As soon as Torrence left I returned to the garage, feeling that with Mrs. Bashford on American soil my use of the residence even as a loafing-place was unbecoming. Mrs. Bashford was not only in America, but with a motor at her command she might reach Barton at any hour. And the vigorous, dominating woman who had captured my uncle Bash, buried him in a far country, and then effected a hop, skip, and jump from Bangkok to Seattle, was likely to be a prodigal spender of gasoline. Her propensity for travelling encouraged the hope that she would quickly weary of Barton and pine for lands where the elephant and jinrickisha flourish.
I had brought with me the manuscript of Searles's play, and I fell upon it irritably and began reading the first act. The dialogue moved briskly, and I read on as though enfolded in the air of a crisp spring morning. It was Searles's whimsical stroke, only with a better vehicle than he had ever before found for it. My grouch over the upsetting of my plans yielded under the spell of his humor.
"Lady Larkspur" was the name assumed by the daughter of a recluse naturalist in the valley of Virginia. She had known no life but that of the open country, where she ran wild all summer, aiding her father in collecting plants and butterflies. At twenty she had never seen a city, and her social contacts had been limited to the country folk, who viewed her with commiseration as the prisoner of her misanthrope father, who in the fifteen years of his exile had maintained a hostile attitude toward his neighbors. He had, however, educated the girl in such manner that only the cheer and joy of life were known to her. Hating mankind, he had encouraged her in nature-worship. She knew no literature except the classics; all history, even the history of the storied valley in which she lived, was a sealed book to her.
The girl's curiosity is roused by the sudden appearance of strangers from the unknown world beyond, whom she mystifies by her quaint old-worldishness. Searles had taken an old theme and given a novel twist to it. The solution of the mystery of the father's exile and an amusing complication of lovers afforded a suspensive interest well sustained to the end. There were innumerable charming scenes, as where the girl in the outlandish costume in which she roamed the hills perches on a boulder and recites the "Iliad" to her suitors. In the last act she appears at a ball at a country house in sophisticated raiment, and the story ends in the key of mirth in which it began.
It was a delightful blending and modernization of Diana, Atalanta, Cinderella, and Rosalind; but even in the typewritten page it was amazingly alive and well calculated to evoke tears and laughter. That a play so enthralling should be buried in a safety-vault was not to be thought of, and I sat down and wrote Searles a long letter demanding that he at once forget the lost star for whom he had written the piece, suggesting the names of several well-known actresses I thought worth considering for the difficult leading rôle. Not satisfied with this, I telephoned a telegram to the agent at Barton for transmission to Searles at the Ohio address he had given me.
The next day passed without incident, and on the second, hearing nothing from Torrence, I began to doubt Mrs. Bashford's proximity. On the third, still hearing nothing, I harkened to an invitation from friends at New London and drove over in the runabout for dinner. It was midnight when I got back, and when I reached the gates several men dashed out of the lodge and halted me.
"She's come, sir," announced Antoine, emerging from the darkness, and speaking under stress of deep emotion; "madame the widow has arrived, sir!"
"Why not Cleopatra or the Queen of Sheba?" I exclaimed testily to cover my annoyance that my aunt had effected her descent in my absence. "Well, she was expected; the house is hers; what do you want me to do about it?" I ended with affected jocularity.
"We received her the best we could; but it was most unfortunate, your not being here, sir."
"Is that your idea, Antoine, or do you reflect the lady's sentiments? I'm properly humiliated either way. Tell me just what she said."
"Well, sir, she just laughed when I took the liberty of apologizing."
"The sneering laughter of outraged dignity! Go ahead and give me the rest of it."
"It was at ten she came, sir, and the guard held her up, not recognizing her, here at the gate, and when the car didn't stop the boys chased her and fired at the tires of her machine. It was very dreadful, sir. And at the house—at the door, sir—the guard was very harsh with her, sir, most regrettable."
"You certainly made a mess of it!" I ejaculated. "But you did let her in—into her own house, we must remember—you did grant her the courtesy of a lodging for the night?" I inquired ironically.
"She's retired, sir. There was a lady with her; maybe a maid; I can't exactly say; and we did everything, sir, to make her comfortable. She was not what you might say fussy, sir, but quite human-like. We was all relieved, sir, the way she took everything. I hope you'll pardon us, sir, which was due to not being warned."
