Kitabı oku: «Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905», sayfa 7

“He has high ideals in friendship as in everything else,” she answered, “but you must remember, Simeon, that the thought of your sufferings agonized us at home. Who could have abandoned you to such a fate? It makes me sick to think of it!”

A sort of shiver passed over him, while he said, simply:

“It was all in the day’s work. French ran the same risks, only with better luck.” Presently he added:

“I feel tired, Deena – and a little oppressed. Perhaps you had better ring the bell – but stay. Will you kiss me before you ring?”

She kissed him with a pity that wrung her heart, and he sighed contentedly and shut his eyes. He only spoke once more, just as the doctor came to his bedside.

“I should have been glad to see the old house before I die, but it is just as well as it is.”

He was dying all the afternoon, peacefully and gently, and at sunset the end came.

CHAPTER XI

Master Richard Shelton sat at the foot of his sister’s table dispensing its hospitalities chiefly to himself. Through some law unknown to science, all dishes seemed to gravitate toward the main center of Dicky’s trencher, thereby leaving the rest of the table comparatively bare.

For eighteen months Master Shelton had given Mrs. Ponsonby the advantage of his company; not so much through volition – albeit, he was well enough pleased with his quarters – as through submission to paternal authority.

Conventional ideas are apt to wilt under the blight of poverty, and to revive under the fuller harvesting of this world’s goods, and Mr. Shelton, Sr., who had, in the days of his leanness, let Polly run wild with all the college boys of Harmouth, became suddenly particular, as his bank account fattened, in regard to the niceties of conduct in his daughters. His scruples even embraced Deena; he said she was too young a widow to live alone, and a blank sight too handsome, and that either she must return to the protection of his roof or else receive her brother under her own. With the docility of the intelligent, she accepted his fiat, but chose the evil represented by a unit rather than by the sum total of family companionship.

So she and Dicky had lived together since the day when Simeon had been laid to rest beside his mother in the churchyard, and Deena had taken up life with such courage as she could muster in the old house. She had started out with a long illness, as the result of overtaxed nerves, and the nurse who had been engaged for Simeon found ample employment with Simeon’s widow; but a good constitution and a quiet mind are excellent helps toward recovery, and by September she found herself in admirable health.

Stephen’s energies had been absorbed in editing Simeon’s book. He had the assistance of the botanical department of Harmouth, and the book was produced in a manner which would have given poor Ponsonby infinite pleasure. French spared no expense, especially in the color drawings from Simeon’s photographs and specimens, which were exceptionally valuable. The printing was done in Boston, and Stephen was there much of the time. During Deena’s illness he was glad of an excuse to be near enough to get daily reports of her progress, but as she became strong and resumed the routine of living, so that intercourse became unavoidable, he found the strain of silence more than he could bear. He resigned his professorship permanently, and went abroad, making the book his excuse. He wished to see that it was properly heralded by both English and Continental scientific periodicals, and he preferred to attend to it himself. To say that Deena missed him but feebly expresses the void his going made in her life, but, knowing her own heart, and suspecting the state of his, she was glad to be spared his presence in these early days of widowhood, and could not but approve his decision.

Dicky’s society was hardly calculated to stifle her longings for higher things, for his conduct called for constant repression. At first he had nearly driven her wild by his prying interest in what did not concern him, his way of unmasking her secret thoughts, his powers of seeing round corners, if not through sealed envelopes, but as time went on she grew fond of his honest boy-nature, and learned to laugh at his precocious acuteness. Perhaps with Stephen’s departure there were fewer occasions for her to resent the challenge of his intrusive eye. There were, also, alleviations coincident with the school year, for then she was free from his company from the time he slammed the front door, at five minutes to nine, till he returned at two, ravenous for dinner.

On the particular morning indicated at the beginning of the chapter, the season was the late autumn – the clock was pointing ominously near nine – the lady opposite to Master Shelton looked more beautiful than ever in her widow’s weeds. Dicky conveyed half a sausage and a wedge of buttered toast to the sustenance of boyhood before he asked – with some difficulty, if the truth were confessed:

“May I take a bunch of grapes to school, Deena?”

She was about to give a cheerful consent, when he defeated his own ends by adding:

“None of the other boys have hothouse grapes; it makes ’em think a lot of me. I guess they know where they come from, too!”

