IN WHICH MUCH ADDED LIGHT IS SHED UPON MISS BERYL DRANE, BUT ONLY A GLIMMER UPON MY PROBLEM
"This is a beautiful day."
Such was my exceedingly original and extremely interesting greeting to Beryl Drane this morning. I arrived at the house at eight o'clock, found, as I thought, no one astir, and was preparing to knock when I discovered the young lady diligently clipping roses from a hedge near the back. It is not often that I descend to sheer banality, but I can offer no excuse for my opening remark as I came up over the grass behind her. She was a little startled. She turned quickly with a short "Oh!" and looked at me curiously. Somehow I did not like the look. It was possessive, in a way; intimate, as though we shared a secret, or something like that. She was dressed in a polka dot brown gingham, and had on an old bonnet whose projecting hood softened those lines which seemed to shriek of the things which made them. A low collar encircled her firm neck snugly. She wore leather half mitts, had a pair of shears in one hand, and from the elbow of her other arm hung a wicker basket over half filled with voluptuously red, dew-bright roses. She regarded me with that subtly smiling, upward glance which coquettes have, and in that morning air, with the flowers, under the shielding bonnet, she was pretty. She was too adroit to overdo the pose. It lasted scarcely two ticks from a grandfather's clock, then she smiled frankly, deftly looped the shears on a finger of her left hand, and held out her arm.
"I'm so glad to see you!" she said, winningly, and for the soul of me I could not help but feel my heart grow warmer in response to her tone. Ah, little sibyl! You have conjured more than one man's mind into deadly rashness, but you have paid, little moth with the soot-spotted wings!
"Are you?" I replied, surprisedly, as I grasped her grippy, slender hand and uncovered.
"Sure!... Don't you suppose Hebron is a trifle monotonous to me after the fleshpots of Egypt?"
"I had thought you would be—not angry, but displeased and disgusted with me that I had not come sooner."
"Oh! I have learned to make allowances for men!" she retorted, airily, with a toss of her head and a half pout; "and I'd have no respect for a man who'd have to be kicked away from a woman's feet. I've seen that kind. I supposed you would come when it suited your inclination."
She deliberately turned to the hedge again and tiptoed to grasp a heavy-headed bloom which seemed to have dropped asleep, drugged by its own perfume. She could not reach it.
"Let me," I said, and stepping forward, caught the thorn-set spray and pulled it toward her. The action made a little shower of water drops to patter on her upturned face, and a single rich-hued petal became displaced, drifted gently down, and actually lodged in the crevice of her slightly parted lips. Both laughed at the incident, for it was unusual.
"You shall have this one," she said, when she had clipped it, "from me."
I felt foolish, in a way, as she came close to me, fumbling here and there about her waist and the bosom of her dress.
"Have you a pin?" she queried, archly, and before I could answer her swift white fingers were searching the lapels of my coat. "Here's one," she added, on the instant, and tugged it out.
Then she secured that rose to my coat, standing so close to me that the bottom of her spreading skirt brushed my legs.
"You are very forgiving and very kind," I assured her, "and I thank you for the favor. I'm sure I do not deserve it."
"Do men ever deserve what they receive from women?" was her startling reply, and she did not look me in the eyes then, but instead fingered the jumble of Jaqueminots in the basket with head averted. Surely this niece of the Rev. Jean Dupré's who had journeyed to Hebron to rest was not conventional. Equally true it was that she possessed an unusual degree of intelligence, and was accustomed to speaking her mind.
I hesitated briefly. Not that I was in doubt what to say, but among us men of the South that old chivalry toward women which is always stubborn and often reasonless, still struggles mightily. And it is a goodly thing, forsooth, this same chivalry; but truth is better.
"I think so," was my steady answer, and I held my eyes ready to meet hers, but she did not move her head. Only the white fingertips with their whiter nails yet burrowed among the fragrant mass of green and red.
"You do?... How can you say that? Uncle says it, too—but he's a priest."
"I say it because I think it true. I'm sure you would not have me tell a lie merely to please you. Your viewpoint must be restricted, circumscribed, for I know you are in earnest. The question is really too comprehensive to actually admit of a specific answer. Many women give all and get nothing; many men give all and get nothing. Many give and receive on an equable basis, and they are the ones who are happy. It depends simply upon one's experience or observation how he answers your question. My life leads me to believe in all sincerity men will do their part fuller and far more justly than a woman will. Perhaps yours has convinced you that just the reverse is true.... But for mercy's sake, let's not drift into a sociological argument this morning."
"By no means. I just wanted to know what you thought.... Now I must apologize for keeping you. You have come to see uncle?"
She started toward the house as though to call him, but I caught her arm and she halted.
"I came to see you, primarily. First, to assure myself that you had really quite recovered from drowning—I have asked of you down at the store—and second, to discuss a mighty secret with you."
