Daphne Deane

 

The sky was very blue, yet there were tiny dabs of cotton clouds lingering in the distance for a glorious sunset, which they understood was being staged that evening. The sun was golden and gracious, sifting down like fine powdered metal dust over the late afternoon, and glorifying even the grimy old sweatshirts of the ball players as they hurtled over the wide diamond, or poised with hands on bent knees, and intent gaze on the pitcher.

High up on the grandstand, a village-made affair of weather-beaten boards, Keith Morrell sat outlined against the golden-blue of the sky. He was not especially interested in the ball game, but the grandstand offered the only attractive resting place while he waited for the five o'clock train, which was supposed to bring a local real estate agent who had charge of the old Morrell homestead. He had written the agent, William Knox, that he would be at his office that afternoon to consult with him about the sale or rental of the place, but Knox, with the easygoing ways of the suburban agent, had gone to the nearby city to meet another man, and left word he would be back at five o'clock. Keith Morrell was thoroughly disgusted with him, and almost thought to go away without seeing him, only that he knew he would have to return another day, inevitably, and who knew but Knox would have another call to the city when he came the next time? So he strolled about the familiar streets a few minutes until he discovered the ball game going on at the old stand where he had often played himself in days gone by. He climbed to the top row and sat there looking about him, trying to bring back the picture of other days, trying to bridge the five years that had passed since he had been in town last.

A great many things had happened since then. The family had closed the house during his second year in college and gone to Europe, and he had spent his summers there with them, his briefer vacations with classmates at their homes. Then at the close of his college course he had met his parents in England and they had toured the Orient together for several months. It was while he was taking a special course in architecture in England that his father had died, and a year later his mother. All the ties of his boyhood home wiped out! And now he was back in his native land and his native town!

He hadn't wanted to come here. His mother's death was too recent and he dreaded old familiar scenes. His grief was too new to bear going back to where his life had been so closely associated with hers. But the agent had insisted that he come and understand thoroughly the terms on which the prospective buyer would take the house, and finally he had come, running down from New York on the noon train, hoping to get the matter finished and get the four o'clock train back. This delay was most annoying.

He looked around at the people who were beginning to swarm up the little grandstand. It would soon be filled to capacity, for Rosedale was only a suburb, and this ballpark was just a village enterprise, a sort of community affair.

He looked down among the players, and marveled that they all seemed so young to him, none over sixteen or seventeen. They seemed so much more immature than high school students had when he was one of them. And yet, he had been only seventeen himself when he graduated from high school. Had he looked as youthful as some of those kids down there tearing around that diamond as if the fate of the universe depended upon winning that game?

Suddenly it came to him that he was thinking in terms of a very old man who was soured on life, and here he was barely twenty-three. Probably to some other eyes he looked even now as immature as those youngsters down there did to him.

And just then one of the fellows, tall, well built, with springy brown hair that waved crisply, walked over from the bench below the grandstand to a girl sitting at the extreme end of the stand, in the third row up, and handed her a watch and a wallet. He was a nice-looking chap with big brown eyes and well-chiseled features. And he didn't look so immature after all, now when he raised his eyes and smiled. He was probably only about seventeen at the most, but already there was a set about his well-molded chin and his pleasant lips that showed determination and purpose.

Keith noticed the girl now for the first time. She must just have taken her seat, for the place had been vacant a moment before, he was quite sure. She was a pretty girl. She had ripply brown hair like the boy's, yet where the sunlight touched it, it gleamed almost golden.

Then she lifted her eyes and turned about, looking up behind where Morrell sat, in answer to a motion of the boy. They were both looking up and waving to someone at the farther end of the seat, an older man with iron-gray hair and a plain business suit who smiled and waved back to them. The girl had brown eyes, too. The boy and girl must be brother and sister. When they smiled they looked very much alike. The girl's features were delicate and lovely. There was a haunting familiarity in them. Could it be that she reminded him of his mother? It seemed to him that she looked as he imagined his mother might have looked at nineteen or twenty. Was she someone he should remember? No, surely not, for he never could have forgotten a face like that! He reviewed rapidly the local girls he used to know, girls who were in his social set before he went to college, but she was none of them. No, she must be some newcomer since he left.

