IN THE FIRELIGHT
Again there was a silence, but it was not the kind of silence that
gives consent. On the other hand his look of severity was positively
discouraging.
"If I may inquire, what do you know about this place--this Colmere
Abbey?" he finally asked. "I mean, do you know anything of it in this
century--whether it's still standing or not--or anything at all save
what your imagination pictures?"
It was a rather lawyer-like query, and I shook my head, feeling
somewhat nonplused.
"No--nothing!"
"Then, if you should go to England, how would you set about finding
out?"
"Oh, that wouldn't be so bad. In fact, I believe it would be a unique
experience to go journeying to a spot with nothing more recent than a
Washington Irving sketch as guide-book."
He looked at me half pityingly.
"You might be disappointed," he said gently. "For my part, I have
never taken up a moment's time mooning about people's ancestral
estates--I've had too much real work to do--but I happen to know that
residents often fight shy of tourists."
I had a feeling of ruffled dignity.
"Of course--tourists!" I answered, bridling a little.
"Because," he hastened to explain, "the owners of the places can so
often afford to live at home only a short season every year. Many of
them are poor, and the places they own are mortgaged to the turrets."
"And the shut-up dilapidation would not make pleasant sight-seeing for
rich Americans?"
He nodded.
"I happen to have heard some such report about this Colmere
Abbey--years ago," he said.
"Are you sure it was the same place?" I asked, my heart suddenly
bounding. "Colmere, in Lancashire?"
"Quite sure! I was brought up in Nottingham, and have heard of the
estate, but have never seen it."
"Then it's still there--my house of dreams?"
For a moment I waited, palpitatingly, for him to say more, but he only
looked at me musingly, then back into the fire. After a second he
leaned forward, shaking his unruly hair back, as if he were trying to
rid himself from a haunting thought.
"I--I can't talk about 'landed gentry,'" he said, turning to me with a
quick fierceness. "I grow violent when I do! You've no idea how
hateful the whole set is to a man who has had to make his own way in
the world--against them!" Then, after this burst of resentment, his
mood seemed to change. "But we must talk about England," he added,
with a hasty gentleness. "There are so many delightful things we can
discuss! Tell me, have you been there? Do you like it?"
I nodded an energetic affirmative.
"I have been there and--I love it! But it was a long while ago, and I
wasn't old enough to understand about the things which would interest
me most now."
"A long while ago?"
"Yes--let me see--ten years, I believe! At all events it was the
summer after we sold the rosewood furniture--and the piano. Mother was
so amazed at herself for having the nerve to part with the grand piano
that she had to take a sea-voyage to recover herself."
"But what a happy idea!" he commented seriously, as he looked around.
"A grand piano would really be a nuisance in this cozy room."
For a long time afterward I wondered whether my very deepest feeling
of admiration for him had been born at the moment I looked at him
first, or when he made this remark. But I've found it's as hard to
ascertain Love's birthday as it is to settle the natal hour of a
medieval author.
"How long have you been in America?" I next asked, abruptly; and he
looked relieved.
"Ten years--off and on," he answered briskly. "Most of the time in
Pittsburgh, for my grandfather had chosen that place for me. He would
not have consented to my going back to England often, if he had lived,
but I have been back a number of times, for I love journeying over the
face of the earth--and, strange as it may seem, I love England. Some
day--when things--when my affairs--are in different shape over there I
shall go back to stay."
The tea things were finally arranged by Cicely's nervous dusky hands,
and with a cordial showing of the letter-but-not-spirit-hospitality,
mother appeared, in the wake of the steaming kettle.
Her expression said more plainly than words that she would do the
decent thing or die.
"I was--" she began freezingly, as we both arose to greet her, "I
was--"
She took in at a glance Maitland Tait's gigantic size, and shrank
back--a little frightened. Then his good clothes reassured her. A
giant who patronizes a good New York tailor is a _cut_ above an
ordinary giant, she evidently admitted.
"--detained," she added, with the air of making a concession. She
accepted the chair he drew up for her, and his down-to-the-belt grace
began making itself conspicuous. She looked him over, and her
jaundiced eye lost something of its color.
