MR. JABE JENNEY ENTERTAINS
Mr. Flint had dropped the subject with his last remark, nor had Victoria
attempted to pursue it. Bewildered and not a little depressed (a new
experience for her), she had tried to hide her feelings. He, too, was
harassed and tired, and she had drawn him away from the bench and through
the pine woods to the pastures to look at his cattle and the model barn
he was building for them. At half-past three, in her runabout, she had
driven him to the East Tunbridge station, where he had taken the train
for New York. He had waved her a good-by from the platform, and smiled:
and for a long time, as she drove through the silent roads, his words and
his manner remained as vivid as though he were still by her side. He was
a man who had fought and conquered, and who fought on for the sheer love
of it.
It was a blue day in the hill country. At noon the clouds had crowned
Sawanec--a sure sign of rain; the rain had come and gone, a June
downpour, and the overcast sky lent (Victoria fancied) to the
country-side a new atmosphere. The hills did not look the same. It was
the kind of a day when certain finished country places are at their
best--or rather seem best to express their meaning; a day for an event; a
day set strangely apart with an indefinable distinction. Victoria
recalled such days in her youth when weddings or garden-parties had
brought canopies into service, or news had arrived to upset the routine
of the household. Raindrops silvered the pines, and the light winds shook
them down on the road in a musical shower.
Victoria was troubled, as she drove, over a question which had recurred
to her many times since her talk that morning: had she been hypocritical
in not telling her father that she had seen more of Austen Vane than she
had implied by her silence? For many years Victoria had chosen her own
companions; when the custom had begun, her mother had made a protest
which Mr. Flint had answered with a laugh; he thought Victoria's judgment
better than his wife's. Ever since that time the Rose of Sharon had taken
the attitude of having washed her hands of responsibility for a course
which must inevitably lead to ruin. She discussed some of Victoria's
acquaintances with Mrs. Pomfret and other intimates; and Mrs. Pomfret had
lost no time in telling Mrs. Flint about her daughter's sleigh-ride at
the State capital with a young man from Ripton who seemed to be seeing
entirely too much of Victoria. Mrs. Pomfret had marked certain danger
signs, and as a conscientious woman was obliged to speak of them. Mrs.
Pomfret did not wish to see Victoria make a mesalliance.
"My dear Fanny," Mrs. Flint had cried, lifting herself from the lace
pillows, "what do you expect me to do especially when I have nervous
prostration? I've tried to do my duty by Victoria--goodness knows--to
bring her up--among the sons and daughters of the people who are my
friends. They tell me that she has temperament--whatever that may be. I'm
sure I never found out, except that the best thing to do with people who
have it is to let them alone and pray for them. When we go abroad I like
the Ritz and Claridge's and that new hotel in Rome. I see my friends
there. Victoria, if you please, likes the little hotels in the narrow
streets where you see nobody, and where you are most uncomfortable."
(Miss Oliver, it's time for those seven drops.) "As I was saying,
Victoria's enigmatical hopeless, although a French comtesse who wouldn't
look at anybody at the baths this spring became wild about her, and a
certain type of elderly English peer always wants to marry her. (I
suppose I do look pale to-day.) Victoria loves art, and really knows
something about it. She adores to potter around those queer places abroad
where you see strange English and Germans and Americans with red books in
their hands. What am I to do about this young man of whom you
speak--whatever his name is? I suppose Victoria will marry him--it would
be just like her. But what can I do, Fanny? I can't manage her, and it's
no use going to her father. He would only laugh. Augustus actually told
me once there was no such thing as social position in this country!"
"American men of affairs," Mrs. Pomfret judicially replied, "are too busy
to consider position. They make it, my dear, as a by-product." Mrs.
Pomfret smiled, and mentally noted this aptly technical witticism for use
again.
"I suppose they do," assented the Rose of Sharon, "and their daughters
sometimes squander it, just as their sons squander their money."
"I'm not at all sure that Victoria is going to squander it," was Mrs.
