The Pool of Stars/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
THE DOOR IN THE WALL
SPRING had advanced to that season of damp, hot, sunny days and rainy nights when all things are growing at such speed that shrubs and trees are top-heavy with their new green shoots and are easily shaken by the wind, while people feel restless and uneasy and would like to be doing something different from the tasks before them. Elizabeth often found school dull and oppressive, with the air of the room close, with her feet shuffling beneath her desk from the long hours of quiet and with her thoughts wandering so far away that the page of her book was only a blur before her. Every day, when she walked home, she would make a detour up Somerset Lane just to look at the cottage, to notice how green the vegetable garden was growing, how the pea vines were tall enough to be swinging in the wind.
Once she came across Mr. Reynolds, strolling on the lawn for a breath of air, Dick perched in solemn state upon his shoulder. She questioned him at once as to Miss Miranda's term of absence and what her sudden departure might mean.
"I did not quite understand it myself," he answered, seeming to be as distressed as Betsey in his vague, absent-minded way. "She seemed to decide on going very much of a sudden, but—I do not quite know—it appears to me that she had been a little uneasy for some time, a little troubled when people came suddenly to the door. Well, well, perhaps the journey will quiet her."
He turned to go back to his shop. He did not invite Betsey to enter, probably, indeed, he had forgotten all about her the moment he crossed the doorstep.
There came Friday afternoon a month, it seemed, from the last Friday, when Miss Miranda had gone away. As Elizabeth walked along the lane, feeling the air hot and heavy with coming rain, she hesitated a moment at the turning, listening to the muttered thunder in the distance and knowing that a downpour was not far off. From the breathlessness of the whole world about her and the increasing blackness overhead, she realized that this was to be no such spring shower as had once delayed her on that same road, but a real and furious thunderstorm. Yet she could not refrain from turning up the hill, so anxious was she to know whether or not Miss Miranda had returned. She felt hopeful at least of getting, through Mr. Reynolds' vague answers to her questions, or from Michael's grunted yes or no, some information as to when the mistress of the house might be expected. There was no one in sight to-day, however, for the lawn was vacant, the garden empty and the windows closed and blank as though even Mr. Reynolds and the sour woman in the kitchen had deserted the place. She lingered at the gate, lonely and disappointed.
"I'll walk down through the garden and see how the onions and the ducks are getting on," she said to herself. "It's not going to rain so very soon."
She knew at heart that this was not true, that the tenseness of the air meant that the storm must break any moment, and that the boiling clouds just becoming visible over the edge of the hill contained thunder and lightning and a deluge of rain. Nevertheless she pressed on, anxious to be of service to her friend, thinking that there might be some young chickens to rescue or some wayward ducklings to drive in out of the storm. Reaching the gate of the poultry yard she found that the motherly old hens had been as thoughtful as she, for they had long since hustled their young charges under shelter, leaving only the old red cock to strut about the place and cast his eye upward at the threatening clouds. She was leaning over the gate, laughing at his absurd dignity, when the whole sky above her was streaked with a blinding flash of light and the very hill seemed to rock under the following thunder. The big drops began to fall, faster and faster, until a white sheet of rain swept across the garden almost before she could seek refuge in the open door of the pool shed.
How it poured, so that trickling streams were running down the paths and pools were collecting before her very feet! What was it doing to the garden laid out on the long slope, all that flood of water rushing from the top of the hill to the valley below? A good many times she had heard Michael comment to Miss Miranda on just such a possibility.
"'Tis a good bit of ground you have, but steeper by far than it should be. In grass it was well enough, but in garden stuff, I'm not so certain. A hard rain on this hillside would cut the rows and wash out the young plants something cruel. I wish it were more of a level."
Just what he had dreaded was evidently happening now. Rain and wind rushed furiously over the garden, flattening the peas, tearing at the furrows, plowing deep trenches where rivulets of water went streaming down. Once in a quieter shower she had seen Michael working with a hoe, opening proper channels to carry off the rain, making little ditches here and there where the water could flow away without doing harm. It was plain that if the garden was to be saved from the ravages of this unseasonable storm, some such thing must be done now.
"Well," she thought determinedly, "I wasn't of much use in the workshop, but I can do something here at least."
It had rankled a little for some days after that other emergency, to remember that it was David and not herself, who had been of service.
