CHAPTER VIII
Theman slept, and the train rushed on. The night waned. The dawn grew purple in the east, and streaked itself with gold; then later got out a fillet of crimson and drew over its cloudy forehead. The breath of the lilies filled the little room with delicate fragrance, and mingled strange scenes in the dreams of the man and the woman so strangely united.
The sad little bride grew restless and stirred, but the man on the couch did not hear her. He was dreaming of a shooting affray, in which he carried a bride in a gold pencil and was shot for stealing a sandwich out of Mr. Holman’s vest-pocket.
The morning light grew clearer. The east had put on a vesture of gold above her purple robe, and its reflection shone softly in at the window, for the train was just at that moment rushing northward, though its general course was west.
The sleeper behind the thick green curtains stirred again and became conscious, as in many days past, of her heavy burden of sorrow. Always at first waking the realization of it sat upon her as though it would crush the life from her body. Lying still with bated breath, she fought back wakingconsciousness as she had learned to do in the last three months, yet knew it to be futile while she was doing it.
The sun shot up between the bars of crimson, like a topaz on a lady’s gown that crowns the whole beautiful costume. The piercing, jewelled light lay across the white face, touched the lips with warm fingers, and the troubled soul knew all that had passed.
She lay quiet, letting the torrent sweep over her with its sickening realization. She was married! It was over—with the painful parting from dear ones. She was off away from them all. The new life she so dreaded had begun, and how was she to face it—the life with one whom she feared and did not respect? How could she ever have done it but for the love of her dear ones?
Gradually she came to remember the night before—the parting with her mother and her brother; the little things that brought the tears again to her eyes. Then all was blankness. She must have fainted. She did not often faint, but it must be—yes, she remembered opening her eyes and seeing men’s faces about her, and George—could it have been George?—with a kinder look in his eyes than she had ever thought to see there. Then she must have fainted again—or had she? No, some one hadlifted her into this berth, and she had drunk something and had gone to sleep. What had happened? Where was everybody? It was good to have been left alone. She grudgingly gave her unloved husband a fragment of gratitude for not having tried to talk to her. In the carriage on the way he had seemed determined to begin a long argument of some kind. She did not want to argue any more. She had written tomes upon the subject, and had said all she had to say. He was not deceived. He knew she did not love him, and would never have married him but for her mother’s sake and for the sake of her beloved father’s memory. What was the use of saying more? Let it rest. The deed was done, and they were married. Now let him have his way and make her suffer as he chose. If he would but let her suffer in silence and not inflict his bitter tongue upon her, she would try to bear it. And perhaps—oh, perhaps, she would not live long, and it would soon be all over.
As the daylight grew, the girl felt an inclination to find out whether her husband was near. Cautiously she lifted her head, and, drawing back a corner of the curtain, peered out.
He lay quietly on the couch, one hand under his cheek against the pillow, the other across his breast, as if to guard something. He was in the still sleepof the overwearied. He scarcely seemed to be breathing.
Celia dropped the curtain, and put her hand to her throat. It startled her to find him so near and so still. Softly, stealthily, she lay down again and closed her eyes. She must not waken him. She would have as long a time to herself as was possible, and try to think of her dear mother and her precious brother. Oh, if she were just going away from them alone, how well she could bear it! But to be going with one whom she had always almost hated——
Her brother’s happy words about George suddenly came to her mind. Jefferson had thought him fine. Well, of course the dear boy knew nothing about it. He had not read all those letters—those awful letters. He did not know the threats—the terrible language that had been used. She shuddered as she thought of it. But in the same breath she was glad that her brother had been deceived. She would not have it otherwise. Her dear ones must never know what she had gone through to save them from disgrace and loss of fortune—disgrace, of course, being the first and greatest. She had feared that George would let them see through his veneer of manners, and leave them troubled, but he had made a better appearance than she had hoped.Ten years had made a greater change in him than she had expected. He really had not been so bad as her conjured image of him.
Then a sudden desire to look at him again seized her, to know once for all just how he really did seem. She would not want to notice him awake any more than she could help, nor dare, lest he presume upon her sudden interest, to act as if he had never offended; but if she should look at him now as he lay asleep she might study his face and see what she really had to expect.
