Kitabı oku: «Horace Chase», sayfa 17
CHAPTER XX
HIS little campaign over, Horace Chase made his preparations for returning to Florida. These consisted in hastily throwing into a valise the few things which he had brought with him, and ringing the bell to have a carriage called so that he could catch the midnight train. As he was stepping into this carriage, a telegram was handed to him. "Hold on a minute," he called to the driver, as he opened it. "We are on our way to Savannah," he read. "You will find us at the Scriven House. Ruth not well." And the signature was "Dora Franklin." "Drive on," he called a second time, and as the carriage rolled towards the station he said to himself, "That Dolly! Always trying to make out that Ruth's sick. I guess it's only that she's tired of Florida. She wanted to leave when I came north; asked me to take her."
But when he reached Savannah, he found his wife if not ill, at least much altered; she was white and silent, she scarcely spoke; she sat hour after hour with her eyes on a book, though the pages were not turned. "She isn't well," Dolly explained again.
"Then we must have in the doctors," Chase answered, decisively. "I'll get the best advice from New York immediately; I'll wire at once."
"Don't; it would only bother her," objected Dolly. "They can do no more for her than we can, for it is nothing but lack of strength. Take her up to L'Hommedieu, and let her stay there all summer; that will be the best thing for her, by far."
"That's the question; will it?" remarked Chase to himself, reflectively.
"Do I know her, or do I not?" urged Dolly. "I have been with her ever since she was born. Trust me, at least where she is concerned; for she is all I have left in the world, and I understand her every breath."
"Of course I know you think no end of her," Chase answered. But he was not satisfied; he went to Ruth herself. "Ruthie, you needn't go to Newport this summer, if you're tired of it; you can go anywhere you like, short of Europe (for I can't quite get abroad this year). There are all sorts of first-rate places, I hear, along the coast of Maine."
"I don't care where I go," Ruth answered, dully, "except that I want to be far away from – from the tiresome people we usually see."
"Well, that means far away from Newport, doesn't it? We've been there for two summers," Chase answered, helping her (as he thought) to find out what she really wanted. "Would you like to go up the lakes – to Mackinac and Marquette?"
"No, L'Hommedieu would do, perhaps."
"Yes, Dolly's plan. Are you doing it for her?"
"Oh," said Ruth, with weary truthfulness, "don't you know that I never do things for Dolly, but that it's always Dolly who does things for me?"
Her husband took her to L'Hommedieu.
She seemed glad to be there; she wandered about and looked at her mother's things; she opened her mother's secretary and used it; she sat in her mother's easy-chair, and read her books. There was no jarring element at hand; Genevieve, beneficent, much admired, and well off, had been living for two years in St. Louis; her North Carolina cottage was now occupied by Mrs. Kip.
Chase had the inspiration of sending for Kentucky Belle, and after a while Ruth began to ride. This did her more good than anything else; every day she was out for hours among the mountains with her husband, and often with the additional escort of Malachi Hill.
One morning they made an expedition to the wild gorge where the squirrel had received his freedom two years before; Ruth dismounted, and walked about under the trees, looking up into the foliage.
"He's booming; he's got what he likes," said Chase – "your Robert the Squirrel; or Robert the Devil, as Dolly called him."
"Oh, I don't want him back," Ruth answered; "I am glad he is free. Every one ought to be free," she went on, musingly, as though stating a new truth which she had just discovered.
"I came out nearly every week, Mrs. Chase, during the first six months, with nuts for him," said Malachi, comfortingly. "I used to bring at least a quart, and I put them in a particular place. Well – they were always gone."
