Romance Island

by Zona Gale

  ROMANCE ISLAND

  By

  ZONA GALE

  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BYHERMANN C. WALL

  INDIANAPOLISTHE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY1906

  "Who that remembers the first kind glance of her whom he loves can fail to believe in magic?" --NOVALIS

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I DINNER TIME II A SCRAP OF PAPER III ST. GEORGE AND THE LADY IV THE PRINCE OF FAR-AWAY V OLIVIA PROPOSES VI TWO LITTLE MEN VII DUSK, AND SO ON VIII THE PORCH OF THE MORNING IX THE LADY OF KINGDOMS X TYRIAN PURPLE XI THE END OF THE EVENING XII BETWEEN-WORLDS XIII THE LINES LEAD UP XIV THE ISLE OF HEARTS XV A VIGIL XVI GLAMOURIE XVII BENEATH THE SURFACE XVIII A MORNING VISIT XIX IN THE HALL OF KINGS XX OUT OF THE HALL OF KINGS XXI OPEN SECRETS

  ROMANCE ISLAND

  CHAPTER I

  DINNER TIME

  As _The Aloha_ rode gently to her buoy among the crafts in theharbour, St. George longed to proclaim in the megaphone's monstrousparody upon capital letters:

  "Cat-boats and house-boats and yawls, look here. You're bound toobserve that this is my steam yacht. I own her--do you see? Shebelongs to me, St. George, who never before owned so much as a pieceof rope."

  Instead--mindful, perhaps, that "a man should not communicate hisown glorie"--he stepped sedately down to the trim green skiff andwas rowed ashore by a boy who, for aught that either knew, mightthree months before have jostled him at some ill-favoured lunchcounter. For in America, dreams of gold--not, alas, goldendreams--do prevalently come true; and of all the butterflyhappenings in this pleasant land of larvae, few are so spectacular asthe process by which, without warning, a man is converted from atoiler and bearer of loads to a taker of his _bien_. However, tonone, one must believe, is the changeling such gazing-stock as tohimself.

  Although countless times, waking and sleeping, St. George hadhumoured himself in the outworn pastime of dreaming what he would doif he were to inherit a million dollars, his imagination had nevermarveled its way to the situation's less poignant advantages. Chiefamong his satisfactions had been that with which he had lately seenhis mother--an exquisite woman, looking like the old lace and Romanmosaic pins which she had saved from the wreck of her fortune--setoff for Europe in the exceptional company of her brother, BishopArthur Touchett, gentlest of dignitaries. The bishop, only to lookupon whose portrait was a benediction, had at sacrifice of certainof his charities seen St. George through college; and it made themillion worth while to his nephew merely to send him to Tuebingen toset his soul at rest concerning the date of one of the canonicalgospels. Next to the rich delight of planning that voyage, St.George placed the buying of his yacht.

  In the dusty, inky office of the _New York Evening Sentinel_ he hadbeen wont three months before to sit at a long green table fittingwords about the yachts of others to the dreary music of histypewriter, the while vaguely conscious of a blur of eight telephonebells, and the sound of voices used merely to communicate thoughtand not to please the ear. In the last three months he had sometimesremembered that black day when from his high window he had lookedtoward the harbour and glimpsed a trim craft of white and brassslipping to the river's mouth; whereupon he had been seized by sucha passion to work hard and earn a white-and-brass craft of his ownthat the story which he was hurrying for the first edition was quiteruined.

  "Good heavens, St. George," Chillingworth, the city editor, hadgnarled, "we don't carry wooden type. And nothing else would set upthis wooden stuff of yours. Where's some snap? Your first paragraphreads like a recipe. Now put your soul into it, and you've got lessthan fifteen minutes to do it in."

  St. George recalled that his friend Amory, as "one hackneyed in theways of life," had gravely lifted an eyebrow at him, and the new menhad turned different colours at the thought of being addressed likethat before the staff; and St. George had recast the story and hadreceived for his diligence a New Jersey assignment which had kepthim until midnight. Haunting the homes of the club-women and thecommon council of that little Jersey town, the trim white-and-brasscraft slipping down to the river's mouth had not ceased to lure him.He had found himself estimating the value--in money--of thebric-a-brac of every house, and the self-importance of everyalderman, and reflecting that these people, if they liked, might ownyachts of white and brass; yet they preferred to crouch among thebric-a-brac and to discourse to him of one another's violations andinterferences. By the time that he had reached home that drippingnight and had put captions upon the backs of the unexpectant-lookingphotographs which were his trophies, he was in that state ofcomparative anarchy to be effected only by imaginative youth and adisagreeable task.

