Chapter XII Leading to the Altar
Glen did not renounce his original intention of climbing White Face mountains. He slept for two hours, breakfasted, and started for White Face trail at ten o’clock. There was no one stirring at the camp. When he returned it was four in the afternoon. He found Indiana lying in the hammock on the balcony, Lord Canning, seated beside her, reading poetry aloud.
Glen threw himself into a chair. “I’m pretty well used up!”
“I should think so,” said Indiana, “climbing White Face after being up all night! I’ll order some tea for you, and then you’d better go to bed.”
She sprang from the hammock and disappeared, returning again in a moment.
“Thank you, Indiana. I’m glad I went. It was magnificent! The view as clear as possible, and snow on the summit!”
“I thought we might see you and Haller from the lake, but I couldn’t get Lord Canning away from the camp to-day. He was so lazy.”
Lord Canning smiled. He had his own reasons for staying home, having resolved not to let the day pass without speaking to his host of the subject of Indiana. So far there had been no opportunity. The family did not appear until lunch-time, and ever since, Stillwater had been closeted, writing business letters.
Though excessively fatigued, Glen felt immeasurably better for climbing White Face. The physical tax had cleared his brain. He had been exhilarated by the cold, rare air on the summit. He drank his tea with a pleasurable sense of lassitude, and, his eyes fixed on Indiana swinging in the hammock, replied rather absently to Lord Canning’s questions regarding the ascent.
Lord Canning rose, closing his Tennyson. “I think I’ll stroll down to the lake, Miss Stillwater, if you don’t mind.” He smiled at Glen, with a feeling of generosity.
Indiana looked after him thoughtfully as he strolled down through the trees.
“He’s a thorough gentleman—so unobtrusive. He never asks prying questions—and he’s never in the way.”
“Too slow for me,” replied Glen, watching her narrowly. “But I suppose you must have someone to flirt with.”
Indiana swung slowly. “Perhaps—I’m in earnest—this time!”
Glen rose and grasped her wrist tightly. “Don’t say that, Indy! While you’re single I shall never give up hope. Now, what’s in the way? I’m not your inferior in education. Do you know any handsomer fellow than I?”—with a grim affectation of humor. “If it’s for money—I have all you’ll ever want.”
“I must marry a man of the world. I want to live in the world. We’re both undeveloped—I’m not a woman yet, nor you a man.”
“I don’t consider I’m not a man,” said Glen scornfully, “until I have conquered no end of women, and have their broken hearts for trophies, like an Indian with a string of scalps. I love one woman, and if she won’t have me—well, I’ll not give up until I see her tied pretty tightly to another man.”
“I’m not worth it, Glen.” She caught his arm, gazing earnestly up into his face, “I’m not worth all your devotion.”
“I know you have faults enough, but, God help me, I love you all the better for them.”
“Everybody loves my faults,” said Indiana, impatiently. “That’s the trouble with me. If I could only find some one who would hate them and try to cure them.”
“I couldn’t be harsh to you, Indy. If you killed me, I’d die blessing you. You nearly did for me once—”
“What!”
“Oh, it wasn’t your fault—you were too young to know better.”
Indiana sprang from the hammock. “Glen, what wasn’t my fault?” she demanded, fiercely. “What did I do? You shall tell me!”
“All right. But don’t get in a temper. I swore I’d never throw it up to you.”
“Don’t tease me, Glen,” said Indiana, imploringly, “tell me—quickly.”
Glen pushed his hair back from his right temple. “Do you see that?”
“Yes,” uttered Indiana, in a frightened voice, “a deep, white scar.”
“You did that.” She recoiled, looking at it in horror. “You threw a pair of scissors at me—in one of your tantrums.”
“Oh, no, no, no!”
“You were too young to remember, and they took you away so that the sight of the blood shouldn’t frighten you.”
“Oh, Glen!” cried Indiana, “how could I? And you’re always so good—you never even hated me for it. Oh, Glen!” She took his head in her hands and kissed the scar impulsively. “Forgive me—forgive me!”
“Indiana, is there a chance for me?”
“No.”
