The Hemlock Farm, the captain's new possession, was a great untrimmed
tract of farm and woodland on the Hudson, with a rough-hewn stone house,
open-windowed and wide-doored, uncivilized and picturesque, set down
hospitably in the midst of it. Mr. Neckart, striking across the fields
from the little station, caught glimpses through the forest for a mile
or two of its walls and heavy chimneys stained with smoke and lichen.
They seemed to grow out of the ground as naturally as the oaks and gray
beeches.
It was a damp, cool day in June. Ragged patches of clouds were driven
down across the tree-tops; the dark blue of the sky had yet a tinge of
moist yellow in it after the night's rains; the wind was wet as it blew
now and then gustily in Neckart's face. He jumped across a brush hedge
overgrown with smilax and blackberry vines, and passed in under the
hemlocks. They were dark and still. Outside, the sunshine flashed
sometimes, pale and watery, and the blackberries in the hedge were
getting rid of their white blossoms and reddening their green knobs, and
a wild tiger-lily here and there blazed its answer to the summer; but
the old hemlocks, just as Neckart knew them when a boy, kept silence and
nodded thoughtfully together, meditating over their ancient secret. He
walked more slowly. How long was it since he had left the office or sat
in the club-room at breakfast with Rhodes's puffy face and unsavory
talk?
Why, even the hedge with its sleepy hum of bees and yellow butterflies
seemed to be of the world, worldly here. He left it far behind. The
aisles of the wood grew higher and more solemn, and slowly filled with
pale-green light. The wind and rain last night had not reached these
solitudes, yet he climbed over fallen trunks rank with soaked emerald
moss and branching fungus yellow or red as coral. A lizard with bulging
eyes of jet darted across his foot: now came the whir of a partridge
from under the dead leaves, now the veery cut the air with its fine
silver pipe.
Neckart stood still and drew long slow breaths. The life of the woods
was like sleep to him; the air was marrowy, stimulating; he could feel
himself growing quiet and stronger in it. A moment later he drew his
breath deeper.
"She is coming!" A tall, erect girl, bareheaded, came noiselessly down
between the gray trunks of the trees, her feet sinking at each step into
the dead, ash-colored moss. Her color rose as she saw him, and her eyes
lighted, but she put her finger on her lips. "You have frightened them,"
she whispered. "They have all gone into their houses."
"They--?"
"Hush-h!" She sat down on a fallen log and motioned him to a place
beside her: then she waited, listening. There was a space of silence:
presently a red squirrel came out overhead and darted along the limbs;
the ragged bark of the tree in front of them was suddenly full of
creeping things, busily hurrying up and down; the coffee-colored water
of the brook at their feet began to glance with silvery flashes of
minnows and wagtails; out of a miniature hill came a long procession of
ants; they marched, deployed, disappeared, and came again; monster
spiders, like lumps of glittering enamel, swung in the air by invisible
threads; two black beetles rose to view by Neckart's foot, rolling a
white ball twice as big as themselves toward a flicker of clear sunshine
on the grass.
"They are taking the babies for a sun-bath," whispered Jane.
The muffled hammering of a woodpecker, building its nest, came from a
hollow tree at a little distance. A flock of kingbirds dashed
boisterously through the underbrush. The pewees began their pitiful cry
of "Lost! lost!" a scarlet tanager sat like a sentinel on a dead branch
and challenged them with a sharp single note. The whole air grew full of
that strenuous, mysterious wood-sound which is next to silence--the
voice and movement of millions of living things too small for sight. It
rose to a full orchestra as the two human listeners sat motionless,
though only a few notes were familiar to Neckart--the tic-tic of the
grasshoppers, the low monotone of countless unseen springs escaping
under the grass, the lone call of the thrush, a single minor note from a
golden bugle. But it was not the grasshoppers or thrush to which he
listened breathlessly: it was the soft breathing of the young girl
beside him, as she sat attentive, a quiet delight in her face, her blue
eyes gathering soft lustre. Nature, when she and the world were young,
might have looked with such motherly tenderness on all her living
things. Her large nervous hands were clasped about her knees: the yellow
hair glistened close beside him, and as her full bosom rose and fell he
could hear her heart beat in the silence.
