Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Brownfox and the Online
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BY MYRTLE REED
LOVE LETTERS OF A MUSICIAN
LATER LOVE LETTERS OF A MUSICIAN
THE SPINSTER BOOK
LAVENDER AND OLD LACE
PICKABACK SONGS
THE SHADOW OF VICTORY
THE MASTER'S VIOLIN
THE BOOK OF CLEVER BEASTS
AT THE SIGN OF THE JACK-O'-LANTERN
A SPINNER IN THE SUN
LOVE AFFAIRS OF LITERARY MEN
FLOWER OF THE DUSK
OLD ROSE AND SILVER
SONNETS TO A LOVER
MASTER OF THE VINEYARD
[Illustration: "She was not looking at him now, but far across the
valley where the vineyard lay."
_Chapter Four._
_From the painting by Blendon Campbell_]
MASTER OF THE
VINEYARD
BY MYRTLE REED
[Illustration]
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1910
COPYRIGHT, 1910
BY
MYRTLE REED McCULLOUGH
Published, September, 1910
Reprinted, September, 1910
October, 1910
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
[Sidenote: Dedication]
TO
ALL WHO HAVE LOVED IN VAIN
[Sidenote: Contents]
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I--THE HILL OF THE MUSES 1
II--BROWN ALPACA 14
III--THE CRYSTAL BALL 29
IV--APRIL'S SUN 45
V--THE HOUSE OF THE BROKEN HEART 61
VI--MORE STATELY MANSIONS 76
VII--A LETTER AND A GUEST 91
VIII--"WHOM GOD HATH JOINED" 106
IX--A SPRING DAY 122
X--A LITTLE BROWN MOUSE 137
XI--THE HOUR OF THE TURNING NIGHT 154
XII--ASKING--NOT ANSWER 170
XIII--THE STAIN OF THE ROSE 185
XIV--THE LIGHT BEFORE A SHRINE 200
XV--THE INLAID BOX 215
XVI--ONE LITTLE HOUR 230
XVII--THE LAST TRYST 245
XVIII--STARBREAK 260
XIX--IF LOVE WERE ALL 273
XX--"THE LADY TRAVELLER" 288
XXI--THE WEAVING OF THE TAPESTRY 302
XXII--EACH TO HIS OWN WORK 315
XXIII--BETROTHAL 330
XXIV--THE MINISTER'S CALL 345
XXV--A WEDDING 359
Master of the Vineyard
I
The Hill of the Muses
[Sidenote: From the Top of the Hill]
The girl paused among the birches and drew a long breath of relief. It
was good to be outdoors after the countless annoyances of the day; to
feel the earth springing beneath her step, the keen, crisp air bringing
the colour to her cheeks, and the silence of the woods ministering to
her soul.
From the top of the hill she surveyed her little world. Where the small
white houses clustered in the valley, far below her, she had spent her
five-and-twenty years, shut in by the hills, and, more surely, by the
iron bars of circumstance. To her the heights had always meant escape,
for in the upper air and in solitude she found detachment--a sort of
heavenly perspective upon the affairs of the common day.
Down in the bare, brown valley the river lay asleep. Grey patches of
melting snow still filled the crevices along its banks, and fragments of
broken crystal moved slowly toward the ultimate sea. The late afternoon
sun touched the sharp edges, here and there to a faint iridescence.
"The river-god dreams of rainbows," thought Rosemary, with a smile.
[Sidenote: The Valley]
Only one house was near the river; the others were set farther back. The
one upon the shore was the oldest and largest house in the valley,
severely simple in line and with a certain air of stateliness. The
broad, Colonial porch looked out upon the river and the hills beyond it,
while all around, upon the southern slope between the opposite hills and
the valley, were the great vineyards of the Marshs', that had descended
from father to son during the century that had elapsed since the house
was built.
The gnarled and twisted vines scarcely showed now, upon the grey-brown
background of the soil, but in a few places, where the snow had not yet
melted, the tangled black threads were visible. Like the frame
surrounding a tapestry, great pines bordered the vineyard save on the
side nearest the valley, for the first of the Marshs, who had planted
the vineyard and built the house, had taken care to protect his vines
from the north-east storms.
The clanging notes of a bell, mellowed by distance, came faintly from
the valley below. Rosemary took out the thin, old watch that had been
her mother's and her mother's mother's before her, and set the hands at
four upon the pale gold dial. Then she drew up the worn gold chain that
hung around her neck, under her gown, and, with the key that dangled
from it, wound the watch. In an hour or so, probably, it would stop, but
it was pleasant to hear the cheerful little tick while she waited.
[Sidenote: The Red Ribbon]
The doors of the white schoolhouse in the valley burst open and the tide
of exuberant youth rushed forth. Like so many ants, the children swarmed
and scattered, their shrill voices sounding afar. Rosemary went to a
hollow tree, took out a small wooden box, opened it, and unwound
carefully a wide ribbon of flaming scarlet, a yard or more in length.
Digging her heels into the soft earth, she went down to the lowest of
the group of birches, on the side of the hill that overlooked the
valley, and tied the ribbon to a drooping bough. Then she went back to
the top of the hill, where a huge log, rolled against two trees, made a
comfortable seat for two people.
Five minutes of the allotted twenty had passed since Rosemary had set
her watch. At twenty minutes past four, or, at the most, twenty-five, he
would come. For three years and more he had never failed to answer the
signal, nor, indeed, to look for it when he brushed the chalk from his
clothes and locked the door of the schoolhouse behind him.
