Free and Other Stories

FREE AND OTHER STORIES

Thus once, after a late card game, when he stepped out on a small veranda or balcony which graced the end of the hall nearest which his room was situated, and which commanded a splendid view of the sea, he found her just outside his door, alone, diaphanously attired, and very sympathetic and genial. Now that they were friends and had had this talk, there was something in her manner which always seemed to invite him on to a closer life with her without danger to himself, as she seemed to say. She would shield him against all, at her own expense. At the same time he was far – very far – from yielding. More than once he had insisted that he did not want to have anything to do with her in an affectional way, and yet here she was on this occasion, and although there might or there might not have been anything very alarming in that, he argued with himself afterward, yet since he had told her, this could be made to look as though she were trying to overpersuade him, to take him off his guard. Any guest of the hotel might have done as much (her room was somewhere near there), but Rule One, as laid down by Blount, and as hitherto practised by him, was never, under any circumstances which might be misinterpreted, to be alone with her. And besides, when he withdrew, as, he did at once, excusing himself lightly and laughingly, he saw two men turning in at a cross corridor just beyond, and one, seeing him turn back, said to the other, “It must be on the other side, Jim.” Well, there might not have been anything very significant in that, either. Any two men might accidentally turn into a hall on an end balcony of which a maiden was sitting in very diaphanous array, but still –

It was the same whenever he walked along the outer or sea wall at night, listening to the thunder of the water against the

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rapp which sustained the walk, and meditating on the night and the beauty of the hotel and the shabbiness of politics. Imogene was always about him when she might be with safety, as he saw it, but never under such circumstances as could be made to seem that they were alone together. Bullen, one of the two brokers, who seemed not a bad sort after his kind, came out there one night with Mrs. Skelton and Imogene, and seeing Gregory, engaged him in conversation and then left Imogene to his care. Gregory, hating to appear asininely suspicious under such circumstances, was genuinely troubled as to what to do in such cases as these. Always now he was drawn to her, painfully so, and yet – He had told her more than once that he did not wish to be alone with her in this way, and yet here she was, and she was always insisting that she did not wish him to be with her if he objected to it, and yet look at this! Her excuse always was that she could not help it, that it was purely accidental or planned by them without her knowledge. She could not avoid all accidents. When he demanded to know why she did not leave, clear out of all of this, she explained that without great injury to herself and Mrs. Skelton she could not, and that besides he was safer with her there.

“What is this?” he asked on this occasion. “Another plan?” Feeling her stop and pull back a little, he felt ashamed of himself. “Well, you know what I’ve been telling you all along,” he added gruffly.

“Please don’t be so suspicious, Ed. Why do you always act so? Can’t I even walk out here? I couldn’t avoid this to-night, truly I couldn’t. Don’t you suppose I have to play a part too – for a time, anyhow? What do you expect me to do – leave at

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once? I can’t, I tell you. Won’t you believe me? Won’t you have a little faith in me?”

“Well, come on,” he returned crossly, as much irritated with himself as any one. “Give me your arm. Give a dog a bad name, you know,” and he walked her courteously but firmly in the direction of the principal veranda, trying to be nice to her at the same time.

“I tell you, Imogene, I can’t and I won’t do this. You must find ways of avoiding these things. If not, I’m not going to have anything to do with you at all. You say you want me to be friends with you, if no more. Very well. But how are we going to do it?” and after more arguments of this kind they parted with considerable feeling, but not altogether antagonistic, at that.

Yet by reason of all this finally, and very much to his personal dissatisfaction, he found himself limited as to his walks and lounging places almost as much as if he had been in prison. There was a little pergola at one end of the lawn with benches and flowering vines which had taken his fancy when he first came, and which he had been accustomed to frequent as a splendid place to walk and smoke, but not any more. He was too certain of being picked up there, or of being joined by Mrs. Skelton and Imogene, only to be left with Imogene, with possibly the three gardeners or a broker as witnesses. He could not help thinking how ridiculous it all was.

He even took Imogene, he and Blount, in Blount’s car, and Mrs. Skelton with them or not, as the case might be – it was all well enough so long as Blount was along – to one place or another in the immediate vicinity – never far, and always the two of them armed and ready for any emergency or fray,

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as they said. It seemed a risky thing to do, still they felt a little emboldened by their success so far, and besides, Imogene was decidedly attractive to both of them. Now that she had confessed her affection for Gregory she was most alluring with him, and genial to Blount, teasing and petting him and calling him the watchdog. Blount was always crowing over how well he and Gregory were managing the affair. More than once he had pointed out, even in her presence, that there was an element of sport or fascinating drama in it, that she “couldn’t fool them,” all of which was helping mightily to pass the time, even though his own and Gregory’s life, or at least their reputation, might be at stake.

