Thurley, Polly and Bliss Hobart were taking a turn about the Fincherie
gardens to discuss a multitude of detail, whether or not Caleb and
Ernestine Patmore, gay deceivers to be married all in a moment and never
let any one know, would visit the Fincherie as soon as Ernestine’s letter
intimated. Why had Collin and Mark stopped writing? Didn’t the exhibition
of doll houses for the coming Christmas market speak well for the work
being done? And if Hobart had spoken in favor of the leather department,
Polly championed the wireless school and the brass and copper hand
industries. She had shown favoritism, as well, for she sang three songs
for those boys and only two and a half for the others.
Thurley drew their attention to a newly finished sun dial. “You see,” she
said, as they took chairs within a summer house, “it is getting used to
one’s self that is the trick. We all have to do it in some way or other
at some time. I dare say if one were born with four fingers and an extra
one appeared without warning, it would be quite a task to know how to
provide for the newcomer ... besides, they all feel it has been worth
while,” she added, turning her eager, flushed face towards Bliss Hobart.
“Why hasn’t the town put up a statue of you?” asked Polly. “Do people
salaam when they meet you?”
“Well, they don’t mind saying I belong to Birge’s Corners—reward
sufficient.” Thurley stood up to wave a welcoming arm to a small person
in flowered organdie and a huge shade hat, who was making her way across
the lawn, squired by her todding son.
“I want you to meet Lorraine Birge,” she explained swiftly. “Lorraine
is my right hand man—now.” She did not add what had happened—the awful,
furious moment when Lorraine was summoned home from public speaking to
witness the result of Herta’s carelessness regarding Boy—the fall from
the window with the fractured arms as a result. It had banished the
war-madness; the old, gentle Lorraine, with an added strength of purpose
perhaps born of her tiny sojourn into the world, returned for all time.
With Thurley as her “guardian angel,” she once more recreated her house
as Dan had left it—and would expect it—nursing her child, shaking her
head firmly when committees asked when she would join them once again!
Lorraine hesitated when she saw the strangers, but Boy ambled along to
garrote Hobart’s watch chain and with his fingers clutch Polly’s red hat
brim so there was no chance for further reserve and the quartette sat
chatting of the Fincherie work, and of the future art colony soon to be
in evidence until the chimes struck five and Lorraine bundled her son
under her arm and made for her motor car.
“Isn’t she the wife of—of—” Polly asked curiously.
“Of Dan,” Thurley admitted. “She most surely is—and we are the best
of friends. Not even Dan could come between us! We each made a
mistake, and then unmade it, and that inspired us with mutual pity and
admiration,—understand?”
“When are you going to sing next?” Bliss Hobart asked.
“When I have time! Don’t bother me about singing. I’m so busy and so
happy that I haven’t time to plan.”
Ali Baba, important in a new uniform, came across the lawn to tell
Thurley the New York train had brought her four guests.
“You’ll be real glad to see three of them, and real sorry to see the
fourth,” he whispered patronizingly, “the fourth is that artist—he’s
blind!”
Polly sprang to her feet. “I knew it—I knew it,” she said breathlessly.
It was quite true. The over brilliant, joyous eyes faced the darkness
for all time. Mark Wirth had acted as his courier and as the trio came
into the reception room, Ernestine and Caleb stood in the background and
Collin tried to smile at them while Mark raised his hand to suppress
their exclamations.
“We’ve come to belong to Ali Baba’s forty thieves,” said Ernestine, to
break the silence. “We’re as tired and hungry as four people can be.
Collin has splendid things to tell you, he is very shy about letting us
know how wonderful he has been.” Her voice broke and she looked at Caleb
to take up the burden.
But Caleb was staring at Collin, whose sensitive face quivered as a
woman’s does before she cries. He made no response.
Hobart came and took his hand. “I’m mighty proud of you, old man; you get
yourself rested up and forget the haughty beauties waiting to be painted
in their best togs.... You’ll have to be a sculptor in spite of yourself.”
“The master said, ‘All an artist needs is to trust his eyes,’” Collin
repeated.
“Ah, but his inner eyes—which never dim,” Thurley corrected, coming over
to kiss his cheek. “Here is Polly waiting to kiss you on both cheeks.
Why, Collin, you’ve just come home twice as precious; that’s all, isn’t
it?—just come home.”
Polly stood back, afraid that his hands would reach up to touch her
cheeks and discover the tears.
“I want Polly,” Collin said suddenly. “Where is she?”
Hobart gave her an imperative nudge.
“We bother Polly from being her best,” he said softly. “Let’s clear....
Polly’s the only one to make Collin get used to himself.”
* * * * *
In the late evening, Thurley and Mark came back into the house, after
Mark had “talked her head off” in the garden and as she said good night,
she added,
“To think you’re going to do something that will make the worth-while
world claim you!”
“If it’s really not too late to study law,” he lapsed back into
uncertainty.
“I’ve come to believe that nothing worth while is ever too late, it may
not be in just the way we had planned or preferred, but if the right
effort is made, the result follows.... Mark, what wonderful things
another person’s tragedy can inspire!”
“It has been Collin mostly—and Lissa’s awful selfishness! Besides,
Ernestine is really human and Caleb follows her about like a lamb. She’ll
have him writing something ripping if he’s not careful.”
Hobart was reading in the study and he came in to where they were and
said that Thurley was too fagged to stay up another moment.
“Which means you want to talk to Mark and being a woman, I’m a
hindrance,” she laughed, slipping away.
In her room, she found Polly a funny muddle of rose-colored negligee,
handkerchiefs rolled into moist little balls, and curl papers, oddly
enough! Ernestine was trying to argue with her, but Polly’s head was
among the cushions of Thurley’s chaise longue and only smothered sobs
escaped at intervals.
Ernestine gave a sigh of relief as Thurley entered. “Do make her behave!
Polly dear, you must be brave, as you used to be about your own affairs.
We all know how hard you care. We just want you to keep on caring, and
it might have been worse. Why, Collin’s soul isn’t bruised; now Caleb’s
was,” she added honestly.
“How did he ever marry you?” Polly managed to ask.
“I ordered it, as you must—mustn’t she, Thurley? It’s her duty.”
Thurley slipped down beside Polly. “A gray angel can ask a man to marry
her as easily as she can knit him a sweater,” she whispered. “Collin
needs you; he must use his talents wisely and only some one who really
will belong to him can make him prove his worth.”
After Polly halfway promised that she would find the shortest, most
forceful method of requesting marriage to a blind hero who could become
a sublime poet in deathless stone and bronze, Ernestine departed to find
Caleb in a changed, softened mood in which he admitted that when a chap
witnessed such a tragedy—and such rose-colored clouds encircling it, who
saw what Thurley had done, forgetting herself and her career, and the men
at the Fincherie quietly getting used to themselves and ‘life as usual’
all about, it made him realize what a smashing story could be written
about such real people. Caleb had awakened to his possibility of being a
vigorous realist.
Thurley turned off the lights in her room and opened the window to
commune with the genial moon. She wondered if Bliss Hobart would ever
be in dire need of gray angel courtship.... The memory of Miss Clergy’s
message, “Tell Thurley to use her own judgment,” caused the color to
flood her tired cheeks ... she almost hoped he would not—it would be so
very splendid to have Bliss Hobart plead his own cause ... she was only a
small part gray angel, she admitted, she was mostly—just Thurley!