A kindly wind, in passing, took the ribbon and made merry with it. In
and out among the bare boughs of the birches it fluttered like a living
thing, and Rosemary laughed aloud, as she had not done for many days.
The hill, the scarlet signal, and the man who was coming symbolised, to
her, the mysterious world of Romance.
[Sidenote: World of Romance]
Sometimes the birches were shy dryads, fleeing before the wrath of some
unknown god. At other times, they were the Muses, for, as it happened,
there were nine in the group and no others upon the hill. The vineyard
across the valley was a tapestry, where, from earliest Spring until the
grapes were gathered colour and light were caught and imprisoned within
the web. At the bend in the river, where the rushes grew thickly, the
river-god kept his harp, which answered with shy, musical murmurings to
every vagrant wind.
Again, the hill was a tower, and she a captive princess, who had refused
to marry except for love, and Love tarried strangely upon the way. Or,
sometimes, she was the Elaine of an unknown Launcelot, safely guarding
his shield. She placed in the woods all the dear people of the books,
held forever between the covers and bound to the printed page, wondering
if they, too, did not long for freedom.
The path up the hill wound in and out among the trees, and so it
happened that Rosemary heard muffled footsteps before she saw him
coming. A wayfaring squirrel, the first of his family to venture out,
scampered madly up a tree and looked down upon the girl with
questioning, fearful eyes. She rose from the log and looked up, with her
hands outstretched in unconscious pleading.
[Sidenote: He Comes]
"Oh," she murmured, "don't be afraid of me!"
"I'm not," answered a man's voice. "I assure you I'm not."
"I wasn't speaking to you," she laughed, as she went to meet him.
"No?" he queried, flushed and breathless from the climb. "I wonder if
there is anyone else for whom you wave red ribbons from your fortress!"
"Take it down, will you please?"
"Wait until I get three full breaths--then I will."
She went back to the log while he awkwardly untied the ribbon, rolled it
up, in clumsy masculine fashion, and restored it to the wooden box in
the hollow tree. "Aren't you cold?" he asked, as he sat down beside her.
"No--I'm too vividly alive to be cold, ever."
"But what's the use of being alive unless you can live?" he inquired,
discontentedly.
She sighed and turned her face away. The colour vanished from her
cheeks, the youth from her figure. Pensively, she gazed across the
valley to the vineyard, where the black, knotted vines were blurred
against the soil in the fast-gathering twilight. His eyes followed hers.
[Sidenote: Rosemary]
"I hate them," he said, passionately. "I wish I'd never seen a grape!"
"Were the children bad to-day?" she asked, irrelevantly.
"Of course. Aren't they always bad? What's the use of caging up fifty
little imps and making 'em learn the multiplication table when they
don't even aspire to the alphabet? Why should I have to teach 'em to
read and write when they're determined not to learn? Why do I have to
grow grapes when it would be the greatest joy of my life to know that
I'd never have to see, touch, taste, or even smell another grape in this
world or the next?"
She turned toward him. A late Winter sunset shimmered in the west like
some pale, transparent cloth of gold hung from the walls of heaven, but
the kindly light lent no beauty to her face. Rosemary's eyes were grey
and lustreless, her hair ashen, and almost without colour. Her features
were irregular and her skin dull and lifeless. She had not even the
indefinable freshness that is the divine right of youth. Her mouth
drooped wistfully at the corners, and even the half-discouraged dimple
in her chin looked like a dent or a scar.
The bare hands that lay listlessly in her lap were rough and red from
much uncongenial toil. He looked at her for a moment, still absorbed in
himself, then, as he noted the pathos in every line of her face and
figure, the expression of his face subtly changed. His hand closed
quickly over hers.
[Sidenote: Their Moods]
"Forgive me, Rosemary--I'm a brute. I have no right to inflict my moods
upon you."
"Why not? Don't I bring mine to you?"
"Sometimes--not often."
"Let's get them out where we can look them over," she suggested,
practically. "What do you hate most?"
"Grapes," he replied, readily, "and then children who aren't interested
in the alphabet. All day I've been saying: 'See the cat. Can the cat
run? Yes, the cat can run.' Of course they could repeat it after me, but
they couldn't connect it in any way with the printed page. I sympathised
strongly with an unwashed child of philosophical German lineage who
inquired, earnestly: 'Teacher, what's the good of dat?'"
"What else do you hate?"
"Being tied up. Set down in one little corner of the world and being
obliged to stay in it. I know to a certainty just what's going to happen
to-morrow and next day and the day after that. Point out any day on the
calendar, months ahead, and I can tell you just what I'll be doing.
Nothing is uncertain but the weather."
[Sidenote: His Looks]
"Some people pray for anchorage," she said.
"I never have," he flashed back. "I want the open sea--tide and tempest
and grey surges, with the wind in my face and the thrill of danger in my
heart! I want my blood to race through my body; I want to be hungry,
cold, despairing, afraid--everything! God, how I want to live!"
He paced back and forth restlessly, his hands in his pockets. Rosemary
watched him, half afraid, though his mood was far from strange to her.
He was taller than the average man, clean-shaven, and superbly built,
with every muscle ready and even eager for use. His thirty years sat
lightly upon him, though his dark hair was already slightly grey at the
temples, for his great brown eyes were boyish and always would be. In
the half-light, his clean-cut profile was outlined against the sky, and
his mouth trembled perceptibly. He had neither the thin, colourless lips
that would have made men distrust him, nor the thick lips that would
have warned women to go slowly with him and to watch every step.
With obvious effort, he shook himself partially free of his mood. "What
do you hate?" he asked, gently.
