THE LADY OF THE WHITE BUTTERFLIES
TITANIA: And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes:
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.
PEASEBLOSSOM: Hail, mortal!
—Midsummer Night's Dream.
The twitter of swallows in the eaves wakened me to the first light of day, and after I had taken a dip in the creek I still seemed to be sole proprietor of the world, so quiet lay field and woodland. I followed the lake shore to a fishermen's camp, where, in the good comradeship of outdoors men the world over, I got bread and coffee and no questions asked. I smoked a pipe with the fishermen to kill time, and it was still but a trifle after six o'clock when I started for Red Gate. My mood was not for the open road, and I sought woodland paths, that I might loiter the more. With squirrels scampering before me, and attended by bird-song and the morning drum-beat of the woodpecker, I strode on until I came out upon a series of rough pastures, separated by stake-and-rider fences that crawled sinuously through tangles of blackberries and wild roses. As I tramped along a cow-path that traversed these pastures, the dew sparkled on the short grass, and wings whirred and dipped in salutation before me. My memories of the night vanished in the perfection of the day; I went forth to no renewal of acquaintance with shadows, or with the lurking figures in a dark drama, but to enchantments that were fresh with life and light. Barred gates separated these fallow fields, and I passed through one, crossed the intermediate pasture, and opened the gate of the third. Before me lay a field of daisies, bobbing amid wild grass, the morning wind softly stirring the myriad disks, so that the whole had the effect of quiet motion. The path led on again, but more faintly here. A line of sycamores two hundred yards to my right marked the bed of the Tippecanoe; and on my left hand, beyond a walnut grove, a little filmy dust-cloud hung above the hidden highway. The meadow was a place of utter peace; the very air spoke of holy things. I thrust my cap into my jacket pocket and stood watching the wind crisp the flowers. Then my attention wandered to the mad antics of a squirrel that ran along the fence.
When I turned to the field again I saw Rosalind coming toward me along the path, clad in white, hatless, and her hands lightly brushing the lush grass that seemed to leap up to touch them. She had not seen me, and I drew back a little for love of the picture she made. Three white butterflies fluttered about her head, like an appointed guard of honor, and she caught at them with her hands, turning her head to watch their staggering flight.
Three white butterflies fluttered about her head.
She paused abruptly midway of the daisies, and I walked toward her slowly—it must have been slowly—and I think we were both glad of a moment's respite in which to study each other. Then she spoke at once, as though our meeting had been prearranged.
"I hoped I should see you," she said gravely.
"I had every intention of seeing you! I was killing time until I felt I might decently lift the latch of Red Gate."
She inspected me with her hands clasped behind her.
"Please don't look at me like that!" I laughed. "I camped in a barn last night for fear I shouldn't get here in time."
"I wish to speak to you for a few minutes—to tell you what you may have guessed about us—my father and me."
"Yes; if you like; but only to help you if I can. It is not necessary for you to tell me anything."
She turned and led the way across the daisy field. She walked swiftly, holding back her skirts from the crowding flowers, traversed the garden of Red Gate, and continued down to the house-boat.
"We can be quiet here," she said, throwing open the door. "My father is at Tippecanoe village, shipping one of his canoes. We are early risers, you see!"
The little sitting-room adjoining the shop was calm and cool, and the ripple of the creek was only an emphasis of the prevailing rural quiet. She sat down by the table in a red-cushioned wicker chair and folded her hands in her lap and smiled a little as she saw me regarding her fixedly. I suppose I had expected to find her clad in saffron robes or in doublet and hose, but the very crispness of her white piqué spoke delightfully of present times and manners. My glance rested on the emerald ring; then I looked into her eyes again.
"You see I am really very different," she smiled. "I'm not the same person at all!"
"No; it's wonderful—wonderful!" And I still stared.
She grew grave again.
"I have important things to say to you, but it's just as well for you to see me in the broadest of daylight, so that"—she pondered a moment, as though to be sure of expressing herself clearly—"so that when you see Helen Holbrook in an hour or so in that pretty garden by the lake you will understand that it was not really Rosalind after all that—that—amused you!"
"But the daylight is not helping that idea. You are marvelously alike, and yet—" I floundered miserably in my uncertainty.
