ROSE RECEIVES A LETTER
Rose went directly from that storm to the repose and apparent peace of
the country, and it helped her to make a great discovery. She found
every familiar thing had taken on a peculiar value--a literary and
artistic value. It was all so reposeful, so secure. A red barn set
against a gray-green wooded hillside was no longer commonplace. "How
pretty!" she thought; "I never noticed that before."
A little girl wrapped in a shawl was watching cattle in the field; a dog
sat near, his back to the misty drizzle. Rose saw it and put herself in
the place of that child, chilled and blue of hand, with unfallen tears
upon her cheeks.
A crow flying by with ringing, rough cry made her blood leap. Some
cattle streamed up a lane and over a hill; their legs moving invisibly
gave them a gliding motion like a vast centipede. Some mysterious charm
seemed imparted to everything she saw, and, as the familiar lines of the
hills began to loom against the sky, she became intolerably eager to see
her father and the farm. She hoped it would be a sunny day, but it was
raining heavily when she got out at the station.
He was there, the dear, sweet, old face smiling, almost tearful. He had
an umbrella and couldn't return her hug; but he put his arm about her
and hurried her to the carriage, and in a few moments they were
spattering up the familiar road.
Instantly it seemed as if she had never been away. She was a little girl
again; the horses shook their heads, impatient at the rain; the pools in
the road were green as liquid emerald, and were dimpled by the pelting
drops. The wheels flung segments of mud into the air, but the horses
drove ahead sullenly, almost desperately, unmindful of the splash and
splatter of mud and water.
Rose took keen delight in it all. She had been shut away from nature so
long, it seemed good to get back into even the stern mood of a May
storm. The great, reeling masses of gray cloud delighted her, and the
ringing cry of frogs seemed delicious orchestration. Everything was
fresh, clean, almost harsh. How arid and artificial the city life seemed
in the freshness of green fields!
It was a pleasure to return to the barnyard, to get back into the
kitchen where her aunt was phlegmatically working away at
supper-getting. She wiped her hands on her apron, and said "How-de-do!"
as if Rose were a neighbor just dropping in for a call.
The life all seemed heroically dull, but the coolness, repose and sanity
of nature was elemental, as if she had risen into the rainy sky or sunk
into the waters of the ocean. It was deathly still at times. And dark,
dark and illimitable and freshly sweet the night shut down over the
valley.
She went to sleep with the soft roar of the falling rain near her
window; and the faint puffing in of the breeze brought to her the
delicious smell of the rain-washed leaves, the acrid, pungent odor of
poplars, the sweet smell of maples, the fragrance of rich loam--she knew
them all.
By force of contrast she thought of Mason and his life in the city. The
roar of traffic; the thunder of great presses; the nights at the opera
or the theater, all had enormous weight and value to her, but how remote
it all was! In the country the city seemed unreal; in the city the
country seemed impossible.
She awoke at the cry of a jay in the maples, and then as she listened
she heard a mourning-dove sob from the distance. Robins were laughing
merrily, an oriole whistled once and flew away, and hark! yes, a thrush
was singing, sitting high in some tree-top, she knew.
The rain was over; the valley was flooded with sunshine. O, so
beautiful!--flooded with light like the love of God. She sprang up with
joyous energy. Life's problem was not without solution if she could
live--both city and country, too.
She felt her joy of the country doubled by her winter in the city--this
day was made marvelous by that storm on the lake.
Rhymes grew in her mind upon subjects hitherto untouched by her literary
perception. Things she had known all her life, familiar plants, flowers,
trees, etc., seemed touched all at once by supernatural radiance.
The clouds on the hills, the buzz of bees in the clover, the sabre swing
of poplar trees against the sky, moved her to song, and she wrote daily
with marvelous ease. She flung herself prone on the bank by the spring,
and strove to mix and be one with the wind and the trees. She thought of
her childish crooning over Carl that day his head lay in her lap, and
its significance came to her and voiced itself in music.
She traced out every path where her feet had trod as a child, and the
infinite significance and terror and high beauty of life and death came
upon her. She seemed to summon up and analyze all her past, as if she
were about to end one life and begin another. These wonderful moods and
memories in some unaccountable way co-ordinated themselves in lines of
verse, and the restless, vigorous heart of the girl felt the splendid
peace which comes when the artist finds at last that art which is verily
his.
The body of her verse grew, and she longed for Mason's opinion upon it,
and yet she feared to send it, it seemed so different from other verse.
At times she felt its passionate and imaginative quality, and made up
selections to send him, but ended always by putting them away again.
She had his picture in her room, and sometimes she sat down to write
with his sadly inscrutable face before her. She could see in it (as she
studied it here in her home) the lines of varied and restless thought
which make up the face of a man who largely comprehends American
civilization in the light of experience.
