Ralph Henry Barbour

“ Her eyes were on the green knoll where the oaks threw deep shadow over the red-walled enclosure, and her thoughts wandered like the blue-jay that flitted restlessly through garden and grove. Life was a turbid stream, these days, filled with perplexing swirls—a stream that rippled with laughter in the sunlight, and sighed in its shadowed depths, and all the while flowed swiftly, breathlessly on toward—what?
The sound of a horse’s hoofs on the road aroused Holly from her dreams. She lifted her head and listened. The hoof-beats slackened at the gate, and then drew nearer up the curving drive. ”

“ January was a fortnight old and Winter held sway. The banana-trees drooped blackened and shrivelled, the rose-beds were littered with crumpled leaves, and morning after morning a film of ice, no thicker than a sheet of paper, but still real ice, covered the water-pail on its shelf on the back porch. Uncle Ran groaned with rheumatism as he laid the morning fires, [226] and held his stiffened fingers to the blaze as the fat pine hissed and spluttered. To Winthrop it was the veriest farce of a winter, but the other inhabitants of Waynewood felt the cold keenly. ”

“ Her thoughts flew to her mother. She wondered if such a thing had ever happened to her. What would she have done had she been in Holly’s place? Holly’s tears came creeping back again; she wanted her mother very much just then....
As she sat at the open window, the faint and measured tramp of steps along the porch reached her. It was Winthrop, she knew. And at the very thought her heart gave a quick throb that was at once a joy and a pain. Oh, why couldn’t people be just happy in such a beautiful world? Why need there be disappointments, and heartaches? ”

“ The blur of sunlight proved to be a break in the path where a driveway angled across [60] it, curving on toward the house and backward toward the road where, as Winthrop later discovered, it emerged through a gate beyond the one by which he had entered. He crossed the drive and plunged again into the gloom of the oleander path. But his journey was almost over, for a moment later the sentinel bushes dropped away from beside him and he found himself at the foot of a flower garden, across whose blossom-flecked width a white-pillared, double-galleried old house stared at him in dignified calm. ”

“ Dreams are blessed things, be they day-dreams or dreams of the night; and [16] even the ugly ones are beneficent, since at waking they make by contrast reality more endurable.
If Aunt India never learned the cause she was at least quick to note the result. Holly’s thin little cheeks borrowed tints from the Duchess roses in the garden, and Aunt India graciously gave the credit to Kentucky air, even as she drew her white silk shawl more closely about her slender shoulders and shivered in the unaccustomed chill of a Kentucky autumn. ”

“ Holly’s eighteenth birthday was but a fortnight distant when the quiet stream of her life, which since her father’s death six years before had flowed placidly, with but few events to ripple its tranquil surface, was suddenly disturbed....
To the child of twelve years death, because of its unfamiliarity and mystery, is peculiarly terrible. At that age one has become too wise to find comfort in the vague and beautiful explanations of tearfully-smiling relatives—explanations in which Heaven is pictured as a material region just out of sight beyond the zenith ”

“ Holly seemed troubled, but whether over Julian’s unhappiness or his impoliteness Winthrop could not guess. After supper they went out to the porch for a while together, but Winthrop soon bade them good-night. For some time through the opened windows he could hear the faint squeaking of the joggling-board and the fainter hum of their low voices. At ten Julian’s horse was brought around, and he clattered away in the starlit darkness toward Marysville. He heard Holly closing the door down-stairs, heard her feet patter up the uncarpeted stairway, heard her humming a little tune under her breath. ”

“ Winthrop?”
“I’m sorry,” thought Winthrop, as he made his way to his room. “She’s only a child, and a child’s friendship is very jealous. I should have remembered that.”
Miss Rosa returned to Bellair the next afternoon, and with her departure Holly’s spirits returned. Winthrop smiled and sighed at the same time. It was all so palpable, so childish and—so sweet. There was the disturbing thought. Why should he find his heart warming at the contemplation of Holly’s tiny fit of jealousy? Was he really going to make a fool of himself and spoil their pleasant comradeship by falling in love with her? ”

