Temple Bailey - The Trumpeter Swan

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"If you'll make a cup of tea," Becky said, "I'll take it up to Aunt
Claudia. She's lying down."

"Is you goin' wid her?" Mandy asked.

"To New York? No. She'll want Truxton all to herself, Mandy."

"Well, I hopes she has him," Mandy husked an ear of corn viciously. "I
ain' got my boy. He hol's his haid so high, he ain' got no time fo' his
ol' Mammy."

"You know you are proud of him, Mandy."

"I ain' sayin' I is, and I ain' sayin' I isn't. But dat Daisy down the
road, she ac' like she own him."

"Oh, Daisy? Is he in love with her?"

"Love," with withering scorn, "_love_? Ain' he got somefin' bettah to do
than lovin' when he's jes' fit and fought fo' Uncle Sam?" She beat the
eggs for her batter as if she had Daisy's head under the whip. "He fit
and fought fo' Uncle Sam," she repeated, "and now he comes home and
camps hisse'f on Daisy's do'-step."

Against the breeze of such high indignation, any argument would be blown
away. Becky changed the subject hastily. "Mandy," she asked, "are you
making corn fritters?"

"I is----"

"What else for lunch?"

"An omlec----"

"Mandy, I'm so hungry I could eat a house----"

"You look it," Mandy told her; "effen I was you, I'd eat and git fat."

"It isn't fashionable to be fat, Mandy."

"Skeletums may be in style," said Mandy, breaking eggs for the omelette,
"but I ain' ever found good looks in bones."

"Don't you like _my_ bones, Mandy?"

"You ain't got none, honey."

"You called me a skeleton."

The kettle boiled. "Effen I called you a skeletum," Mandy said as she
placed a cup and saucer on a small napkined tray, "my min' was on dat-ar
Daisy. You ain' got no bones, Miss Becky. But Daisy, she's got a neck
like a picked tukkey, and her shoulder-blades stan' out like wings."

III

Becky went to the train with her aunt. George Dalton drove Madge down
and passed the old surrey on the way.

Later Madge met Mrs. Beaufort and Becky on the station platform, and it
was when Dalton settled her in her chair in the train that she said,
"She's a darling. Keep her on a pedestal, Georgie----"

"You're a good sport," he told her; "you know you'd hate it if I did."

"I shouldn't. I'd like to think of you on your knees----"

It was time for him to leave her. She gave him her hand. "Until we meet
again, Georgie."

Her eyes were cool and smiling. Yet later as she looked out on the
flying hills, there was trouble in them. There had been a time when
Dalton had seemed to square with her girlish dreams.

And now, there was no one to warn this other girl with dreams in her
eyes. George was not a vulture, he was simply a marauding bee----!

Becky was already in the surrey when George came back, and Calvin was
gathering up his reins.

"Oh, look here, I wish you'd let me drive you up, Miss Bannister,"
George said, sparkling; "there's no reason, is there, why you must ride
alone?"

"Oh, no."

"Then you will?"

Her hesitation was slight. "I should like it."

"And can't we drive about a bit? You'll show me the old places? It is
such a perfect day. I hope you haven't anything else to do."

She had not. "I'll go with Mr. Dalton, Calvin."

Calvin, who had watched over more than one generation of Bannister
girls, and knew what was expected of them, made a worried protest.

"Hit's gwine rain, Miss Becky."

Dalton dismissed him with a wave of the hand. "I won't let her get wet,"
he lifted Becky from the surrey and walked with her to his car.

Kemp, who had come down in the house truck with Madge's trunks, stood
stiff and straight by the door. Being off with Miss MacVeigh he was on
with Miss Bannister. Girls might come and girls might go in his master's
life, but Kemp had an air of going on forever.

When he had seated Becky, Dalton stepped back and gave hurried
instructions.

"At four, Kemp," he said, "or if you are later, wait until we come."

"Very well, sir." Kemp stood statuesquely at attention until the car
whirled on. Then he sat down on the station platform, and talked to the
agent. He was no longer a servant but a man.

As the big car whirled up the hill, Becky, looking out upon the familiar
landscape, saw it with new eyes. There was a light upon it which had
never been for her on sea or land. She had not believed that in all the
world there could be such singing, blossoming radiance.

They drove through the old mill town and the stream was bright under the
willows. They stopped on the bridge for a moment to view the shining
bend.

"There are old chimneys under the vines," Becky said; "doesn't it seem
dreadful to think of all those dead houses----"

George gave a quick turn. "Why think of them? You were not made to think
of dead houses, you were made to live."

