When I heard that Peter Austin was in Vancouver I hunted him up. I had
met Peter ten years before when I had gone east to visit my father's
people and had spent a few weeks with an uncle in Croyden. The Austins
lived across the street from Uncle Tom, and Peter and I had struck up
a friendship, although he was a hobbledehoy of awkward sixteen and I,
at twenty-two, was older and wiser and more dignified than I've ever
been since or ever expect to be again. Peter was a jolly little round
freckled chap. He was all right when no girls were around; when they
were he retired within himself like a misanthropic oyster, and was
about as interesting. This was the one point upon which we always
disagreed. Peter couldn't endure girls; I was devoted to them by the
wholesale. The Croyden girls were pretty and vivacious. I had a score
of flirtations during my brief sojourn among them.
But when I went away the face I carried in my memory was not that of
any girl with whom I had walked and driven and played the game of
hearts.
It was ten years ago, but I had never been quite able to forget that
girl's face. Yet I had seen it but once and then only for a moment. I
had gone for a solitary ramble in the woods over the river and, in a
lonely little valley dim with pines, where I thought myself alone, I
had come suddenly upon her, standing ankle-deep in fern on the bank of
a brook, the late evening sunshine falling yellowly on her uncovered
dark hair. She was very young--no more than sixteen; yet the face and
eyes were already those of a woman. Such a face! Beautiful? Yes, but I
thought of that afterward, when I was alone. With that face before my
eyes I thought only of its purity and sweetness, of the lovely soul
and rich mind looking out of the great, greyish-blue eyes which, in
the dimness of the pine shadows, looked almost black. There was
something in the face of that child-woman I had never seen before and
was destined never to see again in any other face. Careless boy
though I was, it stirred me to the deeps. I felt that she must have
been waiting forever in that pine valley for me and that, in finding
her, I had found all of good that life could offer me.
I would have spoken to her, but before I could shape my greeting into
words that should not seem rude or presumptuous, she had turned and
gone, stepping lightly across the brook and vanishing in the maple
copse beyond. For no more than ten seconds had I gazed into her face,
and the soul of her, the real woman behind the fair outwardness, had
looked back into my eyes; but I had never been able to forget it.
When I returned home I questioned my cousins diplomatically as to who
she might be. I felt strangely reluctant to do so--it seemed in some
way sacrilege; yet only by so doing could I hope to discover her. They
could tell me nothing; nor did I meet her again during the remainder
of my stay in Croyden, although I never went anywhere without looking
for her, and haunted the pine valley daily, in the hope of seeing her
again. My disappointment was so bitter that I laughed at myself.
I thought I was a fool to feel thus about a girl I had met for a
moment in a chance ramble--a mere child at that, with her hair still
hanging in its long glossy schoolgirl braid. But when I remembered her
eyes, my wisdom forgave me.
Well, that was ten years ago; in those ten years the memory had, I
must confess, grown dimmer. In our busy western life a man had not
much time for sentimental recollections. Yet I had never been able to
care for another woman. I wanted to; I wanted to marry and settle
down. I had come to the time of life when a man wearies of drifting
and begins to hanker for a calm anchorage in some snug haven of his
own. But, somehow, I shirked the matter. It seemed rather easier to
let things slide.
At this stage Peter came west. He was something in a bank, and was as
round and jolly as ever; but he had evidently changed his attitude
towards girls, for his rooms were full of their photos. They were
stuck around everywhere and they were all pretty. Either Peter had
excellent taste, or the Croyden photographers knew how to flatter. But
there was one on the mantel which attracted my attention especially.
If the photo were to be trusted the girl was quite the prettiest I had
ever seen.
"Peter, what pretty girl's picture is this on your mantel?" I called
out to Peter, who was in his bedroom, donning evening dress for some
function.
"That's my cousin, Marian Lindsay," he answered. "She _is_ rather
nice-looking, isn't she. Lives in Croyden now--used to live up the
river at Chiselhurst. Didn't you ever chance across her when you were
in Croyden?"
"No," I said. "If I had I wouldn't have forgotten her face."
