had walked over the cliff and forgot ever to come back. Aye, and the
child played on till dark came and she fell asleep--there on the
door-sill, under the roses. 'Twas a neighbor, passing, that found
her, and carried her home to put to bed with her own children. After
that the child was taken away to a convent, and the rich children
called her '_la pauvre petite_,' shared their saints'-days' gifts
with her, and bought her candles that she might make a _novena_ to
bring her father back again. But 'twas her mother it brought
instead."
Patsy stopped again to listen to the veery; he was not singing alone
now, and she smiled wistfully. "See! he's found a friend, a comrade
to sing with him. That's grand!" Then she went back to the story:
"The child was taken from the convent in the night and by somber-clad
servants who seemed in a great hurry. She was brought a long way to a
chateau, one of the oldest and most beautiful in the south of France;
and a small, shrivel-faced man in royal clothes met her at the door
and carried her up great marble stairs to a chamber lighted by two
tall candles, just. They stopped on the threshold for a breath, and
the child saw that a woman was lying in the canopied bed--a very,
very beautiful woman. To the child she seemed some goddess--or saint.
"'Here is the child,' said the man; and the woman answered: 'Alone,
Rene. Remember you promised--alone.'
"After that the man left them together--the dying woman and her
child. Ah!--how can I be telling you the way she fondled and caressed
her! How starved were the lips that touched the child's hair, cheeks,
and eyelids! And when her strength failed she drew the child into her
tired arms and whispered fragments of prayers, haunting memories,
pitiful regrets. Of all the things she said the child remembered but
one: 'Gold buys plenty for the body, but nothing for the
heart--nothing--nothing!'
"And that kept repeating itself over and over in the child's mind.
She remembered it all through the night after they had taken her away
from those lifeless arms and she lay awake alone in a terrifying,
dark room; she remembered it all through the long day when she sat
beside the gorgeous catafalque that held her mother, and watched the
tall candles in the dim chapel burn lower and lower and lower. And
that was why she refused to stay afterward--and be taken care of by
the shrivel-faced man in that oldest and most beautiful chateau.
Instead she slipped out early one morning, before any one was awake
to see and mark the way she went. It is unbelievable, sometimes, how
children who have the will to do it can lose themselves. And so this
child--alone--went out into the world, empty-handed, seeking life."
"But did she go empty-handed?" asked the tinker.
"Aye, but not empty-hearted, thank God!"
"And wherever the child went, she carried with her that hatred of
gold," mused the tinker.
"Aye; why not? She had learned how pitifully little it was worth,
when all's said and done. 'Twas her father's name she heard last on
her mother's lips, and it was their child she prayed for with her
dying breath." Patsy sprang to her feet. "Do ye see--the moon will be
beating me to bed, and 'twas a poor tale, after all. How is your
foot?"
"Better--much better."
"Would ye be able to travel on it to-morrow?"
The tinker shook his head. "The day after, perhaps."
"Well, keep on coaxing it. Good night." And she had picked up her
basket and was gone before the tinker could stumble to his feet.
* * * * *
When the tinker woke the next morning the basket stood just inside
the stable door, linked through the pilgrim's staff. On investigation
it proved to contain his breakfast and an envelope, and the envelope
contained a ten-dollar bill and a letter, which read:
DEAR LAD,--I'll be well on the road when you get this; and
with a tongue in my head and luck at my heels, please God,
I'll reach Arden this time. You need not be afraid to use
the money--or too proud, either. It was honestly earned and
the charity of no one; you can take it as a loan or a
gift--whichever you choose. Anyhow, it will bring you after
me faster--which was your own promise.
Yours in advance,
P. O'CONNELL
Surprise, disappointment, indignation, amusement, all battled for the
upper hand; but it was a very different emotion from any of these
which finally mastered the tinker. He smoothed the bill very tenderly
between his hands before he returned it to the envelope; but he did
something more than smooth the envelope.
And meanwhile Patsy tramped the road to Arden.
