IV

As for the country roundabout the Bexley Sands Inn, it is one of the

loveliest in Devonshire. It does not waste a moment, but, realizing

the brevity of week-end visits and the anxiety of tourists to see the

greatest amount of scenery in the shortest space, it begins its duty

at the very door of the inn and goes straight on from one stretch of

loveliness to another.

If you have been there, you remember that if you turn to the right and

go over the stone bridge that crosses the sleepy river, you are in the

very heart of beauty. You pick your way daintily along the edge of the

road, for it is carpeted so thickly with sea-pinks and yellow and

crimson crow's-foot that you scarcely know where to step. Sea-poppies

there are, too, groves of them, growing in the sandy stretches that

lie close to and border the wide, shingly beach. In summer the long,

low, narrow stone bridge crosses no water, but just here is an acre or

two of tall green rushes. You walk down the bank a few steps and sit

under the shadow of a wall. The green garden of rushes stretches in

front of you, with a still, shallow pool between you and it, a pool

floating with blossoming water-weeds. On the edge of the rushes grow

tall yellow irises in great profusion; the cuckoo's note sounds in the

distance; the sun, the warmth, the intoxication of color, make you

drowsy, and you lean back among the green things, close your eyes, and

then begin listening to the wonderful music of the rushes. A million

million reeds stirred by the breeze bend to and fro, making a faint

silken sound like that of a summer wave lapping the shore, but far

more ethereal.

Thomasina Tucker went down the road, laden with books, soon after

breakfast Monday morning. Appleton waited until after the post came

in, and having received much-desired letters and observed with joy the

week-enders setting forth, hither and thither on their return

journeys, followed what he supposed to be Miss Tucker's route; at

least, it was her route on Saturday and Sunday, and he could not

suppose her to harbor caprice or any other feminine weakness.

Yes, there she was, in the very loveliest nook, the stone wall at her

back, and in front nice sandy levels for books and papers and

writing-pad.

"Miss Tucker, may I invade your solitude for a moment? Our mutual

friend, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, has written asking me to look

you up as a fellow countryman and see if I can be of any service to

you so far away from home."

Tommy looked up, observed a good-looking American holding a letter in

one hand and lifting a hat with the other, and bade him welcome.

"How kind of the bishop! But he is always doing kind things; his wife,

too. I have seen much of them since I came to England."

"My name is Appleton, Fergus Appleton, at your service."

"Won't you take a stone, or make yourself a hollow in the sand?" asked

Tommy hospitably. "I came out here to read and study, and get rid of

the week-enders. Isn't Bexley Sands a lovely spot, and do you ever get

tired of the bacon and the kippered herring, and the fruit tarts with

Devonshire cream?"

"I can't bear to begin an acquaintance with a lady by differing on

such vital points, but I do get tired of these Bexley delicacies."

"Perhaps you have been here too long--or have you just come this

morning?"

Appleton swallowed his disappointment and hurt vanity, and remarked:

"No, I came on Friday." (He laid some emphasis on Friday.)

"The evening train is so incorrigibly slow! I only reached the hotel

at ten o'clock when I arrived on Thursday night." Miss Tucker shot a

rapid glance at the young man as she made this remark.

"I came by the morning express and arrived here at three on Friday,"

said Appleton.

Miss Tucker, with a slight display of perhaps legitimate temper,

turned suddenly upon him. "There! I have been trying for two minutes

to find out when you came, and now I know you were at my beastly

concert on Friday evening!"

"I certainly was, and very grateful I am, too."

"I suppose all through my life people will be turning up who were in

that room!" said Miss Tucker ungraciously. "I must tell somebody what

I feel about that concert! I should prefer some one who wasn't a

stranger, but you are a great deal better than nobody. Do you mind?"

Appleton laughed like a boy, and flung his hat a little distance into

a patch of sea-pinks.

"Not a bit. Use me, or abuse me, as you like, so long as you don't

send me away, for this was my favorite spot before you chose it for

yours."

"I live in New York, and I came abroad early in the summer," began

Tommy.

"I know that already!" interrupted Appleton.

"Oh, I suppose the bishop told you."

"No, I came with you; that is, I was your fellow passenger."

