Chapter XXIV Mrs. Langham-Greene Pays Her Debt; and Mrs. Waite, Hers
“The long-necked geese of the world that are
ever hissing dispraise
Because their natures are little.”
—Tennyson.
Estelle Hadwell was sitting by a blazing fire in her husband’s library when she heard voices in the hall below, followed by the banging of a door. Then Mr. Hadwell called loudly:
“Estelle! are you there?”
“Yes, dear,” replied his wife, somewhat surprised. “Have you visitors?”
“Yes. Mrs. Langham-Greene and Mrs. Tollman are here. Can you come down?”
“Yes, indeed!” replied Mrs. Hadwell with effusion. She rose slowly from her chair by the fire, grimacing disgustedly as she did so. The library was so nice and Mrs. Greene so horrid and Mrs. Tollman such a bore.
She hurried down and advanced with extended hands and a delighted smile. She had got as far as “A most delightful surprise—an unexpected pleasure!” when she caught sight of her husband’s face.
“Henry!” she exclaimed in genuine consternation. “What in the world is it?”
Her husband was standing with his back to the fireplace and a portentous frown on his brow, looking, as Mrs. Hadwell reflected to herself, for all the world like the British Matron in trousers.
“Henry, what is it?” she asked, again.
“These ladies,” returned Mr. Hadwell with a majestic wave of his hand, “can tell you better than I.”
Estelle glanced from one to the other, wonderingly. Mrs. Tollman, a stout, pleasant-faced woman, wore a somewhat distressed expression and sat stiffly upright. Mrs. Langham-Greene, delicately lovely in dark blue velvet and ermine, leaned gracefully back in an easy chair, her fine features composed to an expression of decorous sorrow. Neither lady made any immediate effort to enlighten her hostess until Mrs. Greene swept a meaning glance at her companion from beneath her long, light lashes. Then Mrs. Tollman spoke.
“It’s such a delicate matter, Mrs. Hadwell,” she said in a flurried way. “I disliked coming to you about it, very much; but Mr. Hadwell insisted, saying that only an eye-witness could convince you.”
“Of what?”
“This is so hard on us, both,” Mrs. Langham-Greene murmured, soothingly. “And it was so careless of me to mention the poor thing; for then Mr. Hadwell simply dragged the whole story out of me. I am most distressed, I am indeed!”
“But at what, dear Mrs. Greene?” cooed her hostess.
“Oh, at the whole affair—the poor girl so well connected and all! and Ricossia so common and dreadful.”
“Oh, some new scandal about young Ricossia,” exclaimed Mrs. Hadwell with sudden enlightenment and a corresponding sinking of the heart.
“But he is not common; no one could call him that. Dreadful, certainly; but rather fascinating in his way, don’t you think?”
“Apparently others have found him so,” drawled the older lady, meaningly.
“What others?”
Mrs. Langham-Greene looked deliberately at Mrs. Hadwell and spoke, regretfully.
“I am afraid, dear Mrs. Hadwell, that your friend, Miss Thayer”——
“How dare you say so?”
“Estelle,” said her husband, reprovingly, “is it likely that these ladies would speak without proper authority?”
“Very likely indeed,” thought their hostess, but her heart was sick within her. Lynn’s interest in Ricossia; her lack of interest in other men; her sorrow, her preoccupation, her confession of having outraged propriety; all these ranged as witnesses against her in her friend’s heart.
“I knew—I told Mr. Hadwell that you would take it in just this way,” murmured the widow, sympathetically. “So he insisted that we bring an eye-witness to convince you. Of course the thing has been going on for an indefinite space of time; but, just lately, Mr. and Mrs. Tollman, when returning home late one night, saw Miss Thayer leaving the Chatham. They followed her. She took a sleigh to Pine Avenue, dismissed it there and walked home. Isn’t it so, Mrs. Tollman?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Tollman, fluttering. “It is undeniably true. But I don’t know how it ever got out, for I only told my most intimate friends about it.”
“That was cheaper than having it printed in the ‘Daily News’ and certainly quite as effective.”
Mrs. Hadwell had lost her usual calm and diplomacy.
“Really,” she continued with a sudden burst of candour, “really how I do hate women! They’re every bit as nasty as men, and nothing like so nice into the bargain. I wish I need never see a woman again—except Lynn.”
