Four months later. Twelve o'clock at night. Wrapped up in my eiderdown
bath-robe. Sitting at my desk.
It is midnight. I cannot sleep. I have been lying wide awake, listening
to a strong April wind, howling around the corner of the house, for
two hours! I've repeated the twenty-third Psalm over and over again.
I've imagined a flock of sheep going over a stile (though I never saw
it done) for ten minutes solid. I've swallowed two Veronal tablets.
It's useless. I surrender. I don't want to get up. I shall have an
awful headache to-morrow, besides heavy lead weights behind my eyes;
and to-morrow--to-morrow of all days--I want to be fresh and bright and
as beautiful as nature can make me. Moreover, I'd rather not write.
But I can't read. There has never been a book printed that could hold
my thoughts to-night. My mind goes back to the events of the day like
steel to a magnet. I've tried solitaire, and ended by pushing the silly
cards on the floor. You see something has happened--something big and
actual and real!
I have seen Dr. Maynard!
I have met him face to face, talked with him, laughed with him, walked
with him from Charles Street to the sunken garden, sat with him by the
fountain. I am beside myself with excitement. I had better tell how it
all happened. If I get it out of my system I may be able to snatch
a little sleep, and I _must_ sleep. I have an important engagement
to-morrow at three.
It occurred at four o'clock this afternoon. I had bought a bunch of
primroses from a man on the street five minutes before. I was on my
way home from a shopping tour, and with my pretty early-spring flowers
tucked in at my waist, and my hands full of packages, I turned up
Charles Street as unconcerned as you please. At the corner I bowed to
our minister's wife, and the remains of the smile were still on my
face, I suppose, when I saw Dr. Maynard. I didn't know that he was on
this side of the ocean, and when I observed him coming down the steps
of the postoffice--vigorous and strong and buoyant--I stood still in
my tracks, and the remains of the smile turned into something startled
and afraid. Dr. Maynard approached me all aglow, stretched out his hand
and took mine in a warm, firm grasp. A thrill went through me like a
knife. He was as natural as day, beautifully tanned, smiling, big,
broad-shouldered as ever, and yet different--oh, awfully different.
"Hello, Bobbie," he said in his hearty old voice, and I looked back at
him, perfectly white--I could feel that I was--and speechless. "Don't
be a goose. It's just Dr. Maynard," I tried to reason with myself.
"Am I speaking to Miss Lucy Vars?" I heard asked of me. "Miss Lucy
Chenery Vars, of 240 Main Street, Hilton, Mass.?"
I nodded, and somewhere down there in the chaos in my chest, I found my
poor little voice. "Is it _you_?" I asked shakily.
"Well, I'm not quite sure. Nothing looks very natural around here. I'm
beginning to think I'm somebody else."
"Well, I _am_ surprised!" I exploded. "I certainly _am_ surprised!
Why, I never _was_ so surprised!" I stopped a minute. Dr. Maynard was
smiling right down into my eyes. "I never was so surprised in all my
life!" I repeated, as if I hadn't another idea in my head.
He leaned down just here and picked up a half-dozen bundles, more or
less, that I had dropped when we shook hands.
"I better help you carry some of these home, hadn't I?" he suggested.
"Oh, yes, _do_," I replied eagerly, and somehow we managed to walk back
to the house together.
I don't know through what streets we went, past what houses. I can
scarcely recall of what we talked. "He's come home! He's come home!
He's come home!" kept ringing in my ears over and over again, like
jubilant chimes. "Dr. Maynard has come home!" And whenever I looked
up and saw him smiling down at me--so naturally, so beautifully--it
seemed as if I should have to make a pirouette or two, right there on
the sidewalk. Every time he laughed I wanted to shout; every time he
remarked upon a new building or a new house, and especially when he
exclaimed, "Good heavens! What have we here?" at the sight of one of
the taxicabs, I wanted to turn a handspring. When he first came in view
of 240 Main Street and stood stock-still in his tracks, and gasped,
"Where's the cupola, and the French roof, and the iron fountain, and
the barn, and the apple orchard?" I wanted to throw my arms around
him for joy. I must have felt like a dog at the sight of his beloved
master whom he hasn't seen for months. It was so intoxicating to have
Dr. Maynard beside me again that it seemed as if I must express my joy
by jumping up on him, and half knocking him down. Which, of course,
I didn't do. My voice broke a dozen times, my underlip trembled, my
cheeks burned with excitement, but otherwise I walked along as sedately
as if it were an everyday occurrence to run across a man I believed was
hopelessly buried in a laboratory in Europe.
