CHAPTER X
THE FOREST OF ARDEN
I had seen Alicia whirl away in the Meades' big car. I had seen theWestmacotes and Miss Emmeline off on what they termed a nature-hunt.The Author and his secretary were up to the eyes in a new chapter;The Suffragist was spreading the glad tidings; and Riedriech andSchmetz had Luis Morenas in hand for the afternoon, visioning theUnited States of the World, while he snatched sketches of thevisionaries.
The Author, Mr. Johnson, and I, lunched together.
"Miss Smith," began The Author abruptly, "did you know this housewas built by British and French master masons? No? Well, it was.Judge Gatchell's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather weresolicitors for this estate, and the judge at last very kindlyallowed me to look through a great batch of papers in hispossession. From these I discovered that one of the Hyndses visitedEngland in 1727, joined the new lodge lately established there, andbrought one of the brethren, an architect, back to America withhim. Another came from France. These three planned and built thishouse, and did it pretty well, too.
"This house-builder, Walsingham Hynds, made his house a sort oflodge for the brethren, just as in later times his grandsonssheltered the brethren of those societies that fathered the AmericanRevolution. Gatchell tells me there is a legend of the master ofHynds House entertaining British officers and at the same timehiding the forfeited rebels they were hunting. I'd like to know,"The Author added, reflectively, "where he hid them."
"An old house like this has dozens of places where one could behidden without much danger of detection," remarked Mr. Johnson.
"I'm pretty sure of that," agreed The Author, emphatically.
"You should be, since you did a neat little bit of hiding on yourown account," Mr. Johnson reminded him.
The Author was nettled. He had never found the paper lost out of thecloset in his own room, though he had never given up a tentativesearch for it.
"Well, it's confoundedly odd I never did such a thing before," hegrumbled.
"What is odd is that I myself was waked out of my sleep that nightby the most oppressive sense of misery and hopelessness I have everexperienced," Mr. Johnson said seriously. "It was so overpoweringthat it made me think of Saint Theresa's description of her tormentin that oven in the wall of hell which had by kindly forethought onthe part of the devil been arranged for her permanent tenancy. Ofcourse, it was just a nightmare," he added, doubtfully; "or perhapsa fit of indigestion."
"Indigestion takes many forms," I remarked, as lightly as I could."And you must remember you've been warned that Hynds House ishaunted. Why, the servants insist they've seen ol' Mis' Scarlett'sh'ant!"
"Ah!" nodded The Author. "And I smell a mysterious perfume, I walkin my sleep for the first and only time in my life, and I hide whereit can't be found a paper with an uncouth jingle and some dots onit, Johnson and I have the same nightmare. And I have heardfootsteps. All hallucinations, of course! I will say this much forHynds House: I never had a hallucination until I came here. By theway, did I merely imagine I heard a violin last night?"
"Oh, no: I heard it, too." Mr. Johnson looked at The Author with aconcerned face. "You're getting a bit off your nerves, Chief.Anybody might play a violin."
"Anybody might, but few do play it as I thought I heard it playedlast night. Who's the player, Miss Smith?"
"I haven't the slightest idea. Alicia thinks it's a spirit thatlives in the crape-myrtle trees."
I was beginning to be aweary of The Author's shrewd eyes andpersistent questioning, and I was heartily glad when he had to goback to his work.
That was a gray and windless afternoon, and the house was full ofthose bluish shadows that belong to gray days; it was charged, evenmore than usual, with mystery: the whole atmosphere tingled with itas with electricity. I couldn't read. I have never been able to playupon any musical instrument, much as I love music. I do not sing,either, except in a small-beer voice; and when I tried to sew Ipricked my fingers with the needle. I went into the kitchen,consulted with Mary Magdalen as to the evening's dinner, weighed andmeasured such ingredients as she needed, saw that the two maids werefollowing instructions, tried to make friends with Beautiful Dog,until he howled with anguish and affliction and fled as frompestilence; and, unable to endure the house any longer, put on myhat and set out upon one of those aimless walks one takes in a landwhere all walks are lovely.
