Love in a Cloud: A Comedy in Filigree

"Oh, Miss Wentstile! She thinks because Alice is her niece she can do what she likes with her. It's all nonsense. Alice has always been fond of Jack Neligage. Everybody knows that."

Mrs. Croydon managed somehow to communicate to her innumerable streamers and pennants a flutter which seemed to be meant to indicate violent inward laughter.

"Oh, what a child you are, Miss Calthorpe! I declare, I really must put you into my next novel. I really must!"

"May is still so young as to be romantic, of course," Mrs. Harbinger remarked, flashing at her young friend a quick sidewise glance. "Besides which she has been educated in a convent; and in a convent a girl must be either imaginative or a fool, or she'll die of ennui."

"I suppose you never were romantic yourself," put in May defensively.

"Oh, yes, my dear; I had my time of being a fool. Why, once I even fell violently in love with a man I had never seen."

The swift rush of color into the face of Miss Calthorpe might have arrested the attention of Mrs. Croydon, but at that moment the voice of Graham interrupted, announcing: —

"Mr. Bradish; Mr. Neligage."

The two men who entered were widely different in appearance.

That Mr. Bradish was considerably the elder was evident from his appearance, yet he came forward with an eager air which secured for him the first attention. He was lantern-jawed, and sanguine in color. Near-sight glasses unhappily gave to his eyes an appearance of having been boiled, and distorted his glance into an absurd likeness to a leer. A shadow of melancholy, vague yet palpable, softened his face, and was increased by the droop of his Don Quixote like yellow mustaches. The bald spot on his head and the stoop in his shoulders betrayed cruelly the fact that Harry Bradish was no longer young; and no less plainly upon everything about him was stamped the mark of a gentleman.

Jack Neligage, on the other hand, came in with a face of irresistible good nature. There was a twinkle in his brown eyes, a spark of humor and kindliness which could evidently not be quenched even should there descend upon him serious misfortune. His face was still young enough hardly to show the marks of dissipation which yet were not entirely invisible to the searching eye; his hair was crisp and abundant; his features regular and well formed. He was a young fellow so evidently intended by nature for pleasure that to expect him to take life seriously would have seemed a sort of impropriety. An air of youth, and of jocund life, of zest and of mirthfulness came in with Jack, inevitably calling up smiles to meet him. Even disapproval smiled on Jack; and it was therefore not surprising if he evaded most of the reproofs which are apt to be the portion of an idle pleasure-seeker. He moved with a certain languid alertness that was never hurried and yet never too late. This served him well on the polo-field, where he was deliberately swift and swiftly deliberate in most effective fashion. He came into the drawing-room now with the easy mien of a favorite, yet with an indifference which seemed so natural as to save him from all appearance of conceit. He had the demeanor of the conscious but not quite spoiled darling of fortune.

"You are just in time for the first brewing of tea," Mrs. Harbinger said, when greetings had been exchanged. "This tea was sent me by a Russian countess who charged me to let nobody drink it who takes cream. It is really very good if you get it fresh."

"To have the tea and the hostess both fresh," Mr. Bradish responded, "will, I fear, be too intoxicating."

"Never mind the tea," broke in Mrs. Croydon. "I am much more interested in what we were talking about. Mr. Bradish, you can tell us about Count Shimbowski and Alice Endicott."

Jack Neligage turned about with a quickness unusual in him.

"The Count and Miss Endicott?" he demanded. "What about them? Who's had the impertinence to couple their names?"

Mrs. Croydon put up her hands in pretended terror, a hundred tags of ribbon fluttering as she did so.

"Oh, don't blame me," she said. "I didn't do it. They're engaged."

Neligage regarded her with a glance of vexed and startled disfavor. Then he gave a short, scornful laugh.

"What nonsense!" he said. "Nobody could believe that."

"But it's true," put in Bradish. "Miss Wentstile herself told me that she had arranged the match, and that I might mention it."

Neligage looked at the speaker an instant with a disbelieving smile on his lip; and tossing his head went to lean his elbow on the mantel.

"Arranged!" he echoed. "Good heavens! Is this a transaction in real estate?"

"Marriage so often is, Mr. Neligage," observed Mrs. Harbinger, with a smile.

