Seven Miles to Arden Part 24

But Patsy, slipping into her tent, hardly heard the last. If they played Greyfriars the next day, that meant they would leave Arden on the first train after they were packed; and that meant she was pa.s.sing once and for all beyond tramping reach of the tinker. There was a dull ache at her heart which she attempted neither to explain nor to a.n.a.lyze; it was there--that was enough. With impatient fingers she tore off Rosalind's wedding finery and attacked her make-up. Then she lingered over her dressing, hoping to avoid the rest of the company and any congratulatory friends who might happen to be browsing around. She wanted to be alone with her memories--to have and to hold them a little longer before they should grow too dim and far away.

A hand scratched at the flap of her tent and Janet Payne's voice broke into her reverie: "Can't we see you, please, for just a moment?

We'll solemnly promise not to stay long."

Patsy hooked back the flap and forced the semblance of a welcome into her greeting.

"It was simply ripping!" chorused the Dempsy Carters, each gripping a hand.

Janet Payne looked down upon her with adoring eyes. "It was the best, the very best I've ever seen you or any one else play it. For the first time Rosalind seemed a real girl."

But it was the voice of Gregory Jessup that carried above the others: "Have you heard, Miss O'Connell? Burgeman died last night, and Billy was with him. He's come home."

"Faith! then there's some virtue in signs, after all."

A hush fell on the group. Patsy suddenly put out her hand. "I'm glad for you--I'm glad for him; and I hope it ended right. Did you see him?"

"For a few minutes. There wasn't time to say much; but he looked like a man who had won out. He said he and the old man had had a good talk together for the first time in their lives--said it had given him a father whose memory could never shame him or make him bitter. I wanted to tell you, so you wouldn't have him on your mind any longer."

She smiled retrospectively. "Thank you; but I heaved him off nearly twenty-four hours ago."

Left to herself again, she finished her packing; then tying under her chin a silly little poke-bonnet of white chiffon and corn-flowers, still somewhat crushed from its long imprisonment in a trunk, she went back for a last glimpse of the Forest and her Greenwood tree.

The place was deserted except for the teamsters who had come for the tents and the property trunks. A flash of white against the green of the tree caught her eye; for an instant she thought it one of Orlando's poetic effusions, overlooked in the play and since forgotten. Idly curious, she pulled it down and read it--once, twice, three times:

Where twin oaks rustle in the wind, There waits a lad for Rosalind.

If still she be so wond'rous kind, Perchance she'll ease the fretted mind That naught can cure--but Rosalind.

With a glad little cry she crumpled the paper in her hand and fled, straight as a throstle to its mate, to the giant twin oaks which were landmarks in the forest. Her eyes were a-search for a vagabond figure in rags; it was small wonder, therefore, that they refused to acknowledge the man in his well-cut suit of gray who was leaning partly against the hole of a tree and partly on a pilgrim staff. She stood and stared and gave no sign of greeting.

"Well, so the Duke's daughter found her rhyme?"

"I'm not knowing whether I'll own ye or not. Sure, ye've no longer the look of an honest tinker; and maybe we'd best part company now--before we meet at all."

But the tinker had her firmly by both hands. "That's too late now. I would have come in rags if there'd been anything left of them, but they are the only things I intend to part company with. And do you know"--he gripped her hands tighter--"I met an acquaintance as I came this way who told me, with eyes nearly popping out of his head, that the wonderful little person who had played herself straight into hundreds of hearts had actually been his cook for three days. Oh, la.s.s! la.s.s! how could you do it!"

"Troth! G.o.d made me a better cook than actress. Ye wouldn't want me to be slighting His handiwork entirely, would ye?"

The tinker shook his head at her. "Do you know what I wanted to say to every one of those people who had been watching you? I wanted to say: 'You think she is a wonderful actress; she is more than that.

She is a rare, sweet, true woman, better and finer than any play she may act in or any part she may play in it. I, the tinker, have discovered this; and I know her better than does any one else in the whole world.'"

"Is that so?" A teasing touch of irony crept into Patsy's voice.

"'Tis a pity, now, the manager couldn't be hearing ye; he might give ye a chance to understudy Orlando."

"And you think I'd be content to understudy any one! Why, I'm going to pitch Orlando straight out of the Forest of Arden; I'm going to pull Willie Shakespeare out of his grave and make him rewrite the whole play--putting a tinker in the leading role."

"And is it a tragedy ye would have him make it?"

"Would it be a tragedy to take a tinker 'for better--for worse'?"

"Faith! that would depend on the tinker."

"Oh-ho, so it's up to the tinker, is it? Well, the tinker will prove it otherwise; he will guarantee to keep the play running pure comedy to the end. So that settles it, Miss Patricia O'Connell--alias Rosalind, alias the cook--alias Patsy--the best little comrade a lonely man ever found. I am going to marry you the day after to-morrow, right here in Arden."

