CHAPTER XV
A MEETING IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN
I spoke no word of love in that brisk walk up Franklin Street, and whenI remembered this a month afterwards, it seemed to me that I had let theopportunity of a lifetime slip by. Since that afternoon I had not seenSally again--some fierce instinct held me back from entering the doorsthat would have closed against me--and as the days passed, crowded withwork and cheered by the immediate success of the National Oil Company, Ifelt that Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca, and even Sally, whom I loved, hadfaded out of the actual world into a vague cloud-like horizon. To womenit is given, I suppose, to merge the ideal into everyday life, but withmen it is different. I saw Sally still every minute that I lived, but Isaw her as a star, set high above the common business world in which Ihad my place--above the strain and stress of the General's office, abovethe rise and fall of the stock market, above the brisk triumphant warwith competitors for the National Oil Company, above even the hope ofthe future presidency of the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad.Between my love and its fulfilment, stretched, I knew, hard years ofstruggle, but bred in me, bone and structure, the instinct of democracywas still strong enough to support me in the hour of defeat. Neveronce--not even when I sat, condescendingly plied with coffee andpartridges, face to face with the wonder expressed in Miss Mitty's eyes,had I admitted to myself that I was obliged to remain in the class fromwhich I had sprung. Courage I had never lost for an instant; the presentmight embarrass me, but the future, I felt always, I held securelygrasped in my own hands. The birthright of a Republic was mine as wellas the General's, and I knew that among a free people it was the mettleof the man that would count in the struggle. In the fight betweendemocratic ideals and Old World institutions I had no fear, even to-day,of what the future would bring. The right of a man to make his ownstanding was all that I asked.
And yet the long waiting! As I walked one Sunday afternoon over toChurch Hill, after a visit to Jessy (who was living now with a friend ofthe doctor's), I asked myself again and again if Sally had read my heartthat last afternoon and had seen in it the reason of my fierce reserve.Jessy had been affectionate and very pretty--she was a cold, small,blond woman, with a perfect face and the manner of an indifferentchild--but she had been unable to wean me from the thought whichreturned to take royal possession as soon as the high pressure of myworking day was relaxed. It controlled me utterly from the moment I putthe question of the stock market aside; and it was driving me now, likethe ghost of an unhappy lover, back for a passionate hour in theenchanted garden.
The house was half closed when I reached it, though the open shutters tothe upper windows led me to believe that some of the rooms, at least,were tenanted. When I entered the gate and passed the stuccoed wing tothe rear piazza, I saw that the terraces were blotted and ruined as ifan invading army had tramped over them. The magnolias and laburnums,with the exception of a few lonely trees, had already fallen; thelatticed arbours were slowly rotting away; and several hardyrose-bushes, blooming bravely in the overgrown squares, were the onlysurvivals of the summer splendour that I remembered. Turning out of thepath, I plucked one of these gallant roses, and found it pale andsickly, with a November blight at the heart. Only the great elms stillarched their bared branches unchanged against a red sunset; and now asthen the small yellow leaves fluttered slowly down, like woundedbutterflies, to the narrow walks.
I had left the upper terrace and had descended the sunken green steps,when the dry rustle of leaves in the path fell on my ears, and turning afallen summer house, I saw Sally approaching me through the broken mazeof the box. A colour flamed in her face, and pausing in the leaf-strewnpath, she looked up at me with shining and happy eyes.
"It has been so long since I saw you," she said, with her handoutstretched.
I took her hand, and turning we moved down the walk while I still heldit in mine. Out of the blur of her figure, which swam in a mist, I sawonly her shining and happy eyes.
"It has been a thousand years," I answered, "but I knew that they wouldpass."
"That they would pass?" she repeated.
"That they must pass. I have worked for that end every minute since Isaw you. I have loved you, as you surely know," I blurted out, "everyinstant of my life, but I knew that I could offer you nothing until Icould offer you something worthy of your acceptance."
