Chapter VII On the Rail
The following week the two sailed for Germany; but when home-coming time for Page arrived, his cousin did not accompany him. Mr. Van Tassel had married the month after his son left, and although his affectionate letters held out an invariable welcome, they made it easy for Jack to stay amid the novel scenes which allured him. Gorham Page, therefore, was alone when he reëntered Boston, one day in the following August. The sister-in-law with whom he made his home was, he knew, at the seashore, and after a brief visit to her deserted flat, and a hasty repacking, he took a cab for the Boston and Maine depot.
He was rather late for his train, and he boarded it to find it crowded. Passing from one car to another in vain search for a seat, he descried, standing in an aisle, a tall young girl, who attracted his attention at once, by reason of her superb figure fashionably clothed in plainest black, and the annoyance on her fresh face. She held a satchel in her hand, and was vainly endeavoring to appear indifferent, after a heated appeal to a badgered conductor who had apparently sought relief from a suffering public in deafness.
When Page, who was slightly short-sighted, approached near enough to discern the impatient golden lights in her hazel eyes, and the underlip caught beneath her teeth, he took in the situation, and gave one more searching glance around the crowded day-car; the parlor car he had already discovered to be hopeless.
“This is very uncomfortable,” he said, addressing the girl and raising his hat. “I have not quite despaired of finding a seat. Won’t you follow me?”
“I have been all through,” she answered, but she followed him.
The next car was packed with equal solidity; but Page moved forward, and on the platform was motioned away by a brakeman.
“Back, please. Next car’s a sleeper. Takin’ it to Portland. No passengers.”
“Is it locked?” asked Page, pushing by.
“No, ’t ain’t locked, but”—
Page interrupted the slow drawl decidedly, and put aside the detaining hand. “Oh, well, people can’t stand, you know,” and with an encouraging look around at the damsel in distress, who followed him with alacrity, he opened the door of the Pullman, and ushered her into the luxurious empty car.
“Thank you so much,” said the girl gratefully, as she took possession of one section and her benefactor seated himself across the way.
One by one a dozen other passengers came in and availed themselves of this unexpected privilege, and the pessimistic conductor contented himself by collecting fifty cents from each individual.
Page had an eye for beauty, and as his position made it possible to do so undetected, he regarded his neighbor appreciatively. The world is full of pretty girls, thank heaven, but this one was unusual inasmuch as she was built on such large lines as to make approval a matter of taste. Page did approve. He mentally called her a young Juno as he regarded her flat back and fine shoulders, her clear healthy skin and the Cupid’s bow of her upper lip. Her thick brown hair was uncrimped and smoothly brushed toward the coil at the back of her head. She was what is called in the parlance of the day a tailor-made girl, and her physique suggested rowing and tennis.
Page thought this, and wished he had an excuse to speak with her. The fact that he had happened to do her a slight favor made this more than usually impossible, so after a while he abandoned his regard of her piquant profile, in favor of the landscape from his own window.
About now the conversation between two men in the section behind this fin de siècle maiden became loud enough to take half the car into their confidence. They were discussing the incongruous situation of the World’s Fair; for in the previous April Uncle Sam had yielded, and thrown his bouquet to that one of his daughters which, according to the cartoonist, had clamored and importuned the loudest. The crude, unformed, ill-bred creature now had this treasure in her keeping, and the righteous indignation and despair of those two New Hampshire men filled the car. What could be expected but national disgrace? What was the matter with the powers at Washington that they had not in some way averted such a disaster? A good many people thought it a joke; these gentlemen could see nothing amusing in having our country held up to ridicule.
As the discussion waxed and waned, Page listened to it perforce, at first indifferently, then with more interest as he discovered that it was affecting his fair neighbor. He could see her cheek grow hot, could see that she held herself with greater rigidity. She bit her lip from time to time, and once she moved her head slowly around as if inclined to glance at the noisy talkers; but half way her deep luminous eyes shot their golden lightning straight into Page’s, and recovering herself she turned back and looked ahead again.
The sunshine had begun to pour in at her window, and she suddenly seized the blind to pull it down. It fitted tightly after the manner of its kind, and her first effort was not successful. It was probably not a case for assistance, as the young woman looked as though her muscle would be equal to considerable strain, but Page spontaneously left his seat.
“Allow me,” he said, and drew the blind down.
The girl thanked him rather severely. Page’s shipboard experience of comparative informality with strangers was fresh upon him. He spoke on the impulse of the moment, feeling sure that the severity was not intended for him.
