THE DIM LANTERN
Jane, in Baldy’s absence, dined on Sunday with the Follettes, in the
middle of the day. In the afternoon she and Evans went for a walk, and
came home to tea in the library.
Stretched in a long leather chair, Evans read to Jane and his mother
“The Eve of St. Agnes.”
“How bitter cold it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold:
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent were the flock in woolly fold.”
Jane, curled up on the couch in her favorite attitude, listened to that
incomparable description of stark winter weather, and was glad of the
warmth and coziness. She was glad, too, of this pleasant company--Mrs.
Follette was a great dear, with her duchess air, and her devotion to
Evans. And Evans, reading in that thrilling and unchanged voice, was at
his best.
As for Mrs. Follette, she was always glad to have Jane visit them.
The child was so cheerful, and Evans needed cheer. Then, too, Jane
was a delightful compromise between the girl of yesterday and the
ultra-modern maiden who shocked Mrs. Follette not only by her lack of
reverence but by her lack of reticence.
Jane might have bobbed hair, but she did not have a bobbed-hair mind.
The meaning of this conclusion was quite clear to Mrs. Follette,
however obscure it might be to others. Girls who cut off their hair, as
a rule, went farther--Jane stopped at her hair.
Then, too, Jane had what might be called old-fashioned domestic
qualities. She kept her little house as spick and span as she kept
herself. In winter everything was burnished and bright; in summer crisp
curtains waved in the warm breeze; there were cool shadows within the
clean, quiet rooms.
At the moment, Mrs. Follette was weighing seriously the fact of Jane as
a wife for Evans. She was pretty as well as cheerful. Had good manners.
Of course, in the old days, Evans would, inevitably, have looked
higher. There had been plenty of rich girls eager to attract him. He
had had unlimited invitations. Women had, in fact, quite run after him.
Florence Preston had rather made a fool of herself. And Florence’s
father had millions.
But now----? Mrs. Follette knew how little Evans had at the moment to
offer. She hated to admit it, but the truth was evident. Watching the
two young people, she decided that should Evans care for Jane, she
would erect no barriers. As for Jane, marriage with Evans would be, in
a way, a rise in the world. She would live at Castle Manor instead of
at Sherwood Park.
The poem had reached a point where Mrs. Follette felt that she ought to
protest. She was not quite sure that she approved of the situation it
outlined. The verse of the moment, for example--Porphyro’s plea to the
maid, old Angela:
“To lead him in close secrecy,
Even to Madelaine’s chamber and there hide
Him in a closet of such privacy,
That he might see her beauty unspy’d
And win, perhaps, that night, a peerless bride.”
Stripped of all its fine words, it was an impossible situation.
Apparently, however, the young people were without
self-consciousness....
“Out went the taper, as she hurried in:
Its little smoke in pallid moonshine died----”
Evans looked up. “Could there be anything lovelier than that last line?”
Jane’s eyes had dreams in them. “Don’t stop,” she said.
He read on.... “She closed the door ...” his voice took now a deeper
note.
“Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory like a saint:
She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings for heaven; Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.”
“Evans,” said his mother, as he paused again, “that poem doesn’t seem
to me exactly proper.”
He gave her a surprised glance. “Don’t spoil it for us, Mumsie.”
“Oh, well,” Mrs. Follette shrugged her nice shoulders, “we won’t argue.
But when I was a girl we didn’t read things like that.”
“But this was written before you were a girl.”
“What difference does that make?”
“But the richness and color. You see it, Jane, don’t you?”
“Yes. Finish it, Evans.”
And when he came to the end, she said, “If only life were like that.”
“Like what?”
“High romance. Porphyro says negligently, ‘For o’er the southern moors
I have a home for thee.’ But lovers of to-day have to think of rent and
food and clothes. And hotel bills for the honeymoon.”
“Oh, you women”--he sat up flaming--“are you conspiring to spoil my
poem? Jane, it is the dreams of men and women which shape their lives.”
As his eyes met hers something stirred within her like the flutter of a
bird’s wings lifted to the sun....
It was after five when Baldy telephoned triumphantly: “Jane, Edith
Towne has agreed to go home to-night. And I’m to take her. I called up
Mr. Towne and told him and he wants you to be there when we come. He’ll
send Briggs for you and we are all to have dinner together.”
“But, Baldy, I don’t know Edith Towne. Why doesn’t he ask some of her
own friends?”
“She doesn’t want ’em. Hates them all, and anyhow he has asked you. Why
worry?”
“I’ll have to go home and dress.”
“Well, you’re to let him know at once where Briggs can get you. I told
him you were at the Follettes’.”
