I Walked in Arden Part 15

Satan, although partly refreshed, allowed me to mount with an ill grace; he gave a longing look backward whence we had come, and set forth after Helen's t.i.tania, his head bowed in gloom. Sprinkled along the ridge, whose crest the road followed, were prosperous-looking farms. The villages and small towns clung closely to the railway which ran along the flat shelf between the ridge and the lake. The remarkable straightness and uniformity of the ridge indicated that it had itself at one time been the lakesh.o.r.e in the days when even this great lake had been larger. After the close confinement to Deep Harbor it was glorious to ride in the open country with a road stretching indefinitely before one. I so far forgot my aches and pains as to burst into a popular music-hall song, to which Satan listened attentively through one ear turned backwards towards me. As I finished, Helen said: "I'm sorry I'm not musical, Ted, but I'm quite sure you have one of the worst voices I've ever heard." I was not mortified; my efforts at song always met with a like reception. Only extreme good spirits provoked me to melodious utterance. In general, I was careful to remember this particular limitation. I apologetically explained the reason for my peculiar behaviour. "It was partly the fact that we are rid of the others for a time," I continued. "All things seem to make for good."

"You won't think so when you hear what Miss Hershey says about it."

"Miss Hershey?"

"Yes, the stout old maid on the white horse. She is a sort of professional chaperone for our crowd. The boys always draw lots before we go anywhere to see which one of them will be her escort. It is the loser who has that pleasure. Mother whispered many private instructions to her this morning."

"I shall make love to Miss Hershey at the first opportunity."

"It can't be done," laughed Helen. "It has been tried."

"You called her a professional chaperon--just what do you mean?"

"Just that. She is a social secretary, and all our mothers hire her to get up dances and to look after parties like ours today. She is dreadfully strict, naturally, since her bread and b.u.t.ter depends upon it."

"What an extraordinary business," I exclaimed. Here, indeed, was an inversion, so to speak of woman's oldest profession--a thought which could not be told to a debutante. "I've heard of Spanish duennas," I went on, "but I never knew you could go out into the market place and hire one at so much an hour."

"She's of a very fine old Southern family--"

"All Southern families are fine--and old," I interjected.

"Stop being irreverent to Miss Hershey, Ted. Her family being in reduced circ.u.mstances--"

"According to the regular formula--"

"Shut up, Ted. She came North and offered herself as a social secretary."

"You have made me all curiosity for luncheon."

"I'll give you one word of advice, Ted. You'd better be awfully nice to Miss Hershey or you won't go far in Deep Harbor. She and Mrs. Hemphill hold the power of life and death over all bachelors."

"What sort of things does one do to be nice to her?"

"Oh, talk to her about her family and tell her about your grandfather."

I laughed: "But my grandfather was in the Northern Army; ten to one he stole Miss Hershey's grandfather's spoons while marching through Georgia, or something like that."

"It doesn't matter. He was a colonel. And you're not very respectful to history. We don't laugh at the Civil War."

I acknowledged the rebuke. We rode for a mile or two in silence--a privilege which our friends.h.i.+p had already attained.

"There's the inn," Helen said, pointing down toward the plain on our left. About half a mile away I saw a group of white buildings gathered about the main road. A cross road took us to the front door. In the stable yard we saw the horses of the others already there--among them, Miss Hershey's white animal looming up with horrible distinctness. He looked positively symbolic. When we dismounted we found Miss Hershey awaiting us. The horse had not belied her; like it, she was broad and imposing across the withers. Her black-plumed riding hat suggested one of General Morgan's raiders.

"Helen, where have you been?" she began severely. Her Southern intonation added a doom-like sound to the interrogatory.

"We took the Ridge Road--it was pleasanter," Helen replied with an innocent calm which I envied her.

"At least, I should think that you, Edward, were old enough to have a sense of responsibility."

This sudden s.h.i.+ft of the attack threw me into great confusion. Helen pinched my arm, I didn't know why. Evidently some defence was expected.

"I--I didn't know we had--er--lost you," I murmured, unconvincingly and ungallantly, as I suddenly realized, for it threw the onus upon Helen.

"Edward, you will ride with me going back." And Miss Hershey did something I had always wanted to see: she swept into the inn, I had often read of people sweeping away from a situation and wondered how they did it. I was no longer in any doubt. It really was an effective exit. Helen laughed, most inappropriately, I thought.

"Ted, it's all right. You'll ride with me--if I want you to. And she called you 'Edward' twice. That's an awfully good sign--she's very particular about using Christian names--didn't you feel me pinch your arm when she said 'Edward'?"

The chicken dinner proved to be a wonderful affair. We were each served a whole grilled fowl together with corn on the cob and fried potatoes, followed by waffles and syrup, all on a lavish scale. The part of me which wasn't stiff and sore from riding was intensely hungry; I ate, careless of Satan's feelings. The only blot upon the meal was the fact that Herr Lieutenant von Oberhausen most excitedly explained America to all of us, calling upon me to translate when his sc.r.a.ps of English failed him. He talked himself into several word jams from which it was difficult for my knowledge of German to extricate him. He proved thoroughly to his own satisfaction the standardized Teutonic thesis that America is basely commercial, material, and totally lacking in ideals.

