Alice Adams

CHAPTER XX

She was indeed “looking forward” to that evening, but in a cloud of apprehension; and, although she could never have guessed it, this was the simultaneous condition of another person—none other than the guest for whose pleasure so much cooking and scrubbing seemed to be necessary. Moreover, Mr. Arthur Russell's premonitions were no product of mere coincidence; neither had any magical sympathy produced them. His state of mind was rather the result of rougher undercurrents which had all the time been running beneath the surface of a romantic friendship.

Never shrewder than when she analyzed the gentlemen, Alice did not libel him when she said he was one of those quiet men who are a bit flirtatious, by which she meant that he was a bit “susceptible,” the same thing—and he had proved himself susceptible to Alice upon his first sight of her. “There!” he said to himself. “Who's that?” And in the crowd of girls at his cousin's dance, all strangers to him, she was the one he wanted to know.

Since then, his summer evenings with her had been as secluded as if, for three hours after the falling of dusk, they two had drawn apart from the world to some dear bower of their own. The little veranda was that glamorous nook, with a faint golden light falling through the glass of the closed door upon Alice, and darkness elsewhere, except for the one round globe of the street lamp at the corner. The people who passed along the sidewalk, now and then, were only shadows with voices, moving vaguely under the maple trees that loomed in obscure contours against the stars. So, as the two sat together, the back of the world was the wall and closed door behind them; and Russell, when he was away from Alice, always thought of her as sitting there before the closed door. A glamour was about her thus, and a spell upon him; but he had a formless anxiety never put into words: all the pictures of her in his mind stopped at the closed door.

He had another anxiety; and, for the greater part, this was of her own creating. She had too often asked him (no matter how gaily) what he heard about her, too often begged him not to hear anything. Then, hoping to forestall whatever he might hear, she had been at too great pains to account for it, to discredit and mock it; and, though he laughed at her for this, telling her truthfully he did not even hear her mentioned, the everlasting irony that deals with all such human forefendings prevailed.

Lately, he had half confessed to her what a nervousness she had produced. “You make me dread the day when I'll hear somebody speaking of you. You're getting me so upset about it that if I ever hear anybody so much as say the name 'Alice Adams,' I'll run!” The confession was but half of one because he laughed; and she took it for an assurance of loyalty in the form of burlesque.

She misunderstood: he laughed, but his nervousness was genuine.

After any stroke of events, whether a happy one or a catastrophe, we see that the materials for it were a long time gathering, and the only marvel is that the stroke was not prophesied. What bore the air of fatal coincidence may remain fatal indeed, to this later view; but, with the haphazard aspect dispelled, there is left for scrutiny the same ancient hint from the Infinite to the effect that since events have never yet failed to be law-abiding, perhaps it were well for us to deduce that they will continue to be so until further notice.

. . . On the day that was to open the closed door in the background of his pictures of Alice, Russell lunched with his relatives. There were but the four people, Russell and Mildred and her mother and father, in the great, cool dining-room. Arched French windows, shaded by awnings, admitted a mellow light and looked out upon a green lawn ending in a long conservatory, which revealed through its glass panes a carnival of plants in luxuriant blossom. From his seat at the table, Russell glanced out at this pretty display, and informed his cousins that he was surprised. “You have such a glorious spread of flowers all over the house,” he said, “I didn't suppose you'd have any left out yonder. In fact, I didn't know there were so many splendid flowers in the world.”

Mrs. Palmer, large, calm, fair, like her daughter, responded with a mild reproach: “That's because you haven't been cousinly enough to get used to them, Arthur. You've almost taught us to forget what you look like.”

In defense Russell waved a hand toward her husband. “You see, he's begun to keep me so hard at work——”

But Mr. Palmer declined the responsibility. “Up to four or five in the afternoon, perhaps,” he said. “After that, the young gentleman is as much a stranger to me as he is to my family. I've been wondering who she could be.”

“When a man's preoccupied there must be a lady then?” Russell inquired.

“That seems to be the view of your sex,” Mrs. Palmer suggested. “It was my husband who said it, not Mildred or I.”