"Brown alpaca, sassafras tea, the eternal dishes, the scrubbing, the
endless looking for dust where dust would never dare to stay, and--" She
paused, and bit her lips.
[Sidenote: Always Fighting]
"Might as well go on," he urged, with a smile.
"I can't. It isn't nice of me."
"But it's true. I don't know why you shouldn't hate your Grandmother and
your Aunt Matilda. I do. It's better to be truthful than nice."
"Is it?"
"Sincerity always has a charm of its own. Even when two men are
fighting, you are compelled to admire their earnestness and singleness
of purpose."
"I wish you lived where you could admire Grandmother and Aunt Matilda.
They're always fighting."
"No doubt. Isn't it a little early for sassafras tea?"
"I thought so, but Grandmother said Spring was coming early this year.
She feels it in her bones and she intends to be ready for it."
"She should know the signs of the seasons, if anyone does. How old is
she now?"
"Something past eighty."
"Suffering Moses! Eighty Springs and Summers and Autumns! Let me see--I
was only twenty when I began with the grapes. If I live to be eighty,
that means I've got to go to town sixty times to buy baskets, sell the
crop, and hire help--go through the whole process from Spring to frost
sixty times, and I've only done it ten times. Fifty more! And when the
imps who unwillingly learned their multiplication table from me are
grandparents on their own account, I'll still be saying: 'See the cat!
Can the cat run? Yes, the cat can run.'"
[Sidenote: Slaves of the Vineyard]
"Why don't you sell the vineyard?" she asked, though her heart sank at
the mere suggestion.
"Sell it? Why didn't the Ancient Mariner sell his albatross and take a
nice little trip around the world on the proceeds? Mother would die of a
broken heart if I mentioned it to her. The Marsh family have been the
slaves of that vineyard since the first mistaken ancestor went into the
grape business. We've fertilised it, pruned it, protected it, tied it
up, sat up nights with it, fanned the insects away from it, hired people
to pick the fruit and pack it, fed the people, entertained them, sent
presents to their wives and children--we've done everything! And what
have we had for it? Only a very moderate living, all the grapes we could
eat, and a few bottles of musty old wine.
"Mother, of course, has very little to do with it, and, to her, it has
come to represent some sort of entailed possession that becomes more
sacred every year. It's a family heirloom, like a title, or some very
old and valuable piece of jewelry. Other people have family plate and
family traditions, but we've got a vineyard, or, to speak more
truthfully, it has us."
[Sidenote: Happy Muses]
"Look at the Muses," said Rosemary, after a silence. "Do you think
they've gone to sleep?"
The nine slender birches, that had apparently paused in their flight
down the hillside, were, indeed, very still. Not a twig stirred, and the
white trunks were ghostly in the twilight. Seemingly they leaned toward
each other for protection and support; for comfort in the loneliness of
the night.
"Happy Muses," he responded. "No vineyard to look after and no school to
teach."
"And no Grandmother," continued Rosemary, "and no Aunt. Nor any dishes
or brooms or scrubbing-brushes, or stoves that are possessed by evil
spirits."
Star-like, a single light appeared in the front window of the big white
house on the shore of the river. It was answered almost immediately by
another, far across the stream.
"I like to watch the lights," the girl went on. "The first one is always
in your house."
"Yes, I know. Mother dislikes twilight."
"Ours is the last--on account of the price of oil."
"Here," he said. "I almost forgot your book. And I brought you two
candles this time. You mustn't read by the light of one--you'll spoil
your eyes."
[Sidenote: Saying Good-Night]
"Oh, Mr. Marsh! Thank you so much!"
"You're very welcome, Miss Starr."
"Please don't. I like to have you call me Rosemary."
"Then you must call me Alden. I've been telling you that for almost two
years."
"I know, but I can't make myself say it, somehow. You're so much older
and wiser than I."
"Don't be vain of your youth. I'm only five years ahead of you, and, as
for wisdom, anybody could teach a country school in Winter and grow
grapes the rest of the time."
"I'm not so sure of that. Come, it's getting late."
They went down the hill together, hand in hand like two children. The
young man's mood had changed for the better and he was whistling
cheerfully. They stopped at the corner where she must turn to go home.
"Good-night," she said.
"Good-night, Rosemary. I wish I could come to see you sometimes."
"So do I, but it's better that you shouldn't."
"I don't see why you can't come over in the evenings occasionally. I
always read to Mother and you might as well listen, too. I'd gladly take
you home."
"It would be lovely," she sighed, "but I can't."
"You know best," he answered, shivering. "It's pretty cold up there
most of the time."
[Sidenote: Lonely Heights]
"The heights are always cold, aren't they?"
"Yes, and they're supposed to be lonely, too. Good-night again. Let me
know how you like the book."
Woman-like, she watched him as he went down the street. She liked the
way his head was set upon his broad shoulders; she admired his long,
swinging stride. When his figure was lost in the gathering darkness she
turned, regretfully, and went home.
II
Brown Alpaca
[Sidenote: A Cheerless Room]
At seven o'clock, precisely, Grandmother Starr limped into the
dining-room. It was one of her "lame" days, though sometimes she forgot
which was her lame side, and limped irregularly and impartially with
either foot, as chanced to please her erratic fancy.
A small lamp cast a feeble, unshaded light from the middle of the table,
for the morning was dark, and the room smelled abominably of oil. The
flickering rays picked out here and there a bit of tarnished gold from
the wall paper, and, as though purposely, made the worn spots in the
carpet unusually distinct. Meaningless china ornaments crowded the
mantel, but there was no saving grace of firelight in the small black
cavern beneath. A little stove, in one corner of the room, smoked
industriously and refused to give out any heat.
