With a discordant rumble of drums, and the metallic clang of a dozen
tambourines, the Salvation Army procession passed down the street.
When the leader paused at a busy corner and began to sing, a little
knot of people quickly gathered to listen. Some quavering uncertain
voices joined in the hymn as the audience increased, then mindful of
his opportunity, a tall young man in red and blue uniform began an
impassioned exhortation.
George Arnold and his friend Clayton lingered with half humorous
tolerance upon the outskirts of the crowd. They were about to turn away
when Arnold spoke in a low tone:
"Look at that girl over there."
The sudden flare of the torch-light revealed the only face in the group
which could have attracted Arnold's attention. It was that of a girl
but little past twenty, who stood by the leader holding a tambourine.
She was not beautiful in the accepted sense of the word, but her eyes
were deep and lustrous, her mouth sensitive and womanly, and the ugly
bonnet could not wholly conceal a wealth of raven hair. Her skin had a
delicate pearly clearness, and upon her face was a look of exaltation
and purity as though she stood on some distant elevation, far above the
pain and tumult of the world.
After a little, the Salvationists made ready to depart, and Arnold and
Clayton turned away.
"I suppose," said Clayton, speaking tentatively, and gazing at the
girl, "that we have no right to criticise any belief which puts a look
like that upon a woman's face."
"We have no right to say a word," returned Arnold, "until we have the
grace to do some of the things which they do."
Clayton soon forgot, but the glorified, childish face haunted Arnold.
In the hope of seeing her again, he frequented the curbstones where the
meetings were held. Often, he wondered at the holy peace in the eyes of
so young a woman. He had seen the same expression before, but the face
it illumined had always been battle-scarred and weary.
"She hasn't suffered yet," he said grimly, "and that is the thing that
tells."
Months passed and summer shaded imperceptibly into autumn. Then, with
little sharp flurries of cold, winter took its place. Arnold was hard
at work in that merciless slavery which is found only at the newspaper
desk.
"You're just a cog in the machine," he said to Clayton one day. "Some
day the thing goes wrong, and they find out it's your particular cog,
and they get a new one. That's all there is to it."
Clayton laughed at his friend's cynicism, as he could well afford to
do, for he had just been called to a distant city to fill an important
position upon the staff of a larger and more influential journal.
For some time, Arnold's particular cog did yeoman service. He ground
out more "copy" than any man on the staff. He had the keenest nose for
news--the most delicate way of handling a good story.
Sometimes as he wrote at his desk, the face of the young Salvationist
intruded itself between him and his work. He smiled at his foolish
fancy, but dramatic incidents began to take shape about the image
of that girl. He planned "The Great American Novel"--there is no
newspaper man who could not write it, if he only had the time--and she
was to be the central figure.
All the possibilities of womanhood lay in that sweet Madonna-like
face. Thinking along the lines of art the new century seemed to have
laid down, he struck the key-note of his theme--the development of the
individual. His Madonna might suffer or not, but she must grow into her
highest and best. He turned the story over in his mind, studying it
from every standpoint. It was not yet ready for paper and pen.
A year went by, and various kinds of trouble came to Arnold. Something
eventually became wrong with the newspaper machine, for he worked only
by fits and starts, and at last he was asked for his resignation. His
face was white and determined when he handed it in, but he felt that he
was facing failure.
He had a little money laid by for an emergency; at all events, it was
enough to supply his wants until he could write his book. He went at
it feverishly, but the work soon began to drag. The far-off, elusive
phantom of his ideal mocked at him behind its expression. Then he
went more slowly still, and, by almost imperceptible degrees, he
went steadily down the pitiful ladder which leads from bad to worse.
Ambition faded, hope died, and at last he found himself on a level with
humanity at its worst--an outcast of the slums. Strong drink had done
its work.
He never knew how he happened to lose the remnant of his self-respect
and get into a quarrel with a man distinctly his inferior, nor how
he managed to slip on the icy sidewalk and fall heavily against the
curbstone. Merciful unconsciousness blinded him for a time, and when
he came to his senses he was in a tiny room, scantily furnished,
but exquisitely neat and clean. He was staring at the unfamiliar
surroundings when a soft foot-fall sounded beside the bed. He looked
up--to meet the clear eyes of the Madonna.