That face represented to her the highest type of manhood, and something
more. It was refined and infinitely subtle compared with the simple,
almost ox-like faces of the men about her. It was sad, too, as her
father's face in repose was sad, but the sadness was different. There
was patient, resigned sadness in her father's eyes and lips; in Mason's,
bitter, rebellious, perhaps despairing sadness, and something else,
too--youth taking hold on the hopelessness of the whole world.
And yet she knew how sweetly those lips could smile, and she had felt
the gentleness and purity hid in those eyes. He looked at her as no
other man looked, without boldness, without uncertainty, clean, manly
and just; and still there were those cynical lines about the lips; not
deep, but still perceptible.
She thought less of his fine, erect bearing, and yet she liked to see
him walking down the street. He had physical power and dignity, but his
face and eyes were etched in minutest detail upon her brain. The life
companionship of such a man came to seem more and more impossible for
her to attain to. The common little details of her life seemed to lower
her. She fell back into inelegant habits and careless speech, and every
time she realized it, it put Mason far off and far above her. Her verse
lost its brilliancy, its buoyancy, and became dark and bitter at times.
Every night she wondered if she might not hear from him. He had promised
to write, and he had hinted at something very important. She knew that
she had no definite claim upon him, and yet her last letter had
contained one question, not of any importance only as it gave him a
chance to reply if he felt like it.
Then the question came: "What of my winter in the city? What has it done
for me? Is not life as insoluble as ever--success as far away as ever?"
Could she live here in the country any easier because of her stay there;
did it not, in fact, make life harder?
It was in thinking about these things and Mason's letter, which did not
come, that her new-found rapture in nature began to cool down. She began
to spend more time in her room, thinking of him, and wondering what his
attitude toward her really was.
She had moments at last when his face seemed cynically smiling at her.
What did he care for an awkward country girl like her? He pitied her,
that was all. He wanted to help her, and had tried, and finding her
dull, had given her up and forgotten her. He knew scores of beautiful
women, actresses, artists, millionaires' daughters; it was absurd to
suppose that a girl from the coolly could be of any special interest to
him; and to win his love, that was impossible.
She had not the personal vanity which makes so many pretty and brainless
women think themselves irresistible to any man, and a fair return for
any man's name and fame. Her flesh she made little of in the question.
She hoped each week for a reply, and in her letters to Isabel asked for
news about "all friends," meaning one especially.
Isabel wrote, saying they had invited Mr. Mason up to stay a few days at
their cottage, and that Elbert Harvey had asked after her, and couldn't
she come down?
By the middle of July she had begun to pass days without writing at all.
When the letter from Mason came her father brought it to her with a
smile: "Guess this is a love-letter; it's a big one!"
She took it in her hand, feeling a keen, swift premonition of its
importance. It was indeed a heavy letter--almost a packet.
She went to her room with it and took a seat by the window, quite
deliberately, but her hands shook as she opened the envelope. Her senses
seemed some way to acquire unnatural keenness, like a scared animal's.
She heard every voice about the barnyard, and she felt the wind on her
cheek like a live thing beating its slow wings. The letter began simply:
"DEAR MISS DUTCHER:
"I must begin by asking pardon for not writing before, but as a
matter of fact I have not found this letter easy to compose. It
represents a turning point in my life, and contains an
important decision, and I have never been less sure of my
judgment than now.
"This letter may be considered an offer of marriage. It is well
to say that now, and then all the things which come after, will
be given their proper weight. Let me state the debit side of
the account first, and if you feel that it is too heavy you can
put the letter down and write me a very short answer, and the
matter will be ended.
"First, I say to you: whoso weds me weds sorrow. I do not
promise to make you happy, though I hope my influence will not
be always untoward. I cannot promise any of the things husbands
are supposed to bring. I cannot promise a home. My own living
is precarious, dependent upon my daily grind of newspaper work.
For though I hope to achieve a success with my novel, great
successes with novels do not mean much money. I do not feel
either that I shall ever be free from money cares; luxury and I
are to continue strangers.
"I cannot promise to conform to your ways, nor to bend to your
wishes, though I will try to do so. I cannot promise to assume
cordial relations with your relatives, nor accept your
friendships as binding upon me.
"I cannot promise to be faithful to you until death, but I
shall be faithful so long as I fill the relation of husband to
you. I shall not lead a double life, or conceal from you any
change in my regard toward you. If at any time I find a woman
whom I feel I should live with, rather than with you, I shall
tell you of her with perfect frankness. I _think_ I shall find
you all-sufficient, but I do not know. Men and women change,
grow weary of things, of bonds, of duties. It may be that I
shall become and continue the most devoted of husbands, but I
cannot promise it. Long years of association develop
intolerable traits in men and women very often.
"On the other hand, let me say I exact nothing from you. I do
not require you to cook for me, nor keep house for me. You are
mistress of yourself; to come and go as you please, without
question and without accounting to me. You are at liberty to
cease your association with me at any time, and consider
yourself perfectly free to leave me whenever any other man
comes with power to make you happier than I.