Jane went back and repeated the conversation to Evans and his mother.
Mrs. Follette was much interested. The Townes were most important
people. “How nice for you, Jane.”
But Evans disagreed with her. “What makes you say that, Mother? It
isn’t nice. It will simply be upsetting.”
“I don’t see why you say that, Evans,” Jane argued. “I am not easily
upset.”
“But with all that money. You can’t keep up with them.”
“Don’t put ideas into Jane’s head,” his mother remonstrated; “a lady is
always a lady.”
But Jane sided now with Evans. “I see what he means, Mrs. Follette. I
haven’t the clothes. I haven’t a thing to wear to-night.”
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of your looks.” Evans got up and stood on the
hearth-rug. “But people like that! Jane, I wish you wouldn’t go.”
She looked up at him with her chin tilted. “I don’t see how I can
refuse.”
“Of course she can’t. Evans, don’t be so unreasonable,” Mrs. Follette
interposed; “it will be a wonderful thing for Jane to know Edith.”
“Will it be such a wonderful thing for her to know Frederick Towne?” He
flung it at them.
Jane demanded, “Don’t you want me to have any good times?”
He stared at her for a moment, and when he spoke it was in a different
tone. “Yes, of course. I beg your pardon, Janey.”
Mrs. Follette, having effaced herself for the moment from the
conversation, decided that things between her son and little Jane
Barnes might reach a climax at any moment. “I believe he’s half in love
with her,” she told herself in some bewilderment.
As for Frederick Towne, she didn’t consider him for a moment. Jane was
a pretty child. But Frederick Towne could have his pick of women. There
would be nothing serious in this friendship with Jane.
Jane called up Towne. “It was good of you to ask me,” she said. “I am
at the Follettes’, but I’ll go home and dress and Briggs can come for
me there.”
“Come as you are.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you could see me. I took a walk with Evans
this afternoon and I show the effects of it.”
“Evans? Oh, Casabianca?”
“What makes you call him that?”
“I thought of it when I saw him waiting for you at the top of the
terrace. ‘The boy stood on the burning deck----’” he laughed.
“I don’t think that’s funny at all,” said Jane, frankly.
“Don’t you? Well, I beg your pardon. I’ll beg it again when I get you
here. Briggs will reach Sherwood at about seven. I would drive out
myself, but I’ve an awful cold, and the doctor tells me I must stay in.
And Cousin Annabel is sick in bed with a cold, so you must take pity on
me and keep me company....”
Jane hung up the receiver. It would, she decided, be an exciting
adventure. But she was not sure that she liked Frederick Towne....
Evans walked home with her. The air was warmer than it had been for
days, and faint mists had risen. The mist thickened finally to a fog
which rolled over them as if blown from the high seas. Yet the sea was
miles away, and the fog was born in the rivers and streams, and in the
melting snows.
They found it somewhat difficult to keep to the road. They were almost
smothered in the thick gray masses. Their voices had a muffled sound.
Evans’ hand was on Jane’s arm so that they might keep together.
“Jane,” he said, “I made a fool of myself about Towne. But honestly--I
was afraid----”
“Of what?”
“That he might fall in love with you----”
“He’s not thinking of me, Evans, and besides he’s too old----”
“Do you really feel that way about it, Jane?”
“Of course--silly.”
He could not see her face--but the words in her laughing lovely voice
gave him a sense of reassurance.
“Janey,” he said, “if I could only have you like this always. Shut away
from the world.”
“But I don’t want to be shut away. I should feel--caged----”
“Not if you cared.”
There was in his tone the huskiness of intense feeling. She was moved
by it. “Oh, I know what you mean. But love won’t come to me like
that--shut in. I shall want freedom, and sunshine. I’ll be a gull over
the sea--a ship in full sail--a gypsy on the road--but I’ll never be a
ghost in a fog.”
His hand dropped from her arm. “Perhaps you’ll be a princess in a
castle. Towne can make you that.”
“Why do you keep harping on Mr. Towne? I don’t like it.”
“Because--oh, I think everybody wants you----”
And now it was she who caught at his arm in the mist, and leaned on
it. “I’m not the least in love with Frederick Towne. And I shall never
marry a man I don’t love, Evans.”
When they came to the little house they found old Sophy nodding in the
kitchen. She always stayed with Jane when Baldy was away. So Evans said
“Good-night” and started back.
He found the path between the pines, walked a few steps and stumbled.
He sat down on the log that had tripped him. He had no wish to go
on. His depression was intense. Night was before him and darkness.
Loneliness. And Jane would be with Frederick Towne.
