IN WHICH CASSANDRA BRINGS THE HEIR OF DANESHEAD CASTLE BACK TO HER
HILLTOP, AND THE SHADOW LIFTS
"Cassandry Merlin, whar did you drap from?" cried the Widow Farwell, as
she looked up from the supper she was preparing at the great fireplace,
and saw her daughter in the doorway with her baby. Her old face radiated
light and warmth and love as she took them both in her arms. "Whar's
David?"
Cassandra smiled wearily, returning her mother's kiss and yielding her
the baby. "You'll have to be satisfied with me and little son, mother.
David was still in Africa, so I came home again." She spoke as if a trip
to England were a casual little matter, and this was all the explanation
she gave that night. "I got the hotel carriage to bring me up from the
station."
The mother, with quaint simplicity, accepted it, asking no troublesome
questions. If David was not there, why should not her daughter return.
After their supper together, in the warm, starlit evening, each member
of the family carrying something for the traveller's comfort, they all
climbed up to Cassandra's cabin, and the old life began as if it had
suffered no interruption. Cassandra so filled the pauses with questions
of all that had happened during her absence that it was only after her
mother was in bed and dropping off to sleep she remembered questions of
her own that had been unasked, or left unanswered.
The next day Cassandra pleaded weariness and stayed in her cabin,
sending Martha down for her necessary supplies, and quietly occupying
herself with setting her simple home in its accustomed order. The day
after, she spent overlooking the little farm with Cotton, and hearing
from him all about the animals. The cows, two little calves, Frale's
colt, and her own filly, and how "some ol' houn' dog" had got into the
sheep-pen and killed the mother sheep, and "Marthy" had brought the twin
lambs up by hand. And while Cassandra busied herself thus, the widow
kept charge of the little grandson, warming her heart with his baby
ways, petting him and solacing herself for his long absence.
Thus the first days were lived through, and no further explanation made,
for something held Cassandra silent in a strange waiting suspense. It
was not hope, for she felt that she had taken a stand which was
conclusive, and there was nothing more for which to hope. What else
could she do, and what could David do? The conditions were made for
them; each must bide in his own world, and she had named the ocean which
divided them, "Death."
At night she did not weep, for weeping made her ill, and she must
conserve her strength for her little son, so she lay staring out at the
stars. Sometimes she found herself holding her breath and
listening,--half lifting her head from her pillow,--but listening for
what? Then she would lean over her baby's cradle, and hear his soft
breathing, trying to make herself think she was listening for that and
not for David's step. Then she would lie back and try again to sleep,
and her heart would cry to God to give her peace, and let her rest. So
the long nights passed, tearlessly and sleeplessly.
On the boat she had slept, lulled by its rocking and swaying, but here
in her home--in her accustomed routine--sleep had fled, and old thoughts
and dreams came like the dead to haunt her. The paleness which had come
upon her in London, and which the sea breeze had supplanted with
fleeting roses, returned, and she moved about looking as if only her
wraith had come back to its old haunts.
On the third day after Cassandra's return, David found himself climbing
the laurel path a far different man from the one who, two years before,
had slowly and wearily toiled up to the little house of logs which was
to be his shelter. With strong, free step and heart uplifted and glad,
he now climbed that winding path. He had conquered the ills of his body,
and his spirit had lived and loved, and he had learned to know happiness
from its counterfeit. He had gone out and seen men chasing phantoms and
shadows thinking therein to find joy--joy--the need of the world--one in
a coronet, one in a crown, and the beggar in a golden sovereign--while
he--he had found it in his own heart and in Cassandra's eyes.
David had passed the Fall Place, seeing no one; for the widow had ridden
over to spend the day with Sally Carew, her niece was in the
spring-house skimming cream, while Cotton was dawdling in the corn patch
whistling and pulling the ripened ears from the stalks. A cool breeze
had dispelled the heat of the September afternoon, and the hills were
already beginning to don their gorgeous apparel after the summer's
drouth; their wonderful beauty struck him anew and steeped his senses
with their charm.
If only all was well with his wife--his wife and his little son! His
heart beat so madly as he neared the thicket of laurel where once he had
stood to watch her moving about his cabin, that he was forced to pause;
and again he saw her, standing in her homespun dress, strongly relieved
against the whiteness of the canvas room beyond--but this time not
alone-- Ah, not alone! Holding his little son in her arms, her body
swaying with rhythmic motion, lulling him to drowsiness and sleep, she
stooped to lay him in the rude little cradle box.