On and on they went, up the hills and down into the valleys, between
rail fences which were a riot of honeysuckle, and with the roads in
places rough under their wheels, with the fields gold with stubble, the
sky a faint blue, with that thick look on the horizon.

George talked a great deal about himself. Perhaps if he had listened
instead to Becky he might have learned things which would have surprised
him. But he really had very interesting things to tell, and Becky was
content to sit in silence and watch his hands on the wheel. They were
small hands, and for some tastes a bit too plump and well-kept, but
Becky found no fault with them. She felt that she could sit there
forever, and watch his hands and listen to his clear quick voice.

At last George glanced at the little clock which hung in front of him.
"Look here," he said, "I told Kemp to have tea for us at a place which I
found once when I walked in the woods. A sort of summer house which
looks towards Monticello. Do you know it?"

"Yes. Pavilion Hill. It's on Randy Paine's plantation--King's Crest."

"Then you've been there?"

"A thousand times with Randy."

"I thought it was Waterman's. We shan't be jailed as trespassers, shall
we?"

"No. But how could you tell your man to have tea for us when you didn't
know that I'd be--willing?"

"But I did--know----"

A little silence, then "How?"

"Because when I put my mind on a thing I usually get my way."

She sat very still. He bent down to her. "You're not angry?"

"No." Her cheeks were flaming. She was thrilled by his masterfulness. No
man had ever spoken to her like that. She was, indeed, having her first
experience of ardent, impassioned pursuit. So might young Juliet have
given ear to Romeo. And if Romeo had been a Georgie-Porgie, then alas,
poor Juliet!

The Pavilion had been built a hundred and fifty years before of cedar
logs. There had been a time when Thomas Jefferson had walked over to
drink not tea, but something stronger with dead and gone Paines. Its
four sides were open, but the vines formed a curtain which gave within a
soft gloom. They approached it from the east side, getting out of their
car and climbing the hill from the roadside. They found Kemp with
everything ready. The kettle was boiling, and the tea measured into the
Canton teapot which stood in its basket----

"Aren't you glad you came?" Dalton asked. "Kemp, when you've poured the
tea, you can look after the car."

The wind, rising, tore the dry leaves from the trees. Kemp, exiled, as
it were, from the Pavilion, sat in the big car and watched the
gathering blackness. Finally he got out and put up the curtains.
Everything would be ready when Dalton came. He knew better, however,
than to warn his master. George was apt to be sharp when his plans were
spoiled.

And now throughout the wooded slope there was the restless movement of
nature disturbed in the midst of peaceful dreaming. The trees bent and
whispered. The birds, flying low, called sharp warnings. A small dog,
spurning the leaves, as she followed a path up the west side of the
hill, stopped suddenly and looked back at the man who followed her.

"We'll make the Pavilion if we can, old girl," he told her, and as if
she understood, she went up and up in a straight line, disregarding the
temptation of side tours into bush and bramble.

George and Becky had finished their tea. There had been some rather
delectable sweet biscuit which Kemp kept on hand for such occasions, and
there was a small round box of glace nuts, which George had insisted
that Becky must keep. The box was of blue silk set off by gold lace and
small pink roses.

"Blue is your color," George had said as he presented it.

"That's what Randy says."

"You are always talking of Randy."

She looked her surprise. "I've always known him."

"Is he in love with you?"

She set down the box and looked at him. "Randy is only a boy. I am very
fond of him. But we aren't either of us--silly."

She brought the last sentence out with such scorn that George had a
moment of startled amaze.

Then, recovering, he said with a smile, "Is being in love silly?"

"I think it's rather sacred----"

The word threw him back upon himself. Love was, you understand, to
George, a game. And here was Becky acting as if it were a ritual.

Yet the novelty of her point of view made her seem more than ever
adorable. In his heart he found himself saying, "Oh, you lovely, lovely
little thing."

But he did not say it aloud. Indeed he, quite unaccountably, found
himself unable to say anything, and while he hesitated, there charged up
the west hill a panting dog with flapping ears. At the arched opening of
the Pavilion she paused and wagged a tentative question.

"It's Nellie Custis----" Becky rose and ran towards her. "Where's your
master, darling? _Randy_----"

In response to her call came an eerie cry--the old war cry of the Indian
chiefs. Then young Paine came running up. "Becky! Here? There's going to
be a storm. You better get home----"

He stopped short. Dalton was standing by the folding table.

"Hello, Paine," he said, with ease. "We're playing 'Babes in the Wood.'"

"You seem very comfortable," Randy was as stiff as a wooden tobacco
sign.