When he got partly through and paused for a breathing s.p.a.ce--speaking German oratorically is one of the most violent forms of physical exercise on earth, particularly destructive of throat tissues--I mildly remarked, in opposition, that I thought Berlin rather careful, to use the Scot's phrase, how a mark was spent, and skilfully inventive in discovering devices to earn those coins, considering that all Germany was composed of unmaterial, abstract idealists. The Herr Lieutenant did not understand the comment and asked for its repet.i.tion. I stripped the statement of its Anglo-Saxon irony and repeated it in bald German, containing one mistaken gender and a faulty termination. The Herr Lieutenant politely announced: "Es ist nicht wahr," and there we let the matter rest.

After dinner he b.u.t.tonholed me on the front porch. My heart sank, for I supposed I was in for another lecture. On the contrary, he was now in an amiable mood and wished to go in for reminiscences on the pleasures of eating in Berlin. He had not had anything one could really call food in America, except at a few German houses. As for the unspeakable American custom of not serving wine, guttural explosions were inadequate to express his feelings. How could one eat so in cold blood? It was on a par with materialism; indeed, a demonstration of it. It was "ungemutlich, unbequem" and a lot of other disturbing epithets. I let him ramble on, for I had learned long ago the futility of argument with his kind. Helen rescued me just as we had reached Kempinski's roast partridge on toast garnished with sauerkraut. It was just as well she did, for I was about to say that only idealists would add sauerkraut to a delicately flavoured game bird.

"We are going up our ravine, Ted," she whispered. The Herr Lieutenant was rather red in the face as we left him without any particular ceremony.

"What have you done with Miss Hershey?"

"Oh, that's all right. I had a talk with her while Ludwig was relieving his feelings to you. She can see no objection, if we all keep together going home."

Poor Satan had to have his saddle on once more. I did what I could for him, rubbing his back briskly first and inspecting his feet. There was no grat.i.tude in his eye. We picked our way carefully up the bed of a small, densely wooded ravine, over red sandstone shale through which shallow water rippled; here and there the stream broadened out into mirror-smooth pools. Ferns and other sweet-smelling growing things lined the sides. Apparently we were in a primitive wilderness miles from any inhabitants. Splendid oaks and chestnuts shut out the direct rays of the sun, and we rode in a cool, green twilight such as one might find in the forest of Arden itself. The glory of this country is in its woodlands, I thought. Such a ravine as this would make a fortune for any railway in North Wales. Here it was one of thousands, nay millions, unsought save by an occasional wanderer--simply a part of the landscape. At last the ravine stopped abruptly against a sandstone barrier over which the little stream fell lazily and mistily. We dismounted, and the horses shoved their noses eagerly through the cool water, as we lay on the mossy bank and stared at a patch of blue sky through the overhanging branches. The place had been made to order for sentimental young people.

"If this place were in Herr Ludwig's Harz Mountains or Black Forest," I said, "there would be a little restaurant behind us, surrounded by white pebbles, and a sign pointing at this ravine labelled 'Wald Idyll.'"

Helen laughed: "It must be rather convenient to have your emotions labelled for you."

"It is," I said, "when you are full of food and thinking is painful. You have only to read the signs, such as 'Schone Aussicht' or 'Rauchen verboten,' and choose pleasure or anger at will."

"Ludwig must have been very annoying."

"He was; it's lucky you didn't understand all he said. He says we are base materialists," and I slapped a mosquito.

"It does irritate, the way Ludwig puts it, of course; the mere sound of his language makes one want to fight. But I wonder if some of it isn't true? How big a part do spiritual things play in your life, Ted?"

I sat up straight at the abruptness of the challenge. It was not an easy one to meet with Helen's now solemn grey eyes upon me. They were so large and clearly truthful. I was curious concerning my own answer.

"Spirituality is not what one does, such as going to church; it is the way one feels inside about things," I defended, I fear lamely. It wasn't what I had intended the major premise to be.

"Well," Helen went on, "how do you feel inside, and how much do these feelings shape your life?"

I was fairly cornered. I had postponed self-a.n.a.lysis on this particular subject; I wasn't certain what, if anything, I did believe. I lacked a good deal of Prospero's fluent "philosophy."

"Perhaps I could answer better if I knew a little about your opinions,"

I dodged.

"That isn't fair, because I asked first; however, I'm not afraid to tell you." She pulled a fern leaf and slowly tore the fronds apart as she reflected a moment. I laughed.

"What are you laughing at, Ted?"

"Seeing you tear that fern apart made me think of _Caliban upon Setebos_--the twenty-first crab you choose for destruction, while you're trying to invent what you believe."