Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 851
“Yes, dear.”
“Does that cause you any real apprehension?” she laughed.
“I am thinking of you.”
“Think of me, then,” she said gaily, “and know that I am happy and content. The world is turning into such a wonderful friend to me; fate is becoming so gentle and so kind. Happiness may brand me; nothing else can leave a mark. So be at ease concerning me. All shall go well with me, only when with you, my darling, all goes well.”
He smiled in sympathy with her gaiety of heart, but the slight shadow returned to his face again. Watching it she said:
“All things shall come to us, Clive.”
“All things,” he said, gravely,— “except fulfilment.”
“That, too,” she murmured.
“No, Athalie.”
“Yes,” she said under her breath.
He only lifted her ringless hand to his lips in hopeless silence; but she looked up at the cloudless sky and out over sunlit harvest fields and where grain and fruit were ripening, and she smiled, closing her white hand and pressing it gently against his lips.
Connor met them at the door and shouldered Clive’s trunk and other luggage; then Athalie slipped her arm through his and took him into the autumn glow of her garden.
“Miracle after miracle, Clive — from the enchantment of July roses to the splendour of dahlia, calendula, and gladioluses. Such a wonder-house no man ever before gave to any woman.... There is not one stalk or leaf or blossom or blade of grass that is not my intimate and tender friend, my confidant, my dear preceptor, my companion beloved and adored.
“And then her hands were in his and she was looking into his beloved eyes once more.”
“Do you notice that the grapes on the trellis are turning dark? And the peaches are becoming so big and heavy and rosy. They will be ripe before very long.”
“You must have a greenhouse,” he said.
“We must,” she admitted demurely.
He turned toward her with much of his old gaiety, laughing: “Do you know,” he said, “I believe you are pretending to be in love with me!”
“That’s all it is, Clive, just pretence, and the natural depravity of a flirt. When I go back to town I’ll forget you ever existed — unless you go with me.”
“I’m wondering,” he said, “what we had better do in town.”
“I’m not wondering; I know.”
He looked at her questioningly. Then she told him about her visit to Michael and the apartment.
“There is no other place in the world that I care to live in — excepting this,” she said. “Couldn’t we live there, Clive, when we go to town?”
After a moment he said: “Yes.”
“Would you care to?” she asked wistfully. Then smiled as she met his eyes.
“So I shall give up business,” she said, “and that tower apartment. There’s a letter here now asking if I desire to sublet it; and as I had to renew my lease last June, that is what I shall do — if you’ll let me live in the place you made for me so long ago.”
He answered, smilingly, that he might be induced to permit it.
Hafiz appeared, inquisitive, urbane, waving his snowy tail; but he was shy of further demonstrations toward the man who was seated beside his beloved mistress, and he pretended that he saw something in the obscurity of the flowering thickets, and stalked it with every symptom of sincerity.
“That cat must be about six years old,” said Clive, watching him.
“He plays like a kitten, still.”
“Do you remember how he used to pat your thread with his paws when you were sewing.”
“I remember,” she said, smiling.
A little later Hafiz regained confidence in Clive and came up to rub against his legs and permit caresses.
“Such a united family,” remarked Athalie, amused by the mutual demonstrations.
“How is Henry?” he asked.
“Fatter and slower than ever, dear. He suits my unenterprising disposition to perfection. Now and then he condescends to be harnessed and to carry me about the landscape. But mostly he drags the cruel burden of Connor’s lawn-mower. Do you think the place looks well kept?”
“I knew you wanted to be flattered,” he laughed.
“I do. Flatter me please.”
“It’s one of the best things I do, Athalie! For example — the lawn, the cat, and the girl are all beautifully groomed; the credit is yours; and you’re a celestial dream too exquisite to be real.”
“I am becoming real — as real as you are,” she said with a faint smile.
“Yes,” he admitted, “you and I are the only real things in the world after all. The rest — woven scenes that come and go moving across a loom.”
She quoted:
“Sun and Moon illume the Room
Where the ceiling is the sky:
Night and day the Weavers ply
Colour, shadow, hue, and dye,
Where the rushing shuttles fly,
Weaving dreams across the Loom,
Picturing a common doom!
“How, Beloved, can we die —
We Immortals, Thou and I?”
He smiled: “Death seems very far away,” he said.
