"Oh, it wasn"t much," said Mrs. Newberry. "In fact, it was merely an accident. Only it just chanced that at dinner, quite late in the meal, when we had had nearly everything (we dine very simply here, Mr. Spillikins), Mr. Newberry, who was thirsty and who wasn"t really thinking what he was saying, asked Franklin to give him a gla.s.s of hock. Franklin said at once, "I"m very sorry, sir, I don"t care to serve hock after the entree!""
"And of course he was right," said Dulphemia with emphasis. "Exactly; he was perfectly right. They know, you know. We were afraid that there might be trouble, but Mr. Newberry went and saw Franklin afterwards and he behaved very well over it. But suppose we go and dress? It"s half-past six already and we"ve only an hour."
In this congenial company Mr. Spillikins spent the next three days.
Life at Castel Casteggio, as the Newberrys loved to explain, was conducted on the very simplest plan. Early breakfast, country fashion, at nine o"clock; after that nothing to eat till lunch, unless one cared to have lemonade or bottled ale sent out with a biscuit or a macaroon to the tennis court. Lunch itself was a perfectly plain midday meal, lasting till about 1.30, and consisting simply of cold meats (say four kinds) and salads, with perhaps a made dish or two, and, for anybody who cared for it, a hot steak or a chop, or both. After that one had coffee and cigarettes in the shade of the piazza and waited for afternoon tea. This latter was served at a wicker table in any part of the grounds that the gardener was not at that moment clipping, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, or otherwise using. Afternoon tea being over, one rested or walked on the lawn till it was time to dress for dinner.
This simple routine was broken only by irruptions of people in motors or motor boats from Penny-gw-rydd or Yodel-Dudel Chalet.
The whole thing, from the point of view of Mr. Spillikins or Dulphemia or Philippa, represented rusticity itself.
To the Little Girl in Green it seemed as brilliant as the Court of Versailles; especially evening dinner-a plain home meal as the others thought it-when she had four gla.s.ses to drink out of and used to wonder over such problems as whether you were supposed, when Franklin poured out wine, to tell him to stop or to wait till he stopped without being told to stop; and other similar mysteries, such as many people before and after have meditated upon.
During all this time Mr. Spillikins was nerving himself to propose to Dulphemia Ra.s.selyer-Brown. In fact, he spent part of his time walking up and down under the trees with Philippa Furlong and discussing with her the proposal that he meant to make, together with such topics as marriage in general and his own unworthiness.
He might have waited indefinitely had he not learned, on the third day of his visit, that Dulphemia was to go away in the morning to join her father at Nagahakett.
That evening he found the necessary nerve to speak, and the proposal in almost every aspect of it was most successful.
"By Jove!" Spillikins said to Philippa Furlong next morning, in explaining what had happened, "she was awfully nice about it. I think she must have guessed, in a way, don"t you, what I was going to say? But at any rate she was awfully nice-let me say everything I wanted, and when I explained what a fool I was, she said she didn"t think I was half such a fool as people thought me. But it"s all right. It turns out that she isn"t thinking of getting married. I asked her if I might always go on thinking of her, and she said I might."
And that morning when Dulphemia was carried off in the motor to the station, Mr. Spillikins, without exactly being aware how he had done it, had somehow transferred himself to Philippa.
"Isn"t she a splendid girl!" he said at least ten times a day to Norah, the Little Girl in Green. And Norah always agreed, because she really thought Philippa a perfectly wonderful creature. There is no doubt that, but for a slight shift of circ.u.mstances, Mr. Spillikins would have proposed to Miss Furlong. Indeed, he spent a good part of his time rehearsing little speeches that began, "Of course I know I"m an awful a.s.s in a way," or, "Of course I know that I"m not at all the sort of fellow," and so on.
But not one of them ever was delivered.
For it so happened that on the Thursday, one week after Mr. Spillikins"s arrival, Philippa went again to the station in the motor. And when she came back there was another pa.s.senger with her, a tall young man in tweed, and they both began calling out to the Newberrys from a distance of at least a hundred yards.
