MARMADUKE WHARNE.
Up--up--up,--from glory to glory!
This was what it seemed to Leslie Goldthwaite, riding, that golden June
morning, over the road that threaded along, always climbing, the chain
of hills that _could_ be climbed, into the nearer and nearer presence of
those mountain majesties, penetrating farther and father into the grand
solitudes sentineled forever by their inaccessible pride.
Mrs. Linceford had grown impatient; she had declared it impossible, when
the splendid sunshine of that next day challenged them forth out of
their dull sojourn, to remain there twenty-four hours longer, waiting
for anything. Trunks or none, she would go on, and wait at Jefferson, at
least, where there was something to console one. All possible precaution
was taken; all possible promises were made; the luggage should be sent
on next day,--perhaps that very night; wagons were going and returning
often now; there would be no further trouble, they might rest assured.
The hotel-keeper had a "capital team,"--his very best,--at their
instant service, if they chose to go on this morning; it could be at the
door in twenty minutes. So it was chartered, and ordered round,--an open
mountain wagon, with four horses; their remaining luggage was secured
upon it, and they themselves took their seats gayly.
"Who cares for trunks or boxes now?" Leslie cried out in joyousness,
catching the first, preparatory glimpse of grandeur, when their road,
that wound for a time through the low, wet valley-lands, began to ascend
a rugged hillside, whence opened vistas that hinted something of the
glory that was to come. All the morning long, there wheeled about them,
and smiled out in the sunshine, or changed to grave, grand reticence
under the cloud-shadows, those shapes of might and beauty that filled up
earth and heaven.
Leslie grew silent, with the hours of over-full delight. Thoughts
thronged in upon her. All that had been deepest and strongest in the
little of life that she had lived wakened and lifted again in such
transcendent presence. Only the high places of spirit can answer to
these high places of God in his creation.
Now and then, Jeannie and Elinor fell into their chatter, about their
summer plans, and pleasures, and dress; about New York, and the new
house Mrs. Linceford had taken in West Twenty-ninth Street, where they
were to visit her next winter, and participate for the first time, under
her matronizing, in city gayeties. Leslie wondered how they could; she
only answered when appealed to; she felt as if people were jogging her
elbow, and whispering distractions, in the midst of some noble
eloquence.
The woods had a word for her; a question, and their own sweet answer of
help. The fair June leafage was out in its young glory of vivid green;
it reminded her of her talk with Cousin Delight.
"We _do_ love leaves for their own sake; trees, and vines, and the very
green grass, even." So she said to herself, asking still for the perfect
parable that should solve and teach all.
It came, with the breath of wild grape vines, hidden somewhere in the
wayside thickets. "Under the leaf lies our tiny green blossom," it said;
"and its perfume is out on the air. Folded in the grass-blade is a
feathery bloom, of seed or grain; and by and by the fields will be all
waving with it. Be sure that the blossom is under the leaf."
Elinor Hadden's sweet child-face, always gentle and good-humored, though
visited little yet with the deep touch of earnest thought,--smiling upon
life as life smiled upon her,--looked lovelier to Leslie as this whisper
made itself heard in her heart; and it was with a sweeter patience and a
more believing kindliness that she answered, and tried to enter into,
her next merry words.
There was something different about Jeannie. She was older; there was a
kind of hard determination sometimes with her, in turning from
suggestions of graver things; the child-unconsciousness was no longer
there; something restless, now and then defiant, had taken its place;
she had caught a sound of the deeper voices, but her soul would not yet
turn to listen. She felt the blossom of life yearning under the leaf;
but she bent the green beauty heedfully above it, and made believe it
was not there.
Looking into herself and about her with asking eyes, Leslie had learned
something already by which she apprehended these things of others.
Heretofore, her two friends had seemed to her alike,--able, both of
them, to take life innocently and carelessly as it came; she began now
to feel a difference.
Her eyes were bent away off toward the Franconia hills, when Mrs.
Linceford leaned round to look in them, and spoke, in the tone her voice
had begun to take toward her. She felt one of her strong likings--her
immense fancies, as she called them, which were really warm sympathies
of the best of her with the best she found in the world--for Leslie
Goldthwaite.
