Chapter XI: The Bird and the Serpent

It may be the fashion to rave over the White Mountains, and that stupendous pass in the Alleghenies through which the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad runs like a skeleton’s highway along the face of precipices a thousand feet from the depths. If you wish the very breath stolen from your lips with admiration and awe, take a tour east or west, and the most enthusiastic taste for sublimity will be satisfied. But if you have a fancy for pretty rural bits of scenery—hills instead of mountains, mossy ledges instead of precipices, shady nooks and villages that remind you of a quiet corner in paradise—seek for them along the banks of the Housatonic and the Naugatuck, which unite a few miles from the sound that engulfs them both, and formed a boundary for the original Woodbury district before it was cut up into a dozen beautiful towns.

A little back from the Housatonic lay the village in which Clara Anderson made her home.

This village lies in the heart of a luxuriant valley, hedged in and almost overshadowed by a range of rocky and broken hills, piled up against the eastern and western horizon. These boundaries, cut up as they were into rocks, ravines and forest trees, seemed but a counterpart each of the other, as if one beautiful mountain had been cleft in twain and forced just far enough apart to admit sloping hill-sides, broad meadow flats, and a sweeping highway, cut up by cross-roads near the centre of the valley, where a cluster of dwellings, a store or two, with a red school-house, and a white church, with its tapering spire in the centre, gave glimpses of worldly life.

At one end of the valley a small river came gliding drowsily round the shoulder of the eastern hill and ran up to the village. There it took a graceful curve, embracing a maple grove, some three hundred acres of wheat land, several apple orchards and a half dozen green meadows, all of which lay a mass of thrifty verdure in the bend of the beautiful stream which ran slowly as if made slumbrous by their tranquil beauty. After this it swept gently round, retraced its course by the base of the western hill and glided off through the mouth of the valley into the Housatonic, having visited the village as it were in a fit of caprice, only to refresh and beautify a spot so quiet and lovely.

At the opening of the valley, just where the stream began to course around the hill, a stage road crossed it by a wooden bridge. Nothing could be more delightful than a view from this arched bridge. The river rolled silently on, half in shadow and sparkling like wavelets of silver when the sunshine fell upon its waters. Hedges of wild honeysuckle, sweet brier, boxwood and blackberry bushes, now and then broken by a clump of elms or a line of slender poplars, fringed its banks.

Close by the end of the bridge, a line of magnificent willows bent over the bank, where the waters caught their fragile branches and rippled playfully among their delicate leaves. Just below, the stream widened and fell in a beautiful sheet over a ledge of sunken rocks and went sparkling onward toward these superb old elms that stood on the borders of the village. On either hand rose the majestic hills, swelling into verdant pastures, and crowned with noble forest trees towering grandly upwards beyond the soft blue sky, which at twilight turned to a golden sunset burning among the leaves and the uneven knolls.

In pretty nooks, where the hills swelled boldly out, red and white farm-houses were scattered far up the valley, and on a gentle eminence just beyond the church a congregation of marble slabs gleamed mournfully amidst the long grass which grew rank and green in the shadows flung by a grove of gloomy yew trees and weeping willows.

Of course a lovely spot like this held forth attractions that would have induced any man of artistic genius, either with the pen or pencil, to revisit it again and again, for it was full of poetic suggestions. This Waldon gave as an excuse for his second visit, which crowded so closely on the first, that even he felt some apology necessary to the young girl, who felt her heart leap and her cheeks burn, when she looked out from the window and saw him dismounting at the gate.

“Will you let me in?” he said, drawing close to the window where she sat, gazing with smiles upon her blushes, as an epicure drinks in the tints of old wine with his eyes, before he touches the glass to his lips. “Your valley is so beautiful that it has haunted me ever since I was here. I shall find it difficult to turn my horse any other way. He knew the house—or perhaps knew his master’s wishes—and stopped of his own accord.”

“He knew perhaps how welcome the master must be anywhere,” answered Clara, in bright confusion, making an attempt to hide the book in her lap with the garment she was making.

He saw the attempt, and a flash of proud satisfaction kindled his face.

“May I gather some of your roses?” he said, turning his eyes away.

