CHAPTER IX
Itwas just at that instant that the thick-set man in his berth not ten feet away became broadly conscious of the unwonted stillness of the train and the cessation of motion that had lulled him to such sound repose. So does a tiny, sharp sound strike upon our senses and bring them into life again from sleep, making us aware of a state of things that has been going on for some time perhaps without our realization. The sound that roused him may have been the click of the stateroom latch as Gordon opened the door.
The shades were down in the man’s berth and the curtains drawn close. The daylight had not as yet penetrated through their thickness. But once awake his senses were immediately on the alert. He yawned, stretched and suddenly arrested another yawn to analyze the utter stillness all about him. A sonorous snore suddenly emphasized the quiet of the car, and made him aware of all the occupants of all those curtained apartments. His mind went over a quick résumé of the night before, and detailed him at once to duty.
Another soft clicking of the latch set him to listening and his bristly shocked head was stuckinstantly out between the curtains into the aisle, eyes toward the stateroom door, just in time to see that a man was stealing quietly down the passageway out of the end door, carrying two suit-cases and an umbrella. It was his man. He was sure instantly, and his mind grew frantic with the thought. Almost he had outdone himself through foolish sleep.
He half sprang from his berth, then remembered that he was but partly dressed, and jerked back quickly to grab his clothes, stopping in the operation of putting them on to yank up his window shade with an impatient click and flatten his face against the window-pane!
Yes, there they were down on the ground outside the train, both of them; man, woman, baggage and all slipping away from him while he slept peacefully and let them go! The language of his mind at that point was hot with invectives.
Gordon had made his way back to the girl’s side without meeting any porters or wakeful fellow-passengers. But a distant rumbling greeted his ears. The waited-for express was coming. If they were to get away, it must be done at once or their flight would be discovered, and perhaps even prevented. It certainly was better not to have it known where they got off. He had taken the precaution toclose the stateroom door behind him and so it might be some time before their absence would be discovered. Perhaps there would be other stops before the train reached Buffalo, in which case their track would not easily be followed. He had no idea that the evil eye of his pursuer was even then upon him.
Celia was already on the ground, looking off toward the little village wistfully. Just how it was to make her lot any brighter to get out of the train and run away to a strange little village she did not quite explain to herself, but it seemed to be a relief to her pent-up feelings. She was half afraid that George might raise some new objection when he returned.
Gordon swung himself down on the cinder path, scanning the track either way. The conductor and brakemen were not in sight. Far in the distance a black speck was rushing down upon them. Gordon could hear the vibration of the rail of the second track, upon which he placed his foot as he helped Celia across. In a moment more the train would pass. It was important that they should be down the embankment, out of sight. Would the delicate girl not be afraid of the steep incline?
She hesitated for just an instant at the top, for it was very steep. Then, looking up at him, shesaw that he expected her to go down with him. She gave a little frightened gasp, set her lips, and started.
He held her as well as he could with two suit-cases and an umbrella clutched in his other hand, and finally, as the grade grew steeper, he let go the baggage altogether, and it slid briskly down by itself, while he devoted himself to steadying the girl’s now inevitable and swift descent.
It certainly was not an ideal way of travelling, this new style of “gravity” road, but it landed them without delay, though much shaken and scratched, and divested of every vestige of dignity. It was impossible not to laugh, and Celia’s voice rang out merrily, showing that she had not always wept and looked sorrowful.
“Are you much hurt?” asked Gordon anxiously, holding her hands and looking down at her tenderly.
Before she could reply, the express train roared above them, drowning their voices and laughter; and when it was past they saw their own train take up its interrupted way grumblingly, and rapidly move off. If the passengers on those two trains had not been deeply wrapped in slumber, they might have been surprised to see two fashionably attired young persons, with hats awry and clasped hands, laughing in a country road at five o’clock of a May morning. But only one was awake, and by the timethe two in the road below remembered to look up and take notice, the trains were rapidly disappearing.
