THE SERPENT
Rose Wiley had the brightest eyes in Edgewood. It was impossible to lookat her without realizing that her physical sight was perfect. Whatmysterious species of blindness is it that descends, now and then, uponhuman creatures, and renders them incapable of judgment ordiscrimination?
Claude Merrill was a glove salesman in a Boston fancy-goods store. Thecalling itself is undoubtedly respectable, and it is quite conceivablethat a man can sell gloves and still be a man; but Claude Merrill was amanikin. He inhabited a very narrow space behind a very short counter,but to him it seemed the earth and the fullness thereof.
When, irreproachably neat and even exquisite in dress, he gave aNapoleonic glance at his array of glove-boxes to see if the femaleassistant had put them in proper order for the day; when, with thatwonderful eye for detail that had wafted him to his present height ofpower, he pounced upon the powder-sprinklers and found them, as heexpected, empty; when, with masterly judgment, he had made up andticketed a basket of misfits and odd sizes to attract the eyes of womenwho were their human counterparts, he felt himself bursting with thepride and pomp of circumstance. His cambric handkerchief adjusted in hiscoat with the monogram corner well displayed, a last touch to thecarefully trained lock on his forehead, and he was ready for hiscustomers.
"Six, did you say, miss? I should have thought five and threequarters--Attend to that gentleman, Miss Dix, please; I am very busy.
"Six-and-a-half gray suede? Here they are, an exquisite shade. Shall Itry them on? The right hand, if you will. Perhaps you'd better removeyour elegant ring; I shouldn't like to have anything catch in thesetting."
"Miss Dix! Six-and-a-half black glace--upper shelf, third box--for thislady. She's in a hurry. We shall see you often after this, I hope,madam."
"No; we don't keep silk or lisle gloves. We have no call for them; ourcustomers prefer kid."
Oh, but he was in his element, was Claude Merrill; though the glamourthat surrounded him in the minds of the Edgewood girls did not emanatewholly from his finicky little person: something of it was the glamourthat belonged to Boston,--remote, fashionable, gay, rich, almostinaccessible Boston, which none could see without the expenditure offive or six dollars in railway fare, with the added extravagance of anight in a hotel, if one would explore it thoroughly and come homepossessed of all its illimitable treasures of wisdom and experience.
When Claude came to Edgewood for a Sunday, or to spend a vacation withhis aunt, he brought with him something of the magic of a metropolis.Suddenly, to Rose's eye, Stephen looked larger and clumsier, his shoeswere not the proper sort, his clothes were ordinary, his neckties wereyears behind the fashion. Stephen's dancing, compared with Claude's, wasas the deliberate motion of an ox to the hopping of a neat little robin.When Claude took a girl's hand in the "grand right-and-left," it was asif he were about to try on a delicate glove; the manner in which he"held his lady" in the polka or schottische made her seem a queen. MiteShapley was so affected by it that when Rufus attempted to encircle herfor the mazurka she exclaimed, "Don't act as if you were spearing logs,Rufus!"
Of the two men, Stephen had more to say, but Claude said more. He wasthought brilliant in conversation; but what wonder, when one consideredhis advantages and his dazzling experiences! He had customers who wereworth their thousands; ladies whose fingers never touched dish-water;ladies who wouldn't buy a glove of anybody else if they went bare-handedto the grave. He lived with his sister Maude Arthurlena in a house wherethere were twenty-two other boarders who could be seated at meals all atthe same time, so immense was the dining-room. He ate his dinner at arestaurant daily, and expended twenty-five cents for it withoutblenching. He went to the theatre once a week, and was often accompaniedby "lady friends" who were "elegant dressers."
In a moment of wrath Stephen had called him a "counter-jumper," but itwas a libel. So short and rough a means of exit from his place of powerwas wholly beneath Claude's dignity. It was with a "Pardon me, MissDix," that, the noon hour having arrived, he squeezed by that slave andvictim, and raising the hinged board that separated his kingdom fromthat of the ribbon department, passed out of the store, hat in hand,serene in the consciousness that though other clerks might nibbleluncheon from a brown paper bag, he would speedily be indulging in anexpensive repast; and Miss Dix knew it, and it was a part of his almostinvincible attraction for her.
It seemed flying in the face of Providence to decline the attentions ofsuch a gorgeous butterfly of fashion simply because one was engaged tomarry another man at some distant day.
All Edgewood femininity united in saying that there never was such aperfect gentleman as Claude Merrill; and during the time when hispopularity was at its height Rose lost sight of the fact that Stephencould have furnished the stuff for a dozen Claudes and have had enoughleft for an ordinary man besides.
