story. I'd give anything to pass it on to you; and having got _so_ far,
you'll curse me for not going farther! But I had to promise I wouldn't
write or breathe the secret to any one except Jack. So, alas, you must
wait till the embargo is taken off.
Peter wouldn't let me look for the little red volume described by Aunt
Mary, because I was to say to her that I couldn't find it. He it was who
opened the drawer of the secretary where she had thought the book might
be, and I heard a rustling of papers for a minute or two. Then the
drawer was shut. I asked no questions, but when we went down to report
the failure of my quest I _fancied_ that the left side of Peter's chest
was slightly--very slightly--more prominent than the right, as if he had
something thicker than a handkerchief in his breast pocket.
I am writing this in my bedroom, by lamplight (no gas, no electricity
for Aunt Mary), and instead of hating our visit and nearly perishing, as
we expected to do, Jack and I are enchanted that we came. It evidently
_was_ to be, as servants say when they break one of your best cups. Now
we may be able to help (?) along.
Much love.
Yours,
MOLLY OF THE GUILTY SECRET.
XXVI
MOLLY WINSTON TO MERCEDES LANE
_Bretton Woods._
DEAREST GIRL:
I am positively afraid to write you, lest you and Monty think me a
_Beast_ for harrowing up your feelings about Peter Storm and the book of
photographs, and Aunt Mary's garret, the way I did, and then letting you
down with a dull thud.
Jack says it was cruelty to animals (he doesn't state what kind) to have
told you anything, as I couldn't tell you all. But I just got going, and
couldn't bear to stop till I had to!
We've travelled such a long way now, since Wenham, that I can't describe
all the places to you as I generally do in my letters, and, besides, it
might make you even more cross with me than you are already, to read on
and on, hoping for some startling development about the Stormy Petrel,
and find nothing but scenery. However, I've kept a diary to enclose in
this, which you can read or not, as you like. If you do, you won't be
buoyed up with false expectations.
About Peter: as the war correspondents say, "We may look for great
events in the course of the next few weeks."
About Pat: she is still engaged to Ed Caspian, but I am looking for
great events in that direction also. The only trouble is, one can't
tell with her which way the wind will blow. If Caspian gets into deep
water, she may feel--oh, well, we must pray that things will shape
themselves just right all round.
[Illustration: YORK A bit of the rock-bound Maine coast]
About Larry: I don't think I'd much care if it weren't for Pat. For a
perfectly fascinating human creature he is the most selfish pig I ever
met, and for a selfish pig he is the most charming being! He has
certainly tried Lily's patience to the breaking point, but it hasn't
broken, and seems warranted not to break. Sometimes I've thought that he
wanted to force the woman to throw him over, then I've changed my mind
and decided that he doesn't flirt for a motive. He simply can't _help_
it. And if the fleshpots of Egypt can only be his, mixed with a diet of
orange blossoms, I verily believe he'll take them together.
Ever your affectionate and apologetic,
MOLLY OF THE GUILTY SECRET.
MOLLY'S DIARY FOR MERCEDES
_From Wenham to Bretton Woods_
Jack said at Ipswich that one ought to have a guide-catcher on one's
automobile, like a cowcatcher on an engine. The air was dark with
would-be guides, though it's a beautiful town to get lost in. We came to
it from Wenham (where I ought to have mentioned the polo, _Jack_
wouldn't have forgotten) along a dream of a road lined with lovely white
birches and lovely white houses. The houses keep on being lovely at
Ipswich, and the wonderful elms are many-branched, like immense Jewish
candlesticks of green-gold. You would never think the devil would come
to such a place! But it seems he did. There was a church he had heard of
where the folk were particularly religious, and he wanted to have a
look. One was enough, however. He jumped right over the church to avoid
it and get back home as quickly as he could, and to this day you can see
his footprint on a black rock in the park.
That's one story. Another is that instead of going home, he bounded to
Rowley, where there is another charming church, looking the very haunt
of peace, good will to men. I can quite believe that even the devil
might come a long way to gaze at some of these old New England churches.
You can't think what a feeling of pure delight they give to the mind, in
spite of, or because of, their simplicity. The green banks where they
are built might be vast altars with elms for the altar candlesticks, and
the smooth sward for the altar cloth. The devil may have heard all this,
and wanted to see for himself if it were true. I don't know how he
escaped from Rowley, as he left no footprint, though the easiest way
would have been along the good Bay Road! Maybe he had a secret passage
down under the sea, which isn't very far off. Spinning on between
meadows, you can see it away to the right, misty blue as the wild
forget-me-nots which mingle with a thousand other wild flowers.