"Did you? Why, I never saw you on the boat."

"My charms are not so dazzling that I expect them to be noted and

remembered," laughed Appleton.

"It is true I was very tired, and excited, and full of anxieties,"

said Tommy meekly.

"Don't apologize! If you tried for an hour, you couldn't guess just

why I noticed and remembered _you_!"

"I conclude then it was not for _my_ dazzling charms," Tommy answered

saucily.

"It was because you wore the only flower I ever notice, one that is

associated with my earliest childhood. I never knew a woman to wear a

bunch of mignonette before."

"Some one sent it to me, I remember, and it had some hideous scarlet

pinks in the middle. I put the pinks in my room and pinned on the

mignonette because it matched my dress. I am very fond of green."

"My mother loved mignonette. We always had beds of it in our garden

and pots of it growing in the house in winter. I can smell it whenever

I close my eyes."

Tommy glanced at him. She felt something in his voice that she liked,

something that attracted her and wakened an instantaneous response.

"But go on," he said. "I only know as yet that you sailed from New

York in the early summer, as I did."

"Well, I went to London to join a great friend, a singer, Helena

Markham. Have you heard of her?"

"No; is she an American?"

"Yes, a Western girl, from Montana, with oh! such a magnificent voice

and such a big talent!" (The outward sweep of Tommy's hands took in

the universe.) "We've had some heavenly weeks together. I play

accompaniments, and--"

"I know you do!"

"I forgot for the moment how much too much you know! I went with her

to Birmingham, and Manchester, and Leeds, and Liverpool. I wasn't

really grand enough for her, but the audiences didn't notice me,

Helena was so superb. In between I took some lessons of Henschel. He

told me I hadn't much voice, but very nice brains. I am always called

'intelligent,' and no one can imagine how I hate the word!"

"It is offensive, but not so bad as some others. I, for example, have

been called a 'conscientious writer'!"

"Oh, are you a writer?"

"Of a sort, yes. But, as you were saying--"

"As I was saying, everything was going so beautifully until ten days

ago, when Helena's people cabled her to come home. Her mother is

seriously ill and cannot live more than a few months. She went at

once, but I couldn't go with her--not very well, in midsummer--and so

here I am, all alone, high and dry."

She leaned her chin in the cup of her hand and, looking

absent-mindedly at the shimmering rushes, fell into a spell of silence

that took no account of Appleton.

To tell the truth, he didn't mind looking at her unobserved for a

moment or two. He had almost complete control of his senses, and he

didn't believe she could be as pretty as he thought she was. There was

no reason to think that she was better to look at than an out-and-out

beauty. Her nose wasn't Greek. It was just a trifle faulty, but it was

piquant and full of mischief. There was nothing to be said against her

mouth or her eyelashes, which were beyond criticism, and he

particularly liked the way her dark-brown hair grew round her temples

and her ears--but the quality in her face that appealed most to

Appleton was a soft and touching youthfulness.

Suddenly she remembered herself, and began again:

"Miss Markham and I had twice gone to large seaside hotels with great

success, but, of course, she had a manager and a reputation. I thought

I would try the same thing alone in some very quiet retreat, and see

if it would do. Oh! wasn't it funny!" (Here she broke into a perfectly

childlike fit of laughter.) "It was such a well-behaved, solemn little

audience, that never gave me an inkling of its liking or its

loathing."

"Oh, yes, it did!" remonstrated Appleton. "They loved your Scotch

songs."

"Silently!" cried Tommy. "I had dozens and dozens of other things

upstairs to sing to them, but I thought I was suiting my programme to

the place and the people. I looked at them during luncheon and made my

selections."

"You are flattering the week-enders."

"I believe you are musical," she ventured, looking up at him as she

played with a tuft of sea-pinks.

"I am passionately fond of singing, so I seldom go to concerts," he

answered, somewhat enigmatically. "Your programme was an enchanting

one to me."

"It was good of its kind, if the audience would have helped me,"--and

Tommy's lip trembled a little; "but perhaps I could have borne that,

if it hadn't been for the--plate."

"Not a pleasant custom, and a new one to me," said Appleton.

