Seven Miles to Arden Read online

  XIV

  ENTER KING MIDAS

  When Patsy at last reached Arden she went direct to the post-officeand was there confronted by a huge poster occupying an entire wall:

  THE SYLVAN PLAYERS

  Under the Management of Geo. Travis

  Presenting Wm. Shakespeare's Comedy

  "AS YOU LIKE IT"

  In the Forest of Arden, on the Estate of Peterson-Jones, Esq.

  The date given was Wednesday, the day following; and the castregistered her name opposite Rosalind.

  "So that's the answer to the letter I wrote, and a grand answer itis. And that's the meaning of Janet Payne's remarks, and I neverguessed it." She heaved the faintest wisp of a sigh--it might havebeen pleasure; it might have been a twinge of pain. "And I'm to beplaying the Duke's daughter, after all, at the end of the road."

  She went to the general delivery and asked for mail. The clerkresponded with three letters; Patsy almost whistled under her breath.Retiring to a corner, she looked them over and opened first the onefrom George Travis:

  DEAR IRISH PATSY,--You are a lucky beggar, and so am I. Here comes the news of Miriam St. Regis's illness and the canceling of all of her summer engagements in the same mail as your letter.

  Just think of it! Here you are actually in Arden all ready for me to pick up and put in Miriam's place without having to budge from my desk. The Sylvan Players open with "As You Like It." If the critics like it--and you--as well as I think they will, I'll book you straight through the summer. Felton's managing for me, so please report to him on Monday when he gets there. I may run down myself for a glimpse of your work.

  Yours, G. TRAVIS.

  P. S. More good luck. We are just in time to get your name on the posters; and unless my memory greatly deceives me, you will be able to walk right into all of Miriam's costumes.

  "Aye, they'll fit," agreed Patsy, with a chuckle. The second letterwas from Felton--dated Monday. He was worried over her continuedabsence. He had not found her registered at either of the twohotels, and the postal clerk reported her mail uncalled for. Wouldshe come to the Hillcrest Hotel at once. The third was from JanetPayne, expressing her grief over Joseph's death, and theirdisappointment at finding her gone the next morning when they motoredover to take her to Arden. They were all looking forward to seeingher play on Wednesday.

  Patsy returned the letters to their envelopes and marveled that hernew-found prosperity should affect her so drearily. Why was she notelated, transported with the surprise and the sudden promise ofsuccess? She was free to go now to a good hotel and sign for a roomand three regular meals a day. She could wire at once to Miss Gibbs,of the select boarding-house, and have her trunk down in twenty-fourhours. In very truth, her days of vagabondage were over, yet the factbrought her no happiness.

  She hunted Felton up at the hotel and explained her absence: "Just aweek-end at one of the fashionable places. No, not exactlyprofessional. No, not social either. You might call it--providential,like this."

  The morning was spent meeting her fellow-players--going over thetext, trying on the St. Regis costumes, adjourning at last to theestate of Peterson-Jones.

  Until the middle of the afternoon they were busy with rehearsals: themental tabulating of new stage business, the adapting of strangestage property, the accustoming of one's feet to tread gracefullyover roots and tangling vines and slippery patches of pine needlesinstead of a good stage flooring. And through all this maze Patsy'smind played truant. A score of times it raced off back to the roadagain, to wait between a stretch of woodland and a grove of giantpines for the coming of a grotesque, vagabond figure in rags.

  "Come, come, Miss O'Connell; what's the matter?" Felton's usualpatience snapped under the strain of her persistent wit-wandering."I've had to tell you to change that entrance three times."

  "Aye--and what is the matter?" Patsy repeated the questionremorsefully. "Maybe I've acquired the habit of taking the wrongentrance. What can you expect from any one taking seven days to goseven miles. I'm dreadfully sorry. If you'll only let me off thistime I promise to remember to-morrow; I promise!"

  * * * * *

  The day had been growing steadily hotter and more sultry. By fiveo'clock every one who was doing anything, and could stop doing it,went slothfully about looking for cool spots and cooler drinks.Burgeman senior, alone with his servants on the largest estate inArden, ordered one of the nurses to wheel him to the border of hisown private lake--a place where breezes blew if there were anyabout--and leave him there alone until Fitzpatrick, his lawyer, camefrom town. And there he was sitting, his eyes on nothing at all, whenPatsy scrambled up the bank of the lake and dropped breathless undera tree--not three feet from him.

  "Merciful Saint Patrick! I never saw you! Maybe I'm trespassing,now?"

  "You are," agreed Burgeman senior in a colorless voice. "But I hardlythink any one will put you off the grounds--at least until you havecaught your breath."

  "Thank you. Maybe the grounds are yours, now?" she questioned again.

  The sick man signified they were by a slight nod.

