"The world was a sea, billowing with mountains"
From the high levels they had reached, they looked down on clouds that glittered silver-white as snow-capped mountain-heads. Among the rocks, where the ponies' hoofs picked their way, wild flowers sprang, strange and lovely blossoms such as Angela had never seen; but Nick knew most of them by name. Bird notes dropped like honey from fragrant shrubs and trees that hid the singers. Squirrels with plumed tails, and chipmunks striped white, gray, and brown, raced across the trail, or peered with the bright beads they had for eyes from piles of dead wood that lay gray as skeletons among the living green of the mountain forest. Far below, Silver Apron Fall splashed into the Emerald Pool and turned its green jewels to diamonds. The near forests and faraway waters sang in the different voices the same song other waters and forests had sung yesterday; but this song of the High Sierra had wilder notes, above and beyond all knowledge of fleeting episodes such as human lives and civilizations. For the song had not changed since the world was young. The air was not mere air, but seemingly a conscious mingling of Divine Ether with the atmosphere. Though they ascended always, it was as if they rode through the depths of a crystal sea, unstirred by their presence, a sea as deep and as high as heaven, a blue that took the solidity of turquoise between tree-trunks and paled to opaline fire across the canon. Angela knew that never again, after these spacious days, could she go back to her old self. She felt that she had mounted one step higher on the stage of development, and gained an ampler view. It was easier now than it had been to see how Nick Hilliard had become what he was. Nature, on the grandest scale and with the "grand manner," she thought, had given him his education; had been for him at once schoolmistress, guide, and companion. And no college built by man could give, for money, such knowledge as sky and wide spaces had given Nick for love.
Early in the afternoon the ponies brought them to the high plateau of Glacier Point, where, looking down, the world was a sea billowing with mountains, foaming with cataracts.
Angela was deliciously tired; and the long low hotel, built of logs, with a huge veranda, seemed to promise the welcome she wanted: a cool, clean room, a warm bath, and afterward luncheon. Also, she expected to find Kate. Nick had wired, or telephoned, she was uncertain which; and though no answer had been received, Kate's silence might no doubt be easily explained later. Angela felt confident that she would have precisely the room she pictured; she rather hoped it would be white and green.
The manager met them on the veranda, but it was not the manager Nick had known.
"My name's Hilliard," Nick began.
"Oh, yes. I 'phoned an answer to you at the Sentinel Hotel this morning. Something wrong with the wire between us yesterday."
"We must have started before you 'phoned."
"Well, I'm sorry. You wanted two rooms. But the best we can do for you and Mrs. Hilliard is one."
"Great Scot, you don't know what you're talking about!" gasped Nick. "This is Mrs. May."
"Beg your pardon, Mr. May. I thought you said your name was Hilliard."
"It is. But hers isn't. We—I—I'm only her guide," stammered Nick, so deeply embarrassed for Angela's sake that for the moment he lost his presence of mind. "It's the last straw," he thought. "She'll never forgive me." And he dared not look to see how she had taken the blow, until she surprised him by laughing. She was blushing a little, too.
"Do you remember the laundry in New Orleans?" she asked. "I'm afraid it will have to be the laundry for you again, or else a refrigerator."
Nick was of opinion that the refrigerator would better suit the state of his complexion, which needed cooling, but his relief at seeing Angela amused, not offended, was too great for words. He mumbled something vague about any cupboard or cellar being good enough, and began to recover himself; but his confusion had been contagious. The hotel manager caught the disease, and hoped Mrs. Willard would excuse him—no, he meant Mrs. Day—no, really he began to be afraid that he didn't remember rightly what he meant! He'd got Mrs. Milliard and Mr. Hay mixed up, and would they sort themselves, please? Once he had them straightened out in his mind, he'd try to keep them straight.
"Has my maid come on from El Portal?" Angela thought this a propitious moment for a question on some other subject.
"Your maid? No, Mrs. Hill, she hasn't."
"And no message? How strange!"
"Nothing that I've heard of. But I'll let you know. If Mr. Mayard—Mr. Mill, will come with me to the 'phone, when you're in his room—I mean, when you're in yours—we may get on to El Portal."
Angela was still laughing to herself, when word was brought by a chambermaid that Kate had telephoned from El Portal. She had hurt her ankle in getting into the stage (Angela could quite imagine that!), and had not been able to proceed. It was not, however, a regular sprain. She was in bandages, but better; and it was now settled that, without fail, she was to meet Mrs. May at Wawona to-morrow. "And your husband wants to know," added the chambermaid, "what time you would like to have your lunch."
"He is not my husband," said Angela.
The young woman froze.
"We are friends."
The scandalized muscles relaxed. There was a high nobility in friendship. The chambermaid herself had a friend, who talked a great deal about Plato, in the cheap edition.
"And will you please say I shall be ready in twenty minutes?"
Standing on the hotel veranda together, after luncheon, "Mrs. Mill and Mr. Hayward"—he restored to calmness—could look thousands of feet down to the floor of the valley. Exactly how many thousands of feet there were Angela refused to be told, for the distance seemed illimitable, and cold facts might dwarf imagination. They saw the Yosemite Falls, a quivering white vein on a dark wall a million miles away. Mirror Lake was a splinter of glass on a pavement of green tiles. Nevada and Vernal Falls were pale yet bright as streaks of stardrift, in the blue haze of distance.
