The long journey was anything but what it had promised to be when it was
anticipated. The carryall containing the three girls headed the
procession. They were talking in subdued and frightened tones,
Madeleine and Cordelia endeavoring to find out from Betty more than the
child really knew. When she could not satisfy their curiosity and
anxiety with facts, she supplied them with running comments on human
nature and her elder brother in particular. Now and again they pulled
her up sharply with: "Betty, be still!" or "I am ashamed of you
Elizabeth. You jump to conclusions. I am sure there must be some
explanation. Charles was very wrong to tell you until he had made sure
about it. You see Mother does not believe the story, or she would never
go."
"Mother wouldn't believe Harrington had done wrong if she saw him do
it," declared Betty irreverently.
"Now, Betty! How you talk! One would think you didn't love
Harrington."
"Well, I don't very much, and that's a fact," shrugged Betty. "Charles
is worth two of him. Harrington always hushes me up when he comes home,
and talks as if I were a baby yet. Besides, he is selfish. Look how he
wouldn't take me to Harriet Howegate's corn-husking when he was home the
last time, just because he was too lazy to change his clothes! I don't
see why I should love him if I don't, just because he happens to belong
to the same family. I'm sure he can't love us much, or he wouldn't have
gone off so long ago and stayed away from us so much."
"Why, Betty!" said Madeleine, shocked. "He had to go and earn his
living and make a man's way in the world."
"No, he didn't. He could have stayed at home and gone into business
with Father, as Father wanted him to. I haven't a bit of patience with
Harrington."
"I'm sure, Betty, that's a very shocking way to talk about your own
brother, and Mother would highly disapprove!" said Madeleine.
"If I were you, I should keep still, Betty," advised Cordelia.
Betty pouted, and a solemn silence settled upon the three as the old
gray horse plodded sleepily over the road. The occupants of the coach
were by no means at ease. Aunt Martha sat shrivelled in the back seat,
with the ready tears coursing silently down her cheeks. She had heard
enough of what her brother had told his wife, to be filled with gloomy
apprehensions. Aunt Martha was always sure of the worst.
Madam Winthrop sat severely silent, with her delicate, cameo features
held high. Her keen blue eyes never wavered, nor did her firm, thin
lips quiver. Apparently, she had not one misgiving, and her only regret
seemed to be that the rest of the family had taken leave of their
senses. She looked straight in front of her, ignoring the sad gray head
of her husband, and the yellow curls of the strong young son with whom
she was offended. They would all see their mistake soon enough, and
meantime she was giving them a bit of a lesson not to doubt the idol of
her heart. To do her justice, she firmly believed she was right, and
was amazed that her husband had taken the attitude he had. Of course
Harrington would not do such a dreadful thing. Such things did not
happen in real life. It was out of the question. She dismissed the
subject with that, and fell to going over her own arrangements and the
wardrobe of the family, with satisfaction.
The sound of the horses' hoofs on the old corduroy road, and the husky
crickets by the wayside, beat a funeral dirge for the heart of the
Father in the front seat. His countenance was heavy, and now and again
he brought forth an audible sigh.
The lugubrious attitude of her family annoyed Madam Winthrop. She
turned to her sister-in-law sharply.
"For pity's sake, Martha, do stop snivelling! One would think you were
going to a funeral instead of to a wedding. I must say I don't think
you honor your nephew very much, showing such distrust in him. Do wipe
your eyes and sit up. If you go on this way, you won't be able to come
to the ceremony to-morrow morning, and you know how that will annoy
Harrington. I must say, Mr. Winthrop, you are acting in a very strange
manner, for the father of such a son."
She always called him Mr. Winthrop when he had offended her. At other
times it was "Father."
Her husband turned in the seat and faced her solemnly. "Janet," he said
sadly, "it's no use for you to try to blind yourself to the truth.
You'll only have it harder to bear in the end. You might as well
understand the awful truth that our boy Harrington has committed a great
sin, and we ought to be thankful that it was discovered before any more
harm was done. You don't seem to see what a task we've got before us to
tell that father and his innocent young daughter that the man in whom
they trusted, our son, has played them false."
"Now, Mr. Winthrop, I don't want to hear another word of such talk. You
must be beside yourself!" Madam Winthrop half arose in her seat and
cried out shrilly: "Stop it, I say! Don't you dare say such words in my
presence again! If you do, I shall get right out of this carriage and
walk! _Walk_, I tell you! And what will the servants think of you
then? You will find out your mistake in due time, of course, and be
ashamed of yourself. Until then I must ask you not to speak to me on
the subject. No, Charles, don't you dare to interfere between me and
your Father again. I have had enough of your disrespect for one day.