And both the Newberrys suddenly exclaimed, "Why, it"s Tom!" and rushed off to meet the motor. And there was such a laughing and jubilation as the two descended and carried Tom"s valises to the verandah, that Mr. Spillikins felt as suddenly and completely out of it as the Little Girl in Green herself-especially as his ear had caught, among the first things said, the words, "Congratulate us, Mrs. Newberry, we"re engaged."
After which Mr. Spillikins had the pleasure of sitting and listening while it was explained in wicker chairs on the verandah, that Philippa and Tom had been engaged already for ever so long-in fact, nearly two weeks, only they had agreed not to say a word to anybody till Tom had gone to North Carolina and back, to see his people.
And as to who Tom was, or what was the relation between Tom and the Newberrys, Mr. Spillikins neither knew or cared; nor did it interest him in the least that Philippa had met Tom in Bermuda, and that she hadn"t known that he even knew the Newberry"s nor any other of the exuberant disclosures of the moment. In fact, if there was any one period rather than another when Mr. Spillikins felt corroborated in his private view of himself, it was at this moment.
So the next day Tom and Philippa vanished together.
"We shall be quite a small party now," said Mrs. Newberry; "in fact, quite by ourselves till Mrs. Everleigh comes, and she won"t be here for a fortnight."
At which the heart of the Little Girl in Green was glad, because she had been afraid that other girls might be coming, whereas she knew that Mrs. Everleigh was a widow with four sons and must be ever so old, past forty.
The next few days were spent by Mr. Spillikins almost entirely in the society of Norah. He thought them on the whole rather pleasant days, but slow. To her they were an uninterrupted dream of happiness never to be forgotten.
The Newberrys left them to themselves; not with any intent; it was merely that they were perpetually busy walking about the grounds of Castel Casteggio, blowing up things with dynamite, throwing steel bridges over gullies, and hoisting heavy timber with derricks. Nor were they to blame for it. For it had not always been theirs to command dynamite and control the forces of nature. There had been a time, now long ago, when the two Newberrys had lived, both of them, on twenty dollars a week, and Mrs. Newberry had made her own dresses, and Mr. Newberry had spent vigorous evenings in making hand-made shelves for their sitting-room. That was long ago, and since then Mr. Newberry, like many other people of those earlier days, had risen to wealth and Castel Casteggio, while others, like Norah"s father, had stayed just where they were.
So the Newberrys left Peter and Norah to themselves all day. Even after dinner, in the evening, Mr. Newberry was very apt to call to his wife in the dusk from some distant corner of the lawn:
"Margaret, come over here and tell me if you don"t think we might cut down this elm, tear the stump out by the roots, and throw it into the ravine."
And the answer was, "One minute, Edward; just wait till I get a wrap."
Before they came back, the dusk had grown to darkness, and they had redynamited half the estate.
During all of which time Mr. Spillikins sat with Norah on the piazza. He talked and she listened. He told her, for instance, all about his terrific experiences in the oil business, and about his exciting career at college; or presently they went indoors and Norah played the piano and Mr. Spillikins sat and smoked and listened. In such a house as the Newberry"s, where dynamite and the greater explosives were everyday matters, a little thing like the use of tobacco in the drawing-room didn"t count. As for the music, "Go right ahead," said Mr. Spillikins; "I"m not musical, but I don"t mind music a bit."
In the daytime they played tennis. There was a court at one end of the lawn beneath the trees, all chequered with sunlight and mingled shadow; very beautiful, Norah thought, though Mr. Spillikins explained that the spotted light put him off his game. In fact, it was owing entirely to this bad light that Mr. Spillikins"s fast drives, wonderful though they were, somehow never got inside the service court.
Norah, of course, thought Mr. Spillikins a wonderful player. She was glad-in fact, it suited them both-when he beat her six to nothing. She didn"t know and didn"t care that there was no one else in the world that Mr. Spillikins could beat like that. Once he even said to her.
"By Gad! you don"t play half a bad game, you know. I think you know, with practice you"d come on quite a lot."
After that the games were understood to be more or less in the form of lessons, which put Mr. Spillikins on a pedestal of superiority, and allowed any bad strokes on his part to be viewed as a form of indulgence.
