Lady Larkspur by Meredith Nicholson - HTML preview

CHAPTER V

ALICE

I wanted to be alone and struck off for a wood that lay on the northern end of the estate. This was the most picturesque spot on the property, a wild confusion of trees and boulders. On a summit in the midst of it Uncle Bash had built a platform round a majestic pine from which to view the Sound. I mounted the ladder and was brushing the dead leaves from the bench when, somewhere below me and farther on, I heard voices.

I flattened myself on the platform, listening intently. A stiff breeze from the Sound flung the voices clearly to my hiding-place, and I became aware that Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth were holding a colloquy in what seemed to be the vein of their whimsical make-believe. That they should be doing this in the depth of the woodland merely for their own amusement did not surprise me—nothing they could have done would have astonished me—but the tone of their talk changed abruptly.

"Try it from that boulder there, Alice," said Mrs. Farnsworth. "It's an ideal place, created for the very purpose."

I could see them moving about and hear the swish of shrubbery and the scraping of their feet on the rough slope.

"How will that do?" asked Alice.

"Beautifully," replied Mrs. Farnsworth. "Now go ahead from the beginning of the scene."

Cautiously drawing back the branches, I espied Alice striking a pose on a mammoth rock. She bent forward, clasping her knees, and with an occasional glance at what appeared to be an open book beside her, she began:

"You ask me who I am, my lord? It matters not at all who or what I am; let it suffice that berries are my food and the brook that sings behind me gives me drink. To be one thing or another is a weariness. Would you ask yonder oak for a name, or trouble the wind with like foolish questions? No; it is enough that a tree is strong and fine to look upon and that a wind has healing in its wings."

With her head to one side and an arresting gesture, and throwing into her voice all its charm and a new compelling innocence and sweetness, she continued:

"But you would have a name? Then, O foolish one, so much I will tell you: Yesterday I was Helen, who launched a thousand ships and shook the topless towers of Ilium. To-day I am Rosalind in the forest of Arden, and to-morrow I may be Antigone, or Ariel or Viola, or what you will. I am what I make myself or choose to be. I pray you, let that suffice."

My face was wet with perspiration, and my heart thumped wildly. For either I was stark, staring mad, or these were lines from Searles's "Lady Larkspur," the manuscript of which was carefully locked in my trunk.

"That should be spoken a trifle more slowly, and with the best air of unpremeditatedness you can put into it," Mrs. Farnsworth was saying. "You can work it out better when you've memorized the lines. It's immensely effective having the last scene come back to the big boulder on the mountainside. Let me look at that a minute."

She took up the manuscript—there was no question of the blue cover of my copy of "Lady Larkspur"—and turned to the passage she sought.

"Let me read this over," Mrs. Farnsworth continued: "'I have played, my lord, at hide-and-seek with the stars, and I have run races with the brooks. You alone of all that have sought me are equally fleet of foot and heart! If you but touch my hand, I am lost forever. And this hand—I beg you look at it—is as brown as a berry and as rough as hickory bark. A wild little hand and not lightly to be yielded at any man's behest. Look at me carefully, my lord.' She rises to full height quickly. Let me see you do that, Alice."

Alice's golden head became more distinctively visible as she stood erect upon the boulder.

"Oh, no! You can improve on that; it must be done lightly and quickly, just touching the tips of your fingers to the rock. Ah, splendid! Now stand with one hand dropped upon the hip—let me see how that looks. Very good; now repeat these lines after me. 'This other world, of which you speak?' Shake your head slowly, frowning; every hint of sincere doubt and questioning you can throw into look and gesture. 'Is it a kind world, a place of honest hearts? You have spoken of cities, and crowded avenues, of music and theatres and many things I have read of but never seen. You promise me much, but what should I do in so vast a company? I am very happy here. Spring and summer fill my hands with flowers and in winter I lay my face to the wind that carries sleet and snow. All this is mine.' Arms stretched out. You mustn't make that stiff—very good. 'Earth and sky and forest belong to me. The morning comes down the sky in search of me and the tired day bids me good-night at the western gate. You would change rags for silk.' You turn your body and catch your skirt in your hands, looking down. Yes; you are barefoot in this scene. You'll have to practise that turn. Now—'And yet I should lose my dominion; in that world you boast of I should no more be Lady Larkspur.'"

