"Blueberry pie," I said hastily, "is very messy, I think, though undoubtedly good. It makes one"s mouth so black."
"I know," she murmured reminiscently, "I told Roger that his mouth was stained and I laughed at him. And then he said that mine was worse, because there was some on my chin--why do you scowl so, Jerry? Is that a wrong thing to tell?"
"No, no," I a.s.sured her, "of course not."
"I am glad," she said comfortably, "it is very strange that I cannot see the difference, myself. How do you see, Jerry? But I was telling you about the tide, was I not? When Roger said that about my mouth I tried to get the stain off, but I could not, and then Roger said it was no use trying any more and he kissed me."
Here Margarita paused and patted my hand, tapping each finger nail lightly with her own finger-tips.
"You need not be afraid, Jerry," she added encouragingly, "I shall not tell any more things about that."
I drew away my hand irritably. "Well, well, what about the tide?" I said.
Margarita"s repulsed fingers lay loosely upcurled on her knees, which she hunched in front of her, like a boy.
"Oh, it was only what you asked me, dear Jerry," she answered softly, "while Roger was kissing me that kiss, the tide _did_ come in!"
CHAPTER VII
I RIDE KNIGHT ERRANT
It is easy to see that I should have made a poor novelist; it has been hard enough for me to give you any idea of scenes I did not myself witness, even though I had Roger and Margarita to help me out and an intimate knowledge of both of them, and when I try to fancy myself composing a tissue of fict.i.tious events "all out of my head," as the children say, my pen drops weakly out of my fingers, in horror at the very thought.
But now, thank heaven, the pull is over. From now on, I need tell only what I knew and saw, in the strange, interwoven life we three have led. Three only? Nay, Harriet of the true heart, Harriet of the tender hand, could we have been three without you? My fingers should wither before they left your name unwritten.
I remember so well the night the telegram came. I had been vexed all day. Everything had gone wrong. Roger, to meet whom I had come back early to town, had neither turned up nor sent me any message; the day had been sickeningly hot, with that mid-September heat that comes to the Eastern States after the first crisp days and wilts everything and everybody. I found my rooms atrociously stale and dusty, and worse than that, perfectly useless, since by some miracle of carelessness I had left my keys behind me at the sh.o.r.e and hadn"t so much as a clean collar to look forward to.
The club valet a.s.sured me that he had received no call for trunk or bag, but that Roger had a.s.suredly not entered the house for five days.
I went into his rooms, but they told me nothing, and I, worse luck, should have been lost in his collar, so I glared angrily at the drawers of linen, wired for my own keys and made for the Turkish bath.
There with a thrill of delight I discovered a complete change of clothing; I had, before leaving for the summer, jumped hastily into dinner things, leaving a heap of forgotten garments behind me and they awaited me now, trim and creased, russet shoes polished, and a wine-colored tie, a particular favourite of mine, topping the fresh linen. It seems absurd, but I recall few moments in my life of such pure, heartfelt thanksgiving. The very colour of life seemed changed for me. I wonder if we do well in despising these small thrills as we do? Surely enough of them sedulously preserved in grateful memory must equal in intensity those great, theoretical moments we all regard as our due but so often pa.s.s through life, I am sure, without experiencing.
However that may be, the little gratifications of that evening are graven in my mind, undoubtedly, you will say, because of the startling climax for which they were preparing me. The clean tingling of my soapy scrub, the delicious coolness of the plunge, the leisurely, fresh dressing all caressed my nerves delightfully. In the plunge a pleasant enough fellow had accosted me and we had splashed together contentedly. I expected to recall his name every moment, for his face was vaguely familiar, but I could not, and when we met in the hall and went down the steps together, it still escaped me. We hesitated a bit on the pavement, and then before I realised it we were hailing a hansom and bound for dinner together.
It was a pleasant drive up along the river, for a little breeze had sprung up and the watered asphalt smelt cool. We were both comfortably hungry and very placid after our bath and we chatted in a desultory sort of way, I, amused at my utter inability to place the fellow, he quite unconscious, of course, and perfectly certain of me. He asked after Roger, sympathised with our failure to make connections, remarked to my surprise that he had only been out of town for his Sundays (America had not adopted the "week-end" at that time) and asked me, I remember, if I knew anything about a game called basket-ball. It seemed he was anxious to find someone who did. We drew up at last to our white, glistening little table looking out over the water, looked about for possible friends, nodded to the head-waiter and ordered our dinner. It turned out that neither of us had yet celebrated the oyster month, and leaving my unknown to bespeak the blue points, for the more conservative among us clung to the smaller oyster then, I telephoned the club to let Roger know where to find me in case he should appear there.
Over the soup my companion got on to the subject--somehow--of evolution, and talked about it very ably indeed. It is absurd, but I shall never be able to eat jellied consomme as long as I live without connecting it with the Saurian Period! I remember that those quaint and apparently highly important beasts lasted well into our guinea-chick and lettuce-hearts, and I can see him now, his eager, dark face all lighted with enthusiasm while he spread mayonnaise neatly over the crimson quarters of tomato on his plate, and made short nervous mouthfuls, in order to talk the better. Half amused, half interested I listened, trying to place the fellow, but for the life of me I could not. Was he a scientist, a lecturer, a magazine writer, a schoolmaster? We finished with some Port du Salut and Bar-le-duc--an admitted weakness of mine--and I had decided to regularly pump him and find out his name without his guessing my game, when he began as I supposed, to help me out.