The girl had been deeply impressed with Gordon’s solicitude for her. It was so out of keeping with his letters. He had never seemed to care whether she suffered or not. In all the arrangements, he had said whathewanted, indeed what hewould have, with an implied threat in the framing of his sentence in case she dared demur. Never had there been the least expression of desire for her happiness. Therefore it was something of a surprise to find him so gentle and thoughtful of her. Perhaps, after all, he would not prove so terrible to live with as she had feared. And yet—how could anyone who wrote those letters have any alleviating qualities? It could not be. She must harden herself against him. Still, if he would be outwardly decent to her, it would make her lot easier, of course.
But her course of mental reasoning was broken in upon by his stout denunciations of himself.
“I ought not to have allowed you to slide down there,” he declared. “It was terrible, after what you went through last night. I didn’t realize how steep and rough it was. Indeed I didn’t. I don’t see how you ever can forgive me.”
“Why, I’m not hurt,” she said gently, astonished at his solicitation. There was a strange lumpin her throat brought by his kindness, which threatened tears. Just why should kindness from an unexpected quarter bring tears?
“I’m only a little shaken up,” she went on as she saw a real anxiety in his brown eyes, “and I don’t mind it in the least. I think it was rather fun, don’t you?”
A faint glimmer of a smile wavered over the corners of her mouth, and Gordon experienced a sudden desire to take her in his arms and kiss her. It was a strange new feeling. He had never had any such thought about Julia Bentley.
“Why, I—why, yes, I guess so, if you’re sure you’re not hurt.”
“Not a bit,” she said, and then, for some unexplained reason, they both began to laugh. After that they felt better.
“If your shoes are as full of these miserable cinders as mine are, they need emptying,” declared Gordon, shaking first one well-shod foot and then the other, and looking ruefully at the little velvet boots of the lady.
“Suppose you sit down”—he looked about for a seat, but the dewy grass was the only resting place visible. He pitched upon the suit-cases and improvised a chair. “Now, sit down and let me take them off for you.”
He knelt in the road at her feet as she obeyed, protesting that she could do it for herself. But he overruled her, and began clumsily to unbutton the tiny buttons, holding the timid little foot firmly, almost reverently, against his knee.
He drew the velvet shoe softly off, and, turning it upside down, shook out the intruding cinders, put a clumsy finger in to make sure they were all gone; then shyly, tenderly, passed his hand over the sole of the fine silk-stockinged foot that rested so lightly on his knee, to make sure no cinders clung to it. The sight and touch of that little foot stirred him deeply. He had never before been called upon to render service so intimate to any woman, and he did it now with half-averted gaze and the utmost respect in his manner. As he did it he tried to speak about the morning, the departing train, the annoying cinders, anything to make their unusual position seem natural and unstrained. He felt deeply embarrassed, the more so because of his own double part in this queer masquerade.
Celia sat watching him, strangely stirred. Her wonder over his kindness grew with each moment, and her prejudices almost dissolved. She could not understand it. There must be something more he wanted of her, for George Hayne had never been kind in the past unless he wanted something of her.She dreaded lest she should soon find it out. Yet he did not look like a man who was deceiving her. She drew a deep sigh. If only it were true, and he were good and kind, and had never written those awful letters! How good and dear it would be to be tenderly cared for this way! Her lips drooped at the corners, and her eyelids drooped in company with the sigh; then Gordon looked up in great distress.
“You are tired!” he declared, pausing in his attempt to fasten the little pearl buttons. “I have been cruel to let you get off the train!”
“Indeed I’m not,” said the girl, brightening with sudden effort. At least, she would not spoil the kindness while it lasted. It was surely better than what she had feared.
“You never can button those shoes with your fingers,” she laughed, as he redoubled his efforts to capture a tiny disc of pearl and set it into its small velvet socket. “Here! I have a button-hook in my hand-bag. Try this.”
She produced a small silver instrument from a gold-link bag on her arm and handed it to him. He took it helplessly, trying first one end and then the other, and succeeding with neither.
