Priceless Pearl — Chapter I Part 3

They were to be typewritten.

He had no intention of struggling with any woman's handwriting, though Augusta murmured that hers was considered very legible.

It was not her custom to take a definite step like this without consulting Horace--not so much because Horace insisted on it as because she thought highly of his opinion.

She was astonished now, as in the Subway she thought over the interview, to find how little she had been thinking of Horace.

They had been engaged for something over two years, one of those comfortable engagements, which until recently had had no prospects of marriage.

The Rutland College Club is almost deserted in summer.

As she ran upstairs to the library, where she was to meet Horace, she glanced at her watch and saw to her regret that he must have been waiting almost an hour, for he was punctual, and usually arrived a little ahead of the hour.

She was sorry--such a busy man; but he would understand--she would explain---- He rose from a deep chair as she entered--a serious young man whom everyone trusted at first sight.

She saw he looked a little more serious than usual, and her sense of guilt made her attribute this seriousness to her own fault.

She began to explain quickly and with unaccustomed vivacity.

She sketched the interview--Mr. Wood--his office--the promise--the letters--the turquoise.

Horace kept getting more and more solemn, although it seemed to her that she made a very good story of it--more amusing perhaps than the reality had been.

"Isn't it exciting?"

she said.

"I'm going down on Thursday, under this contract, to stay two months."

"No, you're not," said Horace.

She stared at him.

He had never spoken like that in all the years she had known him.

"What do you mean, dear?"

she said rather reprovingly.

"You were so busy telling me about this Adonis you're going to work for you did not stop to consider that I might have some news of my own.

I've landed that job in Canada, and I'm going there on Friday and you're going with me.

You're going to marry me the day after tomorrow and start north on Friday."

She stared at him, many emotions succeeding each other on her face.

She had given her word--her most solemn word.

She could hear Wood's quiet voice asserting his confidence in her.

"I know I can depend on you; if you give me your word I know you'll keep it."

She could not break it.

She said this, expecting that Horace would admire her for her dependability--would at least agree with her that she was doing right.

But instead he looked at her with a smoldering expression, and when she had finished he broke out.

In fact he made her a scene of jealousy--the first he had ever made--but none the worse for that.

For a beginner Horace showed a good deal of talent.

He accused her openly of having fallen in love with this fellow; she wasn't a girl to do anything as silly as that except under a hypnotic influence.

People did fall in love at first sight.

There were Romeo and Juliet; Shakespeare was a fairly wise guy--these letters every day--why, if she wrote to him, Horace, once a week he was lucky--but every day to this man.

And jewels and money--no, not much!

Jealousy, which is popularly supposed to be an erratic and fantastic emotion, is often founded on the soundest intuition.

Augusta found herself hampered in defending herself by a certain inner doubt; and her silence enabled Horace to work himself up to such a pitch that he issued an ultimatum--a dangerous thing to do.

She would either marry him and go to Canada with him, or else everything was over between them.

It was a terrible situation for Augusta.

On the one hand, her spoken word, given to a person whose good opinion she greatly desired, and on the other, her sincere love of Horace, increased by the decisive stand he was taking; for it is unfortunately true that if you do not hate a person for making a scene you love him more.

Perhaps Horace saw this.

In any case, he would not retreat an inch.

This was the situation when the door of the library opened and in came Augusta's friend and classmate, Pearl Leavitt, with whom she had an engagement for luncheon--only in the general strain and excitement of the morning she had entirely forgotten the fact.

Pearl, like Augusta herself, was too much occupied with her own mood to notice that a mood was already waiting for her.

It seemed to her that Augusta and Horace were just sitting there as usual, without much to say to each other.

She had been looking for a job all the morning, and all the day before, and was discovering that beauty may find it as hard to get a job as it had been to keep one.

"Hullo, Gussie!

Hullo, Horrie!"

she said, striding in, full of her own troubles.

"I think men are just terrible."

"You must have changed a lot," said Bayne, who was in no humor to let anything pass.

He had known Pearl since her freshman year at Rutland, and was accustomed to seeing her surrounded by a flock of the condemned sex, whose attentions had never seemed unwelcome.

"Yes, I've changed," said Pearl.

"You see, I've worked for men--at least I've tried to.

I've been trying to all morning.

If they kept turning you down because you were lame or marked with smallpox they'd feel ashamed, but if they turn you down because they think you're good-looking----" Miss Leavitt here interrupted her narrative to give a grinning representation of the speaker.

"'Forgive my speaking plainly, but you are too good-looking for office work.'

Doesn't it occur to them that even good-looking people must eat?

And they are so smug and pleased with themselves.

Well, here I am with two weeks' salary between me and starvation--all on account of my looks.

I believe I'll go and teach in a convent, where there are not any men to be rendered hysterical by my appearance."

And she gave a terrible glance at Horace, and then feeling she had been too severe she beamed at him--beaming at Horace was perfectly safe--and added, "I've always liked you, Horrie; but I have no use for your sex--especially as employers; they are too emotional."

