Chapter 16. The Conqueror

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_ CHAPTER XVI. THE CONQUEROR

I

If Randy's train had not missed a connection, he would have caught the same boat that took the Admiral and his party back to the island. They motored down to Wood's Hole, and boarded the _Sankaty_, while Randy, stranded at New Bedford, was told there would not be another steamer out until the next day.

The Admiral was the only gay and apparently care-free member of his quartette. Becky felt unaccountably depressed. Louise sat in the cabin and worked on her green bag. There was a heavy sky and signs of a storm. It was not pleasant outside.

Archibald was nursing a grievance. "If your grandfather had only stayed over another day."

"He had written Tristram that we would come. He is very exact in his engagements."

"And he feels that fifty years in 'Sconset is better than a cycle anywhere else."

"Yes. It will be nice to get back to our little gray house, and the moor, don't you think?"

"Yes. But I wanted to show you Boston as if you had never seen it, and now I shall never show it."

They were on deck, wrapped up to their chins. "Tell me what you would have shown me," Becky said; "play that I am Olga and that you are telling me about it."

He looked down at her. "Well, you've just arrived. You aren't dressed in a silver-toned cloak with gray furs and a blue turban with a silver edge. That's a heavenly outfit, Becky. But what made you wear it on a day like this?"

"It is the silver lining to my--cloud," demurely; "dull clothes are dreadful when the sky is dark."

"I am not sure but I liked you better in your brown--in the rain with your hand on my arm---- That is--unforgettable----"

She brought him back to Olga. "I have just arrived----"

"Yes, and you have a shawl over your head, and a queer old coat and funny shoes. I should have to speak to you through an interpreter, and you would look at me with eager eyes or perhaps frightened ones."

"And first we should have gone to Bunker Hill, and I should have said, 'Here we fought. Not of hatred of our enemy, but for love of liberty. The thing had to be done, and we did it. We had a just cause.' And then I should have taken you to Concord and Lexington, and I would have said, 'These farmers were clean-hearted men. They believed in law and order, they hated anarchy, and upon that belief and upon that hatred they built up a great nation.' And thus ends the first lesson."

He paused. "Lesson the second would have to do with the old churches."

They had stopped by the rail; the wind buffeted them, but they did not heed it. "It was in the churches that the ideals of the new nation were crystallized. No country prospers which forgets its God."

"Lesson number three," he went on, "would have had to do with the bookshops."

"The bookshops?"

He nodded. "The old bookshops and the new of Boston. I would have taken you to them, and I would have said, 'Here, Olga, is the voice of the nation speaking to you through the printed page. Learn to read in the language of your new country.' Oh, Becky," he broke off, "I wanted to show you the bookshops. It's a perfect pilgrimage----"

The Admiral, swaying to the wind, came up to them. "Hadn't you better go inside?" he shouted. "Becky will freeze out here."

They followed him. The cabin was comparatively quiet after the tumult. Louise was still working on the green bag. "What have you two been doing?" she asked.

"Playing Olga of Petrograd," said Archibald, moodily, "but Becky was cold and came in."

"Grandfather brought me in," said Becky.

"If you had cared to stay, you would have stayed," he told her, rather unreasonably. "Perhaps, after all, Boston to Olga simply means baked beans which she doesn't like, and codfish which she prefers--raw----"

"Now you have spoiled it all," said Becky. "I loved the things that you said about the churches and the bookshops and Bunker Hill."

"Did you? Well, it is all true, Becky, the part they have played in making us a nation. And it is all going to be true again. We Americans aren't going to sell our birthright for a mess of pottage!"

And now the island once more rose out of the sea. The little steamer had some difficulty in making a landing. But at last they were on shore, and the 'bus was waiting, and it was after dark when they reached "The Whistling Sally."

The storm was by that time upon them--the wind blew a wild gale, but the little gray cottage was snug and warm. Jane in her white apron went unruffled about her pleasant tasks--storms might come and storms might go--she had no fear of them now, since none of her men went down to the sea in ships.

Tristram in shining oilskins brought up their bags. He stood in the hall and talked to them, and before he went away, he said casually over his shoulder, "There's a gentleman at the hotel that has asked for you once or twice."

