ruined wall. He pushed his way through withered fennel, waist-high
grasses, thorny smilax, till King House lay before him. With the tides
of his blood freezing about his heart, Trescott opened the door and
tremblingly made his way to the mantel and groped for the carved rose
upon which--no, he had seen it with his eyes, he had not dreamed it--a
girl’s slim fingers had pressed.
In the heart of the rose a tiny knob moved, a little panel slid back
and within the small recess thus revealed lay a package in a velvet
case whose moldering string broke at his touch.
He found himself, presently, leaning weakly against one of the great
porch pillars. He was trembling violently; his mind whirled drunkenly;
but mechanically he clutched his Christmas present. When he could
command his senses again, he examined his gift--a small leather-covered
book, upon whose yellowed pages appeared delicate and tendrillar
writing. In the Christmas sunlight he sat down to read it.
_18th Decembr., 1775_--You being a Birthday Present, and I eighteen
this day, and so much of joyous Import crowding upon me, I do make
you my most sweet Intimate secret, little Book; and what I may tell
none else I shall set down within you. Haply some day I shall show
you to _Him_, saying, “Such and such you did and said, Sir, on such
and such a Day, when we two were young and first you knew you loved
me! See, herein I did set the record for you that be nearer to me
than mine own heart’s beating is!”
These be grievous & troublous Times, like as, my Grandfather saith,
were prophesied of old by Jeremy the Jew. In despite of which I
cannot but be happy, for that _Anthony loves me_! O God, how good
Thou art, that lettest Anthony love me!
Yestreen I met with him in the green lane behind our House. I wore my
brown stuff, for I bethought me he had said he ever liked russet upon
a white-skinned maid. And the heels of my new silken shoon are red,
and I thanked God I had had patience to crisp my hair.
He was wondrous smart, in claret colour, being indeed but newly
returned from London. God never made a likelier man, nor one so
proper shaped. When in Holy Writ I read how that Jesse’s lad was
ruddy and of a beautiful countenance, how that Saul was comelier and
by the head and shoulders above all Israel, then thought I, these be
like Anthony!
He dismounted and walk’d beside me, leading of his horse; and before
we turned out of the lane he had told me. Now what he said is printed
upon my heart. Nor could I set it elsewhere, not even to your pages,
little Book. I greatly Wish’d but Fear’d to say that ever had I lov’d
him, yea, even when I was but a child in pinafores. That will keep.
Beside our Gate he kiss’d me, and this will I remember even when I am
old to heaven. Never shall I forget, not even if I be grown familiar
with the glory before the face of our God.
* * * * *
_24th Decmbr._--Christmas Eve, and we Crowd’d to the Rafters, & much
merrymaking. Anthony supp’d with us, and afterward drew my dear
Father aside and spoke with him of me. My Father cry’d ’twas but
yesterday I was a child a-learning of her horn-book at his knee;
we might be betroth’d; but must e’en bide a while before wedding,
for that the times are evil and War upon us. Then gather’d all the
company about us & much kissing of me, and teasing, but my dear
mother weeping.
The men talk ever of War & how the land must be swept with a besom
ere ever Freedom come. But I bethink me how God is above all War; and
that Anthony loves me!
* * * * *
_5th Jany., 1776_--To Aunt Chatty’s to sup. No tea, but elegant
plumb-cake. I greatly fear Eliza is a _Jealous Thing_, for she
sniff’d most odious and catty & hop’d my fine gentleman, fresh from
Lunnon, trifl’d not “with thy young affections, child.” I recall now
that never did I love Eliza. An her husband--though I much doubt
she comes by one--ever beats her soundly, I shall die in the firm
faith she deserved it. Back in the tilbury with Anthony. Sure ’tis a
beautiful world, in spite of some Elizas in it.
* * * * *
_3rd Febry._--He is gone, he & my Father. War has taken them. I saw
him ride away from me and all my hope go with him; sure my soul
itself did follow him a-whimpering. He waved his hat for a last
farewell, and the sunlight was upon his beautiful countenance and his
black hair.
I wish my father had allowed us to wed. O God, I am afraid! I am
afraid!
* * * * *
_1st March, 1777_--No word this many, many weeks.
O God, remember me because of these nights! Weigh me in the balance
with these black hours and see if all the errours of a thousand years
could weigh equal with this, my misery!
* * * * *
_17th Octbr._--They have fallen. Both together. Marion hath sent a
letter full of kind words and praise. To my poor mother came my lov’d
and honour’d father’s last words, but for me only mine own little
likeness taken from Anthony’s breast. I know not if he had time to
send one last thought to meward.
