Ailsa Paige
by
Robert W. Chambers
Part 1 out of 9
Produced by Al Haines
AILSA PAIGE
A NOVEL
BY
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
"It is at best but a mixture of a little good
with much evil and a little pleasure with much
pain; the beautiful is linked with the revolting,
the trivial with the solemn, bathos with
pathos, the commonplace with the sublime."
ILLUSTRATED
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1910
COPTRIGHT, 1910, BY
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
Copyright, 1910, by The Curtis Publishing Company
Published August, 1910
TO THE CONQUERORS
WHO WON IMMORTAL VICTORY
"Arm yourselves and be Valiant Men, and see that ye rise up
in readiness against the Dawn, that ye may do Battle with These
that are Assembled against us. . . .
"For it is better to die in Battle than live to behold the
Calamities of our own People. . . ."
"Lord, we took not the Land into Possession by our own Swords;
neither was it our own Hands that helped us; but Thy Hand was
a Buckler; and Thy right Arm a Shield, and the Light of Thy
Countenance hath conquered forever."
AND TO THE VANQUISHED
WHO WON IMMORTALITY
"We are the fallen, who, with helpless faces
Low in the dust, in stiffening ruin lay,
Felt the hoofs beat, and heard the rattling traces
As o'er us drove the chariots of the fray.
"We are the fallen, who by ramparts gory,
Awaiting death, heard the far shouts begin,
And with our last glance glimpsed the victor's glory
For which we died, but dying might not win.
"We were but men. Always our eyes were holden,
We could not read the dark that walled us round,
Nor deem our futile plans with Thine enfolden--
We fought, not knowing God was on the ground.
"Aye, grant our ears to bear the foolish praising
Of men--old voices of our lost home-land,
Or else, the gateways of this dim world, raising,
Give us our swords again, and hold Thy hand."
--W. H. WOODS.
PREFACE
Among the fifty-eight regiments of Zouaves and the seven regiments
of Lancers enlisted in the service of the United States between
1861 and 1865 it will be useless for the reader to look for any
record of the 3d Zouaves or of the 8th Lancers. The red breeches
and red fezzes of the Zouaves clothed many a dead man on Southern
battle-fields; the scarlet swallow-tailed pennon of the Lancers
fluttered from many a lance-tip beyond the Potomac; the histories
of these sixty-five regiments are known. But no history of the
3d Zouaves or of the 8th Lancers has ever been written save in this
narrative; and historians and veterans would seek in vain for any
records of these two regiments--regiments which might have been,
but never were.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"'It is there, in you--all that I believed'"
"What an insolently reckless head it was!"
"'I won it fairly, and I'm going to stake it all on one last bet'"
"'Is Ormond your name?'"
"'_Must_ you go so soon? So soon?'"
"He dismounted and clutched the senseless carbineer"
"She dropped on her knees at his bedside and hid her face
on his hands"
"'Phillip--Phillip--my lover, my country, my God--worshipped
and adored of men!'"
AILSA PAIGE
CHAPTER I
The butler made an instinctive movement to detain him, but he flung
him aside and entered the drawing-room, the servant recovering his
equilibrium and following on a run. Light from great crystal
chandeliers dazzled him for a moment; the butler again confronted
him but hesitated under the wicked glare from his eyes. Then
through the brilliant vista, the young fellow caught a glimpse of a
dining-room, a table where silver and crystal glimmered, and a
great gray man just lowering a glass of wine from his lips to gaze
at him with quiet curiosity.
The next moment he traversed the carpeted interval between them and
halted at the table's damask edge, gazing intently across at the
solitary diner, who sat leaning back in an arm-chair, heavy right
hand still resting on the stem of a claret glass, a cigar suspended
between the fingers of his left hand.
"Are you Colonel Arran?"
"I am," replied the man at the table coolly. "Who the devil are
you?"
"By God," replied the other with an insolent laugh, "that's what I
came here to find out!"
The man at the table laid both hands on the edge of the cloth and
partly rose from his chair, then fell back solidly, in silence, but
his intent gaze never left the other's bloodless face.
"Send away your servants, Colonel Arran!" said the young man in a
voice now labouring under restraint. "We'll settle this matter
now."
The other made as though to speak twice; then, with an effort, he
motioned to the butler.
What he meant by the gesture perhaps he himself scarcely realised
at the moment.
The butler instantly signalled to Pim, the servant behind Colonel
Arran's chair, and started forward with a furtive glance at his
master; and the young man turned disdainfully to confront him.
"Will you retire peaceably, sir?"
"No, but you will retire permanently if you touch me. Be very
careful."
Colonel Arran leaned forward, hands still gripping the table's edge:
"Larraway!"
"Sir?"
"You may go."
The small gray eyes in the pock-pitted face stole toward young
Berkley, then were cautiously lowered.
"Very well, sir," he said.
"Close the drawing-room doors. No--this way. Go out through the
pantry. And take Pim with you."
"Very well, sir."
"And, Larraway!"
"Sir?"
"When I want you I'll ring. Until then I don't want anybody or
anything. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"That is all."
"Thank you, sir."
The great mahogany folding doors slid smoothly together, closing
out the brilliant drawing-room; the door of the butler's pantry
clicked.
Colonel Arran slowly wheeled in his place and surveyed his unbidden
guest:
"Well, sir," he said, "continue."
"I haven't yet begun."
"You are mistaken, Berkley; you have made a very significant
beginning. I was told that you are this kind of a young man."
"I _am_ this kind of a young man. What else have you been told?"
Colonel Arran inspected him through partly closed and heavy eyes;
"I am further informed," he said, that at twenty-four you have
already managed to attain bankruptcy."
"Perfectly correct. What other items have you collected concerning
me?"
"You can retrace your own peregrinations if you care to. I believe
they follow a vicious circle bisecting the semi-fashionable world,
and the--other. Shall we say that the expression, unenviable
notoriety, summarises the reputation you have acquired?"
"Exactly," he said; "both kinds of vice, Colonel Arran--respectable
and disreputable."
"Oh! And am I correct in concluding that, at this hour, you stand
there a financially ruined man--at twenty-four years of age----"
"I do stand here; but I'm going to sit down."
He did so, dropped both elbows on the cloth, and balancing his chin
on the knuckles of his clasped hands, examined the older man with
insolent, unchanging gaze.
"Go on," he said coolly, "what else do you conclude me to be?"
"What else is there to say to you, Berkley? You have evidently
seen my attorneys."
"I have; the fat shyster and the bow-legged one." He reached over,
poured himself a glass of brandy from a decanter, then, with an
unpleasant laugh, set it aside untasted.
"I beg your pardon. I've had a hard day of it. I'm not myself,"
he said with an insolent shrug of excuse. "At eleven o'clock this
morning Illinois Central had fallen three more points, and I had no
further interest in the market. Then one of your brokers--" He
leaned farther forward on the table and stared brightly at the
older man, showing an edge of even teeth, under the receding upper
lip:
"How long have your people been watching me?"
"Long enough to give me what information I required."
"Then you really _have_ had me watched?"
"I have chosen to keep in touch with your--career, Berkley."
Berkley's upper lip again twitched unpleasantly; but, when at
length he spoke, he spoke more calmly than before and his mobile
features were in pallid repose.
"One of your brokers--Cone--stopped me. I was too confused to
understand what he wanted of me. I went with him to your
attorneys--" Like lightning the snarl twitched his mouth again; he
made as though to rise, and controlled himself in the act.
"Where are the originals of those letters?" he managed to say at
last.
"In this house."
"Am I to have them?"
"I think so."
"So do I," said the young man with a ghastly smile. "I'm quite
sure of it."
Colonel Arran regarded him in surprise.
"There is no occasion for violence in this house, Berkley."
"Where are the letters?"
"Have you any doubts concerning what my attorneys have told you?
The originals are at your immediate disposal if you wish."
Then Berkley struck the table fiercely, and stood up, as claret
splashed and trembling crystal rang.
"That's all I want of _you_!" he said. "Do you understand what
you've done? You've killed the last shred of self-respect in me!
