The Playwright and the Lady/Chapter 13
XIII.
Forty-eight hours later the end was in sight. Not only was the third act well-nigh done when Roger stopped for luncheon the second day after his visit to New York, but he had gone back and, to a great extent, rewritten the first act.
Something, whether the brief change of scene or what he could not tell, had acted as a mental tonic. From the moment he reached The Beeches until the last word was written there was no conscious effort other than that to keep the hurrying pen ahead of his crowding thoughts. After luncheon on that last day he had resisted the impulse to hurry back to the upstairs room and his work, and had, instead, forced himself to take a long walk and follow it up with a bath in the river. He returned to the house physically tired for the first time in a month, but the pleasant languor did not survive dinner and a subsequent half hour over his cigar.
At half-past eight he went back to the play. At a few minutes before midnight he wrote the final “curtain,” laid aside his pen, stretched his arms overhead and smiled triumphantly. This moment was worth all the toil and the doubts. Whatever the future might hold, to-night the play was a great play, the characters still came and went in the dimness beyond the circle of lamplight, and the pregnant tinkle of the bell under Miriam’s finger still echoed in his ears even after he had arisen and gathered the sheets together in an orderly pile.
Thoughtfully he lighted a fresh cigarette and walked to one of the wide open windows. Leaning out, he inhaled deep breaths of the moist air made intoxicatingly sweet by the knowledge of labor well done. Before him stood the black bulk of a maple, its leaves barely whispering in the stillness, its outer edges silvered with the light of the full, round moon that rode majestically in the cloudless heavens, lord of earth and space.
Roger’s gaze wandered slowly and sympathetically over the midnight world. For the first time in months, it seemed to him, he was in tune with nature. An almost pagan desire to be out there with the night air on his face and the fragrant, dewy sod underfoot suddenly possessed him. It was a veritable physical longing; he wondered, whimsically, as he slipped his cigarettes into his pocket and blew out the light, whether a hitherto unsuspected strain of druidic blood was making itself felt. The moonlight, flooding in at the windows and throwing lozenge-shaped shadows on the stairs and floor, lighted him down.
Once clear of the house, he turned toward the Beech Walk and entered the silent gloom of its tunnel. Here and there a persevering jet of soft, white light shimmered through the thick branches of the dark trees and splashed upon the mossy floor. About him were the soft noises of the night, the rustling of leaves and moving of dead twigs under tiny feet, the strange, throaty notes of sleeping birds and, once, the harsh pathos of a distant owl.
Presently the gate showed before him, a frame of delicate tracery for the moonlit picture beyond. The sight of the two chairs, empty—but stay! Was he dreaming or had he really seen a white form rise from the seat beyond the gate and flit noiselessly, like a specter, into the shadow of the trees? He rubbed his eyes, his heart beating a little faster. Light and dark were deceptive to sight, and yet—he could have sworn that he had seen a tall figure move into the darkness. A ghost? More likely a fairy, on such a night, he thought, smilingly, or—why, surely, a druidess!
He came to his own chair and sat down, his form silhouetted vividly black on the gravel, his gaze fixed upon the avenue beyond, a fairy lane of intense white radiance and somber shadow.
In the act of relighting his cigarette, he paused, dropped the match from his hand and slowly drew himself from the chair. Halfway up the avenue, slowly moving from shadow to light and from light to shadow, coming and going to his sight, was a white-gowned figure—tall, feminine, ethereal. Even as he looked the darkness swallowed it.
After a moment of waiting, he turned and clambered nimbly over the old brick wall, dropping softly into a cluster of ferns on the other side. Regaining the walk, and keeping well in shadow, he ran noiselessly after the figure, his nerves not quite steady, resolved on a solution of the mystery. Ghost, fairy or mortal, he told himself, he would find her out. But when, after traversing more than half the distance to the Hall, without sight or sound of the quarry, he paused, at a loss, he was forced to own that his task was no slight one, since the grounds of Forrest Hall were some ten acres in extent and his knowledge of the lay of the land very hazy. On either side of him stood the trees, and beneath them lay impenetrable gloom and mystery.
