Sunset was approaching on the following afternoon when Rudolph Musgrave,
fresh from Lichfield,--whither, as has been recorded, the bringing out
of the July number of the _Lichfield Historical Associations Quarterly
Magazine_ had called him,--came out on the front porch at Matocton. He
had arrived on the afternoon train, about an hour previously, in time to
superintend little Roger's customary evening transactions with an
astounding quantity of bread and milk; and, Roger abed, his father,
having dressed at once for supper, found himself ready for that meal
somewhat in advance of the rest of the house-party.
Indeed, only one of them was visible at this moment--a woman, who was
reading on a rustic bench some distance from the house, and whose back
was turned to him. The poise of her head, however, was not unfamiliar;
also, it is not everyone who has hair that is like a nimbus of
thrice-polished gold.
Colonel Musgrave threw back his shoulders, and drew a deep breath.
Subsequently, with a fine air of unconcern, he inspected the view from
the porch, which was, in fact, quite worthy of his attention.
Interesting things have happened at Matocton--many events that have been
preserved in the local mythology, not always to the credit of the old
Musgraves, and a few which have slipped into a modest niche in history.
It was, perhaps, on these that Colonel Musgrave pondered so intently.
Once the farthingaled and red-heeled gentry came in sluggish barges to
Matocton, and the broad river on which the estate faces was thick with
bellying sails; since the days of railroads, one approaches the mansion
through the maple-grove in the rear, and enters ignominiously by the
back-door.
The house stands on a considerable elevation. The main portion, with its
hipped roof and mullioned windows, is very old, but the two wings that
stretch to the east and west are comparatively modern, and date back
little over a century. Time has mellowed them into harmony with the
major part of the house, and the kindly Virginia creeper has done its
utmost to conceal the fact that they are constructed of plebeian bricks
which were baked in this country; but Matocton was Matocton long before
these wings were built, and a mere affair of yesterday, such as the
Revolution, antedates them. They were not standing when Tarleton paid
his famous visit to Matocton.
In the main hall, you may still see the stairs up which he rode on
horseback, and the slashes which his saber hacked upon the hand-rail.
To the front of the mansion lies a close-shaven lawn, dotted with
sundry oaks and maples; and thence, the formal gardens descend in six
broad terraces. There is when summer reigns no lovelier spot than this
bright medley of squares and stars and triangles and circles--all Euclid
in flowerage--which glow with multitudinous colors where the sun
strikes. You will find no new flowers at Matocton, though. Here are
verbenas, poppies, lavender and marigolds, sweet-william, hollyhocks and
columbine, phlox, and larkspur, and meadowsweet, and heart's-ease, just
as they were when Thomasine Musgrave, Matocton's first châtelaine, was
wont to tend them; and of all floral parvenus the gardens are innocent.
Box-hedges mark the walkways.
The seventh terrace was, until lately, uncultivated, the trees having
been cleared away to afford pasturage. It is now closely planted with
beeches, none of great size, and extends to a tangled thicket of
fieldpines and cedar and sassafras and blackberry bushes, which again
masks a drop of some ten feet to the river.
The beach here is narrow; at high tide, it is rarely more than fifteen
feet in breadth, and is in many places completely submerged. Past this,
the river lapses into the horizon line without a break, save on an
extraordinarily clear day when Bigelow's Island may be seen as a dim
smudge upon the west.
All these things, Rudolph Musgrave regarded with curiously deep interest
for one who had seen them so many times before. Then, with a shrug of
the shoulders, he sauntered forward across the lawn. He had planned
several appropriate speeches, but, when it came to the point of giving
them utterance, he merely held out his hand in an awkward fashion, and
said:
"Anne!"
She looked up from her reading.
She did this with two red-brown eyes that had no apparent limits to
their depth. Her hand was soft; it seemed quite lost in the broad palm
of a man's hand.
"Dear Rudolph," she said, as simply as though they had parted yesterday,
"it's awfully good to see you again."
Colonel Musgrave cleared his throat, and sat down beside her.
A moment later Colonel Musgrave cleared his throat once more.
Then Mrs. Charteris laughed. It was a pleasant laugh--a clear, rippling
carol of clean mirth that sparkled in her eyes, and dimpled in her
wholesome cheeks.
"So! do you find it very, very awkward?"
"Awkward!" he cried. Their glances met in a flash of comprehension which
seemed to purge the air. Musgrave was not in the least self-conscious
now. He laughed, and lifted an admonitory forefinger.
"Oh, good Cynara," he said, "I am not what I was. And so I cannot do it,
my dear--I really cannot possibly live up to the requirements of being a
Buried Past. In a proper story-book or play, I would have to come back
from New Zealand or the Transvaal, all covered with glory and epaulets,
and have found you in the last throes of consumption: instead, you have
fattened, Anne, which a Buried Past never does, and which shows a sad
lack of appreciation for my feelings. And I--ah, my dear, I must confess
that my hair is growing gray, and that my life has not been entirely
empty without you, and that I ate and enjoyed two mutton-chops at
luncheon, though I knew I should see you to-day. I am afraid we are
neither of us up to heroics, Anne. So let's be sensible and comfy, my
dear."
