CHAPTER XIV
THE TOWER WINDOW
It is not to be expected that when one's thoughts lead so persistently to a certain place, one's feet will not follow, if they can; and David's could—so he went to seek his Lady of the Roses.
At four o'clock one afternoon, with his violin under his arm, he traveled the firm white road until he came to the shadowed path that led to the garden. He had decided that he would go exactly as he went before. He expected, in consequence, to find his Lady exactly as he had found her before, sitting reading under the roses. Great was his surprise and disappointment, therefore, to find the garden with no one in it.
He had told himself that it was the sundial, the roses, the shimmering pool, the garden itself that he wanted to see; but he knew now that it was the lady—his Lady of the Roses. He did not even care to play, though all around him was the beauty that had at first so charmed his eye. Very slowly he walked across the sunlit, empty space, and entered the path that led to the house. In his mind was no definite plan; yet he walked on and on, until he came to the wide lawns surrounding the house itself. He stopped then, entranced.
Stone upon stone the majestic pile raised itself until it was etched, clean-cut, against the deep blue of the sky. The towers—his towers—brought to David's lips a cry of delight. They were even more enchanting here than when seen from afar over the tree-tops, and David gazed up at them in awed wonder. From somewhere came the sound of music—a curious sort of music that David had never heard before. He listened intently, trying to place it; then slowly he crossed the lawn, ascended the imposing stone steps, and softly opened one of the narrow screen doors before the wide-open French window.
Once within the room David drew a long breath of ecstasy. Beneath his feet he felt the velvet softness of the green moss of the woods. Above his head he saw a sky-like canopy of blue carrying fleecy clouds on which floated little pink-and-white children with wings, just as David himself had so often wished that he could float. On all sides silken hangings, like the green of swaying vines, half-hid other hangings of feathery, snowflake lace. Everywhere mirrored walls caught the light and reflected the potted ferns and palms so that David looked down endless vistas of loveliness that seemed for all the world like the long sunflecked aisles beneath the tall pines of his mountain home.
The music that David had heard at first had long since stopped; but David had not noticed that. He stood now in the center of the room, awed, and trembling, but enraptured. Then from somewhere came a voice—a voice so cold that it sounded as if it had swept across a field of ice.
"Well, boy, when you have quite finished your inspection, perhaps you will tell me to what I am indebted for THIS visit," it said.
David turned abruptly.
"O Lady of the Roses, why didn't you tell me it was like this—in here?" he breathed.
"Well, really," murmured the lady in the doorway, stiffly, "it had not occurred to me that that was hardly—necessary."
"But it was!—don't you see? This is new, all new. I never saw anything like it before; and I do so love new things. It gives me something new to play; don't you understand?"
"New—to play?"
"Yes—on my violin," explained David, a little breathlessly, softly testing his violin. "There's always something new in this, you know," he hurried on, as he tightened one of the strings, "when there's anything new outside. Now, listen! You see I don't know myself just how it's going to sound, and I'm always so anxious to find out." And with a joyously rapt face he began to play.
"But, see here, boy,—you mustn't! You—" The words died on her lips; and, to her unbounded amazement, Miss Barbara Holbrook, who had intended peremptorily to send this persistent little tramp boy about his business, found herself listening to a melody so compelling in its sonorous beauty that she was left almost speechless at its close. It was the boy who spoke.
"There, I told you my violin would know what to say!"
"'What to say'!—well, that's more than I do" laughed Miss Holbrook, a little hysterically. "Boy, come here and tell me who you are." And she led the way to a low divan that stood near a harp at the far end of the room.
It was the same story, told as David had told it to Jack and Jill a few days before, only this time David's eyes were roving admiringly all about the room, resting oftenest on the harp so near him.
"Did that make the music that I heard?" he asked eagerly, as soon as Miss Holbrook's questions gave him opportunity. "It's got strings."
"Yes. I was playing when you came in. I saw you enter the window. Really, David, are you in the habit of walking into people's houses like this? It is most disconcerting—to their owners."
"Yes—no—well, sometimes." David's eyes were still on the harp. "Lady of the Roses, won't you please play again—on that?"
"David, you are incorrigible! Why did you come into my house like this?"
"The music said 'come'; and the towers, too. You see, I KNOW the towers."
"You KNOW them!"
"Yes. I can see them from so many places, and I always watch for them. They show best of anywhere, though, from Jack and Jill's. And now won't you play?"
Miss Holbrook had almost risen to her feet when she turned abruptly.
"From—where?" she asked.
"From Jack and Jill's—the House that Jack Built, you know."
"You mean—Mr. John Gurnsey's house?" A deeper color had come into Miss Holbrook's cheeks.
"Yes. Over there at the top of the little hill across the brook, you know. You can't see THEIR house from here, but from over there we can see the towers finely, and the little window—Oh, Lady of the Roses," he broke off excitedly, at the new thought that had come to him, "if we, now, were in that little window, we COULD see their house. Let's go up. Can't we?"
Explicit as this was, Miss Holbrook evidently did not hear, or at least did not understand, this request. She settled back on the divan, indeed, almost determinedly. Her cheeks were very red now.