She took a hoe from behind the door and ran out into the rain. In a moment her hat was blown away, her clothes were soaked and water was streaming down her face. She struggled valiantly with the torrents that were pouring through the garden. At first she was slow and awkward, but presently she gained skill by experiment so that she could open channels where they were most needed and could forestall the cutting of cruel gashes all across the rows of the best vegetables. Energy and good will she had in plenty and with abundance of these she toiled, wet, muddy, slipping in the crumbling soil, thinking sometimes that she was beaten but still fighting desperately to rescue what she could. At last slowly, very slowly, the struggle turned from a losing battle to a winning one, the proper ditches were made and maintained, the rain softened from a deluge to a quiet shower, the water flowed harmlessly away between the corn and the cabbages and Betsey stopped to draw breath and survey what she had done. The peas and onions showed unbroken rows, the beans had been little damaged, the bulk of the garden's crop had been saved. It was only then that she realized how excited she had been and how wet and weary she was. She jumped with startled suddenness when a voice spoke behind her.
"You've done that none so bad," it said slowly. "There's not many that's so willing to keep a garden from being ruined by the rain and fewer yet would have the wits to know how."
She turned to see Michael Martin sitting on an upturned bucket, smoking calmly away at his stump of a black pipe, rain dripping from the rim of his battered hat.
"I remembered seeing you carry off the rain in the same way last week," Betsey answered, "so I thought I'd try it myself. But I didn't know that you were anywhere near."
"That was but an April shower," he rejoined, "such as a stiff old man could get the better of, but I've known this long time that I wasn't able any more to fight one of these unseasonable thunderstorms. The ground here lies well for the sun but ill for the rain, as I'm always telling Miss Miranda. She'll be glad and thankful that you have saved her crop! And how it did rain, as though it were Saint Swithin's Day itself!"
"And how long have you been sitting there?" demanded Betsey. "You might at least have told me what to do."
"I came out thinking to try what I could myself, but when I saw you at the work, I could tell that you knew what you were about, so where was the use of wasting any words. I just waited in case you needed any help, but you managed better alone than with an old man to hinder. I've no doubt that your hands are blistered and that you'll find your back aching to-morrow, but you have saved the garden. It will be something Miss Reynolds will be glad to hear when she comes home."
"Is she coming soon? Where did she go?" Elizabeth inquired eagerly.
"Now that I don't know," Michael answered with a sigh. "She decided within an hour and off she went. It might have been to consult her cousin that looks after her business affairs and that used to live here when he was a boy."
"What was her cousin's name?"
The rain had almost ceased, so Elizabeth laid aside her hoe, stretched her cramped fingers and went to stand in front of Michael and ply him with questions. Such a talkative mood was so rare in him that she feared, any second, it might pass away, and, since here at last was some one who could and would tell her more of Miss Miranda, she trembled lest silence should come suddenly upon him before she had heard what she wished to know. The rain was pattering from her skirts, her feet sank every moment deeper into the mud, but she feared to move or turn away lest the spell should break. Good fortune seemed to be with her, however, for Michael talked on and on, relighting his pipe as often as the water quenched it, and answering her queries to the best of his ability.
"His name was Don, Mr. Donald Reynolds he is now, and I find it hard to remember when I see him, that they were ever little things here together and he was her Cousin Don. I never liked the lad, and began to mistrust him from the first I knew of him, when his face was just beginning to look keen and sharp and he was learning to think it was a great joke that he could so easily get the better of the other two, Miss Miranda and Mr. Ted, and shape things to go all his way. Now he is rich and prosperous and beginning to grow fat, but still he has that sharp, selfish face. He has forgotten how to be kind to Miss Miranda, he has forgotten how good she was to him when he was a snub-nosed boy with long legs and skinned knees and the both of them with no mother. Yes, he has forgotten all that, has Mr. Donald Reynolds."
"And you think she has gone somewhere to consult him?" Elizabeth asked.
"She goes to see him rarely, more often he comes here. And she dreads his coming always. I begin to know when it is time for another visit from him, when she starts at the creaking of the gate and begins to look frightened when she hears a step coming up the path. She has been in worse uneasiness than ever, these last weeks, so I'm thinking she just decided that it was better to dare than to dread, so she was off to see him and have it over."
"But why," persisted Betsey, "why should she be afraid of her own cousin when he grew up with her?"
"It's past my understanding," Michael admitted, "and I've thought and wondered over it until my mind was all at sea. I'm not of her kind, so it's a puzzle that I can't solve. It has something to do with her old father, and that machine he is making, that far I have got, but no farther. He is a clever one, the old man; he has been famous once and I'll wager you, when that piece of work is done, he will make the world talk of him again. But there's something wrong and if one but knew what it was, maybe it could be put right. When I knew them first they were all so happy, living there in the big house at the summit of the hill, they seemed to have everything in life there was to wish for, but since then the house has burned and Mr. Ted has gone away to the wars, and there's things gone badly awry. Miss Miranda doesn't pretend that this big garden and these ducks and hens are here for her own pleasure, she owns that she must have the money that she makes by them, but it's my belief that not even you and I know how much she needs it."