XIII
A MESSAGE AND A MAP
This time there was no mistaking the right road; it ran straight past
Quality House to Arden--unbroken but for graveled driveways leading
into private estates. Patsy traveled it at a snail's pace. Now that
Arden had become a definitely unavoidable goal, she was more loath to
reach it than she had been on any of the seven days since the
beginning of her quest. However the quest ended--whether she found
Billy Burgeman or not, or whether there was any need now of finding
him--this much she knew: for her the road ended at Arden. What lay
beyond she neither tried nor cared to prophesy. Was it not enough
that her days of vagabondage would be over--along with the company of
tinkers and such like? There might be an answer awaiting her to the
letter sent from Lebanon to George Travis; in that case she could in
all probability count on some dependable income for the rest of the
summer. Otherwise--there were her wits. The very thought of them
wrung a pitiful little groan from Patsy.
"Faith! I've been overworking Dan's legacy long enough, I'm thinking.
Poor wee things! They're needing rest and nourishment for a while,"
and she patted her forehead sympathetically.
Of one thing she was certain--if her wits must still serve her, they
should do so within the confines of some respectable community; in
other words, she would settle down and work at something that would
provide her with bed and board until the fall bookings began. And,
the road and the tinker would become as a dream, fading with the
summer into a sweet, illusive memory--and a photograph. Patsy felt in
the pocket of her Norfolk for the latter with a sudden eagerness. It
had been forgotten since she had found the tinker himself; but, now
that the road was lengthening between them again, it brought her a
surprising amount of comfort.
"There are three things I shall have to be asking him--if he ever
fetches up in Arden, himself," mused Patsy as she loitered along.
"And, what's more, this time I'll be getting an answer to every one
of them or I'm no relation of Dan's. First, I'll know the fate of the
brown dress; he hadn't a rag of it about him--that's certain. Next,
there's that breakfast with the lady's-slippers. How did he come by
it? And, last of all, how ever did this picture come on the
mantel-shelf of a closed cottage where he knew the way of breaking in
and what clothes would be hanging in the chamber closets? 'Tis all
too great a mystery--"
"Why, Miss O'Connell--what luck!"
Patsy had been so deep in her musing that a horse and rider had come
upon her unnoticed. She turned quickly to see the rider dismounting
just back of her; it was Gregory Jessup.
"The top o' the morning to ye!" She broke into a glad laugh, blessing
that luck, herself, which had broken into her disquieting thoughts
and provided at least fair company and some news--perhaps. She held
out her hand in hearty welcome. "Are ye 'up so early or down so
late'?"
"I might ask that, myself. Is it the habit of celebrated Irish
actresses to tramp miles between sun-up and breakfast?"
"'Tis a habit more likely to fasten itself on French cooks, I'm
thinking," and Patsy smiled.
"Then how is a man to account for you?"
"He'd best not try; I'm a mortial poor person to account for. Maybe
I'm up early--getting my lines for the next act."
"Of course. What a stupid duffer I am! You must find us plain,
plodding Americans horribly short-witted sometimes. Don't you?"
Patsy shook a contradiction. "It's your turn, now. What fetched ye
abroad at this hour?"
Gregory Jessup slipped his arm through the horse's bridle and fell
into step with her. "Principally because I like the early morning
better than any other part of the day; it's fresh and sweet and
unspoiled--like some Irish actresses. There--please don't mind my
crude attempt at poetic--simile," for Patsy's eyes had snapped
dangerously. "If you only knew how rarely poetry or compliments ever
came to roost on this dry tongue, you really wouldn't want to
discourage them when it does happen. Besides, there was another
reason for my being up--a downright foolish reason."
Gregory Jessup accompanied the remark with a downright foolish smile,
and then lapsed into silence. In this fashion they walked to the bend
of the road where another graveled driveway branched forth; and here
the horse stopped of his own accord and whinnied.
"This is the Dempsy Carters' place--where I'm stopping," Gregory
explained.
"Aye, but the other reason?" Patsy reminded him, her eyes friendly
once more.
"Oh--the other reason; I told you it was a foolish one." He stood
rubbing his horse's nose and looking over the road they had come for
some seconds before he finally confessed to it. "It's Billy, you see.
Somehow it occurred to me that if he should be in trouble and at the
same time knowing his father was sick--dying--he might be hanging
around somewhere near here--uncertain just what to do--and not
wanting any one to see him. In that case, the best time to run across
him would be early morning before the rest of the people were awake
and up. Don't you think so?"
"It sounds more sensible than foolish; but I don't think ye'll ever
find him that way. If he was clever enough to let the earth swallow
him up, he's clever enough to keep swallowed. There's but one way to
reach him--and it's been in my mind since yester-eve."
