Temple Bailey - The Trumpeter Swan

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"I don't know why I am writing like this, except that I went to
Trinity to vespers, when I stopped over in Boston. It was dim and
quiet and the boys' voices were heavenly, and over it all brooded
the spirit of the great man who once preached there--and who still
preaches----

"And now it is Sunday again, and I am back at the Crossing, and I
played golf all the morning, and bridge this afternoon, and all the
women smoked and all the men, and I was in a blue haze, and I
wanted to be back in the quiet church where the boys sang, and the
lights were like stars----

"I wish you and I could go there some day and that you could feel
as I do about it. But you wouldn't. You are always so sure and
smug--and you have a feeling that money will buy anything--even
Paradise. I wonder what you will be like on the next plane. You
won't fit into my farmhouse. I fancy that you'll be something
rather--devilish--like Don Juan--or perhaps you'll be just an
'ostler in a courtyard, shining boots and--kissing maids----

"Of course I don't quite mean that. But I do feel that you'd be
rather worth while if you'd stop philandering and discover your
soul.

"I am a bit homesick, and I haven't any home. If Dad hadn't married
a second time, I believe he would still love me a bit. But his wife
doesn't. And so here I am--and as restless as ever--seeking
something--always seeking.

"And now, once more, don't break the heart of the new little girl.
I don't need to warn you not to break your own. You are the
greatest example of the truth of 'he who loves and runs away will
live to love another day.' Oh, Georgie-Porgie, will you ever love
any woman enough to rise with her to the heights?

"Perhaps there aren't any heights for you or me. But I should like
to think there were. Different hilltops, of course, so that we
could wave across. We shall never climb together, Georgie. Perhaps
we are too much alike to help each other up the hills. We need
stronger props.

"Tell me about Flora. Is she really ill? If she is, I'll come. But
I'd rather not.

"I hope you won't read this aloud to Oscar. You might, you know,
and it wouldn't do. He would hate to believe that he'd be happier
buying things at a delicatessen, and he wouldn't believe it. But
it's true, just as it is true that you would be happy shining
boots and making love to the maids like a character in Dickens.

"Come on up, and we'll motor to Boston on Sunday afternoon and
we'll go to Trinity; I want somebody to be good with me, Georgie,
and there are so many of the other kind.

"Ever wistfully,
"Madge."

George knew that he ought to go, but he was not ready yet to run away.
He was having the time of his life, and as for Becky, he would teach her
how to play the game.

IV

Aunt Claudia was away for three weeks.

"I wish she would come home," young Paine said one morning to his
mother.

"Why?" Caroline Paine was at her desk with her mind on the dinner. "Why,
Randy?"

"Oh, Dalton's going there a lot."

Mrs. Paine headed her list with gumbo soup. "Do you think he goes to see
Becky?"

"Does a duck swim? Of course he goes there to see her, and he's turning
her head."

"He is enough to turn any woman's head. He has nice eyes." Mrs. Paine
left the topic as negligible, and turned to more important things.

"Randy, would you mind picking a few pods of okra for the soup? Susie is
so busy and Bob and Jefferson are both in the field."

"Certainly, Mother," his cool answer gave no hint of the emotions which
were seething within him. Becky's fate was hanging in the balance, and
his mother talked of okra! He had decided some weeks ago that boarders
were disintegrating--and that a mother was not a mother who had three
big meals a day on her mind.

He went into the garden. An old-fashioned garden, so common at one time
in the South--with a picket fence, a little gate, orderly paths--a blaze
of flowers to the right, and to the left a riot of vegetables--fat
tomatoes weighing the vines to the ground, cucumbers hiding under their
sheltering leaves, cabbages burgeoning in blue-green, and giving the
promise of unlimited boiled dinners, onions enough to flavor a thousand
delectable dishes, sweet corn running in countless rows up the hill,
carrots waving their plumes, Falstaffian watermelons. It was evident
with the garden as an index that the boarders at King's Crest were fed
on more than milk and honey.

Randy picked the okra and carried it to the kitchen, and returning to
the Schoolhouse found the Major opening his morning mail.

Randy sat down on the step. "Once upon a time," he said, "we had
niggers to work in our gardens. And now we are all niggers."

The Major's keen eyes studied him. "What's the matter?"

"I've been picking okra--for soup, and I'm a Paine of King's Crest."

"Well, you peeled potatoes in France."

"That's different."

"Why should it be different? If a thing is for the moment your job you
are never too big for it."

"I wish I had stayed in the Army. I wish I had never come back."

