CHAPTER TWO
_In which the Candy Man walks abroad in citizen's clothes, and ismistaken for a person of wealth and social importance._
The Candy Man strolled along a park path. The October day was crisp, thesky the bluest blue, the sunny landscape glowing with autumn's fairestcolours. It was a Sunday morning not many days after the events of thefirst chapter, and back in the city the church bells were ringing foreleven o'clock service.
In citizen's clothes, and well-fitting ones at that, the Candy Man wasa presentable young fellow. If his face seemed at first glance a triflestern, this sternness was offset by the light in his eyes; a steady,purposeful glow, through which played at the smallest excuse a humoroustwinkle.
After the ceaseless stir of the Y.M.C.A. corner, the stillness of thepark was most grateful. At this hour on Sunday, if he avoided the golfgrounds, it was to all intents his own. His objective point was a rusticarbour hung with rose vines and clematis, where was to be had a view ofthe river as it made an abrupt turn around the opposite hills. Here hemight read, or gaze and dream, as it pleased him, reasonably secure frominterruption once he had possession.
The Candy Man breathed deeply, and smiled to himself. It was a day toinspire confident dreams, for the joy of fulfilment was over the land.Was it the sudden fear that some other dreamer might be before him, ora subconscious prevision of what actually awaited him, that caused himto quicken his steps as he neared the arbour? However it may have been,as he took at a bound the three steps which led up to it, he came withstartling suddenness upon Miss Bentley entering from the other side,her arms full of flowers. Their eyes met in a flash of recognitionwhich there was no time to control. She bowed, not ungraciously, yetdistantly, and with a faint puzzled frown on her brow, and he, as helifted his hat, spoke her name, which, as he was not supposed to knowit, he had no business to do; then they both laughed at the way in whichthey had bounced in at the same moment from opposite directions.
With some remark about the delightful day, the Candy Man, as a gentlemanshould, tried to pretend he was merely passing through, and though itwas but a feeble performance, Miss Bentley should have accepted itwithout protest, then all would have been well. Instead, she said, stillwith that puzzled half frown, "Don't go, I am only waiting here a momentfor my cousin, who has stopped at the superintendent's cottage." Shemotioned over her shoulder to a vine-covered dwelling just visiblethrough the trees.
"Please do not put it in that way," he protested. "As if your being heredid not add tremendously to my desire to remain. I am conscious ofrushing in most unceremoniously upon you, and----"
Hesitating there, hat in hand, his manners were disarmingly frank. MissBentley laughed again as she deposited her flowers, a mass of pink andwhite cosmos, upon a bench, and sat down beside them. She seemed willingto have him put it as he liked. She wore the same grey suit and softfelt hat, jammed down any way on her bright hair and pinned with apinkish quill, and was somehow, more emphatically than before, the Girlof All Others.
How could a Candy Man be expected to know what he was about? What wonderthat his next remark should be a hope that she had suffered no illeffects from the accident?
"None at all, thank you," Miss Bentley replied, and the puzzledexpression faded. It was as if she inwardly exclaimed, "Now I know!""Aunt Eleanor," she added, "was needlessly alarmed. I seem rather givento accidents of late." Thus saying she began to arrange her flowers.
The Candy Man dropped down on the step where the view--of MissBentley--was most charming, as she softly laid one bloom upon another incaressing fashion, her curling lashes now almost touching her cheek, nowlifted as she looked away to the river, or bent her gaze upon theoccupant of the step.
"Do you often come here?" she asked, adding when he replied that thiswas the third time, that she thought he had rather an air ofproprietorship.
He laughed at this, and explained how he had set out to pay a visit toa sick boy at St. Mary's Hospital, but had allowed the glorious day totempt him to the park.
Below them on the terraced hillside a guard sat reading his paper;across the meadow a few golfers were to be seen against the horizon.All about them the birds and squirrels were busily minding their ownaffairs; above them smiled the blue, blue sky, and the cousin, whoeverhe or she might be, considerately lingered.
Like the shining river their talk flowed on. Beginning like it as ashallow stream, it broadened and deepened on its way, till presentlyfairy godmothers became its theme.
Miss Bentley was never able to recall what led up to it. The Candy Manonly remembered her face, as, holding a crimson bloom against her cheek,she smiled down upon him thoughtfully, and asked him to guess what shemeant to do when some one left her a fortune. "I have a strangepresentiment that some one is going to," she said.
