Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “But nature never does things by halves,” said Ford. “Where she makes a sopping meadow, she puts plenty of stones to step on; and where you are doubtful of your footing, she puts me to lend you a helping hand.” He extended his hand to her as he spoke, and drew her lightly to the sloping bowlder on which he stood, and on which she must cling to him for support.

  “Oh, I could get on well enough alone,” she said, laughing nervously.

  “You can get on better with help.”

  “Yes.” —

  She followed him, springing from stone to stone, staying herself now by his hand and now by his arm, till they reached the hard, dry top, where the tangled low blackberry vines overran the bowlder heads thickly crusted with lichens.

  “I didn’t suppose it was so bad,” she said, shaking out her skirts.

  “I don’t think it so very bad,” he returned. “It wasn’t a great way across.”

  “No. There are some chestnuts. It must be too soon for them.”

  “Let us see,” said Ford. He advanced leisurely, and with a club knocked off some burs. Returning with them to the rock, where she had stood watching him, he hammered the nuts from their cells. They were scarcely in the milk yet. “These trees are too old,” he said. “The nuts ripen first on the young trees that stand apart in the meadows. There are some in the rye-field just beyond these pine woods, here,” he said, pointing to the growth on their left.

  “That would be too far,” she answered, following his gesture with a glance. “We had better go back.”

  “We can go back that way. It’s good walking.” She did not answer, but he led on again, and she followed. “How still and warm it is!” she cried, with a luxurious surrender to the charm of the place. The slanting sun struck through the slender boles of the trees, and burnished the golden needles under their feet. There was no sound of life save their steps, and their voices, which took a lower key; the air was rich with the balsam of the trees. She deeply inhaled it. “Yes, yes,” she murmured. “It all comes back. I was afraid,” she said, in answer to the look with which he turned upon her, “that I had lost the feeling which I had when I first got well. But I haven’t.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know if I can tell. Something as if I belonged in such places — as if they missed me when I came away — I don’t know. It was something very silly” — She stopped.

  “Don’t grieve the woodland by hurrying through it, then,” said Ford, with a playfulness which, now that he indulged it, seemed natural to him. “Wait a moment. This rock is a new feature, — I don’t remember this.” A vast bowlder rose at the side of their path, and he walked round it and clambered to the top, from which he bent over to speak to her again. “Would you like to come up? It’s quite easy on this side.”

  “What can you see?”

  “Nearly the whole earth.”

  She found the opposite side of the rock a slope, broken by some natural steps. He came halfway down, and, reaching her his hand, pulled her strongly up.

  The top was scantly wide enough for them both; and while he stood she sat at his feet and looked out at the landscape which a break in the woods revealed at that height. It was the valley in which the village and farms of the Shakers lay; but it stretched wider than they had ever seen it, and on the other side, beyond the river, the hills rose steeper. The red sunset bathed it in a misty light, through which shone the scarlet of the maples, the gold of the elms by the river, the tender crimson of the young growths in the swamp lands. On the hill-side some of the farm windows had caught the sun, and blazed and flickered with mimic fire. Along a lower slope ran a silent train, marking its course with puffs of white steam.

  “I can confess, now,” said Ford, “that if I hadn’t climbed this rock I shouldn’t have known just where we were. But here are all the landmarks.” He pointed to the familiar barns and family houses below.

  “How near we are!” she cried, looking down. “I felt as if we were miles away. These woods are not large enough to get lost in, are they?”

  “Not now. They were, a minute ago.” He sat down beside her, and they looked at the landscape together. “It’s rather sightly, as Joseph says.”

  “We had better go down,” she murmured. But neither of them made a movement to go. They sat looking at the valley. “Now the fire has caught the windows higher up,” she said. They watched the glittering panes as they darkened and kindled. The windows of the highest farm-house flashed intensely, and then slowly blackened. A light blue haze hovered over the valley.

  “The curtain is down,” said Ford.

  She started to her feet, and looked round. “Why, the sun has set!”

  “Didn’t you know that?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, sadly. “It seemed as if it would last longer. But nothing lasts.”

  “No, nothing lasts,” he repeated. “But generally things last long enough. I could have stood another hour or two of sunset, however. And sometimes I’ve known days that I would have been willing to have last forever, if I could have had out my eternity in this world.”

  “Is that — is that the way you feel, too?” she asked, turning swiftly upon him that strange, searching glance.

  “Why, not always. What is the matter?”

  “Nothing — nothing. Let us go down.” She took his hand, and clung to it, in descending, as if eager to escape to him from some fear of him.

  They went on in the direction they had first taken. She walked at his side, and when his pace fell to a slow saunter she did not attempt to hasten it. A red squirrel took shape and motion out of the russet needles, and raced up one of the pines, whose feathery tops he bent in his long leaps from tree to tree; a partridge suddenly whirred up from the path before them; the life was like shadow, the shadow was like life, as the twilight thickened round them. “Are you tired?” he asked. “Am I making you walk too far?”

  “I am not tired,” she answered, but stopping as he stopped.

  “I am. I’m out of breath,” he said. “Do you know this place?”

