Chapter 18. Isabella Takes One More Ride

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_ CHAPTER XVIII. ISABELLA TAKES ONE MORE RIDE

Henrietta Marne looked curiously at the envelope bearing the stamp of Hugh Gordon's business firm. "There is always a letter from Mr. Gordon just before Mr. Brand gets back," she said to herself, "so I suppose he'll be here some time today. If he does I'll have to decide about leaving him. But there'll be such a lot of work to do it won't be fair for me to say anything about going till we get things straightened out again."

On that same June morning Penelope Brand was reading a letter in a similar envelope. She was out of doors, in her wheel-chair, in the shade of that same tree from which she had fallen, years before, to such pitiful maiming of her body and her life. Beside her was a little table holding some books, a pad of paper and a pencil and her work-basket. For here she spent the greater part of every fine day, by turns reading, making notes, writing, sewing, and talking with her mother. The roses that grew along the fence were in bloom and a few steps in the other direction was the little vegetable garden where her mother worked when the sun was not too hot, so near that they could speak to each other now and then.

Penelope was beginning to find a new pleasure in life, the deepest of all pleasures to the woman-heart, the pleasure of service. For Hugh Gordon had been sending her books treating of the sociological questions in which she had long taken an intellectual interest and had asked her to make digests of them for him, to tell him what she thought of them and to write him at length upon such of their contents as seemed to her of particular consequence. She had had a number of letters from him discussing these things and outlining plans upon which he wanted her opinion.

All this was affording her the keenest satisfaction. Her mother, who had never seen her so genuinely happy and contented, beamed with shy delight over the new pleasure that had come into their lives. For her it was sadly darkened by her son's violent antagonism to their new friend. They had learned that they must not mention Hugh Gordon's name to him even in letters, and when he last came to see them, on one of his brief and infrequent visits, they had trembled with anxiety during the whole of his stay lest they might inadvertently approach too near the subject that now loomed so large in the narrow round of their lives and had brought such freshening and broadening of their interests.

They speculated much as to the cause of the animosity between the two men, and it was evident to Mrs. Brand, in all their talk, that her daughter's sympathies were with Hugh Gordon. For Penelope, deep in her heart, well concealed from her mother, had long harbored a feeling toward her brother that was very near distrust and contempt. Mrs. Brand had found in Hugh Gordon and the affection he plainly longed to give and receive, a young man fashioned so much more after her spirit than was her own son that her mother-heart yearned to enfold him also in its love. It grieved her deeply to know how intense was the bitterness between them.

"If they could only both be my boys, and be good friends," she said to Penelope, with brimming eyes.

As Penelope opened her letter from Hugh Gordon she gazed with astonishment at the check it contained, a check for a bigger sum than she and her mother had ever possessed.

"Dear Sister Penelope," she read. "For you didn't say that I mustn't call you sister, and so I shall, because you know that is the way I think of you. I am very happy just now thinking how surprised you will be when you see this check. It is some money that I borrowed of Felix last winter when I wanted to start in business. I am now paying it back to you and your mother instead of to him, because I know that he is not taking care of you as he ought, and also because I know that if I pay it to him he will merely make some bad and wasteful use of it. Enclosed you will find a memorandum of the date, the principal, rate, interest and amount. I shall tell him that I have sent it to you.

"I have wanted very much to see you during this last month, for there are many things to talk over with you at more length than is possible by letter. But I knew what a rage it put Felix into when he learned about my being there the last time and how unhappy his anger and violent talk made both of you, and especially your mother, and I didn't want to subject you to such an experience again.

"But the time is coming soon when I shall be able to visit you as often as you will let me. I am looking forward to that time with such anticipations of happiness as I hardly dare tell you about. If you should decide against me, if you should not feel toward me as I hope you will--but, no, that would not be possible. And so I shall go on thinking of the happy times we shall have when I run over often to see you and when I take both of you upon little trips--to the seashore, to New York, wherever you think you would like to go. For we can make that sort of pleasure possible for you, Penelope, if you want to undertake it.

"It will all be decided and everything explained the next time I see you. But to prepare the way for all that I shall have to tell you, so that you will be ready to listen to it understandingly, I am sending you a book to read in the meantime. You will find in it one of the wonder stories of modern science, and in its light that quick, keen mind of yours will go to the heart of this matter at once. You will see clearly through the essentials of the mystery you have already sensed in the relations between Felix and me. But I hope you will not make up your mind about it until I can explain to you the whole matter, from beginning to end. I think that will be soon, within two or three weeks. In the meantime, you will not hear from me again, for I shall have to go away for a while."

The rest of the letter was taken up with matters about which they had been conferring for some time. But Penelope was not able to find in them her usual interest, so deep was her absorption in Gordon's mystifying allusions and promises.

The anxious wonder they aroused in her, however, was hardly greater than the trepidation and the sense of mystery which descended upon Henrietta Marne as she studied, that same morning, the envelope of Gordon's letter to Felix Brand. Why should such a letter always herald Brand's return from these unaccountable absences, which grew ever longer and of darker omen? What had Hugh Gordon meant by those two or three curt, unconsidered sentences that seemed to hint at some uncanny fate toward which Brand was hastening? And what would be the architect's demeanor now? Would it be such that she could not stay longer in his employ? With all the financial risk involved would she yet feel that she must go forth and look for another position?

