MRS. JAMES B. PETERSON, OF LENOX.
Mr. Sabin found himself late on the afternoon of the following day alone
on the platform of a little wooden station, watching the train which had
dropped him there a few minutes ago snorting away round a distant curve.
Outside, the servant whom he had hired that morning in New York was busy
endeavouring to arrange for a conveyance of some sort in which they
might complete their journey. Mr. Sabin himself was well content to
remain where he was. The primitiveness of the place itself and the
magnificence of his surroundings had made a distinct and favourable
impression upon him. Facing him was a chain of lofty hills whose
foliage, luxuriant and brilliantly tinted, seemed almost like a long
wave of rich deep colour, the country close at hand was black with pine
trees, through which indeed a winding way for the railroad seemed to
have been hewn. It was only a little clearing which had been made for
the depot; a few yards down, the line seemed to vanish into a tunnel of
black foliage, from amongst which the red barked tree trunks stood out
with the regularity of a regiment of soldiers. The clear air was
fragrant with a peculiar and aromatic perfume, so sweet and wholesome
that Mr. Sabin held the cigarette which he had lighted at arm's length,
that he might inhale this, the most fascinating odour in the world. He
was at all times sensitive to the influence of scenery and natural
perfumes, and the possibility of spending the rest of his days in this
country had never seemed so little obnoxious as during those few
moments. Then his eyes suddenly fell upon a large white house,
magnificent, but evidently newly finished, gleaming forth from an
opening in the woods, and his brows contracted. His former moodiness
returned.
"It is not the country," he muttered to himself, "it is the people."
His servant came back presently, with explanations for his prolonged
absence.
"I am sorry, sir," he said, "but I made a mistake in taking the
tickets."
Mr. Sabin merely nodded. A little time ago a mistake on the part of a
servant was a thing which he would not have tolerated. But those were
days which seemed to him to lie very far back in the past.
"You ought to have alighted at the last station, sir," the man
continued. "Stockbridge is eleven miles from here."
"What are we going to do?" Mr. Sabin asked.
"We must drive, sir. I have hired a conveyance, but the luggage will
have to come later in the day by the cars. There will only be room for
your dressing-bag in the buggy."
Mr. Sabin rose to his feet.
"The drive will be pleasant," he said, "especially if it is through such
country as this. I am not sure that I regret your mistake, Harrison. You
will remain and bring the baggage on, I suppose?"
"It will be best, sir," the man agreed. "There is a train in about an
hour."
They walked out on to the road where a one-horse buggy was waiting. The
driver took no more notice of them than to terminate, in a leisurely
way, his conversation with a railway porter, and unhitch the horse.
Mr. Sabin took the seat by his side, and they drove off.
It was a very beautiful road, and Mr. Sabin was quite content to lean
back in his not uncomfortable seat and admire the scenery. For the most
part it was of a luxuriant and broken character. There were very few
signs of agriculture, save in the immediate vicinity of the large
newly-built houses which they passed every now and then. At times they
skirted the side of a mountain, and far below them in the valley the
river Leine wound its way along like a broad silver band. Here and there
the road passed through a thick forest of closely-growing pines, and Mr.
Sabin, holding his cigarette away from him, leaned back and took long
draughts of the rosinous, piney odour. It was soon after emerging from
the last of these that they suddenly came upon a house which moved Mr.
Sabin almost to enthusiasm. It lay not far back from the road, a very
long two-storied white building, free from the over-ornamentation which
disfigured most of the surrounding mansions. White pillars in front,
after the colonial fashion, supported a long sloping veranda roof, and
the smooth trimly-kept lawns stretched almost to the terrace which
bordered the piazza. There were sun blinds of striped holland to the
southern windows, and about the whole place there was an air of simple
and elegant refinement, which Mr. Sabin found curiously attractive. He
broke for the first time the silence which had reigned between him and
the driver.
"Do you know," he inquired, "whose house that is?"
The man flipped his horse's ears with the whip.
"I guess so," he answered. "That is the old Peterson House. Mrs. James
B. Peterson lives there now."
Mr. Sabin felt in his breast pocket, and extracted therefrom a letter.
It was a coincidence undoubtedly, but the fact was indisputable. The
address scrawled thereon in Felix's sprawling hand was:--
"MRS. JAMES B. PETERSON,
"Lenox.
"By favour of Mr. Sabin."
"I will make a call there," Mr. Sabin said to the man. "Drive me up to
the house."
