Seven Miles to Arden Part 21

"The top o' the morning to ye!" She broke into a glad laugh, blessing that luck, herself, which had broken into her disquieting thoughts and provided at least fair company and some news--perhaps. She held out her hand in hearty welcome. "Are ye 'up so early or down so late'?"

"I might ask that, myself. Is it the habit of celebrated Irish actresses to tramp miles between sun-up and breakfast?"

"'Tis a habit more likely to fasten itself on French cooks, I'm thinking," and Patsy smiled.

"Then how is a man to account for you?"

"He'd best not try; I'm a mortial poor person to account for. Maybe I'm up early--getting my lines for the next act."

"Of course. What a stupid duffer I am! You must find us plain, plodding Americans horribly short-witted sometimes. Don't you?"

Patsy shook a contradiction. "It's your turn, now. What fetched ye abroad at this hour?"

Gregory Jessup slipped his arm through the horse's bridle and fell into step with her. "Princ.i.p.ally because I like the early morning better than any other part of the day; it's fresh and sweet and unspoiled--like some Irish actresses. There--please don't mind my crude attempt at poetic--simile," for Patsy's eyes had snapped dangerously. "If you only knew how rarely poetry or compliments ever came to roost on this dry tongue, you really wouldn't want to discourage them when it does happen. Besides, there was another reason for my being up--a downright foolish reason."

Gregory Jessup accompanied the remark with a downright foolish smile, and then lapsed into silence. In this fas.h.i.+on they walked to the bend of the road where another graveled driveway branched forth; and here the horse stopped of his own accord and whinnied.

"This is the Dempsy Carters' place--where I'm stopping," Gregory explained.

"Aye, but the other reason?" Patsy reminded him, her eyes friendly once more.

"Oh--the other reason; I told you it was a foolish one." He stood rubbing his horse's nose and looking over the road they had come for some seconds before he finally confessed to it. "It's Billy, you see.

Somehow it occurred to me that if he should be in trouble and at the same time knowing his father was sick--dying--he might be hanging around somewhere near here--uncertain just what to do--and not wanting any one to see him. In that case, the best time to run across him would be early morning before the rest of the people were awake and up. Don't you think so?"

"It sounds more sensible than foolish; but I don't think ye'll ever find him that way. If he was clever enough to let the earth swallow him up, he's clever enough to keep swallowed. There's but one way to reach him--and it's been in my mind since yester-eve."

A look of surprise came into Gregory Jessup's face. "Why, Miss O'Connell! I had no idea what I said that day would fasten Billy on your mind like this. It's awfully good of you; and he's a perfect stranger--"

Patsy broke in with a whimsical chuckle. "Aye, I've grown overpartial to strangers of late; but ye hearken to me. Ye'll have to leave a sign by the roadside for him--if ye want to reach him. Otherwise he'll see ye first and be gone before ever ye know he's about."

"What kind of a sign?"

"Faith! I'm not sure of that yet--myself. It must be something that will put trust back in a lad and tell him to come home."

"And where would you put it?"

"Where? On the roadside, just, anywhere along the road he's used to tramping."

Gregory Jessup's face lost its puzzled frown and became suddenly illumined with an inspiration. "I know! By Hec! I've got it! There's that path that runs down from the Burgeman estate to our old cottage.

It was a short cut for us kids, and we were almost the only ones to use it. Billy would be far more likely to take that than the highroad--and it leads to the Burgeman farm, too, run by an old couple that simply adore Billy. He might go there when he wouldn't go anywhere else. That's the place for a message. But what message?"

"I know!" Patsy clapped her hands. "Have ye a sc.r.a.p of paper anywheres about ye--and a pencil?"

Hunting through the pockets of his riding-clothes, Gregory Jessup discovered a business letter, the back of which provided ample writing s.p.a.ce, and the stub of a red-ink pencil. "We use 'em in the drafting-room," he explained. "If these will do--here's a desk," and he raised the end of his saddle, supporting it with a large expanse of palm.

Patsy accepted them all with a gracious little nod, and, spreading the paper on the improvised desk, she wrote quickly:

"If it do come to pa.s.s That any man turn a.s.s,"

Thinking the world is blind And trust forsworn mankind, "Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame": Here shall he find Both trust and peace of mind, An he but leave all foolishness behind.

"With apologies to Willie Shakespeare," Patsy chuckled again as she returned paper and pencil to their owner. "Ye put it somewhere he'd be likely to look--furninst something that would naturally take his notice."

