 | CHAPTER XIII.
SYLVIA'S HONEYMOON. Moods |  |
13. CHAPTER XIII.
SYLVIA'S HONEYMOON.
It began with a pleasant journey. Day after day they
loitered along country roads that led them through many
scenes of summer beauty; pausing at old-fashioned inns
and wayside farmhouses, or gipsying at noon in some green
nook where their four-footed comrades dined off their tablecloth
while they made merry over the less simple fare their
last hostess had provided for them. When the scenery was
uninteresting, as was sometimes the case, for Nature will
not disturb her domestic arrangements for any bridal pair,
one or the other read aloud, or both sang, while conversation
was a never-failing pastime and silence had charms which
they could enjoy. Sometimes they walked a mile or two,
ran down a hillside, rustled through a grain field, strolled
into an orchard, or feasted from fruitful hedges by the way,
as care-free as the squirrels on the wall, or the jolly brown
bees lunching at the sign of “The Clover-top.” They
made friends with sheep in meadows, cows at the brook,
travellers morose or bland, farmers full of a sturdy sense
that made their chat as wholesome as the mould they delved
in; school children barefooted and blithe, and specimens of
womankind, from the buxom housewife who took them
under her motherly wing at once, to the sour, snuffy, shoe-binding
her face.
To Moor the world was glorified with the purple light
which seldom touches it but once for any of us; the journey
was a wedding march, made beautiful by summer,
victorious by joy; his young wife the queen of women, and
himself an equal of the gods because no longer conscious
of a want. Sylvia could not be otherwise than happy, for
finding unbounded liberty and love her portion, she had
nothing to regret, and regarded marriage as an agreeable
process which had simply changed her name and given her
protector, friend, and lover all in one. She was therefore her
sweetest and sincerest self, miraculously docile, and charmingly
gay; interested in all she saw, and quite overflowing
with delight when the last days of the week betrayed the
secret that her destination was the mountains.
Loving the sea so well, her few flights from home had
given her only marine experiences, and the flavor of entire
novelty was added to the feast her husband had provided
for her. It came to her not only when she could enjoy it
most, but when she needed it most, soothing the unquiet,
stimulating the nobler elements which ruled her life by
turns and fitting her for what lay before her. Choosing the
quietest roads, Moor showed her the wonders of a region
whose wild grandeur and beauty make its memory a life-long
satisfaction. Day after day they followed mountain
paths, studying the changes of an ever-varying landscape,
watching the flush of dawn redden the granite fronts of
these Titans scared with centuries of storm, the lustre of
noon brood over them until they smiled, the evening purple
wrap them in its splendor, or moonlight touch them with its
magic; till Sylvia, always looking up at that which filled
and through the medium of the friend beside her learned
that human love brings us nearer to the Divine, and is the
surest means to that great end.
The last week of the honeymoon came all too soon, for
then they had promised to return. The crowning glory of
the range was left until the last, and after a day of memorable
delights Sylvia sat in the sunset feasting her eyes upon
the wonders of a scene which is indescribable, for words
have limits and that is apparently illimitable. Presently
Moor came to her asking —
“Will you join a party to the great ice palace, and see
three acres of snow in August, worn by a waterfall into a
cathedral, as white if not as durable as any marble?”
“I sit so comfortably here I think I had rather not.
But you must go because you like such wonders, and I
shall rest till you come back.”
“Then I shall take myself off and leave you to muse
over the pleasures of the day, which for a few hours has
made you one of the most eminent women this side the Rocky
Mountains. There is a bugle at the house here with which
to make the echoes, I shall take it with me, and from time
to time send up a sweet reminder that you are not to stray
away and lose yourself.”
Sylvia sat for half an hour, then wearied by the immensity
of the wide landscape she tried to rest her mind by
examining the beauties close at hand. Strolling down the
path the sight-seers had taken, she found herself in a rocky
basin, scooped in the mountain side like a cup for a little
pool, so clear and bright it looked a diamond set in jet. A
fringe of scanty herbage had collected about its brim,
russet mosses, purple heath, and delicate white flowers,
fairy well. The spot attracted her, and remembering that
she was not to stray away, she sat down beside the path to
wait for her husband's return.