Just keep absolutely quiet until you can speak in a proper way. I
simply will not stand such talk."
She sat up with dignity, and spoke to them both as if they were naughty
children. Her husband looked into her eyes sadly for a moment, and then
turned deliberately back to his horses. He knew by former experience
that it was well nigh impossible to convince his wife of anything
against her will. Well, she would have to go on and take the
consequences of her stubbornness. There was no other way. And perhaps
it was as well, for, with her excitable nature, there was no telling
what state it might throw her into, once she realized the truth about
her idolized son. She might lose consciousness and have to be carried
back, and so perhaps delay them. His first duty now was to tell the sad
truth to his old friend Van Rensselaer and his poor daughter. Every
step that the horses took made him shrink more and more from the task
before him. It seemed that his shame and disgrace were being burnt into
his soul with a red hot iron. He kept thinking how he should tell his
story to his host when he reached his journey's end, and the horses'
hoofs beat out the dirge of a funeral; while keeping pace behind, with
decorous bearing, rode the two old servants, pondering what had cast a
shadow over the gay party they had hoped to escort.
As the young man in the front seat of the coach sat and frowned at the
shining chestnut backs of the horses, he was conning over and over a
thought that his sister had put into his heart, and each time it ran
like sweet fire along his veins, until it began to seem a possibility,
and fairly took his breath away.
The day was wonderful. The air was fine and rare, the sky clear, with
not a fleck of cloud to mar the blue--a blue that fairly called
attention to itself as being bluer than ever before. But not one of all
that little company of wedding-goers saw it.
The foliage everywhere was washed fresh for the occasion by a shower
that had passed in the night. Diamonds strung themselves from
grass-blade to grass-blade, and begemmed even the mullein stalks. Late
dandelions flared and gleamed, shy sweet-brier smiled here and there by
the roadside in delicate pink cups, inviting the bees. The birds in the
trees were singing everywhere, and the sweet winds lifted branches and
played a subdued accompaniment. To the soul of the young man, their
music came in happy harmonies, and, while he was not conscious of it,
little by little they began to play him a kind of wedding march, the
joyous melody of his thoughts, now glad, now fearful, yet ever growing
sweeter and more sure of the victorious climax.
He grew presently unconscious of the inharmony behind him: of Aunt
Martha and her efforts not to "sniff"; of his mother's disapproval; and
of his father's heavy heart. He thought only of the girl whom he had
seen upon the hillside, and the smile her eyes had given him as they met
his. Every time he thought upon it now his heart-beats quickened. All
the pent-up flood of emotion that she had set going that spring
afternoon upon the Hudson hillside, and that he had fought bravely all
these weeks, and thought he had conquered, came now upon him with the
power of stored-up energy and swept over his being in a flood-tide of
gladness.
In vain he shamed himself for such unseemly joy when his only brother
was in disgrace. In vain he told himself that the girl-bride would be
plunged into grief when her bridegroom turned out to be no bridegroom at
all. Still his heart would catch the faint melody of the wedding-march
those birds and winds and branches were breathing, and would go singing
along with a new gladness.
The morning was a silent one for the whole party. Even the coachman
checked Pompey's levity when a robin chased a chipmunk across a distant
path, and the old darkey snapped him up sharply when he ventured a
question or a wonder about "Marsa" and "Missus."
But while each held to his own thoughts, and the horses sped willingly
over the miles, in the heart of the young man in the front seat was
growing a steady purpose.
About noon they stopped at an inn to dine, and give the horses a brief
respite.
Madam Winthrop would not lie down, as they urged her, nor would she
permit her husband or her son to talk with her concerning the forbidden
theme. She kept the three girls with her also, that nothing might be
said to them to prejudice them against their brother.
Aunt Martha, however, unable to bear up longer under the scornful
scrutiny of her sister-in-law, was glad to take refuge on the high
four-poster bed that the landlady put at her service, and weep a few
consoling tears into the homespun linen pillow-slip. Aunt Martha was by
no means sure that all was well with the boy whom she adored, though she
acknowledged to herself that he had his weaknesses. Had she not seen
those very weaknesses from babyhood upward, and helped many times to
hide them from his blind mother and adoring sisters? Her fearful soul
accepted the possibility of his sin, yet loved him in spite of it all.
She resented the thought that public opinion would be against Harrington
if he had done this thing, and, could she have had her way, would have
had public opinion changed to suit his special need. She felt in her
secret soul that prodigies like Harrington should not be expected to
follow the laws like ordinary mortals.