"And do you know—this Mr. Jack?" she asked lightly.
"Yes, and Jill, too. Don't you? I like them, too. DO you know them?"
Again Miss Holbrook ignored the question put to her. "And did you walk into their house, unannounced and uninvited, like this?" she queried.
"No. He asked me. You see he wanted to get off some of the dirt and blood before other folks saw me."
"The dirt and—and—why, David, what do you mean? What was
it—an accident?"
David frowned and reflected a moment.
"No. I did it on purpose. I HAD to, you see," he finally elucidated. "But there were six of them, and I got the worst of it."
"David!" Miss Holbrook's voice was horrified. "You don't mean—a fight!"
"Yes'm. I wanted the cat—and I got it, but I wouldn't have if Mr. Jack hadn't come to help me."
"Oh! So Mr. Jack—fought, too?"
"Well, he pulled the others off, and of course that helped me," explained David truthfully. "And then he took me home—he and Jill."
"Jill! Was she in it?"
"No, only her cat. They had tied a bag over its head and a tin can to its tail, and of course I couldn't let them do that. They were hurting her. And now, Lady of the Roses, won't you please play?"
For a moment Miss Holbrook did not speak. She was gazing at David with an odd look in her eyes. At last she drew a long sigh.
"David, you are the—the LIMIT!" she breathed, as she rose and seated herself at the harp.
David was manifestly delighted with her playing, and begged for more when she had finished; but Miss Holbrook shook her head. She seemed to have grown suddenly restless, and she moved about the room calling David's attention to something new each moment. Then, very abruptly, she suggested that they go upstairs. From room to room she hurried the boy, scarcely listening to his ardent comments, or answering his still more ardent questions. Not until they reached the highest tower room, indeed, did she sink wearily into a chair, and seem for a moment at rest.
David looked about him in surprise. Even his untrained eye could see that he had entered a different world. There were no sumptuous rugs, no silken hangings; no mirrors, no snowflake curtains. There were books, to be sure, but besides those there were only a plain low table, a work-basket, and three or four wooden-seated though comfortable chairs. With increasing wonder he looked into Miss Holbrook's eyes.
"Is it here that you stay—all day?" he asked diffidently.
Miss Holbrook's face turned a vivid scarlet.
"Why, David, what a question! Of course not! Why should you think I did?"
"Nothing; only I've been wondering all the time I've been here how you could—with all those beautiful things around you downstairs—say what you did."
"Say what?—when?"
"That other day in the garden—about ALL your hours being cloudy ones. So I didn't know to-day but what you LIVED up here, same as Mrs. Holly doesn't use her best rooms; and that was why your hours were all cloudy ones."
With a sudden movement Miss Holbrook rose to her feet.
"Nonsense, David! You shouldn't always remember everything that people say to you. Come, you haven't seen one of the views from the windows yet. We are in the larger tower, you know. You can see Hinsdale village on this side, and there's a fine view of the mountains over there. Oh yes, and from the other side there's your friend's house—Mr. Jack's. By the way, how is Mr. Jack these days?" Miss Holbrook stooped as she asked the question and picked up a bit of thread from the rug.
David ran at once to the window that looked toward the House that Jack Built. From the tower the little house appeared to be smaller than ever. It was in the shadow, too, and looked strangely alone and forlorn. Unconsciously, as he gazed at it, David compared it with the magnificence he had just seen. His voice choked as he answered.
"He isn't well, Lady of the Roses, and he's unhappy. He's awfully unhappy."
Miss Holbrook's slender figure came up with a jerk.
"What do you mean, boy? How do you know he's unhappy? Has he said so?"
"No; but Mrs. Holly told me about him. He's sick; and he'd just found his work to do out in the world when he had to stop and come home. But—oh, quick, there he is! See?"
Instead of coming nearer Miss Holbrook fell back to the center of the room; but her eyes were still turned toward the little house.
"Yes, I see," she murmured. The next instant she had snatched a handkerchief from David's outstretched hand. "No—no—I wouldn't wave," she remonstrated hurriedly. "Come—come downstairs with me."
"But I thought—I was sure he was looking this way," asserted David, turning reluctantly from the window. "And if he HAD seen me wave to him, he'd have been so glad; now, wouldn't he?"
There was no answer. The Lady of the Roses did not apparently hear. She had gone on down the stairway.
CHAPTER XV
SECRETS
David had so much to tell Jack and Jill that he went to see them the very next day after his second visit to Sunnycrest. He carried his violin with him. He found, however, only Jill at home. She was sitting on the veranda steps.
There was not so much embarrassment between them this time, perhaps because they were in the freedom of the wide out-of-doors, and David felt more at ease. He was plainly disappointed, however, that Mr. Jack was not there.
"But I wanted to see him! I wanted to see him 'specially," he lamented.
"You'd better stay, then. He'll be home by and by," comforted Jill. "He's gone pot-boiling."
"Pot-boiling! What's that?"
Jill chuckled.
"Well, you see, really it's this way: he sells something to boil in other people's pots so he can have something to boil in ours, he says. It's stuff from the garden, you know. We raise it to sell. Poor Jack—and he does hate it so!"
David nodded sympathetically.
