Nor would my new friend release me when she had refreshed herself, but had it that I must dance with her. I had now to confess that I was unskilled in the native American folk dances which I had observed being performed, whereupon she briskly chided me for my backwardness, but commanded a valse from the musicians, and this we danced together.
I may here say that I am not without a certain finesse on the dancing-floor and I rather enjoyed the momentary abandon with this village worthy. Indeed I had rather enjoyed the whole affair, though I felt that my manner was gradually marking me as one apart from the natives; made conscious I was of a more finished, a suaver formality in myself--the Mrs. Ballard I had met came at length to be by way of tapping me coquettishly with her tambourine in our lighter moments.
Also my presence increasingly drew attention, more and more of the village belles and matrons demanding in their hearty way to be presented to me. Indeed the society was vastly more enlivening, I reflected, than I had found it in a similar walk of life at home.
Rather regretfully I left with Cousin Egbert, who found me at last in one of the tents having my palm read by the gypsy young person who had taken our fees at the gate. Of course I am aware that she was probably without any real gifts for this science, as so few are who undertake it at charity bazaars, yet she told me not a few things that were significant: that my somewhat cold exterior and air of sternness were but a mask to shield a too-impulsive nature; that I possessed great firmness of character and was fond of Nature. She added peculiarly at the last "I see trouble ahead, but you are not to be downcast--the skies will brighten."
It was at this point that Cousin Egbert found me, and after he had warned the young woman that I was "some mixer" we departed. Not until we had reached the Floud home did he discover that he had quite forgotten to hand the press-chap Mrs. Effie"s ma.n.u.script.
"Dog on the luck!" said he in his quaint tone of exasperation, "here I"ve went and forgot to give Mrs. Effie"s piece to the editor." He sighed ruefully. "Well, to-morrow"s another day."
And so the die was cast. To-morrow was indeed another day!
Yet I fell asleep on a memory of the evening that brought me a sort of shamed pleasure--that I had falsely borne the stick and gloves of Cousin Egbert. I knew they had given me rather an air.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I have never been able to recall the precise moment the next morning when I began to feel a strange disquietude but the opening hours of the day were marked by a series of occurrences slight in themselves yet so c.u.mulatively ominous that they seemed to lower above me like a cloud of menace.
Looking from my window, shortly after the rising hour, I observed a paper boy pa.s.s through the street, whistling a popular melody as he ran up to toss folded journals into doorways. Something I cannot explain went through me even then; some premonition of disaster slinking furtively under my casual reflection that even in this remote wild the public press was not unknown.
Half an hour later the telephone rang in a lower room and I heard Mrs.
Effie speak in answer. An unusual note in her voice caused me to listen more attentively. I stepped outside my door. To some one she was expressing amazement, doubt, and quick impatience which seemed to culminate, after she had again, listened, in a piercing cry of consternation. The term is not too strong. Evidently by the unknown speaker she had been first puzzled, then startled, then horrified; and now, as her anguished cry still rang in my ears, that snaky premonition of evil again writhed across my consciousness.
Presently I heard the front door open and close. Peering into the hallway below I saw that she had secured the newspaper I had seen dropped. Her own door now closed upon her. I waited, listening intently. Something told me that the incident was not closed. A brief interval elapsed and she was again at the telephone, excitedly demanding to be put through to a number.
"Come at once!" I heard her cry. "It"s unspeakable! There isn"t a moment to lose! Come as you are!" Hereupon, banging the receiver into its place with frenzied roughness, she ran halfway up the stairs to shout:
"Egbert Floud! Egbert Floud! You march right down here this minute, sir!"
From his room I heard an alarmed response, and a moment later knew that he had joined her. The door closed upon them, but high words reached me. Mostly the words of Mrs. Effie they were, though I could detect m.u.f.fled retorts from the other. Wondering what this could portend, I noted from my window some ten minutes later the hurried arrival of the C. Belknap-Jacksons. The husband clenched a crumpled newspaper in one hand and both he and his wife betrayed signs to the trained eye of having performed hasty toilets for this early call.
As the door of the drawing-room closed upon them there ensued a terrific outburst carrying a rich general effect of astounded rage.
Some moments the sinister chorus continued, then a door sharply opened and I heard my own name cried out by Mrs. Effie in a tone that caused me to shudder. Rapidly descending the stairs, I entered the room to face the excited group. Cousin Egbert crouched on a sofa in a far corner like a hunted beast, but the others were standing, and all glared at me furiously.
The ladies addressed me simultaneously, one of them, I believe, asking me what I meant by it and the other demanding how dared I, which had the sole effect of adding to my bewilderment, nor did the words of Cousin Egbert diminish this.
"h.e.l.lo, Bill!" he called, adding with a sort of timid bravado: "Don"t you let "em bluff you, not for a minute!"
"Yes, and it was probably all that wretched Cousin Egbert"s fault in the first place," snapped Mrs. Belknap-Jackson almost tearfully.
"Say, listen here, now; I don"t see as how I"ve done anything wrong,"
he feebly protested. "Bill"s human, ain"t he? Answer me that!"
