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Book 1Three
The following night, Sunday evening, all the boys and girls who had been at home for the vacation were going back to school. Most of them would stop at Lincoln; Lucy was the only one going through to Chicago. The train from the west was due to leave Haverford at seven-thirty, and by seven o`clock sleighs and wagons from all directions were driving toward the railway station at the south end of town.
The station platform was soon full of restless young people, glancing up the track, looking at their watches, as if they could not endure their own town a moment longer. Presently a carriage drawn by two horses dashed up to the siding, and the swaying crowd ran to meet it, shouting.
"Here she is, here`s Fairy!"
"Fairy Blair!"
"Hello, Fairy!"
Out jumped a yellow-haired girl, supple and quick as a kitten, with a little green Tyrolese hat pulled tight over her curls. She ripped off her grey fur coat, threw it into the air for the boys to catch, and ran down the platform in her travelling suit--a black velvet jacket and scarlet waistcoat, with a skirt very short indeed for the fashion of that time. Just then a man came out from the station and called that the train would be twenty minutes late. Groans and howls broke from the crowd.
"Oh, hell!"
"What in thunder can we do?"
The green hat shrugged and laughed. "Shut up. Quit swearing. We`ll wake the town."
She caught two boys by the elbow, and between these stiffly overcoated figures raced out into the silent street, swaying from left to right, pushing the boys as if she were shaking two saplings, and doing an occasional shuffle with her feet. She had a pretty, common little face, and her eyes were so lit-up and reckless that one might have thought she had been drinking. Her fresh little mouth, without being ugly, was really very naughty. She couldn`t push the boys fast enough; suddenly she sprang from between the two rigid figures as if she had been snapped out of a sling-shot and ran up the street with the whole troop at her heels. They were all a little crazy, but as she was the craziest, they followed her. They swerved aside to let the town bus pass.
The bus backed up to the siding. Mr. Gayheart alighted and gave a hand to each of his daughters. Pauline, the elder, got out first. She was short and stout and blonde, like the Prestons, her mother`s people. She was twelve years Lucy`s senior. (Two boys, born between the daughters, died in childhood.) It was Pauline who had brought her sister up; their mother died when Lucy was only six.
Pauline was talking as she got out of the bus, urging her father to hurry and get the trunk checked. "There are always a lot of people in the baggage room, and it takes Bert forever to check a trunk. And be sure you tell him to get it onto this train. When Mrs. Young went to Minneapolis her trunk lay here for twenty-four hours after she started, and she didn`t get it until . . ." But Mr. Gayheart walked calmly away and lost the story of Mrs. Young`s trunk. Lucy remained standing beside her sister, but she did not hear it either. She was thinking of something else.
Pauline took Lucy`s arm determinedly, as if it were the right thing to do, and for a moment she was silent. "Look, there`s Harry Gordon`s sleigh coming up, with the Jenks boy driving. Do you suppose he is going east tonight?"
"He said he might go to Omaha," Lucy replied carelessly.
"That`s nice. You will have company," said Pauline, with the rough-and-ready heartiness she often used to conceal annoyance.
Lucy made no comment, but looked in through a window at the station clock. She had never wanted so much to be moving; to be alone and to feel the train gliding along the smooth rails; to watch the little stations flash by.
Fairy Blair, in her Tyrolese hat, came back from her run quite out of breath and supported by the two boys. As she passed the Gayheart sisters she called:
"Off for the East, Lucy? Wish I were going with you. You musical people get all the fun." As she and her overcoated props came to a standstill she watched Lucy out of the tail of her eye. They were the two most popular girls in Haverford, and Fairy found Lucy frightfully stuffy and girly-girly. Whenever she met Harry Gordon she tossed her head and flashed at him a look which plainly said: "What in hell do you want with THAT?"
Mr. Gayheart returned, gave his daughter her trunk check, and stood looking up at the sky. Among other impractical pursuits he had studied astronomy from time to time. When at last the scream of the whistle shivered through the still winter air, Lucy drew a quick breath and started forward. Her father took her arm and pressed it softly; it was not wise to show too much affection for his younger daughter. A long line of swaying lights came out of the flat country to the west, and a moment later the white beam from the headlight streamed along the steel rails at their feet. The great locomotive, coated with hoar-frost, passed them and stopped, panting heavily.
Pauline snatched her sister and gave her a clumsy kiss. Mr. Gayheart picked up Lucy`s bag and led the way to the right car. He found her seat, arranged her things neatly, then stood looking at her with a discerning, appreciative smile. He liked pretty girls, even in his own family. He put his arm around her, and as he kissed her he murmured in her ear: "She`s a nice girl, my Lucy!" Then he went slowly down the car and got off just as the porter was taking up the step. Pauline was already in a fret, convinced that he would be carried on to the next station.
