SUNSET AND MOONSHINE.
Friday arrived, the omnibus came round to the door, and Maida Springer
bade Mrs Denwiddie farewell. Circumstances had made these two
intimate, though they had little in common. Both were solitary, and
neither had the talent of attracting strangers. They were a mutual
resource, keeping each other in countenance, and enabling both to mix
in the general company without the apologetic feeling which either
would have experienced had she been alone. They had grown to have a
kindness for each other; and it was with quite a warm embrace and a
moistening of the eye that they parted, each feeling the world emptier
for the absence of the other.
The omnibus started in the afternoon, trundling leisurely along the
quiet country roads, stopping here and there by the way to put down or
take up baskets and an occasional passenger; and on reaching Narwhal
Junction it remained there for some hours, till a train from the
North, another from the South, and a third going West, should all have
come in.
Maida procured a paper at the bookstall, and sat down on the platform
to await her train, which was the latest of the three. There was not
much in the paper--there never is, when one tries to read it against
time; but there were a few arrivals and departures by the other
trains, to break the tedium; and as the dusty afternoon wore by, and
the lengthening purple shadows stole out from their lurking-places in
the woods and under the hill-tops, there was enough to interest any
one who had eyes to see.
The Junction stood on a middle level, near the edge of a wide extent
of cultivated land which sloped down towards a quiet river flowing
away behind; and beyond that were low swelling hills, covered with
woods, shining like bronze where they caught the slanting light, and
melting into waves of blue below the horizon. In front, toward the
south-west, the land sloped up to meet the shadows of overhanging
thickets, dipping down on the right where a brook in its rocky dell
escaped from the mountain country farther back, filling the air with
sound, and babbled onward to the river among the fields. Hills shaggy
with bush and boulder concealed the streamlet's source; and behind, a
heaven-piercing peak lifted its reddened profile to the light, while
blue dim greyness veiled its storm-scarred bosom. A mile distant, on
the right, the village of Narwhal, with its little tin steeple
twinkling like a star, was seated where the brook and river met,
weltering with its surrounding fields in a haze of gold and crimson,
with purpled woods behind, and all the glorious pomp of sinking day
above it and beyond--the saffron-coloured sky, the waiting flakes of
cloud, flashing in scarlet fire to let the sun-god pass, and then to
draw the curtain on his exit.
The level crimson rays shot for a space along the glorified valley,
kindling the distant reaches of the river into flame, and impurpling
the long-drawn shadows with the hue of violets; and then the pageant
vanished like a dream. Cool, low-toned greys stole out along the
river; the rosy day-dream of the village paled into common wreaths of
thin blue smoke; the starry twinkle of the steeple-vane went out in a
moment, like an extinguished spark. The cirrhus clouds high up in the
zenith, or far off in the cool east, still showed a rosy tint; but
excepting these, the war of the giants--the ever-recurring tragedy of
light and darkness--had played itself to an end. Already the shadows
of the night were out among the hills, and stealing down in troops to
overspread the land.
Maida stood and watched the spectacle. She was abundantly read in the
literature of the magazines. The Solar Myth had always impressed her,
and now the pomp of sunset recalled the story of Herakles, enthralled
in Nessus' shirt, leaping on the altar and vanishing in flame. "The
end of a hero!" she whispered to herself, there being no one else to
hear--though, if there had been, it would have made no difference.
Being a free-born American, she felt no false shame about giving
utterance to her thoughts, however high-stepping they might sound at
times. If her auditor did not appreciate, it only showed his dulness.
She had removed her spectacles some time before, when the daylight
grew less glaring. Her hat was pushed back, and her hair rumpled out
of its usual primness. The pinched, worn, and disappointed set of her
features--the livery of hard-worked governesses--was lost for the
moment in the sweet light reflected from the rosy clouds, and the
natural intelligence always dwelling in her eyes was now warmed into
enthusiasm over the drama of the elements. She looked pleasing, and
even pretty, for the moment--her figure slight and girlish, rather
than skinny, as it had appeared at times under the trying contrasts of
the crowded hotel. In the elation of her feelings she stood erect with
head well up, and altogether different from the neglected schoolma'am
of other times. Wherever the divine gift of intelligence resides,
there are possibilities of beauty; and the mantle of the flesh at
times will fall into graceful lines, even though the bufferings of
circumstance may toss and twist it awry in the general. We are lamps
of clay through which the inner brightness shines more or less
clearly; and it is or the flame's being trimmed, or burning low, that
good looks worth the having mostly depend.
There was a whistle up the track, and presently, with a tempestuous
rush which made the station tremble, a train swept up to the platform
and stopped. A big bell was jangled in front of the dining-room,
and nasal voices yelled--"Narwhal Junction! Twenty minutes for
ree-freshment!" The passengers alighted and hurried across the
platform, and Maida bade adieu to her musings and hastened to get her
luggage checked for her journey.
A gentleman was coming from the distant end of the train. He too was
hastening, but in the opposite direction. Both were intent on their
own affairs, the platform was crowded, and ere they knew it, each was
in the other's arms. Both recoiled, and stood to recover breath and
apologise. Both looked. Both started in surprise.
