AN ANCIENT THEORY OF HEAVEN
"When are you going to read me my poem?" said Angelica, one day.
"When are you going to tell me what I asked?" replied Henry.
"Whenever you read me my poem," retorted Angelica.
"All right. When would you like to hear it?"
"Now."
"But I haven't got it with me to-day."
"Can't you remember it?"
"No, not to-day."
"When will you bring it?"
"I'll tell you what. Come with me to Woodside Meadows on Saturday
afternoon. Your father won't mind?"
"Oh, no; father likes you."
"I'm glad, because I'm very fond of him."
"Yes, he's a dear; and he's got far more in him than perhaps you think,
under his country ways. If you could see him in the country, it would
make you cry. He loves it so."
"Yes, I could tell that by the way he talked of Derbyshire the first day
we met. But you'll come on Saturday?"
"Yes, I'll come."
* * * * *
Angel! Yes, it was the face of an angel; but, bright as it had seemed on
that dark background, it seemed almost brighter still as it moved by
Henry's side among the green lanes. He had never known Angel till then,
never known what primal ecstasy her nature was capable of. In the town,
her soul was like a flame in a lamp of pearl; here in the country, it
was like a star in a vase of dew. To be near trees, to touch their rough
barks, to fill one's hands with green leaves, to hear birds, to listen
to running water, to look up into the sky,--oh, this was to come
home!--and Angel's joy in these things was that of some wood-spirit who
you might expect any moment, like Undine, to slip out of your hands in
some laughing brook, or change to a shower of blossom over your head.
"Oh, how good the country is! I wish father were here. I could eat the
grass. And I just want to take the sky in my arms." As she swept across
meadow and through woodland, with the eagerness of a child, greedily
hastening from room to room of some inexhaustible palace, her little
tense body seemed like a transparent garment fluttering round the flying
feet of her soul.
At length she flung herself down, almost breathless, at the grassy foot
of a great tree.
"I suppose you think I'm mad," she said. "And really I think I must be;
for why should mere green grass and blue sky and a few birds make one
so happy?"
"Why should anything make us happy?"
"Or sad?"
"But now you're going to read my poem," she said, presently.
"Yes; but something has to happen before I can read it," said Henry,
growing unaccountably serious; "for it is in the nature of a prophecy,
or at all events of an anticipation. You have to fulfil that
prophecy first."
"It seems to me a very mysterious poem. But what have I to do?"
"I don't know whether you can do it."
"Well, what is it? Try me."
"Oh, Angel, I care nothing about poems. Can't you see how I love you?
That's all poetry will ever mean to me. Just to say over and over again,
'I love Angel.' Just to find new and wonderful ways of saying that--"
"Listen, Henry. I've loved you from the first moment I saw you that day
talking to father, and I shall love you till I die."
"Dear, dear Angel!"
"Henry!"
Then Henry's arms enfolded Angel with wonderful love, and her fresh
young lips were on his, and the world faded away like a dream within
a dream.
* * * * *
"Now perhaps you can read me your poem," said Angel, after a while; and
she noticed a curious something different in her way of speaking to him,
as in his way of speaking to her,--something blissfully homelike, as it
were, as though they had sat like this for ever and ever, and were quite
used to it, though at the same time it remained thrillingly new.
"It's only a silly little childish rhyme," said Henry; "some day I'll
write you far better."
Then, coming close to Angel, he whispered,--
This is Angelica,
Fallen from heaven,
Fallen from heaven
Into my arms.
Will you go back again,
Little Angelica,
Back up to heaven,
Out of my arms!
"No," said Angelica,
"Here is my heaven,
Here is my heaven,
Here in your arms.
"Not out of heaven,
But into my heaven,
Here have I fallen,
Here in your arms."