Читать книгу The Heart of Arethusa - Frances Barton Fox - Страница 6

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Arethusa flung herself flat on a mossy spot of ground underneath the largest and tallest of the trees in Miss Asenath's Woods.

Like the vaulted ceiling of a huge green cathedral, the branches far above her curved in graceful arches. And they were so thickly interlaced and grown with leaves, that although this first slow-falling rain of the storm could be distinctly heard in its noisy pattering on those leaves, very little came through them, save an extra large and splashing drop every now and then.

Having run every step of the way from the house, Arethusa was completely out of breath: and she could only lie panting for some moments, the Letter still clutched to her breast.

The wind had died down, and it was as hot and close out here in the open under the trees as it had seemed in the shut-up sitting room. But she was far from any thought of physical discomfort now.

At the beginning of Miss Asenath's Romance those many years ago, her father, Arethusa's great-grandfather Redfield, had set aside this strip of woodland in which to build his daughter a house.

It was not nearly so heavily wooded then, and the lovers had wandered over it and selected a spot for the little home, mute evidence of their choice of site remaining in a half-dug foundation, overgrown with vines and weeds and almost indistinguishable save for the few heavy stones that marked one side of the depression. But the walls of the little house had risen in fancy for her with such reality, that, when the sad ending to her love-story came and the building was abandoned, at Miss Asenath's request the woodland was fenced off. Hence, its name of "Miss Asenath's Woods." She had never gone there since the day when with her own hands she had spread a layer of mortar between two stones "for luck," but she knew every inch of it as it was now, every tree and bush, from Arethusa's vivid description. Arethusa's imagination could for herself, from Miss Asenath's telling, place the little house on its ghostly foundation in all the actuality it was once to have had.

Arethusa loved the woodland quite as much as Miss Asenath did, even apart from the significance of its connections with her aunt's love-story. It was the only spot on the place that Miss Eliza did not keep straight; the only bit of the Farm that was not inspected, often, by that keen glance which, even if a trifle near-sighted, so little escaped. But she never went near the woodland on any pretext.

There was nothing "combed" or "fixed" about Miss Asenath's Woods; no white-washed trees or clipped grass. Bees droned and birds sang and wild-flowers bloomed there all uninterrupted; squirrels chattered in the trees, friends of Arethusa's that were tame enough to perch on her shoulder if she sat quite still; and funny little, Molly-cotton-tail rabbits often scampered in front of her while she was reading, so close she could have touched them. It was a bit of nature that no human hand had ever spoiled, the never finished foundation was only an addition in its suggestion; therefore, the girl's woodsy heart claimed it as her very own, although by name it belonged to Miss Asenath.

But, since the time she was a wee scrap and, running away from Miss Eliza's scolding, had stumbled on this enchanted spot entirely by accident and had brought her dolls down here for play, Arethusa had found congenial occupation in the woodland. And now that she was older, she spent long hours of reading and dreaming instead of play.

In her favorite position, flat on her stomach with her heels in the air and her chin propped in her hands (which position Miss Eliza contended was far removed from the dignity befitting Arethusa's years and had forbidden in her, Miss Eliza's, presence) she read old-fashioned novels that she smuggled out of the bookcase in the parlor. When the book was closed, she invariably added long chapters of her own fancy to the "lived happily ever after" ending. Yet all that she read did not, by any means, end thus happily, for she loved sad stories also. She knew "The Scottish Chiefs" almost by heart. It was foolish, perhaps, to lie under the trees and read sobbingly until she could hardly see what she was reading for the tears, and then dab at her eyes with a sopping wet handkerchief; but … it was Arethusa. She was most Incurably Romantick.

She kept a few of her greatest favorites here in this hollow tree in the centre of the woodland, for a story one likes cannot be read too often, thought this gentle reader.

Here also, for the hollow tree somewhat resembled a treasure chest in its interior, she had a length of green of the same soft shade as the lichen of the woods around her. It was a green ribbon so thoroughly satisfying in its color that only to spread it out on the grass where her eyes might gaze upon it delighted Arethusa's soul.

Some day. … Some day. … She would have a green dress of just that identical shade. "And Aunt 'Liza may say all she pleases about my hair!"

