Seven Miles to Arden

by Ruth Sawyer

  III

  PATSY PLAYS A PART

  Patsy ran down the steps of the Schuyler house, jumping the lastfour. As her feet struck the pavement she looked up and down thestreet for what she sought. There it was--the back of afast-retreating man in a Balmacaan coat of Scotch tweed and a round,plush hat, turning the corner to Madison Avenue. Patsy groanedinwardly when she saw the outlines of the figure; they were soconventional, so disappointing; they lacked simplicity anddirectness--two salient life principles with Patsy.

  "Pshaw! What's in a back?" muttered Patsy. "He may be a man, for allhis clothes;" and she took to her heels after him.

  As she reached the corner he jumped on a passing car going south."Tracking for the railroad station," was her mental comment, and shelooked north for the next car following; there was none. As far aseye could see there was an unbroken stretch of track--fate seemedstrangely averse to aiding and abetting her deed.

  "When in doubt, take a taxi," suggested Patsy's inner consciousness,and she accepted the advice without argument.

  She raced down two blocks and found one. "Grand Central--anddrive--like the devil!"

  As the door clicked behind her her eye caught the jumping indicator,and she smiled a grim smile. "Faith, in two-shilling jumps like thatI'll be bankrupt afore I've my hand on the tails of that coat." Andwith a tired little sigh she leaned back in the corner, closed hereyes, and relaxed her grip on mind and will and body.

  A series of jerks and a final stop shook her into a thinking, actingconsciousness again; she was out of the taxi in a twinkling--with theman paid and her eyes on the back of a Balmacaan coat and plush hatdisappearing through a doorway. She could not follow it as fast asshe had reckoned. She balanced corners with a stout, indeterminateold gentleman who blocked her way and insisted on wavering in herdirection each time she tried to dodge him. In her haste to make upfor those precious lost seconds she upset a pair of twins belongingto an already overburdened mother. These she righted and went dashingon her way. Groups waylaid her; people with time to kill saunteredin front of her; wandering, indecisive people tried to stop her forinformation; and she reached the gate just as it was closing. Throughit she could see--down a discouraging length of platform--aBalmacaaned figure disappearing into a car.

  "Too late, lady; train's leaving."

  It was well for Patsy that she was ignorant of the law governingclosing gates and departing trains, for the foolish and the ignorantcan sometimes achieve the impossible. She confronted the guard with alook of unconquerable determination. "No, 'tisn't; the train guard isstill on the platform. You've got to let me through."

  She emphasized the importance of it with two tight fists placed notovergently in the center of the guard's rotundity, and accompanied bya shove. In some miraculous fashion this accomplished it. The gateclanged at Patsy's back instead of in her face, as she had expected.A bell rang, a whistle tooted, and Patsy's feet clattered like maddown the platform.

  A good-natured brakeman picked her up and lifted her to the rearplatform of the last car as it drew out. That saved the day forPatsy, for her strength and breath had gone past summoning.

  "Thank you," she said, feebly, with a vagabond glove held out inproffered fellowship. "That's the kindest thing any one has done forme since I came over."

  "Are ye--"

  "Irish--same as yourself."

  "How did ye know?"

  "Sure, who but an Irishman would have had his wits and his heartworking at the same time?" And with a laugh Patsy left him and wentinside.

  Her eye ran systematically down the rows of seats. Billy Burgeman wasnot there. She passed through to the next car, and a second, and athird. Still there was no back she could identify as belonging to theman she was pursuing.

  She was crossing a fourth platform when she ran into the conductor,who barred her way. "Smoking-car ahead, lady; this is the last of thepassenger-coaches."

  Patsy had it on the end of her tongue to say she preferredsmoking-cars, intending to duck simultaneously under the conductor'sarm and enter, willy-nilly. But the words rolled no farther than thetongue's edge. She turned obediently back, re-entering the car andtaking the first seat by the door. For this her memory wasresponsible. It had spun the day's events before her like a roulettewheel, stopping precisely at the remark of Marjorie Schuyler'sconcerning William Burgeman: "He's the most conventional younggentleman I ever saw in my life. Why, you would shock--"

  A strange young woman doling out consolation to him in a smoking-carwould be anything but a dramatic success; Patsy felt this all tookeenly. He was decidedly not of her world or the men and women sheknew, who gave help when the need came regardless of time, place,acquaintanceship, or sex.

  "Faith, he's the kind that will expect an introduction first, and amonth or two of tangoing, tea-drinking, and tennis-playing; afterwhich, if I ask his permission, he might consider it proper--" Patsygroaned. "Oh, I hate the man already!"

  "Ticket!"

  "Ticket? What for?"

  "What for? Do you think this is a joy ride?" The conductor radiatedsarcasm.

