A Daughter of the Forest
Page 9
CHAPTER IX
PERPLEXITIES
What had he done?
Ignorant why his simple question should have had such strange results,that piercing look made Adrian feel the veriest culprit, and hehastened to leave the room and the cabin. Hurrying to the beach heappropriated Margot's little canvas canoe and pushed out upon thelake. From her and Pierre he had learned to handle the light craftwith considerable skill and he now worked off his excitement by swiftpaddling, so that there was soon a wide distance between him and theisland.
Then he paused and looked around him, upon as fair a scene as couldbe found in any land. Unbroken forests bounded this hidden LakeProfundis, out of whose placid waters rose that mountain-crowned,verdure-clad Island of Peace, with its picturesque home, and itscultured owner, who had brought into this best of the wilderness thebest of civilization.
"What is this mystery? How am I concerned in it? For I am, and mysterythere is. It is like that mist over the island, which I can see andfeel but cannot touch. Pshaw! I'm getting sentimental, when I ought tobe turning detective. Yet I couldn't do that--pry into the privateaffairs of a man who's treated me so generously. What shall I do? Howcan I go back there? But where else can I go?"
At thought that he might never return to the roof he had quitted, acurious homesickness seized him.
"Who'll hunt what game they need? Who'll catch their fish? Who'll keepthe garden growing? Where can I study the forest and its furry people,at first hand, as in the Hollow? And I was doing well. Not as I hopeto do, but getting on. Margot was a merciless critic, but even sheadmitted that my last picture had the look, the spirit of the woods.That's what I want to do, what Mr. Dutton, also, approved; to bringglimpses of these solitudes back to the cities and the thousands whocan never see them in any other way. Well--let it go. I can't stay andbe a torment to anybody, and some time, in some other place, maybe----Ah!"
What he had mistaken for the laughter of a loon was Pierre's halloo.He was coming back, then, from the mainland where he had been absentthese past days. Adrian was thankful. There was nothing mysterious orperplexing about Pierre, whose rule of life was extremely simple.
"Pierre first, second, and forever. After Pierre, if there wasanything left, then--anybody, the nearest at hand;" would haveexpressed the situation; but his honest, unblushing selfishness wassometimes a relief.
"One always knows just where to find Pierre," Margot had said.
So Adrian's answering halloo was prompt, and turning about he watchedthe birch leaving the shadow of the forest and heading for himself. Itwas soon alongside and Ricord's excited voice was shouting his goodnews:
"Run him up to seven hundred and fifty!"
"But I thought there wasn't money enough anywhere to buy him!"
Pierre cocked his dark head on one side and winked.
"Madoc sick and Madoc well are different."
"Oh! you wretch. Would you sell a sick moose and cheat the buyer?"
"Would I lose such a pile of money for foolishness? I guess not."
"But suppose, after you parted with him, he got well?"
Again the woodlander grinned and winked.
"Could you drive the king?"
"No."
"Well, that's all right. I buy him back, what you call trade. One dothat many times, good enough. If----"
Pierre was silent for some moments, during which Adrian had steadilypaddled backward to the island, keeping time with the other boat, andwithout thinking what he was doing. But when he did remember, heturned to Pierre and asked:
"Will you take me across the lake again?"
"What for?"
"No matter. I'll just leave Margot's canoe and you do it. There's timeenough."
"What'll you give me?"
"Pshaw! What can I give you? Nothing."
"That's all right. My mother, she wants the salt," and he kicked thesack of that valuable article, lying at his feet. "There. She's on thebank now and it's not she will let me out of sight again, this longtime."
"You'd go fast enough, for money."
"Maybe not. When one has Angelique Ricord for mere---- Umm."
But it was less for Pierre than for Adrian that Angelique was waiting,and her expression was kinder than common.
"Carry that salt to my kitchen cupboard, son, and get to bed. No.You've no call to tarry. What the master's word is for his guest isnothin' to you."
Pierre's curiosity was roused. Why had Adrian wanted to leave theisland at nightfall, since there was neither hunting nor fishing to bedone? Sport for sport's sake, that was forbidden. And what could bethe message he was not to hear? He meant to learn, and lingered,busying himself uselessly in beaching the canoes afresh, after he hadonce carefully turned them bottom side upward; in brushing outimaginary dirt, readjusting his own clothing--a task he did not oftenbother with--and in general making himself a nuisance to his impatientparent.
But, so long as he remained, she kept silence, till unable to holdback her rising anger she stole up behind him, unperceived, andadministered a sounding box upon his sizable ears.
"Would you? To the cupboard, miserable!" and Adrian could not repressa smile at the meekness with which the great woodlander submitted tothe little woman's authority.
"Xanthippe and Socrates!" he murmured, and Pierre heard him. So,grimacing at him from under the heavy sack, called back: "Fiftydollar. Tell her fifty dollar."
"What he mean by fifty dollar?" demanded Angelique.
