Chapter 51. From Deep Experience

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_ Chapter LI. From Deep Experience

With the night dreams began to vanish and the prose of reality gradually to take form and outline in Van Berg's mind. He was compelled to admit that the plausible theories by which he had hitherto satisfied himself scarcely accounted for his moods and sensations the past few days, and memory quietly informed him that it had never had any consciousness of such a friendship as he now was forming. But like many another man in the process of conviction against his will, he became irritable and angrily blind to a truth that would place him in an intolerable dilemma. He went to his studio, and worded with dogged obstinacy on the picture designed for Ida, giving his time to those details which required only artistic skill, for his perturbed mind was in no mood for any nice creative work.

He had agreed to meet Ida and her father on the afternoon boat; and his impatience, and the early hour he started to keep the appointment, was another straw which he was compelled to see in spite of himself; nor could he fail to note which way the current was bearing him.

"Well," he muttered, with the fatuity common in all strong temptations, "I'll spend a few more hours with this rare Undine, this genuine woman, who--infinitely more beautiful than Venus--is rising out of the dark waters of sorrow, shame, and despair, and then if I find that it will be wiser and safer to be only a somewhat unobtrusive and distant friend, showing my good-will more by deeds than by seeking her society, I can gradually take this course without wounding her feelings or exciting suspicion of the cause. She was right, although she little imagines the reason; we could never have those readings together, and I fear I must manage with far fewer visits to my studio than I had hoped for. What an accursed chaotic old world it is anyway! How grateful she is because I merely treat her father politely! It would be impossible to do anything else, now that he is himself again, and yet, by this simple, easy method, I have won a friendlier regard than I could by any other means. Like an idiot, I once thought she would have to withdraw from her father to develop her new and beautiful life. If even in faintest suggestion I had revealed that thought to her, I don't believe she would have spoken to me again; and I foresee that I shall have to be exceedingly polite to Mrs. Mayhew also, for my Undine is developing a conscience that might become a man's implacable enemy. But what am I thinking about! If I do not intend to see much of the daughter, I shall not waste any time on the mother. I wonder if Miss Mayhew meant anything by that odd little ballad last evening. Could she have intended to remind me of blue-eyed Jennie Burton? No, for she was singing it by herself, when she did not know I was listening. The idiotic brook! If I had given my whole heart to the effort I might have won Jennie Burton by this time. Ida Mayhew was right; no woman that I wish to win will show a lover any favor till he cannot help stopping and staying, too."

A moment later he stopped short in the street. "Great God!" muttered he, "do I wish to win Jennie Burton? Whither am I drifting? Would to heaven I had not made this appointment this afternoon. Well, I'm in for it now," and he strode along as if he were going to battle, resolving to be guarded to the last degree, lest Ida should suspect his weakness.

He saw her come on the boat with her father at the last moment, her cheeks flushed with the heat and her eyes aglow with the hurry and excitement of the occasion. He saw one and another of her young gentlemen acquaintances step eagerly forward to speak to her and admiring eyes turning towards her on every side. "She won't lack for friends and companions now, and I soon will be little missed," he thought bitterly. One gentleman, in his impatience for her society, sought to obtain her small travelling-bag, ad was assuring her that he could obtain seats for herself and father on the crowded boat, when, by her timid glance around, she showed that she was expecting some one, and Van Berg hastened forward and said quietly, "I have seats reserved in the pilot-house."

She gave him a glad smile of welcome; but almost instantly her face became grave and questioning in its expression; and she looked at him keenly as he cordially shook hands with her father. As they went away with him, as if by a prearrangement several guests of the Lake House looked at each other and nodded their heads significantly.

