"What did you say my name was?" he said.
"Ole 'Str--" She paused at the look of pain on his face, shifted
uneasily from one foot to the other, and relapsed into embarrassed
silence.
"Nem min'! dee'll know it--dee'll know me 'dout any name, oon dee?" He
appealed wistfully to them both. The woman for answer unfolded the
shirt. He moved feebly, as if in assent.
"I so tired waitin'," he whispered; "done 'mos gin out, an' he oon
come; but I thought I heah little Eph to-day?" There was a faint
inquiry in his voice.
"Yes, he wuz heah."
"Wuz he?" The languid form became instantly alert, the tired face took
on a look of eager expectancy. "Heah, gi'm'y shut quick. I knowed it.
Wait; go over dyah, son, and git me dat money. He'll be heah torectly."
They thought his mind wandered, and merely followed the direction of
his eyes with theirs. "Go over dyah quick--don't you heah me?"
And to humor him Ephraim went over to the corner indicated.
"Retch up dyah, an' run you' hand in onder de second jice. It's all in
dyah," he said to the woman--"twelve hunderd dollars--dat's what dee
went for. I wucked night an' day forty year to save dat money for
marster; you know dee teck all he land an' all he niggers an' tu'n him
out in de old fiel'? I put 'tin dyah 'ginst he come. You ain' know he
comin' dis evenin', is you? Heah, help me on wid dat shut, gal--I
stan'in' heah talkin' an' maybe ole marster waitin'. Push de do' open
so you kin see. Forty year ago," he murmured, as Polly jammed the door
back and returned to his side--"forty year ago dee come an' leveled on
me: marster sutny did cry. 'Nem min',' he said, 'I comin' right down in
de summer to buy you back an' bring you home.' He's comin', too--nuver
tol' me a lie in he life--comin' dis evenin.' Make 'aste." This in
tremulous eagerness to the woman, who had involuntarily caught the
feeling, and was now with eager and ineffectual haste trying to button
his shirt.
An exclamation from her husband caused her to turn around, as he
stepped into the light and held up an old sock filled with something.
"Heah, hoi you' apron," said the old man to Polly, who gathered up the
lower corners of her apron and stood nearer the bed.
"Po' it in dyah." This to Ephraim, who mechanically obeyed. He pulled
off the string, and poured into his wife's lap the heap of glittering
coin--gold and silver more than their eyes had ever seen before.
"Hit's all dyah," said the old man, confidentially, as if he were
rendering an account. "I been savin' it ever sence dee took me 'way. I
so busy savin' it I ain' had time to eat, but I ain' hongry now; have
plenty when I git home." He sank back exhausted. "Oon marster be glad
to see me?" he asked presently in pathetic simplicity. "You know we
grewed up to-gerr? I been waitin' so long I 'feared dee 'mos' done
forgit me. You reckon dee is?" he asked the woman, appealingly.
"No, suh, dee ain' forgit you," she said, comfortingly.
"I know dee ain'," he said, reassured. "Dat's what he tell me--he ain'
nuver gwine forgit me." The reaction had set in, and his voice was so
feeble now it was scarcely audible. He was talking rather to himself
than to them, and finally he sank into a doze. A painful silence
reigned in the little hut, in which the only sign was the breathing of
the dying man. A single shaft of light stole down under the edge of the
slowly passing cloud and slipped up to the door. Suddenly the sleeper
waked with a start, and gazed around.
"Hit gittin' mighty dark," he whispered, faintly. "You reckon dee'll
git heah 'fo' dark?"
The light was dying from his eyes.
"Ephum," said the woman, softly, to her husband.
The effect was electrical.
"Heish! you heah dat!" exclaimed the dying man, eagerly.
"Ephum"--she repeated. The rest was drowned by Ole 'Stracted's joyous
exclamation.
"Gord! I knowed it!" he cried, suddenly rising upright, and, with
beaming face, stretching both arms toward the door. "Dyah dee come! Now
watch 'em smile. All y'all jes stand back. Heah de one you lookin' for.
Marster--Mymy--heah's Little Ephum!" And with a smile on his face he
sank back into his son's arms.
The evening sun, dropping on the instant to his setting, flooded the
room with light; but as Ephraim gently eased him down and drew his arm
from around him, it was the light of the unending morning that was on
his face. His Master had at last come for him, and after his long
waiting, Ole 'Stracted had indeed gone home.
OUR CONSUL AT CARLSRUHE
-----------------------
BY F. J. STIMSON
_Frederic Jesup Stimson is a prominent lawyer of Boston. He is a member
of the New York and Boston bars and is a special lecturer at Harvard.
He has been more or less identified with State politics in
Massachusetts for a great many years, was Assistant Attorney-General of
the State in 1884-85, general counsel to the United States Industrial
Commission, and Democratic candidate for Congress in 1902. In addition
to being the author of several novels, essays, etc., Mr. Stimson has
written a number of law books. His earlier novels were published under
the pen-name of "J. S. of Dale." Mr. Stimsorfs latest novel is entitled
"In Cure of Her Soul". The hero of the story, Austin Pinckney, is a son
of the "Consul at Carlsruhe."_
OUR CONSUL AT CARLSRUHE
BY F. J. STIMSON ("J. S. OF DALE")
[Footnote: By permission of the publishers, from "The Sentimental
Calendar," by J. S. of Dale (F. J. Stimson). Copyright, 1886, by
Charles Scribner's Sons.]
