The truth was, he could not lead a purely contemplative life. It was not that he desired to lead such a life, or that he admired it; it was simply that he knew he should never be able to do it, even if he should try, and the impossibility, as usual, tempted him. There must be something very charming in it (that is, if one had no duties which forbade it), this full, passive, receptive enjoyment of anything delightful, a fine picture, for instance, or a beautiful view, the sunshine, the sea; even the angler's contented quiescence on a green bank was part of it. These pleasures he knew he could never have in their full sweetness, though he could imagine them perfectly, even acutely. It was not that he was restless; he was the reverse. It was not that he liked violent exercise, violent action; he liked nothing violent. But, instead of sitting in the sunshine, his instinct was to get a good horse and ride in it; instead of lounging beside a blue sea, he liked better to be sailing a yacht over it; instead of sitting contemplatively on a green bank, holding a fishing-rod, he would be more apt to shoulder a gun and walk, contemplatively too, perhaps, for long miles, in pursuit of game. In all this he was thoroughly American.
He had a great love for art, and a strong love for beauty, which his studies in mathematics and science had never in the least deadened. As regarded determination, he was a very strong man; but he was so quiet and calm that it was only when one came in conflict with him that his strength was perceived; and there were not many occasions for coming in conflict with him now, he was no longer directing large enterprises. In private life, he was not in the habit of advancing opinions for the rest of the world to accept; he left that to the people of one idea.
On the present occasion he rode over the pine barrens for miles, every now and then enjoying a brisk gallop. After a while he saw a phaeton at a distance, moving apparently at random over the green waste; but he had learned enough of the barrens by this time to know that it was following a road—a road which he could not see. There was only one phaeton in Gracias, the one he himself had sent for; he rode across, therefore, to speak to his aunt.
She was returning with Margaret from her drive, and looked very comfortable; with a cushion behind her and a light rug over her lap, she sat leaning back under her lace-trimmed parasol.
"I enjoy these drivessomuch," she said to her nephew in her agreeable voice. "The barrens themselves, to be sure, cannot be called beautiful, though I believe Margaret maintains that they have a fascination; but the air is delicious."
"Do you really find them fascinating?" said Winthrop to Margaret.
"Extremely so; I drive over them for miles every day, yet never want to come in; I always long to go farther."
"Oh, well, there's an end to them somewhere, I suppose," remarked Mrs. Rutherford; "the whole State isn't so very broad, you know; you would come out at the Gulf of Mexico."
"I don't want to come out," said Margaret, "I want to stay in; I want to drive here forever."
"We shall wake some fine morning, and find you gone," said Mrs. Rutherford, "like the girl in the 'Dismal Swamp,' you know:
"'Away to the Dismal Swamp she speeds—'
I've forgotten the rest."
"'Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,And many a fen where the serpent feeds,And man never trod before,'"
said Winthrop, finishing the quotation. "The last isn't true of the barrens, however, for man has trod here pretty extensively."
"You mean Indians?" said Mrs. Rutherford, rather as though they were not men, as indeed she did not think they were. She yawned, tapping her lips two or three times during the process with her delicately gloved hand, as people will, under the impression, apparently, that they are concealing the sign of fatigue. Mrs. Rutherford's yawn, however, was not a sign of fatigue, it was an indication of sheer bodily content; the soft air and the lazy motion of the phaeton were so agreeable to her that, if she had been imaginative, she would have declared that the Lotus-eaters must have yawned perpetually, and that Florida was evidently the land of their abode.
"You look too comfortable to talk, Aunt Katrina," said Winthrop, amused by the drowsy tones of her voice; "I think you would rather be rid of me. I will go off and have one more gallop, and be home before you."
Mrs. Rutherford smiled an indolent good-by; Margaret Harold looked straight before her. Winthrop turned off to the right, and was soon lost to view.
He pulled up after a while, and let his horse walk slowly along the trail; he was thinking of Margaret Harold. He was always seeing her now, it could not be otherwise so long as she continued to live with his aunt. But he said to himself that he should never really like her, and what he was thinking of at present was whether or not she had perceived this.
She was not easy to read. Just now, for instance, when she had begun to speak of the pine barrens, and to speak with (for her) a good deal of warmth, had he not perhapshad something to do with her falling into complete silence immediately afterwards? He had answered, of course; he had done what was necessary to keep up the conversation; still, perhaps she had seen—perhaps—— Well, he could not help it if she had, or rather he did not care to help it. Whatever she might be besides, quiet, well-bred, devoted to the welfare of his aunt, she was still in his opinion so completely, so essentially wrong in some of her ideas, and these in a woman the most important, that his feeling towards her at heart was one of sternest disapproval; it could not be otherwise. And she held so obstinately to her mistakes! That was the worst of her—her obstinacy; it was so tranquil. It was founded, of course, upon her immovable self-esteem—a very usual foundation for tranquillity! No doubt Lanse had required forgiveness, and even a great deal of forgiveness; there had, indeed, been no period of Lanse's life when he had not made large demands on this quality from those who were nearest him. But was it not a wife's part to forgive? Lanse could have been led by his affections, probably, his better side; it had always been so with Lanse. But instead of trying to influence him in that way, this wife had set herself up in opposition to him—the very last thing he would stand. She had probably been narrow from the beginning, narrow and punctilious. Later she had been shocked; then had hardened in it. She was evidently a cold woman; in addition, she was self-righteous, self-complacent; such women were always perfectly satisfied with themselves, they had excellent reasons for everything. Of course she had never loved her husband; if she had loved him she could not have left him so easily, within a few months—less than a year—after their marriage. And though seven years had now passed since that separation, she had never once, so far as Winthrop knew, sought to return to him, or asked him to return to her.
The marriage of Lansing Harold and Margaret Cruger had taken place while Winthrop was abroad. When he came home soon afterwards, at the breaking out of the war, he found that the young wife of nineteen had left her husband, had returned to live with Mrs. Rutherford, with whom she had lived for a short time before her marriage. She had come to Mrs. Rutherford upon the death of her grandmother, Mrs.Cruger; this aunt by marriage was now her nearest relative, and this aunt's house was to be her home. To this home she had now returned, and here it was that Evert first made her acquaintance. Lanse, meanwhile, had gone to Italy.
