The Moonlit Way: A Novel

He had leaned over her shoulders; his bowed head was close to hers – so close that he became aware of the hot, tearful fragrance of her breath; but there was not a sound from her, not a stir.

“What is it, Sweetness?” he whispered.

“I – don’t know… I didn’t m-mean to – cry… And I don’t know why I should… I’m very h-happy – ” She withdrew one arm and stretched it out, blindly, seeking him; and he took her hand and held it close to his lips.

“Why are you so distressed, Dulcie?”

“I’m not. I’m happy… You know I am… My heart was very full; that is all… I don’t seem to know how to express myself sometimes… Perhaps it’s because I don’t quite dare… So something gives way… And this happens – tears. Don’t mind them, please… If I could reach my handkerchief – ” She drew the tiny square of sheer stuff from her bosom and rested her closed eyes on it.

“It’s silly, isn’t it, Garry?.. W-when a girl is so heavenly contented… Is anybody coming?”

“Westmore and Thessa!”

She whisked her tears away and sat up swiftly. But Thessa merely called to them that she and Westmore were off for a walk, and passed on through the hall and out through the porch.

“Garry,” she murmured, looking away from him.

“Yes, dear?”

“May I go to my room and fix my hair? Because Mr. Skeel will be here. Do you mind if I leave you?”

He laughed:

“Of course not, you charming child!” Then, as he looked down at her hand, which he still retained, his expression altered; he inclosed the slender fingers, bent slowly and touched the fragrant palm with his lips.

They were both on their feet the next second; she passing him with a pale, breathless little smile, and swiftly crossing the hall; he dumb, confused by the sudden tumult within him, standing there with one hand holding to the piano as though for support, and looking after the slim, receding figure till it disappeared beyond the library door.

His mother and sister returned from their morning ride, lingered to chat with him, then went away to dress for luncheon. Murtagh Skeel had not yet arrived.

Westmore and Thessalie returned from their walk in 361 the woods by the second lake, reporting a distant view of Barres senior, fishing madly from a canoe.

Dulcie came down and joined them in the library. Later Mrs. Barres and Lee appeared, and luncheon was announced.

Murtagh Skeel had not come to Foreland Farms, and there was no word from him.

Mrs. Barres spoke of his absence during luncheon, for Garry had told her he was coming to talk to Dulcie about her mother, whom he had known very well in Ireland.

Luncheon ended, and the cool north veranda became the popular rendezvous for the afternoon, and later for tea. People from Northbrook drove, rode, or motored up for a cheering cup, and a word or two of gossip. But Skeel did not come.

By half-past five the north veranda was thronged with a gaily chattering and very numerous throng from neighbouring estates. The lively gossip was of war, of the coming elections, of German activities, of the Gerhardts’ promised moonlight spectacle and dance, of Murtagh Skeel and the romantic interest he had aroused among Northbrook folk.

So many people were arriving or leaving and such a delightful and general informality reigned that Dulcie, momentarily disengaged from a vapid but persistent dialogue with a chuckle-headed but persistent youth, ventured to slip into the house, and through it to the garden in the faint hope that perhaps Murtagh Skeel might have avoided the tea-crush and had gone directly there.

But the rose arbour was empty; only the bubble of the little wall fountain and a robin’s evening melody broke the scented stillness of the late afternoon.

Her mind was full of Murtagh Skeel, her heart of 362 Garry Barres, as she stood there in that blossoming solitude, listening to the robin and the fountain, while her eyes wandered across flower-bed, pool, and clipped greensward, and beyond the garden wall to the hill where three pines stood silver-green against the sky.

Little by little the thought of Murtagh Skeel faded from her mind; fuller and fuller grew her heart with confused emotions new to her – emotions too perplexing, too deep, too powerful, perhaps, for her to understand – or to know how to resist or to endure. For the first vague sweetness of her thoughts had grown keen to the verge of pain – an exquisite spiritual tension which hurt her, bewildered her with the deep emotions it stirred.

To love, had been a phrase to her; a lover, a name. For beyond that childish, passionate adoration which Barres had evoked in her, and which to her meant friendship, nothing more subtly mature, more vital, had threatened her unawakened adolescence with any clearer comprehension of him or any deeper apprehension of herself.

