First harvests

SEVERAL days passed by in much the same way; and truly a pleasant way enough it was. Arthur went now and then to town; but it was easy to get vacations in Townley & Tamms’s office, and the inmates were mutually conceding upon this point, particularly when the absence was known to be connected with people likely to be valuable, as clients, to the firm. And perhaps Arthur had a secret notion that his visit at Mrs. Levison Gower’s was an advancement more speedy and notable than anything that was likely to come to him in the office while he was away. For, after all, in her society he was getting the ultimate result of all labors and seeing what it was that people realized when they were successful here on earth.

Townley urged Arthur strongly to avail himself of Mrs. Gower’s hospitality to its utmost limit. It was a principle of his philosophy of life that it was the part of a clever man to take things directly rather than attain to them gradually; to grasp the fruits, and not cultivate the tree. “Any country bumpkin, any ordinary mechanic, can do that,” he would say. “But we in New York, in Wall Street, sit at the counter on which is poured the net earnings, the savings, the symbols of title to all the creations of a mighty nation. Ten thousand men may work to build a railroad, for instance, and ten thousand more to run it; and the clean result of all their toil and trouble, free of all dross and surplusage, is turned into our hands, portable and convenient, in the shape of a few engraved certificates of stock, or bonds, or banknotes. Presto! change! and some of them are in my pocket, and some in yours, and perhaps a new bit of paper, issued by us for the balance.” Arthur found Charlie a much more intellectual fellow than he had thought at first.

Guests came and went at Mrs. Gower’s, all with some charm of person, or of fashion, or of successful mind; applied intellect, not perhaps the pure kind. Arthur spent a few days in town, to prepare for his longer absence on the coaching trip; Tamms was moving down to his summer quarters near Long Branch, and old Mr. Townley hardly ever came to the office now. He had a private room up-stairs, where he used to spend some two or three hours a week, looking after his trusts. Charlie was neglecting his business more than ever, but seemed to make up for it by his devotions to Mamie Livingstone, which were almost getting, for him, exclusive. That young lady was “coming out” the next autumn, and already making elaborate preparations for it. Arthur saw her when he went to call on Gracie Holyoke, who was going, with Miss Brevier, to the old place at Great Barrington for the summer.

Mrs. Malgam had gone away, and Haviland, and Miss Lenoir; and the party had gradually settled down to those who were invited for the drive. As their numbers were narrowed, a feeling of increased intimacy sprang up among those who were to go through so much together; and they were fond of talking of it and consulting maps as to roads and stopping-places; and they grew confidential about outsiders. “But I thought Mrs. Malgam was to go with us, too,” said Mrs. Hay one day to Pussie; the two women were sitting on a new-mown hay-rick on the lawn, that had been cut for ornamental purposes, too soon to make good hay. Arthur was lying, with a volume of poetry, at their feet.

“Oh, dear, no,” laughed innocent Miss Duval. “Flossie and Baby never could abide each other. You must know Mrs. Malgam is a very dangerous person, for all she looks like a pan of cream.”

“Oh, indeed,” said Mrs. Hay, compressing her rich lips. She had recognized in Mrs. Malgam her American counterpart, and was slightly afraid of the violet-eyed brune, to whose deeper beauty her own made but a tinsel foil.

“Yes, indeed,” said Pussie. “You know a man shot himself for Mrs. Malgam, once, they say. Isn’t it exciting?”

“What, really?” put in Arthur. He had been forgotten for the moment; and Mrs. Hay drew up her red satin brodequins with a start. “Here comes Mrs. Gower,” said she, “suppose we ask her?”

“Oh, don’t,” put in Pussie, rather frightened; but Mrs. Hay was not to be repressed. Flossie Gower barely raised her eyebrows at the question. “There was a man, a Mr. Vane, who shot himself,” said she. “But it was from overwork, and not for Baby Malgam, I suspect. He was nothing but a money-making machine.”

It was a glorious day, when it finally arrived. Nature seemed, as usual, to smile on Flossie Gower’s plans. The party met at breakfast, all the women radiant in the neatest of dresses, with the gayest of coaching umbrellas; Caryl Wemyss and Van Kull in brown frock-coats with rosebuds in their silk lapels, and Derwent and Birmingham informally in knickerbockers. Breakfast was a longer meal than usual; and the warm June air came in through the windows, laden with roses. Then the crisp and rapid sound of many horses’ feet was heard upon the ground, and they all ran to the door to inspect the coach.

The women ran away to get ready, and the servants were busy packing every conceivable kind of a wrap, shawl, waterproof, mackintosh, rug, cloak, cape, ulster, or other similar garment yet devised, together with various little leather and silver travelling-bags, contents to Arthur as yet unknown. Of course, there was no room for real luggage in the coach; this went behind in the wagonette. But the inside of the coach was quite choked up, as it was, with some bales of these and similar trifles; so that when any lady had a headache and had to ride inside she had to lie upon the cargo, the seats being lost some two feet beneath it. Behind stood the wagonette, with four extra horses, in case of need, loaded with the luggage; and besides all this there was an extra servant, or postilion, riding a “cock-horse,” or tow-horse, for the pulls up-hill.