"Oh, it's all right with me, but in the morning she'll probably bounce the whole lot of us. An old lady fatigued from a journey cross country and shot at on her own premises—it's a very pretty story."
They were a picturesque lot, the ancient waiters and bell-hops grouped about Antoine with their lanterns and garden implements and firearms. Antoine was swallowing hard in his effort to continue his recital.
"You say an old lady, sir; the mistress is not really what you would call so old—not exactly, sir."
"Really a youngish party, I should say," volunteered Graves, the gardener.
Just what these veterans would call old was a matter of conjecture. "Um," I murmured, and considered the situation.
"Young or old, she would hardly relish her reception. There was a maid, and they came in a machine? Did you put up the chauffeur or did you shoot him on the spot?"
"It was a hired machine, sir; and madame sent it away. The driver was a good deal upset over the shooting. One of the rear tires was quite blown away."
"You're in luck if he doesn't have you all arrested to-morrow," I remarked consolingly.
"Mrs. Bashford seemed quite amused by the occurrence," Antoine continued. "'Wonderful America!' she kept saying after we'd got her inside. We gave her tea, which was all she asked for. She takes her tea with cream, sir. We did our best to make her comfortable. And there was a dog, sir. I recall that the master was not fond of dogs. There was never one on the place."
Antoine spoke truly; if there was anything my Uncle Bash detested it was a dog, but I reflected that a world-skipping widow who could corral so difficult a subject as my uncle would be quite capable of inspiring him with delight in the canine species. My respect for the woman's powers of persuasion was intensified by this disclosure.
She had failed to wire Torrence as she promised or he had neglected to warn me of her coming; either way it was a pretty kettle of fish, and I shuddered at the thought of facing her wholly pardonable indignation.
To make sure that nothing was required of me until morning, I drove past the house with the army hanging to the footboard. The lower rooms were dark, but lights twinkled through the second-story shutters. My aunt was established on the premises, and her coming and the circumstances of her advent constituted a good joke of which I and not she was the victim. When I reached my quarters in the garage I sat down and laughed until Flynn appeared, frightened by my noisy mirth that had penetrated to his quarters. I got rid of him and smoked a pipe and began the packing I meant to finish early in the morning.
I wakened early, rang a bell connecting my rooms with the chauffeur's end of the garage as a warning to the Flynns to prepare breakfast, and was dressed when the Irishman came in with the tray. In the absence of a morning paper I clung to him for company.
"I trust you will not be leaving, sorr," he remarked, eyeing my half-packed trunk.
"Very soon, Flynn."
"Then Elsie and I will be going too, sorr. It's most uncomfortable they're making us—Dutch and the rest. That Antoine and his army keep pesterin' us and callin' us Huns."
"You raise a very interesting question, Flynn, a very delicate question of fact and propriety. Satisfied as you and Elsie are of your entire loyalty to the United States and the associated Powers, I think you should remain, a martyr, if need be, to the great cause of world democracy."
"It's most disagreeable we find it, the wife and me," he said mournfully.
"Suffer and be strong—that's the watchword! We will hope that Mrs. Bashford is a woman of sound sense and tact who will exert herself to restore peace on her property. When I call to pay my respects and make my adieus I shall speak to her of the situation and vouch for your loyalty. You may count on me. You haven't, I suppose, seen the widow yet—she's probably sleeping late."
"Quite the contrary, sorr. She's been up and around for an hour an' more. She's been all over the place and stopped for a squint at the garage, her and the pup."
"She's been here, inspecting the garage?" I asked, glancing at my watch. It was not yet eight o'clock. The banter died out of me; clearly it had been my duty to be on hand to pilot her over the estate, or at least to receive her at the garage. "Just what was the lady's frame of mind—as to things generally. Peeved, was she, over the row last night?"
"Oh, no, sorr; quite cheerful an' friendly. She's ordered a big car from New York and told me it would be coming up to-day and to make a place for it."
Here was news indeed, destroying all my hopes that she meditated only a brief sojourn. The purchase of a machine meant definitely that she would remain for some time, perhaps for the winter. I poured a second cup of coffee, swallowed it, grabbed my hat and stick, and asked enlightment as to the course taken by Mrs. Bashford when she left the garage.