"For me?" the Admiral questioned.

"You and Miss Becky."

"Do you know his name?"

"It's Dalton. George Dalton----"

"I don't know any Daltons. Do you, Becky?"

Becky stood by the table with her back to them. She did not turn. "Yes," she said in a steady voice. "There was a George Dalton whom I met this summer--in Virginia."

II

There was little sleep for Becky that night. The storm tore around the tiny house, but its foundations were firm, and it did not shake. The wind whistled as if the wooden figure in the front yard had suddenly come to life and was madly making up for the silence of a half-century.

So George had followed her. He had found her out, and there was no way of escape. She would have to see him, hear him. She would have to set herself against the charm of that quick voice, those sparkling eyes. There would be no one to save her now. Randy was far away. She must make her fight alone.

She turned restlessly. Why should she fight? What, after all, did George mean to her? A chain of broken dreams? A husk of golden armor? _Georgie-Porgie_--who had kissed and run away.

She was listless at breakfast. The storm was over, and the Admiral was making plans for a picnic the next day to Altar Rock. "Hot coffee and lobster sandwiches, and a view of the sea on a day like this."

Becky smiled. "Grandfather," she said, "I believe you are happy because you keep your head in the stars and your feet on the ground."

"What's the connection, my dear?"

"Well, lobster sandwiches and a view of the sea. So many people can't enjoy both. They are either lobster-sandwich people, or view-of-the-sea people."

"Which shows their limitations," said the Admiral, promptly; "the people of Pepys' time were eloquent over a pigeon pie or a poem. The good Lord gave us both of them. Why not?"

It was after breakfast that a note was brought to Becky. The boy would wait.

"I am here," George wrote, "and I shall stay until
I see you. Don't put me off. Don't shut your heart
against me. I am very unhappy. May I come?"

She wrote an immediate answer. She would see him in the afternoon. The Admiral would be riding over to Nantucket. He had some business affairs to attend to--a meeting at the bank. Jane would be busy in her kitchen with the baking. The coast would be clear. There would be no need, if George came in the afternoon, to explain his presence.

Having dispatched her note, and with the morning before her, she was assailed by restlessness. She welcomed Archibald Cope's invitation from the adjoining porch. He sang it in the words of the old song,

"Madam, will you walk!
Madam, will you talk?
Madam, will you walk and talk
With me----"

"Where shall we go?"

"To Sankaty----"

She loved the walk to the lighthouse. In the spring there was Scotch broom on the bluffs--yellow as gold, with the blue beyond. In summer wild roses, deep pink, scenting the air with their fresh fragrance. But, perhaps, she loved it best on a day like this, with the breakers on the beach below, racing in like white horses, and with the winter gulls, dark against the brightness of the morning.

"Why aren't you painting?" she asked Archibald.

"Because," he said, "I am not going to paint the moor any more. It gets away from me--it is too vast---- It has a primal human quality, and yet it is not alive."

"It sometimes seems alive to me," she said, "when I look off over it--it seems to rise and fall as if it--breathed."

"That's the uncanny part of it," Archibald agreed, "and I am going to give it up. I am not going to paint it---- I want to paint you, Becky."

"Me? Why do you want to do that?"

He flashed a glance at her. "Because you are nice to look at."

"That isn't the reason."

"Why should you question my motives?" he demanded. "But since you must have the truth--it is because of a fancy of mine that I might do it well----"

"I should like it very much," she said, simply.

"Would you?" eagerly.

"Yes."

She had on her red cape, and a black velvet tam pulled over her shining hair.

"I shall not paint you like this," he said, "although the color is--superlative---- Ever since you read to me that story of Randy Paine's, I have had a feeling that the real story ought to have a happy ending, and that I should like to make the illustration."

"I don't know what you mean?"

"Why shouldn't the girl care for the boy after he came back? Why shouldn't she, Becky Bannister?"

Her startled gaze met his. "Let's sit down here," he said, "and have it out."

There was a bench on the edge of the bluff, set so that one might have a wider view of the sea.

"There ought to be a happy ending, Becky."

"How could there be?"

