_A MAIDEN'S LOVE_
What self-contradicting things we are! The very joys we crave bring
sorrow when they come; for they crowd out some only lesser joy, which,
rejected, turns to bitterness and takes its long revenge. It is one of
the blessed laws of life that no heart, however hospitable, can
entertain more than one sorrow at one time, how many so ever be waiting
at the door. Each must wait its turn.
But alas! Joy has its corresponding law; every heart's pleasure is an
alternative, and if much we would enjoy, much also we must renounce. Joy
usually comes as twins, and the great perplexity is to discern which the
first-born is, that our homage may not return unto us void.
Of many of our deepest longings may it not be said that their
fulfillment would be our keenest disappointment? For instance, the wife
of our family physician is forever lamenting that no spouse in all New
Jedboro sees as little of her husband as does she, forever longing that
he might be released to the enjoyment of his own fireside. Yet should a
fickle or convalescent public suddenly so release him, our doctor's
wife would be of all women most miserable.
Even as I write, I am disturbed by a lad of twenty who starts to-day on
his long journey to Athabasca and the waiting prairies of our great
Canadian West.
Full of pathetic joy is his youthful face; but his mother is bowed
beside the bed whereon she gave him birth--her cup, she thinks, would be
full to overflowing if her first-born son were suddenly to dispack his
box and take up the old nestling life again. The sun would have turned
back to its undimmed meridian, she weens; and yet she knows full well
that this very longing, were it gratified, would poison her overflowing
cup and tarnish her mother's pride. If she were asked to choose between
these two, womanlike, she would elect to have them both--but God
forbids.
The youth's father says: "Let the lad go forth"--and God is a Father,
though He takes counsel of a mother-heart.
All this reflective vein flows from this poor heart of mine, the truth
whereof that heart hath sorrowfully proved.
For my daughter Margaret holds within it a place of solitary tenderness,
more exclusively her own as the years go by. And I too was forced to the
great alternative, the same which hath wrung uncounted parents' hearts
before I saw the light, the same as will rend thousands more when that
poor light has filtered through darkness into Day.
What father is there who can contemplate without dismay the prospect of
his only daughter surrendered to another's care, though that other press
the cruel claim of a mate's more passionate love? Where is the father
that does not long to shelter his child's sweet innocence forever within
the pavilion of his heart's loving tenderness? And yet, where is the
father who would be free from torture, were he assured that his soul's
yearning would be satisfied, and that no high claim of unrelated love
would ever rival or dispute his own?
It was my own fault that Margaret's attachment to Angus Strachan came to
me as a bolt from the blue. I had never dreamed of it--I was so sure of
everybody loving Margaret that I never thought of anybody loving her. Of
course it was easily seen that their friendship was mutually cherished;
but friendship, although a mother's hope, is a father's reassurance.
Margaret's mother had more than once spoken of their friendship in that
portentous tone which all women hope to assume before they die; and her
words exuded the far-off fragrance of orange blossoms. She began with
the assurance that the friendship between Angus and our Margaret had no
particular meaning--to which I agreed. A little later on she ventured
the remark that she did not think Angus cared for Margaret except as a
friend--to which also I cheerfully agreed. Later still, she resorted to
the interrogative, and asked me if I thought Margaret would ever marry,
to which I answered: "I hope so, but she shall not with my consent."
"I was married when I was Margaret's age," added my wife. (What woman is
there who does not love to say the same?) "Margaret will soon be
twenty."
"Yes, my dear, but few women have the chance that came to you and no man
ever had provocation like to mine." This was followed by a passage at
arms, during which, of course, the fair debater's lips were sealed.
By degrees my wife's attack upon the subject grew bolder and more
frontal.
"Do you think Margaret cares anything for Angus?" she asked, the hour
being that post-retiring one sacred in every age to conjugal conference.
"I don't think so--certainly not; why should she? We have a triangular
family altogether--two to each of us, and why should she want any more?
