"And how can men die better than facing fearful oddsFor the ashes of their fathers and the temples of their gods?"
Babe said afterwards it made the cold chills go down her back to hear him say it in such an impressive way, as if he'd really count it joy to die, "facing fearful odds." She was afraid maybe it was a sign he was going to. And she said that his saying what he did,ashe did, suddenly made her see things in a different light, herself. That's why she got up soon after, and said that they must be going. She wanted a chance to tell Watson she'd changed her mind, and that he was right in whatever matter it was they'd been arguing about.
But before they went, George Woodson started a new song that's lately come to town. They sayall the soldiers are singing it. It has a catchy sort of tune you can't resist, and in a few minutes we were all chiming in with him. It sounded awfully sweet, for George sings a lovely tenor and Richard a good bass, so we had a full quartette. It was just like old times.
"There's a long, long trail a-windingInto the land of my dreams,Where the nightingales are singingAnd a white moon beams.There's a long, long night of waitingUntil my dreams all come true,Till the day—when I'll be—going downThat long, long trail with you."
We sang it over till we had learned the words, and then we couldn't get rid of it. It has such a haunting sweetness that Richard and I hummed scraps of it all the way home. After we said good night and I went up to my room, I could hear him whistling it. I leaned out of my window to listen. He whistled it all the way down the street, until he reached the Green Stairs. It sounded so happy. I wished Babe hadn't said what she did about his facing fearful odds.
A WAR WEDDING
Talkabout a clap of thunder out of a clear sky—that's nothing to the surprise Babe gave us the very next night. About nine o'clock she called me by telephone to say:
"Listen, Georgina. Is Richard still there? Is it too late for you to come down for a few minutes?Watson and I are to be married tomorrow afternoon.We've just decided. Everything's in a dreadful tangle. We want you to help straighten us out."
I was so surprised I could hardly speak. Tippy thought someone must be dead from the horrified way I gasped out, "Oh, you don't mean it!" The suddenness of it did horrify me in a way. It seems so dreadful to be snatched through the most beautiful and sacred occasion of one's life so fast that there's no chance to do any of the time-honored things that make it beautiful and impressive. For all Babe seems so matter of fact she's full of sentiment, and has always looked forward to doingthose romantic things that brides do, such as filling a "hope chest" with
Stitches set in long white seamsTo the silent music of tender dreams.
Hurrying up a wedding in one day in such a combination family as the Nolan-Dorseys would be like scrambling eggs. Of course, we went right down.
We had had an awfully nice day together, exploring the town to see how much it had changed, and calling on Uncle Darcy and dropping into the studios where we have been welcomed on Mr. Moreland's account since the first summer he joined the Artist's colony. We'd been in every store on Commercial street to speak to the clerks, and out to the end of Railroad Wharf to see how many of our old fishermen friends we could find. Down on the beach an art class pitched their easels and went on painting their favorite model, a Portuguese girl under a green parasol, quite as usual, and we sat on the sand in the shadow of a boathouse and watched them lazily, as if there weren't any Huns and their horrors in the universe.
It had been a peaceful day up to the time we reached Babe's house. The tangle she spoke ofwas the usual kind in her family. Her stepfather, Mr. Dorsey, is a traveling man. He couldn't get home in time to give her away, and Babe's mother thought they ought to wait for him. It wasn't showing him proper respect not to; besides Jim wasn't old enough to do it. Jim didn't want to do it, but he objected to being thought too young, and Watson couldn't wait because he'd received his orders. That's why they were hurrying things up.
He wants to be married in the Church of the Pilgrims because his people are the kind that'd feel better if it was done there. Circumstances were such that none of them could be present, so he wanted to do that much to please them. And Babe couldn't be married at the church unless Viola would loan her her new white dress that Miss Doan had just sent home after keeping her waiting three weeks for it. Her own white ones were out of commission and she wouldn't feel like a bride if she were married in anything but white. But Viola wanted to wear her own dress her own self, and be a bridesmaid. She always gets her own way when she cries, so she was beginning to sob on her mother's shoulder when we went in. And Mrs. Dorsey was saying she didn't see why they couldn't be married right there in the parlor, either in the bay window or under the chandelierwith a wedding bell hung from it. Babe's shirt-waist suit that she graduated in was good enough for a home affair and could be laundered in a hurry.
Babe wouldn't hear to that because Watson had expressed his preference for the church and had such a good reason, and Watson was provoked because Viola wouldn't give in to Babe. It was her wedding, he said, and ought to be run to suit her.
Poor old Babe. Among them they worked her up into such a nervous, excited state that she was half crying, and when her mother said in an exasperated tone—"Oh, these war weddings! Why don't you wait till it's all over and he comes back in peace times?" Babe threw herself down on the library couch and wept.
"How do I know he'll ever come back?" she wailed. "It's you who are making a war wedding out of it with all your disagreeing and arguing."
Then Mrs. Dorsey explained all over again to me the way she thought things ought to be settled, and Viola explained her way and Babe sobbed out hers, and Jim made a few remarks till it made me think of the old nursery tale: "Fire won't burn stick, stick won't beat pig, pig won't get over the stile, and I sha'n't get home tonight."
It was awfully embarrassing for Watson and uncomfortable for Richard. Presently they disappeared—went out on the front steps for a smoke. When I suggested the different dressmakers who might be persuaded to rush something through, there was a reason why each one on the list was unavailable. Miss Doan and the two next best had left town on a vacation.
Then I happened to think of that evening dress Babe ruined up on Mrs. Waldon's roof, leaning against the rusty railing. It had a white silk under-dress, and in a flash an inspiration came to me. With that silk slip for a foundationIwould attempt to make that wedding gown myself, although there was less than a day in which to do it. I'd seen a lovely piece of tulle that morning, when we stopped in the Emporium.
