CHAPTER VIII
SEVEN PILLARS
Nathalie, seated in a low chair at one end of the broad white veranda,gazed with rapt intentness at the sun-hazed landscape, rising in green,undulating waves against the purple blur of the toweringmountain-heights, that stretched in wide expanse before her, with astrange, mystical beauty.
Into her eyes, city-tired, came rest, as they swept over the velvetgreen of the meadow, splashed with the bloom of wild flowers, itsscrubby bushes aglow with pink spires, and its spruces and maplesstanding upright with the slimness of youth, as it sloped gently down tothe glen below. The trees of the glen, closely massed in a rich,feathery green, sombered by the darker line of the pines and firs, tothe girl seemed weird and mysterious.
Her eyes quickly gathered in the stillness of the sunny slopes that rosefrom the darker hollow in squares of yellow cornfields, or the lightgreen of unripe wheat or grain, and the brown of mountain meadow-land,dotted with browsing cows. Here and there a lone farmhouse stood forthon some higher knoll, or, from a background of forest land, came thebright red of a solitary barn; while still higher, a hotel, its gablesand chimneys spying upward, glimmered picturesquely from the green. Andbeyond all, high and dark, with majestic brooding silences, rose thejagged ridge of mountain blue, its peaks looming with a strangedistinctness against the clear, soft blue of the sky, while sweeps ofwhite cloudlets trailed like films of spun silk across their tops.
The girl closed her eyes as if to imprint upon her subconsciousness therare loveliness of the scene, and then, as if fearful that in somepassing, whimsical mood the picture would flash out of view, she openedthem quickly. At that moment a passing breeze fluttered the pages of aletter lying on a table by her side. With sudden recollection she caughtthem up, and then as if to impress upon her mind what she had written,in a soft, low tone read:
"Dear Helen:
"I presume you are now in glorious _La France_, wondering why you have not heard from me. But my excuse is this magnificent mountain scenery, and my new duties, which have taken every minute of my time until to-day. We came up on the fifteenth from New York. Mother knitted and read during the ten-hour ride, while I wished inexpressibly good things for Mrs. Van Vorst for renting our little dovecote, and planned liberty work. I have decided to adopt the club's motto, 'Liberty and Humanity--our best,' for the summer's watchword. As it means to try and be helpful and kind to people, whether I like them or not, wish me success, for I have undertaken something big.
"Mr. Banker, my aunt's lawyer, met us at the Littleton station with his car. He is a tall, lean man, but his brown eyes have a quizzical gleam in them that makes you feel that you are affording him some amusement. The seven-mile ride up one mountain slope and down another, in the shade of the woods that gloomed dark and weird on each side of the road, with the hush of the gloaming in their moist depths, was most enjoyable.
"From out of their rustling shadows the white birches and poplars peered at us like ghosts, while the resinous aroma from the pines made us sniff with delight. Mountain villages with a straggle of white cottages, and grizzly gray churches in a setting of purple mountain-peaks, strangely somber and still, as they stood forth from feathery masses of clouds tinted with sunset's glow, with gossamer wreaths of mist floating above them, stilled us to a mute ecstasy of sheer joy.
"Stone gate-posts, beds of old-time posies, backed by cobble-stone walls with hedges of green, and a little white house, like a keeper's lodge, peered curiously out of the silver shadows of the rising moon as we whizzed up the roadway to Seven Pillars, and came to a stop under the _porte-cochere_ of a large, white mansion, set on a green knoll, facing the rocky heights of far-distant mountains. Here square glass lanterns threw yellowish gleams on the wide, low veranda, with its seven magic pillars,--round, fluted columns reaching high above the second-story windows, as with lofty stateliness they held the pointed dome above the portico.
"Passing through the quaint, white-columned doorway, with its tiny panes of glass and shiny brass knocker, we stood, dazed and tired, in a broad, gloomy hall, where, in the flare from a snapping log-fire, numerous trophies of the hunt eyed us glassily, as we were welcomed by my cousin, Janet Page, and her sister, Cynthia.
