almost masculine force of will and unrelenting purpose that had planned
every detail of his life, which at the same time was veiled to the world
at large by a physical fragility that made her appearance almost
ethereal. Now, as a widow, she was doubly resolute, and even more
fragile to the eye, and she clung to her only son with a tenacity not to
be gainsaid. It was too much to ask of her whose life would doubtless be
short, to make her home with him in the university town where she had no
associations; so he transferred himself to the home at Westover, going
to and fro, and by so doing missing the social side of his association
with the college and much impetus that went with it.
Then the years began to fly by, each one laden with its own excuses.
Madam Hale (she had always been thus called, “Mrs.” by common consent
seeming too lowly a title) loved her son passionately, but she loved him
as he was related to and a part of her own projects, not with the
sacrificial and rare mother love that considers self merely as a means
of increasing the child’s happiness and broadening its scope. Despotism
has many forms, and the visible iron hand is the least to be dreaded. Is
there any form of tyranny so absolute as that of a delicate woman over
the man who loves her, be he husband or son?
Judge Hale, as the final mark of confidence in his wife, had left her in
entire control of his property, including the homestead, probably never
doubting that she would share it at once with John, but wishing the
pleasure of giving to be solely hers. About this she was very
deliberate. What need of haste? Her son shared her home, and his own
income, though but a moderate salary, was sufficient for his outside
needs.
Theoretically, she wished him to marry, and she would have liked a
pretty, subservient daughter-in-law and a group of well-bred and
creditable grandchildren to swell her train; but actually, she resented
the idea of relinquishing an iota of her influence. While as to Jane
Mostyn, they had gauged each other to a nicety, and though on friendly
terms, each resented the other to a finality.
Exactly how the pair reconciled their relations to one another, no one
knew, probably not even themselves. Westover Village had grown tired of
waiting to see what would happen, and cited the case variously as one of
obstinacy, where neither would give in, or else crowning them as filial
martyrs, according to the temperament of the narrator. Neither Jane
Mostyn nor John Hale appeared to mope in the least, but of the two the
woman’s life seemed the best rounded, and she, who in the beginning,
though several years younger, looked older than the man, had now gained
many years of youth.
Five years more passed, and Hale resigned what had then grown to a
professorship, and, stopping his creative work altogether, relapsed to
the mental drudgery of adapting the classics and editing schoolbooks.
So the world wagged on until, during the year that Jane Mostyn was
fifty-five and John two years older, both parents died, Mr. Mostyn in
June and Madam Hale in August. Then, again, the people of Westover were
all alert to know if the old spark of romance would revive, or whether
it was buried in cold ashes.
When the wills of the old people, one nearing and one past eighty, were
probated, to the amazement of every one it was found that in each case
there were restrictions placed upon the properties, so that the full
enjoyment of them depended upon the two heirs not only keeping up the
family homesteads as long as they lived, but in absolutely living
therein, so determined upon dictation were these parents even after
death. The same lawyer, as it had chanced, had drawn up both wills, and
he seemed to regard the whole matter in the light of a huge practical
joke that might easily be set aside, as there were no near kin, either
in the Hale or Mostyn family, and the several institutions that were the
conditional residuaries would, under the circumstances, of course
compromise.
Jane Mostyn felt that she had done her duty, and was now prepared within
proper limits to live to the full what of life was left; but John Hale,
to whom independent action had so long been a stranger, would neither in
spirit nor in letter, it seemed, deviate from his mother’s desires, and
as her tyranny had been absolute, so was the gap it left in his life
great. Thus by the last of September, after Madam died, people were all
agog to know what would become of poor John Hale.
* * * * *
The Hale and Mostyn houses were of the same colonial type, and situated
about half a mile apart, the one on the valley road that ran to
Bridgeton, and the other on a parallel road that lay on the north side
of Sunset Hill. The land holdings of each ran up the hill until merely a
party fence in a wooded plateau at the top separated them. The houses
were pleasantly located, but the view in front of each ran only the
length of the village street, while the steep hill in the back shut off
the east and west horizon respectively.