"Then,"—and she smiled at my discomfiture, "if you can't tell us apart, it makes no difference whether you ever see me again or not. You see, Mr.—but did you ever tell me what your name is? Well, I know it, anyhow, Mr. Donovan."
The little work-table was between us, and on it lay the foil which her father had snatched from the wall the night before. I still stood, gazing down at Rosalind. Fashion, I saw, had done something for the amazing resemblance. She wore her hair in the pompadour of the day, with exactly Helen's sweep; and her white gown was identical with that worn that year by thousands of young women. She had even the same gestures, the same little way of resting her cheek against her hand that Helen had; and before she spoke she moved her head a trifle to one side, with a pretty suggestion of just having been startled from a reverie, that was Helen's trick precisely.
She forgot for a moment our serious affairs, to which I was not in the least anxious to turn, in her amusement at my perplexity.
"It must be even more extraordinary than I imagined. I have not seen Helen for seven years. She is my cousin; and when we were children together at Stamford our mothers used to dress us alike to further the resemblance. Our mothers, you may not know, were not only sisters; they were twin sisters! But Helen is, I think, a trifle taller than I am. This little mark"—she touched the peak—"is really very curious. Both our mothers and our grandmother had it. And you see that I speak a little more rapidly than she does—at least that used to be the case. I don't know my grown-up cousin at all. We probably have different tastes, temperaments, and all that."
"I am positive of it!" I exclaimed; yet I was really sure of nothing, save that I was talking to an exceedingly pretty girl, who was amazingly like another very pretty girl whom I knew much better.
"You are her guardian, so to speak, Mr. Donovan. You are taking care of my Aunt Pat and my cousin. Just how that came about I don't know."
"They were sent to St. Agatha's by Father Stoddard, an old friend of mine. They had suffered many annoyances, to put it mildly, and came here to get away from their troubles."
"Yes; I understand. Uncle Henry has acted outrageously. I have not ranged the country at night for nothing. I have even learned a few things from you," she laughed. "And you must continue to serve Aunt Patricia and my cousin. You see,"—and she smiled her grave smile—"my father and I are an antagonistic element."
"No; not as between you and Miss Patricia! I'm sure of that. It is Henry Holbrook that I am to protect her from. You and your father do not enter into it."
"If you don't mind telling me, Mr. Donovan, I should like to know whether Aunt Pat has mentioned us."
"Only once, when I first saw her and she explained why she had come. She seemed greatly moved when she spoke of your father. Since then she has never referred to him. But the day we cruised up to Battle Orchard and Henry Holbrook's man tried to smash our launch, she was shaken out of herself, and she declared war when we got home. Then I was on the lake with her the night of the carnival. Helen did not go with us. And when you paddled by us, Miss Pat was quite disturbed at the sight of you; but she thought it was an illusion, and—I thought it was Helen!"
"I have been home only a few weeks, but I came just in time to be with father in his troubles. My uncle's enmity is very bitter, as you have seen. I do not understand it. Father has told me little of their difficulties; but I know," she said, lifting her head proudly, "I know that my father has done nothing dishonorable. He has told me so, and I am content with that."
I bowed, not knowing what to say.
"I have been here only once or twice before, and for short visits only. Most of the time I have been at a convent in Canada, where I was known as Rosalind Hartridge. Rosalind, you know, is really my name: I was named for Helen's mother. The Sisters took pity on my loneliness, and were very kind to me. But now I am never going to leave my father again."
She spoke with no unkindness or bitterness, but with a gravity born of deep feeling. I marked now the lighter timbre of her voice, that was quite different from her cousin's; and she spoke more rapidly, as she had said, her naturally quick speech catching at times the cadence of cultivated French. And she was a simpler nature—I felt that; she was really very unlike Helen.
"You manage a canoe pretty well," I ventured, still studying her face, her voice, her ways, eagerly.
"That was very foolish, wasn't it?—my running in behind the procession that way!" and she laughed softly at the recollection. "But that was professional pride! That was one of my father's best canoes, and he helped me to decorate it. He takes a great delight in his work; it's all he has left! And I wanted to show those people at Port Annandale what a really fine canoe—a genuine Hartridge—was like. I did not expect to run into you or Aunt Pat."