He stood up quickly with a shiver: "Shall we go to the house?"
She rose: "Yes, if you will. They are learning to know me now. I come
here every day. There is a partridge lives under that bush, and he came
out and actually let me see him drum once, and yesterday I found a
blacksnake attacking a bluebird's nest in time to help fight the
battle."
They had reached the hedge: Neckart held apart the thorny bushes, but
did not give her his hand to help her through, as he would have done to
any other woman. He was always scant in personal courtesies to her.
She looked back at the woods: "Yes, there they all live and keep house,
and marry and quarrel and die. It does not concern them at all what man
you make President, Mr. Neckart. It is very hard to make their
acquaintance. I think they ought to know their friends at sight."
"I don't know. I know two human beings," said Neckart gravely, "who,
when they first met, felt a strong mutual antipathy, and now they--"
She turned, looking keenly at him.
"They are good friends, Miss Swendon," looking into her eyes.
"Yes. There could not be any better," putting out her hand frankly. He
held it but an instant, as he might have done a boy's when offered to
him; but as she turned away a soft lovely color dyed her throat and
face.
"There is so much wild mint growing here," she said incoherently,
stooping to gather it, "and pennyroyal, and a plenty of sweet basil. I
am going to have an herb- and seed-room, and give out the seeds to Twiss
myself next spring. I have not told you any of the news. Father has
slept every night without a tonic. Don't you think his color is better?
Did you see him yesterday?" anxiously.
"Oh, it is better without doubt."
"I am quite sure, now, we did the very wisest thing in coming here. The
house is on an elevation, you see--above any chance of malaria--and then
the warm moisture from the river--just what he needs. And the going to
town--Do you often meet him in town? Is he enjoying himself? Did it
strike you that he was improving until I suggested it?"
"Why, it was only to-day," said Neckart, "that I told Judge Rhodes how I
met Captain Swendon everywhere--at the club--"
"Yes. _I_ urged him to join the club," her face beaming.
"Couldn't have been a wiser move.--At the club, at dinners, at the
theatre, meeting old friends, taking in new life everywhere, and making
new life for everybody. Why, to see him on Broadway waving his hat and
calling 'Hillo!' to somebody across the street puts even the cab-horses
in good humor."
She laughed: "I knew it, I knew it! And here on rainy days he has so
much to do. He is trying every one of his patents in the house or
grounds. I am fitting up a billiard-room to surprise him on his
birthday. But come and I'll show you some of the patents at work. And I
have never showed you the barn or the orchard. Father will not be at
home until evening. He expected to meet you on the train. We can go
exploring all the afternoon."
They crossed the meadow to the barn, Jane explaining that the former
owner of the Hemlocks had lived for years in Europe, and left house and
land to run into their present overgrown decay. "Farmer and gardeners
worry about new fences and repairs, but I will not have even the dead
leaves cleared from the paths. I remember you said once you liked to
hear them crisp under your feet," sliding her own feet among them.
There was nothing in the idle, purposeless afternoon which any practical
man or woman would have thought worthy of an hour's remembrance; yet it
stood out for ever after, above all of Bruce Neckart's life, as some
fair table-land lifted from the fogs near to the sun.
They went into the house, examined patent hinges and locks, and
explored the vacant rooms and mysterious garrets filled with lumber. She
sat down by an old spinning-wheel, turning it and singing a scrap of
Gretchen's song, while the light from the dormer window touched her
white arched throat and yellow hair. They went to the stables, and the
old Scotch hostler brought out the horses and talked with Neckart of the
mysteries of flanks and strains of blood, while Jane looked on shyly,
standing with the dog in the wide door.
"Maybe I shall know them as well as I do you some day, Bruno," she said
gravely to him. "But I shall never like them as well. That wouldn't be
possible: they're strangers." The dog nuzzled his head into her hand and
marched steadily beside her. Then she took Neckart and Bruno over a
little hill to a spring-house, into which you went through a mossy door
across a sparkling little brook. She went inside and brought out a bowl
of yellow cream, all of them watching the kitchen windows guiltily as
she did it; and then they went on aimlessly across the stepping-stones
in the brook up through the field of young corn until they skirted the
brush hedge again, when Bruno left them in pursuit of ground-squirrels.
