CHAPTER XIII.

DISTRESS.

It would always require a longer time for Mauney to become roused than for most people, in any vital matter. He would be sure to react very slowly to the irritating stimuli. He would gain cognizance of issues very tardily, and keep on half-doubting things that he hated to believe.

Friday, at noon, he crossed Church Street, from the collegiate to his boarding house, conscious of only one thing, that the morning’s work had been utterly unsatisfactory. Just why his discipline over his classes had weakened he was not ready even now to enquire. The faces of half a hundred students can be very unfriendly at times. They can act as a unified mirror to throw back at a teacher the gloom, the uncertainty, the desperate undercurrent of his own mood. There had been slight lapses of memory when those inquisitive faces had roused him to complete the phrases almost escaped. No doubt he had appeared to them stupidly absent-minded. In the principal’s office there had been a queer conversation, too. Dover had only been explaining some detail of routine, but he had worn an expression of impatient emphasis, as though he were trying to impress an idiot. That, too, had been due, no doubt, to Mauney’s own preoccupation.

Noon recess on this Friday marked the end of the week’s work. A half-holiday had been granted for some reason or other—preparation for field-day, now that he thought of it. He entered his room with a grateful sense of finding at last shelter and opportunity to think.

He knew that these bright days, with streets flooded by dry, hard sunlight were important and sombre days. Other people seemed to be free of care. Field sports and picnics up the river, and long, refreshing drives along the river road—these enjoyments were not, and could not be, for him. Nor was this September so much different from all his past autumns. Each fall had found him enmeshed in difficulties. He was beginning to perceive that his life lay just outside the border of the sunlight. And that, unprofitable though all his problems might be, they were, nevertheless, undeniably with him. He could not shirk them. Perhaps some strength might be gained in the effort to solve them. At any rate he realized quite clearly, as he removed his coat and tossed it on the bed, that the problem to-day was Freda MacDowell.

First of all he would shave. He had no sooner poured a little water into the basin on the washstand than the landlady knocked on his door.

“Come in, Mrs. Hudson,” he said wearily.

As she entered, clothed as usual in her plain, print gown, his eyes focused on a yellow envelope in her hand.

“It’s a telegraph,” she announced officiously, but without proffering it. “And it’s afther coming while ye were at the schule, Mister Bard. Poor mon! I due hope as it is nothin’ alarming. It’s the sight of a telegraph that I due dhread, Mister Bard. For wanse, several years ago, I did receive wan meself.”

“But it may be nothing,” said Mauney cheerfully, as he reached for it.

“Ah, but it’s a telegraph, mind!” she insisted, while her eyes keenly studied her boarder’s face as he tore it open and began reading. She preserved silence until he had finished, but her curiosity kept her standing, huge and peering, by the open door. She noticed his blue eyes scan the message hurriedly, then again several times more slowly. Finally he looked up over the edge of the paper with wide, blank eyes. He was conscious of her enormous body beside him and was irked by it.

“It’s nothing much, after all, Mrs. Hudson,” he said in a low tone, starting once more to read it.

“Imogine, now!” she replied, “Indade, but sure, I t’ought it would be afther bein’ a—”

Mauney, ignoring her presence, went to the window and stood looking out on the street. Mrs. Hudson, after a final assertion that “a telegraph” was never a very welcome kind of missive, left and closed the door angrily.

“Patient failed to regain consciousness; died quietly six this morning.” That, with the nurse’s signature, was the whole message. Mauney stood pensively by the window wondering why he received the news so apathetically. It was unreal. It was unquestionably true. But the external objects of this bright, Friday noon wore a casual appearance that denied the occurrence of death. Church Street was just the same innocent, familiar thoroughfare. There were the groups of collegiate students hurrying along with books in their arms, laughing and talking. There was the doubled old man, white-bearded and feeble, plodding down the walk, rapping the cement sharply with his metal-headed stick, and nearby, in the shade of a maple, lay the neighbor’s familiar Airedale, mouth open and tongue protruding, as he panted in the heat.

Turning back into the room he slowly walked to his trunk and opened it. Then he folded the telegram quickly and put it in one of the compartments of the tray. As he closed the lid slowly he cleared his throat, and then set to work shaving. He tried, as faithfully as possible, to take an interest in his personal toilet, but found it quite a boring procedure. There was a new grey suit, hanging on the back of the door, to be worn for the first time to-day, and although it was very becoming, he took no pleasure in it. He was going down to the MacDowell’s this afternoon to hear some expert piano music. Freda had telephoned him before school that Betty Doran, home from New York, was going to give a private recital to a few friends. Just who Betty Doran was he neither knew nor cared. What she was going to play he had not heard, nor was he in the least curious.

In fact, only one thing mattered—to-day, to-morrow or at any time—that he could conceive. That particular, important thing was a long talk with Freda, a talk which would have consequences. It would definitely end all misunderstandings, and rob her, once and for all, of any doubt about his love.

When he arrived at the MacDowell’s he found himself a neglected member of a gathering of thirty. Betty Doran, a spoiled young person of eighteen with Dutch-cut hair, sat at the piano rendering Chopin brilliantly and smiling affectedly at the frequent applause of the audience who filled the drawing-room. There was cake and coffee to be served afterwards, but Freda, who had taken a vow never to assist her mother with afternoon refreshments, stubbornly refused now, much to the remarked surprise of guests who saw her talking quietly with Mauney just outside in the hallway.

“This is about the last place I should have wished to come to-day,” he was saying to her in a low tone. “Get me out of it, Freda. And, if you can get away this evening, I’m crazy to take you for a long drive out in the country. Are you free?”