"And what would you say, Pearl," said Horace in a deadly impartial tone, "if a man offered you a job, and in the first interview told his life's story, asked you to write to him every day and promised you jewels if you stayed on the job until he got back--what would you say?"

"I wouldn't say a word," answered Pearl.

"I'd take to the tall timber.

I know that kind."

"You are both absolutely ridiculous," said Augusta haughtily.

"You are absolutely right," said Horace.

"You don't mean to say that someone has been trying to wangle Augusta away from you, Horace?"

asked Pearl, generously abandoning all interest in her own problems for the moment.

The two others said no and yes simultaneously, and began to pour out the story.

Augusta's point was that Horace did not respect her business honor or else he would not ask her to break--Horace's point was that Augusta did not really love him or she wouldn't think up all these excuses--she'd marry him as he asked her to do.

Ah, but he hadn't had any idea of getting married until he heard that she was going to take this place!

He had--he had--he had come there to tell her, only she had been so excited about this other man---- Nonsense, the trouble with Horace was that he was jealous.

No, he was not at all jealous, but if he were he had good reason to be--writing to a man every day, and accepting jewels---- Pearl kept looking from one to the other, deeply interested.

In the first pause--which did not come for a long time--she said gravely, "How is it, Gussie?

Do you really want to marry Horace?"

She said it very nicely, but on her expressive face was written the thought that she herself could not see how anyone could want to marry him.

"I do, I do," answered Augusta rather tearfully; "but how can I when I've given my word?"

"I'll tell you how you can," said Pearl.

"You marry him and disappear into the wilds of Canada, and I'll take your place with the Conway family."

They stared at each other like people waiting for the sound of an explosion.

They were trying to think of obstacles.

"Except," said Pearl, "that I'm not efficient like you, and not very good at mathematics."

"You were efficient in the way you ran the junior ball," said Augusta.

"Everyone said----" A spasm of amusement crossed Pearl's face.

"Did I never tell you about that?"

she said.

"I vamped the senior at Amherst who had run theirs, and he not only gave me all the dope but he did most of my work.

I was a mine of information.

But that isn't efficiency."

"I disagree with you," said Augusta.

The more she thought of this idea, the more it seemed to her perfect.

There had always been a kind of magic about Pearl, and wasn't magic the highest form of human efficiency?

It was not breaking one's word to substitute a better article than that contracted for.

To send Pearl in her place would be keeping her word doubly.

She saw Pearl charming Antonia, dazzling the boy, setting all the Conway household to rights by ways peculiarly her own.

"But perhaps they won't want Pearl," said Horace.

"I mean----" "They won't have any choice," said the two girls together.

"But I mean," reiterated Horace, "that no one would want a governess who looked like Pearl."

Then the storm broke over his head.

What?

Wouldn't he even let her be a governess?

Did he want her just to starve?

Would he tell her what she could do?

Starve perhaps--just starve--all men were alike.

Again Pearl began to stride up and down the room, flicking the front of her small black hat with her forefinger until finally it fell off and rolled on the floor like an old-fashioned cannon ball.

If Horace had spoken from motives of diplomacy he could not have done better for himself.

His objection made the two girls a unit for the plan.

It just showed, Pearl explained, that if Horace, who had known her all these years, really considered her looks an obstacle to her taking a place even as a governess, why, it was hopeless to suppose that she could ever get another job.

At length they sent him away--he had a business engagement of his own for lunch--and they settled down quietly to discuss the details of the plan over one of the small bare gray wood tables of the club's dining room.

Ordinarily they would have spent most of their time complaining about the club luncheon, which consisted largely of loose leaves of lettuce and dabs of various kinds of sauces; but now they were so interested that they were hardly conscious of what they put into their mouths.

Of course, Pearl would be obliged to go in the character of Miss Exeter.

Mr. Wood would undoubtedly have given some description of the governess' personal appearance when he telephoned his sister, as he had said he meant to do.

But Augusta was not alarmed by this idea.

Men were so queer about women's looks that Mrs. Conway would say, "Isn't that like a man, not even to know a great beauty when he sees one?"

As to the daily letter, how fortunate that he had insisted it should be typewritten.

Anyone could sign Augusta Exeter to a man who had seen her signature only once.

"I hope you won't be found out; I don't see how you can be," said Augusta.

"I can't see that it matters much if I am," answered Pearl.

"I'll try to put it off, anyhow, until they have become attached to me for myself."

And then suddenly falling back in her chair, she stared at her friend with opened eyes.

"My dear, I can't do it!

How could I have forgotten?

I can't leave Alfred!"

Alfred was not a beautiful young lover, as her tone of lingering affection might have seemed to indicate, but a peculiarly ugly black-and-white cat--black where he ought to have been white, and vice versa--that is to say, black round one eye, which made him look dissipated, and black about the nose, which made him look dirty.

Also he had lost one paw.

Pearl had rescued him from a band of boys in an alley and cherished him with a steady maternal affection.

"Oh, Alfred," said Augusta, as if this did not make much difference.