“Wouldn’t you prefer to change seats with me? Perhaps you would be less annoyed there by conversation as well as sunlight.”
“You heard something of it, then,” the girl exclaimed; “but I think they have said all the ignorant, stupid things they can think of.”
“I saw that the remarks were troubling you,” said Page, seating himself opposite in her section. “The Garden City has one champion, I’m sure.”
“Dear, generous Chicago!” ejaculated the girl, and her youthful wrath was very entertaining to her neighbor. “It is the best thing that ever happened to the country that we are to have the Fair. Perhaps,” with interest, “you are a Chicagoan?”
Page was obliged to deny this with a novel reluctance which amused him.
The girl gave the slightest toss of her head. “I suppose the Eastern people think we enjoy the prospect of being jostled, and crowded, and having our streets torn up and our city extended, and all our comfort taken away for two years while we live in a perfect Pandemonium. No. We do not enjoy it, but we do it as our duty because we know that we can and shall do it well. It is not best to trust such an enterprise to an old, slow town.”
Page regarded the speaker with curiosity and interest. She spoke softly but emphatically in a contralto voice, and did not look at him, but beyond him. It occurred to her companion that with her superb vitality and unconscious audacity she might be a truer type of the triumphant young city than that shown in the cleverly insulting picture which had so tickled his imagination.
“I see you take a strong interest in the matter,” he remarked.
“Yes. My sister’s husband has been busy about it from the first; so I have heard much concerning the subject; but then all Chicagoans are interested. It is their way.”
The evident pride with which the girl referred to this “way” caused Page to declare meekly, as a means of raising himself in her estimation, that he had relatives in Chicago.
“That will be very pleasant for you in ’93,” she returned, with a slight smile which made her face bewitching.
“I have been spending the last year with a Chicago cousin in Germany,” continued Page. “He has taken a warm interest in every phase of the discussion.”
“Naturally,” returned the girl; then having relieved her surcharged heart she apparently recollected that she was prolonging an interview with a strange man, and leaning back in her seat she took a copy of “Life” from her satchel. Fine streaks of sunshine sifted across the sheet.
“Won’t you accept that shady seat?” asked Page.
“Thank you, no. I am only going as far as R——-.”
“That is my destination, too. You might as well be comfortable.”
The girl looked up again with some interest.
“Are you going to R——-? Then I shall ask you to be kind enough to direct me to the Ocean House. I am afraid that there has been a misunderstanding, and that Mrs. Page—that the friend whom I am going to visit does not expect me this morning.”
The young man regarded her with a new expectancy. “I am going to the Ocean House also, and, by another coincidence, to see a Mrs. Page. She is my sister.”
His neighbor returned his gaze at first with surprise, then a demure spirit of mischief danced in her eyes. It had a brief struggle with cautious propriety, but it conquered. Caution usually did make a losing fight in the case of this young lady.
“I wonder if you can be Gorham,” she said slowly, and Page flushed to his temples under the fascination of his own name.
“I am,” he laughed.
“I know a lot about you,” declared the girl quietly, and her companion thought the dip in her upper lip when she smiled the prettiest thing he had ever seen.
“That is unfair,” he returned, “for I know absolutely nothing about you.”
“Very likely. Your sister only came to Pearfield three weeks ago.”
“Pearfield? Have you been at Pearfield? How strange!”
“Oh, it is very simple. My sister’s husband was not well,—he was all tired out with the Fair business, and one thing and another, and the doctor frightened him into thinking he must have absolute rest; so he bethought him of this little village and Aunt Love. Of course you know Aunt Love? She is one of your stanchest admirers. I am not at all sure that when you take your hat off I shan’t see a little halo clinging to your locks.”
“Oh, come now. That is too bad.”
“Well, we went there the middle of June, and we have been there ever since. Three weeks ago, as I said, your sister came up—or your sister-in-law, isn’t she?”
“Yes, but all the sister I have, so I claim her.”
“I should think you would. She is lovely. She and Blitzen have been the bright spots in my summer.”
“Oh, of course, Blitzen. I had forgotten him.”
“He is delightful. So sympathetic! Our temperaments are just alike.”
Page listened with interest. He could imagine the small dog and this young woman in a romp. He could picture her, and he liked to, in a light cambric gown, going at evening with Blitzen up into the pasture to get the cow.
“Aunt Love has given him to me,” continued the girl complacently.
Her companion smiled reminiscently.
