There was a custom of Canaan, time-worn and seldom honored in the
breach, which put Ariel, that afternoon, in easy possession of a coign
of vantage commanding the front gate. The heavy Sunday dinner was
finished in silence (on the part of Judge Pike, deafening) about three
o'clock, and, soon after, Mamie tossed a number of cushions out upon
the stoop between the cast-iron dogs,--Sam Warden having previously
covered the steps with a rug and placed several garden chairs near by
on the grass. These simple preparations concluded, Eugene sprawled
comfortably upon the rug, and Mamie seated herself near him, while
Ariel wandered with apparent aimlessness about the lawn, followed by
the gaze of Mr. Bantry, until Miss Pike begged her, a little
petulantly, to join them.
She came, looking about her dreamily, and touching to her lips, now and
then, with an absent air, a clover blossom she had found in the longer
grass against the fence. She stopped to pat the neck of one of the
cast-iron deer, and with grave eyes proffered the clover-top first for
inspection, then as food. There were those in the world who, seeing
her, might have wondered that the deer did not play Galatea and come to
life.
"No?" she said, aloud, to the steadfast head. "You won't? What a
mistake to be made of cast-iron!" She smiled and nodded to a clump of
lilac-bushes near a cedar-tree, and to nothing else--so far as Eugene
and Mamie could see,--then walked thoughtfully to the steps.
"Who in the world were you speaking to?" asked Mamie, curiously.
"That deer."
"But you bowed to some one."
"Oh, that," Ariel lifted her eyebrows,--"that was your father. Didn't
you see him?"
"No."
"I believe you can't from here, after all," said Ariel, slowly. "He is
sitting upon a rustic bench between the bushes and the cedar-tree,
quite near the gate. No, you couldn't see him from here; you'd have to
go as far as the deer, at least, and even then you might not notice
him, unless you looked for him. He has a book--a Bible, I think--but I
don't think he is reading."
"He usually takes a nap on Sunday afternoons," said Mamie.
"I don't think he will, to-day." Ariel looked at Eugene, who avoided
her clear gaze. "He has the air of having settled himself to stay for
a long time, perhaps until evening."
She had put on her hat after dinner, and Mamie now inquired if she
would not prefer to remove it, offering to carry it in-doors for her,
to Ariel's room, to insure its safety. "You look so sort of temporary,
wearing it," she urged, "as if you were only here for a little while.
It's the loveliest hat I ever saw, and so fragile, too, but I'll take
care--"
Ariel laughed, leaned over, and touched the other's hand lightly. "It
isn't that, dear."
"What is it, then?" Mamie beamed out into a joyful smile. She had
felt sure that she could not understand Ariel; was, indeed, afraid of
her; and she found herself astonishingly pleased to be called "dear,"
and delighted with the little familiarity of the hand-tap. Her feeling
toward the visitor (who was, so her father had announced, to become a
permanent member of the household) had been, until now, undefined. She
had been on her guard, watching for some sign of conscious
"superiority" in this lady who had been so long over-seas, not knowing
what to make of her; though thrown, by the contents of her trunks, into
a wistfulness which would have had something of rapture in it had she
been sure that she was going to like Ariel. She had gone to the
latter's room before church, and had perceived uneasily that it had
become, even by the process of unpacking, the prettiest room she had
ever seen. Mrs. Warden, wife of Sam, and handmaiden of the mansion,
was assisting, alternately faint and vociferous with marvelling. Mamie
feared that Ariel might be a little overpowering.
With the word "dear" (that is, of course, with the way it was spoken),
and with the touch upon the hand, it was all suddenly settled; she
would not understand Ariel always--that was clear--but they would like
each other.
"I am wearing my hat," answered Ariel, "because at any moment I may
decide to go for a long walk!"
"Oh, I hope not," said Mamie. "There are sure to be people: a few
still come, even though I'm an engaged girl. I expect that's just to
console me, though," she added, smiling over this worn quip of the
betrothed, and shaking her head at Eugene, who grew red and coughed.
