Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight Part 13

"Well, good morning, Miss Rachael, junior partner; how is the firm business coming on? What must we take up first? You have been with me more than five years and it's always a smile and a pleasant word. You are twenty-five and not married. Some one of your race and faith is very slow finding out what a fine wife you would make. My mother was after me today, saying; 'John, you must get married; you are nearly thirty;' and I said; 'mother, if I do, I guess it will be Mary, or Rachael.' You don't know Mary, and I doubt if I would if I met her; I have not seen her for five years."

"Mr. Cornwall, there's lots of mail to answer and in an hour you are to take depositions in the Asher case."

"Rachael you are too practical. Why don't you let me love you. I am convinced that with just a little encouragement I would propose. It's time we both were married. We have never had a quarrel in all these years. I am worth twenty-five thousand and have a good business. You can have everything you want. Why not, Rachael?"

"That's just why I am practical; to keep my head and my place; I like the work.--Yes, you can hold my hand if you wish and kiss me just once.

But if you ever try it again, I must return to Louisville. Were you of my race and faith, you would not have to ask me twice. I hope when I do marry the man will be much like you; but he must be a Jew. We are a scattered people, without flag or country; yet a proud nation, seeking no alliances with other people. Your religion, founded on my faith, holds mine in both reverence and abhorrence. We have different sacred and fast days. I must eat other foods. We follow different customs in rearing our children. If I should marry you I must become a stranger to my own people and will be despised by yours. I will bring neither riches nor position and, like Ruth of old, must turn my back upon my own people. Thy people are not my people. For this time I will call you John, and again say it cannot be. I am crying; Oh! please! please let's work!"

CHAPTER X.

MARY AND JOHN ARE MARRIED.

About two weeks after Caleb Saylor and Rosamond were married, John Cornwall left Harlan on a business trip for Boston and Pittsburgh. As he had never gone east over the C. & O., he concluded to travel that route, boarding the train at Winchester.

His intention was to travel direct to Boston, where he was to make settlement with the executors of the estate of Giusto Poggi, who had died some months before, a resident of that city. He had left $20,000.00 to Cornwall's client, Luigi Poggi, a miner living on Straight Creek near the old Saylor home.

After this settlement was made it was his intention to return home by way of Pittsburgh, stopping there to attend a stockholders' meeting of the Pittsburgh Coal & c.o.ke Company, of which corporation he had been a director for more than three years.

As he took his seat in number 9 he saw that quite an attractive-looking young woman occupied the opposite section. Her face seemed quite familiar, in that she might have sat for the photograph which occupied so conspicuous a place on his bedroom dresser. He watched her, hoping that she might glance up from the book which claimed her whole attention.

On the front seat of her section, from beneath a summer wrap thrown over the back, the end of a small leather handbag protruded and on it he read; "M. E. S. Wellesley, Ma.s.s."

He felt a thrill of surprise and pleasure. Taking a second and very careful look at the lady, he was convinced that he had found the original of the photograph and discovered the ident.i.ty of the attractive stranger, though it was more than twelve years since he had last seen her.

How Mary had changed! Her beauty was none the less than when he had first seen her, a rosy-cheeked mountain girl, who looked at every strange thing in wide-eyed, timid wonder; who blushed when she was spoken to; and finally, when her timidity wore away, talked with him in her crude mountain idioms and localisms. He felt sure that when this cultured creature, who radiated poise and refinement, should feel inclined to speak after a most formal introduction, her voice would be soft and low, her words precise and her accent give certain ident.i.ty of Bostonian culture and residence.

So the mountain lawyer, too snubbed by even this thought to rise and speak, sat in confusion across the aisle and made timid inventory of the charm and grace of his traveling companion.

She looked up from her book at a screw head in the panel about two feet above John's head, with a fixed thoughtful glance that saw nothing else; and John blushed. Her dreamy brown eyes spoke of a shackled or slumbering soul, voluntarily enduring the isolation of cultured spinsterhood, in search for the higher life. He felt the cold, bony hand of death reach out and crush his dream of love. After another hour of observation, the sun came through the window and shed its bright warm rays upon her hair and he revived a bit when he discovered there the warmth and color and glow of the southland. She put down her book and walked down the aisle; then he saw that her figure, though tall and slender, possessed a freedom of movement, healthy vigor and curves that told of a clean and vigorous life from early girlhood. When she returned to her seat he studied her face with care and knew it as the one he had seen in his dreams for years and each time had yearned to kiss.

At one of the stops a knight of the road, whose business was selling women's ready-to-wear garments, came into the car and walked down the aisle past several vacant sections to number 10, where, pausing, he said complacently;

"Miss, may I occupy the forward seat of your compartment, until the conductor a.s.signs me one?"

"Certainly, the s.p.a.ce is unoccupied."

"You probably find it tiresome traveling alone?"

"I usually find it more comfortable without company."

"Are you traveling far?"

This question the lady seemed not to hear, but rang the bell for the porter.

"Porter, please tell the conductor I wish to speak to him."

"Conductor, this gentleman has expressed a wish to be a.s.signed a seat; he probably desires one in another section."

