CHAPTER VI
TO BE SUNG ON THE WATERS
{{di|I}] CAME to the conclusion that my charming visitors were right about Mr. Peter Toosey; he had no association with the unknown conspirators. They had gone direct to this verdict with the instinctive decision of their sex, while I was obliged to base my conclusion on dull facts and prosaic inferences. Perhaps Mr. Toosey had been alarmed by my opening attitude, and had written to the authorities. At any rate I received an intimation from the solicitors during the next few days, stating that Sir Gilbert would feel himself personally obliged if I would give Mr. Toosey every facility for his studies in the Norroy Gallery. This being so, it was evident that Mr. Toosey was known to Sir Gilbert, and that his presence had nothing to do with any plot which existed. I confess I was glad to be relieved of this suspicion, for I found my condition somewhat isolated, and, not getting on with my book too well, I inclined to seek company. I spent some hours on different occasions with Mr. Toosey in the gallery, and was interested in his combination of childish naïveté and weird knowledge.
In those days I had begun to forget that I had supposed there was a plot! For one thing, I saw no more of my janitor at the gate, nor were any signs of the other environing sentinels visible. The conspiracy seemed to have collapsed. Mr. Naylor had vanished, and there was no one at the "'Feathers." So I went on with my book, and I idled in the grounds, now in full spring blossom and rich with the approaching summer; and I haunted the inlet and the sea. I became very friendly with my boating man, Hawes, and enjoyed many an excursion with him. And on several occasions I met the ladies who were lodging at Mrs. Lane's.
It was quite clear now that Miss Harvey had struck up a friendship with the others, for I saw her motor-car pretty constantly in the village, and on more than one occasion the ladies were in company. I had some reluctance to press myself upon them, as I observed with chagrin a tendency on their part to draw off. Perhaps I was wrong in this interpretation of what may have been only pretty modest conduct, but I jumped easily to that conclusion. I must, however, except Miss Harvey from this statement. Her attitude underwent no visible alteration; she was as frank and friendly, as practical and as candid as ever. No self-consciousness checked her most impulsive or considered actions; and in gratitude I will confess that it was mainly due to her good offices that I fixed up the boating excursion to which I now come.
The estuary, throughout its length a broad creek of humming water, widens considerably at Southington, and an arm of the inlet penetrates the opposite shore as far as the little village of Baring. It was designed that our party of picnickers should visit this village, and eat lunch somewhere in the cool shadows of the wooded shore encompassing it. Miss Harvey had come from Two Bridges for the day, her mother having been obliged to go to London on some business. Like most young ladies of her country whom I have met, she had her mother well in hand. But she was very kind to her, and announced her intention of bringing her over to inspect the Castle. I warmly supported this proposal, and went so far as to express a hope that both ladies would honor me at dinner as soon as was practicable. I gave this invitation not only on account of my admiration of Miss Harvey, but also out of deep cunning, as you shall see. On the day of the picnic, which heralded in the flaming month of June, I recalled my lost roses, and I made up three elegant nosegays, equipped with which I descended to the village. The morning was full of cool, flowing airs, and I drew deep of the sea with every breath.
As we made our departure for our point of assemblage Mrs. Lane's cottage, I was conscious of Eustace leaning over his rustic gate across the green, and watching us with interest. I think none of the others noticed him, for we passed down to the landing-stage in a pleasant chatter of excitement. Here I offered my tribute of roses, and was rewarded by cordial exhibitions of gratitude. Miss Fuller pinned hers to the yoke of her gown just below her shoulder. Miss Harvey set hers in what I believe is called her corsage, and Perdita inserted hers in her belt. I was a little disappointed by this distribution, but I will admit it had a certain propriety, and at least suggested differentiation of character. They say all women are alike; but there were impassable chasms between these three. I liked to hug the fancy, that, though the disparity of sex yawned between us, Perdita and I were nearer akin than the others. She looked romantic, and I knew I was profoundly so. Was not the very flow of my thought at that moment witness to the fact?
Once in the free spaces of the estuary I raised the sail, and the sea- winds swept into it with a rush. Over heeled the boat and began to leap toward the distant shore. With the tiller in my hand I sat by Miss Fuller and Miss Harvey, while the wretched sail obscured my view of Perdita, but under the boom I could see the lemon gold of the Maréchal Niel in her belt. I put the tiller up, and we bounded over the freshening water, and cantered up the estuary.