"You have really—asked about me?" she returned with lifted eyebrows. "You knew when you left that day I would recover, thanks to your skill. Was not that enough?"
I felt annoyed. It appeared as if she was trying to make me confess a deeper interest than I truly owned.
"A common sense of decency would have impelled me to assure myself you were suffering no bad after effects," I replied.
"Oh, that was it?" she responded, I thought a bit coolly. Then—"You mentioned a secret. How on earth could a secret exist in this lonesome-ridden place? But of course I'm all curiosity now to hear it. Let's go to the summerhouse. Uncle rises late, and is now in the midst of his breakfast."
She moved toward a conical shaped piece of greenery, and I put myself at her side. It proved to be some trellis work built in the form of a square, with a peaked top, the whole completely covered by some luxuriant vine. Even the doorway was so thickly hung that we had to draw the festoons aside to enter. Within the light was tempered to a gray-green tone. A hammock was swung across the center of the place, and on all sides except the entrance one were placed benches. Miss Drane set her basket down and promptly dropped into the hammock, where she twisted about into a comfortable attitude. She apparently took no notice of the fact that her dress had become drawn up six or eight inches above her shapely ankles, but quietly loosened the strings under her chin and cast the bonnet on the floor, then threw her arms above her head, laced her fingers, and turned to me with a smile which was half humorous and half pathetic.
"Now I'm fixed. Settle yourself the best you can, and let's hear the mystery."
"May I smoke?" I asked, dodging under one of the ropes, and coming around so that I might sit facing her.
"Certainly."
"A pipe?"
"Oh, yes! I'm thoroughly smoke-cured."
I dropped upon a bench and drew forth my materials, while she lay and eyed me with her inscrutable stare.
"You're a funny man!" she declared, presently, her flexible lips twisting into an odd smile.
I chuckled, and jammed the tobacco in the bowl.
"How do you get that?" I ventured.
"Why didn't you ask to share the hammock with me?"
Now though I knew something of woman's ways and woman's wiles, I felt a blush rising, and to hide it I dropped the match I held and bent over to pick it up. Clearly his reverence's niece was bent on a flirtation wherewith to while away the days of her exile. It is needless to say that in my present state of mind I had no heart for dalliance of this sort, but I realized that I must not offend her, so I struck the match on the sole of my shoe and slowly lighted my pipe, thinking hard all the time of what I should say.
"You looked so very comfortable," I replied jocularly, between puffs, "that I could not bring myself to make the request. And—you lay down, you know, as though you wanted it all to yourself."
With a quick, lithe movement she turned on her side, rested her cheek on her hand, and retorted:
"Was that idea really in your mind before I spoke? The truth, mind you!"
I was thoroughly uncomfortable. Just what Beryl Drane was driving at I could not guess, but I knew the simple talk which I had come to have with her had suddenly assumed the proportions of a task. It would be silly and egotistic to think this little body was in love with me, and yet as she lay curled kitten-like within arm's length there was a seriousness in her face and manner which troubled me far more than what my answer to her last question would be.
"No, it was not," I replied, meeting her eyes steadily.
"All men don't tell the truth," was her unexpected rejoinder; "but you do.... Don't you think I am worth sitting by?"
Heavens! Why did she persevere in this strain? Why? God pity her, I knew. I knew her birthright of womanliness and unsullied purity had been bartered long ago for the pottage of faithlessness and sham pleasures, and that now the exceeding bitter cry rang in her soul day in and day out. She had made sacrifice of the substantial, the real, the true, and the good, on the shadowy altar of indulgence. She had flung aside the fruit to devour the husk, and the penalty was an insatiable gnawing of the evil teeth which she had first guided with her own hand to her being's core. I shivered inwardly as these thoughts darted lightning-like through my mind, and my face shaped itself into lines of gravity.
"Little girl," I said, gently; "I should be glad to sit by you, but what's the use in this instance? We are as two birds passing in mid-air. Soon you will go; soon I will go. Let's be good, honest friends while we stay."
I leaned toward her and spoke earnestly, trying to keep any note of rebuke from my tones. She did not reply, but colored slightly, turned her head partly away, and lowered her lashes. I smoked in silence for a few moments to give her a chance to speak, but she remained silent, and directly I said, throwing my voice into a cheerier key:
"If you're to help me with my secret we must hurry. Our few minutes on the river did not last long enough for us to get very well acquainted, but probably Father John has told you that I am roughing it for a few months on a certain big knob back in the woods. I've met a few people, and—"
Poor, hopelessly stupid mind of man! In my agitation caused by the attitude Beryl Drane had seen fit to adopt toward me, I had forgotten that the confidence I had purposed bestowing involved another girl—a beautiful girl! Now it was too late to hold back. Two slits of eyes were viewing me cynically, and a low laugh bubbled up from her throat.
