_ CHAPTER IX. MR. KEITH IS UNPRACTICAL, AND MRS. YORKE GIVES HIM GOOD ADVICE
The strolls in the budding woods and the glimpses shown her of a spirit somewhat different from any she had known were beginning to have their influence on Alice. It flattered her and filled her with a certain content that the young school-teacher should like her so much; yet, knowing herself, it gave her a vague feeling that he was wanting in that quality of sound judgment which she recognized in some of her other admirers. It rather frightened her to feel that she was on a pedestal; and often he soared away from her with his poetry and his fancies, and she was afraid that he would discover it and think she was a hypocrite. Something that her mother had said remained in her mind.
"He knows so much, mamma," said Alice one day. "Why, he can quote whole pages of poetry."
"He is too romantic, my dear, to be practical," said Mrs. Yorke, who looked at the young men who approached her daughter with an eye as cool as a physician's glass. "He, perhaps, does know more about books than any boy of his age I am acquainted with; but poetry is a very poor thing to live on; and if he were practical he would not be teaching that wretched little school in the wilderness."
"But, mamma, he will rise. You don't know how ambitious he is, and what determination he has. They have lost everything. The place that Ferdy Wickersham told me about his father owning, with its old pictures and all that, was his old home. Old Mr. Keith, since he lost it, has been farming it for Mr. Wickersham. Think of that!"
"Just so," said Mrs. Yorke. "He inherits it. They are all unpractical. Your father began life poor; but he was practical, and he had the ability to succeed."
Alice's face softened. "Dear old dad!" she said; "I must write to him." Even as she thought of him she could not but reflect how absorption in business had prevented his obtaining the culture of which this young school-teacher had given her a glimpse, and had crushed, though it could not wholly quench, the kindliness which lived in his big heart.
Though Alice defended Keith, she felt in her heart there was some truth in her mother's estimate. He was too romantic. She soon had proof of it.
General Keith came up to the Ridge just then to see Gordon. At least, he gave this out as the reason for his visit, and Gordon did not know until afterwards that there was another reason for it--that he had been in correspondence for some time with Dr. Balsam. He was looking thin; but when Gordon spoke of it, he put it by with a smile.
"Oh, I am very well. We need not worry about my troubles. I have but two: that old wound, and Old Age; both are incurable."
Gordon was very pleased to have the opportunity to introduce his father to Mrs. Yorke and Miss Alice. As he scanned the thin, fine face with its expression of calm and its lines of fortitude, he felt that it was a good card to play. His resemblance to the man-in-armor that hung in the old dining-room had increased.
The General and Miss Alice promptly became great friends. He treated her with a certain distinction that pleased her. Mrs. Yorke, too, was both pleased and flattered by his gracious manner. She was, however, more critical toward him than her daughter was.
General Keith soon discovered Gordon's interest in the young girl. It was not difficult to discover, for every moment of his spare time was devoted to her in some way. The General observed them with a quiet smile in his eyes. Now and then, however, the smile died out as he heard Gordon expressing views which were somewhat new to him. One evening they were all seated on the verandah together, and Gordon began to speak of making a fortune as a high aim. He had heard Mrs. Yorke express the same sentiments a few days before.
"My son," said his father, gently, looking at him with grave eyes, "a fortune is a great blessing in the hands of the man who knows how to spend it. But riches considered as something to possess or to display is one of the most despicable and debasing of all the aims that men can have."
Mrs. Yorke's eyes opened wide and her face hardened a little. Gordon thought of the toil and patience it had cost him to make even his little salary, and wealth appeared to him just then a very desirable acquisition.
"Why, father," he said, "it opens the world to a man. It gives such great opportunities for everything; travel, knowledge, art, science, power, the respect and esteem of the world, are obtained by it."
Something like this Mrs. Yorke had said to him, meaning, kindly enough, to encourage him in its pursuit.
The old General smiled gravely.
