And still farther into that far silence about which she used to dream
at the base of the big Pine, went little June. At dusk, weary and
travel-stained, she sat in the parlours of a hotel--a great gray
columned structure of stone. She was confused and bewildered and her
head ached. The journey had been long and tiresome. The swift motion of
the train had made her dizzy and faint. The dust and smoke had almost
stifled her, and even now the dismal parlours, rich and wonderful as
they were to her unaccustomed eyes, oppressed her deeply. If she could
have one more breath of mountain air!
The day had been too full of wonders. Impressions had crowded on her
sensitive brain so thick and fast that the recollection of them was as
through a haze. She had never been on a train before and when, as
it crashed ahead, she clutched Hale's arm in fear and asked how they
stopped it, Hale hearing the whistle blow for a station, said:
“I'll show you,” and he waved one hand out the window. And he repeated
this trick twice before she saw that it was a joke. All day he had
soothed her uneasiness in some such way and all day he watched her with
an amused smile that was puzzling to her. She remembered sadly watching
the mountains dwindle and disappear, and when several of her own people
who were on the train were left at way-stations, it seemed as though all
links that bound her to her home were broken. The face of the country
changed, the people changed in looks, manners and dress, and she shrank
closer to Hale with an increasing sense of painful loneliness. These
level fields and these farm-houses so strangely built, so varied in
colour were the “settlemints,” and these people so nicely dressed, so
clean and fresh-looking were “furriners.” At one station a crowd
of school-girls had got on board and she had watched them with keen
interest, mystified by their incessant chatter and gayety. And at last
had come the big city, with more smoke, more dust, more noise, more
confusion--and she was in HIS world. That was the thought that comforted
her--it was his world, and now she sat alone in the dismal parlours
while Hale was gone to find his sister--waiting and trembling at the
ordeal, close upon her, of meeting Helen Hale.
Below, Hale found his sister and her maid registered, and a few minutes
later he led Miss Hale into the parlour. As they entered June rose
without advancing, and for a moment the two stood facing each other--the
still roughly clad, primitive mountain girl and the exquisite modern
woman--in an embarrassment equally painful to both.
“June, this is my sister.”
At a loss what to do, Helen Hale simply stretched out her hand, but
drawn by June's timidity and the quick admiration and fear in her eyes,
she leaned suddenly forward and kissed her. A grateful flush overspread
the little girl's features and the pallor that instantly succeeded went
straight-way to the sister's heart.
“You are not well,” she said quickly and kindly. “You must go to your
room at once. I am going to take care of you--you are MY little sister
now.”
June lost the subtlety in Miss Hale's emphasis, but she fell with
instant submission under such gentle authority, and though she could say
nothing, her eyes glistened and her lips quivered, and without looking
to Hale, she followed his sister out of the room. Hale stood still.
He had watched the meeting with apprehension and now, surprised and
grateful, he went to Helen's parlour and waited with a hopeful heart.
When his sister entered, he rose eagerly:
“Well--” he said, stopping suddenly, for there were tears of vexation,
dismay and genuine distress on his sister's face.
“Oh, Jack,” she cried, “how could you! How could you!”
Hale bit his lips, turned and paced the room. He had hoped too much and
yet what else could he have expected? His sister and June knew as little
about each other and each other's lives as though they had occupied
different planets. He had forgotten that Helen must be shocked by June's
inaccuracies of speech and in a hundred other ways to which he had
become accustomed. With him, moreover, the process had been gradual and,
moreover, he had seen beneath it all. And yet he had foolishly expected
Helen to understand everything at once. He was unjust, so very wisely he
held himself in silence.
“Where is her baggage, Jack?” Helen had opened her trunk and was lifting
out the lid. “She ought to change those dusty clothes at once. You'd
better ring and have it sent right up.”
“No,” said Hale, “I will go down and see about it myself.”
He returned presently--his face aflame--with June's carpet-bag.
“I believe this is all she has,” he said quietly.
In spite of herself Helen's grief changed to a fit of helpless laughter
and, afraid to trust himself further, Hale rose to leave the room. At
the door he was met by the negro maid.
“Miss Helen,” she said with an open smile, “Miss June say she don't want
NUTTIN'.” Hale gave her a fiery look and hurried out. June was seated
at a window when he went into her room with her face buried in her arms.
She lifted her head, dropped it, and he saw that her eyes were red with
weeping. “Are you sick, little girl?” he asked anxiously. June shook her
head helplessly.
“You aren't homesick, are you?”
“No.” The answer came very faintly.
“Don't you like my sister?” The head bowed an emphatic “Yes--yes.”
“Then what is the matter?”
“Oh,” she said despairingly, between her sobs, “she--won't--like--me. I
never--can--be--like HER.”
Hale smiled, but her grief was so sincere that he leaned over her and
with a tender hand soothed her into quiet. Then he went to Helen again
and he found her overhauling dresses.
“I brought along several things of different sizes and I am going to try
at any rate. Oh,” she added hastily, “only of course until she can get
some clothes of her own.”
“Sure,” said Hale, “but--” His sister waved one hand and again Hale kept
still.
June had bathed her eyes and was lying down when Helen entered, and
she made not the slightest objection to anything the latter proposed.
