Mrs. Balfame: A Novel, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  The meeting of the Friday Club had been held in the Auditorium, a hallwhich accommodated moving pictures, an occasional vaudevilleperformance, political orators, and subscription balls of more than onesocial stratum. It was particularly adapted to the growing needs of theFriday Club, as it impressed visitors favorably, and there was a smallroom in the rear where tea could be served.

  It was a crisp autumn evening when the President and her committee spedthe parting guest of this fateful day and walked briskly homeward,either to cook supper themselves or to prod the languid "hired girl."Starting in groups, they parted at successive corners, and finally Mrs.Balfame and Dr. Anna were alone in the old street. The doctor's officeswere in Main Street under the Auditorium, between the Elsinore Bank andthe Emporium drug store, but she too had inherited a cottage in what wasnow known as Elsinore Avenue, and almost at the opposite end from the"Old Balfame Place."

  "Come in," she said hospitably, as she opened a gate set superfluouslyinto the low boxwood hedge. "You can 'phone to the Elks' and tell Daveto try the new hotel. It's ages since I've seen you."

  "I will!" Mrs. Balfame's prompt reply was accompanied by what was knownin Elsinore as her inscrutable smile. "It is kind of you," she addedpolitely, for even with old friends she never forgot her manners. "Ilong for a cup of your tea--if you will make it yourself. I really couldeat nothing after those sandwiches."

  "I'll make it myself, all right. First because it wouldn't be fit todrink if I didn't, and second because it's Cassie's night out."

  She took the key from beneath the door-mat, and pressed an electricbutton in the hall and another in a comfortable untidy sitting-room. Inher parents' day the sitting-room had been the front parlour, with anatmosphere as rigid as the horsehair furniture, but in this era of moreelastic morals it was full of shabby comfortable furniture, a davenportwas close to the radiator, the desk and tables were littered withmagazines, medical reviews, and text books.

  "How warm and delicious," said Mrs. Balfame brightly, removing her hatand wraps and laying them smoothly on a chair. "I'll telephone and thenclose my eyes and think of nothing until tea is ready--I know you won'thave me in the kitchen. What a blessed relief it will be to hear yousing in your funny old voice after that woman's strident tones."

  She made short work of telephoning. Mr. Balfame, having "just steppedacross the street," she merely left a message for him. Dr. Anna, out inthe kitchen, lighted the gas stove, rattled the aluminum ware, and sangin a booming contralto.

  Mrs. Balfame went through no stage formalities; she neither tiptoed tothe door nor listened intently. From the telephone, which was on thedesk, she walked over to the strongest looking chair, carried it to thediscarded fireplace, mounted and peered into the little cupboard thecanny doctor had had built into the old chimney after the furnace wasinstalled. There Dr. Anna kept her experimental drugs, her mother's seedpearls and diamond brooch, and a roll of what she called emergencybills.

  The vial was almost in the middle of a row of bottles. Mrs. Balfamerecognised it at once. She secreted it in the little bag that still hungon her arm, replaced it with another small bottle that had stood nearerthe end of the row, closed the door and restored the chair to its properplace. Could anything be more simple?

  She was too careful of her best tailored suit to lie down, but shearranged herself comfortably in a corner of the davenport and closed hereyes. Soothed by the warmth of the room and the organ tones in thekitchen she drifted into a happy state of somnolence, from which she wasaroused by the entrance of her hostess with a tray. She sprang upguiltily.

  "I had no intention of falling asleep--I meant to set the table atleast--"

  "Those cat naps are what has kept you young and beautiful, while therest of us have traded complexions for hides."

  Mrs. Balfame gracefully insisted upon clearing and laying a corner ofthe table, and the two friends sat down and chatted gaily over their teaand toast and preserves. Dr. Anna's face--a square face with a snub noseand kindly twinkling eyes--beamed as her friend complimented her uponthe erudition she had displayed in her reply to the Club guest and addedwistfully:

  "I feel as if I didn't know a thing about this war. Everybodycontradicts everybody else, and sometimes they contradict themselves.I'm going over to-morrow" ("going over" meant New York in the Elsinoretongue) "and get all the books that have been printed on the subject,and read up. I do feel so ignorant."