"Why not you--and Randy Paine? I haven't met him, but somehow that story tells me that he is the right sort. And think of it, Becky, you and that boy--in that big house down there, going to church, smiling across the table at each other," his breath came quickly, "your love for him, his for you, making a background for his--genius."

She tried to stop him. "Why should you say such things?"

"Because I have thought them. Last night in the storm--I couldn't sleep. I--I wanted to be a dog in the manger. I couldn't have you, and I'd be darned if I'd help anyone else to get you. You--you see, I'm a sort of broken reed, Becky. It--it isn't a sure thing that I am going to get well. And if what I feel for you is worth anything, it ought to mean that I must put your happiness--first. And that's why I want to make the picture for the--happy ending."

Her hand went out to him. "It is a beautiful thing for you to do. But I am not sure that there will be a--happy ending."

"Why not?"

She could not tell him. She could not tell--that between her and her thought of Randy was the barrier of all that George Dalton had meant to her.

"If you paint the picture," she evaded, "you must finish it at Huntersfield. Why can't you and Louise come down this winter? It would be heavenly."

"It would be Heaven for me. Do you mean it, Becky?"

She did mean it, and she told him so.

"I shall paint you," he planned, "as a little white slip of a girl, with pearls about your neck, and dreams in your eyes, and back of you a flight of shadowy swans----"

They rose and walked on. "I thought you were to be with the Admiral in Boston this winter."

"I stay until Thanksgiving. I always go back to Huntersfield for Christmas."

After that it was decided that she should sit for him each morning. They did not speak again of Randy. There had been something in Becky's manner which kept Archibald from saying more.

When they reached the lighthouse, the wind was blowing strongly. Before them was the sweep of the Nantucket Shoals--not a ship in sight, not a line of smoke, the vast emptiness of heaving waters.

Becky stood at the edge of the bluff, her red cape billowing out into a scarlet banner, her hair streaming back from her face, the velvet tam flattened by the force of the wind.

Archibald glanced at her. "Are you cold?"

"No, I love it."

He was chilled to the bone, yet there she stood, warm with life, bright with beating blood----

"What a beastly lot of tumbling water," he said with sudden overmastering irritation. "Let's get away from it, Becky. Let's get away."

Going back they took the road which led across the moor. The clear day gave to the low hills the Persian carpet coloring which Cope had despaired of painting. Becky, in her red cape, was almost lost against the brilliant background.

But she was not the only one who challenged nature. For as she and Archibald approached the outskirts of the town, they discerned, at some distance, at the top of a slight eminence, two figures--a man and a woman. The woman was dancing, with waving arms and flying feet.

"She calls that dance 'Morning on the Moor,'" Cope told Becky; "she has a lot of them--'The Spirit of the Storm, 'The Wraith of the Fog.'"

"Do you know her?"

"No. But Tristram says she dances every morning. She is getting ready for an act in one of the big musical shows."

The man sat on the ground and watched the woman dance. Her primrose cape was across his knee. He was a big man and wore a cap. Becky, surveying him from afar, saw nothing to command closer scrutiny. Yet had she known, she might have found him worthy of another look. For the man with the primrose cape was Dalton!

III

George Dalton, entering the little sitting-room of "The Whistling Sally," had to bend his head. He was so shining and splendid that he seemed to fill the empty spaces. It seemed, indeed, to Becky, as if he were too shining and splendid, as if he bulked too big, like a giant, top-heavy.

But she was not unmoved. He had been the radiant knight of her girlish dreams--some of the glamour still remained. Her cheeks were touched with pink as she greeted him.

He took both of her hands in his. "Oh, you lovely, lovely little thing," he said, and stood looking down at her.

They were the words he had said to her in the music-room. They revived memories. Flushing a deeper pink, she drew away from him. "Why did you come?"

"I could not stay away."

"How long have you been here?"

"Five days----"

"Please--sit down"--she indicated a chair on the other side of the hearth. She had seated herself in the Admiral's winged chair. It came up over her head, and she looked very slight and childish.

George, surveying the room, said, "This is some contrast to Huntersfield."

"Yes."

"Do you like it?"

