Mr. Achilles Part 11

The maid stole to the window and peered through the shutters. She came back to the bed. "It's a boy," she said, "a Greek boy--and Miss Stone."

"Why is he here?" asked the woman, querulously.

The maid paused--discreet. She knew--everyone except the woman lying with closed eyes--knew why the boy was here.... She bent and adjusted the pillow, smoothing it. "He is someone Mr. Harris sent down," she said, "someone to get well."

There was no reply. The woman lay quiet. "I want to get up, Marie," she said at last. "It is stifling here."

"Yes, Madame."

The windows were opened a little--the light came in slowly, and Mrs. Philip Harris stepped at last into the loggia that led from her windows--out toward the garden. Grapevines climbed the posts and tendril shadows were on the ground beneath. They rested on the frail figure moving under them toward the light.

Marie hovered near her, with pillows and a sunshade, and her face full of care.

But the woman waved her back. "I do not need you, Marie. Here--I will take the sunshade. Now, go back." She moved on slowly. The voices had died away. In the distance, she saw Miss Stone, moving toward the wood, alone. She paused for a moment, watching the grey figure--a little cloud pa.s.sed across her face. She had not seen Miss Stone--since... she did not blame her--but she could not see her. She moved on slowly, the light from the sunshade touching the lines in her face and flus.h.i.+ng them softly. Suddenly she stopped. On a low couch, a little distance away, a boy lay asleep. She came up to him softly and stood watching him. There was something in the flushed face, in the childish, drooping lip and tossed hair--that reminded her. Slowly she sank down beside him, hardly breathing.

All about them, the summer went on--the quiet, gentle warmth and the fresh scent of blossoms. The boy murmured a little, and threw out an arm, and slept on. The woman's eyes watched the sleeping face. Something mysterious was in it--a look of other worlds. It was the look of Betty--at night... when she lay asleep. It certainly was from some other world. The woman bent forward a little. The dark eyes opened--and looked at her--and smiled. The boy sat up. "I sleep," he said.

He rubbed his eyes, boyishly, smiling still to her. "I very sleepy," he said. "I work." He rubbed his arms. "I work hard."

She questioned him and moved a little away, and he came and sat at her feet, telling her of himself--with quiet slowness. As she questioned him he told her all that he knew. And they chatted in the suns.h.i.+ne--subtly drawn to each other--happy in something they could not have said.

The boy had grown refined by his illness--the st.u.r.dy hands that had guided the push-cart had lost their roughened look and seemed the shape of some old statue; and the head, poised on the round throat, was as if some old museum had come to life and laughed in the sun. If Mrs. Philip Harris had seen Alcibiades shoving his cart before him, along the cobbled street, his head thrown back, his voice calling "Ban-an-nas!"

as he went, she would not have given him a thought. But here, in her garden, in the white clothes that he wore, and sitting at her feet, it was as if the gates to another world had opened to them--and both looked back together at his own life. The mystery in the boy's eyes stirred her--and the sound of his voice... there was something in it... beauty, wonder--mystery. She drew a quick breath. "I think I will go in," she said, and the boy lifted himself to help her--and only left her, under the loggia, with a quick, grateful flash of the dark smile.

Mrs. Philip Harris slept that night--the chloral, on the little table beside her, untouched. And the next day found her in the garden.

All the household watched--with quickened hope. The mistress of the house had taken up her life, and the old quick orders ran through the house. And no one spoke of the child. It was as if she were asleep--in some distant room--veiled in her cloud. But the house came back to its life. Only, the social groups that had filled it every summer were not there. But there was the Greek boy, in the garden, and Miss Stone, and Philip Harris whirring out at night and sitting on the terrace in the dusk, the light of his cigar glimmering a little, as he watched the Greek boy flung on the ground at his feet, his eyes playing with the stars. He knew them all by name under the skies of Greece. Achilles had taught them to him; and he counted them, like a flock, as he lay on the terrace--rolling out the great Greek names while they girdled the sky above him in a kind of homely chant.

When the boy had gone to bed Philip Harris remained smoking thoughtfully and looking still at the stars. He had had a long talk with the surgeon to-day and he had given his consent. The boy was well, he admitted--as well as he was likely to be--perhaps. Give him three more days--then, if nothing happened, they might question him.

Philip Harris threw away his cigar--and its glimmering light went out in the gra.s.s. Overhead the great stars still circled in s.p.a.ce, travelling on toward the new day.

XX

THE TEST IS MADE

"I will ask the questions," Achilles had said, in his quiet voice, and it had been arranged that he should come to Idlewood when the surgeon gave the word.

He arrived the next night, stepping from the car as it drew up before the door, and Alcibiades, standing among the flowers talking with Miss Stone, saw him and started and came forward swiftly. He had not known that his father was coming--he ran a little as he came nearer and threw himself in his arms, laughing out.

Achilles smiled--a dark, wistful smile. "You are grown strong," he said.

He held him off to look at him.

The boy's teeth gleamed--a white line. "To-morrow we go home?" he replied. "I am all well--father--well now!"

But Achilles shook his head. "To-morrow we stay," he replied. "I stay one day--two days--three--" He looked at the boy narrowly. "Then we go home."

The boy smiled contentedly and they moved away. Early the next morning he was up before Achilles, calling to him from the garden to hurry and see the flowers before the mist was off them, and showing him, with eager teeth, his own radishes--ready to pull--and little lines of green lettuce that sprang above the earth. "I plant," said the boy proudly. "I make grow." He swung his arm over the whole garden.

Achilles watched him with gentle face, following him from bed to bed and stooping to the plants with courteous gesture. It was all like home.