Bradish began to explain with the solemn air which he had. He was often as obtuse and matter-of-fact as an Englishman, and now took up the establishment of the truth of his news with as much gravity as if he were setting forth a point of moral doctrine. He seemed eager to prove that he had at least been entirely innocent of any deception, and that whatever he had said must be blamelessly credible.

"Of course it's extraordinary, and I said so to Miss Wentstile. She said that as the Count is a foreigner, it was very natural for him to follow foreign fashions in arranging the marriage with her instead of with Alice."

"And she added, I've no doubt," interpolated Mrs. Harbinger, "that she entirely approved of the foreign fashion."

"She did say something of that sort," admitted Bradish, with entire gravity.

Mrs. Harbinger burst into a laugh, and trimmed the wick of her tea-lamp. Neligage grinned, but his pleasant face darkened instantly.

"Miss Wentstile is an old idiot!" said he emphatically.

"Oh, come, Mr. Neligage," remonstrated his hostess, "that is too strong language. We must observe the proprieties of abuse."

"And say simply that she is Miss Wentstile," suggested Mrs. Croydon sweetly.

The company smiled, with the exception of May, whose face had been growing longer and longer.

"I don't care what she says," the girl burst out indignantly; "I don't believe Alice will listen to such a thing for one minute."

"Perhaps she won't," Bradish rejoined doubtfully, "but Miss Wentstile is famous for having her own way. I'm sure I shouldn't feel safe if she undertook to marry me off."

"She might take you for herself if she knew her power, Mr. Bradish," responded Mrs. Croydon. "No more tea, my dear, thank you."

"For Heaven's sake don't mention it then," he answered. "It's enough to have Jack here upset. The news is evidently too much for him."

"What news has upset my son, Mr. Bradish?" demanded a crisp voice from the doorway. "I shall disown him if he can't hide his feelings."

Past Graham, who was prepared to announce her, came a little woman, bright, vivacious, sparkling; with clear complexion and mischievous dimples. A woman trimly dressed, and in appearance hardly older than the son she lightly talked of disowning. The youthfulness of Mrs. Neligage was a constant source of irritation to her enemies, and with her tripping tongue and defiant independence she made enemies in plenty. Her gypsyish beauty and clear skin were offenses serious enough; but for a woman with a son of five and twenty to look no more than that age herself was a vexation which was not to be forgiven. Some had been spiteful enough to declare that she preserved her youth by being entirely free from feeling; but since in the same breath they were ready to charge the charming widow with having been by her emotions carried into all sorts of improprieties, the accusation was certainly to be received with some reservations. Certainly she was the fortunate possessor of unfailing spirits, of constant cleverness, and delightful originality. She had the courage, moreover, of daring to do what she wished with the smallest possible regard for conventions; and it has never been clearly shown how much independence of conventionality and freedom of life may effect toward the preservation of a woman's youth.

She evidently understood the art of entering a room well. She came forward swiftly, yet without ungraceful hurry. She nodded brightly to the ladies, gave Bradish the momentary pleasure of brushing her finger-tips with his own as she passed him, then went forward to shake hands with Mrs. Harbinger. Without having done anything in particular she was evidently entire mistress of the situation, and the rest of the company became instantly her subordinates. Mrs. Croydon, almost twice her size and so elaborately overdressed, appeared suddenly to have become dowdy and ill at ease; yet nothing could have been more unconscious or friendly than the air with which the new-comer turned from the hostess to greet the other lady. There are women to whom superiority so evidently belongs by nature that they are not even at the trouble of asserting it.

"Oh, Mrs. Neligage," Mrs. Croydon said, as she grasped at the little glove which glanced over hers as a bird dips above the water, "you have lived so much abroad that you should be an authority on foreign marriages."

"Just as you, having lived in Chicago, should be an authority on un-marriages, I suppose. Well, I've had the fun of disturbing a lot of foreign marriages in my day. What marriage is this?"

"We were speaking of Miss Wentstile's proposing to marry Alice to Count Shimbowski," explained Mrs. Harbinger.

