The next note reached King four days after his meeting with Billee in
the Museum. The four days had seemed four years. It would be untrue to
say that the mystery of it all did not continue to wear on him in the
hours when he should have been sleeping, but the Southerner is born and
dies an optimist, and is usually loyal to his ideals. King’s loyalty
refused to entertain a doubt. Who could doubt Billee’s eyes? The note
came as his reward, or so he cheered himself. It appointed a meeting
for the afternoon in one of New York’s suburban churches.
“The choir will be rehearsing for Easter, but the church doors will
be open and only a few, if any, people in the pews. Go at four and
find a seat well back, over on the left. I shall join you as soon as
I am free to come. Dear King, I have been so miserable, so happy!
Please, please, don’t make love to me any more. But don’t stop loving
me. Please understand. I am not in a position for your love--now.
Trust me--whatever happens don’t doubt that I love you. There now! I
have said it. Does it make you happy? It makes me miserable, but I
am only happy now when I’m miserable about you.
“Billee.”
The world stood still for King Dubignon, or at least time seemed
to, when the hurried, unrevised, illogical little note revealed its
message. Trust her? Trust Billee? Well, rather! He stowed it in
his deepest pocket along with some other priceless compositions of
hers, and went off to church much ahead of the appointed time. The
_chiaroscuro_ over on the left received him, and ages after, she glided
into the pew and slipped her hand in his, while the choir sang, afar
off, “Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom.”
Speech, while the divine voices carried that wonderful song-prayer,
would have been sacrilege. And, though he did not analyze, it was
expressing his feelings far better than he knew how.
He covered the one hand he held with his other and sat in silent bliss,
and presently she added the one, little, lonesome hand she had left to
the friendly group, and nestled up closer.
“Just sweethearts!” she whispered.
When the hymn was ended, he was dreaming off toward a beautiful window
of stained glass. The colors were exquisitely blended, the design
simple. In the foreground was a cross and scroll bearing a name. In
the deep perspective, the sun was setting, its splendor on a single
drifting cloud. To the right and left of the cross cherubs hovered, one
face lifted, the other foreshortened, and eyes closed. The faces were
identical.
A loved one slept under the cross; a spirit had ascended to heaven.
This was the story they told.
“You like my window? I call it mine because I love it so. And I am
afraid I come oftener to see it than to pray.”
“Yes,” said King, gently, “I like it.”
“Have you seen it before?”
“Yes!”
“Tell me what about it impresses you most.”
“The two little faces.”
“Oh! and I love them most, too. Perhaps you have never heard the
romance, the miracle of that window.”
“Romance? Miracle?”
“It is a memorial to Agnes Vandilever, erected by her husband.”
“Yes, I know. But the romance?”
“The artist who designed it, though he had never seen or heard of her
child, accidentally made the two faces portraits of that child. If she
had posed for him, they could not have been nearer perfect. That’s why
her father selected the design over the dozens submitted.”
“That I had heard.”
“But the romance is this: the little girl is now grown, and one of the
richest girls in the world--are you listening?”
“Yes,” said King, whose gaze had returned to the two little faces. “You
were saying she is rich--one of the world’s richest girls. I know that.
A century though lies between her and the little ones yonder. She can
never dream back to them. I was thinking of that.”
“Wait! No man ever knows all that’s in a girl’s heart. Early in life
when she was just a little child as pictured yonder, she was the victim
of a ferry boat collision off Cortlandt Street. My old lady friend--the
one I live with--is her relative. I have seen Miss Vandilever many
times, and have often read her story in some old newspapers. She was
but eight years old when the accident occurred, and in the care of an
old negro nurse on the boat. The family were on their way up from the
South, and the little girl and her nurse had gone out of the cabin to
the deck to see the lights. When the collision occurred, both were
thrown into the river. In the confusion of the moment and noise of
whistles and the screams, the minor accident was not noticed nor were
the cries of the woman and child heard except by one person, a boy of
sixteen or seventeen, who was also out to see the lights, and probably
New York for the first time. This boy plunged into the river from the
sinking boat and succeeded in reaching the little girl. Then--how,
only the good God who was watching, knows--he got out of his coat and
kicked off his shoes and would probably have swum to the wharves with
her, but a tug, at full speed and blowing its whistle for other boats
to come, ran over them. Shall I wait for the organ to stop?”
“No, your voice and that music were made for just such a story. The tug
ran over them--”
“As it struck, the boy seized the dress of the child at the throat,
with his teeth, covered her face with his hands, and went down with
her. The boat passed, and they rose and whirled in the foam of its
wake. The boy’s teeth held like a bulldog’s, though the barnacles on
the tug had torn his side cruelly and something had broken his left
arm. He could now only support the child by swimming on his back, her
face drawn up to his breast, her hands clinging to his shoulders, and
body floating free.”
