Kitabı oku: «Nan of the Gypsies», sayfa 5
CHAPTER XIV.
THE MOUNTAIN RIDE
Thanksgiving came and at the appointed hour Nan was waiting at the beach gate when she saw a gypsy riding toward her. Nan’s first thought was one of terror, for the approaching horseman looked as Anselo Spico had when arrayed in his best, a blue velvet corduroy suit, a scarlet silk sash and a wide felt hat edged with bright dangles.
“Oh, Robert Widdemere!” Nan cried, when she saw who it really was. “You looked so like Anselo Spico as you rode along by the sea, that I was about to run and hide. Where did you get that costume?”
“At a shop in town where one may procure whatever one wishes for a masquerade,” the laughing lad replied as he leaped to the ground and made a deep, swinging bow with his gay hat.
“I like it, Lady Red Bird,” he enthusiastically declared, “and I do believe that I will purchase this outfit. Won’t we create a stir in the countryside as we ride together down the Coast Highway.”
Nan laughed joyously. “It becomes you, Robert Widdemere,” she said. It was hard for the girl to believe that the handsome, flushed youth at her side was the same pale sickly lad whom she had first met less than a month before.
During that time these two had become well acquainted, taking short walks together and reading Ivanhoe while they rested. Miss Dahlia found that her pupil was making remarkable progress under her new tutor, moreover she liked the youth with his frank, good-looking face and she was glad to have Nan companied by someone near her own age.
Miss Dahlia appeared at the beach gate to see them off on their long planned ride and she called after them, “Robert, lad, be sure to come back and share our Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Thank you, Miss Dahlia, I would like to,” the youth replied doffing his hat. Then the little lady watched them ride away and turn up the mountain road.
In her heart there was a strange misgiving that she could not understand. “What if her sister, Miss Ursula, should suddenly return,” she thought. Then indeed would Miss Dahlia be censored for having permitted Nan to again assume the raiment of a heathen.
Never before had Nan seemed more charming to the lad than she did on that glorious morning when side by side they rode up a narrow canon road leading toward the mountains.
“See, Nan,” the young philosopher called, “life is full of contrasts. Now we are in a blaze of warmth and sunlight, and, not a stone’s throw ahead of us, is the darkness and dampness of the canon, where the pine trees stand so solemn and still, like sentinels guarding the mysteries that lie beyond.”
The girl drew rein and gazed with big dark eyes at the boy. During the past month she had learned his many moods. In a serious voice she said. “I sometimes wonder how we dare go on, since we do not know the trail that is just ahead. I don’t mean here,” she lifted one hand from her horse’s head and pointed toward the high walled canon in front of them. “I mean, I wonder how we dare go along life’s trail when it is, so often, as though we are blind-folded.”
The boy’s face brightened. “Nan,” he said, with a note of tenderness in his voice which the girl always noticed when he spoke of his father. “Did I ever tell you how my father loved the writings of Henry Van Dyke? It didn’t matter what they were about, fishing, or hiking, or philosophising. My father felt that they were kin, because they both so loved the great out-of-doors. Just now, when you wondered how we dare go ahead when we cannot know what awaits us on life’s trail, I happened to recall a few lines which Dad so often used to recite. They are from Van Dyke’s poem called ‘God of the Open Air.’”
The boy gazed at the girl as though he were sure of her appreciation of all he was saying. “It is a long poem and a beautiful one. I’ll read it to you someday, but the part I have in mind tells just that how everything in nature has, planted deep in its being, a trust that the Power that created it will also care for it and guide it well. This is it:
“By the faith that the wild flowers show when they bloom unbidden;
By the calm of the river’s flow to a goal that is hidden.
By the strength of the tree that clings to its deep foundation,
By the courage of bird’s light wings on the long migration
(Wonderful spirit of trust that abides in Nature’s breast.)
Teach me how to confide, and live my life, and rest.”
“It is very beautiful,” Nan said in a low voice and then, starting their horses, they entered the shadow of the mountain walls and slowly began the ascent.
The trail became so narrow that they had to ride single file for a long time. Each was quietly thinking, but at last they reached a wide place where the mountain brook formed a pool and at the girl’s suggestion they dismounted to get a drink of the clear cold water.
“How peaceful and still it is here,” Nan said as she sat on a moss covered rock, and, folding her hands, listened to the murmuring sounds of trickling water, rustling leaves, and soughing of the soft breeze in the pines.
Robert, standing with his arms folded, had been gazing far down the trail which they had just climbed, but chancing to glance at the girl he saw a troubled expression in her dark beautiful face. Sitting on a rock near her, the boy leaned forward as he asked eagerly. “Nan, you aren’t longing for the old life, are you?”
She turned toward him with a smile that put his fears at rest. “Not that, Robert Widdemere. I was wondering if I dare ask you a question?”