"Then," returned Mrs. Neligage lightly, "you had better speak of something else as quickly as possible, for Alice and her aunt are just behind me. Let us talk of Mrs. Croydon's anonymous novel that's made such a stir while I've been in Washington. What is it? 'Cloudy Love'! That sounds tremendously improper. My dear, if you don't wish to see me fall in a dead faint at your feet, do give me some tea. I'm positively worn out."

She seated herself near Mrs. Croydon, over whose face during her remarks had flitted several expressions, none of them over-amiable, and watched the hostess fill her cup.

"Come, Mrs. Neligage," protested Bradish with an air of mild solicitation. "You are really too bad, you know. It isn't 'Cloudy Love,' but 'Love in a Cloud.' I didn't know that you confessed to writing it, Mrs. Croydon."

"Oh, I don't. I only refuse to deny it."

"Oh, well, now; not to deny is equivalent to a confession," he returned.

"Not in the least," Mrs. Neligage struck in. "When you are dealing with a woman, Mr. Bradish, it isn't safe even to take things by contraries."

IV

THE TICKLING OF AN AUTHOR

The entrance of Miss Wentstile and her niece Alice Endicott made the company so numerous that it naturally broke up into groups, and the general conversation was suspended.

Miss Wentstile was a lady of commanding presence, whose youth was with the snows of yester year. She had the eye of a hawk and the jaw of a bulldog; nor was the effect of these rather formidable features softened by the strong aquiline nose. Her hair was touched with gray, but her color was still fresh and too clear not to be natural. She was richly dressed in dark green and fur, her complexion making the color possible in spite of her years. She was a woman to arouse attention, and one, too, who was evidently accustomed to dominate. She cast a keen glance about her as she crossed the room to her hostess, sweeping her niece along with her not without a suggestion that she dragged the girl as a captive at her chariot-wheel.

Jack Neligage stepped forward as she passed him, evidently with the intention of intercepting the pair, or perhaps of gaining a word with Alice Endicott.

"How do you do, Miss Wentstile," he said. "I am happy to see you looking so well."

"There is no reason why I should not look well, Mr. Neligage," she responded severely. "I never sit up all night to smoke and drink and play cards."

Neligage smiled his brightest, and made her a bow of mock deference.

"Indeed, Miss Wentstile," he responded, "I am delighted to know that your habits have become so correct."

She retorted with a contemptuous sniff, and by so effectually interposing between him and her niece that Miss Endicott could only nod to him over her aunt's shoulder. Jack made a grimace more impertinent than courtly, and for the time turned away, while the two ladies went on to Mrs. Harbinger.

"Well, Alice," Mrs. Harbinger said, "I am glad you have come at last. I began to think that I must appoint a substitute to pour in your place."

"I am sorry to be so late," Miss Endicott responded, as she and her hostess exchanged places. "I was detained unexpectedly."

"I kept her," Miss Wentstile announced with grim suddenness. "I have been talking to her about – "

"Aunt Sarah," interposed Alice hurriedly, "may I give you some tea?"

"Don't interrupt me, Alice. I was talking to her about – "

Mrs. Harbinger looked at the crimsoning cheeks of Alice, and meeting the girl's imploring glance, gave her a slight but reassuring nod.

"My dear Miss Wentstile," she said, "I know you will excuse me; but here are more people coming."

Miss Wentstile could hardly finish her remarks to the air, and as Mrs. Harbinger left her to greet a new arrival the spinster turned sharply to May Calthorpe, who had snuggled up to Alice in true school-girl fashion.

"Ah, May," Miss Wentstile observed, "what do you settle down there for? Don't you know that now you have been brought out in society you are expected to make your market?"

"No, Miss Wentstile," May responded; "if my market can't make itself, then it may go unmade."

