MORNING LIGHT
Maria Angelina had no difficulty at all in recollecting where she was
when she came to herself next morning, for her dreams had been growing
sharper and sharper with reality. In those dreams she was forever
climbing down mountain sides, tripping, stumbling, down, down, forever
down, until at last there surged through her the warmth of that cabin
fire and the memory of Barry Elder's care.
She opened her eyes. The warmth of the dream fire was a blaze of
sunlight that fell across it. The fire itself a charred mass of embers
upon a mound of gray ashes. Upon the hearth stood the disreputable
remnants of her sodden shoes.
For a few moments she lay still, her consciousness invaded with its
rush of memories. She felt very direfully stiff when she thought about
it, but after the first moment she did not think about it.
She sat up and looked eagerly about.
There were no shadows now; the sunlight was streaming in through the
cabin's three windows and through the door that stood open into a world
of forest green. She heard birds singing and the sound of running water.
Barry Elder was nowhere to be seen.
The cabin was one room, an amazing room, its unconcealed simplicities
blazoning themselves cheerfully in the light. There were rustic tables
and comfortable chairs; there was a couch untouched, apparently, save
that it had been denuded of the cushions that lay now about her. There
was a small black stove and pans on it and dishes on a stand. There was
a chest of drawers and along the walls were low open shelves of books,
the shelves topped with a miscellany of pipes and pictures and playing
cards.
Between two windows stood a large table buried in books and papers with
a typewriter poking its head above the confusion.
So he really was writing a play--another play. She hoped, remembering
Cousin Jim's remark, that he would not put too much Harvard in.
She got to her feet--with wincing reluctance for every muscle in her
small person made its lameness felt, and she limped when she began to
walk. The rejected pile of clothing had disappeared from her side, but
the fringed moccasins were left, and very humbly she drew them on. Her
stockings were not those in which a Santonini desires to be discovered!
Uncertainly she moved towards the door, her stiffly dried white skirt
rattling at each move. It was a battleground of a skirt where black mud
and green grass stains struggled for preeminence, and her poor middy
blouse, she thought, was in little better plight.
She had a sudden, half hysterical thought of Lucia's face, if Lucia
could see her now, and a queer little gulp of laughter caught in the
lump in her throat!
"Morning, Signorina! A merry morning to you."
Up the grassy bank before the cabin Barry Elder came swinging towards
her, a lithe figure in brown knickers and white shirt rolling loosely
open at the throat. His face was flushed and his brown, close-cropped
curls were wet as if he had been ducking them into the cold river water.
He waved one hand gayly; the other was carrying a pail of water.
"You look so _clean_!" gave back Maria Angelina impetuously, her
laughter rising to meet his, but her sensitive blood coloring her face
before his gaze.
"There's the entire river to wash in. I thought you'd like it better out
of doors so I've built you a dressing room. . . . Meanwhile the
commissary will be working. Don't be too long, for breakfast will be
ready," he told her, passing by her into the house, with a gesture of
direction as if it were the most matter of fact thing in the world for
young men to cook breakfast and for young ladies to wash in rivers.
So Maria Angelina followed his directions and went down into the grove
of young birches that he called her dressing-room.
Here greenness was all about her, and through the delicate, interlacing
boughs before her even the river was shut out, except one eddying stream
of it that swerved in beneath her feet. There was lovely freshness in
the morning air, a lovely brightness in the sky above her. It was a
dressing-room for a nymph of the woods, for a dryad, for Diana herself.
Gratefully she stooped to the cold water at her feet. There on the bank,
upon a spread towel, she discovered soap and fresh towels, a comb and a
pair of military brushes, still wet from recent washing. He was very
sweet and thoughtful, that Barry Elder.
Valiantly she attacked that tangled hair of hers, reducing it to the
old submissive braids which she coroneted about her head, fastening them
with twigs as best she could, and then she washed deliciously in that
cold, running stream. It must be wonderful, she felt, to be a man and to
live like this. One could forget the world in such a place. . . .
Sandy dashed upon her, scattering the gathering darkness of her
thoughts, and she yielded to the young impulse to splash and romp with
him before returning with him to the cabin.
