XXXV
Gay hardly slept at all. She was at her window half the night askingtroubled questions of the stars and of the moon and of the moonlight onthe lake. She had not, during the summer, taken her sisters' affairsvery seriously, perhaps because she was so seriously engrossed with herown. She had, even in her heart, almost accused them of flirting andcarrying on lest time hang heavy on their hands. Her own romance she hadsupposed all along to be real, the others mere reflections of romanticplaces and situations. But it began to look as if only her own romancehad been spurious. It was a long time since she had heard fromPritchard. He had told her very simply that he was now the Earl ofMerrivale, and that, as soon as certain things were settled andarranged, he intended to return to America. After that, there had beenno word from him of any kind. She tried to comfort herself with thethought that if he was that kind of man--blow hot, blow cold--she waswell rid of him, and she failed dismally.
A man is in love with a certain girl. He learns that she is vain, gay,extravagant, heartless, and going to marry some other man. Does any ofthis comfort him? Not if he is in love with her, it doesn't. Not a bit.
So Gay could say to herself: "He's thoughtless and inconstant, and I'mwell out of it!" She could say that, and she did say that, and then sheburied her face in her pillow and cried very quietly and very hard.
She was up before the sun.
It would have taken more than one night of wakefulness and weeping toleave marks upon that lovely face which sudden cold water and theresolution to suffer no more could not erase.
But she had not rowed a mile or more before the color in her cheeks wasreally vivid again and the whites of her eyes showed no traces of tears.
She did not know why she was rowing or whither. It was as if some stronghand had forced her from bed before sunrise, forced her into herfishing-clothes, forced her into a guide boat, placed oars in her hands,and compelled her to row.
She even smiled, wondering where she was going.
"I can go anywhere I like," she thought; "but I don't want to goanywhere in particular, and yet I am quite obviously on my way tosomewhere or other. I'm like Alice in Wonderland. I think I'll go toCarrytown and get the morning mail."
But she had no sooner beached toward Carrytown than the distance thereseemed unutterably long, especially for a rower who had yet tobreakfast.
"I know," thought Gay at last; "I'll row to Placid Brook and see if thebig trout is still feeding in his private preserve. I'll land just wherewe did before and cross the meadow and spy on him from behind a bush. Iwish I'd brought some tackle. I'd like to catch him and cook him for mybreakfast--so I would!"
Upon this resolution, the work of rowing became very light. It was as ifthe force which had started her upon the excursion had had Placid Brookin mind all the time.
Having laid her course for the meadow at the mouth of Placid Brook, shekept the stern of the boat in direct line with a distant mountain-top,and so held it. The sun was now peeping over the rim of the world, andhere and there morning breezes were darkening and dappling the burnishedsurface of the lake.
Now and then, as she neared the meadow, Gay glanced over her shoulder,once for quite a long time, resting on her oars, because she thoughtshe saw a doe with a fawn. They turned out to be nothing more tenderthan a couple of granite rocks. And once again she rested on her oarsand looked for a long time--not this time upon the strength of ahallucination, but of an impulse.
She followed this inconsequential act with a long sigh, and enoughstrokes of the oar to bring her to land.
When she stood upright on the meadow she could see the very spot fromwhich Pritchard had cast for the big trout. And she saw (and had acurious dilating of the heart at the same moment) that that particularspot of meadow was once more occupied by a human being--or were her eyesand her breakfastless stomach playing tricks?
A young man in rusty meadow-colored clothes appeared to be kneeling withhis back toward her. She advanced swiftly toward him, curious only of agreat wonder and an indescribable (and possibly fatal) beating of herheart. And suddenly she knew that her man was real and no hallucination,for she perceived at her feet the stub of a Turkish cigarette, stillsmoking. Then she called to him:
"Halloo, there!"
The Earl of Merrivale started as if he had been shot at, then leaped tohis feet and turned toward her with a cry of joy.
"What are you doing here?" he cried.
And they had approached to within touching distance of each other.
"I don't know," she said. "What are you?"
"It was too early to pay calls," he said, "so I thought I'd have onemore whack at the big char and bring him to you for a present. But tellme--does our bet still stand?"
He looked at her so tenderly and lovingly and hopefully that she hadn'tthe heart to be anything but tender and loving herself.
"The bet still stands," she said, "if you win. I've missed youterribly."
"I took him," said the earl. "I was just weighing him when you called.He weighs a lot more than three pounds. So I win."
"Yes, you win."
"And the bet still stands?"
She nodded happily.
"And you won't renege--you'll pay? You'll be Countess of Merrivale?"
"If you want me to be," she said humbly.
"If I want you to be!"
And she had imagined herself so often in his arms that she was not nowsurprised or troubled to find herself there.
"I was so unhappy," she said; "and now I'm so happy."
And after a little while she said:
"I'd like to see him."
Presently they stood looking down at the great trout.
"He's done a lot for us, hasn't he?" said Gay. "He was the beginning ofthings. And it seems sort of a pity----"
"He's still breathing. He'll live if we put him back. Shall we?"
"Yes, please."
There was plenty of life and fight in the old trout. He no sooner feltthat water was somewhere under him than he gave a triumphant, indignantflop, tore himself from Merrivale's hands, and disappeared with asplendid, smacking splash.
"Good old boy!" laughed Merrivale.
"And yet," said Gay, "it's a pity that we couldn't take him back to campand show him off. He was the biggest trout I ever saw."
"He wasn't a trout, dear," said Merrivale; and he grinned lovingly ather. "He was a char."
"Of course he was," said Gay humbly; "I forgot."
XXXVI
I wish I could write first, "The Seven Darlings lived happily everafterward," and then the word "Finis." But I cannot end so easily andmaintain a reputation for veracity. They can't have lived happilyafterward until they are dead--can they? At the moment they have justclosed The Camp after the summer and scattered to their winter homes;that is, all of them except Gay.
The Camp, of course, is no longer an inn. They run it on joint accountfor themselves and for their friends. And they have delightful times.
Colonel Meredith has built a tremendous house on his ancestral acres,and during the winter Arthur and his wife, the Herrings, the Reniers,the Jonstones, and the Langhams are apt to make it their headquarters.
Gay and her young man were to have visited the Merediths this winter.There was going to be a united family effort to discover the buriedsilver which Mr. Bob Jonstone sold to his cousin, but of course thegreat war has upset this excellent plan, together with a good manymillion other plans, even more excellent and important.
The Earl of Merrivale is fighting somewhere in the wet ditches--Gaydoesn't know exactly where. She herself, a red cross on her sleeve, iswith one of the field-hospitals, working like a slave to save life.Because her husband is an Englishman, she didn't think that she couldever be kind to a German or an Austrian, but that turned out to be awhopping big error of judgment. They all look alike to her now, and herheart almost breaks over them. But I don't know what will become of herif anything happens to Merrivale. I think poor little Gay would justcurl up and die. He is all th
e world to her, just as she is to him.
Well, they are only one loving couple out of a good many hundredthousands. The times are too momentous to follow them further or wastewords and sympathy on them. The world is thinking in big figures, not inunits.
Only a sentimentalist here and there regards as more important thanempire and riches the little love-affairs that death is hourly ending,and the little babies who are never to be born.
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