“They’d be ashamed, you mean?”
“Perhaps not. A man is likely enough to try. But alas! for us, if we’re silly enough to go. I tell you, Valerie, that their world is full of mothers and sisters and feminine relatives and friends who could no more endure us than they would permit us to endure them. It takes courage for a man to ask us to go into that world with him; it takes more for us to do it. And our courage is vain. We stand no chance. It means a rupture of all his relations; and a drifting — not into our world, not into his, but into a horrible midway void, peopled by derelicts…. I know, dear, believe me. And I say that to fall in love is no good, no use, for us. We’ve been spoiled for what we might once have found satisfactory. We are people without a class, you and I.”
Valerie laughed: “That gives us the more liberty, doesn’t it?”
“It’s up to us, dear. We are our own law, social and spiritual. If we live inside it we are not going to be any too happy. If we live without it — I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder whether some of the pretty girls you and I see at Rector’s—”
“I’ve wondered, too…. They look happy — some of them.”
“I suppose they are — for a while…. But the worst of it is that it never lasts.”
“I suppose not.” Valerie pondered, grave, velvet-eyed, idly twisting a grass stem.
“After all,” she said, “perhaps a brief happiness — with love — is worth the consequences.”
“Many women risk it…. I wonder how many men, if social conditions were reversed, would risk it? Not many, Valerie.”
They remained silent; Rita lay in the shadow of the maples, eyes closed;
Valerie plaited her grass stems with absent-minded industry.
“I never yet wished to marry a man,” she observed, presently.
Rita made no response.
“Because,” continued the girl with quaint precision, “I never yet wanted anything that was not offered freely; even friendship. I think — I don’t know — but I think — if any man offered me love — and I found that I could respond — I think that, if I took it, I’d be contented with love — and ask nothing further — wish nothing else — unless he wanted it, too.”
Rita opened her eyes.
Valerie, plaiting her grass very deftly, smiled to herself.
“I don’t know much about love, Rita; but I believe it is supreme contentment. And if it is — what is the use of asking for more than contents one?”
“It’s safer.”
“Oh — I know that…. I’ve read enough newspapers and novels and real literature to know that. Incidentally the Scriptures treat of it…. But, after all, love is love. You can’t make it more than it is by law and custom; you can’t make it less; you can’t summon it; you can’t dismiss it…. And I believe that I’d be inclined to take it, however offered, if it were really love.”
“That is unmoral, dear,” said Rita, smiling.
“I’m not unmoral, am I?”
“Well — your philosophy sounds Pagan.”
“Does it? Then, as you say, perhaps I’d better run if anything resembling love threatens me.”
“The nymphs ran — in Pagan times.”
“And the gods ran after them,” returned Valerie, laughing. “I’ve a very fine specimen of god as a friend, by the way — a Protean gentleman with three quick-change stunts. He’s a perfectly good god, too, but he never ran after me or tried to kiss me.”
“You don’t mean Querida, then.”
“No. He’s no god.”
“Demi-god.”
“Not even that,” said Valerie; “he’s a sentimental shepherd who likes to lie with his handsome head in a girl’s lap and make lazy eyes at her.”
“I know,” nodded Rita. “Look out for that shepherd.”
“Does he bite?”
“No; there’s the trouble. Anybody can pet him.”
Valerie laughed, turned over, and lay at length on her stomach in the grass, exploring the verdure for a four-leaf clover.
“I never yet found one,” she said, cheerfully. “But then I’ve never before seen much grass except in the Park.”
“Didn’t you ever go to the country?”
“No. Mother was a widow and bedridden. We had a tiny income; I have it now. But it wasn’t enough to take us to the country.”
“Didn’t you work?”
“I couldn’t leave mother. Besides, she wished to educate me.”
“Didn’t you go to school?”
“Only a few months. We had father’s books. We managed to buy a few more — or borrow them from the library. And that is how I was educated, Rita — in a room with a bedridden mother.”
“She must have been well educated.”
