A Lost Lady Page 7

car. We'll get my old porter Jim as a valet for Daniel, and you

  can just play around and put fresh life into us all. We saw last

  winter that we couldn't do anything without our Lady Forrester.

  Nothing came off right without her. If we had a party, we sat down

  afterward and wondered what in hell we'd had it for. Oh, no, we

  can't manage without you!"

  Tears flashed into her eyes. "That's very dear of you. It's sweet

  to be remembered when one is away." In her voice there was the

  heart-breaking sweetness one sometimes hears in lovely, gentle old

  songs.

  NINE

  After three weeks the Captain was up and around again. He dragged

  his left foot, and his left arm was uncertain. Though he recovered

  his speech, it was thick and clouded; some words he could not

  pronounce distinctly,--slid over them, dropped out a syllable.

  Therefore he avoided talking even more than was his habit. The

  doctor said that unless another brain lesion occurred, he might get

  on comfortably for some years yet.

  In August Niel was to go to Boston to begin coaching for his

  entrance examinations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

  where he meant to study architecture. He put off bidding the

  Forresters good-bye until the very day before he left. His last

  call was different from any he had ever made there before. Already

  they began to treat him like a young man. He sat rather stiffly in

  that parlour where he had been so much at home. The Captain was in

  his big chair in the bay window, in the full glow of the afternoon

  sun, saying little, but very friendly. Mrs. Forrester, on the sofa

  in the shadowy corner of the room, talked about Niel's plans and

  his journey.

  "Is it true that Mary is going to marry Pucelik this fall?" he

  asked her. "Who will you get to help you?"

  "No one, for the present. Ben will do all I can't do. Never mind

  us. We will pass a quiet winter, like an old country couple,--as

  we are!" she said lightly.

  Niel knew that she faced the winter with terror, but he had never

  seen her more in command of herself,--or more the mistress of her

  own house than now, when she was preparing to become the servant of

  it. He had the feeling, which he never used to have, that her

  lightness cost her something.

  "Don't forget us, but don't mope. Make lots of new friends.

  You'll never be twenty again. Take a chorus girl out to supper--a

  pretty one, mind! Don't bother about your allowance. If you got

  into a scrape, we could manage a little cheque to help you out,

  couldn't we, Mr. Forrester?"

  The Captain puffed and looked amused. "I think we could, Niel, I

  think so. Don't get up, my boy. You must stay to dinner."

  Niel said he couldn't. He hadn't finished packing, and he was

  leaving on the morning train.

  "Then we must have a little something before you go." Captain

  Forrester rose heavily, with the aid of his cane, and went into the

  dining-room. He brought back the decanter and filled three glasses

  with ceremony. Lifting his glass, he paused, as always, and

  blinked.

  "Happy days!"

  "Happy days!" echoed Mrs. Forrester, with her loveliest smile, "and

  every success to Niel!"

  Both the Captain and his wife came to the door with him, and stood

  there on the porch together, where he had so often seen them stand

  to speed the parting guest. He went down the hill touched and

  happy. As he passed over the bridge his spirits suddenly fell.

  Would that chilling doubt always lie in wait for him, down there in

  the mud, where he had thrown his roses one morning?

  He burned to ask her one question, to get the truth out of her and

  set his mind at rest: What did she do with all her exquisiteness

  when she was with a man like Ellinger? Where did she put it away?

  And having put it away, how could she recover herself, and give

  one--give even him--the sense of tempered steel, a blade that could

  fence with anyone and never break?

  Part Two

  ONE

  It was two years before Niel Herbert came home again, and when he

  came the first acquaintance he met was Ivy Peters. Ivy got on the

  train at one of the little stations east of Sweet Water, where he

  had been trying a case. As he strolled through the Pullman he

  noticed among the passengers a young man in a grey flannel suit,

  with a silk shirt of one shade of blue and a necktie of another.

