CHAP-BOOK STORIES
By Various Authors
Being a Miscellany of Curious and Interesting Tales; Histories, Newly
composed by Many Celebrated Writers and very delightful to read.
1896, By Herbert S. Stone & Co
Chicago
CONTENTS
BATES, KATHARINE
Whither Thou Goest
An Impassable Gulf
BOYCE, NEITH
In a Garden
CHANNING, GRACE ELLERY
Oreste’s Patron
CUMMINGS, EDWARD
The Appeal to Anne
DORSEY, ANNA VERNON
The Dead Oak
HOLLOWAY, Jr., WILLIAM
The Making of Monsieur Lescarbot’s Ballad
LEFEVRE, EDWIN
On the Brink
LELAND, ANTHONY
A Woman’s Life
“When the King Comes In”
POOL, MARIA LOUISE
Mandany’s Fool
ROSS, CLINTON
The Way to Constantinople
THANET, OCTAVE
The Old Partisan
WHITHER THOU GOEST
By Katharine Bates
THE wind stirred the tops of the maple trees in the Quinsby front yard,
and the old man who stood on the steps, watching the shadows and the
moonlight, sighed as he heard the soft rustling sound. He glanced back
into the house, through the hall, into the bedroom, where his wife was
lighting a candle preparatory to turning down the bed.
“I reckon I’ll jest step down there a minit,” he whispered to himself,
and hurriedly but softly went down the steps. Far down in a corner of
the yard, near the front fence, a hammock hung between two small pin
oaks, and it was here the old man went, looking back uneasily now and
then, as if he expected a call from his wife. The hammock was an old
one, and had evidently hung there all summer, for the meshes were torn
and all the gay colors had faded to a dingy gray. It tossed lightly in
the breeze as the wind grew stronger, and the old man’s hand trembled as
he caught at its swaying folds.
“Girls,” he whispered softly, “are you both here? Are you pushing the
swing, Winnie?”
A sudden flutter went over the leaves of a lilac bush near, and he
turned quickly to it. “That’s Nan’s laugh-gigglin’ at yore old pa jest
as usual, Nanny girl?”
“Father,” his wife called from the porch, “you better come in.”
He turned and hurried back to her. She stood on the steps with the
candle still in her hand, its tiny flame looking almost blue in the
moonlight.
“Mebbe a storm is cornin’ up and you’ll ketch cold,” she said when he
reached her. Her voice was stern, but the look in her gray eyes was as
sad as the trembling of his lips when he said to her, “Ain’t it jest the
sorter night the girls use’ to beg to stay out, and not have to go to
bed yet a while?”
“It’s a mighty pretty night,” she answered. She followed him into their
room, closing the hall door after her.
“Oh, don’t shet it, Mira, don’t! It seems as if you was shettin’ the
children out.”
Mrs. Quinsby turned to him. “Hiram, I must speak out to you,” she said.
“I don’t see any more’n you why the Lord thought best to take our girls,
our two good, pretty girls, but He has done it, and it ain’t right for
you to be lettin’ yoreself fancy you hear ‘em ‘round on nights like this.
I’ve faith to believe if we can keep ourselves outer sin for the rest of
our days we shall see the children again--but not here, Hiram, not here
in the old place.”
“I know it ain’t Nan and Winnie sure ‘nough,” Hiram answered
apologetically, “but these nights make me think of ‘em a terrible
lot--and the leaves goin’ so and so in the wind does sound real like
Nan’s laugh. Mira, I was out in the garden while you was puttin’ the
dishes away and strainin’ the milk, and jest as the moon came out and
the wind started up I heard a laugh like Nan’s, and then something
danced by me that must have been Winnie. I hurried down the path
after it, and there by the poppy bed were the girls, rompin’ jest like
children again, ‘most grown girls that they are. As the wind came up
more they laughed again, not so soft as they had been doin’, but a real
burst of gay laughin’ like they use’ to work themselves up to, and then
they ran towards the arbor and peeped out from the honeysuckle, and Nan
called, ‘Here, Pa,’ and Winnie sorter sang out, ‘Father, Father,’ in her
soft way.” Mrs. Quinsby put her hands on his shoulders and gave him a
little shake. Her eyes were frightened, and her voice came quick and
stern.
“Hush, Father,” she said. “You are doin’ yoreself an injury. The girls
are in heaven, not here, and don’t you let go yore grip on yore mind.
Think of me, Hiram--you’ve got me left, and I can’t stand the thought of
the lonesomeness if you let your senses go. You and me have been married
so many years, Hiram, we could n’t get on without each other. Why, it
seems to me the good Lord would surely let me get foolish too--mebbe it
ain’t fittin’ for one of my years to say it, but I’d ruther, yes, I’d
_ruther_ if it comes down to choosin’ between my senses and you, Hiram!”
The far-away look disappeared from Hiram’s eyes. “I was jest thinkin’,
Mira,” he said reassuringly. “It was only that the night was so powerful
pretty. But now we won’t talk of the children any more.”
Mrs. Quinsby drew him back to the porch again.
“Don’t think me hard, Father,” she said entreatingly, “but I want you to
be sure. Look over there towards the church; you can see the dark heap
of trees against the sky in the churchyard, can’t you? There’s where the
girls are--there’s where they are.”
“Why, of course, Mira. Though how the Lord could take those pretty young
things, and our only two, that had come to us when we was long past
hopin’, is more’n I can see.”
They went to bed, but later in the night Mrs. Quinsby waked suddenly.