While on the way to the pilot-house, and during their conversation after arriving there, Ida often turned a quick, questioning glance towards Van Berg, and her expression reminded him of some children's faces he had seen as they tried to read the thoughts or intentions of those who had their interests in keeping. He tried his best to be cordial and natural in manner--to be, in brief, the sincere friend that he had professed himself--and Mr. Mayhew did not notice anything amiss; but even at some inflection of his voice, or at a pause in the conversation, Ida would turn towards him this sudden, questioning, child-like look, which touched him deeply while it puzzled him. But she gradually began to grow "distrait" and quiet, and to look less and less often. Van Berg had a deep affection for the noble river on which they were sailing, and had familiarized himself with its history and legends. By means of these he sought to entertain Ida and her father, and with the latter he succeeded abundantly; but he often doubted whether Ida heard him, for her eyes and thoughts seemed to be wandering beyond the blue Highlands which they now were entering. At last Mr. Mayhew left them for a while, and Van Berg turned and said gently:

"Miss Ida, you are not in good spirits this afternoon."

She did not answer for a moment, but averted her face still further from him. At last she said, in a low tone: "Mr. Van Berg, did you ever have a presentiment of evil?"

"I don't believe in such things," he replied promptly.

"Of course not; you are a man. But I have such a presentiment this afternoon, and it will come true."

"What do you fear, Miss Ida?"

"What does a woman always fear? Earthquakes, political changes, disturbances in the world at large, of course."

"I have heard that a woman's kingdom was her heart," Van Berg was indiscreet enough to say.

"It is a pity," Ida replied with one of her reckless laughs, "for it so often happens that she cannot keep it, and those who wrest it from her do not care to keep it, and so it comes to be what the geographies used to call one of the 'waste places of the earth.' As the world goes, I think I had better retain my kingdom, small as it is."

He turned very pale, and swift as light he thought: "Has she, by the aid of her woman's intuition, read my thoughts? Has she seen the beginnings of a regard for her far warmer than my professed friendship, and, remembering my suit to Jennie Burton, is she learning to despise me as fickle, or, worse, as a hypocritical specimen of that meanest type of human vermin--a male flirt?" and his face grew so white that Ida in her turn was not only perplexed, but alarmed.

But after a moment he said quietly: "It is not the size of the kingdom that makes its value, but what it contains. I hope you will keep treasures of yours till you find some one worthy to receive them, and I can scarcely imagine that such an idiot exists that he would not retain them if he could. That is Fort Montgomery yonder," and he resolutely continued the story of its defence and capture, until her father returned saying it was time to come down ad prepare to land.

Ida had scarcely heard a word. Her heart almost stood still with dread and foreboding, and like a dreary refrain the words kept repeating themselves, "Oh, I'm punished, I'm punished. I thought to win him from Jennie Burton, and my reckless words will now make him true to her at every cost to himself. He knows that I must have seen how he won the kingdom of her heart, and he'll keep it now in spite of my love and something I thought love that I saw in his face. Oh, my punishment is greater than I can bear; but it is deserved, well deserved. If he had won my love first, what would I think of the woman who tried to win him from me? She would have suffered what I now must suffer. My bright but guilty dream is over forever."

Van Berg assisted her down to the gangway and out on the wharf with a grave and scrupulous politeness, but she felt even more than she saw that her words had stung his very soul. It was their apparent truth which he could never explain away that gave them their power to wound so deeply, and every moment brought to him a clearer realization of the fact that he had tried to win, and was pledged to win a woman whom to wrong even unwittingly would be an act for which he could never forgive himself. And yet his heart sank at the thought of meeting her; indeed, so guilty and embarrassed did he become in his feelings that he decided he would not meet her before others, and sprang out of the stage, saying to the driver that he preferred walking the remainder of the way. Mr. Mayhew looked at him in some surprise, for his manner had changed so now as to attract his attention and excite disagreeable surmises.

To Ida's great relief Stanton had come down to meet her with his light-wagon. He had seen Van Berg at her side again with surprise, and, after his fast horses had whirled them well away by themselves, he asked a little abruptly:

"Ida, have you seen Van this week?"

She hesitated a moment, and then said briefly: "Yes. We met at the concert-garden again, and he dined with us last evening."

Stanton turned and looked at her earnestly, and her color rose swiftly under his questioning eyes.

