him too much, knowing how surely he depended upon her. He was more than
forty when he died, yet to her he had been as one of her children,
though infinitely dearer than any child could be.
The quick tears started at the thought of the children, for the childish
prattle had so soon been hushed, the eager little feet had been so
quickly stilled. Alden was the first-born son, with an older daughter,
who had been named Virginia, for her mother. Virginia would have been
thirty-two now, and probably married, with children of her own. The
second son would have been twenty-eight, and, possibly, married also.
There might have been a son-in-law, a daughter-in-law, and three or
four children by this time, had these two lived.
[Sidenote: The House of Memories]
So, through the House of Memories her fancy sped, as though borne on
wings. Childish voices rang through the empty corridors and the fairy
patter of tiny feet sounded on the stairs. One by one, out of the
shadows, old joys and old loves came toward her; forgotten hopes and
lost dreams. Hands long since mingled with the dust clasped hers once
more with perfect understanding--warm lips were crushed upon hers with
the old ecstasy and the old thrill. Even the sorrows, from which the
bitterness had strangely vanished, came back out of the darkness, not
with hesitancy, but with assurance, as though already welcomed by a
friend.
Alden did not come home to luncheon, so Madame made only a pretence of
eating. As the long afternoon wore away, she reproached herself bitterly
for her harshness. There had been pain in the boy's eyes when he bent to
kiss her--and she had turned her cheek.
She would have faced any sort of privation for this one beloved son--the
only gift Life had not as yet taken back. Perhaps, after all, he knew
best, for have not men led and women followed since, back in Paradise,
the First Woman gave her hand trustingly to the First Man?
[Sidenote: Visions in the Crystal Ball]
Long, slanting sunbeams, alight with the gold of afternoon, came into
the room by another window, and chanced upon the crystal ball. Madame's
face grew thoughtful. "I wonder," she mused, "if I dare to try!"
She was half afraid of her own sorcery, because, so many times, that
which she had seen had come true. Once, when a child was ill, she had
gazed into the crystal and seen the little white coffin that, a week
later, was carried out of the front door. Again, she had seen the vision
of a wedding which was unexpectedly fulfilled later, when a passing
cousin begged the hospitality of her house for a marriage.
She drew her chair up to the table, made sure of the proper light, and
leaned over the ball. For a time there was darkness, then confused
images that meant nothing, then at last, clear and distinct as a flash
of lightning, her own son, holding a woman in his arms.
Madame pushed the ball aside, profoundly disturbed. Was the solution of
their problem, then, to come in that way? And who was the woman?
In the dazzling glimpse she had caught no detail save a shimmering white
gown and her son's face half hidden by the masses of the woman's hair. A
faint memory of the hair persisted; she had never seen anything quite
like it. Was it brown, or golden, or--perhaps red? Yes, red--that was
it, and in all the circle of their acquaintance there was no woman with
red hair.
[Sidenote: Alden's Decision]
It was evident, then, that he was going away. Very well, she would go
too. And when Alden had found his woman with the red hair, she would
come back, alone--of course they would not want her.
She felt suddenly lonely, as though she had lived too long. For the
first time, she forgot to light the candles on the mantel when the room
became too dark to see. She had sat alone in the darkness for some time
when she heard Alden's step outside.
When he came in, he missed the accustomed lights. "Mother!" he called,
vaguely alarmed. Then, again: "Mother! Where are you, Mother dear?"
"I'm here," she responded, rising from her chair and fumbling along the
mantel-shelf for matches. "I'm sorry I forgot the candles." The mere
sound of his voice had made her heart leap with joy.
He was muddy and tired and his face was very white. "I know it's late,"
he said, apologetically, "and I'll go up to dress right now. I--I've
decided to--stay."
His voice broke a little on the last word. Madame drew his tall head
down and kissed him, forgetting all about the crystal ball. "For your
own sake?" she asked; "or for mine?"
[Sidenote: An Unfair Advantage]
"For yours, of course. I'll try to do as you want me to, Lady Mother. I
have nothing to do but to make you happy."
For answer, she kissed him again. "I must dress, too," she said.
When they met at dinner, half an hour later, neither made any reference
to the subject that had been under discussion. Outwardly all was calm
and peaceful, as deep-flowing waters may hide the rocks beneath. By the
time coffee was served, they were back upon the old footing of
affectionate comradeship.