"You should have gone on and claimed the prize. It was yours of right. When your star vanished I thought the world had come to an end."
"It hadn't, you see! I put out the lights so that I could get home unseen."
"You gave us a shock. Please don't do it again; and please, if you and your cousin are to meet, kindly let it be on solid ground. I'm a little afraid, even now, that you are a lady of dreams."
"Not a bit of it! I enjoy a sound appetite; I can carry a canoe like a Canadian guide; I am as good a fencer as my father; and I'm not afraid of the dark. You see, in the long vacations up there in Canada I lived out of doors and I shouldn't mind staying on here always. I like to paddle a canoe, and I know how to cast a fly, and I've shot ducks from a blind. You see how very highly accomplished I am! Now, my cousin Helen—"
"Well—?" and I was glad to hear her happy laugh. Sorrow and loneliness had not stifled the spirit of mischief in her, and she enjoyed vexing me with references to her cousin.
I walked the length of the room and looked out upon the creek that ran singing through the little vale. They were a strange family, these Holbrooks, and the perplexities of their affairs multiplied. How to prevent further injury and heartache and disaster; how to restore this girl and her exiled father to the life from which they had vanished; and how to save Miss Pat and Helen,—these things possessed my mind and heart. I sat down and faced Rosalind across the table. She had taken up a bright bit of ribbon from the work-basket and was slipping it back and forth through her fingers.
"The name Gillespie was mentioned here last night. Can you tell me just how he was concerned in your father's affairs?" I asked.
"He was the largest creditor of the Holbrook bank. He lived at Stamford, where we all used to live."
"This Gillespie had a son. I suppose he inherits his father's claims."
She laughed outright.
"I have heard of him. He is a remarkable character, it seems, who does ridiculous things. He did as a child: I remember him very well as a droll boy at Stamford, who was always in mischief. I had forgotten all about him until I saw an amusing account of him in a newspaper a few months ago. He had been arrested for fast driving in Central Park; and the next day he went back to the park with a boy's toy wagon and team of goats, as a joke on the policeman."
"I can well believe it! The fellow's here, staying at the inn at Annandale."
"So I understand. To be frank, I have seen him and talked with him. We have had, in fact, several interesting interviews,"—and she laughed merrily.
"Where did all this happen?"
"Once, out on the lake, when we were both prowling about in canoes. I talked to him, but made him keep his distance. I dared him to race me, and finally paddled off and left him. Then another time, on the shore near St. Agatha's. I was taking an observation of the school garden from the bluff, and Mr. Gillespie came walking through the woods and made love to me. He came so suddenly that I couldn't run, but I saw that he took me for Helen, in broad daylight, and I—I—"
"Well, of course you scorned him—you told him to be gone. You did that much for her."
"No, I didn't. I liked his love-making; it was unaffected and simple."
"Oh, yes! It would naturally be simple!"
"That is brutal. He's clever, and earnest, and amusing. But—" and her brow contracted, "but if he is seeking my father—"
"Rest assured he is not. He is in love with your cousin—that's the reason for his being here."
"But that does not help my father's case any."
"We will see about that. You are right about him; he's really a most amusing person, and not a fool, except for his own amusement. He is shrewd enough to keep clear of Miss Pat, who dislikes him intensely on his father's account. She feels that the senior Gillespie was the cause of all her troubles, but I don't know just why. She's strongly prejudiced against the young man, and his whimsicalities do not appeal to her."
"I suppose Helen cares nothing for him; he acted toward me as though he'd been crushed, and I—I tried to be nice to him to make up for it."
"That was nice of you, very nice of you, Rosalind. I hope you will keep right on the way you've begun. Now I must ask you not to leave here, and not to allow your father to leave unless I know it."
"But you have your hands full without us. Your first obligation is to Aunt Pat and Helen. My father and I have merely stumbled in where we were not invited. You and I had better say good-by now."
"I am not anxious to say good-by," I answered lamely, and she laughed at me.