"I want you as comrade and lover, not as subject or servant, or
unwilling wife. I do not claim any rights over you at all. You
can bear me children or not, just as you please. You are a
human soul like myself, and I shall expect you to be as free
and as sovereign as I, to follow any profession or to do any
work which pleases you. It is but just to say that I have never
been a man of loose habits. No woman has any claim upon me for
deed or word. I have thought at various times that I could
marry this woman or that woman, but I have never before made a
proposition of marriage to any woman.
"I have written you in good, set terms what you may expect of
me. I am not a demonstrative man by nature, and my training
from childhood has made me saving of words of endearment. My
love for you must be taken largely for granted after it is once
stated, for I regard the word 'love' as a jewel not to be
carelessly tossed from hand to hand.
"Doubtlessly I shall make a dull companion--that I cannot judge
for myself."
The letter concluded with this characteristic touch; she seemed to
hear his voice as she read it:
"I have written frankly because I believed it would prejudice
you in my favor. Had I believed otherwise, doubtless I should
have written in terms of flattery and deceit, for of such is
man when seeking woman in marriage.
"If you return the affirmative answer I shall be very happy to
come up and spend the rest of my vacation at your father's
home--provided it is agreeable to you."
Rose sat rigidly still in her chair, her hands in her lap, holding the
letter.
It had come again, this question of marriage, and this time it appealed
to her whole nature--to her intellectual part as well as to her material
self; uttered this time by a voice which had no tremor in it.
How strange it all was! How different from the other proposals she had
received; apparently cold and legal, yet under the lines she felt
something deep and manly and passionate, because she was only a coule
girl, and he was a man of the great intellectual world; a man who
"molded public opinion" by the power of his editorial pen. He was
greater than that. In his presence you felt him to be a man of national
reputation living quietly under an assumed name.
There rose a great pride in her heart. He had selected her from among
the women of the world! He loved her so much he had written her this
strange letter, which plead for her under its rigid order of words. She
held the letter to her lips as if to get its secret meaning so and then
she dropped it as if it were a husk. No matter what it said, she felt
the spirit of the man.
She wrote a few lines and sealed them quickly. Then she fell into
thought upon the terms of his letter. She hardly comprehended the
significance of the minor statements, so filled was she with the one
great fact, he wished her to be his wife! She was poor, unknown, and yet
he had chosen her!
There was something sad in the letter, too--like his face it was
inscrutable, intricate, but (she believed) noble in intention. The
freedom of action which he claimed for himself did not trouble her, for
she felt his love beneath it. His word "comrade" pleased her, too. It
seemed to be wholesome and sweet, and promised intellectual
companionship never before possible to her.
O, to be the wife of such a man! to have his daily help and presence; it
was wonderful, it could not be true! Yet there lay the letter in her
lap, and there the firm, calm, even signature. She rose to her feet and
her heart dilated with pride, and her head was that of a newly crowned
princess. Oh, the great splendid world out there!
She took up her letter suddenly and went downstairs and out into the
yard in search of her father. He was sitting by the bees, with dreamy
eyes. He spent a great deal of his time there.
"Father, I want you to hitch Kitty to the buggy for me."
"Why, of course. Where are you goin', Rose?"
"I'm going to the Siding to post a letter. O, pappa John!" she cried
suddenly, putting her arms round him, "I'm going to be married."
John did not instantly comprehend her passion; he was slower to move,
but he said:
"Why, Rosie! When? Who to?"
"To a man in Chicago, Mr. Warren Mason, a great editor. I'm just writing
to him to come."
John began to feel the solemnity of the thought.
"Does he live in Chicago?"
"Yes." She understood his thought. "But we'll come and see you, summers,
just the same, pappa John."
"Well, I'll take the letter down."
"No, I must take it myself," she said, smilingly, holding the letter
behind her like a child.
There was something fine in carrying the letter to the office herself.
It seemed to hasten it. The horse was spirited and carried her at a
steady swift trot up hill and down, and the railway track was soon in
sight.
Suddenly an idea seized her; why not telegraph her answer. They might
suspect him to be her lover, but what did she care now? She penned this
message:
"Come up tomorrow if you can, please. Rose."
But afterward, as she approached the office, she shrank from handing it
in. It seemed to her too plainly a love message. She mailed her letter
and fell to calculating when it would reach him. He could not possibly
come till the second day, whereas if she telegraphed he might arrive in
the morning. This thought strengthened her resolution; going over to the
window she placed the message firmly before the operator, who knew her
and admired her deeply.
"Please send that at once, Mr. Bingham."
The operator smiled and bowed, and when he read the message he looked up
at her keenly, but did not smile.
"Any answer?" he asked.
"No, probably not," she replied. "Will it go right out?"
"Immediately."
As she turned away to ride home her soul took wing. A marvelous
elevation and peace came upon her. It was done. Life held more than
promise now, it contained certainties. Her chosen one of Israel was
coming!