Part 48 (2/2)
”Yes, and then, and then?” he prompted her, eagerly.
”Well, and then you get into a phaeton. Oh, I don't suppose you have ever seen a phaeton!”
”Yes, I have,” he contradicted her. ”I've driven my grandfather miles in one when I was a little boy.”
”Oh, you _know_, then, about this sort of--you have perhaps lived in a place like Ashley?” She was as eager as though it had been a question of finding that they were of the same family.
”I spent all my summers in West Adams, not so very far from Vermont.”
”Ah then, you can understand what I tell you!” she said with satisfaction. ”And in the phaeton you jog through the village, past the church, under the elms, with the white houses each under its thick green trees, and such green, green gra.s.s everywhere--not like Italy, all brown and parched; and then down the road till the turn-off for Crittenden's. For, you see, I also go to Crittenden's. My Cousin Hetty's home is one of the three or four houses that stand around your great-uncle's house and mill. And so up the road to Crittenden's between the mountains closer and higher, up into the quiet valley.” Her voice deepened on the last words, and so did her eyes. She was silent a moment, looking out unseeingly on the tropical palms and bright, huge flowers of the Pincian Gardens through which they were now walking.
”Eh bien, since it's you who are going home, you drive on a little farther than my Cousin Hetty's house, until up before you slopes a lovely meadow, smooth, bright, s.h.i.+ning green, like the enamel green field in the Limbo where Dante puts Electra and Hector and Caesar. At the top of the slope, a long line of splendid, splendid elms, like this, you know ...” with her two hands and a free, upward gesture of her arms, she showed the airy opening-out of the winegla.s.s elms, ”and back of them a long old house, ever so long, because everything is fastened along together, house, porch, woodshed, hay-barn, carriage-shed, horse-barn.”
She laughed at the recollection, turning to him. ”You've seen those long New England farm-homes? I remember a city man said once that you could see the head of the lady of the house leaning from one window and the head of a cow from another. He thought that the most crus.h.i.+ng thing that could be said, but _I_ think those homes perfectly delightful, homely, with a _cachet_ of their own, not copied from houses in other countries.
And really, you know,” she turned serious, thinking suddenly that perhaps he needed rea.s.surance, ”really, it's just as _clean_ as any other way of living. You're just as far away from the animals as with any other barn, because you have so much woodshed and hay-barn and things between you.”
To see her face with that quite new, housekeeping, matter-of-fact, practical look gave him the most absurd and illogical amus.e.m.e.nt. He laughed outright. ”Oh, don't think for a moment that I would object,” he cried gaily. ”I'm not a bit fastidious. I wouldn't care _how_ near the cows were--if they were nice cows!”
She thought for an instant he might be laughing at her, and peered keenly into his face, a more openly observing look than she had as yet given him. What she saw evidently rea.s.sured her, for she went on with a lighter tone, ”Truly it has its own sort of architectural beauty. It doesn't have a bit of the packing-box, brought-in-and-dumped-down look that most dwelling-houses have, no matter how they're planned. It seems to have grown that way. The long, low old farm-house, weathered so beautifully, it looks like an outcrop of the very earth itself, like a ridge or rock or a fold in a field.”
It was about at this time that Neale began to lose the capacity of listening to what she was saying. With the best will in the world he could not keep his mind on it. He found that he felt a giddy, dazzled uncertainty of where he was putting his feet and tried to pull himself together. He must really notice a little more what he was about. Her quick, rising and falling, articulate speech, her quick, flas.h.i.+ng changes of expression, the play of her flexible hands and shoulders--no, how could he listen to what she was saying?
But she was asking him a question now. She was saying, ”You're not really going to _sell_ all that, to just _any_body?”
”But really,” he answered, helplessly honest, ”it sounds wonderful as you tell it, but what could _I_ do with it? I couldn't very well go to _live_ in Ashley, Vermont, could I?”
”Why not?” she asked. ”A good many people have.”
”Well! But ...” he began, incapable of forming any answer, incapable of thinking of anything but the dark softness of her gaze on him. What was it they were talking about? Oh, yes, about selling out at Ashley. ”Oh, but I have other plans. I am just about to go to China.”
”_China!_ Why to China?”
Neale lost his head entirely ... ”notice more what he was about?” He had not the least idea what he was about. He said to her rather wildly, ”I hardly know myself why I am going to China. I'd like, if you will let me--I'd like ever so much to tell you--about it. And see what you think. You know about Ashley, don't you see?” He was aware that the last of what he had said had no shadow of connection with the first, but that seemed of no importance whatever to him.
They were standing now near a low wall, under some thick dark ilex trees, a fountain dripping musically before them. Mechanically they sat down, looking earnestly at each other. ”You see,” began Neale, ”I'm trying to find my way. I was in business in the States, and getting along all right ... 'getting on,' I mean, as they say. And then I got to wondering. It seemed as though, as though ... I wasn't sure it was what I wanted to do with my life, just to buy low and sell high, all my life long. Perhaps there was more to it than I could make out. It certainly seemed to suit a lot of folks, fine. But I couldn't seem to see it. I was all right. Nothing the matter. Only I couldn't ... why, I tell you, I felt like a perfectly good torch that wouldn't catch on fire. I couldn't seem to _care_ enough about it to make it worth while to really tear in and do it. And I thought maybe if I got off a little way from it ... sometimes you do see the sense of things better that way. So I went away. I took a year off. I'd saved a little money, enough for that.
And I've been trying to figure something out. Of course I've been enjoying the traveling around, too. Perhaps that's the real reason why I want to go to China, just to keep going, see new things, get away, keep free. But I think about the other a good deal ... what can I do with my life ... that's sort of _worth while_, you know, if only in a very small way. I'm a very ordinary man, no gifts, no talents, but I have lots of energy and health. It seems as though there ought to be _some_thing ...
doesn't it?”
He had stumbled on, breathlessly, involuntarily, hardly aware that he was speaking at all, aware only that she was listening. With her head bent, her eyes fixed on the ground, the pure pale olive of her face like a pearl in the shadow of her hat, she was listening intently. He knew, as he had never known anything else, that she was listening to what he really meant, not to what he was saying in those poor, plain, broken words.
And yet, how could he go on?
The sudden plunge he had made, deep into an element new to him, the utter strangeness of his having thus spoken out what he had before but shyly glanced at, the awfulness of having opened his heart to the day, his shut, shut heart.... Good G.o.d, what was he doing?
At his silence, she raised her face towards him. To his amazement her eyes were s.h.i.+ning wet with tears. And yet there was no sadness in her face. She was smiling at him, a wavering, misty smile.
She stood up, made a little, flexible, eloquent gesture with her hands and arms and shoulders, as if to explain to him that she could not trust herself to speak, and, still smiling at him, the tears still in her eyes, walked rapidly away.
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