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CHAPTER XV
ROCKPORT AND "ROCKPORT"

 
Glitters the dew, and shines the river,
Up comes the lily and dries her bell;
But two are walking apart forever,
And wave their hands in a mute farewell.
 

– JEAN INGELOW.

The Melrose family was of old time on terms of intimacy with the house of Baronet. It was a family with a proud lineage, wealth, and culture to its credit. Rachel had an inherited sense of superiority. Too much staying between the White Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean is narrowing to the mental scope. The West to her was but a wilderness whereto the best things of life never found their way. She took everything in Massachusetts as hers by due right, much more did it seem that Kansas should give its best to her; and withal she was a woman who delighted in conquest.

Her arrival in Springvale made a topic that was soon on everybody's tongue. In the afternoon of the day following her coming, when I went to my father's office before starting out to the stone cabin, I found Marjie there. I had not seen her since the party, and I went straight to her chair.

"Well, little girl, it's ten thousand years since I saw you last," I spoke in a low voice. My father was searching for some papers in his cabinet, and his back was toward us. "Why didn't I get a letter, dearie?"

She looked up with eyes whose brown depths were full of pain and sorrow, but with an expression I had never seen on her face before, a kind of impenetrable coldness. It cut me like a sword-thrust, and I bent over her.

"Oh, Marjie, my Marjie, what is wrong?"

"Here is that paper at last," my father said before he turned around. Even as he spoke, Rachel Melrose swept into the room.

"Why, Philip, I missed you after all. I didn't mean to keep you waiting, but I can never get accustomed to your Western hurry."

She was very handsome and graceful, and always at ease with me, save in our interviews alone.

"I didn't know you were coming," I said frankly; "but I want you to meet Miss Whately. This is the young lady I have told you about."

I took Marjie's hand as I spoke. It was cold, and I gave it the gentle pressure a lover understands as I presented her. She gave me a momentary glance. Oh, God be thanked for the love-light in those brown eyes! The memory of it warmed my heart a thousand times when long weary miles were between us, and a desolate sky shut down around the far desolate plains of a silent, featureless land.

"And this is Miss Melrose, the young lady I told you of in my letter," I said to Marjie. A quick change came into her eyes, a look of surprise and incredulity and scorn. What could have happened to bring all this about?

Rachel Melrose had made the fatal mistake of thinking that no girl reared west of the Alleghenies could be very refined or at ease or appear well dressed in the company of Eastern people. She was not prepared for the quiet courtesy and self-possession with which the Kansas girl greeted her; nor had she expected, as she told me afterward, to find in a town like Springvale such good taste and exquisite neatness in dress. True, she had many little accessories of an up-to-date fashion that had not gotten across the Mississippi River to our girls as yet, but Marjie had the grace of always choosing the right thing to wear. I was very proud of my loved one at that moment. There was a show of cordiality between the two; then Rachel turned to me.

"I'm going with you this afternoon. Excuse me, Miss Whately, Mr. Baronet promised me up at Topeka to take me out to see a wonderful cottonwood tree that he said just dwarfed the little locust there, that we went out one glorious moonlight night to see. It was a lovely stroll though, wasn't it, Philip?"

This time it was my father's eyes that were fixed upon me in surprise and stern inquiry.

"He will believe I am a flirt after all. It isn't possible to make any man understand how that miserable girl can control things, unless he is on the ground all the time." So ran my thoughts.

"Father, must that trip be made to-day? Because I'd rather get up a party and go out when Miss Melrose goes."

But my father was in no mood to help me then. He had asked me to go alone. Evidently he thought I had forgotten business and constancy of purpose in the presence of this pretty girl.

"It must be done to-day. Miss Melrose will wait, I'm sure. It is a serious business matter – "

"Oh, but I won't, Mr. Baronet. Your son promised me to do everything for me if I would only come to Springvale; that was away last Spring, and my stay will be short at best. I must go back to-morrow afternoon. Don't rob us of a minute."

She spoke with such a pretty grace, and yet her words were so trifling that my father must have felt as I did. He could have helped me then had he thought that I deserved help, for he was a tactful man. But he merely assented and sent us away. When we were gone Marjie turned to him bravely.

