23 One Woman
The death of Grey created a great sensation throughout the State, and those were not wanting who said that I would rejoice at it, a true saying, but said in an evil way. Such things came to my ears, but they troubled me no more; I had endured too many greater wounds to be hurt by such little stings, and I went about my work, like one who had escaped from the very jaws of perdition.
No word passed between Alicia and me and not a word was needed. I think that between two people who have loved each other as long, as she and I, and under such adversity some sort of an invisible current flows, and each knows what is in the heart of the other. I knew that I should see Alicia, but I knew the time had not yet come. But the barrier between us that had seemed impossible was thrown down and would never be raised again. I heard that she had gone in the early days of her widowhood to Europe with her mother, and I was content.
It was a long and arduous session of the Legislature, the term passing far into May, but to me the whole time was full of life and light. I cared not how many bills they brought me for signature or veto, nor how they wrangled over appointments. Work had a wonderful savor, and Seth remarked more than once that the task of governing Kentucky was easier for us than it used to be.
Much remained to be done in Frankfort long after the Legislature adjourned, and I lingered there through June and into the hot months. Joint letters from Uncle Paul and Aunt Jane arrived, asking me to come home for a vacation, and telling me how I needed the rest, but one emergency after another arose and I was still at the Capital.
It was autumn before I was able to leave Frankfort, but it was one of the most beautiful autumns that I have ever seen in Kentucky. Never before had the colors of this most glorious season burned so deeply, its red was the reddest and its gold the purest, all the world was ablaze with glow and light, and I, Harry Clarke, felt new life in every vein of me, when I took the train for my home.
I had not told Uncle Paul and Aunt Jane the exact time of my arrival, because I wished to come without noise and to surprise them. Hence there was nobody at Carlton, when I left the train, except the station agent and one or two loungers, and they greeted me respectfully, but without any undue deference. They had known me in my boyhood and they would not be overpowered now by a Governor.
“Didn’t expect you to-day, Governor, but I can get you a carriage and send you over or telephone to your Uncle Paul to bring one, whichever you wish,” said the agent.
“Neither, thank you,” I replied, “I want to walk.”
“Don’t blame you,” he said, “Wish I could get away from here myself, and take a plunge into that.”
He looked at the great glowing forest of red and gold that curved about the station, and shook his head lugubriously. He felt the wilderness spell that comes over all of us Kentuckians at times—we are not yet far enough away from the wilderness days for it to grow faint—and I felt it too.
I turned away from the station alone and plunged into the splendid mass of red and gold, and my mind, as it always did when I came to Carlton, went back to my first returning. Truly much water had flowed under the bridge for me. It had been a rapid and turbid current, but I felt more at peace now than at any other time in my life. The sea does not go on forever. One must come to port at last.
I lingered a little in the forest which was but a narrow belt, seeming more massive than it was, and I felt here the freedom from care that comes to the strong man in the woods. I marked with glad eyes hillocks and little valleys where I had played when a boy and I resolved that they should often know me again.
I left the woods and approached our home, its warm red brick walls glowing in the brilliant October sunlight. A tall stiff figure was upon the front porch, wielding a broom, and I knew that it was Aunt Jane, sweeping away the falling leaves of autumn. She saw me, cast aside the broom and with an unusual appearance of emotion came down the steps.
“Harry,” she exclaimed. “Here you come walking home, alone and without warning. Will you always be a boy?”
“Would you have me to be an old man before my time,” I replied, as I kissed her.
Then we went into the house, and soon Uncle Paul came. He said nothing unusual, but gave my hand a powerful grasp. Before night Seth arrived, having taken a later train with the baggage, and in the evening, which was sharp and crisp, we sat around a great, glowing fire of logs and talked lazily of many things. They gave me all the gossip of the neighborhood, details about everybody except Alicia. They did not refer once to her or her mother and I did not expect them to do so. There was an innate delicacy in Uncle Paul and Aunt Jane; they understood, and I was yet content to wait.
We had no light save that of the fire, but the mellow glow on the walls and the floor deepened and with it deepened the feeling of peace in my heart. It seemed to me that the stormiest of my days were over, and fate having used the most cruel of her weapons against me would be compelled to spare me now. When Uncle Paul and Aunt Jane rose to bid me good night Aunt Jane said:
“Harry, we never abated a particle of our faith in you during that awful time, when they were attacking you, nor did we change when you made your speech to that meeting.”
“I knew you wouldn’t. God bless you both,” I said, and there were tears in my eyes.
I rose early the next morning to another October day of glowing colors and gorgeous sunlight, and, after breakfast strolled away alone, across the fields. All the time something had been calling me. The invisible current created by intense feeling was established between Alicia and me and I knew that I was going to her. I left the field, entered the forest, and approached the little embowered spring set in its cup of a valley. It had always been left just as it was in the Indian days and it was never to be defaced by any so-called improvements.
I looked down at the clear water of the pool, and then I felt with the certainty of knowledge that she was coming. The call was for us both. I looked up and I saw her through the trees. Alicia coming toward me! Ah, God! it was worth our years of suffering this one moment!
She was in gray—the mourning that was no mourning was cast aside—and the bloom of girlhood was on her cheeks. She was a girl again, and I was a boy. We were not old in years, only in life, and suddenly I realized our youth.
It was the first time in all these years that I had seen Alicia happy, and she was very human and very beautiful, made to love and to be loved. Pinned upon her breast was a sprig of some late wild flower, and its delicate rose matched the delicate rose of her cheeks.
“I felt that I must come,” she said shyly from the other side of the pool.
“It was foreordained that you and I should meet here at this time,” I said.
“I know it,” she said.
Curiously, I felt no shyness. It was no boy love of mine, but one that had been tried by every test, and I had come forth with courage to seek what I wished.
I went around the pool, and I took both of her hands in mine.
“Alicia,” I said gravely, “God would not have brought us through so many evils to meet here to-day if he had not intended from the first that we should belong to each other.”
She was silent, but agreeing, and, putting my arm around her waist, I kissed her on the lips, while the color flooded her cheeks.
“You will marry me in the winter, will you not, Alicia?” I asked.
“I will marry you, Harry, whenever you come for me,” she replied, and she sighed in deep content. She, like I, had found peace and rest at last.
I repeat that we were not boy and girl. The gossip of the world had had its will with us, and would touch us again. I had been, in prison, and none would forget it, she had been the wife of a man who had taken the life of another and his own, but secure in our love we did not care.
Thus we stood, with the beautiful world about us, and, on our heads, the glorious sunshine fell in brilliant sheaves of red and gold, like a benison.