Don-A-Dreams/Part 2/Chapter 7
VII
He was too shy to face the Kimballs again, and she did not invite him to do so; for Miss Kimball had made a household joke of his reply that he did not know "Mr. Chopin," and the girl was afraid that they might tease her, and make sport of him, if he called to see her. She contrived to meet him, as if accidentally, next morning, in the stream of college students that drew in from all the neighbouring streets, at nine o'clock, to the beginning of the day's lectures; and he learned from her that he might find her coming from her music lessons at eleven o'clock on certain mornings and at five o'clock on other afternoons.
For the moment, it was all he wished—the opportunity of having her, if but for ten minutes, alone and out of doors, away from the formality of parlour conversation and the curious eyes of household gossips. With a young lover's instinct, he wished to preserve their intercourse from the touch and soiling of everyday life. And he parted from her on a street corner, without taking her to the gate, glad to see from her manner that she did not wish their meetings to be known.
It was the fresh beginning of one of those strange courtships of young people which appear to the onlooker so amusingly tame. He had suddenly grown humble with her. Compared with his own social awkwardness, she seemed to him discouragingly bright and talented. Sitting in his room of an evening, he pictured her, in the midst of light and company, charming everybody with her piano-playing and accepting their congratulations with an unembarrassed smile. Working at his studies in the college library, worried by the uncertain prospect of his future, she seemed one of those happy aristocrats of art and leisure whose duty it is to adorn life, to give pleasure, and to be happy that they may make others so. Sullied with his own disbeliefs, he thought of her innocent faith as something sweet and pure. He made her the symbol of all that is in man the substance of hope and the object of aspiration, almost consciously uplifting her so that he might gratify his instinct to look up.
And yet, when he walked with her, he said nothing of such thoughts. He was content, for the present, that she should take an interest in his progress at college, and accept his devoted attentions as a pleasant matter of course. He had his future to plan anew, and he did not seem to be able to think at once of any mode of life that would be sufficiently ideal for her to share it. He examined his classmates, walking home with one or another of them at luncheon hour; and he found that a few were, like Conroy, looking forward to succeeding their fathers in some business; that many were to be lawyers, more teachers, and some ministers; but that the majority did not know what they were to be. They were to decide after they had taken their degrees.
Law and the church were equally out of the question for him; and the schoolhouse was even less inviting. He knew nothing of business; and though he consulted the "want columns" of the newspapers, they offered no suggestions. He felt that he might have studied medicine perhaps, or science, if he had begun in time; but it was too late now; he could not turn back a year and start afresh. What he wished was some way of earning an easy living without making himself the bound slave of business or a profession; for he felt a high contempt for all the money-grubbers and day labourers whom he saw crowding through the streets of the city, as blind as driven animals, in the pursuit of trade or patronage. He resolved that he would find a way to live as free as a boy and as independent as a man, avoiding all ambitious cares or worries, content to enjoy a modest comfort without great luxury, love her, and be happy. Pending his discovery of the necessary means to that end, he perfected his conception of the end itself in his imagination, and spent hours picturing her as she would look when she stood to meet him in the door of their little home at sunset—or when she sat at the piano playing to him of an evening with the lamplight shining on her hair—or when she poured the breakfast coffee with a dainty turn of wrist and passed the cup to him, smiling beautifully across the roses that were always fresh in a vase on the table, as they were always fresh in her cheeks.
Meanwhile, their walks together were the most adventurous and romantic meetings. One day it was snowing so heavily that she had brought an umbrella, and he held it over her, keeping so close to her that they were almost arm in arm, shut in with her under that small cover by the storm, and smiling at nothing blissfully. Then there was the day when the laces of one of her heavy winter shoes became untied, and he knelt down beside a doorstep to refasten them for her, and she—in order to steady herself while she stood on one foot—put her hand on his shoulder and bent over him, laughing at his clumsiness because his fingers were cold. And above all, there was the afternoon when she made the excuse to her mother, that she had to do some shopping down town; and they made their way to the business district along the squalid "back" streets of "The Ward," where the sidewalks were so slippery that on their return, in the gathering darkness, she had to take his arm, twittering gaily, and swinging a long stride to keep step with him, unconscious of the fact that the touch of her hand was burning him through his sleeve.
She no longer had any coquettish timidity in her manner towards him, and he was careful to say nothing that might frighten her into thinking seriously of their relations. The issue of his only declaration of love was still a warning in his mind. He did not speak of the future in which he had included her. When she asked him whether he had decided what study he was going to pursue, in the place of law, he replied easily: "Oh yes. I'm taking a general course—a 'pass' course, they call it. I can get my degree in that, you know."
"And then what will you do?"
"What Emerson says," he laughed.
"What is that?"
"'Make yourself necessary to the world and the world will give you bread.'"
She looked at him thoughtfully, struck by the hopeful impracticality of his trust in the advice of books.
"You should read Emerson," he said. "He's great."