“What does Blitzen say to the transfer?” he asked.
“I sometimes suspect he doesn’t know it,” she returned seriously. “I mention it to him every day, though. Mr. Van Tassel laughs at me, and says that I needn’t expect to take the dog,—that Blitzen thinks I’m a humbug.”
Page was not listening. “Mr. Van Tassel?” he repeated in blank surprise.
“Yes. Didn’t I say? Excuse me. He is my sister’s husband—and your uncle. I forgot that. The dearest man that ever lived.”
Page felt staggered, and confusedly afraid that he should show the shock he felt. His eyes fell. This was one of that obscure family who had “roped Uncle Richard in.” Like lightning there flashed across his mind the consideration that beauty had made his uncle weak.
“Yes—ahem”—he stammered, for he feared it might have been long that he had sat there dazed. “I’m sorry to hear that my uncle is ailing. Jack—his son knows nothing of it.”
“No; it is Mr. Van Tassel’s wish that his son should not be informed of his indisposition.” The girl’s reply sounded curiously stilted in contrast to her previous ease of manner. Page blamed himself for the new coldness.
“Just like his unselfishness, isn’t it?” he returned cordially. “I can’t help thinking how surprised Hilda will be to see me appear with you. She does not know when to expect me.”
Mrs. Page was indeed surprised when the train stopped at R——, and she stood on the platform and beheld her brother and her guest leave the car together. She was a vivacious little woman with a trim figure, and keen blue eyes that looked out beneath her sailor hat, full of lively interest in everything and everybody. She pounced upon the pair, and kissed them both with enthusiasm.
“How perfectly delightful!” she exclaimed. “I couldn’t help worrying a little about you, Miss Bryant.” (“Oh yes, Bryant was the name,” thought Page.) “I knew you were not familiar with Boston, and although I had given you such detailed directions, I should have been frantic if you hadn’t come out of the car just when you did. Gorham, how did you happen to find her? Did you go out to Pearfield? How is Uncle Richard, Miss Bryant? There, Gorham, don’t let that stage go without us. Not the white one, the yellow. Is there room for three?”
When they were in the stage that was to take them to the hotel, these queries and many more were answered before the long extent of surf came in sight, vividly blue beyond the firm white shore on which a foamy lacework melted.
Mrs. Page ensconced her guest in a pleasant room near her own, and then returned to her own quarters with an impatient hope that her brother would seek her there. She had not long to wait, and she welcomed him eagerly.
“What do you think of my new acquisition?” she asked, as she gave him a seat that commanded the ocean, and took one near by.
“I was greatly surprised.”
“I thought you would be,” said Hilda triumphantly; “but what do you think of her? Isn’t she handsome?”
“Very,” answered Page, looking dreamily out upon the water.
“Haven’t you fallen in love with her, you wooden man?”
“Hardly, yet. I suppose I shall, though,” he added resignedly.
Mrs. Page laughed so gleefully that he smiled. “It is all the queerest thing,” she said with sudden serious zest. “I was belated in every sort of way about getting down here this year, and when I was finally ready it suddenly came over me that Uncle Richard was with Aunt Love in the character of a semi-invalid, and that it would be civil in me to call on him once, as he had come to see me on his way through the city.”
“It is odd that Jack hasn’t mentioned his father’s being at Pearfield, or his not being well. To be sure, I haven’t seen Jack since last March, still he would naturally have mentioned it in the few letters I’ve had from him.”
Mrs. Page lifted her finger impressively. “Jack doesn’t know one word about his father’s illness. Be sure you don’t mention it to him.”
“Call it fatigue. It isn’t illness, is it?”
“Why, Gorham Page, he had a stroke early this spring.”
“No! Why, that is too bad. Surely it is wrong to keep it from Jack,” said Page with a strong mental uprising of resentment against unknown scheming Bryants. Of course that innocent, inexperienced young creature of the train would have no word in the matter.
“Well, I don’t know,” returned his sister dubiously. “It was only a warning, the doctors said, and I suppose Uncle Richard thinks he is all right now with care; and there’s a wheel within a wheel there, Gorham. Didn’t you notice to-day,” lowering her voice dramatically, “that I didn’t say a word about Jack? Jack is a sore subject.” She nodded her head several times by way of emphasis.
“I dare say,” returned the other. “The Bryants must have known that he was very much cut up by his father’s marriage.”
