SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
MY DEAR ROBERT BLACK:--
Where do you suppose your letter reached me, telling me of your
rapidly maturing plans to go to France? At a place not fifty miles
away from you, where I have taken a small seaside cottage for the
summer! Yes, I did it deliberately, hoping it might mean that I
should see you often--for I have missed you more than I quite venture
to tell you. And now--I am not to see you after all, for you are to
be off at almost any time. My disappointment is as great as my pride
in you--and my joy that you are responding to this greatest need of
our time. I know you will fully understand this seeming paradox.
Since I have no son to send--and you no mother to send you--and
since, as you well know, you have come to seem more like a son to me
than I could have thought possible after the loss of my own--won’t
you spend at least a day with me--right away, lest your summons to
join your regiment arrive sooner than you expect? Please wire or
telephone me--as soon as you receive this, won’t you?--that you are
coming. I have my faithful Sarah with me, so you are assured of
certain good things to eat for which I recall your fondness. But I am
very sure that I do not have to bribe you to do this kind thing for
an old woman who cares for you very much. I know that Scotch heart of
yours--cool enough on the outside to deceive the very elect, but warm
within with a great friendliness for all who need you.
With the belief that a long talk together will do away with the need
for a further exchange of letters just now, I am, as always,
Faithfully and affectionately yours,
MARIE L’ARMAND DEVOE.
Sitting on the edge of his study desk Black had eagerly read this
letter, written in a firm hand full of character, not at all indicative
of its being the penmanship of “an old woman.” His face had lighted
with pleasure, and he had laid the letter down only to turn to consult
his schedule of work for the week. This was Monday, the only day he was
accustomed to try to keep free for himself--usually with small success,
it must be acknowledged. But at least there was no engagement for the
evening, and it was the only evening of the week of which that could be
said.
During the next half-hour he did some telephoning, held a brief
interview with Mrs. Hodder, wrote a short letter, then was off for his
train. He had decided to take a local into the city earlier than was
necessary to make his connection, in order that he might be safely
away before anything happened to detain him. This would give him an
hour to spare there before he could get the second train, which would
bring him within walking distance of the little seaside village and his
friend’s new summer home. He would call her up from the city; he had
not yet had time to do it. He was glad of the extra hour in which to
draw breath and congratulate himself that this Monday was to be a real
day of rest. He was obliged to admit to himself that it would taste
rather good. What with preaching and parish work doggedly kept up to
the customary standard, while he had been at the same time deep in the
involved details of securing his chance to go overseas--which now was
practically assured--he was feeling just a trifle played out on this
warm July morning.
Turning a corner just before he reached the station, he came suddenly
upon Jane Ray. Though her answering smile was bright enough, he thought
he saw in her face a reflection of the weariness of which he himself
was momently more conscious. The heat for several weeks now had been
unusually trying. Jane had been quite as busy as Black himself with the
arranging to dispose of her business preparatory to going abroad. She,
too, had found--or made--her chance. It looked as if she might get off
before any of them--except Cary, who was due to go now at any time.
Black stopped short, in the shade of a great elm.
“I haven’t seen you for two weeks,” he said. “That ought to be excuse
enough for stopping you now? I suppose you know I’ve been around
twice--only to find the shop locked, and the bell apparently out of
commission, for it produced nobody.”
“I’m sorry,” protested Jane. “I found your card both times. If I hadn’t
been so busy----”
“I know.” He looked searchingly down into her face, and it seemed to
him it certainly looked a little worn. Perhaps it was the lavender
of the crisp linen dress which sent trying reflections into her
usually warm-tinted cheeks. Perhaps it was the excessive heat, which
incidentally was doing its best to make her smooth hair curl riotously
about her ears in a particularly girlish fashion. “Yes, we’ve both been
busy,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t make two weeks seem any shorter to
me. I’m going out of town for the day, but with your permission I’ll
try that doorbell soon again. All at once, some day, either you or I
will get that call, and then--think of all the things we’ll wish we had
had time to say!”
