The Wishing Ring Man by Margaret Widdemer

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Produced by Eric Eldred, David Garcia, Charles Franks
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[Illustration: He was fairly content with what he saw in her face.]

The Wishing-Ring Man

By MARGARET WIDDEMER

TO THE MEMORY OF MY OWN GRANDFATHER

E. S. W.

ONE OF THE DEAREST, BEST AND KINDLIEST OF MEN

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. JOY IN AMBER SATIN

II. BY GRACE OF THE WISHING RING

III. PHYLLIS RIDES THROUGH

IV. THE RESCUE OF THE PRINCESS

V. THE SHADOW OF GAIL

VI. ROSE GARDENS AND MEN

VII. A VERY CHARMING GENTLEMAN

VIII. A FOUNTAIN IN FAIRYLAND

IX. THE TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE

X. CLARENCE SWOOPS DOWN

XI. PIRATE COUSINS TO THE RESCUE

XII. DINNER FOR FIVE

XIII. THE SERIOUS BUSINESS OF "IOLANTHE"

XIV. THE SLIGHTLY SURPRISING CLARENCE

XV. THE GIFT OF THE RING

CHAPTER ONE

JOY IN AMBER SATIN

Joy Havenith had no business at all to be curled up on the back
stairs under Great-Grand-Aunt Lucilla's picture. She ought to have
been sliding sweetly up and down the long double parlors with
teacups and cake, and she knew it. But she just didn't care.

As a matter of fact, Aunt Lucilla and the other ancestors ought to
have been in the parlors, too; but Grandfather had ordained
differently. He had gobbled the parlor walls for his autographed
photograph collection, and Grandmother, long before Joy was born or
orphaned, had sorrowfully hung her ancestors-in-law out in the long,
narrow hall, where they were a tight fit. Grandfather was one of the
last survivors of the old school of American poetry. He was tall and
slender, and very gentle and nice, but he always had things the way
he said he wanted them, and he preferred his autographed friends to
his family portraits.

"It's rather a good thing it's so dark out here, Aunt Lucilla," said
Joy to the smiling Colonial lady in the dark corner above her. "You
mayn't much like being where people can't see you--but think how
you'd feel, up garret!"

Aunt Lucilla Havenith, red of lip, flashing of eye, blue and silver
of gown, laughed on down at her great-grand-niece, who was holding a
surreptitious little red candle up to talk to her. Aunt Lucilla,
from all accounts, had had too excellent a time in her life to mind
a little thing like being put in a back hall afterwards. She had
been a belle from her fifteenth year, eloped with her true-love at
sixteen, and gone on being a belle all the rest of her life, in the
intervals of three husbands and ever so many children. She had
managed everything and everybody she came across gaily all her life;
she had been proposed to by practically the whole Society of the
Cincinnati; and had died at eighty-three, a power and a charmer to
the last.

"I don't think you need to mind dark corners one bit," said Joy,
tipping the candle so that the red wax dribbled down on her slim
fingers. "If Rochambeau and Lafayette and all the rest of the people
in the history-books had made a fuss over _me_--"

Joy sat down on the stairs again, on a cushion. Nobody used the back
stairs, fine curly ones that they were, and Joy's cushion, which she
had put there on purpose to be mournful on a fortnight before, was
untouched since last time.

Joy Havenith was nineteen, but you never would have known it. She
had been told so often by her grandparents that she was only a child
yet, that she quite believed it. No, not quite--but enough to make
her a little shy, and have almost the expression and manner still of
a little girl. She had big, black-lashed, kitten-blue eyes, scarlet
lips, and two ropes of bronze hair that she wanted very badly to put
up. It sounds like rather an exciting personality, but Joy was so
young and so shy and so obedient that she was only like a rather
small Blessed Damozel, or some other not-grown-up Rossetti person.
She knew it well, because she had been told so frequently, and she
didn't care about it at all. She leaned her head against the frame
containing Great-Grandfather John Havenith at twenty, and considered
Aunt Lucilla afresh.

"_All_ the people in the history-books!" she said again softly,
but none the less regretfully.

Ordinarily you couldn't ask for a dearer, sweeter child than Joy,
slipping noiselessly up and down the old house in the city, being
just as good as she knew how. She had always been told that she must
be good and obedient and affectionate, and it had never been any
trouble to her, because she was naturally that way. She lived all
alone with Grandfather and Grandmother and Elizabeth the cook, and
did just what Grandfather told her to. So did everybody else. It
wasn't that he was cross, or anything like that. He was more
charming than most people. But he was a Personage; and if you live
with a Personage your own personality gets a bit pushed into the
background, without its being anybody's fault at all.

