IN AN OMNIBUS.
The daylight was stealing swiftly yet imperceptibly away. There was no
moon, and the occupants of the omnibus were speedily wrapped in gloom.
Besides the two we know of, there were others sitting in silence, and
in wait for anything to amuse them on the monotonous journey. The
vehicle rolled easily along the sandy road, without noise or jar to
drown the sound of conversation, and Maida dared not give voice to the
many things with which her happy heart was overflowing, before the
inquisitive strangers, while Gilbert was far from indisposed to hold
his tongue.
To participate with enthusiasm in a _réchauffé_ of feeling, after ten
years, and in other scenes and circumstances, demands an effort. If
the feeling has been one merely of friendship, such participation is
no doubt possible--nay, the long interval lends an atmosphere of
pensive charm to the revival, clothes it in roseate hues, and tempts
one, in looking down the vista of the years, to see the bond as closer
than it really was. But if the friendship was one "touched with
emotion," as it mostly is when the parties are a young man and a maid,
it is different. The aroma of such a tie is far too subtile and
evanescent to survive much keeping. Cherish the memories ever so
carefully, as Maida had done, it is only like the storing away of
roseleaves. The perfume waxes even stronger, but it is not the same;
it is musty and heavy, like spice or drugs--a mummy of the old sweet
breath of flowers. Cherish not, as was Gilbert's case, and what is
left? The roses have withered, the petals crumbled and blown away, and
what remains but the memory of a remembrance?
Had this meeting come ten years later, when the effervescence of the
emotions, and the expectation of new sweetness still to be extracted
from the dregs of youth, had subsided, then doubtless it would have
been pleasant to recur to a tender friendship, and to trick it out in
such shreds of sentiment as could be picked from out the lumber of the
past. Self-love and self-pity would have delighted to dwell on such a
memento of departed youth, when the time for new attachments had
passed away. But at thirty a man is still young, except to his
juniors. There may yet be loves and friendships to come, more precious
than any which have gone before. He looks back upon his past as a mere
introduction to his full-fledged present--the raw and callow time of
his probation--and early kindnesses seem pale, watery, and insipid.
Gilbert was pleased enough to meet an old friend; especially just
then, when he was bound for a pleasure resort, where, as always, those
who have friends are tempted to season their social enjoyments with as
much exclusiveness as they can afford, and enhance the satisfaction of
being within the ring, by keeping as many as possible outside. But
this new-found friend claimed so much for their intimacy in the
past--so much which was special and particular, and for which he
really doubted in himself if there had been warrant. It was an affair
of ten years ago. Since then he had led a busy life, overflowing with
all the excitements; and he wondered now if there could have been
ground for the meaning she appeared to attribute to it. There might
have been once, or there nearly might have been--and if the intimacy
had lasted longer, perhaps there _would_ have been; but they had now
been ten years apart, and who could resurrect a sentiment buried under
ten years of oblivion? There had been time for many another tenderness
since then. And were not attachments like the herbage of the fields,
of which each season produces its own luxuriant crop? Besides,
since then a plant more vigorous than any had sprung up, one with
deeper-reaching root and wider branches, which had usurped the space
and choked all weaker growths. It was a plant whose fruit had been
tart as well as sweet; but the complex flavour of it had made his
palate critical, and anything more luscious would be mawkish now.
Again, had she not been a little abrupt? Was it nice in her to speak
so openly--to step so unhesitatingly across the chasm of a ten years'
separation, into a past as to which he really had forgotten the
particulars? He doubted if that past had been as she would represent
it; and even if it had, was it maidenly in her to be the first to
speak of it?
Still, he was going amongst strangers. This old friend would be a
resource, and would help to break the ice for him; and no doubt, with
judgment, he would be able to lead her into seeing things as they
were, instead of as she wished them to be. And after all, it was a
kindly trait in her to have remembered him so long, poor girl! He
hoped it had not interfered with her prospects, much, or made her
measure others who were candidates for her favour by too high a
standard. Yet it was well, perhaps, to have a high standard, "a noble
ideal." That was the way it was expressed by the winter-evening
lecturers, and the magazine writers; who, as far as he recollected,
always spoke of it as "precious." And he spread himself a little wider
in his dark corner of the omnibus, expanded his chest, and felt
pleased with himself in the new character of "element in a woman's
higher culture." Ah! what a fellow he was, to be sure! If the girls
did see his perfections, poor things, it was not his fault. It showed
only that they had eyes to see, and he could not wish them blind. It
was impossible, of course, that he could be in love with them all; but
it was consoling to think that, in being a "noble ideal," he was
conferring a moral benefit on those whose attachment he could not
return. And through his mind there ran the familiar lines--
"'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all."
