When Tristrem reached Narragansett he had himself driven to an hotel,
where he removed the incidental traces of travel before venturing to
present himself at the villa. It was a glorious forenoon, and as he
dressed, the tonic that was blown to him through the open window
affected his spirits like wine. The breeze promised victory. He had been
idle and dilatory, he told himself; but he was older, the present was
his, and he felt the strength to make it wholly to his use. The past
would be forgotten and put aside; no, but utterly, as Nature
forgets--and in the future, what things might be!
"O Magali, ma bien aimée,
Fuyons tous deux, tous de--ux----"
The old song came back to him, and as he set out for the villa he hummed
it gayly to himself. The villa was but the throw of a stone from the
hotel, and in a moment he would be there. He was just a little bit
nervous, and he walked rapidly. As he reached the gate his excitement
increased. In his breast was a tightening sensation. And then at once he
stopped short. On the door of the cottage hung a sign, bearing for
legend, "To Let--Furnished."
"But it is impossible," he exclaimed, "they were to be here till
October."
He went up and rang the bell. The front windows were closed and barred.
The porch on which he stood was chairless. He listened, and heard no
sound. He tried the door--it was locked.
"But it is impossible," he kept repeating. "H'm! 'To let--furnished; for
particulars apply to J. F. Brown, at the Casino.' Most certainly, I
will--most certainly," and monologuing in the fashion that was peculiar
to him, he went down the road again, mindful only of his own perplexity.
On reaching the Casino he found that he would have no difficulty in
seeing the agent. Mr. Brown, the door-keeper told him, was "right in
there," and as he gave this information he pointed to a cramped little
office which stood to the left of the entrance.
"Is this Mr. Brown?" Tristrem began. "Mr. Brown, I am sorry to trouble
you. Would you be good enough to tell me about Mrs. Raritan's cottage.
I----"
"For next summer? Nine hundred, payable in advance."
"I didn't mean about the price. I meant--I was told that Mrs. Raritan
had taken it until October----"
"So she did. You can sublet for the balance of the season."
"Thank you--yes--but Mrs. Raritan hasn't gone away, has she?"
"She went weeks ago. There's nothing the matter with the cottage,
however. Drainage excellent."
"I have no doubt. But can you tell me where Mrs. Raritan went to?"
"I haven't the remotest idea. Lenox, perhaps. If you want to look at the
cottage I'll give you the key."
"I should think----Really, I must apologize for troubling you. Didn't
Mrs. Raritan leave her address?"
"If she did, it wasn't with me. When do you want the cottage for?"
Tristrem had not the courage to question more. He turned despondently
from Mr. Brown, and passing on through the vestibule, reached the
veranda that fronts the sea. In an angle a group of violinists were
strumming an inanity of Strauss with perfect independence of one
another. Beyond, on the narrow piazza, and on a division of the lawn
that leaned to the road, were a number of small tables close-packed with
girls in bright costumes and men in loose flannels and coats of
diverting hues. At the open windows of the restaurant other groups were
seated, dividing their attention between the food before them and the
throng without. And through the crowd a number of Alsatians pushed their
way, bearing concoctions to the thirstless. The hubbub was enervating,
and in the air was a stench of liquor with which the sea-breeze coped in
vain.
Tristrem hesitated a second, and would have fled. He was in one of those
moods in which the noise and joviality of pleasure-seekers are jarring
even to the best-disposed. While he hesitated he saw a figure rising and
beckoning from a table on the lawn. And as he stood, uncertain whether
or no the signals were intended for him, the figure crossed the
intervening space, and he recognized Alphabet Jones.
"Come and have a drink," said that engaging individual. "You're as
solemn as a comedian. I give you my word, I believe you are the only
sober man in the place."
"Thank you," Tristrem answered; "I believe I do not care for anything. I
only came to ask----By the way, have you been here long?"
"Off and on all summer. It's a good place for points. You got my card,
didn't you? I wanted to express my sympathy at your bereavement."
"You are very kind; I----"
"But what's this I hear about you? You've bloomed out into a celebrity.
Everybody is talking about you--everybody, men, women, and children,
particularly the girls. When a fellow gives away a fortune like that!
_Mais, tu sais, mon cher, c'est beau, c'est bien beau, ça._" And to
himself he added, "_Et bien bête._"
Already certain members of immediate groups had become interested in the
new arrival, and it seemed to Tristrem that he heard his name
circulating above the jangle of the waltz.
