, but it was careless of her to fling around expensive clothes and diamonds that way. He would have to teach her to be more careful. Of course, she had never been accustomed to such prices as he paid for things and perhaps had not realized.

He strode to the bathroom and looked in; he pulled aside the shower curtain then peered into a wardrobe. But no Maris appeared. She was not anywhere.

He threw open the door of his stateroom and looked outside, but the galleries were alive now with people coming back to their staterooms. There was lively chatter everywhere. People laughing and talking. And he was alone! He had never been so frustrated in his life as he had by Maris Mayberry! Little puritanical hypocrite! Pretending to be so awfully good and then standing him up on his wedding at the very last minute. He would know better than to be fooled by a demure face again. She wasn't his kind, of course, but he could have raised her into his class, and she was beautiful; there was no denying that.

He stormed back and forth from bed to portholes, trying to think what he should do. Somehow he meant to get back at this little girl who had turned him down and scorned his wealth that he had intended to lavish upon her. He would think up a splendid way and take her by surprise. She hadn't heard the last of him yet by any means.

Meantime, he was out on the ocean alone, and what was he going to do with himself? Well, there was a famous actress on board; he might amuse himself with her and manage it that news of his flirtation should get back to some social column in the paper. Maris would be likely to see. That would be a good beginning.

He kicked at the rich wedding gown that was trailing off on the floor. The wedding gown that his mother had paid for! It occurred to him that his mother had really made all this trouble insisting upon that wedding gown. He would tell her so when he wrote. It did his wrathful soul good to blame it on somebody.

It also occurred to him that the captain would be expecting a summons pretty soon for the wedding he was to perform. He had better do something about it at once. So he rang for the steward and sent a note to the captain that the wedding had been called off on account of illness in the family, which detained the bride at home.

Having thus disposed of the wedding, he rolled the wedding dress up in a wad along with the veil and orange blossoms and shoes and bestowed them in a suit box, which he ordered the steward to have wrapped and shipped to his home. He was resolved that he would somehow bring it about, sometime in the future, that Maris should yet wear that wedding dress and be married to him. He would take a little time off in Europe on this supposed business trip and give her mother time to get well, or die, one or the other, and then he would come back and make Maris eat humble pie and have such a wedding as
he
should prescribe. When he once brought her thoroughly to her knees, she would do what he said, and like it!

With which resolve he went downstairs to the bar and refreshed himself with several drinks. His wedding night without a bride had to be celebrated in some way. So he drank. Tomorrow he would look up that actress and forget Maris for a while.

But somehow it was not easy to forget Maris, and he had to take a good many drinks before the vision of her face in her wedding array faded from his thoughts, and he began to consider other phases of the subject. There, for instance, was all that money he had paid to the man and woman who carried out his plans. He had had to borrow it from his mother, and he didn't see how he was ever going to pay it back again. Probably Dad would find it out, and then there would be an awful row! Strange he had so much trouble in his life! Strange he could never have anything he wanted without a fuss.

He, who had been pampered ever since he was born!

He drank so much that he had to be helped up to his stateroom at last and went to bed dead drunk!

And that was the night that was to have been Maris's wedding night!

 

 

Meanwhile Maris, limp in the arms of an unknown man, dumb with new fear and horror, panted for her breath in the darkness and wished she could die. She was too tired to go on, too dazed to think a way out of this maze of disasters into which she had so innocently walked a few hours ago.

"No weapon. . .shall prosper!"
came the words through her despairing mind. Was that then untrue, that promise that had so heartened her? Did God not care?

The man had recovered his balance and was looking down at her. He had been running for that ship that was so noisily sailing away from the dock. Had he missed it after coming so far? And just because some crazy woman had dashed into him and almost knocked him over?

Even if he dropped her right here and ran on, could he make it? But one couldn't just drop a woman like that who had fallen into his arms and was apparently almost unconscious and breathing painfully. She lay like a deadweight in his arms. It was not thinkable that he could lay her down here and dash on, not even for his own important errand! He held her back a little and looked into her face, and then suddenly he exclaimed and drew her close again, as one draws something precious.

"Maris! Beloved!" he breathed, not knowing what he was saying. "Oh, my dear! Are you hurt?"

He bent over her, looking into her face against his shoulder, and suddenly her eyes opened and she looked at him. Then all at once the stark terror within her eyes turned to incredulous wonder and a great blinding joy. She clung to him and quivered, hiding her face on his chest. His arms went around her and held her close.

"Oh, Lane!" she whispered. "Oh, Lane!" It was all she could say, and great long shudders of relief shook her slender body.

Then suddenly she remembered and grew tense again.

"Hide me!
Quick
," she pleaded. "There was somebody after me!"

She turned her head and looked behind and then hid her eyes again and shuddered. She was breathless, and her voice trailed off.

"There! My darling!" he said gently, patting her head as if she were a little child. "Nobody shall touch you, beloved! I'll take care of you! Come! Are you able to walk? It's only a step to my car!"

With a strong arm supporting her, her hand in his, he set her upon her feet and led her quickly out into the shadows of the street and across to where he had left his car.

There were people coming away now, a good many of them. She could hear their footsteps and their voices. She clutched at his arm, but he drew her around the other side of the car out of sight and put her gently in.

"Put your head back and rest," he said. "No one will see you. No one will trouble you anymore. I am here to protect you."

She dropped her head back, but her eyes peered out, and he saw she was still frightened. It was not until they had driven several blocks away from the wharf and left the crowd entirely behind that she began to relax and be more like herself.

He had his hands full with traffic for a few minutes, but when they reached the Holland Tunnel and were speeding down the smooth way he spoke again: "What are you afraid of, Maris? No one can get you now. They will not recognize you riding along in the car. They cannot see your face enough for that. And what could they do to you now that you are with me and I am here to protect you?"

"Oh," she said; her voice with a little tremble in it was almost between a laugh and a wail. "It's that coat! It is not mine. They might arrest me for stealing. I had to take it. There was nothing else."