It was just at that instant that the thick-set man in his berth not ten
feet away became broadly conscious of the unwonted stillness of the
train and the cessation of motion that had lulled him to such sound
repose. So does a tiny, sharp sound strike upon our senses and bring
them into life again from sleep, making us aware of a state of things
that has been going on for some time perhaps without our realization.
The sound that roused him may have been the click of the stateroom
latch as Gordon opened the door.
The shades were down in the man’s berth and the curtains drawn close.
The daylight had not as yet penetrated through their thickness. But
once awake his senses were immediately on the alert. He yawned,
stretched and suddenly arrested another yawn to analyze the utter
stillness all about him. A sonorous snore suddenly emphasized the
quiet of the car, and made him aware of all the occupants of all those
curtained apartments. His mind went over a quick résumé of the night
before, and detailed him at once to duty.
Another soft clicking of the latch set him to listening and his bristly
shocked head was stuck instantly out between the curtains into the
aisle, eyes toward the stateroom door, just in time to see that a man
was stealing quietly down the passageway out of the end door, carrying
two suit-cases and an umbrella. It was his man. He was sure instantly,
and his mind grew frantic with the thought. Almost he had outdone
himself through foolish sleep.
He half sprang from his berth, then remembered that he was but partly
dressed, and jerked back quickly to grab his clothes, stopping in
the operation of putting them on to yank up his window shade with an
impatient click and flatten his face against the window-pane!
Yes, there they were down on the ground outside the train, both of
them; man, woman, baggage and all slipping away from him while he slept
peacefully and let them go! The language of his mind at that point was
hot with invectives.
Gordon had made his way back to the girl’s side without meeting any
porters or wakeful fellow-passengers. But a distant rumbling greeted
his ears. The waited-for express was coming. If they were to get away,
it must be done at once or their flight would be discovered, and
perhaps even prevented. It certainly was better not to have it known
where they got off. He had taken the precaution to close the stateroom
door behind him and so it might be some time before their absence
would be discovered. Perhaps there would be other stops before the
train reached Buffalo, in which case their track would not easily be
followed. He had no idea that the evil eye of his pursuer was even then
upon him.
Celia was already on the ground, looking off toward the little village
wistfully. Just how it was to make her lot any brighter to get out
of the train and run away to a strange little village she did not
quite explain to herself, but it seemed to be a relief to her pent-up
feelings. She was half afraid that George might raise some new
objection when he returned.
Gordon swung himself down on the cinder path, scanning the track
either way. The conductor and brakemen were not in sight. Far in the
distance a black speck was rushing down upon them. Gordon could hear
the vibration of the rail of the second track, upon which he placed his
foot as he helped Celia across. In a moment more the train would pass.
It was important that they should be down the embankment, out of sight.
Would the delicate girl not be afraid of the steep incline?
She hesitated for just an instant at the top, for it was very steep.
Then, looking up at him, she saw that he expected her to go down with
him. She gave a little frightened gasp, set her lips, and started.
He held her as well as he could with two suit-cases and an umbrella
clutched in his other hand, and finally, as the grade grew steeper,
he let go the baggage altogether, and it slid briskly down by itself,
while he devoted himself to steadying the girl’s now inevitable and
swift descent.
It certainly was not an ideal way of travelling, this new style of
“gravity” road, but it landed them without delay, though much shaken
and scratched, and divested of every vestige of dignity. It was
impossible not to laugh, and Celia’s voice rang out merrily, showing
that she had not always wept and looked sorrowful.
“Are you much hurt?” asked Gordon anxiously, holding her hands and
looking down at her tenderly.
Before she could reply, the express train roared above them, drowning
their voices and laughter; and when it was past they saw their own
train take up its interrupted way grumblingly, and rapidly move off.
If the passengers on those two trains had not been deeply wrapped in
slumber, they might have been surprised to see two fashionably attired
young persons, with hats awry and clasped hands, laughing in a country
road at five o’clock of a May morning. But only one was awake, and by
the time the two in the road below remembered to look up and take
notice, the trains were rapidly disappearing.
