XIRosemary and Rue
THE better impulses had been all to the fore when Tregarvon had wished his friend a fair field and no favor at Highmount. But between a burst of generosity on the spur of a repentant moment and a day-by-day renouncing of a pearl of price there is apt to lie avia dolorosaplentifully bestrewn with stone bruises for misguided feet. On the day following the evening of plain speech Tregarvon toiled manfully with Rucker and the laborers in the repairing of the damaged machinery; but he did it without prejudice to a good many sharp-pointed reflections basing themselves upon Carfax’s blunt accusation, upon the golden youth’s calm interference, and upon the fact that, late in the forenoon, Carfax, apparently tired of looking on and doing nothing at the scene of the repairing activities, had strolled away through the forest in the direction of Highmount.
There was more than one disturbing string to the bow of reflection. At first, Miss Birrell hadopenly made a good-natured mock of Carfax, with his small affectations to point her gibings; but Tregarvon was now impecunious enough himself to appreciate the potency of money. Miss Richardia had told him a little about the Birrell fortunes—or the lack of them; of the vanishing of the family possessions in the aftermath of the Civil War; of the fact that her father, once the leading jurist of the Cumberland counties—Miss Richardia did not say this, but Tregarvon easily inferred it—had found himself out of touch with the later and more pushing spirit of the New South, and had withdrawn more and more until he had become almost a hermit. The Carfax millions were enough to tempt any young woman; and Carfax himself—Tregarvon admitted it without bitterness—was a man to whom most women were attracted and whom all women trusted.
But was Carfax really in love with Judge Birrell’s daughter? Tregarvon boasted that he had summered and wintered the golden youth; yet there were depths in him that the Philadelphian suspected no one had ever fully plumbed. In Tregarvon’s knowing of him he had always been, or appeared to be, immune to sentiment; his attitude had been that of a gentle-naturedsoul who was willing to be used, or even abused, without detriment to an impartial affection for the entire sex. Would such a man be able to make Richardia as happy as she deserved to be? In the intimacy which Tregarvon had pressed to its ultimate limits he had come to know that behind the cool, slate-blue eyes and the lips that lent themselves so readily to playful mockery there was a passionate soul which would give all and demand all; which would starve on a diet of mere affection, however kindly and indulgent. Would the Carfax millions outweigh this demand? It was an irritating question, refusing to be answered.
Tregarvon, driving bolts into the patched derrick frame, strove dejectedly to put his own huge misfortune aside as a matter definitely settled. He admitted, with pricklings of shame, the truth, or at least the half-truth, of Carfax’s accusation—the charge of fickleness. In a light-hearted way he had been devoted to many women, for the moment, and the nearest woman had always been the loadstone. He excused the weakness by saying that it was common to all men—thereby touching a truth larger than he knew; excused it further by laying down the broad principle that Richardia Birrell, thoughnumerically the last, was really the first woman who had ever broken through to the inner depths of him.
Just here he had a saving glimpse of the workings of the normal masculine mind, and it jogged his sense of humor. Was not the latest charmer always the pearl of great price; the one altogether lovely? Perhaps; but in this case, he told himself, it was different. The Richardias are few and far between; and he had discovered one of the precious few only to realize that he was bound in honor to relinquish her without a murmur to a Carfax, or even to a Hartridge. It was a part of the irrefrangible vanity of the male to regard the relinquishment as a voluntary virtue on his part. In all the gnawings of the worm of reflection, girdings at his hard lot, questionings as to Richardia’s future happiness, gratulatory back-pattings at his own magnanimity in leaving the field to Carfax, it did not occur to him that Richardia, herself, might have had something to say to his own suit—if he had been able, as a man of honor, to press it. Like many other men, he comforted himself with the cheerful assumption that, in the absence of the abnormal obstacles, any man may win any woman, if he shall only put his mind to it; a doctrine, itmay be said, which is still lacking proof in certain isolated instances.
Thus giving himself over to the bitterness—and the self-glorification—of the afterthought, Tregarvon wore out the day, deferring to Rucker as boss of the repairing job, and trying not to speculate too pointedly upon the doings of the absent Carfax. That the golden youth was once more a drop-in guest at the near-by school was not to be doubted; and the caviller at an unkind fate steeled himself against another disloyalty—a temptation to rail at the New Yorker for making such unseemly haste. The ill-natured thought would have likened Carfax’s haste to that which prompts the heir-at-law to open and read the will while the testator is as yet merely in the throes of the death-agony—only Tregarvon would not yield to the temptation.
If the murmurer against fate could have seen beyond the half-mile of forest which intervened between the old slave burying-ground and Highmount, he would have concluded sorrowfully that Carfax’s haste was well on the way to its reward. Miss Richardia’s duty hours in the afternoon were short, and at three o’clock she was free to join the golden one, who, as Tregarvon’s prefiguring had assumed, had beenMrs. Caswell’s luncheon guest, and was now making himself at home on the broad veranda of the administration building. For a time the talk rambled through Boston byways and was reminiscent of Miss Richardia’s sojourn as a Conservatory student and of Carfax’s quickly abandoned attempt to take a postgraduate course in the School of Naval Architecture.
