Books: Nature\'s Serial Story

E >> E. P. Roe >> Nature\'s Serial Story

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34

At the sound of her name the young girl started visibly, and Webb saw
that there were tears in her eyes; but she complied without a word, and
he so directed the glass that it covered the historic mansion.

"How full of sensibility she is!" thought innocent Webb, taking her
quickly suppressed emotion as a tribute to his moving reminiscences.

"Oh, Webb, have done with your lugubrious ancient history!" cried Burt,
springing up.

"It's time we were getting ready for a homeward move," said Maggie. "I'll
go and pack the things."

"And I'll help you," added Miss Hargrove, hastily following her.

"Let me look at the house, too," said Amy, taking the glass; then added,
after a moment: "Poor Margaret Arnold! It was indeed a tragedy, as you
said, Webb--a sadder one than these old military preparations can
suggest. In all his career of war and treachery Arnold never inflicted a
more cruel wound."

"How much feeling Miss Hargrove showed!" Webb remarked, musingly.

"Yes," said Amy, quietly, "she was evidently feeling deeply." Her thought
was, "I don't believe she heard a word that Webb said." Then, seeing that
Burt was helping Maggie and Miss Hargrove, she added, "Please point out
to me some other interesting places."

Webb, well pleased, talked on to a listener who did not give him her
whole attention. She could not forget Gertrude's paleness, and her
alternations from extreme gayety to a look of such deep sadness as to
awaken not a little sympathetic curiosity. Amy loved her friend truly,
and it did not seem strange to her that Miss Hargrove was deeply
interested in Burt, since they had been much thrown together, and since
she probably owed her life to him. Amy's resentment toward Burt had
passed away. She had found that her pride, merely, and not her heart, was
wounded by his new passion, and she already began to feel that she never
could have any such regard for him as her friend was possibly cherishing.
Therefore it was, perhaps, not unnatural that her tranquil regard should
prove unsatisfying to Burt in contrast with the passion of which Miss
Hargrove was capable. She had seen his vain efforts to remain loyal, and
had smiled at them, proposing to let matters take their course, and to
give little aid in extricating him from his dilemma. But, if she had
interpreted her friend's face aright, she could no longer stand aloof, an
amused and slightly satirical spectator. If Burt deserved some
punishment, Gertrude did not, and she was inclined to guess the cause of
the latter's haste to return to the city.

It may thus be seen that Amy was fast losing her unsophisticated
girlhood. While Burt's passionate words had awakened no corresponding
feeling, they had taught her that she was no longer a child, since she
could inspire such words. Her intimacy with Miss Hargrove, and the
latter's early confidences, had enlarged her ideas on some subjects. As
the bud of a flower passes slowly through long and apparently slow stages
of immaturity and at last suddenly opens to the light, so she had reached
that age when a little experience suggests a great deal, and the
influences around her tended to develop certain thoughts very rapidly.
She saw that her friend had not been brought up in English seclusion.
Admirers by the score had flocked around her, and, as she had often said,
she proposed to marry for love. "I have the name of being cold," she once
told Amy, "but I know I can love as can few others, and I shall know it
well when I do love, too." The truth was daily growing clearer to Amy
that under our vivid American skies the grand passion is not a fiction of
romance or a quiet arrangement between the parties concerned.

Miss Hargrove had not misjudged herself. Her tropical nature, when once
kindled, burned with no feeble, wavering flame. She had passed the point
of criticism of Burt. She loved him, and to her fond eyes he seemed more
worthy of her love than any man she had ever before known. But she had
not passed beyond her sense of truth and duty, and the feeling came to
her that she must go away at once and engage in that most pathetic of all
struggles that fall to woman's lot. As the conviction grew clear on this
bright October day, she felt that her heart was bleeding internally.
Tears would come into her eyes at the dreary prospect. Her former
brilliant society life now looked as does an opera-house in the morning,
when the gilding and tinsel that flashed and sparkled the evening before
are seen to be dull and tarnished. Burt had appeared to especial
advantage in his mountain home. He excelled in all manly sports. His
tall, fine figure and unconscious, easy manner were as full of grace as
deficient in conventionality, and she thought with disgust of many of her
former admirers, who were nothing if not stylish after the arbitrary mode
of the hour. At the same time he had proved that he could be at home in a
drawing-room on the simple ground of good-breeding, and not because he
had been run through fashion's latest mold. The grand scenery around her
suggested the manhood that kindled her imagination--a manhood strong,
fearless, and not degenerated from that sturdy age which had made these
scenes historic.

