Nancy had shrunk back, instantly silenced. She had not spoken to him again until Oliver Rose called, to remind them of the tennis, and then, hating herself while she did it, Nancy had forced herself to speak to Bert, and Bert had somewhat gruffly replied. Once at the club, all signs of the storm must be quickly brushed aside, but the lingering clouds lay over her heart now, and she felt desolate and troubled. She did not want to excuse herself and go home, she did not want to go out and watch more tennis, but she felt vaguely that she did not want to play bridge, either. The other women bored her.

Chapter Thirty-one

Dummy again. She seemed to be dummy often, this afternoon. They were playing for quarter cents, but even that low stake, Nancy thought irritably, ran up into a considerable sum, when one's partner bid as madly as young Mrs. Billings bid. She was doubled, and redoubled, and she lost and lost; Nancy saw Elsie's white hand, with its gold pencil, daintily scoring four hundred--two hundred--three hundred.

"I thought I might as well try it," said Mrs. Billings blithely, "but you didn't give me much help, partner!"

"I didn't bid, you know," Nancy reminded her.

"Oh, I know you didn't--it was entirely my own fault! Well, now, let's try again. ..."

Suddenly it seemed to Nancy all wrong--her sitting here in the tempered summer light, playing cards throughout the afternoon. Inherited from some conscientious ancestor, shame stirred for a few minutes in her blood and she hated herself, and the club, and the women she played with. This was not a woman's work in the world. Her children scattered about their own affairs, her household in the hands of strange women, her husband playing another game, with other idle men, and she, the wife and mother and manager, sitting idle, with bits of pasteboard in her hands. She was not even at home, she was in a public club--

She laughed out, as the primitive wave of feeling brought her to the crude a.n.a.lysis. It was funny--life was funny. For a few strange minutes she felt as curiously alien to the Marlborough Gardens Yacht Club as if she had been dropped from another world on to its porch. She had been a tired, busy woman, a few years ago; by what witchcraft had she been brought to this? Mrs. Billings was playing four hearts, doubled. Nancy was too deep in uneasy thought to care much what befell the hand. She began to plan changes, always her panacea in a dark mood. She would give up daytime playing, like Mary Ingram. And she would never play except at home, or in some other woman's home. Nancy was no prude, but she was suddenly ashamed. She was ashamed to have new-comers at the club pa.s.s by, and see that she had nothing else to do, this afternoon, but watch a card game.

Sam Biggerstaff came to the door, and nodded to his wife. Nancy smiled at him; "Will I do?" No, he wanted Ruth.

So his wife put her cards in Nancy's hand, and went out to talk to him.

Nancy laughed, when she came back.

"You score two tricks doubled, Ruth. I think that's too hard, after I played them!"

"Shameful!" said Mrs. Biggerstaff, in her breathless way, slipping into her seat. Two or three more hands were played, then Mrs. Fielding said suddenly:

"Is the tennis finished? Who won? Aren't they all quiet--all of a sudden?"

The other two women glanced up idly, but Mrs. Biggerstaff said quietly:

"I dealt. No trumps."

"Right off, like that!" Nancy laughed. But Mrs. Billings said:

"No--but AREN'T they quiet? And they were making such a noise! You know they were clapping and laughing so, a few minutes ago!"

"They must have finished," Mrs. Fielding said, looking at her hand quizzically. "You said no trump. Partner, let's try two spades!"

"Billy was going to come in to tell me," persisted Mrs. Billings, "Just wait a minute--!" And leaning back in her chair, she called toward the tea-room. "Steward; will you send one of the boys down to ask how the tennis went? Tell Mr. Billings I want to know how it went!"

The steward came deferentially forward.

"I believe they didn't finish their game, Mrs. Billings. The fire--you know. I think all the gentlemen went to the fire--"

"Where is there a fire!" demanded two or three voices. Nancy's surprised eyes went from the steward's face to Mrs. Biggerstaff's, and some instinct acted long before her fear could act, and she felt her soul grow sick within her.

