Stories by American Authors Volume III Part 9

They both grew so very earnest over this that I didn't dare to continue the subject, and it was left in greater mystery than before.

At last the time of graduation came, and the two friends parted to pursue their separate ways. Silverthorn had a widowed mother living at a distance in the country, whose income had barely enabled her to send him through college on a meagre allowance. He went home to visit her for a few days, and then promptly took his place on a daily newspaper in Boston, where he spent six months of wretched failure. He had great hopes of achieving in a short time some prodigious triumph in writing, but at the end of this period he gave it all up, and decided to develop the mechanical genius which he thought he had perhaps inherited from his father. I began to have a suspicion when I learned that this new turn had led him to Stansby, where he procured a position as a sort of clerk to the superintendent, Winwood.

After some months, I went out to see him there. In the evening we went to the Winwoods', and I watched closely to discover any signs of a new relation between Silverthorn and the daughter. Mr. Winwood himself was a homely, perfectly commonplace man, whose face looked as if it had been stamped with a die which was to furnish a hundred duplicate physiognomies. Mrs. Winwood was a fat, woolly sort of woman, who knitted, and rocked in her rocking-chair, keeping time to her needles.

A smell of tea and chops came from the adjoining room, where they had been having supper; and there was a big, hot-colored lithograph of Stansby Mills hung up over the fireplace, with one or two awkward-looking engravings of famous men and their families on the remaining wall-s.p.a.ces. Yet, even with these crude and barren surroundings, the girl Ida retained a peculiar and inspiring charm.

She talked in a full, free tone of voice, and was very sensible; but in everything she said or did, there was a mixture, with the prosaic, of something so sweet and fresh, that I could not help thinking she was very remarkable. In particular, there was that strong, fine look from the eyes which had impressed me on my first casual meeting in the road. It had a transforming power, and seemed to speak of resolution, aspiration, or self-sacrifice. I noticed with what enthusiasm she glanced up at Silverthorn, when he was showing her some drawings of machinery, executed by himself, and was dilating upon certain improvements which he intended to make. Still, there was a reserve between them, and a timidity on his part, which showed that no engagement to marry had been made, as yet.

He was very silent as we walked together beside the dark river toward the railroad, after our call. But, when we came abreast of the dam, with its sudden burst of noise, and its continual hissing murmur, he stopped short, with a look of pa.s.sion in his face.

"Things have changed since Vibbard went away," he said. "Yes, yes; very much. I used to think it was he who ought to love her."

"And you have found out--" I began.

He laid his hand quickly on my arm.

"Yes, I have found that it is I who love her--eternally, truly! But don't tell any one of this; it seems to me strange that I should speak of it, even to you. I cannot ask her to marry me yet. But there seems to be a relief in letting you know."

I was expressing my pleasure at being of any use to him, when the ominous sound of the approaching cars made itself heard, and I had to hurry off. But, all the way back to the city, I could think of nothing but Silverthorn's announcement; and suddenly there flashed upon me the secret and the danger of the whole situation. This girl, who had so much interested the two friends, in spite of their strong contrasts of character, was, perhaps, the only one in the world who could have pleased them both; for in her own person she seemed to display a mixture of elements, much the same and quite as decided as theirs.

What, then, if Vibbard also should wake up to the knowledge of a love for her?

The next time I saw Silverthorn, which was a full year later, I said to him:

"Do you hear from Vibbard anything about that agreement to divide your gains?"

"No!" he replied, avoiding my eye; "nothing about that."

"Do you expect him to keep it?"

"Yes!" he said, glancing swiftly up again, with a gleam of friendly vindication in his eyes. "I know he will."

"But I hear hard things said of him," I persisted. "Reports have lately come to me as to some rather close, not to say sharp, bargains of his. He is successful; perhaps he is changing."

For the first time I saw Silverthorn angry.

"Never say a word of that sort to me again!" he cried, with a demeanor bordering on violence.

I was a little piqued, and inquired:

"Well, how do you get on toward being in a position to pay him?"

But I regretted my thrust. Silverthorn's face fell, and he could make no reply.

"Is there no prospect of success with those machines you were talking of last year?" I asked more kindly.

"No," said he, sadly. "I'm afraid not. I shall never succeed. It all depends on Vibbard, now. I cannot even marry, unless he gets enough to give me a start."

I left him with a dreary misgiving in my heart. What an unhappy outcome of their compact was this!

Meanwhile, Vibbard was thriving. After a brief sojourn with his father, who was a well-to-do hardware merchant in his own small inland city, he went to Virginia and began sheep-farming. In two years he had gained enough to find it feasible to return to New York, where he took up the business of a note-broker. People who knew him prophesied that he would prove too slow to be a successful man in early life; and, in fact, as he did not look like a quick man, he was a long time in gaining the reputation of one. But his sagacious instincts moved all the more effectively for being masked, and he made some astonis.h.i.+ng strokes. It began to seem as if other men around him who lost, were controlled by some deadly attraction which forced them to throw their success under Vibbard's feet. His car rolled on over them. Everything yielded him a pecuniary return.

