Truxton Beaufort rode over to King's Crest the next morning, and sat on the steps of the Schoolhouse. Randy and Major Prime were having breakfast out-of-doors. It was ten o'clock, but they were apparently taking their ease.
"I thought you had to work," Truxton said to Randy.
"I sold a car yesterday——"
"And to-day you are playing around like a plutocrat. I wish I could sell cars. I wish I could doanything. Look here, you two. I wonder if you feel as I do."
"About what?"
"Coming back. I came home expecting a pedestal—and I give you my word nobody seems to think much of me except my family. And they aren't worshipful—exactly. They can't be. How can they rave over my one decoration when that young nigger John has two, and deserved them, and when the butcher and baker and candlestick-maker are my ranking officers? War used to be a gentleman's game. But it isn't any more."
"We've got to carve our own pedestals," said the Major. "We are gods of yesterday. The world won't stop to praise us. We did our duty, and we would do it again. But our laurel wreaths are doffed. Our swords are beaten into plowshares. Peace is upon us. If we want pedestals, we've got to carve them."
Truxton argued that it wasn't quite fair. The Major agreed that it might not seem so, but the thing had been so vast, and there were so many men involved, so many heroes.
"Every little family has a hero of its own," Truxton supplemented. "Mary thinks none of the others didanything—I won thewholewar. That's where I have it over you two," he grinned.
"It is a thing," said the Major, cheerfully, "which can be remedied."
"It can," Truxton told him; "which reminds me that our young John is going to marry Flippins' Daisy, and our household is in mourning. Mandy doesn't approve of Daisy, and neither does Calvin. Mandy took to her bed when she heard the news, and young John cooked breakfast to the tune of his Daddy's lamentations. But it was a good breakfast."
"Marriage," said the Major, "seems rather epidemic in these days."
Randy rose restlessly and sat on the porch rail. "Why in the world does John want to marry Daisy——"
"Why not?" easily. "There's some style about Daisy——"
"But there are lots of nice, comfortable, hard-working girls in this neighborhood."
"Lead me to 'em," Truxton mimicked young John, "lead me to 'em. Mary says that Daisy is the best of the lot. She has plenty of good sense back of her foolishness, and she is one of the best cooks in the county. She and John are planning to go up to Washington and open an old-fashioned oyster house. She says that people are complaining that they can't get oysters as they did in the old days, and she is going to show them. I wouldn't be surprised if they made a success of it. And I tell you this—I envy John. He will have a paying business, and here I am without a thing ahead of me, and I have married a wife and the ravens won't feed us."
Randy stuck his hands in his pockets with an air of sudden resolution.
"Look here," he said, "why can't we go halves in this car business? It will pay our expenses, and we can finish our law course at the University."
"Law? Oh, look here, Randy, I thought you had given that up."
"I haven't, and why should you? We will finish, and some day we will open an office together."
The Major, whistling softly, listened and said nothing.
"I have been thinking a lot about it," Randy went on, "and I can't see much of a future ahead of me. Not the kind of future that our families are expecting of us. You and I have got to stand for something, Truxton, or some day the world will be saying that all the great men died with Thomas Jefferson."
The Major went on with his lilting tune. What a pair they were, these lads! Randy, afire with his dreams, and rather tragic in his dreaming. Truxton, light as a feather—laughing.
"Why can't we give to the world as much as the men who have gone before us?" Randy was demanding. "Are we going to take everything from our ancestors, and give nothing to our descendants?"
Truxton chuckled. "By Jove," he said, "now that I come to think of it, I am the head of a family—there's Fiddle-dee-dee, and I shall have to reckon with Fiddle-dee-dee's children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren—who will expect that my portrait will hang on the wall at Huntersfield."
"It is all very well to laugh," said Randy hotly, "but that is the way it looks to me; that we have got to show to the world that our ambitions are—big. It is all very well to talk about the day's work. I am going to do it, and pay my way, but there's got to be something beyond that to think about—something bigger than I have ever known."
He gained dignity through the sincerity of his purpose. The Major, still whistling softly, wondered what had come over the boy. He recognized a difference since he had last talked to him. Randy was not only roused; he was ready to look life in the face, to wrest from it the best. "If that is what love of the little girl is doing for him," said the Major to himself, "then let him love her."
Truxton continued to treat the situation lightly. "Look here," he said, "do you think you are going to be the only great man in our generation?"
Randy laughed; but the fire was still in his eyes. "The county will hold the two of us."
And now the Major spoke. "No man can be great by simply saying it. But I think most of our great men have expected things of themselves. They have dreamed dreams of greatness. I fancy that Lincoln did in his log cabin, and Roosevelt on the plains. And it wasn't egotism—it was a boy's wish to give himself to the world. And the wish was the urge. And the trouble with many of our men in these days is that they are content to dream; of what they can get instead of what they can do. Paine has the right idea. There must be a day's work no matter how hard, and it must be done well, but beyond that must be a dream of bigger things for the future——"
Truxton stood up. "I asked for bread and you have given me—caviar. Sufficient unto the day is the greatness thereof. And in the meantime, Randy, I will make the grand gesture—and help you sell cars." He was grinning as he left them. "Good-bye, Major. Good-bye, T. Jefferson, Jr. Let me know when you want me in your Cabinet."
It was late that afternoon that Mary, looking for her husband, found him in the Judge's library.
"What are you doing?" she asked, with lively curiosity.
Truxton was sitting on the floor with a pile of calf-bound books beside him.
