THE LADY OF THE PERGOLA
April, April,
Laugh, thy girlish laughter;
Then, the moment after,
Weep thy girlish, tears!
April, that mine ears
Like a lover greetest,
If I tell thee, sweetest,
All my hopes and fears,
April, April,
Laugh thy golden laughter,
But, the moment after,
Weep thy golden tears!
—William Watson.
A few photographs of foreign scenes tacked on the walls; a Roman blanket
hung as a tapestry over the mantel; a portfolio and traveler’s writing
materials distributed about a table produced for the purpose, and
additions to the meager book-shelf—a line of Baedekers, a pocket atlas,
a comprehensive American railway guide, several volumes of German and
French poetry—and the place was not so bad. Armitage slept for an hour
after a simple luncheon had been prepared by Oscar, studied his letters
and cablegrams—made, in fact, some notes in regard to them—and wrote
replies. Then, at four o’clock, he told Oscar to saddle the horses.
“It is spring, and in April a man’s blood will not be quiet. We shall go
forth and taste the air.”
He had studied the map of Lamar County with care, and led the way out of
his own preserve by the road over which they had entered in the morning.
Oscar and his horses were a credit to the training of the American army,
and would have passed inspection anywhere. Armitage watched his adjutant
with approval. The man served without question, and, quicker of wit than
of speech, his buff-gauntleted hand went to his hat-brim whenever
Armitage addressed him.
They sought again the spot whence Armitage had first looked down upon
Storm Valley, and he opened his pocket map, the better to clarify his
ideas of the region.
“We shall go down into the valley, Oscar,” he said; and thereafter it was
he that led.
They struck presently into an old road that had been an early highway
across the mountains. Above and below the forest hung gloomily, and
passing clouds darkened the slopes and occasionally spilled rain.
Armitage drew on his cloak and Oscar enveloped himself in a slicker as
they rode through a sharp shower. At a lower level they came into fair
weather again, and, crossing a bridge, rode down into Storm Valley. The
road at once bore marks of care; and they passed a number of traps that
spoke unmistakably of cities, and riders whose mounts knew well the
bridle-paths of Central Park. The hotel loomed massively before them, and
beyond were handsome estates and ambitious mansions scattered through the
valley and on the lower slopes.
Armitage paused in a clump of trees and dismounted.
“You will stay here until I come back. And remember that we don’t know
any one; and at our time of life, Oscar, one should be wary of making new
acquaintances.”
He tossed his cloak over the saddle and walked toward the inn. The size
of the place and the great number of people going and coming surprised
him, but in the numbers he saw his own security, and he walked boldly up
the steps of the main hotel entrance. He stepped into the long corridor
of the inn, where many people lounged about, and heard with keen
satisfaction and relief the click of a telegraph instrument that seemed
at once to bring him into contact with the remote world. He filed his
telegrams and walked the length of the broad hall, his riding-crop under
his arm. The gay banter and laughter of a group of young men and women
just returned from a drive gave him a touch of heartache, for there was a
girl somewhere in the valley whom he had followed across the sea, and
these people were of her own world—they undoubtedly knew her; very
likely she came often to this huge caravansary and mingled with them.
At the entrance he passed Baron von Marhof, who, by reason of the death
of his royal chief, had taken a cottage at the Springs to emphasize his
abstention from the life of the capital. The Ambassador lifted his eyes
and bowed to Armitage, as he bowed to a great many young men whose names
he never remembered; but, oddly enough, the Baron paused, stared after
Armitage for a moment, then shook his head and walked on with knit brows.
Armitage had lifted his hat and passed out, tapping his leg with his
crop.
He walked toward the private houses that lay scattered over the valley
and along the gradual slope of the hills as though carelessly flung from
a dice box. Many of the places were handsome estates, with imposing
houses set amid beautiful gardens. Half a mile from the hotel he stopped
a passing negro to ask who owned a large house that stood well back from
the road. The man answered; he seemed anxious to impart further
information, and Armitage availed himself of the opportunity.
“How near is Judge Claiborne’s place?” he asked.
The man pointed. It was the next house, on the right-hand side; and
Armitage smiled to himself and strolled on.
