  Joan heard voices over toward Wild Acres. They came from the top of the wall which for half a mile or so shut off Holly’s well-kept grounds from the wildwood tangle of the neighboring estate. Although she was courting solitude this afternoon, or had intended to, Joan turned that way, out of curiosity, and in a minute or so four backs were presented to her. Persis, Nicky, their nurse, Alice, and Ariel Clare were all up on the wall, their legs swinging over on the Wild Acres side, their faces wildwood-tangleward, talking. Much overheard talk sounds like monkey chatter, when the words are indistinguishable, but not this of the two girls and the two children. With such inflections, such deliberate tranquillity, the gods might converse on Olympus. Joan drew nearer the beatitude of intercourse, walking softly on moist spring ground, ears beginning to catch the words. The children sat between the two girls. It was Nicky speaking now, but with a manner of speech Joan had never heard him use before, unhurried and clear. So many imaginative and sensitive children, when speaking to an adult, or even to their own contemporaries, have a nervous, anxious note in their voices, from fear of interruption or misapprehension; and Nicky was no exception. But now it was different. Now he spoke with unruffled but expedient precision. “Yes.... I should stay away as long as I wished. Perhaps until the next spring. And even then I would not come home unless the pony would come with me. But he would come. He would come for a year.” Persis interrupted, but calmly, not startlingly. “Where would he sleep, Nicky? Would he have to sleep with the horses in the stables?” “Of course not. Not this pony. He would just walk up the back stairs, nights, not disturbing anybody. And mornings, long before anybody else is up, even before the servants are up, he will take me for long rides on his back, first through Wild Acres, jumping all the lowest trees and streams, and this wall, and then way beyond even Wild Acres. But Ariel will be awake. She will lean out of her window and call, ‘Whoa!’ I’ll pull him up, and we’ll say good morning to each other, and how did we sleep? When we go on Ariel’ll see us jump the sundial in the rose garden. But that will be nothing, quite a low jump, compared to some of the trees we take in our leaps. And during the day, Persis can sometimes go rides on him if she likes, so long as she’s careful that nobody sees him, and Alice, you can have him too, often. But Ariel can have him nights. When there’s starlight. And she’ll wear the hat with the green feather. And nobody but us four’ll know there is a pony. And that’s all.... Now it’s Ariel’s turn.” When before, in Joan’s knowledge, had Nicky ever had a chance to say, “And that’s all”? She was pricked by a light remorse. Some time she must be patient, let him say his say through to her, his mother,—and for reward at the end, hear his “And that’s all,” like a little clear bell ringing benedictus through a tranquil world. Ariel’s voice was pitched lower than Nicky’s, flat and clear. It had little carrying quality. But Joan was so close under the wall that she heard easily enough. “I’ll look for a path first. Hunt all around in Wild Acres for the path.” “A path! You! Are you sure, Ariel?” Nicky asked, surprised. “Yes. But not a regular path. Not one we have ever seen in there yet. A path to take me to the inside of the inside of the woods, you see, really into faËrie. Once there, in faËrie, I won’t need a path, of course.” Persis leaned forward and looked up into her brother’s face. “Do you see, Nicky,” she murmured. “A path to the inside of the inside, that’s what Ariel means. You’d need a path for that. It’s very hard to find it without.” Nicky nodded, and Ariel continued. “The path, I think, will begin at a place where there are little white and yellow violets, where it’s thick with them. The violets will show me the path. But not with words. They haven’t voices, and if they had they wouldn’t use them, not at the beginning of the path, where everything is hush, stiller than stillest water, airy stillness. And I couldn’t see it with my eyes, either. They’ll have to tell me in another way, their own way, where it starts off, and I’ll have to understand without seeing or hearing, at first.” “But you couldn’t,” Persis objected. “You’d have to see or hear to follow it. How would the violets tell you, if you can’t see it and they won’t speak and it’s hush?” Alice, the nurse, spoke up, surprising Joan immensely. “I