Mrs. Balfame: A Novel, Page 3

  CHAPTER III

  A fortnight passed before Mrs. Balfame found the opportunity for a chatwith Dr. Anna.

  On Saturday afternoons it was the pleasant custom of the flower ofElsinore to repair to the Country Club, a building of the bungalow type,with wide verandas, a large central hall, several smaller rooms forthose that preferred cards to dancing, a secluded bar, a tenniscourt--flooded in winter for skating--and a golf links. It wascharmingly situated about four miles from the town, with the woodsbehind and a glimpse of the grey Atlantic from the higher knolls.

  The young unmarried set that danced at the Club or in the larger of thehome parlours every night would have monopolised the central hall of thebungalow on Saturdays as well had it not been for the sweet but firmresistance of Mrs. Balfame. Lacking in a proper sex vanity she might be,but she was far too proud and just to permit her own generation to beobliterated by mere youth. Having no children of her own, it shocked herfine sense of the fitness of things to watch the subservience of parentsand the selfishness of offspring. One of the most notable results of herquiet determination was that she and her friends enjoyed every privilegeof the Country Club when the mood was on them, and that a goodly numberof the men of their own generation did not confine their attentionsexclusively to the bar, but came out and danced with their neighbours'wives. The young people sniffed, but as Mrs. Balfame had founded theCountry Club, and they were all helpless under her inflexible will andskilful manipulation, they never dreamed of rebellion.

  During the fortnight Mrs. Balfame had cunningly replaced the vial, theindifferent Cassie leaving the sitting-room at her disposal while shewrote a note reminding Dr. Anna of the promised list of war books,adding playfully that she had no time to waste in a busy doctor'swaiting-room. In truth Dr. Anna was a difficult person to see at thistime. There was an epidemic of typhoid in the county, and much illnessamong children.

  However, on the third Saturday after the interrupted supper, as Mrs.Balfame was motoring out to the Club with her friend, Mrs. Battle, wifeof the President of the Bank of Elsinore, she saw Dr. Anna driving herlittle runabout down a branching road. With a graceful excuse shedeserted her hostess, sprang into the humbler machine, and gaily orderedher friend to turn and drive to the Club.

  "You take a rest this afternoon," she said peremptorily. "Otherwise youwill be a wreck when your patients need you most. You look just aboutfagged out. And I want a little of your society. I've been thinking oftaking to a sick bed to get it."

  Dr. Anna looked at her brilliant friend with an expression of dumbgratitude and adoration. She was worth one hundred per cent. more thanthis companion of her forty years, but she never would know it. Sheregarded Enid Balfame as one of the superwomen of Earth, astray in thelittle world of Elsinore. Even when Mrs. Balfame had done her own workshe had managed to look rare and lovely. Her hair was neatly arrangedfor the day before descent to the lower regions, and her pretty printfrock was half covered by a white apron as immaculate as her rounduncovered arms.

  And since the leader of Elsinore had "learned things" she was of anelegance whose differences from those of women born to grace a loftiersphere were merely subtle. Her fine brown hair, waved in New York, andcoiled on the nape of her long neck, displayed her profile to the bestpossible advantage; like all women's women she set great store by herprofile. Whenever possible it was framed in a large hat with a rollingbrim and drooping feathers. Her severely tailored frocks made her lookaloof and stately on the streets (and in the trains between Elsinore andNew York); and her trim white shirt waists and duck skirts, or "onepiece suits" for colder weather, gave her a sweet feminine appeal in thehouse. At evening entertainments she invariably wore black, cut chastelyabout the neck and draped with a floating scarf.

  Poor Dr. Anna, uncompromisingly plain from youth, worshipped beauty;moreover, a certain mental pressure of which she was quite unawarecaused her to find in Enid Balfame her highest ideal of womanhood. Sheherself was never trim; she was always in a hurry; and the repose andserenity the calm and sweet dignity of this gifted being both fascinatedand rested her. That Mrs. Balfame took all her female adorers had tooffer and gave nothing but enhanced her worth. She knew the pricelessvalue of the pedestal, and although her wonderful smile descended atdiscreet intervals her substantial feet did not.

  Dr. Anna, who had never been sought by men and had seen too many ofthem sick in bed to have a romantic illusion left, gave to this friendof her lifetime, whom the years touched only to improve--and who neverwas ill--the dog-like fidelity and love that a certain type of manoffers at the shrine of the unattainable woman. Mrs. Balfame wassometimes amused, always complacent; but it must be conceded that shetook no advantage of the blind devotion of either Dr. Anna or hernumerous other admirers. She was far too proud to "use" people.

  Mrs. Balfame seldom discussed her domestic trials even with Dr. Anna,but this most intimate of her friends guessed that her life with herhusband was rapidly growing unendurable. She was, naturally, the familydoctor; she had nursed David Balfame through several gastric attacks,whose cause was not far to seek.

