In Apple-Blossom Time Part 18

The old fairy tales came to her mind. Tales where the captive princess pines and hopes alternately.

"'On the second day all happened as before,'" she murmured in quotation.

It was always on the third day that something really came to pa.s.s, she remembered, and she scanned the sky for threatening clouds. Ah, if it should rain to-morrow and the leaden hours should drag by in that odious house! After having indulged a ray of hope, such a prospect seemed unbearable.

In her role of trusty she had constrained herself to civility. She had taken Mrs. Carder the flowers last night, and Rufus had put some tiny blooms in his b.u.t.tonhole and caressed them at supper-time with significant glances at her.

When she awoke on the following day her first move was to the window with an anxious look at the sky. As soon as she was satisfied that it was not threatening, a reaction set in to her thought. She always hastened to dress in the morning, for her compa.s.sion for Mrs. Carder made her hurry to her a.s.sistance. Pete's eyes in this few days had taken on a seeing look and he worked with energy to follow every direction of his golden-haired G.o.ddess. In the kitchen he did not avoid her eyes, and the smiles he received from her were the only sunbeams that had ever come into his life.

She was in many minds that morning about going again to the meadow. It seemed so absurd, so humiliating to costume herself as for private theatricals, and to go repeatedly to keep a tryst which the other party, and that a man, had forgotten.

Would the princess in the fairy tale do so? she wondered; but then if she had not persisted the story could never have been written.

"Ain't you sick o' that meadow and the cows?" asked Rufus at the dinner-table. "Hadn't you better go drivin' to-day? I've got an errand to the village and just as lieve do it myself as send one o' the men if you'll go."

Geraldine, the two braids of her hair brought up around her head in a golden wreath that rested on fluffy waves, was looking more than usually appealing, he thought, and he congratulated himself on the restraint with which he was allowing her mind to work on the proposition he had made to her. She was evidently becoming more normal, finding herself as it were. Those flashes of red and white that had pa.s.sed across her face in her intensity of feeling had ceased. Her voice was steady and civil.

"The meadow seems to agree with me," she answered. "Why should my not going with you prevent you from doing your errand at the village?"

Why, indeed? thought Carder, regarding her. She had no money, she was in a part of the world strange to her. If she again strolled forth arrayed in the white costume in which her girlish vanity seemed to revel, how could she do anything unsafe during the short time of his absence, especially with Pete to guard her? The dwarf had had it made perfectly clear to him that his life depended on Geraldine's presence.

However, it was Carder's policy never to take a very small chance of a very big misfortune. 'Safe bind, safe find,' was a favorite saying of his.

"As soon as you feel thoroughly rested, we must take a trip to town," he said, and he advanced a bony, ill-kept hand toward hers as if he would seize it. "I think Ma works too hard," he added diplomatically as Geraldine slid her hand off the table. "We must go and see if we can get the right kind of help. You'll know how to pick it out. Then what do you say to havin' an architect come out and look over the old shack here and see what he thinks he can do with it, regardless of expense?"

Geraldine felt that unnerving nausea again steal around her heart.

"It isn't too late for us to take a little flyer in to-day," he added eagerly, and the suggestion made the meadow and its cows look like a glimpse of paradise. Supposing _he_ should come and she be gone! This was the great third day. "I--really--I"--stammered Geraldine--"I feel a little shaky yet."

"Oh, all right," Rufus laughed leniently. "Be it ever so humble and all that you know. _Home_ for you, eh, Gerrie?"

She longed to rise and strike his ugly smile at the sound of her father's pet name, and she trembled from head to foot. "A trusty," she said to herself commandingly. "A trusty."

She did not hear another word that was said during dinner, and when she was free she flew up to her room and put on the poor little gra.s.s-stained dress and the rich crepe of her mother's heirloom.

"O G.o.d, send him!" she prayed, as her fingers worked on the fastenings.

"O G.o.d, let him come"--then with tardy, desperate recollection, she added--"and O G.o.d, save his life!"

It seemed difficult for Rufus Carder to separate himself from her that day. When she emerged from the house, she found him watching for her and she reminded herself again that if she angered him he might prevent her from doing as she pleased. It seemed to her now so intensely vital that she should get to the meadow that she felt panic lest something happen to prevent it.

"You don't want to go down there again to-day," said Rufus coaxingly.

"Let's take a walk up to the pond."

"Is there a pond?" asked Geraldine quickly. She had often wondered if there were any body of water about the place deep enough for a girl to be covered in it if she lay face down.

"Oh, yes, I have a cranberry bog with a dam. Makes a pretty decent pond part o' the year. How would you like it if I got you a canoe, Gerrie?

