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Mistress Anne, a novel by Temple Bailey |
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Chapter 13. In Which Geoffrey Plays Cave Man |
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_ CHAPTER XIII. In Which Geoffrey Plays Cave Man MINE OWN UNCLE: I don't know whether to begin at the beginning or at the end of what I have to tell you. And even now as I think back over the events of the last twenty-four hours I feel that I must have dreamed them, and that I will wake and find that nothing has really happened. But something has happened, and "of a strangeness" which makes it seem to belong to some of those queer old dime "thrillers" which you never wanted me to read. Last night Geoffrey Fox asked me to go out with him on the river. I don't often go at night, yet as there was a moon, it seemed as if I might. We went in Brinsley Tyson's motor boat. It is big and roomy and is equipped with everything to make one comfortable for extended trips. I wondered a little that Geoffrey should take it, for he has a little boat of his own, but he said that Mr. Tyson had offered it, and they had been out in it all day. Well, it was lovely on the water; I was feeling tired and as blue as blue--some day I may tell you about _that_, Uncle Rod, and I was glad of the quiet and beauty of it all; and of late Geoffrey and I have been such good friends. Can't you ever really know people, Uncle Rod, or am I so dull and stupid that I misunderstand? Men are such a puzzle--all except you, you darling dear--and if you were young and not my uncle, even you might be as much of a puzzle as the rest. Well, I would never have believed it of Geoffrey Fox, and even now I can't really feel that he was responsible. But it isn't what I think but what you will think that is important--for I have, somehow, ceased to believe in myself. It was when we reached the second bridge that I told Geoffrey that we must turn back. We had, even then, gone farther than I had intended. But as we started up-stream, I felt that we would get to Bower's before Peter went back on the bridge, which is always the signal for the house to close, although it is never really closed; but the lights are turned down and the family go to bed, and I have always known that I ought not to stay out after that. Well, just as we left the second bridge, something happened to the motor. Uncle Rod, _that was last night_, and I didn't get back to Bower's until a few hours ago, and here is the whole truth before I write any more---- _Geoffrey Fox tried to run away with me!_ It would seem like a huge joke if it were not so serious. I don't know how he got such an idea in his head. Perhaps he thought that life was like one of his books--that all he had to do was to plan a plot, and then make it work out in his own way. He said, in that first awful moment, when I knew what he had done, "I thought I could play Cave Man and get away with it." You see, he hadn't taken into consideration that I wasn't a Cave Woman! When the engine first went wrong I wasn't in the least worried. He fixed it, and we went on. Then it stopped and we drifted: the moon went down and it was cold, and finally Geoffrey made me curl up among the cushions. I felt that it must be very late, but Geoffrey showed me his watch, and it was only a little after ten. I knew Peter wouldn't be going to the bridge until eleven, and I hoped by that time we would be home. But we weren't. We were far, far down the river. At last I gave up hope of arriving before the house closed, but I knew that I could explain to Mrs. Bower. After that I napped and nodded, for I was very tired, and all the time Geoffrey tinkered with the broken motor. Each time that I waked I asked questions but he always quieted me--and at last--as the dawn began to light the world, a pale gray spectral sort of light, Uncle Rod, I saw that the shore on one side of us was not far away, but on the other it was a mere dark line in the distance--double the width that the river is at Bower's. Geoffrey was standing up and steering toward a little pier that stuck its nose into shallow water. Back of the pier was what seemed to be an old warehouse, and in a clump of trees back of that there was a thin church spire. I said, "Where are we?" and he said, "I am not sure, but I am going in to see if I can get the motor mended." I couldn't think of anything but how worried the Bowers would be. "You must find a telephone," I told him, "and call Beulah, and let her know what has happened." He ran up to the landing and fastened the boat, and then he helped me out. "We will sit here and have a bit of breakfast first," he said; "there's some coffee left in Brinsley's hot and cold bottle, and some supplies under the stern seat." It was really quite cheerful sitting there, eating sardines and crackers and olives and orange marmalade. A fresh breeze was blowing, and the river was wrinkled all over its silver surface, and we could see nothing but water ahead of us, straight to the horizon, where there was just the faint streak of a steamer's smoke. "We must be almost in the Bay," I said. "Couldn't you have steered up-stream instead of down?" He sat very still for a moment looking at me, and then he said quickly and sharply, "I didn't want to go up-stream. I wanted to go down. And I came in here because I saw a church spire, and where there is a church there is always a preacher. Will you marry me, Mistress Anne?" At first I thought that he had lost his mind. Uncle Rod, I don't think that I shall ever see a sardine or a cracker without a vision of Geoffrey with his breakfast in his hand and his face as white as chalk above it. "That's a very silly joke," I said. "Why should I marry you?" He looked at me, and--I didn't need any answer, for it came to me then that I had been out all night on the river with him, and that he was thinking of a way to quiet people's