The Story of a Whim (9 page)

Victoria Landis on the front seat with the interested driver—who felt exceedingly curious about this party of pretty girls going to visit Christie Bailey thus secretly—began to question him.

"Is Christie Bailey a very large person?" she asked mischievously. "Is she as large as I am? You see we have never seen her."

The old man looked at her quizzically. "Never seen her? Aw! O," he said dryly. "Wall,
yas, fer a girl, I should say she was rather big. Yas, I should say she was fully as big as you be—if not bigger."

"Has she very red hair?" went on Victoria. There was purpose in her mischief. She did not want Hazel to be too much disappointed.

"Ruther," responded the driver. Then he chuckled unduly, it seemed to Hazel, and added,"Ruther red."

"Isn't she at all pretty?" asked Ruth Summers, leaning forward with a troubled air, as if to snatch one ray of hope.

"Purty!" chuckled the driver. "Wall, no, I shouldn't eggzactly call her purty. She's got nice eyes," he added, as an afterthought.

"There!" said Hazel, sitting up triumphantly. "I knew her eyes were magnificent. Now please don't say any more."

The driver turned his twinkly little eyes around, and stared at Hazel, and then ducked the horse over the deep sandy road.

He set them down at Christie's gateway, telling them to knock at the cabin door,
and they would be sure to be answered by the owner, and he would return within the hour. Then he drove his horse reluctantly away, turning his head back as far as he could see, hoping Christie would come to the door. He would like to see what happened. For half a mile down the road he laughed to the blackjacks, and occasionally ejaculated: "No, she ain't just to say purty! But she's good. I might 'a' told 'em she was good." This was the driver's tribute to Christie.

Hazel walked up to the door of the cabin in a dream of anticipation realized, here were the periwinkles nodding their bright eyes along the border of the path, and there the chickens stood on one kid foot of yellow, as Christie had described.

She could almost have found the way here alone, from the letters she had received. She drank in the air,
and felt it give new life to her, and thought of the pleasant hours she would spend with Christie during the weeks that were to follow, and of the secret plan she had of taking Christie back home with her for the winter.

They knocked at the door, which was open, and, stepping in, stood surrounded by the familiar things; and all three felt the delight of giving these few simple gifts, which had been so little to them when they
were given.

Then a merry whistle sounded from the back yard and heavy steps on the board path at the back door, and Christie walked in from the barn with the
frying-pan in one hand and a dish-pan in the other. He had been out to scrape some scraps from his table to the chickens in the yard.

The
blood come quickly to his cheeks at sight of his three elegant visitors. He put the cooking-utensils down on the stove with a thud, and drew off his old straw hat, revealing his garnet-tinted hair in all its glory against the sunshine of a Florida sky in the doorway behind him.

"Is Christie Bailey at home?" questioned Victoria Landis, who seemed the natural
spokesman for the three.

"I am Christie Bailey," said the young
man gravely, looking from one to another questioningly. "Won't you sit down?"

There was a moment's pause before the tension broke, and then a pained, sweet voice, the voice of Christie's dreams, spoke forth.

"But Christie Bailey is a young woman."

Christie looked at Hazel, and knew his hour had come.

"No, I am Christie Bailey," he said once more, his great, honest eyes pleading for forgiveness.

"Do you reall
y mean it?" said Victoria, amusement growing in her eyes as she noted his every fine point, noted the broad shoulders and the way he had of carrying his head up, noted the flash of his eyes and the toss of rich waves from his forehead.

"And you're not a girl, after all?" questioned Ruth Summers in a frightened tone, looking with troubled eyes from Christie to Hazel, who had turned quite white.

But Christie was looking straight at Hazel, all his soul come to judgment before her, his mouth closed, unable to plead his own cause.

"Evidently not!" remarked Victoria dryly. "What extremely self-evident facts you find to remark upon, Ruth!"

But the others did not hear them. They were facing one another, these two who had held communion of soul for so many months, and who, now that they were face to face, were suddenly cut asunder by an insurmountable wall of a composition known as truth.

Hazel's dark eyes burned wide and deep from her white face. The enthusiasm that could make her love an unseen, unlovely
woman, could also glow with the extreme of scorn for one whom she despised. The firm little mouth he had admired was set and stern. Her lips were pallid as her cheeks, while the light of truth and righteousness fairly scintillated from her countenance.

