Behind her, Bertram, remembering the scene in the kitchen, stared in sheer amazement. Bertram, it might be mentioned again, had been married six months, not six years.
What Billy had intended to serve for a "simple dinner" that night was: grapefruit with cherries, oyster stew, boiled halibut with egg sauce, chicken pie, squash, onions, and potatoes, peach fritters, a "lettuce and stuff" salad, and some new pie or pudding. What she did serve was: grapefruit (without the cherries), cold roast lamb, potatoes (a mush of sogginess), tomatoes (canned, and slightly burned), corn (canned, and very much burned), lettuce (plain); and for dessert, preserved peaches and cake (the latter rather dry and stale). Such was Billy"s dinner.
The grapefruit everybody ate. The cold lamb too, met with a hearty reception, especially after the potatoes, corn, and tomatoes were served--and tasted. Outwardly, through it all, Billy was gayety itself.
Inwardly she was burning up with anger and mortification. And because she was all this, there was, apparently, no limit to her laughter and sparkling repartee as she talked with Calderwell, her guest--the guest who, according to her original plans, was to be shown how happy she and Bertram were, what a good wife she made, and how devoted and _satisfied_ Bertram was in his home.
William, picking at his dinner--as only a hungry man can pick at a dinner that is uneatable--watched Billy with a puzzled, uneasy frown.
Bertram, choking over the few mouthfuls he ate, marked his wife"s animated face and Calderwell"s absorbed attention, and settled into gloomy silence.
But it could not continue forever. The preserved peaches were eaten at last, and the stale cake left. (Billy had forgotten the coffee--which was just as well, perhaps.) Then the four trailed up-stairs to the drawing-room.
At nine o"clock an anxious Eliza and a remorseful, apologetic Pete came home and descended to the horror the once orderly kitchen and dining-room had become. At ten, Calderwell, with very evident reluctance, tore himself away from Billy"s gay badinage, and said good night. At two minutes past ten, an exhausted, nerve-racked Billy was trying to cry on the shoulders of both Uncle William and Bertram at once.
"There, there, child, don"t! It went off all right," patted Uncle William.
"Billy, darling," pleaded Bertram, "please don"t cry so! As if I"d ever let you step foot in that kitchen again!"
At this Billy raised a tear-wet face, aflame with indignant determination.
"As if I"d ever let you keep me _from_ it, Bertram Henshaw, after this!"
she contested. "I"m not going to do another thing in all my life but _cook!_ When I think of the stuff we had to eat, after all the time I took to get it, I"m simply crazy! Do you think I"d run the risk of such a thing as this ever happening again?"
CHAPTER XI. CALDERWELL DOES SOME QUESTIONING
On the day after his dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Bertram Henshaw, Hugh Calderwell left Boston and did not return until more than a month had pa.s.sed. One of his first acts, when he did come, was to look up Mr. M.
J. Arkwright at the address which Billy had given him.
Calderwell had not seen Arkwright since they parted in Paris some two years before, after a six-months tramp through Europe together.
Calderwell liked Arkwright then, greatly, and he lost no time now in renewing the acquaintance.
The address, as given by Billy, proved to be an attractive but modest apartment hotel near the Conservatory of Music; and Calderwell was delighted to find Arkwright at home in his comfortable little bachelor suite.
Arkwright greeted him most cordially.
"Well, well," he cried, "if it isn"t Calderwell! And how"s Mont Blanc?
Or is it the Killarney Lakes this time, or maybe the Sphinx that I should inquire for, eh?"
"Guess again," laughed Calderwell, throwing off his heavy coat and settling himself comfortably in the inviting-looking morris chair his friend pulled forward.
"Sha"n"t do it," retorted Arkwright, with a smile. "I never gamble on palpable uncertainties, except for a chance throw or two, as I gave a minute ago. Your movements are altogether too erratic, and too far-reaching, for ordinary mortals to keep track of."
"Well, maybe you"re right," grinned Calderwell, appreciatively. "Anyhow, you would have lost this time, sure thing, for I"ve been working."
