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SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN
by
RUTH SAWYER
Author of
_The Primrose Ring_
Illustrated
Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York & London
SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN
Copyright, 1915, 1916, by The Curtis Publishing Company
Copyright, 1915, 1916, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published April, 1916
* * * * *
BOOKS BY
RUTH SAWYER
SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN. Illustrated. Post 8vo
THE PRIMROSE RING. Illustrated. Post 8vo
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
* * * * *
[Illustration: (See page 220)
"Where twin oaks rustle in the wind
There waits a lad for Rosalind"]
_TO
HIMSELF_
_It leads away, at the ring o' day,
On to the beckoning hills;
And the throstles sing by the holy spring
Which the Blessed Virgin fills.
White is the road and light is the load,
For the burden we bear together.
Our feet beat time on the upward climb
That ends in the purpling heather.
There is spring in the air and everywhere
The throb of a life new-born,
In mating thrush and blossoming brush,
In the hush o' the glowing morn.
Our hearts bound free as the open sea;
Where now is our dole o' sorrow?
The winds have swept the tears we've wept--
And promise a braver morrow.
But this I pray as we go our way:
To find the Hills o' Heather,
And, at hush o' night, in peace to light
Our roadside fire together._
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE WAY OF IT 1
II. A SIGN-POST POINTS TO AN ADVENTURE 12
III. PATSY PLAYS A PART 25
IV. THE OCCUPANT OF A BALMACAAN COAT 39
V. A TINKER POINTS THE ROAD 48
VI. AT DAY'S END 64
VII. THE TINKER PLAYS A PART 85
VIII. WHEN TWO WERE NOT COMPANY 106
IX. PATSY ACQUIRES SOME INFORMATION 121
X. JOSEPH JOURNEYS TO A FAR COUNTRY 139
XI. AND CHANCE STAGES MELODRAMA INSTEAD OF
COMEDY 153
XII. A CHANGE OF NATIONALITY 165
XIII. A MESSAGE AND A MAP 191
XIV. ENTER KING MIDAS 202
XV. ARDEN 216
XVI. THE ROAD BEGINS ALL OVER AGAIN 231
SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN
I
THE WAY OF IT
Patsy O'Connell sat on the edge of her cot in the women's free ward
of the City Hospital. She was pulling on a vagabond pair of gloves
while she mentally gathered up a somewhat doubtful, ragged lot of
prospects and stood them in a row before her for contemplation,
comparison, and a final choice. They strongly resembled the contents
of her steamer trunk, held at a respectable boarding-house in
University Square by a certain Miss Gibb for unpaid board, for these
were made up of a jumble of priceless and worthless belongings,
unmarketable because of their extremes.
She had time a-plenty for contemplation; the staff wished to see her
before she left, and the staff at that moment was consulting at the
other end of the hospital.
Properly speaking, Patsy was Patricia O'Connell, but no one had ever
been known to refer to her in that cold-blooded manner, save on the
programs of the Irish National Plays--and in the City Hospital's
register. What the City Hospital knew of Patsy was precisely what the
American public and press knew, what the National Players knew, what
the world at large knew--precisely what Patricia O'Connell had chosen
to tell--nothing more, nothing less. They had accepted her on her own
scanty terms and believed in her implicitly. There was one thing
undeniably true about her--her reality. Having established this fact
beyond a doubt, it was a simple matter to like her and trust her.
No one had ever thought it necessary to question Patsy about her
nationality; it was too obvious. Concerning her past and her family
she answered every one alike: "Sure, I was born without either. I was
found by accident, just, one morning hanging on to the thorn of a
Killarney rose-bush that happened to be growing by the Brittany
coast. They say I was found by the Physician to the King, who was
traveling past, and that's how it comes I can speak French and King's
English equally pure; although I'm not denying I prefer them both
with a bit of brogue." She always thought in Irish--straight, Donegal
Irish--with a dropping of final g's, a bur to the r's, and a "ye"
for a "you." Invariably this was her manner of speech with those she
loved, or toward whom she felt the kinship of sympathetic
understanding.
To those who pushed their inquisitiveness about ancestry to the
breaking-point Patsy blinked a pair of steely-blue eyes while she
wrinkled her forehead into a speculative frown: "Faith! I can hearken
back to Adam the same as yourselves; but if it's some one more modern
you're asking for--there's that rascal, Dan O'Connell. He's too long
dead to deny any claim I might put on him, so devil a word will I be
saying. Only--if ye should find by chance, any time, that I'd rather
fight with my wits than my fists, ye can lay that to Dan's door;
along with the stubbornness of a tinker's ass."
People had been known to pry into her religion; and on these Patsy
smiled indulgently as one does sometimes on overcurious children.
"Sure, I believe in every one--and as for a church, there's not a
place that goes by the name--synagogue, meeting-house, or
cathedral--that I can't be finding a wee bit of God waiting inside
for me. But I'll own to it, honestly, that when I'm out seeking Him,
I find Him easiest on some hilltop, with the wind blowing hard from
the sea and never a human soul in sight."
This was approximately all the world and the press knew of Patsy
O'Connell, barring the fact that she was neighboring in the twenties,
was fresh, unspoiled, and charming, and that she had played the
ingenue parts with the National Players, revealing an art that
promised a good future, should luck bring the chance. Unfortunately
this chance was not numbered among the prospects Patsy reviewed from
the edge of her hospital cot that day.