"Then you have been deceiving me all this time!" Her voice was high and clear, tempered by her late illness, and keen with pain. Her
whole alert, graceful body expressed the utmost scorn. She would have done for a model of the figure of Retribution.

And yet in that awful minute, as Christie met her eye for eye, and saw the judgment of "Guilty" pronounced upon him, and could but acknowledge it just, and saw before him the blankness of the punishment that was to be his, he had time to think with a thrill of delight that Hazel was all and more than he had dreamed of her as being.
He had time to be glad that she was as she was. He would not have her changed one whit, retribution and all.

It was all over in a minute; the sentence gone forth, the girl turned and marched with stately step out of the door down the white path to the road.
But the little ripples of air she swept by in passing rolled back upon the culprit a knowledge of her disappointment, chagrin, and humiliation.

Christie bowed his head in acceptance of his sentence, and looked at his other two visitors, his eyes beseeching that they would go and leave him to endure what had come upon him. Ruth was dinging to Victoria's arm, frightened. She had seen the
delicate white of Hazel's cheek as she went out the door. But Victoria's eyes were dancing with fun.

"Why didn't you say something?" she demanded of Christie. "Go out and stop her before she gets away! See, she is out there by the hedge. You can make it all right with her." There was pity in her voice. She liked the honest eyes and fine bearing of the young man. Besides, she loved fun, and did not like to see this most enticing situation spoiled at the climax.

A light of hope sprang into Christie's eyes as he turned to follow her suggestion. It did not take him long to overtake Hazel's slow step in the deep, sandy way.

“I
must tell you how sorry I am—" he began before he had quite caught up to her.

But
she turned and faced him with her hand lifted in protest.

"If you are sorry, then please do not say another word. I will forgive you, of course, because I am a Christian; but
don't ever speak to me again. I HATE deceit!" Then she turned and sped down the road like a flash, in spite of her weakness.

And
Christie stood in the road where she left him, his head bared to the winter's sunshine, looking as if he had been struck in the face by a loved hand, his whole strong body trembling.

Victoria meanwhile was taking in the situation. She espied Hazel's photo
graph framed in a delicate tracery of Florida moss. Then she frowned. Hazel would never permit that to stay here now, and her instinct told her that it would be missed by its present owner, and that he had the kind of honor that would not keep it if it were demanded.

"This must not be in sight when Hazel comes back," she whispered softly, disengaging herself from Ruth's clinging hand, and going vigorously to work. She took down the photograph, slipped off the moss,
and, looking about for a place of concealment, hid it in the breast pocket of an old coat lying on a chair nearby. Then, going to the door, she watched for developments; but, as she perceived that Hazel had fled and Christie was dazed, she made up her mind that she was needed elsewhere, and, calling Ruth, hurried down the road.

"If you miss anything, look in your coat pocket for it," she said as she passed Christie in the road.
But Christie was too much overcome to take in what she meant.

He went back to his cabin. The light of the world seemed crushed out for him. Even the organ and the couch and the var
ious pretty touches that had entered his home through these Northern friends of a year ago seemed suddenly to have withdrawn themselves from him, as if they had discovered the mistake in his identity, and were frowning their disapproval and letting him know that he was holding property under false pretences. Only the loving eyes of the pictured Christ looked tenderly at him, and with a leap of his heart Christie' realized that Hazel had given him one thing that she could never take away.

With something almost like a
sob he threw himself on his knees before the picture and cried out in anguish, "My Father!"

Christie did not get supper that night. He forgot that there was any need for anything but comfort and forgiveness in the world. He knelt there, praying, sometimes, but most of the time just letting his heart lie bleeding and open before his Father's eyes.

The night came on, and still he knelt.

By and by there
came a kind of comfort in remembering the little black girl's words, "You all's Fathah's not dead." He was not cut off from his Father. Something like peace settled upon him, a resignation and a strength to bear.

To think the situation over dearly and see whether there was
aught he could do was beyond him. His rebuke had come. He could not justify himself. He had done wrong, though without intention. Besides, it was too late to do anything now. He had been turned out of Eden. The angel with the flaming sword had bidden him no more think to enter. He must go forth and labor, but God was not dead.

The days after that passed slowly and dully. Christie hardly took account of time. He was like one laden with a heavy burden and made to draw it on a long road. He had started, and was plodding his best every day, knowing that there would be an end sometime; but it was to be hard and long.

