Champney seized him with a strong hand by the suspenders. "Here, hold
on! Who, you gump?"
"The girl--le' me go." But Champney gripped him fast.
"No, you don't, Roman; let her yell."
"Ro--man--zo-o-o-o!" The range of this peremptory call was two octaves
at least.
"By gum--she's up to something, and Tave won't stand any more
fooling--le' me go!" He writhed in the strong grasp.
"I won't either. I haven't been half-back on our team for nothing; so
stand still." And Romanzo stood still, perforce.
Another minute and Aileen came running up the lane. She was wearing the
same heavy shoes, the same dark blue cotton dress, half covered now with
a gingham apron--Mrs. Champney had not deemed it expedient to furnish a
wardrobe until the probation period should have decided her for or
against keeping the child. She was bareheaded, her face flushed with the
heat and her violent exercise. She stopped short at a little distance
from them so soon as she saw that Romanzo was not alone. She tossed back
her braid and stamped her foot to emphasize her words:
"Why didn't yer come, Romanzo Caukins, when I cried ter yer!"
"'Coz I couldn't; he wouldn't let me." He spoke anxiously, making signs
towards the shed. But Aileen ignored them; ignored, also, the fact that
any one was present besides her slave.
Champney answered for himself. He promptly bared his head and advanced
to shake hands; but Aileen jerked hers behind her.
"I'm Mr. Champney Googe, at your service. Who are you?"
The little girl was sizing him up before she accepted the advance;
Champney could tell by the "East-side" look with which she favored him.
"I'm Miss Aileen Armagh, and don't yer forget it!--at your service." She
mimicked him so perfectly that Champney chuckled and Romanzo doubled up
in silent glee.
"I sha'n't be apt to, thank you. Come, let's shake hands, Miss Aileen
Armagh-and-don't-yer-forget-it, for we've got to be friends if you're to
stay here with my aunt." He held out both hands. But the little girl
kept her own obstinately behind her and backed away from him.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"'Coz they're all stuck up with spruce gum and Octavius said nothing
would take it off but grease, and--" she turned suddenly upon Romanzo,
blazing out upon him in her wrath--"I hollered ter yer so's yer could
get some for me from Hannah, and you was just dirt mean not to answer
me."
"Champ wouldn't let me go," said Romanzo sulkily; "besides, I dassn't
ask Hannah, not since I used the harness cloth she gave to clean down
Jim."
"Yer 'dassn't!' Fore I'd be a boy and say 'I dassn't!'" There was
inexpressible scorn in her voice. She turned to Champney, her eyes
brimming with mischief and flashing a challenge:
"And yer dassn't shake hands with me 'coz mine are all stuck up, so
now!"
Champney had not anticipated this _pronunciamento_, but he accepted the
challenge on the instant. "Dare not! You can't say that to me! Here,
give me your hands." Again he held out his shapely well-kept members,
and Aileen with a merry laugh brought her grimy sticky little paws into
view and, without a word, laid them in Champney's palms. He held them
close, purposely, that they might adhere and provide him with some fun;
then, breaking into his gay laugh he said:
"Clear out, Roman; Tave 'll be looking for the milk pails. As for you,
Miss Aileen Armagh-and-don't-yer-forget-it, you can't pull away from me
now. So, come on, and we'll get Hannah to give us some lard and then
we'll go down to the boat house where it is cool and cleanup. Come on!"
Holding her by both hands he raced her down the long lane, through the
vegetable garden, all chassez, down the middle, swing your
partner--Aileen wild with the fun--up the slate-laid kitchen walk to the
kitchen door. His own laughter and the child's, happy, merry, care-free,
rang out peal on peal till Ann and Hannah and Octavius paused in their
work to listen, and wished that such music might have been heard often
during their long years of faithful service in childless Champ-au-Haut.
"I hear you are acquainted with some of the nobility, marchionesses and
so forth," said Champney; the two were sitting in the shadow of the boat
house cleaning their fingers with the lard Hannah had provided. "Where
did you make their acquaintance?"
Aileen paused in the act of sliding her greasy hands rapidly over and
over in each other, an occupation which afforded her unmixed delight, to
look up at him in amazement. "How did yer know anything 'bout her?"
"Oh, I heard."
"Did Romanzo Caukins tell yer?" she demanded, as usual on the defensive.
"No, oh no; it was only hearsay. Do tell me about her. We don't have any
round here."
Aileen giggled and resumed the rapid rotary motion of her still unwashed
hands. "If I tell yer 'bout her, yer'll tell her I told yer. P'raps
sometime, if yer ever go to New York, yer might see her; and she
wouldn't like it."
"How do you know but what I have seen her? I've just come from there."
Aileen looked her surprise again. "That's queer, for I've just landed
from New York meself."
"So I understood; does the marchioness live there too?"
She shook her head. "I ain't going to tell yer; but I'll tell yer 'bout
some others I know."
"That live in New York?"
"Wot yer giving me?" She laughed merrily; "they live where the Dagos
live, in Italy, yer know, and--"
"Italy? What are they doing over there?"
"--And--just yer wait till I'll tell yer--they live on an island in a
be-ee-u-tiful lake, like this;" she looked approvingly at the liquid
mirror that reflected in its rippleless depths the mountain shadow and
sunset gold; "and they live in great marble houses, palaces, yer know,
and flower gardens, and wear nothing but silks and velvet and pearls,
ropes,--yer mind?--ropes of 'em; and the lords and ladies have concerts,
yer know, better 'n in the thayertre--"
"What do you know about the theatre?" Champney was genuinely surprised;
"I thought you came from an orphan asylum."
