CHAPTER V. A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT
Shortly before sunset that evening Eric went for a walk. When he did notgo to the shore he liked to indulge in long tramps through the Lindsayfields and woods, in the mellowness of "the sweet 'o the year." Most ofthe Lindsay houses were built along the main road, which ran parallel tothe shore, or about the stores at "The Corner." The farms ran back fromthem into solitudes of woods and pasture lands.
Eric struck southwest from the Williamson homestead, in a directionhe had not hitherto explored, and walked briskly along, enjoying thewitchery of the season all about him in earth and air and sky. He feltit and loved it and yielded to it, as anyone of clean life and sanepulses must do.
The spruce wood in which he presently found himself was smitten throughwith arrows of ruby light from the setting sun. He went through it,walking up a long, purple aisle where the wood-floor was brown andelastic under his feet, and came out beyond it on a scene whichsurprised him.
No house was in sight, but he found himself looking into an orchard; anold orchard, evidently long neglected and forsaken. But an orchard dieshard; and this one, which must have been a very delightful spot once,was delightful still, none the less so for the air of gentle melancholywhich seemed to pervade it, the melancholy which invests all places thathave once been the scenes of joy and pleasure and young life, and are sono longer, places where hearts have throbbed, and pulses thrilled, andeyes brightened, and merry voices echoed. The ghosts of these thingsseem to linger in their old haunts through many empty years.
The orchard was large and long, enclosed in a tumbledown old fence oflongers bleached to a silvery gray in the suns of many lost summers. Atregular intervals along the fence were tall, gnarled fir trees, and anevening wind, sweeter than that which blew over the beds of spice fromLebanon, was singing in their tops, an earth-old song with power tocarry the soul back to the dawn of time.
Eastward, a thick fir wood grew, beginning with tiny treelets justfeathering from the grass, and grading up therefrom to the tall veteransof the mid-grove, unbrokenly and evenly, giving the effect of a solid,sloping green wall, so beautifully compact that it looked as if it hadbeen clipped into its velvet surface by art.
Most of the orchard was grown over lushly with grass; but at the endwhere Eric stood there was a square, treeless place which had evidentlyonce served as a homestead garden. Old paths were still visible,bordered by stones and large pebbles. There were two clumps of lilactrees; one blossoming in royal purple, the other in white. Betweenthem was a bed ablow with the starry spikes of June lilies. Theirpenetrating, haunting fragrance distilled on the dewy air in every softpuff of wind. Along the fence rosebushes grew, but it was as yet tooearly in the season for roses.
Beyond was the orchard proper, three long rows of trees with greenavenues between, each tree standing in a wonderful blow of pink andwhite.
The charm of the place took sudden possession of Eric as nothing hadever done before. He was not given to romantic fancies; but the orchardlaid hold of him subtly and drew him to itself, and he was never to bequite his own man again. He went into it over one of the broken panelsof fence, and so, unknowing, went forward to meet all that life held forhim.
He walked the length of the orchard's middle avenue between long,sinuous boughs picked out with delicate, rose-hearted bloom. When hereached its southern boundary he flung himself down in a grassy cornerof the fence where another lilac bush grew, with ferns and wild blueviolets at its roots. From where he now was he got a glimpse of a houseabout a quarter of a mile away, its gray gable peering out from a darkspruce wood. It seemed a dull, gloomy, remote place, and he did not knowwho lived there.
He had a wide outlook to the west, over far hazy fields and misty blueintervales. The sun had just set, and the whole world of green meadowsbeyond swam in golden light. Across a long valley brimmed with shadowwere uplands of sunset, and great sky lakes of saffron and rose wherea soul might lose itself in colour. The air was very fragrant with thebaptism of the dew, and the odours of a bed of wild mint upon which hehad trampled. Robins were whistling, clear and sweet and sudden, in thewoods all about him.
"This is a veritable 'haunt of ancient peace,'" quoted Eric, lookingaround with delighted eyes. "I could fall asleep here, dream dreamsand see visions. What a sky! Could anything be diviner than that finecrystal eastern blue, and those frail white clouds that look like wovenlace? What a dizzying, intoxicating fragrance lilacs have! I wonderif perfume could set a man drunk. Those apple trees now--why, what isthat?"
Eric started up and listened. Across the mellow stillness, mingledwith the croon of the wind in the trees and the flute-like calls of therobins, came a strain of delicious music, so beautiful and fantasticthat Eric held his breath in astonishment and delight. Was he dreaming?No, it was real music, the music of a violin played by some handinspired with the very spirit of harmony. He had never heard anythinglike it; and, somehow, he felt quite sure that nothing exactly like itever had been heard before; he believed that that wonderful music wascoming straight from the soul of the unseen violinist, and translatingitself into those most airy and delicate and exquisite sounds for thefirst time; the very soul of music, with all sense and earthlinessrefined away.
