Rosalind at Red Gate. Meredith Nicholson
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my services in difficulties that were darkly indicated in a telegram of forty-five words. The sender of the message I knew to be a serious character, and a gentleman of distinguished social connections. The name of the lady signified nothing except that she was unmarried; and as Stoddard's acquaintance was among all sorts and conditions of men I could assume nothing more than that the unknown had appealed to him as a priest and that he had sent her to Lake Annandale to shake off the burdens of the world in the conventual air of St. Agatha's. High-born Italian ladies, I knew, often retired to remote convents in the Italian hills for meditation or penance. Miss Holbrook's age I placed conservatively at twenty-nine; for no better reason, perhaps, than that I am thirty-two.
The blue arch of June does not encourage difficulties, doubts or presentiments; and with the wild rose abloom along the fences and with robins tossing their song across the highway I ceased to growl and found curiosity getting the better of my temper. Expectancy, after all, is the cheerfullest tonic of life, and when the time comes when I can see the whole of a day's programme from my breakfast-table I shall be ready for man's last adventure.
I smoothed my gloves and fumbled my tie as the bays trotted briskly along the lake shore. The Chicago express whistled for Annandale just as we gained the edge of the village. It paused a grudging moment and was gone before we reached the station. I jumped out and ran through the waiting-room to the platform, where the agent was gathering up the mail-bags, while an assistant loaded a truck with trunks. I glanced about, and the moment was an important one in my life. Standing quite alone beside several pieces of hand-baggage was a lady—unmistakably a lady—leaning lightly upon an umbrella, and holding under her arm a magazine. She was clad in brown, from bonnet to shoes; the umbrella and magazine cover were of like tint, and even the suitcase nearest her struck the same note of color. There was no doubt whatever as to her identity; I did not hesitate a moment; the lady in brown was Miss Holbrook, and she was an old lady, a dear, bewitching old lady, and as I stepped toward her, her eyes brightened—they, too, were brown!—and she put out her brown-gloved hand with a gesture so frank and cordial that I was won at once.
"Mr. Donovan—Mr. Laurance Donovan—I am sure of it!"
"Miss Holbrook—I am equally confident!" I said. "I am sorry to be late, but Father Stoddard's message was delayed."
"You are kind to respond at all," she said, her wonderful eyes upon me; "but Father Stoddard said you would not fail me."
"He is a man of great faith! But I have a trap waiting. We can talk more comfortably at St. Agatha's."
"Yes; we are to go to the school. Father Stoddard kindly arranged it. It is quite secluded, he assured me."
"You will not be disappointed, Miss Holbrook, if seclusion is what you seek."
I picked up the brown bag and turned away, but she waited and glanced about. Her "we" had puzzled me; perhaps she had brought a maid, and I followed her glance toward the window of the telegraph office.
"Oh, Helen; my niece, Helen Holbrook, is with me. I wished to wire some instructions to my housekeeper at home. Father Stoddard may not have explained—that it is partly on Helen's account that I am coming here."
"No; he explained nothing—merely gave me my instructions," I laughed. "He gives orders in a most militant fashion."
In a moment I had been presented to the niece, and had noted that she was considerably above her aunt's height; that she was dark, with eyes that seemed quite black in certain lights, and that she bowed, as her aunt presented me, without offering her hand, and murmured my name in a voice musical, deep and full, and agreeable to hear.
She took their checks from her purse, and I called the porter and arranged for the transfer of their luggage to St. Agatha's. We were soon in the trap with the bays carrying us at a lively clip along the lake road. It was all perfectly new to them and they expressed their delight in the freshness of the young foliage; the billowing fields of ripening wheat, the wild rose, blackberry and elderberry filling the angles of the stake-and-rider fences, and the flashing waters of the lake that carried the eye to distant wooded shores. I turned in my seat by the driver to answer their questions.
"There's a summer resort somewhere on the lake; how far is that from the school?" asked the girl.
"That's Port Annandale. It's two or three miles from St. Agatha's," I replied. "On this side and all the way to the school there are farms. The lake looks like an oval pond as we see it here, but there are several long arms that creep off into the woods, and there's another lake of considerable size to the north. Port Annandale lies yonder."
"Of course we shall see nothing of it," said the younger Miss Holbrook with finality.
I sought in vain for any resemblance between the two women; they were utterly unlike. The little brown lady was interested and responsive enough; she turned toward her niece with undisguised affection as we talked, but I caught several times a look of unhappiness in her face, and the brow that Time had not touched gathered in lines of anxiety and care. The girl's manner toward her aunt was wholly kind and sympathetic.
"I'm sure it will be delightful here, Aunt Pat. Wild roses and blue water! I'm quite in love with the pretty lake already."
This was my first introduction to the diminutive of Patricia, and it seemed very fitting, and as delightful as the dear little woman herself. She must have caught my smile as the niece so addressed her for the first time and she smiled back at me in her charming fashion.
"You are an Irishman, Mr. Donovan, and Pat must sound natural."
"Oh, all who love Aunt Patricia call her Aunt Pat!" exclaimed the girl.
"Then Miss Holbrook undoubtedly hears it often," said I, and was at once sorry for my bit of blarney, for the tears shone suddenly in the dear brown eyes, and the niece recurred to the summer landscape as a topic, and talked of the Glenarm place, whose stone wall we were now passing, until we drove into the grounds of St. Agatha's and up to the main entrance of the school, where a Sister in the brown garb of her order stood waiting.
I first introduced myself to Sister Margaret, who was in charge, and then presented the two ladies who were to be her guests. It was disclosed that Sister Theresa, the head of the school, had wired instructions from York Harbor, where she was spending the summer, touching Miss Holbrook's reception, and her own rooms were at the disposal of the guests. St. Agatha's is, as all who are attentive to such matters know, a famous girls' school founded by Sister Theresa, and one felt its quality in the appointments of the pretty, cool parlor where we were received. Sister Margaret said just the right thing to every one, and I was glad to find her so capable a person, fully able to care for these exiles without aid from my side of the wall. She was a tall, fair young woman, with a cheerful countenance, and her merry eyes seemed always to be laughing at one from the depths of her brown hood. Pleasantly hospitable, she rang for a maid.
"Helen, if you will see our things disposed of I will detain Mr. Donovan a few minutes," said Miss Holbrook.
"Or I can come again in an hour—I am your near neighbor," I remarked, thinking she might wish to rest from her journey.
"I am quite ready," she replied, and I bowed to Helen Holbrook and to Sister Margaret, who went out, followed by the maid. Miss Pat—you will pardon me if I begin at once to call her by this name, but it fits her so capitally, it is so much a part of her, that I can not resist—Miss Pat put off her bonnet without fuss, placed it on the table and sat down in a window-seat whence the nearer shore of the lake was visible across the strip of smooth lawn.
"Father Stoddard thought it best that I should explain the necessity that brings us here," she began; "but the place is so quiet that it seems absurd to think that our troubles could follow us."
I bowed. The idea of this little woman's being driven into exile by any sort of trouble seemed preposterous. She drew off her gloves and leaned back comfortably against the bright pillows of the window-seat. "Watch the hands of the guest in the tent," runs the Arabian proverb. Miss Pat's hands seemed to steal appealingly out of her snowy cuffs; there was no age in them. The breeding showed there as truly as in her eyes and face.