  But despite much that was highly artificial in her personality, EnidBalfame was elementally what would be called, in the vernacular of theday, a regular female; for a fortnight she had longed to talk aboutDwight Rush. This was the time to gratify an innocent desire whilewatching sharply for an opportunity to play for higher stakes.

  "Anna!" she said abruptly, as they sped along the fine road, "women likeand admire me so much, and I am passably good looking--young looking,too--what do you suppose is the reason men don't fall in love with me?Dave says that half the men in town are mixed up with those telephoneand telegraph girls, and they are pretty in the commonest kind of way--"

  "Enid Balfame!" Dr. Anna struggled to recover her scandalised breath."You! Do you put yourself in the class with those trollops? What's gotinto you? Men are men. Naturally they let your sort alone."

  "But I have heard more than whispers about two or three of our goodfriends--women of our age, not giddy young fools--and in our own set.Why do Mary Frew and Lottie Gifning go over to New York so often? Davesays it isn't only that women from these dull little towns go over toNew York to meet their lovers, but that some of them are the up-townwives of millionaires, or the day-time wives of all sorts of men withmoney enough to run two establishments. It is a hideous world and Inever ask for particulars, but the fact remains that Lottie and Mary anda few others have as many partners among the young men at the dances asthe girls do; and I can recall hints they have thrown out that theycould go farther if they chose."

  "This is a busy country," remarked Dr. Anna drily. "Men don't waste timechasing the prettiest of women when convinced there is nothing in it--toborrow the classic form. Young chaps, urged on by natural law to findtheir mate, will pursue the indifferent girl, but men looking for alittle play after business hours will not. Why, you--you look as coldand chaste as Caesar's wife. They couldn't waste five minutes on you."

  "That's what he said--that I was like Caesar's wife--"

  "Enid!" Dr. Anna stopped the little machine and turned upon her friend,her weary face compact and stern. "Enid Balfame! Have you been letting aman make love to you?"

  "Well, I guess not." Mrs. Balfame tossed her head and bridled. "But theother night, when I left your house, Mr. Rush was passing and saw mehome. He nearly took my breath away by asking me to get a divorce andmarry him, but he respected me too much to make love to me."

  "I should hope so. The young fool!" But Dr. Anna was unspeakablyrelieved. She had turned faint at the thought that her idol might be asmany other women whose secrets she alone knew. "What did you say tohim?" she asked curiously, driving very slowly.

  "Why, that I would not be a divorced woman for anything in the world."

  "You're not the least bit in love with him?" asked Dr. Anna jealously.

  Mrs. Balfame gave her silvery shallow care-free laugh. It might havecome from any of the machines passing, laden with young girls. "Well, Iguess not! T
hat sort of foolishness never did interest me. I guess myvanity was tickled, but vanity isn't love--by a long sight."

  Dr. Anna looked at the pure cold profile, the wide cool grey eyes, andlaughed. "He did have courage, poor devil! It must have been--no, therewas no moonlight. Must have been the suggestion of that old Lovers'Lane, Elsinore Avenue. But if you wanted men to make love to you, mydear, you could have them by the dozen. Nothing easier--for pretty womenof any age who want to be made love to. As for Rush--" She hesitated,then added generously, "he has a future, I think, and could take yousomewhere else."

  "I should be like a fish out of water anywhere but in Elsinore. I haveno delusions. Forty-two is not young--that is to say, it is long pastthe adaptable age, unless a woman has spent her life on the move andfilling it with variety. I love Elsinore as a cat loves its hearth-rug.And I can get to New York in an hour. I think this would be the ideallife with about two thousand dollars more a year, and--and--"

  "Dave Balfame somewhere else! Pity Sam Cummack didn't turn him into atravelling salesman instead of planting him here."

  "He's never been interested in anything in his life but politics. But Idon't really bother about him," she added lightly. "I have him welltrained. After all, he never comes home to lunch, he interferes with mevery little, he goes to the Elks every night soon after dinner, and hefalls asleep the minute he gets into bed. Why, he doesn't even snore.And he carries his liquor pretty well. I guess you can't expect muchmore than that after twenty-two years of matrimony. I notice that if itisn't one thing it's another."

  "Good Lord! Well, I wish he'd break his neck."

  "Oh, Anna!"

  "Well, of course I didn't mean it. But I see so many good people die--somany lovely children--I'm sort of callous, I guess. I make no bones ofwishing that he'd died of typhoid fever last week, instead of poor JoeMorton, who had a wife and two children to support, and was the salt ofthe earth--"

  "You might give Dave a few germs in a capsule!" Mrs. Balfame interruptedin her lightest tones, although she turned her face away. "Or thatuntraceable poison you once showed me. A bottle of that would finishhim!"

  "A drop and none the wiser." Dr. Anna's contralto tones were gloomy andmorose. "Unfortunately, I am not scientific enough for cold-bloodedmurder. I'm a silly old Utopian who wishes that a plague would come andsweep all the undesirables from the earth and let us start fair with ourmodern wisdom. Then I suppose we'd bore one another to death untiloriginal sin cropped out again. Better speed up, I guess. I've a fullevening ahead of me."