Chapter IX In an Orchard of the Memory
When Lord Canning and Indiana finally rejoined the others, they were made the subject of much reproval and interrogation.
“Blame me, Mrs. Bunker!” said Lord Canning. “Dinner is a fact that I had forgotten.”
“Apparently,” answered Mrs. Bunker, who looked wonderfully well pleased considering her impatience.
“That is something new for you, Thurston. You always used to be quite punctilious in the matter of meals.”
“Indeed, Uncle Nelson!”
“Lord Canning has lost his memory for the time being,” explained Indiana. “He is just a trifle demented—by his own confession.”
“Don’t be alarmed, good people!” said Lord Canning, with a far-away look. “I belong to the harmless variety. Miss Stillwater, who is my keeper for the present, can testify to that.”
“Oh yes, quite harmless! He has only one delusion. He believes that he has discovered the Adirondacks, and he christens everything that he sees, with a name of his own.”
As they made their way to the wagon, Lord Canning read an indescribable expression on his uncle’s face, which amused him greatly.
“Thurston never went on like this at the country houses we visited in England,” reflected Lord Stafford, on the homeward drive. “It seems that people act differently abroad from their manner at home.”
“Don’t take the old road home, Indiana!” cried Mrs. Bunker as they started. “It’s too long.”
“The sun is sinking,” observed Lord Canning, “but all we know of it here in the woods is this soft, golden haze. This is the most beautiful time to drive. The others may be hungry, but I think we have arranged it very well, to suit ourselves. How still the woods are at sundown! Look at their deep, rich green in the golden light! Do you hear that musical murmur? It’s one of those tiny brooks—we have just passed it. You are to show me one to-morrow near the camp. What time before breakfast? Eight? Half-past seven? Say seven. Now do not be late.”
As the light gradually faded, they felt a touch of frost in the air. Its exhilarating effect was heightened by the rapid speed the ponies had taken on the homeward road.
“Grandma Chazy wants me to take the new road back. It’s a short-cut,” whispered Indiana.
“I don’t like short-cuts,” murmured Lord Canning, crossly.
“Indiana, you’re not—well, what do you think of that girl, Lord Stafford?” As Indiana took the forbidden road, both she and Lord Canning laughing with intense enjoyment. “Just like naughty children, aren’t they, Lord Stafford?”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha! yes, Mrs. Bunker,” laughed Lord Stafford, edified beyond description at hearing his serious nephew, with a scientific bent, classed in the category of naughty children.
“I hope cook won’t mind,” ventured Mrs. Stillwater, with a worried expression.
“Ten to one she will, Mary. But don’t get worried over that yet. You can have an hour’s peace of mind before she gives you notice.”
“It’s so hard to get another up here, or I wouldn’t care,” added Mrs. Stillwater, apologetically. “You see I should have to telegraph Mr. Stillwater—and he would have all the bother of getting us one, putting her on the train, you see—and then, Lord Stafford, she mightn’t suit.”
“Quite so, Mrs. Stillwater.”
“Don’t allow a small matter of cooks to annoy you, Mrs. Stillwater,” said Lord Canning. “In case of emergency call on me. There are certain dishes which I pride myself upon. If cook has the bad taste to leave us, we will camp out in earnest.”
“You’re very good, Lord Canning,” replied Mrs. Stillwater, laughing.
“Have you ever tried these special dishes, Lord Stafford?” inquired Mrs. Bunker.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha! no, Mrs. Bunker, My nephew is developing accomplishments which surprise me, to say the least, Mrs. Bunker.”
“Isn’t this fascinating! Look at the soft, dim perspective of the stream winding off there! The little islands, mysterious and fairy-like, in the deepening light! Those low clouds floating in the glassy surface—the picture fading imperceptibly, as we gaze! That gentle, continuous ripple with it all! There is no poetry to equal this. None which could convey such a sense of infinite peace and calm,” enthused Lord Canning.