The Major whistled for a moment, thoughtfully. Then he said, "Look here,
Paine, hadn't you better talk about it?"

"Talk about what?"

"That's for you to tell me. There's something worrying you. You are more
tragic than--Hamlet----"

"Well--it's--Becky----"

"And Dalton, of course. Why don't you cut him out, Paine----"

"Me? Oh, look here, Major, what have I to offer her?"

"Youth and energy and a fighting spirit," the Major rapped out the
words.

"What is a fighting spirit worth," Randy asked with a sort of weary
scorn, "when a man is poor and the woman's rich?"

The Major had been whistling a silly little tune from a modern opera. It
was an air which his men would have recognized. It came to an end
abruptly.

"Rich? Who is rich?"

"Becky."

The Major got up and limped to the porch rail. "I thought she was as
poor as----"

"The rest of us? Well, she isn't."

It appeared that Becky's fortune came from the Nantucket grandmother,
and that there would be more when the Admiral died. It was really a very
large fortune, well invested, and yielding an amazing income. One of the
clauses of the grandmother's will had to do with the bringing up of
Becky. Until she was of age she was to be kept as much as possible away
from the distractions and temptations of modern luxury. The Judge and
the Admiral had agreed that nothing could be better. The result, Randy
said, was that nobody ever thought of Becky Bannister as rich.

"Yet those pearls that she wears are worth more than I ever expect to
earn."

"It is rather like a fairy tale. The beggar-maid becomes a queen."

"You can see now why I can't offer her just youth and a fighting
spirit."

"I wonder if Dalton knows."

"I don't believe he does," Randy said slowly. "I give him credit for
that."

"He might have heard----"

"I doubt it. He hasn't mingled much, you know."

"It will be rather a joke on him----"

"To find that he has married--Mademoiselle Midas?"

"To find that she is Mademoiselle Midas, whether he marries her or not."

V

Of course Georgie-Porgie ran away. It was the inevitable climax. Flora's
illness hastened things a bit.

"She wants to see her New York doctors," Waterman had said. "I think we
shall close the house, and join Madge later at the Crossing."

George felt an unexpected sense of shock. The game must end, yet he
wanted it to go on. The cards were in his hands, and he was not quite
ready to turn the trick.

"When do we go?" he asked Oscar.

"In a couple of days if we can manage it. Flora is getting worried about
herself. She thinks it is her heart."

George rode all of that afternoon with Becky. But not a word did he say
about his departure. He never spoiled a thing like this with "Good-bye."
Back at Waterman's, Kemp was packing trunks. In forty-eight hours there
would be the folding of tents, and Hamilton Hill would be deserted. It
added a pensiveness to his manner that made him more than ever charming.
It rained on the way home, and it seemed to him significant that his
first ride and his last with Becky should have been in the rain.

He stayed to dinner, and afterwards he and Becky walked together in the
fragrance of the wet garden. A new moon hung low for a while and was
then lost behind the hills.

"My little girl," George said when the moment came that he must go, "My
dear little girl." He gathered her up in his arms--but did not kiss her.
For once in his life, Georgie-Porgie was too deeply moved for kisses.

After he had gone, Becky went into the Bird Room, and stood on the
hearth and looked up at the Trumpeter Swan. There was no one to whom she
could speak of the ecstasy which surged through her. As a child she had
brought her joys here, and her sorrows--her Christmas presents in the
early morning--the first flowers of the spring. She had sat here often
in her little black frock and had felt the silent sympathy of the wise
old bird.

He gazed down at her now with an almost uncanny intelligence. She
laughed a little and standing on tiptoe laid her cheek against the cool
glass. "When I am married," was her wordless question, "will you sound
your trumpet high up near the moon?"

CHAPTER VII

MADEMOISELLE MIDAS

I

There came to Huntersfield the next morning at about the same moment,
Kemp in his little car with a small parcel for Becky, and Calvin with a
big box from the express office.

Becky was in her room at breakfast when Calvin brought the boxes up to
her. It was a sunshiny morning, and the Judge had gone a-fishing with
Mr. Flippin. Becky, in a lace cap and a robe that was delicately blue,
sat in a big chair with a low table in front of her.

There were white roses on the table in a silver bowl. The Judge had sent
them to her. The Judge had for the women of his family a feeling that
was almost youthfully romantic, and which was, unquestionably,
old-fashioned. He liked to think that they had roses for their little
noses, ribbons and laces for their pretty faces. He wanted no harsh
winds to blow on them. And in return for the softness and ease with
which he would surround them, he wanted their deference to his masculine
point of view.