Newburyport is like a perfume bottle for its sweetness, or, rather, two
perfume bottles: one filled with salt fragrance from the sea, the other
with the scent of apple blossoms from countless orchards. That sounds as
if it were only a small village, but it isn't: it's a town, and one of
the most historic. Almost everything exciting that can happen in New
England has happened at Newburyport--from earthquakes which uprooted
corn and set all the bells to ringing, to visits of the French
aristocracy, dashing exploits of privateers, the entertaining of General
Washington, and the quickest proposal of marriage on record. Almost the
nicest thing about Newburyport, however, and one of the nicest things I
ever heard, is the story of Timothy Dexter, who grew very rich,
nominated himself for the peerage, and assumed the title of "Lord." He
was considered a half-witted sort of fellow, who inherited a little
money and didn't know what business to engage in. "Charter a ship," said
a practical joker whom he consulted. "Buy a cargo of warming-pans and
send them to Cuba." Timothy Dexter did as he was told; but fortune is
always supposed to favour simpletons, you know! It happened in Cuba that
there were not nearly enough buckets to bail up the syrup from the vats
in the sugar-cane mills, and those at hand were too small. Dexter's
warming-pans were just the thing! The whole cargo was bought up,
fetching huge prices, and "Lord" Timothy's fortune was made. After that
he bought himself a big house and planted his garden full of dreadful
wooden statues, the worst of all representing himself.
We lost our fine roads as we left Massachusetts for New Hampshire, but
the country was beautiful: stone-wall country again, with straight, dark
pines; and the road grew better as we neared the dear old sea-going town
of Portsmouth, full of beautiful and romantic houses. In one of the best
of them Governor Wentworth invited his friends to a party and
flabbergasted them all by turning the "party" into a wedding. He married
his housemaid--but she was a beauty! But of all the pleasant things of
Portsmouth the Thomas Bailey Aldrich house is the best. This lovely old
house is kept exactly as he left it. His spirit seems to pervade the
place as a fragrance lingers after the flowers have gone.
You may call Portsmouth "Strawberry Bank" if you like. And once, at the
mouth of Great Bay, there was a terrible bar of rocks beautifully named
"Pull-and-be-Damned-Point." People used to love saying it when they felt
cross, for even the ministers couldn't scold them for mentioning it; but
an interfering government took it away for the prosaic motive of making
a fine harbour.
Across the Piscataqua River we were plumped into Maine, at Kittery,
where there's a big navy yard now, and where once they made splendid
ships.
By a road that ran through woods and past ideal, storybook farmhouses we
came to York, where Captain John Smith came by sea. There we had to stop
and look at "Ye Olde Gaol," because it's the very oldest building of the
American Commonwealth. The prisoners used to be "sold" for several
years, to work out their punishment, just as if they were regular
slaves; and now in the gaol they have all sorts of relics of past, queer
customs. There's a fort still standing, too, with an overhanging upper
story to shoot Indians from, like the houses I wrote you about when we
first came into New England. There was a frightful massacre of the
settlers once upon a time, and a frightful revenge. Also there was a
witch, who lies buried under a great stone, so huge that she can't
possibly squeeze through at night to ride on her deserted broomstick.
There are legends, too, and the nicest we heard was the ghost-tale of
Pirate Trickey, who was hanged on the seashore. That atonement wasn't
enough for his crimes, though! He still haunts the beach, ever binding
sand with a rope, and groaning above the sound of the waves as the sand
slips away. And I mustn't forget "Handkerchief Moody," who gave
Hawthorne his idea for the "Minister's Black Veil"; but he was real and
neither ghost nor legend.
There's a modern York, too, and so much of it that you might almost miss
the old if you didn't know. Lots of interesting people have stayed
there: Mr. Howells, and Mark Twain, and your beloved Thomas Nelson Page
among the rest, but beyond their zone is the zone of the tiny toy
cottages, the crowded boarding-houses, the snub-nosed Lord motor cars
rolling along the beach close to the rolling waves, and beginning to
sink in the sand if they stop. Beyond again, woods which might be
primeval, broken with farms as hidden away in their midst as those of
the early settlers; here and there a pile of fragrant cut timber; now
and then a few hayricks, in fields surrounded by vast tracts of
pineland. Jack and I began to think we were on the most beautiful road
yet.
