Kitabı oku: «Nan of the Gypsies», sayfa 7
CHAPTER XXI.
THE POWER OF LOVING-KINDNESS
The next afternoon at four, Nan went down to the music room as it was her hour to practice on the harp, Muriel Metcalf having been there the hour preceding. Before opening the door, Nan listened to be sure that the other young harpist had finished, and, as she heard no sound within, she decided that Muriel had gone, but, upon opening the door, she saw the other girl seated by a table, her head on her arms and her shoulders shaken with sobs.
Muriel sprang up when she heard the door close and in her pale blue eyes there was an expression of hatred when she saw who had entered the room.
“Dear, what has happened?” Nan Barrington exclaimed with her ever-ready sympathy. Then, putting a loving arm about the girl, she added: “Is there something that I can do to help?”
“No, there isn’t!” Muriel flung out. “You’ll probably be glad when you hear what has happened. That horrid old Professor Bentz told me that if I did not have this week’s lesson perfect, he would no longer teach me on the harp. I suppose I am stupid, but I just can’t, can’t get it, and tomorrow is the day that he comes. I wouldn’t care for myself, but my father will be heart-broken. He had a little sister, who played on the harp, and she died. Dad just idolized her, the way he does me. He kept the harp and he is so eager to have me play upon it. I just can’t bear to disappoint him.” For the moment Muriel seemed to have forgotten to whom she was talking.
“Nor shall you,” Nan said quietly. “Is this your free hour, Muriel?”
“Yes,” was the reply. “Why?”
“I thought perhaps you would like to stay while I practice. Our lesson is hard this week, but I might be able to help you. Would you like to stay?”
Muriel hardly knew how to reply. Judging others by her own selfish standard, she had supposed that Nan would be glad if she were barred from the coming recital, but instead, the gypsy girl was offering to help her master that part which had seemed to her most difficult.
“Thank you, I will stay,” she heard herself saying, and then she sat quietly near while Nan played the lesson through from beginning to the end. “Now, Muriel,” the harpist said, with her friendly smile, “will you play it for me, and then I can better tell which part is your stumbling block?”
Patiently Nan showed the other girl how to correct her mistakes, until, at length, a gong rang in the corridor calling them to the study hall.
Springing up, the gypsy girl exclaimed: “You did splendidly, Muriel! If I could help you just once more before your lesson, I think that Professor Bentz would have no fault to find with you.” Then she added kindly, “You really have talent, dear, but you haven’t practiced very faithfully of late. If you wish, I will come with you to the music room this evening during our recreation hour and we can go over it once again.”
“Thank you! I would like to come,” Muriel replied, but oh, what a strangely troubled feeling there was in her heart as she remembered the words of the gypsy woman: “You are trying to harm someone, who will do much to help you.”
That evening at 7 o’clock the two girls were again in the music room and Muriel played the piece through so well that Nan exclaimed with real enthusiasm, “Dearie, you did that beautifully, especially the part where it seems as though a restless spirit is yearning to be forgiven for something. Really, Muriel, the tears came into my eyes, for you played it with true feeling.”
Then to the gypsy girl’s surprise the little harpist began to sob.
“Oh, Nan, I do want to be forgiven for something. You’ve been so kind to help me and I’ve been so horrid and mean to you.”
“Why, Muriel, you have never been horrid or mean to me.”
“Oh, yes, I have. Only yesterday I was planning to do something that I thought would turn the girls all against you. I was jealous, I suppose, because Professor Bentz always holds you up as a model. Then I overheard you talking to the gypsies and that night I visited their camp and found out that you were one of them, and so I decided that if you won the gold medal I would tell every one in the school about it. There now, don’t you call that being mean and horrid?”
Nan’s joyous laugh rang out, and she gaily exclaimed: – “Oho, so you are the enemy I have been looking for?” Then she added, with sudden seriousness: “My dear Muriel, I am not ashamed because I am a gypsy, and I would gladly have proclaimed it from the top of Little Pine Hill if I had not promised Miss Barrington that I would not.”
