Doubly false

Cora’s motive for trying that black pony on the lawn was explained the next morning, when Clarence Brooks came riding up the carriage road on a horse that might have matched that spirited animal in everything but size. Before he reached the house, Cora came forth, equipped for the road and looking bright as the morning. She stood leaning against one of the marble pillars when Brooks came up,—the long skirt sweeping far back on the white pavement and her lithe figure defined by a closely-fitting habit, to which a profusion of gold buttons gave dash and character. The tiny cravat about her throat, and piquant hat curled up at the sides, gave graceful dignity to what might otherwise have been masculine in this costume. But now, from the gauntlet gloves on her hands to the riding whip, mounted with a thick branch of blood-red coral, her appearance was exquisitely complete.

Brooks must have been less than a man—or more—had he not checked his horse a little, that he might leisurely admire that beautiful woman, posed so gracefully against the marble column. It was a sight which brought the breath quickly to his lips. She saw it all, the sudden check, the look of intense admiration, that touch of the spur which brought the horse so near that she could almost lay her hand on his neck.

“So I find you ready and waiting, five minutes before the time,” said Brooks, dismounting and looking at his watch. “What a glorious morning!”

“Too bright for me to remain indoors one moment after my habit was on,” she answered. “Oh, here comes my demon of the stables with Blackbird. I gave him—the horse, I mean—a trial yesterday on the lawn, and he nearly mastered me.”

“I hope he is not vicious,” said Brooks, casting a sharp look at the horse.

“No, I think not. After our little encounter, I fancy he will be gentle enough. Hold him firmly, Mr. Hurd. He seems in capital condition this morning—does you credit.”

She came down to the side of her horse, and lifting one hand to the saddle, placed her foot in the hand which Brooks presented to her. In one instant she was seated and arranging the folds of her skirt.

“Now,” she said, drawing the curb, for she had no objection to a second exhibition of the animal’s spirit, so that it was not too violent. “Now.”

The horse shook his head, gave a leap, and came into subjection gracefully after the first minute.

“Isn’t he a beauty?” she cried. “But I need not ask; I see by your eyes how much you admire him.”

“If my eyes express so much, I must be careful in your presence, Miss Lander, or they will tell secrets I would rather keep to myself.”

She laughed, blushed a little, and busied herself with the button of her gauntlet, while her horse struck into an easy canter.

It was indeed a glorious day, the softest and brightest of a long Indian Summer; the scent of ripe leaves and such flowers as give their best perfume to the frost floated on the air; great forest trees, blazoned like war banners, waved above them, and their horses sometimes waded fetlock deep in the floating leaves, dyed richly as the garments of an Eastern Satrap. Through these gorgeous woods, up the sloping hills and along the river, they rode at random. Wherever a picturesque curve or tempting by-path presented itself they explored it, conversing seriously or laughing off the rare exuberance of spirits that a ride so pleasant and a morning so lovely were sure to produce in two healthy young people disposed to be pleased with each other. Still any one who had observed Brooks closely under the chestnut tree and on horseback would have seen a difference, too subtle perhaps for words, but marked and easy of detection for all that. With the girl riding so masterfully on her black horse, this man of the world exerted all that was brilliant and superficial in his character; compliments such as only very clever men can utter fell easily from his lips. With Cora he was gay, careless, full of graceful badinage. He saw that she wished to be admired, and fulfilled all her desires in that respect to the utmost, no difficult matter where the woman was so handsome and matched him so nearly in the character of her wit. With Virginia he had been no less cheerful, no less gallant—but underlying all was that impulsive respect and tender sympathy which draw noble hearts close together. He was playful with her, but never extravagant; if he felt the general effect of her great beauty, the feeling was not once expressed in words. In fact it would have been difficult to define what it was that distinguished the loveliness of these two girls. Certainly form or color had but little share in the difference.

Well, that ride through the autumnal beauty of the woods was a success to be remembered for many a day after. But Cora was dissatisfied when she laid her hand on Clarence Brooks’ shoulder, and leaped from her horse on the marble pavement where she had waited for him that morning. Again she posed herself against the pillar and watched that noble figure as horse and man swept out of sight.