“I should think so. She was a college graduate…. When I was fifteen I took the examinations for Barnard — knowing, of course, that I couldn’t go — and passed in everything…. If mother could have spared me I could have had a scholarship.”
“That was hard luck, wasn’t it, dear?”
“N-no. I had mother — as long as she lived. After she died I had what she had given me — and she had the education of a cultivated woman; she was a lover of the best in literature and in art, a woman gently bred, familiar with sorrow and privation.”
“If you choose,” said Rita, “you are equipped for a governess — or a lady’s companion — or a secretary—”
“I suppose I am. Before I signed with Schindler I advertised, offering myself as a teacher. How many replies do you suppose I received?”
“How many?”
“Not one.”
Rita sighed. “I suppose you couldn’t afford to go on advertising.”
“No, and I couldn’t afford to wait…. Mother’s burial took all the little income. I was glad enough when Schindler signed me…. But a girl can’t remain long with Schindler.”
“I know.”
Valerie plucked a grass blade and bit it in two reflectively.
“It’s a funny sort of a world, isn’t it, Rita?”
“Very humorous — if you look at it that way.”
“Don’t you?”
“Not entirely.”
Valerie glanced up at the hammock.
“How did you happen to become a model, Rita?”
“I’m a clergyman’s daughter; what do you expect?” she said, with smiling bitterness.
“You!”
“From Massachusetts, dear…. The blue-light elders got on my nerves. I wanted to study music, too, with a view to opera.” She laughed unpleasantly.
“Was your home life unhappy, dear?”
“Does a girl leave happiness?”
“You didn’t run away, did you?”
“I did — straight to the metropolis as a moth to its candle.”
Valerie waited, then, timidly: “Did you care to tell me any more, dear?
I thought perhaps you might like me to ask you. It isn’t curiosity.”
“I know it isn’t — you blessed child! I’ll tell you — some day — perhaps…. Pull the rope and set me swinging, please…. Isn’t this sky delicious — glimpsed through the green leaves? Fancy you’re not knowing the happiness of the country! I’ve always known it. Perhaps the trouble was I had too much of it. My town was an ancient, respectable, revolutionary relic set in a very beautiful rolling country near the sea; but I suppose I caught the infection — the country rolled, the breakers rolled, and finally I rolled out of it all — over and over plump into Gotham! And I didn’t land on my feet, either…. You are correct, Valerie; there is something humorous about this world…. There’s one of the jokes, now!” as a native passed, hunched up on the dashboard, driving a horse and a heifer in double harness.
“Shall we go to the post office with him?” cried Valerie, jumping to her feet.
[Illustration: “Valerie sat cross-legged on the grass … scribbling away.”]
“Now, dear, what is the use of our going to the post office when nobody knows our address and we ne
ver could possibly expect a letter!”
“That is true,” said Valerie, pensively. “Rita, I’m beginning to think I’d like to have a letter. I believe — believe that I’ll write to — to somebody.”
“That is more than I’ll do,” yawned Rita, closing her eyes. She opened them presently and said:
“I’ve a nice little writing case in my trunk. Sam presented it. Bring it out here if you’re going to write.”
The next time she unclosed her eyes Valerie sat cross-legged on the grass by the hammock, the writing case on her lap, scribbling away as though she really enjoyed it.
The letter was to Neville. It ran on:
“Rita is asleep in a hammock; she’s too pretty for words. I love her.
Why? Because she loves me, silly!
“I’m a very responsive individual, Kelly, and a pat on the head elicits purrs.
“I want you to write to me. Also, pray be flattered; you are the only person on earth who now has my address. I may send it to José Querida; but that is none of your business. When I saw the new moon on the stump-pond last night I certainly did wish for Querida and a canoe. He can sing very charmingly.
“Now I suppose you want to know under what circumstances I have permitted myself to wish for you. If you talk to a man about another man he always attempts to divert the conversation to himself. Yes, he does. And you are no better than other men, Louis — not exempt from their vanities and cunning little weaknesses. Are you?