The morning after the first unexpected frost, John Hale had gone to the
extreme boundary of his land on the hilltop to see to some fencing that
the farmer said must be renewed. As he left the roadside for the rolling
ground, a change came over him; as he began to ascend, his head grew
clearer and his gait more elastic; he threw back his shoulders and a
feeling of exhilaration possessed him such as he had not known for
years.
A very short distance separated the heavy air of the river valley from
the fresh breath of the hills swept by winds from across salt water, and
he began to wonder why any one owning so much land should have literally
turned his back upon the hill country as his grandfather had done. Then
he began to realize that he, also, had his point of view limited by mere
tradition. Coming out from the shelter of low-growing trees, the beauty
of both day and scene burst upon him; he had almost forgotten how
glorious the world is when seen from the hilltop on a ripe September
morning.
He straightway forgot the broken fences, forgot the conditions of his
mother’s will, forgot that he was nearing threescore. He felt himself a
young man again with love walking by his side and ambition before him,
and immediately his steps turned towards a well-hedged lane or pent-road
that began nowhere in particular, crossed the hilltop at an angle and
joined the upper road near his neighbour’s garden, for all at once his
new-born sense of youth and freedom led him as directly towards Jane
Mostyn, as it had that September morning when they had journeyed on the
waterways of Venice. Surely, yes, it was the anniversary of that
meeting, the thirtieth; how could such things be? He would forget the
between time; it would not be difficult; already it seemed like some
dark dream that had suddenly lifted. Would Jane Mostyn feel the same? He
would go and ask her.
A covey of quail rose from the edge of a field of buckwheat and passed
almost above his head with a whistling flight. How long had it been
since he had gone to the woods with dog and gun? Now for the first time
in his life he realized his mother’s affection as a sort of fetter that
had bound his faculties until they had grown numb.
What did it matter now? He was on his way to find Jane. As he went up
the lane he observed many things that he had scarcely noticed since his
boyhood,—the scarlet berries of spice bush, and Jack-in-the-Pulpit, the
frost-bleached fronds of wood and lady ferns, while feathers of white
now wreathed many groups of dull green bushes that earlier in the season
he would have passed unnoticed.
A curve in the lane brought him directly upon a tall figure, which,
basket on arm, was gathering sprays of the plumy white things; it was a
woman dressed in dark blue with red at the belt and throat, above which
showed a wealth of bright, white, wavy hair, the face being in shadow;
who was it? The dress brought some sort of compelling memory to John
Hale, but the hair did not fit it. A branch broke under his foot, and
the figure turned; it was Jane Mostyn, surely, her eyebrows and lashes,
black as of old, a rich colour on cheeks and lips, while the white hair
gave her an almost dramatic beauty. But why was Miss Mostyn in colours,
when for the last three months she had been so heavily draped in black
that her shadow seemed to leave a chill behind?
“I did not know that you ever came to these woods,” she said, glancing
down at her gown, in visible embarrassment.
Suddenly the combination was translated to Hale, memory coupled with
intuition—she wore either the gown in which he had seen her on the
Venice quay that other September day, or else its counterpart. So she
had not forgotten!
“May I walk back with you? I was coming to see you. But then perhaps you
would prefer that Mrs. Atwood should come as chaperon; she drove past
the house an hour ago in a fine red motor-car.”
“He has not forgotten,” said Jane Mostyn’s second self, of whom, lacking
any other, she had made a confidant of late years; what she said,
however, was, “We will not go home; I am tired of shade and the pent
feeling of the lowlands; let us go back up to the hilltop in the open,
where one may see, hear, and breathe broadly, openly. This morning when
I was in the library, I thought I should suffocate if I did not get away
from both the place and myself for a day at least.” Then, looking at
Hale, he thought rather anxiously, she added quickly as if she must say
the words at any cost, “As I could not change my body and travel
backward to youth, I changed my clothes.”