Joy had been perfectly happy, as far as she knew, until two weeks
before. You can be, you know, if no one tells you you aren't,
especially when you're young.

Grandfather had Afternoons every two weeks, when he sat at the end
of the parlors in a big chair and received his admirers. In his
youth he had looked like Shelley, and he was still tall and slender
and clean-shaven, with straight, abundant white hair, and black
brows and lashes like Joy's. And he had what is called immense
personal charm, and loved his little grand-daughter devotedly. He
simply didn't know she was grown up. For the matter of that, neither
did Joy herself until....

You see, it had been very much like life in a fairy-book. She never
remembered anything but the old house and the old people, and
everybody literary coming and going and telling her how wonderful
Grandfather was: and nothing that concerned _her_ very closely,
at all. She scarcely knew how to treat anybody, except respectfully,
because they had always all been so much older than she was. It was
like living in an enchanted tower. Enchanted towers are very
pleasant places, because you can have all sorts of dreams in them.
Joy hadn't missed anything much, till the thing that happened at the
reception.

Grandfather, in his frock-coat and stock, his white fluffy hair
flying, had been moving up and down the autographed parlors with his
usual dominant charm. Little gray Grandmother, in her gathered,
fichued black silk, was putting lemon or cream in teacups, as people
should prefer. Joy had been walking up and down by Grandfather, as
he liked to have her on reception days. They dressed her, on these
days, in lovely strange frocks, cut medieval fashion, with the ropes
of bronze-gold hair trailing down either side of her vividly
colored, incongruously dreamy little face. According to the way Joy
figured it out, Grandfather had her dress that way, the better to
write poetry about her. She didn't mind. The truth was, she lived so
far inside herself that she didn't care. It was so much easier to do
quickly what you were told, and then go back to the place where you
played by yourself--a fairy country.

This particular reception day was a damp, heavily hot afternoon in
early September. There weren't many people back in the city yet, but
Grandfather always began his "days" as early as he could. He was
fond of having people around him. And even on this very sticky day
people did come. Only two of them were young.

Joy didn't know any young people. Some day she intended to. In her
dream-world she had friends who were young and gay and lovely and
talked to her, and to whom she talked back gaily; but it never
occurred to her to expect anything like that to really happen right
now. The young men and young girls she sometimes crossed she admired
quite happily and remotely, as if they were people from another planet.

It was so that she watched these two people that were young. She
liked watching them so much that presently she escaped from Grandfather,
and slid behind the window-curtains, to be closer to them.

"They feel so lovely and happy," said Joy, warming her little hands
at their happiness.

They were lovers; anybody could see that. And they weren't poets or
anything of the sort; you could see that, too. _She_ was in a
little trim white pongee street suit, with a close little hat above
a little rosy, powdered, cheerful face. _He_ had rather heavy
shoulders and a shock of carefully brushed straight light hair, and
looked about one year out of Harvard. They didn't at all belong with
the middle-aged roomful. As a matter of fact, _her_ mother knew
Mrs. Havenith a little, and so they had dashed in here to save her
suit from the rain. They were sitting and smiling at each other
against a background of Mark Twain's life-sized head in a broad gilt
frame. They faced another life-sized head of Browning, also
autographed, but they liked looking at each other better.

Joy, from her hiding-place, could feel the current of their
happiness and youth, and it made her very warm in her soul, and
comfortable. She listened to them quite unashamedly, as she would
have to a nice play.

"She has wonderful hair, hasn't she?" she heard the girl say.

"Not as lovely as my girl's," the man answered softly.

His girl laughed, a little low pleased laugh. "But you can't see
mine hanging down that way, like a picture," she fenced.

"I'm glad you don't wear it that way," he insisted. "I like you to
look like a real girl, not a movie star or an advertisement."

"Do you suppose she likes it?" asked the girl. "I'd go crazy if I
had to be like that--why, she isn't as old as I am! I suppose they
write poems about her, though," she added, as if that might be a
compensation.

"Oh, if _that's_ all--" began the man, and they both laughed
happily, as at a wonderful joke.

Joy, frozen behind her curtains, heard a little rustle, as if he was
taking her hand, and her protest--

"Oh, Dicky, don't--they'll see us!"

"Not a bit," said he cheerfully. "They're all looking at dear
Grandpapa, the Angora Poet--oldest in captivity to be reading his
own sonnets. Bet you it's about the little girl, poor kid--he seems
to be looking around for her."