There was a bank running along the river-shore, topped with nodding
ferns and purple iron-weed, and brown with the soft, feathery tops of
the mouse-ear. The bank was on one side, the water on the other, swift,
dark, mobile, throwing back now a still belt of sunshine, now gloomy
woods, now the yellow shadows of low-driven clouds. They walked with the
river, not against it. The wind blew damp in their faces. Since Neckart
had talked so confidently of her father's improvement, Jane had been gay
and light-hearted as a child, with a nervous quaver now and then in her
voice as if a word would bring the tears. She looked at him thoughtfully
as they walked on.
"You ought to go to California again," she said abruptly.
"I can take tonics at home, if you mean that I need them."
"Yes. You are more worn and haggard than when we left Omaha. Every day
of the journey I used to see how the wrinkles left your forehead, and
your eye cleared and your voice changed. It was the mountain-air. There
is no tonic for you like the mountain-air."
Neckart shifted his hat uneasily, and turned to look at the river as
though the frank blue eyes anxiously inspecting his face hurt him.
"I was harassed and perplexed then as to the policy which I should adopt
for the paper in a certain political question. My grim looks were no
doubt owing to that. You decided the question for me."
"I? Why, I know nothing of politics."
"No. But the choice offered me was between right and financial ruin on
one side, and a fortune and neutrality on the other. It would be
impossible," in a tone which suddenly became careless and matter of
fact, "for any man to come in contact with a nature as absolutely honest
as yours, Miss Swendon, and not be influenced by it. I do not think I
spoke to you at all of this question, yet it seemed to me that you
dictated every step of my course. I never have told you of my affairs
since, yet every day I take your advice on them. It is always different
from that of my political friends, because it is simply the broad truth
and common sense. I follow it." He turned to her with one of his rare
smiles and an odd break in his controlled voice. "I hold your hand in
mine every step of my way."
She did not smile in return. She was standing still in the path, as
though she had been stopped by a blow. "Honest? _I_ honest?" she said.
The dog jumped up on her breast to go on with his romp. She pushed him
down, looking straight into Neckart's amazed face.
"You may have made mistakes: everybody is liable to do that," he
stammered. "But as for sincerity--"
She drew a long breath as if throwing off a burden: "No. I have been
honest. You are not wrong about me there. I have made no mistakes." She
turned and walked on quickly.
As he followed her he observed for the first time how steady was her
step and how close set the finely-cut jaws. His own mouth, by the way,
was coarser, but more facile: it spoke when silent: the chin was cleft
and sensitive.
"When she once makes up her mind, the verdict of the whole world will
not make her flinch," he thought with keen approval. The quality which
he had that very day damned as mulish obstinacy in one of his clerks was
infinitely alluring to him in this young girl. He came closer to her,
watching her averted face, a passion of delight and longing gradually
dulling all past resolves or reason.
If she would but turn her eyes on his face again searching for signs of
trouble or illness! It was actually the first time in Neckart's life
that a woman had taken any care of him. His mother had been a burden and
charge on him since his boyhood. That single kindly glance had opened to
him unknown possibilities of tenderness, of the touch of a woman's
fingers, and all that came to other men through them.
But she walked on without speaking, her head sunk on her breast. She
seemed to have forgotten that he was in the world.
At a bend in the road they met the captain. He was heated and agitated,
and tried to hide it by tremendous hilarity. He welcomed Neckart
boisterously, shaking hands with him again and again before he turned to
Jane, who stood watching him with delighted eyes.
"How well you are looking this afternoon, father! Your cheeks are as red
as a girl's!"
"Oh, I'm all right! Don't bother about me. Think of other people
sometimes, child. Now, there's a matter I want to speak to you about, if
I could only put it to you properly."
"I am ready. Put it directly, point-blank: that is the best way in
delicate questions."
"Don't laugh. It's no laughing matter. It's the most serious business of
my life, and I've only a few minutes to make you understand," mopping
his hot forehead with his handkerchief. "The train will be due in half
an hour."
"The train? Serious business? The commissioner of patents is coming?--"
"Damn the patents! I beg your pardon, Jane. But really--This is a
request I have to make of you. A request of you from poor Will Laidley."
