Ailsa Paige: A Novel Read online

  CHAPTER II

  All the morning she had been busy in the Craig's backyard garden,clipping, training, loosening the earth around lilac, honeysuckle,and Rose of Sharon. The little German florist on the corner hadsent in two loads of richly fertilised soil and a barrel of forestmould. These she sweetened with lime, mixed in her small pan, andapplied judiciously to the peach-tree by the grape-arbour, to thethickets of pearl-gray iris, to the beloved roses, prairie climber,Baltimore bell, and General Jacqueminot. A neighbour's cat,war-scarred and bold, traversing the fences in search of singlecombat, halted to watch her; an early bee, with no blossoms yet torummage, passed and repassed, buzzing distractedly.

  The Craig's next-door neighbour, Camilla Lent, came out on her backveranda and looked down with a sleepy nod of recognition andgood-morning, stretching her pretty arms luxuriously in thesunshine.

  "You look very sweet down there, Ailsa, in your pink gingham apronand garden gloves."

  "And you look very sweet up there, Camilla, in your muslin frockand satin skin! And every time you yawn you resemble a plump,white magnolia bud opening just enough to show the pink inside!"

  "It's mean to call me plump!" returned Camilla reproachfully."Anyway, anybody would yawn with the Captain keeping the entirehousehold awake all night. I vow, I haven't slept one wink sincethat wretched news from Charleston. He thinks he's a battery ofhorse artillery now; that's the very latest development; and I shedtears and the chandeliers shed prisms every time he manoeuvres."

  "The dear old thing," said Mrs. Paige, smiling as she moved amongthe shrubs. For a full minute her sensitive lips remained tenderlycurved as she stood considering the agricultural problems beforeher. Then she settled down again, naively--like a child on itshaunches--and continued to mix nourishment for the roses.

  Camilla, lounging sideways on her own veranda window sill, restedher head against the frame, alternately blinking down at the prettywidow through sleepy eyes, and patting her lips to control thepersistent yawns that tormented her.

  "I had a horrid dream, too," she said, "about the 'Seven Sisters.'I was _Pluto_ to your _Diavoline_, and Philip Berkley was a phantomthat grinned at everybody and rattled the bones; and I waked in adreadful fright to hear uncle's spurred boots overhead, and thathorrid noisy old sabre of his banging the best furniture.

  "Then this morning just before sunrise he came into my bedroom,hair and moustache on end, and in full uniform, and attempted toread the Declaration of Independence to me--or maybe it was theConstitution--I don't remember--but I began to cry, and that alwayssends him off."

  Ailsa's quick laugh and the tenderness of her expression were heronly comments upon the doings of Josiah Lent, lately captain,United States dragoons.

  Camilla yawned again, rose, and, arranging her spreading whiteskirts, seated herself on her veranda steps in full sunshine.

  "We did have a nice party, didn't we, Ailsa?" she said, leaning alittle sideways so that she could see over the fence and down intothe Craig's backyard garden.

  "I had such a good time," responded Ailsa, looking up radiantly.

  "So did I. Billy Cortlandt is the most divine dancer. Isn'tEvelyn Estcourt pretty?"

  "She is growing up to be very beautiful some day. Stephen paid hera great deal of attention. Did you notice it?"

  "Really? I didn't notice it," replied Camilla without enthusiasm."But," she added, "I _did_ notice you and Phil Berkley on thestairs. It didn't take you long, did it?"

  Ailsa's colour rose a trifle.

  "We exchanged scarcely a dozen words," she observed sedately.

  Camilla laughed.

  "It didn't take you long," she repeated, "either of you. It wasthe swiftest case of fascination that I ever saw."

  "You are absurd, Camilla."

  "But _isn't_ he perfectly fascinating? I think he is the mostromantic-looking creature I ever saw. However," she added, foldingher slender hands in resignation, "there is nothing else to him.He's accustomed to being adored; there's no heart left in him. Ithink it's dead."

  Mrs. Paige stood looking up at her, trowel hanging loosely in hergloved hand.

  "Did anything--kill it?" she asked carelessly.

  "I don't think it ever lived very long. Anyway there is somethingmissing in the man; something blank in him. A girl's time iswasted in wondering what is going on behind those adorable eyes ofhis. Because there is nothing going on--it's all on thesurface--the charm, the man's engaging ways and manners--allsurface. . . . I thought I'd better tell you, Ailsa."

  "There was no necessity," said Ailsa calmly. "We scarcelyexchanged a dozen words."

  As she spoke she became aware of a shape behind the verandawindows, a man's upright figure passing and repassing. And now, atthe open window, it suddenly emerged into full sunlight, a spare,sinewy, active gentleman of fifty, hair and moustache thicklywhite, a deep seam furrowing his forehead from the left ear to theroots of the hair above the right temple.

  The most engaging of smiles parted the young widow's lips.

  "Good morning, Captain Lent," she cried gaily. "You have neglectedme dreadfully of late."

  The Captain came to a rigid salute.

  "April eleventh, eighteen-sixty-one!" he said with clean-cutprecision. "Good morning, Mrs. Paige! How does your garden blow?Blow--blow ye wintry winds! Ahem! How have the roseswintered--the rose of yesterday?"

  "Oh, I don't know, sir. I am afraid my sister's roses have notwintered very well. I'm really a little worried about them."