  Next day, suddenly as its sun, had come the news which hadtransformed him from a discontented grappler with social problems tothe owner of stocks and bonds and shares in a busy mine and otherthings soothing to enumerate. The first thing which he had addedunto these, after the departure of his mother and the bishop, hadbeen _The Aloha_, which only that day had slipped to the river'smouth in the view from his old window at the _Sentinel_ office. St.George had the grace to be ashamed to remember how smoothly thesocial ills had adjusted themselves.

  Now they were past, those days of feverish work and unexpectedtriumph and unaccountable failure; and in the dreariest of them St.George, dreaming wildly, had not dreamed all the unobvious joyswhich his fortune had brought to him. For although he had accuratelypainted, for example, the delight of a cruise in a sea-going yachtof his own, yet to step into his dory in the sunset, to watch _TheAloha's_ sides shine in the late light as he was rowed ashore pastthe lesser crafts in the harbour; to see the man touch his cap andput back to make the yacht trim for the night, and then to turn hisown face to his apartment where virtually the entire day-staff ofthe _Evening Sentinel_ was that night to dine--these were among thepastimes of the lesser angels which his fancy had never compassed.

  A glow of firelight greeted St. George as he entered his apartment,and the rooms wore a pleasant air of festivity. A table, with coversfor twelve, was spread in the living-room, a fire of cones wastossing on the hearth, the curtains were drawn, and the sideboardwas a thing of intimation. Rollo, his man--St. George had easilyfallen in all the habits which he had longed to assume--was justclosing the little ice-box sunk behind a panel of the wall, and hecame forward with dignified deference.

  "Everything is ready, Rollo?" St. George asked. "No one hastelephoned to beg off?"

  "Yes, sir," answered Rollo, "and no, sir."

  St. George had sometimes told himself that the man looked like anoval grey stone with a face cut upon it.

  "Is the claret warmed?" St. George demanded, handing his hat. "Didthe big glasses come for the liqueur--and the little ones will setinside without tipping? Then take the cigars to the den--you'll haveto get some cigarettes for Mr. Provin. Keep up the fire. Light thecandles in ten minutes. I say, how jolly the table looks."

  "Yes, sir," returned Rollo, "an' the candles 'll make a greatdifference, sir. Candles do give out an air, sir."

  One month of service had accustomed St. George to his valet's giftof the Articulate Simplicity. Rollo's thoughts were doubtlesscontrived in the cuticle and knew no deeper operance; but he alwaysuttered his impressions with, under his mask, an air of keen andseasoned personal observation. In his first interview with St.George, Rollo had said: "I always enjoy being kep' busy, sir. _Tome_, the busy man is a grand sight," and St. George had at onceappreciated his possibilities. Rollo was like the fine print in analmanac.

  When the candles were burning and the lights had been turned on inthe little ochre den where the billiard-table stood, St. Georgeemerged--a well-made figure, his buoyant, clear-cut face accuratelybespeaking both health and cleverness. Of a
family represented bythe gentle old bishop and his own exquisite mother, himselfuniversity-bred and fresh from two years' hard, hand-to-handfighting to earn an honourable livelihood, St. George, of sound bodyand fine intelligence, had that temper of stability within vastrange which goes pleasantly into the mind that meets it. A symbol ofthis was his prodigious popularity with those who had been hisfellow-workers--a test beside which old-world traditions of theurban touchstones are of secondary advantage. It was deeplysignificant that in spite of the gulf which Chance had digged theday-staff of the _Sentinel_, all save two or three of which were notof his estate, had with flattering alacrity obeyed his summons todine. But, as he heard in the hall the voice of Chillingworth, thedifficulty of his task for the first time swept over him. It wasChillingworth who had advocated to him the need of wooden type tosuit his literary style and who had long ordered and bullied himabout; and how was he to play the host to Chillingworth, not tospeak of the others, with the news between them of that million?

  When the bell rang, St. George somewhat gruffly superseded Rollo.

  "I'll go," he said briefly, "and keep out of sight for a fewminutes. Get in the bath-room or somewhere, will you?" he addednervously, and opened the door.