It didn't occur to me at first what a daring thing I was offering to do, or what a mess I'd make of everything if I failed. I was sure of the needlework part, for Tippy began my sewing-lessons so far back I can't remember the first one, and what passed muster with her was good enough for any bride or anybody. And I'd made simple wash dresses under Barby's direction.
Babe accepted my offer with the sublime confidence and joy that Cinderella showed in her godmother's ability to get a ball gown out of a pumpkin,and then I began to have an awful panic. But there was no chance to back out. She rapturously called Watson in to tell him that everybody could be happy now, for I'd found the end of the string that would untangle the whole skein.
From then on "stick began to beat pig, pig began to get over the stile, and the little old woman got home that night." During the next ten minutes two people were routed out of bed by telephone, but neither one minded it when they found it was for something as romantic as a war wedding. Miss Clara, chief clerk at the Emporium, promised to get the store keys early in the morning, cut off the goods with her own hands, and have it delivered to me by seven o'clock.
The other was Mrs. Doan, mother of the dressmaker who had just left town. "Yes, indeed, we could have Sallie's dress form," she said cordially. "Send Jim right over for it."
The dress form was collapsible, so Jim brought it over in a box, but it was a very startling and human-like figure that Richard had to carry up the street for me over his shoulder. There being no time for Babe to stand for fittings herself, we blew up the dummy like a balloon, till it was adjusted to fit the silk slip. Richard kept calling it Sallie Jane, and making such ridiculous remarks to it, that we were nearly hysterical from laughingwhen we finally started home with it. It was bright moonlight, but so late that we passed only a few people on the street. These few stared in open-mouthed wonder at the stiff lady in white thrown over Richard's shoulder, and one man turned and followed us half a block to satisfy his curiosity.
Man salutingRichard salutes "Sallie Jane."
Tippy would have helped next morning, but she had to bring Belle's children up to spend the day. Aunt Elspeth was very much worse. I took the downstairs guest chamber for my workshop. By five minutes past seven the tulle was spread out on the big four poster, and my scissors were slashing into it. From then on until noon I worked in nightmarish haste. Of course I couldn't have finished it if it had been satin goods or something like that, but the tulle was easy to handle, and I pinned and patted it into shape on patient Sallie Jane till it began to look like the picture I had in mind.
Richard came up about the middle of the morning. I heard him go striding through the hall. Then his laugh rang out from the kitchen where Tippy was letting the children help her make oatmeal cookies.
Then I heard him coming back, and looked up to see him in the doorway. He only saluted and did not venture in, as I was down on my knees beforeSallie Jane, making the bridal skirts hang evenly. He could see it was a critical moment. He said he merely dropped in to report that everything was going smoothly at the Nolan-Dorseys. The license and the ring were ready, the auto engaged to take the happy couple to Chatham. They would proceed from there to Boston by rail next day. Judith was at the house now, helping the family keep their head between their ears, and the only trouble was the telephoning. The list of people who would be slighted if not notified was so long that Jim suggested sending out the town crier, and being done with it.
"Poor Uncle Darcy," I said. "He won't be able to see the wedding. Aunt Elspeth is so much worse. He's always been mixed up in the important happenings of my life, and he would have taken such pride in seeing us march up the aisle, you as best man and me as maid of honor——"
Then I broke off short and whirled Sallie Jane around on her pivot as if I had found something the matter which absorbed my attention. But in reality I had just remembered that it was my eighteenth birthday, and came very near reminding him of the fact. To think of having forgotten it myself till the morning was half gone! I had come to my "Field Elysian," and it was a lonely place, for nobody else remembered. The surestsign that I had reached it was that I did not frankly proclaim the fact, frankly expectant of birthday offerings. I didn't want anything if people had to be reminded of the date. I took the corner of a paper of pins between my teeth and stood up to pin the sleeves in place.
Richard looked on approvingly. "That really begins to look like something," he said. "Looks like a white cloud. Even on old Sallie Jane you'd know it was a bridal outfit. You're a trump, Georgina, for rushing things through this way. Babe ought to be everlastingly grateful. But while it's 'Very nice for Mary Ann, it's rather hard on Abraham.' Do you realize I've only four more days left to spend in this old town? This wedding is knocking a whole quarter of it out of my calculations."
Something made me glance up. He was looking down at me so intently it flustered me. I found myself trying to pin the left sleeve into the right arm.
"I don't believe in these war weddings," he said almost fiercely. "Watt hadn't any right to ask her to marry him now and take such chances. Suppose he'd be killed?"
"She'd feel that he was hers, at any rate," I said between my teeth, still holding on to the paper of pins. "She'd have the memory of thiswedding, and the few happy days to follow, and she'd have the proud feeling that she was the wife of a man who'd given his life bravely. She'd be giving something to the cause herself, a continuing sacrifice, for it would keep on all the rest of her life."
"But suppose he wasn't killed outright. Suppose he'd come back to her crippled or blinded or frightfully disfigured. He oughtn't to want to tie her for life to just a part of a man."
Then I took up for Babe so emphatically that I dropped the pins. "Then she'd be eyes to him and feet to him and hands to him—and everything else. And she'dgloryin it.Iwould if I loved a man as Babe does Watson Tucker, though I don't see what she sees in him to care for."
"I believe you would," he answered slowly. Then after a long pause he added, "It certainly must make a difference to a man over there to know he's got somebody back home, caring for him likethat!"
He left in a few moments, and I had to work harder than ever for I had slowed up a bit while we talked. The wedding was at four. I am sure I was the happiest one in the crowd, for not only was the dress done in time, it was pronounced a real "creation." Babe never looked so well in her life. Judith had worked some sort of miracle onher hair, and in that simple fluff of white tulle she was almost pretty.