Automobiles came and went upon the public road, and to escape themI crossed a wooden foot-bridge spanning a weedy ditch, struck into apath bordering a wide field followed it aimlessly for a while, andbefore I knew it was in the Enchanted Wood.
The Enchanted Wood was carpeted with brown and sweet-smellingpine-needles, with green clumps of honeysuckle breaking out here andthere in moist spots. There were cassena bushes, full of vividscarlet berries; and crooked, gray-green cedars; and brown boles ofpine-trees; and the shallowest, gayest, absurdest little thread of abrook giggling as it went about its important business of keeping alip of woodland green.
It was very, very still there, somewhat as Gethsemane might havebeen, I fancy. I had wanted to be alone, that I might wrestle withmy trouble. Yet now that I was facing it, my spirit quailed. Neverhad I felt so desolate, or dreamed that the human heart could bearsuch anguish.
If I had had the faintest warning, that I might have saved myself!If I had never come to Hynds House at all, but had lived my busy,matter-of-fact, quiet life! Yet the idea of never having seen him,never having loved him, was more cruel than the cruellest sufferingthat loving entailed. It was harder even than the thought thatAlicia and I cared for the same man, who perhaps cared for neitherof us. At that I fell into an agony of weeping.
That passed. I was spent and empty. But the calm of acceptance hadcome. I wasn't to lose my grip, nor wear the willow. The idea of me,Sophy Smith, wearing the willow, aroused my English common-sense. Irefused to be ridiculous.
And then I looked up and saw him coming toward me, his great dogtrotting at his side. I pulled myself together, and smiled; forBoris was thrusting his friendly nose into my palm, and rubbing hisfine head against my shoulder, and his master had dropped lightlydown beside me.
I had not seen Mr. Jelnik for several days, and it struck mepainfully that the man was pale, that his step dragged, and thebrightness of his beauty was dimmed. He looked older, more careworn.If he was glad to see me, it was at first a troubled gladness, forhe started, and bit his lip. I wondered, not with jealousy, but withpain, if there was somebody, some beautiful and high-born lady, atsight of whom his heart might have leaped as mine did now. Was it,perhaps, to forget such a one that he had exiled himself?
"You are such a serene, restful little person!" he said presently,and a change came over his tired face; "and I am such a restlessone! You soothe me like a cool hand on a hot forehead."
"Restless?--you? Why, I thought you the serenest person I had everknown."
His mocking, gentle smile curved his lips. But his eyes were notlaughing. For a fleeting, flashing second the whirlpools and thedepths were bared in them. Then the veil fell, the surface lightscame out and danced.
"My father was an excellent teacher," he said, indifferently. "Thewhole object of his training was self-control. He was really a verywonderful man, my father. But he overlooked one highly importantfactor in my make-up, my Hynds blood."
I made no reply. I was wondering, perplexedly, how I, I of allpeople, should have been picked up and enmeshed in the web of theseHyndses and their fate.
"Thank you," said he, gratefully, "for your silence. Most womenwould have talked, for the good of my soul. Why don't you talk?"
"Because I have nothing to say."
"You evidently inherited a God-sent reticence from your Britishforebears. The British have 'illuminating flashes of silence.' It isone of their saving graces."
I proved it.
Mr. Jelnik, with a whimsical, sidewise glance, drew nearer.
"Why, instead of sitting at the foot of a pine-tree, which is also areticent creature, ar
e you not sitting at the feet of our friend TheAuthor, who is perfectly willing to illumine the universe? Verybright man, The Author. How do you like his secretary?"
"Mr. Johnson? Oh, very much indeed! He is charming!"
"I find him so myself. But he is melting wax before the fire offeminine eyes. A man in love is a sorry spectacle!"
"Is he?"
"_Ach_, yes! Consider my cousin Richard Geddes, for instance."