At last all was ready; on top of all inside was thrown a bundle of the morning’s papers, which were to lie there unopened through many sunny days; the light steel ladder was brought out, and Miss Duval and Kitty Farnum were inducted with much ceremony to the highest seat, Derwent and Lord Birmingham their companions. Mrs. Hay went behind with Arthur and Caryl Wemyss, in front of the pair of servants—an old stout one and a thin young one, both well trussed up in their plum-colored broadcloth. But these were not there yet, and only their neatly folded coats, showing the two brass buttons with the well-known crest of Levison Gower, betokened their future presence. Mrs. Gower herself climbed lightly into the box-seat, scorning a ladder; Van Kull took the reins beside her, and with a rapid leap the four horses took the road. As they passed out the coachman and groom came climbing up behind; the latter seized the horn, and a long and joyous peal of coaching music woke the echoes of the sleeping woods and lawn.

It seemed this gay fanfare had loosed their tongues, for at once a clatter of laughter and merry voices began. Van Kull, the horses being fresh, was busied with his driving; but Mrs. Gower turned to talk with the four behind her, and soon Miss Duval’s flow of animal spirits was set off and exploded in shrieks of shrilly laughter. Miss Farnum, too, said something to make Birmingham roar his catastrophic bass guffaws, and Wemyss took up the cue with Mrs. Hay. Only the two servants sitting facing them maintained the severe aspect which decorum of them demanded.

They were already sweeping down the dewy ravine in the forest, and in a minute more had come to the gate of Mrs. Gower’s demesne; it flew open, the porter bared his head, the porter’s wife and children bobbed up and down behind him; and between the armorial pillars they rolled out upon the common road. A dusty, sleepy road it was, giving no hint of its much use; for, early as it was for them, the people that travelled by the highways, the morning tradesmen’s carts and factory operatives, had long since passed over it to their daily station in life. You would be surprised if you knew how busy this same road could be in the hour or two that followed sunrise. But now it stretched away in silence through the broad green country, and its dust lay heaped in ridges undisturbed. The horses trotted smartly down its gentle slope; and then, breaking into a joyous gallop, rushed them up the other for a mile or more. Here was the factory village; and they swept through it triumphantly, but almost unseen, for all the world was now indoors. A few dogs barked; a few street-children, too young to work in the mills, cheered at them, or jeered, it were hard to say which. There was a great whirring of wheels from the mills, however; and the two free leaders took fright at them, and almost broke away from Van Kull, who held them hard, the big veins swelling in his throat. The coachman facing Arthur leaned far out and looked forward at them anxiously; but no one else minded. Such was the exhilaration of the air and motion, they might have run away and Pussie Duval have but sung her song the louder, while the others laughed the more. At last Van Kull pulled up his smoking team on the face of a big hill, the town a mile or so behind them. It was a very steep hill, or they would have carried it by assault; but now the groom on the cock-horse rode up and hooked his harness to the whiffletree, and the five horses set their necks into the collar, and took the summit slowly, as by siege. As they rose up, the country all behind them was unfolded, ridge by ridge, like a map; Arthur from his back seat faced full toward it. Gradually the chimneys of the factory village sank down into the bosom of the valley; the hills breasting it rose up behind them, until they overlooked their highest ridge; now the village was nearly hidden in the green floor of the valley, and all beyond were faint blue films of mountains; then, as they rose still higher, the rift of luminous air between the near hills and the distant mountains was seen to be paved with the blue flood of the river. The horses paused a moment to take breath; it was marvellously still; now and then the cackle of a hen came up from the valley; a train was crawling along its other side, but it moved as noiselessly as the white specks of sails upon the river.

The sunlight began to be hot, and Wemyss was sent within to fetch the larger sunshades from the “cabin,” as Miss Duval pleased to call it.

“Now you men,” said Flossie, “may go behind and smoke; and Mrs. Hay can take a place in front. You have none of you had your morning cigars, I am sure.” They had not; and after due demurrage the change was made. Four blue clouds arose to heaven from the after-seat; the four fair women grouped together in front; and Van Kull looked now and then askance and backward, as if in envy. And surely if ever an approach to godlike Nirvana is realized on earth, it is when one is moving rapidly through a broad June morning, looking down upon the roundness of the world, and blowing clouds upon it dreamily.

When Lord Birmingham took Van Kull’s place upon the box, giving the latter his seat in the smoke-room, as he termed it, most of the party felt, if they did not show, a delightful drowsiness, which was only dispelled by their arrival at a town and rumors of luncheon. A wild burst of the coaching horn electrified the main street, and they drove up before the principal “hotel,” a vast and ill-aired wooden structure, quite inappropriate to a coaching party, or even to the more civilized usages of life, as Mr. Wemyss with much particularity pointed out. But a private room had been engaged for them, and in this, with some local chickens and the resources of Mrs. Gower’s cellar and grapery, they made out not so badly.

