SHADOWS
At home, back of the village, and extending so far away that I had
never yet explored the uttermost reaches of it, lies a long, low hill.
It is wooded in places with patriarchal oaks, so stately and
far-reaching that they call to mind the tales of fairy forests, where
knights in glittering armor rode through; or giants lived in hidden
houses in the midst of them.
With the varying seasons this hill always seems to tell the silent
story of the feelings in nature called forth by the changes. It speaks
of joy in the spring; a gentle sadness in the summer; a glorious
renunciation when the living green must give way to the gorgeous,
though dying, red; and in winter there seems to be a spirit of
patience.
Back of the actual summit of the hill, and partly shut in by its
crest, which runs along half of its rounding curve, and skirted on the
other side by the woods, where the oaks and chestnuts grow, is an
expansive depression, wide, rolling, beautiful. The ground, which is
barren red clay, is thickly coated over with a scrubby growth, green
for only a short while every spring, when there are millions of minute
blue blossoms deep-set in its mazes. Later, it takes on a dull brown
which lasts until fall, when it changes to a withered yellow.
A few small cedar trees, growing sometimes singly, sometimes in sparse
clumps, are dotted around over the ground, but the only actual beauty
of the place is its look of great space. It is the only spot I know of
where I can see sky enough.
The sky! Yes, that is its charm. It seems to close down upon this cup
with such a _nearness_ that on summer days you can almost reach up and
touch the clouds. And they are unbelievably lovely at such times. Then
on other days, when the heavens are hidden by long, sweeping bars of
heavy gray cloud, and the wind comes tearing over the crest, like a
monster knowingly cruel and relentless--then the expanse of earth and
sky indeed seem to run together; but the look of nearness is lost. The
feeling of immensity is crushing; and you have the sense of being
brought face to face with an unseen Presence.
Cathedrals hold this Presence, but tamed, trained and refined
sometimes out of all semblance to its mighty prototype of the wilds.
Years ago, when I was a child, Cousin Eunice used to take me up here,
for she was the first one of our family ever to discover the place. To
be sure, it had always been there, and we had driven around it
whenever it had been necessary, but nobody ever dreamed of wanting to
take walks there, for it is a wild, lonesome-looking spot, besides
being cut up in places by great gulches. In the exact center of the
depression there is the bed of a prehistoric lake. The stone basin is
there, with all signs of water, at a tremendous distance in the past.
"Isn't it _great_!" Cousin Eunice exclaimed, as we came upon the spot
for the first time in our rambles. "Why, it is like being in another
world, where everything is fresh, and free, and primitive. Let us
pretend that this is our sacred garden, where we can carry only happy
thoughts; where we can look at this immensity and learn the true value
of things!" So we would often walk here, sometimes with Rufe; and then
they would discuss the mysteries of Life and Death and Abiding Love.
On the Monday morning after the events of Sunday which I have just
recorded, I awoke with an overpowering desire to get away to this
"garden." I wanted to get out to where there was sky enough! To a
place so immense that I could think it all out and get a true value of
things! I wanted to dwell on the great happiness that has come to me;
to take in, if I could, the unbelievable fact that I have been whirled
away through the infinite spaces of human longing until I have come
upon and possessed the star of my heart's desire. Star of my heart's
desire! King or sultan, he is the "god of my idolatry,"--Richard
Chalmers, my lover!
And while I craved this sight of a wild, free nature, I felt keenly
that I should wish, on a morning like this, that the clouds and sky
and trees should shrink into their proper place in the background of
the mighty stage. They should move back and make room for me; and my
triumphant ego should come and place itself in the limelight for me to
review. I wanted to see myself at the age of Eve.
I explained some of this feeling to Cousin Eunice, in idiomatic
English, after breakfast on Monday morning, but here was a hue and
cry. It was the wrong thing for me to do, she declared. I should stay
here and get better acquainted with my fiancé. Besides, the first few
weeks of a courtship were too dear and precious to be spent apart! I
should die of homesickness for a sight of this beautiful city where I
had gained my new-found joy!
I mentioned the matter to Richard when he came that evening--that I
wanted to go home for a day or so anyway, then I might come back--and
I found that he approved the plan most decidedly.
"I shall be out of town for several weeks," he said, "and of course I
don't want you here in the city while I'm away." He spoke with a
half-playful air, but I had already learned to read his expression so
well that I knew he was in earnest. "You don't suppose for a minute
I'm going to give any other fellow a chance to steal you away from me
now, do you? Before I have had time to realize my good fortune?"