Her first thought was that the storm was really coming and she had left
the pantry windows open. She slipped out of bed, but as she realized
that her movement did not disturb her husband, a blind terror came over
her; she struck match after match before she could make herself believe
he was not there. Then she picked up a shawl and flung it over her
nightgown, and, regardless of her bare feet, rushed out to the garden.
The wind was blowing hard and the moon was half hidden by the lightly
scudding clouds, but Hiram’s laugh--the pleased, indulgent laugh that
his girls’ nonsense had so often produced--guided her to him.
“That you, Mother?” he called as she ran down the path. “What a couple
of colts you’ve brought up, Mira. Reckon you could find their beat
anywheres in Mizzourer for friskiness? Just see those girls racin’
round--a storm comin’ up always did go to their heads. Hear Nan laugh!
Ain’t she the greatest girl for foolin’ you ever saw?”
He pointed to some tall hollyhocks that she could see were bending low
with the wind, and added, “Watch her bow; Nan was always as easy movin’
in her body as a saplin’ or a tall flower.”
Mrs. Quinsby put her arm around his shoulder. “Oh, he’s let go--you’ve
let go, Father, and I’m left! I can’t stand the lonesomeness, I can’t, I
can’t!”
They moved toward the arbor. As they passed under the drooping
honeysuckle, Hiram laughed aloud.
“They are putting their hands over our eyes to make us guess which is
which--the little geese!” Mrs. Quinsby put her hand to her forehead and
pressed the cool honeysuckle leaves against her eyes.
She laughed too. “I knew it,” she whispered, “I knew the Almighty would
let me go with him. He knew how it was with Hiram and me.” Aloud she
said, “I guess Winnie. Yore hands ain’t as soft as Winnie’s, Nan.”
AN IMPASSABLE GULF
By Katharine Bates
PETER ELSTON’S two nieces, Nancy Rollins and Hester Elston, stood on
opposite sides of the frame, working together silently. Suddenly Hester
dropped her needle, straightened her lithe young figure, and throwing
back her pretty head, said hurriedly:
“I don’t see how you can feel so, Nan! You must see how good he is, as
well as bein’ different from any boy we’ve ever known round here on the
Prairie. Ain’t he always thoughtful ‘bout pleasin’ Uncle Peter? And he’s
gone to church reg’lar with us every Sunday he’s been here, ain’t he?”
She pauses, catching her breath after her eager speech, and looking
yearningly at Nancy. The older girl’s pale face hardened as she caught
the imploring glance.
“He seems to me to be very worldly,” she said coldly.
The color rushed to Hester’s cheeks, and she bent quickly over the
frame; for a few moments she sewed vigorously, saying to herself with
fierce indignation, as she worked:
“I declare if I think Nancy is so spiritual, after all--a judgin’ Fred
like that, and all because he told her he liked to go now and then to
the the-_a_-tre!”
Resentment, however, never lingered long in Hester’s heart, and at last
she raised her head again.
“I wish you did feel different, Nan,” she said gently. “I can’t bear to
think of you not takin’ to the man I’m goin’ to marry. You and me have
always seemed jest like sisters ever since Uncle Pete took us to raise.”
Nancy’s blue eyes met the pleading brown ones more gently this time.
“Yes,” she said slowly, “you _have_ been jest like a sister to me,
Hetty.”
Hester ran around the frame and threw her arms around her cousin with
the eager expression of affection which always embarrassed Nancy.
“Nan,” she cried, “I jest do wish you could see it the way I do. Fred is
so good, and it’s only because he lives in town that he has gotten to
like such things as the-_a_-tres. You do take to him sure ‘nough, don’t
you?”
Nancy’s voice quivered as she answered the passionate appeal.
“I know he’s got pleasant ways, and he’s right principled about a lot of
things, but, Hetty, there’s no denyin’ he puts pleasure before servin’
the Lord, and we are told mighty plain in the Bible not to make friends
with the Mammon of unrighteousness.”
Hester bit her lip.
“There’s some folks, and real good ones, too, who think havin’ some
pleasures like Fred cares for and bein’ real down good Christians, too,
ain’t incompatible,” she said, struggling to speak calmly.
“There’s a gulf,” Nancy said firmly, “between me and the-_a_-tre goers,
and I’m mighty sorry for you, Hester.”
“You needn’t be,” cried Hester, impatiently. “I’m happy and satisfied
about marryin’ Fred!”
“What’s all this talk about marryin’?” Uncle Peter called in at the
doorway, as he paused to wave his bundle of birds and squirrels at his
nieces. “Jest leave a couple of girls alone, and their tongues are sure
to get to waggin’ ‘bout marryin’! Come along, Hetty, and help me pick and
clean this lot. It’s been a fine huntin’ day, if ‘tis a trifle coldish
for an old man like me.”
“You old!” laughed Hester, as they settled themselves by the kitchen
fire.
“Yes, I am gettin’ on,” cried Uncle Peter, seriously, “and I don’t see
how I am goin’ to do without you, Hester. You are sure you want to marry
Fred?”
“Yes, sure,” said Hester, quickly. “Uncle Pete, wasn’t it jest
marvellous for him to fall in love with me, when he’s a town man and
knows such a lot of girls with better manners and all that?” Uncle Peter
looked meditatively at the delicate rose complexion, the large brown
eyes, and the soft, waving hair.
“I don’t see as it was so dreadful queer,” he said. “You’d pass in a
crowd, Het.”
There was silence for a little while, Hester dreaming happy dreams of
her future, and Uncle Peter groaning inwardly at the prospect of being
left to live alone with the more spiritual of his nieces. Suddenly a
gleam of hope came to him, and he said:
“Mebbe you can’t marry him after all--town folks have a great way of not
makin’ a livin’, Hetty.”