“Here, let me show you,” she laughed, pulling off one glove. Her white fingers grasped the silverbutton-hook, and flashed in and out of the velvet holes, knitting the little shoe to the foot in no time. He watched the process in humble wonder, and she would not have been a human girl not to have been flattered with his interest and admiration. For the minute she forgot who and what he was, and let her laugh ring out merrily; and so with shy audacity he assayed to take off the other shoe.
They really felt quite well acquainted and as if they were going on a day’s picnic, when they finally gathered up their belongings and started down the road. Gordon summoned all his ready wit and intellect to brighten the walk for her, though he found himself again and again on the brink of referring to his Washington life, or some other personal matter that would have brought a wondering question to her lips. He had decided that he must not tell her who he was until he could put her in an independent position, where she could get away from him at once if she chose. He was bound to look after her until he could place her in good hands, or at least where she could look after herself, and it was better to carry it out leaving her to think what she pleased until he could tell her everything. If all went well, they might be able to catch a Pittsburgh train that night and be in Washington the next day. Then, hismessage delivered, he would tell her the whole story. Until then he must hold his peace.
They went gaily down the road, the girl’s pale cheeks beginning to flush with the morning and the exercise. She was not naturally delicate, and her faint the night before had been the result of a series of heavy strains on a heart burdened with terrible fear. The morning and his kindness had made her forget for the time that she was supposed to be walking into a world of dread and sacrifice.
“The year’s at the spring,The day’s at the morn,”
“The year’s at the spring,The day’s at the morn,”
“The year’s at the spring,
The day’s at the morn,”
quoted Gordon gaily,
“Morning’s at seven;The hill-side’s dew-pearled——”
“Morning’s at seven;The hill-side’s dew-pearled——”
“Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled——”
He waved an umbrella off to where a hill flashed back a thousand lights from its jewelled grass-blades thickly set.
“The lark’s on the wing;The snail’s on the thorn,”
“The lark’s on the wing;The snail’s on the thorn,”
“The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn,”
went on Celia suddenly catching his spirit, and pointing to a lark that darted up into the blue with a trill of the morning in his throat.
Gordon turned appreciative eyes upon her. It was good to have her take up his favorite poet in that tone of voice—a tone that showed she too knew and loved Browning.
“God’s in his heaven,All’s right with the world,”
“God’s in his heaven,All’s right with the world,”
“God’s in his heaven,
All’s right with the world,”
finished Gordon in a quieter voice, looking straight into her eyes. “That seems very true, to-day, doesn’t it?”
The blue eyes wavered with a hint of shadow in them as they looked back into the brown ones.
“Almost—perhaps,” she faltered wistfully.
The young man wished he dared go behind that “almost—perhaps” and find out what she meant, but concluded it were better to bring back the smile and help her to forget for a little while at least.
Down by the brook, they paused to rest, under a weeping willow, whose green-tinged plumes were dabbling in the brook. Gordon arranged the suit-cases for her to sit upon, then climbed down to the brookside and gathered a great bunch of forget-me-nots, blue as her eyes, and brought them to her.
She looked at them in wonder, to think they grew out here, wild, untended. She had never seen them before, except in pots in the florist’s windows. She touched them delicately with the tips of her fingers, as if they were too ethereal for earth; then fastened them in the breast of her gown.
“They exactly match your eyes!” he exclaimed involuntarily, and then wished he had not spoken, for she flushed and paled under his glance, untilhe felt he had been unduly bold. He wondered why he had said that. He never had been in the habit of saying pretty things to girls, but this girl somehow called it from him. It was genuine. He sat a moment abashed, not knowing what to say next, as if he were a shy boy, and she did not help him, for her eyelashes drooped in a long becoming sweep over her cheeks, and she seemed for the moment not to be able to carry off the situation. He was not sure if she were displeased or not.
Her heart had thrilled strangely as he spoke, and she was vexed with herself that it should be so. A man who had bullied and threatened her for three terrible months and forced her to marry him had no right to a thrill of her heart nor a look from her eyes, be he ever so kind for the moment. He certainly was nice and pleasant when he chose to be; she must watch herself, for never, never, must she yield weakly to his smooth overtures. Well did she know him. He had some reason for all this pleasantness. It would surely be revealed soon.
