Kitabı oku: «At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern», sayfa 11
XVI
Good Fortune
The next morning, Harlan and Dorothy ate breakfast by themselves. There was suppressed excitement in the manner of Mrs. Smithers, who by this time had quite recovered from her fright, and, as they readily saw, not wholly of an unpleasant kind. From time to time she tittered audibly – a thing which had never happened before.
“It’s just as if a tombstone should giggle,” remarked Harlan. His tone was low, but unfortunately, it carried well.
“Tombstone or not, just as you like,” responded Mrs. Smithers, as she came in with the bacon. “I’d be careful ’ow I spoke disrespectfully of tombstones if I was in your places, that’s wot I would. Tombstones is kind to some and cussed to others, that’s wot they are, and if you don’t like the monument wot’s at present in your kitchen, you know wot you can do.”
After breakfast, she beckoned Dorothy into the kitchen, and “gave notice.”
“Oh, Mrs. Smithers,” cried Dorothy, almost moved to tears, “please don’t leave me in the lurch! What should I do without you, with all these people on my hands? Don’t think of such a thing as leaving me!”
“Miss Carr,” said Mrs. Smithers, solemnly, with one long bony finger laid alongside of her hooked nose, “’t ain’t necessary for you to run no Summer hotel, that’s what it ain’t. These ’ere all be relations of your uncle’s wife and none of his’n except by marriage. Wot’s more, your uncle don’t want ’em ’ere, that’s wot ’e don’t.”
Mrs. Smithers’s tone was so confident that for the moment Dorothy was startled, remembering yesterday’s vague allusion to “sheeted spectres of the dead.”
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
“Miss Carr,” returned Mrs. Smithers, with due dignity, “ever since I come ’ere, I’ve been invited to shut my ’ead whenever I opened it about that there cat or your uncle or anythink, as you well knows. I was never one wot was fond of ’avin’ my ’ead shut up.”
“Go on,” said Dorothy, her curiosity fully alive, “and tell me what you mean.”
“You gives me your solemn oath, Miss, that you won’t tell me to shut my ’ead?” queried Mrs. Smithers.
“Of course,” returned Dorothy, trying to be practical, though the atmosphere was sepulchral enough.
“Well, then, you knows wot I told you about that there cat. ’E was kilt by your uncle, that’s wot ’e was, and your uncle couldn’t never abide cats. ’E was that feared of ’em ’e couldn’t even bury ’em when they was kilt, and one of my duties, Miss, as long as I lived with ’im, was buryin’ of cats, and until this one, I never come up with one wot couldn’t stay buried, that’s wot I ’aven’t.
“’E ’ated ’em like poison, that’s wot ’e did. The week afore your uncle died, he kilt this ’ere cat wot’s chasin’ the chickens now, and I buried ’im with my own hands, but could ’e stay buried? ’E could not. No sooner is your uncle dead and gone than this ’ere cat comes back, and it’s the truth, Miss Carr, for where ’e was buried, there ain’t no sign of a cat now. Wot’s worse, this ’ere cat looks per-cisely like your uncle, green eyes, white shirt front, black tie and all. It’s enough to give a body the shivers to see ’im a-settin’ on the kitchen floor lappin’ up ’is mush and milk, the which your uncle was so powerful fond of.
“Wot’s more,” continued Mrs. Smithers, in tones of awe, “I’ll a’most bet my immortal soul that if you’ll dig in the cemetery where your uncle was buried good and proper, you won’t find nothin’ but the empty coffin and maybe ’is grave clothes. Your uncle’s been livin’ with us all along in that there cat,” she added, triumphantly. “It’s ’is punishment, for ’e couldn’t never abide ’em, that’s wot ’e couldn’t.”
Mrs. Carr opened her mouth to speak, then, remembering her promise, took refuge in flight.
“’Er’s scared,” muttered Mrs. Smithers, “and no wonder. Wot with cats as can’t stay buried, writin’ letters and deliverin’ ’em in the dead of night, and a purrin’ like mad while blamed fools digs for eight cents, most folks would be scared, I take it, that’s wot they would.”
Dorothy was pale when she went into the library where Harlan was at work. He frowned at the interruption and Dorothy smiled back at him – it seemed so normal and sane.
“What is it, Dorothy?” he asked, not unkindly.
“Oh – just Mrs. Smithers’s nonsense. She’s upset me.”
“What about, dear?” Harlan put his work aside readily enough now.
“Oh, the same old story about the cat and Uncle Ebeneezer. And I’m afraid – ”
“Afraid of what?”