“I know it,” admitted Hester, almost despondently, but her face
brightened as she added; “but it is such a great big store Fred is
clerkin’ in that I’m jest sure we won’t have to wait long, Uncle Pete.”
The waiting time proved to be as short as Hester and Fred had hoped, for
in spite of his “worldliness” Fred was a faithful young fellow, and the
promotion which made possible a tiny flat, and housekeeping on a limited
scale, came even before he had expected it. Uncle Peter did his best
to be cheery at the simple little wedding, and Nancy had baked as many
cakes for them as if the young couple were not starting out on a sinful
career. Hester prized keenly the expressions of affection which had
been rare up to the time when her uncle and cousin had realized what a
difference her going would make in their lives, and her grief at leaving
her home amazed and almost annoyed Fred, who had grown to look upon
himself as her deliverer from a life which seemed very cramped and hard
to him.
“I wish there was somethin’ I could do for you, Hetty,” Uncle Peter
said, when the last of the wedding guests had departed, and he and Nancy
were hurrying Fred and Hester away to the train, for they were going at
once to their new home. He took her carpet-bag from her, and awkwardly
helped her to button the linen duster, which Nancy had insisted should
be worn to the station to protect the new travelling dress from the mud.
“There is,” said Hester, tremulously. “Uncle Pete, if you could jest
make Nancy see that goin’ to the the-_a_-tre ain’t incompatible with
goin’ to Heaven some day, I ‘d be greatly obliged to you.”
Uncle Peter drew a long breath.
“You’ve done a sight of work here, Hetty,” he said tenderly, “and I’ve
been dreadful fond of you, too, but I’ll be damned if I will try to get
a new notion into Nancy’s head, even for you!” Hester sighed. “I s’pose
it would be askin’ a good deal of you,” she said simply “but, Uncle
Pete, you will remind her anyway that Fred and I won’t be able to afford
goin’ more’n once in a long, long time, won’t you? Now good-bye, Uncle.”
He helped her into the wagon, and while Fred and Nancy were crossing the
yard, he stood looking at her with his lips twitching nervously.
“Good-bye, Hester,” Nancy said, climbing up on the step of the wagon.
The two kissed each other, and Hester clung for a second to her cousin’s
neck.
“Oh, Nan,” she whispered, “we have always played together and done our
work together--_don’t_ feel hard to me.”
Nancy looked down at her sadly.
“I ain’t a mite hard,” she said gently. “I ain’t judgin’, Hetty, only
there’s a gulf. Goodbye.”
She turned to Fred and held out her hand. “I wish you well,” she said,
in her clear, calm tones, and then she opened the yard gate and stood
inside, leaving Uncle Peter a chance for his farewell.
He wrung Fred’s hand, but no words came from his trembling lips.
“I’ll be very good to her,” Fred said hurriedly. “Good-bye, sir. I hope
you won’t mind if I say I consider it an honor to be your nephew.”
At the time Uncle Peter grasped only the first words. “Yes,” he said,
“be good to her, Fred--she’s a good girl, a good girl.”
He stepped on the hub of the wheel, and Hester threw her arms around
him, kissing vehemently his gray head and wrinkled cheeks.
“Don’t forget me,” she sobbed. “Oh, how can I leave you and Nan and the
old place? Goodbye, and I love you, I do so love you, Uncle Pete!”
At a sign from Nancy the hired man whipped up the horses. As they drove
away Hester looked back at the clump of oak-trees around the house, and
then at the two figures at the yard gate.
“I wish I’d done more for’em all these years they’ve been so good to
me,” she said, the tears streaming down her cheeks. Fred held her hand
close between both of his, but he made no answer, for her grief dazed
him. He knew that many elements in her life had been distasteful to
her; and why should a woman who was marrying the man she loved, and was
moreover going to town to live, grieve in this way? The hired man turned
in his seat and gave the needed word of comfort.
“You’ve done a sight for’em,” he said warmly, “and you ain’t no cause to
fret, Miss Hetty. We’ll all miss you terrible.”
Uncle Peter wandered restlessly around the farm until dinner-time. An
aching heart was a new experience to him, and one that he did not know
how to meet. He went into the orchard and picked up apple after apple,
and after a mere taste flung each of them away; as he left the orchard
he stopped to look back at the mass of Spanish needle and goldenrod,
through which he had just made his way.
“How she did like all that yeller stuff,” he said aloud. “What a sight
of interest she took in everything about the place. She was a good
girl, and I wish I’d a quit swearin’--‘twould have tickled her mightily.
Hanged if I don’t quit it now!”
Nancy had an unusually good dinner ready for him. Preparing it had
helped her to pass the morning, for Uncle Peter’s was not the only
aching heart. She helped him lavishly to half a dozen vegetables, but
for the first time within her memory of him, he had no appetite. He
pushed back his chair before she brought his pie, and as he did so a
sudden wave of antagonism to her came over him; he had never spoken to
her of her stern words to Hester, but now involuntarily his criticism of
her slipped from him.
“Blessed if I can see how you could have been so hard on Fred, and let
pore Hetty go away feelin’ so broke up,” he said impetuously.
Nancy pressed her lips together firmly.
“I never judged Fred himself,” she said. “I always separated the sin
from the sinner, and we are bidden to be unceasing in denouncing sin.”
Uncle Peter said no more; he rose from the table and went out to the
porch, and as he sat there Fred’s words recurred to him, and roused a
glow of affectionate feeling.
“Proud to be my nephew,” he repeated. “He’s a fine feller, he is, and
Hetty’s done well for herself, if it is pretty hard on us to be left.”