“Oh, they did; or the girls did. The mother never was allowed to know. I became very well acquainted with this child Mildred in the few days I stayed at Pearfield, but she told me nothing. Aunt Love told me the whole story, for Mrs. Van Tassel had confided in her. Aunt Love is perfectly devoted to Uncle Richard’s wife.”
“Humph!”
“They have been through a great deal in a year. I suppose you heard through Jack, though I knew nothing about it, that Mrs. Van Tassel’s little brother and sister took scarlet fever and died in the same week.”
“Yes, I knew that. Jack felt it deeply. I am sure he must have written home very kindly about it. It occurred only about a month after the wedding.”
“Very likely he did. I don’t know. Then Mrs. Bryant grew weaker and weaker through the winter. They took her South, and surrounded her with every luxury, but in April she died.”
“No. I didn’t know that.”
“Yes, she died very peacefully and happily; but she had not been gone a fortnight when Uncle Richard had that stroke.”
“What a procession of calamities!”
“I should think so. Well, Aunt Love says the worst part of it is, that Mrs. Van Tassel seems to connect all this misfortune with Jack’s anger at her. Something on the old idea of a curse, I suppose.”
Page’s lip curled slightly under his mustache.
“I saw very little of Mrs. Van Tassel myself,” continued his voluble sister. “Uncle Richard’s head was very easily tired. He had to keep very quiet, and she was with him constantly. You never saw such devotion.”
“No doubt,” said Page ambiguously. “I can easily believe that she will not allow him out of her sight. It looks to me as if it were our duty to inform Jack of his father’s condition.”
“No, no. I saw enough of Uncle Richard to discover his wishes about that. He does not want to have Jack hurried. He does not consider his condition in the least alarming.”
Page’s face indicated his disapproval. “So Mrs. Van Tassel is to succeed in keeping Jack at a distance,” he remarked.
“I don’t think it is her doing.”
“Of course it is,” said Page without heat. “Uncle Richard must know the circumstances.”
“He may suspect something, of course,” replied Hilda, “but Aunt Love tells me they do not avoid the subject of Jack at all. Mrs. Van Tassel speaks of him with perfect naturalness, whenever necessity demands, and she has never told Uncle Richard of the angry parting that worried her so. He never asked her about it.”
“Wise Uncle Richard! He knew better.” Page shook his head. “It is a bad business.”
His sister demurred. “I do not know that it is such a bad business for Uncle Richard to have gained such a devoted nurse. He needs it now. As for Miss Bryant, I pitied the girl, cooped up there in that lonely, monotonous village, and begged Mrs. Van Tassel to allow her to stay with me a week or two. She consented very willingly, even gladly. I wanted to give people a chance to look at her. I’m a philanthropist. The sight of her will do a weakly person as much good as the sea air; and she was”—
A knock at the door interrupted. Mrs. Page gave her brother a knowing little nod, and when she answered the call, it was her guest who entered. The girl had exchanged her black dress for one all white.
“You told me to come as soon as I was ready,” she said, looking from one to the other.
“Yes, I was in haste to have you see my view. Isn’t it a fine one?”
Mildred moved to the window, followed by Page’s unconscious, openly admiring gaze. He had risen at once upon her entrance and stood, his hands resting on a chair-back, forgiving Mrs. Van Tassel’s arts for the moment, in entire approval of her sister’s appearance.
Hilda, to whom her brother-in-law’s potential love affairs were a constant entertainment, kept his ingenuous face in view, even while her tongue rattled on.
“For a conscientious, well-intentioned man,” she had once said to her husband, “Gorham Page can be the most dangerous creature. Any girl receiving such a look as his would believe him deeply smitten. Then he will go on, getting acquainted with her in his way, inquiring into her thoughts and opinions, even probing her hidden feelings, getting at the real woman, as he calls it, and having exchanged theories with her for a while, his mind will go mooning off, perhaps in the test of some new thought she has suggested, while the girl, gradually neglected, is soon as entirely forgotten as last year’s fashions. It amounts to unprincipled flirting, and yet he doesn’t suspect it in the least. He is too modest, really. A queer paradox.”
Hilda suddenly finished the description of a distant lighthouse, and turning, walked straight up to her brother, who was still lost in critical approval of the noble lines and curves of her guest’s tall figure.
“But come,” she said, smiling with significant sauciness into his face. “We cannot live entirely on the beautiful things we can take in through our eyes. I fancy there is some dinner downstairs somewhere.”
“Yes,” agreed Page, stirring. He had finished his soup before he realized that there had been any personal intention in her speech.