_In Which the Crown Prince Enters Upon His Own._
IT developed that the name of the young man with the eye-glasses was
Geoffrey Fox. Mrs. Bower told Anne at the breakfast table, as the two
women sat alone.
"He is writing a book, and he wants to stay."
"The little dark man?"
"I shouldn't call him little. He is thin, but he is as tall as Richard
Brooks."
"Is he?" To Anne it had seemed as if Richard had towered above her like a
young giant. She had scarcely noticed the young man with the eye-glasses.
He had melted into the background of old gentlemen; had become, as it
were, a part of a composite instead of a single personality.
But to be writing a book!
"What kind of a book, Mrs. Bower?"
"I don't know. He didn't say. I am going to give him the front room in
the south wing; then he will have a view of the river."
When Anne met the dark young man in the hall an hour later, she
discovered that he had keen eyes and a mocking smile.
He stopped her. "Do we have to be introduced? I am going to stay here.
Did Mrs. Bower tell you?"
"She told me you were writing a book."
"Don't tell anybody else; I'm not proud of it."
"Why not?"
He shrugged. "My stories are pot-boilers, most of them--with everybody
happy in the end."
"Why shouldn't everybody be happy in the end?"
"Because life isn't that way."
"Life is what we make it."
"Who told you that?"
She flushed. "It is what I tell my school children."
"But have you found it so?"
She faltered. "No--but perhaps it is my fault."
"It isn't anybody's fault. If the gods smile--we are happy. If they
frown, we are miserable. That's all there is to it."
"I should hate to think that was all." She was roused and ready to fight
for her ideals. "I should hate to think it."
"All your hating won't make it as you want it," his glance was quizzical,
"but we won't quarrel about it."
"Of course not," stiffly.
"And we are to be friends? You see I am to stay a month."
"Are you going to write about us?"
"I shall write about the Old Gentlemen. Is there always such a crowd of
them?"
"Only on holidays and week-ends."
"Perhaps I shall write about you----" daringly. "I need a little lovely
heroine."
Her look stopped him. His face changed. "I beg your pardon," he said
quickly. "I should not have said that."
"Would you have said it if I had not waited on the table?" Her voice was
tremulous. The color that had flamed in her cheeks still dyed them. "I
thought of it last night, after I went up-stairs. I have been trying to
teach my little children in my school that there is dignity in service,
and so--I have helped Mrs. Bower. But I felt that people did not
understand."
"You felt that we--thought less of you?"
"Yes," very low.
"And that I spoke as I did because I did not--respect you?"
"Yes."
"Then I beg your pardon. Indeed, I do beg your pardon. It was
thoughtless. Will you believe that it was only because I was
thoughtless?"
"Yes." But her troubled eyes did not meet his. "Perhaps I am too
sensitive. Perhaps you would have said--the same things--to Eve
Chesley--if you had just met her. But I am sure you would not have said
it in the same tone."
He held out his hand to her. "You'll forgive me? Yes? And be friends?"
She did not seem to see his hand. "Of course I forgive you," she said,
with a girlish dignity which sat well upon her, "and perhaps I have made
too much of it, but you see I am so much alone, and I think so much."
He wanted to ask her questions, of why she was there and of why she was
alone. But something in her manner forbade, and so they spoke of other
things until she left him.
Geoffrey went out later for a walk in the blinding snow. All night it had
snowed and the storm had a blizzard quality, with the wind howling and
the drifts piling to prodigious heights. Geoffrey faced the elements with
a strength which won the respect of Richard Brooks who, also out in it,
with his dog Toby, was battling gloriously with wind and weather.
"If we can reach the shelter of the pines," he shouted, "they'll break
the force of the storm."
Within the wood the snow was in winding sheets about the great trees.
"What giant ghosts!" Geoffrey said. "Yet in a month or two the sap will
run warm in their veins, and the silence will be lapped by waves of
sound--the singing of birds and of little streams."