“You see, I didn’t have the spur,” was Carfax’s excuse for the abandoned attempt. Then, in an apparent burst of enthusiasm: “Vance is the lucky fellow! He is obliged to work. He thinks it is pretty hard lines, but he doesn’t know how jolly good it is for his soul. It is precisely what he is needing, don’t you think?”
“Work? yes; but the many disappointments: are they also good for the soul?”
Carfax’s smile was entirely amiable. “In due proportion, they are, I should say. Vance has been like a bit of soft steel, needing the forge fire and the tempering brine bath. I presume you know that he is engaged to be married?”
Miss Richardia’s smile was of the sort that no mere man may interpret.
“I think he has told me all there was to tell. Are you acquainted with Miss Wardwell?”
“Very well acquainted, indeed. She is allthat any man could ask—and more,” said Carfax, with more warmth than he usually permitted himself. “Last summer she was a member of a Lake Placid outing-party in which I had the good fortune also to be included. We became quite chummy. She swims, you know.”
Again Miss Birrell’s smile was a charming little mask of impenetrability.
“These athletic young women!” she sighed. “It is their day.”
“Oh, I don’t mean that Eliz—that Miss Wardwell is offensively athletic. I wouldn’t have you think that. She—she is musical and all the other things that a young woman ought to be; but she enjoys the outdoor things, too. And so do I.”
“And Mr. Tregarvon doesn’t enjoy them?”
“Just in a way,” was the qualifying rejoinder. “Vance’s misfortune has been, that, until quite recently, he has never wanted anything that he couldn’t simply reach out and take; he has never been obliged to throw himself whole-heartedly into anything. He is doing it now, though.”
“Into the Ocoee, you mean? I am afraid there is nothing but disappointment for him there.”
Carfax was silent for a moment. Then he said: “There are times, Miss Richardia, when Ihave the feeling that every one who knows what he is trying to do wishes him to be disappointed.”
“Including us here at Highmount?” she laughed.
“Well, yes.”
“Perhaps you would be willing to make it even more definite. Do you include me with Mr. Tregarvon’s ill-wishers?”
“Sometimes I’ve been tempted to.”
“I’m sure I don’t know why you should say that.”
“I have said it,” Carfax returned, with the gentle doggedness which he could assume when the need was sufficiently pressing. “I shall be delighted to be assured that I am mistaken.”
Now came Miss Richardia’s opportunity to fall silent, and she improved it. When she spoke again the playful mockery was laid aside.
“My father was one of the sorriest of the losers in the Ocoee in the promoting period,” she began soberly. “This entire mountain top was once a part of the Birrell estate; my grandfather gave the site for this school. When Mr. Parker was promoting the Ocoee, father went into the plan, heart and soul, giving a large part of the land, and putting all the money he could rake and scrape into the stock of Mr. Parker’scompany. Worse than that, he was so firmly convinced of the future success of the undertaking that he persuaded his friends to invest. You mustn’t expect us to be very enthusiastic now, Mr. Carfax. It isn’t in human nature to rejoice when others are preparing to reap where we have sown.”
Carfax’s smile was angel-compassionate.
“Poor Vance isn’t reaping very successfully as yet,” he pointed out. Then he added: “I hope your good father doesn’t feel vindictive toward him. I think we may safely say that Vance is the innocent third party in the transaction—if there ever is such a thing.”
“You don’t know my father; if you did, you would hardly accuse him of vindictiveness, even in your thoughts.”
“Can you say as much for yourself?” asked the accuser gently.
“Indeed, I can!”
“You wouldn’t put a straw in Vance’s way, if you could?”
“I wish you would listen!” she laughed. “Do I look like a—a subterranean plotter, Mr. Carfax?”
“You always look charming. But you don’t want Vance to succeed.”
“I am sure I don’t know why you shouldthink such a thing. Perhaps you don’t think it. I can never tell when you are really in earnest.”
“Strange that you should have noticed that. Others have said it of me, too, at times. But I am very much in earnest this afternoon. It lies in your hands to make Vance fail most conspicuously, you know.”
“You are fond of riddles, and I am not. I wish you would be more explicit.”
Carfax stole a glance aside at his veranda companion and it was borne in upon him that he would have to choose his words carefully. The slate-blue eyes had grown a trifle hard, and Miss Richardia’s tone was no longer sympathetic.
“Vance can’t mix business and sentiment very well,” he ventured. “He has been spending a good bit of time here at Highmount, forgetting some things that he ought to remember. Surely you have discovered his one weakness by this time, haven’t you?” he went on, gravely pleading. “Not that it isn’t tremendously excusable in the present instance, you know. You—er—you are enough to turn any man’s head, Miss Richardia; you are, indeed.”
Her little shriek of laughter was sufficient to break any thin skim of ice which may have been congealing between them.
“You can be quite as absurd as Mr. Vance, himself, when you try!” she mocked. Then, with the frankness which was all her own: “Are you trying to tell me that I have been playing the part of a modern Delilah, Mr. Carfax!”
