Putting It up to Peter
When Peter Morrison finally gave up looking in the pockets of Henry
Anderson’s coat for enlightenment concerning Linda’s conduct, it was
with his mind settled on one point. There was nothing in the coat now
that could possibly have startled the girl or annoyed her. Whatever
had been there that caused her extremely peculiar conduct she had
carried away with her. Peter had settled convictions concerning Linda.
From the first instant he had looked into her clear young eyes as she
stood in Multiflores Canyon triumphantly holding aloft the Cotyledon
in one hand and with the other struggling to induce the skirt of her
blouse to resume its proper location beneath the band of her trousers,
he had felt that her heart and her mind were as clear and cool and
businesslike as the energetic mountain stream hurrying past her.
Above all others, “straight” was the one adjective he probably would
have applied to her. Whatever she had taken from Henry’s pockets was
something that concerned her. If she took anything, she had a right to
take it; of that Peter was unalterably certain. He remembered that a
few days before she practically had admitted to him that Anderson had
annoyed her, and a slow anger began to surge up in Peter’s carefully
regulated heart. His thoughts were extremely busy, but the thing
he thought most frequently and most forcefully was that he would
thoroughly enjoy taking Henry Anderson by the scruff of the neck,
leading him to the sheerest part of his own particular share of the
mountain, and exhaustively booting him down it.
“It takes these youngsters to rush in and raise the devil where there’s
no necessity for anything to happen if just a modicum of common sense
had been used,” growled Peter.
He mulled over the problem for several days, and then he decided he
should see Linda, and with his first look into her straightforward
eyes, from the tones of her voice and the carriage of her head he would
know whether the annoyance persisted. About the customary time for her
to return from school Peter started on foot down the short cut between
his home and the Strong residence. He was following a footpath rounding
the base of the mountain, crossing and recrossing the enthusiastic
mountain stream as it speeded toward the valley, when a flash of
colour on the farther side of the brook attracted him. He stopped,
then hastily sprang across the water, climbed a few yards, and, after
skirting a heavy clump of bushes, looked at Linda sitting beside them—a
most astonishing Linda, appearing small and humble, very much tucked
away, unrestrained tears rolling down her cheeks, a wet handkerchief
wadded in one hand, a packet of letters in her lap. A long instant they
studied each other.
“Am I intruding?” inquired Peter at last.
Linda shook her head vigorously and gulped down a sob.
“No, Peter,” she sobbed, “I had come this far on my way to you when my
courage gave out.”
Peter re-arranged the immediate landscape and seated himself beside
Linda.
“Now stop distressing yourself,” he said authoritatively. “You
youngsters do take life so seriously. The only thing that could have
happened to you worth your shedding a tear over can’t possibly have
happened; so stop this waste of good material. Tears are very precious
things, Linda. They ought to be the most unusual things in life. Now
tell me something. Were you coming to me about that matter that worried
you the other evening?”
Linda shook her head.
“No,” she said, “I have turned that matter over where it belongs. I
have nothing further to do with it. I’ll confess to you I took a paper
from among those that fell from Henry Anderson’s pocket. It was not
his. He had no right to have it. He couldn’t possibly have come by it
honourably or without knowing what it was. I took the liberty to put it
where it belongs, or at least where it seemed to me that it belongs.
That is all over.”
“Then something else has happened?” asked Peter. “Something connected
with the package of letters in your lap?”
Linda nodded vigorously.
“Peter, I have done something perfectly awful,” she confessed. “I never
in this world meant to do it. I wouldn’t have done it for anything. I
have got myself into the dreadfullest mess, and I don’t know how to get
out. When I couldn’t stand it another minute I started right to you,
Peter, just like I’d have started to my father if I’d had him to go to.”
“I see,” said Peter, deeply interested in the toe of his shoe. “You
depended on my age and worldly experience and my unconcealed devotion
to your interests, which is exactly what you should do, my dear. Now
tell me. Dry your eyes and tell me, and whatever it is I’ll fix it all
right and happily for you. I’ll swear to do it if you want me to.”
Then Linda raised her eyes to his face.
“Oh, Peter, you dear!” she cried. “Peter, I’ll just kneel and kiss your
hands if you can fix this for me.”