Of which bit of meditated defiance, Miss Eliza remained in total ignorance.

For Arethusa's hair was an uncompromising red. It was a deep, rich brown-red in shadow and a burnished coppery-red in the sunlight, wonderful to behold, but still red. And there was a decided difference of opinion between Miss Eliza and her niece as to the color most suitable for the clothes that were to be worn with such a top-knot. Miss Eliza was horrified at the bare thought of any but the plainest of shades beside it; generally standing up strongly for blue, a very dark blue. Arethusa, although she rather preferred other colors of an infinite variety, would not have minded blue so much had Miss Eliza's selections been less depressingly somber. Abortive attempts to enliven her wardrobe were immediately crushed with scathing references to the fiery locks. And the wardrobe remained of an unwaveringly dull tone.

According to Miss Eliza, Arethusa's red hair was wholly to blame for her temper, which was of a somewhat quick and lively nature. She seemed, at times, almost to consider it a deep disgrace to the family that her niece should be so crowned. Arethusa was the only red-haired person that had ever been in the whole family connection, so far as anyone knew; an off-shoot, so to speak. But Miss Asenath dearly loved its bright color, and she was never tired of running her fingers through the ruddy masses and of curling and twisting the little shining tendrils of curls that clustered in the nape of the girl's neck.

Arethusa had the warm white skin that nearly always accompanies red locks, somewhat freckled, it is true, but not enough so really to matter; and deep greenish-grey eyes, rimmed all around with the most unbelievably long lashes. They were real Irish eyes, which excitement darkened and made to shine like big stars. It naturally followed that they were dark and starry the greater part of the time, for she was Arethusa and in an almost constant state of excitement.

And she was quite tall and slender, very unlike the Redfields. They were all small and compactly built; but Arethusa had got her height from her father.

Having arrived almost at a state of natural breathing once more, Arethusa rolled over and spread the Letter out before her. She studied her father's bold handwriting with shining eyes, and kissed his signature rapturously.

When she was a baby of about six months or so her father had given her into Miss Eliza's keeping and started for a foreign trip, "of a few months," he had said then. But that was nearly eighteen years ago, and he was still on the other side, with never so much as the most flying visit to the little daughter in America in all that time. Yet the love and loyalty of that little daughter had never wavered from the day Miss Asenath had put his photograph into her tiny hands, and taught her to call it "Father," and to kiss it through the glass.

This love and loyalty were not founded upon memories, for she had none. They were given a father created by her own vivid fancy, aided by the photograph. This was a faded likeness of an unusually handsome man with waving hair of an eccentric length and bold dark eyes smiling straight out of the picture as if he were just about to speak to the Arethusa who worshipped it. He wore a Byronic sort of collar, with a wide tie, and his shoulders were draped in an Italian military cape, effectively thrown back from the one wide frog that clasped it just below the flowing ends of the tie. So he was not like other fathers; not at all like those most commonplace male parents with which Arethusa was acquainted. He was far more like the Hero in one of those sentimental novels she never tired of reading. She could but give him all the most desirable of the attributes of the men-folk who lived in those pages; for they seemed so far superior to any man she knew in the flesh.

Miss Asenath, with her stories of him, had helped unconsciously in the creation of this ideal. Miss Asenath had loved him very dearly—loved his bright youth as she did all youth. Miss Eliza's bark was always much worse than her bite, and she, although she spoke very slightingly of him at times, had been quite fond of him. So, too, had Miss Letitia. The little daughter had grown up in an atmosphere that fostered her hero-worship.

Arethusa's most carefully cherished Dream, through childhood to the very present time, had been that some day this wonderful father of hers would come home, here to the Farm. She had planned their meeting, to the smallest detail, many and many a time. And he had written that he was coming, over and over again; only to add a little later that "he would not be able to get across this year." But these repeated disappointments had in no wise chilled the glow of his daughter's anticipation.

And now … he was actually on this side of the Atlantic! No longer the broad ocean rolled between them. If he had not come clear back to the Farm, he had come much nearer to it than he had ever been In Arethusa's recollection of him; and, moreover, he had come with a wife!

Small wonder that Arethusa was excited!

But the Letter. … The Letter would tell her all about it.