There had been no legal separation, Mrs. Rutherford told him; probably there never would be one, for Margaret did not approve of them. Lanse, too, would probably disapprove; they were well matched in their disapprovals! It was not known by society at large, Mrs. Rutherford continued, that there had been any irrevocable disagreement between the two; society at large probably supposed it to be one of those cases, so common nowadays, where husband and wife, being both fond of travelling, have discovered that they enjoy their travels more when separated than when together, as (unless there happens to be a really princely fortune) individual tastes are so apt to be sacrificed in travelling, on one side or the other. Take the one item of trains, Mrs. Rutherford went on; some persons liked to get over the ground by night, and were bored to death by a long journey by day; others became so exhausted by one night of travel that the whole of the next day was spent recovering from it. Then there were people who preferred to reach the station at the last minute, people who liked to run and rush; and others whose day was completely spoiled by any such frantic haste at the beginning. The most amiable of men sometimes developed a curious obstinacy, when travelling, concerning the small matter of which seat in a railway-carriage the wife should take. Yes, on the whole, Mrs. Rutherford thought it natural that husbands and wives, if possessed of strong wills, should travel separately; the small differences, which made the trouble, did not come up in the regular life at home. It was very common for American wives to be in Europe without their husbands; in the case of the Harolds, it was simply that the husband had gone; this at least was probably what society supposed.
Mrs. Rutherford further added that her listener, Winthrop, was not to suppose that Margaret herself had ever discussed these subjects with her, or had ever discussed Lanse; his name was never mentioned by his wife, and when she, the aunt, mentioned it, her words were received in silence; there was no reply.
"I consider," continued Mrs. Rutherford, warming with her subject—"I consider Margaret's complete silence the most extraordinary thing I have ever known in my life. Living with me as she has done all these years, shouldn't you suppose, wouldn't any one suppose, that at some time or other she would have talked it over with me, given me some explanation, no matter how one-sided—would have tried to justify herself? Very well, then, sheneverhas. From first to last, in answer to my inquiries (for of course I have made them), she has only said that she would rather not talk about it, that the subject was painful to her. Painful! I wonder what she thinks it is to me! She makes me perfectly miserable, Evert—perfectly miserable."
"Yet you keep her with you," answered Winthrop, not taking Mrs. Harold's side exactly, but the side of justice, perhaps; for he had seen how much his aunt's comfort depended upon Margaret's attention, though he was not prepared to admit that it depended upon that entirely, as Garda Thorne had declared.
"Yes," responded Mrs. Rutherford, "I keep her with me, as you say. But my house was really her home, you know, before her marriage, and of course it is quite the best place for her now, as things are; if she will not remain with her husband, at least her continuing to live always with her husband's aunt, his almost mother, is the next best thing that could be arranged for her. Appearances are preserved, you know; and Margaret has a great regard for appearances."
"Possibly too great," Winthrop answered. But his sarcasm was not intended to apply to the wife's regard for appearances—he also had a regard for appearances—it was intended to apply to the wife herself. His idea of her was that she had argued it all out carefully in her own mind (she was not a person who acted on impulse), and had taken her stand upon what she considered irrefragable grounds. In other words, she had sat apart and judged her husband. Instead of trying to win him or to keep him, she had made little rules for him probably, and no doubt very good little rules of their kind; but Lanse had of course broken them, he wasn't a man for rules; a man of his age, too, would hardly keep the rules made by a girl of nineteen. After repeatedbreakage of all her well-regulated little canons, she had withdrawn herself, and kept aloof; she had held herself superior to him, and had let him see that she did. Winthrop could imagine the effect of all this upon Lanse!
But no matter what Lanse had done that annoyed her (and it was highly probable that he had done a good deal), her duty as a wife, in Winthrop's opinion, clearly was, and would to the end of time continue, to remain with her husband—not to leave him, unless her life or the welfare of her children should be in actual danger; that was what marriage meant. The welfare of children included a great deal, of course; he held that a wife was justified in separating them from a father whose influence was injurious. But in this case there had been no questions of the sort, Lanse was not violent, and there were no children to think of. There was, indeed, nothing very wrong about Lanse save that he was self-willed, and did quite as he pleased on all occasions. But what he did was, after all, nothing very terrible; he was willing that other people should do as they pleased, also; he was not a petty tyrant. But this state of things had not satisfied his wife, who wished other people, her husband first of all, to do asshepleased. Why? Because she was always sure that she was right! This slender, graceful woman with the dark blue eyes and clear low voice had a will as strong as her husband's. She had found, probably, that her tranquillity and what she called her dignity—both inexpressibly dear to her—were constantly endangered by this unmanageable husband, who paid not the slightest heed to her axioms as to what was "right" and "not right," what was "usual" (Lanse was never usual) and "not usual," but strode through and over them all as though they did not exist. His course, indeed, made it impossible for her to preserve unbroken that serenity of temper which was her highest aspiration; for she was exactly the woman to have an ideal of that sort, and to endeavor to live up to it; it was not improbable that she offered her prayers to that effect every night.
All this was a very harsh estimate. But Winthrop's beliefs on these subjects were rooted in the deepest convictions he possessed. Such a character as the one he attributed to Margaret Harold was to him insufferable; he could endureeasily a narrow mind, if with it there was a warm heart and unselfish disposition, but a narrow mind combined with a cold, unmoved nature and impregnable self-conceit—this seemed to him a combination that made a woman (it was always a woman) simply odious.
These things all passed through his thoughts again as he rode over the barrens. He recalled Lanse's handsome face as he used to see it in childhood. Lanse was five years older than the little Evert, tall, strong, full of life, a hero to the lad from New England, who was brave enough in his way but who had not been encouraged in boldness, nor praised when he had been lawless and daring. Mrs. Rutherford had a phrase about Lanse—that he was "just like all the Harolds." The Harolds, in truth, were a handsome race; they all resembled each other, though some of them were not so handsome as the rest. A good many of them had married their cousins. They were tall and broad-shouldered, well made, but inclined to portliness towards middle-age; they had good features, the kind of very well-cut outline, with short upper lip and full lower one, whose fault, if it has a fault, is a tendency to blankness of expression after youth is past. Their hair was very dark, almost black, and they had thick brown beards of rather a lighter hue—beards which they kept short; their eyes were beautiful, dark brown in hue, animated, with yellow lights in them; their complexions had a rich darkness, with strong ivory tints beneath. They had an appearance of looking over the heads of everybody else, which, among many noticeable things about them, was the most noticeable—it was so entirely natural. Because it was so natural nobody had tried to analyze it, to find out of what it consisted. The Harolds were tall; but it was not their height. They were broad-shouldered; but there were men of the same mould everywhere. It was not that they expanded their chests and threw their heads back, so that their eyes, when cast down, rested upon a projecting expanse of shirt front, with the watch-chain far in advance; the Harolds had no such airs of inflated frog. They stood straight on their feet, but nothing more; their well-moulded chins were rather drawn in than thrust out; they never posed; there was never any trace of attitude. Yet, in any large assemblage,if there were any of them present, they were sure to have this appearance of looking over other people's heads. It was accompanied by a careless, good-humored, unpretending ease, which was almost benevolent, and which was strikingly different from the self-assertive importance of more nervous (and smaller) men.