The man pulled up his horse.
"What, do you know her?" he asked.
Mr. Sabin affected to be deeply interested in a distant point of the
landscape. The man muttered something to himself and turned up the
drive.
"You have met her abroad, maybe?" he suggested.
Mr. Sabin took absolutely no notice of the question. The man's
impertinence was too small a thing to annoy him, but it prevented his
asking several questions which he would like to have had answered. The
man muttered something about a civil answer to a civil question not
being much to expect, and pulled up his horse in front of the great
entrance porch.
Mr. Sabin, calmly ignoring him, descended and stepped through the wide
open door into a beautiful square hall in the centre of which was a
billiard table. A servant attired in unmistakably English livery,
stepped forward to meet him.
"Is Mrs. Peterson at home?" Mr. Sabin inquired.
"We expect her in a very few minutes," the man answered. "She is out
riding at present. May I inquire if you are Mr. Sabin, sir?"
Mr. Sabin admitted the fact with some surprise.
The man received the intimation with respect.
"Will you kindly walk this way, your Grace," he said.
Mr. Sabin followed him into a large and delightfully furnished library.
Then he looked keenly at the servant.
"You know me," he remarked.
"Monsieur Le Duc Souspennier," the man answered with a bow. "I am an
Englishman, but I was in the service of the Marquis de la Merle in Paris
for ten years."
"Your face," Mr. Sabin said, "was familiar to me. You look like a man to
be trusted. Will you be so good as to remember that the Duc is
unfortunately dead, and I am Mr. Sabin."
"Most certainly, sir," the man answered. "Is there anything which I can
bring you?"
"Nothing, thank you," Mr. Sabin answered.
The man withdrew with a low bow, and Mr. Sabin stood for a few minutes
turning over magazines and journals which covered a large round table,
and represented the ephemeral literature of nearly every country in
Europe.
"Mrs. Peterson," he remarked to himself, "must be a woman of Catholic
tastes. Here is the _Le Petit Journal_ inside the pages of the English
_Contemporary Review_."
He was turning the magazines over with interest, when he chanced to
glance through the great south window a few feet away from him.
Something he saw barely a hundred yards from the little iron fence which
bordered the lawns, attracted his attention. He rubbed his eyes and
looked at it again. He was puzzled, and was on the point of ringing the
bell when the man who had admitted him entered, bearing a tray with
liqueurs and cigarettes. Mr. Sabin beckoned him over to the window.
"What is that little flag?" he asked.
"It is connected, I believe, in some way," the man answered, "with a
game of which Mrs. Peterson is very fond. I believe that it indicates
the locality of a small hole."
"Golf?" Mr. Sabin exclaimed.
"That is the name of the game, sir," the man answered. "I had forgotten
it for the moment."
Mr. Sabin tried the window.
"I want to get out," he said.
The man opened it.
"If you are going down there, sir," he said, "I will send James Green to
meet you. Mrs. Peterson is so fond of the game that she keeps a
Scotchman here to look after the links and instruct her."
"This," Mr. Sabin murmured, "is the most extraordinary thing in the
world."
"If you would like to see your room, sir, before you go out," the man
suggested, "it is quite ready. If you will give me your keys I will have
your clothes laid out."
Mr. Sabin turned about in amazement.
"What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "I have not come here to stay."
"I understood so, sir," the man answered. "Your room has been ready for
three weeks."
Mr. Sabin was bewildered. Then he remembered the stories which he had
heard of American hospitality, and concluded that this must be an
instance of it.
"I had not the slightest intention of stopping here," he said to the
man.
"Mrs. Peterson expected you to do so, sir, and we have sent your
conveyance away. If it is inconvenient for you to remain now, it will be
easy to send you anywhere you desire later."
"For the immediate present," Mr. Sabin said, "Mrs. Peterson not having
arrived, I want to see that golf course."
"If you will permit me, sir," the man said, "I will show you the way."
They followed a winding footpath which brought them suddenly out on
the border of a magnificent stretch of park-like country. Mr. Sabin,
whose enthusiasms were rare, failed wholly to restrain a little
exclamation of admiration. A few yards away was one of the largest and
most magnificently kept putting-greens that he had ever seen in his
life. By his side was a raised teeing-ground, well and solidly built.
Far away down in the valley he could see the flag of the first hole
just on the other side of a broad stream.
"The gentleman's a golf-player, maybe?" remarked a voice by his side, in
familiar dialect. Mr. Sabin turned around to find himself confronted by
a long, thin Scotchman, who had strolled out of a little shed close at
hand.
