HER INFINITE VARIETY
It was a young woman who left the step of the ambulance and stood for a
moment shading her eyes with her hand and looking out over the
shimmering expanse of the broad river. All at once the entire landscape
was changed. It was not the desert, but civilization which swept about
us. A transfiguration had been wrought by one figure, fair to look upon.
I could see that this was no newcomer in the world of the out-of-doors,
however. She was turned out in what one might have called workmanlike
fashion, although neat and wholly feminine. Her skirt was short, of good
gray cloth, and she wore a rather mannish coat over a blue woolen shirt
or blouse. Her hands were covered with long gauntlets, and her hat was a
soft gray felt, tied under the chin with a leather string, while a soft
gray veil was knotted carelessly about her neck as kerchief. Her face
for the time was turned from us, but I could see that her hair was dark
and heavy, could see, in spite of its loose garb, that her figure was
straight, round and slender. The swift versatility of my soul was upon
the point of calling this as fine a figure of young womanhood as I had
ever seen. Now, indeed, the gray desert had blossomed as a rose.
I was about to ask some questions of Belknap, when all at once I saw
something which utterly changed my pleasant frame of mind. The tall
figure of a man came from beyond the line of wagons--a man clad in
well-fitting tweeds cut for riding. His gloves seemed neat, his boots
equally neat, his general appearance immaculate as that of the young
lady whom he approached. I imagine it was the same swift male jealousy
which affected both Belknap and myself as we saw Gordon Orme!
"Yes, there is your friend, the Englishman," said Belknap rather
bitterly.
"I meet him everywhere," I answered. "The thing is simply uncanny. What
is he doing out here?"
"We are taking him out to Laramie with us. He has letters to Colonel
Meriwether, it seems. Cowles, what do you know about that man?"
"Nothing," said I, "except that he purports to come from the English
Army."
"I wish that he had stayed in the English Army, and not come bothering
about ours. He's prowling about every military Post he can get into."
"With a special reference to Army officers born in the South?" I looked
Belknap full in the eye.
"There's something in that," he replied. "I don't like the look of it.
These are good times for every man to attend to his own business."
As Orme stood chatting with the young woman, both Belknap and I turned
away. A moment later I ran across my former friend, Mandy McGovern. In
her surprise she stopped chewing tobacco, when her eyes fell on me, but
she quickly came to shake me by the hand.
"Well, I dee-clare to gracious!" she began, "if here ain't the man I met
on the boat! How'd you git away out here ahead of us? Have you saw airy
buffeler? I'm gettin' plumb wolfish fer something to shoot at. Where all
you goin', anyhow? An' whut you doin' out here?"
What I was doing at that precise moment, as I must confess, was taking a
half unconscious look once more toward the tail of the ambulance, where
Orme and the young woman stood chatting. But it was at this time that
Orme first saw or seemed to see me. He left the ambulance and came
rapidly forward.
"By Jove!" he said, "here you are again! Am I your shadow, Mr. Cowles,
or are you mine? It is really singular how we meet. I'm awfully glad to
meet you, although I don't in the least see how you've managed to get
here ahead of us."
Belknap by this time had turned away about his duties, and Orme and I
spoke for a few minutes. I explained to him the changes of my plans
which had been brought about by the accident to the _River Belle_.
"Lieutenant Belknap tells me that you are going through to Laramie with
him," I added. "As it chances, we have the same errand--it is my purpose
also to call on Colonel Meriwether there, in case we do not meet him
coming down."
"How extraordinary! Then we'll be fellow travelers for a time, and I
hope have a little sport together. Fine young fellow, Belknap. And I
must say that his men, although an uncommonly ragged looking lot and
very far from smart as soldiers, have rather a workmanlike way about
them, after all."
"Yes, I think they would fight," I remarked, coolly. "And from the look
of things, they may have need to." I told him then of what he had
discovered at the station house near by, and added the caution not to
mention it about the camp. Orme's eyes merely brightened with interest.
Anything like danger or adventure had appeal to him. I said to him that
he seemed to me more soldier than preacher, but he only laughed and
evaded.
"You'll eat at our mess to-night, of course" said he. "That's our fire
just over there, and I'm thinking the cook is nearly ready. There comes
Belknap now."
Thus, it may be seen, the confusion of these varied meetings had kept me
from learning the name or identity of the late passenger of the
ambulance. I presume both Orme and Belknap supposed that the young lady
and I had met before we took our places on the ground at the edge of the
blanket which served as a table. She was seated as I finally approached,
and her face was turned aside as she spoke to the camp cook, with whom
she seemed on the best of terms. "Hurry, Daniels," she called out. "I'm
absolutely starved to death!"