By the time they were ready to start homeward the southern side of Cro'
Nest was in deep blue shadow. They bowled along rapidly till they came to
the steep ascent, and then the boys and the young men sprang out. "Would
you like to walk, Gertrude?" Amy asked, for she was bent on throwing her
friend and Burt together during the witching twilight that was coming on
apace.

"I fear I am too tired, unless the load is heavy," she replied.

"Oh, no, indeed," said Webb. "It does not take long to reach the top of
the mountain on this side, and then it's chiefly down hill the rest of
the way."

Amy, who had been sitting with Webb and Johnnie as before, said to Miss
Hargrove, "Won't you step across the seats and keep me company?"

She complied, but not willingly. She was so utterly unhappy that she
wished to be left to herself as far as possible. In her realization of a
loss that seemed immeasurable, she was a little resentful toward Amy,
feeling that she had been more frank and confidential than her friend. If
Amy had claims on Burt, why had she not spoken of them? why had she
permitted her for whom she professed such strong friendship to drift
almost wholly unwarned upon so sad a fate? and why was she now clearly
trying to bring together Burt and the one to whom even he felt that he
had no right to speak in more than a friendly manner? While she was
making such immense sacrifices to be true, she felt that Amy was
maintaining an unfair reticence, if not actually beguiling herself and
Burt into a display of weakness for which they would be condemned--or, at
least, he would be, and love identifies itself with its object. These
thoughts, having once been admitted, grew upon her mind rapidly, for it
is hard to suffer through another and maintain a gentle charity.
Therefore she was silent when she took her seat by Amy, and when the
latter gave her a look that was like a caress, she did not return it.

"You are tired, Gertrude," Amy began gently. "Indeed, you look ill. You
must stay with me to-night, and I'll watch over you like Sairy Gamp."

So far from responding to Amy's playful and friendly words, Miss Hargrove
said, hastily,

"Oh, no, I had better go right on home. I don't feel very well, and shall
be better at home; and I must begin to get ready to-morrow for my return
to the city."

Amy would not be repulsed, but, putting her arm around her friend, she
looked into her eyes, and asked:

"Why are you so eager to return to New York? Are you tiring of your
country friends? You certainly told me that you expected to stay till
November."

"Fred must go back to school to-morrow," said Gertrude, in a constrained
voice, "and I do not think it is well to leave him alone in the city
house."

"You are withdrawing your confidence from me," said Amy, sadly.

"Have you ever truly given me yours?" was the low, impetuous response.
"No. If you had, I should not be the unhappy girl I am-to-night. Well,
since you wish to know the whole truth you shall. You said you could
trust me implicitly, and I promised to deserve your trust. If you had
said to me that Burt was bound to you when I told you that I was
heart-whole and fancy-free, I should have been on my guard. Is it natural
that I should be indifferent to the man who risked his life to save mine?
Why have you left me so long in his society without a hint of warning?
But I shall keep my word. I shall not try to snatch happiness from
another."

Johnnie's tuneful little voice was piping a song, and the rumble of the
wheels over a stony road prevented Maggie, on the last seat, from hearing
anything.

The clasp of Amy's arm tightened. "Now you _shall_ stay with me
to-night," she said. "I cannot explain here and now. See, Burt has
turned, and is coming toward us. I pledge you my word he can never be to
me more than a brother. I do not love him except as a brother, and never
have, and you can snatch no happiness from me, except by treating me with
distrust and going away."

"Oh, Amy," began Miss Hargrove, in tones and with a look that gave
evidence of the chaotic bewilderment of her mind.

"Hush! We are not very lonely, thank you, Mr. Burt. You look, as far as I
can see you through the dusk, as if you were commiserating us as poor
forlorn creatures, but we have some resources within ourselves."

"The dusk is, indeed, misleading. We are the forlorn creatures who have
no resources. Won't you please take us in?"

"Take you in! What do you take us for? I assure you we are very simple,
honest people."

"In that case I shall have no fears, but clamber in at once. I feel as if
I had been on a twenty-mile tramp."

"What an implied compliment to our exhilarating society!"

"Indeed there is--a very strong one. I've been so immensely exhilarated
that, in the re-action, I'm almost faint."

"Maggie," cried Amy, "do take care of Burt; he's going to faint."

"He must wait till we come to the next brook, and then we'll put him in
it."

"Webb," said Amy, looking over her shoulder at the young man, who was now
following the carriage, "is there anything the matter with you, also?"

"Nothing more than usual."

"Oh, your trouble, whatever it may be, is chronic. Well, well, to think
that we poor women may be the only survivors of this tremendous
expedition."