  "That's a large order. When you've dug through them you'll know lessthan you could get from the headlines of the 'anti' evening papers. I'llhunt up a list that was given me by a patient who claims to be neutral,if you really want it, and leave it at your house in the morning. It'sat the office."

  "Oh, please do!" Mrs. Balfame leaned eagerly across the table. "Youknow, it is my turn to read a paper Friday week, and literally I canthink of nothing else except this terrible but most interesting war. Ofcourse, I must display some real knowledge and not deal merely inadjectives and generalities. I'll read night and day--I suppose I canget all those books from two or three New York libraries?"

  "Enid Balfame, you are a wonder! When you buckle down to a thing! Whobut you would take hold of a subject like that with the idea ofmastering it in two weeks--Oh, bother!"

  The telephone was ringing. Dr. Anna tilted back her chair and lifted thereceiver from the desk to her ear. She put it down almost immediately."Hurry call," she said briefly, an intense professional concentrationbanishing the pleasant relaxation of a moment before. "Baby. Sorry.Leave the key under the door mat. Don't hurry." She was putting on herwraps in the hall as she called back her last words. The front doorbanged simultaneously.

  Mrs. Balfame piled the dishes on the tray, carried them out into thekitchen, washed and put them away. She was a very methodical woman andexquisitely neat. Although she no longer did her own kitchen work, itwould have distressed her to leave her friend's little home at "sixesand sevens"; the soiled dishes would have haunted her all night, or atleast until she fell asleep.

  After she had also arranged the publications on the sitting-room tablein neat rows she put on her coat and hat, turned off all the lights,secreted the key as requested and walked briskly down the path. Therewas a street lamp directly in front of the gate. Its light fell on theface of a man emerging from the heavy shadow of the maple trees thatbordered the avenue. She recognised her husband's lawyer, Dwight Rush.

  "What luck!" he exclaimed boyishly. "Now I shall talk to you for atleast five minutes--ten, if you will walk slowly! What are you doing outso late alone?"

  Mrs. Balfame glanced apprehensively up and down the street. All thewindows were alight, but it was too late in the season for loitering onverandas; even if they met any one, recognition would hardly be possibleunless the encounter took place under a street lamp. Moreover, she wasone of those women who while rarely terrified when alone becameintensely feminine when a man appeared with his archaic right to shieldand protect. She smiled graciously.

  "You may see me to my gate," she said.

  "I should think I might! A pistol at my head wouldn't keep me fromwalking these few blessed minutes with you. Seriously, it's not safe foryou to be out alone like this. There were three burglaries last week,and you are just the woman to have her bag snatched."

  She drew closer to him, a faint accent of alarm in her voice.

  "I never thought of that. But Anna was called off in a hurry. I am soglad you happened along. Although," primly, "it wouldn't do, you know,for a woman of my age and position to be seen walking alone with a youngman at night."

  "What nonsense! You are like Caesar's wife, I guess. Anything you did inthis town would seem about right. You've got them all hypnotised,including myself. It's the ambition of my life to know you better," headded in a more serious tone. "Why won't you let me call?"

  "It wouldn't do. If I have a nice position it's because I've always beenso particular. If I let young men call on me, people would say that Iwas no better than that fast bunch that tangoes eve
ry night and goes toroad houses and things." Her voice trailed off vaguely; she really knewvery little of the doings of "gay sets," although much in the abstractof a too temperamental world.

  She made up her mind to dispose of this misguided young man once forall. She knew that she looked quite ten years younger than her age, andshe was well aware that although man's passion might be business hispastime was the hunt.

  "I am thankful that I have no grown daughter to keep from running withthat bunch," she said playfully. "Of course I might have. I am quite oldenough."

  He laughed outright. Then he said the old thing which is ever new tothe woman, and with a perceptible softening in his hard energetic voice:"I wonder if you really are as conventional--conventionised--as youperhaps think you are? You always give me the impression of being twowomen, one fast asleep deep down somewhere, the other not evensuspecting her existence."