"There's plenty of room; I told him as he came in to occupy number 4.

'Porter, put this gentleman's baggage in number 4.' This is number 10; yours is the third section forward."

Another half hour pa.s.sed. John opening his handbag, took out some papers; then, reversing the end, moved it so the bag protruded slightly from under the arm-rest into the aisle. He took the forward seat and read a while; then, resting his head against the window frame, pretended to sleep.

The young lady finished her book. She looked out her window until the view was blotted out by the nearness of the hillside; then indolently turned and glanced out the opposite window at the swiftly running little river and a narrow valley hemmed about by timbered hills. Then her glance rested for a moment on the protruding handbag, and she read; "John Cornwall, Harlan, Ky."

There was an exclamation of surprise; a slight blush of antic.i.p.ation; a look of joy; and she glanced up into the face of the sleeper, whose dreams were evidently pleasant as he slightly smiled. She saw a man past thirty, of strong and thoughtful face, whose hair was slightly thinning over the temples. The dozen years since she last had seen him added much to an expressive face; his shoulders had broadened and he weighed perhaps a pound or more for each year;--but it was the same John, her John,--and she sat and looked into his face and two tears stole down her cheeks. He stirred, and she turned her face towards her window.

The twilight shadows deepened into night. A waiter came through calling; "Last call for supper." She arose and walking down the aisle towards the diner, heard her neighbor move and come following after. When she reached the vestibule she dropped her handkerchief and as she stooped, he picked it up. Then the little comedy of surprise and recognition was acted;--"Oh, John!" "Oh, Mary!"

As they pa.s.sed into the diner a wise old waiter, who knew he made no mistake when he spoke of a handsome woman to a man as his wife, though she might not be, said; "Will this table suit your wife, Sar?" Then John found that Mary could blush like the mountain girl of old.

They ate slowly, talking of the many things that had happened since last they parted on Straight Creek at the foot of the Salt Trace trail, and until the waiter told them; "Boss, this car is drapped at the next station and they's blowin' fer her now." Then John paid the check and gave him a dollar. As the waiter closed the door after them he said to another; "There goes a sure nuff Southern gentleman."

They took seats in Mary's section and continued their talk several hours; about the marriage of Caleb and Rosamond; Mary's school days; her trip abroad and her experiences of five years as a teacher; and John of his business, of his mother, of Bradford and Dorothy and Rosamond; he even told how near he came to proposing to Rosamond.

"That explains why you were not invited to the wedding. I quarreled with Caleb and Rosamond when I learned you had not been. Caleb said he supposed you were; while Rosamond made the excuse that she intended to but overlooked you in the rush. She calls her husband John Calhoun and Caleb has promised to change the sign on his office door and to order new business stationery, which is to be embossed with the name, John Calhoun Saylor."

The conductor pa.s.sing through the car glanced at them several times as did the drummer who occupied the seat forward. They met in the smoking compartment and the drummer handed the conductor a cigar.

"Well, Mr. Drummer, she seems to like the other fellow; at least she hasn't sent for me. He must have nerve to tackle her after he saw her squelch you. But you can never tell what a woman is going to do."

"If you had kept off a bit I would be sitting right there now instead of that young fellow. They seem to chatter away like old friends."

The next morning John and Mary ate breakfast together in Washington and that afternoon journeyed on to New York. When they went into the diner for supper and the waiter referred to Mary as John's wife, she did not blush, but touched his arm and looked at him with a smile of confidence and love. As he returned the glance a close observer would have said; "They are newly married."

The next morning Mrs. Cornwall received a telegram: "Have followed your advice. Married Mary last night. Her picture is on my dresser. You can wire us at The McAlpin. John."

Mary and John also telegraphed her mother announcing the marriage and stating that they would stop over ten days on their way home to Harlan.

John accompanied Mary to Wellesley, where she finally succeeded in explaining why it was necessary that she should be permitted to resign as teacher of mathematics.

The girls at first sight of John were quite hysterical, exclaiming: "What a handsome man Miss Saylor's brother is!" When they learned his ident.i.ty and that he came to take her away, he was condemned as a horrid old baldheaded man. This opinion was mildly modified at the farewell dinner the school gave to Miss Saylor, where John at his best gave the young ladies an informal talk on,--"School Days, School Teachers and Matrimony." More than half of the girls were so impressed by the sense and sentiment of his talk that for a day or two they thought seriously of becoming teachers and waiting until they were thirty, when they would marry a nice-looking and prosperous young lawyer like Miss Saylor's John.

John rushed through his business engagement in Boston; then they went down to Atlantic City for several days.

He had written Bradford and Mr. Rogers telling of his marriage. They had each telegraphed congratulations and insisted that John wire the time of their arrival in Pittsburgh. This he did.

They were met at the station by Bradford and Dorothy and Mr. Rogers and his wife. Both families insisted that they should be their guests while in the city. A compromise was effected by going home with Bradford and Dorothy and accepting an invitation to be the guests of honor Thursday evening at the Rogers home, where they were to remain for the night after a reception and dinner, leaving the next day for Kentucky over the Pennsylvania.