Never did a Maid of Honor have less time for her own arraying. I hurriedly slipped into the same dress of rose-color and white that I wore the night of Richard's arrival, and put on the little pearl necklace that had been Barby's. When he came for me in his Cousin James' machine he brought a big armful of roses for me to carry. It made me awfully happy to have him say, "Many happy returns of the day" when he gave them to me, even when he laughingly confessed that he hadn't remembered the date himself. It was Judith who reminded them that the wedding day and my birthday were the same. Even so, it was nice to have the event marked by his lovely roses.
Despite all Judith's precautions we had a wild scramble to get all the little Dorseys corralled for a final dress review. Each one of them came up with some important article missing, which had to be hunted for. Then a sudden calm descended. We found ourselves at the door of the Church of the Pilgrims. We were going slowly, very slowly up the aisle to the solemn organ music, conscious of a white blur of faces on each side. The church was packed.
There had been no time for a rehearsal, but,for once, luck was with the Nolan-Dorseys. Nobody stumbled, nobody dropped anything, nobody responded in the wrong place. As Jim remarked afterward, "We did real well for a bunch of amateurs. We flocked all right though not even birds of a feather; one man in naval uniform, one in aviator's, and one in civilian's."
Jim gave the bride away. I was strung up to such a nervous tension for fear it wouldn't go off all right that I never took a full breath till Jim was through his part, the ring on Babe's finger and her bouquet safely back in her hands again. It was only at the very last when the old minister who was perfectly devoted to Babe began to falter through a prayer, that I realized I hadn't really heard the ceremony. It had gone in one ear and out the other, leaving no impression of its sacred meaning.
But if I missed the impressiveness of it Babe and Watson did not. He was as pale as a ghost, and her hands trembled so they could hardly hold her flowers. It was a solemn time for them. Then it grew solemn for me, as a sentence of the last prayer caught my attention.
"And take now, into Thy especial care and keeping, those who go forth from this altar to defend us, both upon the high seas and in the boundless battle plains of the air."
He was praying for Richard too. I glanced across at him and found that he was looking intently at me. I had never seen such an expression in his eyes before—a sort of goodbye, as if he were looking at me for the last time, and was sorry. It was the dearest look. Our eyes met gravely for an instant, then just the shadow of a smile crept into his, and mine dropped. I couldn't understand why that little half-smile should make me so sort of happy and confused. Then the "Amen!" sounded and the organ pealed out the wedding march, and with my hand on his arm we followed the bridal couple down the aisle, and out through the door to the automobile, waiting to take them to Chatham.
Once out of the door Babe wasn't a bit dignified. In her hurry to get away before the crowd could follow and hold a curbstone reception, she chased down the long board walk leading from the church to the street so fast that Watson could hardly keep up. They didn't pretend to keep step. She had a long coat and a hat waiting for her in the machine. She had kissed her family all around before leaving the house, so she just piled in as she was, and began pulling off her veil while the chauffeur cranked up.
"I'll change at Chatham," she called back to us.
"No, Mrs. Tucker," Richard remarked as themachine dashed off, "you'll never change. You'll always be just like that."
"The whole affair has been more like a whirlwind than a wedding," said Judith as she joined us. "I'm limp."
bride
THE VIGIL IN THE SWING
WhenI look back on that hot July day it seems a week long; so much was crowded into it. After the ceremony we took Tippy up home in the machine with the children, and then went for a drive. I hadn't realized how tired I was till I sank back into the comfortable seat beside Richard. Nothing could have rested me more than that rapid spin toward Wellfleet with the salt breeze in my face. As we started out of town Richard glanced at his watch.
"Only sixty-three hours more for this old burg," he announced. "I've got it figured down to a fine point now. Even to the minutes."
"So anxious to get away?" I asked.
"Oh, it isn't that. I'm keen enough to get busy over there, but——" He did not finish but presently nodded toward the water where a great fleet of fishing boats was putting into port. They filled the harbor with a flashing of sails in the late afternoon sunshine, like a flock of white-wingedbirds. "I'm wondering how long it will be before I seethatagain."
I answered with a line from "Kathleen Mavourneen," humming it airily: "It may be for years and it may be forever."
"Don't you care?" he demanded almost crossly, with his eyes intent on the triple curve just ahead.
"Of course I care," I answered. "If you were a truly own brother I couldn't feel any worse about your going off into all that danger, and I couldn't be any prouder of you. And I think that under the circumstances we might be allowed to put another star on our service flag, one for you as well as for Father. You belong to us more than anyone else now."
"Willyou do that?" he asked quickly, and with such eagerness that I saw he was both touched and pleased. "It makes a tremendous difference to a fellow to feel that he's got some sort of family ties—that he isn't just floating around in space like a stray balloon. It's a mighty lonesome feeling to think that there's nobody left to miss you or care what becomes of you."
"Oh, we'll care all right," I promised him. "We'll be a really truly family to you, and we'll miss you and write to you andknitfor you."
He was in the midst of the triple curve now, with a machine honking somewhere ahead, but heturned to flash a pleased smile at me and we came very near to a collision. He had to veer to one side so suddenly that we were nearly thrown out. For two years he has been so eager to go overseas that I hadn't an idea he would have any homesick qualms when the time came, but to find that he was hanging on to each hour as something precious made me twice as sorry to see him go as I would have been otherwise.
As we came back into town he glanced at his watch again but said nothing until I leaned over to look too.
"How many hours now?" I asked. "Only sixty-one and a half," he answered, "and they'll whiz by like a streak of lightning." From then on I began counting them too.