  At one stroke Chillingworth settled his own position by dominatingthe situation as he dominated the city room. He chose the best chairand told a good story and found fault with the way the fire burned,all with immediate ease and abandon. Chillingworth's men loved toremember that he had once carried copy. They also understood all thelegitimate devices by which he persuaded from them their besteffort, yet these devices never failed, and the city room agreedthat Chillingworth's fashion of giving an assignment to a new manwould force him to write a readable account of his own entertainmentin the dark meadows. Largely by personal magnetism he had fought hisway upward, and this quality was not less a social gift.

  Mr. Toby Amory, who had been on the Eleven with St. George atHarvard, looked along his pipe at his host and smiled, withflattering content, his slow smile. Amory's father had lately had aconspicuous quarter of an hour in Wall Street, as a result of whichAmory, instead of taking St. George to the cemetery at Clusium as hehad talked, himself drifted to Park Row; and although he now knewconsiderably less than he had hoped about certain inscriptions, hewas supporting himself and two sisters by really brilliant work, sothat the balance of his power was creditably maintained. Surely theinscriptions did not suffer, and what then was Amory that he shouldobject? Presently Holt, the middle-aged marine man, and Hardingwho, since he had lost a lightweight sparring championship, wassporting editor, solemnly entered together and sat down with thesocial caution of their class. So did Provin, the "elder giant," whogathered news as he breathed and could not intelligibly put sixwords together. Horace, who would listen to four lines over thetelephone and therefrom make a half-column of American newspaperhumour or American newspaper tears, came in roaring pacifically andmarshaling little Bud, that day in the seventh heaven of his first"beat." Then followed Crass, the feature man, whose interviews wereknown to the new men as literature, although he was not abovepublicly admitting that he was not a reporter, but a special writer.Mr. Crass read nothing in the paper that he had not written, and St.George had once prophesied that in old age he would use hisscrap-book for a manual of devotions, as Klopstock used his_Messiah_. With him arrived Carbury, the telegraph editor, and laterBenfy, who had a carpet in his office and wrote editorials and whocame in evening clothes, thus moving Harding and Holt to instantprivate conversation. The last to appear was Little Cawthorne whowrote the fiction page and made enchanting limericks about every oneon the staff and went about singing one song and behaving, thedramatic man flattered him, like a motif. Little Cawthorne enteredbackward, wrestling with some wiry matter which, when he hadexecuted a manoeuvre and banged the door, was thrust through thepassage in the form of Bennie Todd, the head office boy,affectionately known as Bennietod. Bennietod was in every one'ssecret, clipped every one's space and knew every one's salary, andhe had lately covered a baseball game when the man whose copy he wasto carry had, outside the fence, become implicated in allurements.He was greeted with noise, and St. George told him heartily that hewas glad he had come.

  "He made me," defensively claimed Bennietod; frowning deferentiallyat Little Cawthorne.

  "Hello, St. George," said the latter, "come on back to the office.Crass sits in your place and he wears cravats the colour of goblin'sblood. Come back."

  "Not he," said Chillingworth, smoking; "the Dead-and-Done-witheditor is too keen for that; I won't give him a job. He's ruined.Egg sandwiches will never stimulate him now."

  St. George joined in the relieved laugh that followed. They wereremembering his young Sing Sing convict who had completed hissentence in time to step in a cab and follow his mother to thegrave, where his stepfather refused to have her coffin opened. AndSt. George, fresh from his Alma Mater, had weighted the winged wordsof his story with allusions to the tears celestial of Thetis, shedfor Achilles, and Creon's grief for Haemon, and the Unnatural Combatof Massinger's father and son; so that Chillingworth had said thingsin languages that are not dead (albeit a bit Elizabethan) and thecomposing room had shaken mailed fists.

  "Hi, you!" said Little Cawthorne, who was born in the South, "thisis a mellow minute. I could wish they came often. This shall be aweekly occurrence--not so, St. George?"

  "Cawthorne," Chillingworth warned, "mind your manners, or they'llmake you city editor."

  A momentary shadow was cast by the appearance of Rollo, who wasmanifestly a symbol of the world Philistine about which these guestsknew more and in which they played a smaller part than any otherclass of men. But the tray which Rollo bore was his passport.Thereafter, they all trooped to the table, and Chillingworth sat atthe head, and from the foot St. George watched the city editor breakbread with the familiar nervous gesture with which he was wont tostrip off yards of copy-paper and eat it. There was a tacitassumption that he be the conversational sun of the hour, and infostering this understanding the host took grateful refuge.

