THE DANCER ON THE MOOR
I
Randy's letter had set Becky adrift. She was not in love with him.
She was sure of that. And he had said he would not marry her without
love. He had said that if she owned her soul she would think of Dalton
as a cad and as a coward.
It seemed queer that Randy should be demanding things of her. He had
always been so glad to take anything she would give, and now she had
offered him herself, and he wouldn't have her. Not till she owned her
soul.
She knew what he meant. The thought of George was always with her.
She kept seeing him as she had first seen him at the station; as he had
been that wonderful day when they had had tea in the Pavilion; the
night in the music room when he had hissed her; the old garden with its
pale statues and box hedges; and always there was his sparkling glance,
his quick voice.
She would never own her soul until she forgot George. Until she put
him out of her life; until the thought of him would not make her burn
hot with humiliation; until the thought of him would not thrill to her
finger-tips.
She found Cope's easy and humorous companionship a balance for her
hidden emotions. And when Louise Cope came, she proved to be a rather
highly emphasized counterpart of her brother. Her red-gold hair was
thick and she wore it bobbed. Her skin was white but lacked the look
of delicacy which seemed to contradict constantly Cope's vivid
personality. She seemed to laugh at the world as he did. She called
Becky "quaint," but took to her at once.
"Archie has been writing to me of you," she told Becky; "he says you
came up like a bird from the south."
"Birds don't fly north in the fall----"
"Well, you were the--miracle," Cope asserted.
Louise Cope's shrewd glance studied him. "He has fallen in love with
you, Becky Bannister," was her blunt assurance, "but you needn't let it
worry you. As yet it is only an aesthetic passion. But there is no
telling what may come of it----"
"Does he fall in love--like that?" Becky demanded.
"He has never been in love," Louise declared, "not really. Except with
me."
Becky felt that the Copes were a charming pair. When she answered
Randy's letter she spoke of them.
"Louise adores her brother, and she thinks he would be a great artist
if he would take himself seriously. But neither of them seems to take
anything seriously. They always seem to be laughing at the world in a
quiet way. Louise is not pretty, but she gives an effect of beauty----
She wears a big gray cape and a black velvet tam, and I am not sure
that the color in her cheeks is real. She is different from other
people, but it doesn't seem to be a pose. It is just because she has
lived in so many places and has seen so many people and has thought for
herself. I have always let other people think for me, haven't I, Randy?
"And now that I have done with the Copes, I am going to talk about the
things that you said to me in your letter, and which are really the
important things.
"I hated to think that you dropped Mr. Dalton in the fountain. I hated
to think that you wanted to burn him at the stake--there was
something--cruel--and--dreadful in it all. I have kept thinking of
that struggle between you--in the dark---- I have hated to think that
a few years ago if you had felt as you do about him--that you might
have--killed him. But perhaps men are like that. They care more for
justice than for--mercy.
"I am trying to take your advice and tell myself the truth about Mr.
Dalton. That he isn't worth a thought of mine. Yet I think of him a
great deal. I am being very frank with you, Randy, because we have
always talked things out. I think of him, and wonder which is the real
man--the one I thought he was--and I thought him very fine and
splendid. Or is he just trifling and commonplace? Perhaps he is just
between, not as wonderful as I thought him, nor as contemptible as I
seem forced to believe.
"Yet I gave him something that it is hard to take back. I gave a great
deal. You see I had always been shut up in a glass case like the
bob-whites and the sandpipers in the Bird Room, and I knew nothing of
the world. And the first time I tried my wings, I thought I was flying
towards the sun, and it was just a blaze that--burned me.
"Of course you are right when you say that you won't marry me unless I
love you. I had a queer feeling at first about it--as if you were very
far away and I couldn't reach you. But I know that you are right, and
that you are thinking of the thing that is best for me. But I know I
shall always have you as a friend. I don't think that I shall ever
love anybody. And after this we won't talk about it. There are so
many other things that we have to say to each other that don't hurt----"
Becky could not, of course, know the effect of her letter on Randy.