  Patsy crimsoned. "I haven't mine. I--I was to--meet my--aunt--who hadthe ticket--and--she must have missed the train."

  "Where are you going?"

  "I--I--Why, I was telling--My aunt had the tickets. How would I knowwhere I was going without the tickets?"

  The conductor snorted.

  Patsy looked hard at him and knew the time had come for wits--good,sharp O'Connell wits. She smiled coaxingly. "It sounds so stupid,but, you see, I haven't an idea where I am going. I was to meet myaunt and go down with her to her summer place. I--I can't rememberthe name." Her mouth drooped for the fraction of a second, then shebrightened all over. "I know what I can do--very probably she missedthe train because she expects to be at the station to meet me--I canlook out each time the train stops, and when I see her I can get off.That makes it all right, doesn't it?" And she smiled in openconfidence as a sacrificial maiden might have propitiated the dragon.

  But it was not reciprocated. He eyed her scornfully. "And who paysfor the ticket?"

  "Oh!" Patsy caught her breath; then she sent it bubbling forth in acontagious laugh. "I do--of course. I'll take a ticket to--just nameover the stations, please?"

  The conductor growled them forth: "Hampden, Forestview, Hainsville,Dartmouth, Hudson, Arden, Brambleside, Mayberry, Greyfriars--"

  "What's that last--Greyfriars? I'll take a ticket to Greyfriars." Shesaid it after the same fashion she might have used in ordering amutton chop at a restaurant, and handed the conductor a bill.

  When he had given her the change and passed on, still disgruntled,Patsy allowed herself what she called a "temporary attack of privateprostration."

  "Idiot!" she groaned in self-address. "Ye are the biggest fool in twocontinents; and the Lord knows what Dan would be thinking of ye if hewere topside o' green earth to hear." Whereupon she gripped onevagabond glove with the other--in fellow misery; and for the secondtime that afternoon her eyes closed with sheer exhaustion.

  * * * * *

  The train rumbled on. Each time it stopped Patsy watched the doorwayand the window beside her for sight of her quarry; each time itstarted again she sighed inwardly with relief, glad of anotherfurlough from a mission which was fast growing appalling. She hadlong since ceased to be interested in Billy Burgeman as anindividual. He had shrunk into an abstract sense of duty, and as suchfailed to appeal or convince. But as her interest waned, herdetermination waxed; she would get him and tell him what she had comefor, if it took a year and a day and shocked him into completeoblivion.

  She was saying this to herself for the hundredth time, adding forspice--and artistic finish--"After that--the devil take him!" whenthe train pulled away from another station. She had already satisfiedherself that he was not among the leaving passengers. But suddenlysomething familiar in a solitary figure standing at the far end ofthe gravel embankment caught her eye; it was back toward her, and inthe quick passing an
d the gathering dusk she could make out dimoutlines only. But those outlines were unmistakable, unforgetable.

  "A million curses on the house of Burgeman!" quoth Patsy. "Well,there's naught for it but to get off at the next station and goback."

  The conductor watched her get off with a distinct feeling of relief.He had very much feared she was not a responsible person and in nomental position to be traveling alone. Her departure cleared him ofall uneasiness and obligation and he settled down to his businesswith an unburdened mind. Not so Patsy. She blinked at the vanishingtrain and then at her empty hands, with the nearest she had ever comein her life to utter, abject despair. She had left her bag in thecar!

  When articulate thinking was possible she remarked, acridly, "Ye needa baby nurse to mind ye, Patricia O'Connell; and I'm not sure but yeneed a perambulator as well." She gave a tired little stretch to herbody and rubbed her eyes. "I feel as if this was all a silly play andI was cast for the part of an Irish simpleton; a low-comedyburlesque--that ye'd swear never happened in real life outside ofthe county asylums."

  A headlight raced down the track toward her and the city, and shegathered up what was left of her scattered wits. As the train slowedup she stepped into the shadows, and her eye fell on the openbaggage-car. She smiled grimly. "Faith! I have a notion I likebrakemen and baggagemen better than conductors."

  And so it came to pass as the train started that the baggageman, whohappened to be standing in the doorway, was somewhat startled to seea small figure come racing toward it out of the dusk and landsprawling on the floor beside him.

  "A girl tramp!" he ejaculated in amazement and disgust, and then, ashe helped her to her feet, "Don't you know you're breaking the law?"

  She laughed. "From the feelings, I thought it was something else."She sobered and turned on him fiercely. "I want ye to understand I'vepaid my fare on the train out, which entitled me to one continuouspassage--_with my trunk_. Well, I'm returning--_as my trunk_, I'lltake up no more room and I'll ask no more privileges."

