Part 3

It was still and warm, the beginning of the hush of twilight, the birds' chattering quieted, when voices came plainly up to me through the open window beside my bed. Miss Fielding and the doctor were coming round a corner of the house on their way to the stable.

"I wish when she comes, next time, you'd have Leah let me know," I heard Doctor Copin say earnestly.

"I won't promise to do that," was her reply.

"Why not?" he asked sharply.

"Why do you want to know?" she asked.

"You know well enough. You know how interested I am in her."

"I wish I _did_!"

This was the last I could make out, for they passed into the yard behind the house. I heard the carriage drive off, and soon after Miss Fielding's voice inside the house, calling for Leah to come down. I thought that I detected a strain of excitement, even of alarm in her tones.

A half-hour afterward, she came into my room with a chess-board, and asked me if I played the game. I was delighted to try it with her, though I was poor enough at it, and she beat me easily.

She was quite as charming as ever, but, as I studied my strategy, she had time in the silent pauses to fall into little moods of reverie, letting the talk drop naturally. I was not too absorbed in my play to notice it, and once or twice I looked up from the board to see her face show a tragic expression, clearing, under my surveillance, with what seemed to be a forced smile. The little lines near her eyes seemed to have deepened since morning, and two vertical ones came, at times, cutting upright clefts between her brows. Once or twice she put her hand to her head suddenly. Her listlessness accented her grace, but she seemed distinctly older.

After she had announced mate in three moves she awaited my capitulation. Then she put the board and men aside wearily.

"You'll find it desperately stupid here, I know, Mr. Castle," she began. "I wish we could be more amusing, but I'm a bit blue to-night."

"I only reproach myself for not being able to make you forget it," I said. "As for myself, I always feel like the hero of a fairy tale when you're about."

She gave her head a quick, backward shake, as if to free her mind of some disturbing thought. "Oh, I told you I was the White Cat, you know!" she replied. "Can't you imagine how interesting it must be for us to have any one here at all, and you most especially? Why, I feel that you are a friend, already. If it hadn't been so, I shouldn't have dared to confess so frankly that I'm depressed."

"What can I possibly say of you, then, who have proved yourself so friendly? I shall be glad when it comes my turn to give, and yours to receive."

"Oh, that time will come soon enough, I'm afraid," she said, folding her hands in her lap, and looking down at them.

"You make me quite long for it!"

"Oh, don't long for it!" she exclaimed, and then rose nervously to stand facing the lamp with a fixed, entranced gaze. "It will mean, perhaps, that I shall need all your sympathy, all your charity," she added, turning, ever so slowly, to look down at me.

"I will give anything you ask----"

"And I shall ask nothing," she put in quickly. Again she threw her head back with that quick, freeing gesture. I saw what she meant. It would be put to my tact and intuition.

She held out her hand impulsively and put it into mine. It seemed very small and slight, and it was cold. Then, summoning a smile so rapid that it came and went in a flash, she bade me good night and left the room.

For fully an hour after that, I heard her voice and Leah's in a steady, low conversation in the room across the hall. At nine, Leah came in to adjust the light and see that I wanted nothing. I fell into an uneasy sleep, waking at every cock-crow.

*IV*

The next day was harsh and cloudy. There was a light fog in from the sea, enough to make it a little cold, and to depress my spirits. It was, therefore, with great impatience that I awaited the matutinal visit from my hostess. She was usually up betimes; to-day she slept late.

It had already become one of my chief diversions to listen for the little morning colloquy in the hall, but to-day I heard nothing till after eight o'clock, when Leah came upstairs, knocked on the opposite door, which was always half-open at night, and put her usual question.

Miss Fielding's voice came sharp and clear, a little querulous.

"Oh, I'll have bacon and eggs, I think; but wait a while, Leah; I'm sleepy and I don't want to get up yet."

Leah closed my own door softly and went down-stairs. I was disappointed. I hoped Miss Fielding was not in a bad humor, though that seemed impossible. When Leah came up with the tray and gave me a "good morning," I said:

"Leah, I wish you'd ask Miss Fielding if Nokomis can't come up into my room this morning, will you?"

