THE FISHING PARTY.
Cora’s motive for trying that black pony on the lawn was explained the
next morning, when Clarence Brooks came riding up the carriage road on a
horse that might have matched that spirited animal in everything but
size. Before he reached the house, Cora came forth, equipped for the
road and looking bright as the morning. She stood leaning against one of
the marble pillars when Brooks came up,—the long skirt sweeping far back
on the white pavement and her lithe figure defined by a closely-fitting
habit, to which a profusion of gold buttons gave dash and character. The
tiny cravat about her throat, and piquant hat curled up at the sides,
gave graceful dignity to what might otherwise have been masculine in
this costume. But now, from the gauntlet gloves on her hands to the
riding whip, mounted with a thick branch of blood-red coral, her
appearance was exquisitely complete.
Brooks must have been less than a man—or more—had he not checked his
horse a little, that he might leisurely admire that beautiful woman,
posed so gracefully against the marble column. It was a sight which
brought the breath quickly to his lips. She saw it all, the sudden
check, the look of intense admiration, that touch of the spur which
brought the horse so near that she could almost lay her hand on his
neck.
“So I find you ready and waiting, five minutes before the time,” said
Brooks, dismounting and looking at his watch. “What a glorious morning!”
“Too bright for me to remain indoors one moment after my habit was on,”
she answered. “Oh, here comes my demon of the stables with Blackbird. I
gave him—the horse, I mean—a trial yesterday on the lawn, and he nearly
mastered me.”
“I hope he is not vicious,” said Brooks, casting a sharp look at the
horse.
“No, I think not. After our little encounter, I fancy he will be gentle
enough. Hold him firmly, Mr. Hurd. He seems in capital condition this
morning—does you credit.”
She came down to the side of her horse, and lifting one hand to the
saddle, placed her foot in the hand which Brooks presented to her. In
one instant she was seated and arranging the folds of her skirt.
“Now,” she said, drawing the curb, for she had no objection to a second
exhibition of the animal’s spirit, so that it was not too violent.
“Now.”
The horse shook his head, gave a leap, and came into subjection
gracefully after the first minute.
“Isn’t he a beauty?” she cried. “But I need not ask; I see by your eyes
how much you admire him.”
“If my eyes express so much, I must be careful in your presence, Miss
Lander, or they will tell secrets I would rather keep to myself.”
She laughed, blushed a little, and busied herself with the button of her
gauntlet, while her horse struck into an easy canter.
It was indeed a glorious day, the softest and brightest of a long Indian
Summer; the scent of ripe leaves and such flowers as give their best
perfume to the frost floated on the air; great forest trees, blazoned
like war banners, waved above them, and their horses sometimes waded
fetlock deep in the floating leaves, dyed richly as the garments of an
Eastern Satrap. Through these gorgeous woods, up the sloping hills and
along the river, they rode at random. Wherever a picturesque curve or
tempting by-path presented itself they explored it, conversing seriously
or laughing off the rare exuberance of spirits that a ride so pleasant
and a morning so lovely were sure to produce in two healthy young people
disposed to be pleased with each other. Still any one who had observed
Brooks closely under the chestnut tree and on horseback would have seen
a difference, too subtle perhaps for words, but marked and easy of
detection for all that. With the girl riding so masterfully on her black
horse, this man of the world exerted all that was brilliant and
superficial in his character; compliments such as only very clever men
can utter fell easily from his lips. With Cora he was gay, careless,
full of graceful badinage. He saw that she wished to be admired, and
fulfilled all her desires in that respect to the utmost, no difficult
matter where the woman was so handsome and matched him so nearly in the
character of her wit. With Virginia he had been no less cheerful, no
less gallant—but underlying all was that impulsive respect and tender
sympathy which draw noble hearts close together. He was playful with
her, but never extravagant; if he felt the general effect of her great
beauty, the feeling was not once expressed in words. In fact it would
have been difficult to define what it was that distinguished the
loveliness of these two girls. Certainly form or color had but little
share in the difference.
Well, that ride through the autumnal beauty of the woods was a success
to be remembered for many a day after. But Cora was dissatisfied when
she laid her hand on Clarence Brooks’ shoulder, and leaped from her
horse on the marble pavement where she had waited for him that morning.
Again she posed herself against the pillar and watched that noble figure
as horse and man swept out of sight.