The unworldly philosophy of the mild New Englander had come to him, only a few days before, like the gospel to a new convert. He had read with glad eyes, "You will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. But why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth for the premature comforts of an acre, house and barn? Make yourself necessary to the world and mankind will give you bread, and if not store of it, yet such as shall not take away your property in all men's possessions, in all men's affections, in art, in nature and in hope." He had felt that he should take as the motto of his life: "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your mind." He had submitted, in his relations with her, to the command: "Give all to love; obey thy heart. It is a god, knows its own path and the outlets of the sky." In reply to the despondencies of his religious disbeliefs, he had accepted as an inspiration, the high advice: "Seek not the Spirit, if it hide inexorable to thy zeal. Say, 'Here am I; here will I abide, forever to myself soothfast! go thou, sweet Heaven, or at thy pleasure stay!' Already Heaven with thee its lot has cast, for only it can absolutely deal." And all this poetical transcendentalism had gone to his head, like a white wine, and he had begun to live on it, intoxicated with enthusiasm, and exalted above the "low prudence" and the small facts of life.
When he learned from her that Conroy was calling to see her frequently in the evenings, he had no jealousy of his cousin—none even when he heard that she and Miss Kimball had gone to the theatre with Conroy, or when he found that Conroy had given her the rose which she wore one morning in her coat.
"He's a funny boy, isn't he?" she said.
He nodded, admiring her silently.
"He seems to be having—a 'gay' time at college," she went on.
"Yes. That is what he came for."
A moment later, she added: "Mother says so many boys at college learn to—to drink"—she blushed—"and gamble."
He looked up quickly. "But he's not that sort, is he?"
"That's what I told mother! She seemed to think—but you'll look after him, won't you?"
"What has happened?"
"Why, nothing! Really nothing," she cried. "It was just that mother spoke of boys doing those things at college. And I knew that you wouldn't let him do them, if you knew. And that's why I mentioned it—really."
"What made your mother speak of it at all?" he asked suspiciously.
"She—she had a brother once, who went to college and"
"Oh." He thought it over. "No. Con's all right. He'll take care of himself." He was flattered by her trust in him. "I see him in the halls almost every day."
He did not say that he had been avoiding Conroy, having refused a half-hearted invitation to go calling with him again. And he was not shrewd enough to see that Conroy had been avoiding him. He only envied his cousin's opportunities of hearing her music; and when she told him that her mother, at last, had gone to a southern winter resort for the next two months, he said: "I wish they'd all go away, I want to hear you play again, and I can't hear you when they're all—talking."
"I wish they would, too," she replied. "They treat me as if they thought I was a baby that shouldn't be left alone with anyone for five minutes! They're speaking, now, of going to the Conversat—without ever asking me whether I should like to go. I suppose mother has been telling them I'm too young to be going out."
"I suppose."
"Are you going?"
He shook his head. "No."
As he was parting from her, she said: "If they all go to the Conversat without me, I'll just play to you, that night, as much as you like."
He passed the next few days in a prayerful expectation that they would go to the affair without her. They did so; and they were not more than well out of the house, before he rang the bell and heard her open the inside door and call back to the maid: "I'll go, Maggie."
She received him under the red gas-globe of the outer hall with a mischievous affectation of surprise. "Why, how do you do? Aren't you going to the Conversat?" And he entered as if he had been Romeo just arrived by way of his rope ladder.
She had been sitting for her photograph on the previous day, and she had put on again the pretty dress which she had worn for the picture. It was cut low and square in the neck, to show a throat that was as round as a bird's, girlishly white and soft, and to him so tenderly beautiful that it took him with a blushing catch of the breath, which she saw and smiled at as she had smiled at her reflection in the mirror. She patted the butterfly bow which she had arranged as if it had lighted artlessly on top of her young coiffure, thanking him for his admiration with triumphant eyes. "This is so unexpected!" she said.
"Won't she tell?" he whispered.
She understood that he referred to the maid. She set the bow dancing with a spirited shake of her head. "I'll tell on her if she does." When they had passed out of the hall, through the curtains, she explained in a choked undertone: "There's someone in the kitchen with her. She's awfully funny. They won't let her have callers. She says they're a 'lot of old maids'!"
He wiped the melted snow from his eyelashes and his eyebrows, laughing in his handkerchief.
"I didn't dare light all the lights," she went on, under her voice, "for fear the neighbours would see it and say something. Isn't it a joke!" And then with the same gaiety but loudly, fluttering across the room with a suddenness that bewildered him, she cried: "How do you like my photographs? See!— They're just the proofs I'm to choose from."
The single jet of gas above him did not give light enough for him to make them out, and she led him over to the piano-lamp that was glowing secretly under its rose-leaf shade in a far corner. He was smiling when he looked at the first picture; she enjoyed the change of his expression. "Do you like that one?" she asked.
