New Name (24 page)

The hours went by, and she lay on the bench in the kitchen and pretended to read, but in reality she was listening for a ring at the door or the telephone. Yet none came. She stayed on the bench for two reasons. First, to satisfy her mother, who persisted in being anxious about her on account of the accident, and second, because she really felt quite weak and shaken up. Tomorrow her employer would be back in the office, and she must go to work again. The precious two days’ vacation was going fast, and had all been spoiled. She felt almost bitter about it; there had been so much joy in its anticipation, but she did not want her mother to realize that. Mother was happy in just having her home with her.

So the letter was mailed, and Bessie waited, thinking surely when he got it he would call up or come around with a belated apology. She could not fully rest until she knew he understood that she was not the kind of girl to whom he could send such presents.

Days passed. A week. Two weeks. Three. Nothing was heard of Murray. Bessie and her mother began to wonder whether afterall they ought not to have taken the boxes around to the Van Rensselaer house. Finally Bessie settled down to the belief that Murray was angry that she had not accepted his presents and had decided to drop her. Well, so she was content. She wanted no friendship with a man like that. She was glad if he felt that way. She was glad he knew he could not treat her the way he evidently treated other girls.

She settled back into the pleasant routine of her life, with the big ambition ahead to put her mother into more comfort, with opportunity for rest, and she succeeded pretty well in forgetting the one bright day with her old friend that had ended so disastrously. Only far back in her mind was a little crisp disappointment that her only old friend, whom she had so long idealized, had turned out to be such a hopeless failure, and sometimes in the dark at night when she was trying to go to sleep, her cheeks burned at the thought that she had accepted him so readily and jumped into his car at the first bidding. How she would like to go back to that bright twenty-first-birthday afternoon and haughtily decline that invitation to ride! Sometimes her pride fairly cried out for the chance.

Then one morning Mrs. Chapparelle, scanning the paper as was her habit for bits of news to give her child while she ate her breakfast before going to the office, came upon a little article tucked down in the society columns.

It is beginning to be an interesting question, “What has
become of Murray Van Rensselaer?” He isn’t at his home, and he hasn’t gone abroad, at least not according to any of the recent sailing lists of vessels. He is not registered at his club, and he has not been seen at any of the popular southern resorts. His family decline to talk. Polo season is coming on, and Murray Van Rensselaer has disappeared! Everybody is asking what are we going to do without Murray? Perhaps a certain lively countess could give information! Who knows?

Bessie looked up, startled, indignant.

“That’s disgusting!” she said darkly. “No matter what he is, they haven’t a right to meddle in people’s private affairs that way and print it all out before the public!”

She did not eat any more breakfast. She began hurriedly to prepare for the office. Her mother watched her anxiously. Could it be possible that Bessie was still thinking about Murray? If so, she was glad she had stumbled on the article. She ought to understand fully just what he was. That detail about the countess, of course, might not be anything but a bit of venom from a jealous rival. But she was glad she had read it.

“Bessie,” she began anxiously as the girl went to the hall closet for her overshoes, “are you sure you are dressed warmly enough for this stormy day?”

“Mother,” said the girl crisply, “don’t you think it would be a good thing if you began to call me Elizabeth now?”

There was a grown-up pucker on the white brow as if the child were feeling her years. The wise mother looked up quickly and smiled, sensing the feeling of annoyance that had come upon her since the reading of the article about her old friend. How her mother’s heart understood and sympathized. Another mother might have felt hurt, but not this one, who had been a companion to her child all the way and understood every lifting of a lash, every glint in the deep blue of her eyes, every shade of expression on the dear face.

“Well, maybe,” she agreed pleasantly. “I used to wonder whether we wouldn’t be sorry we had nicknamed you. I don’t know if I ever could get used to Elizabeth now. Bessie was a sweet little name when he called you that. It just fitted you!” There was wistfulness in her voice that reached through the clouds over her daughter’s spirit.

“You dear little mother, you needn’t ever try. So it is a sweet little name, and I don’t ever want to change it. I wouldn’t like you to say ‘Elizabeth’ anyway. It would sound as if you were scolding. Now, I’m not cross anymore. Good-bye, Mother dearie, and don’t you even dare to
think
Elizabeth while I’m gone.”

She kissed her mother tenderly and was gone, but all day the mother turned it over in her mind. Had it been wrong that she took that little lonely boy in years ago and let him be her daughter’s playmate for a while? Was it going to blight her bright spirit after all this time? No. Surely it was only a bit of pride that was hurt, not her sweet, strong spirit!

But the girl thought about it all day long. Could not getaway from that bit of news in the society column. Was Murray really missing? What had become of him? Didn’t they really know where he was? Could he be in a hospital unconscious somewhere? Oughtn’t she perhaps to do something about it? What could she do? By night she had fully decided that she would do something.

Chapter 22

T
he first thing she did about it was to stop at a public telephone on her way home and call up her mother to tell her she might be delayed a few minutes with some extra work, and not to worry. Then with a heart that beat twice as quickly as it usually did, she turned the pages of the telephone book rapidly and found the Van Rensselaer number.

Ordinarily she would have consulted her mother before taking as decided a step as this, but something told her that her mother’s sense of protection toward her would bias her judgment in this matter. She was a girl who prayed a great deal, and had great faith in prayer. She had been quietly praying all day long in her heart for guidance in this matter, and she believed she was doing the right thing. No need to trouble her mother with it yet. She would tell her before long, of course, but Mother might be alarmed and think she was more troubled than she really was, so she decided notto tell her yet. Besides, this was something that must be done at once if it really was necessary to do at all. She was going to find out.