The night after its receipt, he roamed the woods. She had thought him
cruel--and dreadful. Well, let her think it. He was glad that he had
dropped George in the fountain. He should always be glad. But women
were not like that--they were tender--and hated--hardness. Perhaps
that was because they were--mothers----
And men were--hard. He had been hard, perhaps, in the things he had
said in his letter. Her words rang in his ears. "I had a queer
feeling at first that you were very far away, and that I could not
reach you." And she had said that, when his soul ached to have her
near.
Yet he had tried to do the best that he could for Becky. He had felt
that she must not be bound by a tie that was no longer needed to
protect her from Dalton. She was safe at 'Sconset, with the Admiral
and her new friends the Copes. He envied them their hours with her.
He was desperately lonely, with a loneliness which had no hope.
He worked intensively. The boarders had gone from King's Crest, and he
and the Major had moved into the big house. Randy spent a good deal of
time in the Judge's library at Huntersfield. He and Truxton had great
plans for their future. They read law, sold cars, and talked of their
partnership. The firm was to be "Bannister, Paine and Beaufort"; it
was to have brains, conscience, and business acumen.
"In the order named," Truxton told the Major. "The Judge has brains,
Randy has a conscience. There's nothing left for me but to put pep
into the business end of it."
Randy worked, too, on his little story. He did not know in the least
what he was going to do with it, but it was an outlet for the questions
which he kept asking himself. The war was over and the men who had
fought had ceased to be important. He and the Major and Truxton talked
a great deal about it. The Major took the high stand of each man's
satisfaction in the thing he had done. Truxton was light-heartedly
indifferent. He had his Mary, and his future was before him. But
Randy argued that the world ought not to forget. "It was a rather
wonderful thing for America. I want her to keep on being wonderful."
The Major in his heart knew that the boy was right. America must keep
on being wonderful. Her young men must go high-hearted to the tasks of
peace. It was the high-heartedness of people which had won the war.
It would be the high-heartedness of men and women which would bring
sanity and serenity to a troubled world.
"The difficulty lies in the fact that we are always trying to make laws
to right the world, when what we need is to form individual ideals.
The boy who says in his heart, 'I want to be like Lincoln,' and who
stands in front of a statue of Lincoln, and learns from that rugged
countenance the lesson of simple courage and honesty, has a better
chance of a future than the boy who is told, 'There is evil in the
world, and the law punishes those who transgress.' Half of our
Bolsheviks would be tamed if they had the knowledge and love of some
simple hero in their hearts, and felt that there was a chance for them
to be heroic. The war gave them a chance. We have now to show them
that there is beauty and heroism in orderly living----"
He was talking to Madge. She was still with the Flippins. The injury
to her foot had been more serious than it had seemed. She might have
gone with Oscar and Flora when they left Hamilton Hill. But she
preferred to stay. Flora was to go to a hospital; Madge would not be
needed.
"I am going to stay here as long as you will let me," she said to Mrs.
Flippin; "you will tell me if I am in the way----"
Mrs. Flippin adored Madge. "It is like having a Princess in the
house," she said, "only she don't act like a Princess."
The Major came over every afternoon. Kemp drove him, as a rule, in the
King's Crest surrey. If the little man missed Dalton's cars, he said
no word. He made the Major very comfortable. He lived a life of ease
if not of elegance, and he loved the wooded hills, the golden air, the
fine old houses, the serene autumn glory of this southern world.
On the afternoon when the Major talked to Madge of the world at peace,
they were together under the apple tree which Madge had first seen from
the window of the east room. There were other apple trees in the old
orchard, but it was this tree that Madge liked because of its golden
globes. "The red ones are wonderful," she said, "but red isn't my
color. With my gold skin, they make me look like a gypsy. If I am to
be a golden girl, I must stay away from red----"
"Is that what you are--a golden girl?"
"That was always George Dalton's name for me."
"I am sorry."
"Why?"
"Because I should like it to be mine for you. I should like to link my
golden West with the thought of you."
"And you won't now, because it was somebody else's name for me?"
Kemp, before he went away, had made her comfortable with cushions in a
chair-like crotch of the old tree. The Major was at her feet. He
meditated a moment. "I shall make it my name for you. What do I care
what other men have called you."
"Do you know what you called me--once?" she was smiling down at him.