Madam Winthrop sat bolt upright in a wooden chair, and eyed her three
daughters suspiciously. Now and then she made a remark about their
conduct at the wedding, and they acquiesced meekly. They had learned
never to dispute with their mother when she was in her present mood.
Charles and his father wandered by common consent into the woods
near-by. It was the son who spoke first.
"Father, I've been thinking all the morning about what you said of
her--Miss Van Rensselaer." He spoke the name shyly, reverently, and his
heart throbbed painfully. He felt himself very young and presumptuous.
The bright color glowed in his face. "It will be terrible for her." He
breathed the words as if they hurt him.
"Yes," assented the father; "I cannot get her out of my mind, the poor
innocent child! Think of Betty, Charles. Suppose it was Betty."
The young man frowned.
"Father, did you ever see her?"
"No," said the older man, wondering at his son's vehemence. "Did you?"
"Yes, I saw her once, when I met Harrington on my way to Boston. I
stopped off with him at the school where she was being educated, and we
saw her. She is beautiful, Father, beautiful, and very young. She
looked as if she could not stand a thing like this, as if it might crush
her. Don't you think we ought to do something for her, to make it
easier? Isn't it our place? I mean--say, Father, in the Bible, you
know, when the older brother died, or failed in any way, the younger
brother had to take up the obligation. Do you understand what I mean,
Father? Do you think I could? I mean, do you think she would let me?
It wouldn't be so public and mortifying, you know, and I think girls
care a great deal about that. Betty would, I'm sure."
The father looked up in astonishment.
"What do you mean, Charles? Do you mean you would marry her?"
"Why, yes, Father, that's what I meant. What do you think of it?"
The boy in him came to the front for an instant and looked out of his
eyes, though he shrank from the blunt way the older man had of stating
facts.
His father eyed him keenly.
"But you're only a boy, Charles, and you're not through college yet.
How could you marry?"
"I'm past twenty-one," boasted the boy, and vanished into the man. A
graver look came out upon his face.
"I could leave college, if it were necessary, or I could go on and
finish. I could work part of the time and take care of her." The last
words he breathed gently, reverently, like a benediction.
The father stopped in the wooded path and grasped his son's hand.
"Boy, you've got good stuff in you! I'm proud of you," he said, lifting
his head triumphantly. "If only your brother had been like that!" Then
he bowed his head in bitter thought.
But the young man's thoughts were not on Harrington now. He grasped his
father's hand, and waited impatiently for further words from him.
"Well, Father?"
The old man lifted his head.
"But, Boy, you do not know her. You have seen her only once. You can't
spoil your own life that way."
A flood of color went over the younger face, and into his eyes came a
depth of earnestness that showed his father that the man had awakened in
his son. He was no longer a boy.
"Father, I do not need to know her. I love her already. I have loved
her ever since I saw her. That was why I did not want to come to the
wedding. I felt that I could not bear it."
The kindly older gaze searched the fine young face tenderly, but the
lover's eyes looked back at him and wavered not.
"Is it so, Son?"--the words were grave. "Then God pity you--and bless
you," he added, with an upward look. "I am afraid there is no easy way
ahead of you. Yet I am proud to call you my son."
After this they walked on silently through the woods, over a pathway of
flecked gold, where the sunlight sifted through the leafy branches. No
sound came to interrupt the silence beyond the whisking of a squirrel or
the flirt of a bird's wings in the branches.
The dinner-bell pealed forth from the inn, and they turned quietly to
retrace their steps. They were almost in sight of the house before
either spoke. Then the father said:
"Son, she does not know you. Have you any idea how she will take all
this?"
"None at all, Father." It was spoken humbly.
"What is your idea? Have you made any plans?"
"Not yet--only, that I shall tell her at once, if I may, and let her
decide. If she is willing, the wedding may go on as planned."
A light came into the older man's face, though he looked troubled.
"Well said, Charles! Perhaps you may succeed. But I fear, I fear.
Nevertheless, your noble action helps me to hold up my head and look her
father in the eye. If I have one son who is a scoundrel, at least I
have one who is not, and who is willing to face his brother's
obligations."
They went in then and sat down to a dinner of which both were able to
partake more enjoyably than either had supposed possible.
"Charles, isn't there going to be an awful time when we get there?"
whispered Betty, as they passed out to the carriages.
"I hope not, Betty," said Charles, with a solemn light in his eyes that
made the girl wonder.
Charles took his seat beside his father with hopefulness, and all that
long afternoon the music of nature rang on; but now to both men the
dirge was almost lost in the swelling and sounding of the wedding march.