THE MASQUE OF SPRING
The new dweller in the country longs for the coming of May as the only
truly gracious month of the New England spring. In a few seasons,
however, he learns to regret April, for when that month has gone, and the
curtain fairly rises on the Masque of Spring, while it seems as if the
orchestra is but playing the overture, and while yet he is watching the
drapery curtain of leafage unfold, the throng on foot and wing pass by,
all madly whirling to the pipe of Pan as they follow the voice of the
ages that guides them to their breeding haunts, lo and behold! spring
promise has merged in the summer of fulfilment.
It was Brooke’s first knowledge of the coming of spring in wild nature.
Spring in New York means a certain lassitude and enervation—the sun
withers and the river winds chill alternately with exasperating
inconsistency. The planted tulips put up their decorous heads in the
parks at a certain date, much as the women in the streets don their
flowery spring head-gear,—both are pleasing to the eye, yet there is
nothing spontaneous or unexpected about either; while to come suddenly
upon a mat of arbutus or catch the silvery gleam of a mass of bloodroot
transfiguring the silence of the woodland, where the leaves of a dozen
winters, graduating to leaf mould, muffle the tread, is an event. So
every night Brooke longed for the next morning and its surprises, and
every morning she was eager for sunset and the night voices. Not that
she wished time away,—far from it,—but to her its passing also meant
progress, the nearing a certain goal.
Sometimes it seemed to her that in a previous existence she had lived the
life of the River Kingdom; perhaps it was the heredity moulded beside
the Highland torrents that sang to her in the voice of the Moosatuk. On
this last day of April, as she stood at the edge of the pasture, with
wands of delicate cherry bloom waving softly between her and the river,
like heralds ushering one into the presence of a monarch, the words from
the song of the migrant bird, “Out of the South,” came to her lips, and
she chanted them softly, watching the old horse holding a nose-to-nose
conversation with a neighbour in the next field:—
“I have sought
In far wild groves below the tropic line
To leave old memories of this land of mine.
I have fought
This vague mysterious power that flings me forth
Into the north.
But all in vain, when flutes of April blow,
The immemorial longing lures me, and I go!”
Then, abandoning for the time the fight against the lure of a voice
beyond her ken and a memory in which sweetness and pain were inextricably
blended, she gave herself wholly up to the spell of the present.
Another happening that day lent wings to her spirit, though the thing
was both practical and humble. Bisbee, the stableman, upon the strength
of having seen the Sign of the Fox when it was at the blacksmith’s being
framed in iron (for the rings had not held), ordered a sign for his newly
completed stable, offering the generous price (to him) of twenty-five
dollars for it, he to furnish the wood.
“There’s a regular horse painter over in Gordon will do me a race-horse
in a sulky, driver included, for fifteen,” said Bisbee, a big, jolly,
liberal man, whose rosy cheeks plainly told that they were not made in
New England; “but he’s done that same one fer everybody within ten miles.
Besides, what sense in a race-horse sign fer a family stable, say I? Give
me something safe and assuring, yet not too safe!”
So Brooke had eagerly accepted the commission, for with the return
of Keith West, two or three hours a day for work had become a joyful
possibility, and she conceived the idea of painting the heads of two
horses upon the sign-board he had sent up. One must represent a staid
family horse, and the other a more speedy roadster, and as she looked
across the pasture, the natural position of the two gossips by the stone
fence gave her the motive in a flash. If she only had the board there,
she might sketch in the grouping at once, she thought, and the light also
was exactly as she would wish it. The sign was in the barn, but it was
too heavy for her to carry, and Adam had gone up to Windy Hill for the
day, to do double work, as Robert Stead was expecting Dr. Russell to go
on their annual trouting excursion to Stony Guzzle the next day. Well,
there was no help for it, but still Brooke gazed about as if expecting
help would fall from the skies or spring Jack-in-a-box fashion from the
ground. It was the latter that happened, for at that moment the head of
the farmer-on-shares appeared above the fence of the potato field, where
he had just completed his task of planting, and was about to follow along
the little brook to the road.