“What is that you are gathering?” Hale asked, transferring the basket to
his arm and touching the feathers lightly; “I’ve never seen it before,
and yet it grows here in profusion.”
“Groundsel-tree,” she answered; “you might pass by week in and out and
never notice it, for its flower has no beauty; for that it must wait
until frost releases its seed wings. I love the dear, shy thing; it has
blown from the lowlands, and it keeps one’s courage up.”
Something made Hale look full at her, and there were tears clinging to
her lashes as if ready to fall and betray her, but at the same moment
they came out upon the hilltop and stood looking at the world together.
“I wonder if _they_ had spent their lives up here instead of living in a
valley of their own shadows, would everything have been different?” said
Jane, yet perfectly unconscious that she had spoken.
John Hale held a branch of the winged seeds in his hand and looked from
it again to her face. “If glory is given to a bush in autumn that is
denied summer beauty, why may it not be so with people as well? Being
under a spell we have spent the best part of the day in the valley, but
now that we have seen the full light of the afternoon sun, we can never
go down again, you and I. Jane, you must marry me now, to-day; not even
the shadow of one more nightfall shall come between, and, moreover, you
shall never go back to the black clothes that speak of the valley.
Neither of us need wear that badge,—it has been discounted by thirty
years’ service.” With a swift, passionate gesture he drew her to him so
close that her breath came forcibly.
Could this be the same man who had first accepted her reasons for delay,
and then intrenched them with others of his own?
As she leaned against him, glad to be powerless, she closed her
eyes,—was she twenty or fifty-four? She could not tell.
“You must go to work; you must write again,” she said when he had
released her, though it was only to hold her at arm’s length, and then
cover her eyes and brow with kisses that made them both tremble,—“a
book full of all we have both thought and put away until now; but before
that we must go on a journey so as to make sure that we may do as we
please.”
“Shall we go to Venice?” asked Hale, touching the red scarf that was
knotted above her throat; “but where is the red cap?”
“No, not so far back or away,” she answered slowly, shaking her head,
“the red cap is too far back, and besides with motor-boats spinning
about it wouldn’t be the same; we should be disappointed, and it’s
foolish to court disappointment. Yet, John, I really think we might go
to Stratford once more in spring, and see if it feels the same as it did
to sit on the lovely damp, green grass and watch the Avon go by.
Possibly we might take cold now,” and then they both laughed as they
walked to and fro, swinging the basket between them as children do May
baskets in springtime.
Presently a floe of ice clouds high in air crossed the sun, and at the
same time something passed over Jane Mostyn’s face. Dropping her hold of
the basket, she fell back a few steps, and giving a little shiver she
could not repress, said: “John, we have forgotten the two houses in the
valley. How can we be free and live on the hilltop? We can do without
the money, but the tradition,—ah, what shall we do?”
“Do? Be married first and think it out afterwards; one more look,
dearest, and then we will go down,” and, neither desiring to argue, they
gazed in silence.
Presently Jane Mostyn gave an exclamation, and a look almost of awe
crossed her face, and then an expression of deep content rested upon it.
“I have it,” she said. “Just then I saw it as plainly as in a mirage;
after we are married, then let us marry our houses, move them to the
hilltop, and join them in one house on the boundary line; thus shall we
keep not only the letter, but the spirit also, by taking _them_ up out
of the valley with us.”
Again he drew her close, but now there were tears in his eyes, also.
* * * * *
Five hours later, Westover Village was electrified by the sight of Jane
Mostyn and John Hale entering the Rectory arm in arm, soon to be
followed by Mrs. Atwood, who, bearing an enormous bunch of bride’s
roses, drew up to the door in her motor-car and alighted with great
ceremony. Shortly after, word came by way of the back door that the
couple were married, Mrs. Atwood being both witness and bridesmaid; but
as they left by a circuitous route in Mrs. Atwood’s car, while that
worthy woman walked home, the next question, To whose house would they
go? remained unanswered until the following week, when it was found that
they had gone to neither, but were stopping at a quiet place ten miles
farther up the Moosatuck.