She gladly agreed.

After the recital was finished and the last loquacious woman had finally bade the hostess good-bye, she turned quickly from the door and sought her daughter.

“It’s simply terrible,” she said with evident feeling, “that this Bard person should have been asked to our home to-day, and I must and do insist that in future, if you are so foolish as to see him at all—”

“Now, Mother,” said Freda with some curiosity, “what on earth have the dear ladies been telling you?”

“Everybody knows it!” exclaimed Mrs. MacDowell. “He has been seen on the street with Mrs. Poynton and was also noticed coming out of her house.”

“Well, anything else?” Freda coolly enquired.

“I think that’s almost enough,” smiled her mother. “No one is laboring under any delusions about Mrs. Poynton, surely.”

“Perhaps not, Mother,” Freda almost hissed, as, blushing red, she drew quickly back with hatred in her eyes. “Perhaps Mrs. Poynton was guilty of a sin you and Mrs. Beecher will not forgive her for. Perhaps it was a sin her husband will not forgive. I know nothing about her. I want to know nothing. But of one thing I am absolutely certain!”

“And of what, my girl, are you so certain?” asked her mother.

“That if Mauney Bard called at her home he did it in innocence,” replied Freda, defiantly.

“Ha,” gently laughed the proud scion of Family-Compact glory, “Your credulity is quite amazing. If you care to believe what you say, you are, of course, at liberty to do so. You have always been full of strange and reckless impulses.”

“I believe in him so much,” said Freda, with emphasis that caused her voice to break, “that I’d stake everything—yes, my life, on him. And you, Mother, without even inquiring into it, are ready, just like the rest of these fools, to throw your harpoon into an innocent man.

“All I say,” replied her mother, haughtily, and with an aggravating smile, “is that this home—my home—is now closed to your glorious hero. I trust that is quite plain?”

Freda could not speak. Her face suddenly grew white as she stood in the middle of the dining-room floor fastening vengeful eyes upon her mother.

“It was even reported,” continued Mrs. MacDowell, turning to arrange some flowers in a vase on the buffet, “that Mr. Bard spent the night at Mrs. Poynton’s.”

“It’s a lie—a damned lie!” burst forth Freda. “Oh, tell me who said that!”

“No, I shall do nothing of the sort. Possibly you can imagine that it was told me in a kindly spirit.”

“When—did they say he—did that?”

“Last week, of course,” she replied. “When you were wondering what had become of him.”

“Mother,” Freda said more calmly, “Mauney will deny this for me. I know it’s all a hopeless lie, one of the big, black lies that they love so much. You don’t know him, Mother. You don’t even want to know him. But let me tell you one thing, that you are as bad as the rest of them!”

“Indeed,” smiled Mrs. MacDowell, turning from the vase of flowers.

“You are worse than a murderer,” suddenly said Freda, while her face quivered with new rage.

Mrs. MacDowell’s composure suffered a noticeable weakening. “My girl, I shall not tolerate such language!” she warned. “Be very careful.”

“You are capable of a crime more dastardly than murder, because it requires no courage—”

“Enough!”

“No,” fumed Freda. “It’s not enough. You’re going to hear it all for once. You have made me _hate_ you.”

Something of latent power in her daughter’s manner put Mrs. MacDowell on guard.

“Why, Freda,” she exclaimed. “What on earth. I only meant to—”

“It’s what you’ve done that counts, Mother. I know he’s innocent. My God, he must be innocent!”

Just a moment later George MacDowell came into the room and found Freda in a chair with her head clasped in her hands, weeping, and his wife standing, evidently distressed. He looked from one to the other regretfully. Sadness was in his black eyes as he looked accusingly at his wife.

“Gloria,” he said. “I’m surprised. I’ve heard both sides of this case. I couldn’t miss it, by Gad. Look what you’ve done. You’ve broken her heart. Are you proud of your job? You women aren’t sports, I tell you. Give her a fighting chance. Don’t stand there gloating over it. This business of afternoon-tea scandals has gone too far.”

“Why, George,” she said nervously, “I only meant to warn her of—”

“But you’ve broken her up, completely. Now, look here,” he said more seriously than she had ever heard him speak. “This is no small matter. Let’s get a little British fair play into this business. Do you know what I’m going to do?”

He brought his fist sharply into his opened palm.

“I’m going to get Mauney Bard. If he’s a man he’ll stand his trial and either deny it or not.” He started for the door, picking up his hat from a table nearby. Then before leaving he turned. “Ladies,” he said. “I will request you both to wait my return.”

“But, George,” said Mrs. MacDowell, “I think such a thing is absurd.”

“And I don’t want it either,” said Freda.

“Well, you’re both a fine lot, by Gad,” said MacDowell, impatiently tossing his hat to the table. “All right. But one thing I insist on, Gloria, and that is that you immediately govern your tongue. This is your house, but it is my home and this is my daughter.”

MacDowell sauntered slowly back to the library, while his wife somewhat informed as to new qualities in her married partner, departed quickly for the kitchen and began making unnecessary noise with the dishes. Freda proceeded to her room and was not seen again until eight in the evening, when she came down and passed through, without speaking, on her way to the garage. They heard the rumble of the motor-car and both watched, from different vantage points, as it sped quickly between the pine trees on its way to Queen Street. During the evening, while MacDowell in the library, as Mayor of Lockwood, gave audience to some business men from Merlton, his wife sat playing solitaire on the southern verandah.