In the act of bending over the pool to sprinkle the thirsty
little company about it, her hand was arrested by the
tramp of approaching feet, and looking up to discover who
was the disturber of her retreat, she saw a man pausing
at the top of the path opposite to that by which she had
come. He seemed scrutinizing the solitary occupant of the
dell before descending; but as she turned her face to him
he flung away knapsack, hat, and staff, and then with a
great start she saw no stranger, but Adam Warwick. Coming
down to her so joyfully, so impetuously, she had only
time to recognise him, and cry out, when she was swept up
in an embrace as tender as irresistible, and lay there conscious
of nothing, but that happiness like some strong swift
angel had wrapt her away into the promised land so long
believed in, hungered for, and despaired of, as forever lost.
Soon she heard his voice, breathless, eager, but so fond it
seemed another voice than his.
“My darling! did you think I should never come?”
“I thought you had forgotten me, I knew you were married.
Adam, put me down.”
But he only held her closer, and laughed such a happy
laugh that Sylvia felt the truth before he uttered it.
“How could I marry, loving you? How could I forget
you even if I had never come to tell you this? Sylvia, I
know much that has passed. Geoffrey's failure gave me
courage to hope for success, and that the mute betrothal
made with a look so long ago had been to you all it has
been to me.”
“Adam, you are both right and wrong, — you do not
know all, — let me tell you,” — began Sylvia, as these
proofs of ignorance brought her to herself with a shock of
recollection and dismay. But Warwick was as absolute
in his happiness as he had been in his self-denial, and took
possession of her mentally as well as physically with a despotism
too welcome and entire to be at once resisted.
“You shall tell me nothing till I have shown the cause
of my hard-seeming silence. I must throw off that burden
first, then I will listen to you until morning if you
will. I have earned this moment by a year of effort, let
me keep you here and enjoy it without alloy.”
The old charm had lost none of its power, for absence
seemed to have gifted it with redoubled potency, the confirmation
of that early hope to grace it with redoubled warmth.
Sylvia let him keep her, feeling that he had earned that
small reward for a year's endeavor, resolving to grant all
now left her to bestow, a few moments more of blissful ignorance,
then to show him his loss and comfort him, sure
that her husband would find no disloyalty in a compassion
scarcely less deep and self-forgetful than his own would
have been had he shared their secret. Only pausing to
place himself upon the seat she had left, Warwick put off
her hat, and turning her face to his regarded it with such
unfeigned and entire content her wavering purpose was fixed
by a single look. Then as he began to tell the story of the
past she forgot everything but the rapid words she listened
to, the countenance she watched, so beautifully changed and
softened, it seemed as if she had never seen the man
before, or saw him now as we sometimes see familiar figures
glorified in dreams. In the fewest, kindest words Warwick
told her of Ottila, the promise and the parting; then, as if
one lingers at a friend's door, enjoying in anticipation the
welcome he is sure awaits him.
“The night we walked together by the river — such a
wilful yet winning comrade as I had that day, and how I
enjoyed it all! — that night I suspected that Geoffrey loved
you, Sylvia, and was glad to think it. A month later I
was sure of it, and found in that knowledge the great hardship
of my life, because I loved you myself. Audacious
thing! how dared you steal into my heart and take possession
when I had turned my last guest out and barred the
door? I thought I had done with the sentiment that had
so nearly wrecked me once, but see how blind I was — the
false love only made me readier for the true. You never
seemed a child to me, Sylvia, because you have an old soul
in a young body, and your father's trials and temptations
live again in you. This first attracted me. I liked to
watch, to question, to study the human enigma to which I
had found a clue from its maker's lips. I liked your candor
and simplicity, your courage and caprice. Even your
faults found favor in my eyes; for pride, will, impetuosity
were old friends of mine, and I liked to see them working
in another shape. At first you were a curiosity, then an
amusement, then a necessity. I wanted you, not occasionally,
but constantly. You put salt and savor into life for
me; for whether you spoke or were silent, were sweet or
sour, friendly or cold, I was satisfied to feel your nearness,
and always took away an inward content which nothing
else could give me. This affection was so unlike the other
that I deceived myself for a time — not long. I soon knew
what had befallen me, soon felt that this sentiment was
good to feel, because I forgot my turbulent and worser self
you gave me. I wanted you, but it was not the touch
of hands or lips, the soft encounter of eyes, the tones of
tenderness, I wanted most. It was that something beyond
my reach, vital and vestal, invisible, yet irresistible; that
something, be it heart, soul, or mind, which drew me to
you by an attraction genial and genuine as itself. My Sylvia,
that was love, and when it came to me I took it in,
sure that whether its fruition was granted or denied I
should be a manlier man for having harbored it even for an
hour. Why turn your face away? Well, hide it if you
will, but lean here as you did once so long ago.”
