Part 8

Among the many minor responsibilities inherited from his father, Crane remembered a statistical publication. He immediately offered its editorship to Lefferts. Cora's answer was to fling her arms about his neck.

"Oh, Burt," she said, "you really are an angel!"

It was Crane's idea of what would have happened if Mrs. Falkener had entered at this moment, which she did not, that made him ask how matters stood in regard to her.

"She doesn't know," answered Cora, "and I don't think she even suspects, and I'm such a coward I can't make up my mind to tell her. Every time I see Leonard he asks me if I have, and now he is threatening to do it himself, and that you know, Burt, would be fatal."

"Cora," said Crane, "I am about to prove that I am no fair weather friend. With your permission, I will tell your mother."

No permission was ever more easily secured.

It was now five o'clock, an hour when the elder lady became restless if not served with a little tea and attention. Crane rang and ordered tea for two served in the office, and then sent Smithfield to ask Mrs. Falkener if he might have a word with her. She and her daughter passed each other on the threshold.

"How cozy this is," she began as she seated herself by the fire. "Smithfield keeps the silver bright, but I'm afraid he has no judgment. Have you seen the man he has engaged instead of that dreadful boy?--why, he's so old and lame he can hardly get up and down stairs. He'll never do, Burton, take my word for that."

"I have something more serious to say to you than the discussion of domestic matters, Mrs. Falkener," said Crane; and for one of the few times in her life, Mrs. Falkener forgot that the house contained such a thing as servants. A more important idea took possession of her attention.

Burton began to speak about romance. He said he did not know exactly how an older generation than his looked at such questions; for his own part, he regarded himself in many ways as a practical and hard-headed man, and yet more and more he found himself gravitating to the belief that romance, love, the drawing together for mutual strength and happiness of two individuals, was the only basis for individual life. People talked of the modern taste for luxury; to his mind there was no luxury like a congenial companion, no hardship like having to go through life without it. Love--did Mrs. Falkener believe in love?

"Do I believe in love, my dear Burt?" she cried. "What else is there to believe in? No girl, no nice girl, ever marries for any other reason. Oh, they try sometimes to be mercenary, but they don't succeed. I could never forgive a woman for considering anything else."

"I thought you would feel like that," said Crane. "I thought Cora was wrong in thinking you would oppose her. For, prudent or not from a worldly point of view, there is no doubt that she and Lefferts are in love."

The blow was a cruel one, and perhaps cruelly administered. Mrs. Falkener, even in the first instant of disaster, saw and took the only way out. Love, yes. But this was not love, this was a mere infatuation on one side, and a dark and wicked plot on the other. She would never forgive Burton, never, for being a party to this scheme to throw her daughter, her dear Cora, into the arms of this adventurer. Burton, who had always professed such friendship for her! She would not stay another moment in his house. There was a six-thirty train to the North, and she and her misguided daughter would take it.

Crane began to see why Cora, for all her physical courage, dreaded a disagreement with her mother. He himself felt as if an avalanche had passed over him, leaving him alive but dazed.

Mrs. Falkener sat with her handkerchief pressed to her eyes, not so much to wipe away her tears, for she was not crying, but to shut out the sight of her perfidious young host.

"Be so kind," she directed from behind this veil, "as to give orders for the packing of my trunks, and let Cora know that we are leaving immediately."

Burton hesitated.

"I am afraid, since the housemaid has left, there isn't any one to pack for you, Mrs. Falkener," he said. "Won't you delay your going until to-morrow? I can't bear to have you leave me like this."

Mrs. Falkener shook her head.

"Call Solon," she said. "No, don't ask me to stay. And why, pray, can't the cook make herself useful, for once?"

Mrs. Falkener was not, of course, in a position to know that Crane would not at the moment stoop to ask any favor of Jane-Ellen. He was glad of an excuse to escape, however, and summon Solon to take his place. He found Smithfield in the hall and explained to him that the ladies were called suddenly away, and then he himself walked down to the garage to arrange for their departure.