"Rosemary," said Grandmother Starr, fretfully, "I don't see why you
can't never learn to build a fire. Get me my shoulder shawl."
[Sidenote: Cold and Cross]
The girl compressed her pale lips into a thin, tight line. She was tired
and her head ached, but she said nothing. She found the shawl, of
red-and-black plaid, and spread it over the old lady's shoulders.
"I didn't say for you to put it on," remarked Grandmother, sourly. "If
I'd wanted you to put it on me, I'd have said so. Guess I ain't so old
yet but what I can put on my own shawl. What I want it for is to wrap up
my hands in."
"Where's my shawl?" demanded Aunt Matilda, entering the room at that
moment.
Rosemary found the other shawl, of blue-and-brown plaid, and silently
offered it to the owner.
Aunt Matilda inclined her grey head toward Rosemary. "You can put it on
me if you like. I ain't ashamed to say I'm cold when I am, and if I
wanted to wrap up my hands, I'd get my mittens--I wouldn't take a whole
shawl."
"You ain't got no reason to be cold, as I see," remarked Grandmother,
sharply. "Folks what lays abed till almost seven o'clock ought to be
nice and warm unless they're lazy. P'r'aps if you moved around more,
your blood would warm you."
"Better try it," Matilda suggested, pointedly.
An angry flush mounted to Grandmother's temples, where the thin white
hair was drawn back so tightly that it must have hurt. "I've moved
around some in my day," she responded, shrilly, "but I never got any
thanks for it. What with sweepin' and dustin' and scrubbin' and washin'
and ironin' and bringin' up children and feedin' pigs and cows and
chickens and churnin' and waitin' on your father, it's no wonder I'm a
helpless cripple with the misery in my back."
[Sidenote: Head of the House]
"Dried peaches again," Matilda observed, scornfully, as Rosemary put a
small saucer of fruit before her. "Who told you to get dried peaches?"
"I did, if you want to know," Grandmother snorted. "This is my house,
ain't it?"
"I've heard tell that it was," Matilda answered, "and I'm beginnin' to
believe it."
Miss Matilda was forty-six, but, in the pitiless glare of the odorous
lamp, she looked much older. Her hair was grey and of uneven length, so
that short, straight hair continually hung about her face, without even
the saving grace of fluffiness. Her eyes were steel-blue and cold, her
nose large and her mouth large also. Her lips drooped at the corners and
there was a wart upon her chin.
Grandmother also had a wart, but it was upon her nose. Being a friendly
and capable sort of wart, it held her steel-bowed spectacles at the
proper angle for reading or knitting. During conversation, she peered
over her spectacles, and sometimes, to the discomfort of a sensitive
observer, the steel frame appeared to divide her eyes horizontally.
[Sidenote: All Wrong]
They were very dark, beady eyes, set close together. At times they
gleamed with the joy of conflict, but they always expressed a certain
malicious cunning. With a single glance, she could make Rosemary feel
mentally undressed. Had the girl's forehead been transparent, like the
crystal of a watch, with the machinery of thought and emotion fully
exposed to the eye of a master-mechanic, her sensation could not have
differed from the helpless awe her grandmother so easily inspired.
Of course the breakfast was not right--it never was. The dried peaches
were too sweet for one and not sweet enough for the other. Grandmother
wanted her oatmeal cooked to a paste, but Aunt Matilda, whose teeth were
better, desired something that must be chewed before it was swallowed,
and unhesitatingly said so. The coffee was fated to please neither,
though, as Rosemary found courage to say, you couldn't expect good
coffee on Friday when the same grounds had been used ever since Sunday
morning.
"I'd like to know what makes you so high and mighty all of a sudden,"
said Grandmother. "Coffee's just like tea--as long as colour comes into
it when it's boiled, it's good. My mother always used the same grounds
for a week for a family of eight, and she didn't hear no complaints,
neither. You ain't boiled this long enough--that's what's the matter."
[Sidenote: The Common Task]
Aunt Matilda muttered something about "beggars being choosers," and
Rosemary pushed her plate away wearily. She had not tasted her
breakfast.
Grandmother arose and noisily blew out the lamp, regardless of the fact
that Matilda had not finished eating. "Now, Rosemary," she said,
briskly, "after you get the dishes done and the kitchen cleaned up, I
want you should go to the post-office and get my paper. When you come
back, you can do the sweepin' and dustin' down here and I can set in the
kitchen while you're doin' it. Then you can make the beds and do the
up-stairs work and then go to the store. By the time you're ready to go
to the store, I'll have decided what you're to get."
"And," continued Aunt Matilda, pushing back her chair, "this afternoon
you can help me cut out some underclothes and get 'em basted together."
She never attempted any sort of housework, being pathetically vain of
her one beauty--her small, white hands. Even the family sewing she did
under protest.
"Is the alpaca all gone?" asked Grandmother.
"Yes," Matilda replied. "I used the last of it patchin' Rosemary's dress
under the arms. It beats all how hard she is on her clothes."
[Sidenote: A Question of Colour]
"I'll have to order more," sighed the old lady. "I suppose the price has
gone up again."
Rosemary's breath came and went quickly; her heart fluttered with a
sudden wildness. "Grandmother," she pleaded, hesitatingly, "oh, Aunt
Matilda--just for this once, couldn't I have grey alpaca instead of
brown? I hate brown so!"
Both women stared at her as though she had all at once gone mad. The
silence became intense, painful.