With the box which George sent was a note. It was the first that Becky
had ever received from her lover. George's code did not include much
correspondence. Flaming sentiment on paper was apt to look silly when
the affair ended.

To Becky, her name on the outside of the envelope seemed written in
gold. She was all blushing expectation.

"There ain't no answer," Calvin said, and she waited for him to go
before she opened it.

She read it and sat there drained of all feeling. She was as white as
the roses on her table. She read the note again and her hands shook.

"Flora is very ill. We are taking her up to New York. After that we
shall go to the North Shore. There isn't time for me to come and
say, 'Good-bye.' Perhaps it is better not to come. It has been a
wonderful summer, and it is you who have made it wonderful for me.
The memory will linger with me always--like a sweet dream or a rare
old tale. I am sending you a little token--for remembrance. Think
of me sometimes, Becky."

That was all, except a scrawled "G. D." at the end. No word of coming
back. No word of writing to her again. No word of any future in which
she would have a part.

She opened the box. Within on a slender chain was a pendant--a square
sapphire set in platinum, and surrounded by diamonds. George had
ordered it in anticipation of this crisis. He had, hitherto, found such
things rather effective in the cure of broken hearts.

Now, had George but known it, Becky had jewels in leather cases in the
vaults of her bank which put his sapphire trinket to shame. There were
the diamonds in which a Meredith great-grandmother had been presented at
the Court of St. James, and there were the pearls of which her own
string was a small part. There were emeralds and rubies, old corals and
jade--not for nothing had the Admiral sailed the seas, bringing back
from China and India lovely things for the woman he loved. And now the
jewels were Becky's, and she had not cared for them in the least. If
George had loved her she would have cherished his sapphire more than all
the rest.

But he did not love her. She knew it in that moment. All of her doubts
were confirmed.

The thing that had happened to her seemed incredible.

She put the sapphire back in its box, wrapped it, tied the string
carefully and called Mandy.

"Tell Calvin to take this to Mr. Dalton."

Mandy knew at once that something was wrong. But this was not a moment
for words. The Bannisters did not talk about things that troubled them.
They held their heads high. And Becky's was high at this moment, and her
eyes were blazing.

As she sat there, tense, Becky wondered what Dalton could have thought
of her. If she had not had a jewel in the world, she would not have kept
his sapphire. Didn't he know that?

But how could he know? To him it had been "a sweet dream--a rare old
tale," and she had thought him a Romeo ready to die for her sake, an
Aucassin--willing to brave Hell rather than give her up, a Lohengrin
sent from Heaven!

She shuddered and hid her face in her hands. At last she crept into bed.
Mandy, coming in to straighten the room, was told to lower the curtains.

"My--my head aches, Mandy."

Mandy, wise old Mandy, knew of course that it was her heart. "You res'
an' sleep, honey," she said, and moved about quietly setting things in
order.

But Becky did not sleep. She lay wide awake, and tried to get the thing
straight in her mind. How had it happened? Where had she failed? Oh, why
hadn't Sister Loretto told her that there were men like this? Why hadn't
Aunt Claudia returned in time?

In the big box which Mandy had brought up were clothes--exquisite things
which Becky had ordered from New York. She had thought it a miracle
that George should have fallen in love with her believing her poor. It
showed, she felt, his splendidness, his kingly indifference to--poverty.
Yet she had planned a moment when he should know. When their love was
proclaimed to the world he should see her in a splendor which matched
his own. He had loved her in spite of her faded cottons, in spite of her
shabby shoes. She had made up her list carefully, thinking of his
sparkling eyes when he beheld her.

She got out of bed and opened the box. The lovely garments were wrapped
in rosy tissue paper, and tied with ribbons to match. It seemed to Becky
as if those rosy wrappings held the last faint glow of her dreams.

She untied the ribbons of the top parcel, and disclosed a frock of fine
white lace--there was cloth of silver for a petticoat, and silver
slippers. She would have worn her pearls, and George and she would have
danced together at the Harvest Ball at the Merriweathers. It was an
annual and very exclusive affair in the county. It was not likely that
the Watermans and their guests would be invited, but there would have
been a welcome for Dalton as her friend--her more than friend.

There was a white lace wrap with puffs of pink taffeta and knots of
silver ribbon which went with the gown. Becky with a sudden impulse put
it on. She stripped the cap from her head, and wound her bronze locks
in a high knot. She surveyed herself.

Well, she was Becky Bannister of Huntersfield--and the mirror showed her
beauty. And Dalton had not known or cared. He thought her poor, and had
thrown her aside like an old glove!