"I wish you would _not_ talk that way, even in jest," I told him
seriously. "It implies a kind of distrust."
He had been there quite half an hour when this took place, but he came
over to my chair and kissed me for the first time. If Richard does
treat his wife as a plaything, as Cousin Eunice suggested, I don't
believe he will find it necessary to shower many violets and diamonds
upon her. I believe that kisses will do the work.
"Distrust! Love, _little_ love, don't say that again!"
"Then let's for ever bar discussions about any other man."
"I shall be delighted to! And, to make assurance doubly sure, I'm
going to pack you off down home, as I mentioned yesterday. I'll be
gone just a few weeks, and shall, of course, run down to see you the
minute I get back to this part of the state. I am going by
Charlotteville to tell mother and Evelyn the news."
"And we'll have letters every day."
"And I'll call you up whenever I'm where a long-distance 'phone is.
Some of those little towns don't boast one."
He drew me close to him and we went together out to the little balcony
where he could smoke. The smoke blew through my hair and lingered
there. It seemed almost like a kiss from him that night, as I loosened
my hair and began to brush it out.
"Oh, I _wish_ it could stay there until he comes back," I whispered in
agony, as I buried my face in the soft, odorous mazes; and thought of
the long days that would have to pass some way before I could see him
again.
"I believe I'll go and get Neva to walk with me this morning," I
decided, when mother told me that Mrs. Sullivan has been obliged, by
maternal affection, to send for her daughter to come home and spend
the week-end. "She will not disturb my musings."
I have been home several days now and have had an equal number of
letters from Richard, dear letters, all; and after the receipt of each
one I feel that same inclination to get out under the open skies with
my joy.
This was Sunday morning, and there is a glorious Indian summer sun
shining over the earth with that soft haze which only this season of
the year gives. Of course I could not stay in the house.
When I rang the door-bell at the Sullivan cottage about ten o'clock I
was admitted upon a scene of confusion which vainly tried to smooth
itself out into a Sabbathical family-quiet upon my entrance. But the
tension made itself felt in spite of the Sunday clothes in evidence,
and the Bibles lying in readiness on the center-table in the parlor.
I mentioned the object of my visit, but Neva shook her head
reluctantly. She would love to go walking with me, she explained, but
she was going to church.
Her tone and statement were both so inoffensive that I was naturally
startled at the storm which burst forth at her words.
"You _ain't_," Mrs. Sullivan contradicted flatly, displaying an
unwonted degree of animation.
"I am," Neva answered, with a _Vere de Vere_ repose.
"Your hats is all locked up," her mother suggested.
"Then I'll go bareheaded. They'll think it's a new style that I've
learned in the city."
Mrs. Sullivan subsided into a chair and showed signs of tears.
"I see that it's poorly worth while to educate you," she began, but
Neva interrupted her nervously.
"Oh, mamma, don't say _educate jew_."
"Now, did you ever hear anything that sassy? I don't see how _no_ man
could want you!"
Mrs. Sullivan's tone was tearful, but Neva's sensitive ears had
already drunk in their money's worth of culture at the college for
young ladies.
"There you go again! '_Want chew._' Mamma, haven't I begged you not to
go through life saying chew and Jew, unless you refer to
mastication--or an Israelite?"
The tears actually started at this piece of filial cruelty, and Mrs.
Sullivan turned to me for consolation.
"Now, I'll put it to you, Miss Ann, ain't that enough to make a woman
wish she hadn't never saw a child? And do you know what this trouble
is all about?--That common, ig'nant clodhopper, Hiram Ellis, that
Nevar's almost broke her neck to see since she's been home."
"Why, I thought Hiram was in high favor--with you _all_," I said in
surprise, remembering the occasion of the fainting-spell.
"He was, so long as Nevar was just a ordinary country girl," Mrs.
Sullivan explained, wiping her eyes and glancing with a look of shame
and reproach at Neva; "but do you reckon me and Tim's spending all
that money on her education, and then let her turn in and marry
anybody as _plain_ as Hiram Ellis?"
"_Plain!_ Well, I don't see as we're so _fancy_!" Neva said
indignantly.