“ Winthrop, looking down into it, smiled; smiled for no particular reason, save that the morning air was very delightful, the morning sunlight very warm and cheering, and the face before him very lovely to look at. But Holly, painfully aware of her burning cheeks, thought he was smiling at her blushes. “What a silly he must think me!” she reflected, angrily. “Blushing every time he comes near!” She busied herself with the roses for a moment. ”

“ Then followed six tranquil years in which Holly grew from a small, long-legged, angular child to a very charming maiden of eighteen, dainty with the fragrant daintiness of a southern rosebud; small of stature, as her mother had been before her, yet possessed of a gracious dignity that added mythical inches to her height; no longer angular but gracefully symmetrical with the soft curves of womanhood; with a fair skin like the inner petal of a La France rose; with eyes warmly, deeply brown, darkened by large irises; a low, broad forehead [17] under a wealth of hair just failing of being black ”

“ So he had written to Major Cass, whose name he had come across in looking over his partner’s papers, and had started South on the heels of his letter. The trip had been a hard one for him, but now the soft, fragrant air that blew against his face through the open car window was already soothing him with its caressing touch and whispering fair promises of strengthening days. A long blast of the whistle moved the conductor to a return of animation and Winthrop awoke from his thoughts. The train was slowing down with a grinding of hand-brakes. ”

“ Although she could have no knowledge of it, as yet, Fate was already poising the stone which, once dropped into that stream, was destined to cause disquieting ripples, perplexing eddies, distracting swirls and, in the end, the formation of a new channel. And even now the messenger of Fate was limping along with the aid of his stout cane, coming nearer and nearer down the road from the village under the shade of the water-oaks, a limp and a tap for every beat of Holly’s unsuspecting heart. ”

“ And when you are away you will know that I love you more than anything in the world, and I will know that you love me. Of course, we must never speak again of our love, for that would be wicked. And you wouldn’t want me to be wicked. We will be such good, good friends always. Good-bye.”
You see, it never occurred to her that Winthrop’s straining arms, his quickening heart-throbs, and the words of his eyes, might be only the manifestation of a quite temporal passion. She judged him by herself, and all loves by that which her father and mother had borne for each other. ”

“ And Holly kept her secret well.
[236]
XII.
January and Winter had passed together. February was nearly a week old. Already the garden was astir. The violet-beds were massed with blue, and the green spikes of the jonquils showed tiny buds. There was a new balminess in the air, a new languor in the ardent sunlight. The oaks were tasseling, the fig-trees were gowning themselves in new green robes of Edenic simplicity, the clumps of Bridal Wreath were sprinkled with flecks of white that promised early flowering and the pomegranates were unfolding fresh leaves. ”

“ Winthrop.”
“I have exhausted my treasures, Miss Holly. There remains only myself. I throw myself at your feet, my dear young lady; I will be your slave for life.”
“Oh, I thought you Northerners didn’t believe in slavery,” said Holly.
“We don’t believe in compulsory slavery, Miss Holly. To be a slave to Beauty is always a pleasure.” ”

“ To have an audience who was quite fresh and sympathetic was an event in her life, and there are so many, many things one has to say at eighteen. And Winthrop enjoyed it almost as much as Holly. Her naive views of life amused even while they touched him. She seemed very young for her age, and very unsophisticated after the Northern girls Winthrop knew. ”

“ You have no right to know. But if I did love Mr. Winthrop, married though he is, I’d not be ashamed of it. He is at least a gentleman!”
She swept into the house.
“By God!” whispered Julian, the color rushing from his face. “By God! I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!” He staggered down the steps, beating the air with his whip. A moment later, Holly, sitting with clenched [247] hands and heaving breast in her room, heard him shouting for Uncle Ran and his horse. Ten minutes later he was riding like a whirlwind along the Marysville road, White Queen in an ecstasy of madness as the whip rose and fell. ”