At that I winced, remembering the doctor's eyes when he had spokenof Alicia and of this man. I looked at Mr. Jelnik now, wonderingly.If he knew that much, hadn't he any heart? He stopped short. Awrinkle came between his black brows.
"I am not to speak lightly of my Cousin Richard, I perceive."
"No. Please, please, no!"
"I hadn't meant to. Richard," said Mr. Jelnik, gravely, "is a goodman."
"Oh, yes! Indeed, yes! And--and he has a deep affection for _you_,Mr. Jelnik."
"We Hyndses are the deuce and all for affection. We take it in suchdeadly earnest that we store up a fine lot of trouble forourselves." His face darkened.
I had been right, then, in supposing that there was somebody,perhaps half the world away, for whom he cared. _And he didn't carefor Alicia._ I was sure of that.
"Don't go!" he begged, as I stirred. "Stay with me for a littlewhile: I need you. I am tired, I am bored, I am disgusted withthings as they are. There is nothing new under the sun, and all isvanity and vexation of spirit. Also, I am fronting the forks of adilemma: Shall I shake the dust of Hyndsville from my foot, yield tothe _Wanderlust_ and go what our worthy friend Judge Gatchell calls'tramping,' or shall I stay here yet awhile? I can't make up mymind!"
"Do you want to go?"
"Yes and no. Hold: let's toss for it and let the fall of the coindecide." He took from his pocket a thin silver foreign coin, andshowed it me.
"Heads, I go. Tails, I stay," he said, and tossed it into the air.It fell beside me, out of his reach. With a swift hand I picked itup.
"Well?" he asked, indifferently.
My hand shut down upon it. There was the sound of wind in my ears,and my heart pounded, and my sight blurred. Then somebody--oh,surely not I!--in a low, clear, modulated voice spoke:
"_You will have to stay, Mr. Jelnik_," said the voice, pleasantly."_It is tails._"
And all the while the inside Me, the real Me, was crying accusingly:"Oh, _liar! liar! It is heads!_"
Did he smile? I do not know. He did not look at me for the minute,but stared instead at the gray-blue, shadowed woods, the brown bolesof the pines, the bright trickle of water playing it was a realbrook.
"Tails it is. I stay," he said presently. And with a swift movementhe reached out and lightly patted my hand with the coin in it.
"Well, it's decided. You have got me for a next-door neighbor for awhile longer, Miss Smith. No, don't go yet."
So I stayed, who would have stayed in the Pit to be near him, orwalked out of heaven to follow him, had he called me.
"Do you know," he spoke in a plaintive voice--"that I haven't hadany lunch? I forgot to go home for lunch! Boris, go get me somethingto eat, old chap!"
Boris hung out a tongue like a flag, looked in his man's eyes, andvanished, running as only the thoroughbred wolf-hound can run.
"I am so tired! Should you mind if I kept my dog's place warm atyour feet, Miss Smith?" And he stretched his long length on thepine-needles, his hands under his head, his face upturned.
"I wish I had a pillow!" he complained.
I scooped up an armful of the pine-needles, while he watched melazily, and packed it over and between the roots of the pine-tree.
"You're a Sister of Charity," said he, gratefully. "But I can'tafford to scratch my neck." And coolly he took a fold of my brownsilk skirt, patted it over the straw, and with a sigh ofsatisfaction rested his head upon it.
"This is very pleasant!" he sighed. Presently: "Your hair looks justas a woman's hair ought to look, under that brown hat," he saiddrowsily, "soft and fair. And after this, I shall order somebrown-silk cushion-covers. I never knew anything could feel socomfortable and restful!" He closed his eyes.
I sat there, hands locked tightly together, and looked down at hisbeautiful head, his slim and boyish body; and I felt an aching senseof resentment. No man has any business to be like that, and thencome into the life of a woman named Smith.
