“Dear Lady Judith, may I have the honour of a morning call?”
“Do come, you little ray of sunshine. Your Lady Judith’s sky is
overcast, and she is in sore need of cheer.”
“Don’t you go bothering Mrs. Ascott this morning,” Theo’s mother cried
sharply from the pantry window. “You ought to know enough not to wear
out your welcome.”
“No danger,” Judith assured her. She did not perceive the look of sharp
displeasure on the older woman’s face, but the voice affected her
disagreeably, and she turned for relief to the anomalous reproduction
of Lavinia, who was already nestling confidently at her side, on the
oaken settle. The child spread upon her knee two sheets of paper, on
which many lines had been written. A casual glance betrayed the agony
of composition. Words had been discarded by the device of an impatient
pen stroke. Others had been consigned to oblivion by means of carefully
drawn lines. Phrases had been transposed and rhyming terminals changed.
“It’s a poem. I thought it would help to cheer you up. Mamma wouldn’t
like it, and neither would Mrs. Stevens--because it doesn’t hop along
on nice little iambic feet. It has to say ‘te-tum, te-tum, te-tum,’ or
they think it isn’t poetry. Eileen writes some that are wilder than
this one; but she never lets mamma see them. She wrote one on Love,
last Sunday morning, when she ought to have been listening to the
sermon, and ... what do you think! Left it in the hymn book! And Kitten
Henderson found it, and sent it to Dan Vincel as her own composition.”
Mrs. Ascott took the copy, scanning the first page with crescent
interest. She had not thought of Eileen as a poet. Yet such intense
musical feeling.... The musician is seldom a poet of marked quality or
distinction. The godlike gifts of rhythm, cadence, imagery, these may
not flow with equal volume in double channels. Yet the verses, however
crude, would shed another light on a nature too complex for ready
analysis. There was no title, no clue to the impulse that promoted the
writing. There was no need of such. A girl in Eileen’s rhapsodic mental
state would not go far in search of inspiration.
“Birth, Hope, Ambition, Love,
These four the minor half of life compose:
The sylvan stream to broadening river flows,
And, golden-fair, replete with promise, glows
The radiant Sun above.
“The major half of life?
Love scars the soul, as ’twere a searing brand:
Ambition turns to ashes in our hand,
Nor, ’til the glass has spilled its latest sand,
Comes rest from urge and strife.
“O Birth! thou wanton wight
That dost with smiles enmask thy mocking eyes!
How dost thou cheat the unborn soul that flies
Full-eager from its formless Paradise
To realms of Death and Night!”
Theo sat breathless, a flush of expectation staining her dark skin, as
the first page was laid aside and the second came to view. Before the
remaining stanzas were finished, her heart was beating visibly through
the thin morning dress, as her lips fashioned soundlessly the lines she
had memorized at the second reading:
“O Love! more wanton e’en
Than Birth or Hope or bold Ambition, thine
To lift the quivering soul to heights divine,
To mad the brain with Amor’s poisoned wine,
To spread thy wonder-sheen
“O’er eyes that erst could see!
Thy promises, how fair, how full of bliss!
Are mortals born for rapture such as this?
Helas! the web was cunning-wove, I wis,
That e’en entangled me!”
“Theodora, are you _sure_ that Eileen wrote these verses?”
“Eileen? Goodness, no! She scrawls all over the paper. You never saw
her write a neat little hand like that.”
“Then who did write it?”
“Why ... Lary, of course. I thought you knew he was the poet--the
_real_ poet of the family. He wrote it last night. I saw his light
burning at four o’clock this morning. I couldn’t sleep, either. Mine
was ear-ache. His was another kind. He says you always have to agonize
when you write anything worth while. And I think this poem is ... worth
while ... don’t you?”
The solid ground of assurance was, somehow, slipping from beneath her
feet. Lady Judith was not pleased. Her usually pale cheeks burned red,
and there was an unfamiliar look in her eyes.
“Eileen told you to bring this to me?”
“Humph! You don’t think I’d show her Lary’s poem? He lets me see
lots of things he writes, that mamma and the rest of them don’t know
anything about--till they’re published. And if the stupid editors send
them back--I never do tell. I wouldn’t ... for the world.”
“He gave you this to read?”