As he was approaching his thirtieth birthday, he found himself worth a little over thirty thousand dollars--after deducting expenses, bad claims, and a large sum repaid to his father for the cost of his college course. He had been only six years in acc.u.mulating it. But how endlessly prolonged had those six years been for Silverthorn! When three of them had pa.s.sed, he declared his love to Ida Winwood, though in such a way that she need neither refuse nor accept him at once; and a _quasi_ engagement was made between them, having in view a probable share in Vibbard's fortunes. Once,--perhaps more than once,--Silverthorn bitterly reproached himself, in her presence, for trusting so entirely to another man's energies. But Ida put up her hands beseechingly, looking at him with a devoted faith.

"No, John!" she cried. "There is nothing wrong about it. If you were other than you are, I might not wish it to be so. But you,--you are different from other men; there is something finer about you, and you are not meant for battling your way. But, when once you get this money, you will give all your time to inventing, or writing, and then people will find out what you are!"

There was something strange and pathetic in their relation to each other, now. Silverthorn seemed nervous and weary; he looked as if he were growing old, even with that soft yellow beard and his pale brown hair still unchanged (for he was only twenty-eight). His spirits were capricious; sometimes bounding high with hope, and, at others, utterly despondent. Ida, meantime, had reached a full development; she was twenty-two, fresh, strong, and self-reliant. When they were together, she had the air of caring for him as for an invalid.

Suddenly, one day, at the close of Vibbard's six years' absence, Silverthorn came running from the mill during working-hours, and burst into the superintendent's cottage with an open letter in his hand, calling aloud for Ida.

"He is coming! He is coming!" cried he, breathless, but with a harsh excitement, as if he had been flying from an angry pursuer.

"Who? What has happened?" returned Ida, in alarm.

"Vibbard."

But he looked so wild and distraught, that Ida could not understand.

"Vibbard?" she repeated. Then,--with an amazed apprehension which came swiftly upon her,--shutting both hands tight as if to strengthen herself, and bringing them close together over her bosom: "Have you quarreled with him?"

"Quarreled?" echoed Silverthorn, looking back her amazement. "Why, do you suppose the world has come to an end? Don't you know we would sooner die than quarrel?"

"Vibbard--coming!" repeated Ida, as she caught sight of the letter.

"Yes; now, I see."

"But, doesn't it make you happy?" asked her lover, suddenly annoyed at her cool reception of the news.

"I don't know," she answered, pensively. "You have startled me so.

Besides,--why should it make me happy?" A singular confusion seemed to have come over her mind. "Of course," she added, after a moment, "I am happy, because he's your friend."

"But,--the money, Ida!" He took her hand, but received no answering pressure. "The money,--think of it! We shall be able--" Then catching sight of an expression on her features that was almost cruel in its chill absence of sympathy, Silverthorn dropped her hand in a pet, and walked quickly out of the house back to the mill.

She did not follow him. It was their first misunderstanding.

Silverthorn remained at his desk, went to his own boarding-house for dinner, and returned to the mill, but always with a sense of unbroken suffering. What had happened? Why had Ida been so unresponsive? Why had he felt angry with her? These questions repeated themselves incessantly, and were lost again in a chaotic humming that seemed to fill his ears and to shut out the usual sounds of the day, making him feel as if thrust away into a cell by himself, at the same time that he was moving about among other people.

Vibbard was to arrive that afternoon. Silverthorn wished he had told Ida, before leaving her, how soon his friend was coming. As no particular hour had been named in the letter, he grew intolerably restless, and finally told Winwood that he was going to the depot, to wait.

All this time Ida had been nearly as wretched as he; and, unable to make out why this cloud had come over them just when they ought to have been happiest, she, too, went out into the air for relief, and wandered along the hill-side by the river.

It was early summer again. The lilacs were in bloom. All along the fence in front of Winwood's house were vigorous bushes in full flower.

Ida, as she pa.s.sed out, broke off a spray and put it in her hair, wis.h.i.+ng that its faint perfume might be a spell to bring Silverthorn back.

On the edge of the wood where she had been idly pacing for a few minutes, all at once she heard a crackling of twigs and dry leaves under somebody's active tread, just behind her. It did not sound like her lover's step. She looked around. The man, a stranger with strong features and thick beard, halted at once and looked at her--silently, as if he had forgotten to speak, but with a degree of homage that dispelled everything like alarm.

She stood still, looking at him as earnestly as he at her. Then, she hardly knew how, a conviction came to her.

"Mr. Vibbard?" she said, in a low inquiring tone. To herself she whispered, "Six years!"

Somehow, although she expected it, there was something terrible in having this silent, strange man respond: