Part 11

The morning by now was well advanced, and as they forged along the broad, level highroad they began to meet the stream of motors that every day heads cityward from the big Long Island country places. David, as the roadster neared Eastbourne, began nodding to the occupants of the big limousines, the big touring cars and the smart, powerful motors like theirs that passed them. Each time he did so he was at pains to mention their names to Bab. And they were names, too, that would have thrilled the ordinary mortal, the man in the street. Bab herself was thrilled that David knew many of them. It pleased her that some of them, a few, she knew too. Most gratifying of all, though, was the interest with which David's acquaintances gazed at her. She wondered that often these looks were pointed. Was it because she was the Beeston heiress? Was it that alone, or had they guessed the truth about her and David? Plunged in this reverie, delightful to her with all the fancies it evoked, its dreams of place and power, she did not notice that as her chatter had subsided David's animation had risen correspondingly. All his life Long Island had been his playground, and hereabout there was hardly a stone, a tree, a hedge that was not familiar to him, filled with reminiscence. Then all at once his animation waned. As they topped the rise that led down to the Eastbourne plains he brought the car to a standstill.

"Look!" he said.

Bab had never seen Byewolde, the Beeston summer place. In the rush of life during the few months she had been a member of the household there had been no opportunity. Now, however, as she looked across the open lowland to the wooded slope it crowned, she knew the house instantly.

Ten minutes later the roadster, after a burst of speed that gave Bab the impression that she was being borne through the air on rushing wings, came to a halt under Byewolde's high Doris porch.

"Sit still, Bab," said David; then he turned to the chauffeur. "That's all, Gaffney," he directed; "I won't need you now." To Crabbe who, deferent, all eagerness, had come hurrying to the door, David bade a pleasant good morning. "Luncheon at one, Crabbe--just for us two, you understand. We'll be back."

Then he threw in the clutch, and the car shot out again from under the tall white porch. Bab said nothing. Awakened abruptly from the pensive reverie in which she had been plunged, she had seen instantly that there was some purpose behind David's quick, energetic manner. What the purpose was, though, she did not know or particularly care. His plans might be anything, she would be lazily in accord with them. The day, the leaping sunshine, the swift exhilaration of the ride and David's deferent, tender attention--all had been to her a subtle balm. She sat back in her cushioned seat, her chin tucked luxuriously in the soft deep pelage of her muff, indolent mentally and physically, her eyes lazily wandering over the view. It was the first time in days she had felt at peace with herself and her surroundings. It mattered little to her that inertness really was the reason for that peace. She was content not to think.

Byewolde, as such places go, was not vast perhaps. Its charm, instead, lay in its well-planned variety. The house, Colonial in type, stood facing a wide sweep of lawn, a stretch of rolling turf as soft and closely cropped as velvet. At one side of the house was a terrace hedged with box and evergreen; beyond that a sunken garden. A deep, dimpling pool lay at the garden's end, the depth sapphire with the reflection of the skies; and before it was a Roman marble garden seat, its snowy whiteness standing out against the carpet of turf, the bronze green background of the hedges. Bab's eyes lighted as the motor, turning out of the drive, headed down a byroad that led along the garden's side. Over the hedge she got a swift glimpse of its quiet, secluded charm. Then the road plunged of a sudden into a wood. Oaks, maples, elms, some of them huge, wove the lacelike tracery of their leaves and branches in a close network overhead, so that for a space the motor rolled onward through a tunnel of greenery. In its close, cloistered quiet one might have been miles from any habitation. The sunlight trickling through the latticed foliage overhead lit the wood's dim vistas with a mellow gleam, like light from a cathedral glass; and a hush fell upon Bab and David.

The motor, slowing down, purred softly, like some huge insect--a denizen of the wood. David touched Bab upon the arm. Along a sunlit opening a herd of deer slipped silently into view. Almost instantly they were gone, like wraiths dissolving into the wall of the foliage that enframed them. A thrush, somewhere hidden in that dim, bosky depth, of a sudden burst into a throb of song.

"Like it?" asked David, and Bab drew in her breath.