"Yer did, did yer!" There was scorn in her voice. "Wot do I know 'bout
the thayertre?--Oh, but yer green!" She broke into another merry laugh
which, together with the patronage of her words and certain unsavory
memories of his own, nettled Champney more than he would have cared to
acknowledge.
"Better 'n the thayertre," she repeated emphatically; "and the lords
serenade the ladies--Do yer know wot a serenade is?" She interrupted
herself to ask the question with a strong doubt in the interrogation.
"I've heard of 'em," said Champney meekly; "but I don't think I've ever
seen one."
"I'll tell yer 'bout 'em. The lords have guitars and go out in the
moonlight and stand under the ladies' windys and play, and the ladies
make believe they haven't heard; then they look up all round at the moon
and sigh _awful_,--" she sighed in sympathy,--"and then the lords begin
to sing and tell 'em they love 'em and can't live without a--a token.
I'll bet yer don't know wot that is?"
"No, of course I don't; I'm not a lord, and I don't live in Italy."
"Well, I'll tell yer." Her tone was one of relenting indulgence for his
ignorance. "Sometimes it's a bow that they make out of the ribbon their
dresses is trimmed with, and sometimes it's a flower, a rose, yer know;
and the lord sings again--can yer sing?"
Her companion repressed a smile. "I can manage a tune or two at a
pinch."
"And the lady comes out on the balcony and leans over--like this, yer
know;" she jumped up and leaned over the rail of the float, keeping her
hands well in front of her to save her apron; "and she listens and keeps
looking, and when he sings he's going to die because he loves her so,
she throws the token down to him to let him know he mustn't die 'coz she
loves him too; and he catches it, the rose, yer know, and smells it and
then he kisses it and squeezes it against his heart--" she forgot her
greasy hands in the rapture of this imaginative flight, and pressed them
theatrically over her gingham apron beneath which her own little organ
was pulsing quick with the excitement of this telling moment; "--and
then the moon shines just as bright as silver and--and she marries him."
She drew a deep breath. During the recital she had lost herself in the
personating of the favorite characters from her one novel. While she
stood there looking out on the lake and the Flamsted Hills with eyes
that were still seeing the gardens and marble terraces of Isola Bella,
Champney Googe had time to fix that picture on his mental retina and,
recalling it in after years, knew that the impression was "more lasting
than bronze."
She came rather suddenly to herself when she grew aware of her larded
hands pressed against her clean apron.
"Oh, gracious, but I'll catch it!" she exclaimed ruefully. "Wot'll I do
now? She said I'd got to keep it clean till she got back, and she'll
fire me and--and I want to stay awful; it's just like the story, yer
know." She raised her gray eyes appealingly to his, and he saw at once
that her childish fear was real. He comforted her.
"I'll tell you what: we'll go back to Hannah and she'll fix it for you;
and if it's spoiled I'll go down and get some like it in the village and
my mother will make you a new one. So, cheer up, Miss Aileen Armagh
and-don't-yer-forget-it! And to-morrow evening, if the moon is out,
we'll have a serenade all by ourselves; what do you say to that?"
"D' yer mane it?" she demanded, half breathless in her earnestness.
He nodded.
Aileen clapped her hands and began to dance; then she stopped suddenly
to say: "I ain't going to dance for yer now; but I will sometime," she
added graciously. "I've got to go now and help Ann. What time are yer
coming for the serenade?"
"I'll be here about eight; the moon will be out by then and we must have
a moon."
She started away on the run, beckoning to him with her unwashed hands:
"Come on, then, till I show yer my windy. It's the little one over the
dining-room. There ain't a balcony, but--see there! there's the top of
the bay windy and I can lean out--why didn't yer tell me yer could play
the guitar?"
"Because I can't."
"A harp, belike?"
"No; guess again."
"Yer no good;--but yer'll come?"
"Shurre; an' more be token it's at eight 'o the clock Oi'll be under yer
windy." He gave the accent with such Celtic gusto that the little girl
was captivated.
"Ain't you a corker!" she said admiringly and, waving her hand again to
him, ran to the house. Champney followed more slowly to lay the case
before Ann and Hannah.
On his way homeward he found himself wondering if he had ever seen the
child before. As she leaned on the rail and looked out over the lake, a
certain grace of attitude, which the coarse clothing failed to conceal,
the rapt expression in the eyes, the _timbre_ of her voice, all awakened
a dim certainty that he had seen her before at some time and place
distinctly unusual; but where? He turned the search-light of
concentrated thought upon his comings and goings and doings during the
last year and more. Where had he seen just such a child?
He looked up from the roadway, on which his eyes had been fixed while
his absent thought was making back tracks over the last twelve months,
and saw before him the high pastures of The Gore. In the long afterglow
of the July sunset they enamelled the barren heights with a rich,
yellowish green. In a flash it came to him: "The green hill far away
without a city wall"; the child singing on the vaudeville stage; the
hush in the audience. He smiled to himself. He was experiencing that
satisfaction which is common to all who have run down the quarry of a
long-hunted recollection.
"She's the very one," he said to himself; "I wonder if Aunt Meda
knows."