Chapter XV The Court of Honor
Jack jumped into a Beach wagon as it rolled along from the hotel, and drove down East End Avenue, approaching the gigantic failure known as the Spectatorium, whose bulky, half-clothed skeleton upreared against the sky like a type of blighted hope.
Following Clover’s advice, he entered the Park at the Fifty-seventh Street entrance. A band was playing on its aerial perch above the Eskimo village, and Jack smiled to hear the gay, assured strains of “After the Ball” soaring above a vigorous drum accompaniment. He walked across the bridge and looked down where the Eskimos in their white robes with the peaked hoods propelled their slender canoes noiselessly amid the darkening shadows of the willows.
Straight before him to Michigan’s brink stretched an electric-lighted avenue, flanked on one side by State buildings, and on the other by that lion-guarded Greek Palace of Art whose columns, even pictured, send a thrill of grateful delight to the hearts of those who have passed within its portals.
The fresh verdure of the lawns showed living green, as Jack passed on to the right until he gained the waterside of the Art Building, and there paused to gaze across at the edifices on the opposite shores. Towers and domes of all shapes and sizes showed amid the June foliage. Every beauty of form and tint surrounded him, divided by broad spaces of rippling water. He was in a city of preternatural loveliness. What wonder that a noiseless boat came gliding to his feet in answer to his wish to explore these distant, fairy vistas. He stepped within, and silently the little craft sped on.
The white loveliness of Brazil, the alabaster lace work of the poetical Fisheries,—Van Tassel glanced over his shoulder as they were left behind, and in a minute more the lofty, winged angels of the Woman’s Building blessed his sight.
The dainty conceits of Puck and the White Star melted from his vision to make way for the glories of the Horticultural treasure house, surmounted by its illuminated crystal dome. Lilies, red, yellow, and white, were asleep in the stone-guarded lakelet, upon which smiled the wreathed marble beauty of women and babies on the façade; and in contrast, next sprang to life in electric light the alert equestrian figures of cowboy and Indian controlling restive steed, and peering forth into the night.
But an exclamation escaped Van Tassel’s lips as the Transportation Building was passed, and the arched grandeur of the Golden Door shone down upon him. The launch turned, and thus ideally, without sound or effort, he was borne on between Wooded Island and the homes of Mines and Electricity, approaching the vast expanse of the Liberal Arts building, only to turn smoothly again beneath the bridge, and glide on toward that Mecca of all Exposition pilgrims, the unique Court of Honor.
Jack had stood there once in a still, chill time of waiting, and had seen the dead marble city quickened to life. Now the heart which began to beat that day had made all the whiteness to glow. He forgot to breathe as, passing beneath the last bridge, he emerged where the sea horses reared wildly above cascades that went splashing down the stone steps beneath Columbia’s triumphal barge.
Through pink and purple, the rippling opaline water in the Grand Basin was losing its sunset hues, and paling, as the fairy boat passed on. The gold of the statue of the Republic was turning to silver. The figures on the snowy palaces that faced the four sides of the lagoon still stood white against the darkening background. Angels poised on soft, strong wings, seemed vivified as the day died. Jack saw their beckoning hands through a mist. He heard the penetrating tones of their silver trumpets through the lingering sweetness of a serenade that proceeded from a distant pavilion. Strange influences were about him, and he was glad that no mortal friend stood by.
His father had worked and planned and striven for this. Did he see the result? Could he know the success that had crowned the efforts of his confreres?
Suddenly, across the spontaneous regret that sprang in Jack’s heart at the realization of what Death had snatched from his loved one, came an idea which was like a glimpse of new light. Since such a miracle of beauty as now lay about him was possible in this lower world, might it not be indeed true—
Jack’s thoughts became confused. They had followed so long and yearningly out into that unknown country where his father had gone, and about which he had never before troubled himself, that he had grasped for his own consolation a belief that it was a reality; and now something in this stately and beautiful place built with men’s hands made him recall vaguely the Bible declaration:—
“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
It was with reverence and a species of awe that Van Tassel gazed about him. The Court of Honor had given him his first approach to a realization of the possibilities of the Celestial City.