Peter set his jaws and continued his meditations on shoe leather.
“Make it snappy!” he said tersely. “The sooner your troubles are out of
your system the better you’ll feel. Whose letters are those, and why
are you crying over them?”
“Oh, Peter,” quavered Linda, “you know how I love Marian. You have seen
her and I have told you over and over.”
“Yes,” said Peter soothingly, “I know.”
“I have told you how, after years of devotion to Marian, John Gilman
let Eileen make a perfect rag of him and tie him into any kind of
knot she chose. Peter, when Marian left here she had lost everything
on earth but a little dab of money. She had lost a father who was
fine enough to be my father’s best friend. She had lost a mother who
was fine enough to rear Marian to what she is. She had lost them in
a horrible way that left her room for a million fancies and regrets:
‘if I had done this,’ or ‘if I had done that,’ or ‘if I had taken
another road.’ And when she went away she knew definitely she had
lost the first and only love of her heart; and I knew, because she
was so sensitive and so fine, I knew, better than anybody living, how
she _could_ be hurt; and I thought if I could fix some scheme that
would entertain her and take her mind off herself and make her feel
appreciated only for a little while—I knew in all reason, Peter, when
she got out in the world where men would see her and see how beautiful
and fine she is, there would be somebody who would want her quickly.
All the time I have thought that when she came back, _you_ would want
her. Peter, I fibbed when I said I was setting your brook for Louise
Whiting. I was not. I don’t know Louise Whiting. She is nothing to me.
I was setting it for you and Marian. It was a _white_ head I saw among
the iris marching down your creek bank, not a gold one, Peter.”
Peter licked his dry lips and found it impossible to look at Linda.
“Straight ahead with it,” he said gravely. “What did you do?”
“Oh, I have done the awfullest thing,” wailed Linda, “the most
unforgivable thing!”
She reached across and laid hold of the hand next her, and realizing
that she needed it for strength and support, Peter gave it into her
keeping.
“Yes?” he questioned. “Get on with it, Linda. What was it you did?”
“I had a typewriter: I could. I began writing her letters, the kind of
letters that I thought would interest her and make her feel loved and
appreciated.”
“You didn’t sign my name to them, did you, Linda?” asked Peter in a
dry, breathless voice.
“No, Peter,” said Linda, “I did not do that, I did worse. Oh, I did a
whole lot worse!”
“I don’t understand,” said Peter hoarsely.
“I wanted to make them fine. I wanted to make them brilliant. I wanted
to make them interesting. And of course I could not do it by myself.
I am nothing but a copycat. I just quoted a lot of things I had heard
you say; and I did worse than that, Peter. I watched the little whimsy
lines around your mouth and I tried to interpret the perfectly lovely
things they would make you say to a woman if you loved her and were
building a dream house for her. And oh, Peter, it’s too ghastly; I
don’t believe I can tell you.”
“This is pretty serious business, Linda,” said Peter gravely. “Having
gone this far you are in honour bound to finish. It would not be
fair to leave me with half a truth. What is the result of this
impersonation?”
“Oh, Peter,” sobbed Linda, breaking down again, “you’re going to hate
me; I know you’re going to hate me and Marian’s going to hate me; and I
didn’t mean a thing but the kindest thing in all the world.”
“Don’t talk like that, Linda,” said Peter. “If your friend is all you
say she is, she is bound to understand. And as for me, I am not very
likely to misjudge you. But be quick about it. What did you do, Linda?”
“Why, I just wrote these letters that I am telling you about,” said
Linda, “and I said the things that I thought would comfort her and
entertain her and help with her work; and these are the answers that
she wrote me, and I don’t think I realized till last night that she was
truly attributing them to any one man, truly believing in them. Oh,
Peter, I wasn’t asleep a minute all last night, and for the first time
I failed in my lessons to-day.”
“And what is the culmination, Linda?” urged Peter.