He went back to the dining-room, where Nancy was clearing the dishes
away, and opening the door he called in vehemently:
“Blamed if I care if he takes her to the the-_a_-tre every night in the
week!”
Nancy turned a startled face to him, forgetful of the fact that tears
were rolling down her cheeks.
The unexpected sight of her grief touched her uncle keenly; he had never
before seen her cry, and going over to her and laying his hand on her
shoulder, he said affectionately, “I’m a reg’lar old brute, Nan. You
must excuse me, and remember it’s losin’ Hetty that’s sorter upset me. I
orter be better ‘n usual to you, instead of meaner, for I can see you are
grievin’ too.”
“I have more cause to be grievin’ even than you, Uncle Peter,” Nancy
said sadly, “for there’s an impassable gulf between Hetty and me now.”
Uncle Peter’s hand slipped from her shoulder.
“Gulfs be damned,” he said impatiently.
IN A GARDEN
By Neith Boyce
OVER the wall of the Mission, against the glowing west, the tops of
the trees flickered in the wind from the sea, shot through with level
glancing arrows of clear light. The sky was all astir with little soft,
gold-tipped clouds. To the languid hush of the hot day had succeeded a
subtle animation like the smile on the lips of a sleeping woman.
On this awakening air the last organ-notes of the vesper service
died away, and were echoed by the slow, rhythmic swing of the tall
eucalyptus-trees. The rustle of the leaves imitated the sound of the
devout dispersing from the chapel; and a magnolia shook out from its
great white chalices an incense more penetrating than any wafted before
the altar. Suddenly all this gentle derision seemed to voice itself in
a burst of mocking laughter, faint and far away, like the airy merriment
of elves. The sound approached and grew louder, running through the
notes of a treble scale. And the trees in the monks’ garden seemed to
bend and listen and to beckon while they shook all over with malicious
glee.
Scurrying over the ground beyond, with bare, dusty feet, appeared
a group of creatures pulling each other by extended arms, or brown
garments which seemed a part of the earth, or by their braids of strong,
black hair. Writhing in this rough play they flung themselves against
the wall. A palefaced girl in a scarlet blouse, like a cactus-flower
bursting from its dull sheath, threw up her arms into the dense, dark
foliage of an overhanging fig-tree and dragged down the bough.
“They are ripe!--what did I tell you?” she cried, as at a touch a
purple, bloomy fig fell into her hand. She tore it open and fastened her
teeth, sharp and white as those of a squirrel, in the pink flesh.
Her companions hung back, looking at her.
“If we are caught--”
“What do we care? Cowards! There--now you can put all the blame on me.
Eat, then, little pigs that you are!”
Her heavy-lidded eyes were cold and contemptuously smiling. Hanging to
the bough with both hands, she shook it roughly, and the ripe figs fell
in a shower, some flattening to pulp on the ground. The girls flung
themselves down, and, chattering, gathered the unspoiled fruit into the
skirts of their gowns.
“It is true; they are better than ours,” cried one.
“Trust the holy fathers to have the best,” added another, lowering her
voice.
“They taste better,” said Fiora, the tall girl in the scarlet blouse,
“because we are stealing them.” And she licked her red lips with
satisfaction.
“There must be better ones higher up,” said a fourth, greedily, standing
with her hands on her broad hips and her head thrown back.
“Let us see,” responded Fiora.
Again she caught hold of the drooping branch, drew herself up, and in
an instant the thick foliage hid her from sight. Her companions,
half-smothered with laughter, besought her to return.
“Oh, if you are seen!”
“Catch!” cried Fiora.
A rain of soft bodies fell, thumping them about the shoulders. Through
the parted leaves an impudent face looked down, framed like a young
faun’s in living green.
“I am going higher--I am going to look into the garden!”
“Oh! Oh!” in frightened and delighted chorus. “You dare not!”
“Listen, my children,” said Fiora, condescendingly. “They say no woman
has ever seen this garden. Well, I have a great mind to be the first!”
Lying along the thick branch, she listened smilingly.
“It is forbidden!”
“You will be punished!”
“The holy fathers--”
“What have they in their garden,” she cried at last, “that is so sacred
that we may not see it? Would our feet soil the grass or the paths?”
The girls looked at one another slyly and hid their faces; and their
malicious laughter, stifled with difficulty and uncontrollable, mingled
again with the eager murmurs of the trees.
Fiora, herself laughing, she scarcely knew why, disappeared, the leaves
closing behind her like a green sea. She crept along the great branch
until her feet found something firm--the top of the wall. Clinging
to the trunk of the tree which leaned against this wall, she tried to
pierce the thick layers of foliage below her, but in vain; nothing was
to be seen in the garden. She swore softly. Then, in trying to extend
herself upon a branch which projected into the garden, she slipped,
catching vainly at the nearest twigs, and with a thrill of alarm came
to her feet upon the forbidden soil. She clenched her hands, full of
bruised leaves, against her breast, as she crouched in the shelter of
the drooping boughs. Startled by the noise of her fall, her
companions took flight like a covey of birds, with a rustle, a faint
murmur--silence.
Fiora sank to her knees and remained for some moments motionless, gazing
out into the garden. In the dusk, deepened by the shadow of encircling
trees, nothing was visible save narrow paths strewn with opal-colored
sea-shells glimmering amid fresh turf, and roses blooming in masses
along these walks and hiding the wall under their heavy leaves, thick
with flowers like pale flames. Silence--except for the applauding
whisper of the trees and the plash of water. There was no one in the
garden.
