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She felt that the room was full of sunshine. Even through her glued-down lids she caught the darting dazzle of it. She knew that the air was full of bird voices. Even through her drowse-filmed ears, she caught the singing sound of them. She would like to lift her lids. She would like to wake up. But after all it was a little too easy to sleep. The impulse with which she sank back to slumber was so soft that it was scarcely impulse. It dropped her slowly into an enormous dark, a colossal quiet.
Presently she drifted to the top of that dark quiet. Again the sunlight flowed into the channels of seeing. Again the birds picked on the strings of hearing. By an enormous effort she opened her eyes.
She stared from her bed straight at a window. A big vine stretched films of green leaf across it. It seemed to color the sunshine that poured onto the floor—green. She looked at the windowfor a long time. Presently she discovered among the leaves a crimson, vase-like flower.
“Why, how thick the trumpet-vine has grown!” she said aloud.
It seemed to her that there was a movement at her side. But that movement did not interest her. She did not fall into a well this time. She drifted off on a tide of sleep. Presently—perhaps it was an hour later, perhaps five minutes—she opened her eyes. Again she stared at the window. Again the wonder of growth absorbed her thought; passed out of it. She looked about the room. Her little bedroom set, painted a soft creamy yellow with long tendrils of golden vine, stood out softly against the faded green cartridge paper.
“Why! Why have they put the bureau over there?” she demanded aloud of the miniature of Glorious Lutie which hung beside the bureau. With a vague alarm, her eyes sped from point to point. The dado of Weejubs stood out as though freshly restored. But all her pictures were gone; the four colored prints, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter—each the head of a little girl, deckedwith buds or flowers, fruit or furs, had vanished. The faded squares where they had hung showed on the walls. Oh, woe, her favorite of all, “My Little White Kittens,” had disappeared too. On the other hand—on table, on bureau, and on commode-top—crowded the little Chinese toys.
“Why, when did they bring them in from the Dew Pond?” she asked herself, again aloud.
With a sudden stab of memory, she reached her hand up on the wall. How curious! Only yesterday she could scarcely touch the spring; now her hand went far beyond it. She pressed. The little panel opened slowly. She raised herself in bed and looked through the aperture.
Glorious Lutie’s room was stark—bare, save for a bed and her long wooden writing-table.
Her thoughts flew madly ... suddenly her whole acceptance of things crumbled. Why! She wasn’t Cherie and eight. She was Susannah and twenty-five; and the last time she had been anywhere she had been in New York.... Lightnings of memory tore at her ... the Carbonado Mining Company ... Eloise ... a Salvation Army woman on the street ...roofers. Yet this was Blue Meadows. She did not have to pinch herself or press on her sleepy eyelids. ItwasBlue Meadows. The trumpet-vine, though as gigantic as Jack’s beanstalk, proved it. The painted furniture proved it. The Chinese toys proved it. Yes, and if she wanted the final touch that clinched all argument, there beside the head of the bed was the maple gazelle. This really was not the final proof. The final proof was human and it entered the room at that moment in the person of Mrs. Spash. And Mrs. Spash—in her old, quaint inaccurate way—was calling her as Cherry.
Susannah burst into tears.
“Oh, I feel so much better now,” Susannah said after a little talk; more sleep; then talk again. “I’m going to be perfectly well in a little while. I want to get up. And oh, dear Mrs. Spash—do you remember how sometimes I used to call you Mrs. Splash? I do want as soon as possible to see Mr. Lindsay and his cousin—Miss Stockbridge, did you say? I want to thank them, of course. How can I ever thank them enough?And I want to talk to him about the biography. Oh, I’m sure I can give him so much. And I can make out a list of people who can tell him all the things you and I don’t remember; or never knew. And then, in my trunk in New York, is a package of all Glorious Lutie’s letters to me. I think he will want to publish some of them; they are so lovely, so full of our games—and jingles, and even drawings. Couldn’t I sit up now?”
“I don’t see why not,” Mrs. Spash said. “You’ve slept for nearly twenty-six hours, Cherry. You waked up once—or half-waked up. We gave you some hot milk and you went right to sleep again.”
“It’s going to make me well—just being at Blue Meadows,” Susannah prophesied. “If I could only stay— But I’m grateful for a day, an hour.”
Later, she came slowly down the stairs—one hand on the rail, the other holding Mrs. Spash’s arm. She wore her faded creamy-pink, creamy-yellow Japanese kimono, held in prim plaits by the broad sash, a big obi bow at the back. Her redhair lay forward in two long glittering braids. Her face was still pale, but her eyes overran with a lucent blue excitement. It caught on her eyelashes and made stars there.