"My poor little Ida, we are in the same boat, I fear," he said compassionately.

She hid her face on his shoulder. "Oh, Ik, spare me," she faltered.

"It's just as I feared," Stanton resumed, with a deep sigh. "Maledictions on such a world as ours! The devil rules it, sure enough."

"Oh, hush, hush," Ida sobbed.

"I see it all, now; indeed, I've thought it all out this past week. You Sibley used only as a blind, poor child."

"Yes, Ik, I loathed and detested him almost from the first."

"And in the meantime the sagacious Van Berg and myself were trampling on you like a couple of long-eared beasts. How did you ever forgive us!"

"Oh, Ik, Ik, my heart is breaking. I've had such dreams the last two weeks. I've dared to think I had learned a little of God's love, and oh--was I blinded by my wishes, by my hopes, by the passionate longing of my heart?--I thought I saw love in his eyes, and heard it in his tones, last evening. Everything now is slipping from me--happiness, hope, and even my faith. But I deserve it all," she added in her heart. "I could almost curse the woman who tried to win him from me."

Stanton turned his horses off into a shady and unfrequented side road where they would not be apt to meet any one. "Good heavens!" he thought; "this is just the condition of mind that Van warned me to guard against, and, confound him, he is the cause of the evils he feared, and in their worst form. I be hanged if I can understand him. All through July he was Jennie Burton's open suitor--at least he made no secret of it to me, although his cool head enabled him to throw the people of the house off the scent--and now he follows another lady to New York, and leaves his first love on very flimsy pretexts. By Jove! I don't like it, even though it were possible for me to profit by his folly."

"My poor little Ida," he said gently, putting his arms around her, "you and I must stand by each other, for we are like to have rough weather ahead for awhile. It's no kindness to you now to hide the truth. I do not know that Van Berg has formally proposed to Miss Burton, but, as an honorable man, he is committed to her, and I believe he has won her affections, although I confess I don't understand her very well. She has evidently had very deep sorrows in the past, and I am satisfied that she has felt his absence keenly this week."

"I deserve it all," Ida murmured again, but so low he could not hear her, and she gave way to another outburst of grief.

"It will pain even your heart, Ida, to see how slight and pale Miss Burton is becoming. She also appears strangely restless, and takes long walks that are far beyond her strength."

"It's all plain," groaned Ida. "How can she act otherwise! Well, she will be comforted now, no matter what becomes of me."

"You will be a brave woman, Ida, and pull through all right."

"No, Ik, I'm not brave. I could easily die for those I love; but I can't just suffer and be patient, at least I don't see how I can; but I suppose I must."

His arm tightened about her waist, and she felt it trembling. "Ida," he said, in a low solemn tone, "promise me before God that whatever happens you will never---"

"Hush!" she gasped, shuddering, "I will die in God's own way. I will endure as best I can."

He stooped down and kissed her tenderly as he said: "Ida, dear, from this hour I'm no longer your cousin merely, but a brother, and your companion in misfortune. I'm going to stand by you and see you through this trouble. Just count on me to shield you in every possible way. I don't care what the world thinks of me, but never a tongue shall wag against you again, or there will be a heavy score to settle with me. Van and I have been good friends, but he's on ticklish ground now. He'll find he can't play fast and loose with two such women as you and Jennie Burton. Curse it all! it isn't like him to do it either. But the world is topsy-turvey, anyhow."

"Ik, I plead with you, say nothing, do nothing. Be blind and deaf to everything of which we have spoken. Only help me hide my secret and get away from this place to some other where I am not known."

"Has your father any idea of all this?"

Ida explained in part her father's knowledge.