The elder turned away with another characteristic sniff, and Alice and May were left to themselves. People were never tired of condemning Miss Wentstile for her brusque and naked remarks; but after all society is always secretly grateful for any mortal who has the courage to be individual. The lady was often frank to the verge of rudeness; she was so accustomed to having her own way that one felt sure she would insist upon it at the very Judgment Seat; she said what she pleased, and exacted a deference to her opinions and to her wishes such as could hardly under existing human conditions be accorded to any mortal. Miss Wentstile must have been too shrewd not to estimate reasonably well the effect of her peculiarities, and no human being can be persistently eccentric without being theatrical. It was evident enough that she played in some degree to the gallery; and undoubtedly from this it is to be argued that she was not without some petty enjoyment in the notoriety which her manners produced. Should mankind be destroyed, the last thing to disappear would probably be human vanity, which, like the grin of the Cheshire cat in "Alice," would linger after the race was gone. Vanity in the individual is nourished by the notice of others; and if Miss Wentstile became more and more confirmed in her impertinences, it is hardly to be doubted that increase of vanity was the cause most active. She outwardly resented the implication that she was eccentric; but as she contrived continually and even complacently to become steadily more so, society might be excused for not thinking her resentment particularly deep. Dislike for notoriety perhaps never cured any woman of a fault; and certainly in the case of Miss Wentstile it was not in the least corrective.

The relations between Miss Wentstile and Alice Endicott were well known. Alice was the doubly orphaned daughter of a gallant young officer killed in a plucky skirmish against superior force in the Indian troubles, and of the wife whose heart broke at his loss. At six Alice was left, except for a small pension, practically penniless, and with no nearer relative than Miss Wentstile. That lady had undertaken the support of the child, but had kept her much at school until the girl was sixteen. Then the niece became an inmate of her aunt's house, and outwardly, at least, the mere slave of the older lady's caprices. Miss Wentstile was kind in her fashion. In all that money bought she was generous. Alice was richly dressed, she might have what masters she wished, be surrounded by whatever luxuries she chose. As if the return for these benefits was to be implicit obedience, Miss Wentstile was impatient of any show toward herself of independence. If Alice could be imagined as bearing herself coldly and haughtily toward the world in general, – a possibility hardly to be conceived of, – Miss Wentstile might be pictured glorying in such a display of proper spirit; but toward her aunt the girl was expected to be all humility and concession. As neither was without the pride which belonged to the Wentstile blood, it is easy to see that perfect harmony was not to be looked for between the pair. Alice had all the folly of girlhood, which is so quick to refuse to be bullied into affection; which is so blind as not to perceive that an elder who insists upon its having no will of its own is providing excellent lessons in the high graces of humility and meekness. Clever observers – and society remains vital chiefly in virtue of its clever observers – detected that Miss Wentstile chafed with an inward consciousness that the deference of her niece was accorded as a courtesy and not as a right. The spinster had not the tact to avoid betraying her perception that the submission of Alice was rather outward than inward, and the public sense of justice was somewhat appeased in its resentment at her domineering treatment by its enjoyment of her powerlessness either to break the girl's spirit or force her into rebellion.

The fondness of Alice for Jack Neligage was the one tangible thing with which Miss Wentstile could find fault; and this was so intangible after all that it was difficult to seize upon it. Nobody doubted that the two were warmly attached. Jack had never made any effort to hide his admiration; and while Alice had been more circumspect, the instinct of society is seldom much at fault in a matter of this sort. For Miss Wentstile to be sure that her niece favored the man of all others most completely obnoxious, and to bring the offense home to the culprit were, however, matters quite different. Now that Miss Wentstile had outdone herself in eccentricity by boldly adopting the foreign fashion of a mariage de convenance, there was every reason to believe that the real power of the spinster would be brought to the test. Nobody doubted that behind this absurd attempt to make a match between Alice and Count Shimbowski lay the determination to separate the girl from Jack Neligage; and it was inevitable that the struggle should be watched for with eager interest.

The first instant that there was opportunity for a confidential word, May Calthorpe rushed precipitately upon the subject of the reported engagement.

"Oh, Alice," she said, in a hurried half-whisper, "do you know that Miss Wentstile says she has arranged an engagement between you and that horrid Hungarian Count."

Alice turned her long gray eyes quickly to meet those of her companion.

"Has she really told of it?" she demanded almost fiercely.

"They were all talking of it before you came in," May responded.

Her voice was deepened, apparently by a tragic sense of the gravity of the subject under discussion; yet she was a bud in her first season, so that it was impossible that there should not also be in her tone some faint consciousness of the delightfully romantic nature of the situation.

An angry flush came into the cheek of Miss Endicott. She was not a girl of striking face, although she had beautiful eyes; but there was a dignity in her carriage, an air of birth and breeding, which gave her distinction anywhere. She possessed, moreover, a sweet sincerity of character which made itself subtly felt in her every tone and movement. Now she knit her forehead in evident perplexity and resentment.