She has you and me, just as I have you and her, and you have her and
me."
"But that is foolish; you don't understand."
"I don't want to understand," I answered drowsily. "Margaret's only a
child--and I want to go to sleep; if I don't sleep over my sermon
to-night, the people will to-morrow." For it was Saturday night.
But "the child" was not asleep. The love affairs of other hearts are by
others easily borne, even though those others be the next nearest and
dearest of all. But how different with the maiden's heart that loves,
and tremblingly hopes that it loves not in vain! Then doth the pillow
burn with holy passion, and considerate sleep, like an indulgent nurse,
turns her steps aside, fearing to break in upon the soul's solemn
revelry. Even when she ventures nigh, gently withdrawing the still
unwearied heart from its virgin joy, do the half open lips still sip
from the new found cisterns of sweet and tender bliss.
O holy love! Who shall separate the joy thou bringest from the heart
that opens wide to welcome it, even as the flower bares its bosom to the
sun?
Darkness and tears and sorrow may follow fast; fears and misgivings and
dread discoveries may come close upon thy train; broken-heartedness and
bleak perpetual maidenhood may be thine only relics; or, flowering with
the years, the thorns of grief and poverty and widowhood may grow where
youthful fancy looked for radiant flowers; the heart which echoed with
thy bridal song may yet peal forth the Rachel cry--but thou belongest
to the heart forever, and none of these can dispossess the soul of its
unforgotten transport. Nor fire, nor flood, nor fraud can prevail
against thee! Thy treasures moth and rust doth not corrupt nor thieves
break through and steal!
As a burning building lends its heat to all beside it, so was my own
soul kindled, half with rapture and half with anger, by the story of
Margaret's passion. Father's and daughter's hearts were never pressed
closer to each other than were mine and my only child's.
It was the succeeding Sunday night that Margaret, in her father's arms,
breathed out the tender tale; I was enjoying my evening smoke (a
post-sermonic anodyne), but long before Margaret had finished, my cigar
was in ashes and my heart in flame.
"Father," she began, her face hidden on my shoulder, "I am either very
happy or very wretched, and I cannot decide which till I know which you
will be."
"The old problem, daughter, is it not?" I answered. "Still longing to
enter a hospital? And you want to wheedle your old father into giving
you up?" for Margaret, like every other modern girl, had been craving
entrance to that noble calling. The high-born and the love-lorn, those
weary of life, or of love, or both, find a refuge there.
"No, father, I was not thinking of that at all. I don't want to be a
nurse any more."
"What is it then? You have never had any secrets from your father and
you will not have any now, will you, dear one?"
"Oh, father, I will tell you all I can--but I cannot tell you all."
I started in my chair, for the child note was absent from her words, and
the passion of womanhood was in its stead. Awesome to a father's heart
is that moment wherein a daughter's voice unconsciously asserts the
suffrage of her soul.
"Go on, my daughter--tell me what you may," I said, for I knew now that
the realm was one wherein parental authority was of no avail.
Only silence followed; her lips spoke no word, but the heaving bosom had
a rhetoric all its own and told me that a new life, begotten not of
mine, was throbbing there. An alien life it seemed to me, a soul's
expansion beyond the province of my own, an infinitude which denied the
sway of even a father's love. At length she spoke:
"Oh, father, I will tell you all--that is, all I can. But I am so
lonely. You cannot follow me, father. I have gone away in--with
another--in where you cannot go."
"What mean you, Margaret? In where? Where can I not come?" I asked,
perplexed.
"Father, let me tell you. I am speaking in a figure, I know--but it is
the only way--and you will understand. Love is a far country, and
prodigals take their journey there--but they seek it two by two. Oh,
father, another one and I went off together to that far, far land and
those who go leave father and mother far behind. But there is no hunger
and no famine there."