She let him lay it on his shoulder, still feeling that
Moor was one to look below the surface of these things and
own that she did well in giving so pure a love a happy
moment before its death, as she would have cherished
Warwick had he laid dying.
“On that September evening, as I sat alone, I had been
thinking of what might be and what must be. Had decided
that I would go away for Geoffrey's sake. He was
fitter than I to have you, being so gentle, and in all ways
ready to possess a wife. I was so rough, such a yagrant,
so full of my own purposes and plans, how could I dare
to take into my keeping such a tender little creature as
yourself? I thought you did not care for me; I knew
any knowledge of my love would only mar his own; so it
was best to go at once and leave him to the happiness he
so well deserved. Just then you came to me, as if the
wind had blown my desire to my arms. Such a loving
touch that was! it nearly melted my resolve, it seemed
hard not to take the one thing I wanted when it came to
me so opportunely. I yearned to break that idle promise,
for its folly; but you said keep it, and I did. You
could not understand my trouble, and when I sat before
you so still, perhaps looking grim and cold, you did not
know how I was wrestling with my unruly self. I am not
truly generous, for the relinquishment of any cherished
object always costs a battle, and I too often find I am
worsted. For the first time I dared not meet your eyes till
you dived into mine with that expression wistful and guileless,
which has often made me feel as if we stood divested
of our bodies, soul to soul.
“Tongue I could control, heart I could not. Up it
sprung stronger than will, swifter than thought, and answered
you. Sylvia, had there been one ray of self-consciousness
in those steady eyes of yours, one atom of maiden
shame, or fear, or trouble, I should have claimed you as my
own. There was not; and though you let me read your
face like an open book, you never dreamed what eloquence
was in it. Innocent heart, that loved and had not learned
to know it. I saw this instantly, saw that a few more such
encounters would show it to you likewise, and felt more
strongly than before that if ever the just deed to you, the
generous one to Geoffrey were done, it should be then. For
that was the one moment when your half-awakened heart
could fall painlessly asleep again, if I did not disturb it,
and dream on till Geoffrey woke it, to find a gentler master
than I could be to it.”
“It could not, Adam; you had wholly roused it, and
it cried for you so long, so bitterly, oh, why did you not
come to answer it before?”
“How could I till the year was over? Was I not obeying
you in keeping that accursed promise? God knows I
was that promise; the most short-sighted, that belief.
What right had I to fetter my tongue, or try to govern
love? Shall I ever learn to do my own work aright, and
not meddle with the Lord's? Sylvia, take this presumptuous
and domineering devil out of me in time, lest I blunder
as blindly after you are mine as I have before. Now
let me finish before Mark comes to find us. I went away,
you know, singing the farewell I dared not speak, and for
nine months kept myself sane and steady with whatever
my hands found to do. If ever work of mine is blessed it
will be that, for into it I put the best endeavor of my life.