The next month brought a still greater shock, when a contractor from
Bridgeton with a gang of men began the labour of moving the two houses
up the hill toward a newly dug cellar on the party line, that the
gossips had decided was intended to support a great farm barn.
* * * * *
Another September and the new home had already become old to the two who
were never tired of looking out and up, and with this double marriage
all the old-time mental influence that Jane had held came back. John
Hale was putting the finishing touches to a novel that competent critics
said would more than make its mark, so unusual was it in conception as
well as full of sweet and mellow strength.
The title alone was not decided, and as John one afternoon was striving
for a simple combination of words that should suggest, and yet not
reveal, the motive, Jane came into the room with an armful of late wild
flowers and stood by his table arranging them in a jar that she always
kept filled there. As she stretched out her arm to add some long,
feathery white sprays by way of background, John caught her wrist,
exclaiming, “See, you have also brought me the title; our book shall be
called ‘Groundsel-Tree’!”
X
THE OPEN WINDOW
=OCTOBER=—THE DEER MOON
When Professor Hewlett resigned from the chair of English Literature and
Letters at B—— College and returned, avowedly, to spend the rest of
his days in the home of his forefathers, all Oakland was very glad, but,
at the same time, not a little puzzled as to the outcome of the change.
There is certainly nothing extraordinary when a man of sixty-five, even
though he is still at his intellectual prime, wishes to free himself
from harness, and, without wholly leaving the road for the pasture,
travel at his own gait; it was the domestic side of the man’s life
toward which interest turned, and this side consisted of the possibility
of adjusting his family and work under the same roof, for even in his
hours of leisure, no one could believe that John Hewlett would let his
mental faculties lie dormant.
To an outsider this adjustment would have seemed the simplest matter
possible, for though the Professor had been twice married, he had
survived both wives, each of whom had left an only daughter; but these
two, who composed his family, were as unlike in temperament as in
personal appearance.
The first Mrs. Hewlett, a very handsome woman, whom the Professor had
married the year after leaving college, was several years his senior.
The Hewletts and Bartons had been people of culture as well as
neighbours, and the marriage was the logical outcome of long friendship,
rather than the focus of spontaneous love. Father, who was the friend of
both, says that at this time John Hewlett was a dreamer, who walked head
and shoulders in the air, never heeded his footing, and knew nothing of
life; while Catharine Barton had made up her mind on practically every
matter of importance, a quality upon which she prided herself being that
if she once made a decision, she never allowed circumstances to change
it. Aggressively devoted to what she considered her husband’s best
interests, had she lived, it is very doubtful if John Hewlett would
either have gained fame as a scholar, or won a host of friends by his
delightful personality. In half a dozen years he found himself alone
with a little daughter Catharine, who was turning four, a beautiful
child, but having the ice of her mother’s blood in her veins, and rigid
even at that tender age, sitting bolt upright in her father’s lap and
checking him with wide-eyed reproof if, in clasping her to him, her gown
or hair was rumpled. Then the Professor gave the child over to his
people to rear, and, turning his face away from women, save in the
polite abstract, devoted himself to work.
The Hewlett homestead—a square, substantial structure of the type that
has four large rooms on a floor with an L, a wide, central hall, and
large fireplaces—fell at this time to the Professor and an older
sister, to whom he confided the little Catharine. Without plan or
premeditation the house naturally divided itself in half, Miss Hewlett
instinctively occupying the northern portion where the strong sunlight
did not persist in penetrating to the fading of the much-treasured
Turkey carpet that was an heirloom, while the southern portion the
Professor filled with his books and such simple fittings as he
needed,—a high chest of drawers, and a bed that had been his mother’s,
with carved spiral posts and head and foot-rail, being his only
ambitious possessions; but in this part of the house the windows were
never closed on the sun, that seemed to come in and transfigure and
vitalize the Professor’s solitude.