As a family the Harolds had not been loved; they were too self-willed for that. But they were witty, they could be agreeable; in houses where it pleased them to be witty and agreeable, they were the most welcome of guests. The small things of life, what they called the "details," the tiresome little cares and responsibilities, annoyances, engagements, and complications, these they shed from themselves as a shaggy dog sheds water from his coat—they shook them off. People who did not love them (and these were many) remarked that this was all very pretty, but that it was also very selfish. The Harolds, if their attention had been called to it, would have considered the adjective as another of the "details," and would have shaken that off also.
Mrs. Rutherford in her youth never could help admiring the Harolds (there were a good many of them, almost all men; there was but seldom a daughter); when, therefore, her sister Hilda married Lansing of the name, she had an odd sort of pride in it, although everybody said that Hilda would not be happy; the Harolds seldom made good husbands. It was not that they were harassing or brutal; they were simply supremely inattentive. In this case, however, there had been little opportunity to verify or prove false the expectation, as both Lansing Harold and his wife had died within two years after their marriage, the wife last, leaving (as her sister, Mrs. Winthrop, did later) a son but a few days old. The small Lansing was adopted by his aunt. Through childhood he was a noble-looking little fellow, never governed or taught to govern himself; he grew rapidly into a large, manly lad, active and strong, fond of out-of-door sports and excelling in them, having the quick wit of his family, which, however (like them), he was not inclined to bestow upon all comers for their entertainment; he preferred to keep it for his own.
Evert remembered with a smile the immense admirationhe had felt for his big cousin, the excited anticipation with which he had looked forward to meeting him when he went, twice a year, to see his aunt. The splendid physical strength of the elder boy, his liberty, his dogs and his gun, his horse and boat—all these filled the sparingly indulged little New England child with the greatest wonder and delight. Most of all did he admire the calm absolutism of Lanse's will, combined as it was with good-nature, manliness, and even to a certain degree, or rather in a certain way, with generosity—generosity as he had thought it then, careless liberality as he knew it now. When Evert was ten and Lanse fifteen, Lanse had decided that his cousin must learn to shoot, that he was quite old enough for that accomplishment. Evert recalled the mixture of fear and pride which had filled his small heart to suffocation when Lanse put the gun into his hands in the remote field behind Mrs. Rutherford's country-house which he had selected for the important lesson. His fear was not occasioned so much by the gun as by the keen realization that if his father should question him, upon his return home, he should certainly feel himself obliged to tell of his new knowledge, and the revelation might put an end to these happy visits. Fortunately his father did not question him; he seldom spoke to the boy of anything that had happened during these absences, which he seemed to consider necessary evils—so much waste time. On this occasion how kind Lanse had been, how he had encouraged and helped him—yes, and scolded him a little too; and how he had comforted him when the force of the discharge had knocked the little sportsman over on the ground rather heavily. A strong affection for Lanse had grown up with the younger boy; and it remained with him still, though now not so blind a liking; he knew Lanse better. They had been widely separated, and for a long time; they had led such different lives! Evert had worked steadily for ten long, secluded years; later he had worked still harder, but in another way, being now his own master, and engaged in guiding the enterprises he had undertaken through many obstacles and hazards towards success. These years of unbroken toil for Evert had been spent by Lanse in his own amusement, though one could not say spent in idleness exactly,as he was one of the most active of men. He had been much of the time in Europe. But he came home for brief visits now and then, when his aunt besought him; she adored him—she had always adored him; she was never tired of admiring his proportions, what seemed to her his good-nature, his Harold wit, his poise of head; she was never so happy as when she had him staying with her in her own house. True, he had his own way of living; but it was such a simple way! He was not in the least a gourmand—none of the Harolds were that; he liked only the simplest dishes, and always demanded them; he wanted the windows open at all seasons when the snow was not actually on the ground; he could not endure questioning, in fact, he never answered questions at all.
Returning for one of these visits at home, Lanse had found with his aunt a young girl, Margaret Cruger, a niece of her husband's. Evert smiled now as he recalled certain expressions of the letter which his aunt had written to him, the other nephew, announcing Lanse's engagement to Miss Cruger; in the light of retrospect they had rather a sarcastic sound. Mrs. Rutherford had written that Margaret was very young, to be sure—not quite eighteen—but that she was very gentle and sweet. That it was time Lanse should marry, he was thirty-two—though in her opinion that was exactly the right age, for a man knew then what he really wanted, and was not apt to make a mistake. That she hoped the girl would make him the sort of wife he needed; for one thing, she was so young that she would not set up her opinion in opposition to his, probably, and with Lanse that would be important. Mrs. Rutherford furthermore thought that the girl in a certain way understood him; she (Mrs. Rutherford) had had the greatest fear of Lanse's falling into the hands of some woman who wouldn't have the sense to appreciate him, some woman who would try to change him; one of those dreadful Pharisaic women, for instance, who are always trying to "improve" their husbands. There was nothing easier than to get on with Lanse, and even to lead him a little, as she herself (Mrs. Rutherford) had always done; one had only to take him on the right side—his good warm heart. Margaret was almost toosimple, too yielding; but Lanse had wit and will enough for two. There was another reason why this marriage would be a good thing for Lanse: he had run through almost all his money (he had never had a very great deal, as Evert would remember), and Margaret had a handsome fortune, which would come in now very well. She was rather pretty—Margaret—in a delicate sort of way. Mrs. Rutherfordhopedshe appreciated her good-luck; if she didn't now, she would soon, when she had seen a little more of the world. And here one of his aunt's sentences came, word for word, into Winthrop's memory: "But it's curious, isn't it, Evert? that such an inexperienced child as she is, a girl brought up in such complete seclusion, should begin life by marrying Lansing Harold! For you know as well as I do how he has been sought after, what his career has been." This was true. Allowance, of course, had to be made for Mrs. Rutherford's partiality; still, Evert knew that even with allowance there was enough to verify her words, at least in part. Lansing Harold had never been in the least what is called popular; he was not a man who was liked by many persons, he took pains not to be; he preferred to please only a few. Whether or not there had been women among those he had tried to please, it was at least well known that women had tried to please him. More than one had followed him about, with due regard, of course, for the proprieties (it is not necessary to include those—who also existed—who had violated them), finding themselves, for instance, in Venice, when he happened to be there, or choosing his times for visiting Rome. Now Lanse had had a way of declaring that June was the best month for Rome; it had been interesting to observe, for a long period, that each year there was some new person who had made the same discovery.