The girl had been deeply impressed with Gordon’s solicitude for her.
It was so out of keeping with his letters. He had never seemed to care
whether she suffered or not. In all the arrangements, he had said what
_he_ wanted, indeed what he _would have_, with an implied threat in
the framing of his sentence in case she dared demur. Never had there
been the least expression of desire for her happiness. Therefore it was
something of a surprise to find him so gentle and thoughtful of her.
Perhaps, after all, he would not prove so terrible to live with as she
had feared. And yet--how could anyone who wrote those letters have any
alleviating qualities? It could not be. She must harden herself against
him. Still, if he would be outwardly decent to her, it would make her
lot easier, of course.
But her course of mental reasoning was broken in upon by his stout
denunciations of himself.
“I ought not to have allowed you to slide down there,” he declared. “It
was terrible, after what you went through last night. I didn’t realize
how steep and rough it was. Indeed I didn’t. I don’t see how you ever
can forgive me.”
“Why, I’m not hurt,” she said gently, astonished at his solicitation.
There was a strange lump in her throat brought by his kindness, which
threatened tears. Just why should kindness from an unexpected quarter
bring tears?
“I’m only a little shaken up,” she went on as she saw a real anxiety
in his brown eyes, “and I don’t mind it in the least. I think it was
rather fun, don’t you?”
A faint glimmer of a smile wavered over the corners of her mouth, and
Gordon experienced a sudden desire to take her in his arms and kiss
her. It was a strange new feeling. He had never had any such thought
about Julia Bentley.
“Why, I--why, yes, I guess so, if you’re sure you’re not hurt.”
“Not a bit,” she said, and then, for some unexplained reason, they both
began to laugh. After that they felt better.
“If your shoes are as full of these miserable cinders as mine are, they
need emptying,” declared Gordon, shaking first one well-shod foot and
then the other, and looking ruefully at the little velvet boots of the
lady.
“Suppose you sit down”--he looked about for a seat, but the dewy grass
was the only resting place visible. He pitched upon the suit-cases and
improvised a chair. “Now, sit down and let me take them off for you.”
He knelt in the road at her feet as she obeyed, protesting that she
could do it for herself. But he overruled her, and began clumsily to
unbutton the tiny buttons, holding the timid little foot firmly, almost
reverently, against his knee.
He drew the velvet shoe softly off, and, turning it upside down, shook
out the intruding cinders, put a clumsy finger in to make sure they
were all gone; then shyly, tenderly, passed his hand over the sole of
the fine silk-stockinged foot that rested so lightly on his knee, to
make sure no cinders clung to it. The sight and touch of that little
foot stirred him deeply. He had never before been called upon to render
service so intimate to any woman, and he did it now with half-averted
gaze and the utmost respect in his manner. As he did it he tried to
speak about the morning, the departing train, the annoying cinders,
anything to make their unusual position seem natural and unstrained. He
felt deeply embarrassed, the more so because of his own double part in
this queer masquerade.
Celia sat watching him, strangely stirred. Her wonder over his kindness
grew with each moment, and her prejudices almost dissolved. She could
not understand it. There must be something more he wanted of her, for
George Hayne had never been kind in the past unless he wanted something
of her. She dreaded lest she should soon find it out. Yet he did not
look like a man who was deceiving her. She drew a deep sigh. If only
it were true, and he were good and kind, and had never written those
awful letters! How good and dear it would be to be tenderly cared for
this way! Her lips drooped at the corners, and her eyelids drooped in
company with the sigh; then Gordon looked up in great distress.
“You are tired!” he declared, pausing in his attempt to fasten the
little pearl buttons. “I have been cruel to let you get off the train!”
“Indeed I’m not,” said the girl, brightening with sudden effort. At
least, she would not spoil the kindness while it lasted. It was surely
better than what she had feared.
“You never can button those shoes with your fingers,” she laughed,
as he redoubled his efforts to capture a tiny disc of pearl and set
it into its small velvet socket. “Here! I have a button-hook in my
hand-bag. Try this.”