"I know—and it must be awful, just hoeing and weeding all the time."
"Still, of course he knows he's got to do it, because it's out of doors, and he just has to be out of doors all he can," rejoined the girl. "He's sick, you know, and sometimes he's so unhappy! He doesn't say much. Jack never says much—only with his face. But I know, and it—it just makes me want to cry."
At David's dismayed exclamation Jill jumped to her feet. It owned to her suddenly that she was telling this unknown boy altogether too many of the family secrets. She proposed at once a race to the foot of the hill; and then, to drive David's mind still farther away from the subject under recent consideration, she deliberately lost, and proclaimed him the victor.
Very soon, however, there arose new complications in the shape of a little gate that led to a path which, in its turn, led to a footbridge across the narrow span of the little stream.
Above the trees on the other side peeped the top of Sunnycrest's highest tower.
"To the Lady of the Roses!" cried David eagerly. "I know it goes there. Come, let's see!"
The little girl shook her head.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Jack won't let me."
"But it goes to a beautiful place; I was there yesterday," argued David. "And I was up in the tower and almost waved to Mr. Jack on the piazza back there. I saw him. And maybe she'd let you and me go up there again to-day."
"But I can't, I say," repeated Jill, a little impatiently. "Jack won't let me even start."
"Why not? Maybe he doesn't know where it goes to."
Jill hung her head. Then she raised it defiantly.
"Oh, yes, he does, 'cause I told him. I used to go when I was littler and he wasn't here. I went once, after he came,—halfway,—and he saw me and called to me. I had got halfway across the bridge, but I had to come back. He was very angry, yet sort of—queer, too. His face was all stern and white, and his lips snapped tight shut after every word. He said never, never, never to let him find me the other side of that gate."
David frowned as they turned to go up the hill. Unhesitatingly he determined to instruct Mr. Jack in this little matter. He would tell him what a beautiful place Sunnycrest was, and he would try to convince him how very desirable it was that he and Jill, and even Mr. Jack himself, should go across the bridge at the very first opportunity that offered.
Mr. Jack came home before long, but David quite forgot to speak of the footbridge just then, chiefly because Mr. Jack got out his violin and asked David to come in and play a duet with him. The duet, however, soon became a solo, for so great was Mr. Jack's delight in David's playing that he placed before the boy one sheet of music after another, begging and still begging for more.
David, nothing loath, played on and on. Most of the music he knew, having already learned it in his mountain home. Like old friends the melodies seemed, and so glad was David to see their notes again that he finished each production with a little improvised cadenza of ecstatic welcome—to Mr. Jack's increasing surprise and delight.
"Great Scott! you're a wonder, David," he exclaimed, at last.
"Pooh! as if that was anything wonderful," laughed the boy. "Why, I knew those ages ago, Mr. Jack. It's only that I'm so glad to see them again—the notes, you know. You see, I haven't any music now. It was all in the bag (what we brought), and we left that on the way."
"You left it!"
"Yes, 't was so, heavy" murmured David abstractedly, his fingers busy with the pile of music before him. "Oh, and here's another one," he cried exultingly. "This is where the wind sighs, 'oou—OOU—OOU' through the pines. Listen!" And he was away again on the wings of his violin. When he had returned Mr. Jack drew a long breath.
"David, you are a wonder," he declared again. "And that violin of yours is a wonder, too, if I'm not mistaken,—though I don't know enough to tell whether it's really a rare one or not. Was it your father's?"
"Oh, no. He had one, too, and they both are good ones. Father said so. Joe's got father's now."
"Joe?"
"Joe Glaspell."
"You don't mean Widow Glaspell's Joe, the blind boy? I didn't know he could play."
"He couldn't till I showed him. But he likes to hear me play. And he understood—right away, I mean."
"UNDERSTOOD!"
"What I was playing, you know. And he was almost the first one that did—since father went away. And now I play every time I go there. Joe says he never knew before how trees and grass and sunsets and sunrises and birds and little brooks did look, till I told him with my violin. Now he says he thinks he can see them better than I can, because as long as his OUTSIDE eyes can't see anything, they can't see those ugly things all around him, and so he can just make his INSIDE eyes see only the beautiful things that he'd LIKE to see. And that's the kind he does see when I play. That's why I said he understood."
For a moment there was silence. In Mr. Jack's eyes there was an odd look as they rested on David's face. Then, abruptly, he spoke.
"David, I wish I had money. I'd put you then where you belonged," he sighed.
"Do you mean—where I'd find my work to do?" asked the boy softly.
"Well—yes; you might say it that way," smiled the man, after a moment's hesitation—not yet was Mr. Jack quite used to this boy who was at times so very un-boylike.
"Father told me 't was waiting for me—somewhere."
Mr. Jack frowned thoughtfully.
"And he was right, David. The only trouble is, we like to pick it out for ourselves, pretty well,—too well, as we find out sometimes, when we're called off—for another job."
"I know, Mr. Jack, I know," breathed David. And the man, looking into the glowing dark eyes, wondered at what he found there. It was almost as if the boy really understood about his own life's disappointment—and cared; though that, of course, could not be!
"And it's all the harder to keep ourselves in tune then, too, is n't it?" went on David, a little wistfully.
