THE FLUTTER OF A HANDKERCHIEF
As a bell in a chime
Sets its twin-note a-ringing,
As one poet's rhyme
Wakes another to singing,
So once she has smiled
All your thoughts are beguiled,
And flowers and song from your childhood are bringing.
Each grace is a jewel
Would ransom the town;
Her speech has no cruel,
Her praise is renown;
'Tis in her as though Beauty,
Resigning to Duty
The scepter, had still kept the purple and crown.
--_Robert Underwood Johnson_.
The next morning at eight o'clock I sent a note to Miss Pat, asking if
she and the other ladies of her house would not take breakfast with me
at nine; and she replied, on her quaint visiting-card, in an
old-fashioned hand, that she and Helen would be glad to come, but that
Sister Margaret begged to be excused. It had been in my mind from the
first to ask them to dine at Glenarm, and now I wished to see this
girl, to test, weigh, study her, as soon as possible after her meeting
with Gillespie. I wished to see how she would bear herself before her
aunt and me with that dark transaction on her conscience. The idea
pleased me, and when I saw the two women coming through the school
garden I met them at the gate.
Breakfast seems to be, in common experience, the most difficult meal of
the day, and yet that hour hangs in memory still as one of the
brightest I ever spent. The table was set on the terrace, and its
white napery, the best Glenarm silver and crystal, and a bowl of red
roses still dewy from the night, all blended coolly with the morning.
As the strawberries were passed I felt that the little table had
brought us together in a new intimacy. It was delightful to sit face
to face with Miss Pat, and not less agreeable to have at my right hand
this bewildering girl, whose eyes laughed at me when I sought shame in
their depths. Miss Pat poured the coffee, and when I took my cup I
felt that it carried benediction with it. I was glad to see her so at
peace with the world, and her heart was not older, I could have sworn,
than the roses before her.
"I shall refuse to leave when my time is up!" she declared. "Do you
think you could spend a winter here, Helen?"
"I should love it!" the girl replied. "It would be perfectly splendid
to watch the seasons march across the lake. We can both enroll
ourselves at St. Agatha's as post-graduate students, and take a special
course in weather here."
"If I didn't sometimes hear trains passing Annandale in the night, I
should forget that there's a great busy world off there somewhere,"
said Miss Pat. "I am ashamed of myself for having been so long
discovering this spot. Except one journey to California, I was never
west of Philadelphia until I came here."
The world was satisfactory as it stood; and I was aware of no reason
why it should move on. The chime of the chapel tower drifted to us
drowsily, as though anxious to accommodate itself to the mood of a day
that began business by shattering the hour-glass. The mist that hung
over the water rose lazily, and disclosed the lake agleam in the full
sunlight. Though Miss Pat was content to linger, Helen, I thought,
appeared restless; she rose and walked to the edge of the terrace, the
better to scan the lake, while Miss Pat and I talked on. Miss Pat's
gift of detachment was remarkable; if we had been looking down from a
balcony upon the Grand Canal, or breakfasting in an Italian garden, she
could not have been more at ease; nor did she refer even remotely to
the odd business that had brought her to the lake. She was, to be
explicit, describing in her delightful low voice, and in sentences
vivid with spirit and color, a visit she had once paid to a noble
Italian family at their country seat. As Helen wandered out of hearing
I thought Miss Pat would surely seize the opportunity to speak of the
girl's father, at least to ask whether I had heard of him further; but
she avoided all mention of her troubles.
Helen stood by the line of scarlet geraniums that marked the
balustrade, at a point whence the best view of the lake was
obtainable--her hands clasped behind her, her head turned slightly.
"There is no one quite like her!" exclaimed Miss Pat.
"She is beautiful!" I acquiesced.
Miss Pat talked on quickly, as though our silence might cause Helen to
turn and thus deprive us of the picture.
"Should you like to look over the house?" I asked a little later, when
Helen had come back to the table. "It is said to be one of the finest
houses in interior America, and there are some good pictures."
"We should be very glad," said Miss Pat; and Helen murmured assent.
"But we must not stay too long, Aunt Pat. Mr. Donovan has his own
affairs. We must not tax his generosity too far."
"And we are going to send some letters off to-day. If it isn't asking
too much, I should like to drive to the village later," said Miss Pat.
"Yes; and I should like a paper of pins and a new magazine," said
Helen, a little, a very little eagerness in her tone.
"Certainly. The stable is at your disposal, and our entire marine."
"But we must see the Glenarm pictures first," said Miss Pat, and we
went at once into the great cool house, coming at last to the gallery
on the third floor.
"Whistler!" Miss Pat exclaimed in delight before the famous _Lady in
the Gray Cloak_. "I thought that picture was owned in England."
"It was; but old Mr. Glenarm had to have it. That Meissonier is
supposed to be in Paris, but you see it's here."
"It's wonderful!" said Miss Pat. She returned to the Whistler and
studied it with rapt attention, and I stood by, enjoying her pleasure.
One of the housemaids had followed us to the gallery and opened the
French windows giving upon a balcony, from which the lake lay like a
fold of blue silk beyond the wood. Helen had passed on while Miss Pat
hung upon the Whistler.
"How beautifully those draperies are suggested, Helen. That is one of
the best of all his things."
But Helen was not beside her, as she had thought. There were several
recesses in the room, and I thought the girl had stepped into one of
these, but just then I saw her shadow outside.
"Miss Holbrook is on the balcony," I said.
"Oh, very well. We must go," she replied quietly, but lingered before
the picture.
I left Miss Pat and crossed the room to the balcony. As I approached
one of the doors I saw Helen, standing tiptoe for greater height,
slowly raise and lower her handkerchief thrice, as though signaling to
some one on the water.
I laughed outright as I stepped beside her.
