At the Age of Eve Part 22

"But I am in earnest."

"Then you are a very foolish little girl, and I'll explain, as we walk on down the street, why it is well for me to show my face in the different churches around the city."

"You don't need to explain," I responded, but without stirring to get my hat. "I know that it will gain votes for you. But I don't approve of such methods."

"Ann, I have found that it will never do to discuss any kind of business proposition with a woman. So let us not waste any more time arguing the matter. Go and get your hat."

I had moved back from him a step or two and had opened my lips to state my position again, when Cousin Eunice, for the second time, broke in upon an interesting scene.

"Mr. Chalmers, Rufe has just called me to ask if you were out here.

It seems that there are some important out-of-town voters down at the _Times_ office. They are anxious to see you, as they are just pa.s.sing through the city and will leave at two o'clock. Rufe apologized for his cruelty, but he says it is important that you should come."

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Clayborne. Of course I shall have to go."

He turned to me with sudden regret. Evidently he had already forgotten the slight difference of opinion. If he recalled it he would smile over my "stubbornness."

After he was gone I told Cousin Eunice of the occurrence.

"So soon?" she asked, with a smile for my earnestness. She did not consider his proposed offense such a crime as I did, but she looked serious as I told her of our little clash. "If the telephone hadn't summoned him I wonder which of you would have come off victorious?"

she questioned.

"I--wonder?" I repeated absently, but the big diamond was flas.h.i.+ng a reminder of his love into my eyes and heart, and, as Cousin Eunice turned and left me, I bent and kissed the stone.

CHAPTER XII

SHADOWS

At home, back of the village, and extending so far away that I had never yet explored the uttermost reaches of it, lies a long, low hill.

It is wooded in places with patriarchal oaks, so stately and far-reaching that they call to mind the tales of fairy forests, where knights in glittering armor rode through; or giants lived in hidden houses in the midst of them.

With the varying seasons this hill always seems to tell the silent story of the feelings in nature called forth by the changes. It speaks of joy in the spring; a gentle sadness in the summer; a glorious renunciation when the living green must give way to the gorgeous, though dying, red; and in winter there seems to be a spirit of patience.

Back of the actual summit of the hill, and partly shut in by its crest, which runs along half of its rounding curve, and skirted on the other side by the woods, where the oaks and chestnuts grow, is an expansive depression, wide, rolling, beautiful. The ground, which is barren red clay, is thickly coated over with a scrubby growth, green for only a short while every spring, when there are millions of minute blue blossoms deep-set in its mazes. Later, it takes on a dull brown which lasts until fall, when it changes to a withered yellow.

A few small cedar trees, growing sometimes singly, sometimes in spa.r.s.e clumps, are dotted around over the ground, but the only actual beauty of the place is its look of great s.p.a.ce. It is the only spot I know of where I can see sky enough.

The sky! Yes, that is its charm. It seems to close down upon this cup with such a _nearness_ that on summer days you can almost reach up and touch the clouds. And they are unbelievably lovely at such times. Then on other days, when the heavens are hidden by long, sweeping bars of heavy gray cloud, and the wind comes tearing over the crest, like a monster knowingly cruel and relentless--then the expanse of earth and sky indeed seem to run together; but the look of nearness is lost. The feeling of immensity is crus.h.i.+ng; and you have the sense of being brought face to face with an unseen Presence.

Cathedrals hold this Presence, but tamed, trained and refined sometimes out of all semblance to its mighty prototype of the wilds.

Years ago, when I was a child, Cousin Eunice used to take me up here, for she was the first one of our family ever to discover the place. To be sure, it had always been there, and we had driven around it whenever it had been necessary, but n.o.body ever dreamed of wanting to take walks there, for it is a wild, lonesome-looking spot, besides being cut up in places by great gulches. In the exact center of the depression there is the bed of a prehistoric lake. The stone basin is there, with all signs of water, at a tremendous distance in the past.

"Isn't it _great_!" Cousin Eunice exclaimed, as we came upon the spot for the first time in our rambles. "Why, it is like being in another world, where everything is fresh, and free, and primitive. Let us pretend that this is our sacred garden, where we can carry only happy thoughts; where we can look at this immensity and learn the true value of things!" So we would often walk here, sometimes with Rufe; and then they would discuss the mysteries of Life and Death and Abiding Love.

