"For it is well known that Peris and such delicate beings live upon
sweet odours as food; but all evil spirits abominate
perfumes."--ORIENTAL MYTHOLOGY.
The breakfast bell, or rather Phillida's Chinese chimes, merrily
summoned me to the dining-room; a homely spell to exercise the phantoms
of the night.
My little cousin, rosy beyond belief, trim in white middy blouse and
blue skirt, was already in her place behind the coffeepot. Vere sat
opposite her at the round table. They were holding hands across the
rolls and bacon and eggs, their glances interlocked in a shining content
that made my solitariness rather drab and dull to my own contemplation.
At my clumsy step the picture dissolved, of course. Vere rose while
Phillida welcomed me to my chair and went into a young housewife's
pretty solicitude about my fruit and hot eggs.
The sun glinted across the table. The very servant had a smiling air of
enjoying the occasion. I never had a more pleasant breakfast. A big
brindle cat purred on the window-sill beside Phillida; no dainty Persian
or Angora, but a battered veteran whose nicked ears and scarred tail
proved him a battling cat of ring experience.
"I planned to have a wee white kitten," Phil explained, while putting a
saucer of milk before the feline tough. "One that would wear a ribbon,
you know. You remember, Cousin Roger, how Mother always forbade pets
because she believed animals carry germs? I meant to have a puss, if
ever I had a home of my own. This one just walked into the kitchen on
the first day we came here. Ethan said it was a lucky sign when a cat
came to a new home. He gave it the meat out of his sandwiches that we
had brought for lunch, and it stayed. So I decided to keep it instead of
a kitten. It really is more cat!"
What footing was here for dreary terrors? In a mirror across the room I
glimpsed my own countenance looking quite as usual. No over-night white
hairs appeared; no upstanding look such as the legend gave to Sir
Sintram after he met the Little Master.
After the meal, Vere asked me to walk over to the lake with him.
We strolled through the old orchard toward the dam. This was my side of
the house. In passing, I looked up at the window against which the Thing
had seemed to press Itself with sickening lust for me. Phillida was
framed in the open square, and shook a dustcloth at us by way of
greeting and evidence of her busyness.
The wide, shallow lake lay almost without movement, except at the head
of the dam. There the water poured over with foam and tumult, an
amber-brown cataract some twenty-odd feet across, to rush on below in a
winding stream that grew calmer as it flowed.
"We must put our lake in order, Vere," I observed, as we stood on a
knoll at the head of the dam. "All this growth of rank vegetation ought
to be pulled up, the banks graded and turfed perhaps, the bottom cleaned
up. Water-lilies would look better than cat-tails."
To my surprise, he did not assent. Instead, he set his foot on a boulder
and rested his arm upon his knee; looking into the clear water.
"Mr. Locke, I just about hate saying what I have to," he told me in his
sober, leisurely fashion. "I expect you won't like it; not at all.
Well--best said before you get deeper in. I can't see my way to make
farming this place pay."
I was bitterly disappointed. Even at the worst estimate of Vere, I had
imagined he would stick the thing out a little longer than this. Poor
Phillida's time of happiness should have lasted more than these few
weeks. But the call of New York, of the "lounge lizard's" ease and
unhealthy excitement had won already, it seemed. I said nothing at all.
The blow was too sore.
"There are too few acres of arable land, and they're used up," Vere was
continuing. "I've seen plenty of impoverished, run-out farms in New
England. You could pour money into the soil out of a gold pitcher these
five years to come, before it began to pay you back. And then your money
might better have been put anywhere in bank, for profit! I saw that, the
first week here. Since then I've been looking around for something
better to do."
"And have found it, of course," I said bitingly. "Or else you would be
drawing your salary as manager and saying nothing to me of all this!
Well, where does poor Phil go, and when?"
He turned his dark-curled head and regarded me with calm surprise.
"I didn't exactly know that my wife was going anywhere, Mr. Locke."
"What? You do not mean to leave the farm?"
