"How much later was that?"
Alice considered.
"It was about Christmas time. Don"t you remember that I went to your mother, and Acton and I got measles? Mama was abroad then."
"And this Kate went with her?"
"Yes. That was--that was one of the things I was--just thinking about!
Annie wrote Mama that she was very ill, in Munich, and poor Mama just flew. Muller had left her; indeed there was a woman and two quite big girls that had a claim on him, and if Mama hadn"t been so anxious to shut it all up, she might have proved that he was a bigamist--but I don"t know that she was ever sure. Judge Lee put the divorce through for Annie, and Mama took her to the Riviera and petted her, and pulled her through. But all her hair came out, and for weeks they didn"t think she would live. She had brain fever. You see, Annie had had some money waiting for her on her eighteenth birthday, and your own father, who was her guardian, Chris, had given her the check--interest, it was, about seven or eight thousand dollars. And he told her to open her own account, and manage her own income, from then on. And we thought--Mama and I--that in some way Muller must have heard of it. Anyway, she never deposited the check, and when her money gave out he just left her."
"But what makes you think that her illness didn"t commence--or wasn"t entirely--brain fever?"
"That she might have had a baby?" Alice asked, outright.
Christopher nodded, the point almost insufferably distasteful to him.
"Oh, I know it!" Alice said.
"You _know_ it?" the man echoed, almost in displeasure.
"Yes, she told me herself! But of course that was years later. At the time, all I knew was that Kate Sheridan came home, and came to see me at school, and told me that Mama and Annie were very well, but that Annie had been frightfully sick, and that Mama wouldn"t come back until Annie was much stronger. As a matter of fact, it was nearly two years--Theodore took me over to them a year from that following summer, and then Annie stayed with some friends in England; she was having a wonderful time! But years afterward, when little Hendrick was coming, in fact, she was here one day, and she seemed to feel blue, and finally I happened to say that if motherhood seemed so hard to a person like herself, whose husband and whose whole family were so mad with joy over the prospect of a baby, what on earth must it be to the poor girls who have every reason to hate it. And she looked at me rather oddly, and said: "Ah, I know what _that_ is!" Of course I guessed right away what she meant, and I said: "Annie--not really!" And she said: "Oh, yes, that was what started my illness. I had been so almost crazy--so blue and lonesome, and so sick with horror at the whole thing, that it all happened too soon, the day after Mama and Kate got there, in fact!" And then she burst out crying and said: "Thank G.o.d it was that way! I couldn"t have faced _that_." And she said that she had been too desperately ill to realize anything, but that afterward, at Como, when she was much better, she asked Mama about it, and Mama said she must only be glad that it was all over, and try to think of it as a terrible dream!"
"Well, there you are," said Chris, "she herself says that no child was born!"
"Yes, but, Chris, mightn"t it be that she didn"t know?" Alice submitted, timidly.
Her husband eyed her with a faint and thoughtful frown.
"It seems to me that that is rather a fantastic theory, dear! Where would this child be all this time?"
"Kate" Alice said, simply.
"Kate!" he echoed, struck. And Alice saw, with a sinking heart, that he was impressed. After a full moment of silence he said, simply: "You think this is the child?"
"Chris," his wife cried, appealingly, "I don"t say I think so! But it occurred to me that it might be. I hope, with all my soul, that you don"t think so!"
"I"m afraid," he answered, thoughtfully, "that I do!"
Alice"s eyes filled with tears, and she tightened her fingers in his without speaking.
"The idea being," Christopher mused, "that Mrs. Sheridan brought the baby home, and has raised her. That makes Miss Sheridan--Norma--the child of Annie and that German blackguard!"
"I suppose so!" Alice admitted, despairingly.
"But why has it been kept quiet all this time!"
"Well, that," Alice said, "I don"t understand. But this I _am_ sure of: Annie hasn"t the faintest suspicion of it! She supposes that the whole thing ended with her terrible illness. She was only eighteen, and younger and more childish even than Leslie is! Oh, Chris," said Alice, her eyes watering, "isn"t it horrible! To come to us, of all people!