"In tune?"
"With the rest of the Orchestra."
"Oh!" And Mr. Jack, who had already heard about the "Orchestra of Life," smiled a bit sadly. "That's just it, my boy. And if we're handed another instrument to play on than the one we WANT to play on, we're apt to—to let fly a discord. Anyhow, I am. But"—he went on more lightly—"now, in your case, David, little as I know about the violin, I know enough to understand that you ought to be where you can take up your study of it again; where you can hear good music, and where you can be among those who know enough to appreciate what you do."
David's eyes sparkled.
"And where there wouldn't be any pulling weeds or hoeing dirt?"
"Well, I hadn't thought of including either of those pastimes."
"My, but I would like that, Mr. Jack!—but THAT wouldn't be WORK, so that couldn't be what father meant." David's face fell.
"Hm-m; well, I wouldn't worry about the 'work' part," laughed Mr. Jack, "particularly as you aren't going to do it just now. There's the money, you know,—and we haven't got that."
"And it takes money?"
"Well—yes. You can't get those things here in Hinsdale, you know; and it takes money, to get away, and to live away after you get there."
A sudden light transfigured David's face.
"Mr. Jack, would gold do it?—lots of little round gold-pieces?"
"I think it would, David, if there were enough of them."
"Many as a hundred?"
"Sure—if they were big enough. Anyway, David, they'd start you, and I'm thinking you wouldn't need but a start before you'd be coining gold-pieces of your own out of that violin of yours. But why? Anybody you know got as 'many as a hundred' gold-pieces he wants to get rid of?"
For a moment David, his delighted thoughts flying to the gold-pieces in the chimney cupboard of his room, was tempted to tell his secret. Then he remembered the woman with the bread and the pail of milk, and decided not to. He would wait. When he knew Mr. Jack better—perhaps then he would tell; but not now. NOW Mr. Jack might think he was a thief, and that he could not bear. So he took up his violin and began to play; and in the charm of the music Mr. Jack seemed to forget the gold-pieces—which was exactly what David had intended should happen.
Not until David had said good-bye some time later, did he remember the purpose—the special purpose—for which he had come. He turned back with a radiant face.
"Oh, and Mr. Jack, I 'most forgot," he cried. "I was going to tell you. I saw you yesterday—I did, and I almost waved to you."
"Did you? Where were you?"
"Over there in the window—the tower window" he crowed jubilantly.
"Oh, you went again, then, I suppose, to see Miss Holbrook."
The man's voice sounded so oddly cold and distant that David noticed it at once. He was reminded suddenly of the gate and the footbridge which Jill was forbidden to cross; but he dared not speak of it then—not when Mr. Jack looked like that. He did say, however:—
"Oh, but, Mr. Jack, it's such a beautiful place! You don't know what a beautiful place it is."
"Is it? Then, you like it so much?"
"Oh, so much! But—didn't you ever—see it?"
"Why, yes, I believe I did, David, long ago," murmured Mr. Jack
with what seemed to David amazing indifference.
"And did you see HER—my Lady of the Roses?"
"Why, y—yes—I believe so."
"And is THAT all you remember about it?" resented David, highly offended.
The man gave a laugh—a little short, hard laugh that David did not like.
"But, let me see; you said you almost waved, didn't you? Why did n't you, quite?" asked the man.
David drew himself suddenly erect. Instinctively he felt that his Lady of the Roses needed defense.
"Because SHE didn't want me to; so I didn't, of course," he rejoined with dignity. "She took away my handkerchief."
"I'll warrant she did," muttered the man, behind his teeth. Aloud he only laughed again, as he turned away.
David went on down the steps, dissatisfied vaguely with himself, with Mr. Jack, and even with the Lady of the Roses.
CHAPTER XVI
DAVID'S CASTLE IN SPAIN
On his return from the House that Jack Built, David decided to count his gold-pieces. He got them out at once from behind the books, and stacked them up in little shining rows. As he had surmised, there were a hundred of them. There were, indeed, a hundred and six. He was pleased at that. One hundred and six were surely enough to give him a "start."
A start! David closed his eyes and pictured it. To go on with his violin, to hear good music, to be with people who understood what he said when he played! That was what Mr. Jack had said a "start" was. And this gold—these round shining bits of gold—could bring him this! David swept the little piles into a jingling heap, and sprang to his feet with both fists full of his suddenly beloved wealth. With boyish glee he capered about the room, jingling the coins in his hands. Then, very soberly, he sat down again, and began to gather the gold to put away.
He would be wise—he would be sensible. He would watch his chance, and when it came he would go away. First, however, he would tell Mr. Jack and Joe, and the Lady of the Roses; yes, and the Hollys, too. Just now there seemed to be work, real work that he could do to help Mr. Holly. But later, possibly when September came and school,—they had said he must go to school,—he would tell them then, and go away instead. He would see. By that time they would believe him, perhaps, when he showed the gold-pieces. They would not think he had—STOLEN them. It was August now; he would wait. But meanwhile he could think—he could always be thinking of the wonderful thing that this gold was one day to bring to him.