Down-stairs the telephone rang. Old Mandy, coming up to say that Mr.
Randy was on the wire, stood in amazement at the sight of Becky in the
rosy wrap with her hair peaked up to a topknot.

"Ain' you in baid?" she asked, superfluously.

"No. Who wants me, Mandy?"

"I tole you--Mr. Randy."

Becky deliberated. "I'll go down. When I come up we'll unpack all this,
Mandy."

Randy at the other end of the wire was asking Becky to go to a barbecue
the next day.

"The boarders are giving it--it is Mother's birthday and they want to
celebrate. It is to be on Pavilion Hill. They want you and the
Judge----"

"To-morrow? Oh, I don't know, Randy."

"Why not? Have you another engagement?"

"No."

"Then what's the matter? Can't you tear yourself away from your shining
knight?"

Silence.

"Becky--oh, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry--_Becky_----"

Her answer came faintly, "I'll come."

"What's the matter with the wire? I can't hear you."

There was nothing the matter with the wire. The thing that was the
matter was Becky's voice. She found it suddenly unmanageable. "We'll
come," she told him finally, and hung up the receiver.

She ascended the stairs as if she carried a burden on her back. Mandy
was on her knees before the hamper, untying the rosy packages.

"Is you goin' to try 'em on, honey?" she asked.

Becky stood in the doorway, the lace wrap hanging from her shoulders and
showing the delicate blue of the negligee beneath--her face was like
chalk but her eyes shone. "Yes," she said, "there's a pink gingham I
want to wear to the barbecue to-morrow. There ought to be a hat to match.
Did the hats come, Mandy?"

"Calvin he say there's another box, but he ain' brought it up from the
deepot. He was ridin' dat Jo-mule, and this yer basket was all he could
ca'y."

In the pink frock Becky looked like a lovely child.

"Huc-cum you-all gettin' eve'y thing pink, Miss Becky?" Mandy asked.

"For a change," said Becky.

And how could she tell old Mandy that she had felt that in a
rose-colored world everything should be rose-color?

She tried on each frock deliberately. She tried on every pair of
slippers. She tried on the wraps, and the hats which came up finally
with Calvin staggering beneath the bulkiness of the box. She was lovely
in everything. And she was no longer the little Becky Bannister whom
Dalton had wooed. She was Mademoiselle Midas, appraising her beauty in
her lovely clothes, and wondering what Dalton would think if he could
see her.

II

Becky did not, after all, wear the pink gingham. The Judge elected to go
on horseback, so Becky rode forth by his side correctly and smartly
attired in a gray habit, with a straight black sailor and a high stock
and boots that made her look like a charming boy.

They came to Pavilion Hill to find the boarders like the chorus in light
opera very picturesque in summer dresses and summer flannels, and with
Mrs. Paine in a broad hat playing the part of leading lady. Mr. Flippin,
who was high-priest at all of the county barbecues, was superintending
the roasting of a whole pig, and Mrs. Flippin had her mind on hot
biscuits. The young mulatto, Daisy, and Mandy's John, with the negroes
from the Paine household, were setting the long tables under the trees.
There was the good smell of coffee, much laughter, and a generally
festive atmosphere.

The Judge, enthroned presently in the Pavilion, was the pivotal center
of the crowd. Everybody wanted to hear his stories, and with this fresh
audience to stimulate him, he dominated the scene. He wore a sack suit
and a Panama hat and his thin, fine face, the puff of curled white hair
at the back of his neck, the gayety of his glance gave an almost
theatric touch to his appearance, so that one felt he might at any
moment come down stage and sing a topical song in the best Gilbertian
manner.

It was an old scene with a new setting. It was not the first time that
Pavilion Hill had been the backgrounds of a barbecue. But it was the
first time that a Paine of King's Crest had accepted hospitality on its
own land. It was the first time that it had echoed to the voices of an
alien group. It was the first time that it had seen a fighting black man
home from France. The old order had changed indeed. No more would there
be feudal lords of Albemarle acres.

Yet old loyalties die hard. It was the Judge and Mrs. Paine and Becky
and Randy who stood first in the hearts of the dusky folk who served at
the long tables. The boarders were not in any sense "quality." Whatever
they might be, North, East and West, their names were not known on
Virginia records. And what was any family tree worth if it was not
rooted in Virginia soil?

"Effen the Jedge was a king and wo' a crown," said Mandy's John to
Daisy, "he couldn't look mo' bawn to a th'one."