She produced a small silver instrument from a gold-link bag on her arm
and handed it to him. He took it helplessly, trying first one end and
then the other, and succeeding with neither.
“Here, let me show you,” she laughed, pulling off one glove. Her white
fingers grasped the silver button-hook, and flashed in and out of
the velvet holes, knitting the little shoe to the foot in no time. He
watched the process in humble wonder, and she would not have been a
human girl not to have been flattered with his interest and admiration.
For the minute she forgot who and what he was, and let her laugh ring
out merrily; and so with shy audacity he assayed to take off the other
shoe.
They really felt quite well acquainted and as if they were going on
a day’s picnic, when they finally gathered up their belongings and
started down the road. Gordon summoned all his ready wit and intellect
to brighten the walk for her, though he found himself again and again
on the brink of referring to his Washington life, or some other
personal matter that would have brought a wondering question to her
lips. He had decided that he must not tell her who he was until he
could put her in an independent position, where she could get away
from him at once if she chose. He was bound to look after her until
he could place her in good hands, or at least where she could look
after herself, and it was better to carry it out leaving her to think
what she pleased until he could tell her everything. If all went well,
they might be able to catch a Pittsburgh train that night and be in
Washington the next day. Then, his message delivered, he would tell
her the whole story. Until then he must hold his peace.
They went gaily down the road, the girl’s pale cheeks beginning
to flush with the morning and the exercise. She was not naturally
delicate, and her faint the night before had been the result of a
series of heavy strains on a heart burdened with terrible fear. The
morning and his kindness had made her forget for the time that she was
supposed to be walking into a world of dread and sacrifice.
“The year’s at the spring,
The day’s at the morn,”
quoted Gordon gaily,
“Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled----”
He waved an umbrella off to where a hill flashed back a thousand lights
from its jewelled grass-blades thickly set.
“The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn,”
went on Celia suddenly catching his spirit, and pointing to a lark that
darted up into the blue with a trill of the morning in his throat.
Gordon turned appreciative eyes upon her. It was good to have her take
up his favorite poet in that tone of voice--a tone that showed she too
knew and loved Browning.
“God’s in his heaven,
All’s right with the world,”
finished Gordon in a quieter voice, looking straight into her eyes.
“That seems very true, to-day, doesn’t it?”
The blue eyes wavered with a hint of shadow in them as they looked back
into the brown ones.
“Almost--perhaps,” she faltered wistfully.
The young man wished he dared go behind that “almost--perhaps” and find
out what she meant, but concluded it were better to bring back the
smile and help her to forget for a little while at least.
Down by the brook, they paused to rest, under a weeping willow, whose
green-tinged plumes were dabbling in the brook. Gordon arranged the
suit-cases for her to sit upon, then climbed down to the brookside and
gathered a great bunch of forget-me-nots, blue as her eyes, and brought
them to her.
She looked at them in wonder, to think they grew out here, wild,
untended. She had never seen them before, except in pots in the
florist’s windows. She touched them delicately with the tips of her
fingers, as if they were too ethereal for earth; then fastened them in
the breast of her gown.
“They exactly match your eyes!” he exclaimed involuntarily, and then
wished he had not spoken, for she flushed and paled under his glance,
until he felt he had been unduly bold. He wondered why he had said
that. He never had been in the habit of saying pretty things to girls,
but this girl somehow called it from him. It was genuine. He sat a
moment abashed, not knowing what to say next, as if he were a shy boy,
and she did not help him, for her eyelashes drooped in a long becoming
sweep over her cheeks, and she seemed for the moment not to be able to
carry off the situation. He was not sure if she were displeased or not.
Her heart had thrilled strangely as he spoke, and she was vexed with
herself that it should be so. A man who had bullied and threatened her
for three terrible months and forced her to marry him had no right to
a thrill of her heart nor a look from her eyes, be he ever so kind for
the moment. He certainly was nice and pleasant when he chose to be;
she must watch herself, for never, never, must she yield weakly to his
smooth overtures. Well did she know him. He had some reason for all
this pleasantness. It would surely be revealed soon.
