Ellis, Arabella’s maid, was putting cold wet cloths to her mistress’ inflamed eyes and expressing her unctuous sympathy, while Arabella moaned in the most pathetic way and relaxed weakly on her chaise-longue.
“It is certainly a wicked shame, Mrs. Shaw, ma’am,” said Ellis, wringing out another cloth, which was perfumed with eau de cologne, “to humiliate you so, and embarrass you before those elegant people. But rest assured, ma’am, none condemns you. I know you have their sympathy. But how intolerable, ma’am! How atrocious! How undeserved!” Arabella sobbed, but carefully lifted a curl from under the cloth. “O Ellis, it is too frightful! That I should be humiliated in the very house where I was born, and under such circumstances, and by such a creature! My poor brother. Save your sympathy, Ellis, do, pray. Save it for Mr. Dunham, who needs it. Who am I but a glorified housekeeper, the humble gatherer of crumbs, the unwanted, the unloved, the unthanked? But Mr. Dunham, Ellis, is a great publisher, a man of renown, influential and revered. It is he who will bear the burden, and all the laughter.” She pushed aside the cloth, and her face twisted viciously. “Yes, yes, it is he who is suffering, not I. I weep for him.”
Ellis clasped her hands tragically, and rolled up her eyes. “Mr. Dunham! It is unthinkable. It is not my place, ma’am, to criticize Mr. Dunham’s choice, nor to express my poor opinion. That would be presumptuous. But, ma’am,” and the sly-lipped maid thrust her clasped hands vehemently against her breast, “I am a human being. I have my thoughts! No one can take that right away from me!”
It was at this affecting moment that Melissa burst into the room, hair quite shaggy, her velvet skirts boiling with haste. She saw Arabella on the chaise-longue and rushed towards her, exclaiming: “Mrs. Shaw! Arabella! I must talk to you. I must explain—”
She became conscious of Ellis then, and stopped. Her light and penetrating eyes, which at times could see so clearly, saw now, in a sudden flash of insight, especially when the maid smirked and ducked her head respectfully. Melissa was seized by a strong dislike for the woman. She said coldly: “I should like to be alone with your mistress, please.”
Arabella retired behind her cloth, and groaned. She said, feebly: “Do not leave me, Ellis, do not leave me alonel I command it.”
The simple Melissa was exasperated. “But why, Arabella? I wish to talk to you privately.” She paused, feeling for words. “I—I think the matter is—delicate. At any rate,” she continued, in a clear voice, “it’s none of this woman’s business!”
Ellis, moving meekly, wrung out another cold cloth, removed the other, and revealed Arabella’s blotched and haggard face, the eyes shut, the mouth drooping with an expression of mortal suffering. Melissa stared, then she said impatiently: “Oh, Arabella! What a fuss you are making. You surely don’t care what those people think, do you? You surely don’t think I meant to insult you, or anything?” Her voice was incredulous.
Arabella moaned, and disappeared behind the fresh cloth. “Oh, ma’am, do not give way, I implore you,” said Ellis, and scurried for the smelling-salts. She applied them under the cloth, and again the moans issued forth. Ellis dropped to her knees and began to chaff her mistress’ hands, her head bent in anxious distress. Melissa watched these proceedings, quite disconcerted, but with increasing impatience.
“It’s nonsense,” she said, but with uncertainty. The room reeked of eau de cologne; the fire roared hotly; the candles flickered. “There’s no air in here,” suggested Melissa, glancing hopefully at the drawn curtains. “You’d feel better—”
“Oh, no, ma’am,” said Ellis, glancing over her shoulder at Melissa. “Mrs. Shaw is so sensitive that the slightest cool breeze disturbs her. And her poor hands are so cold and trembling.”
“But why?” demanded Melissa. “The whole thing isn’t the least bit important, and I can’t see why you are taking on so, Arabella. At the worst, your guests will think—” she groped for the proper expression—“they will think I have no manners. Yes, that’s it: they’ll think I have no manners. I’m not polite. Besides,” she continued, “they know I told them the truth, and that ought to shame them and make them hold their tongues.”
This logical solution quite pleased the girl, and she smiled tentatively at the cloths, which again were agitated with moans, much feebler now.
