Nan of the Gypsies

The boy gazed at the girl as though he were sure of her appreciation of all he was saying. “It is a long poem and a beautiful one. I’ll read it to you someday, but the part I have in mind tells just that how everything in nature has, planted deep in its being, a trust that the Power that created it will also care for it and guide it well. This is it:

“By the faith that the wild flowers show when they bloom unbidden;By the calm of the river’s flow to a goal that is hidden.By the strength of the tree that clings to its deep foundation,By the courage of bird’s light wings on the long migration(Wonderful spirit of trust that abides in Nature’s breast.)Teach me how to confide, and live my life, and rest.”

“It is very beautiful,” Nan said in a low voice and then, starting their horses, they entered the shadow of the mountain walls and slowly began the ascent.

The trail became so narrow that they had to ride single file for a long time. Each was quietly thinking, but at last they reached a wide place where the mountain brook formed a pool and at the girl’s suggestion they dismounted to get a drink of the clear cold water.

“How peaceful and still it is here,” Nan said as she sat on a moss covered rock, and, folding her hands, listened to the murmuring sounds of trickling water, rustling leaves, and soughing of the soft breeze in the pines.

Robert, standing with his arms folded, had been gazing far down the trail which they had just climbed, but chancing to glance at the girl he saw a troubled expression in her dark beautiful face. Sitting on a rock near her, the boy leaned forward as he asked eagerly. “Nan, you aren’t longing for the old life, are you?”

She turned toward him with a smile that put his fears at rest. “Not that, Robert Widdemere. I was wondering if I dare ask you a question?”

“Why Lady Red Bird, of course you may. I will answer it gladly.”

The boy little dreamed how hard a question it was to be. For another moment the girl was silent, watching the water that barely moved in the pool at her feet. Then in a very low voice she said; – “We gypsies do not believe in a God.”

Although unprepared for this statement, the lad replied by asking, “What then do your people believe gave life to all this?” He waved an arm about to include all nature.

“They believe that there are unseen spirits in streams and woods that can harm them, if they will. Sometimes, when a storm destroyed our camp, we tried to appease the wrath of the spirit of the tempest with rites and charms. That was all. Manna Lou had heard of the gorigo God, and often she told little Tirol and me about that one great Power, but if we asked questions, she would sadly reply ‘Who can know?’”

“Manna Lou was right in one way, Lady Red Bird, we cannot know, perhaps, but deep in the soul of each one of us has been implanted a faith and trust just as the poem tells. I do know that some Power, which I call God, brought me here and so sure I can trust that same Power to care for me and guide me if I have faith and trust.”

There was a sudden brightening of the girl’s face, “Oh, Robert Widdemere,” she said, “I am so glad I asked you. I understand now better how it is, I, also, shall trust and have faith.”

She arose and mounted on her pony and they began climbing the steeper trail which led to the summit of the low mountain.

At last they rode out into the sunlight, and, dismounting, stood on the peak of the trail.

Such beauty of scene as there was everywhere about them. Beyond the coast range, across a wide valley, there was still a higher and a more rugged mountain range and beyond that, in the far distance, a third, the peaks of which were scarcely visible in the haze and clouds.

Then they turned toward the sea, which, from that high point could be seen far beyond the horizon that they had every day on the beach. “Lady Red Bird,” the boy laughed, “you will think me very dull today, I fear, but I can’t help philosophising a bit at times. I was just thinking that when troubles crowd around us, it would be a wonderful thing, if, in our thoughts, we could climb to a high place and look down at them, we would find that, after all, they were not very large nor very important.”

“Things do look small, surely,” the girl said. “See the town nestling down there. The church steeple seems very little from here.”

“I see the pepper tree where we first met,” the lad turned and took the girl’s hand. “I shall always think of you as my Lady Red Bird,” he told her. Hand in hand they continued to stand as brother and sister might.

“And I see our marble fountain glistening in the sun,” Nan declared. Suddenly the boy’s clasp in the girl’s hand tightened. “Look, quick,” he said pointing downward, “there is a limousine turning from the highroad up into our drive. Who do you suppose is coming to call?”

“Perhaps it is your doctor,” Nan suggested.