This coming from the politic and tactful Mrs. Hadwell had the effect of a thunderclap. Before her listeners had recovered the housemaid announced Mrs. Waite and that lady entered.
Since inheriting her legacy, Mrs. Hadwell’s former housekeeper had hired a small furnished house and was living there alone. General Shaftan’s house, her property, was advertised for sale; a proceeding which had roused some interest in Montreal society.
“How funny of her not to live there until it sells or rents! Can it be that that sourfaced woman is afraid of ghosts?” some had asked.
She stood now in the doorway, looking from one to the other with her peculiarly cold and expressionless manner. “Excuse me,” she said without preliminary, “but as I was walking through the hall just now I heard what you were saying; I could not help hearing. Is it true that Miss Thayer is in trouble?”
“Are you interested in Miss Thayer?” inquired Mrs. Langham-Greene with courtly insolence.
“Yes.”
The two women faced one another in silence; the one beautiful, patrician, elegant; the other, plain, sad-faced, and, apparently, old. A whole world lay between them; nor was the chasm bridged by the fact that both had loved the same man. Mrs. Hadwell, with her usual quick intuition, could feel the air charged with import and longed to know what lay beneath these different exteriors. Instead she turned to Mrs. Langham-Greene with a question.
“May I ask what your object was in laying these slanders about Miss Thayer before me?” she said.
“I wished,” said the other slowly, “to see what could be done to help the wretched girl. Of course she cannot stay here; and I understand that there is a great dearth of teachers in the North-West; they are not particular there as to character and”—
“You cat!” screamed little Mrs. Hadwell, losing all control of herself. “How dare you come to my house and compel me to be rude to your very face? How dare you speak so of my best friend? Who wants to hear your opinion of her? why, it’s an impertinence on your part to have an opinion about a girl like Lynn. Let me tell you that Miss Thayer need not go to the North-West for a refuge; she will always find a welcome in my home whenever she needs one”—
“Not in mine!”
Mrs. Hadwell started and looked at her husband with amazement.
“You wish me to drop Lynn? My dear Henry, if you are thinking of setting up in the ostracizing business I can supply you with a long list of far more deserving cases.”
“I don’t say that the girl is actually bad, but she has been proved to be utterly devoid of sense or decency. She shall never set foot in my house again.”
“In that case,” Mrs. Hadwell’s voice was calm—“I leave your house to-night and take my children with me.”
“What?”
“They are all under seven and until that age the mother has full control. I shall take them to my grandmother in Lachine; there, at least, I can receive my friends—my one friend, I should say! I haven’t another.”
Mr. Hadwell stamped out of the room in a fury. Mrs. Tollman and Mrs. Greene followed him quietly, the former almost in tears, the latter composed and cheerful. When the door closed on them Mrs. Hadwell sat down and burst into tears.
“Oh, Lynn, Lynn, how could you?” she sobbed.
“Mrs. Hadwell, can you give me this Mr. Ricossia’s address?”
Mrs. Waite’s cold, thin voice sounded unpleasantly at Estelle’s elbow.
“Yes, I believe it’s the Chatham, either 10 or 12 St. Eustache St.,” answered the younger woman, staring through wet eyes in sheer amazement. “Are you there, still, Mrs. Waite? I thought you had gone.”
“Don’t—don’t mind so much,” said the “Gorgon-faced automaton” with difficulty. “Perhaps something can be done.”
“Oh, nothing, nothing, I am afraid, except to stand by her.”
“You believe this story?”
“No!” lied Mrs. Hadwell, firmly.
“Neither do I. I am sure there is some explanation if one could only find out what it is. And I have plenty of money, now; money can do a great deal sometimes in cases of this kind, and there is nothing I would sooner spend it on”——
“You—you? But, Mrs. Waite—if you don’t mind my asking—why should you—what is Lynn to you?”
Mrs. Waite moistened her dry lips and spoke, faintly.
“I had a child once. He died.... She was his teacher and—and she was good to him. But don’t tell her; she might try to talk to me about him and—and I couldn’t stand that”——
Mrs. Waite stopped; her plain face contorted ludicrously. The next moment the cold Mrs. Hadwell and the woman beside whose frigid nature her own showed in the light of a volcano were weeping bitterly in one another’s arms.