"Seen the doctor yet?" queried Arkwright, coolly, pushing the cigars across the table.
"Thanks--for both," sniffed Calderwell, with a reproachful glance, helping himself. "Your good judgment in some matters is still unimpaired, I see," he observed, tapping the little gilded band which had told him the cigar was an old favorite. "As to other matters, however,--you"re wrong again, my friend, in your surmise. I am not sick, and I have been working."
"So? Well, I"m told they have very good specialists here. Some one of them ought to hit your case. Still--how long has it been running?"
Arkwright"s face showed only grave concern.
"Oh, come, let up, Arkwright," snapped Calderwell, striking his match alight with a vigorous jerk. "I"ll admit I haven"t ever given any _special_ indication of an absorbing pa.s.sion for work. But what can you expect of a fellow born with a whole dozen silver spoons in his mouth?
And that"s what I was, according to Bertram Henshaw. According to him again, it"s a wonder I ever tried to feed myself; and perhaps he"s right--with my mouth already so full."
"I should say so," laughed Arkwright.
"Well, be that as it may. I"m going to feed myself, and I"m going to earn my feed, too. I haven"t climbed a mountain or paddled a canoe, for a year. I"ve been in Chicago cultivating the acquaintance of John Doe and Richard Roe."
"You mean--law?"
"Sure. I studied it here for a while, before that bout of ours a couple of years ago. Billy drove me away, then."
"Billy!--er--Mrs. Henshaw?"
"Yes. I thought I told you. She turned down my tenth-dozen proposal so emphatically that I lost all interest in Boston and took to the tall timber again. But I"ve come back. A friend of my father"s wrote me to come on and consider a good opening there was in his law office. I came on a month ago, and considered. Then I went back to pack up. Now I"ve come for good, and here I am. You have my history to date. Now tell me of yourself. You"re looking as fit as a penny from the mint, even though you have discarded that "lovely" brown beard. Was that a concession to--er--_Mary Jane_?"
Arkwright lifted a quick hand of protest.
""Michael Jeremiah," please. There is no "Mary Jane," now," he said a bit stiffly.
The other stared a little. Then he gave a low chuckle.
""Michael Jeremiah,"" he repeated musingly, eyeing the glowing tip of his cigar. "And to think how that mysterious "M. J." used to tantalize me! Do you mean," he added, turning slowly, "that no one calls you "Mary Jane" now?"
"Not if they know what is best for them."
"Oh!" Calderwell noted the smouldering fire in the other"s eyes a little curiously. "Very well. I"ll take the hint--Michael Jeremiah."
"Thanks." Arkwright relaxed a little. "To tell the truth, I"ve had quite enough now--of Mary Jane."
"Very good. So be it," nodded the other, still regarding his friend thoughtfully. "But tell me--what of yourself?"
Arkwright shrugged his shoulders.
"There"s nothing to tell. You"ve seen. I"m here."
"Humph! Very pretty," scoffed Calderwell. "Then if _you_ won"t tell, I _will_. I saw Billy a month ago, you see. It seems you"ve hit the trail for Grand Opera, as you threatened to that night in Paris; but you _haven"t_ brought up in vaudeville, as you prophesied you would do--though, for that matter, judging from the plums some of the stars are picking on the vaudeville stage, nowadays, that isn"t to be sneezed at. But Billy says you"ve made two or three appearances already on the sacred boards themselves--one of them a subscription performance--and that you created no end of a sensation."
"Nonsense! I"m merely a student at the Opera School here," scowled Arkwright.
"Oh, yes, Billy said you were that, but she also said you wouldn"t be, long. That you"d already had one good offer--I"m not speaking of marriage--and that you were going abroad next summer, and that they were all insufferably proud of you."
"Nonsense!" scowled Arkwright, again, coloring like a girl. "That is only some of--of Mrs. Henshaw"s kind flattery."
Calderwell jerked the cigar from between his lips, and sat suddenly forward in his chair.