The Fate of Felix Brand

He told Henrietta that he had just learned it might be necessary for him to leave town that day and that he wanted to give her some instructions for her guidance if he should be away more than a day or two. His manner was disturbed and restless, although not lacking in its usual suave and gentle courtesy, and she noted in his face, more strongly marked than she had seen it before, that troubled, anxious look concerning which she had already wondered much. And from the whole man there seemed to her to emanate an unconscious appeal, as of one in such sore and badgering straits that he knew not where to turn for help.

“I may be able,” he said, “to – put off this trip, to make some arrangement about – this matter, so that it will not be necessary for me to go. I hope so – I don’t want to leave the office just now. And, by the way, if I do go, there’s another thing. If there should be a letter in my general mail – not marked ‘personal,’ you know – ” he hesitated, and Henrietta observed that he turned his eyes away and did not meet her gaze as he went on, “but not of the regular business sort, just glance at the signature first thing, won’t you, please? And if it should be signed ‘Hugh Gordon,’ don’t read it, but lay it aside for me to look at when I return.”

He straightened up and she could feel the effort of will with which he conquered his perturbation and continued in a more offhand way: “Gordon is apt to write confidential things about his own affairs and he is the sort of man who would never think of marking a letter ‘personal.’”

Billikins trotted into the room, his doll in his mouth, and, laying his burden down in mid-floor, as if to make easier the concentration of his faculties upon the duty of investigating this stranger, advanced with signs of ready friendship. Brand responded to his overtures, but the dog, after a preliminary smell or two, broke into a sudden howl and trembled as if with fear. Reproved by Henrietta, he hastened back to his babykins, with which he rushed to a place of safety beneath her chair. There she heard him giving vent to his emotions in subdued whining and growling and in much worrying and tearing of the rag-doll.

Brand rose to go, but lingered beside his chair and made conversation, as though loath to take his leave; and Henrietta, catching a glimpse of Isabella passing through the hall, called her in.

Whenever Isabella entered a room it was like the advent of a merry little breeze. For all the look and manner of her suggested buoyant spirits and gaiety of heart, from the lurking twinkle in her blue eye to her light quick step. Daintiness and prettiness characterized her attire, which she carried gracefully, to the accompaniment of a soft, faint rustle. With pleasure Henrietta watched her employer’s face brighten and clear as he talked with her sister. The agitation faded from his manner and presently she was aware that the impression she had had of struggle and appeal, which had begun to tense her own nerves, had disappeared.

“I don’t wonder,” she thought. “Bella is so light-hearted and so merry, and so pretty and sweet, too, that she could charm away anybody’s dumps. I wish I had some of her gift that way – I’m always so serious.”

Brand suggested that they should take a spin with him in his automobile. “The day is so fine,” he pleaded, as they hesitated a little before answering. “You don’t know how splendid it is! And the roads are good down through the island.” He glanced from one to the other and Henrietta saw in his brown eyes a look of eager wistfulness.

“It would be lovely and a great treat for us,” she said. “You’ve no idea, Mr. Brand, what a temptation it is. But we don’t like to leave mother alone, for she’s never very well.”

“Oh, is that all?” he exclaimed. “Then bring her along! It would do her a lot of good. Wrap her up well and I’ll carry her out to the auto.”

He begged Isabella not to desert him while Henrietta went to prepare their mother for the drive.

“How well they get on together,” said Mrs. Marne, smiling at the gay laughter that now and then floated up the stairs.

As they came slowly down, the elder woman leaning heavily upon the other’s shoulder, Felix Brand ran into the hall, exclaiming:

“Why didn’t you call me and let me bring her down!” And at once, notwithstanding her assurance that she could walk, he picked her up and carried her to the street in his arms, saying, “I can just as well save you that fatigue,” and carefully settled her in the automobile.

“You’ll sit in the front with me and help me drive, won’t you?” he said to Isabella as the two girls came out cloaked and furred.

“Yes, do, Bella,” said Henrietta cordially in response to a glance from her sister, “and give me a chance to show what good care I can take of mother.”

