The bargain must be,
That, as long as I choose, I am perfectly free.
For this is a sort of engagement, you see,
That is binding on you, but not binding on me.
--_Nothing to Wear._
It is impossible to put in words what furlough means to a
two-years-from-home boy. For "boy" he is still, to the dear home
group, as well as in West Point pranks and frolics. But from the time
the Hundredth Night is over there is a steadily growing pressure of
excitement. It is not long till, for themselves, the men begin to count
the hours.
A great deal of outdoor work comes with the softening skies and
freshening earth. Company drills, dress parades, make the Point all
alive again, and the cadets full of growls. Not all the prospective
laurels for perfect marching can make the means to that end a pleasure.
They have no time for it, they say; time is so precious, when you do
not want to spend it in some particular way. But rides on the road are
good, after the winter drills in the Hall; and Saturday afternoons just
perfect--except on the area. Springing grass, opening flowers, scented
air, and in the distance--June.
For at West Point June has a gift for everyone. In the first class,
graduation; to the old second class, first-class camp and privileges;
for the old third class, furlough. While the plebs become yearlings,
and call themselves the happiest of all.
As the time comes on, all sorts of tradesmen invade the Point; men with
samples of cloth for uniforms and for "cits"; with sashes, swords,
hats, gloves, helmets, and handbags; with trunks, class albums, studs,
canes, and umbrellas. Each Saturday afternoon is weighted with the most
perplexed sort of shopping. For when you have lived two years, or four
years, in a forage cap, it takes a good deal of study to know whether
you will be most Adonis-like in a stove-pipe, or a wide-awake, or a
plain straw hat. The cut of coats, the colour of trousers, cause deep
debate, as also the probable worth of one tradesman's word as against
another's.
With first-class questions Magnus had nothing this year to do, but over
one furlough point he had a sharp fight with himself. The "cit" clothes
in which he had come as a candidate were odious to him on that very
account. All the same, one way to save money was to wear them home.
So Cadet Kindred braced up mentally, and said that was just what he
would do. And then, to put an extra touch to his goodness, he thought
he would try them on and see how ugly they were; break it to himself
gently, and by degrees, before he walked out through the sallyport in
open day.
It was a splendid plan. For lo and behold! under the hard, despised
West Point training, Mr. Kindred had grown and filled out and developed
until he could not possibly wear those old clothes.
Magnus tossed the coat up to the ceiling, regardless of what might
happen to the plaster, and joined the shopping band that very day.
It was delightful now, in the soft spring weather, to go out at every
release from quarters, for a stroll round the plain, or down by the
river. How lovely Flirtation was! An army of "Dutchman's breeches" held
all the best posts among the rocks by the wayside, scaling the cliffs
even down by the landing. And in the deeper shade north of Battery
Knox, whole beds of dog-tooth violets filled the spots of damper
ground, lifting their elegant heads like the highbred beauties that
they are.
Among the tougher growths, iron wood and black birch were charming
with their tresses, and the young tufts of maple and oak and hickory
leaves were a joy to see. Shad blossoms and dogwood "picked out" the
green; from some far-down hidden corner the spice bush spiced the air.
Saxifrage spread whole sheets of bloom; and Lowell's "dear common
flower" gleamed everywhere.
And then the girls came. Some "opening buds" that had come fresh from
Paris; and some early birds, besides robins and song sparrows. The
company drills had lookers-on; the walks round Flirtation were not
always games of solitaire.
Among the visitors who appeared thus early, was a certain Mrs. Granton,
with two girls of her own, and two belonging to other people--Miss Bee
and Miss Clive. The Granton girls were just average damsels, but, of
course, having a gay brother in the first class, they went everywhere,
and knew everybody. Miss Clive was an heiress and played ditto, ditto
upon yet stronger ground.
In the wake of these triumphant young ladies came Miss Bee with just
funds enough to pay her own bills, but no particular store of either
wealth or beauty.
She was a sensible girl, had a sensible little face, with pleasant eyes
and a merry mouth, but had not knowledge to make the most of herself
in the way some others did; nor, it may be, the inclination. No poppy
leaves stained her cheeks, no powder whitened her forehead, no foreign
coils of hair swelled out the moderate portion which was of home
growth. And no extra-high heels put her further up in the world than
she was by nature. Her shoes were "common sense"; her gloves were large
enough to button all the way; her parasol was brown, and she had a
trick of saying nothing she did not mean.
No girl who behaves herself will ever be slighted at West Point; cadets
are too courteous and too chivalrous as well. But in view of all I have
told of Miss Bee, you will easily guess that her place in the public
interest was small. Everyone was polite to her, but no one missed her,
or looked for her, or wondered where she was. Cadets never scowled at
each other for her sake; and pretty girls never cared what she had on.