She hesitated just long enough for me to notice that she was troubled; then she put down the tray, saying:

"Nokomis is a queer old dog, Mr. Castle, and I don't know that she'll come."

"Why, she was here all day yesterday and we had a beautiful time together!"

"I know." Leah turned to leave. "I'll speak about it, of course, but--well, these dogs have all sorts of fancies, and you can't always depend upon them. They will and they won't." She did not look at me as she answered, and went out immediately.

I felt that I had somehow blundered into an indiscretion, though what it was I couldn't possibly see. It made me exceedingly uncomfortable, for I would have done anything rather than take advantage of the kindness and hospitality with which I had been treated. I remembered that I had not yet heard the dogs barking; that might possibly mean something, but it gave me no clue. I had to give it up and try to make amends as well as I might.

A little later I heard Miss Fielding's door slam, and her footsteps running down the stairs. That she had not come in to see me, even if for only a few words, did not decrease my annoyance. Shortly after came a chorus of barks, but I fancied that they were not of the same mood that I had noted before; there seemed to be something antagonistic in their protesting notes, as if some stranger had perhaps passed the house. I had got the idea that Midmeadows was a lonely place, though I had not yet seen the outside of the building, and no doubt the collies were distrustful of visitors. I waited expectantly to hear Miss Fielding call them, one by one, as she had before; but, if she did so, I missed it.

For half an hour or more there was a steady pounding down-stairs, and, when Leah came for my tray, I heard some one whistling, the least bit out of tune. Leah was silent and reserved. She asked how I had slept, and if I were better, and there the conversation ended.

Finally, at about eleven o'clock, Miss Fielding came in. I looked up eagerly.

She wore a stiffly laundered shirt-waist, noticeably stained and soiled, though it had evidently been put on clean that morning. She wore no stock, and the neck was turned away in a V, carelessly, showing a little gold chain with a sapphire pendant, and the sleeves were rolled up above her dimpled elbows. She had a heavy walking-skirt and heavy mannish shoes whose soles projected a full half-inch beyond the uppers. Her hair, which, before, I had always seen exquisitely coiled high on her head, was done in a full pompadour, though now it fell in flat folds over her forehead and wisped out in the back of her neck.

She came up to my bedside and smiled frankly at me. I got a pronounced odor of Santal.

"Well, how are you to-day?" she said jovially. "Do you feel better?"

I said that I did, noticing that she wore three rings on her left hand. It was good to see her so full of life and energy.

"You certainly were a sight when you were brought in," she went on; "I was frightened to death. I never saw any one unconscious before, and I thought you were dead, for sure. Isn't it lucky the doctor was here? I'm awfully sorry your auto was smashed up so, for I'd like to try it myself. I've been wanting one. Yours is a foreign make, isn't it? I've been looking it over. It's a water-cooled engine, I see. But I want a six-cylinder. I'm going to see if Uncle Jerdon and I can't patch it up so that it'll go."

"Fancy a girl's caring about machinery!" I said, smiling at her enthusiasm. "You're the last person in the world I'd ever think would have any interest in it."

"Why?" she said, sitting on the edge of the bed, and, turning down her sleeves, covered her round, strong arms.

"I thought that you were more of the artistic temperament."

"Oh, I like to use my hands," she said. She held one out, its fingers stiffly opened, then clenched her fist firmly. "They're stronger than they look. Try it!"

She took my hand in hers and gave me a grip as strong as any ordinary man's.

"That comes from your violin practice, I suppose," I remarked.

Her eyes were on mine, and I saw that the pupils were dilated, and the irises so dark as almost to appear black. She did not answer me for a moment, and then simply nodded vaguely and changed the subject.

"I've taken the clock apart more than once. The dining-room one, I mean. When the hands point to eight, it strikes four and it's half-past two, really. I have to tell time by an algebraic formula. I'm going to dissect it again and see if I can't get it right." She laughed merrily, swinging her foot back and forth.

At that moment the collies began to bark again. She sprang up impatiently, and went to the window.