Mildred smiled faintly. “Papa may be singular in his ideas; they may come entirely from his own experience, and have nothing to do with Arthur.”

“Thank you, Mildred,” her cousin said, bowing to her gratefully. “You seem to understand my character—and your father's quite as well!”

However, Mildred remained grave in the face of this customary pleasantry, not because the old jest, worn round, like what preceded it, rolled in an old groove, but because of some preoccupation of her own. Her faint smile had disappeared, and, as her cousin's glance met hers, she looked down; yet not before he had seen in her eyes the flicker of something like a question—a question both poignant and dismayed. He may have understood it; for his own smile vanished at once in favour of a reciprocal solemnity.

“You see, Arthur,” Mrs. Palmer said, “Mildred is always a good cousin. She and I stand by you, even if you do stay away from us for weeks and weeks.” Then, observing that he appeared to be so occupied with a bunch of iced grapes upon his plate that he had not heard her, she began to talk to her husband, asking him what was “going on down-town.”

Arthur continued to eat his grapes, but he ventured to look again at Mildred after a few moments. She, also, appeared to be occupied with a bunch of grapes though she ate none, and only pulled them from their stems. She sat straight, her features as composed and pure as those of a new marble saint in a cathedral niche; yet her downcast eyes seemed to conceal many thoughts; and her cousin, against his will, was more aware of what these thoughts might be than of the leisurely conversation between her father and mother. All at once, however, he heard something that startled him, and he listened—and here was the effect of all Alice's forefendings; he listened from the first with a sinking heart.

Mr. Palmer, mildly amused by what he was telling his wife, had just spoken the words, “this Virgil Adams.” What he had said was, “this Virgil Adams—that's the man's name. Queer case.”

“Who told you?” Mrs. Palmer inquired, not much interested.

“Alfred Lamb,” her husband answered. “He was laughing about his father, at the club. You see the old gentleman takes a great pride in his judgment of men, and always boasted to his sons that he'd never in his life made a mistake in trusting the wrong man. Now Alfred and James Albert, Junior, think they have a great joke on him; and they've twitted him so much about it he'll scarcely speak to them. From the first, Alfred says, the old chap's only repartee was, 'You wait and you'll see!' And they've asked him so often to show them what they're going to see that he won't say anything at all!”

“He's a funny old fellow,” Mrs. Palmer observed. “But he's so shrewd I can't imagine his being deceived for such a long time. Twenty years, you said?”

“Yes, longer than that, I understand. It appears when this man—this Adams—was a young clerk, the old gentleman trusted him with one of his business secrets, a glue process that Mr. Lamb had spent some money to get hold of. The old chap thought this Adams was going to have quite a future with the Lamb concern, and of course never dreamed he was dishonest. Alfred says this Adams hasn't been of any real use for years, and they should have let him go as dead wood, but the old gentleman wouldn't hear of it, and insisted on his being kept on the payroll; so they just decided to look on it as a sort of pension. Well, one morning last March the man had an attack of some sort down there, and Mr. Lamb got his own car out and went home with him, himself, and worried about him and went to see him no end, all the time he was ill.”

“He would,” Mrs. Palmer said, approvingly. “He's a kind-hearted creature, that old man.”

Her husband laughed. “Alfred says he thinks his kind-heartedness is about cured! It seems that as soon as the man got well again he deliberately walked off with the old gentleman's glue secret. Just calmly stole it! Alfred says he believes that if he had a stroke in the office now, himself, his father wouldn't lift a finger to help him!”

Mrs. Palmer repeated the name to herself thoughtfully. “'Adams'—'Virgil Adams.' You said his name was Virgil Adams?”

“Yes.”

She looked at her daughter. “Why, you know who that is, Mildred,” she said, casually. “It's that Alice Adams's father, isn't it? Wasn't his name Virgil Adams?”

“I think it is,” Mildred said.

Mrs. Palmer turned toward her husband. “You've seen this Alice Adams here. Mr. Lamb's pet swindler must be her father.”

Mr. Palmer passed a smooth hand over his neat gray hair, which was not disturbed by this effort to stimulate recollection. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Of course—certainly. Quite a good-looking girl—one of Mildred's friends. How queer!”