"Janet is a winsome thing. We have already become great chums, although she is a few years older than your lonesome. She is short and plump, with a white, satiny skin, and apple-blossom cheeks that make you feel that you want to kiss the pink of them. Her eyes fairly beam with kindliness as she looks at you from under her short, wavy brown hair. She's a pacifist and a suffragist, and aims to be a farmerette. Although she has decided ideas on the war and voting questions, they are rather vague on farming, but she goes about saying, 'God speed the plow and the woman who drives it.'
"Cynthia Loretto Stillwell--she always insists on the Loretto, as it is the sole heritage from some Italian ancestor, famed for his noble birth and deeds of valor--is not my own cousin, as she is the daughter of my uncle's wife, who was a widow when they married. She is distinctively tall, somewhat angular, with sharp features, a drooping, discontented mouth, and a sallow skin which she endeavors to hide by dabs of white and pink powder. Her eyes are large and dark, and would be handsome, if they did not repel you at times by their hard, metallic glitter. Her coiffure is a wonderful combination of braids, curls, and puffs, and made me wonder how she did it. She greeted us effusively, but somehow its warmth seemed cold and artificial, and--well, I don't believe I'm going to like her.
"After our hunger was appeased,--Janet said she got the supper, as we shall have to be our own maids up here,--Mr. Banker 'personally conducted' us through many high-ceiled rooms with recessed window-seats, big doors, and dark closets, up winding stairways and through rambling corridors. The antique furniture, carved and black-looking, musty-smelling and stuffy, made one feel as if long-ago-dead people were peering at you from the eerie shadows of the hide-and-seeky nooks.
"Mr. Banker then read my aunt's letter of instruction,--an odd document, as it stated that each one of 'we girls,'--as Cynthia calls us,--she's almost as old as mumsie,--during our stay is to search the house for the most valuable thing in it. And the lucky finder of the 'mysterious it,' as Jan and I call the valuable thing, is to inherit something. Whether this something is property, or money, or just some personal effects of my aunt's, I don't know, for that letter was so queer it made me feel creepy. And once when I glanced up, it really seemed as if her eyes were glaring menacingly at me from a large portrait of her which hangs over the library mantel.
"Each one of us is to keep a diary, and if we have not looked for 'It' each day, we are to state what particular thing prevented us. We can search every nook and corner in the house but one room, the _mystery room_, as we call it, which is on the second floor, and barred and locked so that no one can enter. Mother only laughs when Janet and I talk about 'It,' and declares that the whole thing is just my aunt's eccentric way of doing things. You know mother spent a summer up here with her when I was a wee tot, and my aunt grew very fond of me.
"Although I have had no time as yet to search for the mystery of mysteries, my first entry in my diary reads: 'Arose at 7 A. M. and prepared breakfast. Cooked three meals and did housework all day, and am too tired to do anything but go to bed. Jan meant to help me, but she had to hurry with her plowing, and Cynthia Loretto says she never does housework, as it makes her hands rough.'
"You would laugh if you could see Jan scratching the earth with a baby rake. She was going to plant before she plowed, and hadn't the slightest idea as to the proper time and way of planting her seeds. But she looks a dear in a smock and a big pink sunbonnet that matches
the pink in her cheeks and on her nose, for her dear little snub has burned to the same color.
"It is great sport to see her take the stump, as I call it, and hold forth on woman suffrage. She talks beautifully, is so earnest and looks so sweet, and, as mumsie says, knows so little about it from a commonsense point of view. But when Cynthia Loretto suddenly appears and squelches her eloquence by witheringly ordering her to do something for her,--she bosses her dreadfully,--poor Jan drops from her pedestal and crawls about with the meekness of a mouse for the rest of the day.
"I was afraid my dreams of teaching liberty were doomed to oblivion, for there don't seem to be any girls about to form a club, when one day, while reading the paper, an inspiration came. _Fi-fo-fum_, I have written to Mrs. Van Vorst, and she is going to send me three little slum boys, and I am not only going to give them the joy-time of their lives, but teach them 'Liberty and Humanity--your best.' When I asked Mr. Banker if there would be any objection to having these little waifs, he not only consented, but said he would pay their way up here. Isn't that the dandiest thing going?
