Out of the Air Part 19

That night after his cousin and his guest had gone to bed, Lindsay wandered about the place. The moon was big enough to turn his paths into streams of light. He walked through the flower garden; into the barn; about the Dew Pond. The tallest hollyhocks scarcely moved, so quiet was the night. The little pond showed no ripple except a flash of the moonlight. The barn was a cavern of gloom. Lindsay gazed at everything as though from a new point of view.

An immeasurable content filled him.

After a while he returned to the house. His picture of Lutetia Murray still hung over the mantel in the living-room. He gazed at it for a long while. Then he turned away. As he looked down the length of the living-room, there was in his face a whimsical expression, half of an achieved happiness, half of a lurking regret. "This house has never been so full of people since I've been here," he mused, "and yet never was it so empty. My beloved ghosts, I miss you. But you've not all gone after all. You've left one little ghost behind. Lutetia, I thank you for her.

How I wish you could come again to see.... But you're right. Don't come!

Not that I'm afraid. You're too lovely--"

His thoughts broke halfway. They took another turn. "I wonder if it ever happened to any other man before in the history of the world to see the little-girl ghost of the woman--"

Blue Meadows had for several weeks now been projecting pictures from its storied past into the light of everyday. Could it have projected into that everyday one picture from the future, it would have been something like this.

Susannah came into the south living-room. Her husband was standing between the two windows.

"Davy," she exclaimed joyfully, "I've located the lowboy. A Mrs. Norton in West Ha.s.sett owns it. Of course she's asking a perfectly prohibitive price, but of course we've got to have it."

"Yes," Lindsay answered absently, "we've got to have it."

"I'm glad we found things so slowly," Susannah dreamily. "It adds to the wonder and magic of it all. It makes the dream last longer. It keeps our romance always at the boiling point."

She put one arm about her husband's neck and kissed him. Lindsay turned; kissed her.

"At least we have the major pieces back," Susannah said contentedly.

"And little Lutetia Murray Lindsay will grow up in almost the same surroundings that Susannah Ayer enjoyed. Oh--today--when I carried her over to the wall of the nursery, she noticed the Weejubs; she actually put her hand out to touch them."

"Oh, there's something here for you--from Rome--just came in the mail,"

Lindsay exclaimed. "It's addressed to Susannah Delano too."

"From Rome!" Susannah e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Susannah Delano!" She cut the strings of the package. Under the wrappings appeared--swathed in tissue paper--a picture. A letter dropped from the envelope. Susannah seized it; turned to the signature.

"Garrison Monroe!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Oh, dear dear Uncle Garry, he's alive after all!" She read the letter aloud, the tears welling in her eyes.

"How wonderful!" she commented when she finished. "You see, he's apparently specialized in tomb-sculpture."

She pulled the tissue paper from the picture. Their heads met, examining it.

"Oh, how lovely!" Susannah exclaimed in a hushed voice. And "It's beautiful!" Lindsay agreed in a low tone.

It was the photograph of a bit of sculptured marble; a woman swathed in rippling draperies lying, at ease, on her side. One hand, palm upward, fingers a little curled, lay by her cheek; the other fell across her breast. A veil partially obscured the delicate profile. But from every veiled feature, from every line of the figure, from every fold in the drapery, exuded rest.

"It's perfect!" Susannah said, still in a low tone. "Perfect. Many a time she's fallen asleep just like than when we've all been talking and laughing. When she slept, her hand always lay close to her face as it is here. She always wore long floating scarves. You see he had to do her face from photographs ... and memory.... He's used that scarf device to conceal.... How beautiful! How beautiful!"

There came silence.

"Mrs. Spash says he was in love with her," Susannah went on. "Of course I was too young. I didn't realize it. But it's all here, I think. Did you notice that part of the letter where he says that for the last year or two his mind has been full of her? And of all his life here? That's very pathetic, isn't it? Now there will be a fitting monument over her.... He says it will be here in a few months. We must send him pictures when it's put on her grave. How happy it makes me! He says he's nearly eighty.... How beautiful.... You're not listening to me," she accused her husband with sudden indignation. But her indignation tempered itself by a flurry of little kisses when, following the direction of his piercing gaze, she saw it ended on the miniature which hung beside the secretary. "Looking at Glorious Lutie!" she mocked tenderly. "How that miniature fascinates you! Sometimes," she added, obviously inventing whimsical cause for grievance, "sometimes I think you're as much in love with her as you are with me."

"If I am," Lindsay agreed, "it's because there's so much of you in her."

THE END