Though I had renounced you, I kept my love; let it burn
day and night, fed it with labor and with prayer, trusting
that this selfish heart of mine might be recast and made a
fitter receptacle for an enduring treasure. In May, far at
the West, I met a woman who knew Geoffrey; had seen
him lately, and learned that he had lost you. She was his
cousin, I his friend, and through our mutual interest in him
this confidence naturally came about. When she told me
this hope blazed up, and all manner of wild fancies haunted
me. Love is arrogant, and I nourished a belief that even
I might succeed where Geoffrey failed. You were so young,
you were not likely to be easily won by any other, if such
a man had asked in vain, and a conviction gradually took
possession of me that you had understood, had loved, and
were yet waiting for me. A month seemed an eternity to
wait, but I left myself no moment for despair, and soon
turned my face to Cuba, finding renewed hope on the way.
Gabriel went with me, told me how Ottila had searched for
me, and failing to find me had gone back to make ready
for my coming. How she had tried to be all I desired, and
of your name was better, and much close questioning
gave me the scene which he remembered, because Ottila had
chidden him sharply for his disclosures to yourself. Knowing
you so well, I gathered much from trifles which were
nothing in Gabriel's eyes. I felt that regard for me, if
nothing warmer, had prompted your interest in them; and
out of the facts given me by Faith and Gabriel I built
myself a home, which I have inhabited as a guest till now,
when I know myself its master, and welcome its dear mistress,
so my darling.”
He bent to give her tender greeting, but Sylvia arrested
him.
“Not yet, Adam! not yet! Go on, before it is too late
to tell me as you wish.”
He thought it was some maidenly scruple, and though
he smiled at it he respected it, for this same coyness in the
midst of all her whims had always been one of her attractions
in his eye.
“Shy thing! I will tame you yet, and draw you to me
as confidingly as I drew the bird to hop into my hand and
eat. You must not fear me, Sylvia, else I shall grow tyrannical;
for I hate fear, and like to trample on whatever dares
not fill its place bravely, sure that it will receive its due as
trustfully as these little mosses sit among the clouds and
find a spring to feed them even in the rock. Now I will
make a speedy end of this, pleasant as it is to sit here feeling
myself no longer a solitary waif. I shall spare you the
stormy scenes I passed through with Ottila, because I do
not care to think of my Cleopatra while I hold “my fine
spirit Ariel” in my arms. She had done her best, but had
I been still heart-free I never could have married her. She
I dared not, even when I thought I loved her, for much as I
love power I love truth more. I told her this, heard
prayers, reproaches, threats, and denunciations; tried to
leave her kindly, and then was ready for my fate with you.
But I was not to have my will so easily. I had fallen into
the net, and was not to leave it till the scourging had been
given. So like that other wandering Christian, I cried out,
submitted, and was the meeker for it. I had to wait a little
before the ship sailed; I would not stay at El Labarinto,
Gabriel's home, for Ottila was there; and though the fever
raged at Havana, I felt secure in my hitherto unbroken
health. I returned there, and paid the penalty; for weeks
of suffering taught me that I could not trifle with this body
of mine, sturdy as it seemed.”
“Oh, Adam, who took care of you? Where did you lie
and suffer all that time?”
“Never fret yourself concerning that; I was not neglected.
A sister of the `Sacred Heart' took excellent
care of me, and a hospital is as good as a palace when one
neither knows nor cares where he is. It went hardly with
hoping that this confidence of hers would have its due
effect upon me. It did try me sorely, but an experience
once over is as if it had never been, as far as regret or indecision
is concerned; therefore wedding gowns and imperious
women failed to move me. To be left a groomless
bride stung that fiery pride of hers more than many an
actual shame or sin would have done. People would pity
her, would see her loss, deride her wilful folly. Gabriel
loved her as she desired to be loved, blindly and passionately;
few knew of our later bond, many of our betrothal,
why not let the world believe me the rejected party come
back for a last appeal? I had avoided all whom I once
knew, for I loathed the place; no one had discovered me at
the hospital, she thought me gone, she boldly took the step,
married the poor boy, left Cuba before I was myself again,
and won herself an empty victory which I never shall disturb.”
“How strange! Yet I can believe it of her, she looked
a woman who would dare do anything. Then you came
back Adam, to find me? What led you here, hoping so
much and knowing so little?”
