Miss Arnold found him wandering aimlessly, though with a pleased,
interested look, around the dimly lit College Library. She had gone
there herself to escape for a few moments from the heat and lights and
the crowd around the Scotch celebrity to whom the reception was being
tendered, and was looking rather desultorily at an article in the latest
_Revue des Deux Mondes_, when he emerged from one of the alcoves and
stood hesitatingly before her. She saw that he was not a guest. He was
not in evening dress--it occurred to her even then how entirely out of
his element he would have looked in a conventional dress-suit--but wore
new clothes of some rough material which fitted him badly. He was so
evidently lost and so painfully aware of it that she hastened to ask him
if she could do anything for him.
“I’m lookin’ fur my daughter, Ellen Oldham,” he said, gratefully. “Do
you know her?”
He seemed much surprised and a little hurt when Miss Arnold shook her
head, smilingly.
“You see, there are so many----” she began, noting his disappointed
look.
“Then I s’pose you can’t find her fer me. You see,” he explained,
gently, “I wrote her I wuz comin’ ter-morrer, an’ I came ter-night fur a
surprise--a surprise,” he repeated, delightedly. “But I’m mighty
disappointed not ter find her. This is the first time I ever wuz so fur
east. But I hed to see Ellen--couldn’t stan’ it no longer. You see,” he
continued, nervously, “I thought mebbe I could stay here three or four
days, but last night I got a telegram from my pardner on the mountain
sayin’ there wuz trouble among the boys an’ fur me ter come back. But
I--I jest couldn’t go back without seein’ Ellen, so I came on ter-night
fur a surprise, but I must start back right off, an’ I’m mighty
disappointed not ter be seein’ her all this time. Hed no idea yer
college wuz such a big place--thought I could walk right in an’ spot
her,” he ran on meditatively--“I thought it wuz something like Miss
Bellairs’s an’ Miss Tompkins’s an’ Miss Rand’s all rolled inter one. But
Lord! it’s a sight bigger’n that! Well, I’m glad of it. I’ve thought fur
years about Ellen’s havin’ a college eddication, an’ I’m glad to see
it’s a real big college. Never hed no schoolin’ myself, but I jest set
my heart on Ellen’s havin’ it. Why shouldn’t she? I’ve got ther money.
Hed to work mighty hard fur it, but I’ve got it, an’ she wanted ter come
to college, and I wanted her to come, so of course she came. I met
another young woman,” he continued, smiling frankly at the girl before
him; “she wasn’t so fine-lookin’ as you, but she was a very nice young
woman, an’ she promised to send Ellen ter me, but she hasn’t done it!”
Miss Arnold felt a sudden interest in the old man.
“Perhaps,” she began, doubtfully, “if you could tell me what her class
is, or in what building she has her rooms, I might find her.”
He looked at the young girl incredulously.
“Ain’t you never heard of her?” he demanded. “Why, everybody knew her at
Miss Bellairs’s. But p’r’aps”--in a relieved sort of way--“p’r’aps you
ain’t been here long. This is Ellen’s second year.”
Miss Arnold felt slightly aggrieved. “I am a Senior,” she replied, and
then added courteously, “but I am sure the loss has been mine.”
She could not make this man out, quite--he was so evidently
uncultivated, so rough and even uncouth, and yet there was a look of
quiet power in his honest eyes, and he was so unaffectedly simple and
kindly that she instinctively recognized the innate nobility of his
character. She felt interested in him, but somewhat puzzled as to how to
continue the conversation, and so she turned rather helplessly to her
magazine.
But he came over and stood beside her, looking down wonderingly at the
unfamiliar words and accents.
“Can you read all that?” he asked, doubtfully.
Miss Arnold said “Yes.”
“Jest like English?” he persisted.
She explained that she had had a French nurse when she was little, and
afterward a French governess, and that she had always spoken French as
she had English. He seemed to be immensely impressed by that and looked
at her very intently and admiringly, and then he suddenly looked away,
and said, in a changed tone:
“I never hed no French nurse fur Ellen. Lord! it wuz hard enough to get
any kind in them days,” he said, regretfully. “But she’s been studyin’
French fur two years now--p’rhaps she speaks almost as good as you do by
this time--she’s mighty smart.”
Miss Arnold looked up quickly at the honest, kindly face above her with
the hopeful expression in the eyes, and some sudden impulse made her
say, quite cheerfully and assuringly, “Oh, yes--of course.”