  "_I_ am worried about nothing in Heaven, on Earth, or in Hell,"said the Captain briskly. "God's will is doing night and day, Mrs.Paige. Has your brother-in-law gone to business?"

  "Oh, yes. He and Stephen went at eight this morning."

  "Is your sister-in-law well. God bless her!" shouted the Captain.

  "Uncle, you _mustn't_ shout," remonstrated Camilla gently.

  "I'm only exercising my voice,"--and to Ailsa:

  "I neglect nothing, mental, physical, spiritual, that may be of theslightest advantage to my country in the hour when everyrespiration, every pulse beat, every waking thought shall belong tothe Government which I again shall have the honour of serving."

  He bowed stiffly from the waist, to Ailsa, to his niece, turnedright about, and marched off into the house, his white moustachebristling, his hair on end.

  "Oh, dear," sighed Camilla patiently, "isn't it disheartening?"

  "He is a dear," said Ailsa. "I adore him."

  "Yes--if he'd only sleep at night. I am very selfish I suppose tocomplain; he is so happy and so interested these days--only--I amwondering--if there ever _should_ be a war--would it break his poorold heart if he couldn't go? They'll never let him, you know."

  Ailsa looked up, troubled:

  "You mean--_because_!" she said in a low voice.

  "Well _I_ don't consider him anything more than delightfullyeccentric."

  "Neither do I. But all this is worrying me ill. His heart is soentirely wrapped up in it; he writes a letter to Washington everyday, and nobody ever replies. Ailsa, it almost terrifies me tothink what might happen--and he be left out!"

  "Nothing will happen. The world is too civilised, dear."

  "But the papers talk about nothing else! And uncle takes everypaper in New York and Brooklyn, and he wants to have the editor ofthe _Herald_ arrested, and he is very anxious to hang the entirestaff of the _Daily News_. It's all well enough to stand therelaughing, but I believe there'll be a war, and then my troubleswill begin!"

  Ailsa, down on her knees again, dabbled thoughtfully in the soil,exploring the masses of matted spider-wort for new shoots.

  Camilla looked on, resignedly, her fingers playing with theloosened masses of her glossy black hair. Each was following insilence the idle drift of thought which led Camilla back to herbirthday party.

  "Twenty!" she said still more resignedly--"four years younger thanyou are, Ailsa Paige! Oh dear--and here I am, absolutelyunmarried. That is not a very ma
idenly thought, I suppose, is itAilsa?"

  "You always were a romantic child," observed Ailsa, diggingvigorously in the track of a vanishing May beetle. But when shedisinterred him her heart failed her and she let him scramble away.

  "There! He'll probably chew up everything," she said. "What asentimental goose I am!"

  "The first trace of real sentiment I ever saw you display," beganCamilla reflectively, "was the night of my party."

  Ailsa dug with energy. "_That_ is absurd! And not even funny."

  "You _were_ sentimental!"

  "I--well there is no use in answering you," concluded Ailsa.

  "No, there isn't. I've seen women look at men, and men look backagain--the way _he_ did!"

  "Dear, please don't say such things!"

  "I'm going to say 'em," insisted Camilla with malicioussatisfaction. "You've jeered at me because I'm tender-heartedabout men. Now my chance has come!"

  Ailsa began patiently: "There were scarcely a dozen wordsspoken----"

  Camilla, delighted, shook her dark curls.

  "You've said that before," she laughed. "Oh, you pretty minx!--youand your dozen words!"

  Ailsa Paige arose in wrath and stretched out a warning arm amongher leafless roses; but Camilla placed both hands on the fence topand leaned swiftly down from the veranda steps,

  "Forgive me, dear," she said penitently. "I was only trying totorment you. Kiss me and make up. I know you too well to believethat you could care for a man of that kind."

  Ailsa's face was very serious, but she lifted herself on tiptoe andthey exchanged an amicable salute across the fence.

  After a moment she said: "What did you mean by 'a man of _that_kind'?"

  Camilla's shrug was expressive. "There are stories about him."

  Ailsa looked thoughtfully into space. "Well you won't say suchthings to me again, about any man--will you, dear?"

  "You never minded them before. You used to laugh."

  "But this time," said Ailsa Paige, "it is not the least bit funny.We scarcely exchanged----"

  She checked herself, flushing with annoyance. Camilla, leaning onthe garden fence, had suddenly buried her face in both arms. Infeminine plumpness, when young, there is usually something left ofthe schoolgirl giggler.

  The pretty girl below remained disdainfully indifferent. She dug,she clipped, she explored, inhaling, with little thrills, the faintmounting odour of forest loam and sappy stems.

  "I really must go back to New York and start my own garden," shesaid, not noticing Camilla's mischief. "London Terrace will begreen in another week."

  "How long do you stay with the Craigs, Ailsa?"

  "Until the workmen finish painting my house and installing the newplumbing. Colonel Arran is good enough to look after it."

  Camilla, her light head always ringing with gossip, watched Ailsacuriously.

  "It's odd," she observed, "that Colonel Arran and the Craigs neverexchange civilities."

  "Mrs. Craig doesn't like him," said Ailsa simply.

  "You do, don't you?"

  "Naturally. He was my guardian."

  "My uncle likes him. To me he has a hard face."

  "He has a sad face," said Ailsa Paige.