Did he like it! He gazed at it as he would have gazed at her if he could have had her unconscious of his scrutiny and undefended by the distracting challenge of her eyes. She was posed glancing aside, in the shy demureness he most loved in her, her neck turned prettily, her ear showing in its nest of brown hair as round and white and fragile as a little field-bird's egg. After waiting a moment for his answer, she gave him the next picture, almost embarrassed by his devouring silence; and he blinked at the roguish eyes which met his full under level eyebrows with a twinkling gravity as if trying to deny the smile that curled the corners of her mouth. "That's the one I like," she said, standing beside him to look at it over his arm. "That—and this."
The last was a more formal portrait, a three-quarters view, with the chin up saucily and the expression one of young alertness and sly penetration. "I've decided on those two—the last two."
He turned back to the first. "May I . . . have this, then?"
"But it will fade out, in the light. It's just a proof."
"I'll keep it—where it won't."
His tone sent her to the piano, nervously, and she sat down at the keyboard, turning her back. "Well," she said, running up the scale.
He drew a long breath of gratification, and passing his hand over the picture to brush a speck of dust from it, caressingly, he laid it between two letters taken from his inside pocket, and put it away with the warm flush of a girl hiding a love-letter in the bosom of her bodice. She had begun to play a light air. He sat down to put his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands; and he remained so, as if the music were a bright stream flowing past him and he were staring at it, full of his thoughts.
It brought him back, at last, to something of her own sparkling mood; and when she had finished it, he said: "I wish I could play like that."
"Come on and try," she laughed, moving aside on the bench.
He hesitated. "Is there room?"
"There should be. It's for the Misses Kimball's duets."
"Oh." He came awkwardly. She invited him again by gathering in her skirts beside her. He sat down.
"Now. Put your hands so. I may have to earn my living this way some day. My first pupil!" And with a severe "One—two! One—two! One—two!' she began the exercises for the first two fingers. "Knuckles down, sir." She gave them a tap. "Wrists up. Forearms on a level with the keys. Again! One—two! One—two! One"
"I liked the other things you played, better," he joked.
"There you are!" she said. "They always want 'pieces' right away. One—two! One—two! You must perfect your technique first."
And with a stern pretence of seriousness, that trembled always on the verge of laughter, she put his clumsy fingers through their drill, in a teasing vein of coquetry that made him long to catch her hands and crush them, as one longs to catch up a frisking kitten and cuddle it fiercely.
"Now," she said, "I'll give you your first piece—'The Blue Alsatian Mountains.'"
It was at last too tantalizing to be endured, and he held her hands and said shakily, "No. Please play. Play that—'nocturne' was it?—the one you played first that night."
"This one?" She freed her fingers and began it.
"Yes."
He did not leave his seat beside her, and she wove the magic of that melody under his eyes, casting the spell of it on him as softly as a breath perfumed with the fragrance of her garments and warm with the vitality of her abundant young life. He was in the clutch of instincts which he could not understand and which he was afraid to yield to, drawn toward her by a terrible longing, but not daring to let himself go because he feared to put all his hopes to a disastrous test again, prematurely; and above all, he was fighting for his transcendentalism and wilfully in awe of his ideal.
He rose from the music bench and began to walk about the room, trying to overcome his agitation. He did not know himself, and he was bewildered by the loss of his self-control. His under-jaw was trembling in his cheek; his throat ached. When she looked at him over her shoulder, with her hands lingering on the last notes, he was so pale and distressed that she cried: "What's the matter? Are you ill?"
"No, no," he stammered. "I'm"
"What is it?" She came over to him. He was standing beside a chair, wiping the moist palm of his hand on his coat sleeve in a fumbling nervousness that alarmed her. She took him by the wrist, to stop him. "What is it?" He put his other arm about her shoulders and drew her to him, his face twitching; and he frightened her so that she stepped back at once, confused, and blushing, and concerned for him.
After a helpless silence, he said, "I'm—all right. . . . I was dizzy." He looked at the chair beside him. "I guess I'll sit down."
She returned to the piano and began to play again to cover her bewilderment. They passed the rest of the evening with the width of the room between them. And he replied to her with a laboured deliberation, pausing in the middle of his sentences to take breath, in a way that reminded her of an amateur singer's faulty "phrasing."
After he had gone, she remained seated there, her hands clasped between her knees, in a girlish attitude of puzzled meditation. When she smiled doubtfully, it was because she recalled his thin fingers on the piano keys and his bony wrists exposed below his coat sleeves by the outstretching of his arms. When she frowned, it was at the recurring thought of his strangeness, his moodiness, his failure to rise to her innocent coquetry and good spirits. When she blushed, blinking uncertainly, it was at the memory of that sudden fluttering of his eyelids and the approach of a caress which she had suspected but which she could not be sure, now, that he had attempted. At last, rising quickly, she took up her photographs, as if to put away from her the thought of this evening that had been such a perplexing failure; and she stood smiling down, with a pleased appreciation, on the camera's reflection of her pretty face.