“In those circumstances, certainly not,” she answered, indignantly. “You can eat all you like at home.”

“Well, I call that low-down mean,” he said, stabbing another sausage, “and you gettin’ all the fruit and flowers from Mr. French’s place sent to you every day. I wish Polly and Ben were there still – they wouldn’t begrudge me a little fruit.”

Polly and Ben had taken Stephen’s place for the summer, during his protracted absence, and had but recently returned to New York.

“Polly and Ben would despise your snobbishness just as I do; besides, I do not approve of your taking eatables to school,” she added, disingenuously, for her objection was to furnishing food for Harmouth gossip – not to Dicky.

“Oh, pshaw!” he exclaimed. “As if I didn’t know why you won’t let me take ’em! Mr. French will give me anything I ask for when he gets home – that’s one comfort. Did you know he may be here any day? The man who brought the flowers told me so yesterday.”

Deena’s complexion flushed a lively pink, or else it was the reflection from the wood fire, leaping in tongues of flame behind the tall brass fender. She certainly looked singularly girlish as she sat behind the array of Ponsonby breakfast silver, her severe black frock, with the transparent bands of white at throat and wrists, only serving to mark her youthful freshness. Her beauty was of little consequence to her brother, who was busy considering the advantages that might accrue to himself from Stephen’s return.

“When Mr. French went away, he said I could ride his saddle horse, and though I’ve been there half a dozen times since Ben left, that old beast of a coachman won’t let me inside the stable. Will you tell Mr. French when he comes home what an old puddin’ head he’s got to look after his horses? The man ought to be kicked out!”

“I shall hardly venture to complain to Mr. French about his servants,” said Deena.

“You might be good-natured,” he urged; “here’s the whole autumn gone without my getting any riding, and Mr. French would do anything you asked – ”

“It is time for you to go to school,” said Deena, shortly.

“No, it isn’t; not for three minutes yet,” he contradicted. “‘Tenny rate, I don’t mean to be early this morning – it’s jography, and I don’t know my lesson; but I do think you might speak about the horse, Deena; I never get a bit of sport worth countin’” – this in a high, grumbling minor. “There was Ben; he had his automobile here the whole summer, and never offered it to me once! The fellows all think it was awfully mean – I had promised to take them out in it, and it made me feel deuced cheap, I can tell you. The idea of using a machine like that just to air a kid every day! I guess it pumped it full of wind, anyhow – that’s one comfort.”

“If you are going to say disagreeable things about the baby, I won’t listen to you,” said Deena, crossly, and then, ashamed of her petulance, added: “Run along to school, dear; the sooner you get some knowledge into that little red head of yours, the sooner you can have automobiles and horses of your own.”

“Those of my brothers-in-law will suit me just as well,” he said, favoring her with a horrid grimace, as he wiped his mouth on a rope of napkin held taut between his outstretched fists. “Perhaps I had better let Mr. French know myself what I expect in the future.”

“Perhaps you’ll mind your own business!” cried Deena, driven to fury.

He left the room singing in a quavering treble:

I’ll pray for you when on the stormy ocean

With love’s devotion. That’s what I’ll do.

It was a song with which a nursemaid of the Shelton children had been wont to rock the reigning baby to sleep, and had lurked in Dicky’s memory for many a year.

Poor Deena was thoroughly ruffled. It was maddening to have a love she held as the most sacred secret of her heart vulgarized by a boy’s coarse teasing, and, in addition, she was jealous of her own dignity – anxious to pay her dead husband proper respect – distressed at the possibility of Stephen’s thoughtful kindness becoming a subject of comment in the town. And yet what difference did it make?

This carefully guarded secret would be public property by her own consent before a week was over, for Dicky’s announcement of French’s return was no news to Deena – at that very moment her heart was beating against a letter which assured her he was following fast upon its tracks, and when he came he was not likely to prove a patient lover. All through that second summer his letters had been growing more tender, more urgent, till at last he had taken matters into his own hands, and decided that their separation must end. For aught she knew, his vessel might already have reached New York – he might be that blessed moment on his way to Harmouth! The thought sent little thrills of happiness bounding through her veins. She had a shrewd idea he would appear unannounced by letter or telegram, but not to-day – certainly not to-day – she reflected.

