Green Fancy Part 16

"Suggests a hotel, doesn't it?" said the Irishman, standing aside for Barnes to enter. "All of the sleeping apartments are on this floor, and the baths, and boudoirs, and what-not. The garret is above, and that's where we deposit our family skeletons, intern our grievances, store our stock of spitefulness, and hide all the little devils that must come sneaking up from the city with us whether we will or no. Nothing but good-humour, contentment, happiness and mirth are permitted to occupy this floor and the one below. I might also add beauty, for you can't conceive any of the others without it, me friend. G.o.d knows I couldn't be good-natured for a minute if I wasn't encouraged by beauty appreciative, and as for being contented, happy or mirthful,--bedad, words fail me! Dabson," he said, addressing the man who had quietly entered the room through the door behind them, "do Mr. Barnes, will ye, and fetch me from Mr. De Soto's room when you've finished. I leave you to Dabson's tender mercies. The saints preserve us! Look at the man's boots! Dabson, get out your brush and dauber first of all. He's been floundering in a bog."

The jovial Irishman retired, leaving Barnes to be "done" by the silent, swift-moving valet. Dabson was young and vigorous and exceedingly well-trained. He made short work of "doing" the visitor; barely fifteen minutes elapsed before O'Dowd's return.

Presently they went downstairs together. Lamps had been lighted, many of them, throughout the house. A warm, pleasing glow filled the rooms, softening,--one might even say tempering,--the insistent reds in the rugs, which now seemed to reflect rather than to project their hues; a fire crackled in the cavernous fireplace at the end of the living-room, and grouped about its cheerful, grateful blaze were the ladies of Green Fancy.

Barnes was aware of a quickening of his pulses as he advanced with O'Dowd. De Soto was there ahead of them, posed ungracefully in front of the fire, his feet widespread, his hands in his pockets. Another man, sallow-faced and tall, with a tired looking blond moustache and sleepy eyes, was managing, with amazing skill, the retention of a cigarette which seemed to be constantly in peril of detaching itself from his parted though inactive lips.

SHE was there, standing slightly aloof from the others, but evidently amused by the tale with which De Soto was regaling them. She was smiling; Barnes saw the sapphire lights sparkling in her eyes, and experienced a sensation that was woefully akin to confusion.

He had the feeling that he would be absolutely speechless when presented to her; in the full, luminous glow of those lovely eyes he would lose consciousness, momentarily, no doubt, but long enough to give her,--and all the rest of them,--no end of a fright.

But nothing of the kind happened. Everything went off quite naturally.

He favoured Miss Cameron with an uncommonly self-possessed smile as she gave her hand to him, and she, in turn, responded with one faintly suggestive of tolerance, although it certainly would have been recorded by a less sensitive person than Barnes as "ripping."

In reply to his perfunctory "delighted, I'm sure, etc.," she said, quite clearly: "Oh, now I remember. I was sure I had seen you before, Mr. Barnes. You are the magic gentleman who sprung like a mushroom out of the earth yesterday afternoon."

"And frightened you," he said; "whereupon you vanished like the mushroom that is gobbled up by the predatory glutton."

He had thrilled at the sound of her voice. It was the low, deliberate voice of the woman of the crossroads, and, as before, he caught the almost imperceptible accent. The red gleam from the blazing logs fell upon her s.h.i.+ning hair; it glistened like gold. She wore a simple evening gown of white, softened over the shoulders and neck with a fall of rare vallenciennes lace. There was no jewelry,--not even a ring on her slender, tapering fingers. Oddly enough, now that he stood beside her, she was not so tall as he had believed her to be the day before.

The crown of her silken head came but little above his shoulder. As she had appeared to him among the trees he would have sworn that she was but little below his own height, which was a liberal six feet. He recalled a flash of wonder on that occasion; she had seemed so much taller than the woman at the cross-roads that he was almost convinced that she could not, after all, be the same person. Now she was back to the height that he remembered, and he marvelled once more.

Mrs. Collier, the hostess, was an elderly, heavy-featured woman, decidedly over-dressed. Barnes knew her kind. One encounters her everywhere: the otherwise intelligent woman who has no sense about her clothes. Mrs. Van d.y.k.e, her daughter, was a woman of thirty, tall, dark and handsome in a bold, das.h.i.+ng sort of way. She too was rather resplendent in a black jet gown, and she was liberally bestrewn with jewels. Much to Barnes's surprise, she possessed a soft, gentle speaking-voice and a quiet, musical laugh instead of the boisterous tones and cackle that he always a.s.sociated with her type. The lackadaisical gentleman with the moustache turned out to be her husband.