"Sonnets? Oh, let's go; the rain's stopped," whispered the girl.
"You were awfully extravagant this afternoon. Now we're going to
take a nice, inexpensive walk up home."

She heard him protesting a little at that; then they slid out
softly, while poor Joy sat behind her curtains, moveless and
aghast.... Oh, was this what she was like ... to real, happy, gay
people her own age? And she had liked the girl so, and been so
glad she had her lover, and that they loved each other! And
Grandfather.... She had never thought whether he wrote poetry about
her or not. She had just taken it for granted. People had to write
about something, and it was just as apt to be you as a public crisis
or a sunset, or anything else useful for the purpose. But they had
_laughed_ about it.... Oh, she did hope it wouldn't be a poem
about her that he was going to read! She felt she couldn't stand it,
if it were. She knew that when she was the subject she was expected
to be in sight, as a sort of outward and visible sign.

"I won't go out into the room!" she said defiantly. "He doesn't
expect the sunsets and public crises to stand up and be looked at
when he reads about them!"

So she stayed just where she was. As she stayed, incongruously, a
joke out of an old Punch came into her head--not at all an esthetic
one. It was a picture of a furious woman brandishing a broom, while
the tips of her husband's boots showed under the bed-foot. The
husband was saying: "Ye may poke at me and ye may threaten me, but
ye canna break my manly sperrit. I willna come out fra under the bed!"

Joy laughed a little, even in her sad state of mind, at the
remembrance. "I willna come out fra under the bed, either," she
decided rather shakily, curling her flowing yellow satin closer
about her, and making herself quite flat against the window-frame.
She tried to stop her ears and not listen, so she wouldn't know
whether the poetry was about her or not. But she had fatally sharp
ears, and Grandfather always practised on her and Grandmother,
adoringly silent at the breakfast table. She would know the poems
apart if she only caught a half word.... And it _was_ about her.

Grandfather's beautiful voice carried as well as it ever had. No
matter how many fingers you had in how many ears, you heard it just
the same. And the poem's name was, "To Joy in Amber Satin."

It was doubtless a very lovely poem, and she'd been as pleased as
anybody when it had sold to the _Century_ for fifty dollars
last week. But it suddenly came over Joy that she wasn't a crisis,
nor yet a sunset, and that people oughtn't to write poetry to their
granddaughters, and then have them wear the clothes that were
written about right in the room with the poem. She knew, too, that
as soon as it was over, purry, nice, prettily dressed ladies would
come and hunt her out and use admiring adjectives on her. She had
never minded it before; she had taken it as a well-behaved little
dog would; as a curious thing people did, which meant that they
wanted to be nice. With this new viewpoint drenching her like cold
water it didn't seem nice a bit.

She pulled the curtain stealthily apart and peeped out. Everything
seemed fairly all right. Between her and Grandfather, a useful
shelter, spread the massive purple-velvet back of Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones,
who always came, and always asked afterwards, "And how is our little
Joy-Flower today?" She was as good as she could be, but she was one
more of the things Joy felt as if she couldn't stand right now.

She tiptoed very carefully indeed past Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones, and
past Grandfather's bronze bust at twenty-five, and almost past the
framed autograph letter of Whittier, on the easel. That was as far
as she got, because there was a nail sticking out at the side of the
Whittier frame, and it caught her by one of the straps that held her
satin panels together across the violet chiffon sidepieces. The
framed letter came down with a clatter, spoiling the last line of
the poem forever; and Joy was caught, for of course every one turned
around to see what the noise was.

Grandfather, who had great presence of mind, read the last four
lines of the poem over again slowly, directly at Joy, who stood like
a wistful little figure out of Fairyland, pressed back against the
easel; her frightened eyes wide, her golden-bronze braids glimmering
in the firelight. It seemed to her that the delivery of those last
four lines was endless.

Yet they were done at last, and still Joy stood motionless. She
really did not know how to run away, because she had never done it.

Before she moved Grandfather had finished his reading and the
people, who had been sitting and standing raptly about, began to
move; all fluttering dresses and perfumes, and little laughters, and
pleasant little speeches to each other. It was a part of the
reception that Joy usually looked forward to happily. She was just
pulling herself together for flight when Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones,
jingling, purple-upholstered and smiling, bore down on her.