There was something in her voice which sounded familiar to me, and I
sought a glance at her face, which the next instant was hid by the rim
of her hat as she looked down, removing her long gloves. At least I saw
her hands--small hands, sun-browned now. On one finger was a plain gold
ring, with a peculiar setting--the figure of a rose, carved deep into
the gold!
"After all," thought I to myself, "there are some things which can not
be duplicated. Among these, hair like this, a profile like this, a
figure like this." I gazed in wonder, then in certainty.
No there was no escaping the conclusion. This was not another girl, but
the same girl seen again. A moment's reflection showed how possible and
indeed natural this might be. My chance companion in the river accident
had simply gone on up the river a little farther and then started west
precisely as Mandy McGovern had explained.
Belknap caught the slight restraint as the girl and I both raised our
eyes. "Oh, I say, why--what in the world--Mr. Cowles, didn't you--that
is, haven't you--"
"No," said I, "I haven't and didn't, I think. But I think also--"
The girl's face was a trifle flushed, but her eyes were merry. "Yes,"
said she, "I think Mr. Cowles and I have met once before." She slightly
emphasized the word "once," as I noticed.
"But still I may remind you all, gentlemen," said I, "that I have not
yet heard this lady's name, and am only guessing, of course, that it is
Miss Meriwether, whom you are taking out to Laramie."
"Why, of course," said Belknap, and "of course," echoed everybody else.
My fair _vis-a-vis_ looked me now full in the face and smiled, so that a
dimple in her right cheek was plainly visible.
"Yes," said she, "I'm going on out to join my father on the front. This
is my second time across, though. Is it your first, Mr. Cowles?"
"My first; and I am very lucky. You know, I also am going out to meet
your father, Miss Meriwether."
"How singular!" She put down her tin cup of coffee on the blanket.
"My father was an associate of Colonel Meriwether in some business
matters back in Virginia--"
"Oh, I know--it's about the coal lands, that are going to make us all
rich some day. Yes, I know about that; though I think your father rarely
came over into Albemarle."
Under the circumstances I did not care to intrude my personal matters,
so I did not mention the cause or explain the nature of my mission in
the West. "I suppose that you rarely came into our county either, but
went down the Shenandoah when you journeyed to Washington?" I said
simply, "I myself have never met Colonel Meriwether."
All this sudden acquaintance and somewhat intimate relation between us
two seemed to afford no real pleasure either to Belknap or Orme. For my
part, with no clear reason in the world, it seemed to me that both
Belknap and Orme were very detestable persons. Had the framing of this
scene been left utterly to me, I should have had none present at the
fireside save myself and Ellen Meriwether. All these wide gray plains,
faintly tinged in the hollows with green, and all this sweeping sky of
blue, and all this sparkling river, should have been just for ourselves
and no one else.
But my opportunity came in due course, after all. As we rose from the
ground at the conclusion of our meal, the girl dropped one of her
gloves. I hastened to pick it up, walking with her a few paces
afterward.
"The next time we are shipwrecked together," said I, "I shall leave you
on the boat. You do not know your friends!"
"Why do you say that?"
"And yet I knew you at once. I saw the ring on your hand, and recognized
it--it is the same I saw in the firelight on the river bank, the night
we left the _Belle_."
"How brilliant of you! At least you can remember a ring."
"I remember seeing the veil you wear once before--at a certain little
meeting between Mr. Orme and myself."
"You seem to have been a haberdasher in your time, Mr. Cowles! Your
memory of a lady's wearing apparel is very exact. I should feel very
much nattered." None the less I saw the dimple come in her cheek.
She was pulling on her glove as she spoke. I saw embroidered on the
gauntlet the figure of a red heart.
"My memory is still more exact in the matter of apparel," said I. "Miss
Meriwether, is this your emblem indeed--this red heart? It seems to me I
have also seen _it_ somewhere before!"
The dimple deepened. "When Columbus found America," she answered, "it is
said that the savages looked up and remarked to him, 'Ah, we see we are
discovered!'"
"Yes," said I, "you are fully discovered--each of you--all of you, all
three or four of you, Miss _Ellen Meriwether_."
"But you did not know it until now--until this very moment. You did not
know me--could not remember me--not even when the masks were off! Ah, it
was good as a play!"
"I have done nothing else but remember you."
