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One Woman's Life, a novel by Robert Herrick |
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Part Five. The Cake Shop - Chapter 2. At Last, The Real Right Scheme |
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_ PART FIVE. THE CAKE SHOP CHAPTER II. AT LAST, THE REAL RIGHT SCHEME Whenever Eleanor Kemp came to New York--which happened usually at least twice a year, on her way to and from Europe--she always endeavored to see her old friend, if for only a few minutes. So when she landed this spring, she went almost immediately from her hotel to number 236, and Milly found her waiting in the little reception room on her return from her marketing. "You see I didn't forget the number, and just came over!" Mrs. Kemp said gayly. "We docked at ten, and Walter has already disappeared to see some pictures.... How are you, dear?" The two friends had kissed, and then still holding each other by the arms drew off for the preliminary scrutiny. Eleanor Kemp's black hair showed gray about the temples, and there were lines around the trembling mouth. "She's getting old, really," Milly thought in a flash. "But it doesn't make so much difference to her, they are so rich!" "Milly, you are prettier than ever--you always are when I see you--how do you keep so young?" the older woman exclaimed admiringly, and drew Milly's smiling face closer for another kiss. "And you have been through so much since I saw you last--so much sadness." "Yes," Milly admitted flatly. Somehow she did not want to talk of her marriage and Jack's death with Eleanor Kemp, who had been so near her during the ecstatic inception of that passion. "How pretty your house is!" Eleanor said, divining Milly's reluctance to intimacy. "I've been peeking into the next room while I waited." "Yes, it's pleasant," Milly replied unenthusiastically. "It's small and the street is rather noisy. But it does well enough. You know it isn't my house. It belongs to a friend,--Ernestine Geyer." "Yes, you wrote me." "She's in business, away all day, and I keep house for her," Milly explained, as if she were eager not to have her position misunderstood. "It must be much pleasanter for you and Virginia than being alone." "Yes," Milly agreed, in the same negative voice, and then showed her friend over the house, which Mrs. Kemp pronounced "sweet" and "cunning." As Milly's manner remained listless, Eleanor Kemp suggested their lunching at the hotel, and they walked over to the large hostelry on the Avenue, where the Kemps usually stayed in New York. Walter Kemp not having returned from his picture quest, the women had luncheon by themselves at a little table near a window in the ornate dining-room of the hotel. Milly grew more cheerful away from her home. It always lightened her mind of its burdens to eat in a public place. She liked the movement about her, the strange faces, the unaccustomed food, and her opportunities of restaurant life had not been numerous of late. It was pleasant to be again with her old friend and revive their common memories of Chicago days. They discussed half the people they knew. Milly told Eleanor of Vivie Norton's engagement finally to the divorced man and the marriage, "a week after he got his decree." And Eleanor told Milly of the approaching marriage of Nettie Gilbert's daughter to a very attractive youth, etc. "You must come to visit me this summer," she declared. "Your friends are all dying to see you." "Do you think they remember me still?" "Remember you! My dear, they still talk about your engagement to Clarence Parker." Milly laughed gayly. "That!"... She added quite unexpectedly, "I suppose I ought to have married him really." "Milly!" "Why not?" Milly persisted in a would-be indifferent tone. "Then I shouldn't be keeping house for somebody else for my living." Mrs. Kemp gave her a quick look, and then turned it off with,-- "You should have stayed in Chicago, whatever you did. We all miss you so!..." In her glances about the crowded room Milly's eyes had rested upon a little woman seated at a table not far away,--a blond, fluffy-haired, much-dressed and much-jewelled creature, who was scrutinizing the long menu with close attention. "Do you know who she is, Nelly?" Milly asked, indicating the little blond person. "It seems to me she's some one I ought to know." Mrs. Kemp glanced out of her lowered eyes; then as the other looked up both bowed. She said in a whisper to Milly,-- "You ought to know her, Milly! She was Annie Dove." "Who is she now?" Eleanor Kemp paused to laugh before replying and then whispered,-- "She's who you might have been--Mrs. Clarence Parker!" "Oh!" Milly murmured and looked again with more curiosity at the fluffy-haired little woman. "She dresses a good deal," she observed. "I wonder how Clarence likes to pay the bills." "We saw them at Wiesbaden this spring. They seemed quite happy. He was taking the cure." "Did it do him any good?" Milly inquired amiably.... Presently a short, bald-headed man took the place opposite their neighbor, and Milly examined him with much care. Clarence Albert was balder and whiter than ever, and his cold gray eyes were now concealed by glasses which gave him the look of an eminent financier. His wife coached him evidently about the menu. Milly thought she could hear his squeaky voice saying, "Well, now, I don't know about that." A queer little smile came around her lips as she considered that she might have occupied the seat the richly dressed, bejewelled little lady had, and be listening at that moment to Clarence Albert's observations on the luncheon menu. Just then Parker looked over, recognized Mrs. Kemp, and hurried across with outstretched hand. He did not see Milly until he reached the table, and then he stopped as if he did not know what to do next. Milly smiled and extended a hand. "How do you do, Mr. Parker!" she said gayly. "Eleanor has just pointed out your wife to me--such a pretty woman! How are you?" "Very well now Miss--Mrs.--" "Bragdon," Milly supplied. "Very well indeed, Mrs. Bragdon, and I see you are the same." He retreated at once, and Milly glancing roguishly at Eleanor Kemp murmured,-- "I take it back.... No, I couldn't! Not even with all the clothes and jewels." "Of course you couldn't!" "It's fate--it's all fate!" Milly sighed. That was her way of saying that everything in this world depended upon the individual soul, and she couldn't manage her soul differently. She felt relieved. The dessert arriving just then, Milly's attention was distracted from the Clarence Alberts and from her soul. She took much time and care in selecting a piece of _patisserie_. French pastry, which had become a common article in New York hotels by that time, always interested Milly. She liked the sweet, seductive cakes, and they brought back to memory happy times in Paris and her visits to Gage's with Jack. "I am afraid they aren't very good," her hostess remarked, observing that Milly after all her research into the dish merely tasted her cake and pushed it away. "They don't seem able to make the nice French ones over here--they're usually as heavy as lead." "No, they're not a bit like those we used to get at Gage's. I wonder why they don't find somebody who can make real French pastry.... Now there's an idea!" she exclaimed with sudden illumination. "A cake shop like Gage's with real cakes and a real _Madame_ in black at the desk!" She gave Eleanor a vivid description of the charms of Gage's. Her friend laughed indulgently. "You funny child, to remember that all this time!" "But why not?" Milly persisted. "Everybody likes French pastry. I believe you could make heaps of money from a good cake shop in America." "Well, when you are ready to open your cake shop, come to Chicago!... And anyway you are coming to visit me next month." Milly readily promised to make the visit when Virginia's school closed, and shortly afterwards the friends parted. * * * * * Milly strolled home in a revery of Eleanor Kemp, who always brought back her past, of Clarence Albert and Clarence Albert's expensive wife. "If I had--" she mused. If somehow she had done differently and instead of being a penniless widow she were happily married with ample means; if the world was this or that or the other!... But back of all her thoughts, beneath all her revery, simmered the idea of the Cake Shop. In telling Ernestine of her day's adventure, however, she made no reference to the New Idea. This time she would not expose her conception to the chilling blast of the Laundryman's criticism until she had perfected it. She nursed it like an artist within her own breast. _ |
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