  After regarding this urban figure from the rear for a few seconds,

  Ivy glanced down at his own clothes with gloating satisfaction. It

  was a hot day in June, but he wore the black felt hat and ready-

  made coat of winter weight he had always affected as a boy. He

  stepped forward, his hands thrust in his pockets.

  "Hullo, Niel. Thought I couldn't be mistaken."

  Niel looked up and saw the red, bee-stung face, with its two

  permanent dimples, smiling down at him in contemptuous jocularity.

  "Hello, Ivy. I couldn't be mistaken in you, either."

  "Coming home to go into business?"

  Niel replied that he was coming only for the summer vacation.

  "Oh, you're not through school yet? I suppose it takes longer to

  make an architect than it does to make a shyster. Just as well;

  there's not much building going on in Sweet Water these days.

  You'll find a good many changes."

  "Won't you sit down?" Niel indicated the neighbouring chair. "You

  are practising law?"

  "Yes, along with a few other things. Have to keep more than one

  iron in the fire to make a living with us. I farm a little on the

  side. I rent that meadow-land on the Forrester place. I've

  drained the old marsh and put it into wheat. My brother John does

  the work, and I boss the job. It's quite profitable. I pay them a

  good rent, and they need it. I doubt if they could get along

  without. Their influential friends don't seem to help them out

  much. Remember all those chesty old boys the Captain used to drive

  about in his democrat wagon, and ship in barrels of Bourbon for?

  Good deal of bluff about all those old-timers. The panic put them

  out of the game. The Forresters have come down in the world like

  the rest. You remember how the old man used to put it over us kids

  and not let us carry a gun in there? I'm just mean enough to like

  to shoot along that creek a little better than anywhere else, now.

  There wasn't any harm in the old Captain, but he had the delusion

  of grandeur. He's happier now that he's like the rest of us and

  don't have to change his shirt every day." Ivy's unblinking

  greenish eyes rested upon Niel's haberdashery.

  Niel, however, did not notice this. He knew that Ivy wanted him

  to show disappointment, and he was determined not to do so. He

  enquired about the Captain's health, pointedly keeping Mrs.

  Forrester's name out of the conversation.

  "He's only about half there . . . seems contented enough. . . .

  She takes good care of him, I'll say that for her. . . . She seeks

  consolation, always did, you know .
. . too much French brandy . . .

  but she never neglects him. I don't blame her. Real work comes

  hard on her."

  Niel heard these remarks dully, through the buzz of an idea. He

  felt that Ivy had drained the marsh quite as much to spite him and

  Mrs. Forrester as to reclaim the land. Moreover, he seemed to know

  that until this moment Ivy himself had not realized how much that

  consideration weighed with him. He and Ivy had disliked each other

  from childhood, blindly, instinctively, recognizing each other

  through antipathy, as hostile insects do. By draining the marsh

  Ivy had obliterated a few acres of something he hated, though he

  could not name it, and had asserted his power over the people who

  had loved those unproductive meadows for their idleness and silvery

  beauty.

  After Ivy had gone on into the smoker, Niel sat looking out at the

  windings of the Sweet Water and playing with his idea. The Old

  West had been settled by dreamers, great-hearted adventurers who

  were unpractical to the point of magnificence; a courteous

  brotherhood, strong in attack but weak in defence, who could

  conquer but could not hold. Now all the vast territory they had

  won was to be at the mercy of men like Ivy Peters, who had never

  dared anything, never risked anything. They would drink up the

  mirage, dispel the morning freshness, root out the great brooding

  spirit of freedom, the generous, easy life of the great land-

  holders. The space, the colour, the princely carelessness of the

  pioneer they would destroy and cut up into profitable bits, as the

  match factory splinters the primeval forest. All the way from the

  Missouri to the mountains this generation of shrewd young men,

  trained to petty economies by hard times, would do exactly what Ivy

  Peters had done when he drained the Forrester marsh.

  TWO

  The next afternoon Niel found Captain Forrester in the bushy little

  plot he called his rose garden, seated in a stout hickory chair

  that could be left out in all weather, his two canes beside him.