Something very like a shiver of fear crept down his spine. Then, mentally laughing at his nervousness, he turned and plunged at random into the shadow, stealing silently through the ferns and grass.
Presently his eyes became, in a measure, accustomed to the darkness, and he thought he could discern a path ahead of him. This he followed as best he could, stopping now and then to listen and take breath. Presently the gloom lightened; overhead he could catch fitful glimpses of the moon; and at last he found himself on the edge of the grove, before him a tangled quadrangle that years before had been a formal garden.
Here and there the paths were still visible, and great, ragged hedges of box showed at intervals. But weeds and bushes had long since choked the flowers, and from where he stood, in the shadow of a beech tree, the white blossoms of a climbing rose, which had hardily outgrown the intruders and lay sprawling over the dead hedge, were all that remained of the former glory.
Beyond the quadrangle on the opposite side was the long wall of the stable. At one end were more trees, elms these, and beyond, or so Roger surmised, lay the road. At the other end were open lawn and, afar, the Hall.
He searched the tangle with his gaze and listened. Plainly, there was no one there. In short, his quarry had eluded him, and the best thing he could do was to retrace his steps and go home to bed. But he didn’t feel sleepy; it seemed to him that he had never been wider awake in his life. And the moonlight, the soft night breeze and the illusive fragrance of dew-wet foliage worked intoxicatingly on his senses like strong wine.
Bed? Here was bed enough, here on the warm grass, with the moonlight for a coverlet of silver lace and the breath of the night to soothe him to sleep. He stretched himself out on the ground with his arms under his head and his face full in the radiance of the great white world above him.
And thoughts flooded his brain until, presently, a pleasant drowsiness stole over him and he rolled over onto his side, sending a drowsy glance over the old garden. And in the instant his sleepiness was gone and he was lying very still but very wide awake, watching the form that, entering the inclosure from the lawn, was slowly approaching him. Tall, white-clad, the glory of the moonlight on her uncovered head, she looked indeed the queen of all the druids come back to life.
Roger’s breath well-nigh stopped in his body and his heart beat wildly as he looked and looked. On and on she came, almost straight toward him; she must pass him scarce a dozen feet away. He waited, and a smile stole to his face, for he knew what must happen.
She had no premonition of his presence until, when still a little way off, she half paused and turned her head this way and that, as though possessed with a vague uneasiness. And then she came on again, and he stood up in her path.
He saw her hands fly to her heart and heard the little fluttering breath of dismay. Then:
“You!” she said, softly; and his heart leaped at the sound of her voice and was glad because pleasure had outsounded surprise. He went toward her over the springy turf until the few yards that separated them were out of his life and hers. Their hands flew together. He was looking into the shadowy depths of her eyes. The moonlight enhanced the velvety softness of her face and threw deep shadows under the billow of her shining hair. For a moment he looked at her silently, hungrily. Then:
“Yes,” he answered, in a whisper that said a thousand things. Their hands clung together, both of his and both of hers, fiercely yet restlessly. “Yes,” he said again, as though it were an echo. And then, somehow, she was against his breast and his arms were about her closely, closely, and their lips were meeting. And in all the world there were but themselves and the glory of the moonlight.
But kisses loosen the tongue, and, presently:
“Dearest, dearest,” he whispered, hoarsely, “I love you! God only knows how I love you—love you—love you!”
She drew her head away until she was looking up into his face, and she laughed with a little laugh that was half a sob.
“And I—I think I must be mad,” she answered, so that he must hold his breath to hear, “but I love you, too, so much that it hurts me, and I should die, I think, if I could not tell you.”
Her eyes were fathoms deep, and in each, far, far down in purple depths, floated a tiny, golden moon.