I Walked in Arden Part 16

She flung the fern leaf from her horrified.

"Ted! That's true! How could you say it?"

"Because, Helen dear, I think we'll have to find things out for ourselves as we go through life; I for one can't take them ready made."

She leaned forward, her chin in her hands, her elbows resting on her drawn-up knees.

"Yes--I was hashing over in my mind to give you as something original only the things I'd already heard--"

"That is my objection to philosophy--it is a hash of words," I said.

"Still, one does have to have an experimental creed to go on with--one to change and add to, but to keep one steadfast meanwhile."

"Yes," I said. "Mine is foolishly practical: be decent, play fair, and take the life of no living creature."

"You are inconsistent right at the start," she complained. "If you lived up to your creed you'd be a vegetarian."

"I admit the weakness in the armour, but I mean shooting and killing beasts and birds for the fun of it. Mosquitoes are excepted.

"You keep your creed pretty firmly on earth."

"That's where I live at present, Grey Eyes."

"Ted, dear, I don't think you have improved upon the Sermon on the Mount, not even for practical purposes."

"I think, Helen, you've rather shown me up," I acknowledged. Her hand quickly sought my arm.

"No, Ted dear. I wasn't trying to outargue you; I wanted to know what you really thought about things."

"I improvised my creed on the spur of the moment. Probably there is more to it."

She got to her feet with her precious radiant laugh: "We must go back to the Inn, Ted. Miss Hershey will be fuming because the party can't start for home without us."

It was strange how naturally and unconsciously we had grown in intimacy and friendship during the day, leaping over what I had always imagined would take months of time. Yet I am quite certain, as I look backward now over the entries in my diary, that no serious thoughts of love had yet entered our heads. We were building away at a friendship, uncertain as to how elaborate the superstructure was to be, or, to be more precise, not questioning the future at all. To change the figure, we were quite content to explore one another's souls and to marvel at the mystic things we found there. Neither of us had quite reached complete frankness, but we were very near. I fell asleep that night with the realization that Deep Harbor had suddenly become an intimate place in which I lived.

Chapter Seven

I HAVE THE FIRST GREAT ADVENTURE

October turned into November and angry hints of oncoming winter almost daily shrilled across the lake, scattering the heaps of yellow leaves on Myrtle Boulevard or playing the d.i.c.kens with signs and hats on State Street. The nights were raw and cold; the night-shift at the factory ate their midnight lunches in the boiler room, a place which in July had seemed one of the lowest circles of the Inferno. Business was at a most critical stage, and Knowlton drove away at it day and night. We were, as he expressed it, just at the turn of the tide; it was a toss-up whether we should be swept on to the rocks or out into the sea of reasonable prosperity. I saw comparatively little of him, for he had not yet released me from night duty. I was getting quite accustomed to this nocturnal existence; I had actually grown to like it, because it left my afternoons free to go riding with Helen. I went to bed about half past seven in the morning, got up around three, and three-thirty would find Helen and me trotting sedately up Myrtle Boulevard--a sight to which the latter had become so hardened that not a verandah fluttered as we pa.s.sed by. Indeed, the cool weather had driven even the most hardened gossip-scouts within. Helen's girl friends had tacitly accepted the situation, and at dinners or card parties Helen and I were always paired off together by tactful hostesses. None of the first riding party went with us now. Miss Hershey was chaperoning at White Sulphur, although there were rumours she would return for Christmas. "Mother" was querulous and fretful, particularly when we rode on stormy days; otherwise she had practically ceased active opposition. Her att.i.tude now was resigned, if hurt, patience, varied with occasional Ca.s.sandra-like utterances of dire foreboding.

Sat.u.r.days were now thrice blessed, for the factory shut down from six o'clock Sat.u.r.day evening until midnight Sunday, leaving the whole of Sat.u.r.day free for me, if I kept Sunday for sleeping. We therefore reserved Sat.u.r.days for our longer expeditions into the rolling hill country behind us. (In the geography of Deep Harbor "the front" was the lake.) Soon hard frosts would come to make the roads impa.s.sable; we strove to do all the exploring possible before that should happen. I had found another horse which a modest weekly payment reserved for my exclusive use. He was a small Western pony, young and hard as nails. On frosty days he often tried to climb into the upper air, but he was to be preferred to the misanthropic Satan, who had fallen to the sad fate of hauling a grocer's wagon. Nevertheless Helen and I retained a warm spot in our hearts for old Satan and often carried him apples and sugar. In a large measure we owed him our friendship. It was an undeserved misfortune that it had come too late in life for Satan to keep up with.