It has rain’d and rain’d and rain’d. And ever before me I see him
lying and the cold rain drenching his hair.
Oh, what is left to me, what? My gentle Mother shames me with her
meek patience: _she_ saw her children cradled in my father’s arms.
But I--what of me?
* * * * *
_Midsummer, 1780_--They ever bid me remember, Anthony, that I am
still young and that many find me fair. They tell me ’tis not seemly
for Youth to cherish Grief so fondly, that I must e’en look up and
see in other eyes what once I saw in yours. They know me not, O my
love!
* * * * *
_Mayday, 1782_--To-day have I sat up for the first time, after my
long, long illness. Black Matty brought me at my bidding my litle
mirrour, blubbering, poor wench! For indeed I am greatly changed.
It pains me, I being so sadly altered, to look upon those pictured
faces that are so smiling and so young. I am minded to lay those
pretty semblances of what once we were in the little recess above the
mantel, in that room which saw us Betroth’d. There shall they lie,
with this little Book I was minded once to show you, in coming years!
Alas, my heart!
* * * * *
_Octbr., 1782_--My own sweet love, in what I do know now to be
these my last few days, a something grows within me of presage
and of peace. I know that I shall find you, “For Love is strong
as Death.... Many Waters cannot quench Love, neither can the
floods drown it.” I do hold fast to that as to an anchor, and I am
comforted. For still shall I be I, and you, you. So O my own love, so
greatly lov’d, for a little space, good-bye!
There was no further entry. Trescott laid aside the yellowed pages,
and opened the other half of the package. The girl herself smiled up
at him, brown-haired, brown-eyed, rose-lipped, a wilful cleft marking
her little chin. One saw on the blackened gold true lover’s knot,
which formed the loop of the picture, her initials--_L. K._ From the
other frame, most gallantly attired, young, clear-eyed, very grave and
beautiful, another Anthony Trescott looked hopefully.
The hush that fell upon Trescott seemed to communicate itself to the
day itself. The very wind seemed to stand still in the cedars. Time
itself passed. Then, out of the heart of the holy silence, a girl
stepped, a girl all in brown, a motor bonnet swinging on her arm and
the sunlight full upon her shining hair. At sight of him sitting there
so sunk in revery, she stopped short.
“Anthony Trescott!” she breathed. And he looked up of a sudden and met,
glance to glance, her intense and luminous regard.
“Lydia--Why--Lydia!” he mumbled. Blackness swooped upon him as his
overwrought nerves snapped.
He came to, to find his head upon the girl’s supporting arm. She
was fanning him with a brown motor bonnet--a perfectly enchanting,
expensive, ultra-modern motor bonnet. But Trescott had no eyes for
anything save the rose-lipped face. He stared at her unblinkingly.
“Lydia,” said he, gravely. “I found it, dear, your Christmas present.”
“I wish to gracious I’d brought Aunt’s smelling salts!” said she,
anxiously, and fell to fanning him more vigorously.
“I thought,” said Trescott, sitting up, “that your message was all I
could expect. Lydia, I didn’t even dare to dream you would come. Oh,
you were right--beautiful things do happen at Christmas-time. For you
are here! Lydia, the wonder of it!”
“But the wonderful thing isn’t that I’m here, but that I should really
and truly find you here, Mr. Trescott!” said she, puzzled. “I’m awfully
sorry I startled you so; you wouldn’t hear me coming, of course, with
all this dead grass about, and I was right upon you before you saw
me or I saw you, either. Then you called my name, almost as if you’d
expected me, Mr. Trescott!” she finished shyly.
“How have you come, and why have you come, here of all places under
heaven, and to-day of all days in the year?” he wondered.
A dimple danced into her cheek, and her eyes danced with it.
“Why--I came, really and truly I came--on your account, Mr. Anthony
Trescott!” she said gaily. “Why do you look at me so strangely? It’s
very simple. Don’t you remember how in your own ‘The House of Their
Fathers’ you made _Regina_ visit, on a holy day, the house of her
ancestors, just to let the poor old faithful place know that she
cherished it? I thought it such a perfectly beautiful thing for Regina
to do, and I made up my mind I’d pay just such a visit to King House
one of these days. I’m one of the blood, you see: I was named for a
girl who used to live here.