It was an elusive, haunting melody, strangely suited to the timeand place; it had in it the sigh of the wind in the woods, the eeriewhispering of the grasses at dewfall, the white thoughts of the Junelilies, the rejoicing of the apple blossoms; all the soul of all the oldlaughter and song and tears and gladness and sobs the orchard hadever known in the lost years; and besides all this, there was in it apitiful, plaintive cry as of some imprisoned thing calling for freedomand utterance.
At first Eric listened as a man spellbound, mutely and motionlessly,lost in wonderment. Then a very natural curiosity overcame him. Who inLindsay could play a violin like that? And who was playing so here, inthis deserted old orchard, of all places in the world?
He rose and walked up the long white avenue, going as slowly andsilently as possible, for he did not wish to interrupt the player.When he reached the open space of the garden he stopped short in newamazement and was again tempted into thinking he must certainly bedreaming.
Under the big branching white lilac tree was an old, sagging, woodenbench; and on this bench a girl was sitting, playing on an old brownviolin. Her eyes were on the faraway horizon and she did not see Eric.For a few moments he stood there and looked at her. The pictures shemade photographed itself on his vision to the finest detail, never tobe blotted from his book of remembrance. To his latest day Eric Marshallwill be able to recall vividly that scene as he saw it then--the velvetdarkness of the spruce woods, the overarching sky of soft brilliance,the swaying lilac blossoms, and amid it all the girl on the old benchwith the violin under her chin.
He had, in his twenty-four years of life, met hundreds of pretty women,scores of handsome women, a scant half dozen of really beautiful women.But he knew at once, beyond all possibility of question or doubt, thathe had never seen or imagined anything so exquisite as this girl of theorchard. Her loveliness was so perfect that his breath almost went fromhim in his first delight of it.
Her face was oval, marked in every cameo-like line and feature withthat expression of absolute, flawless purity, found in the angels andMadonnas of old paintings, a purity that held in it no faintest strainof earthliness. Her head was bare, and her thick, jet-black hair wasparted above her forehead and hung in two heavy lustrous braids over hershoulders. Her eyes were of such a blue as Eric had never seen in eyesbefore, the tint of the sea in the still, calm light that follows aftera fine sunset; they were as luminous as the stars that came out overLindsay Harbour in the afterglow, and were fringed about with very long,soot-black lashes, and arched over by most delicately pencilled darkeyebrows. Her skin was as fine and purely tinted as the heart of a whiterose. The collarless dress of pale blue print she wore revealed hersmooth, slender throat; her sleeves were rolled up above her elbowsand the hand which guided the bow of her v
iolin was perhaps the mostbeautiful thing about her, perfect in shape and texture, firm andwhite, with rosy-nailed taper fingers. One long, drooping plume of lilacblossom lightly touched her hair and cast a wavering shadow over theflower-like face beneath it.
There was something very child-like about her, and yet at least eighteensweet years must have gone to the making of her. She seemed to beplaying half unconsciously, as if her thoughts were far away in somefair dreamland of the skies. But presently she looked away from "thebourne of sunset," and her lovely eyes fell on Eric, standing motionlessbefore her in the shadow of the apple tree.
The sudden change that swept over her was startling. She sprang to herfeet, the music breaking in mid-strain and the bow slipping from herhand to the grass. Every hint of colour fled from her face and shetrembled like one of the wind-stirred June lilies.
"I beg your pardon," said Eric hastily. "I am sorry that I have alarmedyou. But your music was so beautiful that I did not remember you werenot aware of my presence here. Please forgive me."
He stopped in dismay, for he suddenly realized that the expression onthe girl's face was one of terror--not merely the startled alarm ofa shy, childlike creature who had thought herself alone, but absoluteterror. It was betrayed in her blanched and quivering lips and in thewidely distended blue eyes that stared back into his with the expressionof some trapped wild thing.
It hurt him that any woman should look at him in such a fashion, at himwho had always held womanhood in such reverence.
"Don't look so frightened," he said gently, thinking only of calming herfear, and speaking as he would to a child. "I will not hurt you. You aresafe, quite safe."
In his eagerness to reassure her he took an unconscious step forward.Instantly she turned, and, without a sound, fled across the orchard,through a gap in the northern fence and along what seemed to be a lanebordering the fir wood beyond and arched over with wild cherry treesmisty white in the gathering gloom. Before Eric could recover his witsshe had vanished from his sight among the firs.
He stooped and picked up the violin bow, feeling slightly foolish andvery much annoyed.