And now the skirmishing on the field had stopped and the real game had begun. He could see the good-looking young giant who had just given his watch to the girl on the stand, stride out and take his place. Ah! He was pitcher! Morrell settled into a comfortable position, his hands clasped around one knee, and gave himself up to the beauty of the day, in retrospect imagining himself a boy again with a real interest in that game down there.

Then his gaze wandered back again to the girl as she sat watching. He noticed the sweetness of her face and studied it idly, letting it recall his mother's sweet expression. It interested him to watch her.

She did not seem to have come with anybody, she was sitting apart from the young people who were clamoring noisily to one another about the game. She had just dropped down at the end there among the younger children. They smiled at her now and then, and one little girl reached across two others, gave her a bunch of wilted violets to hold and received a radiant smile. Could that be her little sister? And why was he so much interested? Just because he was lonely, and afraid of thinking back into the past? Then there came a boy of twelve, all out of breath, bearing a bag from the grocery that looked as if it might contain a loaf of bread, and dumped it in the girl's lap. That must be another brother. He was asking for something. A clean handkerchief was handed out surreptitiously, and he hurried around to the front to curl down on the grass with his knees drawn up to his chin. Yes, that must be her brother. But there was a different kind of understanding between this sister and her family from that of most girls with their younger brothers and sisters. At least, the girls he knew. There was no impatience in this girl's face, no protest at being made a dumping-ground for their various belongings. There seemed to be a comradery between them, as if they were all a part of a pleasant whole.

He studied the girl intently. More and more he admired the expression of her face. There was nothing sharp or self-centered or restless about it. It almost seemed as if the word
peace
would describe the look in her eyes as she turned to smile at the little girl.

She was wearing a simple white dress, cool and becoming, and a little white felt hat that showed her soft brown hair. To his eyes, her outfit seemed to fit perfectly the day and the moment. It almost seemed as he studied her that she wore her garments with distinction. And yet there was a sweet quietness of refinement that set her apart from the crowd of smart young people who obviously felt themselves to be socially the elite of the town. Her garments lacked the bold sophistication that marked so many of her day. There was no lipstick and no blush, he was sure, on that face. He hadn't thought about it before, but suddenly he knew he had an aversion to lipstick. There was a soft flush on this girl's cheek that he felt sure was real. He found himself glancing again and again in her direction. And when the young giant pitcher was doing his part she had on her face a breathless interest that made the soft color deepen. Yes, that was real!

Suddenly he realized that he had been staring at her, and she must have felt it, for she turned and let her glance go sweeping up over the seat behind her until it found his gaze, and her eyes went wide, and full of something almost like recognition. For an instant he thought she was going to nod to him as if she knew him. She didn't of course, but he wished she had. His glance lingered, and suddenly there was a withdrawing in hers, a kind of quick blankness and a hurrying on of her gaze, but the color had stolen up over her cheeks as she turned away. She had probably thought he was someone else and then discovered her mistake and was embarrassed by it. He felt a definite disappointment. He almost wished that he had been able in time to make his own glance a little more encouraging. He had never practiced the art of picking up strange girls, but here was a girl he felt he would distinctly like to know. Strangely familiar, too, yet he could not place her.

His thought traveled back to Anne Casper, the girl he had been trying to persuade himself he was interested in. She had been definitely the cause of irritation to him for the last week or two, because she insisted on taking a part in the fashion show that was being put on in a smart resort that month for the benefit of some charitable purpose; modeling, by her own choice, some exceedingly modern bathing suits. He thought of it now with a frown as he continued to study furtively the girl down at the end. Was he all wrong? Was it true as Anne Casper had tried to convince him that everybody, "simply
everybody
" wore such scanty garments on the beach all day and nobody thought anything of it? Why was he so sure that this girl wouldn't appear in one of those obnoxious affairs? Was it just because she reminded him of his lady-mother, and he knew she would not have approved such apparel?