“N-n-not exactly. He left the desk unlocked. Didn’t put the top quite
all the way down, and one corner of the paper was sticking out. I had
to see what it was, so that if it was something the others oughtn’t to
see, I could put it under the blotter, out of sight.”
An expression of Dutton’s flashed through Mrs. Ascott’s mind: “Theo’s
the spit of her mother. She’ll do the dirtiest tricks, and explain ’em
on high moral grounds.” She caught and held the dark, troubled eyes.
“Theodora, do you know that you have done something almost
unpardonable?”
“But, Lady Judith, when anybody feels the way Lary does, and you
love him as much as I do--don’t you see, the sooner there’s an
understanding, the better? It was that way with the Lady Judith in the
story. And if it hadn’t been for the meddlesome fairy, that found the
drawing of the two hearts, interlocked, the Prince wouldn’t have known,
till it was too late.”
“Theo,” the woman interrupted sharply, “take these two sheets of paper
back to your brother’s room, and lay them exactly as you found them, so
that he won’t know they have been moved or seen.”
Fear puckered the thin little face, fear and chagrin. With
sparrow-like motion she turned and darted in the direction of the
wicket gate. Midway she stopped, arrested by the timbre of Mrs.
Ascott’s voice--a sternness she had not deemed possible.
“Come back, Theodora, if you want me ever to care for you again.”
A moment the lithe body wavered, the mind irresolute. Then she set her
head impishly on one side, looked at the angry, frightened woman with a
scold-me-if-you-can expression, and slowly retraced her steps, dragging
her toes in the gravel and swaying her straight hips from side to side.
It was pure bravado. At the entrance to the summer house, her spirit
broke. In another instant she was in Mrs. Ascott’s lap and great sobs
were shaking her agitated bosom.
“There, precious, I didn’t mean to hurt you. But, can’t you realize,
dearie? You must be made to realize, no matter how it hurts.”
“No, you are the one who must be made to realize. I knew it, all along.”
“Knew what, Theo?”
“That Lary’s crazy about you. He never cared for anybody--not even
puppy-dog love, when he was a boy. He was glad when Sylvia married, so
he wouldn’t have to take her girl friends home--when they hung around
so late that they were afraid to go home by themselves. I’ve been
waiting to tell you about him for ever so long. You couldn’t know how
good he is--how good--and wonderful.” The smothered voice was full of
adoration. “He has the dearest ways, when you are all alone with him.
And he never misses the point of a joke. Mamma can say witty things;
but she almost never sees the other fellow’s joke. And his hands are so
gentle--not strong and rough, like Bob’s. If you only knew.... But Lary
wouldn’t ever tell you the nice side of him.”
Hungry arms pressed her close.
“Ah!” the advocate stopped her pleading, to sigh with infinite relief.
“You won’t be angry with me. But, Lady Judith, I had to do it ... if
you hadn’t ever forgiven me. Lary is teaching me to stand things like a
stoic. And when so much depends on it--” The eyes flamed with an idea.
“You know, like walking along in the dark, and all at once somebody
strikes a match to light a cigar, and you see that there is a hole in
the road that you would have fallen into. If no one had struck a match,
how would you know the hole was there?”
“And you can keep this secret--never let your brother suspect?”
“He’s the last person in the world that I’d tell. He’d be more angry
than you were. And there’s another reason. I’m not quite sure that Lary
knows what’s the matter with him. Of course he says--in the last stanza
of the poem. He’s written love poetry before, when it was only a woman
he imagined, and so he might not think it was serious. Mrs. Ferguson
said that if her husband had suspected that he was falling in love with
her, he would have taken the first train out of town. Afterward ... he
was glad he didn’t know.”
“Theodora! Are you sixty years old, and have you settled the marriage
problems of a dozen unpromising daughters and granddaughters? Where did
you get such ideas?”
“I heard mamma and Mrs. Ferguson talking about it, before Sylvia was
married. I never forget anything I hear; but it’s an awful long time
before I get light on some things. When I read Lary’s poem, this
morning--and came to that last line--and remembered how pale you looked
when you came out in the yard before breakfast--why, all at once the
ideas came tumbling together, and I knew that Lary mustn’t know he was
in love till he was so far in, he wouldn’t want to ever get out.”
It was adorable, the way she took Mrs. Ascott’s attitude and response
for granted. No woman, not even the enshrined Lady Judith, would fail
to be honoured by Lary’s love.