The interest of the press and the public approval of the National
Irish Players had not proved sufficient to propitiate that
iron-hearted monster, Financial Success. The company went into
bankruptcy before they had played half their bookings. Their final
curtain went down on a bit of serio-comic drama staged, impromptu, on
a North River dock, with barely enough cash in hand to pay the
company's home passage. On this occasion Patsy had missed her cue for
the first time. She had been left in the wings, so to speak; and that
night she filled the only vacant bed in the women's free ward of the
City Hospital.
It was pneumonia. Patsy had tossed about and moaned with the racking
pain of it, raving deliriously through her score or more of roles.
She had gone dancing off with the Faery Child to the Land of Heart's
Desire; she had sat beside the bier in "The Riders to the Sea"; she
had laughed through "The Full o' Moon," and played the Fool while the
Wise Man died. The nurses and doctors had listened with open-eyed
wonder and secret enjoyment; she had allowed them to peep into a new
world too full of charm and lure to be denied; and then of a sudden
she had settled down to a silent, grim tussle with the "Gray
Brother."
This was all weeks past. It was early June now; the theatrical season
was closed for two months, with no prospects in the booking agencies
until August. In the mean time she had eight dollars, seventy-six
cents, and a crooked sixpence as available collateral; and an unpaid
board bill.
Patsy felt sorry for Miss Gibb, but she felt no shame. Boarding-house
keepers, dressmakers, bootmakers, and the like must take the risk
along with the players themselves in the matter of getting paid for
their services. If the public--who paid two dollars a seat for a
performance--failed to appear, and box-office receipts failed to
margin their salaries, it was their misfortune, not their fault; and
others had to suffer along with them. But these debts of circumstance
never troubled Patsy. She paid them when she could, and when she
could not--there was always her trunk.
The City Hospital happened to know the extent of Patsy's property; it
is their business to find out these little private matters
concerning their free patients. They had also drawn certain
conclusions from the facts that no one had come to see Patsy and that
no communications had reached her from anywhere. It looked to them as
if Patsy were down and out, to state it baldly. Now the Patsys that
come to free wards of city hospitals are very rare; and the
superintendent and staff and nurses were interested beyond the usual
limits set by their time and work and the professional hardening of
their cardiac region.
"She's not to leave here until we find out just who she's got to look
after her until she gets on her feet again, understand"--and the old
doctor tapped the palm of his left hand with his right forefinger, a
sign of important emphasis.
Therefore the day nurse had gone to summon the staff while Patsy
still sat obediently on the edge of her cot, pulling on her vagabond
gloves, reviewing her prospects, and waiting.
"My! but we'll miss you!" came the voice from the woman in the next
bed, who had been watching her regretfully for some time.
"It's my noise ye'll be missing." And Patsy smiled back at her a
winning, comrade sort of smile.
"You kind o' got us all acquainted with one another and thinkin'
about somethin' else but pains and troubles. It'll seem awful
lonesome with you gone," and the woman beyond heaved a prodigious
sigh.
"Don't ye believe it," said Patsy, with conviction. "They'll be
fetching in some one a good bit better to fill my place--ye see,
just."
"No, they won't; 'twill be another dago, likely--"
"Whist!" Patsy raised a silencing finger and looked fearsomely over
her shoulder to the bed back of her.
Its inmate lay covered to the cheek, but one could catch a glimpse of
tangled black hair and a swarthy skin. Patsy rose and went softly
over to the bed; her movement disturbed the woman, who opened dumb,
reproachful eyes.
"I'll be gone in a minute, dear; I want just to tell you how sorry I
am. But--sure--Mother Mary has it safe--and she's keeping it for ye."
She stooped and brushed the forehead with her lips, as the staff and
two of the nurses appeared.
"Faith! is it a delegation or a constabulary?" And Patsy laughed the
laugh that had made her famous from Dublin to Duluth, where the
bankruptcy had occurred.
"It's a self-appointed committee to find out just where you're going
after you leave here," said the young doctor.
Patsy eyed him quizzically. "That's not manners to ask personal
questions. But I don't mind telling ye all, confidentially, that I
haven't my mind made yet between--a reception at the Vincent
Wanderlusts'--or a musicale at the Ritz-Carlton."
"Look here, lassie"--the old doctor ruffled his beard and threw out
his chest like a mammoth pouter pigeon--"you'll have to give us a
sensible answer before we let you go one step. You know you can't
expect to get very far with that--in this city," and he tapped the
bag on her wrist significantly.
Patsy flushed crimson. For the first time in her life, to her
knowledge, the world had discovered more about her than she had
intended. Those humiliating eight dollars, seventy-six cents, and the
crooked sixpence seemed to be scorching their way through the leather
that held them. But she met the eyes looking into hers with a flinty
resistance.
"Sure, 'twould carry me a long way, I'm thinking, if I spent it by
the ha'penny bit." Then she laughed in spite of herself. "If ye don't
look for all the world like a parcel of old mother hens that have
just hatched out a brood o' wild turkeys!" She suddenly checked her
Irish--it was apt to lead her into compromising situations with
Anglo-Saxon folk, if she did not leash her tongue--and slid into
English. "You see, I really know quite a number of people
here--rather well--too."
"Why haven't they come to see you, then?" asked the day nurse,
bluntly.
Patsy eyed her with admiration. "You'd never make a press agent--or a
doctor, I'm afraid; you're too truthful."
