Pure was her mind and simple her intent,
Good all she sought and kindness all she meant.
--CRABBE.
But no such climax followed. The girls wrote that they were to leave
home on such a day, in charge of the wife of that very Congressman who
had given Magnus his appointment. A true woman of the world in some
things, but kindly, and not wanting in sense and tact. People said she
liked uniforms herself, and was glad of a train of girls because it
drew on a train of cadets. But neither thing was so very exceptional
and unheard of that people needed to be hard on her. And she chose her
girls well; always, if she could, some hid-away damsel whose one chance
of getting to the Point this might be. And now, when the boy owed his
place to her husband's good offices, it was her delight to take his
sisters. The one stipulation was that she should have her own way about
the bills.
"I must have a clear mind," she said, "and stop when I choose, and
where I choose, or the trip won't be a speck of good. It's nobody's
business how I manage my affairs, and you chits needn't strike in to be
the first."
So in this lady's ample care Rose and Violet made the long journey,
and enjoyed every scrap of it. The meals in the dining car, and (I'm
afraid) the bunks in the so-called sleeper; even the small delays, for
then they could look out to better advantage; and Mrs. Congressman
voted them the two best girls she had ever taken anywhere. "Always
ready for breakfast," she said, "and always willing to wait. It was as
good as music to hear them laugh when we had to switch off on the side
track, or when folks jammed past them to dinner; it sweetened the whole
car; curled everybody's feathers...."
It was true, and I think would have been, even on a journey not into
"Fairyland," though of course that helped. But the two were very quiet
in their eager looking; the laugh and the exclamation were low-toned
and well-bred. They asked sensible questions, and not too many even
of them. Only when they got talking of Magnus, then indeed, the
words came, with such sparkles and dimples and exultation, that Mrs.
Congressman began to think her husband had done a bright thing for the
country, when he gave that young soldier his place. But no one else in
the car found out that they had a brother at West Point, and were on
their way to see him; nor that their escort was the wife of an Hon. M.
C.; such cheap fame our two girls had not learned to seek.
And thus it was a delightful little party that after some hours of
rest, and a late breakfast, bestowed themselves in a palace car of the
11.30 train, and went swaying and swinging up the river.
People may say they have seen the Hudson, but never before as it is
to-day, or as it will be to-morrow. The tide, the wind, the time of
year, the temperature, the magnetic conditions, join hands in an
endless chain of new effects. With a blue sky it is one thing, and will
change its complexion on the instant, with the shadow of a passing
cloud. To-day, in a frolic of white caps racing down before the north
wind, and to-morrow rolling up in dull leaden surges, with a southern
Banshee at its back. Now lapping the shore with sweetest whispers, now
decked with a fringe of winter ice. Then frozen over from shore to
shore, fitting in among the hills like an accurately cut sheet of white
paper. But living, even then, with mysterious cracks and reports, with
little plashes, where the tide breaks out along the edge.
It was May yet, with the lilac storm just past, and the river in full
flood, tossed and heaving from the strain of the east wind. The green
of the hills--the endless shades of the young leafage--seemed almost
to change while you looked. The girls grew too breathless to talk even
about Magnus, and to the hackneyed eyes of Mrs. Congressman, there was
positive refreshment in the way those two arm-chairs whirled on their
pivots, for last glimpses and new effects.
"My dear girls, I wish my neck had the untirable quality of yours," she
said.
"Tired--how could one be tired?" said Violet. "Oh, Rose! just see that
vessel with her sails swung out each side. That must be what Cooper
means by 'wing and wing.'"
"Yes, the wind is stirring up," said Mrs. Congressman; "I'm sure I wish
it would;" and she plied her fan.
"Let me fan you!" Rose cried, turning her chair away from the
entrancing view.
"No, no! Look out and see all you can. I may be an old goose, but I
know a little."
"You are just as kind as you can be, Mrs. Ironwood," said Rose
gratefully.
"But allow me to remark, young ladies," said their friend, looking
amused, "that at West Point there are also some things, and people,
to look at. So don't get your necks stiff. You must not gaze in one
direction all the time, there."
"Yes, ma'am. O, Violet, did you hear? The next stop is Garrisons!" And
the two girls took hold of hands, as if to keep each other still.
"Yes, we're fairly in the Highlands now," said Mrs. Congressman, tying
her bonnet strings. "Well, children, I'm glad you're so happy, and
it's a real pleasure to have you along. Some girls are just a nuisance
at West Point."
"Oh, I hope we shall not be a nuisance," Violet said, but looking out
all the while.
"I'm afraid we shall make a great many mistakes," said Rose, studying
the rocky green Dunderberg with her heart in her eyes. "You know we
have just lived at home. Couldn't you tell us now, before we get there,
how to do?"