Even work, to David, did not seem work now. In the morning he was to rake hay behind the men with the cart. Yesterday he had not liked it very well; but now—nothing mattered now. And with a satisfied sigh David put his precious gold away again behind the books in the cupboard.
David found a new song in his violin the next morning. To be sure, he could not play it—much of it—until four o'clock in the afternoon came; for Mr. Holly did not like violins to be played in the morning, even on days that were not especially the Lord's. There was too much work to do. So David could only snatch a strain or two very, very softly, while he was dressing; but that was enough to show him what a beautiful song it was going to be. He knew what it was, at once, too. It was the gold-pieces, and what they would bring. All through the day it tripped through his consciousness, and danced tantalizingly just out of reach. Yet he was wonderfully happy, and the day seemed short in spite of the heat and the weariness.
At four o'clock he hurried home and put his violin quickly in tune. It came then—that dancing sprite of tantalization—and joyously abandoned itself to the strings of the violin, so that David knew, of a surety, what a beautiful song it was.
It was this song that sent him the next afternoon to see his Lady of the Roses. He found her this time out of doors in her garden. Unceremoniously, as usual, he rushed headlong into her presence.
"Oh, Lady—Lady of the Roses," he panted. "I've found out, and I came quickly to tell you."
"Why, David, what—what do you mean?" Miss Holbrook looked unmistakably startled.
"About the hours, you know,—the unclouded ones," explained David eagerly. "You know you said they were ALL cloudy to you."
Miss Holbrook's face grew very white.
"You mean—you've found out WHY my hours are—are all cloudy ones?" she stammered.
"No, oh, no. I can't imagine why they are," returned David, with an emphatic shake of his head. "It's just that I've found a way to make all my hours sunny ones, and you can do it, too. So I came to tell you. You know you said yours were all cloudy."
"Oh," ejaculated Miss Holbrook, falling back into her old listless attitude. Then, with some asperity: "Dear me, David! Did n't I tell you not to be remembering that all the time?"
"Yes, I know, but I've LEARNED something," urged the boy; "something that you ought to know. You see, I did think, once, that because you had all these beautiful things around you, the hours ought to be all sunny ones. But now I know it isn't what's around you; it's what is IN you!"
"Oh, David, David, you curious boy!"
"No, but really! Let me tell you," pleaded David. "You know I haven't liked them,—all those hours till four o'clock came,—and I was so glad, after I saw the sundial, to find out that they didn't count, anyhow. But to-day they HAVE counted—they've all counted, Lady of the Roses; and it's just because there was something inside of me that shone and shone, and made them all sunny—those hours."
"Dear me! And what was this wonderful thing?"
David smiled, but he shook his head.
"I can't tell you that yet—in words; but I'll play it. You see, I can't always play them twice alike,—those little songs that I find,—but this one I can. It sang so long in my head, before my violin had a chance to tell me what it really was, that I sort of learned it. Now, listen!" And he began to play.
It was, indeed, a beautiful song, and Miss Holbrook said so with promptness and enthusiasm; yet still David frowned.
"Yes, yes," he answered, "but don't you see? That was telling you about something inside of me that made all my hours sunshiny ones. Now, what you want is something inside of you to make yours sunshiny, too. Don't you see?"
An odd look came into Miss Holbrook's eyes.
"That's all very well for you to say, David, but you haven't told me yet, you know, just what it is that's made all this brightness for you."
The boy changed his position, and puckered his forehead into a deeper frown.
"I don't seem to explain so you can understand," he sighed. "It isn't the SPECIAL thing. It's only that it's SOMETHING. And it's thinking about it that does it. Now, mine wouldn't make yours shine, but—still,"—he broke off, a happy relief in his eyes,—"yours could be LIKE mine, in one way. Mine is something that is going to happen to me—something just beautiful; and you could have that, you know,—something that was going to happen to you, to think about."
Miss Holbrook smiled, but only with her lips, Her eyes had grown somber.
"But there isn't anything 'just beautiful' going to happen to me, David," she demurred.
"There could, couldn't there?"
Miss Holbrook bit her lip; then she gave an odd little laugh that seemed, in some way, to go with the swift red that had come to her cheeks.
"I used to think there could—once," she admitted; "but I've given that up long ago. It—it didn't happen."
"But couldn't you just THINK it was going to?" persisted the boy. "You see I found out yesterday that it's the THINKING that does it. All day long I was thinking—only thinking. I wasn't DOING it, at all. I was really raking behind the cart; but the hours all were sunny."
Miss Holbrook laughed now outright.
"What a persistent little mental-science preacher you are!" she exclaimed. "And there's truth—more truth than you know—in it all, too. But I can't do it, David,—not that—not that. 'T would take more than THINKING—to bring that," she added, under her breath, as if to herself.
"But thinking does bring things," maintained David earnestly. "There's Joe—Joe Glaspell. His mother works out all day; and he's blind."
"Blind? Oh-h!" shuddered Miss Holbrook.