The lad laughed. “No indeed. For one thing he rides in an open run-about, and for another, he told me that since I had made up my mind to get well, he would have nothing more to do with me. There are enough truly sick people he said, who need his attention.”

“Then, who can it be?” Nan persisted, but the lad merrily declared that he knew not and cared not. After gazing for a moment at the girl who was still looking down at the highway he exclaimed with mingled earnestness and enthusiasm. “Nan, you don’t know how much it means to me, to have a sister like you, a friend, or a pal, the name doesn’t matter. You’re going to fill the place, in a way, that Dad held, and truly he was the finest man that ever trod the earth. Often he said to me ‘Son, when you give your word, stand by it. I would rather have my boy honest and dependable, than have him president,’ and I’m going to try, Nan, to become just such a man as was my father.”

The girl’s gaze had left the road and she looked straight into the clear blue-grey eyes of the boy at her side. “I am glad, Robert Widdemere,” she said, “for I could never be proud of a friend whose word could not be depended upon.”

The boy caught both of the girl’s hands in his as he said, “Nan, listen to me, you have no older brothers to take care of you, and as long as I shall live, I want you to think of me as one to whom you can always come. It doesn’t matter who tries to separate us, Nan, no one ever shall, I give you my word.”

Tears sprang to the eyes of the girl, but that she need not show the depth of her emotion, she called laughingly, “Robert Widdemere, it is time that we were returning, for even before we left, the turkey had gone into the oven and we must not keep Miss Dahlia waiting.”

“Right you are!” the lad gaily replied as again they started down the trail, “although a month ago it would not have seemed possible, I am truly ravenously hungry.”

Down the mountain road they went, these two who so enjoyed each other’s companionship, little dreaming who they would find at the end of the trail.

CHAPTER XV.

SUDDEN CHANGES

Leaving their ponies at the stables, the two hand in hand walked along the path in the glowing garden. “I’m glad the yellow crysanthemums are at their loveliest now,” the girl cried. “I’m going to gather an armful to put on the table that we may have one more thing to be thankful for.”

“Good, I’ll help you!” the boy broke a curling-petaled beauty. “Nan, these shall be our friendship flowers. They seem so like you, so bright and colorful; joyful within themselves, and radiating it on all who pass.”

When the girl’s arms were heaped with the big curling, glowing blossoms, the lad suddenly cried; “Lady Red Bird, I completely forgot something very important.”

“What?” the girl turned toward him to inquire.

“This!” he took from his pocket a folding kodak, “I wanted to take a picture of you at the top of the trail and I never thought of it until now. Please stand still, there, just where you are, with the fountain back of you and the crysanthemums all around you. Don’t look so serious, Nan. Laugh won’t you? There, I snapped it and you had not even smiled. You had such a sad far away look. What were you thinking.”

“I just happened to think of Little Tirol and how I hope it is all true, that there is a God to care for him and give him another body, one without pain.”

“Dear sister,” the boy said, “you do have such strange and unexpected thoughts. How did you happen to think of Little Tirol now?”

“Perhaps it was because I remembered that day only two months ago, when he and I first came to the garden. The yellow flowers were just beginning to bloom and I wanted one so. I hoped he knows now that I can gather them, a great armful if I wish.” Then the girl skipped toward the house, as she called merrily: “If you were ravenously hungry on the mountain trail, what must you be now, I hope we are not late.”

“There is someone watching us from a front window,” the boy said. “I saw a curtain move. Miss Dahlia would not do that, would she, Nan?”

“I hardly think so. It was probably the maid; though I can’t think what she would be doing in the front room when it must be almost time to serve dinner.”

Robert Widdemere paused a moment at the vine hung outside portal to speak with an old gardener whom he had known since his little boyhood. Nan, singing her joyous bird song without words, climbed the stairs to the library and before she had reached the door she called happily, “Oh Miss Dahlia, Robert Widdemere and I have had such a glorious ride up the mountain road, and too, we climbed to the very summit. Isn’t it wonderful – ” she got no farther, for having entered the library she realized that the fashionably dressed stranger standing there was not the little woman whom she so loved.

“Oh, pardon me!” the gypsy girl said. “I thought you were Miss Dahlia.”

