Master of the Vineyard Part 24

"Half-past nine."

"Oh, I'm so sorry! You mustn't spoil me this way, for I do want to get up to breakfast. Why didn't you call me?"

Madame sat down on the side of the bed and patted Edith's outstretched hand with affectionate rea.s.surance. "You're to do just as you please,"

she said, "but I was beginning to worry a bit, for you've been the soul of punctuality."

"Did--" Edith closed her lips firmly upon the instinctive question, "Did he miss me?" She dismissed it as the mere vapouring of a vacant brain.

"Did what?" asked Madame, helpfully.

"Did you miss me?"

"Of course. Alden did too. The last thing he said before he went to school was that he hoped you were not ill."

"That was nice of him." Edith put a small pink foot out of bed on the other side and gazed at it pensively. Madame laughed.

"I don't believe you've grown up," she said. "You remind me of a small child, who has just discovered her toes. Do you want your breakfast up here?"

"No, I'll come down. Give me half an hour and I'll appear before you, clothed and in my right mind, with as humble an apology for my sins as I'm able to compose in the meantime."

[Sidenote: Call of the Wander-l.u.s.t]

She was as good as her word, appearing promptly at the time she had set, and dressed for the street. After doing justice to a hearty breakfast, she said that she was going out for a walk and probably would not be back to luncheon.

"My dear!" exclaimed Madame. "You mustn't do that. I'll have luncheon kept for you."

"No, please don't, for I really shan't want any. Didn't you observe my breakfast? Even a piano-mover couldn't think of eating again before seven, so let me go a-gypsying till sunset."

Madame nodded troubled acquiescence, and, with a laugh, Edith kissed her good-bye. "I'm subject to the Wander-l.u.s.t," she said, "and when the call comes, I have to go. It's in my blood to-day, so farewell for the present."

Madame watched her as she went down the street, the golden quill on her green hat bidding jaunty defiance to the wind. As she had said, she felt the call at times, and had to yield to its imperative summons, but to-day it was her soul that craved the solace of the open s.p.a.ces and the wind-swept fields.

As she dressed, she had tried to dismiss last night's experience as a mere fantasy of sleep, or, if not an actual dream, some vision hailing from the borderland of consciousness, at the point where the senses merge. Yet, even as she argued with herself, she felt the utter futility of it, and knew her denials were vain in the face of truth.

[Sidenote: Roaming through the Village]

She dreaded the necessity of meeting Alden again, then made a wry face at her own foolishness. "Ridiculous," she said to herself, "preposterous, absurd!" No matter what her own nightmares might be, he slept soundly--of course he did. How could healthy youth with a clear conscience do otherwise?

For an hour or more, she kept to the streets of the village, with the sublime unconsciousness of the city-bred, too absorbed in her own thoughts to know that she was stared at and freely commented upon by those to whom a stranger was a source of excitement. Her tailored gown, of dark green broadcloth, the severe linen s.h.i.+rtwaist, and her simple hat, were subjects of conversation that night in more than one humble home, fading into insignificance only before her radiant hair. The general opinion was that it must be a wig, or the untoward results of some experiment with hair-dye, probably the latter, for, as the postmaster's wife said, "n.o.body would buy a wig of that colour."

The school bell rang for dismissal, and filled her with sudden panic.

After walking through the village all the morning to escape luncheon with Alden, it would be disagreeable to meet him face to face almost at the schoolhouse door. Turning in the opposite direction, she walked swiftly until she came to a hill, upon which an irregular path straggled half-heartedly upward.

[Sidenote: The Finding of the Red Book]

So Edith climbed the Hill of the Muses, pausing several times to rest.

When she reached the top, she was agreeably surprised to find a comfortable seat waiting her, even though it was only a log rolled back against two trees. She sank back into the hollow, leaned against the supporting oak, and wiped her flushed face.

Others had been there before her, evidently, for the turf was worn around the log, and there were even hints of footprints here and there.