"How is our dear little Joy-Flower this afternoon?" she asked as
inevitably as Fate, patting Joy's slim bare arm with one plump,
gloved hand, and beaming. "Oh, dearest child, _do_ you realize
the privilege you have? Think of actually living so close to a poet
that you become a part of his inspiration. Dear little Joy--"

Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones was one of the nicest, kindest, fattest people
that ever lived, and furthermore, she had taken Joy, all by herself,
to a performance of "Pelleas and Melisande" only the spring before.
And though Joy had thought privately that the people sang too long
at a time on one note, and wished Melisande was less athletic-looking,
she had liked it very much, and felt obliged to the lady ever since.
So she really shouldn't have behaved the way she did--if it hadn't
been for the lovers, she doubtless wouldn't have. As it was, she
braced herself against the easel.

"It isn't a privilege a bit," she said defiantly, out of a clear
sky. "It isn't half as much fun as being the kind of girl everybody
else is. I hate wearing moving-picture clothes" [not even in her
excitement could Joy bring herself to say "movies"] "and I hate
never knowing girls and men my own age, and I hate having poems
written to me worse than anything at _all_!"

Poor Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones! She hadn't done a thing. Her own girls
went to fashionable schools and attended sub-deb dances by the score
until they came out, which they did at eighteen each like clockwork.
She couldn't have been expected to see to it for somebody else's
girl, too. Her getting the full blast of it was a quite fortuitous
affair, and Joy always felt, looking back afterwards on her
explosion, that it had been hard on the lady--who was frightened by
it to the point of silence. It must have been very much as if the
sedate full-length of Mr. Shakspere, over in the corner and _not_
autographed, had opened its mouth and begun to recite limericks.

"Why--why!" she said; and that was all she was capable of saying for
the moment. Joy, terrified herself at her deed, turned and fled.

What happened between Mrs. Jones and Grandfather she never knew, and
never asked. She never halted in her flight till she was safe in her
own little eyrie upstairs.

There she stopped before her dresser mirror, and looked at the
flushed, breathless girl in the glass.

"I wonder," Joy said aloud, "what really is the difference between
me and other people?"

She stared into the glass to see if she couldn't find out, leaning
her hands down on the dresser-top. But the pretty white-enamel-framed
mirror showed her just the same Joy as ever. Her heavy bronze-gold
braids swung forward, and their ends coiled down on the dresser-top.
Between them her little pointed face looked straight at her, blue-eyed,
red-lipped, and serious. Its owner eyed it perplexedly awhile,
then gave up the riddle.

"If you look like pictures and poetry you _do_, and that's all
there is to it. I suppose living with Grandfather's had an effect on
me... I wonder..." Joy still stared steadily into the glass--"I
wonder if having somebody in love with me would make a difference.
It's the only thing Grandfather's ever said he was willing to have
happen to me. He's always talking about 'I would give you up
willingly to the first breath of true love....' But there's never
anybody comes to his parties you could love with a pair of tongs...
I wonder if he _would?_ It would have to be love at first
sight, too, I suppose. He doesn't think much of any other kind of
love.... But I'd be dreadfully frightened of him.... I hope he'd
have blond curly hair!"

She lifted herself from her leaning position, and went and curled up
on the side of the bed, the better to think.

"There's no use wondering about a lover," she decided. "Lovers
_never_ come to hear Grandfather read, not unless they come in
pairs to get out of the rain, like the animals in the ark.... Anyway
I don't think I'd want the one today, even if he hadn't been a pair.
But a nice fresh one that didn't belong to anybody else...."

Grandmother, released at last from finding out what people wanted in
their tea, and giving it to them, hurried into the room at this
point, and was very much relieved to find Joy perfectly well to all
appearances, and sitting quietly on the side of the bed gazing off
into space.

"Darling, were you ill?" she panted, sitting down by her. "Your
grandfather was quite disturbed over it, and I was terribly
frightened. We knew something must have happened. What was it,
lambie? Where do you feel badly?"

Joy looked away from the wall, at her grandmother's kind, anxious,
wrinkled little face under the lace lappets. Grandfather liked
Grandmother to wear caps, so she did it; also fichus and
full-skirted silks, whether such were in fashion or no.

"I didn't feel ill one bit," explained Joy deliberately. "Only I'm
tired of being a decoration. I want to be like other people... I
don't want to wear any more clothes like paintings, or ever have any
more poetry written to me. I--oh, Grandmother, everything's going on
and going on, and none of it's happening to _me!_" She looked at
her grandmother appealingly. "And it feels as if it wouldn't ever!"