“Perhaps! Meanwhile, if you’re catching the 9:30, Mr. Black, let me
warn you that the station clock is two minutes slow. I lost a train by
it only yesterday.”
Thus she had sent him off, for even as she spoke the whistle of the
approaching local was heard down the line, and Black had only time to
take a hasty leave of her and run to the platform, with no chance to
buy his ticket.
Standing on the rear platform, as the train went on--the inside of
the car had been unbearably hot--he looked back down the long street
and caught a glimpse of Jane’s lavender linen disappearing in the
distance. He strained his eyes to see it, visualizing clearly the face
into which he had just been looking. It was a face which had a way of
coming before that vision of his many times when he was attempting to
occupy himself with necessary work, and of interfering seriously, now
and then, with his powers of concentration. There was something about
the level lines of Jane’s eyebrows, the curve of her cheek, the shape
of her mouth, which peculiarly haunted the memory, he had found. It was
astonishingly easy, also, to recall the tones of her somewhat unusual
voice, a voice with a ’cello-like low resonance in it; easy to recall
it and easier yet to wish to hear it again. He found himself suffering
from this wish just now, and rather poignantly.
Whose fault was it that he had not seen Jane for two weeks? Since
she must have known by his two calls that he wanted to see her, why
hadn’t she let him know he might come again? The time was getting
so horribly short--the call for one or other of them might come so
soon. And then what? He was realizing keenly that when the chance of
turning a corner and meeting her, of going to her shop and seeing
her, of calling her upon the wire and hearing her--was gone, perhaps
forever--well--suddenly the thought became insufferable. He must do
something about it, and that at once! He must do it to-day. What could
it be, since he was on his way out of town?
His thoughts went on rapidly. He made a plan, a daring one--rejected
it as too daring--decided that it wasn’t half daring enough! What was
the use of never doing anything because there might be some possible
and remote reason why it wasn’t best? This infinite and everlasting
caution suddenly irked him--as it had many times before in his
experience--irked him till it became unbearable. He would carry out
his plan--his end of it. If Jane wouldn’t carry out her end---- Well,
anyhow he would put it up to her. Thank heaven, he had that hour to
spare; it made possible the thing he had in mind.
The minute his train arrived in the city station he made haste to the
telephone, and shortly had Jane’s shop on the wire, with Sue promising
to call her mistress quickly. Then, he was talking fast, and he feared
less convincingly than he could have wished, for Jane was objecting:
“Why, Mr. Black--how _can_ I? How could I, in any case? And now, with
so little time! Besides--are you sure you----And your friend--how can
you know she----”
Yes, this usually poised young business woman was certainly being a
trifle incoherent. No doubt it was an extraordinary invitation she had
received. It was small wonder she was hesitating, as each phase of it
presented itself to her mind. Go with him, unbidden by his hostess, to
spend the day with him at her seaside home? What a wild idea! But his
eager voice broke in on her objections:
“I’m going to call up Mrs. Devoe right now, and I know as well as when
I get her answer that she will welcome you as heartily as you could
ask. Why, she’s Southern, you know, so any friend of mine---- And
we’ll be back in the early evening. Why shouldn’t you go? I can’t see
a possible reason why not. You wouldn’t hesitate, would you--if it
were any other----” And here he, too, became a victim of unfinished
sentences, his anxiety to put the plan through increasing, after the
fashion of men, with her seeming reluctance to allow him to do it.
“Listen please, Miss Ray. If you’ll be making ready, I’ll call you
again when I’ve had Mrs. Devoe--if I can get her quickly--and assure
you of her personal invitation. If she is in the least reluctant--I’ll
be honest and tell you so. You’ve forty minutes to make your train, if
you don’t lose any time. Please!”
But all he could get was a doubtful: “I can’t promise, Mr. Black--I
can’t decide, all in an instant.”
“Then--will you let me call you again, with Mrs. Devoe’s invitation, if
I get it in time? And will you call a taxi, so that if you decide----”
A low and heart-warming laugh came to him over the wire: “Oh!--I don’t
know what I’ll do. I’m going to hang up the receiver.”
