When a Man Marries Part 5

Bella shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, thank goodness," she said, "I don't have to see her. The only pleasant thing I remember about my year of married life is that I did NOT meet Aunt Selina."

I rang again, but still there was no answer. And then it occurred to me that the stillness below stairs was almost oppressive. Bella was noticing things, too, for she began to fasten her veil again with a malicious little smile.

"One of the things I remember my late husband saying," she observed, "was that HE could manage this house, and had done it for years, with flawless service. Stand on the bell, Kit."

I did. We stood there, with the table, just as it had been left, between us, and waited for a response. Bella was growing impatient. She raised her eyebrows (she is very handsome, Bella is) and flung out her chin as if she had begun to enjoy the horrible situation.

I thought I heard a rattle of silver from the pantry just then, and I hurried to the door in a rage. But the pantry was empty of servants and full of dishes, and all the lights were out but one, which was burning dimly. I could have sworn that I saw one of the servants duck into the stairway to the bas.e.m.e.nt, but when I got there the stairs were empty, and something was burning in the kitchen below.

Bella had followed me and was peering over my shoulder curiously.

"There isn't a servant in the house," she said triumphantly. And when we went down to the kitchen, she seemed to be right. It was in disgraceful order, and one of the bottles of wine that had ben banished from the dining room sat half empty on the floor.

"Drunk!" Bella said with conviction. But I didn't think so. There had not been time enough, for one thing. Suddenly I remembered the ambulance that had been the cause of Bella's appearance--for no one could believe her silly story about Takahiro. I didn't wait to voice my suspicion to her; I simply left her there, staring helplessly at the confusion, and ran upstairs again: through the dining room, past Jimmy and Aunt Selina, past Leila Mercer and Max, who were flirting on the stairs, up, up to the servants' bedrooms, and there my suspicions were verified. There was every evidence of a hasty flight; in three bedrooms five trunks stood locked and ominous, and the closets yawned with open doors, empty. Bella had been right; there was not a servant in the house.

As I emerged from the untidy emptiness of the servants' wing, I met Mr.

Harbison coming out of the studio.

"I wish you would let me do some of this running about for you, Mrs.

Wilson," he said gravely. "You are not well, and I can't think of anything worse for a headache. Has the butler's illness clogged the household machinery?"

"Worse," I replied, trying not to breathe in gasps. "I wouldn't be running around--like this--but there is not a servant in the house! They have gone, the entire lot."

"That's odd," he said slowly. "Gone! Are you sure?"

In reply I pointed to the servants' wing. "Trunks packed," I said tragically, "rooms empty, kitchen and pantries, full of dishes. Did you ever hear of anything like it?"

"Never," he a.s.serted. "It makes me suspect--" What he suspected he did not say; instead he turned on his heel, without a word of explanation, and ran down the stairs. I stood staring after him, wondering if every one in the place had gone crazy. Then I heard Betty Mercer scream and the rest talking loud and laughing, and Mr. Harbison came up the stairs again two at a time.

"How long has that j.a.p been ailing, Mrs. Wilson?" he asked.

"I--I don't know," I replied helplessly. "What is the trouble, anyhow?"

"I think he probably has something contagious," he said, "and it has scared the servants away. As Mr. Brown said, he looked spotty. I suggested to your husband that it might be as well to get the house emptied--in case we are correct."

"Oh, yes, by all means," I said eagerly. I couldn't get away too soon.

"I'll go and get my--" Then I stopped. Why, the man wouldn't expect me to leave; I would have to play out the wretched farce to the end!

"I'll go down and see them off," I finished lamely, and we went together down the stairs.

Just for the moment I forgot Bella altogether. I found Aunt Selina bonneted and cloaked, taking a stirrup cup of Pomona for her nerves, and the rest throwing on their wraps in a hurry. Downstairs Max was telephoning for his car, which wasn't due for an hour, and Jim was walking up and down, swearing under his breath. With the prospect of getting rid of them all, and, of going home comfortably to try to forget the whole wretched affair, I cheered up quite a lot. I even played up my part of hostess, and Dallas told me, aside, that I was a brick.

Just then Jim threw open the front door.

There was a man on the top step, with his mouth full of tacks, and he was nailing something to the door, just below Jim's Florentine bronze knocker, and standing back with his head on one side to see if it was straight.

