6 Alicia

I took Seth to my hotel, and I told the night clerk at the desk that I intended to take him to the country with me and make a useful citizen of him if possible, which was in no wise a departure from the truth.

“Just at present he needs a hot bath,” I said.

“He certainly does,” said the clerk with an upward curl of the lip.

“Will you see that he gets it,” I asked, “and then give him a room? I stand for it, of course.”

Seth stood by the desk, his figure rocking in a weak, aimless fashion, his wide-open eyes dazzled by the blaze of the electric lights on onyx and marble. I saw that it was all a dream to him, and I have rarely had a keener satisfaction than the rescue of this boy from the slums; surely this rôle of the sudden and unknown protector would appeal to the heart of any man.

Seth was placed in good hands, and I saw him no more until nearly noon of the next day, when he made his appearance, half-transformed, and this transformation became complete when I sent out for ready-made clothing and replaced his old rags. Then a mild-featured lad, who would be good or bad, as others made him, stood before me and looked wonderingly at me.

“Why are you doin’ all this for me, Mr. Clarke,” asked Seth in amazement, “I never saw you before last night.”

I smiled, and the smile was of double satisfaction. It gave me pleasure to appear as a wizard who was working wonders, and I saw that he had not the remotest idea of my identity. No suspicion entered his mind. My face had changed too much, besides the brown beard grown since my prison life, and if there was any familiar tone in the voice it made no impression upon his remembering ear and mind.

“It’s an experiment,” I replied, and again I did not depart from the truth; “I want to help you to something better than you have known. Will you go to the country and stay with relatives of mine?”

I knew that he would go, even before I asked the question, as it was obvious that anybody could impress his will upon this poor, weak, unformed creature.

“If you want me to do it, I will,” he replied.

I took him down to Carlton with me, and introduced him to Aunt Jane and Uncle Paul, telling them of my purpose with regard to him.

“Set him to work about the house and on the farm,” I said, “but give him, at first, light duties and many encouraging words.”

I put it in the form of a request, but I knew in advance that they would not refuse. My uncle and aunt were too much delighted with what they called my conversion, and, which they were now sure was permanent, to refuse any reasonable request of mine.

“He’s a poor, ornery thing,” said Uncle Paul to me in private, “but I can see that he ain’t bad, and we’ll do our best with him for your sake.”

He kept his word and more. Before I returned to Harvard I had the satisfaction of seeing Seth at work on the lawn, in a fair degree of content, raking weeds, cutting grass, and well fed and well clothed.

I finished my course at the university with honors. When the year was out I took the train for Kentucky, exultant, proud of my mental powers and of my fitness for the life in which I was about to embark. When I say “fitness” I plead in extenuation of my seeming egotism the extraordinary circumstances that had stimulated alike my will and all my faculties amid the years of concentration.

I came down into my own State in late June by the road that gives the most picturesque passage—that is, the abrupt transition from the mountains to the green bowl that men call the Bluegrass. I went first to Louisville, and then transferred to the train for my own home. The same station agent who had been first to meet me when I came back from the penitentiary was there, but I was well known to him now.

“How are you, Mr. Clarke?” he said, extending a long, brown hand. “Your uncle and aunt and Seth are just behind me.”

I kissed Aunt Jane in the presence of twenty people. It was the first time that I had dared, and she looked confused and called me impudent, but I believe she was glad. Uncle Paul merely said, “Glad you’ve come to stay now, Harry,” but the grip he gave my hand was something terrible. Seth, a rural-looking youth with a face not so weak as it looked a year before, was shy, but I knew from the light in his eye that my coming gave him pleasure. I saw also from the first glance that he had become, in a sort, one of the family, and that Aunt Jane alternately scolded and reproved him with perfect freedom.

It was my plan to open a law office in Carlton and another in Louisville, which was only three hours away, but after two years of strenuous study I needed a little rest, and I decided to take a month at home. I began a series of rambles about the country, over the hills and through the forests, letting my mind go free, to wander where it would. Once when the sun was hot I came to a cool little spring. It was a beautiful place. Deep down in a hollow, set around with rocks, the water gushed from under the biggest rock of them all, and then flowed away in a silver stream through a narrow ravine. All the hollow was densely shaded with oak, hickory and maple, and on the hottest summer day one could find there grateful coolness and shadows.

It was the slumberous hour of mid-afternoon, and I had a sense of lazy luxury as I sat on the ground and leaned my back against an oak. I had been staring without purpose into the clear waters of the stream. My eyes saw nothing, and they wished to see nothing, my head was empty, and it was content to be so. I was half asleep, just going away into a pleasant dream, and in my dream I saw a beautiful lady, a wood nymph come down among the trees. Well, the old fables of the Greeks were pretty, full of delicate imagining, and it was a good thing to see a wood nymph in a dream. I watched her as she raised her skirts a little, showing a glimpse of a beautiful ankle, picking her way over the leaves and grass. She uttered a startled little cry when she beheld me, and then lifting my heavy lids I sprang to my feet as I uttered a mixture of profuse apologies and warm welcome.

“Alicia,” I said, “I think I frightened you, but really I was asleep when you came.”