“Nothing dies.... If only this world could understand.... Did I tell you that mother has been with me often while you were away?”
“No.”
“It was wonderfully sweet to see her in the room. One night I fell asleep across her knees.”
“Does she ever speak to you, Athalie?”
“Yes, sometimes we talk.”
“At night?”
“By day, too.... I was sitting in the living-room the other morning, and she came up behind me and took both my hands. We talked, I lying back in the rocking chair and looking up at her.... Mrs. Connor came in. I am quite sure she was frightened when she heard my voice in there conversing with nobody she could see.”
Athalie smiled to herself as at some amusing memory evoked.
“If Mrs. Connor ever knew how she is followed about by so many purring pussies and little wagging dogs — I mean dogs and pussies who are no longer what we call ‘alive,’ — I don’t know what she’d think. Sometimes the place is full of them, Clive — such darling little creatures. Hafiz sees them; and watches and watches, but never moves.”
Clive was staring a trifle hard; Athalie, lazily stretching her arms, glanced at him with that humorous expression which hinted of gentlest mockery.
“Don’t worry; nothing follows you, Clive, except an idle girl who finds no time for anything else, so busy are her thoughts with you.”
He bent forward and kissed her; and she clasped both hands behind his head, drawing it nearer.
“Have you missed me, Athalie?”
“You could never understand how much.”
“Did you find me in your crystal?”
“No; I saw only the sea and on the horizon a stain of smoke, and a gull flying.”
He drew her closely into his arms: “God,” he breathed, “if anything ever should happen to you! — and I — alone on earth — and blind—”
“Yes. That is the only anxiety I ever knew ... because you are blind.”
“If you came to me I could not see you. If you spoke to me I could not hear. Could anything more awful happen?”
“Do you care for me so much?”
In his eyes she read her answer, and thrilled to it, closer in his arms; and rested so, her cheek against his, gazing at the sunset out of dreamy eyes.
* * *
They had been slowly pacing the garden paths, arm within arm, when Mrs. Connor came to summon them to dinner. The small dining-room was flooded with sunset light; rosy bars of it lay across cloth and fruit and flowers, and striped the wall and ceiling.
And when dinner was ended the pale fire still burned on the thin silk curtains and struck across the garden, gilding the coping of the wall where clustering peaches hung all turned to gold like fabled fruit that ripens in Hesperides.
Hafiz followed them out under the evening sky and seated himself upon the grass. And he seemed mildly to enjoy the robins’ evening carolling, blinking benevolently up at the little vesper choristers, high singing in the sunset’s lingering glow.
Whenever light puffs of wind set blossoms swaying, the jet from the fountain basin swerved, and a mellow raining sound of drops swept the still pool. The lilac twilight deepened to mauve; upon the surface of the pool a primrose tint grew duller. Then the first bat zig-zagged across the sky; and every clove-pink border became misty with the wings of dusk-moths.
On Athalie’s frail white gown one alighted, — a little grey thing wearing a pair of peacock-tinted diamonds on its forewings; and as it sat there, quivering, the iridescent incrustations changed from burnished gold to green.
“Wonders, wonders, under the moon,” murmured the girl— “thronging miracles that fill the day and night, always, everywhere. And so few to see them.... Sometimes, to me the blindness of the world to all the loveliness that I ‘see clearly’ is like my own blindness to the hidden wonders of the night — where uncounted myriads of little rainbow spirits fly. And nobody sees and knows the living splendour of them except when some grey-winged phantom strays indoors from the outer shadows. And it astonishes us to see, under the drab forewings, a blaze of scarlet, gold, or orange.”
“I suppose,” he said, “that the unseen night world all around us is no more wonderful than what, in the day-world, the vast majority of us never see, never suspect.”
“I think it must be so, Clive. Being accustomed to a more densely populated world than are many people, I believe that if I could see only what they see, — merely that small portion of activity and life which the world calls ‘living things,’ I should find the sunlit world rather empty, and the night but a silent desolation under the stars.”
After a few minutes’ thought he asked in a low voice whether at that moment there was anybody in the garden except themselves.
“Some people were here a little while ago, looking at the flowers. I think they must have lived here many, many years ago; perhaps when this old house was new.”
“Could you not ask them who they were?”
“No, dear.”
“Why?”
“If they were what you would call ‘alive’ I could not intrude upon them, could I? The laws of reticence, the respect for privacy, remain the same. I am conscious of no more impertinent curiosity concerning them than I am concerning any passer in the city streets.”
