Daphne Deane (11 page)

Later that evening, after both her pupils were gone, Daphne went and stood in the window of her own room, which looked out across the backyard and into the Morrell garden. It was from this window that as a child she had learned to watch for the movements of the little boy in the great house and to idealize his life.

The darkness was soft and sweet as it wafted into the open window. Breath of honeysuckle and lilies from the dewy garden, old-fashioned pinks and mignonette. Daphne drew a deep breath of it, and it seemed like the essence of the day, a beautiful happy day with no shadows and doubts in it. It seemed like something perfect that she could put away with her treasures of memory and keep, a jewel that had no flaw in it.

Likely he would not come again. It was not to be expected. Though he had asked if he might. But that of course was just his courtesy, his pleasant appreciation of the day. He was in business, and that would hold him. And he likely had a lot of worldly friends and interests. Oh, he wouldn't come again, of course, but it was nice to feel that he had been all right, not spoiled in any way, from the boy he had promised to be when she had known him in school. It was like closing the covers of a delightful book that one had enjoyed. Looking over the story and finding it good to hold in memory as a part of the beauty of life. She would think of it many times, perhaps, with pleasure, but the reading of it was definitely over of course.

Well, it was more than she had ever expected out of the childish visions, that they should come to a finish so happily.

She drew a little wistful sigh as she looked out at the familiar lines of the dear old house across the garden, a lovely dark etching under its tall old elms, against the night sky, and there came a warm feeling at her heart that now she knew it both inside and out. She could envision the desk where the mother had sat, and the eager boy coming home from school to his welcome. She could see the fireplace before which the little boy had knelt to pray at his mother's knee, and the room as it must have looked with the toys scattered over the floor. She had a background now for all the stories her own mother had told when she was a child.

It was characteristic of Daphne that she was thinking more now of the boy she had not known intimately than of his real self with whom she had spent the long bright day. The little boy had belonged to her, but the young man was someone who lived afar and whom she would not likely see again, at least not often.

But suddenly as she stood watching the dim old house in the sweet darkness, a speck of light winked through the shrubbery. She watched it with alert eyes. A firefly? Only
one
? If it was a firefly, there would be more than one surely, and she searched the darkness intently for others. Perhaps this was only the advance guard.

It winked about in a circle, hovered over the same location, danced about a bit, disappeared, then steadily glowed in one spot for a moment and was gone! A curious way for a firefly to act. There! There it was again! It was almost like the beam of a tiny pocket flashlight. Could it be that Keith had gone back to the house after all and was out there hunting for something that he had dropped in the darkness?

But no. The train had gone, and he had been insistent that he must get back to New York. Besides, he hadn't any flashlight with him. She remembered his wishing for one when they went into the house and he had been searching for the fastening of the shutter in the dark parlor, for, of course, the electricity was not on in the house.

There! There it was again! Just a wink. Oh, of course it was only an erratic little firefly, and she was a silly. She must go to bed.

But she did not turn on her light. Instead she undressed in the dark, breathing in the garden scents and keeping watch toward the old house. Once she thought she heard a grating sound like the pushing open of a door that stuck, and once she saw a wider flare of light. But when she went closer to the window all was dark, and of course it must be only her imagination working, the way it often did if she let it go.

After she lay down in her bed she thought she heard that creaking sound again, or was it more like the slam of a door? But when she went quickly to the window there was only still darkness, no more fireflies. She went back and lay down.

She was going over the day bit by bit now, examining everything that had been done and said, and enjoying it, as one would pick up a book of poems and glance at a sentence here, a phrase there, and sense the loveliness of each.

Usually she fell asleep at once when she lay down, but somehow tonight she couldn't. She told herself she was too excited. And why should she be excited over the mere dropping in of an old schoolmate whom she didn't know very well? Well, that perhaps was just the effect of her upbringing, her quiet life, filled with home duties and studies and little errands of kindliness. It was late when she did at last doze off, very late she knew, because Emily Lynd's light, which always burned long after midnight, and which usually she could barely see from her pillow if she lay over to the extreme edge, had gone out. She was just slipping over the border into dreamland----or had she been over and come back?--when she was roused by some unusual sound.