"How delightful!" he exclaimed, but did not hazard a guess, and shecontinued without giving him a chance: "I shall establish a FairyGodmother Fund, the purpose of which shall be the distribution of goodtimes; of pleasures large and small, among people who have few or none."
"It sounds," was the Candy Man's comment, "like the minutes of the firstmeeting. Please explain further. How will you select your beneficiaries?"
"I don't like your word," she objected. "Beneficiaries and fairygodmothers somehow do not go together. Still, I see what you mean, andwhile I have not as yet worked out the plan, I'm confident it could bemanaged. Suppose we know a poor teacher, for instance, who has nothingleft over from her meagre salary after the necessary things are providedfor, and who is, we'll say, hungry for grand opera. We would encloseopera tickets with a note asking her to go and have a good time, signed,'Your Fairy Godmother,' and with a postscript something like this, 'Ifyou cannot use them, hand them on to another of my godchildren.' Don'tyou think she would accept them?"
Under the spell of those lovely, serious eyes, the Candy Man ratherthought she would.
"Of course," Miss Bentley went on, "it must be a secret society, nevermentioned in the papers, unknown to those you call its beneficiaries.In this way there will be no occasion or demand for gratitude. Noobligations will be imposed upon the recipients--that word is as bad asyours--let's call them godchildren--and the fairy godmother will haveher fun in giving the good times, without bothering over whether theyare properly grateful."
"You seem to have a grievance against gratitude," said the Candy Manlaughing.
"I have," she owned.
"There are people who contend that there is little or none of it in theworld," he added.
"And I am not sure it was meant there should be--much of it, I mean. Itis an emotion--would you call it an emotion?"
"You might," said the Candy Man.
"Well, an emotion that turns to dust and ashes when you try toexperience it, or demand it of others," concluded Miss Bentley withemphasis. "And you needn't laugh," she added.
The Candy Man disclaimed any thought of such a thing. He was profoundlyserious. "It is really a great idea," he said. "A human agency whosebenefits could be received as we receive those of Nature orProvidence--as impersonally."
She nodded appreciatively. "You understand." And they were both awareof a sense of comradeship scarcely justified by the length of theiracquaintance.
"May I ask your ideas as to the amount of this fund?" he said.
She considered a moment. "Well, say a hundred thousand," she suggested.
"You are expecting a large bequest, then."
"An income of five thousand would not be too much," insisted MissBentley. "We should wish to do bigger things than opera tickets, youknow."
"There are persons who perhaps need a fairy godmother, whom moneycannot help," the Candy Man continued thoughtfully. "There's an oldman--not so old either--a sad grey man, whom the children on our blockcall the Miser. I am not an adept in reading faces, but I am sure thereis nothing mean in his. It is only sad. I get interested in people,"he added.
"So do I," cried his companion. "And of course, you are right. The FairyGodmother Society wo
uld have to have more than one department. Naturallyopera tickets would not do your man any good--unless we could get him tosend them."
They laughed over this clever idea, and the Candy Man went on to saythat there were lonely people in the world, who, through no fault oftheir own, were so circumstanced as to be cut off from those commonhuman relationships which have much to do with the flavour of life.
"I don't quite understand," Miss Bentley began. But these young personswere not to be left to settle the affairs of the universe in onemorning. A handkerchief waved in the distance by a stoutish lady,interrupted. "There's Cousin Prue," Miss Bentley cried, springing toher feet.
Hastily dividing her flowers into two bunches, she thrust one upon theCandy Man. "For your sick boy. You won't mind, as it isn't far. I haveso enjoyed talking to you, Mr. McAllister. I shall hope to see you soonagain. Aunt Eleanor often speaks of you."
This sudden descent to the conventional greatly embarrassed the CandyMan, but he had no time for a word. Miss Bentley was off like a flash,across the grass, before he could collect his scattered wits. He lookedafter her, till, in company with the stout lady, she disappeared fromview. Then with a whimsical expression on his countenance, he took aleather case from his breast pocket, and opening it glanced at one ofthe cards within. It was as if he doubted his own identity and wishedto be reassured.
The name engraved on the card was not McAllister, but Robert DeaneReynolds.
The Little Red Chimney: Being the Love Story of a Candy Man Page 3