“Well, then, as you admit that you are thoroughly masculine, I’ll admit that deep in a corner of my heart I’ve wished for you a hundred times. The moon suggests Querida; but about everything suggests you. Now are you flattered?
“Anyway, I do want you. I like you, Louis! I like you, Mr. Neville! And oh, Kelly, I worship you, without sentiment or any nonsense in reserve. You are life, you are happiness, you are gaiety, you are inspiration, you are contentment.
“I wonder if it would be possible for you to come up here for a day or two after your visit to your parents is ended. I’d adore it. You’d probably hate it. Such food! Such beds! Such people! But — could you — would you come — just to walk in the heavenly green with me? I wonder.
“And, Louis, I’d row you about on the majestic expanse of the stump-pond, and we’d listen to the frogs. Can you desire anything more romantic?
“The trouble with you is that you’re romantic only on canvas. Anyway, I can’t stir you to sentiment. Can I? True, I never tried. But if you come here, and conditions are favourable, and you are so inclined, and I am feeling lonely, nobody can tell what might happen in a flat scow on the stump-pond.
“To be serious for a moment, Louis, I’d really love to have you come. You know I never before saw the real country; I’m a novice in the woods and fields, and, somehow, I’d like to have you share my novitiate in this — as you did when I first came to you. It is a curious feeling I have about anything new; I wish you to experience it with me.
“Rita is awake and exploring the box of Maillard’s which is about empty. Be a Samaritan and send me some assorted chocolates. Be a god, and send me something to read — anything, please, from Jacobs to James. There’s latitude for you. Be a man, and send me yourself. You have no idea how welcome you’d be. The chances are that I’d seize you and embrace you. But if you’re willing to run that risk, take your courage in both hands and come.
“Your friend,
“VALERIE WEST.”
The second week of her sojourn she caught a small pickerel — the only fish she had ever caught in all her life. And she tearfully begged the yokel who was rowing her to replace the fish in its native element. But it was too late; and she and Rita ate her victim, sadly, for dinner.
At the end of the week an enormous box of bonbons came for her. Neither she nor Rita were very well next day, but a letter from Neville did wonders to restore abused digestion.
Other letters, at intervals, cheered her immensely, as did baskets of fruit and boxes of chocolates and a huge case of books of all kinds.
“Never,” she said to Rita, “did I ever hear of such an angel as Louis Neville. When he comes the first of August I wish you to keep tight hold of me, because, if he flees my demonstrations, I feel quite equal to running him down.”
But, curiously enough, it was a rather silent and subdued young girl in white who offered Neville a shy and sun-tanned hand as he descended from the train and came forward, straw hat under one arm, to greet her.
“How well you look!” he exclaimed, laughingly; “I never saw such a flawless specimen of healthy perfection!”
[Illustration: “‘How well you look!’ he exclaimed”]
“Oh, I know I look like a milk-maid, Kelly; I’ve behaved like one, too. Did you ever see such a skin? Do you suppose this sun-burn will ever come off?”
“Instead of snow and roses you’re strawberries and cream,” he said— “and it’s just as fetching, Valerie. How are you, anyway?”
“Barely able to sit up and take nourishment,” she admitted, demurely. “… I don’t think you look particularly vigorous,” she added, more seriously. “You are brown but thin.”
“Thin as a scorched pancake,” he nodded. “The ocean was like a vast plate of clam soup in which I simmered several times a day until I’ve become as leathery and attenuated as a punctured pod of kelp…. Where’s the rig we depart in, Valerie?” he concluded, looking around the sun-scorched, wooden platform with smiling interest.
“I drove down to meet you in a buck-board.”
“Splendid! Is there room for my suit case?”
“Plenty. I brought yards of rope.”
They walked to the rear of the station where buckboard and horse stood tethered to a tree. He fastened his suit case to the rear of the vehicle, swathing it securely in, fathoms of rope; she sprang in, he followed; but she begged him to let her drive, and pulled on a pair of weather-faded gloves with a business-like air which was enchanting.