A look of surprise came into Gregory Jessup's face. "Why, Miss
O'Connell! I had no idea what I said that day would fasten Billy on
your mind like this. It's awfully good of you; and he's a perfect
stranger--"
Patsy broke in with a whimsical chuckle. "Aye, I've grown overpartial
to strangers of late; but ye hearken to me. Ye'll have to leave a
sign by the roadside for him--if ye want to reach him. Otherwise
he'll see ye first and be gone before ever ye know he's about."
"What kind of a sign?"
"Faith! I'm not sure of that yet--myself. It must be something that
will put trust back in a lad and tell him to come home."
"And where would you put it?"
"Where? On the roadside, just, anywhere along the road he's used to
tramping."
Gregory Jessup's face lost its puzzled frown and became suddenly
illumined with an inspiration. "I know! By Hec! I've got it! There's
that path that runs down from the Burgeman estate to our old cottage.
It was a short cut for us kids, and we were almost the only ones to
use it. Billy would be far more likely to take that than the
highroad--and it leads to the Burgeman farm, too, run by an old
couple that simply adore Billy. He might go there when he wouldn't go
anywhere else. That's the place for a message. But what message?"
"I know!" Patsy clapped her hands. "Have ye a scrap of paper
anywheres about ye--and a pencil?"
Hunting through the pockets of his riding-clothes, Gregory Jessup
discovered a business letter, the back of which provided ample
writing space, and the stub of a red-ink pencil. "We use 'em in the
drafting-room," he explained. "If these will do--here's a desk," and
he raised the end of his saddle, supporting it with a large expanse
of palm.
Patsy accepted them all with a gracious little nod, and, spreading
the paper on the improvised desk, she wrote quickly:
"If it do come to pass
That any man turn ass,"
Thinking the world is blind
And trust forsworn mankind,
"Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame":
Here shall he find
Both trust and peace of mind,
An he but leave all foolishness behind.
"With apologies to Willie Shakespeare," Patsy chuckled again as she
returned paper and pencil to their owner. "Ye put it somewhere he'd
be likely to look--furninst something that would naturally take his
notice."
"I know just the spot--and they're in blossom now, too. I'll fasten
it to a rock, there, wedge it in the cracks. Billy won't miss it if
he comes within yards of the place." He grasped Patsy's hand with
growing fervor that gave promise of developing suddenly into almost
anything. "You're a brick, Miss O'Connell--a solid gold brick of a
girl, and I wish--"
"Take care!" warned Patsy. "Ye're not improving as fast in your
compliments as ye might--and there's no poetry in gold--for me."
Gregory Jessup looked puzzled, but his fervor did not abate one whit.
"I want you to promise me if you ever need a friend--if there is
anything I can ever do--"
"Ye can," interrupted Patsy, "and ye can do it now. Take that
riding-crop of yours and draw me a map in the dust there of the
country hereabouts--ye can make a cross for Arden.... That's grand.
Now where would ye put Brambleside Inn? And is it seven miles from
there to Arden?"
Gregory nodded an affirmative while he considered Patsy with grave
perplexity. Patsy saw it, and smiled reassuringly. "'Tis all right.
I've always had a great interest entirely to know the geography of
every new country--and I haven't the wits to discover it for myself.
Now where would ye put the cross-roads and the Catholic church? And
where would Lebanon be? Aye--Did ye ever see an old tabby chasing her
tail? Faith! 'tis a very intelligent spectacle, I'm thinking. Now
where might ye put the cross-roads where ye picked me up with the
Dempsy Carters?... And Dansville?... and the railroad bridge? ... and
the golf links, back yonder?"
She stood for many minutes, studying the rough chart in the dust at
her feet. The connecting lines of roads between the places named made
fully a hundred and twenty degrees of a circle about the cross
marking Arden. And as chance would have it, every one of the
encircling towns measured approximately seven miles from the central
cross. Patsy smiled, and the smile grew to a chuckle--and the chuckle
to a long, rippling laugh. Patsy was forced to hold her sides with
the ache of it.
"I know ye think I'm crazy--but 'tis the rarest bit of humor this
side of Ireland. Willie Shakespeare himself would steal it if he
could to put in one of his comedies. There is just one thing I'd like
to be knowing--how much of it was chance, and how much was the tricks
of a tinker?"
"I don't think I understand," mumbled Gregory Jessup.
