Read Ebook: The Land of Content by Delano Edith Barnard Henry J Illustrator

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Ebook has 1444 lines and 76050 words, and 29 pages

His thoughts were still full of his journey, and Spring on the Avenue only brought up memories--so lately realities--of the breath of the woods, the wind in the tree-tops, the brown and green of fields so lately seen; and Flood had reached that state of mind where all that was sweet in memory, all that was beautiful in the present, all that he desired from the future, only reminded him of the one woman.

Several times, through the crowd, he thought he saw her, and went more quickly forward; but as often he fell back, disappointed. Suddenly, in answer to a firm grasp on his arm, he turned.

"Ah, Marshall!" he said, not too enthusiastically.

"I say, Benny, is it a wager? You're stalking up the Avenue without a word or a look for anybody, trampling on people, mowing them down by the thousand like a Juggernaut from the West! That's how I traced you, by the bodies strewn in your path."

Flood was always amused by Pendleton's nonsense; yet now he smiled and said nothing. To-day it was not Pendleton he wanted to see. The other seemed to divine this.

"You don't seem very sociable," he remarked. "Did your lone trip to Virginia give you a confirmed taste for solitude?"

Again Flood smiled; he could no more resist Pendleton's aimless chatter than a large dog can resist the playfulness of a small one. His side-long glance had to go downwards to meet Marshall's.

"Quite the contrary," he said. "I've bought the old Gore place in Berkeley and now I want to fill it up with guests. I count on you to help me out, Marshall."

"Right you are! Come up to Mrs. Maxwell's with me, and we'll get dear Cecilia to help us out, too!"

Flood's face suddenly hardened a little. It was an unconscious trick of his under the stress of any sudden emotion; in effect, it was as if a hand had passed over his features, leaving them expressionless. Many a game had he won, mastered many a situation, by means of it.

He paused perceptibly before he answered Pendleton. Then he said, "I shall have to leave that to you!"

"You're too modest, Benny," Pendleton said, shaking his head. "Remember your taxes, man, not to mention your bank account, and don't let dear Cecilia awe you."

It was presently made evident enough that the dear Cecilia in question held nothing of awe for Pendleton himself; for they were no sooner in the rather austere little drawing room than he bent over Mrs. Maxwell, and, quite deliberately ignoring the five or six earlier comers, whispered in her ear:

"Get rid of the crowd, Cecilia; we've great news for you!"

Mrs. Maxwell was apparently oblivious of his whisper, for she made herself more charming than ever to the other men; yet presently, almost before Flood was aware of it, the others were gone, and she was saying:

"Well, Marshall? You always bring your little budget with you, don't you? What is it now?"

"If you're going to be, nasty, Cecilia, I won't tell you!"

Flood, who had not so far progressed as to become accustomed to such badinage, looked uneasily from Pendleton to their hostess; but Mrs. Maxwell seated herself beside him on the sofa, and calmly smiled.

Apparently she was going to ignore Pendleton for the moment. "I am always so glad when I can have my tea comfortably, without having to look after a roomful of people," she said. "You don't take it, I know, Mr. Flood, and Marshall can look out for himself. What do you think of this pink lustre cup, Mr. Flood? It's Rosamund's latest acquisition."

Flood had, after all, learned much in his three years. He bent forward to examine the cup, while Mrs. Maxwell turned its iridescent beauty towards the light.

"It is adorable," he said. "Is Miss Randall hunting for more to-day?"

Again his face had quickly become expressionless, but neither of the others were aware of it, and his question was doomed to remain unanswered.

Pendleton could no longer withhold his news. "Benny's just back from Virginia, Cecilia," he said. "He's bought Oakleigh."

"I think it's West Virginia, and it's just a little farm, you know," Flood said, weakly; but his geography was entirely immaterial to the others.

"Oakleigh? The Gore place?"

Flood still found it amazing that so many people knew so many other people; his lately made acquaintances in New York always seemed to know all about his lately made acquaintances in Florida or Virginia or the Berkshires, or, for that matter, in Europe. It was another of the things to which he had not yet become accustomed.

"And he wants you and me to help him fill it up with people," Pendleton went on, with the frankness for which he was famous.

Mrs. Maxwell looked quickly over her tea-cup at Flood, raising her eyebrows ever so slightly. For once Flood could not control his expression; his face flushed deeply as he leaned towards her.

"If you only would!" he begged. "I thought--I scarcely dared to hope--that perhaps if--if Miss Randall came along, too, you might consent to play hostess for a lone man?"

Cecilia was a practiced campaigner, as she had had need to be during the dreary years before she had Rosamund's money to count upon; instantly she recalled the place Flood could afford to call a "little farm," Oakleigh, white-pillared and stately, with its kennels and stables and conservatories. She could not imagine why he had chosen her unless it were thanks to Pendleton; yet, to be hostess of Oakleigh, even for a week or two, distinctly appealed to her. It would be possible enough, if she were to go as Rosamund's chaperon. Even Flood had seen that; and if it were left to her to fill its rooms with guests, how many debts might she not cancel! The opportunity was wonderful, a gift from Heaven; but could she count upon Rosamund? Would Rosamund go? There was a lack of complacency in Rosamund that her sister frequently found trying; she wondered how far she might dare to commit her to accepting Flood's invitation. Yet daring and Cecilia were not strangers, and the opportunity was unique.

