CHAPTER XIV.
[SUNSET AND MOONSHINE].
Friday arrived, the omnibus came round to the door, and Maida Springer bade Mrs Denwiddie farewell. Circumstances had made these two intimate, though they had little in common. Both were solitary, and neither had the talent of attracting strangers. They were a mutual resource, keeping each other in countenance, and enabling both to mix in the general company without the apologetic feeling which either would have experienced had she been alone. They had grown to have a kindness for each other; and it was with quite a warm embrace and a moistening of the eye that they parted, each feeling the world emptier for the absence of the other.
The omnibus started in the afternoon, trundling leisurely along the quiet country roads, stopping here and there by the way to put down or take up baskets and an occasional passenger; and on reaching Narwhal Junction it remained there for some hours, till a train from the North, another from the South, and a third going West, should all have come in.
Maida procured a paper at the bookstall, and sat down on the platform to await her train, which was the latest of the three. There was not much in the paper--there never is, when one tries to read it against time; but there were a few arrivals and departures by the other trains, to break the tedium; and as the dusty afternoon wore by, and the lengthening purple shadows stole out from their lurking-places in the woods and under the hill-tops, there was enough to interest any one who had eyes to see.
The Junction stood on a middle level, near the edge of a wide extent of cultivated land which sloped down towards a quiet river flowing away behind; and beyond that were low swelling hills, covered with woods, shining like bronze where they caught the slanting light, and melting into waves of blue below the horizon. In front, toward the south-west, the land sloped up to meet the shadows of overhanging thickets, dipping down on the right where a brook in its rocky dell escaped from the mountain country farther back, filling the air with sound, and babbled onward to the river among the fields. Hills shaggy with bush and boulder concealed the streamlet's source; and behind, a heaven-piercing peak lifted its reddened profile to the light, while blue dim greyness veiled its storm-scarred bosom. A mile distant, on the right, the village of Narwhal, with its little tin steeple twinkling like a star, was seated where the brook and river met, weltering with its surrounding fields in a haze of gold and crimson, with purpled woods behind, and all the glorious pomp of sinking day above it and beyond--the saffron-coloured sky, the waiting flakes of cloud, flashing in scarlet fire to let the sun-god pass, and then to draw the curtain on his exit.
The level crimson rays shot for a space along the glorified valley, kindling the distant reaches of the river into flame, and impurpling the long-drawn shadows with the hue of violets; and then the pageant vanished like a dream. Cool, low-toned greys stole out along the river; the rosy day-dream of the village paled into common wreaths of thin blue smoke; the starry twinkle of the steeple-vane went out in a moment, like an extinguished spark. The cirrhus clouds high up in the zenith, or far off in the cool east, still showed a rosy tint; but excepting these, the war of the giants--the ever-recurring tragedy of light and darkness--had played itself to an end. Already the shadows of the night were out among the hills, and stealing down in troops to overspread the land.
Maida stood and watched the spectacle. She was abundantly read in the literature of the magazines. The Solar Myth had always impressed her, and now the pomp of sunset recalled the story of Herakles, enthralled in Nessus' shirt, leaping on the altar and vanishing in flame. "The end of a hero!" she whispered to herself, there being no one else to hear--though, if there had been, it would have made no difference. Being a free-born American, she felt no false shame about giving utterance to her thoughts, however high-stepping they might sound at times. If her auditor did not appreciate, it only showed his dulness.
She had removed her spectacles some time before, when the daylight grew less glaring. Her hat was pushed back, and her hair rumpled out of its usual primness. The pinched, worn, and disappointed set of her features--the livery of hard-worked governesses--was lost for the moment in the sweet light reflected from the rosy clouds, and the natural intelligence always dwelling in her eyes was now warmed into enthusiasm over the drama of the elements. She looked pleasing, and even pretty, for the moment--her figure slight and girlish, rather than skinny, as it had appeared at times under the trying contrasts of the crowded hotel. In the elation of her feelings she stood erect with head well up, and altogether different from the neglected schoolma'am of other times. Wherever the divine gift of intelligence resides, there are possibilities of beauty; and the mantle of the flesh at times will fall into graceful lines, even though the bufferings of circumstance may toss and twist it awry in the general. We are lamps of clay through which the inner brightness shines more or less clearly; and it is or the flame's being trimmed, or burning low, that good looks worth the having mostly depend.
There was a whistle up the track, and presently, with a tempestuous rush which made the station tremble, a train swept up to the platform and stopped. A big bell was jangled in front of the dining-room, and nasal voices yelled--"Narwhal Junction! Twenty minutes for ree-freshment!" The passengers alighted and hurried across the platform, and Maida bade adieu to her musings and hastened to get her luggage checked for her journey.
A gentleman was coming from the distant end of the train. He too was hastening, but in the opposite direction. Both were intent on their own affairs, the platform was crowded, and ere they knew it, each was in the other's arms. Both recoiled, and stood to recover breath and apologise. Both looked. Both started in surprise.