Only gradually the details of his surroundings impressed him. His boat glided toward the Peristyle, and he began to notice that the water was picturesque with gondolas, propelled by their bright-sashed oarsmen.
Beneath a massive arch he could look out upon the great lake, his lake, his old playmate, now grown grandly alien as guardian of this mystical city. He knew every tone of its voice. He had braved it in its stormy strength, and gone to sleep at night to its lullaby.
Now its surf, breaking against the outer stones, appealed to his moved heart in the song of a past gone forever, and he did not know whether its proximity, the voice of this single friend in a place of strangers, gave the crown of pain or of joy to his tender ecstasy.
And now the royal palaces so lavishly decorated with painting and sculpture began to assume their further nightly decoration of jewels. Tiny incandescent lights ran swiftly in diamond necklaces and diadems about cornice and pediment of buildings, and glittered in long lines close above the waters of the lagoon. The crown of the Administration dome shone out in immobile fire, while torches of flame, “yellow, golden, glorious,” flared across its façades.
Van Tassel had no well-meant descriptions of this view to contend against. No one had endeavored to prepare him for what he was to see. To him these wonders were appearing for the first time; one after another spontaneous, unexpected change of scene forming a crescendo of loveliness. More and more unreal grew the fairy spectacle. Less and less did he try to realize the impossible fact that he was in a familiar locality.
He left the boat mechanically because his quiet fellow-passengers—figures also of a dream—did so; and when he paused again, he was standing near a giant horse and plowboy near the water’s edge. Behind him stretched the spaces of lawn in front of the Liberal Arts edifice, softly green in the rays of many arc-light moons. He gazed westward toward the Administration Building, before which three great fountains played, and suddenly its regal jeweled dome became more splendid in the surrounding darkness. The cameos upon its surface shone out clear-cut and white in the night. A moment thus, then the carving disappeared, and again the electric jewels stood alone against the sky. That magic, all-revealing light flitted to rest upon the great central fountain where the Muses propelled the barge of Progress through musically plashing waters; and while the erect figure in the chair of state still looked proudly out into the night, all other brightness faded. Even the jewels vanished. The palaces stood dark and mysterious beneath the stars. All at once a light was thrown upon the group which surmounted the Peristyle.
Columbus in his four-horse chariot shone white above the shadowy columns, driving in from the broad waters toward distant, glowing, advancing Columbia.
Van Tassel, spellbound, yielded still more to the mystery of the place and hour, and a subdued murmur caused him to glance again westward. The fountains which flanked the great barge on either side had ceased to play, while a strange beam of light shot heavenward from either one. At last at the foot of the beam a bright liquid bubbling began, which seemed to gather strength, and at last leaped from both fountains high in air. This vivid red changed to violet, to gold, to emerald, to molten silver, breaking in brilliant showers and mists. Apart from the lofty middle jet in each one, circled low whirls of bright water with such swiftness as to stand like sheaves of wheat placed in a ring about the central cascade.
Van Tassel wished to have a fairer view of both fountains, and changed his position to another side of the great horse. Around him were other shadowy beings whom he did not regard. Near his new standpoint and rather in his way was a woman seated. He did not look to see upon what she sat. In his present state of mind he would have supposed it a throne had he thought about it at all; but he did not think about it, and the throne was in his way, so he unconsciously leaned slightly upon it in his effort to see.
The figure in the chair turned her head. “Did you find them?” she asked, then added coldly, “Excuse me,” and turned back again.
Van Tassel started like a somnambulist wakened from sleep. Another familiar voice had spoken to him out of the past. At the same moment the search light which had been upon the Quadriga sped to the angel above the pediment of the Agricultural Building. So light her poise, so strong her wings, so beneficent her outstretched arms, it seemed impossible in that mystical irradiation that she should not quit her lightly touched support and float downward to waiting mortals.
