The Pool of Stars/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
THE SUBSTANCE OF A DREAM
SCARCELY even for a passing glance did Elizabeth pause at the front door of the cottage although it stood open, as Miss Miranda had left it, with the lamp still burning cheerfully on her sewing table inside. Weary and breathless, she stumbled along the path, turned the corner of the house, and saw the brightly lighted workshop with its door also standing open to the warmth of the night. It was as she thought, the stranger was here, sitting on the high stool beside the table, talking volubly, thrusting forward his long-chinned, dark face and pounding on his knee to give emphasis to what he said. Mr. Reynolds sat opposite in the one arm chair the place afforded, looking white and frail and old in contrast to his visitor, very quiet, and listening with earnest attention. Like an image of carved ebony, Dick sat immovable on one of the posts of the back of the chair. The green-shaded light, with its brilliant, narrow circle of illumination, showed nothing else clearly, but gave only faint vision of wheels and pulleys, of shining glints that sparkled back from polished steel or ruddy copper, while through the whole room droned the slow song of turning wheels.
There was a step on the flagstones behind Elizabeth just before she mounted the doorstep. As she had hoped, David had followed her. Both men glanced up as the boy and girl entered, but there was no pause in the talk, since any new presence seemed to make no impression on the tenseness of the scene. Even Dick scarcely turned his head as he sat like some brooding spirit above his master.
"Can't you stop those infernal wheels?" Donald Reynolds said, as they came in. "I cannot hear my own voice with them grinding away in my ears."
"David!" said the older man in tone of request.
With quick obedience, David stepped to the end of the room, pulled a lever, jerked a protesting, crackling switch and brought the whirring song to an end. Without the familiar sound the place seemed uncannily silent as Donald went on talking. To the presence of David and Betsey he gave no heed, having apparently but one thought, to speak the words he had come to say before Miss Miranda should return.
"So I made up my mind that you should be told what a great wrong you are doing Miranda," he resumed. "For ten years you have spent time and money on this worthless piece of work, pottering and tinkering and pretending that you really hoped to accomplish something in the end."
"But I have accomplished something," returned the old man gravely. "I am very near to success now and ten years is not long when you remember that I lost all my records and all my models when the house was burned. No, ten years has not been too much to spend."
"It is not time alone that you have spent, but money, spent it like water when it should have been making Miranda comfortable. Have you stopped, ever, to think of how she works and saves and pinches, how she toils in that garden and fattens miserable fowls for the market so that you can go on with this game of yours?"
"Miranda chose to have it so," Mr. Reynolds returned quietly, but the two onlookers could see him wince.
"Have you known Miranda longer than any of us and have not yet learned that she would give the breath out of her body to make other people happy? Would she complain or choose otherwise if she thought your desire was set upon this one thing, this machine that you call a life work, but that any one else would call a pleasant fad, a plaything that would never succeed?"
"If my recollection is correct," Mr. Reynolds said, "she used to make some sacrifices for you, when you lived with us, that you might be happy."
His chance shot seemed to strike at some more vivid memory than he knew. The other was silent for a minute, but then burst forth again, more sharply and bitterly than before.
"Is that any reason why I should stand by now, and see her robbed and cheated as you are cheating her? You are willing to spend your life following a dream, but you have no right to spend hers. You say that she is willing, but do you really know it? Do you notice how worn and tired and anxious she begins to look?"
Elizabeth would have broken in upon him, checking his words with a wild tumult of indignant protest, but David laid a hand upon her arm. This was a matter for their elders alone, his look seemed to say, and must not be interrupted.
"Suppose, Donald," Mr. Reynolds was beginning gently, "suppose this affair were to turn out less of a dream than you think? We have followed dreams before, we and our forbears in this family, and they have led to success and—what appeals to you far more—to fortune. Miranda is, I know, looking worn and troubled; I think it is her home that she is grieving for. It is my belief that in a very little time she may have it back again."