"I suppose something about that 'show' business of his. It is hisambition, you know, and I must admit I believe he'd be a success atit."
"Pouf! There is more better business than the 'showin'' one, of takin'God's beasties into the towns and lettin' the foolish people stare.The money comes that way is not good money."
"Oh! yes. It's all right, fair Angelique. But what is the word forme?"
"It is: that you come with me, at once, to the master. He will speakwith you before he sleeps. Yes. And Adrian, lad!"
"Well, Angelique?"
"This is the truth. Remember. When the heart is sore tried the tongueis often sharp. There is death. That is a sorrow. God sends it. Thereare sorrows God does not send but the evil one. Death is but joy tothem. What the master says, answer; and luck light upon your lips."
The lad had never seen the old housekeeper so impressive nor sogentle. At the moment it seemed as if she almost liked him, though,despite the faithfulness with which she had obeyed her master's wishesand served him, he had never before suspected it.
"Thank you, Angelique. I am troubled, too, and I will take care that Ineither say nor resent anything harsh. More than that, I will go away.I have stayed too long, already, though I had hoped I was makingmyself useful. Is he in his own study?"
"Yes, and the little maid is with him. No. There she comes, but she isnot laughin', no. Oh! the broken glass. Scat, Meroude! Why leap uponone to scare the breath out, that way? Pst! 'Tis here that tamecreatures grow wild and wild ones tame. Scat! I say."
Margot was coming through the rooms, holding Reynard by the collar shemade him wear whenever he was in the neighborhood of the hen-house,and Tom limped listlessly along upon her other side. There was troubleand perplexity in the girl's face, and Angelique made a great pretenseof being angry with the cat, to hide that in her own.
But Margot noticed neither her nor Adrian, and sitting down upon thethreshold dropped her chin in her hands and fixed her eyes upon thedarkening lake.
"Why, mistress! The beast here at the cabin, and it nightfall? My poorfowls!"
"He's leashed, you see, Angelique. And I'll lock the poultry up, ifyou like," observed Adrian. Anything to delay a little an interviewfrom which he shrank with something very like that cowardice of whichthe girl had once accused him.
HER PETS ON EITHER SIDE OF HER]
The housekeeper's ready temper flamed, and she laid an ungentle touchupon the stranger's shoulder.
"Go, boy. When Master Hugh commands, 'tis not for such as we todisobey."
At the inner doorway he turned and looked back. Margot was stillsitting, thoughtful and motionless, the firelight from the greathearth making a Rembrandt-like silhouette of her slight figure againstthe outer darkness and touching her wonderful hair to a flood ofsilver. Reynard and the eagle, the wild foresters her love had tamed,stood guard on either side. It was a picture that appealed to Adrian'sartistic sense and he lingered a little, regarding its "effects," evenconsidering what pigments would best convey them.
"Adrian!"
"Yes, Angelique. Yes."
When the door shut behind him Angelique touched her darling's shininghead, and the toil-stiffened fingers had for it almost a mother'stenderness.
"Sweetheart, the bedtime."
"I know. I'm going. Angelique, my uncle sent me from him to-night. Itwas the first time in all my life that I remember."
"Maybe, little stupid, because you've never waited for that, before,but were quick enough to see whenever you were not wanted."
"He---- There's something wrong and Adrian is the cause of it.I--Angelique, you tell me. Uncle did not hear, or reply, anyway. Whereis my father buried?"
Angelique was prepared and had her answer ready.
"'Tis not for a servant to reveal what her master hides. No. All willcome to you in good time. Tarry the master's will. But, that sillyPierre! What think you? Is it fifty dollar would be the price of thetame blue herons? Hey?"
"No. Nor fifty times fifty. Pierre knows that. Love is more thanmoney."
"Sometimes, to some folks. Well, what would you? That son willbe havin' even me, his old mother, in his 'show,' why not? As acur'osity--the only livin' human bein' can make that ingrate mind.Yes. To bed, my child."
Margot rose and housed her pets. This threat of Pierre's, thathe would eventually carry off the "foresters" and exhibit theirhelplessness to staring crowds, always roused her fiercestindignation; and this result was just what Angelique wanted, atpresent, and she murmured her satisfaction:
"Good. That bee will buzz in her ear till she sleeps, and so soundshe'll hear no dip of the paddle, by and by. Here, Pierre, my son,you're wanted."
"What for now? Do leave me be. I'm going to bed. I'm just wore out,trot-trottin' from Pontius to Pilate, lugging salt, and----" hefinished by yawning most prodigiously.
"Firs'-rate sign, that gapin'. Yes. Sign you're healthy and able to doall's needed. There's no bed for you this night. Come. Here. Take thisbasket to the beach. If your canoe needs pitchin', pitch it. There'sthe lantern. If one goes into the show business he learns right nowto work and travel o' nights. Yes. Start. I'll follow and explain."