“Will the man never act earnestly? Does he think I am worth nothing better than the froth and foam of his mind? Who is he saving the wine for, I wonder? He trifles with me. Does he think I have no ideas, no feeling? Seymour at least let me look into his soul. But this man—why his very carelessness defies me. Such a morning—such opportunities, and not a word spoken beneath the breath or with real seriousness. Yet these careless outflashes of a superior intellect sicken me with all other homage. The man shall love me, though it breaks his heart. He shall love me!” The woman checked herself an instant and sneered inly at her own wickedness. “Me, another man’s wife!”

She went in then, and, as a panacea for such thoughts, read over her husband’s letter with the image of a tall, gray-eyed man on horseback between her and the writer, shutting out all that wonderful beauty of person which had enthralled her so only a few months before.

Why did Brooks keep his interview with Virginia a secret? He told himself that she had requested it, but it is very doubtful if he would have said a word about it even if no hint had been given him on the subject. This encounter in the woods was to him a bit of romance which would lose its charm if talked over in commonplace words with any one. He had found the cabin by accident, having discovered the footpath which Seymour had trodden along the brook while smoking a cigar on the back porch, to which his room opened by the door, half sash, half panelling, which had proved so convenient in another romance that we know of, but which was so carefully kept out of sight at this period. Springing over the low railing of the porch, Brooks had sauntered up the path, smoking as he went; now and then he stooped to watch the eddies of the brook and wondered if any of its sparkling pools covered trout worth the trouble of catching; then he looked upward into the gorgeous roofing of the trees which let glimpses of the blue sky in here and there, with stray gleams of sunshine searching for the rainbows that seemed to have got entangled in the leaves.

Of course all this threw the man into a certain train of thought which had both sadness and poetry in it. He muttered to himself: “The melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year.” Then walked on again, thinking of his friend, whose terrible fate haunted him at such times, and wondering if he ever should love the young woman he had seen well enough to make her his wife, for this had been the romantic wish of the man whom he had regarded almost as a father. A heavy sigh answered this question, or rather left it unanswered, for the heart that sent it forth was disturbed by many doubts in which the lady was concerned.

For a long time the young man sat down on a curve of the bank, opposite an elm tree, over which a frost grape-vine had wound and crept, and thrown itself in such leafiness that it flung a broken arch across the ravine; along the drooping boughs long slender clusters hung profusely, with the frost, that alone ripens them, covering their purple with its own shimmering bloom.

Brooks flung away his cigar and began to sketch this pretty object on the back of an envelope.

“Now, if I were an artist, like that young Howe, whose sketches of bits like this have made the English fellows look about them in astonishment, this tree with its trailing fruit and leaves, would make my reputation. It really is exquisite!”

After working away with his pencil awhile, he became dissatisfied with his effort, flung the envelope into the brook and sauntered up the path till the cabin and bridge came in full view, with the huge old chestnut tree spreading its boughs over one, and that group of hemlocks embowering the other.

“Upon my word, here is something like rustic taste!” he exclaimed, in a burst of surprise. “Why the bridge is a gem; as for the cabin I must explore that; what a fanciful mockery it is!”

The bank was steep and the path rough, but Brooks was no holiday man to dread a little exertion. So he caught hold of a branch, lifted himself upward, and reached the cabin with his breath coming a little quicker from the exertion. Not three minutes after, Virginia Lander and Ellen came down the bank and showed themselves under the chestnut tree.

This was the morning that Brooks was contrasting with his ride that day, as he walked his horse toward the little hotel.

“I wonder if they will really care enough about the chestnuts to think of gathering them,” he thought, when an early dinner had been disposed of. “At any rate I may as well take a walk up the ravine. It is a shame to waste one moment of all this delicious weather indoors.”

There was no loitering along the path that afternoon. Even the frost grape-vine, bending the stout tree under its tendrils, as love bows a strong man, failed to win more than a passing glance from him. The most beautiful thing, to him, in the woods was a huge old chestnut tree, bristling all over with open burs, its enormous limbs stretching far and wide, and the ground under it thick with long yellow leaves.

He came in sight of this tree, uttered a quick exclamation, and hurried on. A basket stood on the stone-work of the bridge, and two girls were busy among the leaves picking up chestnuts.