"People like you are always hopeful," returned Donald, "always declaring that with a little more time and a great deal more money, success will come. Can you not stop deceiving yourself, can you not give up and admit that you have failed? You have a handful of screws and wires and a few turning wheels here—" he waved his hand to include the whole workshop in the scorn of a person who knows nothing of mechanics—"but what do they signify? What do they count for compared to ten years of your life, or of Miranda's?"
He leaned his elbows on the table, brought his face closer yet to his unhappy uncle's and spoke with even fiercer accusation.
"You say that you will be able to give back to Miranda the house she loves, when all that you have ever done is to destroy it for her. Have you ever looked over the ruins, as I have, noticed that the blaze was hottest at the south end, and hottest of all where your workshop stood? That was where the fire began, there can be no doubt of it. Miranda says it was lightning that set the house on fire, but—" he lowered his voice—"I know better. A spark from one of your wires, a blaze in some oily packing, that is what brought about the tragedy. You mechanical geniuses are too much in the clouds to safeguard those you pretend to love. The burning of the house was due to your own heedlessness!"
"No, no, Donald," cried the old man, driven out of his calmness at last, and with his voice betraying cruel pain. I can't—I won't believe that it was my doing!"
"You may be certain that it was," returned the other without mercy, "and I think, in your inmost heart, you have long suspected that it was so."
Betsey was no longer to be silenced, not even by David's insistent pressure on her arm.
"It's not true," she burst out. "We saw ourselves where the lightning struck, that began the fire. The chimney was split from top to bottom."
"Yes?" assented Donald, turning to her and speaking in a tone of hard, cold quiet. "You can prove that, I suppose? You can show the marks to my uncle here? Real evidence would comfort him greatly."
"No—no," she faltered in reply. "We were exploring in the ruins and some of the walls fell. The marks of the lightning don't show now. But we both saw them."
"I will hold to my own opinion still," answered Donald Reynolds, "and my uncle, though he would like to, will not be able to disagree with me. Isn't it—hullo, there's something wrong with the old man."
For Mr. Reynolds was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, unmoving and unhearing. Betsey ran to his side and took up one of his hands. It was limp and lifeless, although she could feel the faint pulse still beating. Donald, in evident concern, was coming closer, but David barred the way and warned him off.
"You are an impudent pair of young ones," exclaimed Donald. "Who are you and what is your business here, anyway?"
"We are friends of Miss Miranda's," Betsey explained briefly. "I think you have done her father some very great harm."
"I thought it was only my duty to say a word or two to put things right," the man answered. "It is not fair to Miranda that no one should tell her father the truth."
"You did not speak one word of truth," returned David heatedly. "You guessed about the burning of the house and you guessed wrong. And you did not even guess about the invention. You know as much of mechanical things as—as Dick does."
"I am a practical man," Donald Reynolds said, "and I have no patience with toys and dreams."
He spoke with less bluster than was to be expected, for he seemed truly disturbed by the evident harm he had brought about. His words roused his uncle from the lethargy into which he had fallen for the old man spoke suddenly and very clearly.
"There are many idle dreams and some true ones," he said, "and it is only through the true dreams that the world goes forward."
Then he closed his eyes once more, drew a long sigh and sank lower in the chair. Donald Reynolds stood irresolute, troubled but unconvinced and ready to argue his case still.
"You had better go," Betsey had the courage to tell him with blunt plainness. "Mr. Reynolds will be better when you are out of sight. There's no use in your waiting to talk to Miss Miranda."
Donald Reynolds, it seemed, thought the same thing. He took up his hat, began to say something, perhaps in apology or excuse for what he had done, made such small success of it that he gave up the attempt, and turned to the door. The two beside Mr. Reynolds paid little attention to his going, only Dick hailed his departure with a defiant caw.
"I suppose he is telling himself that he has acted for the best," commented David bitterly. "At least he has sense enough to seem a little sorry for what he has done."
"I see now why Miss Miranda has looked so worried," Betsey added. "She has been afraid he would come here and say just such cruel, untrue things."
When David had brought a glass of water for Mr. Reynolds and Betsey had propped him up with cushions, he seemed to feel better, although still to be rather dazed.
