Athalie

"I want you to spend the day with me in the country. Will you?"

"I'd love to. Where?"

"At Spring Pond."

"Clive! Do you really want to go there?"

"Yes. As your guest."

"What?"

"If you will invite me. Will you?"

"What do you mean? Have you bought the place for me?"

"I have the deed in my pocket, all ready to be transferred to you."

"You darling! Clive, I am so excited – "

"So am I. Shall I come for you in my brand new car? I've invested in an inexpensive Stinger runabout. May I drive you down? It won't take much longer than by train. And it will cool us off."

"Come as soon as you can get here!" she cried, delighted. "This is going to be the happiest day of my entire life!"

And so it came about that Athalie in her pretty new gown and hat of lilac lingerie, followed by a maid bearing three suit-cases, hat-box, toilet satchel, and automobile coat, emerged from the main entrance of the building where Clive sat waiting in a smart Stinger runabout. When he saw her he sprang out and came forward, hat in hand.

"You darling," she said in a low, happy voice. "You've made me happier than I ever dreamed of being. I don't know what to say to you; I simply don't know how to thank you for doing this wonderful thing for me."

He, too, was happier than he had ever been in all his life; and so much in love that he found nothing to say for a moment save the few trite phrases in which a man in love says many commonplaces, all of which only mean, "I love you."

Doubtless she understood the complicated code, for she laughed and blushed a trifle and looked around at her maid laden with luggage.

"Where can we put these, Clive?" she asked.

"What on earth is all that luggage?" he asked, surprised.

"I'm going to remain a few days," she explained, "so I've brought a few things."

"But do you imagine there is anything to eat or anywhere to lay your head in that tumble down old house?" he demanded, secretly enchanted with her rash enthusiasm.

"I propose to camp. I can buy milk, crackers, and sardines at Spring Pond village; also sufficient bathroom and bed linen. That is all I require to be perfectly comfortable."

There was no rumble on the Stinger, only a baggage rack and boot. Here he secured, covered, and strapped Athalie's impedimenta; the maid slipped on her travelling coat; she sprang lightly into the seat; and Clive went around and climbed in beside her, taking the wheel.

The journey downtown and across the Queensboro Bridge was the usual uncomfortable and exasperating progress familiar to all who pilot cars to Long Island. Brooklyn was negotiated prayerfully; they swung into the great turnpike, through the ugliest suburbs this humiliated world ever endured, on through the shabby, filthy, sordid environment of the gigantic Burrough, past ignoble villages, desolate wastes, networks of railway tracks where grade crossings menaced them, and on along the purlieus of suburban deserts until the flat green Long Island country spread away on either side dotted with woods and greenhouses and quaint farm-houses and old-time spires.

"It is pretty when you get here," he said, "but it's like climbing over a mile of garbage to get out of one's front door. No European city would endure being isolated by such a desert of squalor and abominable desolation."

But Athalie merely smiled. She had been far too excited to notice the familiar ugliness and filth of the dirty city's soiled and ragged outskirts.

And now the car sped on amid the flat, endless acres of cultivated land, and already her dainty nose was sniffing familiar but half-forgotten odours – the faintest hint of ocean, the sun-warmed scent of freshly cut salt hay; perfumes from woodlands in heavy foliage, and the more homely smell from barn-yard and compost-heap; from the sunny, dusty village streets through which they rolled; from village lanes heavy with honeysuckle.

"I seem to be speeding back toward my childhood," she said. "Every breath of this air, every breeze, every odour is making it more real to me… I wonder whatever became of my ragged red hood and cloak. I can't remember."

"I'd like to have them," he said. "I'd fold them and lay them away for – "

He checked himself, sobered, suddenly and painfully aware that the magic of the moment had opened for him an unreal vista where, in the false dawn, the phantom of Hope stood smiling. Her happy smile had altered, too; and her gloved hand stole out and rested on his own for a moment in silence. Neither said anything for a while, and yet the sky was so blue, the wind so soft and aromatic, and the sun's splendour was turning the very earth to powdered gold. And maybe the gods would yet be kind. Maybe, one day, others, with Athalie's hair and eyes, might smooth the faded scarlet hood and cloak with softly inquiring fingers.