"Heavens!" he said with compunction, "you"ll think me an awful bore, Jerrolds, but I"ve been more or less practising on you, haven"t I? But you"ll remember, perhaps, this used to be a sort of hobby of mine, and I work it into shape nowadays for a young men"s club I"m running."
I yawned and lit a cigar and we sipped our coffee in silence. The plates rattled around us, the curacoa in my tiny gla.s.s smelled sweet and strong, everything was natural, easy, well fed and well groomed (as the phrase goes now) about me, the day and hour were like any other; and yet from that moment on my life was never to be quite the same, for surprise and change were hurrying toward me, and the man opposite--how curiously!--was to be drawn into the wide net that fate had sunk for me and must have even then been preparing to draw smoothly and effectively to the surface.
We think, when we are young, that we live alone. I recall, as a boy of twenty, certain hot-headed, despairing midnight walks when the horror of my hopeless, unapproachable, unreachable ident.i.ty surged over me in melancholy waves. Heavens! I would have plunged into a monastery if I had believed that any sort of prayer and fasting could bring me close--really close--to G.o.d; for to any human creature, I had learned, I could never be close. After that, we grow into that curious stage of irresponsibility which we deduce from this loneliness, and distress our patient relatives with windy explanations of "matters that concern ourselves alone." And later still, if we have the right kind of women about us, some faint idea of the twisted net we weave--you and I and the other fellow, all together, whether we will or no--comes to us, and we stare awhile and then ... shrug our shoulders or bend our knees or set our jaws, according as we are made.
I like to believe, now, that a dim idea of what was going to happen was in some mysterious way growing on me before I got the telegram. I am certain that when the head-waiter touched my arm and told me I was wanted at the telephone, a curious oppression fell over my hitherto contented after-dinner spirit which grew into a kind of excitement as I made my way to the booth. And yet I expected nothing more than to hear Roger"s voice with some reasonable explanation of his failure to meet me. It was the night porter, however, reading me a telegram missent to the sh.o.r.e and returned to the club.
"Shall I read it, sir?"
"Yes, Richard, let"s have it."
He mumbled the name of a place I had never heard of and went on in the peculiarly expressionless style consecrated to messages, thus transmitted.
"_Please bring bag of clothes and razors here will meet train arriving four thirty Tuesday bring sensible parson don"t fail. Roger._"
I stared at the receiver stupidly. This was Wednesday.
"That"s crazy, Richard," I stammered finally, "bring what? Read it again."
"It"s quite plain, sir, except the town," and again the strange message reached me.
"Well," I managed to get out, "it"s clear he wants clothes, anyway.
Tell Hodgson to pack a complete change for Mr. Bradley and his razors.
And see if you can find the name of the place from the chief operator and the correct message. It can"t be parson, of course. And look up the next train for that place, if you can, Richard. I"ll be down there directly."
I puffed hard at my dying cigar and went slowly back to the veranda, trying to make sense of that telegram.
"No bad news, I hope?" my companion inquired kindly, for I suppose I looked worried.
"No," I said slowly, "only an idiotic sort of telegram from Roger. He wants me to meet him at some place or other at present unknown, and to bring him his razors and a sensible parson."
My unknown friend burst into a chuckle of laughter.
"Well," he said cheerfully, "you get the razors and I"ll attend to the parson end of it. Any special denomination?"
I paid for our dinner (he had insisted upon paying the cab) and gathered up my hat and stick.
"It"s absurd," I went on, "perhaps he meant "person," though what"s the point in that? Anyhow I must start directly. There may be a night train. Would you rather stop here a while?"
"No, no, let me see you through," he said good-naturedly. "I"m interested. Perhaps he"s going to fight a duel with the razors and wants the parson for the other fellow! Perhaps he"s made a bet to shave a parson. Perhaps----"
But I was in no mood for joking. The telegram, so unlike Roger, and yet so unmistakably his, in a way--I have often noted a curious characteristic quality in telegrams--worried me. I wished I had got it in time to make the train he mentioned. I wished I were in that mysterious town. Suppose he had depended on me for it? Suppose he needed me?
We drove down in silence. My man got out with me at the club and smiled at the Gladstone the porter held out to me.
"There are the razors, anyhow," he said.
Richard had the name of the town for me, too (the town I prefer not to tell you) and the next train that would make it: it left in fifteen minutes.
"And it _is_ parson, sir--p-a-r-s-o-n: there"s no mistake. Shall I call you a cab, sir?"
I bit through my cigar with irritation.
"In heaven"s name," I cried, "how am I to get a sensible parson in fifteen minutes? In the first place, I don"t believe there is such a thing!"
"Hold on, there," said my friend suddenly, "there is, Jerrolds, for I"m one, and you know it!"