She was just going to add that she would go to the office and send
someone to look for Miss Oldham, when a slender, rather pretty girl
passed the library door, hesitated, peering through the half-light, and
then came swiftly toward them.
With a cry of inexpressible tenderness and delight the old man sprang
toward her.
“Ellen!” he said, “Ellen!”
She clung to him for a few moments and then drew off rather shyly and
awkwardly, with a sort of _mauvaise honte_ which struck disagreeably on
Miss Arnold, and looked inquiringly and almost defiantly from her father
to the girl watching them.
“This young woman,” he said, understanding her unspoken inquiry, “has
been very kind to me, Ellen--we’ve been talkin’.”
Miss Arnold came forward.
“I think we ought to be friends,” she said, graciously. “I am Clara
Arnold. Your father tells me this is your Sophomore year.”
The girl met her advances coldly and stiffly. She had never met Miss
Arnold before, but she had known very well who she was, and she had
envied her, and had almost disliked her for her good looks and her
wealth and her evident superiority. She comprehended that this girl had
been born to what she had longed for in a vague, impotent way, and had
never known. She wished that Miss Arnold had not witnessed the meeting
with her father--that Miss Arnold had not seen her father at all. And
then, with the shame at her unworthy thoughts came a rush of pity and
love for the man standing there, smiling so patiently and so tenderly at
her. She put one hand on his arm and drew herself closer to him.
“Father!” she said.
Miss Arnold stood looking at them, turning her clear eyes from one to
the other. It interested her tremendously--the simple, kindly old man,
in his rough clothes, and with his homely talk and his fatherly pride
and happiness in the pretty, irresolute-looking girl beside him. It
occurred to her suddenly, with a thrill of pity for herself, that she
had never seen her father look at her in that way. He would have been
inordinately surprised and--she felt sure--very much annoyed, if she had
ever kissed his hand or laid her head on his arm as this girl was now
doing. He had been an extremely kind and considerate father to her. It
struck her for the first time that she had missed something--that after
providing the rather pretentiously grand-looking house and grounds, and
the servants and carriages and conservatories, her father had forgotten
to provide something far more essential. But she was so much interested
in the two before her that she did not have much time to think of
herself. She concluded that she did not want to go back to the Scotch
celebrity, and resolutely ignored the surprised looks of some of her
friends who passed the library door and made frantic gestures for her to
come forth and join them. But when they had moved away it occurred to
her that she ought to leave the two together, and so she half rose to
go, but the man, divining her intention, said, heartily:
“Don’t go--don’t go! Ellen’s goin’ to show me about this big college,
an’ we want you to go, too.”
He was speaking to Miss Arnold, but his eyes never left the girl’s face
beside him, while he gently stroked her hair as if she had been a little
child.
And so they walked up and down the long library, and they showed him the
Milton shield, and dragged from their recesses rare books, and pointed
out the pictures and autographs of different celebrities. He seemed
very much interested and very grateful to them for their trouble, and
never ashamed to own how new it all was to him nor how ignorant he was,
and he did not try to conceal his pride in his daughter’s education and
mental superiority to himself. And when Miss Arnold realized that, she
quietly effaced herself and let the younger girl do all the honors, only
helping her now and then with suggestions or statistics.
“You see,” he explained, simply, after a lengthy and, as it seemed to
Miss Arnold, a somewhat fruitless dissertation on the splendid copy of
the “Rubaiyat” lying before them--“you see I don’t know much about these
things. Never hed no chance. But Ellen knows, so what’s the use of my
knowin’? She can put her knowledge to use; but, Lord! I couldn’t if I
hed it.
“You see it was like this,” he continued, cheerfully, turning to Miss
Arnold, while the girl at his side raised her head for an instant and
uttered a low exclamation of protest. “We lived out West--in a minin’
camp in Colorado--Bowlder Bluff wuz its name. Awfully lonesome place. No
schools--nothin’, jest the store--my store--an’ the mines not fur off.
