IX
My dear father used to maintain that true love seldom dies chiefly because it is so seldom born, which I take to be an aspersion upon the average love affair.
This would scarcely be fair to widows, or maidens who have been bereaved before betrothal, would it? For, of course, it is conceivable that such a one might in time recover from the shock of her loss and form a second genuine attachment. But whether I was justified in putting Peaches into the latter class or not I could not judge at the time. Because, of course, we should have been extremely lonely on the northern ranch without Mr. Markheim, especially after Richard, the chauffeur, enlisted, and dear Mr. Pegg began his increasingly frequent trips to Washington, where he had something to do with supplying the Army with fruit. The way that man constantly ran over to Washington from California was simply too—too—well, too Californian for words. For the natives of this region save time in every conceivable fashion, yet regard distance as nothing. He spent almost all of his time either there or in the southern part of the State, where his principal groves of citrus fruit were located.
At any rate we should have been tremendously lonely on the home ranch without Mr. Markheim. Really I should not have supposed that a millionaire could be so human or a nouveau riche so condescending, or rather, so tolerable. But I suppose his being in love with Alicia had something to do with it, for before we had been twenty-four hours at the King-Pin ranch I saw how things were.
On account of his name poor Mr. Markheim took no active part in the war, though I understand that he lent somebody a great deal of money—the Belgians or Irish or some one, I forget just who.
But at any rate he used to ride over to our place frequently every day when it wasn't twice a day, and at first Peaches would have nothing to do with him beyond mere politeness.
I settled myself to watch the progress of the affair, because I do love a lover even when I don't like him, and I felt sorry for Mr. Markheim and interested in his attentions to Peaches, though, of course, he was of an age which would have rendered his devotion to an older woman far more suitable, and I was confident that nothing could shake her fidelity to the dear duke, that handsome and romantic rascal—that is, if he was a rascal, which now seemed plain enough. But every woman loves a rascal at some time or another, and though friends and family may succeed in persuading her to give him up she goes on nursing her fondness in secret just as long as the flavor lasts.
At any rate Peaches thought only of Sandro; that was plain to any woman, and though she seldom spoke of him I could see that we never went to the little dust bin of a town for the mail but she looked for a letter in his handwriting. But she did not discuss him, even with me. And when Mr. Sebastian came over from his toy ranch she would ride with him, talk with him, swim in our pool with him or accept the little things he bought her with a sweet, gentle acceptance which brought me to the verge of tears, it was so unlike her old fiery self.
And thus we dragged through a long, long period which has nothing to do with my account of our particular affairs—the period of the war, in point of fact. I feel it is not incumbent upon me to make a record of the war though it occurred at this time, inasmuch as several quite competent persons, including Mr. Wilson and the Associated Press, have covered the matter pretty carefully and quite as accurately as I should, the more especially as I spent the entire span of the war in California, and the Golden State was curiously removed from any sense of actual warfare.
Not that I mean to say that we Californians were in any way lacking in patriotism or that we failed to do our part, for goodness knows we just about fed the entire nation, and prices didn't go up, either, the way they did in the East. You could still buy at pre-war prices in 1918, and we were so rich as a community that we could do without the scandalous increases of which we read in our week-late New York Sunday newspapers. But what I mean is that somehow war seemed to belong to the East rather than to us. And I think we worried more over Mexico than over Flanders, and who can blame us when we were so near to Mexico that we could actually see what went on there? Or the result of what went on, at least? And the European war was just like some horrid rather unconvincing nightmare which the East had got itself into and that we had in consequence to help her out of.
Peaches and I ran the home ranch, and hardly left it, after Richard's enlistment. When I reflect upon our life there it seems punctuated by two great events and nothing else, though at the time of living through it I seemed to be in a continuous crisis, my upbringing crashing against my environment.
The first momentous occurrence to which I have referred was news of the duke. It came in a letter from Abby, who mentioned him casually in passing. The Chinese cook had brought the mail up from Oroville and Peaches and I had carried it outside to the edge of the swimming pool which Mr. Pegg had built into an angle of the ranch house, a gaunt white-painted frame building, very like a big New England farm-house, as are many of the homesteads of northern California. It was a heavenly mild late September day, with the barren hills turning faintly green already, though the rains had been tardy and scarce, and the roses in the garden had still to be irrigated regularly. The roads, hub deep with dust in summer, were bad now, honeycombed with mud holes, and the mail was late.
As I sat there with a corduroy jacket about my shoulders, my muddy boots heavy on my tired feet, and held the letter with the Italian postmark unopened for a moment in my hands it seemed as if the past four years were a dream, and the scene before me an utter unreality. At the gate to the road stood a pair of orange trees upon which the fruit was being left to ripen for home consumption. The orchards were stripped weeks earlier, for we picked green and sweated our oranges. Beyond the sentinel trees with their yellow fruit glowing like lanterns in the dark foliage, a flock of runner ducks squawked noisily in the head ditch, which had flowed by the house since the early days when Peaches' mother lived there and used to get the water for her household from it. Distantly a file of turbaned Hindu pickers, bound for a neighbor's walnut grove, passed, silhouetted against the sky, and vanished into the more overbearing outlines of a row of eucalyptus trees upon the ridge, and a pair of smartly overalled, immaculate Japanese laborers equipped like aviators, and gloved against the orange thorns, passed along the road, chattering unintelligibly, their picking equipment strapped to their shoulders like knapsacks, their sturdy boots swinging rhythmically to their chatter.
I could see all this, and the environment, which had once been as strange as a prism seen through a kaleidoscope, yet which was the only reality I had known for four years, now took on its pristine strangeness once more, and the letter in my hands brought a wave of homesickness upon me—not for Italy, but for Boston, I scarcely know why. For several moments I sat so, and then at length I opened the envelope where the censor had closed it, and read.
It sounded tired, that letter did, though, of course, it told very little, being censored.
"We are frightfully busy," Abby wrote, "but hopeful of an end to it all before long. I hope it may be true that peace is near, for we have suffered enough. We are not so gay as once we were, my dear, but just as brave. Things have changed so, and people are gone. I hear among others that our gay, mysterious and gallant Sandro was killed at —— Sir Anthony told me, and he got it from Captain Silvano, whom you may remember at Mentone. Killed in a very brave bit of action, I believe, too. Ah, well! So many people are making reparation for sins known and unknown by heroic sacrifice in the war. It is the great confessional."
I did not read further just then. Something impelled me to look up. Alicia was standing in front of me with grave golden eyes, her body actually seeming to give off a magnetic force which compelled me against my will to an immediate confession of what I would have preferred to break to her in a proper fashion.
"Free!" she said too quietly. "Is he—dead?"