It brought her wide awake and blinking toward the window again. Perhaps it was only some sliver of a dream mingling with her waking thoughts before she fell asleep.

What was that? A car? Surely yes, a motor running! Perhaps a truck. Perhaps the milkman. But no, the darkness of the sky showed it was not near enough to morning for him, and even as she reasoned the little clock on her mantel chimed three silvery strokes. Still that motor throbbed in low, subdued tones. It was almost a stealthy sound, as if the motor had become human and was trying to whisper and hold its breath. Now that was strange. Why should that be?

She stole from her bed again and tried to pierce the darkness, but though she could now distinctly locate the sound, she could see nothing but dense darkness. It had hidden itself in the blackest depth of shrubbery, and as nearly as she could tell it seemed to be standing just behind the big house. But there wasn't a light on it, there wasn't a sign of anything human, besides that furtive throbbing.

Wait! Wasn't there a movement, stealthy but unmistakable? A footstep! The low murmur of a voice? Or was it?

She was growing weary as she knelt beside the window, and chilly with excitement, when at last there came a sound like a key turning in a rusty lock, a stealthy movement. Then a dark shape moved slowly across the night. The chugging of the motor was plainer now, and less furtive. Whatever it was had been parked behind the Morrell house, just opposite the low door to the cellar, she knew the exact spot, and now it was backing out of the drive! It had reached the road, and suddenly the sound of the engine went soft. It was coasting down the gentle slope that went past Emily Lynd's house to the road. And it grew bolder as it went. But strain her eyes as she would, she could see no light on it. They were traveling without a light.

Then suddenly a light shot out from Emily Lynd's window. Ah! Emily had heard that stealthy traveler, too! She was not dreaming. Tomorrow she would take some flowers from the garden and go and call on Emily Lynd, and they would perhaps talk it over.

There was no sound of the soft throbbing of that motor anymore. It had coasted smoothly down the grade and was thundering away into the night. And at last Daphne crept shivering back to her bed. Perhaps it was only some tired truck driver on a long trek from Washington to New York or somewhere, and he had just driven into the unused driveway to snatch a nap, lest he should fall asleep at his wheel.

She turned over comfortably and went to sleep.

 

By the time Keith reached the city he had succeeded in dispelling to a certain extent the dismay that had seized him when he found himself really going away from Rosedale. He hadn't been able to explain that dismay to himself. He told himself that it was homesickness and the memory of his mother, but he congratulated himself that he had come awake to his own feelings in time to save the house. He realized that it would have been in the nature of a disaster to have woken up someday and discovered its loss after it was too late to get it back again.

Funny little kid, that Ranse, to go fighting for an idea that had been given to him in his babyhood! Because that empty house couldn't really have meant anything to a child like that. But he was grateful to him for fighting against the thought and for wanting to save a place that had been idealized for him.

He must keep in touch with that family. They were rare. The father was a most unusual man, not at all a modern man of the world. He must be famous in his line, or a modern university would not keep him nowadays. A man who had family worship in his home and spoke of God as if He really existed! He must look him up and see just what his line was. A scholar he was surely. And the children all showed that they were bright. He let his mind run back and remember Daphne's quickness in the classes, the ways she so easily outstripped most of her classmates--and the way they were jealous of her and held aloof from her, just because she was different. They called her a grind and pitied her. And now he saw that she was as far above them all as a star. Well, he wished his mother had known her well. It was curious why she hadn't. But he could see that the unassuming nature of both Mr. and Mrs. Deane, and their desire to bring their children up in their own way and not just exactly after the pattern of all others, might have been a barrier not easily overcome. He remembered that his own mother had been of a reserved nature also.