know, Ariel. It’s funny about the first wildwood flowers in the spring. They do do that to you. And it’s the little white and yellow violets that do it hardest. They show you something, but something not to be seen or heard. They put a kind of glory over you....” “Yes. Spring glory. I’ll push away some of last year’s brown leaves, brown, brown, wet, earth-smelling.... I’ll clear a place for the little white and yellow violets in the air, so they’ll stand out on the air, clear, pure.... Then I’ll find where the path starts. I think it will lead to—” The children were “hush” themselves, following with Ariel where that path would lead. But Joan, taking no account of “hush,” put up a hand from her side of the wall and took hold of Persis’s blue skirt. “It’s a nice story, I know, ducks, but Miss Clare will finish it for you some other time perhaps. I want her to come up to the house and have tea with me now. And Alice, I don’t approve of the children sitting around quietly like this in the damp. It’s not summer yet. I want them to exercise. Get them to playing some game at once, or take them for a walk. I thought I had made it clear.” Persis was the first to realize the bitterness of their sudden loss. She wailed, “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Ariel, when will you finish? Will you come back? When will you show us the path? Will you dance for us in faËrie when we get there? You do mean to take us with you, don’t you? I thought soon you would begin to dance. Oh, Ariel! Oh, dear!” “Please come, Ariel. I’m famished for society. Besides, I’ve special things I want to talk about.” Alice had hurried her charges down from the wall. But the children were walking away backwards, their longing eyes on Ariel. “We’ll look for the path next time,” she called after them, and it sounded to their ears like a promise of the sort that keeps itself. “And we’ll all dance in faËrie. Good-by, Alice.” “I don’t know about having tea,” Ariel looked down at Joan from the wall doubtfully. “I must be back by five—” “Oh, that’s all right. We’ll have it now, early. Do come along.” Joan pulled Ariel’s arm through her own, when she jumped down and stood beside her in Holly. Then she drew her, not entirely unresisting, up toward the house. It had been mere impulse on Joan’s part, but now that for the first time in their acquaintance she was to have an hour alone with Ariel she would do what she so well had the power of doing, throw herself, the whole concentrated weight of her personality, into the contact,—put her own stamp upon the coin of the moment as Ariel had put hers, Joan rather rebelliously felt, on her contacts with Persis and Nicky. Now that the opportunity had practically imposed itself upon her, she was decided, once for all, to waste no more time about finding Ariel out. She would discover her charm. Or she would discover what passed for charm with Schwankovsky, ruthless where personalities were concerned: with Grandam, so ultra-fastidious: with Joan’s own children, whom until to-day she had thought rather typical neurotic American products. And even perhaps with Hugh, so undiscerning, except where she, Joan, was concerned. She was not jealous of Ariel. How could she be? For Hugh, in particular, she knew that Ariel’s charm would never shadow her own,—knew it all the more surely since that recent drive to town when he had so unprecedentedly expressed his adoration for herself in articulate sentences. But all the same she felt it might be worth her while to explore this Ariel a little for herself. There must be something she had missed. Besides, she was bored. She had kept the afternoon free for a sun bath on her roof, and a new book on the latest developments in psychoanalysis which Doctor Steiner had urged on her. But the sun had been unbenignantly hot, and she had dressed and come out after less than ten minutes of it. As for the book, which she still carried in her hand, after all there was nothing very new in it. Almost unconsciously she decided against having tea served on the terrace, the place she would naturally choose to-day if she were alone, but drew Ariel on toward one of the drawing-rooms. Out of doors Ariel might escape her divining. But against Joan’s own background, in the green and gold drawing-room which she had recently created with Brenda Loring’s assistance, with its sharp outlines and definite color combinations, Ariel must stand out, at least in bas-relief. As they traversed the wide hall Joan told herself confidently, “It isn’t, anyway, mere