Rosemary had come to the point where she could endure no more, and
mercifully the pain was eased. Later on, no doubt, she could suffer
again, but for the moment she felt only a dull weariness. In the
background the ache slumbered, like an ember that is covered with ashes,
but now she was at rest.
She looked about her curiously, as though she were a stranger. Yet, at
the very spot where she stood, Mrs. Lee had stood yesterday, her brown
eyes cold with controlled anger when she made her sarcastic farewell.
When she first saw her, she had been sitting on the log, where Alden
usually sat. Down in the hollow tree was the wooden box that held the
red ribbon. Shyly, the nine silver birches, with bowed heads, had turned
down the hillside and stopped. Across, on the other side of the hill,
where God hung His flaming tapestries of sunset from the high walls of
Heaven, Rosemary had stood that day, weeping, and Love had come to
comfort her.
[Sidenote: Another Standard]
None of it mattered now--nothing mattered any more. She had reached the
end, whatever the end might be. Seemingly it was a great pause of soul
and body, the consciousness of arrival at the ultimate goal.
When she saw Alden, she would ask to be released. She could tell him,
with some semblance of truth, that she could not leave Grandmother and
Aunt Matilda, because they needed her, and after they had done so much
for her, she could not bring herself to seem ungrateful, even for him.
The books were full of such things--the eternal sacrifice of youth to
age, which age unblushingly accepts, perhaps in remembrance of some
sacrifice of its own.
He had told her, long ago, that she was the only woman he knew. Now he
had another standard to judge her by and, at the best, she must fall far
short of it. Some day Alden would marry--he must marry, and have a home
of his own when his mother was no longer there to make it for him, and
she--she was not good enough for him, any more than Cinderella was good
enough for the Prince.
The fact that the Prince had considered Cinderella fully his equal
happily escaped Rosemary now. Clearly before her lay the one thing to be
done: to tell him it was all a mistake, and ask for freedom before he
forced it upon her. He had been very kind the other day, when she had
gone there to tea but, naturally, he had seen the difference--must have
seen it.
[Sidenote: Rosemary's Few Days of Joy]
Of course it would not be Mrs. Lee--Rosemary could laugh at that now.
Her jealousy of an individual had been merely the recognition of a type,
and her emotion the unfailing tribute inferiority accords superiority.
Married, and her husband not dead, nor divorced--manifestly it could not
be Mrs. Lee.
She longed to set him free, to bid him mate with a woman worthy of him.
Some glorious woman, Rosemary thought, with abundant beauty and radiant
hair, with a low, deep voice that vibrated through the room like some
stringed instrument and lingered, in melodious echoes, like music that
has ceased. She saw her few days of joy as the one perfect thing she had
ever had, the one gift she had prayed for and received. This much could
never be taken away from her. She had had it and been blessed by it, and
now the time had come to surrender it. What was she, that she might hope
to keep it?
"Lo, what am I to Love, the Lord of all
One little shell upon the murmuring sand,
One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand--"
The moment of shelter became divinely dear. Already, in her remembrance,
she had placed a shrine to which she might go, in silence, when things
became too hard. She would have written to Alden, if she had had a sheet
of paper, and an envelope, and a stamp, but she had not, and dared not
face the torrent of questions she would arouse by asking for it.
[Sidenote: No One Came]
Her face transfigured by a passion of renunciation, Rosemary reached
into the hollow tree for the wooden box, and, for the last time unwound
the scarlet ribbon. She tied it to the lowest bough of the birch when
the school bell rang, and went back to wait. Without emotion, she framed
the few words she would say. "Just tell him it's all a mistake, that
they need me and I mustn't leave them, and so good-bye. And if he tries
to kiss me for good-bye--oh, he mustn't, for I couldn't bear that!"
So Rosemary sat and waited--until almost dark, but no one came. Alden
had, indeed, hurried home to have afternoon tea with his mother and
Edith. He had almost forgotten the oriflamme that sometimes signalled to
him from the top of the hill, and seldom even glanced that way.
In the gathering dusk, Rosemary took it down, unemotionally. It seemed
only part of the great denial. She put it back into the box, and hid it
in the tree.
"Service," she said to herself, as she went home, "and sacrifice.
Giving, not receiving; asking, not answer. And this is love!"