“A hundred, if you wish,” answered Clara, leaning out to help him gather the roses.

He only took one, however, and held it to his lips, inhaling the perfume with the enjoyment of a man who was forever crowding the intellectual and sensuous into close companionship.

“But I am keeping you out of doors,” said Clara, hastening into the entry and meeting him on the threshold, radiant with the glad surprise of his coming. As he entered the sitting-room that had seemed so meagrely furnished and bare of ornament on his first visit, the change struck him with pleasant surprise. Jars and glasses, crowded full of wild honeysuckles, white dogwood flowers and purple lilacs, stood on the hearth and the high mantle-piece, and filling the room with delicious fragrance. The brasses on the towering “chest of drawers” were bright as gold, and Clara’s little store of books lay, in premeditated confusion, on the old-fashioned candle-stand. There also a small writing-desk, the gift of Mary Noel, lay ready for use, its lining of crimson-velvet glowing out richly among the well-worn books.

Waldon took in all this at a glance, and with it the centre figure of the picture, Clara herself. Had she expected him? hoped for his coming? Was that pure dress of some opaque white, and that azure ribbon, threading the rich waves of her hair like the snood of a Scottish maiden, put on for him? How did she know that such tasteful simplicity was sore to win his admiration?

A great splint-bottomed chair, rude in its simplicity, but easy as an old glove, stood near the window. To this Clara invited her guest with a look. He quietly dropped into it and moved a little that he might feel the soft current of air that swept perfume in and out of the room; then Clara fluttered down to her own seat like a graceful white dove, as he thought, and pushed her work aside.

“No, no. If you let me interrupt you I shall never dare to come again,” said Waldon, reaching out his hand for the book she had unconsciously exposed. “Go on with your needle-work, and I will read to you, but not from this, if you have anything better at hand.”

“Anything better!” repeated the girl, lifting her kindling eyes to his. “How can you say that?”

“You really are pleased with my poor verses, then?” answered Waldon, opening the book. “Oh, I see that some one else has been good enough to give them a little consideration, ‘BERTHA TO CLARA.’ Pray tell me who this fair Bertha is.”

“It’s one of the best and loveliest friends I ever had. She was a school-mate of mine once, and we used to read the book together. It seemed beautiful then, but I never knew how more than beautiful it is till now.”

Waldon’s face glowed. He opened the book at random, and read a few lines to himself.

“You almost make me in love with my own work,” he said. “Let us see how it reads.”

Clara took up her work and listened, with a happy smile growing brighter and brighter on her lips.

Waldon read splendidly. His voice was deep and rich, full of pathos, and sometimes clarion-toned, when a grand idea inspired it. Clara was entranced; she forgot her work and sat minutes together with the needle in her fingers, motionless as marble, if marble could ever be warmed with the exquisite rosiness of life.

Now and then Waldon looked away from the volume in his hand, reading the delight that shone in her eyes with craving vanity, that seemed to her a noble thirst for appreciation.

Thus, hour after hour went by, so full of dangerous fascination, that the girl had better have been asleep under a upas tree, than sitting there with her bent head, drinking in the subtle poison of that man’s brain and voice. She scarcely knew when he cast aside the book and began to talk, but when the door opened and Lydia cast a battery of oblique glances into the room, it seemed as if a harp had been jarred when all its strings were whispering music.

“Ben wants to know if this gentleman wants his horse put out,” said Lydia.

Clara turned her scarlet face upon the girl in swift anger, but Waldon arose smiling, and took his hat from the table.

“You have made me forget time and everything else,” he said, taking her hand.

“The valley is yet to be explored. Is it impossible that you will some day ride with me to its finest points? I have seen you on horseback, remember.”

“Seen me? that is hardly probable.”

“I was sitting in the Stone Tavern, when you and Fletcher rode by on the day of the flood. To-morrow, perhaps, or the next day about sunset, we will take our first ride. Till then I shall be content to dream.”

Clara shook her head. She knew how swiftly the arrows of village scandal would follow the great joy he proposed.

“You refuse,” said Waldon, “but that does not forbid me to explore the scenery on my own account.”

Clara answered with a smile.