Miss Billy Married Part 20

"The best of it is, the way she does it," smiled Arkwright. "They're all the sort of people ordinary charity could never reach; and the only way she got them there at all was to make each one think that he or she was absolutely necessary to the rest of them. Even as it is, they all pay a little something toward the running expenses of the house. They insisted on that, and Mrs. Henshaw had to let them. I believe her chief difficulty now is that she has not less than six people whom she wishes to put into the two extra rooms still unoccupied, and she can't make up her mind which to take. Her husband says he expects to hear any day of an Annexette to the Annex."

"Humph!" grunted Calderwell, as he turned and began to walk up and down the room. "Bertram is still painting, I suppose."

"Oh, yes."

"What's he doing now?"

"Several things. He's up to his eyes in work. As you probably have heard, he met with a severe accident last summer, and lost the use of his right arm for many months. I believe they thought at one time he had lost it forever. But it's all right now, and he has several commissions for portraits. Alice says he's doing ideal heads again, too."

"Same old 'Face of a Girl'?"

"I suppose so, though Alice didn't say. Of course his special work just now is painting the portrait of Miss Marguerite Winthrop. You may have heard that he tried it last year and--and didn't make quite a success of it."

"Yes. My sister Belle told me. She hears from Billy once in a while.

Will it be a go, this time?"

"We'll hope so--for everybody's sake. I imagine no one has seen it yet--it's not finished; but Alice says--"

Calderwell turned abruptly, a quizzical smile on his face.

"See here, my son," he interposed, "it strikes me that this Alice is saying a good deal--to you! Who is she?"

Arkwright gave a light laugh.

"Why, I told you. She is Miss Alice Greggory, Mrs. Henshaw's friend--and mine. I have known her for years."

"Hm-m; what is she like?"

"Like? Why, she's like--like herself, of course. You'll have to know Alice. She's the salt of the earth--Alice is," smiled Arkwright, rising to his feet with a remonstrative gesture, as he saw Calderwell pick up his coat. "What's your hurry?"

"Hm-m," commented Calderwell again, ignoring the question. "And when, may I ask, do you intend to appropriate this--er--salt--to--er--ah, season your own life with, as I might say--eh?"

Arkwright laughed. There was not the slightest trace of embarra.s.sment in his face.

"Never. _You're_ on the wrong track, this time. Alice and I are good friends--always have been, and always will be, I hope."

"Nothing more?"

"Nothing more. I see her frequently. She is musical, and the Henshaws are good enough to ask us there often together. You will meet her, doubtless, now, yourself. She is frequently at the Henshaw home."

"Hm-m." Calderwell still eyed his host shrewdly. "Then you'll give me a clear field, eh?"

"Certainly." Arkwright's eyes met his friend's gaze without swerving.

"All right. However, I suppose you'll tell me, as I did you, once, that a right of way in such a case doesn't mean a thoroughfare for the party interested. If my memory serves me, I gave you right of way in Paris to win the affections of a certain elusive Miss Billy here in Boston, if you could. But I see you didn't seem to improve your opportunities," he finished teasingly.

Arkwright stooped, of a sudden, to pick up a bit of paper from the floor.

"No," he said quietly. "I didn't seem to improve my opportunities." This time he did not meet Calderwell's eyes.

The good-byes had been said when Calderwell turned abruptly at the door.

"Oh, I say, I suppose you're going to that devil's carnival at Jordan Hall to-morrow night."

"Devil's carnival! You don't mean--Cyril Henshaw's piano recital!"

"Sure I do," grinned Calderwell, unabashed. "And I'll warrant it'll be a devil's carnival, too. Isn't Mr. Cyril Henshaw going to play his own music? Oh, I know I'm hopeless, from your standpoint, but I can't help it. I like mine with some go in it, and a tune that you can find without hunting for it. And I don't like lost spirits gone mad that wail and shriek through ten perfectly good minutes, and then die with a gasping moan whose home is the tombs. However, you're going, I take it."

"Of course I am," laughed the other. "You couldn't hire Alice to miss one shriek of those spirits. Besides, I rather like them myself, you know."

"Yes, I suppose you do. You're brought up on it--in your business. But me for the 'Merry Widow' and even the h.o.a.ry 'Jingle Bells' every time!

However, I'm going to be there--out of respect to the poor fellow's family. And, by the way, that's another thing that bowled me over--Cyril's marriage. Why, Cyril hates women!"

