IV
One fine December morning Ruth walked with Miranda on the hill. She was beginning to have projects.
“Miranda!” said she,—“Heaven knows where you picked the name up,” mused Ruth. “Dear kitten, I believe I'll invite my European friends here! The fashion is in Europe to come and have a look at America. I'll keep open house, and you and I and General Adgate shall receive the most famous people in Europe at Barracks Hill. And we'll show them what they ought to be curious about, what they've seen only in books,—we'll show them a beautiful old New England town enriched from all sources yet keeping its distinct New England flavour. And I'll give to Oldbridge the enlivening experience,” she said with a gleam, “of hobbing and of nobbing with every light-minded modern who doesn't take life's trivialities solemnly; with every human of talent who cultivates the sweet tonic spirit of levity.”
Miranda listened, his chrysoprase eyes widened—contracted—blazed with intelligent sympathy.
“I'm with you, if it's anything that has to do with fun,” he loudly purred.
Miranda was not a kitten—Miranda was a sleek, a superb tortoise-shell cat. A cat of the masculine persuasion who could have counted six or seven summers if a day. General Adgate had, in “a tonic spirit of levity,” christened him at his birth Miranda—it may be because the Master of Barracks Hill had likened himself that day to Prospero. Be this as may be, Miranda had kept his youth; his idea of beer and skittles was still to play at any game he could find a playmate for; he, at least, was all for sociability.
And it was his friendly habit to follow Ruth, running along the wall of the terrace at her left as she paced the hill. Now, when she addressed him, he drew himself lazily, along the warm stones, stretched himself infinitely, clawed the rough stones deluged in December sunshine, and assuming an irresistible attitude as she spoke, pricked his ears. Then, with a bound made across the turf to an apple-tree, mad for a frolic. He ran up its grey side, lichen-covered, paused, looked down, and jeered at her over his shoulder.
“Why don't you follow me?” he taunted. Took, the next moment, his leap over her head, landed at her feet, was scuttling deliriously through wheel ruts, grass-grown, passage of last year's cartwheels. Burrowing under accumulations of brown crackling leaves, flattening himself lengthwise, poking out a pink nose at her, he showed a pair of questioning, mischievous eyes.
“Send out your invitations,” counselled he, “but first, catch me!”
Ruth plunged to a great rustle of dry leaves, and light and irresponsible as they Miranda darted to a sheltering juniper. Ruth tried to seize him—useless vanity, for he was quicksilver. Up another tree ere she could lay hands on him, he, perhaps not disdainful of a little petting, and at all events Bon Prince, finally relented; he allowed her at last to have her way, come close and take him in her arms.
“You're a duck,” said Ruth, laughing, scratching his ears, laying her cheek against his fur all glossy and fragrant of wood odours. “Such a mercurial duck! You make me feel thrice welcome here. I believe you are the spirit of the place. Yes—the little friendly spirit of the house who attracts and keeps those who love it for its good—who uses every wile, too, and coquetry to do so.”
Miranda at her words slipped struggling through Ruth's arms to earth, arched his back, rubbed himself against her skirts, purred loud and long—circling round her, tail in air and as who should say: “Yes, yes, no doubt. But let us waste no time in sentiment,” and away he bounded to a remoter corner of the hill.
“Of course! he's showing me the place,” she cried. In genuine enjoyment of the sport she ran, eyes brimming with laughter, after the clever fellow as he trotted on; he beguiled her here and he beguiled her there; he discovered nooks to her full of interest and variety. And as she abandoned herself to the game, played and romped with him, it occurred to her once again that this, all this—was not all this verily part of a sort of terrestrial Paradise?
Here,—the chimneys of the house just visible below, here, aloof in a beautiful world,—she stood on the brow of her hill among gnarled fine old apple trees. She went up to one, she laid her cheek against it.
“Yes, I can understand what a sight you were in the Garden of Eden,” she whispered. “In Spring, when your rosy blossoms are out,—in Autumn when you are hung with ripe red and golden fruit! And, yes—Henry Pontycroft's prophecy is fulfilled.... Here is Eve, sulking in her native apple orchard!”
“Derrièr' chez mon père,
Vole, vole mon cour, vole—
Derrièr' chez mon père
Y a un pommier doux—
Tout doux et you!”
“If Adam, or if Pontycroft were here...” she sighed, “I should be vastly tempted—-tout doux et you-,—to tempt either of them. Oh, see how the rosy horizon is caught in its net woven of grey leafless branches! The sky is a sumptuous Prussian blue and how it fades at the zenith to palest azure! All the Royal colour is broken up by bold white clouds, and—this—ah, this is far too fair a sight for one pair of eyes to revel in alone. This cries, aloud, for Adam!”
Ruth looked about her. At her feet, oddly enough, curiously enough, a red firm apple, forgotten there,—untouched by frosts,—at her feet lay a fine red pippin. She picked it up, she smiled, she wondered....
“But—but—there's only you—old Puss! Here, catch it,” she cried to Miranda, who came running towards her, scenting the game he loved. With a gentle toss Ruth threw the apple along the turf and left Miranda to the ecstatic enjoyment of patting it, pushing it and rolling over it for quite eleven minutes.