Sherwood was a very old place. It had been built a hundred years at least
before the Revolution in the days when the States had English governors,
and when its founder had been governor of Rhode Island. His last
descendant in the direct line was Sybil Brandon's great-uncle.
The old country-seat was remarkable chiefly for the extent of the gardens
attached to the house, and for the singularly advanced state of
dilapidation in which everything was allowed to remain. Beyond the gardens
the woods stretched down to the sea, unpruned and thick with a heavy
undergrowth; from the road the gardens were hidden by thick hedges, and by
the forbidding gray front of the building. It was not an attractive place
to look at, and once within the precincts there was a heavy sense of
loneliness and utter desolation, that seemed to fit it for the very home
of melancholy.
The damp sea air had drawn green streaks of mould downwards from each
several jointing of the stones; the long-closed shutters of some of the
windows were more than half hidden by creepers, bushy and straggling by
turns, and the eaves were all green with moss and mould. From the deep-arched porch at the back a weed-grown gravel walk led away through
untrimmed hedges of box and myrtle to an ancient summer-house on the edge
of a steep slope of grass. To right and left of this path, the rose-trees
and box that had once marked the gayest of flower gardens now grew in such
exuberance of wild profusion that it would have needed strong arms and a
sharp axe to cut a way through. Far away on a wooded knoll above the sea
was the old graveyard, where generations of Sherwoods lay dead in their
quiet rest, side by side.
But for a space in every year the desolation was touched with the breath
of life, and the sweet June air blew away the mould and the smell of
death, and the wild flowers and roses sprang up joyfully in the wilderness
to greet the song-birds and the butterflies of summer. And in this copious
year a double spring had come to Sherwood, for Sybil Brandon had arrived
one day, and her soft eyes and golden hair had banished all sadness and
shadow from the old place. Even the thin old man, who lived there among
the ghosts and shadows of the dead and dying past, smoothed the wrinkles
from his forehead, forgetting to long selfishly for his own death, when
Sybil came; and with touching thoughtfulness he strove to amuse her, and
to be younger for her sake. He found old garments of a gayer time, full
thirty years hidden away in the great wardrobes up-stairs, and he put them
on and wore them, though they hung loosely about his shaken and withered
frame, lest he should be too sad a thing for such young eyes to look upon.
Then Ronald came one day, and the old man took kindly to him, and bade him
come often. In the innocence of his old age it seemed good that what youth
and life there was in the world should come together; and Ronald treated
him with a deference and respect to which he had long been unused.
Moreover, Ronald accepted the invitation given him and came as often as he
pleased, which, before long, meant every day. When he came in the morning
he generally stayed until the evening, and when he came in the afternoon
he always stayed as long as Sybil would let him, and rode home late
through the misty June moonlight pondering on the happiness the world had
suddenly brought forth for him who had supposed, but a few months ago,
that all happiness was at an end.
Six months had gone by since Ronald had first seen Sybil, and he had
changed in that time from boy to man. Looking back through the past years
he knew that he was glad Joe had not married him, for the new purpose of
his new life was to love and marry Sybil Brandon. There was no doubt in
his mind as to what he would do; the strong nature in him was at last
roused, and he was capable of anything in reason or without it to get what
he wanted.
Some one has said that an Englishman's idea of happiness is to find
something he can kill and to hunt it. That is a metaphor as well as a
fact. It may take an Englishman half a lifetime to find out what he wants,
but when he is once decided he is very likely to get it, or to die in the
attempt. The American is fond of trying everything until he reaches the
age at which Americans normally become dyspeptic, and during his
comparatively brief career he succeeds in experiencing a surprising
variety of sensations. Both Americans and English are tenacious in their
different ways, and it is certain that between them they have gotten more
things that they have wanted than any other existing nation.
What most surprised Ronald was that, having made up his mind to marry
Sybil, he should not have had the opportunity, or perhaps the courage, to
tell her so. He remembered how easily he had always been able to speak to
Joe about matrimony, and he wondered why it should be so hard to approach
the subject with one whom he loved infinitely more dearly than he had ever
loved his cousin. But love brings tact and the knowledge of fitness,
besides having the effect of partially hiding the past and exaggerating
the future into an eternity of rose-colored happiness; wherefore Ronald
supposed that everything would come right in time, and that the time for
everything to come right could not possibly be very far off.