“Then I shall go away. I will disturb nobody’s slumbers.”

“One man is glad to have his disturbed. Sit down, won’t you?” I said, and I made a seat for her by rolling a fallen bough against a tree trunk.

She sat down and looked me over in a sort of whimsical, critical manner.

“Well, Harry, you are about to begin your public life?” she said.

“Yes,” I replied, “I’ve just two weeks more of play.”

“I’m satisfied with you,” she said. She spoke seriously, and there was something almost maternal in her manner. “You should win great prizes from the world; it owes them to you.”

“The world pays its debts only to those who collect them by force,” I replied.

“You speak with a cynicism that you do not wholly mean,” she said. “Within certain limits we make our own fates.”

She spoke in a manner that savored of light reproof, and she seemed to me to be more cheerful than at any other time within my knowledge since that fatal night.

At twenty-five she had grown into a wonderful woman, dignified, self-possessed, aware of the world, a woman of many trials, but with all her girlish freshness and youthful innocence yet left to her. I looked at her from the corner of my eye, and I admired the tender curve of her chin, the whiteness of her throat and the deep blue of her eyes, so deep that it was almost black. Stray sunbeams pierced the leaves of the trees and braided her brown hair with spots of flaming gold. My heart beat faster, but I took firm rein on myself. Alas! and alas! I repeat it again and again; it is a terrible thing to be in love with another man’s wife, be she good or bad.

“I am a trespasser,” she said; “it is your land, but I claim an ownership in this spring, a right of common, so to speak. I come here often on summer days when I am in Carlton, but I did not know that you were here.”

“No trespasser was ever more welcome,” I said, trying to assume a tone of light gallantry, “and I shan’t forgive you if you cease trespassing.”

She did not reply to me, but sat silent and thoughtful. I noticed how her manner had changed with the years. She was no longer the frightened girl, but the woman who knew the world and was not afraid to face it. Her bearing toward me also assumed at times a new phase; it was that of one who would protect and guide, and I did not resent it, but in silence and to myself I challenged bitterly her assertion that our fates even within certain limits were of our own making. It was no kind fate that had given her to Grey, not kind to me, nor, I believed, kind to her. But I cherished one thing. She and I had a secret, a terrible secret in common, and it made a tie that I would not be willing to lose; it was a partial repayment.

“When did you come to Carlton?” I asked.

“I’ve been here three days,” she replied, “and it’s my third visit to the place, the enchanted spring I call it. I always like to come back to Carlton, where I was born, at least three or four times a year; it is like renewing one’s health and strength, even one’s very life.”

“I think that is always true of one’s birth-place, if one’s childhood has been happy,” I said. “Coming back here was to me like resuming a younger and better life that I had dropped for a time.”

This seemed to start a fresh thought in her mind and she was silent, but I was content that it should be so. I asked no more than to sit and look at her, and it was safer thus. Yet, looking at her, I should have had no fear; with the increase of beauty had come the increase of spiritual quality. A pure face and mind had been refined yet more by suffering and steadfast courage. Only the faint musical trickling of the water and the slight rustle of the leaves overhead broke the silence. Far above us stretched a sky of hot, unbroken blue, but beside the enchanted spring it was green and cool.

She asked me at last of my intended career, leading me on to speak more fully of my plans and the means by which I hoped to attain them, offering advice and suggestion now and then, though in the most unobtrusive way. I saw that she had thought much on such affairs, and, after all, there is no reason why a woman’s mind should not be keen and penetrating in the larger business of life; it is only use and training that makes us think otherwise.

With such a spur I spoke freely, even with impulse and enthusiasm. I had never before confided so much to myself in my thoughts, and as I spoke I was glad to see a faint added tinge in her own cheeks. Men expect enthusiasm from women for men’s work, but women expect little from men for women’s work, It is one of the penalties of being a woman.

I stopped suddenly and I heard a little sigh from Alicia. She would have checked it, but it was too late. I looked inquiringly at her.

“It is because men have a great refuge denied to us,” she said; “you can bury yourselves in your work and forget or at least nearly forget everything else.”

I had no reply to make. This is another of the penalties of being a woman, and I was forced to admit it by my silence.

“Harry,” she said, hesitating and flushing deeply, “I want you to tell me something. I thought once that I should never refer to it again. I made a promise to myself that I would not—but—I must now: did you suffer awfully in that terrible place? Did you curse my very name, and wish that you had never seen or heard of me?”

I was glad that she asked the question, and glad that I could answer her as I did. I looked at her, and her eyes looked back, deep into mine. She would have detected at once a note of falsehood, but I did not wish to evade.

“I think that at first I was stunned,” I replied, “and that perhaps softened the blow. But for a while I suffered, suffered greatly. It was the clothing more than anything else, the stripes, the brand of Cain, so to speak. It made me feel guilty when I knew myself innocent. Alicia, I begin to believe that the innocent can be persuaded that they are guilty.”

“Poor Harry!” she said, so softly that she did not intend for me to hear, and her face was shadowed.