"There'll be plenty to-day, but they won't be here to see me. It's
you, Ariel, and they'd be terribly disappointed if you weren't here. I
shouldn't wonder if the whole town came; it's curious enough about you!"
Canaan (at least that part of it which Mamie meant when she said "the
whole town") already offered testimony to her truthfulness. Two
gentlemen, aged nine and eleven, and clad in white "sailor suits," were
at that moment grooving their cheeks between the round pickets of the
gate. They had come from the house across the street, evidently
stimulated by the conversation at their own recent dinner-table (they
wore a few deposits such as are left by chocolate-cake), and the motive
of their conduct became obvious when, upon being joined by a person
from next door (a starched and frilled person of the opposite sex but
sympathetic age), one of them waggled a forefinger through the gate at
Ariel, and a voice was heard in explanation:
"THAT'S HER."
There was a rustle in the lilac-bushes near the cedar-tree; the three
small heads turned simultaneously in that direction; something terrific
was evidently seen, and with a horrified "OOOH!" the trio skedaddled
headlong.
They were but the gay vanguard of the life which the street, quite dead
through the Sunday dinner-hour, presently took on. Young couples with
their progeny began to appear, returning from the weekly reunion Sunday
dinner with relatives; young people meditative (until they reached the
Pike Mansion), the wives fanning themselves or shooing the
tots-able-to-walk ahead of them, while the husbands, wearing long
coats, satin ties, and showing dust upon their blazing shoes,
invariably pushed the perambulators. Most of these passers-by
exchanged greetings with Mamie and Eugene, and all of them looked hard
at Ariel as long as it was possible.
And now the young men of the town, laboriously arranged as to apparel,
began to appear on the street in small squads, making their Sunday
rounds; the youngest working in phalanxes of threes and fours, those
somewhat older inclining to move in pairs; the eldest, such as were now
beginning to be considered middle-aged beaux, or (by the extremely
youthful) "old bachelors," evidently considered it advantageous to
travel alone. Of all these, there were few who did not, before evening
fell, turn in at the gate of the Pike Mansion. Consciously, shyly or
confidently, according to the condition of their souls, they made their
way between the cast-iron deer to be presented to the visitor.
Ariel sat at the top of the steps, and, looking amiably over their
heads, talked with such as could get near her. There were many who
could not, and Mamie, occupying the bench below, was surrounded by the
overflow. The difficulty of reaching and maintaining a position near
Miss Tabor was increased by the attitude and behavior of Mr. Flitcroft,
who that day cooled the feeling of friendship which several of his
fellow-townsmen had hitherto entertained for him. He had been the
first to arrive, coming alone, though that was not his custom, and he
established himself at Ariel's right, upon the step just below her, so
disposing the great body and the ponderous arms and legs the gods had
given him, that no one could mount above him to sit beside her, or
approach her from that direction within conversational distance. Once
established, he was not to be dislodged, and the only satisfaction for
those in this manner debarred from the society of the beautiful
stranger was obtained when they were presented to her and when they
took their departure. On these occasions it was necessary by custom for
them to shake her hand, a ceremony they accomplished by leaning across
Mr. Flitcroft, which was a long way to lean, and the fat back and
shoulders were sore that night because of what had been surreptitiously
done to them by revengeful elbows and knees.
Norbert, not ordinarily talkative, had nothing to say; he seemed to
find sufficient occupation in keeping the place he had gained; and from
this close vantage he fastened his small eyes immovably upon Ariel's
profile. Eugene, also apparently determined not to move, sat
throughout the afternoon at her left, but as he was thin, others, who
came and went, were able to approach upon that side and hold speech
with her.
She was a stranger to these young people, most of whom had grown up
together in a nickname intimacy. Few of them had more than a very
imperfect recollection of her as she was before Roger Tabor and she had
departed out of Canaan. She had lived her girlhood only upon their
borderland, with no intimates save her grandfather and Joe; and she
returned to her native town "a revelation and a dream," as young Mr.
Bradbury told his incredulous grandmother that night.