"We were home long before you," said Mrs. Rutherford, when Winthrop, having brought his reflections to a close, and enjoyed another gallop, returned to the eyrie. "Mrs. Thorne has been here," she added; "she came up from East Angels after Garda, and took the opportunity—she generallydoestake the opportunity, I notice—to pay me a visit. She never stopped talking, with that precise pronunciation, you know, one single minute, and I believe that's what makesher so tired all the time; I knowIshould be tired if I had to hiss all my s's as she does! She had ever so many things to say; one was that when her life was sad and painful she was able to rise out of her body—out of the flesh, she called it (there isn't much to rise from), and float, unclothed, far above in the air, in the realm of pure thought, I think she said. And when I asked her if it wasn't rather unpleasant—for I assure you it struck me so—she wasn't at all pleased, not at all. She's such an observer of nature,—I suppose that's because she has always lived where there was nothing but nature to observe; well, I do believe she had seen an allegorical meaning in every single tree on the shore as she came up the river!"
"I rather think she saw her meanings more than her trees," said Winthrop; "I venture to say she couldn't have told you whether they were cypresses or myrtles, palmettoes or gums; such people never can. Tired? Of course she's tired; her imagination travels miles a minute, her poor little body can't begin to keep up with it."
"So foolish," commented Mrs. Rutherford, tranquilly—Mrs. Rutherford, who had never imagined anything in her life. "And do you know she admires Margaret beyond words—if she's ever beyond them! Isn't it odd? She says Margaretanswersone so delightfully. And when I remarked, 'Why, we think Margaret rather silent,' she said, 'That is what I mean, it is her silence that is so sympathetic; she answers you with it far more effectually than most persons do with their talkativeness.'"
"I'm afraid you talked, Aunt Katrina," said Winthrop, laughing.
"I never do," replied Mrs. Rutherford, with dignity. "And she told me, also," she went on, resuming her gossip in her calm, handsomely dressed tone (for even Mrs. Rutherford's tone seemed clothed in rich attire), "that that young Torres had asked her permission to 'address' Garda, as she expressed it."
"To address Garda? Confound his impudence! what does he mean?" said Winthrop, in a disgusted voice. "Garda's a child."
"Oh, well," replied Mrs. Rutherford, "she's half Spanish,and that makes a difference; they're older. But I don't think the mother favors the Cuban's suit, she prefers something 'more Saxon,' she said so. And, by-the-way, she asked me if you were not 'more recently English' than the rest of us. What do you suppose she could have meant?—I never quite know what she is driving at."
Winthrop burst into a laugh. "More recently English! Poor little woman, with her small New England throat, she has swallowed the British Isles! You don't think the Cuban has a chance, then?"
"Oh, I don't know," replied Mrs. Rutherford, comfortably; "it doesn't concern us, does it? It will depend upon what Garda thinks, and Garda will think what she pleases; she isn't a girl to be guided."
"She hasn't been difficult to guide so far, I fancy," said Winthrop, after a moment's silence.
"She will be, then," responded his aunt, nodding her head with an assured air. "You'll see."
"I am not partial to it myself," said the Rev. Mr. Moore—"this confection of oranges called marmalade. I am told, however, that the English are accustomed to make their breakfast principally of similar saccharine preparations; in time, therefore, we may hope to establish an export trade."
A fresh breeze astern was blowing theEmperadoradown the lagoon in a course straight enough to please even Mrs. Carew, if that lady could have been pleased by anything aquatic. She was present, in spite of fears, sitting with the soles of her prunella gaiters pressed tightly against the little yacht's side under the seat (the peculiarity of the attitude being concealed by her long skirt), with the intention, probably, of acting as a species of brake upon too great a speed.
The position was a difficult one. But she kept her balance by means of her umbrella, firmly inserted in a crack of the planking before her, and did not swerve.
The broad sails were set wing and wing; the morning wasdivinely fair. Down in the south the tall trees looming against the sky seemed like a line of hills; owing to the lowness of the shores, on a level with the water, and the smoothness of the sea stretching eastward beyond Patricio, the comparative effect was the same. Above, the soft sky bending down all round them, touching here the even land and there the even water, conveyed nothing of that sense of vastness, of impersonality, which belongs so often to the American sky further north. This seemed a particular sky belonging to this especial neighborhood, made for it, intimate with it; and the yacht, with those on board did not appear like a floating atom, lost in immensity; on the contrary, it was important, interesting; one could not rid one's self of the idea that its little voyage was watched with friendly curiosity by this bending personal sky, and these near low shores.
The Rev. Mr. Moore had been sent upon this pleasure-party by his wife. Mrs. Penelope Moore was sure that a pleasure-party would do him good; the Reverend Middleton therefore endeavored to think the same, though it was not exactly his idea of pleasure. He was not fond of sailing; there was generally a breeze, and a breeze he did not enjoy. There was, indeed, something in his appearance, when exposed to a fresh wind, which suggested the idea that a portion of it was blowing through him, finding an exit at his shoulder-blades behind; his lank vest somehow had that air; and the sensation (so the spectator thought) could hardly have been an agreeable one to so thin a man, even on the warmest day.
