OAK TREE HILL

Ladies' Mirror, Volume I, Issue 9, 1 March 1923, Page 17

OAK TREE HILL

by GRACE D. BOYLAN

A Tale of Love at First Sight

nPREES. And the breeze in their branches. Bird songs, all crescendo, aspiring as the lark’s. A man under a tree. It seemed indeed a forest primeval. An Adam, with ribs intact and under his own bronzed skin, was there, engaged in man’s least harmful occupation—sleep. Morning was scattered over the country. The hills rejoiced. Contented hills that never lifted a remote and snow-clad peak against the sky. The man had tramped across them for three days. He had found wild strawberries in many a hollow, and his kettle had bubbled over camp fires of dry twigs, while under the dew the meadows looked like amethyst, and the plumes of the sun had shown their tips above the gates of Day. He had pitched no tent when he had thrown himself down to rest. No yard or so of canvas shut him from the purple glory of the sky. He gave the eyes of Night look for look through the leaves of his sheltering tree, and then slept without a dream. A tiny lake gemmed the country. Its business was to reflect the skies and mirror the trees. It performed its task rather better than the man, who was an artist, performed his. An ant nipped him into wakefulness to acknowledge this fact, and to remind him that he was a sluggard. He rolled out of his blanket and sprang up. And, with a sweep of his hand over his hair and a shake that freed his shoulders of crushed leaves, he walked down to the lake for a swim. An hour later he had taken to the open road. On either side stretched fields flaunting young green clusters of leaves growing evenly across broad surfaces of warm brown —and a thousand fragrances rode upon the breezes. There was a little mist. One would not wish to look on such a scene through unveiled sunshine. And the grasses still were glistening when June Clayton opened the farmhouse door. The farmhouse sentinelled the top of Oak Tree Hill. The climbingroad ended before it. June was dressed in a pink cotton frock. But her eyes were blue and there was a dimple nicked in her cheek. Her hair was the colour of ripe chestnuts, and it was caught back in a loose knot. Her white lawn collar, turned low, displayed a throat as white as milk, and because of the sweetness, the freshness and youth of her it seemed but a sisterly thing for the pink and white convolvulus climbing over the porch, to shake the dew from its deep bells upon her hair, as one flower may lend its jewels to another. It was while she was standing thus that she saw the man with the pack on his back draw near. And it was thus he first beheld her. “The top o’ the morning,” he called, being a bold and joyous person. “This vision is worth the climb I’ve had.” And he stopped at the gate, looking not at the trees or the sky, but at the girl in the doorway. She saw his hand on the latch. Her brows grew haughty. “We do not buy anything of pedlars,” she said, noting the pack between his broad shoulders.

“What a pity!” he replied cheerily. “You never can tell what is in a pedlar’s pack. Now, I—could show you fabrics ” “I do not wish to see,” she said frigidly. His smile would have melted icebergs. “I have tissues.” he went on, “that were woven of moonbeams and threaded with dew. I have songs that have never yet been sung. I have translations of the folk-lore of birds.” CHE laughed, and he stopped, wondering. Her manner had suddenly changed. The chestnut head inclined graciously. “Please pardon me for trying to turn you away from your own door,” she cried, advancing a step to meet him, for he had swung the gate upon its reluctant hinge and entered at her first unbending. “Mrs. Hope told me that she was expecting her son to arrive from Bristol any day. But I am sure she did not dream that you would be here this morning. Do come in ; Jennie is preparing my breakast now, and I hope you will join me. Mrs. Hope has gone to Exeter. But she will be here before long, I am certain.” He came up the path laughing, but there was perplexity behind the merry glint in his eyes. “So you have placed me?” he said gaily. “May I bring in my pack?” “With all its treasures,” she replied. “I shall see more than the ‘stuff of dreams’ you mentioned, shall I not?” He dumped his kit on the ground outside the door and swept off his broad-brimmed hat, disclosing a fine head, wide of brow, and brown eyes full of humour. He was lean and strong—an outdoor man. Thirty or more, he had the look of one who had seen life and had chosen the soundest and most wholesome for his oart of it. His lips were firm, but kind at the corners. They smiled as he answered her—“l have a bunch of sketches. One from the hilltop and several from the valley. There’s a pretty good light this morning.” She gave him a side glance and he caught her thought. “Nature is tremendously obliged to struggling artists for a word of praise now and then, isn’t she? But she gets even with a man when a pink -garmented young person takes him for a pedlar.” She sparkled. “Pardon, sir ; and what does she do when a pink-garmented person is saluted by a traveller without ceremony?” “On such a day as this all folk should be on speaking terms,” he protested. There was something troubling him at the back of his mind. He shifted from one lean leg to the other. “Really,” she said, reaching up to touch the convolvulus swaying above her, “I did not know that Mrs. Hope’s son was an artist. I—l had an impression that he was in business. I think she told me so.” A voice came from indoors. “Breakfast, miss ! Breakfast is ready !”