"You see," explained the old doctor, "these friends of yours are what
we professional people term hypothetical cases. We'd like to be sure
of something real."
One of Patsy's vagabond gloves closed over the doctor's hand. "Bless
you all for your goodness! but the people are more real than you
think. Everybody believes I went back with the company and I never
bothered them with the truth, you see. I've more than one good friend
among the theatrical crowd right here; but--well, you know how it is;
if you are a bit down on your luck you keep away from your own world,
if you can. There is a girl--just about my own age--in society here.
We did a lot for her in the way of giving her a good time when she
was in Dublin, and I've seen her quite a bit over here. I'm going to
her to get something to do before the season begins. She may need a
secretary or a governess--or a--cook. Holy Saint Martin! but I can
cook!" And Patsy clasped her hands in an ecstatic appreciation of her
culinary art; it was the only one of which she was boastful.
"I'll tell you what," said the old doctor, gruffly, "we will let you
go if you will promise to come back if--if no one's at home. It's
against rules, but I'll see the superintendent keeps your bed for you
to-night."
"Thank you," said Patsy. She waved a farewell to the staff and the
ward as she went through the door. "I don't know where I'm going or
what I shall be finding, but if it's anything worth sharing I'll send
some back to you all."
The staff watched her down the corridor to the elevator.
"Gee!" exclaimed the youngest doctor, his admiration working out to
the surface. "When she's made her name I'm going to marry her."
"Oh, are you?" The voice of the old doctor took on its habitual
tartness. "Acute touch of philanthropy, what--eh?"
Patricia O'Connell swung the hospital door behind her and stepped out
into a blaze of June sunshine. "Holy Saint Patrick! but it feels
good. Now if I could be an alley cat for two months I could get along
fine."
She cast a backward look toward the granite front of the City
Hospital and her eyes grew as blue and soft as the waters of
Killarney. "Sure, cat or human, the world's a grand place to be alive
in."
II
A SIGN-POST POINTS TO AN ADVENTURE
Marjorie Schuyler sat in her own snug little den, her toy ruby
spaniel on a cushion at her feet, her lap full of samples of white,
shimmering crepes and satins. She fingered them absent-mindedly, her
mind caught in a maze of wedding intricacies and dates, and whirled
between an ultimate choice between October and June of the following
year.
The world knew all there was to know about Marjorie Schuyler. It
could tell to a nicety who her paternal and maternal grandparents
were, back to old Peter Schuyler's time and the settling of the
Virginian Berkeleys. It could figure her income down to a paltry
hundred of the actual amount. It knew her age to the month and day.
In fact, it had kept her calendar faithfully, from her coming-out
party, through the periods of mourning for her parents and her
subsequent returns to society, through the rumors of her engagements
to half a dozen young leaders at home and abroad, down to her latest
conquest.
The last date on her calendar was the authorized announcement of her
engagement to young Burgeman. Hence the shimmering samples and the
relative values of October and June for a wedding journey.
And the world knew more than these things concerning Marjorie
Schuyler. It knew that she was beautiful, of regal bearing and
distinguished manner. An aunt lived with her, to lend dignity and
chaperonage to her position; but she managed her own affairs, social
and financial, for herself. If the world had been asked to choose a
modern prototype for the young, independent American girl of the
leisure class, it is reasonably safe to assume it would have named
Marjorie Schuyler.
As for young Burgeman, the world knew him as the Rich Man's Son. That
was the best and worst it could say of him.
"I think, Toto," said Marjorie Schuyler to her toy ruby spaniel, "it
will be June. There is only one thing you can do with October--a
church wedding, chrysanthemums, and oak leaves. But June offers so
many possible variations. Besides, that gives us both one last,
untrammeled season in town. Yes, June it is; and we'll not have to
think about these yet awhile." Whereupon she dropped the shimmering
samples into the waste-basket.
A maid pushed aside the hangings that curtained her den from the
great Schuyler library. "There's a young person giving the name of
O'Connell, asking to see you. Shall I say you are out?"
"O'Connell?" Marjorie Schuyler raised a pair of interrogatory
eyebrows. "Why--it can't be. The entire company went back weeks ago.
What is she like--small and brown, with very pink cheeks and very
blue eyes?"
The maid nodded ambiguously.
"Bring her up. I know it can't be, but--"
But it was. The next moment Marjorie Schuyler was taking a firm grip
of Patsy's shoulders while she looked down with mock disapproval at
the girl who reached barely to her shoulder.
"Patsy O'Connell! Why didn't you go home with the others--and what
have you done to your cheeks?"
Patsy attacked them with two merciless fists. "Sure, they're after
needing a pinch of north-of-Ireland wind, that's all. How's
yourself?"
Marjorie Schuyler pushed her gently into a great chair, while she
herself took a carved baronial seat opposite. The nearness of
anything so exquisitely perfect as Marjorie Schuyler, and the
comparison it was bound to suggest, would have been a conscious
ordeal for almost any other girl. But Patsy was oblivious of the
comparison--oblivious of the fact that she looked like a wood-thrush
neighboring with a bird of paradise. Her brown Norfolk suit was a
shabby affair--positively clamoring for a successor; the boyish brown
beaver--lacking feather or flower--was pulled down rakishly over her
mass of brown curls, and the vagabond gloves gave a consistent finish
to the picture. And yet there was that about Patsy which defied
comparison even with Marjorie Schuyler; moreover--a thrush sings.