If it had not been for the episode of Mrs. Hilliard and Mr. May, Nick might have felt tempted to try his fate, and dare the dash across the "dead line," that evening of moonlight on the mountain-top. But it might, he thought, seem like presuming on what had happened; and having come, more or less safely, round an awkward turning, he was thankful to find himself on a narrow ledge of security. The moonshine, that turned mountains to marble and sky to pearl, was cold as it was pure; and in its bleaching radiance Angela seemed less woman than spirit. He dared not let that angel know how hot was his heart.
"I'll wait till we're among the Big Trees," he said to himself. "They're great, as great as the mountains in their way, but they're friendly and kind, as if they might help. That's where I'll risk it all: in the Mariposa Forest, the place I like better than any other in the world. So whatever happens, we shall have seen the best there is together, and all that will be mine to remember, if I lose everything else."
The next day was a day of forest and flowers.
They were not travelling this time in an ordinary stage, for Nick had secured a buckboard for themselves alone, with a driver who knew the country, with its beauties and legends, as well as he knew his big muscular gray horses.
Those never-ending, cathedral-forests of America's. National Park were wilder than any that Angela had imagined. She hardly believed that the great redwoods which she was to see to-morrow could be grander than these immense fluted columns of cedar and pine. In the arms of the biggest and most virile trees, many slender sapling shapes, storm-broken, or tired of facing life alone, lay helplessly. But the driver's heart was proof against a romantic view of this situation, as sketched by Angela. "It oughtn't to be allowed," he said, sternly. "Think of the danger in fire. That's what is called by the foresters, 'extra hazard,' as I guess Mr. Hilliard knows."
Oh, yes, Nick knew. But, seeing with Angela's eyes, he envied the lover-trees their peril. He, a lonely tree, had already taken fire, but he would gladly risk the "extra hazard." What if—and his thoughts ran ahead to the day in the redwoods, that day set apart by his mind as the clou of the excursion—what if the thing her eyes seemed to say to him should be true? What if she could love him, and give up her world, that world which he saw vaguely, as a dazzling vision? What if, to-morrow, she too should know the thrill of "extra hazard"?
No wonder, then, as he dreamed, that the glacier meadows encircled by green walls of forest primeval should seem like fairy rings, visible to mortal eyes only as a special privilege. In the sunlight-gold, the sheets of azaleas, cyclamen, and violets, were embroidered tapestries of pink and purple; the bright rivulets of melting snow that bathed the wild flowers' roots became a network of diamonds.
Here and there, under the huge coniferous trees, lay patches of snow still unmelted, though the month was June. Indian fire glowed red on the white expanse, blood on marble, and scarlet snow-plant sent up lurid spouts like flaming fountains. The tree-shadows were painted pools of lupin, azure lakes; or they were purple seas of larkspur. Mountain-roses and wild lilac tangled in a maze of pink and white and gold. Bear-clover crowned the bald gray heads of rocks, or shone out like star-white strawberry blossoms from under a thicket of deer-bush. Wild asters burned rosily, like small Catherine wheels half extinguished. Small, mottled tiger lilies blazed among the pale young fronds of growing bracken: the air was scented with wild roses and the spicy fragrance of manzanita trees—the breath of California. But loveliest and strangest of all things were the gardens chosen for their own by the mariposa lilies. The trembling winged flowers hovered airily just above the earth, like a flock of alighting butterflies; and overhead poised real butterflies, of the self-same delicate tints hardly strong enough to be named as colours; silvery white, faint lilac, and a sunrise-hint of rose. Ground butterflies and air butterflies seemed kin to one another, those rooted to the ground longing for wings, those to whom earth offered no permanent foothold envying their half-sister's rest and peace.
Here in the mountains it was spring, though down below in the valleys full summer had come; and toward evening Angela and Nick descended once again to the summer world.
The valley of Wawona was laid out on the plan of those fairy rings, alias glacier meadows, which they had seen in higher places, only this was a fairy ring on a grander scale. It seemed so hidden by a belt of mountains that its green lawns, its gardens, its fountains and flowers might have been originally discovered only by some happy accident. But the discoverer being of a practical turn of mind, he or his descendants had built a delightful though unobtrusive hotel on a spot which might still have been warm from the fairies. On the veranda of the hotel was Kate, beaming with smiles of welcome as the buckboard coming down from Glacier Point brought her mistress in sight.
"Oh, it was a lovely place!" said Kate. And sure, how happy she and Timmy were to be there at last. She had arrived hours ago, and was nicely rested, yes, thank you, ma'am.
There were saucers of white violets, and vases of iris and Washington lilies in Mrs. May's bedroom. Here were no embarrassing complications connected with "Mr." May and "Mrs." Hilliard. All was peace; and as the dust which had turned Angela's golden hair to silver was being brushed away by Kate, the tale of the maid's adventures was unfolded. Yet Angela, smiling gently, as she inhaled the sweetness of violets, hardly listened. She was glad that Kate was almost well and that Timmy was restored to the bosom of his family. But it seemed to her that no one except herself had had any adventures worth the name. No one else could ever have adventures half as good! Even she—no, not for her could their like come again. She began to grudge the passing of the hours, wishing that she had the power to stop all the clocks of the world.