"What are you doing, lover?"
"Come here and I'll tell you." He made a seat for her of four of the big books. His arm went around her and he laid his head against her shoulder.
"Mary," he said, "I am carving a pedestal."
"You are what?"
He explained. He laughed a great deal as he gave her an account of his conversation with the Major and Randy that morning.
"You see before you," with a final flourish, "a potential great man. A Thomas Jefferson, up-to-date; a John Randolph of the present day; the Lincoln of my own time; the ancestor of Fiddle's great-grandchildren."
She rumpled his hair. "I like you as you are."
He caught her hand and held it. "But you'd like me on—a pedestal?"
"If you'll let me help you carve it."
He kissed the hand that he held. "If I am ever anything more than I am," he said, and now he was not laughing, "it will be because of you—my dearest darling."
The Merriweather fortunes had not been affected by the fall of the Confederacy. There had been money invested in European ventures, and when peace had come in sixty-five, the old grey stone house had again flung wide its doors to the distinguished guests who had always honored it, and had resumed its ancient custom of an annual harvest ball.
The ballroom, built at the back of the main house, was connected with it by wide curving corridors, which contained the family portraits, and which had long windows which opened out on little balconies. On the night of the ball these balconies were lighted by round yellow lanterns, so that the effect from the outside was that of a succession of full moons.
The ballroom was octagonal, and canopied with a blue ceiling studded with silver stars. There were cupids with garlands on the side walls, and faded blue brocade hangings. Across one end of the ballroom was the long gallery reserved for those whom the Merriweathers still called "the tenantry," and it was here that Mary and Mrs. Flippin always sat after baking cakes.
Mrs. Flippin had not baked the cakes to-day, nor was she in the gallery, for her daughter, Mary, was among the guests on the ballroom floor, and her mother's own good sense had kept her at home.
"I shall look after Miss MacVeigh," she had said. "I want Truxton to bring you over and show you in your pretty new dress."
When they came, Madge, who was sitting up, insisted that she, too, must see Mary. "My dear, my dear," she said, "what a wonderful frock."
"Yes," Mary said, "it is. It is one of Becky's, and she gave it to me. And the turquoises are Mrs. Beaufort's."
Madge, who knew the whole alphabet of smart costumers, was aware of the sophisticated perfection of that fluff of jade green tulle. The touch of gold at the girdle, the flash of gold for the petticoat. She guessed the price, a stiff one, and wondered that Mary should speak of it casually as "one of Becky's."
"The turquoises are the perfect touch."
"That was Becky's idea. It seemed queer to me at first, blue with the green. But she said if I just wore this band around my hair, and the ring. And it does seem right, doesn't it?"
"It is perfect. What is Miss Bannister wearing?"
"Silver and white—lace, you know. The new kind, like a cobweb—with silver underneath—and a rose-colored fan—and pearls. You should see her pearls, Miss MacVeigh. Tell her about them, Truxton."
"Well, once upon a time they belonged to a queen. Becky's great-grandfather on the Meredith side was a diplomat in Paris, and he bought them, or so the story runs. Becky only wears a part of them. The rest are in the family vaults."
Madge listened, and showed no surprise. But that account of lace and silver, and priceless pearls did not sound in the least like the new little girl about whom George had, in the few times that she had seen him of late, been so silent.
"If only Flora would get well, and let me leave this beastly hole," had been the burden of his complaint.
"I thought you liked it."
"It is well enough for a time."
"What about the new little girl?"
He was plainly embarrassed, but bluffed it out. "I wish you wouldn't ask questions."
"I wish you wouldn't be—rude—Georgie-Porgie."
"I hate that name, Madge. Any man has a right to be rude when a woman calls him 'Georgie-Porgie.'"
"So that's it? Well, now run along. And please don't come again until you are nice—and smiling."
"Oh, look here, Madge."
"Run along——"
"But there isn't any place to run."
Laughter lurked in her eyes. "Oh, Georgie-Porgie—for once in your life can't you run away?"
"Do you think you are funny?"
"Perhaps not. Smile a little, Georgie."
"How can anybody smile, with everybody sick?"
"Oh, no, we're not. We are better. I am so glad that Flora is improving."
"Oscar thinks it is because that little old man prayed for her. Fancy Oscar——"
Madge meditated. "Yet it might be, you know, George. There are things in that old man's petition that transcend all our philosophy."
"Oh, you're as bad as Oscar," said George. He rose and stood frowning on the threshold. "Well, good-bye, Madge."
"Good-bye, Georgie, and smile when you come again."
She had guessed then that something had gone wrong in the game with the new little girl. She had a consuming curiosity to know the details. But she could never force things with Georgie. Some day, perhaps, he would tell her.
And now here was news indeed! She waited until young Beaufort and his wife had driven away, and until Mrs. Flippin had time for that quiet hour by her bedside.
"Mary looked lovely," said Madge.
"Didn't she?" Mrs. Flippin rocked and talked. "You would never have known that dress was made for anybody but for Mary. Becky gave Mary another dress out of a lot she had down from New York. It is yellow organdie, made by hand and with little embroidered scallops."
Madge knew the house which made a specialty of those organdie gowns with embroidered scallops, and she knew the price.
"But how does—Becky manage to have such lovely things?"
