X
She felt that the room was full of sunshine. Even through her glued-down
lids she caught the darting dazzle of it. She knew that the air was full
of bird voices. Even through her drowse-filmed ears, she caught the
singing sound of them. She would like to lift her lids. She would like
to wake up. But after all it was a little too easy to sleep. The impulse
with which she sank back to slumber was so soft that it was scarcely
impulse. It dropped her slowly into an enormous dark, a colossal quiet.
Presently she drifted to the top of that dark quiet. Again the sunlight
flowed into the channels of seeing. Again the birds picked on the
strings of hearing. By an enormous effort she opened her eyes.
She stared from her bed straight at a window. A big vine stretched films
of green leaf across it. It seemed to color the sunshine that poured
onto the floor--green. She looked at the window for a long time.
Presently she discovered among the leaves a crimson, vase-like flower.
"Why, how thick the trumpet-vine has grown!" she said aloud.
It seemed to her that there was a movement at her side. But that
movement did not interest her. She did not fall into a well this time.
She drifted off on a tide of sleep. Presently--perhaps it was an hour
later, perhaps five minutes--she opened her eyes. Again she stared at
the window. Again the wonder of growth absorbed her thought; passed out
of it. She looked about the room. Her little bedroom set, painted a soft
creamy yellow with long tendrils of golden vine, stood out softly
against the faded green cartridge paper.
"Why! Why have they put the bureau over there?" she demanded aloud of
the miniature of Glorious Lutie which hung beside the bureau. With a
vague alarm, her eyes sped from point to point. The dado of Weejubs
stood out as though freshly restored. But all her pictures were gone;
the four colored prints, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter--each the head
of a little girl, decked with buds or flowers, fruit or furs, had
vanished. The faded squares where they had hung showed on the walls. Oh,
woe, her favorite of all, "My Little White Kittens," had disappeared
too. On the other hand--on table, on bureau, and on commode-top--crowded
the little Chinese toys.
"Why, when did they bring them in from the Dew Pond?" she asked herself,
again aloud.
With a sudden stab of memory, she reached her hand up on the wall. How
curious! Only yesterday she could scarcely touch the spring; now her
hand went far beyond it. She pressed. The little panel opened slowly.
She raised herself in bed and looked through the aperture.
Glorious Lutie's room was stark--bare, save for a bed and her long
wooden writing-table.
Her thoughts flew madly ... suddenly her whole acceptance of things
crumbled. Why! She wasn't Cherie and eight. She was Susannah and
twenty-five; and the last time she had been anywhere she had been in New
York.... Lightnings of memory tore at her ... the Carbonado Mining
Company ... Eloise ... a Salvation Army woman on the street ... roofers.
Yet this was Blue Meadows. She did not have to pinch herself or press on
her sleepy eyelids. It _was_ Blue Meadows. The trumpet-vine, though as
gigantic as Jack's beanstalk, proved it. The painted furniture proved
it. The Chinese toys proved it. Yes, and if she wanted the final touch
that clinched all argument, there beside the head of the bed was the
maple gazelle. This really was not the final proof. The final proof was
human and it entered the room at that moment in the person of Mrs.
Spash. And Mrs. Spash--in her old, quaint inaccurate way--was calling
her as Cherry.
Susannah burst into tears.
* * * * *
"Oh, I feel so much better now," Susannah said after a little talk; more
sleep; then talk again. "I'm going to be perfectly well in a little
while. I want to get up. And oh, dear Mrs. Spash--do you remember how
sometimes I used to call you Mrs. Splash? I do want as soon as possible
to see Mr. Lindsay and his cousin--Miss Stockbridge, did you say? I want
to thank them, of course. How can I ever thank them enough? And I want
to talk to him about the biography. Oh, I'm sure I can give him so much.
And I can make out a list of people who can tell him all the things you
and I don't remember; or never knew. And then, in my trunk in New York,
is a package of all Glorious Lutie's letters to me. I think he will want
to publish some of them; they are so lovely, so full of our games--and
jingles, and even drawings. Couldn't I sit up now?"
"I don't see why not," Mrs. Spash said. "You've slept for nearly
twenty-six hours, Cherry. You waked up once--or half-waked up. We gave
you some hot milk and you went right to sleep again."
"It's going to make me well--just being at Blue Meadows," Susannah
prophesied. "If I could only stay-- But I'm grateful for a day, an
hour."
* * * * *
Later, she came slowly down the stairs--one hand on the rail, the other
holding Mrs. Spash's arm. She wore her faded creamy-pink, creamy-yellow
Japanese kimono, held in prim plaits by the broad sash, a big obi bow at
the back. Her red hair lay forward in two long glittering braids. Her
face was still pale, but her eyes overran with a lucent blue excitement.
