THE BRIDGE OF DREAMS
"And then, Major, hell broke loose! Dave stood up and--" Tom Cantrell's
eyes snapped and he slashed with his crop at the bright andirons that
held the flamed logs.
"No, Major, it wasn't hell that broke up, it was something inside me. I
felt it smash. For a moment I didn't grasp what Taylor was saying. It
sounded so like the ravings of an insane phonograph that I was for being
amused, but when I found that he was actually advising the mayor to
refuse our committee the use of the hay market for a bivouac during the
Confederate reunion, I just got up and took his speech and fed it to him
raw. I saw red with a touch of purple and I didn't know I was on my feet
and--"
"Major," interrupted Andrew Sevier, his eyes bright as those of Kildare
and his quiet voice under perfect control, "Judge Taylor's exact words
were that it seemed inadvisable to turn over property belonging to the
city for the use of parties that could in no way be held responsible. He
elucidated his excuse by saying that the Confederate soldiers were so old
now that they were better off at home than parading the streets and
inciting rebellious feelings in the children, throwing the city into
confusion by their disorderly conduct and--"
"That's all he said, Major, that's all. I was on my feet then and all
that needs to be said and done to him was said and done right there. I
said it and Phoebe and Mrs. Peyton Kendrick did it as they walked right
past him and out of the chamber of commerce hall of committees while he
was trying to answer me. That broke up the meeting and he can't be found
this morning. Cap has had Tom looking for him. I think when we find him
we will have a few more words of remonstrance with him!" said Dave
quietly. And he stood straight and tall before the major, and as he threw
back his head he was most commanding. There was an expression of power in
the face of David Kildare that the major had never seen there before.
He balanced his glasses in his hands a moment and looked keenly at the
four young men lined up before him. They made a very forceful
typification of the new order of things and were rather magnificent
in their defense of the old. The major's voice tightened in his throat
before he could say what they were waiting to hear.
"Boys," he said, and his old face lit with one of its rare smiles,
"there were live sparks in these gray ashes--or we could not have bred
you. I'm thinking you, yourselves, justify the existence of us old
Johnnies and give us a clear title to live a little while longer,
reunite once a year, sing the old songs, speechify, parade, bivouac a few
more times together--and be as disorderly as we damn please, in this or
any other city's hay market. Tom, telephone Cap to go straight to the
bivouac headquarters and have them get ready to get out a special edition
of the _Gray Picket_. If reports of this matter are sent out over the
South without immediate and drastic refutations there will be a
conflagration of thousands of old fire-eaters. They will never live
through the strain. Andrew, take David up to your rooms, send for a
stenographer and get together as much of that David Kildare speech as
you can. Hobson, get hold of the stenographer of the city council and get
his report of both Taylor's and Potts' speeches. Choke it out of him for
I suspect they have both attempted to have them destroyed."
"Don't you see, Major, don't you see, he tried to make a play to the
masses of protecting the city's property and the city's law and order,
but he jumped into a hornet's nest? We managed to keep it all out of the
morning paper but something is sure to creep in. Hadn't we better have a
conference with the editors?" Tom was a solid quantity to be reckoned
with in a stress that called for keenness of judgment rather than
emotion.
"Ask them for a conference in the editorial rooms of the _Gray Picket_ at
two-thirty, Tom," answered the major. "In the meantime I'll draft an
editorial for the special edition. We must come out with it in the
morning at all odds."
In a few moments the echo of their steps over the polished floors and the
ring of their voices had died away and the major was once more alone in
his quiet library. He laid aside his books and drew his chair up to the
table and began to make preparations for his editorial utterances. His
rampant grizzled forelock stood straight up and his jaws were squared and
grim. He paused and was in the act of calling Jeff to summon Phoebe over
the wire when the curtains parted and she stood on the threshold. The
major never failed to experience a glow of pride when Phoebe appeared
before him suddenly. She was a very clear-eyed, alert, poised
individuality, with the freshness of the early morning breezes about her.