"It seems to me you are a _stray_ sunbeam this morning," she said, in
her winning way. "What kind of thoughts are going out so far? What is it
all about?"
A verse of the Psalms was ringing itself in Leslie's mind; had been
there, under all the other vague musings and chance suggestions for many
minutes of her silence. But she would not have spoken it--she _could_
not--for all the world. She gave the lady one of the chance suggestions
instead. "I have been looking down into that lovely hollow; it seems
like a children's party, with all the grave, grown folks looking on."
"Childhood and grown-up-hood; not a bad simile."
It was not, indeed. It was a wild basin, within a group of the lesser
hills close by; full of little feathery birches, that twinkled and
played in the light breeze and gorgeous sunshine slanting in upon them
between the slopes that lay in shadow above,--slopes clothed with ranks
of dark pines and cedars and hemlocks, looking down seriously, yet with
a sort of protecting tenderness, upon the shimmer and frolic they seemed
to have climbed up out of. Those which stood in the half way shadow were
gravest. Hoar old stems upon the very tops were touched with the
self-same glory that lavished itself below. This also was no less a true
similitude.
"Know ye not this parable?" the Master said. "How then shall ye know
all parables?" Verily, they lie about us by the wayside, and the whole
earth is vocal with the wisdom of the Lord.
I cannot go with our party step by step; I have a summer to spend with
them. They came to Jefferson at noon, and sat themselves down in the
solemn high court and council of the mountain kings. First, they must
have rooms. In the very face of majesty they must settle their traps.
"You are lucky in coming in for one vacancy, made to-day," the
proprietor said, throwing open a door that showed them a commodious
second-floor corner-room, looking each way with broad windows upon the
circle of glory, from Adams to Lafayette. A wide balcony ran along the
southern side against the window which gave that aspect. There were two
beds here, and two at least of the party must be content to occupy. Mrs.
Linceford, of course; and it was settled that Jeannie should share it
with her.
Upstairs, again, was choice of two rooms,--one flight, or two. But the
first looked out westward, where was comparatively little of what they
had come for. Higher up, they could have the same outlook that the
others had; a slanting ceiling opened with dormer window full upon the
grandeur of Washington, and a second faced southward to where beautiful
blue, dreamy Lafayette lay soft against the tender heaven.
"Oh, let us have this!" said Leslie eagerly. "We don't mind stairs." And
so it was settled.
"Only two days here?" they began to say, when they gathered in Mrs.
Linceford's room at nearly tea-time, after a rest and freshening of
their toilets.
"We might stay longer," Mrs. Linceford answered. "But the rooms are
taken for us at Outledge, and one can't settle and unpack, when it's
only a lingering from day to day. All there is here one sees from the
windows. A great deal, to be sure; but it's all there at the first
glance. We'll see how we feel on Friday."
"The Thoresbys are here, Augusta. I saw Ginevra on the balcony just now.
They seem to have a large party with them. And I'm sure I heard them
talk of a hop to-night. If your trunks would only come!"
"They could not in time. They can only come in the train that reaches
Littleton at six."
"But you'll go in, won't you? 'T isn't likely they dress much
here,--though Ginevra Thoresby always dresses. Elinor and I could just
put on our blue grenadines, and you've got plenty of things in your
other boxes. One of your shawls is all you want, and we can lend Leslie
something."
"I've only my thick traveling boots," said Leslie; "and I shouldn't
feel fit without a thorough dressing. It won't matter the first night,
will it?"
"Leslie Goldthwaite, you're getting slow! Augusta!"
"As true as I live, there is old Marmaduke Wharne!"
"Let Augusta alone for not noticing a question till she chooses to
answer it," said Jeannie Hadden, laughing. "And who, pray, is Marmaduke
Wharne? With a name like that, if you didn't say 'old,' I should make up
my mind to a real hero, right out of a book."
"He's an original. And--yes--he is a hero,--_out_ of a book, too, in his
way. I met him at Catskill last summer. He stayed there the whole
season, till they shut the house up and drove him down the mountain.
