Lady Larkspur Part 12

Look at me carefully, my lord.' She rises to full height quickly. Let me see you do that, Alice."

Alice's golden head became more distinctively visible as she stood erect upon the boulder.

"Oh, no! You can improve on that; it must be done lightly and quickly, just touching the tips of your fingers to the rock. Ah, splendid! Now stand with one hand dropped upon the hip--let me see how that looks.

Very good; now repeat these lines after me. 'This other world, of which you speak?' Shake your head slowly, frowning; every hint of sincere doubt and questioning you can throw into look and gesture. 'Is it a kind world, a place of honest hearts? You have spoken of cities, and crowded avenues, of music and theatres and many things I have read of but never seen. You promise me much, but what should I do in so vast a company? I am very happy here. Spring and summer fill my hands with flowers and in winter I lay my face to the wind that carries sleet and snow. All this is mine.' Arms stretched out. You mustn't make that stiff--very good.

'Earth and sky and forest belong to me. The morning comes down the sky in search of me and the tired day bids me good-night at the western gate. You would change rags for silk.' You turn your body and catch your skirt in your hands, looking down. Yes; you are barefoot in this scene.

You'll have to practise that turn. Now--'And yet I should lose my dominion; in that world you boast of I should no more be Lady Larkspur.'"

Alice had repeated these lines, testing and trying different modulations. Sometimes a dozen repet.i.tions hardly sufficed to satisfy Mrs. Farnsworth, who herself recited them and postured for Alice's instruction.

"Please read the whole of the second act again," said Alice, seating herself on the boulder. I waited for a few minutes, enjoying the beautiful flow of Mrs. Farnsworth's voice, then, mystified and awed, I crept down the ladder and stole away. "It's d.i.c.k Searles's play," I kept whispering to myself. It was the "Lady Larkspur" that he was holding back until he could find the girl who had so enchanted him in London and for whom he had written this very comedy with its setting in the Virginia hills.

Hurrying to the garage, I snarled at Flynn, who said Torrence had been calling me all morning and had finally left word that he would motor to Barton at eight the next evening to see me on urgent business. I unlocked my trunk and dug out my copy of "Lady Larkspur." Not even the wizardry of Alice and her friend could have extracted the script. The two women had in some way possessed themselves of another copy, an exact duplicate, even to its blue paper cover; and I sat down and began recalling everything Searles had told me about his efforts to find the actress.

The telephone on the table at my elbow rang until Flynn came in timidly to quiet it.

"If it's Mr. Torrence--" I began.

"It's the Barton station, sir. There's a telegram." I s.n.a.t.c.hed the receiver spitefully, thinking it only the methodical Torrence confirming the appointment made by telephone. But the operator began reading:

"SPRINGFIELD, OHIO, September 30, 1917.

"Cable from London agent says last forwarding address for Violet Dewing was hotel in Seattle. Please ask Harkaway & Stein and anybody else on Broadway who might know what companies are on coast or headed that way. I find no clew in theatrical papers and don't want to mess things by making inquiries direct. If party can be located, will start West immediately.

"SEARLES."

The thought of Searles was comforting, and I reproached myself for not having summoned him at the beginning of my perplexities. I immediately dictated this reply:

"Take first train East and come to me at Barton as quickly as possible.

Hope to have news for you."

I then jotted down on a scratch pad this memorandum:

"The young woman representing herself as Mrs. Bashford and now established in my uncle's house is one or all of the following persons:

1. Uncle Bash's widow.

2. An impostor.

3. A spy of some sort, pursued by secret agents.

4. Violet Dewing, an actress.

5. The most interesting and the loveliest and most charming girl in the world."

I checked off one, two, and three as doubtful if not incredible; four seemed possible, and five was wholly incontrovertible. But the first three certainly required much illumination, and the fourth I was helpless to reconcile with any of the others but the last. I reviewed Searles's enthusiastic description of the young woman who had inspired him to write "Lady Larkspur," and could only excuse my stupidity in not fitting it to Alice the first time I saw her on the ground that Barton was the last place in the world I should have looked for her. And then, with all his exuberance, Searles hadn't done her justice!

The following day nothing of importance happened, though Alice and Mrs.

Farnsworth again spent the morning in the woodland, presumably studying Searles's play. My thoughts galloped through my head in a definite formula: "If she is not my aunt--" "If she is an impostor--" "If she is a spy playing a deep game in the seclusion of Barton--" "If she is the actress Searles is seeking--" At any rate, I would respect her wish to play the game through; the dangers of carrying the story-book idea to one of half a dozen possible conclusions were not inconsiderable, but I was resolved that she should finish the tale in her own fas.h.i.+on.

