Seven Keys to Baldpate Part 22

"That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the ma.n.u.script of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation."

Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door.

"Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking."

"One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that."

"Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max.

"Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short."

"Please," beamed Miss Norton.

With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close.

"It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast.

"Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertis.e.m.e.nt, owing to the heritage of too many table d'hotes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why.

"I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator.

This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard.

"'She cast you off?' I asked.

"'She threw me down,' said he.

"Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to p.r.o.nounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it."

The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle.

"'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.'

"I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a b.u.t.terfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting.

"'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands.

I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.'

"He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance.

Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am.

Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann.

"As we walked back over the sands and gra.s.s-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me.

"We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the b.u.t.terfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone.

"'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.'

"I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck.

It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.'

"McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me.

I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!'

"McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going.

'Ash.o.r.e,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again."

The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into s.p.a.ce.

"That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit."

"As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton.

"Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized."

"Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max.

"I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter.

And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister."

"But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr.

Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that.

Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character."

Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved.

"Just one tiny day," she pleaded.

Mr. Peters sighed. He rose.

"I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though n.o.body knows where it'll lead."

"Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror.

The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain.

"Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how Caesar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels."

Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr.

Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before.

"I'll make you believe in me yet," he said.

She did not turn her head.

"The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then."

"Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it."

"No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me."