Afterward, he read the paper while Madame played solitaire. When she
turned the queen of hearts, she remembered the red-haired woman whom she
had seen in the crystal ball. And they were not going away, after all!
Madame felt that she had in some way gained an unfair advantage over the
red-haired woman. There would be no one, now, to take her boy away from
her.
And yet, when the time came for her to go, would she want Alden to live
on in the old house alone, looking after the hated vineyard and teaching
the despised school? At best, it could be only a few years more.
Feeling her grave, sweet eyes upon him, Alden looked up from his paper.
"What is it, Mother?"
"Dear," she said, thoughtfully, "I want you to marry and bring me a
daughter. I want to hold your son in my arms before I die."
[Sidenote: Madame's Dream]
"Rather a large order, isn't it?" He laughed indifferently, and went on
with his reading. Madame laughed, too, as she continued her solitaire,
but, none the less, she dreamed that night that the house was full of
women with red hair, and that each one was gazing earnestly into the
depths of a crystal ball.
IV
April's Sun
[Sidenote: The Joy of Morning]
With a rush of warm winds and a tinkle of raindrops, Spring danced over
the hills. The river stirred beneath the drifting ice, then woke into
musical murmuring. Even the dead reeds and dry rushes at the bend of the
stream gave forth a faint melody when swayed by the full waters beneath.
The joy of morning was abroad in the world. Robins sang it, winds
whispered it, and, beneath the sod, every fibre of root and tree
quivered with aspiration, groping through the labyrinth of darkness with
a blind impulse toward the light. Across the valley, on the southern
slope, a faint glow of green seemed to hover above the dark tangle of
the vineyard, like some indefinite suggestion of colour, promising the
sure beauty yet to come.
Rosemary had climbed the Hill of the Muses early in the afternoon. She,
too, was awake, in every fibre of body and soul. Springs had come and
gone before--twenty-five of them--but she had never known one like this.
A vague delight possessed her, and her heart throbbed as from
imprisoned wings. Purpose and uplift and aspiration swayed her
strangely; she yearned blindly toward some unknown goal.
[Sidenote: The Family Religion]
She had not seen Alden for a long time. The melting ice and snow had
made the hill unpleasant, if not impossible, and the annual sewing had
kept her closely indoors. She and Aunt Matilda had made the year's
supply of underwear from the unbleached muslin, and one garment for each
from the bolt of brown-and-white gingham. Rosemary disdained to say
"gown" or even "dress," for the result of her labour was a garment,
simply, and nothing more.
Every third Summer she had a new white muslin, of the cheapest quality,
which she wore to church whenever it was ordained that she should go.
Grandmother and Aunt Matilda were deeply religious, but not according to
any popular plan. They had their own private path to Heaven, and had
done their best to set Rosemary's feet firmly upon it, but with small
success.
When she was a child, Rosemary had spent many long, desolate Sunday
afternoons thinking how lonely it would be in Heaven with nobody there
but God and the angels and the Starr family. Even the family, it seemed,
was not to be admitted as an entity, but separately, according to
individual merit. Grandmother and Aunt Matilda had many a wordy battle
as to who would be there and who wouldn't, but both were sadly agreed
that Frank must stay outside.
[Sidenote: Rewards and Punishments]
Rosemary was deeply hurt when she discovered that Grandmother did not
expect to meet her son there, and as for her son's wife--the old lady
had dismissed the hapless bride to the Abode of the Lost with a single
comprehensive snort. Alternately, Rosemary had been rewarded for good
behaviour by the promise of Heaven and punished for small misdemeanours
by having the gates closed in her face. As she grew older and began to
think for herself, she wondered how Grandmother and Aunt Matilda had
obtained their celestial appointment as gate-keepers, and reflected that
it might possibly be very pleasant outside, with the father and mother
whom she had never seen.
So, of late years, religion had not disturbed Rosemary much. She paid no
attention to the pointed allusions to "heathen" and "infidels" that
assailed her ears from time to time, and ceased to feel her young flesh
creep when the Place of Torment was described with all the power of two
separate and vivid imaginations. Disobedience troubled her no longer
unless she was found out, and, gradually, she developed a complicated
system of deception.