As they came down a flank of the mountain overlooking the village, Chase surveyed the valley with critical eyes. "If we really decide to take this thing up at last – Nick and Richard Willoughby, and myself, and one or two more – my own idea would be to have a grand combine of all the advantages possible," he began. "In the United States we don't do this thing up half so completely as they do abroad. Over there, if they have mountains – as in Switzerland, for instance – they don't trust to that alone, they don't leave people to sit and stare at 'em all day; they add other attractions. They have boys with horns, where there happen to be echoes; they illuminate the waterfalls; girls dressed up in costumes milk cows in arbors; and men with flowers and other things stuck in their hats, yodel and sing. All sorts of carved things, too, are constantly offered for sale, such as salad-forks, paper-cutters, and cuckoo clocks. Then, if it isn't mountains, but springs, they always have the very best music they can get, to make the water go down. It would be a smart thing to have the sulphur near here brought into town in pipes to a sort of park, where we could have a casino with a hall for dancing, and a restaurant where you could always get a first-class meal. And, outside, a stand for the band. And then in the park there ought to be, without fail, long rows of bright little stores for the ladies – like those at Baden-Baden, Ruthie? No large articles sold, but a great variety of small things. Ladies always like that; they can drink the water, listen to the music, and yet go shopping too, and buy all sorts of little knick-knacks to take home as presents; it would be extremely popular. The North Carolina garnets and amethysts could be sold; and specimens of the mica and gold and the native pink marble could be exhibited. Then those Cherokee Indians out Qualla way might be encouraged to come to the park with their baskets and bead-work to sell. And there must be, of course, a museum of curiosities, stuffed animals, and mummies, and such things. There's a museum opposite that lion cut in the rock at Lucerne Hill – I guess you've heard of it? It attracts more interest than the lion himself; I've watched, and I know; ten out of twelve of the people who come there, look two minutes at the lion, and give ten at least to the museum. Then it wouldn't be a half-bad idea to get hold of an eminent doctor; we might make him a present of half a mountain as an inducement. Larue, by the way, won't be of much use to our boom, now that he isn't a senator any longer. Did they kick him out, Hill, or freeze him out?"
"Well – he resigned," answered Malachi, diplomatically. "You see, they wanted the present senator – a man who has far more magnetism."
"Larue never was 'in it'; I saw that from the first," Chase commented. "Well, then, in addition, there must, of course, be a hospital in the town, so that the ladies can get up fairs for it each year at the height of the season; they find the greatest interest in fairs; I've often noticed it. Then I should give my vote for a good race-course. And, finally, all the churches ought to be put in tip-top condition – painted and papered and made more attractive. But that, Hill, we'll leave to you."
Malachi laughed. He admired Horace Chase greatly, but he had long ago despaired of making him pay heed to certain distinctions. "I think I won't meddle with the other churches if you will only help along ours," he answered; "our Church school here, and my mountain missions."
"All right; we'll boom them all," said Chase, liberally. "There might be a statue of Daniel Boom in the park, near the casino," he went on in a considering tone; "he lived near here for some time. Though, come to think of it, his name was Boone, wasn't it? – just missed being appropriate! Well, at any rate, we can have a statue of Colonel David Vance, and of Dr. Mitchell, who is buried on Mitchell's Peak. And of David L. Swain."
"Have you any especial sculptor in view?" inquired Malachi, who was not without a slight knowledge of art.
"No. But we could get a good marble-cutter to take a contract for the lot; that would be the easiest way, I reckon."
Malachi could not help being glad, revengefully glad, that at least there was no mention of Maud Muriel. Only the day before the sculptress had greeted him with her low-breathed "Manikin!" as he came upon her in a narrow winding lane which he had incautiously entered. A man may be as dauntless as possible (so he told himself), but that does not help him when his assailant is a person whom he cannot knock down – "a striding, scornful, sculping spinster!" "She had better look out!" he had thought, angrily, as he passed on.
His morning ride over, Chase took a fresh horse after lunch, and went down to Crumb's. Nicholas Willoughby, struck by the wildness and beauty of these North Carolina mountains, had built a cottage on the high plateau above Crumb's, the plateau which Chase had named "Ruth's Terrace" several years before. During the preceding summer, Nicholas had occupied this house (which he called The Lodge) for a month or more. This year, having lent it to some friends for August and September, he had asked Chase to see that all was in order before their arrival.