“Why Lady Red Bird, of course you may. I will answer it gladly.”
The boy little dreamed how hard a question it was to be. For another moment the girl was silent, watching the water that barely moved in the pool at her feet. Then in a very low voice she said; – “We gypsies do not believe in a God.”
Although unprepared for this statement, the lad replied by asking, “What then do your people believe gave life to all this?” He waved an arm about to include all nature.
“They believe that there are unseen spirits in streams and woods that can harm them, if they will. Sometimes, when a storm destroyed our camp, we tried to appease the wrath of the spirit of the tempest with rites and charms. That was all. Manna Lou had heard of the gorigo God, and often she told little Tirol and me about that one great Power, but if we asked questions, she would sadly reply ‘Who can know?’”
“Manna Lou was right in one way, Lady Red Bird, we cannot know, perhaps, but deep in the soul of each one of us has been implanted a faith and trust just as the poem tells. I do know that some Power, which I call God, brought me here and so sure I can trust that same Power to care for me and guide me if I have faith and trust.”
There was a sudden brightening of the girl’s face, “Oh, Robert Widdemere,” she said, “I am so glad I asked you. I understand now better how it is, I, also, shall trust and have faith.”
She arose and mounted on her pony and they began climbing the steeper trail which led to the summit of the low mountain.
At last they rode out into the sunlight, and, dismounting, stood on the peak of the trail.
Such beauty of scene as there was everywhere about them. Beyond the coast range, across a wide valley, there was still a higher and a more rugged mountain range and beyond that, in the far distance, a third, the peaks of which were scarcely visible in the haze and clouds.
Then they turned toward the sea, which, from that high point could be seen far beyond the horizon that they had every day on the beach. “Lady Red Bird,” the boy laughed, “you will think me very dull today, I fear, but I can’t help philosophising a bit at times. I was just thinking that when troubles crowd around us, it would be a wonderful thing, if, in our thoughts, we could climb to a high place and look down at them, we would find that, after all, they were not very large nor very important.”
“Things do look small, surely,” the girl said. “See the town nestling down there. The church steeple seems very little from here.”
“I see the pepper tree where we first met,” the lad turned and took the girl’s hand. “I shall always think of you as my Lady Red Bird,” he told her. Hand in hand they continued to stand as brother and sister might.
“And I see our marble fountain glistening in the sun,” Nan declared. Suddenly the boy’s clasp in the girl’s hand tightened. “Look, quick,” he said pointing downward, “there is a limousine turning from the highroad up into our drive. Who do you suppose is coming to call?”
“Perhaps it is your doctor,” Nan suggested.
The lad laughed. “No indeed. For one thing he rides in an open run-about, and for another, he told me that since I had made up my mind to get well, he would have nothing more to do with me. There are enough truly sick people he said, who need his attention.”
“Then, who can it be?” Nan persisted, but the lad merrily declared that he knew not and cared not. After gazing for a moment at the girl who was still looking down at the highway he exclaimed with mingled earnestness and enthusiasm. “Nan, you don’t know how much it means to me, to have a sister like you, a friend, or a pal, the name doesn’t matter. You’re going to fill the place, in a way, that Dad held, and truly he was the finest man that ever trod the earth. Often he said to me ‘Son, when you give your word, stand by it. I would rather have my boy honest and dependable, than have him president,’ and I’m going to try, Nan, to become just such a man as was my father.”
The girl’s gaze had left the road and she looked straight into the clear blue-grey eyes of the boy at her side. “I am glad, Robert Widdemere,” she said, “for I could never be proud of a friend whose word could not be depended upon.”
The boy caught both of the girl’s hands in his as he said, “Nan, listen to me, you have no older brothers to take care of you, and as long as I shall live, I want you to think of me as one to whom you can always come. It doesn’t matter who tries to separate us, Nan, no one ever shall, I give you my word.”
Tears sprang to the eyes of the girl, but that she need not show the depth of her emotion, she called laughingly, “Robert Widdemere, it is time that we were returning, for even before we left, the turkey had gone into the oven and we must not keep Miss Dahlia waiting.”
“Right you are!” the lad gaily replied as again they started down the trail, “although a month ago it would not have seemed possible, I am truly ravenously hungry.”
Down the mountain road they went, these two who so enjoyed each other’s companionship, little dreaming who they would find at the end of the trail.
CHAPTER XV.
SUDDEN CHANGES
Leaving their ponies at the stables, the two hand in hand walked along the path in the glowing garden. “I’m glad the yellow crysanthemums are at their loveliest now,” the girl cried. “I’m going to gather an armful to put on the table that we may have one more thing to be thankful for.”