"Opportunity for travel and the acquirement of knowledge wealth undoubtedly gives, but happily they are not dependent upon wealth, my son. The Columbuses of science, the Galileos, Newtons, Keplers; the great benefactors of the world, the great inventors, the great artists, the great poets, philosophers, and statesmen have few of them been rich."
"He appears to have lived in another world, mamma," said Alice when he had left. "He is an old dear. I never knew so unworldly a person."
Mrs. Yorke's chin tilted a little.
"Now, Alice, don't you be silly. He lives in another world now, and certainly, of all the men I know, none appears less fitted to cope with this world. The only real people to him appear to be those whom he has read of. He never tried wealth."
"He used to be rich--very rich. Don't you remember what that lady told you?"
"I don't believe it," said Mrs. Yorke, sententiously.
Alice knew that this closed the argument. When her mother in such cases said she did not believe a thing, it meant that the door of her mind was fast shut and no reason could get into it.
Mrs. Yorke could not but notice that some change had taken place in Alice of late. In a way she had undoubtedly improved. She was more serious, more thoughtful of Mrs. Yorke herself, less wilful. Yet it was not without some misgiving that Mrs. Yorke noted the change.
She suddenly had her eyes opened. Mrs. Nailor, one of her New York friends, performed this amiable office. She assigned the possible cause, though not directly--Mrs. Nailor rarely did things directly. She was a small, purring lady, with a tilt of the head, and an insinuating voice of singular clearness, with a question-mark in it. She was of a very good family, lived in a big house on Murray Hill, and had as large a circle of acquaintance as any one in New York. She prided herself on knowing everybody worth knowing, and everything about everybody. She was not lacking in amiability; she was, indeed, so amiable that she would slander almost any absent friend to please one who was present. She had a little grudge against Keith, for she had been struck from the first by his bright eyes and good manners; but Keith had been so much engrossed by his interest in Alice Yorke that he had been remiss in paying Mrs. Nailor that attention which she felt her position required. Mrs. Nailor now gave Mrs. Yorke a judicious hint.
"You have such a gift for knowing people?" she said to her, "and your daughter is so like you?" She showed her even teeth.
Mrs. Yorke was not quite sure what she meant, and she answered somewhat coldly that she was glad that Mrs. Nailor thought so. Mrs. Nailor soon indicated her meaning.
"The young schoolmaster--he is a schoolmaster in whom your daughter is interested, isn't he? Yes? He appears so well-read? He brought your daughter down the mountain the day her horse ran off with her? So romantic to make an acquaintance that way--I quite envy you? There is so little real romance these days! It is delightful to find it?" She sighed, and Mrs. Yorke thought of Daniel Nailor and his little bald head and round mouth. "Yes, I quite envy you--and your daughter. Who is he?"
Mrs. Yorke said he was of a very old and distinguished family. She gave him a pedigree that would have done honor to a Derby-winner.
"I am so glad," declared Mrs. Nailor. "I knew he must be, of course. I am sure you would never encourage such an intimacy unless he were?" She smiled herself off, leaving Mrs. Yorke fuming.
"That woman is always sticking pins into people," she said to herself. But this pin had stuck fast, and Mrs. Yorke was in quite a panic.
Mrs. Yorke determined to talk to Alice on the first occasion that offered itself; but she would not do it too abruptly. All that would be needed would be a hint judiciously given. For surely a girl of such sound sense as Alice, a girl brought up so wisely, could not for a moment think of acting so foolishly. And really Mrs. Yorke felt that she herself was very fond of this young man. She might do something for him--something that should be of use to him in after life. At first this plan took the form in her mind of getting her husband to give him a place; but she reflected that this would necessitate bringing him where his acquaintance with them might prove inconvenient. She would aid him in going to college for another year. This would be a delicate way to discharge the obligation under which his kindness had placed her.
Keith, meantime, was happily ignorant of the plot that was forming against him. The warm weather was coming, and he knew that before long Mrs. Yorke and Alice would be flitting northward. However, he would make his hay while the sun shone for him. So one afternoon Keith had borne Miss Alice off to his favorite haunt, the high rock in the Ridge woods. He was in unusual spirits; for he had escaped from Mrs. Nailor, who of late had appeared to be rather lying in wait for him. It was the spot he loved best; for the pines behind him seemed to shut out the rest of the world, and he felt that here he was in some sort nearer to having Alice for his own than anywhere else. It was here that he had caught that glimpse of her heart which he felt had revealed her to him.