While Chase was off upon this errand, Ruth and Dolly were to go for a drive along the Swannanoa. But first Dolly stopped at Miss Mackintosh's barn; her latest work was on exhibition there. This was nothing less than a colossal study in clay of the sculptress's own back from the nape of the neck to the waist; Dolly, who had already had a view of this masterpiece, was now bringing Ruth to see it, with the hope that it would make her laugh. It did. Her old mirth came back for several minutes as she gazed at the rigidly faithful copy of Maud Muriel's shoulder-blades, her broad, gaunt shoulders, and the endless line of conscientiously done vertebræ adorning her spine.
Mrs. Kip was there, also looking. "Maud Muriel, how could you see your back?" she inquired.
"Hand-glass," replied the sculptress, briefly.
"Well, to me it looks hardly proper," commented Mrs. Kip; "it's so —exposed. And then, without any head or arms, it seems so mutilated; like some awful thing from a battle-field! I don't think it's necessary for lady artists to study anatomy, Maud Muriel; it isn't expected of them; it doesn't seem quite feminine. Why don't you carve angels? They have no anatomy, and, of course, they need none. Angels, little children, and flowers – I think those are the most appropriate subjects for lady artists, both in sculpture and in painting." Then, seeing Maud Muriel begin to snort (as Dolly called the dilation of the sculptress's nostrils when she was angry), Mrs. Kip hurried on, changing the subject as she went. "But sculpture certainly agrees with you, Maudie dear. I really think your splendid hair grows thicker and thicker! You could always earn your living (if you had occasion) by just having yourself photographed, back-view, with your hair down, and a placard – 'Results of Barry's Tricopherus.' Barry would give anything to get you."
Maud Muriel was not without humor, after her curt fashion. "Well, Lilian," she answered, "you might be 'Results of Packer's Granulated Food,' I'm sure. You look exactly like one of the prize health-babies."
"Oh no!" cried Mrs. Kip, in terror, "I'm not at all well, Maud Muriel. Don't tell me so, or I shall be ill directly! Neither Evangeline Taylor nor I are in the least robust; we are both pulmonic."
At this moment Evangeline herself appeared at the door, accompanied by her inseparable Miss Green, a personage who was the pride of Mrs. Kip's existence. This was not for what she was, but for her title: "Evangeline Taylor and her governess" – this to Mrs. Kip seemed almost royal. She now hurried forward to meet her child, and, taking her arm, led her away from the torso to the far end of the barn, where two new busts were standing on a table, one of them the likeness of a short-nosed, belligerent boy, and the other of a dreary, sickly woman. "Come and look at these sweet things, darling."
And then Ruth broke into a second laugh.
"Mrs. Chase," said Maud Muriel, suddenly, "I wish you would sit to me."
"No. Ask her husband to sit," suggested Dolly. "You know you like to do men best, Maud Muriel."
"Well, generally speaking, the outlines of a man's face are more distinct," the sculptress admitted. "And yet, Dolly, it doesn't always follow. For, generally speaking, women – "
"Maud Muriel, I am never generally speaking, but always particularly," Dolly declared. "Do Mr. Chase. He will come like a shot if you will smoke your pipe; he has been dying to see you do it for three years."
"I have given up the pipe; I have cigars now," explained Maud, gravely. "But I do not smoke here; I take a walk with a cigar on dark nights – "
"Sh! Don't talk about it now," interrupted Mrs. Kip, warningly. For Evangeline Taylor, having extracted all she could from the "sweet things," was coming towards them. There was a good deal to come. Her height was now six feet and an inch. Her long, rigid face wore an expression which she intended to be one of deep interest in the works of art displayed before her; but as she was more shy than ever, her eyes, as she approached the group, had a suppressed nervous gleam which, with her strange facial tension, made her look half-mad.