“Wait a minute! Will you be on the train? Won’t you take a chance? I
may not get my friend in time to let you know, but I’ll surely have the
message by the time you join me. Just remember--won’t you?--that--I’m
going to France pretty soon----”
“Forgive me!” And the receiver clicked in his ear. It was high time.
Two hurried people cannot talk over a telephone and not be using up
minutes of which they have none too many.
The next half-hour Black spent in a manner calculated both to warm his
body and cool his spirit, if the latter could have been readily cooled.
In a smoking-hot telephone booth he struggled with the intricacies of
a system temporarily in a snarl--of course it would have happened on
this particular morning. He did, at length, get Mrs. Devoe on the wire.
He cut short, as courteously as he could, her rejoicings at the sound
of his remembered voice, and put his question. He received the cordial
consent he knew he should, though his reason told him she would have
preferred to see him alone. He was sorry--he couldn’t help that--he
would make it up to her as best he could. But have this one day with
Jane he must, if it could be brought about.
When he emerged from the booth at last it was much too late to get
Jane, if she had left for her train. He might call up the shop and find
out what had been her decision, and whether she was on her way, but
somehow he preferred not to do that. Rather would he cherish the hope,
until her train came in, that she was on it. Ten minutes more, and he
would know. Meanwhile--he would try to cool off! Somehow--he had never
been more stirred by a possibility--never so looked forward to seeing
a train come in. If Jane would come, he felt that he should be almost
happier than he could bear and not show it. If she did not come--how
was he going to bear that? Suddenly all his fate seemed hanging in the
balance. Absurd, when he had not the slightest intention of making a
day of fate of it! He couldn’t do that; he had decided that long ago.
It was only Jane’s friendship he had, or could ask to have; that was
about the biggest thing he could want before he went away to the war.
He was sure she felt that way, as well as he. Without talking about it
at all, it had seemed to become understood between them. Why, then,
should he be so brought to a tension by these plans for the day? He
hardly knew--except that he was becoming momentarily more anxious to
have them go through, and to find Jane on that hot and dusty local and
bear her away with him for one day to the sea breezes. There could be
no possible reason why he shouldn’t do it, with his good friend at the
other end to make it seemly.
The train came in. It is probable that could Robert Black have caught
a glimpse of the expression on his own face as he watched the stream
of passengers getting off, he would have tried to look a shade less
tense of eye and mouth! He was hoping, it must be confessed, that if
Jane were there, there would be none of his parishioners coming in by
that same train. If there were some of them aboard, however, he did not
intend to attempt to cover his very obvious purpose of meeting Miss
Ray. If there was one clause more emphatic than another in Black’s
code, it was the one in which he set forth his right to do as his
conscience and judgment sanctioned, provided he did so with absolute
frankness and openness. But if he would brook no interference with his
rights from others, neither would he tolerate intrigue or deceit on his
own part.
Nobody whom he knew got off--the long line of passengers had thinned to
a final straggler. When he had all but given her up, his heart sinking
abominably--she appeared at the door of the car, evidently detained by
a stranger asking information.... Was it the same weary Jane whom he
had seen in the morning? It couldn’t be--this adorable young woman in
the dark-blue summer travelling garb, with the look about her he had
always noted of having been just freshly turned out by a most capable
personal maid. How did she manage it, she who was accustomed to set her
hand to so many practical affairs? And how, especially, had she managed
it this morning of all mornings, when in an incredibly short space of
time---- Oh, well, it wasn’t that Black thought all these things out;
he just drank in the vision of her, after his hour of uncertainty, and
rejoiced that she was here--and that she looked like that!
He smiled up at her, and she smiled back; it was like two chums
meeting, he thought. He had grasped her hand before she was fairly down
the last step of the car. The coming holiday suddenly had become a
festival, now that she was here to share it.
“I oughtn’t to have come, you know,” she said, as they walked down the
platform together. “I suppose that’s why I did come.”