There was a birthday letter from Barby waiting for me when I got home, such a dear one that I took it off to my room to read by myself. The package she mentioned sending was evidently delayed. As I sat in front of my mirror, brushing my hair before going down to supper, I thought what a very, very different birthday this was from the one we had planned for my eighteenth anniversary. Still it had been a happy day. I felt repaid for my wild rush every time I recalled Babe's face when she saw herself for the first time in her wedding gown. Her delight was pathetic,and her gratitude will be something to remember always, that and the fact that I was a bridesmaid for the first time—and a Maid of Honor at that.
Suddenly I came to myself with a start to find myself with my hair down over my shoulders and my brush held in mid air, while I gazed at something in the depths of the mirror. Something that wasn't there. The altar and the bridal party before it, and the Best Man looking across at me with that grave, wistful expression that was like a leave-taking. And then his smile as our eyes met. It seems strange that just recalling a little thing like that should make me glowingly happy, yet in some unaccountable way it did.
Judith and George Woodson came up after supper. I was almost sorry they did, for Richard had asked me to play the "Reverie" that he always asks Barby for. He was stretched out on the leather couch with his hands clasped under his head, looking so comfortable and contented it seemed a pity to disturb him. He'll think of that old couch and the times he's lain on it listening to Barby play, many a time when he's off there in range of the enemy's guns.
They stayed till after ten o'clock, talking aeroplanes mostly, for George got Richard started to describing nose dives and spirals and all the wonderfulsomersault stunts they do above the clouds. He knows so much about machines, having helped build them, that he could sketch the different parts of them while he was talking, and he knows the record of all the famous pilots, just as a baseball fan knows all about the popular players. While he was up in Canada he met two of the most daring aces who ever flew, one from the French Escadrille, and one an Englishman of the Royal Flying Corps. It was his acquaintance with the Englishman which led to Richard's being assigned to the Royal Naval Air Service. He's to learn the British methods of handling sea-planes, and he's hoping with all his heart that he won't be brought home as an instructor when he has learned it. He wants to stay right there patrolling the Channel and making daring raids now and then over the enemy's lines.
It must have been torture for George to listen to his enthusiastic description of duels above the clouds and how it feels to whiz through space at a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour, because it was the dream of his life to get into that branch of the service. His disappointment makes him awfully bitter. Still he persisted in talking about it, because he's so interested he can't keep off the subject. It's a thousand times more thrilling than any of the old tales of knight errantry, andI'm glad George kept on asking questions. Otherwise I'd never have found out what an amazing lot Richard knows that I never even suspected.
During the last few minutes of their visit I heard Tippy out in the hall, answering the telephone. She came in just as they were all leaving, to tell us it was a message from Belle. Aunt Elspeth was sinking rapidly. The end was very near now. Uncle Darcy had asked for Barby, forgetting she was away, and Belle thought it would be a comfort to him to feel that some of the family were in the house, keeping the vigil with him.
Tippy had intended to go down herself as soon as the children were asleep, but little Judson kept waking up and crying at finding himself in a strange bed. He seemed a bit feverish and she was afraid to leave him. So Richard and I went. When Judith and George left we walked with them part of the way.
I've seen many a moonlight night on the harbor before, when the water was turned to a glory of rippling silver, but never have I seen it such a sea of splendor as it was that night we strolled along beside it. It was entrancingly beautiful—that luminous path through the water, and the boats lifting up their white sails in the shiningsilence were like pearl-white moths spreading motionless wings.
None of us felt like talking, the beauty was so unearthly, so we went along with scarcely a word, until we reached the business part of the town. There the buildings on the beach side of the street hid the view of the water. Both picture-shows were just out, and the gay summer crowds surging up and down the narrow board walk and overflowing into the middle of the street were as noisy as a flock of jaybirds. George and Judith left us at the drug-store corner, going in for ice-cream soda.
When we turned into Fishburn Court, there on the edge of the dunes, we seemed entering a different world. It was so still, shut in by the high warehouses between it and town. We opened the gate noiselessly and went up the path past the old wooden swing. The full moon shining high overhead made the little doorway almost as bright as day, except for the circle of shadow under the apple tree. Even there the light filtered through in patches. All the doors and windows stood open. A candle flickered on the high black mantel in the sitting-room. In the bedroom beyond the lamp on the bureau was turned low.
Belle met us at the door, motioning us toward the bedroom. Coming in from the white radianceoutside the light seemed dim at first, but it was enough to show the big four-posted bed with Aunt Elspeth lying motionless on it. Such a frail little body she was, but her delicate, flower-like sort of beauty had lasted even into her silver-haired old age. She did not seem to be breathing, but Uncle Darcy, sitting beside her holding her hand, was leaning over talking to her as if she could still hear. Just bits of sentences, but with a cadence of such infinite tenderness in the broken words that it hurt one to hear them.
"Dan'l's right here, lass. . . . He won't leave you. . . . No, no, my dear."
I drew back, but Belle's motioning hand insisted. "Just let him see that you're here to keep watch with him," she whispered. "It'll be a comfort to him."
So we went in. When I laid my hand on his shoulder he looked up with a dazed expression till he saw who it was and who was with me. Then he smiled at us both, and after that one welcoming glance turned back to the bed.
We went back to the sitting room and stood there a moment, uncertainly. Then Richard opened the screen door, beckoning me to follow. He led the way to the swing, and we stepped in and sat down, facing each other. It stood so close to the cottage that to sit there opposite theopen window was almost like being in the room. The glow from the lamp streamed out across the grass towards us, dimly yellow. We could see every movement, hear every rustle. Belle and the nurse tiptoed back and forth. Danny went out and came in again. Then they settled back into the shadowy corners.
Somewhere away up in the town, a phonograph began playing "The Long, Long Trail." The notes came to us faintly a few moments, then stopped, and the silence grew deeper and deeper. Nothing broke it except a cricket's chirp in the grass, and now and then a half-whispered word of soothing from Uncle Darcy. He crooned as he would to a sleepy child.