She stiffened her lips and tried to look away from him to the purply-green hills; but the echo of his words came upon her again, and again her heart thrilled at them. What if—oh what if he were all right, and she might accept the admiration in his voice? And yet how could that be possible? Thesweet color came into her cheeks again, and the tears flew quickly to her eyes, till they looked all sky and dew, and she dared not turn back to him.
The silence remained unbroken, until a lark in the willow copse behind them burst forth into song and broke the spell that was upon them.
“Are you offended at what I said?” he asked earnestly. “I am sorry if you did not like it. The words said themselves without my stopping to think whether you might not like it. Will you forgive me?”
“Oh,” she said, lifting her forget-me-not eyes to his, “I am not offended. There is nothing to forgive. It was—beautiful!”
Then his eyes spoke the compliment over again, and the thrill started anew in her heart, till her cheeks grew quite rosy, and she buried her face in the coolness of the tiny flowers to hide her confusion.
“It was very true,” he said in a low, lover-like voice that sounded like a caress.
“Oughtn’t we to hurry on to catch our train?” said Celia, suddenly springing to her feet. “I’m quite rested now.” She felt if she stayed there another moment she would yield to the spell he had cast upon her.
With a dull thud of consciousness the man got himself to his feet and reminded himself that thiswas another man’s promised wife to whom he had been letting his soul go out.
“Don’t let anything hinder you! Don’t let anything hinder you!” suddenly babbled out the little brook, and he gathered up his suit-cases and started on.
“I am going to carry my suit-case,” declared a very decided voice behind him, and a small hand seized hold of its handle.
“I beg your pardon, you are not!” declared Gordon in a much more determined voice.
“But they are too heavy for you—both of them—and the umbrella too,” she protested. “Give me the umbrella then.”
But he would not give her even the umbrella, rejoicing in his strength to shield her and bear her burdens. As she walked beside him, she remembered vividly a morning when George Hayne had made her carry two heavy baskets, that his hands might be free to shoot birds. Could this be the same George Hayne?
Altogether, it was a happy walk, and far shorter than either had expected it to be, though Gordon worried not a little about his frail companion before they came to the outskirts of the village, and kept begging her to sit down and rest again, but she would not. She was quite eager and excited aboutthe strange village to which they were coming. Its outlying farm-houses were all so clean and white, with green blinds folded placidly over their front windows, and only their back doors astir. The cows all looked peaceful, and the dogs all seemed friendly.
They walked up the village street, shaded in patches with flecks of sunshine through the young leaves. If anyone had told Celia Hathaway the night before that she would have walked and talked thus to-day with her bridegroom she would have laughed him to scorn. But now all unconsciously she had drifted into an attitude of friendliness with the man whom she had thought to hate all the rest of her life.
One long, straight, maple-lined street, running parallel to the stream, comprised the village. They walked to the centre of it, and still saw no signs of a restaurant. A post-office, a couple of stores and a bakery made up the business portion of the town, and upon enquiry it appeared that there was no public eating house, the one hotel of the place having been sold at auction the week before on account of the death of the owner. The early village loungers stared disinterestedly at the phenomenal appearance in their midst of a couple of city folks with their luggage and no apparent means of transit except their two delicately shod feet. It presented aproblem too grave to be solved unassisted, and there were solemn shakings of the head over them. At last one who had discouragingly stated the village lack of a public inn asked casually:
“Hed a runaway?”
“Oh, no!” laughed Gordon pleasantly. “We didn’t travel with horses.”
“Hed a puncture, then,” announced the village wiseacre, shifting from one foot to the other.
“Wal, you come the wrong direction to git help,” said another languid listener. “Thur ain’t no garridge here. The feller what uset to keep it skipped out with Sam Galt’s wife a month ago. You’d ought to ’a’ turned back to Ashville. They got a good blacksmith there can tinker ye up.”