A slim young man in flannels; tall with a muscular litheness; dark with a burnished tan; handsome; arose from his work at the long refectory table. He came forward smiling—his hand outstretched. “My cousin, Miss Stockbridge, has run in to Boston to do some shopping,” he explained. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you up, or how glad she will be.” He took her disengaged arm and reinforced Mrs. Spash’s efforts. They guided her into a big wing chair. The young man found a footstool for her.
“I suppose I’m not dreaming, Mr. Lindsay,” Susannah apprised him tremulously. “And yet how can it be anything but a dream? I left this place fifteen years ago and I have never seen it since. How did I get back here? How did you find me? How did you know who I was? And what made you so heavenly good as to bring me here? I remember fragments here and there— Mrs. Spash tells me I’ve had the flu.”
Lindsay laughed. “That’s all easily explained,” he said with a smoothness almost meretricious. “I happened to go to New York on business. As usual I went to my friend Sparrel’s apartment. You were ill and delirious in the next room. I heard you; forced the door open and sent at once for a doctor. He pronounced it a belated case of flu. So I telephoned for Miss Stockbridge; we moved you into my apartment and after you passed the crisis—thank God, you escaped pneumonia!—I asked the doctor if I could bring you over here. He agreed that the country air would be the very best thing for you, and yet would not advise me to do it. He thought it was taking too great a risk. But I felt—I can’t tell you how strongly I felt it—that it would be the best thing for you. My cousin stood by me, and I took the chance. Sometimes now, though, I shudder at my own foolhardiness. You don’t remember—or do you?—that I went through the formality of asking your consent.”
“I do remember now—vaguely,” Susannah laughed. “Isn’t it lucky I didn’t—in my weakness—say no?”
Lindsay laughed again. “I shouldn’t have paid any attention to it, if you had. I knew that this was what you needed. You were sleeping then about twenty-five hours out of the twenty-four. So one night we brought you in a taxi to the boat and took the night trip to Boston. The boat was making its return trip that night, but I bribed them to let you stay on it all day until it was almost ready to sail. Late in the afternoon, we brought you in an automobile to Quinanog. You slept all the way. That was yesterday afternoon. It was dark when we got here. You didn’t even open your eyes when I carried you into the house. In the meantime I had wired Mrs. Spash—and she fixed up your room, as much like the way it used to be when you were a child, as she could remember.”
“It’s all too marvelous,” Susannah murmured. New brilliancies were welling up into her turquoise eyes, the deep dark fringes of lash could not hold them; the stars kept dropping off their tips. Fresh spurts of color invaded her face. Nervously her long white hands pulled at her coppery braids.
“There are so many questions I shall ask you,” she went on, “when I’m strong enough. But some I must ask you now. How did you happen to come here? And when did the idea of writing Glorious Lutie’s—my aunt’s—biography occur to you? And how did you come to know Mrs. Spash? Where did you find the little Chinese toys? And my painted bedroom set? And the sideboard there? And the six-legged highboy? Oh dear, a hundred, thousand, million things. But first of all, how did you know that, now being Susannah Ayer, I was formerly Susannah Delano?”
“There was the miniature of Miss Murray hanging on your wall. That made me sure—in—in some inexplicable way—that you were the little lost Cherry. And of course we went through your handbag to make sure. We found some letters addressed to Susannah Delano Ayer. But will you tell me how youdohappen to be Susannah Ayer, when you were formerly Susannah Delano, alias Cherry—or Cherie?”
“I went from here to Providence to live with a large family of cousins. Their name was Ayer,and I was so often called Ayer that finally I took the name.” Susannah paused, and then with a sudden impulse toward confidence, she went on. “I grew up with my cousins. I was the youngest of them all. The two oldest girls married, one a Californian, the other a Canadian. I haven’t seen them for years. The three boys are scattered all over everywhere, by the war. My uncle died first; then my aunt. She left me the five hundred dollars with which I got my business training.”
The look of one who is absorbing passionately all that is being said to him was on Lindsay’s face. But a little perplexity troubled it. “Glorious Lutie?” he repeated interrogatively.
“Oh, of course,” Susannah murmured. “I always called her Glorious Lutie. She always called me Glorious Susie—that is when she didn’t call meCherie. And we had a game—the Abracadabra game. When she was telling me a story—her stories weremarvels; they went on for days and days—and she got tired, she could always stop it by saying, Abracadabra! If I didn’t reply instantly with Abracadabra, the storystopped. Of course she always caught my little wits napping—I was so absorbed in the story that I could only stutter and pant, trying to remember that long word.”
“That’s a Peter Ibbetson trick,” Lindsay commented.