“I know it’s foolish, but I’m afraid she’s going to dig in the cemetery to see if Uncle Ebeneezer is still there. She thinks he’s in the cat.”
For the moment, Harlan thought Dorothy had suddenly lost her reason, then he laughed heartily.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “she won’t do anything of the kind, and, besides, what if she did? It’s a free country, isn’t it?”
“And – there’s another thing, Harlan.” For days she had dreaded to speak of it, but now it could be put off no longer.
“It’s – it’s money,” she went on, unwillingly. “I’m afraid I haven’t managed very well, or else it’s cost so much for everything, but we’re – we’re almost broke, Harlan,” she concluded, bravely, trying to smile.
Harlan put his hands in his pockets and began to walk back and forth. “If I can only finish the book,” he said, at length, “I think we’ll be all right, but I can’t leave it now. There’s only two more chapters to write, and then – ”
“And then,” cried Dorothy, her beautiful belief in him transfiguring her face, “then we’ll be rich, won’t we?”
“I am already rich,” returned Harlan, “when you have such faith in me as that.”
For a moment the shimmering veil of estrangement which so long had hung between them, seemed to part, and reveal soul to soul. As swiftly the mood changed and Dorothy felt it first, like a chill mist in the air. Neither dreamed that with the writing of the first paragraph in the book, the spell had claimed one of them for ever – that cobweb after cobweb, of gossamer fineness, should make a fabric never to be broken; that on one side of it should stand a man who had exchanged his dreams for realities and his realities for dreams, and on the other, a woman, blindly hurt, eternally straining to see beyond the veil.
“What can we do?” asked Harlan, unwontedly practical for the nonce.
“I don’t know,” said Dorothy. “There are the diamonds, you know, that we found. I don’t care for any diamonds, except the one you gave me. If we could sell those – ”
“Dorothy, don’t. I don’t believe they’re ours, and if they were, they shouldn’t be sold. You should keep them.”
“My engagement ring, then,” suggested Dorothy, her lips trembling. “That’s ours.”
“Don’t be foolish,” said Harlan, a little roughly. “I’ll finish this and then we’ll see what’s to be done.”
Feeling her dismissal, Dorothy went out, and, all unknowingly, straight into the sunshine.
Elaine was coming downstairs, fresh and sweet as the morning itself. “Am I too late to have any breakfast, Mrs. Carr?” she asked, gaily. “I know I don’t deserve any.”
“Of course you shall have breakfast. I’ll see to it.”
Elaine took her place at the table and Dorothy, reluctant to put further strain on the frail bond that anchored Mrs. Smithers to her service, brought in the breakfast herself.
“You’re so good to me,” said the girl, gratefully, as Dorothy poured out a cup of steaming coffee. “To think how beautiful you’ve been to me, when I never saw either one of you in my whole life, till I came here ill and broken-hearted! See what you’ve made of me – see how well and strong I am!”
Swiftly, Dorothy bent and kissed Elaine, a strange, shadowy cloud for ever lifted from her heart. She had not known how heavy it was nor how charged with foreboding, until it was gone.
“I want to do something for you,” Elaine went on, laughing to hide the mist in her eyes, “and I’ve just thought what I can do. My mother had some beautiful old mahogany furniture, just loads of it, and some wonderful laces, and I’m going to divide with you.”
“No, you’re not,” returned Dorothy, warmly. She felt that Elaine had already given her enough.
“It isn’t meant for payment, Mrs. Carr,” the girl went on, her big blue eyes fixed upon Dorothy, “but you’re to take it from me just as I’ve taken this lovely Summer from you. You took in a stranger, weak and helpless and half-crazed with grief, and you’ve made her into a happy woman again.”
Before Dorothy could answer, Dick lounged in, frankly sleepy. “Second call in the dining car?” he asked, taking Mrs. Dodd’s place, across the table from Elaine.
“Third call,” returned Dorothy, brightly, “and, if you don’t mind, I’ll leave you two to wait on yourselves.” She went upstairs, her heart light, not so much from reality as from prescience. “How true it is,” she thought, “that if you only wait and do the best you can, things all work out straight again. I’ve had to learn it, but I know it now.”
“Bully bunch, the Carrs,” remarked Dick, pushing his cup to Elaine.
“They’re lovely,” she answered, with conviction.
The sun streamed brightly into the dining-room of the Jack-o’-Lantern and changed its hideousness into cheer. Seeing Elaine across from him, gracefully pouring his coffee, affected Dick strangely. Since the day before, he had seen clearly something which he must do.