  "That may sound sensible, but it's not law," and the man grinnedbroadly. "I'm sorry, miss, but off you go at the next station."

  "All right," agreed Patsy; "only please don't argue. Sure, I'm sickentirely of arguing."

  She dropped down on a trunk and buried her face in her hands. Thebaggageman watched her, hypnotized with curiosity and wonder. At thenext station he helped her to drop through the opening she hadentered, and called a shamefaced "good-by" after her in the dusk.

  She hunted up the station-agent and received scanty encouragement:Very likely he had seen such a man; there were many of thatdescription getting off every day. They generally went to theInn--Brambleside Inn. The season was just open and society peoplewere beginning to come. No, there was no conveyance. The Inn's 'busesdid not meet any train after the six-thirty from town, unless orderedespecially by guests. Was she expected?

  Patsy was about to shake her head when a roadster swung around thecorner of the station and came to a dead stop in front of where sheand the station-master were standing.

  The driver peered at her through his goggles in a questioning,hesitating manner. "Is this--are you Miss St. Regis?" he finallyasked.

  "Miriam St. Regis?" Patsy intended it for a question, realizing evenas she spoke the absurdity of inquiring the name of an Englishactress at such a place.

  But the driver took it for a statement of identity. "Yes, of course,Miss Miriam St. Regis. Mr. Blake made a mistake and thought becauseyour box came from town you'd be coming that way. It wasn't untilyour manager, Mr. Travis, telephoned half an hour ago that herealized you'd be on that southbound train. Awfully sorry to havekept you waiting. Step right in, please."

  Whereupon the driver removed himself from the roadster, assisted herto a seat, covered her with a rug--for early June evenings can berather sharp--and the next moment Patsy found herself tearing down astretch of country road with the purr of a motor as music to herears.

  "Sure, I don't know who wrote the play and starred me in it," shemused, dreamily, "but he certainly knows how to handle situations."

  For the space of a few breaths she gave herself over completely tothe luxury of bodily comfort and mental inertia. It seemed as if shewould have been content to keep on whirling into an eternity ofdarkness--with a destination so remote, and a mission so obscure, asnot to be of the slightest disturbance to her immediateconsciousness. All she asked of fate that moment was the blessednessof nothing; and for answer--her mind was jerked back ruthlessly tothe curse of more complexities.

  The lights of a large building in the distance reminded her there wasmore work for her wits before her and no time to lose. "I mustthink--think--think, and it grows harder every minute. If Miriam St.Regis is coming here, it means, like as not, she's filling in betweenseasons, entertaining. Well, until she comes, they're all heartywelcome to the mistake they've made. And afterward--troth! there'llbe a corner in her room for me the night, or Saint Michael's asinner; either way, 'tis all right."

  The driver unbundled her and helped her out as courteously as he hadhelped her in. He led the way across a broad veranda to the mainentrance, and there she fell behind him as he pushed open the greatswinging door.

  "Oh, that you, Masters? Did Miss St. Regis come?"

  "Sure thing, sir; she's right here."

  The next moment Patsy stood in a blaze of lights between a personallyconducting chauffeur and a pompous hotel manager, who looked downupon her with distrustful scrutiny. She was wholly aware of everyinch of her appearance--the shabbiness of her brown Norfolk suit,the rakishness of her boyish brown beaver hat, and the vagabondgloves. But of what value is the precedent of having been foundhanging on the thorn of a Killarney rose-bush by the Physician tothe King, of what value is the knowledge of past kinship with acertain Dan O'Connell, if one allows a little matter of clothes tospoil one's entrance and murder one's lines?

  The blood came flushing back into Patsy's cheeks, turning them thecolor of thorn bloom, and her eyes deepened to the blue of Killarney,sparkling as when the sun goes a-dancing. She smiled--a fresh,radiant, witching smile upon that clay lump of commercialism--untilshe saw his appraisement of her treble its original figure.

  Then she said, sweetly: "I have had rather a hard time getting here,Mr. Blake; making connections in your country is not always as simpleas one might expect. My room, please." And with an air of a grandduchess Patsy O'Connell, late of the Irish National Players, Dublin,and later of the women's free ward of the City Hospital, led the wayacross one of the most brilliant summer hotel foyers in America.

  As she entered the elevator a young man stepped out--a young man witha small, blond, persevering mustache, a rather thin, esthetic,melancholy face, and a myopic squint. He wore a Balmacaan of Scotchtweed and carried a round, plush hat.

  Patsy turned to the bell-boy. "Did that man arrive to-night?"

  "Yes, miss; I took him up."

  "What is his name--do you know?"

  "Can't say, miss. I'll find out, if you like."

  "There is no need. I rather think I know it myself." And under herbreath she ejaculated, "Saint Peter deliver us!"