  She glanced round. “I believe I should know it if I were here alone. It looks familiar. It looks like the place where Laban found us that morning when we were trying to walk to Vardley Station. The brook ought to be running along in the hollow, here. Once he asked me if I knew the place; but I didn’t. Do you think it’s the place?”

  “How should I know? You never told me of it before.”

  “Then the fever must have begun,” she mused aloud. “I thought — I must have thought you — were there! I oughtn’t” —

  “Oh,” laughed Ford, “we put people in all sorts of places in dreams, feverish or otherwise. But I think the place you mean is lower down. I was in hopes you knew better where we were. I don’t know.”

  Egeria laughed also. “Then we are lost!”

  “Yes. Are you frightened?”

  “I should hate to be lost here alone.”

  “I shall go presently and look up our whereabouts. Shall I go now?”

  “If we keep walking we shall get through the woods in a few minutes. Which way are your chestnuts?”

  “I don’t know that, now, either. Do you care to look them up?”

  “No. I thought you wanted them.”

  “I think it’s better to stay here. No,” he added, capriciously, “it’s better to go home.”

  “Well,” she responded with the same trusting content in which she had let all his impulses sway her.

  A thrill, very wild and sweet, played through his nerves. “I — !” — he began; then suddenly, “Wait here!” he cried, and ran down to the brow of the bill along which the woodland stretched. “It’s all right!” he called back, and he turned to retrace his steps. But she was no longer where he had left her. He disliked to call out to her; they were very near the house in which he lodged, and he did not wish to make an alarm. He pushed hither and thither through the gathering dusk, but he could not find her; and he blamed himself for having brought her into t
his embarrassment. He had once seen tramps in those woods; and now it would be almost dark when they reached home. All at once he came upon her at the foot of a tree, against which she quietly leaned. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, impatiently. “Why did you go away?” He thought he had spoken harshly; but she only seemed amused.

  “I haven’t moved. This is where you left me.”

  They both laughed at that. “I have been running everywhere, round and round, as lost people do in the Adirondacks, when they are going to write about it afterwards. It’s absurd to be lost here. It’s like being drowned in a saucer. Were you afraid?”

  “No. What should I be afraid of?”

  “Certainly not bears, — till I came up. Will you take my arm? I mustn’t lose you again. Will they be uneasy about you?”

  “Oh, they will know that I went away with you, and some of them will see us coming back together.”

  “Yes,” said the young man.

  “Besides, I can tell them that we missed the way.”

  “I’m afraid if you do that they won’t let you come with me again.”

  “I’m afraid they won’t believe me if I tell them where we got lost,” she said. When they came to open ground, it was much lighter. “It isn’t so late as I thought.”

  “No,” he answered; “we were actually lost in that boundless forest by daylight. But it isn’t so remarkable in my case as it is in yours, Miss Boynton. I don’t know what mysterious influence you are going to say bewildered you.”

  “Influence?” she repeated, with a start.

  “What is the matter?” he asked.

  “Nothing!” She withdrew her hand from his arm.

  He looked round, and saw that they had reached the great stone bowl of the wayside fountain. A sense of hideous anomaly possessed him. “Did I become intolerable just here?” he demanded, bitterly. “Why do you endure me? You and your father ought to hate me. I have done you nothing but harm. Why do you ever speak to me? I ought to be abominable to you!”

  “I don’t know,” she answered vaguely. “Do you think it is” —

  He laughed harshly. “Inexplicable! You don’t forget anything?”

  “No,” she reluctantly admitted. “I don’t forget.”

  “I can understand your father’s position. He suffers me upon some theory of his. But you, — you are a woman, and women don’t forgive very easily. Come, Miss Boynton,” he cried, mixing his self-banter with his pain, “confess that I am some malignant enchanter, and that I have the power of casting an ugly spell over you, that deprives you of the wholesome satisfaction of telling me that I’m detestable.”

  “A spell,” she began; but her voice died weakly away, and she stood looking into his face with puzzled entreaty.

  “If you would tell me once for all that I am the greatest ruffian in the world, with neither pity nor decency, it might break the charm, and then I could go away to-morrow morning. I’ve been waiting for that. Will you try?”

  “I can’t say that,” she murmured.

  “But you believe it?”

  “No” —

  “That’s part of the sorcery. You must have often tried to believe it.”

  She was silent, and he felt that her silence was full of distress. She turned away with a sort of helplessness; he followed her, trying to retrieve himself. But he could not find anything to say, and they scarcely spoke as they walked back through the village. At the gate of the office her parting with him was almost a flight.

  XXII.

  The next day Ford came, and found Egeria on the threshold, where she often met him. At first glance he thought he read in her face something like an impulse to run from him; but she quelled the impulse, if she had it, and greeted him with a resolute coldness, which he would not recognize. He had a broad yellow hickory leaf in one hand, and on this lay a little heap of blackberries; they were long and narrow like mulberries, and they had hung on the canes, hoarding the last sweetness of the year. “Perhaps your father will like these,” he said; and he told her of the hollow beside the road in which he had found them. “They’ve got all that was left of the summer in them,” he added. “Will you have them?”

  “I don’t believe they would be good for him,” she began stiffly.