"That would be most natural--the survival of the fittest, you know."

"I don't think your case serious. Science is uppermost in your mind, as
ever. You ought to live a thousand years, Webb, to see the end of all
your theories."

"I fear it wouldn't be the millennium for me, and that I should have more
perplexing theories at its end than now."

"That's the way with men--they are never satisfied," remarked Miss
Hargrove. "Mr. Clifford, this is your expedition, and it's getting so
dark that I shall feel safer if you are driving."

"Oh, Gertrude, you have no confidence in me whatever. As if I would break
your neck--or heart either!" Amy whispered in her friend's ear.

"You are a very mysterious little woman," was the reply, given in like
manner, "and need hours of explanation." Then, to Webb: "Mr. Clifford,
I've much more confidence in you than in Amy. Her talk is so giddy that I
want a sober hand on the reins."

"To which Mr. Clifford do you refer?" asked Burt.

"Oh, are you reviving? I thought you had become unconscious."

"I'm not wholly past feeling."

"I want one to drive who can see his way, not feel it," was the laughing
response.

Amy, too, was laughing silently, as she reined in the horses. "What are you
two girls giggling about?" said Burt, becoming a little uncomfortable. "The
idea of two such refined creatures giggling!"

"Well," exclaimed Webb, "what am I to do? I can't stand up between you
and drive."

"Gertrude, you must clamber around and sustain Burt's drooping spirits."

"Indeed, Amy, you must know best how to do that," was the reply. "As
guest, I claim a little of the society of the commander-in-chief. You had
it coming over."

"I'll solve the vexed question," said Burt, much nettled, and leaping
out.

"Now, Burt, the question isn't vexed, and don't you be," cried Amy,
springing lightly over to the next seat. "There are Fred and Alf, too,
with the gun. Let us all get home as soon as possible, for it's nearly
time for supper already. Come, I shall feel much hurt if you don't keep
me company."

Burt at once realized the absurdity of showing pique, although he felt
that there was something in the air which he did not understand. He came
back laughing, with much apparent good-nature, and saying, "I thought I'd
soon bring one or the other of you to terms."

"Oh, what a diplomat you are!" said Amy, with difficulty restraining a
new burst of merriment.

They soon reached the summit, and paused to give the horses a breathing.
The young moon hung in the west, and its silver crescent symbolized to
Miss Hargrove the hope that was growing in her heart. "Amy," she said,
"don't you remember the song we arranged from 'The Culprit Fay'? We
certainly should sing it here on this mountain. You take the solo."

Amy sang, in clear soprano:

"'The moon looks down on old Cro' Nest,
She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast,
And seems his huge gray form to throw
In a silver cone on the wave below.'"

"Imagine the cone and wave, please," said Miss Hargrove; and then, in an
alto rich with her heart's deep feeling, she sang with Amy:

"'Ouphe and goblin! imp and sprite!
Elf of eve! and starry fay!
Ye that love the moon's soft light,
Hither--hither wend your way;
Twine ye in a jocund ring;
Sing and trip it merrily,
Hand to hand and wing to wing,
Round the wild witch-hazel tree.'"

"If I were a goblin, I'd come, for music like that," cried Burt, as they
started rapidly homeward.

"You are much too big to suggest a culprit fay," said Amy.

"But the description of the fay's charmer is your portrait," he replied,
in a low tone:

"'But well I know her sinless mind
Is pure as the angel forms above,
Gentle and meek, and chaste and kind,
Such as a spirit well might love.'"

"Oh, no; you are mistaken, I'm not meek in the least. Think of the
punishment:

"'Tied to the hornet's shardy wings,
Toss'd on the pricks of nettles' stings;'

you know the rest."

"What witchery has got into you to-night, Amy?"

"Do you think I'm a witch? Beware, then. Witches can read men's thoughts."

"That last song was so good that I, for one, would be glad of more," cried
Webb.

"You men must help us, then," said Miss Hargrove, and in a moment the wild,
dim forest was full of melody, the rocks and highlands sending back soft
and unheeded echoes.

Burt, meantime, was occupied with disagreeable reflections. Perhaps both
the girls at last understood him, and had been comparing notes, to his
infinite disadvantage. His fickleness and the dilemma he was in may have
become a jest between them. What could he do? Resentment, except against
himself, was impossible. If Amy understood him, in what other way could
she meet any approach to sentiment on his part than by a laughing scorn?
If Miss Hargrove had divined the past, or had received a hint concerning
it, why should she not shun his society? He was half-desperate, and yet
felt that any show of embarrassment or anger would only make him appear
more ridiculous. The longer he thought the more sure he was that the
girls were beginning to guess his position, and that his only course was
a polite indifference to both. But this policy promised to lead through a
thorny path, and to what? In impotent rage at himself he ground his teeth
during the pauses between the stanzas that he was compelled to sing. Such
was the discord in his heart that he felt like uttering notes that would
make "night hideous."