"I used to come here when I was a boy," Richard told him. "There were
violets under the bank, and I picked them and made tight bunches of them
and gave them to my mother. She was young then. I remember that she
usually wore white dresses, with a blue sash fluttering."
"You lived here then?"
"No, we visited at my grandfather's, a mile or two away. He used to drive
us down, and he would sit out there on the point and fish,--a grand old
figure, in his broad hat, with his fishing creel over his shoulder. There
were just two sports that my grandfather loved, fishing and fox-hunting;
but he was a very busy doctor and couldn't ride often to hounds. But he
kept a lot of them. He would have had a great contempt for Toby. His own
dogs were a wiry little breed."
"My grandfather was blind, and always in his library. So my boyhood was
different. I used to read to him. I liked it, and I wouldn't exchange my
memories for yours, except the violets--I should like to pick them here
in the spring--perhaps I shall--I told Mrs. Bower I would take a room for
a month or more--and since we have spoken of violets--I may wait for
their blooming."
He laughed, and as they turned back, "I have found several things to keep
me," he said, but he did not name them.
All day Anne was aware of the presence in the house of the young guests.
She was aware of Winifred Ames' blue cloak and of Eve's roses. She was
aware of Richard's big voice booming through the hall, of Geoffrey's
mocking laugh.
But she did not go down among them. She ate her meals after the others
had finished. She did not wait upon the table and she did not sit upon
the stairs. In the afternoon she wrote a long letter to her Great-uncle
Rodman, and she went early to bed.
She was waked in the morning by the bustle of departure. Some of the Old
Gentlemen went back by motor, others by train. Warmed by a hearty
breakfast, bundled into their big coats, they were lighted on their way
by Eric Brand.
It was just as the sun flashed over the horizon and showed the whiteness
of a day swept clear by the winds of the night that the train for the
north carried off the Dutton-Ames, Philip and Eve.
Evelyn went protesting. "Some day you are going to regret it, Richard."
"Don't croak. Wish me good luck, Eve."
But she would not. Yet when she stood at last on the train steps to say
"Good-bye," she had in her hand one of the roses he had given her and
which she had worn. She touched it lightly to her lips and tossed it to
him.
By the time he had picked it up the train was on its way, and Evelyn,
looking back, had her last glimpse of him standing straight and tall
against the morning sky, the rose in his hand.
It was eight o'clock when Eric drove Anne and Peggy through the drifts
to the Crossroads school. It was nine when Geoffrey Fox came down to a
late breakfast. It was ten when Richard and his mother and the dog Toby
in a hired conveyance arrived at the place which had once been Nancy's
home.
Imposing, even in its shabbiness, stood the old house, at the end of an
avenue of spired cedars.
As they opened the door a grateful warmth met them.
"David has been here," Nancy said. "Oh, Richard, Richard, what a glorious
day to begin."
And now there came from among the shadows a sound which made them stop
and listen. "Tick, tock," said the great hall clock.
"Mother, who wound it?"
Nancy Brooks laughed tremulously. "Cousin David had the key. In all these
years he has never let the old clock run down. It seemed queer to think
of it ticking away in this empty house."
There were tears in her eyes. He stooped and kissed her. "And now that
you are here, you are going to be happy?"
"Very happy, dear boy."
It was nearly twelve when David Tyson came limping up the path. He had a
basket in one hand, and a cane in the other. Behind him trotted a
weedy-looking foxhound. The dog Toby, charging out of the door as Nancy
opened it, fell, as it were, upon the neck of the hound. His overtures
of friendship were met with a dignified aloofness which merged gradually
into a reluctant cordiality.
Nancy held out both hands to the old man. "I saw you coming. Oh, how good
it seems to be here again, Cousin David."
"Let me look at you." He set the basket down, and took her hands in his.
Then he shook his head. "New York has done things to you," he said. "It
has given you a few gray hairs. But now that you are back again I shall
try to forgive it."
"I shall never forgive it," she said, "for what it has done to me and
mine."
