THE MAYOR FINDS HIMSELF AT LAST
It was between three and four o'clock in the afternoon of the same day,
and the sun still shone dazzlingly on the deep, unblemished snow. All
morning long, the janitors of the Hall had been toiling through the
drifts with their shovels, leaving a narrow pathway behind them from
the southern extremity of the building to the street at the end of the
maple walk. Now, their heads and shoulders had ceased to rise and fall
above the bleak expanse.
Instead, a solitary figure could be seen advancing in the direction of
the college, seeming from a distance to be that of a child, and
reminding one of Little Red Riding-Hood in the fairy tale. The height
of the side walls of snow aided the distance in producing this
illusion. Upon coming nearer, one would have seen the child gradually
assume the stature of a woman, and had he been a citizen of Warwick, he
would have recognised Felicity Wycliffe.
Although, as a general thing, women were not wont to pass that way,
except to attend the chapel services of a Sunday or some public
ceremony, the bishop's daughter was free of the grounds by peculiar
rights, which no one dreamed of questioning. A group of students,
meeting her halfway, leaped gallantly into the snow waist-deep to let
her pass, and did not presume to question her mission or destination.
The wind had already begun to sift the fine snow into the bottom of the
trench, increasing the difficulty of her progress, and forming
innumerable little rifts and scallops in the white dunes that swelled
upward toward the skyline like the sands of the sea. Suddenly she
heard the harsh cawing of a flock of crows that passed overhead,
wheeling westward. The sound caused her heart to vibrate with a memory
of that wonderful October afternoon when she had listened with Leigh to
the same notes beneath the pines, and she shaded her eyes against the
sun to watch the course of the flock across the wide basin of the
valley. The notes grew less and less, no longer streperous but
strangely musical, and finally were heard no more, leaving her
oppressed by a sense of loneliness and desertion. Something akin to an
antique mood fell upon her, as if she had been given an augury of an
irreversible fate.
This spiritual quiescence, numbing her from a realisation of her
purpose, held until she disappeared into the huge archway of the tower
and began to ascend the narrow stairs. But here her spirit failed her,
and she paused. Standing motionless in the gloom, she could hear her
heart beating wildly, and the folly of her intention became apparent.
But the momentum of her original purpose presently urged her on, it
seemed against her will and better judgement, until she stood before
Leigh's half-open door. Had the door been closed, she might not have
been able to bring herself to knock, she might have turned and departed
as silently as she had come; but there was an invitation in this
accidental circumstance, to which the gleam of an open fire gave warmth
and persuasion.
Listening intently, she heard no sound from within. The few students
she had met on the hillside were the only ones she had seen, and she
guessed that the majority were still detained by their recitations. At
the end of the hour, he would doubtless return from a class. There was
time for her to recall what she wished to say and how she would begin.
Reassured by this reflection, she was about to enter, when the door on
the other side of the hall opened, and she turned to see Cardington's
tall figure against the light from within.
"I was listening for your step, Miss Felicity," he said, "having
observed your approach from my corner window, but you came as quietly
as a snowflake. This is an unexpected honour. It's a long time since
I have had the pleasure of a call from you; in fact, not since those
days of blessed memory when you were a little girl, and used to run up
to take a look at my pictures. But come in. Perhaps I can make you a
cup of afternoon tea."
She followed him into the room, and said nothing until he had closed
the door behind her. Then she flung back her hood with a sweep of her
hand and met his gaze steadily.
"You know I did n't come to see you, don't you?" she demanded with
quiet defiance.
"Far be it from me," he temporised, "to assume accurate knowledge of
anything as doubtful as the direction a charming young woman's favour
may take; but I thought it possible--I thought it possible--for old
sake's sake."
The repetition of the reminder touched her, in spite of her
preoccupation, and she glanced about the once familiar room with a
wistful kindling of the eyes.
"I used to come up here often, did n't I?" she mused. "And father knew
where to find me when he had finished his smoke and talk with the boys.
There 's the same old picture of the Alhambra you used to tell me
stories about." Her defiance was gone now, though her purpose still
held. "But I did n't come to see you this time; I shall--soon. I came
to see some one else."
"My dear child," he said, fixing her with a gaze of deep concern, "I am
old enough to be your father, am I not?"