"Not unless you're tired of our bargain. I've been calculating how to
make it pay. That won't be by planting corn and potatoes and taking a
wagon-load into town! If you think I'm wrong, call in any practical man
who knows this sort of business. We've got to think closer to win here.
That's why I'd like to set the lake to work instead of just prettying it
up."
"The lake, Vere? There isn't enough water-power over the dam to do any
more than run a toy, is there?"
He motioned me nearer to where he stood gazing down.
"Notice what kind of water this is, Mr. Locke? Brown like forest water,
sort of green-lighted because the bottom is like turf; neither mud nor
sand, but a kind of under-water moss? You see? It's pure and clean, with
a little fishy smell about it. Matter of fact, it is forest water! Comes
from way off yonder, the stream does, before it spreads out into our
lake, here. I borrowed a boat and followed back two miles before it got
too shallow for me. Boys have caught trout here three times since I've
been watching."
"Well?"
"My father was fish-warden in our district. I learned the business. If
you're willing, I can start some trout-raising that ought to pay well.
You know, the State is glad to help game preserving, free."
He proceeded to give me a brief lecture on the subject, in his quiet,
unpretentious manner; producing notes and diagrams from his pockets. He
had written to various authorities and exhibited their replies. He knew
exactly what the State would do, what he himself must do, and what
investment of money would be required. I listened to him in admiration
and astonishment.
From fish raising, he went on to discuss each acre of the farm; its best
use in view of its situation, condition, and our needs. We could afford
so much labor, it appeared, and no more. We must have certain apparatus;
methodically listed with prices. If we used a certain sheltered south
field for a peach orchard, the trees planted should be such an age and
have giant-powder blast deep beds for them in order that they might soon
bear fruit.
When at last he ended his deceptive speech that sounded so lazy while
implying so much energy, and turned his black eyes from the papers on
his knee to my face, I had been routed long since.
"Vere," I said abruptly, "did you know that I thought you were going to
desert the farm, when you began to speak?"
He nodded.
"Yes, I guess so. You don't exactly like me; haven't had any occasion
to! You don't judge me a fit match for your cousin. Well, neither would
anyone else, yet!"
He began to gather his papers together, his attention divided with them
while he finished his answer:
"There will be plenty of time before that 'yet' runs out. Mighty
pleasant time, thanks to you, Mr. Locke! Phillida and I expect to enjoy
building things up as much as we'll enjoy it after they're all built.
Meantime, I prize what you're doing all the more because I know how you
feel. Now, if you'd be interested to look over these plans or submit
them to someone you've confidence in, for inspection, I'll just turn
them over to you."
He had so accurately measured me that I was disconcerted. It was quite
true that he was compelling my respect, while my first dislike of him
still obstinately lurked in the background of my mind. I felt
ungenerous, but I would not lie to him.
"I am a queer fellow, Vere," I said. "Leave that to time, as you say! As
for the plans, they are far beyond my scope. A city man, it has been my
way to 'phone for an expert when anything was to be done, or to buy what
I fancied and pay the bills. In this case, you are the expert. The plans
seem brilliant to me. Certainly they are moderate in cost. Keep them,
and carry them out as soon as that may be done. You are master here, not
I."
We walked back together through the sun and freshness of the early
spring morning. As we neared the house Phillida's voice hailed us. She
was at my window again, leaning out with her hair wind-ruffled about her
face.
"Cousin Roger," she summoned me, "I have found out what makes your room
as sweet as a garden of spices. See what it is to be a composer
completely surrounded by royalties, able to buy the most gorgeous scents
to lay on one's pillow! And all enclosed in antique gold!"
She held up some small object that shone in the sunlight. "Throw it
down," I begged, startled into excitement.
She complied, laughing. Vere sprang forward, but I made a quicker step
and caught the thing.