Although Isabella was the elder of the two by three years and formerly had been accustomed to take the lead between them, since the younger had become the support of the family she was beginning, quite unconsciously, to lean upon and defer to her sister. During the drive Henrietta and her mother exchanged many pleased glances as they listened to the merry chatter and the frequent laughter that drifted back from the front seat. It was a smiling Felix Brand, suave, serene, and courtly of manner, who helped them from the machine on their return and carried Mrs. Marne into the house.

“Please don’t,” he said as they protested their enjoyment of the ride and their sense of his kindness. “For I assure you it has meant a great deal more pleasure and benefit to me than it possibly could to you.”

“I think he really meant that,” said Henrietta when the three women, alone again, were talking over what Mrs. Marne called their “little escapade,” “because when he came he seemed so disturbed and depressed and by the time we got back he was quite himself again. I think it was mainly you, Isabella,” she smiled at her sister, “for you seemed to have a very stimulating effect on him.”

“Oh, I’m willing to be a cocktail for him whenever he wants to bring his auto over here. Never mind, mother,” and she kissed one finger at Mrs. Marne in response to that lady’s shocked “Isabella!” “That’s just modern symbolism, you know. And the ride has made you look as if you’d had one yourself. I’m going to write to Warren that I’ve found a much nicer and handsomer man than he is and if he doesn’t get a stronger grip on my heart right quick it’s likely to get away from him.”

“Bella, dear! Don’t say such things!” admonished her mother in a grieved tone.

Isabella flew to her side and patted her cheek and kissed her brow. “There, there, mother! Don’t you know I’m just funning? Warren is the best man in the world, even if he hasn’t got bee-youtiful, caressing brown eyes, and I love him awfully, and we’re going to be married and live happily forever after. But, all the same, Felix Brand is perfectly lovely, and you think so too, now, don’t you, mother dear!”

“We all think alike about Mr. Brand, I’m sure,” she answered.

“Except Billikins,” amended Henrietta, and then told them of the fox terrier’s disgraceful behavior. “It seemed so queer for him to act that way,” she added, “when he’s always so friendly toward visitors and so effusive that he usually has to be put out of the room.”

“It was strange,” said Mrs. Marne, “for with his pleasant voice and gentle manner you would think Mr. Brand would be as attractive to animals as he certainly is to people. And he must be as kind and sweet-natured as he seems, for not one young man in a thousand would have taken the trouble he did to give three forlorn women a little pleasure.”

Henrietta made no reply as she laughed with her mother at the lively scolding Isabella was giving to the dog, but her thoughts were busy with the problem of why Felix Brand had seemed so anxious for them to go with him.

Her loyalty to her employer would not let her throw the least shade upon their enthusiastic appreciation of his courtesy and kindness. But her months of work at his side – she had been his secretary almost a year – had given her an intimate knowledge of his character and of his habits of thought and feeling.

She had learned that his habitual mental attitude was, “What is there in this for me?” He did not indeed use just those words or give such crude expression to his self-centeredness; but she had come to know that personal advantage was the usual mainspring of his actions. Presently deciding that Isabella’s enlivening effect upon his mood had inspired his desire for their company, her mind went on to busy itself with speculation over the cause for his despondency and uneasiness.

“I believe it must have something to do with that Hugh Gordon he mentioned, whoever he is,” she thought. “For he seemed most disturbed when speaking of him. Maybe it’s some relative who is giving him trouble – some black sheep of his family, very likely.”

She walked to the window and stood there silently, her thoughts hovering around this unknown personality, and became conscious of the upspringing in her breast of a feeling of disapproval and even of enmity toward the man because of the trouble he seemed to be giving to the employer she admired so much and for whose appreciation and unvarying kindness she felt so much gratitude.

Then there surged over her a wave of discontent, against whose threatened onslaught she had half consciously been doing battle ever since she had talked with Felix Brand in the morning. Now it was upon her. How monotonous seemed her life, how destitute of the pleasures that most girls had as their right! If she could only use for her own enjoyment some of that money she worked so hard to earn! But that everlasting mortgage on their home which had to be paid off – how the thought of it irked and galled when she longed to travel, buy beautiful clothes, go to the theatre and the opera, have young friends and ride and drive and play golf and dance and sing with them. It was the playtime of life and she was having to spend it in work, work, work!