"We can easily manage it then," he said. "I had decided to leave next week. Miss Burton leaves for her college duties very soon also. The idea of that fragile flower being trampled on nine months of the year by a crowd of thoughtless, heedless girls! And so our disastrous summer comes to an end. And yet I'm wrong in applying that term to my own experience. I wish you felt as I do, Ida. I haven't a particle of hope, and yet I would not give up my love for Jennie Burton for all the world; and I don't believe I ever shall give it up. I think she is beginning to understand me a little better now, although she does not give me much thought. One day, while you have been gone, I met her returning from one of her walks, and she looked so faint and sad that I could not endure it, and I went straight to her and took her hand as I said: 'Miss Burton, is there anything Ik Stanton can do to make you happier? It's none of my business, I suppose, but it's breaking my heart to see you becoming so sad and pale. I may seem to you very foolish and Quixotic, but there is no earthly think I would not do or suffer for you.' She did not withdraw her hand as she replied, very gently: 'Mr. Stanton, please do me the kindness to be happy yourself, and forget me.' I could only say, in honesty: 'You have asked just the two things which are utterly impossible.' Tears came into her eyes as she replied, with emphasis: 'Then, my FRIEND, you can understand me. There is one whom I can never forget.' She was kind enough to say some words about my having been generous and considerate of her feelings, etc., but no matter about them. We parted, and it's all over as far as she is concerned. When I left town last June I thought I'd be a bachelor always, because I loved my jolly ease. I've a better reason now, Ida. Of course Van must be the one referred to by Miss Burton. You have seen how she looks at him at times when thinking herself unobserved!"

"Yes," sighed Ida, "it's all right. God is just, and there is no use of trying to thwart his will."

"Well, Ida, I don't know. It's all a snarl to me. Sometimes I think the world goes on the toss-up-a-penny plan, and again it seems almost as if Old Nick himself was behind the scenes.

"Dear Brother Ik, don't talk to me that way. If I do lose ALL my faith now, I don't know what will happen."

"Forgive me, Ida, I will try to do better by you though I fear I shall prove one of Job's comforters. We'll stop in the village, get some supper there, and, thus you won't have to face anybody to-night, and by to-morrow you will be your own brave self."

"Oh," moaned Ida, "I am almost as sorry for father's sake as for my own. How can I keep him up when I am sinking myself?"

Mr. Mayhew stood on the piazza, waiting for Ida and wondering why she did not come, as Van Berg mounted the steps. The majority of the people had gone in to supper, but Miss Burton, who was a little late, recognized him from the hallway, and she came swiftly out to greet him. Her very cordiality was another stab, and he exerted the whole power of his manhood to meet her in like spirit.

"I did not know I should miss you so much," she said, her eyes growing a little moist from her strong feeling. "I suppose we never value our friends as we ought till taught their worth to us by absence. But if you have been successful in your work I shall be well content."

"Yes, Miss Jennie," he replied, "I think I have been successful. The picture is far from being complete, but I've been able to obtain a much better likeness of Mr. Eltinge than I even hoped to catch."

"Mr. Van Berg, you have been working too hard. You look exceedingly weary. What possessed you to walk all these miles? Leave us women to do the unreasonable things, and least of all are they becoming in you; come at once and get a good supper."

He could not disguise the pain and humiliation that her words caused him, and said hurriedly, "I will join you in a few moments," and then hastened to his room.

Mr. Mayhew, with the delicacy of a gentleman, had withdrawn out of earshot as they conversed, but the warmth of Miss Burton's greeting had suggested a thought that was exceedingly disquieting. As if from a sudden impulse he went directly to the supper table, and his quiet courtesy masked the closest observation.

Van Berg stood in his room a moment and fairly trembled with shame and rage at himself. Then, with a bitter imprecation, he made the brief toilet the dust of his walk required, and his face was so stern and white one might think he was about to face an executioner instead of Jennie Burton's blue eyes beaming with friendship at least. The thought of discovering anything warmer in their expression sent a mortal chill to her former wooer's heart. He expected to meet Ida at the table, and the ordeal of meeting the woman to whom he was pledged in the presence of the woman he loved was like the ancient Trial by Fire.