“Here I am, dearie,” a trembling voice called as that little lady appeared from the dinning room. “I was needed for one moment in the kitchen,” she explained, then turning toward the stranger she said almost defiantly, “Mrs. Widdemere, this is my dearly loved protege, Nan Barrington. Nan, Robert’s mother has returned unexpectedly from France.”

“Yes, and at great inconvenience to myself, I can assure you, to forbid my son associating with a common gypsy girl.”

Miss Dahlia drew herself up proudly, and never before had she so closely resembled Miss Ursula.

“Mrs. Widdemere,” she said, “kindly remember that you are in my home, and that you are speaking of my protege.”

At that moment Robert appeared and was puzzled to see Miss Dahlia standing with a protecting arm about Nan, and the proud angry tone of her voice, he had never before heard. Then he saw the other woman with a sneering smile on her vain, pretty face, and he understood all.

“Mother,” he said, “did you not receive the message that I sent you? Did I not tell you that you need not return to the States, that my health was recovered?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Widdemere replied coldly, “and now I understand why you did not return to the school where I had placed you. You, a Widdemere, neglecting your education that you might associate with one of a class far beneath you; but I forbid you, from this day, ever again speaking to this gypsy girl.”

Nan’s eyes flashed, but she replied proudly, “Mrs. Widdemere, you do not need to command. I myself shall never again speak to one of your kind,” then turning, she left the library.

A few moments later, when Robert and his mother were gone, Miss Dahlia went to the girl’s room and found her lying on her bed sobbing as though her heart would break.

“You see, Miss Dahlia,” she said, “there’s no use trying to make a lady of me. I’m merely a gypsy and I’ll only bring sorrow to you.”

The little woman sat by the couch and tenderly smoothing the dark hair, she said: “Little girl, you are all I have to love in the world. My sister is too occupied with many things to be my companion. It grieves me deeply to have you so hurt, but I have thought out a plan, dearie, by which this may all be prevented in the future. Tomorrow morning, early, you and I are going away to a little town in the East which was my childhood home.”

Nan’s sobs grew less and she passionately kissed the hand that carressed her. The little lady continued: – “I will legally adopt you, and then, truly, will your name be Nan Barrington. After that I am going to send you to the Pine Crest Seminary, which is conducted by a dear schoolmate of mine, Mrs. Dorsey. I want you to permit me to select your wardrobe, which shall be like that of other girls, and no one there will dream that you are a gypsy, for many there are who have dark hair and eyes and an olive complexion. Will you do all this for me, Nan darling, because I love you?”

Nan’s arms were about the little woman as she said, “How good you are to me, how kind! I’ll try again to be a lady for your sake, and I hope that in time I’ll be able to repay you for all that you do for me.”

That afternoon was spent in packing and the next morning, soon after sunrise, Miss Dahlia and Nan were driven away, but they did not leave a forwarding address.

********

Robert Widdemere lifted the heavy iron knocker of the Barrington home about nine o’clock. He wanted to ask Miss Dahlia’s pardon, and to tell Nan, that although he was about to return to the Military Academy to please his mother, he would never forget the promise he had made on the mountain, that he would always be her brother and her friend.

When Robert learned that Nan was gone and that he had no way of communicating with her, he felt that again a great loss had come into his life.

CHAPTER XVI.

SCHOOL GIRLS

Several years have passed since that day in California when Nan Barrington and Robert Widdemere had parted so sadly and neither had heard ought of the other in all that time.

Nan, in a home-like girls’ school near Boston, The Pine Crest Seminary, had blossomed into as charming a young lady as even Miss Ursula could desire, and that proud woman, who had changed little with the years, often gazed at the beautiful dark girl, silently wondering if it might be possible that Nan was not a real gypsy after all.

True to her promise to the dear Miss Dahlia, Nan had worn quiet colors like the other gorigo maidens, and, during the three and a half years that she had been at the school, nothing had occurred that would even suggest the roving life of her childhood, but unfortunately an hour was approaching when that suspicion would be aroused.

The Miss Barringtons remained during the winter months in Boston, but they frequently visited the school, and, during the summer, they took Nan with them to their cabin on the rocky and picturesque coast of Maine.