“Good, I’ll help you!” the boy broke a curling-petaled beauty. “Nan, these shall be our friendship flowers. They seem so like you, so bright and colorful; joyful within themselves, and radiating it on all who pass.”
When the girl’s arms were heaped with the big curling, glowing blossoms, the lad suddenly cried; “Lady Red Bird, I completely forgot something very important.”
“What?” the girl turned toward him to inquire.
“This!” he took from his pocket a folding kodak, “I wanted to take a picture of you at the top of the trail and I never thought of it until now. Please stand still, there, just where you are, with the fountain back of you and the crysanthemums all around you. Don’t look so serious, Nan. Laugh won’t you? There, I snapped it and you had not even smiled. You had such a sad far away look. What were you thinking.”
“I just happened to think of Little Tirol and how I hope it is all true, that there is a God to care for him and give him another body, one without pain.”
“Dear sister,” the boy said, “you do have such strange and unexpected thoughts. How did you happen to think of Little Tirol now?”
“Perhaps it was because I remembered that day only two months ago, when he and I first came to the garden. The yellow flowers were just beginning to bloom and I wanted one so. I hoped he knows now that I can gather them, a great armful if I wish.” Then the girl skipped toward the house, as she called merrily: “If you were ravenously hungry on the mountain trail, what must you be now, I hope we are not late.”
“There is someone watching us from a front window,” the boy said. “I saw a curtain move. Miss Dahlia would not do that, would she, Nan?”
“I hardly think so. It was probably the maid; though I can’t think what she would be doing in the front room when it must be almost time to serve dinner.”
Robert Widdemere paused a moment at the vine hung outside portal to speak with an old gardener whom he had known since his little boyhood. Nan, singing her joyous bird song without words, climbed the stairs to the library and before she had reached the door she called happily, “Oh Miss Dahlia, Robert Widdemere and I have had such a glorious ride up the mountain road, and too, we climbed to the very summit. Isn’t it wonderful – ” she got no farther, for having entered the library she realized that the fashionably dressed stranger standing there was not the little woman whom she so loved.
“Oh, pardon me!” the gypsy girl said. “I thought you were Miss Dahlia.”
“Here I am, dearie,” a trembling voice called as that little lady appeared from the dinning room. “I was needed for one moment in the kitchen,” she explained, then turning toward the stranger she said almost defiantly, “Mrs. Widdemere, this is my dearly loved protege, Nan Barrington. Nan, Robert’s mother has returned unexpectedly from France.”
“Yes, and at great inconvenience to myself, I can assure you, to forbid my son associating with a common gypsy girl.”
Miss Dahlia drew herself up proudly, and never before had she so closely resembled Miss Ursula.
“Mrs. Widdemere,” she said, “kindly remember that you are in my home, and that you are speaking of my protege.”
At that moment Robert appeared and was puzzled to see Miss Dahlia standing with a protecting arm about Nan, and the proud angry tone of her voice, he had never before heard. Then he saw the other woman with a sneering smile on her vain, pretty face, and he understood all.
“Mother,” he said, “did you not receive the message that I sent you? Did I not tell you that you need not return to the States, that my health was recovered?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Widdemere replied coldly, “and now I understand why you did not return to the school where I had placed you. You, a Widdemere, neglecting your education that you might associate with one of a class far beneath you; but I forbid you, from this day, ever again speaking to this gypsy girl.”
Nan’s eyes flashed, but she replied proudly, “Mrs. Widdemere, you do not need to command. I myself shall never again speak to one of your kind,” then turning, she left the library.
A few moments later, when Robert and his mother were gone, Miss Dahlia went to the girl’s room and found her lying on her bed sobbing as though her heart would break.
“You see, Miss Dahlia,” she said, “there’s no use trying to make a lady of me. I’m merely a gypsy and I’ll only bring sorrow to you.”
The little woman sat by the couch and tenderly smoothing the dark hair, she said: “Little girl, you are all I have to love in the world. My sister is too occupied with many things to be my companion. It grieves me deeply to have you so hurt, but I have thought out a plan, dearie, by which this may all be prevented in the future. Tomorrow morning, early, you and I are going away to a little town in the East which was my childhood home.”
Nan’s sobs grew less and she passionately kissed the hand that carressed her. The little lady continued: – “I will legally adopt you, and then, truly, will your name be Nan Barrington. After that I am going to send you to the Pine Crest Seminary, which is conducted by a dear schoolmate of mine, Mrs. Dorsey. I want you to permit me to select your wardrobe, which shall be like that of other girls, and no one there will dream that you are a gypsy, for many there are who have dark hair and eyes and an olive complexion. Will you do all this for me, Nan darling, because I love you?”
Nan’s arms were about the little woman as she said, “How good you are to me, how kind! I’ll try again to be a lady for your sake, and I hope that in time I’ll be able to repay you for all that you do for me.”