“What’s the matter with her?” Melissa demanded of Ellis. “It can’t be that she’s really upset about what I said about her—her paintings. That’s so ridiculous. Does she often have the vapors like this?” she added, intrigued but austerely disapproving. Then again, in Melissa’s thought, Arabella became the defenseless Phoebe, who had so much sensibility and must be protected, and with impulsive sincerity she cried: “Oh, I’m so sorry! I never meant to hurt you, truly, Arabella.”
She approached closer to Arabella. “Do put that silly cloth aside, Arabella, and try to answer me.”
The cloth did not move, but from behind it came a wan and sepulchral murmur: “My poor brother, my dear brother.”
“You want Geoffrey?” asked Melissa, eager to be of assistance. “Shall I go for him?”
At this formidable sugestion, Arabella let the cloth drop and again showed her face. Her eyes, in spite of their swollen lids, fixed themselves upon Melissa with such virulence that she stepped back instinctively, quite agape with astonishment and fully expecting some kind of violence from her sister-in-law. She could not believe it when Arabella’s voice came, quivering, blurred, shaking with compassionate tears:
“My poor brother. How is he going to endure all this? What mortification for him, what distress of mind!” Her voice trembled with love and pity.
Melissa stared. “What do you mean?” She stopped, to give all her attention to Arabella’s words, and she was nonplussed for several moments. Then her face cleared. “You mean about—up in your studio, Arabella. Oh don’t trouble yourself about that. Geoffrey quite understood. I’ve just had a talk with him, so you have no need to worry.”
There was a sudden and profound silence in the room. Arabella now regarded Melissa with unfeigned indignation, open rage and balefulness. Ellis sighed, and collapsed on a stool near her mistress’ feet.
“I mean,” said Melissa, stepping back another pace, “that Geoffrey is not very much concerned about your guests’ opinions. I don’t think he regards those people very highly, anyway.”
There was another silence. Then, with her glinting and evil eyes not looking away from Melissa, Arabella said: “Ellis, please bring—Mrs. Dunham—a chair. I think we must have a talk.”
“What about?” demanded Melissa. “There is nothing to talk about. I only wanted you to. know I was sorry if I hurt your feelings, Arabella, and that you need not fear that Geoffrey is angry.” But she sat down on the chair, which was now bumping against the back of her knees. She flashed Ellis an irritable look, then gave her attention to Arabella.
Arabella lay back against her cushions. She had assumed a tragic expression, and closed her eyes, as if even speaking in a half-whisper exhausted her:
“You misunderstand me, Melissa. Because, I fear, you are incapable of comprehension. It is not your fault, however. I pity, not blame.” She picked her words cautiously, remembering Geoffrey. Again her voice quivered, and she composed her mouth to express compassion for Melissa herself. “I have known you a long time, my dear Melissa. I remember you as a baby, a child, a young girl, and now— as a woman no longer young. I understand everything. I know the life you led with your father. Your mother and I often discussed it, she with tears and suffering.”
Melissa turned scarlet. She started to rise from her chair, then reseated herself. Her color left her as swiftly as it had come. In stifled tones, she said: “I do not believe my mother discussed me with you. She was incapable of that.” She had a swift vision of her mother, and the novel pain she had felt that afternoon stabbed her fiercely; she felt it with bemused astonishment, wondering what it was. “My mother,” she continued, and now her own voice shook, “would never discuss family matters with outsiders. It was her code, and she instilled that very strongly in all of us.” She thought, vaguely: I did not say that it was a lie. That would have been impolite and unmannerly, even if she is not speaking the truth. I must tell Geoffrey that I did not call his sister a liar. He will be pleased.
Arabella gave no indication that she had heard. She lay back against her cushions in an attitude of gentle agony and misery.
“What do you—think—my mother told you about Papa and me?” asked Melissa, the palms of her hands sweating.
Arabella moved her head in a weak gesture of negation, her eyes still closed: “Confidences are sacred with me. I cannot betray them. I can only say, Melissa, that I know all about you and am wrung with pity, so that I do not blame you. How could you learn civilized and constrained deportment, or genteel manners, shut away in that house, in your father’s study, among all those dusty books? Who was there to teach you delicacy of speech, modesty, elegance, restraint, the gestures and voice and speech of a true lady? No one. You lived immured, shut away from the world and its realities, its cultivated breeding, its savoir faire. You know nothing of the ways of urbane politeness, of fashion, of refined custom. That is my world, and the world of my brother, whom you have married.”
