AND STILL ANOTHER PATH
It is difficult for one who has never taken an ocean voyage or lived in
a small village to realize the tremendous strides which interest,
friendship, love, or confidence can make in a very few days, or even
hours. I met three girls once whose kind parents had provided them with
a chaperon and sent them abroad to improve their minds. They met men on
the Lusitania (a record trip, too) going over, and all three were
engaged when they landed. Instead of improving their minds in Europe,
they bought their trousseaux, and then came home (another record trip)
and were married. A small village is just the same; one is introduced
and after that it goes like the wind. Women tell each other everything
that they shouldn't, and virtues which would never be noticed in a city
beget the deepest and sincerest admiration and affection. The dearth of
conventionality and variety draw spirits easily together. Perhaps the
purer air is a universal solvent for pride and prejudice. At any rate,
to make a long story short, Lassie and Ingram were in love with each
other before Alva had finished having the porch of her house painted, or
before Mrs. Ray had succeeded in tracking the case-knives to their
suspicious lair of crime.
It's delightful to fall in love on the sea or in the country, quite as
delightful as to fall in love anywhere else. It is too bad that
fickleness is rated so low, for really the emotion of slowly discovering
that one is entering Elysium should be too great an experience to be
foregone forever after. However, we must not forget that fickleness is
rated low because humanity long since discovered that being in Elysium
is still better than making an entrance there, and furthermore that of
all sharp edges known, Love is the one most easily dulled by usage.
Therefore it is best to adhere to the dear old rules for the dear old
game, and only thank Fate with special reverence when sea-breezes or
country zephyrs float around one's own personal setting-out.
Lassie didn't know that she was in love; she only knew that she was very
happy. Ingram didn't know that he was in love; he only knew that he was
very happy. Alva, whose soul sank daily deeper into the near approaching
abyss of her profound longings, noticed nothing. But every one else
knew, of course. Joey Beall, the invisibly omnipresent, saw them alone
together somewhere nearly every day. Mrs. Ray watched them come and go
together for mail. Mrs. O'Neil, who never had believed that Ingram was
in love with Alva, wished them well with all her heart. For she felt
sure that Alva wasn't in love with Ingram, either.
"I'm glad to have something pleasant before my eyes just now," she said
to Mary Cody, and Mary Cody knew that she referred to the feeling over
the dam, which daily grew keener, and to the Lathbuns, who, it was now
openly known, had never paid any board since their arrival, but merely
referred to their banker in Cromwell, who, it appeared, was out of town,
and could not send on their October check until his return.
"I don't know what there is about looking at them," said Mary Cody, who
was fifteen and grown up at that (and who did not refer to Mrs. Lathbun
and her daughter); "but every time he looks at her while I'm waiting on
them, I feel as if I'd just about die of joy if Ed Griggs would look at
me once that way."
"Don't talk nonsense," said Mrs. O'Neil, severely.
The days which bore such momentous happenings upon their bosom flowed
swiftly on, and the week was speeding by--was gone, in fact.
"It doesn't seem possible, does it?" Lassie said, as she came across the
bridge with Ingram one afternoon. He had happened to return from the
long-distance telephone in Ledgeville by way of Alva's house; and she
had happened to be ready to go home, and Alva had happened not to be
ready. "It doesn't seem that it can be only a week. I feel as if it were
months, instead. Do you remember that first day, when Alva told me, how
I cried and how horrible I thought it was. And now I feel as if it were
too sad for words, but something so great and lovely and sacred, that
I'm sort of hushed in joy to have seen it all. I can see her side now,
and when I go back to the world and hear people say the things that I
thought myself when she first told me, I know that they are going to
hurt me awfully. And yet she says that they will not hurt her."
"No," said Ingram, thoughtfully, "she seems to be quite beyond being
hurt. I never saw any one who impressed me just as Alva does."
"It's very wonderful to be with her all the time," Lassie went on;
"nothing seems to affect her for herself, but only things about other
people. She doesn't seem to think her thoughts for herself any more,
but just for others. It's how she can study and learn and carry on some
part of his work for him after he's gone; it's how she can teach the
people around here that Ledge won't profit in the end by being turned
into a big lake or a big manufacturing district; it's how she can only
prove to people that those two queer women are really honest, and really
nice to know."
"And do you agree with all her views now?" Ingram asked, recalling the
first of their meetings and the difference in Lassie's views from her
friend's then.
"I think it's very splendid how she loves. I thought it was terrible at
first, but now I--" she hesitated; "I"--she stopped altogether.
"Go on," said Ingram; "what were you going to say?"
The girl looked down the cañon of gray, barren beauty, and then up
towards the sunlit valley of sweet, sunshiny, farming country. "Perhaps
you won't believe me," she said, her eyes for the minute almost as
distant in their withdrawal as Alva's own; "but now, I--truly--I envy
her. I would give anything to love as she does. I would almost give the
world to see life as she sees it. You see, I have begun to understand
what she means when she says things."
Ingram was deeply stirred by pathos of which Lassie herself was
ignorant. The young desire to learn to drink of bitter waters! The
longing towards the crown of thorns stirs them, because they can
appreciate the sublimity of martyrdom, and cannot measure the agony!
She had stopped and laid her hand upon the bridge-rail. Involuntarily
he laid his hand upon it, holding it within his strength and warmth.
"When she talks to me of him," Lassie went on, seeming unconscious of
the hand and looking far ahead, "I forget myself, I forget Mamma, I
forget my début; I live only in her and her hope. I never saw love like
hers; she lives in him--in it--not in the world, and she's so sure of
the next world and of their future. It goes all through me, the wonder
of it. I can't tell you how I envy her. She said when I came that she
would send me back home all different, and I see now that she will do
it."
