Blue Ruin (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill
tidy as they had found it, she had a vague feeling of hurry, as if Dana’s mind was not on the day. He had said nothing about the ring either. How often she had pictured the time to herself when he would bring it out of his pocket in its little velvet case and place it upon her finger! He had told her it was to be the best diamond he could find, and though she had hushed his talk about it then, she had pondered much in her heart all that he had spoken.
Yet the day was bright, and it was to be longer. Doubtless he would wait till evening. There would be a moon. Perhaps he would wait till the shadows hid them out in the garden somewhere, although she had always thought of the ring in connection with this spot, their trysting place, where he as a boy of nineteen had spoken his first eager tempestuous words of love. How they had grown in her heart with her life through the years, till now she was waiting for their confirmation with a heart so full of answering love and exultation that it almost choked her to think about it as he talked on.
She was very quiet during the rest of the time that they stayed on the mountain, but he was so full of eager speech himself that he did not notice it. And when he looked at his watch and said impatiently that it was time to go, she got up with a smile, in a kind of daze of joy, for somehow the trouble had gone from her heart and she had got to the place where she could look up and wait and smile for the joy that was coming to her. Oh, he was wonderful! She looked at him with all her soul in her eyes as they stood up ready to go and the late afternoon sun touched the crest of his dark hair and gave his face a statuesque look. What a wonderful minister he was going to make! How stunning he would look in the pulpit! But of course she must not think of that. It was his great spirit that she almost adored, his consecrated young spirit that was joyously giving up all the fine prospects he might have had in the world to devote his life to the ministry.
And then he took her in his arms, almost hungrily, she thought, and then fiercely, as if he could not get enough of her sweetness. He laid his lips on her hair, on her forehead, and she closed her eyes and dropped her face against his breast, feeling it was so good to be there at last in his strong arms. Yes, it was good as all her dreams had been. And at last his lips found hers, and it seemed as if all the promises of all the years of her young life had come to consummation now, in that one strong, tender kiss.
And yet, when he finally freed her and they started down the mountain hand in hand, her cheeks rosy, her eyes downcast, there was something almost frightening in the thought of his embrace; it had been so strong and fierce, as if her whole being were submerged and changed into his. As if she might not be allowed to be her own self anymore. What did it mean? Was it just life? Was life always like that? So startling?
She was pondering these things when they came to Round Hill, a lovely eminence that rose in perfect symmetry between two higher hills and burst upon one unexpectedly at a turn in the road.
Lynette remembered a time in her little girlhood when the hill had been covered with waving grain, green and velvety in spring, or golden like waves rippling in the autumn sunshine. But this day it was radiant with blue and white flowers and fairly took her breath away as it burst upon her sight.
“Oh, look!” she said, interrupting him in one of his seminary tales. “Did you ever see such a sight!”
They passed and stood before the miracle of bloom, half in awe.
The daisies had crept thickly over the lovely roundness of the hill which rose straight up before their vision. They covered it completely as with a fine, white linen cloth, their golden centers making a shimmer like lights falling from above; and all through the daisies, in serried ranks, tall spikes of blue ruin had shot up in luxurious bloom, every little gray-green, rolled-up, leafy spike fluting out in the deep weird blue of its tubular corolla. They seemed like tall candles burning above the white cloth and lifting their blue flame to the blue sky above. It was a sight to take the breath away with beauty.
Dana took off his hat and stood, looking up.
“It is like a sacrament!” he said in the voice he used when he practiced pronouncing the benediction.
“It is like” Lynette’s voice had something hard and terrified in it. “It is like Satan!” she finished.
“What on earth do you mean, Lynette?” said Dana in a voice of reproof. He never called her by her full name unless he was displeased with her.
But she did not notice his displeasure. She was looking at the gorgeous display of beauty with sad eyes.
“Lucifer, son of the morning!” she quoted. “It is terrible in its beauty to me. That blue ruin is a nettle, you know, viper’s weed. It chokes everything else out when it comes in. And daisies have the same nature, too! Come, I can’t bear it. It is too beautiful! It makes me think of sin getting into the world and spoiling all the good things of life! I can remember now how proud Grandfather was of his waving grain on Round Hill. And now blue ruin has spoiled all his work of the years!”
“What nonsense!” said Dana, speaking haughtily, harshly. “What utter bosh! That’s some more of that ignorant little college, teaching you fanciful things like that! I really shall have to take you in hand I see. That belongs to the phraseology of a notorious class of ignorant literalists who think they know it all and are making themselves ridiculous. Really, Lynette, I supposed you had more sense. We’ll take a week off and sit down while I give you a little of the exegesis we had in class. A good dose of notes out of my class notebooks will get that folly out of you. Meantime, oblige me by leaving his majesty the devil out of the conversation.” He finished half lightly, for glancing down he saw that her eyes were full of tears.
“There, Lynn, don’t take things too seriously,” he coaxed, snatching her hand and drawing it within his arm. “You are tired. I let you walk too far. We’ll have the car tomorrow. Come forget it. Everything will come all right and you’ll get adjusted to things. You are not to blame; it’s just the old-fashioned ideas you have been taught, but I’ll change all that. I’ll tell you all the modern ways. You’re an unusually bright woman, Lynn, and must understand before you can follow. Most women don’t bother themselves at all about theology, but you have a mind that is worthy of being taught. It is a great pity that you couldn’t have had a worthwhile college. I’d have liked to have had you study theology with some of my professors in the seminary. You certainly would have enjoyed it. They were keen men, broad-minded, with a vision of the future. They lost no time in sweeping the cobwebs of the ages out of my brain. I declare, I believe you could even have enjoyed Greek and Hebrew! Come, Lynn, be yourself and smile. It isn’t like you to be in the sulks.”
Lynette looked up almost sadly. She wondered what he would think if she were to tell him? But this was no time to disclose a secret she had been keeping for four years to surprise him.
“I’m not sulky,” she said gravely. “I’m just astonished. Startled perhaps. You talk so strangely. You do not seem like yourself. It hurts to have you talk that way.”
“That’s natural,” sympathized Dana somewhat loftily. “Everything changes as we grow older. We can’t be children always, you know. I confess I was somewhat startled myself when I first went to college and found out how many wrong notions I had acquired. But it will all seem perfectly harmonious when you get adjusted to the new order, my dear, and it’s really much more beautiful and free. It gives one a chance for individual thinking along broad lines without being hampered by so many ‘thou-shalt-nots’.”
“I don’t quite think I understand you,” said Lynette in a voice that was cool, almost stern with apprehension.
“Don’t try,” said Dana lightly. “Let’s put it aside for today. We’ve just a few minutes left before we get home. Let’s enjoy every minute of it. Hasn’t this been a perfect day? Look at the valley now with that broad band of low sunlight across it. That brings out your metal embroidery in fine shape, doesn’t it?”
Lynette lifted unseeing eyes to the gorgeous valley, but she was not thinking about the landscape. There were things that Dana had said that did not seem to ring true to his old convictions. Had Dana changed? She was weighing his words carefully to see if she might have misunderstood him.
Dana