People Like That: A Novel

by Kate Langley Bosher

CHAPTER XXV

By the time we learn a few of the lessons life teaches we stop living. I should have known it is the unexpected that happens, but I forgot it. What I expected at Claxon did not come to pass.

At a little station a few miles east of the tiny town to which we were going, Tom and Madeleine left our train and waited for a crawling accommodation to Shelby, where, later, they would be married. From the car window I waved to them and tried to transmit a portion of my courage, for which there was no credit, and of my enjoyment, of which I should have been ashamed and was not ashamed. A taste for adventure will ever be a part of me, and I was getting much more pleasure out of an unexpected experience than Madeleine was. The playing of shadow to her substance was not so serious for me as for her, and then, too, I had the joyful irresponsibility of not going to be married. I do not want to be a married person yet.

As we left the car at Claxon I glanced in the mirror at the end of our coach and was pleased. About me was a bridal atmosphere that was unmistakable. Madeleine's clothes were new and lovely and I looked well. So did Selwyn. As we reached the platform I was undecided whether to cling timidly to Selwyn's arm or to walk bravely apart, and the indecision, together with the certainty that some one would put a hand on Selwyn's shoulder and say words I had never before heard, made my heart beat with a rapidity that was as genuine as if I were soon to become a bride in very truth. The sensation was exhilarating. I liked it.

On the platform of the little station a few negroes in overalls, two boys, and five men, having apparently nothing to do, were hanging around, hands in their pockets; and, looking about me, I waited. Nothing happened. Ahead of us and across a muddy road half a dozen stores, hunched together in a row of detached and shabby frame houses, with upper stories seemingly used for residential purposes, comprised the business portion of the little town, and on our right the post-office, telegraph and express offices, and telephone exchange were in the one large building of the place. Out of each window facing us some one was looking, and in the open door a man was standing, hat off and sweater-coated, who, at regular intervals, and with unfailing accuracy of aim, ejected tobacco juice into a puddle of water some distance away. No one but ourselves got off the train, and, its stay at the station being short, the attention of the loungers near by and those resting themselves on boxes and barrels in front of the stores across the road was turned determinatedly to us. I looked at Selwyn. In his face was relief. In mine was anxiety and, I'm afraid, disappointment. The situation was flat.

I had read various accounts of runaway marriages which had taken place at Claxon, several of which had only succeeded after eluding the sheriff, waiting under orders from irate parents to arrest them; and feeling confident Mrs. Swink would wire the proper person to prevent the marriage of her daughter, I looked around for the one most likely to do the work. No one appeared. What if my plan had failed and Madeleine, in my un-wedding garments, was to be taken into custody in Shelby? I turned to Selwyn.

"Do you suppose—" My voice was low. A man close to me, with hands in his pockets, hat on the back of his head, and his left cheek lumpy, was looking at us appraisingly. "Do you suppose anything will happen at Shelby? Nothing is happening here."

Selwyn's sigh of relief was long. "If nothing happens here I'll thank God. To keep it out of the papers would have been impossible. Stay here while I see if there is a decent hotel." He looked around speculatively. In the distance a man could be seen on horseback coming down the road which wound from the top of a mountain to the valley below, while at our left a covered ox-cart, a farm wagon, and a Ford car were waiting for their owners. Nothing in which we could ride, however, was seemingly in sight. A sudden desire to go somewhere, do something, possessed me. The day was mild, and the air clean and clear and calling, and the sunshine brilliant. It was a beautiful day. We must go somewhere.

For weeks I had been face to face with cruel conditions of life, had seen hardships and denials and injustices, and dreary monotony of days, and I wanted for a while to get away from it all, to breathe deep of that which would renew and reinforce and revitalize; wanted to be a child again, and, with Selwyn as my playmate, wander along the winding road with faces to the sun, and hearts of hope, and faith that God would not forget, and the world would yet be well. If nobody was going to do anything to us, if we were not needed to play a part, the hours ahead could be ours. The train on which we were to return did not leave until three-thirty. I looked at my watch. It was ten-thirty.

