THE PROFILE ON THE MOON.
Virdow felt the responsibility of his position. He had come on a
scientific errand and found himself plunged into a tragedy. And there
were attendant responsibilities, the most serious of which was the
revelation to Gerald of what had occurred.
The young man precipitated the crisis. The deputies gone, he wanted his
coffee; it had not failed him in a lifetime. Again and again he rang his
bell, and finally from the door of his wing-room called loudly for Rita.
Then the professor saw that the time for action had come. The watchers
about the body were consulting. None cared to face that singular being
of whom they felt a superstitious dread, but if they did not come to him
he would finally go to them. What would be the result of his unexpected
discovery of the tragedy? It might be disastrous. As he spoke, he
removed his glasses from time to time, carefully wiping and replacing
them, his faded eyes beaming in sympathy and anxiety upon his young
acquaintance.
"Herr Gerald," he began, "you know the human heart?" Gerald frowned and
surveyed him with impatience.
"Sometimes at last the little valve, as you call it--sometimes the
little valve grows weak, and when the blood leaps out too quickly and
can't run on quickly enough--you understand--it comes back suddenly
again and drives the valve lid back the wrong way."
"Then it is a ruined piece of machinery."
"So," said the professor, sadly; "you have stated it correctly. So,
Rita--she had an old heart--and it is ruined!"
Gerald gazed upon him in doubt, but fearful.
"You mean Rita is dead?"
"Yes," said Virdow. "Poor Rita!" Gerald studied the face before him
curiously, passed his hand across his brow, as if to clear away a cloud,
and then went out across the yard. The watchers fled at his approach. In
the little room he came upon the body. The woman, dressed in her best
but homely attire, lay with her hands crossed upon her bosom, her face
calm and peaceful. Upon her lips was that strange smile which sometimes
comes back over a gulf of time from forgotten youth. He touched her
wrist and watched her.
Virdow was right; she was dead.
As if to converse with a friend, he took a seat upon the couch and
lifting one cold hand held it while he remained. This was Rita, who had
always come to wake him when he slept too late; had brought his meals,
had answered whenever he called, and found him when he wandered too long
under the stars and guided him back to his room. Rita, who, when his
moods distracted him, had only to fix her eyes on his and speak his
name, and all was peace again.
This was Rita. Dead!
How could it be? How could anything be wrong with Rita? It was
impossible! He put his hand above the heart; it was silent. He spoke her
name. She did not reply.
Gradually, as he concentrated his attention upon the facts, his mind
emerged from its shadows. Yes, Rita, his friend, was dead. And then
slowly, his life, with its haunting thoughts, its loneliness, came back,
and the significance of these facts overwhelmed him.
He knew now who Rita was; it was an old, old story. He knelt and laid
his cheek upon that yellow chilled hand, the only hand that had ever
lovingly touched him.
She had been a mother indeed; humoring his every whim. She had never
scolded; not Rita!
The doctors had said he could sleep without his opium; they shut him up
and he suffered torments. Rita came in the night. Her little store of
money had been drawn on. They, together, deceived the doctors. For years
they deceived them, he and Rita, until all her little savings were gone.
And then she had worked for the gentlemen down-town; had schemed and
plotted and brought him comfort, until the doctors gave up the struggle.
Now she was gone--forever! Strange, but this contingency had never once
occurred to him. How egotistical he must have been; how much a child--a
spoiled child!
He looked about him. Rita had years ago told him a secret. In the night
she had bent over him and called him fond names; had wept upon his
pillow. She had told him to speak the word just once, never again but
that one time, and then to forget it. Wondering he said it--"Mother." He
could not forget how she fell upon him then and tearfully embraced him;
he the heir and nephew of John Morgan. But it pleased good Rita and he
was happy.
Dead! Rita! Would it waken her if he spoke that name again? He bent to
her cheek to say it, but first he looked about him cautiously. Rita
would not like for any one to share the secret. He bent until his lips
were touching hers and whispered it again:
"Mother!" She did not move. He spoke louder and louder.
"Mother." How strange sounded that one word in the deserted room. A fear
seized him; would she never speak again? He dropped on his knees in
agony; and, with his hand upon her forehead, almost screamed the word
again. It echoed for the last time--"Mother!" Just then the face of
Virdow appeared at the door, to be withdrawn instantly.
Then Gerald grew cool. "She is dead," he said, sadly to himself. "She
would have answered that!"
A change came over him! He seemed to emerge from a dream; Virdow stood
by him now. Drawing himself up proudly he gazed upon the dead face.
"She was a good nurse--a better no child ever had. Were my uncle living
he would build her a great monument. I will speak to Edward about it. It
is not seemly that people who have served the Morgans so long and
faithfully should sleep in unmarked graves. Farewell, Rita; you have
been good and true to me." He went to his room. An hour later Virdow
found him there, crying as a child.