“Did you ever know me do anything in the accustomed
way? Do I not always aim straight at the thing I want
and pursue it by the shortest road? It fails often, and I
go back to the slower surer way; but my own is always
tried first, as involuntarily as I hurled myself down that
slope, as if storming a fort instead of meeting my sweetheart.
That is a pretty old word beloved of better men
than I, so let me use it once. Among the first persons I
met on landing was a friend of your father's; he was just
driving away in hot haste, but catching a glimpse of the
summer travel, you might be away, and no one else would
satisfy me; he might know, and time be saved. I asked one
question, “Where are the Yules?” He answered, as he
vanished, “The young people are all at the mountains.”
That was enough, and congratulating myself on the forethought
which would save me some hundred miles of needless
delay, away I went, and for days have been searching
for you every where on that side of these hills which I know
so well. But no Yules h d passed, and feeling sure you
were on this side I came, not around, but straight over, for
this seemed a royal road to my love, and here I found her
waiting for me by the way. Now Sylvia, are your doubts
all answered, your fears all laid, your heart at rest on mine?”
As the time drew nearer Sylvia's task daunted her.
Warwick was so confident, so glad and tender over her, it
seemed like pronouncing the death doom to say those hard
words, “It is too late.” While she struggled to find some
expression that should tell all kindly yet entirely, Adam,
seeming to read some hint of her trouble, asked, with that
gentleness which now overlaid his former abruptness, and
was the more alluring for the contrast —
“Have I been too arrogant a lover? too sure of happiness,
too blind to my small deserts? Sylvia, have I misunderstood
the greeting you have given me?”
“Yes, Adam, utterly.”
He knit his brows, his eye grew anxious, his content
seemed rudely broken, but still hopefully he said —
“You mean that absence has changed you, that you do
not love me as you did, and pity made you kind? Well,
I receive the disappointment, but I do not relinquish my
desire. What has been may be; let me try again to earn
to make myself more dear to you. Something disturbs you,
be frank with me; I have shown you all my heart, what
have you to show me in return?”
“Only this.”
She freed herself entirely from his hold and held up her
hand before him. He did not see the ring; he thought she
gave him all he asked, and with a glow of gratitude extended
both his own to take it. Then she saw that delay was worse
than weak, and though she trembled she spoke out bravely
ending his suspense at once.
“Adam, I do not love you as I did, nor can I wish or try
to bring it back, because — I am married.”
He sprung up as if shot through the heart, nor could a
veritable bullet from her hand have daunted him with a
more intense dismay than those three words. An instant's
incredulity, then conviction came to him, and he met it like
a man, for though his face whitened and his eye burned
with an expression that wrung her heart, he demanded
steadily. —
“To whom?”
This was the hardest question of all, for well she knew
the name would wound the deeper for its dearness, and
while it lingered pitifully upon her lips its owner answered
for himself. Clear and sweet came up the music of the
horn, bringing them a familiar air they all loved, and
had often sung together. Warwick knew it instantly, felt
the hard truth but rebelled against it, and put out his arm
as if to ward it off as he exclaimed, with real anguish in
countenance and voice—
“Oh, Sylvia! it is not Geoffrey?”
“Yes.”
Then, as if all strength had gone out of her, she dropped
down upon the mossy margin of the spring and covered up
her face, feeling that the first sharpness of a pain like this
was not for human eyes to witness. How many minutes
passed she could not tell, the stillness of the spot remained
unbroken by any sound but the whisper of the wind, and
in this silence Sylvia found time to marvel at the calmness
which came to her. Self had been forgotten in surprise
and sympathy, and still her one thought was how to comfort
Warwick. She had expected some outburst of feeling,
some gust of anger or despair, but neither sigh nor sob,
reproach nor regret reached her, and soon she stole an
anxious glance to see how it went with him. He was standing
where she left him, both hands locked together till they
were white with the passionate pressure. His eyes fixed on
some distant object with a regard as imploring as unseeing,
and through those windows of the soul he looked out darkly,
not despairingly; but as if sure that somewhere there was
help for him, and he waited for it with a stern patience
more terrible to watch than the most tempestuous grief.