Mrs. Penelope Moore was a brave woman. And she knew that she was brave. Not being able, on account of her delicate health, to take part personally in the social entertainments of Gracias, she sent her husband in her place. And this was her bravery; for he was without doubt the most agreeable as well as the handsomest of men, and anybody with sense could foretell what must follow: given certain conditions, and the results all the world over were the same. Other people might say that quiet little Gracias was safe, Mrs. Penelope Moore knew better. Other people, again, might be blind; but Mrs. Penelope Moore was never blind. She knew that such a man as her Middleton passed, must pass, daily through temptations of the most incandescentnature, all the more dangerous because merged inextricably with his priest's office; but he passed unscathed, he came out always, as she once wrote triumphantly to her mother, "without so much as a singe upon the hem of his uttermost garment." And if, on the other hand, it might have seemed that so little (blessedly) that was inflammable had been included in this good man's composition that he might have passed safely through any amount of incandescence, even all that his wife imagined, here again, then, others were most decidedly mistaken; Mrs. Moore was convinced that her Middleton was of the fieriest temperament. Only he kept it down.
Gracias-á-Dios was certainly quiet enough. But Mistress Penelope, like many good women before her, could believe with ease in a degree of depravity which would have startled the most hardened of actual participants. Having no standards by which to gauge evil, no personal experience of its nature, she was quite at sea about it. As Dr. Kirby once said of her (when vexed by some of her small rulings), "If people don't come to Friday morning service, sir, she thinks it but a small step further that they should have poisoned their fathers and beaten their wives."
On the present occasion this lady set her husband's hat straight upon his amiable forehead, and gave him his butterfly net; then from her Gothic windows (the rectory of St. Philip and St. James' was of the same uncertain Gothic as the church), she watched him down the path and through the gate, across the plaza out of sight, going back to her sofa with the secure thought in her heart, "I can trust him—anywhere!"
The party on the yacht was composed of the same persons who had taken part in most of the entertainments given for the northern ladies, save that Manuel and Torres were absent. Torres had not been allowed to "address" Garda, after all, Mrs. Thorne having withheld her permission. The young Cuban was far too punctilious an observer of etiquette to advance further without that permission; he had therefore left society's circle, and secluded himself at home, where, according to Manuel, he was engaged in "consuming his soul."
"His cigars," Winthrop suggested.
Whereupon Manuel, who was not fond of the northerner,warmly took up the cause of the absent Adolfo (though ordinarily he declared himself tired to death of him), and with his superbest air remarked, "It is possible that Mr. Wintup does not understand us."
"Quite possible," Winthrop answered.
Mrs. Thorne had consulted him about the request of Torres. Not formally, not (at least it did not appear so) premeditatedly; she alluded to it one afternoon when he had found her alone at East Angels. Winthrop was very severe upon what he called the young Cuban's "presumption."
"Presumption—yes; that is what I have been inclined to consider it," said Mrs. Thorne, with her little preliminary cough. But she spoke hesitatingly, or rather there seemed to be hesitation in her mind behind her words, for her words themselves were carefully clear.
Winthrop looked at her, and saw, or fancied he saw, a throng of conflicting possibilities, contingencies, and alternatives in the back part of her small bright eyes. "Your daughter is too young to be made the subject of any such request at present," he said, curtly. For it seemed to him a moment when a little masculine brevity and masculine decision were needed in this exclusively feminine atmosphere.
Mrs. Thorne accepted his suggestion. "Yes, Gardaisyoung," she murmured, emerging a little from her hesitations. "Quite too young," she repeated, more emphatically. Winthrop had given her a formula, and formulas are sometimes as valuable as a life-raft.
Torres, therefore, being engaged in the consumption of his soul, and Manuel having haughtily declined the northerner's invitation, the party on the yacht consisted, besides Winthrop, of Mrs. Rutherford and Margaret Harold, Mrs. Carew, Garda, Dr. Kirby, and the Rev. Mr. Moore, Mrs. Thorne having been detained at home by the "pressing domestic engagements" which Winthrop had been certain would lift their heads as soon as the day for theEmperadora'slittle voyage had been decided upon. Wind and tide were both in their favor; they had a swift run down the Espiritu, and landed on Patricio a number of miles below Gracias, where there was a path which led across to the ocean beach. This path was narrow, and the gallant Dr. Kirby walked in the bushesall the way, suffering the twigs to flagellate his plump person, in order to hold a white umbrella over Mrs. Rutherford, who, arm in arm with her Betty, took up the entire track. Patricio, which had first been a reef, and then an outlying island, was now a long peninsula, joining the main land some forty miles below Gracias in an isthmus of sand; it came northward in a waving line, slender and green, lying like a ribbon in the water, the Espiritu on one side, the ocean on the other. When the ocean beach of the ribbon was reached, Mrs. Rutherford admired the view; she admired it so much that she thought she would sit down and admire it more. Dr. Kirby therefore bestirred himself in arranging the cushions and rugs which Winthrop's men had brought across from the yacht, to form an out-of-door sofa for the ladies; for Betty, of course, decided to remain with Katrina. The Doctor said that he should himself bear them company, leaving the "younger men" to "fume and fluster and explore."
The Rev. Mr. Moore was, in actual years, not far from Dr. Reginald's own age. But the Rev. Mr. Moore was perennially young; slender and light, juvenile in figure, especially when seen from behind, his appearance was not that of an elderly man so much as of a young man in whom the progress of age has been in some way arrested, like the young peaches, withered and wrinkled and yet with the bloom of youth about them still, which have dropped to the ground before their prime. He now stood waiting on the beach, armed with his butterfly net; as his butterfly net was attached to a long green pole, one end of which rested on the ground, he had the air of a sort of marine shepherd with a crook.
The Rev. Mr. Moore always carried this entomological apparatus with him when he went upon pleasure excursions; his wife encouraged him in the amusement, she said it was a distraction for his mind; the butterflies also found it a distraction, they were in the habit of laughing (so some persons declared) all down the coast whenever the parson and his net appeared in sight.
"You are going to explore, aren't you?" said Garda to Margaret Harold; "it's lovely, and we shall not fume or fluster in the least, in spite of the Doctor; we shall only pick up shells. Over these shells we shall exclaim; Mr. Winthropwill find charming ones, and present them to us, and then we shall exclaim more; we shall dote upon the ones he gives us, we shall hoard them away carefully in our handkerchiefs and pockets; and then, to-morrow morning, when the sun comes up, he will shine upon two dear little heaps of them outside our bedroom windows, where, of course, we shall have thrown them as soon as we reached home."