She nodded silently, waiting for the lecture she felt she so well
deserved. Yet it was characteristic of their relationship that she
experienced no serious apprehension; she was too well aware of his
understanding and indulgence for that.
"But still," he continued, "I lack a few years of reaching the imposing
longevity of Methuselah."
She put out her hands in impulsive protest against this reference to
their difference in age, understanding the pain that underlay his
effort at jocularity. He took and retained them in his own, and his
colour deepened.
"This is a most embarrassing demonstration of affection," he commented.
"If any one should suddenly open the door, I fear his surprise would be
very great. Now, is it not fortunate that my room is opposite that of
my young colleague, rather than the room of some other person less well
disposed, less a friend, I may say, to you both?"
"I 'm sure it is," she answered. "If any one else had been living in
this room, I would never have ventured"--
"Exactly. No one else, perhaps, has had my opportunities for
understanding you. Now, on the basis of our long acquaintance, and
because of my deep attachment to yourself and your father, I wish to
urge you to reconsider your intention of making any other call this
afternoon."
"I shall have to use my own judgement," she returned, without
flinching. "I am in great perplexity--you don't know."
"I do know," he retorted, "and perhaps the time has come for me to tell
you so. A wanderer like myself comes across many unexpected things in
the course of his peregrinations. Shall I tell you how, while looking
for some records of my family in an old New York church, secretly
indulging the genealogical mania I am wont to deride, I lighted upon a
record I did not think to find--the record of the marriage of one who
is very dear to me?"
"Then you knew all the time! I almost thought so--often."
"Not all the time," he corrected, "though for what seemed a very long
time, while I waited for the bolt to fall on your father's unsuspecting
head. Perhaps, Felicity, you will accept it as a proof of my devotion
to you that I did not consider it my duty to enlighten your father. If
I can be of any assistance to you even now--but I am an outsider. I
merely wish to assure you of my unswerving--friendship."
"Don't make me cry," she protested, with a shaken little laugh. She
bit her lip and winked back the starting tears. "Father knows now--and
you know--and I am going to tell Mr. Leigh."
"Well, well," he answered, "I say no more." His eyes searched her face
earnestly, and he began to shake her hands, which he had retained in
his own from the time she put them there. "You must redeem your
promise to come and see me again, I hope under happier circumstances."
He flung open the door with suspicious haste, and bowed her out in his
ceremonious way.
She found herself facing the same beckoning firelight, with the same
reassuring silence about her. In addition she felt a new comfort and
an unexpected permission from the recent interview. Without further
hesitation, she stepped across the threshold and quietly closed the
door behind her.
She was still somewhat shaken by the emotions she had just experienced,
but this change of scene brought different sensations and dried her
tears. Her first feeling was one of intense relief. Here she was,
whether wisely or not she could not tell, but she was glad she had
come. She advanced to the centre of the room, and gazed about her at
the objects that were his. The first thing that always struck her in
any room was its pictures, and here she saw a number of famous
astronomers and mathematicians, stiffly arranged in chronological
order. There were no Venetian scenes or cathedrals, but above the
fireplace she saw an etching of the library of his _alma mater_,
surmounted by his college flag.
What a contrast to the room she called her own! The very atmosphere
was different, for mingled with the odour of burning logs she detected
a suggestion of tobacco smoke, so faint that only a woman would have
perceived it. The simplicity of the place, the absence of ornate
decoration, was like him, she reflected. Artistic herself to an
exceptional degree, she had never cared for men who possessed an equal
knowledge of such things; they were either professional artists, or
somehow less than manly.
She was familiar with the rooms of St. George's Hall, and knew to a
nicety what furniture and pictures and hangings were best suited to the
suggestions inherent in the deep stone windows, the small, leaded
panes, the massive fireplaces. Of these things she saw no examples;
but on the large desk, littered with a profusion of books and pipes and
papers, her glance was arrested by the sight of several candlesticks of
various sizes and of beautiful workmanship. She was struck by this as
by a psychological singularity, and counted the number--four on the
table and three others on the mantel, seven in all, the number
freighted with so many religious associations. She wondered whether
there were some astronomical association also. Were there seven stars
in the Pleiades?
