THE SONG THE OCEAN SANG.
The stay of the party in New York was short. Norton was busy with trade
that could not wait. He stole a part of a day, stuffed the pocketbooks
of the ladies with gold, showed them around and then at last they looked
from the deck of a "greyhound" and saw the slopes of Staten island and
the highlands sink low upon the horizon.
The first night at sea! The traveler never forgets it. Scenes of the
past may shine through it like ink renewed in the dimmed lines of a
palimpsest through later records, but this night stands supreme as if it
were the sum of all. For in this night the fatherland behind and the
heart grown tender in the realization of its isolation, come back again
the olden experiences. Dreams that have passed into the seas of eternity
meet it and shine again. Old loves return and fold their wings, and
hopes grown wrinkled with disappointment throw off dull Time's imprints
and are young once more.
To the impressionable heart of the girl, the vastness and the solemnity
brought strange thoughts. She stood by the rail, silenced, sad, but not
with the sadness that oppresses. By her was the man who through life's
hidden current had brought her all unknowing into harmony with the
eternal echos rising into her consciousness.
At last she came back to life's facts. She found her hand in his again,
and gently, without protest, disengaged it. Her face was white and fixed
upon nothingness.
"Of what are you thinking?" she asked, gently. He started and drew
breath with a gasp.
"I do not know--of you, I suppose." And then, as she was silent and
embarrassed: "There is a tone in the ocean, a note I have never heard
before, and I have listened on all seas. But here is the new song
different from all. I could listen forever."
"I have read somewhere," she said, "that all the sound waves escape to
the ocean. They jostle and push against each other where men abound, the
new crowding out the old; but out at sea there is room for all. It may
be that you hear only as your heart is attuned."
He nodded his head, pleased greatly.
"Then I have heard to-night," he said, earnestly, "a song of a woman to
the man she loves."
"But you could not have heard it unless your heart was attuned to love's
melodies. Have you ever loved a woman, Mr. Morgan?"
He started and his hand tightened upon the guard.
"I was a boy in heart when I went abroad," he said. "I had never known a
woman's love and sympathy. In Switzerland a little girl gave me a glass
of goat's milk at a cottage door in the mountains. She could not have
been more than 12 years old. I heard her singing as I approached, her
voice marvelous in its power and pathos. Her simple dress was artistic,
her face frank and eyes confiding. I loved her. I painted her picture
and carried her both in my heart and my satchel for three years. I did
not love her and yet I believed I did. But I think that I must have
loved at some time. As you say, I could not have heard if it were not
so." He drew her away and sought the cabin. But when he said good-night
he came and walked the deck for an hour, and once he tossed his arms
above him and cried out in agony: "I cannot! I cannot! The heart was not
made for such a strain!"
* * * * *
Six times they saw the sun rise over the path ahead, ascend to the
zenith and sink away, and six times the endless procession of stars
glinted on the myriad facets of the sea. The hundreds of strange faces
about them grew familiar, almost homelike. The ladies made
acquaintances; but Edward none. When they were accessible he never left
their presence, devoting himself with tender solicitude to their
service, reading to them, reciting bits of adventure, explaining the
phenomena of the elements, exhibiting the ship and writing in their
journals the record for the father at home. When they were gone he
walked the deck silent, moody, sad; alone in the multitude.
People had ceased to interest him. Once only did he break the silence;
from the ship's orchestra he borrowed a violin, and standing upon the
deck, as at first, he found the love-song again and linked it forever
with his life. It was the ocean's gift and he kept it.
He thought a great deal, but from the facts at home he turned
resolutely. They should not mar the only summer of his heart. "Not now,"
he would say to these trooping memories. "After a while you may come and
be heard."
But of the future he thought and dreamed. He pictured a life with the
woman he loved, in every detail; discounting its pleasures, denying the
possibility of sorrow. There were times when with her he found himself
wishing to be alone that he might review the dream and enlarge it. It
ceased to be a dream, it became a fact, he lived with it and he lived by
it. It was possible no longer; it was certain. Some day he would begin
it; he would tell it to her and make it so beautiful she would consent.
All this time the elder lady thought, listened and knitted. She was one
of those gentle natures not made for contentions, but for soothing. She
was never idle. Edward found himself watching the busy needles as they
fought for the endless thread, and marveled. What patience! What
continuity! What endurance!
The needles of good women preach as they labor. He knew the history of
these. For forty years they had labored, those bits of steel in the
velvet fingers. Husband, children, slaves, all had felt upon their feet
the soft summings of their calculations. One whole company of soldiers,
the gallant company her husband had led into Confederate service, had
threaded the Wilderness in her socks, and died nearly all at Malvern
Hill. Down deep under the soil of the old Mother State they planted her
work from sight, and the storms of winter removed its imprints where,
through worn and wasted leather, it had touched virgin soil as the
bleeding survivors came limping home. Forty years had stilled the
thought on which it was based. It was strong and resolute still. Some
day the needles would rust out of sight, the hands be folded in rest and
the thought would be gone. Edward glanced from the woman to the girl.