And he sighed contentedly, feeling very kindly towards poor Maida
Springer.
Maida sat in the opposite corner of the omnibus, tumultuously happy.
She felt garrulous at first in her elation, but the presence of
fellow-passengers--staid country folks, who did not speak, but looked
inquisitively at her and her friend, as strangers in those parts, and
then communicated with each other in interjectional observations about
the crops--compelled her to silence; and she had so much to fill her
thoughts, that soon she fell into a delightful reverie, and had no
wish to converse.
As the daylight grew more dim, she lost sight of her recovered
Gilbert; but there he sat before her, all the same--his outline clear
against the quiet sky seen through the open window, broad-shouldered,
tall and strong, a very rock of manhood; and every thread and tendril
of her heart seemed to go out and twine itself around him, as she sat
nestled in spirit within his shadow, in a passion of trusting
adoration.
How fine of him to have kept true through all the years!--through
vicissitudes and seductions such as she could not imagine or
particularise, but which yet must have been most trying. And now they
were re-united. And yet, how diffident and even shy he had seemed, at
meeting her! and with so little to say. Depth of feeling!--to which
language was too poor to give expression. It was beautiful. And what a
joy for her, by-and-by, to lend his dumb soul language!--and to
encourage his faltering emotions to body themselves in words.
"Douglas! Douglas! tender and true!" were the words which kept hymning
themselves through her brain in a continuous rapture. Ah, what a hero!
and how goodly was his shadow! It seemed but yesterday that they had
parted. Ten years of dreariness, the worries and petty scufflings,
small aims and smaller disappointments, which had seemed so long and
dull and wearing in their passage, were all forgot and put away, like
the flatness of a rainy afternoon, when it is over. She was in her
teens again, strolling in the fields with Gilbert on Sunday
afternoons, or reading with him on winter nights in the parlour of his
uncle's homestead, when the children, her charges, were gone to bed.
The air from the fields blew in through the open windows, as the
omnibus lumbered on, dewy and cool, and sweet with the scent of
second-growth clover; and she thought of the humming of bees, and the
sunshine and the peace of the long vacation, when Gilbert was home
from college, and their talks about the world, and books, and college
lore, which had been so inspiring, and had filled her with ambitions,
and tempted her to break from rustic life, and work and struggle, till
now she was a professor in the Female College of Montpelier. What poor
dry husks it had all appeared to her but that very morning! And now it
was past, clean vanished out of her life; and she felt like a moth
when it casts the chrysalis and spreads its wings to sport upon the
scented air. The wonder of it all! and the beauty! Now that they were
past, she would not have had the times of dark probation shortened by
a day.
The omnibus jogged tranquilly on its way in the sweet summer night,
diverging here and there to drop a passenger at his own gate, and then
resuming its course, no one remonstrating at delay or seeking to
quicken the pace. The casuals were all and severally deposited at
last. A little longer, and the journey was completed; the dark bulk of
the hotel, with its countless lights in ranges long-drawn-out and
twinkling tier on tier, a garish illumination intruding on the
stillness and mystery of night, loomed up before them, and the
travellers drew rein before the entrance at Clam Beach.
It was almost with regret that the two found themselves at their
journey's end, so pleasant had it been; and yet they had not exchanged
a word. Their musings, different as they were, had been alike
pleasurably engrossing, and alike productive in each of kindness for
the other. No two people could have been mutually better disposed than
were Gilbert and Maida as he handed her out, and waving the porter
aside, insisted on carrying in her rugs with his own hands.
"Maidy Springer! you back!" was ejaculated, as Maida reached the
hall-way landing; and out of the darkness of the outside gallery
swooped Mrs Denwiddie in a whirlwind of flapping drapery, enveloping
Maida in a cloud of kisses and black grenadine.
"So glad to have you back again, my dear. It's been real lonesome this
afternoon without you. But what has brought you? I thought you were
gone to be made a doctoress of philosophy,--and here you are again;
and not alone either! Is that the philosophy we study? No better than
the rest, for all your learning. It's woman's subjick you incline to
after all--a young man--when you can get him. Sly-boots! And me never
to suspect it. It's not an hour since I was argying with that stuck-up
old Mrs Wilkie, and insistin' that you was all intelleck; and here you
are, back with a gentleman to disprove my words."