Reaching out her hand, which she had withdrawn from mine, she caughtseveral drifting elm leaves in her open palm.
"And what," she asked slowly, "do you consider to be worthy of myacceptance?"
"A name," I answered, "that you would be proud to bear. Not only thelove of a man's soul and body, but the soul and body themselves afterthey have been tried and tested. Wealth, I know, would not count withyou, and I believe, birth would not, even though you are a Bland--but Imust have wealth, I must have honour, so that at least you will notappear to stoop. I must give you all that it lies in my power toachieve, or I must give you nothing."
"Wealth! honour!" she said, with a little laugh, "O Ben Starr! BenStarr!"
"So that, at least, you will not appear to stoop," I repeated.
"I stoop to you?" she responded, and again she laughed.
"You know that I love you?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied, and lifted her eyes to mine, "I know that you loveme."
"Beyond love I have nothing at the moment."
A light wind swept the leaves from her hand, and blew the ends of herwhite veil against my breast.
"And suppose," she demanded in a clear voice, "that love was all that Iwanted?"
Her lashes did not tremble; but in her eyes, in her parted red lips, andin her whole swift and expectant figure, there was something noble andfree, as if she were swept forward by the radiant purpose which shone inher look.
"Not my love--not yet--my darling," I said.
At the word her blush came.
"You say you have only yourself to give," she went on with an effort."Is it possible that in the future--in any future--you could have morethan yourself?"
"Not more love, Sally, not more love."
"Then more of what?"
"Of things that other men and women count worth the having!"
The sparkle returned to her eyes, and I watched the old childisharchness play in her face.
"Do I understand that you are proposing to other men and women or to me,sir?" she enquired, above her muff, in the prim tone of Miss Mitty.
"To neither the one nor the other," I answered stubbornly, though Ilonged to kiss the mockery away from her curving lips. "When the timecomes I shall return to you."
"And you are doing this for the sake of other people, not for me," shesaid. "I suppose, indeed, that it's Aunt Mitty and Aunt Matoaca you areputting before me. They would be flattered, I am sure, if they couldonly know of it--but they can't. As a matter of fact, they also putsomething before me, so I don't appear to come first with anybody. AuntMitty prefers her pride and Aunt Matoaca prefers her principles, and youprefer both--"
"I am only twenty-six," I returned. "In five years--in ten at most--Ishall be far in the race--"
"And quite out of breath with the running," she observed, "by the timeyou turn and come back for me."
"I don't dare ask you to wait for me."
"As a matter of fact," she responded serenely, "I don't think I shall. Icould never endure waiting."
Her calmness was like a dash of cold water into my face.
"Don't laugh at me whatever you do," I implored.
"I'm not laughing--it's far too serious," she retorted. "That scheme ofyours," she flashed out suddenly, "is worthy of the great brain of theGeneral."
"Now I'll stand anything but that!" I replied, and turned squarely onher; "Sally, do you love me?"
"Love a man who puts both his pride and his principles before me?"
"If you don't love me--and, of course you can't--why do you torment me?"
"It isn't torment, it's education. When next you start to propose to thelady
of your choice, don't begin by telling her you are lovesick for thegood opinion of her maiden aunts."
"Sally, Sally!" I cried joyfully. My hand went out to hers, and then asshe turned away--my arm was about her, and the little fur hat with thebunch of violets was on my breast.
"O, Ben Starr, were you born blind?" she said with a sob.
"Sally, am I mad or do you love me?" I asked, and the next instant,bending over as she looked up, I kissed her parted lips.
For a minute she was silent, as if my kiss had drawn her strengththrough her tremulous red mouth. Her body quivered and seemed to melt inmy arms--and then with a happy laugh, she yielded herself to my embrace.
"A little of both, Ben," she answered, "you are mad, I suppose, and soam I--and I love you."
"But how could you? When did you begin?"
