The Old Gray Homestead Part 19

Strangely enough, Sylvia and Austin were perhaps less happy at this time than any of the other dwellers at the Homestead. After the first day, the week in New York had been a period of great happiness to both of them, and Austin had proved such an immediate success, both among Sylvia's friends and Uncle Mat's business a.s.sociates, that both were immensely gratified. But after the return to the country, matters seemed to go less and less well. During the year in which they had "loved and longed in secret," each had exalted the other to the position of a martyr and a saint. The intimacy of their engagement was rapidly revealing the fact that, after all, they were merely ordinary human beings, and the discovery was something of a shock to both. Austin had thought over Uncle Mat's advice, and found it good; he was gentle and considerate, and showed himself perfectly willing to submit to Sylvia's wishes in most important decisions, but he refused to be dictated to in little things.

She was so accustomed, by this time, to having her slightest whim not only respected, but admired, by all the adoring Gray family, and most of her world at large besides, that she was apt to behave like a spoiled child when Austin thwarted her. She nearly always had to admit, afterwards, that he had been right, and this did not make it any easier for her. His "incessant obstinacy," as she called it, was rapidly "getting on her nerves," while it seemed to him that they could never meet that she did not have some fresh grievance, or disagree with him radically about something. She wanted him at her side all the time; he had a thousand other interests. She saw no reason why, after they were married, they should live in the country all the year, and every year; he saw no reason why they should do anything else. And so it went with every subject that arose.

If Sylvia had been less idle, she would have had no time to think about "nerves." But the manservant and his wife whom she had installed in the little brick house were well-trained and competent to the last degree, and the menage ran like clock-work without any help from her. She was debarred from riding or driving alone, and the girls at the farm had no time to go with her, and it was still an almost unheard-of thing in that locality for a woman to run a motor. She could not fill an hour a day working in her little garden, and she had no special taste for sewing.

The only thing for her to do seemed to be to sit around and wait for Austin to appear, and Austin was not only very busy, but extremely absorbed in his work. It was impossible for him to come to see her every night, and when he did come, he was so thoroughly and wholesomely tired and sleepy, that his visits were short. On Sundays he had more leisure; but Mr. and Mrs. Gray seemed to take it for granted that Sylvia would still go to church with them in the morning, and spend the rest of the day at their house. She could not bring herself to the point of disappointing them, though she rebelled inwardly; but she complained to Austin, as they were walking back to her house together after a day spent in this manner, that she never saw him alone at all.

"It's not only the family," she said, "but Peter, and Fred, and Mr. and Mrs. Elliott are around all the time, and to-day there were Ruth and Frank and those two fussy babies needing something done for them every single minute besides! It was perfect bedlam. I want you to myself once in a while."

"You can have me to yourself, for good and all, whenever you want me,"

replied Austin.

This was so undeniable a statement that Sylvia changed the subject abruptly.

"There is no earthly need of your working so hard, and you know it."

"But Sylvia, I like to work; and I'm awfully anxious to make a success of things, now that we've got such a wonderful start at last."

"Are you more interested in this stupid old farm than you are in me?"

"Why, Sylvia, it isn't a 'stupid old farm' to me! It's the place my great-grandfather built, and that all the Grays have lived in and loved for four generations! I thought you liked it, too."

"I do, but I'm jealous of it."

"You ought not to be. You know that there's nothing in the world so dear to me as you are."

"Then let me pay for another hired man, so that you'll have more time for yourself--and for me."

"Indeed, I will not. You'll never pay for another thing on this farm if I can help it. No one could be more grateful than I am for all you've done, but the time is over for that."

"Won't you come in?" she asked, as, they reached her garden, and she noticed that he stopped at the gate.

"Not to-night--we've had a good walk together, and you know I have to get up pretty early in the morning. Good-night, dear," and he raised her fingers to his lips.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed them away, lifting her lovely face. "Oh, Austin!" she cried, "how can you be so calm and cold? I think sometimes you're made of stone!

If you must go, don't say good-night like that--act as if you were made of flesh and blood!"

"I'm acting in the only sane way for both of us. If you don't like it, I had better not come at all."

And he went home without giving her even the caress he had originally intended, and slept soundly and well all night; but Sylvia tossed about for hours, and finally, at dawn, cried herself to sleep.

The first serious disagreement, however, came just before Katherine's graduation. Austin, who loved to dance, was looking forward to his clever sister's "ball" with a great deal of pride and pleasure, and was genuinely amazed when Sylvia objected violently to his going, saying that as she could not dance, and as all the rest of the family would be there, Katherine did not need him, and that he had much better stay at home with her.

