The rest I did not hear. A medley of hoofs, harness and wheels broke in and she was away to a new world and a new life. The brave little figure bowed suddenly, and the roses and the tulle, the precious creation of the Martinsburg modiste, were ruthlessly crushed against the sleek bulk of the man who had never had a real idea.
CHAPTER VII
That the Professor, with fear at his heels and the devils of retribution clutching at his flying coat-tails, should have plunged into silence when the bush closed around him was not strange. Every circumstance of his parting argued a long absence, a discreet obliteration of self. But Penelope left the valley in prosaic fashion, in a livery wagon, with a man as easy to find as his own bustling, pushing town; yet the dust-clouds which closed around them as they drove away shut them from my ken as the mountains had enclosed her father in their most secret hiding-places. It was the fault of Rufus Blight. He had blown beautiful bubbles to divert us in those last hours of his visit, and bubbles bursting silently into nothingness were not more fragile than his promises. To the true value of those promises I awoke slowly, as the months went by and there came no hint of their fulfilment.
I wrote to Penelope. My letters would have made volumes were their length commensurate with the pain of composition. Even the heart of Rufus Blight would have been touched could he have seen me, bent over a table, digging my teeth into my tongue and my pen into the paper as letter by letter and word by word I constructed those messages of my boyish love. But he knew only the finished gem, and not the labor of its cutting. The more I sought to break the silence, the surer I became that he, the omnipotent one, had ordained it, and I fancied him reading my letters and destroying them, a thin smile lighting his chubby face as he thought of the easy way in which I was being outwitted. I went to my mother for help. She knew nothing of my unavailing struggles, and was herself offended and heart-sick. At my entreaty she overcame her pride and wrote to Mr. Blight inquiring as to Penelope's welfare. In return her existence was recognized; hardly more than that, for the great man did not trouble himself with a personal answer. His reply was given vicariously, through one P. T. Mallencroft, his secretary, on flawless paper, three sentences in bold clear type and a Spencerian signature closing it. It was a bloodless thing. It spoke the commands of omnipotence as though carved on tablets of stone.
Mrs. Malcolm's favor of the 10th ultimo was acknowledged; Mr. Blight instructed Mr. Mallencroft to thank Mrs. Malcolm for the interest which she had shown, and to assure her that Miss Penelope was quite well.
It was perfectly polite. It was the finished bow with which Rufus Blight was backing from our presence, never to trouble us again. I knew this when I saw the sheet drop from my mother's limp fingers and, sinking to a chair, she tossed her apron over her head and rocked violently to an accompaniment of muffled sobs.
It was clear to me that Rufus Blight was not only neglectful of our claims, but had been so with purpose, and as I wandered aimlessly through the fields in the wake of James, and as in the evening I sat again with him on the barn-bridge, looking over the darkening valley, there held one enduring thought in the chaos of my brain. Looking back now, I see in my childish enmity toward Rufus Blight the impulse that set me on my course. But for that I might have stayed in the valley, dozing, as the Professor had said, like the very dogs. In Rufus Blight I was conscious of an opposing force. He had taken Penelope from me; he had cheated me with flattery and broken promises; and the dominating sense in my mind was one of conflict with him. I looked to the west. Mountains rose there, range beyond range, and beyond them, miles away, was his bustling, pushing town. To cross them and to close with him was my one desire, and though time dulled the edges of my purpose and the figures of the Professor, of Penelope and of Rufus Blight grew dim in the distance, and at last the old motive was lost beneath a host of new impelling forces, still it was Mallencroft's letter that touched the quick and aroused me from my canine slumber.
The Professor's words came back to me. The mountains seemed to echo them always. "Wake up, Davy! Do something; be somebody; get out of the valley." Here was my shibboleth. I must do something; I must be somebody; I must get out of the valley! And then I should go to Penelope Blight, and a hundred urbane, unctuous uncles could not defraud me of my right in her.
In my father I found the first mountain on the way that I had chosen, for to his mind my destiny was settled and to be envied. All that was his would some day be mine—the best farm in the county, his Pennsylvania Railroad stock, his shares in the bridge company, and his Kansas bonds. The dear soul had arranged my course so comfortably and in such detail that in me he would have been living his own life over again. And what my father said, my mother echoed. Was I too proud to follow in his footsteps? Was I, a child in years, to hold myself above the ways of my forebears?
Such arguments came too late to my rebellious spirit. I should no longer have told the Professor that I was going to be like my father. Necessity had made me more ambitious. I dreamed now of the power and fame of a Washington, a Webster, a Grant—names which stood to me as symbols of accomplishment. So what my parents at first brushed aside as the idle dreaming of a boy they soon realized to be a vague but persistent purpose which must be beaten down. They gave me a certain dignity by descending to debate. What did I want to be? How could I answer, who could not even name the vocations in which men won their way to coveted heights? My mother gave me the key which opened the world to me.