"She took the lower road, sorr, toward the Sound and stepped off quite brisk-like."
It was the serenest of September mornings, and I hurried away, thinking the cloudless blue arch, the twinkling sea, and the crisp air might serve to soften my aunt's displeasure at her hostile reception. From the conservatories I caught a glimpse of a woman on the beach—a slender, agile woman throwing a ball for the amusement of a fox-terrier. She threw the ball with a boy's free swing, occasionally varying a hot one down the shore with a toss high in air which she caught up herself before the terrier could reach it. The two were having no end of a good time. She laughed joyfully when the ball fell into her hands and the terrier barked his discomfiture and eagerness for a chance to redeem himself.
Antoine's equivocal statement as to Mrs. Bashford's age was ridiculous. Instead of the middle-aged woman whom I was prepared to meet, here was beyond question a vigorous, healthy being whose every movement spoke for youth and the joy of life. It might, after all, be the maid of whom Antoine had spoken; I advanced slowly, anxious not to break in upon her romp with the terrier—they made a charming picture—and trying to formulate an introduction. I reached a low stone wall that separated the lawn from the beach just as she effected a running pick-up of the ball. She turned swiftly and flung it straight at my head. Involuntarily I put up my hand and caught it just as she saw me and cried out—a cry of warning and contrition. I tossed the ball to the dog.
"What must you think of me!" she exclaimed. "I was blinded by the sunlight and I didn't see you—really I did not!"
"I had no business being in the way," I laughed, noting first her glowing color, her violet eyes—amazingly fine eyes they were—her fair hair with its golden glint, her plain black gown with lawn collar and wristbands. It was her age, however, that roused me to instant speculation. Twenty-five, I decided, was a maximum; more likely she was not more than twenty-two, and if I had been told that eighteen was the total of her years I shouldn't have had the heart to dispute it.
"Bob Singleton," I said and stupidly added, "and you are Mrs. Bashford?" unable for the life of me to avoid turning the statement into an inquiry.
"I am your aunt Alice," she said with a smile, putting out her hand. "Down, Rex!" she commanded the dancing terrier; "lie down; school's over now"; whereupon Rex obediently sprawled in the sand and began trying to swallow the ball.
"Wasn't that silly of me to try to kill you the first time we met!" Her eyes danced with merriment. "I didn't know, of course, that any one was about. But you made a very nice catch of it! I had expected to receive you most formally in the drawing-room, but this really serves very well. That tree down yonder is inviting; suppose we stay out here and talk a bit."
This struck me as the pleasantest thing imaginable, though I was still dazed and my tongue seemed to have died in my mouth. This girl, this wholly charming and delightful young woman, was the monstrous being I had conjectured as the globe-trotting widow who had kidnapped and married my uncle! Not only had she married my uncle Bash and in due course buried him; she had been a widow when she married him! I furtively studied her face—a face that invited scrutiny—and her candid eyes that met my gaze of wonder and frank admiration easily and without a trace of self-consciousness. On the third finger of her left hand was a slender band of gold. The thing was staggering, bewildering. She was clearly anxious to be friendly, but nothing that I had thought of saying to her fitted the situation.
"In the first place," I finally began, "I must apologize most humbly for the earnest efforts of the servants to murder you last night. Mr. Torrence had promised to let me know when you would reach here, but he must have forgotten it. I had motored to a friend's house to dine and didn't get back until the mischief was done. I'm very sorry. You must have thought you had driven into a camp of savages!"
"Not for worlds would I have missed that," she exclaimed with a merry laugh. "It was perfectly delicious! And it was all my fault. I meant to remain a day at Hartford, you know, and send a message to Mr. Torrence from there, but I found that by pushing on I could reach here yesterday. Then the machine I hired showed every weakness that motors are subject to and we were hours later than the Hartford garage man promised. And you know we English always expect strange things to happen in America. I don't understand yet why those people at the gates were so jolly anxious to kill us; but it doesn't matter; you would only spoil the joke by explaining it."
However, I did my best—it was a weak attempt—to explain the nervousness of the veteran servants and their display of violence. Her arrival made it likely that we should soon know more about the "parties" whose visits and inquiries had so alarmed Antoine and his comrades. Now that I saw Mrs. Bashford the idea that any one could entertain malevolent designs upon her was more preposterous than ever, and I resolved that she must be shielded from annoyances of every kind. I told her with all the humor I could throw into the recital of the drilling of the bell-hops and of the uncomfortable relations between the Allied forces and the Teutonic minority on the estate.
