LXIIJESSICA TO PHILIP
LXII
JESSICA TO PHILIP
I need not tell you that I read the letters to me which you wrote to Jack. But the sequel of your story is wrong, dear knight. After a long famine, out of a very wilderness of sorrows, it is I who return to you. And I wonder if you will recognise in the poor little bedraggled vixen that I now am, the gay lady dryad with whom you walked that day in the forest when we met the witch. You may be shocked to learn, however, that I hold you more than half accountable for the misfortunes that have befallen me since! You should have savedmeinstead of attempting to slay the witch. But you allowed me to depart, a dejected fiction of filial piety, to become the victim of a fanatical father’s ethics. Why did youconsent to this sacrilege? For, indeed, I hold it as much a sacrilege to change a Jessica into a deaconess as it would be to turn a Christian into a Hottentot,—provided either were possible.
I admit that it was I who ended our engagement and forbade you to come here; but that was only a part ofmydelusion, notyours! But why did you not rescue me from these delusions? Are they not more terrible than the beasts at Ephesus? Really I know not which of us has showed less wisdom,—you who stayed to slay a metaphorical witch created of your own heated imagination, or I, with all my hopes unfulfilled, turning aside to follow one whose prophecies carry him out of the world rather than into it. And I do not know what has been the result of your mistake, but with me it has been war. I have been like a small province in rebellion, burning and slaying all within my borders. I am a heathen Hittite in father’s vineyard. I have profaned all his scriptures and confoundedall his doctrines, until I think now the only boon he prays for is deliverance.
But one thing I have learned, dear knight of my heart,—submitting to a paternal edict does not change the course of nature, although true love often runs less smoothly on that account. You cannot make a wren out of a redbird, even if you are the God of both. And not all the prayers in heaven can save a little white moth from her candle, once she has felt it shining upon her wings. Just so, some charm of light in you, some clear illumination of things that reaches far beyond all the doctrines I know, draws me like a destiny. It does not appear whether I shall live in a gay rhythm around it or drop dead in the flame, and it no longer matters. Like the poor moth, all I know is that I can neither live nor die apart from it.
And this brings me to the point of telling you why I have the courage to break my promise and to write again. I have had what father calls a “revelation,” when heis about to construe life for me according to the prayers he has said. But in no sense does my revelation resemble the Christian shrewdness of his. It has all the grace of a heathen oracle, and, father would say, all the earthly fallacies of one! For, indeed, my life is so near and kin to Pan’s that my vision never goes far beyond the green edges of this present world. So! draw near, then, while I tell your fortune according to the shadows of my own destiny!—as near as you were that day when we read the old Latin poet together under the trees in our forest,—for in some ways your fortune resembles the scriptures of Catullus. They are dual, and the ethics they prove are romantic, too, rather than ascetic.
I have a mind to begin at the beginning and to run again over the long fairy trail of our love, so that we may see more clearly where our good stars agree. And oh, dear Philip, my heart craves to talk with you. Silence to you is the rare atmospherewhere your wings expand and bear you swiftly upward and ever upward. But I—I cannot soar, I cannot breathe in that silence. I am writing, writing, to save my heart from the madness of this long restraint. I am comforting myself with this story of our love—until you come, for you will come, Philip. Well, the beginning was when a certain poor little Eve escaped from her garden in the South, which was not according to the record in such matters, and brazened her way into the office of a certain literary editor in New York. As well as I can remember she was in search of fame, and she found,—ah, dear Heart,—she found both love and knowledge. But do you know how terrifying you are to a primitive original woman such as I was then? I had nothing in my whole experience by which to interpret the broad white silence of the brow you lifted to greet me, nor the grave knowledge of your eyes that comprehended me altogether without once sharpening into apenetrating gaze. I had a judgment-day sensation, through which I did not know if I should endure! I was divided between one impulse to flee for my life and the more natural one to stand and contend for my secrets. Did you know, dear Philip, that every woman is born with a secret? I did not until that revealing day when first you encompassed me about with the wisdom of your eyes. Then, all in a moment, I longed to clasp both hands over my heart to hide it from you. You talked by rote of literature, but I could not tell of what you were really thinking. And I answered in little frightened chirups, like a small winged thing that is blown far out of its course by the gale.
All this happened to me one year ago to-day, dear Philip. But this year with you I have come a longer distance than in all the years of my life before. After that desperate visit to New York, I returned to Morningtown, a delightful mystery to myself, made rich with an unaccountablejoy, and with an inexplicable rainbow arched in my heart’s heavens. I did not know for what I hoped, but suddenly I understood that life’s dearest fulfilment was before me.
After that I do not know how the charm of love worked within my heart, only that I had always the happy animation of some one newly blessed. And I had the divine sensation of being recreated, fashioned for some happier destiny. I lost father’s boundary lines of prayer and creed. Some limitation of my own mind passed away and I entered into a sort of heathen fellowship with the very spirits of the air. And always I thought only of you. The very reviews I wrote were, in a sense, remote love letters, foreign prayers to your strange soul. I even banished distance by some miracle of love and often sat in spirit upon the perilous ledge of your window sill.