"My dear," he said without any kind of preliminary greeting, "what do you
make of the encounter between David Kildare and Julge Taylor? The boys
have been here, but I want your account of it before I begin to take
action in the matter."
"It was the most dastardly thing I ever heard, Major," said Phoebe
quietly with a deep note in her voice. "For one moment I sat stunned. The
long line of veterans as I saw them last year at the reunion, old and
gray, limping some of them, but glory in their bright faces, some of them
singing and laughing, came back to me. I thought my heart would burst at
the insult to them and to--us, their children. But when David rose from
his chair beside me I drew a long breath. I wish you could have heard him
and seen him. He was stately and courteous--and he said it _all_. He
voiced the love and the reverence that is in all our hearts for them.
It was a very dignified forceful speech--and _David_ made it!" Phoebe
stood close against the table and for a moment veiled her tear-starred
eyes from the major's keen glance.
"Phoebe," he said after a moment's silence, "I sometimes think the world
lacks a standard by which to measure some of her vaster products. Perhaps
you and I have just explored the heart of David Kildare so far. But a
heart as fine as his isn't going to pump fool blood into any man's
brain--eh?"
"Sometimes and about some things, you do me a great injustice, Major,"
answered Phoebe slowly, with a serious look into the keen eyes bent upon
hers. "Of all the 'glad crowd', as David calls us, I am the only woman
who comes directly in contact with the struggling, working, hand-to-hand
fight of life, and I can't help letting it affect me in my judgment
of--of us. I can't forget it when--when I amuse myself or let David amuse
me. I seem to belong with them and not in the life he would make for me;
yet you know I care--but if you are going to get out that extra edition
you must get to work. I will sit here and get up my one o'clock notes for
the imp, and if you need me, tell me so."
The major bestowed a slow quizzical smile upon her and took up his pen.
For an hour they both wrote rapidly with now a quick question from the
major and a concise answer from Phoebe, or a short debate over the
wording of one of his sentences or paragraphs. The editorial minds of the
graybeard and the girl were of much the same quality and they had written
together for many years. The major had gone far in the molding of
Phoebe's keen wit.
"Why, here you are, Phoebe," exclaimed Mrs. Buchanan as she hurried into
the room just as Phoebe was finishing some of her last paragraphs,
"Caroline and I have been telephoning everywhere for you. Do come and
motor out to the Country Club with us for lunch. David and Andrew left
some partridges there yesterday as they came from hunting on Old Harpeth,
to be grilled for us to-day. You are going out there to play bridge with
Mrs. Shelby's guest from Charleston at three, so please come with us
now!"
She was all eagerness and she rested one plump, persuasive little hand on
Phoebe's arm. To Mrs. Matilda, any time that Phoebe could be persuaded to
frolic was one of undimmed joy.
"Now, Mrs. Matilda," said the major, as he smiled at her with the
expression of delight that her presence always called forth even in times
of extreme strenuosity, "do leave Phoebe with me--I'm really a very lorn
old man."
"Why, are you really lonely dear? Then Caroline and I won't think of
going. We'll stay right here to lunch with you. I will go tell her and
you put up your books and papers and we will bring our sewing and chat
with you and Phoebe. It will be lovely."
"Matilda," answered the major hastily with real alarm in his eyes, "I
insist that you unroll my strings to your apron as far as the Country
Club this once. I capitulate--no man in the world ever had more attention
than I have. Why, Phoebe knows that--"
"Indeed, indeed, he really doesn't want us, Mrs. Matilda. Let's leave him
to his Immortals. I will be ready in a half-hour if I can write fast
here. Tell Caroline Darrah to hunt me up a fresh veil and phone Mammy
Kitty not to expect me home until--until midnight. Now while you dress I
will write."
"Very well," answered Mrs. Buchanan, "if you are sure you don't need us,
Major," and with a caress on his rampant lock she hurried away.
"You took an awful risk then, Major," said Phoebe with a twinkle in her
eyes.