"Now tell me," said Marjorie Schuyler, "where have you been all these
weeks?"
Patsy considered. "Well--I've been taking up hospital training."
"Oh, how splendid! Are you going over with the new Red Cross supply?"
Patsy shook her head. "You see, they only kept me until they had
demonstrated all they knew about lung disorders--and fresh-air
treatment, and then they dismissed me. I'm fearsome they were after
finding out I hadn't the making of a nurse."
"That's too bad! What are you going to do now?"
An amused little smile twitched at the corners of Patsy's mouth; it
acted as if it wanted to run loose all over her face. "Sure, I
haven't my mind made--quite. And yourself?"
"Oh--I?" Marjorie Schuyler leaned forward a trifle. "Did you know I
was engaged?"
"Betrothed? Holy Saint Bridget bless ye!" And the vagabond gloves
clasped the slender hands of the American prototype and gave them a
hard little squeeze. "Who's himself?"
"It's Billy Burgeman, son of _the_ Burgeman."
"Old King Midas?"
"That's a new name for him."
"It has fitted him years enough." Patsy's face sobered. "Oh, why does
money always have to mate with money? Why couldn't you have married a
poor great man--a poet, a painter, a thinker, a dreamer--some one who
ought not to be bound down by his heels to the earth for
bread-gathering or shelter-building? You could have cut the thongs
and sent him soaring--given the world another 'Prometheus Unbound.'
As for Billy Burgeman--he could have married--me," and Patsy spread
her hands in mock petition.
Marjorie Schuyler laughed. "You! That is too beautifully delicious!
Why, Patsy O'Connell, William Burgeman is the most conventional young
gentleman I have ever met in my life. You would shock him into a
semi-comatose condition in an afternoon--and, pray, what would you
do with him?"
"Sure, I'd make a man of him, that's what. His father's son might
need it, I'm thinking."
Marjorie Schuyler's face became perfectly blank for a second, then
she leaned against the baronial arms on the back of her seat, tilted
her head, and mused aloud: "I wonder just what Billy Burgeman does
lack? Sometimes I've wondered if it was not having a mother, or
growing up without brothers or sisters, or living all alone with his
father in that great, gloomy, walled-in, half-closed house. It is not
a lack of manhood--I'm sure of that; and it's not lack of caring, for
he can care a lot about some things. But what is it? I would give a
great deal to know."
"If the tales about old King Midas have a thruppence worth of truth
in them, it might be his father's meanness that's ailing him."
Marjorie Schuyler shook her head. "No; Billy's almost a prodigal. His
father says he hasn't the slightest idea of the value of money; it's
just so much beans or shells or knives or trading pelf with him;
something to exchange for what he calls the real things of life. Why,
when he was a boy--in fact, until he was almost grown--his father
couldn't trust Billy with a cent."
"Who said that--Billy or the king?"
"His father, of course. That's why he has never taken Billy into
business with him. He is making Billy win his spurs--on his own
merits; and he's not going to let him into the firm until he's worth
at least five thousand a year to some other firm. Oh, Mr. Burgeman
has excellent ideas about bringing up a son! Billy ought to amount to
a great deal."
"Meaning money or character?" inquired Patsy.
Marjorie Schuyler looked at her sharply. "Are you laughing?"
"Faith, I'm closer to weeping; 'twould be a lonesome, hard rearing
that would come to a son of King Midas, I'm thinking. I'd far rather
be the son of his gooseherd, if I had the choosing."
She leaned forward impulsively and gathered up the hands of the girl
opposite in the warm, friendly compass of those vagabond gloves. "Do
ye really love him, _cailin a'sthore_?" And this time it was her look
that was sharp.
"Why, of course I love him! What a foolish question! Why should I be
marrying him if I didn't love him? Why do you ask?"
"Because--the son of King Midas with no mother, with no one at all
but the king, growing up all alone in a gloomy old castle, with no
one trusting him, would need a great deal of love--a great, great
deal--"
"That's all right, Ellen. I'll find her for myself." It was a man's
voice, pitched overhigh; it came from somewhere beyond and below the
inclosing curtains and cut off the last of Patsy's speech.
"That's funny," said Marjorie Schuyler, rising. "There's Billy now.
I'll bring him in and let you see for yourself that he's not at all
an object of sympathy--or pity."
She disappeared into the library, leaving Patsy speculating
recklessly. They must have met just the other side of the closed
hangings, for to Patsy their voices sounded very near and close
together.
"Hello, Billy!"
"Listen, Marjorie; if a girl loves a man she ought to be willing to
trust him over a dreadful bungle until he could straighten things out
and make good again--that's true, isn't it?"
"Billy Burgeman! What do you mean?"
"Just answer my question. If a girl loves a man she'll trust him,
won't she?"
"I suppose so."
"You know she would, dear. What would the man do if she didn't?"
The voice sounded strained and unnatural in its intensity and appeal.
Patsy rose, troubled in mind, and tiptoed to the only other door in
the den.
"'Tis a grand situation for a play," she remarked, dryly, "but 'tis
a mortial poor one in real life, and I'm best out of it." She turned
the knob with eager fingers and pulled the door toward her. It opened
on a dumbwaiter shaft, empty and impressive. Patsy's expression would
have scored a hit in farce comedy. Unfortunately there was no
audience present to appreciate it here, and the prompter forgot to
ring down the curtain just then, so that Patsy stood helpless, forced
to go on hearing all that Marjorie and her leading man wished to
improvise in the way of lines.
