After Many Years

by Carolyn Strom Collins

  At three o’clock it had seemed preposterous to dream of marrying an Edgelow heiress and senile to fall in love with her. He had laughed at himself and now he felt very wise and prudent. She was his ideal, but between them her wealth and his poverty stood like grim, unconquerable ogres. The feud counted for nothing in his eyes, but one couldn’t marry on an income that served only, in its most flexible moments, to keep life in one. There was nothing like looking facts squarely in the face and accepting their logic. He couldn’t afford to fall in love with Dorcas Edgelow—but her name must be Sylvia!—and therefore he would not do it. She must remain for him only an exquisite might-have-been.

  She could be only his dream girl.

  Meanwhile life was good. It was worth while having been ill to realize the tang and savor of returning health again on a morning like this when a sea wind was blowing up over the long green fields.

  “There’s nothing on earth like a sea wind,” said Romney, filling his lungs with it, snuffing rapturously at it. “What a tang, what a zip, what a message from vast, interminable spaces of freedom! What a magic of adventure! I feel as if I’d exchanged my shopworn soul for a fresh one, fire-new from the workshop of the gods. ‘Who is Sylvia—what is she,’ compared to this incomparable morning, wind and sea? ‘I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul!’ Sylvia shan’t rock my canoe!”

  He whistled gayly and strode on. Everything was good. He felt like a boy again. The rice lilies were as thick as ever in the shore fields and the margin of the pond as pink with water witches. Beyond, in the dunes, was a wild, sweet loveliness of salt-withered grasses and piping breezes. Far out, the sea was dotted with sails that were silver in the magic of morning sunlight.

  He would have a glorious dip, a glorious wallow on sun-warm golden sands, then, after a glamorous walk home, one of Aunt Elizabeth’s delightful dinners, then an afternoon of hammock dreams in the garden. He would not even look across the hedge. For him Edgelow estates and heiresses had ceased to exist. He would not look at, speak to, nor think of Sylvia again.

  With this, he looked at her. He had reached the brink of the deep little “run” by which the pond waters ran out through a gap in the dunes to the sea. On the other side of it, barely five yards away, Sylvia was standing, her arms full of water witches, looking in dire perplexity at the water. Then she looked at him.

  For a moment or two—or an aeon or two, according to whatever measurement of time you prefer—they stood so and looked at each other. Romney, who had just sworn never to look at Sylvia again, fairly devoured her with his eyes. She wore green again and she looked like a long, slender, green flag lily with the exquisite blossom of her face a-top of it. Had there ever been such a pretty woman in the world before? Had any woman ever had such an exquisite line of neck and chin? What were all the renowned, unhappy Edgelow beauties compared to her? They were dead and gone, broken-hearted, but she was here in her exquisite flesh and blood, looking as if no sorrow ever had, or ever could have, touched her.

  “Good morning,” said Romney, who wanted to say, “Hail, goddess!”

  Miss Edgelow looked at him and smiled. Her smile was very faint and mysterious, like a half-opened rosebud. You felt that the full flower could not be quite so wonderful.

  “The plank is gone,” she said plaintively. “It was here when I crossed an hour ago.”

  Romney pointed to some men who were making marsh hay up along the pond.

  “Likely they have taken it.”

  “And how am I to get across?” she asked. “It’s so deep—and cold. I can’t wade it.”

  “No reason why you should,” said Romney. “I was sent here by the Powers That Govern for this moment. It was predestinated in the councils of eternity that I should be here at this precise moment to carry you across.”

  “Then I hope it is likewise predestinated that you won’t drop me! The water looks fearfully cold and black, and I’m sure there are horrible slimy things at the bottom.”

  Romney coolly stepped into the run, though he felt slightly dubious as to what bottom he might find. Sand and mud are a treacherous combination, and to wade in icy-cold water to your knees is an experiment for a man not too long over pneumonia. But what cared Romney? Luckily the bottom of the run, though oozy and squdgy, was no worse, and he got across without trouble. He was very near to her now. Seen close, she was not quite so beautiful but infinitely more charming. Her creamy skin was powdered with delicious little golden freckles. They made her less a goddess and more a woman.