A need for sympathy upsprang in Van Tassel’s heart. Involuntarily he spoke:—
“Is that not beautiful, Mildred?”
“Jack!” The exclamation in amazed tones as the girl sat up alertly in her wheeled chair. “I was just wondering if you had come. When did you arrive?”
He took the hand she offered. “I don’t know,” he answered slowly. “Do you see that angel?”
“Indeed I do. That is my angel.”
“Our angel then. Let me share it.”
“You shall,” replied the girl generously. She waited a moment in smiling silence; “but that isn’t our hand,” she added at last. “That is mine. Haven’t you had it a good while, considering it is a loan?”
“Have I? Well,” and Jack slowly released it.
“I am in dreamland, Mildred. I am glad to meet you here, whether you are a reality or not.”
“Oh! You remind me of those creepy shades in Vedder’s picture where one asks the other who he is and the second answers shiverily that he doesn’t know. ‘I only died last night,’ is what he was inconsiderate enough to reply. I have never forgiven him.”
Jack stood at her side and leaned an arm on the back of her chair.
“This is a sort of No Man’s Land too,” he answered, “and when it grows dark here one feels that these marble creatures gain life. See that population on the Peristyle! They belong here. We are only strangers.”
“I see the spell of the White City is upon you, else you would certainly express some surprise at finding me alone.”
“It is only one of the good and wonderful things that have befallen me to-night. It seems perfectly natural. I needed you, Mildred. I needed some tie to the time in which life was worth living to assure me that it is so still, and that there is perhaps more use in it than there would be in sinking into the opal water and dying rapturously in this enchanted place.”
“Why Jack, kindred spirit; you have it as severely as we have!”
The girl extended her gloved hand impetuously, and Van Tassel accepted it with alacrity.
“Are you going to take it away again immediately?” he inquired, slowly waking to the situation. “I was enjoying holding it before more than I realized until I was bereft. One must have sympathy in a place like this.”
“Oh I know it,” she said, speaking hastily as she withdrew her hand and looked over her shoulder apprehensively, “and I am afraid every second that Mr. Ogden will come back. When our party left Old Vienna, we separated and promised to rendezvous by the plow-horses, I thought, but Mr. Ogden understood that it was to be at the Liberal Arts entrance, and he has gone now to see if they are there. My chair-boy is over yonder resting his weary bones on the steps. I never can endure to have the poor things stand around any more than they have to.”
“I trust the Liberal Arts entrance is a sufficiently ambiguous term to detain our friend some time,” returned Jack. “Isn’t there some white magic that could be practiced on him? Of course no black art would be possible here, but I must say I should have to come down by easy stages before I could converse with Ogden to-night, and I don’t want to leave you.”
“I don’t want you to, either. I—I especially don’t. And I told Mr. Ogden that if we met you here I should have to go with you— Yes, I put it that way, for I told him we expected you, and it wasn’t quite the thing for me to come away; but of course I hadn’t the least idea we should meet you.”
“And you told him that too, I suppose,” remarked Jack dryly, all his dreaminess departed. “You declared it would be your duty to go with me if we did meet, but of course such a calamity for Ogden was improbable. I know just how you put it. Girls know how to smooth a man the right way. Now that we have met, and Ogden is out of the way, you tell me you especially want me to remain with you, and don’t want him.”
Mildred looked up at the speaker, and after a moment burst into a mirthful laugh.
“Where is our angel?” she asked.
Jack glanced across the lagoon, but all was shadow save for the rosy glow in the colonnade of the Agricultural Building.
“Vanished!” exclaimed Mildred. “Frightened back by your naughty temper just as she was about to fly down to us.”
“I don’t like to think of you as the least bit of a coquette,” said Van Tassel.
“Then don’t. It is extremely disrespectful. Oh, Mr. Ogden, you are back again. The unexpected always happens, you see, and truth is stranger than fiction. Here is Mr. Van Tassel, after all.”
“Well, Jack.” The two men greeted each other, each endeavoring to conceal his dissatisfaction. “It is possible to find a needle in the haymow, then,” said Ogden. “Miss Bryant told me you were expected about now. Your first visit? What do you think of our little show?”