As Brooke hesitated to ask him to do an errand that certainly had nothing
to do with farming, he paused involuntarily. Meanwhile Brooke thought, “I
can surely ask it as a courtesy such as any man would do me,” and said,
“Good morning, Mr. Maarten” (she did not call him by his Christian name
as she would have one distinctly in service, for instinct hinted to her
that he might have been driven to his present vocation by hard luck),
“would you do me a favour?”
Instantly the tools and potato bag were dropped, but he did not take the
advantage of coming nearer, as he might easily have done.
Then Brooke explained her need in the frank way she had of taking people
into her confidence, yet without gush or familiarity, that had always
been one of her charms; and Maarten hastened to the barn while she went
to the house for her chalk and sketching stool.
In an hour, after several false starts, Brooke had compassed the grouping
and outline, though there was one curve in the neck of the young horse
that displeased her. Hearing the pieman’s whistle out on the road, and
remembering that this was the day when she was to accompany him on his
route to “Sister-in-law Sairy Ann’s,” and knowing that Maarten would
naturally have gone home to his dinner,—for he never brought it in a
pail like other labourers, her informant being Enoch Fenton, who said he
table-boarded at the best place in Gilead, and paid six dollars a week,
and most likely had a big head,—she was demurring as to how she should
get the sign back, for to leave it might tempt the cows to lick the chalk
off. At this point she became conscious, through one of those swift half
glances that tell so many tales, that Maarten was waiting a little
beyond, and not only waiting, but watching her eagerly. Therefore, taking
advantage of the circumstance, she laughingly apologized for asking
two favours in one day, but would he carry the sign back to the little
harness room, long disused, with a door of its own on the pasture side of
the barn, where the sign could be kept free from hay dust?—adding, half
aloud, as she took a final look at her work, “There is something wrong
about the line of old Billy’s neck; it could not possibly twist like
that.”
Point of view frequently has as much to do with our estimate of a thing
as the value of the thing itself. Therefore Brooke’s progress of fifteen
miles through the hill country in the pieman’s wagon brought her in
touch with an entirely different side of the world of the woods than if
she had driven over the same way with a party of guests who chattered
inconsequently, or gone on horseback in the company of Stead, as she had
done once or twice lately, for even the mild-mannered old horse required
guiding and attention that banished the spirit of revery.
The pieman had covered his wares carefully, and rolled up the curtains
all around, while the horse, dragging the loaded cart, proceeded perforce
at a walk, so that Brooke, seated on a low chair, travelled with all the
leisurely ease of an old-time queen in a palanquin. This pace brought
her close to every feature of the Masque of Spring, face to face with the
reality of it, and she could anticipate, and then realize, every detail
in its fulness.
Her charioteer also was as much a child of nature and a part of it all as
the big gray squirrels that raced along the fence-tops, while his simple
and positive faith in the goodness of all created things, and his intense
love and kinship with the wild brotherhood, opened a new world to Brooke,
banishing for the time all care and responsibility and replacing it with
the wholesome pleasure of the hour, born of the pure joy of mere living.
When one has known trouble, and then felt this touch of peace, is it not
the new Revelation of God, fitted to meet the needs and greeds of to-day,
even as nineteen centuries ago the single-hearted Messenger brought his
spiritual message to the material Oriental world?
They would travel a mile, perhaps, in entire silence, the pieman merely
pulling up now and then, and pointing with his whip to a warm spot,
where a group of silver-green ferns slowly unfolded and stretched their
winter-cramped paws, or else, with finger raised, caution silence
while the song of some elusive bird thrilled the air,—“Whitethroat,”
“Fox-sparrow,” or “Oven-bird,” being his only words. Then a settlement
of half a dozen houses, and a period of bustle, barter, and exchange of
news would interrupt, and so on until, as the “peepers” began to tune up,
and the sun called the warmth of the day swiftly after him, they turned
into Sairy Ann’s yard.