"Dear child!" said the mother, fondly, as Ruth, to whom the poor young giant was passionately devoted, made her happy by taking her off and talking to her kindly, apart. "She has the true Taylor eyes. So profound! And yet so dove-like!" Here the head of Achilles Larue appeared at the open door, and Lilian abandoned the Taylor eyes to whisper quickly, "Oh, Maud Muriel, do cover that dreadful thing up!"
"Cover it up? Why – it is what he has come to see," answered the intrepid Maud.
The ex-senator inspected the torso. "Most praise-worthy, Miss Mackintosh. And, in execution, quite – quite fairish. Though you have perhaps exaggerated the anatomical effect – the salient appearance of the bones?"
"Not at all. They are an exact reproduction from life," answered Maud, with dignity.
Lilian Kip, still apprehensive as to the influence of the torso upon a young mind, sent her daughter home to play "battledoor and shuttlecock, dear" (Evangeline played "battledoor and shuttlecock, dear," every afternoon for an hour with her governess, to acquire "grace of carriage"); Larue was now talking to Ruth, and Lilian, after some hesitation, walked across the barn and seated herself on a bench at its far end (the only seat in that resolute place); from this point she gazed and gazed at Larue. He was as correct as ever – from his straight nose to his finger-tips; from his smooth, short hair, parted in the middle, to his long, slender foot with its high in-step. Dolly, tired of standing, came after a while and sat down on the bench beside the widow. They heard Achilles say, "No; I decided not to go." Then, a few minutes later, came another "No; I decided not to do that."
"All his decisions are not to do things," commented Dolly, in an undertone. "When he dies, it can be put on his tombstone: 'He was a verb in the passive voice, conjugated negatively.' Why, what's the matter, Lilian?"
"It's nothing – I am only a little agitated. I will tell you about it some time," answered Mrs. Kip, squeezing Dolly's hand. Ruth, tired of the senator, looked across at Dolly. Dolly joined her, and they took leave.
Maud Muriel followed them to the door. "I should like to do your head, Ruth."
"No; you are to do Mr. Chase's," Dolly called back from the phaeton. "She has been in love with your husband from the first," she went on to her sister, as she turned her pony's head towards the Swannanoa. And then Ruth laughed a third time.
But though Dolly thus made sport, in her heart there was a pang. She knew – no one better – that her sister's face had changed greatly during the past three months. Now that his wife was well again, Chase himself noticed nothing. And to the little circle of North Carolina friends Ruth was dear; they were very slow to observe anything that was unfavorable to those they cared for. To-day, however, Maud Muriel's unerring scent for ugliness had put her (though unconsciously) upon the track, and, for the first time in all their acquaintance, she had asked Ruth to sit to her. It was but a scent as yet; Ruth was still lovely. But the elder sister could see, as in a vision, that with several years more, under the blight of hidden suffering, her beauty might disappear entirely; her divine blue eyes alone could not save her if her color should fade, if the sweet expression of her mouth should alter to confirmed unhappiness, if her face should grow so thin that its irregular outlines would become apparent.
Two hours later there was a tap at Miss Billy Breeze's door, at the Old North Hotel.
"Come in," said Miss Billy. "Oh, is it you, Lilian? I am glad to see you. I haven't been out this afternoon, as it seemed a little coolish!"
Mrs. Kip looked excited. "Coolish, Billy?" she repeated, standing still in the centre of the room. "Ish? Ish? And I, too, have said it; I don't pretend to deny it. But it is over at last, and I am free! I have been – been different for some time. But I did not know how different until this very afternoon. I met him at Maud Muriel's barn, soon after two. And I sat there, and looked at him and looked at him. And suddenly it came across me that perhaps after all I didn't care quite so much for him. I was so nervous that I could scarcely speak, but I did manage to ask him to take a little stroll with me. For you see I wanted to be perfectly sure. And as he walked along beside me, putting down his feet in that precise sort of way he does, and every now and then saying 'ish' – like a great light in the dark, like a falling off of chains, I knew that it was at last at an end – that he had ceased to be all the world to me. And it was such an enormous relief that when I came back, if there had been a circus or a menagerie in town, I give you my word I should certainly have gone to it – as a celebration! And then, Billy, I thought of you. And I made up my mind that I would come right straight over here and ask you —Is he worth it? What has Achilles Larue ever done for either of us, Billy, but just snub, snub, snub? and crush, crush, crush? If you could only feel what a joy it is to have that tiresome old ache gone! And to just know that he is hateful!" And Lilian, much agitated, took Billy's hand in hers.