When he came back he found the house in the sort of turmoil that only a thoroughly executive woman in a bad temper can create. Smithfield, Cora and Jane-Ellen seemed to be all together engaged in packing. Solon and the new man were running up and down stairs with forgotten books and coats and umbrellas, while Mrs. Falkener was exercising a general and unflattering supervision of every one's activities. To say the new man was running is inaccurate. Even Tucker's dignified celerity hardly deserves such a word. But the new man, crippled and bent as he was, attained only such velocity as was consistent with a perfectly stiff left leg. Crane really felt he ought to interfere on his behalf, when he saw him laboring downstairs with heavy bags and bundles. He probably would have done so, had not his mind been distracted by coming unexpectedly upon a little scene in the upper hall. Cora was trying to press a fee into the hand of Jane-Ellen, and Jane-Ellen was refusing it. Both were flushed and embarrassed.

"I wanted to give you this because--"

"Oh, I couldn't, really; I've not done any--"

"Oh, you've been such a--"

"Oh, no, miss, I've not done--"

The approach of Crane enabled the cook to escape. Cora turned to Burton.

"She's worked so hard, and she wouldn't take a tip," she said. "And you never felt anything like her little hands, Burt. It's like touching a bird."

"Yes, I know," said Crane. "I mean, they look so. I want just a word with you, Cora," he continued, rather rapidly. "I'm afraid I haven't done you much good except that your mother is angrier with me than she is with you, and that's something."

"Oh, I don't care, now it's over," she answered. "And you'll tell Len this evening all that's happened, and where to write to me, and we shall both be grateful to you as long as we live."

At this moment, Mrs. Falkener in hat, veil, and wrap swept out of her room, followed by Smithfield, Tucker and the old man, carrying the last of her possessions. The moment of departure had come.

X

AFTER the departure of the ladies, Tucker and Crane stood an instant in silence on the piazza. Solon, who had been waked from his customary afternoon nap by the frantic summons of Mrs. Falkener, was still a little confused as to all that had happened, and had gathered nothing clearly except that Burton was in some way very much to be blamed.

"It's too bad," he observed, "to have them go off like that. We shall miss them, I fear."

Crane was standing with his hands in his pockets, watching the tail-light as it disappeared down the drive.

"Let us avoid that, Tuck, by going away ourselves."

"You mean to leave here?"

"Why not? The experiment has not struck me as a very happy one. Our servants have gone, our guests have left us, and for my part, I am eager to be off as well."

The time had come, then, when Jane-Ellen was to be friendless and out of a job; the third act was here.

"Anything that suits you pleases me, Burton," said Tucker.

"In that case," answered Crane, "I will telephone Reed to come over at once and make arrangements for giving up the house. We can't, I suppose, catch that night train, but with luck we may get away to-morrow morning."

"You seem in a great hurry."

"I'd like never to see the place again," returned Burton.

In the moment of silence that followed this heartfelt exclamation, a figure came briskly around the corner of the piazza, a figure discernible in the light shed by the front door.

"Oh, come here," said Crane.

The figure betrayed no sign of having heard, unless a slight accentuation in its limp might be so interpreted.

"What's your name?" shouted Burton.

The old man looked up.

"Yes, yes," he said, in a high shaking voice, "I'm lame; you're right there, sir. I've been lame these twenty years, and carrying down all them trunks has put sich a crick in my back as never was."

"I asked you your name," repeated his employer.

"When I came? Why, this afternoon, sir. It was your butler engaged me. I worked at the hotel here once, and Mr. Smithfield he come to my wife and says, 'Susan,' he says, he knowing her since he was a little boy--"

"Let me look at you," said Crane sternly.

But the elderly man, still talking to himself, retreated into the shadow.

And then Tucker was surprised to hear his host exclaim with violence:

"By Jove, the young devil," and to see him hurl himself off the piazza at its highest point. He would have landed actually on top of his decrepit servitor, had not the old man developed an activity utterly unsuspected by Tucker, which enabled him to get away down the avenue with a speed that Crane could not surpass.

"Well, well, what are we coming to?" Tucker murmured as he watched them dodge and double around trees and bushes. Presently they passed out of the light from the house, and only the sound of their feet beating on the hard avenue indicated that the fugitive had taken to the open.