He looked down in a moment upon a pretty estate, distinguished by its
formal garden, but with the broad acres of a practical farm stretching
far out into the valley. The lawn terraces were green, broken only by
plots of spring flowers; the walks were walled in box and privet; the
house, of the pillared colonial type, crowned a series of terraces. A
long pergola, with pillars topped by red urns, curved gradually through
the garden toward the mansion. Armitage followed a side road along the
brick partition wall and contemplated the inner landscape. The sharp snap
of a gardener’s shears far up the slope was the only sound that reached
him. It was a charming place, and he yielded to a temptation to explore
it. He dropped over the wall and strolled away through the garden, the
smell of warm earth, moist from the day’s light showers, and the faint
odor of green things growing, sweet in his nostrils. He walked to the far
end of the pergola, sat down on a wooden bench, and gave himself up to
reverie. He had been denounced as an impostor; he was on Claiborne soil;
and the situation required thought.
It was while he thus pondered his affairs that Shirley, walking over the
soft lawn from a neighboring estate, came suddenly upon him.
Her head went up with surprise and—he was sure—with disdain. She
stopped abruptly as he jumped to his feet.
“I am caught—_in flagrante delicto_! I can only plead guilty and pray
for mercy.”
“They said—they said you had gone to Mexico?” said Shirley
questioningly.
“Plague take the newspapers! How dare they so misrepresent me!” he
laughed.
“Yes, I read those newspaper articles with a good deal of interest. And
my brother—”
“Yes, your brother—he is the best fellow in the world!”
She mused, but a smile of real mirth now played over her face and lighted
her eyes.
“Those are generous words, Mr. Armitage. My brother warned me against you
in quite unequivocal language. He told me about your match-box—”
“Oh, the cigarette case!” and he held it up. “It’s really mine—and I’m
going to keep it. It was very damaging evidence. It would argue strongly
against me in any court of law.”
“Yes, I believe that is true.” And she looked at the trinket with frank
interest.
“But I particularly do not wish to have to meet that charge in any court
of law, Miss Claiborne.”
She met his gaze very steadily, and her eyes were grave. Then she asked,
in much the same tone that she would have used if they had been very old
friends and he had excused himself for not riding that day, or for not
going upon a hunt, or to the theater:
“Why?”
“Because I have a pledge to keep and a work to do, and if I were
forced to defend myself from the charge of being the false Baron von
Kissel, everything would be spoiled. You see, unfortunately—most
unfortunately—I am not quite without responsibilities, and I have
come down into the mountains, where I hope not to be shot and tossed over
a precipice until I have had time to watch certain people and certain
events a little while. I tried to say as much to Captain Claiborne, but I
saw that my story did not impress him. And now I have said the same thing
to you—”
He waited, gravely watching her, hat in hand.
“And I have stood here and listened to you, and done exactly what Captain
Claiborne would not wish me to do under any circumstances,” said Shirley.
“You are infinitely kind and generous—”
“No. I do not wish you to think me either of those things—of course
not!”
Her conclusion was abrupt and pointed.
“Then—”
“Then I will tell you—what I have not told any one else—that I know
very well that you are not the person who appeared at Bar Harbor three
years ago and palmed himself off as the Baron von Kissel.”
“You know it—you are quite sure of it?” he asked blankly.
“Certainly. I saw that person—at Bar Harbor. I had gone up from Newport
for a week—I was even at a tea where he was quite the lion, and I am
sure you are not the same person.”
Her direct manner of speech, her decisive tone, in which she placed the
matter of his identity on a purely practical and unsentimental plane,
gave him a new impression of her character.
“But Captain Claiborne—”
He ceased suddenly and she anticipated the question at which he had
faltered, and answered, a little icily:
“I do not consider it any of my business to meddle in your affairs with
my brother. He undoubtedly believes you are the impostor who palmed
himself off at Bar Harbor as the Baron von Kissel. He was told so—”
“By Monsieur Chauvenet.”
“So he said.”
“And of course he is a capital witness. There is no doubt of Chauvenet’s
entire credibility,” declared Armitage, a little airily.
“I should say not,” said Shirley unresponsively. “I am quite as sure that
he was not the false baron as I am that you were not.”
Armitage laughed.
“That is a little pointed.”
“It was meant to be,” said Shirley sternly. “It is”—she weighed the
word—“ridiculous that both of you should be here.”