DIED.--_In Baden, Germany, the 22d instant, Charles Austin Pinckney,
late U. S. Consul at Carlsruhe, aged sixty years._
There: most stories of men's lives end with the epitaph, but this of
Pinckney's shall begin there. If we, as haply God or Devil can, could
unroof the houses of men's souls, if their visible works were of their
hearts rather than their brains, we should know strange things. And
this alone, of all the possible, is certain. For bethink you, how men
appear to their Creator, as He looks down into the soul, that matrix of
their visible lives we find so hard to localize and yet so sure to be.
For all of us believe in self, and few of us but are forced, one way or
another, to grant existence to some selves outside of us. Can you not
fancy that men's souls, like their farms, would show here a patch of
grain, and there the tares; there the weeds and here the sowing; over
this place the rain has been, and that other, to one looking down upon
it from afar, seems brown and desolate, wasted by fire or made arid by
the drought? In this man's life is a poor beginning, but a better end;
in this other's we see the foundations, the staging, and the schemes of
mighty structures, now stopped, given over, or abandoned; of vessels,
fashioned for the world's seas, now rotting on the stocks. Of this one
all seems ready but the launching, of that the large keelson only has
been laid; but both alike have died unborn, and the rain falls upon
them, and the mosses grow: the sound of labor is far off, and the scene
of work is silent. Small laws make great changes; slight differences of
adjustment end quick in death. Small, now, they would seem to us; but
to the infinite mind all things small and great are alike; the spore of
rust in the ear is very slight, but a famine in the corn will shake the
world.
Pinckney's life the world called lazy; his leisure was not fruitful,
and his sixty years of life were but a gentleman's. Some slight lesion
may have caused paralysis of energy, some clot of heart's blood pressed
upon the soul: I make no doubt our doctors could diagnose it, if they
knew a little more. Tall and slender, he had a strange face, a face
with a young man's beauty; his white hair gave a charm to the rare
smile, like new snow to the spring, and the slight stoop with which he
walked was but a grace the more. In short, Pinckney was interesting.
Women raved about him; young men fell in love with him; and if he was
selfish, the fault lay between him and his Maker, not visible to other
men. There are three things that make a man interesting in his old age:
the first, being heroism, we may put aside; but the other two are
regret and remorse. Now, Mr. Pinckney's fragrance was not of remorse--
women and young men would have called it heroism: it may have been. As
much heroism as could be practiced in thirty-six years of Carlsruhe.
Why Carlsruhe? That was the keynote of inquiry; and no one knew. Old
men spoke unctuously of youthful scandals; women dreamed. I suspect
even Mrs. Pinckney wondered, about as much as the plowed field may
wonder at the silence of the autumn. But Pinckney limped gracefully
about the sleepy avenues which converge at the Grand Duke's palace,
like a wakeful page in the castle of the Sleeping Beauty. Pinckney was
a friend of the Grand Duke's, and perhaps it was a certain American
flavor persisting in his manners which made him seem the only man at
the Baden court who met his arch-serene altitude on equal terms. For
one who had done nothing and possessed little, Pinckney certainly
preserved a marvelous personal dignity. His four daughters were all
married to scions of Teutonic nobility; and each one in turn had asked
him for the Pinckney arms, and quartered them into the appropriate
check-square with as much grave satisfaction as he felt for the far-off
patch of Hohenzollern, or of Hapsburg in sinister chief. Pinckney had
laughed at it and referred them to the Declaration of Independence,
clause the first; but his wife had copied them from some spoon or sugar
bowl. She was very fond of Pinckney, and no more questioned him why
they always lived in Carlsruhe than a Persian would the sun for rising
east. Now and then they went to Baden, and her cup was full.
Pinckney died of a cold, unostentatiously, and was buried like a
gentleman; though the Grand Duke ac tually wanted to put the court in
mourning for three days, and consulted with his chamberlain whether it
would do. Mrs. Pinckney had preceded him by some six years; but she was
an appendage, and her husband's deference had always seemed in
Carlsruhe a trifle strained. It was only in these last six years that
any one had gossiped of remorse, in answer to the sphinx-like question
of his marble brow. Such questions vex the curious. Furrows trouble
nobody--money matters are enough f them; but white smoothness in old
age is a bait, and tickles curiosity. Some said at home he was a devil
and beat his wife.