"It's wonderful!" she exclaimed.

He was silent for a moment, looking about him. Then, his tone deliberate, he said to her: "Grandfather's given me this. Before we owned it I used to come here. Then one day he bought it and gave me the deed. It was a birthday present."

Bab looked about her again. All this a birthday present! She would perhaps have been even more impressed had she known something of Long Island values. There were a thousand acres in that wood.

Of the Byewolde estate, however, the wood was but a minor part. The Beeston town house gave to the uninitiated no indication of the wealth of the owner, for it differed little from a hundred others in the neighborhood. Here, however, not even the most ignorant could err as to the money required to maintain such an establishment. As the motor, rolling on, threaded the roads that led from one quarter of Byewolde to the other, Bab herself grew impressed with it.

David was particular that she should see it all. There was not a view he did not point out to her; there was not a nook, a corner in all that domain he was not eager to have her discover. And it was all well worth seeing. A show place even in that countryside where wealth is a commonplace, Byewolde was the envy of its neighbors. Nothing mediocre, one saw clearly, would do for Beeston. The cattle standing knee-deep in the lush pasturage were prize stock; the horses gazing over the fences at the passing motor were blooded animals; the gardens and greenhouses, these last under their acreage of glass, were splendid with their array of exotic flowers and foliage. David, alighting, led the way among them. The orchids, the roses, the long beds of lilies, violets, carnations--all these he showed her in turn. There was one house filled entirely with palms and ferns; there was a grapery, too, where at any season great clusters of grapes, deep with their purple bloom, were forced into luscious ripeness.

As he led her from one to another of Byewolde's wonders, Bab again grew conscious that behind his animation, the exhilarant eagerness he showed, David had some purpose. His air again grew feverish. The gardener, an elderly Scotchman, hobbled along after them, dilating proudly on these flowers to which his life had been devoted. David and he long had been cronies, Bab discovered. It was "Maister Davvy" this and "Maister Davvy" that. He seemed hardly aware of Bab; all his attention he devoted to the young man, his master. On one occasion, though, there came near to being a misunderstanding between those two--on one side David, gay, animated; on the other the Scotchman, old and dour, his soul wrapped in the flowers that had been his life. Bab's attention was called by a sudden exclamation from the old man.

"Oh, Maister Davvy!" he cried in consternation.

They had been standing before one of the orchids, a bronzelike exotic on which a single bloom, a flower with strange pale lilac and green petals, had just burst forth. Bab, filled with admiration, had exclaimed at its beauty, and David had plucked it from the plant.

At the old gardener's evident dismay he laughed lightly.

"What's the difference, McNare? Here, Bab," he said, and handed her the flower. "Pin it on your waist."

McNare's distress still persisted.

"Ye've pluckit it, my orchid!" he cried. "Yon's the Sanctu, Maister Davvy; 'twull be the prize of a'!"

But David only laughed again. If a prize it would be fit, then, for a lady to wear. It was fortunate McNare had it ready to pick. At this point, however, with quick understanding he detected something in the old gardener's expression, and his bantering ceased. The ancient face had grown grayer, more furrowed.

"It was my bairn!" said McNare. "It was the apple o' my eye! I'd gi'ed it a year and more's care." He drew the back of one horny hand across his eyes.

"McNare!" cried David contritely.

Bab turned away as David impulsively put a hand on the old gardener's shoulder. That was like David. He would not for the world have hurt another.

A shadow seemed to have fallen on his spirit when he rejoined her. He was repressed, less eager, less animatedly talkative. He pointed to the flower in her hand.

"You don't want that, Bab," he said suddenly. "Throw it away."

Throw away the blossom which before the calamity McNare had said was priceless! Bab hesitated, but David insisted on it.

"It's blighted, Bab. You mustn't have about you anything that isn't all suggestive of happiness. Not today certainly, and never if I can help it."

