I returned to the university. I came home at Christmas. Again I
returned to the university, and all seemed well. In mid-January came
the telegram. My mother was ill with pneumonia.
Aunt Sarah, Mammy, and I nursed her. We would have held her in our
arms, with us, if we could. But on the seventh day she died.... I
touch through all the cells my woe again.
The wave was one that swept me forth. In three months they found one
morning my grandfather, very tranquil, smiling, dead upon his couch.
The Dallases came from Flowerfield, General Warringer and Aunt
Harriet from Richmond. There was again a funeral, and all the people
round about.... Then dead stillness, and the two fresh, raw mounds
in the graveyard. It was early spring, but I sat there beside them
in what seemed December.
General Warringer and Major Dallas consulted in the house. Restwell
was heavily mortgaged. I was nearly twenty--must finish my
education. If then I did well, engineering might take me afar.
There was scarcely any ready money. I could not keep and farm
Restwell. "He would feel the wrench, but he would get over it! All
in all, it may well be the best for him. But Sarah--" said Uncle
John.
General Warringer drummed upon the table. "I want to talk to
Harriet--"
It was Uncle John who, a week later, asked me to walk with him, and
when we were by the river opened upon Restwell. "Had I thought--?"
I said that I knew that we were dreadfully in debt, but that I
thought that Aunt Sarah and I might yet manage to pay the interest.
"It was your idea to remain at Restwell and farm?"
I said that I didn't see anything else to do.
"Is it more for Sarah, or for yourself?"
I said that I supposed that it was for both. But at any rate, Aunt
Sarah wouldn't be happy elsewhere.
"But you could be so?"
"How can I feel just now that I would be happy anywhere? ... Yes, I
suppose so. But it is pointed out, sir, that I should stay here and
try to pay the debts and keep the place."
"No. It is only one way pointed out, Michael! Now listen to me a
bit. I've always recognized in you a spring of joy and strength.
You've got the root of genuine growth. You won't be unhappy long,
and you'll carry with you wherever you go all that you want out of
the past, and no more than what you want. You've got the faculty of
selection. Now listen to me. Carter Warringer and Harriet want to
buy Restwell."
It came to me with a positive physical shock and wrench. I was being
uprooted. I leaned against a tree; my feet clung, pressed into the
soil. The river, the hills, the graveyard, the unseen house seemed
to strain with me.
Uncle John watched me without seeming to watch me. He spoke on in
his good, manly, genial voice. "It seems to us the simplest and best
thing, Michael. The Warringers have been looking for a country
place. Harriet has a natural love for Restwell. She is extremely
anxious that the matter shall go through. It provides for Sarah.
She will simply live on here in her own room and place. Daddy
Guinea, Mammy--nothing of that kind will be changed. The Warringers
do not mean to give up the Richmond house. They will be there in the
winter-time, and Sarah with them, if she likes it so. If she does
not, you know, Michael, and she knows, that there is always
Flowerfield. More than that, Warringer would take on Wilson Reynolds
as manager, giving him and his wife the old overseer's house. Sarah
is fond of Mrs. Reynolds; if she wishes she can stay at Restwell even
in the winter. Harriet has talked to Sarah, and she is content. She
thinks that it will be better for you. She thinks about you just as
you think about her. Carter Warringer is making money. He is quite
able to buy the place and to clear off at once the mortgages. It
isn't a favor to the situation. He and Harriet have got a strong
desire for Restwell.... Of course, it won't be the old Restwell.
Still, Harriet's the colonel's daughter, your father's sister.
Carter and Royal and Dorothea are your close kin.... I think the
price should be about this figure." He named it. "That will clear
the place and take care, besides, of your debt to Warringer. What is
left--it won't be much--should be invested for Sarah, with only
enough kept out to put you through the university and maintain you
until you are earning for yourself. Between us, Warringer and I can
certainly find you an opening. After that, I haven't the slightest
doubt of your making your way.... It really is the only thing,
Michael! There is a heavier load of debt than we thought. You could
not keep the place from being sold. This way it goes still to Forths
and Sarah's happiness is cared for."
I said, hoarsely, that I wanted to do what was right....
General Warringer bought Restwell.
They did not come to it that year. Repairs were in order, much
refitting and refurnishing. General Warringer or Aunt Harriet came
from time to time. But for the greater part of the summer Aunt Sarah
and I bided alone together under the old roof. Wilson Reynolds was
in the manager's house, and more men in the fields than I ever
remembered there. I was fond of Wilson, but I did not work with him
nor with Ahasuerus and Mandy's Jim, as I had been used to doing. I
offered to do this, but Aunt Harriet had said, with decision, "I had
rather you wouldn't, Michael...." The Dallases would have had Aunt
Sarah and me come to Flowerfield, but she did not wish it, and I did
not wish it--not this summer. Had I felt an aching absence between
Miriam and me I might have wished it. But I felt Miriam here--here
at Restwell. That was a passion now and again of the body, but
steadfastly--steadfastly--of the Idea.
Aunt Sarah and I lived dreamy months at Restwell. I say "dreamy,"
and yet that is not the word.
What is the word, I wonder?