She felt shy about reentering that house . . . and Barry Elder's
presence.
A rich aroma of coffee greeted her upon the threshold. So did her host's
voice in mock severity.
"I sent Sandy to bring you in--and I was just coming after the two of
you. . . . Will you sit here? I did have a dressy thought of setting up
a table out of doors but this is handier--nearer the stove, you know.
You've no idea of the convenience of it."
"But you are getting me so _many_ meals," protested Maria Angelina,
confronted by a small table which he had spread for two before the
fireplace. Within the hearth he had kindled a small and cheerful blaze.
"I'll agree to keep it up as long as you eat them."
Swiftly Barry turned the browning ham from the iron spider into a small
platter and deposited it upon the table with a flourish. Then he placed
the granite coffeepot at her right hand.
"I made it with an egg," he said proudly. "Will you pour, Signorina,
while I cut this? That's genuine canned cream--none of your execrable
Continental hot milk for me! And I like my cream first with three lumps
of sugar, please."
He smiled blithely upon her as with a deep and delicious constraint her
small hands moved, housewifely, among his cups.
"These aren't French rolls," he murmured, "but I promise you that they
are cold enough for a true Italian breakfast, and there is honey and
there is jam--and here, Signorina, is ham, milk-fed, smoke-cured, and
browned to make the best chef of Sherry's pale with envy and despair.
. . . I thank you," and he accepted the cup of coffee from her hand with
another direct smile that deepened the confusion of the girl's spirit.
A dream had succeeded the nightmare, a fairy tale of a dream. It was
unreal . . . it was a bubble that would break . . . but it was a spell,
an enchantment.
She forgot that she was tired and bruised; she forgot her stained
clothes; she forgot her outrageous past and her terrifying future.
Oblivious and bewitched, she smiled across the table into Barry Elder's
eyes and poured his coffee and ate his bread and jam. The amazing youth
in her forgot for those moments all that it had suffered and all that it
must meet. She was floating, floating in the web of this beautiful
unreality.
And Barry Elder himself appeared a very different person from that
bitter young man who had stared desperately into the fire and talked
about cake and disillusionment. In spite of his lack of sleep there was
nothing in the least haggard about his young face; he looked remarkably
alert and interested in life, and his eyes were very gentle and his
smile very sweet.
Perhaps there was something of a dream to him in the presence of a
fairylike young creature who had blown in with the storm and slept upon
his sheltering hearth. Perhaps there was an enchantment to him in the
exquisite young face across the table, the shy, soft eyes, the delicate
pale contours.
Into their absorption came a shattering knock upon the door. Instantly
the nightmare was upon Maria Angelina. She was tense, her eyes wide, her
lips parted. And as the knock was repeated, one hand, wide-fingered in
fright, was raised as if to ward off some palpable blow.
"Oh, let me hide," she breathed across the table into Barry Elder's
ears.
Fortunately the latch was on the door.
"Who's there?" said Barry Elder raising his voice to cover her
reiterated whisper. In negation he gestured her to silence.
"Hello, hello there, I say!"
It was the voice of Johnny Byrd and Maria Angelina half rose from her
chair and clutched Barry Elder's arm as he moved towards the summons.
"Do not let him in," she gasped. "That is the man--last night----"
The dog's barking was drowning her words. Johnny called again.
"Anybody in? Here you wake up--anybody here?"
Barry Elder had stood still at her words. His expression changed. He
turned and pointed to a blanket from the floor flung over a chair.
She slipped behind it.
Calling to his dog to behave and keep still, Barry stepped over to the
door and opened it.
"Oh, Barry Elder! Gee, I thought this was your place but I didn't know
you were here," Johnny Byrd declared in relief. "I saw the smoke and
knew there was somebody about. . . . Gee, have you got any food?"
Slowly Barry surveyed him.
Johnny Byrd was not punctiliously turned out; he was streaked and
muddied; his blue eyes were rimmed with red as if his night's rest had
not been wholly soothing; he had no cap and his hair had clearly been
combed back by fingers into its restless roach.
Barry's eyes appreciated each detail. "Hello, Johnny," he remarked
without affability. "How did you happen to toddle over for breakfast?"
