Chapter II.

Shortly before sunset that evening Eric went for a walk. He liked to
indulge in long tramps through the Stillwater fields and woods in the
sweet mellowness of the spring weather. Most of the Stillwater houses
were built along the shore road and about “the Corners”. The farms ran
back from them into solitudes of woods and pasture lands.

Eric struck southwest in a new direction and walked briskly along. The
spruce wood in which he finally found himself was pierced with arrows of
ruby light from the setting sun. He went through it walking up a long
purple aisle where the wood flooring was brown and elastic under his
feet and came out beyond it on a scene that surprised him. No house was
in sight but he found himself looking into a garden, an old garden,
evidently long neglected and forsaken. But a garden dies hard; and this
one, which must have been a very delightful spot once, was delightful
still, none the less so from the air of gentle melancholy that seemed to
pervade it—the melancholy that invests all places which have once been
the scene of joy and pleasure and are so no longer, places where hearts
have throbbed and eyes brightened and merry voices echoed; the ghosts of
these things seem to linger in their old haunts.

The charm of the place took sudden possession of Eric as nothing had
ever done before. He was not given to fancies, the practical,
business-like young fellow. But the garden laid hold of him and drew him
to itself and he was never to be quite the same again. He went into it
through the little gap in the low stone dyke around it; and so,
unknowing, went forward to meet all that life held for him.

The garden was large and square, bounded on all four sides by the stone
dyke which was so old that its crevices were full of ferns and many wild
leaves and vines. At regular intervals along the dyke were tall spruces
with the evening wind singing in their tops and in the southwest corner
was a thick plantation of young firs that had evidently grown up of
themselves. Most of the garden was grown lushly over with grass but the
old paths were still quite visible and were bordered by stones and large
pebbles. In the center, between two high rows of lilac trees,
outblossoming in purple, was a large, square bed all ablow with the
starry spikes of the “June lilies”, as the country people call the white
narcissus. Their penetrating, haunting fragrance distilled on the
evening air and met him on every soft puff of wind no matter where he
walked. In the very center of the bed was a clump of tall white and
purple irises. The corners of the garden were gay with thickly growing
yellow daffodils. Along the southern side grew another hedge of lilac
trees and just inside the gap by which he had entered was a tall white
lilac bush. Eastward there were several branching bird cherries snowy
with bloom; and everywhere, as it seemed, grew clumps of “bleeding
heart”, tremulous with spikes of rosy flowers. There were many
rosebushes also but it was too early in the season for roses.

At each side of the garden was a bench formed rudely out of surf-worn
red sandstone from the shore. Eric walked across the garden and sat down
on the one behind the southern lilac trees. From where he sat he now got
a glimpse of a house about a quarter of a mile away, its gray gable
peeping out from a dark spruce wood. It seemed a dull, gloomy place and
he did not know who lived there. He had a wide outlook to the south over
far hazy fields and misty blue hills and valleys. The air was very sweet
with the breath of all the growing things and of the bed of mint upon
which he had trampled. Robins were whistling, clear and sweet and
sudden, in the woods.

“This is a veritable ‘haunt of ancient peace’,” he quoted. “I could fall
asleep here and dream dreams. What a sky! Could anything be bluer? And
such frail white clouds that melt away as you look at them! What a
dizzying, intoxicating fragrance lilacs have! I wonder if perfume could
set a man drunk. Those narcissi—what’s that?”

Across the mellow stillness, mingled with the croon of the wind in the
trees and the calls of the robins, came a strain of delicious music, so
beautiful and fantastic that Eric held his breath in astonishment and
delight. Was he dreaming? No, it was real music, the music of a violin
played by some hand inspired with the very spirit of harmony. He had
never heard anything like it; and he felt quite sure that nothing
exactly like it ever _had_ been heard before—that that wonderful music
was coming straight from the soul of the unseen violinist and
translating itself so into those most airy and delicate of sounds for
the first time. It was an elusive, haunting melody, strangely suited to
the time and place; it had in it the sigh of the wind in the spruces,
the eerie whispering of the grasses at dewfall, the white thoughts of
the narcissi—all the soul of all the old laughter and song and tears
and gladness and sobs the garden had ever known in the lost years; and
besides all this there was in it a pitiful, plaintive cry, as of some
imprisoned thing calling for freedom, for utterance.

At first Eric listened mutely and movelessly, lost in wonderment. Then a
very natural curiosity overcame him. Who in Stillwater could play a
violin so? And who was playing so here in this deserted old garden, of
all places? He rose and walked along the lilac hedge, going as slowly
and silently as possible, not to interrupt the player. When he reached
the bed of June lilies he stopped short in new amazement and again was
tempted to think he must be dreaming.

On the stone bench under the big branching white lilac tree a girl was
sitting, playing on an old brown violin; her eyes were on the faraway
horizon and she did not see Eric. For a few moments he stood there and
looked at her; and the picture she made photographed itself on his
vision to the last detail, never again to be blotted from his book of
remembrance.