"Oh, yes. I have spent months here, you know, and Sally, who whistles out there in the yard, is an old friend of mine. I played with her as a child."

"I should think the Admiral would rather have one of those big houses on the bluff."

"Would you?"

"Yes."

"But he has so many big houses. And this is his play-house. It belonged to his grandfather, and that ship up there is one on which our Sally was the figure-head."

He forced himself to listen while she told him something of the history of the old ship. He knew that she was making conversation, that there were things more important to speak of, and that she knew it. Yet she was putting off the moment when they must speak.

There came a pause, however. "And now," he said, leaning forward, "let's talk about ourselves, I have been here five days, Becky--waiting----"

"Waiting? For what?"

"To ask you to--forgive me."

Her steady glance met his. "If I say that I forgive you, will that be--enough?"

"You know it will not," his sparkling eyes challenged her. "Not if you say it coldly----"

"How else can I say it?"

"As if--oh, Becky, don't keep me at long distance--like this. Don't tell me that you are engaged to Randy Paine. Don't----. Let this be our day----" He seemed to shine and sparkle in a perfect blaze of gallantry.

"I am not engaged to Randy."

He gave an exclamation of triumph. "You broke it off?"

"No," she said, "he broke it."

"What?"

She folded her hands in her lap. "You see," she said, "he felt that I did not love him. And he would not take me that way--unloving."

"He seemed to want to take you any way, the day he talked to me. I asked him what he had to offer you----" He gave a light laugh--seemed to brush Randy away with a gesture.

Her cheeks flamed. "He has a great deal to offer."

"For example?" lazily, with a lift of the eyebrows.

"He is a gentleman--and a genius----"

His face darkened. "I'll pass over the first part of that until later. But why call him a 'genius'?"

"He has written a story," breathlessly, "oh, all the world will know it soon. The people who have read it, in New York, are crazy about it----"

"Is that all? A story? So many people write nowadays."

"Well," she asked quietly, "what more have you to offer?"

"Love, Becky. You intimated a moment ago that I was not--a gentleman--because I failed--once. Is that fair? How do you know that Paine has not failed--how do you know----? And love hasn't anything to do with genius, Becky, it has to do with that night in the music-room, when you sang and when I--kissed you. It has to do with nights like those in the old garden, with the new moon and the stars, and the old goddesses."

"And with words which meant--nothing----"

"_Becky_," he protested.

"Yes," she said, "you know it is true--they meant nothing. Perhaps you have changed since then. I don't know. But I know this, that I have changed."

He felt back of her words the force which had always baffled him.

"You mean that you don't love me?"

"Yes."

"I--I don't believe it----"

"You must----"

"But----" he rose and went towards her.

"Please--we won't argue it. And--Jane is going to give us some tea." She left him for a moment and came back to sit behind the little table. Jane brought tea and fresh little cakes.

"For Heaven's sake, Becky," George complained, when the old woman had returned to her kitchen, "can you eat at a moment like this?"

"Yes," she said, "I can eat and the cakes are very nice."

She did not let him see that her hand trembled as she poured the tea.

George had had five days in the company of the dancer in yellow. He had found her amusing. She played the game at which he had proved himself so expert rather better than the average woman. She served for the moment, but no sane man would ever think of spending his life with her. But here was the real thing--this slip of a child in a blue velvet smock, with bows on her slippers, and a wave of bronze hair across her forehead. He felt that Becky's charms would last for a lifetime. When she was old, and sat like that on the other side of the hearth, with silver hair and bent figure, she would still retain her loveliness of spirit, the steadfast gaze, the vivid warmth of word and gesture.

For the first time in his life George knew the kind of love that projects itself forward into the future, that sees a woman as friend and as companion. And this woman whom he loved had just said that she did not love him.

"I won't give you up," he said doggedly.

"How can you keep me?" she asked quietly, and suddenly the structure of hope which he had built for himself tumbled.

"Then this is the--end?"

"I am afraid it is," and she offered him a cup.

His face grew suddenly gray. "I don't want any tea. I want you," his hands went over his face. "I want you, Becky."

"Don't," she said, shakily, "I am sorry."