This afternoon he was talking of love and of himself; for what young man who talks of love talks not of himself? She was dressed in white, and a single red rose that he had given her was stuck in her dress. He had been reading a poem to her. It contained a picture of the goddess of love, decked out for "worship without end." The book now lay at his side, and he was stretched at her feet.
"If I ever am in love," he said suddenly, "it will be with a girl who must fill full the measure of my dreams." He was looking away through the pine-trees to the sky far beyond; but the soft light in his face came not from that far-off tent of blue. He was thinking vaguely how much bluer than the sky were her eyes.
"Yes?" Her tone was tender.
"She must be a beauty, of course." He gazed at her with that in his eyes which said, as plainly as words could have said it, "You are beautiful."
But she was looking away, wondering to herself who it might be.
"I mean she must have what _I_ call beauty," he added by way of explanation. "I don't count mere red and white beauty. Phrony Tripper has that." This was not without intention. Alice had spoken of Phrony's beauty one day when she saw her at the school.
"But she is very pretty," asserted the girl, "so fresh and such color!"
"Oh, pretty! yes; and color--a wine-sap apple has color. But I am speaking of real beauty, the beauty of the rose, the freshness that you cannot define, that holds fragrance, a something that you love, that you feel even more than you see."
She thought of a school friend of hers, Louise Caldwell, a tall, statuesque beauty, with whom another friend, Norman Wentworth, was in love, and she wondered if Keith would think her such a beauty as he described.
"She must be sweet," he went on, thinking to himself for her benefit. "I cannot define that either, but you know what I mean?"
She decided mentally that Louise Caldwell would not fill his measure.
"It is something that only some girls have in common with some flowers--violets, for instance."
"Oh, I don't care for sweet girls very much," she said, thinking of another schoolmate whom the girls used to call _eau sucre_.
"You do," he said positively. "I am not talking of that kind. It is womanliness and gentleness, fragrance, warmth, beauty, everything."
"Oh, yes. That kind?" she said acquiescingly. "Well, go on; you expect to find a good deal."
"I do," he said briefly, and sat up. "I expect to find the best."
She glanced at him with new interest. He was very good-looking when he was spirited. And his eyes now were full of light.
"Well, beauty and sweetness," she said; "what else? I must know, for I may have to help you find her. There don't appear to be many around Ridgely, since you have declined to accept the only pretty girl I have seen."
"She must be good and true. She must know the truth as--" His eye fell at that instant on a humming-bird, a gleaming jewel of changing sapphire that, poised on half-invisible wings, floated in a bar of sunlight before a sprig of pink honeysuckle. "--As that bird knows the flowers where the honey lies."
"Where do you expect to find this paragon?"
As if in answer, the humming-bird suddenly caught sight of the red rose in her dress, and, darting to it, thrust its bill deep into the crimson heart of the flower. They both gave an exclamation of delighted wonder.
"I have found her," he said firmly, leaning a little toward her, with mantling cheeks and close-drawn lips, his glowing eyes on her face. "The bird has found her for me."
The bird darted away.
"Ah, it is gone! What will you give her in return?" She turned to him, and spoke half mockingly, wishing to get off such delicate ground.
He turned and gazed into her eyes.