Alice had repeated these lines, testing and trying different modulations. Sometimes a dozen repetitions hardly sufficed to satisfy Mrs. Farnsworth, who herself recited them and postured for Alice's instruction.

"Please read the whole of the second act again," said Alice, seating herself on the boulder. I waited for a few minutes, enjoying the beautiful flow of Mrs. Farnsworth's voice, then, mystified and awed, I crept down the ladder and stole away. "It's Dick Searles's play," I kept whispering to myself. It was the "Lady Larkspur" that he was holding back until he could find the girl who had so enchanted him in London and for whom he had written this very comedy with its setting in the Virginia hills.

Hurrying to the garage, I snarled at Flynn, who said Torrence had been calling me all morning and had finally left word that he would motor to Barton at eight the next evening to see me on urgent business. I unlocked my trunk and dug out my copy of "Lady Larkspur." Not even the wizardry of Alice and her friend could have extracted the script. The two women had in some way possessed themselves of another copy, an exact duplicate, even to its blue paper cover; and I sat down and began recalling everything Searles had told me about his efforts to find the actress.

The telephone on the table at my elbow rang until Flynn came in timidly to quiet it.

"If it's Mr. Torrence—" I began.

"It's the Barton station, sir. There's a telegram." I snatched the receiver spitefully, thinking it only the methodical Torrence confirming the appointment made by telephone. But the operator began reading:

"SPRINGFIELD, OHIO, September 30, 1917.

"Cable from London agent says last forwarding address for Violet Dewing was hotel in Seattle. Please ask Harkaway & Stein and anybody else on Broadway who might know what companies are on coast or headed that way. I find no clew in theatrical papers and don't want to mess things by making inquiries direct. If party can be located, will start West immediately.

"SEARLES."

The thought of Searles was comforting, and I reproached myself for not having summoned him at the beginning of my perplexities. I immediately dictated this reply:

"Take first train East and come to me at Barton as quickly as possible. Hope to have news for you."

I then jotted down on a scratch pad this memorandum:

"The young woman representing herself as Mrs. Bashford and now established in my uncle's house is one or all of the following persons:

1. Uncle Bash's widow.
2. An impostor.
3. A spy of some sort, pursued by secret agents.
4. Violet Dewing, an actress.
5. The most interesting and the loveliest and most charming girl in the world."

I checked off one, two, and three as doubtful if not incredible; four seemed possible, and five was wholly incontrovertible. But the first three certainly required much illumination, and the fourth I was helpless to reconcile with any of the others but the last. I reviewed Searles's enthusiastic description of the young woman who had inspired him to write "Lady Larkspur," and could only excuse my stupidity in not fitting it to Alice the first time I saw her on the ground that Barton was the last place in the world I should have looked for her. And then, with all his exuberance, Searles hadn't done her justice!

The following day nothing of importance happened, though Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth again spent the morning in the woodland, presumably studying Searles's play. My thoughts galloped through my head in a definite formula: "If she is not my aunt—" "If she is an impostor—" "If she is a spy playing a deep game in the seclusion of Barton—" "If she is the actress Searles is seeking—" At any rate, I would respect her wish to play the game through; the dangers of carrying the story-book idea to one of half a dozen possible conclusions were not inconsiderable, but I was resolved that she should finish the tale in her own fashion.

On my way to luncheon I passed Dutch pushing a wheelbarrow containing a huge hamper.

"It's vittles for the prisoner, sir," he remarked. "He's some feeder, that guy, and I guess the sooner we shake 'im th' better. He kicks on th' wine, sir. Says it's questionable vintage. When he gets tired readin' he pokes his head through the window and kids th' boys. He says he's goin' to remember th' place and come back when he's old. A charmin' retreat fer supernumerary superannuates, he calls it. Them's his woids. I'm gittin' sort o' nervous havin' 'im round. Zimmerman—he's the clothes-presser—tried to talk Goiman to 'im this mornin' an' th' guy pretended like his feelin's wuz hoit, an' he never knowed th' Hun's language, he says. An' Elsie says she's prepared to swear he talked Goiman easy enough to her."