“Oh, there isn’t anybody who would enjoy all those things as I should,” she thought, “and I want them so!”

She turned impatiently from the window and her glance fell upon her mother, smiling gently and happily as she lay back in her easy chair, and remorse entered her heart.

“What an ungrateful little beast I am,” she stormed at herself, “to feel like that when I ought to be thankful I can earn money enough to keep mother in comfort! Was it because Mr. Brand was here that I felt that way? Harry Marne, be ashamed of yourself! Aren’t you old enough to be responsible for your own thoughts?”

She sat down beside her mother and taking her hand pressed it tenderly against her cheek.

CHAPTER V

Mrs. Brand’s Dream Son

It was half a week after that spring-like Sunday when Felix Brand motored to his secretary’s home on Staten Island, and a feathery pall, white as forgiven sins, was sifting down from the heavens upon all the eastern seaboard. In a town within the suburban radius of Philadelphia its mantle of purity lay almost undisturbed upon lawns and streets and vacant lots. Two women were looking out upon the snow-covered earth and snow-filled sky from the side window of a cottage near the edge of the town. One, small and gray-haired, perhaps looked older than she was because of the pathetic droop of her shoulders and the worn, patient expression of her face. But lined and sad though her countenance was, it told of a sweet and gentle soul and it was lighted now with a look of pleasure.

“Just look at it, Penelope!” she exclaimed, a little thrill of enthusiasm in her voice. “I never saw it snow harder, or look prettier! Isn’t it beautiful!”

She turned a pair of soft brown eyes upon a younger woman sitting beside her in a wheel chair, who put down the book she had been reading, and sighed as she answered: “Yes, it is beautiful, mother, very beautiful. But when I look at it I can’t help thinking how long it will be until spring comes again and I can be out in the yard under the trees.”

The mother put out her hand, small and once of the shape that chirognomists call “the artistic hand,” but now wrinkled, bony and toil-hardened, and rested it gently for a moment upon the mass of dark, waving hair, already well-threaded with gray, that crowned the other’s head. Her face filled with sympathy but her voice broke cheerfully upon the silence:

“Oh, it won’t be long now, Penelope, and not a bit longer because of this beautiful storm!”

The figure in the wheel chair bent forward again and looked out upon the pearly whiteness of the earth. It was a sad travesty of the human form, undersized, humped and crooked. But it bore a noble head with a broad, full brow and a strong, intellectual face that had in it something of the elder woman’s sweetness of expression. But in her brown eyes the other’s softness and wistfulness gave place to a keener, more flashing look that told of a high and soaring spirit. And in the lines of her face was a hint of possible storminess, though it was softened by an expression of self-mastery, eloquent of many an inner battle waged and won.

The window from which they looked commanded one side of their own wide yard, a vacant block, and beyond that a cross-street. The snow was feathering down so fast that it gave to the air a milky translucence through which bulked dimly an occasional traveler on the other thoroughfare. Penelope’s eyes fixed themselves upon one of these vague shapes.

“Look, mother!” she exclaimed. “Do you see that man just turning the corner to come this way? It looks like Felix!”

“So it does!” the other cried.

They were both silent for a moment as they gazed intently at the dim figure, gaining definiteness now with each step toward them. “It doesn’t walk like him,” Penelope commented, her face already showing that she knew it was not he. But the mother hung a little longer to her hope. “No, it isn’t Felix,” she presently acquiesced, disappointment evident in her gentle tones. “I so hoped it was, at first.”

With a firm, rapid stride the young man was coming eagerly up the street, his eyes upon their house. “He doesn’t walk at all like Felix,” Penelope repeated thoughtfully as his figure became more plainly visible through the veiling snow, “but it’s curious how much like him he looks, after all.”

“See, Penelope!” the mother exclaimed, reaching out to grasp her daughter’s hand in sudden enthusiasm. “See how he comes out of the snow mist! Isn’t it just like a figure in a dream getting plainer and clearer, and more like life!”

Penelope pressed her mother’s hand and smiled up at her fondly. “Just like you, mother, to make something pretty out of a disappointment!”