Shadows of Flames Part 113

Yet Sophy felt that it would be impossible for her to go until she had come to a definite understanding with Morris.

All her philosophy, drawn sound and sweet from the sodden husk of experience, could not keep her from fretting inwardly. Her first irrepressible joy over the mere idea of freedom died flatly down. She was unhappy--even very unhappy. Memories stung her day and night. Vain regret.... It was like the feeling of homesickness for a home that has been burned down. As she walked and rode, as she sat in her study, with its perfume of rose-geraniums and cedar wood, her collie at her feet--these memories came teasing, teasing, like wan-eyed, persistent beggars when one's purse is empty. Sophy's heart was empty of the coin of love--but it brimmed with pity--the heavy, leaden currency of pity.

The only real pleasure that she had in these days was from Amaldi's letters. The first one had been sent from the steamer in which he had sailed for Italy a few days after she had left Newport. It was rather short, rather shy. "You must forbear with my English, please," he had said. "I find it much more hard to write than in speaking." But the little quaintnesses of construction only made his letter seem more charming to her. He had not alluded to their last meeting except indirectly. He wrote: "There is much mist this morning. I see the last of America, dim as dreams through this mist. But above rises the great G.o.ddess, she that is to America what Pallas was to Athens. She lifts high her torch--and it seems I see it s.h.i.+ne upon your face. I remember her name and the meaning of this light that she is holding so high above the mist. For you I repeat her name many times in my heart. It is with a feeling of religion that I say this name over and over--linking it to yours. And I feel that for you, high above all mist, is that pure flame s.h.i.+ning."

Sophy loved this letter, for among other things, it rea.s.sured her about their friends.h.i.+p. It made her feel in many ways that he was too fine not to have realized that there could be no more love in her life and too strong to sacrifice their beautiful friends.h.i.+p to a vain desire something that could never be. She spent a solacing hour in writing him a letter such as she felt he would love to receive--all about her home, herself, her daily doings, her dog, her horse ... some of her inmost thoughts that she felt he would understand and share with her.

The end of September had been chilly, but October came in with soft, spring-like showers again, very mild--real May weather--rather like Indian Spring than Indian Summer. On the second day the showers held about noon. Harold Grey set off with the whole "bunch" of boys for a long-promised jaunt. They were to ride up to the top of Laurel Mountain and spend the night there in an old rubble hut, sleeping on pine boughs.

There was to be a camp-fire, they were to cook their own meals. Off they went, all on horseback, laughing and singing:

"_Ole ark a-movin', movin', chillun!_"

Sophy watched Bobby as he rode off on the old Shelty, his face a-s.h.i.+ne, and again she felt that it was all worth while if Bobby were so blissfully content. He had never worn that s.h.i.+ning face in Newport or New York. That afternoon she went out to look for mushrooms. This was surely ideal mushroom weather. She put on an old corduroy skirt, and stout boots, and borrowed a little basket from Mammy Nan.

A great west wind had suddenly sprung up. Wild tatters of cloud were blown across the sky. Now they veiled, now they revealed the sun. The box hedges glittered darkly, waving their sombre plumes to and fro, up and down. The gra.s.s glinted like yellow crystal as the sun caught it.

Leaves scurried in flocks through the air. The wet clay was just the colour of a sweating sorrel horse.

Sophy went down to the pasture behind the stable. There were cattle grazing there--a fine black Angus bull, and his harem of forty young heifers. But she was not afraid of them--they were all very gentle, the black Pasha as well as his wives.

The field hollowed in the middle, and a little dark-red path coiled through the soaked green. Sophy dipped under the pasture-bars, and went slowly forward, looking to right and left, for the cool, fleshlike glisten of fungi.

The bull was grazing on a hill at the far end of the field. His splendid, black silhouette stood out against the grey wrack of cloud.

Half of his harem grazed near. The other half had discreetly withdrawn to that part of the field where Sophy was now walking. One lovely little heifer, black and soft of pelt as a black Angora cat, regarded her musingly out of l.u.s.trous, still eyes that were heavy as with sorrow.

Sophy went up to her ... put out her hand, saying: "Coo ... co-o-o...."

The heifer let her stroke her forehead, her ears--let the slim, quick hand run along her sides, play with her glossy pelt. "You sweetheart!..." said Sophy.

She was more like a calm, friendly dog than a cow. Sophy finally gave her a kiss between her tranquil, melancholy eyes, and continued on her quest for mushrooms.

The wind was higher than ever now. It blew in squally gusts. Clouds were sagging dark in the southwest. The sun winked in and out like the light of a great pharos.

Sophy found her first mushroom--small, but a beauty. It nestled low in the gra.s.s on its plump, naked leg. Its round, white top was faintly browned like a well-cooked meringue. Then she found another, enormous--a real prize, it seemed. But something about it was _too_ perfect--_too_ white. She nipped it out of its green bed, and looked at the gills. They were snowy white. Its slender leg was cased in a fine, white-silk stocking that was "coming down."