"Judge Baronet, I think I will go home. I came in from Red Range this noon with the Meads. It was very warm, coming east, and I am not very well." She was as white as marble. "I will see you again; may I?"

John Baronet was a man of deep sympathy as well as insight. He knew why the bloom had left her cheeks.

"All right, Marjie. You will be better soon."

He had risen and taken her cold hand. There was a world of cheer and strength in that rich resonant voice of his. "Little girl, you must not worry over anything. All the tangles will straighten for you. Be patient, the sunshine is back of all shadows. I promised your father, Marjory, that no harm should come to you. I will keep my promise. 'Let not your heart be troubled.'" His words were to her what the good minister's had been to me.

In the months that came after that my father was her one strong defence. Poor Marjie! her days as well as mine were full of creeping shadows. I had no notion of the stories being poured into her ears, nor did I dream of the mischief and sorrow that can be wrought by a jealous-hearted girl, a grasping money lover, and a man whose business dealings will not bear the light of day.

It has ever been the stage-driver's province to make the town acquainted with the business of each passenger whom he imports or exports. Our man, Dever, was no exception. Judson's store had become the centre of all the gossip in Springvale. Judson himself was the prince of scandalmongers, who with a pretence of refusing to hear gossip, peddled it out most industriously. He had hurried to Mrs. Whately with the story of our guest, and here I found him when I went to see Marjie, before I myself knew what passenger the stage had carried up to Cliff Street.

After the party at Anderson's, Tillhurst had not lost the opportunity of giving his version of all he had seen and heard in Topeka. Marjie listened in amazement but sure in her trustful heart that I would make it all clear to her in my letter. And yet she wondered why I had never mentioned that name to her, nor given her any hint of any one with claim enough on me to keep me for two days in Topeka. After all, she did recall the name – something forgotten in the joy and peace of that sweet afternoon out by the river in the draw where the haunted house was. Had I tried to tell her and lost my courage, she wondered. Oh, no, it could not be so.

The next day Marjie spent at Red Range. It was noon of the day following Rachel's arrival before she reached home. The ride in the midday heat, sympathy for Dave Mead, and the sad funeral rites in the morning, together with the memory of Tillhurst's gossip and the long time since we had talked with each other alone, had been enough to check even her sunny spirit. Gentle Mrs. Whately, willing to believe everybody, met her daughter with a sad face.

"My dear, I have some unwelcome news for you," she said when Marjie was resting in the cool sitting-room after the hot ride. "There's an old sweetheart of Phil's came here last evening to visit him. Mr. Dever, the stage-driver, says she is the handsomest girl he ever saw. They say she and Phil were engaged and had a falling out back East. They met again in Topeka, and Phil stayed a day or two to visit with her after the political meeting was over. And now she has come down here at his request to meet his folks. Marjie, daughter, you need not care. There are more worthy men who would be proud to marry you."

Marjie made no reply.

"Oh, daughter, he isn't worth your grief. Be strong. Your life will get into better channels now. There are those who care for you more than you dream of. And you cannot care for Phil when I tell you all I must tell."

"I will be strong, mother. What else?" Marjie said quietly. In the shadows of the room darkened to keep out the noonday heat, Mrs. Whately did not note the white face and the big brown eyes burning with pain.

"It's too bad, but you ought to know it. Judge Baronet's got some kind of a land case on hand. There's a fine half-section he's trying to get away from a young man who is poor. The Judge is a clever lawyer and he is a rich man. Mr. Judson says Tell Mapleson is this young man's counsel, and he's fighting to keep the land for its real owner. Well, Phil was strolling around until nearly morning with Lettie Conlow, and they met this young man somewhere. He doesn't live about here. And, Marjie, right before Lettie, Phil gave him an awful beating and made him promise never to show himself in Springvale again. You know Judge Baronet could do anything in that court-room he wants to. He is a fine man. How your father loved him! But Phil goes out and does the dirty work to help him win. So Amos Judson says."

"Did Amos Judson tell you all this, Mother?" Marjie asked faintly.

"Most of it. And he is so interested in your welfare, daughter."

Marjie rose to her feet. "Mother, I don't know how much truth there may be in the circumstances, but I'll wait until somebody besides Amos Judson tells me before I accept these stories."