tongues! I tried to speak, but my voice shook, and finally I managed to stammer that when we got back I was sure it would be all right. "It won't be all right," he said; "the world will have things to say about you, and I'd rather die than have them say it. And I could make you happy, Anne." Then I told him that I did not love him, that he was my dear friend, my brother--and suddenly his face grew red, and he came over and caught hold of my hands. "I am not your brother," he said. "I want you whether you want me or not. I could make you love me--I've got to have you in my life. I am not going on alone to meet darkness--and despair." Oh, Uncle Rod, then I knew and I looked straight at him and asked: "Geoffrey Fox, did you break the motor?" "It isn't broken," he said; "there has never been a thing the matter with it." I think for the first time that I was a little afraid. Not of him, but of what he had done. "Oh, how could you," I said, "how could you?" And it was then that he said, "I thought that I could play Cave Man and get away with it." After that he told me how much he cared. He said that I had helped him and inspired him. That I had shown him a side of himself that no one else had ever shown. That I had made him believe in himself--and in--God. That if he didn't have me in his life his future would be--dead. He begged and begged me to let him take me into the little town and find some one to marry us. He said that if we went back I would be lost to him--that--that Brooks would get me--that was the way he put it, Uncle Rod. He said that he was going blind; that I hadn't any heart; that he would love me as no one else could; that he would write his books for me; that he would spend his whole life making it up to me. I don't know how I held out against him. But I did. Something in me seemed to say that I must hold out. Some sense of dignity and of self-respect, and at last I conquered. "I will not marry you," I said; "don't speak of it again. I am going back to Bower's. I am not a heroine of a melodrama, and there's no use to act as if I had done an unpardonable thing. I haven't, and the Bowers won't think it, and nobody else will know. But you have hurt me more than I can tell by what you have done to-night. When you first came to Bower's there were things about you that I didn't like, but--as I came to know you, I thought I had found another man in you. The night at the Crossroads ball you seemed like a big kind brother--and I told you what I had suffered, and now you have made me suffer." And then--oh, I don't quite know how to tell you. He dropped on his knees at my feet and hid his face in my dress and cried--hard dry sobs--with his hands clutching. I just couldn't stand it, Uncle Rod, and presently I was saying, "Oh, you poor boy, you poor boy----" and I think I smoothed his hair, and he whispered, "Can't you?" and I said, "Oh, Geoffrey, I can't." At last he got control of himself. He sat at a little distance from me and told me what he was going to do. "I think I was mad," he said. "I can't even ask your forgiveness, for I don't deserve it. I am going up to town to telephone to Beulah, and when I come back I will take you up the river where you can get the train. I shall break the engine and leave it here, so that when Brinsley gets it back there will be nothing to spoil our story." He was gone half an hour. When he came he brought me a hat. He had bought it at the one little store where he had telephoned, and he had bought one for himself. I think we both laughed a little when we put them on, although it wasn't a laughing matter, but we did look funny. He unfastened the boat, and we turned up the river and in about an hour we came into quite a thriving port with the Sunday quiet over everything, and Geoffrey did things to the engine that put it out of commission, and then he left it with a man on the pier, and we took the train. It seems that all night at Bower's they were looking for us. They even took other boats, and followed. And they called. I know that if Geoffrey heard them call he didn't answer. Every one seemed to accept our explanation. Perhaps they thought it queer. But I can't help that. Geoffrey is going away to-morrow. When we were alone in the hall for a moment he told me that he was going. "If you can ever forgive me," he said, "will you write and tell me? What I have done may seem unforgivable. But when a man dreams a great deal he sometimes thinks that he can make his dreams come true." Uncle Rod, I think the worst thing in the whole wide world is to be disappointed in people. As soon as school closes I am coming back to you. Perhaps you can make me see the sunsets. And what do you say about life now? Is it what we make it? Did I have anything to do with this mad adventure? Yet the memory of it will always--smirch. And if life isn't what we make it, where is our hope and where are our sunsets? Tell me that, you old dear. ANNE. P.S. When I opened my door just now, I found that Geoffrey had left on the threshold his little Napoleon, and a letter. I am sending the letter to you. I cried over it, and I am afraid it is blurred--but I haven't time to make a copy before the mail goes. * * * * * What Geoffrey said: * * * * * MY LITTLE CHILD: I am calling you that because there is something so young and untouched about you. If I were an artist I should paint you as young Psyche--and there should be a hint of angels' wings in the air and it should be spring--with a silver dawn. But if I could paint should I ever be able to put on canvas the light in your eyes when you have talked to me by the fire, my kind little friend whom I have lost? I cannot even now understand the mood that possessed me. Yet I will be frank. I saw you go into the wood with Richard Brooks. I felt that if he should say to you what I was sure he wanted to say that there would be no chance for me--so I hurried after you. The thing which was going to happen must not happen; and I arrived in time. After that I told Brooks as we walked back that I was going to marry you, and I took you out in my boat intending to make my words come true. These last few days have been strange days. Perhaps when I have described them you may find it in your heart to feel sorry for me. The book is finished. That of itself has left me with a sense of loss, as if I had put away from me something that had been a part of me. Then--I am going blind. Do you know what that means, the desperate meaning? To lose the light out of your life--never to see the river as I saw it this morning? Never to see the moonlight or the starlight--never to see your face? The specialist has given me a few months--and then darkness. Was it selfishness to want to tie you to a blind man? If you knew that you were losing the light wouldn't you want to steal a star to illumine the night?