Johnny was not critical of tones. "Oh, never mind the damned details,"
he said bitterly. "Gawd, I could eat a raw cow. . . . Say, you haven't
seen any one pass here lately, have you? I mean has any one been by at
all?"
"I haven't seen any one pass here at all," said Barry Elder.
"Sure? But have you been looking out? Say, what other way is there--Oh,
my Lord, is that coffee? Or do I only dream I smell it? I haven't had a
bite since the middle of yesterday. Let me get to it."
But Barry Elder did not spring to the duties of his hostship. He did not
even move aside to permit Johnny Byrd to spring to his own
assistance--which Johnny showed every symptom of doing. He continued to
stand obstructingly in the middle of his log doorstep, one hand on the
knob of the half closed door behind him, his eyes fixed very curiously
on Johnny's flushed disorder.
"What kind of an 'any one' are you looking for?" said Barry slowly.
"Oh--a--well, I guess you've got to help me out on this. You know the
country. There's no use stalling. It's a girl--a foreign-looking girl."
"And what are you doing at six in the morning looking for a
foreign-looking girl?"
"It's the darndest luck," Johnny broke out explosively. "We--we got lost
last night going to a picnic on Old Baldy--and then we got
separated----"
"How?"
"How?" Johnny stared back at Barry Elder and found something oddly fixed
and challenging in that young man's eyes.
"Why how--how does any one get separated?" he threw back querulously.
"I can't imagine--especially when one is responsible for a girl."
"Gosh, Barry, you're talking like a grandmother. Aren't you going to
give me anything to eat? What's the matter with you, anyway? You act
devilish queer----"
Again he confronted the coldness of Barry's gaze and his own face
changed suddenly, with swift surmise.
"Say, has she been here?" he broke out. "You've seen her, haven't you? I
was sure I saw tracks. . . . Has she--has she told you anything?"
Barry leaned a little nearer the door-frame, drawing the door closer
behind him. Through the crack Sandy's pointed noise and exploring eyes
were fixed inquiringly upon the visitor and he whined eagerly as,
scenting disapprobation in the air, he yearned to meet this trouble
halfway.
"I think you had better," Barry told him.
"Better? Better what?"
"Better tell me--everything."
"Oh, all right, all right! _I've_ nothing to conceal. I didn't go off my
chump and behave like a darn lunatic in grand opera!"
Then very quickly Johnny veered from anger into confidence.
"Here's the whole story--and there's nothing to it. She's crazy--crazy
with her foreign notions, I tell you. At first I thought she was trying
to put something over on me, but I guess she's just genuinely crazy.
It's the way she was brought up. They go mad over there and bite if
you're left alone in a room with a girl."
Definitely Barry waited.
"We were up there on the mountain," said Johnny more lucidly. "We'd
lost the others--no fault of ours, Barry--you needn't look like a movie
censor--and we found we'd got to make a night of it. We were just worn
out and going in circles. And she--I give you my word I didn't do one
gosh-darned thing, but that girl just naturally took on and raved about
wanting me to marry her and blew me up when I said I hadn't asked her
and then--then--when I tried to get shelter in a little old shack we'd
stumbled on she just up and bolted. She----"
His words died away. His eyes dropped before the blaze that met them.
Very slowly Barry formulated his feelings.
"You--infernal----"
"Hold on there, I'm not any such thing."
Through the bluster of Johnny's rally a really injured innocence made
its outcry. "She had no more reason to bolt than a--a grandmother."
Grandmothers appeared to be Johnny's sole figure of comparison. "You're
getting this dead wrong, Barry. . . . Look here, what do you take me
for?"
"That's a large question," said Barry slowly. But his tone was milder
though far from reassuring. "But do you tell me that she asked you to
marry her?"
"I do. She did. Just like that--out of a clear sky."
"But what was the reason----"
"There wasn't a reason, I give you my word, Barry."
"You hadn't been saying anything to her--to suggest it?"
Johnny Byrd's face changed unhappily. His sunburned warmth deepened to a
brick red.