His damp pipe, rebellious at last, refused to be rekindled, which delayed him for a long minute.
"She has cut herself off from most of her old friends," he went on, when he was once more puffing vigorously, "for fear they might be asking questions or offering help in a way that would hurt her. She is too proud to endure either. But—" he raised his little gray eyes and looked at Betsey keenly, "but you're of a different sort, the sort that she does not fear and that can be a true friend to her none the less. She is fond of you, I've seen that in these days you have worked with her in the garden. Be good to her, Miss Betsey, and stay near to her. Find out her trouble if you can and help her. For it's as true as that there are Saints in Heaven, it's help she needs."
He got up as though all that he had been saying had led up to this and now he had finished.
"But—" gasped Betsey, "but, please tell me first—"
His square jaw shut so firmly that she knew there was no use in going on. The strange mood of fluent speech had left him. Pocketing his pipe and pulling his wet hat down over his forehead, he stumped off down the muddy furrow, never looking back. The rain had ceased entirely now and the sun had come breaking through the clouds with that brilliant clearness that often follows a storm. It made the drenched green rows glisten and the new corn, bowing before the wind, sparkle and drop jewels as the gusts passed by. Betsey slowly lifted one heavy foot out of the mud and then the other, and walked very thoughtfully up the path.
On Saturday and Sunday she went away into the country with some friends of her own age to stay at a distant country place and to spend the quick hours in very happy holiday-making, returning to school on Monday morning with more energy and cheerfulness than she had known for a week. Affairs of various kinds kept her occupied so late that it was not until the long daylight hour after dinner that she was free to hasten away up Somerset Lane. As she came to the gate she saw with delight that there were lights in the upper windows, that the doors stood open and that the whole place had a more cheerful look than it had recently worn. Even Dick, sitting on the gate post and conversing with himself in happy gutturals, seemed trying to announce that the mistress of the house was once more at home.
Miss Miranda said nothing of her journey except to thank Elizabeth most warmly and gratefully for saving the garden in her absence.
"You should hear Michael sing your praises," she said. "He has so little to say of any one that it is amazing to hear how he talks of you. He cannot make up his mind whether we have saved our season's crop through your resourcefulness or because last week he buried a luckpenny at the head of the garden. But I know what I think!"
They went out together to inspect the whole place, to wonder at the growth of the vegetables after the rain, and to admire the plumpness of the ducks and the white Leghorn chicks, hatched while Miss Miranda was away. Betsey noticed that her friend still looked worn and anxious and that the old trick of looking quickly over her shoulder when a step went past the gate, was not gone. But of her journey she still said nothing.
"I think," Miss Miranda remarked at last, "that it would be pleasant to walk over to the big house—or where the big house stood—and look at the flowers there. The peonies should be out by now. I was thinking of them to-day, of how cool and white they were and what banks of them should be blooming under the dining-room windows. The air feels close to-night, but there is nearly always a breeze stirring under the pine trees across the slope of the hill."
The high gray wall that edged the lawn by the cottage was, as Elizabeth knew, the boundary of the grounds belonging to the big, ruined house. She had looked often at the gate, with its round archway, but she had never passed through it and into the crooked path beyond. The lock was rusty and difficult to turn, she noted, as though Miss Miranda did not often pass that way herself. She felt a flutter of excitement as they went through the gate, feeling that she was about to explore some of those mysteries that had been puzzling more people than herself alone.
The peonies were out indeed, great white drifts of them in a long row below a broken wall. It was not easy to realize that the heaps of blackened stones, covered with vines and lusty wild shrubs, had ever stood for a real dwelling with dining and living rooms and windows opening on the garden. Just facing them, was a stretch of wall still partly unbroken, showing a few windows and a door, charred and blackened by the cruel fire, but still firm on its hinges. A very old cherry tree with a twisted black trunk spread its branches just above. It gave Betsey a creepy feeling to look at that closed entrance and think what ruin and desolation lay behind it.
What had been the lawn was still green and smooth, bordered by a great half circle of pine trees. In the very center of the level stretch of turf was a broad round pool of clear water with a rim of cool gray stone just showing in the thick grass. There was a breeze as Miss Miranda had promised, a gentle wind that moved the heavy branches of the pines and touched the surface of the water. Elizabeth knelt in the grass to peer into the basin, to watch a few lazy fish swimming here and there and to see the mirrored green of the tree-tops all about the edge, with a circle of blue sky reflected in the center.
"You should see it a little later, after dark," said Miss Miranda, leaning over her shoulder to look in also. "That opening between the two biggest trees gives space to reflect the sunset and show the evening star. My father taught me all the stars by showing them to me in the pool; even now I think of June as the time when the Northern Crown shines there in the middle of the basin and of August as when the Swan spreads her wings from one edge to the other."
