Читать книгу The Rose Dawn - Stewart Edward White - Страница 8

The shadows were long and cool, and a rose light rested on the mountains. Swallows had appeared and were darting in myriads across the sky. The meadowlarks' songs seemed louder and more liquid. A thin mist of gold dust followed the wheels of the guests departing. The vivid high brilliance of the California day had sunk to a lower key; and the vivid high brilliance of men's spirits had sunk with it. From the front steps, where once more the Colonel and his wife had taken their stand, the branches of the oaks showed very black against the pale green sky. Across the flats the westerly hills stood dark before the sunset, clearly denned, with gold edges. The blue of the heavens had lost its hard surface; it had etherealized and become translucent, so that one seemed to see millions of miles into its pale green depths. And its one doubtful star, instead of being pasted against the sky, appeared to swim somewhere at an indeterminate distance in infinite space. Under the trees the shadows stole out, breathing coolness, throwing the vagueness of twilight over well known things.

​Brainerd was the last of all the guests to leave. He was waiting for Daphne, who had disappeared. Caught by the spell of the slow-descending evening he stood with his host and hostess in silence, without impatience, without thought of fatigue.

Then out of the dusk came Daphne, breaking the spell.

"Where in the world have you been?" demanded Brainerd, a little impatiently. "You have kept us all waiting."

"I am sorry for that," she replied, sidling up to the Colonel and taking his hand.

"Where were you?"

"Talking to my friends," she replied vaguely.

"Well, we must get back."

"Cannot I have José drive you over?" asked the Colonel.

"No, no!" disclaimed Brainerd. "The walk will do us good."

"The light on the mountains must be very fine," suggested the Colonel. "What say, mama, don't you think it would be pleasant to walk a short distance with our friends?"

"Pleasant and salutary," laughed Allie. "I feel like a stuffed turkey after these barbecues. Everything is so good. Wait until I get my shawl."

The Colonel and Daphne sauntered on ahead, while Brainerd, seating himself on the steps, lighted a pipe and waited for Mrs. Peyton.

"Had a pleasant day, Puss?" asked the Colonel, throwing one arm around the child's shoulders.

"Simply lovely, fairy godpapa," she replied, snuggling closer to him.

"That's good, that's good," said he, raising his fine old face to peer up through the interlocking branches. They were now at the edge of the Grove under a great oak whose branches, immense as the trunks of ordinary sized trees, writhed and twisted fantastically, now reaching upward toward the low hollow dome of green, now touching the ground in their wide-flung spread. The main trunk was nearly six feet in diameter but divided at so low a height that three unobtrusive cleats nailed to its side sufficed to admit even a very small climber to the great anacondalike limbs.

"Dolman's House," said Daphne. "Let's stop a minute."

​She dipped slightly away from him, but continued to hold his hand. They stood side by side looking upward.

"You used to play here all your time when you were a little girl," said the Colonel. "All by yourself. I used to see you sitting there very still on the crook of that big limb; and I used to wonder what you could be doing to sit still so long."

"Godpapa, do you believe in fairies?" demanded Daphne, abruptly.

"Well, bless my soul, what a question!" cried the Colonel, looking down in mock astonishment. "Of course I don't! What sensible man does? But," he added quaintly, lowering his voice and looking about him, "there are a few near the Fern Falls."

"That is a perfect answer," Daphne told him sedately. "Well, Dolman, I believe, is a fairy: a tree fairy. He lives in this oak. That's why I named it Dolman's House."

"I often wondered," said the Colonel.

"When I was a child I used to sit on the limb and talk to Dolman."

"Did you ever see him?"

"I can't say I ever did, but I am not sure. That is something, godpapa, that I never could understand. I ought to remember clearly enough: it wasn't so very long ago."

"Not so very," agreed the Colonel.

"But it's dim, and misty, like seeing the mountains when the fog is breaking. I sometimes think I remember clearly what happened, and then it's blotted out. I can't explain exactly——"

"I think I understand," said the Colonel. "There are some things that way with my recollections of my youth."

"Only it isn't so strange with you," said Daphne seriously, "because you are so extremely old."

"Extremely," agreed the Colonel. "But tell me more about what you do remember."