“And you’re going to forgive me?” Muriel asked, although she knew the answer before it was spoken.
“There is nothing to forgive. Hark! Someone is coming. Who do you suppose that it is?”
There was a merry rapping on the door, and then it was opened, revealing two maidens. There was an expression of surprise on the pretty face of the younger girl, but it was Phyllis who exclaimed, “Well, Nan, here you are. I have hunted for you high and low. I just met Daisy in the corridor and she was searching for Muriel.” Then, glancing from one expressive face to the other, she added: “What has happened? You girls look as though you had a secret.”
“So we have,” Nan laughingly replied. “I was just going to tell Muriel a story and if you girls will come in and be seated, you too, may hear it.”
Phyllis, wondering what it all might mean, listened with increasing interest as Nan told about the caravan of Queen Mizella and about the loving kindness of Manna Lou to the little crippled boy, Tirol, and to the little orphan girl whose mother had died so long ago.
“I didn’t know that there were such good, unselfish women among the gypsies,” Phyllis declared, “but, Nan, why are you telling us this story?”
“Because I am the orphaned girl,” was the quiet reply.
“You!” Phyllis exclaimed. “Now I know why you are so wonderful and why you seem to understand the songs of the birds and feel such a comradeship for the trees and sky and all out-of-doors.”
“Then you don’t love me any the less?” the question was asked in half seriousness.
“Nan, what do I care who your ancestors are?” Phyllis declared. “It is you whom I love.”
“Hark!” the gypsy girl said with lifted finger. “The chapel bell is calling us to evening prayer.” And then, as she and Muriel were the last to leave the room, she kissed the younger girl as she whispered, “Good night, dear little friend.”
CHAPTER XXII.
THE CONTEST RECITAL
The day of the contest dawned gloriously. During the night pink and golden crocuses had blossomed on the seminary grounds and each bush and tree was a haze of silvery green.
In the mid-afternoon two girls stood at an open library window. They were Muriel and Nan and they were waiting their turn at the recital. In the study hall beyond many parents and friends were gathered and with the teachers and pupils of the seminary, they were listening with pride and pleasure to the rendering of solos on violin and piano, while at one side of the platform, a golden harp stood waiting.
“Daisy Wells is playing now,” Muriel said, “Are you nervous Nan?”
“No dearie.” Then the older girl exclaimed joyfully, “Do look in the lilac bush! The first robin has come, and now he is going to sing for us. He surely would win the medal if he were to enter the contest.”
Muriel looked up at the other maiden and slipping an arm about her, she said impulsively, “I love you.”
Then, before the gypsy girl could reply, the younger harpist was called. “Oh Nan,” she said in a sudden panic of fear.
“Think of your father, dearie and just play for him.” How calming that suggestion had been, and, while she played, Muriel was thinking of the twilight hours when her father had lifted her to his knee, and, holding her close, had told her of that other little girl whom he had so loved, and how lonely his boyhood had been when that little sister had died, and, how like her, Muriel was. “It will be a happy day for me, little daughter, when I hear you play as she did on the harp,” he had often said.
When the last sweet notes were stilled, there were tears in many eyes, for Muriel, forgetting all others, had played alone for her father.
Professor Bentz was amazed and delighted. “I knew she had talent,” he said to Mrs. Dorsey, the principal of the school, “but I did not know that she could play like that.”
When the recital was over, it was to Muriel that the medal of gold was awarded.
“Oh Nan, I ought not to take it. You have done it all!”
There was a happy light in the eyes of the gypsy girl as she stooped and kissed her little friend. “You played wonderfully dearie!” she said.
Just at that moment a maid appeared in the library door, where the performers had gathered. “Miss Muriel,” she called, “there is a gentleman here to see you.”
“It’s father!” the little girl cried with eyes aglow. “I do believe that he came for the recital.”
And she was right. Mr. Metcalf was standing in the small reception room and he caught his little daughter in his arms and held her close for a moment without speaking.
He said in a choking voice: “My dream is fulfilled. You play the harp, Muriel, as my sister did.”