She stiffened her lips and tried to look away from him to the
purply-green hills; but the echo of his words came upon her again,
and again her heart thrilled at them. What if--oh what if he were all
right, and she might accept the admiration in his voice? And yet how
could that be possible? The sweet color came into her cheeks again,
and the tears flew quickly to her eyes, till they looked all sky and
dew, and she dared not turn back to him.
The silence remained unbroken, until a lark in the willow copse behind
them burst forth into song and broke the spell that was upon them.
“Are you offended at what I said?” he asked earnestly. “I am sorry if
you did not like it. The words said themselves without my stopping to
think whether you might not like it. Will you forgive me?”
“Oh,” she said, lifting her forget-me-not eyes to his, “I am not
offended. There is nothing to forgive. It was--beautiful!”
Then his eyes spoke the compliment over again, and the thrill started
anew in her heart, till her cheeks grew quite rosy, and she buried her
face in the coolness of the tiny flowers to hide her confusion.
“It was very true,” he said in a low, lover-like voice that sounded
like a caress.
“Oughtn’t we to hurry on to catch our train?” said Celia, suddenly
springing to her feet. “I’m quite rested now.” She felt if she stayed
there another moment she would yield to the spell he had cast upon her.
With a dull thud of consciousness the man got himself to his feet and
reminded himself that this was another man’s promised wife to whom he
had been letting his soul go out.
“Don’t let anything hinder you! Don’t let anything hinder you!”
suddenly babbled out the little brook, and he gathered up his
suit-cases and started on.
“I am going to carry my suit-case,” declared a very decided voice
behind him, and a small hand seized hold of its handle.
“I beg your pardon, you are not!” declared Gordon in a much more
determined voice.
“But they are too heavy for you--both of them--and the umbrella too,”
she protested. “Give me the umbrella then.”
But he would not give her even the umbrella, rejoicing in his strength
to shield her and bear her burdens. As she walked beside him, she
remembered vividly a morning when George Hayne had made her carry two
heavy baskets, that his hands might be free to shoot birds. Could this
be the same George Hayne?
Altogether, it was a happy walk, and far shorter than either had
expected it to be, though Gordon worried not a little about his frail
companion before they came to the outskirts of the village, and kept
begging her to sit down and rest again, but she would not. She was
quite eager and excited about the strange village to which they were
coming. Its outlying farm-houses were all so clean and white, with
green blinds folded placidly over their front windows, and only their
back doors astir. The cows all looked peaceful, and the dogs all seemed
friendly.
They walked up the village street, shaded in patches with flecks of
sunshine through the young leaves. If anyone had told Celia Hathaway
the night before that she would have walked and talked thus to-day
with her bridegroom she would have laughed him to scorn. But now all
unconsciously she had drifted into an attitude of friendliness with the
man whom she had thought to hate all the rest of her life.
One long, straight, maple-lined street, running parallel to the stream,
comprised the village. They walked to the centre of it, and still saw
no signs of a restaurant. A post-office, a couple of stores and a
bakery made up the business portion of the town, and upon enquiry it
appeared that there was no public eating house, the one hotel of the
place having been sold at auction the week before on account of the
death of the owner. The early village loungers stared disinterestedly
at the phenomenal appearance in their midst of a couple of city folks
with their luggage and no apparent means of transit except their two
delicately shod feet. It presented a problem too grave to be solved
unassisted, and there were solemn shakings of the head over them. At
last one who had discouragingly stated the village lack of a public inn
asked casually:
“Hed a runaway?”
“Oh, no!” laughed Gordon pleasantly. “We didn’t travel with horses.”
“Hed a puncture, then,” announced the village wiseacre, shifting from
one foot to the other.
“Wal, you come the wrong direction to git help,” said another languid
listener. “Thur ain’t no garridge here. The feller what uset to keep it
skipped out with Sam Galt’s wife a month ago. You’d ought to ’a’ turned
back to Ashville. They got a good blacksmith there can tinker ye up.”
