The Business of Life

Jacqueline's features betrayed her wonder and disgust, but she said nothing; and presently Cynthia turned and started down the stairs.

"Good-night, dear," she called back, with a gay little flourish of her muff. "They're all alike – only we always forgive the one we care for!"

CHAPTER V

On Monday, Desboro waited all the morning for her, meeting every train. At noon, she had not arrived. Finally, he called up her office and was informed that Miss Nevers had been detained in town on business, and that their Mr. Kirk had telephoned him that morning to that effect.

He asked to speak to Miss Nevers personally; she had gone out, it appeared, and might not return until the middle of the afternoon.

So Desboro went home in his car and summoned Farris, the aged butler, who was pottering about in the greenhouses, which he much preferred to attending to his own business.

"Did anybody telephone this morning?" asked the master.

Farris had forgotten to mention it – was very sorry – and stood like an aged hound, head partly lowered and averted, already blinking under the awaited reprimand. But all Desboro said was:

"Don't do it again, Farris; there are some things I won't overlook."

He sat for a while in the library where a sheaf of her notes lay on the table beside a pile of books – Grenville, Vanderdyne, Herrara's splendid folios – just as she had left them on Saturday afternoon for the long, happy sleigh-ride that ended just in time for him to swing her aboard her train.

He had plenty to do beside sitting there with keen, gray eyes fixed on the pile of manuscript she had left unfinished; he always had plenty to do, and seldom did it.

His first impulse had been to go to town. Her absence was making the place irksome. He went to the long windows and stood there, hands in his pockets, smoking and looking out over the familiar landscape – a rolling country, white with snow, naked branches glittering with ice under the gilded blue of a cloudless sky, and to the north and west, low, wooded mountains – really nothing more than hills, but impressively steep and blue in the distance.

A woodpecker, one of the few feathered winter residents, flickered through the trees, flashed past, and clung to an oak, sticking motionless to the bark for a minute or two, bright eyes inspecting Desboro, before beginning a rapid, jerky exploration for sustenance.

The master of Silverwood watched him, then, hands driven deeper into his pockets, strolled away, glancing aimlessly at familiar objects – the stiff and rather picturesque portraits of his grandparents in the dress of 1820; the atrocious portraits of his parents in the awful costume of 1870; his own portrait, life size, mounted on a pony.

He stood looking at the funny little boy, with the half contemptuous, half curious interest which a man in the pride of his strength and youth sometimes feels for the absurdly clothed innocence of what he was. And, as usual when noticing the picture, he made a slight, involuntary effort to comprehend that he had been once like that; and could not.

At the end of the library, better portraits hung – his great-grandmother, by Gilbert Stuart, still fresh-coloured and clear under the dim yellow varnish which veiled but could not wither the delicate complexion and ardent mouth, and the pink rosebud set where the folds of her white kerchief crossed on her breast.

And there was her husband, too, by an unknown or forgotten painter – the sturdy member of the Provincial Assembly, and major in Colonel Thomas's Westchester Regiment – a fine old fellow in his queue-ribbon and powdered hair standing in the conventional fortress port-hole, framed by it, and looking straight out of the picture with eyes so much like Desboro's that it amused people. His easy attitude, too, the idle grace of the posture, irresistibly recalled Desboro, and at the moment more than ever. But he had been a man of vigour and of wit and action; and he was lying out there in the snow, under an old brown headstone embellished with cherubim; and the last of his name lounged here, in sight, from the windows, of the spot where the first house of Desboro in America had stood, and had collapsed amid the flames started by Tarleton's blood-maddened troopers.

To and fro sauntered Desboro, passing, unnoticed, old-time framed engravings of the Desboros in Charles the Second's time, elegant, idle, handsome men in periwigs and half-armour, and all looking out at the world through port-holes with a hint of the race's bodily grace in their half insolent attitudes.

But office and preferment, peace and war, intrigue and plot, vigour and idleness, had narrowed down through the generations into a last inheritance for this young man; and the very last of all the Desboros now idled aimlessly among the phantoms of a race that perhaps had better be extinguished.

He could not make up his mind to go to town or to remain in the vague hope that she might come in the afternoon.

He had plenty to do – if he could make up his mind to begin – accounts to go over, household expenses, farm expenses, stable reports, agents' memoranda concerning tenants and leases, endless lists of necessary repairs. And there was business concerning the estate neglected, taxes, loans, improvements to attend to – the thousand and one details which irritated him to consider; but which, although he maintained an agent in town, must ultimately come to himself for the final verdict.

What he wanted was to be rid of it all – sell everything, pension his father's servants, and be rid of the entire complex business which, he pretended to himself, was slowly ruining him. But he knew in his heart where the trouble lay, and that the carelessness, extravagance, the disinclination for self-denial, the impatient and good-humoured aversion to economy, the profound distaste for financial detail, were steadily wrecking one of the best and one of the last of the old-time Westchester estates.

In his heart he knew, too, that all he wanted was to concentrate sufficient capital to give him the income he thought he needed.

No man ever had the income he thought he needed. And why Desboro required it, he himself didn't know exactly; but he wanted sufficient to keep him comfortable – enough so that he could feel he might do anything he chose, when, how, and where he chose, without fear or care for the future. And no man ever lived to enjoy such a state of mind, or to do these things with impunity.

But Desboro's mind was bent on it; he seated himself at the library table and began to figure it out. Land in Westchester brought high prices – not exactly in that section, but near enough to make his acreage valuable. Then, the house, stable, garage, greenhouses, the three farms, barns, cattle houses, water supply, the timber, power sites, meadow, pasture – all these ought to make a pretty figure. And he jotted it down for the hundredth time in the last two years.