There were plenty of small duties waiting for her that morning, but in woman’s parlance she “couldn’t settle to anything”; there was an excitement in her mood that demanded the freedom of fresh air. She went up to her bedroom and stood for a moment at her window before yielding to the impulse that beckoned her out into the sunshine; and, drawing Stephen’s letter from her dress, she read it once more, to make sure she had missed no precious hint as to the time of his sailing. He wrote:

May I come back? You must know all I mean that to imply – to come back, my best beloved, to you – to order my life in accordance to your pleasure – to marry you the day I set foot in Harmouth – or to wait impatiently till you are pleased to give yourself to me. I trust your love too entirely to fear that you will needlessly prolong the time. You are too fair-minded to let mere conventions weigh with you as against my happiness. Between you and me there must be no shams, and yet I would not shock or hurry you for the world.

On second thoughts, I shall not wait for your permission to return – that is not the best way to gain one’s desires! No, I shall come before you can stop me, and while you are saying to yourself, “Perhaps he is on the ocean,” I may be turning in at your gate.

What did she mean to do? she asked herself, with a smile that was its own answer.

She went into her closet, and, fetching her crape hat from the shelf, began pinning it on before the glass. Its somber ugliness accorded ill with the brightness of her hair, and somehow her hair seemed to turn mourning into a mockery.

She couldn’t help recalling an incident that had happened two years before, when she had seen herself in that same glass transformed into sudden prettiness by Polly’s skillful fingers, and how her pleasure in her appearance had been turned into humiliation by Simeon’s petty tyranny, when she asked him to pay for her hat. And then she was ashamed of her own thoughts – distressed that she had let the paltry reminiscence force itself into her mind; for great happiness should put us in charity with all. Never again would she allow an unkind remembrance to lodge in her thoughts.

She shut the door of her room and hurried out into the street – there was so much indoors to remind her of what she most wished to forget. When Stephen came for her they would go away from Harmouth – just for a little while, till the memories faded – and, in a future of perfect love, think kindly, gratefully, pitifully, of Simeon.

You see, she was desperately in love, poor child, and at last heart and conscience were in accord.

Her feet fairly danced up the street; she moved so lightly she hardly rustled the carpet of fallen leaves that overspread the pavement. It was a glorious day, the sun was touching all prosaic things with gold, and up in heaven, against the interminable blue, little white clouds sailed in dapples, such as Raphael charged with angel faces, and every face seemed to smile.

Wandering across the campus, under the stately arches of the college elms, she finally reached the open country, and, realizing that even the wings of happiness are mortal, she turned homeward, choosing the avenue that led past French’s place. Perhaps she hoped for reassuring signs of his coming – doors and windows thrown open and gardeners at work upon the ground – but before she got beyond the high hedge that cut off her view, a carriage, which she recognized as Stephen’s, drove rapidly toward the gate, and in it sat a lady, stately and grand, but so closely veiled as to defy both sun and curiosity. At a sign from her the carriage stopped, and a voice exclaimed:

“I have just been to see you, Mrs. Ponsonby, and was so much disappointed to find you out – and so was some one else, I fancy, who I am sure has been at your house this morning! Pray get in and drive home with me. And I will send you back to town after you have paid me a little visit.”

Deena had by this time recognized Mrs. Star, and recovered sufficiently from her surprise to take the offered seat in the carriage, but she was in such a tumult of hope and fear she hardly dared trust herself to do more than greet her old friend. Mrs. Star understood quite well, and gave her time to recover her wits by a characteristic harangue.

“How am I?” she repeated, sardonically. “Lame for life! I have never got over McTorture’s treatment, and never shall. Oh, no, it was not the original accident – that was an innocent affair – it is the result of McTorture’s nonsense in keeping me chained to my sofa in one position till my leg stiffened. But never mind about doctors; they’re all alike – bad’s the best! You look handsome and healthy enough to keep out of their clutches; tell me all about yourself.”

“There is never anything to tell about me,” said Deena. “I am much more concerned to know why you are here.”

Mrs. Star’s eyes softened.

“Because Stephen wouldn’t stop long enough in New York for me to exchange ten words with him, and so I did the next best thing – indeed, the only thing I could do to satisfy my affection – I came with him; and upon my word, I do not think he wanted me! Now, how do you account for that, Mrs. Deena?”