"Well, Marjie, you are young. You must lean on older counsel. There is no man living as good and true as your father was to me. Remember that."

"Yes, there is," Marjie declared.

"Who is he, daughter?"

"Philip Baronet," Marjie answered proudly.

That afternoon Richard Tillhurst called and detained Marjie until she was late in keeping her appointment with Judge Baronet. Tillhurst's tale of woe was in the main a repetition of Mrs. Whately's, but he knew better how to make it convincing, for he had hopes of winning the prize if I were out of the way. He was too keen to think Judson a dangerous rival with a girl of Marjie's good sense and independence. It was with these things in mind that Marjie had met me. Rachel Melrose had swept in on us, and I who had declared to my dear one that I should never care to take another girl out to that sunny draw full of hallowed memories for us two, I was going again with this beautiful woman, my sweetheart from the East. And yet Marjie was quick enough to note that I had tried to evade the company of Miss Melrose, and she had seen in my eyes the same look that they had had for her all these years. Could I be deceiving her by putting Rachel off in her presence? She did not want to think so. Had Judge Baronet not been my father, he could have taken her into his confidence. She could not speak to him of me, nor could he discuss his son's actions with her.

But love is strong and patient, and Marjie determined not to give up at the first onslaught against it.

"I'll write to him now," she said. "There will be sure to be a letter for me up under 'Rockport.' He said something about a letter this afternoon, the letter he promised to write after the party at Anderson's. He couldn't be deceiving me, I'm sure. I'll tell him everything, and if he really doesn't care for me," – the blank of life lay sullen and dull before her, – "I'll know it any how. But if he does care, he'll have a letter for me all right."

And so she wrote, a loving, womanly letter, telling in her own sweet way all her faith and the ugly uncertainty that was growing up against it.

"But I know you, Phil, and I know you are all my own." So she ended the letter, and in the purple twilight she hastened up to the cliff and found her way down to our old shaded corner under the rock. There was no letter awaiting her. She held her own a minute and then she thrust it in.

"I'll do anything for Phil," she murmured softly. "I cannot help it. He was my own – he must be mine still."

A light laugh sounded on the rock above her.

"Are you waiting for me here?" a musical voice cried out. It was Rachel's voice. "Your aunt said you were gone out and would be back soon. I knew you would like me to meet you half way. It is beautiful here, you must love the place, but" – she added so softly that the unwilling listener did not catch her words – "it isn't so fine as our old Rockport!"

Quickly came the reply in a voice Marjie knew too well, although the tone was unlike any she had ever heard before.

"I hate Rockport; I did not tell you so when I left last Spring, but I hated it then."

Swiftly across the listener's mind swept the memory of my words. "If you ever hear me say I don't like 'Rockport' you will know I don't care for you."

She had heard me say these words, had heard them spoken in a tone of vehement feeling. There was no mistaking the speaker's sincerity, and then the quick step and swing of the bushes told her I had gone. The Neosho Valley turned black before her eyes, and she sank down on the stone shelving of the ledge.

My ride that afternoon had been a miserable one. Rachel was coy and sweet, yet cunningly bold. I felt indignant at my father for forcing her company on me, and I resented the circumstance that made me a victim to injustice. I detested the beautiful creature beside me for her assumption of authority over my actions, and above all, I longed with an aching, starved heart for Marjie. I knew she had only to read my letter to understand. She might not have gone after it yet, but I could see her that evening and all would be well.

I did not go near the old stone cabin. My father had failed to know his son if he thought I would obey under these hard conditions. We merely drove about beyond the draw. Then we rested briefly under the old cottonwood before we started home.

In the twilight I hurried out to our "Rockport" to wait for Marjie. I was a little late and so I did not know that Marjie was then under the point of rock. My rudeness to Rachel was unpardonable, but she had intruded one step too far into the sacred precincts of my life. I would not endure her in the place made dear to me from childhood, by association with Marjie. So I rashly blurted out my feelings and left her, never dreaming who had heard me nor what meaning my words would carry.

Down at the Whately home Richard Tillhurst sat, bland and smiling, waiting for Miss Whately's return. I sat down to wait also.