"Not so," he said, softly; "the thought will live. Other hands trained
under its sweet ministry will take up the broken threads; the needles
will flash again. Woman's work is never done, and never will be while
love and faith and courage have lodgment upon earth.
"Did you speak, Mr. Morgan?"
"Possibly. I have fallen into the habit of thinking aloud. And I was
thinking of you; it must have been a great privilege to call you mother,
Mrs. Montjoy." She smiled a little.
"I am glad you think so."
"I have never called any by that name," he said, slowly, looking away.
"I never knew a mother."
"That will excuse a great many things in a man's life," she said, in
sympathy. "You have no remembrance, then?"
"None. She died when I was an infant, I suppose, and I grew up,
principally, in schools."
"And your father?"
"He also--died." He was reckless for the moment. "Sometimes I think I
will ask you to let me call you--mother. It is late to begin, but think
of a man's living and dying without once speaking the name to a woman."
"Call me that if you will. You are certainly all that a son could be to
me."
"Mother," he said, reflectively, "mother," and then looking toward Mary
he saw that, though reading, her face was crimson; "that gives me a
sister, does it not?" he added, to relieve the situation. She glanced
toward him, smiling.
"As you will, brother Edward--how natural."
"I like the mother better," he said, after a pause. "I have observed
that brothers do not wear well. I should hate to see the day when it
would not be a pleasure to be with you, Miss Montjoy." He could not
control nor define his mood.
"Then," she said, with eyes upon the book, "let it not be brother. I
would be sorry to see you drift away--we are all your friends."
"Friends!" He repeated the word contemplatively. "That is another word I
am not fond of. I have seen so many friends--not my own, but friends of
others! Friends steal your good name, your opportunities, your
happiness, your time and your salvation. Oh, friendship!"
"What is the matter with you to-day, Mr. Morgan?" said Mary. "I don't
think I ever saw you in just such a frame of mind. What has made you
cynical?"
"Am I cynical? I did not know it. Possibly I am undergoing a
metamorphosis. Such things occur about us every day. Have you ever seen
the locust, as he is called, come up out of the earth and attach himself
to a tree and hang there brooding, living an absolutely worthless life?
Some day a rent occurs down his own back and out comes the green cicada,
with iridescent wings; no longer a dull plodder, but now a swift
wanderer, merry and musical. So with the people about you. Useless and
unpicturesque for years, they some day suffer a change; a piece of good
luck, success in business; any of these can furnish sunlight, and the
change is born. Behold your clodhopper is a gay fellow."
"But," said the girl, laughing, "the simile is poor; you do not see the
cicada go back from the happy traveler stage and become a cynic."
"True. What does become of him? Oh, yes; along comes the ichneumon fly
and by a skillful blow on the spine paralyzes him and then thrusts under
his skin an egg to be warmed into life by its departing heat. That is
the conclusion; your gay fellow and careless traveler gets an
overwhelming blow; an idea or a fact, or a bit of information to brood
upon; and some day it kills him."
She was silent, trying to read the meaning in his words. What idea, what
fact, what overwhelming blow were killing him? Something, she was sure,
had disturbed him. She had felt it for weeks.
Mrs. Montjoy expressed a desire to go to her stateroom, and Edward
accompanied her. The girl had ceased reading and sat with her chin in
hand, revolving the matter. After he had resumed his position she turned
to find his gaze upon her. They walked to the deck; the air was cold and
bracing.
"I am sorry you are so opposed to sisters," she said, smiling. "If I
were a sister I would ask you to share your trouble with me."
"What trouble?"
"The trouble that is changing the careless traveler to a cynic--is
killing his better self."
He ceased to speak in metaphor. "There is a trouble," he said, after
reflection; "but one beyond your power to remedy or lighten. Some day I
will tell it to you--but not now."
"You do not trust me."
"I do not trust myself." She was silent, looking away. She said no more.
Pale and trembling with suppressed emotion, he stood up. A look of
determination came into his eyes, and he faced her. At that moment a
faint, far cry was heard and every one in sight looked forward.
"What is it?" asked a passenger, as the captain passed.
"The cliffs of England," he said. Edward turned and walked away, leaving
her leaning upon the rail. He came back smoking. His mood had passed.
The excitement had begun at once. On glided the good ship. Taller grew
the hills, shipping began to appear, and land objects to take shape. And
then the deep heart throbbing ceased and the glad voyagers poured forth
upon the shore.