"--_unavoidably_," she plead, with a regretful prettiness.
Then she made the tea, and when she saw how caressingly the big man's
smooth brown hands managed his cup, the remaining thin layer of ice
over her cordiality melted, and she became the usual charming mother
of a marriageable daughter. While she was at all times absolutely
loyal to Guilford, still she knew that a mother's appearance is a
daughter's asset, and she had always laid up treasures for me in this
manner.
"You were at Mrs. Walker's Flag Day reception yesterday Grace tells
me?" she inquired as casually as if a bloody battle of words had not
been waging over the occurrence all morning. "And Mrs. Kendall was
talking with me this morning on the telephone about her dance Friday
night--"
She paused, looking at him interrogatively, because that had been Mrs.
Kendall's own emotion when mentioning the matter.
Mr. Tait glanced toward me.
"Ah, yes--I had forgotten! You will be there?"
"Yes," I answered hastily, and mother came near scalding the kitten on
the rug in the excess of her surprise. All morning, through the smoke
of battle, I had sent vehement protestations against having my white
tissue redraped for the occasion, declaring that nothing could induce
me to go.
"I find that one usually goes to no less than three social affairs on
a trip like this--and I--well, I'm afraid I'm rather an unsocial
brute! I select the biggest things to go to, for one has to talk
less, and there is a better chance of getting away early," he
explained.
Mother left the room soon after this--the sudden change of decision
about the dance had been too much for her. Even perfect clothes and
well-bred hands and a graceful waist-line could not make her forgive
this in me. She made a hasty excuse and left.
Then our two chairs shifted themselves back into their former
positions before the fire and we talked on in the gloaming. Somehow,
since that outburst of anger against the present-day owners of Colmere
Abbey, the vision of the big man--the cave-man--in the coat of
goatskins, with the bare knees and moccasins, had come back
insistently.
Yet it was just a vision, and after a few minutes it vanished--after
the manner of visions since the world began. He looked out the window
at the creeping darkness and rose to go.
"Then I'm to see you Friday night?" he asked at parting.
"Yes."
"I'm--I'm glad."
There had been a green and gold sunset behind the trees in the park
across the way, and after a moment more he was lost in this weird
radiance; then he suddenly came to view again, in the glow of electric
light at the corner.
A car to the city swung round the curve just then, and a dark figure,
immensely tall in the shadows, stepped from the pavement. I heard the
conductor ring up a fare--a harsh metallic note that indicated
_finality_ to me--then silence.
"He's gone--gone--gone!" something sad and lonesome was saying in my
heart. "What if he should be suddenly called back to Pittsburgh and I
shouldn't see him again?"
To see the very last of him I had dropped down beside the front door,
with my face pressed against the lace-veiled glass, and so intent was
I upon my task that I had entirely failed to hear mother's agitated
step in the hall above.
I was brought to, however, when I heard the click of the electric
switch upon the stair. The lower hall was suddenly flooded with light.
I scrambled to my feet as quickly as I could. Mother's face, peering
at me from the landing, was already pronouncing sentence.
"Grace, I was just coming down to tell you that--well, I am compelled
to say that you _amaze_ me!" she emitted first, with a tone of utter
hopelessness struggling through her newly-fired anger. "Down on your
knees in your new gown--and gowns as scarce as angels' visits, too!"
"Ah--but--I'm sorry--"
"What on earth are you doing there?" she kept on.
I turned to her, blinking in the dazzling light.
"I was--let me see?--oh, _yes_!" A brilliant thought had just come to
me. "--I was looking for the _key_!"
Now, I happen to hate a liar worse than anything else on earth, and I
hated myself fervently as I told this one.
"The key?" she asked suspiciously.
"It--it had fallen on the floor," I kept on, for of course whatever
you do you must do with all your might, as we learn in copy-book days.
"And it never occurred to you to turn on the light?" she demanded,
coming up and looking at me as if to see the extent of disfigurement
this new malady had wrought. "Down on your knees searching for a
key--and it never occurred to you to turn on the light?"
"No," I answered, thankful to be able to tell the truth again. "No, it
never once occurred to me!"