Do you think I'd take anything at _your_ hands? I never cared for
anybody in the world except my mother. If what your lawyers tell
me is true--" His voice choked; he stood swaying a moment, face
covered by his hands,
"Berkley!"
The young man's hands fell; he faced the other, who had risen to
his heavy six-foot height, confronting him across the table.
"Berkley, whatever claim you have on me--and I'm ignoring the
chance that you have none----"
"By God, I tell you I have none! I want none! What you have done
to her you have done to me! What you and your conscience and your
cruelty and your attorneys did to her twenty-four years ago, you
have done this day to me! As surely as you outlawed her, so have
you outlawed me to-day. That is what I now am, an outlaw!"
"It was insulted civilisation that punished, not I, Berkley----"
"It was you! You took your shrinking pound of flesh. I know your
sort. Hell is full of them singing psalms!"
Colonel Arran sat silently stern a moment. Then the congested
muscles, habituated to control, relaxed again. He said, under
perfect self-command:
"You'd better know the truth. It is too late now to discuss whose
fault it was that the trouble arose between your mother and me. We
lived together only a few weeks. She was in love with her cousin;
she didn't realise it until she'd married me. I have nothing more
to say on that score; she tried to be faithful, I believe she was;
but he was a scoundrel. And she ended by thinking me one.
"Even before I married her I was made painfully aware that our
dispositions and temperaments were not entirely compatible. I
think," he added grimly, "that in the letters read to you this
afternoon she used the expression, 'ice and fire,' in referring to
herself and me."
Berkley only looked at him.
"There is now nothing to be gained in reviewing that unhappy
affair," continued the other. "Your mother's family are headlong,
impulsive, fiery, unstable, emotional. There was a last shameful
and degrading scene. I offered her a separation; but she was
unwisely persuaded to sue for divorce."
Colonel Arran bent his head and touched his long gray moustache
with bony fingers.
"The proceeding was farcical; the decree a fraud. I warned her;
but she snapped her fingers at me and married her cousin the next
day. . . . And then I did my duty by civilisation."
Still Berkley never stirred. The older man looked down at the
wine-soiled cloth, traced the outline of the crimson stain with
unsteady finger. Then, lifting his head:
"I had that infamous decree set aside," he said grimly. "It was a
matter of duty and of conscience, and I did it without
remorse. . . . They were on what they supposed to be a wedding trip.
But I had warned her." He shrugged his massive shoulders. "If they
were not over-particular they were probably happy. Then he broke
his neck hunting--before you were born."
"Was he my father?"
"I am taking the chance that he was not."
"You had reason to believe----"
"I thought so. But--your mother remained silent. And her answer
to my letters was to have you christened under the name you bear
to-day, Philip Ormond Berkley. And then, to force matters, I made
her status clear to her. Maybe--I don't know--but my punishment of
her may have driven her to a hatred of me--a desperation that
accepted everything--even _you_!"
Berkley lifted a countenance from which every vestige of colour had
fled.
"Why did you tell me this?"
"Because I believe that there is every chance--that you may be
legally entitled to my name. Since I have known who you are, I--I
_have_ had you watched. I have hesitated--a long while. My
brokers have watched you for a year, now; my attorneys for much
longer. To-day you stand in need of me, if ever you have stood in
need of anybody. I take the chance that you have that claim on me;
I offer to receive you, provide for you. That is all, Berkley.
Now you know everything."
"Who else--knows?"
"Knows what?"
"Knows what you did to my mother?"
"Some people among the families immediately concerned," replied
Colonel Arran coolly.
"Who are they?"
"Your mother's relatives, the Paiges, the Berkleys--my family, the
Arrans, the Lents----"
"What Lents?" interrupted the young man looking up sharply.
"They live in Brooklyn. There's a brother and a sister, orphans;
and an uncle. Captain Josiah Lent."
"Oh. . . . Who else?"
"A Mrs. Craig who lives in Brooklyn. She was Celia Paige, your
mother's maid of honour."
"Who else?"
"A sister-in-law of Mrs. Craig, formerly my ward. She is now a
widow, a Mrs. Paige, living on London Terrace. She, however, has
no knowledge of the matter in question; nor have the Lents, nor any
one in the Craig family except Mrs. Craig."
"Who else?"
"Nobody."
"I see. . . . And, as I understand it, you are now stepping
forward to offer me--on the chance of--of----"
"I offer you a place in this house as my son. I offer to deal with
you as a father--accepting that belief and every responsibility,
and every duty, and every sacrifice that such a belief entails,"
For a long time the young fellow stood there without stirring,
pallid, his dark, expressionless eyes, fixed on space. And after a
while he spoke.
"Colonel Arran, I had rather than all the happiness on earth, that
you had left me the memory of my mother. You have chosen not to do
so. And now, do you think I am likely to exchange what she and I
really are, for anything more respectable that you believe you can
offer?
"How, under God, you could have punished her as you did--how you
could have reconciled your conscience to the invocation of a brutal
law which rehabilitated you at the expense of the woman who had
been your wife--how you could have done this in the name of duty
and of conscience, I can not comprehend.
"I do not believe that one drop of your blood runs in my veins."
He bent forward, laying his hands flat on the cloth, then gripping
it fiercely in clenched fists:
"All I want of you is what was my mother's. I bear the name she
gave me; it pleased her to bestow it; it is good enough for me to
wear. If it be hers only, or if it was also my father's, I do not
know; but that name, legitimate or otherwise, is not for exchange!
I will keep it, Colonel Arran. I am what I am."
He hesitated, rigid, clenching and unclenching his hands--then drew
a deep, agonised breath:
"I suppose you have meant to be just to me, I wish you might have
dealt more mercifully with my mother. As for what you have done to
me--well--if she was illegally my mother, I had rather be her
illegitimate son than the son of any woman who ever lived within
the law. Now may I have her letters?"
"Is that your decision, Berkley?"
"It is. I want only her letters from you--and any little
keepsakes--relics--if there be any----"
"I offer to recognise you as my son."
"I decline--believing that you mean to be just--and perhaps
kind--God knows what you do mean by disinterring the dead for a son
to look back upon----"
"Could I have offered you what I offer, otherwise?"
"Man! Man! _You_ have nothing to offer _me_! Your silence was
the only kindness you could have done me! You have killed
something in me. I don't know what, yet--but I think it was the
best part of me."
"Berkley, do you suppose that I have entered upon this matter
lightly?"
Berkley laughed, showing his teeth. "No. It was your damned
conscience; and I suppose you couldn't strangle it. I am sorry you
couldn't. Sometimes a strangled conscience makes men kinder."
Colonel Arran rang. A dark flush had overspread his forehead; he
turned to the butler.
"Bring me the despatch box which stands on: my study table."
Berkley, hands behind his back, was pacing the dining-room carpet.
"Would you accept a glass of wine?" asked Colonel Arran in a low
voice.
Berkley wheeled on him with a terrible smile.
"Shall a man drink wine with the slayer of souls?" Then, pallid
face horribly distorted, he stretched out a shaking arm. "Not that
you ever could succeed in getting near enough to murder _hers_!
But you've killed mine. I know now what died in me. It was that!
. . . And I know now, as I stand here excommunicated by you from
all who have been born within the law, that there is not left alive
in me one ideal, one noble impulse, one spiritual conviction. I am
what your righteousness has made me--a man without hope; a man with
nothing alive in him except the physical brute. . . . Better not
arouse that."
"You do not know what you are saying, Berkley"--Colonel Arran
choked; turned gray; then a spasm twitched his features and he
grasped the arms of his chair, staring at Berkley with burning eyes.
Neither spoke again until Larraway entered, carrying an inlaid box.
"Thank you, Larraway. You need not wait."
"Thank _you_, sir."
When they were again alone Colonel Arran unlocked and opened the
box, and, behind the raised lid, remained invisibly busy for some
little time, apparently sorting and re-sorting the hidden contents.
He was so very long about it that Berkley stirred at last in his
chair; and at the same moment the older man seemed to arrive at an
abrupt decision, for he closed the lid and laid two packages on the
cloth between them.
"Are these mine?" asked Berkley.