"Oh, she's rich," Mrs. Flippin was rocking comfortably. "You would never know it, and nobody thinks of it much. But she's got money. From her grandmother. And there was something in the will about having her live out of the world as long as she could. That's why they sent her to a convent and kept her down here as much as possible. She ain't ever seemed to care for clothes. She could always have had anything she wanted, but she ain't cared. She told Mary that she had a sudden notion to have some pretty things, and she sent for them, and it was lucky for Mary that she did. She couldn't have gone to this ball, for there wasn't any time to get anything made. Mr. Flippin and I are going to buy her some nice things when she goes to Richmond. But they won't be like the things that Becky gets, of course."
Madge, listening to further details of the Meredith fortunes, wondered how much of this Georgie knew. "Becky's mother died when she was five, and her father two years later," Mrs. Flippin was saying. "She might have been spoiled to death if she had been brought up as some children are. But she has spent her winters at the convent with Sister Loretto, and she's never worn much of anything but the uniform of the school. You wouldn't think that she had any money to see her, would you, Miss MacVeigh?"
"No, you wouldn't," said Madge, truthfully.
It was after nine o'clock—a warm night—with no sound but the ticking of the clock and the insistent hum of locusts.
"Mrs. Flippin," said Madge, "I wish you'd call up Hamilton Hill and ask for Mr. Dalton, and tell him that Miss MacVeigh would like to have him come and see her if he has nothing else on hand."
Mrs. Flippin looked her astonishment. "To-night?"
"Oh, I am not going to receive him this way," Madge reassured her. "If he can come, I'll get nurse to dress me and make me comfy in the sitting-room."
Having ascertained that Dalton would be over at once, the nurse was called, and Madge was made ready. It was a rather high-handed proceeding, and both Mrs. Flippin and the nurse stood aghast.
The nurse protested. "You really ought not, Miss MacVeigh."
"I love to do things that I ought not to do."
"But you'll tire yourself."
"If you were my Mary," said Mrs. Flippin, severely, "I wouldn't let you have your way——"
"I love to have my own way, Mrs. Flippin. And—I am not your Mary"—then fearing that she had hurt the kind heart, she caught Mrs. Flippin's hand in her own and kissed it,—"but I wish I were. You're such a lovely mother."
Mrs. Flippin smiled at her. "I'm as near like your mother as a hen is mother to a bluebird."
Madge, robed in the mauve gown, refused to have her hair touched. "I like it in braids," and so when George came there she sat in the sitting-room, all gold and mauve—a charming picture for his sulky eyes.
"Oh," she said, as he came in, in a gray sack suit, with a gray cap in his hand, "why, you aren't even dressed for dinner!"
"Why should I be?" he demanded. "Kemp has left me."
She had expected something different. "Kemp?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"He didn't give any reason. Just said he was going—and went. He said he had intended to go before, and had only stayed until Mrs. Waterman was better. Offered to stay on a little longer if it would embarrass me any to have him leave. I told him that if he wanted to go, he could get out now. And he is packing his bags."
"But what will you do without him?"
"I have wired to New York for a Jap."
"Where will Kemp go?"
"To King's Crest. To work for that lame officer—Prime."
"Oh—Major Prime? How did it happen?"
"Heaven only knows. I call it a mean trick."
"Well, of course, Kemp had a right to go if he wanted to. And perhaps you will like a Jap better. You always said Kemp was too independent."
"He is," shortly, "but I hate to be upset. It seems as if everything goes wrong these days. What did you want with me, Madge?"
Her eyelashes flickered as she surveyed him. "I wanted to see you—smile, Georgie."
"You didn't bring me down here to tell me that——" But in spite of himself the corners of his lips curled. "Oh, what's the answer, Madge?" he said, and laughed in spite of himself.
"I wanted to talk a little about—your Becky."
His laughter died at once. "Well, I'm not going to talk about her."
"Please—I am dying of curiosity—I hear that she is very—rich, Georgie."
"Rich?"
"Yes. She has oodles of money——"
"I don't believe it."
"But it is true, Georgie."
"Who told you?"
"Mrs. Flippin."
"It is all—rot——"
"It isn't rot, Georgie. Mrs. Flippin knows about it. Becky inherits from her Meredith grandmother. And her grandfather is Admiral Meredith of Nantucket, with a big house on Beacon Street in Boston. And they all belong to the inner circle."
He stared at her. "But Becky doesn't look it. She doesn't wear rings and things."
"'Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes'? Oh, George, did you think it had to be like that When people had money? Why, her pearls belonged to a queen." She told him their history.
It came back to him with a shock that he had said to Becky that the pearls cheapened her. "If they werereal," he had said.
"It was rather strange the way I found it out," Madge was saying. "Mary Flippin had on the most perfect gown—with all the marks on it of exclusive Fifth Avenue. She was going to the Merriweather ball, and Becky is to be there."
She saw him gather himself together. "It is rather a Cinderella story, isn't it?" he asked, with assumed lightness.
"Yes," she said, "but I thought you'd like to know."
"What if I knew already?"
She laughed and let it go at that. "I'm lonesome, Georgie, talk to me," she said. But he was not in a mood to talk. And at last she sent him away. And when he had gone she sat there a long time and thought about him. There had been look in his eyes which made her almost sorry. It seemed incredible as she came to think of it that anybody should ever be sorry for Georgie.
Since that night with Becky in the garden at Huntersfield George had been torn by conflicting emotions. He knew himself at last in love. He knew himself beaten at the game by a little shabby girl, and a lanky youth who had been her champion.
He would not acknowledge that the thing was ended, and in the end he had written her a letter. He cried to Heaven that a marriage between her and young Paine would be a crime. "How can you love him, Becky—you are mine."