  “You must let me carry you over,” said Romney. “I won’t drop you, and I won’t wet you…but,” he added internally, “I won’t swear that I shan’t kiss you before I set you down.”

  “I’m afraid it will be too much for you,” she said. “You’ve been ill, haven’t you? And you’re dripping wet with that cold water.”

  She must have been asking about him to know that he had been ill. James Edgelow would never have volunteered the information. Romney glowed from head to foot.

  “I’m all right. As for being wet, I came down to get wet.”

  “But not in your clothes. That,” she said practically, “is what makes it dangerous. Why didn’t you take off your shoes and socks and roll up your trousers?”

  “That would have kept you waiting.”

  “You are a very imprudent young man,” she said; then added, as if by way of afterthought, “I wouldn’t have minded being kept waiting.”

  What did she mean? Romney imagined several things she might mean. He stood, staring at her. What a delicious mouth she had! Her hair was like midnight under her wide green hat. But her nose was slightly irregular—well, let us say crooked. How nice! And her voice was a sweet, throaty, summery drawl. What a voice for love making! Romney stood there and imagined her making love in it.

  “Did I frighten you last night by my crazy hoot?” he asked.

  “O, no. I have been told that the Coopers are eccentric.”

  “You’ve been brought up on the feud, I suppose,” said Romney sulkily. “Well—are you going to let a vile, contemptible Cooper carry you over the run?”

  “Yes, but I won’t speak to him while he’s doing it,” said Miss Edgelow. She smiled again; it made Romney want to seize her in his arms and press kisses on the smile until he had found the heart of its mystery. This Edgelow girl had the smile of Mona Lisa, the everlasting lure and provocation that drives men mad and writes scarlet pages in dim historical records.

  He picked her up and waded through the run with her. He did not hurry. Every time he took a step he felt carefully about to make sure of his foot-hold. He did not go straight across, but anglewise, with no explanation offered. Finally, however, he had to make land. Then he set her down—reluctantly—without kissing her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I hope you won’t take cold for this.”

  “There are no such things as colds in the seventh heaven,” said Romney. He felt that it was an incredibly stupid thing to say. Why couldn’t he think of something clever? He could think of clever things easily when there was nobody to say them to. His magazine stories were noted for their sparkling dialogue. Yet now he could only be clumsy. His fiction heroes talked superbly to heroines of all sorts. They never made asses of themselves.

  Miss Edgelow ignored his feeble attempt properly.

  “You must go and take your saltwater dip directly,” she commanded. “And dry your clothes in the sun before you put them on. Be very particular about that.”

  “I am going to stand here,” said Romney, folding his arms, “and watch you out of sight. And to-night—what about to-night? Can I come over into the Edgelow garden and talk to you?”

  Miss Edgelow smiled.

  “The dead Edgelows would turn over in their graves.”

  “Excellent exercise for ’em,” commented Romney. “Be honest. I don’t believe you care a hoot for the
dead Edgelows and their feuds any more than I do.”

  “No, I don’t,” she said candidly. “But one living Edgelow is worse than all the dead ones. Last night my uncle commanded me never to speak to you, look at you, nor in any way become cognizant of your existence. He was…emphatic.”

  “Which means that he didn’t scruple to enforce his decree with some fine old Edgelow oaths. Do you intend to obey him?”

  “A man,” said Miss Edgelow reflectively, “is master in his own demesne. At least I cannot invite you into his garden. Neither, of course, can I go to yours.”

  “The Whispering Lane is debatable ground,” said Romney.

  “So I have heard,” said Miss Edgelow. Before she turned away she looked at him once from under her broad hat. Something in the look made Romney suddenly recall Cousin Clorinda’s pronouncement: “Either she liked it, or she is a born flirt.”

  Was she a flirt? That look—was it invitation, lure, provocation? It held more than mere friendliness, Romney knew. There was even a hint of defiance in it, though more, it seemed, of feuds and prohibitions than of him. He had a feeling that Sylvia—hang it, her name couldn’t be Dorcas—might come to walk in the Whispering Lane as much to “show old James Edgelow” as for any other reason.