Ellen wuz about twelve then”--he turned inquiringly to the girl, but
she would not look up--“about twelve,” he continued, after a slight
pause, and another gentle caress of the brown hair; “an’ I hedn’t never
given a thought to wimmen’s eddication, an’ Ellen here wuz jest growin’
up not knowin’ a thing--except how I loved her an’ couldn’t bear her out
of my sight” (with another caress), “when one day there came to ther
camp a college chap. He wuz an English chap, an’ he wuz hard-up. But he
wuz a gentleman an’ he’d been to a college--Oxford wuz the name--an’ he
took a heap of notice of Ellen, an’ said she wuz mighty smart--yes,
Ellen, even then we knew you wuz smart--an’ that she ought to have
schoolin’ an’ not run aroun’ the camp any more. At first I didn’t pay no
attention to him. But by an’ by his views did seem mighty sensible, an’
he kep’ naggin at me. He used to talk to me about it continual, an’ at
night we’d sit out under the pines and talk--he with a fur-away sort of
look in his eyes an’ the smoke curlin’ up from his pipe--an’ he’d tell
me what eddication meant to wimmen--independence an’ happiness an’ all
that, an’ he insisted fur Ellen to go to a good school. He said there
wuz big colleges fur wimmen just like there wuz fur men, an’ that she
ought to have a chance an’ go to one.
“An’ then he would read us a lot of stuff of evenin’s--specially poetry.
Shelley in particular. And yet another chap, almost better’n Shelley.
Keats wuz his name. P’rhaps you’ve read some of his poetry?” he
inquired, turning politely to Miss Arnold. Something in her throat kept
her from speaking, so she only lowered her head and looked away from the
drawn, averted face of the girl before her. “He wuz great! All about
gods an’ goddesses an’ things one don’t know much about; but then, as I
take it, poetry always seems a little fur off, so it wuz kind of
natural. But Shelley wuz our favorite. He used to read us somethin’
about the wind. Regularly fine--jest sturred us up, I can tell you. We
knew what storms an’ dead leaves an’ ‘black rain an’ fire an’ hail’ wuz
out on them lonesome mountains. An’ sometimes he’d read us other things,
stories from magazines, an’ books, but it kind of made me feel lonesomer
than ever.
“But Ellen here, she took to it all like a duck to water, an’ the
college chap kep’ insistin’ that she ought to go to a good school, an’
that she showed ‘great natural aptitude’--them wuz his words--an’ that
she might be famous some day, till at last I got regularly enthusiastic
about wimmen’s eddication, an’ I jest determined not to waste any more
time, an’ so I sent her to Miss Bellairs’s at Denver. She wuz all I
hed, an’ Lord knows I hedn’t no particular reason to feel confidence in
wimmen folks”--a sudden, curious, hard expression came into his face for
a moment and then died swiftly away as he turned from Miss Arnold and
looked at the girl beside him. “But I sent her, an’ she ain’t never been
back to the camp, an’ she’s been all I ever hoped she’d be.”
They had passed from the faintly lighted library into the brilliant
corridors, and the man, towering in rugged strength above the two girls,
cast curious glances about him as they walked slowly along. Everything
seemed to interest him, and when they came to the Greek recitation-rooms
he insisted, with boyish eagerness, upon going in, and the big
photogravures of the Acropolis and the charts of the Ægean Sea, and even
a passage from the “Seven against Thebes” (copied upon the walls
doubtless by some unlucky Sophomore), and which was so hopelessly
unintelligible to him, seemed to fascinate him. And when they came to
the physical laboratories he took a wonderful, and, as it seemed to Miss
Arnold, an almost pathetic interest in the spectroscopes and Ruhmkorff
coils, and the batteries only half-discernable in the faintly flaring
lights.
And as they strolled about he still talked of Ellen and himself and
their former life, and the life that was to be--when Ellen should become
famous. For little by little Miss Arnold comprehended that that was his
one fixed idea. As he talked, slowly it came to her what this man was,
and what his life had been--how he had centred every ambition on the
girl beside him, separated her from him, at what cost only the mountain
pines and the stars which had witnessed his nightly struggles with
himself could tell; how he had toiled and striven for her that she might
have the education he had never known. She began to understand what
“going to college” had meant to this girl and this man--to this man
especially. It had not meant the natural ending of a preparatory course
at some school and a something to be gone through with--creditably, if
possible, but also, if possible, without too great exertion and with no
expectation of extraordinary results. It had had a much greater
significance to them than that. It had been regarded as an event of
incalculable importance, an introduction into a new world, the first
distinct step upon the road to fame. It had meant to them what a titled
offer means to a struggling young American beauty, or a word of
approbation to an under-lieutenant from his colonel, or a successful
maiden speech on the absorbing topic of the day, or any other great and
wonderful happening, with greater and more wonderful possibilities
hovering in the background.
She began to realize just how his hopes and his ambitions and his belief
in this girl had grown and strengthened, until the present and the
future held nothing for him but her happiness and advancement and
success. It was a curious idea, a strange ambition for a man of his
calibre to have set his whole heart upon, and as Miss Arnold looked at
the girl who was to realize his hopes, a sharp misgiving arose within
her and she wondered, with sudden fierce pity, why God had not given
this man a son.