She gazed at him with softened, thoughtful eyes. It was some time before David regained his spirits. From the greenhouses he took her through Byewolde's stables, past rows of stalls and boxes where a dozen or more tenants lived in pampered luxury. The coachman, a ruddy-faced, beefy gentleman of the old school, kicked a foot out behind him as he touched his hat to David and Bab. He, too, like McNare, was an old-time servitor in that house; and with a bustling anxiety to serve and to please he kept the three stable grooms on the jump, parading his charges before the visitors. The sleek, satiny-coated animals--cobs, coach horses, and finally a pair of thoroughbred hunters--Bab could have admired interminably. Just then, however, a bell in the near-by farm began to clang.

"One o'clock," David announced. "Crabbe will worry unless we make haste!"

So Bab regretfully climbed back into the motor. A moment later they dashed up under the high Doric portico again. She and David lunched alone. In the big, low-ceiled dining-room, rich with its hangings and its paneling of mahogany, bright with the array of silver and cut glass on table and sideboard, Crabbe served them with soft-footed, silent deference. At the end of the room the French windows stood open, and from her place at the head of the table, ensconced behind the massive Beeston tea service, Bab looked out, first on a long stretch of velvety lawn, then at its background, the wall of evergreens that guarded the sunken garden. The sunlight of that perfect day still shone upon it. Allured by all this, she sat gazing on the prospect dreamy-eyed. How delightful it all was! How splendid! And to think that once, a few months before, she had been a nobody, a little waif in a boarding house! Bab herself hardly could believe it. A deep breath escaped her.

"David, isn't it wonderful!" she murmured.

David, as she spoke, awoke abruptly from a reverie.

"Wonderful!" he agreed as he looked up at her. Then he comprehended. "You mean all this, don't you?" he asked.

Bab nodded and, his eyes fixed on hers, David for a moment sat silent. The luncheon had been served, and Crabbe at a signal from him had left the room. In the brief interval that David sat gazing at her, Bab saw a change come over him. Again his eyes brightened, deepening with animation. Again she saw dawn in them the look of purpose she had seen there that morning. Pushing back his chair, he arose, and with a hand on the table to support him he came slowly toward her. Bab's eyes fell. Never before had she felt herself so alone with him--with anyone, for that matter. Had this been their wedding day, their first few moments together, she could not have felt more conscious. The color crowded into her face. She dared not look up now. Then as she sat there, her eyes lowered, she felt David's hand slip beneath her chin.

"Look up, Bab!" he whispered. She obeyed awkwardly. His eyes, she noticed, had grown very serious. "Listen, dear," said David. "All that I've shown you I showed you with a purpose. I wanted you to know that some day it all will be mine--you understand, don't you--ours, Bab, yours and mine! That's why I showed it to you!" Then she felt the hand that held her face up to his tighten. "Remember," he added, "it's yours--ours--Bab, no matter what happens! What's mine will always be yours. You understand?"

Bab was looking up at him with parted lips.

"Yes," she murmured wonderingly.

"Yours and mine! That's why I showed it to you, Bab!" And then, "I love you! I love you!" he whispered.

XX

It was a week after this that one afternoon Crabbe brought up to the pretty chintz-hung bedroom, now Bab's, the card of a visitor who was waiting in a pony cart outside. Bab, as she read the name, exclaimed with pleasure.

"Linda Blair!"

"And begging pardon, please," added Crabbe, "the young lady asks particular if you'll see her."

Bab directed him to ask Miss Blair upstairs at once. The Beestons by now were settled for the summer at Byewolde. Beeston himself, entirely recovered from the illness that earlier in the year had threatened to lay him low, every day was to be seen walking or driving about the place. Bab was his constant companion. After his queer behavior the evening of the dance Beeston had resumed toward her his former air of gruff indulgence. To all appearances he might have been the most doting of grandfathers, Bab the most beloved of grandchildren. Miss Elvira, too, was as natural. All that one could descry in the least unusual about her was a smile, grim and covert, that off and on lighted her craggy features.

The week had been a full one for Bab. The engagement David had not yet revealed, but had it been openly known the countryside could not have done more in the way of making Bab's days at Byewolde memorable. Here in the country she had been accepted, been taken for herself, far more than had been the case in the city. One reason for this was that in town the people were engrossed with their own affairs; there time sped too swiftly for them to give much thought to a newcomer. At Eastbourne, however, where the pace was less swift, the various households more closely associated, more of an opportunity was afforded to make Bab feel she was really welcome.