Then there was the Desboro collection. That ought to bring —

He hesitated, his pencil finally fell on the table, rolled to the edge and dropped; and he sat thinking of Jacqueline Nevers, and of the week that had ended as the lights of her train faded far away into the winter night.

He sat so still and so long that old Farris came twice to announce luncheon. After a silent meal in company with the dogs and cats of low degree, he lighted a cigarette and went back into the library to resume his meditations.

Whatever they were, they ceased abruptly whenever the distant telephone rang, and he waited almost breathlessly for somebody to come and say that he was wanted on the wire. But the messages must have been to the cook or butler, from butcher, baker, and gentlemen of similar professions, for nobody disturbed him, and he was left free to sink back into the leather corner of the lounge and continue his meditations. Once the furtive apparition of Mrs. Quant disturbed him, hovering ominously at the library door, bearing tumbler and spoon.

"I won't take it," he said decisively.

There was a silence, then:

"Isn't the young lady coming, Mr. James?"

"I don't know. No, probably not to-day."

"Is – is the child sick?" she stammered.

"No, of course not. I expect she'll be here in the morning."

She was not there in the morning. Mr. Mirk, the little old salesman in the silk skull-cap, telephoned to Farris that Miss Nevers was again detained in town on business at Mr. Clydesdale's, and that she might employ a Mr. Sissly to continue her work at Silverwood, if Mr. Desboro did not object. Mr. Desboro was to call her up at three o'clock if he desired further information.

Desboro went into the library and sat down. For a while his idle reflections, uncontrolled, wandered around the main issue, errant satellites circling a central thought which was slowly emerging from chaos and taking definite weight and shape. And the thought was of Jacqueline Nevers.

Why was he waiting here until noon to talk to this girl? Why was he here at all? Why had he not gone South with the others? A passing fancy might be enough to arouse his curiosity; but why did not the fancy pass? What did he want to say to her? What did he want of her? Why was he spending time thinking about her – disarranging his routine and habits to be here when she came? What did he want of her? She was agreeable to talk to, interesting to watch, pretty, attractive. Did he want her friendship? To what end? He'd never see her anywhere unless he sought her out; he would never meet her in any circle to which he had been accustomed, respectable or otherwise. Besides, for conversation he preferred men to women.

What did he want with her or her friendship – or her blue eyes and bright hair – or the slim, girlish grace of her? What was there to do? How many more weeks did he intend to idle about at her heels, follow her, look at her, converse with her, make a habit of her until, now, he found that to suddenly break the habit of only a week's indulgence was annoying him!

And suppose the habit were to grow. Into what would it grow? And how unpleasant would it be to break when, in the natural course of events, circumstances made the habit inconvenient?

And, always, the main, central thought was growing, persisting. What did he want of her? He was not in love with her any more than he was always lightly in love with feminine beauty. Besides, if he were, what would it mean? Another affair, with all its initial charm and gaiety, its moments of frivolity, its moments of seriousness, its sudden crisis, its combats, perplexities, irresolution, the faint thrill of its deeper significance startling both to clearer vision; and then the end, whatever it might be, light or solemn, irresponsible or care-ridden, gay or sombre, for one or the other.

What did he want? Did he wish to disturb her tranquility? Was he trying to awaken her to some response? And what did he offer her to respond to? The flattery of his meaningless attentions, or the honour of falling in love with a Desboro, whose left hand only would be offered to support both slim white hands of hers?

He ought to have gone South, and he knew it, now. Last week he had told himself – and her occasionally – that he was going South in a week. And here he was, his head on his hands and his elbows on the table, looking vacantly at the pile of manuscript she had left there, and thinking of the things that should not happen to them both.

And who the devil was this fellow Sissly? Why had she suddenly changed her mind and suggested a creature named Sissly? Why didn't she finish the cataloguing herself? She had been enthusiastic about it. Besides, she had enjoyed the skating and sleighing, and the luncheons and teas, and the cats and dogs – and even Mrs. Quant. She had said so, too. And now she was too busy to come any more.

Had he done anything? Had he been remiss, or had he ventured too many attentions? He couldn't recall having done anything except to show her plainly enough that he enjoyed being with her. Nor had she concealed her bright pleasure in his companionship. And they had become such good comrades, understanding each other's moods so instinctively now – and they had really found such unfeigned amusement in each other that it seemed a pity – a pity —

"Damn it," he said, "if she cares no more about it than that, she can send Sissly, and I'll go South!"

But the impatience of hurt vanity died away; the desire to see her grew; the habit of a single week was already unpleasant to break. And it would be unpleasant to try to forget her, even among his own friends, even in the South, or in drawing-rooms, or at the opera, or at dances, or in any of his haunts and in any sort of company.

He might forget her if he had only known her better, discovered more of her real self, unveiled a little of her deeper nature. There was so much unexplored – so much that interested him, mainly, perhaps, because he had not discovered it. For theirs had been the lightest and gayest of friendships, with nothing visible to threaten a deeper entente; merely, on her part, a happy enjoyment and a laughing parrying in the eternal combat that never entirely ends, even when it means nothing. And on his side it had been the effortless attentions of a man aware of her young and unspoiled charm – conscious of an unusual situation which always fascinates all men.

He had had no intention, no idea, no policy except to drift as far as the tides of destiny carried him in her company. The situation was agreeable; if it became less so, he could take to the oars and row where he liked.

But the tides had carried him to the edge of waters less clear; he was vaguely aware of it now, aware, too, that troubled seas lay somewhere behind the veil.