“He knew how to save a drowning person, who wasn’t panic-stricken. It
must have been a brave child to keep her head through it all.”
“As they drifted on with the tide, unseen, he comforted her, promising
he would be sure to get her to the land and take her home. He stopped
calling for help when he found his voice frightened her. And then he
laughed to show her he was not afraid, and told her little stories of
the South, where he came from, and sang the songs his black mammy sang
to him when he was very little, so that the girl forgot her fears and
put her faith in the wonderful boy, who knew so much, and had come to
help her.
“Then, after a long while, he told her to try and sleep; to lay her
head on his breast, but first to lift her face up toward the skies
and pray God for her father and mother and the old black woman, who
had ‘turned back because she couldn’t swim,’ and to bring the boy and
herself to the land soon. And she did. And then, maybe, she went to
sleep, for she could never afterwards remember any more. And maybe the
boy went to sleep, too, for they found them both floating under the
stars off the Liberty Light hours later, his one good arm slowly, oh!
so slowly, striking the water, the other, broken and trailing under
him, and his white face turned upward, and his teeth again clenched
on the child’s dress, so hard they had to cut it to get her away from
him.” Billee suddenly drew her hands away and covered her face.
“He was probably tired and asleep, too,” said King gently, “you can’t
drown that kind of chap.”
“It’s the song ‘Absent’ that voice is singing up there,” said Billee,
furtively wiping her eyes. “It always did get the best of me. Listen.”
“My eyes grow dim with tenderness, the while
Thinking I see thee smile.”
“You were telling me of the boy and girl,” he reminded, gently, as she
sat dreaming.
“Yes. Her father and mother, who had been saved, began a frantic search
for her. She was their only child. They offered fortunes to any one who
would find her, dead or alive, and the river and bay were full of tugs
and patrol boats, and fire boats and launches hurrying here and there
under the searchlights. When they found the poor, old, dead nurse,
with a little hair ribbon clenched in her hand, all hope fled. But a
barge captain landed the boy and girl at the Battery. In a few minutes
the city knew that the little heiress to many millions was safe in her
mother’s arms. And great surgeons were working over the boy in St.
Luke’s. You must read it yourself some day. I lose so much in telling
it.”
“Go on. I’d rather hear you.”
“But there isn’t much more to tell. The boy refused to give his name.
He seemed afraid somebody would hang a medal on him and make a speech,
and that the papers would write him up and print his picture, and he’d
never get over it. Said it was nothing, at last. That he could swim
from Georgia to New York if the water stayed smooth and somebody was
along to cook for him.
“But the girl and her mother came every day and brought him flowers and
good things to eat, and in the imagination of that little child he grew
to be the greatest hero in the world. And he must have liked her, for
he would hold her hand and tell her the stories over and over: Br’er
Rabbit and Br’er Fox and the Tar-Baby. The old lady I live with has
one of his little songs written out. It’s ‘Little Boy Blue’--added to;
Little Boy Blue and his master who found him asleep:
“Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn!
The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn!
Is that the way you mind my sheep--
Under the haystack, fast asleep?
Master, the day was long and lonely,
My mother looked down from the beautiful sky
And she sang me a song, one little song only,
Counting your sheep as they went by.
Sleep, little lad, your watch I’ll keep.
Some days are lonely, sad and long;
And I’d give all my cows and I’d give all my sheep
To hear once again my own mother’s song.”
“The boy in the hospital liked it because he had no mother, either,
except to dream of.
“It was too beautiful to last. When he was almost well and his arm
was out of the sling, the little girl’s father came to talk business
with him. Splendid plans for that boy her father had, but they failed
abruptly. He refused to consider them, even. He refused everything
except the cost of his coat and shoes, and the amount of money that was
in the coat. He was an orphan and on his way to school, he said, and
was obliged to have that much. He was gentle and quiet about it all,
and finally the girl’s father said: ‘You are an American, all right!
I like your independence. Good for you!’ And to the day of his death,
he loved and admired and talked about that boy. But he never saw him
again.”
“He must have been worth knowing--that father. Did they ever learn the
boy’s name?”
“No. The little girl’s father would not let anybody try. Said he was
probably the descendant of some proud old cotton king down South and
would turn up some day, either very bad or very good--they always did.
A reporter had taken a snapshot of him as he sat on the hospital cot,
but her father took his camera from him by force and gave him fifty
dollars in place of it. The little girl has the picture yet.”
“But if they had published the picture?”
“Oh, you didn’t know her father. He said it would be a violation of
honor as between gentlemen. No, he had begun life a friendless boy
himself, and he understood.”
“A beautifully told story. Tell me of the little girl who was saved.”
“There is the romance. The boy promised to come back when he became
famous--”
“Ah!”
“But he has probably forgotten her, in his own struggles. She was
nothing to him, after all; only a little girl child he had pulled out
of the water. But she--well, as the years passed, he grew to be almost
a god, in her memory. You see there were the old papers to read over,
and the little picture, and the song he had given her. And there was
the telling of it all, over and over, at school. Her romance became a
living thing, an immortal thing.”