Helen named the new pony Starbright, because of the white star in the centre of his dark chestnut forehead. We both agreed that the name revealed no great powers of originality.

On the second Sat.u.r.day in November we planned one of our longest quests.

We both regretfully admitted it would probably be the last until spring; either snow or frozen ground was due at any time. The day was gusty and overcast; "Mother" tried every whine in her repertoire to dissuade us from going. Helen's obstinacy refused to yield, and off we went, taking our luncheons with us. On a hillside, by the edge of the wood, several miles away, we dismounted and built a camp fire against a large boulder.

Helen endeavoured to instruct me in the art of camp cooking, a skill which she maintained she had learned one summer in the woods. It consisted princ.i.p.ally of trying to balance a flimsy piece of bacon on a forked stick. The instant the heat reached the meat it would curl up and fall into the redhot coals. It then became my duty to burn my fingers in an attempt at rescue before the bacon turned to a cinder. In this way we spoiled a fair amount by the time we had each eaten two or three scorched slices. I commented on the fact that camp cooking seemed uneconomical, to say nothing of its lack of finesse. Helen laughingly guessed she was "out of practice," so we toasted marshmallows instead, a form of cooking in which we were more proficient. The warmth of the fire was pleasant, and we lingered on, careless of our original purpose to penetrate far into the hills. It was Helen's turn to tell me of herself, which she did, half shyly, half whimsically.

The eighteen years of her life had been pa.s.sed in Deep Harbor, except for two winters at a large New England boarding-school, or during brief visits to school friends in New York. At school she had had the good fortune to come under the influence of a rare kind of teacher--one with the power of revealing the world. Helen spoke of her with dreamy affection, as of one who had opened a gate and shown the beauty of an unsuspected garden lying beyond. Having shown it, she had left Helen to wander in it at will. Thus it came about that this young girl, native of a provincial town, had found the path leading to citizenship of the world. The maturity of her judgment was astonishing; it implied an experience of life which I knew was impossible. I often found myself deferring to her opinion or leaning upon her advice, for her calm, level decisions brushed aside my cobwebs of sentiment and subst.i.tuted truth for the meshes of whim or impulse. Day by day I had grown more dependent upon her until I expressed no opinion, even concerning business, without first submitting it for her approval. With all this she was a fun-loving child, full of mischief and humour, or occasionally tempest-swept by sudden child-like anger, when the storm clouds in her eyes would frighten me. After anger would follow such a melting tenderness as made me long to kneel at her feet and beg forgiveness for having caused her displeasure.

Curiously enough we neither of us a.n.a.lyzed what was happening to us. It seemed natural that we preferred to be together--even to be alone--and we were content with the word "friendship" as a complete explanation.

Neither of us questioned it or looked beyond our next Sat.u.r.day together.

We must have been very young and inexperienced. Once in a while Knowlton had asked me, with his Harlequin's grin, how I was getting on; old Hemphill at the factory had stumbled his way through a clumsy joke aimed at me: neither followed the subject very far. Helen was not a topic I would allow discussed; there was something so far beyond the comprehension of the world in our att.i.tude toward each other. Helen's own friends, I discovered, had pa.s.sed from teasing to regard us as a _fait accompli_, and thereafter held their peace. Here again we looked upon their behaviour as simply caused by their lack of understanding.

Poor old world, how we pitied it!

Today we were playing one of our new games--I don't know which of us thought of it first. The game was founded upon the _Morte d'Arthur_, and we were in search of the questing beast. Helen stretched comfortably before the camp fire and read aloud to me from her Mallory, which I carried in my coat pocket, the description of this mediaeval animal. As she finished we listened for the noise to come from the woodland on the edge of the hillside pasture in which we were. It sounds ridiculous to tell of it now, but it was as real to us as the play of children is to them. Beyond the edge of the wood there lay strange adventures--we had no doubt of it. Deep Harbor faded from us like a conjurer's vision, and the fields, hills and woods became the enchanted reality. We peopled it with all the crew of fairy folk and ourselves a.s.sumed roles appropriate to our fellowship. How could ordinary Deep Harborites understand such a game or dream that this was one of the secrets of our friendship--they who thought only of such mundane things as love and marriage? Would they not laugh at the Lady Grey Eyes on her cream-coloured palfrey, escorted by her trusty knight, Edward of Over-Seas? To be sure the Lady Helen's horse was light chestnut, not cream, but in her magic capacity the mare a.s.sumed a new tint.