"No."
"A little lame duck. It was when I first tried to use my foot. And
you laughed, and said that it--linked us--together. And now you are
trying to link me with your West----"
"You know why, of course."
"Yes, I do."
He drew a long breath. "Most women would, have said, 'No, I don't
know.' But you told the truth. I want to link you with my life in
every way I can because I love you. And you know that I care--very
much--that I want you for my wife--my golden girl in my golden
West----?"
"You have never told me before that--you cared."
"There was no need to tell it. You knew."
"Yes. I was afraid it was true----"
He was startled. "Afraid? Why?"
"Oh, I oughtn't to let you care," she said. "You don't know what a
slacker I've been. And I don't want you to find out----"
"The only thing that I want to find out is whether you care for me."
She flushed a little under his steady gaze, then quite unexpectedly she
reached her hand down to him. He took it in his firm clasp. "I do
care--an awful lot," she said, "but I've tried not to. And I shouldn't
let you care for me."
"Why--shouldn't?"
"I'm not--half good enough. My life has always been lived at loose
ends. Nothing bad, but a thousand things that you wouldn't--like to
hear--I'm not a golden girl--I'm a gilded one----"
"Why should you tell me things like that? I don't believe it."
"Please believe it," she said earnestly, "don't whitewash things. Just
let me begin again--loving you----"
Her voice broke. He drew himself up, and took her in his arms. "My
dear girl," he said, "my dear girl----"
"I never met a man like you, I never believed there were--such men----"
He felt her tears against his hand.
"Listen," he said quietly; "let me tell you something of my life." He
told her the things he had told Randy. Of the little wife he had not
loved. "Perhaps if it had not been for her, I should not have had the
courage to offer to you my--maimed--self. When I married her I was
strong and young and had wealth to give her. Yet I did not give her
love. And love is more than all the rest. I have that to give
you--you know it."
"Yes."
"I have some money. I don't think it is going to count much with
either of us. What will count is the way we plan our future. I have a
big old ranch, and we'll live in it--with the dairy and the wide
kitchen that you've talked about--and you won't have to wait for
another world, dearest, to get your heart's desire----"
"I have my heart's desire," she whispered; "you are--my world."
II
Madge wrote to George Dalton that she was going to marry Major Prime.
"There is no reason why we should put it off; Georgie. The clergyman
who prayed for Flora will perform the ceremony, and the wedding will be
at the Flippins' farm.
"It seems, of course, too good to be true. Not many women have such
luck. Not my kind of women anyway. We meet men as a rule who want us
to be gilded girls, and not golden ones. But Mark wants me to be gold
all through. And I shall try to be---- We are to live on his ranch, a
place that passes in California for a farm--a sort of glorified country
place. Mrs. Flippin is teaching me to make butter, so that I can
superintend my own dairy, and I have learned a great deal about
chickens and eggs.
"I am going to be a housewife in what I call a reincarnated
sense--loving my house and the things which belong to it, and living as
a part of it, not above it, and looking down upon it. Perhaps all
American women will come to that some day and I shall simply be blazing
the way for them. I shall probably grow rosy and round, and if you
ever ride up to my door-step, yon will find me a buxom and blooming
matron instead of a golden girl. And you won't like it in the least.
But my husband will like it, because he thinks a bit as I do about it,
and he doesn't care for the woman who lives for her looks.
"I shall come and see Flora before I go West. But I am going to be
married first. We both have a feeling that it must be now--that
something might happen if we put it off, and nothing must happen. I
love him too much. Of course you won't believe that. I can hardly
believe it myself. But I have someone to climb the heights with me,
Georgie, and we shall ascend to the peak--together."
For a wedding present George sent Madge the pendant he had bought for
Becky. To connect it up with Madge's favorite color scheme, he had an
amethyst put in place of the sapphire. He was glad to give it away.
Every time he had come upon it, it had reminded him of things that he
wished to forget.
Yet he could not forget. Even as Becky had thought of him, he had
thought of her; of her radiant youth on the morning that Randy had
arrived; at the Horse Show in her shabby shoes and sailor hat; in the
Bird Room in pale blue under the swinging lamp; in the music room
between tall candles; in the garden, with a star shining into the still
pool; that last night, on the balcony, leaning over, with a yellow
lantern like a halo behind her.