"Get something from somebody." My hand made movement toward the men about us and then in the direction of the shacks and sheds and cabins of the negroes, scattered at wide intervals apart from the village, which consisted of a long, rambling street with a white frame church at one end, a gray one at the other, a court-house in the middle, and a school-house at its back. "Get a buggy and something you can drive and let's have a holiday—just by ourselves. What is that house over there?"

I pointed to a square, old-fashioned red-brick building set well back from the road and surrounded by great oak-trees, and smaller ones of birch and maple and spruce and pine, and shrubs of various kinds. It was Claxon's one redemption. Shading my eyes, I read the tin sign swinging in the wind from a rod nailed at right angles to a sagging post at its gateless yard. "Swan Tavern." The name thrilled. I was no longer a twentieth-century person, but a lady of other days, and if a coach and four with outriders had appeared I would have stepped in it with delight. It did not appear, nor was Selwyn suddenly in knee-breeches and buckles and satin coat and brocaded vest. Not even my imagination could so clothe him. His practicality recalled me.

"I'll go over and find out what sort of place it is, and see if we can get anything to ride in. Perhaps this man can tell me. Wait here." He put out his hand as if to prevent my speaking first to the man. I didn't intend to speak to him.

The man could tell him nothing. He lived seven miles back and had come to the station to meet a friend who had failed to appear. There were teams in the neighborhood that might be gotten. Swan Tavern didn't have any. Used to, but most people nowaday, specially drummers, wanted automobiles, and old Colonel Tavis, who owned the place, wouldn't let an automobile come in his yard. Perhaps Major Bresee might let him have his horse and buggy. The person who gave the information changed his quid of tobacco from his left to his right cheek and, spitting on the ground below the plank-loose platform on which we were standing, pointed to a one-room office-building down the street, then again surveyed us. Two or three men across the road came over, and two or three others hanging around the station drew nearer and nodded to us, while both of the boys, hands in their pants pockets, stared up at Selwyn as if something new had indeed come to town.

From each of the group, now uncomfortably close to us, the impression radiated that the right of explanation was theirs as to why we should appear in Claxon with no apparent purpose for so appearing. Seemingly we were not the sort who usually applied for aid to the minister of the little town, known far and near for his matrimonial activities, and just what we wanted was a matter concerning which they were entitled to enlightenment. They said nothing, but looked much. Frowningly, Selwyn bit his lip. Presently he spoke.

"Can you tell me where I can get a horse and buggy for a few hours?" He looked first at one man and then another. "We have to wait here for friends who will return with us on the three-thirty train, and we'd like to see something of the country round about here while we're waiting. Can we get lunch over there? And what time do they have it?" His hand pointed to Swan Tavern.

"Don't have lunch. Dinner's at twelve o'clock." The man farthest away took his hands from the pockets of his pants and put them in those of his coat. "I reckon you can get Major Bresee's horse and buggy if he ain't using 'em. The horse ain't much, but it moves along. Want me to see if I can get him for you?"

"I would be very much obliged." Selwyn turned to me. "Shall we have the buggy sent over to us while we see about lunch?" he asked, but not waiting for an answer spoke again to the man whose kindly offices he had accepted. "If you can get anything we can ride in comfortably, bring it over, will you? And bring it as soon as you can."

Lifting his hat, he turned from the staring strangers and helped me down the three rickety steps that led to the road across which we had to go before turning in to the tree-lined lane that led to the quaint old tavern; and as we walked we were conscious of being watched with speculation that would become opinion as soon as we were out of hearing.

Picking our way through the mud, we soon reached the house, and at its door an untidy old gentleman, with the grace and courtesy of the days that are no more, greeted us as a gracious host greets warmly welcomed guests, and we were led to a roaring fire and told to make ourselves at home.

As he left the room to call his wife I touched Selwyn's arm and pointed to an open book on an old desk near the window at which travelers were supposed to register. "Ask him if he can't have a lunch fixed for us to take with us. Then you won't have to register or explain. Tell him anything will do, and please to hurry!"

He did not hurry. Nobody hurries in Claxon. It was twelve o'clock before the buggy was at the door, a basket of lunch in it, and good-bys said; and giving a last look around the big, dusty, sunshiny room with cobwebs on its walls and furniture in it that would have made a collector sick with desire, I walked out on the porch, and with me went the three dogs which had been stretched in front of the big log fire. Together we went down the steps.