But Pinckney never beat his wife. Late in the last twilight of her life
she had called him to her, and excluded even the four daughters, with
their stout and splendid barons; then, alone with him, she looked to
him and smiled. And suddenly his gentleman's heart took a jump, and the
tears fell on her still soft hands. I suppose some old road was opened
again in the gray matter of his brain. Mrs. Pinckney smiled the more
strongly and said--not quite so terribly as Mrs. Amos Barton: "Have I
made you happy, dearest Charles?" And Charles, the perfect-mannered,
said she had; but said it stammering. "Then," said she, "I die very
happily, dear." And she did; and Pinckney continued to live at
Carlsruhe.
The only activities of Pinckney's mind were critical. He was a
wonderful orator, but he rarely spoke. People said he could have been a
great writer, but he never wrote, at least nothing original. He was the
art and continental-drama critic of several English and American
reviews; in music, he was a Wagnerian, which debarred him from writing
of it except in German; but the little Court Theatre at Carlsruhe has
Wagner's portrait over the drop-curtain, and the consul's box was never
empty when the mighty heathen legends were declaimed or the holy music
of the Grail was sung. In fiction of the earnest sort, and poetry,
Pinckney's critical pen showed a marvelous magic, striking the scant
springs of the author's inspiration through the most rocky ground of
incident or style. He had a curious sympathy with youthful tenderness.
But, after all, as every young compatriot who went to Baden said, what
the deuce and all did he live in Baden for? Miles Breeze had said it in
'Fifty, when he made the grand tour with his young wife, and dined with
him in Baden-Baden; that is, when Breeze dined with him, for his young
wife was indisposed and could not go. Miles Breeze, junior, had said
it, as late as 'Seventy-six, when he went abroad, ostensibly for
instruction, after leaving college. He had letters to Mr. Pinckney, who
was very kind to the young Baltimorean, and greatly troubled the Grand
Duke his Serenity by presenting him as a relative of the Bonapartes.
Many another American had said it, and even some leading politicians:
he might have held office at home: but Pinckney continued to live in
Carlsruhe.
His critical faculties seemed sharpened after his wife's death, as his
hair grew whiter; and if you remember how he looked before you must
have noticed that the greatest change was in the expression of his
face. There was one faint downward line at either side of his mouth,
and the counterpart at the eyes; n doubtful line which, faint as it was
graven, gave a strange amount of shading to the face. And in speaking
of him still earlier, you must remember to take your india-rubber and
rub out this line from his face. This done, the face is still serious;
but it has a certain light, a certain air of confidence, of
determination, regretful though it be, which makes it loved by women.
Women can love a desperate, but never begin to love a beaten, cause.
Women fell in love with Pinckney, for the lightning does strike twice
in the same place; but his race was rather that of Lohengrin than of
the Asra, and he saw it, or seemed to see it, not. Still, in these
times those downward lines had not come, and there was a certain sober
light in his face as of a sorrowful triumph. This was in the epoch of
his greatest interestingness to women.
When he first came to Carlsruhe, he was simply the new consul, nothing
more; a handsome young man, almost in his honeymoon, with a young and
pretty wife. He had less presence in those days, and seemed absorbed in
his new home, or deeply sunk in something; people at first fancied he
was a poet, meditating a great work, which finished, he would soon
leave Carlsruhe. He never was seen to look at a woman, not overmuch at
his wife, and was not yet popular in society.
But it was true that he was newly married. He was married in Boston, in
'Forty-three or four, to Emily Austin, a far-off cousin of his, whom he
had known (he himself was a Carolinian) during his four years at
Cambridge. For his four years in Cambridge were succeeded by two more
at the Law School; then he won a great case against Mr. Choate, and was
narrowly beaten in an election for Congress; after that it surprised no
one to hear the announcement of his engagement to Miss Austin, for his
family was unexceptionable and he had a brilliant future. The marriage
came in the fall, rather sooner than people expected, at King's Chapel.
They went abroad, as was natural; and then he surprised his friends and
hers by accepting his consulship and staying there. And they were
imperceptibly, gradually, slowly, and utterly forgotten.
The engagement came out in the spring of 'Forty-three. And in June of
that year young Pinckney had gone to visit his _fiancee_ at Newport.
Had you seen him there, you would have seen him in perhaps the
brightest role that fate has yet permitted on this world's stage. A
young man, a lover, rich, gifted, and ambitious, of social position
unquestioned in South Carolina and the old Bay State--all the world
loved him, as a lover; the many envied him, the upper few desired him.
Handsome he has always remained.
And the world did look to him as bright as he to the world. He was in
love, as he told himself, and Miss Austin was a lovable girl; and the
other things he was dimly conscious of; and he had a long vacation
ahead of him, and was to be married late in the autumn, and he walked
up from the wharf in Newport swinging his cane and thinking on these
pleasant things.
Newport, in those days, was not the paradise of cottages and curricles,
of lawns and laces, of new New Yorkers and Nevada miners; it was the
time of big hotels and balls, of Southern planters, of Jullien's
orchestras, and of hotel hops; such a barbarous time as the wandering
New Yorker still may find, lingering on the simple shores of Maine,
sunning in the verdant valleys of the Green Mountains; in short, it was
Arcadia, not Belgravia. And you must remember that Pinckney, who was
dressed in the latest style, wore a blue broadcloth frock coat, cut
very low and tight in the waist, with a coat-collar rolling back to
reveal a vast expanse of shirt-bosom, surmounted by a cravat of awful
splendor, bow-knotted and blue-fringed. His trousers were of white
duck, his boots lacquered, and he carried a gold-tipped cane in his
hand. So he walked up the narrow old streets from the wharf, making a
sunshine in those shady places. It was the hottest hour of a midsummer
afternoon; not a soul was stirring, and Pinckney was left to his own
pleasant meditations.