"It was dear of Mr. Bashford to provide a home for these people; wasn't he really the kindest soul that ever lived?" she said softly.
She gazed wistfully seaward, and I saw the gleam of tears on her long lashes. My uncle had, then, meant something to her! No one, in speech or manner, could have suggested the adventuress less; Uncle Bash was a gentleman, a man of æsthetic tastes, and the girl was adorable. More remarkable things had happened in the history of love and marriage than that two such persons, meeting in a far corner of the world, would honestly care for each other. My respect for Uncle Bash grew; he had married the most attractive girl in the world, and here she was with the bloom of her girlhood upon her, tripping alone through a world that might have been created merely that she might confer light and cheer upon it.
"You stopped at Hartford," I began, breaking a long silence. "You have friends there——?"
"Not one! I had made a pious pilgrimage to Mark Twain's last home at Redding, and, hearing that he had lived at Hartford, I came through there to render my fullest homage. He has always been one of my heroes, you know." She laughingly lifted her hands and counted upon her fingers—"'The Jumping Frog,' Tom and Huck, and 'Mulberry Sellers,' 'The Prince and the Pauper,' and 'Pudd'nhead Wilson'! I know them all by heart!"
"Our introduction is complete," I said reverently. "Let's consider ourselves old friends."
"I rather thought we'd understand each other," she said in her even, mellow tones. "You know, we had your photograph out East—a very good one, it seems—so I had an idea of what you looked like."
"The photograph gave you an unfair advantage! And I didn't know Uncle Bash carried one away with him."
"He was very fond of you," she said gravely. "He was very proud that you had gone into the war."
"I am glad to hear that; I thought he disapproved of me for refusing to go into business. He offered me a substantial interest before he sold out."
"I know that; but I think he liked you rather better for refusing it. Business with him was merely a means to an end. And it was doubly sad that he should die just when he was free to enjoy the beautiful things he loved."
It was at the tip of my tongue to say that the loss of her companionship was even more grievous; but nothing in her manner invited such a comment. Her grave moods were to be respected, and she talked for some time of Uncle Bash's life in the East, of his short illness and quite unexpected death.
"But I'm keeping you," she exclaimed suddenly, jumping down from the wall. "And I must finish my unpacking."
As we walked to the house I answered her questions about the neighborhood, and promised to telephone Torrence immediately of her arrival.
"You will have luncheon with us—or maybe dinner would be better—or both? Antoine told me of your bachelor establishment, but eating alone is bad for the digestion. I shall think you resent my coming if you don't dine at the house every day. Mrs. Farnsworth—my friend and companion—is a very interesting woman. I am sure you will like her."
The information that she was protected in her youthful widowhood by a companion was imparted neatly.
"It was really much nicer, meeting this way," she said, giving me her hand. "We shall expect you at seven."
I found them on the veranda, which had been transformed since my last glimpse of it. Rugs, wicker furniture, wall-pockets of flowers, and paper lanterns dropped over the electric lights gave it the appearance of a prettily set scene. She came toward me, a slender figure in white. She seemed taller in white; as she took a few steps toward me, I was aware of a stateliness I had missed at the shore. A queenly young person, but as unaffectedly cordial and friendly as in the bright morning sunlight.
"Mrs. Farnsworth, Mr. Singleton."
Mrs. Farnsworth was a pleasant-faced, white-haired woman with remarkably fine, dark eyes. If the positions had been changed—if Mrs. Farnsworth had been my uncle's choice of a wife, the situation would have been much more real. I instantly liked Mrs. Farnsworth. She uttered a few commonplaces in an uncommonplace tone without pausing in her knitting. Mrs. Bashford had been knitting too, and as she sat down she took up her yarn and needles. It was a sweater, I think; it doesn't matter. What matters is that her hands moved swiftly and deftly. Her manner of knitting was charming. She knew that I was watching her hands and remarked with a graceful turn of the head:
"For an English boy somewhere! I began by knitting for my brother and cousins, but"—her head bent lower—"that isn't for me to do any more." Her eyes, turned upon me for a moment, were bright with tears.