It was one of those filigree balls of gold wrought into openwork, about
the size of a walnut, that fine ladies used to wear swung from a chain
or ribbon and call a pomander. The toy held a chosen perfume or essence
supposed to be reviving in case miladi felt a swoon or megrim about to
overwhelm her; as ladies did in past centuries and do no longer.
Whose gentle pity had brought this pomander to my pillow, to help me
from that faintness which had followed my struggle with the Thing? Whose
was the exquisite, individual fragrance contained in the ball I held? I
had a vision of a figure, surely light and soft of movement, haloed with
such matchless hair as the braid I had captured, stealing step by timid
step across my room; within my reach while I lay inert. Perhaps her face
had bent near mine in her doubt of my life or death; hidden eyes had
studied me in the scanty starlight.
Oh, for Ethan Vere's good looks and athlete's grace, to lure my lady
from her masquerade!
"Where did you buy it, Cousin Roger? 'Fess up!" Phillida's merry voice
coaxed me.
"It was given to me," I slowly answered. "I cannot offer it to you,
Phil. But I will buy any other pretty thing you fancy, instead, next
time I go to town."
She made a gesture of disclaim.
"I did not mean _that_! Only, do tell me what the perfume is?"
"I was going to ask if you knew."
"No. Something very expensive and imported, I suppose. Perhaps whoever
gave it to you had it made for herself alone, as some wealthy women do.
It is the most clinging, yet delicately refreshing scent I ever met."
"Tuberose," suggested Vere.
"Drawls, no. How can you? Like an old-fashioned funeral!" she cried.
"Tuberose didn't always go to funerals," he corrected her teasingly, as
she made a face at him. "I remember them growing in my Aunt Bathsheba's
garden. Creamy looking posies, kind of kin to a gardenia, seems to me!
Thick-petalled, like white plush, and holding their sweet smell
everlastingly. But Mr. Locke's perfumery isn't just that, either. There
was something else grew in that garden--I can't call to mind what I
mean. Basil, maybe?"
"The basil plant, that feeds on dead men's brains," quoted Phil with a
mock shiver. "You _are_ happy in your ideals, Drawls!"
He laughed.
"Well, that garden smelled pretty fine when the dew was just warming up
in the sun, mornings--and so does this little gilt ball! I'll guess Mr.
Locke's lady never got it from France. Smells like old New England."
There was no reason why a vague chill should creep over me, or the
sunshine seem to darken as if a thin veil drifted between me and the
surrounding brightness. Let me say again that no place could have been
more unlike the traditional haunted house. There hung about it no sense
of morbidity or depression. Yet, what was I to think? I was not sick or
mad; and the Thing had come to me twice. I turned from the married
lovers and made my way to the veranda, where I might be alone to
consider the pomander whose perfume was like a diaphanous presence
walking beside me.
Seated there, in one of the deep willow-chairs Phillida had cushioned in
peacock chintz and marked especially mine by laying my favorite
magazines on its arm, I studied my new trophy of the night. There was a
satisfaction in its material solidity. It was real enough, resting in my
palm.
Yes; but it was not ordinary among its quaint kind! As I picked out the
design of the gold-work, that fact was borne in upon my mind. Here was
no pattern of scroll or blossom or cupids and hearts. The small sphere
was belted with the signs of the Zodiac, beautiful in minute perfection.
All the rest of the globe was covered with lace-fine work repeating one
group of characters over and over. I was not learned enough to tell what
the characters were, but the whole plainly belonged to those strange,
outcast academies of astrology, alchemy--magic, in short. It contained
what appeared to be a pinkish ball; originally a scented paste rolled
round and dried, I judged by peering through the interstices of the
gold.
Had the old-world trinket been left to bewilder me? Why, and by whom?
What interest had my lady of the dark in elaborately deceiving me? Why
muffle her identity in mystery? Why the indefinable quaintness of
language, the choice of words that made her speech so different from
even the college-bred Phillida's?