"But, Sylvia," protested Austin, "I _want_ to go. I'm awfully proud of Katherine, and I wouldn't miss it for anything. Why don't you come, too?

I don't see any reason why you shouldn't."

"Of course you don't. You weren't brought up among people who know what's proper in such matters."

"I know it, Sylvia. But if that's going to trouble you, you should have thought of it sooner. My knowledge of etiquette is very slight, I admit, but my common-sense tells me that announcing one's engagement should be equivalent to stopping all former observances of mourning."

"I didn't want to announce it. It was you that insisted upon that, too."

"Well, you know why," said Austin with some meaning.

"All right, then," burst out Sylvia angrily, "go to your old ball. You seem to think you are an authority on everything. I'm sure I don't want to go, anyway, and dance with a lot of awkward farmers who smell of the cow-stable. I shouldn't think you would care about it either, now that you've had a chance to see things properly done."

"I care a good deal about my sister, Sylvia, and about my friends here, too. There are no better people on the face of the earth--I've heard you say so, yourself! It's only a chance that I'm a little less awkward than some of the others."

The result of this conversation was that Austin did not go near Sylvia for several days. He was deeply hurt, but that was not all. He began to wonder, even more than he ever had before, whether his comparative poverty, his lack of education, his farmer family and traditions and friends, were not very real barriers between himself and a girl like Sylvia. What was more, he questioned whether a strong, pa.s.sionate, determined man, who felt that he knew his own best course and proposed to take it, could ever make such a delicate, self-willed little creature happy, even if there were no other obstacles in their path than those of warring disposition.

Something of his old sullenness of manner returned, and his mother, after worrying in silence over him for a time finally asked him what the trouble was. At first he denied that there was anything, next stubbornly refused to tell her what it was, and at last, like a hurt schoolboy, blurted out his grievance. To his amazement and grief, Mrs. Gray took Sylvia's part. This was the last straw. He jerked himself away from her, and went out, slamming the front door after him. It was evening, and he was tired and hot and dirty. The rest of the family had almost finished supper when he reached the table, an unexpected delay having arisen in the barn, and he had eaten the unappetizing sc.r.a.ps that remained hurriedly, without taking time to shave and bathe and change his clothes.

He had never gone to Sylvia in this manner before; but he strode down the path to her house with a bitter satisfaction in his heart that she was to see him when he was looking and feeling his worst, and that she would have to take him as he was, or not at all. He found her in her garden cutting roses, a picture of dainty elegance in her delicate white fabrics. She greeted him somewhat coolly, as if to punish him for his lack of deference to her on his last visit, and his subsequent neglect, and glanced at his costume with a disapproval which she was at no pains to conceal. Then with a sarcasm and lack of tact which she had never shown before, she gave voice to her general dissatisfaction.

"_Really, Austin_, don't come near me, please; you're altogether too _barny_. Don't you think you're carrying your devotion to the n.o.bility of labor a little too far, and your devotion to me--if you still have any--not quite far enough? You're slipping straight back to your old slovenly, disagreeable ways--without the excuse that you formerly had that they were practically the only ways open to you. If you're too proud to accept my money and the freedom that it can give you, and so stubborn that you make a scene and then won't come near me for days because I refuse to go to a cheap little public dance with you--"

She got no farther. Austin interrupted her with a violence of which she would not have believed him capable.

"_If_! If you're too stubborn to go with me to my sister's _graduation ball_, and too proud to accept the fact that I'm a _farmer_, with a farmer's friends and family and work, and that _I'm d.a.m.ned glad of it_, and won't give them up, or be supported by any woman on the face of the earth, or let her make a pet lap-dog of me, you can go straight back to the life you came from, for all me! You seem to prefer it, after all, and I believe it's all you deserve. If you don't--don't ask my forgiveness for the things you've said the last two times I've seen you, and say _you'll go to that party_ with me, and be just as darned pleasant to every one there as you know how to be--and promise to stop quarrelling, and keep your promise--I'll never come near you again. You're making my life utterly miserable. You won't marry me, and yet you are bound to have me make love to you all the time, when I'm doing my best to keep my hands off you--and I'd rather be shot _than_ marry you, on the terms you're putting up to me at present! You've got two days to think it over in, and if you don't send for me before it's time to start for the ball, and tell me you're sorry, you won't get another chance to send for me again as long as you live. I'm either not worth having at all, or I'm worth treating better than you've seen fit to do lately!"