As Catharine grew up, she became more and more incomprehensible to her
father, and kept even her very precise, ancestor-worshipping aunt in a
state of constant repression by her ideas of propriety and etiquette. At
twelve, she never committed the indiscretion of biting an apple, but
always pared and cut it with a silver fruit-knife; at eighteen she left
school and convinced her aunt that it was time for her to take charge of
her father’s mending and the dusting of his study, in which she sat for
an hour or so every day that he was at home, this being in the order of
her preconceived ideas of duty and pride in his mental achievements,
rather than from the love that makes ministry of every form a necessity.
Professor Hewlett, yearning for some sign of affection, took heart at
these demonstrations and prepared at once to make Catharine a partner in
his simple pleasures as well as a companion in his work, going so far as
to suggest that together they establish a winter home in the college
town where heretofore he had merely had bachelor accommodations.
To this, Catharine showed quiet, respectful, but determined opposition:
she did not wish to leave her quarters at the homestead where she had
built around herself an imaginary position of importance. It was one
thing to chide her father for always wearing his stockings on the same
feet and so poking through the big toe unnecessarily (as though any one
does such things on purpose or could if he tried); to persist in sorting
his letters and papers, labelling them “answered,” “unanswered,”
“lecture notes,” and “proof sheets,” until he was no longer able to find
anything; or to hold up her forehead for a good-night kiss,—but to
change her plan of living and be submerged by numbers in a larger place
was quite another, and asking too much.
Poor old young Professor! He went back to his work that autumn more
fully convinced than ever that in it lay all that life had to offer him.
Winter had never seemed so long as this, in which his fortieth birthday
was creeping toward him with the spring and May. Some of his associates
planned a little festival to celebrate the birthday, quite among
themselves, arranging that Adela Heyl, a sister of one of the number,
who had a fine voice and was coming to pass the spring in the town,
should sing some of his songs, that she, without knowing more than the
initials of the author, had found sympathetic and had set to music. For
as a reflex to the serious student side of the man, he had both a vein
of romance in him and a love of nature so exquisite and so delicately
keyed that it was in itself an art.
It was a little late when Professor Hewlett entered the Heyls’ cosey,
unpretentious house, and while he was touched by the comradeship that
was the motive of the festival, yet he at once drew within himself and
became diffident at sight of the feminine element that had been
introduced in what he had expected was to be a sort of bachelor
gathering; for, seated at the piano was a young woman clad in white with
a cluster of the white “Poet’s Narcissus” set against her low-coiled
dark hair. Shoulder curve and cheek told of the glory of a perfect
development; the chin was dimple cleft and dark lashes veiled the colour
of the eyes that were fixed on the keys of the instrument, as the
accompaniment trickled through her fingers, and her throat began to
quiver with song like the vibratory prelude of the wood-thrush.
“In Arden where the twilight lingers,
Love may dream but never sleeps,”
ran the words.
John Hewlett, who had drawn himself into a niched doorway on seeing the
singer, hearing his own words written long ago and almost forgotten,
half started forward and paused with both hands resting on the end of
the piano, looking across its length at the singer, who at his motion
raised her eyes unconsciously to his. They were a deep violet-blue in
colour, but he did not know this then; what he saw was the woman’s heart
that lay behind, that seemed at once to awaken and spring to meet his
own.
The first song glided into a second, and when, at the end of half an
hour, Adela stopped and let her hands drop to her knees, the pallor of
emotion rather than fatigue replaced her rich colour; and when her
brother presented his friend Hewlett as the writer of the words to which
her music had given new meaning, there was not one among the onlookers
but who realized in some degree what this birthday festival
foreshadowed.
John Hewlett travelled quickly over the fourteen years that separated
him from Adela Heyl, back toward enthusiastic youth. In a month’s time,
when he said that he loved her, there was really no need of words, and
though he never gave the fact utterance, she knew, beyond doubt, that it
was the first and only love of his life, as was his marriage that
followed in October. For no matter whether a man marries once or thrice,
there is but one real marriage, be it the first or the last, and no one
knows this better than himself.