"They are mine," corrected the other quietly, "but I choose to
yield them to you."
"Thank you," said Berkley. There was a hint of ferocity in his
voice. He took the letters, turned around to look for his hat,
found it, and straightened up with a long, deep intake of breath.
"I think there is nothing more to be said between us, Colonel
Arran?"
"That lies with you."
Berkley passed a steady hand across his eyes. "Then, sir, there
remain the ceremonies of my leave taking--" he stepped closer,
level-eyed--"and my very bitter hatred."
There was a pause. Colonel Arran waited a moment, then struck the
bell:
"Larraway, Mr. Berkley has decided to go."
"Yes, sir."
"You will accompany Mr. Berkley to the door."
"Yes, sir."
"And hand to Mr. Berkley the outer key of this house."
"Yes, sir."
"And in case Mr. Berkley ever again desires to enter this house, he
is to be admitted, and his orders are to be obeyed by every servant
in it."
"Yes, sir."
Colonel Arran rose trembling. He and Berkley looked at each other;
then both bowed; and the butler ushered out the younger man.
"Pardon--the latch-key, sir."
Berkley took it, examined it, handed it back.
"Return it to Colonel Arran with Mr. Berkley's
undying--compliments," he said, and went blindly out into the April
night, but his senses were swimming as though he were drunk.
Behind him the door of the house of Arran clanged.
Larraway stood stealthily peering through the side-lights; then
tiptoed toward the hallway and entered the dining-room with velvet
tread.
"Port or brandy, sir?" he whispered at Colonel Arran's elbow.
The Colonel shook his head.
"Nothing more. Take that box to my study."
Later, seated at his study table before the open box, he heard
Larraway knock; and he quietly laid away the miniature of Berkley's
mother which had been lying in his steady palm for hours.
"Well?"
"Pardon. Mr. Berkley's key, with Mr. Berkley's compliments, sir."
And he laid it upon the table by the box.
"Thank you. That will be all."
"Thank _you_, sir. Good night, sir."
"Good night."
The Colonel picked up the evening paper and opened it mechanically:
"By telegraph!" he read, "War inevitable. Postscript! Fort
Sumter! It is now certain that the Government has decided to
reinforce Major Andersen's command at all hazards----"
The lines in the _Evening Post_ blurred under his eyes; he passed
one broad, bony hand across them, straightened his shoulders, and,
setting the unlighted cigar firmly between his teeth, composed
himself to read. But after a few minutes he had read enough. He
dropped deeper into his arm-chair, groping for the miniature of
Berkley's mother.
As for Berkley, he was at last alone with his letters and his
keepsakes, in the lodgings which he inhabited--and now would
inhabit no more. The letters lay still unopened before him on his
writing table; he stood looking at the miniatures and photographs,
all portraits of his mother, from girlhood onward.
One by one he took them up, examined them--touched them to his
lips, laid each away. The letters he also laid away unopened; he
could not bear to read them now.
The French clock in his bedroom struck eight. He closed and locked
his desk, stood looking at it blankly for a moment; then he squared
his shoulders. An envelope lay open on the desk beside him.
"Oh--yes," he said aloud, but scarcely heard his own voice.
The envelope enclosed an invitation from one, Camilla Lent, to a
theatre party for that evening, and a dance afterward.
He had a vague idea that he had accepted.
The play was "The Seven Sisters" at Laura, Keene's Theatre. The
dance was somewhere--probably at Delmonico's. If he were going, it
was time he was afoot.
His eyes wandered from one familiar object to another; he moved
restlessly, and began to roam through the richly furnished rooms.
But to Berkley nothing in the world seemed familiar any longer; and
the strangeness of it, and the solitude were stupefying him.
When he became tired trying to think, he made the tour again in a
stupid sort of way, then rang for his servant, Burgess, and started
mechanically about his dressing.
Nothing any longer seemed real, not even pain.
He rang for Burgess again, but the fellow did not appear. So he
dressed without aid. And at last he was ready; and went out, drunk
with fatigue and the reaction from pain.
He did not afterward remember how he came to the theatre.
Presently he found himself in a lower tier box, talking to a Mrs.
Paige who, curiously, miraculously, resembled the girlish portraits
of his mother--or he imagined so--until he noticed that her hair
was yellow and her eyes blue. And he laughed crazily to himself,
inwardly convulsed; and then his own voice sounded again, low,
humorous, caressingly modulated; and he listened to it, amused that
he was able to speak at all.
"And so you are the wonderful Ailsa Paige," he heard himself
repeating. "Camilla wrote me that I must beware of my peace of
mind the moment I first set eyes on you----"
"Camilla Lent is supremely silly, Mr. Berkley----"
"Camilla is a sibyl. This night my peace of mind departed for
ever."
"May I offer you a little of mine?"
"I may ask more than that of you?"
"You mean a dance?"
"More than one."
"How many?"
"All of them. How many will you give me?"
"One. Please look at the stage. Isn't Laura Keene bewitching?"
"Your voice is."
"Such nonsense. Besides, I'd rather hear what Laura Keene is
saying than listen to you."
"Do you mean it?"
"Incredible as it may sound, Mr. Berkley, I really do."
He dropped back in the box. Camilla laid her painted fan across
his arm.
"Isn't Ailsa Paige the most enchanting creature you ever saw? I
told you so! _Isn't_ she?"
"Except one. I was looking at some pictures of her a half an hour
ago."
"She must be very beautiful," sighed Camilla.
"She was."
"Oh. . . . Is she dead?"
"Murdered."
Camilla looked at the stage in horrified silence. Later she
touched him again on the arm, timidly.
"Are you not well, Mr. Berkley?"
"Perfectly. Why?"
"You are so pale. Do look at Ailsa Paige. I am completely
enamoured of her. Did you ever see such a lovely creature in all
your life? And she is very young but very wise. She knows useful
and charitable things--like nursing the sick, and dressing
injuries, and her own hats. And she actually served a whole year
in the horrible city hospital! Wasn't it brave of her!"
Berkley swayed forward to look at Ailsa Paige. He began to be
tormented again by the feverish idea that she resembled the girl
pictures of his mother. Nor could he rid himself of the fantastic
impression. In the growing unreality of it all, in the distorted
outlines of a world gone topsy-turvy, amid the deadly blurr of
things material and mental, Ailsa Paige's face alone remained
strangely clear. And, scarcely knowing what he was saying, he
leaned forward to her shoulder again.
"There was only one other like you," he said. Mrs. Paige turned
slowly and looked at him, but the quiet rebuke in her eyes remained
unuttered.
"Be more genuine with me," she said gently. "I am worth it, Mr.
Berkley."
Then, suddenly there seemed to run a pale flash through his brain,
"Yes," he said in an altered voice, "you are worth it. . . . Don't
drive me away from you just yet."
"Drive you away?" in soft concern. "I did not mean----"
"You will, some day. But don't do it to-night." Then the quick,
feverish smile broke out.
"Do you need a servant? I'm out of a place. I can either cook,
clean silver, open the door, wash sidewalks, or wait on the table;
so you see I have every qualification."
Smilingly perplexed, she let her eyes rest on his pallid face for a
moment, then turned toward the stage again.
The "Seven Sisters" pursued its spectacular course; Ione Burke,
Polly Marshall, and Mrs. Vining were in the cast; tableau succeeded
tableau; "I wish I were in Dixie," was sung, and the popular
burlesque ended in the celebrated scene, "The Birth of the
Butterfly in the Bower of Ferns," with the entire company kissing
their finger-tips to a vociferous and satiated audience.
Then it was supper at Delmonico's, and a dance--and at last the
waltz promised him by Ailsa Paige.
Through the fixed unreality of things he saw her clearly, standing,
awaiting him, saw her sensitive face as she quietly laid her hand
on his--saw it suddenly alter as the light contact startled both.
Flushed, she looked up at him like a hurt child, conscious yet only
of the surprise.
Dazed, he stared back. Neither spoke; his arm encircled her; both
seemed aware of that; then only of the swaying rhythm of the dance,
and of joined hands, and her waist imprisoned. Only the fragrance
of her hair seemed real to him; and the long lashes resting on
curved cheeks, and the youth of her yielding to his embrace.
Neither spoke when it had ended. She turned aside and stood
motionless a moment, resting against the stair rail as though to
steady herself. Her small head was lowered.
He managed to say: "You will give me the next?"
"No."
"Then the next----"
"No," she said, not moving.
A young fellow came up eagerly, cocksure of her, but she shook her
head--and shook her head to all--and Berkley remained standing
beside her. And at last her reluctant head turned slowly, and,
slowly, her gaze searched his.
"Shall we rest?" he said.
"Yes. I am--tired."
Her dainty avalanche of skirts filled the stairs as she settled
there in silence; he at her feet, turned sideways so that he could
look up into the brooding, absent eyes.
And over them again--over the small space just then allotted them
in the world--was settling once more the intangible, indefinable
spell awakened by their first light contact. Through its silence
hurried their pulses; through its significance her dazed young eyes
looked out into a haze where nothing stirred except a phantom
heart, beating, beating the reveille. And the spell lay heavy on
them both.
"I shall bear your image always. You know it."
She seemed scarcely to have heard him.
"There is no reason in what I say. I know it. Yet--I am destined
never to forget you."
She made no sign.
"Ailsa Paige," he said mechanically.
And after a long while, slowly, she looked down at him where he sat
at her feet, his dark eyes fixed on space.
CHAPTER II
All the morning she had been busy in the Craig's backyard garden,
clipping, training, loosening the earth around lilac, honeysuckle,
and Rose of Sharon. The little German florist on the corner had
sent in two loads of richly fertilised soil and a barrel of forest
mould. These she sweetened with lime, mixed in her small pan, and
applied judiciously to the peach-tree by the grape-arbour, to the
thickets of pearl-gray iris, to the beloved roses, prairie climber,
Baltimore bell, and General Jacqueminot. A neighbour's cat,
war-scarred and bold, traversing the fences in search of single
combat, halted to watch her; an early bee, with no blossoms yet to
rummage, passed and repassed, buzzing distractedly.
The Craig's next-door neighbour, Camilla Lent, came out on her back
veranda and looked down with a sleepy nod of recognition and
good-morning, stretching her pretty arms luxuriously in the
sunshine.
"You look very sweet down there, Ailsa, in your pink gingham apron
and garden gloves."
"And you look very sweet up there, Camilla, in your muslin frock
and satin skin! And every time you yawn you resemble a plump,
white magnolia bud opening just enough to show the pink inside!"
"It's mean to call me plump!" returned Camilla reproachfully.
"Anyway, anybody would yawn with the Captain keeping the entire
household awake all night. I vow, I haven't slept one wink since
that wretched news from Charleston. He thinks he's a battery of
horse artillery now; that's the very latest development; and I shed
tears and the chandeliers shed prisms every time he manoeuvres."
"The dear old thing," said Mrs. Paige, smiling as she moved among
the shrubs. For a full minute her sensitive lips remained tenderly
curved as she stood considering the agricultural problems before
her. Then she settled down again, naively--like a child on its
haunches--and continued to mix nourishment for the roses.
Camilla, lounging sideways on her own veranda window sill, rested
her head against the frame, alternately blinking down at the pretty
widow through sleepy eyes, and patting her lips to control the
persistent yawns that tormented her.
"I had a horrid dream, too," she said, "about the 'Seven Sisters.'
I was _Pluto_ to your _Diavoline_, and Philip Berkley was a phantom
that grinned at everybody and rattled the bones; and I waked in a
dreadful fright to hear uncle's spurred boots overhead, and that
horrid noisy old sabre of his banging the best furniture.
"Then this morning just before sunrise he came into my bedroom,
hair and moustache on end, and in full uniform, and attempted to
read the Declaration of Independence to me--or maybe it was the
Constitution--I don't remember--but I began to cry, and that always
sends him off."
Ailsa's quick laugh and the tenderness of her expression were her
only comments upon the doings of Josiah Lent, lately captain,
United States dragoons.
Camilla yawned again, rose, and, arranging her spreading white
skirts, seated herself on her veranda steps in full sunshine.
"We did have a nice party, didn't we, Ailsa?" she said, leaning a
little sideways so that she could see over the fence and down into
the Craig's backyard garden.
"I had such a good time," responded Ailsa, looking up radiantly.
"So did I. Billy Cortlandt is the most divine dancer. Isn't
Evelyn Estcourt pretty?"
"She is growing up to be very beautiful some day. Stephen paid her
a great deal of attention. Did you notice it?"
"Really? I didn't notice it," replied Camilla without enthusiasm.
"But," she added, "I _did_ notice you and Phil Berkley on the
stairs. It didn't take you long, did it?"
Ailsa's colour rose a trifle.
"We exchanged scarcely a dozen words," she observed sedately.
Camilla laughed.
"It didn't take you long," she repeated, "either of you. It was
the swiftest case of fascination that I ever saw."
"You are absurd, Camilla."
"But _isn't_ he perfectly fascinating? I think he is the most
romantic-looking creature I ever saw. However," she added, folding
her slender hands in resignation, "there is nothing else to him.
He's accustomed to being adored; there's no heart left in him. I
think it's dead."
Mrs. Paige stood looking up at her, trowel hanging loosely in her
gloved hand.
"Did anything--kill it?" she asked carelessly.
"I don't think it ever lived very long. Anyway there is something
missing in the man; something blank in him. A girl's time is
wasted in wondering what is going on behind those adorable eyes of
his. Because there is nothing going on--it's all on the
surface--the charm, the man's engaging ways and manners--all
surface. . . . I thought I'd better tell you, Ailsa."
"There was no necessity," said Ailsa calmly. "We scarcely
exchanged a dozen words."
As she spoke she became aware of a shape behind the veranda
windows, a man's upright figure passing and repassing. And now, at
the open window, it suddenly emerged into full sunlight, a spare,
sinewy, active gentleman of fifty, hair and moustache thickly
white, a deep seam furrowing his forehead from the left ear to the
roots of the hair above the right temple.
The most engaging of smiles parted the young widow's lips.
"Good morning, Captain Lent," she cried gaily. "You have neglected
me dreadfully of late."
The Captain came to a rigid salute.
"April eleventh, eighteen-sixty-one!" he said with clean-cut
precision. "Good morning, Mrs. Paige! How does your garden blow?
Blow--blow ye wintry winds! Ahem! How have the roses
wintered--the rose of yesterday?"
"Oh, I don't know, sir. I am afraid my sister's roses have not
wintered very well. I'm really a little worried about them."
"_I_ am worried about nothing in Heaven, on Earth, or in Hell,"
said the Captain briskly. "God's will is doing night and day, Mrs.
Paige. Has your brother-in-law gone to business?"
"Oh, yes. He and Stephen went at eight this morning."
"Is your sister-in-law well. God bless her!" shouted the Captain.
"Uncle, you _mustn't_ shout," remonstrated Camilla gently.
"I'm only exercising my voice,"--and to Ailsa:
"I neglect nothing, mental, physical, spiritual, that may be of the
slightest advantage to my country in the hour when every
respiration, every pulse beat, every waking thought shall belong to
the Government which I again shall have the honour of serving."
He bowed stiffly from the waist, to Ailsa, to his niece, turned
right about, and marched off into the house, his white moustache
bristling, his hair on end.
"Oh, dear," sighed Camilla patiently, "isn't it disheartening?"
"He is a dear," said Ailsa. "I adore him."
"Yes--if he'd only sleep at night. I am very selfish I suppose to
complain; he is so happy and so interested these days--only--I am
wondering--if there ever _should_ be a war--would it break his poor
old heart if he couldn't go? They'll never let him, you know."
Ailsa looked up, troubled:
"You mean--_because_!" she said in a low voice.
"Well _I_ don't consider him anything more than delightfully
eccentric."
"Neither do I. But all this is worrying me ill. His heart is so
entirely wrapped up in it; he writes a letter to Washington every
day, and nobody ever replies. Ailsa, it almost terrifies me to
think what might happen--and he be left out!"
"Nothing will happen. The world is too civilised, dear."
"But the papers talk about nothing else! And uncle takes every
paper in New York and Brooklyn, and he wants to have the editor of
the _Herald_ arrested, and he is very anxious to hang the entire
staff of the _Daily News_. It's all well enough to stand there
laughing, but I believe there'll be a war, and then my troubles
will begin!"
Ailsa, down on her knees again, dabbled thoughtfully in the soil,
exploring the masses of matted spider-wort for new shoots.
Camilla looked on, resignedly, her fingers playing with the
loosened masses of her glossy black hair. Each was following in
silence the idle drift of thought which led Camilla back to her
birthday party.
"Twenty!" she said still more resignedly--"four years younger than
you are, Ailsa Paige! Oh dear--and here I am, absolutely
unmarried. That is not a very maidenly thought, I suppose, is it
Ailsa?"
"You always were a romantic child," observed Ailsa, digging
vigorously in the track of a vanishing May beetle. But when she
disinterred him her heart failed her and she let him scramble away.
"There! He'll probably chew up everything," she said. "What a
sentimental goose I am!"
"The first trace of real sentiment I ever saw you display," began
Camilla reflectively, "was the night of my party."
Ailsa dug with energy. "_That_ is absurd! And not even funny."
"You _were_ sentimental!"
"I--well there is no use in answering you," concluded Ailsa.
"No, there isn't. I've seen women look at men, and men look back
again--the way _he_ did!"
"Dear, please don't say such things!"
"I'm going to say 'em," insisted Camilla with malicious
satisfaction. "You've jeered at me because I'm tender-hearted
about men. Now my chance has come!"
Ailsa began patiently: "There were scarcely a dozen words
spoken----"
Camilla, delighted, shook her dark curls.
"You've said that before," she laughed. "Oh, you pretty minx!--you
and your dozen words!"
Ailsa Paige arose in wrath and stretched out a warning arm among
her leafless roses; but Camilla placed both hands on the fence top
and leaned swiftly down from the veranda steps,
"Forgive me, dear," she said penitently. "I was only trying to
torment you. Kiss me and make up. I know you too well to believe
that you could care for a man of that kind."
Ailsa's face was very serious, but she lifted herself on tiptoe and
they exchanged an amicable salute across the fence.
After a moment she said: "What did you mean by 'a man of _that_
kind'?"
Camilla's shrug was expressive. "There are stories about him."
Ailsa looked thoughtfully into space. "Well you won't say such
things to me again, about any man--will you, dear?"
"You never minded them before. You used to laugh."
"But this time," said Ailsa Paige, "it is not the least bit funny.
We scarcely exchanged----"
She checked herself, flushing with annoyance. Camilla, leaning on
the garden fence, had suddenly buried her face in both arms. In
feminine plumpness, when young, there is usually something left of
the schoolgirl giggler.
The pretty girl below remained disdainfully indifferent. She dug,
she clipped, she explored, inhaling, with little thrills, the faint
mounting odour of forest loam and sappy stems.
"I really must go back to New York and start my own garden," she
said, not noticing Camilla's mischief. "London Terrace will be
green in another week."
"How long do you stay with the Craigs, Ailsa?"
"Until the workmen finish painting my house and installing the new
plumbing. Colonel Arran is good enough to look after it."
Camilla, her light head always ringing with gossip, watched Ailsa
curiously.
"It's odd," she observed, "that Colonel Arran and the Craigs never
exchange civilities."
"Mrs. Craig doesn't like him," said Ailsa simply.
"You do, don't you?"
"Naturally. He was my guardian."
"My uncle likes him. To me he has a hard face."
"He has a sad face," said Ailsa Paige.
CHAPTER III
Ailsa and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Craig, had been unusually
reticent over their embroidery that early afternoon, seated
together in the front room, which was now flooded with sunshine--an
attractive, intimate room, restful and pretty in spite of the
unlovely Victorian walnut furniture.
Through a sunny passageway they could look into Ailsa's
bedroom--formerly the children's nursery--where her maid sat sewing.
Outside the open windows, seen between breezy curtains, new buds
already clothed the great twisted ropes of pendant wistaria with a
silvery-green down.
The street was quiet under its leafless double row of trees, maple,
ailanthus, and catalpa; the old man who trudged his rounds
regularly every week was passing now with his muffled shout:
Any old hats
Old coats
Old boots!
_Any_ old mats
Old suits,
Old flutes! Ca-ash!
And, leaning near to the sill, Ailsa saw him shuffling along,
green-baize bag bulging, a pyramid of stove-pipe hats crammed down
over his ears.
At intervals from somewhere in the neighbourhood sounded the
pleasant bell of the scissors grinder, and the not unmusical call
of "Glass put in!" But it was really very tranquil there in the
sunshine of Fort Greene Place, stiller even for the fluted call of
an oriole aloft in the silver maple in front of the stoop.
He was a shy bird even though there were no imported sparrows to
drive this lovely native from the trees of a sleepy city; and he
sat very still in the top branches, clad in his gorgeous livery of
orange and black, and scarcely stirred save to slant his head and
peer doubtfully at last year's cocoons, which clung to the bark
like shreds of frosted cotton.
Very far away, from somewhere in the harbour, a deep sound jarred
the silence. Ailsa raised her head, needle suspended, listened for
a moment, then resumed her embroidery with an unconscious sigh.
Her sister-in-law glanced sideways at her.
"I was thinking of Major Anderson, Celia," she said absently.
"So was I, dear. And of those who must answer for his gove'nment's
madness,--God fo'give them."
There was no more said about the Major or his government. After a
few moments Ailsa leaned back dreamily, her gaze wandering around
the sunny walls of the room. In Ailsa Paige's eyes there was
always a gentle caress for homely things. Just now they caressed
the pictures of "Night" and "Morning," hanging there in their round
gilt frames; the window boxes where hyacinths blossomed; the
English ivy festooned to frame the window beside her
sister-in-law's writing-desk; the melancholy engraving over the
fireplace--"The Motherless Bairn"--a commonplace picture which
harrowed her, but which nobody thought of discarding in a day when
even the commonplace was uncommon.
She smiled in amused reminiscence of the secret tears she had wept
over absurd things--of the funerals held for birds found dead--of
the "Three Grains of Corn" poem which, when a child, elicited from
her howls of anguish.
Little golden flashes of recollection lighted the idle path as her
thoughts wandered along hazy ways which led back to her own nursery
days; and she rested there, in memory, dreaming through the
stillness of the afternoon.
She missed the rattle and noise of New York. It was a little too
tranquil in Fort Greene Place; yet, when she listened intently,
through the city's old-fashioned hush, very far away the voices of
the great seaport were always audible--a ceaseless harmony of river
whistles, ferry-boats signalling on the East River, ferry-boats on
the North River, perhaps some mellow, resonant blast from the bay,
where an ocean liner was heading for the Narrows. Always the
street's stillness held that singing murmur, vibrant with deep
undertones from dock and river and the outer sea.
Strange spicy odours, too, sometimes floated inland from the sugar
wharves, miles away under the Heights, to mingle with the scent of
lilac and iris in quiet, sunny backyards where whitewashed fences
reflected the mid-day glare, and cats dozed in strategical
positions on grape trellis and tin roofs of extensions, prepared
for war or peace, as are all cats always, at all times.
"Celia!"
Celia Craig looked up tranquilly.
"Has anybody darned Paige's stockings?"
"No, she hasn't, Honey-bell. Paige and Marye must keep their
stockings da'ned. I never could do anything fo' myse'f, and I
won't have my daughters brought up he'pless."
Ailsa glanced humorously across at her sister-in-law.
"You sweet thing," she said, "you can do anything, and you know it!"
"But I don't like to do anything any mo' than I did befo' I had
to," laughed Celia Craig; and suddenly checked her mirth, listening
with her pretty close-set ears.
"That is the do'-bell," she remarked, "and I am not dressed."
"It's almost too early for anybody to call," said Ailsa tranquilly.
