Chapter EIGHT: Mutiny

§ i

Andrée was wandering about the “second parlour” that Sunday afternoon, in a state of joyful idleness, humming to herself. It was so blissful to be at home again, now that the horrible shadow was lifted from her mother. She felt a new and precious sense of lightness and irresponsibility, a return of girlhood. She loved the old life, the kindly servants, the jolly breakfasts with Bertie and Edna, she was even ready to love the stuffy and decorous Sundays she had once found so hateful. Her father was sitting by the open window, reading the paper, and she loved him too; because he looked just as he had always looked to her. She went over to him and kissed the top of his head. He glanced up and smiled.

“Well!” he said.

“Well!” she answered. “Are you happy? I am!”

They were thoroughly and beautifully reconciled now. In spite of his disappointment over the conduct of other people under the shadow of death, Gilbert knew that he had acted properly. He had forgiven his daughter, and he intended, in due course of time, to forgive his son-in-law. He had been profoundly affected by Claudine’s illness; he had wished to be with her constantly. But she had not wanted him; she had turned always to Andrée. He had certainly expected, although they had been more or less estranged for some years, that under the shadow of death she would come back to him. She _should_ have said, “After all, we have lived more than twenty years together in storm and sunshine. Let us forget our differences!” But she had not. She had said nothing at all, except to thank him for the profusion of flowers he sent. They hadn’t had a single touching conversation. On that night, which he had spent at her bedside, in agony and fear, she had not even seen him; she had lain gasping, exhausted, bathed in perspiration, with half-open eyes, as far away from him as if she were already dead. It was Edna who had consoled him, and led him away, and it was Andrée who had stayed by Claudine until the crisis was past. It was always Andrée’s name she had murmured--“Andrée! Baby! My baby!”

He had done his best to be just and temperate about this, but it hurt. And as she began to grow better, and the danger was over, his old exasperation at her aloofness returned. He had really longed for a reconciliation; he would have told her frankly that he was sorry for many things in the past, and that he hoped with all his heart to understand her better in the future. It was his eternal passion for something perfect and beautiful in life; if only these twenty years could be crowned now with love, he could have been content. It was easy for him to forgive and forget, the sins of other people as well as his own. But it was not easy for Claudine. He clung to her, for he had nothing else, but she had turned away from him to her children, and she had forgotten him.

He had made a very thoughtful provision for her convalescence. He had learned from her lawyer that her old home in Staten Island--which her father had left her at his death--was temporarily vacant, and he had secured it for a year. Half of it, that is, for her father had converted it into a double house, an improvement by which she had profited, for she had received rent for both halves for years. With the help of Edna he had removed from the storage warehouse as much of Mrs. Mason’s old furniture as they thought good, and later in the spring, when Claudine was strong enough, she was to go there with Edna, to find it all prepared for her. This plan had touched her, she had thanked him with tears in her eyes. He would have gone there with them, if it had been suggested....

“What’s this?” asked Andrée.

He roused himself from his unpleasant meditation, and turned to look at the object she held in her hand.

“That? It’s a game--‘Pigs in Clover.’ I remember your mother was very much amused with it when she was first married.”

Andrée smiled and began to manipulate it, singing again.

Now Gilbert had been brought up to distrust happiness, especially feminine happiness. His mother had never been happy. Claudine was never happy; the only permissible thing in that line was the benevolent, and possibly alcoholically stimulated, high spirits of the _pater familias_, coming home bearing gifts. He loved Andrée, he was delighted to have the pretty, wilful creature about him again, but still, he could not help distrusting such gaiety.

“When do you expect to go home?” he asked.

“This is home!” said Andrée.

“Your home is with your husband, young lady!” he said, severely.

“I know! I’m going--pretty soon.”

There wasn’t the slightest need or reason for staying another hour. She had been there for four weeks, and her mother was now well on the road to recovery. Al telephoned every day, first he asked about Claudine, whose illness he had taken terribly to heart, and then he always said--

“When are you coming home, old girl?”

And she always answered “In a day or so.”

“You know your old father likes nothing better than to have his girl at home,” Gilbert went on. “But you’re a married woman, and you have to think of your duty.”

“I do think of it. But not all the time.... I think I’ll run up and see if Mother’s dressed.”

She had started up the stairs, when the telephone rang, and she ran back to answer it. She was quite sure it would be Al; this was his regular hour.

His voice responded.

“Mrs. Stephens in?”

“This is Andrée!” she answered, brightly. “How are you, Alfred?”

“Your mother doing well?”

“Yes, very!”