"You brute!" she cried--not looking irreparably angry, yet not without a
real touch of vexation; "don't you know that every woman cherishes the
picture of her former lovers sitting alone in the twilight, and growing
lackadaisical over undying memories and faded letters? And you--you
approach me, after I don't dare to think how many years, as calmly as if
I were an old schoolmate of your mother's, and attempt to talk to me
about mutton-chops! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Rudolph
Musgrave. You might, at least, have started a little at seeing me, and
have clasped your hand to your heart, and have said, 'You, you!' or
something of the sort. I had every right to expect it."
Mrs. Charteris pouted, and then trifled for a moment with the pages of
her book.
"And--and I want to tell you that I am sorry for the way I spoke to
you--that night," she swiftly said. Anne did not look at him. "Women
don't understand things that are perfectly simple to men, I suppose--I
mean--that is, Jack said--"
"That you ought to apologize? It was very like him"--and Colonel
Musgrave smiled to think how like John Charteris it was. "Jack is quite
wonderful," he observed.
She looked up, saying impulsively, "Rudolph, you don't know how happy he
makes me."
"Heartless woman, and would you tempt me to end the tragedy of my life
with a Shakesperian fifth act of poisonings and assassination? I spurn
you, temptress. For, after all, it was an unpleasantly long while ago we
went mad for each other," Musgrave announced, and he smiled. "I fancy
that the boy and girl we knew of are as dead now as Nebuchadnezzar.
'Marian's married, and I sit here alive and merry at'--well, not at
forty year, unluckily--"
"If you continue in that heartless strain, I shall go into the house,"
Mrs. Charteris protested.
Her indignation was exaggerated, but it was not altogether feigned;
women cannot quite pardon a rejected suitor who marries and is content.
They wish him all imaginable happiness and prosperity, of course; and
they are honestly interested in his welfare; but it seems unexpectedly
callous in him. And besides his wife is so perfectly commonplace.
Mrs. Charteris, therefore, added, with emphasis: "I am really
disgracefully happy."
"Glad to hear it," said Musgrave, placidly. "So am I."
"Oh, Rudolph, Rudolph, you are hopeless!" she sighed. "And you used to
make such a nice lover!"
Mrs. Charteris looked out over the river, which was like melting gold,
and for a moment was silent.
"I was frightfully in love with you, Rudolph," she said, as half in
wonder. "After--after that horrible time when my parents forced us to
behave rationally, I wept--oh, I must have wept deluges! I firmly
intended to pine away to an early grave. And that second time I liked
you too, but then--there was Jack, you see."
"H'm!" said Colonel Musgrave; "yes, I see."
"I want you to continue to be friends with Jack," she went on, and her
face lighted up, and her voice grew tender. "He has the artistic
temperament, and naturally that makes him sensitive, and a trifle
irritable at times. It takes so little to upset him, you see, for he
feels so acutely what he calls the discords of life. I think most men
are jealous of his talents; so they call him selfish and finicky and
conceited. He isn't really, you know. Only, he can't help feeling a
little superior to the majority of men, and his artistic temperament
leads him to magnify the lesser mishaps of life--such as the steak being
overdone, or missing a train. Oh, really, a thing like that worries him
as much as the loss of a fortune, or a death in the family, would upset
anyone else. Jack says there are no such things as trifles in a
harmonious and well-proportioned life, and I suppose that's true to men
of genius. Of course, I am rather a Philistine, and I grate on him at
times--that is, I used to, but he says I have improved wonderfully. And
so we are ridiculously happy, Jack and I."
Musgrave cast about vainly for an appropriate speech. Then he
compromised with his conscience, and said: "Your husband is a very
clever man."
"Isn't he?" She had flushed for pleasure at hearing him praised. Oh,
yes, Anne loved Jack Charteris! There was no questioning that; it was
written in her face, was vibrant in her voice as she spoke of him.
"Now, really, Rudolph, aren't his books wonderful? I don't appreciate
them, of course, for I'm not clever, but I know you do. I don't see why
men think him selfish. I know better. You have to live with Jack to
really appreciate him. And every day I discover some new side of his
character that makes him dearer to me. He's so clever--and so noble.
Why, I remember--Well, before Jack made his first hit with _Astaroth's
Lackey_, he lived with his sister. They hadn't any money, and, of
course, Jack couldn't be expected to take a clerkship or anything like
that, because business details make his head ache, poor boy. So, his
sister taught school, and he lived with her. They were very happy--his
sister simply adores him, and I am positively jealous of her
sometimes--but, unfortunately, the bank in which she kept her money
failed one day. I remember it was just before he asked me to marry him,
and told me, in his dear, laughing manner, that he hadn't a penny in
the world, and that we would have to live on bread and cheese and
kisses. Of course, I had a plenty for us both, though, so we weren't
really in danger of being reduced to that. Well, I wanted to make his
sister an allowance. But Jack pointed out, with considerable reason,
that one person could live very comfortably on an income that had
formerly supported two. He said it wasn't right I should be burdened
with the support of his family. Jack was so sensitive, you see, lest
people might think he was making a mercenary marriage, and that his
sister was profiting by it. Now, I call that one of the noblest things I
ever heard of, for he is devotedly attached to his sister, and,
naturally, it is a great grief to him to see her compelled to work for a
living. His last book was dedicated to her, and the dedication is one of
the most tender and pathetic things I ever read."