“Have they gone?”
“Yes. But all the evening I have been hearing children at play just beyond the garden wall.... And, when I was a child, somebody killed a little dog down by the causeway. He is here in the garden, now, trotting gaily about the lawn — such a happy little dog! — and Hafiz has folded his forepaws under his ruff and has settled down to watch him. Don’t you see how Hafiz watches, how his head turns following every movement of the little visitor?”
He nodded; then: “Do you still hear the children outside the wall?”
She sat listening, the smile brooding in her eyes.
“Can you still hear them?” he repeated, wistfully.
“Yes, dear.”
“What are they saying?”
“I can’t make out. They are having a happy time somewhere on the outer lawns.”
“How many are there?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Their voices make a sweet, confused sound like bird music before dawn. I couldn’t even guess how many children are playing there.”
“Are any among them those children you once saw here? — the children who pleaded with you—”
She did not answer. He tightened his arm around her waist, drawing her nearer; and she laid her cheek against his shoulder.
“Yes,” she said, “they are there.”
“You know their voices?”
“Yes, dearest.”
“Will they come again into the garden?”
Her face flushed deeply:
“Not unless we call them.”
“Call them,” he said. And, after a silence: “Dearest, will you not call them to us?”
“Oh, Clive! I have been calling. Now it remains with you.”
“I did not hear you call them.”
“They heard.”
“Will they come?”
“I — think so.”
“When?”
“Very soon — if you truly desire them,” she whispered against his shoulder.
* * *
Somewhere within the house the hour struck. After a long while they rose, moving slowly, her head still lying on his shoulder. Hafiz watched them until the door closed, then settled down again to gaze on things invisible to men.
* * *
Hours of the night in dim processional passed the old house unlighted save by the stars. Toward dawn a sea-wind stirred the trees; the fountain jet rained on the surface of the pool or, caught by a sudden breeze, drifted in whispering spray across the grass. Everywhere the darkness grew murmurous with sounds, vague as wind-blown voices; sweet as the call of children from some hill-top where the stars are very near, and the new moon’s sickle flashes through the grass.
Athalie stirred where she lay, turned her head sideways with infinite precaution, and lay listening.
Through the open window beside her she saw a dark sky set with stars; heard the sea-wind in the leaves and the falling water of the fountain. And very far away a sweet confused murmuring grew upon her ears.
Silently her soul answered the far hail; her heart, responding, echoed a voiceless welcome till she became fearful lest it beat too loudly.
Then, with infinite precaution, noiselessly, and scarcely stirring, she turned and laid her lips again where they had rested all night long and, lying so, dreamed of miracles ineffable.
* * *
CHAPTER XXVIII
CLIVE’S ENFORCED IDLENESS had secretly humiliated him and made him restless. Athalie in her tender wisdom understood how it was with him before he did himself, and she was already deftly guiding his balked energy into a brand new channel, the same being a bucolic one.
At first he had demurred, alleging total ignorance of husbandry; and, seated on the sill of an open window and looking down at him in the garden, she tormented him to her heart’s content:
“Ignorant of husbandry!” she mimicked,— “when any husband I ever heard of could go to school to you and learn what a real husband ought to be! Why will you pretend to be so painfully modest, Clive, when you are really secretly pleased with yourself and entirely convinced that, in you, the world might discover a living pattern of model domesticity!”
“I’m glad you think so—”
“Think! If I were only as certain of anything else! Never had I dreamed that any man could become so cowed, so spiritless, so perfectly house and yard broken—”
“If I come upstairs,” he said, “I’ll settle you!”
Leaning from the window overlooking the garden she lazily defied him; turned up her dainty nose at him; mocked at him until he flung aside the morning paper and rose, bent on her punishment.
“Oh, Clive, don’t!” she pleaded, leaning low from the sill. “I won’t tease you any more, — and this gown is fresh—”
“I’ll come up and freshen it!” he threatened.
“Please don’t rumple me. I’ll come down if you like. Shall I?”
“All right, darling,” he said, resuming his newspaper and cigarette.
She came, seated herself demurely beside him, twitched his newspaper until he cast an ominous glance at his tormentor.