One Saturday afternoon Miss Dahlia was seated in the little reception room at the school and a maid had gone in search of the girl. First she referred to a chart in the corridor, which told where each of the forty pupils should be at that hour, and then, going to the music room, she tapped on the door. The sweet strains of a harp drifted out to her, and she tapped again.

“Come in,” a singing voice called, and the door opened.

“Miss Nan, it’s your aunt, Miss Barrington, who is waiting to see you.”

“Oh, I thank you, Marie!” the happy girl exclaimed, then, springing up from the seat by her beautiful golden instrument, she said happily to the friend who was standing near: “Phyllis do come with me and meet my Aunt. I am always telling her about you, but you have been so occupied with one task or another that I have never had the opportunity to have you two meet each other.”

Then as she covered her harp, she continued: “My Aunt Dahlia believes you to be as beautiful as a nymph and as joyous as a lark.” Then whirling and catching both hands of her friend, Nan cried, “And when Aunt Dahlia really sees you, what do you suppose she will think?”

“That I’m a frumpy old grumpy, I suppose,” Phyllis laughingly replied.

“Indeed not!” Nan declared. “You’re the most beautiful creature that Nature ever fashioned with sunshine for hair, bits of June sky for eyes, the grace of a lily and – ”

“Nan, do stop! I’ll think that you are making fun of me, and all this time your Aunt Dahlia waits above. Come let us go. I am eager to meet her.” These two girls had been room-mates and most intimate friends since Phyllis came to the school at the beginning of the year.

No two girls could be more unlike as Nan had said. She was like October night, and her friend was like a glad June day.

“Aunt Dahlia, dearie,” Nan exclaimed a few moments later, as she embraced the older lady, “here at last is my room-mate, Phyllis. You are the two whom I most love, and I have so wanted you to know each other.”

“And you look just exactly as I knew you would from all our Nan has told me about you. Just as sweet and pretty.”

Miss Dahlia’s kind face did not reveal that she was even a day older than she had been that Thanksgiving nearly four years before.

Nan asked about Miss Barrington, the elder and was told, that, as usual, she was busy with clubs of many kinds. “We are very unlike, my sister, and I,” the little lady explained to Phyllis, “I like a quiet home life, Ursula is never happier than when she is addressing a large audience of women, and it does not in the least fluster her if there are men among them, on weighty questions of the day. Yes, we are very unlike.”

“I am glad that you are.” Nan nestled lovingly close to the little old lady. “Not but that I greatly admire and truly do care for Aunt Ursula. She has been very kind to me since she began to like me.” Nan laughed, then stopped as though she had been about to say something she ought not, as indeed she had been. She had nearly said that her Aunt Ursula had started to really like her when she felt that the girl had been properly civilized and Christianized, for, ever since the talk she had had with Robert Widdemere, Nan had really tried in every way to accept the religion of the gorigo.

“Aunt Dahlia,” she suddenly exclaimed, “what do you suppose is going to happen? The music master has offered a medal of gold to the one of us whose rendering of a certain piece, which he has selected, shall please him the most at our coming recital. Phyllis is trying for it on the violin; Muriel Metcalf and I on the harp, and Esther Willis on the piano. I do hope you and Aunt Ursula will be able to come.”

“Nothing but illness could keep me away,” Miss Dahlia said as she rose to go.

CHAPTER XVII.

OLD MEMORIES REVIVED

The two girls with arms about each other stood on the front veranda watching as Miss Dahlia was being driven along the circling drive. Nan knew that she would turn and wave at the gate. A moment later she saw the fluttering of a small white handkerchief. The girls waved their hands, then turned indoors and climbed the wide, softly carpeted stairway and entered the room which they shared together.

It was a strange room for each girl had decked her half of it as best suited her taste. On one side the birds’ eye maple furniture was made even daintier with blue and white ruffled coverings. There was a crinkly blue and white bedspread with pillow shams to match, while on the dresser there was an array of dainty ivory and blue toilet articles, two ivory frames containing the photographs of Phyllis’ father and mother, and a small book bound in blue leather in which she wrote the events of every day. There were a few forget-me-nots in a slender, silver glass vase, and indeed, everything on that side of the room suggested the dainty little maid who occupied it.