"There's naught to fear, lass. . . . All's well. . . . Dan'l's holding you."
Already she was beyond the comfort of his voice, but he kept on murmuring reassuringly, as if the protecting care that had never failed her in a long half-century of devotion was great enough now in this extreme hour to push aside even Death. He would go with her down into the very Valley of the Shadow.
As I sat there listening, dozens of little scenes came crowding up out of the past like mute witnesses to their beautiful love for each other. There was the day Mrs. Saggs found a nightgownof Aunt Elspeth's in the work-basket with a bungling patch half-stitched on by Uncle Darcy's stiff old fingers, and what she said about those old hands making a botch of patches, but never any botch in being kind. And the day Father and I, waiting in the kitchen, saw her cling to him and tell him quaveringly, "You're always so good to me, Dan'l. You're the best man the Lord ever made."
I do not know how long we sat there, but there was time to review all the many happy days I had spent with them in the little cottage. Then some very new and startling thoughts came crowding up in the overwhelming way they do when one is drowning. It seems to me I grew years older in that time of waiting. I had always been afraid of Death before, but suddenly the fear left me. It was no longer to be dreaded as the strongest thing in the world, if Love could thrust it aside like that and walk on past it, immortal and unafraid.
I didn't know I was crying till two tears splashed down on my hands, which were pressed tightly together in my lap. A little shiver ran over me. Richard leaned forward and took my white sweater from the back of the seat where I had thrown it, motioning for me to put it on. I shook my head but he kept on holding it out forme to slip my arms into, in that insistent, masterful way of his, till finally I did so. I hadn't known I was cold till I felt the warmth of it around me. Then I noticed that a breeze had sprung up and was stirring the boughs of the apple tree, and my hands were like ice from the long nervous strain.
But even more comforting than the wrap which enveloped me was the inward warmth that came from the sense of being watched over and taken care of.
The long vigil went on. Suddenly the nurse leaned over and said something. And then—Belle pulled down the shade.
After a few moments Uncle Darcy came stumblingly out to the doorway and sat down on the step, burying his face in his hands. Richard and I looked at each other, uncertain what to do or to say, hesitating as the two children had done so long ago, when the old rifle gave up its secret. But this time we did not run away.
This time we went up to him, each with a silent handclasp. Then putting my arm around the bent old shoulders I held him close for a moment. He leaned against me and reaching up with his stiff, crooked fingers gently patted my hand.
"Aye," he said brokenly. "She's gone . . . but—her love abides! Death couldn't takethatfrom me!"
THE HIGHWAY OF THE ANGELS
Itwas so late when we started home that the streets were deserted. The only noise was the hollow sound our own footsteps made on the board walk. Even that ceased the last half of the way, for we crossed over and went along the beach, walking close to the curling edges of the tide. Several times we paused to stand and look at the path the moon made on the water—wide miles of rippling silver, like a highway for the feet of passing angels.
I kept thinking of Aunt Elspeth as I looked. It took away my sadness to feel that she must have passed up that radiant road. And everything—the white night itself—seemed throbbing with the words, "But Love abides! Death cannot take that."
I think Richard heard them too, for once as we stood looking back he said, "Somehow that belief of Uncle Darcy's changes one's conception of death, just as that moon changes the night andthe sea. It takes all the blackness out. It gives . . . Dad . . . back to me again. It makes me feel differently about saying goodbye to you all."
"I wish you didn't have to say goodbye," I exclaimed impetuously. "I wish that this awful war were over and you could stay right on here."
"Without my having done my part to win it?" he asked in a reproachful sort of tone.
"You've done your part," I told him. "And a big one. And I want you to know before you go away what we think about it. Barby wrote to Miss Crewes all about what you did up in Canada, and said, 'I am telling you this in order that you may have another Sir Gareth to add to your list of knightly souls who do their deed and ask no guerdon.' Ever since then we've thought ofyou, as Sir Gareth."
Even in the moonlight I could see that he was embarrassed. He protested that we were giving him more credit than he deserved. Then to make light of the affair he went on about how he hadn't begun to do his part. He couldn't feel it was done till he'd bombed at least one Hun. "A hundred Huns" was his slogan, and the number he'd set for himself to get.
We started to walk on again. I was making some teasing remark about his being a bloodthirstycreature, when I stepped on the end of a broken oar. It turned with me and almost tripped me up. He put out a steadying hand, then slipped my arm through his to help me along.
"I know you're tired," he said as we walked on. "You had to rush through all that sewing this morning, and there was the excitement of the wedding and tonight—the waiting. It's been a hard day for you."
His voice sounded almost as sympathetic and comforting as Uncle Darcy's. Away out across the dunes some belated home-goer began whistling. Clear and sweet the notes came dropping through the still night, as if blown from a far-off silver flute:
"Till the day when I'll be going downThat long, long trail with you."
Instinctively we both turned to look at that shining path on the water, as if that were the trail, and stood listening till the last whistled note died away. Then suddenly Richard put his hand over mine as it lay on his arm, and held it close. After that there didn't seem to be any need of words. Somehow his very silence seemed to be saying something to me. I could feel it thrillingthrough me as one violin string thrills to the vibration of another.
I know now, after the experience of that night, that I shall never be able to write the leading novel of the century, as I have long hoped to do. I shall never attempt one of any kind now, even a little mediocre one. And the reason is this:
The greatest thing in the story of any life is that moment of miracle when love enters in and transfigures it. It is impossible to describe the coming of Dawn on a mountain-top so that another really feels the glory of it. If he has witnessed it himself anything one could say seems inadequate and commonplace. If he has never experienced such a revelation, all the words in the dictionary couldn't help him to see it.