"But did they believe it?" she asked.

"Oh, they would believe anything of Miss Wentstile, of course," May replied. "We all know Aunt Sarah too well not to know that she is capable of the craziest thing that could be thought of."

She picked out a fat bonbon as she spoke, and nibbled it comfortably, as if thoroughly enjoying herself.

"But what can I do?" demanded Alice pathetically. "I can't stand up here and say: 'Ladies and gentlemen, I really have no idea of marrying that foreign thing Aunt Sarah wants to buy for me.'"

Whatever reply May might have made was interrupted by the arrival of a gentleman with an empty teacup. The new-comer was Richard Fairfield, a young man of not much money but of many friends, and of literary aspirations. As he crossed the drawing-room Mrs. Neligage carelessly held out to him her cup and saucer.

"As you are going that way, Richard," she said without preface of salutation, "do you mind taking my cup to the table?"

"Delighted, of course," he answered, extending his hand for it.

"If Mrs. Neligage will permit me," broke in Mr. Bradish, darting forward. "I beg ten thousand pardons for not perceiving – "

"But Mrs. Neligage will not permit you, Mr. Bradish," she responded brightly. "I have already commissioned Richard."

Fairfield received the cup, and bore it away, while Bradish cast upon the widow a glance of reproach and remonstrance.

"You women all pet a rising author," he said. "I suppose it's because you all hope to be put in his books."

"Oh, no. On the contrary it is because we hope to be left out."

"I don't see," he went on with little apparent relevancy, "why you need begrudge me the pleasure of doing you a small favor."

"I don't wish you to get too much into the habit of doing small favors," she responded over her shoulder, as she turned back to the group with which she had been chatting. "I am afraid that if you do, you'll fail when I ask a great one."

Fairfield made his way to the table where Alice was dispensing tea. He was by her welcomed cordially, by May with a reserve which was evidently absent-minded regret that he should break in upon her confidences with her cousin. He exchanged with Alice the ordinary greetings, and then made way for a fresh arrival who wished for tea. May responded rather indifferently to his remarks as he took a chair at the end of the sofa upon which she was seated, seeming so absorbed that in a moment he laughed at some irrelevant reply which she gave.

"You did not understand what I said," he remarked. "I didn't mean – "

"I beg your pardon," she interrupted, turning toward him. "I was thinking of something I was talking about with Alice, and I didn't mind what you did say."

"I am sorry that I interrupted."

"Oh, everybody interrupts at an afternoon tea," she responded, smiling. "That is what we are here for, I suppose. I was simply in a cloud – "

Fairfield returned her smile with interest.

"Is that an allusion?"

May flushed a little, and put her hand consciously to the carnation at her throat.

"Oh, no," she answered, with a little too much eagerness. "I can talk of something beside that book. Though of course," she added, "I do think it is a perfectly wonderful story. There is so much heart in it. Why, I have read it so much that I know parts of it almost word for word."

"Then you don't think it is cynical?"

"Oh, not the least in the world! How can anybody say that? I am ashamed of you, Mr. Fairfield."

"I didn't mean that I thought it cynical; but lots of folk do, you know."

May tossed her hands in a girlish gesture of disdain.

"I hate people that call everything cynical. It is a thing that they just say to sound wise. 'Love in a Cloud' is to me one of the truest books I ever read. Why, you take that scene where she tells him she cares for him just the same in spite of his disgrace. It brings the tears into my eyes every time I read it."

A new light came into the young man's face as she spoke in her impulsive, girlish fashion. He was a handsome fellow, with well-bred face. He stroked his silky mustache with an air not unsuggestive of complacency.

"It is delightful," said he, "to find somebody who really appreciates the book for what is best in it. Of course there are a great many people who say nice things about it, but they don't seem to go to the real heart of it as you do."

"Oh, the story has so much heart," she returned. Then she regarded him quizzically. "You speak almost as if you had written it yourself."

"Oh, I – That is – Why, you see," he answered, in evident confusion, "I suppose that my being an embryo literary man myself makes it natural for me to take the point of view of the author. Most readers of a novel, you know, care for nothing but the plot, and see nothing else."