SEPTEMBER—THE MOON OF FALLING LEAVES The summer that old Madam Hale died had been followed by a swift autumn. Frost trod so closely upon the heels of the last thunder shower that the samphire glowed red in the marshes, while there was yet aftermath of clover in the uplands, and shy groundsel-tree garnished her plain summer garb with white feathers, before blue gentian had opened her fringed lids wide enough to show the colour of her eyes.
Unusual as the season was, it received scant attention from people of Westover Heights, so absorbed were they in the question of “What will become of John Hale?”
The Hales belonged to one of the old county families, and, in fact, a decided type, known as the Hale nose, a cross between Roman and aquiline, might be traced the length and breadth of the state and well across its western border, while a corresponding mental strength had marked both the men and women; Judge Hale, Madam Hale’s husband, having been both a judge and a national legislator. But, like many another American family, prominent in the last century, the line direct had dwindled to John Hale, the only living child of the judge, and John, in his fifty-eighth year, was only now beginning his life as an independent being.
To any one born and bred outside of a certain circle and unacquainted with the intricate weave of the social fabric of certain conservative New England towns, such a condition is inconceivable. No one would have denied the possibility of such a happening more decidedly than John Hale himself when he graduated from college with distinct literary honours, and set out upon a year of travel, before taking a congenial position offered him by his alma mater.
It was during this year of absolute freedom that John Hale formed the only decided opinions that he ever seemed destined to be allowed, the most conclusive of these being that Jane Mostyn was the only woman with whom he could imagine wishing to spend his life.
Miss Mostyn was likewise making a sort of post-graduate tour, but not alone, for her father, a fussy, rather than nervous, invalid, was her companion. His invalidism was of the intermittent type that appeared when his daughter’s plans in any way crossed his own, but was otherwise held in abeyance; and most people readily conceded that he was a charming man, for he could discuss many topics without affectation, and without posing as a pedant, was extremely well read. His regarding his daughter as an absolute possession who should exist for his happiness alone was his chief eccentricity.
One of the strangest things about the acquaintance of the young people was that it began in Venice, when they had been born and brought up practically in the same New England township. The reasons that had militated against their previously having more than a passing glimpse of one another were the aggressively different political affiliations of the fathers, while Madam Hale knew that the Judge had been refused in early life by the girl who afterward became Jane Mostyn’s mother, and so strange was her form of tribal fealty that she regarded this refusal as not only a slight to her husband, but as a species of criticism upon her own choice, though she did not marry the Judge until ten years after. Mrs. Mostyn had died when Jane was about twenty, and at the time when John Hale met her, she was in every possible way trying to draw her father’s mind from his loss.
Usually if Mr. Mostyn stayed indoors, Jane did likewise, but one fateful morning the sea shimmered too alluringly under their window, and being attracted by the singing of a gondolier, she determined to brave conventions and go out, only to find the particular gondola was already occupied, and by a man. Hesitating, but only for a moment, for Jane Mostyn seldom hesitated, and usually compassed her ends (not connected with her father) by cheerfully assuming that there would be no opposition, she said to the man, who was looking at her with an expression half reminiscent, half questioning, and taking it for granted that he was either English or an American: “I do not speak Italian; would you kindly direct your man to return here to the hotel for me when you are through with him? I’ve taken a fancy both to his craft and to his voice;” at the same time writing her name in vigorous characters on one of the cards of the hotel, she held it towards him. A glance at the card, and the puzzled expression turned to one of pleased recognition. John Hale had not spoken to Miss Mostyn more than twice since she tucked up her hair, lengthened her skirts, and went to boarding-school, yet suddenly to talk with her at close range, as she stood there with glints of red setting off her deep blue gown and clear olive skin, seemed the most desirable occupation in the world. Motioning the man to push close to the landing, Hale sprang out of the gondola, and hat in one hand, the other holding the card, he said, “Do you chance to remember Johnny Hale at whom you used to jeer because his mother would not let him coast down the hill that crossed the railroad track at Westover Village?”
Miss Mostyn coloured as red as the cap that topped her black hair, and then extended both hands, the gesture brought about wholly by the impulse to be at once on friendly terms with a home face in a strange land, no matter how slight the previous footing.
“Why not come out at once and enjoy the morning freshness? One can never tell what sort of an afternoon may follow,” Hale said eagerly.
“There is only one obstacle, this country requires a chaperon; where shall we get her? My father is out of the running to-day. Does your mother chance to be with you? No? Can you suggest any compatriot who may be staying at your hotel? We are the only Americans at ours.”
“No,—yes,” corrected Hale, while a mischievous smile flitted over his usually serious face, “Mrs. Atwood from Westover is here, travelling with an assorted party. I presume that she knows us both, and the poor soul is so homesick that she will hail the opportunity as a perfect godsend.”
“What, the wife of ‘B. Atwood, Leading Grocer, We strive to please and suit the taste of each customer’? Of course she will do as a chaperon, but, considered as ballast, I am afraid we shall require an extra gondolier.”
