It was Flannigan who suggested the roof, and as we had tried every place else, we climbed there. Of course we didn"t find anything, but after all day in the house with the shutters closed on account of reporters, the air was glorious. It was February, but quite mild and sunny, and we could look down over Riverside Drive and the Hudson, and even recognize people we knew on horseback and in cars. It was a pathetic joy, and we lined up along the parapet and watched the motor boats racing on the river, and tried to feel that we were in the world as well as of it, but it was very hard.
Betty had been making tea for Aunt Selina, and of course when she heard us up there, she followed, tray and all, and we drank Aunt Selina"s tea and had the first really nice time of the day. Bella had come up, too, but she was still standoffish and queer, and she stood leaning against a chimney and staring out over the river. After a little Mr. Harbison put down his cup and went over to her, and they talked quite confidentially for a long time. I thought it bad taste in Bella, under the circ.u.mstances, after snubbing Dallas and Max, and of course treating Jim like the dirt under her feet, to turn right around and be lovely to Mr.
Harbison. It was hard for Jim.
Max came and sat beside me, and Flannigan, who had been sent down for more cups, pa.s.sed tea, putting the tray on top of the chimney. Jim was sitting grumpily on the roof, with his feet folded under him, playing Canfield in the shadow of the parapet, buying the deck out of one pocket and putting his winnings in the other. He was watching Bella, too, and she knew it, and she strained a point to captivate Mr. Harbison. Any one could see that.
And that was the picture that came out in the next morning"s papers, tea cups, cards and all. For when some one looked up, there were four newspaper photographers on the roof of the next house, and they had the impertinence to thank us!
Flannigan had seen Bella by that time, but as he still didn"t understand the situation, things were just the same. But his manner to me puzzled me; whenever he came near me he winked prodigiously, and during all the search he kept one eye on me, and seemed to be amused about something.
When the rest had gone down to dress for dinner, which was being sent in, thank goodness, I still sat on the parapet and watched the darkening river. I felt terribly lonely, all at once, and sad. There wasn"t any one any nearer than father, in the West, or mother in Bermuda, who really cared a rap whether I sat on that parapet all night or not, or who would be sorry if I leaped to the dirty bricks of the next door-yard--not that I meant to, of course.
The lights came out across the river, and made purple and yellow streaks on the water, and one of the motor boats came panting back to the yacht club, coughing and gasping as if it had overdone. Down on the street automobiles were starting and stopping, cabs rolling, doors slamming, all the maddening, delightful bustle of people who are foot-free to dine out, to dance, to go to the theater, to do any of the thousand possibilities of a long February evening. And above them I sat on the roof and cried. Yes, cried.
I was roused by some one coughing just behind me, and I tried to straighten my face before I turned. It was Flannigan, his double row of bra.s.s b.u.t.tons gleaming in the twilight.
"Excuse me, miss," he said affably, "but the boy from the hotel has left the dinner on the doorstep and run, the cowardly little divil! What"ll I do with it? I went to Mrs. Wilson, but she says it"s no concern of hers." Flannigan was evidently bewildered.
"You"d better keep it warm, Flannigan," I replied. "You needn"t wait; I"m coming." But he did not go.
"If--if you"ll excuse me, miss," he said, "don"t you think ye"d betther tell them?"
"Tell them what?"
"The whole thing--the joke," he said confidentially, coming closer.
"It"s been great sport, now, hasn"t it? But I"m afraid they will get on to it soon, and--some of them might not be agreeable. A pearl necklace is a pearl necklace, miss, and the lady"s wild."
"What do you mean?" I gasped. "You don"t think--why, Flannigan--"
He merely grinned at me and thrust his hand down in his pocket. When he brought it up he had Bella"s bracelet on his palm, glittering in the faint light.
"Where did you get it?" Between relief and the absurdity of the thing, I was almost hysterical. But Flannigan did not give me the bracelet; instead, it struck me his tone was suddenly severe.
"Now look here, miss," he said; "you"ve played your trick, and you"ve had your fun. The Lord knows it"s only folks like you would play April fool jokes with a fortune! If you"re the sinsible little woman you look to be, you"ll put that pearl collar on the coal in the bas.e.m.e.nt tonight, and let me find it."
"I haven"t got the pearl collar," I protested. "I think you are crazy.
Where did you get that bracelet?"
He edged away from me, as if he expected me to s.n.a.t.c.h it from him and run, but he was still trying in an elephantine way to treat the matter as a joke.
"I found it in a drawer in the pantry," he said, "among the dirty linen.
And if you"re as smart as I think you are, I"ll find the pearl collar there in the morning--and nothing said, miss."
So there I was, suspected of being responsible for Anne"s pearl collar, as if I had not enough to worry me before. Of course I could have called them all together and told them, and made them explain to Flannigan what I had really meant by my delirious speech in the kitchen. But that would have meant telling the whole ridiculous story to Mr. Harbison, and having him think us all mad, and me a fool.
