The Heart of Rachael | Page 9

in those first puzzled days in Paris.
That was seven years ago. She knew exactly that for truth now. Long ago she had learned that whatever impulse had moved Clarence Breckenridge to ask her to marry him was quickly displaced by his vision of Billy's need as being greater than his own.
It had been an unpalatable revelation, for Rachael was a woman proud as well as beautiful. But presently she had accepted the situation as it stood, somehow fighting her way, as the years went by, to fresh acceptances: the acceptance of Billy's ripening charms, the acceptance of Clarence's more and more frequent times of inebriated irresponsibility. Silently she made her mental adjustments, moving through her gay and empty life in an unsuspected bitterness of solitude, won to protest and rebellion only when the cold surface she presented to the world was threatened from within or without.
It was distinctly threatened now, she realized with a little sick twist of apprehension at heart, when her casual inquiry to a maid upon entering was answered by a discreet, "Yes, Mrs. Breckenridge, Mr. Breckenridge came home half an hour ago. Alfred is with him."
This was unexpected. Rachael did not glance either at her guest or her stepdaughter, but she disposed of them both in a breath.
"Someone wants you on the telephone, Billy," she repeated after the maid's information. "Take it in the library. Run right up to my room, Elinor, and I'll be there in two minutes. I'll send some one in with towels and brushes; you've time for a tub. Take these things, Helda, and give them to Annie, and tell her to lookout for Miss Vanderwall."
The square entrance hall was sweet with flowers in the early spring evening, Oriental rugs were spread on the dull mirror of the floor, opened doors gave glimpses of airy colonial interiors, English chintzes crowded with gay colored fruits and flowers, brick fireplaces framed in classic white and showing a brave gleam of brass firedogs in the soft lamplight. Not a book on the long tables, not an etching on the dull rich paper of the walls, struck a false note. It was all exquisitely in tone.
But Rachael Breckenridge, at best, saw less its positive perfections than the tiniest opening through which an imperfection might push its way, and in such an hour as this she saw it not at all. Her mouth a trifle firm in its outline, her face a little pale, she went quickly up the wide white stairway and along the open balcony above. There were several doors on this balcony, which was indeed the upper hall. Mrs. Breckenridge opened one of them without knocking, and closed it noiselessly behind her.
The room into which she admitted herself presented exactly the picture she had expected. The curtains, again of richly colored cretonne, were drawn, a softly toned lamp on the reading table, and another beside the bed, cast circles of pleasant light on the comfortable wicker chairs, the cream-colored woodwork, and the scattered books and magazines. Several photographs of Carol, beautifully framed, were on bookcase and dresser, and a fine oil painting of the child at fourteen looked down from the mantel. On the bed, a mahogany four-poster, with carved pineapples finishing the posts, the frilled cretonne cover had been flung back; Mr. Breckenridge had retired; his blond head was sunk in the pillows; he clutched the blankets about him with his arms, his face was not visible.
A quiet manservant, who was by turns butler, chauffeur, and valet, was stepping softly about the room. Rachael interrogated him in a low tone:
"Asleep, Alfred?"
"Oh, no, ma'am!" the man said quickly. "He's been feeling ill. He says he has a chill."
"When did he get home?" the wife asked.
"About half an hour ago, Mrs. Breckenridge. Mr. Butler telephoned me. Some of the gentlemen were going on--to one of the beach hotels for dinner, I believe, but Mr. Breckenridge felt himself too unwell to join them, so I went for him with the little car, and Mr. Joe Butler and Mr. Parks came home with him, Mrs. Breckenridge."
"Do you know if he went to bed last night at all?"
"No, ma'am, he said he did not. All the gentlemen looked as if they--looked as if they might have--" Alfred hesitated delicately. "It was Mr. Berry Stokes' bachelor dinner," he presently added.
At this moment there was a convulsion in the bed, and the red face of Clarence Breckenridge revealed itself. The eyes were bloodstained, the usually pale skin flushed and oily, the fair, thin hair tumbled across a high and well-developed forehead. Rachael knew every movement of the red and swollen lips, every tone of the querulous voice.
"Does Alfred have to stay up here doing a chambermaid's work?" demanded the man of the house fretfully. "My God! Can you or can't