But very unlike was the side occupied by the gypsy girl. Boughs of pine with the cones on were banked in one corner. Her toilet set was ebony showing off startlingly on the bureau cover which was a glowing red.

There were photographs of Aunt Dahlia and Aunt Ursula in silver band frames, gifts to her from the aunts themselves, but on the walls there were pictures of wild canon places, long grey roads that seemed to lure one to follow, pools in quiet meadowy places, and a printed poem beginning —

“Oh, to be free as the wind is free!The vagabond life is the life for me.”

But the crowning touch was the gorgeous crimson and gold shawl with its long fringe mingled with black threads that was spread over her bed. Every girl who came into their room admired it, many asked questions about how it came into Nan’s possession, but to one and all the gypsy girl gave some laughing reply, and as each and every explanation was different, they knew that she was inventing stories to amuse them. Indeed, Nan was often called upon, when storms kept the girls within doors, to invent tales for their entertainment as they sat about the great stone fireplace in the recreation hall, and the more thrilling the tales were, the more pleased her audience. Sometimes Nan recalled another group, to whom she had, in the long ago, so often told stories. Little dark, fox-like creatures with their unkempt hair hanging about their faces. How eagerly they had followed Nan’s every word. Poor little neglected things! Nan often longed to be able to do something for them all, to give them a chance to make something of themselves as she had been given a chance.

But would they want it? Had she not rebelled at first when Miss Ursula tried to civilize and Christianize her?

Having entered their room, the gypsy girl went at once to the wide window and looked out across the school grounds where the trees and shrubs were still leafless. “Dearie,” she said, “Spring is in the air and calling us to come out. I don’t want to practice now. Suppose we climb to the top of Little Pine Hill that looks down on the highway.”

“But I ought to study my French verbs.” Phyllis hesitated —

“French verbs on Saturday?” Nan protested, “When a merry breeze waits to run us a race!”

The fair maiden laughingly donned her wraps and a few moments later these two were tramping across the fields, and then more slowly they began climbing the path that led over the little hill.

There they stood side by side gazing down at the winding highway which, a short distance beyond, was entirely hidden by a bend and a massing of great old pines.

“Aren’t bends in the road interesting?” Nan said. “One never knows what may appear next. Let’s guess what it will be, and see who is nearest right.”

“Very well,” Phyllis replied, “I’ll guess that it’s the little Wharton girl out horse-back riding with her escort. She passes almost every afternoon at about this hour.”

“And I’ll guess that it will be a motoring party from Boston in a handsome limousine,” Nan replied. Then hand in hand these two girls stood intently watching the bend in the road.

Several moments passed and Nan’s attention had been attracted skyward by the flight of a bird, when she heard Phyllis’ astonished exclamation: “We were both wrong, Nan! Will you look? I never saw such a queer equipage as the one which is coming. A covered wagon drawn by black horses and there is another following it and still another. How very curious! Did you ever see anything like it?”

Phyllis was so intently watching the approaching wagons that she did not notice the almost frightened expression that had appeared in the dark eyes of the girl she so loved, but after a moment Nan was able to say quite calmly, “Why, yes, Joy, I have seen a gypsy caravan before. In California where it is always summer, they often pass the Barrington home in San Seritos.”

Then she added, “I’m going back to the school now.”

Her friend looked at her anxiously, “Why dear,” she said, “do you feel faint or ill?”

Nan shook her head and remarked lightly, with an attempt at gaiety: “Maybe my conscience is troubling me because I’m keeping you from the French verbs.”

They returned to the school, and although Phyllis said nothing, she was convinced that the sight of the gypsy caravan had in some way affected Nan.

The truth was that the gypsy girl’s emotions had been varied and conflicting. Her first impulse had been to run and hide, as though she feared that she might be discovered and claimed, but, a second thought assured her that this could not be the caravan of Queen Mizella and her cruel son Anselo Spico, for had she not left them in far-away California?

And yet, as she gazed intently at the wagon in the lead, again came the chilling thought that it was strangely familiar, and then she recalled a memoried picture of one evening around the camp fire when Anselo had expressed a desire to some day return to Rumania, and, to do so, they would have to come to the Eastern States.