Her expression was so insinuating that Deena might be excused a slight irritation in her tone as she answered:

“I don’t account for it.”

Here they reached the front door, for the approach was a short one, and Mrs. Star got out laboriously and ushered her guest into the hall.

“Do you know your way to the library?” she asked. “It is on the other side of this barn of a room, and if you will make yourself comfortable there, I will join you in a minute. The truth is, we are not in order, and I must give a message before I can have the conscience to sit down and enjoy a chat.”

Deena’s eyes were still blinded by the midday glare, but she managed to cross the great drawing room without stumbling over an ottoman, and, pushing aside the heavy curtain that shut off the library, she walked directly into Stephen’s arms.

As Mrs. Star saw fit to leave her undisturbed, it would be sheer presumption for a humble person like the writer to disregard that compelling example. Suffice it to say that for one hour Stephen’s horses stamped and champed in the stable, and that when finally Mrs. Star did appear, the occupants of the library were under the impression she had been gone barely long enough to take off her wraps.

Perhaps no mortals deserve happiness, and certainly few attain it, but if ever a man and a woman were likely to find satisfaction in each other’s companionship, it was the lovers sitting hand in hand before Stephen’s fire.

Most women of twenty-four have had some experience of love as a passion; they have known its fullness or its blight, or more often still, they have frittered it away in successive flirtations, but with Deena it had come as a revelation and been consecrated to one. To be sure, she had tried to crush and repress it, but it had persisted because of its inherent force. And with Stephen the passion was at once the delight and glory of his life. His was no boy’s love made up of sentiment and vanity; he had brought a man’s courage to follow duty to the borders of despair, and all the while he held the image of her he loved unsullied in his heart. At last they were free to take all that life had before withheld of sympathy and friendship and perfect understanding. What wonder that an hour should slip away before they realized the flight of time?

Mrs. Star received her nephew’s announcement with suitable effusion, and with an undercurrent of genuine feeling. After kissing Deena, she made a confidence that had a spice of kindly malice.

“My dear child,” she said, “I knew so well what was about to happen, that I came all the way from New York in order to welcome you into the family, and I think I showed great self-restraint not to tell you so in the carriage when you put that very direct question as to what brought me.”

Concerning the Heart’s Deep Pages

By Sewell Ford

Author of “Horses Nine,” Etc

When Dickie’s mother put him in my charge for the summer she said: “Keep him out of as much mischief as you can.” This seemed unnecessary, for, really, Dickie was a well-mannered, good-looking young fellow, with broad shoulders, a clear skin and a clean heart. I said as much.

“Oh, you old bachelors!” laughed Dickie’s mother, and sailed away to spend her second season of widowhood abroad.

Dickie and I were just taking a look at the country surrounding our summer headquarters when we found Rosie. Balancing herself on a gatepost and eating cherries was Rosie. It must be admitted that she did both of these things with a certain grace, also that the picture she made had its charm. For she was probably sixteen, with all that the age implies.

Of course, one could not expect Dickie to be at all impressed. Certainly I did not.

“Girls!” Here followed an ominous inbreathing, ending in an explosive “Huh!” This was Dickie’s expressed attitude toward the sex. For Dickie was nineteen, which is the scornful age, you know. What are girls when a fellow is going to be a soph. in the fall, with the prospect of playing quarterback on the ’varsity eleven?

As we neared the girl on the gatepost Dickie gave her a careless glance. She certainly deserved better. There was the sifting sunshine in her hair and there were her white, rounded arms reaching up to pull down a fruit-laden branch. Perhaps the girl on the gatepost felt the slight of Dickie’s unappreciative glance, perhaps not. At any rate, she was unstirred.

“Want one?” she asked, saucily dangling a cherry at us.

Red as the cherry went Dickie’s face, and he marched stiffly past without reply. Once we were out of earshot, he remarked, with deep disgust: “What a freshy!”

“Yes, but rather pretty,” said I.

“Think so? Now, I don’t.” This with the air of a connoisseur. “But she did have good eyes.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I like brown ones myself.”

“Brown?” protested Dickie. “They were blue, dark blue and big – the deep kind.”

“Oh, were they?” In my tone must have been that which caused Dickie to suspect that I was teasing him.

“You bet she knows it, too,” he added, vindictively. “Conceited beggars, these girls.”

