Part 23 (2/2)
”I think you have no right to leave him your--greed. 'Tis a mortal poor inheritance for any lad.”
”Your vocabulary is rather blunt.” Burgeman smiled faintly. ”But it is very refres.h.i.+ng. It is a long time since naked truth and I met face to face.”
”But will it do you any good--or is it too late?” Patsy eyed him contemplatively.
”Too late for what?”
”Too late for the inheritance--too late to give it away somewhere else--or loan it for a few years till the lad had a chance to find out if he could make some decent use of it himself. There's many ways of doing it; I have thought of a few this last half-hour. You might loan it to the President to buy up some of the railroads for the government--or to purchase the coal or oil supply; or you might offer it as a prize to the country that will stop fighting first; or it might buy clean politics into some of the cities--or endow a university.” She laughed. ”It's odd, isn't it, how a body without a cent to her name can dispose of a few score millions--in less minutes?”
”If you please, sir.” A motionless, impersonal figure in livery stood at a respectful distance behind the wheel-chair. Neither of them had been conscious of his presence.
”Well, Parsons?”
”Mr. Billy, sir, has come back, sir. He and Mr. Fitzpatrick came together. Shall I bring them out here or wheel you inside, sir?”
”Inside!” Burgeman senior almost shouted it. Then he turned to Patsy and 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 let the lagging count for naught. Promise me that!”
The sick man turned his head for a last look at her. ”Such a simple promise--to throw away the fruits of a lifetime!” Bitterness was in his voice again, but Patsy caught the muttering under his breath. ”I might 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 she stopped by the lake and skimmed a handful of white pebbles across its mirrored surface. She watched the ripples she had made spread and spread until they lost themselves in the lake itself, leaving behind no mark where they had been.
”Yonder's the way with the going and coming of most of us, a little ripple 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 eyes on the lad once. But it's ended well, I'm thinking; aye, it's ended right for him.”
XV
ARDEN
Summer must have made one day in June purposely as a setting for a pastoral comedy; and chance stole it, like a kindly knave, and gave it to the Sylvan Players. Never did a gathering of people look down from the rise of a natural amphitheater upon a fairer scene; a Forest of Arden, built by the greatest scenic artist since the world began. Birds flew about the trees and sang--whenever the orchestra permitted; a rabbit or two scuttled out from under rhododendron-bushes and skipped in shy ingenue fas.h.i.+on across the stage; while overhead a blue, windless sky spread radiance about players and audience alike.
Shorn of so much of the theatricalism of ordinary stage performances, there was reality and charm about this that warmed the spectators into frequent bursts of spontaneous enthusiasm which were as draughts of elixir to the players. Those who were playing creditably played well; those who were playing well excelled themselves, and Patsy outplayed them all.
She lived every minute of the three hours that spanned the throwing of Charles, the wrestler, and her promise ”to make all this matter even.” There was no touch of coa.r.s.eness in her rollicking laughter, no hoydenish swagger in her masquerading; it was all subtly, irresistibly feminine. And George Travis, watching from the obscurity of a back seat, pounded his knee with triumph and swore he would make her the greatest Shakespearean actress of the day.
As Hymen sang her parting song, Patsy scanned the sea of faces beyond the bank of juniper which served instead of footlights. Already she had picked out Travis, Janet Payne and her party, the people from Quality House, who still gaped at her, unbelieving, and young Peterson-Jones, looking more melancholy, myopic, and poetical than before. But the one face she hoped to find was missing, even among the stragglers at the back; and it took all her self-control to keep disappointment and an odd, hurt feeling out of her voice as she gave the epilogue.
On the way to her tent--a half-score of them were used as dressing-rooms behind the stage--George Travis overtook her. ”It's all right, girl. You've made a bigger hit than even I expected. I'm going to try you out in--”
Patsy cut him short. ”You sat at the back. Did you see a vagabond lad hanging around anywhere--with a limp to him?”
The manager looked at her with amused toleration. ”Does a mere man happen to be of more consequence this minute than your success? Oh, I say, that's not like you, Irish Patsy!”
She crimsoned, and the manager teased no more. ”We play Greyfriars to-morrow and back to Brambleside the day after; and I've made up my mind to try you out there in Juliet. If you can handle tragedy as you can comedy, I'll star you next winter on Broadway. Oh, your future's very nearly made, you lucky girl!”
<script>