Mr. Moore listened to these remarks with surprise. Upon the various occasions when he had visited Patricio he had always, and with great interest, picked up shells for the ladies present, knowing how much they would value them. He now meditated a little upon the back windows alluded to by Garda; it was a new idea.
"Oh, howdelightfulit is to go marooning!" said Mrs. Carew, who, beginning to recover from the terrors of the voyage, had found her voice again. Her feet were still somewhat cramped from their use as brakes; she furtively extended them for a moment, and then, unable to resist the comfort of the position, left them extended. Her boots were the old-fashioned thin-soled all-cloth gaiters without heels, laced at the side, dear to the comfort-loving ladies of that day; her ankles came down into their loose interiors without any diminishing curves, as in the case of the elephant.
"Are you going, Margaret?" said Mrs. Rutherford, in her amiably patronizing voice. "Don't you think you will find it rather warm?" Mrs. Rutherford inhabited the serene country of non-effort, she could therefore maintain without trouble the satisfactory position of criticising the actions of others; for whether they succeeded or whether they failed, success or failure equally indicated an attempt, and anything like attempt she was above. "People whotry" was one of her phrases; she would not have cared to discover America, for undoubtedly Columbus had tried.
"I like this Florida warmth," Margaret had answered. "It's not heat; it's only softness."
"It's lax, I think," suggested Mrs. Rutherford, still amiably.
No one disputed this point. It was lax.
"Doesn't he look like a tree?" murmured Garda to Margaret, indicating by a glance the Rev. Mr. Moore, as he stoodat a little distance, gazing at the sea—"a tall slim one, you know, that hasn't many leaves; his arms are like the branches, and his fingers like the twigs; and his voice is so innocent and—and vegetable."
Margaret shook her head.
"You don't like it?" said the girl; "you think I am disrespectful? I am not disrespectful at all, I adore Mr. Moore. But you must acknowledge that he's a mild herby sort of man; he's like lettuce—before it's dressed. All the same, you know, he's an angel."
Dr. Kirby meanwhile was entertaining Betty and Katrina, now seated together on the out-of-door sofa he had made. He was arranging at the same time a seat for himself near them by piling together with careful adjustment the scattered fragments of drift-wood which he had found in the vicinity, in a sort of cairn; his intention was to crown this cairn, when finished, with one of the boat cushions, which he had reserved for the purpose. "No," he said, pursuing his theme and the dovetailing of the drift-wood with energy, "I cannot say that I admire these frivolous new fashions which have crept into literature. The other day, happening to turn over the pages of one of these modern novels, I came upon a scene in which the hero and heroine are supposed to be shaken, tortured by the violence of their emotions, stirred to their utmost depths; and yet the author takesthatopportunity to leave them there, leave them in the midst of their agonies—and the reader's as well—to remark that a butterfly flew in through the open window and hovered for a moment over their heads; now he poised here, now he poised there, now he did this, and now that, and so on through a quarter of a page. I ask you—what if he did?" (Here he finished his cairn, and sat down to try it.) "Who cares? Why should the whole action of the tale pause, and at such a critical moment, in order that the flight and movements of an insignificant insect should be minutely chronicled?"
"But the butterfly," said the Rev. Mr. Moore, who had drawn near, "can hardly, I think, be described as an 'insignificant insect.'"
"Have you read these modern novels?" demanded the Doctor, facing him from his cairn.
"Certainly," replied Mr. Moore; "I am familiar with 'Bracebridge Hall,' 'Swallow Barn,' and several other works of fiction of that type." And he stood there looking at the Doctor with the peculiar mild obstinacy which belongs to light-blue eyes, whose under-lids come up high at the outer corners.
"But, Doctor, you are attacking there one of our most cherished modern novelties," said Winthrop, who had now joined them, "namely, the new copartnership between Nature and Literature. Nature is now a very literary personage and a butterfly can mean a great deal."
"Nature has nothing to do with literature, I mean the literature we call polite," Dr. Kirby protested, still fierily (while Mrs. Rutherford admired his ardor). But the clergyman had nodded his head in approval, a butterfly could certainly mean a great deal; he himself had long been of the opinion that they possessed reasoning powers—he had so seldom been able to capture one.
The explorers now left the sofa and cairn, and started down the beach, Garda and Winthrop first, Mr. Moore and Margaret following. It seemed natural to everybody that Winthrop should be with Garda, he had been with her so much; his manner, however, had in it so little of admiration (as admiration was understood in Gracias) that this had occasioned no remark. Manuel (whose admiration had the local hues) cherished resentment against this northerner, but it was not the resentment of jealousy; Manuel, indeed, did not dream that he had occasion for jealousy. He was sure that Mrs. Thorne yearned for him, that her highest aspirations regarding a son-in-law could go no further; but there need be no haste, he must see something of the world first. He had made a beginning (so he flattered himself) by seeing something of it in that charming though rather silent Mrs. Harold. As for Torres, that dark youth could never have conceived the possibility of admitting any one to a serious rivalry with himself—any one, at least, outside of Spain. Who was this Wintup? Only an American; even Manuel was but an American-Spaniard, as any one could see. But Garda was all Duero, Spanish to the finger-tips; Garda understood him. And this in itself was no small matter—to understand aTorres; many persons, even when thrown with them daily, had lived all their lives without accomplishing that. Garda understood herself also; she might delay, have little freaks; but in the end it was impossible that she should be content with anything less than a Torres, if there were one in attendance upon her graceful steps,—as there certainly would be.
For a time the four pedestrians kept together. "See the pelicans on the bar," said Garda. "The wish of my life has been to go out there and chase them with a stick."
"Why should you wish to do that, my child?" said the clergyman. "Surely there are many occupations more interesting, as well as more instructive."
"Shouldn't you love to be a curlew?" said the girl, going to him and putting her arm in his. "The sickle-bill, you know; he hasn't the least realization of the faults of his profile, and that must be such a comfort."
"Profiles," responded Mr. Moore, with a little wave of his hand, "are quite unimportant; what is a profile, in most cases, but the chance outline of a nose? Handsome is as handsome does, Garda; that is the best view to take."
Winthrop listened to this little dialogue with entertainment, evidently the good rector had no more realization of Garda's beauty than he had of the new short length for sermons; his standard in profiles was probably the long thin nose and small straight mouth of his excellent Penelope.