youth that Ariel uses. At least, she can’t use it in competition with me.” For Joan had glanced at their contrasted reflections in several long mirrors as they passed through her hall, and in those clear reflections she found herself more vividly young than the girl by her side. She saw with something like relief the beautiful, clean line of her chin and throat, the lithe Diana-ish line of thigh and leg, the life radiating from her burnished hair, glowing brow, and lustrous brown eyes. Ariel’s youth, in comparison, was lusterless. Besides, Ariel had not that added, rather terrible attribute of the older and experienced woman, consciousness of her power and of how to use it. Joan put Ariel into a formal, high-backed chair, facing a window, and herself sank into the low, luxurious corner of a sofa at right angles to the same window. A footman appeared—Joan had rung for him as they came in—and she ordered tea. “And we are in a hurry, please. I’m not at home to any one else.” Then she gave her attention to Ariel. “You’re rather a dear to my babies.” She was looking at Ariel with an expression of affectionate gratitude. Joan’s charm was a weapon which she used as consciously and expertly as any master of fencing uses his sword. “They’re utterly devoted to you. I think some day soon I must invite you to have supper with them in the nursery. On Nicky’s birthday, perhaps. That’s Sunday. It would be such a treat to them that I imagine you’ll be willing. You do love children, don’t you! Any one can see.” “I like Persis and Nicky, anyway. Very much. But whether Sunday I can get away for supper—” “Well, it doesn’t have to be on the birthday, though that would be nicest. How about to-morrow? That’s your day off, anyway. And you know, of course, that Hugh has broken your engagement with Michael and me. So do make the children ecstatic to-morrow. Nursery tea is at five-thirty. I’ll let him have his birthday cake then.” “Oh, I’m sorry! I should love to. But I’ve promised Hugh all to-morrow. We’re going off on a picnic in his car and won’t be back till after dark, I’m afraid. Too late for the nursery supper, anyway.” Joan’s smile rather stiffened. “Yes? So that’s why he cried you off with us? Hugh was looking for a playmate for himself. But it’s unlike Hugh to be so uncandid. What have you done to him, Ariel?” Ariel could not dream, and Joan herself was astonished, at how much she really wanted to know the true answer to this seemingly lightly asked question. “No. It wasn’t that, I’m sure,” Ariel answered, too ingenuously, Joan thought, to be really ingenuous. “He’s not thinking of himself a bit. He’s worried about me. Says I’m tired. That I ought to be out of doors.” “Sweet of him. And very self-sacrificing!” Joan was flippant, but there was something in those brilliant brown eyes—just glimpsed in them—that rather contradicted flippancy. Tea came in at the moment. When the silver tray with its silver tea service and covered dishes was established between them on a table brought by a second footman, and the men had left the room, Joan sat on for some seconds, her hands clasped around her crossed knees, looking down absently at the food and not stirring to officiate as hostess. But then she laughed abruptly, a delightful, crisp laugh, and drew a cup toward her. “Well, I’ve known Hugh Weyman many years longer than you have, you amusing girl. So you can’t tell me anything to surprise me about the lengths to which his altruism will take him, given a chance. He’s a martyr to every one, his mother, his grandmother, his brother and sister, and now I can very easily take your word for it, he is ready to play the heavy father to you. He thinks he was created to take care of people, poor dear. And if it comes to that, his Creator seems to think so too, by the burdens He has put on him. Cream? Lemon? Ah! When you are a middle-aged old dud like me, Ariel, you’ll take lemon and no sugar, thank you, just like that.” She filled Ariel’s cup one third with cream, and added the two lumps of sugar which Ariel wanted. Then she passed across a dish of hot English muffins. “A muffin too, and dripping with butter!” Joan murmured enviously. “My word, child! While I must content myself with a dry cracker.” But Ariel, to Joan’s secret annoyance, showed no overt surprise that Joan’s beautiful figure needed any such disciplining. She ignored the opportunity for flattery and protested: “Hugh’s not playing father to me, not at all. He wouldn’t think of it, I’m sure. We’re very good, very wonderful friends, Mrs. Nevin.” “Oh! Yes. Friends in a way! But that’s only a little of the story. I’ll take back the ‘heavy father,’ if you like, but only to change it for ‘grandfather.’ Hugh and I are pretty close, you see. So he has a way of confiding his joys and troubles to me. And I can tell you something about him you mayn’t have guessed in your rather brief acquaintance. It’s this: this guardian of yours is an extremely conventional person. He has almost great-grandfatherly ideas, in fact, of how young girls should—shouldn’t, rather—allow old men to pet them, for instance. The fact is, Ariel, it isn’t your physical health Hugh is concerned for. If it were, he wouldn’t let his grandmother work you like a slave, as anybody can see she is doing, would he? You do look dreadfully tired! It’s your manners and morals Hugh’s bashing himself about.” Ariel said nothing. So Joan went on with it. “What I can’t make Hugh see, innocent dear that he is, is that all girls your age are like that now! Why, I suppose his own sister Anne isn’t so different. Petting may be as much a matter of course to her as brushing her teeth. But naturally I don’t drag Anne into things when discussing your situation with Hugh. I leave him to his illusions where his sister’s concerned. Why not! But with you it’s different. You’re not quite so vital to him—not so near home. Still, in spite of my most earnest defense of you, Ariel, the old dear wasn’t persuaded. He said he was going to arrange things so that you could have nothing to do with Michael from now on. And that’s the reason for the simple life and this picnic, and if you don’t call it grandfatherly, I do!” This was hardly capturing Ariel’s admiration and affection as Joan had set out to do, nor was it a very successful method of sounding for Ariel’s own attractions. It was, of course, a mere baiting of the girl,—and cheap, really beneath her, Joan knew. But every instant since Ariel had told Joan about that picnic, when Ariel and Hugh were to be alone together until “after dark, I’m afraid,” Joan had forgotten her original direction and purpose in this tÊte-À-tÊte. If by using a pin and scratching or pricking Ariel’s smooth, silvery flesh, she could have drawn forth the secret of Ariel’s attraction for Hugh, she would happily have taken that trouble; but for any ways more devious of accomplishing the end, she simply couldn’t be bothered. She would exert herself now only to wound. Yet she thought that Ariel was escaping from even her malice, running through her very fingers as it were,—melting away on a background of light and air, for all that she had taken such pains about putting four walls around her. As a matter of fact, Ariel had not escaped from Joan at all. She was there in that formal, straight chair, all of her there, cold, and shut up like a stone. It was quite a minute of silence before she asked, “Why shouldn’t I see Michael Schwankovsky? What do you and what does Hugh mean?” She was looking at the frosted cakes on a Wedgwood plate as she asked this, and Joan thought, “She’d take one if I’d pass it. She’s thinking about cake like any greedy schoolgirl. Why am I spending time and attention like this on a mere chrysalis! If she’s to grow wings some day, be a woman worth even annoying, that day’s far off.” “Why shouldn’t you see Michael? But you should, my dear. In fact, if he’s to go on with this exhibition of your father’s work, you must. It is only Hugh who thinks you shouldn’t. Though Hugh’s enough to spoil the chances for the exhibition, if he begins interfering.” “I simply don’t understand, Mrs. Nevin,—what you are trying to say.” Trying to say! She! Joan! Well, just for that Joan would say it. “Simply this. Hugh’s merely decided that if you’re the sort of girl it’s so easy to be affectionate with, you aren’t safe with a person of Michael Schwankovsky’s temperament. Anybody can see that Michael can’t keep his hands off you, and that you would be sorry if he could. But I told Hugh that it might come to more than petting. Suppose Michael’s actually thinking of marriage, Ariel!” Ariel put her cup down on the table and stood up. “Marry Michael Schwankovsky!” she exclaimed—anger giving place to shock. “Why, he’s old enough to be my grandfather!” She looked down at Joan, and grew still again, but this time it was not a stony stillness. It was just sudden natural relaxation. “You have misunderstood Hugh,” she affirmed. “You’re as far off about him as you are about Michael. And they were both of them friends of yours