“Will the man never act earnestly? Does he think I am worth nothing
better than the froth and foam of his mind? Who is he saving the wine
for, I wonder? He trifles with me. Does he think I have no ideas, no
feeling? Seymour at least let me look into his soul. But this man—why
his very carelessness defies me. Such a morning—such opportunities, and
not a word spoken beneath the breath or with real seriousness. Yet these
careless outflashes of a superior intellect sicken me with all other
homage. The man shall love me, though it breaks his heart. He shall love
me!” The woman checked herself an instant and sneered inly at her own
wickedness. “Me, another man’s wife!”
She went in then, and, as a panacea for such thoughts, read over her
husband’s letter with the image of a tall, gray-eyed man on horseback
between her and the writer, shutting out all that wonderful beauty of
person which had enthralled her so only a few months before.
Why did Brooks keep his interview with Virginia a secret? He told
himself that she had requested it, but it is very doubtful if he would
have said a word about it even if no hint had been given him on the
subject. This encounter in the woods was to him a bit of romance which
would lose its charm if talked over in commonplace words with any one.
He had found the cabin by accident, having discovered the footpath which
Seymour had trodden along the brook while smoking a cigar on the back
porch, to which his room opened by the door, half sash, half panelling,
which had proved so convenient in another romance that we know of, but
which was so carefully kept out of sight at this period. Springing over
the low railing of the porch, Brooks had sauntered up the path, smoking
as he went; now and then he stooped to watch the eddies of the brook and
wondered if any of its sparkling pools covered trout worth the trouble
of catching; then he looked upward into the gorgeous roofing of the
trees which let glimpses of the blue sky in here and there, with stray
gleams of sunshine searching for the rainbows that seemed to have got
entangled in the leaves.
Of course all this threw the man into a certain train of thought which
had both sadness and poetry in it. He muttered to himself: “The
melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year.” Then walked on
again, thinking of his friend, whose terrible fate haunted him at such
times, and wondering if he ever should love the young woman he had seen
well enough to make her his wife, for this had been the romantic wish of
the man whom he had regarded almost as a father. A heavy sigh answered
this question, or rather left it unanswered, for the heart that sent it
forth was disturbed by many doubts in which the lady was concerned.
For a long time the young man sat down on a curve of the bank, opposite
an elm tree, over which a frost grape-vine had wound and crept, and
thrown itself in such leafiness that it flung a broken arch across the
ravine; along the drooping boughs long slender clusters hung profusely,
with the frost, that alone ripens them, covering their purple with its
own shimmering bloom.
Brooks flung away his cigar and began to sketch this pretty object on
the back of an envelope.
“Now, if I were an artist, like that young Howe, whose sketches of bits
like this have made the English fellows look about them in astonishment,
this tree with its trailing fruit and leaves, would make my reputation.
It really is exquisite!”
After working away with his pencil awhile, he became dissatisfied with
his effort, flung the envelope into the brook and sauntered up the path
till the cabin and bridge came in full view, with the huge old chestnut
tree spreading its boughs over one, and that group of hemlocks
embowering the other.
“Upon my word, here is something like rustic taste!” he exclaimed, in a
burst of surprise. “Why the bridge is a gem; as for the cabin I must
explore that; what a fanciful mockery it is!”
The bank was steep and the path rough, but Brooks was no holiday man to
dread a little exertion. So he caught hold of a branch, lifted himself
upward, and reached the cabin with his breath coming a little quicker
from the exertion. Not three minutes after, Virginia Lander and Ellen
came down the bank and showed themselves under the chestnut tree.
This was the morning that Brooks was contrasting with his ride that day,
as he walked his horse toward the little hotel.
“I wonder if they will really care enough about the chestnuts to think
of gathering them,” he thought, when an early dinner had been disposed
of. “At any rate I may as well take a walk up the ravine. It is a shame
to waste one moment of all this delicious weather indoors.”
There was no loitering along the path that afternoon. Even the frost
grape-vine, bending the stout tree under its tendrils, as love bows a
strong man, failed to win more than a passing glance from him. The most
beautiful thing, to him, in the woods was a huge old chestnut tree,
bristling all over with open burs, its enormous limbs stretching far and
wide, and the ground under it thick with long yellow leaves.
He came in sight of this tree, uttered a quick exclamation, and hurried
on. A basket stood on the stone-work of the bridge, and two girls were
busy among the leaves picking up chestnuts.