  "How pretty!" She smiled with pleasure, and she felt a faint stirring ofcoquetry, as if the ghost of her youth were rising--that far-off periodwhen she put on her best ribbons and made her best pies to allure themarriageable swains of Elsinore. But she recalled herself quickly andfrowned. "You must not say such things to me," she said coldly.

  "But I shall, and I will add that I wish you were a widow, or had neverbeen married. I should propose to you this minute."

  "That is equivalent to saying that you wish my husband were dead. And heis your friend, too!"

  "Your husband is not my friend; he is my employer--upon occasion. At themoment I did not remember who was your husband. Let it go at that."

  "Very well."

  It was evident that he belonged to the type that found its amusement inmaking love to married women; but--they were within the rays of a lamp,and sauntering--she looked up at this pleasant exponent indulgently. Shewas quite safe, and it was by no means detestable at the age offorty-two to be coveted by the cleverest young man in Brabant County.

  The smile left her lips and she experienced a faint vibration of thenerves as she met the unsmiling eyes bent close above her own.

  Rush was almost drab in colour, but the bones of his face were largeand his eyes were deeply set and well apart, intensely blue andbrilliant. It was one of those narrow rigid faces the exigencies of hiscentury and country have bred, the jaw long and almost as salient asthat of a consumptive, the brow bold, the mouth hard set, the cheekslean and cut with deep lines, the whole effect not only keen and cleverbut stronger than any man has consistently been since the world began.The curious contradiction about this type of American face is that italmost invariably looks younger than the years that have contributed tothe modelling of it; such men, particularly if smoothly shaven as theyusually are, look thirty at forty; even at fifty, if they retain theirhair, appear but little older. When Rush's mouth was relaxed it couldsmile charmingly, and the eyes fill with playfulness and vivacity, justas his strident American voice could move a jury to tears by the tearsthat were in it.

  At this moment all the intensity of which his striking features werecapable was concentrated in his eyes.

  "I'm not going to make love to you as matters stand," he said, his voicedry with emotion. "But I want you to divorce Dave Balfame and marry me.Sooner or later you will be driven to it--"

  "Never! I'll never be a divorced woman. Never! Never!"

  His steady gaze wavered and he sighed. "You said that as if you meantit. You think you are intellectual, and you haven't outgrown one of theprejudices of your Puritan grandmothers--who behaved themselves becausewomen were scarce and even better treated than they are now, and becausethey would have been too mean to spend money on a divorce suit ifdivorces had come into fashion elsewhere."

  "You are far from complimentary!" Mrs. Balfame raised her head stiffly,not a little indignant at this natural display of sheer masculinity. Shewould have withdrawn her arm and hastened her steps but he held herback.

  "I don't mean to be uncomplimentary. Only, you ought to be so much moreadvanced than you are. I repeat, I shall not make downright love to you,for I intend to marry you one of these days. But I shall say what Ichoose. How much longer do you think you can go on living likethis?--with a man you must despise and from whom you must sufferindignities--and in this hole--"

  "You live here--"

  "I came back here because I had a good offer and I like the East betterthan the West, but I have no intention of staying here. I have reason tobelieve that I shall get into a New York firm next spring; and oncestarted on that race-course I purpose to come in a winner."

  "And you would saddle yourself with a wife many years your senior?" sheasked wonderingly.

  But she thrilled again, and unconsciously moderated her gait stillfurther; they were but a few steps from her home.

  "I am thirty-four. I am sorry that I have impressed you as looking tooyoung to be taken seriously, but you will admit that if a man doesn'tknow his own mind when he is verging toward middle age, he never will.But if I were only twenty-five, it would make no difference. I wouldmarry you like a shot. I never have given a thought to marrying before.Girls don't interest me. They show their hand too plainly. I've alwayshad a sort of ideal and you fill it."