“I don’t know any reason why you oughtn’t.”
“I do--a big one. But I’m going to forget it.”
“Please do. I appreciate your coming more than I can tell you.”
He looked down at her, walking beside him among the throng of
strangers, and experienced a curious and entirely new sense of
possession. He was so accustomed to the necessity of steering a
strictly neutral course where women were concerned, that to be off
like this alone with this amazingly attractive and interesting member
of what was to Black practically the forbidden class, was almost an
unprecedented experience. He was astonished to find himself quite
shaken with joy in the sense of her nearness, and in the knowledge that
for this day, at least, he might be sure of many hours with her, never
afterward to be forgotten. Surely, that fact of the separation, so near
at hand, which might so easily be for good and all, justified him in
forcing the issue of this one day’s companionship, whatever might be
its outcome.
In the second train it was again too hot to think of taking the
fifty-minute ride in a stifling coach, and Black again sought the
rear platform, found it unoccupied, and took Jane to it. The noise of
the train made talking impossible, and the pair swayed and clung to
the rail in silent company until at length the journey was over. They
alighted at a little breeze-swept station, the only passengers for this
point, which Mrs. Devoe had told Black was a solitary one.
“Oh-h!” Jane drew a long, refreshed breath. “Isn’t this delicious? How
grateful I am to you for making me come--now that I am here and feel
this first wonder of sea air. It’s ages since I’ve taken the time to
get within sight of the sea.”
“Do you mean to say I made you come?”
“Of course you did. Imposed your masculine will upon mine, and brought
me whither I would not--which sounds scriptural, somehow--where did I
get that phrase? All the time I was dressing I was saying to myself
that I not only could not but would not. I am in the habit of making my
own decisions. I really can’t account for it.”
“I can. This is to be a day of days in both your experience and
mine--it was for us to have, together, before we go across where there
can be no such days. Our friendship is a thing that demands a chance to
talk both our affairs over in a way we never can back there. Don’t you
feel that?”
“Yes--I suppose that was why I came. How straightforwardly you put
it--like your straightforward self!-- Oh, how glorious this is!”
Her head was up, she was walking sturdily erect beside him over a white
road hard and smooth with ground clamshells, that ideal road of the
sea district. Far away stretched the salt marshes, with a low-lying
gray cottage in the distance--the only one along a mile of coast. The
breeze, direct from the ocean, made the temperature seem many degrees
cooler than that of the inland left behind.
“Isn’t it? I haven’t known much about the sea since my early boyhood.
I was born on the east coast of Scotland, and used to tumble around in
the surf half my time, wading or swimming. But that’s a pretty distant
memory now. I suppose I still could swim--one couldn’t forget.”
“Oh, no--quite impossible. I was brought up to swim--and ride--but it’s
years since I’ve done either. How I’d like to swim clear out into the
blue over there! I suppose nothing so wonderful could happen to-day?”
“It might--for you, anyhow. Mrs. Devoe undoubtedly bathes here--she
would have something to lend you.”
“Oh! I somehow got the impression that she was an old lady.”
Black laughed. “She calls herself old. As a matter of fact, she’s the
youngest person I know. Her hair is perfectly white, but her eyes are
unquestionably young--and very beautiful. She is vigorous as a girl,
and full of the zest of life, though she insists she is old enough
to be my mother. I suppose she must be, for she had a son who would
have been my age if he’d lived. She is simply one of those remarkable
women who never grow old--and her mind is one of the keenest I ever
came up against. She has been a wonderful friend to me, as she was to
everybody in my first parish, with her wealth, and her charm, and her
generosity, though she was only there part of the time, for she’s a
great traveller. You’ll like her--you can’t help it.”
“I shall feel as if I were intruding horribly. She must want to have a
long talk with you alone--of course she will. You must let me manage
it, or I shall be sorry I came.”
