A Literary Courtship/Chapter 15

by Anna Fuller

XV.

Episodes.

THE day on which we fixed our plan for departure was the 22d, and we had promised Randall to come up to the polo ground and see the first game of the season. We were rather late in arriving, and we found a gay crowd collected at one corner of the ground. It was a mighty pretty sight. The wide, level field just out of the town, with redand blue-capped riders tearing about after the balls, and cutting sudden and impossible angles on their stocky little ponies; the bright-colored flags flying from the poles, and the groups of pretty turn-outs with well-dressed people looking on. There were lots of riders, too, among the spectators, so that there was no lack of life and movement outside the grounds, as these free lances passed from villagecart to buckboard, from buckboard to victoria, paying their respects to the prosperous-looking occupants. The mountains appeared very big that morning, brooding, in grandfatherly fashion, over the gambols of man and beast.

We soon discovered Miss Lamb on horseback standing near a victoria in which her aunt was seated with their neighbor Mrs. Brown, and her little twoyear-old child. Benny Mortimer, also on horseback, seemed to be acting as escort, and we were about to brave Benny's blushing displeasure, by joining the party, when the baby in the victoria began to wail, at the same time putting up its little hands to Miss Lamb. As we rode nearer, Miss Lamb was saying: "Rosamund wants a ride. Why won't you let me take her home? I was just going."

The child seemed to perceive her advantage, and her cries became more vociferous and more unintelligible than before.

"But were you really going?" asked the mother.

"Indeed I was, and am. Do let me take her. We should both enjoy it so much; and you will never be able to leave the field till the 'blues' have won."

"She is a naughty, fretful baby, but, if you want to spoil her you may. I suppose it is alla jumble to her poor little head, and she probably does not know whether her 'dee papa' is a red ora blue,"—and then with a most astounding confidence this rash mother resigned her offspring to the alarming situation proposed.

Miss Lamb reached down and lifted the child with a charming ease and grace, and then, holding her in her right arm, she walked her horse toward us, escorted by the faithful but embarrassed Benny. The little yellow-haired midget held on to Miss Lamb's neck, her small, flushed face pressed against her protector's chin, and looked out upon the world with the light of victory in her blue eyes. The polo was exciting, at that moment, and all faces were turned toward the field; but I am sure John and I had the amazement of a great multitude in the fascinated gaze with which we met the little cavalcade.

"But, Miss Lamb, isn't that awfully risky?" I remonstrated; for I felt that it was somebody's duty to interpose for the rescue of the child.

"Not a bit!" she said. "Rosamund is a real horsewoman"; and she put Tiger into an easy lope and rode off, the baby crowing with delight, and Benny looking rather nervous as escort.

John and I desisted from our intention of visiting the victoria, and walked our horses to a point close up to the boundary, where we could follow the game better.

"I suppose that is the Rosamund of those pretty verses," said I; "they are evidently cronies."

Perhaps you remember the poem in which a certain "Baby Rosamund" is addressed as "My little crony." John once said it was a "gem."

He now sat lost in thought, instead of looking at the field, till suddenly the whole game came charging down upon us with such a thundering noise that John's horse shied almost from under him. The rider stuck fast, however, and thus recalled to his senses, had the grace to look on, as Ned himself, from out of a tremendous scuffle, sent the ball flying between the goals.

"Pretty work that!" I cried, as the applause subsided.

John assented rather vaguely and then turned his horse's head and seemed about to take French leave. I gave chase and asked where he was going. He said it was so confoundedly hot standing there in the sun that he was going for a ride. He "had seen polo before." So had I; but I didn't propose to lose the rest of the fun, for all that; so I stayed on and had a very pleasant morning. There are lots of nice girls in Colorado Springs.

When I rode down the avenue an hour later, I was not altogether surprised to see John's horse tied to Mrs. Ellerton's hitching-post, and finding him sitting on the piazza with Miss Lamb,—in the "confoundedly hot" sun, by the way,—I thought I would go in and inquire what had been done with the remaining pieces of the baby. Before I could bring on my little joke, however, Miss Lamb, who, for the first time in our acquaintance, looked slightly agitated, was saying:

"O Mr. Dickson! please come and defend me. Mr. Brunt is accusing me of having written Leslie Smith's poems."

"And do you deny it?" I asked, filled with a burning curiosity to know the truth.

"What! You think so too?" she cried, reproachfully, and my curiosity went out like a candle.

"I couldn't be so indiscreet as to think anything about it," I said, feeling very small indeed.

"And we have no right to ask you any questions," said John, promptly mounting his high horse. "Dick, I have made an unconscionably long call. I really must be going; but don't let me hurry you."

"Have you told Miss Lamb how soon we are going home?" I asked, as we all stood up.

"Going home?" she repeated, with a sudden change of countenance, and a swift glance at John.

John did not see it. He was occupied in winding the lash of his riding crop about the stick in complicated and artistic twists.

"We are going on the 26th," said I, with a penetrating look at Miss Lamb.

There was a dead silence for a second, and then Miss Lamb replied with a queer little laugh, the queerer, because she is not the kind of girl to laugh by way of conversation.