If I were to put down here the few words Richard said as he was leaving me at the door, they might seem incoherent and ordinary to anyone else, but uttered with his arms around me, the touch of his lips on mine—howcouldone put into any story the sacredness of such an experience? The wonder of it, the rapture of it? And even if you did partially succeed, there would always be people like Tippy, for instance, to purse up their lips at the attempt, as if to say, "Sentimental!" So I shall never try.
When Tippy, in her bathrobe and with a candle,came down the dark hall to fumble at the door and let me in, I didn't say a word. I couldn't. I just walked past her, so awed by the throbbing happiness that filled me that I couldn't think of anything else, and not for worlds would I have had her know. If it had been Barby I would have thrown my arms around her and whispered, "Oh, Barby! I'm so happy!" and she would have held me close and understood. But I felt that Tippy would say, "Tut, you're too young to be thinking of such things yet." She has shamed me that way, making me feel that she considered me a sentimental silly young thing, several times in the past.
"Well?" she said questioningly, when I did not speak. Her waiting attitude reminded me that she was expecting me to tell her something. Then I remembered—about Aunt Elspeth—and I was conscience-smitten to think I had forgotten her entirely. It seemed ages since we had left Fishburn Court, with the sadness of her death the uppermost thing in our mind, but in reality it hadn't been more than a half an hour. But it had been long enough for the beginning of "a new heaven and a new earth" for me.
My voice trembled so that I could hardly speak the words—"She's gone." Then I saw that Tippy attributed my agitation to grief. She questionedme for details, but there was little to tell. When we left no arrangements had been made for the funeral.
"How did Uncle Darcy take it?" she asked as we reached the top of the stairs. I told her, repeating his own words. My voice shook again, but this time it was because I was remembering the stricken old figure on the doorstep, pathetic loneliness in every line of it, despite the brave words with which he tried to comfort himself. A tear started to roll down Tippy's cheek. She made a dab at it with the sleeve of her bathrobe.
"Poor old soul!" she exclaimed. "Their devotion to each other was beautiful. Over sixty years they've been all in all to each other. Pity they both couldn't have been taken at the same time."
A wonder came over me which I have often felt before. Why is it that people like Tippy, who show such tenderness for a love-story when it is flowing to its end in old age, are so unsympathetic with it at its beginning. What is there about it at the source that Youth cannot understand or should not talk about?
At my door she waited till I struck a match and lighted my lamp. I wondered why she held up her candle and gave me such a keen glance as shesaid goodnight. When she closed the door behind her and I walked over to the dressing-table, I was suddenly confronted by the reason. The face that looked out at me from the mirror was not the face of one who has just looked on a great sorrow. I was startled by my own reflection. It had a sort of shining, exalted look. I wondered what she could have thought.
I hurried with my undressing so that I could put out the lamp and swing open the casement window that looks down on the sea. The air came cool and salt against my hot cheeks. The silver radiance that flooded the harbor streamed in across me as I knelt down with my elbows on the sill and my hands folded to pray.
Presently I realized with a guilty start that I wasn't following my usual petitions. I had prayed only for Richard, and then, gazing down on the beach where we stood such a short time ago, I re-lived that moment and the ones that followed. The memory was as sacred as any prayer. It was not for its intrusion that my conscience smote me, but it seemed wickedly selfish to be forgetting those whom I had knelt purposely to remember: Father and Barby, all those in peril on the sea, all the victims of war and the brave souls everywhere, fighting for the peace ofthe world. And dear old Uncle Darcy—in the very first hour of his terrible loneliness—how could I forget to ask comfort forhim?
Stretching out my arms to that shining space above the water I whispered, "Dear God, is itrightfor me to be so happy with such awful heartache in the world?"
But no answer came to me out of that wonderful glory. All I seemed to hear was Uncle Darcy's quavering words—"But love abides! Death cannot take that!"
And presently as I kept on kneeling there I knewthatwas the answer: "Love that beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" is God-given. Heartache and Death may touch every life for a time, but Love abides through the ages.
couple on shore
"PIRATE GOLD"
Ifthis were a novel instead of my memoirs, I'd skip now to Richard's part of it, and tell his thoughts and feelings as he lay awake for hours, trying to adjust himself to his new outlook on the future. But I didn't know about that till afterward. It only came out bits at a time in the few hours we had together before he went away. We had so little time by ourselves.
The thing that worried him was the discovery that he no longer wanted to hurry off to the front. He was still as eager as ever to do his part. It wasn't that. It wasme. He told me down at Uncle Darcy's next morning. I was staying there until time for the funeral, doing the little things that Barby would have done had she been here. Belle had gone home, worn out, and Tippy was over there with her, getting dinner for some of the out-of-town relatives who were expected on the noon train. It seemed as if everybody on the Cape must have sent flowers. The little houseoverflowed with them. Richard helped me find places for them and carry out the empty boxes.
Uncle Darcy was so wonderful. He went about just as usual, talking in cautious half-whispers as he always did when Aunt Elspeth was asleep, tiptoeing into the darkened room now and then, to lean over and look at her. Sometimes he touched her hair caressingly, and sometimes smoothed down the long, soft folds of her white robe. Once when I took in a great basket full of ferns and roses to put on the table beside her he looked up with a smile.
"That's right," he said. "Fix it all nice and pretty for her, Georgina. Mother likes to have things pretty."
He was so calm, and seemingly so oblivious to the fact that she was no longer conscious of his presence, that we were awed by his wonderful composure. So when we were out by the pump, giving some of the floral designs a fresh sprinkling, it did not seem out of place for Richard to ask me if I had told Uncle Darcy—about us. It might have seemed strange at any other house of mourning for us to put our own affairs in the foreground, but not here.