She was left little time to herself. This was as she wished it; for all the new life, new scenes, new activities, thoroughly entertained her. Life in town, brilliant as it had been, had not appealed to her as this did. The reason, perhaps, was that in New York her surroundings had been too new to seem real. She had been a little staggered by her first acquaintance with luxury. The money everything cost had especially bewildered her. Now, however, she had begun to grow accustomed to it all. Money and the luxury it brings had become a commonplace. Already she had begun to lean upon it as a necessity. The animation of her new life, too, had become a second nature. She was rarely unoccupied. Every night she dined out; mornings and afternoons she either rode or drove with her new friends, now not so new either; or, alone with David, the two rambled in his roadster up and down the many unfrequented byroads of the island. Polo practice had begun at the country club; occasionally there was a drag hunt too; and at these events, where the neighborhood turned out in force, David seemed anxious to have her seen.

"You don't mind being dragged round like this, do you?" David asked one day. "I want you to meet everyone, you know."

Bab didn't mind in the least. Now that she had got over her first feeling of strangeness there was nothing she liked more. However, in all this new life, among all her new friends, there was one person who from the first had filled her with a subtle feeling of disquiet. And this person was Linda Blair. Was Linda her friend? Bab wished she knew. She liked the girl; more than that, she admired her. Linda, besides, had been a playmate of David's since childhood. But of late, it seemed to Bab, she had begun to notice about Linda an air of chilly, growing reserve. There was in her expression, too, a veiled disapproval. Bab wondered what she had done to offend her. She was still debating the question when Crabbe ushered in the caller.

"How do you do, Bab?" said Linda, and with a quick smile Bab put out her hand.

"How nice of you to come!" she returned. Determined not to be stiff, or show that she had noticed Linda's air of reserve, Bab tried to make her welcome very real, and she succeeded in this. But Linda's call she soon saw was not merely social. The girl crossed the room hesitantly, a slender, quiet creature, more womanly than girlish; and, having taken the chair by the window that Bab indicated, she sat waiting for Crabbe to withdraw. Obviously there was some special reason for her visit.

"You'll have tea, won't you?" asked Bab.

"Thanks, no," murmured Linda; "I can stay only a minute. I must be going on directly."

Bab dismissed the butler, and with a growing interest seated herself in a chair opposite her visitor. There was a formality about Miss Blair's manner that did not escape her. Though pleasant enough, she had something in her manner that held Bab effectually at a distance.

The conversation at the outset was aimless. To Linda manifestly it was an effort, and at times she came perilously near to rambling. There was to be a luncheon at the country club the week following, and she talked of that. Then, apropos of nothing, she remarked on a picture show she had seen in town, veering from that to a projected run of the drag hounds the following Saturday, the last meet of the season. Bab, in the pauses, led on the talk as best she could. But it was a difficult matter. Suddenly, in the midst of a sentence--something or other about a race meet the month following at the country club--Linda broke off with awkward abruptness. A faint frown of irritation swept across her brows.

"Let's be frank," she said bluntly; "I didn't come here for this. I've something I'd like to ask you." Her dark eyes on the girl opposite her, for a moment she paused. "Bab," she then asked quietly, "what are you doing to David?"

Blunt as the question was, and disconcerting, Bab already had guessed this was the purpose that had brought Linda to see her. She saw now, too, that it must have been her affair with David that had caused Linda's chilly reserve. Linda must have guessed what was happening. The color rushed into her face, which only added to her anger, for she resented showing her feelings.

"What do you mean?" she asked coldly.

"Don't be angry," Linda begged; "I don't mean to offend you. David, you know, has been my friend, my playmate, all my life. It's not just you that I question; I would have asked any girl. Don't you understand? David's a man, of course; but then, too, David's different. I can't stand by and see him hurt. Think how much he's had to bear already."

Bab looked at her in undisguised amazement.