When she was discovered reading a novel, she had accepted the
inevitable punishment with outward submission. Naturally, it was not
easy to tear out the leaves one by one, especially from a borrowed book,
and put them into the fire, saying, each time she put one in: "I will
never read another novel as long as I live," but she had compelled
herself to do it gracefully. Only her flaming cheeks had betrayed her
real feeling.
[Sidenote: Forbidden Reading]
A week later, when she was locked in her room for the entire day, on
account of some slight offence, she had wept so much over the sorrows of
Jane Eyre that even Aunt Matilda was affected when she brought up the
bread and milk for the captive's supper. Rosemary had hidden the book
under the mattress at the first sound of approaching footsteps, but Aunt
Matilda, by describing the tears of penitence to the stern authority
below, obtained permission for Rosemary to come down-stairs, eat her
bread and milk at the table, and, afterward, to wash the dishes.
She continued to borrow books from the school library, however, and
later from Alden Marsh. When he learned that she dared not read at
night, for fear of burning too much oil, he began to supply her with
candles. Thus the world of books was opened to her, and many a midnight
had found her, absorbed and breathless, straining her eyes over the last
page. More than once she had read all night and fallen asleep afterward
at the breakfast table.
[Sidenote: Occasional Meetings]
Once, long ago, Alden had called upon her, but the evening was made so
unpleasant, both for him and his unhappy hostess, that he never came
again. Rosemary used to go to the schoolhouse occasionally, to sit and
talk for an hour or so after school, but some keen-eyed busy-body had
told Grandmother and the innocent joy had come to an abrupt conclusion.
Rosemary kept her promise not to go to the schoolhouse simply because
she dared not break it.
The windows of the little brown house, where the Starrs lived, commanded
an unobstructed view of the Marshs' big Colonial porch, in Winter, when
the trees between were bare, so it was impossible for the girl to go
there, openly, as Mrs. Marsh had never returned Aunt Matilda's last
call.
Sometimes Alden wrote to her, but she was unable to answer, for
stationery and stamps were unfamiliar possessions; Grandmother held the
purse-strings tightly, and every penny had to be accounted for. On
Thursday, Rosemary always went to the post-office, as _The Household
Guardian_ was due then, so it happened that occasionally she received a
letter, or a book which she could not return until Spring.
At length, the Hill of the Muses became the one possible rendezvous,
though, at the chosen hour of four, Rosemary was usually too weary to
attempt the long climb. Moreover, she must be back by six to get supper,
so one little hour was all she might ever hope for, at a time.
[Sidenote: Far Above Her]
Yet these hours had become a rosary of memories to her, jewelled upon
the chain of her uneventful days. Alden's unfailing friendliness and
sympathy warmed her heart, though she had never thought of him as a
possible lover. In her eyes, he was as far above her as the fairy prince
had been above Cinderella. It was only kindness that made him stoop at
all.
When the school bell, sounding for dismissal, echoed through the valley
below, Rosemary hung her scarlet signal to the outstanding bough of the
lowest birch, and went back to the crest of the hill to wait for him.
She had with her the little red book that he had given her long ago, and
which she had not had opportunity to return.
She turned the pages regretfully, though she knew the poems almost by
heart. Days, while she washed dishes and scrubbed, the exquisite melody
of the words haunted her, like some far-off strain of music. For the
first time she had discovered the subtle harmonies of which the language
is capable, entirely apart from sense.
Living lines stood out upon the printed page, glowing with a rapture all
their own.
[Sidenote: Thrilling Lines]
"Now, shadowed by his wings, our faces yearn
Together,"
she read aloud, thrilled by the very sound.
"Tender as dawn's first hill-fire," ... "What marshalled marvels
on the skirts of May," ... "Shadows and shoals that edge
eternity." ...
"Oh," she breathed, "if only I didn't have to give it back!"
"Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all?
One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand,--
One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand."
"What, indeed?" thought Rosemary. What was she to Love, or what ever
might she be?
"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 down, face to face at last with self-knowledge.
She would have torn down the flaming signal, but it was too late. If he
were coming--and he never had failed to come--he would be there very
soon.