It was in the sunken garden that the most important part of our
conversation took place. You remember, don't you, that in my letters
to Dr. Maynard I had always been enthusiastic over the improvements
Edith has made on old 240. So now it was with apparent pride that I
led my old friend down the granolithic steps into the one-time apple
orchard. I showed him the cement-lined pool in the centre, the Italian
garden-seat, the rare shrubbery now bound up in yellow straw, with
something like delight. I was so full of exultation at the mere sight
of dear, kind, understanding Dr. Maynard that I could have rejoiced
about anything. When I exclaimed, "And there's a squash-court connected
with the garage, and a tennis-court as _smooth_ as _glass_ beside the
stable; and where the old potato-patch used to be, there's a pergola!"
my eyes fairly sparkled. "That sun-dial over there," I boasted, "was
designed especially for Edith; and oh, there's the dearest, slimmest
little stream of water that spouts out of the centre of the pool, in
the summer. You ought to see it!" I was all enthusiasm. Edith wouldn't
have recognised me. Ruth would have thought I had lost my reason. Even
Dr. Maynard looked at me curiously.
"It certainly is all very fine, I've no doubt," he remarked.
"Yes, isn't it?" I exclaimed.
"But I must confess," he went on. "_I_ never objected to the old apple
orchard. Just about where the pool is now, there used to grow the best
old Baldwins I ever tasted."
"Oh, my," I scoffed, "you ought to see the bouncing big Oregon apples
Edith buys by the crate."
Dr. Maynard shook his head and smiled. Then he came over and sat down
beside me on the Italian seat.
"Well, well," he sighed, "I suppose old Rip must get used to the
changes that have taken place since he's been asleep--squash-courts
and pergolas, great sweeping estates with granolithic drives and
sunken gardens; new hotels; new postoffices; instead of the roomy,
old-fashioned livery-stable hacks, taxicabs; instead of good old snappy
New England Baldwins, apples imported from Oregon; and instead of a
girl in a red Tam-o-Shanter and her father's old weather-beaten ulster,
sitting behind the wheel of a little one-lunger automobile, running it,
in all sorts of weather, like a young breeze--instead of that girl,"
said Dr. Maynard, looking me up and down closely, "a very correct and
up-to-date young lady in kid gloves and a veil, a smart black and white
checked suit, a very fashionable hat (_I_ should call it), with a bunch
of primroses, to cap it all, pinned jauntily at her waist."
I blushed with triumph.
"I've just about come to the conclusion," added Dr. Maynard in a kind
of wistful voice, "that I don't know San Francisco at all now."
"Well," I laughed waveringly, "I do hope you'll find it a little more
civilised than it was before."
"_I_ never thought it was uncivilised," said Dr. Maynard quietly; "_I_
rather enjoyed it just as it was, to tell the truth. I shall be sorry
to find many changes in it because I shall have to become acquainted
with it all over again and my time is so short."
"Short?" I exclaimed. I don't know why I had drawn the sudden
conclusion that Dr. Maynard had come back to stay. His very next words
put an end to my little half-hour of jubilance like the announcement of
a death.
"Yes," he said; "I'm sailing back to Germany in two weeks. I was
appointed an executor of a distant relative's will, and it seemed
necessary to come to New York and attend to it. Of course I couldn't
be so near--San Francisco, without coming to see how it prospered
after the earthquake. I'm glad to find you so happy, Bobbie. You've
richly earned all this," he glanced around the display that surrounded
us, "both you and Al, and it's really fine that the change in your
circumstances came about, when _you_, Lucy, were still a young
girl, and just ready to appreciate and enjoy good times, and pretty
surroundings, and new young people. Sometimes the apparent catastrophes
work out for our best happiness. You _are_ happy, aren't you, Bobbie?"
"Oh, yes--perfectly happy," I flashed indignantly.
"I thought so. Your enthusiasm brims over in your letters. Well, well,"
twitted Dr. Maynard, "who ever would have thought Al's little sister,
whom I used to call 'wild-cat,' would turn into a society girl--a
mighty popular one too, if _I'm_ any judge. Parties and engagements
all the time, I suppose. Now I'm just curious enough to wonder," went
on Dr. Maynard teasingly, while my feelings, hurt and enraged, were
working up to one of their habitual explosions, "which one of all
those admirers I hear mentioned in your letters sent you your pretty
primroses _this_ morning."
"No one sent them," I blurted out. "If you _must_ know, I bought them
myself five minutes before I saw you. Those men in my letters were
Ruth's friends, not mine."
Dr. Maynard glanced at me sharply.