He did not move, nor did I. We might have been creatures motionlessunder a spell, in that Enchanted Wood; until from the outside worldcame Boris, carrying a wicker basket, in which sandwiches, fruit, asmall bottle of wine, and a silver drinking-cup had been carefullypacked.
"Boris is used to playing courier." His master patted himaffectionately. "Come, Miss Smith. By the way, that isn't your realname, though. Your name is Woman-in-the-Woods. Mine is--"
"Fortunatus."
He raised his brows. "I was about to say 'Man-who-is-Hungry,'"he finished, pleasantly. "I once knew an Indian namedTail-feathers-going-over-the-Hill. It taught me the value ofbeing explicit as to one's name. Here, you shall have the cup,and I'll drink out of the bottle. Some of these fine days,Woman-in-the-Woods, I shall take you on a jaunt with me andBoris."
"It sounds promising," I admitted, cautiously.
"It is more. You shall learn all the fine points of out-of-doorhousekeeping.--Drink your wine, Woman-in-the-Woods. You were pale,very pale, when I came upon you. I was afraid something had beentroubling you."
"Something troubles everybody."
"Oh, bromidic Miss Smith!--Drink your wine, please. And do not lookdoubtfully upon that sandwich. My man knows how to build them."
His man did. The sandwich was manna. The wine evidently came fromheaven.
"Now you have a color. I say, is Morenas going to do you, too?"
"Good gracious, no! But he has sketched Alicia a dozen times atleast."
"And me," said Mr. Jelnik, gloomily. "There's no evading the brute.I turn like a weathercock; and there he is, with corrugated brow andslitted eyes, studying me! And the baleful eye of The Author alsopursues me. Between them, I feel skinned."
"Mr. Morenas says you are a rare but quite perfect type," I toldhim, mischievously.
The young man shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "Am I a type,Woman-in-the-Woods?" he asked.
"Indeed, you are absolutely different from anybody else." And then,terrified, I turned red.
"Oh, I know! You didn't mean it either as a brick-bat or a bouquet,merely the truth as you see it. You are transparently truthful,fundamentally truthful, and at the same time the American businesswoman! You can't understand how that intrigues me!"
And then, quite simply and boyishly, he began to talk abouthimself. I got glimpses of a boyhood spent partly in a stately homein Vienna, and partly roaming about the great Hungarian estate whichhis mother loved, and to which the two returned summer after summer,until her death. Then student days, and after that, foot-loosewanderings up and down the earth and across the seven seas.
His grandmother had dropped courtesies to kings; and mine haddropped "aitches." His father had been a European celebrity, mine aship-chandler in Boston, U.S.A. Yet here we two were; and he mighthave been a high-spirited and most beautiful little boy picnickingwith a sedate and old-maidish little girl.
"How old should you imagine me?" he flung the question like achallenge, as if he had divined my thoughts.
"Oh, say, thirteen, going on fourteen."
"Dear Woman-in-the-Woods, I am thirty-three."
"You are older than I thought."
"You are younger than you think. And you betray the fact," hesmiled.
"I have never been very young; probably I shall never be very old."
"You will always be exactly the right age," said Nicholas Jelnik."For you will always be a little girl, and a young maiden, and agrown woman, and a bit of an old maid, and something of agrandmother. That is a wonderful, a very, very wonderfulcombination!"
I looked at him with more than doubt. But no, he was not poking fun,thoug
h the rich color had come into his cheek, and the golden lightsflickered mischievously in his eyes.
"And I forgot to add, also a business woman!" he finished gaily."_Herr Gott_, but it took a business woman to tackle old Hynds Houseand gather together such folks as you have there now!"
"Alicia was the head and front of _that_. I merely helped."
"Alicia," said Mr. Jelnik, "is a darling girl. Alicia is everythinga girl ought to be." But there was not in eyes or voice that lightand tone that crept into Doctor Richard's when he named her. My deargirl's tender face--so true and beautiful and loving--rose beforeme, and all she had meant to me, been to me, crowded upon my heart.I said what I had never intended to say to any one:
"Why, Alicia's my--my _child_, to me! Don't you understand?"