  "Well, 'tis the prettiest place hereabouts." Patsy offered theinformation as if she had made the discovery herself and wasgenerously sharing it with him. "I'm a stranger; and when I saw yonbit of cool, gray water, and the pines clustering round, and the weegreen faery isle in the midst--with the bridge holding onto it tokeep it from disappearing entirely--and the sand so white, and thelawns so green--why, it looked like a Japanese garden set in a greatsedge bowl. Do you wonder I had to come closer and see it better?"

  Burgeman said nothing; but the ghost of a feeling showed, the greedof possession.

  "And it all belongs to you. You bought it all--the lake and the woodsand the lawns." It was not a question, but a statement.

  "I own three miles in every direction."

  "Except that one." Patsy smiled as she pointed a finger upward. "Didyou ever think how generous the blessed Lord is to lend a bit of Hissky to put over the land men buy and fence in and call 'privateproperty'? It's odd how a body can think he owns something because hehas paid money for it; and yet the things that make it worth theowning he hasn't paid for at all."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Would you think much of this place if you couldn't be looking yonderand watching the clouds scud by, all turning to pink and flame colorand purple as the sun gathers them in? What would you do if no wildflowers grew for you, or the birds forgot you in the spring and builttheir nests and sang for your neighbor instead? And can you hire thesun to shine by the day, or order the rain by the hogshead?"

  Burgeman senior was contemplating her with genuine amazement. "I donot believe I have ever heard any one put forth such extraordinarytheories before. May I ask if you are a socialist?"

  "Bless you, no! I am a very ordinary human being, just; principallyhuman."

  "Do you know who I am?"

  For an instant Patsy looked at him without speaking; then sheanswered, slowly: "You have told me, haven't you? You are the masterof the place, and you look a mortal lonely one."

  "I--am." The words seemed to slip from his lips without his being atall conscious of having spoken.

  "And the money couldn't keep it from you." There was no mockery inher tone. "'Tis pitifully few comforts you can buy in life, whenall's said and done."

  "Comforts!" The sick man's eyes grew sharp, attacking, with a forcethat had not been his for days. "You are talking now like a fool.Money is the only thing that can buy comforts. What comforts have thepoor?"

  "Are you meaning butlers and limousines, electric vibrators andmud-baths? Those are only cures for the bodily necessities and illsthat money brings on a man: the over-feeding and the over-drinkingand the--under-living. But what comforts would they bring to atroubled mind and a pinched heart? Tell me that!"

  "So! You would p
refer to be poor--more pastorally poetic?" Burgemansneered.

  "More comfortable," corrected Patsy. "Mind you, I'm not meaningstarved, ground-under-the-heel poverty, the kind that breedsanarchists and criminals. God pity them, too! I mean the man who isstill too poor to reckon his worth to a community in mere money, who,instead, doles kindness and service to his neighbors. Did you eversee a man richer than the one who comes home at day's end, aftereight hours of good, clean work, and finds the wife and childrenwatching for him, happy-eyed and laughing?"

  The sick man stirred uneasily. "Well--can't a rich man find the samehappiness?"

  "Aye, he can; but does he? Does he even want it? Count up the richmen you know, and how many are there--like that?" No answer beinggiven, Patsy continued: "Take the richest man--the very richest manin all this country--do you suppose in all his life he ever saw hisown lad watching for him to come home?"

  "What do you know about the richest man--and his son?" The sick manhad for a moment become again a fiercely bitter, fighting force, apower given to sweeping what it willed before it. He sat with handsclenched, his eyes burning into the girl's on the ground beside him."I know what the world says."

  "The world lies; it has always lied."

  "You are wrong. It is a tongue here and a tongue there that bearsfalse witness; but the world passes on the truth; it has to."

  "You forget"--Burgeman senior spoke with difficulty--"it is the richwho bear the burdens of the world's cares and troubles, and what dothey get for it? The hatred of every one else, even their sons! Everyone hates and envies the man richer and more powerful than himself;the more he has the more he is feared. He lives friendless; hedies--lonely."

  Patsy rose to her knees and knelt there, shaking her fist--acomposite picture of supplicating Justice and accusing Truth. She hadforgotten that the man before her was sick--dying; that he must havesuffered terribly in spirit as well as body; and that her words wereso many barbed shafts striking at his soul. She remembered nothingsave the thing against which she was fighting: the hard, mercilesspossession of money and the arrogant boast of it.

  "And you forget that the burden of trouble which the brave rich bearso nobly are troubles they've put into the world themselves. Theyhoard their money to buy power; and then they use that power to getmore money. And so the chain grows--money and power, money and power!I heard of a rich man once who turned a terrible fever loose all overthe land because he bribed the health inspectors not to close downhis factories. And after death had swept his books clean he gavelarge sums of money to stamp out the epidemic in the near-by towns.Faith! that was grand--the bearing of that trouble! And why are therich hated? Why do they live friendless and die lonely? Not becausethey hold money, not because they give it away or help others withit. No! But because they use it to crush others, to rob those whohave less than they have, to turn their power into a curse. That'sthe why!"