“Dear,” she said, “I simply can’t let you alone; you are so bland and self-satisfied—”
“Athalie — if you persist in tormenting me—”
“I torment you? I? An humble accessory in the scenery set for you? I? — a stage property fashioned merely for the hero of the drama to sit upon—”
“All right! I’ll do that now!—”
But she nestled close to him, warding off wrath with both arms clasping his, and looking up at him out of winning eyes in which but a tormenting glint remained.
“You wouldn’t rumple this very beautiful and brand new gown, would you, darling? It was so frightfully expensive—”
“I don’t care—”
“Oh, but you must care. You must become thrifty and shrewd and devious and close, or you’ll never make a successful farmer—”
“Dearest, that’s nonsense. What do I know about farming?”
“Nothing yet. But you know what a wonderful man you are. Never forget that, Clive—”
“If you don’t stop laughing at me, you little wretch—”
“Don’t you want me to remain young?” she asked reproachfully, while two tiny demons of gaiety danced in her eyes. “If I can’t laugh I’ll grow old. And there’s nothing very funny here except you and Hafiz — Oh, Clive! You have rumpled me! Please don’t do it again! Yes — yes — yes! I do surrender! I am sorry — that you are so funny — Clive! You’ll ruin this gown!... I promise not to say another disrespectful word.... I don’t know whether I’ll kiss you or not — Yes! Yes I will, dear. Yes, I’ll do it tenderly — you heartless wretch! — I tell you I’ll do it tenderly.... Oh wait, Clive! Is Mrs. Connor looking out of any window? Where’s Connor? Are you sure he’s not in sight?... And I shouldn’t care to have Hafiz see us. He’s a moral kitty—”
She pretended to look fearfully around, then, with adorable tenderness, she paid her forfeit and sat silent for a while with her slim white fingers linked in his, in that breathless little revery which always stilled her under the magic of his embrace.
He said at last: “Do you really suppose I could make this farm-land pay?”
And that was really the beginning of it all.
* * *
Once decided he seemed to go rather mad about it, buying agricultural paraphernalia recklessly and indiscriminately for a meditated assault upon fields long fallow.
Connor already had as much as he could attend to in the garden; but, like all Irishmen, he had a cousin, and the cousin possessed agricultural lore and a pair of plough-horses.
“Does that cause you any real apprehension?” she laughed.
“I am thinking of you.”
“Think of me, then,” she said gaily, “and know that I am happy and content. The world is turning into such a wonderful friend to me; fate is becoming so gentle and so kind. Happiness may brand me; nothing else can leave a mark. So be at ease concerning me. All shall go well with me, only when with you, my darling, all goes well.”
He smiled in sympathy with her gaiety of heart, but the slight shadow returned to his face again. Watching it she said:
“All things shall come to us, Clive.”
“All things,” he said, gravely,— “except fulfilment.”
“That, too,” she murmured.
“No, Athalie.”
“Yes,” she said under her breath.
He only lifted her ringless hand to his lips in hopeless silence; but she looked up at the cloudless sky and out over sunlit harvest fields and where grain and fruit were ripening, and she smiled, closing her white hand and pressing it gently against his lips.
Connor met them at the door and shouldered Clive’s trunk and other luggage; then Athalie slipped her arm through his and took him into the autumn glow of her garden.
“Miracle after miracle, Clive — from the enchantment of July roses to the splendour of dahlia, calendula, and gladioluses. Such a wonder-house no man ever before gave to any woman.... There is not one stalk or leaf or blossom or blade of grass that is not my intimate and tender friend, my confidant, my dear preceptor, my companion beloved and adored.
“And then her hands were in his and she was looking into his beloved eyes once more.”
“Do you notice that the grapes on the trellis are turning dark? And the peaches are becoming so big and heavy and rosy. They will be ripe before very long.”
“You must have a greenhouse,” he said.
“We must,” she admitted demurely.
He turned toward her with much of his old gaiety, laughing: “Do you know,” he said, “I believe you are pretending to be in love with me!”
“That’s all it is, Clive, just pretence, and the natural depravity of a flirt. When I go back to town I’ll forget you ever existed — unless you go with me.”
“I’m wondering,” he said, “what we had better do in town.”
“I’m not wondering; I know.”
He looked at her questioningly. Then she told him about her visit to Michael and the apartment.
“There is no other place in the world that I care to live in — excepting this,” she said. “Couldn’t we live there, Clive, when we go to town?”