XIII
The Stain of the Rose
[Sidenote: Put Aside]
Alden had put Rosemary aside as though in a mental pigeon-hole. If vague
thoughts of her came now and then to trouble him, he showed no sign of
it. As weeks and months had sometimes passed without a meeting, why
should it be different now? Moreover, he was busy, as she must know,
with the vineyard and school, and a guest.
He had ordered several books on the subject of vine-culture, and was
reading a great deal, though a close observer might have noted long
intervals in which he took no heed of the book, but stared dreamily into
space. He saw Edith at the table, and in the evenings, and occasionally
at afternoon tea--a pleasant custom which she and Madame never failed to
observe,--but she seemed to make it a point not to trespass upon his
daylight hours.
The apple blossoms had gone, blown in fragrant drifts afar upon field
and meadow. The vineyard lay lazily upon its southern slope, basking in
the sun. Sometimes a wandering wind brought a fresh scent of lusty
leaves or a divine hint of bloom.
[Sidenote: Alden's Feast]
The old-fashioned square piano, long silent, was open now, and had been
put in order. In the evenings, after dinner, Edith would play, dreamily,
in the dusk or by the light of one candle. The unshaded light, shining
full upon her face, brought out the delicacy of her profile and allured
stray gleams from the burnished masses of her hair. In the soft shadows
that fell around her, she sat like St. Cecilia, unconscious of self, and
of the man who sat far back in a corner of the room, never taking his
eyes from her face.
Wistfulness was in every line of her face and figure, from the small
white-shod foot that rested upon the pedal to the glorious hair that
shimmered and shone but still held its tangled lights safely in its
silken strands. The long line from shoulder to wrist, the smooth, satiny
texture of the rounded arm, bare below the elbow, the delicate hands, so
beautifully cared-for, all seemed eloquent with yearning.
Alden, from his safe point of observation, feasted his soul to the full.
The ivory whiteness of her neck shaded imperceptibly into the creamy
lace of her gown. Underneath her firm, well rounded chin, on the left
side, was a place that was almost a dimple, but not quite. There was a
real dimple in her chin and another at each corner of her mouth, where
the full scarlet lips drooped a little from sadness. Star-like, her
brown eyes searched the far shadows and sometimes the flicker of the
candle brought a dancing glint of gold into their depths. And as always,
like a halo, stray gleams hovered about her head, bent slightly forward
now and full into the light, throwing into faint relief the short
straight nose, and the full, short upper lip.
[Sidenote: Edith at the Piano]
Smiling, and wholly unconscious, it was as though she pleaded with the
instrument to give her back some half-forgotten melody. Presently the
strings answered, shyly at first, then in full soft chords that sang and
crooned through the dusk. Alden, in his remote corner, drew a long
breath of rapture. The ineffable sweetness of her pervaded his house,
not alone with the scent of violets, but with the finer, more subtle
fragrance of her personality.
She wore no jewels, except her wedding ring--not even the big, blazing
diamond with which her husband had sealed their betrothal. She had a
string of pearls and a quaint, oriental necklace set with jade, and
sometimes she wore one or two turquoises, or a great, pale sapphire set
in silver, but that was all. Out of the world of glitter and sparkle,
she had chosen these few things that suited her, and was content.
[Sidenote: Madame in the Moonlight]
From another corner came the sound of slow, deep breathing. Outside the
circle of candlelight, Madame had fallen asleep in her chair. The full
June moon had shadowed the net curtain upon the polished floor and laid
upon it, in silhouette, an arabesque of oak leaves. It touched Madame's
silvered hair to almost unearthly beauty as she leaned back with her
eyes closed, and brought a memory of violets and sun from the
gold-tasselled amethyst that hung on her breast. The small slender hands
lay quietly, one on either arm of her chair. A white crepe shawl, heavy
with Chinese embroidery, lay over her shoulders,--a gift from Edith. A
Summer wind, like a playful child, stole into the room, lifted the deep
silk fringe of the shawl, made merry with it for a moment, then tinkled
the prisms on the chandelier and ran away again.
The fairy-like sound of it, as though it were a far, sweet bell, chimed
in with Edith's dreamy chords and brought her to herself with a start.
She turned quickly, saw that Madame was asleep, and stopped playing.
"Go on," said Alden, in a low tone. "Please do."
"I mustn't," she whispered, with her finger on her lips. "Your mother is
asleep and I don't want to disturb her."
"Evidently you haven't," he laughed.