--and you were my--Star. I am going now to my little sister, Mimi. She leaves the convent in a few days. There are just the two of us. I have been a wayward chap, loving my own way; it will be a sorry thing for her to find, I fancy, that henceforth I shall be in leading strings. It is because of this thing that is coming that I am begging you still to be my friend--to send me now and then a little letter; that I may feel in the night that you are holding out your hand to me. There can be no greater punishment than your complete silence, no greater purgatory than the thought that I have forfeited your respect. Looking into the future I can see no way to regain it, but if the day ever comes when a Blind Beggar can serve you, you will show that you have forgiven him by asking that service of him. I am leaving my little Napoleon for you. You once called him a little great man. Perhaps those of us who have some elements of greatness find our balance in something that is small and mean and mad. Will you tell Brooks that you are not bound to me in any way? It is best that you should do it. I shall hope for a line from you. If it does not come--if I have indeed lost my little friend through my own fault--then indeed the shadows will shut me in. GEOFFREY. * * * * * Uncle Rodman writes: * * * * * MY BELOVED NIECE: Once upon a time you and I read together "The Arabian Nights," and when we had finished the first book you laid your little hand on my knee and looked up at me. "Is it true, Uncle Rod?" you asked. "Oh, Uncle Rod, is it true?" And I said, "What it tells about the Roc's egg and the Old Man of the Sea and the Serpent is not true, but what it says about the actions and motives of people is true, because people have acted in that way and have thought like that through all the ages, and the tales have lived because of it, and have been written in all languages." I was sure, when I said it, that you did not quite understand; but you were to grow to it, which was all that was required. Blessed child, what your Geoffrey Fox has done, though I hate him for it and blame him, is what other hotheads have done. The protective is not the primitive masculine instinct. Men have thought of themselves first and of women afterward since the beginning of time. Only with Christianity was chivalry born in them. And since many of our youths have elected to be pagan, what can you expect? So your Geoffrey Fox being pagan, primitive--primordial, whatever it is now the fashion to call it, reverted to type, and you were the victim. I have read his letter and might find it in my heart to forgive him were it not that he has made you suffer; but that I cannot forgive; although, indeed, his coming blindness is something that pleads for him, and his fear of it--and his fear of losing you. I am glad that you are coming home to me. Margaret and her family are going away, and we can have their big house to ourselves during the summer. We shall like that, I am sure, and we shall have many talks, and try to straighten out this matter of dreams--and of sunsets, which is really very important, and not in the least to be ignored. But let me leave this with you to ponder on. You remember how you have told me that when you were a tiny child you walked once between me and my good old friend, General Ross, and you heard it said by one of us that life was what we made it. Before that you had always cried when it rained; now you were anxious that the rain might come so that you could see if you could really keep from crying. And when the rain arrived you were so immensely entertained that you didn't shed a tear, and you went to bed that night feeling like a conqueror, and never again cried out against the elements. It would have been dreadful if all your life you had gone on crying about rain, wouldn't it? And isn't this adventure your rainy day? You rose above it, dearest child. I am proud of the way you handled your mad lover. Life _is_ what we make it. Never doubt that. "He knows the water best who has waded through it," and I have lived long and have learned my lesson. When I knew that I could paint no more real pictures I knew that I must have dream pictures to hang on the walls of memory. Shall I make you a little catalogue of them, dear heart--thus: No. 1.--Your precious mother sewing by the west window in our shadowed sitting-room, her head haloed by the sunset. No. 2.--Anne in a blue pinafore, with the wind blowing her hair back on a gray March morning. No. 3.--Anne in a white frock amid a blur of candle-light on Christmas---- Oh, my list would be long! People have said that I have lacked pride because I have chosen to take my troubles philosophically. There have been times when my soul has wept. I have cried often on my rainy days. But--there have always been the sunsets--and after that--the stars. I fear that I have been but little help to you. But you know my love--blessed one. And the eagerness with which I await your coming. Ever your own UNCLE. _ |
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