“Go on, go on, is my advice,” Blount kept saying now that he was being amused. “Let her fall in love with you. Make her testify on your behalf. Get a confession in black and white, if you can. It would be a great thing in the campaign, if you were compelled to use it.” He was a most practical and political soul, for all his geniality.

Gregory could not quite see himself doing that, however. He was too fond of her. She was never quite so yielding, so close to him, as now. When he and Blount were out with her, now, the two of them ventured to rag her as to her part in all this, asking her whether the other car were handy, whether the gardeners had been properly lined up, and as to who was behind this tree or that house. “There’d be no use in going if everything wasn’t just right,” they said. She took it all in good part, even laughing and mocking them.

“Better look out! Here comes a spy now,” she would sometimes exclaim at sight of a huckster driving a wagon or a farmhand pushing a wheelbarrow.

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To both Blount and Gregory it was becoming a farce, and yet between themselves they agreed that it had its charm. They were probably tiring her backers and they would all quit soon. They hoped so, anyhow.

But then one night, just as they had concluded that there might not be so very much to this plot after all, that it was about all over, and Mrs. Gregory was writing that she would soon be able to return, the unexpected happened. They were returning from one of those shorter outings which had succeeded the longer ones of an earlier day, Blount and Gregory and Imogene, and true to his idea of avoiding any routine procedure which might be seized upon by the enemy as something to expect and therefore to be used, Blount passed the main entrance and drove instead around to a side path which led to a sunk-in porch flanked on either side by high box hedges and sheltered furry pines. True also to their agreed plan of never being separated on occasions like this, they both walked to the door with Imogene, Blount locking his car so that it could not be moved during his absence. On the steps of this side porch they chaffered a little, bantering Imogene about another safe night, and how hard it was on the gardeners to keep them up so late and moving about in the dark in this fashion, when Imogene said she was tired and would have to go. She laughed at them for their brashness.

“You two think you’re very smart, don’t you?” she smiled a little wearily. “It would serve you right if something did happen to both of you one of these days – you know so much.”

“Is that so?” chuckled Blount. “Well, don’t hold any midnight conferences as to this. You’ll lose your beauty sleep if you do.”

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To which Gregory added, “Yes, with all this hard work ahead of you every day, Imogene, I should think you’d have to be careful.”

“Oh, hush, and go on,” she laughed, moving toward the door.

But they had not gone more than a hundred and fifty feet down the shadowy side path before she came running after them, quite out of breath.

“Oh dear!” she called sweetly as she neared them, and they having heard her footsteps had turned. “I’m so sorry to trouble you, but some one has locked that side door, and I can’t open it or make them hear. Won’t one of you come and help me?” Then, as the two of them turned, “That’s right. I forgot. You always work in pairs, don’t you?”

Blount chortled. Gregory smiled also. They couldn’t help it. It was so ridiculous at times – on occasions like this, for instance.

“Well, you see how it is,” Gregory teased, “the door may be very tightly closed, and it might take the two of us to get it open.”

Seeing that Blount was really coming, he changed his mind. “I guess I can get it open for her. Don’t bother this time. I’ll have to be going in, anyhow,” he added. The thought came to him that he would like to be with Imogene a little while – just a few moments.

Blount left them after a cautioning look and a cheery good night. In all the time they had been together they had not done this, but this time it seemed all right. Gregory had never felt quite so close to Imogene as he did this evening. She had seemed so warm, laughing, gay. The night had been sultry, but

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mellow. They had tittered and jested over such trifling things, and now he felt that he would like to be with her a while longer. She had become more or less a part of his life, or seemingly so, such a genial companion. He took her arm and tucked it under his own.

“It was nice over there at the Berkeley,” he commented, thinking of an inn they had just left. “Beautiful grounds – and that music! It was delightful, wasn’t it?” They had been dancing together.

“Oh, dear,” she sighed, “the summer will soon be over, and then I’ll have to be going back, I suppose. I wish it would never end. I wish I could stay here forever, just like this, if you were here.” She stopped and looked at the treetops, taking a full breath and stretching out her arms. “And do look at those fire-flies,” she added, “aren’t they wonderful?” She hung back, watching the flashing fire-flies under the trees.

“Why not sit down here a little while?” he proposed as they neared the steps. “It isn’t late yet.”