"And to me!" (Here she made a little grimace of disgust.) "I knew

beforehand I had to face the plate--but the contents! Where did you

sit?"

"I was forced to stay a trifle in the background, I entered so late.

It was your 'Minstrel Boy' that dragged me out of my armchair in the

lounge."

"Then perhaps you saw the plate? I know by your face that you did! You

saw the sixpences, which I shall never forget, and the pennies, which

I will never forgive! I thirst for the blood of those who put in

pennies!"

"They would all have been sitting in boiling oil since Friday if I had

had my way," responded Appleton.

Tommy laughed delightedly. "I know now who put in the sovereign! I

knew every face in that audience--that wasn't difficult in so small a

one--and I tried and tried to fix the sovereign on any one of them,

and couldn't. At last I determined that it was the old gentleman who

went out in the middle of 'Allan Water,' feeling that he would rather

pay anything than stay any longer. Confess! it _was_ you!"

Appleton felt very sheepish as he met Tommy's dancing eyes and

heightened color.

"I couldn't bear to let you see those pennies," he stammered, "but I

couldn't get them out before the page came to take the plate."

"Perhaps you were 'pound foolish,' and the others were 'penny wise,'

but it was awfully nice of you. If I can pay my bill here without

spending that sovereign, I believe I'll keep it for a lucky piece. I

shall be very rich by Saturday night, anyway."

"A legacy due?"

"Goodness, no! I haven't a relation in the world except one, who

disapproves of me; not so much as I disapprove of him, however. No,

Albert Spalding and Donald Tovey have engaged me for a concert in

Torquay."

"I have some business in Torquay which will keep me there for a few

days on my way back to Wells," said Appleton nonchalantly. (The

bishop's letter had been a pure and undefiled source of information on

all points.)

"Why, how funny! I hope you'll be there on Saturday. There'll be no

plate! Tickets two and six to seven and six, but you shall be my

guest, my sovereign guest. I am going to Wells myself to stay

till--till I make up my mind about a few things."

"America next?" inquired Appleton, keeping his voice as colorless as

possible.

"I don't know. Helena made me resign my church position in Brooklyn,

and for the moment my 'career' is undecided."

She laughed, but her eyes denied the mirth that her lips affirmed, and

Appleton had such a sudden, illogical desire to meddle with her

career, to help or hinder it, to have a hand in it at any rate, that

he could hardly hold his tongue.

"The Torquay concert will be charming, I hope. You know what

Spalding's violin-playing is, and Donald Tovey is a young genius at

piano-playing and composing. He is going to accompany me in some of

his own songs, and he wants me to sing a group of American

ones--Macdowell, Chadwick, Nevin, Mrs. Beach, and Margaret Lang."

"I hope you'll accompany yourself in some of your own ballads!"

"No, the occasion is too grand; unless they should happen to like me

very much. Then I could play for myself, and sing 'Allan Water,' or

'Believe Me,' or 'Early One Morning,' or 'Barbara Allen.'"

(Appleton wondered if a claque of sizable, trustworthy boys could be

secured in Torquay, and under his intelligent and inspired leadership

carry Miss Thomasina Tucker like a cork on the wave of success.)

"Wouldn't it be lunch-time?" asked Miss Tucker, after a slight pause.

"It is always time for something when I'm particularly enjoying

myself," grumbled Appleton, looking at his watch. "It's not quite one

o'clock. Must we go in?"

"Oh, yes; we've ten minutes' walk,"--and Tommy scrambled up and began

to brush sand from her skirts.

"Couldn't I sit at your table--under the chaperonage of the Bishop of

Bath and Wells?" And Appleton got on his feet and collected Tommy's

books.

The girl's laugh was full-hearted this time. "Certainly not," she

said. "What does Bexley Sands know of the bishop and his interest in

us? But if you can find the drawing-room utterly deserted at any time,

I'll sing for you."

"How about a tea-basket and a walk to Gray Rocks at four o'clock?"

asked Appleton as they strolled toward the hotel.

"Charming! And I love singing out of doors without accompaniment. I'm

determined to earn that sovereign in course of time! Are you from New

England?"

"Yes; and you?"

"Oh, I'm from New York. I was born in a row of brown-stone fronts, in

a numbered street, twenty-five or thirty houses to a block, all

exactly alike. I wonder how I've outlived my start. And you?"