"Not all women--we'll hope," smiled Arkwright. "Do you know his wife?"

"Not much. I used to see her a little at Billy's. Music teacher, wasn't she? Then she's the same sort, I suppose."

"But she isn't," laughed Arkwright. "Oh, she taught music, but that was only because of necessity, I take it. She's domestic through and through, with an overwhelming pa.s.sion for making puddings and darning socks, I hear. Alice says she believes Mrs. Cyril knows every dish and spoon by its Christian name, and that there's never so much as a spool of thread out of order in the house."

"But how does Cyril stand it--the trials and tribulations of domestic life? Bertram used to declare that the whole Strata was aquiver with fear when Cyril was composing, and I remember him as a perfect bear if anybody so much as whispered when he was in one of his moods. I never forgot the night Bertram and I were up in William's room trying to sing 'When Johnnie comes marching home,' to the accompaniment of a banjo in Bertram's hands, and a guitar in mine. Gorry! it was Hugh that went marching home that night."

"Oh, well, from reports I reckon Mrs. Cyril doesn't play either a banjo or a guitar," smiled Arkwright. "Alice says she wears rubber heels on her shoes, and has put hushers on all the chair-legs, and felt-mats between all the plates and saucers. Anyhow, Cyril is building a new house, and he looks as if he were in a pretty healthy condition, as you'll see to-morrow night."

"Humph! I wish he'd make his music healthy, then," grumbled Calderwell, as he opened the door.

CHAPTER XII. FOR BILLY--SOME ADVICE

February brought busy days. The public opening of the Bohemian Ten Club Exhibition was to take place the sixth of March, with a private view for invited guests the night before; and it was at this exhibition that Bertram planned to show his portrait of Marguerite Winthrop. He also, if possible, wished to enter two or three other canvases, upon which he was spending all the time he could get.

Bertram felt that he was doing very good work now. The portrait of Marguerite Winthrop was coming on finely. The spoiled idol of society had at last found a pose and a costume that suited her, and she was graciously pleased to give the artist almost as many sittings as he wanted. The "elusive something" in her face, which had previously been so baffling, was now already caught and held bewitchingly on his canvas.

He was confident that the portrait would be a success. He was also much interested in another piece of work which he intended to show called "The Rose." The model for this was a beautiful young girl he had found selling flowers with her father in a street booth at the North End.

On the whole, Bertram was very happy these days. He could not, to be sure, spend quite so much time with Billy as he wished; but she understood, of course, as did he, that his work must come first. He knew that she tried to show him that she understood it. At the same time, he could not help thinking, occasionally, that Billy did sometimes mind his necessary absorption in his painting.

To himself Bertram owned that Billy was, in some ways, a puzzle to him.

Her conduct was still erratic at times. One day he would seem to be everything to her; the next--almost nothing, judging by the ease with which she relinquished his society and subst.i.tuted that of some one else: Arkwright, or Calderwell, for instance.

And that was another thing. Bertram was ashamed to hint even to himself that he was jealous of either of those men. Surely, after what had happened, after Billy's emphatic a.s.sertion that she had never loved any one but himself, it would seem not only absurd, but disloyal, that he should doubt for an instant Billy's entire devotion to him, and yet--there were times when he wished he _could_ come home and not always find Alice Greggory, Calderwell, Arkwright, or all three of them strumming the piano in the drawing-room! At such times, always, though, if he did feel impatient, he immediately demanded of himself: "Are you, then, the kind of husband that begrudges your wife young companions of her own age and tastes to help her while away the hours that you cannot possibly spend with her yourself?"

This question, and the answer that his better self always gave to it, were usually sufficient to send him into some florists for a bunch of violets for Billy, or into a candy shop on a like atoning errand.

As to Billy--Billy, too, was busy these days chief of her concerns being, perhaps, attention to that honeymoon of hers, to see that it did not wane. At least, the most of her thoughts, and many of her actions, centered about that object.

Billy had the book, now--the "Talk to Young Wives." For a time she had worked with only the newspaper criticism to guide her; but, coming at last to the conclusion that if a little was good, more must be better, she had shyly gone into a bookstore one day and, with a pink blush, had asked for the book. Since bringing it home she had studied a.s.siduously (though never if Bertram was near), keeping it well-hidden, when not in use, in a remote corner of her desk.