When Keith Morrell got out of the train in the city station to take the New York express, he almost ran into an elderly man who was walking in the other direction. He righted himself and apologized and suddenly recognized one of his father's closest friends.

"Oh, Mr. Dinsmore, I'm sorry!" he apologized. "But I'm so glad to have run into you. It's good to see one of Father's friends."

"Why, it's Keith Morrell, isn't it?" said the older man, grasping Keith's hand warmly. "Well, I declare! You've grown up! And aren't you the very image of your dear father as he was when I first knew him! I've been wondering where you were. You know, I used to tell your father that I had my eye on you to come into our firm when you got ready. You always said you were going to be an architect, you know. Have you got over that?"

"No, I'm doing my best to be one," Keith smiled. "I wish I'd known there was a chance for me with you."

"But why didn't you come back and ask?"

"Well, I guess I shrank from coming back where there were so many memories. And then I got a chance to go into an office in New York--but I wish--"

"Well, perhaps it isn't too late yet, boy! New York, eh? Who are you with?"

"Sawyer, Poole, and Jewett."

"Not half bad to have landed with them. Partnership, is it?"

"Well, not yet," grinned Morrell.

"Well, things turn over in this world, and maybe you'll want to make a change sometime. If you ever do, look me up. I don't want to influence you against your will, but I've always had a liking for you."

"Thanks awfully!" said Keith. "I'll keep that in mind. I'm not so sure but there might come an upheaval of things somewhere soon, and I might take you at your word."

"Good! Glad to hear it!" said the older man fervently. "I've always looked on you as a sort of half son of mine anyway, and I'd like nothing better than to have you around all the time. By the way, are you selling the old home? I met that agent out in Rosedale the other day, and he said he was selling it for you."

"No," said Keith firmly. "I'm not selling. He wrote he had a customer, and I came down to look things over, but I've decided to keep it. Maybe I'm foolish, but I can't quite make up my mind to part with it."

"Good boy! I'm glad of that. I'd hate to see it pass out of the family. I know your father cared a lot for it, and sacrificed to get it back. You know he was born there, and it had belonged for a couple of generations back to the Morrells. Your father was proud of its history. It was his dream to leave it to you."

"Yes," said Keith with compunction in his voice. How could he have forgotten all that and let himself think for a moment that he could sell the dear old home?

"Well, I'd like to see you married to some nice girl and living there," said Mr. Dinsmore wistfully. "Like to see you coming in town every day to our office. Taking over after I'm gone, perhaps. I think we could work together, boy! Think it over! I'm getting old, you know, and I'd like to see somebody around that sort of belonged."

"You're very kind," said Keith, feeling suddenly as if he were a little boy again and this old friend was offering to take him to the zoo.

"I'm taking the train for Chicago tonight, and I'll have to be moving. It's almost starting time. But think it over, boy, think it over. And run down sometime and see me, anyway."

Then he passed on through the gate to the Chicago train, and Keith Morrell stood staring after him, finding something like tears in his own eyes.

Suddenly it came over him that he was glad he had come down, glad he had stayed over another day and started home just at this time. If he hadn't, he never would have met this kindly friend, never have known the friendship that was still his, and somehow it touched him greatly. He wouldn't have missed that warm grip of the hand, that kindly tone as he said, "Think it over, boy" for anything in the world.

Thoughtfully he boarded his own train for New York. He had bought an evening paper, but he did not look at it when he sat down. Instead he pulled his hat down over his eyes, put his head back, closed his eyes, and just thought, feeling himself in the grip of an emotion that was sweet and yet rather overwhelming.

It was strange how those few words recalling his father, and the home he had sacrificed to buy and save for him, had changed his attitude toward the old house. He wanted now to keep it for its own sake. Not just for mere sentimental reasons, but because it represented the abiding place of three generations of his family. It stood for fine noble things; for sweet, homely, old-fashioned, God-fearing standards; and for clean living, right thinking. He had a sudden desire to live there someday himself and continue the traditions that had made the place respected.