  It was characteristic of Mrs. Balfame's well-ordered mind that herintention to murder her husband did not intrude itself into this uniqueand provocative hour. She had never indulged in a passing desire tomarry again, and hers was not the order of mind that somersaults. Butshe was willing to "let herself go," for the sake of the experience; forthe first time in her twenty odd years of married life to loiter in aleafy shadowy street with a man who loved her and made no secret of it.

  "I wonder?" She stared up at him, curiosity in her eyes.

  "Wonder what?"

  "If it _is_ love?"

  He laughed unmusically. "I am not surprised that you ask thatquestion--you, who know no more of love than if you had been a castawayon a desert island since the age of ten. Never mind. I've planted aseed. It will sprout. Think and think again. You owe me that much--andyourself. I know that six months hence you will have divorced DaveBalfame, and that you will marry me as soon as the law allows."

  "Never! Never!" She was laughing now, but with all the gay coquetry ofyouth, not merely the eidola of her own.

  They had arrived at the gate of the Balfame Place, which faced theavenue and a large street lamp. She put the gate between them with aquicker movement than she commonly indulged in and held out her hand.

  "No more nonsense! If I were young and free--who knows?But--but--forty-two!" She choked but brought it out. "Now go home andthink over all the nice girls you know and select one quickly. I willmake the wedding cake."

  "Did you suppose I didn't know your age? This is Elsinore, and itsinhabitants are five thousand. When you and I were born--of respectablyeminent parentage--all Brabant County numbered few more."

  He made no attempt to open the gate, but he raised her hand to his lips.Even in that rare moment he was conscious of a regret that it was such alarge hand, and his head jerked abruptly as he flung out the recreantthought.

  "I never shall change," he said. "And you are to think and think. Nowgo. I'll watch until you are indoors."

  "Good night." She ran up the path, wondering if her tall slight figurelooked as willowy as it felt. The mirror had often surprised her withthe information that she looked quite different from the image in hermind. She also wondered, with some humour, why no one ever haddiscovered her apparently obvious charms before.

  When she was in her bedroom and electricity replaced the mellow rays ofstreet lamps shining through soft and whispering leaves, Mrs. Balfameforgot Dwight Rush and all men save her husband.

  She took the vial from her bag and stared at it. In a moment a frowndrew her serene brows together, her sweet, shallow, large grey eyes, soconsistently admired by her own sex at least, darkened with displeasure.She was a bungler after all. How was the stuff to be administered? Sheracked her memory, but the casual explanation of Dr. Anna, uttered atleast two years ago, had left not an
echo. A drop in his eggs or coffeemight be too little; more, and he might detect the foreign quantity.

  She removed the cork and sniffed. It was odourless, but was ittasteless?

  Obviously there was no immediate way of ascertaining save by experimenton Mr. Balfame. And even if it were tasteless, it might cook his blood,congest his face, burst his veins--she recalled snatches of Dr. Anna'sdissertations upon "interesting cases." On the other hand, one dropmight make him violently ill; the suspicions of any doctor might bearoused.

  She must walk warily. Murder was one of the fine arts. Those thatcultivated it and failed followed the victim or spent the rest of theirlives within prison walls. Thousands, it was estimated, walked the earthunsuspected, unapprehensive, serene and content--contemptuous offailures and bunglers, as are the masters in any art. Mrs. Balfame wasproudly aware that her role in life was success.

  There was nothing to do but wait. She must have another cosy eveningwith her scientific friend and draw her on to talk of the poison. Ah!that made another precaution imperative.

  She went to the cupboard in the bathroom, rinsed a small bottle,transferred the precious colorless fluid, refilled the vial with waterand returned it to her bag. To-morrow or next day she would slip intoDr. Anna's house and restore it to its hiding place. The poison shesecreted on the top shelf of the bathroom cupboard.

  Reluctantly, for she was a prompt and methodical woman, she resignedherself to the prospect of David Balfame's prolonged sojourn upon theplanet he had graced so ill. She went to bed, shrinking into the farthercorner, but falling asleep almost immediately. Then, her hands havingfaltered, Fate borrowed the shuttle.