Taking courage, the intruder pushed her way out from under the boughs of
the fig-tree. The freshly sprinkled grass caressed her feet. The perfume
of the roses and the magnolia blossoms, becoming more intense as the dew
began to gather, surrounded her like an invisible presence, seeming
to draw her on. She stole softly forward, her eyes alert for the least
warning and alive with curiosity. The path led her through an arbor
drifted deep with the perfumed snow of wistaria, and between banks
of golden pansies set in mosaic borders. At the intersection of this
gleaming streak with another a fountain played in a white basin, tossing
high in the air a crystal ball. The crest of the plume of water caught
a gleam of golden light, and the transparent ball glittered as it rose
every instant from shadow. Fiora paused to watch it and to follow
the arrowy glidings of the gold-fish in the basin. The short southern
twilight was already ended. It was now dark--the hour at which the
fathers took their evening meal. Yielding, therefore, to her fancy, she
followed the windings of the paths, stopping recklessly to pluck now
a scarlet pomegranate, which she ate with puckered lips; now a rose,
crimson or yellow, or a long spray of white roses with pink hearts, set
close together on the stem. Huge cacti, their gray, distorted bodies
spotted with blood-colored blossoms, stood here and there in clumps.
Banana trees waved softly their long, graceful fronds. The wind stirred
with a dry rustle among palms with broad trunks and large fans, and
others, slender and lofty, with crests like stacked swords, and among
masses of pampas-grass tufted with great white plumes. Along the wall,
to which now and then Fiora’s wanderings in the confined space brought
her, grew apricot and peach trees heavy with ripe fruit. These perfect
sweets also she tasted capriciously and threw away half-eaten. The place
exerted a strange influence over her. The hour, the delicious thrill of
danger, the heavy perfumes, intoxicated her. It seemed that the trees
bent toward her to murmur something, that the pale faces of the flowers
held some mysterious message. They looked friendly; they appeared to
smile knowingly at her, to encourage her, to urge her on. Vaguely she
felt all this breathing, eager life a part of her, belonging to her.
She threw back her head, turning it from side to side with an air of
satisfied possession, drawing in the cool air through her nostrils and
parted lips with sensuous delight--this pale creature whose eyes showed
a savage response to the cajoling beauty about her.
Convinced at last that the garden held no secret, save that of certain
flowers and fruits cultivated to unknown perfection,--for she had
explored it from the limiting wall to where the pallid outline of some
building of the Mission gleamed through the trees,--she came back to
the fountain and sat down on the wooden bench at the path’s edge, her
flowers heaped in her lap. She gave herself a few moments more to
watch the leaping ball, which now sparkled like silver in the midst of
glittering spray. A shaft of moonlight, striking through the trees upon
the jet of water, crept steadily downward. The girl, her eyes fixed
on this trembling column of white fire and foam, fell in a vague,
trance-like dream. The ripple of the fountain in her ears drowned the
echo of slow footsteps advancing along the path.
It was Father Anselmo’s custom, while digesting his supper of meat pasty
and chocolate, to pace the garden, whose beauty seldom failed to inspire
him with poetical images, and to add each evening some dozen lines to
his panegyric ode on Saint Francis. Anselmo was, in fact, a poet,--but
a poet whose strictly regulated fancy never openly strayed beyond the
confines of the cloister. His gentle muse sang consecrated themes alone.
And if, surrounded by an indolent, veiled fervor of tropical nature, apt
to long, arid trances, and to sudden outbursts of fierce luxuriance, his
imagination was sometimes troubled, these secret vagaries were repressed
or found no acknowledged utterance. In his black, shapeless robe, above
which his placid face showed like a sickly moon, the father, whether
meditating on the pasty or Saint Francis, seemed no prey to the poetic
ardor; its afflatus left him undizzied and peaceful. Yet the mystery of
the night, the garden’s magic, must have struck some responsive chord
within him. For how else should his bodily eyes have beheld beneath the
shadow of the acacia bushes a creature not human, surely not divine; no
spiritual vision, but an apparition born of the earth and evil. It sat
half-visible, buried to the chin in flowers, motionless, its face a mere
pale shimmer, its great shadowy eyes fixed upon him. These eyes were
terrifying.
Anselmo retreated some steps upon their discovery; then, after much
hesitation, advanced again, extending the cross of his rosary and
muttering with trembling lips certain words of proved potency. But
neither holy symbol nor exorcism availed against the evil spirit. It
refused to flee; sat dumb--it seemed to Anselmo disdainful. Suddenly,
wrathful, he took another step forward; the creature drew in its breath
sharply, with an audible sound; its lips parted, showing a row of
gleaming teeth. Anselmo paused.
This was, he perceived, the spirit of the garden, and it was plainly
hostile. Was he, then, the intruder? Vaguely a sense of helpless fright
invaded his soul. Yes, the trees were in league with this being; they
bent towards him threateningly! The air was full of veiled alarms. What
of the rosebushes which even now reached out clutching hands to detain
him? An overblown white rose broke and fell in a soft shower about his
shoulders, and he started; a bat swooped down with swift, filmy wings,
just grazing his head; he shrank back.
Could it be that he was in danger, that his wandering thoughts were
known, that his sinful fancies had thus taken shape to confound him?
Anselmo crossed himself. It was true--moved by the garden’s spell he had
sometime in reverie invoked the animating principle of this beauty
of earth, which he knew well was soulless and evil--and behold it
incarnate!
Yet the apparition did not menace him overtly, perhaps it felt his
spiritual armor proof. Nevertheless, it was his part to fly possible
danger, to deliver over the unhallowed domain to its true possessor.