He was about to speak, but she stopped him by a gesture. "Hush," she
said, in a voice of mellow sweetness which soothed him inexpressibly,
"you must not talk now."
The touch of her cool fingers on his throbbing temples seemed to ease
the pain. He was quite willing to obey her and keep quiet. It was
not until the day following that he knew how badly he had been hurt,
and that it would be at least two months before he could walk again.
"Compound fracture," the doctor said, and Arnold shuddered, for he had
heard of such things before.
As the days went by, the gentle ministry of the Madonna did not for a
moment fail. "I say," he said huskily, one morning, "what makes you so
good to me?"
The high color mounted to her temples. "I want you to get well, that's
all."
She had a library card and brought books which he suggested. Her room
was near his and often in the night when he was restless with pain, she
came in silently, and, holding his hot hand in her cool fingers, read
until he went to sleep. He remembered her afterwards as she sat in the
lamplight, her hair falling around her shoulders and over the loose
black gown which she wore about the house.
Her voice soothed and charmed him. It was full of lights and, little
caressing notes and a haunting sweetness which, someway, he could not
forget. There had been but one woman in his life, and he knew there
would be no other.
The broken bones knit slowly, but the doctor was encouraging, and he
tried hard to be patient. He was ashamed to give way to petulance in
the presence of this gentle, sweet-voiced woman, whose name he knew,
but whom he preferred to call "Madonna."
"It means 'my lady'," he said to her one day, "and that is what you are
to me."
Through the whole of one painful night she read to him from Mrs.
Browning, only resting at short intervals when from very weariness he
fell into a short and troubled slumber.
Her education had been sadly neglected, he discovered, but her eager
facile mind was quick to comprehend. She had too, that inner sense of
beauty which makes all art its own.
Her voice suited itself to the exquisite melody of the words as she
read "A Denial." When it was finished she sat quite still, with a
dreamy, far-away look in her eyes.
"Of what are you thinking, Madonna?" he asked tenderly.
"Of this--of what it must be for a man and woman who love each
other to go away like this--because it isn't right for them to be
together--never to see each other again." Then she read once more those
four lines which have in them all the strength of loving and all the
pain of parting.
"So farewell, thou whom I have met too late
To let thee come so near;
Be happy while men call thee great
And one beloved woman feels thee dear--"
Something tightened around his heart and he took her cold fingers
into his own. "There's nothing in all the world that hurts like that,
Madonna. God keep you from knowing about it, little girl."
An older woman would have taken warning from his words, but she did
not. The caressing way in which he said "little girl" filled her soul
with strange joy. She had a childish, unquestioning faith in him.
Some day when he was better--but further than this her maiden thought
refused to go. She simply waited, as a queen might wait for her
coronation day.
He was planning to repay her kindness if it were in any way possible.
He knew she would not take money from him, but there were other ways.
Flowers--for he knew she loved them--the books that she liked best,
and perhaps something for the unfortunates to whom she gave herself so
unreservedly.
The winter was over, and April, warm with May's promise, came in
through the open window. Even the sullen roar of the city streets could
not drown the cheering song of two or three stray birds.
The week before Easter she brought home a tall slender lily in a pot,
with a single bud showing at the top of the green shaft. "They told me
it would blossom for Easter," she said happily, but she did not tell
him she had saved her carfare for days in order to buy it for him.
He was able to sit up now, but she would not let him go until it was
quite safe for him to walk. She seemed to cling, hungrily, to her last
days with him. "After Easter," she said bravely, "I won't keep you."
He was watching the lily with impatience almost equal to her own, and
tiny lines of white appeared on the green sheath. One day, it seemed as
if it would blossom too soon, and again, they feared that it would be
after Easter when the perfect flower opened.
"It had to climb up through a pretty dark place to find the light,
didn't it, Madonna?" he asked. "I suppose that's the way people do, and
God knows I've had my share of the dark."