We lunched at Ogonquit, beloved of artists, and then fell so in love
with it ourselves that we stayed all the rest of the day and all night,
too. It's a fishing village, but you don't stop in the village. You
stop under the wing of a large gray, mother-bird-looking hotel close to
the shore, and away from everything else. On one side there is a cove
with shiny brown rocks so thinly trimmed with grass that they look
like a suit of giant armour showing through a ragged green cloak. On
the other side is sea, blue by day as if it flowed over bluebell
fields--strangely blue as it sweeps up to embrace the rose and golden
sands, the apricot pink sands. Toward evening these sands were covered
with gulls, lying thick as white petals shaken down from invisible
orchards. And the mourning cry of the sea-birds was as constant and
never ending as the sea-murmur. We forgot we heard it! But suddenly, as
night fell, we remembered, because the crying ceased as if it obeyed a
signal for silence. No sooner had it stopped than the moon blossomed out
from the sea-mist like a huge rose unfolding behind a scarf of blue
gauze. We _were_ glad we had stayed!
Next morning we atoned for lost time by getting up early and starting on
again: a pretty road through the village of Wells, with the sea in the
distance. All the farmhouses seemed to take summer boarders or give
meals, and sell vegetables or something. They showed nice enticing
samples at their gates: strawberries, green peas, honeycomb, or gilded
eggs. It did look so idyllic!
We couldn't mistake Kennebunk when we came to it, because it advertises
itself on a sign-post: "This is Kennebunk, the Town You Read About." I
_hadn't_ read about it, but I felt I ought, for if ever there was a
typical New England town, Kennebunk is _It_! We slipped in along a
grass-grown, shady way, with old houses looking at us virtuously with
sparkling eyes, as virtuously as if they hadn't been built with good
gold paid for rum. I think that was what the ships used to bring back
from their long voyages; but maybe the most virtuous-looking houses were
built with molasses. The ships brought that, too.
There are two rivers--the Monsam (at the Monsam House Lafayette stayed)
and the Kennebunk, and there's a roaring mill, but greatest of all
attractions at Kennebunk is that of going on to Kennebunkport. Mrs.
Deland has a house there, and Booth Tarkington, too, and it's a dear
delightful place, with arbourlike streets running inland, and deep lawns
with elms shaped like big shower bouquets for brides.
It wasn't long after Kennebunkport that we beheld for the first time
sawmills, and logs that had come down from the White Mountains. That was
a thrill! For we were on our way to the White Mountains. We saw no sign
of them yet, but there was no cause for impatience. The landscape was as
lovely as if planned by the master of all landscape gardeners. There
were quaint features, too, as well as beautiful ones: everywhere funny
little tin boxes standing up on sticks by the roadside, labelled "U.S.
Mail," with no guardians but squirrels and birds, and apparently no one
to read or send letters.
Biddeford was attractive, and so was Portland, but Portland was the
means of delaying our car. Jack would go wandering to the eastern side
of the nice city, to find a monument he had read about, overlooking
Casco Bay. Underneath are buried, in one grave, the commanders of the
_Enterprise_ and the _Boxer_, British and American ships. The American
won, but both commanders were killed, and the Britisher had been so
brave that they thought their own captain would like to lie by his side.
It wasn't a grand monument to see, but I love the idea. And another
thing I love about Portland is the thought that Longfellow was born
there in sight of the ocean.
By and by, a good long time after we had got out of Portland by Forest
Avenue, our road began to run uphill. In a park leading to Raymond,
where Hawthorne "savagized" as a boy, our hearts beat at sight of a sign
saying "White Mts." Just that! Abrupt but alluring. White birches were
like rays of moonlight striping the dark woods, and there was the
incense smell of balsam firs. We sniffed the perfume joyously and
reminded each other--Jack and I--that Maine is America's Scotland: like
Scotland for beauty of lake and forest and mountain; like Scotland, too,
"hard for the poor, and a playground for the rich."