There were other things that he thought of--of Randy, in khaki on the
station platform; Randy, lean and tall among the boarders; Randy, left
behind with Kemp in the rain; Randy, debonair and insolent, announcing
his engagement on the terrace at Hamilton Hill; Randy, a shadow against
a silver sky, answering Becky's call; Randy, in the dark by the
fountain, with muscles like iron, forcing him inevitably back, lifting
him above the basin, letting him drop----; Randy, the Conqueror,
marching away with Becky's fan as his trophy----!
New York was, of course, at this season of the year, a pageant of
sparkling crowds, and of brilliant window displays, of new productions
at the theaters. People were coming back to town. Even the
fashionable folk were running down to taste the elixir of the early
days in the metropolis.
But George found everything flat and stale. He did the things he had
always done, hunted up the friends he had always known. He spent
weekends at various country places, and came always back to town with
an undiminished sense of his need of Becky, and his need of revenge on
Randy.
He had heard before he left Virginia that Becky was at Nantucket. He
had found some consolation in the fact that she was not at
Huntersfield. To have thought of her with Randy in the old garden, on
Pavilion Hill, in the Bird Room, would have been unbearable.
He had a feeling that, in a sense, Madge's marriage was a desertion.
He did not in the least want to marry her, but there were moments when
he needed her friendship very much. He needed it now. And she was
going to marry Major Prime, and go out to some God-forsaken place, and
get fat and lose her beauty. He wished that she would not talk about
such things--it made him feel old, and worried about his waist-line.
Even Oscar was failing him. "When Flora gets well," the little man
kept telling him, "we are going to do some good with our money. We
have done nothing but think of ourselves----"
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't preach," George exploded. It seemed to
him that the world had gone mad on the subject of reforms. Man was no
longer master of his fate. The time would come when the world would be
a dry desert, without a cocktail or a highball for a thirsty soul, and
all because a lot of people had been feeling for some time as Flora and
Oscar felt at this moment.
"I shall take Flora up to the Crossing in a few days," Oscar was
saying; "the doctor thinks the sea air will do her good. I wish you
would come with us."
George had no idea of going with Oscar and Flora. He had been marooned
long enough with a sick woman and her depressed spouse. When Flora was
better and she and Oscar got over their mood of piety and repentance,
he would be glad to join them. In the meantime he searched his mind
for some reasonable excuse.
"Look here," he said, "I'll join you later, Oscar. I've promised some
friends at Nantucket that I'll come down for the hunting."
"I didn't know that you had friends in Nantucket," Oscar told him
moodily.
"The Merediths," George remembered in the nick of time the name of
Becky's grandfather. Oscar would not know the difference.
Having committed himself, his spirits soared. It had, he felt, been an
inspiration to put it over on Oscar like that. Subconsciously he had
known that some day he would follow Becky, and when the moment came, he
had spoken out of his thoughts.
In the two or three days that elapsed between his decision and the date
that he had set for his departure, he found himself enjoying the
city---its clear skies, its hurrying crowds, its color and glow, the
tingle of its rush and hurry, its light-hearted acceptance of the
pleasure of the moment.
He telegraphed for a room at a hotel in Nantucket. Once there, he was
confident that he could find Becky. Everybody would know Admiral
Meredith.
He went by boat from New York to New Bedford, and enjoyed the trip.
Later on the little steamer, _Sankaty_, plying between New Bedford and
Nantucket, he was so shining and splendid that he was much observed by
the other passengers. His Jap servant, trotting after him, was perhaps
less martial in bearing than the ubiquitous Kemp, but he was none the
less an ornament.
Thus George came, at last, to Nantucket, and to his hotel. Having
dined, he asked the way to the Admiral's house. He did not of course
plan to storm the citadel after dark, but a walk would not hurt him,
and he could view from the outside the cage which held his white dove.
For he had come to that, sentimentally, that Becky was the white dove
that he would shelter against his heart.
The clerk at the hotel desk, directing him, thought that the Admiral
was not in his house on Main Street. He was apt at this season to
spend his time in Siasconset.