"I am going to the hotel," he said. "I wish you would walk back with me.
I haven't spoken to a soul in an age. It would be an act of charity to
tell me the gossip." Tristrem, as he made this invitation, marvelled at
his own duplicity. For the time being, he cared for the society of
Alphabet Jones as he cared for the companionship of a bum-bailiff. Yet
still he lured him from the Casino and led him up the road, in the hope
that perhaps without direct questioning he might gain some knowledge of
Her.
As they walked on Jones descanted in the arbitrary didactic manner which
is the privilege of men of letters whose letters are not in capitals,
and moralized on a variety of topics, not with any covert intention of
boring Tristrem, but merely from a habit he had of rehearsing ready-made
phrases and noting their effect on a particular listener. This exercise
he found beneficial. In airing his views he sometimes stumbled on a good
thing which he had not thought of in private. And as he talked Tristrem
listened, in the hope that he might say something which would permit him
to lead up to the subject that was foremost in his mind. But nothing of
such a nature was touched upon, and it was not until the cottage was
reached that Tristrem spoke at all.
"The Raritans have gone, I see," he remarked, nodding at the cottage as
he did so.
"Yes, I see by the papers that they sailed yesterday."
"You don't mean to say they have gone to Europe. I thought--I heard they
were going to Lenox."
"If they were, they changed their plans. Miss Raritan didn't seem up to
the mark when she was here. In some way she reminded me of a realized
ideal--the charm had departed. She used to be enigmatical in her beauty,
but this summer, though the beauty was still there, it was no longer
enigmatical, it was like a problem solved. After all, it's the way with
our girls. A winter or two in New York would take the color out of the
cheeks of a Red Indian. _Apropos de bottes_, weren't you rather smitten
in that direction?"
"And you say they have gone abroad?" Tristrem repeated, utterly
unimpressed by the ornateness of the novelist's remarks.
"Yes, sir; and were it not that our beastly Government declines to give
me the benefit of an international copyright, I should be able to go and
do likewise. It's enough to turn an author into an anarchist. Why, you
would be surprised----"
Jones rambled on, but Tristrem no longer listened. The position in which
he found himself was more irritating than a dream. He was dumbly
exasperated. It was his own inaction that was the cause of it all. If he
had but bestirred himself sooner! Instead of struggling against that
which every throb of his heart convinced him was false, he had dawdled
with the impossible and toyed with apostils of grief. At the first
obstacle he had turned aside. Where he should have been resolute, he had
been weak. He had taken mists for barriers. A child frightened at its
own shadow was never more absurd than he. And Viola--it was not
surprising that the color had deserted her cheeks. It was no wonder that
in his imbecile silence she had gone away. It was only surprising that
she had not gone before. And if she had waited, might it not be that she
waited expectant of some effort from him, hoping against hope, and when
he had made no sign had believed in his defeat, and left him to it.
There was no blame for her. And now, if he were free again, that very
liberty was due not to his own persistence, but to chance. Surely she
was right to go. Yet--yet--but, after all, _it was not too late_.
Wherever she had gone he could follow. He would find her, and tell her,
and hold her to him.
Already he smiled in scenes forecast. The exasperation had left him.
Whether he came to Narragansett or journeyed to Paris, what matter did
it make? The errand was identical, and the result would be the same. How
foolish of him to be annoyed because he had not found her, in garlands
of orange-blossoms, waiting on a balcony to greet his coming. The very
fact of her absence added new weight to the import of his message. Yes,
he would return to town at once, and the next steamer would bear him to
her.
And then, unconsciously, through some obscure channel of memory, he was
back where he had once been, in a _Gasthof_ in the Bavarian Mountains.
It was not yet dusk. Through the window came a choir of birds, and he
could see the tender asparagus-green of neighborly trees. He was seated
at a great, bare table of oak, and as he raised from it to his lips a
stone measure of beer, his eyes rested on an engraving that hung on the
wall. It represented a huntsman, galloping like mad, one steadying hand
on the bridle and the other stretched forward to grasp a phantom that
sped on before. Under the picture, in quaint German text, was the
legend, _The Chase after Happiness_. "H'm;" he mused, "I don't see why I
should think of that."