“I say, Elaine,” he began, awkwardly. “That beast of a poem I read the other day – ”
Her face paled, ever so slightly. “Yes?”
“Well, Perkins didn’t write it, you know,” Dick went on, hastily. “I did it myself. Or, rather I found it, blowing around, outside, just as I said, and I fixed it.”
At length he became restless under the calm scrutiny of Elaine’s clear eyes. “I beg your pardon,” he continued.
“Did you think,” she asked, “that it was nice to make fun of a lady in that way?”
“I didn’t think,” returned Dick, truthfully. “I never thought for a minute that it was making fun of you, but only of that – that pup, Perkins,” he concluded, viciously.
“Under the circumstances,” said Elaine, ignoring the epithet, “the silence of Mr. Perkins has been very noble. I shall tell him so.”
“Do,” answered Dick, with difficulty. “He’s ambling up to the lunch-counter now.” Mr. Chester went out by way of the window, swallowing hard.
“I have just been told,” said Miss St. Clair to the poet, “that the – er – poem was not written by you, and I apologise for what I said.”
Mr. Perkins bowed in acknowledgment. “It is a small matter,” he said, wearily, running his fingers through his hair. It was, indeed, compared with deep sorrow of a penetrating kind, and a sleepless night, but Elaine did not relish the comment.
“Were – were you restless in the night?” she asked, conventionally.
“I was. I did not sleep at all until after four o’clock, and then only for a few moments.”
“I’m sorry. Did – did you write anything?”
“I began an epic,” answered the poet, touched, for the moment, by this unexpected sympathy. “An epic in blank verse, on ‘Disappointment.’”
“I’m sure it’s beautiful,” continued Elaine, coldly. “And that reminds me. I have hunted through my room, in every possible place, and found nothing.”
A flood of painful emotion overwhelmed the poet, and he buried his face in his hands. In a flash, Elaine was violently angry, though she could not have told why. She marched out of the dining-room and slammed the door. “Delicate, sensitive soul,” she said to herself, scornfully. “Wants people to hunt for money he thinks may be hidden in his room, and yet is so far above sordidness that he can’t hear it spoken of!”
Seeing Mr. Chester pacing back and forth moodily at some distance from the house, Elaine rushed out to him. “Dick,” she cried, “he is a lobster!”
Dick’s clouded face brightened. “Is he?” he asked, eagerly, knowing instinctively whom she meant. “Elaine, you’re a brick!” They shook hands in token of absolute agreement upon one subject at least, and the girl’s right hand hurt her for some little time afterward.
Left to himself, Mr. Perkins mused upon the dread prospect before him. For years he had calculated upon a generous proportion of his Uncle Ebeneezer’s estate, and had even borrowed money upon the strength of his expectations. These debts now loomed up inconveniently.
The vulgar, commercial people from whom Mr. Perkins had borrowed filthy coin were quite capable of speaking of the matter, and in an unpleasant manner at that. The fine soul of Mr. Perkins shrank from the ordeal. He had that particular disdain of commercialism which is inseparable from the incapable and unsuccessful, and yet, if the light of his genius were to illuminate a desolate world, Mr. Perkins must have money.
He might even have to degrade himself by coarse toil – and hitherto, he had been too proud to work. The thought was terrible. Pegasus hitched to the plough was nothing compared with the prospect of Mr. Perkins being obliged to earn three or four dollars a week in some humble, common capacity.
Then a bright idea came to his rescue. “Mr. Carr,” he thought, “the gentleman who is now entertaining me – he is doing my own kind of work, though of course it is less fine in quality. Perhaps he would like the opportunity of going down to posterity as the humble Mæcenas of a new Horace.”
Borne to the library in the rush of this attractive idea, Mr. Perkins opened the door, which Harlan had forgotten to lock, and without in any way announcing himself, broke in on Harlan’s chapter.
“What do you mean?” demanded the irate author. “What business have you butting in here like this? Get out!”
“I – ” stammered Mr. Perkins.
“Get out!” thundered Harlan. It sounded strangely like the last phrase of “dear Uncle Ebeneezer’s last communication,” and, trembling, the disconsolate poet obeyed. He fled to his own room as a storm-tossed ship to its last harbour, and renewed the composition of his epic on “Disappointment,” for which, by this time, he had additional material.
Harlan went back to his work, but the mood was gone. The living, radiant picture had wholly vanished, and in its place was a heap of dead, dry, meaningless words. “Did I write it?” asked Harlan, of himself, “and if so, why?”