“Come in,” said Miss Clayton hospitably. “Jennie will put an extra plate for you, and I have no doubt that your mother will be here before we have finished.” “Breakfast is ready, miss.” The young man had looked very attentive. But as no name was spoken he said awkwardly—“l did not know that you had come.” She saw through him. “You mean that you are quite as mystified about me as I was about you. Well, when your mother comes she will introduce us. Until then —” “We must remain incognito ?” He asked this rather seriously. She nodded, moving towards the door. “But, you see—l—l’m afraid to tell, to explain to you, for fear you’ll send me away, but —” “Come to breakfast. I know all about you; but, as for me, I’ll be mysterious for a little while.” She was plainly delighted with the idea, but he looked grave. “I thank you,” he said; “but I had breakfast more than an hour ago under a tree. Do go in. I am very comfortable here. Only please tell me your name?” She shook her head merrily. “When your mother returns,” she said, and ran in. He sat down, an exceedingly thoughtful expression on his face. “I ought to tell her this minute,” he said. “I should have told her at once.” He arose and went to the door, still swung ajar. He tapped lightly. No one responded. “Oh,” he began. And then he realised how hopeless it is to try and call aloud to a person unknown by name. He couldn’t cry, “Oh, Sister of the convolvulus,” which was the only thing that occurred to him at that moment. He knocked still more loudly on the door, and then waited in a sudden funk. What should he say when she came to answer his bold summons? “I shall be treated as I deserve,” he muttered gloomily. And without further ado he slung his painting kit to his shoulders and went down the steps out of the gate and away. IVTISS Clayton was conscious of an indefinable elation of spirits as she went back to the dining-room. The lazy drift of clouds, the young glory of the trees made a world good to live in. She wondered somewhat at the poise and dignity of the merry stranger she had left at the door. She had been presented to Society only the season before. That last ordeal had sent her to the farm on Oak Tree Hill for a rest. One year of parties and dinners and other functions had been enough for her normal girlish appetite for gaiety. In spite of the protests of her aunt, with whom she made her home, she chose to spend her summer in the beautiful county of Devon. She had been content. But the coming of this young man upon the scene was rather interesting. Youth ever calls to youth. So should it be. Mrs. Hope returned from her early visit to town before the repast was entirely finished. She came wheezily