What part had he in these caresses of the breeze, these wooings of
flowers, these marriages of insects, this glamour of nocturnal magic?
Knowing, as he did, the evil power of the moon at its full, how had he
been persuaded to walk in debatable ground where that demoniac glory,
rising warm and wanton above the trees, could mock and threaten him?
Under the branches of the acacia the shadow sat still in deeper shadow;
save that the rays of the moon fell upon two slim, naked feet, which the
short grass could not cover. It had taken, then, the form of a woman,
that the garden and its tradition might be doubly desecrated! Anselmo’s
indignation was not fierce enough to nerve his soul, weakened by mystic
terrors. He turned to fly, but, instead, uttered an exclamation, calling
in a trembling voice:
“Brother Emanuel!”
“I am coming,” was the answer.
Another black robe, another pale face, appeared beside him, and, like
him, started back at perceiving the strange figure. After consultation
in whispers the bolder monk approached the acacia.
“This is no spirit, Brother Anselmo--it is a woman!” he cried.
“A woman! How could a woman get into the garden?”
The first speaker cast a troubled glance in the direction of the high
wall.
“True,” he said uncertainly. “Still it must be.”
But involuntarily he moved a step nearer his companion.
Both glanced down at the slender feet in the grass. These seemed to
move, and the spirit, or woman, turned her head swiftly from side to
side. Her breath came quicker, but the monks could not hear it, or they
might have taken courage.
“It is astonishing,” murmured Brother Emanuel, uneasily.
While they stood undecided between the attack and the retreat, suddenly
from the chapel near by the organ gave voice in a deep, swelling chord,
which climbed by subtle and suave modulations and soared aloft into a
tender melody.
“It is Brother Angelo,” whispered Anselmo.
“It is holy music!” said Emanuel, devoutly, and he made the sign of the
cross in the air before him.
The tremulous notes, growing louder, drowned the rustle of the leaves,
the plash of the fountain, the sigh of the wind. It seemed as though the
garden hushed half-unwillingly to listen, when a voice, humanly deep and
sweet, but spiritualized into something not less than divine, took up
the melody and bore it higher and heavenward, pouring out into the night
a flood of ecstasy and aspiration. The march of the music was solemn and
splendid, and its soul was a joy unearthly and beyond utterance.
The black-robed brothers stood and listened, rebuked and dumb, turning
their faces toward the glimmering wall of the chapel, and forgetting for
a moment the fears which had agitated them, with their cause. What were
all the potencies of the passionate earth, so easily diverted from good,
against this royal dominion?
The evil-seeming spell was broken. A sudden movement, no sound but a
stirring of the air, recalled their attention. The foliage of the acacia
trembled as though a bird had taken wing. The bench was vacant, flowers
strewed the ground before it, the presence had vanished. Her white feet
or a breath of air had borne her away. The diapason of the organ drowned
the sound her flight might have made; and the trees bent as though to
bury in shadow her possible path. Emanuel made a long step forward.
“Woman or spirit, she is gone!” he cried, and stooped to see what trace
of her those scattered roses might show. Anselmo grasped his companion’s
sleeve.
“Do not touch them,” he entreated, glancing fearfully over his shoulder.
“Who knows what spell is upon them?”
True, when found next morning, withered and scentless, these flowers
appeared commonplace enough. Nor did there exist other proof that on
this spot two brothers of the order had beheld a strange and dangerous
vision. None the less was their sober account accepted implicitly by
the brethren, of whom the wiser ever thereafter avoided to walk in the
garden at the moon’s full; though certain of the more youthful were
known to adventure themselves at that place and season.
It is not recorded that their daring and zeal met with any reward
or recognition. Nor, perhaps, is this to be wondered at. For if any
wandering spirit, coveting, yet not daring to enter the garden, had
strayed near to the confining wall, it must have heard daily the solemn
chant of the Church’s exorcism directed against all powers unholy; it
must daily have beheld a slow procession of monks make the circuit of
the shell-strewn paths, sprinkling the ground with holy-water to purify
it from the contaminating touch of a woman’s foot. And if, spirit
or woman, it were still undeterred, there was Angelo’s music at
evening--like another flaming sword at the gate of this Eveless Eden!
ORESTE’S PATRON
By Grace Ellery Channing
THE Signore Americano, musing over his morning coffee on the Villa
terrace, gazed intently into the distance where Florence lay invisible
behind the hills.
“Buon’ giorno, Signore!” called Oreste, reining in Elisabetta and
lifting his cap with a smile.
“Buon’ giorno!” returned the Signore, starting. “Ah, you are going to
the city, and I wanted to go myself!”
Oreste looked troubled.
“Signore,--how much I am sorry! It displeases me, but I am already
promised to my patron. When one is poor, one must think of the francs
for the family,” he added apologetically.
The Signore, who knew no such necessity, frowned.
“This is the fifth time this Carnivale--and you just married! If I had a
_sposina_--”
“The Signore’s _sposina_ would lack for nothing,” smiled Oreste. “We
others,--we must do as we can. As for Gioja, she goes to pass the day
with her _nonna_ at Vincigliata. I will bring the Signore’s mail as
usual.”
The Signore waved his hand impatiently, and knocked the ashes from his
cigarette, then, as the shabby cab, with Elisabetta pulling heroically
back against the steepness, wound from sight, his glance softened.