"We are," Becky said. "Mr. Dalton waved his wand like the Arabian
nights----"

"My man did it," said Dalton; "he's down there in the car."

Randy felt a sense of surging rage. The Pavilion was his. It was old and
vine-covered, and hallowed by a thousand memories. And here was Dalton
trespassing with his tables and chairs and his Canton teapot. What right
had George Dalton to bring a Canton teapot on another man's acres?

Becky was pouring tea for him. "Two lumps, Randy?"

"I don't want any tea," he said ungraciously. His eyes were appraising
the flame of her cheeks, the light in her eyes. What had Dalton been
saying? "I don't want any tea. And there's a storm coming."

All her life Becky had been terrified in a storm. She had cowered and
shivered at the first flash of lightning, at the first rush of wind, at
the first roll of thunder. And now she sat serene, while the trees waved
despairing arms to a furious sky, while blackness settled over the
earth, while her ears were assailed by the noise of a thousand guns.

What had come over her? More than anything else, the thing that struck
against Randy's heart was this lack of fear in Becky!

IV

Of course it was Dalton who took Becky home. There had been a sharp
summons to Kemp, who came running up with raincoats, a rush for the car,
a hurried "Won't you come with us, Randy?" from Becky, and Randy's curt
refusal, and then the final insult from Dalton.

"Kemp will get you home, Paine, when he takes the tea things."

Randy wanted to throw something after him--preferably a tomahawk--as
Dalton went down the hill, triumphantly, shielding Becky from the
elements.

He watched until a curtain of rain shut them out, but he heard the roar
of the motor cutting through the clamor of the storm.

"Well, they're off, sir," said Kemp cheerfully.

He was packing the Canton teapot in its basket and was folding up the
chairs and tables. Randy had a sense of outrage. Here he was, a
Randolph Paine of King's Crest, left behind in the rain with a man who
had his mind on--teapots---- He stood immovable in the arched opening,
his arms folded, and with the rain beating in upon him.

"You'll get wet," Kemp reminded him; "it's better on this side, sir."

"I don't mind the rain. I won't melt; I've had two years in France."

"You have, sir?" something in Kemp's voice made Randy turn and look at
him. The little man had his arms full of biscuit boxes, and he was
gazing at Randy with a light in his eyes which had not been for Dalton.

"I had three years myself. And the best of my life, sir."

Randy nodded. "A lot of us feel that way."

"The fighting," said Kemp, "was something awful. But it was--big--and
after it things seem a bit small, sir." He drew a long breath and came
back to his Canton teapot and his folding table and his plans for
departure.

"I'll be glad to take you in the little car, Mr. Paine."

"No," said Randy; "no, thank you, Kemp. I'll wait here until the storm
is over."

Kemp, with a black rubber cape buttoned about his shoulders and standing
out over his load like a lady's hoopskirts, bobbed down the path and
was gone.

Randy was glad to be alone. He was glad to get wet, he was glad of the
roar and of the tumult which matched the tumult in his soul.

Somehow he had never dreamed of this--that somebody would come into
Becky's life and take her away----

Nellie Custis shivered and whined. She hated thunder-storms. Randy sat
down on the step and she crept close to him. He laid his hand on her
head and fear left her--as fear had left Becky in the presence of
Dalton.

After that the boy and the dog sat like statues, looking out, and in
those tense and terrible moments a new spirit was born in Randolph
Paine. Hitherto he had let life bring him what it would. He had scarcely
dared hope that it would bring him Becky. But now he knew that if he
lost her he would face--chaos----

Well, he would not lose her. Or if he did, it would not be to let her
marry a man like Dalton. Surely she wouldn't. She _couldn't_---- But
there had been that light in her eyes, that flame in her cheek--that
lack of fear--Dalton's air of assurance, the way she had turned to him.

"Oh, God," he said suddenly, out loud, "don't let Dalton have her."

He was shaken by an emotion which bent his head to his knees. Nellie
Custis pressed close against him and whined.

"He shan't have her, Nellie. He shan't----"

He burned with the thought of Dalton's look of triumph. Dalton who had
carried Becky off, and had left him with Kemp and a Canton teapot.

He recalled Kemp's words. "After it things seem a bit small, sir."

Well, it shouldn't be small for him. It had seemed so big--over there.
So easy to--carry on.

If he only had a fighting chance. If he had only a half of Dalton's
money. A little more time in which to get on his feet.