“It just happened that my aunt decided to motor over in her new car
for a Christmas dinner with her favorite nephew and his wife and their
brand-new baby that we haven’t seen yet. She made me promise to come
along. Poor dear, she has such a horror of motor cars I wonder she ever
trusts herself in one. We stop ever so often, because she has nerves if
a chicken runs across the road, or there’s a curve; or anything. She
insisted we must stop for lunch at the very hotel you’re putting up at.
They boasted of it, of course. You’ve no idea how I felt! Why, I’d
been thinking for days and days and days of visiting this old place; I
dreamed of it last night, and I woke up thinking of it this morning.
But I never dreamed I’d be lucky enough to run across you! It’s really
wonderful to find you here, now, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Trescott, readily, “it is really wonderful, when one comes
to think about it.”
“I knew you at sight, of course,” she said, thrilled and kindling. “You
see, I’ve read every sin-gle sol-i-ta-ry thing you’ve ev-er written!
And I’ve got a full dozen or more of your pictures, all cut out of
magazines and newspapers. Of course I know you! But oh, however did
you happen to be here, right now? It--it seems like a lovely, happy
miracle!”
“Miracles,” Trescott informed her oracularly, “happen at
Christmas-time, which is exactly when they should happen. I may say
truthfully I came expecting to find you here too. And--here you are,
you see! And now will you please look at me directly and tell me, in
all truth, just exactly how Anthony Trescott appears to the eyes of
Lydia King?”
The rose in her cheek deepened vividly. Flame leaped into her glance.
“Why, Mr. Trescott, I think you are marvelous--quite the most wonderful
person in the whole world!” she blurted out naïvely, then blushed more
deeply because of her own words. Nevertheless she kept his eyes bravely.
“I remember,” she said, “the first day I ever read one of your books
and how it was like a voice I knew talking to me. And I remember the
first time I saw your picture. It--it jumped out of the page, and I
shut my eyes and counted ten before I could look at it again. Somehow
I’d known you were going to be like that, Mr. Trescott. Wasn’t it
curious? And I eat and drink your books and live with them, and dream
with them. I don’t very well see, then, how I could help thinking
you’re the most wonderful person alive--everybody else thinks so
too--or they should think so!”
Praise, fulsome and flattering, praise critical, had been showered upon
Trescott in his time, but this clean glowing living understanding was
as deep calling unto deep.
“We will dismiss ‘everybody else,’” he decided, “and consider only you
and me. Now sit down here beside me, for I have something to show you,”
and he laid the little book in her hand.
She read, and the radiance died from her; the eyes she lifted to his
were too old and sad and wise for her young mouth, her child’s dimple.
“I can hardly bear it!” she said in a stifled voice.
Trescott smiled consolingly. “All over and done with, Lydia. For you
are here--and I also,” he reminded her, and put the two pictures, so
fresh and smiling, in her palm.
She turned pearly white. “Why,--_they’re us_!” she gasped. They looked
at each other mutely. Then, in a low voice, he told her.
“We seem to have been caring and waiting and hoping a long, long time,
don’t we, Lydia?”
She sat very, very still, staring straight in front of her. And again
the wind ceased to move in the cedars, and over all the shining day
hung a waiting hush. Then, timidly, she put out her hand, and the man’s
closed upon it.
“Anthony!” her voice broke a little. “Anthony, are you--quite sure?”
“And you?”
“I want you,” she said, “to take back my picture. And to give me yours
once more. That’s how sure I am!” She turned to him a face sweet with
trust, bright with faith.
After a while, she roused herself from the dream into which, side by
side, both had fallen.
“Hadn’t we better go?” she ventured.
[Illustration: “I think it must have been just here that Anthony
Trescott kissed Lydia King”]
“My aunt is getting ready for another fit of nerves, right now, I know
it! Come on, the car’s waiting down the road, and we can make the hotel
in half an hour.”
They walked slowly, hand in hand; at the broken gate they stopped for a
moment.
“I think it must have been just here,” he said, “that--that Anthony
Trescott--kissed Lydia King.” And he looked down at her.
For a moment she hesitated; then youth, sheer dazzling joyous beautiful
youth, flashed into fire within her and swept her free of every vestige
of grief; a rosy finger flew to her lip and her eyes full of innocent
mischief smiled at him enchantingly. And, as his arms closed upon her,
“It’s--it’s a long, long time between kisses!” said Lydia King.
THE YOUNGEST OFFICER
THE YOUNGEST OFFICER
Junior’s consciousness of himself as an individual seems to have begun
upon the day when the major’s wife came out of his mother’s room, and,
finding him sitting lonesomely upon the stairs, sat down beside him and
gathered him into a tight embrace.
