The Man in Lonely Land Part 10

"A mother and six children." Laine made some notes in a book and put it back in his pocket. "I'm going out. Have a cab here at eight-thirty. The things I bring back will be put in the room at the end of the hall. On Christmas Eve you are to buy what I've mentioned in this"--he handed him an envelope--"and with them take the bundles in the room to the place you went to yesterday. You are not to know who sent them, and when you come back you are to forget you've been, and no one is to be told. You have a great habit of telling Dorothea things. I'm understood, am I?"

"Yes, sir. You is understood, I know about a left hand and a right hand. G.o.d knows I'll be glad to go again if it's to take some Christmas to them. That woman's face kinder hant me ever sence I seen it. 'Twasn't mad or nothin', but plum beat out. I had to make a little egg-nog for my stomach when I got home. 'Tain't time for egg-nog, but a disturbance in the stomach--"

"You're having a disturbance in your stomach too often. Get that cab, will you, and tell them to hurry."

Two hours later he was back. No doubt he had done foolishly, bought unwisely; but there had been no time for indecision, and the woman who waited on him had been a great help. As he was shown warm dresses and thick coats for the mother and little girls, suits and shoes and stockings for the boys, bedclothing, towels, soap, ribbons, and neckties, he had smiled at the absurdity of his opinion being asked concerning things of which he was as ignorant as a blind baby; but with determination he kept on until the woman told him he had gotten enough. With the toys he was more confident; and, remembering Claudia's restrictions, he had exercised what he believed was excellent judgment and only bought what was probably appropriate.

When the bed in the end room had been piled with his purchases, the door locked, and the key in Moses's pocket, Laine went into the library, turned off its brilliant lights, and, leaving only the lamp burning, closed the door, sat down in his high-back chair, and lighted a cigar. After the stir and glow of the store the silence of the room was oppressive, its emptiness chilled, and, unthinking, he put his hand down by the side of his chair and nipped his fingers as he was wont to do when calling General. With an indrawn breath he drew his hand back and put it in his pocket. His Christmas shopping was over. A very unexpected Christmas shopping it had been. In all that city of millions there were few personal purchases to be made for others. What had to be gotten Hope got. Not since the death of his mother had Christmas meant more than something to be dreaded and endured. And to Claudia it meant so much.

Why had she come into his life? Why was hers the divine gift of recognition which dispensed with the formal development of friendship and yielded, as a flower its fragrance, the warmth and gladness, the surety and genuineness, that so long he had looked for. Apparently she was as unconscious as Dorothea, and yet too many men had loved her for her not to understand. Not by the subtlest sign had she shown, however. Indifference or dislike would have been more encouraging, but her cordial frankness had been that of unstirred depths.

Suppose she was engaged to another man? Was that any reason why he should not tell her of his love, ask her to be his wife? Puritanic scruples such as his were beyond pardon. A sense of honor might go too far. Why didn't he find out if it were true what Dorothea had told him? G.o.d! To have had a vision, only to go through life in darkness!

An hundred times in fancy he had heard the sweep of her skirts, the sound of her footsteps, the tones of her voice, and laughter gay and sweet and soft; an hundred times had seen the glad eyes grow grave, the forehead wrinkle in fine folds, the quick turn of her head; an hundred times had felt the touch of her hands; and he had never asked Hope to bring her to his home, lest her spirit should not come again.

The badinage of other days came to him, the days when women had rather bothered. They would be amused, these women, did they know his surrender to the G.o.d unknown at that time--the G.o.d he had sometimes smiled at because he had not known. Day after to-morrow she was going home. He had not seen her since the afternoon they had been shopping together. The man from Washington had claimed her time, and he had stayed away. Who was this man? To ask Hope or Channing had been impossible. Dorothea would be delighted to tell him. The instincts of her s.e.x were well developed in Dorothea; and she missed no chance of letting him know of Claudia's engagements, of what she did, and where she went, and from whom her flowers came.

Doubtless she would be delighted to tell him even more.

He got up and began to walk the length and breadth of the room. The sound of his footsteps was lost in the heavy rugs, and only the ticking of the clock broke the stillness, and presently it struck the hour of midnight. He took out his watch and looked at it. "Tomorrow she is going home," he said.

XIV

AN INFORMAL VISIT

At the door of what was still called the nursery Laine stood a moment, hesitating whether to go in or to go away. In a low rocking-chair Claudia was holding Channing, half-asleep in her arms; and at her feet Dorothea, on a footstool, elbows on knees and chin in the palms of her hands, was listening so intently to the story being told that for half a minute his presence was not noted.

Presently she looked up and saw him. "Come in." Her voice was a high whisper. "It's the grandest story. Wait a minute, Cousin Claudia." She ran toward the door and drew him in. "You'll have to stay with us," she said, "because mother and father have gone out.

Some kind of a relation is in town and they had to go. Channing's got an awful cold, and mother said he could have anything he wanted, and he took Cousin Claudia to tell him stories. She's been doing it ever since dinner. He's asleep now, but--"

"I'm not asleep." Channing's eyes opened blinkingly. "She said they found the squirrel in a hollow down by the chestnut-tree, and the moonlight on the snow--the moonlight--on--the--snow." His head fell back on Claudia's bosom and, with a smile, she nodded to Laine and held out her hand.

"The spirit is valiant, but the flesh prevails. I'm so sorry Hope and Channing are out."

"I'm not." He drew a cushioned wicker chair close to the fire.

"It's been long since I heard a good fairy story. Please don't stop."