The August evening was dry and the day's hot air was rippling now into a slight breeze. The shadows deepened and the twilight had caught its last faint glow, when Marjie, white and cold, came slowly up the walk. Her brown hair lay in little curls about her temples and her big dark eyes were full of an utterable sorrow. I hurried out to the gate to meet her, but she would have passed by me with stately step.

"Marjie," I called softly, holding the gate.

"Good-evening, Philip. Please don't speak to me one word." Her voice was low and sweet as of yore save that it was cold and cutting.

She stood beside me for a moment. "I cannot be detained now. You will find your mother's ring in a package of letters I shall send you to-morrow. For my sake as well as for your own, please let this matter end here without any questions."

"But I will ask you questions," I declared.

"Then they will not be answered. You have deceived me and been untrue to me. I will not listen to one word. You may be very clever, but I understand you now. This is the end of everything for you and me." And so she left me.

I stood at the gate only long enough to hear her cordial greeting of Tillhurst. My Marjie, my own, had turned against me. The shadows of the deepening twilight turned to horrid shapes, and all the purple richness with that deep crimson fold low in the western sky became a chill gloom bordered on the horizon by the flame of hate. So the glory of a world gone wrong slips away, and the creeping shadows are typical only of pain and heartache.

I turned aimlessly away. I had told Marjie she was the light of my life: I did not understand the truth of the words until the light went out. Heavily, as I had staggered toward her mother's house on the night when I was sure Jean Pahusca had stolen her, I took my way now into the gathering shadows, slowly, to where I could hear the Neosho whispering and muttering in the deep gloom.

It comes sometimes to most of us, the wild notion that life, the gift of God alone, is a cheap thing not worth the keeping, and the impulse to fling it away uprears its ugly suggestion. Out in a square of light by the ford I saw Dave Mead standing, looking straight before him. The sorrows of the day were not all mine. I went to him, and we stood there silent together. At length we turned about in a purposeless way toward the open West Prairie. How many a summer evening we had wandered here! How often had our ponies come tramping home side by side, in the days when we brought the cows in late from the farthest draw! It seemed like another world now.

"Phil, you are very good to me. Don't pity me! I can't stand that." We never had a tenor in our choir with a voice so clear and rich as his.

"I don't pity you, Dave, I envy you." I spoke with an effort. "You have not lost, you have only begun a long journey. There is joy at the end of it."

"Oh, that is easy for you to say, who have everything to make you happy."

"I? Oh, Dave! I have not even a grave." The sudden sense of loss, driven back by the thought of another's sorrow, swept over me again. It was his turn now to forget himself.

"What is it, Phil? Have you and Marjie quarrelled? You never were meant for that, either of you. It can't be."

"No, Dave. I don't know what is wrong. I only wish – no, I don't. It is hard to be a man with the heart of a boy still, a foolish boy with foolish ideals of love and constancy. I can't talk to-night, Dave, only I envy you the sure possession, the eternal faith that will never be lost."

He pressed my hand in his left hand. His right arm had had only a limited usefulness since the night he tried to stop Jean Pahusca down by the mad floods of the Neosho. I have never seen him since we parted on the prairie that August evening. The next day he went to Red Range to stay for a short time. By the end of a week I had left Springvale, and we are to each other only boyhood memories now.

Out on the open prairie, where there was room to think and be alone, I went to fight my battle. There was only a sweep of silver sky above me and a sweep of moonlit plain about me. Dim to the southwest crept the dark shadow of the wooded Fingal's Creek Valley, while against the horizon the big cottonwood tree was only a gray blur. The mind can act swiftly. By the time the moon had swung over the midnight line I had mapped out my course. And while I seemed to have died, and another being had my personality, with only memory the same in both, I rose up armed in spirit to do a man's work in the world. But it cost me a price. I have been on a battle field with a thousand against fifty, and I was one of the fifty. Such a strife as I pray Heaven may never be in our land again. I have looked Death in the face day after day creeping slowly, surely toward me while I must march forward to meet it. Did the struggle this night out on the prairie strengthen my soul to bear it all, I wonder.

The next morning a package addressed in Marjie's round girlish hand was put before me. Forgetful of resolve, I sent back by its bearer an imploring appeal for a chance to meet her and clear up the terrible misunderstanding. The note came back unopened. I gave it with the bundle to Aunt Candace.