The letter had been returned unopened. His burning phrases might have been dead ashes for all the good they had done. She had not read them.
And now Madge had told him the unbelievable thing—that Becky Bannister, the shabby Becky of the simple cottons and the stubbed shoes, was rich, not as Waterman was rich, flamboyantly, vulgarly, with an eye to letting all the world know. But rich in a thoroughbred fashion, scorning display—he knew the kind, secure in a knowledge of the unassailable assets of birth and breeding and solid financial standing.
No wonder young Paine wanted to marry her. George, driving through the night, set his teeth. He was seeing Randy, poor as Job's turkey, with Becky's money for a background.
Well, he should not have it. He should not have Becky.
George headed the car for the Merriweathers'. Becky was there, and he was going to see Becky. How he was to see her he left to the inspiration to the moment.
He parked his car by the road, and walked through the great stone gates. The palatial residence was illumined from top to bottom, its windows great squares of gold against the night. The door stood open, but except for a servant or two there was no one in the wide hall. The guests were dancing in the ballroom at the back, and George caught the lilt of the music as he skirted the house, then the sound of voices, the light laughter of the women, the deeper voices of the men.
The little balconies, lighted by the yellow lanterns, were empty. As soon as the music stopped they would be filled with dancers seeking the coolness of the outer air. He stood looking up, and suddenly, as if the stage had been set, Becky stepped out on the balcony straight in front of him, and stood under the yellow lantern. The light was dim, but it gave to her white skin, to her lace frock, to the pink fan, a faint golden glow. She might have been transmuted from flesh into some fine metal. George had not heard the Major's name for her, "Mademoiselle Midas," but he had a feeling that the little golden figure was symbolic—here was the real Golden Girl for him—not Madge or any other woman.
Randy was with her, back in the shadow, but unmistakable, his lean height, the lift of his head.
George moved forward until, hidden by a bush, he was almost under the balcony. He could catch the murmur of their voices. But not a word that they said was intelligible.
They were talking of Mary. Her introduction to her husband's friends had been an ordeal for Bob Flippin's daughter. But she had gone through it simply, quietly, unaffectedly, with the Judge by her side standing sponsor for his son's wife in chivalrous and stately fashion, with Mrs. Beaufort at her elbow helping her over the initial small talk of her presentation. With Truxton beaming, and with Becky drawing her into that charmed circle of the younger set which might so easily have shut her out. More than one of those younger folk had had it in mind that at last year's ball Mary Flippin had sat in the gallery. But not even the most snobbish of them would have dared to brave Becky Bannister's displeasure. Back of her clear-eyed serenity was a spirit which flamed and a strength which accomplished. Becky was an amiable young person who could flash fire at unfairness or injustice or undue assumption of superiority.
The music had stopped and the balconies were filled. George, in the darkness, was aware of the beauty of the scene—the lantern making yellow moons—the golden groups beneath them. Mary and Truxton with a friend or two were in the balcony adjoining the one where Becky sat with young Paine.
"Isn't she a dear and a darling, Randy?" Becky was saying; "and how well she carries it off. Truxton is so proud of her, and she is so pretty."
"She can't hold a candle to you, Becky."
"It is nice of you to say it." She leaned on the stone balustrade and swung her fan idly.
"I am not saying it to be nice."
"Aren't you—oh——!" She gave a quick exclamation.
"What's the matter?"
"I dropped my fan."
"I'll go and get it," he said, and just then the music started.
"No," said Becky, "never mind now. This is your dance with Mary—and she mustn't be kept waiting."
"Aren't you dancing this?"
"It is Truxton's, and I begged off. Run along, dear boy."
When he was gone she leaned over the rail. Below was a tangle of bushes, and the white gleam of a stone bench. Beyond the bushes was a path, and farther on a fountain. It was a rather imposing fountain, with a Neptune in bronze riding a sea-horse, with nymphs on dolphins in attendance. Neptune poured water from a shell which he held in his hand, and the dolphins spouted great streams. The splash of the water was a grateful sound in the stillness of the hot night, and the mist which the slight breeze blew towards a bed of tuberoses seemed to bring out their heavy fragrance. Always afterwards when Becky thought of that night, there would come to her again that heavy scent and the splash of streaming water.
"Becky," a voice came up from below, "I have your fan."
She peered down into the darkness, but did not speak.
"Becky, I am punished, enough, and I am—starved for you——"
"Give me my fan——"
"I want to talk to you—I must—talk to you."
"Give me my fan——"
"I can't reach——"
"You can stand on that bench."
He stood on it, and she could see his figure faintly defined.
"I am afraid I am still too far away. Lean over a bit, Becky—and I'll hand it to you."
She stretched her white arm down into the darkness. Her hand was caught in a strong clasp. "Becky, give me just five minutes by the fountain."
"Let me go."
"Not until you promise that you'll come."
"I shall never promise."
"Then I shall keep your fan——"
"Keep it—I have others."
"But you will think about this one, because I have it." There was a note of triumph in his soft laugh.
He kissed her finger-tips and reluctantly released her hand. "The fan is mine, then, until you ask for it."
"I shall never ask."
"Who knows? Some day you may—who knows?" and he was gone.
He could not have chosen a better way in which to fire her imagination. His voice in the dark, his laughing triumph, the daring theft of her fan. Her heart followed him, seeing him a Conqueror even in this, seeing him a robber with his rose-colored booty, a Robin Hood of the Garden, a Dick Turpin among the tuberoses.