"'Worship without end.'" There was that in his face that made her change color. She looked away and began to think of her own ideal. She found that her idea of the man she loved had been of height of figure and breadth of shoulders, a handsome face and fashionable attire. She had pictured him as tall and straight, taller than this boy and larger every way, with a straight nose, brown eyes, and dark hair. But chiefly she had thought of the style of his clothes. She had fancied the neckties he should wear, and the pins that should be stuck in them. He must be brave, of course, a beautiful dancer, a fine tennis-player. She had once thought that black-eyed, handsome young Ferdy Wickersham was as near her ideal as any one else she knew. He led germans divinely. But he was selfish, and she had never admired him as much as another man, who was less showy, but was, she knew, more of a man: Norman Wentworth, a bold swimmer, a good horseman, and a leader of their set. It suddenly occurred to her now how much more like this man Norman Wentworth was than Ferdy Wickersham, and following her thought of the two, she suddenly stepped up on a higher level and was conscious of a certain elation, much like that she had had the day she had climbed up before Gordon Keith on the out-jutting rock and looked far down over the wide expanse of forest and field, to where his home had been.
She sat for a little while in deep reflection. Presently she said, quite gravely and a little shyly:
"You know, I am not a bit what you think I am. Why, you treat me as if I were a superior being. And I am not; I am a very matter-of-fact girl."
He interrupted her with a gesture of dissent, his eyes full of light.
"Nonsense! You don't know me, you don't know men, or you would know that any girl is the superior of the best man," he reiterated.
"You don't know girls," she retorted.
"I know one, at least," he said, with a smile that spoke his admiration.
"I am not sure that you do," she persisted, speaking slowly and very seriously. She was gazing at him in a curious, reflective way.
"The one I know is good enough for me." He leaned over and shyly took her hand and raised it to his lips, then released it. She did not resist him, but presently she said tentatively:
"I believe I had rather be treated as I am than as something I am not. I like you too much to want to deceive you, and I think you are deceived."
He, of course, protested that he was not deceived. He "knew perfectly well," he said. She was not convinced; but she let it go. She did not want to quarrel with him for admiring her.
That afternoon, when Alice came in, her manner was so different from what it had been of late that her mother could not but observe it. One moment she was distraite; the next she was impatient and even irritable; then this mood changed, and she was unusually gay; her cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled; but even as she reflected, a change came, and she drifted away again into a brown study.
Next day, while Mrs. Yorke was still considering what to do, a card was handed her. It was a name written simply on one of the slips of paper that were kept on the hotel counter below. Keith of late had not been sending up his card; a servant simply announced his name. This, then, decided her. It was the most fortunate thing in the world that Alice had gone off and was out of the way. It gave Mrs. Yorke the very opportunity she desired. If, as she divined, the young man wished to talk to her about anything personal, she would speak kindly to him, but so plainly that he could never forget it. After all, it would be true kindness to him to do so. She had a virtuous feeling as she smoothed her hair before a mirror.
He was not in the sitting-room when she came down; so she sought for him on one of the long verandahs where they usually sat. He was seated at the far end, where he would be more or less secluded, and she marched down on him. He was evidently on the watch for her, and as soon as she appeared he rose from his seat. She had made up her mind very clearly what she would say to him; but as she approached him it was not so easy to say as she had fancied it. There was something in his bearing and expression that deterred her from using the rather condescending words she had formulated. His face was somewhat pale; his mouth was firmly set, throwing out the chin in a way to make it quite strong; his eyes were anxious, but steady; his form was very erect, and his shoulders were very square and straight. He appeared to her older than she had considered him. It would not do to patronize this man. After greeting her, he handed her a chair solemnly, and the next moment plunged straight into his subject. It was so sudden that it almost took her breath away; and before she knew it he had, with the blood coming and going in his cheeks, declared his love for her daughter, and asked her permission to pay her his addresses. After the first gulp or two he had lost his embarrassment, and was speaking in a straightforward, manly way. The color had come rushing back into his face, and his eyes were filled with light. Mrs. Yorke felt that it was necessary to do something. So, though she felt some trepidation, she took heart and began to answer him. As she proceeded, her courage returned to her, and seeing that he was much disturbed, she became quite composed.
She regretted extremely, she said, that she had not foreseen this. It was all so unexpected to her that she was quite overwhelmed by it. She felt that this was a lie, and she was not sure that he did not know it. Of course, it was quite impossible that she could consent to anything like what he had proposed.
"Do you mean because she is from the North and I am from the South?" he asked earnestly.