"Hush!" Edith's full, deep contralto took on an affected sternness.
"You mustn't talk."
[Sidenote: Edith's Room]
"But I've got to," he returned. "Shall we go outdoors?"
"Yes, if you like."
"Don't you want a wrap of some sort?"
"Yes. Wait a moment, and I'll get it."
"No--tell me where it is, and I'll go."
"It's only a white chiffon scarf," she said. "I think you'll find it
hanging from the back of that low rocker, near the dressing-table."
He went up-stairs, silently and swiftly, and paused, for a moment, at
Edith's door. It seemed strange to have her permission to turn the knob
and go in. He hesitated upon the threshold, then entered the sweet
darkness which, to him, would have meant Edith, had it been blown to him
across the wastes of Sahara.
How still it was! Only the cheery piping of a cricket broke the
exquisite peace of the room; only a patch of moonlight, upon the
polished floor, illumined the scented dusk. He struck a match, and
lighted one of the candles upon the dressing-table.
The place was eloquent of her, as though she had just gone out. The
carved ivory toilet articles--he could have guessed that she would not
have silver ones,--the crystal puff box, with a gold top ornamented only
by a monogram; no, it was not a monogram either, but interlaced
initials trailing diagonally across it; the mirror, a carelessly
crumpled handkerchief, and a gold thimble--he picked up each article
with a delightful sense of intimacy.
[Sidenote: A Man's Face]
Face down upon the dressing-table was a photograph, framed in dull green
leather. That, too, he took up without stopping to question the
propriety of it. A man's face smiled back at him, a young, happy face,
full of comradeship and the joy of life for its own sake.
This, then, was her husband! Alden's heart grew hot with resentment at
the man who had made Edith miserable. He had put those sad lines under
her eyes, that showed so plainly sometimes when she was tired, made her
sweet mouth droop at the corners, and filled her whole personality with
the wistfulness that struck at his heart, like the wistfulness of a
little child.
This man, with the jovial countenance, and doubtless genial ways, had
the right to stand at her dressing-table, if he chose, and speculate
upon the various uses of all the daintiness that was spread before him.
He had the right and cared nothing for it, while the man who did care,
stood there shamefaced, all at once feeling himself an intruder in a
sacred place.
He put the photograph back, face down, as it had been, took the scarf,
put out the light, and went back down-stairs. He stopped for a moment
in the hall to wonder what this was that assailed him so strangely, this
passionate bitterness against the other man, this longing to shelter
Edith from whatever might make her unhappy.
[Sidenote: On the Veranda]
The living-room was dark. In her moonlit corner, Madame still slept.
From where he stood, he could see the dainty little lavender-clad figure
enwrapped in its white shawl. There was no sign of Edith in the room, so
he went out upon the veranda, guessing that he should find her there.
She had taken out two chairs--a favourite rocker of her own, and the
straight-backed, deep chair in which Alden usually sat when he was
reading. The chairs faced each other, with a little distance between
them. Edith sat in hers, rocking, with her hands crossed behind her
head, and her little white feet stretched out in front of her.
Without speaking, Alden went back for a footstool. Then he turned Edith,
chair and all, toward the moonlight, slipped the footstool under her
feet, laid the fluttering length of chiffon over her shoulders, and
brought his own chair farther forward.
"Why," she laughed, as he sat down, "do you presume to change my
arrangements?"
"Because I want to see your face."
[Sidenote: Effect of Moonlight]
"Didn't it occur to you that I might want to see yours?"
"Not especially."
"My son," she said, in her most matronly manner, "kindly remember that a
woman past her first youth always prefers to sit with her back toward
the light."
"I'm older than you are," he reminded her, "so don't be patronising."
"In years only," she returned. "In worldly wisdom and experience and all
the things that count, I'm almost as old as your mother is. Sometimes,"
she added, bitterly, "I feel as though I were a thousand."
A shadow crossed his face, but, as his figure loomed darkly against the
moon, Edith did not see it. The caressing glamour of the light revealed
the sad sweetness of her mouth, but presently her lips curved upward in
a forced smile.
"Why is it?" she asked, "that moonlight makes one think?"
"I didn't know it did," he replied. "I thought it was supposed to have
quite the opposite effect."
"It doesn't with me. In the sun, I'm sane, and have control of myself,
but nights like this drive me almost mad sometimes."
"Why?" he asked gently, leaning toward her.
