The Vagrant Duke

by George Gibbs

Their evening together was a wonderful thing to contemplate, and she lay in bed, her eyes wide open, staring toward the window, beyond which in a dark mass against the starlit sky she could see the familiar pines, through which was the path to Peter's cabin. The stars twinkled jovially with assurance that the night could not be long and that beyond the night were to-morrows still more wonderful than to-day. And praying gently that all might be well with them both, she fell asleep, not even to dream.

Early morning found her brisk at her work around the house, cleansing and polishing, finishing to her satisfaction the tasks which Peter's impatience had forbidden the night before. All of Aunt Tillie's blue china set was carefully restored to its shelves, the napery folded away, the shiny pots hung upon their hooks and the kitchen carefully mopped. Then, with a towel wrapped about her head (for such was the custom of the country), she attacked the dining-room and parlor with broom and dust-cloth, singing arpeggios to remind herself that everything was right with the world.

It was upon the plush-covered sofa where she and Peter had sat the night before that Beth's orderly eye espied a square of paper just upon the point of disappearing in the crease between the seat and back of Aunt Tillie's most cherished article of furniture and of course she pounced upon it with the intention of destroying it at the cookstove. But when she drew it forth, she found that it was an envelope, heliotrope in color, that it bore Peter's name in a feminine handwriting, and that it had a strange delicate odor with which Beth was unfamiliar. She held it in her hand and looked at the writing, then turned it over and over, now holding it more gingerly by the tip ends of her fingers. Then she sniffed at it again. It was a queer perfume—strange—like violet mixed with some kind of spice.

She put her broom aside and walked to the window, her brow puckered, and scrutinized the postmark. "London!" Of course—London was in England where Peter had once lived. And Peter had drawn the letter from his pocket last night with some other papers when he had shown her the communication from "Hawk" Kennedy. It was lucky that she had found it, for it might have slipped down behind the plush covering, and so have been definitely lost. Of course Peter had friends in London and of course they should wish to write to him, but for the first time it seemed curious to Beth that in all their conversations Peter had never volunteered any information as to the life that he had lived before he had come to Black Rock. She remembered now that she had told him that whatever his past had been and whoever he was, he was good enough for her. But the heliotrope envelope with the feminine handwriting and the strange odor immediately suggested queries along lines of investigation which had never before entered her thoughts. Who was the lady of the delicate script and the strange perfume? What was her relationship to Peter? And upon what topic was she writing to him?

Beth slipped the note about a quarter of an inch out of its envelope until she could just see a line of the writing and then quickly thrust it in again, put the envelope on the mantel above the "parlor heater" and resolutely went on with her sweeping. From time to time she stopped her work and looked at it just to be sure that it was still there and at last took it up in her fingers again, a prey to a more lively curiosity than any she had ever known. She put the envelope down again and turning her back to it went into the kitchen. Of course Peter would tell her who this lady was if she asked him. And there was no doubt at all that it was a lady who had written the letter, some one familiar with a delicate mode of existence and given to refinements which had been denied to Beth. It was this delicacy and refinement, this flowing inscription written with such careless ease and grace which challenged Beth's rusticity. She would have liked to ask Peter about the lady at once. But Peter would not be at the Cabin at this early hour of the morning, nor would Beth be able to see him until late this afternoon—perhaps not until to-night. Meanwhile, the note upon the mantel was burning its way into her consciousness. It was endued with a personality feminine, insidious and persuasive. No ladies of London affecting heliotrope envelopes had any business writing scented notes to Peter now. He was Beth's particular property....

When she went up to the second floor of the cottage a few minutes later she took the heliotrope letter with her and put it on her bureau, propped against the pincushion, while she went on with her work. And then, all her duties for the morning finished, she sat down in her rocking chair by the window, the envelope in her idle fingers, a victim of temptation. She looked out at the pine woods, her gaze afar, her guilty fingers slipping the letter out of its covering an inch, two inches. And then Beth opened Peter's heliotrope note and read it. At least, she read as much of it as she could understand,—the parts that were written in English—with growing amazement and incertitude. A good deal of the English part even was Greek to her, but she could understand enough to know that a mystery of some sort hung about the letter and about Peter, that he was apparently a person of some importance to the heliotrope lady who addressed him in affectionate terms and with the utmost freedom. Beth had learned in the French ballads which Peter had taught her that ami meant friend and that bel meant beautiful. And as the whole of the paragraph containing those words was written in English, Beth had little difficulty in understanding it. What had Peter to do with the cause of Holy Russia? And what was this danger to him from hidden enemies, which could make necessary this discretion and watchfulness in Black Rock? And the last sentence of all danced before Beth's eyes as though it had been written in letters of fire. "There is at least one heart in London that ever beats fondly in memory of the dear dead days at Galitzin and Zukovo."

What right had the heliotrope lady's heart to beat fondly in memory of dear dead days with Peter Nichols at Galitzin or Zukovo or anywhere else? Who was she? Was she young? Was she beautiful? And what right had Peter given her to address him in terms of such affection? Anastasie!

And now for the first time in her life, though to all outward appearance calm, Beth felt the pangs of jealousy. This letter, most of it in the queer-looking script (probably Russian) that she could not even read, in its strange references in English to things beyond her knowledge, seemed suddenly to erect a barrier between her and Peter that could never be passed, or even to indicate a barrier between them that had always existed without her knowledge. And if all of the parts of the letter that she could not understand contained sentiments like the English part that she could understand, it was a very terrible letter indeed and indicated that this heliotrope woman (she was no longer "lady" now) had claims upon Peter's heart which came long before Beth's. And if this Anastasie—other women too....

Beth read the letter again and then slipped it back into its envelope, while she gazed out of the window at the pines, a frown at her brows and two tiny lines curving downward at the corners of her lips. She was very unhappy. But she was angry too—angry at the heliotrope woman, angry at Peter and angrier still at herself. In that moment she forgot that she had taken Peter Nichols without reference to what he was or had been. She had told him that only the future mattered and now she knew that the past was beginning to matter very much indeed.

After a while she got up, and took the heliotrope letter to the bureau where she wrote upon the envelope rather viciously with a soft lead pencil, "You left this last night. You'd better go back to Anastasie." Then she slipped the letter into her waist and with an air of decision went down the stairs (the ominous parentheses still around her mouth), and made her way with rapid footsteps toward the path through the forest which led toward Peter's cabin.