The spirit of Romance went with him. The things that Pride had done for her looked gray and dull. She had promised to marry Randy, and felt that she faced a somewhat sober future. Set against it was all that George had given her, the sparkle and dash and color of his ardent pursuit.
He was not worth a thought, yet she thought of him. She was still thinking of him when Randy came back.
"Did you get your fan?" he asked.
"No. Never mind, Randy. I will have one of the servants look for it."
"But I do mind."
She hesitated. "Well, don't look for it now. Let's go in and join the others. Are they going down to supper?"
Supper was served in the great Hunt Room, which was below the ballroom. It was a historic and picturesque place, and had been the scene for over a century of merry-making before and after the fox-hunts for which the county was famous. There were two great fireplaces, almost hidden to-night by the heaped-up fruits of the harvest, orange and red and green, with cornstalks and goldenrod from the fields for decorations.
Becky found Mary alone at a small table in a corner. Truxton had left her to forage for refreshments and Randy followed him.
"Are you having a good time, Mary?"
Mary did not answer at once. Then she said, bravely, "I don't quite fit in, Becky. I am still an—outsider."
"Oh, Mary!"
"I am not—unhappy, and Truxton is such a dear. But I shall be glad to get home, Becky."
"But you look so lovely, Mary, and everybody seems so kind."
"They are, but underneath I am just plain—Mary Flippin. They know that, and so do I, and it will take them some time to forget it."
There was an anxious look in Becky's eyes. "It seems to me that you are feeling it more than the others."
"Perhaps. And I shouldn't have said anything. Don't let Truxton know."
"Has anyone said anything to hurt you, Mary?"
"No, but when I dance with the men, I can't speak their language. I haven't been to the places—I don't know the people. I am on the outside."
Becky had a sudden forlorn sense that things were wrong with the whole world. But she didn't want Mary to be unhappy.
"Truxton loves you," she said, "and you love him. Don't let anything make you miserable when you have—that. Nothing else counts, Mary."
There was a note of passion in her voice which brought a pulsing response from Mary.
"Itisthe only thing that counts, Becky. How silly I am to worry."
Her young husband was coming towards her—flushed and eager, a prince among men, and he was hers!
As he sat down beside her, her hand sought his under the table.
He looked down at her. "Happy, little girl?"
"Very happy, lover."
Caroline Paine was having the time of her life. She wore a new dress of thin midnight blue which Randy had bought for her and which was very becoming; her hair was waved and dressed, and she had Major Prime as an attentive listener while she talked of the past and linked it with the present.
"Of course there was a time when the men drank themselves under the tables. Everybody calls them the 'good old times,' but I reckon they were bad old times in some ways, weren't they? There was hot blood, and there were duels. There's no denying it was picturesque, Major, but it was foolish for all that. Men don't settle things now by shooting each other, except in a big way like the war. The last duel was fought by the old fountain out there—one of the Merriweathers met one of the Paines. Merriweather was killed, and the girl died of a broken heart."
"Then it was Merriweather that she loved?"
"Yes. And young Paine went abroad, and joined the British army and was killed in India. So nobody was happy, and all because there was, probably, a flowing bowl at the harvest ball. I am glad they don't do it that way now. Just think of my Randy stripped to his shirt and with pistols for two. We are more civilized in these days and I'm glad of it."
"Are we?" said the Major; "I'm not sure. But I hope so."
Randy came by just then and spoke to them. "Are you getting everything you want, Mother?"
"Yes, indeed. The Major looked after me. I've had salad twice, and everything else——"
"That sounds greedy, but it isn't, not when you think of the groaning boards of other days. Has she been telling you about them, Major?"
"Yes, she has peopled the room with ghosts——"
"Now, Major!"
"Pleasant ghosts—in lace ruffles and velvet coats, smoking long pipes around a punch bowl; beautiful ghosts in patches and powder," he made an expressive gesture; "they have mingled with the rest of you—shadow-shapes of youth and loveliness."
"Well, if anybody can tell about it, Mother can," said Randy, "but I don't believe there were ever any prettier girls than are here to-night."
"Becky looks like an angel," Mrs. Paine stated, "but she's pale, Randy."
"She is tired, Mother. I think she ought to go home. I shall try to make her when I come back. She dropped her fan and I am going to get it."
He had not told Becky where he was going. He had slipped away—his mind intent on regaining her property. But when he reached the bushes and flashed his pocket-light on the ground beneath, there was no fan. It must have fallen here. He was sure he had made no mistake.
He decided finally that someone else had found it. It seemed unlikely, however, for the spot was remote, and the thickness of the bushes offered a barrier to anyone strolling casually through the grounds.
He went slowly back to the house. Ever since that night when Becky had said she would marry him he had lived in a dream. They were pledged to each other, yet she did not love him. How could he take her? And again, how could he give her up? She had offered herself freely, and he wanted her in his future. And there was a fighting chance. He had youth and courage and a love for her he challenged any man to match. Why not? Was it beyond the bounds of reason that some day he could make Becky love him?
They had agreed that no one was to be told. "Not until I come back from Nantucket," Becky had stipulated.
"By that time you won't want me, my dear."
"Well, I shan't if you talk like that," Becky had said with some spirit.
"Like what?"
"As if I were a queen and you were a slave. When you were a little boy you bossed me, Randy."
There had been a gleam in his eye. "I may again."