"Mother objected at first, but when I said I would teach them to wash the dishes--how I hate that job!--and to do chores about the house, she only said, 'Well, you will have to make the bread then, for three hulking boys will eat a cartful,'--you know mother is the bread-maker. Then her eyes twinkled, and I had to hug her good and tight, for I knew she was just testing my 'I can' motto.
"Janet thought the idea fine, but when Cynthia Loretto heard of it she declared that she hated boys, they were such horrid, smelly things,--one would have thought they were weeds,--and that _she_ would not have them in the house. Well, I was not going to be bossed by her, so promptly told her in my bestest manner--I am always very cool and sweet when _awfully mad_--what Mr. Banker had said. Well, that silenced _her_, but I can foresee that she will make trouble for my little liberty kids, for that's what they're going to be.
"Did I tell you that Cynthia is an artist? Her studio is up in the little square cupola, or tower that crowns the house. Here she paints, and sleeps until all hours of the morning, for she slumbers in a beauty-mask--Janet let that out--and it has to be kept on until noon. Janet has to bring up her coffee every morning. At dinner my lady with 'the manner' and artistic temperament appears in a freakish get-up. Yesterday she was a Neapolitan maiden in a red skirt and blue bodice, with a rug for an apron, and a white cloth on her head. She dresses this way to create atmosphere, she declares, as she is her own model, and paints herself in a big mirror, that she got Sam to lug up from one of the lower rooms.
"She can be extremely disagreeable, for yesterday, while I was on one of my mountain prowls--mother was taking a nap--she was sitting on the veranda in one of her outlandish costumes, when an odd, little old lady came along in a black poke-bonnet, carrying a basket on her arm. As soon as Cyn saw that basket she jumped up and ordered the old lady off the premises, saying that we could not be bothered with peddlers.
"The poor old soul immediately turned about and hobbled away, muttering and mumbling to herself, for Jan heard her as she came up the path from her miniature hillside farm. Mother was quite annoyed when she heard about it, for she said that she was undoubtedly one of the neighbors, and had brought us something in a basket to be friendly, as country people do. I think Cynthia should have allowed her to rest on the veranda, even if she was a peddler.
"I must close my letter if I want to get it in this mail, as I have to walk almost a mile to post it. So, with a bushel of kisses and good wishes, I am as ever your friend
"Nathalie Page.
"P. S. Be sure you tell me all about your work, and if you are anywhere near the front-line trenches. I am wild to know. Again, with love,
"Blue Robin."
As Nathalie stood by the window putting on her hat in front of theold-fashioned dresser, her eyes suddenly widened. "Why, isn't that thestrangest?" she queried, as she stepped nearer the casement and stareddown at the farther end of the lawn, where, from between the fringe ofwoodland on the side dividing their garden from their neighbor's, camethe glimmer of a little red house, fronting the road.
"Why," said the girl, almost wonderingly, "that red house glimmersthrough the trees in the form of a cross." Then her eyes brightened withthe sudden thought, "I do believe it has come that way on purpose, and,yes, I am going to let it be my Red Cross insignia, warning me that Ihave work to do this summer by not losing my temper, and by being kindto people, even if it is _that irritating Cynthia Loretto_.
"I wonder who lives in that little red house," soliloquized the girl. "Imust ask Sam. Ah, I remember now. I saw an old lady with silver-grayhair, the other day, poking about in that little flower-garden; sheseemed to be weeding. Well, those flowers certainly repay her for hercare, for they are a mass of bloom and color." And then Nathalie,humming a snatch of melody, turned away and hurried down the stairway.