Hale laughed. “She has fallen away, as she expresses it; the change having been wrought by rushed travel, indigestion, and several inadvised cures of mineral waters. Here she comes now in that brown gondola with blue curtains, and holding on for dear life as if she were with an overloaded picnic party and some one was rocking the boat.”
Immediately recognizing the young people, Mrs. Atwood landed after several frantic efforts, during which her Baedecker fell into the water and floated off, looking like a fishing bobber of eccentric design.
“Let it go, Mr. Hale, let it go,” she panted, as he tried to follow and rescue the book, “I’ll be a good deal better off without it; I can remember what the courier tells us, but when I come to pick out the places and match his stories to them, I get a headache over the nose, such as I used to have when pa wanted me to go to high school, and I got as far as algebra, and then balked flat. Go out with you? Certainly, if you won’t be gone too long. Our party starts on at two; not but what I’d much rather stay here in peace until they come back. Why don’t I? Why, I should miss at least a half a dozen baggage labels for my suit case. I’m collecting them for daughter Ida. We couldn’t both leave Mr. Atwood the same season, so I’m making the trip, and Ida’s to have the suit case, and I don’t know but what she’s got the best of the bargain.”
Thus, under cover of harmless prattle that did away with the necessity of other conversation, they pushed off, and when, presently, in a lull, the gondolier took up his song again, gesture and sympathetic play of expression and eyes filled the place of words between Miss Mostyn and John Hale, so that in a single morning, under the spell of peace and subtle, mutual appreciation, a friendship began and was cemented more securely than would have been possible during months of conventional intercourse.
From thenceforward until the end of the vacation year, while their paths could not be made to run absolutely parallel, they were at least continually crossing. Though totally unlike in temperament, each seemed able to develop the best qualities in the other. Miss Mostyn, quick and decisive in all things, lacked the very creative mental faculties that she was able to foster in John Hale, while in his company certain rather sharp edges in the young woman were smoothed away, and she became all that was charming and womanly. So vital was her influence that it began to be reflected almost at once in his work. The random sketches of travel were dropped for serious work, and before his return he was spoken of as a new man, who not only had something to say, something vital to add to the comedy of humanity, but, moreover, did it well.
That the two were virtually engaged was a matter of course, and as there were no financial reasons to make a delay necessary, Hale urged with masculine directness, as her father was with her, that they be married without fuss and feathers prior to their return.
To this Jane Mostyn would not consent, though at first she hesitated. There were reasons why the home-coming would be trying enough to her father; she could not leave him until he had at least in a measure readjusted his life.
Surely, as it proved, there was plenty of time for everything but marrying, for that magic hour of possibility passed out of the youth of Jane Mostyn and Hale at almost the moment that they set foot on their native soil. Before long, reasons for delay began to be entered on Hale’s side of the ledger, springing from a too narrow idea of filial devotion. Within a month of his return, just as he had entered upon his new work, his father died, with only a few hours’ warning.
Judge Hale and his wife had been romantically attached in spite of her almost masculine force of will and unrelenting purpose that had planned every detail of his life, which at the same time was veiled to the world at large by a physical fragility that made her appearance almost ethereal. Now, as a widow, she was doubly resolute, and even more fragile to the eye, and she clung to her only son with a tenacity not to be gainsaid. It was too much to ask of her whose life would doubtless be short, to make her home with him in the university town where she had no associations; so he transferred himself to the home at Westover, going to and fro, and by so doing missing the social side of his association with the college and much impetus that went with it.
Then the years began to fly by, each one laden with its own excuses. Madam Hale (she had always been thus called, “Mrs.” by common consent seeming too lowly a title) loved her son passionately, but she loved him as he was related to and a part of her own projects, not with the sacrificial and rare mother love that considers self merely as a means of increasing the child’s happiness and broadening its scope. Despotism has many forms, and the visible iron hand is the least to be dreaded. Is there any form of tyranny so absolute as that of a delicate woman over the man who loves her, be he husband or son?
Judge Hale, as the final mark of confidence in his wife, had left her in entire control of his property, including the homestead, probably never doubting that she would share it at once with John, but wishing the pleasure of giving to be solely hers. About this she was very deliberate. What need of haste? Her son shared her home, and his own income, though but a moderate salary, was sufficient for his outside needs.
Theoretically, she wished him to marry, and she would have liked a pretty, subservient daughter-in-law and a group of well-bred and creditable grandchildren to swell her train; but actually, she resented the idea of relinquishing an iota of her influence. While as to Jane Mostyn, they had gauged each other to a nicety, and though on friendly terms, each resented the other to a finality.
Exactly how the pair reconciled their relations to one another, no one knew, probably not even themselves. Westover Village had grown tired of waiting to see what would happen, and cited the case variously as one of obstinacy, where neither would give in, or else crowning them as filial martyrs, according to the temperament of the narrator. Neither Jane Mostyn nor John Hale appeared to mope in the least, but of the two the woman’s life seemed the best rounded, and she, who in the beginning, though several years younger, looked older than the man, had now gained many years of youth.
Five years more passed, and Hale resigned what had then grown to a professor............