"Who is she?" mocked Beryl Drane, who lived in the world.
"I don't know!" I answered, boldly. "That's what I want you to help me find out."
"What's her name?"
How cold the words were; like little sharp icicles. Ah! Womankind! Velvet soft, iron hard; dove merciful, tiger cruel; heaven breasted, hell armed; honey lipped, gall tongued!
"They call her Lessie."
Her sweetly bowed mouth had turned to a straight line of scarlet as she shook her head.
"I don't mix with the rabble here."
She spoke to cut, and she succeeded. The insolent words bit sharply, and a flame-like resentment set a hot reply on my tongue, but I withheld it. I waited a while, that my speech might not betray my agitation.
"She lives with her granny and gran'fer on Lizard Point. Surely you have seen her at church? Granny is very conscientious, I'm sure, in the performance of her church du——"
"I never go to church!" interrupted Father John's niece. "But I think I know the people to whom you refer," she added, at once. "I cannot recall the name of the family, however.... You must be extraordinarily stupid not to have learned her surname, being in love with her."
Evidently Miss Drane was ignorant of the circumstances surrounding the Dryad's birth, and a great wave of relief rolled up in my breast when I was assured of this.
"A man doesn't love a girl's name," I thought. Then I said:
"It would seem so, indeed."
I can't imagine what there was in that innocent sentence to cause affront, but instantly the girl in the hammock swung her feet to the ground, arose, and picked up her bonnet and basket.
"I don't think you are at all nice!" she said. "Go on and love your little cabin minx if you want to! She'll be sadly wiser when your love is over and you have gone back where you came from. I know you men—all alike!... If you want to see uncle you'll find him in the library at this hour."
Then out she switched with never so much as a "Good-day," leaving me staring amazedly at the clustering viney mass which swayed behind her vanished form. I had known many kinds of women: petulant, spoiled, mean; gracious, charming, good. I knew the majority of them were not amenable to logic, and would sometimes take offense at a smile or a wrong inflection. But when Beryl Drane flung this low insinuation in my face, I was nettled. It was utterly without foundation or reason. It bore out strikingly the opinion I had previously formed of her, and as I sat and turned the matter over in my mind, I knew presently that I was pitying her. For there is no sadder sight on the world's broad breast than a woman with a spotted soul. This poor child's perceptions were all awry, her affections wrenched and twisted, and in that moment I almost cursed the fate which would permit such a sacrilege. My resentment was gone, or was directed against the nonunderstandable forces, powers—call them what you will—which so often, in their workings, flung the spotless lily under the filthy snout of a hog, and dashed the white soul of a girl into a pit of smut and slime! Give me the reasons, ye gray-bearded savants! You are children fumbling in the dark. You do not know.
I got up and passed without the leafy curtain. Miss Drane had disappeared. I walked to the porch, found the front door open, and entered the hall without knocking. I judged the library to be on the right, and at that door I tapped. The old priest's voice bade me "Come!" I went in, and when he saw me cross the threshold, Father John leaped up with a nervous agility which was incongruous when associated with his many years, and hastened forward.
"Ah-h-h! Ze pleasure! W'ere have you bene, m'sieu?"
He smiled cordially, and led me to an easy chair by the table, holding my hand until I was fairly seated.
"Roaming the woods, principally," I replied, easily, noting the extremely comfortable furnishings of the apartment. "I have been here a half-hour, I should say. I found Miss Drane cutting roses, and stopped for a chat with her. She seems perfectly well?"
Father John made a grimace, and spread his hands.
"Zat chil'! I love 'er m'sieu, but she try me. She plague me wiz 'er pranks, zen she come wiz 'er arms aroun' my neck—so—an' fix eversing."
He obligingly essayed to hug himself by way of illustration, and I nodded my comprehension.
"You will doubtless miss her when she leaves you?"
He twisted his features as from a sudden pain.
"I can't sink of zat, m'sieu. She have bene wiz me t'ree—four—five weeks; she is one—headstron' chil', but she make me vair happy—oui."
He sank a little deeper in his soft chair, and pulled contentedly at his long-stemmed pipe.
It was hard for me to broach the subject uppermost in my mind. Twice my lips parted to open the discussion, but each time the sentence which followed related to an entirely different matter. So for quite a while we talked of the weather, the crops, the parish, and it was while we were discussing the neighborhood that I knew my opportunity had arrived.
"I have become very much interested in the family at Lizard Point. You know them well?"
"Vair well. Madame is vair releegious; a good woman. M'sieu is—is—indeef'rent; ma'm'selle—ah, ze young ma'm'selle!"
Again his spread hands went out expressively, and he shook his head with wrinkled forehead.
Inwardly I smiled, but outwardly my face was set to decorous lines.
"Does not the granddaughter belong to your fold?" I asked.
