Part 5

Her temper passed off almost as soon as it had risen, and she was as gay as before. So until luncheon-time, she worked while I looked over the magazines and talked with her.

We sat, at luncheon, on opposite sides of the table in a long and rather narrow room without windows, lighted by a huge skylight. The walls of this strange place were covered with an old-fashioned imitation tapestry paper whose fanciful patterns consisted of consecutive scenes from _The Lady of the Lake_. Everything about the table was heavy, spotless, valuable and old, from the yellow linen to the hand-made forks and spoons. We were waited upon by King, a smiling, round-faced Chinaman with a cue coiled up on top of his head, and wearing a snowy white uniform. He moved like a ghost in and out. Leah and Uncle Jerdon I noticed, when the door was opened, eating at a table in the kitchen.

Miss Fielding and I spent the afternoon together in the library. She worked and talked alternately; it appeared that she could not do both at once, and always had to stop with her tool in hand when she spoke to me, like a child. Occasionally she would come over to my chair and seat herself familiarly upon the arm as she joked with me. Then she would spring up, to galumph up and down the room, sidewise, running her hand mischievously through my hair as she passed. I took no notice of the liberty, but I was a little surprised at it. It began to rain that afternoon and by five o'clock it was so dark that Leah came in to light the candles in the silver sconces on the walls. Miss Fielding's spirits were gradually tamed. I asked her to play the violin for me but she refused moodily without excuses.

Our talk fell to books, and I went back to Leah's surprising love for Browning.

"Oh, Leah knows more than is good for her," Miss Fielding said. She was on the window-seat, looking out at the steadily falling rain, her feet curled up under her. "Leah's so educated that she's unhappy; it's a great mistake, that. I can't seem to keep her in her place any more. But really, I don't see any poetry in Browning, do you?"

"Why!" I said, "I thought you were fond of Browning--that you 'felt' him, even if you didn't 'see' him. Didn't Leah do that for you?"

"Leah! Fancy! What d'you mean by 'seeing' and 'feeling' him, anyway?" She turned to me with her chin resting on the curled back of her hand.

"They're your own words," I answered, testily perhaps.

She opened her eyes wider. "Oh, I mean what do _you_ mean?"

I didn't answer.

"If I said it," she continued slowly, as if searching for a plausible excuse, and then giving it up, "I suppose I was trying to impress you. You mustn't expect me to be consistent _all_ the time."

"I'll never expect you to be again," I said, now irritated by her contrariness. I suppose I showed it in my tone.

She came right over to me, and took my hand, sitting on the arm of my chair. "Oh, Chet," she pleaded, "don't mind me. I'm a fool, and I know it. I know you don't approve of me any more, but I can't stand it to have you cross with me. I can't bluff you any longer, so I might as well tell you. The fact is, my memory is bad. It's really a disease. Amnesia is the name of it. Now do you see? It isn't my fault, is it? I can't depend upon myself for anything. Sometimes I absolutely forget all about a thing that happened only yesterday. I have great blank spaces in my life when I don't know what has happened. It's perfectly awful! Did you ever hear of any one like that?"

"Do you really mean to tell me that you forget what you said to me about Browning?" I asked her, taking her hand, for I was filled with a sudden pity.

"Yes, Chet, sure I do!" She rolled my seal ring between her fingers as she looked down.

"And about preferring 'Joy' to 'Edna', too?"

"Oh, did I say that, too? Yes, I forget."

"It doesn't seem possible!" I exclaimed. Then, tentatively, almost fearfully, for it seemed the crux: "And about 'the island'?" I held my breath.

"What 'island'?"

I dropped her hand. It was too much for me. "Oh, never mind." I sighed. "I'm very sorry. But I don't quite see, yet. Has this anything to do with your refusal to play for me?"

She rose, now, and tossed her head back, with that shake I had noticed before. The gesture seemed to be the only link between her two moods, and, for a moment, she seemed to be again the melancholy princess. But the phase passed instantly, and she grew petulant.

"I don't know how to play well enough. It bores me."

I refused to let her off, however. "Then how about playing chess?"

She shrugged her shoulders and said: "Oh, I haven't got the kind of brain for chess."