"My brother is unable to be with us to-night, Mr. Barnes," explained Mrs. Collier. "Mr. O'Dowd may have told you that he is an invalid.

Quite rarely is he well enough to leave his room. He has been feeling much better of late, but now his nerves are all torn to pieces by this shooting affair. The mere knowledge that our grounds were being inspected to-day by the authorities upset him terribly. He has begged me to present his apologies and regrets to you. Another time, perhaps, you will give him the pleasure he is missing to-night. He wanted so much to talk with you about the quaint places you have described so charmingly in your articles. They must be wonderfully appealing. One cannot read your descriptions without really envying the people who live in those enchanted--"

"Ahem!" coughed O'Dowd, who actually had read the articles and could see nothing alluring in a prospect that contemplated barren, snow-swept wildernesses in the Andes. "The only advantage I can see in living up there," he said, with a sly wink at Barnes, "is that one has all the privileges of death without being put to the expense of burial."

"How very extraordinary, Mr. O'Dowd," said Mrs. Collier, lifting her lorgnon.

"Mrs. Collier has been reading my paper on the chateau country in France," said Barnes mendaciously. (It had not yet been published, but what of that?)

"Perfectly delightful," said Mrs. Collier, and at once changed the subject.

De Soto's c.o.c.ktails came in. Miss Cameron did not take one. O'Dowd proposed a toast.

"To the rascals who went gunning for the other rascals. But for them we should be short at least one member of this agreeable company."

It was rather startling. Barnes's gla.s.s stopped half-way to his lips.

An instant later he drained it. He accepted the toast as a compliment from the whilom Irishman, and not as a tribute to the prowess of those mysterious marksmen.

"Rather grewsome, O'Dowd," drawled Van d.y.k.e, "but offset by the foresightedness of the maker of this c.o.c.ktail. Uncommonly good one, De Soto."

The table in the s.p.a.cious dining-room was one of those long, narrow Italian boards, unmistakably antique and equally rare. Sixteen or eighteen people could have been seated without crowding, and when the seven took their places wide intervals separated them. No effort had been made by the hostess to bring her guests close together, as might have been done by using one end or the centre of the table. Except for scattered doylies, the smooth, nut-brown top was bare of cloth; there was a glorious patina to this huge old board, with tiny cracks running like veins across its surface.

Decorations were scant. A half dozen big candlesticks, ecclesiastical in character, were placed at proper intervals, and at each end of the table there was a shallow, alabaster dish containing pansies. The serving plates were of silver. Especially beautiful were the long-stemmed water goblets and the graceful champagne gla.s.ses. They were blue and white and of a design and quality no longer obtainable except at great cost. The aesthetic Barnes was not slow to appreciate the rarity of the gla.s.sware and the chaste beauty of the serving plates.

The man Nicholas was evidently the butler, despite his Seventh Avenue manner. He was a.s.sisted in serving by two stalwart and amazingly clumsy footmen, of similar ilk and nationality. On seeing these additional men-servants, Barnes began figuratively to count on his fingers the retainers he had so far encountered on the place. Already he has seen six, all of them powerful, rugged fellows. It struck him. as extraordinary, and in a way significant, that there should be so many men at Green Fancy.

Somewhere back in his mind was the impression that O'Dowd had spoken of Pierre the cook, a private secretary and male attendant who looked after Mr. Curtis. Then there was Peter, the regular chauffeur, whom he had not seen, and doubtless there were able-bodied woodchoppers and foresters besides. Not forgetting the little book-agent! It suddenly occurred to him that he was surrounded by a company of the most formidable character: no less than twenty men would be a reasonable guess if he were to include O'Dowd, De Soto and Van d.y.k.e.

Much to his disappointment, he was not placed near Miss Cameron at table. Indeed, she was seated as far away from him as possible. He sat at Mrs. Collier's right. On his left was Mrs. Van d.y.k.e, with Miss Cameron at the foot of the table flanked by O'Dowd and De Soto. Van d.y.k.e had nearly the whole of the opposite side of the table to himself.

There was, to be sure, a place set between him and De Soto, for symmetry's sake, Barnes concluded. In this he was mistaken; they had barely seated themselves when Mrs. Collier remarked:

"Mr. Curtis's secretary usually joins us here for coffee. He has his dinner with my brother and then, poor man, comes in for a brief period of relaxation. When my brother is in one of his bad spells poor Mr.

Loeb doesn't have much time to himself. It seems to me that my brother is at his best when his health is at its worst. You may be interested to know, Mr. Barnes, that he is writing a history of the Five Nations."

"Indians, you know," explained Van d.y.k.e.