"I know it," answered the major. "I've been taking them for nearly forty
years. It's added much to this affair between Mrs. Buchanan and me. Small
excitements are all that are necessary to fan the true connubial flame. I
didn't tell her about all this because I really hadn't the time. Tell her
on the way out, for I expect there will be a rattle of musketry as soon
as the dimity brigade hears the circumstances."
Then for a half-hour Phoebe and the major wrote rapidly until she
gathered her sheets together and left them under his paper-weight to be
delivered to the devil from the office.
She departed quietly, taking Mrs. Matilda and Caroline with her.
And for still another hour the major continued to push his pen rapidly
across the paper, then he settled down to the business of reading and
annotating his work.
For years Major Buchanan had been the editor of the _Gray Picket_, which
went its way weekly into almost every home in the South. It was a quaint,
bright little folio full of articles of interest to the old Johnnie Rebs
scattered south of Mason and Dixon. As a general thing it radiated good
cheer and a most patriotic spirit, but at times something would occur to
stir the gray ashes from which would fly a crash of sparks. Then again
the spirit of peace unutterable would reign in its columns. It was
published for the most part to keep up the desire for the yearly
Confederate reunions--those bivouacs of chosen spirits, the like of which
could never have been before and can never be after. The major's pen was
a trenchant one but reconstructed--in the main.
But the scene at the Country Club in the early afternoon was, according
to the major's prediction, far from peaceful in tone; it was confusion
confounded. Mrs. Peyton Kendrick was there and the card-tables were
deserted as the players, matrons and maids, gathered around her and
discussed excitedly the result of her "ways and means for the reunion"
mission to the city council, the judge's insult and David Kildare's
reply. They were every mother's daughter of them Dames of the Confederacy
and their very lovely gowns were none the less their fighting clothes.
"And then," said Mrs. Payt, her cheeks pink with indignation, and the
essence of belligerency in her excited eyes, "for a moment I sat
petrified, _petrified_ with cold rage, until David Kildare's speech
began--there had never been a greater one delivered in the United States
of America! He said--he said--oh, I don't know what he did say, but it
was--"
"I just feel--" gasped Polly Farrell with a sob, "that I ought to get
down on my knees to him. He's a hero--he's a--"
"Of course for a second I was surprised. I had never heard David Kildare
speak about a--a serious matter before, but I could have expected it,
for his father was a most brilliant lawyer, and his mother's father was
our senator for twenty years and his uncle our ambassador to the court
of--" and Mrs. Peyton's voice trailed off in the clamor.
"Well, I've always known that Cousin Dave was a great man. He ought
to be the president or governor--or _something_. I would vote for him
to-morrow--or that is, I would make some man--I don't know just who--do
it!" And Polly's treble voice again took up the theme of David's praises.
"And think of the old soldiers," said Mrs. Buchanan with a catch in her
breath. "It will hurt them so when they read it. They will think people
are tired of them and that we don't want them to come here in the spring
for the reunion. They are old and feeble and they have had so much to
bear. It was cruel, _cruel_."
"And to think of not wanting the children to see them and know them and
love them--and understand!" Milly's soft voice both broke and blazed.
"I'm going to cry--I'm doing it," sobbed Polly with her head on Phoebe's
shoulder. "I wasn't but twelve when they met here last time and I
followed all the parades and cried for three solid days. It was
delicious. I'm not mad at any Yankee--I'm in love with a man from Boston
and I'm--oh, please, don't anybody tell I said that! I may not be, I just
think so because he is so good-looking and--"
"We must all go out to the Soldier's Home to-morrow, a large committee,
and take every good thing we can think up and make. We must pay them so
much attention that they will let us make a joke of it," said Mrs.
Matilda thinking immediately of the old fellows who "sat in the
sun"--waiting.
"Yes," answered Mrs. Peyton, "and we must go oftener. We want some more
committees. It won't be many years--two were buried last week from the
Home." There was a moment's silence and the sun streamed in across the
deserted tables.
"Oh," murmured Caroline Darrah Brown with her eyes in a blaze, "I can't
stand it, Phoebe. I never felt so before--I who have no right."
