Part 13

But with his young manhood and the fulfilment of its young aspirations, came other desires, other incentives for making his business a success and himself a respected and honored citizen of these United States. Luigi Poggi was ready to give into Aileen's keeping--whenever she might choose to indicate by a word or look that she was willing to accept the gift--his warm Italian heart that knew no subterfuge in love, but gave generously, joyfully, in the knowledge that there would be ever more and more to bestow. He had not as yet spoken, save with his dark eyes, his loving earnestness of voice, and the readiness with which, ever since his appearance in Flamsted he ran and fetched and carried for her.

Aileen enjoyed this devotion. The legitimate pleasure of knowing she is loved--even when no response can be given--is a girl's normal emotional nourishment. Through it the narrows in her nature widen and the shallows deepen to the dimensions that enable the woman's heart to give, at last, even as she has received,--ay, even more than she can ever hope to receive. This novitiate was now Aileen's.

As a foil, against which Luigi's silent devotion showed to the best advantage, Romanzo Caukins' dogged persistence in telling her on an average of once in two months that he loved her and was waiting for a satisfactory answer, served its end. For six years, while Romanzo remained at Champ-au-Haut, the girl teased, cajoled, tormented, amused, and worried the Colonel's eldest. Of late, since his twenty-first birthday, he had turned the tables on her, and was teasing and worrying her with his love-blind persistence. That she had given him a decided answer more than once made no impression on his determined spirit. In her despair Aileen went to Octavius; but he gave her cold comfort.

"What'd I tell you two years ago, Aileen? Didn't I say you couldn't play with even a slow-match like Roman, if you didn't want a fire later on? And you wouldn't hear a word to me."

"But I didn't know, Tave! How could I think that just because a boy tags round after you from morning till night for the sake of being amused, that when he gets to be twenty-one he is going to keep on tagging round after you for the rest of his days? I never saw such a leech! He simply won't accept the fact once for all that I won't have him; but he's got to--so now!"

Octavius smiled at the sudden little flurry; he was used to them.

"I take it Roman doesn't think you know your own mind."

"He doesn't! Well, he'll find out I do, then. Oh, dear, why couldn't he just go on being Romanzo Caukins with no nonsense about him, and not make such a goose of himself! Anyway, I'm thankful he's gone; it got so I couldn't so much as tell him to harness up for Mrs. Champney, that he didn't consider it a sign of 'yielding' on my part!" She laughed out. "Oh, Tavy dear, what should I do without you!--Now if I could make an impression on you, it might be worth while," she added mischievously.

Octavius would have failed to be the man he was had he not felt flattered; he smiled on her indulgently. "Well, I shouldn't tag round after you much if I was thirty year younger; 't ain't my way. But there's one thing, Aileen, I want to say to you, and if you've got any common sense you'll heed me this time: I want you to be mighty careful how you manage with Luigi. You've got no slow-match to play with this time, let me tell you; you've got a regular sleeping volcano like some of them he was born near; and it won't do, I warn you. He ain't Romanzo Caukins--Roman's home made; but t'other is a foreigner; they're different."

"Oh, don't preach, Octavius." She always called him by his unabbreviated name when she was irritated. "I like well enough to sing with Luigi, and go rowing with him, and play tennis, and have the good times, but it's nonsense for you to think he means anything serious. Why, he never spoke a word of love to me in his life!"

"Humph!--that silent kind's the worst; you don't give him a chance."

"And I don't mean to--does that satisfy you?" she demanded. "If it doesn't, I'll tell you something--but it's a secret; you won't tell?"

"Not if you don't want me to; I ain't that kind."

"I know you're not, Tave; that's why I'm going to tell you. Here, let me whisper--"; she bent to his ear; he was seated on a stool in the coach house mending a strap; "--I've waited all this time for that prince to come, and do you suppose for one moment I'd look at any one else?"

"Now that ain't fair to fool me like that, Aileen!"

Octavius was really vexed, but he spoke the last words to empty air, for the girl caught up her skirt and ran like a deer up the lane. He could hear her laughing at his discomfiture; the sound grew fainter and fainter; when it ceased he resumed his work, from time to time shaking his head ominously and talking to himself as a vent for his outraged feelings.