That afternoon was spent in packing and the next morning, soon after sunrise, Miss Dahlia and Nan were driven away, but they did not leave a forwarding address.
********
Robert Widdemere lifted the heavy iron knocker of the Barrington home about nine o’clock. He wanted to ask Miss Dahlia’s pardon, and to tell Nan, that although he was about to return to the Military Academy to please his mother, he would never forget the promise he had made on the mountain, that he would always be her brother and her friend.
When Robert learned that Nan was gone and that he had no way of communicating with her, he felt that again a great loss had come into his life.
CHAPTER XVI.
SCHOOL GIRLS
Several years have passed since that day in California when Nan Barrington and Robert Widdemere had parted so sadly and neither had heard ought of the other in all that time.
Nan, in a home-like girls’ school near Boston, The Pine Crest Seminary, had blossomed into as charming a young lady as even Miss Ursula could desire, and that proud woman, who had changed little with the years, often gazed at the beautiful dark girl, silently wondering if it might be possible that Nan was not a real gypsy after all.
True to her promise to the dear Miss Dahlia, Nan had worn quiet colors like the other gorigo maidens, and, during the three and a half years that she had been at the school, nothing had occurred that would even suggest the roving life of her childhood, but unfortunately an hour was approaching when that suspicion would be aroused.
The Miss Barringtons remained during the winter months in Boston, but they frequently visited the school, and, during the summer, they took Nan with them to their cabin on the rocky and picturesque coast of Maine.
One Saturday afternoon Miss Dahlia was seated in the little reception room at the school and a maid had gone in search of the girl. First she referred to a chart in the corridor, which told where each of the forty pupils should be at that hour, and then, going to the music room, she tapped on the door. The sweet strains of a harp drifted out to her, and she tapped again.
“Come in,” a singing voice called, and the door opened.
“Miss Nan, it’s your aunt, Miss Barrington, who is waiting to see you.”
“Oh, I thank you, Marie!” the happy girl exclaimed, then, springing up from the seat by her beautiful golden instrument, she said happily to the friend who was standing near: “Phyllis do come with me and meet my Aunt. I am always telling her about you, but you have been so occupied with one task or another that I have never had the opportunity to have you two meet each other.”
Then as she covered her harp, she continued: “My Aunt Dahlia believes you to be as beautiful as a nymph and as joyous as a lark.” Then whirling and catching both hands of her friend, Nan cried, “And when Aunt Dahlia really sees you, what do you suppose she will think?”
“That I’m a frumpy old grumpy, I suppose,” Phyllis laughingly replied.
“Indeed not!” Nan declared. “You’re the most beautiful creature that Nature ever fashioned with sunshine for hair, bits of June sky for eyes, the grace of a lily and – ”
“Nan, do stop! I’ll think that you are making fun of me, and all this time your Aunt Dahlia waits above. Come let us go. I am eager to meet her.” These two girls had been room-mates and most intimate friends since Phyllis came to the school at the beginning of the year.
No two girls could be more unlike as Nan had said. She was like October night, and her friend was like a glad June day.
“Aunt Dahlia, dearie,” Nan exclaimed a few moments later, as she embraced the older lady, “here at last is my room-mate, Phyllis. You are the two whom I most love, and I have so wanted you to know each other.”
“And you look just exactly as I knew you would from all our Nan has told me about you. Just as sweet and pretty.”
Miss Dahlia’s kind face did not reveal that she was even a day older than she had been that Thanksgiving nearly four years before.
Nan asked about Miss Barrington, the elder and was told, that, as usual, she was busy with clubs of many kinds. “We are very unlike, my sister, and I,” the little lady explained to Phyllis, “I like a quiet home life, Ursula is never happier than when she is addressing a large audience of women, and it does not in the least fluster her if there are men among them, on weighty questions of the day. Yes, we are very unlike.”
“I am glad that you are.” Nan nestled lovingly close to the little old lady. “Not but that I greatly admire and truly do care for Aunt Ursula. She has been very kind to me since she began to like me.” Nan laughed, then stopped as though she had been about to say something she ought not, as indeed she had been. She had nearly said that her Aunt Ursula had started to really like her when she felt that the girl had been properly civilized and Christianized, for, ever since the talk she had had with Robert Widdemere, Nan had really tried in every way to accept the religion of the gorigo.
“Aunt Dahlia,” she suddenly exclaimed, “what do you suppose is going to happen? The music master has offered a medal of gold to the one of us whose rendering of a certain piece, which he has selected, shall please him the most at our coming recital. Phyllis is trying for it on the violin; Muriel Metcalf and I on the harp, and Esther Willis on the piano. I do hope you and Aunt Ursula will be able to come.”
“Nothing but illness could keep me away,” Miss Dahlia said as she rose to go.