  Ford tossed them away. “How is the doctor to-day?” he asked.

  “He’s better. Will you come in?”

  “No, thank you. I am going to the post-office. Good-by.”

  “Good-by,” she said, and they exchanged a look of mutual dismay, which hardened into pride before their eyes dropped.

  At the post-office Ford found a letter for Egeria, and carried it to Humphrey, who put it away in his desk, and said he would give it to her when she came in.

  “It don’t seem the same handwritin’ as the other. I don’t know,” he said, shutting his desklid, “as you heard that they got a letter this mornin’ from a lawyer down t’ their place. As I understood from Frances, — Egery read it to her, —— the gran’father’s left Egery what prop’ty there was. The’ wa’n’t no great, I guess.”

  The fact jarred upon Ford. Against all sense he connected it with her changed manner, for which, till then, he had found reason enough in the terms of their parting the day before. This legacy seemed the world thrusting in between them; it was as if it crossed some purpose, broke some hope, of his. He stopped mechanically, on his way home, in the hollow of the roadside where he had found the blackberries, and looked idly at the canes. Presently he saw that there were no berries left on them. He was turning away, when a sound like suppressed laughter caught his ear. There was a rustle in a thicket near, and Egeria and one of the youngest Shakeresses came out.

  “We have got them all,” said the former; she blushed appealingly, while the latter still giggled. “I didn’t suppose you would come again. When we saw you looking so, Susan couldn’t help laughing.” Ford reddened with embarrassment. “It seems greedy to take them. I didn’t suppose — I never thought of your wanting them. Will you — will you — take some?” She offered him her basket.

  “Thanks,” he said, awkwardly refusing, “I don’t care for them. I’m glad you’ve found them.”

  He turned and walked off, leaving her where she stood, with her basket still extended towards him. She watched him out of sight, and then made a few paces after him. On a sudden she dropped her basket, and sinking down hid her face on her knees. The Shakeress picked up the basket and the berries which were jostled out of it, and stood passively near, looking at Egeria for what seemed a long time.

  There came a sound of wheels. “Is that you, Susan?” called Elihu from the road.

  “Yee,” promptly answered the Shakeress.

  Egeria sprang to her feet, and seized the basket from her. “Come! come!” she whispered, and fled farther into the woods.

  But the girl did not follow her. She went out into the road, where Elihu sat in his buggy, and stood demurely waiting his question.

  “Was that Egeria?”

  “Yee.”

  “Why did she run away?”

  “She was crying.”

  “What made her cry?”

  The girl was silent.

  “What made her cry?” repeated Elihu.

  “She had got all the berries, when Friend Ford came, and he seemed kind of put out.”

  “Get in with me,” said Elihu. “You should not be here alone.”

  In the evening Elihu went to the office, and joined the office sisters in their sitting-room. One of them took his hat and cane, and the other pulled a rocking-chair towards the air-tight stove, in which a new fire was softly roaring.

  “The evenings begin to be chilly, now,” he said.

  “Yee,” answered Rebecca, “the days are shortening. Did you find the folks all well at Harshire?”

  “Yee,” he said; and then he sat rocking himself absently and somewhat sadly to and fro, while the sisters, with their hands in their laps, passively waited for him to speak farther. Humphrey, hearing his vo
ice, came in from his room, and Laban followed. Sister Frances, with her pale cheeks a little brightened by her walk across from the infirmary, entered the other door. Elihu lifted his voice. “But I didn’t find all the folks here so well.”

  “Why, what do you mean, Elihu?” cried Diantha. “Is anybody sick with you?”

  “Is Friend Boynton worse?” Humphrey asked, turning his head up towards Frances, who was still on foot, while he was seated.

  “Nay,” answered Frances, fluttered with anxiety and curiosity; “he is uncommon bright and well, to-night.”

  “It is no sickness of the body that I mean, and yet it is a disease of this life only. I hardly know how to say what I suspect, — or rather feel sure of.” His listeners did not interrupt him, but waited in resignation for his next word. He looked round at their faces. “Egeria is getting foolish about Friend Ford.”

  “For shame, Elihu!” exclaimed Frances, with an indignant impulse. The rest stirred uneasily in their chairs, but did not speak.

  Elihu looked kindly at Frances, but he did not address her directly in adding, “As I was coming home this afternoon, I met Friend Ford down at the turn of the road, looking strange and excited. He didn’t seem to see me, and he went on without speaking. I thought I saw Susan among the bushes, and I called to her.”

  “I sent her!” Frances broke in. “I sent her in my place, because I couldn’t leave Friend Boynton and Egery wanted to go and get some late blackberries for him that Friend Edward had told her about.” Frances, by right of her special tenderness for the Boyntons, always spoke of Ford by his first name.

  “Yee,” replied Elihu gently, “so Susan told me, — she is a good child. She told me that Friend Ford had found them there, and because he had seemed vexed Egeria had shed tears.”

  “It was because they had got all the berries, and she thought it would look selfish and greedy to him,” Frances interposed a second time.

  “Yee,” Elihu again consented, “so Susan told me. It is not the only time that I feared she had got to feeling foolish about him.”