David trembled as he watched, and dashed the tears from his eyes, but
could not move to break too soon this breathless, poignant spell of
gladness. Suddenly he could wait no longer, but his feet clung to the
earth when he would move, and his mouth went dry. Ah, could he never
reach her? He stood holding out his arms, when, oh, wonder of wonders!
she raised herself and stood as if listening, then, moving swiftly,
walked from the cabin and came to him as if she had heard him call,
although he had made no sound--her arms outstretched to him as were his
to her.
She did not cry out, but with parted lips and radiant, glowing face,
fled to him and was clasped to his heart. She could feel its beating
against her breast, and his silence spoke to her through his eyes, which
saw not her face but her soul; his lips brought the roses to her cheeks
as the sea breezes had done--roses that came and fled and came
again--until at last it was Cassandra who spoke first.
"I want you to see him, David."
"Yes, yes, my wife," was all he said, his eyes on hers, but he did not
move.
"I want you to see our little son, David." A strange pang shot through
his heart. Still he stood, holding her and marvelling at himself. What!
Was it that this young usurper had stolen into his place?
"Love is selfish, dear. Let me recover from one joy before you overwhelm
me with another. First, I must have my own, and know that it is all
mine."
"I don't understand, David. I can't wait. Oh! David--David!"
"You turn my name to music with your tones lingering over it. I had
forgotten how sweet it was."
"But I don't understand, David. Come and see him." And as she drew him
forward, they moved as one being, not two.
"No, you don't understand, thank God. But I will teach you something you
never knew. Love is not only blind, dearest; he is a greedy, selfish
little god."
Then she laughed happily, holding him at arm's-length and looking in his
eyes. "I know it. I know it. I found it out all by myself. Didn't I tell
you in my letter? Oh, David, so was I!" She drew him to her again and
nestled her face in his bosom. "I was jealous of our little son. I
wanted you, David-- Oh! I wanted you." At last came the tears, the
blessed human tears which she had held back so long. But now they did no
harm except to drench her husband's gray tie, and they brought a lovely
flush to her face. "I can't stop, David; I can't stop. I haven't cried
for so long, and now I can't stop."
"Sweetheart, don't try to stop. Cry it all out. Wash the stains from me
of the cruel old world where I have been; cleanse me so that I may see
as clearly as you see; but you would have to cry forever to do that,
wouldn't you, sweet? And soon you must laugh again."
He clasped and comforted her as she was used to comfort her baby,
soothing her and drying her eyes with his own handkerchief. "Yours isn't
large enough for such a flood, is it, sweet?"
"No, a--a--and I--I can-can't find mine," she sobbed "I--I--left it
tucked under baby's chin--and now I've spoiled your pretty gray tie."
"Bless you! They are my tears, and it is my tie--"
"David! He is crying--hark!"
"Helping his mother, is he? Come then, his father will comfort him."
"Hear him. Isn't it a sweet little cry, David?" She smiled at him from
under tear-wet lashes.
"Why, bless you again! Yours was a sweet little cry." They went in, and
he bent over the odd little cradle and lifted the child tenderly from
its soft nest. The wailing ceased, and the fatherhood awoke in him and
laughed with joy as he held the warm little body to his heart, wherein
now, he knew, lay the key of life--the complete and rounded love, God's
gift to man, to be cherished when found, and fought for and held in the
holy of holies of his own soul.
"He isn't afraid, you see, David. How he stares at you! Does he feel it
in his own little heart that you are his father? I have whispered it to
him a thousand, thousand times. Sit here with him, David, and I'll make
you some tea." She busied herself with the tea things--the old life
beginning anew--with a new interest.
"I always make it just as you taught me that first day when I came up
here so choked with trouble I couldn't speak. You always brought me
good, David."
He saw as he watched her that some new and subtile charm had been added
to her personality. Was it motherhood that had given it to her, or the
long year of patient waiting and trusting; or had she passed through
depths of which he as yet knew nothing, to cause this evanescent breath
of pathos? He felt and knew it was all of these. What must she have
endured as she wrote that letter!
David fell easily and happily into his life on the mountain again--not
the English lord, but the vital, human being, the man in splendid
possession of himself and his impulses, holding sacred his rights as a
man, not to be coerced by custom or bound by any chains save those he
himself had forged to bind his heart before God.
For a time he would not allow himself to think of the future,
preferring to live thus with the world completely shut away. Buoyantly,
jubilantly, he tramped the hills and visited the homes where he had been
wont to bring help and often comforts, and found himself therein lauded
and idolized as few of his station ever are.