He had for Jane a feeling of hopeless adoration. She would never be
his. For how could he try to keep her? “I’ll be a gull over the sea--a
ship in full sail--a gypsy on the road--never a ghost in a fog.”
And he was just a ghost in a fog! Oh, what was the use of ever
“climbing up the climbing wave”? One must have something of hope to
live on. A dream or two--ahead.
How long he sat there he did not know. And all at once he was aware
of a pale blur against the prevailing gloom. And then he heard Jane’s
voice calling, “Evans? Evans?”
He answered and she came up to him. “Your mother telephoned--that you
had not come home--and she was worried.”
She was holding the lantern up to the length of her arm. In her orange
cloak she shone through the veil of mist, luminous.
“My dear,” she said, gently, “why are you sitting here?”
“Because there isn’t any use in going on.”
She lowered the lantern so that it shone on his face. What she saw
there frightened her. “Are you feeling this way because of me?” she
asked in a shaking voice.
“Because of everything.”
“Evans, I won’t go to the Townes if you want me to stay.”
He looked up at her as she bent above him with the lantern. She seemed
to shine within and without, like some celestial visitor.
“Would you stay, Jane, if I wanted it?”
“Yes.”
He stood up. “I don’t want it. Not really. I’m not quite such a selfish
pig,” his smile was ghastly.
She was silent for a moment, then she said, “I’m going home with you,
Evans. Wait until I tell Sophy to send Briggs after me.”
He tried to protest, but she was firm. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
She returned presently, the lantern in one hand and her slipper bag in
the other. “I put on heavier shoes. I should ruin my slippers.”
As they trod the path together, the light of the lantern shone in round
spots of gold, now in front of them, now behind them. The fog pressed
close, but the path was clear.
“Evans,” said Jane, “I want you to promise me something.”
“Anything, except--not to love you.”
“It has nothing to do with love of me, but it has something to do with
love of God.”
He knew how hard it was for her to say that. Jane did not speak easily
of such things.
She went on with some hesitation. Her voice, muffled by the fog, had a
muted note of music.
“Evans, you mustn’t let what I do make you or break you. Whether I love
you or not, you must go on. You--you couldn’t hold me if you weren’t
strong enough, even if I was your wife. And there is strength in you,
if you’ll only believe it. Oh, you must believe it, Evans. And you
mustn’t make me feel responsible. I can’t stand it. To feel all the
time that I am hurting--you.”
She was sobbing. A little incoherent.
“And you _are_ captain of your soul, Evans. You. Not anyone else. I
can’t be. I can be a help, and oh, I will help all I can. You know
that. But--I love you like a big brother--not in any other way. If
anything should happen to you, it would be dreadful for me, just as it
would be dreadful if anything happened to Baldy.”
“Janey, my dear, don’t,” for she was clinging to his arm, crying as if
her heart would break.
“But I do care for you so much, Evans. I was frantic when your mother
telephoned. I wasn’t quite dressed and I made Sophy get the lantern,
and then I ran down the path, and looked for you.”
He stopped and laid his hand on her shoulder. Her weakness, her broken
words had roused in him a sudden protective tenderness.
“My little girl,” he said, “don’t. God helping me, I’m going to get
back. And you are going to light my way. Jane, do you know when I saw
you coming towards me with that dim lantern it seemed symbolic. Hope
held out to me--seen through a fog, faintly. But a light, nevertheless.”
“Oh, Evans, if I could love you, I would, you know that.”
“I know. You’d tie up the broken wings of every bird. You’d give
crutches to the lame, and food to the hungry. And that’s the way you
feel about me.”
He had let her go now, and they stood apart, shrouded in ghostly white.
“God helping me,” he said again, “I’ll get back. That’s a promise,
Janey, and here’s my hand upon it.”
She gave him her hand. “God helping us both,” she said.
He lifted her hand and kissed it. Then, in silence, they walked on,
until they reached the house....
The Towne car was waiting, and Mrs. Follette in a flurry welcomed them.
“I don’t see why you didn’t ride over with him.”
“He hadn’t come, and we preferred to walk.”
“What was the matter with you, Evans?”
“Nothing much, Mother. I’m sorry you were fussed.” He gave her no
further explanation.
Jane put on her slippers and went off in the great car. And then Evans
said, “I’m going over to Hallam’s.”
“Aren’t you well, my dear?”
“I want to talk to him.” He saw her anxious look, and bent and kissed
her. “Don’t worry, Mumsie, I’m all right.”
Dr. Hallam’s old estate adjoined the Follette farm. The doctor was a
nerve specialist, and went every morning to Washington, coming back
at night to the quiet of his charming home. He was unmarried and was
looked after by men-servants. He had been much interested in Evans’
case, and had in fact had charge of it.