And then, instead of his usual query, he said--

“It’s about time you were coming home, isn’t it?”

His voice was somewhat alarming, and she answered in her very pleasantest manner.

“Yes; I’m coming in a day or two, Al.”

“Suppose you come this evening?”

“Oh, I couldn’t! Not possibly!”

“Why not? I’ll come for you about eight.”

“No, Al, it’s not possible. My things aren’t packed.”

“Edna can pack them and send them after you to-morrow.”

“But how ridiculous! Why should I rush off like this?”

“Well,” he said slowly. “Suppose--because I particularly ask you to--?”

“You’re very unreasonable!”

“Humour me, then, for once.”

“No, Al!” she said, firmly. “I can’t come to-night. To-morrow--or the next day--I’ll let you know--”

“Look here, Andrée; I’m coming for you to-night!”

“But I tell you I’m not going home!”

“I insist!”

She laughed.

“What in the world is the matter with you, my dear boy? Do you imagine you can bully me?”

“I don’t want to. I’m asking you--to do me a favour.”

“It’s a ridiculous, selfish, unreasonable favour, and I shan’t do it.”

“I’m coming for you just the same, at eight o’clock!” he said.

She was going to remonstrate with him, but she found that he had left the telephone. Her cheeks flushed, and she bit her lip.

“Little beast!” she said to herself. But some secret thought made her unusually indulgent, she shrugged her shoulders and dismissed the thought of him.

She went on up to her mother’s room and knocked at the door.

“It’s Andrée!” she announced in her triumphal voice, as if that name were a talisman to admit her anywhere.

Claudine was sitting at her dressing-table, brushing her hair. There was grey in it now, on the temples, and her face was thin and drawn. She wore a negligée with high collar and long sleeves, to conceal the pitiful emaciation of her neck and arms. Andrée couldn’t look at her without a twinge of pain.

“I’ll do your hair for you, darling!” she said, and Claudine willingly relinquished the brush to her.

“I am some use to you, aren’t I, Mother?”

“I don’t know what I should have done without you, dear!”

“‘Should have done!’ Then you don’t need me now?”

“You know how dearly I love to have you with me, but--”

“But I ought to go home? I’m not useful any more, and I’m not wanted--”

“Don’t be so unreasonable, my dear! It’s only that I think it unfair to Alfred--”

“Why?” she demanded, impatiently.

“You shouldn’t stay away from him.”

“Why not? He’s always saying he wants me to feel free. He certainly shouldn’t object to my taking a little holiday.”

“And you ought to be at your work again.”

“I can practice here for Doctor Jaas. The Conservatory can wait.”

“You ought to go home!” her mother repeated.

Andrée frowned.

“Al’s just been telephoning, to ‘insist’ upon my coming home this evening. I suppose you think he’s right?”

“Yes.”

“You mean you’d like me to rush off like that?”

“Yes, I should.”

“I shan’t!” said Andrée. “I don’t suppose you’ll mind my waiting until to-morrow to pack my things?”

“If I were you, I should go with Alfred this evening--”

“I wouldn’t for anything! Just give in to his silly whim--”

“It’s not a silly whim.... Andrée.... I wrote to him.”

Andrée stared at her mother’s reflection in the glass.

“What!” she cried.

Claudine opened the drawer of the dressing-table and looked into it.

“I thought--the sooner you went home, the better,” she said, in a low voice.

Andrée did not ask why. She understood very well.

§ ii

It was a marvel to Claudine that no one else had noticed. There was a certain effrontery about them both, a smiling ease, but it should not have deceived Edna. She herself had observed it the first time she had gone downstairs and seen them together. Andrée had been at the piano, and Malloy standing by her, to turn her music. She had looked up at him, and met his eyes, and it was not possible for Claudine to doubt that they understood each other too well. She could not help watching them. Malloy was attentive to Edna--rather too much so--but it was with an air of bravado, of displaying his versatility, his irresistible fascination. With a sidelong glance he would follow Andrée with his idiotic infatuation, his bedazzlement, plain in his face. The very fact that they so seldom spoke to each other made her quite sure that there was a great deal of which she knew nothing. She regarded Andrée’s cool triumph with an aching heart. She was not shocked or astounded; it is a sad truth that no perfidy or evil could shock that woman. She was willing to believe both the best and the worst of anyone; whatever was presented to her, she accepted. She believed that now she was seeing the very worst of Andrée, the selfishness, the recklessness, the cruelty, which she knew better than anyone else. She didn’t blame Malloy; not much was to be expected from him. He was kind-hearted and manly, and so on, but wax in hands like Andrée’s. He didn’t love Andrée; he wouldn’t have thought of her if she hadn’t made him. He had been happy with Edna, and he would be again--if he were let alone. And Andrée didn’t love him; she would forget him. If it were stopped _now_.