  His attention was fixed upon a red block of Colorado sandstone, set

  on a granite boulder in the middle of the gravel space around which

  the roses grew. He showed Niel that this was a sun-dial, and

  explained it with great pride. Last summer, he said, he sat out

  here a great deal, with a square board mounted on a post, and

  marked the length of the shadows by his watch. His friend, Cyrus

  Dalzell, on one of his visits, took this board away, had the

  diagram exactly copied on sandstone, and sent it to him, with the

  column-like boulder that formed its base.

  "I think it's likely Mr. Dalzell hunted around among the mountains

  a good many mornings before he found a natural formation like

  that," said the Captain. "A pillar, such as they had in Bible

  times. It's from the Garden of the Gods. Mr. Dalzell has his

  summer home up there."

  The Captain sat with the soles of his boots together, his legs

  bowed out. Everything about him seemed to have grown heavier and

  weaker. His face was fatter and smoother; as if the features were

  running into each other, as when a wax face melts in the heat. An

  old Panama hat, burned yellow by the sun, shaded his eyes. His

  brown hands lay on his knees, the fingers well apart, nerveless.

  His moustache was the same straw colour; Niel remarked to him that

  it had grown no greyer. The Captain touched his cheek with his

  palm. "Mrs. Forrester shaved me for awhile. She did it very

  nicely, but I didn't like to have her do it. Now I use one of

  these safety razors. I can manage, if I take my time. The barber

  comes over once a week. Mrs. Forrester is expecting you, Niel.

  She's down in the grove. She goes down there to rest in the

  hammock."

  Niel went round the house to the gate that gave into the grove.

  From the top of the hill he could see the hammock slung between two

  cottonwoods, in the low glade at the farther end, where he had

  fallen the time he broke his arm. The slender white figure was

  still, and as he hurried across the grass he saw that a white

  garden hat lay over her face. He approached quietly and was just

  wondering if she were asleep, when he heard a soft, delighted

  laugh, and with a quick movement she threw off the lace hat through

  which she had been watching him. He stepped forward and caught her

  suspended figure, hammock and all, in his arms. How light and

  alive she was! like a bird caught in a net. If only he could

  rescue her and carry her off like this,--off the earth of sad,

  inevitable periods, away from age, weariness, adverse fortune!

  She showed no impatience to be released, but lay laughing up at him

  with that gleam of something elegantly wild, something fantastic

  and tantalizing,--seemingly so artless, really the most finished

  artifice! She put her hand under his chin as if he were still a

  boy.

  "And how handsome he's grown! Isn't the old Judge proud of you!

  He called me up last night and began sputtering, 'It's only fair to

  warn you, Ma'm, that I've a very handsome boy over here.' As if I

  hadn't known you would be! And now you're a man, and have seen the

  world! Well, what have you found in it?"

  "Nothing so nice as you, Mrs. Forrester."

  "Nonsense! You have sweethearts?"

  "Perhaps."

  "Are they pretty?"

  "Why they? Isn't one enough?"

  "One is too many. I want you to have half a dozen,--and still save

  the best for us! One would take everything. If you had her, you

  would not have come home at all. I wonder if you know how we've

  looked for you?" She took his hand and turned a seal ring about on

  his little finger absently. "Every night for weeks, when the

  lights of the train came swinging in down below the meadows, I've

  said to myself, 'Niel is coming home; there's that to look forward

  to.'" She caught herself as she always did when she found that she

  was telling too much, and finished in a playful tone. "So, you

  see, you mean a great deal to all of us. Did you find Mr.

  Forrester?"

  "Oh, yes! I had to stop and look at his sun-dial."

  She raised herself on her elbow and lowered her voice. "Niel, can

  you understand it? He isn't childish, as some people say, but he

  will sit and watch that thing hour after hour. How can anybody

  like to see time visibly devoured? We are all used to seeing

  clocks go round, but why does he want to see that shadow creep on

  that stone? Has he changed much? No? I'm glad you feel so. Now

  tell me about the Adamses and what George is like."