Pomfret's comforting remark. "She is too much of a personage, and she has
great wealth behind her. I wish Alice were more like her, in some ways.
Alice is so helpless, she has to be prodded and prompted continually. I
can't leave her for a moment. And when she is married, I'm going into a
sanatorium for six months."
"I hear," said Mrs. Flint, "that Humphrey Crewe is quite epris."
"Poor dear Humphrey!" exclaimed Mrs. Pomfret, "he can think of nothing
else but politics."
But we are not to take up again, as yet, the deeds of the crafty Ulysses.
In order to relate an important conversation between Mrs. Pomfret and the
Rose of Sharon, we have gone back a week in this history, and have left
Victoria--absorbed in her thoughts--driving over a wood road of many
puddles that led to the Four Corners, near Avalon. The road climbed the
song-laden valley of a brook, redolent now with scents of which the rain
had robbed the fern, but at length Victoria reached an upland where the
young corn was springing from the, black furrows that followed the
contours of the hillsides, where the big-eyed cattle lay under the heavy
maples and oaks or gazed at her across the fences.
Victoria drew up in front of an unpainted farm-house straggling beside
the road, a farm-house which began with the dignity of fluted pilasters
and ended in a tumble-down open shed filled with a rusty sleigh and a
hundred nondescript articles--some of which seemed to be moving. Intently
studying this phenomenon from her runabout, she finally discovered that
the moving objects were children; one of whom, a little girl, came out
and stared at her.
"How do you do, Mary?" said Victoria. "Isn't your name Mary?"
The child nodded.
"I remember you," she said; "you're the rich lady, mother met at the
party, that got father a job."
Victoria smiled. And such was the potency of the smile that the child
joined in it.
"Where's brother?" asked Victoria. "He must be quite grown up since we
gave him lemonade."
Mary pointed to the woodshed.
"O dear!" exclaimed Victoria, leaping out of the runabout and hitching
her horse, "aren't you afraid some of those sharp iron things will fall
on him?" She herself rescued brother from what seemed untimely and
certain death, and set him down in safety in the middle of the grass
plot. He looked up at her with the air of one whose dignity has been
irretrievably injured, and she laughed as she reached down and pulled his
nose. Then his face, too, became wreathed in smiles.
"Mary, how old are you?"
"Seven, ma'am."
"And I'm five," Mary's sister chimed in.
"I want you to promise me," said Victoria, "that you won't let brother
play in that shed. And the very next time I come I'll bring you both the
nicest thing I can think of."
Mary began to dance.
"We'll promise, we'll promise!" she cried for both, and at this juncture
Mrs. Fitch, who had run from the washtub to get into her Sunday waist,
came out of the door.
"So you hain't forgot me!" she exclaimed. "I was almost afeard you'd
forgot me."
"I've been away," said Victoria, gently taking the woman's hand and
sitting down on the doorstep.
"Don't set there," said Mrs. Fitch; "come into the parlour. You'll dirty
your dress--Mary!" This last in admonition.
"Let her stay where she is," said Victoria, putting her arm around the
child. "The dress washes, and it's so nice outside."
"You rich folks certainly do have strange notions," declared Mrs. Fitch,
fingering the flounce on Victoria's skirt, which formed the subject of
conversation for the next few minutes.
"How are you getting on?" Victoria asked at length.
A look of pain came into the woman's eyes.
"You've be'n so good to us, and done so much gettin' Eben a job on your
father's place, that I don't feel as if I ought to lie to you. He done it
again--on Saturday night. First time in three months. The manager up at
Fairview don't know it. Eben was all right Monday."
"I'm sorry," said Victoria, simply. "Was it bad?"