"Is she going to marry him this morning?" I asked, and I noted then
the extreme fussiness of Neva's hair arrangement. It bore a truly
leonine aspect. She had on her school uniform, and so, except for the
number of class-pins, she had not sinned excessively in the way of
dress. But the hair gave me some misgivings as to her intentions.
"Ain't no telling what she'll do," her mother said hopelessly. "She's
bent on going to church where she can see him! We've done all we could
to keep her at home, even to locking up her hats and Tim carrying off
the curling-irons in his pocket so she couldn't curl her hair. But do
you know what that young'un done? I'll be blessed if she didn't hunt
up her pappy's old tool box and git out his old _augur_--and curled
her hair on that. Did you ever hear of a girl so deep in love that
she'd _curl her hair on a het augur_?"
"Oh, mamma," she begged piteously, "don't say 'pappy!' And _don't say
'het!'_"
So it happened that I walked alone through the "garden." Alone, yet I
felt that I was in a beloved presence, for Richard's last letter was
with me. I sat down at the edge of the lake which had dried up in the
Stone Age, and drew the letter out from its resting-place to read it
over again.
Richard's handwriting is heavy, black, and almost as free from flowing
curves as the chirography of a literary man. "Sweetheart," the letter
began, and the firm lines which formed the letters looked very much as
if he meant it. It was signed "Richard, R. I.," in humorous acceptance
of the title I had given him. But perhaps the dearest thing in
connection with the letter was the faint aroma of "Habana" which hung
over it. I held the sheets up close to my face and shielded them from
any vandal winds that might slip up and covet that sweet odor; and I
recalled the smile in his eyes when he made me the promise that he
would always be smoking when he wrote to me--that the letters might be
more realistic.
"Don't tell me any more that you are a full-grown woman," he said, as
he made the promise. "You are a child--but adorable."
He knew that I would be lonely, the letter stated, but he had left
orders with a book-dealer that a batch of new books be sent out to me
each week, to help while away the time. Orders had also been left with
the florist and confectioner--and I must at once report to him any
negligence on the part of these worthies.
"Of course you have already acted upon my suggestion that you return
the Byron book," the letter continued, as if the mention of books had
brought this affair to his mind, but I fancied that he had mentioned
them rather as a means of leading up to this. "I know you would not
keep it after I have shown you the impropriety of your doing so."
"Impropriety!" That is a word that I hate and avoid. No one had ever,
to my knowledge, used it in connection with anything I have ever done
up until this time. I bridled a little as I read it over. Somehow, out
here in the wilds, I seemed to recall suddenly that if Richard is a
gallant lover, so also is Alfred an old, and very dear friend--while
the Byron book is a delightful possession.
"I shall not send it back," I decided, after a little reflection. "I
shall stand my ground. He is not unreasonable, and he will sooner or
later understand that I am old enough to judge for myself between
things proper and improper! Ugh, how the words remind me of my
prospective mother-in-law!"
I hastily mapped out a letter in reply to this, telling him that I
should keep the book, because I saw no reason, on the grounds he
mentioned, for sending it back.
So intent was I upon this idea that I hastily jumped up from my sunny
nook by the old lake and shook out my skirts. I would go home right
now and write that letter!
I made my way across the breadth of the valley and leisurely climbed
the hill, for the midday sun was quite hot. I paused and looked back
once in a while, for the garden was so beautiful this morning.
There was absolutely no thought of defiance in my idea of showing
Richard my viewpoint, for I did not dream that he considered the
affair in any other light than the cut-and-dried distaste to "a young
woman receiving presents from a young man to whom she is not engaged."
He had not _asked_ me to return the book. He had simply shown me the
error of my way--and I had failed to recognize it.
I stopped again to look around at the wild beauty of the place before
leaving it, then, with a little running start, I quickly gained the
crest. When I had reached it I stopped once more, this time with a
startled surprise, for I found myself face to face with Neva. I noted,
with amusement, that she had possessed herself of a hat.
"Well, so you decided to come for a walk?" I said in greeting. "How
did you manage to get your hat out of the wardrobe?"
She stopped still in the path and her eyes suddenly met mine in a look
of dumb misery. I first thought that the question might have been
embarrassing to her, and was trying to think of something to cover it,
when she spoke.
"Piled a box on a chair on a table," she explained with an effort,
"until I could reach up high enough to prize the top off. 'Twas old
and loose--and I still had the augur!"
"Neva! Think of the perseverance! And after all that, you didn't get
to see him?"
