"NOW DO YOU REMEMBER?"
Farnham's convalescence was rapid. When the first danger of fever was
over, the wound on the head healed quickly, and one morning Mrs.
Belding came home with the news that he was to drive out that
afternoon. Alice sat in the shade by the front porch for an hour,
waiting to see him pass, and when at last his carriage appeared, she
rose and waved her handkerchief by way of greeting and congratulation.
He bowed as he went by, and Alice retired to her own room, where she
used her handkerchief once more to dry her wet and happy eyes.
It was not long after, that Farnham came to dine with them. They both
looked forward to this dinner as an occasion of very considerable
importance. Each felt that much depended upon the demeanor of the
other. Each was conscientiously resolved to do and to say nothing which
should pain or embarrass the other. Each was dying to fall into the
other's arms, but each only succeeded in convincing the other of his or
her entire indifference and friendship.
As Farnham came in, Mrs. Belding went up to him with simple kindliness,
kissed him, and made him sit down. "You dear boy," she said, "you do
not know how glad I am to see you here once more."
Alice looked on, almost jealous of her mother's privilege. Then she
advanced with shy grace and took Arthur's hand, and asked: "Do you
begin to feel quite strong again?"
Farnham smiled, and answered, "Quite well, and the strength will soon
come. The first symptom of returning vitality, Mrs. Belding, was my
hostility to gruel and other phantom dishes. I have deliberately come
to dinner to-day to dine."
"I am delighted to hear of your appetite," said Mrs. Belding; "but I
think you may bear a little watching at the table yet," she added, in a
tone of kindly menace. She was as good as her word, and exercised
rather a stricter discipline at dinner than was agreeable to the
convalescent, regulating his meat and wine according to ladylike ideas,
which are somewhat binding on carnivorous man. But she was so kindly
about it, and Alice aided and abetted with such bashful prettiness,
that Farnham felt he could endure starvation with such accessories. Yet
he was not wholly at ease. He had hoped, in the long hours of his
confinement, to find the lady of his love kinder in voice and manner
than when he saw her last; and now, when she was sweeter and more
tender than he had ever seen her before, the self-tormenting mind of
the lover began to suggest that if she loved him she would not be so
kind. He listened to the soft, caressing tones of her voice as she
spoke to him, which seemed to convey a blessing in every syllable; he
met the wide, clear beauty of her glance, so sweet and bright that his
own eyes could hardly support it; he saw the ready smile that came to
the full, delicate mouth whenever he spoke; and instead of being made
happy by all this, he asked himself if it could mean anything except
that she was sorry for him, and wanted to be very polite to him, as she
could be nothing more. His heart sank within him at the thought; he
became silent and constrained; and Alice wondered whether she had not
gone too far in her resolute kindness. "Perhaps he has changed his
mind," she thought, "and wishes me not to change mine." So these two
people, whose hands and hearts were aching to come together, sat in the
same drawing-room talking of commonplace things, while their spirits
grew heavy as lead.
Mrs. Belding was herself conscious of a certain constraint, and to
dispel it asked Alice to sing, and Farnham adding his entreaties, she
went to the piano, and said, as all girls say, "What shall I sing?"
She looked toward Farnham, but the mother answered, "Sing
'Douglas'----"
"Oh, no, Mamma, not that."
"Why not? You were singing it last night. I like it better than any
other of your songs."
"I do not want to sing it to-night."
Mrs. Belding persisted, until at last Alice said, with an odd
expression of recklessness, "Oh, very well, if you must have it, I will
sing it. But I hate these sentimental songs, that say so much and mean
nothing." Striking the chords nervously she sang, with a voice at first
tremulous but at last full of strong and deep feeling, that wail of
hopeless love and sorrow:
"Could you come back to me, Douglas, Douglas,
In the old likeness that I knew,
I would be so faithful, so loving,
Douglas, Douglas, Douglas, tender and true."
There had been tears of vexation in her eyes when her mother had forced
her to sing this song of all others; but after she had begun, the music
took her own heart by storm, and she sang as she had never sung
before--no longer fearing, but hoping that the cry of her heart might
reach her lover and tell him of her love. Farnham listened in transport;
he had never until now heard her sing, and her beautiful voice seemed to
him to complete the circle of her loveliness. He was so entranced by
the full rich volume of her voice, and by the rapt beauty of her face
as she sang, that he did not at first think of the words; but the
significance of them seized him at last, and the thought that she was
singing these words to him ran like fire through his veins. For a
moment he gave himself up to the delicious consciousness that their
souls were floating together upon that tide of melody. As the song died
away and closed with a few muffled chords, he was on the point of
throwing himself at her feet, and getting the prize which was waiting
for him. But he suddenly bethought himself that she had sung the song
unwillingly and had taken care to say that the words meant nothing. He
rose and thanked her for the music, complimented her singing warmly,
and bidding both ladies good night, went home, thrilled through and
through with a deeper emotion than he had yet known, but painfully
puzzled and perplexed.