Musgrave was hardly conscious of what she was saying. She was not
particularly intelligent, this handsome, cheery woman, but her voice,
and the richness and sweetness of it, and the vitality of her laugh,
contented his soul.
Anne was different; the knowledge came again to him quite simply that
Anne was different, and in the nature of things must always be a little
different from all other people--even Patricia Musgrave. He had no
desire to tell Anne Charteris of this, no idea that it would affect in
any way the tenor of his life. He merely accepted the fact that she was,
after all, Anne Willoughby, and that her dear presence seemed, somehow,
to strengthen and cheer and comfort and content beyond the reach of
expression.
Yet Musgrave recognized her lack of cleverness, and liked and admired
her none the less. A vision of Patricia arose--a vision of a dainty,
shallow, Dresden-china face with a surprising quantity of vivid hair
about it. Patricia was beautiful; and Patricia was clever, in her
pinchbeck way. But Rudolph Musgrave doubted very much if her mocking
eyes now ever softened into that brooding, sacred tenderness he had seen
in Anne's eyes; and he likewise questioned if a hurried, happy thrill
ran through Patricia's voice when Patricia spoke of her husband.
"You have unquestionably married an unusual man," Musgrave said. "I--by
Jove, you know, I fancy my wife finds him almost as attractive as you
do."
"Ah, Rudolph, I can't fancy anyone whom--whom you loved caring for
anyone else. Don't I remember, sir, how irresistible you can be when you
choose?"
Anne laughed, and raised plump hands to heaven.
"Really, though, women pursue him to a perfectly indecent extent. I have
to watch over him carefully; not that I distrust him, of course,
for--dear Jack!--he is so devoted to me, and cares so little for other
women, that Joseph would seem in comparison only a depraved _roué_. But
the _women_--why, Rudolph, there was an Italian countess at Rome--the
impudent minx!--who actually made me believe--However, Jack
explained all that, after I had made both a spectacle and a nuisance of
myself, and he had behaved so nobly in the entire affair that for days
afterwards I was positively limp with repentance. Then in Paris that
flighty Mrs. Hardress--but he explained that, too. Some women are
shameless, Rudolph," Mrs. Charteris concluded, and sighed her pity for
them.
"Utterly so," Musgrave assented, gravely.
He was feeling a thought uncomfortable. To him the place had grown
portentous. The sun was low, and the long shadows of the trees were
black on the dim lawn. People were assembling for supper, and passing to
and fro under low-hanging branches; and the gaily-colored gowns of the
women glimmered through a faint blue haze like that with which Boucher
and Watteau and Fragonard loved to veil, and thereby to make wistful,
somehow, the antics of those fine parroquet-like manikins who figure in
their _fêtes galantes._
Inside the house, someone was playing an unpleasant sort of air on the
piano--an air which was quite needlessly creepy and haunting and
insistent. It all seemed like a grim bit out of a play. The tenderness
and pride that shone in Anne's eyes as she boasted of her happiness
troubled Rudolph Musgrave. He had a perfectly unreasonable desire to
carry her away, by force, if necessary, and to protect her from clever
people, and to buy things for her.
"So, I am an old, old married woman now, and--and I think in some ways
I suit Jack better than a more brilliant person might. I am glad your
wife has taken a fancy to him. And I want you to profit by her example.
Jack says she is one of the most attractive women he ever met. He asked
me to-day why I didn't do my hair like hers. She must make you very
happy, Rudolph?"
"My wife," Colonel Musgrave said, "is in my partial opinion, a very
clever and very beautiful woman."
"Yes; cleverness and beauty are sufficient to make any man happy, I
suppose," Anne hazarded. "Jack says, though--_Are_ cleverness and beauty
the main things in life, Rudolph?"
"Undoubtedly," he protested.
"Now, that," she said, judicially, "shows the difference in men. Jack
says a man loves a woman, not for her beauty or any other quality she
possesses, but just because she is the woman he loves and can't help
loving."
"Ah! I dare say that is the usual reason. Yes," said Colonel
Musgrave,--"because she is the woman he loves and cannot help loving!"
Anne clapped her hands. "Ah, so I have penetrated your indifference at
last, sir!"
Impulsively, she laid her hand upon his arm, and spoke with earnestness.
"Dear Rudolph, I am so glad you've found the woman you can really love.
Jack says there is only one possible woman in the world for each man,
and that only in a month of Sundays does he find her."
"Yes." said Musgrave. He had risen, and was looking down in friendly
fashion into her honest, lovely eyes. "Yes, there is only one possible
woman. And--yes, I think I found her, Anne, some years ago."