“Oh, dear, no! But”—he swallowed hard once or twice, and then took the plunge—“but Vance simply couldn’t help falling in love with you. Er—hardly any man could. And it’s—it’s smashing him to perfection. I don’t say that he is admitting the—the little lapse, even to himself; he is too honorable to do that, after he has given his word to Eliz—to Miss Wardwell. But the fact remains.”
Miss Richardia laughed again, but now the laugh scarcely rang true.
“You are making me out a poor, miserable sinner; though I am a most innocent one, I do assure you,” she protested, not without a suggestion of sarcasm. “What is it you wish me to do?”
Carfax needed no one to tell him that he was wading in deep waters, and that another step might put him in over his head. Yet he could not retreat; he had gone too far.
“I have been trying to hammer a little common sense into Vance; perhaps I have said more thaneven a good friend has a right to say. Hitherto it hasn’t done much good; but last night I had a perfectly brilliant inspiration. I wonder if you could be induced to help me carry it out?—just in the interests of a—of a square deal all around, you know.”
“Another absurdity?” she queried, half scornfully.
“Yes, just that; a—a most ridiculous absurdity. Will you—er—will you marry me, Miss Richardia?”
“Most certainly not,” she returned, with a strained little laugh. “Why should I?”
“There isn’t any reason at all, of course,” he hastened to say. “But if you would make your answer not quite so—er—so positive: if you would be so generous as to—er—to seem to take it under consideration; just until Vance can get on his feet again——”
This time her laughter was wholly mirthful; an abandonment of all hamperings.
“Of all preposterous askings!” she gasped. “Are there many more like you, Mr. Carfax—in New York?”
“Plenty of them,” he assured her, not too seriously. Then: “It wouldn’t be such a dreadful thing, would it? I can make love very nicely,you know; honestly, I can. And we shouldn’t have to do anything more than to keep up appearances.”
She shook her head.
“I’m not going to humor you far enough to even pretend to take you seriously,” she declared.
“Not even for Vance’s sake? Of course, I know you don’t care for him, particularly, but I do; he has been like a brother to me, Miss Richardia; really he has. And we ought to make him realize what he is about; it’s—er—it’s a sort of duty, don’t you think?”
“If I should tell you what I think I am afraid it might sound dreadfully unkind, Mr. Carfax. You seem to have had very little experience with women.”
“Oh, but I have, you know,” he burst out. “I—I’m in love, myself—with—with some one I can’t possibly marry. That ought to make you feel sorry for me, and I’m sure it does. Perhaps you are in a similar situation yourself; in love with some one else, I mean. In that case——”
Miss Richardia had risen, and the mocking mood was once more firmly intrenched behind her laughing eyes.
“You have given me a most delicious half-hour, Mr. Carfax, and in the days to come, whenI feel particularly blue, I shall always have it to look back to and remember. You are not expecting me to say any more than that, are you? I can’t, you know, because I have an appointment with a pupil, and I shall have to go and keep it.”
Carfax had risen with her. “I’m perfectly delighted to be your laughing-stock,” he asserted gently. “You’ll let me come and be it again? Thanks, awfully.” And when she was gone he sat down like a man who has been through a pass perilous, and smoked three of the imported cigarettes in rapid succession.
That evening, returning from the hard day’s work on the repairs, the owner of the Ocoee found Carfax awaiting him in the office headquarters at the foot of Pisgah. Uncle William’s dinner, served as soon as Tregarvon had taken his bath, was not provocative of conversation; and even afterward the talk, revolving around the repairs and the mystery, was only desultory. It was not until Tregarvon was smoking his bedtime pipe that he dug the one important thing out of his mind and flung it at his companion.
“You spent the day at Highmount, I suppose?”
“Oh, dear, no; not quite so bad as that. I’ve been down here since half-past four or such a matter.”
“But you went to the college after you left us?”
“Yes; and Mrs. Caswell was good enough to give me something to eat at the proper time. She makes one believe all the old-time stories of Southern hospitality. Which reminds me: we are both invited there to dinner to-morrow evening.”
Tregarvon refused to be turned aside.
“You didn’t go to Highmount to visit with Mrs. Caswell,” he suggested sourly.
“Not altogether; no.”
“Did you see Richardia?”
Carfax had lighted his candle and was preparing to beat a hasty retreat, did retreat as far as the door before he turned to say: “Yes, I saw I Miss Richardia. You wished me joy, last night, Vance, and I hope you are going to do it again. I’ve asked her to marry me, you know.”
“What!” shouted Tregarvon, springing from his chair. And then, with a mighty effort to keep the words from choking him: “What did she say?”
Carfax smiled like a winning angel. “She—well, it seemed to strike her as being a bit sudden, as you might say, and——”
Carfax stopped abruptly and said no more.
Tregarvon had dropped into a chair beside thetable, and was hiding his face in the crook of an elbow. Carfax stopped abruptly and said no more; and when he closed the door behind him it was done so gently that the latch made no sound.