into the house with a stout, ruddy young man beside her. “Well,” she beamed, untying her bonnet-strings as she directed - the disposal of the various packages that she had brought with her, “you are early for a city bird. I told Jim—bless me, I haven’t introduced you ! Miss Clayton, this is my son. Jim, this lady is staying with me this summer. You sit down and talk to her, and I’ll go and tell Jennie we’re here and get you some coffee.” Young Mr. Hope had an impression, when he was introduced, that the young lady had unusually large eyes. But he did not notice that so much after he began to talk to her. “You are— are the son that Mrs. Hope has been expecting?” she inquired pleasantly. And when he had heartily responded, “Yes, madam, I’m the last and only Hope,” she smiled, and went out into the garden rather hurriedly. The young man watched her through the door, and then welcomed Jennie, the maid-of-all-work, who came smilingly in with his breakfast. Meanwhile Miss Clayton was addressing a vacant seat in the porch. And her eyes were full of battle. “How dared you,” she asked. “How dared you come into this garden, up to this very door —” The seat having been put there by a carpenter was dumb before her reproaches. “I never felt so absurd in my life,” she said stormily. “I never will stay to meet that impudent man again. He probably lives about here. I shall take the first train back to London. I wish I’d gone to Switzerland with May, as she and auntie wanted me to. But no, I had to come to a farm on a foolish hill and let myself be cajoled into picking up an acquaintance with a strange man. A pedlar of dreams. A man of no account more than likely! The place for me is in London with my cousin. She’ll keep me out of mischief.” And she made a little grimace as she thought of the shut-in and formal house in a West End square, to the gates of which could come no vendor of dewthreaded moonbeams and unwritten songs. r PALL flower things covered the hills and valleysand with them milkweed, clover, buttercups and daisies. Evening, and a glinting mist came stealing out of the hollows and lay white and mysterious across the climbing road. The man who had been earlier in the day tramping for miles over the country now walked by faith down Oak Tree Hill. For he could not see in front of him for the mist. He swept a glance upward. Time was when he would have thought in cobalt blue as he saw those shadows on the unveiled heights. But now he muttered “Why was I such an ass as not to find out her name?” And his mind was enmeshed in pink cotton. John Strange, as a Briton, had all the good qualities of his race and enough other qualities to keep him from being lopsided. Visiting his sister in Exeter, he was. spending his days exploring the lovely surrounding country. He had been tramping, loitering, sketching betimes, and philandering with Nature for a week or more. But now, having reached the top of Oak Tree Hill, he had turned himself about and marched straight down again. “My only safety is in flight,” he soliloquised, as he strode through the mist. “I’ll go straight back to town and get to work on my canvas for the exhibition. One more glimpse of that girl would make a farmer of me, for I’d settle right down here and study colour where it grows. Yet”this as he lighted his pipe—“l don’t believe she belongs here. The

bend of that little head suggests three ostrich tips and a presentation at Court.” He smiled into the smoke as he made a mental picture of the lovely young thing making her curtsey to their Majesties. Lights winked in the windows of the scattered homes on the curving brown road as John Strange strode along. He quickened his pace and cut across the fields to the edge of the little lake where he had camped the night before. And soon he had a fire crackling under the tin kettle that, with a view to again finding himself in need of, he had swung, with the frying-pan and blankets, into the crooked arm of a convenient tree. He had expected to take his supper at the inn at the cross-roads. But he was in no mood to meet his kind. He could best recall her face in the silences. In the morning he awakened with a brilliant thought. “She is probably boarding at that big chimneyed house,” he said to himself. “Then why should I not board there too?” He climbed with the road up Oak Tree Hill. No one could see wings on his stout heels, but he felt them there. Mrs. Hope met him at the door, her hands, plump and kindly, flecked with flour. Yes, she could take him. She was pleased with his looks; they both smiled. He engaged a room without a quibble about price. Being on a tramping trip he had with him only a sketching kit and a small bag. If he liked being right out in the country, he ventured, he might send for his boxes and remain all the summer. Cunning as a fox, he said nothing about the lode-star that had drawn him to Oak Tree Hill. “Will you come up to your room now,” said Mrs. Hope. “A young lady has been staying with me, but she left last evening, so I’m especially glad to have someone else so soon.” The heart of John Strange plunged bootwards. “Gone?” he said stupidly. “Yes,” said the lady. “This was her room. She suddenly took it into her head to go back to town, and I never try to keep anybody that wants to go He thought she sighed. There was still some suggestion of her presence in the bowl of sweet peas on the broad sill of the window. He went over to them, touched one reverently with his brown hand, wondering if he thus soon might put that very unusual quality in a landlady to a test. But what could he say? He must not let her know that he had followed this lovely will-o’-the-wisp to her door. He had imposed upon the young lady by letting her believe him to be the son of her landlady, and he had no excuses to make to himself or to anyone else until he should have had an opportunity to make them to her. He could not even ask who she was or where she had gone. He had engaged the room. And he’d got to stay! Days came and went. Strange made himself stay at Oak Tree Hill nearly all the summer. He took the whole second floor of the farmhouse, and with Mrs. Hope’s cordial assent had a large window put across the end of one room, which he intended to use as a studio. Then he set to work and transferred to canvas a picture that was painted on the inner curtains of his eyes. Those following months he proved as true the ancient saying “Work is worship,” and as he worked he hummed this foolish song:— “And oh. the morning face of her That shone upon my sight,