Like the mocking fantasy of a dream as seen in the instant of waking, Elaine and her company had gone, as if to return no more. Only two chapters were yet to be written, and he knew, vaguely, what Elaine was about to do when he left her, but his pen had lost the trick of writing.
Deeply troubled, Harlan went to the window, where the outer world still had the curious appearance of unreality. It was as though a sheet of glass were between him and the life of the rest of the world. He could see through it clearly, but the barrier was there, and must always be there. Upon the edge of this glass, the light of life should break and resolve itself into prismatic colours, of which he should see one at a time, now and then more, and often a clear, pitiless view of the world should give him no colour at all.
Presently Lawyer Bradford came up the hill, dressed for a formal call. In a flash it brought back to Harlan the day the old man had first come to the Jack-o’-Lantern, when Dorothy was a happy girl with a care-free boy for a husband. How much had happened since, and how old and grey the world had grown!
“I desire to see the distinguished author, Mr. Carr,” the thin, piping voice was saying at the door, “upon a matter of immediate and personal importance. And Mrs. Carr also, if she is at leisure. Privacy is absolutely essential.”
“Come into the library,” said Harlan, from the doorway. Another interruption made no difference now. Dorothy soon followed, much mystified by the way in which Mrs. Smithers had summoned her.
Remembering the inopportune intrusion of Mr. Perkins, Harlan locked the door. “Now, Mr. Bradford,” he said, easily, “what is it?”
“I should have told you before,” began the old lawyer, “had not the bonds of silence been laid upon me by one whom we all revere and who is now past carrying out his own desires. The house is yours, as my letters of an earlier date apprised you, and the will is to be probated at the Fall term of court.
“Your uncle,” went on Mr. Bradford, unwillingly, “was a great sufferer from – from relations,” he added, lowering his voice to a shrill whisper, “and he has chosen to revenge himself for his sufferings in his own way. Of this I am not at liberty to speak, though no definite silence was required of me later than yesterday.
“There is, however, a farm of two thousand acres, all improved, which is still to come to you, and a sum of money amounting to something over ten thousand dollars, in the bank to your credit. The multitudinous duties in connection with the practice of my profession have prevented me from making myself familiar with the exact amount.
“And,” he went on, looking at Dorothy, “there is a very beautiful diamond pin, the gift of my lamented friend to his lovely young wife upon the day of the solemnisation of their nuptials, which was to be given to the wife of Mr. Judson’s nephew when he should marry. It is sewn in a mattress in the room at the end of the north wing.”
The earth whirled beneath Dorothy’s feet. At first, she had not fully comprehended what Mr. Bradford was saying, but now she realised that they had passed from pinching poverty to affluence – at least it seemed so to her. Harlan was not so readily confused, but none the less, he, too, was dazed. Neither of them could speak.
“I should be grateful,” the old man was saying, “if you would ask Mr. Richard Chester and Mrs. Sarah Smithers to come to my office at their earliest convenience. I will not trespass upon their valuable time at present.”
There was a long silence, during which Mr. Bradford cleared his throat, and wiped his glasses several times. “The farm has always been held in my name,” he continued, “to protect our lamented friend and benefactor from additional disturbance. If – if the relations had known, his life would have been even less peaceful than it was. A further farm, valued at twelve thousand dollars, and also held in my name, is my friend’s last gift to me, as I discovered by opening a personal letter which was to be kept sealed until this morning. I did not open it until late in the morning, not wishing to show unseemly eagerness to pry into my friend’s affairs. I am too much affected to speak of it – I feel his loss too keenly. He was my Colonel – I served under him in the war.”
A mist filled the old man’s eyes and he fumbled for the door-knob. Harlan found it for him, turned the key, and opened the door. Mrs. Dodd, Mrs. Holmes, Mrs. Smithers, and the suffering poet were all in the hall, their attitudes plainly indicating that they had been listening at the door, but something in Mr. Bradford’s face made them huddle back into the corner, ashamed.
Feeling his way with his cane, he went to the parlour door, where he stood for a moment at the threshold, his streaming eyes fixed upon the portrait over the mantel. The simple dignity of his grief forbade a word from any one. At length he straightened himself, brought his trembling hand to his forehead in a feeble military salute, and, wiping his eyes, tottered off downhill.
XVII
The Lady Elaine knows her Heart
It was on a dark and stormy midnight, when the thunders boomed and the dread fury of the lightnings scarred the overhanging cliffs, that the Lady Elaine at last came to know her heart.