He got up the hill and turned into the park by the old mill; over
opposite was the great hotel, its piazzas deserted, silent even to the
hotel band. But one flutter of a white dress he saw beneath the trees,
and then it disappeared behind them, causing Pinckney to quicken his
steps. He thought he knew the shape and motion, and he followed it
until he came upon it suddenly, behind the trees, and it turned.
A young girl of wonderful beauty, rare, erect carriage, and eyes of a
strange, violet-gray, full of much meaning. This was all Pinckney had
time to note; it was no one he had ever seen before. He had gone up
like a hunter, sure of his game, and too far in it to retract. The
embarrassment of the situation was such that Pinckney forgot all his
cleverness of manner, and blurted out the truth like any schoolboy.
"I beg pardon--I was looking for Miss Austin," said he; and he raised
his hat.
A delightful smile of merriment curled the beauty's lips. "My
acquaintance with Miss Austin is too slight to justify my finding her
for you; but I wish you all success in your efforts," she said, and
vanished, leaving the promising young lawyer to blush at his own
awkwardness and wonder who she was. As she disappeared, he only saw
that her hair was a lustrous coil of pale gold-brown, borne proudly.
He soon found Emily Austin, and forgot the beauty, as he gave his
betrothed a kiss and saw her color heighten; and in the afternoon they
took a long drive. It was only at tea, as he was sitting at table with
the Austins in the long dining-room, that some one walked in like a
goddess; and it was she. He asked her name; and they told him it was a
Miss Warfield, of Baltimore, and she was engaged to a Mr. Breeze.
In the evening there was a ball; and as they were dancing (for every
one danced in those days) he saw her again, sitting alone this time and
unattended. She was looking eagerly across the room, through the
dancers and beyond; and in her eyes was the deepest look of sadness
Pinckney had ever seen in a girl's face; a look such as he had thought
no girl could feel. A moment after, and it was gone, as some one spoke
to her; and Pinckney wondered if he had not been mistaken, so fleeting
was it, and so strange. An acquaintance--one of those men who delight
to act as brokers of acquaintances--who had noticed his gaze came up.
"That is the famous Miss Mary Warfield," said he. "Shall I not
introduce you?"
"No," said Pinckney; and he turned away rudely. To be rude when you
like is perhaps one of the choicest prerogatives of a good social
position. The acquaintance stared after him, as he went back to Miss
Austin, and then went up and spoke to Miss Warfield himself. A moment
after, Pinckney saw her look over at him with some interest; and he
wondered if the man had been ass enough to tell her. Pinckney was
sitting withlimily Austin; and, after another moment, he saw Miss
Warfield look at her. Then her glance seemed to lose its interest; her
eyelids drooped, and Pinckney could see, from her interlocutor's
mantief^ that he was put to his trumps to keep her attention. At last
he got away, awkwardly; and for many minutes the strange girl sat like
a statue, her long lashes just veiling her eyes, so that Pinckney, from
a distance, could not see what was in them. Suddenly the veil was drawn
and her eyes shone full upon him, her look meeting his. Pinckney's
glance fell, and his cheeks grew redder. Miss Warfield's face did not
change, but she rose and walked unattended through the centre of the
ballroom to the door. Pinckney's seat was nearer it than hers; she
passed him as if without seeing him, moving with unconscious grace,
though it would not have been the custom at that time for a girl to
cross so large a room alone. Just then some one asked Miss Austin for a
dance; and Pinckney, who was growing weary of it, went out on the
piazza for a cigar, and then, attracted by the beauty of the night,
strayed further than he knew, alone, along the cliffs above the sea.
The next day he was walking with Miss Austin, and they passed her, in
her riding habit, waiting by the mounting stone; she bowed to Miss
Austin alone, leaving him out, as it seemed to Pinckney, with
exaggerated care.
"Is she not beautiful?" said Emily, ardently.
"Humph!" said Pinckney. A short time after, as they were driving on the
road to the Fort, he saw her again; she was riding alone, across
country, through the rocky knolls and marshy pools that form the
southern part of Rhode Island. She had no groom lagging behind, but it
was not so necessary then as now; and, indeed, a groom would have had a
hard time to keep up with her, as she rattled up the granite slopes and
down over logs and bushes with her bright bay horse. The last Pinckney
saw of her she disappeared over a rocky hill against the sky; her
beautiful horse flecked with foam, quivering with happy animal life,
and the girl calm as a figure carved in stone, with but the faintest
touch of rose upon her face, as the pure profile was outlined one
moment against the sunlit blue.