Mildred looked up, as if in a little alarm, but did not speak. Her mother set matters straight. “Fathers ARE amusing,” she said smilingly to Russell, who was looking at her, though how fixedly she did not notice; for she turned from him at once to enlighten her husband. “Every girl who meets Mildred, and tries to push the acquaintance by coming here until the poor child has to hide, isn't a FRIEND of hers, my dear!”

Mildred's eyes were downcast again, and a faint colour rose in her cheeks. “Oh, I shouldn't put it quite that way about Alice Adams,” she said, in a low voice. “I saw something of her for a time. She's not unattractive in a way.”

Mrs. Palmer settled the whole case of Alice carelessly. “A pushing sort of girl,” she said. “A very pushing little person.”

“I——” Mildred began; and, after hesitating, concluded, “I rather dropped her.”

“Fortunate you've done so,” her father remarked, cheerfully. “Especially since various members of the Lamb connection are here frequently. They mightn't think you'd show great tact in having her about the place.” He laughed, and turned to his cousin. “All this isn't very interesting to poor Arthur. How terrible people are with a newcomer in a town; they talk as if he knew all about everybody!”

“But we don't know anything about these queer people, ourselves,” said Mrs. Palmer. “We know something about the girl, of course—she used to be a bit too conspicuous, in fact! However, as you say, we might find a subject more interesting for Arthur.”

She smiled whimsically upon the young man. “Tell the truth,” she said. “Don't you fairly detest going into business with that tyrant yonder?”

“What? Yes—I beg your pardon!” he stammered.

“You were right,” Mrs. Palmer said to her husband. “You've bored him so, talking about thievish clerks, he can't even answer an honest question.”

But Russell was beginning to recover his outward composure. “Try me again,” he said. “I'm afraid I was thinking of something else.”

This was the best he found to say. There was a part of him that wanted to protest and deny, but he had not heat enough, in the chill that had come upon him. Here was the first “mention” of Alice, and with it the reason why it was the first: Mr. Palmer had difficulty in recalling her, and she happened to be spoken of, only because her father's betrayal of a benefactor's trust had been so peculiarly atrocious that, in the view of the benefactor's family, it contained enough of the element of humour to warrant a mild laugh at a club. There was the deadliness of the story: its lack of malice, even of resentment. Deadlier still were Mrs. Palmer's phrases: “a pushing sort of girl,” “a very pushing little person,” and “used to be a bit TOO conspicuous, in fact.” But she spoke placidly and by chance; being as obviously without unkindly motive as Mr. Palmer was when he related the cause of Alfred Lamb's amusement. Her opinion of the obscure young lady momentarily her topic had been expressed, moreover, to her husband, and at her own table. She sat there, large, kind, serene—a protest might astonish but could not change her; and Russell, crumpling in his strained fingers the lace-edged little web of a napkin on his knee, found heart enough to grow red, but not enough to challenge her.

She noticed his colour, and attributed it to the embarrassment of a scrupulously gallant gentleman caught in a lapse of attention to a lady. “Don't be disturbed,” she said, benevolently. “People aren't expected to listen all the time to their relatives. A high colour's very becoming to you, Arthur; but it really isn't necessary between cousins. You can always be informal enough with us to listen only when you care to.”

His complexion continued to be ruddier than usual, however, throughout the meal, and was still somewhat tinted when Mrs. Palmer rose. “The man's bringing you cigarettes here,” she said, nodding to the two gentlemen. “We'll give you a chance to do the sordid kind of talking we know you really like. Afterwhile, Mildred will show you what's in bloom in the hothouse, if you wish, Arthur.”

Mildred followed her, and, when they were alone in another of the spacious rooms, went to a window and looked out, while her mother seated herself near the center of the room in a gilt armchair, mellowed with old Aubusson tapestry. Mrs. Palmer looked thoughtfully at her daughter's back, but did not speak to her until coffee had been brought for them.

“Thanks,” Mildred said, not turning, “I don't care for any coffee, I believe.”