  "This is shameful," Chillingworth began contentedly. "Every one ofyou ought to be out on the Boris story."

  "What is the Boris story?" asked St. George with interest. But inall talk St. George had a restful, host-like way of playing the roleof opposite to every one who preferred being heard.

  "I'll wager the boy hasn't been reading the papers these threemonths," Amory opined in his pleasant drawl.

  "No," St. George confessed; "no, I haven't. They make me homesick."

  "Don't maunder," said Chillingworth in polite criticism. "This isAmory's story, and only about a quarter of the facts yet," he addedin a resentful growl. "It's up at the Boris, in West Fifty-ninthStreet--you know the apartment house? A Miss Holland, an heiress,living there with her aunt, was attacked and nearly murdered by amulatto woman. The woman followed her to the elevator and cameuncomfortably near stabbing her from the back. The elevator boy wastoo quick for her. And at the station they couldn't get the woman tosay a word; she pretends not to understand or to speak anythingthey've tried. She's got Amory hypnotized too--he thinks she can't.And when they searched her," went on Chillingworth with enjoyment,"they found her dressed in silk and cloth of gold, and loaded downwith all sorts of barbarous ornaments, with almost priceless jewels.Miss Holland claims that she never saw or heard of the woman before.Now, what do you make of it?" he demanded, unconcernedly draininghis glass.

  "Splendid," cried St. George in unfeigned interest. "I say,splendid. Did you see the woman?" he asked Amory.

  Amory nodded.

  "Yes," he said, "Andy fixed that for me. But she never said a word.I _parlez-voused_ her, and _verstehen-Sied_ her, and she sighed andturned her head."

  "Did you see the heiress?" St. George asked.

  "Not I," mourned Amory, "not to talk with, that is. I happened to behanging up in the hall there the afternoon it occurred;" he modestlyexplained.

  "What luck," St. George commented with genuine envy. "It
's astunning story. Who is Miss Holland?"

  "She's lived there for a year or more with her aunt," saidChillingworth. "She is a New Yorker and an heiress and a greatbeauty--oh, all the properties are there, but they're all we've got.What do you make of it?" he repeated.

  St. George did not answer, and every one else did.

  "Mistaken identity," said Little Cawthorne. "Do you rememberProvin's story of the woman whose maid shot a masseuse whom she tookto be her mistress; and the woman forgave the shooting and seemed tohave her arrested chiefly because she had mistaken her for amasseuse?"

  "Too easy, Cawthorne," said Chillingworth.

  "The woman is probably an Italian," said the telegraph editor,"doing one of her Mafia stunts. It's time they left the politiciansalone and threw bombs at the bonds that back them."

  "Hey, Carbury. Stop writing heads," said Chillingworth.

  "Has Miss Holland lived abroad?" asked Crass, the feature man."Maybe this woman was her nurse or ayah or something who got fond ofher charge, and when they took it away years ago, she devoted herlife to trying to find it in America. And when she got here shewasn't able to make herself known to her, and rather than let anyone else--"

  "No more space-grabbing, Crass," warned Chillingworth.

  "Maybe," ventured Horace, "the young lady did settlement work andread to the woman's kid, and the kid died, and the woman thoughtshe'd said a charm over it."

  Chillingworth grinned affectionately.

  "Hold up," he commanded, "or you'll recall the very words of thecharm."

  Bennietod gasped and stared.

  "Now, Bennietod?" Amory encouraged him.

  "I t'ink," said the lad, "if she's a heiress, dis yeredagger-plunger is her mudder dat's been shut up in a mad-house to afare-you-well."

  Chillingworth nodded approvingly.

  "Your imagination is toning down wonderfully," he flattered him. "Amonth ago you would have guessed that the mulatto lady was anEgyptian princess' messenger sent over here to get the heart from anAmerican heiress as an ingredient for a complexion lotion. You'recoming on famously, Todd."

  "The German poet Wieland," began Benfy, clearing his throat, "has,in his epic of the _Oberon_ made admirable use of much the sameidea, Mr. Chillingworth--"

  Yells interrupted him. Mr. Benfy was too "well-read" to be whollypopular with the staff.

  "Oh, well, the woman was crazy. That's about all," suggestedHarding, and blushed to the line of his hair.

  "Yes, I guess so," assented Holt, who lifted and lowered oneshoulder as he talked, "or doped."

  Chillingworth sighed and looked at them both with pursed lips.

  "You two," he commented, "would get out a paper that everybody wouldknow to be full of reliable facts, and that nobody would buy. To beborn with a riotous imagination and then hardly ever to let it riotis to be a born newspaper man. Provin?"

  The elder giant leaned back, his eyes partly closed.

  "Is she engaged to be married?" he asked. "Is Miss Holland engaged?"

  Chillingworth shook his head.

  "No," he said, "not engaged. We knew that by tea-time the same day,Provin. Well, St. George?"

  St. George drew a long breath.

  "By Jove, I don't know," he said, "it's a stunning story. It's thebest story I ever remember, excepting those two or three that havehung fire for so long. Next to knowing just why old Ennisdisinherited his son at his marriage, I would like to ferret outthis."

  "Now, tut, St. George," Amory put in tolerantly, "next to doingexactly what you will be doing all this week you'd rather ferret outthis."

  "On my honour, no," St. George protested eagerly, "I mean quite whatI say. I might go on fearfully about it. Lord knows I'm going to seethe day when I'll do it, too, and cut my troubles for the luck ofchasing down a bully thing like this."

  If there was anything to forgive, every one forgave him.

  "But give up ten minutes on _The Aloha_," Amory skeptically put it,adjusting his pince-nez, "for anything less than ten minutes on _TheAloha_?"

  "I'll do it now--now!" cried St. George. "If Mr. Chillingworth willput me on this story in your place and will give you a week off on_The Aloha_, you may have her and welcome."

  Little Cawthorne pounded on the table.

  "Where do I come in?" he wailed. "But no, all I get is another wado' woe."

  "What do you say, Mr. Chillingworth?" St. George asked eagerly.

  "I don't know," said Chillingworth, meditatively turning his glass."St. George is rested and fresh, and he feels the story. AndAmory--here, touch glasses with me."

  Amory obeyed. His chief's hand was steady, but the two glassesjingled together until, with a smile, Amory dropped his arm.

  "I _am_ about all in, I fancy," he admitted apologetically.

  "A week's rest on the water," said Chillingworth, "would set you onyour feet for the convention. All right, St. George," he nodded.

  St. George leaped to his feet.

  "Hooray!" he shouted like a boy. "Jove, won't it be good to getback?"

  He smiled as he set down his glass, remembering the day at his deskwhen he had seen the white-and-brass craft slip to the river'smouth.

  Rollo, discreet and without wonder, footed softly about the table,keeping the glasses filled and betraying no other sign of life. Formore than four hours he was in attendance, until, last of theguests, Little Cawthorne and Bennietod departed together, trying toremember the dates of the English kings. Finally Chillingworth andAmory, having turned outdoors the dramatic critic who had arrivedat midnight and was disposed to stay, stood for a moment by the fireand talked it over.

  "Remember, St. George," Chillingworth said, "I'll have nomonkey-work. You'll report to me at the old hour, you won't be late;and you'll take orders--"

  "As usual, sir," St. George rejoined quietly.

  "I beg your pardon," Chillingworth said quickly, "but you see thisis such a deuced unnatural arrangement."

  "I understand," St. George assented, "and I'll do my best not to getthrown down. Amory has told me all he knows about it--by the way,where is the mulatto woman now?"

  "Why," said Chillingworth, "some physician got interested in thecase, and he's managed to hurry her up to the Bitley Reformatory inWestchester for the present. She's there; and that means, we neednot disguise, that nobody can see her. Those Bitley people are likea rabble of wild eagles."

  "Right," said St. George. "I'll report at eight o'clock. Amory canboard _The Aloha_ when he gets ready and take down whom he likes."

  "On my life, old chap, it's a private view of Kedar's tents to me,"said Amory, his eyes shining behind his pince-nez. "I'll probablywin wide disrespect by my inability to tell a mainsail from acockpit, but I'm a grateful dog, in spite of that."

  When they were gone St. George sat by the fire. He read Amory'sstory of the Boris affair in the paper, which somewhere in theapartment Rollo had unearthed, and the man took off his master'sshoes and brought his slippers and made ready his bath. St. Georgeglanced over his shoulder at the attractively-dismantled table, withits dying candles and slanted shades.

  "Gad!" he said in sheer enjoyment as he clipped the story and sawRollo pass with the towels.

  It was so absurdly like a city room's dream of Arcady.