I was speaking of the splendid valor of Englishmen I had known in France when Antoine announced dinner.
It had been years since the house had known a woman's hand, and it was astonishing how humanized it had become in a few hours. The long dining-room, always a bare, forbidding place, had been reduced to cosey proportions by screens, and a small round table replaced the massive, oblong affair that always looked as though it had been built into the house by the carpenters.
"I found those lovely screens in the garret and thought we might as well enjoy them, and that Lang Yao jar you see on the sideboard oughtn't to be hidden in the vault."
"I am sure Uncle Bash would be happy to know you care for these things so much," I said, noting that the white roses she had chosen for the jar—I knew the choice was hers—served to emphasize the deep red of its exquisite glaze.
"I am among the unelect," remarked Mrs. Farnsworth. "When I am told that such things are beautiful I am immediately convinced. I say they are beautiful, and that is enough."
"That has always been enough for me," I replied. "My uncle used to try to interest me, and I wore out a good many pairs of shoes following him through museums and salesrooms, but he gave me up when he found that my pagan soul was aroused by nothing but pottery idols. It wasn't the pottery that interested me even there, but only the ugliest designs. I am a heathen!"
"I am gratified that you make the admission so frankly," said Mrs. Farnsworth. "I have always been a great admirer of the heathen."
"I like them when they are nice," said Mrs. Bashford.
"Yes; I have found you very discriminating in your choice of the species, Alice. But, you know, Mr. Singleton, Alice and I never can agree as to just what a heathen is. All our squabbles have been about that. The old hymn pictured the heathen in his blindness bowing down to wood and stone; but I'm disposed to broaden my definition to include all who believe in fairies good or bad, and persons who honestly believe in signs, omens, and lucky stones and all who have the receipt of fern-seed and walk invisible—there's Shakespeare for that. Some very good Christians are also very nice heathens: we mustn't be narrow and bigoted about such things."
"I think," said Mrs. Bashford soberly, "that I have always believed in witches; and if I keep on believing I shall see one some day. We shall find anything in this world that we believe in hard enough. Now a witch—the kind of witch I have always expected to wake up and find flourishing a broom at me from the foot of my bed——"
She was talking very gravely, as though witches were the commonest topic of conversation, but finding my eyes turned upon her in frank wonder, she laughed at my amazement.
"Let us be honest with you, Mr. Singleton," Mrs. Farnsworth explained, "and tell you that we are just testing you. It may be a breach of hospitality, and you are all but a stranger, but we are curious to know whether you are of that small company of the favored of heaven who can play at being foolish without becoming idiotic. Alice is sometimes very near idiocy. You admit that, Alice!"
"I not only admit it, but I might even boast of it!" my aunt replied.
At the mention of witches I had caught Antoine crossing himself as he turned to the sideboard. I confess that I myself had been startled by the drift of the talk. Mrs. Farnsworth was far from being the grim duenna I had feared might be my aunt's chaperon, and there was certainly nothing in her appearance to suggest that she was a believer in witches. She and my aunt treated each other as though they were contemporaries, and it was Alice and Constance between them. As the talk ran exhaustively through the lore of witches and goblins I had hoped that one or the other would drop some clew as to the previous history of my amazing aunt. It was as plain as day that she and Mrs. Farnsworth indulged in whims for the joy of it, and her zest in the discussion of witches, carried on while Antoine served the table, lips tightly compressed, and with an exaggeration of his stately tread, was the more startling from the fact that my aunt's companion was a woman of years, a handsome woman with a high-bred air who did not look at all like a person who would discuss witches as though they had been made the topic of the day by the afternoon newspapers. And when the shape of a witch's chin became the immediate point of discussion I knew it was in Antoine's mind that such conversation was unbecoming, an offense to the memory of Raymond Bashford. Mrs. Farnsworth's brown eyes sparkled, and the color deepened in my aunt's cheeks as we discoursed upon witches and the chins thereof. I had a friend in college who used to indulge in the same sort of piffling, but that my uncle's widow and her elderly companion should delight in such absurdities bewildered me. I had been addressing my aunt as Mrs. Bashford—it seemed ridiculous to call her Aunt Alice—and in the heat of our argument as to whether witches are necessarily naughty and malign beings I had just uttered the "Mrs." when she bent toward me and said gravely and with no hint of archness: "Can't we make it Alice and Bob? I think that would be a lot friendlier."