"How recklessly she rides!" whispered Miss Austin to him, and Pinckney
said _yes_, absently, and, whipping up his horse, drove on, pretending
to listen to his fiancee's talk. It seemed to be about dresses, and
rings, and a coming visit to the B------s, at Nahant. He had never seen
a girl like her before; she was a puzzle to him.
"It is a great pity she is engaged to Mr. Breeze," said Miss Austin;
and Pinckney woke up with a start, for he was thinking of Miss Warneld
too.
"Why?" said he.
"I don't like him," said Emily. "He isn't good enough for her."
As this is a thing that women say of all wooers after they have won,
and which the winner is usually at that period the first to admit,
Pinckney paid little attention to this remark. But that evening he met
Miles Breeze, saw him, talked with him, and heard others talk of him. A
handsome man, physically; well made, well dressed, well fed; well bred,
as breeding goes in dogs or horses; a good shot, a good sportsman,
yachtsman, story-teller; a good fellow, with a weak mouth; a man of
good old Maryland blood, yet red and healthy, who had come there in his
yacht and had his horses sent by sea. A well-appointed man, in short;
provided amply with the conveniences of fashionable life. A man of good
family, good fortune, good health, good sense, good nature, whom it
were hypercritical to charge with lack of soul. "The first duty of a
gentleman is to be a good animal," and Miles Breeze performed it
thoroughly. Pinckney liked him, and he could have been his companion
for years and still have liked him, except as a husband for Miss
Warfield.
He could not but recognize his excellence as a _parti_. But the race of
Joan of Arc does not mate with Bon-homme Richard, even when he owns the
next farm. Pinckney used to watch the crease of Breeze's neck, above
the collar, and curse.
Coming upon Miss Austin one morning, she had said, "Come--I want to
introduce you to Miss War-field." Pinckney had demurred, and offered as
an excuse that he was smoking. "Nonsense, Charles," said the girl; "I
have told her you are coming." Pinckney threw away his cigar and
followed, and the presentation was made. Miss Warfield drew herself
almost unusually erect after courtesying, as if in protest at having to
bow at all. She was so tall that, as Emily stood between them, he could
meet Miss War-field's iron-gray eyes above her head. It was the first
time in Pinckney's life that he had consciously not known what to say.
"I was so anxious to have you meet Charles before he left," said Emily.
Evidently, his fiancee had been expatiating upon him to this new
friend, and if there is anything that puts a man in a foolish position
it is to have this sort of preamble precede an acquaintance.
"An anxiety I duly shared, Miss Warfield, I assure you," said he; which
was a truth spoiled in the uttering--what the conversational Frenchman
terms _banale_.
"Thank you," said Miss Warfield, very simply and tremendously
effectively. Pinckney, for the second time with this young lady, felt
himself a schoolboy. Emily interposed some feeble commonplaces, and
then, after a moment, Miss Warfield said, "I must go for my ride"; and
she left, with a smile for Emily and the faintest possible glance for
him. She went off with Breeze; and it gave Pinckney some relief to see
that she seemed equally to ignore the presence of the man who was her
acknowledged lover, as he trotted on a smart cob beside her. That
evening, when he went on the piazza, after tea, he found her sitting
alone, in one corner, with her hands folded: it was one peculiarity
about this woman that she was never seen with work. She made no sign of
recognition as he approached; but, none the less, he took the chair
that was beside her and waited a moment for her to speak. "Have you
found Miss Austin?" said the beauty, with the faintest trace of malice
in her coldly modulated tones, not looking at him. "I am not looking
for Miss Austin," said he; and she continued not looking at him, and so
this strange pair sat there in the twilight, silent.
What was said between them I do not know. But in some way or other
their minds met; for long after Miss Austin and her mother had returned
from some call, long after they had all left him, Pinckney continued to
pace up and down restlessly in the dark. Pinckney had never seen a
woman like this. After all, he was very young; and he had, in his
heart, supposed that the doubts and delights of his soul were peculiar
to men alone. He thought all women--at all events, all young and worthy
women--regarded life and its accepted forms as an accomplished fact,
not to be questioned, and, indeed, too delightful to need it. The young
South Carolinian, in his ambitions, in his heart-longings and
heart-sickenings, in his poetry, even in his emotions, had always been
lonely; so that his loneliness had grown to seem to him as merely part
of the day's work. The best women, he knew, where the best housewives;
they were a rest and a benefit for the war-weary man, much as might be
a pretty child, a bed of flowers, a strain of music. With Emily Austin
he should find all this; and he loved her as good, pretty, amiable,
perfect in her way. But now, with Miss Warfield--it had seemed that he
was not even lonely.
Pinckney did not see her again for a week. When he met her, he avoided
her; she certainly avoided him. Breeze, meantime, gave a dinner. He
gave it on his yacht, and gave it to men alone. Pinckney was of the
number.