“Thank you, for my half! I didn’t know he was here! But I am not exactly
_here_—I have a much, safer place,”—he swept the blue-hilled horizon
with his hand. “Monsieur Chauvenet and I will not shoot at each other in
the hotel dining-room. But I am really relieved that he has come. We have
an interesting fashion of running into each other; it would positively
grieve me to be obliged to wait long for him.”
He smiled and thrust his hat under his arm. The sun was dropping behind
the great western barricade, and a chill wind crept sharply over the
valley.
He started to walk beside her as she turned away, but she paused
abruptly.
“Oh, this won’t do at all! I can’t be seen with you, even in the shadow
of my own house. I must trouble you to take the side gate,”—and she
indicated it by a nod of her head.
“Not if I know myself! I am not a fraudulent member of the German
nobility—you have told me so yourself. Your conscience is clear—I
assure you mine is equally so! And I am not a person, Miss Claiborne, to
sneak out by side gates—particularly when I came over the fence! It’s a
long way around anyhow—and I have a horse over there somewhere by the
inn.”
“My brother—”
“Is at Fort Myer, of course. At about this hour they are having dress
parade, and he is thoroughly occupied.”
“But—there is Monsieur Chauvenet. He has nothing to do but amuse
himself.”
They had reached the veranda steps, and she ran to the top and turned for
a moment to look at him. He still carried his hat and crop in one hand,
and had dropped the other into the side pocket of his coat. He was wholly
at ease, and the wind ruffled his hair and gave him a boyish look that
Shirley liked. But she had no wish to be found with him, and she
instantly nodded his dismissal and half turned away to go into the house,
when he detained her for a moment.
“I am perfectly willing to afford Monsieur Chauvenet all imaginable
entertainment. We are bound to have many meetings. I am afraid he reached
this charming valley before me; but—as a rule—I prefer to be a little
ahead of him; it’s a whim—the merest whim, I assure you.”
[Illustration: He delighted in the picture she made]
He laughed, thinking little of what he said, but delighting in the
picture she made, the tall pillars of the veranda framing her against the
white wall of the house, and the architrave high above speaking, so he
thought, for the amplitude, the breadth of her nature. Her green cloth
gown afforded the happiest possible contrast with the white background;
and her hat—(for a gown, let us remember, may express the dressmaker,
but a hat expresses the woman who wears it)—her hat, Armitage was aware,
was a trifle of black velvet caught up at one side with snowy plumes well
calculated to shock the sensibilities of the Audubon Society. Yet the
bird, if he knew, doubtless rejoiced in his fate! Shirley’s hand, thrice
laid down, and there you have the length of that velvet cap, plume and
all. Her profile, as she half turned away, must awaken regret that
Reynolds and Gainsborough paint no more; yet let us be practical:
Sargent, in this particular, could not serve us ill.
Her annoyance at finding herself lingering to listen to him was marked in
an almost imperceptible gathering of her brows. It was all the matter of
an instant. His heart beat fast in his joy at the sight of her, and the
tongue that years of practice had skilled in reserve and evasion was
possessed by a reckless spirit.
She nodded carelessly, but said nothing, waiting for him to go on.
“But when I wait for people they always come—even in a strange pergola!”
he added daringly. “Now, in Geneva, not long ago—”
He lost the profile and gained her face as he liked it best, though her
head was lifted a little high in resentment against her own yielding
curiosity. He was speaking rapidly, and the slight hint of some other
tongue than his usually fluent English arrested her ear now, as it had at
other times.
“In Geneva, when I told a young lady that I was waiting for a very wicked
man to appear—it was really the oddest thing in the world that almost
immediately Monsieur Jules Chauvenet arrived at mine own inn! It is
inevitable; it is always sure to be my fate,” he concluded mournfully.
He bowed low, restored the shabby hat to his head with the least bit of a
flourish and strolled away through the garden by a broad walk that led to
the front gate.
He would have been interested to know that when he was out of sight
Shirley walked to the veranda rail and bent forward, listening to his
steps on the gravel, after the hedge and shrubbery had hidden him. And
she stood thus until the faint click of the gate told her that he had
gone.
She did not know that as the gate closed upon him he met Chauvenet face
to face.