And even now it was not knowledge that pierced her, lighting little confusing flashes in her mind and heart. For her heart was still a child’s heart; and her mind, stimulated and rapidly developing under the warm and magic kindness of this man who had become her only friend, had not thought of him in any other way… Until to-day.

What had happened in her mind, in her heart, she had not analysed – probably was afraid to, there at the piano in the music-room. And later, in her bedroom, when she had summoned up innocent courage sufficient for self-analysis, she didn’t know how to question herself – did not realise exactly what had happened to her, and never even thought of including him in the enchanted 363 cataclysm which had befallen her mind and heart and soul.

Thessalie and Westmore appeared on the lawn by the pool. Behind the woods the sky was tinted with pale orange.

It may have been the psychic quality of the Celt in Dulcie – a pale glimmer of clairvoyance – some momentary and vague premonition wirelessed through the evening stillness which set her sensitive body vibrating; for she turned abruptly and gazed northward across the woods and hills – remained motionless, her grey eyes fixed on the far horizon, all silvery with the hidden glimmer of unlighted stars.

Then she slowly said aloud to herself:

“He will not come. He will never come again – this man who loved my mother.”

Barres approached across the grass, looking for her. She went forward through the arbour to meet him.

“Hasn’t he come?” he asked.

“He is not coming, Garry.”

“Why? Have you heard anything?”

She shook her head:

“No. But he isn’t coming.”

“Probably he’ll explain this evening at the Gerhardts’.”

“I shall never see him again,” she said absently.

He turned and gave her a searching look. Her gaze was remote, her face a little pale.

They walked back to the house together in silence.

A servant met them in the hall with a note on a tray. It was for Barres; Dulcie passed on with a pale little smile of dismissal; Barres opened the note:

“The pot has boiled over, mon ami. Something has scared Skeel. He gave us the slip very cleverly, leaving Gerhardt’s house before sunrise and motoring north at crazy speed. Where he will strike the railway I have no means of knowing. Your Government’s people are trying to cover Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. On the Canada side the authorities have been notified and are alert I hope.

“Gerhardt’s country house is a nest of mischief hatchers. One in particular is under surveillance and will be arrested. His name is Tauscher.

“Because, mon ami, it has just been discovered that there are two plots to blow up the Welland Canal! One is Skeel’s. The other is Tauscher’s. It is a purely German plot. They don’t intend to blow themselves up these Huns. Oh no! They expect to get away.

“Evidently Bernstorff puts no faith in Skeel’s mad plan. So, in case it doesn’t pan out, here is Tauscher with another plan, made in Germany, and very, very thorough. Isn’t it characteristic? Here is the report I received this morning:

“‘Captain Franz von Papen, Military Attaché on the ambassadorial staff of Count von Bernstorff, and Captain Hans Tauscher, who, besides being the Krupp agent in America, is also, by appointment of the German War Office, von Papen’s chief military assistant in the United States, have plotted the destruction of the Welland Canal in Canada.

“‘Captain Hans Tauscher will be arrested and indicted for violation of Section 13 of the United States Criminal Code, for setting on foot a military enterprise against Canada during the neutrality of the United States.

“‘Tauscher is a German reserve officer and is subject to the orders of Captain Franz von Papen, Military Attaché of Count von Bernstorff. His indictment will be brought about by reason of an attempt to blow up parts of the Welland Canal, the waterway connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario. A small party of Germans, under command of one von der Goltz, have started from New York for the purpose of committing this act of sabotage, and, incidentally, of assassination of all men, women and children who might be involved in the explosion at the point to be selected by the plotters.

“‘Tauscher bought and furnished to this crowd of assassins the dynamite which was to be used for the purpose. 365 The fact that Tauscher had bought the dynamite has become known to the United States authorities and he will be called upon to make an explanation.

“‘Captain Tauscher is said to be an agreeable companion, but he had the ordinary predilection of a German officer for assassinating women and children.’

“Now, then, mon ami, this is the report. I expect that United States Secret Service men will arrest Tauscher to-night. Perhaps Gerhardt, also, will be arrested.

“At any rate, at the dance to-night you need not look for Skeel. But may I suggest that you and Mr. Westmore keep your eyes on Mademoiselle Dunois. Because, at the railway station to-day, the German agents, Franz Lehr and Max Freund, were recognised by my men, disguised as liveried chauffeurs, but in whose service we have not yet been able to discover.