"Darn those dogs!" she complained, "don't they make a horrid racket, though! I can't keep them quiet." Then she raised the sash abruptly, leaned out and cried, "Hush up, there!"

Their answer was a chorus of indignation. She let down the window with a clatter, and walked to the mirror to rearrange her hair, using silver pins that shone conspicuously in her dark locks. Her skirt had sagged away from her belt, at the back, from the violence of her work, no doubt, and she reached to fix it, turning to smile at me coquettishly after she did so.

"Do you like my hair done high or low?" she asked.

"I like it best the way I first saw it, that night," I said. "It was done in a fillet, or a bandeau, wasn't it?"

"Why, no! It was pompadoured, wasn't it? Oh, yes--perhaps it was--I forget--but it's so fine that I can't do anything with it."

Except for these little lapses of abstraction when she stared so puzzlingly at me, she was in high spirits. Her presence filled the room with electricity; she surcharged its atmosphere. She seemed more virile than ever, more full of life, so full that it actually seemed to splash over in all sorts of energetic gestures of her head and hands. As she stood, now, in the center of the room, she made a quick dash at a fly that drifted past, caught it in her hand, smiled at her dexterity, and tossed it aside. She made passes and rapid motions with her arms, as if she were swinging a tennis racket, and tapped her toes and heels in a little clog-dance as she walked. I saw that she was getting bored.

"Well," she said at last, "I must go to work. If there's anything you want Leah will do it for you. You can call her. There's the bell. Don't hesitate to ring it. I'll be so glad when you can come down-stairs and see the place. It's a jolly old shack--you'll like it!"

She waved her hand jauntily and swung out of the room. I heard her run downstairs, and a little later the pounding and the whistling recommenced.

She semed different to-day, but I imagined that perhaps it was only that she was feeling better in health and mind, though she had not appeared really ill before. She seemed younger than ever, too, the little lines in her face seemed to be mostly ironed out. No doubt it was, as women say, "her day." Her beauty was more obvious; it was undeniable.

Yet something about her manner troubled me. I was distinctly disappointed; she seemed less subtle, less imaginative. She was no longer the princess of my fairy tale; the spell had waned. But if her familiarity and naturalness upon further acquaintance were less romantic, they were more real, and had some of the actuality of prose. We could still be good friends, for I liked her immensely. Perhaps she had thought we had gone too far sentimentally, and was trying to put our relations upon a firmer and more matter-of-fact basis. Perhaps, even, Doctor Copin's visit had, in some way, affected her, and she had considered that her _entente_ with me was becoming dangerous. Well, it was certainly my place, as a stranger thrust upon her hospitality, to take whatever cue she gave me, disappointing as that line of conduct should prove. For I had been stirred and awakened by her. I could not deny that to myself. And no doubt I had taken her altogether too seriously.

I saw no more of her till late in the afternoon, but, meanwhile, Leah made me a welcome visit. After luncheon she asked me, quite modestly, if I would like her to read to me or would rather play chess. I chose the reading, wanting very much the opportunity of studying her. Her attention seemed, however, to be distracted; I was sure of it when, a little later, she excused herself to go downstairs. Then I noticed the barking of the dogs, high-pitched and excited.

She came back soon to finish her reading, and, that done, we fell to talking. As she sat, her dark face was outlined against the white woodwork of the alcove like a silhouette. Her white teeth shone.

I asked her about her education.

"I went to a school for colored women," she said, "fitting myself to be a teacher. But of course it's hard for a colored girl to get a chance, except with her own race, and I didn't want to go South. Then I got this place with Miss Fielding."

"I can't imagine any situation more delightful," I said, watching her.

Her eyes burned, smothered in quickening tears, but her voice was calm enough. "It's lovely here. I don't mind the loneliness a bit. It's nothing to what I have endured in big cities."

She gave it to me simply, with no apparent bid for sympathy, but I knew enough of the pathetic isolation of the educated negro, cut off from any real mental communion with the blacks as well as with the whites, to interpret the repression of her manner. There was a tragedy in her words.

"Well," I said, "it strikes me that you're in luck to be here with such a companion as Miss Fielding. And she's as fortunate, too. I'm sure you get on beautifully. Still, how she can stand it, away off from every one, I don't see quite so well."