"I mean," faltered the girl, "if it's the same price. I wouldn't ask you
to pay any more. Perhaps grey might be cheaper now--even cheaper than
brown!"
"I was married in brown alpaca," said Grandmother. She used the tone in
which royalty may possibly allude to coronation.
"I was wearing brown alpaca," observed Aunt Matilda, "the night the
minister came to call."
"Made just like this," they said, together.
"If brown alpaca's good enough for weddin's and ministers, I reckon
it'll do for orphans that don't half earn their keep," resumed
Grandmother, with her keen eyes fixed upon Rosemary.
"What put the notion into your head?" queried Aunt Matilda, with the
air of one athirst for knowledge.
[Sidenote: A Surprise Party]
"Why--nothing," the girl stammered, "except that--when I was looking at
mother's things the other day, up in the attic, I found some pink
ribbon, and I thought it would be pretty with grey, and if I had a grey
dress----"
The other two exchanged glances. "Ain't it wonderful," asked Matilda of
her mother, "how blood will tell?"
"It certainly is," responded Grandmother, polishing her spectacles
vigorously with a corner of the plaid shawl. "Your ma," she went on, to
Rosemary, "was wearin' grey when your pa brought her here to visit us.
They was a surprise party--both of 'em. We didn't even know he was
plannin' marriage and I don't believe he was, either. We've always
thought your ma roped him into it, somehow."
Rosemary's eyes filled with mist and she bit her lips.
"She was wearin' grey," continued Aunt Matilda; "light grey that would
show every spot. I told her it wasn't a very serviceable colour and she
had the impudence to laugh at me. 'It'll clean, won't it?' she says,
just like that, and Frank says, right after her, 'Yes, it'll clean.' He
knew a lot about it, he did. She had psychologised him."
"You mean hypnotised," interrupted Grandmother. "There ain't no such
word as 'psychologised.'"
[Sidenote: Resentment]
"Well, if there ain't, there ought to be."
"The pink has come out in the blood, too," Grandmother remarked,
adjusting her spectacles firmly upon the ever-useful and unfailing wart.
"She was wearin' pink roses on her bonnet and pink ribbon strings. It
wouldn't surprise me if it was the very strings what Rosemary has found
in the trunk and is layin' out to wear."
"Me neither," Matilda chimed in.
"She was wearin' lace on her petticoats and high-heeled shoes, and all
her handkerchiefs was fine linen," Grandmother continued. "Maybe you'd
like some lace ruffles under your grey alpaca, wouldn't you, Rosemary?"
The girl got to her feet blindly. She gathered up the dishes with cold
hands that trembled, took them out into the kitchen, and noiselessly
closed the door. Her heart was hot with resentment, even though she had
heard the story, with variations, ever since she was old enough to
understand it.
"Poor little mother," said Rosemary, to herself. "Dear little mother!
Why couldn't you have taken me with you!"
As Grandmother had said, for the hundredth time and more, Frank Starr
had brought home his young wife unexpectedly. The surprise, in itself,
was a shock from which she and Matilda had never recovered. Even now,
they were fond of alluding to the years of ill-health directly caused by
it, and of subtly blaming Rosemary for it.
[Sidenote: An Orphan]
At the end of the third day, the young couple had departed hastily, the
bride in tears. A year or so afterward, when Rosemary was born, the
little mother died, having lived only long enough to ask that the baby
be named "Rosemary"--Rose for her own mother and Mary for Grandmother
Starr.
Stern, white-faced, and broken-hearted, Frank Starr brought his child to
his mother and sister, and almost immediately went West. Intermittently
he wrote briefly, sent money, gave insufficient addresses, or none at
all, and, at length, disappeared. At the time his last letter was
written, he had expected to take a certain steamer plying along the
Western coast. As the ship was wrecked and he was never heard from
again, it seemed that Rosemary was an orphan, dependent upon her
grandmother and aunt.
In their way, they were kind to her. She was sent to school regularly,
and had plenty to eat and wear, of a certain sort. Every Spring, Aunt
Matilda made the year's supply of underclothing, using for the purpose
coarse, unbleached muslin, thriftily purchased by the bolt. The brown
alpaca and brown gingham, in which she and her grandmother and aunt had
been dressed ever since she could remember, were also bought by the
piece. The fashion of the garments had not changed, for one way of
making a gown was held to be as good as another, and a great deal
easier, if the maker were accustomed to doing it.
[Sidenote: Year after Year]
So, year after year, Rosemary wore full skirts of brown alpaca, gathered
into a band, and tight-fitting waists, boned and lined, buttoning down
the front with a row of small jet buttons. The sleeves were always long,
plain, and tight, no matter what other people were wearing. A bit of
cheap lace gathered at the top of the collar was the only attempt at
adornment.
The brown ginghams were made in the same way, except that the waists
were not boned. The cheap white muslin, which served as Rosemary's best
Summer gown, was made like the ginghams. Her Winter hat was brown felt,
trimmed with brown ribbon, her Summer hat was brown straw, trimmed with
brown ribbon, and her Winter coat was also brown, of some heavy material
which wore surpassingly well.
For years her beauty-loving soul had been in revolt, but never before
had she dared to suggest a change. The lump in her throat choked her as
she washed the dishes, heedless of the tears that fell into the
dish-pan. But activity is a sovereign remedy for the blues, and by the
time the kitchen was made spotless, she had recovered her composure.
She washed her face in cold water, dusted her red eyes with a bit of
corn-starch, and put the cups and plates in their proper places.
