Perhaps Philip's announcement of his good-fortune to Alice and to
Celia was not very coherent, but his meaning was plain. Perhaps he
was conscious that the tidings would not increase the cheerfulness of
Celia's single-handed struggle for the ideal life; at least, he would
rather write than tell her face to face.
However he put the matter to her, with what protestations of
affectionate friendship and trust he wrapped up the statement that he
made as matter of fact as possible, he could not conceal the ecstatic
state of his mind.
Nothing like it certainly had happened to anybody in the world before.
All the dream of his boyhood, romantic and rose-colored, all the
aspirations of his manhood, for recognition, honor, a place in the life
of his time, were mere illusions compared to this wonderful crown of
life--a woman's love. Where did it come from into this miserable world,
this heavenly ray, this pure gift out of the divine beneficence, this
spotless flower in a humanity so astray, this sure prophecy of the final
redemption of the world? The immeasurable love of a good woman! And to
him! Philip felt humble in his exaltation, charitable in his selfish
appropriation. He wanted to write to Celia--but he did not--that he
loved her more than ever. But to Alice he could pour out his wealth of
affection, quickened to all the world by this great love, for he knew
that her happiness would be in his happiness.
The response from Alice was what he expected, tender, sweet, domestic,
and it was full of praise of Evelyn, of love for her. “Perhaps, dear
Phil,” she wrote, “I shall love her more than I do you. I almost
think--did I not remember what a bad boy you could be sometimes--that
each one of you is too good for the other. But, Phil, if you should ever
come to think that she is not too good for you, you will not be good
enough for her. I can't think she is perfect, any more than you are
perfect--you will find that she is just a woman--but there is nothing
in all life so precious as such a heart as hers. You will come here,
of course, and at once, whenever it is. You know that big, square,
old-fashioned corner chamber, with the high-poster. That is yours.
Evelyn never saw it. The morning and the evening sun shoot across it,
and the front windows look on the great green crown of Mount Peak. You
know it. There is not such a place in the world to hear the low and
peaceful murmur of the river, all night long, rushing, tumbling,
crooning, I used to think when I was a little girl and dreamed of things
unseen, and still going on when the birds begin to sing in the dawn. And
with Evelyn! Dear Phil!”
It was in another strain, but not less full of real affection, that
Celia wrote:
“I am not going to congratulate you. You are long past the need of that.
But you know that I am happy in having you happy. You thought I never
saw anything? I wonder if men are as blind as they seem to be? And I
had fears. Do you know a man ought to build his own monument. If he goes
into a monument built for him, that is the end of him. Now you can work,
and you will. I am so glad she isn't an heiress any more. I guess there
was a curse on that fortune. But she has eluded it. I believe all you
tell me about her. Perhaps there are more such women in the world than
you think. Some day I shall know her, and soon. I do long to see her.
Love her I feel sure I shall.
“You ask about myself. I am the same, but things change. When I get
my medical diploma I shall decide what to do. My little property just
suffices, with economy, and I enjoy economy. I doubt if I do any general
practice for pay. There are so many young doctors that need the money
for practice more than I do. And perhaps taking it up as a living would
make me sort of hard and perfunctory. And there is so much to do in this
great New York among the unfortunate that a woman who knows medicine can
do better than any one else.
“Ah, me, I am happy in a way, or I expect to be. Everybody--it isn't
because I am a woman I say this--needs something to lean on now and
then. There isn't much to lean on in the college, nor in many of my
zealous and ambitious companions there. There is more faith in the poor
people down in the wards where I go. They are kind to each other, and
most of them, not all, believe in something. They, have that, at
any rate, in all their trials and poverty. Philip, don't despise the
invisible. I have got into the habit of going into a Catholic church
down there, when I am tired and discouraged, and getting the peace of
it. It is a sort of open door! You need not jump to the conclusion that
I am 'going over.' Maybe I am going back. I don't know. I have always
you know, been looking for something.
“I like to sit there in that dim quiet and think of things I can't think
of elsewhere. Do you think I am queer? Philip, all women are queer. They
haven't yet been explained. That is the reason why the novelists find
it next to impossible, with all the materials at hand, to make a good
woman--that is a woman. Do you know what it is to want what you don't
want? Longing is one thing and reason another.
“Perhaps I have depended too much on my reason. If you long to go to a
place where you will have peace, why should you let what you call your
reason stand in the way? Perhaps your reason is foolishness. You will
laugh a little at this, and say that I am tired. No. Only I am not so
sure of things as I used to be. Do you remember when we children used
to sit under that tree by the Deerfield, how confident I was that I
understood all about life, and my airs of superiority?
“Well, I don't know as much now. But there is one thing that has
survived and grown with the years, and that, Philip, is your dear
friendship.”
What was it in this unassuming, but no doubt sufficiently conceited and
ambitious, young fellow that he should have the affection, the love, of
three such women?
Is affection as whimsically, as blindly distributed as wealth? It is the
experience of life that it is rare to keep either to the end, but as a
man is judged not so much by his ability to make money as to keep it, so
it is fair to estimate his qualities by his power to retain friendship.
New York is full of failures, bankrupts in fortune and bankrupts in
affection, but this melancholy aspect of the town is on the surface, and
is not to be considered in comparison with the great body of moderately
contented, moderately successful, and on the whole happy households. In
this it is a microcosm of the world.
To Evelyn and Philip, judging the world a good deal by each other, in
those months before their marriage, when surprising perfection and new
tenderness were daily developed, the gay and busy city seemed a sort of
paradise.
Mysterious things were going on in the weeks immediately preceding the
wedding. There was a conspiracy between Miss McDonald and Philip in
the furnishing and setting in order a tiny apartment on the Heights,
overlooking the city, the lordly Hudson, and its romantic hills. And
when, after the ceremony, on a radiant afternoon in early June, the
wedded lovers went to their new home, it was the housekeeper, the old
governess, who opened the door and took into her arms the child she had
loved and lost awhile.
This fragment of history leaves Philip Burnett on the threshold of his
career. Those who know him only by his books may have been interested
in his experiences, in the merciful interposition of disaster, before he
came into the great fortune of the love of Evelyn Mavick.