  Niel dropped on the turf and sat with his back against a tree

  trunk, answering her rapid questions and watching her while he

  talked. Of course, she was older. In the brilliant sun of the

  afternoon one saw that her skin was no longer like white lilacs,--

  it had the ivory tint of gardenias that have just begun to fade.

  The coil of blue-black hair seemed more than ever too heavy for her

  head. There were lin
es,--something strained about the corners of

  her mouth that used not to be there. But the astonishing thing was

  how these changes could vanish in a moment, be utterly wiped out in

  a flash of personality, and one forgot everything about her except

  herself.

  "And tell me, Niel, do women really smoke after dinner now with the

  men, nice women? I shouldn't like it. It's all very well for

  actresses, but women can't be attractive if they do everything that

  men do."

  "I think just now it's the fashion for women to make themselves

  comfortable, before anything else."

  Mrs. Forrester glanced at him as if he had said something shocking.

  "Ah, that's just it! The two things don't go together. Athletics

  and going to college and smoking after dinner--Do you like it?

  Don't men like women to be different from themselves? They used

  to."

  Niel laughed. Yes, that was certainly the idea of Mrs. Forrester's

  generation.

  "Uncle Judge says you don't come to see him any more as you used

  to, Mrs. Forrester. He misses it."

  "My dear boy, I haven't been over to the town for six weeks. I'm

  always too tired. We have no horse now, and when I do go I have to

  walk. That house! Nothing is ever done there unless I do it, and

  nothing ever moves unless I move it. That's why I come down here

  in the afternoon,--to get where I can't see the house. I can't

  keep it up as it should be kept, I'm not strong enough. Oh, yes,

  Ben helps me; he sweeps and beats the rugs and washes windows, but

  that doesn't get a house very far." Mrs. Forrester sat up suddenly

  and pinned on her white hat. "We went all the way to Chicago,

  Niel, to buy that walnut furniture, couldn't find anything at home

  big and heavy enough. If I'd known that one day I'd have to push

  it about, I would have been more easily satisfied!" She rose and

  shook out her rumpled skirts.

  They started toward the house, going slowly up the long, grassy

  undulation between the trees.

  "Don't you miss the marsh?" Niel asked suddenly.

  She glanced away evasively. "Not much. I would never have time to

  go there, and we need the money it pays us. And you haven't time

  to play any more either, Niel. You must hurry and become a

  successful man. Your uncle is terribly involved. He has been so

  careless that he's not much better off than we are. Money is a

  very important thing. Realize that in the beginning; face it, and

  don't be ridiculous in the end, like so many of us." They stopped

  by the gate at the top of the hill and looked back at the green

  alleys and sharp shadows, at the quivering fans of light that

  seemed to push the trees farther apart and made Elysian fields

  underneath them. Mrs. Forrester put her white hand, with all its

  rings, on Niel's arm.

  "Do you really find a kind of pleasure in coming back to us?

  That's very unusual, I think. At your age I wanted to be with the

  young and gay. It's nice for us, though." She looked at him with

  her rarest smile, one he had seldom seen on her face, but always

  remembered,--a smile without archness, without gaiety, full of

  affection and wistfully sad. And the same thing was in her voice

  when she spoke those quiet words,--the sudden quietness of deep

  feeling. She turned quickly away. They went through the gate and

  around the house to where the Captain sat watching the sunset glory

  on his roses. His wife touched his shoulder.

  "Will you go in, now, Mr. Forrester, or shall I bring your coat?"

  "I'll go in. Isn't Niel going to stay for dinner?"

  "Not this time. He'll come soon, and we'll have a real dinner for

  him. Will you wait for Mr. Forrester, Niel? I must hurry in and

  start the fire."

  Niel tarried behind and accompanied the Captain's slow progress

  toward the front of the house. He leaned upon two canes, lifting

  his feet slowly and putting them down firmly and carefully. He