"Yes; and he has to stay all alone, except for Betty, and she is n't there much. He THINKS ALL his things. He has to. He can't SEE anything with his outside eyes. But he sees everything with his inside eyes—everything that I play. Why, Lady of the Roses, he's even seen this—all this here. I told him about it, you know, right away after I'd found you that first day: the big trees and the long shadows across the grass, and the roses, and the shining water, and the lovely marble people peeping through the green leaves; and the sundial, and you so beautiful sitting here in the middle of it all. Then I played it for him; and he said he could see it all just as plain! And THAT was with his inside eyes! And so, if Joe, shut up there in his dark little room, can make his THINK bring him all that, I should think that YOU, here in this beautiful, beautiful place, could make your think bring you anything you wanted it to."
But Miss Holbrook sighed again and shook her head.
"Not that, David, not that," she murmured. "It would take more than thinking to bring—that." Then, with a quick change of manner, she cried: "Come, come, suppose we don't worry any more about MY hours. Let's think of yours. Tell me, what have you been doing since I saw you last? Perhaps you have been again to—to see Mr. Jack, for instance."
"I have; but I saw Jill mostly, till the last." David hesitated, then he blurted it out: "Lady of the Roses, do you know about the gate and the footbridge?"
Miss Holbrook looked up quickly.
"Know—what, David?"
"Know about them—that they're there?"
"Why—yes, of course; at least, I suppose you mean the footbridge that crosses the little stream at the foot of the hill over there."
"That's the one." Again David hesitated, and again he blurted out the burden of his thoughts. "Lady of the Roses, did you ever—cross that bridge?"
Miss Holbrook stirred uneasily.
"Not—recently."
"But you don't MIND folks crossing it?"
"Certainly not—if they wish to."
"There! I knew 't wasn't your blame," triumphed David.
"MY blame!"
"Yes; that Mr. Jack wouldn't let Jill come across, you know. He called her back when she'd got halfway over once." Miss Holbrook's face changed color.
"But I do object," she cried sharply, "to their crossing it when they DON'T want to! Don't forget that, please."
"But Jill did want to."
"How about her brother—did he want her to?"
"N—no."
"Very well, then. I didn't, either."
David frowned. Never had he seen his beloved Lady of the Roses look like this before. He was reminded of what Jill had said about Jack: "His face was all stern and white, and his lips snapped tight shut after every word." So, too, looked Miss Holbrook's face; so, too, had her lips snapped tight shut after her last words. David could not understand it. He said nothing more, however; but, as was usually the case when he was perplexed, he picked up his violin and began to play. And as he played, there gradually came to Miss Holbrook's eyes a softer light, and to her lips lines less tightly drawn. Neither the footbridge nor Mr. Jack, however, was mentioned again that afternoon.
CHAPTER XVII
"THE PRINCESS AND THE PAUPER"
It was in the early twilight that Mr. Jack told the story. He, Jill, and David were on the veranda, as usual watching the towers of Sunnycrest turn from gold to silver as the sun dropped behind the hills. It was Jill who had asked for the story.
"About fairies and princesses, you know," she had ordered.
"But how will David like that?" Mr. Jack had demurred. "Maybe he doesn't care for fairies and princesses."
"I read one once about a prince—'t was 'The Prince and the Pauper,' and I liked that," averred David stoutly.
Mr. Jack smiled; then his brows drew together in a frown. His eyes were moodily fixed on the towers.
"Hm-m; well," he said, "I might, I suppose, tell you a story about a PRINCESS and—a Pauper. I—know one well enough."
"Good!—then tell it," cried both Jill and David. And Mr. Jack began his story.
"She was not always a Princess, and he was not always a Pauper,—and that's where the story came in, I suppose," sighed the man. "She was just a girl, once, and he was a boy; and they played together and—liked each other. He lived in a little house on a hill."
"Like this?" demanded Jill.
"Eh? Oh—er—yes, SOMETHING like this," returned Mr. Jack, with an odd half-smile. "And she lived in another bit of a house in a town far away from the boy."
"Then how could they play together?" questioned David.
"They couldn't, ALWAYS. It was only summers when she came to visit in the boy's town. She was very near him then, for the old aunt whom she visited lived in a big stone house with towers, on another hill, in plain sight from the boy's home."
"Towers like those—where the Lady of the Roses lives?" asked David.
"Eh? What? Oh—er—yes," murmured Mr. Jack. "We'll say the towers were something like those over there." He paused, then went on musingly: "The girl used to signal, sometimes, from one of the tower windows. One wave of the handkerchief meant, 'I'm coming, over'; two waves, with a little pause between, meant, 'You are to come over here.' So the boy used to wait always, after that first wave to see if another followed; so that he might know whether he were to be host or guest that day. The waves always came at eight o'clock in the morning, and very eagerly the boy used to watch for them all through the summer when the girl was there."
"Did they always come, every morning?" Asked Jill.
"No; sometimes the girl had other things to do. Her aunt would want her to go somewhere with her, or other cousins were expected whom the girl must entertain; and she knew the boy did not like other guests to be there when he was, so she never asked him to come over at such times. On such occasions she did sometimes run up to the tower at eight o'clock and wave three times, and that meant, 'Dead Day.' So the boy, after all, never drew a real breath of relief until he made sure that no dreaded third wave was to follow the one or the two."
"Seems to me," observed David, "that all this was sort of one-sided. Didn't the boy say anything?"