Gradually he came out of the daze that Hazel's words had put upon him. Gradually he felt himself forgiven by God for his deceit. But he would not discuss even with his own heart the possibility of forgiveness from Hazel. She was right, of course. He had known from the first that her friendship did not belong to him. He would keep the memory of it safe; and by and by, when he could bear to think it over, it would be a precious treasure. At least, he could prove himself worthy of the year of her friendship he had enjoyed.

But
, thinking his sad thoughts and going about the hardest work he could find, he avoided the public road as much as possible, taking to the little by-paths when he went out from his own grove. And thus one morning, emerging from a tangle of hummock land where the live-oaks arched high above him, and the wild grape and jessamine snarled themselves from magnolia to bay-tree in exquisite patterns, and rare orchids defied the world of fashion to find their hidden lofty homes, Christie heard voices near and the soft footfalls of well-shod horses on the rich, rooty earth of the bridle-path.

He stepped to one side to let the riders pass, for the way was narrow. Just where a ray of sunlight came through a clearing he stood, and the light fell all about him, on his bared head, for he held his hat in his hand, making his head look like one from a painting of an old master, all the copper tints shining above the dear depths of his eyes.

He knew who was coming. It was for this he had removed his hat. His forehead shone white in the shadowed road, where the hat had kept off the sunburn; and about his face had come a sadness and a dignity that glorified his plainness.

Hazel rode the forward horse. She looked weary, and the flush in her cheeks was not altogether one of health. She was controlling herself wonderfully, but her strength was not what they had hoped it would be when they brought her to the Southland. The long walk she had taken under pressure of excitement had almost worn her out, and she had been unable to go out since, until this afternoon, when with the sudden willfulness of the convalescent she had insisted upon a horseback ride. She had gone much further than her two faithful friends had thought wise, and then suddenly turned toward home, too weary to ride rapidly.

And now she came, at this quick turn, upon Christie standing, sun-glorified, his head inclined in deference, his eyes pleading, his whole bearing one of reverence.

She looked at him, and started, and knew him. That was plain. Then, her face a deadly white, her eyes straight ahead, she rode by magnificently, a steady, unknowing gaze that cut him like a knife just glinting by from her in passing.

He bowed his head, acknowledging her right to do thus with him; but all the blood in his body surged into his face, and then, receding, left him as white as the girl who had just passed by him.

Victoria and Ruth, behind, saw and grieved. They bowed graciously to him as if to try to make up for Hazel's act, but he scarcely seemed to see them, for he was gazing down the narrow shadowed way after the straight little figure sitting upon her horse so resolutely and riding now so fast.

"I did not know you could be so cruel, Hazel," said Victoria, riding forward beside her. "That fellow was just magnificent, and you have stabbed him to the heart."

But
Hazel had stopped her horse, dropped her bridle, and was slipping white and limp from her saddle to the ground. She had not heard.

It was Sunday morning before they had time to think or talk more about it. Hazel had made them very anxious.
But Sunday morning she felt a little better, and they were able to slip into her darkened room, one at a time, and say a few words to her.

"Something must
be done," said Victoria decidedly, scowling out the window at the ripples of the blue lake below the hotel lawn. "I cannot understand how this thing has taken so great a hold upon her. But I feel sure it is that and nothing else that is making her so ill. Don't you feel so, Ruth?"

"It is the disappointment," said Ruth with troubled eyes. "She told me this morning that it almost shook her faith in prayer and God to think that she should have prayed so for the conversion of that girl's soul—"

"And then found out it was a creature, after all, without a soul?" laughed Victoria. She never could refrain from saying something funny whenever she happened to think of it.

But
Ruth went on.

"It wasn't his being a man, at all, instead of a girl. She
wouldn't have minded who he or she was, if it had not been for the deceit. She says he went through the whole thing with her, professed to be converted and to be a very earnest Christian, and pray for other people, and talked about Christ in a wonderful way— and now to think he did it all for a joke, it just crushes her. She thinks he deceived her of course in those things, too. She says a man who would deceive in one thing would do so in another. She does not believe now even in his Sunday school. And then you know she is so enthusiastic that she must have said a lot of loving things to him. She is just horrified to think she has been carrying on a first-class low-down flirtation with an unknown stranger. I think the sooner she gets away from this country, the better. She ought to forget all about it."