"Of course ye don't," agreed Patsy. "I don't, myself. But there's one
thing more I'll be telling ye--if ye'll swear never to let it pass
your lips?"
Patsy paused for dramatic effect while Gregory Jessup bound himself
twice over to secrecy. "Well," she said, at length, "'tis this: If I
had the road to travel again I'd pray to Saint Brendan to keep my
feet fast to the wrong turn. That's what!"
Patsy left him, still looking after her in a puzzled fashion; and
with quickening steps she passed out of sight.
But once again did she stop; and again it was by a graveled driveway.
She was deep in green memories when a figure in nurse's uniform
coming down the drive caught her attention. She was immediately
reminded of two facts: that the Burgeman estate was in Arden, and
that Burgeman senior was dying. Impulsively she turned toward the
nurse.
"Is Mr. Burgeman any better this morning?"
"We hardly expect that." The nurse's tone was cordial but
professionally cautious.
"I know"--Patsy nodded wisely, as if she had been following the case
professionally herself--"but there is often a last rallying of
strength. Isn't there?"
"Sometimes. I hardly think there will be anything very lasting in Mr.
Burgeman's case. There are moments, now, when his strength and will
are remarkably vigorous--any other man would be in his bed."
"Oh! Then he is--up?"
"He's taken about on a wheeled chair or cot. He is too restless to
stay in any place very long. He seems more contented outdoors, where
he can watch--" She broke off abruptly. "Lovely morning--isn't it?
Good-by."
She turned about and went up the drive again. Patsy watched her go, a
strange, brooding look in her eyes. "So--he likes to be out of doors
best--where he can be watching. And if a body chanced to trespass
that way--she might come upon him, sudden like, and stay long enough
to set him a-thinking. Would it be too late, now, I wonder?"
She resumed her way--and her memories. She passed a half-dozen more
driveways and she climbed a hill; and when she came to the top she
found herself looking down on a thickly wooded hamlet. Spires and
gabled roofs broke the foliage here and there, and on the rising
slope beyond towered a veritable forest. Patsy stood on the brink of
the hill and gazed down long and thoughtfully; at last she flung out
her arms in an impetuous gesture of confirmation, while the old,
whimsical smile crept into her lips.
"'Aye, now am I in Arden, the more fool I; when I was at home, I was
in a better place--but travelers must be content.'" And taking a firm
grip of her memories, her wits, and her courage, she went down the
hill.
XIV
ENTER KING MIDAS
When Patsy at last reached Arden she went direct to the post-office
and was there confronted by a huge poster occupying an entire wall:
THE SYLVAN PLAYERS
Under the Management of Geo. Travis
Presenting Wm. Shakespeare's Comedy
"AS YOU LIKE IT"
In the Forest of Arden, on the Estate of Peterson-Jones, Esq.
The date given was Wednesday, the day following; and the cast
registered her name opposite Rosalind.
"So that's the answer to the letter I wrote, and a grand answer it
is. And that's the meaning of Janet Payne's remarks, and I never
guessed it." She heaved the faintest wisp of a sigh--it might have
been pleasure; it might have been a twinge of pain. "And I'm to be
playing the Duke's daughter, after all, at the end of the road."
She went to the general delivery and asked for mail. The clerk
responded with three letters; Patsy almost whistled under her breath.
Retiring to a corner, she looked them over and opened first the one
from George Travis:
DEAR IRISH PATSY,--You are a lucky beggar, and so am I. Here
comes the news of Miriam St. Regis's illness and the
canceling of all of her summer engagements in the same mail
as your letter.
Just think of it! Here you are actually in Arden all ready
for me to pick up and put in Miriam's place without having
to budge from my desk. The Sylvan Players open with "As You
Like It." If the critics like it--and you--as well as I
think they will, I'll book you straight through the summer.
Felton's managing for me, so please report to him on Monday
when he gets there. I may run down myself for a glimpse of
your work.
Yours,
G. TRAVIS.
P. S. More good luck. We are just in time to get your name
on the posters; and unless my memory greatly deceives me,
you will be able to walk right into all of Miriam's
costumes.
"Aye, they'll fit," agreed Patsy, with a chuckle. The second letter
was from Felton--dated Monday. He was worried over her continued
absence. He had not found her registered at either of the two
hotels, and the postal clerk reported her mail uncalled for. Would
she come to the Hillcrest Hotel at once. The third was from Janet
Payne, expressing her grief over Joseph's death, and their
disappointment at finding her gone the next morning when they motored
over to take her to Arden. They were all looking forward to seeing
her play on Wednesday.
