The Best Man (12 page)

He looked very handsome and attractive as he lay there. The sun shot one of its early daring bolts of light across his hair as the train turned in its course and lurched northward around a curve. It glinted there for a moment, like a miniature searchlight, travelling over the head, showing up every wave and curve. He had the kind of hair which makes a woman’s hand instinctively long to touch it.

Celia wondered at the curious thoughts that crowded through her mind, knowing that all the while there was the consciousness that when this man should wake she would think of nothing but his hateful personality as she had known it through the years. And she was his wife! How strange! How terrible! How impossible to live with the thought through interminable weary years! Oh, that she might die at once before her strength fail and her mother found out her sorrow!

She lay back again on her pillows very still and tried to think, but somehow a pleasant image of him, her husband, lingered in her memory. Could it be possible that she would ever see anything pleasant in him? Ever endure the days of his companionship? Ever come to the point where she could overlook his outrageous conduct toward her, forgive him and be ever tolerant of him? Sharp memories crowded upon her, and the smarting years stung their way into her eyes, answering and echoing in her heart, “No, no, a thousand times, no!” She had paid his price and gained redemption of her own, but – forget what he had done? Never!

The long strain of weariness, and the monotony of the on-rushing train, lulled her into unconsciousness again, and the man on the couch slumbered on.

He came to himself suddenly, with all his senses on the alert, as the thumping noise and the motion of the train ceased, and a sudden silence of open country succeeded, broken now and again by distant oncoming and receding voices. He caught the fragment of a sentence from some train official: “It’s a half-hour late, and may be more. We’ll just have to lie by, that’s all. Here, you, Jim, take this flag and run up to the switch –” The voice trailed into the distance, ended by metallic note of a hammer doing something mysterious to the under-pinning of the car.

Gordon sat up suddenly, his hand yet across his breast, where his first waking thought had been to feel if the little pencil-case were safe.

Glancing stealthily toward the curtains of the berth, and perceiving no motion, he concluded that the girl still slept.

Softly he slipped his feet into his shoes, gave one or two other touches to his toilet, and stood up, looking toward the curtains. He wanted to go out and see where they were stopping, but dared he go without knowing that she was all right?

Softly, reverently, he stopped and brought his face close to the opening of the curtains. Celia felt his eyes upon her. Her own were closed, and by a superhuman effort she controlled her breathing, slowly, gently, as if she were asleep.

He looked for a long moment, thrilled by the delicate beauty of her sleeping face, filled with an intoxicating joy to see that her lips were no longer white; then, turning reverently away, he unlocked the door and stepped forth.

The other occupants of the car were still wrapped in slumber. Loud snores of various kinds and qualities testified to that. A dim light at the further end contended luridly, and losingly, with the daylight now flooding the outside world and creeping mischievously into the transoms.

Gordon closed the door of the compartment noiselessly and went down the aisle to the end of the car.

A door was open, and he could hear voices outside. The conductor stood talking with two brakemen. He heard the words: “Three-quarters of an hour at least,” and then the men walked off toward the engine.

Gordon looked across the country, and for the first time since he started on his journey let himself remember that it was springtime and May.

There had been a bitter wind the night before, with a hint of rain in the air. In fact, it had rained quite smartly during the ride to the hospital with that hurt child, but he had been so perturbed that he had taken little notice of the weather. But this was a radiant morning.

The sun was in one of its most charming moods, when it touches everything with a sort of unnatural glory after the long winter of darkness and cold. Every tree trunk in the distance seemed to stand out clearly, every little grass-blade was set with a glowing jewel, and the winding stream across a narrow valley fairly blazed with brightness. The very road with its deep, clean wheel-groves seemed like a well-taken photograph.

The air had an alluring softness mingled with its tang of winter that made one long to take a walk anywhere out into the world, just for the joy of being and doing. A meadowlark shot up from somewhere to telegraph pole, let go a blithe note, and hurried on. It was glorious. The exhilaration filled Gordon’s blood.