He sat for a long time in his library, trying to bring some order into
his thoughts. He could not help feeling that his presence was an
embarrassment and a care to Alice Belding. It was evident that she had
a great friendship and regard for him, which he had troubled and
disturbed by his ill-timed declaration. She could no longer be easy and
natural with him; he ought not to stay to be an annoyance to her. It
was also clear that he could not be himself in her presence; she
exercised too powerful an influence upon him to make it possible that
he could go in and out of the house as a mere friend of the family. He
was thus driven to the thought which always lay so near to the surface
with him, as with so many of his kind; he would exile himself for a
year or two, and take himself out of her way. The thought gave him no
content. He could not escape a keen pang of jealousy when he thought of
leaving her in her beautiful youth to the society of men who were so
clearly inferior to her.
"I am inferior to her myself," he thought with genuine humility; "but I
feel sure I can appreciate her better than any one else she will ever
be likely to meet."
By and by he became aware that something was perplexing him, which was
floating somewhere below the surface of his consciousness. A thousand
thoughts, more or less puzzling, had arisen and been disposed of during
the hour that had elapsed since he left Mrs. Belding's. But still he
began to be sure that there was one groping for recognition which as
yet he had not recognized. The more ho dwelt upon it, the more it
seemed to attach itself to the song Alice had sung, but he could not
give it any definiteness. After he had gone to bed, this undefined
impression of something significant attaching itself to the song
besieged him, and worried him with tantalizing glimpses, until he went
to sleep.
But Farnham was not a dreamer, and the morning, if it brought little
comfort, brought at least decision. He made up his mind while dressing
that he would sail by an early steamer for Japan. He sent a telegram to
San Francisco, as soon as he had breakfasted, to inquire about
accommodations, and busied himself during the day with arranging odds
and ends of his affairs. Coming and going was easy to him, as he rarely
speculated and never touched anything involving anxious risks. But in
the afternoon an irresistible longing impelled him to the house of his
neighbor.
"Why should I not allow myself this indulgence?" he thought. "It will
be only civil to go over there and announce my departure. As all is
over, I may at least take this last delight to my eyes and heart. And I
want to hear that song again."
All day the song had been haunting him, not on account of anything in
itself, but because it vaguely reminded him of something else--
something of infinite importance, if he could only grasp it. It hung
about him so persistently, this vague glimmer of suggestion, that he
became annoyed, and said at last to himself, "It is time for me to be
changing my climate, if a ballad can play like that on my nerves."
He seized his hat and walked rapidly across the lawn, with the zest of
air and motion natural to a strong man in convalescence. The pretty
maidservant smiled and bowed him into the cool, dim drawing-room, where
Alice was seated at the piano. She rose and said instinctively to the
servant, "Tell mamma Captain Farnham is here," and immediately repented
as she saw his brow darken a little. He sat down beside her, and said:
"I come on a twofold errand. I want to say good-by to you, and I want
you to sing 'Douglas' for me once more."
"Why, where are you going?" she said, with a look of surprise and
alarm.
"To Japan."
"But not at once, surely?"
"The first steamer I can find."
Alice tried to smile, but the attempt was a little woful.
"It will be a delightful journey, I am sure," she faltered, "but I
can't get used to the idea of it, all at once. It is the end of the
world."
"I want to get there before the end comes. At the present rate of
progress there is not more than a year's purchase of bric-a-brac left
in the empire. I must hurry over and get my share. What can I do for
you?" he continued, seeing that she sat silent, twisting her white
fingers together. "Shall I not bring you the loot of a temple or two?
They say the priests have become very corruptible since our
missionaries got there--the false religion tumbling all to pieces
before the true."
Still she made no answer, and the fixed smile on her face looked as if
she hardly heard what he was saying. But he went on in the same light,
bantering tone.
"Shall I bring you back a Jinrickishaw?"
"What in the world is that--but, no matter what it is--tell me, are you
really going so soon?"
If Farnham had not been the most modest of men, the tone in which this
question was asked would have taught him that he need not exile
himself. But he answered seriously:
"Yes, I am really going."
"But why?" The question came from unwilling lips, but it would have its
way. The challenge was more than Farnham could endure. He spoke out
with quick and passionate earnestness:
"Must I tell you then? Do you not know? I am going because you send
me."
"Oh, no," she murmured, with flaming cheeks and downcast eyes.
"I am going because I love you, and I cannot bear to see you day by
day, and know that you are not for me. You are too young and too good
to understand what I feel. If I were a saint like you, perhaps I might
rejoice in your beauty and your grace without any selfish wish--but I
cannot. If you are not to be mine, I cannot enjoy your presence. Every
charm you have is an added injury, if I am to be indifferent to you."
Her hands flew up and covered her eyes. She was so happy that she
feared he would see it and claim her too soon and too swiftly.