Again he was "Doctah Thryng," and the love that accompanied the title,
in the hearts of those mountain people, was regal. He enjoyed his little
farm, and the gathering of his first "crap," counting his bundles of
fodder and his bushels of corn. Sometimes he rode with Cassandra,
visiting the old haunts; at such times David insisted that the boy be
left with the grandmother or that Martha should come up to mind him,
that he might have his wife free and quite to himself as in their first
days.
But all this time, although silent about it, Cassandra kept in her heart
the thought of David's real state. She felt he was playing a part to
bring her joy, and was grateful, but she knew he must return to his own
world and live his own life. Therefore she existed in a state of
breathless suspense, to enjoy these moments to the fullest,--not to miss
or mar an instant of the blessed time while it lasted.
The days were flying--flying--so rapidly she dared not think, and here
was splendid October trailing her wonderful draperies over the hills
like a lavish princess. When would David speak? But perhaps he was
waiting for her to speak first? If so, how long ought she to remain
silent? Often he caught the wistful look in her eyes, and half divined
the meaning.
One day when they had wandered up her father's path, and the wind came
in warm, soft gusts, sweeping over the miles of splendor from the sea,
David drew her to him, determined to win from her a full expression.
"What is it, Cassandra? Open your heart. Don't shut anything away from
me. What have you been dreaming lately?"
"You have never said a word of fault with me yet, David--for what I did,
going away off there and not waiting quietly until you could come back,
as you wrote me to do."
"That was the bravest, finest thing you ever did--but one." He was
thinking of her renunciation.
"You are so good to forgive me, David. In one way it was better that I
went, because it made me understand as I never could have done
otherwise. You would never have told me, but now I know."
"Unfold a little of this wisdom, so I may judge of its value."
"Can you, David? I'm afraid not. You have a way of bewildering me, so I
can't see the rights and wrongs of things myself. But there! It is just
part of the difference. Why, even the nursemaids over there, and Hetty
Giles, the landlady's daughter, are wiser than I. I came to see it every
instant, the difference between you and me--between our two worlds.
David, how did you ever dare marry me?"
He only laughed happily and kissed her. "Tell it all," he said tenderly.
"I felt it first when I went to the town house. It was hard to find the
address. I only had Mr. Stretton's." David set his teeth grimly in anger
at himself at giving her only his lawyer's address, in stupid fear lest
her letters betray him to his mother and sister.
"Now, do not hide one thing from me--not one," he said sternly, and she
continued, with a conscientious fear of disobedience, to open her heart.
"I saw by the look in the old man's eyes that I had not done the right
thing, coming in that way with a baby in my arms, like a beggar. I saw
he was very curious, and I was that proud I didn't know what to tell him
I had come for, when I found you were not there, so when he said artists
often came to see the gallery, I said I had come to see the gallery; and
David, I didn't even know what a gallery was. I thought it was a high
piazza around a house, and I found it was a great room full of pictures.
I was that ignorant.
"I felt like I was some wild creature that had got lost in that splendid
palace and didn't know where to run to get away; and they all fixed
their eyes on me as if they were saying: 'How does she dare come here?
She isn't one of us!' and one was a boy who looked like you. The old man
kept saying how like it was to the new Lord Thryng, and it made me cold
to hear it,--so cold that after I had escaped from there and was out in
the sun, my teeth chattered."
David sat silent and humbled; at last he said: "Go on, Cassandra. Don't
cover up anything."
"When I got back to the hotel, everything seemed so splendid and stuffy
and horrid--and every way I turned it seemed as if those dead ancestors
of yours were there staring at me still; and I thought what right had
they over the living that they dared stand between you and me; and I was
angry." She stirred in his arms, and pressed closer to him.
"David--forgive me--I can't tell it over--it hurts me."
"Go on," he said hoarsely.
"The old man told me what was expected of you because of them--how your
mother wished you to marry a great lady--and I knew they could never
have heard of me--and I forgot to eat my dinner and stayed in my room
and fought and fought with myself--I'm sorry I felt that way, David.
Don't mind. I understand now." She put up her hand and touched his
cheek, and he took it in his and kissed it. Then she laughed a sad
little laugh.
"Remember that funny little old silver teapot. Mother brought it to me
before I left, and I took it with me! She is so proud of our family,
although she has only that poor little pot to show for it, with its nose
all melted off to make silver bullets sure to kill. Did you know it was
one of those bullets Frale tried to kill you with? Oh, David, David!"
"And yet your mother is right, dear. That little wrecked bit of silver
helps to interpret you--indicates your ancestors--how you come to be
you--just as you are. How could I ever have loved you, if you had been
different from what you are?"
For a long moment she lay still--scarcely breathing--then she lifted her
head and looked in his eyes. One of her silences was on her, and while
her lips trembled as if to speak, she said no word. He tried to draw her
to him again, but she held him off.