Her eyes filled with tender pity and he went on. "You know, Madonna,
there's a pretty theory to the effect that you must suffer before you
amount to anything. A man can't write nor paint, and a woman can't sing
nor play before a cruel hurt. I don't mean the kind that makes a few
tears and is followed by forgetfulness--It's the kind that goes right
down where you live and cuts and stings and burns. You never think of
it without a shudder, even when the place heals up, if it ever does.
If it's lost friendship, you never have such a friend again--if it's a
lost love, you never can care again. Suffering would make a saint of
you, but I don't want you hurt like that--dear little girl."
He spoke no more, but the questioning maiden eyes sought his. It was
the day before Easter, and on the day following it he was to leave her.
For almost two months, she had been unfailingly kind to him; reading
to him night and day, caring for him as though he were a child, and
soothing him with her unspoken sympathy. Memory brought it all to him
with peculiar distinctness, and a new impulse came to him--an impulse
to lay bare his heart before the deep peaceful eyes of this child.
"Dear little Madonna of the Tambourine," he began, "there's a lot of
things I want to tell you before we say good-bye.
"I saw your sweet face at a curbstone meeting once, in the days when
I wasn't an outcast, and it's haunted me ever since. I wanted to find
the peace which made you so secure and happy--to get at your secret of
life. I wanted to be more worthy of--" He stopped and looked at her.
Her eyes were shining like stars and with a little catch in his voice,
he went on.
"There's a woman, Madonna, and worthless as I am she loved me, and
married me. We were happy for a little while, but I couldn't keep away
from the cursed drink. That's what put me into the slums. At last her
patience and her love gave out, and she sent me away from her. She told
me to come back to her, either with my shield, or on it, and thanks to
you, I'm going back to her to-morrow--with my shield."
No sound escaped her, but her hand grew cold as ice. Turning, he
looked for those starry eyes once more and, in a sudden flash of
understanding, he read her secret.
He started to his feet. "Can it be possible that you--that you--I never
dreamed--Oh, Madonna! Forgive me--if you can."
There was a long silence, then she said trying to speak steadily, "You
are not in the least to blame. I have had no thought of you she could
not know."
For a moment they looked into each other's eyes. "I am not worthy of
it, Madonna," he said huskily, "I do not deserve the love of any good
sweet woman."
"Would--would you go away to-day?" she asked almost in a whisper; then
with a brave little smile that went straight to his heart, she added:
"It's better, I think, to be quite alone."
He made his simple preparations, and she helped him as best she could
with trembling hands, but it was dark when he was ready to go. Neither
could frame the words they were wont to speak at parting, so they stood
in silence, hand clasping hand.
With only pity and understanding in his heart, he wanted to take her
into his arms for a moment, but she moved away from him. "No," she said
brokenly, "it must be like this. Be what she would have you be--she and
I."
She stood as he had left her until the street door closed below. She
watched him on the sidewalk, walking with slow uncertain steps, until
he was lost in the crowd. Then, stretching out in the dark, her empty
hands, she dropped on her knees beside the window. Her shoulders shook
with sobs, but there are no tears for such as she. She was far beyond
the blessed flow which blinds some eyes to the reality of pain. The
inner depths, bare and quivering, are healed by no such balm as this.
She voiced only the simple question which women of all ages have asked
in the midst of a cruel hurt--"Why? Dear God, why must it be?"
Some of the last lines of "A Denial" came to her, seemingly in pitiful
comment--
"So farewell, thou whom I have met too late
To let thee come so near;
Be counted happy--"
"If only she can care again," she said to herself, "it will not be so
hard for me--if 'one beloved woman feels thee dear!'"
The grey dawn broke at last and found her still upon her knees.
With the brightening east the signs of life began again in the street
below. After a little she stood up and looked far across the irregular
lines of roofs and chimney tops to the glowing tapestry of the morning
spread like a promise in the dull grey of the sky.
"He didn't want me hurt like this," she said aloud. "He told me he
didn't want me hurt like this."
The first rays of the sun shot into the little room and rested with
loving touch upon her face. The old childish look was gone, but in the
eyes of the woman who had wrought and suffered, something of the old
peace still lay. She turned back to her bare cheerless room, ready
to face the world again, and then a little cry escaped her. White,
radiant, glorified, her Easter lily had bloomed.