“Therefore, it might be well for you and Mr. Westmore to remain near Mademoiselle Dunois during the evening.

“Au revoir! I shall see you at the dance.

“Renoux.”

XXVII

THE MOONLIT WAY

Barres whistled and sang alternately as he tied his evening tie before his looking glass.

“And I care not, I,Who ever she beI could not love her more!”

he chanted gaily, examining the effect and buttoning his white waistcoat.

Westmore, loitering near and waiting for him, referred again, indignantly, to Renoux’s report concerning the presence of Freund and Lehr at the Northbrook railway station.

“If I catch them hanging around Thessa,” he said, “I’ll certainly beat them up, Garry.

“Deal with anything of that sort directly; that’s always the best way. No use arguing with a Hun. When he misbehaves, beat him up. It’s the only thing he understands.”

“Well, it’s all right for us to do it now, as long as the French Government knows where Thessa is,” remarked Barres, drawing a white clove-carnation through his buttonhole. “But what do you think of that dirty swine, Tauscher, planning wholesale murder like that? Isn’t it the fine flower of Prussianism? There’s the real and porcine boche for you, sombre, 367 savage, stupidly ferocious, swinishly persistent, but never quite cunning enough, never sufficiently subtle in planning his filthy and murderous holocausts.”

Westmore nodded:

“Quite right. The Lusitania and Belgium cost the Hun the respect of civilisation, and are driving the civilised world into a common understanding. We’ll go in before long; don’t worry.”

They descended the stairs together just as dinner was announced.

Mrs. Barres said laughingly to her son:

“Your father is still fishing, I suppose, so in spite of his admonition to me by letter this morning, I sent over one of the men with some thermos bottles and a very nice supper. He grumbles, but he always likes it.”

“I wonder what Mr. Barres will think of me,” ventured Dulcie. “He left such a pretty little rod for me. Thessa and I have been examining it. I’d like to go, only – ” she added with a wistful smile, “I have never been to a real party.”

“Of course you’re going to the Gerhardts’,” insisted Lee, laughing. “Dad is absurd about his fishing. I don’t believe any girl ever lived who’d prefer fishing on that foggy lake at night to dancing at such a party as you are going to to-night.”

“Aren’t you going?” asked Thessalie, but Lee shook her head, still smiling.

“We have two young setters down with distemper, and mother and I always sit up with our dogs under such circumstances.”

Personal devotion of this sort was new to Thessalie. Mrs. Barres and Lee told her all about the dreaded contagion and how very dreadful an epidemic might be in a kennel of such finely bred dogs as was the well-known Foreland Kennels.

Dog talk absorbed everybody during dinner. Mrs. Barres and Lee were intensely interested in Thessalie’s description of the Grand Duke Cyril’s Russian wolfhounds, with which she had coursed and hunted as a child.

Once she spoke, also, of those strange, pathetic, melancholy Ishmaelites, pitiable outcasts of their race – the pariah dogs of Constantinople. For, somehow, while dressing that evening, the distant complaint of a tethered beagle had made her think of Stamboul. And she remembered that night so long ago on the moonlit deck of the Mirage, where she had stood with Ferez Bey while, from the unseen, monstrous city close at hand, arose the endless wailing of homeless dogs.

How strange it was, too, to think that the owner of the Mirage should this night be her host here in the Western World, yet remain unconscious that he had ever before entertained her.

Before coffee had been served in the entrance hall, the kennel master sent in word that one of the pups, a promising Blue Belton, had turned very sick indeed, and would Mrs. Barres come to the kennels as soon as convenient.

It was enough for Mrs. Barres and for Lee; they both excused themselves without further ceremony and went away together to the kennels, apparently quite oblivious of their delicate dinner gowns and slippers.

“I’ve seen my mother ruin many a gown on such errands,” remarked Garry, smiling. “No use offering yourself as substitute; my mother would as soon abandon her own sick baby to strangers as turn over an ailing pup to anybody except Lee and herself.”

“I think that is very splendid,” murmured Dulcie, 369 relinquishing her coffee cup to Garry and suffering a maid to invest her with a scarf and light silk wrap.

“My mother is splendid,” said Garry in a low voice. “You will see her prove it some day, I hope.”

The girl turned her lovely head, curiously, not understanding. Garry laughed, but his voice was not quite steady when he said:

“But it all depends on you, Dulcie, how splendid my mother may prove herself.”