"But you are here, and you have brought your boy; that's a thing to be
thankful for, Nancy."
They were silent in the face of overwhelming memories. The only sound in
the shadowy hall was the ticking of the old clock--the old clock which
had tick-tocked in all the years of loneliness with no one to listen.
Richard greeted him with heartiness. "This looks pretty good to me,
Cousin David."
"It's God's country, Richard. Brin hates it. He loves his club and the
city streets. But for me there's nothing worth while but this sweep of
the hills and the river between."
He uncovered his basket. "Tom put up some things for you. I've engaged
Milly, a mulatto girl, but she can't get here until to-morrow. She is
about the best there is left. Most of them go to town. She'll probably
seem pretty crude after New York servants, Nancy."
"I don't care." Nancy almost sang the words. "I don't care what I have to
put up with, Cousin David. I shall sleep to-night under my own roof with
nothing between me and the stars. And there won't be anybody overhead or
underneath, and there won't be a pianola to the right of me, and a
phonograph to the left, and there won't be the rumble of the subway or
the crash of the elevated, and in the morning I shall open my eyes and
see the sun rise over the river, and I shall look out upon the world that
I love and have loved all of these years----"
And now she was crying, and Richard had her in his arms. Over her head he
looked at the older man. "I didn't dream that she felt like this."
"I knew--as soon as I saw her. You must never take her back, Richard."
"Of course not," hotly.
Yet with the perverseness of youth he was aware, as he said it, of a
sudden sense of revolt against the prospect of a future spent in this
quiet place. Flashing came a vision of the city he had left, of crowded
hospitals, of big men consulting with big men, of old men imparting their
secrets of healing to the young; of limousines speeding luxuriously on
errands of mercy; of patients pouring out their wealth to the men who had
made them well.
All this he had given up because his mother had asked it. She had spoken
of the place which his grandfather had filled, of the dignity of a
country practice, of the opportunities for research and for experiment.
At close range, the big town set between its rivers and the sea had
seemed noisy and vulgar. Its people had seemed mad in their race for
money. Its medical men had seemed to lack the fineness and finish which
come to those who move and meditate in quiet places.
But seen from afar as he saw it now, it seemed a wonder city, its tall
buildings outlined like gigantic castles against the sky. It seemed
filled to the brim with vivid life. It seemed, indeed, to call him back!
While David and Nancy talked he went out, and, from the top of the snowy
steps, surveyed his domain. Back and back in the wide stretch of country
which faced him, beyond the valleys, on the other side of the hills, were
people who would some day listen for the step of young Richard as those
who had gone before had listened for the step of his grandfather. He saw
himself going forth on stormy nights to fight pain and pestilence; to
minister to little children, to patient mothers; to men beaten down by an
enemy before whom their strength was as wax. They would wait for him,
anxious for his verdict, yet fearing it, welcoming him as a saviour, who
would stand with flaming sword between disease and the Dark Angel.
The schoolhouse was on the other side of the road. It was built of brick
like the house. Richard's grandfather had paid for the brick. He had
believed in public schools and had made this one possible. Children came
to it from all the countryside. There were other schools in the sleepy
town. This was the Crossroads school, as Richard Tyson had been the
Crossroads doctor. He had given himself to a rural community--his
journeys had been long and his life hard, but he had loved the labor.
The bell rang for the noon recess. The children appeared presently,
trudging homeward through the snow to their midday dinners. Then Anne
Warfield came out. She wore a heavy brown coat and soft brown hat. In her
hand was a small earthen dish. She strewed seeds for the birds, and they
flew down in front of her--juncoes and sparrows, a tufted titmouse, a
cardinal blood-red against the whiteness. She was like a bird herself in
all her brown.
When the dish was empty, she turned it upside down, and spread her hands
to show that there was nothing more. On the Saturday night when she had
waited on the table, Richard had noticed the loveliness of her hands.