She was sorry to see him no longer shining, no longer splendid, but she was glad that the spell was broken--the charm of sparkling eyes and quick voice gone--forever.

She said again, as she gave him her hand at parting, "I'm sorry."

His laugh was not pleasant. "You'll be sorrier if you marry Paine."

"No," she said, and he carried away with him the look which came into her eyes as she said it, "No, if I marry Randy I shall not be sorry."

IV

Randy, arriving on the evening boat, caught the 'bus, and found the Admiral in it.

"It's Randy Paine," he said, as he climbed in and sat beside the old gentleman.

"My dear boy, God bless you. Becky will be delighted."

"I was in New York," was Randy's easy explanation, "and I couldn't resist coming up."

"We read your story, and Mrs. Prime told us how the editor received it. You are by way of being famous, my boy."

"Well, it's mighty interesting, sir," said young Randy.

It was late when they reached the little town, but the west was blood-red above the ridge, with the moor all darkling purple.

Becky was not in the house. "I saw her go down to the beach," Jane told them.

"In what direction?" Randy asked; "I'll go after her."

"She sometimes sits back of the blue boat," said Jane, "when there's a wind. But if you don't find her, Mr. Paine, she'll be back in time for supper. I told her not to be late. I am having raised rolls and broiled fish, and Mr. and Miss Cope are coming."

"I'll find her," said Randy, and was off.

The moon was making a path of gold across the purple waters, and casting sharp shadows on the sand. The blue boat, high on the beach, had lost its color in the pale light. But there was no other boat, so Randy went towards it. And as he went, he gave the old Indian cry.

Becky, wrapped in her red cape, deep in thoughts of the thing that had happened in the afternoon, heard the cry and doubted her ears.

It came again.

"Randy," she breathed, and stood up and saw him coming. She ran towards him. "Oh, Randy, Randy."

She came into his arms as if she belonged there. And he, amazed but rapturous, received her, held her close.

"Oh, oh," she whispered, "you don't know how I have wanted you, Randy."

"It is nothing to the way that I have wanted you, my dear."

"Really, Randy?"

"Really, my sweet."

The moon was very big and bright. It showed her face white as a rose-leaf against his coat. He scarcely dared to breathe, lest he should frighten her. They stood for a moment in silence, then she said, simply, "You see, it was you, after all, Randy."

"Yes," he said, "I see. But when did you find it out?"

"This afternoon. Let's sit down here out of the wind behind the boat, and I'll tell you about it----"

But he was not ready yet to let her go. "To have you here--like this."

He stopped. He could not go on. He lifted her up to him, and their lips met. Years ago he had kissed her under the mistletoe; the kiss that he gave her now was a pledge for all the years to come.

They were late for supper. Jane relieved her mind to the Admiral and his guests. "She had a gentleman here this afternoon for tea, and neither of them ate anything. And now there's another gentleman, and the rolls are spoiling."

"You can serve supper, Jane," the Admiral told her; "they can eat when they come."

When they came, Becky's cheeks were as red as her cape. As she swept within the radius of the candle-light, Archibald Cope, who had risen at her entrance, knew what had happened. Her eyes were like stars. "Did Jane scold about us?" she asked, with a quick catch of her breath; "it was so lovely--with the moon."

Back of her was young Randy--Randy of the black locks, of the high-held head and Indian profile, Randy, with his air of Conqueror.

"I've told them all about you," Becky said, "and they have read your story. Will you please present him properly, Grandfather, while I go and fix my hair?"

She came back very soon, slim and childish in her blue velvet smock, her hair in that bronze wave across her forehead, her eyes still lighted.

She sat between her grandfather and Archibald.

"So," said Cope softly, under cover of the conversation, "it has happened?"

"What has happened?"

"The happy ending."

"Oh--how did you know?"

"As if the whole world wouldn't know just to look at you."

The Randy of the supper table at "The Whistling Sally" was a Randy that Becky had never seen. Success had come to him and love. There was the ring of it in his young voice, the flush of it on his cheeks. He was a man, with a man's future.

He talked of his work. "If I am a bore, please tell me," he said, "but it is rather a fairy-tale, you know, when you've made up your mind to a hum-drum law career to find a thing like this opening out."