After a moment he said: “Yes.”
“Would you care to?” she asked wistfully. Then smiled as she met his eyes.
“So I shall give up business,” she said, “and that tower apartment. There’s a letter here now asking if I desire to sublet it; and as I had to renew my lease last June, that is what I shall do — if you’ll let me live in the place you made for me so long ago.”
He answered, smilingly, that he might be induced to permit it.
Hafiz appeared, inquisitive, urbane, waving his snowy tail; but he was shy of further demonstrations toward the man who was seated beside his beloved mistress, and he pretended that he saw something in the obscurity of the flowering thickets, and stalked it with every symptom of sincerity.
“That cat must be about six years old,” said Clive, watching him.
“He plays like a kitten, still.”
“Do you remember how he used to pat your thread with his paws when you were sewing.”
“I remember,” she said, smiling.
A little later Hafiz regained confidence in Clive and came up to rub against his legs and permit caresses.
“Such a united family,” remarked Athalie, amused by the mutual demonstrations.
“How is Henry?” he asked.
“Fatter and slower than ever, dear. He suits my unenterprising disposition to perfection. Now and then he condescends to be harnessed and to carry me about the landscape. But mostly he drags the cruel burden of Connor’s lawn-mower. Do you think the place looks well kept?”
“I knew you wanted to be flattered,” he laughed.
“I do. Flatter me please.”
“It’s one of the best things I do, Athalie! For example — the lawn, the cat, and the girl are all beautifully groomed; the credit is yours; and you’re a celestial dream too exquisite to be real.”
“I am becoming real — as real as you are,” she said with a faint smile.
“Yes,” he admitted, “you and I are the only real things in the world after all. The rest — woven scenes that come and go moving across a loom.”
She quoted:
“Sun and Moon illume the Room
Where the ceiling is the sky:
Night and day the Weavers ply
Colour, shadow, hue, and dye,
Where the rushing shuttles fly,
Weaving dreams across the Loom,
Picturing a common doom!
“How, Beloved, can we die —
We Immortals, Thou and I?”
He smiled: “Death seems very far away,” he said.
“Nothing dies.... If only this world could understand.... Did I tell you that mother has been with me often while you were away?”
“No.”
“It was wonderfully sweet to see her in the room. One night I fell asleep across her knees.”
“Does she ever speak to you, Athalie?”
“Yes, sometimes we talk.”
“At night?”
“By day, too.... I was sitting in the living-room the other morning, and she came up behind me and took both my hands. We talked, I lying back in the rocking chair and looking up at her.... Mrs. Connor came in. I am quite sure she was frightened when she heard my voice in there conversing with nobody she could see.”
Athalie smiled to herself as at some amusing memory evoked.
“If Mrs. Connor ever knew how she is followed about by so many purring pussies and little wagging dogs — I mean dogs and pussies who are no longer what we call ‘alive,’ — I don’t know what she’d think. Sometimes the place is full of them, Clive — such darling little creatures. Hafiz sees them; and watches and watches, but never moves.”
Clive was staring a trifle hard; Athalie, lazily stretching her arms, glanced at him with that humorous expression which hinted of gentlest mockery.
“Don’t worry; nothing follows you, Clive, except an idle girl who finds no time for anything else, so busy are her thoughts with you.”
He bent forward and kissed her; and she clasped both hands behind his head, drawing it nearer.
“Have you missed me, Athalie?”
“You could never understand how much.”
“Did you find me in your crystal?”
“No; I saw only the sea and on the horizon a stain of smoke, and a gull flying.”
He drew her closely into his arms: “God,” he breathed, “if anything ever should happen to you! — and I — alone on earth — and blind—”
“Yes. That is the only anxiety I ever knew ... because you are blind.”
“If you came to me I could not see you. If you spoke to me I could not hear. Could anything more awful happen?”
“Do you care for me so much?”
In his eyes she read her answer, and thrilled to it, closer in his arms; and rested so, her cheek against his, gazing at the sunset out of dreamy eyes.
* * *
They had been slowly pacing the garden paths, arm within arm, when Mrs. Connor came to summon them to dinner. The small dining-room was flooded with sunset light; rosy bars of it lay across cloth and fruit and flowers, and striped the wall and ceiling.