It caught on her eyelashes and made stars there.
A slim young man in flannels; tall with a muscular litheness; dark with
a burnished tan; handsome; arose from his work at the long refectory
table. He came forward smiling--his hand outstretched. "My cousin, Miss
Stockbridge, has run in to Boston to do some shopping," he explained. "I
can't tell you how glad I am to see you up, or how glad she will be." He
took her disengaged arm and reinforced Mrs. Spash's efforts. They guided
her into a big wing chair. The young man found a footstool for her.
"I suppose I'm not dreaming, Mr. Lindsay," Susannah apprised him
tremulously. "And yet how can it be anything but a dream? I left this
place fifteen years ago and I have never seen it since. How did I get
back here? How did you find me? How did you know who I was? And what
made you so heavenly good as to bring me here? I remember fragments here
and there-- Mrs. Spash tells me I've had the flu."
Lindsay laughed. "That's all easily explained," he said with a
smoothness almost meretricious. "I happened to go to New York on
business. As usual I went to my friend Sparrel's apartment. You were ill
and delirious in the next room. I heard you; forced the door open and
sent at once for a doctor. He pronounced it a belated case of flu. So I
telephoned for Miss Stockbridge; we moved you into my apartment and
after you passed the crisis--thank God, you escaped pneumonia!--I asked
the doctor if I could bring you over here. He agreed that the country
air would be the very best thing for you, and yet would not advise me to
do it. He thought it was taking too great a risk. But I felt--I can't
tell you how strongly I felt it--that it would be the best thing for
you. My cousin stood by me, and I took the chance. Sometimes now,
though, I shudder at my own foolhardiness. You don't remember--or do
you?--that I went through the formality of asking your consent."
"I do remember now--vaguely," Susannah laughed. "Isn't it lucky I
didn't--in my weakness--say no?"
Lindsay laughed again. "I shouldn't have paid any attention to it, if
you had. I knew that this was what you needed. You were sleeping then
about twenty-five hours out of the twenty-four. So one night we brought
you in a taxi to the boat and took the night trip to Boston. The boat
was making its return trip that night, but I bribed them to let you stay
on it all day until it was almost ready to sail. Late in the afternoon,
we brought you in an automobile to Quinanog. You slept all the way. That
was yesterday afternoon. It was dark when we got here. You didn't even
open your eyes when I carried you into the house. In the meantime I had
wired Mrs. Spash--and she fixed up your room, as much like the way it
used to be when you were a child, as she could remember."
"It's all too marvelous," Susannah murmured. New brilliancies were
welling up into her turquoise eyes, the deep dark fringes of lash could
not hold them; the stars kept dropping off their tips. Fresh spurts of
color invaded her face. Nervously her long white hands pulled at her
coppery braids.
"There are so many questions I shall ask you," she went on, "when I'm
strong enough. But some I must ask you now. How did you happen to come
here? And when did the idea of writing Glorious Lutie's--my
aunt's--biography occur to you? And how did you come to know Mrs. Spash?
Where did you find the little Chinese toys? And my painted bedroom set?
And the sideboard there? And the six-legged highboy? Oh dear, a hundred,
thousand, million things. But first of all, how did you know that, now
being Susannah Ayer, I was formerly Susannah Delano?"
"There was the miniature of Miss Murray hanging on your wall. That made
me sure--in--in some inexplicable way--that you were the little lost
Cherry. And of course we went through your handbag to make sure. We
found some letters addressed to Susannah Delano Ayer. But will you tell
me how you _do_ happen to be Susannah Ayer, when you were formerly
Susannah Delano, alias Cherry--or Cherie?"
"I went from here to Providence to live with a large family of cousins.
Their name was Ayer, and I was so often called Ayer that finally I took
the name." Susannah paused, and then with a sudden impulse toward
confidence, she went on. "I grew up with my cousins. I was the youngest
of them all. The two oldest girls married, one a Californian, the other
a Canadian. I haven't seen them for years. The three boys are scattered
all over everywhere, by the war. My uncle died first; then my aunt. She
left me the five hundred dollars with which I got my business training."
The look of one who is absorbing passionately all that is being said to
him was on Lindsay's face. But a little perplexity troubled it.
"Glorious Lutie?" he repeated interrogatively.
"Oh, of course," Susannah murmured. "I always called her Glorious Lutie.
She always called me Glorious Susie--that is when she didn't call me
_Cherie_. And we had a game--the Abracadabra game. When she was telling
me a story--her stories were _marvels_; they went on for days and
days--and she got tired, she could always stop it by saying,
Abracadabra! If I didn't reply instantly with Abracadabra, the story
stopped. Of course she always caught my little wits napping--I was so
absorbed in the story that I could only stutter and pant, trying to
remember that long word."