But Aileen spoke the truth. Her vivid imagination, a factor in the true Celtic temperament, provided her with another life, apart from the busy practical one which Mrs. Champney laid out for her. All her childish delights of day-dreaming and joyous romancing, fostered by that first novel which Luigi Poggi thrust through the knothole in the orphan asylum fence, was at once transferred to Alice Van Ostend and her surroundings so soon as the two children established their across-street acquaintance. Upon her arrival in Flamsted, the child's adaptability to changed circumstances and new environment was furthered by the play of this imagination that fed itself on what others, who lack it, might call the commonplace of life: the house at Champ-au-Haut became her lordly palace; the estate a park; she herself a princess guarded only too well by an aged duenna; Octavius Buzzby and Romanzo Caukins she looked upon as life-servitors.

Now and then the evidence of this unreal life, which she was leading, was made apparent to Octavius and Romanzo by some stilted mode of speech. At such times they humored her; it provided amusement of the richest sort. She also continued to invent "novels" for Romanzo's benefit, and many a half-hour the two spent in the carriage house--Aileen aglow with the enthusiasm of narration, and Romanzo intent upon listening, charmed both with the tale and the narrator. In these invented novels, there was always a faithful prince returning after long years of wandering to the faithful princess. This was her one theme with variations.

Sometimes she danced a minuet on the floor of the stable, with this prince as imaginary partner, and Romanzo grew jealous of the bewitching smiles and coquetries she bestowed upon the vacant air. At others she would induce the youth to enter a box stall, telling him to make believe he was at the theatre, and then, forgetting her rôle of princess, she was again the Aileen Armagh of old--the child on the vaudeville stage, dancing the coon dance with such vigor and abandonment that once, when Aileen was nearly sixteen, Octavius, being witness to this flaunting performance, took her severely to task for such untoward actions now that she was grown up. He told her frankly that if Romanzo Caukins was led astray in the future it would be through her carryings-on; at which Aileen looked so dumbfoundered that Octavius at once perceived his mistake, and retreated weakly from his position by telling her if she wanted to dance like that, she'd better dance before him who understood her and her intentions.

At this second speech Aileen stared harder than ever; then going up to him and throwing an arm around his neck, she whispered:

"Tave, dear, are you mad with me? What have I done?--Is it really anything so awful?"

Her distress was so unfeigned that Octavius, not being a woman, comforted her by telling her he was a great botcher. Inwardly he cursed himself for an A No. 1 fool. Aileen never danced the "coon" again, but thereafter gave herself such grown-up and stand-off airs in Romanzo's presence, that the youth proceeded in all earnest to lose both head and heart to the girl's gracious blossoming womanhood. Octavius, observing this, groaned in spirit, and henceforth held his tongue when he heard the girl carolling her Irish love songs in the presence of the ingenuous Caukins.

After this, the girl's exuberance of spirits and the sustaining inner life of the imagination helped her wonderfully during the three following years of patient waiting on a confirmed invalid. Of late, Mrs. Champney had come to depend more and more on the girl's strong youth; to demand more and more from her abundant vitality and lively spirits; and Aileen, although recognizing the anomalous position she held in the Champ-au-Haut household--neither servant nor child, neither companion nor friend--gave of herself; gave as her Irish inheritance prompted her to give: ungrudgingly, faithfully, without reward save the knowledge of a duty performed towards the woman who, in taking her into her household and maintaining her there, had placed her in a position to make friends--such friends!

* * * * *

When the soil is turned over carefully, enriched and prepared perfectly for the seed; when rain is abundant, sunshine plenteous and mother-earth's spring quickening is instinctive, is it to be wondered at that the rootlet delves, the plantlet lifts itself, the bud forms quickly, and unexpectedly spreads its petal-star to the sunlight which enhances its beauty and fructifies its work of reproduction? The natural laws, in this case, work to their prescribed end along lines of favoring circumstance--and Love is but the working out of the greatest of all Nature's laws. When conditions are adverse, there is only too often struggle, strife, wretchedness. The result is a dwarfing of the product, a lowering of the vital power, a recession from the type. But, on the contrary, when all conditions combine to further the working of this law, we have the rapid and perfect flowering, followed by the beneficent maturity of fruit and seed. Thus Life, the ever-new, becomes immortal.

Small wonder that Aileen Armagh, trying to explain that queer feeling of timidity, should suddenly press her hand hard over her heart! It was throbbing almost to the point of suffocating her, so possessed was it by the joy of a sudden and wonderful presence of love.

The knowledge brought with it a sense of bewildering unreality. She knew now that her day dreams had a substantial basis. She knew now that she had _not_ meant what she said.