But in the meantime here was Dalton--with his money, his motors, and his
masterfulness. And his look of triumph----

In a sudden fierce reaction he sprang to his feet. He stood in the
doorway as if defying the future. "Nobody shall take her away from me,"
he said, "she's mine----"

His arms were folded over his chest, his wet black locks almost hid his
eyes. So might some young savage have stood in the long ago, sending his
challenge forth to those same hills.

CHAPTER V

LITTLE SISTER

I

It is one thing, however, to fling a challenge to the hills, and another
to live up to the high moment. Looking at it afterwards in cold blood,
Randy was forced to admit that his chances of beating George Dalton in a
race for Becky were small.

There seemed some slight hope, however, in the fact that Becky was a
Bannister and ought to know a gentleman when she saw one.

"And Dalton's a--a bounder," said Randy to Nellie Custis.

Nellie Custis, who was as blue-blooded as any Bannister, cocked a
sympathetic ear. Cocking an ear with Nellie was a weighty matter. Her
ears were big and unmanageable. When she got them up, she kept them
there for some time. It was a rather intriguing habit, as it gave her an
air of eager attention which wooed confidence.

"He's a bounder," said Randy as if that settled it.

But it did not settle it in the least. A man with an Apollo head may not
be a gentleman under his skin, but how are you to prove it? The world,
spurning Judy O'Grady, sanctions the Colonel's lady, and their
sisterhood becomes socially negligible. Randy should have known that he
could not sweep George Dalton away with a word. Perhaps he did know it,
but he did not care to admit it.

He and Nellie Custis were in the garage. It had once been a barn, but
the boarders had bought cars, so there was now the smell of gasoline
where there had once been the sweet scent of hay. And intermittently the
air was rent with puffs and snorts and shrieks which drowned the music
of that living chorus which has been sung in stables for centuries.

There were three cars. Two of them have nothing to do with this story,
but the third will play its part, and merits therefore description.

It was not an expensive car, but it was new and shining, and had a perky
snub-nosed air of being ready for anything. It belonged to the genial
gentleman who used it without mercy, and thus the little car wove back
and forth over the hills like a shuttle, doing its work sturdily, coming
home somewhat noisily, and even at rest, seeming to ask for something
more to do.

The genial gentleman was very proud of his car. He talked a great deal
about it to Randy, and on this particular morning when he came out and
found young Paine sitting on a wheelbarrow with Nellie Custis lending
him a cocked ear, he grew eloquent.

"Look here, I've been thinking. There ought to be a lot of cars like
this in the county."

To Randy the enthusiasms of the genial gentleman were a constant source
of amazement. He was always wanting the world to be glad about
something. Randy felt that at this moment any assumption of gladness
would be a hollow mockery.

"Any man," said the genial gentleman, rubbing a cloth over the enamel of
the little car, "any man who would start selling this machine down here
would make a fortune."

Randy pricked up his ears.

"How could he make a fortune?"

"Selling cars. Why, the babies cry for them----" he chuckled and rubbed
harder.

"How much could he make?" Randy found himself saying.

The genial gentleman named a sum, "Easy."

Randy got up from the wheelbarrow and came over. "Is she really as good
as that?"

"Is she really? Oh, say----" the genial gentleman for the next ten
minutes dealt in superlatives.

Towards the end, Randy was firing questions at him.

"Could I own a car while I was selling them?"

"Sure--they'd let you have it on installments to be paid for out of your
commissions----"

"And I'd have an open field?"

"My dear boy, in a month you could have cars like this running up and
down the hills like ants after sugar. They speak for themselves, and
they are cheap enough for anybody."

"But it is a horse-riding country, especially back in the hills. They
love horse-flesh, you know."

"Oh, they'll get the gasoline bug like the rest of us," said the genial
gentleman and slapped him on the back.

Randy winced. He did not like to be slapped on the back. Not at a
moment--when he was selling his soul to the devil----

For that was the way he looked at it.

"I shall have to perjure myself," he said to Major Prime later, as they
talked it over in the Schoolhouse, "to go through the country telling
mine own people to sell their horses and get cars."

"If you don't do it, somebody else will."

"But a man can't be convincing if he doesn't believe in a thing."

"No, of course. But you've got to look at it this way, the world moves,
and horses haven't had an easy time. Perhaps it is their moment of
emancipation. And just for the sake of a sentiment, a tradition, you
can't afford to hold back."

"I can't afford to lose this chance if there is money in it. But it
isn't what I had planned."

As he sat there on the step and hugged his knees, every drop of blood in
Randy seemed to be urging "Hurry, hurry." He felt as a man might who,
running a race, finds another rider neck and neck and strains towards
the finish.