"I don't wonder," observed Miss Harvey, "that all your sea-captains came from this little county."
"Yours," I corrected.
"I said yours," she replied, appropriating a familiar joke.
"Then ours," I amended. "Have n't you any affinity, and do you not claim kinship with Drake and Raleigh and gallant Sir Richard Grenville?"
"Oh, we 'll have Sir Richard," said Miss Harvey, enthusiastically, "who feared neither don nor devil. But I believe he was just a pirate, you know."
"Dover is the shire of the sea-rovers," I said, "and pirates and plunderers have always been the pioneers of civilization."
"Oh, Mr. Brabazon!" exclaimed Miss Fuller, reproachfully. "That's an awful idea! I don't think any movement can prosper which is founded on violence and wrong."
"Sweet dreamland faces!" I ejaculated under my breath, but aloud I acquiesced. "Ah, history is strewn with the bones of instances, is n't it?" I said. "What is life unless we perish for ideals? I'm prepared to do so on the shortest notice."
"I am just chock-full of ideals, I believe," remarked Miss Harvey, thoughtfully. And here my Perdita joined in.
She had little undiscovered tracts in her nature that delighted me when I got a peep of them. She was capable, I had already noticed, of quaint breaches of her demure reticence, of sallies, of audacity such as all romantic imaginations must make at times, if they are not to be forever ridden on the curb.
"You are both sneering," she said. "I will not hear one word against ideals; it is only through them that life is worth living."
"Precisely what I say," I declared.
"Yes, dear, and idealism means romance," said Miss Fuller, eagerly.
"And romance," I continued, "means lo—"
Miss Harvey interrupted with a clear peal of laughter. "Business, of course," she said. "There's no romance like that of business."
"Thank you so much," I said gratefully. "You just saved me from sentiment, and I hate sentimentalism."
"Do you think it's the same thing?" asked Perdita, seriously.
"It's the same thing in excess," I answered. "I'm told that women's skirts are the better for some arrangement which will keep them clear of the body—wires or elastics—is it, Miss Harvey?"
"Pray don't ask me. I am quite ignorant of such matters," she said innocently.
"Well, the contrivance driven to excess produces the crinoline!"
"The crinoline wasn't so bad; I've seen early Victorian modes look really beautiful in Paris," said Miss Harvey.
"Do you think that crinolines—" began Miss Fuller, and, unexpectedly realizing the ground was delicate, suddenly lapsed in confusion. I was wondering whither crinolines would lead us, when, of a sudden, the sound of a beautiful voice rose above the whistle of wind and whirl of water. I started; but it was not Perdita. Miss Harvey was singing with amazing volume and certainty and clarity. And the appropriate music had come to her by magic. It was Schubert's "Auf dem Wasser zu Singen."
The water made a plaintive accompaniment to the words and the melody, as her wonderful voice rolled through the first verse.
"Mitten im Schimmer der Spiegeln den Wellen
Gleitet wie Schwäne der wankende Kahn."
"Please go on!" I implored, as she paused at the end of the stanza. I put the boat about, and she came up slowly into the wind, lapping on the tide. The sail rattled and slatted, and underneath the boom I could descry the roses in Perdita's belt; but her face was hidden.
"Morgen entschwindet mit schimmernden Flügel
Wieder wie gestern und heute die Zeit."
Yes, let us keep our to-days, and all times may vanish. We live, if you come to think of it, exactly between yesterday and to-morrow, that is, between prospect and retrospect, and to a healthy man the present should be everything. Yesterday I knew not Norroy Castle, and to-morrow—no, ran my thoughts, I cannot give up to-morrow.
The singer stopped, and then—I do not know how it happened—I was looking not at her, but under the sail at my roses in a belt. Honestly I do not think it was my fault, for she had shifted her seat unwisely. But the bare facts are that the sail cracked like a whip, the boom kicked, and struck Miss Harvey as she rose, throwing her across the side of the boat. She hung there, half over the water, from her supple hips upwards, and Miss Fuller cried out in terror. The ribbons of her hat were deep in the fume of the sea. If it had been an affair of the boat merely, I could have amended it with the tiller, but she had lost her balance, and her feet rose even as I took in the scene and its danger. I left the tiller to take care of itself, seized her feet with one hand; and, leaning over, drew at her arms simultaneously with the other. To this day I do not know why we did not capsize. I think, the tiller adrift, the boat swung about on the other tack swiftly and strongly, and so saved the situation. At any rate, Miss Harvey came inside again with a little rush, and floored me in the bottom of the boat.