“But it wore away,” I continued, “and I do not lie to you, Alicia, when I tell you that in time I had happy days in the penitentiary; it was the discipline, mental and physical, that was making me over again, and I came to know it. I learned to look forward, not backward, nor even at the present. I prepared for what has happened. I did not blame you. How could I? Once I wondered why you did not come or send any word, but I know now the reason of it, and sitting here a free man, with youth, friends, prospects, I have no reason to complain, except that—that——”

I stopped suddenly. I had leaned forward in my eagerness, and I held out my hands. She drew back a little, the color deepening in her cheeks, and I felt suddenly ashamed, because I knew whither I had been tending.

“It will not happen again, Alicia,” I said humbly, “I forgot. Please think of me again as a man who would not presume.”

“I do not remember it,” she replied, and I knew that I need say no more. We understood each other.

We heard a few moments later a heavy step on the hill and Grey came down among the trees. It was the second time in his life that he had surprised us together, but I was not now the dazed, and dissipated boy, nor she the frightened girl.

Alicia rose quite tranquilly when she saw him.

“Harry was sitting here enjoying the coolness and the shade when I came up,” she said, “and since then we’ve been talking of old times.”

She called me “Harry” quite naturally, as did most of the married women who had been my childish playmates. I had seen a frown on Grey’s brow, but it began to clear away—there was nothing at which he could take offense.

“I was a trespasser,” said Alicia, “and so are you, but Harry has not yet warned us off.”

“That’s so,” said Grey in the brusque manner that he meant for geniality, “but in a State like ours we are always free with one another’s land.”

“I should feel the veriest curmudgeon if I should forbid the spring to anybody at all,” I said. “I could not deny its water even to a common tramp.”

Alicia resumed her seat, leaning her brown head carelessly against a tree. Grey sat down on one of the stone outcroppings and glanced alternately at us. I saw that he would have preferred to make himself unpleasant, but there was no opening for him. His wife was cool, quite unconcerned, and evidently able to handle him. I realized with a thrill of wicked joy that Grey might have become afraid of Alicia. He fixed at last on me.

“You said last year, Clarke, that you thought of going into politics,” he began abruptly.

“It was my intention,” I replied.

“And you hold to it.”

“Certainly. I intend, if I can, to represent this county in the Lower House of the Legislature.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” he said seeking to look confidential, “but don’t you fall too much under the influence of that cousin of yours, Warfield.”

“Why not follow Warfield?” I asked, not relishing at all his attack upon Jimmy.

“I don’t think he’s in the right path,” he said. “There are rocks ahead of him. If you tie up with him, Clarke, you’re sure to meet disaster early in your career.”

“I like Mr. Warfield,” said Alicia, quietly, “I’m sure he’s an honest man, and so is that great friend of his, Mr. Guthrie.”

She spoke quite calmly, there was no raising of her tone, and it was evident that she also spoke fearlessly. I looked at her in admiration, admiring alike the position that she had taken and herself. Angry red came into Grey’s face.

“I’m surprised to hear you speak so,” he said, “knowing my opinions and my plans.”

“You are wrong,” she replied serenely, but with the sharp under-tone of defiance that is more ominous than emphasis. “Both Mr. Warfield and Mr. Guthrie are good men, and I wish you could see your way to support them.”

Grey’s eyes flashed anger and he opened his mouth to speak, but he was awed by the calm, strong face before him, and his mouth closed suddenly, the words unspoken.

“It’s too far ahead,” I said to relieve the tension. “I’m not elected to the Legislature yet and I may not be.”

Alicia rose. Her manner was that of ease and indifference. Grey might or might not agree with her, as he chose, but she would abide by her own opinions nevertheless. I saw instinctively that she would not depart from the new line with him that she had taken.

“It is time that we were going back,” she said. “The sunshine is not so hot now.”

It was far into the afternoon. The sun sinking toward the west left long shadows behind, and the burning blue of the sky was softened. Over the far, green hills floated a dim blue haze, and out of the west a pleasant coolness was stealing. The world with the summer twilight coming on looked very soft and tender. There was a rare, delicate sheen over the meadows, and the flowing spring gave forth a low musical gurgle. Only Grey troubled the landscape.

“You’re right,” he said to Alicia. “It’s growing late.”

I think he was glad to go, not for the going itself, but to get rid of me, and when they started, deeming it the wiser course, I made no offer to walk part of the way with them.

“We shall be here several days longer,” said Alicia, as they walked up the slope. “Come to see us; we are at my mother’s as usual you know.”

Grey, as he was bound to do, repeated the invitation, though in cool fashion, and I replied, with full truth, that I certainly intended to do so.

I came to the edge of the hollow, and standing there among the trees watched them, as they walked away together across the fields, her straight, slender figure beside his heavy broad outline. The blood red rays of the setting sun, into the eye of which they walked sharpened and defined them and I could almost see the separate tendrils of her brown hair, lying on her neck. It was an Eden, but Grey spoiled it all! I should be the man who was walking away with her, and I was glad that they never looked back, because the setting sun might have enabled them to read in my face what no one should see there.

They passed over a hill and out of sight. Then the darkness came, settling down heavily over the fields and forest, and, lonesome to the marrow, I walked home.

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