But she was wrong, and when, a moment later, the servant came to
announce Mr. Berkley, Ailsa regarded her sister-in-law in pink
consternation.
"I did _not_ ask him," she said. "We scarcely exchanged a dozen
words. He merely said he'd like to call--on you--and now he's done
it, Celia!"
Mrs. Craig calmly instructed the servant to say that they were at
home, and the servant withdrew.
"Do you approve his coming--this way--without anybody inviting
him?" asked Ailsa uneasily.
"Of co'se, Honey-bell. He is a Berkley. He should have paid his
respects to us long ago."
"It was for him to mention the relationship when I met him. He did
not speak of it, Celia."
"No, it was fo' you to speak of it first," said Celia Craig gently.
"But you did not know that."
"Why?"
"There are reasons, Honey-bud."
"What reasons?"
"They are not yo' business, dear," said her sister-in-law quietly.
Ailsa had already risen to examine herself in the mirror. Now she
looked back over her shoulder and down into Celia's pretty
eyes--eyes as unspoiled as her own.
In Celia Craig remained that gracious and confident faith in
kinship which her Northern marriage had neither extinguished nor
chilled. The young man who waited below was a Berkley, a kinsman.
Name and quality were keys to her hospitality. There was also
another key which this man possessed, and it fitted a little locked
compartment in Celia Craig's heart. But Ailsa had no knowledge of
this. And now Mrs. Craig was considering the advisability of
telling her--not all, perhaps,--but something of how matters stood
between the House of Craig and the House of Berkley. But not how
matters stood with the House of Arran.
"Honey-bud," she said, "you must be ve'y polite to this young man."
"I expect to be. Only I don't quite understand why he came so
unceremoniously----"
"It would have been ruder to neglect us, little Puritan! I want to
see Connie Berkley's boy. I'm glad he came."
Celia Craig, once Celia Marye Ormond Paige, stood watching her
taller sister-in-law twisting up her hair and winding the thick
braid around the crown of her head _a la coronal_. Little wonder
that these two were so often mistaken for own sisters--the matron
not quite as tall as the young widow, but as slender, and fair, and
cast in the same girlish mould.
Both inherited from their Ormond ancestry slightly arched and
dainty noses and brows, delicate hands and feet, and the same
splendid dull-gold hair--features apparently characteristic of the
line, all the women of which had been toasts of a hundred years
ago, before Harry Lee hunted men and the Shadow of the Swamp Fox
flitted through the cypress to a great king's undoing.
Ailsa laid a pink bow against her hair and glanced at her
sister-in-law for approval.
"I declare. Honey-bud, you are all rose colour to-day," said Celia
Craig, smiling; and, on impulse, unpinned the pink-and-white cameo
from her own throat and fastened it to Ailsa's breast.
"I reckon I'll slip on a gay gown myse'f," she added mischievously.
"I certainly am becoming ve'y tired of leaving the field to my
sister-in-law, and my schoolgirl daughters."
"Does anybody ever look at us after you come into a room?" asked
Ailsa, laughing; and, turning impulsively, she pressed Celia's
pretty hands flat together and kissed them. "You darling," she
said. An unaccountable sense of expectancy--almost of exhilaration
was taking possession of her. She looked into the mirror and stood
content with what she saw reflected there.
"How much of a relation is he, Celia?" balancing the rosy bow with
a little cluster of pink hyacinth on the other side.
Celia Craig, forefinger crooked across her lips, considered aloud.
"_His_ mother was bo'n Constance Berkley; _her_ mother was bo'n
Betty Ormond; _her_ mother was bo'n Felicity Paige; _her_
mother----"
"Oh please! I don't care to know any more!" protested Ailsa,
drawing her sister-in-law before the mirror; and, standing behind
her, rested her soft, round chin on her shoulder, regarding the two
reflected faces.
"That," observed the pretty Southern matron, "is conside'd ve'y bad
luck. When I was a young girl I once peeped into the glass over my
ole mammy's shoulder, and she said I'd sho'ly be punished befo' the
year was done."
"And were you?"
"I don't exactly remember," said Mrs. Craig demurely, "but I think
I first met my husband the ve'y next day."
They both laughed softly, looking at each other in the mirror.
So, in her gown of rosy muslin, bouffant and billowy, a pink flower
in her hair, and Celia's pink-and-white cameo at her whiter throat
Ailsa Paige descended the carpeted stairs and came into the mellow
dimness of the front parlour, where there was much rosewood, and a
French carpet, and glinting prisms on the chandeliers,--and a young
man, standing, dark against a bar of sunshine in which golden motes
swam.
"How do you do," she said, offering her narrow hand, and: "Mrs.
Craig is dressing to receive you. . . . It is warm for April, I
think. How amiable of you to come all the way over from New York.
Mr. Craig and his son Stephen are at business, my cousins, Paige
and Marye, are at school. Won't you sit down?"
She had backed away a little distance from him, looking at him
under brows bent slightly inward, and thinking that she had made no
mistake in her memory of this man. Certainly his features were
altogether too regular, his head and body too perfectly moulded
into that dark and graceful symmetry which she had hitherto vaguely
associated with things purely and mythologically Olympian.
Upright against the doorway, she suddenly recollected with a blush
that she was staring like a schoolgirl, and sat down. And he drew
up a chair before her and seated himself; and then under the
billowy rose crinoline she set her pretty feet close together,
folded her hands, and looked at him with a smiling composure which
she no longer really felt.
"The weather," she repeated, "is unusually warm. Do you think that
Major Anderson will hold out at Sumter? Do you think the fleet is
going to relieve him? Dear me," she sighed, "where will it all
end, Mr. Berkley?"
"In war," he said, also smiling; but neither of them believed it,
or, at the moment, cared. There were other matters
impending--since their first encounter.
"I have thought about you a good deal since Camilla's theatre
party," he said pleasantly.
"Have you?" She scarcely knew what else to say--and regretted
saying anything.
"Indeed I have. I dare not believe you have wasted as much as one
thought on the man you danced with once--and refused ever after."
She felt, suddenly, a sense of uneasiness in being near him.
"Of course I have remembered you, Mr. Berkley," she said with
composure. "Few men dance as well. It has been an agreeable
memory to me."
"But you would not dance with me again."
"I--there were--you seemed perfectly contented to sit out--the
rest--with me."
He considered the carpet attentively. Then looking up with quick,
engaging smile:
"I want to ask you something. May I?"
She did not answer. As it had been from the first time she had
ever seen him, so it was now with her; a confused sense of the
necessity for caution in dealing with a man who had inspired in her
such an unaccountable inclination to listen to what he chose to say.
"What is it you wish to ask?" she inquired pleasantly.
"It is this: are you _really_ surprised that I came? Are you, in
your heart?"
"Did I appear to be very much agitated? Or my heart, either, Mr.
Berkley?" she asked with a careless laugh, conscious now of her
quickening pulses. Outwardly calm, inwardly Irresolute, she faced
him with a quiet smile of confidence.
"Then you were not surprised that I came?" he insisted.
"You did not wait to be asked. That surprised me a little."
"I did wait. But you didn't ask me."
"That seems to have made no difference to you," she retorted,
laughing.
"It made this difference. I seized upon the only excuse I had and
came to pay my respects as a kinsman. Do you know that I am a
relation?"
"That is a very pretty compliment to us all, I think."
"It is you who are kind in accepting me."
"As a relative, I am very glad to----"
"I came," he said, "to see _you_. And you know it."
"But you _couldn't_ do that, uninvited! I had not asked you."
"But--it's done," he said.
She sat very still, considering him. Within her, subtle currents
seemed to be contending once more, disturbing her equanimity. She
said, sweetly:
"I am not as offended as I ought to be. But I do not see why you
should disregard convention with me."
"I didn't mean it that way," he said, leaning forward. "I couldn't
stand not seeing you. That was all. Convention is a pitiful
thing--sometimes--" He hesitated, then fell to studying the carpet.
She looked at him, silent in her uncertainty. His expression was
grave, almost absent-minded. And again her troubled eyes rested on
the disturbing symmetry of feature and figure in all the
unconscious grace of repose; and in his immobility there seemed
something even of nobility about him which she had not before
noticed.