“Can’t say yet,” returned Jack shortly. “I am just going to see another part of it.”
“The fireworks, I suppose. They will start, now the fountains have stopped.”
“Fireworks? No!” exclaimed Van Tassel in genuine repugnance. What sacrilege for pyrotechnics to paint the lily! His eyes fell upon a revolving globe of light inside a window of the Electricity Building. Its color changed with each revolution. “I think I will wander over in that direction,” he said.
“The fireworks are always fine,” remarked Mildred. “Are you sure you would not prefer to come to the lake shore and see them? The reflections in the water give beautiful effects.” As she spoke, the girl left her wheeled-chair.
“Oh, don’t rise, Miss Bryant,” begged Ogden hastily. “I will find our pusher. The rest of the party did understand that we were to come to the Liberal Arts entrance. They will meet us at Baker’s Chocolate House.”
“Don’t let me detain you,” said Van Tassel courteously. The electric jewels were again running in lines of light around the buildings. Jack could see the expression in Mildred’s face as she stood before him.
She waited a moment and Ogden stepped aside to find the guide.
“I don’t want to see a rocket go sputtering over this place,” explained Jack, for the girl’s eyes demanded something.
She gave a short laugh. “You poor, provincial Bostonian,” she remarked. “Go your way; and when you discover what the fireworks of the White City really are, perhaps your fastidiousness will not be shocked. Certainly, Mr. Ogden, I am ready. Au revoir, Jack.”
“Good-by, old fellow,” said Ogden, as Mildred resumed her position in the chair. He was beaming again with relief from the apprehended loss of Miss Bryant’s society.
Van Tassel moved away in the opposite direction from that they took: but no amount of attempted concentration on his surroundings would restore to him the dreamy delight of half an hour ago. He saw continually the reproach and surprise in Mildred’s eyes.
“What right had I to take her away from Ogden?” his thoughts protested. “It was all nonsense for her to think that hospitality demanded it.”
Then his reflections passed over from the indignant hazel eyes to Miss Bryant’s cavalier. The latter’s uneasy devotion had been apparent even in the few phrases Jack had heard him say. The eagerly bent head, the short nervous laughs with which he interspersed his sentences told the story: and instantly curiosity leaped up in Van Tassel’s heart as to Mildred’s real sentiments toward her admirer.
She had said she especially wanted Jack not to leave her to-night. What did that mean? Jack walked a little faster because he suddenly knew that it was the fact that she had said that, coupled with Ogden’s lover-like manner which had made him hold aloof.
He had made a point of giving Ogden his chance, and now he felt ashamed of it. Why should he have felt injured because Mildred had a lover? Probably she had a dozen, and what wonder if she had?
He felt humiliated, and convicted of disloyalty. Milly Bryant had wanted defense from something, and had appealed to him in vain.
Jack had passed along the side of the Electrical Building and crossed the bridge to Wooded Island by this time, and, deciding to postpone further exploration, determined to walk straight up through the Cornell Avenue entrance and go home. But as thousands of people, know to the cost of their groaning muscles, getting on Wooded Island and getting off it are two very different things. Jack wandered about for some time before he found another bridge, and when he did so, it led off to the east, and his aimless walk brought him to the lake shore. Cannon-like reports were sounding upon the air, and superb bombs bursting high above the water broke into lavish showers of emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. The shore was black with a watching multitude, and Van Tassel found himself drawn to its outskirts to watch and wonder with the rest. Volcanoes and serpents of flame, bouquets of a hundred rockets at once, filled the night with brightness, paling the stars, and illuminating the surging water; and when a succession of fiery white cascades slowly unrolled their graceful curves and stood poised in air, showering a light as of day upon the scene, Jack joined in the cheers that, with whistles from a congregation of boats saluted the gorgeous spectacle.
“I’m a fool,” he said, as he resumed his walk northward. “I am sure Mildred would have given me her hand again on that.”