It was the first mention which had been made of the duke in almost a year. I had begun to think she had forgotten—or at least determined to forget. I should have known better. I handed her the letter. It was the only thing I could do. She took it and read it silently, still looking off at the purple cloud bank of the coast range with its snow patches melting into the fleece of the little clouds which seemed to rest upon them—the barren gold-and-violet mountains, so infinite, eternal, restful and inspiring. Her face was like marble and I thought of the old psalmist: "I lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my strength," and knew she would get strength from the coast range, from the infinite expanse of Nature, even as I had got it before now.
"In a very brave action," she said automatically. Then she threw her head back in a proud gesture, as though somebody had tried to strike her and failed; and without another word she turned and went into the house. I allowed her to go alone. Somehow I had gradually come to recognize a difference between Alicia and other young women of my acquaintance—and I knew that there was nothing I could say to her just then. She had the strength of those hills, or rather mountains—she was made of their very substance. I felt helpless. Besides, it was time to go through the lower orchards, where the Hindus were stripping olives in fear of a possible touch of frost, and somebody had to attend to things. So I rose, much depressed but urged by the duty before me. That was women's salvation during the war—the pressure of work to be done. And Pinto was again in Washington.
But that night Peaches became humanized. I suppose the darkness was too much for her. I was unable to endure her sobbing unless I could participate in it. And so I went into her room toward morning, and we were wretched in company. It was then that she showed me the wallet.
"Oh, my dear!" I said. "If only you had a souvenir or something of his!"
"I have!" replied poor Peaches unexpected. "I'll show it to you."
She turned on the light and reached under her tear-stained pillow—an incongruously gay figure in her striped pyjamas—and produced an envelope from which she drew a worn case of black morocco leather. It was thin and flat and no bigger than the palm of your hand.
"I have this, and two letters, and the rose he picked with the little gold knife I gave him," she said.
"What is it?" I made inquiry.
"I don't know," she said. "There's something written in Italian inside. He left it by accident on the day before he disappeared."
"By accident?" I said. "How?"
"Well, I found it on the sofa," said Peaches. "And it has his name in it. I was going to return it next day at luncheon—the luncheon to which he never came."
Then she broke down again.
"I guess it's only a Dago mileage book," she sobbed, "but it's all I've got of his! He must have used it a lot!" She buried her head in the pillow, the wallet clasped tightly to her breast, and I stole out of the room without seeing the contents. If only I had looked—insisted on looking at it then, what a lot of trouble we would have been spared! But as my dear father used to say, it is easy to be wise in retrospect. At the time I thought merely of Peaches getting a little sleep and that somebody had to get up and start the Chinaman or the foremen wouldn't get their breakfast by five o'clock, and there was still one sheltered flat of oranges to be picked.
Though the lugs were already in the orchard I knew that if we were ever to get through in time to make a complete shipment we must begin work as soon as it was light enough to see the yellow glow under the green on the fruit, and work until it was so dark that the prime oranges were indistinguishable from the unripe ones, and the Mohammedans would come out of the orchard and pray, in their heathen manner, facing where they supposed Mecca to be. Somebody had to see to things, even in time of sorrow, and I was what Peaches cryptically termed the "goat."
Mr. Kipling may not have known it, but the dawn comes up like thunder in California, too, so it is really no effort to rise early, once you are accustomed to so doing. It is a common observation that when one does get up at sunrise one wonders why one does not do it always. And for almost three years such had been my continuous habit.
I set about my duties this morning, however, with a heavy heart, for I anticipated a long siege with Peaches and her grief. But by the time the foremen had gone to their sections and I myself had ridden the rounds of the various orchards to see that all was well, and given the Chinaman instructions about the meals, which instructions he would later pretend not to have heard, and had ridden over to the sluice at the top of the head ditch to see why the new feed to the seedling flat wasn't working properly, and taken a look at the flock of turkeys which I had imported to keep the grasshoppers down and which had lately been depleted by coyotes, I returned to my second breakfast; and there was Peaches already seated at table, well-groomed in her riding clothes, and prepared to accompany me to the packing sheds at the railroads.
She was a trifle pale perhaps, and rather quieter than ever, but perfectly composed, and even smiled a little as I sat down beside her and attacked my meal.
"I'm all set now, Free," she whispered. "I'll just do my bit, as he did his."
And then we got out the car and went to town. I drove, at her request, and between bumps and mud holes watched her out of one corner of my eye for any signs of a breakdown. But none came, either then or later in the long sheds where the sweated fruit roared down the channel of the separator, falling into the bins like golden hail, which the wives and daughters of the neighboring ranchers stood swiftly packing; a most competent lot of females, very swift and precise and earning a good bit of pin money thus every year.
Peaches stood outside all day, checking up the lugs as they arrived, arranging about freight rates, overseeing the allotment of box cars to the various growers, and generally doing a man's job. And never once during the twelve months which followed did I know her to fail in her work—her magnificent constitution helping, no doubt, to pull her through. But I could see that a permanent change had taken place in her from the day of Abby's letter. She was no longer the madcap, and though she was even more beautiful she was different—and through love, the great tamer—as Blake would have it.
This was the first incident to which I have referred as punctuating the monotony of the war for us. The second occurred more than a year later, in November, 1918, when we, like many another group of ranchers throughout the country, thought the town hall was on fire when all the time it was only the armistice.
Mr. Markheim, Pinto and Alicia and myself were indoors, an unusually cold snap having offered us the treat of an open fire, a not unmixed pleasure by reason of our being under some anxiety about the trees. But on the whole it was what some modern poet whose name I cannot at the moment recall has termed the end of a perfect day.
To begin with, I had dispatched three pounds of wool to Euphemia, whom Galadia, my only source of information about my sister, had written was doing great work for the Red Cross; her chief natural gift, that of knitting, had suddenly become of immense importance since the outbreak of the war, and she had to her credit and the honor of the family three hundred pair of socks. The achievement appeared almost foreign to me, inasmuch as I had not knitted any socks since that momentous pair at Monte Carlo, a surprising faculty for a more active existence having developed in me during my sojourn on the ranch. At any rate I had sent out the wool, finished my last jar of marmalade, of which I had made an experimental thousand for a market which Mr. Pegg intended the development of, and Mr. Markheim had returned from a visit East in company with Pinto. Peaches had that day succeeded in breaking a pony she had long desired as a saddle horse and had hitherto been unsuccessful with. Mr. Pegg had a special design for the marmalade jars—a crystal orange, of the natural size and shape, the preserved fruit to furnish the color, and he and I were most enthusiastic over it.
Mr. Markheim also credited himself with a successful trip, though from a wholly different cause. It appeared that he had at length contrived to install in his house a picture which he had long coveted, and this picture was none other than the Madonna of the Lamp, for which he had paid five hundred thousand dollars. Since his purchase of it the picture had been stored, and it seemed to me a strange time to trouble with getting it out. But Sebastian Markheim, with the fervor of the true collector and the madness which seems the hall-mark of his kind, was apparently oblivious of this circumstance and became wrapt in his description of it.