To sell cars in order to win Becky seemed absurd on the face of it. But
he would at least be doing something towards solving the problem of
self-support, and towards increasing the measure of his own
self-respect.

"What had you planned?" the Major was asking.

"Well of course there is the law---- And I like it, but there would be a
year or two before I could earn a living---- And I've wanted to
write----"

"Write what? Books?"

"Anything," said Randy, explosively, "that would make the world sit up."

"Ever tried it?"

"Yes. At school. I talked to a teacher of mine once about it. He said I
had better invent a--pill----"

The Major stared, "A pill?"

Randy nodded. "He didn't quite mean it, of course. But he saw the modern
trend. A poet? A poor thing! But hats off to the pillmaker with his
multi-millions!"

"Stop that," said the Major.

"Stop what?"

"Blaming the world for its sordidness. There is beauty enough if we look
for it."

"None of us has time to look for it. We are too busy trying to sell cars
to people who love horses."

II

In the end Randy got his car. And after that he, too, might have been
seen running shuttle-like back and forth over the red roads. Nellie
Custis was usually beside him on the front seat. She took her new honors
seriously. For generations back her forbears had loped with flapping
ears in the lead of a hunting pack. To be sitting thus on a leather seat
and whirled through the air with no need of legs from morning until
night required some readjustment on the part of Nellie Custis. But she
had always followed where Randy led. And in time she grew to like it,
and watched the road ahead with eager eyes, and with her ears
perpetually cocked.

Now and then Becky sat beside Randy, with Nellie at her feet. The
difference between a ride with Randy and one with George Dalton was,
Becky felt, the difference a not unpleasant commonplace and the stuff
that dreams are made of.

"It is rather a duck of a car," she had said, the first time he took her
out in it.

"Yes, it is," Randy had agreed. "I am getting tremendously fond of her.
I have named her 'Little Sister.'"

"Oh, Randy, you haven't."

"Yes, I have. She has such confiding ways. I never believed that cars
had human qualities, Becky."

"They are not horses of course."

"Well, they have individual characteristics. You take the three cars in
our barn. The Packard reminds one of that stallion we owned three years
ago--blooded and off like the wind. The Franklin is a grayhound--and
Little Sister is a--duck----"

"Mr. Dalton's car is a--silver ship----"

"Oh, does he call it that?" grimly.

"No----"

"Was it your own--poetic--idea?"

"Yes."

"And you called Little Sister a duck," he groaned. "And when my little
duck swims in the wake of his silver ship, and he laughs, do you laugh,
too?"

There was a dead silence. Then she said, "Oh, Randy----"

He made his apology like a gentleman. "That was hateful of me, Becky.
I'm sorry----"

"You know I wouldn't laugh, Randy, and neither would he."

"Who?"

"Mr. Dalton."

"Wouldn't what?"

"Laugh."

He hated her defense of young Apollo--but he couldn't let the subject
alone.

"You never have any time for me."

"Randy, are you going to scold me for the rest of our ride?"

"Am I scolding?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll stop it and say nice things to you or you won't want to come
again."

Yet after that when he saw her in Dalton's car, her words would return
to him, and gradually he began to think of her as sailing in a silver
ship farther and farther away in a future where he could not follow.

Little Sister was a great comfort in those days. She gave him occupation
and she gave him an income. He was never to forget his first sale. He
had not found it easy to cry his wares. The Paines of King's Crest had
never asked favors of the country-folk, or if they had, they had paid
generously for what they had received. To go now among them saying, "I
have something to sell," carried a sting. There had been nothing
practical in Randy's education. He had no equipment with which to meet
the sordid questions of bargain and sale.

He had thought of this as he rode over the hills that morning to the
house of a young farmer who had been suggested by the genial gentleman
as a good prospect. He turned over in his mind the best method of
approach. It was a queer thing, he pondered, to visualize himself as a
salesman. He wondered how many of the other fellows who had come back
looked at it as he did. They had dreamed such dreams of valor, their
eyes had seen visions. To Randy when he had enlisted had come a singing
sense that the days of chivalry were not dead. He had gone through the
war with a laugh on his lips, but with a sense of the sacredness of the
crusade in his heart. He had returned--still dreaming--to sell
snub-nosed cars to the countryside!

Why, just a year ago----! He remembered a black night of storm, when,
hooded like a falcon--he had ridden without a light on his motorcycle,
carrying dispatches from the Argonne, and even as he had ridden, he had
felt that high sense of heroic endeavor. On the success of his mission
depended other lives, the saving of nations--victory----!

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