"Oh, I don't know," she sighed. "There's so much I might have that I
haven't." Then she added, suddenly: "What did you think of my husband's
picture?"
[Sidenote: Edith's Husband]
The end of the chiffon scarf rose to meet a passing breeze, then fell
back against the softness of her arm. A great grey-winged night moth
fluttered past them. From the high bough of a distant maple came the
frightened twitter of little birds, wakeful in the night, and the soft,
murmurous voice of the brooding mother, soothing them.
"How did you know?" asked Alden, slowly.
"Oh, I just knew. You were looking at my dressing-table first, and you
picked up the picture without thinking. Then, as soon as you knew who it
was, you put it down, found the scarf, and came out."
"Do you love him?"
"No. That is, I don't think I do. But--oh," she added, with a sharp
indrawing of her breath, "how I did love him!"
"And he--" Alden went on. "Does he love you?"
"I suppose so, in his way. As much as he is capable of caring for
anything except himself, he cares for me."
She rose and walked restlessly along the veranda, the man following her
with his eyes, until she reached the latticed end, where a climbing
crimson rose, in full bloom, breathed the fragrance of some far Persian
garden. Reaching up, she picked one, on a long, slender stem.
[Sidenote: The Crimson Rose]
Alden appeared beside her, with his knife in his hand. "Shall I take off
the thorns for you?"
"No, I'm used to thorns. Besides, the wise ones are those who accept
things as they are." She thrust the stem into her belt, found a pin from
somewhere, and pinned the flower itself upon the creamy lace of her
gown.
"It's just over your heart," he said. "Is your heart a rose too?"
"As far as thorns go, yes."
She leaned back against one of the white columns of the porch. She was
facing the moonlight, but the lattice and the rose shaded her with
fragrant dusk.
"Father and Mother planted this rose," Alden said, "the day they were
married."
"How lovely," she answered, without emotion. "But to think that the rose
has outlived one and probably will outlive the other!"
"Mother says she hopes it will. She wants to leave it here for me and my
problematical children. The tribal sense runs rampant in Mother."
"When are you and Miss Starr going to be married?" asked Edith, idly.
Alden started. "How did you know?" he demanded, roughly, possessing
himself of her hands. "Who told you--Mother, or--Miss Starr?"
[Sidenote: Mutual Understanding]
"Neither," replied Edith, coldly, releasing herself. "I--just knew. I
beg your pardon," she added, hastily. "Of course it's none of my
affair."
"But it is," he said, under his breath. Then, coming closer, he took her
hands again. "Look here, Edith, there's something between you and me--do
you know it?"
"How do you mean?" She tried to speak lightly, but her face was pale.
"You know very well what I mean. How do you know what I think, what I
do, what I am? And the nights--no, don't try to get away from me--from
that first night when I woke at four and knew you were crying, to that
other night when you knew it was I who was awake with you, and all the
nights since when the tide of time has turned between three and four!
I've known your thoughts, your hopes, your dreams, as you've known mine!
"And the next day," he went on, "when you avoid me even with your eyes;
when you try to hide with laughter and light words your consciousness of
the fact that the night before you and I have met somewhere, in some
mysterious way, and known each other as though we were face to face! Can
you be miserable, and I not know it? Can I be tormented by a thousand
doubts, and you not know it? Could you be ill, or troubled, or even
perplexed, and I not know, though the whole world lay between us? Answer
me!"
[Sidenote: Oblivious of Time and Space]
Edith's face was very white and her lips almost refused to move. "Oh,
Boy," she whispered, brokenly. "What does it mean?"
"This," he answered, imperiously. "It means this--and now!"
He took her into his arms, crushing her to him so tightly that she
almost cried out with the delicious pain of it. In the rose-scented
shadow, his mouth found hers.
Time and space were no more. At the portal of the lips, soul met soul.
The shaded veranda, and even the house itself faded away. Only this
new-born ecstasy lived, like a flaming star suddenly come to earth.
Madame stirred in her sleep. Then she called, drowsily: "Alden! Edith!"
No one answered, because no one heard. She got up, smothering a yawn
behind her hand, wondered that there were no lights, waited a moment,
heard nothing, and came to the window.
The moon flooded the earth with enchantment--a silvery ocean of light
breaking upon earth-bound shores. A path of it lay along the
veranda--opal and tourmaline and pearl, sharply turned aside by the
shadow of the rose.