Some time later, on her way to the post-office at the near-by village ofSugar Hill, as she passed the red house she again saw the old lady withthe silver hair, in a flopping sunbonnet, digging in the garden. Sheraised her head as she heard Nathalie's footsteps, and the girl, withsmiling eyes, pleasantly bowed a good-afternoon. But, to her surprise,the old lady stared at her rudely for a moment, and then, withoutreturning her greeting, went on with her weeding.
"What a disagreeable old lady!" was the girl's sudden thought, the bloodrushing to her cheeks in a crimson flood. "Why, I always thought countrypeople were pleasant and chatty with their neighbors. Well," shemurmured ruefully, in an attempt to ignore the slight "perhaps the poorold thing is near-sighted. No, I won't worry, for, as mumsie says, it isjust as well not to be in a hurry to think that people mean to be rudeto you."
So the little incident was forgotten, as she wended her way along theroad, cool and dark with the moisture and shade from the woodland thatfringed it on each side. On one side the trees screened green hills andsloping meadows, while on the other they guarded Lovers' Lane, a narrowfootpath, skirting the base of Garnet Mountain, that rose upward inscrubby, brownish pasture-land to its summit, crowned with dense massesof green foliage.
Nathalie hummed softly, in tune to the ripple of a tiny brooklet from aspring near by, that trickled and splashed in a low murmur over itspebbly bed in the ditch fringed with straggling wild flowers inflaunting July bloom. They were too luring to be resisted, and presentlythe beautiful dull pink of the Joe-Pye weed, saucy black-eyed Susans,yellow buttercups, wild carrot, and blue violets, nodded gayly from thenosegay pinned to her blouse.
A short walk and the woods had been left behind, as the girl stood on awide-spreading knoll with the rock-lit eyes of Garnet Mountain peeringdown at her on her right, while on the left grassy meadows stretchedaway into velvety slopes. Their green was crossed by low stone walls,patched with the gray of apple orchard, and ribboned with avenues ofstately trees, or fringes of woodland, but always ending in the ruggedgrandeur of craggy summit.
Nathalie drew a deep breath of the sweet-scented mountain breezes, asher eyes dwelt on the scene before her, for to her every blade of grass,or feathery fern, as well as each peeping floweret, wide-spreading tree,or gray bowlder, were but details that added to the charm of each day'smountain-picture. The rare splendor of the scene inspired her, as itwere, to new thoughts and feelings, vague and undefined, but the shadowof things to come, in the birth of ideals and words that were to findexpression later on.
But now she was strolling along under an avenue of stately maples,bordered by a stone wall almost hidden with clambering vines, untilpresently she had passed by another silent greenwood, to arrive at alittle white church, set on rising ground. A swift turn and she waswalking down the flagged street of the moun
tain village, sheltered withfriendly old trees, and lined with the usual straggle of white cottages,blurred with the red of an old barn, while just beyond, against thepearl gray of the horizon, rose the jagged line of the Green Mountains.
She glanced admiringly at the tiny Memorial Library perchedconspicuously on a terrace opposite, and then she was at thepost-office, once a small white cottage, but now used by Uncle Sam as amail distributor, the lounging-resort of aged mountaineers and sons ofthe soil. Here, too, the village gentry, as well as the citified summerfolk from the boarding-houses and hotels on the upper slopes of SugarHill, lingered for a chat or a word of greeting when they came for themail.
After slipping her letter into the box, Nathalie found that although themail had come in it had not been distributed, so she decided to wait forit. With ill-concealed impatience, for she hated to linger in the stuffylittle store, she leaned idly against a glass case, in which one saw theyellow-brown of maple-sugar cakes, the red and white of peppermintsticks, as well as post-cards of mountain views, and pine pillows. As itwas the only store within a radius of some miles its wares were numerousand varied, as almost anything, from a loaf of bread, a lollypop, or acase of needles, to a bottle of patent medicine, was on sale.
Suddenly, as if impelled by some unknown power, the girl raised her eyesto encounter the bold stare of a tall young man in a gray Norfolkjacket, knickerbockers, and high leather boots, who was nonchalantlyleaning against the opposite counter, with his cap pushed on the back ofhis head, smoking a cigar.