She drew back. The weight which she had a moment ago thrown off fell on
her again. "A request of me?" she said slowly. "Whatever he asked me to
do I shall do. I owe him at least so much."
"Of course! You owe him everything. You know he might have left us
without a penny, as he thought of doing. Instead of which, there was not
even a legacy to any charity."
"No. Every dollar of it came to me. I know."
"Oh, Will behaved most generously, nobly, to you, there's no doubt of
it! And this plan of his shows such tender care of you. I never heard of
it until to-day from Judge Rhodes. God forbid that I should influence
you! But you would be sorry to thwart him in his grave."
"I will not thwart him again."
"If I could put it to you properly now!" The captain grew red and
coughed. Mr. Neckart looked at him with fierce disgust. Was he so brutal
as to talk to any woman of her marriage with a man whom she had never
seen?
"You forget," he said coldly. "Miss Swendon owes no gratitude for money
which was justly her own. William Laidley, too, was a weak, impure
man--the very last who should be allowed to stretch his hand out of his
grave to control any woman's life. You should not hamper her with any
such gratitude."
"You cannot judge of this for me, Mr. Neckart," said Jane. "He has the
right, especially when it concerns his money.--What is it he wished me
to do?"
The captain stammered with embarrassment.
"Tut! tut! Money has nothing to do with it.--As for poor Will, Bruce, he
had his good points. _De mortuis_--you know. I knew him in his prime.
It's a trifle, after all," evading Neckart's eye, of which he had read
the meaning. "But you are so apt, Jane, to take unreasonable prejudices
against people. This is a friend of Will's, whom Judge Rhodes will bring
out this evening. And it was your cousin's wish that he should be your
friend also--adviser, eh? I've no head for business, you know, and you
might refer knotty questions to him. Consult him about stocks, and the
drainage of the stables, and this and that," glancing at Neckart for
approval of his delicacy and cunning. "I only wanted to warn you not to
take an antipathy to him, but I am clumsy--"
"Is that all?" putting her hand to her eyes for a minute as though they
ached.--"Come, Bruno. It is time to dress for dinner."
"Yes, do, my dear. Haven't you any dress with frills and fal-lals, such
as the ladies are wearing now? These clinging gowns do well enough for
home-folks like me and Bruce, but--Something airy, gay, now. It's only
as an adviser that Will recommended Mr. Van Ness to you, you understand?
Your cousin consulted him of late years in all financial matters. I do
suppose Van Ness--and Laidley too," turning to Neckart--"would think the
child was flinging the money to the dogs, buying such a place as this to
humor her old father's whims."
Jane halted, her hands on the dog's collar: "I will have no advice from
Mr. Van Ness, father, as to my disposal of the money. It is mine. No
man, dead or living, shall interfere with my use of it," she said in a
low voice.
"Now I've prejudiced her against him," groaned the captain as soon as
she was out of sight. "I saw you thought me coarse in urging this matter
on her so abruptly, Bruce. But you do not understand. My time here is
short--God knows how soon it may end--and I can't bear the thought of
leaving the child alone. Van Ness is so pure a man--a Christian whom all
the world reverences--What better can I hope than to see her his wife
before I go?"
"His wife?"
"Yes. Is there any objection to him? Be frank, Bruce. It is nothing to
you, but it's life and death to me. Van Ness told Judge Rhodes candidly
this morning that he had watched Jane since she was a child, himself
unknown, and that it was his hope their acquaintance would deepen into
something warmer than friendship."
"Good God! what a model lover! Stands off watching for years--weighs her
carefully in his scales. Item, so much amiability; item, so many pounds
of healthy flesh; item, annual income so much. Then he steps in to
inspect her a little closer, and if she prove satisfactory he will marry
her."
"Bruce, you're unjust. Every man has not your sensitiveness. The way
that Rhodes stated it there really was no indelicacy in it. Do you know
any objection to Van Ness? Be candid. Have you any reason to urge
against the marriage in case--?"
Mr. Neckart did not answer for a few moments. He had been smoking, but
the cigar went out in his mouth. "No," he said at last. "I have no
objection to urge to it. I have nothing to say. Go in, captain. The
train is due now. I will follow you when I have finished my cigar."