They had never been in a garden before--in this new land... the melons and berries and plums and peaches and pears that came crated into the little fruit-shop had grown in unknown fields--but here they stretched in the sun; and the two Greeks moved toward them with laughing, gentle words and quick gestures that flitted and stopped, and went on, and gathered in the day. The new world was gathering its sky about them; and their faces turned to meet it. And with every gesture of the boy, Achilles's eyes were on him, studying his face, its quick colour running beneath the tan, and the clear light of his eyes. Indoors or out, he was testing him; and with every gesture his heart sang. His boy was well...

and he held a key that should open the dark door that baffled them all. When he spoke, that door would open for them--a little way, perhaps--only a little way--but the rest would be clear. And soon the boy would speak.

In the house Philip Harris waited; and with him the chief of police, detectives and plain-clothes men--summoned hastily--waited what should develop. They watched the boy and his father, from a distance, and speculated and made guesses on what he would know; for weeks they had been waiting on a sick boy's whim--held back by the doctor's orders.

They watched him moving across the garden--his quick, supple gestures, his live face--the boy was well enough! They smoked innumerable cigars and strolled out through the grounds and sat by the river, and threw stones into its sluggish current, waiting while hours went by. Since the ultimatum--a hundred thousand for three months--not a line had reached them, no message over the whispering wires--the child might be in the city, hidden in some safe corner; she might be in Europe, or in Timbuctoo. There had been time enough to smuggle her away. Every port had been watched, but there was the Canadian line stretching to the north, and the men who were "on the deal" would stop at nothing. They had been approached, tentatively, in the beginning, for a share of profits; but they had scorned the overture. "Catch me--if you can!" the voice laughed and rang off. The police were hot against them. Just one clue--the merest clue--and they would run it to earth--like bloodhounds.

They chewed the ends of their cigars and waited... and in the garden the boy and his father watched the clouds go by and talked of Athens and G.o.ds and temples and sunny streets. Back through the past, carefree they went--and at every turn the boy's memory rang true. "Do you remember, Alcie--the little house below the Temple of the Winds--" Achilles's eyes were on his face--and the boy's face laughed--"Yes--father.

That house--" quick running words that tripped themselves--"where I stole--figs--three little figs. You whipped me then!" The boy laughed and turned on his side and watched the clouds and the talk ran on...

coming closer at last, across the great Sea, through New York and the long hurrying train, into the grimy city--on the sh.o.r.e of the lake--the boy's eyes grew wistful. "I go home--with you--father--?" he said.

It was a quick question and his eyes flashed from the garden to his father's face.

"Do you what to go home, Alcie?" The face smiled at him. "Don't you like it here?" A gesture touched the garden.

"I like--yes. I go home--with you," he said simply.

"You must stay till you are strong," said the father, watching him. "You were hurt, you know. It takes time to get strong.... You remember that you were hurt?"

The words dropped slowly, one by one, and the day drowsed. The sun--warm as Athens--shone down, waiting, while the boy turned slowly on his side... his eyes had grown dark. "I try--remember" His voice was half a whisper, "--but it runs--away!" The eyes seemed to be straining to see something beyond them--through a veil.

Achilles's hand pa.s.sed before them and shut them off. "Don't try, Alcie.

Never mind--it's all right. Don't mind!"

But the boy had thrown himself forward with a long cry, sobbing.

"I--want--to--see," he said, "it--hurts--here." His fingers touched the faint line along his forehead. And Achilles bent and kissed it, and soothed him, talking low words--till the boy sat up, a little laugh on his lips--his grief forgotten.

So the detectives went back to the city--each with his expensive cigar--cursing luck. And Achilles, after a day or two, followed them.

"He will be better without you," said the surgeon. "You disturb his mind. Let him have time to get quiet again. Give nature her chance."

So Achilles returned to the city, unlocking the boy's fingers from his.

"You must wait a little while," he said gently. "Then I come for you."

And he left the boy in the garden, looking after the great machine that bore him away--an unfathomable look in his dark, following eyes.

XXI

A CONNOISSEUR SPEAKS

The next day it rained. All day the rain dripped on the roof and ran down the waterspouts, hurrying to the ground. In her own room the mistress of the house sat watching the rain and the heavy sky and drenched earth. The child was never for a minute out of her thoughts.

Her fancy pictured gruesome places, foul dens where the child sat--pale and worn and listless. Did they tie her hands? Would they let her run about a little--and play? But she could not play--a child could not play in all the strangeness and sordidness. The mother had watched the dripping rain too long. It seemed to be falling on coffins. She crept back to the fire and held out her hands to a feeble blaze that flickered up, and died out. Why did not Marie come back? It was three o'clock--where was Marie? She looked about her and held out her hands to the blaze and s.h.i.+vered--there was fire in her veins, and beside her on the hearth the child seemed to crouch and s.h.i.+ver and reach out thin hands to the warmth. Phil had said they would not hurt her! But what could a man know? He did not know the sensitive child-nature that trembled at a word. And she was with rough men--hideous women--longing to come home--wondering why they did not come for her and take her away... dear child! How cruel Phil was! She crouched nearer the fire, her eyes devouring it--her thoughts crowding on the darkness. Those terrible men had been silent seven weeks--more than seven--desperate weeks... not a word out of the darkness--and she could not cry out to them--perhaps they would not tap the wires again! The thought confronted her and she sprang up and walked wildly, her pulses beating in her temples.... She stopped by a table and looked down. A little vial lay there, and the medicine dropper and wine gla.s.s--waiting. She turned her head uneasily and moved away. She must save it for the night--for the dark hours that never pa.s.sed. But she must think of something! She glanced about her, and rang the bell sharply, and waited.

"I want the Greek boy," she said, "send him to me!"

"Yes, madame." Marie's voice hurried itself away... and Alcibiades stood in the doorway, looking in.