"Do you think she's--unhappy!" Leah asked after a pause.

"Certainly not to-day, at least. Yesterday I shouldn't have been quite so sure that she wasn't."

"Oh, she has her moods," Leah admitted. "I do my best to indulge them." She looked up at me. "So must you, too, Mr. Castle!" She held my eyes deliberately, as if expecting my promise.

"How could I be so ungrateful as not to, in the circumstances?"

"I mean--you see, she doesn't like to be questioned. I have to be very careful. She has her fancies, and often seems inconsistent, even a bit eccentric. It may be her life here alone. You know she sees so few people. You won't notice it?" Still her eyes appealed to me.

"I shan't at least show that I do."

She seemed dissatisfied.

"Except, perhaps, to you," I added, trying, as I had tried with Miss Fielding, to get to the bottom of her dread.

"Oh, not to me," she begged. "She's too fine for us to be discussing. I've said too much already, I'm afraid. I don't know why I did. Only----"

I said it for her. "Only, I am quartered on you, here, and you can't get rid of me. You have, in a way, a spy in camp. By an accident, I'm here, and you're at my mercy. Isn't that it? You don't, I mean, quite know what I am, and you'd like to be able to trust me, whatever happens." It was a jump in the dark for me.

I could see her fingers working; she had clasped her hands.

"Oh, I hope I haven't given you the idea that anything is likely to happen," she said anxiously. "If I have, I'm quite sorry I spoke. If you'll only take everything quite as a matter of course--that's all I mean--her moods, you know, and not think things--" She ended without attempting to be more lucid, for there was a sound of some one coming up-stairs.

Miss Fielding came into the room, and her delicate right eyebrow rose at seeing Leah sitting there, doing nothing.

"Leah, go down and tie up the dogs; they're chasing all over the place!" Her voice was crisp and peremptory.

Leah went away quietly; I got a swift glance of mute appeal at me as she left. Miss Fielding came to my side and looked down at me quizzically, her thumbs in her belt.

"Do you mind telling me your name?" she said. "It's rather awkward not to know, you know."

"Oh, Castle's my real name, right enough," I answered.

"Castle?" she repeated, and then, as if recollecting: "Of course, but I meant your first name." Her face cleared.

"Chester Castle," I enlarged. "A good name for an architect, isn't it?"

"An architect, really? Then I'll have to get you to help me on my little house. But you're too good-looking for an architect," she laughed. "I thought they always wore pointed beards, like doctors."

"Oh, I'm not a Beaux-Arts man," I said, keeping up with her mood.

"Are you married?"

"No, I'm happy to say I'm not."

"So am I!" she laughed. "That is to say, I'm glad _I'm_ not, and I'm glad you're not. My name is Joy. Isn't it silly? It doesn't fit me at all. I ought to have been called Edna."

"Very well, then, you shall be!" I volunteered.

She took it without surprise or annoyance. "Oh, I don't stand on ceremony. That's silly. If you're going to stay here for a week I shall have to call you Chester. Do you mind? It's an awful bore to have to say 'Mr. Castle' all the time."

"By all means. My mother and my friends call me 'Chet'--"

"That's better still. Chet." She tried it audibly. "I rather like that."

"You're welcome to it." I laughed at her directness.

"But you haven't asked me any questions! I should think you'd be curious. Really, it isn't at all complimentary to have you so indifferent."

"Oh, I'm only keeping 'on the island'," I returned.

"Keeping--what?"

"Don't you remember--about staying 'on the island'? You know you asked me yourself to."

"Oh, yes--did I? I forget." The puzzled look on her face had appeared again, but was driven away. "Well, there really isn't much to know about me. It's stupid enough here at Midmeadows. It's my own place, you know. It used to belong to my grandfather. I've had it ever since he died. I suppose it's good for me here, for I'm ill a good part of the time. I'm up and I'm down. But when I'm up, I'm up pretty high, and when I'm down, I'm 'way down in the depths."