After luncheon the men smoked, and the women retired to their especial quarters, where, it is to be presumed, some took a nap, and others, having sent for the little travelling-bags before mentioned, performed mysterious rites therewith. Wemyss, Lord Birmingham, Miss Duval, Miss Farnum, and Arthur went to walk about the town, and became the subjects of considerable admiring comment. In the country, on the contrary, such had not been the case; nil admirari was a motto faithfully practised, and the old farmers would hardly hitch their trousers and turn about for the loudest horn or the most rattling pace. When they came back to the hotel and found the coach drawn up to the door, there was assembled a considerable concourse of immature populace, who had already passed from the open-mouthed stage to the derisive one, and were making sarcastic and injurious comments upon the coach and its equipment, with that tendency so noteworthy in young America to deride or decry what it does not itself possess.

Off went the horses—the two wheelers were nearly fresh, having only been in the wagonette in the morning—the coachman wound a rapid call upon his horn, attended by an obligato of small boys, and they swayed and swung through the winding street of the hot little town, out into fields and hedgerows again. The hedges were in front of the lawns and villa residences that surrounded the town; and the road was well arched over with elms just breaking into leaf, under which the afternoon sun slanted.

It seemed to the party almost the perfection of life, as the little disconnected comments and the absence of any effort of conversation indicated. Simple being was enough; there was no sicklying over that day’s air and sunlight with any pale cast of thought, as Derwent said. Again they were high up on the slope of the country side; but the great golden bay of the Hudson had become a river here, and close beyond it the blue mountains of the highlands loomed up bold and near.

Now they came down close by the shore of the river; its salted waters were lapping, lapping on the round, weedy shore-stones, and over against them, in the skirt of the hills, lurked already the night. The stream’s broad bosom glowed motionless, bearing here and there a bark or boat; but no Sidney Sewall spoke of these to-night, or cared to trouble with intellectual speculation. Arthur remembered with unconcern that in the past there had been such things as the city, business, hour of duty; what mattered this to them, the chosen ones, bright beings in a world apart? And certainly everyone of the party had a charm our hero had not realized before; even Mrs. Hay, with her strong, sensuous beauty, lent a richness and a color to the grouping.

“It is lovely, after all,” said Miss Farnum, dreamily, voicing his thoughts. Here they were entering a high hanging wood; on the lower side of the road a lofty hewn-stone wall, all overgrown with moss and ivy, surmounted with old-fashioned stone urns now chipped and crumbling away. Over it they could see the winding leaf-heaped walks of a forgotten garden, untended lawns, and old stone garden-seats swathed in moss and mould. “It must be the grounds of some gentleman’s old country-seat,” said Miss Farnum. “Everyone goes farther from the city nowadays.” There was a something begetting thought in this suggestion; the warm sunlight sank sleepily down in the cup there between the woodlands, and the old garden looked like a place where one might take a nap for half a lifetime—say from youth to early old age. It was evidently a place of the old Idlewild, Ik Marvel, Porte-Crayon days, when people lived in their country, wrote of Dobb his ferry, and were as yet unacquainted with Englishmen and other foreigners. There must have been a strong home fragrance in our life in the forties or thereabouts, before the few found out that we are provinces, or the many that we are all the world.... Now they came out by a little water-bay, or lagoon, reaching inland, where the water lay still and a salt crust was on the long plashed grasses. “I suppose the people who live here go to Mount Desert, nowadays,” said Miss Farnum. “I wonder why they left here?”

“Malaria,” suggested Wemyss.

“There always seems something unreal, impossible about malaria here,” said Arthur. “Malaria is languid, tropical, unsuited to our bleak Northern, Puritan, hard-worked hillsides and meadow bottoms. Consumption, not malaria, is the typical disease.”

“It is only lately creeping into New England,” said Wemyss, dryly. Just then a merry burst of laughter was heard from the front; Arthur looked behind him, but there seemed to be no one speaking. The laugh had been from Miss Duval; she turned around at the same moment, her black eyes sparkling from her rosy face. “Isn’t it delightful?” said she to Arthur. There seemed to be no other reason for her laughing than this; and Arthur laughed in accord with her. It was delightful.

Now they were up in the highlands again, bowling along a hard straight road between the rows of trees. Continually the merry horn was sounded to warn the slow teams ahead to turn aside, or wake the sleepy milkmen, or pedlars in their carts. The sun, across the river, had already set behind the purple mountains; but eastward, to the right, the hills were light.

They entered into a high wood, filled already with gray shadows; along the edge of the road still lay the last year’s leaves, thick-matted, making the sound of the wheels soft. What light there was came from the violet sky above the tree-tops; and against it Kitty Farnum’s profile shone pale and clear-cut. Arthur was humming a German song to himself, and looking at her and wondering about her: what she was, what was her secret of life.

So the night came on them, in the wood. It was evening when they came out of it and rolled along, low by the river-shore; opposite, the great black mass of the Storm King, and beyond it, farther to the north, the mountains sank into a long low line, and above the dark ridge the sky was saffron, and in it hung and trembled one large liquid star, reflected larger and softly in the calm river. And they all looked at these things and were silent.