Patsy looked at him long and thoughtfully from under the beguiling shadow of the white chiffon, corn-flower sunbonnet. "'Tis a shame, just, to discourage anything so brave as a self-made--tinker. But I'll not be here the day after to-morrow. And what's more, a man is a fool to marry any woman because he's lonely and she can cook."

The tinker's eyes twinkled. "I don't know. A man might marry for worse reasons." Then he grew suddenly sober and his eyes looked deep into hers. "But you know and I know that that is not my reason for wanting you, or yours for taking me."

"I didn't say I would take ye." This time it was Patsy's eyes that twinkled. "Do ye think it would be so easy to give up my career--the big success I've hoped and worked and waited for--just--just for a tinker? I'd be a fool to think of it." She was smiling inwardly at her own power of speech, which made what she held as naught sound of such immeasurable consequence.

But the tinker smiled outwardly. "Where did you say you were going to be the day after to-morrow?"

"That's another thing I did not say. If ye are going to marry me 'tis your business to find me." She freed her hands and started off without a backward glance at him.

"Patsy, Patsy!" he called after her, "wouldn't you like to know the name of the man you're going to marry?"

She turned and faced him. Framed in the soft, green fringe of the trees, she seemed to him the very embodiment of young summer--the free, untrammeled spirit of Arden. Ever since the first he had been growing more and more conscious of what she was: a nature vital, beautiful, tender, untouched by the searing things of life--trusting and worthy of trust; but it was not until this moment that he realized the future promise of her. And the realization swept all his smoldering love aflame into his eyes and lips. His arms went out to her in a sudden, pa.s.sionate appeal.

"Patsy--Patsy! Would the name make any difference?"

"Why should it?" she cried, with saucy coquetry. "I'm marrying the man and not his name. If I can stand the one, I can put up with the other, I'm thinking. Anyhow, 'twill be on the marriage license the day after to-morrow, and that's time enough."

"Do you really mean you would marry a man, not knowing his name or anything about his family--or his income--or--"

"That's the civilized way, isn't it?--to find out about those things first; and afterward it's time enough when you're married to get acquainted with your man. But that's not the way that leads off the road to Arden--and it's not my way. I know my man now--G.o.d bless him." And away she ran through the trees and out of sight.

The tinker watched the trees and underbrush swing into place, covering her exit. So tense and motionless he stood, one might have suspected him of trying to conjure her back again by the simple magic of heart and will. It turned out a disappointing piece of conjuring, however; the green parted again, but not to redisclose Patsy. A man, instead, walked into the open, toward the giant oaks, and one glimpse of him swept the tinker's memory back to a certain afternoon and a cross-roads. He could see himself sitting propped up by the sign-post, watching the door of a little white church, while down the road clattered a sorrel mare and a runabout. And the man that drove--the man who was trailing Patsy--was the man that came toward him now, looking for--some one.

"You haven't seen--" he began, but the tinker interrupted him:

"Guess not. I've been watching the company break up. Rather interesting to any one not used to that sort of thing--don't you think?"

The man eyed him narrowly; then cautiously he dropped into an att.i.tude of exaggerated indifference. "It sure is--young feller. Now you hain't been watchin' that there leadin' lady more particularly, have you? I sort o' cal'ate she might have a takin' way with the fellers," and he prodded the tinker with a jocular thumb.

The tinker responded promptly with a foolish grin. "Maybe I have; but the luck was dead against me. Guess she had a lot of friends with her. I saw them carry her off in triumph in a big touring-car--probably they'll dine her at the country club."

The man did not wait for further exchange of pleasantries. He took the direction the tinker indicated, and the tinker watched him go with a suppressed chuckle.

"History positively stutters sometimes. Now if that property-man knew what he was talking about the company will be safe out of Arden before a runabout could make the country club and back." But the tinker's mirth was of short duration. With a shout of derision, he slapped the pocket of his trousers viciously.

"What a confounded fool I am! Why in the name of reason didn't I give them to him and stop this sleuth business before it really gets her into trouble? Of all the idiotic--senseless--" and, leaning on the pilgrim staff, he slowly hobbled in the same direction he had given the man.

One last piece of news concerning Billy Burgeman came to Patsy before she left Arden that afternoon. Gregory Jessup was at the station to see her off, and he took her aside for the few minutes before the train arrived.

"I tried to get Billy to join me--knew it would do him good to meet you; but he wouldn't budge. I rather think he's still a trifle sore on girls. Nothing personal, you understand?"

Patsy certainly did--far better than his friend knew. In her heart she was trying her best to be interested and grateful to the Rich Man's Son for his unconscious part in her happiness. Had it not been for him there would have been no quest, no road; and without the road there would have been no tinker; and without the tinker, no happiness. It was none the less hard to be interested, however, now that her mind had given over the lonely occupation of contemplating memories for that most magical of all mental crafts--future-building.

She jerked up her attention sharply as Gregory Jessup began speaking again.