"It might have be'n. Young Mr. Vane is stayin' up at Jabe Jenney's--you
know, the first house as you turn off the hill road. Mr. Vane heard some
way what you'd done for us, and he saw Eben in Ripton Saturday night, and
made him get into his buggy and come home. I guess he had a time with
Eben. Mr. Vane, he came around here on Sunday, and gave him as stiff a
talkin' to as he ever got, I guess. He told Eben he'd ought to be ashamed
of himself goin' back on folks who was tryin' to help him pay his
mortgage. And I'll say this for Eben, he was downright ashamed. He told
Mr. Vane he could lick him if he caught him drunk again, and Mr. Vane
said he would. My, what a pretty colour you've got to-day."
Victoria rose. "I'm going to send you down some washing," she said.
Mrs. Fitch insisted upon untying the horse, while Victoria renewed her
promises to the children.
There were two ways of going back to Fairview,--a long and a short way,
--and the long way led by Jabe Jenney's farm. Victoria came to the fork
in the road, paused,--and took the long way. Several times after this,
she pulled her horse down to a walk, and was apparently on the point of
turning around again: a disinterested observer in a farm wagon, whom she
passed, thought that she had missed her road. "The first house after you
turn off the hill road," Mrs. Fitch had said. She could still, of course,
keep on the hill road, but that would take her to Weymouth, and she would
never get home.
It is useless to go into the reasons for this act of Victoria's. She did
not know them herself. The nearer Victoria got to Mr. Jenney's, the more
she wished herself back at the forks. Suppose Mrs. Fitch told him of her
visit! Perhaps she could pass the Jenneys' unnoticed. The chances of
this, indeed, seemed highly favourable, and it was characteristic of her
sex that she began to pray fervently to this end. Then she turned off the
hill road, feeling as though she had but to look back to see the smoke of
the burning bridges.
Victoria remembered the farm now; for Mr. Jabe Jenney, being a person of
importance in the town of Leith, had a house commensurate with his
estate. The house was not large, but its dignity was akin to Mr. Jenney's
position: it was painted a spotless white, and not a shingle or a nail
was out of place. Before it stood the great trees planted by Mr. Jenney's
ancestors, which Victoria and other people had often paused on their
drives to admire, and on the hillside was a little, old-fashioned flower
garden; lilacs clustered about the small-paned windows, and a
bitter-sweet clung to the roof and pillars of the porch. These details of
the place (which she had never before known as Mr. Jenney's) flashed into
Victoria's mind before she caught sight of the great trees themselves
looming against the sombre blue-black of the sky: the wind, rising
fitfully, stirred the leaves with a sound like falling waters, and a
great drop fell upon her cheek. Victoria raised her eyes in alarm, and
across the open spaces, toward the hills which piled higher and higher
yet against the sky, was a white veil of rain. She touched with her whip
the shoulder of her horse, recalling a farm a quarter of a mile beyond
--she must not be caught here!
More drops followed, and the great trees seemed to reach out to her a
protecting shelter. She spoke to the horse. Beyond the farm-house, on the
other side of the road, was a group of gray, slate-shingled barns, and
here two figures confronted her. One was that of the comfortable,
middle-aged Mr. Jenney himself, standing on the threshold of the barn,
and laughing heartily, and crying: "Hang on to him That's right--get him
by the nose!"
The person thus addressed had led a young horse to water at the spring
which bubbled out of a sugar-kettle hard by; and the horse, quivering,
had barely touched his nostrils to the water when he reared backward,
jerking the halter-rope taut. Then followed, with bewildering rapidity, a
series of manoeuvres on the part of the horse to get away, and on the
part of the person to prevent this, and inasmuch as the struggle took
place in the middle of the road, Victoria had to stop. By the time the
person had got the horse by the nose,--shutting off his wind,--the rain
was coming down in earnest.
"Drive right in," cried Mr. Jenney, hospitably; "you'll get wet. Look
out, Austen, there's a lady comin'. Why, it's Miss Flint!"
Victoria knew that her face must be on fire. She felt Austen Vane's quick
glance upon her, but she did not dare look to the right or left as she
drove into the barn. There seemed no excuse for any other course.
"How be you?" said Mr. Jenney; "kind of lucky you happened along here,
wahn't it? You'd have been soaked before you got to Harris's. How be you?