“You’re not going to marry that Englishman?” he said, fiercely.
“He hasn’t asked me.”
“Would you?”
“I don’t know, Glen. Promise me you won’t say anything to him about that,” pointing to the scar.
“I’ve never thought of it myself,” said Glen, sadly, “since then. I’m sorry I told you if—”
“Thank you for telling me. I’m glad I know. It hurts me, though—right here.” She put her hand to her heart.
“Indiana!”
“Now I’m blue, but I’ll get over it. To think I could hurt you, or anybody, like that.”
“Oh, Indy, don’t think about it. This scar is healed—long ago. You’ve hurt me here, far worse than that.” He took her hand and pressed it to his heart. “There’s a wound here it’ll take many a long day to heal.”
“Oh, Glen! Oh, Glen!” she moaned, piteously, trying to wrest her hand away. But he held it tightly over his heart.
“I don’t know what you want—I don’t believe you know yourself—I don’t believe you realize what you’re doing—you’re too young to know. You’re throwing away a rare, pure love, Indiana, as though it were a soiled ribbon. I’m not a man of the world, but I know what that means in life—you don’t. It’s all that counts in the long run. I don’t say another man couldn’t love you, but no one will ever love you better—remember that, won’t you? And that mine is not a love which has sprung up suddenly—it has taken deep roots in my life.”
“It’s horrible to think I could hurt anyone like that,” repeated Indiana, mechanically, looking at the scar on his forehead.
“That’s the least. Think of the wound here,” he repeated. “You could heal it, Indiana.” He opened his arms. He might have won her by his very insistence, if it were not that the idea of another—a different life from what she had known—had shed its glamour upon her, the glamour of the new and strange. She would not trust herself to look at his dark, quivering face, but turned away and mounted the stairs, slowly, to her room, seeing him very clearly as she went, standing with his arms extended.
Later, Mrs. Stillwater found Glen sitting alone on the balcony, looking vacantly on the lake. He did not notice her, until she went up to him, putting her arm about his neck.
“What’s the matter, Glen?”
“Indy won’t have me—”
“You’ve asked her, then?”
Glen nodded.
“I’m so sorry, so sorry.” She smoothed his hair gently. “I’ve always hoped it would be—some day.”
“I haven’t given—up—hope—yet,” he said, doggedly.
She kept smoothing his hair, until Lord Canning joined them. Then Glen rose abruptly and went up to his room.
“Our young hero seems depressed,” said Lord Canning, quietly.
“It’s about Indiana,” replied Mrs. Stillwater, very much distressed.
“He’s a fine fellow, but, if you’ll pardon me for saying so, Mrs. Stillwater, he’s not the right husband for your daughter.”
“He understands her better than a stranger would. He’d get along with her, I’m sure.”
“Is it so difficult to get along with her?” enquired Lord Canning.
“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” replied Mrs. Stillwater, quickly. “There’s no one more lovable and easy, if she’s studied.”
“What do you think of me as a husband for your daughter?” said Lord Canning, quietly.
“Lord Canning, you’re not in earnest?”
“Why not? I should like to take my place in the matrimonial competition, if you have no objection.”
She looked at him, standing there with such apparent composure. “What objection could I have to a man like you? But, I’m not the one to be consulted. Whatever Indy decides, I must be satisfied with. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”
“Mrs. Stillwater, the idea is evidently disagreeable to you?”
“Oh no, not at all. But Indiana’s so young, and you live so far away—and she is so unfit to be alone—without us. But don’t consider me—I have nothing whatever to say.”
“I had a pressing correspondence to-day, Lord Canning,” said Stillwater, emerging upon the balcony. His wife put her hand on his shoulder.
“Father! Father!”
“Well, mother, what is it?”
“Lord Canning wants to marry Indy?”
“Does he?” asked Stillwater, composedly. “Too bad—too bad.”
His wife sighed heavily, and was on the point of leaving them, when Lord Canning took her hand, looking sympathetically into her eyes. “Why not stay and help me out?”