This was not only wrong in tone but she had failed to say the thing Pearl wanted her to say, namely, that Mrs. Conway would be delighted if the new governess brought her pet cat with her.

Pearl explained that Alfred was really no trouble in the house--he slept all day and caught mice at night--except one night he did tumble all the way downstairs on account of his paw.

"And you'd be surprised, Gussie," said Pearl, her whole generous face lighting up with admiration; "that cat--that little creature made a noise like an elephant falling, he's so solid."

But Augusta, who was not so easily moved to admiration as Pearl, was not at all moved now.

"I can't see," she observed coldly, "what it is you see in Alfred that makes you love him so."

Pearl, who had really a nice nature, wasn't angry.

"It isn't exactly that I love him so much," she answered.

"But I feel so sorry for him; and when I feel sorry for anyone they to a certain extent own me.

I feel as if I could never make up to them for the way life has treated them.

I feel that way to Alfred--about his paw, you know."

"You didn't feel that way to the man who cried in the Encyclopedia."

"I should say not," answered Pearl.

"No, I can't pity him.

He was such a poor sport about it.

Men are poor sports where women are concerned--even Horace.

If you had asked him to break his word because you had had a brain storm he'd have been shocked."

"He'd have been immensely flattered," said Augusta reflectively.

"But he thinks it's absolutely all right for him to break up all your business arrangements because he goes off halfcocked with a fantastic idea that you've fallen in love with a man you merely want to work for."

Augusta thought a minute and then she said, "It wasn't quite so fantastic as you think, Pearl.

I was attracted by Mr. Wood.

I might have fallen in love with him if I had been brought into contact with him much more.

Oh, Pearl, haven't you ever felt a sudden charm like that?"

Pearl shook her head: She could not say,--perhaps she did not really herself understand why such emotions were forbidden to her, but the true reason was that if her speaking countenance had ever turned upon a man with that thought in mind the next instant her lovely nose would have been buried in a tweed lapel or grating against a stiff collar.

"You know," Augusta went on, "that I really love Horace; and Mr. Wood took no interest in me, except as a governess for his nieces; but have you never said to yourself, 'There is the type of man whom I could have loved madly if only things had been different'?"

Again Pearl's head wagged.

Then she said, "Describe my employer to me."

"Well," Augusta began solemnly, "he has a smooth brown face out of which look two bright-blue eyes like a Chinaman."

Pearl scowled.

"But Chinamen don't have blue eyes," she objected.

"No more they do.

Why did I keep thinking of China then?

China-blue, perhaps, or maybe the way they are set.

I think there is an angle--a little up at the corners.

Then his shoulders are broad, or his waist is awfully thin, because his coat falls in that loose nice way, like the English officers who came to lecture at college."

"Mercy," said Pearl, "what things you notice!"

"And he's very direct, and not at all afraid of saying what has to be said.

And he doesn't lecture you about women's intuition or how he made his business success or any of those things that men always do talk about when they offer you a job.

And oh, it rings in my ears the way he said as we parted, 'If you give me your word I know I can trust you to keep it,' or something like that."

And at this moment the housekeeper of the club came into the dining room, nominally to see that luncheon was being properly served, but actually, as she soon explained, because the club was so lonely in summer, and her little dog had been killed by an automobile the week before.

Pearl was, of course, immensely sympathetic about this loss;

and Augusta, with a flash of efficiency, suggested that Alfred could live at the club for the two months Pearl was away, and the housekeeper greeted the idea with enthusiasm.

And so, the last obstacle being removed, these two efficient women went upstairs to the library and, sitting side by side, with the black notebook between them, worked the whole thing out, as in their college days they had so often worked up an examination.

All the facts that Wood had spread out for Augusta, Augusta now spread out for Pearl--the salary, the bonus, the characters of those involved, the results which Mr. Wood especially wished to see accomplished: That Antonia should be made clean and neat and dressed like a normal little girl; that Durland should be taught algebra thoroughly and made to stop smoking, though that would be difficult; that Mrs. Conway should not be worried by her former husband, and certainly prevented from lending him money.

"And there is his address in Mexico, and you're to write every day.

That's the most important thing of all--to write every day."

Pearl took the notebook and put it into her pocketbook.

"And how often does he write to me?"

she inquired.

Augusta smiled.

"He never does--he never answers.

I suppose it's the first time in your life, Pearl, you ever wrote to a man who did not answer your letters."

"I rather like the idea," said Pearl.

They were interrupted by a telegram being brought in and given to Augusta.

She opened it.

"It's from Mr. Wood," she said; and added with surprise, "It seems to be about you."

"About me?"

"No," said Augusta with relief, "I read it wrong.

It's about Mrs. Conway's jewels.

He told me she had a string of priceless pearls that her husband gave her when they were first married.

"The message says, 'Please see that pearls are kept in safe on account of recent Long Island burglaries.'

" She gave the yellow sheet to her friend.

"Keep that," she said, "and be sure to mention in your first report that you have received it.

That will make absolutely sure that you're me."

"You ought to say 'you're I' if you are going to be a governess," said Pearl.

"But I'm not," said Augusta.