My mind leaped over the remark, obviously untrue, to get to the other side of the perversity, where I might see more clearly.

"But it's incredible!" I cried. "How do you get along? How do you account for things? Do you mean to tell me that you can't remember yesterday, for instance? Not even what you did?"

She was growing more and more impatient. "No--sometimes I don't know how much time I've lost at all. You see, it's like being asleep, that's all. That's what Doctor Copin comes down here for."

"Oh, I see!" I exclaimed.

"That, and other things--" she hinted coquettishly.

"Ah?" I raised my eyebrows. "Among the other things, I suppose, is the fact that you're perfectly charming."

"Oh, I don't think he quite ignores that," she laughed, and then, her mood changing, as if it had been pent up by such serious discussion and sought relief, she bounded away and galumphed madly up and down the room, waving her hands.

After dinner we spent the evening by the fire. She had put on an evening gown of black net over silver tissue, in which she looked more like a princess than ever. But it was only the costume now; her demeanor was far from royal. She snuggled herself into a bunch on the fur rug by the hearth, disclosing one slender ankle and a stocking of snaky silver silk. Had she not been so slender and _petite_, I might almost say she sprawled, though her hoidenish abandon was not quite immodest. She had her coffee and a cigarette or two, chattering a steady stream meanwhile. I could get no more about her malady out of her; the subject seemed to annoy her. But I could not get it out of my mind. I went back over what had passed, and found that her explanation accounted for much that had baffled me. Still, it did not account for everything. It did not account, for instance, for the way she now treated me.

She got up, after a while, as if annoyed at my abstraction, and began to roam up and down the room.

"I guess coffee makes me a little drunk," she remarked. I did not quite get the point of this till she stopped behind my chair and ran her fingers through my hair carelessly.

"What a jolly wig you've got, Chet! Your hair is almost as fine as mine."

The familiarity made me, I confess, somewhat uncomfortable. I was neither a prig nor a prude, but her talk of the afternoon had wrought on me. I couldn't quite see my way. I didn't at all like, for instance, what she had said about Doctor Copin's coming down--for more than one reason. Perhaps it was this, more than any instinctive dislike of her unconventionality, that put me on my guard with her, and made me appear to ignore what I acknowledge, in other circumstances I might have been tempted to take advantage of. For she was distinctly making up to me. I could see that very plainly. She did like me. So I was unchivalrous enough, or chivalrous enough, if you like, to try to keep her at arm's length, though that is putting it rather too strongly.

It was not so easy, though, that night, with the seclusion, the comfortable open fire, the soft lights, and the rain outside. The situation was romantic; I was alone with a pretty girl, prettily gowned, and quite frankly desirous of a little more intimate companionship than I vouchsafed. Somehow I was rather proud of myself, having at that time, after all, such hazy reasons for forbearance. I scarcely need add to this that I was becoming fond of Miss Fielding, in spite of the puzzling mystery about her. She was alluring in any mood. My intuitions, however, were all for caution.

With such distractions the hours flew fast. The candles burned low and flickered till we talked only by the light of the fire. She told me a good deal of her life as a girl--there were no lapses of memory at that time--how she had been left an orphan and had always been more or less of a hermit thereafter. Part of the time she played with my hand, quite as a child might. Part of the time she sat, her chin at her knees, gazing into the dying flames in the fireplace. Then she would smile, look up suddenly, and quote some nonsense rhyme, or make fun of my discretion. Her body was never quite still; she was nervous and restless. If nothing else about her moved, her toe would be describing little circles on the rug.

She and Leah helped me up-stairs at ten o'clock. Miss Fielding flung me a cheery "Good night, Chet!" and went into her room alone.

A few minutes after, I heard a soft tapping at my door. Leah was there with a jug of milk and some biscuits.

"I thought you might like something to eat, perhaps, before you went to bed," she said. "Miss Joy forgot to speak of it."

"Thank you, Leah," I said, taking the little tray. I was about to close the door when she gave me a look that delayed me.

"Did you want anything else?" I asked.

"Do you mind if I speak to you for a minute?" she asked. She stopped and listened intently for a moment.