“I love this old road,” said Indiana.
“I, too, love this old road,” echoed Lord Canning, fervently.
When they finally emerged upon the open country there was still a dull, fiery streak in the western sky. In this fiery streak the evening star, rising slowly above the dark-blue outline of the mountains, glimmered faintly, a pearl in a ruby setting. As they drove on in the growing night, lights gleamed from scattered homesteads; the clear cold air blew keenly in their faces.
“I’m thinking longingly of that glorious fire in the hall,” said Lord Stafford, rubbing his hands.
“There’ll be a heavy frost to-night,” remarked Indiana. “I can feel it. You’ll see a great change in the foliage to-morrow.”
“This is most exhilarating. I have been watching that long twilight in the west. How clear and bright it is there! This is a purely Northern sky,” exclaimed Lord Canning.
A week later they received word from Mr. Stillwater that he was coming for the remainder of the season. Lord Stafford was present when the letter arrived, and notified his nephew in this wise.
“Pa’s coming!” he exclaimed, bursting into Lord Canning’s room.
“What!”
“Pa’s coming!” he repeated, in a feminine falsetto.
“What do you mean, Uncle Nelson?” interrogated Lord Canning, in an irritated voice.
“I’m repeating Miss Stillwater’s words, ‘Pa’s coming!’”
“Oh!” Lord Canning gazed out of his window at the lake, thinking. “So papa is coming. Well, all the better!”
“He arrives to-morrow, the fifteenth. They’re arranging a deer-hunt for the day after. The guides are jubilant that the real business of the season is to commence. They’ve been idling so long. Haven’t you opened your letters yet, Thurston?” noticing the pile of letters on the table.
“I have read my mother’s—here it is. She is well, thank God!”
“And you’re going off without opening the rest of your mail—part of it arrived two days ago. There might be something important.”
“I have an appointment with Miss Stillwater. That is the most important thing at present.”
“Why—what—where are you going?”
“Well, if you must know, Uncle Nelson, I am invited to help her catch pollywogs down here by the lake. She does not like to be kept waiting. I’m in a great hurry, Uncle Nelson. Ha, ha, ha, ha!” He rushed out of the room.
Lord Stafford sank into a chair, holding his sister’s letter.
“Well, I don’t know what to make of Thurston. It really looks as though that little thing has bewitched him—that little blonde thing—it’s too absurd!—ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!—she’s clever, though!—she runs the entire tribe of them—mother, father and grandmother. She can turn Thurston round her little finger—em—en! Perhaps I ought to devise some means of getting him away from here. I promised his mother to look after him. But then the hunting is just about to commence, and I’ve been looking forward to it—so long—besides, what would Mrs. Bunker say?”
Catching pollywogs was one of Indiana’s favorite recreations. She kept them in bottles for the pleasure of seeing them turn into frogs.
“Look at this little one! How beautifully green and speckled!” She held the little squirming, slippery thing fondly in her hand.
“I wish I were a pollywog!” said Lord Canning.
This remark, coming from such a source, appealed to Indiana’s sense of humor. She laughed until the tears rose to her eyes, while Lord Canning surveyed her with a deeply injured expression.
“It’s most unkind of you to ridicule my ambitions in this way, Miss Stillwater.”
“And such lofty ambitions, too.”
“They were—once, but they have gradually diminished, until now I am quite satisfied to be a pollywog—but that one in your hand, you understand.”
Indiana put it into the bottle, then leaned back on the soft ground clasping her hands behind her head.
“Tired—so soon? But you weary of most things like this, I have perceived—a truly feminine trait.” He lit a cigar.
It was one of those fair, bright autumn days, when one could imagine it was June instead of September, were it not for the glorious splashes of color that enlivened the lake.
“Do you notice,” said Indiana, gazing upward through the pines, “how near the sky seems to us here?”