It was a piece of fortune surely for a Vignola cabman to have a city
patron. Fortunes were not to be made up here where nobody but the
_forestieri_, who came from time to time to make a _villegiatura_ in
one or another of the villas, would think of wasting francs for the sole
purpose of getting somewhere. The inhabitants stayed where they found
themselves placed by Providence. To all intents, Vignola might be a
hundred miles from Florence instead of a bare six. Besides, a stranger
Signore passes with the season, but a city patron remains. Nuisance
as it was to have his own plans conflicted with, the Signore forgave
Oreste.
Fifteen minutes later this melting mood congealed again, as a slender
figure stole quietly down the Way.
It was Gioja, walking with her usual listless grace.
Her small head, its crisply waved Tuscan hair bound with a kerchief of
dull blue, was carried far back as no kerchiefed head has a right to be;
and her eyes, blue as the kerchief but not dull, looked straight ahead,
dilated and musing. She did not see the Signore,--a thing that could
have befallen no other girl in the village, unless it were blind Chiara,
and the Signore watched her go with a frown,--for this was not the
direction of Vincigliata. And why was she starting so early, unless
to defeat the glances with which all these closed doors would soon be
alive?
Yet he continued to watch her. There were other girls in the village
just as pretty. Many a strain of noble blood had gone to the making of
these Vignolese peasants. This was not the first girl the Signore
had seen who looked as if--change her gown and tie a bonnet over her
hair--she might loll in her carriage of an afternoon at the Cascine with
the best of the fine ladies in the city below. But there was no other
whom the Signore ever leaned over the wall to look after. And as he
leaned his frown deepened; he was sorry for Oreste; but--marry a girl
like that and leave her alone, in Italy! Anybody might foresee the end.
And he frowned again, not at Gioja this time, who had disappeared from
view, but at a mental image, wearing, it is true, an air dangerously
like that of Oreste’s _sposa_.
Yes, indeed, anybody might foretell the end. That was what the whole
community, already buzzing with the scandal, said. And it was exactly
what the Padre said when, five minutes later, he came up the path and
sank upon the marble seat, mopping his brow beneath the beaver hat.
“I have been to Oreste’s,” he said apologetically, “and thought I would
look in upon the Signore in passing. There was nobody there.”
The Signore, engaged in pouring red wine for his guest, made no
response, and the priest stole a troubled glance at him as he took the
glass from his hand.
“Perhaps, Signore, you may have seen them pass, and can tell me if that
child went with her husband?”
“No,” said the Signore, after a minute’s deliberation, “I could not.”
His guest sighed as he sipped the wine. He had grown gray in the service
of the village. He had known Gioja from her babyhood. His was the hand
which had held and oiled and dipped her at the font, and had led her
from then until her present estate; and he, if any one, had a right to
borrow trouble, seeing that all troubles were brought to him in the end.
His fine, thin lips shut above the wineglass in the sensitive line which
marks the better of Rome’s two types. His soul was straight and simple.
The one vanity it owned was to be on terms of companionship with the
occupant of the big villa. The half hour on its terrace or in its
salotto formed his social dissipation, and dearly did he prize the
importance it gave him in the eyes of his flock. Nay, it gave importance
to the whole community.
“Not every village has a priest like ours,” said the gossips,
complacently, “that a so-educated stranger Signore would make so much
of.”
Moreover, if his people were poor, God alone knows how poor their priest
was, and the Signore possessed a fine taste in wines,--true Chianti,
a very different thing from _vino rosso_ at eighty centesimi the
flask,--while his lavishness was that of his country.
As for the Signore, he would pour the oil from a fresh flask any time
to unseal the lips pressed together as now over the case of Oreste’s
_sposa_.
“The truth is,” sighed the priest, “the end is too easy to foresee. The
child is not like others; and there is nothing worse than that. That’s
what Luigi’s _sposa_ said yesterday when I rebuked her for thinking
evil, and recalled to her how Gioja helped nurse her three through the
fever only last spring. ‘Oh, I’m not saying she has n’t a heart,’ said
Luigi’s _sposa_; ‘but you can’t deny that all is not right when a girl
is different from all the rest; it is better to have less heart and
be more like one’s neighbors.’ And Luigi’s wife had reason. Nothing is
worse than to be different from all the folk about you. When I had
her safely married, I thought indeed there would be an end of
trouble;--Heaven grant it do not prove a beginning!”
“Does she not love her husband?”
“Who can tell?” sighed the priest, impatiently. “Oreste is not one to
set the Arno afire, but he is a good lad. But about her he is a mule,--a
very mule. Would you believe, Signore, when I ventured a word,--I, whose
duty it is,--he flared up like a Befana torch,--he whose manner to me
ordinarily is a lesson to the community!”
The Signore smiled and reflected upon the strength of man.
“One would say I had spoken ill of the Saints,” continued the
exasperated priest. “And the thing is becoming insufferable,--such a
tale of scandal as some one whispers to me every day. One would think
she has neither eyes nor ears, and cares not whether she has friends or
foes for neighbors.” There is, in truth, no such broad and flowery path
to unpopularity as this which Gioja undeviatingly pursued. Nobody who
elects to be unlike his neighbors gets social good of it. Had not the
Signore himself seen?
Bad enough it was to have her sitting wide-eyed and absolutely
indifferent at her machine, and so pretty that one could see the youths
looking at her when they pretended not to; or mooning over her straw
work with never a word of gossip or a little story about a friend, more
than if they were all stones: but what did these absences all by herself
mean, which looked the worse now that she was a decent man’s wife?
It was an absolute scandal--which is only another name for a godsend
sometimes--to a sober community.
Oreste might pretend to shut his eyes,--he had always been a fool about
her; but it could not be asked that all the village should do the same,
especially those girls who would have made decent wives if any one had
given _them_ the chance, and those lads who would have known how to keep
a wife in order if they had taken one.