"We'll consider his case later, Dutch. The matter is delicate, most delicate."

If I had expected Searles and his play to be introduced into the table-talk, I was doomed to disappointment. A dozen times I smothered an impulse to tell Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth I had watched them in the woodland and of Searles's long search for the ideal of his "Lady Larkspur," but I was afraid to risk their displeasure. They enjoyed walking in the wood, they said, and when I charged them with selfishness in not taking me along, Alice immediately suggested a tramp later in the afternoon.

"I'll send you away after luncheon—I have loads of letters to write, but by four o'clock I'll be keen for the woods again."

"Letters to all my good fairies," she laughed when I went for her; "and you mustn't look at the addresses!" She suggested that we walk to the village as she liked to post her letters herself. We went through the woods where I had seen her the day before.

"Constance and I were here this morning," she said when we reached the big boulder. "Let me see; I think I'll try a little trick to test the hand of fate. Give me those letters, please. If this falls with the address up, I'll mail it," and she chose one and handed me the others; "if the flap side turns up, I'll destroy it."

She sent it spinning into the air. A branch caught and held it an instant, then it fell, turning over and over, and lay straight on edge against a weed.

"No decision!" I cried. "It's an exact perpendicular."

She knelt beside it, pondering. "I think it leans just a trifle to the address side," she announced. "Therefore you may return it to your pocket and it goes into the post-office."

"These letters would probably answer a lot of questions for me if I dared run away with them," I suggested.

"The thought does you no credit, sir. You promised not to meddle, but just to let things take their course, and I must say that you are constantly improving. At times you grow suspicious—yes, you know you do—but, take it all in all, you do very well."

At the post-office she dropped all the letters but one into the chute. "It really did fall a little to the address side?" she questioned.

I gave my judgment that the letter stood straight on edge, inclining neither way.

"If my life hung in the balance, I should certainly not act where fate had been so timid."

"Perhaps this does affect you," she said, quite soberly. And there in the lobby of the little Barton post-office, for the first time, I indulged the hope that there was something more than friendliness and kindness in her eyes. Her usual composure was gone—for a moment only—and she fingered the envelope nervously in her slim, expressive hands. A young woman clerk thrust her head through the delivery window and manifested a profound interest in our colloquy.

"Suppose," said Alice musingly, "I were to tell you that if I mail this letter the effect will be to detain me in America for some time; if I don't send it, I shall have to write another that will mean that I shall go very soon. If I stay on at Barton instead of going home to take up my little part again for England in the war, it will be an act of selfishness—just some more of my foolishness, more of the make-believe life that Constance and I have been living here."

"I want you to stay," I said earnestly, taking the letter. "Let me be your fate in this—in everything that affects your life forever."

She walked quickly to the door, and I dropped the letter into the chute and hurried after her.

"You didn't turn round," I said as we started down the street. "For all you know, I've got the letter in my pocket."

"Oh, I'm not a bit frightened! It would be just as interesting one way as another."

"But I want you to stay forever," I declared as we waited on the curb for a truck to pass.

"The remark is almost impertinent," she answered, "when I've known you only seven days."

"They've been wonderful days. It really makes no difference about letters or your duties elsewhere. Where you go I shall certainly follow; that's something I should like to have understood here and now."

Loitering along the beach on our way home, I was guiltily conscious that I was making love rather ardently to a lady who had introduced herself to me as my uncle's widow. The sensation was, on the whole, very agreeable....

"Mr. Torrence and Mr. Raynor," Antoine announced as we were leaving the dinner-table.

"Mr. Raynor?" asked Alice. "Who, pray, is Mr. Raynor?"

Their arrival together chilled me, a chill increased by Torrence's frosty greeting as he gripped my hand angrily and hissed in my ear:

"You've deceived me about this whole business! I suggest that you leave the room."

I was walking toward the door when Mrs. Farnsworth protested.

"You are not going? Alice, there is no reason why Mr. Singleton should leave us."

"Of course he is not going," said Alice. She was established at ease in a wicker rocker, unconcernedly plying the ostrich-plume fan.

"There may be matters——" began Torrence.

"Oh, nothing that Bob can't hear!" Alice declared.

"Very well," muttered Torrence, frowning his complete disapproval.