On the day after he had seen Joe in Boston he rode over to Sherwood in the
morning, as usual, upon one of Vancouver's horses. He was lighter at heart
than ever, for he had somewhat dreaded the revelation of his intentions to
Joe; but she had so led him on and helped him that it had all seemed very
easy. He was not long in reaching his destination, and having put his
horse in the hands of the single man who did duty as gardener, groom, and
dairyman for old Mr. Sherwood, he entered the garden, where he hoped to
meet Sybil alone. He was not disappointed, for as he walked down the path
through the wilderness of shrubbery he caught sight of her near the
summer-house, stooping down in the act of plucking certain flowers that
grew there.
She, too, was dressed all in white, as he had seen his cousin on the
previous day; but the difference struck him forcibly as he came up and
took her outstretched hand. They had changed places and character, one
could almost have thought. Joe had looked so tired and weary, so "wilted,"
as they say in Boston, that it had shocked Ronald to see her. Sybil, who
had formerly been so pale and cold, now was the very incarnation of life;
delicate and exquisitely fine in every movement and expression, but most
thoroughly alive. The fresh soft color seemed to float beneath the
transparent skin, and her deep eyes were full of light and laughter and
sunshine. Ronald's heart leaped in his breast for love and pride as she
greeted him, and his brow turned hot and his hands cold in the confusion
of his happiness.
"You have been away again?" she asked presently, looking down at the wild
white lilies which she had been gathering.
"Yes, I was in Boston yesterday," answered Ronald, who had immediately
begun to help in plucking the flowers. "I went to see Joe. She looks
dreadfully knocked up with the heat, poor child."
And so they talked about Joe and Boston for a little while, and Sybil sat
upon the steps of the summer-house on the side where there was shade from
the hot morning sun, while Ronald brought her handfuls of the white
lilies. At last there were enough, and he came and stood before her. She
was so radiantly lovely as she sat in the warm shade with the still
slanting sunlight just falling over her white dress, he thought her so
super-humanly beautiful that he stood watching her without thinking of
speaking or caring that she should speak to him. She looked up and smiled,
a quick bright smile, for she was woman enough to know his thoughts. But
she busied herself with the lilies and looked down again.
"Let me help you," said Ronald suddenly, kneeling down before her on the
path.
"I don't think you can--very much," said Sybil, demurely. "You are not
very clever about flowers, you know. Oh, take care! You will crush it--give it back to me!"
Ronald had taken one of the lilies and was smelling it, but it looked to
Sybil very much as though he were pressing it to his lips. He would not
give it back, but held it away at arm's length as he knelt. Sybil made as
though she were annoyed.
"Of course," said she, "I cannot take it, if you will not give it to me."
Ronald gently laid the flower in her lap with the others. She pretended to
take no notice of what he did, but went on composing her nosegay.
"Miss Brandon"--began Ronald, and stopped.
"Well?" said Sybil, without looking up.
"May I tell you something?" he asked.
"That depends," said Sybil. "Is it anything very interesting?"
"Yes," said Ronald. There seemed to be something the matter with his
throat all at once, as though he were going to choke. Sybil looked up and
saw that he was very pale. She had never seen him otherwise than ruddy
before, and she was startled; she dropped the lilies on her knees and
looked at him anxiously. Ronald suddenly laid his hands over hers and held
them. Still she faced him.
"I am very unworthy of you--I know I am-but I love you very, very much."
He spoke distinctly enough now, and slowly. He was as white as marble, and
his fingers were cold, and trembled as they held hers.
For an instant after he had spoken, Sybil did not move. Then she quietly
drew back her hands and hid her face in a sudden, convulsive movement.
She, too, trembled, and her heart beat as though it would break; but she
said nothing. Ronald sprang from the ground and kneeled again upon the
step beside her; very gently his arm stole about her and drew her to him.
She took one hand from her face and tried to disentangle his hold, but he
held her strongly, and whispered in her ear,--
"Sybil, I love you--do you love me?"
Sybil made a struggle to rise, but it was not a very brave struggle, and
in another moment she had fallen into his arms and was sobbing out her
whole love passionately.
"Oh, Ronald, you mu--must not!" But Ronald did.