Her face was destitute of color as I extricated myself and her, and helped her into the seat near me, getting a grip at once of the wild tiller. Then she smiled wanly at me. "How strong and how clever!"
As I had gone down before her attack, I do not know that I deserved this, but I made profuse apologies, if so be it was I who had been at fault. But she was honest.
"No; I got up. I should n't have."
She shook her head weakly. Miss Fuller was as pale as she, and more agitated. It was Perdita who came to the rescue of our shipwrecked emotions.
"Have you a flask?" she asked me.
I confounded myself. I carried a flask so persistently and so uselessly that I forgot all about it. Now it had its chance; for this had it travelled with me for five futile years. Miss Harvey protested, but the "nip" did her good, restored the color to her face, and evoked wholesome laughter.
We reached Baring in due time, and ate our lunch and grew talkative and merry. Miss Harvey was merrier than any of us, and dominated our party. And as we sailed back in the late afternoon, she gave vent to her satisfaction in a deep sigh.
"There 'll never be another just so perfect a day as this," she said. "I don't mean your presence, Mr. Brabazon, though it's nice to have you, but the day."
"Oh," said I, "if we are being honest, it's nice to have you, too, but I agree with you; the day is the charm, not the human tenants under the canopy. Do you love spring or summer best?"
"The charm of your summer," said Miss Harvey, ignoring the question, "is that there is so little of it, and what there is is good. If we had old-world parks like yours, see how our sun would set over them! Oh, I do envy you your Castle, Mr. Brabazon."
"Sir Gilbert Norroy, you mean," I corrected.
"Well, it's yours for a season," she said smiling, and the three girls exchanged glances.
I quoted:
"'You are mine for a season
But I am yours till the end.'"
We bumped gently into the landing-stage, and Miss Harvey's agile, restless mind soared elsewhere.
"I'm going to pay a visit," she declared. "Ever since I heard of your suspicions of that poor man, I made up my mind to prove you wrong."
"I have no suspicions," I told her. "I am living in a fairy tale. No prince in a fairy tale ever suspects any one, and he always marries the right princess, or else there 'd be no story."
"Is that so?" she asked. "I thought it was going wrong that made the story. I don't like novels in which the path of true love runs smooth."
"What is true love?" I asked dramatically.
My Perdita and Miss Fuller were helping Hawes with the sculls.
"You know a good deal more than you say," flung back Miss Harvey, as she set out briskly up the slope by herself. We walked up to the village, and Miss Harvey's disappearance exercised us.
"Where has she gone?" inquired Miss Fuller.
"I think she's developed a notion," said Perdita, and added: "She's wonderful."
"Her energy is calculated to shock and shame any self-respecting Briton," I declared.
We halted by Mrs. Lane's cottage gate, and Perdita, with a gracious nod, fled under the arch of roses and up the pathway. Miss Fuller lingered.
"Wherever has she gone?" she asked, referring to Miss Harvey. The chauffeur was visible, wandering idly before the inn, with a pipe in his mouth. Therefore she had not gone to prepare for her homeward journey.
I shook my head; my gaze went past Miss Fuller up the stone pathway to a blank door.
"Won't you—won't you come in and have tea?" asked Miss Fuller, hesitantly.
I suppose I had forced this hospitality. She remembered, no doubt, that I had been host to their party and expected something in return. I accepted with alacrity, and we went up the garden together, Miss Fuller, I regret to say, showing signs of uneasiness and abstraction, which suggested repentance of her offer.
But why, I asked myself, should I be debarred from their quarters. I was fairly agreeable, and no more stupid than any other man, and I could vouch for my respectability. I could not think it was conventional prudery, in Perdita at least. I was resolved to enter, and I did, a little in the wake of my hostess. She had preceded me by a few steps into the crowded little rustic sitting-room, and ere I showed round the door, Perdita's voice was audible.
"Isabel, don't you think really, it was a little bare-faced, specially after what she said about—"
"Dear, I've brought in Sir Gilbert Norroy—" broke in Miss Fuller hastily.
Perdita, whom I now saw in the window, drew back swiftly.
"Oh, would you like tea?" she said precipitately.
"I don't know about Sir Gilbert. Mr. Brabazon would," I answered lightly.