Straightway she fell under as complete subjection to her as she had done
to Hale. Without a moment's hesitation she drew off her rudely fashioned
dress and stood before Helen with the utmost simplicity--her beautiful
arms and throat bare and her hair falling about them with the rich gold
of a cloud at an autumn sunset. Dressed, she could hardly breathe,
but when she looked at herself in the mirror, she trembled. Magic
transformation! Apparently the chasm between the two had been bridged
in a single instant. Helen herself was astonished and again her heart
warmed toward the girl, when a little later, she stood timidly under
Hale's scrutiny, eagerly watching his face and flushing rosy
with happiness under his brightening look. Her brother had not
exaggerated--the little girl was really beautiful. When they went down
to the dining-room, there was another surprise for Helen Hale, for
June's timidity was gone and to the wonder of the woman, she was clothed
with an impassive reserve that in herself would have been little less
than haughtiness and was astounding in a child. She saw, too, that the
change in the girl's bearing was unconscious and that the presence of
strangers had caused it. It was plain that June's timidity sprang from
her love of Hale--her fear of not pleasing him and not pleasing her, his
sister, and plain, too, that remarkable self-poise was little June's to
command. At the table June kept her eyes fastened on Helen Hale. Not a
movement escaped her and she did nothing that was not done by one of the
others first. She said nothing, but if she had to answer a question, she
spoke with such care and precision that she almost seemed to be using
a foreign language. Miss Hale smiled but with inward approval, and that
night she was in better spirits.
“Jack,” she said, when he came to bid her good-night, “I think we'd
better stay here a few days. I thought of course you were exaggerating,
but she is very, very lovely. And that manner of hers--well, it passes
my understanding. Just leave everything to me.”
Hale was very willing to do that. He had all trust in his sister's
judgment, he knew her dislike of interference, her love of autocratic
supervision, so he asked no questions, but in grateful relief kissed her
good-night.
The sister sat for a long time at her window after he was gone. Her
brother had been long away from civilization; he had become infatuated,
the girl loved him, he was honourable and in his heart he meant to marry
her--that was to her the whole story. She had been mortified by the
misstep, but the misstep made, only one thought had occurred to her--to
help him all she could. She had been appalled when she first saw the
dusty shrinking mountain girl, but the helplessness and the loneliness
of the tired little face touched her, and she was straightway responsive
to the mute appeal in the dark eyes that were lifted to her own
with such modest fear and wonder. Now her surprise at her brother's
infatuation was abating rapidly. The girl's adoration of him, her wild
beauty, her strange winning personality--as rare and as independent of
birth and circumstances as genius--had soon made that phenomenon plain.
And now what was to be done? The girl was quick, observant, imitative,
docile, and in the presence of strangers, her gravity of manner gave
the impression of uncanny self-possession. It really seemed as though
anything might be possible. At Helen's suggestion, then, the three
stayed where they were for a week, for June's wardrobe was sadly in need
of attention. So the week was spent in shopping, driving, and walking,
and rapidly as it passed for Helen and Hale it was to June the longest
of her life, so filled was it with a thousand sensations unfelt by them.
The city had been stirred by the spirit of the new South, but the charm
of the old was distinct everywhere. Architectural eccentricities had
startled the sleepy maple-shaded rows of comfortable uniform dwellings
here and there, and in some streets the life was brisk; but it was
still possible to see pedestrians strolling with unconscious good-humour
around piles of goods on the sidewalk, business men stopping for a
social chat on the streets, street-cars moving independent of time,
men invariably giving up their seats to women, and, strangers or not,
depositing their fare for them; the drivers at the courteous personal
service of each patron of the road--now holding a car and placidly
whistling while some lady who had signalled from her doorway went back
indoors for some forgotten article, now twisting the reins around the
brakes and leaving a parcel in some yard--and no one grumbling! But what
was to Hale an atmosphere of amusing leisure was to June bewildering
confusion. To her his amusement was unintelligible, but though in
constant wonder at everything she saw, no one would ever have suspected
that she was making her first acquaintance with city scenes. At first
the calm unconcern of her companions had puzzled her. She could not
understand how they could walk along, heedless of the wonderful visions
that beckoned to her from the shop-windows; fearless of the strange
noises about them and scarcely noticing the great crowds of people,
or the strange shining vehicles that thronged the streets. But she had
quickly concluded that it was one of the demands of that new life to
see little and be astonished at nothing, and Helen and Hale surprised in
turn at her unconcern, little suspected the effort her self-suppression
cost her. And when over some wonder she did lose herself, Hale would
say:
“Just wait till you see New York!” and June would turn her dark eyes to
Helen for confirmation and to see if Hale could be joking with her.
“It's all true, June,” Helen would say. “You must go there some day.
It's true.” But that town was enough and too much for June. Her head
buzzed continuously and she could hardly sleep, and she was glad when
one afternoon they took her into the country again--the Bluegrass
country--and to the little town near which Hale had been born, and which
was a dream-city to June, and to a school of which an old friend of
his mother was principal, and in which Helen herself was a temporary
teacher. And Rumour had gone ahead of June. Hale had found her dashing
about the mountains on the back of a wild bull, said rumour. She was as
beautiful as Europa, was of pure English descent and spoke the language
of Shakespeare--the Hon. Sam Budd's hand was patent in this. She had
saved Hale's life from moonshiners and while he was really in love
with her, he was pretending to educate her out of gratitude--and
here doubtless was the faint tracery of Miss Anne Saunder's natural
suspicions. And there Hale left her under the eye of his sister--left
her to absorb another new life like a thirsty plant and come back to the
mountains to make his head swim with new witcheries.