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Page 62
Carley watched the sunset transfiguration of cloud and sky and mountain
until all were cold and gray. And then she returned to her seat, thoughtful
and sad, feeling that the West had mockingly flung at her one of its
transient moments of loveliness.
Nor had the West wholly finished with her. Next day the mellow gold of the
Kansas wheat fields, endless and boundless as a sunny sea, rich, waving in
the wind, stretched away before her aching eyes for hours and hours. Here
was the promise fulfilled, the bountiful harvest of the land, the strength
of the West. The great middle state had a heart of gold.
East of Chicago Carley began to feel that the long days and nights of
riding, the ceaseless turning of the wheels, the constant and wearing
stress of emotion, had removed her an immeasurable distance of miles and
time and feeling from the scene of her catastrophe. Many days seemed to
have passed. Many had been the hours of her bitter regret and anguish.
Indiana and Ohio, with their green pastoral farms, and numberless villages,
and thriving cities, denoted a country far removed and different from the
West, and an approach to the populous East. Carley felt like a wanderer
coming home. She was restlessly and impatiently glad. But her weariness of
body and mind, and the close atmosphere of the car, rendered her extreme
discomfort. Summer had laid its hot hand on the low country east of the
Mississippi.
Carley had wired her aunt and two of her intimate friends to meet her at
the Grand Central Station. This reunion soon to come affected Carley in
recurrent emotions of relief, gladness, and shame. She did not sleep well,
and arose early, and when the train reached Albany she felt that she could
hardly endure the tedious hours. The majestic Hudson and the palatial
mansions on the wooded bluffs proclaimed to Carley that she was back in the
East. How long a time seemed to have passed! Either she was not the same or
the aspect of everything had changed. But she believed that as soon as she
got over the ordeal of meeting her friends, and was home again, she would
soon see things rationally.
At last the train sheered away from the broad Hudson and entered the
environs of New York. Carley sat perfectly still, to all outward appearances
a calm, superbly-poised New York woman returning home, but inwardly
raging with contending tides. In her own sight she was a disgraceful
failure, a prodigal sneaking back to the ease and protection of loyal
friends who did not know her truly. Every familiar landmark in the approach
to the city gave her a thrill, yet a vague unsatisfied something lingered
after each sensation.
Then the train with rush and roar crossed the Harlem River to enter New
York City. As one waking from a dream Carley saw the blocks and squares of
gray apartment houses and red buildings, the miles of roofs and chimneys,
the long hot glaring streets full of playing children and cars. Then above
the roar of the train sounded the high notes of a hurdy-gurdy. Indeed she
was home. Next to startle her was the dark tunnel, and then the slowing of
the train to a stop. As she walked behind a porter up the long incline
toward the station gate her legs seemed to be dead.
In the circle of expectant faces beyond the gate she saw her aunt's, eager
and agitated, then the handsome pale face of Eleanor Harmon, and beside her
the sweet thin one of Beatrice Lovell. As they saw her how quick the change
from expectancy to joy! It seemed they all rushed upon her, and embraced
her, and exclaimed over her together. Carley never recalled what she said.
But her heart was full.
"Oh, how perfectly stunning you look!" cried Eleanor, backing away from
Carley and gazing with glad, surprised eyes.
"Carley!" gasped Beatrice. "You wonderful golden-skinned goddess! . . .
You're young again, like you were in our school days."
It was before Aunt Mary's shrewd, penetrating, loving gaze that Carley
quailed.
"Yes, Carley, you look well--better than I ever saw you, but--but--"
"But I don't look happy," interrupted Carley. "I am happy to get home--to
see you all . . . But--my--my heart is broken!"
A little shocked silence ensued, then Carley found herself being led across
the lower level and up the wide stairway. As she mounted to the vast-domed
cathedral-like chamber of the station a strange sensation pierced her with
a pang. Not the old thrill of leaving New York or returning! Nor was it
the welcome sight of the hurrying, well-dressed throng of travelers and
commuters, nor the stately beauty of the station. Carley shut her eyes, and
then she knew. The dim light of vast space above, the looming gray walls,
shadowy with tracery of figures, the lofty dome like the blue sky, brought
back to her the walls of Oak Creek Canyon and the great caverns under the
ramparts. As suddenly as she had shut her eyes Carley opened them to face
her friends.
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