"... I told you, _forged_--"
Patsy was tempted to put her fingers in her ears to shut out the
sound of his voice and what he was saying, but she knew even then she
would go on hearing; his voice was too vibrant, too insistent, to be
shut out.
"... my father's name for ten thousand. I took the check to the bank
myself, and cashed it; father's vice-president.... Of course the
cashier knew me.... I tell you I can't explain--not now. I've got to
get away and stay away until I've squared the thing and paid father
back."
"Billy Burgeman, did you forge that check yourself?"
"What does that matter--whether I forged it or had it forged or saw
it forged? I tell you I cashed it, knowing it was forged. Don't you
understand?"
"Yes; but if you didn't forge it, you could easily prove it; people
wouldn't have to know the rest--they are hushing up things of that
kind every day."
A silence dropped on the three like a choking, blinding fog. The two
outside the hangings must have been staring at each other, too
bewildered or shocked to speak. The one inside clutched her throat,
muttering, "If my heart keeps up this thumping, faith, he'll think
it's the police and run."
At last the voice of the man came, hushed but strained almost to
breaking. To Patsy it sounded as if he were staking his very soul in
the words, uncertain of the balance. "Marjorie, you don't understand!
I cashed that check because--because I want to take the
responsibility of it and whatever penalty comes along with it. I
don't believe father will ever tell. He's too proud; it would strike
back at him too hard. But you would have to know; he'd tell you; and
I wanted to tell you first myself. I want to go away knowing you
believe and trust me, no matter what father says about me, no matter
what every one thinks about me. I want to hear you say it--that you
will be waiting--just like this--for me to come back to when I've
squared it all off and can explain.... Why, Marjorie--Marjorie!"
Patsy waited in an agony of dread, hope, prayer--waited for the
answer she, the girl he loved, would make. It came at last, slowly,
deliberately, as if spoken, impersonally, by the foreman of a jury:
"I don't believe in you, Billy. I'm sorry, but I don't believe I
could ever trust you again. Your father has always said you couldn't
take care of money; this simply means you have got yourself into some
wretched hole, and forging your father's name was the only way out of
it. I suppose you think the circumstances, whatever they may be, have
warranted the act; but that act puts a stigma on your name which
makes it unfit for any woman to bear; and if you have any spark of
manhood left, you'll unwish the wish--you will unthink the
thought--that I would wait--or even want you--ever--to come back."
A cry--a startled, frightened cry--rang through the rooms. It did not
come from either Marjorie or her leading man. Patsy stood with a
vagabond glove pressed hard over her mouth--quite unconscious that
the cry had escaped and that there was no longer need of
muzzling--then plunged headlong through the hangings into the
library. Marjorie Schuyler was standing alone.
"Where is he--your man?"
"He's gone--and please don't call him--that!"
"Go after him--hurry--don't let him go! Don't ye understand? He
mustn't go away with no one believing in him. Tell him it's a
mistake; tell him anything--only go!"
While Patsy's tongue burred out its Irish brogue she pushed at the
tall figure in front of her--pushed with all her might. "Are ye
nailed to the floor? What's happened to your feet? For Heaven's sake,
lift them and let them take ye after him. Don't ye hear? There's the
front door slamming behind him. He'll be gone past your calling in
another minute. Dear heart alive, ye can't be meaning to let him
go--this way!"
But Marjorie Schuyler stood immovable and deaf to her pleading.
Incredulity, bewilderment, pity, and despair swept over Patsy's face
like clouds scudding over the surface of a clear lake. Then scorn
settled in her eyes.
"I'm sorry for ye, sorry for any woman that fails the man who loves
her. I don't know this son of old King Midas; I never saw him in my
life, and all I know about him is what ye told me this day and scraps
of what he had to say for himself; but I believe in him. I know he
never forged that check--or used the money for any mean use of his
own. I'd wager he's shielding some one, some one weaker than he, too
afeared to step up and say so. Why, I'd trust him across the world
and back again; and, holy Saint Patrick! I'm going after him to tell
him so."
For the second time within a few seconds Marjorie Schuyler listened
and heard the front door slam; then the goddess came to life. She
walked slowly, regally, across the library and passed between the
hangings which curtained her den. Her eyes, probably by pure chance,
glanced over the shimmering contents of the waste-basket. A little
cold smile crept to the corners of her mouth, while her chin
stiffened.
"I think, Toto," she said, addressing the toy ruby spaniel, "that it
will not be even a June wedding," and she laughed a crisp, dry little
laugh.
III
PATSY PLAYS A PART
Patsy ran down the steps of the Schuyler house, jumping the last
four. As her feet struck the pavement she looked up and down the
street for what she sought. There it was--the back of a
fast-retreating man in a Balmacaan coat of Scotch tweed and a round,
plush hat, turning the corner to Madison Avenue. Patsy groaned
inwardly when she saw the outlines of the figure; they were so
conventional, so disappointing; they lacked simplicity and
directness--two salient life principles with Patsy.
"Pshaw! What's in a back?" muttered Patsy. "He may be a man, for all
his clothes;" and she took to her heels after him.
As she reached the corner he jumped on a passing car going south.
"Tracking for the railroad station," was her mental comment, and she
looked north for the next car following; there was none. As far as
eye could see there was an unbroken stretch of track--fate seemed
strangely averse to aiding and abetting her deed.