Dorothea pushed the stool aside and settled herself comfortably in her uncle's lap. "It isn't a fairy story. You don't tell fairy stories at Christmas; they're for summer, when the windows are open and they can hide in the flowers and ride on the wind--the fairies, I mean--but this is Christmas." She twisted herself into a knot of quivering joy and hugged her arms with rapturous intensity. "It's all in my bones, and I'm nothing but shivers. Isn't it grand to have Christmas in your bones? Have you got it in yours?" She held Laine's face between her hands and looked at it anxiously. "Cousin Claudia has it in hers. She and I are just alike. We've been filling stockings to-day for some children Timkins told us about.

They live near him, and their mother is sick and their father is dead, and they haven't a bit of money. Channing and I are going to hang our stockings up here before we go to grandmother's, and we're going to hang them up there again. I wish we were going to Cousin Claudia's. Of course, I love to go to grandmother's, but she lives in town and they don't have snow in Savannah; and at Cousin Claudia's they have everything. I mean everything Christmasy like I like.

She's been telling us about when she was a little girl."

Dorothea's feet twisted around each other and her hands were laid palm to palm as her body swayed backward and forward in rhythmic movement. "They go out in the woods and cut cart-loads of holly and mistletoe and pine and Christmas-trees, and dress the house, and the fires roar up all the chimneys, and they kill the pigs--"

Channing sat upright and rubbed his eyes. "They don't kill the pigs at Christmas. She said they kill them when the persimmons get ripe."

"Well, they're killed and you eat them Christmas. They put a little one on the table with an apple in its mouth. And they pick out the fattest turkeys and ducks and geese and chickens; and they go to the smoke-house and punch and poke the hams and things; and the oysters come from the river; and Mammy Malaprop comes up from the gate, where she lives now, and helps make the cakes and the, pies and plum-puddings and beaten biscuits; and Cousin Claudia says when she was a little girl Mammy Malaprop always gave her some of the Christmas cake to bake in egg-sh.e.l.ls. I wish I could see somebody make a cake. And Christmas Eve they make egg-nog, and Uncle Bushrod makes the apple toddy two weeks before." She turned to her uncle.

"Why don't you go down there, Uncle Winthrop? I bet you'd get Christmas in your bones if you did."

"I am very sure of it." Laine fixed Dorothea more firmly on his lap.

"There is only one reason in the world why I don't go."

"What's that? We're going away, and you will be all alone if you don't. Can't he come, Cousin Claudia? He'd love it. I know he would."

"I don't." Claudia moved her chair farther from the firelight.

"Christmas at Elmwood would be punishment for a city man. We are much too primitive and old-fashioned. He would prefer New York."

"Would you?" Dorothea's arms were around her uncle's neck, and her head nodded at his. "Would you?"

"I would not." Laine's voice was a little queer. "The punishment is all at this end. I would rather spend Christmas at Elmwood than anywhere on earth. But your Cousin Claudia will not let me, Dorothea."

"Won't you really?" Dorothea slipped from his lap, and, with hands on the arms of Claudia's chair, gazed anxiously in her eyes. "He'll be all alone if you don't. Please ask him, Cousin Claudia! You said yourself there was always so much company at Elmwood that one more never mattered and you managed to put them somewhere. Please--oh, please ask him, Cousin Claudia!"

Claudia kissed the lips held close to her own. "I think it is time for you to be in bed, Dorothea. You are making your uncle say things he doesn't mean. He can come to Elmwood if he wishes, but--"

Dorothea sprang back and, with arms extended and fingers flipping, danced round and round the room. "How magnificent! Now I won't have a thing on my mind!" With a last whirl she jumped in Laine's lap and took his hands in hers. "That's the only thing I hated about Christmas, your being here all by yourself." She gave a deep breath.

"And now you'll be in that heavenly place with Cousin Claudia. When I get big I'm going there and hunt by the light of the moon, and hear the darkies sing when they're having a party with possum and hoe-cake, and--" She sat upright. "Did you know Cousin Claudia was going home to-morrow?"

Laine nodded. Speech had suddenly left him. He did not know whether to take Dorothea in the next room and lock her up or hold her close to his heart. What had the child done and made Claudia do?

Christmas at Elmwood! His blood surged thickly, and as Dorothea settled back in his arms he looked up and met Claudia's eyes.

"I'm so scrumptious happy I feel like I'm in heaven!" Dorothea wriggled in sleepy content. "Please finish that story you were telling when Uncle Winthrop came in, Cousin Claudia. You had gotten to where the little boy and the little girl were knocking at the door of the big house with the wreaths in the windows, and it was snowing.

I couldn't sleep to save my life if I didn't know whether they got in or not. Please finish it."

Claudia hesitated, then, changing Channing's position, finished the story and glanced at the clock. "It is time for you to be in bed, Dorothea. I have some notes to write and some packing to--"

"Just one more and that's all." Dorothea cuddled closer. "It's so nice and home-y with just us in here. Please don't make me go yet.

Tell Uncle Winthrop a story"--she blinked bravely--"and then I'll go--to--bed."

Laine leaned back and turned off the light from the lamp on the table behind him, and as the firelight played on Claudia's soft, blue dress, on the slippered feet tapping the stool on which they rested, ran up to the open throat and touched the brown hair, parted and brushed back in simple fashion, he held Dorothea close lest words he must not speak be spoken. Presently he looked toward her.

"I am waiting," he said. "Will you tell me a story, Santa Claudia?"

"A story?" Her eyes were watching the curling flames. "What kind shall I tell you? I do not know the kind you like."

"I would like any kind that you would tell me."

She leaned her head back against the cushioned chair, and again her lashes seemed to touch her cheek. For a moment the soft silence was unbroken, then she turned her face toward him.

"Very well," she said. "I will tell you a story. It will be about the man who did not know."

XV

THE MAN WHO DID NOT KNOW