“No?” Mrs. Palmer said, gently. “I'm afraid our good-looking cousin won't think you're very talkative, Mildred. You spoke only about twice at lunch. I shouldn't care for him to get the idea you're piqued because he's come here so little lately, should you?”

“No, I shouldn't,” Mildred answered in a low voice, and with that she turned quickly, and came to sit near her mother. “But it's what I am afraid of! Mama, did you notice how red he got?”

“You mean when he was caught not listening to a question of mine? Yes; it's very becoming to him.”

“Mama, I don't think that was the reason. I don't think it was because he wasn't listening, I mean.”

“No?”

“I think his colour and his not listening came from the same reason,” Mildred said, and although she had come to sit near her mother, she did not look at her. “I think it happened because you and papa——” She stopped.

“Yes?” Mrs. Palmer said, good-naturedly, to prompt her. “Your father and I did something embarrassing?”

“Mama, it was because of those things that came out about Alice Adams.”

“How could that bother Arthur? Does he know her?”

“Don't you remember?” the daughter asked. “The day after my dance I mentioned how odd I thought it was in him—I was a little disappointed in him. I'd been seeing that he met everybody, of course, but she was the only girl HE asked to meet; and he did it as soon as he noticed her. I hadn't meant to have him meet her—in fact, I was rather sorry I'd felt I had to ask her, because she oh, well, she's the sort that 'tries for the new man,' if she has half a chance; and sometimes they seem quite fascinated—for a time, that is. I thought Arthur was above all that; or at the very least I gave him credit for being too sophisticated.”

“I see,” Mrs. Palmer said, thoughtfully. “I remember now that you spoke of it. You said it seemed a little peculiar, but of course it really wasn't: a 'new man' has nothing to go by, except his own first impressions. You can't blame poor Arthur—she's quite a piquant looking little person. You think he's seen something of her since then?”

Mildred nodded slowly. “I never dreamed such a thing till yesterday, and even then I rather doubted it—till he got so red, just now! I was surprised when he asked to meet her, but he just danced with her once and didn't mention her afterward; I forgot all about it—in fact, I virtually forgot all about HER. I'd seen quite a little of her——”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Palmer. “She did keep coming here!”

“But I'd just about decided that it really wouldn't do,” Mildred went on. “She isn't—well, I didn't admire her.”

“No,” her mother assented, and evidently followed a direct connection of thought in a speech apparently irrelevant. “I understand the young Malone wants to marry Henrietta. I hope she won't; he seems rather a gross type of person.”

“Oh, he's just one,” Mildred said. “I don't know that he and Alice Adams were ever engaged—she never told me so. She may not have been engaged to any of them; she was just enough among the other girls to get talked about—and one of the reasons I felt a little inclined to be nice to her was that they seemed to be rather edging her out of the circle. It wasn't long before I saw they were right, though. I happened to mention I was going to give a dance and she pretended to take it as a matter of course that I meant to invite her brother—at least, I thought she pretended; she may have really believed it. At any rate, I had to send him a card; but I didn't intend to be let in for that sort of thing again, of course. She's what you said, 'pushing'; though I'm awfully sorry you said it.”

“Why shouldn't I have said it, my dear?”

“Of course I didn't say 'shouldn't.'” Mildred explained, gravely. “I meant only that I'm sorry it happened.”

“Yes; but why?”

“Mama”—Mildred turned to her, leaning forward and speaking in a lowered voice—“Mama, at first the change was so little it seemed as if Arthur hardly knew it himself. He'd been lovely to me always, and he was still lovely to me but—oh, well, you've understood—after my dance it was more as if it was just his nature and his training to be lovely to me, as he would be to everyone a kind of politeness. He'd never said he CARED for me, but after that I could see he didn't. It was clear—after that. I didn't know what had happened; I couldn't think of anything I'd done. Mama—it was Alice Adams.”

Mrs. Palmer set her little coffee-cup upon the table beside her, calmly following her own motion with her eyes, and not seeming to realize with what serious entreaty her daughter's gaze was fixed upon her. Mildred repeated the last sentence of her revelation, and introduced a stress of insistence.

“Mama, it WAS Alice Adams!”