"You must have seen it in Vienna," he said. "Good heavens, don't say you have seen photographs of it! You cannot imagine the beauty of the thing itself. I have given directions for the remodeling of the south wall of my library in the Ossining house for its occupancy. It will hang all alone on that wall—it's only a small picture, you know, so I have had Hasbrock, the architect, design some panels to encircle it I hope it is going to please you, Alicia."
"What?" said Mr. Pegg twirling round suddenly from the bowl of ripe olives with which he was occupied. "What's that? Why should Alicia be pleased?"
"She's going to live there with it!" said Markheim. "She promised this afternoon!"
"Oh, no!" I said getting to my feet. But nobody seemed to hear me.
"Yes, father," said Alicia. Then Pinto's face broke into a sort of crooked smile and he held out his hands to both of them.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he said. "Think of my Peaches picking out a friend of her father's! Why, Markheim, you must be somewhere near my own age!"
"Why, pa, how rude!" said Alicia. "Aren't you going to kiss me? And you too, Free! Stop standing there like a dummy! People get married all the time—there's nothing unusual about it, you poor nuts! Come on, congratulate us!"
Well, of course, I recovered myself as best I could, and pecked her on the cheek. But I didn't feel my congratulations—I simply couldn't feel them. To marry that old man. And a foreigner! And a German Swiss! And everything! It was too dreadful! Nothing could make me feel that she was doing it for any reason except pity and because he had nagged her into it with his ceaseless attentions. Of course we had nothing against him, absolutely nothing, because after all being a millionaire art collector is not in itself strictly criminal. But with the memory of that beautiful romance in Italy still fresh in my own mind I could not understand it—I simply could not; and every fiber of my being resented it. Youth and age! It was all wrong. She had a silly notion that her heart was dead, and that it didn't matter what she did. That if it gave Sebastian happiness to marry her—why, he was good and kind and rich and cultured and famous, and why not give joy since one could no longer experience it?
I could see in a flash what had gone on in her simple, honest, generous mind, and it nearly drove me wild, while all the time I had to stand there grinning and patting her on the shoulder, and saying how wonderful it all was, when in reality I wanted to drag her out of the room and shake her for being such a great silly fool, and force her to stop it before anyone else heard of her folly and she found herself in the complications of public knowledge of her engagement.
Instead of which I stood round and admired the wonderful five-carat diamond ring which Markheim produced, and behaved like an idiot generally.
"Well, well, when is it to be?" Mr. Pegg wanted to know.
Alicia turned her big eyes slowly from her marvelous jewel to her father's puzzled face.
"I have promised Sebastian," she said slowly, "to marry him as soon as the war is over!"
Her tone had, to my ears, the expectancy of a long reprieve.
And it was at that minute that the fire bells began to ring.
You can be sure we all rushed out at that, crying, "Where is it? What is the matter?" and many other similar exclamations natural to the situation. But at first nobody seemed to know. The Chinese cook came out, frying pan in hand, and began running round in circles. The hands were soon straggling in from their camp in the gulch by the river. Somebody, Mr. Pegg, I think, tried the telephone, but could get no answer. By this time almost everybody on the ranch had assembled before the house, shivering with the frost and searching the sky for signs of the incendiary glare, but in vain. An automobile dashed by down the Letterbox road with two prospectors in it. One was firing a gun like mad and he yelled something unintelligible at us in passing but ignored our invitation to stop.
Then from the direction of the town a flivver emerged out of the swiftly falling dusk, and as it stopped in front of our gate a man in the uniform of an American captain jumped down with the aid of his uninjured arm, the other being supported by a sling, and came running toward us, flinging his cap into the air, the lights from our porch gleaming upon his excited face and upon the decorations on his breast.
"Victory!" he shouted. "Victory! Schoolhouse fire? Hell! The armistice was signed at two o'clock to-day!"
It was Richard, the chauffeur, and I assure you that it was at that moment that I recognized the strong family resemblance and decided that he might after all be a Talbot—one of our Talbots.
You can imagine the wild riot into which the news and the bearer of it threw us. I cannot describe it. Everyone went crazy and I have a blurred recollection of kissing several persons, the Chinaman among them. But only one thing remains clearly in my mind—Alicia standing like a stone in a corner of the veranda, her white face lifted to the rising moon, and Markheim running toward her with burning words which seemed to fall upon deaf ears.
"Alicia, Alicia, it's the end of the war!" he was shouting.
X
I recall upon one occasion my dear father having said that love in a cottage was better than politeness in a mansion, and this came at once to mind upon the occasion of our visit to Sebastian Markheim's palace on the banks of the upper section of the Hudson River.
This took place just six months after that wonderful night when my dear nephew, as I was now convinced he was, returned, so to speak, with the armistice in his pocket. Sebastian, as I was now instructed to call Mr. Markheim, had desired us to come sooner, in order that Peaches might herself assist in selecting the plans and furnishings incident to the remodeling of what was to be her home.
But Peaches was reluctant to go. Of course there was a good deal of readjustment to be done on all her father's ranches, and while he was in the south, where the big orchards were, we set in order the home ranch, which had been practically in our charge for a year and a half, and she gave as excuse for the delay the necessity for making these readjustments herself. Richard was to be left in complete charge and she busied herself quite unnecessarily in showing him a thousand details. Every week she would promise to be ready, and when the time came she would have discovered something that nobody else could take care of, which was all nonsense, because a citrus ranch practically takes care of itself during the winter months. But by hook and crook she held us off until April, and then at last we were ready to go.
I will state that I for one was unreservedly eager to go home—to go East. I was, in point of fact, so excited at the prospect that on the night before our departure I found myself unable to compose myself to slumber, and rising from my uneasy couch I donned a robe and ventured forth from my bedchamber, which was upon the ground floor.
The moonlight, which flooded the garden, gave it an uncanny distorted aspect, and all at once as I sat there, huddled upon a bench close to the wall of the house, I seemed to see the ranch and its surroundings with the same eyes which envisioned it upon my arrival so long ago. This sudden clarity of vision was doubtless due to the subconscious influence of my impending departure. At any rate the place, which I had grown so accustomed to that I beheld it only with the blindness of familiarity, seemed once more the impossibly crude wilderness that it appeared to be upon my arrival.
For in the northern part of California there is little of the induced luxuriance of the South. There is something of the Eastern farmer's fight with the elements and a Nature that is not always overly kind or utterly dependable, and our garden was not a thing of lovely lawns, dense shrubs and misty glades. Far from it. Our flower beds were as practically irrigated as our orchards, standing deep in mud and lifting their wonderful blossoms from the mire we so religiously provided for them. There was none of the trimness of an Eastern estate about our more than practical, enterprising organization. Rather it bore the general aspect of Boston Common after an August holiday. It was, in plain truth, shockingly untidy, and I was horrified to realize that even I, who had been so carefully reared by the immaculate Euphemia, had made only the most feeble sort of effort to tidy up. I had been unable to see the molehills for the mountains, as one might say. But now, with the thought of the concentrated, condensed East before me, I perceived the unevenness of our paths, the forgotten bundle of old papers outside the storehouse, the broken gate which everyone cursed at but forgot to mend; and the olive and orange clad hills beyond grew dim in my mind's eye even as they formed but indistinguishable black patches in the cloud-changing moonlight. A deep longing for my own kind of living swept over me, and I even went so far as to experience a desire for Euphemia's breakfast room on Chestnut Street, and the mended table linen—the careful little things of life grown dear through years of painstakingly careful usage.