At my words her mouth tightened at the corners, and her eyes looked
very bright and dry.
"Oh, I saw him," she answered bitterly, after a moment's struggle. "He
drove right past me while I was trudging down that dusty road to
church. But he didn't see _me_. He had Stella Hampton in the buggy
with him."
"Stella Hampton? Who is she?"
"She's the girl that sicked the fit doctor on to me!"
I tried to comfort her, but she was desolate.
"It ain't that I care so much about _him_," she assured me,
forgetting, in her misery, her boarding-school English, "but oh, I
can't bear to face them at home. It's so terrible to be made ashamed
before folks."
I agreed with her and insisted that she go home with me, not braving
the ordeal of facing her own family until late in the afternoon, when
they should have forgotten it a little. Tears of gratitude came to her
pretty, troubled eyes as she joyously accepted my invitation.
Mother was on the front porch as we came up the walk and she welcomed
Neva cordially.
"Ann," she said, turning to me and speaking in an undertone, "there is
a long-distance call for you. The operator has rung up several times,
then said that the 'party' would call again at twelve-thirty."
"Oh, mother!" I cried, with a great throb of pleasure. In a few
minutes I should be listening to the sound of his voice, and that was
a deal more satisfying than the aroma of cigar smoke in a letter!
"Little runaway, where have you been all morning?" I heard in his
dear, drawling tones after the connections had been made and listening
ears supposed to be removed from the line. "I've been trying for three
hours to get you."
"I've been out for my Sunday morning tramp," I answered, a sudden
overwhelming longing to _see_ him sweeping over me. His voice sounded
so near that I could scarcely believe that half the length of the
state lay between us.
"Alone?"
There was no drawl to this query.
"No, not alone. I had your letter with me."
"When are you going to answer it, sweetheart?"
"To-day. I have already thought up some of the things I'm going to say
to you."
It might have been thought transmission, or it might have been chance,
but at all events, it is the honest truth, that the next question was
the one in my mind.
"And what have you to say for yourself about Doctor Morgan's book, my
lady?"
"A good deal more than is profitable to say over a long-distance
telephone," I replied, hoping to change the drift of the talk. I felt
that I could say my little speech better on paper than I could over
the wires.
"Well, that has been troubling me a little, Ann," he said in his
unsmiling voice, and I felt that his eyes were looking coldly into the
space just beyond his telephone. "I see that you are disposed to
argue the matter. I had an idea that you had not sent it back, so I
decided to ask you when I got you to the 'phone. Now, the question is,
are you going to be guided by what I tell you in this matter, or not?"
No woman who has not experienced the agony can half appreciate the
feeling of sudden terror that came over me at the cold sound of his
voice. It seemed to have a threatening tone of _finality_ in it that
chilled me to the bone. I had such a feeling of helplessness somehow.
You can argue with a man and cajole him and smooth his hair when he is
where you can get your hands on him, knowing all the time that you are
not going to let him leave the house until he has smiled the smile
that won your heart; but, oh, the futility of trying to argue with a
masterful lover over a long-distance telephone.
"Are you talking? I can't hear a word."
"I'm not talking, Richard," I answered. "I'm--I'm _thinking_."
"Well, I called you because I wanted to hear you talk. You haven't
answered my question yet." Again that tone of cold meaning. A hundred
thoughts a minute were flying through my brain. Should I say no and
have a quarrel with him? Should I say yes, and prove myself a
coward--or should I lie to him?
If this were a tale of heroism, I should have a few ringing words of
challenge to insert right here and then a quick curtain. But this is
not a heroic story, it is only simple truth, told with regret and
aspirations after a higher courage, yet still a true account of what
happened in our back hall this beautiful Sunday morning. _I hedged._
"I'll send it back, Richard," I told him, and he at once changed his
tone and the subject of his discourse, beginning a recital of how he
missed me and how he was going to cut short his trip up there and come
on back. I scarcely heard the words, for I was trying to frame for my
own conscience my sophisticated excuse. "I shall send it back if he
_convinces_ me that there is any just occasion for doing so," I
pleaded to myself. But after he had said good-by and I started from
the telephone I found mother's eyes fixed upon me in a kind of pitying
wonder.
I flushed and looked away. Then I recalled Cousin Eunice's words:
"Don't let him make you do anything that will lower your self-respect.
Many wives don't know the meaning of that word." Wives? Dear me! I
have been his fiancée only a week!