Her father placed her on a Hudson River steamer in charge of the
captain, whom he knew, and in company with two other little girls, who
were returning to the school of Friend Isaac and Friend Ruth after a
short vacation.
Dawn, attired in the grave Quaker garb of the school, leaned over the
rail of the deck, inconsequently swinging by its ribbons her long gray
pocket containing a hundred dollars wherewith to pay her entrance fee
and provide necessities, and watched her unloved father walk away from
the landing.
"Thee and thou and thy long pocket!" called out a saucy deck-hand to the
three little girls, and Dawn turned with an angry flash in her eyes to
take up the work of facing the world single-handed.
She did not drop the pocket into the water, nor fall overboard, but bore
herself discreetly all through the journey, and made her entrance into
the new life demurely, save for the independent stand she took upon her
arrival:
"My name is Dawn Van Rensselaer, and my mother wishes me to wear my
curls just as they are."
Her two fellow-travellers had given her cause to believe that there
would be an immediate raid made upon her precious curls, and her
determined spirit decided to make a stand at the start, and not to give
in for anything. The quiet remark created almost a panic for a brief
moment, coming thus unexpectedly into the decorous order of the place.
Friend Ruth caught her breath, and two faint pink spots appeared in her
smooth cheeks.
"Thee will wear thy hair smoothly plaited, child, as the others do,
unless it be cut close," she said decidedly, laying her thin pink lips
smoothly together over even teeth. "Thee will write to thy mother that
it is our custom here to allow nothing frivolous or worldly in the dress
of our pupils."
One glance at the cool gray eye of her oppressor decided Dawn to hide in
her heart forever the fact that the mother whose wish she was flaunting
was no more in this world, nor longer had the legal right to express her
wishes concerning her child. With ready wits she argued the matter:
"But it isn't worldly. God made my curls, and it is just as bad to
plait them up and take out the curl as it would be to go to work and
curl them on an iron if they were straight. My curls are n't frivolous,
and I take care of them myself. My mother loves them, and I must do as
she says."
Friend Ruth looked at the determined little face set in its frame of
dark curls, and hesitated. She was not used to logic from a child, yet
there seemed to be reason in the words. Besides, Friend Ruth was a
great advocate of honor to parents. It was a complicated question. She
decided to temporize.
"I will speak to Friend Isaac about the matter, but thee will have to
wear them in a net. It is untidy to have curls tumbling about thy
face."
That was the end of the matter. Dawn wore her curls without further
question, albeit in a plain, dark net. Though outwardly the little girl
was docile, except upon occasion, Friend Ruth learned to avoid any
crossing of swords with the young logician, for she nearly always got
the worst of it.
Dawn took to learning as a bird to the air, having inherited her
father's brilliant mind and taste for letters, combined with her
mother's keen insight and wide perceptive faculties. Her lessons were
always easily and perfectly learned, and she looked with contempt upon
the plodders who could not get time from their tasks for the fun which
she was always ready to lead.
The pranks she played were many. On one occasion she led an expedition
of the entire school in a slide down a newly made straw-stack, thereby
damaging its geometrical shape and necessitating several hours' work by
the farmhands. As a punishment, she was remanded to the garden alone to
write a composition on the beauties of Nature. It began:
A great green worm come cameing down the populo tree with great
tribusence.
Friend Ruth read the finished composition with the dismay of a hen which
has a duck on its hands, and handed it over to Friend Isaac.
"The child has an original mind, and is going to be a brilliant woman,"
he remarked gravely.
"Yes, Isaac, but thee will not tell her so," said Friend Ruth quickly.
Six years had passed since Dawn, a child of ten, had come to the school,
and she had never gone home. It had been her own wish, and for once her
father and stepmother were willing to accede to her. To both, the sight
of her and the thought of her were painful. Her father had visited her
every year and brought with him a full supply of the modest wardrobe
that the school allowed, and Dawn had money to meet all her necessary
expenses. She lived a sort of triple life--one in the world of her
studies, in which she sometimes took deep delight, often going far ahead
of her classes because she wanted to see what came next; one in the
world of play, where she was leader in all sorts of mischief, getting
the older ones into endless difficulties with the teachers, and
protecting the little ones, even to her own detriment at times; the
third life was lived alone in the fields or the woods, where she might
sit quietly and look up into the blue sky, listening to the music of the
winds and the birds or the sad chirp of a cricket, taking a little
grasshopper into her confidence, talking to a friendly squirrel on the
maple bough overhead--here was where she really lived. On the walls of
her memory were hung strange, sad pictures of the past. Always on such
occasions the mother all in white, with starry eyes, hovered over her,
and seemed to listen to the wild longing that beat in her young heart,
and to pour a benediction upon her.