"Well, this is a most mysterious thing," he said, somewhat impatiently."Am I bewitched? Who was she? WHAT was she? Can it be possible that sheis a Lindsay girl? And why in the name of all that's provoking shouldshe be so frightened at the mere sight of me? I have never thought Iwas a particularly hideous person, but certainly this adventure has notincreased my vanity to any perceptible extent. Perhaps I have wanderedinto an enchanted orchard, and been outwardly transformed into an ogre.Now that I have come to think of it, there is something quite uncannyabout the place. Anything might happen here. It is no common orchard forthe production of marketable apples, that is plain to be seen. No, it'sa most unwholesome locality; and the sooner I make my escape from it thebetter."
He glanced about it with a whimsical smile. The light was fading rapidlyand the orchard was full of soft, creeping shadows and silences. Itseemed to wink sleepy eyes of impish enjoyment at his perplexity. Helaid the violin bow down on the old bench.
"Well, there is no use in my following her, and I have no right to doso even if it were of use. But I certainly wish she hadn't fled in suchevident terror. Eyes like hers were never meant to express anythingbut tenderness and trust. Why--why--WHY was she so frightened? Andwho--who--WHO--can she be?"
All the way home, over fields and pastures that were beginning to bemoonlight silvered he pondered the mystery.
"Let me see," he reflected. "Mr. Williamson was describing the Lindsaygirls for my benefit the other evening. If I remember rightly he saidthat there were four handsome ones in the district. What were theirnames? Florrie Woods, Melissa Foster--no, Melissa Palmer--Emma Scott,and Jennie May Ferguson. Can she be one of them? No, it is a flagrantwaste of time and gray matter supposing it. That girl couldn't be aFlorrie or a Melissa or an Emma, while Jennie May is completely out ofthe question. Well, there is some bewitchment in the affair. Of that I'mconvinced. So I'd better forget all about it."
But Eric found that it was impossible to forget all about it. The morehe tried to forget, the more keenly and insistently he remembered. Thegirl's exquisite face haunted him and the mystery of her tantalized him.
True, he knew that, in all likelihood, he might easily solve the problemby asking the Williamsons about her. But somehow, to his own surprise,he found that he shrank from doing this. He felt that it was impossibleto ask Robert Williamson and probably have the girl's name overflowedin a stream of petty gossip concerning her and all her antecedents andcollaterals to the third and fourth generation. If he had to ask any oneit should be Mrs. Williamson; but he meant to find out the secret forhimself if it were at all possible.
He had planned to go to the harbour the next evening. One of thelobstermen had promised to take him out cod-fishing. But instead hewandered southwest over the fields again.
He found the orchard easily--he had half expected NOT to find it. Itwas still the same fragrant, grassy, wind-haunted spot. But it had nooccupant and the violin bow was gone from the old bench.
"Perhaps she tiptoed back here for it by the light o' the moon," thoughtEric, pleasing his fancy by the vision of a lithe, girlish figurestealing with a beating heart through mingled shadow and moonshine. "Iwonder if she will possibly come this evening, or if I have frightenedher away for ever. I'll hide me behind this spruce copse and wait."
Eric waited until dark, but no music sounded through the orchard and noone came to it. The keenness of his disappointment surprised him, naymore, it vexed him. What nonsense to be so worked up because a littlegirl he had seen for five minutes failed to appear! Where was hiscommon sense, his "gumption," as old Robert Williamson would have said?Naturally a man liked to look at a pretty face. But was that any reasonwhy he should feel as if life were flat, stale, and unprofitable simplybecause he could not look at it? He called himself a fool and went homein a petulant mood. Arriving there, he plunged fiercely into solvingalgebraical equations and working out geometry exercises, determinedto put out of his head forthwith all vain imaginings of an enchantedorchard, white in the moonshine, with lilts of elfin music echoing downits long arcades.
The next day was Sunday and Eric went to church twice. The Williamsonpew was one of the side ones at the top of the church and its occupantspractically faced the congregation. Eric looked at every girl and womanin the audience, but he saw nothing of the face which, setting willpower and common sense flatly at defiance, haunted his memory like astar.
Thomas Gordon was there, sitting alone in his long, empty pew near thetop of the building; and Neil Gordon sang in the choir which occupiedthe front pew of the gallery. He had a powerful and melodious, thoughuntrained voice, which dominated the singing and took the colour outof the weaker, more commonplace tones of the other singers. He waswell-dressed in a suit of dark blue serge, with a white collar andtie. But Eric idly thought it did not become him so well as the workingclothes in which he had first seen him. He was too obviously dressed up,and he looked coarser and more out of harmony with his surroundings.
For two days Eric refused to let himself think of the orchard. Mondayevening he went cod-fishing, and Tuesday evening he went up to playcheckers with Alexander Tracy. Alexander won all the games so easilythat he never had any respect for Eric Marshall again.
"Played like a feller whose thoughts were wool gathering," he complainedto his wife. "He'll never make a checker player--never in this world."