[Sidenote: Toiling Cheerfully]
She listened half-fearfully for a moment before she opened the door,
dreading to hear the dear memory of her mother still under discussion,
but Grandmother and Aunt Matilda were wrangling happily over the
hair-wreath in the parlour. This was a fruitful source of argument when
all other subjects had failed, for Grandmother insisted that the yellow
rose in the centre was made from the golden curls of Uncle Henry
Underwood's oldest boy, while Aunt Matilda was equally certain that it
had come from Sarah Starr's second daughter by her first husband.
Throughout the day Rosemary toiled cheerfully. She swept, dusted,
scrubbed, cooked, did errands, mailed the letter which made certain
another bolt of brown alpaca, built fires, and, in the afternoon,
brought down the heavy roll of unbleached muslin from the attic. Aunt
Matilda cleared off the dining-room table, got out the worn newspaper
patterns, and had sent Rosemary out for a paper of pins before she
remembered that it was Friday, and that no new task begun on a Friday
could ever be a success.
So, while Rosemary set the table for supper, the other two harked back
to the fateful day when Frank Starr brought his wife home. They were in
the next room, but their shrill voices carried well and Rosemary heard
every word, though she earnestly wished that she need not.
[Sidenote: A Lucky Friday]
"It was Friday, too, if you'll remember, when Frank brought her," said
Aunt Matilda, indicating Rosemary by an inclination of her untidy head.
"Then you can't say Friday's always unlucky," commented Grandmother. "It
may have been bad for us but it was good for her. Supposin' that
butterfly had had her to bring up--what'd she have been by now?"
"She resembles her ma some," answered Matilda, irrelevantly; "at least
she would if she was pretty. She's got the same look about her,
somehow."
"I never thought her ma was pretty. It was always a mystery to me what
Frank saw in her."
"Come to supper," called Rosemary, abruptly. She was unable to bear
more.
The meal was unexpectedly enlivened by Grandmother's discovery of a
well-soaked milk ticket in the pitcher. From the weekly issue of _The
Household Guardian_, which had reached her that day, she had absorbed a
vast amount of knowledge pertaining to the manners and customs of germs,
and began to fear for her life. At first, it was thought to be
Rosemary's fault, but upon recalling that for many years the ticket had
always been left in the pitcher, the blame was shifted to the hapless
milkman.
[Sidenote: At the Close of the Day]
Some discussion ensued as to what should be said to the milkman and who
should say it, but Rosemary observed, with more or less reason, that if
his attention was called to the error, he might want another ticket. At
length it was decided to say nothing, and Grandmother personally assumed
charge of the ticket, putting it to dry between newspapers in the hope
of using it again.
After supper, Rosemary washed the dishes, set the table for breakfast,
and sat quietly, with her hands folded, until the others were ready to
go to bed. She wrapped a hot brick in red flannel for each of them, put
out the lamp, and followed them up-stairs. Rejoicing in the shelter
afforded by a closed door, she sat in the dark, shivering a little,
until sounds suggestive of deep slumber came from the two rooms beyond.
Then she lighted the two candles that Alden Marsh had given her, and
hurriedly undressed, pausing only to make a wry face at her unbleached
muslin nightgown, entirely without trimming. She brushed her hair with a
worn brush, braided it, tied it with a bit of shoestring, and climbed
into bed.
After assuring herself of the best light possible, she unwrapped the
little red book he had given her a few days before, and began to read,
eagerly, one of the two wonderful sonnet sequences of which the English
language boasts:
"Love's throne was not with these; but far above
All passionate wind of welcome and farewell
He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of;"
[Sidenote: Upon the Heights]
As by magic, the cares of the common day slipped away from her and her
spirit began to breathe. Upon the heights she walked firmly now, and as
surely as though she felt the hills themselves beneath her feet.
"Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst
And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay
Quickening in darkness, till a voice that day
Cried on him and the bonds of birth were burst."
And again:
"Lo! it is done. Above the enthroning threat
The mouth's mould testifies of voice and kiss,
The shadowed eyes remember and foresee.
Her face is made her shrine. Let all men note
That in all years (Oh, love, thy gift is this!)
They that would look on her must come to me."
The divine melody of the words stirred her to the depths of her soul.
Hunger and thirst ran riot in her blood; her heart surged with the
fulness of its tides.
[Sidenote: The Unknown Joy]
"But April's sun strikes down the glades to-day;
So shut your eyes upturned, and feel my kiss
Creep, as the Spring now thrills through every spray,
Up your warm throat to your warm lips, for this...."
Rosemary put the book aside with shaking hands. "I wonder," she thought,
"how it would be if anyone should kiss me. Me," she whispered; "not the
women in the books, but the real me."
The book slipped to the floor unheeded. She sat there in her ugly
nightgown, yearning with every fibre of her for the unknown joy. The
flickering light of the candles was answered by the strange fire that
burned in her eyes. At last her head drooped forward and, blind with
tears, she hid her face in her hands.
"Oh, dear God in Heaven," she prayed, passionately. "Open the door of
the House of Life to me! Send someone to love me and to take me away,
for Christ's sake--Amen!"
III
The Crystal Ball
[Sidenote: A Function]
"Am I late, Lady Mother?"
Madame Marsh turned toward Alden with a smile. "Only five minutes, and
it doesn't matter, since it's Saturday."
"Five minutes," he repeated. "Some clever person once said that those
who are five minutes late do more to upset the order of the universe
than all the anarchists."
Madame's white hands fluttered out over the silver coffee service. "One
lump or two?" she inquired, with the sugar-tongs poised over his cup.
"Two, please."