As we scanned the woodland, wondering what castle it hid or whether a hermit dwelt in its shade, we were aware of a tawny yellow animal approaching us. By his manner it should have been a dog, but the peculiarity of its build and complexion left some doubt. On the other hand, he was not the questing beast, for his coming was silent. Helen clung to me with delight; the creature was unusual enough, seen through our imagination, to look like the bearer of adventure. Carefully he circled us with an upstanding waving yellow signal of friendly purpose.

I whistled. It awoke a sympathetic response, for he bounded up to us and laid his head in the Lady Grey Eyes' lap in token of obeisance. Dog there was no denying he was, but one whose ancestors had mingled with strange company. Chief among his forebears had been a bull dog; the others had been of that cadium-hued race to be found sleeping in the dust of village streets. From ear to ear of his square bulldog head there spread an expansive smile, whence depended a most liquid tongue.

He kissed my hand, thus completing his homage.

"Ted, I want him. He's mine!" the Lady Grey Eyes declared.

"On my honour as a knight, you shall have him, if no farmer catches us in the theft, or if he does, we'll try what filthy lucre will accomplish," I replied, somewhat diverging from the purity of Mallory's style. I made fast the prize with a piece of string. There seemed no need, for he accepted gratefully whatever command we laid upon him.

"What name shall our new companion bear?" I asked. Helen regarded her treasure trove critically. In spite of the misalliance of one of his ancestors, our friend was unquestionably mainly plebeian except for the sternness of his tenacious profile. The latter gave him an air unlike any other dog. His amiability, however, was unquenchable.

"He ought to be called 'Bill' if it wasn't for his face," mused Helen.

"What do you say to 'Sir Leonidas de la Patte Jaune'?"

"It strikes me as a bit beyond his linguistic ability; however, just as you say."

"He is lion-coloured--hence 'Leonidas.'" she explained--I had same doubts concerning this etymology--"and yellow paws are undoubtedly characteristic of the majority of his family." I nodded, for her latter argument was flawless.

"What shall we call him for short?" The practical world would a.s.sert itself at times.

"Leonidas, of course," said Helen with dignity. "The rest of his name is part of our secret."

I sprang to my feet. "The questing beast!" I exclaimed. "Let's test Sir Leonidas on an adventure. Let him track the questing beast through the forest!"

Helen gave a little cry of joy, her eyes shining.

"Come, Sir Leonoidas de la Patte Jaune!" she called. "We are about to lay a high adventure upon thee!" Leonidas tilted his head, listening to her, and wagged his tail at varying speeds. "Over there in yonder woods is a marvellous questing beast which we have taken an oath to bring to Arthur's Court ere a year and a day have pa.s.sed. Thou shalt aid us in the quest. It is only fair to warn thee that this task is fraught with dire peril, but thy cheerful soul shall carry thee safely through all.

Sir Edward of Over-Seas and I, the Lady Grey Eyes, shall be ever at thy side." She untied the string.

"Go get him! Sic 'em!" I said. Which of us he understood the better, I do not know. At any rate he was off at a bound toward the woods, and Helen followed with speed afoot.

Back and forth we ranged through dense underbrush, Leonidas making noise enough, as he crashed over dry twigs, to frighten away a menagerie of wild animals. Helen shouted with laughter at his clumsy eagerness to serve us. We worked our way into a clearing, and here Leonidas'

excitement redoubled. This time he was clearly on the track of something. Helen was just a trifle nervous at the change from make-believe.

"What may one expect in these woods?" I asked.

"Nothing but woodchucks and rabbits, unless--" and she gave a scream that startled me. "Call him quick, Ted, quick!" she implored. What unknown danger were we walking into? I wondered, but I called Leonidas, and none too soon. There emerged from a thicket a small black and white animal.