That is the reason that Claudine had written to her son-in-law.

“I really think, Alfred, that for several reasons it would be wise to induce Andrée to go home to you as soon as possible, and to take up her work again,” she had written, and she had left it to his common sense to comprehend and to follow her hint.

But she hadn’t reckoned with his unruly passions. He had put two and two together, to make a sum considerably more than four. He had seen Malloy once in their sitting-room at the hotel, where he had come to sing for Andrée. He had decidedly not liked him.

“If he’s engaged to Edna--or going to be--why does he hang around here?” he had asked.

“I suppose he hasn’t the same idea of etiquette as you,” Andrée had answered, with an unpleasant smile. “However, if you don’t like him, I’ll tell him not to come. He’ll understand.”

She had intended to wound and anger him, and she had succeeded. But she had done something more; she had awakened in him that old and buried suspicion for women of Andrée’s class.

Years before he had met Andrée that idea had been superseded. He had made his money, and had begun to know at least a little of that other world. And he saw that the women there were no more or less than human beings, very much hampered and hurt by their idleness. He had tried to see in Andrée not only the beloved woman, but a human being entitled to as many faults and weaknesses as he had himself, entitled to the same moderation of judgment that he himself required. He had deliberately put aside his suspicion of Malloy, he had conquered Andrée’s irritability with his patient good-humour, and they had been getting along very nicely the week before Claudine’s illness.

And now, by the words of Claudine’s letter, all the fruits of his reason were destroyed, and the old distrust and envy and utter misunderstanding came rushing back. He saw Andrée as a stranger of whom he knew really nothing, an unaccountable, alien creature. He knew at once that Claudine’s letter referred to Malloy. No doubt the fellow was hanging about the house there all the time, singing to her....

It was on Saturday night that he got it; he had reflected upon it all that night, and the next morning, and by the afternoon he was in a humour which would have caused Andrée no little astonishment. He hated the Vincelles and all their entourage; he believed that they were laughing at him, that he had been played with all these weeks, that now they fancied they had got well rid of him. All except Claudine; she wasn’t like the others, of course. He wished that he could see her and talk to her, but that couldn’t be. She had at least indicated to him what should be done.

§ iii

At eight o’clock he rang the door bell.

“I want to see Mrs. Stephens!” he said, curtly, to the servant.

“She’s at supper, sir. Will you wait?”

“No; just ask her to step here and speak to me!”

“What name, please, sir?”

“Her husband,” he said, grimly.

They were all in the dining-room, enjoying the “Sunday night tea” of their tradition. Gilbert sat at the head of the table and made jokes, like a patriarch; opposite him was Claudine, on one side Edna and Malloy; on the other, Bertie and Andrée. They lingered; they had not yet thought of rising from the table when the maid entered with her message.

“Mr. Stephens is upstairs, ma’am!” she whispered to Andrée.

“Who is it?” asked Gilbert, in the tone of a man who is master in his own house.

“Mr. Stephens, sir,” answered the girl.

He turned red; he was sorry he had asked; he was very much at a loss. And so was everyone else. This proscribed man actually under this roof! Gilbert was torn between his anger at the fellow’s audacity and the respect due him as a husband. Propriety conquered.

“Ask Mr. Stephens to come down here and join us,” he said. “Bertie, bring up another chair to the table!”

But the girl returned almost immediately.

“Mr. Stephens is sorry, sir, but he is in a hurry, and he would be obliged if Mrs. Stephens would come upstairs.”

Andrée rose. But her expression alarmed her mother.

“Andrée!” she murmured, but her warning was unheeded. Andrée went slowly upstairs, and into the hall where her husband stood waiting. He had not removed his felt hat, but he had thrown open the fur-lined overcoat of which he was so absurdly proud. Never had his appearance so profoundly displeased her.

“What do you want?” she asked.

Her tone excited him to instant hostility.

“I told you I was coming,” he said.

“And I told you not to come.”

She looked at him.

“I didn’t think even you would do a thing like this--coming here--waiting in the hall--like a servant with a message--”

“That’s enough,” he said. “I only want to know whether you’re coming back, or not.”

“When I’m ready, I’ll come.”

“I’m ready now. I’ve waited as long as I’m going to wait.”

“Are you trying to threaten me?” she asked with cold surprise.

“No, I’m simply giving you your choice--to come with me, or to stay.”