She went to the window and stood looking out at the shadow of the Hall,
creeping more rapidly now toward the edge of the plateau. The austere
gloom of the scene, the strange, red light of the sunset striking
across the eastern valley to the vague blue hills on the horizon, were
unutterably sad, and her desolate mood returned, shot through by fear
as the time of his arrival became a matter of moments. What was she to
say to him? What would he think? Was there yet time to change her
mind and make her escape?
Suddenly the voices of students were heard below and the crunching of
their steps along the path, She had lingered too long and must abide
the issue, for presently she heard him coming up the stairs. Then she
thought that it he was buoyant, if he entered light-heartedly, she
would leave without a word, cured of her fancy that he loved her. The
door opened slowly, and she remained motionless where she stood, her
hands resting on the cold stone window-ledge, her eyes fixed intently
on the distant hills. But all her senses were conscious of him. She
felt that she could see him, that he too was sad, that she heard him
sigh, though the only sound in the room during his moment of speechless
surprise was the purring of the flames in the fireplace.
"Miss Wycliffe," he ventured doubtfully.
Remembering his experience in the mist, he had almost believed that he
was again the victim of an hallucination, but her swift turning, her
illuminating smile, were very different from that ghostly vanishing.
"How extraordinary you will think it of me, Mr. Leigh," she said,
coming toward him, "to call on you in this fashion." She stood near
him, her hands involved in the folds of her cloak, her bearing one of
spontaneity and candour. He pulled off his cap and stood waiting.
None of the conventional greetings passed between them. He did not
even ask her to be seated, so great was his bewilderment, his anxiety
to know why she had come. The emotion that had stirred her in
Cardington's room seemed gone now. Her smile conveyed an humorous
appreciation of her unconventional act. The gaze of her eyes was
spiritual and clear.
"I have come to you as to a friend," she explained with sweet
seriousness. "You know the trouble I have brought upon myself, upon my
father, upon Mr. Emmet, upon every one. I am in great distress of
mind. I want to do the right thing, if it is possible to right so much
wrong at this late date. I have become confused as to my duty. My
husband thinks one thing--my father thinks another--and I don't know
what I ought to do. You have been in Mr. Emmet's confidence and in
mine. I want you to give me your advice."
"Perhaps you should have chosen a more disinterested judge, Miss
Wycliffe," he returned; "but you were right at least in feeling that
you could come to me as to a friend. In fact, I was thinking of coming
to you, perhaps not altogether as a mere friend--but let that go now.
Why should n't one who would have been something nearer, if it had been
possible, be at least that? And more--I am grateful to you for giving
me this opportunity. I take it as a proof that you have restored me in
some measure to your confidence, after I had deserved to lose it
entirely."
In reality, there had been no doubt in her mind in regard to her
husband, though possibly she would have denied, even to herself, that
her decision was formed before she came with the problem to the man
that loved her. It was not her duty to Emmet that distressed her, but
whether Leigh loved her still. This was what she wished to know, and
now his manner told her more than his words.
"Don't say you deserved to lose my confidence," she protested quickly.
"It was I who deserved to lose yours."
The attitude her coming demanded of him was cruelly difficult to
maintain, and he sought help from action.
"We 'll let bygones be bygones, then," he answered brusquely; but his
brusqueness pleased her. "Take this chair by the fire."
"The question is one of duty," she began again.
He flung himself into another chair on the opposite side of the
fireplace, locked his fingers about one knee, and regarded her
judicially, as if his whole mind were concentrated upon the problem she
was stating. In reality, he was absorbed by the extraordinary nature
of the situation, and lost in admiration of the picture she presented.
Were she posing for a portrait to be painted, she could not have chosen
her position more effectively. The firelight brought out a golden tone
from her brown skirt. It was lost in the softness of her velvet waist
and hair, to reappear mysteriously in her eyes. She had thrown her
crimson cloak over the back of the chair, and it formed a rippling band
of colour on each side of her figure. Surely, here was a Portrait of a
Lady that would have made an artist famous, could he have done it to
the life.
She spoke of her struggle with Emmet as it she were stating an
hypothetical case for his dispassionate consideration. Her apparent
coolness filled him with amazement, but he recognised that she had
adopted the only attitude that could justify the interview and preserve
her own dignity. His emotions were held in suspension; he even felt he
had none, so compelling was the effect of her serious and impersonal
frankness. Yet he saw she was not really frank with him. She omitted
entirely to mention certain elements in the situation which she must
have known that he knew from her husband's confession to him.