But Ellen seemed all he wanted. He told, in a proud, apologetic sort of
way, while the girl protested with averted eyes, how she had always been
“first” at “Miss Bellairs’s” and that he supposed “she stood pretty well
up in her classes” at college. And Miss Arnold looked at the white,
drawn face of the girl and said, quite steadily, she had no doubt but
that Miss Oldham was a fine student. She was an exceptionally truthful
girl, but she was proud and glad to have said that when she saw the look
of happiness that kindled on the face of the man. Yet she felt some
compunctions when she noted how simply and unreservedly he took her into
his confidence.
And what he told her was just such a story as almost all mothers and
fathers tell--of the precocious and wonderful intellect of their
children and the great hopes they have of them. But with this man it was
different in some way. He was so deeply in earnest and so hopeful and so
tender that Miss Arnold could scarcely bear it. “Ellen” was to be a
poet. Had she not written verses when she was still a girl, and had not
the “college chap” and her teachers declared she had great talents?
Wait--he would let Miss Arnold judge for herself. Only lately he had
written to Ellen, asking her if she still remembered their lonely
mountain-home, and she had sent him this. They had strolled down the
corridor to one of the winding stairways at the end. He drew from his
large leather purse a folded paper. The girl watched him open it with an
inexpressible fear in her eyes, and when she saw what it was she started
forward with a sort of gasp, and then turned away and steadied herself
against the balustrade.
He spread out the paper with exaggerated care, and read, with the
monotonously painful intonations of the unpractised reader:
“Ye storm-winds of Autumn!
Who rush by, who shake
The window, and ruffle
The gleam-lighted lake;
Who cross to the hill-side
Thin sprinkled with farms,
Where the high woods strip sadly
Their yellow arms--
Ye are bound for the mountains!
Oh! with you let me go
Where your cold, distant barrier,
The vast range of snow,
Through the loose clouds lifts dimly
Its white peaks in air--
How deep is their stillness!
Ah! would I were there!”
As he read, Miss Arnold turned her eyes, burning with an unutterable
indignation and scorn, upon the girl, but the mute misery and awful
supplication in her face checked the words upon her lips. When he had
finished reading, Miss Arnold murmured something, she hardly knew what,
but he would not let her off so easily.
What did she think of it?--did she not think he ought to be proud of
Ellen? and was the “gleam-lighted lake” the lake they could see from the
piazza?
He ran on, taking it for granted that Miss Arnold was interested in his
hopes and dreams, and almost without waiting for or expecting replies.
And at last he told her the great secret. Ellen was writing a book. He
spoke of it almost with awe--in a suppressed sort of fashion. She had
not told him yet much about it, but he seemed wholly confident in its
future success. He wondered which of the big publishing houses would
want it most.
Miss Arnold gave a quick gasp of relief. There was more to this girl,
then, than she had dared to hope. She glanced eagerly and expectantly
toward her, and in that one look she read the whole pitiable lie. Ellen
was looking straight ahead of her, and the hopeless misery and shame in
her eyes Miss Arnold never forgot. All the pretty, weak curves about the
mouth and chin had settled into hard lines, and a nameless fear
distorted every feature. But the man seemed to notice nothing, and
walked on with head uplifted and a proud, almost inspired look upon his
rugged face.
“When will the book be finished, Ellen?” he asked, at length.
The girl looked up, and Miss Arnold noted with amazement her wonderful
control.
“It will not be very long now, father,” she replied. She was acting her
difficult part very perfectly. It occurred to Miss Arnold that for many
years this girl had been so acting, and as she looked at the strong,
quiet features of the man she shuddered slightly and wondered how it
would be with her when he knew.
* * * * *
When the carriage which was to take him to the station for the midnight
train into Boston had driven from the door, the two girls looked at each
other steadily for an instant.
“Come to my study for a few moments,” said the younger one, imperiously.
Miss Arnold acquiesced silently, and together they moved down the long
corridor to Miss Oldham’s rooms.
“I want to explain,” she began, breathlessly, leaning against the closed
door and watching with strained, wide-opened eyes Miss Arnold’s face,
upon which the light from the lamp fell strong and full.