April gave place to May, and a veil hung between the lovers,--anintangible, gossamer-like thing, not to be seen with the naked eye, but,oh! so plainly to be felt. Rose hid herself thankfully behind it, whileStephen had not courage to lift a corner. She had twice been seendriving with Claude Merrill--that Stephen knew; but she had explainedthat there were errands to be done, that her grandfather had taken thehorse, and that Mr. Merrill's escort had been both opportune andconvenient for these practical reasons. Claude was everywhere present,the centre of attraction, the observed of all observers. He wasirresistible, contagious, almost epidemic. Rose was now gay, now silent;now affectionate, now distant, now coquettish; in fine, everything thatwas capricious, mysterious, agitating, incomprehensible.
One morning Alcestis Crambry went to the post-office for Stephen andbrought him back the newspapers and letters. He had hung about the RiverFarm so much that Stephen finally gave him bed and food in exchange fornumberless small errands. Rufus was temporarily confined in a dark roomwith some strange pain and trouble in his eyes, and Alcestis proved ofuse in many ways. He had always been Rose's slave, and had often broughtmessages and notes from the Brier Neighborhood, so that when Stephen sawa folded note among the papers his heart gave a throb of anticipation.
The note was brief, and when he had glanced through it he said: "This isnot mine, Alcestis; it belongs to Miss Rose. Go straight back and giveit to her as you were told; and another time keep your wits about you,or I'll send you back to Killick."
Alcestis Crambry's ideas on all subjects were extremely vague. ClaudeMerrill had given him a letter for Rose, but his notion was thatanything that belonged to her belonged to Stephen, and the Watermanplace was much nearer than the Wileys', particularly at dinner-time!
When the boy had slouched away, Stephen sat under the apple tree, now amass of roseate bloom, and buried his face in his hands.
It was not precisely a love-letter that he had read, nevertheless itblackened the light of the sun for him. Claude asked Rose to meet himanywhere on the road to the station and to take a little walk, as he wasleaving that afternoon and could not bear to say good-by to her in thepresence of her grandmother. "Under the circumstances," he wrote, deeplyunderlining the words, "I cannot remain a moment longer in Edgewood,where I have been so happy and so miserable!" He did not refer to thefact that the time limit on his return-ticket expired that day, for hisdramatic instinct told him that such sordid matters have no place inheroics.
Stephen sat motionless under the tree for an hour, deciding on some planof action.
He had work at the little house, but he did not dare go there lest heshould see the face of dead Love looking from the windows of the pinkbedroom; dead Love, cold, sad, merciless. His cheeks burned as hethought of the marriage license and the gold ring hidden away upstairsin the drawer of his shaving stand. What a romantic fool he had been, tothink he could hasten the glad day by a single moment! What a piece ofboyish folly it had been, and how it shamed him in his own eyes!
When train time drew near he took his boat and paddled down stream. Iffor the Finland lover's reindeer there was but one path in all theworld, and that the one that led t
o Her, so it was for Stephen's canoe,which, had it been set free on the river by day or by night, might havefloated straight to Rose.
He landed at the usual place, a bit of sandy shore near the Wiley house,and walked drearily up the bank through the woods. Under the shade ofthe pines the white stars of the hepatica glistened and the paleanemones were coming into bloom. Partridge-berries glowed red undertheir glossy leaves, and clumps of violets sweetened the air. Squirrelschattered, woodpeckers tapped, thrushes sang; but Stephen was blind anddeaf to all the sweet harbingers of spring.
Just then he heard voices, realizing with a throb of delight that, atany rate, Rose had not left home to meet Claude, as he had asked her todo. Looking through the branches, he saw the two standing together, Mrs.Brooks's horse; with the offensive trunk in the back of the wagon, beinghitched to a tree near by. There was nothing in the tableau to stirStephen to fury, but he read between the lines and suffered as heread--suffered and determined to sacrifice himself if he must, so thatRose could have what she wanted, this miserable apology for a man. Hehad never been the husband for Rose; she must take her place in a largercommunity, worthy of her beauty and charm.
Claude was talking and gesticulating ardently. Rose's head was bent andthe tears were rolling down her cheeks. Suddenly Claude raised his hat,and with a passionate gesture of renunciation walked swiftly to thewagon, and looking back once, drove off with the utmost speed of whichthe Brooks's horse was capable,--Rose waving him a farewell with onehand and wiping her eyes with the other.