"It sounds rather silly," said Daphne. "Of course, I don't believe in it now. But I used to. Somehow I always knew of Dolman. I used to play with him—I think—he used to talk with me. It is hard to remember that it was all imagination. ​I remember it as real as anything. I used to sit on the limb and he would talk to me."

"What would he say?" inquired the Colonel.

"It's hard to remember. But he was kind and he did not scold." She laughed merrily. "Wasn't it silly?"

"I don't know," said the Colonel. "How long ago did you stop talking to him?"

"I can't remember that." She hesitated shyly; then went on with more haste. "It's perfectly silly, but when I come here and sit even now to read or watch the birds and get day-dreaming or half asleep I sometimes hear him as plainly as can be, only faint and far off, not near as it used to be, as if his voice were inside me, or as if it were muffled. Then I come to with an awful start!"

"That is very interesting. What does he say?"

"I never can remember. It's just a waking dream."

"You never saw Dolman, you say?"

"No; I never did. But after I had sat quite still for some time staring out through the leaves I used to see queer things. The leaves would disappear and I would see a sort of revolving disk of gold and black. It was very bright and beautiful and went around very fast. My heart used to beat so with excitement, and I would try to keep on seeing it, but I never could hold it longer than a moment or so. When I saw it my eyes seemed sort of unfocussed; and they always would come back focussed again. It was lovely, and I used to think Dolman showed it to me."

"How long since you have seen that?"

"Oh, years! But I can shut my eyes and see it sometimes yet. Memory, I suppose. It is not so bright and it moves more slowly than it used to. I can sometimes almost make out the pattern on it." She hesitated, and crept closer to him: "Godfather, you mustn't laugh. I told you I couldn't remember anything Dolman told me. That isn't so. There is only one thing but I remember that very clearly. He said that when the disk stopped and I could make out the design on it, I would die."

The Colonel laughed. "What quaint ideas little children have, don't they, Puss?" he said in a matter-of-fact voice.

​"No, but listen, godpapa: here is something I never told a soul. Promise you won't tell?"

"I promise."

"Not even Aunt Allie?"

"Not even Aunt Allie."

"Well, you remember that Miss Mathews, who visited you last spring, and how I found the watch she lost?"

"Perfectly."

"We all looked everywhere for it, and she felt so badly about it because it belonged to her mother. I was very sorry for her. While I was looking I came out here to Dolman's House. And I heard him just as plainly as when I was a child. He said: 'She dropped it when she was picking flowers'; and I found out that she had been picking flowers away up the cañon near the falls; and I went up there and found it almost first crack. How do you 'splain that?"

She was staring up at him, her face showing pale through the dusk, her eyes wide with excitement.

"I declare you do believe in Dolman!" accused the Colonel, in a light tone designed to relieve the tension, "and I'm almost inclined to myself. I would if he would tell me where I left my second-best hat."

At this moment Brainerd's voice was heard hailing them. They answered.

"Oh, there you are," he observed, slouching forward with Mrs. Peyton. "Wonder you wouldn't hide. Come, Daffy, it's very late."

Daphne made her required little speeches of thanks.

"I am going to make some marmalade to-morrow afternoon," Mrs. Peyton told her. "Better come over and make some, too. I'll show you my new recipe."

"I will, Aunt Allie. Good-night," replied Daphne. She moved away sedately for ten yards, then came flying back all swirl and legs, seized the Colonel and Mrs. Peyton, hugged and kissed them tempestuously, and was off again.

"She's a dear child," said Mrs. Peyton, rearranging her somewhat rumpled plumage. "I wish she had more young folks to play with."

​"She has me," contended the Colonel.

"Oh, you! I didn't say an infant to care for!"

The Colonel put his arm around her and they sauntered back toward the twinkling lights of the ranch house.

"Happy day, sweetheart?" he asked.

"Do you know, Richard," she said soberly, "that we are very lucky people? We have each other, and dear friends, and live in this wonderful country, and have all the wealth we need——"

A white figure loomed before them and the Colonel withdrew his arm rather hastily.

"You catch cold," commanded Sing Toy. "You come in house light away!"

1 ↑ A buckskin, but with silver mane and tail.