"Where is it?" she asked, with a thickening throat, and then suspiciously and fearfully. "Ruth, WHERE WAS IT?" And even while she asked, she said to herself, with a wild hurry and flutter of mind and heart, "It's our house--that's what Sam stopped to tell Ruth--it's Holly Court--but I don't care--I don't care, as long as Agnes was there, to get the children out--"

It was all instantaneous, the steward's stammering explanation, Ruth Biggerstaff's terrified eyes, the little whimper of fear and sympathy from the other women. Nancy felt that there was more--more--

"What'd Sam tell you, Ruth? For G.o.d's sake--"

"Now, Nancy--now, Nancy--" said the Mrs. Biggerstaff, panting like a frightened child, "Sam said you weren't to be frightened--we don't know a thing--listen, dear, we'll telephone! That's what we'll do--it was silly of me, but I thought perhaps we could keep you from being scared--from just this--"

"But--but what did you hear, Ruth? Who sent in the alarm?" Nancy asked, with dry lips. She was at the club, and Holly Court seemed a thousand impa.s.sable miles away. To get home--to get home--

"Your Pauline telephoned! Nancy, wait! And she distinctly said--Sam told this of his own accord--" Mrs. Biggerstaff had her arms tight about Nancy, who was trembling very much. Nancy's agonized look was fixed with pathetic childish faith upon the other woman's eyes. "Sam told me that she distinctly said that the children were all out with Agnes! She asked to speak to Bert, but Bert was watching a side-line, so Sam came--"

Nancy's gaze flashed to the clock that ticked placidly over the wide doorway. Three o'clock. And three o'clock said, as clearly as words "Priscilla's nap." Agnes had tucked her in her crib, with a "cacker"--and had taken the other children for their promised walk with the new puppy. Pauline had rushed out of the house at the first alarm--

And Priscilla's mother was here at the club. Nancy felt that she was going to get dizzy, she turned an ashen face to Mrs. Biggerstaff.

"The baby--Priscilla!" she said, in a sharp whisper. "Oh, Ruth--did they remember her! Oh, G.o.d, did they remember her! Oh, baby--baby!"

Chapter Thirty-two

The last words were no more than a breath of utter agony. A second later Nancy turned, and ran. She did not hear the protest that followed her, nor realize that, as she had taken off her wide-brimmed hat for the card-game, she was bare-headed under the burning August sun. She choked back the scream that seemed her only possible utterance, and fought the deadly faintness that a.s.sailed her. Unhearing, unseeing, unthinking, she ran across the porch, and down the steps to the drive.

Here she paused, checkmated. For every one of the motor-sheds was empty, and not a car was in sight on the lawns or driveway, where usually a score of them stood. The green, clipped gra.s.s, and the blossoming shrubs, baking in the afternoon heat, were silent and deserted. The flame of geraniums, and the dazzle of the empty white courts, smote her eyes. She heard Mrs. Fielding's feet flying down the steps, and turned a bewildered, white face toward her.

"Elsie--there's not a car! What shall I do?"

"Listen, dear," said the new-comer, breathlessly, "Ruth is telephoning for a car--"

But Nancy's breath caught on a short, dry sob, and she shook her head.

"All the way to the village--it can't be here for half an hour! Oh, no, I can't wait--I can't wait--"

And quite without knowing what she did, or hoped to do, she began to run. The crunched gravel beneath her flying feet was hot, and the mile of road between her and Holly Court lay partly in the white sunlight, but she thought only of Priscilla--the happy, good, inexacting little baby, who had been put in her crib--with her "cacker"--and left there--and left there--

"My baby!" she said out loud, in a voice of agony. "You were having your nap--and mother a mile away!"

She pa.s.sed the big stone gateway of the club, and the road--endless it looked--lay before her. Nancy felt as helpless as one bound in a malignant dream. She could make no progress, her most frantic efforts seemed hardly more than standing still. A sharp pain sprang to her side, she pressed her hand over it. No use; she would only kill herself that way, she must get her breath.

Oh, why had she left her--even for a single second! So small, so gay, so helpless; how could any mother leave her. She had been so merry, in her high chair at breakfast, she had toddled off so dutifully with Agnes, when Nancy had left the doleful boys and the whimpering Anne, to go to the club. The little gold crown of hair--the small buckskin slippers--Nancy could see them now. They were the real things, and it was only a terrible dream that she was running here through the merciless heat--

"Get in here, Mrs. Bradley!" said a voice. One of the Ingram boys had brought his roadster to a stop beside her. She turned upon him her tear-streaked face.

"Oh, Bob, tell me--what's happened?"

"I don't know," he said, in deep concern. "I just happened to go into the club, and Mrs. Biggerstaff sent me after you! I don't know--I guess it's not much of a fire!"

Nancy did not answer. She shut her lips tight, and turned her eyes toward the curve in the road. Even while they rushed toward it, a great mushroom of smoke rose and flattened itself against the deep blue summer sky, widening and sinking over the tops of the trees. Presently they could hear the confused shouts and groans that always surround such a scene, and the hiss of water.