I ain't seen you since that highfalutin party up to Crewe's."
"It's very kind of you to let me come in, Mr. Jenney."
"But I have a rain-coat and a boot, and--I really ought to be going on."
Here Victoria produced the rain-coat from under the seat. The garment was
a dark blue, and Mr. Jenney felt of its gossamer weight with a
good-natured contempt.
"That wouldn't be any more good than so much cheesecloth," he declared,
nodding in the direction of the white sheet of the storm. "Would it,
Austen."
She turned her head slowly and met Austen's eyes. Fortunate that the barn
was darkened, that he might not see how deep the colour mantling in her
temples! His head was bare, and she had never really marked before the
superb setting of it on his shoulders, for he wore a gray flannel shirt
open at the neck, revealing a bronzed throat. His sinewy arms
--weather-burned, too--were bare above the elbows.
Explanations of her presence sprang to her lips, but she put them from
her as subterfuges unworthy of him. She would not attempt to deceive him
in the least. She had wished to see him again--nor did she analyze her
motives. Once more beside him, the feeling of confidence, of belief in
him, rose within her and swept all else away--burned in a swift consuming
flame the doubts of absence. He took her hand, but she withdrew it
quickly.
"This is a fortunate accident," he said, "fortunate, at least, for me."
"Perhaps Mr. Jenney will not agree with you," she retorted.
But Mr. Jenney was hitching the horse and throwing a blanket over him.
Suddenly, before they realized it, the farmer had vanished into the
storm, and this unexplained desertion of their host gave rise to an
awkward silence between them, which each for a while strove vainly to
break. In the great moments of life, trivialities become dwarfed and
ludicrous, and the burden of such occasions is on the woman.
"So you've taken to farming," she said,-"isn't it about haying time?"
He laughed.
"We begin next week. And you--you've come back in season for it. I hope
that your mother is better."
"Yes," replied Victoria, simply, "the baths helped her. But I'm glad to
get back,--I like my own country so much better,--and especially this
part of it," she added. "I can bear to be away from New York in the
winter, but not from Fairview in the summer."
At this instant Mr. Jenney appeared at the barn door bearing a huge green
umbrella.
"Come over to the house--Mis' Jenney is expectin' you," he said.
Victoria hesitated. To refuse would be ungracious; moreover, she could
risk no misinterpretation of her acts, and she accepted. Mrs. Jenney met
her on the doorstep, and conducted her into that sanctum reserved for
occasions, the parlour, with its Bible, its flat, old-fashioned piano,
its samplers, its crayon portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Jenney after their
honeymoon; with its aroma that suggested Sundays and best manners. Mrs.
Jenney, with incredible rapidity (for her figure was not what it had been
at the time of the crayon portrait), had got into a black dress, over
which she wore a spotless apron. She sat in the parlour with her guest
until Mr. Jenney reappeared with shining face and damp hair.
"You'll excuse me, my dear," said Mrs. Jenney, "but the supper's on the
stove, and I have to run out now and then."
Mr. Jenney was entertaining. He had the shrewd, humorous outlook upon
life characteristic of the best type of New England farmer, and Victoria
got along with him famously. His comments upon his neighbours were kindly
but incisive, except when the question of spirituous liquors occurred to
him. Austen Vane he thought the world of, and dwelt upon this subject a
little longer than Victoria, under the circumstances, would have wished.
"He comes out here just like it was home," said Mr. Jenney, "and helps
with the horses and cows the same as if he wasn't gettin' to be one of
the greatest lawyers in the State."
"O dear, Mr. Jenney," said Victoria, glancing out of the window, "I'll
really have to go home. I'm sure it won't stop raining for hours. But I
shall be perfectly dry in my rain-coat,--no matter how much you may
despise it."
"You're not a-going to do anything of the kind," cried Mrs. Jenney from
the doorway. "Supper's all ready, and you're going to walk right in."
"Oh, I really have to go," Victoria exclaimed.