Tucking a robe around me, the old gentleman nodded to Selwyn. "Don't let your wife get cold, suh, and don't stay out too long. The sun's deceiving and it ain't as warm as it looks." Being deaf, he spoke loudly. "The battlefields are to your left about half a mile from the creek with a water-oak hanging over it, and nigh about two miles from here. You can't miss 'em. Over yonder"—he pointed to the top of a modest mountain—"is where we had a signal station during the war. The view from there can't be beat this side of heaven. I ain't sure the battlements of heaven itself—"

But our horse had started and Selwyn, looking at me, laughed. "Battlefields have their interest, but not to-day. It's nice, isn't it, to be—just by ourselves and all the world away? Are you all right? I have orders to keep my wife warm."

"She's very warm. Where are we going?" I turned from Selwyn's eyes.

"I don't know. Don't care. It is enough that we are to be together."

"Wouldn't you feel better if you said 'I told you so'? Any one would want to say it. It was a pretty long trip to take unnecessarily, and as we haven't been of service we needn't have come. I'm sorry—"

"I'm not." Selwyn, paying no attention to the horse, who had turned into the road leading to the top of the mountain, kept his eyes still on me. "I don't deserve what has come of our venture, but I shall enjoy it the more, perhaps, because of undeserving. It is just 'we two' to-day. I get so mortally tired of people—"

"I don't. I like people. Perhaps if I only knew one sort I would get tired of them. I used to think my people were those I was born among, but I'm beginning to glimpse a little that my family is much larger than I thought, and that all people are my people. Still—" I laughed and drew in a deep breath of pine-scented air.

"Still—?" Selwyn waited.

"It is nice to get away from everybody now and then, and be with just you. I mean—" Certainly I had not meant to say what I had said, and, provoked at my thoughtless revealing, at the chance it would give Selwyn to say what I did not want him to say, I stopped abruptly, then quickly spoke again. "Why don't you make the horse go faster? We'll never get to Signal Hill at this rate. He's crawling."

"What difference does it make whether we get anywhere or not? I don't want to get anywhere. To be going with you is enough. You are a cruel person, Danny, or you would not make me go so long a way alone."

"I am not making you go alone. It is you who are making me. I am much more alone than you." Again I stopped and stared ahead. What was the matter with me that I should be saying things I must not say? In the silence of earth and air I wondered if Selwyn could hear the quick, thick beating of my heart.

On the winding road no one was in sight, and from our elevation a view of the tiny town below could be glimpsed through the bare branches of the trees of the little mountain we were ascending; and about us was no sound save the crunch of the buggy-wheels on the gravel road, and the tread of the slow-moving horse. It was a new world we were in—a kindly, simple, strifeless world of peace and plenty, and calm and content, and the crowded quarters close to Scarborough Square, with their poignant problems of sin and suffering, of scant beauty and weary joy, seemed a life apart and very far away. And the world of the Avenue, the world of handsome homes and deadening luxuries, of social exactions and selfish indulgence, of much waste and unused power, seemed also far away, and just Selwyn and I were together in a little world of our own.

"We might as well have this out, Danny." An arm on the back of the buggy, Selwyn looked at me, and in his eyes was that which made me understand he was right. We might as well have it out. "For three years you have refused to marry me, and now you say you are more alone than I. We've been beating the air, been evading something; refusing to face the thing that is keeping us apart. What is it? You know my love for you. But yours for me— You have never told me that you loved me. Look at me, Danny." He turned my face toward him. "Tell me. Is it because you do not love me that you will not marry me?"

"No." A bird on a bough ahead of us piped to another across the road, and as mate to mate was answered. "It is not because I do not love you—Selwyn. I do—love you." The crushing of my hands hurt, but he said nothing. "I shall never marry unless I marry you—but I am not sure—we should be happy."

"Why not? Is there anything that man could do I would not do to make you happy? All that I am or may be, all that I have to give—and of love I have much—is for you. What is it, then, you fear? Your freedom? I should never interfere with that."

I shook my head. "It is not my freedom. What I fear is our lack of sympathy with, our lack of understanding of, certain points of view. We look at life so differently."