"Then tell me what it is," he said gently. But she only shook her head
and rose to walk away from him. He did not try to call her back to him,
respecting her silence, and she moved on up the path with long, swift
steps.
When she returned, he held out his arms to her, but she stood before him
looking down into his eyes, "I couldn't tell you sitting there with
your arms around me, David, and what I have to say must be said now; I
may never be strong enough to say it another time, and it must be said."
Then she told him all that had occurred while she was in Queensderry,
from the moment she came, going down into her heart and revealing the
hidden thoughts never before expressed even to herself, while he gazed
back into her eyes fascinated by her spiritual beauty which was her
power.
She told of the chatter of Hetty Giles, and how she had pointed out the
beautiful lady his mother wished him to marry--and how slowly everything
had dawned upon her--the real differences. Of the guests she had seen on
the Daneshead terrace and how they wore such lovely dresses and moved so
easily and laughed and talked all at once, as if they were used to it
all, and perhaps wore such charming things for every day--the wonderful
colors and wide, beautiful hats with plumes--and how even the servants
wore pretty clothes and went about as if they all knew how to do things,
passing cups and plates.
Then she told of her talk with his mother and how carefully she had
guarded her tongue lest a word escape her he would rather not have had
her speak. "I had wronged you in not telling you you had a son, and I
meant to leave him with your mother so he could be raised right." She
paused, and put her hand to her throat, then went bravely on. "Your
mother was kind--she gave me wine--she brought it to me herself. I knew
what I ought to do, but I wasn't strong enough. It seemed as if
something here in my breast was bleeding, and my baby would die if I did
it. When I came out, he was in your sister's arms and had been crying,
and it seemed as if all I had planned had happened, and I took him and
carried him away quickly. I couldn't go fast enough, and I left the inn
that night. The world seemed all like _Vanity Fair_."
David rose and stood before her looking down into her eyes. He could not
control his voice in speaking, and she felt his hands quiver as they
rested on her shoulders. "When did you read that book, Cassandra? Where
did you find it?" he asked, in dismay.
"Among your books in the cabin. I felt at first that it must be a kind
of a disgrace to be a lord--as if every one who had a title or education
must be mean and low, and all the rest of the world over there must be
fools; but because of you, David, I knew better than to believe that.
Your mother is not like those women, either. She was kind and beautiful,
and--I--loved her, but all the more I saw the difference. But now you
have come to me and made me strong, I can do it. Everything has grown
clear to me again, and I see how you gave yourself to me--to save
me--when you did not dream of what was to be for you in the future; and
out of your giving has come the--little son, and he is yours. Wait!
Don't take me in your arms." She placed her hands on his breast and held
him from her.
"So it was just now--when you spoke as if people would understand me
better because of that little silver pot, showing I had somewhere in the
past a name and a family like theirs over there--I thought of 'Vanity
Fair,' and I hated it. I wish you had never seen it. There is, nor has
been, nothing on earth to make me possible for you, now--your
inheritance has come to you. I have a pride, too, David, a different
kind of pride from theirs. You loved me first, I know, as I was--just
me. It was a foolish love for you to have, David dear,--but I know it is
true; you could not have given yourself to save me else, and I like to
keep that thought of you in my heart, big and noble and true--that you
did love just me." She faltered, but still held him from her. "Do you
think I would not do all I can to keep from spoiling your life over
there?"
"Stop, stop. It is enough," he cried. In spite of herself, he took her
hands in his and drew her to him in penitent tenderness. "I'm no great
lord with wide distances between me and your mountain world here,
Cassandra; never think it. I'm tremendously near to the soul of things,
and the man of the wilderness is strong in me. One thing you have not
touched upon. Tell me, what did Frale say or do to you to so trouble you
and send you off?"
She stirred in his arms and waited, then murmured, "He pestered me."
"Explain. Did he come often?"
"Oh, no. He--I--he came one evening up to our cabin, and--I sent him off
and started next day."
"But explain, dearest. How did he act? What was it?"
She was silent, but drew her husband's head down and hid her face in his
neck. "There! Never mind, love. You needn't tell me if you don't wish."
"He kissed me and held me in his arms like they were iron bands--and I
hated it. He said you had gone away never to come back, and that the
whole mountain side knew it; and that he had a right to come and claim
my promise to him. Oh, David, David, this is the last. I have kept
nothing back from you now, nothing. My heart cried out for you--like I
heard you call--and I went--to--to prove to them all that word was a
lie. I knew nothing they said here could touch you, but I couldn't bear
that the meanest hound living should dare think wrong of you. Seems like
I would have done it if I had had to crawl on my knees and swim the
ocean."