“I’ll let you, certainly--though I’ve no doubt she would manage it
herself. She’s too clever to be defeated in getting anything she wants
as much as she and I both want that talk. So don’t imagine yourself
intruding. There are few people who understand better the laws of
friendship, human and Divine, and nothing could make her happier than
to know that I’ve found another friend. She’s always insisted that
there were many people in the world who knew what real friendship
meant, but I’ve doubted it. I still doubt it--in a way--but not as I
did before.”
Thus the day began for them, with an entirely frank understanding that
before it was over they were to know pretty well on what ground they
stood. High ground it was to be, no question of that. There was no hint
in Black’s language or in his manner of intended love-making, but his
intense interest both in the subject before them and in Jane herself
was very evident. It was quite enough to make the day a vivid one for
any such man and woman. There are those who feel that there come hours
when the expression of the best and finest friendship may surpass in
beauty and in quality the more intimate revelations of a declared love.
However that may be, it can hardly be denied that the early approaches
of one spirit to another may contain an exquisite and unapproachable
surprise and joy, to remain in memory in the whitest light that shines
in a world of shadow.
There is no space to tell the whole story of that day. Of the arrival
at the cottage--hardly a cottage, it stretched so far its long gray
porches in a roomy hospitality--it can only be said that its welcome
proved as friendly as the personality of its hostess. Mrs. Devoe put
both arms about the shoulders of Robert Black, greeting him as a mother
might have done. She gave Jane one smiling survey of discerning
sweetness, said to Black, “She’s just what I should expect a friend of
yours to be, my dear,” and bore Jane off to extend to her every comfort
a traveller on a July day might need. Returning, having left Jane for
the moment in a cool guest room, she questioned the man as one who must
know her ground.
“How much does this mean, and just what do you want of me, Robert?”
“I don’t know quite what it means, Mrs. Devoe--except that she and I
like very much to be together--and we are both going to France soon. It
may be a very long time before we can spend a day together again. It
seemed to me we had to have the day. And all I want of you is to let me
have part of it with you--and part of it with her--and understand that
I’m so glad to be near someone who feels like a mother that I’d have
come five times as far for one hour with you.”
She nodded. “I know. We have missed each other. But before we begin our
talk--it’s just the hour for the morning swim. Will you and Miss Ray go
in, while I sit on the beach under my big sun umbrella and watch you?
I’m not going in now; I had an early morning dip.”
“Can you manage it--for me?”
“Of course. I keep several extra suits here, and Sarah has them all in
the nicest order for guests.”
It was more than he could have imagined hoping for when the subject
was first mentioned. What could have been more glorious than to dash
down the beach, and find Jane, in the prettiest little blue-and-gray
swimming clothes in the world, already floating out on the crest of a
great wave? All his early sea training came back to him as he plunged
under a lazy comber, and swam eagerly out to join the blue-and-gray
figure with the white arms and the wonderful laugh he had never heard
make such music from her lips before.
“If not another thing happens to-day, this will have made it quite
perfect,” Jane declared, swimming with smooth strokes by his side
toward shore, after a half-hour of alternate work and play in the blue
depths.
“It certainly will. I’m a new man already--feel like a sea-god, in
spite of aching muscles. It takes an entirely new set to swim with,
doesn’t it?”
“Absolutely. What a pity one can’t have swimming pools brought to one’s
door, like fish, when the wish takes one, on a July day. What a dear
your Mrs. Devoe is to think of this the very instant we appear. I don’t
wonder you love her, she’s so very attractive to look at, and so young,
in spite of her years.”
“There’s nobody like her--you’ll be confident of that when you’ve known
her just one day. What I owe her--I could never tell you--and hardly
myself.”
Jane was sure of it. She began to understand at once certain qualities
she had long since noted in Robert Black. The explanation now was easy:
he had been under unconscious training from Mrs. Devoe, his friend. She
had been to him, for those five years during which he had served his
first parish, not only the mother he had missed but the stimulus he had
needed to bring out his best attributes of mind and heart. That she had
done this for many another, first and last, lessened not a whit his
debt to her. Somehow he had never been more conscious of this debt than
he was to-day, upon seeing her again after the interval of more than a
year.
