# The Blue Window/Chapter 21

THE bronze turtle had much company during the summer days. There were the bees and the birds and the butterflies, the lillies on the pond, the roses in the garden. The air was fragrant as it had been a thousand years ago in Japan. Perhaps the bronze turtle remembered.
But of human companionship there was none. The house on the hill was closed. Now and then Delia opened it and dusted and aired. But she and Sampson kept, otherwise, to their own quarters. And the crystal cat slept alone in the dark, on the lacquered cabinet.
Then one heavenly day in July, when the breeze blew cool from the Bay, a man stood by the pool and plucked a rose from a bush at its edge. It was a tiny rose, just big enough to go in a letter, and the letter was to go to Paris.
Crispin had not had many letters from Hildegarde. But he had doggedly kept on writing. He had steadily refused to believe she was fickle or shallow. If she did not love him, there were at least all the years of friendship for herself and for her mother. Some day she would remember.
On that faith he lived. He was working now in the Washington office, and had a small car of his own. He ​had motored over to Round Hill, and would return by moonlight.
As yet he had not visited the house. It was late and he wanted his dinner. He decided to come back later. When the dark had fallen, he would hold a tryst with memory. If Sampson was about, or Delia, they would let him in, and he would sit by the Blue Window, and look off over the Bay.
He rode on, therefore, to Christopher's. The big man welcomed him heartily, and set a table out of doors for him. The Bay had ruffles of silver across its blue, and the gulls were silver. Christopher's garden was full of old-fashioned flowers—larkspur, bleeding hearts, lady-slipper. Columbus, stretched flat on a green bench chattered his teeth at a humming-bird poised above the porch boxes of petunias.
There were crabs for dinner, devilled in their red shells. "We are catching such big ones," Christopher said, "rusty and sweet as a nut."
Crispin ate with an appetite. "Not so many people around," he said.
"No. The fall is my great season, when the hunting begins. Winslow was out here the other day to talk about it. Wants to get his sink-box license before he goes over to join the Round Hill party in Paris. There won't be a day after he comes back that he and Carew won't be out with their guns. Some men are natural-born hunters. Winslow's one. He'll follow anything until he gets it, whether it's a bird, or a business deal, or a woman. He wanted Sally Hulburt, and he got her, more's the pity."
Crispin nodded. "She's too good for him."
​"Any girl is. He's as hard as nails. He told me Miss Sally is to be married at Round Hill. The Hulburts have rented their own house, and Sally doesn't want a town wedding." He brushed an imaginary crumb off of the table. "I'll bet her mother put her up to being married at Carew's."
Crispin, not much interested, repeatedly idly, "Her mother?"
"Ethel Hulburt. The next thing she'll be marrying Carew."
Crispin, electrified into attention, turned in his chair, "Carew?"
"Yes. The two of them lunched here a lot before they left for Paris. Anyone with half an eye could see how things were going—"
In a flash there came to Crispin a line in Hildegarde's last letter. "I am not seeing quite so much of Daddy. Sally has finished her shopping and plays around with me. And her Mother doesn't care for the things we do. So Aunt Anne goes with us. And that leaves Ethel for Daddy to take care of. He has to be polite—but I sometimes wish he wouldn't."
Did Hildegarde suspect? And was she afraid? Or did her words mean nothing?
When he left the Inn later, the moon was hanging low above the waters. He drove up the hill and got out of his car. The house lay wrapped in stillness. Then from the kennels he heard the yelping of the dogs.
And above him on the porch, a voice: "Is that you, Harlowe?"
It was Meriweather. "I thought nobody else could ​look quite like such a sylvan god under the moon." He descended a few steps and shook hands with Crispin. "I am staying down here for a few days getting some data for Carew."
Crispin was frank, "I came" he said, "to keep a tryst with Hildegarde—"
Merry stood very still. "Memories?"
"Yes."
"I have a few myself," he stopped, and changed the subject. "Look here, why can't you stay all night. I'm dead lonesome, and there are enough beds for an army."
"There's nothing I'd like better."
So it was settled, and Meriweather called Sampson.
"They's plenty of baids," Sampson said, when he had greeted Crispin, "jes cryin' out for somebody to sleep in 'em. Delia say this house am so empty, it rattle lak a locus' skin."
"Tell her to wait until fall and she'll have a house full. Miss Sally's going to be married here."
"At Roun' Hill?" Sampson demanded.
"Yes."
"Glory be," Sampson said, and departed to tell the news to Delia who came out presently to discuss it. She was fresh as a black-eyed daisy in her yellow gingham, and carried a pile of clean towels.
"Who say Mis' Sally gwine be married heah?"
"Mr. Carew wrote this morning. I intended to tell you but it slipped my mind."
"It won't slip my min'," Delia informed him, "effen they's anything I enjoys mor'n a weddin', I ain' yit ​seen it. Lawsee, Mistuh Merry, Ise gwine sing 'Praise Gawd' ev'y mawin' twel the weddin' day."
"I'm not exactly happy to see Miss Sally marry Mr. Winslow."
"I ain' caring who she marry. Effen she do'an like 'im, nobody kin mek her have 'im. Miss Sally got a min' of her own, ain't she? I ain' feelin' sorry for 'er lessen she's sorry for huhse'f."
They laughed at that, and she went away. They heard her voice presently as she made the bed upstairs.
"I'se reached the lan' of cawn and wine," sang Delia. And meant it. She hadn't a care in the world. With a wedding in prospect why worry?
The front door was wide open, the moonlight pouring down through the Blue Window illumined the steps and lower hall. "Shall we sit on the landing," Merry said, "it's a wonderful night."
Crispin wished he were alone. He didn't want to talk to anyone. He wanted to look out quietly on infinite space and think of Hildegarde.
As if the other understood his mood, he talked little. There were long stretches of silence. At last Merry said:
"This place speaks of her, doesn't it?"
"Hildegarde? Yes."
"You know of course that I love her, Harlowe? I might as well tell you. I've been looking upon you as my rival in the field. But one can't have a rival when one has given up—the fight."
He rose and stood looking out of the window. "I'd have fought through to the end if there had been a ​ghost of a chance. But before she went to Paris, I told her how I felt. . . . And, well . . . I'm out of it."
"I shall never be out of it," Crispin said, "till some other fellow wins."
"I know when I'm beaten. You don't. Perhaps that's why you'll fight through. And—and if I can't have her, Harlowe—I want you to get her. Not Gresham. I know him and he'd kill her—dreams."
He drew a deep breath. "I want Hildegarde to be happy. I'm not sure that I am anything but a dawdler and a drone, but I have at least this virtue that I can see all that she is. And Bobby can't. . . ."
Crispin said huskily, "You're a good sport, Merry—"
"Not very. But I think I play fair. . . . And she told me once that when she thought of her future—you were in it, Harlowe. . . ."
Crispin found the other's hand and grasped it. "I wouldn't tell you, perhaps," Merry said, "if it hadn't been for Bobby. He mustn't have her. . . ."
It was late when the two men went to bed. They had talked long and intimately; had learned much of each other, and that knowledge had brought them close together. They found under the Blue Window, the beginning of a friendship which was to last throughout the years.
It was just as they parted before Crispin's door that Merry remarked; "Louis' letter this morning worried me. If he marries Ethel—" He caught himself up. . . .
"You, too?" Crispin said, "is it as certain as that?"
​"As what?"
"Other people are talking about it."
"What other people?"
"Christopher spoke of it—and in Hildegarde's last letter, there was a sentence which made me wonder. . . ."
"You think then that she—knows?"
"I'm not sure."
"Well, if she does—God help her."