Mistress Anne Part 59

She was punishing him now by paying absolutely no attention to him. She was punishing him, too, by making herself conspicuous, which she knew he hated. The scene was not to his liking. The women of his household, Nancy, Sulie and Anne, had had a fastidious sense of what belonged to them as ladies. Eve had not that sense. As he sat there, it occurred to him that things were moving to some stupendous climax. He and Eve couldn't go on like this.

Far up in the hills a man was in danger of bleeding to death. He had cut himself while butchering a pig. The doctor was called.

Richard, making his way through the shouting and singing crowd which surrounded Eve, told her, "I shall have to go for a little while. There's a man hurt. I'll be back in an hour."

She looked down at him with hard eyes. "We are going to ride cross-country--to the Ridge. You might meet us there, if you care to come."

"You know I care."

"I'm not sure. You don't show it. I--I am tired of never having a lover--d.i.c.ky."

It was a wonderful afternoon. The heavy frost had chilled the air, the leaves were red, and the sky was blue--and there was green and brown and gold. But Richard as he rode up in the hills had no eyes for the color, no ears for the song beaten out by big Ben's hoofs. The vision which held him was of Eve in the midst of that shouting circle.

The man who had cut himself was black. He was thin and tall and his hair was gray. He had worked hard all of his life, but he had never worked out of himself the spirit of joyous optimism.

"I jes' tole 'um," he said, "to send for Dr. Brooks, and he'd beat the devil gettin' to me."

When Richard reached the Ridge, a flash of scarlet at once caught his eye. On the slope below Eve, far ahead of Meade, in a mad race, was making for a grove at the edge of the Crossroads boundaries. She was a reckless rider, and Richard held his breath as she took fences, leaped hurdles, and cleared the flat wide stream.

As she came to the grove she turned and waved triumphantly to Pip. For a moment she made a vivid and brilliant figure in her scarlet against the green. Then the little wood swallowed her up.

Pip came pounding after, and Richard, spurring his big Ben to unaccustomed efforts, circled the grove to meet them on the other side.

But they did not come. From the point where he finally drew up he could command a view of both sides of the slope. Unless they had turned back, they were still in the grove.

Then out of the woods came Pip, running. He had something in his arms.

"It is Eve," he said, panting; "there was a hole and her horse stumbled.

I found her."

Poor honest Pip! As if she were his own, he held her now in his arms.

Her golden head, swung up to his shoulder, rested heavily above his heart. Her eyes were shut.

Richard's practiced eye saw at once her state of collapse. He jumped from his horse. "Give her to me, Meade," he said, "and get somebody's car as quickly as you can."

And now the tiger in Pip flashed out. "She's mine," he said, breathing hoa.r.s.ely. "I love her. You go and get the car."

"Man," the young doctor said steadily, "this isn't the time to quarrel.

Lay her down, then, and let me have a look at her."

He had his little case of medicines, and he hunted for something to bring her back to consciousness. Pip, pale and shaken, folded his coat under her head and chafed her hands.

Presently life seemed to sweep through her body. She shivered and moved.

Her eyes came open. "What happened?"

"You fell from your horse. Meade found you."

There were no bones broken, but the shock had been great. She lay very still and white against Pip's arm.

Richard closed his medicine case and rose. He stood looking down at her.

"Better, old lady?"

"Yes, d.i.c.ky."

He spoke a little awkwardly. "I'll ride down if you don't mind, and come back for you in Meade's car." His eyes did not meet hers.

As he plunged over the hill on his heavy old horse, her puzzled gaze followed him. Then she gave a queer little laugh. "Is he running away from me, Pip?"

"I told him you were--mine," the big man burst out.

"You told him? Oh, Pip, what did he say?"

"That this was not the time to talk about it."

She lay very still thinking it out. Then she turned on his arm. "Good old Pip," she said. He drew her up to him, and she said it again, with that queer little laugh, "Good old Pip, you're the best ever. And all this time I have been looking straight over your blessed old head at--d.i.c.ky."

CHAPTER XXIV

_In Which St. Michael Finds Love in a Garden._

THE flowers in Marie-Louise's bowl were lilacs. And Marie-Louise, sitting up in bed, writing verses, was in pale mauve. Her windows were wide open, and the air from the river, laden with fragrance, swept through the room.

The big house had been closed all winter. Austin had elected to spend the season in Florida, and had taken all of his household with him, including Anne. He had definitely retired from practice when Richard left him. "I can't carry it on alone, and I don't want to break in anybody else," he had said, and had turned the whole thing over to one of his colleagues.

But April had brought him back to "Rose Acres" in time for the lilacs, and Marie-Louise, uplifted by the fact that Geoffrey Fox was at that very moment finishing his book in the balcony room, had decided that lilacs in the silver bowl should express the ecstatic state of her mind.

Anne, coming in at noon, asked, "What are you writing?"

"_Vers libre._ This is called, 'To Dr. d.i.c.ky, Dinging.'"

"What a subject, and you call it poetry?"

"Why not? Isn't he coming to dinner for the first time since--he left New York, and since he broke off with Eve, and since--a lot of other things--and isn't it an important occasion, Mistress Anne?"

Anne ignored the question. "What have you written?"

"Only the outline. He comes--has caviar, and his eyes are on the queen.

He drinks his soup--and dreams. He has fish--and a vision of the future; rhapsodies with the roast," she twinkled; "do you like it?"

"As far as it goes."