The doctor was by the library fire, smoking a cigar and reading a brown
book. He welcomed Evans heartily. “I was wondering when you would turn
up again.” He showed the title of his book, “Boswell. There was a man.
As great as the man he wrote about, and we are just beginning to find
it out.”
“Rare edition?” Evans sat down.
“Yes. Got it at Lowdermilk’s yesterday.”
“We’ve oodles of old books on our shelves. Ought to sell them, I
suppose.”
“I wouldn’t sell one of mine.” Hallam was emphatic. “I’d rather murder
a baby.”
Evans flamed suddenly. “I’d sell mine, if I could get the things I
want.”
“I don’t want anything as much as I want my books.”
“I do. I want life as I used to live it.”
The doctor sat up and looked at him. “You mean before the war?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“I’m tired of being half a man. If there’s any way out of it, I want
you to tell me.”
The doctor’s eyes were bright with interest. He knew the first symptoms
of recovery in such cases. The neurasthenic quality of Evans’ trouble
had robbed him of initiative. His waking-up was a promising sign.
“The thing to do, of course, is to get to work. Why don’t you open an
office?”
“A fat chance I’d have of getting clients.”
“I think they’d come.”
The doctor smoked for a time in silence, then he said, “Decide on
something hard to do, and do it. Do it if you feel you are going to die
in the attempt.”
There was something inspiring to Evans in the idea. Hard things. That
was it. He poured out the story of the past few days. The awful scene
with Rusty. To-night in the fog under the pines. “Wanted more than
anything to drop myself in the river.”
He was walking the floor, back and forth, limping to one edge of the
rug, then limping to the other. “Then Jane came. Little Jane Barnes.
You know her, and she told me--where to get off--said I was--captain of
my soul----” He stopped in front of the doctor, and smiled whimsically.
“Are any of us captains of our souls, doctor?”
“I’ll be darned if I know.” The doctor was intensely serious. “Will
power has a lot to do with things. The trouble is when your will won’t
work----”
“Mine seems to be working on one cylinder.” Again Evans was pacing the
rug. “But that idea of an office appeals to me. It will take a bit of
money, though. And it is rather a problem to know where to get it.”
“Sell some of the old books. I’ll buy them.”
Light leaped into Evans’ eyes. “It would be one way, wouldn’t it?
Mother would rather hate it. But what’s a library against a life?” He
seemed to fling the question to a listening universe.
The doctor laughed. “She’ll be sensible if you put it up to her. And
you must frivol a bit. Play around with the girls.”
“I don’t want any girls except Jane.”
“Little Jane Barnes. Well, she’ll do.”
“I’ll say she will.”
The doctor, watching him as he walked back and forth, said, “The thing
to do is to map out a normal day. Make it pretty close to the program
you followed before the war. You haven’t happened to keep a diary, have
you?”
“Yes. It’s a clumsy record. Mother started me when I was a kid.”
“That’s what we want. Read it every night, and do some of the things
the next day that you did then. You will find you can stick closer than
you think. And it will give you a working plan.”
Evans sat down and discussed the idea. It was late when he rose to
leave.
“It will be slow,” was Hallam’s final admonition, “but I believe you
can do it. And when things go wrong, just honk and I’ll lend you some
gas,” his big laugh boomed out, as they stood in the door together.
“Nasty night.”
“I have a lantern.” Evans picked it up from the porch.
* * * * *
When Evans reached home his mother called from up-stairs, “I thought
you were never coming.”
“Hallam and I had a lot to talk about.”
He came running up, and entering her room found her propped up on her
pillows.
Mrs. Follette in bed lost nothing of her dignity. Her gray hair at
night was braided and wound into a coronet above her serene forehead.
She wore something knitted in white and black about her shoulders.
There was a prayer-book on her bedside table--and pineapple posts to
her bed. She had inherited her religion and her furniture from her
ancestors, and she kept them both in order.
“Mother,” said Evans, and stood looking down at her, “Hallam wants me
to sell some of the old books and use the money to open an office.”
“What kind of office?”
“Law. In town.”
“But are you well enough, Evans?”
“He says that I am. He says that I must think that I am well, Mother.”
“But----”
“Dearest, don’t spoil it with doubts. It’s my life, Mother.”
There was a look on his face which she had not seen since his return.
Uplifted, eager. A light in his eyes, like the light which had shone in
the eyes of a boy.
She found it difficult to speak. “My dear, the books are yours. Do as
you think best.”
He leaned over and kissed her, lifting her a bit. There was energy as
well as affection in the quick caress. She drew herself away laughing,
breathless. “How strong you are.”