He spoke almost harshly from his brief dream: "There is the Bay!"

But she had turned to look back at the quiet little cemetery already behind them, and a moment or two passed before she lifted her eyes and looked out across the familiar stretch of water. Azure and silver it glimmered there in the sun. Red-shouldered blackbirds hovered, fluttered, dropped back into the tall reeds; meadow larks whistled sweetly, persistently; a slow mouse-hawk sailed low over the fields, his broad wings tipped up like a Japanese kite, the silver full-moon flashing on his back as he swerved. And then the old tavern came into sight behind its new hedge of privet.

Athalie caught sight of it, – of the tall hedge, the new posts of stone through which a private road now curved into the grounds and around a circle before the porch; saw the new stone wall inclosing it ablaze with nasturtiums, the brilliant loveliness of the old and long neglected garden beyond; saw the ancient house in all its quaint and charming simplicity bereft of bow-window, spindle, and gingerbread fretwork, – saw the white front of it, the green shutters, the big, thick chimneys, the sunlight sparkling on small square panes, and on the glass of the sun parlour.

The girl was trembling when he stopped the car at the front door, sprang out, and aided her to descend.

A man in overalls came up, diffidently, and touched his broad straw hat. To him Clive gave a low-voiced order or two, then stepped forward to where the girl was standing.

"It is too beautiful – " she began, but her voice failed, and he saw the sensitive lips tremulous in their silence and the eyes brilliant with the menace of tears.

He drew her arm through his and they went in, moving slowly and in silence from room to room. Only the almost convulsive pressure of her arm on his told him of a happiness too deep for expression.

On the landing above he offered her the key to her mother's room.

"Nothing is changed there," he said; and, fitting the key, unlocked the door, and turned away.

But the girl caught his hand in hers and drew him with her into the faded, shabby room where her mother's chair stood in its accustomed place, and the faded hassock lay beside it.

"Sit here," she said. And when he was seated she dropped on the hassock at his feet and laid her cheek on his knees.

The room was very still and sunny; her lover remained silent and unstirring; and the girl's eyes wandered from carpet to ceiling and from wall to wall, resting on familiar objects; then, passing dreamily, remained fixed on space – sweet, brooding eyes, dim with the deepest emotion she had ever known.

A new, profound, and thrilling peace possessed her – a heavenly sense of tranquillity and security, as though, somehow, all problems had been solved for her and for him.

Presently in a low, hushed, happy voice she began to speak about her mother. Little unimportant, unconnected incidents came to her mind – brief moments, episodes as ephemeral as they had been insignificant.

Sitting on the faded hassock at his feet she lifted her head and rested both arms across his knees.

"It is all so perfect now," she said, – "you here in mother's room, and I at your feet: and the sunny world waiting for us outside. How mellow is this light! Always in the demi-dusk of this house there seemed to me to linger a golden tint – even on dark days – even at night – as though somewhere a ray of sun had been lost and had not entirely faded out."

"It came from your own heart, Athalie – that wonderful and golden heart of yours where light and warmth can never die… Dear, are you contented with what I have ventured to do?"

She looked silently into his eyes, then with a little sigh dropped her head on his knees again.

Far away somewhere in the depths of the house somebody was moving. And presently she asked him who it was.

"Connor, the man of all work. I sent him to Spring Pond village to buy bed linen and bath towels. I ventured to install a brass bed or two in case you had thought of coming here with your maid. You see," he added, smiling, "it was fortunate that I did."

"You are the most wonderful man in the world, Clive," she murmured, her eyes fixed dreamily on his face. "Always you have been making life delightful for me; smoothing my path, helping me where the road is rough."… She sighed: "Clive, you are very wonderful to me."