long before I ever knew them. So it’s strange you can make these mistakes.” She said it in all simplicity and went on, more relaxed and at peace with every word she uttered, “I’m very fond of Michael Schwankovsky and very grateful to him. He believes in the pictures. I’d love him just for that. But I love him for himself. He means more to me than any one else living except Doctor Hazzard and Hugh. And he’d no more think of wanting to marry me than Doctor Hazzard would think of it. And Doctor Hazzard’s a grandfather with eight grandchildren. So you see. “And you’ve made just as strange a mistake about Hugh too. Hugh’s very fond of me. And he’d never, never talk about me unkindly. I know he wouldn’t. He doesn’t know how to hide things, anyway. His eyes tell you what he thinks. And he’s never thought any hateful thoughts about me. Only very good thoughts! Dear thoughts!” Joan looked up at Ariel, after a pause. “You do reassure me,” she murmured. “For when the time comes that I stand in a position of second parent to you, as it were, along with Hugh, I should hate to have him always fussing, and I do assure you I’d be on your side, not his, anyway.” “A second parent to me? You mean a mother?” Ariel laughed, a rather interesting laugh to Joan because of the hint of wildness in it; but she held her languid pose in the corner of the couch, while her guest stood. “Mrs. Nevin, you’re a little too young to be my mother, aren’t you, just as dear Michael is much too old to be my lover! Hugh doesn’t stand in the relation to me, either, that you imply. He’s not a guardian, or anything like that. We are dear friends, as I told you. And now that I’ve got my job, he isn’t even my host. You’re all mixed up.” Ariel turned toward the window, which was open, in one swift motion of flight. But she did not fly. She was civilized. She would say a proper good-by to her hostess and depart with dignity by the door. Joan stood up, with slightly delayed protests. Ariel heard her own voice asking a question that she did not want to ask, but it was as uncontrollable as her first motion of flight had been. “Mrs. Nevin, are you engaged to Hugh? Were you meaning that too?” Joan restrained a smile, but obviously restrained it. “No, dear child,” she replied. “But I have a refusal. If you know what that means. It’s a term used largely in real estate, I believe. Must you go?” “I hope I’m not hurrying you!” Joan and Ariel turned in surprise toward the unexpected voice. Prescott Enderly had come in soundlessly, and was just at Ariel’s elbow. Joan exclaimed, “But how did you get here like this, unannounced? I’m not at home. Where’s Parks? And what are you doing away from college?” “One word answers them all,” Enderly replied. “Spring! Parks must be out somewhere watching the tulips grow. Anyway, the door was unguarded. In the spring nothing goes according to pattern, even your housekeeping, Joan.” Joan gave him her hand. He had nodded at Ariel and she at him. Ariel was seeing him as the person who had caused Anne all that anguish. His sea-blue eyes, crinkled now with a forced smile, the lines in his cheeks that just escaped being dimples and gave sympathy to his face, his eager sensitive body, his full, sensuous but sensitive lips,—these she was seeing with Anne’s eyes. But he was shockingly white. The man was simply beside himself, she felt, with some deep emotion. Joan was a bit short with him. “I wasn’t meaning to see any one to-day,” she said. “I’m even dining alone to-night. But yes—you may stay. You’ve come so far. I’d rather you called first on the telephone, however. Surprises always put me off a little. Do they you, Ariel? Some people they do.” “Joan, you are wonderful not to turn me out. But I’d have come, even if there was only one chance in ten thousand of your seeing me. If I’d called on the telephone, there wasn’t even that chance, I felt. You are a saint to put up with me.” They seemed hardly aware when Ariel said her polite say about the tea Joan had given her and departed. She might have used the window after all and no one noticed. From the door she glanced back and saw them on the sofa, Enderly bent forward, holding both of Mrs. Nevin’s hands in his, his eyes blue sea fire, his face still paper white. Neither of them was speaking. In her short cut home through the woods, no white and yellow violets gave to Ariel’s eyes or feet a path into faËrie. She had lost faËrie for that day, lost it to quite a bewildering degree. |
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