He wondered if, after all, that would be the way to win her. Yet he shrank from playing a game. When she came to him, if she ever came, it must be because she found something in him that was love-worthy. At least he could make himself worthy of love, whether she ever came to him or not.
He stopped by the fountain; just beyond it the long windows of the Hunt Room opened out upon the lawn. The light lay in golden squares upon the grass. Randy, still in the shadow, stood for a moment looking in. There were long tables and little ones, kaleidoscopic color, movement and light, and Becky back in her corner in the midst of a gay group.
He was aware, suddenly, that he was not the only one who watched. Half hidden by the shadows of one of the great pillars of the lower porch was a man in light flannels and a gray cap.
He was not skulking, and indeed he seemed to have a splendid indifference to discovery. He was staring at Becky and in his hand, a blaze of lovely color against his coat, was Becky's fan!
Randy took a step forward. George turned and saw him.
"I was looking for that," Randy said, and held out his hand for the fan.
But Dalton did not give it to him. "She knows I have it."
"How could she know?" Randy demanded; "she dropped it from the balcony."
"And I was under the balcony"—George's laugh was tantalising,—"a patient Romeo."
"You picked it up."
"I picked it up. And she knew that I did. Didn't she tell you?"
She had not told him. He remembered now her unwillingness to have him search, for it.
He had no answer for George. But again he held out his hand.
"She will be glad to get it. Will you give it to me?"
"She told me I might—keep it."
"Keep it——?"
"For remembrance."
There was a tense pause. "If that is true," said Randy, "there is, of course, nothing else for me to say."
He turned to go, but George stopped him. "Wait a minute. You are going to marry her?"
"Yes."
"And she is very—rich."
"Her money does not enter into the matter."
"Some people might think it did. There are those who might be unkind enough to call you a—fortune-hunter."
"I shall be called nothing of the kind by those who know me."
"But there are so many who don't know you."
"I wonder," said Randy, fiercely, "why I am staying here and letting you say such things to me. There is nothing you can say which can hurt me. Becky knows—God knows, that I wish she were as poor as poverty. Perhaps money doesn't mean as much to us as it does to yon. I wish I had it, yes—so that I could give it to her. But love for us means a tent in the desert—a hut on a mountain—it can never mean what we could buy with money."
"Does love mean to her," George's tone was incisive, "a tent in the desert, a hut on a mountain?"
Randy's anger flamed. "I think," he said, "that I should beg Becky's pardon for bringing her name into this at all—— And now, will you give me her fan?"
"When she asks for it—yes."
Randy was breathing heavily. "Will you give me her—fan——"
The mist from the fountain blew cool against his hot cheeks. The water which old Neptune poured from his shell flashed white under the stars.
"Let her ask for it——" George's laugh was light.
It was that laugh which made Randy see red. He caught George's wrists suddenly in his hands. "Drop it."
George stopped laughing. "Let her ask for it," he said again.
Randy twisted the wrists. It was a cruel trick. But his Indian blood was uppermost.
"Drop it," he said, with another twist, and the fan fell.
But Randy was not satisfied. "Do you think," he said, "that I am through with you? What you need is tar and feathers, but failing that——" he did not finish his sentence. He caught George around the body and began to push him back towards the fountain.
George fought doggedly—but Randy was strong with the muscular strength of youth and months of military training.
"I'll kill you for this," George kept saying.
"No," said Randy, conserving his breath, "they don't—do it—in—these—days——"
He had Dalton now at the rim and with a final effort of strength he lifted him—there was a splash, and into the deeps of the great basin went George, while the bronze Neptune, and the bronze dolphins, and the nymphs with flowing hair, splashed and spouted a welcoming chorus that drowned his cry!
Randy, head up, eyes shining, marched into the house and had a servant brush him off and powder a scratch on his chin; then he went down-stairs to the Hunt Room and strode across the room until he came to where Becky sat in her corner.
"I found your fan," he told her, and laid it, a blaze of lovely color, on the table in front of her.
Becky, as she journeyed towards the north, had carried with her a vision of a new and rather disturbing Randy—a Randy who, striding across the Hunt Room with high-held head, had delivered her fan, and had, later, asked for an explanation.
"How did he get it, Becky?"
She had told him.
"Why didn't you tell me when I came back and said I would go for it?"
"I was afraid he might still be there."
"Well?"
"And that something might happen."
Something had happened later by the fountain. But Randy did not speak of it. "I saw the fan in his hand and asked for it," grimly, "and he gave it to me——"
On the night before she went away, Randy had said, "I can't tell you all that you mean to me, Becky, and I am not going to try. But I am yours always—remember that——" He had kissed her hand and held it for a moment against his heart. Then he had left her, and Becky had wanted to call him back and say something that she felt had been left unsaid, but had found that she could not.
Admiral Meredith met his granddaughter in New York, and the rest of the trip was made with him.
Admiral Meredith was as different from Judge Bannister in his mental equipment as he was in physical appearance. He was a short little man, who walked with a sailor's swing, and who laughed like a fog-horn. He had ruddy cheeks, and the manners of a Chesterfield. If he lacked the air of aristocratic calm which gave distinction to Judge Bannister, he supplied in its place a sophistication due to his contact with a world which moved faster than the Judge's world in Virginia.
He adored Becky, and resented her long sojourn in the South. "I believe you love the Judge better than you do me," he told her, as he turned to her in the taxi which took them from the train to the boat.
"I don't love anybody better than I do you," she said, and tucked her hand in his.