"Some rural trysting place, probably," she thought, then a gleam of scarlet caught her attention. A small red book had fallen into the crevice between the log and the other tree. "_The House of Life_," she murmured, under her breath. "Now, who in this little village would--unless----"

The book bore neither name nor initials, but almost every page was marked. As it happened, most of them were favourite pa.s.sages of her own.

"How idyllic!" she mused; "a pair of young lovers reading Rossetti on a hill-top in Spring! Could anything be more pastoral? I'll take it back to the house and tell about it at dinner."

[Sidenote: Mutually Surprised]

She welcomed it as a sure relief from a possible awkward moment. "I knew I was right," she said to herself, as she turned the pages. "To-day was set aside, long ago, for me to go a-gypsying."

The clear air of the heights and the sunlit valley beneath her gave her a sense of proportion and of value which she realised she had sadly needed. Free from the annoyances of her daily life, she could look back upon it with due perspective, and see that her unhappiness had been largely caused by herself.

"I can't be miserable," she thought, "unless I'm willing to be."

She sat there for a long time, heedless of the pa.s.sing hours. She was roused from her reverie by a m.u.f.fled footstep and an involuntary exclamation of astonishment.

"Why, how do you do, Miss Starr?" said Edith, kindly, offering a well-gloved hand. "Are you out gypsying too?"

"Yes," Rosemary stammered. Her eyes were fixed upon the small red book that Mrs. Lee held in her other hand.

"See what I found," Edith went on, heedlessly. "Rossetti's _House of Life_, up here. Boy Blue must have brought it up to read to Bo-Peep in the intervals of shepherding. There may not be any such word as 'shepherding,' but there ought to be, I love to make words, don't you?"

[Sidenote: Shrines Laid Bare]

"Yes," said Rosemary, helplessly. She had thought Alden had the book, but had forgotten to make sure, and now the most precious hours of her life had been invaded and her shrines laid bare. Was it not enough for this woman to live in the same house with Alden? Need she take possession of the Hill of the Muses and the little book which had first awakened her, then brought them together? Resentful anger burned in her cheeks, all the more pitiful because of Mrs. Lee's utter unconsciousness, and the impossibility of reparation, even had she known.

"Sit down," Edith suggested. "You must be tired. It's a long climb."

"Did--did you come up here to--to meet anyone?" The suspicion broke hotly from Rosemary's pale lips.

Edith might have replied that she came up to avoid meeting anyone, but she only said, with cool astonishment: "Why, no. Why should I?"

There was no answer to that. Indeed, thought Rosemary, floundering helplessly in a sea of pain, there was no reason. Was she not in the same house with him, day in and day out?

"She's married," Rosemary said to herself with stern insistence, trying to find comfort in the thought, but comfort strangely failed now.

Another suspicion a.s.sailed her and was instantly put into headlong speech. "Is your husband dead, or are you divorced?"

[Sidenote: Too Late]

Mrs. Lee turned quickly. She surveyed the girl calmly for an instant, entirely unable to translate her evident confusion; then she rose.

"Neither," she returned, icily, "and if there are no other personal questions you desire to ask me, I'll go back."

Rosemary kept back the tears until Mrs. Lee was out of sight. "She's married," she sobbed, "and he isn't dead, and they're not divorced, so why--oh, why?" The pain unreasonably persisted, taking to itself a fresh hold. She had offended Mrs. Lee and she would tell Alden, and Alden would be displeased and would never forgive her.

If she were to run after her, and apologise, a.s.suring her that she had not meant the slightest offence, perhaps--. She stumbled to her feet, but, even as she did so, she knew that it was too late. She longed with all the pa.s.sion of her desolate soul for Alden's arms around her, for only the touch of his hand or the sound of his voice, saying: "Rosemary!

Rosemary dear!" But it was too late for that also--everything came too late!

By the time she reached the foot of the hill Edith had understood and pardoned Rosemary. "Poor child," she thought. "Think of her loving him, and actually being jealous of me! And, man-like, of course, he's never noticed it. For her sake, I hope he won't."