In all that overcrowded house there was only one place where I could be miserable with comfort. So I stayed on the roof, and cried a little and then became angry and walked up and down, and clenched my hands and babbled helplessly. The boats on the river were yellow, horizontal streaks through my tears, and an early searchlight sent its shaft like a tangible thing in the darkness, just over my head. Then, finally, I curled down in a corner with my arms on the parapet, and the lights became more and more prismatic and finally formed themselves into a circle that was Bella"s bracelet, and that kept whirling around and around on something flat and not over-clean, that was Flannigan"s palm.
Chapter X. ON THE STAIRS
I was roused by someone walking across the roof, the cracking of tin under feet, and a comfortable and companionable odor of tobacco. I moved a very little, and then I saw that it was a man--the height and erectness told me which man. And just at that instant he saw me.
"Good Lord!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, and throwing his cigar away he came across quickly. "Why, Mrs. Wilson, what in the world are you doing here? I thought--they said--"
"That I was sulking again?" I finished disagreeably. "Perhaps I am. In fact, I"m quite sure of it."
"You are not," he said severely. "You have been asleep in a February night, in the open air, with less clothing on than I wear in the tropics."
I had got up by this time, refusing his help, and because my feet were numb, I sat down on the parapet for a moment. Oh, I knew what I looked like--one of those "Valley-of-the-Nile-After-a-Flood" pictures.
"There is one thing about you that is comforting," I sniffed. "You said precisely the same thing to me at three o"clock this morning. You never startle me by saying anything unexpected."
He took a step toward me, and even in the dusk I could see that he was looking down at me oddly. All my bravado faded away and there was a queerish ringing in my ears.
"I would like to!" he said tensely. "I would like, this minute--I"m a fool, Mrs. Wilson," he finished miserably. "I ought to be drawn and quartered, but when I see you like this I--I get crazy. If you say the word, I"ll--I"ll go down and--" He clenched his fist.
It was reprehensible, of course; he saw that in an instant, for he shut his teeth over something that sounded very fierce, and strode away from me, to stand looking out over the river, with his hands thrust in his pockets. Of course the thing I should have done was to ignore what he had said altogether, but he was so uncomfortable, so chastened, that, feline, feminine, whatever the instinct is, I could not let him go. I had been so wretched myself.
"What is it you would like to say?" I called over to him. He did not speak. "Would you tell me that I am a silly child for pouting?" No reply; he struck a match. "Or would you preach a nice little sermon about people--about women--loving their husbands?"
He grunted savagely under his breath.
"Be quite honest," I pursued relentlessly. "Say that we are a lot of barbarians, say that because my--because Jimmy treats me outrageously--oh, he does; any one can see that--and because I loathe him--and any one can tell that--why don"t you say you are shocked to the depths?" I was a little shocked myself by that time, but I couldn"t stop, having started.
He came over to me, white-faced and towering, and he had the audacity to grip my arm and stand me on my feet, like a bad child--which I was, I dare say.
"Don"t!" he said in a husky, very pained voice. "You are only talking; you don"t mean it. It isn"t YOU. You know you care, or else why are you crying up here? And don"t do it again, DON"T DO IT AGAIN--or I will--"
"You will--what?"
"Make a fool of myself, as I have now," he finished grimly. And then he stalked away and left me there alone, completely bewildered, to find my way down in the dark.
I groped along, holding to the rail, for the staircase to the roof was very steep, and I went slowly. Half-way down the stairs there was a tiny landing, and I stopped. I could have sworn I heard Mr. Harbison"s footsteps far below, growing fainter. I even smiled a little, there in the dark, although I had been rather profoundly shaken. The next instant I knew I had been wrong; some one was on the landing with me. I could hear short, sharp breathing, and then--
I am not sure that I struggled; in fact, I don"t believe I did--I was too limp with amazement. The creature, to have lain in wait for me like that! And he was brutally strong; he caught me to him fiercely, and held me there, close, and he kissed me--not once or twice, but half a dozen times, long kisses that filled me with hot shame for him, for myself, that I had--liked him. The roughness of his coat bruised my cheek; I loathed him. And then someone came whistling along the hall below, and he pushed me from him and stood listening, breathing in long, gasping breaths.
I ran; when my shaky knees would hold me, I ran. I wanted to hide my hot face, my disgust, my disillusion; I wanted to put my head in mother"s lap and cry; I wanted to die, or be ill, so I need never see him again.
Perversely enough, I did none of those things. With my face still flaming, with burning eyes and hands that shook, I made a belated evening toilet and went slowly, haughtily, down the stairs. My hands were like ice, but I was consumed with rage. Oh, I would show him--that this was New York, not Iquique; that the roof was not his Andean tableland.
Every one elaborately ignored my absence from dinner. The Dallas Browns, Max and Lollie were at bridge; Jim was alone in the den, walking the floor and biting at an unlighted cigar; Betty had returned to Aunt Selina and was hysterical, they said, and Flannigan was in deep dejection because I had missed my dinner.
"Betty is making no end of a row," Max said, looking up from his game, "because the old lady upstairs insists on chloroform liniment. Betty says the smell makes her ill."
"And she can inhale Russian cigarettes," Anne said enviously, "and gasolene fumes, without turning a hair. I call a revoke, Dal; you trumped spades on the second round."
Dal flung over three tricks with very bad grace, and Anne counted them with maddening deliberation.