  Patsy, the fanatic, turned suddenly into Patsy, the human, again. Thefist that had been beating the air under his nose dropped and spreaditself tenderly on the sick man's knee. "But I'm sorry you're lonely.If there was anything you wanted--that you couldn't buy and I couldearn for you--I would get it gladly."

  "I believe you would," and the confession surprised the man himselfmore than it did Patsy. "Who are you?" he asked at last.

  "No one at all, just; a laggard by the roadside--a lass with no home,no kin, and that for a fortune," and she flung out her two emptyhands, palm uppermost, and laughed.

  "And you are audacious enough to think you are richer than I." Thistime there was no sneer in his voice, only an amused toleration.

  "I am," said Patsy, simply.

  "You have youth and health," he conceded, grudgingly.

  "Aye, and trust in other folks; that's a fearfully rich possession."

  "It is. I might exchange with you--all this," and his hand sweptencompassingly over his great estate, "for that last--trust in otherfolks--in one's own folks!"

  "Maybe I'd give it to you for nothing--a little of it at any rate.See, you trust me; and here's--trust in your son." Patsy's voicedropped to a whisper; she leaned forward and opened one of the sickman's hands, then folded the fingers tightly over something thatappeared to be invisible--and precious. "Now, you believe in him, nomatter what he's done; you believe he wouldn't wrong you or himselfby doing anything base; you believe that he is coming back to you--tobreak the loneliness, and that he'll find a poor, plain man for afather, waiting him. Don't you remember the prodigal lad--how hisfather saw him a long way off and went to meet him? Well, you canmeet him with a long-distance trust--understanding. And there's onething more; don't you be so blind or so foolish as to crush him withthe weight of 'all this.' Mind, he has the right to the making of hisown life--for a bit at least; and it's your privilege to give himthat right--somehow. You've still a chance to keep him from wantingto pitch your money for quoits off the Battery."

  Patsy sprang to her feet; but Burgeman senior had reached forwardquickly and caught her skirt, holding it in a marvelously firm grip."Then you do know who I am; you've known it all along."

  "I know you're the master of all this, and your lad is the Rich Man'sSon; that's all."

  "And you think--you think I have no right to leave my son theinheritance I have worked and saved for him."

  "I think you have no right to leave him your--greed. 'Tis a mortalpoor inheritance for any lad."

  "Your vocabulary is rather blunt." Burgeman smiled faintly. "But itis very refreshing. It is a long time since naked truth and I metface to face."

  "But will it do you any good--or is it too late?" Patsy eyed himcontemplatively.

  "Too late for what?"

  "Too late for the inheritance--too late to give it away somewhereelse--or loan it for a few years till the lad had a chance to findout if he could make some decent use of it himself. There's many waysof doing it; I have thought of a few this last half-hour. You mightloan it to the President to buy up some of the railroads for thegovernment--or to purchase the coal or oil supply; or you might offerit as a prize to the country that will stop fighting first; or itmight buy clean politics into some of the cities--or endow auniversity." She laughed. "It's odd, isn't it, how a body without acent to her name can dispose of a few score millions--in lessminutes?"

  "If you please, sir." A motionless, impersonal figure in livery stoodat a respectful distance behind the wheel-chair. Neither of them hadbeen conscious of his presence.

  "Well, Parsons?"

  "Mr. Billy, sir, has come back, sir. He and Mr. Fitzpatrick cametogether. Shall I bring them out here or wheel you inside, sir?"

  "Inside!" Burgeman senior almost shouted it. Then he turned to Patsyand there was more than mere curiosity in his voice: "Who are you?"

  "No one at all, just; a laggard by the roadside," she repeated,wistfully. And then she added in her own Donegal: "But don't ye letthe lagging count for naught. Promise me that!"

  The sick man turned his head for a last look at her. "Such a simplepromise--to throw away the fruits of a lifetime!" Bitterness was inhis voice again, but Patsy caught the muttering under his breath. "Imight think about the boy, though, if the Lord granted me time."

  "Amen!" whispered Patsy.

  She scrambled down the bank the way she had come. For a moment shestopped by the lake and skimmed a handful of white pebbles across itsmirrored surface. She watched the ripples she had made spread andspread until they lost themselves in the lake itself, leaving behindno mark where they had been.

  "Yonder's the way with the going and coming of most of us, a littleripple and naught else--unless it is one more stone at the bottom."She heaved a sigh. "Well, the quest is over, and I've never laid eyeson the lad once. But it's ended well, I'm thinking; aye, it's endedright for him."