Her last words fell into an abyss of silence, as she had intended. She lifted her lids just sufficiently to observe Melissa.
Then Melissa said, almost inaudibly: “I do not think that world you speak of is so important to Geoffrey. If it were, he would not have married me.”
Arabella did not speak for several moments. She was on dangerous ground now, and she dared not say openly what she wished to say. This odious, this dreadful monster was quite capable of running, tattling, to Geoffrey, if she, Arabella, said anything too outright.
So Arabella sighed deeply and eloquently, and said nothing.
Melissa waited. “You think that Geoffrey is shamed by me because I do not know the customs of his world?” she asked, with great earnestness. “You think I am embarrassing to him, and humiliate him, with my lack of knowledge of what is politely done or not done? You think he ought not to have married me?”
Arabella sighed again, louder than ever. She quivered: “It is you who have said that, Melissa, not I. I beg you to remember that. Ellis, you have heard Mrs. Dunham say that, and not I? You could bear witness?”
Ellis nodded, sucking in her mouth meekly. Melissa gave an impatient gesture. “But, whether you said it or not, Arabella, you mean that?”
Arabella put her hand to her eyes, then let her head drop farther back on her pillows. “I refuse to answer that question, Melissa. You have no right to press me. And you have no right to make unauthorized assertions.”
Melissa got up very slowly, as if enormously tired, and went to the shrouded window. She put up her hand as if to draw the curtains; then, remembering Ellis’ protest, she let her hand drop. But she stood and stared heavily at the lavishly patterned draperies. She said, in a low tone: “Geoffrey has known me since I was a child. I am nothing new to him. He knew my studious life with my father. There was nothing hidden from him. He knew it all when he agreed to marry me!”
“Agreed to marry you?” Arabella forgot her stricken languors, and sat upright. She looked, startled, at Ellis, who smirked. Arabella’s face changed. She began to smile excitedly. “My brother ‘agreed’ to marry you, Melissa? Whatever do you mean?”
Not turning, and speaking lifelessly, Melissa said: “I asked him to marry me, so I could help Phoebe and Andrew, with his money.”
“Ah,” murmured Arabella. She sank back against her cushions. She could not believe her luck. She genuinely trembled now with passionate hatred and delight. Ellis clapped her hands silently, and mistress and maid exchanged a gleaming look.
Melisa slowly came back to her chair. But she did not sit down. She stood behind the chair and held it with straining fingers.
“You see,” she said simply, “we did not wish to borrow the money from Geoffrey. So I said I would marry him, if he wished.”
Arabella was too astute a woman, and she had known of Geoffrey’s infatuation too long, to let herself be deceived. She saw it all very clearly. However, she forced herself to burst into very realistic tears, and flung her hands over her streaming eyes. Ellis jumped up, and bent over her mistress, wringing her own hands.
“Oh, my poor brother!” cried Arabella. “My gallant, my noble, my self-sacrificing brother! I canot endure it! I have suffered too much, this is more than I can bear!” She sobbed aloud. “He had such a friendship for Charles Upjohn! He would have done anything for his children, in Charles’ name! My poor brother!”
“You mean to say he married me for Papa’s sake?” whispered Melissa. Even her lips were white now.
Arabella’s sobs became more anguished. She writhed on her cushions. Then she almost screamed: “I did not say that! It was you who said that, you who ought to know!”
Melissa put her hand to her forehead. There was something which Geoffrey had said to her once, after her father had died. She tried to remember. But just when it seemed that she would remember, that the very words were shaping themselves in her brain, her father’s face, vivid and smiling, floated before her and shut them away. Yet, if she could remember, this confusion and diffused agony would leave her, she knew.
“I don’t know anything,” She stammered, in answer to Arabella. “I—am—afraid—I—don’t—know—anything, not anything at all.”
Then she turned and went silently out of the room.
“Be sure the door is shut, Ellis,” whispered Arabella, suddenly ceasing to weep. “But first look to see if that awful creature is listening, outside.”
Ellis tiptoed to the door, and suddenly opened it. But the hall outside was empty. She caught a glimpse of Melissa disappearing into her own room. She closed the door.
“Ellis,” said Arabella exultantly, “I have been trying to discover how we could get rid of that jape, that hobbledehoy, that hideous female. And now I think I have found the way!”