"Keep this for me, auntie, dear," I said, and my voice trembled. She took it from my hand.

"All right, Phil, I'll keep it. You are not at the end of things, dearie. You are only at the beginning. I'll keep this. It is only keeping, remember." She pointed to a stain on the unopened note, the round little blot only a tear can make. "It isn't yours, I know."

It was the first touch of comfort I had felt. However slender the thread, Hope will find it strong to cling to. Rachel's visit ended that day. Self-centred always, she treated me as one who had been foolish, but whom she considered her admirer still. It was not in her nature to be rejected. She shaped things to fit her vanity, and forgot what could not be controlled. I refused to allow myself to be alone with her again. Nobody was ever so tied to a woman's presence as I kept myself by Aunt Candace so long as I remained in the house.

My father, I knew, was grieved and indignant. With all my fair promises and pretended loyalty I seemed to be an idle trifler. How could my relation to Lettie Conlow be explained away in the light of this visit from a handsome cultured young lady, who had had an assurance of welcome or she would not have come. He loved Marjie as the daughter of his dearest friend. He had longed to call her, "daughter," and I had foolishly thrown away a precious prize.

Serious, too, was my reckless neglect of business. I had disregarded his request to manage a grave matter. Instead of going alone to the cabin, I had gone off with a pretty girl and reported that I had found nothing.

"Did you go near the cabin?" He drove the question square at me, and I had sullenly answered, "No, sir." Clearly I needed more discipline than the easy life in Springvale was giving me. I went down to the office in the afternoon, hoping for something, I hardly knew what. He was alone, and I asked for a few words with him. Somehow I seemed more of a man to myself than I had ever felt before in his presence.

"Father," I began. "When the sea did its worst for you – fifteen years ago – you came to the frontier here, and somehow you found peace. You have done your part in the making of the lawless Territory into a law-abiding State, this portion of it at least. The frontier moves westward rapidly now."

"Well?" he queried.

"I have lost – not by the sea – but, well, I've lost. I want to go to the frontier too. I must get away from here. The Plains – somewhere – may help me."

"But why leave here?" he asked. After all, the father-heart was yearning to keep his son.

"Why did you leave Massachusetts?" I could not say Rockport. I hated the sound of the name.

"Where will you go, my boy?" He spoke with deepest sorrow, and love mingled in his tones.

"Out to the Saline Country. They need strong men out there. I must have been made to defend the weak." It was not a boast, but the frank expression of my young manhood's ideal. "Your friend Mr. Morton urged me to come. May I go to him? It may be I can find my place out in that treeless open land; that there will come to me, as it came to you, the help that comes from helping others."

Oh, I had fought my battle well. I was come into a man's estate now and had put away childish things.

My father sitting before me took both my hands in his.

"My son, you are all I have. You cannot long deceive me. I have trusted you always. I love you even unto the depths of disgrace. Tell me truly, have you done wrong? I will soon know it. Tell me now."

"Father," I held his hands and looked steadily into his eyes. "I have no act to conceal from you, nor any other living soul. I must leave here because I cannot stay and see – Father, Marjie is lost to me. I do not know why."

"Well, find out." He spoke cheerily.

"It is no use. She has changed, and you know her father's firmness. She is his mental image."

"There is no stain somewhere, no folly of idle flirtation, no weakness? I hear much of you and Lettie."

"Father, I have done nothing to make me ashamed. Last night when I fought my battle to the finish, for the first time in my life I knew my mother was with me. Somehow it was her will guiding me. I know my place. I cannot stay here. I will go where the unprotected need a strength like mine."

The stage had stopped at the courthouse door, and Rachel Melrose ran up the steps and entered the outer office. My father went out to meet her.

"Are you leaving us?" he asked kindly.

"Yes, I had only a day or two that I could spend here. But where is Philip?"

John Baronet had closed his door behind him. I thanked him fervently in my heart for his protection. How could I meet this woman now? And yet she had seemed only selfishly mischievous, and I must not be a coward, so I came out of the inner room at once. A change swept over her face when I appeared. The haughty careless spirit gave place to gentleness, and, as always, she was very pretty. Nothing of the look or manner was lost on John Baronet, and his pity for her only strengthened his opinion of my insincerity.