  “I will be prudent,” said Romney to himself as she went away. “I shall remember the fatal hour of three o’clock. I shall not make myself miserable howling for the moon nor humiliate myself to furnish a summer holiday for a bored beauty. Only prudence is such a shoddy sort of virtue by times. One always feels ashamed of it. If I had been prudent I would not have waded through this icy run water and so would never have held that delicious armful for thirty seconds I would never have had that exquisite white hand resting on, clinging to, my shoulder. There was no engagement ring on it, by the way. Nevertheless, there are certain things I must remember henceforth.”

  Romney held up his left hand and checked them off on his fingers: “First, she is an Edgelow, therefore born to hate me; second, she is an heiress, therefore taboo; third, I am poor as a rat and likely to remain so, therefore out of the running; fourth, I think she is a bit of a coquette, therefore to be shunned; and fifth—” Romney paused for a moment. “And fifth, she is the sweetest, most adorable, most desirable thing that ever looked allurement at a man out of a pair of—of—of—heavens, I’ve forgotten after all to find out what colour her eyes were. Therefore, I am a besotted fool!”

  He caught up his impedimenta and hurried over the dunes to the beach. He would certainly be prudent henceforth. He would devote himself to Cousin Clorinda’s school-teacher by way of double prudence. He plunged into the surf thinking: “Her lashes are so long it’s no wonder I couldn’t rightly see her eyes. And her eyebrows are straight and dark. I’m sure of that, anyhow.”

  The lady referred to was not the school-teacher.

  At dinner that day, sitting in the cool, dim dining room of the Hill, looking out on the golden valley, Romney was not above trying to pump Aunt Elizabeth about her new neighbour, but he got nothing for his pains. Aunt Elizabeth knew nothing about her, and plainly did not want to know.

  She contrived to give Romney the impression that Edgelows did not really exist. They might imagine they did, but they were mere emanations of the Evil One, to be resolutely disbelieved in by any one of good principles and proper breeding. You did not speak of the devil in good society; neither did you speak of the Edgelows. This imagined girl might be an imagined Dorcas Edgelow or she might not. Aunt Elizabeth relegated the whole Edgelow clan, connection, and cash to limbo with one wave of her thin, unbeautiful Cooperian hand. Edgelows, indeed!

  Thus checkmated, Romney swore inwardly that he would never ask anyone about Miss Edgelow again—and a quarter of an hour later was asking Samuel about her. He simply couldn’t keep from talking to somebody about her.

  Samuel lived in a little house in a hollow on the side of Hill o’ the Winds. He was never called Sam. It simply could not be done. He was a handsome urchin of ten with an elfin beauty of face which Aunt Elizabeth considered clearly diabolic. Jet-black eyes, limpid with mischief, laughter, lawless roguery; brown curls, bare to the sunlight; cheeks rose-red beneath golden tan; a shirt, half a pair of suspenders, what was left of a pair of pants originally fashioned for a much older boy—that was Samuel. He generally had a snake, dead or living, concealed about him, and he had never heard of the Ten Commandments. By nature he was honest, but he never spoiled a good story by sticking too closely to the truth, and he was as thorough a young pagan as ever ran wild on the heath.

  Romney loved him.

  “Do you,” said Romney shamelessly, “happen to know who the enchanted princess is who walks occasionally in yonder fair pleasance beyond the cedar hedge?”

  “Meaning old Jim’s garden?” asked Samuel, transferring a vicious-looking little brown snake from his pants pocket to his shirt pocket. “’Zat what you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t know nothin’ of her. Watched her through the hedge last night. She’d be good looking if ’tweren’t for her freckles. Gee, but they’re thick!”

  Romney glared. Samuel winked at him impudently and, on second thought, restored the snake to the pants pocket.

  “How can you touch those horrible things?” said Romney, shuddering. He hated snakes.

  “This snake’s dead,” said Samuel contemptuously.