“ You forget yourself!” said Holly, quietly. “You have no right to talk this way to me!”
“It’s you who forget yourself,” he answered, slashing his riding-whip against his boots. “And if I haven’t the right to call you to account I’d like to know who [246] has! Miss Indy’s blind, I reckon, but I’m not!”
Holly’s face had faded to a white mask from which her dark eyes flashed furiously. But her voice, though it trembled, was quiet and cold.
“You’ll beg my pardon, Julian Wayne, for what you’ve said before I’ll speak to you again. Mr. Winthrop has never made love to me in his life.” ”

“ Holly nodded, thoughtfully. “Do you know, I don’t think I want to live to be real, real old; I think I’d rather die before—before that.”
“And what do you call real, real old?” asked Winthrop.
[130]
“Oh, I don’t know; fifty, I reckon.”
“Then I have twelve years longer to live,” said Winthrop, gravely.
Holly turned a pair of startled eyes upon him.
“No, no! It’s different with you; you’re a man.” ”

“ There were still things in this new world of hers which her eyes had not discerned.
She wondered if Winthrop had understood her emotion after he had released her from his arms. For an instant, she hoped that he had. Then she clasped her hands closely to her burning cheeks and [234] thought that if he had she would never have the courage to face him again! She hoped and prayed that he had not guessed.
Suddenly, regretfully for the pain she must cause him, she recollected Julian. She could never marry him now. She would never, never marry anyone. She would be an old maid, like Aunt India. ”

“ Winthrop, Auntie,” said Holly. She fastened a broad-brimmed hat on her head and looked down at Miss India with soft, shining eyes. Dinner was over and Miss India, the Major and Julian were sitting in a shady spot on the porch. Winthrop awaited Holly at the steps.
“Well, my dear,” answered Miss India. “But keep Mr. Winthrop away from those dark, damp places, Holly. It’s so easy to get the feet wet at this time of year.”
“You see, Uncle Major,” laughed Holly, “she doesn’t care whether I catch cold or not; it’s just Mr. Winthrop!” ”

“ As the carriage moved down the circling road Holly watched with trembling lips the little brick-walled enclosure on the knoll. Then came a sudden gush of tears and convulsive sobs, and when these had passed they were under the live-oaks at the depot, and the train of two cars and a rickety, asthmatic engine, which ran over the six-mile branch to the main line, was posing importantly in front of the weather-beaten station. ”

“ Do you reckon,” she continued wistfully, “people love that way nowadays?”
“To-day, yesterday, and to-morrow,” answered Winthrop. “The great passions—love, hate, acquisitiveness—are the same now as in the beginning, and will never change while the earth spins around. I hope, Miss Holly, that the years will bring you as great a love and as happy a one as your mother’s.” ”

“ It would be foolish to punish himself unnecessarily for what, after all, was no offense. No; he would stay at Waynewood; he would see Holly each day, and he would cure himself of what, after all, was—could be—only a sentimental attachment evolved from propinquity and idleness. Holly was going to marry Julian; and even were she not——. Winthrop glanced toward the photograph frame on the bureau—there were circumstances which forbade him entering the field. Holly was not for him. Surely if one thoroughly realized that a thing was unobtainable he must cease to desire it in time. ”

“ You are Youth, and Youth is Perfect Wisdom. When you grow old you will know more but be less wise. And the longer you live the more learning will come to you and the more wisdom will depart. And in proof of this I point to myself [171] as an example. For no wise person would try to convince Youth of its wisdom.” Winthrop stopped and drew his cigarette-case from his pocket. When he had lighted a cigarette he smiled quizzically across at the girl’s sober, half-averted face. “It’s very warm, isn’t it?” he asked, with a little laugh.
But Holly made no reply for a minute. ”