The talk, thus begun, lasted for the three hours which elapsed before Miss Stockbridge’s return. Two narratives ran through their talk; Lindsay’s, which dealt with superficial matters, began with his return to America from France; Susannah’s, which began with that sad day, fifteen years ago, when she saw Blue Meadows for the last time. But neither narrative went straight. They zig-zagged; they curved, they circled. Those deviations were the result of racing up squirrel tracks of opinion and theory; of little excursions into the allied experiences of youth; even of talks on books. Once it was interrupted by the noiseless entry of Mrs. Spash, who deposited a tray which contained a glass of milk, a pair of dropped eggs, a little mound of buttered toast. Susannah suddenly found herself hungry. She drained herglass, ate both eggs, devoured the last crumb of toast.
After this, she felt so vigorous that she fell in with Lindsay’s suggestion that she walk to the door. There she stood on the door-stone for a preoccupied, half-joyful, half-melancholy interval studying the garden. Then, leaning on his arm, she ventured as far as the seat under the copper-beech. Later, even, she went to the barn and the Dew Pond. Before she could get tired, Lindsay brought her back, reestablishing her in the chair. Then—and not till then—and following another impulse to confide in Lindsay, Susannah told him the whole story of the Carbonado Mining Company. Perhaps his point of view on that matter gave her her second accession of vitality. He paced up and down the room during her narrative; his hands, fists. But he laughed their threats to scorn. “Now don’t give another thought to that gang of crooks!” he adjured her. “I know a man in New York—a lawyer. I’ll have him look up that crowd and put the fear of God into them. They’ll probably be flown by that time, however. Undoubtedly theywere making ready for their getaway. Don’t think of it again. They can’t hurt you half as much as that bee that’s trying to get in the door.” He was silent for a moment, staring fixedly down at his own manuscript on the table. “By God!” he burst out suddenly, “I’ve half a mind to beat it on to New York. I’d like to be present. I’d have some things to say—and do.”
Somewhere toward the end of this long talk, “I’ve not said a word yet, Mr. Lindsay,” Susannah interpolated timidly, “of how grateful I am to you—and your cousin. But it’s mainly because I’ve not had the strength yet. I don’t know how I’m going to repay you. I don’t know how I’m even going to tell you. What I owe you—just in money—let alone eternal gratitude.”
“Now, that’s all arranged,” Lindsay said smoothly. “You don’t know what a find you were. You’re an angel from heaven. You’re a Christmas present in July. For a long time I’ve realized that I needed a secretary. Somebody’s got to help me on Lutetia’s life or I’ll never get it done. Who better qualified than Lutetia’s own niece? In fact you will not only be secretary butcollaborator. As soon as you’re well enough, we’ll go to work every morning and we’ll work together until it’s done.”
Susannah leaned back, snuggled into the soft recess of the comfortable chair. She dropped her lids over the dazzling brilliancy of her eyes. “I suppose I ought to say no. I suppose I ought to have some proper pride about accepting so much kindness. I suppose I ought to show some firmness of mind, pawn all my possessions and get back to work in New York or Boston. Girls in novels always do those things. But I know I shall do none of them. I shall say yes. For I haven’t been so happy since Glorious Lutie died.”
“Oh,” Lindsay exclaimed quickly as though glad to reduce this dangerous emotional excitement. “There comes the lost Anna Sophia Stockbridge. She’s a dandy. I think you’ll like her. It’s awfully hard not to.”
The instant Susannah had disappeared with Miss Stockbridge up the stairs, Mrs. Spash appeared in the Long Room. Apparently, she came with a definite object—an object in no wayconnected with the futile dusting movements she began to emit.
Lindsay watched her.
Suddenly Mrs. Spash’s eyes came up; met his. They gazed at each other a long moment; a gaze that was luminous with question and answer.
“She’s gone,” Lindsay announced after a while.
Mrs. Spash nodded briskly.
“She’ll never come back,” Lindsay added.
Again Mrs. Spash nodded briskly.
“They’ve all gone,” Lindsay stated.
For the third time Mrs. Spash briskly nodded.
“When Cherie came,theyleft,” Lindsay concluded.
“They’d done what they wanted to do,” Mrs. Spash vouchsafed. “Brought you and Cherry together. So there was no need. She took them away. She’d admire to stay. That’s like her. But she don’t want to make the place seem—well,queer. So, as she allus did, she gives up her wish.”
“Mrs. Spash,” Lindsay exploded suddenly after a long pause, “we’veneverseen them. Youunderstand we’ve never seen them; either of us. They never were here.”
Mrs. Spash nodded for the fourth time.