Rich the endowment love bestows! While we had all thought Margaret
anything but dull, yet this new speech of metaphor and music fell upon
my ears as a great surprise. That live coal from off God's altar had
touched her lips when first another's burning lips of love anointed them
with flame. When this new sun arises, the humblest of God's meadow
creatures know that the soul has wings and spread them in that holy
light.
Closer to my breast I pressed the heart whose tumult, as it struggled
with its muffled witnesses, started the same passionate riot in my own.
"There are many voices in your heart, daughter mine; let them speak
every one and tell me all their story. Where is it that your father
cannot come?"
"Father," she answered, with sweet calmness but with averted face, "I
never loved you more than now. But love's joy is in its loneliness, its
sweet bridal loneliness. It was a long weary way that another one and
I--you know his name, and I cannot speak it yet--walked together, but
not alone together; for others walked besides us--and friendship is a
cruel thing. But oh, father dear, one day--no, it was in the gloaming,
we saw an avenue far beyond; and we both knew it was for us and for us
alone. I saw it first, but I did not let Angus know. But he saw it in a
moment and he started quickly on. Then my feet fell back, though my
heart pressed on with his. But Angus would not let me stop. He hurried
me on; and it was sweet to be overborne, for love makes a man so strong
and a woman so weak.
"When we came close up to where you enter in, I saw that the way within
was sweet, and shadowy, so shadowy, but I saw that it was long, so long.
And I turned away, though my heart never turned. But Angus's eyes never
moved from the avenue, and he whispered that it was meant for us
two--just for us two--and for none on earth beside; he said no one could
go in alone, because it would vanish if they did--and he held me
close--and we went in together--and we shall come out no more forever.
That is where you cannot come, father--nor mother, nor dearest friend
can. You could not if you would, for it is God who keeps the gate."
Her trembling voice was still, but throbbing heart and swelling bosom
still poured forth their passionate utterance.
Soon her lips opened again, yielding before the inner tide.
"And father," her hot cheek pressed to mine foretold the ardent story,
"it was at evening, as I said, and Angus and I had wandered far--farther
than we thought. We were resting on a grassy knoll. Angus had been
speaking of his mother, and he said that the beauty of nature always
made his heart ache. Surely, father, there is nothing so lonesome as
beauty when the heart's lonesome! Angus and I were still a long
time--till it was growing dusk; and then at last he said, 'How lonely
all this is if no one loves you!' And I started at his tone, and when my
eyes met his I went down before them, for they caressed me so. Father
dear, I need not tell you all. I could not if I would--no girl could. I
know, I remember, oh, I remember what he said, and no one else knows but
me, and my soul trusted him and he took me into the sheltering place
where nobody but God could see my soul's surrender."
"My daughter, my little daughter," was all I said.
"Wait, father," her face now was hidden deep and she was whispering into
my very heart, "there is another thing I want to tell you--no, two
things, for they were both together.
"Father, he kissed me--on the lips--and I did not believe it; for just a
moment before we had been listening to the crickets and looking at the
sun. But he kissed me on the lips and my whole soul surged hot, and my
eyes were closed--for I felt him coming and I could not speak or move.
"And I don't know why, but I thought of the sacrament and the holy wine,
and everything was holy--not like music, but like a bell, a great
cathedral bell with its unstained voice. And father (I shall feel purer
when I tell you this), father, that very moment I felt a strange new
life in my breast and the old girlish life was gone--and there came
before my closed eyes a vision of another just like Angus, white and
soft and helpless--and I heard its cry--and my heart melted in me with
the great compassion. And I knew that what I called love was really
life, just life. And I felt no shame at all, but a great pride that it
was all so holy--for it is holy, father, and no one prompted it but God.
Father, do you love me?"
I bent to kiss the glowing lips, but I remembered, and kissed her brow
instead, beautiful and pure before my misty eyes. She drew herself
gently from my arms and in a moment the sweet presence had departed. But
the fragrance of love and innocence was left behind and my faltering
answer came at last, though she heard it not:
"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."