"Why, no--not about marrying. Oh, hang it all, Barry, don't act as if
you never kissed a pretty girl! Oh, she pretended she thought _that_ was
proposing to her--just as if a few friendly words and a half kiss meant
anything like that. . . . I'll own I was gone on her," Johnny found
himself suddenly announcing, "but when she was taking marriage for
granted right off it sounded too much like a hold-up and I flared all
over."
"A hold-up?"
"Oh, thumb screws, you know--the same old quick-step to the altar. I
hadn't done a thing, I tell you, but it looked as if she thought that
our being there was something she could stage a scene on and so I
thought--you don't know what things have been tried on me before," he
broke off to protest at Barry's expression.
Mutteringly he offered, "You other fellows may think you know a little
bit about side-stepping girls but when it comes to any kind of a bank
roll--they're like starving Armenians at sight of food. I'd had 'em try
all sorts of things. . . . But I own, now, she was just going according
to her foreign ways. She must have been half scared to death. And
she--she is pretty crazy about me----"
"I am not pretty crazy about you, Johnny Byrd!"
The door behind Barry was wrenched from his holding and flung violently
open and Maria Angelina appeared upon the threshold, a defiant little
image of war. Deadly pale, except for that scarlet stain across her
cheek, her eyes blazing, there was something so mortally honest in the
indignant anger that possessed her that Johnny Byrd unconsciously fell
back a step, and Barry Elder stood aside, his own gaze lit with concern
and wonder.
"I am despising you for a coward and a flirter," said Maria Angelina in
a low but exceedingly penetrative voice, and so intense was her command
of the situation that neither man found humor, then, in the misused
word.
"You make love to girls when you mean nothing by it--you get them lost
in the woods and then refuse the marriage that any gentleman, even an
indifferent gentleman, would offer! And then you behave like a savage.
You bully and try to force your way into the actual room of shelter with
me!"
"You see!" Johnny waved his hand helplessly at her and looked
appealingly at Barry for a gleam of masculine right-mindedness.
"She--she wanted me to stay out in the rain, Barry."
"But as it was, _she_ stayed out in the rain and you slept in the
shelter."
"She ran, I'm telling you. I couldn't chase her forever, could I? I
tried to track her as soon as it got a little light and I could see
where she'd been sliding and slipping along, and honestly, I've been
nearly bats with worry till I got a trace of her again back in the
woods."
Barry Elder turned towards the girl.
"And that's the whole story, Signorina? That's all there is to it?"
"All?" Maria Angelina echoed bewilderedly. She thought there was enough
and to spare. It seemed to her that she had related the destruction of
her lifetime.
She stopped. She would not cry again before Johnny Byrd. She called on
all her pride to keep her firm before him.
A queer change came over Barry Elder's expression. The light that seemed
to be shining in the back of his eyes was bright again. He looked at
Maria Angelina in a thoughtful silence, then he turned to Johnny Byrd.
"I don't think you know how serious a business this is in Italy," he
told him. "You know, there where a girl cannot even see a man alone----"
"Well, we don't need to cable it to Italy, do we?" Johnny demanded in
disgust. "It isn't going to spill any beans here. But it would look
fine, wouldn't it, if I came back to the Lodge yelling to marry her?"
"Right you are. That is it, Signorina," Barry Elder agreed very
promptly. "That's the way it would look in America. Being lost is an
unpleasant accident. Nothing more--between young people of good family.
Not that young people of good families make a practice of being lost,"
he supplemented, his eyes dancing in spite of himself at Maria
Angelina's deepening amaze, "but when anything like that happens--as it
has before this in the Adirondacks--people don't start an ugly scandal.
They may talk a little of course, but it won't do you any real harm.
. . . And it wouldn't be quite nice for Johnny to go rushing about
offering you marriage. The occasion doesn't demand it in the least."
Helplessly she regarded him. . . . She felt utterly astray--astray and
blundering. . . .
"Would Cousin Jane think so?" she appealed.
"She would," averred Barry stoutly, over the twinge of an inner qualm.
"And so would your own mother, if she were here."
But there Maria Angelina was on solid ground.
"You know little about _that_," she told him with spirit. "If I were
lost in Italy----"
But it was so impossible, being lost in Italy, that Maria Angelina could
only break off and guard a bewildered silence.