The conversation of the gallants consisted, for the greater part, of
witticisms at one another's expense, which, though evoked for Ariel's
benefit (all eyes furtively reverting to her as each shaft was loosed),
she found more or less enigmatical. The young men, however, laughed at
each other loudly, and seemed content if now and then she smiled. "You
must be frightfully ennuied with all this," Eugene said to her. "You
see how provincial we still are."
She did not answer; she had not heard him. The shadows were stretching
themselves over the grass, long and attenuated; the sunlight upon the
trees and houses was like a thin, rosy pigment; black birds were
calling each other home to beech and elm; and Ariel's eyes were fixed
upon the western distance of the street where gold-dust was beginning
to quiver in the air. She did not hear Eugene, but she started, a
moment later, when the name "Joe Louden" was pronounced by a young man,
the poetic Bradbury, on the step below Eugene. Some one immediately
said "'SH!" But she leaned over and addressed Mr. Bradbury, who, shut
out, not only from the group about her, but from the other centring
upon Miss Pike, as well, was holding a private conversation with a
friend in like misfortune.
"What were you saying of Mr. Louden?" she asked, smiling down upon the
young man. (It was this smile which inspired his description of her as
"a revelation and a dream.")
"Oh, nothing particular," was his embarrassed reply. "I only mentioned
I'd heard there was some talk among the--" He paused awkwardly,
remembering that Ariel had walked with Joseph Louden in the face of
Canaan that very day. "That is, I mean to say, there's some talk of his
running for Mayor."
"WHAT?"
There was a general exclamation, followed by an uncomfortable moment or
two of silence. No one present was unaware of that noon walk, though
there was prevalent a pleasing notion that it would not happen again,
founded on the idea that Ariel, having only arrived the previous
evening, had probably met Joe on the street by accident, and,
remembering him as a playmate of her childhood and uninformed as to his
reputation, had, naturally enough, permitted him to walk home with her.
Mr. Flitcroft broke the silence, rushing into words with a derisive
laugh: "Yes, he's 'talked of' for Mayor--by the saloon people and the
niggers! I expect the Beaver Beach crowd would be for him, and if
tramps could vote he might--"
"What is Beaver Beach?" asked Ariel, not turning.
"What is Beaver Beach?" he repeated, and cast his eyes to the sky,
shaking his head awesomely. "It's a Place," he said, with abysmal
solemnity,--"a Place I shouldn't have mentioned in your presence, Miss
Tabor."
"What has it to do with Mr. Louden?"
The predestined Norbert conceived the present to be a heaven-sent
opportunity to enlighten her concerning Joe's character, since the
Pikes appeared to have been derelict in the performance of this
kindness.
"He goes there!" he proceeded heavily. "He lived there for a while
when he first came back from running away, and he's a friend of Mike
Sheehan's that runs it; he's a friend of all the riff-raff that hang
around there."
"How do you know he goes there?"
"Why, it was in the paper the day after he came back!" He appealed for
corroboration. "Wasn't it, Eugene?"
"No, no!" she persisted. "Newspapers are sometimes mistaken, aren't
they?" Laughing a little, she swept across the bulbous face beside her
a swift regard that was like a search-light. "How do you KNOW, Mr.
Flitcroft," she went on very rapidly, raising her voice,--"how do you
KNOW that Mr. Louden is familiar with this place? The newspapers may
have been falsely informed; you must admit that? Then how do you KNOW?
Have you ever MET any one who has seen him there?"
"I've seen him there myself!" The words skipped out of Norbert's mouth
like so many little devils, the instant he opened it. She had spoken
so quickly and with such vehemence, looking him full in the eye, that
he had forgotten everything in the world except making the point to
which her insistence had led him.
Mamie looked horrified; there was a sound of smothered laughter, and
Norbert, overwhelmed by the treachery of his own mouth, sat gasping.
"It can't be such a terrific place, then, after all," said Ariel,
gently, and turning to Eugene, "Have you ever been there, Mr. Bantry?"
she asked.