With a tenderness that rose superior to the difficulties of language and
the differences of race and customs, Virdow comforted and consoled him.
And then occurred one of those changes familiar to the students of
nature but marvelous to the unobservant. To Virdow, who had seen the
vine of his garden torn from the supporting rod about which it had tied
itself with tendrils, attach itself again by the gluey points of new
ones to the smooth face of the wall itself, coiling them into springs to
resist the winds, the change that came upon Gerald was natural. The
broken tendrils of his life touched with quick intelligence the
sympathetic old German and linked the simple being of the child-man to
him. By an intuition, womanly in its swift comprehension, Virdow knew at
once that he had become in some ways necessary to the life of the frail
being, and he was pleased. He gave himself up to the mission without
effort, disturbing in no way the new process. Watching Gerald, he
appeared not to watch; present at all times, he seemed to keep himself
aloof.
Virdow called up an undertaker from the city in accordance with the
directions left with him and had the body of Rita prepared for the
burial, which was to take place upon the estate, and then left all to
the care of the watchers. During the day from time to time Gerald went
to the little room, and on such visits those in attendance withdrew.
There was little excitement among the negroes. The singing, shouting and
violent ecstasies which distinguished the burials of the race were
wanting; Rita had been one of those rare servants who keep aloof from
her color. Gradually withdrawn from all contact with the world, her life
had shrunk into a little round of duties and the care of the Morgan
home.
It was only natural that the young master should find himself alone with
the nurse on each return to her coffin. During one of these visits
Virdow at a distance beheld a curious thing. Gerald had gazed long and
thoughtfully into the silent face and returning to his room had secured
paper and crayon. Kneeling, he drew carefully the profile of his dead
friend and went away to his studio. Standing in his place a moment
later, Virdow was surprised to note the change that had come over the
face; the relaxing power of death seemed to have rolled back the curtain
of age and restored for the hour a glimpse of youth. A woman of
twenty-five seemed lying there, her face noble and serene, a glorified
glimpse of what had been. The brow was smooth and young, the facial
angle high, the hair, now no longer under the inevitable turban, smooth
and black, with just a suspicion of frost above the temples. The lips
were curved and smiling.
Why had the young man drawn her profile? What real position did this
woman occupy in that strange family? As to the latter he could not
determine; he would not try. He had nothing to do with the domestic
facts of life. There had been a deep significance in the first scene at
the bedside. And yet "Mother" under the circumstances might after all
mean nothing. He had heard that southern children were taught this, or
something like it, by all black nurses. But as to the profile, there was
a phenomenon possibly, and science was his life. The young man had drawn
the profile because it was the first time he had within his
recollections ever seen it. In the analysis of his dreams that profile
might be of momentous importance.
The little group that had gathered followed the coffin to a clump of
trees not far removed. The men who bore it lowered it at once to the
open grave. An old negro preacher lifted his voice in a homely prayer,
the women sang a weird hymn, and then they filled up the cavity. The
face and form of Rita were removed from human vision, but only the face
and form. For one of that concourse, the young white man who had come
bareheaded to stand calm and silent at the foot of the grave, she lived
clear and distinct upon the hidden film of memory.
Virdow was not deceived by that calmness; he knew and feared the
reaction which was inevitable. From time to time during the evening he
had gone silently to the wing-room and to the outer yard to gaze in upon
his charge. Always he found him calm and rational. He could not
understand it.
Then, disturbed by the suspense of Edward's absence, and the uncertainty
of his fate, he would forget himself and surroundings in contemplation
of the possible disasters of an American duel--exaggerated accounts of
which dwelt in his memory. He resolved to remain up until the crisis
came.
It was midnight when, for the twentieth time, probably, he went to look
in upon Gerald. The wing-room, the glass-room, the little house deprived
by death of its occupant, the outer premises--he searched them all in
vain. Greatly troubled, he stood revolving the new perplexity in his
mind when his eye caught in the faint glow of the east, where the moon
was beginning to show its approach, the outline of the cemetery clump of
trees. It flashed upon him then that, drawn by the power of association,
the young man might have wandered off to pay a visit to the grave of his
friend. He turned his own feet in the same direction, and approached the
spot. The grave had been dug under the wide-spread limbs of cedar, and
there he found the object of his quest.
Slowly the moon rose above the level field beyond, outlining a form. In
his dressing gown stood Gerald, with folded arms, his long hair falling
upon his shoulders, lost in deep thought.
Thrilled by the scene, Virdow was about to speak, when, in the twinkling
of an eye, there was flashed upon him a vision that sent his blood back
to his heart and left him speechless with emotion. For in that moment
the half-moon was at the level of the head, and outlined against its
silver surface he saw the profile of the face he had studied in the
coffin. Appalled by the discovery, he turned silently and sought his
room.