"Then I expect your mother had better not know," was all the counsel
that Barry Elder could offer, realizing doubtfully that it was far from
a counsel of perfection. "You had better let that depend upon Mrs.
Blair."
"I tried to tell her all this," Johnny broke in with an accent of
triumph.
But Maria Angelina was looking only at Barry Elder.
"Can you tell me that it is nothing?" she said pitifully, her eyes big
and black in her white face. "To have been gone all night with that
young man--to have been found by you--another young man? Even if the
Americans make light of it--is it not what you call an escapade?"
"I have to admit that it's an escapade--an accidental escapade," Barry
qualified carefully. "But I don't know any way out of it--unless we all
stand together," he said slowly, "and all pretend that you got lost
alone and found alone. That's very simple, really, and I think perhaps
it would make things easier for you."
"Now you're saying something!" Johnny was jubilant. "Absolute
intelligence--gleam of positive genius. . . . She was lost alone. Right
after the thunder shower. Missed the others and I went to a high place
to look for them and we never found each other. . . . Spent the night
searching for her," Johnny threw in carelessly, marking out a neat
little role for himself. "That's the story--eh, what?"
"Oh could we--could we do that?" Maria Angelina implored with quivering
lips.
"Of course we can do that. Only you've got to stick to that story like
grim death--no making any little break about climbing the mountain top
and things like that, you know."
"You may trust me," said Maria fervently.
"Leave it to your Uncle Dudley," Johnny reassured him. "But, look here,
Barry, do you want me to die on your doorstep?" he demanded, his hunger
returning as his agitation subsided.
"Oh, sit down, Johnny, and I'll bring you something," said Barry at
last. "You had better keep your eye on the trail to see if any one else
is coming along. Two in a morning is quite stirring," he said
deliberately. "I'm sure the fire is still burning--unless you'd prefer
to have him perish of starvation?" he paused to inquire politely of the
girl, his twinkling eyes bringing a sudden irrepressible answer to her
lips.
"Yes, that will be best for everybody's feelings," he rattled on, from
the interior of the cabin, referring not to Johnny's demise but to the
construction of a defensive narrative. "Each of you wandered about all
night alone. . . . Here's some ham, Johnny, and cold toast. There'll be
hot coffee in an instant. . . . Now remember you crossed the river just
after the thunder storm and separated to try different trails. And you
never found each other . . . That's simple, isn't it? And you, Johnny,
climbed the wrong mountain and slept in a shack and came down this
morning and returned to the Lodge. You must show up there, worried as
blazes and tearing your hair," he instructed the devouring Johnny who
merely nodded, tearing wolfishly at the cold toast.
"But before you reach the Lodge I will ease the anxiety there by
telephoning that I have just found Maria Angelina," went on Barry, using
quite unconsciously the name by which he was thinking of the girl.
He turned to her, "With your permission, I shall say that I have just
found you, that I have given you something to eat and while you were
resting I went to telephone. Does that make you any happier?"
Her answering look was radiant.
"Now, remember--don't change a word of this. . . . Here's your coffee,
Johnny. When you reach the Lodge, don't forget that you haven't seen me
and that you are still unfed----"
"Unfed is right," said Johnny ungratefully. "Oh, my gosh, I am stiff as
a poker. What do you say, Barry, to our doping this out around that
fire--or have you got some other little thing in there you are keeping
incog as it were?"
Refreshed and unabashed he grinned at them.
But Barry did not offer his fire.
"You'd better cut on before you are discovered," he advised. "It's a
long way to go--like Tipperary. And I'll hurry off to Peter's place.
. . . You strike over that shoulder there and down the trail to the
right and you'll find the main road. It's shorter than the river.
Besides you can't use the river trail or you would have found me. . . .
Now mind--don't change a word of it."
"Sure, I've got it down. Well, I'll be off then!"
But Johnny was not off. He hesitated a moment, turning very obviously to
Maria Angelina, who stood silent upon the doorstep, and it was Barry who
took himself suddenly off around the corner of the cabin, with a plate
of scraps for the vociferous Sandy.
Embarrassedly Johnny muttered, "I say, Ri-Ri, I'm sorry."