“Kindy,” said he, kindly but insistently pressing a fat forefinger
against her cheek, “you’re k’yin’. What you k’yin’ ’bout, Kindy?”
“Oh, precious little man!” murmured Mrs. Kennedy gulpingly. “And she so
young--and so beautiful--and so loved--and with you and the captain--”
The three-year-old wriggled his sturdy little body out of her embrace
and got on his feet. His small shoulders straightened, a trick he had
from his father. His clear and questioning eyes refused to be evaded.
“Vey said,” he whispered, “’at she was goin’ ’way, Kindy. Is she goin’
’way?”
“Junior,” began the major’s wife miserably, “Junior--”
“Is she goin’ ’way, Kindy?”
The major’s wife began to weep then because she couldn’t help it. And
somehow Junior understood. His gaze widened. “Is she ’fwaid to go,
Kindy?” he wondered.
“She--she--We haven’t told her, Junior,” quavered Mrs. Kennedy. She
beat her hands together softly, palm to palm. “We--we can’t tell her!
She--oh, my God!”
Junior pondered. It was characteristic of him that he usually knew what
to do--and did it. Before Mrs. Kennedy could seize upon him again he
had reached his mother’s room, where his father stood with clenched
hands and a face stony with agony. The colonel’s wife, a stout old
lady, sat in a chair, all in a pale heap. A doctor, compassionately
professional, conferred in a low voice with a nurse who held a
hypodermic syringe. The chaplain, with his face in his cupped hands,
prayed in a trembling whisper.
Junior paid no attention to these, but trotted up to the bed and took
his young mother’s limp hand in his own warm moist fingers. “Poo’
Muzzer,” he cooed. “Darlin’ Muzzer, ’peak to Duny.”
The great tragic eyes opened. Wanly she tried to smile.
Junior’s warm pressure tightened comfortingly. “Mustn’t be ’fwaid,” he
told her sweetly, while the helpless grown-ups watched him. “Booful
Muzzer, mustn’t be ’fwaid to go ’way.”
“Am I--going away?” she murmured.
Junior kept his steady baby glance on hers and nodded.
For a moment a spasm quivered across her face, and her eyes sought help
piteously; for she was very, very young. Then her eyes came back to
Junior’s, and, as if they had found what they sought, stayed there.
“Nothin’ to be ’fwaid of, sweetie Muzzer. Nothin’ to be ’fwaid of,”
said he, repeating in her hour of stress the lessons her simple faith
had taught him. “Dust teep tight hol’ on my han’ an’ go sleepy. It’ll
be all light then.”
She smiled again, more faintly but without a trace of fear. And so,
clinging to her baby’s hand, she went to sleep. It was “all light then.”
The major’s wife took the little hand gently away from Junior’s. To his
mind his mother had simply gone to the “lovely country”; she had told
him so herself. So she stayed in his memory, becoming in time shadowy
but very real and vital. And she left him, as a legacy, her love for
his father.
* * * * *
The post mothered Junior, from the woman who washed his rompers to the
colonel’s wife, who did her best to spoil him. And every man in the
regiment was his sworn blood brother, whom he knew from the soul to the
shoe straps. He, as it were, embodied in his gallant little person the
esprit de corps of the army.
An education like Junior’s affects one very materially. When you know
that your great-grandfather fell at Malvern Hill and your grandfather
at El Caney, that your own, ownest daddy bears scars from San Juan--and
all in the service, in the same old regiment--why, you get a sense
of personal responsibility. The service looms very largely upon your
perspective. You learn to carry your head up, your eyes level, your
chin out, your back straight; to fight fair and to hit hard, and to
look every man in the eye. And you must never, never, never forget that
always and in all circumstances you’re an officer and a gentleman.
You’ve got to live up to yourself and the service.
Life was immensely interesting and livable. Junior didn’t know that the
word “unhappiness” existed until orders came for the regiment to go
into exile. In construing the word “unhappiness,” however, one learns
to estimate the value of its twin-sister word “duty.”
“Orders,” said the captain, looking very hard at Junior, “are to be
obeyed, without whimpering.”
Junior brought his hand to his forehead, sat stiffly erect, and used
all his endeavor to keep his chin from quivering. He did wink and he
did gulp a little, but on the whole his behavior was a credit to the
regimental system of instruction for a small boy who is going to be
a soldier himself some day--and he knew it. This helped further to
stiffen his backbone.
“Yes, sir,” he agreed gravely.
“My orders,” said the captain, “mean that I must leave you, Junior.