"Dear Woman, yes!" His voice was melted gold.
The ridiculous little brook went whish-whis-sssh; and the bluishshadows melted into gray; and a chill came creeping, creeping, intothe air.
"Before you go," said Nicholas Jelnik, "I should like to give you atalisman, to turn Miss Smith into Woman-in-the-Woods every now andthen." And with his pocket-knife he cut a sharp line down the thinold coin he had tossed, worked at it for a few minutes with a pocketfile and a stone, and then with his fingers that looked so slim butwere strong as steel nippers. The coin broke in halves.
"Half for you," said Mr. Jelnik, "and half for me, to commemorate acomradely afternoon, and to mark a decision. We'll consider it atoken, a charm, a talisman--what you will. And if ever I really andtruly need a Woman-in-the-Woods to help me, why, I'll send my halfto her; and she'll obey the summons instantly and without question.And if ever she needs a man--like me, say--why, she'll send herhalf, and he'll come, instantly and without question." He wassmiling as he spoke. Now he paused to look at me earnestly. "Becausewe are going to be real friends, you and I; are we not?"
I hesitated. How could we two be real friends, when the balancebetween us was so uneven, so unequal? He saw the hesitation,momentary as it was, and looked at me with something of astonishmentand a hint of hurt.
"I have never," he said, proudly, "had to ask for friendship. Yet Ido desire yours, who are such a grave, brave, true little thing,such a valiant-for-truth, stand-fast little thing! You have the onequality that I, born wanderer, foot-loose rolling-stone, need mostin this world, unchanging, loyal, unquestioning steadfastness."
I considered this. It is true that I hold fast, for that is theEnglish way.
"But outside of that one thing," I told him, "I have nothing else."
"No?--She hasn't," said he, in a teasing tone, "anything to give,except unbuyable truth. She has nothing to offer except Friendship'svery self!--this poor, poor Miss Smith!"
Now, heaven alone knows why, but at that my eyes filled with foolishtears. If he saw them--and they ran down my cheek in spite of me--hemercifully gave no sign. Instead he held out his fine brown hand,and when I placed mine in it, he lifted it to his lips with foreigngrace.
"We two are friends, then--through thick and thin, above doubting,and without fear or reproach. That is so, _hein_?"
"Yes!" I promised.
So, walking slowly, as if loath to go, we two went out of theEnchanted Wood and left the Forest of Arden behind us.
When I was again in my own room, and had taken off the brown frock,I held against my cheek, for a long, long minute, that fold againstwhich his head had rested; I fingered the broken coin; I looked longand long at the hand his lips had touched; and though I had told ashameless lie, I was not at all ashamed.
I have often read that women do not and cannot love men, but onlylove to be loved by them. Only a man could have been stupid enoughto say that; and, then he didn't know. The woman hadn't told him.
"I say! Haven't you got on a new frock to-night? My word, it'sscrumptious!" remarked The Author, after dinner. I was wearing ablack-and-blue frock, and he had seen it before, as I explained withsome surprise.
He adjusted his glasses, frowned, and shook his head.
"I am becoming unobservant," he said crossly. "This place is playingthe very deuce with my mental processes! But stay: surely your hairis arranged differently? It wasn't brought over your ears like that,the first time I saw you, I know it wasn't!"
"It is curled a little and fluffed a little; that's what makes itlook different," I told him patiently.
"Then that frock is curled a little and fluffed a little, and that'swhat makes it look different, too," The Author decided, and staredat me critically. "You are improving," he told me, withcondescension.
"You are _not_!" I was goaded to reply.
The Author merely grinned.
"Do you know," he asked, "if that man Jelnik is coming to-night? Ihope so. Unusual man. Can't think why he buries himself here! Ourold friend Gatchell doesn't seem to admire him. I wonder why?"