"Oh, yes," smiled Mr. Jack. "But the boy did not have any tower to wave from, you must remember. He had only the little piazza on his tiny bit of a house. But he rigged up a pole, and he asked his mother to make him two little flags, a red and a blue one. The red meant 'All right'; and the blue meant 'Got to work'; and these he used to run up on his pole in answer to her waving 'I'm coming over,' or 'You are to come over here.' So, you see, occasionally it was the boy who had to bring the 'Dead Day,' as there were times when he had to work. And, by the way, perhaps you would be interested to know that after a while he thought up a third flag to answer her three waves. He found an old black silk handkerchief of his father's, and he made that into a flag. He told the girl it meant 'I'm heartbroken,' and he said it was a sign of the deepest mourning. The girl laughed and tipped her head saucily to one side, and said, 'Pooh! as if you really cared!' But the boy stoutly maintained his position, and it was that, perhaps, which made her play the little joke one day.
"The boy was fourteen that summer, and the girl thirteen. They had begun their signals years before, but they had not had the black one so long. On this day that I tell you of, the girl waved three waves, which meant, 'Dead Day,' you remember, and watched until the boy had hoisted his black flag which said, 'I'm heart-broken,' in response. Then, as fast as her mischievous little feet could carry her, she raced down one hill and across to the other. Very stealthily she advanced till she found the boy bent over a puzzle on the back stoop, and—and he was whistling merrily.
"How she teased him then! How she taunted him with 'Heart-broken, indeed—and whistling like that!' In vain he blushed and stammered, and protested that his whistling was only to keep up his spirits. The girl only laughed and tossed her yellow curls; then she hunted till she found some little jingling bells, and these she tied to the black badge of mourning and pulled it high up on the flagpole. The next instant she was off with a run and a skip, and a saucy wave of her hand; and the boy was left all alone with an hour's work ahead of him to untie the knots from his desecrated badge of mourning.
"And yet they were wonderfully good friends—this boy and girl. From the very first, when they were seven and eight, they had said that they would marry each other when they grew up, and always they spoke of it as the expected thing, and laid many happy plans for the time when it should come. To be sure, as they grew older, it was not mentioned quite so often, perhaps; but the boy at least thought—if he thought of it all—that that was only because it was already so well understood."
"What did the girl think?" It was Jill who asked the question.
"Eh? The girl? Oh," answered Mr. Jack, a little bitterly, "I'm afraid I don't know exactly what the girl did think, but—it was n't that, anyhow—that is, judging from what followed."
"What did follow?"
"Well, to begin with, the old aunt died. The girl was sixteen then. It was in the winter that this happened, and the girl was far away at school. She came to the funeral, however, but the boy did not see her, save in the distance; and then he hardly knew her, so strange did she look in her black dress and hat. She was there only two days, and though he gazed wistfully up at the gray tower, he knew well enough that of course she could not wave to him at such a time as that. Yet he had hoped—almost believed that she would wave two waves that last day, and let him go over to see her.
"But she didn't wave, and he didn't go over. She went away. And then the town learned a wonderful thing. The old lady, her aunt, who had been considered just fairly rich, turned out to be the possessor of almost fabulous wealth, owing to her great holdings of stock in a Western gold mine which had suddenly struck it rich. And to the girl she willed it all. It was then, of course, that the girl became the Princess, but the boy did not realize that—just then. To him she was still 'the girl.'
"For three years he did not see her. She was at school, or traveling abroad, he heard. He, too, had been away to school, and was, indeed, just ready to enter college. Then, that summer, he heard that she was coming to the old home, and his heart sang within him. Remember, to him she was still the girl. He knew, of course, that she was not the LITTLE girl who had promised to marry him. But he was sure she was the merry comrade, the true-hearted young girl who used to smile frankly into his eyes, and whom he was now to win for his wife. You see he had forgotten—quite forgotten about the Princess and the money. Such a foolish, foolish boy as he was!
"So he got out his flags gleefully, and one day, when his mother wasn't in the kitchen, he ironed out the wrinkles and smoothed them all ready to be raised on the pole. He would be ready when the girl waved—for of course she would wave; he would show her that he had not forgotten. He could see just how the sparkle would come to her eyes, and just how the little fine lines of mischief would crinkle around her nose when she was ready to give that first wave. He could imagine that she would like to find him napping; that she would like to take him by surprise, and make him scurry around for his flags to answer her.
"But he would show her! As if she, a girl, were to beat him at their old game! He wondered which it would be: 'I'm coming over,' or, 'You are to come over here.' Whichever it was, he would answer, of course, with the red 'All right.' Still, it WOULD be a joke to run up the blue 'Got to work,' and then slip across to see her, just as she, so long ago, had played the joke on him! On the whole, however, he thought the red flag would be better. And it was that one which he laid uppermost ready to his hand, when he arranged them.
"At last she came. He heard of it at once. It was already past four o'clock, but he could not forbear, even then, to look toward the tower. It would be like her, after all, to wave then, that very night, just so as to catch him napping, he thought. She did not wave, however. The boy was sure of that, for he watched the tower till dark.