"Ah! m'sieu; we try. We try all her life lon' to make her ze Christian. But she wil'—she wil' as ze bird in ze wood. She an' ze half crazy Jeff—ze fiddle player—zey heazen, m'sieu. Zey never dark ze door of ze church. Zey run in ze fores', fiddlin' an' dancin', an' ze devil he laugh an' skip by zey side!"
He put his hands between his knees, palm to palm, and rocked to and fro in genuine distress. I could think of no suitable reply on the moment, so remained silent.
"I have ze pity for ze chil', poor sing!" he resumed, presently. "Ze chance she has not had, like ozzer ones. Meybe ze curse of ze broke' law follow her; I don' know—I don' know!"
He sighed, and let his narrow shoulders droop forward in an attitude both sad and pensive.
"Tell me about that if you can, Father John," I said, placing my elbows on the table's edge and leaning toward him. "I will say to you in strictest confidence that I am deeply interested in Lessie; it is not idle curiosity which prompts me to ask this. I know her father betrayed and deserted her mother; Gran'fer has practically admitted this to me, but he will go no further. You must know the man's name—what was it?"
Father John lifted his head and looked at me.
"Zat, m'sieu, I cannot tell you."
"Why?"
I kept my eyes fastened on his persistently, but respectfully.
"Because m'sieu has not ze right to as'."
I felt rebuked. Knowing as little of me and of my feelings for the Dryad as he did, he was right. Should I tell him more? My words would be safe with this gentle old man.
"Suppose I love the girl, Father John? Would I not then have the right to know everything about her parentage?"
A pale smile passed over his thin lips.
"M'sieu—jokes wiz me. You, ze gen'leman, ze areest'crat—to love ze little wil' ma'm'selle? Je crois que non!"
"It may seem incredible to you, but I do love her. I feel I can trust you with the secret, for even she does not know it yet. Believe me, I beg you. I am very much in earnest."
The doubting look faded from the priest's face, to be succeeded by one of amazement.
"Probably you do not understand this," I hastened to add; "and I should not blame you. But you, in holy orders from young manhood, with your mind and time engrossed in spiritual things, have no intimate knowledge of the powerful call of man to woman, and woman to man. It has come to me unexpectedly, swiftly, surely; here in the wilderness. In the city it passed me by. But I truly love the little wild ma'm'selle. Listen to my plan. I intend to take her far along the road to education and refinement; I intend to develop the great good which lurks smothered in her mind and soul; then, if she will, I shall marry her. That is my reason for asking you to tell me of that man."
Father John was convinced that I spoke the truth. I could see it before he replied.
"Ze—ze aieul, ze aieule; has m'sieu tol' zem?"
I stared at him bewilderedly.
"Ze madame an' ze m'sieu she live wiz!" he burst out, desperately. "How call you zem?"
"Granny and Gran'fer—her grandparents!" I exclaimed.
"Bien!... Well zen?"
"I have not told them. I have not told Lessie. I did not know it myself until last night."
"Soit. But ze secret, m'sieu, is zeirs."
"Is not the girl concerned, my good sir?" I demanded.
"Celeste?"
"Celeste!"
"Ze wil' ma'm'selle you call Lessie. I chris'en 'er myself, m'sieu; her name Celeste."
"And these boors have corrupted it to Lessie!" I almost shouted.
"Zey couldn't 'member Celeste," smiled Father John.
For a time I was silent, gazing at that vision in my mind which bore the sweet name of Celeste instead of the meaningless one of Lessie.
"Has she, then, no rights in the matter?" I persisted, and at the words I knew my voice had changed. Father John's candid and matter-of-fact revelation had filled me all up, somehow. I am aware there was no good reason why this should be, but people deeply in love have a constant abhorrence of anything and everything remotely bordering on reason.
"Should she, m'sieu, seek ze inf'mation, I sink I should tell 'er."
Sweetly grave and courteous were the words, and even in my impatience I recognized their justness.
"Very well, father. But I must ask you another question which I trust you can answer without offense to your conscience. Was Lessie's—was Celeste's father a man of learning; a man who moved along the higher walks of life, or was he simply a countryman?"
Only for a moment he hesitated.
"He was ze gran' gen'leman in manner—ze scholar—ze sinker. His heart was black!"
"It must have been," I breathed, as I rose.
My host again followed me to the low stone step at the porch entrance, protesting against my departure and begging me to stay for dinner, which came at noon. I told him I would come again, and I meant it.
"You have been very kind," I said, in farewell, "and I want to thank you for the things you told me. In time Celeste will come with her demands, trust me for that."
"Vair well, m'sieu!" he cried, twisting his face into a maze of goodhumored wrinkles.
At the gate I turned and waved to him again, sweeping the premises with my eyes as I did so for a sign of Beryl Drane.
That most peculiar young woman was nowhere visible.