“I want to explain,” she repeated, defiantly this time. “You had no
right to come between myself and my father! I wish with all my heart you
had never seen him, but since you _have_ seen him I must explain. I am
not entirely the hypocrite and the coward you take me for.” She stopped
suddenly and gave a low cry. “Ah! what shall I say to make you
understand? It began so long ago--I did not mean to deceive him. It was
because I loved him and he thought me so clever. He thought because I
was quick and bright, and because I was having a college education, that
I was--different. In his ignorance how could he guess the great
difference between a superficial aptitude and real talents? How could I
tell him--how could I,” with a despairing gesture, “that I was just like
thousands of other girls, and that there are hundreds right here in this
college who are my superiors in every way? It would have broken his
heart.” Her breath came in short gasps and the pallor of her face had
changed to a dull red.
Miss Arnold leaned forward on the table.
“You have grossly deceived him,” she said, in cold, even tones.
“Deceived him?--yes--a thousand times and in a thousand ways. But I did
it to make him happy. Am I really to blame? He expected so much of
me--he had such hopes and such dreams of some great career for me. I
_am_ a coward. I could not tell him that I was a weak, ordinary girl,
that I could never realize his aspirations, that the mere knowledge that
he depended and relied upon me weighed upon me and paralyzed every
effort. When I loved him so could I tell him this? Could I tell him
that his sacrifices were in vain, that the girl of whom he had boasted
to every man in the mining camp was a complete failure?”
She went over to the table and leaned her head upon her shaking hand.
“If my mother--if I had had a brother or sister, it might have been
different, but I was alone and I was all he had. And so I struggled on,
half hoping that I might become something after all. But I confessed to
myself what I could not to him, that I would never become a scholar,
that my intellect was wholly superficial, that the verses I wrote were
the veriest trash, that I was only doing what ninety-nine out of every
hundred girls did, and that ninety-eight wrote better rhymes than I.
There is a whole drawerful of my ‘poetry’”--she flung open a desk
disdainfully--“until I could stand it no longer, and one day when he
asked me to write something about the mountains, in desperation I copied
those verses of Matthew Arnold’s. I knew he would never see them. After
that it was easy to do so again.” She stopped and pressed her hands to
her eyes.
“I am the most miserable girl that lives,” she said.
Miss Arnold looked at her coldly.
“And the book?” she said at length.
Miss Oldham lifted her head wearily.
“It was all a falsehood. He kept asking me if I were not writing a book.
He thought one had only to write a book to become famous. It seemed so
easy not to oppose the idea, and little by little I fell into the habit
of talking about ‘the book’ as if it were really being written. I did
not try to explain to myself what I was doing. I simply drifted with the
current of his desires and hopes. It may seem strange to you that a man
like my father should have had such ambitions, and stranger still that
he should have ever dreamed I could realize them. But one _has_ strange
fancies alone with one’s self out on the mountains, and the isolation
and self-concentration of the life give an intensity to any desire or
expectation that you, who live in an ever-changing world, cannot
understand.”
Miss Arnold looked at the girl curiously. She wondered for the first
time if there was any excuse for her. She had a singularly strong moral
nature herself, and she could not quite understand this girl’s weakness
and deceit. The fact that she loved her father so deeply only added to
the mystery.
She arose. “If I were you”--she began, coldly, but Miss Oldham stopped
her.
“It is all finished now,” she said. She, too, had arisen, and was
standing against the door, looking down and speaking in the monotonous
tone of someone reciting a lesson.
“I have decided, and I shall go to my father, and I shall say, ‘I have
deceived you; I have neither courage nor honesty. There might have been
an excuse for another girl--a girl who did not understand you or who did
not love you, or who did not know just how much her success meant to
you. For me there is none. I, who knew how strange the idea at first
seemed to you of your daughter’s being an educated, accomplished girl;
I, who knew how little by little the idea became a passion with you, how
proud and how fond you were of her, how you worked and prayed that she
might be something different and better than the rest--I, who knew all
this, have still deceived you. There is but one thing I dare ask you,
Will you not let me go back to the mountain with you, and serve you and
be to you the daughter I have not been as yet?’”
She stopped suddenly and looked at Miss Arnold.
“That is what I must do, is it not?” she asked, dully.
Miss Arnold went over to her.
“That is what you must do,” she said, gently.
It was almost two weeks later when Miss Arnold, coming in from a long
walk, found a letter lying on her table. It bore an unfamiliar postmark,
and the superscription had evidently been written in great haste or
agitation. She tore it open with a feeling of apprehension.
“My punishment has come upon me,” it ran. “My father is dead. I got a
telegram at Denver--they met me at the foot of the mountain. I cannot
say anything now. As yet I have but one thought and one comfort--he
never knew! Think of me as you will--I am glad he never did!
“E. O.”