“Oh, I really must go—Indy’s waiting for me. I never let anyone do anything for her. I always lay out her dresses, and brush her hair, and wait on her. She gets cross if I don’t—and I love to do it.”
“You don’t approve of me, Mrs. Stillwater?”
“I do,” she answered, tremulously. “I like you very much—you’re such a nice, modest man for your position. Will you—” she hesitated, he still held her hand, looking inquiringly into her eyes, “will you wait a while and think it over before you ask Indy?”
“I have waited and thought it over well,” replied Lord Canning, in a very decided tone. “I know this is very unusual, but, for the life of me, I couldn’t ask a young woman to marry me until I was sure I would be acceptable to her parents.”
“You are, you are,” assured Mrs. Stillwater, quickly, “but it will be a great trial to lose her—that’s what I was thinking of—only that.” The tears rushed to her eyes. She turned and mounted the stairs, hastily.
“Mother is naturally upset when she thinks of Indy getting married,” said Stillwater, who had been gravely listening.
“Naturally,” agreed Lord Canning. “Suppose we walk down to the lake,” he added, with an Englishman’s dislike of being overheard.
“Marrying young runs in our family,” remarked Stillwater, as they descended the steps. “My wife was sixteen, when she married, and grandma only fifteen. There’s always somebody turning up, wanting to marry Indiana. But she’s never been serious about anyone, I’m happy to say.”
Lord Canning looked meditatively upon the ground, pushing, with the tip of his shoe, the thick layer of pine needles. Finally he looked up, smiling. “If I could make her serious about me, would you object?”
“Why should I?” asked Stillwater, dryly. “I don’t have to live with you.”
“Oh, no,” replied Lord Canning, accepting the remark in a serious sense, “there’s no possible necessity for it.” Stillwater gave an involuntary chuckle, and, seating himself on a rustic bench built between two trees, offered his would-be son-in-law a cigar. “I ought to feel very much honored, Lord Canning, but I haven’t reached that stage of imperialism, although my mother-in-law is a fiend on that subject. American women generally are. They’re natural imperialists. They head a despotic monarchy at home.” He laughed heartily, while his guest surveyed him gravely, lighting his cigar.
“Mr. Stillwater, I hope you do not consider my title against me?”
“Oh, not at all, not at all,” smoking, in a very comfortable position. “It might help you with Indiana. It would be a new fad for her. You know we all have our fads. It’s a good thing for us, too. Personally I like you. I like you very much. But—er—” he hesitated, studying the lake. There was plainly something on his mind which he considered should be said. Finally he rose, placing his hand kindly on Lord Canning’s shoulder. “I want to give you a quiet piece of advice, and if you don’t take it I want you to consider it as never having been said—will you?”
“I will, sir,” said Lord Canning, gravely.
“Don’t marry my daughter!”
“Why?”
“It’ll never pan out. Your ways are not her ways; her thoughts and your thoughts are as far apart as—as if she spoke Chinese and you Pennsylvania Dutch.”
“Mr. Stillwater, I am not easily frightened. The more difficulties I encounter, the more determined I am to win.”
“Now, don’t misunderstand me,” added Stillwater, quickly. “My daughter’s no worse than any other man’s daughter—women, as women, are all all alike. But we understand and know how to get along with them. I married very young, and I continued to live with my wife, my mother-in-law, and my daughter, all different dispositions, without quarrelling.”
“Yes, I have observed and admired the equilibrium of your household. It would be very valuable to me to know how you manage it. Will you let me into the secret, Mr. Stillwater?”
“Ha, ha, ha! Easy enough—I give in!”
“You give in?” Lord Canning asked, incredulously.
“Every time,” replied his host, proudly. “I never stand out against them, so they can’t quarrel with me—and when they quarrel between themselves, I agree with them all—separately.” He looked at his guest with a self-congratulatory expression.
“I’m afraid I could not adopt that method,” he said quietly, flicking the ashes from his cigar.
“There,” Stillwater exclaimed, triumphantly, “I told you it wouldn’t do!” They heard Mrs. Bunker laughing in the woods with Lord Stafford, and presently she came through the trees, in her scarlet cape, bare-headed, followed by her guest carrying a wicker basket, brimful of balsam sprigs.