He had, in his twenty-five years of life, met hundreds of pretty women,
scores of handsome women, a scant half dozen of really beautiful women.
But he knew at once, beyond the possibility of question, that he had
never seen or even imagined anything so exquisite as this girl of the
garden. Her loveliness was so perfect that his breath almost went from
him in his first delight of it.

Her face was oval and delicately tinted, marked in every line and
feature with the expression of absolute purity found in the angels and
Madonnas of old paintings, a purity that had in it no faintest stain of
earthliness. Her head was bare and her thick, jet-black hair was parted
over her brow, “one moonbeam from the forehead to the crown”, and hung
in two long braids over her shoulders. Her eyes were of such a blue as
Eric had never seen in eyes before, the tint of the sea in the still,
calm light that follows after a fine sunset, and they were fringed with
very long silken lashes and arched over by most delicately black
eyebrows. Her collarless dress of pale blue print revealed her smooth
white throat; the sleeves were rolled up above her elbows and the hand
that guided the bow of her violin was perhaps the most beautiful thing
about her, perfect in shape and outline, firm and white, with taper,
rosy-nailed fingers. She was about eighteen years old apparently.

Suddenly she turned her lovely eyes on Eric. The change in her was
startling. She sprang to her feet, the bow slipping from her hand and
the music breaking in mid-strain; every hint of color fled from her face
and she trembled like one of the wind-stirred narcissus.

“I beg your pardon,” said Eric hastily, “I am sorry I have alarmed you,
but your music was so beautiful that I forgot that you were not aware of
my presence.”

He stopped in dismay for he realized that the expression on the girl’s
face was one of terror, not merely the startled alarm of a shy,
childlike creature who had thought herself alone, but absolute terror.
It was betrayed in her blanched and quivering lips and in the wide blue
eyes that stared back into his with the expression of some trapped wild
thing. It hurt him that any woman should look at him like that—at him
who had always held womanhood in reverence for the sake of the mother he
had loved in boyhood.

“Don’t look so,” he exclaimed, thinking only of calming her fear and
speaking as he would to a child. “I won’t hurt you. You are safe—quite
safe.”

In his eagerness to reassure her he took an unconscious step forward.
Instantly she turned and without a word or sound fled up the garden,
through a gap in the western dyke and along what seemed to be a lane
beyond, arched over with misty white wild plum trees. Before Eric could
draw his breath she had vanished from his sight among the firs.

He stooped and picked up the violin bow.

“Well, what a mysterious thing!” he said aloud. “Am I bewitched?
Who—what was she? Can it be possible that she is a Stillwater girl? And
why should she be so frightened at sight of me? I never thought I was a
very hideous person but this is certainly no temptation to vanity.
Perhaps I’ve wandered into an enchanted garden and been outwardly
transformed into an ogre. There is something uncanny about it
apparently. Anything might happen in such a place.”

He glanced about it with a whimsical smile. The light was fading and the
garden was full of soft creeping shadows and silences. It seemed to wink
sleepy eyes of impish enjoyment at his perplexity. He laid the violin
bow on the stone bench.

“Well, there is no use in my following her and I have no right to, even
if it were of use. But I wish she hadn’t fled in such terror. Eyes like
that were never meant to express anything but tenderness and trust.”

All the way home he pondered the mystery of who the girl might be.

“Let me see,” he reflected. “Old Mr. Williamson was describing the
Stillwater girls for my benefit the other evening. I think he said there
were four handsome ones in the district, Florrie Woods, Melissa Bell,
Jennie Scott, and Clara May Ferguson. No, no, that girl couldn’t be a
Florrie or a Melissa or a Jennie, while Clara May is completely out of
the question. Well, there is some bewitchment in the affair. I’d better
forget all about it.”

Eric found that he couldn’t forget all about it. The girl’s face haunted
him, the mystery of her tantalized him. He might have asked the
Williamsons about her but somehow he shrank from that. The next evening,
with a little shrug at himself, he wandered southwest over the fields
again. He found the garden easily. He had half expected _not_ to find it
the same still, fragrant grassy spot. It had no occupant; and although
he lingered there for an hour no one came. But the violin bow was gone
from the stone bench.

The keenness of his disappointment surprised him, even vexed him. What
nonsense it was to be so worked up because a little girl he had seen for
five minutes failed to appear! He called himself a fool and left at last
in a petulant mood.

For two days he refused to let himself think of the garden. The evening
of the third found him in it again, again to be disappointed. He went
back determined to solve the mystery by open inquiry. Fortune favored
him for he found Mrs. Williamson knitting alone in her kitchen in the
dusk.

“Mrs. Williamson,” he said with an affectation of carelessness, “I
stumbled on an old deserted garden back behind the woods over there the
other evening—a charming bit of wilderness. Do you know whose it is?”

“I suppose it must be the old Connors garden,” answered Mrs. Williamson
after a moment’s reflection. “I had forgotten it. It must be twenty
years since the Connors moved away. Their house and barns were burned
down and Mr. and Mrs. Connors sold the land to Thomas Marshall and moved
to town. Mrs. Connors was very fond of flowers.”