"But certainly a woman doesn't expect a man to think just as she thinks, to feel as she feels, to see as she sees, nor does he expect her to see and feel and think his way in all things. As individuals they—"

"Of course I wouldn't expect, wouldn't want my husband to feel toward all things as I feel. I would not want a stupid husband with no mind of his own! You know very well it is nothing of that sort. If, however, we cared not at all for the same sort of books; if we saw little alike in art and literature, in music or morals, in science or religion; if the same interests did not appeal; if to the same impulse there was no response—we could hardly hope for genuine comradeship. In most of those things we are together, but life is so much bigger than things, and in our ideas of life and what to do with it we are pretty far apart."

"Are we? Are you very sure? Are you perfectly sure, Danny, that we are so very far apart?"

Something warm and sweet, so tempestuously sweet that it terrified, for a moment surged, and, half-blinded, I looked up at him. "Do you mean—?" My fingers interlocked with his.

"That I would like to live in Scarborough Square?" He smiled unsteadily and shook his head. "No, I wouldn't know how to live there. I wouldn't fit in. I am just myself. You are a dozen selves in one. But I am beginning to see dimly what you see clearly. Concerning my selfishness there is certainly nothing hazy. The walls around my house have been pretty high, and perhaps they should come down. You have much to teach me. I have a habit of questioning—"

"So have I. All thinking people question. But in spite of my questioning, perhaps because of it, I know now that my life—must count. It isn't mine to use just for myself, or in the easiest way. If there's anything to it, I've got to share it. Down in Scarborough Square I've been seeing myself in the old life, and when I go back to it I cannot—keep silent concerning what I have learned. I think perhaps we've failed—the men and women of our world even more discouragingly than the men and women of the worlds I've learned to know. As your wife you might not care to have me say—"

I stopped, silenced by the view which lay revealed before us, then I gave a little cry. Peak after peak of tree-filled mountains raised their heads to a sky of brilliant blue whose foam-clouds curled and tumbled in fantastic shapes, and in the valley below was the silence and peace of a place unpeopled. I turned to Selwyn, and long resistance yielding to that for which there was no words, I let him see the fulness of surrender. For a long moment we did not speak, then I drew away from his arms. "We must get out. It is a heavenly vision. I want—"

Getting down from the high, old-fashioned buggy, Selwyn held his arms out to me, lifted me in them to the ground. "I, too, want here—my heavenly vision." It was difficult to hear him. Drawing my face to his, he kissed me again. "You have told me that you loved me. You are mine and I am going to marry you."

He turned his head and listened, in his face something of the old impatience. The soft whir of an automobile broke the silence of the sun-filled, breeze-blown air, and I made effort to draw away from Selwyn's arms. "Some one is coming," I said, under my breath. "Shall we go on or stay here?"

"Stay here. Why not?" Frowningly, Selwyn for a moment waited, then, with his hand holding mine, we walked nearer the edge of the mountain's plateau and looked at the ribbon-like road that wound up to its top. The noise of the engine was more distinct than the car, but gradually the latter could be seen clearly, and presently three figures were distinguished in it.

"They'll have to pass us. There's no other way." Words not utterable were smothered under Selwyn's breath. "A few more minutes and they'll be going down the mountain, however, and will soon be out of sight. Are you cold? Do you mind staying up here for a little while—with all the world away?"

"No. I want to stay." I leaned forward. In the machine, now near enough to see that two people were in its back seat and the driver alone in front, there was also leaning forward; then hurried movement, then the man behind got up and waved his hat, and the girl beside him got up also.

Slowly Selwyn turned to me, in his eyes rebellious protest. "It is
Mr. and Mrs. Cressy, and there's no way of getting rid of them.
They've motored over instead of waiting for the train. Have they no
sense, no understanding?"

"And they think they've been so considerate in hurrying to us!" The tone of my voice was that of Selwyn's. "Is there nothing we can do?"

"Nothing—unless we tell them to wait here while we go over to Shelby. The reward of virtue was never to my taste! Our one day together—"

He turned away, but quickly I followed him; in his hand slipped mine.
"I'm sorry, Selwyn—but there will be another day—be many days."