But Billy, dim and pale, drew herself away. "You do him great injustice, Lilian. But he has never expected the ordinary mind to comprehend him. Your intentions, of course, are good, and I am obliged to you for them. But I am not like you; to me it is a pleasure, and always will be, as well as a constant education, to go on admiring the greatest man I have ever known!"
"Whether he looks at you or not?" demanded Lilian.
"Whether he looks at me or not," answered Billy, firmly.
"If you had ever been married, Wilhelmina, you would know that you could not go on forever living on shadows!" declared the widow as she took leave. "Shadows may be all very well. But we are human, after all, and we need realities." Having decided upon a new reality, her step was so joyous that Horace Chase, coming home from his long ride to Crumb's, hardly recognized her, as he passed her in the twilight. At L'Hommedieu he found no one in the sitting-room but Dolly. "Ruth is resting after our drive," explained the elder sister. "I took her first to the barn to see Maud Muriel's torso, and that made her laugh tremendously. Well, is The Lodge in order?"
"Yes, it's all right; Nick's friends can come along as soon as they like," Chase answered.
"And are none of the Willoughbys to be there this summer?" Dolly went on.
"No; Nick has gone to Carlsbad – he isn't well. And Richard is off yachting. Walter has taken a cottage at Newport."
Dolly already knew this latter fact. But she wished to hear it again.
Rinda now appeared, ushering in Malachi Hill. The young clergyman was so unusually erect that he seemed tall; his face was flushed, and his eyes had a triumphant expression. He looked first at Dolly, then at Chase. "I've done it!" he announced, dashing his clerical hat down upon the sofa. "That Miss Mackintosh has called me 'Manikin' once too often. She did it again just now – in the alley behind your house. And I up and kissed her!"
"You didn't," said Chase, breaking into a roaring laugh.
"Yes; I did. For three whole years and more, Mr. Chase, that woman has treated me with perfectly outrageous contempt. She has seemed to think that I was nothing at all, that I wasn't a man; she has walked on me, stamped on me, shoved me right and left, and even kicked me, as it were. I have felt that I couldn't stand it much longer. And I have tried to think of a way to take her down. Suddenly, just now, it came to me that nothing on earth would take her down quite so much as that. And so when she came out with her accustomed epithet, I just gave her a hurl, and did it! It is true I'm a clergyman, and I have acted as though I had kept on being only an insurance agent. But a man is a man after all, in spite of the cloth," concluded Malachi, belligerently.
"Oh, don't apologize," said Dolly. "It's too delicious!" And then she and Horace Chase, for once of the same mind, laughed until they were exhausted.
Meanwhile the sculptress had appeared in Miss Billy's sitting-room. She came in without knocking, her footfall much more quiet than usual. "Wilhelmina, how old are you?" she demanded, after she had carefully closed the door.
"Why – you know. I am thirty-nine," Billy answered, putting down with tender touch the book she was reading (The Blue Ridge in the Glacial Period).
"And I am forty," pursued Maud, meditatively. "It is never too late to add to one's knowledge, Wilhelmina, if the knowledge is accurate; that is, if it is observed from life. And I have stopped in for a moment, on my way home, to mention something which is so observed. You know all the talk and fuss there is in poetry, Wilhelmina, about kisses (I mean when given by a man)? I am now in a position to tell you, from actual experience, what they amount to." She came nearer, and lowered her voice. "They are very far indeed from being what is described. There is nothing in them. Nothing whatever!"