They were small and white, and without rings. Yet in spite of their
smallness and whiteness, he knew that they were useful hands, for she had
served well at Bower's. And now he knew that they were kindly hands, for
she had fed the birds who had come begging to her door.
Peggy joined her, and the two came out the gate together. Anne looking
across saw Richard. She hesitated, then crossed the road.
He at once went to meet her. She flushed a little as she spoke to him.
"Peggy and I want to ask a favor. We've always had our little Twelfth
Night play in the Crossroads stable. And we had planned for it this
year--you see, we didn't know that you were coming."
"And we were afraid that you wouldn't want us," Peggy told him.
"Were you really afraid?"
"I wasn't. But Miss Anne was."
"I told the children that they mustn't be disappointed if we were not
able to do this year as we had done before. I felt that with people in
the house, it might not be pleasant for them to have us coming in such a
crowd."
"It will be pleasant, and mother will be much interested. I wish you'd
come up and tell us about it."
She shook her head. "Peggy and I have just time to get back to Bower's
for our dinner."
"Aren't the roads bad?"
"Not when the snow is hard."
Peggy went reluctantly. "I think he is perfectly lovely," she said, at a
safe distance. "Don't you?"
Anne's reply was guarded. "He is very kind. I am glad that he doesn't
mind about the Twelfth Night play, Peggy."
Richard spoke to David of Anne as the two men, a few minutes later,
climbed the hill toward David's house.
"She seems unusual."
"She is the best teacher we have ever had, but she ought not to be at
Bower's. She isn't their kind."
David's little house, set on top of a hill, was small and shabby without,
but within it was as compact as a ship's cabin. David's old servant, Tom,
kept it immaculate, and there were books everywhere, old portraits,
precious bits of mahogany.
From the window beside the fireplace there was a view of the river. It
was a blue river to-day, sparkling in the sunshine. David, standing
beside Richard, spoke of it.
"It isn't always blue, but it is always beautiful. Even when the snow
flies as it did yesterday."
"And are you content with this, Cousin David?"
The answer was evasive. "I have my little law practice, and my books. And
is any one ever content, Richard?"
Going down the hill, Richard pondered. Was Eve right after all? Did a man
who turned his face away from the rush of cities really lack red blood?
Stopping at the schoolhouse, he found teacher and scholars still gone.
But the door was unlocked and he went in. The low-ceiled room was
charming, and the good taste of the teacher was evident in its
decorations. There were branches of pine and cedar on the walls, a
picture of Washington at one end with a flag draped over it, a pot of
primroses in the south window.
There were several books on Anne's desk. Somewhat curiously he examined
the titles. A shabby Browning, a modern poet or two, Chesterton, a volume
of Pepys, the pile topped by a small black Bible. Moved by a sudden
impulse, he opened the Bible. The leaves fell back at a marked passage:
"_Let not your heart be troubled._"
He shut the book sharply. It was as if he had peered into the girl's
soul. The red was in his cheeks as he turned away.
* * * * *
That night Nancy Brooks went with Richard to his room. On the threshold
she stopped.
"I have given this room to you," she said, "because it was mine when I
was a girl, and all my dreams have been shut in--waiting for you."
"Mother," he caught her hands in his, "you mustn't dream too much for
me."
"Let me dream to-night;" she was looking up at him with her shining eyes;
"to-morrow I shall be just a commonplace mother of a commonplace son; but
to-night I am queen, and you are the crown prince on the eve of
coronation. Oh, Hickory Dickory, I am such a happy mother."
Hickory Dickory! It was her child-name for him. She had not often used
it of late. He felt that she would not often use it again. He was much
moved by her dedication of him to his new life. He held her close. His
doubts fled. He thought no more of Eve and of her flaming arguments.
Somewhere out in the snow her rose lay frozen and faded where he had
dropped it.
And when he slept and dreamed it was of a little brown bird which sang in
the snow, and the song that it sang seemed to leap from the pages of a
Book, "_Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid._"