Say! would you like that?" The interest that had come into the girl's face at mention of the pond encouraged him. "Come on, let's go. You've had enough o' the cows."

He grasped her arm and she set her teeth not to pull away.

"Would you mind waiting?" She put the question gently and even gave him a little smile, the first he had ever seen on her face. The exquisiteness of it, her pearly teeth, the Cupid's bow of her lips flushed him from head to foot. "I seem to be getting attached to that meadow," she added. "You'd better have one more b.u.t.tonhole bouquet, don't you think?"

The delight of it rushed to Carder's head. He, too, had to put a strong restraint upon himself to let well enough alone. All was going so nicely. He must not make a false move.

"Well," he responded with a sort of gasping sigh, the blood in his face, "as I've always said, suit yourself and you'll suit me. Wind me right around your finger as you always have done and always will do."

He walked completely down the incline with her to-day.

She wondered if he had any sense of humor when she heard the clicking of Pete's lawn-mower behind them and knew that he was following. Carder did not seem to notice it; but he said: "I've a great mind to stay down here with you to-day and find out what the charm is."

"I suppose it is just peace," she answered, and she was so frightened lest he carry out this threat that she felt herself grow pale to the lips. "I've pa.s.sed through a great deal of excitement," she added unsteadily. "The silence seems healing to me."

"Oh, well, little one," he replied good-humoredly, "if it's doing you good, that's the main thing. You have had it pretty hard, I know that.

I'm goin' to make it up to you, Gerrie, I'm goin' to make it up to you.

Don't you be afraid. You're safe to be the most envied girl in this county. You'll make some splash, let me tell you, when my plans are carried out." He patted her cringing shoulder, and with one more longing look turned and left her.

Her knees were still trembling and she sank down on her rock and watched Carder's round shoulders and ill-fitting clothes as he ascended the incline to the office.

Pete was using a sickle on the stubbly gra.s.s, too stiff and interspersed with stones for the mower.

The cows' big soft eyes were regarding Geraldine, as they always did for a time after her arrival.

She turned her tired, listless look back to them and wondered what they did here for comfort in the heat of summer. There was no shade, and no creek to walk into.

When Rufus Carder arrived at his office he found the telephone ringing.

The message he received necessitated sending some word to a man out in the field.

He went to the window and looked down at the white spot which was Geraldine. He saw her rise and walk about. Perhaps she was picking flowers. The distance was too great for him to be certain.

"I shall be right here," he muttered. Then he went to the corner of the office and picked up a megaphone. Going outside the door he called to Pete. "Come up here!" he shouted. The boy dropped his sickle and began to amble up the hill as fast as his bow-legs would permit.

Geraldine heard the shout, and turning saw the dwarf obeying the summons.

"n.o.body but you to guard me now," she said to the prettiest of the cows with whom she had made friends.

She watched Pete reach the summit of the incline and vanish into the yellow office.

Presently he came out again and started off in the direction of the fields.

"I think there is some one beside you to guard me now," went on Geraldine to the cow, who gave her an undivided attention mindful of the bunches of gra.s.s which the girl had often gathered for her. "I think the ogre has come out to the edge of his cave and is scarcely winking as he watches us down here. Oh, Bossy, I'm the most miserable girl in the whole world." Her breath caught in her throat, and winking back despairing tears she stooped to gather the expected thick handful of gra.s.s when a humming sound came faintly across the stillness of the field. She paused with listless curiosity and listened. The buzzing seemed suddenly to fill all the air. It increased, and her upturned face beheld an approaching aeroplane. Before she had time to connect its presence with herself it began diving toward the earth. On and on it came. It skimmed the ground, it ran along the meadow, the cows stampeded. She clasped her hands, and with dilated eyes saw the aviator jump out, pull something out of the c.o.c.kpit and run toward her. She ran toward him. It was--it couldn't be--it was--he pushed back his helmet--it was her knight! Her excited eyes met his. "I've come for you," he called gayly, and her face glorified with amazed joy.

"He'll kill you!" she gasped in sudden terror. "Hurry!"

Ben was already taking off the crepe shawl and putting her arms into the sleeves of a leather coat. A shout came from the top of the hill. Rufus Carder appeared, yelling and running. His gun was in his hand. The men from the fields, who had heard and seen the aeroplane, and Pete, who had not yet had time to reach them, all came running in excitement to see the great bird which had alighted in such an unlikely spot.

"He'll kill you!" gasped Geraldine again. A shot rang out on the air.

Ben laughed as he pushed a helmet down over her head.

"It can't be done," he cried, as excited as she. He threw the shawl into the c.o.c.kpit, lifted the girl in after it, buckled the safety belt across her, jumped in himself, and the great bird began to flit along the ground and quickly to rise.