On the Monday morning after the events of Sunday which I have just recorded, I awoke with an overpowering desire to get away to this "garden." I wanted to get out to where there was sky enough! To a place so immense that I could think it all out and get a true value of things! I wanted to dwell on the great happiness that has come to me; to take in, if I could, the unbelievable fact that I have been whirled away through the infinite s.p.a.ces of human longing until I have come upon and possessed the star of my heart's desire. Star of my heart's desire! King or sultan, he is the "G.o.d of my idolatry,"--Richard Chalmers, my lover!

And while I craved this sight of a wild, free nature, I felt keenly that I should wish, on a morning like this, that the clouds and sky and trees should shrink into their proper place in the background of the mighty stage. They should move back and make room for me; and my triumphant ego should come and place itself in the limelight for me to review. I wanted to see myself at the age of Eve.

I explained some of this feeling to Cousin Eunice, in idiomatic English, after breakfast on Monday morning, but here was a hue and cry. It was the wrong thing for me to do, she declared. I should stay here and get better acquainted with my fiance. Besides, the first few weeks of a courts.h.i.+p were too dear and precious to be spent apart! I should die of homesickness for a sight of this beautiful city where I had gained my new-found joy!

I mentioned the matter to Richard when he came that evening--that I wanted to go home for a day or so anyway, then I might come back--and I found that he approved the plan most decidedly.

"I shall be out of town for several weeks," he said, "and of course I don't want you here in the city while I'm away." He spoke with a half-playful air, but I had already learned to read his expression so well that I knew he was in earnest. "You don't suppose for a minute I'm going to give any other fellow a chance to steal you away from me now, do you? Before I have had time to realize my good fortune?"

"I wish you would _not_ talk that way, even in jest," I told him seriously. "It implies a kind of distrust."

He had been there quite half an hour when this took place, but he came over to my chair and kissed me for the first time. If Richard does treat his wife as a plaything, as Cousin Eunice suggested, I don't believe he will find it necessary to shower many violets and diamonds upon her. I believe that kisses will do the work.

"Distrust! Love, _little_ love, don't say that again!"

"Then let's for ever bar discussions about any other man."

"I shall be delighted to! And, to make a.s.surance doubly sure, I'm going to pack you off down home, as I mentioned yesterday. I'll be gone just a few weeks, and shall, of course, run down to see you the minute I get back to this part of the state. I am going by Charlotteville to tell mother and Evelyn the news."

"And we'll have letters every day."

"And I'll call you up whenever I'm where a long-distance 'phone is.

Some of those little towns don't boast one."

He drew me close to him and we went together out to the little balcony where he could smoke. The smoke blew through my hair and lingered there. It seemed almost like a kiss from him that night, as I loosened my hair and began to brush it out.

"Oh, I _wish_ it could stay there until he comes back," I whispered in agony, as I buried my face in the soft, odorous mazes; and thought of the long days that would have to pa.s.s some way before I could see him again.

"I believe I'll go and get Neva to walk with me this morning," I decided, when mother told me that Mrs. Sullivan has been obliged, by maternal affection, to send for her daughter to come home and spend the week-end. "She will not disturb my musings."

I have been home several days now and have had an equal number of letters from Richard, dear letters, all; and after the receipt of each one I feel that same inclination to get out under the open skies with my joy.

This was Sunday morning, and there is a glorious Indian summer sun s.h.i.+ning over the earth with that soft haze which only this season of the year gives. Of course I could not stay in the house.

When I rang the door-bell at the Sullivan cottage about ten o'clock I was admitted upon a scene of confusion which vainly tried to smooth itself out into a Sabbathical family-quiet upon my entrance. But the tension made itself felt in spite of the Sunday clothes in evidence, and the Bibles lying in readiness on the center-table in the parlor.

I mentioned the object of my visit, but Neva shook her head reluctantly. She would love to go walking with me, she explained, but she was going to church.

Her tone and statement were both so inoffensive that I was naturally startled at the storm which burst forth at her words.

"You _ain't_," Mrs. Sullivan contradicted flatly, displaying an unwonted degree of animation.

"I am," Neva answered, with a _Vere de Vere_ repose.

"Your hats is all locked up," her mother suggested.

"Then I'll go bareheaded. They'll think it's a new style that I've learned in the city."

Mrs. Sullivan subsided into a chair and showed signs of tears.