“I’ll stay, thank you,” she said.

She had a sudden impulse of pity for him, he looked so desolate and lost. She thought it would be nice to have her cake and also to eat it.

“Let’s not quarrel!” she said. “Come downstairs and have supper with us!”

“No!” he said. “I’m going.... The servant’s delivered his message.”

He opened the door and went out, slamming it after him with a crash.

Andrée struggled against a great desire to cry, or to shout after him, she didn’t know which.

“Little beast!” she said, aloud. “Vulgar little bully!”

“What’s the meaning of this?” said a severe voice behind her, and she turned to see her father.

“There’s no meaning in it at all,” she answered. “Al’s gone home, that’s all.”

“Did you quarrel, Andrée?”

She was surprised; she had forgotten that fathers were supposedly authorized to ask such impertinent questions.

“No,” she said. “He thought I would come home this evening, but I wasn’t ready.”

Gilbert saw some feminine mutiny in this.

“Did you refuse to accompany him?” he asked, in a portentous voice.

“Yes,” she answered. “Of course I did. Is that a crime? Am I supposed to humour every caprice?”

Gilbert stopped her with a gesture. He put himself in Alfred’s place; he knew how he would have felt under the circumstances, how humiliated and furious.

“No doubt he had very good reasons. You’ve already remained away for over five weeks--”

“Four weeks.”

“Four weeks, then. You have--in my opinion--you have neglected him.”

Andrée made no defense, but her air was not acquiescent. Gilbert became more fatherly.

“Now, I’ll tell you what you’ll do, Andrée. Telephone your husband, and tell him you’ll be home in an hour or so. And I’ll take you myself, and make the young man’s acquaintance, eh?”

“No, thank you, Father. I’m not ready to go.”

“Get ready then! Get ready! Bertie will telephone for you. Bertie!” he called. “Bertie! Just a moment, please!”

Bertie came running upstairs.

“Your sister’s going home--”

“I’m not!” said Andrée.

Gilbert was astounded.

“This is a serious matter,” he said. “I can’t permit it. It’s your duty to go home to your husband.”

“I’ll just postpone the duty for a few days,” said Andrée.

“I say no! He came for you this evening and--”

“What is the matter?” asked Claudine’s low voice. She had come up after Bertie, and was standing in the shadow, outside the circle of light cast by the lamp on the newel post.

“I am telling Andrée that she must go home to-night. It seems her husband came to fetch her and she refused to go with him.”

“She’ll go to-morrow,” said Claudine. “It’s rather late now.”

“Father,” said Andrée, “I don’t want to be rude--but it’s my own affair. I can’t let anyone tell me what I shall do. I’ll go home when I think best.”

“This is outrageous!” shouted Gilbert. “You can’t adopt that tone toward me, young woman! You’ve been spoilt and indulged long enough! Bertie, go down to the garage and bring the car!”

“No!” cried Claudine.

“Do as I tell you! Now, Andrée, I’ll give you fifteen minutes to pack what you need, and then you’ll go, ready or not. This is my house, and what I say shall be done. Do you understand?”

“I believe I do!” she answered, carelessly. “You’re putting me out, aren’t you? Very well, I’ll go!”

She turned and ran up the stairs.

Claudine turned upon Gilbert with desperation.

“Gilbert! Go after her! Tell her she can wait! Tell her--”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort!” he answered. “I won’t be defied in my own house--”

She seized his arms with her weak hands and actually tried to shake him.

“Stop her!” she cried. “Stop her! You don’t realize what you’re doing!”

He looked down at his wife with stupefaction.

“Stop her!” she cried, again. “Go after her and tell her to wait!”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said, severely, “to suggest--”

But she didn’t wait for him to finish.

“Then I’m going with her,” she said.

With trembling knees she ascended the stairs, entered her room and began dressing. She hastily put into a little bag a few necessary clothes, her jewel case and her bank books, and came out again, just as Andrée had gone downstairs.

“Gilbert!” she whispered to her husband. “I must stay with her until they are reconciled. It’s a matter of vital importance!”

He was touched; she was so ill, so weak, so terribly upset.

“Very well!” he said. “Bertie will take you to their house. Take care of yourself! You’re not fit to go out.”

She gave him a hasty kiss, and taking Bertie’s arm, left the house. Andrée was already in the street, standing beside the car.

“I’ll have to drive you,” said Bertie. “Donald was out.”

“But you won’t drive me home, my child!” said Andrée. “You can take me to some other hotel.”

“Take her wherever she wants, Bertie!” said Claudine, with a sob.