"Now I know it ain't as grand as you'd get at home," said Mr. Jenney.
"It ain't what we'd give you, Miss Victoria,--that's only simple home
fare,--it's what you'd give us. It's the honour of having you," he
added,--and Victoria thought that no courtier could have worded an
invitation better. She would not be missed at Fairview. Her mother was
inaccessible at this hour, and the servants would think of her as dining
at Leith. The picture of the great, lonely house, of the ceremonious
dinner which awaited her single presence, gave her an irresistible
longing to sit down with these simple, kindly souls. Austen was the only
obstacle. He, too, had changed his clothes, and now appeared, smiling at
her behind Mrs. Jenney. The look of prospective disappointment in the
good woman's face decided Victoria.
"I'll stay, with pleasure," she said.
Mr. Jenney pronounced grace. Victoria sat across the table from Austen,
and several times the consciousness of his grave look upon her as she
talked heightened the colour in her cheek. He said but little during the
meal. Victoria heard how well Mrs. Jenney's oldest son was doing in
Springfield, and how the unmarried daughter was teaching, now, in the
West. Asked about Europe, that land of perpetual mystery to the native
American, the girl spoke so simply and vividly of some of the wonders she
had seen that she held the older people entranced long after the meal was
finished. But at length she observed, with a start, the gathering
darkness. In the momentary happiness of this experience, she had been
forgetful.
"I will drive home with you, if you'll allow me," said Austen.
"Oh, no, I really don't need an escort, Mr. Vane. I'm so used to driving
about at night, I never think of it," she answered.
"Of course he'll drive home with you, dear," said Mrs. Jenney. "And,
Jabe, you'll hitch up and go and fetch Austen back."
"Certain," Mr. Jenney agreed.
The rain had ceased, and the indistinct outline of the trees and fences
betrayed the fact that the clouds were already thinning under the moon.
Austen had lighted the side lamps of the runabout, revealing the shining
pools on the road as they drove along--for the first few minutes in
silence.
"It was very good of you to stay," he said; "you do not know how much
pleasure you have given them."
Her feminine appreciation responded to the tact of this remark: it was so
distinctly what he should have said.
How delicate, she thought, must be his understanding of her, that he
should have spoken so!
"I was glad to stay," she answered, in a low voice. "I--enjoyed it, too."
"They have very little in their lives," he said, and added, with a
characteristic touch, "I do not mean to say that your coming would not be
an event in any household."
She laughed with him, softly, at this sally.
"Not to speak of the visit you are making them," she replied.
"Oh, I'm one of the family," he said; "I come and go. Jabe's is my
country house, when I can't stand the city any longer."
She saw that he did not intend to tell her why he had left Ripton on this
occasion. There fell another silence. They were like prisoners, and each
strove to explore the bounds of their captivity: each sought a lawful
ground of communication. Victoria suddenly remembered--with an access of
indignation--her father's words, "I do not know what sort he is, but he
is not my sort." A while ago, and she had blamed herself vehemently for
coming to Jabe Jenney's, and now the act had suddenly become sanctified
in her sight. She did not analyze her feeling for Austen, but she was
consumed with a fierce desire that justice should be done him. "He was
honourable--honourable!" she found herself repeating under her breath. No
man or woman could look into his face, take his hand, sit by his side,
without feeling that he was as dependable as the stars in their courses.
And her father should know this, must be made to know it. This man was to
be distinguished from opportunists and self-seekers, from fanatics who
strike at random. His chief possession was a priceless one--a conscience.
As for Austen, it sufficed him for the moment that he had been lifted, by
another seeming caprice of fortune, to a seat of torture the agony
whereof was exquisite. An hour, and only the ceaseless pricking memory of
it would abide. The barriers had risen higher since he had seen her last,
but still he might look into her face and know the radiance of her
presence. Could he only trust himself to guard his tongue! But the heart
on such occasions will cheat language of its meaning.
"What have you been doing since I saw you last?" she asked. "It seems
that you still continue to lead a life of violence."