“Is that so?” said Gordon interestedly. “Well now that’s too bad, but
perhaps as it can’t be helped we’ll have to forget it. What’s the next
town on ahead and how far?”
“Sugar Grove’s two mile further on, and Milton’s five. They’ve got a
garridge and a rest’rant to Milton, but that’s only sence the railroad
built a junction there.”
“Has anyone here a conveyance I could hire to take us to Milton?”
questioned Gordon, looking anxiously about the indolent group.
“I wouldn’t want to drive to Milton for less’n five dollars,” declared
a lazy youth after a suitable pause.
“Very well,” said Gordon. “How soon can you be ready, and what sort of
a rig have you? Will it be comfortable for the lady?”
The youth eyed the graceful woman in her dainty city dress scornfully.
His own country lass was dressed far prettier to his mind; but the eyes
of her, so blue, like the little weed-flowers at her breast, went to
his head. His tongue was suddenly tied.
“It’s all right! It’s as good’s you’ll get!” volunteered a sullen-faced
man half sitting on a sugar barrel. He was of a type who preferred to
see fashionable ladies uncomfortable.
The youth departed for his “team” and after some enquiries Gordon
found that he might be able to persuade the owner of the tiny white
colonial cot across the street to prepare a “snack” for himself and
his companion, so they went across the street and waited fifteen
minutes in a dank little hair-cloth parlor adorned in funeral wreaths
and knit tidies, for a delicious breakfast of poached eggs, coffee,
home-made bread, butter like roses, and a comb of amber honey. To each
the experience was a new one, and they enjoyed it together like two
children, letting their eyes speak volumes of comments in the midst of
the old lady’s volubility. Unconsciously by their experiences they
were being brought into sympathy with each other.
The “rig” when it arrived at the door driven by the blushing youth
proved to be a high spring wagon with two seats. In the front one the
youth lounged without a thought of assisting his passengers. Gordon
swung the baggage up, and then lifted the girl into the back seat,
himself taking the place beside her, and planting a firm hand and arm
behind the backless seat, that she might feel more secure.
That ride, with his arm behind her, was just one more link in the
pretty chain of sympathy that was being welded about these two.
Unconsciously more and more she began to droop, until when she grew
very tired he seemed to know at once.
“Just lean against my arm,” he said. “You must be very tired and it
will help you bear the jolting.” He spoke as if his arm were made of
wood or iron, and was merely one of his belongings, like an umbrella
or suit-case. He made it seem quite the natural thing for her to
lean against him. If he had claimed it as her right and privilege
as wife, she would have recoiled from him for recalling to her the
hated relation, and would have sat straight as a bean-pole the rest
of the way, but, as it was, she sank back a trifle deprecatingly, and
realized that it was a great help. In her heart she thanked him for
making it possible for her to rest without entirely compromising her
attitude toward him. There was nothing about it that suggested anything
lover-like; it seemed just a common courtesy.
Yet the strong arm almost trembled as he felt the precious weight
against it, and he wished that the way were ten miles instead of five.
Once, as Celia leaned forward to point to a particularly lovely bit of
view that opened up as they wound around a curve in the road, they ran
over a stone, and the wagon gave an unexpected jolt. Gordon reached
his hand out to steady her, and she settled back to his arm with a
sense of safety and being cared for that was very pleasant. Looking up
shyly, she saw his eyes upon her, with that deep look of admiration
and something more, and again that strange thrill of joy that had
come when he gave her the forget-me-nots swept through her. She felt
almost as if she were harboring a sinful thought when she remembered
the letters he had written; but the joy of the day, and the sweetness
of happiness for even a moment, when she had been for so long a time
sad, was so pleasant that she let herself enjoy it and drift, refusing
to think evil of him now, here, in this bright day. Thus like children
on a picnic, they passed through Sugar Grove and came to the town of
Milton, and there they bade their driver good-by, rewarding him with
a crisp five-dollar bill. He drove home with a vision of smiles in
forget-me-not eyes, and a marked inability to tell anything about his
wonderful passengers who had filled the little village with awe and
amazement, and had given no clue to anyone as to who or what they were.