Solon was still peering nervously into the dark when at last his host returned. Crane was breathing hard, and held in his hand a small furry object that Tucker made out gradually to be a neat gray wig.

"Oh," said Burton, still panting and slapping his side, "I haven't run so hard since I was in college. But I should have got him if it hadn't been for his superior knowledge of the ground."

"My dear Burton," said Tucker crossly, "what in the world have you been doing?"

"What have I been doing? I've been trying to catch that wretched boy, Brindlebury, but it's as well I didn't, I dare say. I thought his limp a little spectacular this afternoon when the trunks were being carried down. But his deafness--the young fool!--that deafness, never found anywhere but on the comic stage, was too much for me. He runs fast, I'll say that for him. He led me through a bramble hedge; backed through, himself. That's when I got his wig."

"I should not be surprised if we all were murdered in our beds," said Tucker.

"That's right, Tuck," said Crane, "look on the cheerful side. Come with me now, while I speak to Smithfield. I want to know what he has to say for himself."

Smithfield, looking particularly elegant in his shirt sleeves, a costume which shows off a slim figure to great advantage, was rather languidly setting the dinner-table for two; that is to say, he was rubbing a wine-glass, shaped like a miniature New England elm-tree, to remove the faint imprint of his own fingers.

"Smithfield," said Crane briskly, "I'm afraid your new useful man isn't going to be very useful. He seems to me too old."

Smithfield placed the glass deliberately upon the table.

"He's not so old as he appears, sir," he answered. "Only sixty-six his next birthday."

"A married man?"

"No, sir, a widower of many years. His wife died when her first baby was born--that's Mr. Crosslett-Billington's present chauffeur. That's how I happened to get the old fellow. And when the rheumatism--"

"Smithfield," said Crane, "that's about enough. Put down that glass, put on your coat and hat, and get out. You're lying to me, and you've been lying to me from the beginning. Don't stay to pack your things; you can settle all that with Mr. Reed to-morrow. Get out of my house, and don't let me see you again. And," he added, throwing the gray wig into his hands, "there's a souvenir for you."

Smithfield, without the least change of expression, caught the wig, bowed, and withdrew.

"And now, Tuck," Crane added, turning to his lawyer, "I wish you would go and telephone Reed to come here at once and clear this whole thing up. Tell him I'll send the motor for him as soon as it comes back."

"It's dinner-time now," observed Tucker.

"Ask him to dinner then," said Crane. "I must go and see that Smithfield really gets out of this house."

Both tasks had been accomplished when at about eight o'clock Tucker and Crane again met in the hall. Smithfield had been actually seen off the place, Tucker had telephoned Reed and despatched the motor for him, and now the sound of an approaching car was heard.

"That can't be Reed, yet," said Tucker, "there hasn't been time."

Crane shook his head.

"It isn't the sound of my engine, either," he answered.

Headlights came sweeping up the drive, and a few minutes later, Lefferts, in full evening dress, entered the house.

"I'm afraid I'm a little bit late," he said, "but I missed a turn."

For an instant Crane regarded him blankly. Then he remembered that once, ages before, or perhaps no earlier than that very afternoon, he had invited Lefferts to dinner. And at the same time he realized what had not heretofore occurred to him, that there was no one in the house to serve dinner, except Jane-Ellen, who had, in all probability, cooked dinner for only two. Reed might be there at any minute. It was really necessary, in so acute a domestic crisis, to put pride in his pocket and go downstairs and speak to his cook.

He put his hand on Lefferts' shoulder.

"Awfully sorry, my dear fellow," he said, "that things are not quite as anticipated. Tucker will tell you we have had rather a stormy afternoon. Give him a cigarette and a cocktail, Tuck, and I'll be back in a minute." He disappeared down the kitchen stairs.

With what different feelings, he said to himself, did he now descend those stairs; but, when he was actually in the kitchen, when Willoughby was once again bounding forward to greet him, and Jane-Ellen was allowing herself that slow curved smile of hers, he was surprised and disappointed to find that his feelings were, after all, much the same as before. Over his manner, however, he was still master, and that was cold and formal in the extreme.