He fidgeted for a moment and tried to catch Raynor's eye, but Raynor's face expressed amusement. I found myself liking Raynor very much.

"Mr. Raynor told me that he wished to speak to Mrs. Bashford privately," said Torrence. "If he's satisfied, I'm sure I have no objection to Mr. Singleton's remaining. I regret that my own duty is a disagreeable one."

"Really!" murmured Alice with nicely shaded impudence.

"I am convinced, beyond any question," said Torrence sharply, "that you are not the widow of the late Raymond B. Bashford!"

"That statement," said Alice without ceasing the languid flutter of the fan, "is correct—quite correct."

"Certainly: it is entirely true," affirmed Mrs. Farnsworth.

"And your coming here as you did is, if you will pardon my frankness, susceptible of very disagreeable constructions. It is my painful duty——"

He choked upon his duty until Raynor spoke, smiling broadly.

"I find my duty really a privilege," he said. "Not only are you not Mrs. Bashford," he went on with the utmost good humor, "but you are a very different person. I should explain that I represent the American State Department, and that our government has been asked by the British Embassy to find you and deliver a certain message to you."

"Oh, papa wants me to come home!" cried Alice. "It's droll, Constance, that papa should have thought of making an affair of state of us. Dear papa will always indulge me just so far, and then he becomes alarmed."

"He's certainly alarmed now!" laughed Raynor. "But the ambassador has warned us to be most tactful and circumspect. You may not know that Sir Arnold Seabring is on his way to this country on a confidential mission. That, of course, is not for publication."

"Sir Arnold Seabring?" gasped Torrence.

"The father of the Honorable Miss Seabring," replied Raynor with an elucidating nod toward Alice.

"But how—" I began.

"Mrs. Bashford, the widow of your uncle, is the Honorable Miss Seabring's aunt. Is that quite correct?"

"It is all true," said Alice. "I am a fraud, an impostor. You might go on and say that Mrs. Farnsworth is the wife of Sir Cecil Arrowsmith. But all the guilt is mine. It was my idea to come here and play a little, because I knew Aunt Alice wouldn't mind. She knew just what I meant to do; really she did, Mr. Torrence! In fact, I have her written permission to use the house, which I should have shown you if we had got in a pinch. But it seemed so much more fun just to let matters take their course. It's a pet theory of mine that life is a dull affair unless we trust to luck a little. After my brother's death I was very unhappy and had gone out East to visit Aunt Alice, who is a great roamer. I thought it would be nice to stop here on the way home, just for a lark, without telling papa, who was frantically cabling me to hurry back to England. This isn't the first time I've played hide-and-seek with my family. I was always doing that as a child; and if it hadn't been for my general waywardness I should never have known you, Constance. Why, I shouldn't have known you, gentlemen! It has all been so delightful!"

This naïve confession amused Raynor greatly, but Torrence was seeing nothing in it but a dangerous escapade.

"In the name of the Bainbridge Trust Company, I must notify you," he began, "that by representing yourself as another person, entering into possession of a large property——"

"But we've been paying all our own expenses; we haven't taken any money from you," pleaded Alice.

"Of course you wouldn't do such a thing," affirmed Raynor. "My instructions are to give you any sum of money you ask. In fact, the Government of the United States is instructed to assume full responsibility for you until your father arrives. May I go on and clarify matters for these gentlemen, for Mr. Torrence at least is entitled to a full explanation?"

"Constance," said Alice, turning with a little shrug to her friend, "we have been caught! Our story is being spoiled for us. Please go on, Mr. Raynor. Just what does the American State Department have to say about us?"

"That you are endowed with a very unusual personality," continued Raynor, his eyes twinkling. "You are not at all content to remain in that station of life to which you were born; you like playing at being all sorts of other persons. Once, so your friend the ambassador confided to me, you ran away and followed a band of gypsies, which must have been when you were a very little girl."

"I was seven," said Alice, "and the gypsies were nice to me."

"And then you showed talent for the stage——"

"A dreadful revelation!" she exclaimed.

"But you don't know that it was really your father who managed to have Mrs. Farnsworth, one of the most distinguished actresses in England, take charge of you."