I cannot permit any one to say or think one word against Virginia or
Ellen for thus deliberately meeting this gentleman that afternoon. It
was not the careless act of two thoughtless girls, ready to amuse
themselves at any cost, but a thing they had both considered over and
resolved on. To Virginia, her father’s letter was almost a command. He
expected her to see and like this man, who was his bosom friend, and
this out-door acquaintance was all she could offer him without openly
accepting the false position given her in that house. That she could not
and would not do. But chance had thrown this man, whom her father loved,
into her companionship. Without formal introduction, they had met,
conversed, and fallen into cordial relations. Why should she refuse to
see him again? Why deprive herself of the only happiness that had
crossed her dreary path since that terrible shipwreck? To her there
seemed to be something providential in the accident that had thrown them
together. She felt it a sacred duly to know and like the man who seemed
to come to her with a message from the dead. Of course Virginia did not
understand the full meaning of that letter as Brooks understood it. To
her those hints and broken sentences, which he connected with previous
conversations, were vague and might have applied to fifty things of
which she was ignorant. They really made no impression on her mind more
than the rest of the letter. Cora had understood everything at the first
glance, but the purer and better girl never dreamed that her father had
for years selected Clarence Brooks as her husband.
So there really was nothing unmaidenly in the fact that she went,
deliberately and with throbs of pleasant expectation, down to the woods
that afternoon. She had seen Brooks riding off with Cora in the morning
from her chamber window, and a strange feeling of sadness came over her
at the sight. It was hard to know that another person was usurping her
place—harder than she had ever felt it before. Cora’s clear, ringing
laugh came back to where she stood as she rode gaily down the drive.
They were splendidly mated, she could not deny that, and a finer couple
could not have been found within a hundred miles. But her heart sank and
a sense of the wrong done her grew bitter as death in her bosom. She was
restless all that morning, and when she spoke the tears rushed so close
to her eyes that Ellen grew sad at heart every time she looked up from
her writing.
So the two girls kept their promise and went down to the stone bridge,
innocent as birds, and came back almost as happy. Such a day for nutting
did not often present itself, yet so little had been done in reality.
There had been another long conversation among the ferns and a visit to
the frost grape-vine, which Virginia sketched on a bit of Bristol board
taken from her memorandum book, with a touch and finish that made Brooks
doubly ashamed of the scrap he had thrown away.
Would she give it to him? Why, of course, that was what she had taken it
for. Not worth offering, but if he liked it, she would bring down
materials to-morrow and sketch the bridge and cabin, with that dear old
chestnut tree, just as it was. Some time, perhaps, it would serve to
remind him of her and Ellen.
So, in this innocent fashion, a meeting was arranged for the next day.
It took a long time, I must confess, to gather up all the chestnuts,
though the pile in the log cabin grew larger and larger every day for a
full week. Then work grew rather dull in the woods. The frost grapes
were a resource, but grapes would not last forever, deliciously ripe as
the clusters were, and when they gave out, what was to be done? Brooks
bethought himself of a pic-nic for three, all the preparations to be
left for his superintendence, and some fishing in the brook the day
after, for he solemnly believed that trout were to be found higher up
the ravine. At any rate, it was worth trying. On second thought, they
would have the fishing first, and after that the pic-nic; the trout
would be so nice cooked by a fire in the woods, that was, if they caught
any. Virginia scarcely believed that there was trout in the brook. But
then, to be sure, she had been away for so many years that some change
was to be expected.
Well, the next afternoon was devoted to exploring the brook; poles had
been provided, and a case of flies quite enchanted the girls as a matter
of high art. So away the trio went up the banks of the brook, casting
out their lines and dancing the flies about after a fashion that would
have fascinated the most wary trout to his undoing, if any fish of the
kind had taken shelter in those bright waters. But coquettes without
beaus, and artistic flies in a stream which produces nothing but shiners
and pin-fishes, must necessarily be at a discount. Still it is hard to
discourage a man who in his heart expects nothing.
Clarence Brooks expressed himself as hopeful that plenty of trout could
be found higher up the stream, and the girls, having great faith in his
judgment, acquiesced. If they caught nothing at last, it was no fault of
his. Besides, a fine, breezy walk, with bright, ripe leaves showering
over them at every step, was compensation enough for any fatigue they
might have felt. So, after all, the fishing excursion was not exactly a
failure. Indeed, but for the shame of it, Virginia would have pronounced
the whole affair a brilliant success.
As for Brooks, he went home that night and instead of going up to the
house, where Cora sat ready to charm him with unlimited music, such
music too! he spent the whole evening alone on that back stoop, so lost
in thought that the cigar went out between his lips, and it was midnight
before he became aware of it.