"The Bermudoes lie off in that direction," continued the clergyman, looking over the blue water. Garda had now left him and gone back to Winthrop. "I mean the Barbagoes," he added, correcting himself. He was silent for a moment. "No, no, not Barbagoes; I am thinking, of course, of the Bahamoes." Again he paused, his face began to wear a bewildered expression; slackening his pace a little, he repeated over to himself softly, as if trying them, "Bahamoes—Bergudas; then there is Tor—no,Tobaga, isn't it? Certainly I cannot be wrong in thinking one of the groups to be the Dry Tortugoes?" And yet it did not seem quite certain, after all.
"A butterfly, a splendid one," called Garda.
And then the reverend gentleman, forgetting the tangled islands, brandished his net and leaped forward in pursuit.
Garda was now with Margaret; Winthrop walked on besidethem, and they went southward at a leisurely pace, down the broad beach. To the ordinary observer Winthrop and Margaret appeared to be on the usual friendly terms; the only lack which could have been detected was the absence between them of little discussions, and references to past discussions, brief allusions where one word is made to do the work of twenty, which are natural when people have formed part of the same family for some time. Margaret and Winthrop talked to each other, and talked familiarly; but this was always when other persons were present. Garda, though she seldom troubled herself to observe closely, had remarked these little signs. "I think you are horrid to Margaret," she had once said to Winthrop with warmth. "And Margaret is far too good and too gentle to you."
"Yes, Mrs. Harold has always a very gentle manner," he had answered, assentingly.
"That is more horrid still! Of course she has. But I wish she hadn't—at least with you; I wish she would be sharp with you—as I am."
"Are you sharp?" Winthrop had asked, smiling indulgently at the contrast between her allegation and the voice in which it was uttered.
Garda, with her hand on Margaret's arm, was now walking onward, humming lightly to herself as she walked. Her humming was vague, as she had no ear for music. It was a complete lack, however; she was not one of those persons who are haunted by tunes half caught, who afflictingly sing a song all through a semi-note flat, and never know it.
Margaret's eyes were following the sands. "What lovely sea-weeds," she said, as little-branching fibres, like crimson frost-work, began to dot the silver here and there.
"Now how feminine that is!" said Winthrop, argumentatively, as he strolled on beside them. "Instead of looking at the ocean, or this grand beach as a whole, what does Mrs. Harold do? She spends her time admiring an infinitesimal pink fragment at her feet. Fragments!—I am tired of the fragmentary taste. In a picture, even the greatest, you fragmentary people are always admiring what you call the side touches; you talk about some little thing that has been put in merely as a decorative feature, or if for a wonder you doselect a figure, it is sure to be one of minor importance; the effect of the whole as a whole, the central idea to which the artist has given his best genius and power, this you don't care for, hardly see. It is the same way with a book; it is always some fragment of outside talk or description, some subordinate character, to which you give your praise; never—no matter how fine it is—the leading motive and its development. In an old cathedral, too, you women go putting your pretty noses close to all the little things, the bits of old carving, an old inscription—in short, the details; the effect of the grand mass of the whole, rising against the sky, this you know nothing whatever about."
"I am glad at least that the noses are pretty," interpolated Garda, amid her humming.
"I think I have met a few men also who admire details," observed Margaret.
"A few? Plenty of them. They are the men of the feminine turn of mind. But don't imagine that I don't care for details; details in their proper place may be admirable, exquisite. What I am objecting to is their being pushed into a place which is not theirs by you fragmentary people, who simply shirk (I don't know whether it is from indolence or want of mental grasp) any consideration of a whole."
"Never mind," said Garda to Margaret; "let's be fragmentary. We'll even pick up the sea-weeds if you like (though generally I hate to pick up things); we'll fill your basket, and make Mr. Winthrop carry it."
"No," said Margaret. "On the contrary, let us abhor the sea-weeds; let us give ourselves to the consideration of a whole." And, pausing, she looked over the sea, then up at the sky and down the beach, with a slow musing sweep of the head which became her well.
"You're not enough in earnest," said Garda; "we can see the edge of a smile at the corners of your lips. Wait—I'll do it better." She stepped apart from them, clasped her hands, and turned her eyes towards the sea, where they rested with a soft, absorbed earnestness that was remarkable. "Is this wide enough?" she asked, without change of expression. "Is it free from details—unfragmentary? In short, is it—a Whole?"
"Yes," said Winthrop; "far too much of one! You are as universal as a Universal Geography. Come back to us—in as many details and fragments as you please; only come back."
"By no means; I have still the beach to do, and the sky." And slowly she turned the same wide, absorbed gaze from the sea to the white shore.
The beach was worth looking at; broad, smooth, gleaming, it stretched southward as far as eye could follow it; even there it did not end, it became a silver haze which mixed softly with the sea. On the land side it was bounded by the sand-cliff which formed the edge of Patricio; this little cliff, though but twelve or fourteen feet in height, was perpendicular; it cut off, therefore, the view of the flat ground above as completely as though it had been five hundred. Great pink-mouthed shells dotted the beach's white floor; at its edge myriads of minute disks of rose and pearl lay heaped amid little stones, smooth and white, all of them wet and glistening. Heaps of bleached drift-wood lay where high tides had left them. Little beach-birds ran along at the water's edge with their peculiar gait—many pauses, intermixed with half a dozen light fleet steps as though running away—the gait, if ever there was one, of invitation to pursue. There were no ships on the sea; the tracks of vessels bound for Cuba, the Windward and Leeward islands, lay out of sight from this low strand. And gentle as the water was, and soft the air, the silence and the absence of all signs of human life made it a very wild scene; wild but not savage, the soft wildness of an uninhabited southern shore. For no one lived on Patricio, save where, opposite East Angels, the old Ruiz house stood on its lapsed land—lapsed from the better tilling of the century before.
The Rev. Mr. Moore had come gambolling back, striking actively hither and thither with his net, still pursuing the same butterfly. The butterfly—at his leisure—flew inland; and then Mr. Moore gave up the chase, and joined Mrs. Harold calmly, seeming not in the least out of breath, his face, indeed, so serious that she received the impression that while his legs might have been gambolling, his thoughts had perhaps been employed with his next Sunday's sermon;he had had an introspective, mildly controversial air as he leaped.
Garcia and Winthrop walked on in advance. The beach waved in and out in long scallops, and when they had entered the second they found themselves alone, the point behind intervening between them and their companions.