She stole another glance at him. He remained very still, leaning
forward, apparently quite oblivious of her. Then he came to
himself with a quick smile, which she recognised as characteristic
of all that disturbed her about this man--a smile in which there
was humour, a little malice and self-sufficiency and--many, many
things she did not try to analyse.
"Don't you really want an unreliable servant?" he asked.
His perverse humour perplexed her, but she smiled.
"Don't you remember that I once asked you if you needed an
able-bodied man?" he insisted.
She nodded.
"Well, I'm that man."
She assented, smiling conventionally, not at all understanding. He
laughed, too, thoroughly enjoying something.
"It isn't really very funny," he said, "Ask your brother-in-law. I
had an interview with him before I came here. And I think there's
a chance that he may give me a desk and a small salary in his
office."
"How absurd!" she said.
"It is rather absurd. I'm so absolutely useless. It's only
because of the relationship that Mr. Craig is doing this."
She said uneasily: "You are not really serious, are you?"
"Grimly serious."
"About a--a desk and a salary--in my brother-in-law's office?"
"Unless you'll hire me as a useful man. Otherwise, I hope for a
big desk and a small salary. I went to Mr. Craig this morning, and
the minute I saw him I knew he was fine enough to be your
brother-in-law. And I said, 'I am Philip Ormond Berkley; how do
you do!' And he said, 'How do you do!' And I said, 'I'm a
relation,' and he said, 'I believe so.' And I said, 'I was
educated at Harvard and in Leipsic; I am full of useless
accomplishments, harmless erudition, and insolvent amiability, and
I am otherwise perfectly worthless. Can you give me a position?'"
"And he said: 'What else is the matter?' And I said, 'The stock
market.' And that is how it remains, I am to call on him
to-morrow."
She said in consternation: "Forgive me. I did not think you meant
it. I did not know that you were--were----"
"Ruined!" he nodded laughingly. "I am, practically. I have a
little left--badly invested--which I'm trying to get at. Otherwise
matters are gay enough."
She said wonderingly: "Had this happened when--I saw you that first
time?"
"It had just happened. I looked the part, didn't I?"
"No. _How_ could you be so--interesting and--and be--what you
were--knowing this all the while?"
"I went to that party absolutely stunned. I saw you in a corner of
the box--I had just been hearing about you--and--I don't know now
what I said to you. Afterward"--he glanced at her--"the world was
spinning, Mrs. Paige. You only remained real--" His face altered
subtly. "And when I touched you----"
"I gave you a waltz, I believe," she said, striving to speak
naturally; but her pulses had begun to stir again; the same
inexplicable sense of exhilaration and insecurity was creeping over
her.
With a movement partly nervous she turned toward the door, but
there sounded no rustle of her sister's skirts from the stairs, and
her reluctant eyes slowly reverted to him, then fell in silence,
out of which she presently strove to extract them both with some
casual commonplace.
He said in a low voice, almost to himself:
"I want you to think well of me."
She gathered all her composure, steadied her senses to choose a
reply, and made a blunder:
"Do you really care what I think?" she asked lightly, and bit her
lip too late.
"Do you believe I care about anything else in the world--now?"
She went on bravely, blindly:
"And do _you_ expect me to believe in--in such an exaggerated and
romantic expression to a staid and matter-of-fact widow whom you
never saw more than once in your life?"
"You _do_ believe it."
Confused, scarcely knowing what she was saying, she still attempted
to make light of his words, holding her own against herself for the
moment, making even some headway. And all the while she was aware
of mounting emotion--a swift inexplicable charm falling over them
both.
He had become silent again, and she was saying she knew not
what--fortifying her common-sense with gay inconsequences, when he
looked up straight into her eyes.
"I have distressed you. I should not have spoken as I did."
"No, you should not----"
"Have I offended you?"
"I--don't know."
Matters were running too swiftly for her; she strove to remain
cool, collected, but confusion was steadily threatening her, and
neither resentment nor indifference appeared as allies.
"Mrs. Paige, can you account for--that night? The moment I touched
you----"
She half rose, sank back into her seat, her startled eyes meeting
his.
"I--don't know what you mean."
"Yes--you know."
Flushed, voices unsteady, they no longer recognised themselves.
"You have never seen me but once," she said. "You cannot
believe----"
"I have not known a moment's peace since I first saw you."
She caught her breath. "It is your business worries that torment
you----"
"It is desire to be near you."
"I don't think you had better say such a thing----"
"I know I had better not. But it is said, and it is true. I'm not
trying to explain it to you or to myself. It's just true. There
has not been one moment, since I saw you, which has been free from
memory of you----"
"Please----"
"I scarcely know what I am saying--but it's true!" He checked
himself. "I'm losing my head now, which isn't like me!" He choked
and stood up; she could not move; every nerve in her had become
tense with emotions so bewildering that mind and body remained
fettered.
He was walking to and fro, silent and white under his self-control.
She, seated, gazed at him as though stunned, but every pulse was
riotously unsteady.
"I suppose you think me crazy," he said hoarsely, "but I've not
known a moment's peace of mind since that night--not one! I
_couldn't_ keep away any longer. I can't even hold my tongue now,
though I suppose it's ruining me every time I move it. It's a
crazy thing to come here and say what I'm saying."
He went over and sat down again, and bent his dark gaze on the
floor. Then:
"Can you forgive what I have done to you?"
She tried to answer, and only made a sign of faint assent. She no
longer comprehended herself or the emotions menacing her. A
curious tranquillity quieted her at moments--intervals in which she
seemed to sit apart watching the development of another woman,
listening to her own speech, patient with her own silences. There
was a droop to her shoulders now; his own were sagging as he leaned
slightly forward in his chair, arms resting on his knees, while
around them the magic ebbed, eddied, ebbed; and lassitude succeeded
tension; and she stirred, looked up at him with eyes that seemed
dazed at first, then widened slowly into waking; and he saw in them
the first clear dawn of alarm. Suddenly she flushed and sprang to
her feet, the bright colour surging to her hair.
"Don't!" he said. "Don't reason! There will be nothing left of me
if you do--or of, these moments. You will hate them--and me, if
you reason. Don't think--until we see each other again!"
She dropped her eyes slowly, and slowly shook her head.
"You ask too much," she said. "You should not have said that."
All the glamour was fading. Her senses were seeking their balance
after the incredible storm that had whirled them into chaos.
Fear stirred sharply, then consternation--flashes of panic pierced
her with darts of shame, as though she had been in physical contact
with this man.
All her outraged soul leaped to arms, quivering now under the
reaction; the man's mere presence was becoming unendurable; the
room stifled her. She turned, scarce knowing what she was doing;
and at the same moment her sister-in-law entered.
Berkley, already on his feet, turned short: and when she offered
him a hand as slim and white as Ailsa's, he glanced inquiringly at
the latter, not at all certain who this charming woman might be.
"Mrs. Craig," said Ailsa.
"I don't believe it," he said. "You haven't grown-up children!"
"Don't you really believe it, Mr. Berkley? Or is it just the
flattering Irish in you that natters us poor women to our
destruction?"
He had sense and wit enough to pay her a quick and really graceful
compliment; to which she responded, still laughing:
"Oh, it is the Ormond in you! I am truly ve'y glad you came. You
are Constance Berkley's son--Connie Berkley! The sweetest girl
that ever lived."
There was a silence. Then Mrs. Craig said gently:
"I was her maid of honour, Mr. Berkley."
Ailsa raised her eyes to his altered face, startled at the change
in it. He looked at her absently, then his gaze reverted to Ailsa
Paige.
"I loved her dearly," said Mrs. Craig, dropping a light, impulsive
hand on his. "I want her son to know it."
Her eyes were soft and compassionate; her hand still lingered
lightly on his, and she let it rest so.
"Mrs. Craig," he said, "_you_ are the most real person I have known
in many years among the phantoms. I thought your sister-in-law
was. But you are still more real."
"Am I?" she laid her other hand over his, considering him
earnestly. Ailsa looking on, astonished, noticed a singular
radiance on his face--the pale transfiguration from some quick
inward illumination.