And when dinner was ended the pale fire still burned on the thin silk curtains and struck across the garden, gilding the coping of the wall where clustering peaches hung all turned to gold like fabled fruit that ripens in Hesperides.
Hafiz followed them out under the evening sky and seated himself upon the grass. And he seemed mildly to enjoy the robins’ evening carolling, blinking benevolently up at the little vesper choristers, high singing in the sunset’s lingering glow.
Whenever light puffs of wind set blossoms swaying, the jet from the fountain basin swerved, and a mellow raining sound of drops swept the still pool. The lilac twilight deepened to mauve; upon the surface of the pool a primrose tint grew duller. Then the first bat zig-zagged across the sky; and every clove-pink border became misty with the wings of dusk-moths.
On Athalie’s frail white gown one alighted, — a little grey thing wearing a pair of peacock-tinted diamonds on its forewings; and as it sat there, quivering, the iridescent incrustations changed from burnished gold to green.
“Wonders, wonders, under the moon,” murmured the girl— “thronging miracles that fill the day and night, always, everywhere. And so few to see them.... Sometimes, to me the blindness of the world to all the loveliness that I ‘see clearly’ is like my own blindness to the hidden wonders of the night — where uncounted myriads of little rainbow spirits fly. And nobody sees and knows the living splendour of them except when some grey-winged phantom strays indoors from the outer shadows. And it astonishes us to see, under the drab forewings, a blaze of scarlet, gold, or orange.”
“I suppose,” he said, “that the unseen night world all around us is no more wonderful than what, in the day-world, the vast majority of us never see, never suspect.”
“I think it must be so, Clive. Being accustomed to a more densely populated world than are many people, I believe that if I could see only what they see, — merely that small portion of activity and life which the world calls ‘living things,’ I should find the sunlit world rather empty, and the night but a silent desolation under the stars.”
After a few minutes’ thought he asked in a low voice whether at that moment there was anybody in the garden except themselves.
“Some people were here a little while ago, looking at the flowers. I think they must have lived here many, many years ago; perhaps when this old house was new.”
“Could you not ask them who they were?”
“No, dear.”
“Why?”
“If they were what you would call ‘alive’ I could not intrude upon them, could I? The laws of reticence, the respect for privacy, remain the same. I am conscious of no more impertinent curiosity concerning them than I am concerning any passer in the city streets.”
“Have they gone?”
“Yes. But all the evening I have been hearing children at play just beyond the garden wall.... And, when I was a child, somebody killed a little dog down by the causeway. He is here in the garden, now, trotting gaily about the lawn — such a happy little dog! — and Hafiz has folded his forepaws under his ruff and has settled down to watch him. Don’t you see how Hafiz watches, how his head turns following every movement of the little visitor?”
He nodded; then: “Do you still hear the children outside the wall?”
She sat listening, the smile brooding in her eyes.
“Can you still hear them?” he repeated, wistfully.
“Yes, dear.”
“What are they saying?”
“I can’t make out. They are having a happy time somewhere on the outer lawns.”
“How many are there?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Their voices make a sweet, confused sound like bird music before dawn. I couldn’t even guess how many children are playing there.”
“Are any among them those children you once saw here? — the children who pleaded with you—”
She did not answer. He tightened his arm around her waist, drawing her nearer; and she laid her cheek against his shoulder.
“Yes,” she said, “they are there.”
“You know their voices?”
“Yes, dearest.”
“Will they come again into the garden?”
Her face flushed deeply:
“Not unless we call them.”
“Call them,” he said. And, after a silence: “Dearest, will you not call them to us?”
“Oh, Clive! I have been calling. Now it remains with you.”
“I did not hear you call them.”
“They heard.”
“Will they come?”
“I — think so.”
“When?”
“Very soon — if you truly desire them,” she whispered against his shoulder.
* * *
Somewhere within the house the hour struck. After a long while they rose, moving slowly, her head still lying on his shoulder. Hafiz watched them until the door closed, then settled down again to gaze on things invisible to men.
* * *
Hours of the night in dim processional passed the old house unlighted save by the stars. Toward dawn a sea-wind stirred the trees; the fountain jet rained on the surface of the pool or, caught by a sudden breeze, drifted in whispering spray across the grass. Everywhere the darkness grew murmurous with sounds, vague as wind-blown voices; sweet as the call of children from some hill-top where the stars are very near, and the new moon’s sickle flashes through the grass.