She fought the desire to peer at him again, but finally it gained complete possession of her, and she drew back the curtain once more.
He was lying just as quietly as before. His heavy hair, a little disordered on the pillow, gave him a noble, interesting appearance. He did not seem at all a fellow of whom to be afraid. It was incredible that he could have written those letters.
She tried to trace in his features a likeness to the youth of ten years ago, whom she had known when she was but a little girl, who had tied her braids to her chair, and put raw oysters and caterpillars down her back, or stretched invisible cords to trip her feet in dark places; who made her visits to a beloved uncle—whom he also had the right to call uncle, though he was no cousin of hers—a longlist of catastrophes resulting in tears; who had never failed to mortify her on all occasions possible, and once—— But the memories were too horrible as they crowded one upon another! Let them be forgotten!
She watched the face before her keenly, critically, yet she could see no trace of any such character as she had imagined the boy George must have developed as a man; of which his letters had given her ample proof. This man’s face was finely-cut and sensitive. There was nothing coarse or selfish in its lines. The long, dark eyelashes lay above dark circles of weariness, and gave that look of boyishness that always touches the maternal chord in a woman’s heart. George used to have a puffy, self-indulgent look under his eyes even when he was a boy. She had imagined from his last photograph that he would be much stouter, much more bombastic; but, then, in his sleep, perhaps those things fell from a man.
She tried to turn away indifferently, but something in his face held her. She studied it. If he had been any other man, any stranger, she would have said from looking at him critically that kindness and generosity, self-respect and respect for women, were written all over the face before her. There was fine, firm modelling about the lips and theclean-shaven chin; and about the forehead the look almost of a scholar; yet she thought she knew the man before her to be none of these things. How deceptive were looks! She would probably be envied rather than pitied by all who saw her. Well, perhaps that was better. She could the easier keep her trouble to herself. But stay, what was there about this man that seemed different? The smooth face? Yes. She had the dim impression that last night he wore a mustache. She must have been mistaken, of course. She had only looked at him when absolutely necessary, and her brain was in such a whirl; but still there seemed to be something different about him.
Her eyes wandered to the hand that lay across his breast. It was the fine white hand of the professional man, the kind of hand that somehow attracts the eye with a sense of cleanness and strength. There was nothing flabby about it. George as a boy used to have big, stumpy fingers and nails chewed down to the quick. She could remember how she used to hate to look at them when she was a little girl, and yet somehow could not keep her eyes away. She saw with relief that the nails on this hand were well shaped and well cared for.
He looked very handsome and attractive as he lay there. The sun shot one of its early daring boltsof light across his hair as the train turned in its course and lurched northward around a curve. It glinted there for a moment, like a miniature search-light, travelling over the head, showing up every wave and curve. He had the kind of hair which makes a woman’s hand instinctively long to touch it. Celia wondered at the curious thoughts that crowded through her mind, knowing that all the while there was the consciousness that when this man should wake she would think of nothing but his hateful personality as she had known it through the years. And she was his wife! How strange! How terrible! How impossible to live with the thought through interminable weary years! Oh, that she might die at once before her strength failed and her mother found out her sorrow! She lay back again on her pillows very still and tried to think, but somehow a pleasant image of him, her husband, lingered in her memory. Could it be possible that she would ever see anything pleasant in him? Ever endure the days of his companionship? Ever come to the point where she could overlook his outrageous conduct toward her, forgive him, and be even tolerant of him? Sharp memories crowded upon her, and the smarting tears stung their way into her eyes, answering and echoing in her heart, “No, no, a thousand times, no!” She hadpaid his price and gained redemption for her own, but—forget what he had done?Never!
The long strain of weariness, and the monotony of the onrushing train, lulled her half into unconsciousness again, and the man on the couch slumbered on.
He came to himself suddenly, with all his senses on the alert, as the thumping noise and motion of the train ceased, and a sudden silence of open country succeeded, broken now and again by distant oncoming and receding voices. He caught the fragment of a sentence from some train official: “It’s a half-hour late, and maybe more. We’ll just have to lie by, that’s all. Here, you, Jim, take this flag and run up to the switch——” The voice trailed into the distance, ended by the metallic note of a hammer doing something mysterious to the underpinning of the car.
Gordon sat up suddenly, his hand yet across his breast, where his first waking thought had been to feel if the little pencil-case were safe.
Glancing stealthily toward the curtains of the berth, and perceiving no motion, he concluded that the girl still slept.
Softly he slipped his feet into his shoes, gave one or two other touches to his toilet, and stood up, looking toward the curtains. He wanted to go outand see where they were stopping, but dared he go without knowing that she was all right?
Softly, reverently, he stooped and brought his face close to the opening in the curtains. Celia felt his eyes upon her. Her own were closed, and by a superhuman effort she controlled her breathing, slowly, gently, as if she were asleep.
He looked for a long moment, thrilled by the delicate beauty of her sleeping face, filled with an intoxicating joy to see that her lips were no longer white; then, turning reverently away, he unlocked the door and stepped forth.
The other occupants of the car were still wrapped in slumber. Loud snores of various kinds and qualities testified to that. A dim light at the further end contended luridly, and losingly, with the daylight now flooding the outside world and creeping mischievously into the transoms.
Gordon closed the door of the compartment noiselessly and went down the aisle to the end of the car.
A door was open, and he could hear voices outside. The conductor stood talking with two brakemen. He heard the words: “Three-quarters of an hour at least,” and then the men walked off toward the engine.
Gordon looked across the country, and for thefirst time since he started on his journey let himself remember that it was springtime and May.
There had been a bitter wind the night before, with a hint of rain in the air. In fact, it had rained quite smartly during the ride to the hospital with the hurt child, but he had been so perturbed that he had taken little notice of the weather. But this was a radiant morning.
The sun was in one of its most charming moods, when it touches everything with a sort of unnatural glory after the long winter of darkness and cold. Every tree trunk in the distance seemed to stand out clearly, every little grass-blade was set with a glowing jewel, and the winding stream across a narrow valley fairly blazed with brightness. The very road with its deep, clean wheel-grooves seemed like a well-taken photograph.
The air had an alluring softness mingled with its tang of winter that made one long to take a walk anywhere out into the world, just for the joy of being and doing. A meadow-lark shot up from somewhere to a telegraph pole, let go a blithe note, and hurried on. It was glorious. The exhilaration filled Gordon’s blood.
And here was the chance he craved to slip away from the train before it reached a place where he could be discovered. If he had but thought tobring his suit-case! He could slip back now without being noticed and get it! He could even go without it! But—he could not leave her that way—could he? Ought he? Perhaps he ought—— But it would not do to leave his suit-case with her, for it contained letters addressed to his real name. An explanation would of course be demanded, and he could never satisfy a loving mother and brother for having left a helpless girl in such a situation—even if he could satisfy his own conscience, which he knew he never could. He simply could not leave her, and yet hemustget away from that train as soon as possible. Perhaps this was the only opportunity he would have before reaching Buffalo, and it was very risky, indeed dangerous, to dare enter Buffalo. It was a foregone conclusion that there would be private detectives ready to meet the train in Buffalo with full descriptions and particulars and only too ready to make way with him if they could do so without being found out. He looked nervously back at the door of the car. Dared he attempt to waken her and say that they had made a mistake and must change cars? Was she well enough? And where could they go?
He looked off toward the landscape for answer to his question.
They were decidedly in the country. The trainstood at the top of a high embankment of cinders, below which was a smooth country road running parallel to the railroad for some distance till it met another road at right angles to it, which stretched away between thrifty meadow-lands to a nestling village. The glorified stream he had first noticed far up the valley glinted narrower here in the morning light, with a suggestion of watercress and forget-me-nots in its fringes as it veered away under a bridge toward the village and hid itself in a tangle of willows and cat-tails.
How easy it would be to slide down that embankment, and walk out that road over the bridge to the village, where of course a conveyance of some sort could be hired to bear him to another railroad town and thence to—Pittsburgh, perhaps, where he could easily get a train to Washington. How easy if only he were not held by some invisible hands to care for the sweet sleeper inside the car! And yet, for her sake as well as his own, he must do something, and that right speedily.