"That's a Peter Ibbetson trick," Lindsay commented.
* * * * *
The talk, thus begun, lasted for the three hours which elapsed before
Miss Stockbridge's return. Two narratives ran through their talk;
Lindsay's, which dealt with superficial matters, began with his return
to America from France; Susannah's, which began with that sad day,
fifteen years ago, when she saw Blue Meadows for the last time. But
neither narrative went straight. They zig-zagged; they curved, they
circled. Those deviations were the result of racing up squirrel tracks
of opinion and theory; of little excursions into the allied experiences
of youth; even of talks on books. Once it was interrupted by the
noiseless entry of Mrs. Spash, who deposited a tray which contained a
glass of milk, a pair of dropped eggs, a little mound of buttered toast.
Susannah suddenly found herself hungry. She drained her glass, ate both
eggs, devoured the last crumb of toast.
After this, she felt so vigorous that she fell in with Lindsay's
suggestion that she walk to the door. There she stood on the door-stone
for a preoccupied, half-joyful, half-melancholy interval studying the
garden. Then, leaning on his arm, she ventured as far as the seat under
the copper-beech. Later, even, she went to the barn and the Dew Pond.
Before she could get tired, Lindsay brought her back, reestablishing her
in the chair. Then--and not till then--and following another impulse to
confide in Lindsay, Susannah told him the whole story of the Carbonado
Mining Company. Perhaps his point of view on that matter gave her her
second accession of vitality. He paced up and down the room during her
narrative; his hands, fists. But he laughed their threats to scorn. "Now
don't give another thought to that gang of crooks!" he adjured her. "I
know a man in New York--a lawyer. I'll have him look up that crowd and
put the fear of God into them. They'll probably be flown by that time,
however. Undoubtedly they were making ready for their getaway. Don't
think of it again. They can't hurt you half as much as that bee that's
trying to get in the door." He was silent for a moment, staring fixedly
down at his own manuscript on the table. "By God!" he burst out
suddenly, "I've half a mind to beat it on to New York. I'd like to be
present. I'd have some things to say--and do."
Somewhere toward the end of this long talk, "I've not said a word yet,
Mr. Lindsay," Susannah interpolated timidly, "of how grateful I am to
you--and your cousin. But it's mainly because I've not had the strength
yet. I don't know how I'm going to repay you. I don't know how I'm even
going to tell you. What I owe you--just in money--let alone eternal
gratitude."
"Now, that's all arranged," Lindsay said smoothly. "You don't know what
a find you were. You're an angel from heaven. You're a Christmas present
in July. For a long time I've realized that I needed a secretary.
Somebody's got to help me on Lutetia's life or I'll never get it done.
Who better qualified than Lutetia's own niece? In fact you will not only
be secretary but collaborator. As soon as you're well enough, we'll go
to work every morning and we'll work together until it's done."
Susannah leaned back, snuggled into the soft recess of the comfortable
chair. She dropped her lids over the dazzling brilliancy of her eyes. "I
suppose I ought to say no. I suppose I ought to have some proper pride
about accepting so much kindness. I suppose I ought to show some
firmness of mind, pawn all my possessions and get back to work in New
York or Boston. Girls in novels always do those things. But I know I
shall do none of them. I shall say yes. For I haven't been so happy
since Glorious Lutie died."
"Oh," Lindsay exclaimed quickly as though glad to reduce this dangerous
emotional excitement. "There comes the lost Anna Sophia Stockbridge.
She's a dandy. I think you'll like her. It's awfully hard not to."
* * * * *
The instant Susannah had disappeared with Miss Stockbridge up the
stairs, Mrs. Spash appeared in the Long Room. Apparently, she came with
a definite object--an object in no way connected with the futile dusting
movements she began to emit.
Lindsay watched her.
Suddenly Mrs. Spash's eyes came up; met his. They gazed at each other a
long moment; a gaze that was luminous with question and answer.
"She's gone," Lindsay announced after a while.
Mrs. Spash nodded briskly.
"She'll never come back," Lindsay added.
Again Mrs. Spash nodded briskly.
"They've all gone," Lindsay stated.
For the third time Mrs. Spash briskly nodded.
"When Cherie came, _they_ left," Lindsay concluded.
"They'd done what they wanted to do," Mrs. Spash vouchsafed. "Brought
you and Cherry together. So there was no need. She took them away. She'd
admire to stay. That's like her. But she don't want to make the place
seem--well, _queer_. So, as she allus did, she gives up her wish."
"Mrs. Spash," Lindsay exploded suddenly after a long pause, "we've
_never_ seen them. You understand we've never seen them; either of us.
They never were here."
Mrs. Spash nodded for the fourth time.
