36. CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE UNFORESEEN.
In life it is the improbable that always comes to pass; and
nothing is certain but the unforeseen.
Two persons playing prominent parts in this history were riding
out together, and went side by side, almost silent as they rode,
across the hills and through the forests stripped of their gaudy
tints.
Since the scenes just described a month had passed, and the year
seemed suddenly to go backward. That first brief snow had disappeared
like a dream with the sunshine of the following days: then
the air had moderated; a few chill days, a gradual softening of the
temperature, finally a delicious, dreamy calm—as sweet as the
spring, as mild as the summer, as pensive as the autumn—and
the magical “Indian summer,” the Greek “nurse of the halcyon,”
had come into the world in all its loveliness. Not a breath of air
disturbed the slumbrous quiet. The faint, sweet splendor of the
sunshine bathed the fields, the forests, and the distant river; and
over all a silvery, translucent haze drooped, rounding every outline
into beauty.
The Indian summer makes the world fairy-land. Have the hard
cares of the world left you the capacity to dream? If so, it is then
that you dream of many things—of youth; of early loves; of the
faces you will not see again, the hands you will not touch, the lips
you will never more kiss......
Justin Harley had gone, on this morning, to Blandfield; had
found Evelyn Bland desirous of riding to the house of a friend a
few miles distant; offered to escort her; and they were riding now
through the mild sunshine, talking a little only as they went.
A single glance at Harley must have shown anybody that the
whole man had undergone a change. St. Leger had seen that
change after Harley's visit to the Blackwater Swamp, but now it
was far more marked. All the old unrest, hidden under a calm
sadness, had left him. His expression was gentle, patient, sweet:
happiness, if not hope, seemed to have come back to him, as the
sunshine had come back after the snow.
The improbable had come to pass—the unforeseen had become a
reality.
Harley had begun to love Evelyn Bland with the calm, strong
love of a calm, strong man—the man of thirty who has felt grief,
known disappointment, encountered every viscissitude, and lost
the fresh impulse of the spring of life, but retained the mellow
sweetness of autumn. The Indian summer typified his sentiment—something
mild, sweet and enforced—the second summer
of the heart.
The world smiles sometimes at these “cases.” Youth, it is said,
is the only age on which the absurdity of loving sits gracefully.
But it is only the very old, or the very young, who say that. If
the love of a man is the triumph of a woman, it is the love of the
man of thirty in which she should rejoice.
How this wonder came about, the man whose history we write
never knew. But there it was. The hermit-like, the sad, the indifferent
Justin Harley, who had looked with antipathy, almost,
upon every woman, had in that single month, in that poor little
bundle of minutes, passed from carelessness to interest, from interest
to affection, from affection to tenderness, and with every day,
now, this tenderness was deepening into a strong and earnest love.
If any one had predicted this, Justin Harley would certainly have
laughed at them. But the marvel had come to pass. The blue
eyes of the girl, her lips, her smile, the bend of her neck, the tones
of her voice, these went with him as he rode, followed him everywhere
throughout the day, and haunted him in dreams. The voice
of Evelyn in singing had first made his dull heart beat. He was a
passionate lover of music, and this voice of a country girl seemed
to open for him a new world. He had heard the finest singers of
the European capitals, but exquisite as the enjoyment of the music
of the masters had been to him, it was not so exquisite as the ballad
floating like a bird's song from the lips of Evelyn Bland. She
seemed to him to sing, indeed, as the birds sing—not to be heard,
but to hear themselves. Either the fresh young voice laughed in
some arch-capricious ditty, dancing with mirth, or died away in
slow, sad cadences, touching the heart with sympathetic tenderness;
and Harley listened, was enthralled, heard her singing still when
he had gone away, until the music of her voice seemed ever
present with him, as an old tune of our youthful years comes back
and haunts us, and will not leave us any rest.
So love dawned, deepened, reddened the sky of this man's life,
and changed him. His face showed little, however; he was as
calm as before, only with the calmness was mingled that new
patience, gentleness and sweetness. He saw her now and then,—
riding to Blandfield, at intervals only, with Sainty, the gay youth,
who was an immense favorite there. There had never been a
word of love between them; he only looked at her and listened
to her.
They rode on slowly through the mild sunshine, enjoying almost
in silence the luxury of being near each other. Evelyn had never
looked more beautiful. The exquisite grace of her tall figure was
shown by the riding-habit which adapted itself closely to the
slendor form, and her hair fell upon her shoulders. The neck, with
its narrow and plain collar, was bent a little forward—one of the
girl's greatest charms, for it gave her that gracious and maidenly
air which a neck held stiffly erect takes away. Her cheeks were
tinted with the blush roses of nineteen, which—the poets notwithstanding—has
a fuller and sweeter bloom in it than seventeen;
her lips smiled, her blue eyes had the faint sweetness of the sunshine;
when the exquisite young creature turned this lovely head
over her shoulder, looking sidewise, she was all loveliness—if
loveliness means the property that inspires love. Beauty is not
loveliness; the ugly are often lovely, and though Evelyn Bland
had always been called a “little beauty,” it was her expression
more than her features which gave her her chief charm. You read
her feelings in her eyes and lips—eyes and lips translating the joy,
sorrow, laughter, tears, which chased each other in gleam or gloom
through her heart. And such human beings enthrall.
It was astonishing how the disproportion of age between these
two persons had changed. Evelyn had burst, as it were, into the
full flower of womanhood in a month. In the same time, Justin
Harley, cold, calm, sorrowful, resembling an old man at thirty, had
grown young. Wonderful magic of love, that makes the young old,
and the old young. You would have supposed them of the same
age, nearly. All that was unchanged in Harley was that almost
stately carriage of person. This he retained—his most marked personal
trait. It has been noticed before. In walking, he planted
his feet firmly and strongly at each step, his head erect, his
shoulders thrown back, and his eyes calm and steady, looking into
your own. In riding, he carried himself in the same erect
fashion.
They made the visit which Evelyn wished, and returned toward
Blandfield. The road passed across that leading from the Blackwater
Swamp, toward Huntsdon. It was not the shortest, but
neither wished to cut short the ride. The poet—a very great poet—
knew human nature when he wrote “The Last Ride Together,”
and made his lover long to “ride forever—forever ride” with the
one he loved; and Harley felt that wish vaguely, scarcely realizing
his own sentiment, forgetting the past, losing sight of the future,
living only in the present.
The road was the longest; it was also the worst. Evelyn was
riding a somewhat skittish horse and—it did not amount to an
incident; it was the most trivial of trifles; but trifles go to make
up life!
The road they were following ran through a hollow, ascended
gradually, and passed along the edge of a bank, from which you
looked down abruptly on a wooded rivulet thirty feet below.
Horses are generally perverse; they always select a dangerous spot
to become frightened. Evelyn's suddenly shied at some noise in
the bushes, leaped sidewise, and would have plunged down the
bank had not Harley seized the bridle. Evelyn was an excellent
rider, but just escaped falling, with the help of Harley's arm thrown
around her.
For a single instant his arm encircled the lithe figure, which
leaned almost on his heart, and her curls brushed his cheek. He
had held her in his arms once in the Blackwater, and felt perfect
indifference thereat. Now he measured the change. His heart
throbbed, his face flushed like a boy's. Their eyes met for a single
second......
Harley had just taken his supporting arm from Evelyn, when he
heard a light laugh.
He turned round, and saw St. Leger, who had ridden up behind
them unheard, looking at them with wicked smiles.