In Lucy`s car were several boys going back to the University at Lincoln. They at once came to her seat and began talking to her. When Harry Gordon entered and walked down the aisle, they drew back, but he shook his head.
"I`m going out to the diner now. I`ll be back later."
Lucy shrugged as he passed on. Wasn`t that just like him? Of course he knew that she, and all the other students, would have eaten an early supper at the family board before they started; but he might have asked her and the boys to go out to the dining-car with him and have a dessert or a Welsh rabbit. Another instance of the instinctive unwastefulness which had made the Gordons rich! Harry could be splendidly extravagant upon occasion, but he made an occasion of it; it was the outcome of careful forethought.
Lucy gave her whole attention to the lads who were so pleased to have it. They were all about her own age, while Harry was eight years older. Fairy Blair was holding a little court at the other end of the car, but distance did not muffle her occasional spasmodic laugh--a curious laugh, like a bleat, which had the effect of an indecent gesture. When this mirth broke out, the boys who were beside Lucy looked annoyed, and drew closer to her, as if protesting their loyalty. She was sorry when Harry Gordon came back and they went away. She received him rather coolly, but he didn`t notice that at all. He began talking at once about the new street-lamps they were to have in Haverford; he and his father had borne half the cost of them.
Harry sat comfortably back in the Pullman seat, but he did not lounge. He sat like a gentleman. He had a good physical presence, whether in action or repose. He was immensely conceited, but not nervously or aggressively so. Instead of being a weakness in him, it amounted to a kind of strength. Such easy self-possession was very reassuring to a mercurial, vacillating person like Lucy.
Tonight, as it happened, Lucy wanted to be alone; but ordinarily she was glad to meet Harry anywhere; to pass him in the post-office or to see him coming down the street. If she stopped for only a word with him, his vitality and unfailing satisfaction with life set her up. No matter what they talked about, it was amusing. She felt absolutely free with him, and she found everything about him genial; his voice, his keen blue eyes, his fresh skin and sandy hair. People said he was hard in business and took advantage of borrowers in a tight place; but neither his person nor his manner gave a hint of such qualities.
While he was chatting confidentially with her about the new street- lamps, Harry noticed that Lucy`s hands were restless and that she moved about in her seat.
"What`s the matter, Lucy? You`re fidgety."
She pulled herself up and smiled. "Isn`t it silly! Travelling always makes me nervous. But I`m not very used to it, you know."
"You`re in a hurry to get back. I can tell," he nodded knowingly. "How about the opera this spring? Will you let me come on for a week and go with me every night?"
"Oh, that will be splendid! But I don`t know about every night. I`m teaching now, you see. I`m much busier than I was last year."
"We can fix that all right. I`ll make a call on Auerbach. I got on with him first-rate. I told him I had known you ever since you were a youngster." Harry chuckled and leaned forward a little. "Do you know the first time I ever saw you, Lucy? It was in the old skating-rink. I suppose Haverford was about the last town on earth to have a skating-rink."
"But that was ages ago. The old rink was pulled down before your bank was built."
"That`s right. Father and I were staying at the hotel. We had come on to look the town over. One afternoon I was passing the rink and I heard a piano going, so I went in. An old man was playing a waltz, Hearts and Flowers I think they called it. There were a bunch of people on the floor, but I picked you out first shot. You must have been about thirteen, with your hair down your back. You had on a short skirt and a skin-tight red jersey, and you were going like a streak. I thought you had the prettiest eyes in the world--Still think so," he added, puckering his brows, as if he were making a grave admission.
Lucy laughed. Harry was cautious, even in compliments.
"Oh, thank you, Harry! I had such good times in that old rink. I missed it terribly after it was pulled down. Pauline wouldn`t let me go to dances then. But I don`t remember you very well until you began to pitch for Haverford. Everyone was crazy about your in- curves. Why did you give up baseball?"
"Too lazy, I guess." He shrugged his smooth shoulders. "I liked playing ball, though. But now about the opera. You`ll keep the first two weeks of April open for me? I can`t tell now just when I`ll be able to run on."
Young Gordon was watching Lucy as they talked, and thinking that he had about made up his mind. He wasn`t rash, he hadn`t been in a hurry. He didn`t like the idea of marrying the watchmaker`s daughter, when so many brilliant opportunities were open to him. But as he had often told himself before, he would just have to swallow the watchmaker. During the two winters Lucy had been away in Chicago, he had played about with lots of girls in the cities where his father`s business took him. But there was simply nobody like her,--for him, at least.