After a keenly relished supper, Brooke and her guide stole out to the
edge of a strip of woods that separated some grass meadows from a
brawling trout stream running its downhill course a dozen miles before
the Moosatuk received it. There, seated on a log, they waited as the
twilight began to cast its mysterious spell. Presently a strange cry
sounded through the gloom, was repeated, and echoed by others a second
and a third time. Next a rush of wings, as if a bird was flung suddenly
into the air, opening its wings at the same time. A sharp whirring sound
followed, increasing as the wings that made it vanished skyward. Bending
forward to watch the wonderful flight, until eye could not see it, in a
moment Brooke was startled by the falling as of a bolt from the clouds
close beside her, followed by a sweet musical whistle.
“First one’s down again,—see, he’s doin’ it over!” said the pieman, and
the call and lunge were repeated as before. But this time the girl’s
eye did not follow; the wonder and rush of it all was thrilling her
from head to foot. She had seen the sky-dance of the woodcock, the free
Walpurgis night’s festival of the American river woods, with wild flowers
for bracken and hemlock boughs for witches’ brooms. Once more her toes
tingled, music rang in her ears, sorrow and love both slipped away,
and she was again the little girl playing at gypsy queen in her River
Kingdom. That night Brooke slept deeply, but it was the sleep of dreams
that comes from being drowned in a “best room” feather-bed for the first
time, an experience both fearful and wonderful.
Instead of starting on his return trip at seven the next morning, as
usual, the pieman’s advice was asked by his widowed relative concerning
the buying of a cow, which was to be sold at auction that morning in the
next village. For this one day at least Brooke was in no haste, and as
the auction began at nine o’clock and was two miles distant, the pieman
suggested that she might like to spend the time in the woods that they
had skirted the previous night, and walk along the stream. Then, when she
had gone as far as she chose, all she had to do was to follow the brook
north again without fear of going astray, while by way of a lunch Sairy
Ann gave her half a dozen mellow russet apples, the storing and keeping
of which, in prime condition, well into the summer was a matter of great
pride.
Nothing could have suited Brooke better than these few hours of perfect
liberty,—she was responsible for nothing about her, not even for her
presence there. The widow’s hens were cackling vigorously, and she
laughed as she realized that, whether they broke their eggs or stole
their nests, it was a matter of indifference to her. The revulsion from
the tense responsibility of the past three months flew to her head like
the subtle May wine of the Old World, her heart beat fast, she stretched
her limbs, and then began to thread the woods toward the stream in a
delicious waking dream.
Being guided by sound, she stood looking at the bits of drift that
swirled by, the water drawing her eyes and holding them as a mirror does
those who are near it.
In a few moments she noticed that, while there was a distinctly marked
path among the rocks and stones along her side of the watercourse, the
opposite bank was heavily brushed and almost impenetrable, while the
sunlight came filtering through and danced upon the water in a way that
entranced the artist in her. Choosing a mossy stump, and being thirsty,
for the first thirst of spring is more keen than any that follows, she
seated herself, buried her shoe tips in the deep moss, and taking an
apple from her pocket bit into it deliberately, critically watching the
juice ooze from the wound her teeth had made. As she munched, gazing at
the sunbeams chasing the shadows over the water, she was startled by a
ringing sound, as of metal striking stone. It was repeated several times
before she located its direction, and as she did so, saw that the noise
was made by the shoes of a horse, who was coming downstream, browsing
along the foot-path, in the line of which she was seated.
A second glance showed her that it was Manfred, Stead’s horse, with
bridle fastened loosely to the saddle, while a fishing basket attached to
one side easily explained his presence. Seeing Brooke, he came quickly
toward her with a friendly whinny and nosed the apple. Almost at the
same time Robert Stead himself, in the water to the knees, slowly wading
the somewhat treacherous shallows, and whipping the stream as he came,
appeared from under the arch of overhanging hemlocks.
For a moment he did not seem to believe the sight of his own eyes,
and then, rapidly reeling in his line, he looked out for the nearest
landing spot and stood before Brooke, with an expression that might
be interpreted either as one of surprise or resentment at having his
sport thus interrupted. But then he had acquired a stern expression by
practice. Brooke had often before thought he wore it as a mask, and his
words were not angry, but almost playful.
“Eve, the apple, and a bit of Eden! But how did you come here and what
are you doing?”