"Oh," said Sophy, looking queerly at the too-lovely creature, "how very like you are to some other mistakes of mine!... And yet ... if I ate you ... you would cure them all," she ended quizzically.

She threw the false mushroom away. It lay, pale and corpse-like, in the wet gra.s.s. It was so like damp, dead flesh that Sophy s.h.i.+vered.

Now the wind began really to tussle with her. It blew in wild, _whooroos.h.i.+ng_ blasts. The thickets seethed. The old orchard on the hill above made a harsh rattling with its gnarled boughs. She could see the tree-tops on the lawn, bowing, twisting, las.h.i.+ng wildly, as though trying to wrench their roots free from the grip of earth, as though possessed to follow their flying leaves into the sky. Now came a spat of rain. She ducked her head and began to run.

The bull was proceeding with majestic leisureliness towards his shed. He booed from ba.s.s to treble, several times. "My sultanas," said this booing, "I advise you to seek, with me, the shelter of my palace."

All the heifers began moving after him towards the shed. Now the rain came in earnest--big, cold drops. Sophy ran faster and faster. The mushrooms in her basket bounced plumply. She was afraid they would be smashed. She took off her brown velvet cap and pressed it over them as she ran. The rain rather blinded her. She ran full-tilt into some one who emerged suddenly from behind a thicket near the pasture-bars.

"By Jove!... You're soaked!..." said a voice she knew. It was Loring.

XL

Sophy let him take the basket from her and kiss her rain-wet cheek. She was glad that the rain came between her and that kiss. She could not say anything just at first--her quick running and the suddenness of his appearance had quite taken her breath for the moment.

"But you're sopping ... _sopping!_..." he kept repeating. He, too, could not think of anything more fitting to say. And Sophy began to murmur back:

"But you're getting wet, too ... what a shame!..."

They ran together towards the house. But now the rain ceased, and again the wind came--vicious, blatant. The big hedge of box just in front of them was a dark fury of tossing boughs.

"Oh, the trees!... I'm so afraid some of the trees will go down!..."

said Sophy.

They ran on under the dark tunnel of box, and out upon the lawn. As they did so, Sophy gave a cry and halted.

"Look!" she gasped. "The big locust ... oh!... It's going ... it's going...."

She ran towards the middle of the lawn. Loring followed--caught her firmly by the arm.

"Wait...." he said. "Don't go any nearer...."

They stood dumbly watching the giant tree. It was fully a hundred feet high--a monarch shaft crowned with ma.s.sive branches--wrapped python-like by a huge trumpet-vine. It was the last of its splendid generation--a royal tree. Now it rocked heavily--to and fro--farther and farther each way, each time--a groaning sound came from it. This sound splintered suddenly. It was like the bursting of a human groan into a shriek. The n.o.ble crown swept forward--majestically--as it were, deliberately at first--then faster, faster, in a sort of suicidal frenzy. The huge tree toppled, split at its middle fork--went cras.h.i.+ng down, ripping loose the snaky folds of vine, shattering the trees next it. Their splintered tops shone suddenly raw and yellow against the grey sky. The remaining half of the fallen locust had a great "blaze" all down one side, as though it had been stripped by lightning. The inner wood, thus disclosed, all torn and riven, had something ghastly, like the revelation of a wound in living flesh.

For a second longer Sophy stood quite still. Then she ran forward again.

She was pale as at an accident to a dear friend.

The locust stretched across the gravel driveway. Its crown lay among the crushed branches of a huge box-shrub. The poor box-shrub had a piteous, feminine look, as though it had tried in vain to support the stricken giant on its soft breast. The boughs and leaves of the p.r.o.ne tree still quivered slightly as in a death-throe. The big vine swung its loose, snaky folds over the ruin. The gra.s.s was strewn with leaves and broken limbs. Sophy went up and put her hand on the rough trunk in silence. Her lips quivered.

"What an infernal shame!" said Loring.

He stared all about, then at the wrecked tree again.

"Isn't this where the hammocks used to hang?" he asked.

"Yes," said Sophy.

They stood silent again. Both were thinking of how they had swung day after day in those hammocks in their love-time. Then the scarlet bells of the trumpet-vine had hung above them. It had been like their flowering pa.s.sion swinging scarlet bells above them. Both felt something sad and ominous in the fall of the great tree just as Loring had arrived.

"I'll send the gardener to see about it," Sophy said at last, turning away. They went together to the house.

"When can I see you ... for a long talk?" asked Loring, as they reached the door.

"As soon as I've changed. You'll want to change, too. Is your luggage here?"

"Yes. A darkey drove me up from Sweet-Waters."

"Has Mammy Nan seen to your room?"

"Thanks. Yes. Everything's quite right."