Maida felt doubtful how she should reply, and but for the joy which
filled her she would have resented the other's inquisitive freedom. It
seemed to her at that moment, however, that nothing could ever vex her
more, and a reproachful look was all she could call up, by way of
self-assertion.
"Well, yes, my dear," the widow answered to the look, "I'll own to it.
I _am_ making free. But it comes of the interest I feel in you; though
many's the spat you and me has had together. But who's the gentleman?
A mighty fine man. Is it HIM? the one you kind of let on about, that
was away making a fortune to marry you on? Sakes alive, now! Ain't
that pretty! If this ain't true love, there's no sich thing. And so
little as you said! And so despondent-like you used to seem! I reely
thought the whole a flam, and you just makin' believe a bit, because
the gentlemen here didn't much mind you. And now, perhaps, you'll be
married the first, for all the airs some tries to put on." And again
she pumped Maida's hands up and down by way of congratulation.
"And now, my dear," the widow resumed, "you must make me acquainted
with the gentleman himself. I'm fairly dyin' to know him. So true and
so constant! I wonder if there's more like him where he comes from. I
never saw the man myself would be so faithful. But maybe it's
yourself, Maidy Springer, has some knack of bindin' them to you;
though that's a notion never struck me before."
Maida smiled and held up her chin, while her eyes modestly sought the
ground. She mentioned that she and her friend were going to supper,
and if Mrs Denwiddie cared to accompany her to the dining-room, she
would introduce Mr Roe. That gentleman reappearing at the moment, the
three went in together, and Mrs Denwiddie's sentimental tendencies had
a treat in watching over the reunion and refreshment of two faithful
lovers. Her eyes dwelt on the face of the gentleman with smiles of
motherly solicitude, and she ministered to his wants whenever the
waiter turned his back, passing him the sugar-basin, handing him jam
and pickles, and pointing out the nicest kinds of cake, in a way as
troublesome as it was well intended.
Maida was in glory--too happy to eat or drink. Her credit among women
was vindicated at last. Evidence of her prowess was there present; the
victim, a man of six feet stature, acknowledging her silken fetters.
No one would ever say "old maid" to her again, or think it. She was
transferred from the forlorn to the triumphant division of her sex,
and it was altogether "just too delightful." Her merit, even in her
own eyes, took new proportions. How true she must have been, and
constant! And she began to perceive what a very superior nature was
hers, to have cherished this beloved image for ten long years. And
yet, in her modesty, she had been as little aware of the tenacity of
her affection as of the enduring influence of her conquering charms.
To think that she could have loved and waited so long! As if, poor
soul, there had since appeared in her life any man on whom to bestow
the treasure of her love. She had not hoped, far less expected, this
felicity. The memory of ten years back had been but the remembered
gleam of sunshine in a clouded existence, to be recurred to when other
women flaunted their successes before her eyes--a testimony that she,
too, had had her sip of love. Her soul overflowed with gratitude to
this champion who had vindicated her equality with other women to
herself and them, with humble trustful devotion.
The sensations were all so new as yet. By-and-by, doubtless, when
ideas had had time to ferment, it would be different. Victorious
beauty would as usual demand its dues, trifle with the captive's
chains, and play at being imperious and exacting. For the present the
game was all too new; she was too happy for common food, and pastured
her eyes on the goodly proportions of her hero--his noble brow, his
moustache, his nose, and all his manifold perfections. Timidly she
pushed the buttered toast within his reach, and the anchovy paste, and
watched the carefully divided mouthfuls of his meal as they were made
away with.
Maida's heart was too full for speech, Gilbert's jaws were employed in
mastication; wherefore they sat in silence, and Mrs Denwiddie, facing
them with attentive eyes, was forced to feed her curiosity with
sympathetic fancies.
"How much the poor dears must be thinking, when they speak so little!
and how devoted Maida is, to be sure, pressing toast and anchovy upon
her companion, and never touching a morsel herself! And what a very
fine man the gentleman is, to be sure! And as for Maida herself, she
really is not at all amiss--quite spry, in fact, and with a good
colour, if she do be a little thin. But that will mend soon. There's
nothing like a good heart to put flesh on the bones."