Yet perhaps among them all there was not one who tasted every crumb of
pleasure with such keen relish as Miss Bee. She had had so little of it
in her life, poor child! This was her first real outing. No wonder West
Point was fairyland, and every cadet a born prince in disguise.
At first, indeed, she was terribly afraid of them; conscious, perhaps,
of her own lack of "fetching" qualities, but by degrees that changed a
little. The innocent colour started to her cheeks as readily as ever,
when some grey uniform came up with:
"Good-evening, Miss Bee. How did you enjoy the Light Battery this
morning?"
But when none of them came, when they were all swept away in the gay
whirl of beauty and fashion, and she sat solitary with Mrs. Granton,
this was not quite so easy to bear, Mabel found, as at first. And many
a brave struggle for victory went on under the old trees before parade,
and Saturday afternoons at the Hotel, and in her own room. Nobody
guessed it, and she never told.
It was no great wonder if, to this rather dull young life, thus
suddenly set down at the edge of the bright whirl, the hero of all
romance, past, present, and future, should array himself in bell
buttons and grey dress coat. It was also quite natural that this hazy
individual should develop into the face and figure of Cadet Charlemagne
Kindred, with no fault on his part, and no special folly on hers. In
truth, it was some time before the child picked up a dictionary of
herself, with definitions.
But Magnus was undoubtedly one of the handsomest men there, with keen
eyes that could be wondrously soft upon occasion, a winning smile, and
a laugh that was refined and pure as well as gay. And then, as may
happen, his good intentions led him perilously far. He thought the girl
rather neglected by her own party, and so took special pains to see
and to speak to her whenever she was about. He asked her for a walk,
when there was danger of her being left behind; asked her opinion,
right over the head of Miss Dashaway, and (I shall have to confess it)
enjoyed the quick flutter of colour that lit up her face whenever he
came near. For Magnus had no thought of risk in the matter; he was far
too much of a gentleman--too much of a man--to try to draw her on for
his own amusement. He just meant to be kind to her, though he did pick
up a little pleasure for himself as he went along. Now and then he
took refuge with her when other girls bored him; made her a "previous"
against Miss Flirt's advances, and never noticed that all the while he
was drinking in silent flattery by the cupful; getting his own mind so
befogged, indeed, that he could not see how swiftly and surely one poor
little craft was heading for a very dangerous coast.
Cadet Kindred was not a vain fellow, but what man does not feel the
bewitchment of having eyes watch for him and look up to him, even
though he be too careless of them to know their colour? What man does
not like to have his words counted and treasured as if they held the
distilled wisdom of the sages and the ages? And Magnus was also minus
a dictionary, and did not know how to spell things one bit. The girl
_must_ have a good time, he told himself, she could not be left riding
at anchor while all the rest set sail, and what might happen if he too
often played pilot, to that he never gave a thought. All _that_ was in
the realm of impossibility, in this connection. Wise men and poor girls.
It looked so impossible to other eyes, and the girl kept her own
counsel so well that it drew little notice. Rig did once or twice ask
Magnus if he was getting rattled with that little Bee girl, and some
others remarked that Kin was practising how to flirt when the time
came; but such words were empty air to Magnus. It was well for all
parties that June stepped in, with its absorbing demands.
There were plenty of men who did more flirting and frolicking now than
ever, but not so Magnus Kindred. Everything dropped out of his life but
home and furlough. Each night he wrote to his mother about three lines,
telling her what the "Exam" had done with him that day, and in all
the other between-times he was either freshening up his knowledge of
some hard points of study, or he was taking long walks with June, and
June only, to clear his brain. If he heard voices, or caught a glimpse
of grey coats or red parasols, Magnus sheered off, scaling the rocks
or scrambling down the cliffs to some breakneck spot, quite beyond
reach for any cadet who had girls in tow. There he would lie on the
moss and listen to the river, or the bell notes of the thrush; listen
without hearing, as he planned his journey home. He would take such
a train, and make such a connection, and jump off at the old station
at just such a time. He would not tell them quite when to expect him,
because they would be sure to come to meet him, and some of them would
cry--right there before everybody. And it was a bother to attend to
your luggage with three girls round your neck. But then Magnus laughed
and coloured too. There could hardly be _three_--yet somehow two seemed
even more objectionable. And still if he sent no word, and they did
not meet him, there was a good half hour lost from that end of his
furlough.
So he argued it, back and forth. And all the while, poor little Miss
Bee was weeping secret tears over the seeming defection of her knight.
She _must_ have displeased him somehow.
"My sisters can hardly wait until I get home!" said Mr. Randolph one
night.
"There's another man's sister can hardly wait until I do," said Clive.