Moved by this overwhelming impulse I was on the verge of rising and gathering up that disgracefully untidy bundle of papers and carrying it to the trash bin where it belonged, thus at once satisfying a normal impulse and proving to myself that my upbringing had not been in vain, when I became aware that the window above my head had been opened softly and that someone—Peaches, without a doubt, since that was her chamber—was standing there, crying softly.
My first impulse was to speak—to go to her with what comfort I was capable of offering, but having for an instant refrained I could not do so. Since the announcement of her betrothal to Markheim a wall had sprung up between us as far as her intimate life was concerned. Indeed she seemed to have withdrawn into herself curiously, though I doubt that anyone realized it as keenly as did I.
And then having failed to speak immediately I found myself in an awkward predicament. Should I move or not? I had no desire to eavesdrop for the confidence she withheld, and yet I felt it my bounden duty as her chaperon and guardian and older woman generally to know all about her by one means or another, for her own good, and not out of mere female curiosity. And so allowing my sense of responsibility to conquer my delicacy I kept very still, and before long my diligence was rewarded.
"A clean sweep!" whispered Peaches at her window. "No use kidding myself. I'll make the break clean. It's the only thing to do!"
There was a short silence punctuated only by a few sniffs, and then an object flew through the air over my head and landed in the pool with a splash. The window above was closed with a snap. Whatever ritual she had been at was over. But not so the fulfillment of my duty as her protectress.
No sooner had I made sure that she was not going to change her mind and come down after it, than I crept stealthily to the water's edge, having carefully noted the very spot where the object fell, and kneeling on the concrete basin's brim, greatly to the detriment of that portion of my anatomy which bore the weight, being clad only for private life, I fished determinedly for the best part of half an hour, my sleeves rolled up but not escaping the effects of my earnest endeavor, and my curls getting thoroughly soaked.
Fortunately Peaches' aim, usually so accurate and far reaching in the pursuit of the national sport of baseball, or in any other emergency such as reaching a high-hung apple, had fallen a little short this time, her secret having hit the shallow end of the pond. And so it was that after a very considerable period of effort I did retrieve the object, and retreated with it to the seclusion of my room.
Once there I lit the lamp, drew the curtains, locked the door and proceeded with my duty still further. It was a terribly moist little bundle, done up in a silk handkerchief and weighted with the bronze paper-weight I had given Peaches for Christmas. But I was too much interested to mind this slight. For inside the bundle were two letters, already a mere pulpy mass from the soaking they had sustained, a brittle something which might once have been a rose, and the duke's wallet!
The latter was still intact, but before examining it I made a little fire on the hearth, and by diligent coaxing managed to consume the remnants of the other souvenirs. They were no one's affairs except that of the lovers and no other eyes should behold them unbidden. And when they were quite concealed in the ashes of the fireplace I returned to the light and examined the wallet carefully. It seemed to me that there simply must be more to the matter than appeared. In any of those books which had so deep an influence upon my early thinking the discoverer of such a wallet would have surprised a jewel of value, secret documents popularly referred to as 'the papers,' or a marriage certificate which cleared the honor of the hero's mother, or something equally vital. And I must confess that I, in opening my find, rather anticipated some such discovery, but my expectations were doomed to disappointment, for it was in very truth what Peaches had suggested—a mileage ticket of some sort made out in Sandro's name!
I will say that this end to my exciting evening was a trifle flat, but as my dear father used to say, our chief pleasure lies in anticipation and no disappointment in the event can cheat us of that. So I simply decided to put the thing carefully away in the bottom of my reticule in case it was ever needed. What with the war and all, one never can tell who is going to turn up a hero; and just think what souvenirs of Rupert Brooke, for example, are worth to-day, not to mention Napoleon and General Grant, and so forth, whose hero-value has, of course, been augmented with age.
Well, at any rate, that was all there was to it at the time. I slept the sleep of duty well done, because I was determined to take care of Peaches in spite of herself, and the next morning rose refreshed, to make the early train for San Francisco, where we were to join Mr. Pegg and turn our faces eastward.
The house which Sebastian Markheim had remodeled for his bride-to-be was already a sumptuous structure worthy of the famous collection of art treasures which it housed, and his efforts in altering it had been bent rather in the direction of improving its livableness and making it a cheerier spot to which to bring a young wife. The object of our visit was that Peaches be given the opportunity of making it completely to her liking in advance of her possession of it, and incidentally to make the acquaintance of her future neighbors, and of Mr. Markheim's set generally.
He had planned a large house party as the means of introducing his fiancée to his social world, and she intended to procure her trousseau in New York during the intervals of gayety. Mr. Pegg was enchanted at the prospect thus opened up before him, and I was myself much elated at the thought of experiencing some real social life once more, for Abby's hospitality in dear old Italy, so lavish and yet in such excellent good form, had given me a taste for the gaieties my restricted youth had lacked. Even Peaches was gay, though not as of yore, but rather with a mature, stately gayety, and her manner toward me had become positively motherly.
"There now, Free!" she soothed me one day when I had expressed a mild concern about her state of mind. "There now, Free, don't you worry about me! We all have to grow up sometime, don't we? Can't stay young plants forever—especially we women. Comes a time when we got to be grafted on to old stock and get ready for bearing—eh? Well, that's me, old thing!"
I was shocked at her indelicacy and did not hesitate to say so.
"If that is how you regard your forthcoming nuptials," I said stiffly, "you ought to dissolve your betrothal. One should marry only for love—for love alone!"
"Oh, should they?" said Peaches. "That's all you know about it. I'm very fond of Mr. Mark—of Sebastian, and he is the typical good husband."
"But you don't love him!" I protested firmly.
"I love him as much as I am likely to love anyone," responded Peaches—like a young Portia, so stately and serious. "And even if he is half a head shorter than I am he has a kind heart and he's a gentleman."
"And not over sixty years old!" I retorted. "Oh, Peaches, do you really want to do it?"
Suddenly she was serious. The defensively bantering light went out of her changeful eyes.
"Don't, Free!" she pleaded. "Yes, I do want to. I want to be a reasonable being—to make the best life I can for myself since I must go on living. I don't want to be a coward. I am still young and I haven't seen much of the world. Riches, art treasures, cultured people, and things—social position—there must be joy in these things or folks would not struggle for them so! And since they must be filling up the emptiness in a whole lot of lives I'm going to have a try at them too. Don't be afraid for me. I know just what I am doing. I know that I shall never care again. But I can like. And I can live, and I'm going to use my old beau to help me get the most out of life that I can when—when—well, you know, only don't say it, please!"
