"Or false pretences. Your church--the Episcopal--is a great
tradition--one I respect as I do our other English-speaking
traditions--all the things we stand for that make up the decent things
of this world. I value all of it too much to lie about it. Don't you
see?--I can't come to communion, for it means too much to come
dishonestly."
"You are very young, Edward," he smiled with his hand on my shoulder.
"Will you let an older man decide?"
"I wish I could," I said.
"If Helen comes, you surely won't stand aside?"
"But will she come? Have you asked her?"
His face clouded for a moment with a genuine look of pain.
"Don't you both wish to marry with clean hearts?"
"Yes," I answered, "and we shall. That is why I can't lie to please
you."
I knew my retort was unfair, but I wanted him also to see my side. He
stood a while looking down at me. It was clear there was nothing
theatrical about this man's faith, however like an actor he might look.
I knew he wanted to reach out to me and hold me with the faith that held
him. Yet I could not yield. Had he perhaps been less in earnest, less
sincere, I might have offered him lip-service for the sake of peace. His
very strength gave me strength to resist. It had to be all or nothing. I
got to my feet.
"I am sorry," I said, holding out my hand.
"I think you are, Edward," he answered, taking my hand in a firm grip.
"You'll not urge Helen against it?"
"Helen's conscience is her own."
"Come, that's a good beginning. And because you are sorry to refuse, I
have still hope." He smiled at me. I shook my head.
"At any rate, you'll come to church next Sunday?"
"Yes"--and with this compromise we parted.
* * * * *
Helen's friends vied with one another in giving us small dinner parties
and dances during the last two weeks. There was no limit to the
hospitality of Deep Harbor, once you were an accepted member of what was
known as "the right people." If I dropped into Mr. Claybourne's
down-town club of a late afternoon, a dozen crowded tables would invite
me to sit down, with the greeting "We're just ordering a round, Ted.
What will yours be?" I knew all the business men and the younger crowd
of my own age, but none of them intimately. Knowlton, curiously enough,
was on the same footing of apparent welcome, but he had not been invited
to join either the country club or the down-town club. Miss Hershey's
refusal to vise his passport kept him an outsider, even with the men. No
one disliked him, and there was a general appreciation of his business
sagacity, but he simply did not belong. I made several efforts to break
down these bars for Knowlton. It was useless; they would not give way.
The whole social organization of Deep Harbor was an interesting study in
practical democracy. The inner circle of business men, who seemed to
treat a barber with the same intimate friendliness that they did each
other, nevertheless were a close corporation into which it was not easy
to gain admittance. The women were, of course, even more strict. A few
men belonged to the down-town club whom we never saw at dinners or
dances. There were only three streets on which it was permissible to
live; Myrtle Boulevard was the chief of these, but two more, parallel to
it, were allowable. On the connecting cross streets the newly married
couples of "the right people" lived in two-family houses, against the
day they would move to the important thoroughfare. A house anywhere else
was taboo, unless one went right out into the country, on the
country-club side of the town. It was a matter of considerable
uneasiness to Mrs. Claybourne that my little study and bedroom was on
the wrong side of State Street. I heard from her that that had been also
one of the earlier objections to "taking me up." I had, however, stuck
to my rooms, for they were both comfortable and inexpensive.
I do not pretend to know how the aristocracy of Deep Harbor came into
being. Success, which implied the possession of brains as a corollary,
coupled with long residence in the town, appeared to be the general
basis of it. On the other hand, Knowlton had brains and had made a
success of his work; yet he was excluded. Furthermore, the men all
admitted that he was "a thorough good fellow" and "a good mixer," as
they expressed it. I could see no logic in keeping him out. The essence
of an aristocracy, though, is the absence of any logical premise for its
elections. My position, of course, was solely owing to the Claybournes.
But I must not permit my reflections on the social mysteries of Deep
Harbor to interrupt too long the narrative of events. A day came when
our wedding was but three more days away. It was the last time Helen and
I could ride together over the hills. The final hours, according to Mrs.
Claybourne, were to be spent in such frenzied preparations as would
entirely forbid my presence at the house, to say nothing of riding. We
determined to make the most of this ride. We packed a luncheon, bought
down-town, summoned Leonidas, and rode forth.
We went slowly, a little stunned by the fact that this was our last
ride. Up the hill, past "Henery" Tyler's Five Mile Farm, was our way,
for we wanted to retrace all the steps of that day which had opened our
eyes. We stopped at the Tylers' for a word of greeting. "Henery" was not
at home--he was "in the city somewheres, most likely as not wastin' his
time," but Mrs. Tyler was delighted to see us, in spite of her momentary
bitterness on the subject of "Henery."