"Leah, where in the world are you?" Miss Fielding called impatiently.

Leah, spoke in an undertone to me. "Please wait. I'll be in as soon as I can." Then she went into Miss Fielding's room.

I left my door ajar and sat down by the window. The rain had ceased, and a full moon was breaking through masses of drifting cumulous clouds over the top of the hill behind the house. I could hear the dogs snapping and growling occasionally in their sleep, and below, in his little box of a room off the library, Uncle Jerdon's deep snoring. I must have been there for fifteen minutes before Leah reappeared with her candle. She shut the door noiselessly and came softly up to my side.

"Mr. Castle, how are you feeling, now?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm afraid I'm getting well," I said, smiling. "Why? Do you think I ought to be leaving?" I asked the question jocosely, but she took it up with seriousness.

"I'm really afraid you'd better, Mr. Castle." She looked me square in the eyes. Her own shone very wide and deep.

"I don't wish to hurry you," she went on, "but it will be much better for you to leave as soon as you can. You'll forgive me for mentioning it, won't you? I hope that you won't think that I don't realize my position; but--I can only say that I am doing what I think is best. If I weren't so sure that you are a gentleman, and a friend of Miss Joy's, I'd never dare mention it. But, oh, there'll be trouble if you stay, and Heaven knows we've had trouble enough." Her voice grew lower at the end of her sentence, and then she breathed poignantly, "Oh, _please_ go!"

I felt a pang of self-reproach and a great pity for her. "Oh, I'll go!" I reassured her. "I understand. Or, at least, if I don't quite understand, I'm sure you're quite right. I think I can get away to-morrow morning, if you'll get the carriage for me."

"I'll attend to that. Uncle Jerdon can drive you to the station. And don't, please, mention it to Miss Joy that I spoke to you about it. She may ask you to stay--she likes you, really; but she doesn't know what I know, and I don't dare tell her." She clasped her hands and pressed them closely to her breast in the intensity of her feeling, as she added, "You must help me, Mr. Castle! I have nobody else to turn to."

"Are you sure that I can't help you by staying here?" I asked. "I'll do anything you suggest. Why can't you trust me? I dread to think of your having to fight it out alone, whatever it is."

"Oh, I don't dare to tell--I have no right to tell," she moaned, turning half away, looking down. "Indeed, I wish I might. It's breaking my heart." She turned to me again with a desperate glance. "We'll get on, somehow."

"The doctor will help you, won't he? Surely you can trust him?"

She gave me a frightened look, and her white teeth shone through her parted lips, gleaming in contrast to her fine dark face. Then her eyes strayed again, and she said, slowly, "Do _you_ think he can be trusted?"

"Why not?" I replied, watching her sharply. "How, at any rate, can I tell, after having seen him only once?"

She gave a quick indrawn sigh. "Oh, once was enough for _me_!"

"You mean--that you _don't_ trust him?" I exclaimed in surprise.

"I mean I'm not sure that I do." She was speaking slowly now, choosing her words with an effort. "That's quite as bad, isn't it? For I don't know what to do about him. I am afraid that I may make things worse, perhaps."

"You're sure that you can't tell me?"

"Oh, I daren't! If I were only sure, I might, but even then it would be hard." Her voice was plaintive, and yet her accent was decisive.

There was a pause in which I thought of many things. As I waited, uncertain, my eyes stayed on the fine, erect, colored girl before me, so passionately loyal to her mistress, so delicately sensitive to the anomalous part she was playing. Though her resolution had in no way broken down, I could see how she was wrought upon, how difficult a position was hers in that strange house.

"Well," I said finally, "there's of course nothing for me to do, then, but to leave. Miss Fielding has told me explicitly that your judgment can be depended upon. I have no right here, of course; I'm an interloper----"

She put a dark, well-shaped hand on my arm, in timid reproach.

"Yet, I hope you can trust me," I added, not hesitating to clasp that hand in friendship and confidence.

She took it away quickly, but looked at me with her soul in her dark eyes. "Oh, I'm sure of you!" she said simply.

"You make it very hard for me to go," I ventured.