“On me!”

“On your – kindness.”

“My —kindness!”

Thessalie came up in her pretty carnation-rose cloak, esquired by the enraptured Westmore, expressing admiration for the clothing adorning the very obvious object of his devotion:

“All girls can’t wear a thing like that cloak,” he was explaining proudly; “now it would look like the devil on you, Dulcie, with your coppery hair and – ”

“What exquisite tact!” shrugged Thessalie, already a trifle restive under his constant attendance and unremitting admiration. “Can’t you, out of your richly redundant vocabulary, find something civil to say to Dulcie?”

But Dulcie, still preoccupied with what Barres had said, merely gave her an absent-minded smile and walked slowly out beside her to the porch, where the headlights of a touring car threw two broad beams of gold across the lawn.

It was a swift, short run through the valley northward among the hills, and very soon the yellow lights of Northbrook summer homes dotted the darkness ahead, and cars were speeding in from every direction – from Ilderness, Wythem, East and South Gorloch – carrying 370 guests for the Gerhardts’ moonlight spectacle and dance.

Apropos of the promised spectacle, Barres observed to Dulcie that there happened to be no moon, and consequently no moonlight, but the girl, now delightfully excited by glimpses of Hohenlinden festooned with electricity, gaily reproached him for being literal.

“If one is happy,” she said, “a word is enough to satisfy one’s imagination. If they call it a moonlight spectacle, I shall certainly see moonlight whether it’s there or not!”

“They may call it heaven, too, if they like,” he said, “and I’ll believe it – if you are there.”

At that she blushed furiously:

“Oh, Garry! You don’t mean it, and it’s silly to say it!”

“I mean it all right,” he muttered, as the car swung in through the great ornamental gates of Hohenlinden. “The trouble is that I mean so much – and you mean so much to me – that I don’t know how to express it.”

The girl, her face charmingly aglow, looked straight in front of her out of enchanted eyes, but her heart’s soft violence in her breast left her breathless and mute; and when the car stopped she scarcely dared rest her hand on the arm which Barres presented to guide her in her descent to earth.

It may have been partly the magnificence of Hohenlinden that so thrillingly overwhelmed her as she seated herself with Garry on the marble terrace of an amphitheatre among brilliant throngs already gathered to witness the eagerly discussed spectacle.

And it really was a bewilderingly beautiful scene, there under the summer stars, where a thousand rosy lanterns hung tinting the still waters of the little stream 371 that wound through the clipped greensward which was the stage.

The foliage of a young woodland walled in this vernal scene; the auditorium was a semi-circle of amber marble – rows of low benches, tier on tier, rising to a level with the lawn above.

The lantern light glowed on pretty shoulders and bare arms, on laces and silks and splendid jewels, and stained the sombre black of the men with vague warm hues of rose.

Westmore, leaning over to address Barres, said with an amused air:

“You know, Garry, it’s Corot Mandel who is putting on this thing for the Gerhardts.”

“Certainly I know it,” nodded Barres. “Didn’t he try to get Thessa for it?”

Thessalie, whose colour was high and whose dark eyes, roaming, had grown very brilliant, suddenly held out her hand to one of two men who, traversing the inclined aisle beside her, halted to salute her.

“Your name was on our lips,” she said gaily. “How do you do, Mr. Mandel! How do you do, Mr. Trenor! Are you going to amaze us with a miracle in this enchanting place?”

The two men paid their respects to her, and, with unfeigned astonishment and admiration, to Dulcie, whom they recognised only when Thessalie named her with delighted malice.

“Oh, I say, Miss Soane,” began Mandel, leaning on the back of the marble seat, “you and Miss Dunois might have helped me a lot if I’d known you were to be in this neighbourhood.”

Esmé Trenor bent over Barres, dropping his voice:

“We had to use a couple of Broadway hacks – you’ll recognise ’em through their paint – you understand? – the 372 two that New York screams for. It’s too bad. Corot wanted something unfamiliarly beautiful and young and fresh. But these Northbrook amateurs are incredibly amateurish.”

Thessalie was chattering away with Corot Mandel and Westmore; Esmé Trenor gazed upon Dulcie in wonder not unmixed with chagrin:

“You’ve never forgiven me, Dulcie, have you?”