I experienced a curious flutter of the heart the first time I tried it, but after that it came very easily. I found it impossible to think of her in terms of auntship, and it was a relief to have the relationship waived. She was simply the jolliest, prettiest girl that had ever crossed my horizon, and to be talking to her across the table gave me thrills compared with which sliding out of clouds in an airplane is only a rocking-chair pastime for old men.
The veteran chef of the Tyringham had produced an excellent dinner, though the witch talk made Antoine a trifle nervous in serving it.
We had coffee on the veranda (Alice thought it would be nicer there), and as Antoine gave me my cup he edged close to my chair to whisper:
"That party, sir. If he should come——"
"Tell the troops not to attack any visitors," I said, loud enough for the others to hear. "Mr. Torrence will be here shortly, and it would be annoying to have him ushered in on a shutter. We must establish a rule that callers are not to be fired upon at the gate."
"I know why this is the land of the free and the home of the brave," laughed Alice. "One has to be brave to live here."
Antoine departed with a resentful twist of the shoulders, and I decided to meet squarely the matter of the visitors who had so troubled him.
"Please don't be frightened," I said as lightly as possible, "but these old fellows haven't enough to do, and they are full of apprehensions. With nobody here to keep them busy it's remarkable they haven't found a ghost."
"If they only would!" murmured Mrs. Farnsworth.
"No such luck! They have been alarmed by an agent of some sort who wants to welcome you to America by selling you a piano on easy payments."
Antoine had been hovering inside, and my remark brought him to the door.
"Beg pardon, Mr. Singleton, but that party is not an agent, but quite different, sir. He came to the house, quite like a gentleman, several times, and asked if Mrs. Bashford had arrived. He came in a big car, and seemed disappointed, madame, that you were not here and not expected. The second time he said he was just passing on his way to the city and thought he would stop again. A very well-spoken gentleman, and we'd have thought nothing of it except that a few days later I caught a man I was sure was the same party, but dressed in rough clothes, sneaking across the veranda right there where you're sitting. When I called to him he ran as hard as he could, and Graves—he's the vegetable-gardener—saw him leaving the property by the back way."
"It's hardly possible that a man who impressed you as a gentleman when you saw him at the door should have returned in disguise and tried to break into the house. The two things don't hang together, Antoine."
"Oh," exclaimed Mrs. Farnsworth, "it would be so much more delightful if that were true! Any one in disguise is bound to be interesting. A disguise suggests most beautiful possibilities. And to be sought, asked for by a stranger!"
I could not be sure in the dim light of the veranda, but I thought I detected a white slipper cautiously reach out and touch a black one. At any rate, Mrs. Farnsworth lapsed into silence.
"Thank you very much, Antoine," said Alice. "It is very proper for you to tell me anything of any stranger on the property, but I see nothing here to be alarmed about. If the same gentleman calls again, let me know instantly."
"Very good, madame." And then, turning as though conferring upon me a part of his responsibility for the security of the premises: "It's a party with a limp; just a trifling limp, sir; you'd hardly notice it. It was worse the last time as he ran away. A smallish man, rather dark, with a little mustache turned up at the ends."
"I have noted all these details, Antoine," I replied; and again I thought there was a telegraphic exchange between the ladies, though this time a black slipper was the means of communication.
Torrence arrived in a moment, and nothing has ever given me keener joy than his shock of surprise at beholding Mrs. Bashford. As I introduced the ladies he was so overcome that he greeted Mrs. Farnsworth as Mrs. Bashford—a not unnatural mistake—and there was an embarrassing moment as I set him right. Having done this, I seated myself beside Mrs. Farnsworth that Torrence might be free to talk business with my aunt. I was devoutly grateful that he had not been present at the dinner-table, for my own efforts to interest Torrence in anything but the most practical matters had always been highly unsuccessful, and the discussion of ghosts and witches would hardly have amused him. As Mrs. Farnsworth and I took up the recent movements on the western front I overheard Torrence putting all the machinery of the trust company at Mrs. Bashford's disposal. It seemed almost a blasphemy to be talking of income and like matters to a woman like Alice Bashford!
They continued their conference for some time, but I got nothing out of Mrs. Farnsworth that shed any light on my aunt's history beyond what she had told me