* * * * *
Alden had closed his desk with a sigh as the last pair of restless
little feet tumbled down the schoolhouse steps. Scraps of paper
littered the floor and the room was musty and close in spite of two open
windows. From where he sat, he could see the vineyard, with its
perpetual demand upon him. Since his painful interview with his mother,
he had shrunk, inwardly, from even the sight of the vineyard. It somehow
seemed to have a malicious air about it. Mutely it challenged his
manhood, menaced his soul.
[Sidenote: Uneventful Days]
He had accepted the inevitable but had not ceased to rebel. The coming
years stretched out before him in a procession of grey, uneventful days.
Breakfast, school, luncheon, school, long evenings spent in reading to
his mother, and, from Spring to frost, the vineyard, with its
multitudinous necessities.
He felt, keenly, that his mother did not quite understand him. In fact,
nobody did, unless it was Rosemary, whom he had not seen for weeks.
Brave little Rosemary, for whom life consisted wholly of deprivations!
How seldom she complained and how often she had soothed his discontent!
It was three years ago that she had come shyly to the schoolhouse and
asked if she might borrow a book. He had known her, of course, before
that, but had scarcely exchanged a dozen words with her. When he saw
her, rarely, at church, Grandmother or Aunt Matilda was always with her,
and the Starrs had had nothing to do with the Marshs for several years
past, as Mrs. Marsh had been remiss in her social obligations.
[Sidenote: A Growing Interest]
At first, Rosemary had been purely negative to him, and he regarded her
with kindly indifference. The girl's personality seemed as ashen as her
hair, as colourless as her face. Her dull eyes seemed to see nothing, to
care for nothing. Within the last few months he had begun to wonder
whether her cold and impassive exterior might not be the shield with
which she protected an abnormal sensitiveness. Now and then he had
longed to awaken the woman who dwelt securely within the forbidding
fortress--to strike from the flint some stray gleams of soul.
Of late he had begun to miss her, and, each afternoon, to look with a
little more conscious eagerness for the scarlet thread on the hill-top
signalling against the grey sky beyond. His interest in her welfare was
becoming more surely personal, not merely human. During the Winter,
though he had seen her only twice, he had thought about her a great
deal, and had written to her several times without expecting an answer.
The iron bars of circumstance which bound her, had, though less
narrowly, imprisoned him also. It seemed permanent for them both, and,
indeed, the way of escape was even more definitely closed for Rosemary
than for him.
[Sidenote: A New Rosemary]
He sighed as he rose and brushed the chalk from his clothes. Through
force of habit, he looked up to the crest of the Hill of the Muses as he
locked the door. The red ribbon fluttered like an oriflamme against the
blue-and-white of the April sky. His heart quickened its beat a little
as he saw it, and his steps insensibly hastened as he began to climb the
hill.
When he took her hand, with a word of friendly greeting, he noticed a
change in her, though she had made a valiant effort to recover her
composure. This was a new Rosemary, with eyes shining and the colour
flaming in her cheeks and lips.
"Spring seems to have come to you, too," he said, seating himself on the
log beside her. "How well you look!"
The deep crimson mounted to her temples, then as swiftly retreated.
"Better take down the ribbon," she suggested, practically.
"I've been watching a long time for this," he resumed, as he folded it
and restored it to its place in the hollow tree. "What have you been
doing?"
"All the usual dreary things, to which a mountain of sewing has been
added."
"Is that a new gown?"
She laughed, mirthlessly. "It's as new a gown as I'll ever have," she
returned, trying to keep her voice even. "My wardrobe consists of an
endless parade of brown alpaca and brown gingham garments, all made
exactly alike."
[Sidenote: Thwarted on All Sides]
"Like a dozen stage soldiers, marching in and out, to create the
illusion of a procession?"
"I suppose so. You know I've never seen a stage, much less a stage
soldier."
Alden's heart softened with pity. He longed to take Rosemary to town and
let her feast her eyes upon some gorgeous spectacle; to see her senses
run riot, for once, with colour and light and sound.
"I feel sometimes," she was saying, "as though I had sold my soul for
pretty things in some previous existence, and was paying the penalty for
it now."
"You love pretty things, don't you?"
She turned brimming eyes toward him. "Love them?" she repeated,
brokenly. "There aren't words enough to say how much!"