Then he told her that he had long planned to visit her at the school and had timed that visit so that he might be present at the recital without her knowing it.
“I think I must have known it, somehow,” the happy little girl said, “for I was playing only for you.”
And Nan Barrington, who had done so much to help Muriel, felt that the winning of the love of her little “enemy” was far more to be desired than the winning of the medal of gold.
CHAPTER XXIII.
A JOYOUS INVITATION
A month had passed and the orchard back of the school was a bower of pink and white blooms, while oriole, robin and meadow lark made the fragrant sunlit air joyous with song.
Gypsy Nan stood at the open window of their room gazing out over the treetops to the highway, and how she yearned for her pony Binnie. She longed to gallop away, away – where, she cared little. Then she thought of the happy ride she and Robert Widdemere had taken three years before, and, sitting down on the window seat, with her chin resting on one hand, she fell to musing of those other days. Again she was a little girl, clad in a cherry red dress and seated in the boughs of the far-away pepper tree which stood on the edge of the Barrington estate in San Seritos. She recalled the sad, pale invalid boy in the wheeled chair, and she smiled as she remembered his surprise when a cluster of pepper berries had dropped on his listlessly folded hands. What splendid friends those two became the weeks that followed, and then there had been that last morning on the mountain top when he had promised that he would always be her friend, come what might. Little had they dreamed that years would pass, and that neither would know what had become of the other.
How she would like to see Robert Widdemere. He would be taller and broader, with a dignity of carriage which he surely would have acquired after three years’ training in a military academy. How good looking he had been that long ago Thanksgiving morning when he had worn the gypsy costume!
At this point Nan’s revery was interrupted by Phyllis, who fairly danced into the room. She held an open letter and she gaily exclaimed:
“Nan darling, you never could guess what you and I are going to do.”
“It must be a happy something, by the way you are shining.”
“Oh, it is the most exciting thing that ever happened in all my life,” the other girl exclaimed joyously as she sat on the window seat facing her friend. “It’s an invitation that came in this letter, and Mrs. Dorsey has granted us both permission to accept.”
Nan’s dark eyes were wide with wonder. “Am I invited to go somewhere?” she asked. “Please don’t keep me guessing about it any longer. Do tell me where.”
“Well, then, I’ll have to begin at the beginning. You have often heard me speak of my cousins the Dorchesters.” Nan nodded. “They have been in Florida all winter,” she continued, “but now they have returned and have opened up their city home and the tenth of May will be Peggy’s birthday and we are invited to her party. It will be on Saturday night, but Mrs. Dorsey said that we need not return to Pine Crest until the following day – and oh, I forgot to tell you! It’s a masquerade and we must begin at once to think what costumes we will wear. I have the sweetest May Queen dress! I might wear that with a wreath of apple blossoms in my hair.”
“Joy, that would just suit you, but pray what shall I wear?”
“Oh, Nan, do wear your red and gold gypsy dress. You look just beautiful in that. Say that you will to please me,” Phyllis pleaded.
“Very well; to please you and also to please myself. I would just love to have an excuse to wear that wonderful shawl that once long ago belonged to my beautiful mother.” There was always a wistful expression in the dark eyes when Nan spoke of the mother whom she had never known.
“Was your mother – ” Phyllis hesitated.
Nan turned clear eyes toward her friend. “Was she a gypsy, do you mean? Dearie, I don’t in the least mind talking about it. Ask me anything that you wish. The only part that I regret is that I cannot answer anything with real knowledge. I have always supposed that my mother was the one of my parents who was a gypsy. That is what I told Queen Luella, but afterwards, in thinking it over, I wondered if it might not have been my father, or perhaps they both belonged to the band of Queen Mizella, I was not to be told until I was eighteen.”
After a thoughtful moment Phyllis ventured: “Nan, would you feel very badly if you were to discover that you are not a real gypsy at all; that perhaps your mother for some reason had given you into the keeping of Manna Lou and had died before she returned to claim you? You might have been a Rumanian princess and the throne might have been threatened and it was necessary to hide you.”