"Did he mean it? Was he right?" he questioned them pitifully, looking across at his well-beloved wheels hanging in idleness. "Have I really been so blind and selfish as to do Miranda such great wrong?"
It seemed a long wait before they heard her step outside.
"Go to meet her, tell her that—that nothing is wrong," he directed. "Do not let her be anxious. I am sure you can explain it all."
David stayed by his side while Betsey went to tell what had happened. It was not easy, especially after she saw the look of alarm that came into her friend's face the moment she heard that Donald Reynolds had been there. She listened quietly, however to all that Betsey had to tell.
"Oh, why was I away!" she exclaimed at the end, but it was her only lamentation. "He can say very hard and cruel things," she added; "you have not told me all of them, but I can guess."
She went to the workshop to speak to her father, but David met her at the door.
"He feels better," the boy reported, "but he said he would like to be by himself a little. He is up and walking about; I really think he will be happier if he is left alone."
They peeped in at the door and saw that Mr. Reynolds was, as David had said, standing at the bench, busy as ever, with a tool in his hand. He was handling the wrench awkwardly, as though his fingers had not much strength, but he appeared intent and absorbed, almost himself again.
Elizabeth, nevertheless, was not satisfied. She could not believe that any one so stricken as had been Mr. Reynolds an hour before, could have really recovered so quickly. Rather shyly she suggested that she should stay all night, "just so that you will not be all alone, if he should be ill again," as she told Miss Miranda, and, on her friend's relieved acceptance of the suggestion, was glad that she had offered. David went across the hill to get the things that she had telephoned to Anna to pack, while Betsey mounted the stairs with Miss Miranda to prepare a sleeping place.
"We have so few guests that I have no regular spare bedroom," her hostess explained. "If you do not mind, you will have to sleep on the couch here beside the toy-cupboard."
Later, as she went to and fro about the house, Elizabeth peeped in more than once to see how Mr. Reynolds was faring in the workshop. She stood at the door, not daring to speak or to disturb him, so busy did he seem. His face looked white, deeply lined and very tired; never had he appeared to her so really old. He was toiling very earnestly so that she felt sure he must be gaining some comfort from his work. Once, however, when she looked in she did not see him. The far corners of the room were so very dim that he might be there among the shadows, but she did not like to go in to make sure. Miss Miranda called her for something at that moment and kept her longer than she expected. Later, when she went back to make sure of his absence before she mentioned it, she saw that he was at work again by the bench and she began to believe that she must have been mistaken. He was standing beneath the light, putting away a great array of tools in a drawer.
David, returning from his errand, came whistling up to the door.
"Are you sure you do not need a doctor?" he inquired anxiously.
Miss Miranda was certain that a doctor would only disturb and upset her father. She had broached the subject to him earlier and had found the idea so distressed him, that she had given it up.
"I met Michael when I came through the garden," David told Betsey, "and when I let him know what had happened he seemed dreadfully upset. He just sat down on the bench and groaned out, 'I knew that fellow would be coming here to make some mischief, but I never knew quite what it would be. And with me watching and watching for him, he slipped in just the same. I was certain just some such unlucky thing would happen, I have been feeling it this long time back.' Poor Michael, he will probably be saying charms and repeating spells for good luck all night now."
"Did you stay long enough on the wall to—to see anything?" Betsey asked hesitatingly.
"No," he answered, "I waited minute after minute, but the Thing was so slow, and what you said had worried me too, so in the end I came away. I will have to try again."
It was very late, so that David, after some lingering and wishing that he could be of service, took his leave, Betsey walking with him as far as the gate. Here, in the moonlight they came upon Michael, sitting on a three-legged stool, his pipe in his hand and the collar of his worn coat turned up against the dews of the spring night.
"It is best that I should just wait here for a while," he explained. "I heard a step in the lane and was afraid that blackguard might be back again. Ah, what did I tell you?"
For a figure had come into the moonlit open and Donald Reynolds had laid a hand on the gate.