Half an hour later they were still sitting side by side on the steps, but
the storm of uncertainty was passed, and they had plighted their faith for
better and for worse, for this world and the next. Ronald had foreseen the
event, and had hoped for it as he never had hoped for anything in his
life; Sybil had perhaps guessed it; at all events, now that the supreme
moment was over, they both felt that it was the natural climax to all that
had happened during the spring.
"I think," said Sybil, quietly, "that we ought to tell my uncle at once.
He is the only relation I have in the world."
"Oh yes, of course," said Ronald, holding her hand. "That is, you know, I
think we might tell him after lunch. Because I suppose it would not be the
right thing for me to stay all day after he knows. Would it?"
"Why not?" asked Sybil. "He must know it soon, and you will come to-morrow."
"To-morrow, and the next day, and the day after that, and always," said
Ronald, lovingly. "But he will not like it, I suppose."
"Why not?" asked Sybil, again.
"Because I am poor," said Ronald, quietly. "You know I am not rich at all,
Sybil dearest. We shall have to be very economical, and live on the place
in Scotland. But it is a very pretty place," he added, reassuringly.
Sybil flushed a little. He did not know, then, that she had a fortune of
her own. It was a new pleasure. She did not say anything for a moment.
"Do you mind very much, dearest?" asked Ronald, doubtfully. "Do you think
it would bore you dreadfully to live in the country?"
Sybil hesitated before she answered. She hardly knew whether to tell him
or not, but at last she decided it would be better.
"No, Ronald," said she, smiling a little; "I like the country. But, you
know, we can live anywhere we please. I am rich, Ronald--you did not know
it?"
Ronald started slightly. It was indeed an unexpected revelation.
"Really?" he cried. "Oh, I am so glad for you. You will not miss anything,
then. I was so afraid."
That evening Ronald telegraphed to Joe the news of his engagement, and the
next day he wrote her a long letter, which was more remarkable for the
redundant passion expressed than for the literary merit of the expression.
It seemed far easier to write it since he had seen her and talked with her
about Sybil, not because he felt in the least ashamed of having fallen in
love within six months of the dissolution of his former engagement with
Joe, but because it seemed a terribly difficult thing to speak to any one
about Sybil. Ronald was very far from being poetical, or in any way given
to lofty and medieval reflections of the chivalric sort, but he was a very
honest fellow, loving for the first time, and he understood that his love
was something more to be guarded and respected than anything that had yet
come into his life; wherefore it seemed almost ungentlemanly to speak
about it.
When Joe received the intelligence her satisfaction knew no bounds, for
although she had guessed that the climax of the affair was not far off,
she had not expected it so very soon. Had she searched through the whole
of her acquaintance at home and in America she could have found no one
whom she considered more fit to be Ronald's wife, and that alone was
enough to make her very happy; but the sensation of freedom from all
further responsibility to Ronald, and the consciousness that every
possible good result had followed upon her action, added so much to her
pleasure in the matter, that for a time she utterly forgot herself and her
own troubles. She instantly wrote a long and sympathetic letter to Ronald,
and another to Sybil.
Sybil replied at once, begging Joe to come and spend a month at Sherwood,
or as much time as she was able to give.
"I expect you had best go," remarked Miss Schenectady. "It is getting
pretty hot here, and you look quite sick."
"Oh no, I am very well," said Joe; "but I think I will go for a week or
ten days."
"Well, if you find you are going to have a good time, you can always stay,
any way," replied the old lady. "I think if I were you I would take some
books and a Bible and a pair of old boots."
Miss Schenectady did not smile, but Joe laughed outright.
"A Bible and a pair of old boots!" she cried.
"Yes, I would," said her aunt. "Old Tom Sherwood cannot have seen a Bible
for fifty years, I expect, and it might sort of freshen him up." The old
lady's eye twinkled slightly and the corners of her mouth twitched a
little. "As for the old boots, if you conclude to go, you will want them,
for you will be right out in the country there."
Joe laughed again, but she took her aunt's advice; and on the following
day she reached Newport, and was met by Sybil and Ronald, who conveyed her
to Sherwood in a thing which Joe learned was called a "carryall."