This last question did not long remain unanswered in her mind. Brand's manner, it was true, had not lost entirely its habitual suavity and polish. Formerly she had thought these to be the genuine expression of the innate refinement and kindness of his nature. But now, as if some inner corrosion were eating its way outward, she found that they had ceased to be anything more than the thinnest veneer, through which often broke, in words, or manner, or look, peevish irritation or sullen anger.

"It's as if he were just seething inside," said Henrietta to herself after he had been back several days, "about something or other that makes him too angry to control himself. Well, that's no reason why he should take it out on me, as he did today. I wish I could see Mr. Gordon again. Well, anyway, I can't stand this any longer. I'm sure he'd advise me not to. Mr. Brand is much worse than he was before he went away, and he looks as if he were the bad, base man that Hugh Gordon says he is. I shall tell him at once that he'll have to find another secretary."

When she told her mother and sister that she had decided to look for another position, she had to face a chorus of amazed protests and she found it difficult to convince them of the soundness of her reasons.

"He seems to have lost all sense of honor," she told them. "In all the business that he carries on through me by correspondence and sometimes by my seeing people, too, he lies and cheats even when I can't see, sometimes, that he expects to gain anything by it. And I don't want to be a party to that kind of thing any longer, even if I am only a sort of a machine. And he is growing so ill-tempered and irritable and rude that I really can't endure it."

"Oh, well, don't worry about it, Harry," said Isabella with her usual optimism. "You'll soon get another position. Please make it part of your bargain next time that your employer must come over here and take me out motoring quite frequently, if not oftener."

"That reminds me, Bella, that I want to ask you not to go with Mr. Brand again. I'm sure he's not the kind of man we've always thought him."

"Oh, nonsense!" Bella rejoined, breezily. "Don't be alarmed for your handsome Felix Brand. It doesn't do him a bit of harm and I have a lot of fun. Don't worry about me, Harry. I'm not an infant. And I don't suppose I'll be offered any more perquisites of that sort, now that you're going to leave him. Poor little me!"

Henrietta found her employer in a particularly trying mood the next morning. He looked tired and worn, as though he had not slept, and his mobile countenance, always so eloquent of his state of mind that every changing emotion shone through it as through a window into his soul, told of secret harassment. So also did his tense nerves, which seemed wrought up almost to the snapping point. They vented themselves in frequent bursts of irritability and snarling anger. His secretary noticed that he started at every sudden sound, and sometimes also when she had heard nothing, and that then he would look round him in an alarmed, furtive way, as if he expected to see some menace take form out of the air. To her relief he did not return to the office after luncheon. If she had known that he was speeding in his automobile toward her home she would have taken less comfort in her quiet afternoon.

"Bella, dear, do you think you'd better go?" said her mother. "Harry seems so anxious about it, and she knows him better than we do. Hadn't you better tell you have an engagement, and then take me out for a little walk?"

"Oh, just this one more time won't make any difference, mother! I guess my chatter is good for him, for he always seems blue when we start out, but by the time we come home he's in as good spirits as I am. So it would really be unkind not to go, wouldn't it, mother?"

"Well, dear, if you think best. But I shall be anxious about you, so please ask him to bring you back as soon as he can."

When they returned in the late afternoon Isabella caught a glimpse, as the automobile stopped and she glanced up toward her mother's room, of a man's figure standing beside Mrs. Marne's chair, near the window. Brand helped her out, and then, casting a keen glance at her, with a little laugh he took her by the arm and guided her up the path and across the porch to the door. Fumbling with her key, she scarcely noticed his departure and by the time she stepped inside, his machine was disappearing down the street.

As she entered the hall she saw a man descending the stairs. Looking up uncertainly, she staggered back a little and leaned against the wall.

"Bella!" he cried joyfully, and again, "Bella, darling!" and ran down the steps.

She gave a maudlin giggle. "Warren! Warren! Such s'prise! S' glad t' see you!" she muttered thickly and, lurching toward him, would have fallen had he not caught her.

"Bella! What is the matter?" he exclaimed in anxious tones, and then, in a moment, sudden disgust ringing in his voice: "Bella, you're drunk! My God! And I meant to marry you next month! Motoring with a man and coming home drunk! Good-bye, Miss Marne! It's lucky I discovered my mistake in time!"

He snatched his hat from the rack and slammed the door behind him; and she, as understanding of what had happened dawned upon her, fell forward upon the banister with a long, agonized cry.

Mrs. Marne, lying down to rest in smiling happiness, with her heart full of pleasure as she thought of her dear one's surprise and joy, heard that shriek and hurried in alarm to the head of the stairs. "Bella!" she called. "What is the matter? Where is Warren?"

Isabella, suddenly sobered, lifted a white, drawn face: "Oh, mother, he's gone! He's left me! Oh, mother, mother! It's all over!"

She turned with sudden resolution and fled toward the dining room, so absorbed in her own wild misery that she heard and saw nothing as her mother cried out, swayed to and fro, and then toppled to the floor. _

Read next: Chapter 19. "And You Could Do This, Felix Brand!"

Read previous: Chapter 17. "Which Should Have The Gift Of Life?"

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