Patsy returned the letters to their envelopes and marveled that her
new-found prosperity should affect her so drearily. Why was she not
elated, transported with the surprise and the sudden promise of
success? She was free to go now to a good hotel and sign for a room
and three regular meals a day. She could wire at once to Miss Gibbs,
of the select boarding-house, and have her trunk down in twenty-four
hours. In very truth, her days of vagabondage were over, yet the fact
brought her no happiness.
She hunted Felton up at the hotel and explained her absence: "Just a
week-end at one of the fashionable places. No, not exactly
professional. No, not social either. You might call it--providential,
like this."
The morning was spent meeting her fellow-players--going over the
text, trying on the St. Regis costumes, adjourning at last to the
estate of Peterson-Jones.
Until the middle of the afternoon they were busy with rehearsals: the
mental tabulating of new stage business, the adapting of strange
stage property, the accustoming of one's feet to tread gracefully
over roots and tangling vines and slippery patches of pine needles
instead of a good stage flooring. And through all this maze Patsy's
mind played truant. A score of times it raced off back to the road
again, to wait between a stretch of woodland and a grove of giant
pines for the coming of a grotesque, vagabond figure in rags.
"Come, come, Miss O'Connell; what's the matter?" Felton's usual
patience snapped under the strain of her persistent wit-wandering.
"I've had to tell you to change that entrance three times."
"Aye--and what is the matter?" Patsy repeated the question
remorsefully. "Maybe I've acquired the habit of taking the wrong
entrance. What can you expect from any one taking seven days to go
seven miles. I'm dreadfully sorry. If you'll only let me off this
time I promise to remember to-morrow; I promise!"
* * * * *
The day had been growing steadily hotter and more sultry. By five
o'clock every one who was doing anything, and could stop doing it,
went slothfully about looking for cool spots and cooler drinks.
Burgeman senior, alone with his servants on the largest estate in
Arden, ordered one of the nurses to wheel him to the border of his
own private lake--a place where breezes blew if there were any
about--and leave him there alone until Fitzpatrick, his lawyer, came
from town. And there he was sitting, his eyes on nothing at all, when
Patsy scrambled up the bank of the lake and dropped breathless under
a tree--not three feet from him.
"Merciful Saint Patrick! I never saw you! Maybe I'm trespassing,
now?"
"You are," agreed Burgeman senior in a colorless voice. "But I hardly
think any one will put you off the grounds--at least until you have
caught your breath."
"Thank you. Maybe the grounds are yours, now?" she questioned again.
The sick man signified they were by a slight nod.
"Well, 'tis the prettiest place hereabouts." Patsy offered the
information as if she had made the discovery herself and was
generously sharing it with him. "I'm a stranger; and when I saw yon
bit of cool, gray water, and the pines clustering round, and the wee
green faery isle in the midst--with the bridge holding onto it to
keep it from disappearing entirely--and the sand so white, and the
lawns so green--why, it looked like a Japanese garden set in a great
sedge bowl. Do you wonder I had to come closer and see it better?"
Burgeman said nothing; but the ghost of a feeling showed, the greed
of possession.
"And it all belongs to you. You bought it all--the lake and the woods
and the lawns." It was not a question, but a statement.
"I own three miles in every direction."
"Except that one." Patsy smiled as she pointed a finger upward. "Did
you ever think how generous the blessed Lord is to lend a bit of His
sky to put over the land men buy and fence in and call 'private
property'? It's odd how a body can think he owns something because he
has paid money for it; and yet the things that make it worth the
owning he hasn't paid for at all."
"What do you mean?"
"Would you think much of this place if you couldn't be looking yonder
and watching the clouds scud by, all turning to pink and flame color
and purple as the sun gathers them in? What would you do if no wild
flowers grew for you, or the birds forgot you in the spring and built
their nests and sang for your neighbor instead? And can you hire the
sun to shine by the day, or order the rain by the hogshead?"
Burgeman senior was contemplating her with genuine amazement. "I do
not believe I have ever heard any one put forth such extraordinary
theories before. May I ask if you are a socialist?"
"Bless you, no! I am a very ordinary human being, just; principally
human."
"Do you know who I am?"