"What have they been doing to you?" he demanded; "you are as white as paper."
"Well, it has been hot."
"Of all the fool things to keep you down here in summer. I am going to take you straight to 'Sconset to the Whistling Sally and keep you there for a month."
"The Whistling Sally" was the Admiral's refuge when he was tired of the world. It was a gray little house set among other gray little houses across the island from Nantucket town. It stood on top of the bluff and overlooked a sea which stretched straight to Spain. It was called "The Whistling Sally" because a ship's figure-head graced its front yard, the buxom half of a young woman who blew out her cheeks in a perpetual piping, and whose faded colors spoke eloquently of the storms which had buffeted her.
The Admiral, as has been indicated, had an imposing mansion in Nantucket town. For two months in the summer he entertained his friends in all the glory of a Colonial background—white pillars, spiral stairway, polished floors, Chinese Chippendale, lacquered cabinets, old china and oil portraits. He gave dinners and played golf, he had a yacht and a motor boat, he danced when the spirit moved him, and was light on his feet in spite of his years. He was adored by the ladies, lionized by everybody, and liked it.
But when the summer was over and September came, he went to Siasconset and reverted to the type of his ancestors. He hobnobbed with the men and women who had been the friends and neighbors of his forbears. He doffed his sophistication as he doffed his formal clothes. He wore a slicker on wet days, and the rain dripped from his rubber hat. He sat knee to knee with certain cronies around the town pump. He made chowder after a famous recipe, and dug clams when the spirit moved him.
His housekeeper, Jane, adjourned from the town house to "The Whistling Sally" when Becky was there; at other times the Admiral did for himself, keeping the little cottage as neat as a pin, and cooking as if he were born to it.
It seemed to Becky that as the long low island rose from the sea, the burdens which she had carried for so long dropped from her. There were the houses on the cliff, the glint of a gilded dome, and then, gray and blue and green the old town showed against the skyline, resolving itself presently into roofs, and church towers, and patches of trees, with long piers stretching out through shallow waters, boat-houses, fishing smacks, and at last a thin line of people waiting on the wharf.
The air was like wine. The sky was blue with the deep sapphire which follows a wind-swept night. There was not a hint of mist or fog. Flocks of gulls rose and dipped and rose again, or rested unafraid on the wooden posts of the pier.
The 'Sconset 'bus was waiting and they took it. Until two years ago no automobiles had been allowed on the island, but there had been the triumph of utility over the picturesque and quaint, and now one motored across the moor on smooth asphalt, in one-half the time that the trip had been made in the old days.
The Admiral did not like it. He admitted that it was quicker. "But we used to see the pheasants fly up from the bushes, and the ducks from the pools, and now they are gone before we can get our eyes on them."
Becky was not in a captious mood. The moor was before her, rising and falling in low unwooded hills, amber with dwarf goldenrod, red with the turning huckleberry, purple with drying grasses; green with a thousand lovely growing things still unpainted by the brush of autumn. The color was almost unbelievably gorgeous. Even the pools by the roadside were almost unbelievably blue, as if the water had been dyed with indigo, and above all was that incredible blue sky——!
Then out of the distance clear cut like cardboard the houses lifted themselves above the horizon, with the sea a wall to the right, and to the left, across the moor, the Sankaty lighthouse, white and red with the sun's rays striking across it.
They entered the village between rows of pleasant informal residences, many of them closed until another season; they passed the tennis courts, and came to the post-office, with its flag flying. The 'bus stopped, and they found Tristram waiting for them.
"Tristram" is an old name in Nantucket. There was a Tristram among the nine men who had purchased the Island from Thomas Mayhew in 1659 for "30 pounds current pay and two beaver hats." The present Tristram wore the name appropriately. Fair-haired and tall, not young but towards the middle-years, strong with the strength of one who lives out-of-doors in all weathers, browned with the wind and sun, blue-eyed, he called no man master, and was the owner of his own small acres.
Like the Admiral, he gave himself up for two months of the year to the summer people. If his association with them was a business rather than a social affair, it was, none the less, interesting. The occupation of Nantucket by "off-islanders" was a matter of infinite speculation and amusement. Into the serenity of his life came restless men and women who golfed and swam and rode and danced, who chafed when it rained, and complained of the fog, who seemed endlessly trying to get something out of life and who were endlessly bored, who wondered how Tristram could stand the solitudes and who pitied him.
Tristram knew that he did not need their pity. He had a thousand things that they did not have. He was never bored, and he was too busy to manufacture amusements. There were always things happening on the island—each day brought something different.
To-day, it was the winter gulls. "They are coming down—lots of them from the north," he told the Admiral as they drove through the quaint settlement with its gray little houses, "the big ones——"
There was also thegerardia, pale pink and shading into mauve. He had brought a great bunch to "The Whistling Sally," and had put it in a bowl of gray pottery.
When Becky saw the flowers, she knew whom to thank. "Oh, Tristram," she said, "you found them on the moor."
Tristram, standing in the little front room of the Admiral's cottage, seemed to tower to the ceiling. "The Whistling Sally" from the outside had the look of a doll's house, too small for human habitation. Within it was unexpectedly commodious. It had the shipshape air of belonging to a seafaring man. The rooms were all on one floor. There was the big front room, which served as a sitting-room and dining-room. It had a table built out from the wall with high-backed benches on each side of it, and a rack for glasses overhead. There was a window above the table which looked out towards the sea. The walls were painted blue, and there was an old brick fireplace. A model of a vessel from which the figure-head in the front yard had been taken was over the mantel, flanked by an old print or two of Nantucket in the past. There were Windsor chairs and a winged chair; some pot-bellied silver twinkled in a corner cupboard.