He mistook the gesture, and went on in his error.
"There! I have made you angry, or wounded you again. It would be so
continually, if I should stay. I should be giving you offence every
hour in the day. I cannot help loving you, any more than I can help
breathing. This is nothing to you or worse than nothing, but it is all
my life to me. I do not know how it will end. You have filled every
thought of my mind, every vein of my body. I am more you than myself.
How can I separate myself from you?"
As he poured out these words, and much more, hot as a flood of molten
metal, Alice slowly recovered her composure. She was absolutely and
tranquilly happy--so perfectly at rest that she hardly cared for the
pain her lover was confessing. She felt she could compensate him for
everything, and every word he said filled her with a delight which she
could not bear to lose by replying. She sat listening to him with
half-shut eyes, determined not to answer until he had made an end of
speaking. But she said to herself, with a tenderness which made her
heart beat more than her lover's words, "How surprised he will be when
I tell him he shall not go."
The rustling of Mrs. Belding's ample approach broke in upon her trance
and Farnham's litany. He rose, not without some confusion, to greet
her, and Alice, with bright and even playful eyes, said, "Mamma, what
do you think this errant young cavalier has come to say to us?"
Mrs. Belding looked with puzzled inquiry from one to the other.
"Simply," continued Alice, "that he is off for Japan in a day or two,
and he wants to know if we have any commissions for him."
"Nonsense! Arthur, I won't listen to it. Come over to dinner this
evening and tell me all about it. I've got an appointment this very
minute at our Oriental Gospel rooms and cannot wait to talk to you now.
But this evening, you must tell me what it all means, and I hope you
will have changed your mind by that time."
The good lady did not even sit down, but rustled briskly away. Perhaps
she divined more of what was toward than appeared--but she did as she
would have wished to be done by, when she was young, and left the young
people to their own devices.
Farnham turned to Alice, who was still standing, and said, "Alice, my
own love, can you not give me one word of hope to carry with me? I
cannot forget you. My mind cannot change. Perhaps yours may, when the
ocean is between us, and you have time to reflect on what I have said.
I spoke too soon and too rashly. But I will make amends for that by
long silence. Then perhaps you will forgive me--perhaps you will recall
me. I will obey your call from the end of the world."
He held out his hand to her. She gave him hers with a firm warm grasp.
He might have taken courage from this, but her composure and her
inscrutable smile daunted him.
"You are not going yet," she said. "You have forgotten what you came
for."
"Yes--that song. I must hear it again. You must not think I am growing
daft, but that song has haunted me all day in the strangest way. There
is something in the way _you_ sing it--the words and your voice
together--that recall some association too faint for me to grasp. I can
neither remember what it is, nor forget it. I have tried to get it out
of my mind, but I have an odd impression that I would better cherish
it--that it is important to me--that life or death are not more
important. There! I have confessed all my weakness to you, and now you
will say that I need a few weeks of salt breeze."
"I will sing you the song first. Perhaps we may pluck out its mystery."
She preluded a moment and sang, while Farnham waited with a strained
sense of expectancy, as if something unspeakably serious was impending.
She sang with far more force and feeling than the night before. Her
heart was full of her happy love, as yet unspoken, and her fancy was
pleased with that thought that, under the safe cover of her music, she
could declare her love without restraint. She sang with the innocent
rapture of a mavis in spring, in notes as rich and ardent as her own
maiden dreams. Farnham listened with a pleasure so keen that it
bordered upon pain. When she came to the line,
"I would be so tender, so loving, Douglas,"
he started and leaned forward in his chair, holding his hands to his
temples, and cried,
"Can't you help me to think what that reminds me of?"
Alice rose from the piano, flushing a pink as sweet and delicate as
that of the roses in her belt. She came forward a few paces and then
stopped, bent slightly toward him, with folded hands. In her long,
white, clinging drapery, with her gold hair making the dim room bright,
with her red lips parted in a tender but solemn smile, with something
like a halo about her of youth and purity and ardor, she was a sight so
beautiful that Arthur Farnham as he gazed up at her felt his heart grow
heavy with an aching consciousness of her perfection that seemed to
remove her forever from his reach. But the thought that was setting her
pulses to beating was as sweetly human as that of any bride since Eve.
She was saying to herself in the instant she stood motionless before
him, looking like a pictured angel, "I know now what he means. He loves
me. I am sure of him. I have a right to give myself to him."
She held out her hands. He sprang up and seized them.
"Come," she said, "I know what you are trying to remember, and I will
make you remember it."
He was not greatly surprised, for love is a dream, and dreams have
their own probabilities. She led him to a sofa and seated him beside
her. She put her arms around his neck and pressed his head to her
beating heart, and said in a voice as soft as a mother's to an ailing
child, "My beloved, if you will live, I will be so good to you." She
kissed him and said gently,
"Now do you remember?"