"Good-bye, Philip. We shall meet again soon, I hope. Good-bye, Judge Baronet." Her voice was soft and full of sadness. She smiled upon us both and turned to go.

My father led her down the courthouse steps and helped her into the stage. When he came back I did not look up. There was nothing for me to say. Quietly, as though nothing had occurred, he took up his work, his face as impenetrable as Jean Pahusca's.

My resemblance to my mother is strong. As I bent over his desk to gather up some papers for copying, my heavy dark hair almost brushed his cheek. I did not know then how his love for me was struggling with his sense of duty.

"I have trusted him too much, and given him too free a rein. He doesn't know yet how to value a woman's feelings. He must learn his lesson now. But he shall not go away without my blessing."

So he mused.

"Philip," his voice was as kind as it was firm, "we shall see what the days will bring. Your mother's spirit may be guiding you, and your father's love is always with you. Whatever snarls and tangles have gotten into your threads, time and patience will straighten and unravel. Whatever wrong you may have done, willingly or unwillingly, you must make right. There is no other way."

"Father," I replied in a voice as firm as his own. "Father, I have done no wrong."

Once more he looked steadily into my eyes and through them down into my very soul. "Phil, I believe you. These things will soon pass away."

In the early twilight I went for the last time to "Rockport." There are sadder things than funeral rites. The tragedies of life do not always ring down the curtain leaving the stage strewn with the forms of the slain. Oftener they find the living actor following his lines and doing his part of the play as if all life were a comedy. The man of sixty years may smile at the intensity of feeling in the boy of twenty-one, but that makes it no easier for the boy. I watched the sun go down that night, and then I waited through the dark hour till the moon, now past the full, should once more illumine the Neosho Valley. Although I have always been a lover of nature, that sunset and the purple twilight following, the darkness of the early evening hour and the glorious moonrise are tinged with a sorrow I have never quite lost even in the happier years since then. I sat alone on the point of rock. At last the impulse to go down below and search for a letter from Marjie overcame me, although I laughed bitterly at the folly of such a notion. In the crevice where her letter had been placed for me the night before, I found nothing. What a different story I might have to tell had I gone down at sunset instead of waiting through that hour of darkness before the moon crept above the eastern horizon line! And yet I believe that in the final shaping-up the best thing for each one comes to all of us. Else the universe is without a plan and Love unwavering and eternal is only a vagary of the dreamer.

Early the next morning I left Springvale, and set my face to the westward, as John Baronet had done a decade and a half before, to begin life anew where the wilderness laps the frontier line. My father held my hand long when I said good-bye, and love and courage and trust were all in that hand-clasp.

"You'll win out, my boy. Keep your face to the light. The world has no place for the trifler, the coward, or the liar. It is open to homestead claims for all the rest. You will not fail." And with his kiss on my forehead he let me go.

Anything is news in a little town, and especially interesting in the dull days of late Summer. The word that I had gone away started from Conlow's shop and swept through the town like a prairie fire through a grassy draw.

No one man is essential to any community. Springvale didn't need me so much as I needed it. But when I left it there were many more than I deserved who not only had a good word for me; they went further, and demanded that good reason for my going must be shown, or somebody would be made to suffer. Foremost among these were Cam Gentry, Dr. Hemingway, and Cris Mead, president of the Springvale Bank, the father of Bill and Dave. Of course, the boys, the blessed old gang, who had played together and worked together and been glad and sorry with each other down the years, the boys were loyal to the last limit.

But we had our share of gossips who had a tale they could unfold – a dreadful tale! Beginning with my forging my father's name to get money to spend on Rachel Melrose and other Topeka girls, and to pay debts I had contracted at Harvard, on and on the tale ran, till, by the time the Fingal's Creek neighborhood got hold of the "real facts," it developed that I had all but murdered a man who stood in the way of a rich fee my father was to get out of a land suit somewhere; and lastly came an ominous shaking of the head and a keeping back of the "worst truth," about my gay escapades with girls of shady reputation whom I had deceived, and cruelly wronged, trusting to my standing as a rich man's son to pull me through all right.