Nan’s merry laughter pealed out. “Phyllis, you are trying to steal my thunder, making up exciting tales as you go along. Now you know, dearie, that I have won fame, if not fortune, by improvising impossible fiction, and I do not want to relinquish, even to you, the laurels I have won.”
Phyllis watching the glowing dark face asked another question. “What do the real Rumanians look like. I mean the ones that are not gypsies. Aren’t they very dark and beautiful just as you are?”
Nan sprang to her feet and made a sweeping curtsy as she exclaimed dramatically: – “Would that everyone had eyes like yours. But truly, dear,” the gypsy girl dropped back into her deep easy chair, “I know no more of the Rumanians than you do. Just what we have learned in our illustrated book on ‘Men and Manners of Many Lands.’”
“But you haven’t answered my question,” the fair girl persisted. “Would you be dissappointed if some day it should be discovered that you are white and – .” Again Nan laughingly interrupted, making an effort to look in the mirror without rising. “Goodness, am I black?” Then, before Phyllis could remonstrate, Nan continued; “I thought I was just a nice brown or – “ Her friend sprang up and kissed her lovingly, then perched on the arm of the chair, she exclaimed warmly: “You have the most velvety smooth olive complexion. Many American girls have one similar, but not nearly as nice, and now, since you do not want to answer my question, we will change the subject.”
Nan, nestled lovingly against her friend. “Indeed I shall answer your question. I would be very, very sorry if I were to suddenly learn that I am not at all a gypsy. I would feel – well as though I were a stranger to myself or as though my past was a dream from which I had been rudely awakened. I wouldn’t know how to begin to live as somebody quite different.” Then, as a bell rang and Phyllis arose, Nan concluded: “But we need have no fear of such a sudden transforming, for I know I am a gypsy. Manna Lou never told a lie and she said time and again that the only part of my story that she would or could tell me was that I am one of their own band.”
Impulsively Phyllis kissed her friend. “If being a gypsy is what makes you so adorable, I wish we had more of your band in our midst.”
Then after hastily tidying and washing in their very own wee lavatory, arm in arm the two girls went down to the dining hall again, chatting happily about the week-end treat that was in store for them.
CHAPTER XXIV.
NAN’S FIRST MASQUERADE
The home of the Dorchesters was brilliantly lighted and the little hostess Peggy, who represented a rose fairy, was exquisitely gowned in filmy pink. Her small black mask hung over her shoulder and she was arranging a huge basket of apple blossom sprays in the library when Phyllis, looking like a very lovely May Queen, entered the room.
Peggy whirled around and holding out both hands, she kissed her cousin impulsively as she exclaimed: “Oh, I’m so glad that you could come. It’s just ages since I saw you last, and ever so many things have happened. Tomorrow morning we’ll have a talkfast and gossip for hours, but do tell me who is the room-mate that you asked if you might bring. I just saw her a minute as you came in, but I thought that she was very beautiful, dark like a Spanish of French girl, isn’t she?” Then, without waiting for an answer, impetuous Peggy hurried on as a new thought presented itself.
“Phyllis you never could guess who is coming tonight. One of our boy cousins whom we haven’t seen in just ever so long, but there, I ought not to be calling him a boy, he’s so big and good-looking? His mother is staying with us and she talks about her wonderful son all of the time. She plans to have him make a most eligible marriage, but he doesn’t seem to care for girls at all. Oh, here comes your friend! Isn’t that gypsy costume fascinating?”
Nan Barrington was presented to the little hostess and to her mother, who appeared at that moment to assist in receiving, and then the guests began to arrive.
Phyllis and Nan retreated to a seat beneath a bank of palms and not far from the hidden musicians. They had on their masks and Nan, who had never before attended a real party of any kind, was interested in all that she saw. Suddenly she caught her friend’s hand as she said softly, “Phyllis, will you look at the young man who is just entering! Who do you suppose he is?”