“Am I? Well, I think I am. And I am going to conquer the world, Mumsie.”
* * * * *
His exaltation lasted during the reading of the diary. It was a fat
little book, and the pages were written close in his fine firm script.
He found things between the leaves--a four-leaved clover Jane had sent
him when he made the football team. A rose, colorless and dry. Florence
Preston had given it to him.
He dropped the rose in the waste-basket. How could he ever have thought
of Florence? Love wasn’t a thing of blue eyes and pale gold hair. It
was a thing of fire and flame and fighting.
Fighting! That was it. With your back to the wall--and winning!
For some day he meant to win Jane. Did she think she could be in the
world and not be his? And if she loved strength she should have it.
He bent his head in his hands--his hands clasped tensely. There was a
prayer in his heart. His whole being ached with the agony of his effort.
“Oh, God, let me fight and win. Bring me back to the full measure of a
man.”
Again he opened the book. Bits of printed verse dropped out of it.
Jane had sent him this, “_One who never turned his back, but marched
breast-forward._”
Well, he had turned his back. That day in the snow. The thought gripped
him. Made him white and sick. He stood up, praying again in an agony of
mind, “Bring me back.”
He opened the book and read of Jane, and of himself as he had once
been. He skipped the record of his college days, except where he found
such reference as this: “Little Jane is growing up. She met me at the
station and held out her hand to me. I used always to kiss her, but
this time I didn’t dare. She was different somehow, but some day I’ll
kiss her.”
And this: “Jane is rather a darling. But I am beginning to believe that
I like ’em fair.” That was when he had a terrible crush on Florence
Preston, whose coloring was blue and gold. But it hadn’t lasted, and he
had come back to Jane with a sense of refreshment.
He found at last the pages given over to those first days after he had
been admitted to the Washington bar, and had hung out his shingle.
“Sat at my desk all the morning. Great bluff. One client received with
great effect of busy-ness. Had lunch with a lot of fellows--pancakes
and sausages--ate an armful. Tea with three débutantes at the
Shoreham--peaches. Dance at the Oakleys’ in Georgetown. Corking time.
One deadly moment when the butler took my overcoat. Poor people ought
not to dance where there are butlers.”
Remembering that incident, he leaned back in his chair and laughed.
The Oakleys had all the money in the world, and a background of
aristocracy. Evans’ overcoat was rusty and shiny at the elbows.
The butler, a recent importation from London, had been imposing in
knee-breeches and many buttons. His manner had been perfect, but Evans
had been aware of the servant’s scorn of rustiness and shininess. Then
his own good sense had come to the rescue, and he had gone in and had
danced with as light heels as the rest of them.
He found more than one reference to his poverty. “I shall have to stop
eating, or I can’t wear my evening clothes. And I can’t afford new
ones. Jane says she hates to have me lose weight--that I look big and
beautiful now like Michelangelo’s David at the Corcoran. I don’t know
whether she is in earnest. One never knows. Her eyes never tell.”
And again: “If I had money enough, I’d ask Jane to marry me. But I
can’t pay for Huyler’s and matinée tickets. And anyhow, I’m sure she
wouldn’t have me. Not right off the bat. We’re made for each other all
right. And some day, if she doesn’t know it, I’ll make her.”
There were spring days with Jane. “Gee, but it’s good to be alive.
Jane and I walked down to the glen this morning. Picked wild flowers,
dogtooth violets, hepatica, anemones; and we sang--with nobody to hear
us. I let out my voice--in the Toreador’s song, and Jane sat there
and looked and listened, and said when I had finished, ‘It’s like
the opera, Evans.’ I believe she meant it, and she didn’t want me to
stop.... I felt pretty fine to have her there, liking it.... Oh, she’s
a darling. I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t.”
Autumn came: “Jane and I went to-day to gather fox grapes. Mother is
making jelly and so is Jane. The vines were a great tangle. Shut in
among them we seemed a thousand miles away from the world. Jane made
herself a wreath of grape leaves, and looked like a nymph of the woods.
I told her so and she gazed at me with those great gray eyes of hers
and said, ‘Evans, when the gods were young they must have lived like
this--with grapes for their food, and the birds to sing for them, and
the little wild things of the wood for company. It would be heavenly,
wouldn’t it?’ She’s a queer kid. Life with her wouldn’t be humdrum.
She’s so intensely herself.”
“We talked a bit about the war. I told her I should go if France needed
me. I am not going to wait until this country gets into it. We owe a
debt to France....”
He stopped there, and closed the book. He did not care to read farther.
Oh, his debt to France had been paid. And after that day with Jane
among the tangled vines things had moved faster--and faster.
He didn’t want to think of it....