Daisy nodded. "Settin' at the head o' that table minds me o' whut my old
Mammy used to say, 'han'some is as han'some does.' The Bannisters _done_
han'some and they _is_ han'some."

"They sure is," John agreed; "that-all's whut makes you so good-lookin',
Daisy."

He came close to her and she drew away. "You put yo' min' on passin'
them plates," she said with severity, "or you'll be spillin' po'k gravy
on they haids." Her smile took away the sting of her admonition. John
moved on, murmuring, "Well, yo' does han'some and yo' is han'some,
Daisy, and that's why I loves you."

There were speeches after dinner. One from Randy, in which he thanked
them in the name of his mother, and found himself quite suddenly and
unexpectedly being fond of the boarders. Major Prime was not there. He
had been summoned back to Washington, but would return, he hoped, for
the week-end.

It was after lunch that Randy and Becky walked in the woods. Nellie
Custis followed them. They sat down at last at the foot of a hickory
tree. Becky took off her hat and the wind blew her shining hair about
her face. She was pale and wore an air of deep preoccupation.

"Randy," she asked suddenly out of a long silence, "did you ever kiss a
girl?"

Her question did not surprise him. He and Becky had argued many matters.
And they usually plunged in without preliminaries. He fancied that Becky
was discussing kisses in the abstract. It never occurred to him that the
problem was personal.

"Yes," he said, "I have. What about it?"

"Did you--ask her to marry you?"

"No."

"Why not?"

He pulled Nellie Custis' ears. "One of them wasn't a nice sort of
girl--not the kind that I should have cared to introduce to--you."

"Yet you cared to--kiss her?"

Randy flushed faintly. "I know how it looks to you. I hated it
afterwards, but I couldn't marry a girl--like that----"

"Who was the other girl?"

For a moment he did not reply, then he said with something of an effort,
"It was you, Becky."

"Me? When?" She turned on him her startled gaze.

"Do you remember at Christmas--oh, ten years ago--and your grandfather
had a party for you. There was mistletoe in the hall, and we danced and
stopped under the mistletoe----"

"I remember, Randy--how long ago it seems."

"Yet ten years isn't really such a long time, is it, Becky? I was only a
little boy, but I told myself then that I would never kiss any other
girl. I thought then that--that some day I might ask you to marry me.
I--I had a wild dream that I might try to make you love me. I didn't
know then that poverty is a millstone about a man's neck." He gave a
bitter laugh.

Becky's breath came quickly. "Oh, Randy," she said, "poverty wouldn't
have had anything to do with it--not if we had--cared----"

"I care," said Randy, "and I think the first time I knew how much I
cared was when I kissed that other girl. Somehow you came to me that
night, a little white thing, so fine and different, and I loathed her."

He was standing now--tall and lean and black-haired, but with the look
of race on his thin face, a rather princely chap in spite of his shabby
clothes. "Of course you don't care," he said; "I think if I had money I
should try to make you. But I haven't the right. I had thought that,
perhaps, if no other man came that some time I might----"

Becky picked up her riding crop, and as she talked she tapped her boot
in a sort of staccato accompaniment.

"That other man has come," _tap-tap_, "he kissed me," _tap-tap_, "and
made me love him," _tap-tap_, "and he has gone away--and he hasn't asked
me to marry him."

One saw the Indian in Randy now, in the lifted head, the square-set jaw,
the almost cruel keenness of the eyes.

"Of course it is George Dalton," he said.

"Yes."

"I could kill him, Becky."

She laughed, ruefully. "For what? Perhaps he thinks I'm not a nice sort
of girl--like the one you kissed----"

"For God's sake, Becky."

He sat down on a flat rock. He was white, and shaking a little. He
wanted more than anything else in the wide world to kill George Dalton.
Of course in these days such things were preposterous. But he had murder
in his heart.

"I blame myself," Becky said, _tap-tap_, "I should have known that a man
doesn't respect," _tap-tap_, "a woman he can kiss."

He took the riding crop forcibly out of her hands. "Look at me, look at
me, Becky, do you love him?"

She whispered, "Yes."

"Then he's got to marry you."

But her pride was up. "Do you think I want him if he doesn't want--me?"

"He shall want you," said Randy Paine; "the day shall come when he shall
beg on his knees."

Randy had studied law. But there are laws back of the laws of the white
man. The Indian knows no rest until his enemy is in his hands. Randy lay
awake late that night thinking it out. But he was not thinking only of
Georgie. He was thinking of Becky and her self-respect. "She will never
get it back," he said, "until that dog asks her to marry him."

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