"In the morning, long before eight o'clock, the boy was ready. He debated for some time whether to stand out of doors on the piazza, or to hide behind the screened window, where he could still watch the tower. He decided at last that it would be better not to let her see him when she looked toward the house; then his triumph would be all the more complete when he dashed out to run up his answer.
"Eight o'clock came and passed. The boy waited until nine, but there was no sign of life from the tower. The boy was angry then, at himself. He called himself, indeed, a fool, to hide as he did. Of course she wouldn't wave when he was nowhere in sight—when he had apparently forgotten! And here was a whole precious day wasted!
"The next morning, long before eight, the boy stood in plain sight on the piazza. As before he waited until nine; and as before there was no sign of life at the tower window. The next morning he was there again, and the next, and the next. It took just five days, indeed, to convince the boy—as he was convinced at last—that the girl did not intend to wave at all."
"But how unkind of her!" exclaimed David.
"She couldn't have been nice one bit!" decided Jill.
"You forget," said Mr. Jack. "She was the Princess."
"Huh!" grunted Jill and David in unison.
"The boy remembered it then," went on Mr. Jack, after a pause,—"about the money, and that she was a Princess. And of course he knew—when he thought of it—that he could not expect that a Princess would wave like a girl—just a girl. Besides, very likely she did not care particularly about seeing him. Princesses did forget, he fancied,—they had so much, so very much to fill their lives. It was this thought that kept him from going to see her—this, and the recollection that, after all, if she really HAD wanted to see him, she could have waved.
"There came a day, however, when another youth, who did not dare to go alone, persuaded him, and together they paid her a call. The boy understood, then, many things. He found the Princess; there was no sign of the girl. The Princess was tall and dignified, with a cold little hand and a smooth, sweet voice. There was no frank smile in her eyes, neither were there any mischievous crinkles about her nose and lips. There was no mention of towers or flags; no reference to wavings or to childhood's days. There was only a stiffly polite little conversation about colleges and travels, with a word or two about books and plays. Then the callers went home. On the way the boy smiled scornfully to himself. He was trying to picture the beauteous vision he had seen, this unapproachable Princess in her filmy lace gown,—standing in the tower window and waving—waving to a bit of a house on the opposite hill. As if that could happen!
"The boy, during those last three years, had known only books. He knew little of girls—only one girl—and he knew still less of Princesses. So when, three days after the call, there came a chance to join a summer camp with a man who loved books even better than did the boy himself, he went gladly. Once he had refused to go on this very trip; but then there had been the girl. Now there was only the Princess—and the Princess didn't count."
"Like the hours that aren't sunshiny," interpreted David.
"Yes," corroborated Mr. Jack. "Like the hours when the sun does n't shine."
"And then?" prompted Jill.
"Well, then,—there wasn't much worth telling," rejoined Mr. Jack gloomily. "Two more years passed, and the Princess grew to be twenty-one. She came into full control of her property then, and after a while she came back to the old stone house with the towers and turned it into a fairyland of beauty. She spent money like water. All manner of artists, from the man who painted her ceilings to the man who planted her seeds, came and bowed to her will. From the four corners of the earth she brought her treasures and lavished them through the house and grounds. Then, every summer, she came herself, and lived among them, a very Princess indeed."
"And the boy?—what became of the boy?" demanded David. "Didn't he see her—ever?"
Mr. Jack shook his head.
"Not often, David; and when he did, it did not make him any—happier. You see, the boy had become the Pauper; you must n't forget that."
"But he wasn't a Pauper when you left him last."
"Wasn't he? Well, then, I'll tell you about that. You see, the boy, even though he did go away, soon found out that in his heart the Princess was still the girl, just the same. He loved her, and he wanted her to be his wife; so for a little—for a very little—he was wild enough to think that he might work and study and do great things in the world until he was even a Prince himself, and then he could marry the Princess."
"Well, couldn't he?"
"No. To begin with, he lost his health. Then, away back in the little house on the hill something happened—a something that left a very precious charge for him to keep; and he had to go back and keep it, and to try to see if he couldn't find that lost health, as well. And that is all."
"All! You don't mean that that is the end!" exclaimed Jill.
"That's the end."
"But that isn't a mite of a nice end," complained David. "They always get married and live happy ever after—in stories."
"Do they?" Mr. Jack smiled a little sadly. "Perhaps they do, David,—in stories."
"Well, can't they in this one?"
"I don't see how."
"Why can't he go to her and ask her to marry him?"
Mr. Jack drew himself up proudly.
"The Pauper and the Princess? Never! Paupers don't go to Princesses, David, and say, 'I love you.'"
David frowned.
"Why not? I don't see why—if they want to do it. Seems as if somehow it might be fixed."
"It can't be," returned Mr. Jack, his gaze on the towers that crowned the opposite hill; "not so long as always before the Pauper's eyes there are those gray walls behind which he pictures the Princess in the midst of her golden luxury."
To neither David nor Jill did the change to the present tense seem strange. The story was much too real to them for that.
"Well, anyhow, I think it ought to be fixed," declared David, as he rose to his feet.
"So do I—but we can't fix it," laughed Jill. "And I'm hungry. Let's see what there is to eat!"