The two girls bustled about their hospitable offices, leaving me to wonder. What was barefaced, and who was she? Perhaps it was Mrs. Lane who had been at the sugar. But, no. It must be Miss Harvey. What then had that charming lady to do with anything bare-faced? I gave it up, and drank my tea and talked small talk. In the clear light Perdita was tender and vivid to look upon. She reclined in an old-fashioned rocking-chair, and we discussed the evening, the weather, and the scenery,—all valuable subjects when you are dragging for an anchorage. From scenery we got upon the Castle, and I spoke of Sir Gilbert. I can laugh as I remember how I spoke of Sir Gilbert. I gave my opinion of him frankly, while the two girls eyed me with interest and unaffected attention. Sir Gilbert, I conceived was something of a ne'er-do-well and probably rackety into the bargain.
"Do you know him?" inquired Perdita abruptly.
I confessed that I did not, but I had plenty of evidence against him. He must be a man of no taste, seeing he had neglected so picturesque a property for years.
"Perhaps he did n't know it was so nice," suggested Miss Fuller.
I pointed out that he had been there as a boy, and that ignorantia legis non excusat.
"Perhaps," remarked Miss Fuller, "he has reasons which keep him away."
"Reasons! Dissipations are the reasons of youth," I said with scorn.
"You are very hard on him," she said, without seeming to mind. "But perhaps you know best."
"No; I have theories," I explained. "I sit and brood in my lonely rooms, and try to materialize this landlord of mine. I think of lots of things in my solitude. Solitude is good for the brain, but I think it's bad for the morals. I feel I'm going down-hill."
"Please don't dissipate like Sir Gilbert," said Perdita, with a smile that flashed out.
"Very well, I won't," I promised. "But if my solitude was not so prolonged and profound, I should find it easier—if I had visitors oftener, for example."
Perdita took no heed of this broad hint, but Miss Fuller cast what I took to be an inquiring glance at her. She rose.
"There is Miss Harvey," she said, gazing through the window, "and she's with—why, it's Mr. Eustace!"
I looked over her shoulder, and saw the pair pass. They crossed the green from the direction of the inn, and went boldly towards Eustace's lodgings. They entered unashamedly and in naked daylight.
Perdita's eyes fell on me, her lips trembling with a little unexpressed smile. I have told you of her audacious sallies; here was one. Her face invited me, if I could interpret it so far, to enjoy a point of humor with her. It was no use in the world appealing to Miss Fuller, and I got the notion that she never tried. I believe we should both have laughed out had we been alone together. As it was, our humors greeted civilly and went by. Perdita demurely resumed her seat.
"Whatever is she thinking of?" asked Miss Fuller.
"I hope she's gone in to have some tea as nice as this," I answered. "And may I have just one more cup before you turn me out?"
"Oh, it's stood too long," said Miss Fuller in dismay.
"I'm afraid so have I," I said. I wanted to leave with the satisfaction of that mutual understanding. I made my adieus and went to the door. Perdita stood smilingly gracious and beautiful before me.
"Good-bye," she said, as she shook hands, and there was even a mischievous look appearing with the dimple in her cheeks. "I would n't be so hard on Sir Gilbert, He may be only a frivoller."
"I won't," I said, oblivious to all but her beauty and its proximity to me.
The chauffeur was still lounging before the inn as I went by; and when I reached the gates of my domain, there was the large cockney back again.
"Why, my friend," I stopped to say gayly, out of a full heart, "this is like old times. I wish I 'd known. I'd have sent the carriage for you."
He stared, his mouth open in surprise; and then, as one suspecting himself the victim of a practical joke which he does not understand, retorted surlily:
"Come off it! If you do own the Castle, you don't the road, Mister."
"I 'll ask the cook to send out sandwiches," I said, paying no heed. He was a genuine cockney with the cockney's genuine spirit, and he changed sharply, and with humor.
"I 'll take sherry with 'em. Governor, thanks," he said, and as I walked on called after me "and a fiver for keb-fares, as I 've left me purse on the kitchen pianner."
His mocking laughter followed me, and I left him restored to good humor by his sally. I was not even giving him a thought, or the plot, or the burglar, or any indifferent matters of that kind.
No; spring was ripening to summer in the countryside. And spring was blossoming to summer in my heart. Of course it was folly, but all delight is folly, and to be midsummer-mad is the supreme delight. That dream of mine, drawn from vasty deeps of mind and memory and consciousness, was substantiated in a beautiful face, in a soft coloring, in bronze-brown hair, in eyes as vivid as heaven.