"One sees it all!" This from Belknap-Jackson in bitter and judicial tones. He flung out his hands at Cousin Egbert in a gesture of pitiless scorn. "I dare say," he continued, "that poor Ruggles was merely a tool in his hands--weak, possibly, but not vicious."
"May I inquire----" I made bold to begin, but Mrs. Effie shut me off, brandishing the newspaper before me.
"Read it!" she commanded in hoa.r.s.e, tragic tones. "There!" she added, pointing at monstrous black headlines on the page as I weakly took it from her. And then I saw. There before them, divining now the enormity of what had come to pa.s.s, I controlled myself to master the following screed:
RED GAP"S DISTINGUISHED VISITOR
Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles of London and Paris, late of the British army, bon-vivant and man of the world, is in our midst for an indefinite stay, being at present the honoured house guest of Senator and Mrs. James Knox Floud, who returned from foreign parts on the 5:16 flyer yesterday afternoon. Colonel Ruggles has long been intimately a.s.sociated with the family of his lordship the Earl of Brinstead, and especially with his lordship"s brother, the Honourable George Augustus Vane-Basingwell, with whom he has recently been sojourning in la belle France. In a brief interview which the Colonel genially accorded ye scribe, he expressed himself as delighted with our thriving little city.
"It"s somewhat a town--if I"ve caught your American slang,"
he said with a merry twinkle in his eyes. "You have the garden spot of the West, if not of the civilized world, and your people display a charm that must be, I dare say, typically American. Altogether, I am enchanted with the wonders I have beheld since landing at your New York, particularly with the habit your best people have of roughing it in camps like that of Mr. C. Belknap-Jackson among the mountains of New York, where I was most pleasantly entertained by himself and his delightful wife. The length of my stay among you is uncertain, though I have been pressed by the Flouds, with whom I am stopping, and by the C. Belknap-Jacksons to prolong it indefinitely, and in fact to identify myself to an extent with your social life."
The Colonel is a man of distinguished appearance, with the seasoned bearing of an old campaigner, and though at moments he displays that cool reserve so typical of the English gentleman, evidence was not lacking last evening that he can unbend on occasion. At the lawn fete held in the s.p.a.cious grounds of Judge Ballard, where a myriad j.a.panese lanterns made the scene a veritable fairyland, he was quite the most sought-after notable present, and gayly tripped the light fantastic toe with the elite of Red Gap"s smart set there a.s.sembled.
From his cordial manner of entering into the spirit of the affair we predict that Colonel Ruggles will be a decided acquisition to our social life, and we understand that a series of recherche entertainments in his honour has already been planned by Mrs. County Judge Ballard, who took the distinguished guest under her wing the moment he appeared last evening. Welcome to our city, Colonel! And may the warm hearts of Red Gap cause you to forget that European world of fashion of which you have long been so distinguished an ornament!
In a sickening silence I finished the thing. As the absurd sheet fell from my nerveless fingers Mrs. Effie cried in a voice hoa.r.s.e with emotion:
"Do you realize the dreadful thing you"ve done to us?"
Speechless I was with humiliation, unequal even to protesting that I had said nothing of the sort to the press-chap. I mean to say, he had wretchedly twisted my harmless words.
"Have you nothing to say for yourself?" demanded Mrs. Belknap-Jackson, also in a voice hoa.r.s.e with emotion. I glanced at her husband. He, too, was pale with anger and trembling, so that I fancied he dared not trust himself to speak.
"The wretched man," declared Mrs. Effie, addressing them all, "simply can"t realize--how disgraceful it is. Oh, we shall never be able to live it down!"
"Imagine those flippant Spokane sheets dressing up the thing," hissed Belknap-Jackson, speaking for the first time. "Imagine their blackguardly humour!"
"And that awful Cousin Egbert," broke in Mrs. Effie, pointing a desperate finger toward him. "Think of the laughing-stock he"ll become! Why, he"ll simply never be able to hold up his head again."
"Say, you listen here," exclaimed Cousin Egbert with sudden heat; "never you mind about my head. I always been able to hold up my head any time I felt like it." And again to me he threw out, "Don"t you let "em bluff you, Bill!"
"I gave him a notice for the paper," explained Mrs. Effie plaintively; "I"d written it all nicely out to save them time in the office, and that would have prevented this disgrace, but he never gave it in."
"I clean forgot it," declared the offender. "What with one thing and another, and ga.s.sing back and forth with some o" the boys, it kind of went out o" my head."
"Meeting our best people--actually dancing with them!" murmured Mrs.
Belknap-Jackson in a voice vibrant with horror. "My dear, I truly am so sorry for you."
"You people entertained him delightfully at your camp," murmured Mrs.
Effie quickly in her turn, with a gesture toward the journal.
"Oh, we"re both in it, I know. I know. It"s appalling!"
"We"ll never be able to live it down!" said Mrs. Effie. "We shall have to go away somewhere."
"Can"t you imagine what Jen" Ballard will say when she learns the truth?" asked the other bitterly. "Say we did it on purpose to humiliate her, and just as all our little sc.r.a.ps were being smoothed out, so we could get together and put that Bohemian set in its place.
Oh, it"s so dreadful!" On the verge of tears she seemed.
"And scarcely a word mentioned of our own return--when I"d taken such pains with the notice!"