I said no, I couldn't tell anybody until Barby knew. She must be the very first. He said all right, if I felt that way, but we'd have to send atelegram, because he couldn't go away till he'd claimed me before the footlights as well as behind the scenes. I didn't see how we could put such a thing in a telegram, but he was so determined that finally I consented to try. Together we composed one that we thought would enlighten Barby, and at the same time mystify the telegraph operator, who happened to be one of the old High School boys.
When the noon whistle blew Uncle Darcy's composure suddenly left him. He looked around, startled by the familiar sound as if its shrill summons pierced him with a realization of the truth. It was the signal for him to wheel Aunt Elspeth to the table; to uncover the tray Belle always sent in, to urge her appetite with the same old joke that never lost its flavor to her. It seemed to come over him in a terrifying wave of realization that all that was ended. He could never do it again, could never do anything for her. He looked at the clock and then turned stricken eyes on me, asking when they would take her away. When I told him his distress was pitiful. It is awful to hear an old man sob.
It sent me hurrying from the room, fumbling for my handkerchief. Richard followed me and put his arms about me. The cheek pressed against mine was wet too.
"Dearest," he whispered, "that's the way I care foryou. That's what I want to do—stay with you to the end—be to you all he's been to her. Ican'tgo and leave you with so many chances of never getting back to you. I'm clinging to the few hours still left to us as desperately as he is."
At the funeral that afternoon, as we stood together on the old burying-ground on the hill, listening to the brief service at the grave, such a comforting thought came to me. It was about the mantle of Elijah falling on Elisha as the chariot of fire bore him heavenward. He dropped it in token that a double portion of his spirit should rest on the younger prophet. I felt that Richard and I, in keeping vigil as the soul of Aunt Elspeth took its flight, had witnessed the earthly ending of the most beautiful devotion we had ever known. And its mantle had fallen on us. We would go down to old age as they had done. And we surely needed a double portion of their spirit, for we faced a long, uncertain separation, beset by danger and death.Theyhad gone all the way hand in hand.
After it was all over and the crowd straggled away we stayed behind with Uncle Darcy for a while, telling Dan and Belle we would take him home in the machine when he was ready to go.We left him sitting beside the flower-covered mound under a scraggly old pine, and strolled off to the top of the hill. Richard asked me if I remembered that the very first day we ever saw each other he brought me out to this old burying-ground. He dared me to slip in through the picket fence and touch ten tombstones to test my courage. And after I'd touched them I went tearing down the hill with eyes as big as saucers, to tell him there was a whole row of pirates' graves up there, with a skull and cross bones on each headstone, and how disappointed we were when we found out that they were only early settlers.
And I asked him if he remembered that the first compliment he ever paid me was that same day on our way home. I was so stuck up over it I never forgot it. It was, "You're a partnerworthhaving. You've got ahead."
He said yes our partnership dated from that very first day. It certainly was a deep-rooted affair. Then I told him the lovely thought that had come to me about the mantle of those two old lovers falling on our shoulders, and he reached out and took my hand in the gentlest way, and said that all that they had been to one anotherwe'dbe to each other, and more. And then we sat there on the hillside talking in low tones and watching the wind from the harbor blowingthrough the long sedge grass, till it was time to take Uncle Darcy home.
He was ready to go when we went down to him. On the way home he talked about Aunt Elspeth in the most wonderful way, as if he'd been up in some high place where he could look down on life as God does and see how short the earth part of it is. He said "'Twould be a sin to fret for her." That she was safe in port now and he'd soon follow. He was so glad that she wasn't the one to be left behind. She'd have been so helpless without him.
On the way home to supper we noticed an unusual number of boats putting into the harbor. The sky was overcast and the wind was rising. It was a disappointment because we'd planned for a moonlight row. We could see at a glance there wasn't going to be any moonlight. When we reached the house we found that Miss Susan Triplett was there. She had come back to town for the funeral and was going to stay all night with us.
My heart sank when I thought of one of our last precious evenings being interrupted by her. She always takes the centre of the stage wherever she is. But to my unbounded surprise Tippy took Miss Susan upstairs with her after supper, to help her spread the batting in a quilt that she wasgetting ready to put in the quilting frames. It took them till bedtime.
Richard vowed Tippy took her off purposely, out of pure goodness of heart, knowing that we wanted to be alone. I was positive that if she had thought that, or even suspected it, she wouldn't have budged an inch. She wouldn't approve of my being engaged. But Richard insisted that she was chuck full of sentiment herself, in spite of her apparent scorn of it, and that she not only suspected which way the wind was blowing, but knew it positively.
We didn't have any difference of opinion about what Barby would say, however. So I did not feel that I had to wait for an answer to our telegram before I let him slip the ring on my finger which he brought for me. It's a beautifulsolitairein a quaint Florentine setting.
"It's the one Dad gave mother," he said, "but if you'd rather have it in a modern setting——"
I love the tone of his voice when he says "Dad" that way, and I wouldn't have the setting changed if it had been as ugly as sin, instead of what it is, the most artistic one I ever saw.
It was blowing hard when he left the house. The waves were lashing angrily against the breakwater. We knew the fishermen must be expecting a storm. The night was so black we couldn't seethe fleets they had brought in, but the harbor was full of lights, hundreds of them gleaming from the close-reefed boats lying at anchor.
It was not until late in the night that the storm struck. Then a terrific wind swept the Cape. Shutters banged and windows rattled. The house itself shook at times, and now and then sand struck the window panes even of the second story, as if thrown against them in giant handfuls. Once there was a crash, and a big limb of the old willow went down. It has been years since we have had such a storm. Part of the willow went down that time.
Lying there unable to sleep I recalled that other storm. I could remember distinctly old Jeremy's coming in next morning to report the damage, and saying it was so wild it was a wonder the dunes hadn't all blown into the sea. Some of them had. Captain Ames' cranberry bog was buried so deep in sand you couldn't see a leaf of it, and there was sand drifted over everything, as if a cyclone had swirled through the dunes, lifting them bodily and scattering them over the face of the earth.