I lay in the graveyard under the oak. Aunt Sarah, who had been
cutting dead bloom from the Seven Sisters' rose, came and sat near
me. A fleet of clouds sailed in a deep-blue sky, a wind tempered
June warmth. Aunt Sarah looked at the graves and at the cross
without a mound, and then into the sky--not up into the sky, but into
the levels which ran with our hilltop. "The dead come inside of us,"
she said, "come home inside of us! Just as they feel now that we
have come inside them--come home inside them. Waves back into the
sea--our sea--touching everywhere! ... What is accomplished,
everywhere and always, is a distillation, an elixir of life, free to
all.... I've reached to that with my finger-tips." She smiled, and
her smile, I thought, had new beauty, the dawn of a golden humor.
"Just," she said, "as you all have beautifully, lovingly, cared for
my staying here, I touch with my finger-tips, I begin to draw myself
to where it truly does not much matter to me if I stay or go! And
that is not," she said, "that I do not truly love resting here at
Restwell, for I do.... And I love the goodness of all of you, as I
love the goodness of those we said were dead." She watched the sky.
"It is simple when once you find the key--your own key.... The
ever-stored elixir of life.... They are safe with us, as we are safe
with them."
I understood her. I felt that way at times about the world, near and
far.
At any rate, I ceased to trouble about Aunt Sarah's happiness. And,
this summer, I struggled with and threw a squalid jealousy that I
felt of the Warringers--more of Carter, Royal, and Dorothea, than of
the parents who had been the buyers of Restwell. My mother helped me
here....
I was to return to the university and end, this year, my training
there. By next June I should be an engineer, earning my living,
mining out my career ... somewhere. Faring forth, independence, the
world outside the boy's round--all these stood and sang to me, no
evil sirens! I was bent to go with them.
And then in late August Aunt Kate came to Restwell. With her came
Miriam.
Miriam was slender, dark and straight, healthful, rightly energized.
She would walk ten miles without hesitation; she rode well as she
danced well, swam and skated well. She had wit, could tell finely a
good story; could mimic, but rarely did it unkindly. Back of her wit
lay a clear mind and beautiful, guided moods. She had a hand upon
herself.
I was so free now from having to work that she and I might, and did,
roam afar. Aunt Kate watched us go. I think that she and Major
Dallas both guessed that we fitted together. I think that any
skilled soul watching us would know that. I think that Madam Black
had known it when we went to school to her. But Aunt Kate and Uncle
John said nothing--and doubtless they did not know how closely we
could fit, and probably, as parents will, they thought of us as being
children still.
And Miriam and I had not yet said, "Let us be together on every
plane!"
We wandered to the river, we followed it up or down in a boat that I
had. I got a horse for her from Whitechurch, and she upon Elf and I
upon Boreas rode to far points. We took a book and read aloud to
each other in the garden, in the summer-house, or in the shade of our
huge linden-tree. In the evening we sat by the white pillars upon
the porch, the steps between us, and watched the fireflies.
But I began to ache for Miriam and Miriam for me.
Then, suddenly, Aunt Kate took her away. She had written, I think,
to Uncle John. At any rate, she had a letter from him one morning,
and, an hour later, she spoke to me upon the porch where I stood
waiting for Miriam. We had planned to spend the morning in the boat,
drifting along under the willows. "Major Dallas writes that company
is coming and that Catherine and Lewis are running wild. I've
determined, Michael, to go to-morrow instead of next Monday. Miriam
says don't wait for her to-day. She's helping me pack."
Aunt Kate's voice was perfectly kind, but I caught the thread of
decision. "You are children. You are first cousins. Do not let us
kindle here a great fire until we know where we are and what we are
about! Perhaps I ought not to have brought Miriam."
So they went the next day.
The night after she was gone I sat by the window in my room and laid
plans.... When I left the university I should be twenty-one. Having
studied hard, having had some equipment to bring to the studying,
having incentive, having will, I meant, when that formal preparation
was over, to work hard, to earn, to make my name to be spoken when
experts spoke of engineering. I should be away from Restwell--away
from the county, and from Flowerfield's county--away, perhaps, from
Virginia.... Engineering: that was the art of turning streams and
reservoirs of power to human use.... General Warringer had vaguely
spoken of coal-lands, South and West, in which he was interested. I
did not know where I might go. Very good! But before I went Miriam
and I must put forth in words that we wished to marry. Put it forth
for ourselves, Aunt Kate and Uncle John, everybody.... What would be
the salary that we could live upon, hardily brought up, knowing how
to be simple and to do things ourselves, as we did? I pondered, then
set a figure. How long--three years, four years, five years--before
I should earn it? Certainly we must wait.... But when I went to
Flowerfield next summer we were going to talk about it. I was
settled as to that.
I sat in the window. The moon shone bright, the night was filled
with the papery, minute, ecstatic voice of an insect world. Beauty
flowed in upon me.... I saw that beauty was wide love.
My mother came toward me, and with her my father. I saw them as
lovers, and behind them others, and others, and others. Everything,
everybody loved. I touched the garden of it through the universe.
The universe was the garden.
The sense of Drama lifted and surged in me. I ached with the falling
away of love--for and with the dying suns ... cold ... dark. I
endeavored for and with all who endeavored to maintain radiance, or,
darkened, endeavored to regain, relume. I knew great bliss when the
energy streamed and lifted. All love.... Red suns--golden
suns--great, white, intense suns, the high lovers, who loved lovers,
loved love.... The highest Sun--nurse, mother and father and lover
of all--the reaper, the gatherer, feaster, the Eternal Laborer and
Enjoyer, the immortal Lover and Beloved together!
I sat in the window and knew old Vaughan's "bright shoots of
everlastingness."