"What a dreadfully lonely place this beach is, after all!" said Garda, pausing and looking southward with a half-appreciative, half-disturbed little shudder.
"Not lonely; primeval," answered Winthrop. "Don't you like it? I am sure you do; take time to think."
"Oh, I don't want any time. Yes, I like it in one way, in one way it's beautiful. One could be perfectly lazy here forever, and I should like that. As for the loneliness, I suppose we should not mind it after a while—so long as we could be together."
Before Winthrop could reply to this, "Suppose we race," she went on, looking at him with sudden animation. And she began to sway herself slightly to and fro as she walked, as though keeping time to music.
"I think you mean suppose we dance," he answered. She had soon deserted the mood that chimed in with his own; still, he had not misjudged her, she had it in her to comprehend the charm of an existence which should be primitive, far from the world, that simple free life towards which the thoughts of imaginative men turn sometimes with such inexpressible longing, but to whose attractions feminine minds in general are said to be closed. The men of imagination seldom carry, are seldom able to carry, their aspirations to a practical reality; that makes no difference in their appreciation of the woman who can comprehend the beauty of the dream. Here was a girl who, under the proper influences, would be able to take up such a life and enjoy it; the vast majority of educated women, no matter what influences they should be subjected to, would never be able to do this in the least; they would long for—silk lamp-shades and rugs.
"Racing or dancing," Garda had replied, "youwould never win a prize in either; you are far too slow."
"And you too indolent," he rejoined.
He had scarcely spoken the words when she was off.Down the beach she sped, and with such unexpected swiftness that he stood gazing instead of following; the line of her flight was as straight as that of an arrow. He was surprised; he had not thought that she would take the trouble to run, he had not thought her fond of any kind of exertion. But this did not seem like exertion, she ran as easily as a slim lad runs; her figure looked very light and slender, outlined against the beach and sky. As he still stood watching her, she reached the end of the scallop, passed round its point, and disappeared.
He looked back, there was no one in sight; if he had a mind to revive his school-boy feats, he could do so without being observed. It was a beautiful day; but running might make it warmer. At thirty-five one does not run for the pure pleasure of it, as at sixteen; if one is not an acrobat, it seems a useless waste of energy. Garda was probably waiting for him beyond the next point, even her desire to surprise him would not take her farther than that; he walked onward at a good pace, but he did not run; he reached the point, turned it, and entered the next scallop. She was not there.
It was not a very long scallop, she had crossed it, probably, while he was crossing the last; he went on and entered the next. Again she was not there. But this scallop was a mile long, she had certainly not had time to cross it; where, then, could she be? There was nothing moving on the white beach, the perpendicular sand-cliff afforded no footing; he walked on, thinking that there must be some niche which he could not see from where he stood. But though he went farther than she could possibly have gone in the time she had had, he found nothing, and retraced his steps, puzzled; the firm white sand showed no trace of her little feet, even his own heavier tread was barely visible.
Not far from the entrance of the scallop across which he was now returning, there was a pile of drift-wood higher than the other chance heaps, its base having been more solidly formed by portions of an old wreck which had been washed ashore there. Upon this foundation of water-logged timbers, branches and nondescript fragments, the flotsam and jetsam of a Southern ocean, had been flung by high tides,and had caught there one upon the other, until now the jagged summit was on a level with the top of the sand cliff, though an open space, several feet in width, lay between. Could it be that Garda had climbed up this insecure heap, and then sprung across to the firm ground of Patricio beyond? It seemed impossible; and yet, unless she had an enchanted chariot to come at her call, she must have done so, for there was no other way by which she could have escaped. Winthrop now essayed to follow her. But it was not without difficulty that he succeeded in reaching the top; for it was not so much a question of strength (of which he had an abundance) as of lightness; it was not so much a question of a good hold, as of no hold at all; the very place, he said to himself, for feminine climbing, which is generally hap-hazard clutches diversified by screams. At length, not without much fear of bringing the whole pile toppling down upon himself, he reached the summit, and from an insecure foothold looked across to the firm land. Patricio at this point was covered, at a short distance back from the edge, by a grove of wild-myrtle trees. There was no path, but the grove was not dense, Garda could have passed through it anywhere; there was no sign of her visible, but he could not see far. He sprang across, and went inland through the myrtles, his course defined in a measure by the thick chaparral which bordered the grove on each side. Suddenly he heard the sound of voices, he pushed on, and came to a little open space, thickly dotted with large bright flowers. On the farther side of this space an easel had been set up, and a young man was at work sketching; behind this young man, looking over his shoulder, stood Garda.
As Winthrop came out from the myrtles, "How long you have been!" she said. Then, "Come and see this sketch," she went on immediately, her eyes returning to the picture. "I've never seen anything so pretty in my life."
As Winthrop, after a moment's survey of the scene, came towards her over the flowers, "Oh," she said, "I forget that you don't know each other. Mr. Winthrop, Mr. Lucian Spenser, civil engineer, from Washington, the District of Columbia. Mr. Spenser, Mr. Evert Winthrop—he is nothing in particular now, I believe—from the city of New York."
"It's an occupation in itself, isn't it? to be from New York," said the artist, going on with his sketching, after the little motion, half nod, half wave of the hand, with which he had acknowledged Garda's introduction. Winthrop in the mean while had neither spoken nor bowed; he had only, as slightly as possible, raised his hat.
"Why do you stop there?" said Garda. She came to him, took his arm, and led him behind the easel. "The picture—the picture's the thing to look at!"
The sketch—it was in water-colors—represented the little arena, which was in itself a brilliant picture, done by Nature's hand. It was an open oval space about fifteen feet in diameter, entirely bare of trees or bushes, and covered with low green, through which rose lightly slender leafless stalks, each holding up, several inches above the herbage, a single large bright-faced flower; the flowers did not touch each other, they were innumerable spots of gold and bright lavender, which did not blend; on three sides the thick dark chaparral, on the fourth the dark myrtles, enclosed this gayly decked nook, and seemed to have kept it safely from all the world until now. The artist was making a very good sketch, good, that is, in the manner of the new foreign school.
"Isn't it beautiful—wonderful?" insisted Garda.
"Very clever," Winthrop answered.
The artist laughed. "You hate the manner," he said. "Many people do; I think I hate it a little myself, now and then." And he began to sing softly to himself as he worked: