Part 20 (1/2)
I am so sorry to have Miss Lavinia go, even a few hundred yards down the road, it has seemed so good to have an older woman in the house to whom I can say, ”Would you, or wouldn't you?” Martin is also quite upset, and has stopped writing and begun fumbling and pulling the reference books about again; but Miss Lavinia says that she is not going to give up the afternoon reading, for she thinks the history is a work of importance not to be slighted, and that Sylvia will doubtless take up her own reading and practising after a time; that while she herself has willingly consented to chaperon her, she does not intend to give up her own freedom, nor would it be good for Sylvia if she did.
Yesterday morning Miss Lavinia received a letter from Sylvester Latham, thanking her for the offer of temporary protection for his daughter, and telling her, in curt business terms, meant to be affable, to name her own price for the office.
I have never before seen the ladylike Lavinia Dorman so completely and ungovernably angry. I could do nothing with her, and last evening it took the united efforts of Martin, father, and Evan to convince her that it was not a real affront. Poor Mr. Latham, he has not yet gotten beyond money valuation of friends.h.i.+p; but then it is probably because he has had no chance. Perhaps--but no, life is too serious just now in that quarter for me to allow myself remotely pleasant perhapses.
Miss Lavinia was too agitated to play piquet to-night, so she and Martin sat in the porch where the light from the hall lamp was sufficient to enable them to play a couple of games of backgammon, to steady her nerves, she said; and presently, as the dice ceased rattling, Evan gave me a nudge of intelligence, and looking over I found that they had reversed the board and were playing ”Give away” with checkers.
”After this, what?” I whispered to Evan.
”Jackstraws,” he answered, shaking with silent laughter.
Horace Bradford turned his mind for the next few days to the many things about the place that needed his attention, resolving that he would let a week or so elapse before making any further attempt to see Sylvia, and in that time hoped to find Miss Lavinia at home, and from her possibly receive some light upon the gossip about Mr. Bell, as well as news of Sylvia herself.
The sinking-fund for repairs and rebuilding the house that he and his mother had been acc.u.mulating ever since he had made his own way, he found to be in a healthy condition. A new hay barn and poultry house was to be put up at once; and, as soon as practicable, his wish of many years, to restore the brick house, that had been marred by ”lean-tos” in the wrong places, to its colonial simplicity, could be at least begun.
Every day until two or three o'clock in the afternoon he gave to these affairs, and then he went to his books. But here again he met with a strange surprise, a new sensation,--he could neither fix his mind upon writing, nor take in what he read; the letters were as meaningless as fly specks on the pages. After a day or two he gave up the attempt. He had worked too closely during the last term, he thought; his sight did not register on his brain,--he had heard of such cases; he would rest a week or so.
Then every afternoon he walked over the Ridge to the little river in the valley, carrying a book in his pocket, and his fis.h.i.+ng-rod as a sort of excuse, and poling an old flatboat down-stream to a shady spot under the trees, propped his rod in place, where by a miracle he occasionally caught a perch or ba.s.s, sat looking idly into the water, the brim of an old felt hat turned down about his eyes. One day, near the week's end, as he was lounging thus, his eye was attracted by a headline in a bit of newspaper in which he had wrapped his bait box to save his pocket. It was a semi-local paper from town, one that his mother took, but which they seldom either of them read, and the date was three days back. He turned it over idly, pausing as he did so to pull up the line which was being jerked violently, but only by a mud eel. Why did he return again to the sc.r.a.p of paper when he had freed his hook? His eyes caught strange words, and his hands began to tremble as he read. It was the condensed report of the Latham divorce that was now going the rounds of the journals.
He paused a moment, then folded the paper, put it in his pocket, poled the boat with vigorous strokes to the landing-place, and strode through the woods and across the cornfields homeward, his heart beating tumultuously until he seemed almost to be struggling with suffocation.
He stopped at the barn and harnessed a horse to the old buggy, pa.s.sing by the new one that he had recently ordered from town, and then went into the house, where, taking off his slouchy fis.h.i.+ng clothes, he put on the same ceremonious afternoon wear that he would have worn at Northbridge if going to call, put Sylvia's handkerchief in his inner pocket, and went in search of his mother.
He found her in the kitchen, tying the covers upon countless jars of currant jam. She looked surprised to see him back at such an hour, but said nothing, as Esther Nichols was close by, employed in wiping off the jars.
”I'm going over to Oaklands for a drive,” he said, handing her the sc.r.a.p of newspaper with a gesture that meant silence.
”Shall I wait supper for you, or will you be late?” she said, touching his hand with a gesture almost of entreaty.
”I may be late, but--yes, you may wait supper,” he replied, looking back at her in going out, as if he wanted to carry the picture well forward in his mind, against any forgetfulness.
The miles between Pine Ridge and the Bluffs seemed endless. He had at first intended to go to Oaklands village to see Miss Lavinia and gather such tidings as he could of the calamity that had overtaken Sylvia; for he never for a moment questioned but that the girl, who had been entirely straightforward, even in days of college pranks, should so regard the matter. But as he drove along, and the very fact that he was moving toward a definite end calmed him and clarified his judgment, he resolved to go directly to Sylvia herself. He would certainly do this if he had seen the announcement of her parents' deaths; then why not now, when their love that gave her birth was officially and publicly declared extinct?
He drove through the wide gateway and left his horse standing by a stone pillar outside the porte-cochere,--the beast would stand anywhere if there was a bar or post for him to look at,--and walked up the steps with the air of one who is not to be gainsaid.
”Not at home,” replied the singsong voice of Perkins, in answer to Bradford's demand for Miss Latham, Potts and Parker having already gone to open the Newport house for the renter, as a staff of servants was let with it, and then he added, as if conferring a favour, ”and Mrs. Latham has gone on the coach to the station to meet some guests, the last 'ouse party before she sails.”
”Before she sails,” thought Bradford, numbly. Sylvia was going? Could he believe the man? Should he go through the formality of leaving a card that she might not get? No, he would go home and write a letter.
Sylvia kept the house until late in the afternoon, these days. Then she slipped out by the servants' stairway, and through the garden, to walk in the wood lane that ran northward, joining the two parallel highroads; for her healthy body needed air, and she knew that if she did not have it, she could not control herself to keep peaceful silence for even the few days that remained. So it chanced this afternoon that she was walking to and fro in the quiet lane where the ferns crept down quite to the gra.s.sy wheel tracks, when Perkins said those repellent words, ”Not at home.”
As Bradford turned out the gate and noticed that the sun was already setting, he thought to save time by cutting through the almost unused lane to the turnpike that led directly to Pine Ridge. He had driven but halfway across, when a flutter of light garments a little way ahead attracted him. Could it be? Yes, it was Sylvia, in truth, and at the moment that he recognized her and sprang to the ground she heard the approaching hoofs and turned. For a full minute neither spoke nor moved, then going quickly to her and stretching out both hands, he said, his heart breaking through his voice, ”I have been to see you. I did not know until to-day.”
She gave her hands, and in another moment his strong arms held her fast and unresisting--the purifying friends.h.i.+p of those unconscious years crystallized and perfected at love's first touch.
They said but very little as they walked up and down the lane together, for half an hour; but as the shadows lengthened, the thought came equally to both--”What should they do next? How could they part, and yet how stay together?” Horace, with man's barbarian directness, would have liked to bear her home to safety and his mother; but the shadow of usage and her mother stood between, for in spite of the hollow mockery of it all, Sylvia was still of her household.