"When in doubt, take a taxi," suggested Patsy's inner consciousness,
and she accepted the advice without argument.
She raced down two blocks and found one. "Grand Central--and
drive--like the devil!"
As the door clicked behind her her eye caught the jumping indicator,
and she smiled a grim smile. "Faith, in two-shilling jumps like that
I'll be bankrupt afore I've my hand on the tails of that coat." And
with a tired little sigh she leaned back in the corner, closed her
eyes, and relaxed her grip on mind and will and body.
A series of jerks and a final stop shook her into a thinking, acting
consciousness again; she was out of the taxi in a twinkling--with the
man paid and her eyes on the back of a Balmacaan coat and plush hat
disappearing through a doorway. She could not follow it as fast as
she had reckoned. She balanced corners with a stout, indeterminate
old gentleman who blocked her way and insisted on wavering in her
direction each time she tried to dodge him. In her haste to make up
for those precious lost seconds she upset a pair of twins belonging
to an already overburdened mother. These she righted and went dashing
on her way. Groups waylaid her; people with time to kill sauntered
in front of her; wandering, indecisive people tried to stop her for
information; and she reached the gate just as it was closing. Through
it she could see--down a discouraging length of platform--a
Balmacaaned figure disappearing into a car.
"Too late, lady; train's leaving."
It was well for Patsy that she was ignorant of the law governing
closing gates and departing trains, for the foolish and the ignorant
can sometimes achieve the impossible. She confronted the guard with a
look of unconquerable determination. "No, 'tisn't; the train guard is
still on the platform. You've got to let me through."
She emphasized the importance of it with two tight fists placed not
overgently in the center of the guard's rotundity, and accompanied by
a shove. In some miraculous fashion this accomplished it. The gate
clanged at Patsy's back instead of in her face, as she had expected.
A bell rang, a whistle tooted, and Patsy's feet clattered like mad
down the platform.
A good-natured brakeman picked her up and lifted her to the rear
platform of the last car as it drew out. That saved the day for
Patsy, for her strength and breath had gone past summoning.
"Thank you," she said, feebly, with a vagabond glove held out in
proffered fellowship. "That's the kindest thing any one has done for
me since I came over."
"Are ye--"
"Irish--same as yourself."
"How did ye know?"
"Sure, who but an Irishman would have had his wits and his heart
working at the same time?" And with a laugh Patsy left him and went
inside.
Her eye ran systematically down the rows of seats. Billy Burgeman was
not there. She passed through to the next car, and a second, and a
third. Still there was no back she could identify as belonging to the
man she was pursuing.
She was crossing a fourth platform when she ran into the conductor,
who barred her way. "Smoking-car ahead, lady; this is the last of the
passenger-coaches."
Patsy had it on the end of her tongue to say she preferred
smoking-cars, intending to duck simultaneously under the conductor's
arm and enter, willy-nilly. But the words rolled no farther than the
tongue's edge. She turned obediently back, re-entering the car and
taking the first seat by the door. For this her memory was
responsible. It had spun the day's events before her like a roulette
wheel, stopping precisely at the remark of Marjorie Schuyler's
concerning William Burgeman: "He's the most conventional young
gentleman I ever saw in my life. Why, you would shock--"
A strange young woman doling out consolation to him in a smoking-car
would be anything but a dramatic success; Patsy felt this all too
keenly. He was decidedly not of her world or the men and women she
knew, who gave help when the need came regardless of time, place,
acquaintanceship, or sex.
"Faith, he's the kind that will expect an introduction first, and a
month or two of tangoing, tea-drinking, and tennis-playing; after
which, if I ask his permission, he might consider it proper--" Patsy
groaned. "Oh, I hate the man already!"
"Ticket!"
"Ticket? What for?"
"What for? Do you think this is a joy ride?" The conductor radiated
sarcasm.
Patsy crimsoned. "I haven't mine. I--I was to--meet my--aunt--who had
the ticket--and--she must have missed the train."
"Where are you going?"
"I--I--Why, I was telling--My aunt had the tickets. How would I know
where I was going without the tickets?"
The conductor snorted.
Patsy looked hard at him and knew the time had come for wits--good,
sharp O'Connell wits. She smiled coaxingly. "It sounds so stupid,
but, you see, I haven't an idea where I am going. I was to meet my
aunt and go down with her to her summer place. I--I can't remember
the name." Her mouth drooped for the fraction of a second, then she
brightened all over. "I know what I can do--very probably she missed
the train because she expects to be at the station to meet me--I can
look out each time the train stops, and when I see her I can get off.
That makes it all right, doesn't it?" And she smiled in open
confidence as a sacrificial maiden might have propitiated the dragon.
But it was not reciprocated. He eyed her scornfully. "And who pays
for the ticket?"
"Oh!" Patsy caught her breath; then she sent it bubbling forth in a
contagious laugh. "I do--of course. I'll take a ticket to--just name
over the stations, please?"
The conductor growled them forth: "Hampden, Forestview, Hainsville,
Dartmouth, Hudson, Arden, Brambleside, Mayberry, Greyfriars--"
"What's that last--Greyfriars? I'll take a ticket to Greyfriars." She
said it after the same fashion she might have used in ordering a
mutton chop at a restaurant, and handed the conductor a bill.