"Bridges for rivers you'll not have to cross," quoth Mrs. Congressman,
who had imbibed a little of her husband's manner, which now and then
came out. "No use, child; you never do what you think you will. The
chief thing at West Point, as everywhere, is to be a lady as much as a
girl, and that you both are, always."
"Oh, thank you, ma'am!" Rose said warmly.
"There is one other thing," Mrs. Congressman went on, "that I might
just remark. No manner of use, but it'll not do any harm. It is only,
girls, that you must never believe anything cadets tell you."
This brought both chairs round on a sharp pirouette.
"Not anything!"
"But, you do not mean Magnus."
"Oh, Magnus is all the knights of the round table rolled into one; of
course he takes in truth among his smaller virtues. The rest do not."
"Why, I thought Magnus said truth was one of the very first things
there!" said Rose.
"Official truth. No cadet is allowed to fib officially. So they take it
out socially."
The speaker kept a perfectly grave face, and the two girls looked
aghast, felt so, all through the tunnel. But as they ran out in sight
of Fort Montgomery and the tall outlines that rose up beyond, cadets
(except Magnus) sunk down into very sublunary things.
"Oh, well, Magnus isn't so," Rose said contentedly.
"And we are not likely to see much of other cadets," Violet said,
pressing close to her window.
Mrs. Congressman watched them for a minute; the graceful heads, the
fair, well-bred faces; but then she seemed to find something very
amusing out of her own window, for she smiled to herself till they
reached Garrisons. There might be several cadets, she thought, who
would have a word to say to that statement.
If Magnus had scanned the way over and up, because there was nobody
there, for him, with what a difference the two young sisters watched
every point where possibly he might be. Silently they followed their
leader into the old omnibus, and noted every stone, stick, and leaf,
that decked the road up the hill.
Passing the Mess Hall came a new sensation; for the day was so warm
that windows and doors stood wide open, and there was not only the
usual tumult of voices, but also a tangle of heads, arms, and grey
cloth in view from the omnibus.
"The boys are at dinner," said Mrs. Ironwood.
"Oh, and is Magnus there, too?" cried the girls.
"Unless he's in the hospital."
"In the hospital!"
"He ought to be, if he's not eating his dinner. Might have sprained
his ankle, dismounting too fast. Might have swallowed too much of Miss
Somebody's cake."
But both these ideas were summarily dismissed.
"He is in there, of course," Rose said, her eyes full, and her heart
wafting a blessing to the unseen brother; and with one consent the
girls kissed their hands to the old grey building.
"Now, children," said Mrs. Congressman as they jolted on, "I must tell
you one thing. This is all very well, tucked away in the 'bus with
me; but never do you kiss hands to anybody at West Point, under other
circumstances. There are always cadets lurking round in the bushes,
and they'll think you mean _them_."
How the girls laughed! Whether because they had just been so near
Magnus, or at this image of an ambush of other cadets, or the faint
spice of danger in the air, or the general culmination; but even the
quiet Rose came down from her dignity, and the omnibus rattled up to
the hotel with a chorus of fun inside.
The needs of life are helpful and calming. Washing the dust off quiets
one down, and prosaic dinner brings back one's sober senses. It was an
extremely demure pair of girls that followed Mrs. Congressman into the
dining-room, and gave earnest heed while she ordered dinner, surveyed
the guests, scolded the waiter, and praised the soup.
"You must eat, girls," she said. "Build yourselves up for what's before
you. I suppose this is the last quiet minute we shall have to ourselves
till we go away."
"What is to happen to us?" said Violet merrily.
"Walks," said Mrs. Ironwood. "And talks. And stands. I hope you've both
brought plenty of shoes."
"I noticed the stones, as we came along," said Rose.
"Stones! It's the soft going that tells on the shoes, child. I brought
Mary Gates here one rainy spring, and she finished her overshoes in a
week, and I had to send her home."
"In a week! Did she dance instead of walking?"
"Danced attendance," said Mrs. Congressman. "I didn't mean to pun,
girls, but that was the fact. Now I should take you straight off to the
guard-house to see Magnus----"
"The guard-house?"
"The visitors' room, there, silly! but work begins at two o'clock, and
we shouldn't find him. So I'll go and get a snooze, and you'd best do
the same."
"We could not possibly sleep," said Violet. "We'll sit out on the
piazza and look."
"It's a fine view, whichever way," said Mrs. Ironwood; "but the Land
of Nod is more to my mind just now. Sit out here, then, or do what you
like, only don't go off hotel limits. There's no town crier here. And
call me at a quarter past three. And girls"--she put her head inside
the door again--"whatever you do, don't go down and stand at the hotel
fence."
The girls listened to the retreating footsteps, but then they looked at
each other and laughed.
"West Point must be an odd place," said Rose.
"And she is the oddest woman! What ails the hotel fence, any more than
all other fences?" said Violet. "It looks pretty strong."
However, they obeyed orders, and wandering about a little, as all doors
stood open, came presently out upon the north piazza and the north
view.