"I am not sure of Rosamund's dates," she said.

Flood hesitated; but Pendleton, too, had been thinking about the splendor of Oakleigh.

"Oh, but Benny has no dates for Oakleigh yet!" he said. "So you may set your own time, Cecilia. Isn't that so, Benny?"

"If you only will," Flood besought her.

After all, Cecilia thought, there was nothing Rosamund could do, if she definitely promised for her!

"Then I think June will be quite perfect," she said, and said it none too soon; for the door was suddenly framing the vision of Flood's desire.

For an instant she seemed almost to sway in the doorway, as if she had come to the utmost limit of strength; she was paler than he had ever seen her, and, he thought, more lovely. He could never behold her without an immediate sense of abasement. Her beauty was of that indefinable sort which touches the heart and imagination rather than storms the senses. Men did not look upon her as at some beautiful creature on exhibition; always they looked, to be sure, but straightway the masculine appraisement of their gaze changed to the look one bestows upon some high and lovely thing. Her face had that fullness through the temples that Murillo loved; her eyes, hazel or brown or gray, changing in color with the responsive widening of the pupils, were rather far apart, deeply set, warm with interest when she looked directly at you; dark hair, ruddily brown, that broke into curl whenever a strand escaped, framed her face closely, and was always worn more simply than fashion demanded. She was tall enough to play a man's games well, and the impression that she gave was one of vigor and alertness, almost of impatience. This was the first time Flood had seen her tired.

And, as always when he saw her, it swept over him that she was, alone and above all others, the woman he wanted. She was beautiful, but it was not her beauty, not her social eminence, certainly not her wealth, nor anything that she might be said to represent, that constituted her appeal for him. There was that in her which he had not met elsewhere in his countrywomen, though frequently enough in France and England, a simplicity, a calmness, a dignity, which he interpreted as a consciousness that she needed no pretense, no further struggle or ambition to be other than just what she was. And what she was, was what he very much wanted. For him, she was the bright sum of all desire, the embodiment of everything rare and fine, which he now craved all the more because they had been denied him in his earlier years. Months before, since the first time he saw her, he had known that, and accepted it as an inspiration, as he had accepted and lived upon the fine flashes of imagination that had led him on to fortune in those western days, when imagination and courage had been his stock in trade; it was only the ultimate, and by far the most important, of those!

But Miss Randall was certainly unaware that she aroused in anyone in her drawing-room stronger feelings than the mild ones which usually accompany afternoon tea. After an instant's survey from the doorway, she came into the room, trying to smile through her fatigue.

"Mercy, Rosamund! You look like a ghost! Have you been walking yourself to death again?" her sister asked.

Flood's greeting was only a silent bow and a touch of her offered hand, but Pendleton was never speechless.

"I say, Rose," he cried, "Flood's just been inviting us all down to Virginia for June, and dear Cecilia has accepted! Can you stand the joy of having me to talk to for a whole month, Rosamund?"

At a quick spark in her sister's eyes, Cecilia bent towards her and spoke somewhat hastily. "Mr. Flood has bought Oakleigh, the Gore place. Isn't it nice of him to ask us down there, first of all?"

Although to her sister her look seemed to hold many things, to Flood's infatuated eyes the girl seemed suddenly more tired, harassed, or troubled; and with another of his flashes of intuition he would not give her a chance to reply. He began to tell them about his lone journey, talking very well, quite sure of his facts and with a large enthusiasm, and in spite of herself Rosamund became more and more interested. She even smiled a little at his account of the mountain doctor's old mare and her wisdom; she even found herself willing to hear more about the doctor!

"Oh, say!" Pendleton protested; and Flood laughed, rather shamefacedly, as a man laughs when he is discovered reading a learned book or quoting a classic.

But Miss Randall would not have that. "Please don't mind him, Mr. Flood; I want to hear the rest of it."

Again Flood was taken unawares, and his face flushed; but he went on to describe the evening before the doctor's fire, the four days he had remained, a willing guest, the drives about the mountains in the doctor's buggy--lest his own car should startle the shy mountain people.

"And since I've got back, I've been finding out about him. You know how it is--meet a chap you never heard of before, and straightway find out that a dozen people you know have known him for years.

But Miss Randall, at the word, exclaimed, and with parted lips and brightening eyes leaned towards him. Flood stopped, amazed.

"Vision! His work is for vision? For the eyes?" she cried.

But Mrs. Maxwell was tired of Flood's enthusiasm. "Dear me! She is going to tell him about Eleanor! Take pity on me, Marshall, and help me to escape!" she exclaimed, jumping up.

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