“_Not_ Eve, because, as you will observe, I am not going to offer my
apple to the only man in sight, but share it with a good sensible horse,
who will not tell tales. I came up to the farm last night with Mr.
Banks, the pieman, to see the woodcock dance, and I’m waiting here while
he buys a cow for Sister-in-law Sairy Ann. As to what I am doing, I _was_
eating an apple, but Manfred interrupted me; and now I’m going to begin
another, and I’m very sorry that your simile prevents my offering one to
you,—for they’re good,” and Brooke took a bite from a particularly fine
specimen, a mischievous glance following her words.
Stead tethered the horse a few yards away and, coming back, threw
himself down on the clean hemlock needles beside her. He felt suddenly
relaxed, tired he would have called it, as if rigidity and strength had
mysteriously left him.
“And you?” continued Brooke, “I see of course that you are fishing, by
the two small trout in the basket; but how do you come to be so far away
from home at eight in the morning, when Adam said that Dr. Russell was to
visit you to-day?”
“Because Dr. Russell came on the mail train last night and is now
whipping the west branch of the stream; in this narrow cut we interfered,
and we shall meet a mile below at Stony Guzzle in the course of an hour.”
“Then you had better take to the water again, for I heard them saying
last night that this stream takes two steps sideways for every one it
goes forward, and that gives you a three-mile walk plus fishing!” said
Brooke, with a perfectly frank unconcern that piqued the man to natural
contradiction.
“Thank you for your prudent advice, but I would rather sit here, for once
simply because I wish to, and trust to Manfred’s hoofs for catching up
with the doctor!”
“Do you not always do what you wish?” asked Brooke, surprised at his
changing mood, and feeling her way.
“Do you suppose that I can wish to lead the idle sort of life I do?” he
asked quickly, looking up at her to compel a direct answer. “It is only
because I have not a motive strong enough to make me break away, and
desire of action is dead; but is that doing as one wishes?”
“Oh, I thought you loved it here at Gilead, and could not be happy out
of sight of the river—I—at least that is—what I made of what Dr. Russell
said,” stammered the girl, astonished at his vehemence in contrast to his
usual deliberation.
“I do not know what he has said,—nothing unkind, that I warrant; but he
does not know—no one does. Listen, Brooke, for I am minded to do what I
have never done before—put my burden on some one else by sharing it, and
tell you the real reason why I am as I am, which has never before passed
my lips in words. No, you must be patient and listen,” he said, for
Brooke had made a sudden movement as if to rise. Stead did not realize
that he was perhaps spoiling the girl’s holiday; self-centred he was,
at base an egotist, though an unconscious one; and to the fact that he
regarded everything at the point where it touched himself could be laid
the pith of all his unhappiness.
“Why do I tell you? I do not know, except that in all these years
since, you are the first woman I have met whom I think would understand
and who is also young enough to have mercy, and it is a matter for
woman’s judgment. Yesterday a letter came to me from an old friend in
my profession, asking me to overlook a bit of bridge work for him for a
month or so in early summer, while he takes some needed rest. At the end
he tells me of his plans for work, urges me to join him, and gives me
what he words as ‘a last call back to life.’ All this has stirred up the
sources of a stream I thought long dry; instead of putting it away, as I
once did, as something done and gone, it tempts me, and I am strangely
all at sea. I feel as if I only need some one in whose sincerity I could
believe to say, ‘Go back to work,’ and I should go.”
“And leave the River Kingdom?” asked Brooke, looking up in alarm, her
first thought, it must be said, being of the Cub’s schooling. “We should
miss you so.”
Stead’s eye brightened, and taking her hand that was not busy with the
apple and rested on the stump, he held it between his own. He himself
did not analyze his motive, simply it gave him comfort and secured her
attention. Then he said earnestly, solemnly it seemed to the girl, from
whose eyes the merry banter of a few minutes before had passed, “Listen,
Brooke, brave woman, who is fighting out her own problems to the shame of
others such as I.
“When I was turning thirty and engineering a railway through a mountain
region of the south, I met and loved a woman as heartily as a man may,
but the passion seemed one-sided. She had given me a final answer, and I
was preparing to go away, as gossips whispered there was ‘some one else,’
when the next day she recalled the no and made it yes.