"No; of course not. I have Southern blood myself. My grandmother was from the South." She smiled at his simplicity.
"Then why?"
This was embarrassing, but she must answer.
"Why, you--we--move in--quite different--spheres, and--ah, it's really not to be thought of Mr. Keith," she said, half desperately.
He himself had thought of the different spheres in which they moved, but he had surmounted that difficulty. Though her father, as he had learned, had begun life as a store-boy, and her mother was not the most learned person in the world, Alice Yorke was a lady to her finger-tips, and in her own fine person was the incontestable proof of a strain of gentle blood somewhere. Those delicate features, fine hands, trim ankles, and silken hair told their own story.
So he came near saying, "That does not make any difference"; but he restrained himself. He said instead, "I do not know that I understand you."
It was very annoying to have to be so plain, but it was, Mrs. Yorke felt, quite necessary.
"Why, I mean that my daughter has always moved in the--the most--exclusive society; she has had the best advantages, and has a right to expect the best that can be given her."
"Do you mean that you think my family is not good enough for your daughter?"
There was a tone in his quiet voice that made her glance up at him, and a look on his face that made her answer quickly:
"Oh, no; not that, of course. I have no doubt your family is--indeed, I have heard it is--ur--. But my daughter has every right to expect the best that life can give. She has a right to expect--an--establishment."
"You mean money?" Keith asked, a little hoarsely.
"Why, not in the way in which you put it; but what money stands for--comforts, luxuries, position. Now, don't go and distress yourself about this. You are nothing but a silly boy. You fancy yourself in love with my daughter because she is the only pretty girl about here."
"She is not; but she is the prettiest I know," ejaculated Keith, bitterly.
"You think that, and so you fancy you are in love with her."
"It is no fancy; I am," asserted Keith, doggedly. "I would be in love with her if she were as ugly as--as she is beautiful."
"Oh, no, you wouldn't," declared Mrs. Yorke, coolly. "Now, the thing for you to do is to forget all about her, as she will in a short time forget all about you."
"I know she will, though I hope she will not," groaned the young man. "I shall never forget her--never."
His voice and manner showed such unfeigned anguish that the lady could not but feel real commiseration for him, especially as he appeared to be accepting her view of the case. She glanced at him almost kindly.
"Is there nothing I can do for you? I should like very much to do something--something to show my appreciation of what you have done for us to make our stay here less dreary than it would have been."
"Thank you. There is nothing," said Keith. "I am going to turn my attention now to--getting an establishment." He spoke half sarcastically, but Mrs. Yorke did not see it.
"That is right," she said warmly.
"It is not right," declared Keith, with sudden vehemence. "It is all wrong. I know it is all wrong."
"What the world thinks is right can't be all wrong." Mrs. Yorke spoke decisively.
"When are you going away?" the young man asked suddenly.
"In a few days." She spoke vaguely, but even as she spoke, she determined to leave next day.
"I thank you for all your kindness to me," said Keith, standing very straight and speaking rather hoarsely.
Mrs. Yorke's heart smote her. If it were not for her daughter's welfare she could have liked this boy and befriended him. A vision came to her from out of the dim past; a country boy with broad shoulders suddenly flashed before her; but she shut it off before it became clear. She spoke kindly to Keith, and held out her hand to him with more real sincerity than she had felt in a long time.
"You are a good boy," she said, "and I wish I could have answered you otherwise, but it would have been simple madness. You will some day know that it was kinder to you to make you look nakedly at facts."
"I suppose so," said Keith, politely. "But some day, Mrs. Yorke, you shall hear of me. If you do not, remember I shall be dead."
With this bit of tragedy he turned and left her, and Mrs. Yorke stood and watched him as he strode down the path, meaning, if he should turn, to wave him a friendly adieu, and also watching lest that which she had dreaded for a quarter of an hour might happen. It would be dreadful if her daughter should meet him now. He did not turn, however, and when at last he disappeared, Mrs. Yorke, with a sigh of relief, went up to her room and began to write rapidly. _