Madame drew her breath quickly. There they stood, partly in the dusk
and partly in the light, close in each other's arms, with the misty
silver lying lovingly upon Edith's hair.
[Sidenote: Pledges of Love]
She sank back into a chair, remembering, with vague terror, the vision
she had seen in the crystal ball. So, then, it was true, as she might
have known. Sorely troubled, and with her heart aching for them both,
she crept up-stairs.
* * * * *
"Boy," whispered Edith, shrinking from him. "Oh, Boy! The whole world
lies between you and me!"
His only answer was to hold her closer still, to turn her mouth again to
his. "Not to-night," he breathed, with his lips on hers. "God has given
us to-night!"
White and shaken, but with her eyes shining like stars, at last she
broke away from him. She turned toward the house, but he caught her and
held her back.
"Say it," he pleaded. "Say you love me!"
"I do," she whispered. "Oh, have pity, and let me go!"
"And I," he answered, with his face illumined, "love you with all my
heart and soul and strength and will--with every fibre of my being, for
now and for ever. I am yours absolutely, while earth holds me, and even
beyond that."
[Sidenote: What Matters]
Edith looked up quickly, half afraid. His eyes were glowing with
strange, sweet fires.
"Say it!" he commanded. "Tell me you are mine!"
"I am," she breathed. "God knows I am, but no--I had forgotten for the
moment!"
She broke into wild sobbing, and he put his arm around her with infinite
tenderness. "Hush," he said, as one might speak to a child. "What has
been does not matter--nothing matters now but this. In all the ways of
Heaven, you are mine--mine for always, by divine right!"
"Yes," she said, simply, and lifted her tear-stained face to his.
He kissed her again, not with passion, but with that same indescribable
tenderness. Neither said a word. They went into the house together, he
found her candle, lighted it, and gave it to her.
She took it from him, smiling, though her hands trembled. Back in the
shadow he watched her as she ascended, with a look of exaltation upon
her face. Crimson petals were falling all around her, and he saw the
stain of the rose upon her white gown, where he had crushed it against
her heart.
Neither slept, until the tide of the night began to turn. Swiftly, to
her, through the throbbing, living darkness, came a question and a
call.
[Sidenote: Peace]
"Mine?"
Back surged the unmistakable answer: "Thine." Then, to both, came
dreamless peace.
XIV
The Light before a Shrine
[Sidenote: Madame Reproaches Herself]
Edith did not appear at breakfast. Alden seemed preoccupied, ate but
little, and Madame, pale after a sleepless night, ate nothing at all.
Furtively she watched her son, longing to share his thoughts and warn
him against the trouble that inevitably lay ahead.
Woman-like, she blamed the woman, even including herself. She knew that
what she had seen last night was not the evidence of a mere flirtation
or passing fancy, and reproached herself bitterly because she had asked
Edith to stay.
And yet, what mother could hope to shield her son against temptation in
its most intoxicating form? For his thirty years he had lived in the
valley, practically without feminine society. Only his mother, and, of
late, Rosemary. Then, star-like upon his desert, Edith had arisen,
young, beautiful, unhappy, with all the arts and graces a highly
specialised civilisation bestows upon its women.
[Sidenote: Looking Back]
Madame's heart softened a little toward Edith. Perhaps she was not
wholly to blame. She remembered the night Edith had endeavoured to
escape a tete-a-tete with Alden and she herself had practically forced
her to stay. Regardless of the warning given by the crystal ball, in
which Madame now had more faith than ever, she had not only given
opportunity, but had even forced it upon them.
Looking back, she could not remember, upon Edith's part, a word or even
a look that had been out of place. She could recall no instance in which
she had shown the slightest desire for Alden's society. Where another
woman might have put herself in his way, times without number, Edith had
kept to her own room, or had gone out alone.
On the contrary, Madame herself had urged drives and walks. Frequently
she had asked Alden to do certain things and had reminded him of the
courtesy due from host to guest. Once, when she had requested him to
take Edith out for a drive, he had replied, somewhat sharply, that he
had already invited her and she had refused to go.
Murmuring an excuse, Alden left the table and went out. Madame was
rather glad to be left alone, for she wanted time to think, not as one
thinks in darkness, when one painful subject, thrown out of perspective,
assumes exaggerated proportions of importance, but in clear, sane
sunlight, surrounded by the reassuring evidences of every-day living.