"Hurt?" she repeated. "Why should you think I would hurt him?"

Linda smiled at her gently.

"You know perfectly, Bab."

"I do not," Bab returned crisply; "I know what you suggest, of course--that I am--well, leading him on, to put it vulgarly. Isn't that what you mean by hurting him?"

"Precisely!"

"And you really think I am doing that?"

"No; I only asked whether you are."

Bab with an effort got rid of the note of irritation in her tone. If she must fence she would at least fence with art. So she returned Linda's quiet smile.

"You've known David, as you say, all your life. Why, then, did you come to me? Why didn't you ask him?"

A quick change swept into the other's expressive eyes, and Bab beheld it with surprise. It seemed to Bab almost as if she winced.

"Stop and think! You don't for a moment believe I'd let him know, do you? I at least don't mean to hurt him!"

Bab waited until she had finished.

"Yes," she said, "but that doesn't prevent your hurting me. You still suggest that I am amusing myself at his expense!"

Linda shook her head.

"No; I merely beg you not to! That's why I came here to see you."

"I dare say," said Bab quietly; "but there's one thing you overlook. You seem to forget, Linda, that what in another girl might seem significant, on my part would be harmless. Have you thought of that?"

"Harmless?" interrogated Linda.

"Exactly," smiled Bab. "David, you remember, is my cousin."

It was a clincher. Bab, as she delivered the thrust, rather complimented herself on her cleverness. Somehow, though, the riposte fell short of its expected result. Linda's expression did not alter. Concern was still deeply written in her eyes. Her mouth quivered, setting itself as if again she had winced.

"David doesn't think so," she said.

The retort fairly took Bab's breath away. It was as Linda said. David indeed did not think so; and there dawned on Bab then what she had been guilty of in hiding the truth. David she was to marry, yet virtually she had denied it. What was more, in her denial she had displayed an attitude of defiance that might easily be construed as shame. Again she colored, irritation uppermost in her feelings. She was incensed as much at herself as at Linda. She was angered, besides, that she had agreed to conceal her engagement. Why had she done it? But what annoyed her most was her own clumsiness in handling the present situation.

"David," said Linda slowly, "thinks you love him."

Bab had been seated in a low chair, her head negligently thrown back and her fingers laced together in her lap. Now she got suddenly to her feet.

"I don't see any reason why we should go on like this. I know David loves me, Linda, and I'm going to marry him."

For a brief moment Linda stared at her with every indication of amazement and incredulity. "You marry David!" she gasped. But when Bab assured her this was so, Linda looked neither relieved nor gratified. "Marry David?" she again repeated; and then in her eyes once more rose that vague cloud, a shadow of inward trouble. "Don't think me rude, Bab," said Linda hesitantly, "but will you tell me why you are going to marry him?"

"Why?" echoed Bab. Her discomfort, her righteous indignation perhaps at this point got the better of her. Linda, had she been David's own sister, could not have been more insistent. A sister, indeed, would have thought twice before she'd have ventured to go so far.

"Look here, Linda," said Bab, her voice matching in tone the angry glint in her eye; "I've been frank with you; now you be frank with me. Why do you wish to know all this? Is it because you'd like to marry David yourself?"

The shot went straight to its mark. Bab saw her visitor catch swiftly at her breath.

"I--marry David?" In Linda's air, however, was pain, not discomfiture. The shadow in her eyes darkened perceptibly. "You don't understand, Bab; David and I were brought up together. We've been playmates since I was a baby. If he were my own kin, my own brother, I could not love him more. But that doesn't mean I could marry him. I don't love him that way."

The words, each freighted with significance, thundered their accusation in Bab's startled mind. Linda did not love him that way! Bab, as she sat staring at the speaker, recalled her own reflections in the matter. She, too, had loved David as if bound to him by some tie of blood. She, too, had felt for him that same companionship. Beyond that, though, how else had she felt for him? How else had she loved the man she was to marry? She was still staring at her visitor, the question in her mind still unanswered, when Linda suddenly spoke.

"Why are you marrying him, Bab? Don't you know?"