With dezvdrops sprinkled on her hair, And in her eyes the light!” Sometimes lie awakened from dreams of her, thinking he heard her voice. But it was only some sleepy little bird calling to its mate. So he returned to his pillow. W/ITH the following spring came ” a spell of delightfully warm weather. June Clayton, driving with her cousin in Hyde Park saw, what was no very unusual sight in that place and at that hour, a man riding past her on horseback. She gripped the hand of her companion. “Look, May! There! At that man!” “Where?” inquired Lady Whitebrook, lorgnette at attention. “Oh.!” June Clayton was impatient. “He’s gone now. Didn’t you see him?” “No,” replied the lady tranquilly. “Who was it?" “I don’t know.” Lady Whitebrook lifted her heavy white lids. A twinkle lived under them. “You will know,” she observed, “if he saw you. He’s probably following our carriage by this time. I always feel like an eighteenth century grand-dame when I bring you out. We gather up so many postillions and outriders.” June pouted. “I wish I had a ‘busybody,’ ” she said, after a while, during which nobody passed their carriage but royalties and other unreal people. “What in the world is that?” asked Lady Whitebrook. “It’s a thing they have on the Continent, something like a little mirror that they put in the windows, so that the occupants of the houses can see who is going along the street.” “Talk about curiosity But why do you want one of the ridiculous things?” “So I could see if—if anyone’s coming behind us,” she replied. “The best way to do that is to turn round,” said Lady Whitebrook, and gave directions accordingly. “There isn’t anybody,” June said. “Of course he wouldn’t follow us. He’s too much of a gentleman!” When Miss Clayton dressed for dinner that night she looked into her mirror and assured herself that it could not be. And the vision looked back at her and blushed, and blushing, smiled. 'T'HE exhibition at the Academy -* 1 - that season was considered one of the best for many years, and late one afternoon Lord Whitebrook’s party arrived to view the pictures. Lady Whitebrook was in rosecoloured cloth, smartly if somewhat elaborately combined with striped voile. The latter, arranged in long wing-like draperies made her ladyship appear like a peculiarly agreeable beetle, a resemblance intensified by the little black aigrette, two feathered, that adorned her closely-fitting hat of pink straw. She certainly possessed bloom and style. Miss Clayton was dressed in white serge and wore a wide white hat. Her little feet were in white shoes and stockings, and the only colour about her, beside the glint of her chestnut hair, was in the wild rose hue of her checks and soft radiance of her deep blue eyes. Lady Whitebrook and her popular husband knew everybody, and, as was always the case when June was one of the party, there were several young men with them. Lady Whitebrook was hoping to find another nice, amiable peer who might induce her lovely kinswoman to settle down, hut as she confided to her husband, she was afraid there must be som > “impossible man” be-

