The Hundred, and Other Stories

by Gertrude Hall Brownell

And Chloris, when next she appeared before the public eye, looked almost triumphant. And when her leave had been taken of all, and the swift air of change was blowing against her brow, her heart felt so strangely sound and quiet that she almost laughed, asking herself, "Why am I going away? I am recovered merely at the notion of it. Had I but known, I could have remained like a little heroine, and stood it out."

But the hours passing broke down and carried off more and more all the gallant props of pride and resolution, and at last Chloris sat in the galloping car, a drooping runaway, who looked steadily out of the window, and saw the flying scene through tears. Contemptible, countrified Chloris, with her freckles and inferior clothes, and so ordinary notions of conduct and taste, running away from comparison with the peerless Cytherea; taking her envy and weakness out of sight till she got strength to disguise them.

Now the scenery, which she had not been seeing, became more lonely and wild; the first low hills, heavy and slow in the general nimbleness of things, shifted themselves with an amiable clumsiness till they had closed in Chloris with her train; waking her suddenly, with a faintly happy sense of diversion from immediate suffering, to the feeling of being a child again visiting strange countries. Then wheeled and tumbled themselves about and came to meet her the little hills' big brothers, the mountains, with velvety sides, and rocky, rosy summits. A weight for no reason seemed to melt away from Chloris's chest as she looked up at them, and thought of living among them now for many a day—the distinguished, sage, cool, sturdily benevolent ones, so high above, so far from, the world she knew, down on the hot-colored, populous plain.

Here she was at last, where she must alight; in a high, pure, crystal-clear atmosphere, at a little lost place, wildly green to eyes used to the sun-burned shore, forgotten of all the world but this train that remembered it for a second twice a day.

And here was Fidele! It seemed to Chloris she had not half known, until this moment, how fond she was of Fidele. Tears sprang to her eyes on meeting the familiar eyes, and she embraced her old school friend with an impulse of overflowing gratitude. She felt like a storm-beaten lamb come to some sort of shelter at last.

After the first moment's frantic clutch the two friends stood apart, holding hands, and looking each other fondly and frankly over, with wide, moved smiles. Fidele, seeing Chloris's eyes, wondered why tears had not come to her, too; and compared her own nature unfavorably with her friend's rich nature; and at this thought of her friend's deep, sweet nature, behold! tears were come in her affectionate eyes, too. Then both girls fell to giggling like schoolgirls, from mere association of this meeting with other meetings; and in a moment were talking lightly and inconsecutively, in an involuntary imitation of old days; and Fidele had taken her friend's arm tightly under her own, intertwined their fingers, and was dragging her along at a hop-and-skip pace.

"What a godsend you are to me!" she exclaimed, rapturously. "There is not a soul in this forsaken place to whom one can talk like a Christian. Oh, but we are slow! Oh, but we are primitive! Oh, but we are simple!—"

"What air it is!" Chloris breathed, profoundly. "How sweet! I never dreamed such green!—My dear, this is Paradise!"

"The air is good enough. The grass is certainly green. But oh, the people are green too! But now you are here, we will change all this, dear. What a holiday! You will inspire us. We will rise up, and look into our closets, and fetch out wherewith to make a good impression on the stranger. You bring the very air of civilization with you in your clothes and hair. Where did you get it, Chlo—the general air, you know? How ravishingly you do your hair! And that little hat! Now, who in the world but you would have a hat like that? Oh, you rare darling! Do you know you are greatly improved? You are thinner, but it suits you. You always were a beauty, you know. Yes, you were! But you have acquired so much besides—such an interesting air—yes, you have!—so much expression. No one could see you without—gospel truth, Chlo! But, yes—I will—I will hold my tongue. Did you bring your music at least, for there is a piano, such as it is. Thank Heaven! You shall make their capture with song. They shall grovel. You know, dear, I am not really so silly as I seem; your arriving has turned my head. I always did adore you, but it is even better than I remembered."

Chloris that night, alone at last, tried to readjust herself, to get back through this new experience her self of yesterday. The morning of her starting from home, but sixteen hours removed, seemed withdrawn into a much remoter past; a screen of glittering, crumbling, changing color was arisen between herself and it. She interrogated her breast curiously for that pain lately grown so familiar, forgotten for the first time only in these last hours; her breast did not answer by at once producing it. She goaded it tentatively with a sharp memory or two; it responded sluggishly—a divinely restful torpor was possessing it. She knelt by the window, and looked out at the still, strong, black mountains; instinctively she wafted profound thanks to their rude majesties. Far, far away in her dream at this moment, in an infinitely small, sun-warmed, murmuring plain, moved two tiny figures: the great Damon, who erewhile filled the entire horizon of her life, and the great Cytherea, who interposed her fair shape between her and the sun, shutting off the light of life—two tiny black figures, in a far-off, sunshiny place it fatigued her to think of. Only the mountains were big and important; and this cool, rough bedchamber was fifteen by twelve; only Fidele and herself and the people seen for the first time this evening were life-size and real.