"I don't know why I should be so surprised. I only wonder that you should have stayed as long as you have. There is so much coming and going here," she added, more easily, "that we name our fleeting visitors 'episodes.'"

"And shall you call us 'episodes'?" John inquired, letting the artistic design untwist with a snap.

"Why, we shall have to."

At that moment Mrs. Ellerton drove up to the gate.

"Bad news, Aunt Bessie," said the niece as her aunt came up the steps. "Mr. Brunt and Mr. Dickson are to join the noble army of 'episodes' on the 26th."

"Lilian! Don't be so rude! Are you really going, Mr. Dickson?"

"I am afraid we are, though we hate to."

"It must be afflicting to go back to poor little provincial New York," said Miss Lamb. "Just think of it, Aunt Bessie! To exchange Pike's Peak Avenue for Broadway, and picnics at Monument Park for the German Opera and the Pow-wow! Isn't it the Pow-wow?"

Miss Lamb's manner as she said this was singularly out of character, but as we turned to go, she spoke like herself again, and that is always charmingly, whatever she may be saying.

"We must not forget, Mr. Dickson, that you have not yet got that book of pressed Colorado flowers for your sister. Do you remember, I told you they were done by 'a bird in a cage'? Aunt Bessie, could we not all drive to Manitou and visit the cage some day this week? Say the day after to-morrow?"

"By all means, if the gentlemen can spare the time when they are going so soon."

The gentlemen expressed themselves as delighted. What had we come to Colorado for, I should like to know!

We had taken our leave, when Johts turned deliberately back and said, "right out in meeting," as it were:

"I was unpardonably rude, Miss Lamb."

"I think you were," she said, with a slight shake in her voice, of some sort of emotion, I could not tell what; "and I am afraid I shall not have time to forgive you before you go."

There was a look, half-aggrieved, half-deprecating in her eyes, but she gave him her hand, and reminded us once more of the hour fixed for the drive.

I don't know how much Miss Lamb had to explain to Mrs. Ellerton, but my curiosity, at least, was aroused.

"What on earth—" I began the moment we were out of hearing.

"Oh, I was an ass. That's all. She sat there looking so cool and self-contained that I got suddenly perfectly furious at the whole thing, and tried to break in upon her confidence. I can't tell you, for the life of me, what I said, but it was enough to show her that I knew, and when she tried to evade me, I pulled out that confounded poem you found between the leaves of the Atlantic, and handed it to her with what I think must have been a perfectly devilish grin, and told her how sorry we were to seem to have pried into her affairs."

"Good heavens, John! You were an ass!" There are moments when one must be frank, or burst. "But go on, goon! What did she say?"

"What did she say? She looked volumes, but she only said, 'One can happily copy much better things than one could write'; and at that moment you rode up, and I am perfectly certain you saved my life."

"Glad to hear it, Jack. Did she seem so dangerous?"

"No, not that! I was merely withering up inside. Not a pleasant form of demise," he added, dryly.

"But, on the whole, what impression did you get?" I asked, for being of a practical turn of mind I wanted to get hold of the facts.

"I got the impression that I had better mind my own business."

I was really sorry for Jack. He had certainly made a mess of it. But I felt that it was the duty of a friend to cheer him; so I said, hopefully:

"Never mind, Jack. When you are an 'episode,' you won't care a rap about the whole affair."

To this cheerful proposition he had nothing to say; and I tried another tack.

"Don't you see?" said I, "Miss Lamb was sure to be offended in either case. Whether she wrote the poems or not, she would hate to be taxed with it, considering the 'autobiographical' ones."

"My dear Dick, when a man knows he has been an infernal idiot there is no use in proving it as though it were a point of law. Unless, of course, you think it valuable practice. In that case, just reduce me to powder without a qualm."

Upon that I returned to my first tack.

"Well," I said, "I hope you will be as glad as I shall be when we are out of the whole muddle. I, for one, am sick of complications. I already lie awake nights, thinking how simple life in New York will seem. There, at least, one can call a spade, a spade, and if there are broken hearts lying round loose, one does not know it."

"Can't you pursue the comparison with some allusion to clubs and diamonds? The joker might certainly be worked in here."

John must indeed have been very low in his mind. With some mena pun is the natural outcome of exhilaration; the head and the heart get light together. With John, on the contrary, it was only an indication of the deepest gloom.

I gave up trying to cheer him, and turned my thoughts to Miss Lamb. Her demeanor had suggested many questions which I found myself quite unable to answer. Was she aware of John's interest? Did she reciprocate? What was the significance of that swift glance, and the ensuing pause, when I announced the date of our departure? Why did she suddenly seem flippant? The flippancy was a mask of course. Was it assumed to hide her chagrin at being found out, or to conceal her displeasure at John's impertinence? For indeed no milder term will suffice. Was she merely afraid that we should see how sorry she was that John was going? In other words, did she like him? If she did, was he her first choice, or had she a "past," as the saying is. How fervently I now hoped that the "past" existed only in our undisciplined imaginations. I could not bear that John should break his heart over the woman who wrote the "Sonnets of Constance." Yet she must have written them. Everything went to prove it. And then I thought of her clear eye and her healthy way of looking and talking, and I was more in a mix than ever.

Yes, nothing could be more futile than such speculations, and I finally made an end of them.