Along a rough but never bad country road we flashed past lake after
lake--Sebago the biggest--and ahead of us loomed far-off blue heights
like huge incoming waves sweeping toward an unseen shore. No longer did
we need a sign-post to point us to the mountains; but there were some
things by the way that surprised us. Suddenly we found ourselves coming
on the "Bay of Naples," a big sapphire sheet of water ringed in with
some perfectly private little green mountains of its own. It was as if
we had dreamed it, when we plunged into forests again, deep, mysterious
forests of hemlock. Cowbells tinkled faintly, as in Switzerland, though
we saw no cows, and there was no other sound save the sealike murmur of
the trees--that sound which is the voice of Silence. Lakes and ponds lay
at the feet of dark slopes, as if women in black had dropped their
mirrors and forgotten to pick them up.
[Illustration: "The air is spiced with the fragrance of balsam fir ...
on the way to Crawford Notch"]
We were back in New Hampshire again for the night, for we stopped in
North Conway, at a hotel in a great garden. If it had liked, it could
have called the whole valley its garden, for it is a vast flowery lawn
with mountains for a wall. Such a strange wall, with a high-up
stone shelf on which you might think the brave Pequawket Indians had
left the images of their gods, beyond the reach of white men. They had a
fine village of wigwams where our hotel stands now, facing the mountains
it's named for, and the trees and the Saco River haven't forgotten their
old masters' songs of war and of hunting.
[Illustration: map]*
This part of the world must be the intimate, hidden home of balsam firs.
The air is spiced with their fragrance, and not only the gay little
shops at North Conway, but each farmhouse and cottage we passed next
day, going on to Crawford Notch, sold pillows of balsam fir.
By this time we began to pity and patronize ourselves, because we had
thought that nothing could be as beautiful as our ways of yesterday. The
ways of to-day were the most beautiful of all. We were going to Bretton
Woods, and on the way we learned a great secret--this: that when the
Fairies made their flit--the well-known Dymchurch Flit--they decided to
emigrate to the White Mountains. Somebody had told them--probably it was
the Moon--that the scenery there was marvellously suited to their
tastes, and would give them a chance to try experiments in landscape
gardening according to Fairy ideas. It seemed likely that they might
remain undiscovered in the new fastness for many centuries, and that
when the time came for their presence to be suspected, the world would
have assumed a new policy toward the Fay race. No cruel calumnies would
be written or spoken about them, such as saying that they cast spells on
children or animals, and it would be between Man and Fairy a case of
"live and let live."
Some dull, unobservant people might think that our road was walled on
one side by gray-blue rocks, but in reality they are dark, uncut
sapphires, a facade decoration for the Fairy King's palace. Those same
dullards might talk of scattered boulders. They are trophies, teeth of
giants slain by Fairy warriors. Fairies melt cairngorms and topazes
which they find deep in the heart of the mountains, and pouring them
into the sources of rivers and brooks give the colour of liquid gold to
the water which might otherwise be a mere whitish-gray or brown. Fairies
crust the stones with silver filagree-work dotted with diamonds. Fairies
have planted blue asters and goldenrod and sumach in borders, studying
every gradation of colour, and while the flowers lie under the spell of
the sun they become magic jewels, because the seeds were brought from
Fairyland. Fairies, who no longer bewitch children, have turned their
attention instead to enchanting the young, slender birches of the
mountain waysides. The enchantment consists in causing rays of moonlight
always to glimmer mysteriously on the white trunks, in full daylight.
They seem illuminated, even to eyes that haven't found out the secret.
The carpets of moss are the Fairies' roof-gardens, where they dance and
pretend to be ferns if you look at them. The round stones in the
water-beds are the giants' pearls which were lost in the great battle.
The music of the forest is an orchestra consisting of Fairy voices and
stringed instruments, harps, violins, and 'cellos. And now and then I
caught a high soprano note beyond the powers of a Tetrazzini.
It was a Fairy who told me that Mount Washington is bare because he gave
his green velvet mantle to a smaller mountain, though he, at his cold
height, needed it much more than his smaller brethren of the
Presidential Range. And from a Fairy, too (after we had passed the wide
wonder of Crawford's Notch), I heard the story of Nance's Brook. It is
the gayest of all the gay brooks of the mountains, so evidently it has
forgotten Nance and ceased to mourn her. But she--a beautiful girl of
the neighbourhood--drowned herself there when her lover went off with a
town beauty. The brook used to be the Fairies' favourite bathing-place,
and they could enter from a secret corridor in their sapphire-fronted
palace. Of course they could no longer use it after the drowning; but
they cased the body of Nance in crystal, like a fly in amber; and there,
under the running water, her face can sometimes be seen on midsummer
nights.