After luncheon--a refreshing affair partaken of on the airy end of the
seaside porch--Black had his hour with Mrs. Devoe while Jane wandered
off down the beach, taking herself out of sight and sound around a
rocky curve. In spite of his eagerness to be with Jane, Black enjoyed
that hour to the full, for it meant that he could pour out to this
perfect confidante the story of his year amid the new surroundings, and
feel as of old her understanding and sympathy, as well as experience
afresh her power to show him where he lacked. But it was only for a
little that they discussed the affairs of the new parish; both were
too full of the bigger challenge to service Black had received, and
all that it might mean. _France!_ That was the burden of their talk
together, and when it ended both were glowing with the stimulus each
had received from the other.
“I may go myself,” Mrs. Devoe said, looking off longingly across the
sparkling blue waters as she rose from her low porch chair, at the end
of the hour, ready to send her companion off before he should want to
go--one of the little secrets of her charm, perhaps! “Why shouldn’t I
spend one or two of the last of my active years in work like that? Many
women of my age are in service over there--and I can manage things--and
people, can’t I, Robert?--and get any amount of work out of them
without making them cross at me!”
Her beautiful eyes were sparkling as they met his.
“You can do anything,” he said with reverence. “If you should choose to
do that, it would be the greatest service of a life that has been just
one long service.”
“Ah, you’ve always thought too well of me. If I’ve loved my
fellowmen--and women--it’s because I’ve found that there’s nothing in
life but that--and the love of their Maker. I’ve been selfish, really,
for I never gave without getting back ten--twenty--a hundred fold.”
“There’s a reason for that,” he said with a smile.
She sent him away then, pointing in the direction Jane had gone. He
went almost reluctantly--which was perhaps the greatest tribute to her
hold upon him he could have given her. In truth she was the only woman
of any age he had ever known intimately, and to go back to Jane, from
her, was like leaving home to adventure in the unknown.
But the unknown has its lure for any man--and this particular unknown
drew Robert Black with rapid footsteps once he had started in its
direction. He had quite a walk before he came upon her, for Jane had
gone on and on, following curve after curve of the shore, around one
rocky barrier after another. When he caught sight of her at last she
was standing upon a great rock, in the shadow of the cliff towering
above her, watching a distant ship which was almost hull down upon the
horizon.
Young and strong and intensely vital she looked to him as she stood
there, her face and figure outlined in profile against the dark cliff.
The morning swim and the sea air had brought all its most vivid
colouring into her face; the light breeze blew her skirts back from
her lithe limbs; she might have been posed for a statue of Liberty, or
Victory, or anything symbolic of ardent purpose. And yet he was sure it
was no pose, for she did not hold it an instant after his call to her,
but came running down the sloping rocks with the sure foot of youth and
perfect health, her voice that of warm joy in the hour.
“Oh, I’ve not been so happy in months--years!” she cried. “I don’t know
why. It’s just sheer delight in being alive, I think, in the midst of
all this wonder of sea and sky and air. How can I ever thank you for
bringing me down here? It was what I needed to put the breath of life
back into me, after all these weeks of work and bother over closing up
and getting away. This morning, when you met me, I almost didn’t want
to go to France--can you believe that?--after all my preparation! And
now--oh! I’ve just been standing here watching that ship go out, and
imagining myself on her, with the ocean breeze blowing in my face as
it’s been blowing here--only stiffer and stronger as we got farther and
farther out. And now--I can hardly wait to go!”
He looked into her face, and met her eyes--and gave her back her
radiant smile. And then, suddenly, he didn’t feel at all like smiling.
Rather, his heart began to sink at thought of the separation so near at
hand.
“Come, please,” he said, “let’s sit down over here in the shade, though
you look just now as if you belonged nowhere but in the brightest
sunshine. I want to talk it all out. And this is our hour.”
He found a seat for her where she could lean against a smooth rock.