“We’ve been balsaming,” she said.
“I beg pardon,” remarked Lord Canning.
“Balsaming,” she repeated. “That’s what they call it here—picking balsam.” She knocked his forehead lightly with her forefinger. “See it now—or shall I get a hammer?”
He laughed. “My stupidity must try your patience at times, Mrs. Bunker.”
“I wanted some to fill the pillow I am making for Lord Stafford to take to England—when he goes.” Lord Stafford offered her his arm, and, laughing, they continued their way to the camp.
“Then you haven’t much faith in our speedy departure—although you drank the toast last night, Mrs. Bunker?”
“Not in yours—your nephew’s, yes. But I don’t imagine you’ll go with him.”
“Probably not, Mrs. Bunker. Under certain circumstances, I might consider it advisable to prolong my trip. And I must say the prospect of remaining in America is delightful to me—most delightful.”
“The fact is, Lord Canning,” continued Stillwater, “we spoil our children. We know it, but we can’t help it. The girls, mind you—the boys are easy enough thrown on the world—but the girls,” he smiled fondly, “the pretty, little, delicate girls—how can you help spoiling them? You should have seen Indy—” Lord Canning’s face assumed an expression of deep interest. “A doll—you could have put her in a quart pitcher. She’d roll up her little sleeves, and fight and sass me—we’d roar at her. As she grew up, it grew with her, and now when she gets in a temper, we all scatter till she’s over it. And then she creeps under your coat, like a little, white mouse, and loves you so, with her pretty hands and her soft face. Now, what can a man do?”
Lord Canning regarded his host reflectively. “You begin early to make a rough road for the girl’s future husband, don’t you?”
“Oh, no! Our people understand that every man is under the thumb of his wife, and is proud of it.”
This assertion sounded astounding to the listener. Before, however, he could grasp its full value, he caught sight of Indiana’s white dress among the pines. As he watched her coming toward them, her head making a light advancing spot among the dark trees, Stillwater’s friendly warning faded from his mind as completely as though it had never been given.
“It all rests with her now,” he thought.
“Why so serious?” said Indiana. “Let me into this secret discussion. If it’s not snow and ice, and the North Pole, I know more about it than Lord Canning—and if it’s not farming, I know more about it than pa.”
“I guess I’ll let you fight it out with Indiana,” remarked Stillwater, dryly. He looked at her, with a sigh, then climbed slowly up to the camp.
“We were discussing many things,” said Lord Canning, bashfully. “Marriage; the training of children—”
“Marriage—with pa?” replied Indiana, with a laugh. “He’s absolutely ignorant on the subject.”
“Remarkable,” said Lord Canning, “considering he’s seventeen years married.”
“Oh, that was only a boy-and-girl affair. In those days it was a farm, a wife to do the housework—and they always lived happily.”
“I wish it were as simple a matter with you as with your mother,” ventured Lord Canning.
“I’m different from mother. If I were not, you would not—”
“What?” asked Lord Canning.
“Oh, nothing,” stooping to pick up a sprig of balsam, which had fallen from Lord Stafford’s basket.
“Let us follow that little trail down there beside the lake,” suggested Lord Canning, “do you mind?”
The day had been sunless. The evening was still and gray, the air soft and balmy, without a tinge of frost. Through the trees that fringed the trail, they caught glimpses of the glassy lake mirroring the gray floating clouds, and great masses of autumn color, with sometimes the intervening dark shadow of a group of pines.
“Men to you are like a large correspondence, which is read carelessly, ’answered’ scribbled on the envelopes, then piled into pigeon holes—forgotten.”
“I always throw old letters away,” said Indiana, sweetly. “I never accumulate rubbish.”