For years, ever since the night of the serenade, her vivid imagination had been dwelling on Champney Googe's home-coming; for years he was the central figure in her day dreams, and every dream was made half a reality to her by means of the praises in his behalf which she heard sounded by each man, woman, and child in the ever-increasing circle of her friends. It was always with old Joel Quimber: "When Champ gits back, we'll hev what ye might call the head of a fam'ly agin." Octavius Buzzby spent hours in telling her of the boy's comings and goings and doings at Champ-au-Haut, and the love Louis Champney bore him. Romanzo Caukins set him on the pedestal of his boyish enthusiasm. The Colonel himself was not less enthusiastic than his first born; he never failed to assure Aileen when she was a guest in his house--an event that became a weekly matter as she grew older--that her lot had fallen in pleasant places; that to his friend, Mrs. Googe, and her son, Champney, she was indebted for the new industrial life which brought with it such advantages to one and all in Flamsted.

To Aurora Googe, the mother of her imaginative ideal, Aileen, attracted from the first by her beauty and motherly kindness towards an orphan waif, gave a child's demonstrative love, afterwards a girl's adoration. In all this devotion she was abetted by Elvira Caukins to whom Aurora Googe had always been an ideal of womanhood. Moreover, Aileen came to know during these years of Champney Googe's absence that his mother worshipped in reality where she herself worshipped in imagination.

Thus the ground was made ready for the seed. Small wonder that the flowering of love in this warm Irish heart was immediate, when Champney Googe, on the second day after his home-coming, questioned her with that careless challenge in his eyes:

"You wouldn't?"

* * * * *

The sun set before she left the boat house. She ran up the steps to the terrace and, not finding Mrs. Champney there, sought her in the house. She found her in the library, seated in her easy chair which she had turned to face the portrait of her husband, over the fireplace.

"Why didn't you call me to help you in, Mrs. Champney? I blame myself for not coming sooner."

"I really feel stronger and thought I might as well try it; there is always a first time--and you were with Champney, weren't you?"

"I? Why no--what made you think that?" Mrs. Champney noticed the slight hesitation before the question was put so indifferently, and the quick red that mounted in the girl's cheeks. "Mr. Googe went off half an hour ago with Rag tagging on behind."

"Then he conquered as usual."

"I don't know whether I should call it 'conquering' or not; Rag didn't want to go, that was plain enough to see."

"What made him go then?"

Aileen laughed out. "That's just what I'd like to know myself."

"What do you think of him?"

"Who?--Rag or Mr. Googe?"

She was always herself with Mrs. Champney, and her daring spirit of mischief rarely gave offence to the mistress of Champ-au-Haut. But by the tone of voice in which she answered, Aileen knew that, without intention, she had irritated her.

"You know perfectly well whom I mean--my nephew, Mr. Googe."

Aileen was silent for a moment. Her young secret was her own to guard from all eyes, and especially from all unfriendly ones. She was standing on the hearth, in front of Mrs. Champney. Turning her head slightly she looked up at the portrait of the man above her--looked upon almost the very lineaments of him whom at that very moment her young heart was adoring: the fine features, the blue eyes, the level brows, the firm curving lips, the abundant brown hair. It was as if Champney Googe himself were smiling down upon her. As she continued to look, the lovely light in the girl's face--a light reflected from no sunset fires over the Flamsted Hills, but from the sunrise of girlhood's first love--betrayed her to the faded watchful eyes beside her.

"He looks just like your husband;" she spoke slowly; her voice seemed to linger on the last word; "when Tave saw him he said he thought it was Mr. Champney come to life, and I think--"

Mrs. Champney interrupted her. "Octavius Buzzby is a fool." Sudden anger hardened her voice; a slight flush came into her wasted cheeks. "Tell Hannah I want my supper now, let Ann bring it in here to me. I don't need you; I'm tired."

Aileen turned without another word--she knew too well that tone of voice and what it portended; she was thankful to hear it rarely now--and left the room to do as she was bidden.

"Little fool!" Almeda Champney muttered between set teeth when the door closed upon the girl. She placed both hands on the arms of her chair to raise herself; walked feebly to the hearth where a moment before Aileen had stood, and raising her eyes to the smiling ones looking down into hers, confessed her woman's weakness in bitter words that mingled with a half-sob:

"And I, too, was a fool--all women are with such as you."

V

Although Mrs. Champney remained the only one who read Aileen Armagh's secret, yet even she asked herself as the summer sped if she read aright.