Other people came and went, took a look, and ran away; but he was a
fixture. He says he always does so,--goes off somewhere and 'finds an
Ararat,' and there drifts up and sticks fast. In the winter he's in New
York; but that's a needle in a haystack. I never heard of him till I
found him at Catskill. He's an English-man, and they say had more to his
name once. It was Wharne_cliffe_, or Wharne_leigh_, or something, and
there's a baronetcy in the family. I don't doubt, myself, that it's his,
and that a part of his oddity has been to drop it. He was a poor
preacher, years ago; and then, of a sudden, he went out to England, and
came back with plenty of money, and since then he's been an apostle and
missionary among the poor. That's his winter work; the summers, as I
said, he spends in the hills. Most people are half afraid of him; for
he's one you'll get the blunt truth from, if you never got it before.
But come, there's the gong,--ugh! how they batter it! and we must get
through tea and out upon the balcony, to see the sunset and the 'purple
light.' There's no time now, girls, for blue grenadines; and it's always
vulgar to come out in a hurry with dress in a strange place." And Mrs.
Linceford gave a last touch to her hair, straightened the things on her
dressing-table, shut down the lid of a box, and led the way from the
room.
Out upon the balcony they watched the long, golden going down of the
sun, and the creeping shadows, and the purple half-light, and the
after-smile upon the crests. And then the heaven gathered itself in its
night stillness, and the mountains were grand in the soft gloom, until
the full moon came up over Washington.
There had been a few words of recognition with the Thoresby party, and
then our little group had betaken itself to the eastern end of the
piazza. After a while, one by one, the others strayed away, and they
were left almost alone. There was a gathering and a sound of voices
about the drawing-room, and presently came the tones of the piano,
struck merrily. They jarred, somehow, too; for the ringing, thrilling
notes of a horn, blown below, had just gone down the diminishing echoes
from cliff to cliff, and died into a listening silence, away over, one
could not tell where, beyond the mysterious ramparts.
"It's getting cold," said Jeannie impatiently. "I think we've stayed
here long enough. Augusta, _don't_ you mean to get a proper shawl, and
put some sort of lace thing on your head, and come in with us for a
look, at least, at the hop? Come, Nell; come, Leslie; you might as well
be at home as in a place like this, if you're only going to mope."
"It seems to me," said Leslie, more to herself than to Jeannie, looking
over upon the curves and ridges and ravines of Mount Washington, showing
vast and solemn under the climbing moon, "as if we had got into a
cathedral!"
"And the 'great nerve' was being touched! Well,--that don't make _me_
shiver. Besides, I didn't come here to shiver. I've come to have a right
good time; and to look at the mountains--as much as is reasonable."
It was a pretty good definition of what Jeannie Hadden thought she had
come into the world for. There was subtle indication in it, also, that
the shadow of some doubt had not failed to touch her either, and that
this with her was less a careless instinct than a resolved conclusion.
Elinor, in her happy good-humor, was ready for either thing: to stay in
the night splendor longer, or to go in. It ended in their going in.
Outside, the moon wheeled on in her long southerly circuit, the stars
trembled in their infinite depths, and the mountains abided in awful
might. Within was a piano tinkle of gay music, and demi-toilette, and
demi-festival,--the poor, abridged reproduction of city revelry in the
inadequate parlor of an unpretending mountain-house, on a three-ply
carpet.
Marmaduke Wharne came and looked in at the doorway. Mrs. Linceford rose
from her seat upon the sofa close by, and gave him courteous greeting.
"The season has begun early, and you seem likely to have a pleasant
summer here," she said, with the half-considered meaning of a common
fashion of speech.
"No, madam!" answered Marmaduke Wharne, out of his real thought, with a
blunt emphasis.
"You think not?" said Mrs. Linceford suavely, in a quiet amusement. "It
looks rather like it to-night."
"_This?_--It's no use for people to bring their bodies to the
mountains, if they can't bring souls in them!" And Marmaduke Wharne
turned on his heel, and, without further courtesy, strode away.
"What an old Grimgriffinhoof!" cried Jeannie under her breath; and
Elinor laughed her little musical laugh of fun.
Mrs. Linceford drew up her shawl, and sat down again, the remnant of a
well-bred smile upon her face. Leslie Goldthwaite rather wished old
Marmaduke Wharne would come back again and say more. But this first
glimpse of him was all they got to-night.