"What are you doing?" Jim demanded fiercely, but the man only drove another tack. It was Mr. Harbison who stepped outside and read the card.

It said "Smallpox."

"Smallpox," Mr. Harbison read, as if he couldn't believe it. Then he turned to us, huddled in the hall.

"It seems it wasn't measles, after all," he said cheerfully. "I move we get into Mr. Reed's automobile out there, and have a vaccination party.

I suppose even you blase society folk have not exhausted that kind of diversion."

But the man on the step spat his tacks in his hand and spoke for the first time.

"No, you don't," he said. "Not on your life. Just step back, please, and close the door. This house is quarantined."

Chapter V. FROM THE TREE OF LOVE

There is hardly any use trying to describe what followed. Anne Brown began to cry, and talk about the children. (She went to Europe once and stayed until they all got over the whooping cough.) And Dallas said he had a pull, because his mill controlled I forget how many votes, and the thing to do was to be quiet and comfortable and we would get out in the morning. Max took it as a huge joke, and somebody found him at the telephone, calling up his club. The Mercer girls were hysterically giggling, and Aunt Selina sat on a stiff-backed chair and took aromatic spirits of ammonia. As for Jim, he had collapsed on the lowest step of the stairs, and sat there with his head in his hands. When he did look up, he didn't dare to look at me.

The Harbison man was arguing with the impa.s.sive individual on the top step outside, and I saw him get out his pocketbook and offer a crisp bundle of bills. But the man from the board of health only smiled and tacked at his offensive sign. After a while Mr. Harbison came in and closed the door, and we stared at one another.

"I know what I'm going to do," I said, swallowing a lump in my throat.

"I'm going to get out through a bas.e.m.e.nt window at the back. I'm going home."

"Home!" Aunt Selina gasped, jumping up and almost dropping her ammonia bottle. "My dear Bella! Home?"

Jimmy groaned at the foot of the stairs, but Anne Brown was getting over her tears and now she turned on me in a temper.

"It's all your fault," she said. "I was going to stay at home and get a little sleep--"

"Well, you can sleep now," Dallas broke in. "There'll be nothing to do but sleep."

"I think you haven't grasped the situation, Dal," I said icily. "There will be plenty to do. There isn't a servant in the house!"

"No servants!" everybody cried at once. The Mercer girls stopped giggling.

"Holy cats!" Max stopped in the act of hanging up his overcoat. "Do you mean--why, I can't shave myself! I'll cut my head off."

"You'll do more than that," I retorted grimly. "You will carry coal and tend fires and empty ash pans, and when you are not doing any of those things there will be pots and pans to wash and beds to make."

Then there WAS a row. We had worked back to the den now, and I stood in front of the fireplace and let the storm beat around me, and tried to look perfectly cold and indifferent, and not to see Mr. Harbison's shocked face. No wonder he thought them a lot of savages, browbeating their hostess the way they did.

"It's a fool thing anyhow," Max Reed wound up, "to celebrate the anniversary of a divorce--especially--" Here he caught Jim's eye and stopped. But I had suddenly remembered. BELLA DOWN IN THE BAs.e.m.e.nT!

Could anything have been worse? And of course she would have hysteria and then turn on me and blame me for it all. It all came over me at once and overwhelmed me, while Anne was crying and saying she wouldn't cook if she starved for it, and Aunt Selina was taking off her wraps. I felt queer all over, and I sat down suddenly. Mr. Harbison was looking at me, and he brought me a gla.s.s of wine.

"It won't be so bad as you fear," he said comfortingly. "There will be no danger once we are vaccinated, and many hands make light work. They are pretty raw now, because the thing is new to them, but by morning they will be reconciled."

"It isn't the work; it is something entirely different," I said. And it was. Bella and work could hardly be spoken in the same breath.

If I had only turned her out as she deserved to be, when she first came, instead of allowing her to carry through the wretched farce about seeing Takahiro! Or if I had only run to the bas.e.m.e.nt the moment the house was quarantined, and got her out the areaway or the coal hole! And now time was flying, and Aunt Selina had me by the arm, and any moment I expected Bella to pounce on us through the doorway and the whole situation to explode with a bang.