This feat was not so easy to do at first, for I was much afraid of you. Your mindseemed alien to me in the anti-humanitarian attitude which you assumed to life. Yet it was this very power in you to surpass in philosophy all mere mortal conditions that fascinated my attention, compelled my allegiance. And for a long while I stood in jealous awe of your “upper chamber.” I resented that cold expression of your spirituality. Then suddenly I was like a white moth beating my wings against your high windows.
In those days, Philip, I felt that I could be forever contented if only Iknewthat you loved me, and that your loving included all the strange altitudes of your mind. Nor can I ever forget the happiness I felt in the first assurances of your tenderness. They seemed to justify and set me free. I danced many a pagan rhythm through my forest, and dared every bird with a song. I had that liberty of being which comes of perfect peace,—the same I have heard father’s repentant sinners profess. And I was resolved, oh, so firmly!never to compromise it with any sacrifice of romance to reality.
But, alas! now I know that if a man loves a woman, this is only the beginning of a long negotiation, carried forward in poetic terms; and that his love is a sort offi. fa., which he will some day serve upon her heart.
Upon your first visit to Morningtown it was easy to hold out against you, for you were such a distant, dignified admirer then. Your apparent diffidence, your natural reserve, seemed to give me a coquettish advantage over the situation, and I was not slow to avail myself of it. How was I to know there was such a mad lover lying concealed behind your classic pose? Thus it was that I compromised all the armies of my heart. Henceforth I marched madly, dizzily to my final surrender. I could not have saved myself if a thousand Blüchers had hurried to my defence. And there even came a time when I desired my own capitulation; a thing which, owing to someperversity of nature, I was unable to accomplish of my own will.
But you will remember how that finally came about, and it might have come so much earlier if you had made your first visit with the same brigand determination as your second. And you brought Jack with you! How droll you two looked that day as you stood upon our narrow door-sill awaiting your welcome! There was no accent of paternity in your expression to justify poor little Jack’s presence. The relationship between you seemed so ludicrously artificial,—as if you had somehow got an undeserved iota subscript to your callous, scholarly heart. The situation put you at such a humorous disadvantage, made you appear so at variance with your hard, uncharitable theories of life, and with your superlative dignity of mien, that the terror I had felt in anticipation of your visit vanished away. I think the awkward helplessness with which you seemed always to be trying to domesticate yourselfto Jack appealed to my sense of humour so keenly that your romantic proportions were suddenly reduced. You were less formidable to deal with as a lover. That is how I came to consent to the walk we took in the forest. Ah me! I should have taken warning from your enigmatical silence. And indeed I did tremble with vivacity in my effort to break it. But you only looked mysteriously confident about something and kept your own counsel, giving me a nod or a quizzical smile now and then, as if what I was saying really had no bearing whatever upon the issue at hand.... Then suddenly the grey wood shadows fell about us. The world changed back a thousand ages and we were the only man and woman in it. I felt the sudden compulsion of your arms about me. And, Philip, I could have rested in them if I had not caught in your face the expression of a new, undisguised man; but the strange white intensity of it startled me so that I must have died or mademy escape. Ah! you do not know how sincere was my flight from you the next moment. I knew that I should be captured at last; but after the divine madness I had seen in your eyes, I could not bewilling. And when at last you overtook me under that old Merlin oak, you showed no mercy at all, my lord. You were not even sorry for me, and you did not understand as I lay with my face covered in terror and shame against your breast. Philip, why does a woman always weep when the first man kisses her the first time, no matter how glad she is? I hope you do not know enough to answer this question. But I am sure every woman does weep; and I think it is because she feels even in the midst of her great happiness, an irremediable loss, for which nothing ever fully atones.
But another question is, How could I, after being lost to you in this dear way, turn my face from you at the command of a religious enthusiast? A regard for fatherand not for his righteousness is the explanation; for I felt more nearly right following my heart to you. But now, dear knight, I am ready to forgive you the fault of assenting to such an unnatural sacrifice, if only you will come and take me once more. At present I am a sorry little vagabond, very much the worse for wear, owing to father’s efforts to sanctify me. But if you will only love me enough, I think I could be Jessica again. And perhaps you have some more natural way of sanctifying me yourself; for I doubt now if I shall ever see heaven unless I may ascend through your portals.
Every day since our bereavement of each other, I have kept a tryst under our big tree in the forest. At first this was a tender formality, a memorial of a happiness that had passed. But after a time I began to have a power of mental vision that was akin to communication. I came out of myself to meet you somewhere in that mysterious world of silence to which youseem to belong. There were hours when I felt absolutely certain of your nearness, a tender peace enfolded me as warm as your arms are. And I had the supreme satisfaction of having outwitted all father’s powers and principalities. Then came days when by no sweet incantation could I bring myself near you. I wept upon my sod like one forsaken, and grieved the more because I conceived that you must be far out of my regions in one of your “upper chamber” moods, where all your faculties were concentrated upon some merely philosophical proposition. I wonder now if you are laughing! If you knew how I have suffered, you would not even smile. If you knew how I haveneededto be kissed, you would make haste to come to me.