"Sometimes I wish I did," he answered, with a laugh; "the humdrum
existence of getting practice enough to keep a horse is not the most
exciting in the world. To what particular deed of violence do you refer?"
"The last achievement, which is in every one's mouth, that of assisting
Mr. Tooting down-stairs."
"I have been defamed," Austen laughed; "he fell down, I believe. But as I
have a somewhat evil reputation, and as he came out of my entry, people
draw their own conclusions. I can't imagine who told you that story."
"Never mind," she answered. "You see, I have certain sources of
information about you."
He tingled over this, and puzzled over it so long that she laughed.
"Does that surprise you?" she asked. "I fail to see why I should be
expected to lose all interest in my friends--even if they appear to have
lost interest in me."
"Oh, don't say that!" he cried so sharply that she wished her words
unsaid. "You can't mean it! You don't know!"
She trembled at the vigorous passion he put into the words.
"No, I don't mean it," she said gently.
The wind had made a rent in the sheet of the clouds, and through it burst
the moon in her full glory, flooding field and pasture, and the black
stretches of pine forest at their feet. Below them the land fell away,
and fell again to the distant broadening valley, to where a mist of white
vapour hid the course of the Blue. And beyond, the hills rose again, tier
upon tier, to the shadowy outline of Sawanec herself against the hurrying
clouds and the light-washed sky. Victoria, gazing at the scene, drew a
deep breath, and turned and looked at him in the quick way which he
remembered so well.
"Sometimes," she said, "it is so beautiful that it hurts to look at it.
You love it--do you ever feel that way?"
"Yes," he said, but his answer was more than the monosyllable. "I can see
that mountain from my window, and it seriously interferes with my work. I
really ought to move into another building."
There was a little catch in her laugh.
"And I watch it," she continued, "I watch it from the pine grove by the
hour. Sometimes it smiles, and sometimes it is sad, and sometimes it is
far, far away, so remote and mysterious that I wonder if it is ever to
come back and smile again."
"Have you ever seen the sunrise from its peak?" said Austen.
"No. Oh, how I should love to see it!" she exclaimed.
"Yes, you would like to see it," he answered simply. He would like to
take her there, to climb, with her hand in his, the well-known paths in
the darkness, to reach the summit in the rosy-fingered dawn: to see her
stand on the granite at his side in the full glory of the red light, and
to show her a world which she was henceforth to share with him.
Some such image, some such vision of his figure on the rock, may have
been in her mind as she turned her face again toward the mountain.
"You are cold," he said, reaching for the mackintosh in the back of the
trap.
"No," she said. But she stopped the horse and acquiesced by slipping her
arms into the coat, and he felt upon his hand the caress of a stray wisp
of hair at her neck. Under a spell of thought and feeling, seemingly laid
by the magic of the night, neither spoke for a space. And then Victoria
summoned her forces, and turned to him again. Her tone bespoke the subtle
intimacy that always sprang up between them, despite bars and
conventions.
"I was sure you would understand why I wrote you from New York," she
said, "although I hesitated a long time before doing so. It was very
stupid of me not to realize the scruples which made you refuse to be a
candidate for the governorship, and I wanted to--to apologize."
"It wasn't necessary," said Austen, "but--I valued the note." The words
seemed so absurdly inadequate to express his appreciation of the treasure
which he carried with him, at that moment, in his pocket. "But, really,"
he added, smiling at her in the moonlight, "I must protest against your
belief that I could have been an effective candidate! I have roamed about
the State, and I have made some very good friends here and there among
the hill farmers, like Mr. Jenney. Mr. Redbrook is one of these. But it
would have been absurd of me even to think of a candidacy founded on
personal friendships. I assure you," he added, smiling, "there was no
self denial in my refusal."
She gave him an appraising glance which he found at once enchanting and
disconcerting.
"You are one of those people, I think, who do not know their own value.