So he yielded seat and rusty reins to her; whip in hand, she steered the fat horse through the wilderness of arriving and departing carriages of every rural style and description — stages, surreys, mountain-waggons, buck-boards — drove across the railroad track, and turned up a mountain road — a gradual ascent bordered heavily by blackberry, raspberry, thimble berry and wild grape, and flanked by young growths of beech and maple set here and there with hemlock and white pine. But the characteristic foliage was laurel and rhododendron — endless stretches of the glossy undergrowth fringing every woodland, every diamond-clear water-course.
“It must be charming when it’s in blossom,” he said, drawing the sweet air of the uplands deep into his lungs. “These streams look exceedingly like trout, too. How high are we?”
“Two thousand feet in the pass, Kelly. The hills are much higher. You need blankets at night….” She turned her head and smilingly considered him:
“I can’t yet believe you are here.”
“I’ve been trying to realise it, too.”
“Did you come in your favourite cloud?”
“No; on an exceedingly dirty train.”
“You’ve a cinder mark on your nose.”
“Thanks.” He gave her his handkerchief and she wiped away the smear.
“How long can you stay? — Oh, don’t answer! Please forget I asked you. When you’ve got to go just tell me a few minutes before your departure…. The main thing in life is to shorten unhappiness as much as possible. That is Rita’s philosophy.”
“Is Rita well?”
“Perfectly — thanks to your bonbons. She doesn’t precisely banquet on the fare here — poor dear! But then,” she added, philosophically, “what can a girl expect on eight dollars a week? Besides, Rita has been spoiled. I am not unaccustomed to fasting when what is offered does not interest me.”
“You mean that boarding house of yours in town?”
“Yes. Also, when mother and I kept house with an oil stove and two rooms the odour of medicine and my own coo
king left me rather indifferent to the pleasures of Lucullus.”
“You poor child!”
“Not at all to be pitied — as long as I had mother,” she said, with a quiet gravity that silenced him.
Up, up, and still up they climbed, the fat horse walking leisurely, nipping at blackberry leaves here, snatching at tender maple twigs there. The winged mountain beauties — Diana’s butterflies — bearing on their velvety, blue-black pinions the silver bow of the goddess, flitted ahead of the horse — celestial pilots to the tree-clad heights beyond.
Save for the noise of the horse’s feet and the crunch of narrow, iron-tired wheels, the stillness was absolute under the azure splendour of the heavens.
“I am not yet quite at my ease — quite accustomed to it,” she said.
“To what, Valerie?”
“To the stillness; to the remote horizons…. At night the vastness of things, the height of the stars, fascinate me to the edge of uneasiness. And sometimes I go and sit in my room for a while — to reassure myself…. You see I am used to an enclosure — the walls of a room — the walled-in streets of New York…. It’s like suddenly stepping out of a cellar to the edge of eternal space, and looking down into nothing.”
“Is that the way these rolling hillocks of Delaware County impress you?” he asked, laughing.
“Yes, Kelly. If I ever found myself in the Alps I believe the happiness would so utterly over-awe me that I’d remain in my hotel under the bed. What are you laughing at? Voluptates commendat rarior usus.”
“Sit tua cura sequi, me duce tutus eris!” he laughed, mischievously testing her limit of Latin.
“Plus e medico quam e morbo periculi!” she answered, saucily.
“You cunning little thing!” he exclaimed: “vix a te videor posse tenere manus!”
“Di melius, quam nos moneamus talia quenquam!” she said, demurely; “Louis, we are becoming silly! Besides, I probably know more Latin than you do — as it was my mother’s favourite relaxation to teach me to speak it. And I imagine that your limit was your last year at Harvard.”
“Upon my word!” he exclaimed; “I never was so snubbed and patronised in all my life!”
“Beware, then!” she retorted, with an enchanting sideway glance: “noli me tangere!” At the same instant he was aware of her arm in light, friendly contact against his, and heard her musing aloud in deep contentment:
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 527