hind the girl’s indifference to all suitors. What if she had known that June as judging and measuring all the men she met by one standard, and that standard carried a pack on its back, laden with tissues of dreams ? Lord Whitebrook as talking about post-impressionism and affecting to admire immensely an example of modern art before them on the line. But just as he was pointing out the extraordinary' resemblance between a paving stone and a certain distinguished contemporary of his. he stopped, looked over the heads of the crowd, and exclaimed “That’s Strange “What?” asked Miss Clayton. “Where?” in evident interest demanded Lady Whitebrook. But her husband was signalling. And forthwith, from out the throng, came joyfully towards them the man o’ dreams. “How' are you, old chap?” The Earl clapped him on the shoulder. Lady Whitebrook was holding out her hand. “So glad to sec you, Jack,” she said; “I thought you must be abroad, it is so long since we have seen anything of you. My cousin is with me. Miss Clayton Mr. Strange. June found herself murmuring conventionally. But the man stood smiling and still bowed from his great height, his hat in his hand. And his first words, so low that the others did not hear, were: “At last.” Then he turned to answer Lady Whitebrook. “I have been in town a fortnight, but rather busy getting ready for the exhibition. I was in Devonshire all last summer and have been abroad since”he glanced at June —and being inspired with much to say, became silent. “Have you anything here inquired Lady Whitebrook. “I did not know that you were exhibiting this season.” “Such is fame,” laughed the artist. “My old friends”— turned to address June —“have not even heard of my picture, and I thought the whole world must be wagging over it.” She smiled, having recovered from her great surprise at meeting him. “Where is it?” she asked. “Yes, we want to see it at once,” interposed Lady Whitebrook. And they were about to go into the adjoining gallery when Lord Whitebrook, who had turned to speak to friends, detained his wife to undergo some introductions. So the two young people walked on together. Each had often wondered, in the event of a sudden and unexpected meeting face to face, if eyes and lips could be depended on not to betray. And now they were walking together quietly, with a host of other wellbred folk, having, as far as might he seen, no other thought than to find the proper viewpoint for a certain well-hung canvas on the wall. Strange, guiding her, with the same masterful quiet that had before characterised him, sucH'mly said—“l feel as shy as a iJioolboy, now that you arc really going to look upon my work. And et it was painted for you.” “For me?” She turned to him in amazement. “For me, Mr. Strange?” “For you,” he said. “Will you look at it?” She lifted her eyes and saw herself. in her pink gown, with the convolvulus twining above her, by the door of the farmhouse on Oak Tree Hill. A wave of emotion swept her like a reed. Her hand flew to her breast. He saw her white throat tremble. “June,” he whispered. “Rose of the world!” “Don’t,” she murmured. “I— do not know you.” He saw her glance dart like a swallow towards the room they had left. “You are not— all what I thought you.” “I am a pedlar of dreams,” he urged.

“And -you would sell me fabrics of moonshine?” she questioned. “I would give you ray love,” he cried. “No, no! Do not speak of that now,” she cried. “See, here are my cousins.” “Well, where’s the picture?” inquired Lord Whitebrook. But his wife, after an astonished look, exclaimed— "So you two knew each other all the time, and June never told me. H’m! I think I understand something.” She looked significantly at her husband, who, pondering a moment, comprehended and exclaimed “I say! This is ripping!” a remark which was allowed to pass as a discriminating criticism on the picture ! “Jack Strange,” said Lady Whitebrook, laying her hand on the artist’s arm, “what were you saying to my cousin when we came into this gallery?” “I might have been telling her about a little farm I have bought on a hill in Devonshire,’ he laughed. “What else?” she insisted. “There was not very much else, just then,” he replied. “But I don’t mind assuring you that there is going to be!” He looked at June with eyes frankly adoring. Chin tilted, she walked away to the other side of the room. “Come, we must be going,” said Lady Whitebrook. “Jack’s going to dine with us this evening.” “I’m so glad that you are resigned to the idea,” Strange said. “I was just about to suggest it to you.” They hurried away, laughing. But with infinite respect he detained June at the door. “Give me one moment,” he begged. She hesitated, with glance on the ground. “You said I must not tell you of my love so soon.” She did not speak. “May T speak later? Tell me, dear.” The rose of her cheeks drank the dew of her eyes. She nodded. He caught her hand. It was well the gallery was now deserted. “May I speakto-night?” She looked up and met his eyes. They were full of splendour. She looked down, struggling for words. She only needed one. It came with laughter. “Yes,” she said, and fled to her cousin. “Rose of the world,” he breathed, as her white garments brushed him in passing. “Rose of the world, I love you!”