"I am very fond of the game," Mr. Sabin admitted. "You appear to me to
have a magnificent course here."
"It's none so bad," Mr. James Green admitted. "Maybe the gentleman would
like a round."
"There is nothing in this wide world," Mr. Sabin answered truthfully,
"that I should like so well. But I have no clubs or any shoes."
"Come this way, sir, come this way," was the prompt reply. "There's
clubs here of all sorts such as none but Jimmy Green can make, ay, and
shoes too. Mr. Wilson, will you be sending me two boys down from the
house?"
In less than ten minutes Mr. Sabin was standing upon the first tee, a
freshly lit cigarette in his mouth, and a new gleam of enthusiasm in his
eyes. He modestly declined the honour, and Mr. Green forthwith drove a
ball which he watched approvingly.
"That's no such a bad ball," he remarked.
Mr. Sabin watched the construction of his tee, and swung his club
lightly. "Just a little sliced, wasn't it?" he said. "That will do,
thanks." He addressed his ball with a confidence which savoured almost
of carelessness, swung easily back and drove a clean, hard hit ball full
seventy yards further than the professional. The man for a moment was
speechless with surprise, and he gave a little gasp.
"Aye, mon," he exclaimed. "That was a fine drive. Might you be having a
handicap, sir?"
"I am scratch at three clubs," Mr. Sabin answered quietly, "and plus
four at one."
A gleam of delight mingled with respect at his opponent, shone in the
Scotchman's face.
"Aye, but we will be having a fine game," he exclaimed. "Though I'm
thinking you will down me. But it is grand good playing with a mon
again."
* * * * *
The match was now at the fifteenth hole. Mr. Sabin, with a long and
deadly putt--became four up and three to play. As the ball trickled into
the hole the Scotchman drew a long breath.
"It's a fine match," he said, "and I'm properly downed. What's more,
you're holding the record of the links up to this present. Fifteen holes
for sixty-four is verra good--verra good indeed. There's no man in
America to-day to beat it."
And then Mr. Sabin, who was on the point of making a genial reply, felt
a sudden and very rare emotion stir his heart and blood, for almost in
his ears there had sounded a very sweet and familiar voice, perhaps the
voice above all others which he had least expected to hear again in this
world.
"You have not then forgotten your golf, Mr. Sabin? What do you think of
my little course?"
He turned slowly round and faced her. She was standing on the rising
ground just above the putting-green, the skirt of her riding habit
gathered up in her hand, her lithe, supple figure unchanged by time, the
old bewitching smile still playing about her lips. She was still the
most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Mr. Sabin, with his cap in his hand, moved slowly to her side, and
bowed low over the hand which she extended to him.
"This is a happiness," he murmured, "for which I had never dared to
hope. Are you, too, an alien?"
She shook her head.
"This," she said, "is the land of my adoption. Perhaps you did not know
that I am Mrs. Peterson?"
"I did not know it," he answered, gravely, "for I never heard of your
marriage."
They turned together toward the house. Mr. Sabin was amazed to find that
the possibilities of emotion were still so great with him.
"I married," she said softly, "an American, six years ago. He was the
son of the minister at Vienna. I have lived here mostly ever since."
"Do you know who it was that sent me to you?"
She assented quietly.
"It was Felix."
They drew nearer the house. Mr. Sabin looked around him. "It is very
beautiful here," he said.
"It is very beautiful indeed," she said, "but it is very lonely."
"Your husband?" he inquired.
"He has been dead four years."
Mr. Sabin felt a ridiculous return of that emotion which had agitated
him so much on her first appearance. He only steadied his voice with an
effort.
"We are both aliens," he said quietly. "Perhaps you have heard that
all things have gone ill with me. I am an exile and a failure. I have
come here to end my days."
She flashed a sudden brilliant smile upon him. How little she had
changed.
"Did you say here?" she murmured softly.
He looked at her incredulously. Her eyes were bent upon the ground.
There was something in her face which made Mr. Sabin forget the great
failure of his life, his broken dreams, his everlasting exile. He
whispered her name, and his voice trembled with a passion which for once
was his master.
"Lucile," he cried. "It is true that you--forgive me?"
And she gave him her hand. "It is true," she whispered.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise,
every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and
intent.
End of Project Gutenberg's Mysterious Mr. Sabin, by E. Phillips Oppenheim