"But I don't want you different." The words burst from the man's lips.
Mountain tops are serene and glorious and very close to the clouds, but
oh, the good warmth, the dear, cosy loveliness of those soft green
slopes far--so far--below.
Lassie was too deeply engrossed to notice. "I shall go back to my home a
better girl," she said; "and I shan't let myself forget what I've
learned here."
Ingram thought that she had heard, and felt himself silenced.
There was a minute of stillness, and then they walked on. The October
evening was falling chill, and the night wind came winding up the gorge.
"Do you agree with her about the dam, too?" the man asked finally, as
they approached the end of the bridge, striving against an echo of
bitterness.
"Oh, yes, she has converted me about that, too. She took me down to call
on Mr. Ledge, and when I saw that dear, courtly, old gentleman, and
heard how quietly and earnestly and sadly he and Alva talked about it,
I came to see how different all that was, too."
Ingram waited a second or two; then he said:
"And Mrs. Lathbun,--do you believe in her too, now?"
Lassie laughed. "No, I don't," she said, very positively; "I'm awfully
sorry for them both, but I cannot believe in them."
"Alva does."
"Yes,--but Alva--"
"Yes, well,--go on."
"I mustn't. Indeed I mustn't. I promised, and this time I must keep my
word. But Alva has a reason for believing in them."
"Is it a good reason?"
Lassie reflected. "No," she said, finally; "I don't think that it is a
good reason at all."
They were at the hotel door now.
"Well, I'm sorry for Alva," said Ingram, "because I hate to see ideals
shattered."
"Oh, but they may justify her faith."
"I am more inclined to think that they will justify your doubts."
Lassie looked pleased. She valued Ingram's opinion highly.
A little later Alva herself came home, pale as she always was, but more
weary looking than nightfall usually found her.
[Illustration: ALVA.]
"Lie down before supper," Lassie suggested; and her friend accepted the
suggestion.
"Come and sit beside me," she said, in a tone that was almost pleading;
"give me your hand. I'm really quite used up."
Lassie perched beside her on the bed, and took the long slender hand
between her own pretty little white ones.
"You are a wise little maiden," Alva said, smiling into her face. "I
shall fight this away quickly. I know much better than to be weak. I
understand the scientific, spiritual reasons for it quite well--it is
that I am under a double strain these days, and also--" she
hesitated--"I think that I am really under a triple strain," she said,
"you do not guess how close to my heart that poor girl has come through
her description of her lover. I think of her so often, and such a
strange undercurrent sweeps up in me. I try to understand it, and I
can't; but I wonder if it can be some troubling of myself because the
one whose life is so valuable must go, and the one whose life has no
value will remain. I do not begrudge any one anything, God knows; but my
heart winces when I think that his soul will go on and leave me alone,
while a body that is the same as his will live and live for another. I
am brave, I am strong; my higher self has courage and understanding to
cope with any problem that may come, but it seems as if this one laid me
on a rack, because--because--" she stopped, and then in a low cry:
"Lassie, she doesn't seem to me to be worthy of even his body. Perhaps I
misjudge her, but even the human presentment of such a man should have a
wife of greater caliber. Somehow it hurts me, somehow everything hurts
me to-night. You see, dear, you were right. In some ways. Yes, you were
right."
There was a pause, during which Lassie just gently stroked the hand
between her own.
"Do you know what I believe?" Alva continued. "Some crisis is
preparing. I don't at all know what it is, but I feel it coming. I am
certain--confident--that God has some new wisdom close in hand for me.
Happy or sad--it is coming very close to-night. And whatever it is, I
must go bravely forward to meet it."
Lassie shuddered ever so slightly.
"Ah, you think that it is some sorrow," Alva said; "my dear, would you
credit me with telling you the truth, if I told you that there is a
comfort in understanding that verse about whom He loveth He chasteneth?
He doesn't call upon the weak among His children to bear what He has
sent to me, to us. And if there is some heavy sorrow,"--she stopped, and
presently added quite low,--"'not my will, but Thine be done!'"
Lassie was deeply touched. She felt tears rolling down her cheeks. The
dusk had closed in and she could not see Alva's face, but she felt that
she, too, was weeping.
Presently a freight train, going by, drowned everything by its roaring
clank for five minutes, and when all was still again, Alva said: "Come,
let us dress for supper!"
She rose at once and lit the light, and Lassie saw with astonishment
that she was smiling and bright as usual. Alva caught her surprised
look. "I'm a creature of strong belief, dear," she said, laughing, "and
I know that whatever is hard, is worth itself. That is what one must try
never to forget. I wouldn't wish any one else my life to live, but it is
its own reward. The best thing in the world is to measure the real
standards of earth and heaven. That is what I am doing."
"Don't you think perhaps you're overdoing, Alva?" the girl said, putting
the question in the way of timid suggestion. "Don't you think you crowd
even yourself too fast?"
"Can any one learn to be good too fast? And then the great strain is for
such a little while, dear. Don't you see that in the world's eyes my
giving will be limited to these few weeks, and that in heaven's eyes I
shall then give all that I have and all that I am. Like him, I have
pawned my existence for a purpose. I shall redeem both." The look of
ecstasy that had opened to Lassie the gate of Medieval faith, flooded
her face. "What a life I shall live in those few brief days," she said,
softly; "how we shall enjoy our little oasis of bliss in the desert of
loneliness. I shall learn so much--so much. And the best of the learning
will be that I shall learn it from him."
Lassie watched the uplifted look. The enthusiasm of the novice was hers.
As she had confessed to Ingram, envy dwelt at her heart. I wonder
whether envy is a vice or a virtue when it stirs a longing to emulate
one whom we recognize as better than ourselves?