“Is that so?” said Gordon interestedly. “Well now that’s too bad, but perhaps as it can’t be helped we’ll have to forget it. What’s the next town on ahead and how far?”
“Sugar Grove’s two mile further on, and Milton’s five. They’ve got a garridge and a rest’rant to Milton, but that’s only sence the railroad built a junction there.”
“Has anyone here a conveyance I could hire to take us to Milton?” questioned Gordon, looking anxiously about the indolent group.
“I wouldn’t want to drive to Milton for less’nfive dollars,” declared a lazy youth after a suitable pause.
“Very well,” said Gordon. “How soon can you be ready, and what sort of a rig have you? Will it be comfortable for the lady?”
The youth eyed the graceful woman in her dainty city dress scornfully. His own country lass was dressed far prettier to his mind; but the eyes of her, so blue, like the little weed-flowers at her breast, went to his head. His tongue was suddenly tied.
“It’s all right! It’s as good’s you’ll get!” volunteered a sullen-faced man half sitting on a sugar barrel. He was of a type who preferred to see fashionable ladies uncomfortable.
The youth departed for his “team” and after some enquiries Gordon found that he might be able to persuade the owner of the tiny white colonial cot across the street to prepare a “snack” for himself and his companion, so they went across the street and waited fifteen minutes in a dank little hair-cloth parlor adorned in funeral wreaths and knit tidies, for a delicious breakfast of poached eggs, coffee, home-made bread, butter like roses, and a comb of amber honey. To each the experience was a new one, and they enjoyed it together like two children, letting their eyes speak volumes of comments in the midst of the old lady’s volubility. Unconsciouslyby their experiences they were being brought into sympathy with each other.
The “rig” when it arrived at the door driven by the blushing youth proved to be a high spring wagon with two seats. In the front one the youth lounged without a thought of assisting his passengers. Gordon swung the baggage up, and then lifted the girl into the back seat, himself taking the place beside her, and planting a firm hand and arm behind the backless seat, that she might feel more secure.
That ride, with his arm behind her, was just one more link in the pretty chain of sympathy that was being welded about these two. Unconsciously more and more she began to droop, until when she grew very tired he seemed to know at once.
“Just lean against my arm,” he said. “You must be very tired and it will help you bear the jolting.” He spoke as if his arm were made of wood or iron, and was merely one of his belongings, like an umbrella or suit-case. He made it seem quite the natural thing for her to lean against him. If he had claimed it as her right and privilege as wife, she would have recoiled from him for recalling to her the hated relation, and would have sat straight as a bean-pole the rest of the way, but, as it was, she sank back a trifle deprecatingly, and realized that it was a great help. In her heart she thanked him formaking it possible for her to rest without entirely compromising her attitude toward him. There was nothing about it that suggested anything lover-like; it seemed just a common courtesy.
Yet the strong arm almost trembled as he felt the precious weight against it, and he wished that the way were ten miles instead of five. Once, as Celia leaned forward to point to a particularly lovely bit of view that opened up as they wound around a curve in the road, they ran over a stone, and the wagon gave an unexpected jolt. Gordon reached his hand out to steady her, and she settled back to his arm with a sense of safety and being cared for that was very pleasant. Looking up shyly, she saw his eyes upon her, with that deep look of admiration and something more, and again that strange thrill of joy that had come when he gave her the forget-me-nots swept through her. She felt almost as if she were harboring a sinful thought when she remembered the letters he had written; but the joy of the day, and the sweetness of happiness for even a moment, when she had been for so long a time sad, was so pleasant that she let herself enjoy it and drift, refusing to think evil of him now, here, in this bright day. Thus like children on a picnic, they passed through Sugar Grove and came to the town of Milton, and there they bade their driver good-by,rewarding him with a crisp five-dollar bill. He drove home with a vision of smiles in forget-me-not eyes, and a marked inability to tell anything about his wonderful passengers who had filled the little village with awe and amazement, and had given no clue to anyone as to who or what they were.