She was wonderful. So big and beautiful and full of health and common sense. I could not but admire her, though, of course, a few maidenly tears and vows of lifelong fidelity to the heroic dead would have been more suitable. But things had already gone too far for that. At the time the above-recorded conversation took place we were standing upon the steps of the Ritz in New York, waiting for the car which was to convey us up the river. Mr. Markheim had not expected us for another week and so hadn't been at the hotel to meet us, but was sending his chauffeur.
And in a way Peaches' words reassured me. After all one must eventually resign oneself to fate, and if one had the good sense to take fate by the horns and as Peaches would say "beat him to it"—why, so much the better. We could all settle down to watch her live happily enough ever after if her program worked out.
But would it? Despite her assurance I felt a faint misgiving. My dear father used always to say: "Never you girls marry until Mister Right comes along." And we were brought up to honor and obey our parents—with the result that at the respective ages of fifty and sixty we girls were still single. However, I digress.
In my youth, following the precepts of my father and seeking knowledge of the world through the medium of literature, I came upon the works of a lady of rank whose writings had for me the greatest fascination. As to what her actual name was I have to this day remained in ignorance, and her title, The Duchess, is all that I identify her by. But this estimable lady, while somewhat given to the recounting of scandalous episodes and the misfortunes peculiar to innocent maidens, had a wealth of descriptive power when she undertook the description of rich and aristocratic mansions or the interiors of castles of the less modest variety. But nothing ever recorded by her, not set forth for public inspection in the Boston Museum, could compare with the sumptuousness of Mr. Markheim's establishment.
I had been prepared for something very fine, but this gorgeous replica of a famous Italian villa built upon terraces, its lovely low white façades rising in a symmetrical group one above the other, the whole nestling into the budding verdure of the hillside, its formal gardens descending step by step almost to the broad sweep of the Hudson below, was a veritable dream-palace.
And the interior! Words almost fail me when I seek to describe it. Perhaps the most fitting thing I can say of it is that it was a home good enough for Peaches. Her great height, her gold-and-marble beauty, here found at last a fitting habitat. And then when I saw that little, comparatively speaking, Markheim man trotting about in front of her and giving her the place with a gesture as he displayed each treasure in turn, I felt sick and faint in my mind. And yet he was most kind and had never given me the least cause to criticize him, and certainly the house was enough to tempt any girl. I sighed, however, to think of the day when she would be married and living there.
"Mr. Markheim—Sebastian, I mean," I said—Mr. Pegg and I followed in the wake of the happy couple as they made the tour of the house—"Sebastian, this place looks as if you had dug up the rich heart of Italy and transplanted it to America!"
Sebastian laughed.
"You have the right idea, Miss Freedom! The right idea—yes!" he exclaimed with pride. "More than half my collection is Italian—and if I do so say myself, it has taken a lot of patience and trouble to gather it—not to speak of the cost in money. They have a strict law against taking objects of art out of their country, you know, and it's been nip and tuck getting hold of a lot of this stuff—smuggled of course. Oh, don't look so shocked! If it's genuine it's smuggled—at the Italian end. But one doesn't call attention to the fact except in the privacy of one's own family!"
"It sure is swell!" said Mr. Pegg.
Sebastian laughed again—a sound which never got him favor with me—and opened the door into the newest addition to the house—the library wing, which he had remodeled for the especial purpose of housing the Madonna of the Lamp.
When I entered I could not refrain from an exclamation of delight, nor can I forbear to describe the place in some detail. To begin with it was almost round and very large, the ceiling being domed and the books being carried in long narrow stacks sunk into the paneling between the French windows as high as the carved molding. Above this an exquisite tone of blue with a few cleverly distributed stars gave a sense of infinite space, and despite the cumbersome old Florentine furniture the room was neither heavy nor dull. There was just enough gold to furnish flashes of light, and the warm old amber brocade on the chairs seemed to catch and hold the sunlight which poured through the long narrow windows at the west, all of which opened directly upon the first terrace of the rose garden. But the real triumph in lighting was the rose window of plain leaded glass on the north side of the room—the wall of which had been reconstructed to accommodate it in order that the Madonna might be properly illuminated by day. We gasped our admiration of its perfect lacery, and then turned about and faced the picture itself in reverent silence.
Of course it is ridiculous to suppose there is anyone to whom the Madonna of the Lamp is not perfectly familiar, being, as she is, one of those paintings which are impressed upon the popular mind in spite of itself through endless repetition upon postal and Christmas cards, engravers' windows, magazine covers and Sunday-school prizes, to say nothing of Little Collections of Great Masters, gift photographs, furnishings for college rooms and appeals for public charities.
Nevertheless, I will describe it, because as my dear father used to say, the collective mind of the public is not the public mind of the collector. It has to be told, in other words, when it can't be shown; whereas, of course, you can tell a collector nothing—and get him to admit it.
Well, at any rate, in case you do not recall it, the Madonna of the Lamp is a round canvas, not more than two and a half feet in diameter, and represents the Virgin with the Child curled up in a robe of sapphire blue which falls from her head in thick sweeping folds and crosses her knee in such a way as to give the appearance of being blown from behind by a wind and aiding in the circular effect. She is seated and bending over the Infant, protecting both him and the flickering lamp from the wind. Above her head is a single star visible through a patch of leaded window.
Now you recall it, I am sure. It was painted in Florence by Raphael about the year 1506 and is one of the most famous monuments to his genius.
And Markheim had provided a most wonderful setting for this jewel. The great window was of a design made from that behind the Virgin's head, and the carved panel upon which the painting hung was a skillful variation of the beautiful old carved frame about the canvas—the original frame, it was believed to be, and the motif of the design was carried out in a molding which diminished into a faint bas-relief at the outer edges of the large wall space above the mantel where it hung. Nor was the picture hung too high. Even I could have touched the bottom of the carvings; and the mantelpiece had no other ornament except two gigantic polychrome candlesticks of the same period. Truly it was a wonderfully successful arrangement and reflected great credit on the owner who had conceived it.
"Do you like it?" was all he said, looking not at the Madonna but at Alicia. "Do you like it, eh?"
Mr. Pegg took the question to himself.
"And you paid five hundred thousand dollars for that little picture?" he asked incredulously. "Why, from the price I expected something as big as a barn door!"
"Pa—don't be a boob—it's a diamond without a flaw," said Peaches, going closer, her face alight with pleasure. "It's a real mother and child," she added. "How big would you want them to be? They are immortal—isn't that big enough?"
Through the crudity of her rebuke I got one of those rare glimpses of her golden heart.
Her crude parent, however, was unimpressed.