"I know just the spot--and they're in blossom now, too. I'll fasten it to a rock, there, wedge it in the cracks. Billy won't miss it if he comes within yards of the place." He grasped Patsy's hand with growing fervor that gave promise of developing suddenly into almost anything. "You're a brick, Miss O'Connell--a solid gold brick of a girl, and I wish--"

"Take care!" warned Patsy. "Ye're not improving as fast in your compliments as ye might--and there's no poetry in gold--for me."

Gregory Jessup looked puzzled, but his fervor did not abate one whit.

"I want you to promise me if you ever need a friend--if there is anything I can ever do--"

"Ye can," interrupted Patsy, "and ye can do it now. Take that riding-crop of yours and draw me a map in the dust there of the country hereabouts--ye can make a cross for Arden.... That's grand.

Now where would ye put Brambleside Inn? And is it seven miles from there to Arden?"

Gregory nodded an affirmative while he considered Patsy with grave perplexity. Patsy saw it, and smiled rea.s.suringly. "'Tis all right.

I've always had a great interest entirely to know the geography of every new country--and I haven't the wits to discover it for myself.

Now where would ye put the cross-roads and the Catholic church? And where would Lebanon be? Aye--Did ye ever see an old tabby chasing her tail? Faith! 'tis a very intelligent spectacle, I'm thinking. Now where might ye put the cross-roads where ye picked me up with the Dempsy Carters?... And Dansville?... and the railroad bridge? ... and the golf links, back yonder?"

She stood for many minutes, studying the rough chart in the dust at her feet. The connecting lines of roads between the places named made fully a hundred and twenty degrees of a circle about the cross marking Arden. And as chance would have it, every one of the encircling towns measured approximately seven miles from the central cross. Patsy smiled, and the smile grew to a chuckle--and the chuckle to a long, rippling laugh. Patsy was forced to hold her sides with the ache of it.

"I know ye think I'm crazy--but 'tis the rarest bit of humor this side of Ireland. Willie Shakespeare himself would steal it if he could to put in one of his comedies. There is just one thing I'd like to be knowing--how much of it was chance, and how much was the tricks of a tinker?"

"I don't think I understand," mumbled Gregory Jessup.

"Of course ye don't," agreed Patsy. "I don't, myself. But there's one thing more I'll be telling ye--if ye'll swear never to let it pa.s.s your lips?"

Patsy paused for dramatic effect while Gregory Jessup bound himself twice over to secrecy. "Well," she said, at length, "'tis this: If I had the road to travel again I'd pray to Saint Brendan to keep my feet fast to the wrong turn. That's what!"

Patsy left him, still looking after her in a puzzled fas.h.i.+on; and with quickening steps she pa.s.sed out of sight.

But once again did she stop; and again it was by a graveled driveway.

She was deep in green memories when a figure in nurse's uniform coming down the drive caught her attention. She was immediately reminded of two facts: that the Burgeman estate was in Arden, and that Burgeman senior was dying. Impulsively she turned toward the nurse.

"Is Mr. Burgeman any better this morning?"

"We hardly expect that." The nurse's tone was cordial but professionally cautious.

"I know"--Patsy nodded wisely, as if she had been following the case professionally herself--"but there is often a last rallying of strength. Isn't there?"

"Sometimes. I hardly think there will be anything very lasting in Mr.

Burgeman's case. There are moments, now, when his strength and will are remarkably vigorous--any other man would be in his bed."

"Oh! Then he is--up?"

"He's taken about on a wheeled chair or cot. He is too restless to stay in any place very long. He seems more contented outdoors, where he can watch--" She broke off abruptly. "Lovely morning--isn't it?

Good-by."

She turned about and went up the drive again. Patsy watched her go, a strange, brooding look in her eyes. "So--he likes to be out of doors best--where he can be watching. And if a body chanced to trespa.s.s that way--she might come upon him, sudden like, and stay long enough to set him a-thinking. Would it be too late, now, I wonder?"

She resumed her way--and her memories. She pa.s.sed a half-dozen more driveways and she climbed a hill; and when she came to the top she found herself looking down on a thickly wooded hamlet. Spires and gabled roofs broke the foliage here and there, and on the rising slope beyond towered a veritable forest. Patsy stood on the brink of the hill and gazed down long and thoughtfully; at last she flung out her arms in an impetuous gesture of confirmation, while the old, whimsical smile crept into her lips.