I had been making these excursions into the forest for a long time before I discovered that Jack was playing the part of eavesdropping guardian angel. Do you know, by the way, what a quaint littleragamuffin philosopher that child is? He has a shrewd sobriety, a steady watchfulness over all about him, and he is endowed with a power of silent devotion that is absolutely compelling. He has been such a comfort to me! and there is no way of keeping him out of your confidence. He knows things by some occult science of loving. Thus I was not offended one day when I looked up from the shadows under my oak and saw him regarding me gravely, almost compassionately, from behind a neighbouring tree. After this we had a tacit understanding that he might play sentinel there when I came into the forest.
See how much I have said, and still I have not told you the strangest part of my story—the moonlit revelation of you to me. I am writing, writing, to ease my heart until you come. And always as I write I listen for the sound of your dear footsteps. For many successive days I had found our trysting place a veritable desert. I seemedto have lost my heart’s way to you; and in proportion to my bewilderment, life became more and more intolerable. I had the desperate sensation of one who is about to be lost in a waste land, and I felt that I could not live through the frightful loneliness of such an experience. Yesterday again I failed to find the comfort of your occult presence when I went into the wood. I was filled with consternation, and when the night came I lay tossing in a sleepless fever. Unless I knew once more in my heart that you loved me, I felt that I could no longer endure life. So I lay far into the night. At last in desperation I arose from my bed, slipped on my shoes and the big cloak that you will remember, and fled away to our tree in the forest, pursued by a thousand shadows. For indeed I am usually afraid of the dark; it is like a silence to me—your silence, Philip—and I fear it because I do not know what it contains. But I had got one of father’s wrestling-Jacob’s moods upon me by thistime, and if Mahomet’s mountain had come booming by I should not have been deterred from my purpose. But do you know that there is more life in a little forest when darkness falls than in a big town? and that every living thing there recognises you as an intruder with warning calls from tree to tree? I had not more than cast myself upon the ground to sob out all my griefs to whatever gods would listen, when a sleepy little robin just overhead called up to his mistress the tone of my trouble. The young leaves whispered it, the boughs swept low about me, and the winds carried messages of it away into the heavens, so that suddenly the whole night knew of my woe and pitied me.
I know not how long I lay there staring up at the blue abyss of stars through the grizzly shades of night. I only know that my face was wet with tears and that I seemed to tremble upon the brink of a long life’s despair. And oh! Philip I neverlovedyou so,—not only with my heart and lips, butwith my soul. And it was my soul that went out in a prayer to you to come. I remembered not only the dear ways you have of folding me into your arms and making me surpassingly happy, so against my own will, but I remembered the silent young sage in his upper chamber, and I felt that indeed it was to this esoteric personality that I must pray for help.
And so I gave my soul away to the sweet silence, and waited. The moonlight falling down through an open space made a cataract of tremulous brightness. It edged all the shadows with a silver whiteness, as of wings hidden.
And then suddenly there came to me out of the far abyss above my trees a message, a sweet assurance. Oh, I know not how to call to it, only I felt the nearness of my love. And I was afraid, my darling, and closed my eyes lest I shouldseeyou. And then, oh, Philip, I felt, I am sure I felt your face close to mine, and in my ears a low whisper breathed like the passing of thebreeze, a voice saying: “Fear not, beloved; be at peace until I come!” And I knew then that you loved me and had not forsaken me altogether.
And when at last I raised my eyes, I became aware of the fact that I was still not alone; and peering through the dim spaces about me I beheldJacksitting hunched up on the root of his tree like a small toad of fidelity! The little owl sprite in him never quite slumbers, I think; and seeing me leave the parsonage, he had crept out and followed bravely after through the shadows. But the picture he made now startled me into a peal of laughter.
“You are the lady in the story that was lost,” said Jack, with the solemn intonation of one who has himself received a revelation.
“Yes,” I confessed softly.
“But will the knight come to find you?”
“I hope so; I think he is coming now, dear Jack.”
“Well damn him if he don’t!” was the little wretch’s impious comment. I always suspected him capable of using strong language, but this was the first time we had met upon a sufficiently intimate basis of friendship for him to exploit it.
And now, Philip, that is all until you come. But hasten, my beloved! I am already aged with this long waiting for you. Do not ask me about father. He is a good shepherd, but I am a small black sheep determined not to be made white according to his plan. And he has come to that place where he would be ready to take even you as an under-shepherd of this factious ewe lamb. Besides, could we not make a providential offering of Jack, as Abraham did of the goat when he was about to slay Isaac? Jack, I think, has a heavenly wit withal, and could adjust the little prayer light of his soul even to father’s high altar mind. As for me, I cannot conceive of life alone without you one wholeday longer. Indeed, so strong is my premonition of your approach, that even now I listen for the sound of your footsteps upon the gravel outside.
THE END
THE END