Helen, I reflected, did not laugh so readily. Rosalind was beautiful, she was charming; and yet her likeness to Helen failed in baffling particulars. Even as she came through the daisy meadow there had been a difference—at least I seemed to realize it now. The white butterflies symbolized her Ariel-like quality; for the life of me I could not associate those pale, fluttering vagrants with Helen Holbrook.
"We met under the star-r-rs, Mr. Donovan" (this was impudent; my own r's trill, they say), "at the stone seat and by the boat-house, and we talked Shakespeare and had a beautiful time,—all because you thought I was Helen. In your anxiety to be with her you couldn't see that I haven't quite her noble height,—I'm an inch shorter. I gave you every chance there at the boat-house, to see your mistake; but you wouldn't have it so. And you let me leave you there while I went back alone across the lake to Red Gate, right by Battle Orchard, which is haunted by Indian ghosts. You are a most gallant gentleman!"
"When you are quite done, Rosalind!"
"I don't know when I shall have a chance again, Mr. Donovan," she went on provokingly. "I learned a good deal from you in those interviews, but I did have to do a lot of guessing. That was a real inspiration of mine, to insist on playing that Helen by night and Helen by day were different personalities, and that you must not speak to the one of the other. That saved complications, because you did keep to the compact, didn't you?"
I assented, a little grudgingly; and my thoughts went back with reluctant step to those early affairs of mine, which I have already frankly disclosed in this chronicle, and I wondered, with her counterpart before me, how much Helen really meant to me. Rosalind studied me with her frank, merry eyes; then she bent forward and addressed me with something of that prescient air with which my sisters used to lecture me.
"Mr. Donovan, I fear you are a little mixed in your mind this morning, and I propose to set you straight."
"About what, if you please?"
The conceit in man always rises and struts at the approach of a woman's sympathy. My body ached, the knife slash across my ribs burnt, and I felt myself a sadly abused person as Rosalind addressed me.
"I understand all about you, Mr. Donovan."
My plumage fell; I did not want to be understood, I told myself; but I said:
"Please go on."
"I can tell you exactly why it is that Helen has taken so strong hold of your imagination,—why, in fact, you are in love with her."
"Not that—not that."
She snatched the foil from the table and cut the air with it several times as I started toward her. Then she stamped her foot and saluted me.
"Stand where you are, sir! Your race, Mr. Donovan, has a bad reputation in matters of the heart. For a moment you thought you were in love with me; but you are not, and you are not going to be. You see, I understand you perfectly."
"That's what my sisters used to tell me."
"Precisely! And I'm another one of your sisters—you must have scores of them!—and I expect you to be increasingly proud of me."
"Of course I admire Helen—" I began, I fear, a little sheepishly.
"And you admire most what you don't understand about her! Now that you examine me in the light of day you see what a tremendous difference there is between us. I am altogether obvious; I am not the least bit subtle. But Helen puzzles and thwarts you. She finds keen delight in antagonizing you; and she as much as says to you, 'Mr. Donovan, you are a frightfully conceited person, and you have had many adventures by sea and shore, and you think you know all about human nature and women, but I—I—am quite as wise and resourceful as you are, and whether I am right or wrong I'm going to fight you, fight you, fight you!' There, Mr. Laurance Donovan, is the whole matter in a nut-shell, and I should like you to know that I am not at all deceived by you. You did me a great service last night, and you would serve me again, I am confident of it; and I hope, when all these troubles are over, that we shall continue—my father, and you and I—the best friends in the world."
I can not deny that I was a good deal abashed by this declaration spoken without coquetry, and with a sincerity of tone and manner that seemed conclusive.
I began stammering some reply, but she recurred abruptly to the serious business that hung over us.
"I know you will do what you can for Aunt Pat. I wish you would tell her, if you think it wise, that father is here. They should understand each other. And Helen, my splendid, courageous, beautiful cousin,—you see I don't grudge her even her better looks, or that intrepid heart that makes us so different. I am sure you can manage all these things in the best possible way. And now I must find my father, and tell him that you are going to arrange a meeting with Aunt Pat, and talk to him of our future."
She led the way up to the garden, and as I struck off into the road she waved her hand to me, standing under the overhanging sign that proclaimed Hartridge, the canoe-maker, at Red Gate.