The next day there was a driving party; it was to drive out of town to
Purgatory, a pretty place, where there is a brook in a deep ravine with
a verdant meadow-floor; and there they were to take food and drink, as
is the way of humanity in pretty places. Now it so happened that the
Austins, Miss Warfield, Breeze, and Pinckney were going to drive in a
party, the Austins and Miss Warfield having carriages of their own; but
at the last moment Breeze did not appear, and Emily Austin was
incapacitated by a headache. She insisted, as is the way of loving
women, that "Charles should not lose it"; for to her it was one of
life's pleasures, and such pleasures satisfied her soul. (It may be
that she gave more of her soul to life's duties than did Charles, and
life's pleasures were thus adequate to the remainder; I do not know.)
Probably Miles Breeze also had a headache; at all events, he did not,
at the last moment, appear. It was supposable that he would turn up at
the picnic; Mrs. Austin joined her daughter's entreaty; Miss Warfield
was left unattended; in fine, Pinckney went with her.
Miss Warfield had a solid little phaeton with two stout ponies: she
drove herself. For some time they were silent; then, insensibly,
Pinckney began to talk and she to answer. What they said I need not say
--indeed I could not, for Pinckney was a poet, a man of rare intellect
and imagination, and Miss Warfield was a woman of this world and the
next; a woman who used conventions as another might use a fan, to'
screen her from fools; whose views were based on the ultimate. But they
talked of the world, and of life in it; and when it came to an end,
Pinckney noted to himself this strange thing, that they had both talked
as of an intellectual problem, no longer concerning their emotions--in
short, as if this life were at an end, and they were two dead people
discussing it.
So they arrived at the picnic, silent; and the people assembled looked
to one another and smiled, and said to one another how glum those two
engaged people looked, being together, and each wanting another. Mr.
Breeze had not yet come; and as the people scattered while the luncheon
was being prepared, Pinckney and she wandered off like the others. They
went some distance--perhaps a mile or more--aimlessly; and then, as
they seemed to have come about to the end of the valley, Pinckney sat
down upon a rock, but she did not do so, but remained standing. Hardly
a word had so far been said between them: and then Pinckney looked at
her and said:
"Why are you going to marry Mr. Breeze?"
"Why not?"--listlessly.
"You might as well throw yourself into the sea," said Pinckney; and he
looked at the sea which lay beyond them shimmering.
"That I had not thought of," said she; and she looked at the sea
herself with more interest. Pinckney drew a long breath.
"But why this man?" he said at length.
"Why that man?" said the woman; and her beautiful lip curled, with the
humor of the mind, while her eyes kept still the sadness of the heart,
the look that he had seen in the ballroom. "We are all poor," she
added; then scornfully, "it is my duty to marry."
"But Miles Breeze?" persisted Pinckney.
The lip curled almost to a laugh. "I never met a better fellow than
Miles," said she; and the thought was so like his own of the night
before that Pinckney gasped for breath. They went back, and had chicken
croquettes and champagne, and a band that was hidden in the wood made
some wild Spanish music.
Going home, a curious thing happened. They had started first and far
preceded all the others. Miss Warfield was driving; and when they were
again in the main road, not more than a mile from the hotel, Pinckney
saw ahead of them, coming in a light trotting buggy of the sort that
one associates with the gentry who call themselves "sports," two of the
gentlemen whom he had met at Breeze's dinner the night before. Whether
Miss Warfield also knew them he did not know; but they evidently had
more wine than was good for them, and were driving along in a reckless
manner on the wrong side of the road. The buggy was much too narrow for
the two; and the one that was driving leaned out toward them with a
tipsy leer. Pinckney shouted at him, but Miss War-field drove calmly
on. He was on the point of grasping the reins, but a look of hers
withheld him, and he sat still, wondering; and in a moment their small
front wheel had crashed through both the axles and spider-web wheels of
the trotting buggy. The shock of the second axle whirled them round,
and Pinckney fell violently against the dasher, while Miss Warfield was
thrown clear of the phaeton on the outer side. But she had kept the
reins, and before Pinckney could get to her she was standing at her
horses' heads, patting their necks calmly, with a slight cut in her
forehead where she had fallen, and only her nostril quivering like
theirs, as the horses stood there trembling. The buggy was a wreck, and
the horse had disappeared; and the two men, sobered by the fall, came
up humbly to her to apologize. She heard them silently, with a pale
face like some injured queen's; and then, bowing to them their
dismissal, motioned Pinckney into the phaeton, which, though much
broken, was still standing, and, getting in herself, drove slowly home.
"She might have killed herself," thought Pinckney, but he held his
peace, as if it were the most natural course of action in the world. To
tell the truth, under the circumstances he might have done the same
alone.
Then it began. Pinckney could not keep this woman out of his head. He
would think of her at all times, alone and in company. Her face would
come to him in the loneliness of the sea, in the loneliness of crowds;
the strong spirit of the morning was hers, and the sadness of the
sunset and the wakeful watches of the night. Her face was in the clouds
of evening, in the sea-coal fire by night; her spirit in the dreams of
summer morns, in the hopeless breakers on the stormy shores, in the
useless, endless effort of the sea. Her eyes made some strange shining
through his dreams; and he would wake with a cry that she was going
from him, in the deepest hours of the night, as if in the dreams he had
lost her, vanishing forever in the daily crowd. Then he would lie awake
until morning, and all the laws of God and men would seem like cobwebs
to his sorrow, and the power of it freezing in his heart. This was the
ultimate nature of his being, to follow her, as drop of water blends in
drop of water, as frost rends rock. Let him then follow out his law, as
other beings do theirs; gravitation has no conscience; should he be
weaker than a drop of water, because he was conscious, and a man?