The ring was answered promptly enough, evidently by a house servant.

No, Mr. Murray Van Rensselaer was not in. No, he was not
at home
. No, they could not tell her just when he would be at home, nor where she could reach him by phone.

There was a pause. She found her heart beating very wildly indeed. It seemed as though it would choke her. Then it was true! They really did not know where he was! But this was only a servant. Probably he would not know. She ought to get one of the family. After all, what had she to tell that would do them any good if they really were looking for him? Only that he had had an automobile accident and had disappeared from the hospital. Would that do them any good? Could they trace him from there if he had been injured?

The thought of Murray alone, delirious, perhaps, in a hospital, and his mother worrying, if such mothers ever worried, set her fluttering voice to going again.

“May I speak to Mrs. Van Rensselaer?”

“Mrs. Van Rensselaer will be dressing now,” said the impersonal voice of the butler. “We don’t disturb her when she’s dressing unless it’s for something very important.”

“This is most important!” said Elizabeth firmly. She had started it; now she would see it through.

“Wait a minute. I’ll put you on the other phone, and you cantalk to the maid.”

She heard a click, and a voice with a French accent answered her.

“Mrs. Van Rensselaer is having a shampoo and a wave now. Could you leave a message?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Bessie desperately. “Do you think she could see me if I stopped by in about half an hour? Just for five minutes?”

“She might,” said the maid. “You’d have to be very brief; she’s giffing a dinner tonight. She’ll not haf mooch time.”

“I’ll be brief,” said the girl with relief in her voice.

“Who shall I say called?”

“Oh, Miss Chapparelle. But she won’t know me.”

Bessie was waiting in a small reception room to the right of the front door when the maid came down and eyed her from head to foot appraisingly. She was sorry she had not waited to dress instead of coming straight up from the office.

“Mrs. Van Rensselaer says she don’t know you. Who are you?”

Bessie’s cheeks were burning. Now that she was here, she felt that she had intruded, and yet her conscience would not let her run away with her errand uncompleted. She stood her ground with her gravest little manner of self-respecting confidence.

“She would not know me.” She smiled. “I’m only a neighbor who used to know Murray when we were children. I had something to tell her I felt she perhaps would be glad to know.”

“Are you an agent? Because she won’t see agents.”

“Mercy, no!” said Bessie, smiling. “Tell her I won’t keep her a moment. I would send a message if I could—but—I think I ought to speak with her.”

The merciless eye of the maid gave her one more searching look and sped away up the stairs again. A slight movement in a great room like a library across the wide, beautiful hall drew the girl’s attention, as if someone were over there listening. Perhaps it was Murray. Perhaps she was making a fool of herself. But it was too late now. She must see this thing through. It was always wrong to do a big thing like this on impulse. She ought to have talked it over with her mother first. But she had prayed! And it had seemed so right, so impossible not to do it. Well, the maid was coming back.

“Madame says she can’t see you. She says she has no time to listen to complaints from the girls that hang on to her son. She says she remembers you now. You’re the girl she sent him away from to boarding school to get rid of years ago!”

“That will do, Marie!” said the stern voice of the master of the house. “You may go back to Mrs. Van Rensselaer!”

The maid gave a frightened glance behind her and sped away up the stairs in a hurry. The occasions were seldom when the master interfered with his wife’s servants, but when he did, he did it thoroughly. Marie had no wish to incur his disfavor. Who could know the master was in that room?

Mr. Van Rensselaer came out from the shadow of the dimly lit doorway and approached Bessie, eyeing her keenly.

“You had something to say about my son?” he asked in a courteous tone.

Bessie lifted eyes that were bright with unshed tears of wrath and mortification, but she answered firmly and with a tone of dignity: “Yes, Mr. Van Rensselaer. Will you tell me, is it true that your son is away and you do not know where he is?”

The father gave her a startled look.

“Why should you ask that?”

“Because I happened to read an article in the paper this morning that implied that. If it is not true, just tell me, and I will go about my own affairs. I did not
want
to come here. I thought I ought to.”

“But if it were true, why should that interest you?”

“Because I was there at the time of the accident.” She spoke in a low clear voice, very haughtily, her manner quite aloof. “I thought perhaps you might not know.”

“Accident?” he said sharply. “Step into this room, please, won’t you? We shall not be disturbed in here.”

He drew a deep, luxurious chair for her before a softly flickering fire and turned on the electric light, looking keenly into her face.

“Now, will you first tell me who you are?”

Bessie was quite herself again. She was resolved to tell her story clearly in every detail as quickly as possible and then leave this dreadful house, forever, she hoped. How awful that she should be mixed up in a thing like this and be so misunderstood.

“I am Elizabeth Chapparelle, from the next street. Our houseis just behind yours. I used sometimes to play with Murray when we were little children. We were in the same classes in school for a while.”

“I see,” said the father, studying her speaking face. “Could that possibly be your kitchen window that I can see from the back of the house?”

“Probably.” Bessie was in no mood to discuss the relative position of their houses. “I had not seen your son for several years, until the day of the accident.”

The father started sharply now and came to attention.

“Will you tell it to me in detail just as it happened, please?” he asked. “Begin when you met him, and tell me everything.”

Bessie noticed that he had not said whether he knew of the accident or not. He wanted to get every detail from her without letting her know anything. Well, that was all she wanted, too.