But Grandmother didn't seem to understand a bit. And yet she must
have been young once--wasn't there that poem of Grandfather's, "To
Myrtilla at Seventeen," to prove it? The one beginning "Sweetheart,
whose shadowed hair!" Why, he must have--yes, he spoke of it in the
poem--Grandfather must have held Grandmother's hand, like the
Dicky-lover today, and even kissed her because he wanted to, not
because it was nine in the morning or ten at night. Those were the
times he kissed her now. Of one thing Joy was certain, Grandmother
had never told Grandfather he must stop. She wouldn't have dared.

"Dear, would you like a hot-water bottle, and your supper in bed?"
inquired Grandmother, breaking in on these meditations.... Oh, it
was a long time since Grandmother had been Myrtilla at seventeen!
Joy looked at her wistfully once more.

"No, thank you, Grandmother," she said decidedly. "I feel very well,
thank you. I'll be down to supper as soon as I've changed my frock."

She felt as if getting off the actual clothes that were in the poem
would be escaping from it a little, and perhaps drawing a little
nearer the having of real things happen to her. Grandmother, nearly
reassured, patted Joy's little slim hand with her own little
wrinkled one, and trotted downstairs to tell Grandfather happily
that Joy would soon be down.

Joy, left alone, pulled off the amber robe, and stood before the
wardrobe in her silk slip, pushing along the hangers to try and find
something practical. It was pretty hard. All her gowns were lovely
loose or draped or girdled things: you could have costumed the whole
cast of two Maeterlinck plays from just those hangers. She was very
tired, suddenly, of all of them. At last she found a green dress
that was the delight of her life, even if it was picturesque,
because it was such a nice, cheerful color, put it on, and went
down. She had tried to fasten her hair up as the lover-girl's had
been fastened, but hers was so curly and heavy and alive and long
that it couldn't be done. She strapped it in desperation around her
head, wished she had some powder, and dashed down the long flights
of stairs just in time to save herself from a second summons. She
wasn't quite satisfied with her own general effect, but it would do
for a beginning.

So, dreamer as she still was, nevertheless the only thing alight and
alive in the old house, she ran down the staircases, past the
statues that stood severely in the niches at the head of each
flight, down finally to the basement dining-room where the three old
people, her grandfather and grandmother and old Elizabeth, were
waiting for her.

They sat at either end of the old mahogany table--that had been
Lucilla Havenith's, too--with supper, plus the sandwiches left over
from the tea, waiting untouched till Joy should come. By the way all
three stopped short when she came in, Joy was sure they had been
wondering what was the matter with her. She sank into her own chair,
and took one of the walnut sandwiches which had been spared by the
reception people. She was still hungry, and proceeded to eat it, at
which Mrs. and Mr. Havenith looked happier.

"You see, Alton, she has an appetite," said Grandmother thankfully.

"Yes, I am glad to see she has," answered Grandfather, as if the
circumstance was gratifying to him also. "I am very much relieved."

Joy felt guilty. When your grandparents were as fond as all that of
you, you really hadn't any right to feel as if you wanted anything
else. She straightened up and smiled gallantly at them, and took
another sandwich by way of proving her health.

"I think I'm all right," she said.

"You were overtired," said Grandmother solicitously--Grandmother,
who had cut all the sandwiches, which Joy had only buttered! "The
day's been oppressive."

So she passed Joy some more of the walnut sandwiches, and smiled to
see that they were being eaten.

"But I am not satisfied, yet," said Grandfather. If Grandfather had
only let well enough--and young girls' whimsies--alone, Joy wouldn't
have been tempted. "What made you rush out that way, Joy--just as I
was finishing the last stanza of the lyric, 'To Joy in Amber Satin,'
too? You couldn't have chosen a worse possible moment. You nearly
spoiled the effect."

Joy threw her head back defiantly. She knew that if Grandmother
didn't understand her appeal, certainly Grandfather wouldn't.

"Grandfather," she said, "do you remember the anecdote you always tell
to small groups of people, the one about the farmer who used to meet
your friend, James Russell Lowell, on his afternoon walk every day,
and say, 'Waal, Mr. Lowell, had a poem yet today?' _I_ had a poem!"

It was a most amazing fish story. Joy hadn't had any such thing as a
poem: nothing at all but a fit of rebellion. But if she wanted to
check her grandfather's inquiries she had taken the most perfect way
known to civilization. He couldn't possibly blame her for bolting if
the poem had to be put down. Nor even for being impolite to Mrs.
Harmsworth-Jones.

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