"Of course it's real pretty," he said. "Which is more than can be said for most antiques. But five hundred thousand! My Lord, look at the profit? There can't be over ten dollars' worth of paint in it! Where is this feller, Raphael?"
"Where the profit is doing him precious little good," chuckled Sebastian.
"Must be hell!" commented Pinto.
"Very possibly, in spite of his choice of subjects!" replied Markheim.
Whereat he and I exchanged our first glance of thoroughly sympathetic understanding. I, of course, at once lowered my eyes, a burning sense of shame at my implied disloyalty struggling with my desire to spare Mr. Pegg the mortification of instruction. I had not forgotten and shall never forget how gently he led me to see the error of my ways when I first hit the ranch—as, for example, when I unknowingly made culls of his best tree of home fruit and he urged me to make marmalade of them and never told me until afterward that the way I had picked them by pulling them off the tree instead of clipping the stem made it impossible to use them for anything else. So now in my own realm I wished to lead him gradually into the paths of erudition and allow him to learn by inference whenever possible.
Well, the rest of the house was beautiful as could be, and after we had finished inspecting it we had tea in a wonderful glass room filled with gay cretonnes and flowering plants, wicker chairs and caged canaries. Two menservants served the refection. Mr. Sebastian Markheim had a considerable household, that was plain, and I began to regret that I had steadfastly stood with Peaches on refusing her father's suggestion of a personal maid.
"There's something too public about it," had been her objection, which I had sustained.
But here amid all these servitors I felt differently. Not that I felt any indignity attached to our maidless condition, being, as I was, a self-supporting female well able to afford one if I desired such a thing. I could now live as I chose instead of as I aught, if you understand me. But I knew that Peaches would have to get a female attendant after she was married. Markheim was not the man to allow his wife to live in comfort when he could provide her with luxury. And at this juncture of my thought I stopped halfway through the sugared tea biscuit, a terrible realization overwhelming me for the first time.
When Peaches was married she would no longer need me. Who then would need me? Nobody? Not Euphemia, who never answered my letters, though she always mutely cashed the inclosed checks. And would there be any checks to send her? Where would they come from? It was a chilling thought, as will readily be admitted. Why I had not thought of it sooner I cannot say. It must have been evident from the moment of Peaches' engagement that when the affair reached its consummation I would be, to put it vulgarly, out of a job.
Of course I did not so greatly care for myself, but there was Euphemia, the dependent, to consider, whose tradition of useless gentility must not be disturbed in her declining years. True, I had saved a very considerable portion of my salary and had almost twenty thousand dollars distributed among six savings banks. That might conceivably tide us over for the remainder of our lives. But I had acquired the habit of remunerative occupation and close companionship with dear friends; also a taste for French heels and facial massage whenever practical. And the thought of the Chestnut Street house was, the more shame upon me for saying it of my father's home, almost intolerable. And Mr. Pegg—dear Pinto, how I should miss him! in a purely friendly way of course.
Fully realizing for the first time the bitterness of my situation I refused a second sugared bun and rising remarked that as Sebastian expected dinner guests we had best retire and obtain a little rest before it was time to dress.
Of course my intention was in part to leave the lovers together for a properly brief interval, but somewhat to my surprise Peaches rose also and said she would accompany me. My heart was heavy, and for once I would have preferred to be alone. But she slipped her arm about my neck, and we started for our rooms, chatting amiably while the men settled down for a cigar.
Now one of the peculiarities of the Markheim palace was that it gave no appearance of modernity. Though it was in point of fact less than ten years built, it was so cunningly designed, so convincingly arranged, with such perfection of detail that it possessed an air of old mystery difficult to define, and under ordinary circumstances most fascinating—a real achievement on the part of architect and decorator alike. The ancient furniture stood so easily in the background provided for it that one could have sworn the walls had been made before it; the modern lighting was so well handled as to be absolutely unobtrusive.
Slowly, affectionately, we crossed the main hall, pausing to look at the chased armor on the two silent figures at the foot of the beautiful winding stairs. A Gobelin tapestry fluttered faintly on the wall above us, stirred by the gentle sunset wind from the spring-scented river below, and the lingering twilight filled the great hall with mysterious shadows. There was not another soul in sight and not a sound to be heard except the distant murmur of the men's talk and the voice of a pleasure boat distantly upon the water. I accompanied Alicia up the stairs, feeling as if I were in some enchanted palace of medieval days, and above, the long dim corridor in which the lamps had not yet been lit was ghostly in the pale glimmer from its high mullioned windows.
"Isn't it spooky?" said Peaches in a low tone.
"Yes!" I replied, whispering involuntarily. "One might almost expect to see a ghost!"
And scarcely had I spoken the words when Peaches, the supernormal, who was a trifle ahead of me by now, uttered a shriek and leaned trembling against the stone wall of the passageway. But for a moment I could not come to her aid. My limbs seemed frozen, paralyzed. For there suddenly and soundlessly a form was towering vaguely before us, its white face luminous in a shaft of uncanny light.
It was the Duke di Monteventi!
XI
After one horrible endless moment the figure moved slightly and the corridor was flooded with the soft mellow light from half a dozen electric sconces.
With a half-choked cry of "Sandy!" upon her lips Peaches moved toward him, only to stop short, her face going completely blank. The man was a servant, a valet presumably, carrying a folded suit of clothing carefully over one arm and wearing soft felt shoes, which had been the secret of his noiseless approach. His hair was thickly gray and his face was lined and scarred. He looked perhaps ten years older than Sandro—and yet the likeness was there—unmistakable, though in the full light not by any means so perfect.
"I beg pardon, ladies," he said in a measured voice, withdrawing another step. "The lights should have been on."
Then with a little bow he passed noiselessly down the corridor and entered one of the bedrooms, presumably that occupied by Markheim himself.
Peaches made a little involuntary gesture as if to follow him, stretching out her hands toward his unconscious back, and then, as the door closed upon him, turned to me, her amber eyes afire. She seized me by the wrist in a manner positively painful and dragged me into her room, where she caused me to sit down abruptly and without personal selection upon a sort of hassock, the while she towered over me, fairly glowing with animation—far, far, more like her old self than she had been for almost six years.
"Free!" she said. "Was it? Was it? Oh, Free—say something!"
"It couldn't have been!" I replied shakily. "And yet the resemblance—it was extraordinary!"
"It was a miracle!" said Peaches. "No two people could look so much alike."
"He had a brother," I began doubtfully, "who was merely supposed to be dead. Sandro would have known you at once."
"But didn't he?" she questioned, striding up and down the room with her long, clean gesture of body. "Why didn't he speak at once? He was too much amazed!"
"Nonsense!" I exclaimed. "How could he be amazed, when as a servant in this house—in all probability Sebastian's valet—he must have known in advance all about your coming here!"
"That's so," said Peaches. "And, of course there are differences—the grayness, the lines in his face. But something may have happened to him."
"Very likely!" I replied dryly. "Considering we have heard from Cousin Abby that he was killed in action."
"But it may have been a mistake," she whispered. "Stranger things have happened. And a servant! No—even if he had gone quite mad and forgotten everything that would hardly be possible."
"Servant or not, if it is he, why on earth shouldn't he recognize you?" I demanded. "That's the sort of encounter which is supposed to bring people to their senses, you know."
"But didn't he recognize me?" she replied with a doubt willfully sustained. "Just for an instant, I was so sure! Well!"
"What are we going to do about it?" I said. "If by chance it really is Sandro it's a nice situation, I'm sure! With your wedding only a few weeks off and, and—why, good gracious! It's simply terrible!"
But Peaches didn't look as if she thought it was simply terrible—not in the least. She was terrifically excited, but more beautiful than ever.
"Free!" she cried. "I know it is he! Do you suppose I could feel as I did—as I do, at the encounter unless it is Sandy? Lots of times people know things without evidence. And this is one of those times. I feel it is he. I don't care how differently he looked when the lights went up."
"But how on earth are you going to find out?" I urged. "Surely, Peaches, he cannot have forgotten you!"
"Forgotten!" she exclaimed, stopping short in her pacing of the floor. "Forgotten! Good heavens, Free, you don't suppose that is it, do you?"
"Of course I don't!" I snapped, even though I was not entirely sure but that a young man who was capable of taking French leave in the way that Sandro had six years previously, was not capable of anything, including having an affaire de cœur with Peaches and then failing to recollect the incident. Some men are that way; I have it on the authority of The Duchess.
"This man is older!" I went on. "And we don't know for certain what his position in the household is. The best thing for you to do is to question Sebastian about him."
"Won't he think it strange if I let him on to the fact that I'm stuck on his valet?" Peaches considered in her disconcertingly frank way.
"Good gracious, you must do nothing of the kind!" I interposed. "Besides, you don't know that you are, as you vulgarly put it, stuck on him. You only think it may be Sandy. Kindly keep that in mind, my dear!"
"I think there is something damn funny about the whole shooting match!" said Peaches vigorously. "And I'm going to the bottom of it mighty pronto!"
With which she flung from the room to don one of her majestic evening gowns, leaving me in great distress of mind for fear of what she would do next. To array myself for the evening's festivities and to descend to them in a becomingly dignified manner was no easy task, but by the greatest effort at self-control I accomplished both the arrangement of my toilet and the adjustment of my manner sufficiently to reappear in polite society in the state of composure due to my name and heritage and the responsible position which I occupied toward the Pegg family. It is one of the penalties of a great name that one must ever maintain the aspect of a painted ancestor, no matter what tumult may be going on within one. And though I admit that I was in a profoundly disturbed state of mind, and indeed I may say, shaken to the very depths of my romantic soul by what had occurred and still more by what might occur, I believe that my conduct and appearance as I stood smiling beside the unconscious Mr. Markheim, aiding him in the reception of his guests, would have been wholly approved by my dear father. And I rather relished the sense of standing upon a species of social volcano.
When Peaches appeared on the, as I may call it, haunted stairway, a gasp of delighted astonishment went up from the assemblage. She was arrayed in a sheathlike gown of golden sequins that rivaled but did not surpass the glory of her hair, and though she was without jewels except for her ring, she shone with a radiance such as can scarcely be imagined. Her wonderful hair lay close and glistening upon her head like a helmet of burnished metal, and this taken with her—er—martial though décolleté costume gave her somewhat the appearance of a young Pallas Athene with a redeeming touch of—er—jazz, if you know what I mean. At any rate she was magnificent. And if a trifle pale, it was from the intense wave of new life which had flooded her during the past few hours, and her eyes were like those of that terribly incoherent tiger of Blake's.
Well, I will not digress by describing the feast which Sebastian gave as a housewarming for his lady love. The field of such description has been widely covered by every chronicler from Balzac to W. D. Griffiths. Suffice to say that it was a very sumptuous affair, attended by a more or less cosmopolitan crowd, comprising friends and neighbors alike, and affording, I dare say, a reasonable amount of enjoyment to those present.
Under different circumstances I should have enjoyed it myself, being, as I am, possessed of a very profound sense of the solemnity of social functions and their proper conducting. But upon this occasion I was so taken up with being on the outlook for a glimpse of that mysterious valet among the other servants that I only succeeded in performing the mechanics of a pleasant evening. But nevertheless I was aware that the affair, considering that it was more or less impromptu due to our unexpected arrival, went off very well, and without my once seeing the person for whom I was automatically seeking.
Well, at about half after eleven that night, when the last guest had departed and we four—Mr. Pegg, Alicia, Sebastian and myself—were assembled in the library for a good-night discussion, Peaches laid her trap, if so I may call it, for the information she desired. She became suddenly domestic and affectionate over a glass of milk and vichy and I watched keenly as she led up to her subject with a deceitful air of innocence of which I would not have believed her capable. Markheim was in the seventh heaven at her interest, and dear Mr. Pegg stood under the Madonna chewing on a big cigar and nodding his approval.
"It was a wonderful dinner, Sebastian!" said Peaches, her big eyes limpid pools of approval. "What a peach of a chef you have!"
"I am glad you approve!" said the banker. "We will keep him on."
"There are an awful bunch of servants here," Peaches commented. "It will seem funny, keeping house with them after one Chinaman, and sometimes none, out on the ranch. I suppose I'll have a maid. But if I do I'm going to teach her pinochle! Have you a valet, Mark?"
"In a way," replied Markheim. "In a way I have—and then again I haven't!"
At this astonishing announcement you may well believe that a painful sensation occurred in my breast. I positively started out of my seat, though controlling myself instanter, and even Peaches gave a funny little gasp, which she, however, contrived to turn into a species of inane giggle, spluttering over her milk.
"What—what do you mean by that?" she said.
"Only that he's given notice," Markheim replied. "Nothing unusual about that nowadays, I assure you, my dear. And I'm sorry he's going," he added. "The best chap I've had—came to me six months ago, and been absolute perfection ever since!"
"Why do you let him go?" asked Peaches, her eyes fixed upon her fiancé as if she would like to hypnotize him into telling her more than she asked. "Why not give him more wages or something?"
"It's not a question of money," Sebastian explained. "It seems he dislikes women—regular misanthrope. It's all your fault, my dear. He gave notice as soon as I told him I was going to get married!"
"Oh!" said Peaches. "Then it was some time ago that he—he quit? Not just to-day?"
"About a month ago," replied her lover. "He expected to leave before you appeared upon the scene, only you are ahead of time. Great Scott, Alicia, you seem fearfully interested in the fellow? Have you seen him, or what is the idea anyhow?"
"No," lied Peaches calmly. "I just got to thinking about servants in general and about the personal-servant idea in particular. I don't know that the plan has my O. K. It's an embarrassing idea—makes me feel like a boob to have anybody dress me, unless to hook a fool dress up the back perhaps. And a Chinaman could do that, you know. What do you call the bird—by his front or hind name?"
"I call him Wilkes," said Markheim, laughing. "And you are too amusing, my dear. You are not obliged to have a maid, you know. It's quite conceivable that I can learn to hook a gown!"
"Or unhook it!" laughed Mr. Pegg.
This was too much for me. I bade them all good night and departed in high dudgeon.
The enormous main hall was but dimly lighted and I crossed it, not without hesitancy, and when at the foot of the staircase a hand was laid upon my arm I nearly screamed aloud. In fact I attempted to scream but was so frightened that I only accomplished a squeak. However, it was no supernatural apparition, but Peaches, who had overtaken me, and who dragged me to my room, where she slammed the door behind us in breathless triumph.
"There!" she cried. "Did you hear him?"
"I did!" I replied. "And I think your father ought to be ashamed of himself, at his age, too!"
"Oh, forget dad!" she cried impatiently. "I know he's a roughneck, but that's not a weakness. I mean about Sandy?"
"Oh!" said I. "Well, what about him—if it is he?"
"If it is?" said Peaches. "Have you any doubts now? Leaving as soon as he heard about me, and then being caught by my unexpected arrival. Didn't you listen?"
"It may be just a coincidence," I demurred, though in truth I was deeply interested. "And he's been here six months. He must have heard of your engagement before—or at least been aware that Sebastian knew you."
"Perhaps," admitted Alicia, pacing up and down like a substantial sunbeam. "But that doesn't satisfy me. There's only one way to settle the question. I've got to have a private talk with that man."
"But how?" I gasped.
"You've got to arrange it," replied Peaches firmly.
"Impossible!" I squeaked. "What an idea! Though, of course, you could meet him secretly in the garden!"
"The very thing!" exclaimed my charge with enthusiasm. "Here—I will write a note and date him up, and you will see that it gets to him. I'll meet him in the rose garden at midnight to-morrow."
She sat herself down at the exquisite old Moorish escritoire and taking pen and paper wrote in her labored, painstaking fashion, her head on one side, her tongue firmly between her teeth, the hair curling at the nape of her neck like that of an innocent child rather than a desperate maiden in a most thrilling situation.
"There!" she said at length, slipping the missive into an envelope and handing it to me. "There you are, Free. Now be sure he gets it, and let me know how he acts. It doesn't need any answer!"
With which she actually had the impudence to kiss me gayly on the cheek and run away to bed, leaving me standing as if paralyzed, the note in one hand, and the problem of handling the preposterous situation staring me in the face.
My dear father used to say that only those who must be ashamed need be afraid, and as this matter of the note was really none of my personal affair I need not, I suppose, have feared for the consequences; and yet I confess that I was filled with fear. The day had been interminable, and now it seemed that it was not yet over, though the clock pointed to a quarter after twelve. At such a circumstantial hour I had no mind to venture out into a corridor in which I had recently encountered a very fair imitation of a ghost. Indeed, there had been from the start of our acquaintance something very mysterious about the Duke di Monteventi, and death, it seemed, did not offer any solution, but rather extended the obscurity which surrounded him.
It was my personal opinion that he was dead, and that this valet creature who had startled us in such a fashion merely bore an accidental resemblance to Sandro. Yet then again it was so much more romantic to consider his being resurrected as a possibility. But if it were Sandro, why on earth should he, who had the entrée to every fashionable house in Europe, reappear in the capacity of a servant?
Perchance it was not Sandro, but his supposedly murdered elder brother. That would, of course, account for the resemblance. This idea struck me as being remarkably intelligent, and I at once began to search my mind for its literary beginnings. My dear father used to say that all ideas had literary beginnings and all beginnings contained a literary idea. But neither Deadwood Dick, Edwin Arnold, Walter Pater or The Duchess seemed to have supplied me with the thought, strive as I would to place it among them. I was forced to claim it as original, and perhaps merely the theme for a story's beginning. And despite my dear father's precept, I do verily believe that I am at times productive of ideas quite my own, as, for example, in the realm of love, wherein my manifold ideas must have no other origin than my own brain, inasmuch as the only books on the subject which we possessed at home were written by a Frenchman named Balzac, and though ostensibly in English translation they were mostly set forth in asterisks, dots and dashes.
But I digress. Let us return to the privacy of my chamber at the villa, and the note to Wilkes, which somehow must be disposed of.
My first inclination was to procure a two-cent stamp and mail it—an obvious solution. And yet I hesitated, because if by chance it should miscarry and fall into the wrong hands, what dreadful consequences might not ensue? What a, as one might say, roughhouse might it not—er—precipitate! No, mailing would not do, because at best I might be unable to find a mail box or post office before late the next day, and I would certainly be unwilling to offer a note so addressed to one of the other household servants.
Furthermore, I was hampered by a lack of familiarity with the house. Doubtless there was a servants' mail box somewhere about the service stairs, if only I knew where. But to wander round looking for it would be both nerve-racking and indiscreet, particularly at such an hour. Finally in desperation I was half tempted to burn the wretched thing, and forbore only because of my promise to Alicia. My brain felt as if it were on fire. I did not know what to do.
All at once the great room with its wide spaciousness and light hangings seemed suffocatingly hot. I crossed to the window, and first extinguishing the light in order not to attract the night insects, opened it and sat down beside it, the better to meditate upon my course of action. I was half determined to take the whole matter to Pinto Pegg in the morning and allow him to settle our minds for us, even against Alicia's will.
But as I reclined upon the window-sill the vision of my own somewhat barren girlhood rose before me like a reproachful ghost, and I had no heart to stifle the sequel to that romance which I had seen bud, unfold and blossom in the tropic air at San Remo. Holding the letter in my lap it seemed to burn through the heavy silk of my gown, such was the fire which had inspired its writing. No matter what might come—what disillusionment, what disappointment—it should be delivered. I vowed that through no fault of mine should Peaches be cheated of her love; and I felt myself to be an excellent judge of love. I had looked on at a good deal of it. Indeed as I sat there it occurred to me that I had accomplished a great lot of looking on in the course of my life. And scarcely had this commentary crossed my mind when, quite in line with my usual fortune, I found myself once more an observer, though unobserved.
I have remarked that Mr. Markheim's villa was built upon several levels, thus permitting the windows on one wing to overlook those on a different story in another portion of the building, and that there were several wings or sections to the place, so arranged that the main portions were well isolated from each other in accordance with the modern ideas of comfort and quiet. Thus the living rooms were in the main body of the house, the library was at the extreme end, the bedrooms in one wing, and the kitchen with the servants' quarters over them in another wing at the extreme opposite end of the house but facing the guest rooms across a wide garden space. For the most part the service quarters opened upon a hidden court of their own but the wide row of windows must be, I decided, the rooms of the upper servants.