"No! Alice never knew that!" said Mrs. Farnsworth, laughing. "I was her chaperon as well as her preceptress; but Alice's father knew that if Alice found it out it would spoil the adventure for her. Alice must do things in her own way."

"You are a fraud," said Alice, "but I always suspected you a little."

"Speaking of the stage," resumed Raynor, "it is also a part of my instructions that the Honorable Miss Seabring shall be discouraged from any further adventures in that direction; she's far too talented; there's danger of her becoming a great luminary. In other words, she is not to grace the boards again as Violet Dewing."

Alice's brow clouded, and she turned to me. "That was settled when you mailed that letter for me. It was to make an appointment with an American playwright who wants me to appear in a most adorable comedy."

"His name is Dick Searles," I said, "and he's my most intimate friend."

She professed indignation when I told of my eavesdropping in the woods, but when I explained that I knew all about the play and Searles's despairing search for her she was enormously pleased.

"How wonderful!" she exclaimed. "You know I told you, Constance, that if we really threw ourselves in the path of adventure mystery would come out to meet us in silken sandals."

"But you will not appear in this play?" asked Raynor anxiously. "It is the business of the Government of the United States to see that you commit no further indiscretions. There is another matter which I hope you can clear up. You are not only a subject of concern to the British Embassy, but the French ambassador also has appealed to us to assist him in a trifling matter!"

"The French ambassador?" Alice exclaimed with a surprise I knew to be unfeigned. "I thought the dear Montani was an Italian?"

"We will continue to call him Montani, but he's a Frenchman and one of the keenest men in the French Secret Service. You have caused him the deepest anguish."

"Please hurry on!" She bent forward with childish delight. "This is a part of the story we've been living that I really know nothing about. I hope it won't be disappointing!"

Raynor laughed and shook his head.

"It's fortunate that Montani is a gentleman, anxious to shield and protect you. You have a fan in your hand——"

She spread it for our inspection.

"A harmless trinket, but without it the adventure would have been very tame."

"The story of the fan is in the most secret archives of Paris and Washington. When you were packing up in Tokyo to come home on the very last day before your departure a lady called on you whom you knew as Madame Volkoff."

"That dear woman!" exclaimed Mrs. Farnsworth. "We knew her very well."

"Almost too well," cried Raynor. "A cultivated woman and exceedingly clever, but a German spy. She had collected some most interesting data with reference to Japanese armament and defenses, but suspecting that she was being watched, she hit upon a most ingenious way of getting the information across the Pacific, expecting to communicate with German agents in America who could pick it up and pass it on to Berlin. You see, she thought you an easy mark. She got hold of a fan which Montani informs me is the exact counterpart of that one you hold. She reduced her data to the smallest possible compass, concealed it in her fan, and watched for a chance to exchange with you. The astute Montani found the Japanese artisan who had done the tinkering for her and surmised that you were to be made the unconscious bearer of the incriminating papers. Montani jumped for the steamer you were sailing on with every determination to get the fan. His professional pride was aroused, and it was only after he found it impossible to steal the fan that he asked our assistance. He's a good fellow, a gentleman in every sense, and with true French chivalry wanted to do the job without disturbing you in any way."

We pressed closer about Raynor as he took the fan, spread it open, and held it close against a table-lamp. "The third, sixth, and ninth," he counted. "You will notice that those three pieces of ivory are a trifle thicker and not as transparent as the others. Glancing at them casually in an ordinary light, you would never suspect that they had been hollowed out, an exceedingly delicate piece of work. It's a pity to spoil anything so pretty, but——"

He snapped the top of one of the panels, disclosing a neatly folded piece of thin paper.

"If you are all satisfied, I will not go further. I want to deliver this to the French Embassy intact. I expect Montani here to-night; he will no doubt be enormously relieved."

A machine whizzed into the driveway, and Montani came in brushing past the astonished Antoine, who had answered the bell.

"The fan is safe," cried Raynor; "you may complete the identification."

"I've handled this whole affair most stupidly," said Montani after a hurried examination. "I'm satisfied that a German agent in America has picked up the trail of the fan. One or two lines of my own communications failed to work, and after reporting the whole matter to the French Embassy I began searching for a man, the most dangerous of all the German spies, who had been intrusted with the business of recovering Madame Volkoff's fan and passing the contents on to Berlin. This person has been representing himself as a French secret agent; he's enormously plausible. I feared he might attempt what I failed to do. If——"

Alice glanced at me, and I stepped to the wall and punched the button.

