Chapter Five

IT WAS A TRYING time. Tony, usually rather casual with his mother, was more concerned than I had ever seen him. He hardly left the house for two or three days. Morning and evening he went in and sat beside her for a short time. She would put out her hand and he would hold it, and as if the contact soothed her she often dozed off. She spoke very little, however.

He was bewildered and unhappy. I don’t believe he even called Audrey Morgan, which must have annoyed her. Indeed, I think he grew up during that time. There was no attempt at his usual cheerful nonsense. During the few meals we ate together he was silent, almost morose; but as to his mother he fell back on the usual masculine explanation.

“She’s done too much all summer,” he said one day. “All those crazy parties. Who wanted them anyhow? You?”

I refused to take offense. “They made a lot of work for me,” I told him. “No, she wanted them herself. She liked to have people around her. And I don’t think they hurt her. After all, I was here to take most of the load.”

He looked at me as if he had not seen me for some time, which I think was literally true.

“You look as though you’ve been having a pretty thin time yourself,” he said. “Why don’t you take a day or two off and rest? Or get out and play some golf?”

I am afraid my eyes filled, out of sheer self-pity and nerves that day. After all, I have rather understated my case. All summer I had been working at top speed. Not only that. I had been at the beck and call of Maud’s friends on the Hill as well as my own in the valley. I had filled in at any number of dinners when a woman dropped out at the last minute; rushing to my room, dressing frantically, and trying to be agreeable for hours on end afterward. Also for the same reason I had lost a good bit of money at bridge, playing for stakes I could not afford.

“You don’t mind playing, do you, Miss Abbott? That wretched Jamison woman insists on going home early.”

Anyhow, I cried that day, and Tony patted me awkwardly on the back as though I had swallowed something the wrong way. “Now see here,” he said, “don’t you crash on me. It’s bad enough with Mother going smash. Somebody has to carry the flag.”

It was that same day, I think, that the telephone message came for Maud. The telephone had been ringing steadily, of course, but this was different. It was a man’s voice, muffled and rather rough. “I want to speak to Mrs. Wainwright,” it said.

“I’m sorry. Mrs. Wainwright is ill.”

There was a pause, and I began to think the connection had broken. Then: “Well, tell her—no, don’t tell her anything. I’ll be seeing her.” He hung up then, and I left the phone, feeling rather ruffled.