I cannot permit any one to say or think one word against Virginia or Ellen for thus deliberately meeting this gentleman that afternoon. It was not the careless act of two thoughtless girls, ready to amuse themselves at any cost, but a thing they had both considered over and resolved on. To Virginia, her father’s letter was almost a command. He expected her to see and like this man, who was his bosom friend, and this out-door acquaintance was all she could offer him without openly accepting the false position given her in that house. That she could not and would not do. But chance had thrown this man, whom her father loved, into her companionship. Without formal introduction, they had met, conversed, and fallen into cordial relations. Why should she refuse to see him again? Why deprive herself of the only happiness that had crossed her dreary path since that terrible shipwreck? To her there seemed to be something providential in the accident that had thrown them together. She felt it a sacred duly to know and like the man who seemed to come to her with a message from the dead. Of course Virginia did not understand the full meaning of that letter as Brooks understood it. To her those hints and broken sentences, which he connected with previous conversations, were vague and might have applied to fifty things of which she was ignorant. They really made no impression on her mind more than the rest of the letter. Cora had understood everything at the first glance, but the purer and better girl never dreamed that her father had for years selected Clarence Brooks as her husband.

So there really was nothing unmaidenly in the fact that she went, deliberately and with throbs of pleasant expectation, down to the woods that afternoon. She had seen Brooks riding off with Cora in the morning from her chamber window, and a strange feeling of sadness came over her at the sight. It was hard to know that another person was usurping her place—harder than she had ever felt it before. Cora’s clear, ringing laugh came back to where she stood as she rode gaily down the drive. They were splendidly mated, she could not deny that, and a finer couple could not have been found within a hundred miles. But her heart sank and a sense of the wrong done her grew bitter as death in her bosom. She was restless all that morning, and when she spoke the tears rushed so close to her eyes that Ellen grew sad at heart every time she looked up from her writing.

So the two girls kept their promise and went down to the stone bridge, innocent as birds, and came back almost as happy. Such a day for nutting did not often present itself, yet so little had been done in reality. There had been another long conversation among the ferns and a visit to the frost grape-vine, which Virginia sketched on a bit of Bristol board taken from her memorandum book, with a touch and finish that made Brooks doubly ashamed of the scrap he had thrown away.

Would she give it to him? Why, of course, that was what she had taken it for. Not worth offering, but if he liked it, she would bring down materials to-morrow and sketch the bridge and cabin, with that dear old chestnut tree, just as it was. Some time, perhaps, it would serve to remind him of her and Ellen.

So, in this innocent fashion, a meeting was arranged for the next day. It took a long time, I must confess, to gather up all the chestnuts, though the pile in the log cabin grew larger and larger every day for a full week. Then work grew rather dull in the woods. The frost grapes were a resource, but grapes would not last forever, deliciously ripe as the clusters were, and when they gave out, what was to be done? Brooks bethought himself of a pic-nic for three, all the preparations to be left for his superintendence, and some fishing in the brook the day after, for he solemnly believed that trout were to be found higher up the ravine. At any rate, it was worth trying. On second thought, they would have the fishing first, and after that the pic-nic; the trout would be so nice cooked by a fire in the woods, that was, if they caught any. Virginia scarcely believed that there was trout in the brook. But then, to be sure, she had been away for so many years that some change was to be expected.

Well, the next afternoon was devoted to exploring the brook; poles had been provided, and a case of flies quite enchanted the girls as a matter of high art. So away the trio went up the banks of the brook, casting out their lines and dancing the flies about after a fashion that would have fascinated the most wary trout to his undoing, if any fish of the kind had taken shelter in those bright waters. But coquettes without beaus, and artistic flies in a stream which produces nothing but shiners and pin-fishes, must necessarily be at a discount. Still it is hard to discourage a man who in his heart expects nothing.

Clarence Brooks expressed himself as hopeful that plenty of trout could be found higher up the stream, and the girls, having great faith in his judgment, acquiesced. If they caught nothing at last, it was no fault of his. Besides, a fine, breezy walk, with bright, ripe leaves showering over them at every step, was compensation enough for any fatigue they might have felt. So, after all, the fishing excursion was not exactly a failure. Indeed, but for the shame of it, Virginia would have pronounced the whole affair a brilliant success.

As for Brooks, he went home that night and instead of going up to the house, where Cora sat ready to charm him with unlimited music, such music too! he spent the whole evening alone on that back stoop, so lost in thought that the cigar went out between his lips, and it was midnight before he became aware of it.