If I were a man, and such men as Mr. Redbrook and Mr. Jenney knew me and
believed sufficiently in me and in my integrity of purpose to ask me to
be their candidate" (here she hesitated an instant), "and I believed that
the cause were a good one, I should not have felt justified in refusing.
That is what I meant. I have always thought of you as a man of force and
a man of action. But I did not see--the obstacle in your way."
She hesitated once more, and added, with a courage which did not fail of
its direct appeal, "I did not realize that you would be publicly opposing
your father. And I did not realize that you would not care to criticise
--mine."
On the last word she faltered and glanced at his profile.
Had she gone too far?
"I felt that you would understand," he answered. He could not trust
himself to speak further. How much did she know? And how much was she
capable of grasping?
His reticence served only to fortify her trust--to elevate it. It was
impossible for her not to feel something of that which was in him and
crying for utterance. She was a woman. And if this one action had been
but the holding of her coat, she would have known. A man who could keep
silent under these conditions must indeed be a rock of might and honour;
and she felt sure now, with a surging of joy, that the light she had seen
shining from it was the beacon of truth. A question trembled on her
lips--the question for which she had long been gathering strength.
Whatever the outcome of this communion, she felt that there must be
absolute truth between them.
"I want to ask you something, Mr. Vane--I have been wanting to for a long
time."
She saw the muscles of his jaw tighten,--a manner he had when earnest or
determined,--and she wondered in agitation whether he divined what she
was going to say. He turned his face slowly to hers, and his eyes were
troubled.
"Yes," he said.
"You have always spared my feelings," she went on. "Now--now I am asking
for the truth--as you see it. Do the Northeastern Railroads wrongfully
govern this State for their own ends?"
Austen, too, as he thought over it afterwards, in the night, was
surprised at her concise phrasing, suggestive; as it was, of much
reflection. But at the moment, although he had been prepared for and had
braced himself against something of this nature, he was nevertheless
overcome by the absolute and fearless directness of her speech.
"That is a question," he answered, "which you will have to ask your
father."
"I have asked him," she said, in a low voice; "I want to know what--you
believe."
"You have asked him!" he repeated, in astonishment.
"Yes. You mustn't think that, in asking you, I am unfair to him in any
way--or that I doubt his sincerity. We have been" (her voice caught a
little) "the closest friends ever since I was a child." She paused. "But
I want to know what you believe."
The fact that she emphasized the last pronoun sent another thrill through
him. Did it, then, make any difference to her what he believed? Did she
mean to differentiate him from out of the multitude? He had to steady
himself before he answered:--"I have sometimes thought that my own view
might not be broad enough."
She turned to him again.
"Why are you evading?" she asked. "I am sure it is not because you have
not settled convictions. And I have asked you--a favour."
"You have done me an honour," he answered, and faced her suddenly. "You
must see," he cried, with a power and passion in his voice that startled
and thrilled her in turn, "you must see that it's because I wish to be
fair that I hesitate. I would tell you--anything. I do not agree with my
own father,--we have been--apart--for years because of this. And I
do--not agree with Mr. Flint. I am sure that they both are wrong. But I
cannot help seeing their point of view. These practices are the result of
an evolution, of an evolution of their time. They were forced to cope
with conditions in the way they did, or go to the wall. They make the
mistake of believing that the practices are still necessary to-day."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, a great hope rising within her at these words. "Oh,
and you believe they are not!" His explanation seemed so simple, so
inspiring. And above and beyond that, he was sure. Conviction rang in
every word. Had he not, she remembered, staked his career by disagreeing
with his father? Yes, and he had been slow to condemn; he had seen their
side. It was they who condemned him. He must have justice--he should have
it!
"I believe such practices are not necessary now," he said firmly. "A new
generation has come--a generation more jealous of its political rights,
and not so willing to be rid of them by farming them out. A change has
taken place even in the older men, like Mr. Jenney and Mr. Redbrook, who
simply did not think about these questions ten years ago. Men of this
type, who could be leaders, are ready to assume their responsibilities,
are ready to deal fairly with railroads and citizens alike. This is a
matter of belief. I believe it--Mr. Flint and my father do not. They see
the politicians, and I see the people. I belong to one generation, and
they to another. With the convictions they have, added to the fact that
they are in a position of heavy responsibility toward the owners of their
property, they cannot be blamed for hesitating to try any experiments."