Of course she knew, but she liked to ask. She had been at the table,
waiting for him, since the grandfather's clock in the hall struck eight.
In the old house on the shore of the river, breakfast was a function,
luncheon a mild festivity, and dinner an affair of high state. Madame
herself always appeared at dinner suitably clad, and, moreover, insisted
upon evening clothes for her son. Once, years ago, he had protested at
the formality.
[Sidenote: The Magic of Sunlight]
"Why not?" she had queried coldly. "Shall we not be as civilised as we
can?" And, again, when he had presented himself at the dinner hour in
the serviceable garb of every day, she had refused to go to the table
until he came down again, "dressed as a gentleman should be dressed
after six o'clock."
The sunlight streamed into every nook and cranny of the room where they
sat at breakfast. It lighted up the polished surfaces of old mahogany,
woke forgotten gleams from the worn old silver, and summoned stray bits
of iridescence from the prisms that hung from the heavy gilt
chandeliers.
With less graciousness, it revealed several places on the frame of the
mirror over the mantel, where the gold had fallen away and had been
replaced by an inferior sort of gilding. By some subtle trickery with
the lace curtain that hung at the open window, it laid an arabesque of
delicate shadow upon the polished floor. In the room beyond, where
Madame's crystal ball lay on the mahogany table, with a bit of black
velvet beneath it, the sun had made a living rainbow that carried colour
and light into the hall and even up the stairway.
As she sat with her back to it, the light was scarcely less gentle with
Madame. It brought silver into her white hair, shimmered along the
silken surface of her grey gown, and deepened the violet shadows in her
eyes. It threw into vivid relief the cameo that fastened the lace at her
throat, rested for a moment upon the mellow gold of her worn
wedding-ring as she filled Alden's cup, and paused reminiscently at the
corner of her mouth, where there had once been a dimple.
[Sidenote: Tales of a Mirror]
Across the table, the light shone full upon Alden's face, but, man-like,
he had no fear of it. Madame noted, with loving approval, how it
illumined the dark depths of his eyes and showed the strength of his
firm, boyish chin. Each day, to her, he grew more like his father.
"A penny for your thoughts," he said.
Madame sighed. "It seems so strange," she replied, after a pensive
interval, "that I should be old and you should be young. You look so
much like your father sometimes that it is as though the clock had
turned back for him and I had gone on. You're older now than he was when
we were married, but I need my mirror to remind me that I'm past my
twenties."
"A woman and her mirror," laughed Alden, helping himself to a crisp
muffin. "What tales each might tell of the other, if they would!"
"Don't misunderstand me, dear," she said, quickly. "It's not that I mind
growing old. I've never been the unhappy sort of woman who desires to
keep the year for ever at the Spring. Each season has its own
beauty--its own charm. We would tire of violets and apple-blossoms if
they lasted always. Impermanence is the very essence of joy--the drop of
bitterness that enables one to perceive the sweet."
[Sidenote: Over the Breakfast Cups]
"All of which is undoubtedly true," he returned, gallantly, "but the
fact remains that you're not old and never will be. You're merely a girl
who has powdered her hair for a fancy-dress ball."
"Flatterer!" she said, with affected severity, but the delicate pink
flush that bloomed in her cheeks showed that she was pleased.
"Will you drive to-day?" he asked, as they rose from the table.
"I think not. I'm a hot-house plant, you know, and it seems cold
outside."
"Have the new books come yet?"
"Yes, they came yesterday, but I haven't opened the parcel."
"I hope they won't prove as disappointing as the last lot. There wasn't
a thing I could ask Rosemary to read. I'm continually falling back on
the old ones."
"The old books are the best, after all, like the old friends and the old
ways."
Alden walked around the room restlessly, his hands in his pockets. At
length he paused before the window overlooking the vineyard, on the
other side of the valley. The slope was bare of snow, now; the vines
waited the call of Spring.
[Sidenote: Alden's Revolt]
A soft footfall sounded beside him, then his mother put a caressing hand
upon his shoulder. "It's almost time to begin, isn't it?" she asked. Her
beautiful old face was radiant.
Impatiently, he shook himself free from her touch. "Mother," he began,
"let's have it out once for all. I can't stand this any longer."
She sank into the nearest chair, with all the life suddenly gone from
her face and figure. In a moment she had grown old, but presently, with
an effort, she regained her self-command. "Yes?" she returned, quietly.
"What do you wish to do?"
"Anything," he answered, abruptly--"anything but this. I want to get out
where I can breathe, where the sky fits the ground as far as you can
see--where it isn't eternally broken into by these everlasting hills.
I'd like to know that dinner wouldn't always be ready at seven
o'clock--in fact, I'd like sometimes not to have any dinner at all. I
want to get forty miles from a schoolhouse and two hundred miles from a
grape. I never want to see another grape as long as I live."
He knew that he was hurting her, but his insurgent youth demanded its
right of speech after long repression. "I'm a man," he cried, "and I
want to do a man's work in the world and take a man's place. Just
because my ancestors chose to slave in a treadmill, I don't have to
stay in it, do I? You have no right to keep me chained up here!"
[Sidenote: Released]
The clock ticked loudly in the hall, the canary hopped noisily about his
cage and chirped shrilly. A passing breeze came through the open window
and tinkled the prisms that hung from the chandelier. It sounded like
the echo of some far-away bell.
"No," said Madame, dully. "As you say, I have no right to keep you
chained up here."
"Mother!" he cried, with swift remorse. "Don't misunderstand me!"
She raised her hand and motioned him to the chair opposite. "Your
language is sufficiently explicit," she went on, clearing her throat.