Thus, Mercedes, ends your Molly's diary, for we have come to Bretton
Woods!
XXVII
EDWARD CASPIAN TO DANIEL WINTERTON THE MANAGER OF A DETECTIVE AGENCY IN
NEW YORK
_Bretton Woods._
SIR:
I have received your letter and telegram, and am glad to find that you
have a better opinion of my deductions than was held by your confrere,
Mr. Moyle. The longer I dwell on the idea the more does it appear that
circumstantial evidence all points one way. Why should this unimportant
and poor young man have an influence so extraordinary over Marcel
Moncourt? More than one millionaire would have given a fortune to
Moncourt for less work than he is doing at Kidd's Pines practically for
nothing. It is known that he spoiled his son and brought him up with the
airs of a prince who might succeed to a throne. It is known also that
the son went abroad directly after old Stanislaws' sudden death. The
story is a family scandal; but I have woven together a few of the
threads and can put them into your hands, which may help you to speed
along your inquiries.
At that time I was not on intimate terms with my relatives. My sphere,
in fact, did not touch theirs. I never saw Moncourt's son, but I have
heard him described as dark, tall, and somewhat distinguished looking.
This might also be a flattered description of the man in question.
I think I had better mention, in the same connection, an event which has
just occurred. I cannot say I am able to find that it has any concern
with the affair on which you are engaged, but you may see deeper than I
do. At all events, I will bring it to your attention for what it may be
worth.
You have no doubt heard of the very fine mansion on Long Island,
tentatively called "the Stanislaws House?" I hoped that when I became
heir to the property it would be mine, with the rest. Unfortunately this
was not the case. It had been left to a friend of the late heir, as was
indubitably proved by Mr. James Strickland, who legally represented the
Stanislaws family, father and son. Now, through Strickland, the place
has been offered to me, if I wish to buy it. I should be inclined to do
so if I did not suspect something underhand in the business, though
what, I cannot define.
The somewhat extended motor trip which has taken me away from Kidd's
Pines is now nearly over; but you might wire anything important to Great
Barrington, Mass., where I shall be stopping for a night after leaving
here.
Yours truly,
E. CASPIAN.
XXVIII
PATRICIA MOORE TO ADRIENNE DE MONCOURT
_Bretton Woods._
CHERE PETITE:
I must write to tell you I am happy again, though I ought not to be, and
have no right. Oh, it is like a miracle coming to pass, to be suddenly
happy when you have thought all was at an end.
Suppose that it has poured down rain on your poor head for many days,
and you are wet and cold, oh, but cold through and through to your
heart, and you have forgotten the feel of sunshine. Then, of a sudden, a
stream of light breaks out and dazzles in your eyes. You are warm, you
sing for joy. In the back of your mind a voice may say, "The clouds will
shut up again, this is not to last." For the moment you are happy and do
not care for what will come. You just hold out your arms to the warm ray
of light.
It was like that with me to-day, and in all senses of speaking, for I
was in a great rain, alone and very sad and soaked--but I will tell you.
There is none else I may tell, not even Molly; for if I said this to
her, she would again offer and insist to lend us money that the ring of
Mr. Caspian could be got from the Mont de Piete and given back to him.
She would think that was the only thing needed to end the engagement
which makes me miserable; and so it would have been at first, or almost
the only thing. Now there is more, for Mrs. Shuster begged dear Larry to
borrow some money from her the other night, when he had played poker in
the hotel at Boston with some men he met. Larry has such luck at the
games of chance, nearly always, he did not stop to think, "What will
happen if I lose?" He played with all the eager fire that it is his
nature to put into everything he does, and these men were high punters,
as reckless as Larry and much more rich. So it was five thousand dollars
my poor boy had to borrow, and we cannot take the money which our
wonderful Monsieur Moncourt makes for us from Kidd's Pines, because of
the bankruption, if that is the word, and so much always owing to
creditors. It is as if we held out a sieve for our great Marcel to pour
gold dust into, and it nearly all goes before we can touch it.
Naturally I cannot fail Larry when it is in my power to save him, no
matter what the consequences to me. But listen, _ma cherie_!