  “Then you have no information to give me concerning our mysterious stranger?”

  “Nope. I kin find out all about her though if you’re so set on it. What,” asked Samuel seriously, “what makes you like her so well?”

  Romney was flabbergasted. He thought he had been very cool and impersonal and detached in his questions, and here was this imp.

  “Samuel, my boy, you have a very vile habit of jumping at conclusions. Simply because I betray an entirely natural curiosity regarding a lady who is my next-door neighbour, why do you absurdly suppose that I have a deep personal interest in her?”

  “’Cause you don’t talk English when you ask questions about her,” rejoined Samuel, fishing up another snake, a very live one this time. “All them big words mean you’re bashful talking about her.”

  “Has she been here long?” asked Romney, reverting to English.

  “Never saw her ’round ’fore yesterday.” Samuel explored a third pocket with a disappointed expression. “There, he must ’a’ slipped through that hole! Just my durned luck! He was the finest snake of the bunch. Say, don’t worry. I’ll know all there’s to be known about her ’fore to-morrow night. But you oughtn’t to be hankering after her—one of that gang over there.”

  The Cooperest of all Coopers could not have expressed more contempt for “that gang” than Samuel, who had never heard of them a month previously. Samuel had an instinctive recognition of a foe to all boys in old Jim, and had adopted the feud as a convenient excuse for hostility.

  As for Romney, he was by now far from the three o’clock mood and he wanted so badly to talk of his dream lady that he must needs talk of her to Samuel, no fitter confidant offering.

  “I want you to find out that her name isn’t Dorcas.”

  “But it is,” said Samuel. “I heard old Jim shouting after her this morning, when she went to the shore: ‘Dorcas, you remember my dinner hour is twelve.’”

  “Well,” thought Romney, turning away in disgust, “I can think of her as Sylvia anyhow. And that is all that matters, since she is an Edgelow and an heiress and a coquette. Dorcas is not for me, but Sylvia has always been mine. Samuel,” he added aloud, “do you wish you were rich?”

  “Yep.”

  “What is the first thing you would do if you were rich?”

  “Buy Joe Perkins’ trotter,” said Samuel unhesitatingly.

  “And I, Samuel, if I were rich, would marry the young lady we’ve been speaking of.”

  “Would she hev y
ou?” asked Samuel.

  Chapter III

  Miss Edgelow was walking at sunset in the Whispering Lane. This land ran through the beech wood at the back of the Cooper and Edgelow estates. It had been a bone of contention for generations. Both families claimed it and both used it determinedly to prove their claim. For the past twenty years no particular fuss had been made over it. Miss Elizabeth walked through it on principle twice a year when she knew James Edgelow would see her; and James Edgelow always went to church that way, when he did go, though it was the longest way around.

  Samuel joined Miss Edgelow as she loitered along under the great, gray-boughed beeches. Perhaps Miss Edgelow had been expecting someone else; perhaps not. She did not betray any disappointment and she smiled at Samuel in a chummy fashion and proceeded to get acquainted with him.

  Miss Edgelow had, so it seemed, a “way” with boys. Samuel liked her but kept his head. After all, he was the retainer of a clan that was at feud with hers. When he found out that she was not afraid of snakes he respected her also, but for all that he had made up his mind that he was not going to have any “courting” between her and Romney.

  Samuel wanted Romney wholly for himself; he loved him and he wanted him for chum and playfellow. This would, Samuel knew with a deadly, instinctive certainty, be all spoiled if he began running after a “skirt.” Men were no good when they began running after skirts. Besides, this particular skirt was an Edgelow, and you couldn’t trust an Edgelow. She would likely as not make a fool of Romney. Sarah Dean, down at Clifton, had made a fool of Homer Gibson and Homer had hanged himself. Samuel was not going to have any hangings at Hill o’ the Winds. This Edgelow girl must have her claws clipped in time.

  Samuel had been thinking over the matter all day and knew just what he was going to do. Meanwhile he sat on the log and appeared so simple and charming and naïve that Miss Edgelow thought him a delightful child.