“I know. A thought conceived _is_ a living thing. Expressed, it is
immortal.”
“Then her mother died, and they built that beautiful window in memory
of her, and then her father. Now, she is her own mistress, though an
uncle imagines he is, in fact, as well as in law, her guardian. She
comes nearer being his. They call her ‘a terror’ at home. Still, men
have wanted to marry her, many of them, but she is unchanging in her
faith that some day her hero will come back and claim her. What do you
suppose her father said to her--his very last words?--‘wait for him
until you are twenty-one. It takes a long time for a boy to become
famous. I think I know him. He will come if he makes good, and when he
does come, remember it’s fifty-fifty.’ She had never told her father of
her dream, but he had guessed, and he smiled when he saw he had guessed
right, and died with the smile on his face. So she waits, and waits,
and waits, at times most unhappy. Do you suppose he will come back,
King?”
“How could he? How could such a boy come to claim so rich a girl?” he
answered earnestly. “It seems to me she would know that the boy was
father to the man. Her wealth will always be between them. Besides he
may have proved a dismal failure.”
“What! He?” Billee looked up indignant. “Why, he just couldn’t fail!”
“Do you really think he is bound to come back to her--when he succeeds.”
“Certainly! Don’t you?”
“I do not! Has she ever seen him again?”
“She thinks she has--once. But he did not know it. She is afraid if she
sought him, she would lose him.”
“She understands him, after all, then.”
“But she doesn’t want just _him_. She wants him to make good. Wants
him the same independent boy she remembers. She knows, too, that only
in stories do New York heiresses marry poor, unknown young men. Money
isn’t everything with them, though. There is something better, but they
don’t all find it. A good name means a great name in New York and a
great name is better than riches with the rich city girl who is free to
choose her husband.”
“What a girl! What a tragedy should he have learned to love another!”
“But he can’t, King! He may not know it, but he can’t escape a love
like that. It will pull him from the end of the world. _She is just
outside his life and her radiance is across his path. Some day she will
just step in and he will recognize her._ _You_ believe in that. _You_
said so. Love isn’t just an emotion; it’s a power. Even God wouldn’t
try to tear it to pieces. He made it and--well, I guess He knows there
wouldn’t be any immortality without it.”
King patted Billee’s shoulder.
“Loyal to your ideals, aren’t you? Good! When our ideals perish, the
kernel’s out of the shell, the juice out of the grape!
“And such, then, is the story of the little girl whose face is in the
window.”
“Yes, but wasn’t it a miracle that Mr. Church, a very ordinary man, I
am told, should have dreamed just such a dream, and have guessed those
little faces into it?”
“Mr. Church did not dream it,” said King very gently. The girl’s
wondering eyes turned slowly toward him.
“What! _Who_, then?”
“The design was furnished by Beeker, Toomer & Church, but it was not
Church’s work.”
“Whose, then?” And as he hesitated, she repeated the question
earnestly, “Whose?” and waited breathlessly. King hesitated and stirred
uneasily.
“Mine,” he said, at length. Billee sat in strained silence. The
information was for the moment beyond her comprehension. Her voice was
a whisper when she spoke:
“You mean--it is _your_ work--you designed that window?”
“Yes. I am a draughtsman with Beeker, Toomer & Church, as you know. Did
I never mention that art glass designs is my specialty there? Yes, it
is my work. The little faces are half memory, half dream. One prays,
one sleeps.”
“Yours! Yours!” Her hand tightened in the hand that again clasped it,
and shook. “You--you--furnished the memorial for my--my little girl’s
mother!--for Agnes Vandilever! Then _you were_ the boy--the little
girl loved! You’ve been carrying the face that was lifted above you
that night--the face that slept on your breast--in your heart, all
these years? Oh, King! King! it’s true! it’s true!--isn’t it?” She was
trembling. Her hands tightened on his and her eyes were beseeching him.
“Yes,” he answered, at length. “I was that boy. The little faces have
been with me all these years. I rather think they may have kept me out
of bad company sometimes, and from loneliness.” A sob shook Billee and
suddenly she slipped forward to her knees and buried her face in her
arms on the pew rail. Presently King reached out and laid his hand on
her shoulder.
“It doesn’t change anything Billee. There’s but one girl in the world
for me--one grown-up girl. I am sorry for Miss Vandilever’s romance,
but some day she will meet and marry a real man. They always do--these
story girls. My little dream girls wouldn’t know her now, nor she them.
It is you, who are the older vision of them, not the painted society
belle.”
“Thank you, King,” she sobbed, “that is good of you.” And then, with
a wistful little smile, “Oh, King, you must succeed! _Do something
great!_ Don’t let another man steal your talents, your fame--and your
sweetheart!”