"Well, she'd be only a kid then, of course. She's twenty-six now.
Marian is a mighty nice girl, but she's bound to be an old maid. She's
got notions--ideals, she calls 'em. All the Croyden fellows have been
in love with her at one time or another but they might as well have
made up to a statue. Marian really hasn't a spark of feeling or
sentiment in her. Her looks are the best part of her, although she's
confoundedly clever."
Peter spoke rather squiffily. I suspected that he had been one of the
smitten swains himself. I looked at the photo for a few minutes
longer, admiring it more every minute and, when I heard Peter coming
out, I did an unjustifiable thing--I took that photo and put it in my
pocket.
I expected Peter would make a fuss when he missed it, but that very
night the house in which he lived was burned to the ground. Peter
escaped with the most important of his goods and chattels, but all the
counterfeit presentments of his dear divinities went up in smoke. If
he ever thought particularly of Marian Lindsay's photograph he must
have supposed that it shared the fate of the others.
As for me, I propped my ill-gotten treasure up on my mantel and
worshipped it for a fortnight. At the end of that time I went boldly
to Peter and told him I wanted him to introduce me by letter to his
dear cousin and ask her to agree to a friendly correspondence with me.
Oddly enough, I did not do this without some reluctance, in spite of
the fact that I was as much in love with Marian Lindsay as it was
possible to be through the medium of a picture. I thought of the girl
I had seen in the pine wood and felt an inward shrinking from a step
that might divide me from her forever. But I rated myself for this
nonsense. It was in the highest degree unlikely that I should ever
meet the girl of the pines again. If she were still living she was
probably some other man's wife. I would think no more about it.
Peter whistled when he heard what I had to say.
"Of course I'll do it, old man," he said obligingly. "But I warn you I
don't think it will be much use. Marian isn't the sort of girl to open
up a correspondence in such a fashion. However, I'll do the best I can
for you."
"Do. Tell her I'm a respectable fellow with no violent bad habits and
all that. I'm in earnest, Peter. I want to make that girl's
acquaintance, and this seems the only way at present. I can't get off
just now for a trip east. Explain all this, and use your cousinly
influence in my behalf if you possess any."
Peter grinned.
"It's not the most graceful job in the world you are putting on me,
Curtis," he said. "I don't mind owning up now that I was pretty far
gone on Marian myself two years ago. It's all over now, but it was bad
while it lasted. Perhaps Marian will consider your request more
favourably if I put it in the light of a favour to myself. She must
feel that she owes me something for wrecking my life."
Peter grinned again and looked at the one photo he had contrived to
rescue from the fire. It was a pretty, snub-nosed little girl. She
would never have consoled me for the loss of Marian Lindsay, but every
man to his taste.
In due time Peter sought me out to give me his cousin's answer.
"Congratulations, Curtis. You've out-Caesared Caesar. You've conquered
without even going and seeing. Marian agrees to a friendly
correspondence with you. I am amazed, I admit--even though I did paint
you up as a sort of Sir Galahad and Lancelot combined. I'm not used to
seeing proud Marian do stunts like that, and it rather takes my
breath."
I wrote to Marian Lindsay after one farewell dream of the girl under
the pines. When Marian's letters began to come regularly I forgot the
other one altogether.
Such letters--such witty, sparkling, clever, womanly, delightful
letters! They completed the conquest her picture had begun. Before we
had corresponded six months I was besottedly in love with this woman
whom I had never seen. Finally, I wrote and told her so, and I asked
her to be my wife.
A fortnight later her answer came. She said frankly that she believed
she had learned to care for me during our correspondence, but that she
thought we should meet in person, before coming to any definite
understanding. Could I not arrange to visit Croyden in the summer?
Until then we would better continue on our present footing.
I agreed to this, but I considered myself practically engaged, with
the personal meeting merely to be regarded as a sop to the Cerberus of
conventionality. I permitted myself to use a decidedly lover-like tone
in my letters henceforth, and I hailed it as a favourable omen that I
was not rebuked for this, although Marian's own letters still retained
their pleasant, simple friendliness.