She had sat down in a chair and had crossed her legs, one over the other, wagging one foot and clasping her hands across her knees so tightly that the blood was driven from her white knuckles to the ends of her purple fingers. It is always an awkward pose; I have often wondered how a pretty girl could ever take it. Now she drew her chair closer to the bedside and took my hand.

"Let me see your hand," she said suddenly. "I'll read your palm, if you like."

She bent over it, drawing so near that her head was quite close to mine, so close that, had it not been for the perfume she used, I should have got the odor of her hair. When she turned to me, smiling, she seemed very near indeed, though none too near me. She began her reading of the lines, holding my hand in both hers, pointing to the signs with one finger, trying the resistance of my thumb, squeezing the flesh to determine its firmness, kneading it and handling it in quite the professional manner. It took her some time. The opinions she gave me were not particularly affording, but they were rather cleverly put. She made a good deal of my "magnetism," saying that she could actually feel it. I was properly flattered. I could feel hers, easily enough.

Then she dropped my hand, rose and yawned as freely as had Nokomis herself.

"I'm starving!" she exclaimed. "I must see what's the matter with dinner. I'm sorry you can't come down, Chet. I hate to eat all alone."

"Why, doesn't Leah eat with you?" I asked, surprised.

"No, I can't quite go _that_!" she said emphatically, as she made an irrelevant athletic gesture. "I have to draw the line somewhere, you know. I have Uncle Jerdon sometimes, though, just for the fun of seeing him eat. He's perfectly lovely! He holds his fork in the Kansas City style, this way--" She illustrated a familiar restaurant attitude, with the thumb and little finger of her left hand braced under a paper-knife, the three middle fingers curled atop. "Then he always loads up his fork with his knife, a little piece of meat, and a little piece of potato, and a little dab of butter and a little swish of gravy and then--" She showed me how, pretending to toss it into her mouth, and wiped her lips with the back of her hand, in a way that made me laugh aloud. "You could hear him eat, 'way up here! Golly! it makes me hungry to talk about it!" she added. "I'll see you later, Chet. Oh--I'll send you up some current jelly. I made it myself; sure cure for the measles! Remember, you have to like it!" And she was off in a two-step.

I smiled to myself at her pantomime, after she was gone. How I had misjudged her at first! She seemed commoner, but our friendship was, perhaps, more natural. She was no longer the wonderful, exotic, medieval princess in the tower, but she was a frank, wholesome creature, full of human charms and faults. I decided, by reason of that sane analysis, that I was improving in health. My bang on the head, no doubt, had made me unduly impressionable.

She did not keep her word in regard to coming in after dinner. Leah brought up my tray, as usual, and took it away, saying that she was unable to stay with me. She seemed abstracted and nervous, and I forbore to question her. I spent a dreary evening alone.

The pounding went on for two hours or more after dinner, and then Miss Fielding came up-stairs to her room. She contented herself with putting her head through the doorway and calling out "Good night, Chet!" and then I heard her door slam. There was no talk between the two women that I could hear.

*V*

"Sliced kisses, fried in tears," were the words I heard Miss Fielding reply to Leah's morning call, early the next day. I had waited long, for the day was bright and I wakened at sunrise. Her fanciful order put one immediately into a good humor, and I was intensely curious to see what the day would bring forth.

The collies were barking vociferously, joyously. Suddenly they stopped, and then, one by one, I heard them greet their mistress. It was very prettily done. Leah, coming in, found me smiling, and smiled back at me. Seeing me so much better, she offered timidly to help dress me, and I welcomed her proposal to bring me hot water and what was necessary for shaving. My own clothes had been sent down, so I prepared myself for my chatelaine's visit.

Joy came into my room with a sweet, low, "Good morning, Mr. Castle!" which threw me back not a little, after what had taken place on the yesterday. I was about to hazard some good-natured sarcasm, but the sight of her face inhibited it, and something of what Leah had said came back to me. I answered the greeting without comment, therefore, and waited for her to set the pace.

She was in an exquisitely fresh, simple organdy frock, and had on a garden hat and gauntleted garden gloves; her arms were filled with roses. Her brow wrinkled slightly as she noticed the fading blossoms which had been left in the vases.