Athalie stirred where she lay, turned her head sideways with infinite precaution, and lay listening.
Through the open window beside her she saw a dark sky set with stars; heard the sea-wind in the leaves and the falling water of the fountain. And very far away a sweet confused murmuring grew upon her ears.
Silently her soul answered the far hail; her heart, responding, echoed a voiceless welcome till she became fearful lest it beat too loudly.
Then, with infinite precaution, noiselessly, and scarcely stirring, she turned and laid her lips again where they had rested all night long and, lying so, dreamed of miracles ineffable.
* * *
CHAPTER XXVIII
CLIVE’S ENFORCED IDLENESS had secretly humiliated him and made him restless. Athalie in her tender wisdom understood how it was with him before he did himself, and she was already deftly guiding his balked energy into a brand new channel, the same being a bucolic one.
At first he had demurred, alleging total ignorance of husbandry; and, seated on the sill of an open window and looking down at him in the garden, she tormented him to her heart’s content:
“Ignorant of husbandry!” she mimicked,— “when any husband I ever heard of could go to school to you and learn what a real husband ought to be! Why will you pretend to be so painfully modest, Clive, when you are really secretly pleased with yourself and entirely convinced that, in you, the world might discover a living pattern of model domesticity!”
“I’m glad you think so—”
“Think! If I were only as certain of anything else! Never had I dreamed that any man could become so cowed, so spiritless, so perfectly house and yard broken—”
“If I come upstairs,” he said, “I’ll settle you!”
Leaning from the window overlooking the garden she lazily defied him; turned up her dainty nose at him; mocked at him until he flung aside the morning paper and rose, bent on her punishment.
“Oh, Clive, don’t!” she pleaded, leaning low from the sill. “I won’t tease you any more, — and this gown is fresh—”
“I’ll come up and freshen it!” he threatened.
“Please don’t rumple me. I’ll come down if you like. Shall I?”
“All right, darling,” he said, resuming his newspaper and cigarette.
She came, seated herself demurely beside him, twitched his newspaper until he cast an ominous glance at his tormentor.
“Dear,” she said, “I simply can’t let you alone; you are so bland and self-satisfied—”
“Athalie — if you persist in tormenting me—”
“I torment you? I? An humble accessory in the scenery set for you? I? — a stage property fashioned merely for the hero of the drama to sit upon—”
“All right! I’ll do that now!—”
But she nestled close to him, warding off wrath with both arms clasping his, and looking up at him out of winning eyes in which but a tormenting glint remained.
“You wouldn’t rumple this very beautiful and brand new gown, would you, darling? It was so frightfully expensive—”
“I don’t care—”
“Oh, but you must care. You must become thrifty and shrewd and devious and close, or you’ll never make a successful farmer—”
“Dearest, that’s nonsense. What do I know about farming?”
“Nothing yet. But you know what a wonderful man you are. Never forget that, Clive—”
“If you don’t stop laughing at me, you little wretch—”
“Don’t you want me to remain young?” she asked reproachfully, while two tiny demons of gaiety danced in her eyes. “If I can’t laugh I’ll grow old. And there’s nothing very funny here except you and Hafiz — Oh, Clive! You have rumpled me! Please don’t do it again! Yes — yes — yes! I do surrender! I am sorry — that you are so funny — Clive! You’ll ruin this gown!... I promise not to say another disrespectful word.... I don’t know whether I’ll kiss you or not — Yes! Yes I will, dear. Yes, I’ll do it tenderly — you heartless wretch! — I tell you I’ll do it tenderly.... Oh wait, Clive! Is Mrs. Connor looking out of any window? Where’s Connor? Are you sure he’s not in sight?... And I shouldn’t care to have Hafiz see us. He’s a moral kitty—”
She pretended to look fearfully around, then, with adorable tenderness, she paid her forfeit and sat silent for a while with her slim white fingers linked in his, in that breathless little revery which always stilled her under the magic of his embrace.
He said at last: “Do you really suppose I could make this farm-land pay?”
And that was really the beginning of it all.
* * *
Once decided he seemed to go rather mad about it, buying agricultural paraphernalia recklessly and indiscriminately for a meditated assault upon fields long fallow.
Connor already had as much as he could attend to in the garden; but, like all Irishmen, he had a cousin, and the cousin possessed agricultural lore and a pair of plough-horses.