"He'll be down-right sorry to miss you young folks," she said. "It's
mighty nice of you to come 'way out here to say good-bye. But Henery's
always gallivantin' round when he ought to be at home 'tending to the
farm. Men is restless creatures anyway, Miss Helen. Won't you come in
and set in the parlour? I've got some new milk cooling out in the shed."
We accepted and dismounted.
"Walk right in and make yourselves to home. I guess you better leave the
dog outside. Dogs track up a house so."
With a hasty apology for her thoughtlessness, Helen tied Leonidas to the
fence. We entered the familiar little room with its horsehair furniture
and the conch shells in a glass case, and sat on the very sofa where
Helen had lain that evening with a wrenched knee. Mrs. Tyler disappeared
in search of the milk. In a few minutes she returned with milk, a plate
of cookies, and a jar of apple-butter.
"Kind of warm today," she rattled on, busy with her offering of
hospitality, "but I guess we've got to expect a little hot weather in
July. Milk's mighty refreshing on a warm day, 'specially if you been
exercisin'. Help yourself to the apple-butter, Miss Helen. It's a good
spread on cookies."
We sat and ate, grateful for her genuine friendliness. Her cookies would
have taken a prize anywhere.
"Seems like it was only yesterday, Miss Helen, when you used to be in
short dresses and drive out by here with your father on the way to the
old cider mill. And to think of you gettin' married and goin' off across
the ocean to live! Must be pretty hard on your mother to lose her
daughter that way. 'Tain't as if you was to have your home across the
street. I never had any children, so I ain't had to suffer. Sometimes I
think it's a blessin' when I hear of the goings-on of the young folk
today. Well, you never know how things might have been. Takes all my
time to keep up with what is. It's the Lord's will, I tell Henery--He
knows best. Take another glass of milk, Miss Helen. There's plenty more
where that come from. Feed's gettin' scarce, though. It dries up in this
weather."
We chatted awhile with Mrs. Tyler--perhaps it would be more accurate to
say that we inserted with difficulty monosyllables at intervals into her
monologue--and finally persuaded her to let us go.
A little further up the road we paused again at what we thought was
about the spot where Helen's horse had fallen with her. We slid off our
saddles and sat on the bank by the roadside, staring at the patch of
dusty road where the miracle had been revealed to us.
"It seems years and years ago, Ted," Helen whispered. "I can't remember
very much back of it. I just feel as if we had always known each other."
"In Avalon a day is a thousand years," I whispered back as she put her
head against my shoulder. "Count up the number of days and see how many
thousand years we have lived."
Deep Harbor lay in a smoky haze below us, and the lake beyond shimmered
blue and silver in the July sun. The yellow road went straight down the
hill toward the town. Across the distant fields the steam of a passing
train trailed across the tops of the trees. I watched Helen's grey eyes
staring at each familiar detail of her home--for the whole lay spread at
our feet. The grey deepened and turned a little misty at last.
"Forgive me, Ted," she said, clinging tightly to me, "but it hurts a
little to go, even with you." I kissed her wet eyes and said nothing. "I
love you, Ted. I love you," and she sobbed in my arms.
We ate our luncheon in the clearing by the wood. It was too hot for a
camp fire, and, as the sandwiches had melted, Leonidas de la Patte Jaune
ate more than we did. Helen was back in her usual mood of high content.
Her laugh, at some clumsy antic of Leonidas or some word of mine, rang
again and again through the solitude of our hiding place. The coming of
dusk and the mosquitoes drove us out at last.
"Another whole day of perfect happiness, Ted," she confided, leaning
across to me from her saddle.
Only Mrs. Claybourne was displeased; we were late for dinner.
* * * * *
And then the great day came. I had thrown one last defiance in Miss
Hershey's teeth by selecting Knowlton to be my best man. In spite of the
grin he grinned when I asked him, I saw that secretly he was
pleased--perhaps a little moved. He came round to my rooms early in the
morning to lend me aid and comfort, although the wedding was not to be
until two o'clock.
"Keep a stiff upper lip, Ted," was his greeting, as he unpacked a
breakfast of sorts from various pockets. He would not hear of my going
out for breakfast. "Shall I make some coffee?" he asked, as he took my
alcohol lamp apart. "Here's a cantaloupe, just off the ice," and he
banged a melon down on the table. "Got a knife?"