"My fingers tingle to grasp the throat of that young man. I fought him
for you once, and if it hadn't been for a rolling stone under my foot,
it would have been death for one of us. As it was, I won--with you to
save me--bless you."
"But now, David--"
"Ah, but now--what? Are you happy?"
"That isn't what I mean. You have your future--"
"I have my now. It is all we ever have. The past is gone, and lives only
in our memories, and the future exists only in anticipation; but
now--now is all we have or can have. Live in it and love in it and be
happy."
"But we must be wise. We've got to face it sometime. Let--me help
you--now while I have the strength," she pleaded earnestly.
But David only laughed out joyously, and looked at his wife until she
turned her face away from him. "Look at me," he cried. "Dear, troubled
eyes. Tears? Tears in them? Love, you have kept nothing back this time,
and now it is my turn, but I shall keep something back from you. I'm not
going to reprove your idolatry by turning iconoclast and throwing your
miserable old idol down from his pedestal all at once. I tell you what
it is, though, if I could feel that I was worthy of your smallest
finger--that I deserved only one of those big
tears--there--there--there! Listen, dearest, I'll come to the point.
"Who is it now, making so much of the estimates of the world? Somehow
our viewpoints have got mixed. Sacrifice myself? Why, Cassandra, if I
were to lose you out of my life, I should be a broken-hearted man. What
did I sacrifice? Phantoms, vanities, and emptiness. Oh, Cassandra,
Cassandra, my priestess of all that is good! Open your eyes, love, and
see as I see--as you have taught me to see.
"Much that we strive for and reckon as gain is really worthless. Why,
sweet, I would far, far rather have you at your loom for the mother of
my son, than Lady Clara at her piano. Your heritage of the great
nature--the far-seeing--the trusting spirit--harboring no evil and
construing all things to righteousness--going out into the world and
finding among all the dust and dross, even of centuries, only the pure
gold--the eye that sees into a man's soul, searching out the true and
lovely qualities there and transmuting all the rest into pure metal--my
own soul's alchemist--your heritage is the secret of power."
"I don't believe I understand all you are saying, David. I only see that
I have a very hard task before me, and now I know it is hard for you,
too. Your mother made it clear to me that your true place is not living
here as a doctor, even though you do so much good among us. I saw all at
once that men are born each to fill a place in the world, and I think
each man's measure should be the height of his own power and ability,
nothing lower than that; and I see it--your power will be there, not
here, where it must be limited by our limits and ignorance. That is your
own country over there. It claims you--and I--I--there is the
difference, you know. Think of your mother, and then of mine. David, I
must not-- Oh, David! You must be unhampered--free--what can I--what can
we do?"
"We can just go down the mountain, sane beings, to our own little cabin,
belonging to each other first of all." He took her hand and led her
along the path, carpeted with pine needles and fallen leaves. "And then,
when you are ready and willing--not before, love--we will go home--to my
home--just like this, together."
She caught her breath. "Listen, for I am seeing visions too, now, as
you have taught me. I will lead you through those halls and show you to
all those dead ancestors, and I will dress you in a silken gown, the
color of the evening star we used to watch together from our cabin door,
and around your neck I will hang the yellow pearls that have been worn
by all those great ladies who stared at you from out their frames of
gold the day you came alone and unrecognized, bearing your priceless
gift in your arms. You shall wear the rich old lace of the family on
your bosom, and the jewelled coronet on your head; and no one will see
the silk and the jewels and the lace, for looking at you and at the gift
you bring.
"No, don't speak; it is my turn now to see the pictures. All will be
yours, whatever you see and touch in those stately homes--for you will
be the Lady Thryng, and, being the Lady Thryng, you will be no more
wonderful or beautiful than you were when you climbed to me, following
my flute notes, or when you bent between me and the fire preparing my
supper, or when you were weaving at your loom, or when you came to me
from our cabin door with your arms outstretched and the light of all the
stars of heaven in your eyes."
Then they were silent, a long silence, until, seated together in their
cabin before a bright log fire, as she held their baby to her breast,
Cassandra broke the stillness.
"Now I see it better, David. As you came here and lived my life, and
loved me just as I was--so to be truly one, I must go with you and live
your life. I must not fail you there."
"You have been tried as by fire and have not failed--nor are you the
kind of woman who ever fails."
Then she smiled up at him one of those rare and fleeting smiles that
always touched David with poignant pleasure, and said: "I think I
understand now. God meant us to feel this way, when he married us to
each other."