"Gilbert Roe!" It was the lady who was the first to speak.
"Maida----?" responded the gentleman, and then he looked apologetic.
He might be taking a liberty, he thought, and looked about to see if
there was a husband to resent so familiar a use of his wife's name.
"Are you travelling alone?" he asked, after a minute's silence, during
which the lady's eyes had been so intently busy with him that she
forgot to speak.
"You look older," she said at last. "Of course you must, after ten
years' absence; but you are only improved--broad-chested and
prosperous-looking;" and she wrung his hand in an intensity of
welcome. "Where are you travelling to? What a strange place to meet
in! Were you coming to----" but she did not finish her sentence. It
occurred to her that it was her friend's turn to say something now.
"I am on my way to Clam Beach," he answered. "I shall put in a few
days there, and then try some of the other places along the coast.
Have been at several already. Not much account, any of them; but this
is the season for being away. Nothing astir in Chicago at this time of
year."
"Clam Beach? I've come from there. You'll find it pleasant. The house
is full; but of course they can put up a single gentleman."
"You are there? Come, that's nice! I declare I'm in luck at last. My
trip has been real lonesome, so far. I have been so long West that I
have lost sight of my old friends, and can't scare up one, now I want
'em."
"You don't deserve to, if you serve them all as you did me. How many
years is it since you wrote last, do you think? It's eight."
"Eight years? Ah, well, but that is different," he answered, with a
laugh. "Who is with you at Clam Beach?"
"Who would be? The teachers at our college are mostly home with their
friends. I'm an orphan, as you know, and I don't make very free with
strangers; so I come to the shore, like other folks who have no
friends to visit;" and she heaved a little sigh, but not a painful
one. If life had been rather empty for her, that was forgotten now;
"over," I daresay she would have said just then, if her feelings had
fallen into words, for her eyes were on his face, her lips were
parted, and her countenance was alight, more brightly than when the
sunset clouds had lit it up a while ago. This was a rosier, warmer
light, shining from within. It transfigured her for the moment,
casting back the gathering years with their encrusting vapours, and
disclosed her again as the enthusiastic maiden from whom the young man
had parted ten years before, but purified and brightened by the
struggles, and the victories, and the wisdom painfully acquired--for
the moment, that is: there are no tabernacles or abiding-places on our
mounts of transfiguration, and their glories are evanescent.
"You mean that you are still unmarried? Strange!"
"Strange that a woman should keep her troth, Gilbert? There came no
word of your death. I only had patience--only waited, just as any
right woman would have done."
"Hm----" It was not the answer which Gilbert had anticipated, if
indeed he anticipated any. It startled him, and made him look more
carefully in her face. Illuminated by the momentary exaltation of her
nerves, she really looked attractive then, and there was a glowing
warmth in her eyes resting on his own which thrilled him, and held him
in a spell not to be shaken off, though he tried. It turned back the
pages of his memory and opened a far-back chapter where ardent
passages were inscribed--a chapter broken off in the middle; and then
a leaf had been turned, and new chapters with new interests and new
ardours had written themselves in--the stirring interests and eager
ardours of an intenser life--and the old chapter had remained
unfinished, and even the part written had been forgot.
Now, the old passage was again before him, and he felt a drawing back
to the old-time idyl, and an impulse to carry it on and complete it.
Yet there was a thinness in this proffered draught of love, which did
not now as of old attract his sophisticated palate. It seemed like
whey to the shepherd's son who has sojourned in cities and revelled in
stronger drinks--wholesome, but not exhilarating. The bowl was at his
lips, but he hesitated to drink. His glance waxed unsteady beneath the
gaze of blissful trust which beamed on him. He coughed again to break
the confusing silence, and would have spoken, but he could think of
nothing to say.
And then the damsel's look grew clouded, in sympathy with, or in
consequence of, his confusion; and with a little gasping sob and a
tighter clutch at his hand, which she still was holding, she spoke,
half whispering--
"And you? You--you are not married, Gilbert?" and her eyes rose
shrinkingly to his face, with an eager frightened look, as if she
dreaded to hear his answer.
"N--no--that is--no--certainly not! What makes you suppose such
things? I have no thought----Tush! you put me out asking ridiculous
questions. I forget what I am saying;" and he laughed uneasily,
looking most unnecessarily confused over so simple an avowal.
His confusion was unnoticed, however. Maida looked up in his face once
more, as trustingly as ever; or more so, for now there was the triumph
of proud possession. Her ten years' waiting was accomplished; her love
was come to claim her. The stony road she had been travelling so
wearily and alone, was behind her now. It grew radiant in retrospect
by the light of the joy she had now attained, even as the toils of
battle seem glorious in the lustre of the victory which they have
achieved. Her love was come to claim her! She stood up closer and
looked into his face, with upturned lips, awaiting the seal of their
reunion.
It did not come. The omnibus was drawing up at the platform, and
Gilbert, calling a porter, turned away to point out his luggage. Maida
went in pursuit of her own, and to the surprise of the driver, had it
restored to the place on the roof whence it had been lifted an hour or
two before, and then followed Gilbert inside, to return to Clam Beach.