“Oh!” said Lord Canning. He walked beside her for a little while, thinking deeply. “How silent it is here,” he remarked, finally. “This soft carpet of pine needles muffles every footstep. It seems sacrilege almost, to speak. This trail seems to me like a dim, narrow aisle of a church, leading to the altar.” He looked upward at the glimpse of gray sky. “Indiana, I am a very serious man. I accept life as worth living only with serious aims.” They emerged upon a small open space in the woods, dimly lit, with a Turkish carpet of many-colored leaves. He drew Indiana down upon a fallen tree, covered with silvery patches of gray-green moss. “My ideal of a wife has been an intellectual woman of my own world and standing. But your little hands have bowled over, like a set of ninepins, all my long cherished traditions and ideas. You have taken possession of me, in a way which terrifies me. I am miserable away from you. I am miserable with you. I am restless, sleepless—you flit before me like a tantalizing will-o’-the-wisp, whose light draws, maddens me. My pen is idle, my mail lies upon the table—unanswered. Tell me, have I a chance with you—or let me go. Let me put the ocean between us, for self-preservation.”
“I don’t wish you to think I trifle with marriage because I have refused several offers,” said Indiana, seriously. “It’s not waywardness or frivolity.”
“Indiana!”
“You admit, in your feeling for me, reason has no place. And that your ideal of a wife is something entirely different from myself.”
“Yes,” said Lord Canning. “Reason has no place. It is love—love alone.”
“I want you to know me as I really am, then—if you are willing to take the chances—”
“Willing!” He raised her hand to his lips.
“I am very much spoiled,” Indiana continued.
“You have all the imperfections which make you charming to a lover, you will have all the virtues which will make you—divine to your husband.”
“I must have my own way—even when I’m wrong. I’m fond of change, nothing pleases me long. I’m quick tempered, spiteful—but I’m always sorry for it, after—always.”
“Sweetheart, I have watched you closely. I have seen glimpses of splendid feeling and heart in you, that have become choked by indulgence. Other conditions will develop the good that is in you—I am quite confident of it.”
She looked through the trees at the gray lake. “I could be different—it is in me—but—somehow—”
He watched her face, caressing her hand. “You will love my mother, dear. She is a type of English womanhood. She is not strong, and has lived a retired life for many years. Our house may be quiet for you—at first.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll make it lively enough.”
“Darling!” He tried to draw her into his arms, but she resisted him.
“Wait.”
“What more, pretty penitent?”
“Yes. I want you to promise me that when I’m mad and want to do inconsistent things, and have my own way—when it’s not good for me—I want you to promise me, no matter how much you love me—that you won’t give in.”
He laughed at her earnest little face. “I’m afraid I shall—I feel now as if I shall let you do anything, I love you so.”
“Then I won’t marry you. I’ve tried to control myself, but I can’t, because everybody’s so afraid of me. It makes me much worse. You’re the first man I’ve ever taken seriously.”
“Do you love me, Indiana?”
“No. I’m tired of the model farm—I’m tired of Grandma Chazy—I’m tired of Washington and New York, and I want to go to England.” His expression sank at this frank avowal, only to change again at her next words. “I—I feel that marriage to me must mean the changing of every condition—or—” she looked imploringly into his anxious eyes, “I won’t make a success of my life—and I want to be something more than I am—something better.” She added quickly, “And, I wouldn’t marry you, if I did not think I could love you—some day.”
“I believe in the love which comes after marriage,” he said firmly. “Given a fairly matched pair, the man the stronger, and there’s no danger. I’m sure I shall make you love me.”
“And you promise—”
“I promise, no matter how much I suffer, I won’t give in.” He clasped her into his arms, and kissed her passionately. A sudden wave of color surged over her face, and she drew herself away, with downcast eyes. He watched her anxiously, holding her hand. Then he persuaded her to sit down beside him on the moss-grown trunk. “A little sleeping soul has been given my into my care,” he thought, smoothing her hair gently. “I must cherish it until it wakes. After waiting—after infinite patience—her love, when given, will be all the sweeter. I shall prize it more than if it had been easily won. We must wait for the most precious things in life. That is the supreme lesson to learn—how to wait—so we shall be worthy of life’s golden gift, when it comes. It must come—the very power of my own love for her—the very force of my will, must bring it. Life owes it to me—her love.” He touched his lips to her hair.
“Now, let’s go and tell the folks,” said Indiana.