He left her, without even looking at her again, in a white heat of fury.

But before the hot dawn of another June day had given him an excuse to get up and try to work off his feelings with the most strenuous labor that he could find, he had spent a horrible sleepless night which he was never to forget as long as he lived. His anger gave way first to misery, and then to a panic of fear. Suppose she took him literally--though he had meant every word when he said it--suppose he lost her? What would the rest of his life be worth to him, alone, haunted, not only by his senseless folly in casting away such a precious treasure, but by his ingrat.i.tude, his presumption, and his own unworthiness? A dozen times he started towards her house, only to turn back again. She _hadn't_ been fair. They _couldn't_ be happy that way. If he gave in now, he would have to do it all the rest of his life, and she would despise him for it. As the time which he had stipulated went by, and no message came, he suffered more and more intensely--hoped, savagely, that she was suffering, too, and decided that she could not be, or that he would have heard from her; but resolved, more and more decidedly, with every hour that pa.s.sed, that he would fight this battle out to the bitter end.

It was even later than usual when he came in on the night of the ball, and when he entered, every one in the house was hurrying about in the inevitable confusion which precedes a "great occasion." Edith, the only one who seemed to be ready, was standing in the middle of the living-room, fresh and glowing as a yellow rose in her bright dress, Peter beside her b.u.t.toning her gloves. She glanced at her grimy brother with a feeble interest.

"Mercy, Austin, you'd better hurry! We're going to leave in five minutes."

"Well, _I'm_ not going to leave in five minutes! I've got to get out of these clothes and have a bath and it's hardly necessary to tell me all that--one glance at you is sufficient," said Edith flippantly.

"Well, I can come on later alone, I suppose. Where's mother?"

"Still dressing. Why?"

"Do you happen to know whether--Sylvia's been over here this afternoon--or sent a telephone message or a note?"

"I'm perfectly sure she hasn't. Why?"

"Nothing," said Austin grimly, and left the room.

Like most people who try to dress in a hurry when they are angry, Austin found that everything went wrong. There was no hot water left, and he had to heat some himself for shaving while he took a cold bath; his mother usually got his clothes ready for him when she knew he was detained, but this time she had apparently been too rushed herself. He couldn't find his evening shoes; he couldn't get his studs into his stiff shirt until he had had a struggle that raised his temperature several degrees higher than it was already; the big, jolly teamful departed while he was rummaging through his top drawer for fresh handkerchiefs; and he was vainly trying to adjust his white tie satisfactorily, when a knock at the door informed him that he was not alone in the house after all; he said "come in" crossly, and without turning, and went on with his futile attempts.

"Has every one else gone? I didn't know I was so late--but I've been all through the house downstairs calling, and couldn't get any answer. Let me do that for you--let's take a fresh one--"

He wheeled sharply around, and found Sylvia standing beside him--Sylvia, dressed in sh.e.l.l-pink, shimmering satin and foamy lace, with pearls in her dark hair and golden slippers on her feet, her neck and arms white and bare and gleaming. With a little sound that was half a sob, and half a cry of joy, she flung her arms around his neck and drew his face down to hers.

"Austin--I'm--I'm sorry--I do--beg your forgiveness from the bottom of my heart. I promise--and I'll keep my promise--to be reasonable--and kind--and fair--to stop making you miserable. It's been all my fault that we've quarrelled, every bit--and we never will again. I've come to tell you--not just that I'll go to the party with you, gladly, if you're still willing to take me, but that there's nothing that matters to me in the whole world--except you--"

The first touch of Sylvia's arms set Austin's brain seething; after the hungry misery of the past few days, it acted like wine offered to a starving man, suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed and drunk. Her words, her tears, her utter self-abandonment of voice and manner, annihilated in one instant the restraint in which he had held himself for months. He caught the delicate little creature to him with all his strength, burying his face in the white fragrance of her neck. He forgot everything in the world except that she was in his arms--alone with him--that nothing was to come between them again as long as they lived. He could feel her heart beating against his under the soft lace on her breast, her cool cheeks and mouth growing warm under the kisses that he rained on them until his own lips stung. At first she returned his embrace with an ardor that equalled his own; then, as if conscious that she was being carried away by the might of a power which she could neither measure nor control, she tried to turn her face away and strove to free herself.

"Don't," she panted; "let me go! You--you-hurt me, Austin."

"I can't help it--I shan't let you go! I'm going to kiss you this time until I get ready to stop."