And here was the chance he craved to slip away from the train before it reached a place where he could be discovered. If he had but thought to bring his suit-case! He could slip back now without being noticed and get it! He could even go without it! But – he could not leave her that way – could he? Ought he? Perhaps he ought – But it would not do to leave his suit-case with her, for it contained letters addressed to his real name. An explanation would of course be demanded, and he could never satisfy a loving mother and brother for having left a helpless girl in such a situation – he never could. He simply could not leave her, and yet he must get away from that train as soon as possible. Perhaps this was the only opportunity he would have before reaching Buffalo. It was a foregone conclusion that there would be private detectives ready to meet the train in Buffalo with full descriptions and particulars and only too ready to make way with him if they could do so without being found out. He looked nervously back at the door of the car. Dared he attempt to waken her and say that they had made a mistake and must change cars? Was she well enough? And where could they go?

He looked off toward the landscape for answer to his question.

They were decidedly in the country. The train stood at the top of a high embankment of cinders, below which was a smooth country road running parallel to the railroad for some distance till it met another road at right angles to it, which stretched away between thrifty meadow-lands to a nestling village. The glorified stream he had first noticed far up the valley glinted narrower here in the morning light, with a suggestion of watercress and forget-me-nots in its fringes as it veered away under a bridge toward the village and hid itself in a tangle of willows and cat-tails.

How easy it would be to slide down that embankment, and walk out that road over the bridge to the village, where of course a conveyance of some sort could be hired to bear him to another railroad town and thence to – Pittsburgh, perhaps, where he could easily get a train to Washington. How easy if only he were not held by some invisible hands to care for the sweet sleeper inside the car! And yet, for her sake as well as his own, he must do something, and that right speedily.

He was standing thus in deep meditation, looking off at the little village which seemed so near and yet would be so far for her to walk, when he was pervaded with that strange sense of some one near. For an instant he resisted the desire to lift his eyes and prove to himself that no one was present in a doorway which a moment before he knew had been unoccupied. Then, frowning at his own nervousness, he turned.

She stood there in all the beauty of her fresh young girlhood, a delicate pallor on her cheeks, and a deep sadness in her great dark eyes, which were fixed upon him intently, in a sort of puzzled study. She was fully dressed, even to her hat and gloves. Every wave of her golden hair lay exquisitely in place under the purple hat, as though she might have taken an hour or two at her toilet; yet she made it with excited haste, and with trembling fingers, determined to have it accomplished before the return of her dreaded liege lord.

She had sprung from her berth the instant he closed the door upon her, and fastened the little catch to bar him out. She had dashed cold water into her face, fastened her garments hurriedly, and tossed the glory of her hair into place with a few touches and what hairpins she could find on the floor. Then putting on her hat, coat, gloves, she had followed him into the outer air. She had a feeling that she must have air to breathe or she would suffocate. A wild desire filled her to go alone into the great out-of-doors. Oh, if she but dared to run away from him! But that she might not do, for all his threats would then probably be made good by him upon her dear mother and brother. No, she must be patient and bear to the end all that was set down for her. But she would get out and breathe a little before he returned. He had very likely gone into the smoker. She remembered that the George of old had been an inveterate smoker of cigarettes. She would have time for a taste of the morning while he had his smoke. And if he returned and found her gone what mattered it? The inevitable beginning of conversations which she so dreaded would be put off for a time.

She never thought to come upon him standing thus alone, looking off at the beauty of the morning as if he enjoyed it. The sight of him held her still, watching, as his sleeping face had held her gaze earlier in the morning. How different he was from what she had expected! How the ten years had changed him! One could almost fancy it might have changed his spirit also – but for those letters – those terrible letters! The writer of those letters could not change except for the worse!

And yet, he was handsome, intellectual looking, kindly in his bearing, appreciative of the beauty about him – she could not deny it. It was most astonishing. He had lost that baggy look under his eyes, and the weak, selfish, cruel pout of lip she remembered so keenly.