His eyes, fixed upon her own, were filled with speculation, and he was
unconscious of the inquisitorial effect they produced upon her. He was
thinking how very different she was from what he had at first supposed,
and how this gradual opening of his eyes to hitherto unsuspected vistas
of her character had not changed for one moment the fact of his love
for her. She might vacillate and doubt,--she seemed to do so now,--but
questionings, retreats, advances, refusals, were for women.
Finally, she spoke of the possibility of going back to Emmet, and he
felt that he could not bear it. It was this very thing which he had
decided to protest against, and now his opportunity had come. Every
word tortured him, filled him with fury against her for the folly of
such a sacrifice, with fury also against the fate that forbade him to
plead his own cause and to open her eyes to her husband's motives. He
arose from his chair and began to pace the room feverishly, tempted
each moment to pause, to throw himself at her feet, and to beg her to
love him alone. Would he only lose her thus, and gain her contempt as
well?
Felicity ceased speaking, looked into the fire with a musing and
thoughtful gaze, smoothing absently the fingers of her gloves, and
waited for the opinion she had asked him to give. She was more than
satisfied now, even a little afraid of the possible expression of the
love she had wished to prove. She had tempted him once before, and he
had yielded; now she was making another impossible demand upon his
self-restraint, calmly asking him to ignore the truth of their own
relationship while she discussed her false duty to another. Suddenly
he stood before her, and she looked up to encounter his eyes, which
seemed to burn with a blue flame in the intensity of his emotion.
"You can't be so foolish as to go back to him!" he cried. "I tell you,
Felicity, it's worse than folly--it's wickedness. I love you, and he
doesn't--I won't let him have you!"
"Oh, don't!" she protested, rising hurriedly in her turn. "I ought not
to have come--how dark it has grown!--I must be going. What shall I
do? He refuses to give me up, and--and I am afraid of him!"
The scene on the edge of the cliff had come back to her mind with new
and terrible force, all the more portentous as she seemed now to have
seen her way of escape made clear. And her husband's face in the
moonlight, when she fled from him in panic into the house! Finally,
his parting threat that very morning, in which he had involved this man
whom she loved. Leigh's arm went about her, and her head rested
against his breast. He bent over her, intoxicated by the fragrance of
her hair and kissing it passionately.
"All questions and doubts are solved in this," he murmured. "It is
different this time, is it not, my darling? What is the use of more
words? We understand each other now." He held her from him. "Look up
into my eyes," he commanded, with reckless exultation. "Your eyes
blind me; how wonderful they are! Do you know what I was thinking, all
the time you were talking to me about Emmet? I was n't half
listening--I was imagining that you were my wife and not his, sitting
with me by the fire. I allowed myself to see things, not as they were,
but as they ought to be, as they shall be!"
"I was a proud woman once," she faltered, "but I have no right to be
proud any more. If you will only understand me, if you will only love
me always as you do now, I shall not care for anything else. Tell me
you were to blame, too, and save me some remnant of my self-respect."
"Blame!" he echoed contemptuously. "See, my darling, how I kiss away
your tears. Poor child, so storm-tossed, so troubled! Have we not
dealt enough with words, while all the time this was the only reality?
Can you talk of blame on either side, Felicity, when we love each other
as we do?" In that moment of happiness he could not bring himself to
tell her of the letter in his pocket that gave him permission to join
the expedition to Egypt. He had still a few days to spare, and though
he was resolved to go, he would not throw the shadow of separation over
their first perfect understanding. That very afternoon he had arranged
with Dr. Renshaw for his substitute, and had made his final plans. He
would have gone to her to-morrow with the news, but now he would wait
until to-morrow before he spoke.
Silence had fallen between them when they heard the sound of footsteps
ascending the stairs, buoyant and determined. They might be directed
to Cardington's room across the way, but the two listeners stood as if
frozen, waiting with strange foreboding for the issue. Then came a
loud knocking on the door.
They stood apart, and looked at each other with mute irresolution. The
knock was repeated, and before they could fortify themselves to meet
the crisis, the door opened and Emmet advanced boldly into the dim
light of the fire. Leigh stepped quickly between him and Felicity.
"What is the meaning of this intrusion, Mr. Emmet?" he asked quietly.
The bishop's daughter seemed to grow taller with scorn of the vulgar
outbreak and unseemly charges she believed to be inevitable, but her
husband raised his hand as if to ward off resentment, and Leigh saw in
a glance that he was no longer the man he had known. There was little
now of that bold, insistent personality which had once radiated a
compelling sense of power. His face seemed thinner, finer, almost
luminous with his purpose of renunciation. He looked at Leigh with
none of the fury of the outraged husband in his eyes, but rather with a
suggestion of sympathy and understanding.
"I 've been to the bishop's," he began abruptly. "I wanted to see him
and Felicity once more to take back all I said this morning, and to say
I would do as they wished. They were n't at home, and I guessed
somehow they might be here. Anyhow, even if they were n't, I wanted
you to know, Mr. Leigh, that I 'd given Felicity up. Never mind
why,--that's my affair,--but it's right for every one concerned. I 'll
not be the dog in the manger any longer. You were intended for her,
and she for you. I knew it long ago, though I would n't admit it; and
after all this trouble is over, you 'll be happy together"--His voice
died away, and having taken a step aside to bring Felicity within range
of his vision, he stood looking from one to the other with an
expression which prophesied the spiritual aloofness he might one day
attain.
"Felicity," he said, "you 'll not have reason to fear me any more. It
's clear sailing for us both now. And don't reproach yourself. The
account is more than square. You 've not been as much to blame as I
have,--be sure of that."
It seemed, however, to be more with Leigh than with Felicity that he
was concerned at the last, and he shook hands with him lingeringly, as
if he would show that under happier circumstances, had a woman not come
between them, they would have been the friends they were meant to be.
The astronomer felt this, as if the message had been spoken, and
followed his visitor to the door with scarcely articulate words of
appreciation. But Emmet, having accomplished his purpose, was anxious
to be gone, and making his exit with unceremonious haste, he ran
rapidly down the stairs.
He had not reached the northern end of the Hall before two other
figures emerged from the blackness of the archway into the snowy
twilight and turned in the same direction. Felicity had not allowed
herself to remain a moment longer than was necessary, with Leigh, after
her husband's departure; he had returned from seeing his visitor to the
door to find her cloaked and ready. He appreciated the situation too
well to attempt to detain her, or even to comment upon Emmet's
extraordinary change of front and her impending freedom. He knew that
she too, like himself, was crushed by her husband's magnanimity, and
that all mention of love between them was an impossibility for the
time. While their love seemed hopeless, he had kissed her in wild
revolt and farewell, but now he found it possible to wait. He
experienced a curious joy in a realisation of the fact that she fell
short of the perfection he had once assumed in her. From her faults he
took heart of grace, and was saved from being over-powered by her
beauty.
As he looked at Emmet's sturdy figure plunging on before them, now lost
in shadow, now passing through a bar of light that shone from a
student's window, he wondered at the man's surrender of one who was to
him a treasure-house into which were gathered all the beauty and
mystery and fascination of women. The future held much of uncertainty
for him, but his love was safe.
This final act of the drama, which was, after all, only the centrepiece
of a trilogy, built on a drama acted before Leigh's entrance to the
scene, and promising another in the future, was played more below the
surface than above. Not one tenth of the things that might have been
said was actually spoken; the greater part was unexpressed, perhaps
unexpressible. But to the young astronomer, Nature herself, never
wholly mute, was full of interpretative music. If the wind was ever a
paean of victory, it was such to him as they emerged from the shelter
of the Hall and received the full force of its robust and joyful blast;
if the familiar stars ever sang in their courses, they sang to him now.
From time to time his hand met that of the woman he loved in a clinging
touch, as he turned to help her through a drift that had risen since
she passed that way, and this progress seemed to his warm imagination
an allegory of their future life together.
They neared the end of the maple walk, and the mayor's dark figure
became partially obscured by the bulk of his waiting sleigh. The next
moment he was standing upright within it, arranging the blanket about
him, seeming larger than human against the whiteness beyond. He sank
into his seat and gathered up the reins. They heard him speak to his
horse in his confidential way; there was a cheerful burst of silvery
bells, and the sleigh began to move rapidly down the hill.
As Leigh watched the vanishing figure, his heart was smitten by a keen
regret, for he felt that a man of heroic quality, known only when lost,
was passing out of his life forever.