"But we _won"t_ have to tell her!" cried the major.
"Dear papa, please explain how we can avoid telling her."
"I will inform her that she must give the young man up. She is a good and dutiful daughter----"
"Yes," replied Sylvia, "but suppose on this one occasion she were to fail to be good and dutiful? Suppose the next day you learn that she had run away and married Roger--what would you do about it then?"
16. That evening Roger was to take his _fiancee_ to one of the young people"s dances. And there was Celeste, in a flaming red dress, with a great bunch of flaming roses; she could wear these colours, with her brilliant black hair and gorgeous complexion. Roger was fair, with a frank, boyish face, and they made a pretty couple; but that evening Roger did not come. Sylvia helped to dress her sister, and then watched her wandering restlessly about the hall, while the hour came and went.
Later in the evening Major Castleman called up the Peyton home. The boy was not there, and no one seemed to know where he was.
Nor the next day did there come any explanation. At the Peytons it was still declared that no one had heard from Roger, and for another day the mystery continued, to Celeste"s distress and mortification. At last, from Clive Chilton, Sylvia managed to extract the truth. Roger was drunk--crazy drunk, and had been taken off by some of the boys to be straightened out.
Of course this rumour soon got to the rest of the family and they had to tell Celeste, because she was frantic with anxiety. There were grave consultations among the Castleman ladies. It was a wanton affront to his _fiancee_ that the boy had committed, and something must be done about it quickly. Then came the news that Roger had escaped from his warders, and got drunker than ever; he had been out at night, smashing the street lamps, and it had required extreme self-control on the part of the town police force to avoid complications.
"Miss Margaret" went to her young daughter, and in a tear-flooded scene informed her of the opinion of the family, that her self-respect required the breaking of the engagement. Celeste went into hysterics.
She would _not_ have her happiness ruined for life! Roger was "wild,"
but so were all the other boys--and he would atone for his recklessness.
She had the idea that if only she could get hold of him, she could recall him to his senses; the more her mother was scandalised by this proposal, the more frantically Celeste wept. She shut herself up in her room, refusing to appear at meals, and spending her time pacing the floor and wringing her hands.
The family had been through all this with their eldest daughter several years before, but they had not learned to handle it any better. The whole household was in a state of distraction, and the conditions grew worse day by day, as bulletins came in concerning the young man. He seemed to have gone actually insane. He was not to be restrained even by his own father, and if the unfortunate policemen could be believed, he had violently attacked them. Apparently he was trying to break down the unwritten law that the sons of the "best families" are not arrested.
Poor Celeste, with pale, tear-drenched face, sent for her elder sister, to make one last appeal. Could Sylvia not somehow get hold of Roger and bring him to his senses? Could she not interview some of the other boys, and find out what he meant by his conduct?
So Sylvia went to her cousin Clive, and had a talk with him--a.s.suredly the most remarkable talk that that young man had ever had in his life.
She told him that she wanted to know the truth about Roger Peyton, and after a cross-examination that would have made the reputation of a criminal lawyer, she got what she wanted. All the young men in town, it seemed, knew the true state of affairs, and were in a panic concerning it; that Major Castleman had sent for Roger and informed him that he could not marry his daughter, until he produced a certain kind of medical certificate. No, he couldn"t produce it! Was there a fellow in town who could produce it? What was there for him to do but to get drunk and stay drunk, until Celeste had cast him off?
It was Clive"s turn then to do some plain speaking. "Look here, Sylvia,"
he said, "since you have made me talk about this----"
"Yes, Clive?"
"Do you know what people are saying--I mean the reason the Major made this proposition to Roger?"
She answered, in a quiet voice: "I suppose, Clive, it has something to do with Elaine."
"Yes, exactly!" exclaimed Clive. "They say--" But then he stopped. He could not repeat it. "Surely you don"t want that kind of talk, Sylvia?"
"Naturally, Clive, I"d prefer to escape that kind of talk, but my fear of it will not make me neglect the protection of my sister."
"But Sylvia," cried the boy, "you don"t understand about this! A woman _can"t_ understand about these things----"
"You are mistaken, my dear cousin," said Sylvia--and her voice was firm and decisive. "I _do_ understand."
"All right!" cried Clive, with sudden exasperation. "But let me tell you this--Celeste is going to have a hard time getting any other man to propose to her!"
"You mean, Clive, because so many of them are----?"
"Yes, if you must put it that way," he said.
There was a pause, then Sylvia went on: "Let us discuss the practical problem, Clive. Don"t you think it would have been better if Roger, instead of going off and getting drunk, had set about getting himself cured?"
The other looked at her, with evident surprise. "You mean in that case Celeste might marry him?"
"You say the boys are all alike, Clive; and we can"t turn our girls into nuns. Why didn"t some of you fellows point that out to Roger?"
"The truth is," said Clive, "we tried to." There was a little more cordiality in his manner, since Sylvia had shown such a unexpected amount of intelligence.
"Well?" she asked. "What then?"
"Why, he wouldn"t listen to anything."
"You mean--because he was drunk?"
"No, we had him nearly sober. But you see--" And Clive paused for a moment, painfully embarra.s.sed. "The truth is, Roger had been to a doctor, and been told it might take him a year or two to get cured."
"Clive!" she cried. "Clive! And you mean that in the face of that, he proposed to go on and marry?"
"Well, Sylvia, you see--" And the young man hesitated still longer. He was crimson with embarra.s.sment, and suddenly he blurted out: "The truth is, the doctor told him to marry. That was the only way he"d ever get cured."
Sylvia was almost speechless. "Oh! Oh!" she cried, "I can"t believe you!"
"That"s what the doctors tell you, Sylvia. You don"t understand--it"s just as I told you, a woman can"t understand. It"s a question of a man"s nature----"
"But Clive--what about the wife and her health? Has the wife no rights whatever?"
"The truth is, Sylvia, people don"t take this disease with such desperate seriousness. You understand, it isn"t the one that everybody knows is dangerous. It doesn"t do any real harm----"
"Look at Elaine! Don"t you call that real harm?"
"Yes, but that doesn"t happen often, and they say there are ways it can be prevented. Anyway, fellows just can"t help it! G.o.d knows we"d help it if we could."
Sylvia thought for a moment, and then came back to the immediate question. "It"s evident what Roger could do in this case. He is young, and Celeste is still younger. They might wait a couple of years and Roger might take care of himself, and in time it might be properly arranged."
But Clive did not seem too warm to the proposition, and Sylvia, who knew Roger Peyton, was not long in making out the reason. "You mean you don"t think he has character enough to keep straight for a year or two?"
"To tell you the honest truth, we talked it out with him, and he wouldn"t make any promises."
To which Sylvia answered: "Very well, Clive--that settles it. You can help me find some man for Celeste who loves her a little more than that!"
17. That afternoon came Aunt Nannie, the Bishop"s wife, in shining chestnut-coloured silk to match a pair of shining chestnut-coloured horses. Other people, it appeared, had been making inquiries into Roger Peyton"s story, and other people besides Clive Chilton had been telling the truth. Aunt Nannie gathered the ladies of the family in a hurried conference, and Sylvia was summoned to appear before it--quite as in the days of her affair with Frank Shirley.
"Miss Margaret" and Aunt Varina were solemn and frightened, as of old; and, as of old, Aunt Nannie did the talking. "Sylvia, do you know what people are saying about you?"
"Yes, Aunt Nannie" said Sylvia.
"Oh, you do know?"
"Yes, of course. And I knew in advance that they would say it."