Late in the afternoon, when Ronald was gone, the two girls sat in an angle
of the old walls, looking over the sea to eastward. The glow of the
setting sun behind them touched them softly, and threw a rosy color upon
Joe's pale face, and gilded Sybil's bright hair, hovering about her brows
in a halo of radiant glory. Joe looked at her and wondered at the change
love had wrought in so short a time. Sybil had once seemed so cold and
white that only a nun's veil could be a fit thing to bind upon her saintly
head; but now the orange blossoms would look better there, Joe thought,
twined in a bride's wreath of white and green, of purity and hope.
"My Snow Angel," she exclaimed, "the sun has melted you at last!"
"Tell me the story of the Snow Angel," said Sybil, smiling. "You once said
that you would."
"I will tell you," said Joe, "as well I can remember it. Mamma used to
tell it to me years and years ago, when I was quite a small thing. It is a
pretty story. Listen."
"Once on a time, far away in the north, there lived an angel. She was
very, very beautiful, and all of the purest snow, quite white, her face
and her hands and her dress and her wings. She lived alone, ever so far
away, all through the long winter, in a valley of beautiful snow, where
the sun never shone even in the summer. She was the most lovely angel that
ever was, but she was so cold that she could not fly at all, and so she
waited in the valley, always looking southward and wishing with all her
heart that the sun would rise above the hill.
"Sometimes people passed, far down below, in sledges, and she almost would
have asked some one of them to take her out of the valley. But once, when
she came near the track, a man came by and saw her, and he was so
dreadfully frightened that he almost fell out of the sled.
"Sometimes, too, the little angels, who were young and curious, would fly
down into the cold valley and look at her and speak to her.
"'Pretty angel,' they would say, 'why do you stay all alone in this dreary
place?'
"'They forgot me here,' she used to answer, 'and now I cannot fly until
the sun is over the hill. But I am very happy. It will soon come.'
"It was too cold for the little angels, and so they soon flew away and
left her; and they began to call her the Snow Angel among themselves, and
some of them said she was not real, but the other ones said she must be,
because she was so beautiful. She was not unhappy, because angels never
can be, you know; only it seemed a long time to wait for the sun to come.
"But at last the sun heard of her, and the little angels who had seen her
told him it was a shame that he should not rise high enough to warm her
and help her to fly. So, as he is big and good-natured and strong, he said
he would try, and would do his best; and on midsummer's day he determined
to make a great effort. He shook himself, and pushed and struggled very
hard, and got hotter than he had ever been in his whole life with his
exertions, but at last, with a great brave leap, he found himself so high
that he could see right down into the valley, and he saw the Snow Angel
standing there, and she was so beautiful that he almost cried with joy.
And then, as he looked, he saw a very wonderful sight.
"The Snow Angel, all white and glistening, looked up into the sun's face
and stretched her arms towards him and trembled all over; and as she felt
that he was come at last and had begun to warm her, she thrust out her
delicate long wings, and they gleamed and shone and struck the cold clear
air. Then the least possible tinge of exquisite color came into her face,
and she opened her lips and sang for joy; and presently, as she was
singing, she rose straight upward with a rushing sound, like a lark in the
sunlight, the whitest and purest and most beautiful angel that ever flew
in the sky. And her voice was so grand and clear and ringing, that all the
other angels stopped in their songs to listen, and then sang with her in
joy because the Snow Angel was free at last.
"That is the story mamma used to tell me, long ago, and when I first saw
you I thought of it, because you were so cold and beautiful that you
seemed all made of snow. But now the sun is over the hill, Sybil dear, is
it not?"
"Dear Joe," said Sybil, winding her arm round her friend's neck and laying
her face close to hers, "you are so nice."
The sun sank suddenly behind them, and all the eastern water caught the
purple glow. It was dark when the two girls walked slowly back to the old
house.
Joe stayed many days with Sybil at Sherwood, and the days ran into weeks
and the weeks to months as the summer sped by. Ronald came and went daily,
spending long hours with Sybil in the garden, and growing more manly and
quiet in his happiness, while Sybil grew ever fairer in the gradual
perfecting of her beauty. It was comforting to Joe to see them together,
knowing what honest hearts they were. She occupied herself as she could
with books and a few letters, but she would often sit for hours in a deep
chair under the overhanging porch, where the untrimmed honeysuckle waved
in the summer breeze like a living curtain, and the birds would come and
swing themselves upon its tendrils. But Joe's cheek was always pale, and
her heart weary with longing and with fighting against the poor imprisoned
love that no one must ever guess.