Your orders are to stay at home and be a credit to us. You’re the
youngest officer, you know, and you’ve got to represent us older
fellows. That’s a man-sized job; but I think you can hold it down,
don’t you?”
Junior considered. “I can try mighty hard to, sir,” said he, still more
erect.
The big captain reached out a long arm and caught up the little son. He
spoke with his face against the soft light hair: “You see, I’d have to
be sending you away from me pretty soon anyhow, Junior. You shouldn’t
be tagging around from post to post, half the time thick as thieves
with rookies. The women--God bless ’em!--have been so good that you
haven’t fared badly. But you ought to have a regular home. I know it.
Only--since your mother left us--I couldn’t bear to part with you. I
couldn’t bear to make you do without me, either. We’re all we’ve got,
you know, old chap.”
The little boy’s arm tightened about his father’s neck.
“I’d like to send you to my old school, to put you in training for
the Point. But I can’t do it yet, son. That’ll come later. Just now
I’d rather you’d be at home with somebody that’s kin to you. So I’ve
written your Great-Aunt Lydia, and she’ll come for you. I think she’ll
be glad to have you. I think she’s going to love you a lot as soon as
she knows you. You’re pretty decent, Youngest Officer,--thank God!
Anybody’d love you, let alone my good old aunt. And now--I’m going to
give you something, little son.”
He took from his breast pocket a light, fine gold chain from which
swung a little flat locket. When you pressed a spring it was as if a
tiny golden door opened to reveal an angel--so lovely, so pure, so
tender the face within. The captain kissed it with reverence, then he
pulled back Junior’s collar and clasped the little chain about his neck.
“You’re to wear this locket and chain,” said his father, “day and
night. It’s your talisman. You’re to remember that she’s with you;
proud and happy when you win out, Junior, sad and sorry when you
fail. Why, boy, you’re her son! You’ve got to live up to her and the
regiment. Don’t you ever forget that, my son. And--just hold on to me
tight for a while, old chap, won’t you?”
* * * * *
In the days that followed it seemed to Junior that his pleasant world
was disintegrating. Faces that were as his landmarks vanished. Always
sad and tired, his father’s eyes were now heavy with the pain of
parting. Somehow as he clung silently to the big brown hand the little
boy’s mind went straight back to that day when another hand--a small
cold hand--had been taken from his clinging fingers. But he hadn’t
been trained militarily for nothing. He kept his chin up and he didn’t
cry--at least not until after lights were out.
A tall, thin, stately old woman came presently. Daddy called her “Aunt
Lydia” and kissed her withered cheek with real affection and respect.
He, too, had lived at her house when he was a little boy. She held
Junior firmly by the hand when the train pulled out and took the
Youngest Officer away from his regiment and his captain.
Now when you’ve been raised on a gun barrel, as it were, and your
rising up and your lying down have been at the bugle’s call, and
everybody from your colonel down calls you “Son” and loves you like
one, why, it’s rather like pulling you up by the roots--without
water--to plump you of a sudden in a calm, still, old New England
town with a calm, still, old New England lady who hasn’t been used to
a little boy for perfect ages, and the nearest soldiers those in the
grass-grown cemetery.
Aunt Lydia was painfully just and kind. You saw her see her duty and
do it. She had a way of fixing her eyes upon you and drawing her
lips together and saying in a missionary-to-the-heathen voice: “Good
Heavens! This child’s been allowed to run perfectly wild! Those awful
men! Oh, this must be seen to at once!” And it was.
Junior learned to close doors with terrifying gentleness, because
it seemed to Aunt Lydia a heinous thing to have them shut with the
slightest healthy slam. No; properly raised children open and shut
doors gingerly, as if, say, the doorknobs were loaded and might go
off; and they enter a room with becoming meekness of demeanor. Junior
also learned never, never to rush into the house. He wasn’t really
inclined to rush into the house, anyhow. When he had done so it was
only half-heartedly, just to pretend that there was something to rush
to. He learned to slide punctually into his place at table at one
minute to six, dinner being served on the stroke, and to sit through
the meal silently, being as silently served. This at first brought
poignant comparisons of gay riots with Mrs. Lieutenant’s frolicsome
four, and allowance of dessert with Mr. Lieutenant--sometimes with the
chaplain, sometimes with the fat, jolly major, always with Daddy. In
time, however, one becomes accustomed to everything, even to silence
at table. Aunt Lydia wrote to Daddy, cautiously admitting that the boy
was well-behaved, truthful, and hardly any trouble at all. Which is
praise indeed from a maiden lady.