The priest, thinking of these things, sighed. He, too, might affect
blindness; but he would need to be stone deaf as well to escape hearing
what every tongue in the village felt it a duty and a privilege to
confide to him daily.
“It must be admitted that the Signorina Americana has something to
answer for,” the priest wound up, as he invariably did, and always with
an indulgent accent which forgave while it accused.
The Signorina Americana!--how many times was she not levelled at the
ears of the Signore Americano who had inherited her tradition with
the villa of which he was the next lessee. If the contadini were to be
believed, there was little for which she might not be held accountable.
They spoke of her smilingly, Oreste tenderly, the priest indulgently
(the Signorina also had possessed a generous taste in wines), and Gioja
not at all. Yet apparently it was precisely Gioja who might have had
most to say.
“Ah, yes; if I could have foreseen when I brought that child to her!
But what harm could come to her from earning a few francs as the
Signo-rina’s maid? I chose her for the very reason that she had more
gentleness and was more educated than the others,--the Signorina, your
countrywoman, was herself very educated and full of _gentilezza_. But
she was too good to Gioja, and then she could never be made to see. She
had a way with her,--when I began to remonstrate with her she would fill
up my glass and ask about my poor, and, before I knew it--_altro!_ she
was very generous, your countrywoman. But if there are many like her in
your country it must be a terrible place; a man would not possess his
own soul.”
The Signore laughed.
“She would sit here--precisely where I sit now--and smile a little smile
she had, and twist this rose-vine about her fingers, and just so she
twisted us all. Ah,” he concluded, lifting his glass, “she was truly
terrible, that Signorina; but _simpatica, altro!_ never have I seen so
_simpatica_ a signorina.”
_Simpatica!_ When you are that, there is nothing else you can be; and
when you are not that, nothing that you can be is of any use. When
everybody, down to the newsboys and cab-openers, loves you and doesn’t
know why,--you are _simpatica_; when people would rather do things for
you than not, and don’t care about the payment,--then you may be sure
you are _simpatica_; when the expression of their eyes and the tones
of their voices change insensibly when they look at and speak to
you,--there is no room to doubt that you are _simpatica_. You may not
be rich, nor beautiful, nor “educated” (such a very different thing from
book-fed), but you do not need to be. _Simpatica_ is the comprehending
sky of praise in which separate stars of admiration are swallowed up.
While the Signore figured rapidly the mischief possible of
accomplishment by a dangerous Signorina possessing this attribute, the
priest drank another glass of wine and returned to the trouble of his
soul.
“I thought, indeed, with a wife’s work to do, she would settle down like
others; but Oreste encourages her wilfulness.”
“Why do you not speak to Gioja herself?”
“Heaven forbid!” exclaimed the priest, crossing himself. “I have tried
that once. She has a terrible nature,--that child! I have never told
any one; but see if I have not reason to say so, Signore.” He sipped his
wine agitatedly, and then began with feeling:--
“It was the Signorina to begin with; she saw that the child was pretty,
and she put ideas in her head. And in fact, though Heaven forbid I
should compare Gioja, who is only a little _contadina_. with a real
Signorina, yet she has always seemed to me to have a little something
about her which recalls the Signorina herself,--a way of walking and
carrying her head. And the Signorina had not an idea of keeping her in
her place. She was always giving her gowns and ribbons and trinkets and
vanities of all kinds,--that was her way, always giving. The end of it
was that one day I surprised that child with a hat of the Signorina’s
on her unhappy head; yes, actually, Signore, if you will credit me,
a hat,--a _cappello di signora_ on her head!” He spread his hands in
deprecating despair.
The Signore looked blankly.
“Oh, Signore, you are like your countrywoman; it is impossible to make
you understand! But it must be a country,--yours! For a girl like Gioja
to put a hat on is to declare herself without shame at once. Honest
girls of her class let such _roba di signore_ alone; yes, and rightly,
for God has put people in their places. A girl who showed herself in a
signora’s hat would find it impossible to live in Vignola; she would
be hooted out of the village. And as for the wife of a lad like Oreste
pretending to that,--half-a-dozen lovers would not be a worse scandal.
Those at least the others could understand, but a _cappello di
signora_--” He stopped to take several agitated sips, shaking his head
all the time. “I do not say she would have been so mad as to cross
the threshold in it (the Signorina had given it to her to sell for
the feathers upon it); but who could tell what such a girl might do? I
scolded her well for her wicked vanity, and such ideas above her place.
Santa Maria!--lovers and such are enough, without a scandal like that
among my people.
“Well, what was the end? Signore, she rushed off and hung that hat, with
at least twenty francs’ worth of good feathers on it, in the Madonna’s
chapel, beside ‘Maso’s crutch and the little hearts and legs and other
offerings to Our Lady! There it hung, where all the world would see
it, and every tongue in the place be set wagging, if I had not
providentially gone in and found it before Mass next day. And even then
what could I do? It was the Madonna’s, and I dared not remove it. But
Heaven sends accidents, and as it chanced, _providentially_, Signore,
my candle brushed the feathers in passing and, _presto_, I dropped it
quickly into a bucket of water. It was not fit for Our Lady after that,
so I took it away, and I myself made it up to her in candles, that no
one might feel hurt. And after all nobody was the richer for all those
francs’ worth of feathers; they were singed more than I hoped, and
did not bring me in Florence the price of the candles. Oh, she has a
terrible nature,--that Gioja! No, no, _grazie_,--if I must speak to
Oreste, I must; but to her!--candles cost, Signore, and I am a poor
man.”
Still shaking his head, he rose to depart.