That night after his cousin and his guest had gone to bed, Lindsay wandered about the place. The moon was big enough to turn his paths into streams of light. He walked through the flower garden; into the barn; about the Dew Pond. The tallest hollyhocks scarcely moved, so quiet was the night. The little pond showed no ripple except a flash of the moonlight. The barn was a cavern of gloom. Lindsay gazed at everything as though from a new point of view.
An immeasurable content filled him.
After a while he returned to the house. His picture of Lutetia Murray still hung over the mantel in the living-room. He gazed at it for a long while. Then he turned away. As he looked down the length of the living-room, there was in his face a whimsical expression, half of an achieved happiness, half of a lurking regret. “This house has never been so full of people since I’ve been here,” he mused, “and yet neverwas it so empty. My beloved ghosts, I miss you. But you’ve not all gone after all. You’ve left one little ghost behind. Lutetia, I thank you for her. How I wish you could come again to see.... But you’re right. Don’t come! Not that I’m afraid. You’re too lovely—”
His thoughts broke halfway. They took another turn. “I wonder if it ever happened to any other man before in the history of the world to see the little-girl ghost of the woman—”
Blue Meadows had for several weeks now been projecting pictures from its storied past into the light of everyday. Could it have projected into that everyday one picture from the future, it would have been something like this.
Susannah came into the south living-room. Her husband was standing between the two windows.
“Davy,” she exclaimed joyfully, “I’ve located the lowboy. A Mrs. Norton in West Hassett owns it. Of course she’s asking a perfectly prohibitive price, but of course we’ve got to have it.”
“Yes,” Lindsay answered absently, “we’ve got to have it.”
“I’m glad we found things so slowly,” Susannah dreamily. “It adds to the wonder and magic of it all. It makes the dream last longer. It keeps our romance always at the boiling point.”
She put one arm about her husband’s neck and kissed him. Lindsay turned; kissed her.
“At least we have the major pieces back,” Susannah said contentedly. “And little Lutetia Murray Lindsay will grow up in almost the same surroundings that Susannah Ayer enjoyed. Oh—today—when I carried her over to the wall of the nursery, she noticed the Weejubs; she actually put her hand out to touch them.”
“Oh, there’s something here for you—from Rome—just came in the mail,” Lindsay exclaimed. “It’s addressed to Susannah Delano too.”
“From Rome!” Susannah ejaculated. “Susannah Delano!” She cut the strings of the package. Under the wrappings appeared—swathed in tissue paper—a picture. A letterdropped from the envelope. Susannah seized it; turned to the signature.
“Garrison Monroe!” she ejaculated. “Oh, dear dear Uncle Garry, he’s alive after all!” She read the letter aloud, the tears welling in her eyes.
“How wonderful!” she commented when she finished. “You see, he’s apparently specialized in tomb-sculpture.”
She pulled the tissue paper from the picture. Their heads met, examining it.
“Oh, how lovely!” Susannah exclaimed in a hushed voice. And “It’s beautiful!” Lindsay agreed in a low tone.
It was the photograph of a bit of sculptured marble; a woman swathed in rippling draperies lying, at ease, on her side. One hand, palm upward, fingers a little curled, lay by her cheek; the other fell across her breast. A veil partially obscured the delicate profile. But from every veiled feature, from every line of the figure, from every fold in the drapery, exuded rest.
“It’s perfect!” Susannah said, still in a low tone. “Perfect. Many a time she’s fallen asleepjust like than when we’ve all been talking and laughing. When she slept, her hand always lay close to her face as it is here. She always wore long floating scarves. You see he had to do her face from photographs ... and memory.... He’s used that scarf device to conceal.... How beautiful! How beautiful!”
There came silence.
“Mrs. Spash says he was in love with her,” Susannah went on. “Of course I was too young. I didn’t realize it. But it’s all here, I think. Did you notice that part of the letter where he says that for the last year or two his mind has been full of her? And of all his life here? That’s very pathetic, isn’t it? Now there will be a fitting monument over her.... He says it will be here in a few months. We must send him pictures when it’s put on her grave. How happy it makes me! He says he’s nearly eighty.... How beautiful.... You’re not listening to me,” she accused her husband with sudden indignation. But her indignation tempered itself by a flurry of little kisses when, following the direction of his piercing gaze, she saw it ended onthe miniature which hung beside the secretary. “Looking at Glorious Lutie!” she mocked tenderly. “How that miniature fascinates you! Sometimes,” she added, obviously inventing whimsical cause for grievance, “sometimes I think you’re as much in love with her as you are with me.”
“If I am,” Lindsay agreed, “it’s because there’s so much of you in her.”
THE END
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