She could not think of her father except sadly or bitterly, and so as
much as possible she put him out of her thoughts. By degrees, as she
came to see on his annual visits how old and careworn he was grown, how
haunted and haggard were his eyes, she grew to pity him, but never to
love, for her mother had been her idol, and he had killed her mother.
That the girl could not forget, though as she grew older she felt with a
kind of spiritual instinct that she must forgive. She felt it was his
own blindness and stupidity that had done it, and that he was suffering
some measure of punishment for his deed. She never actually put these
thoughts before her in so many words. They were rather a sort of
growing undertone of consciousness in her, as her mental and spiritual
faculties developed.
In one year more she would be through with the school course. For some
time she had been dreading the thought, and wondering what would come to
her next? If she might go somewhere and "teach school,"--but she felt
certain her father would never allow that. He was proud and held ideas
about woman's sphere. Though she could scarcely be said to know him
well, still she felt without asking that he would never consent.
Sometimes she even entertained vague thoughts of running away when she
should be through school, for the idea of dwelling under her father's
roof again, under control of the woman who had usurped her mother's
place, she could not abide.
It was therefore with trepidation that she received a message in the
school-room one morning, bidding her come to the parlor to meet her
father. The fair face flushed and the brow darkened with trouble. It
was not the usual time for her father's annual visit. Did it mean that
he was going to take her away from the school? Her young heart beat to
the old tune of the friendly clock at home as she went to answer the
summons: "Poor-child! Poor-child! Poor-child! Poor-child!"
But in the square, plain parlor, with its hair-cloth furniture, its gray
paper window-shades, and its neutral-tinted ingrain carpet, there sat
two men with Friend Ruth, instead of one.
Her father looked older than ever before. His hair was silvering about
the edges, though he was still what would have been called a young man.
The stranger was younger, yet with an old look about his eyes, as if
they had been living longer than the rest of his face.
Dawn paused in the doorway and looked from one to the other. She had
put up her hand as she reached the door, and drawn from her head the net
which held her beautiful curls in leash. They fell about her lovely
face in the fashion of the day. They were grown long and thick, but
still kept their baby softness and fineness of texture. She made a
charming picture standing thus with the door-latch in her hand,
hesitating almost shyly, though she was not unduly shy. Even in her
Quaker garb, with the sheer folds of the snowy kerchief about her neck,
she looked an unusually beautiful girl. The young stranger saw and took
notice as he rose to receive the impersonal introduction that her father
gave.
The girl looked at them both gravely, with an alert watchfulness. Of
the stare of open admiration with which the stranger regarded her, she
seemed not even to be aware, though Friend Ruth noticed it with
disapproval.
Dawn took the chair to which Friend Ruth motioned her, at some distance
from the young man, and sat demurely waiting, her eyes wide with
apprehension. Her father asked about her conduct and standing in the
school, but no flush of embarrassment came to the face of the watching
girl, though Friend Ruth gave unwonted praise of the past year's work.
At another time it would have astonished and pleased her, but now she
felt it was a mere preliminary to the real object of her father's visit.
As soon as there came a break in the conversation, the stranger took a
part, admiring the location of the school, and saying he would be glad
if he might look about the place, as he had a friend who wished to send
his daughter away to school somewhere, and it would be a pleasure to be
able to speak in detail of this delightful spot. Was there a view of
the Hudson from this point? Indeed! Perhaps the young lady would be so
kind as to show it to him?
Friend Ruth hesitated, but the father waved a command to his daughter.
Frowning, she arose to obey. She felt the whole thing was a subterfuge
to get her from the room while the real object of her father's
unexpected visit was divulged.
She led the way through the wide hall, out to the pillared veranda, and
down the sloping lawn to the bluff which overlooked the river, where
plied a steamer on its silver course. Apathetically she pointed out the
places of interest. She scarcely heard her companion's eager attempts
at conversation. He noted the absent look in her dark eyes.
"You do not like it here?" he asked, letting his tone become gentle, in
coaxing confidence.
"Oh, yes," she answered quickly, with a flit of trouble across her face.