The windows throughout were low and square and small-paned and white-curtained. The day was cool, and there was a fire on the hearth. The blaze and the pink flowers, and the white curtains gave to the little room an effect of brightness, although outside the early twilight was closing in.
Jane came in with her white apron and added another high light. She kissed Becky. "Did your grandfather tell you that Mr. Cope is coming over to have chowder?" she asked.
It would be impossible to describe Jane's way of saying "chowder." It had no "r," and she clipped it off at the end. But it is the only way in the world, and the people who so pronounce it are usually the only people in the world who can make it.
"Who is Mr. Cope?" Becky asked.
Mr. Cope, it seemed, had a cottage across the road from the Admiral's. He leased it, and it was his first season at 'Sconset. His sister had been with him only a week ago. She had gone "offshore," but she was coming back.
"Is he young?" Becky asked.
"Well, he isn't old," said Jane, "and he's an artist."
Becky was not in the least interested in Mr. Cope, go she talked to Tristram until he had to go back to his farm and the cows that waited to be milked. Then Becky went into her room, and took off her hat and coat and ran a comb through the bronze waves of her hair. She did not change the straight serge frock in which she had travelled. She went back into the front room and found that Mr. Cope had come.
He was not old. That was at once apparent. And he was not young. He did not look in the least like an artist. He seemed, rather, like a prosperous business man. He wore a Norfolk suit, and his reddish hair was brushed straight back from his forehead. He had rather humorous gray eyes, and Becky thought there was a look of delicacy about his white skin. Later he spoke of having come for his health, and she learned that he had a weak heart.
He had a pleasant laughing voice. He belonged to Boston, but had lived abroad for years.
"With nothing to show for it," he told her with a shrug, "but one portrait. I painted my sister, and she kept that. But before we left Paris we burned the rest——"
"Oh, how dreadful," Becky cried.
"No, it wasn't dreadful. They were not worth keeping. You see, I played a lot and made sketches and things, and then there was the war—and I wasn't very well."
He had had two years of aviation, and after that a desk in the War Department.
"And now I am painting again."
"Gardens?" Becky asked, "or the sea?"
"Neither. I am trying to paint the moor. I'll show you in the morning."
The Admiral was in the kitchen, superintending the chowder. Jane knew how to make it, and he knew that she knew. But he always went into the kitchen at the psychological moment, tied on an apron, and put in the pilot crackers. Then he brought the chowder in, in a big porcelain tureen which was shaped like a goose. Becky loved him in his white apron, with his round red face, and the porcelain goose held high.
"If you could paint him like that," she suggested to Archibald Cope.
"Do you think he would let me?" eagerly.
After supper the two men smoked by the fire, and Becky sat between them and watched the blaze. She heard very little of the conversation. Her mind was in Albemarle. How far away it seemed! Just three nights ago she had danced at the Merriweathers' ball, and George had held her hand as she leaned over the balcony.
"If you can bring yourself back for a moment, Becky, to present company," her grandfather was saying, "you can tell Mr. Cope whether you will walk with us to-morrow to Tom Never's."
"I'd love it."
"Really?" Cope asked. "You are sure you won't be too tired?"
"Not in this air. I feel as if I could walk forever."
"How about a bit of a walk to-night—up to the bluff? Is it too late, Admiral?"
"Not for you two. I'll finish my pipe, and read my papers."
The young people followed the line of the bluff until they came to an open space which looked towards the east. To the left of them was the ridge with a young moon hanging low above it, and straight ahead, brighter than the moon, whitening the heavens, stretching out and out until it reached the sailors in their ships, was the Sankaty light.
"I always come out to look at it before I go to bed," said Cope; "it is such alivingthing, isn't it?"
The wind was rising and they could hear the sound of the sea. Becky caught her breath. "On dark nights I like to think how it must look to the ships beyond the shoals——"
"The sea is cruel," said Cope; "that's why I don't paint it."
"Oh, it isn't always cruel."
"When isn't it? Last year, with the submarines, it was—a monster. I saw a picture once in a gallery, 'The Eternal Siren,' just the sea. And a woman asked, 'Where's the Siren?'"
Becky laughed. "If you had sailor blood in you, you wouldn't feel that way. Ask Grandfather."
"The Admiral is prejudiced. He loves—the siren——"
"He would tell you that the sea isn't a siren. It's a bold, blustering lass like the Whistling Sally out there in the front yard. Man has tamed her even if he hasn't quite mastered her."
"He will never master her. She will go on and on, after we are dead, through the ages, wooing men to—destruction——"
Becky shivered. "I hate to think of things—after we are dead."
"Do you? I don't. I like to think way beyond the ages to the time when there shall be no more sea——"
He pulled himself up abruptly. "I am talking rather dismally, I am afraid, about death and destruction. You won't want to walk with me again."
"Oh, yes, I shall. And I want to see your pictures."
"You may not care for them. Lots of people don't. But I have to work in my own way——"
As they walked back, he told her what he was trying to do. As she listened, Becky seemed to have two minds, one that caught his words, and answered them, and another which went back and back to the things which had happened since she had last walked this bluff with the wind in her face and the sound of the sea in her ears.
It seemed to her as if a lifetime had elapsed since last she had looked at the Sankaty light.