Then he took his own place, just below her and a little farther back,
so that as they both looked out to sea he could study her side face--if
she did not turn it too far away. It was rather clever of him, and
highly characteristic, if he had known it, of the male mind when making
its arrangements for a critical interview. Jane might easily have
defeated him in it, but she did not. Perhaps she knew that to talk as
freely as he seemed to want to talk he must have a little the advantage
of her as to the chance for observation.
“I don’t know why it is,” he began, slowly, and with astonishing
directness, much as he was accustomed to do everything, “but it seems
to me that the only way I can possibly make clear to you something you
must know, is just simply to state it--and ask your help. I’ve thought
of every other way, and I find I don’t know how to use them. I haven’t
been brought up to feel my way, I have to cut a straight path. So--I’m
going to tell you that--I find it very hard not to ask you to marry me,
because I never wanted to do anything as I want to do that. I think it
is your right to know that I want to do it--and why I--can’t.”
There was an instant’s silence, while Jane gazed steadily out to sea,
her side face, as he looked hard and anxiously at it, that of one who
had received no shock of surprise or sorrow. Instead, a shadow of a
smile slowly curved the corners of her sweet, characterful mouth.
“Thank you, Robert Black,” she said, without turning toward him at all.
“Whatever else I have or don’t have, in life, I shall always have that
to remember--that you wanted me. But of course I know, quite as well as
you do, that you are not for me--nor I for you. I have understood that
perfectly, all along. You really didn’t have to tell me. But--I can’t
help being glad you did.”
And now, indeed, there fell a silence. Where was the “talk” Black had
thought he was to have, carefully unfolding to her the reasons--or
rather the great reason--why he couldn’t ask her for herself, but only
for her lasting friendship--for this was what he meant to ask for, in
full measure. Was it all said, in those few words? It seemed so--and
more than said. There was nothing to explain--she understood, and
accepted his decision. That was all there was of it. Was it?
As he sat there, staring out at the incoming waves, each seeming to
wash a little higher on the beach than the last, her simple words
all at once took on new meaning. Why was she glad he had told her?
Why should she say that she _had that to remember_?--as if it were
something very precious to remember? No real woman could be so
glad as that just to hear a man say he wanted her--even though he
could not have her--unless---- Yes, there was revelation in those
words of hers--even quiet, straightforward confession, such as his
straightforwardness called for. He had virtually told her that he loved
her, though he had carefully refrained from using the phrase which
is wont to unlock the doors of restraint. Well, in return, she had
virtually told him--yes, hadn’t she?--else why should she be glad of
his words to remember?
The thought shook him, as he had never dreamed he could be shaken.
He had believed he could keep firm hold of himself throughout this
interview, in which he was to tell a woman that in asking for nothing
but her friendship he was withholding the greater asking only because
he must. But now that he knew--or thought he knew--that she cared,
too---- Suddenly he drew a great breath of pain and longing, and folded
his arms upon his knees which were drawn up before him, and laid his
head down upon them.
After a minute Jane spoke: “Don’t mind--too much,” she said, and the
sound of her low voice thrilled him through and through. “It’s a great
deal just to know that the biggest thing there is has come to one, even
though one can’t have it to keep. And yet, in a way, one can have it to
keep. I have something to take with me to France now--that I couldn’t
have hoped to have. Perhaps you have something, too. I am trying to
give it to you, without actually saying it--just as you have given it
to me without actually saying it. I think that’s only fair. And I want
you to know that I do perfectly understand why you can’t say more. You
can no more ask me to marry you than--I could marry you, if you did ask
me. For I couldn’t--Robert Black--even though----”
He lifted his head, his eyes full of a wild will to know what she
would say. “Even though--_what_?” he asked, in a voice which would not
be denied.
“Why should I say--what you do not?” she asked, with that strange
little smile of hers.
“I thought I mustn’t say it. But now that you---- Oh, I’ll say it, if
you want to hear it.”
“I do. You might at least give me that to keep, too.”