"At least, I think I do. I do not care to go away."
"Not to your beautiful home?" he asked insinuatingly. "And your mother?"
he added, his eyes narrowing to observe her expression more closely.
"She is not my mother," answered the girl coldly, and became at once
reserved, as if she were sorry for having spoken so plainly.
"Oh, I beg your pardon! I did not know," murmured the stranger, making
mental note of her change of expression.
Suddenly her eyes flashed wide upon him, and she dashed a question out
with a way that compelled an answer:
"Has my father come to take me home, do you know?"
"Oh, no, not at all," answered the young man suavely. He was delighted
to have found this key to her thoughts. It led just where he desired.
"We are merely taking a business trip together, and your father stopped
off to see how things were going with you. I am sure I am delighted
that he did, for it has given me great pleasure to meet you."
"Why?" asked the girl, lifting relieved eyes to his face in mild
astonishment.
He gave a half-embarrassed laugh at this frank way of meeting him.
"Now, surely, you do not need to ask me that," he said, looking down at
her meaningly, his eyes gazing into the innocent ones in open and
intimate admiration. "You must know how beautiful you are!"
With a startled expression, she searched his face, and then, not finding
it pleasant, turned away with a look resembling her father in its
sternness.
"I don't think that is a nice way for a man to talk to a girl," she said
in a displeased tone. "I am too big to be spoken to in that way. I am
past sixteen, and shall be done school next year."
He dropped the offending manner at once, and begged her pardon, pleading
that her father had talked of her as a child. He asked also that she
would let him be her friend, for he felt that they would be congenial,
and all the more that she was growing into womanhood.
Her gravity did not relax, however, and her eyes searched his face
suspiciously.
"I think we would better go into the house," she said soberly. "Friend
Ruth will not like my staying out so long, and I must see my father
again."
"But will you be my friend?" he insisted, as they turned their steps
toward the house.
"How could we be friends? You are not in the school, and I never go
away. Besides, I don't see what would be the use."
"Don't you like me at all?" he asked, putting on the tone which had
turned many a girl's head.
"Why, I don't know you even a little bit. How could I like you?
Besides, why should I?" answered Dawn frankly.
"You are deliriously plain-spoken."
She caught her lip between her teeth in a vexed way. Why would he
persist in talking to her as if she were a child?
"There, now I have vexed you again," he said, pretending to be much
dismayed, "but indeed you misunderstand me. I do not look upon you as a
child at all. Many a girl is married at your age, and you will soon be
a lovely woman. I want you for my friend. Are you not willing?"
"I don't know," said the girl bluntly, looking troubled. "I should have
to think about it, and I don't see why I should. I shall be here a
whole year yet, and I shall never see you. I wish I could stay here
always," she ended passionately. "I never want to go home."
"Perhaps you will not need to go there," he said insinuatingly,
wondering how it was she was so different from other girls. She did not
seem to understand coquetry. Her eyes met his now in mild question.
"You may marry and have a home of your own," he answered her unspoken
question. A startled expression came into her eyes.
"Oh, no," she said quickly; "I don't think that will ever happen. I
don't want that to happen;" and she drew away from him as if the thought
frightened her. "Married people are not happy."
"Nonsense!" said the young man gayly. He had planted the seed in what
looked like fallow ground, and perhaps one day it would blossom for him.
"There are plenty of happy married people. I've a good old father and
mother who just worship each other. They've been happy as clams all
their lives, and I know a great many more.
"My father and mother were not happy," said Dawn gravely. "Friend Ruth
and Friend Isaac do not seem to be very happy either, though of course
this isn't a real home. But they are never cross," she added in
conscientious explanation.
"If you were married, you could have a real home of your own, and have
things just as you wanted them," the young man remarked cunningly.
"That would be nice," said the girl thoughtfully. "I should like that
part, but I think I would like it better without being married. There
are father and Friend Ruth looking for us. Let us hurry."
"But you have not told me whether you will let me be your friend," he
said, detaining her under a great elm tree, and looking off toward the
river, as if he were still watching the steamer. "If you will let me be
your friend, I will get permission to come and see you now and then, and
I will bring you a box of sweets. You will like that, won't you? All
girls are fond of sweets."
"I don't know," answered Dawn slowly, looking at him with troubled eyes,
and wondering why it was that his eyes reminded her of a fish.
"The other girls would like the sweets," he suggested.