"Curse it all," he muttered, "they both can read one's thoughts as if they were printed on sign-boards. I was scarcely conscious of what my ardent friendship for Miss Mayhew meant before she looked me in the face and saw the whole truth, and she almost the same as charged me with winning Jennie Burton's heart then throwing it away, while in the same breath she hinted that I need not attempt any such folly and meanness in her case. If ever a man's pride and self-respect received a mortal wound mine has to-day. And now I feel with instinctive certainty, that Miss Burton will see the truth just as clearly, and then my burden for life will be the contempt of the two women whom I honor as I do my mother's name. Well, there is no help for it now, my ship is on the rocks already."

He was greatly relieved to find that Ida was not at the table, but, in spite of his best efforts, Miss Burton soon saw that something was amiss, and that it was difficult for him to sustain his part of the conversation. With her graceful tact, however, she was blind to all she imagined he would not have her notice, and tried to enliven both Mr. Mayhew and himself with her cheery talk--a vain effort in each instance now.

"How slight and spirit-like she is becoming!" groaned Van Berg, inwardly. "Great God! if I have wronged her, how awful will be my punishment!"

"She loves him," was Mr. Mayhew's conclusion, "and from his manner I fear he has given her reason. At any rate, for some cause, he is in great perplexity and trouble."

After supper Van Berg stood near the main stairway, still conversing with Miss Burton, when a light, quick step caused him to look up and he saw Ida who had entered by a side door. He knew she must have seen him and Miss Burton also, but she passed him with veiled and downcast face, and went swiftly up the stairway to her room. It seemed to him a cut direct. "she and Stanton have been comparing notes," he said to himself, and he crimsoned at the thought of what he must now appear to her. Miss Burton had been standing with her back towards the stairway and had not seen Ida at first, but Van Berg's hot flush caused her to glance around and see the cause, and then she understood his manner better. But it was her creed that people manage such things best without interference, even from the kindliest motives, and she therefore made no allusion to Miss Mayhew that evening.

"Miss Jennie," said Van Berg, yielding to what he now felt had become a necessity, "I may seem more of a heathen to you to-morrow than ever. There is a distant mountain and lake that I wish to visit before I return to town, and I shall start early to-morrow. So if I do not come back very early you need not think that the earth has swallowed me up or that I have fallen a prey to wild beasts. Good night," and he pressed her hand warmly.

She looked at him wistfully and seemed about to speak, for she was vaguely conscious of his deep trouble. She checked the impulse, however, and parted from him with a kindly smile that suggested sympathy rather than reproach.

Stanton called Mr. Mayhew aside and the two gentleman spoke very frankly together.

"Ida seems even more concerned about you than herself," said Stanton in conclusion, "and it would kill her, as she now feels, if you should give way to your old weakness again. She fears that she won't be able to sustain and cheer you as she intended, but I told her that we would both stand by her and see her through her trouble."

"I understand you, Ik," said Mr. Mayhew, quietly. "From my heart I thank you for your kindness to Ida. But you don't understand me. I had a deeper thirst than that for brandy, and when my child gave me her love, my real thirst was quenched, and the other is gone."

"That's noble; we'll pull through yet!" Stanton resumed, heartily. "Ida and I got our supper at a village inn--at least, we went through the motions--for I was bound no one should have a chance to stare at her to-night."

"No matter," said her father, decisively. "I have had prepared as nice a supper as Mr. Burleigh could furnish, and I shall take it to her room. She shall see that she is not forgotten."

Ida tried to eat a little to please him, but she soon came and sat beside him on her sofa, saying, as she buried her face against his shoulder, "Father, I shall have to lean very hard on you now."

"I won't fail you, Ida," was the gentle and simple reply, but they understood each other without further words. With unspoken sympathy and tenderness he tried to fill the place her mother could not, for if Mrs. Mayhew had gained any knowledge of Ida's feelings, she would have had a great deal to say on the subject with the best and kindest intentions. With heavy touch she would try to examine and heal the wound twenty times a day.