“Yes,” said Lord Canning, “heaven seems very near to me here”—he bent down, looking into her eyes—“very near, and sometimes very far—”
The sound of a mandolin floated to them over the water.
“Glen!” cried Indiana, starting up. Lord Canning rose also, self-contained and somewhat pale. They watched the boat growing larger. Burt was rowing and Glen playing, “My Georgia Lady-love.” Indiana stood up and waved her handkerchief.
“Why does he play that now?” she thought. “He played it that day in the orchard—when he told me—and I was sorry for him. It was such a beautiful day! He said there would never be another—maybe there won’t.
“‘Way down in dear old Georgia State,
We parted—but she said she would wait—’”
sang Indiana, to the familiar strains. “There were so many apple-blossoms, and they were falling—falling over my face, my neck, my hair. The sky was so blue when I looked up through the blossoms—a different blue from this—
‘She slowly dropped her head,
And then she softly said:
‘Mister Johnson, ‘deed I loves you too.’’
We cried and made ourselves miserable—I wanted to kiss and comfort him, I wanted to whisper what he wished to hear—but something held me back. I was sorry for myself as well as for him. I wanted to please everyone—his folks and mine—but I couldn’t. I didn’t know then—I was waiting for this. But I’m sorry for Glen—so sorry!” She saw the boat through a mist of tears and the mandolin sounded far, very far away, as though Glen were still playing it in the orchard of her memory, where the blossoms fell, in a last rosy glow of the sun.
Lord Canning watched her, jealous of the new expression on her face. He realized she was carried away by some recollection in which Glen held a part. “A boy-and-girl affair, probably,” he thought. “There is always a boy-and-girl affair, but it seldom amounts to anything—very seldom.”
Glen joyfully recognized Indiana waving from the shore. “Looks as though she’d been standing watching for me ever so long, but that’s too much to expect.” Burt rowed slowly in, while Glen waved his cap, gaily. Indiana ran down to the dock to meet him, slowly followed by Lord Canning.
“Well, Glen, here you are at last!”
“Glad to see me back, Indiana?” he asked, holding her hand, while Lord Canning stood discreetly in the background.
“Cause—Lord Canning, this is Glen Masters, my old friend and playmate—the Right Honourable Thurston Ralph Canning, Viscount. Right?”
“Perfectly.”
“Glen’s a character,” continued Indiana, “he hates cities.”
“I do, sir,” said Glen, rather aggressively. “But I’m not out of the swim. I keep myself thoroughly posted upon politics and literature of the world.”
“He fought in the Spanish-American war,” said Indiana, putting her hand proudly on his shoulder.
“And when it was over,” laughed Glen, “I came, like Cincinnatus, back to the plow. My father’s been working a farm this spring for his health, and I’ve been helping him.”
“Character, brain, muscle,” observed Lord Canning. “That is the stuff which has made the American nation what it is to-day.” He extended his hand to Glen, who grasped it without enthusiasm.
“Mail for me, Indiana?”
“Yes, it’s all up in your room.” He took his coat and several other things from the boat.
“Did you have a nice time?” asked Indiana.
“Oh, I’ll tell you all about it later. We had a fine time, lots of sport. I must go and shake hands with the folks now, and read my mail. See you later, sir.” He swung his coat over his shoulder and saluted them, military fashion.
“Will you take me for a walk, Miss Stillwater?”
Indiana looked hesitatingly up at the camp.
“Oh, perhaps you would prefer to stay and talk with your old playmate. Do as you feel inclined, Miss Stillwater.” But he looked distinctively aggrieved.
“Oh, no,” said Indiana, carelessly. “There is plenty of time for that. He will tell us his experiences around the fire to-night. Where would you like to go?”
“Oh, let us simply follow one of those little ‘trails’ through the woods—one of those charming little trails, which one loses, and finds again, like a broken thread of thought, in the forest. There is always the murmur of some distant stream, which one vaguely hopes to reach—and sometimes a glimpse of blue sky through the dark pines.”