"'Sconset? Where's 'Sconset?"
"Across the island."
"How can I get there?"
"You can motor over. There's a 'bus, or you can get a car."
So the next morning, George took the 'bus. He saw little beauty in the
moor. He thought it low and flat. His heart leaped with the thought
that every mile brought him nearer Becky--his white dove--whom he
had--hurt!
He was set down by the 'bus at the post-office. He asked his way, and
was directed to a low huddle of gray houses on a grassy street. "It is
the 'Whistling Sally,'" the driver of the 'bus had told him.
When George reached "The Whistling Sally," he felt that there must be
some mistake. Here was no proper home for an Admiral or an heiress.
His eyes were blind to the charms of the wooden young woman with the
puffed-out cheeks, to the beauty of silver-gray shingles, of late
flowers blooming bravely in the little garden.
He kept well on the other side of the street. It might perhaps be
embarrassing if he met Becky while she was with her grandfather. He
wanted to see her alone. With no one to interfere, he would be, he was
sure, master of the situation.
He passed the house. The windows were open, and the white curtains
blew out. But there was no one in sight. At the next corner, he
accosted a tall man in work clothes, with bronzed skin and fair hair.
"Can you tell me," George asked, "whether Admiral Meredith lives in
that cottage--'The Whistling Sally'?"
"Yes. But he isn't there. He's gone to Boston."
George was conscious of a sense of shock.
"Boston?"
"Yes. He wasn't very well and he wanted to see his doctor."
"Has his--granddaughter gone with him?"
"Miss Becky? Yes."
"But--the windows of the house are open----"
"I open them every morning. The housekeeper is in Nantucket. But they
are all coming back at the end of the week."
"Coming back?" eagerly; "the Admiral, and Miss Bannister?"
"Yes."
George drew a long breath. He walked back with Tristram to the low
gray house. "Queer little place," he said.
Tristram eyed him with easy tolerance. "Of course it seems queer if
you aren't used to it----"
"I thought the Admiral had money."
"Well, he has. But he forgets it out here----"
"Is there a good hotel?"
"Yes. It is usually closed by now. But they are keeping it open for
some guests who are up for the hunting."
The hotel was a pleasant rambling structure, and overlooked the sea.
George engaged a room for Saturday--and said that his man would bring
his bags. He would have his lunch and take the afternoon 'bus back to
Nantucket.
As he waited for the dining-room doors to open, a girl wrapped in a
yellow cape crossed the porch and descended the steps which led to the
beach. She wore a yellow bathing cap and yellow shoes. George walked
to the top of the bluff and watched her. She threw off the cape, and
stood slim end striking for a moment before she dived into the sea.
She swam splendidly. It was very cold, and George wondered how she
endured it. When she came running back up the steps and across the
porch, she was wrapped in the cape. She was rather handsome in a queer
dark way. "It was cold," she said, as she passed George.
He took a step forward. "You were brave----"
She stopped and shrugged her shoulders. "One gets warm," she said, "in
a moment."
She left him, and he went in to lunch. He stopped at the desk on the
way out. "I have changed my mind. My man will bring my bags
to-morrow."
It was still too early for the 'bus, so George walked back up the
bluff, turning at last towards the left. Crossing a grassy space,
there was ahead of him a ridge which marked the edge of the moor. A
little fog was blowing in, and mistily through the fog he saw a figure
which moved as light as smoke above the eminence. It was a woman
dancing.
As he came nearer, he saw that she wore gray with a yellow sash. Her
yellow cape lay on the ground. "I am not sure," George said, as he
stopped beside her, "whether you are a pixie or a mermaid."
"Look," she said, smiling, "I'll show you what I am----"
She began with a light swaying motion, like a leaf stirred by a breeze.
Then, whipped into action, she ran before the pursuing elements. She
cowered, and registered defiance. Her loosened hair hung heavy about
her shoulders, then wound itself about her, as she whirled in a cyclone
of movement. Beaten to the ground, she rose languidly, swayed again to
that light step and stopped.
Then she came close to George. "You see," she said, "I am not a pixie
or a mermaid. I am the spirit of the storm."