Mr. Mayhew was right when he said the Van Bergs were a proud race, and this trait had found its culmination, perhaps, in the hero of this tale. He was justly proud of his old and unstained name; he was proud of those who bore it with him, and he honored his father and mother, not in obedience to a command, but because every one honored them; and if his sister was a little cold and stately, she embodied his ideas of refinement and cultivation; he was proud of his social position, of his talent--for he knew he had that much, at least--and of the recognition he had already won in the republic of art. But chief of all had he been proud of his unstained manhood, of the honor, which he believed had been kept unsullied until this miserable day. But now, as he strode away in the moonlight, he found himself confronting certain facts which he felt he could never explain to any one's satisfaction, not even his own. He had openly professed to love a poor and orphaned girl, and had pledged himself to win her if he could--to be her friend till he could become far more. Even granting that she still looked on him merely as a friend, that did not release him. It was while possessing the distinct knowledge that she cherished no warmer feeling that he had made the pledge, and though she might not be able or willing to-day or to-morrow, or for years to come, to give up a past love for his sake, his promise required that he should patiently woo and wait till she could bury the past with her old lover, and receive, at his hands, the future that he was in honor bound to keep within her reach. Of course, if, after the lapse of years, she assured him she could not and would not accept of his hand in marriage, he would be free, but he had scarcely waited weeks before giving his love to another. For aught he knew, the hope of happier days, which he had urged upon her, might be already stealing into her heart.

It gave him but little comfort now to recognize the fact that he had never loved Jennie Burton--that he had never known what the word meant until swept away by the irresistible tide of a passion, the power of which already appalled him. To say that he did not feel like keeping his promise now, or that his feelings had changed, he knew would be regarded as an excuse beneath contempt, and a week since he himself would have pronounced the most merciless judgment against a man in his present position.

Before the vigil of that night was over, he decided that he could not meet either Ida Mayhew or Jennie Burton again. He believed that Ida Mayhew understood him only too well now, and that she thoroughly despised him. Indeed, from her manner of passing him, he doubted whether she willingly would speak to him again, for her veil had prevented him from seeing the pallor and traces of grief which she was so anxious to hide. In his morbidly sensitive state, it seemed a deliberate but just withdrawal of even her acquaintance. He felt that the brief dream of Ida Mayhew was over forever, and that she would indeed keep the priceless kingdom of her heart from him above all others. He believed that now, after her conversation with Stanton, she clearly saw that the absurdly ardent friendship he had urged upon her was only the incipient stage of a new passion in a fickle wretch who had dared to trifle with a girl like Jennie Burton--a maiden that, of all others in the world, a man of honor would shield.

As for Miss Burton herself, now that he realized his situation, he felt that he could never look her in the face again. To try to resume his old relations seemed to be impossible. He never had and never could say to her a word that he knew was insincere. Besides, he was sure that such an effort would be futile, for she would detect his hollowness at once, and he feared a glance of scorn from her blue eyes more than the lightning of heaven. He resolved to leave the Lake House on Monday, and from New York write to Miss Burton the unvarnished truth, assuring her that he knew himself to be unworthy even to speak to her again. Then, as soon as he could complete his preparations, he would go abroad and give himself wholly to his art.

Having come to these conclusions, he stole by a side entrance like a guilty shadow to his room and tried to obtain such rest as is possible to those who are in the hell of mental torment. After an early breakfast the following morning, he started for the mountains, and no wild beast that ever roamed them would have torn him more pitilessly than did his own outraged sense of honor and manhood. He returned late in the evening, weary and faint, and with the furtiveness of an outlaw, again reached his room without meeting those whom he so wished to avoid. After the heavy, unrefreshing sleep of utter exhaustion he once more left the house early, with his sketch-book in hand to disguise his purpose, for it was his intention to visit the old garden before he finally left the scenes to which he had been led by following a mere freak of fancy. He learned from one of Mr. Eltinge's workman that the old gentleman would be absent from home the entire day, and thus feeling secure from interruption, he entered the quite, shady place in which had begun the symphony which was now ending in such harsh discord. Seeing that he was alone he threw himself into the rustic seat, and burying his face in his hands, soon became unconscious of the lapse of time in his painful revery. _

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