“Do you really mean it?” she asked warmly.

“You see, I’m beginning to be so foolish as to want to trust you. Isn’t that idiotic? Yes, I’m even going to risk fifteen minutes with you.”

“I wish you two would quit your teasing, just once,” she pleaded. “I wish you would learn to trust me and leave Blount behind just once in a while, seeing that I’ve told you so often that I mean to do nothing to hurt you without telling you beforehand.”

Gregory looked at her, pleased. He was moved, a little sorry for her, and a little sorrier for himself.

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In spite of himself, his wife and baby, as he now saw, he had come along a path he should not have, and with one whom he could not conscientiously respect or revere. There was no future for them together, as he well knew, now or at any other time. Still he lingered.

“Well, here we are,” he said, “alone at last. Now you can do your worst, and I have no one to protect me.”

“It would serve you right if I did, Mr. Smarty. But if I had suggested that we sit down for a minute you would have believed that the wood was full of spies. It’s too funny for words, the way you carry on. But you’ll have to let me go upstairs to change my shoes, just the same. They’ve been hurting me dreadfully, and I can’t stand them another minute. If you want to, you can come up to the other balcony, or I’ll come back here. I won’t be a minute. Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” he assented, thinking that the other balcony would not be as open as this, much too private for him and her. “Certainly not. Run along. But I’d rather you came back here. I want to smoke, anyhow,” and he drew out his cigar and was about to make himself comfortable when she came back.

“But you’ll have to get this door open for me,” she said. “I forgot about that.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right.”

He approached it, looking first for the large key which always hung on one side at this hour of the night, but not seeing it, looked at the lock. The key was in it.

“I was trying before. I put it there,” she explained.

He laid hold of it, and to his surprise it came open without any effort whatsoever, a thing which caused him to turn and look at her.

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“I thought you said it wouldn’t open,” he said.

“Well, it wouldn’t before. I don’t know what makes it work now, but it wouldn’t then. Perhaps some one has come out this way since. Anyhow, I’ll run up and be down right away.” She hurried up the broad flight of stairs which ascended leisurely from this entrance.

Gregory returned to his chair, amused but not conscious of anything odd or out of the way about the matter. It might well have been as she said. Doors were contrary at times, or some one might have come down and pushed it open. Why always keep doubting? Perhaps she really was in love with him, as she seemed to indicate, or mightily infatuated, and would not permit any one to injure him through her. It would seem so, really. After all, he kept saying to himself, she was different now to what he had originally thought, and what she had originally been, caught in a tangle of her own emotions and compelled by him to do differently from what she had previously planned. If he were not married as happily as he was, might not something come of this? He wondered.

The black-green wall of the trees just beyond where he was sitting, the yellow light filtering from the one bowl lamp which ornamented the ceiling, the fireflies and the sawing katydids, all soothed and entertained him. He was beginning to think that politics was not such a bad business after all, his end of it at least, or being pursued even. His work thus far had yielded him a fair salary, furnishing as it had excellent copy for some of the newspapers and political organizations – the best was being reserved for the last – and was leading him into more interesting ways than the old newspaper days had, and the future, outside of what had happened in the last few weeks,

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looked promising enough. Soon he would be able to deal the current administration a body blow. This might raise him to a high position locally. He had not been so easily frustrated as they had hoped, and this very attractive girl had fallen in love with him.

For a while he stared down the black-green path up which they had come, and then fixed his eyes in lazy contemplation on one of the groups of stars showing above the treetops. Suddenly – or was it suddenly? – more a whisper or an idea – he seemed to become aware of something that sounded, as he listened more keenly, like a light footfall in the garden beyond the hedge. It was so very light, a mere tickle of the grass or stirring of a twig. He pricked up his ears and on the instant strained every muscle and braced himself, not that he imagined anything very dreadful was going to happen, but – were they up to their old tricks again? Was this the wonderful gardeners again? Would they never stop? Removing the cigar from his mouth and stilling the rocker in which he had been slowly moving to and fro, he decided not to stir, not even to move his hands, so well concealed was he from the bushes on either side by the arrangement of the posts, one of which was to the left of him. In this position he might see and not be seen. Did they know he was there? How had they found out? Were they always watching yet? Was she a part of it? He decided to get up and leave, but a moment later thought it better to linger just a little, to wait and see. If he left and she came back and did not find him there – could it be that there was some new trick on foot?

While he was thus swiftly meditating, he was using his ears to their utmost. Certainly there was a light footfall approach-

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