"Oh," I went on fiercely, "I'm glad to know if you think that I'm
happy. It shows how well you understand me. Happy! I'm perfectly
miserable, if you want to know the truth. I hate and loathe and despise
all this display you say I've so richly earned. I hate parties, and
splurge, and sunken gardens, and pergolas, and I haven't a single
solitary admirer in the world. I thought you knew me, but I see you
don't. I thought if you ever came back _you'd_ understand, but you
don't--not one little single bit. I thought _you_--_you_--"
I stopped abruptly. There's no use trying to hide tears that run
shamelessly down your cheeks. It was absolutely necessary for me to
ask for my bag which Dr. Maynard held, and produce a handkerchief. He
didn't say anything as I mopped my eyes. I thought perhaps he was too
shocked to speak. He didn't offer me a single word of comfort--just sat
and waited. I didn't look at him; and still with my face turned away I
said, subdued, apologetically, "I don't see what is the matter with me
lately. You mustn't mind my being so silly. I'm always getting 'weepy'
for no reason at all." I opened my bag, tucked away my handkerchief, as
a sign that the storm was over, and stood up. "I hope you won't think
that I usually act this way with--with all those admirers of mine," I
added, smiling.
Dr. Maynard ignored my attempt at humour.
"Lucy," he said quietly, but in a voice and manner that made me start
and catch my breath, "my real reason for coming to America wasn't
the will. It was you." He stopped and I looked hard into the centre
of the dry pool. "I mistrusted some of your letters lately, though I
confess not at first--not until last fall. You've been overdoing your
enthusiasm this winter, Bobbie. So I decided to come over and find out
for myself if you had been trying to deceive me. The will offered a
good excuse, so here I am. And you _have_ been deceiving me--for two
whole years. Why, Bobbie," he said very softly, "what shall I do to
you?"
I glanced up and saw the old piercing tenderness in his eyes.
"Don't be kind to me," I warned hastily; "not _now_--not for anything.
_Please_, or I shall cry again."
I heard Dr. Maynard laugh the tenderest, gentlest kind of laugh, and
in a second both his arms were around me. Yes, both Dr. Maynard's arms
were close around me! I didn't cry. I just stayed there quiet and still
and safe; and I've been there in imagination about every moment since.
When he finally let me go he said simply, but in a queer trembling
voice, "Will you go to drive with me to-morrow afternoon at three, way
off into the country, away from pergolas and cement pools, and people?"
I nodded, unable to speak.
"All right. I'll be here. Good night," he said gently, and turned
abruptly and left me there alone in the garden.
I watched him hurry up the garden-steps and out of the gateway. He
turned once and waved his hand to the pitiful little wind-blown
creature he left behind in the bleak unbeautiful garden. I felt as
if he had torn me from my moorings and that I must toss and drift in
strange unknown seas until to-morrow at three.
I managed to gather my bundles together somehow, and come up here to
the house. My cheeks were flaming when I opened the door. I left my
packages in a chair in the hall and hurried up here to my room as
quickly as I could. Once here I locked my door tight and threw off my
things. "Oh, don't be silly; don't be absurd," I said, and buried my
face in the dark of my arms on my desk. "It's just Dr. Maynard," I went
on later, "and you know how you felt two years ago. Oh, be reasonable.
Be calm." But all the time that I was talking sense to myself, I
was feeling strong arms about my shoulders, and a kind of sinking,
fainting, going-out feeling that people must experience when they lose
consciousness, would steal over me so that I couldn't think.
Finally to put an end to my nonsense I opened a secret compartment and
took out Robert Dwinnell's picture. _He_ would cure me of my delusion;
_he_ would keep me true to my ideals. I gazed at Robert Dwinnell for a
solid sixty seconds, then deliberately, straight across the forehead,
down the nose, through the very smile that once had thrilled me, I tore
that poor picture into a thousand bits, and dumped the remains into the
waste-basket. It was a dreadful act. I felt like a murderess. I don't
know what made me do it, but Robert Dwinnell had lost his charm. Dr.
Maynard, glowing with health, his eyes fierce with a tenderness that
actually hurt, made my poor old idol look flat and insipid.
Some time later--ten minutes perhaps--an hour--I don't know--a maid
knocked and asked if I were coming down to dinner. I got up and
followed her mechanically, and for the life of me I don't know whether
there was roast-beef or lamb.
Now I am again locked in my room, and my soul is actually on fire. It
is as dark as death outdoors. Every one in the house is asleep. But I
am sitting here gazing at a little faded picture of an automobile which
I finally discovered in an old souvenir-book of mine. That little speck
there is Dr. Maynard and I am going to see him to-day at three!