From a fresh point of view he saw her countless deprivations, binding
her, thwarting her, oppressing her on all sides by continual denial. His
own rebellion against circumstances seemed weak and unworthy.
"Whenever I think of you," he said, in a different tone, "I feel ashamed
of myself. I have freedom, of a certain sort, and you've never had a
chance to learn the meaning of the word. You're dominated, body and
soul, by a couple of old women who haven't discovered, as yet, that the
earth is round and not flat."
[Sidenote: Freedom]
"My soul isn't bound," returned Rosemary, softly, "but it would have
been, if it hadn't been for you."
"I? Why, my dear girl, what have I done?"
"Everything. Think of all the books you've loaned me, all the candles
you've given me--all the times you've climbed this steep hill just to
talk to me for an hour and give me new strength to go on."
"It's only selfishness, Rosemary. I knew you were here and I like to
talk to you. Don't forget that you've meant something to me, too. Why,
you're the only woman I know, except my mother."
"Your mother is lovely," she returned. "I wish I could go to see her
once in a while. I like to look at her. Even her voice is different
someway."
"Yes, mother is 'different,'" he agreed, idly. "It's astonishing,
sometimes, how 'different' she manages to be. We had it out the other
day, about the vineyard, and I'm to stay here--all the rest of my life,"
he concluded bitterly.
"I don't see why, if you don't want to," she answered, half-fearfully.
"You're a man, and men can do as they please."
"It probably seems so to you, but I assure you it's very far from the
truth. I wonder, now and then, if any of us ever really do as we please.
Freedom is the great gift."
[Sidenote: Choosing]
"And the great loneliness," she added, after a pause.
"You may be right," he sighed. "Still, I'd like to try it for a while.
It's the one thing I'd choose. What would you take, if you could have
anything you wanted?"
"Do you mean for just a little while, or for always?"
"For always. The one great gift you'd choose from all that Life has to
give."
"I'd take love," she said, in a low tone. She was not looking at him
now, but far across the valley where the vineyard lay. Her face was
wistful in the half-light; the corners of her mouth quivered, ever so
little.
Alden looked at her, then rubbed his eyes and looked at her again. In
some subtle way she had changed, or he had, since they last met. Never
before had he thought of her as a woman; she had been merely another
individual to whom he liked to talk. To-day her womanhood carried its
own appeal. She was not beautiful and no one would ever think her so,
but she was sweet and wholesome and had a new, indefinable freshness
about her that, in another woman, would have been called charm.
It came to him, all at once, that, in some mysterious way, he and
Rosemary belonged together. They had been born to the same lot, and must
spend all their days in the valley, hedged in by the same narrow
restrictions. Even an occasional hour on the Hill of the Muses was
forbidden to her, and constant scheming was the price she was obliged to
pay for it.
[Sidenote: The Book]
The restraint chafed and fretted him, for her as much as for himself. It
was absurd that a girl of twenty-five and a man of thirty should not
have some little independence of thought and action. The silence
persisted and finally became awkward.
"It's the book," said Rosemary, with a forced laugh. She was
endeavouring to brush her mood away as though it were an annoying
cobweb. "I've grown foolish over the book."
"I'm glad you liked it," he returned, taking it from her. "I was sure
you would. What part of it did you like best?"
"All of it. I can't choose, though of course some of it seems more
beautiful than the rest."
"I suppose you know it by heart, now, don't you?"
"Almost."
"Listen. Isn't this like to-day?"
"Spring's foot half falters; scarce she yet may know
The leafless blackthorn-blossom from the snow;
And through her bowers the wind's way still is clear."
Rosemary got to her feet unsteadily. She went to the brow of the hill,
on the side farthest from the vineyard, and stood facing the sunset.
Scarcely knowing that she had moved, Alden read on:
"But April's sun strikes down the glades to-day;
So shut your eyes upturned, and feel my kiss----"
[Sidenote: Alden Speaks]
A smothered sob made him look up quickly. She stood with her back to
him, but her shoulders were shaking. He dropped the book and went to
her.
A strange, new tenderness possessed him. "Rosemary," he whispered,
slipping his arm around her. "What is it--dear?"
"Nothing," she sobbed, trying to release herself. "I'm--I'm tired--and
foolish--that's all. Please let me go!"