"That's the gist of it all," Jones was saying. "It's the fashion to rail
against critics. I remember telling one of the guild the other day not
to read my books--they might prejudice him in my favor; but in
comparison to certain publishers the average reviewer stands as a
misdemeanant does to a burglar. No, I have said it before and I say it
again, until that copyright law is passed, the Government is guilty of
nothing less than compounding a felony."
Of what had gone before Tristrem had not heard a single word, and these
ultimate phrases which reached him were as meaningless as
church-steeples. He started as one does from a nap, with that shake of
the head which is peculiar to the absent-minded. He was standing, he
discovered, at the entrance to the hotel at which he lodged.
"Don't you agree with me?" Jones asked. "Come and lunch at the Casino.
You will get nothing here. Narragansett cookery is as iniquitous as the
legislature. Besides, at this hour they give you dinner. It is tragic,
on my word, it is."
"Thank you," Tristrem answered, elusively. "I have an appointment
with--with a train." And with this excuse he entered the hotel, and as
soon after as was practicable he returned to town.
It was, he learned, as Jones had said. Mrs. Raritan and Miss Raritan
were passengers on a steamer which had sailed two days before. It was
then Friday. One of the swiftest Cunarders was to sail the following
morning, and it seemed not improbable to Tristrem that he might reach
the other side, if not simultaneously with, at least but a few hours
after the arrival of the Wednesday boat. Such preparations, therefore,
as were necessary he made without delay. As incidental thereto, he went
to the house in Thirty-ninth Street. There he learned, from a squat
little Irishwoman who came out from the area and eyed him with
unmollifiable suspicion, that, like the Narragansett cottage, the house
was to let. The only address which he could obtain from her was that of
a real-estate agent in the lower part of the city. Thither he posted at
once. Yet even there the information which he gleaned was meagre. The
house was offered for a year. During that period, the agent understood,
Mrs. Raritan proposed to complete her daughter's musical education
abroad; where, the agent did not know. The rental accruing from the
lease of the house was to be paid over to the East and West Trust Co.
Further than that he could say nothing. Thereupon Tristrem trudged
hopefully to Wall Street; but the secretary of the East and West was
vaguer even than the agent. He knew nothing whatever on the subject of
Mrs. Raritan's whereabouts, and from his tone it was apparent that he
cared less. There is, however, an emollient in courtesy which has
softened greater oafs than he, and that emollient Tristrem possessed.
There was in his manner a penetrating and pervasive refinement, and at
the gruffness with which he was received there came to his face an
expression of such perplexity that the secretary, disarmed in spite of
himself, turned from his busy idleness and told Tristrem that if Mrs.
Raritan had not left her address with him she must certainly have given
it to the lawyer who held the power of attorney to collect the rents and
profits of her estate. The name of that lawyer was Meggs, and his office
was in the Mills Building.
In the Mills Building Tristrem's success was little better. Mr. Meggs,
the managing clerk announced, had left town an hour before and would not
return until Monday. However, if there was anything _he_ could do, he
was entirely at Tristrem's disposal. And then Tristrem explained his
errand anew, adding that he sailed on the morrow, and that it was
important for him to have Mrs. Raritan's address before he left. The
clerk regretted, but he did not know it. Could not Mr. Meggs send it to
him?
"He might cable it, might he not?" Tristrem suggested. And as this plan
seemed feasible, he gave the clerk a card with a London address scrawled
on it, and therewith some coin. "I should be extremely indebted if you
would beg Mr. Meggs to send me the address at once," he added; and the
clerk, who had read the name on the card and knew it to be that of the
claimant and renouncer of a great estate, assured him that Mr. Meggs
would take great pleasure in so doing.
After that there was nothing for Tristrem to do but to return to his
grandfather's house and complete his preparations. He dined with Mr. Van
Norden that evening, and a very pleasant dinner it was. Together they
talked of those matters and memories that were most congenial to them;
Mr. Van Norden looking steadily in the past, and Tristrem straight into
the future. And at last, at midnight, when the carriage came to take
Tristrem to the wharf--for the ship was to sail at so early an hour in
the morning that it was deemed expedient for the passengers to sleep on
board--as Tristrem took leave of his grandfather, "Bring her back soon,"
the old gentleman said, "bring her back as soon as you can. And,
Tristrem, you must take this to her once more, with an old man's love
and blessing."
Whereupon he gave Tristrem again the diamond brooch that had belonged to
his daughter.