She urged me to leave the house. If she, or anyone associated with her
wanted the place left vacant for some reason, why did not the Thing and
the warning come to others of our household group? Vere, Phillida, the
Swedish woman, Cristina--all had lived here for weeks without any
experiences like mine. I had not been told to leave my room, but the
house. The danger, then, was only for me?
Well, was I to run away, hands over my eyes, at the first alarm?
The gray cat came purring about me and presently leaped upon my knee. On
impulse, I offered the pomander to its nostrils. The unwinking yellow
eyes shut, the beast's powerful claws closed and unclosed with
convulsive pleasure, it breathed with that thirsty eagerness for the
scent so familiar to my own senses.
"Better than catnip, Bagheera?" I questioned. "You wouldn't bolt from
it, either, would you?"
Phillida's battered pet relaxed luxuriously, by way of answer, sniffed
toward the hand I withdrew, and composed itself to sleep. I put the
pomander in my waistcoat pocket.
I could not deny as mere nightmare the Thing which had visited me.
Better confront that fact! It was real. Only, real in what sense? What
human agency could produce an effect so frightful, an illusion so
hideous that I could scarcely bear to recall it here in full daylight,
without the use of a sight or sound to confuse the brain?
Had the girl told the truth in her wild explanation? A truth hinted at
by alchemists, Pythagoreans, Rosicrucians, pale students of sorcery and
magnificent charlatans, these many centuries? Were there other races
between earth and heaven; strange tribes of the middle spaces whose
destinies were fixed and complete as our own, but between whose lives
and ours were fixed barriers not to be crossed? Had I met one of these
beings, inimical to man as a cobra, intelligent as man, hunting Its
victim by methods unknown to us?
Was I a cheated fool, or a pioneer on the borders of a new country?
Could I meet that Thing tonight, and tomorrow night? Could I bear the
agony of Its presence, the stench of death and corruption that was Its
atmosphere? At the mere memory my forehead grew wet.
The postman's buggy had stopped at our mailbox. Phillida ran down to
meet the event of the morning. Her laughing chatter came back to me
while she waited, fists thrust in middy pockets, for the old man to sort
our letters from his bags. It did not appear so hard to make a woman
happy, I mused. A man might attempt it with hope, if he could but
persuade her to try him.
My lady had promised to come again. Perhaps, with patience----?
Phillida came across the lawn with an armful of gaudy-covered catalogues
and a handful of letters.
"Catalogues for Ethan; letters for you," she called in advance of her
arrival. "What an important person you are, Cousin Roger! It always
gives me a quivery thrill to realize _who_ you are as well as how nice
you are. Now, isn't that a jumbled speech to tumble out of me?"
I took her tanned little hand along with the letters; letters that were
so many voices summoning me back to pleasant, busy Manhattan.
"It is a fine speech for a humble person to answer, Phil! But does that
sort of thing matter to you women? What do you love Vere for, at bottom?
Because he is strong and supple and has curly hair? No?" as she shook
her head. "Because he has worn the uniform, then; proved his courage in
war at sea? Because he had the glamour about him of real adventure and
cabaret glitter? Or because he took you away from a life you hated? Or,
perhaps, because he is kind and loves you? No! For none of these
reasons? Why, then, love Ethan Vere?"
She stopped vigorously shaking her head in repeated denial, and smiled
at me triumphantly.
"Because he _is_ Ethan Vere," she promptly responded. "Oh, Cousin Roger,
you clever people are so stupid! It would not make any difference at all
if Drawls were ugly, or never had been a sailor, or could not skate or
do things, or had not been able to make me happy. It is something very
much bigger than all that!"
"And all the divorce courts, Phil? The breach of promise suits, and the
couples who make each other miserable?"
"But they never had anything," she said. "Perhaps they will have it,
some day. Don't you know, Cousin Roger, that the most important things
in the world are those most people never know about?"
I was not sure whether I knew that, or not. After last night, I was not
sure of many things. Still, if such gifts were given as she believed, if
it was merely a question of being Ethan Vere--or Roger Locke----?
But I had never seriously considered leaving the adventure.