"I wanted to speak to you, Jane-Ellen," he began, but she interrupted.

"This time," she said gaily, "I know what it is that you are going to scold about."

"I am not going to scold."

She laughed.

"Well, that's a wonder," and glancing at him she was astonished to find no answering smile. "Are you really angry at me," she asked, "on account of this afternoon?"

"This afternoon?"

"On account of that silly plan about Brindlebury? I did not know they were going to do it, and when it was done, I couldn't betray them, could I?"

Crane made a gesture that seemed to indicate that he really had no means of judging what his cook might or might not do.

"You believe me, don't you?"

"Believe you?" said Crane. "I haven't considered the question one way or the other."

"Why, Mr. Crane," said Jane-Ellen, "whatever has come over you that you should speak like that?"

"This has come over me," answered Crane, "that I came down here in a hurry to give some orders and not to discuss the question of veracity."

The figure of Jane-Ellen stiffened, she clasped her hands behind her back.

"And what are your orders?" she said, in a tone of direful monotony.

Crane, as has been stated, was no coward, and even if he had been, anger would have lent him courage.

"There are two gentlemen coming to dine--four in all," and as he saw Jane-Ellen slightly beck her head at this, he added recklessly, "as Smithfield is gone, you will have to serve dinner as well as cook it."

"No," replied the cook. "No, indeed. Certainly not. I was engaged to cook, and I will cook to the very best of my abilities, but I was not engaged to be a maid of all work."

"You were engaged to do as you're told."

"There you are mistaken."

"Jane-Ellen, you will serve dinner."

"Mr. Crane, I will not."

The problem of the irresistible force and the immovable body seemed about to be demonstrated. They looked each other steadily and hostilely in the eyes.

"We seem," said Crane, "to be dealing with the eternal problem between employer and employee. You're not lazy, the work before you is nothing, but you deliberately choose to stand on your rights, on a purely technical point--"

"I do nothing of the kind."

"What are you doing then?"

"I'm making myself just as disagreeable as I can," answered Jane-Ellen. "Of course, I should have been delighted to do anything for any one who asked me politely. But when a man comes into my kitchen and talks about giving orders, and my doing as I'm told, and serving dinner, why, my answer is, he ought to have thought of his extra guests before he dismissed my brothers--"

"Your brothers!" cried Crane. "Do you mean to say that Smithfield is your brother too?"

"Well, I didn't mean to tell you," said the cook crossly, "but it happens to be true."

From the point of view of the irresistible force, the problem was now completely resolved.

"O Jane-Ellen!" he cried, "why in the world didn't you tell me so before?"

"I can't see what it has to do with things."

"It has everything," he answered. "It makes me see how wrong I have been, how rude. It makes me want to apologize for everything I have said since I came into the kitchen. It makes me ask you most humbly if you won't help me out in the ridiculous situation in which I find myself."

"But I don't see why Smithfield's being--"

"It would take a long time to explain," answered Burton, "although, I assure you, it can and shall be done. Perhaps this evening, after these tiresome men have gone, you will give me a few minutes. In the meantime, just let me say that I was angry at you, however wrongly, when I came down--"

"I'm not sure but that I'm still angry at _you_," said the cook, but she smiled as she said it.

"You have every right to be, and no reason," he returned. "And you are going to be an angel and serve dinner, aren't you?"

"I said I would if asked politely."

"Though how in the world I shall sit still and let you wait on me, I don't see."

"Oh," said Jane-Ellen, "if you never have anything harder to do than that, you are very different from most of your sex. And now," she added, "I'd better run upstairs and put two more places at the table, for it's dinner-time already."

"If I come back later in the evening, you won't turn me out of the kitchen?"

She was already on her way upstairs, but she turned with a smile.

"It's your kitchen, sir," she said.

Crane followed her slowly. It occurred to him that he must have a talk with Lefferts. He found him and Tucker making rather heavy weather of conversation in the drawing-room. Tucker had naturally enough determined to adopt Mrs. Falkener's views of Lefferts. He had conformed with Crane's request and given the poet a cigarette and a cocktail, but he had attempted no explanation beyond an unsatisfactory statement that the ladies had been called away unexpectedly.