Her expression did not change. She said levelly, "I'm sorry, too. I did
not understand."
"I didn't understand, either."
Both stood silent. Then he spoke in a hurried, even a flurried way in a
very low tone indeed.
"But I--I didn't mean to be a quitter. Look here, I didn't realize that
it was just the look of things you were after and not my--my----"
"Your money, Signor?" said Ri-Ri clearly.
He grew red. "I've got some queer experiences," he jerked out.
"I should think, Signor, that you would."
"Oh, hang that Signor! I don't blame you for being a frost, Ri-Ri, for I
guess I was pretty rotten to you--but I wasn't throwing you
down--honestly. I was just mulish, I guess, because you were trying to
stampede me. And I was fighting mad over the entire business and had to
take it out on somebody. If you'd just laughed and petted a fellow a
little----"
He broke off and looked at her hopefully.
Maria Angelina gave no signs of warmth. Her eyes were enigmatic as black
diamonds; and her mouth was a red bud of scorn. Her dignity was immense
for all that her braids had come down from their coronet and were
hanging childishly about her shoulders; the loose strands fluttering
about her face.
Johnny wanted to put his hands out and touch them. And he wanted to grip
the small shoulders beneath that middy blouse and shake them out of that
aloof perverseness . . . they had been such soft, nestling shoulders
last night. . . .
"You know I--I'm really crazy about you," he said quickly. "Of course
you know it--you had a right to know it. I was gone on you from the
moment I first saw you. You were so--different. I thought it was just a
crush--that I could take it or leave it, you know--but you _are_
different. A man's just _got_ to have you----"
He waited. He had an idea that he had elucidated something. He felt that
he had raised an issue. But Maria Angelina stood like the bright eternal
snow, unhearing and unheeding and most devilishly cold.
"Only last night," said Johnny, explaining feverishly again, "you were
so funny and grand opera and all and I was mad and disgusted and grouchy
and I--I didn't know how much I cared myself. Look here, forget it, will
you, and begin again?"
"Begin what again?"
"Well, don't begin, then. Let's finish. Let's get married. I do want
you, Ri-Ri--I want you like the very deuce. After you had gone--Gee, it
was an awful night when I got over my mad. And coming down the mountain
this morning--I didn't know _what_ I was going to find! . . . So let's
forget it all--and get married," he repeated.
There was a pause. "Do you mean this?" said a still voice.
"Every word. That's what I was planning to tell you when I was running
down the mountain this morning. . . . And last night--if you'd gone at
me differently."
He looked at her. Something in that young figure made him say quickly,
"Will you, Ri-Ri?"
"I should like you," said Maria Angelina in a clear implacable little
voice, "to say that again, Signor Byrd, if you are in earnest."
"Oh, all right. Come on back, Barry. . . . I'm asking Ri-Ri to marry
me--and we'll announce the engagement any time she says. . . . There.
. . . Now I've got that off my chest."
"Thank you," said Maria Angelina. She looked neither at the embarrassed
Johnny nor the astounded Barry. "I will think about it and I will let
you know, Signor Byrd. Now please go."
"Well, of all the----" said Johnny blankly.
Then he looked at her. She was staring before her at something that she
alone could see. Her look was rather extraordinary. It occurred to
Johnny that after all she had a right to tantalize--and this was really
no moment for capitulation.
To-night, now, after dinner, when every one was fed and warm and comfy.
. . .
Still she might give a fellow a decent look. Hang it, he wasn't a
drygoods clerk offering himself!
"Come on, let her alone now," cut in Barry with a certain savage energy
that woke wonder in Johnny before it had time to wake resentment.
"We must be off," Barry went on. "Come on, the first part of our way
lies together and we'd better hurry or some searching party will find
us. Remember, you've only been here an hour," he called back to Maria
Angelina. He did not look at her, but added, in that same offhand way,
"Better go in and get some sleep and I'll telephone the Lodge from
Peter's and have a motor and a horse sent after you."
"I'll come with the motor all right," Johnny promised.
"Don't worry," called back Barry, and waved his hand with an air of
gayety but there was no laughter on his face as he started off over the
hill with Johnny Byrd.