But Mrs. Palmer declined to be greatly impressed, so far as her appearance went, at least; and to emphasize her refusal, she smiled indulgently. “What makes you think so?”

“Henrietta told me yesterday.”

At this Mrs. Palmer permitted herself to laugh softly aloud. “Good heavens! Is Henrietta a soothsayer? Or is she Arthur's particular confidante?”

“No. Ella Dowling told her.”

Mrs. Palmer's laughter continued. “Now we have it!” she exclaimed. “It's a game of gossip: Arthur tells Ella, Ella tells Henrietta, and Henrietta tells——”

“Don't laugh, please, mama,” Mildred begged. “Of course Arthur didn't tell anybody. It's roundabout enough, but it's true. I know it! I hadn't quite believed it, but I knew it was true when he got so red. He looked—oh, for a second or so he looked—stricken! He thought I didn't notice it. Mama, he's been to see her almost every evening lately. They take long walks together. That's why he hasn't been here.”

Of Mrs. Palmer's laughter there was left only her indulgent smile, which she had not allowed to vanish. “Well, what of it?” she said.

“Mama!”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Palmer. “What of it?”

“But don't you see?” Mildred's well-tutored voice, though modulated and repressed even in her present emotion, nevertheless had a tendency to quaver. “It's true. Frank Dowling was going to see her one evening and he saw Arthur sitting on the stoop with her, and didn't go in. And Ella used to go to school with a girl who lives across the street from here. She told Ella——”

“Oh, I understand,” Mrs. Palmer interrupted. “Suppose he does go there. My dear, I said, 'What of it?'”

“I don't see what you mean, mama. I'm so afraid he might think we knew about it, and that you and papa said those things about her and her father on that account—as if we abused them because he goes there instead of coming here.”

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Palmer rose, went to a window, and, turning there, stood with her back to it, facing her daughter and looking at her cheerfully. “Nonsense, my dear! It was perfectly clear that she was mentioned by accident, and so was her father. What an extraordinary man! If Arthur makes friends with people like that, he certainly knows better than to expect to hear favourable opinions of them. Besides, it's only a little passing thing with him.”

“Mama! When he goes there almost every——”

“Yes,” Mrs. Palmer said, dryly. “It seems to me I've heard somewhere that other young men have gone there 'almost every!' She doesn't last, apparently. Arthur's gallant, and he's impressionable—but he's fastidious, and fastidiousness is always the check on impressionableness. A girl belongs to her family, too—and this one does especially, it strikes me! Arthur's very sensible; he sees more than you'd think.”

Mildred looked at her hopefully. “Then you don't believe he's likely to imagine we said those things of her in any meaning way?”

At this, Mrs. Palmer laughed again. “There's one thing you seem not to have noticed, Mildred.”

“What's that?”

“It seems to have escaped your attention that he never said a word.”

“Mightn't that mean——?” Mildred began, but she stopped.

“No, it mightn't,” her mother replied, comprehending easily. “On the contrary, it might mean that instead of his feeling it too deeply to speak, he was getting a little illumination.”

Mildred rose and came to her. “WHY do you suppose he never told us he went there? Do you think he's—do you think he's pleased with her, and yet ashamed of it? WHY do you suppose he's never spoken of it?”

“Ah, that,” Mrs. Palmer said,—“that might possibly be her own doing. If it is, she's well paid by what your father and I said, because we wouldn't have said it if we'd known that Arthur——” She checked herself quickly. Looking over her daughter's shoulder, she saw the two gentlemen coming from the corridor toward the wide doorway of the room; and she greeted them cheerfully. “If you've finished with each other for a while,” she added, “Arthur may find it a relief to put his thoughts on something prettier than a trust company—and more fragrant.”

Arthur came to Mildred.

“Your mother said at lunch that perhaps you'd——”

“I didn't say 'perhaps,' Arthur,” Mrs. Palmer interrupted, to correct him. “I said she would. If you care to see and smell those lovely things out yonder, she'll show them to you. Run along, children!”

Half an hour later, glancing from a window, she saw them come from the hothouses and slowly cross the lawn. Arthur had a fine rose in his buttonhole and looked profoundly thoughtful.