"I could because I would, and there was no beginning. I was born thatway."
"You meant you have cared for me, as I have for you--always?"
"Not always, perhaps--but--well, it started in the churchyard, I think,when I gave you Samuel. Then when I met you again it might have beenjust the way you look--for oh, Ben, did you ever discover that you aresplendid to look at?"
"A magnificent animal," I retorted.
She blushed, recognising the phrase. "To tell the truth, though, itwasn't the way you look," she went on impulsively, "it was, I think,--Iam quite sure,--the time you pushed that wheel up the hill. I adoredyou, Ben, at that moment. If you'd asked me to marry you on the spot I'dhave responded, 'Yes, thank you, sir,' as one of my great-grandmothersdid at the altar."
"And to think I didn't even know you were there. I'd forgotten it, but Iremember now the General told me I made a spectacle of myself."
"Well, I always liked a spectacle, it's in my blood. I like a man, too,who does things as if he didn't care whether anybody was looking at himor not--and that's you, Ben."
"It's not my business to shatter your ideals," I answered, and the nextminute, "O Sally, how is it to end?"
"That depends, doesn't it," she asked, "whether you want to marry me ormy maiden aunts?"
"Do you mean that you will marry me?"
"I mean, Ben, that if you aren't so obliging as to marry me, I'll pineaway and die a lovelorn death."
"Be serious, Sally."
"Could anything on earth be more serious than a lovelorn death?"
I would have caught her back to my breast, but eluding my arms, shestood poised like the fleeting-spirit of gaiety in the little path.
"Will you promise to marry me, Ben Starr?" she asked.
"I'll promise anything on earth," I answered.
"Not to talk any more about my stooping to a giant?"
"I won't talk about it, darling, I'll let you do it."
"And if you're poor you'll let me be poor too? And if you're rich you'llgive me a share of the money?"
"Both--all."
"And you'll make a sacrifice for me--as the General said Georgewouldn't--whenever I happen particularly to want one?"
"A million of them--anything, everything."
She came a step nearer, and raised her smiling lips to mine.
"Anything--everything, Ben, together," she said.
Presently we walked back slowly, hand in hand, through the maze of box.
"Will you tell your aunts, or shall I, Sally?" I asked.
"We'll go to them together."
"Now, at this instant?"
"Now--at this instant," she agreed, "but I thought you were so patient?"
"Patient? I'm as patient as an engine on the Great South Midland."
"A minute ago you were prepared to wait ten years."
"Oh, ten years!" I echoed, as I followed her out of the enchantedgarden.
At the corner the surrey was standing, and the face of old Shadrach, thenegro driver, stared back at me, transfixed with amazement.
"Whar you gwine now, Miss Sally?" he demanded defiantly of his youngmistress, as I took my place under the fur rug beside her.
"Home, Uncle Shadrach," she replied.
"Ain't I gwine drap de gent'man some whar on de way up?"
"No, Uncle Shadrach, home,"--and for home we started merrily with aflick of the whip over the backs of the greys.
Sitting beside her for the first time in my life, I was conscious, as wedrove through the familiar streets, only of an acute physical delight inher presence. As she turned toward me, her breath fanned my cheek, thetouch of her arm on mine was a rapture, and when the edge of her whiteveil was blown into my face, I felt my blood rush to meet it. Neverbefore had I been so confident, so strong, so assured of the future. Notthe future alone, but the whole universe seemed to lie in the closedpalm of my hand. I knew that I was plain, that I was rough beside thevelvet softness of the woman who had promised to share my life; but thisplainness, this roughness, no longer troubled me since she had found init something of the power that had drawn her to me. My awkwardness haddropped from me in the revelation of my strength which she had brought.The odour of burning leaves floated up from the street, and I saw againher red shoes dancing over the sunken graves in the churchyard. Oh,those red shoes had danced into my life and would stay there forever!
The Romance of a Plain Man Page 15