Will everybody know?"
"Well, it all depends. It"s a nasty sort of business, but I suppose there"s no help for it. How much does Hendrick know?"
"About Annie? Oh, everything that she does; I know that. Annie told him, and Judge Lee told him about Muller and the divorce, or nullification, or whatever it was! There was nothing left unexplained there. But if the child lived, she didn"t know that--only Mama did, and Kate. Oh, poor Annie, it would kill her to have all that raked up now! Why Kate kept it secret all these years----"
"I must say," Christopher exclaimed, "that----By George, I hate this sort of thing! No help for it, I suppose. But if it gets out we shall all be in for a sweet lot of notoriety. We shall just have to make terms with these Sheridans, and keep our mouths shut. I didn"t get the idea that they were holding your mother up. I believe it"s more that she wants justice done; she would, you know, for the sake of the family. The girl herself, this Norma, evidently hasn"t been raised on any expectations--probably knows nothing about it!"
"Oh, I"m sure of that!" Alice agreed, eagerly. "And if she has Melrose blood in her, you may be sure she"ll play the game. But, Chris, I can"t stand the uncertainty. Mama"s coming to have luncheon with me to-morrow, and I"m going to ask her outright. And if this Norma is really--what we fear, what do you think we ought to do?"
"Well, it"s hard to say. It"s all utterly d.a.m.nable," Christopher said, distressed. "And Annie, who let us all in for it, gets off scot free! I wish, since she let it go so long, that your mother had forgotten it entirely. But, as it is, this child isn"t, strictly speaking, illegitimate. There was a marriage, and some sort of divorce, whether Muller deceived Annie as to his being a bachelor or not!"
A maid stood in the doorway.
"Mrs. Melrose, Mrs. Liggett."
"Oh," Alice said, in an animated tone of pleasure, "ask her to come upstairs!" But the eyes she turned to her husband were full of apprehension. "Chris, here"s Mama now! Shall we----? Would you dare?"
"Use your own judgment!" he had time to say hastily, before his wife"s mother came in.
CHAPTER VIII
Mrs. Melrose frequently came in to join Alice for dinner, especially when she was aware, as to-night, that Christopher had an evening engagement. She was almost always sure of finding Annie alone, and enjoying the leisurely confidences that were crowded out of the daytime hours.
She had had several weeks of nervous illness now, but looked better to-night, looked indeed her handsome and comfortable self, as she received Chris"s filial kiss on her forehead, and bent to embrace her daughter. Freda carried away her long fur-trimmed cloak, and she pushed her veil up to her forehead, and looked with affectionate concern from husband to wife.
"Now, Chris, I"m spoiling things! But I thought Carry Pope told me that you were going to her dinner before the opera!"
"I"m due there at eight," he said, rea.s.suringly. "And by the same token, I ought to be dressing! But Alice and I have been loafing along here comfortably, and I"d give about seven dollars to stay at home with my wife!"
"He always says that!" Alice said, smilingly. "But he always has a nice time; and then the next night he plays over the whole score, and tells me who was there, and so I have it, too!"
Chris had walked to the white mantelpiece, and was lighting a cigarette.
"Alice had that little protegee of yours here, to-day, Aunt Marianna,"
he said, casually.
There was no mistaking the look of miserable and fearful interest that deepened instantly in the older woman"s eyes.
"Miss Sheridan?" she said.
"Mama," Alice exclaimed, suddenly, clasping a warm hand over her mother"s trembling one, and looking at her with all love and rea.s.surance, "you know how Chris and I love you, don"t you?"
Tears came into Mrs. Melrose"s eyes.
"Of course I do, lovey," she faltered.
"Mama, you know how we would stand behind you--how anxious we are to share whatever"s worrying you!" Alice went on, pleadingly. "Can"t you--I"m not busy like Annie, or young like Leslie, and Chris is your man of business, after all! Can"t you tell us about it? Two heads--three heads," said Alice, smiling through a sudden mist of tears, "are better than one!"