He was standing thus in deep meditation, looking off at the little village which seemed so near and yet would be so far for her to walk, when he was pervaded with that strange sense of some one near. For an instant he resisted the desire to lift his eyes and prove to himself that no one was present in adoorway which a moment before he knew had been unoccupied. Then, frowning at his own nervousness, he turned.
She stood there in all the beauty of her fresh young girlhood, a delicate pallor on her cheeks, and a deep sadness in her great dark eyes, which were fixed upon him intently, in a sort of puzzled study. She was fully dressed, even to her hat and gloves. Every wave of her golden hair lay exquisitely in place under the purple hat, as though she might have taken an hour or two at her toilet; yet she had made it with excited haste, and with trembling fingers, determined to have it accomplished before the return of her dreaded liege lord.
She had sprung from her berth the instant he closed the door upon her, and fastened the little catch to bar him out. She had dashed cold water into her face, fastened her garments hurriedly, and tossed the glory of her hair into place with a few touches and what hairpins she could find on the floor. Then putting on her hat, coat, and gloves, she had followed him into the outer air. She had a feeling that she must have air to breathe or she would suffocate. A wild desire filled her to go alone into the great out-of-doors. Oh, if she but dared to run away from him! But that she might not do, for all his threats would then probably be made goodby him upon her dear mother and brother. No, she must be patient and bear to the end all that was set down for her. But she would get out and breathe a little before he returned. He had very likely gone into the smoker. She remembered that the George of old had been an inveterate smoker of cigarettes. She would have time for a taste of the morning while he had his smoke. And if he returned and found her gone what mattered it? The inevitable beginning of conversations which she so dreaded would be put off for a time.
She never thought to come upon him standing thus alone, looking off at the beauty of the morning as if he enjoyed it. The sight of him held her still, watching, as his sleeping face had held her gaze earlier in the morning. How different he was from what she had expected! How the ten years had changed him! One could almost fancy it might have changed his spirit also—but for those letters—those terrible letters! The writer of those letters could not change, except for the worse! And yet, he was handsome, intellectual looking, kindly in his bearing, appreciative of the beauty about him—she could not deny it. It was most astonishing. He had lost that baggy look under his eyes, and the weak, selfish, cruel pout of lip she remembered so keenly.
Then he turned, and a smile of delight and welcome lit up his face. In spite of herself, she could not keep an answering smile from glimmering faintly in her own.
“What! You up and out here?” he said, hastening closer to the step. “How are you feeling this morning? Better, I’m sure, or you would not be here so early.”
“Oh, I had to get out to the air,” she said. “I couldn’t stand the car another minute. I wish we could walk the rest of the way.”
“Do you?” he said, with a quick, surprised appreciation in his voice. “I was just wishing something like that myself. Do you see that beautiful straight road down there? I was longing to slide down this bank and walk over to that little village for breakfast. Then we could get an auto, perhaps, or a carriage, to take us on to another train. If you hadn’t been so ill last night, I might have proposed it.”
“Could we?” she asked, earnestly. “I should like it so much;” and there was eagerness in her voice. “What a lovely morning!” Her eyes were wistful, like the eyes of those who weep and wonder why they may not laugh, since sunshine is still yellow.
“Of course we could,” he said, “if you were only able.”
“Oh, I’m able enough. I should much rather do that than to go back into that stuffy car. But wouldn’t they think it awfully queer of us to run away from the train this way?”
“They needn’t know anything about it,” he declared, like a boy about to play truant. “I’ll slip back in the car and get our suit-cases. Is there anything of yours I might be in danger of leaving behind?”
“No, I put everything in my suit-case before I came out,” she said, listlessly, as though she had already lost her desire to go.
“I’m afraid you are not able,” he said, pausing solicitously as he scaled the steps.
She was surprised at his interest in her welfare.
“Why, of course I am,” she said, insistently. “I have often taken longer walks than that looks to be, and I shall feel much better for being out. I really feel as if I couldn’t stand it any longer in there.”
“Good! Then, we’ll try it!”
He hurried in for the baggage and left her standing on the cinder roadbed beside the train looking off at the opening morning.