So these early morning battles would go on, and character, training,
conscience, would go down before the simpler force, like bands of man's
upon essential nature. Then, with the first ray of the dawn, he would
think of Emily Austin, sleeping near him, perhaps dreaming of him, and
his mad visions seemed to fade; and he would rise exhausted, and wander
out among the fresh fields and green dewy lanes, and calm, contentful
trees, and be glad that these things were so; yet could these not be
moved, nor their destiny be changed. And as for him, what did it
matter?
So the days went by. And Emily Austin looked upon him with eyes of
limitless love and trust, and Pinckney did not dare to look upon
himself; but his mind judged by day-time and his heart strove by night.
Hardly at all had he spoken to Miss Warfield since; and no reference
had ever been made between them to the accident, or to the talk between
them in the valley. Only Pinckney knew that she was to be married very
shortly; and he had urged Miss Austin to hasten their own wedding.
Emily went off with her mother to pay her last visit among the family,
and to make her preparations; and it was deemed proper that at this
time Pinckney should not be with her. So he stayed in Newport five long
days alone; and during this time he never spoke to Miss Warfield. I
believe he tried not to look at her: she did not look at him. And on
the fifth night Pinckney swore that he must speak to her once more,
whatever happened.
In the morning there was talk of a sailing party; and Pinckney noted
Breeze busying himself about the arrangements. He waited; and at noon
Breeze came to him and said that there was a scarcity of men: would he
go? Yes. They had two sail-boats, and meant to land upon Conanicut,
which was then a barren island without a house, upon the southern end,
where it stretches out to sea.
Pinckney did not go in the same boat with Breeze and Miss Warfield;
and, landing, he spent the afternoon with others and saw nothing of
her. But after dinner was over, he spoke to her, inviting her to walk;
and she came, silently. A strange evening promenade that was: they took
a path close on the sheer brink of the cliffs, so narrow that one must
go behind the other. Pinckney had thought at first she might be
frightened, with the rough path, and the steepness of the rocks, and
the breakers churning at their base; but he saw that she was walking
erect and fearlessly. Finally she motioned him to let her go ahead; and
she led the way, choosing indiscriminately the straightest path,
whether on the verge of the sea or leading through green meadows. A few
colorless remarks were made by him, and then he saw the folly of it,
and they walked in silence. After nearly an hour, she stopped.
"We must be getting back," she said.
"Yes," said he, in the same tone; and they turned; she still leading
the way, while he followed silently. They were walking toward the
sunset; the sun was going down in a bank of dense gray cloud, but its
long, level rays came over to them, across a silent sea. She walked on
over the rugged cliff, like some siren, some genius of the place, with
a sure, proud grace of step; she never looked around, and his eyes were
fixed upon the black line of her figure, as it went before him, toward
the gray and blood-red sunset. It seemed to him this was the last hour
of his life; and even as he thought his ankle turned, and he stumbled
and fell, walking unwittingly into one of the chasms, where the line of
the cliff turned in. He grasped a knuckle of rock, and held his fall,
just on the brink of a ledge above the sea. Miss Warfield had turned
quickly and seen it all; and she leaned down over the brink, with one
hand around the rock and the other extended to help him, the ledge on
which he lay being some six feet below. Pinckney grasped her hand and
kissed it.
Her color did not change at this; but, with a strange strength in her
beautiful lithe figure, she drew him up steadily, he helping partly
with the other hand, until his knees rested on the path again. He stood
up with some difficulty, as his ankle was badly wrenched.
"I am afraid you can not walk," said she.
"Oh, yes," he answered; and took a few steps to show her. The pain was
great; but she walked on, and he followed, as best he could, limping.
She looked behind now, as if to encourage him; and he set his teeth and
smiled.
"We must not be late," she said. "It is growing dark, and they will
miss us."
But they did not miss them; for when they got to the landing-place,
both the sail-boats had left the shore without them. There was nothing
but the purple cloud-light left by this time; but Pinckney fancied he
could see her face grow pale for the first time that day.
"We must get home," she said, hurriedly. "Is there no boat?"
Pinckney pointed to a small dory on the beach, and then to the sea. In
the east was a black bank of cloud, rifted now and then by lightning;
and from it the wind came down and the white caps curled angrily toward
them.
"No matter," said she; "we must go."
Pinckney found a pair of oars under the boat, and dragged it, with much
labor, over the pebbles, she helping him. The beach was steep and
gravelly, with short breakers rather than surf; and he got the bow well
into the water and held it there.
"Get in," said he.