When he had given her the change and passed on, still disgruntled,
Patsy allowed herself what she called a "temporary attack of private
prostration."
"Idiot!" she groaned in self-address. "Ye are the biggest fool in two
continents; and the Lord knows what Dan would be thinking of ye if he
were topside o' green earth to hear." Whereupon she gripped one
vagabond glove with the other--in fellow misery; and for the second
time that afternoon her eyes closed with sheer exhaustion.
* * * * *
The train rumbled on. Each time it stopped Patsy watched the doorway
and the window beside her for sight of her quarry; each time it
started again she sighed inwardly with relief, glad of another
furlough from a mission which was fast growing appalling. She had
long since ceased to be interested in Billy Burgeman as an
individual. He had shrunk into an abstract sense of duty, and as such
failed to appeal or convince. But as her interest waned, her
determination waxed; she would get him and tell him what she had come
for, if it took a year and a day and shocked him into complete
oblivion.
She was saying this to herself for the hundredth time, adding for
spice--and artistic finish--"After that--the devil take him!" when
the train pulled away from another station. She had already satisfied
herself that he was not among the leaving passengers. But suddenly
something familiar in a solitary figure standing at the far end of
the gravel embankment caught her eye; it was back toward her, and in
the quick passing and the gathering dusk she could make out dim
outlines only. But those outlines were unmistakable, unforgetable.
"A million curses on the house of Burgeman!" quoth Patsy. "Well,
there's naught for it but to get off at the next station and go
back."
The conductor watched her get off with a distinct feeling of relief.
He had very much feared she was not a responsible person and in no
mental position to be traveling alone. Her departure cleared him of
all uneasiness and obligation and he settled down to his business
with an unburdened mind. Not so Patsy. She blinked at the vanishing
train and then at her empty hands, with the nearest she had ever come
in her life to utter, abject despair. She had left her bag in the
car!
When articulate thinking was possible she remarked, acridly, "Ye need
a baby nurse to mind ye, Patricia O'Connell; and I'm not sure but ye
need a perambulator as well." She gave a tired little stretch to her
body and rubbed her eyes. "I feel as if this was all a silly play and
I was cast for the part of an Irish simpleton; a low-comedy
burlesque--that ye'd swear never happened in real life outside of
the county asylums."
A headlight raced down the track toward her and the city, and she
gathered up what was left of her scattered wits. As the train slowed
up she stepped into the shadows, and her eye fell on the open
baggage-car. She smiled grimly. "Faith! I have a notion I like
brakemen and baggagemen better than conductors."
And so it came to pass as the train started that the baggageman, who
happened to be standing in the doorway, was somewhat startled to see
a small figure come racing toward it out of the dusk and land
sprawling on the floor beside him.
"A girl tramp!" he ejaculated in amazement and disgust, and then, as
he helped her to her feet, "Don't you know you're breaking the law?"
She laughed. "From the feelings, I thought it was something else."
She sobered and turned on him fiercely. "I want ye to understand I've
paid my fare on the train out, which entitled me to one continuous
passage--_with my trunk_. Well, I'm returning--_as my trunk_, I'll
take up no more room and I'll ask no more privileges."
"That may sound sensible, but it's not law," and the man grinned
broadly. "I'm sorry, miss, but off you go at the next station."
"All right," agreed Patsy; "only please don't argue. Sure, I'm sick
entirely of arguing."
She dropped down on a trunk and buried her face in her hands. The
baggageman watched her, hypnotized with curiosity and wonder. At the
next station he helped her to drop through the opening she had
entered, and called a shamefaced "good-by" after her in the dusk.
She hunted up the station-agent and received scanty encouragement:
Very likely he had seen such a man; there were many of that
description getting off every day. They generally went to the
Inn--Brambleside Inn. The season was just open and society people
were beginning to come. No, there was no conveyance. The Inn's 'buses
did not meet any train after the six-thirty from town, unless ordered
especially by guests. Was she expected?
Patsy was about to shake her head when a roadster swung around the
corner of the station and came to a dead stop in front of where she
and the station-master were standing.
The driver peered at her through his goggles in a questioning,
hesitating manner. "Is this--are you Miss St. Regis?" he finally
asked.
"Miriam St. Regis?" Patsy intended it for a question, realizing even
as she spoke the absurdity of inquiring the name of an English
actress at such a place.
But the driver took it for a statement of identity. "Yes, of course,
Miss Miriam St. Regis. Mr. Blake made a mistake and thought because
your box came from town you'd be coming that way. It wasn't until
your manager, Mr. Travis, telephoned half an hour ago that he
realized you'd be on that southbound train. Awfully sorry to have
kept you waiting. Step right in, please."
Whereupon the driver removed himself from the roadster, assisted her
to a seat, covered her with a rug--for early June evenings can be
rather sharp--and the next moment Patsy found herself tearing down a
stretch of country road with the purr of a motor as music to her
ears.
"Sure, I don't know who wrote the play and starred me in it," she
mused, dreamily, "but he certainly knows how to handle situations."
For the space of a few breaths she gave herself over completely to
the luxury of bodily comfort and mental inertia. It seemed as if she
would have been content to keep on whirling into an eternity of
darkness--with a destination so remote, and a mission so obscure, as
not to be of the slightest disturbance to her immediate
consciousness. All she asked of fate that moment was the blessedness
of nothing; and for answer--her mind was jerked back ruthlessly to
the curse of more complexities.