Becky sat and listened. Her eyes were all for her lover. Already she thought of him at King's Crest, writing for the world, with her money making things easy for him, but not spoiling the simplicity of their tastes. If she thought at all of George Dalton, it was to find the sparkle and shine of his splendid presence dimmed by Randy's radiance.

"I hate to say that he is--charming," Cope complained.

He was a good sport, and he wanted Becky to be happy. But it was not easy to sit there and see those two--with the pendulum swinging between them of joy and dreams, and the knowledge of a long life together.

"Why should it be?" he asked Louise, as he stood beside her, later, on their own little porch which overlooked the sea; "those two--did you see them? While I----"

Louise laid her hand on his shoulder. "Yes. I think it is something like this, Arch. They've got to live it out, and life isn't always going to be just to-night for them. And perhaps in the years together they may lose some of their dreams. They've got to grow old, and you, you'll go out--with all--your dreams----"

He reached up and took the kind hand.

"'They all go out like this--into the night--but what a fleet of--stars.' Is that it, Louise?"

"Yes."

The clearness of the moonlight was broken by long fingers of fog stretched up from the horizon.

"I'll wrap up and sit here, Louise," Archibald said; "I shan't sleep if I go in."

"Don't stay too long. Good-night, my dear, good-night."

Archibald, watching the fog shut out the moonlight, had still upon him that sense of revolt. Fame had never come to him, and love had come too late.

Yet for Randy there was to be fulfillment--the wife of his heart, the applause of the world. What did it all mean? Why should one man have all, and the other--nothing?

Yet he had had his dreams. And the dreams of men lived. That which died was the least of them. The great old gods of democracy--Washington, Jefferson, Adams--had seen visions, and the visions had endured. Only yesterday Roosevelt had proclaimed his gallant doctrines. He had died proclaiming them, and the world held its head higher, because of his belief in its essential rightness.

The mists enveloped Archibald in a sort of woolly dampness. He saw for a moment a dim and distant moon. If he could have painted a moon like that--with fingers of fog reaching up to it----!

His own dreams of beauty? What of them? His pictures would not live. He knew that now. But he had given more than pictures to the world. He had given himself in a crusade which had been born of high idealism and a sense of brotherhood. Day after day, night after night, his plane had hung, poised like an eagle, above the enemy. He had been one of the young gods who had set their strength and courage against the greed and grossness of gray-coated hordes.

And these dreams must live--the dreams of the young gods--as the dreams of the old gods had endured. Because men had died to make others free, freedom must be the song on the lips of all men.

He thought of Randy's story. The Trumpeter Swan was only a stuffed bird in a glass case. But once he had spread his wings--flown high in the upper air. There had been strength in his pinions--joy in his heart--thrilling life in every feather of him. Some lovely lines drifted through Archibald's consciousness--

"Upon the brimming water, among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion and conquest, wander where they will.
Attend upon them still----"

From the frozen north the swan had come to the sheltered bay and some one had shot him. He had not been asked if he wanted to live; they had taken his life, and had set him up there on the shelf--and that had been the end of him.

But was it the end? Stuffed and quiet in his glass case, he had looked down on a little boy. And the little boy had seen him not dead, but sounding his trumpet. And now the whole world would hear of him. In Randy's story, the Trumpeter would live again in the hearts of men.

The wind was rising--the fog blown back before it showed the golden track of the sea--light stretching to infinity!

He rose and stood by the rail. Then suddenly he felt a hand upon his, and looking down, he saw Becky.

"I ran away from Randy," she said, breathlessly, "just for a moment. I was afraid you might be alone, and unhappy."

His hand held hers. "Just for this moment you are mine?"

"Yes."

"Then let me tell you this--that I shall never be alone as long as I may have your friendship--I shall always be happy because I have--loved you."

He kissed her hand. "Run back to your Randy. Good-night, my dear, good-night."

Her lover received her rapturously at the door of the little house. They went in together. And Archibald looked out, smiling, over a golden sea.

[THE END]
Temple Bailey's Novel: Trumpeter Swan

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