Also, as the tennis was viewed in this light, it was Norah"s part to pick up the b.a.l.l.s at the net and throw them back to Mr. Spillikins. He let her do this, not from rudeness, for it wasn"t in him, but because in such a primeval place as Castel Casteggio the natural primitive relation of the s.e.xes is bound to rea.s.sert itself.
But of love Mr. Spillikins never thought. He had viewed it so eagerly and so often from a distance that when it stood here modestly at his very elbow he did not recognize its presence. His mind had been fashioned, as it were, to connect love with something stunning and sensational, with Easter hats and harem skirts and the luxurious consciousness of the unattainable.
Even at that, there is no knowing what might have happened. Tennis, in the chequered light of sun and shadow cast by summer leaves, is a dangerous game. There came a day when they were standing one each side of the net and Mr. Spillikins was explaining to Norah the proper way to hold a racquet so as to be able to give those magnificent backhand sweeps of his, by which he generally drove the ball halfway to the lake; and explaining this involved putting his hand right over Norah"s on the handle of the racquet, so that for just half a second her hand was clasped tight in his; and if that half-second had been lengthened out into a whole second it is quite possible that what was already subconscious in his mind would have broken its way triumphantly to the surface, and Norah"s hand would have stayed in his-how willingly-! for the rest of their two lives.
But just at that moment Mr. Spillikins looked up, and he said in quite an altered tone.
"By Jove! who"s that awfully good-looking woman getting out of the motor?"
And their hands unclasped. Norah looked over towards the house and said:
"Why, it"s Mrs. Everleigh. I thought she wasn"t coming for another week."
"I say," said Mr. Spillikins, straining his short sight to the uttermost, "what perfectly wonderful golden hair, eh?" "Why, it"s-" Norah began, and then she stopped. It didn"t seem right to explain that Mrs. Everleigh"s hair was dyed. "And who"s that tall chap standing beside her?" said Mr. Spillikins.
"I think it"s Captain Cormorant, but I don"t think he"s going to stay. He"s only brought her up in the motor from town." "By Jove, how good of him!" said Spillikins; and this sentiment in regard to Captain Cormorant, though he didn"t know it, was to become a keynote of his existence.
"I didn"t know she was coming so soon," said Norah, and there was weariness already in her heart. Certainly she didn"t know it; still less did she know, or anyone else, that the reason of Mrs. Everleigh"s coming was because Mr. Spillikins was there. She came with a set purpose, and she sent Captain Cormorant directly back in the motor because she didn"t want him on the premises.
"Oughtn"t we to go up to the house?" said Norah.
"All right," said Mr. Spillikins with great alacrity, "let"s go."
Now as this story began with the information that Mrs. Everleigh is at present Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins, there is no need to pursue in detail the stages of Mr. Spillikins"s wooing. Its course was swift and happy. Mr. Spillikins, having seen the back of Mrs. Everleigh"s head, had decided instantly that she was the most beautiful woman in the world; and that impression is not easily corrected in the half-light of a shaded drawing-room; nor across a dinner-table lighted only with candles with deep red shades; nor even in the daytime through a veil. In any case, it is only fair to state that if Mrs. Everleigh was not and is not a singularly beautiful woman, Mr. Spillikins still doesn"t know it. And in point of attraction the homage of such experts as Captain Cormorant and Lieutenant Hawk speaks for itself.
So the course of Mr. Spillikins"s love, for love it must have been, ran swiftly to its goal. Each stage of it was duly marked by his comments to Norah.
"She is a splendid woman," he said, "so sympathetic. She always seems to know just what one"s going to say."
So she did, for she was making him say it.
"By Jove!" he said a day later, "Mrs. Everleigh"s an awfully fine woman, isn"t she? I was telling her about my having been in the oil business for a little while, and she thinks that I"d really be awfully good in money things. She said she wished she had me to manage her money for her."
This also was quite true, except that Mrs. Everleigh had not made it quite clear that the management of her money was of the form generally known as deficit financing. In fact, her money was, very crudely stated, nonexistent, and it needed a lot of management.