"A history of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, Onondagas and Senecas, and their 'Long House' should be of great value, Mrs. Collier," said Barnes, a trifle didactically. "When does he expect to have it completed?"

"'Gad, you know a little of everything, don't you?" said Van d.y.k.e, sitting up a little straighter in his chair and eyeing Barnes fis.h.i.+ly.

("Awfully smart chap," he afterwards confided to O'Dowd.) "If he lives long enough, he'll finish it in 1999," he added, lifting his voice above Mrs. Collier's pa.s.sive reply out of which Barnes gathered the words "couple" and "years."

It is not necessary to dilate upon the excellence of the dinner, to repeat the dialogue, or to comment on the service, other than to say, for the sake of record, that the first WAS excellent; the second sprightly, and the third atrocious.

Loeb, the private secretary, came in for coffee. He was a tall, spare man of thirty, pallidly handsome, with dark, studious eyes and features of an unmistakably Hebraic cast, as his name might have foretold. His teeth were marvellously white, and his slow smile attractive. When he spoke, which was seldom unless a remark was directed specifically to him, his voice was singularly deep and resonant. More than once during the hour that Loeb spent with them Barnes formed and dismissed a stubborn, ever-recurring opinion that the man was not a Jew. Certainly he was not an American Jew. His voice, his manner of speech, his every action stamped him as one born and bred in a land far removed from Broadway and its counterparts. If a Jew, he was of the East as it is measured from Rome: the Jew of the carnal Orient.

And as the evening wore on, there came to Barnes the singular fancy that this man was the master and not the servant of the house! He could not put the ridiculous idea out of his mind.

He was to depart at ten. The hour drew near and he had had no opportunity for detached conversation with Miss Cameron. He had listened to her bright retorts to O'Dowd's sallies, and marvelled at the ease and composure with which she met the witty Irishman on even terms. Her voice, always low and distinct, was never without the suggestion of good-natured raillery; he was enchanted by the faint, delicious chuckle that rode in every sentence she uttered during these sprightly tilts.

When the conversation turned to serious topics, her voice steadied perceptibly, the blue in her eyes took on a deeper and darker hue, the half-satirical smile vanished from her adorable lips, and she spoke with the gravity of a profound thinker. Barnes watched her, fascinated, bereft of the power to concentrate his thoughts on anything else. He hung on her every movement, hoping and longing for the impersonal glance or remark with which she occasionally favoured him.

Not until the very close of the evening, and when he had resigned himself to hopelessness, did the opportunity come for him to speak with her alone. She caught his eye, and, to his amazement, made a slight movement of her head, un.o.bserved by the others but curiously imperative to him. There was no mistaking the meaning of the direct, intense look that she gave him.

She was appealing to him as a friend,--as one on whom she could depend!

The spirit of chivalry took possession of him. His blood leaped to the call. She needed him and he would not fail her. And it was with difficulty that he contrived to hide the exaltation that might have ruined everything!

Loeb had returned to his labours in Mr. Curtis's study, after bidding Barnes a courteous good-night. It seemed to the latter that with the secretary's departure an indefinable restraint fell away from the small company.

While he was trying to invent a pretext for drawing her apart from the others, she calmly ordered Van d.y.k.e to relinquish his place on the couch beside her to Barnes.

"Come and sit beside me, Mr. Barnes," she called out, gaily. "I will not bite you, or scratch you, or harm you in any way. Ask Mr. O'Dowd and he will tell you that I am quite docile. What is there about me, sir, that causes you to think that I am dangerous? You have barely spoken a word to me, and you've been disagreeably nice to Mrs. Collier and Mrs. Van d.y.k.e. I don't bite, do I, Mr. O'Dowd?"

"You do," said O'Dowd promptly. "You do more than that. You devour.

Bedad, I have to look in a mirror to convince meself that you haven't swallowed me whole. That's another way of telling you, Barnes, that she'll absorb you entirely."

It was a long, deep and comfortable couch of the davenport cla.s.s, and she sat in the middle of it instead of at the end, a circ.u.mstance that he was soon to regard as premeditated. She had planned to bring him to this place beside her and had cunningly prepared against the possibility that he might put the full length of the couch between them if she settled herself in a corner. As it was, their elbows almost touched as he sat down beside her.

For a few minutes she chided him for his unseemly aversion. He was beginning to think that he had been mistaken in her motive, and that after all she was merely satisfying her vanity. Suddenly, and as she smiled into his eyes, she said, lowering her voice slightly:

"Do not appear surprised at anything I may say to you. Smile as if we were uttering the silliest nonsense. So much depends upon it, Mr.

Barnes."