Sylvia could not bear it, and remembering that her confession
had not yet been made, seized that instant for the
purpose, prompted by an instinct which assured her that the
knowledge of her pain would help him to bear his own.
She told him all, and ended saying —
“Now, Adam, come to me and let me try to comfort
you.”
Sylvia was right; for through the sorrowful bewilderment
that brought a brief eclipse of hope and courage, sympathy
reached him like a friendly hand to uphold him till he
found the light again. While speaking, she had seen the
immobility that frightened her break up, and Warwick's
controllable no longer. But the demonstration which followed
was one she had never thought to see from him, for
when she stretched her hands to him with that tender invitation,
she saw the deep eyes fill and overflow. Then he
threw himself down before her, and for the first time in her
short life showed her that sad type of human suffering, a
man weeping like a woman.
Warwick was one of those whose passions, as his virtues,
were in unison with the powerful body they inhabited, and
in such a crisis as the present but one of two reliefs were
possible to him; either wrathful denunciation, expostulation
and despair, or the abandon of a child. Against the former
he had been struggling dumbly till Sylvia's words had
turned the tide, and too entirely natural to feel a touch of
shame at that which is not a weakness but a strength,
too wise to reject so safe an outlet for so dangerous a grief,
he yielded to it, letting the merciful magic of tears quench
the fire, wash the first bitterness away, and leave reproaches
only writ in water. It was better so, and Sylvia acknowledged
it within herself as she sat mute and motionless,
softly touching the brown hair scattered on the moss, her
poor consolation silenced by the pathos of the sight, while
through it all rose and fell the fitful echo of the horn, in
very truth “a sweet reminder not to stray away and lose
herself.” An hour ago it would have been a welcome sound,
for peak after peak gave back the strain, and airy voices
whispered it until the faintest murmur died. But now she
let it soar and sigh half heard, for audible to her alone still
came its sad accompaniment of bitter human tears. To
Warwick it was far more; for music, the comforter, laid her
balm on his sore heart as no mortal pity could have done,
seemed to have robbed him of his love to an unconscious
Orpheus, who subdued the savage and harmonized the man.
Soon he was himself again, for to those who harbor the
strong virtues with patient zeal, no lasting ill can come,
no affliction can wholly crush, no temptation wholly vanquish.
He rose with eyes the clearer for their stormy rain,
twice a man for having dared to be a child again. Humbler
and happier for the knowledge that neither vain resentment
nor unjust accusation had defrauded of its dignity, the
heavy hour that left him desolate but not degraded.
“I am comforted, Sylvia, rest assured of that. And
now there is little more to say, but one thing to do. I
shall not see your husband yet, and leave you to tell him
what seems best, for, with the instinct of an animal, I
always go away to outlive my hurts alone. But remember
that I acquit you of blame, and believe that I will yet be
happy in your happiness. I know if Geoffrey were here, he
would lot me do this, because he has suffered as I suffer
now.”
Bending, he gathered her to an embrace as different from
that other as despair is from delight, and while he held her
there, crowding into one short minute, all the pain and passion
of a year, she heard a low, but exceeding bitter
cry — “Oh, my Sylvia! it is hard to give you up.”
Then, with a solemn satisfaction, which assured her as it
did himself, he spoke out clear and loud —
“Thank God for the merciful Hereafter, in which we
may retrieve the blunders we make here.”
With that he left her, never turning till the burden so
joyfully cast down had been resumed. Then, staff and hat
in hand, he paused on the margin of that granite cup, to
Clouds were trooping eastward, but in that pause the sun
glanced full on Warwick's figure, lifting his powerful
head into a flood of light, as he waved his hand to Sylvia
with a gesture of courage and good cheer. The look, the
act, the memories they brought her, made her heart ache
with a sharper pang than pity, and filled her eyes with tears
of impotent regret, as she turned her head as if to chide
the blithe clamor of the horn. When she looked again, the
figure and the sunshine were both gone, leaving her alone
and in the shadow.
| CHAPTER XIII.
SYLVIA'S HONEYMOON. Moods | |