Tomorrow he would have to deal with a rather delicate situation. Harriet Arkwright, of the St. Joseph Arkwrights, was visiting a friend in Omaha, and she had telephoned him to come on and take her to a dance. He had carried things along pretty far with Miss Arkwright. Her favour was flattering to a small-town man. She was a person of position in St. Joe. Her father was president of the oldest banking house, and she had a considerable fortune of her own, from her mother. If she was twenty-six years old and still unmarried, it was not from lack of suitors. She had been in no hurry to tie herself up. She managed her own property very successfully, travelled a good deal, liked her independence. A woman of the world, Harry considered her; good style, always at her ease, had a kind of authority that money and social position give. But she was plain, confound it! She looked like the men of her family. And she had a hard, matter-of-fact voice, which never kindled with anything; slightly nasal. Whatever she spoke of, she divested of charm. If she thanked him for his gorgeous roses, her tone deflowered the flowers.
Harry liked to play with the idea of how such a marriage would affect his future, but he had never tried to make himself believe that he was in love with Harriet. Strangely enough, the only girl who gave him any deep thrill was this same Lucy, who lived in his own town, was poor as a church mouse, never flattered him, and often laughed at him. When he was with her, life was different; that was all.
And she was growing up, he realized. All through the Christmas vacation he had felt a change in her. She was perhaps a trifle more reserved. At the dance, on New Year`s Eve, he thought she held herself away from him just a little--and from everyone else. She wasn`t cold, she had never looked lovelier, never been more playfully affectionate toward her old friends. But she was not there in the old way. All evening her eyes shone with something she did not tell him. The moment she was not talking to someone, that look came back. And in every waltz she seemed to be looking over his shoulder at something--positively enchanting! . . . whereas there was only the same old crowd, dancing in the Masonic Hall, with a "crash" over the Masonic carpet. He would not soon forget that New Year`s Eve. It had brought him up short. Lucy wasn`t an artless, happy little country girl any longer; she was headed toward something. He had better be making up his mind. Even tonight, here on the train, when she seemed to give him her whole attention, she didn`t, really.
The porter came for Gordon`s bags, and said they were pulling into Omaha. Lucy went out to the vestibule with Harry, and they talked in low tones during the stop. He stood holding her hand and looking down at her with that blue-eyed friendliness which seemed so transparent and uncalculating, until the porter called "All aboard!" Harry kissed her on the cheek and stepped down to the station platform. Lucy waved to him through the window while the train was pulling out.
Gordon got into a horse cab and started for his hotel. His chin was lowered in his muffler, and he smiled at the street-lights as the cab rattled along. Yes, he told himself, he must use diplomacy with Miss Arkwright for a while longer. Her stock was going down. He meant to commit the supreme extravagance and marry for beauty. He meant to have a wife other men would envy him.
Lucy undressed quickly, got into her berth, and turned off the lights. At last she was alone, lying still in the dark, and could give herself up to the vibration of the train,--a rhythm that had to do with escape, change, chance, with life hurrying forward. That sense of release and surrender went all over her body; she seemed to lie in it as in a warm bath. Tomorrow night at this time she would be coming home from Clement Sebastian`s recital. In a few hours one could cover that incalculable distance; from the winter country and homely neighbours, to the city where the air trembled like a tuning-fork with unimaginable possibilities.
Lucy carried in her mind a very individual map of Chicago: a blur of smoke and wind and noise, with flashes of blue water, and certain clear outlines rising from the confusion; a high building on Michigan Avenue where Sebastian had his studio--the stretch of park where he sometimes walked in the afternoon--the Cathedral door out of which she had seen him come one morning--the concert hall where she first heard him sing. This city of feeling rose out of the city of fact like a definite composition,--beautiful because the rest was blotted out. She thought of the steps leading down from the Art Museum as perpetually flooded with orange-red sunlight; they had been like that one stormy November afternoon when Sebastian came out of the building at five o`clock and stopped beside one of the bronze lions to turn up the collar of his overcoat, light a cigarette, and look vaguely up and down the avenue before he hailed a cab and drove away.
In the round of her day`s engagements, hurrying about Chicago from one place to another, Lucy often came upon spots which gave her a sudden lift of the heart, made her feel glad before she knew why. Tonight, lying in her berth, she thought she would be happy to be going back, even if Clement Sebastian were no longer there. She would still be going back to "the city," to the place where so many memories and sensations were piled up, where a window or a doorway or a street-corner with a magical meaning might at any moment flash out of the fog.
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