Perhaps Miss Miranda realized suddenly that she had said more than she intended, for never before had she dropped a hint that this great ruined place had once been her home.
"Look at old Dick," she observed as though to forestall any questioning; "I thought that he would be coming after us."
The solemn figure of the crow came hopping along the path, pausing to peer under stones or behind bushes for snails. With great dignity he stepped across the grass to sit on the rim of the pool.
"Is it deep?" Elizabeth asked, looking down into the quiet water that reflected Dick's image so clearly.
"It is at one side, but not at the other," Miss Miranda answered. "Just here you can touch the bottom if you stretch your arm, but it slopes sharply and is deep enough for swimming over at the other edge. Watch the water and, as it grows darker, you will see the stars come out. Just above the reflection of that tallest pine tree will be the big stars of the Lion, and the curve of the Sickle."
The twilight fell as they sat there talking until, it seemed to Betsey almost by magic, there was the bright star twinkling in the water just as Miss Miranda had said, with other pinpoints of light that grew gradually clearer to show the golden Sickle and the white blur of the Milky Way.
"It is strange how I always loved to watch them," Miss Miranda said, peering into the quiet water as intently as Betsey; "I used to see all the Signs of the Zodiac, that I believed from their name were so mysterious, but that were pictured here so plainly, month by month, that they became as simple as every day. Michael believes that good or ill fortune all goes by luck or charms; some people think that it depends only on what star is the ascendant. He always maintained, after the house was burned, that it was because, when we set out on the journey that left it all alone, we none of us touched both sides of the gatepost as we went through the last time. And it was at the time when the group of stars called the Crab, the most unlucky constellation of them all, was shining in the pool. But I know it was only a bolt of lightning and a wooden roof and nobody at hand to save the place. It was burned to the ground almost before the neighbors saw the smoke and flames among the trees."
"But don't you want to rebuild it? Don't you love it? Don't you want to live here again?" Betsey asked eagerly.
Miss Miranda did not answer. It was evident that Elizabeth had put questions that she had no right to ask, so she pursued the matter no farther. The rising breeze had begun to stir the water once more, so that the stars rocked and twinkled and turned into long streaks of glimmering light. Dick had fluttered across the grass, mounted the broken house wall and now sat there in the dusk, cawing loudly.
"He must see something there behind the wall," observed Elizabeth. "Oh, what is that?"
For Dick, bent on some marauding errand, had swooped down out of their sight, with a harsh cry that was answered immediately by the voice of some unseen person within the house. The blackened door burst open and there came through, first Dick, flying pell mell, then a dark figure outlined for a moment in the doorway. The brighter western sky showed beyond the roofless house, throwing the bent head and broad shoulders into sharp relief. The breeze, driving through the open door, swept forth a flutter of papers, the loose pages of a battered book, that spread far and wide across the grass.
"I beg your pardon," said a voice, "I didn't know any one was here, I thought it was only that mischievous Dick."
The speaker came forward. It was David Warren.
"I come up here to read in the evenings sometimes," he explained in some embarrassment. "It is so quiet and cool, and the sunset light lasts late here on the hill. There is a bit of ceiling left at the corner inside the wall that makes a dry place to keep same books. But I hadn't meant to be trespassing. I had laid my pocketknife on a stone and Dick's eye caught it at once."
He began to gather up the scattered papers which were drifting more and more wildly across the lawn. Betsey ran to give assistance while Miss Miranda assured him that he was not trespassing and was welcome to what hospitality the desolate house afforded. As for Dick he perched on a branch overhead, rocking back and forth apparently with mirth over the mischief he had wrought. He swelled his feathers and gave voice to his one great accomplishment.
"Good morning," he said in his rasping, squeaking voice, "good morning, good morning!"
It was the only thing he had learned to say, and he never made the effort except at moments when he was completely satisfied with himself and all the world.
They sat, all three, beside the pool for a little until the water was sprinkled thick with dancing lights. David was asking many eager questions in regard to Mr. Reynolds' machine. Had there been any more accidents? Were the new experiments turning out well? Did Mr. Reynolds feel encouraged? There were many other queries besides, about gas turbines and lubricating systems, too technical for even Miss Miranda to be able to answer. They both walked home with Elizabeth through the warm dark and left her at her door. She had not much to say, for something was puzzling her greatly. In gathering up the scattered papers she had found one among the rest that looked strangely and disagreeably familiar. The light was dim but she could not mistake the drawing, that intricate and much-hated figure, the frustum of a pyramid. She could not conceive why David Warren should be troubling his head with such matters. Indeed, there seemed to be a good many things that she could not understand at all.