"There is no chance for anyone to misunderstand you. I am very sorry
that I--I have not seen, that you have been obliged to ask for release
from an--unpleasant--position. Go--whenever you choose."
He stared at her for a moment, uncomprehending. "Mother! Oh, Mother!" he
whispered. "Do you really mean it? Where shall we go?"
"'We,'" she repeated. "Now I do misunderstand you."
"Why, Mother! What do you mean? Of course we shall go together!"
Madame rose from her chair, with some difficulty. "You have said," she
went on, choosing her words carefully, "that I had no right to keep you
chained up here. I admit it--I have not. Equally, you have no right to
uproot me."
[Sidenote: One's Own Choice]
"But, Mother! Why, I couldn't go without you, and leave you alone. We
belong together, you and I!"
The hard lines of her mouth relaxed, ever so little, but her eyes were
very dark and stern. "As much as we belong together," she resumed, "we
belong here. Dead hands built this house, dead hands laid out that
vineyard, dead hands have given us our work. If we fail, we betray the
trust of those who have gone before us--we have nothing to give to those
who come.
"I've seen," she continued, with rising passion. "You were determined
from the first to fail!"
"Fail!" he echoed, with lips that scarcely moved.
"Yes, for no man fails except by his own choice. You might have been
master of the vineyard, but you have preferred to have the vineyard
master you. Confronted with an uncongenial task, you slunk away from it
and shielded yourself behind the sophistry that the work was unworthy of
you. As if any work were unworthy of a man!"
"I hate it," he murmured, resentfully.
"Yes, just as people hate their superiors. You hate it because you can't
do it. Year by year, I have seen the crop grow less and less; year by
year I have seen our income decreasing. We are living now on less than
half of what we had when you took charge of the vineyard. Last year the
grapes were so poor that I was ashamed to use them for wine. And to
think," she flashed at him, bitterly, "that the name of Marsh used to
stand for quality! What does it mean now? Nothing--thanks to you!"
[Sidenote: The Name of Marsh]
The dull red rose to his temples and he cringed visibly. "I--I--" he
stammered.
"One moment, please, and then I shall say no more. This is between you
and your own manhood, not between you and your mother. I put no
obstacles in your path--you may go when and where you choose. I only ask
you to remember that a man who has failed to do the work that lies
nearest his hand is not likely to succeed at anything else.
"It is not for you to say whether or not anything is worthy when it has
once been given you to do. You have only to do it and make it worthy by
the doing. When you have proved yourself capable, another task will be
given you, but not before. You hate the vineyard because you cannot
raise good grapes, you hate to teach school because you cannot teach
school well. You want to find something easy to do--something that will
require no effort."
"No," he interrupted, "you're mistaken there. I want to do something
great--I'm not asking for anything easy."
[Sidenote: "I Belong Here"]
"Greatness comes slowly," she answered, her voice softening a little,
"and by difficult steps--not by leaps and bounds. You must learn the
multiplication table before you can be an astronomer. None the less, it
is your right to choose."
"Then, granting that, why wouldn't you come with me?"
"Because it is also my right to choose for myself and I belong here.
When I identified myself with the Marsh family, I did it in good faith.
When I was married, I came here, my children were born here, your father
and brother and sister died here, and I shall die here too. When you go,
I shall do my best with the vineyard."
She spoke valiantly, but there was a pathetic little quiver in her lips
as she said the last words. Alden stood at the window, contemplating the
broad acres bordered with pine.
"Do not say _when_ I go, Mother--say _if_ I go."
"I thought you had decided," she murmured, but her heart began to beat
quickly, nevertheless.
"No, I haven't, but I'll decide in the course of the day. Good-bye for
the present."
He stooped, kissed the cheek she turned to him, and went out, assuming a
cheerfulness he did not feel. Madame leaned back in her chair with her
eyes closed, exhausted by the stress of emotion. The maid came in for
orders, she gave them mechanically, then went into the living-room. She
was anxious to be alone, but felt unequal to the exertion of climbing
the stairs.
[Sidenote: The Pictured Face]
As the hours passed, she slowly regained her composure. It seemed
impossible that Alden should go away and leave her when they two were
alone in the world, and, as he said, belonged together. More than ever
that morning had he looked like his father.
Old memories crowded thickly upon her as she sat there. Bits of her
childhood flashed back at her out of the eternal stillness, "even as the
beads of a told rosary." Since the day she met Alden's father,
everything was clear and distinct, for, with women, life begins with
love and the rest is as though it had never been.
An old daguerreotype was close at hand in a table drawer. She opened the
ornate case tenderly, brushed the blue velvet that lined it, and kissed
the pictured face behind the glass. So much had they borne together, so
much had they loved, and all was gone--save this!
The serene eyes, for ever youthful, looked back at her across the years.
Except for the quaint, old-fashioned look inseparable from an old
picture, the face was that of the boy who had left her a few hours ago.
The deep, dark eyes, the regular features, the firm straight chin, the
lovable mouth, the adorable boyishness--all were there, shut in by blue
velvet and glass.
[Sidenote: The Man She Loved]
Madame smiled as she sat there looking at it. She had always had her way
with the father--why should she doubt her power over the son? Supremely
maternal as she was, the sheltering instinct had extended even to the
man she loved. He had been outwardly strong and self-confident, assured,
self-reliant, even severe with others, but behind the bold exterior, as
always to the eyes of the beloved woman, had been a little, shrinking,
helpless child, craving the comfort of a woman's hand--the sanctuary of
a woman's breast.