"I can't possibly imagine," I replied equably, "unless it is thatthe judge grows old."
"Hah!" The Author's eyebrows went up truculently. "And is it a signof advancing age and mental decrepitude not to admire this fellow?"
But I laughed at him.
"You're all alike, you women." A wicked light snapped into his eyes."Hear, dear lady, the Bard of the Congaree, the Poet Laureate ofSouth Carolina, Coogle for your benefit," hissed The Author, andrepeated, balefully:
Alas, poor woman, with eyes of sparkling fire, Thy heart is often won by mankind's gay attire! So weak thou art, so very weak at best, Thou canst not look beyond a satin-lined vest!
I've seen thee ofttimes cast a-winning glance, And be carried away, as it were within a trance, By the gay apparel of some dishonest youth Whose bosom heaved with not a single truth!
He was so outrageously funny that I forgave his impertinence. Hisface relaxed, and his eyes twinkled. He was in high feather theremainder of the evening. He was, in fact, so good-humoredly wittythat the boys and girls Alicia had brought home clustered about himlike golden bees.
"Miss Smith," whispered Miss Emmeline, under cover of theirlaughter, "may I have a word with you?"
We drifted into the library; and she seated herself, folded herhands, and said tremulously:
"My dear, my wish has been granted. I have really come in contactwith the Unknown! I have seen something, Miss Smith!" I looked ather steadily. "Just before dawn," Miss Emmeline continued, "I wokeup, with a curious, indefinable, uneasy sense of trouble, as ifsomething had happened and I was remembering it, say. I saw howfoolish it was to allow a mere nightmare to worry me, though I amnot subject to nightmares, my conscience and my digestion beingquite all right, thank heaven! Gradually the impression faded. I wasjust dropping to sleep again, when I heard the faintest imaginablefootfall, almost as if somebody were walking upon the air itself.And then, Miss Smith, there stole across my room a figure. There wasnothing terrifying about it: it was merely a figure, that was all,and so I was not frightened. It came from my clothes-closet, wentinto the next room, and vanished. For when I arose and followed,there was no trace of it. And the doors were locked. Now, was notthat remarkable?"
"Very," said I, with dry lips.
"I should have thought I was dreaming," went on Miss Emmeline, "savethat there lingered in the air, for some time, a faint and verydelicate--"
"Perfume," I finished.
Miss Emmeline started, and seized my hand.
"Then you have experienced it, too?"
"I have detected the perfume," I admitted, "but I have never seenanything. Dear Miss Emmeline, would it be too much to ask you tokeep this to yourself, for a while at least? People are so easilyfrightened; and wild stories spread and grow."
Miss Emmeline nodded. "Of course I'll keep it quiet," she promisedkindly. "I shall, however, write down the occurrence for the Societyfor Psychical Research, without giving actual names and place." Tothis I raised no objection. But it was with a troubled mind that Ileft Miss Emmeline.
I was destined to hear one more confidence that night, un
wittinglythis time. I had gone down-stairs to place, ready to Mary Magdalen'shand in the morning, the materials for the breakfast. This entailswork, but it insures successful handling of household economics.Having weighed and measured what was necessary, and seen that theinquisitive Black family occupied their proper quarters on the lowerveranda, I went back up-stairs. The Author's door was slightly ajar,and I could hear him walking up and down, as he does when hedictates; for he is a restless man.
"Johnson," The Author was saying as I passed, my slippered feetmaking no sound, "Johnson, that Sophy woman intrigues me. Hanged ifshe doesn't, Johnson!"
"I like Miss Smith, myself. She reminds me very much of my mother,"said Johnson's cordial voice in reply.
"But I don't like the way things look here, at all, Johnson!" fumedThe Author. "What's his game, anyhow? What's he after? What's hehere for? Does she know, or suspect? Or doesn't she, Johnson?" TheAuthor asked, earnestly. "Look here: somebody's got to protect thatSophy woman against Nicholas Jelnik!"