"Could I give them away?" she asked with a flash of interest.
"You may do anything you like with them," he responded eagerly. "So it
is all settled, then, and I may be your friend?"
"I don't know," said Dawn again. "I suppose it will have to be as
father and Friend Ruth say."
"No need to consult them in the matter. Leave that to me. All I want
is your consent. Remember I am going to visit you next month and bring
you something nice."
But by this time the others had reached them.
"Charming view, Mr. Van Rensselaer. I had no idea you could see New
York so plainly from this point," said the young man.
Dawn stepped over and stood beside Friend Ruth, looking thoughtfully
down the river. She would like the box of confections well enough, for
not many sweets were allowed at the school and they could have a treat
down in the woods, beside the brook. But somehow she had a vague
uneasiness about this friendship. She did not like the stranger's face.
Her father and the other man went away after the noonday meal. The
stranger's name, she learned, was Harrington Winthrop, and that he was
interested in a business enterprise with her father. The matter passed
entirely from her mind, only, after that, when she sat alone to brood
over her life, a new dream took the place of the old. Always there was
a lovely home all her own, with comfortable chairs and plenty of books,
and thin, sprigged china, such as had been her mother's. In this home
she was sole mistress. Day by day she dreamed out the pretty rooms, and
dwelt in them, and even occasionally let her imagination people them.
The image of her beautiful mother hovered about that home and stayed,
but there came into it no one to annoy or disturb.
When the two men settled themselves in the stage that night, the younger
began to talk:
"Do you know you have a very beautiful daughter, Mr. Van Rensselaer?"
The father started from the reverie into which he had fallen. The look
of the moonlight was reminding him of a night over sixteen years ago,
when he and Mary had taken this same stage trip. Strange he could not
get away from the thought of it. Ah, yes! it had been the look of his
daughter that had brought back Mary's face, for the girl was grown to be
the image of her mother, save for a certain sad flitting of severity.
In the moonlight outside the coach he seemed to see again the sweet face
in the coffin, and he compared it with the warm living face of the girl
whom he had been to see that day. He knew that between his daughter and
him was an impenetrable barrier that could never be removed, and the
thought of it pierced his soul as it never had before. A great yearning
and pity for his motherless, fatherless girl had come into his cold,
empty heart as he had watched her move silently about. But ever present
was the thought that he had no right--no right in her either, no matter
how much he might try. No one would have suspected him of such
feelings. He hid them deep under his grim and brilliant exterior,
sternly self-contained in any situation. But now, in the half-darkness,
a new thought came into his mind, and he started and gave his attention
to the words of his companion.
"Is she your only child?"
The question made him start again. There was a long pause, so long that
Harrington Winthrop thought he had not been heard; then a husky voice
answered out of the shadows of the coach:
"No, there was another--a little boy. He died soon after his mother."
Outside in the moonlight, the vision of a ruddy-haired boy rode in a
wreath of mist. The words were the man's acknowledgment to the two who
ever attended him now through life. He did not wish to give his
confidence to this business companion.
"Ah! Then this beautiful young woman will likely be sole heir to the
Van Rensselaer estate," said the young man to himself, rejoicing
inwardly at the ease with which he was obtaining information.
There was silence in the coach while Winthrop pondered the great
discovery he had made, and how he should act upon it.
But the elder man was lost in gloomy thoughts. He had a vague feeling
that Mary, out there in the moonlight with her bright-haired boy, would
hold him to account for the little girl she had loved and lost in life.
A sudden glimpse into the future had been given him, partly by the young
man's words, partly by the beauty of Dawn herself. She was blossoming
into womanhood, and with that change would come new perplexities. She
could not stay always at the school. Where in the world was there a
place for his child? More and more he saw that the woman whom in the
fierceness of his wrath he had selected to take the place of mother to
the girl was both unable and unwilling to do so. He shrank from the
time when his daughter would have to come home. As he thought of it, it
seemed an impossible situation to have her there; it would be almost
like having Mary in the flesh to live with them, with reproachful eyes
ever upon their smallest acts. At that moment it came to him that he
was enduring the torments of a lost soul, his conscience having sat in
judgment and condemned him.
The stage-coach rumbled on, stopping now and again through the night for
a change of horses, and the two who sat within its gloomy depths said
little to each other, yet slept not, for one was musing on the evil of
the past and its results, while the other was plotting evil for the
future.