"I shall think of you," she replied. "I shall long for your strength and judgment. I must think it over, more, and try to decide on a line of action. It may be--I won't promise--that I shall send for you to come down."

"I'll come at a moment's notice!" I exclaimed. "Oh, do let me help in some way!"

"Would you?" She clasped her hands to her breast again and sighed, as if I had really helped her by my promise. Then, "I'm glad to be able to know that. Miss Joy likes you. I think you have a rare sympathy for her condition. It's a relief. Then we'll leave it that way. So you'll go?"

"To-morrow morning," I answered.

*VII*

We met, next morning, in the library, for I could move alone, now, and had gone down early. My hostess, dressed in white duck, was in her most exquisitely graceful mood, quite the delicate, refined, intense woman I had first known.

"Do you really think that it's safe for you to leave to-day!" she asked, when I had announced my intention to her. "I am afraid we shall miss you very much, Mr. Castle. I feel quite as if I had made a friend."

"If you do, it more than repays me for my accident, Miss Fielding. It only remains for you to prove it by permitting me to do something for you."

She smiled quickly. "Stay here a while longer, then!"

"Ah, you know how glad I'd be to! But I really must get back. I've imposed on your hospitality unconscionably, already."

"Oh, well," she turned to the window, "if you're going to pay me the conventional compliments, we won't press it."

"If you knew what an immensely unwarranted interest I've begun to take in you, you'd spare _me_," I replied.

She held out her hand to me, her graceful fingers slightly divergent, exquisitely posed. "Thank you for your gallantry," she said. "You came out of the dark, were literally dumped here, you know, and it has been wonderful that we have understood each other as well as we have." She stayed my interruption, with a wave of her hand. "Oh, I understand you, I think, at least well enough to be sure of you. But, let's be frank--you don't _quite_ understand me, yet. You don't quite approve of me. Nevertheless, you like me, and we can be friends. It may indeed be that I shall put you, sometime, to the test, and give you the chance of proving it. Until that time comes, you'll have to stay on the island, Mr. Castle, I'm afraid."

I saw by these words that she must have forgotten her revelations of the night before. It didn't seem quite fair not to let her know. So, risking her displeasure, I came out with it.

"May I venture to remind you of what you said last night?"

She looked hard at me. "What did I say? What do you mean? About what? We talked of so many things, you know." She was embarrassed, on the defense, watching eagerly my first word of enlightenment.

"About your memory," I prompted.

"My memory? I don't quite recall--" Her lips were parted and her fists closed a little as she waited.

"About your having amnesia, you know."

Her hand went to her heart.

"I only mention it," I said, "because I don't want to take advantage of any ignorance you may have concerning my position--and what I _do_ know. If you have forgotten possibly, I think I ought to tell you, for I can't pretend to be on the island when I am not. It seems to me that quite in spite of myself I've got off it. What you said about Doctor Copin----"

She caught me up, now, a little wildly, discarding further attempt at evasion. Her face had suddenly grown white. "What did I say?" she asked.

"Oh, only that he was treating you for the amnesia," I replied. I couldn't possibly repeat the rest of it.

She put her hands to her face for a moment, hiding its expression. Then she withdrew them, compressed her lips, and, tipping her head back a little, shook it with the old gesture, as if to regain control of herself. Then she came up to me and put both her hands on my shoulders.

"It isn't your fault, I know, Mr. Castle. But you _are_ off the island, and I'm afraid--that it's all over, now."

"Isn't it really all begun, rather?" I replied.

Her hands dropped to her sides, and she walked away to the window. "Oh, I don't know, I don't know!" she moaned. "You have made me think terrible things. But never mind. I didn't want you to know about me, I hoped we could be friends without. I couldn't risk it, I can't risk it now. You mustn't try to find out, you mustn't even wonder. Just be a little sorry for me--and wait."

She sat down in the broad window-seat, and laid her head back for a moment among the silk pillows, with a wearied settling of her body, closing her eyes. I didn't know what to say or do, so I did nothing, and was silent. She sat up again, took the crystal prism that still lay there, and gazed into it abstractedly, as if she were seeing visions. Then, still holding it, she looked up at me with a faraway smile. It was a new expression I saw on her face; it had the pathetic look of some elf, lost in a strange, terrible land. At last she said, "Come over here, and sit down beside me, please!"