He was still more distraught when, on their return, they found Mr.
Hargrove's carriage in waiting, and Amy, after a brief conference with
her friend in her room, came down prepared to accompany Miss Hargrove
home after supper. In spite of all his efforts at ease and gayety, his
embarrassment and trouble were evident. He had observed Miss Hargrove's
pallor and her effort to keep up at Fort Putnam, and could not banish the
hope that she sympathized with him; but now the young girl was demurely
radiant. Her color had come again, and the lustre of her beautiful eyes
was dazzling. Yet they avoided his, and she had far more to say to Webb
and the others than to him. Webb, too, was perplexed, for during the day
Amy had been as bewildering to him as to Burt. But he was in no
uncertainty as to his course, which was simply to wait. He, with Burt,
saw the girls to the carriage, and the latter said good-night rather
coldly and stiffly. Alf and Fred parted regretfully, with the promise of
a correspondence which would be as remarkable for its orthography as for
its natural history.

CHAPTER LII

BURT'S SORE DILEMMA

Mr. Hargrove greeted Amy cordially, but his questioning eyes rested
oftenest on his daughter. Her expression and manner caused him to pace
his study long and late that night. Mrs. Hargrove was very polite and a
little stately. She felt that she existed on a plane above Amy.

The young girls soon pleaded fatigue, and retired. Once in the seclusion
of their room they forgot all about their innocent fib, and there was not
a trace of weariness in their manner. While Burt was staring at his
dismal, tangled fortune, seeing no solution of his difficulties, a
fateful conference relating to him was taking place. Amy did not look
like a scorner, as with a sister's love and a woman's tact she pleaded
his cause and palliated his course to one incapable of harsh judgment.
But she felt that she must be honest with her friend, and that the whole
truth would be best and safest. Her conclusion was: "No man who loved
_you_, and whom you encouraged, would ever change. I know now that I
never had a particle of such feeling as you have for Burt, and can see
that I naturally chilled and quenched his regard for me."

Miss Hargrove's dark eyes flashed ominously as she spoke of Burt or of
any man proving faithless after she had given encouragement.

"But it wasn't possible for me to give him any real encouragement," Amy
persisted. "I've never felt as you do, and am not sure that I want to for
a long time."

"How about Webb?" Miss Hargrove almost said, but she suppressed the
words, feeling that since he had not revealed his secret she had no right
to do so. Indeed, as she recalled how sedulously he had guarded it she
was sure he would not thank her for suggesting it to Amy before she was
ready for the knowledge. Impetuous as Miss Hargrove was at times, she had
too fine a nature to be careless of the rights and feelings of others.
Moreover, she felt that Webb had been her ally, whether consciously or
not, and he should have his chance with all the help she could give him,
but she was wise enough to know that obtrusion and premature aid are
often disastrous.

The decision, after this portentous conference, was: "Mr. Bart must seek
me, and seek very zealously. I know you well enough Amy, to be sure that
you will give him no hints. It's bad enough to love a man before I've
been asked to do so. What an utterly perverse and unmanageable thing
one's heart is! I shall do no angling, however, nor shall I permit any."

"You may stand up straight, Gertrude," said Amy, laughing, "but don't
lean over backward."

Burt entertained half a dozen wild and half-tragic projects before he
fell asleep late that night, but finally, in utter self-disgust, settled
down on the prosaic and not irrational one of helping through with the
fall work on the farm, and then of seeking some business or profession to
which he could give his whole mind. "As to ladies' society," he
concluded, savagely, "I'll shun it hereafter till I'm grown up."

Burt always attained a certain kind of peace and the power to sleep after
he had reached an irrevocable decision.

During the night the wind veered to the east, and a cold, dismal
rain-storm set in. Dull and dreary indeed the day proved to Burt. He
could not go out and put his resolution into force. He fumed about the
house, restless, yet reticent. He would rather have fought dragons than
keep company with his own thoughts in inaction. All the family supposed
he missed Amy, except Webb, who hoped he missed some one else.

"Why don't you go over and bring Amy home, Burt?" his mother asked, at
the dinner-table. "The house seems empty without her, and everybody is
moping. Even father has fretted over his newspaper, and wished Amy was
here."

"Why can't they print an edition of the paper for old men and dark days?"
said the old gentleman, discontentedly.