She was in a cave, safe from all but the noise of the storm. A cheery fire blazed at her door, and her bed within was made soft with pine boughs and skins. For weeks they had journeyed here and there, yet there had been no knight in whose face Elaine could find what she sought.
As she lay on her couch, she reflected upon the faithful wayfarers who had travelled with her, who had ever been gentle and courtly, saving her from all annoyance and all harm. Yet above them all, there was one who, from the time of their starting, had kept vigilant guard. He was the humblest of them all, but it was he who made her rest in shady places by the wayside when she herself scarce knew that she was weary; had given her cool spring water in a cup cunningly woven of leaves before she had realised her thirst; had brought her berries and strange, luscious fruits before she had thought of hunger; and who had cheered her, many a time, when no one else had guessed that she was sad.
Outside, he was guarding her now, all heedless of the rain. She could see him dimly in the shadow, then, all at once, more clearly in the firelight. His head was bowed and his arms folded, yet in the strong lines of his body there was no hint of weariness. Well did the Lady Elaine know that until Dawn spun her web of enchantment upon the mysterious loom of the East, he would march sleeplessly before her door, replenishing the fire, listening now and then for her deep breathing, and, upon the morrow, gaily tell her of his dreams.
Dreams they were, indeed, but not the dreams of sleep. Upon these midnight marchings, her sentinel gave his wandering fancy free rein. And because of the dumb pain in his heart, these fancies were all the merrier; more golden with the sun of laughter, more gemmed with the pearl of tears.
Proud-hearted, yet strangely homesick, the Lady Elaine was restless this night. “I must go back,” she thought, “to the Castle of Content, where my dear father would fain have his child again. And yet I dread to go back with my errand undone, my quest unrewarded.
“What is it,” thought Elaine, in sudden self-searching, “that I seek? What must this man be, to whom I would surrender the keeping of my heart? What do I ask that is so hard to find?
“Am I seeking for a god? Nay, surely not, but only for a man. Valorous he must be, indeed, but not in the lists – ’tis not a soldier, for I have seen them by the hundred since I left my home in the valley. ’Tis not a model for the tapestry weaver that my heart would have, for I have seen the most beautiful youths of my country since I came forth upon my quest.
“Some one, perchance,” mused the Lady Elaine, “whose beauty my eyes alone should perceive, whose valour only I should guess before there was need to test it. Some one great of heart and clean of mind, in whose eyes there should never be that which makes a woman ashamed. Some one fine-fibred and strong-souled, not above tenderness when a maid was tired. One who should make a shield of his love, to keep her not only from the great hurts but from the little ones as well, and yet with whom she might fare onward, shoulder to shoulder, as God meant mates should fare.
“Surely ’tis not so unusual, this thing that I ask – only an honest man with human faults and human virtues, transfigured by a great love. And why is it that in this quest of mine, I have found him not?”
“Princess,” said a voice at her doorway, “thou art surely still awake. The storm is lessening and there is naught to fear. I pray thee, try to sleep. And if there is aught I can do for thee, thou knowest thou hast only to speak.”
From the warm darkness where she lay, Elaine saw his face with the firelight upon it, and all at once she knew.
“There is naught,” she answered, with what he thought was coldness. “I bid thee leave me and take thine own rest.”
“As thou wilt,” he responded, submissively, but though the sound was now faint and far away, she still could hear him walking back and forth, keeping his unremitting guard.
So it was that at last Love came to the Lady Elaine. She had dreamed of some fair stranger, into whose eyes she should look and instantly know him for her lord, never guessing that her lord had gone with her when she left the Castle of Content. There was none of those leaps of the heart of which one of the maids at the Castle had read from the books while the others worked at the tapestry frames. It was nothing new, but only a light upon something which had always been, and which, because of her own blindness, she had not seen.
All through this foolish journey, Love had ridden beside the Lady Elaine, asking nothing but the privilege of serving her; demanding only the right to give, to sacrifice, to shield. And at last she knew.
The doubting in her heart was for ever stilled and in its place was a great peace. There was an unspeakable tenderness and a measureless compassion, so wide and so deep that it sheltered all the world. For, strangely enough, the love of the many comes first through the love of the one.
The Lady Elaine did not need to ask whether he loved her, for, unerringly, she knew. Mated past all power of change, they two were one henceforward, though seas should roll between. Mated through suffering as well, for, in this new bond, as the Lady Elaine dimly perceived, there was great possibility of hurt. Yet there was no end or no beginning; it simply was, and at last she knew.
At length, she slept. When she awoke the morning was fair upon the mountains, but still he paced back and forth before her door. Rising, she bathed her face in the cool water he had brought her, braided her glorious golden hair, changed her soiled habit for a fresh robe of white satin traced with gold, donned her red embroidered slippers, and stepped out into the sunrise, shading her eyes with her hand until they grew accustomed to the dawn.
“Good morrow, Princess,” he said. “We – ”
Of a sudden, he stopped and fled like a wild thing into the forest, for by her eyes, he saw what was in her heart, and his hot words, struggling for utterance, choked him. “At last,” he breathed, with his clenched hands on his breast; “at last – but no, ’tis another dream of mine that I dare not believe.”
His senses reeled, for love comes not to a man as to a woman, but rather with the sound of trumpets and the glare of white light. The cloistered peace that fills her soul rests seldom upon him, and instead he is stirred with high ambition and spurred on to glorious achievement. For to her, love is the end of life; to him it is the means.
The knights thought it but another caprice when the Lady Elaine gave orders to return to the Castle of Content, at once, and by the shortest way – all save one of them. With his heart rioting madly through his breast, he knew, but he did not dare to look at Elaine. He was as one long blinded, who suddenly sees the sun.
So it was that though he still served her, he rode no longer by her side, and Elaine, hurt at first, at length understood, and smiled because of her understanding. All the way back, the Lady Elaine sang little songs to herself, and, the while she rode upon her palfrey, touched her zither into gentle harmonies. After many days, they came within sight of the Castle of Content.
As before, it was sunset, and the long light lay upon the hills, while the valley was in shadow. Purple were the vineyards, heavy with their clustered treasure, over which the tiny weavers had made their lace, and purple, too, were the many-spired cliffs, behind which the sunset shone.
A courier, riding swiftly in advance, had apprised the Lord of the Castle of Content of the return of the Lady Elaine, and the maids from the tapestry room, and the keeper of the wine-cellar, and the stable-boys, and the candle-makers, and the light-bearers all rushed out, heedless of their manners, for, one and all, they loved the Lady Elaine, and were eager to behold their beautiful mistress again.
But the Lord of the Castle of Content, speaking somewhat sternly, ordered them one and all back to their places, and, shamefacedly, they obeyed. “I would not be selfish,” he muttered to himself, “but surely, Elaine is mine, and the first gleam of her beauty belongs of right to these misty old eyes of mine, that have long strained across the dark for the first hint of her coming. Of a truth her quest has been long.”
So it came to pass that when the company reached the road that led down into the valley, the Lord of the Castle of Content was on the portico alone, though he could not have known that behind every shuttered window of the Castle, a humble servitor of Elaine’s was waiting anxiously for her coming.
As before, Elaine rode at the head, waving her hand to her father, while the cymbals and the bugles crashed out a welcome. She could not see, but she guessed that he was there, and in return he waved a tremulous hand at her, though well he knew that in the fast gathering twilight, the child of his heart could not see the one who awaited her.
One by one, as they came in single file down the precipice, the old man counted them, much astonished to see that there was no new member of the company – that as many were coming back as had gone away. For the moment his heart was glad, then he reproached himself bitterly for his selfishness, and was truthfully most tender toward Elaine, because she had failed upon her quest.
The light gleamed capriciously upon the bauble of the fool, which he still carried, though now it hung downward from his saddle, foolishly enough. “A most merry fool,” said the Lord of Content to himself. “I was wise to insist upon his accompanying this wayward child of mine.”
Wayward she might be, yet her father’s eyes were dim when she came down into the valley, where there was no light save the evening star, a taper light at an upper window of the Castle, and her illumined face.
“How hast thou fared upon thy quest, Elaine?” he asked in trembling tones, when at last she released herself from his eager embrace. He dreaded to hear her make known her disappointment, yet his sorrow was all for her, and not in the least for himself.
“I have found him, father,” she said, the gladness in her voice betraying itself as surely as the music in a stream when Spring sets it free again, “and, forsooth, he rode with me all the time.”
“Which knight hast thou chosen, Elaine?” he asked, a little sadly.
“No knight at all, dear father. I have found my knight in stranger guise than in armour and shield. He bears no lance, save for those who would injure me.” And then, she beckoned to the fool.
“He is here, my father,” she went on, her great love making her all unconscious of the shame she should feel.
“Elaine!” thundered her father, while the fool hung his head, “hast thou taken leave of thy senses? Of a truth, this is a sorry jest thou hast chosen to greet me with on thy return.”
