The Purple Heights Part 38

"Excuse me for not goin' up with you, on account of my hands bein'

in the mixin'-bowl. It's a picture, ain't it? You just step right upstairs and set it on the mantel or anywheres you like. I'll tell her you been here."

And so he placed it on the mantel, where the north light fell full upon it, waved his hand to it, and went away. It would tell her all that was in his heart for her. It would explain himself. The Red Admiral would a.s.sure that!

Anne had been having rather a troublesome time. She had written to Marcia and to Berkeley Hayden the night before, and the letters had been posted only that morning. She had had to be very explicit, to make her position perfectly plain to them both, and the letters had not been easy to write. But when she had finally written them, she had really succeeded in explaining her true self. There was no doubt as to her entire truthfulness, or the finality of this decision of hers. When she posted those letters, she knew that a page of her life had been turned down, the word "Finis" written at the bottom of it. She had tossed aside a brilliant social career, a high position, a great fortune,--and counted it all well lost. Her one regret was to have to disappoint Marcia. She loved Marcia. And she hoped that Berkeley wouldn't despise her.

She was agitated, perturbed, and yet rapturously happy. She wished to be alone to hug that happiness to her heart, and so she had gone out under the apple-trees at the far end of the Thatcher orchard, and lay there all her long length in the good green gra.s.s. The place was full of sweet and drowsy odors. Birds called and fluted.

b.u.t.terflies and bees came and went. She had never felt so close to Mother Earth as she did to-day, never so keenly sensed the joy of being alive.

After a while she arose, reluctantly, and went back to the house and her rooms. She was remembering that she hadn't yet written to Jason, and she wanted Jason to know. Inside her sitting-room door she stopped short, eyes widened, lips fallen apart. On the mantel, glowing, jewel-like in the clear, pure light, herself confronted her. Herself as a great artist saw and loved her.

She stood transfixed. The sheer power and beauty of the work, that spell which falls upon one in the presence of all great art, held her entranced. Her own eyes looked, at her as if they challenged her; her own smile baffled her; there was that in the pictured face which brought a cry to her lips. Oh, was she so fair in his eyes?

Only great love, as well as great genius, could have so portrayed her!

This was herself as she might be, grown finer, and of a larger faith, a deeper and sweeter charity. A sort of awe touched her. This man who loved her, who had the power of showing her herself as she might pray to become, this wonderful lover of hers, was no mere amateur with a pretty gift. This was one of the few, one of the torch-bearers!

And then she noticed the Red Admiral in the corner. She stared at it unbelievingly. That b.u.t.terfly! Why--why--She had read of one who signed with a b.u.t.terfly above his name pictures that were called great. A thought that made her brain swim and her heart beat suffocatingly crashed upon her like a clap of thunder. She walked toward the mantel like one in a daze, until she stood directly before the painting.

And it was his b.u.t.terfly. And under it was his name: _Peter Devereaux Champneys_.

The room bobbed up and down. But she didn't faint, she didn't scream. She caught hold of the mantel to steady herself. She wondered how she hadn't known; she had the same sense of wild amazement that must fill one who has been brought face to face with a stupendous, a quite impossible miracle. Such a thing couldn't happen: and yet it is so! And oddly enough, out of this welter of her thoughts, there came to her memory a screened bed in a hospital ward, and a dying gutter-girl looking at her with unearthly eyes and telling her in a thin whisper:

"I wanted to see if you was good enough for _him_. You ain't. But remember what I'm tellin' you--you could be."

Pierre--Peter Champneys! She slipped to her knees and hid her face in her shaking hands. Peter Champneys! As in a lightning flash she saw him as that girl Gracie had seen him. Pierre--Pierre, with his eyes of an archangel, his lips that were the chrism of life--_this_ was Peter Champneys! And she had hated him, let him go, all unknowing, she had wished to put in _his_ place Berkeley Hayden. The handsome, worldly figure of Hayden seemed to dwindle and shrink.

Pierre stood as on a height, looking at her steadfastly. Her head went lower. Tears trickled between her fingers.

_You ain't good enough for him, but you could be_.

"I can be, I can be! Oh, G.o.d, I can be! Only let him love me--when he knows!"

She heard Mrs. Thatcher's voice downstairs, after a while. Then a deeper voice, a man's voice, with a note of impatience and eagerness in it.

"No, don't call her. I'll go right on up," said the voice, over the feminine apologies and protests. "I have to see her--I must see her now. No, I can't wait."

Somebody came flying up the steps. She hadn't closed her door, and his tall figure seemed to fill it. He stopped, with a gasp, at sight of the weeping woman kneeling before the picture on the mantel.

"Anne!" he cried. "Anne!" And he would have raised her, but she clung to his knees, lifting her tear-stained face, her eyes full of an adoration that would never leave them until life left them.

"Peter!" she cried. "Peter! That--that b.u.t.terfly! I know now, Peter!"

Again he tried to raise her, but she clasped his knees all the closer.

"You mean you know my name is really Peter Champneys, dearest?"

But she caught his hands. "Peter, Peter, don't you understand?" she cried, laughing and weeping. "I--I'm the ogress! I'm Nancy Simms!

I'm Anne Champneys!"

He looked from her to her portrait and back again. He gave a great ringing cry of, "My wife!" and lifted her in a mighty grip that swept her up and into his arms. "My wife!" he cried. "My wife!"

Undoubtedly the Red Admiral was a fairy!

On a certain morning Mr. Jason Vandervelde was sitting at his desk, disconnectedly dictating a letter to his secretary. He was finding it very difficult to fix his mind upon his correspondence. What the mischief was happening up there in Maine, anyhow? She hadn't written for some time; and he hadn't had a word from Peter Champneys. And when Marcia came home and found out he'd been meddling--well, the meddler would have to pay the fiddler, that's all!

The office boy came in with a telegram. Mr. Vandervelde paused in his dictation, tore open the envelop, and read the message. And then the horrified secretary saw an amazing and an awesome sight. Mr.

Jason Vandervelde bounced to his feet as lightly as though he had been a rubber ball, and performed a solemnly joyful dance around his office. His eyegla.s.ses jigged on his nose, a lock of his sleekly brushed hair fell upon his forehead. Meeting the fixed stare of the secretary, he winked! And with a sort of elephantine religiosity he finished his amazing measure, caught once more the gla.s.sy eye of the secretary, and panted:

"King David danced before the ark--of the Lord. For which reason--your salary is raised--from to-day."

He stopped then, s.n.a.t.c.hed the telegram off his desk, and read it again:

We have met and I have married my wife. Anne sends love.

Thank you and G.o.d bless you, Vandervelde!

PETER CHAMPNEYS.

"Put up that note-book. Take a day off. Go and enjoy yourself. Be happy!" said Vandervelde to the secretary. Then he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the desk telephone.

"The florist's? Yes? How soon can you get six dozen bride roses up here, to Mr. Vandervelde's office? Yes, this is Mr. Vandervelde speaking. You can? Well, there's a thumping tip for somebody who knows how to rush! Half an hour? Thank you. I'll wait for 'em here."

He hung up the receiver and turned his beaming countenance to the stunned secretary. His eyes twinkled like little blue stars, the corners of his mouth curled more than usual.

"Anne and Peter Champneys have been and gone and married each other!" he chuckled. "I'm going to take a carful of bride roses around to the Champneys house and put 'em under old Chadwick Champneys's portrait!"

THE END