“Awfully,” I assented. Then, after a pause: “But I thought you were fond of cherries?”

“So I am. If she’d been a boy, I would have tried to buy a quart.”

“She seemed to want you to have some,” I suggested. “Perhaps she would sell you a few.”

Dickie glanced at me suspiciously. “Think so? I’ve a mind to go back and try. Will you wait?”

I said I would; in fact, it was the only thing to be done, for he was off. So I sat down and watched the scorner of girls disappear eagerly around a bend in the road. At the end of a half hour of waiting I began to speculate. Had Dickie’s courage failed him, had he taken to the woods, or was he upbraiding her of the gatepost for the sin of conceit? I would go and see for myself.

All unheeding the rest of the world, they were sitting at the foot of the cherry tree. The “conceited beggar” of the deep blue eyes was trying to toss cherries into Dickie’s open mouth. When she missed it became Dickie’s turn to toss cherries. The game was a spirited one. Dickie appeared to be well entertained.

“I thought you had forgotten me,” said I, mildly. Dickie’s laugh broke square in the middle, and he smoothed his face into a bored expression.

“Her name is Rosie,” this was the substance of the stammered introduction.

“Indeed!” I replied. “And you were right about her eyes; they are blue.”

Dickie flushed guiltily and hastily got on his feet.

“Come on,” he said; “I guess we’d better be going.”

Very frankly Rosie looked her opinion of me as we left. It was interesting to note the elaborate strategy used by Dickie to conceal the fact that he waved his handkerchief to her. There ensued a long silence between us, but of this Dickie seemed unconscious. He broke it by whistling “Bedelia” two notes off the key.

“It’s too bad, Dickie,” I said, finally, “that you dislike girls so much.”

“They’re a silly lot,” said Dickie, with a brave effort at a tired drawl.

“But Rosie, now – ”

“Oh, she’s not like the rest of them. She’s rather jolly.”

“Conceited little beggar, though, I suppose?”

“No, sir; not a bit. She’s just the right kind.” Then Dickie flushed and the conversation lapsed suddenly.

We were to go sailing on the river next morning, but when the time came Dickie pleaded delay. He had “promised to take a book to a friend.” He would be back in a few minutes. Two hours did Dickie take for that errand, and I began to think that perhaps my joking had been unwise.

Dickie now entered upon a chronic state of being “togged up.” He treasured faded flowers, raising hue and cry because the maid threw out a wilted peony which he had enshrined in a vase on his chiffonier. Once he almost fell into the river rescuing an envelope which had slipped from his pocket. The treasure it contained seemed to be a lock of dark hair. His spending money went for fancy chocolates, which I did not see him eat.

Such were the beginnings of this tremendous affair.

Very gentle and serious Dickie became in these days, moods new to him. Also he took to reading poetry. Scott’s “Marmion,” about the only piece of verse with which he had been on speaking acquaintance, he abandoned for fragments of “Locksley Hall” and “Lucille.” His musical taste underwent like change. The rollicking college airs he was accustomed to whistle with more vigor than accuracy gave place to “Tell Me, Pretty Maiden,” and “Annie Laurie.” These he executed quite as inaccurately, but – and this was some relief – in minor key.

Sitting in the sacred hush of the moonlight, we had long talks on sober subjects not at all related to “revolving wedges” and “guards back formation,” on which he had been wont to discourse. With uneasy conscience I meditated on the amazing alchemy, potent in young and tender passion.

One morning a grinning youngster with big blue eyes, like Rosie’s, handed me a note. It was rather sticky to the touch, by reason of the candy with which the messenger had been paid. It bore no address. “Darlingest Dearest – ” Thus far I read, then folded it promptly and put it in my pocket.

The note was still there the next afternoon when, jibing our sail, we came abruptly on an unexpected scene. In a smart cedar rowboat, such as they have for hire at the summer hotel, an athletic youth wielded a pair of long, spruce oars. Facing him, with her back toward us and leaning comfortably against the chair seat in the stern, was a pretty girl in white.

“Why,” said I, with perhaps a suspicion of relief, “I believe that is Rosie.”

Dickie, gripping the tiller hard, was staring as one in a trance. My words roused him.

“Rosie? What Rosie?” said he.

“Why, the one who gave you the cherries.”