"In the country, bless it,--in the eastern part of Massachusetts. We

had a garden and my mother and I lived in it during all the months of

my life that matter. That's where the mignonette grew."

"'And He planted a garden eastward in Eden,'" quoted Tommy, half to

herself.

"It's the only Eden I ever knew! Do you like it over here, Miss

Tucker, or are you homesick now that your friend is in America?"

"Oh, I'm never homesick; for the reason that I have never had any home

since I was ten years old, when I was left an orphan. I haven't any

deep roots in New York; it's like the ocean, too big to love. I

respect and admire the ocean, but I love a little river. You know the

made-over aphorism: 'The home is where the hat is'? For 'hat' read

'trunk,' and you have my case, precisely."

"That's because you are absurdly, riotously young! It won't suit you

forever."

"Does anything suit one forever?" asked Tommy frivolously, not

cynically, but making Appleton a trifle uncomfortable nevertheless.

"Anything except singing, I mean? Perhaps you feel the same way about

writing? You haven't told me anything about your work, and I've

confided my past history, present prospects, and future aspirations to

you!"

"There's not so much to say. It is good work, and it is growing

better. I studied architecture at the Beaux-Arts. I do art-criticism,

and I write about buildings chiefly. That would seem rather dull to a

warbler like you."

"Not a bit. Doesn't somebody say that architecture is frozen music?"

"I don't get as immediate response to my work as you do to yours."

"No, but you never had sixpences and pennies put into your plate! Now

give me my books, please. I'll go in at the upper gate alone, and run

upstairs to my room. You enter by the lower one and go through the

lounge, where the guests chiefly congregate waiting for the opening of

the dining-room. Au revoir!"

When Tommy opened her bedroom door she elevated her pretty,

impertinent little nose and sniffed the air. It was laden with a

delicate perfume that came from a huge bunch of mignonette on the

table. It was long-stemmed, fresh, and moist, loosely bound together,

and every one of its tiny brown blossoms was sending out fragrance

into the room. It did not need Fergus Appleton's card to identify the

giver, but there it was.

"What a nice, kind, understanding person he is! And how cheerful it

makes life to have somebody from your own country taking an interest

in you, and liking your singing, and hating those beastly pennies!"

And Tommy, quickly merging artist in woman, slipped on a coatee of

dull-green crepe over her old black taffeta, and taking down her hat

with the garland of mignonette from the shelf in her closet, tucked

some of the green sprays in her belt, and went down to luncheon. She

didn't know where Fergus Appleton's table was, but she would make her

seat face his. Then she could smile thanks at him over the

mulligatawny soup, or the filet of sole, or the boiled mutton, or the

apple tart. Even the Bishop of Bath and Wells couldn't object to

that!

V

Their friendship grew perceptibly during the next two days, though

constantly under the espionage of the permanent guests of the Bexley

Sands Inn, but on Wednesday night Miss Tucker left for Torquay,

according to schedule. Fergus Appleton remained behind, partly to make

up arrears in his literary work, and partly as a sop to decency and

common sense. He did not deem it either proper or dignified to escort

the young lady on her journey (particularly as he had not been asked

to do so), so he pined in solitary confinement at Bexley until

Saturday morning, when he followed her to the scene of her labors.

After due reflection he gave up the idea of the claque, and rested

Tommy's case on the knees of the gods, where it transpired that it was

much safer, for Torquay liked Tommy, and the concert went off with

enormous eclat. From the moment that Miss Thomasina Tucker appeared on

the platform the audience looked pleased. She wore a quaint dress of

white flounced chiffon, with a girdle of green, and a broad white hat

with her old mignonette garland made into two little nosegays perched

on either side of the transparent brim. She could not wear the

mignonette that Appleton had sent to her dressing-room, because she

would have been obscured by the size of the offering, but she carried

as much of it as her strength permitted, and laid the fragrant bouquet

on the piano as she passed it. (A poem had come with it, but Tommy did

not dare read it until the ordeal was over, for no one had ever

written her a poem before. It had three long verses, and was signed

"F.A."--that was all she had time to note.)