“I was almost beside myself with surprise and joy, and after a brief
month we were married, for my work was ended and I was going North. For
ten years we led a charmed sort of life, a little girl soon coming to
share it with us. We three, with José always as attendant, travelled
wherever my work lay, sometimes living in houses, sometimes in tents,
but always happy. Then the first grief came to me (it is nearly twelve
years since)—my little Helen died, down near Oaklands, where we were
summering. The illness came like a shot in the dark, without warning, and
Dr. Russell, whom I then met for the first time, was powerless.
“After this my wife began to droop and grew sadder day by day. This was
natural except for the fact that she sought to be alone and avoided me,
until one day in a fit of bitter melancholy she told me the secret that
had lain between us like a sword all through those married years.
“When I had first met her she had a lover, a wild, hot-blooded, handsome
fellow of the south mining country,—for him she refused me! At the same
time, unknown to her, he had committed a crime and the law was on his
track. He took refuge, as they thought he would, in her vicinity, and she
was watched to see if she would take him food or shelter him. To foil
them she betrothed herself to me, and thus disarmed, the watchers left,
and her lover escaped scot free.”
“But why didn’t she go too, or follow him?” interrupted Brooke.
“Because what she called her sense of honour forbade her, and she never
meant that I should know,—she was willing to pay the price of the scamp’s
life with her peace of mind.”
“How she must have loved him!” said Brooke, tears trembling in her voice;
“I don’t see how she could have lived it down. To save the man you love
by marrying another, even if it was the only way—oh, I am not brave
enough to do such a thing, and so I must not judge her!”
For a moment a startled expression crossed Stead’s face, as if this side
of the matter had never occurred to him; but again self conquered.
“Do you wonder that I cannot forget, and that nothing seems worth while
when I know that in those years of seeming happiness I was the companion
of a woman whose heart was never mine; who played her part to me, until
the child’s death broke the capacity? Whom can I trust after that?”
“I do not think you could have really loved her as you thought,” said
Brooke, looking at him simply with deep, quiet conviction in her voice,
“for if you had you would have at least understood her. And at the worst
I should think you would have flown to work instead of away from it.”
“It may be that you are right,” Stead said, after a long pause, in which
the thoughts of both travelled far, but in different directions; “I have
a mind to try, but I shall never go away permanently from the River
Kingdom. Child, child! how strange it is that your words should have been
so long on my lips before ever I met you! Will you wish me luck for a
motive, if I go in June?”
“Yes,” answered Brooke, wondering about the time of day, for the shadows
had shifted greatly.
“And be glad to see me when I return?”
“Of course,” said Brooke, frankly; then, as other words struggled on
Stead’s lips, blocking each other by haste, the pieman’s bell warned her
that he had returned and was ready to start. Giving the last apple to
Manfred, she freed her hand, stretching it vigorously, for it was almost
numb, sent a hasty message to Dr. Russell, and fled out into the open.
Robert Stead waited motionless for several minutes, looking after her;
then, shaking himself as a horse does after a period of standing, he led
Manfred to the wood road below, and prepared to make up for lost time.
Yet for some strange reason he did not give the girl’s message to Dr.
Russell, neither did he vouchsafe any explanation of the fact of there
being only two trout in his basket, or prate about “fisherman’s luck”
when the enthusiastic doctor showed ten beauties bedded in wet moss.
There was enough light left on Brooke’s return for a survey of house,
garden, and barns. It is strange when one goes away but seldom, that to
find everything in place on the return and people doing as usual comes as
a certain surprise. She opened the door of the old harness room to peep
at her sketch of the horses. After a careful survey, she said to herself,
“It is certainly true that one cannot judge work justly at the time it is
done. Yesterday the neck of the young horse seemed all awry, but to-day
it has exactly the toss and turn I was striving for.”
As she closed the door she glanced down over the fields, but neither man
nor horse was there, only a convocation of crows sitting on the fence.
The pieman would doubtless have maintained that they were discussing
among themselves the probable location of this season’s corn-fields.