"Gilbert Roe!" It was the lady who was the first to speak.
"Maida----?" responded the gentleman, and then he looked apologetic. He might be taking a liberty, he thought, and looked about to see if there was a husband to resent so familiar a use of his wife's name. "Are you travelling alone?" he asked, after a minute's silence, during which the lady's eyes had been so intently busy with him that she forgot to speak.
"You look older," she said at last. "Of course you must, after ten years' absence; but you are only improved--broad-chested and prosperous-looking;" and she wrung his hand in an intensity of welcome. "Where are you travelling to? What a strange place to meet in! Were you coming to----" but she did not finish her sentence. It occurred to her that it was her friend's turn to say something now.
"I am on my way to Clam Beach," he answered. "I shall put in a few days there, and then try some of the other places along the coast. Have been at several already. Not much account, any of them; but this is the season for being away. Nothing astir in Chicago at this time of year."
"Clam Beach? I've come from there. You'll find it pleasant. The house is full; but of course they can put up a single gentleman."
"You are there? Come, that's nice! I declare I'm in luck at last. My trip has been real lonesome, so far. I have been so long West that I have lost sight of my old friends, and can't scare up one, now I want 'em."
"You don't deserve to, if you serve them all as you did me. How many years is it since you wrote last, do you think? It's eight."
"Eight years? Ah, well, but that is different," he answered, with a laugh. "Who is with you at Clam Beach?"
"Who would be? The teachers at our college are mostly home with their friends. I'm an orphan, as you know, and I don't make very free with strangers; so I come to the shore, like other folks who have no friends to visit;" and she heaved a little sigh, but not a painful one. If life had been rather empty for her, that was forgotten now; "over," I daresay she would have said just then, if her feelings had fallen into words, for her eyes were on his face, her lips were parted, and her countenance was alight, more brightly than when the sunset clouds had lit it up a while ago. This was a rosier, warmer light, shining from within. It transfigured her for the moment, casting back the gathering years with their encrusting vapours, and disclosed her again as the enthusiastic maiden from whom the young man had parted ten years before, but purified and brightened by the struggles, and the victories, and the wisdom painfully acquired--for the moment, that is: there are no tabernacles or abiding-places on our mounts of transfiguration, and their glories are evanescent.
"You mean that you are still unmarried? Strange!"
"Strange that a woman should keep her troth, Gilbert? There came no word of your death. I only had patience--only waited, just as any right woman would have done."
"Hm----" It was not the answer which Gilbert had anticipated, if indeed he anticipated any. It startled him, and made him look more carefully in her face. Illuminated by the momentary exaltation of her nerves, she really looked attractive then, and there was a glowing warmth in her eyes resting on his own which thrilled him, and held him in a spell not to be shaken off, though he tried. It turned back the pages of his memory and opened a far-back chapter where ardent passages were inscribed--a chapter broken off in the middle; and then a leaf had been turned, and new chapters with new interests and new ardours had written themselves in--the stirring interests and eager ardours of an intenser life--and the old chapter had remained unfinished, and even the part written had been forgot.
Now, the old passage was again before him, and he felt a drawing back to the old-time idyl, and an impulse to carry it on and complete it. Yet there was a thinness in this proffered draught of love, which did not now as of old attract his sophisticated palate. It seemed like whey to the shepherd's son who has sojourned in cities and revelled in stronger drinks--wholesome, but not exhilarating. The bowl was at his lips, but he hesitated to drink. His glance waxed unsteady beneath the gaze of blissful trust which beamed on him. He coughed again to break the confusing silence, and would have spoken, but he could think of nothing to say.
And then the damsel's look grew clouded, in sympathy with, or in consequence of, his confusion; and with a little gasping sob and a tighter clutch at his hand, which she still was holding, she spoke, half whispering--
"And you? You--you are not married, Gilbert?" and her eyes rose shrinkingly to his face, with an eager frightened look, as if she dreaded to hear his answer.
"N--no--that is--no--certainly not! What makes you suppose such things? I have no thought----Tush! you put me out asking ridiculous questions. I forget what I am saying;" and he laughed uneasily, looking most unnecessarily confused over so simple an avowal.
His confusion was unnoticed, however. Maida looked up in his face once more, as trustingly as ever; or more so, for now there was the triumph of proud possession. Her ten years' waiting was accomplished; her love was come to claim her. The stony road she had been travelling so wearily and alone, was behind her now. It grew radiant in retrospect by the light of the joy she had now attained, even as the toils of battle seem glorious in the lustre of the victory which they have achieved. Her love was come to claim her! She stood up closer and looked into his face, with upturned lips, awaiting the seal of their reunion.
It did not come. The omnibus was drawing up at the platform, and Gilbert, calling a porter, turned away to point out his luggage. Maida went in pursuit of her own, and to the surprise of the driver, had it restored to the place on the roof whence it had been lifted an hour or two before, and then followed Gilbert inside, to return to Clam Beach.