Then Celia Craig's voice sounded almost caressingly:
"I think you should have come to see us long ago." A pause. "You
are as welcome in this house as your mother would be if she were
living. I love and honour her memory."
"I have honoured little else in the world," he said. They looked
at one another for a moment; then her quick smile broke out. "I
have an album. There are some Paiges, Ormonds, and Berkleys in
it----"
Ailsa came forward slowly.
"Shall I look for it, Celia?"
"No, Honey-bell." She turned lightly and went into the back
parlour, smiling mysteriously to herself, her vast, pale-blue
crinoline rustling against the furniture.
"My sister-in-law," said Ailsa, after an interval of silent
constraint, "is very Southern. Any sort of kinship means a great
deal to her. I, of course, am Northern, and regard such matters as
unimportant."
"It is very gracious of Mrs. Craig to remember it," he said. "I
know nothing finer than confidence in one's own kin."
She flushed angrily. "I have not that confidence--in kinsman."
For a moment their eyes met. Hers were hard as purple steel.
"Is that final?"
"Yes."
The muscles in his cheeks grew tense, then into his eyes came that
reckless glimmer which in the beginning she had distrusted--a gay,
irresponsible radiance which seemed to mock at all things worthy.
He said: "No, it is not final. I shall come back to you."
She answered him in an even, passionless voice:
"A moment ago I was uncertain; now I know you. You are what they
say you are. I never wish to see you again."
Celia Craig came back with the album. Berkley sprang to relieve
her of the big book and a box full of silhouettes, miniatures, and
daguerreotypes. They placed the family depository upon the table
and then bent over it together.
Ailsa remained standing by the window, looking steadily at nothing,
a burning sensation in both cheeks.
At intervals, through the intensity of her silence, she heard
Celia's fresh, sweet laughter, and Berkley's humorous and engaging
voice. She glanced sideways at the back of his dark curly head
where it bent beside Celia's over the album. What an insolently
reckless head it was! She thought that she had never before seen
the back of any man's head so significant of character--or the want
of it. And the same quality--or the lack of it--now seemed to her
to pervade his supple body, his well-set shoulders, his voice,
every movement, every feature--something everywhere about him that
warned and troubled.
[Illustration: "What an insolently reckless head it was!"]
Suddenly the blood burnt her cheeks with a perfectly
incomprehensible desire to see his face again. She heard her
sister-in-law saying:
"We Paiges and Berkleys are kin to the Ormonds and the Earls of
Ossory. The Estcourts, the Paiges, the Craigs, the Lents, the
Berkleys, intermarried a hundred years ago. . . . My grandmother
knew yours, but the North is very strange in such matters. . . .
Why did you never before come?"
He said: "It's one of those things a man is always expecting to do,
and is always astonished that he hasn't done. Am I unpardonable?"
"I did not mean it in that way."
He turned his dark, comely head and looked at her as they bent
together above the album.
"I know you didn't. My answer was not frank. The reason I never
came to you before was that--I did not know I would be welcomed."
Their voices dropped. Ailsa standing by the window, watching the
orioles in the maple, could no longer distinguish what they were
saying.
He said: "You were bridesmaid to my mother. You are the Celia
Paige of her letters."
"She is always Connie Berkley to me. I loved no woman better. I
love her still."
"I found that out yesterday. That is why I dared come. I found,
among the English letters, one from you to her, written--_after_."
"I wrote her again and again. She never replied. Thank God, she
knew I loved her to the last."
He rested on the tabletop and stood leaning over and looking down.
"Dear Mr. Berkley," she murmured gently.
He straightened himself, passed a hesitating hand across his
forehead, ruffling the short curly hair. Then his preoccupied gaze
wandered. Ailsa turned toward him at the same moment, and
instantly a flicker of malice transformed the nobility of his set
features:
"It seems," he said, "that you and I are irrevocably related in all
kinds of delightful ways, Mrs. Paige. Your sister-in-law very
charmingly admits it, graciously overlooks and pardons my many
delinquencies, and has asked me to come again. Will you ask me,
too?"
Ailsa merely looked at him.
Mrs. Craig said, laughing: "I knew you were all Ormond and entirely
Irish as soon as I came in the do'--befo' I became aware of your
racial fluency. I speak fo' my husband and myse'f when I say,
please remember that our do' is ve'y wide open to our own kin--and
that you are of them----"
"Oh, I'm all sorts of things beside--" He paused for a
second--"Cousin Celia," he added so lightly that the grace with
which he said it covered the impudence, and she laughed in
semi-critical approval and turned to Ailsa, whose smile in response
was chilly--chillier still when Berkley did what few men have done
convincingly since powdered hair and knee-breeches became
unfashionable--bent to salute Celia Craig's fingertips. Then he
turned to her and took his leave of her in a conventional manner
entirely worthy of the name his mother bore,--and her mother before
her, and many a handsome man and many a beautiful woman back to
times when a great duke stood unjustly attainted, and the Ormonds
served their king with steel sword and golden ewer; and served him
faithfully and well.
Camilla Lent called a little later. Ailsa was in the backyard
garden, a trowel in her hand, industriously loosening the earth
around the prairie roses.
"Camilla," she said, looking up from where she was kneeling among
the shrubs, "what was it you said this morning about Mr. Berkley
being some unpleasant kind of man?"
"How funny," laughed Camilla. "You asked me that twice before."
"Did I? I forgot," said Mrs. Paige with a shrug; and, bending over
again, became exceedingly busy with her trowel until the fire in
her cheeks had cooled.
"Every woman that ever saw him becomes infatuated with Phil
Berkley," said Camilla cheerfully. "I was. You will be. And the
worst of it is he's simply not worth it."
"I--thought not."
"Why did you think not?"
"I don't know why."
"He _can_ be fascinating," said Camilla reflectively, "but he
doesn't always trouble himself to be."
"Doesn't he?" said Ailsa with a strange sense of relief.
Camilla hesitated, lowered her voice.
"They say he is fast," she whispered. Ailsa, on her knees, turned
and looked up.
"Whatever that means," added Camilla, shuddering. "But all the
same, every girl who sees him begins to adore him immediately until
her parents make her stop."
"How silly," said Ailsa in a leisurely level voice. But her heart
was beating furiously, and she turned to her roses with a blind
energy that threatened them root and runner.
"How did you happen to think of him at all?" continued Camilla
mischievously.
"He called on--Mrs. Craig this afternoon."
"I didn't know she knew him."
"They are related--distantly--I believe----"
"Oh," exclaimed Camilla. "I'm terribly sorry I spoke that way
about him, dear----"
"_I_ don't care what you say about him," returned Ailsa Paige
fiercely, emptying some grains of sand out of one of her gloves;
resolutely emptying her mind, too, of Philip Berkley.
"Dear," she added gaily to Camilla, "come in and we'll have tea and
gossip, English fashion. And I'll tell you about my new duties at
the Home for Destitute Children--every morning from ten to twelve,
my dear, in their horrid old infirmary--the poor little
darlings!--and I would be there all day if I wasn't a selfish,
indolent, pleasure-loving creature without an ounce of womanly
feeling--Yes I am! I must be, to go about to galleries and dances
and Philharmonics when there are motherless children in that
infirmary, as sick for lack of love as for the hundred and one
ailments distressing their tender little bodies."
But over their tea and marmalade and toast she became less
communicative; and once or twice the conversation betrayed an
unexpected tendency to drift toward Berkley.
"I haven't the slightest curiosity concerning him, dear," said
Ailsa, attempting corroboration in a yawn--which indiscretion she
was unable to accomplish.
"Well," remarked Camilla, "the chances are that you've seen the
last of him if you showed it too plainly. Men don't come back when
a girl doesn't wish them to. Do they?"
After Camilla had gone, Ailsa roamed about the parlours, apparently
renewing her acquaintance with the familiar decorations.
Sometimes she stood at windows, looking thoughtfully into the empty
street; sometimes she sat in corners, critically surveying empty
space.
Yes, the chances were that he would scarcely care to come back. A
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