Miss Warfield got into the stern, and Pinckney waded out, dragging the
flat-bottomed boat until it was well afloat. Then he sprang in himself,
and, grasping the oars, headed the boat for the Fort point across the
channel, three miles away. She sat silently in the stern, and it was
too dark for him to see her face. He rowed savagely.
But the wind was straight ahead, and the sea increasing every moment.
They were not, of course, exposed to the full swell of the ocean; but
the wide sea-channel was full of short, fierce waves that struck the
little skiff repeated rapid blows, and dashed the spray over both of
them.
"Are you not afraid?" said he, calmly. "It is growing rougher every
minute."
"Oh, no, Mr. Pinckney," said she. "Pray keep on."
Pinckney noticed a tremor of excitement in her voice; but by a flash of
lightning that came just then he saw her deep eyes fixed on his, and
the pure white outline of her face undisturbed. So he rowed the harder,
and she took a board there was and tried to steer; and now and then, as
the clouds were lit, he saw her, like a fleeting vision in the night.
But the storm grew stronger; and Pinckney knew the boat that they were
in was not really moving at all, though, of course, the swash of the
waves went by and the drifted spray. He tried to row harder, but with
the pain in his ankle and the labor he was nearly exhausted, and his
heart jumped in his chest at each recover. "Can you not make it?" said
she, in the dark; and Pinckney vowed that he could, and set his teeth
for a mighty pull. The oar broke, and the boat's head fell rapidly off
in the trough of the sea. He quickly changed about his remaining oar,
and with it kept the head to the wind. "We must go back," he said,
panting. "I know," said she. The windstorm was fairly upon them; and,
in spite of all his efforts, an occasional wave would get upon the beam
and spill its frothing crest into the boat. Pinckney almost doubted
whether it would float until it reached the shore; but Miss Warfield
did not seem in the least disturbed, and spoke without a tremor in her
voice. The lightning had stopped now, and he could not see her.
He had miscalculated the force of the wind and waves, however; for in a
very minutes they were driven broadside back upon the beach, almost at
the same place from which they had started. Miss War-field sprang out
quickly, and he after, just as a wave turned the dory bottom upward on
the stones.
"They will soon send for us," he said; and stepping painfully up the
shore, he occupied himself with spreading her shawl in a sheltered spot
for them to wait in. She sat down, and he beside her. He was very wet,
and she made him put some of the shawl over himself. The quick summer
storm had passed now, with only a few big drops of rain; and the moon
was breaking out fitfully through veils of driving clouds and their
storm-scud. By its light he looked at her, and their eyes met. Pinckney
groaned aloud, and stood up. "Would that they would never come; would
God that we could--"
"We can not," said she, softly, in a voice that he had never heard from
her before--a voice with tears in it; and the man threw himself down at
her feet, inarticulate, maddened. Then, with a great effort at control,
not touching her, but looking straight into her eyes, he said, in
blunt, low speech: "Miss Warfield, I love you--do you know it?"
Her head sank slowly down; but she answered, very low, but clearly,
_yes_. Then their eyes met again; and, by some common impulse, they
rose and walked apart. After a few steps, he stopped, being lame, and
leaned against the cliff; but she went on until her dark figure was
blended with the shadows of the crags.
So, when the boat came back, its sail silvered by the moonlight, they
saw it, and, coming down, they met again; but only as the party were
landing on the beach. Several of the party had come back; and Mr.
Breeze, who was among them, was full of explanation how he had missed
the first boat and barely caught the second, supposing that his fiancee
was in the first. An awkward accident, but easily explained by
Pinckney, with the sprain in his ankle; and, indeed, the others were
too full of excuses for having forgotten them to inquire into the
causes of their absence together.
Pinckney went to his room, and had a night of delirium. Toward morning,
his troubled wakefulness ended, and he fell into a dream. He dreamed
that in the centre of the world was one green bower, beneath a
blossoming tree, and he and Miss Warfield were there. And the outer
world was being destroyed, one sphere by fire and the other by flood,
and there was only this bower left. But they could not stay there, or
the tree would die. So they went away, he to the one side and she to
the other, and the ruins of the world fell upon them, and they saw each
other no more.
In the morning his delirium left him, and his will resumed its sway. He
went down, and out into the green roads, and listened to the singing of
the birds; and then out to the cliff-path, and there he found Miss
Warfield sitting as if she knew that he would come. He watched her pure
face while she spoke, and her gray eyes: the clear light of the morning
was in them, and on the gleaming sea beyond.
"You must go," said she.
"Yes," he said, and that was all. He took her hand for one moment, and
lifted it lightly to his lips; then he turned and took the path across
the fields. When he got to the first stile, he looked around. She was
still sitting there, turned toward him. He lifted his hat, and held it
for a second or two; then he turned the corner of the hedge and went
down to the town.
Thus it happened that this story, which began sadly, with an epitaph,
may end with wedding bells:
MARRIED. _At King's Chapel, by the Rev. Dr. A----, the 21st of
September, Charles Austin Pinckney to Emily, daughter of the late James
Austin._