"How much I should value your acquaintance, Mr. Cowles of Virginia! How
rare an opportunity you have given me of seeing on the inside of a man's
heart." She spoke half bitterly, and I saw that in one way or other she
meant revenge.
"I do not understand you," I rejoined.
"No, I suppose you men are all alike--that any one of you would do the
same. It is only the last girl, the nearest girl, that is remembered. Is
it not so?"
"It is not so," I answered.
"How long will you remember me this time--me or my clothes, Mr. Cowles?
Until you meet another?"
"All my life," I said; "and until I meet you again, in some other
infinite variety. Each last time that I see you makes me forget all the
others; but never once have I forgotten _you_."
"In my experience," commented the girl, sagely, "all men talk very much
alike."
"Yes, I told you at the masked ball," said I, "that sometime I would see
you, masks off. Was it not true? I did not at first know you when you
broke up my match with Orme, but I swore that sometime I would know you.
And when I saw you that night on the river, it seemed to me I certainly
must have met you before--have known you always--and now--"
"You had to study my rings and clothing to identify me with myself!"
"But you flatter me when you say that you knew me each time," I
ventured. "I am glad that I have given you no occasion to prove the
truth of your own statement, that I, like other men, am interested only
in the last girl, the nearest girl. You have had no reason--"
"My experience with men," went on this sage young person, "leads me to
believe that they are the stupidest of all created creatures. There was
never once, there is never once, when a girl does not notice a man who
is--well, who is taking notice!"
"Very well, then," I broke out, "I admit it! I did take notice of four
different girls, one after the other--but it was because each of them
was fit to wipe out the image of all the others--and of all the others
in the world."
This was going far. I was a young man. I urge no more excuse. I am
setting down simply the truth, as I have promised.
The girl looked about, gladly, I thought, at the sound of a shuffling
step approaching. "You, Aunt Mandy?" she called out. And to me, "I must
say good-night, sir."
I turned away moodily, and found the embers of the fire at my own camp.
Not far away I could hear the stamp of horses, the occasional sound of
low voices and of laughter, where some of the enlisted men were grouped
upon the ground. The black blur made by the wagon stockade and a tent or
so was visible against the lighter line of the waterway of the Platte.
Night came down, brooding with its million stars. I could hear the
voices of the wolves calling here and there. It was a scene wild and
appealing. I was indeed, it seemed to me, in a strange new world, where
all was young, where everything was beginning. Where was the old world I
had left behind me?
I rolled into my blankets, but I could not sleep. The stars were too
bright, the wind too full of words, the sweep of the sky too strong. I
shifted the saddle under my head, and turned and turned, but I could not
rest. I looked up again into the eye of my cold, reproving star.
But now, to my surprise and horror, when I looked into the eye of my
monitor, my own eye would not waver nor admit subjection! I rebelled at
my own conscience. I, John Cowles, had all my life been a strong man. I
had wrestled with any who came, fought with any who asked it, matched
with any man on any terms he named. Conflict was in my blood, and always
I had fought blithely. But never with sweat like this on my forehead!
Never with fear catching at my heart! Never with the agony of
self-reproach assailing me! Now, to-night, I was meeting the strongest
antagonist of all my life, the only one I had ever feared.
It was none other than I myself, that other John Cowles, young man, and
now loose in the vast, free, garden of living.
Yet I fought with myself. I tried to banish her face from my heart--with
all my might, and all my conscience, and all my remaining principles, I
did try. I called up to mind my promises, my duties, my honor. But none
of these would put her face away. I tried to forget the softness of her
voice, the fragrance of her hair, the sweetness of her body once held in
my arms, all the vague charm of woman, the enigma, the sphinx, the
mystery-magnet of the world, the charm that has no analysis, that knows
no formula; but I could not forget. A rage filled me against all the
other men in the world. I have said I would set down the truth. The
truth is that I longed to rise and roar in my throat, challenging all
the other men in the world. In truth it was my wish to stride over
there, just beyond, into the darkness, to take this woman by the
shoulders and tell her what was in my blood and in my heart--even though
I must tell her even in bitterness and self-reproach.
It was not the girl to whom I was pledged and plighted, not she to whom
I was bound in honor--that was not the one with the fragrant hair and
the eyes of night, and the clear-cut face, and the graciously
deep-bosomed figure--that was not the one. It was another, of infinite
variety, one more irresistible with each change, that had set on this
combat between me and my own self.
I beat my fists upon the earth. All that I could say to myself was that
she was sweet, sweet, and wonderful--here in the mystery of this wide,
calm, inscrutable desert that lay all about, in a world young and strong
and full of the primeval lusts of man.