A long-haired gentleman sitting beside Appleton remarked to his

neighbor: "The girl looks like a flower; it's a pity she has such a

heathenish name! Why didn't they call her Hope, or Flora, or Egeria,

or Cecilia?"

When the audience found that Miss Tucker's singing did not belie her

charming appearance, they cast discretion to the winds and loved her.

Appleton himself marveled at the beauty of her performance as it

budded and bloomed under the inspiration of her fellow artists and the

favor of the audience, and the more he admired the more depressed he

became.

"She may be on the threshold of a modest 'career,' of a sort, after

all," he thought, "and she will never give it up for me. Would she be

willing to combine me with the career, and how would it work? I

shouldn't be churl enough to mind her singing now and then, but it

seems to me I couldn't stand 'tours.' Besides, hers is such a

childlike, winsome, fragrant little gift it ought not to be exploited

like a great, booming talent!"

The audience went wild over Donald Tovey's songs. He played, and Tommy

sang them from memory, and it seemed as if they had been written then

and there, struck off at white heat; as if the composer happened to be

at the piano, and the singer chanced with his help to be interpreting

those particular verses for that particular moment.

His setting of "Jock o'Hazeldean" proved irresistible:

"They sought her baith by bower an ha';

The ladie was not seen."

And then with a swirl and a torrent of sound, a clangor of sword and a

clatter of hoofs:

"She's o'er the Border and awa'

Wi' Jock o' Hazeldean."

Appleton didn't see any valid reason why Tovey should kiss Tommy's

hand in responding to the third recall, but supposed it must be a

composer's privilege, and wished that he were one.

Then the crowd made its way into the brilliant Torquay sunshine, and

Appleton lingered in the streets until the time came for the tea-party

arranged for the artists at the hotel.

It was a gay little gathering, assisted by a charming lady of the

town, who always knew the celebrated people who flock there in all

seasons. Spalding and Tovey were the lions, but Miss Thomasina Tucker

did not lack for compliments. Her cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled

under the white tulle brim of her hat. Her neck looked deliciously

white and young, rising from its transparent chiffons, and her bunch

of mignonette gave a note of delicate distinction. The long-haired

gentleman was present, and turned out to be a local poet. He told Miss

Tucker that she ought never to wear or to carry another flower. "Not,

at all events, till you pass thirty!" he said. "You belong

together--you, your songs, and the mignonette!"--at which she flung a

shy upward glance at Appleton, saying: "It is this American friend who

has really established the connection, though I have always worn green

and white and always loved the flower."

"You sent me some verses, Mr. Appleton," she said, as the poet moved

away. "I have them safe" (and she touched her bodice), "but I haven't

had a quiet moment to read them."

"Just a little tribute," Appleton answered carelessly. "Are you

leaving? If so, I'll get your flowers into a cab and drive you on."

"No. I am going, quite unexpectedly, to Exeter to-night. Let us sit

down in this corner a moment and I'll tell you. Mr. Tovey has asked me

to substitute for a singer who is ill. The performance is on Monday

and I chance to know the cantata. I shall not be paid, but it will be

a fine audience and it may lead to something; after all, it's not out

of my way in going to Wells."

"Aren't you overtired to travel any more to-night?"

"No, I am treading air! I have no sense of being in the body at all.

Mrs. Cholmondeley, that dark-haired lady you were talking with a

moment ago, lives in Exeter and will take me to her house. And how

nice that I don't have to say good-bye, for you still mean to go to

Wells?"

"Oh, yes! I haven't nearly finished with the cathedral--I shall be

there before you. Can I look up lodgings or do anything for you?"

"Oh, no, thank you. I shall go to the old place where Miss Markham and

I lived before. The bishop and Mrs. Kennion sent us there because

there is a piano, and the old ladies, being deaf, don't mind musical

lodgers. Didn't the concert go off beautifully! Such artists, those

two men; so easy to do one's best in such company."

"It was a triumph! Doesn't it completely efface the memory of the

plate and the pennies?"

"Yes," Tommy answered. "I bear no ill-will to any living creature. The

only flaw is my horrid name. Can't you think of another for me? I've

just had an anonymous note. Hear it!" (taking it from her glove):