* * * * *
That night after his cousin and his guest had gone to bed, Lindsay
wandered about the place. The moon was big enough to turn his paths into
streams of light. He walked through the flower garden; into the barn;
about the Dew Pond. The tallest hollyhocks scarcely moved, so quiet was
the night. The little pond showed no ripple except a flash of the
moonlight. The barn was a cavern of gloom. Lindsay gazed at everything
as though from a new point of view.
An immeasurable content filled him.
After a while he returned to the house. His picture of Lutetia Murray
still hung over the mantel in the living-room. He gazed at it for a long
while. Then he turned away. As he looked down the length of the
living-room, there was in his face a whimsical expression, half of an
achieved happiness, half of a lurking regret. "This house has never been
so full of people since I've been here," he mused, "and yet never was it
so empty. My beloved ghosts, I miss you. But you've not all gone after
all. You've left one little ghost behind. Lutetia, I thank you for her.
How I wish you could come again to see.... But you're right. Don't come!
Not that I'm afraid. You're too lovely--"
His thoughts broke halfway. They took another turn. "I wonder if it ever
happened to any other man before in the history of the world to see the
little-girl ghost of the woman--"
* * * * *
Blue Meadows had for several weeks now been projecting pictures from its
storied past into the light of everyday. Could it have projected into
that everyday one picture from the future, it would have been something
like this.
* * * * *
Susannah came into the south living-room. Her husband was standing
between the two windows.
"Davy," she exclaimed joyfully, "I've located the lowboy. A Mrs. Norton
in West Hassett owns it. Of course she's asking a perfectly prohibitive
price, but of course we've got to have it."
"Yes," Lindsay answered absently, "we've got to have it."
"I'm glad we found things so slowly," Susannah dreamily. "It adds to the
wonder and magic of it all. It makes the dream last longer. It keeps our
romance always at the boiling point."
She put one arm about her husband's neck and kissed him. Lindsay turned;
kissed her.
"At least we have the major pieces back," Susannah said contentedly.
"And little Lutetia Murray Lindsay will grow up in almost the same
surroundings that Susannah Ayer enjoyed. Oh--today--when I carried her
over to the wall of the nursery, she noticed the Weejubs; she actually
put her hand out to touch them."
"Oh, there's something here for you--from Rome--just came in the mail,"
Lindsay exclaimed. "It's addressed to Susannah Delano too."
"From Rome!" Susannah ejaculated. "Susannah Delano!" She cut the strings
of the package. Under the wrappings appeared--swathed in tissue paper--a
picture. A letter dropped from the envelope. Susannah seized it; turned
to the signature.
"Garrison Monroe!" she ejaculated. "Oh, dear dear Uncle Garry, he's
alive after all!" She read the letter aloud, the tears welling in her
eyes.
"How wonderful!" she commented when she finished. "You see, he's
apparently specialized in tomb-sculpture."
She pulled the tissue paper from the picture. Their heads met, examining
it.
"Oh, how lovely!" Susannah exclaimed in a hushed voice. And "It's
beautiful!" Lindsay agreed in a low tone.
It was the photograph of a bit of sculptured marble; a woman swathed in
rippling draperies lying, at ease, on her side. One hand, palm upward,
fingers a little curled, lay by her cheek; the other fell across her
breast. A veil partially obscured the delicate profile. But from every
veiled feature, from every line of the figure, from every fold in the
drapery, exuded rest.
"It's perfect!" Susannah said, still in a low tone. "Perfect. Many a
time she's fallen asleep just like than when we've all been talking and
laughing. When she slept, her hand always lay close to her face as it is
here. She always wore long floating scarves. You see he had to do her
face from photographs ... and memory.... He's used that scarf device to
conceal.... How beautiful! How beautiful!"
There came silence.
"Mrs. Spash says he was in love with her," Susannah went on. "Of course
I was too young. I didn't realize it. But it's all here, I think. Did
you notice that part of the letter where he says that for the last year
or two his mind has been full of her? And of all his life here? That's
very pathetic, isn't it? Now there will be a fitting monument over
her.... He says it will be here in a few months. We must send him
pictures when it's put on her grave. How happy it makes me! He says he's
nearly eighty.... How beautiful.... You're not listening to me," she
accused her husband with sudden indignation. But her indignation
tempered itself by a flurry of little kisses when, following the
direction of his piercing gaze, she saw it ended on the miniature which
hung beside the secretary. "Looking at Glorious Lutie!" she mocked
tenderly. "How that miniature fascinates you! Sometimes," she added,
obviously inventing whimsical cause for grievance, "sometimes I think
you're as much in love with her as you are with me."
"If I am," Lindsay agreed, "it's because there's so much of you in her."