“Oh!” He turned and looked straight into her uplifted eyes. Then he
said the words--that he had thought he wouldn’t say. And he heard the
answer. After that he didn’t know how time passed, because there seemed
to be no time any more--just eternity, which was soon to separate them.
Then, all at once: “Jane,” he said, heavily, “perhaps some time--when
you have been through--what you will go through over there----”
She shook her head. “It would never make me--what I should have to be
to fill the place your wife must fill. You couldn’t have a hypocrite
taking that place--and I couldn’t play the part of one. There’s a
great gulf fixed between us--no doubt of that. I can’t accept your
beliefs--and you can’t accept my--lack of them. It will always be
so. As long as I can never say a prayer--and as long as you live by
prayer----”
“Do you remember,” he asked, “how glad you were to have a prayer said
over Sadie Dunstan?”
She nodded. “Because it meant the difference between custom and
outrageous ignoring of custom. And I liked the prayer, and respected
your belief in it. But--I didn’t for a moment think any one but
ourselves heard it.”
“Sometime,” he said again, sturdily, “you will pray, and be glad to
pray. And you will know that Someone hears.”
“When I do”--her voice softened incredibly--“I will let you know.
And--in a way--it isn’t true when I say that I don’t believe in prayer,
because--I could so easily, this very minute--pray to--_you_.”
“To me!” he repeated unsteadily and incredulously. “For what?”
“For what--you think--you mustn’t give me. Yet--since we are going so
far away from each other--so soon--and--since--the kind of chaplain you
will be is just as likely to get--a bullet through his splendid heart
as any other man--I almost think--you might give it to me. It is----”
He had to bend to catch the words, the heart she had mentioned beating
like mad in his breast with what might almost have been a bullet
through it, for the shock of it. “It is--so little for you to give--and
so much--for me--to have! And I know--with your dreadful Scotch ideas
of what mustn’t be, you will never, never think you can give it to me
unless I--pray for it----”
He was still as a statue, except for his difficult breathing, while
she waited, her head down and turned away, a wonderful deep flush
overspreading all her cheek and neck. Then, at last, he spoke, in a
whisper:
“It isn’t ‘_little for me to give_.’ It’s--all I have.--I didn’t
think--didn’t dream--I could give it to you unless I gave you--myself
with it. But----”
She looked up then. Her lips were smiling a little, and her eyes were
full of tears--it was a glorious face she showed him.
“I always knew the Scotch were cautious,” she breathed, “and sometimes
a trifle--close. But I didn’t think they would hesitate so over a ‘bit
gift’--when--they were withholding--so much----”
She hadn’t finished the words before his lips met hers. And when this
had happened, it was she who got swiftly to her feet. He rose also, but
more slowly, and with a strange film across his eyes.
“Now,” she said, breathing a little quickly, but with the old control
coming back long before he could get hold of his, “we’re quite all
right, I think. We’re on a firm basis of friendship for the rest of our
days, and everything completely understood. It goes without saying that
this was--_something to remember_, and only that. Shall we----”
But Robert Black reached out and caught her hand.
“Jane,” he said, “I want you to listen--listen with your heart, not
with your reason.”
Then, with his head bared, he lifted it, as he had lifted it
in the woods with Red. “O my God,” he said, “teach her--show
her--somehow--Thyself. For she must learn, and I can’t teach--this.
Over there, if not here--show her that she is all wrong, and that Thou
_art_ real, and ‘nearer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.’
Until then--keep her safe--_for me_.”
He opened his eyes. Jane was staring straight out to sea, and on her
face was he knew not what of mingled longing, appeal, and protest.
Her fine brows were drawn together, her lips were caught between her
beautiful white teeth. She turned upon him.
“Robert Black,” she said, low and fiercely, “I’ll never say I believe
God heard that--oh, yes, I know there is a God--but I’ll never say I
believe He heard, or cared--until I do believe it, not even if it would
give me--you.”
“And I,” answered Robert Black, steadily, “would never ask you to say
it till you do believe it--not even if it would give me--you!”