"Nothing serious, I hope," Lefferts had said.

"I hope not," Tucker had returned, and not another word would he utter on the subject.

Lefferts was, therefore, glad to respond to Crane's invitation to come into the office for a few minutes and leave Tucker to the contemplation of his own loyalty.

Left alone, Tucker's eager ears soon detected the sound of dishes in the dining-room, and he knew that this could be produced by the hand of no other than Jane-Ellen. The moment seemed to have been especially designed for his purpose, and he decided to take advantage of it.

Jane-Ellen was setting the table with far more energy than Smithfield had displayed; in fact her task was almost finished when Tucker entered, and, advancing to the mantelpiece, leaned his elbow on the shelf and smiled down upon her benevolently.

"The time has come sooner than we anticipated when I can be of assistance to you, Jane-Ellen," he said.

"Yes, indeed, sir," she returned with a promptness that fifteen years before would have made his heart beat faster.

"Thank you for giving me the opportunity."

"The finger-bowls, sir," she interrupted, flicking a napkin in their direction, "they ought to be filled; not too full, sir; that's quite enough, it isn't a tub, you know. And now, if you've a match about you, and gentlemen always have matches, I believe, would you light the candles, and then, yes, I do think we're about ready now."

Tucker, who could not very well refuse such trivial services when he was offering one much more momentous, poured a little water from the ice pitcher into the glass finger-bowls, but he did it with such dignity and from such a height that he spilled much of it over the doilies. The cook did not reprove him directly, but she changed the doily with a manner that seemed to suggest that another time she would do the job herself. And when Tucker took a neat gold match-box from his pocket and prepared to light the candles, she coolly took the whole thing out of his hands, remarking that he might set the shades on fire and then they'd be in what she described as "a nice way."

Observing that she was about to leave the room, he put himself before the door.

"I want just a word, Jane-Ellen."

"No time now, sir. Perhaps to-morrow morning."

"To-morrow will be too late. You must know this evening. I don't want to say a word against Mr. Crane; young men who have always had everything they want are naturally thoughtless. But I can't bear to see you turned out at a moment's notice--"

"Turned out?"

"Yes, Mr. Crane is going either to-night or to-morrow morning. Didn't he tell you?"

He had her attention now. She looked at him intently.

"Mr. Crane going? I thought he had the house for six weeks."

"So he had, but he's bored with it. Miss Falkener has gone, and he sees no reason for staying on. He'll be off either at midnight or in the morning. You're about to lose your place, Jane-Ellen."

She stood staring before her so blankly that it grieved him to see her so deeply concerned about the loss of her position, and he pressed on.

"I can't bear to think of your comfort being dependent on the caprices of Crane, or any one. Come to me, Jane-Ellen. This is no life for you, with your youth and beauty and charm. I could offer you a position that you need never leave, never, unless you wanted to--"

"Please move from the door, sir."

"Not until you've heard me," and he moved toward her as if to take her in his arms.

At some previous period of time, the Revellys, presided over by a less elegant functionary than Smithfield, must have been in the habit of summoning the family to meals by means of a large Japanese gong that now stood neglected in a corner. To this, Jane-Ellen sprang, and beat it with a vigor that made the house resound.

The next instant Crane burst into the room.

"What's the matter?" he exclaimed, and added, fixing his eyes on his lawyer,

"What the deuce are you doing here, Tuck?"

"I," said Tucker, "was giving Jane-Ellen what help I could in setting the table."

"Like hell you were."

"Do you mean you doubt what I say?"

"You bet I do."

"And may I ask what you do think I was doing?" asked Tucker.

"I think you were making love to the cook."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," murmured the cook, "won't you please let me go down and attend to the dinner. The chicken will be terribly overdone."

Nobody paid any attention to the request.

"Well," said Tucker, "I certainly wouldn't turn a poor girl out at a few hours' notice, as you mean to do."

"Who says I mean to?"

"You told me yourself you meant to leave to-morrow."

"And what kind of a job were you offering her?"

"I tell you I was trying to help her."