"It's better to be a picture than to look at one, Miss Holbrook! Allow
me!"
In her confusion she had dropped her handkerchief, and when I returned
it she slipped it into her cuff with a murmur of thanks. A flash of
anger lighted her eyes and she colored slightly; but she was composed
in an instant. And, looking off beyond the water-tower, I was not
surprised to see the _Stiletto_ quite near our shore, her white sails
filling lazily in the scant wind. A tiny flag flashed recognition and
answer of the girl's signal, and was hauled down at once.
We were both silent as we watched it; then I turned to the girl, who
bent her head a moment, tucking the handkerchief a trifle more securely
into her sleeve. She smiled quizzically, with a compression of the
lips.
"The view here is fine, isn't it?"
We regarded each other with entire good humor. I heard Miss Pat
within, slowly crossing the bare floor of the gallery.
"You are incomparable!" I exclaimed. "Verily, a daughter of Janus has
come among us!"
"The best pictures are outdoors, after all," commented Miss Pat; and
after a further ramble about the house they returned to St. Agatha's,
whence we were to drive together to Annandale in half an hour.
I went to the stone water-tower and scanned the movements of the
_Stiletto_ with a glass while I waited. The sloop was tacking slowly
away toward Annandale, her skipper managing his sheet with an expert
hand. It may have been the ugly business in which the pretty toy was
engaged, or it may have been the lazy deliberation of her oblique
progress over the water, but I felt then and afterward that there was
something sinister in every line of the _Stiletto_. The more I
deliberated the less certain I became of anything that pertained to the
Holbrooks; and I tested my memory by repeating the alphabet and
counting ten, to make sure that my wits were still equal to such
exercises.
We drove into Annandale without incident and with no apparent timidity
on Miss Pat's part. Helen was all amiability and cheer. I turned
perforce to address her now and then, and was ashamed to find that the
lurking smile about her lips, and a challenging light in her eyes, woke
no resentment in me. The directness of her gaze was in itself
disconcerting; there was no heavy-lidded insolence about her: her
manner suggested a mischievous child who hides your stick and with
feigned interest aids your search for it in impossible places.
I left Miss Pat and Helen at the general store while I sought the
hardware merchant with a list of trifles required for Glenarm. I was
detained some time longer than I had expected, and in leaving I stood
for a moment on the platform before the shop, gossiping with the
merchant of village affairs. I glanced down the street to see if the
ladies had appeared, and observed at the same time my team and wagon
standing at the curb in charge of the driver, just as I had left them.
While I still talked to the merchant, Helen came out of the general
store, glanced hurriedly up and down the street, and crossed quickly to
the post-office, which lay opposite. I watched her as I made my adieux
to the shopkeeper, and just then I witnessed something that interested
me at once. Within the open door of the post-office the Italian sailor
lounged idly. Helen carried a number of letters in her hand, and as
she entered the post-office--I was sure my eyes played me no
trick--deftly, almost imperceptibly, an envelope passed from her hand
to the Italian's. He stood immovable, as he had been, while the girl
passed on into the office. She reappeared at once, recrossed the
street and met her aunt at the door of the general store. I rejoined
them, and as we all met by the waiting trap the Italian left the
post-office and strolled slowly away toward the lake.
I was not sure whether Miss Pat saw him. If she did she made no sign,
but began describing with much amusement an odd countryman she had seen
in the shop.
"You mailed our letters, did you, Helen? Then I believe we have quite
finished, Mr. Donovan. I like your little village; I'm disposed to
love everything about this beautiful lake."
"Yes; even the town hall, where the Old Georgia Minstrels seem to have
appeared for one night only, some time last December, is a shrine
worthy of pilgrimages," remarked Helen. "And postage stamps cost no
more here than in Stamford. I had really expected that they would be a
trifle dearer."
I laughed rather more than was required, for those wonderful eyes of
hers were filled with something akin to honest fun. She was proud of
herself, and was even flushed the least bit with her success.
As we passed the village pier I saw the _Stiletto_ lying at the edge of
the inlet that made a miniature harbor for the village, and, rowing
swiftly toward it, his oars flashing brightly, was the Italian, still
plainly in sight. Whether Miss Pat saw the boat and ignored it, or
failed to see, I did not know, for when I turned she was studying the
cover of a magazine that lay in her lap. Helen fell to talking
vivaciously of the contrasts between American and English landscape;
and so we drove back to St. Agatha's.
Thereafter, for the matter of ten days, nothing happened. I brought
the ladies of St. Agatha's often to Glenarm, and we went forth together
constantly by land and water without interruption. They received and
despatched letters, and nothing marred the quiet order of their lives.
The _Stiletto_ vanished from my horizon, and lay, so Ijima learned for
me, within the farther lake. Henry Holbrook had, I made no doubt, gone
away with the draft Helen had secured from Gillespie, and of Gillespie
himself I heard nothing.
As for Helen, I found it easy to forgive, and I grew eloquently
defensive whenever my heart accused her. Her moods were as changing as
those of the lake, and, like it, knew swift-gathering, passionate
storms. Helen of the stars was not Helen of the vivid sunlight. The
mystery of night vanished in her zest for the day, and I felt that her
spirit strove against mine in all our contests with paddle and racquet,
or in our long gallops into the heart of the sunset. She had fashioned
for the night a dream-world in which she moved like a whimsical shadow,
but by day the fire of the sun flashed in her blood.
We established between ourselves a comradeship that was for me
delightfully perilous, but which--so she intimated one day, as though
in warning--was only an armed neutrality. We were playing tennis in
the Glenarm court at the time, and she smashed the ball back to me
viciously.
"Your serve," she said.
And thus, with the joy of June filling the world, the enchanted days
sped by.