"Antoine," I said, "tie the arms of the prisoner in the tool-house and bring him here."

"A man in the tool-house!" Montani, Torrence, and Raynor ejaculated in concert.

"Oh, yes," murmured Alice, "that's the pleasantest chapter of all. Our grenadiers captured a whole invading army that made a night attack—one of the most remarkable engagements of the present war, Mr. Torrence."

"The battle of the Bell-Hops," I suggested. "The prisoner will be here in a moment."

While we waited Montani produced a photograph, instantly recognizable as a likeness of our prisoner.

"My reputation is saved!" he exclaimed excitedly. "That he should have been caught here! It is too much! I shall never forgive myself for not warning you of the danger. But you understand, mesdames, that I was sincerely anxious to recover the fan without letting you know its importance. When I found at Seattle and Chicago that you were travelling under assumed names, I was—pray, pardon me—deeply puzzled, the more so because I had satisfied myself in Tokyo that you were loyal Englishwomen, and I believed you to be innocent of complicity with Madame Volkoff. Why you should have changed your names, I didn't know, but it's not my affair now."

"We saw you on the steamer and again in the hotel at Chicago. It was very amusing to be followed. We gave you the slip, stopped at Buffalo to see Niagara, and you came on here and scared the servants to death! But you were generous at every point," said Alice. "We changed our names so we could amuse ourselves here—at Bob's expense. So now I ask everybody's forgiveness!"

The prisoner, arriving at this moment, became the centre of interest. Without a word Montani walked up to him, brushed back his hair, and called our attention to a scar on the crown of his head.

"There can be no mistake. This is Adolph Schwenger, who passes as readily for a Frenchman as I do for an Italian. The capture is of great importance. I shall want the names of all the persons who assisted in the matter."

"It isn't quite clear to me," remarked Raynor, turning to me, "why you held that fellow and said nothing about it. If there had been a mistake, it would have been just a little embarrassing for you, Singleton."

"Chivalry!" Mrs. Farnsworth answered for me. "An anxious concern for the peace and dignity of two foolish women! I didn't know there was so much chivalry left in the world."

An hour was spent in explanations, and Raynor declared that I must write a full account of the Allied army in Connecticut and the capture of the spy. The State archives contained nothing that touched this episode for piquancy, he declared; and even the bewildered Torrence finally saw the joke of the thing and became quite human.

Raynor and Montani decided after a conference that the German agent should be taken to New York immediately, and I called Flynn to drive them down.

"It's most fortunate, sir, that you sent for him just when you did!" announced Antoine, nearly bursting with importance. "The boys had heard queer sounds in the night, but could find nothing wrong. The prisoner had taken up the flooring at the back of the tool-house, and was scooping up the dirt. He'd got a place pretty near big enough to let him through. I suppose we ought to have noticed it, sir."

"You managed the whole thing perfectly, Antoine—you and all of you."

It was just as Raynor and Montani were leaving the house with the prisoner that we heard a commotion in the direction of the gates. I had sent word that no one was to be admitted to the grounds, but as I ran out the front door a machine was speeding madly toward the house. A dozen of the guards were yelling their protests at the invasion, and a spurt of fire preluded the booming of Zimmerman's shotgun.

"Get your man into the car and beat it," I shouted to Raynor, thinking an attempt was about to be made to rescue the prisoner.

The touring-car left just as a Barton taxi flashed into the driveway. The driver was swearing loudly at one of the Tyringham veterans who had wedged himself into the door of the machine. With some difficulty I extricated Scotty from his hazardous position.

Searles jumped out (I had forgotten that he might arrive that night), but before I could greet him he swung round and assisted a lady to alight—a short, stout lady in a travelling cap, wrapped in a coat that fell to her heels. She began immediately to deliver orders in an authoritative tone as to the rescue of her belongings. Searles dived into the taxi and began dragging out a vast amount of small luggage, but my attention was diverted for a moment by Alice, who jumped down the steps and clasped her arms about the neck of the stout lady.