“For what?” she inquired indifferently.

“For not discovering you when I should have.”

She smiled, but the polite effort and her detachment of all interest in him were painfully visible to Esmé.

“I’m sorry you still remember me so unkindly,” he murmured.

“But I never do remember you at all,” she explained so candidly that Barres was obliged to avert his amused face, and Esmé Trenor reddened to the roots of his elaborate hair. Mandel, with a wry grin, linked his arm in Trenor’s and drew him away toward the flight of steps which was the stage entrance to the dressing rooms below.

“Good-bye!” he said, waving his hat. “Hope you’ll like my moonlight frolic!”

“Where’s your bally moon!” demanded Westmore.

As he spoke, an unseen orchestra began to play “Au Claire de la Lune,” and, behind the woods, silhouetting every trunk and branch and twig, the glittering edge of a huge, silvery moon appeared.

Slowly it rose, flashing a broad path of light across the lawn, reflected in the still little river. And when it was in the position properly arranged for it, some local Joshua – probably Corot Mandel – arrested its further motion, and it hung there, flooding the stage with a witching lustre.

All at once the stage swarmed with supple, glimmering 373 shapes: Oberon and Titania came flitting down through the trees; Puck, scintillating like a dragon-fly, dropped on the sward, seemingly out of nowhere.

It was a wonderfully beautiful ballet, with an unseen chorus singing from within the woods like a thousand seraphim.

As for the play itself, which began with the calm and silvered river suddenly swarming alive with water-nymphs, it had to do, spasmodically, with the love of the fairy crown-prince for the very attractive water-nymph, Ythali. This nimble lady, otherwise, was fiercely wooed by the King of the Mud-turtles, a most horrid and sprawling shape, but a clever foil – with his army of river-rats, minks and crabs – to the nymphs and wood fairies.

Also, the music was refreshingly charming, the singing excellent, and the story interesting enough to keep the audience amused until the end.

There was, of course, much moonlight dancing, much frolicking in the water, few clothes on the Broadway principals, fewer on the chorus, and apparently no scruples about discarding even these.

But the whole spectacle was so unreal, so spectral, that its shadowy beauty robbed it of offence.

That sort of thing had made Corot Mandel famous. He calculated to the width of a moonbeam just how far he could go. And he never went a hair’s breadth farther.

Thessalie looked on with flushed cheeks and parted lips, absorbed in it all with the savant eyes of a professional. She also had once coolly decided how far her beauty and talent and adolescent effrontery could carry her gay disdain of man. And she had flouted him with indifferent eyes and dainty nose uplifted – mocked him and his conventions, with a few roubles in her 374 dressing-room – slapped the collective face of his sex with her insolent loveliness, and careless smile.

Perhaps, as she sat there watching the fairy scene, she remembered her ostrich and the German Embassy, and the aged Von-der-Goltz Pasha, all over jewels and gold, peeping at her through thick spectacles under his red fez.

Perhaps she thought of Ferez, too, and maybe it was thought of him that caused her smooth young shoulders the slightest of shivers, as though a harsh breeze had chilled her skin.

As for Dulcie, she was in the seventh heaven, thrilled with the dreamy beauty of it all and the exquisite phantoms floating on the greensward under her enraptured eyes.

No other thought possessed her save sheer delight in this revelation of pure enchantment.

So intent, so still she became, leaning a little forward in her place, that Barres found her far more interesting and wonderful to watch than Mandel’s cunningly contrived illusions in the artificial moonlight below.

And now Titania’s trumpets sounded from the woods, warning all of the impending dawn. Suddenly the magic fairy moon vanished like the flame of a blown-out candle; a faint, rosy light grew through the trees, revealing an empty stage and a river on which floated a single swan.

Then, from somewhere, a distant cock-crow rang through the dawn. The play was ended.

Two splendid orchestras were alternating on the vast marble terraces of Hohenlinden, where hundreds of dancers moved under the white radiance of a huge silvery moon overhead – another contrivance of Mandel’s – for the splendid sphere aglow with white fire had somehow been suspended above the linden trees 375 so that no poles and no wires were visible against the starry sky.

And in its milky flood of light the dancers moved amid a wilderness of flowers or thronged the supper-rooms within, where Teutonic architectural and decorative magnificence reigned in one vast, incredible, indigestible gastronomic apotheosis of German kultur.