The lights of a large building in the distance reminded her there was
more work for her wits before her and no time to lose. "I must
think--think--think, and it grows harder every minute. If Miriam St.
Regis is coming here, it means, like as not, she's filling in between
seasons, entertaining. Well, until she comes, they're all hearty
welcome to the mistake they've made. And afterward--troth! there'll
be a corner in her room for me the night, or Saint Michael's a
sinner; either way, 'tis all right."
The driver unbundled her and helped her out as courteously as he had
helped her in. He led the way across a broad veranda to the main
entrance, and there she fell behind him as he pushed open the great
swinging door.
"Oh, that you, Masters? Did Miss St. Regis come?"
"Sure thing, sir; she's right here."
The next moment Patsy stood in a blaze of lights between a personally
conducting chauffeur and a pompous hotel manager, who looked down
upon her with distrustful scrutiny. She was wholly aware of every
inch of her appearance--the shabbiness of her brown Norfolk suit,
the rakishness of her boyish brown beaver hat, and the vagabond
gloves. But of what value is the precedent of having been found
hanging on the thorn of a Killarney rose-bush by the Physician to
the King, of what value is the knowledge of past kinship with a
certain Dan O'Connell, if one allows a little matter of clothes to
spoil one's entrance and murder one's lines?
The blood came flushing back into Patsy's cheeks, turning them the
color of thorn bloom, and her eyes deepened to the blue of Killarney,
sparkling as when the sun goes a-dancing. She smiled--a fresh,
radiant, witching smile upon that clay lump of commercialism--until
she saw his appraisement of her treble its original figure.
Then she said, sweetly: "I have had rather a hard time getting here,
Mr. Blake; making connections in your country is not always as simple
as one might expect. My room, please." And with an air of a grand
duchess Patsy O'Connell, late of the Irish National Players, Dublin,
and later of the women's free ward of the City Hospital, led the way
across one of the most brilliant summer hotel foyers in America.
As she entered the elevator a young man stepped out--a young man with
a small, blond, persevering mustache, a rather thin, esthetic,
melancholy face, and a myopic squint. He wore a Balmacaan of Scotch
tweed and carried a round, plush hat.
Patsy turned to the bell-boy. "Did that man arrive to-night?"
"Yes, miss; I took him up."
"What is his name--do you know?"
"Can't say, miss. I'll find out, if you like."
"There is no need. I rather think I know it myself." And under her
breath she ejaculated, "Saint Peter deliver us!"
IV
THE OCCUPANT OF A BALMACAAN COAT
Safe in her room, with the door closed and locked, Patsy stood
transfixed before a trunk--likewise closed and locked.
"Thank Heaven for many blessings!" she said, fervently. "Thank Heaven
Miriam St. Regis has worn wigs of every conceivable color and style
on the stage, so there is small chance of any one here knowing the
real color of her hair. Thank Heaven she's given to missing her
engagements and not wiring about it until the next day. Thank Heaven
I've played with her long enough to imitate her mannerisms, and know
her well enough to explain away the night, if the need ever comes.
Thank Heaven that George Travis is an old friend and can help out, if
I fail. Thank Heaven for all of these! But, holy Saint Patrick! how
will I ever be getting inside that box?"
On the heels of her fervor came an inspiration. Off came her gloves
and hat, off came coat and skirt, blouse and shoes, and into the
closet they all went. For, whereas Patsy could carry off her
shabbiness before masculine eyes, she had neither the desire nor the
fortitude to brave the keener, more critical gaze of her own sex. It
was always for the women that Patsy dressed, and above all else did
she stand in awe of the opinion of the hotel chambermaid, going down
in tottering submission before it. Unlocking her door, she rang the
bell; then crept in between the covers of her bed, drawing them up
about her.
The chambermaid came and Patsy ordered the housekeeper. The
housekeeper came and Patsy explained to her the loss of her bag--the
loss of the keys was only implied; it was a part of Patsy's creed of
life never to lie unless cornered. She further implied that she was
entertaining no worry, as a well-appointed hotel always carried a
bunch of skeleton trunk keys for the convenience of their guests.
Patsy's inspiration worked to perfection. In a few minutes the Inn
had proved itself a well-appointed hostelry, and the trunk stood open
before her. Alone again, she slipped out of bed--to lock the door and
investigate. A wistaria lounging-robe was on in a twinkling, with
quilted slippers to match. Then Patsy's eager fingers drew forth a
dark emerald velvet, with bodice and panniers of gold lace, and she
clasped it ecstatically in her arms.
"Miriam always had divine taste, but the faeries must have guided her
hand for the choosing of this. Sure, I'd be feeling like a king's
daughter if I wasn't so weak and heartsick. I feel more like a young
gosling that some one has coaxed out of its shell a day too soon. Is
it the effect of Billy Burgeman, I wonder, or the left-overs from the
City Hospital, or an overdose of foolishness--or hunger, just?"
"Miss St. Regis" dined in her own room, and she dined like a king's
daughter, with an appetite whetted by weeks of convalescing, charity
fare. Even the possible appearance at any minute of her original self
offered no terrors for her in the presence of such a soul-satisfying,
hunger-appeasing feast.
* * * * *
At nine-thirty that evening, when the manager sent the hall-boy to
call her, she looked every inch the king's daughter she had dined.
The hall-boy, accustomed to "creations," gave her a frank stare of
admiration, which Patsy noted out of the tail of her eye.