"You will not be entering here, sir," declared Michael severely. "You have lived up, this night, to what I always thought of you, but you have had your fling and done your work and that has been enough."
Donald shrugged his shoulders.
"You seem to have the place well guarded," he responded, "and I only came back for one thing. They gave me some letters at the post office for my uncle when I was getting my own, earlier in the day. Somehow I forgot to leave them, so, when I found them in my pocket, I brought them back rather than have a delay on my conscience. I will be going away early in the morning."
He gave the letters to Elizabeth, who took them mechanically.
"And—and how is my uncle now?' he asked hesitatingly; "if I had only known—if there is anything I can do—"
"You were always a cruel one with your tongue, Mr. Donald," Michael interrupted him drily, "and you should have learned by now that where words have hurt, words cannot heal. It is against the nature of things."
"I see, Michael, that you are the same stiff-necked old bigot still," returned the other. "Do you remember how Ted and I caught you burning three feathers of the black cock's tail on Midsummer Eve, to keep off bad luck for the year? Do you do such things still?"
"To burn the whole black cock would not lift the ill luck falling on the house that shelters you," retorted Michael hotly, "and if I do such things still it is no concern of yours. But you will not be entering this gate. Good night, sir."
The hint was so firm a one that Donald Reynolds argued no further but turned away and strode out of sight into the darkness. David was about to go through the gate and follow him down the lane, when Michael stopped him.
"Go up and look at Mr. Reynolds again before you go," he begged. "I have a feeling that all is not well with him, even yet."
"You have so many feelings, Michael, how do you know what they mean?" inquired David with interest.
The old man seated himself on his stool once more and began filling his pipe.
"Men of Ireland are not quite like the rest of the world," he said slowly. "We do not often say so, but I think it is in the hearts of all of us to think that since our fathers' fathers knew the Little People, we of their blood can feel a little deeper and see some things a little clearer than others. You wouldn't understand, not either of you, though you have keen, kind eyes yourselves."
Betsey looked back at him anxiously as they went toward the house to fulfill his request. He was lighting his pipe, the glow of the match shining picturesquely on his battered features and mild blue eyes.
"He is too old to sit there in the damp and the dark," she said, "and I am afraid he will stay in that one spot all night. But I suppose there is no use in trying to persuade him not to."
Yes, it was quite possible that Michael would sit there all night in faithful guardianship of the people he loved. He would have many quaint thoughts for company so that the time would not be dull, he would have memories of those wide, free plains and towering mountains where he once was lonely lord of thousands of sheep, memories of those giant, white-coated dogs that sped to his rescue on the night that Ted Reynolds had saved him and won his devoted service for all time. But it was more likely that his thoughts would wander farther yet, that it was fairy hounds and fairy hills that his mind's eye would see, magic rings and dancing leprecauns and many another thing that only Michael's kind can know. So clear would be his vision—as he grew a little drowsy—that the very flowers and hedges about him would seem crowded with tiny, rustling figures and the warm night air be full of the beat of little wings. For such a person as Michael, no night spent in the garden could be really dull.
As David and Elizabeth came to the workshop door they were startled by a rush and flutter of black feathers as Dick came flying out in great excitement. Yet, within, the place seemed more peaceful than ever. Mr. Reynolds had ceased his work and was sitting at the table, a place once littered inches deep with papers and tools, but now swept bare and clean. His hands lay idly before him and he sat staring, although it seemed he saw only the blank wall opposite. Again it struck Betsey how unnatural was the silence when those busy, familiar wheels stood still. He looked up at them strangely when they came in and said almost the same words he had spoken before, his voice steady but unnaturally loud.
"It is through the true dreams that the world goes forward."
Then after a moment's pause he added—
"And I have always said that a man could know a true dream from a false one, could be sure when he was working for a great good and not for a plaything and a failure. But I was wrong—all wrong! Those wheels shall never turn again."
His head dropped suddenly on his arm and rested upon the table. Then his whole body slipped forward and would have fallen had not David caught him.