On my way to luncheon I pa.s.sed Dutch pus.h.i.+ng a wheelbarrow containing a huge hamper.

"It's vittles for the prisoner, sir," he remarked. "He's some feeder, that guy, and I guess the sooner we shake 'im th' better. He kicks on th' wine, sir. Says it's questionable vintage. When he gets tired readin' he pokes his head through the window and kids th' boys. He says he's goin' to remember th' place and come back when he's old. A charmin'

retreat fer supernumerary superannuates, he calls it. Them's his woids.

I'm gittin' sort o' nervous havin' 'im round. Zimmerman--he's the clothes-presser--tried to talk Goiman to 'im this mornin' an' th' guy pretended like his feelin's wuz hoit, an' he never knowed th' Hun's language, he says. An' Elsie says she's prepared to swear he talked Goiman easy enough to her."

"We'll consider his case later, Dutch. The matter is delicate, most delicate."

If I had expected Searles and his play to be introduced into the table-talk, I was doomed to disappointment. A dozen times I smothered an impulse to tell Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth I had watched them in the woodland and of Searles's long search for the ideal of his "Lady Larkspur," but I was afraid to risk their displeasure. They enjoyed walking in the wood, they said, and when I charged them with selfishness in not taking me along, Alice immediately suggested a tramp later in the afternoon.

"I'll send you away after luncheon--I have loads of letters to write, but by four o'clock I'll be keen for the woods again."

"Letters to all my good fairies," she laughed when I went for her; "and you mustn't look at the addresses!" She suggested that we walk to the village as she liked to post her letters herself. We went through the woods where I had seen her the day before.

"Constance and I were here this morning," she said when we reached the big boulder. "Let me see; I think I'll try a little trick to test the hand of fate. Give me those letters, please. If this falls with the address up, I'll mail it," and she chose one and handed me the others; "if the flap side turns up, I'll destroy it."

She sent it spinning into the air. A branch caught and held it an instant, then it fell, turning over and over, and lay straight on edge against a weed.

"No decision!" I cried. "It's an exact perpendicular."

She knelt beside it, pondering. "I think it leans just a trifle to the address side," she announced. "Therefore you may return it to your pocket and it goes into the post-office."

"These letters would probably answer a lot of questions for me if I dared run away with them," I suggested.

"The thought does you no credit, sir. You promised not to meddle, but just to let things take their course, and I must say that you are constantly improving. At times you grow suspicious--yes, you know you do--but, take it all in all, you do very well."

At the post-office she dropped all the letters but one into the chute.

"It really _did_ fall a little to the address side?" she questioned.

I gave my judgment that the letter stood straight on edge, inclining neither way.

"If my life hung in the balance, I should certainly not act where fate had been so timid."

"Perhaps this _does_ affect you," she said, quite soberly. And there in the lobby of the little Barton post-office, for the first time, I indulged the hope that there was something more than friendliness and kindness in her eyes. Her usual composure was gone--for a moment only--and she fingered the envelope nervously in her slim, expressive hands. A young woman clerk thrust her head through the delivery window and manifested a profound interest in our colloquy.

"Suppose," said Alice musingly, "I were to tell you that if I mail this letter the effect will be to detain me in America for some time; if I don't send it, I shall have to write another that will mean that I shall go very soon. If I stay on at Barton instead of going home to take up my little part again for England in the war, it will be an act of selfishness--just some more of my foolishness, more of the make-believe life that Constance and I have been living here."

"I want you to stay," I said earnestly, taking the letter. "Let me be your fate in this--in everything that affects your life forever."

She walked quickly to the door, and I dropped the letter into the chute and hurried after her.

"You didn't turn round," I said as we started down the street. "For all you know, I've got the letter in my pocket."

"Oh, I'm not a bit frightened! It would be just as interesting one way as another."

"But I want you to stay forever," I declared as we waited on the curb for a truck to pa.s.s.

"The remark is almost impertinent," she answered, "when I've known you only seven days."

"They've been wonderful days. It really makes no difference about letters or your duties elsewhere. Where you go I shall certainly follow; that's something I should like to have understood here and now."

Loitering along the beach on our way home, I was guiltily conscious that I was making love rather ardently to a lady who had introduced herself to me as my uncle's widow. The sensation was, on the whole, very agreeable....