"Well," remarked Leonard, leaning back in his chair, and looking
humorously at Maggie, "I'm sorry for you young fellows, but I'm finding
the day serene."

"Of course you are," snapped Burt. "With an armchair to doze in and a
dinner to look forward to, what more do you wish? As for Webb, he can
always get astride of some scientific hobby, no matter how bad the
weather is."

"As for Burt, he can bring Amy home, and then every one will be
satisfied," added his mother, smiling.

Thus a new phase of his trial presented itself to poor Burt. He must
either face those two girls after their night's conclave, with all its
possible revelations, or else awaken at once very embarrassing surmises.
Why shouldn't he go for Amy? all would ask. "Well, why shouldn't I?" he
thought. "I may as well face it out." And in a mood of mingled
recklessness and fear he drove through the storm. When his name was
announced the girls smiled significantly, but went down looking as
unconscious as if they had not spoken of him in six months, and Burt
could not have been more suave, non-committal, and impartially polite if
these ladies had been as remote from his thoughts as one of Webb's
theories. At the same time he intimated that he would be ready to return
when Amy was.

At parting the friends gave each other a little look of dismay, and he
caught it from the same telltale mirror that persisted in taking a part
in this drama.

"Aha!" though the young fellow, "so they have been exchanging confidences,
and my manner is disconcerting--not what was expected. If I have become a
jest between them it shall be a short-lived one. Miss Hargrove, with all
her city experience, shall find that I'm not so young and verdant but that
I can take a hand in this game also. As for Amy, I now know she never cared
for me, and I don't believe she ever would;" and so he went away with
laughing repartee, and did not see the look of deep disappointment with
which he was followed.

Amy was perplexed and troubled. Her innocent schemes might not be so
easily accomplished if Burt would be wrong-headed. She was aware of the
dash of recklessness in his character, and feared that under the impulse
of pride he might spoil everything, or, at least, cause much needless
delay.

With the fatality of blundering which usually attends upon such
occasions, he did threaten to fulfil her fears, and so successfully that
Amy was in anxiety, and Miss Hargrove grew as pale as she was resolute
not to make the least advance, while poor Webb felt that his suspense
never would end. Burt treated Amy in an easy, fraternal manner. He
engaged actively in the task of gathering and preparing for market the
large crop of apples, and he openly broached the subject of going into a
business of some kind away from home, where, he declared, with a special
meaning for Amy, he was not needed, adding: "It's time I was earning my
salt and settling down to something for life. Webb and Len can take care
of all the land, and I don't believe I was cut out for a farmer."

He not only troubled Amy exceedingly, but he perplexed all the family,
for it seemed that he was decidedly taking a new departure. One evening,
a day or two after he had introduced the project of going elsewhere, his
father, to Amy's dismay, suggested that he should go to the far West and
look after a large tract of land which the old gentleman had bought some
years before. It was said that a railroad was to be built through it,
and, if so, the value of the property would be greatly enhanced, and
steps should be taken to get part of it into the market. Burt took hold
of the scheme with eagerness, and was for going as soon as possible.
Looking to note the effect of his words upon Amy, he saw that her
expression was not only reproachful, but almost severe. Leonard heartily
approved of the plan. Webb was silent, and in deep despondency, feeling
that if Bart went now nothing would be settled. He saw Amy's aversion to
the project also, and misinterpreted it.

She was compelled to admit that the prospects were growing very dark.
Burt might soon depart for an indefinite absence, and Miss Hargrove
return to the city. Amy, who had looked upon the mutations in her own
prospects so quietly, was almost feverishly eager to aid her friend. She
feared she had blundered on the mountain ride. Burt's pride had been
wounded, and he had received the impression that his April-like moods had
been discussed satirically. It was certain that he had been very deeply
interested in Gertrude, and that he was throwing away not only his
happiness, but also hers; and Amy felt herself in some degree to blame.
Therefore she was bent upon ending the senseless misunderstanding, but
found insurmountable embarrassments on every side. Miss Hargrove was
prouder than Burt. Wild horses could not draw her to the Cliffords', With
a pale, resolute face, she declined even to put herself in the way of
receiving the least advance. Amy would gladly have taken counsel of Webb,
but could not do so without revealing her friend's secret, and also
disclosing mere surmises about Burt, which, although amounting to
conviction in her mind, could not be mentioned. Therefore, from the very
delicacy of the situation, she felt herself helpless. Nature was her
ally, however, and if all that was passing in Burt's mind had been
manifest, the ardent little schemer would not have been so despondent.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34