“There was a young girl in it, playing on a violin,” said Eric, annoyed
to find that it was an effort to speak of her and that the blood mounted
to his face as he did so. “She ran away in alarm as soon as she saw me
although I do not think I did anything to frighten or vex her. I have no
idea who she was. Do you know?”

Mrs. Williamson did not make an immediate reply. Finally she said, with
a tone of new interest in her voice, “I suppose it must have been Una
Marshall, Master. And if it was you’ve seen what very few people in
Stillwater have ever seen. And those few have never seen her close by.
It’s no wonder she ran away, she isn’t used to seeing strangers.”

“I’m rather glad if that was the reason,” said Eric. “I admit I didn’t
like to see a girl so frightened of me as she seemed to be. She was so
terrified that she never uttered a word but just ran like a deer to
cover.”

“She couldn’t have said a word in any case,” said Mrs. Williamson
quietly. “She’s dumb.”

Eric sat in dismayed silence for a moment. That beautiful creature
afflicted in such a fashion! Oh, it was horrible. He felt a pang of
almost personal regret.

“Impossible,” he cried at last, remembering. “Why, she played the violin
exquisitely. I never heard anything like it. It’s impossible that a deaf
mute can play like that.”

“Oh, she isn’t deaf. That’s the strange part of it. She can hear as well
as anybody and understands everything that is said to her. But she can’t
speak a word and never could, or at least so they say. But nobody knows
much about her. Janet and Thomas never speak of her and Neil won’t
either. He’s been well questioned but he won’t say a word about Una ever
and gets mad if folks persist. I think it’s terrible the way she has
been brought up; but the Marshalls are strange people. Mr. Murray, I
kind of reproved pa for saying so, you remember, but it is true. They
have strange ways. And you’ve really seen Una? What does she look like?
I’ve heard that she was handsome.”

“I thought her very beautiful,” said Eric briefly. “But _how_ has she
been brought up, Mrs. Williamson? And why?”

“It’s a sad story. Una is the niece of Thomas and Janet Marshall. Her
mother was Margaret Marshall, their sister. Margaret was a great deal
younger than Janet and Thomas; she was the second wife’s child. Her
mother died when she was born and Janet brought her up. I knew Margaret
Marshall well once. We were girls together and real good friends before
she turned against all the world. She was a strange girl in some ways
even then but I always liked her. She was very pretty and a little vain
and very proud—oh, she was very proud. She was smart too and taught
school over at Radnor. It was there she met a man named Ronald Fraser.
He was a stranger and nobody knew much about him. But he was very
handsome and taking and all the girls were in love with him, so it was
said. Old James Marshall, Margaret’s father, didn’t approve of him much
but Margaret coaxed him around—she could do pretty near anything with
him, he was so proud of her—and he finally gave in and consented for
her to marry Ronald Fraser. They had a big wedding, Margaret always
liked to make a display and I think she wanted to show off her fine
husband to the girls who were envying her. They went to live at Radnor
and for a little while everything was well. Margaret had a nice house
and was gay and happy. Then—well, then Ronald Fraser’s wife turned up,
looking for him, his real wife. Oh, it was true enough—she proved it.
Ronald Fraser wasn’t so much to blame, he had really thought his wife
was dead, but there was a terrible scandal of course and he went away
and Margaret came home to her father’s house. From the day that she went
in over its threshold she never came out until she was carried out in
her coffin three years ago; and not a soul ever saw her again outside
her own family. I went to see her but Janet told me she would not see
me. It was foolish of Margaret to act so. She hadn’t done any real wrong
and everybody was sorry for her and would have helped her all they
could. But I reckon pity cut her as deep as blame would have done,
because she was so proud, you see, and had held her head so high. They
say her father was hard on her too. Janet and Thomas felt it as well.
Not many people had ever been in the habit of going to the Marshall
place but the few that had soon stopped for they could see that they
were not welcome. Old James Marshall died that winter. Una was born in
the spring but nobody ever saw her. She was never sent to school or
taken to church. Margaret Marshall died three years ago and everybody in
Stillwater went to the funeral but they didn’t see her. The coffin lid
was screwed down; and they didn’t see Una either. It was thought perhaps
Janet and Thomas would take her out after her mother was gone but they
didn’t, so I suppose they agreed with Margaret about the way she’d been
brought up. I’ve often felt sorry for the poor girl and I don’t think
her people did right by her even if she was mysteriously afflicted. She
must have had a very sad, lonely life. If you don’t want to be pestered
with questions about her, Master, you’d better not let on you’ve seen
her.”

Eric was not likely to. He had heard all he wanted to know and more. So
this girl was at the core of a tragedy! And she was dumb! Oh, the pity
of it! He tried to put her out of his thoughts but he could not. The
memory of her beautiful face drew him with a power he could not resist.
The next evening he went again to the garden although he called himself
a fool for it.