“Why, he has on a gypsy costume! That’s rather strange, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be amusing, Nan, if he should ask you to dance? There are to be no personal introductions, you know. Only close friends of Aunt Lucy’s and Peg’s are invited, and so, of course, that in itself is sufficient introduction.”
While Phyllis had been talking a youth dressed as a knight had approached and asked her to join the promenade with him, and so, for a moment Nan was left alone. She did not mind and she sat smiling as she thought how like a play it all was when suddenly she heard someone saying, “Lady Gypsy, will you promenade with me?”
Nan sprang to her feet and held out both hands impulsively:
“Robert!” she said. “I thought of you the moment that I saw that costume but it isn’t the one that you wore so long ago and I never dreamed that it could be you, but your voice – I’m not mistaken in it, am I?”
For answer the lad tore off his mask and looked down at the girl with an expression of radiant joy.
“Lady Red Bird,” the lad exclaimed as he led her back of the sheltering palms, “for three years I have tried and tried to find you. Did you think that I had broken the promise that I made to you high on the mountain? Indeed I have not, and I never will break it. Please remove your mask. I want to know what my sister-comrade looks like after all these years.”
“Robert, I wish to speak with you.” It was the voice of his mother calling softly from an open door near. The lad although deploring the interruption, was too courteous to not heed his mother’s request. Hurriedly he said: “I will be back directly. I have so much to tell you and so very, very much that I want to learn about you.” He was leading the gypsy girl back to her seat beneath the palm.
When he was gone Nan suddenly remembered that in her surprise and joy at finding her old-time comrade she had completely forgotten the promise that she had made his mother three years before on Thanksgiving day.
Mrs. Widdemere had then forbidden Robert to ever again speak to the gypsy girl, but before the indignant lad had time to reply, it was Nan who had said: “You need not be troubled, Mrs. Widdemere, for I shall never again speak to one of your kind.”
Unconsciously she had broken that promise many times, for was not her dearly loved room-mate this woman’s niece? Too, even now she had been speaking to her son. Rising, she decided that she must go away somewhere and think what would be the honorable thing for her to do, Just then she saw Phyllis approaching with her partner and, hurrying toward them, she said, “Phyllis, may I speak with you alone for a moment?”
Her friend, excusing herself, led the way into a small reception room and closed the door. “What is it, Nan? You look as though something very unusual had happened.”
The gypsy girl’s cheeks were burning and it was plainly evident that she was much excited. “Phyllis,” she said hurriedly, “don’t ask me to explain now. Please help me to get away at once. Can’t I call a taxi and go to Aunt Dahlia? Something has happened and I will tell you all about it to-morrow. Don’t worry dear, but I must go.”
Phyllis believing that her dearest friend was about to be seriously ill, hastened to comply with her wishes. First she explained this fear to Peggy’s mother, who at once called their chauffeur and directed him to take Nan to the Barrington residence.
It was not late and Miss Barrington and her younger sister. Miss Dahlia, were seated in the library reading when the girl entered. They were indeed surprised, for Nan had called on them not two hours before when she had first arrived in town.
“Dearie,” Miss Dahlia exclaimed, rising and going toward the girl with outstretched hands “what is it? Are you ill?”
“No, not ill, but troubled in spirit,” Nan said with a forlorn little laugh. Then she sat on a stool near the two old ladies and told all that had happened.
Miss Ursula drew herself up proudly as she said, “Sister Dahlia, why did you not tell me this before? I did not know that Anne had been so humiliated. I shall certainly inform Mrs. Widdemere that a girl whom the Barringtons are proud to adopt as their own is quite worthy to be her son’s companion. Anne, if you wish I will return with you to the party. Mrs. Dorchester and I were school-mates long ago.”
“No, thank you,” Nan replied rather wistfully, “I would rather not go back.”
Meanwhile Robert, having left his mother, who merely wished to introduce him to an heiress, returned to find the seat beneath the palms unoccupied. Nan was gone and though he stood with folded arms and watched the passing dancers, he did not see her. At last he sought the little hostess and inquired what had become of the guest disguised as a gypsy.