"And the practices are--bad?" Victoria asked.
"They are entirely subversive of the principles of American government,
to say the least," replied Austen, grimly. He was thinking of the pass
which Mr. Flint had sent him, and of the kind of men Mr. Flint employed
to make the practices effective.
They descended into the darkness of a deep valley, scored out between the
hills by one of the rushing tributaries of the Blue. The moon fell down
behind the opposite ridge, and the road ran through a deep forest. He no
longer saw the shades of meaning in her face, but in the blackness of
Erebus he could have sensed her presence at his side. Speech, though of
this strange kind of which neither felt the strangeness, had come and
gone between them, and now silence spoke as eloquently. Twice or thrice
their eyes met through the gloom,--and there was light. At length she
spoke with the impulsiveness in her voice that he found so appealing.
"You must see my father--you must talk to him. He doesn't know how fair
you are!"
To Austen the inference was obvious that Mr. Flint had conceived for him
a special animosity, which he must have mentioned to Victoria, and this
inference opened the way to a wide speculation in which he was at once
elated and depressed. Why had he been so singled out? And had Victoria
defended him? Once before he remembered that she had told him he must see
Mr. Flint. They had gained the ridge now, and the moon had risen again
for them, striking black shadows from the maples on the granite-cropped
pastures. A little farther on was a road which might have been called the
rear entrance to Fairview.
What was he to say?
"I am afraid Mr. Flint has other things to do than to see me," he
answered. "If he wished to see me, he would say so."
"Would you go to see him, if he were to ask you?" said Victoria.
"Yes," he replied, "but that is not likely to happen. Indeed, you are
giving my opinion entirely too much importance in your father's eyes," he
added, with an attempt to carry it off lightly; "there is no more reason
why he should care to discuss the subject with me than with any other
citizen of the State of my age who thinks as I do."
"Oh, yes, there is," said Victoria; "he regards you as a person whose
opinion has some weight. I am sure of that. He thinks of you as a person
of convictions--and he has heard things about you. You talked to him
once," she went on, astonished at her own boldness, "and made him angry.
Why don't you talk to him again?" she cried, seeing that Austen was
silent. "I am sure that what you said about the change of public opinion
in the State would appeal to him. And oh, don't quarrel with him! You
have a faculty of differing with people without quarrelling with them. My
father has so many cares, and he tries so hard to do right as he sees it.
You must remember that he was a poor farmer's son, and that he began to
work at fourteen in Brampton, running errands for a country printer. He
never had any advantages except those he made for himself, and he had to
fight his way in a hard school against men who were not always
honourable. It is no wonder that he sometimes takes--a material view of
things. But he is reasonable and willing to listen to what other men have
to say, if he is not antagonized."
"I understand," said Austen, who thought Mr. Flint blest in his advocate.
Indeed, Victoria's simple reference to her father's origin had touched
him deeply. "I understand, but I cannot go to him. There is every reason
why I cannot," he added, and she knew that he was speaking with
difficulty, as under great emotion.
"But if he should send for you?" she asked. She felt his look fixed upon
her with a strange intensity, and her heart leaped as she dropped her
eyes.
"If Mr. Flint should send for me," he answered slowly, "I would come--and
gladly. But it must be of his own free will."
Victoria repeated the words over to herself, "It must be of his own free
will," waiting until she should be alone to seek their full
interpretation. She turned, and looked across the lawn at Fairview House
shining in the light. In another minute they had drawn up before the open
door.
"Won't you come in--and wait for Mr. Jenney?" she asked.
He gazed down into her face, searchingly, and took her hand.
"Good night," he said; "Mr. Jenney is not far behind. I think--I think I
should like the walk."