Then he turned, and a smile of delight and welcome lit up his face. In spite of herself, she could not keep an answering smile from glimmering faintly in her own.

“What! You up and out here?” he said, hastening closer to the step. “How are you feeling this morning? Better, I’m sure, or you would not be here so early.”

“Oh, I had to get out to the air,” she said. “I couldn’t stand the car another minute. I wish we could walk the rest of the way.

“Do you?” he said, with a quick, surprised appreciation in his voice. “I was just wishing something like that myself. Do you see that beautiful straight road down there? I was longing to slide down this bank and walk over to that little village for breakfast. Then we could get an auto, perhaps, or a carriage, to take us to another train. If you hadn’t been so ill last night, I might have proposed it.”

“Could we?” she asked, earnestly. “I should like it so much;” and there was eagerness in her voice. “What a lovely morning!” her eyes were wistful, like the eyes of those who weep and wonder why they may not laugh, since sunshine is still yellow.

“Of course we could,” he said, “if you were only able.”

“Oh, I’m able enough. I should much rather do that than go back into that stuffy car. But wouldn’t they think it awfully queer of us to run away from the train this way?”

“They needn’t know anything about it,” he declared, like a boy about to play truant. “I’ll slip back in the car and get our suit-cases. Is there anything of yours I might be in danger of leaving behind?”

“No, I put everything in my suit-case before I came out,” she said,  listlessly, as though she had already lost her desire to go.

“I’m afraid you are not able,” he said, pausing solicitously as he scaled the steps.

“Why, of course I am,” she said, insistently. “I have often taken longer walks than looks to be, and I shall feel much better for being out. I really feel as if I couldn’t stand it any longer in there.”

“Good! Then, we’ll try it!”

He hurried in the baggage and left her standing on the cinder roadbed beside the train looking off at the opening morning.

It was just at that instant that the thick-set man in his berth not ten feet away became broadly conscious of the unwonted stillness of the train and the cessation of motion that had lulled him to such sound repose. So does a tiny, sharp sound strike upon our senses and bring them into life again from sleep, making us aware of a state of things that has been going on for some time perhaps without our realization. The sound that roused him may have been the click of the stateroom latch as Gordon opened the door.

The shades were down in the man’s berth and the curtains drawn close. The daylight had not as yet penetrated through their thickness. But once awake his senses were immediately on the alert. He yawned, stretched and suddenly arrested another yawn to analyze the utter stillness all about him. A sonorous snore suddenly emphasized the quiet of the car, and made him aware of all the occupants of all those curtained apartments. His mind went over a quick resume of the nights before, and detailed him at once to duty.

Another soft clicking of the latch set him to listening and his bristly shocked head was stuck instantly out between the curtains into the aisle, eyes toward the stateroom door, just in time to see that a man was stealing quietly down the passageway out of the end door, carrying two suit-cases and an umbrella. It was his man. He was sure instantly, and his mind grew frantic with the thought. Almost he had outdone himself through foolish sleep.

He half sprang from his berth, then remembered that he was but partly dressed, and jerked back quickly to grab his clothes, stopping in the operation of putting them on to yank up his window shade with an impatient click and flatten his face against the window-panel.

Yes, there they were down on the ground outside the train, both of them, man, woman, baggage and all slipping away from him while he slept peacefully and let them go! The language of his mind at that point was hot with invectives.

Gordon had made his way back to the girl’s side without meeting any porters or wakeful fellow-passengers. But a distant rumbling greeted his ears. The waited-for-express was coming. If they were to get away, it must be done at once or their flight would be discovered, and perhaps even prevented. It certainly was better not to have it known where they got off. He had taken the precaution to close the state-room door behind him and so it might be some time before their absence would be discovered. Perhaps there would be other stops before the train reached Buffalo, in which case their track would not easily be followed. He had no idea that the evil eye of his pursuer was even then upon him.