I had cause to remember that storm. It buried still deeper the little pouch of "pirate gold" which Richard and I had buried temporarily, and we had never been able to find it since. For days we dug with a hoe and the brass-handled fireshovel, trying to unearth it, but even the markers we had set above it never came to light.
Lying there in the dark I could remember exactly how Richard looked then, in his little grass-stained white suit with a hole in the knee of his stocking. What a dear little dare-devil he was in those days, always coming to grief with his clothes, because of his thirst for adventure. All through the storm I lay thinking about him. I am so glad that I have those memories of him as a boy to add to my knowledge of him as a man. If I knew him only as I have known him since his return, a handsome young officer in his immaculate uniform and with his fascinating ways, I'd be afraid I was being attracted by his outward charm, and might be disillusioned some day as I was about Esther.
But in all the years we've been growing up together I've had time to learn every one of his faults and short-comings. Though I've frankly told him of them in times past for his own good, I realize now that he never had as many as most boys, and he has outgrown the few he did have. I wouldn't have him changed now in any way whatever.
An attachment like ours that blossoms out of such a long and intimate acquaintance must have deeper roots than one like Babe's and Watson's.Theirs hasn't any background, any past tense. Babe married him without having seen a single member of his family nearer than cousins, which is an awful risk, I think. Suppose one of his next of kin were a miser or a fanatic, and the same traits would crop out in him later in life. Knowing Richard's father as I did makes me feel that I know Richard in the future tense. They are so much alike. He'll always keep that sense of humor which was one of Mr. Moreland's charms, and the same feeling for things with old happy associations, like my ring.
When I thought of that adorable ring I just couldn't wait till morning to see it again. Reaching for the little pocket flashlight which I keep on the stand beside my bed, I sat up and flashed it on the stone, turning it in every possible direction to see it sparkle. It was much more dazzling under the electric light than it had been under the lamp. I wondered if it made Richard's mother as happy when she wore it as it makes me. I wondered if she ever sat up in the dark to admire it as I was doing, and what she would think if she could see me press it to my lips in the consciousness that it is the precious link which binds me to Richard. I don't believe she would think it silly. She would be glad that I care so much—so very much.
Next morning Richard was over early to take me out with him to see how much damage the storm had done. The beach was strewn with wreckage, trees were uprooted on every street, and roofs and chimneys had suffered all over town. But the strangest thing was that we found our little pouch of pirate gold. It was like the sea giving up its dead for the dunes to give up the treasure we'd buried in it so long ago. We hadn't the faintest expectation of such a thing when we started out; merely thought we'd go over for a look at the place where it was buried.
When we ploughed through the sand to the fringe of bayberry bushes and wild beach plums that was our landmark, we found that the last storm had undone the work of that first one. It had scooped out the sand and left a hollow as it used to be years ago. Even then we hadn't any thought of really finding the money, but Captain Kidd was along, and just to give him some excitement Richard called "Rats!"
That started him to digging frantically, and the first thing that flew out from under his paws was one of the pieces of broken crock which we had used as a marker. Then we tried him in other places, poking around ourselves with sticks, and presently he gave a short bark and stopped digging, to nose something else he had unearthed.It actually was the old baking-powder can. It was almost eaten up with rust, and the names and date we had scratched on it were almost illegible. But everything inside was intact.
I watched Richard's face as he unrolled layer after layer of tin foil that was wrapped around the pouch, and thought again how nice it was that I shared his memories. I could understand the smile that curved his lips, for I knew the scenes that tin foil brought back to him. He had been weeks saving it.
"Off Dad's tobacco," was all he said. But more than once I had climbed the Green Stairs up the cliff to the bungalow in time to see the laughing scuffle which invariably took place before it was handed over to him. They had been rare play-fellows, he and his father.
In the pouch was the letter, the black rubber ring, the handful of change. "We'll pass all that over to Dan," I said, "but the gold we'll divide and gloat over."
But Richard insisted that it shouldn't be divided. He wanted to take it down to the Arts and Crafts shop and have it made into a ring for me. Just a little circle, that I could wear as a guard for the other one. I wanted half of it made into some token for him "to have and to hold" but we couldn't think of anything suitable. Hewouldn't wear a ring himself, and there wasn't time to make a locket. There's so little that a soldier going abroad can carry with him.
It was the artist who does the lovely jewel work at the Shop who settled the question. We had to take her partly into our confidence in order to show her how necessary it was to have the keepsake done before Richard's departure. She was dear about it, and so thrilled with the romance of the affair that she said she'd sit up all night if necessary to finish it. Yes, she understood perfectly, she said. She would melt the two gold pieces together, and out of part would fashion the ring, just a little twist of a lover's knot, and out of the rest—well, why not an identification tag? The gentleman would have to wear one anyhow, and, being an officer could have it of gold if he wished.
Richard liked the idea immensely, but it gave me a gruesome feeling at first. There would be no need of identification tags, were it not that possible death and wounds and capture face every man who wears one. Besides it seemed such a cold-blooded sort of token to give to one's best beloved, just starting off to the Field of Honor. About as romantic as a trunk check.
But suddenly I thought of something which made me agree instantly. There was a namewhich I could have engraved upon the reverse side, which would make the little tag seem almost like a decoration, in commemoration of a noble deed. I managed to write it down and slip it to the artist without Richard's seeing it.
Now whenever he looks at it he will remember it is the name I call him in my heart of hearts. He will know that I think of him as my true knight, as worthy of a royal accolade as any of those who fared forth in Arthur's time to redress the wrongs of the world. He is my "Sir Gareth."