“She liked the letters, Peter. They meant all I intended them to and
they must have meant something I never could have imagined. And in San
Francisco one of the firm where she studies—a very fine man she says he
is, Peter; I can see that in every way he would be quite right for her;
and I had a letter from her last night, and, Peter, he had asked her
to marry him, to have a life-long chance at work she’s crazy about. He
had offered her a beautiful home with everything that great wealth and
culture and good taste could afford. He had offered her the mothering
of his little daughter; and she refused him, Peter, refused him because
she is in love, with all the love there is left in her disappointed,
hurt heart, with the personality that these letters represent to her;
and that personality is _yours_, Peter. I stole it from you. I copied
it into those letters. I’m not straight. I’m not fair. I wasn’t honest
with her. I wasn’t honest with you. I’ll just have to take off front
the top of the highest mountain or sink in the deepest place in the
sea, Peter. I thought I was straight. I thought I was honourable. I
have made Donald believe that I was. If I have to tell him the truth
about this he won’t want to wear my flower any more. I shall know
all the things that Marian has suffered, and a thousand times worse,
because she was not to blame; she had nothing with which to reproach
herself.”
Peter put an arm across Linda’s shoulders and drew her up to him. For a
long, bitter moment he thought deeply, and then he said hoarsely: “Now
calm down, Linda. You’re making an extremely high mountain out of an
extremely shallow gopher hole. You haven’t done anything irreparable. I
see the whole situation. You are _sure_ your friend has finally refused
this offer she has had on account of these letters you have written?”
Suddenly Linda relaxed. She leaned her warm young body against Peter.
She laid her tired head on his shoulder. She slipped the top letter
of the packet in her lap from under its band, opened it, and held
it before him. Peter read it very deliberately, then he nodded in
acquiescence.
“It’s all too evident,” he said quietly, “that you have taught her that
there is a man in this world more to her liking than John Gilman ever
has been. When it came to materializing the man, Linda, what was your
idea? Were you proposing to deliver me?”
“I thought it would be suitable and you would be perfectly happy,”
sobbed Linda, “and that way I could have both of you.”
“And Donald also?” asked Peter lightly.
“Donald of course,” assented Linda.
And then she lifted her tear-spilling, wonderful eyes, wide open, to
Peter’s, and demanded: “But, oh Peter, I am so miserable I am almost
dead. I have said you were a rock, and you are a rock. Peter, can you
get me out of this?”
“Sure,” said Peter grimly. “Merely a case of living up to your blue
china, even if it happens to be in the form of hieroglyphics instead of
baked pottery. Give me the letters, Linda. Give me a few days to study
them. Exchange typewriters with me so I can have the same machine. Give
me some of the paper on which you have been writing and the address you
have been using, and I’ll guarantee to get you out of this in some way
that will leave you Donald, and your friendship with Marian quite as
good as new.”
At that juncture Peter might have been kissed, but his neck was very
stiff and his head was very high and his eyes were on a far-distant
hilltop from which at that minute he could not seem to gather any
particular help.
“Would it be your idea,” he said, “that by reading these letters I
could gain sufficient knowledge of what has passed to go on with this?”
“Of course you could,” said Linda.
Peter reached in his side pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief.
He shook it from its folds and dried her eyes. Then he took her by her
shoulders and set her up straight.
“Now stop this nerve strain and this foolishness,” he said tersely.
“You have done a very wonderful thing for me. It is barely possible
that Marian Thorne is not my dream woman, but we can’t always have our
dreams in this world, and if I could not have mine, truly and candidly,
Linda, so far as I have lived my life, I would rather have Marian
Thorne than any other woman I have ever met.”
Linda clapped her hands in delight.
“Oh, goody goody, Peter!” she cried. “How joyous! Can it be possible
that my bungling is coming out right for Marian and right for you?”
“And right for you, Linda?” inquired Peter lightly.
“Sure, right for me,” said Linda eagerly. “Of course it’s right for
me when it’s right for you and Marian. And since it’s not my secret
alone I don’t think it would be quite honourable to tell Donald about
it. What hurts Marian’s heart or heals it is none of his business. He
doesn’t even know her.”
“All right then, Linda,” said Peter, rising, “give me the letters and
bring me the machine and the paper. Give me the joyous details and tell
me when I am expected to send in my first letter _in propria persona?_”
“Oh, Peter,” cried Linda, beaming on him, “oh, Peter, you _are_ a rock!
I do put my trust in you.”
“Then God help me,” said Peter, “for whatever happens, your trust in me
shall not be betrayed, Linda.”