Peter had at first tormented me mercilessly about the affair, but when
he saw I did not like his chaff he stopped it. Peter was always a good
fellow. He realized that I regarded the matter seriously, and he saw
me off when I left for the east with a grin tempered by honest
sympathy and understanding.
"Good luck to you," he said. "If you win Marian Lindsay you'll win a
pearl among women. I haven't been able to grasp her taking to you in
this fashion, though. It's so unlike Marian. But, since she
undoubtedly has, you are a lucky man."
I arrived in Croyden at dusk and went to Uncle Tom's. There I found
them busy with preparations for a party to be given that night in
honour of a girl friend who was visiting my cousin Edna. I was
secretly annoyed, for I wanted to hasten at once to Marian. But I
couldn't decently get away, and on second thoughts I was consoled by
the reflection that she would probably come to the party. I knew she
belonged to the same social set as Uncle Tom's girls. I should,
however, have preferred our meeting to have been under different
circumstances.
From my stand behind the palms in a corner I eagerly scanned the
guests as they arrived. Suddenly my heart gave a bound. Marian Lindsay
had just come in.
I recognized her at once from her photograph. It had not flattered her
in the least; indeed, it had not done her justice, for her exquisite
colouring of hair and complexion were quite lost in it. She was,
moreover, gowned with a taste and smartness eminently admirable in the
future Mrs. Eric Curtis. I felt a thrill of proprietary pride as I
stepped out from behind the palms. She was talking to Aunt Grace; but
her eyes fell on me. I expected a little start of recognition, for I
had sent her an excellent photograph of myself; but her gaze was one
of blankest unconsciousness.
I felt something like disappointment at her non-recognition, but I
consoled myself by the reflection that people often fail to recognize
other people whom they have seen only in photographs, no matter how
good the likeness may be. I waylaid Edna, who was passing at that
time, and said, "Edna I want you to introduce me to the girl who is
talking to your mother."
Edna laughed.
"So you have succumbed at first sight to our Croyden beauty? Of course
I'll introduce you, but I warn you beforehand that she is the most
incorrigible flirt in Croyden or out of it. So take care."
It jarred on me to hear Marian called a flirt. It seemed so out of
keeping with her letters and the womanly delicacy and fineness
revealed in them. But I reflected that women sometimes find it hard to
forgive another woman who absorbs more than her share of lovers, and
generally take their revenge by dubbing her a flirt, whether she
deserves the name or not.
We had crossed the room during this reflection. Marian turned and
stood before us, smiling at Edna, but evincing no recognition whatever
of myself. It is a piquant experience to find yourself awaiting an
introduction to a girl to whom you are virtually engaged.
"Dorothy dear," said Edna, "this is my cousin, Mr. Curtis, from
Vancouver. Eric, this is Miss Armstrong."
I suppose I bowed. Habit carries us mechanically through many
impossible situations. I don't know what I looked like or what I said,
if I said anything. I don't suppose I betrayed my dire confusion, for
Edna went off unconcernedly without another glance at me.
Dorothy Armstrong! Gracious powers--who--where--why? If this girl was
Dorothy Armstrong who was Marian Lindsay? To whom was I engaged? There
was some awful mistake somewhere, for it could not be possible that
there were two girls in Croyden who looked exactly like the photograph
reposing in my valise at that very moment. I stammered like a
schoolboy.
"I--oh--I--your face seems familiar to me, Miss Armstrong. I--I--think
I must have seen your photograph somewhere."
"Probably in Peter Austin's collection," smiled Miss Armstrong. "He
had one of mine before he was burned out. How is he?"
"Peter? Oh, he's well," I replied vaguely. I was thinking a hundred
words to the second, but my thoughts arrived nowhere. I was staring at
Miss Armstrong like a man bewitched. She must have thought me a
veritable booby. "Oh, by the way--can you tell me--do you know a Miss
Lindsay in Croyden?"
Miss Armstrong looked surprised and a little bored. Evidently she was
not used to having newly introduced young men inquiring about another
girl.
"Marian Lindsay? Oh, yes."
"Is she here tonight?" I said.