I did so; and, still fondling the prism, which shot prismatic colors into the room, she said, as with great effort:

"Did you ever, in your childhood, read the story of the _White Cat_? It's a fairy tale, you know."

The name had struck me as familiar when she used it before, but I could not recall the story.

"It was one of those tales of the three quests, wasn't it?" I said.

"Yes; there are many variations of the same theme. It is the story of a king and his three sons. The father decided first to leave his throne to the one who would find the smallest dog in the world; then he gave them another quest, to find a piece of cloth that would go through the eye of a needle. Of course, the youngest son won each time, but the king wasn't contented, and for the final test commanded them to find the most beautiful lady in the world."

"And the youngest son won, of course. He always does, but he never plays fair. He's always helped by a fairy godmother or something."

"Of course. Such are the ethics of Fairyland. This prince was helped by a white cat. While he was on his travels he found her castle in a deep forest, and he was carried in by invisible hands."

"Just like me," I remarked.

She looked at me for a moment with an amusing expression of surprise, and a timid smile crept to her face. "That's so, isn't it? How queer! Why, I'll have to give you my little Hiawatha, to carry it out, won't I? Will you take him?"

"Oh, if you would!" I said. "I'd love to have him. It will be delightful to have something that has belonged to you."

"He's not the smallest dog in the world, but he's yours."

"And the third quest?" I reminded her.

"The third quest was the hardest of all. He came to White Cat's castle again, and he stayed a year. They had a most delightful time together."

"I can understand _that_. Just as we have had."

Her gaze went down to her feet. "Yes, just as we have had here at Midmeadows."

I reached over and took the prism from her hand. I couldn't help wanting to touch her, however casually.

"And of course--you don't need to tell me--he did find the fairest lady in the whole world."

She smiled dimly and clasped her hands. "Thank you," she said, not too absorbed to pay me most graciously for my compliment. Then, more seriously, she added, "Yes, I am the White Cat. That is the way you must think of me, when you have gone. The enchanted White Cat!"

I dared not answer. All the peculiar moods she had shown me came up for a new vision. So she knew that something was the matter, something of which her amnesia was only a symptom. She had never come so close to it before. I stooped down, took her hand and carried it to my lips.

"White Cat," I said, "I don't know whether you are enchanted or not, but I know you're enchanting!"

"Be careful I don't scratch you!" she said, a little bitterly.

"Ah, White Cat never did that, I'm sure."

"Yes, once, when she was invisible. The Prince doubted her. Do you know how it ended?" she asked.

"How?"

"White Cat told the Prince that, to destroy the fatal work of the fairies, it was necessary for him to cut off her head and her tail and fling them into the fire." She put her hand gently upon mine. "Would you do that for me, if I asked it?"

I puzzled with it. There was something tragic in her tone, but I was quite at a loss to interpret her symbolism.

"Would it ever come to that? Are you likely to call on me?" I asked her.

She tipped back her head again, shaking away some unpleasant idea.

"Ah, this is only the first quest, you know. You may never come again to my palace. But _would_ you?"

A dreadful meaning came straight from her eyes to mine.

"No, I'm afraid I would not. It would be too terrible!"

She threw off a light laugh, and rose and walked to the book-case beside the chimney. Here she took down an old, tattered, red-covered volume and rapidly turned the pages till she found her place. Then she came back to her seat beside me, and, pointing to the lines, read aloud:

"'I!' exclaimed the Prince. 'Blanchette, my love! I be so barbarous as to kill you! Ah! you would doubtless try my heart; but rest assured it is incapable of forgetting the love and gratitude it owes to you.'

"'No, son of a king,' continued she, 'I do not suspect thee of ingratitude. I know thy worth. It is neither thou nor I who in this affair can control our destiny. Do as I bid thee. We shall both of us begin to be happy, and, on the faith of a cat of reputation and honor, thou wilt acknowledge that I am truly thy friend.'"

"But it ended happily, like all fairy tales. So will yours, I'm sure," I remarked.