During the three weeks in which her nephew was making himself familiar with all the inner and outer workings of the business at The Gore and in the sheds, she came to anticipate his daily coming to Champ-au-Haut, for he brought with him the ozone of success. His laugh was so unaffectedly hearty; his interest in the future of Flamsted and of himself as a factor in its prosperity so unfeigned; his enjoyment of his own importance so infectious, his account of the people and things he had seen during his absence from home so entertaining that, in his presence, his aunt breathed a new atmosphere, the life-giving qualities of which were felt as beneficial to every member of the household at The Bow.

Mrs. Champney took note that he never asked for Aileen. If the girl were there when he ran in for afternoon tea on the terrace or an hour's chat in the evening,--sometimes it happened that the day saw him three times at Champ-au-Haut--her presence to all appearance afforded him only an opportunity to tease her goodnaturedly; he delighted in her repartee. Mrs. Champney, keenly observant, failed to detect in the girl's frank joyousness the least self-consciousness; she was just her own merry self with him, and the "give and take" between them afforded Mrs. Champney a fund of amusement.

On the evening of his departure for New York, she was witness to their merry leave-taking. Afterwards she summoned Octavius to the library.

"You may bring all the mail for the house hereafter to me, Octavius; now that I am feeling so much stronger, I shall gradually resume my customary duties in the household. You need not give any of the mail to Aileen to distribute--I'll do it after to-night."

"What the devil is she up to now!" Octavius said to himself as he left the room.

But no letter from New York came for Aileen. Mrs. Champney tried another tack: the next time her nephew came to Flamsted, later on in the autumn, she asked him to write her in detail concerning his intimacy with her cousins, the Van Ostends, and of their courtesies to him. Champney, nothing loath--always keeping in mind the fact that it was well to keep on the right side of Aunt Meda--wrote her all she desired to know. What he wrote was retailed faithfully to Aileen; but the frequent dinners at the Van Ostends', and the prospective coming-out reception and ball to be given for Alice and scheduled for the late winter, called forth from the eagerly listening girl only ejaculations of delight and pleasant reminiscence of the first time she had seen the little girl dressed for a party. If, inwardly she asked herself the question why Alice Van Ostend had dropped all her childish interest in her whom she had been the means of sending to Flamsted, why she no longer inquired for her, her common sense was apt to answer the question satisfactorily. Aileen Armagh was keen-eyed and quick-witted, possessing, without actual experience in the so-called other world of society, a wonderful intuition as to the relative value of people and circumstances in this ordinary world which already, during her short life, had presented various interesting phases for her inspection; consequently she recognized the abyss of circumstance between her and the heiress of Henry Van Ostend. But, with an intensity proportioned to her open-minded recognition of the first material differences, her innate womanliness and pride refused to acknowledge any abyss as to their respective personalities. Hence she kept silence in regard to certain things; laughed and made merry over the letters filled with the Van Ostends' doings--and held on her own way, sure of her own status with herself.

Aileen kept her secret, and all the more closely because she was realizing that Champney Googe was far from indifferent to her. At first, the knowledge of the miracle of love, that was wrought so suddenly as she thought, sufficed to fill her heart with continual joy. But, shortly, that was modified by the awakening longing that Champney should return her love. She felt she charmed him; she knew that he timed his coming and going that he might encounter her in the house or about the grounds, whenever and wherever he could--sometimes alone in her boat on the long arm of the lake, that makes up to the west and is known as "lily-pad reach"; and afterwards, during the autumn, in the quarry woods above The Gore where with her satellites, Dulcie and Doosie Caukins, she went to pick checkerberries.

Mrs. Champney was baffled; she determined to await developments, taking refuge from her defeat in the old saying "Love and a cough can't be hidden." Still, she could but wonder when four months of the late spring and early summer passed, and Champney made no further appearance in Flamsted. This hiatus was noticeable, and she would have found it inexplicable, had not Mr. Van Ostend written her a letter which satisfied her in regard to many things of which she had previously been in doubt; it decided her once for all to speak to Aileen and warn her against any passing infatuation for her nephew. For this she determined to bide her time, especially as Champney's unusual length of absence from Flamsted seemed to have no effect on the girl's joyous spirits. In July, however, she had again an opportunity to see the two together at Champ-au-Haut. Champney was in Flamsted on business for two days only, and so far as she knew there was no opportunity for Aileen to see her nephew more than once and in her presence. She managed matters in such a way that Aileen's services were in continual demand during Champney's two days' stay in his native town.