"No, Marian is not going to parties just now, owing to the recent
death of her aunt, who lived with them."
"Does she--oh--does she look like you at all?" I inquired idiotically.
Amusement glimmered but over Miss Armstrong's boredom. She probably
concluded that I was some harmless lunatic.
"Like me? Not at all. There couldn't be two people more dissimilar.
Marian is quite dark. I am fair. And our features are altogether
unlike. Why, good evening, Jack. Yes, I believe I did promise you this
dance."
She bowed to me and skimmed away with Jack. I saw Aunt Grace bearing
down upon me and fled incontinently. In my own room I flung myself on
a chair and tried to think the matter out. Where did the mistake come
in? How had it happened? I shut my eyes and conjured up the vision of
Peter's room that day. I remembered vaguely that, when I had picked up
Dorothy Armstrong's picture, I had noticed another photograph that had
fallen face downward beside it. That must have been Marian Lindsay's,
and Peter had thought I meant it.
And now what a position I was in! I was conscious of bitter
disappointment. I had fallen in love with Dorothy Armstrong's
photograph. As far as external semblance goes it was she whom I loved.
I was practically engaged to another woman--a woman who, in spite of
our correspondence, seemed to me now, in the shock of this discovery,
a stranger. It was useless to tell myself that it was the mind and
soul revealed in those letters that I loved, and that that mind and
soul were Marian Lindsay's. It was useless to remember that Peter had
said she was pretty. Exteriorly, she was a stranger to me; hers was
not the face which had risen before me for nearly a year as the face
of the woman I loved. Was ever unlucky wretch in such a predicament
before?
Well, there was only one thing to do. I must stand by my word. Marian
Lindsay was the woman I had asked to marry me, whose answer I must
shortly go to receive. If that answer were "yes" I must accept the
situation and banish all thought of Dorothy Armstrong's pretty face.
Next evening at sunset I went to "Glenwood," the Lindsay place.
Doubtless, an eager lover might have gone earlier, but an eager lover
I certainly was not. Probably Marian was expecting me and had given
orders concerning me, for the maid who came to the door conveyed me to
a little room behind the stairs--a room which, as I felt as soon as I
entered it, was a woman's pet domain. In its books and pictures and
flowers it spoke eloquently of dainty femininity. Somehow, it suited
the letters. I did not feel quite so much the stranger as I had felt.
Nevertheless, when I heard a light footfall on the stairs my heart
beat painfully. I stood up and turned to the door, but I could not
look up. The footsteps came nearer; I knew that a white hand swept
aside the _portière_ at the entrance; I knew that she had entered the
room and was standing before me.
With an effort I raised my eyes and looked at her. She stood, tall and
gracious, in a ruby splendour of sunset falling through the window
beside her. The light quivered like living radiance over a dark proud
head, a white throat, and a face before whose perfect loveliness the
memory of Dorothy Armstrong's laughing prettiness faded like a star in
the sunrise, nevermore in the fullness of the day to be remembered.
Yet it was not of her beauty I thought as I stood spellbound before
her. I seemed to see a dim little valley full of whispering pines, and
a girl standing under their shadows, looking at me with the same
great, greyish-blue eyes which gazed upon me now from Marian Lindsay's
face--the same face, matured into gracious womanhood, that I had seen
ten years ago; and loved--aye, loved--ever since. I took an unsteady
step forward.
"Marian?" I said.
* * * * *
When I got home that night I burned Dorothy Armstrong's photograph.
The next day I went to my cousin Tom, who owns the fashionable studio
of Croyden and, binding him over to secrecy, sought one of Marian's
latest photographs from him. It is the only secret I have ever kept
from my wife.
Before we were married Marian told me something.
"I always remembered you as you looked that day under the pines," she
said. "I was only a child, but I think I loved you then and ever
afterwards. When I dreamed my girl's dream of love your face rose up
before me. I had the advantage of you that I knew your name--I had
heard of you. When Peter wrote about you I knew who you were. That was
why I agreed to correspond with you. I was afraid it was a forward--an
unwomanly thing to do. But it seemed my chance for happiness and I
took it. I am glad I did."