"Dear," said Phoebe with a quiet though intensely sad smile, "this is
just an afterglow of what they must have felt in those awful times. Let's
get them started at the game."
For just a moment longer Phoebe watched them in their heated discussion,
then chose her time and her strong quiet voice commanded immediate
attention.
"Girls," she said, and as she spoke she held out her hand to Mrs. Peyton
Kendrick with an audacious little smile. Any woman from two to sixty
likes to be called girl--audaciously as Phoebe did it. "Let's leave it
all to the men. I think we can trust them to compel the judge to dine off
his yesterday's remarks in tomorrow's papers. And then if we don't like
the way they have settled with him we can have a gorgeous time telling
them how much better they might have done it. Let's all play--everybody
for the game!"
"And Phoebe!" called Mrs. Payt as she sat down at the table farthest in
the corner. She spoke in a clear high-pitched voice that carried well
over the rustle of settling gowns and shuffling cards: "We all intend
after this to _see_ that David Kildare gets what he wants--you
understand?" A laugh rippled from every table but Phoebe was equal to the
occasion.
"Why not, Mrs. Payt," she answered with the utmost cordiality. "And let's
be sure and find something he really wants to present to him as a
testimony of our esteem."
"Oh, Phoebe," trilled Polly, her emotions getting the better of her as
she stood with score-card in hand waiting for the game to begin, "_I_
can't keep from loving him myself and _you_ treat him so mean!"
But a gale of merriment interrupted her outburst and a flutter of cards
on the felts marked the first rounds of the hands. In a few minutes they
were as absorbed as if nothing had happened to ruffle the depths; but in
the pool of every woman's nature the deepest spot shelters the lost
causes of life, and from it wells a tidal wave if stirred.
After a little while Caroline Darrah rose from a dummy and spoke in a low
pleading tone to Polly, who had been watching her game, standing ready to
score. Polly demurred, then consented and sat down while Caroline Darrah
took her departure, quietly but fleetly, down the side steps.
She was muffled in her long furs and she swung her sable toque with
its one drooping plume in her hand as she walked rapidly across the
tennis-courts, cut through the beeches and came out on the bank of the
brawling little Silver Fork Creek, that wound itself from over the ridge
down through the club lands to the river. She stood by the sycamore for a
moment listening delightedly to its chatter over the rocks, then climbed
out on the huge old rock that jutted out from the bank and was entwined
by the bleached roots of the tall tree. The strong winter sun had warmed
the flat slab on the south side and, sinking down with a sigh of delight,
she embraced her knees and bent over to gaze into the sparkling little
waterfall that gushed across the foot of the boulder.
Then for a mystic half-hour she sat and let her eyes roam the blue
Harpeth hills in the distance, that were naked and stark save for the
lace traceries of their winter-robbed trees. As the sun sank a soft rose
purple shot through the blue and the mists of the valley rose higher
about the bared breasts of the old ridge.
And because of the stillness and beauty of the place and hour, Caroline
Darrah began, as women will if the opportunity only so slightly invites
them, to dream--until a crackle in a thicket opposite her perch
distracted her attention and sent her head up with a little start. In a
second she found herself looking across the chatty little stream straight
into the eyes of Andrew Sevier, in which she found an expression of
having come upon a treasure with distracting suddenness.
"Oh," she said to break the silence which seemed to be settling itself
between them permanently, "I think I must have been dreaming and you
crashed right in. I--I--"
"Are you sure you are not the dream itself--just come true?" demanded the
poet in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he were asking the time of day or
the trail home.
"I don't think I am, in fact I'm sure," she answered with a break in her
curled lips. "The dream is a bridge, a beautiful bridge, and I've been
seeing it grow for minutes and minutes. One end of it rests down there
by that broken log--see where the little knoll swells up from the
field?--and it stretches in a beautiful strong arch until it seems to cut
across that broken-backed old hill in the distance. And then it falls
across--but I don't know where to put the other end of it--the ground
sinks so--it might wobble. I don't want my bridge to wobble."
