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Page 57
"I always do that," she said. "I love them so!"
Two weeks later a great train rolled into the Grand Central Station of
New York at half-past six at night, and from it stepped a monstrosity--a
young man without a heart. He had left all of it, more than he had
thought he owned, in Kentucky. But he had brought back with him memories
which gave him more joy than ever the heart had done, to his best
knowledge, in all the years. They were memories of long and sunshiny
days; of afternoons spent in the saddle, rushing through grassy lanes
where trumpet-flowers flamed over gray farm fences, or trotting slowly
down white roads; of whole mornings only an hour long, passed in the
enchanted stillness of an old garden; of gay, desultory searches through
its length and breadth, and in the park that held it, for buried
treasure: of moonlit nights; of roses and June and Kentucky--and always,
through all the memories, the presence that made them what they were,
that of a girl he loved.
No word of love had been spoken, but the two weeks had made over his
life; and he went back to his work with a definite object, a hope
stronger than ambition, and, set to it as music to words, came
insistently another hope, a dream that he did not let himself dwell
on--a longing to make enough money to pay off the mortgage and put
Fairfield in order, and live and work there all his life--with Shelby.
That was where the thrill of the thought came in, but the place was very
dear to him in itself.
The months went, and the point of living now were the mails from the
South, and the feast days were the days that brought letters from
Fairfield. He had promised to go back for a week at Christmas, and he
worked and hoarded all the months between with a thought which he did
not formulate, but which ruled his down-sitting and his up-rising, the
thought that if he did well and his bank account grew enough to justify
it he might, when he saw her at Christmas, tell her what he hoped; ask
her--he finished the thought with a jump of his heart. He never worked
harder or better, and each check that came in meant a step toward the
promised land; and each seemed for the joy that was in it to quicken his
pace, to lengthen his stride, to strengthen his touch. Early in November
he found one night when he came to his rooms two letters waiting for
him with the welcome Kentucky postmark. They were in John Fairfield's
handwriting and in his daughter's, and "_place aux dames_" ruled rather
than respect to age, for he opened Shelby's first. His eyes smiling, he
read it.
"I am knitting you a diamond necklace for Christmas," she wrote. "Will
you like that? Or be sure to write me if you'd rather have me hunt in
the garden and dig you up a box of money. I'll tell you--there ought to
be luck in the day, for it was hidden on Christmas and it should be
found on Christmas; so on Christmas morning we'll have another look, and
if you find it I'll catch you 'Christmas gif'' as the darkies do, and
you'll have to give it to me, and if I find it I'll give it to you; so
that's fair, isn't it? Anyway--" and Philip's eyes jumped from line to
line, devouring the clear, running writing. "So bring a little present
with you, please--just a tiny something for me," she ended, "for I'm
certainly going to catch you 'Christmas gif'.'"
Philip folded the letter back into its envelope and put it in his
pocket, and his heart felt warmer for the scrap of paper over it. Then
he cut John Fairfield's open dreamily, his mind still on the words he
had read, on the threat--"I'm going to catch you 'Christmas gif'.'" What
was there good enough to give her? Himself, he thought humbly, very far
from it. With a sigh that was not sad he dismissed the question and
began to read the other letter. He stood reading it by the fading light
from the window, his hat thrown by him on a chair, his overcoat still
on, and, as he read, the smile died from his face. With drawn brows he
read on to the end, and then the letter dropped from his fingers to the
floor and he did not notice; his eyes stared widely at the high building
across the street, the endless rows of windows, the lights flashing into
them here and there. But he saw none of it. He saw a stretch of quiet
woodland, an old house with great white pillars, a silent, neglected
garden, with box hedges sweet and ragged, all waiting for him to come
and take care of them--the home of his fathers, the home he had meant,
had expected--he knew it now--would be some day his own, the home he
had lost! John Fairfield's letter was to tell him that the mortgage on
the place, running now so many years, was suddenly to be foreclosed;
that, property not being worth much in the neighborhood, no one would
take it up; that on January 2nd, Fairfield, the house and land, were to
be sold at auction. It was a hard blow to Philip Beckwith. With his
hands in his overcoat pockets he began to walk up and down the room,
trying to plan, to see if by any chance he might save this place he
loved. It would mean eight thousand dollars to pay the mortgage. One or
two thousand more would put the estate in order, but that might wait if
he could only tide over this danger, save the house and land. An hour he
walked so, forgetting dinner, forgetting the heavy coat which he still
wore, and then he gave it up. With all he had saved--and it was a fair
and promising beginning--he could not much more than half pay the
mortgage, and there was no way, which he would consider, by which he
could get the money. Fairfield would have to go, and he set his teeth
and clinched his fists as he thought how he wanted to keep it. A year
ago it had meant nothing to him, a year from now if things went his way
he could have paid the mortgage. That it should happen just this
year--just now! He could not go down at Christmas; it would break his
heart to see the place again as his own when it was just slipping from
his grasp. He would wait until it was all over, and go, perhaps, in the
spring. The great hope of his life was still his own, but Fairfield had
been the setting of that hope; he must readjust his world before he saw
Shelby again. So he wrote them that he would not come at present, and
then tried to dull the ache of his loss with hard work.
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