“Is it?” asked Dickie, stoically. Then, with studied carelessness and devilish abandon: “I say, old man, toss me a cigar, will you? I feel like having a smoke.”

After dinner I found Dickie in his room. There was a scent of burned paper in the air and fresh ashes were in the grate. The mercury was close to ninety.

“Chilly?” said I.

Dickie laughed unconvincingly. “No, just burning some old trash. Want to take a tramp?”

I did. Was it chance or the immutable workings of fate which took us in time past the house of the cherry tree? In a porch hammock was Rosie, a vision of budding beauty only half clouded in flimsy lawn and lace. Yet with never a turn of the head Dickie swaggered by, talking meanwhile to me in tones meant to carry an idea of much light-heartedness. Over my shoulder I noted that Rosie was standing watching us, a puzzled look on her face.

“Dick!” It was rather a faint call, but loud enough to be heard.

“She’s calling you,” said I.

“Wait, Dickie!” This time there was an aggrieved, pleading note, against which the stern Dickie was not proof.

“Well,” said he, “I suppose I’d better see what she wants. Will you wait?”

“No, I will go on slowly and you can catch up with me. Don’t be long, Dickie.”

But a full hour later, when I returned, he was just starting. From some distance up the road I could see them. On the veranda Rosie’s mother rocked and worked placidly away at something in her lap. Quite sedately they walked down the path until a big hydrangea bush, studded thickly with great clumps of blossoms, screened them from the house. Then something occurred which told me that the boating incident and the unanswered note had either been forgiven or forgotten. I dodged out of sight behind a hedge. When I thought it safe to come out, Dickie was swinging up the road toward me, whistling furiously. Clawing my shoulder, he remarked: “Say, old man, what do you think of her?”

“Think of whom?”

“Why, Rosie.”

“Rosie! What Rosie? Oh, you mean the one who gave you the cherries?”

“Yes, of course. Say” – this impulsively in my ear – “she’s the sweetest girl alive.”

“From what I saw just now,” said I, “I should say that you were quite competent to pass on Rosie’s flavor. You took at least two tastes.”

“I don’t care if you did see,” said Dickie. “Suppose you can keep a secret? We’re en – ”

“You young scamp!” I exclaimed. Visions of an ambitious and angry mother came to me with abrupt vividness. “You don’t mean to tell me that you two – ”

“Yep, we are. But no one is to know of it until I’ve graduated.”

Interesting news for me, wasn’t it? Well, by means of discreet deception and the use of such diplomacy as would have settled a dispute between nations, I dragged Dickie far away that very night. Moreover, although it was the most difficult and thankless task I had ever undertaken, I kept him away until I had seen him safely bestowed in a college dormitory. There I left him constructing, in defiance of all the good advice I had given him, an elaborate missive to a person whom he addressed as “My Darling Rosie.” Then I knew that I might as well give up. Sorrowfully I recalled the words of a forgotten sentimentalist: “It is on the deep pages of the heart that Youth writes indelibly its salutary to Cupid.”

When I met Dickie’s mother at the pier in October, I expected to hear that he had written all about my wicked interference in the Rosie affair. He hadn’t, though, and I shamelessly accepted her thanks, wondering all the while what she would say when the shocking truth came out. Her Dickie engaged! And to a nameless nobody! It would not be pleasant to face Dickie’s mother after she had acquired this knowledge.

So at the end of the term I was on hand to help Dickie pack his trunk, meaning to save him, by hook or crook, from his precocious entanglement. I should try reason first, then ridicule, and, lastly, I would plead with him, as humbly as I might, to forget.

This program I did not carry out. On the mantel in Dickie’s room, propped against a tobacco jar, was a photograph of a girl with fluffy hair and pouting lips. Observing that Dickie wrapped the picture carefully in a sweater before tucking it away in his trunk, I asked: “Who is that, Dickie?”

“Met her at the Junior hop,” said Dickie. “She’s a queen, all right.”

“Indeed!” Then I added, anxiously: “And what of Rosie?”

“Rosie?” Could this blankness on Dickie’s face be genuine? “What Rosie?”

“Why, the one who gave you the cherries.”

“Oh, that one!” Dickie laughed lightly. “Why, that’s all off long ago, you know.”

Right there I abandoned all faith in a sentimental theory having to do with Cupid and certain pages in the heart of Youth.