Her tone was expressive of a real distress as she looked at him in
appealing confusion. And in his eyes she found the dawn of an amused
wonder, almost consternation. Slowly over his face there spread a deep
flush and his lips were indrawn with a quick breath.
"Wait a minute, I'll show you," he said in almost an undertone. He swung
himself across the creek on a couple of stones, climbed up the boulder
and seated himself at her side. Then he drew a sketch-book from his
pocket and spread it open on the slab before them.
There it was--the dream bridge! It rose in a fine strong curve from the
little knoll, spanned across the distant ridge and fell to the opposite
bank on to a broad support that braced itself against a rock ledge. It
was as fine a perspective sketch as ever came from the pencil of an
enthusiastic young Beaux Arts.
"Yes," she said with a delighted sigh that was like the slide of the
water over smooth pebbles, "yes, that is what I want it to be, only I
couldn't seem to see how it would rest right away. It is just as I
dreamed it and,"--then she looked at him with startled jeweled eyes.
"Where did I see it--where did you--what does it mean?" she demanded, and
the flush that rose up to the waves of her hair was the reflection of the
one that had stained his face before he came across the stream. "I think
I'm frightened," she added with a little nervous laugh.
"Please don't be--because I am, too," he answered. And instinctively,
like two children, they drew close together. They both gazed at the
specter sketch spread before them and drew still nearer to each other.
"I have been planning it for days," he said in almost a whisper. Her
small pink ear was very near his lips and his breath agitated two little
gold tendrils that blew across it. "I want to build it before I go away,
it is needed here for the hunting. I came out and made the sketch from
right here an hour ago. I came back--I must have come back to have
it--verified." He laughed softly, and for just a second his fingers
rested against hers on the edge of the sketch.
"I'm still frightened," she said, but a tippy little smile coaxed at the
corners of her mouth. She turned her face away from his eyes that had
grown--disturbing.
"I'm not," he announced boldly. "Beautiful wild things are flying loose
all over the world and why shouldn't we capture one for ourselves. Do you
mind--please don't!"
"I don't think I do," she answered, and her lashes swept her cheeks
as she lifted the sketch-book to her knees. "Only suppose I was to
dream--some of your--other work--some day? I don't want to build your
bridges--but I might want to--write some of your poems. Hadn't you better
do something to stop me right now?" The smile had come to stay and
peeped roguishly out at him from beneath her lashes.
"No," he answered calmly, "if you want my dreams--they are yours."
"Oh," she said as she rose to her feet and looked down at him wistfully,
"your beautiful, beautiful dreams! Ever since that afternoon I have gone
over and over the lines you read me. The one about the 'brotherhood of
our heart's desires' keeps me from being lonely. I think--I think I went
to sleep saying it to myself last night and--"
It couldn't go on any longer--as Andrew rose to his feet he gathered
together any stray wreckage of wits that was within his reach and
managed, by not looking directly at her, to say in a rational, elderly,
friendly tone, slightly tinged with the scientific:
"My dear child, and that's why you built my bridge for me to-day. You
put yourself into mental accord with me by the use of my jingle last
night and fell asleep having hypnotized yourself with it. Things wilder
than fancies are facts these days, written in large volumes by extremely
erudite old gentlemen and we believe them because we must. This is a
simple case, with a well-known scientific name and--"
"But," interrupted Caroline Darrah, and as she stood away from him
against the dim hills, her slender figure seemed poised as if for flight,
and a hurt young seriousness was in her lifted purple eyes: "I don't want
it to be a 'simple case' with any scientific--" and just here a merry
call interrupted her from up-stream.
Phoebe and Polly had come to summon her back to the club; tea was on the
brew. With the intensest hospitality they invited Andrew to come, too.
But he declined with what grace he could and made his way through the
tangle down-stream as they walked back under the beeches.
Thus a very bitter thing had come to Andrew Sevier--and sweet as the
pulse of heaven. In his hand he had seen a sensitive flower unfold to its
very heart of flame.
"Never let her know," he prayed, "never let her know."