Heavy are the brakes with which suspense and anxious longing clog the
wheels of time, yet seasons end; the spokes spin and come again,
insistent reminders to waiting watchers of the endless, inexorable
procession of years.
An early frost had hastened autumnal effects usually due a month later,
and the atmosphere was crisp and sparkling. White oaks, maples, and
sweet gums rustled their amber leaves sprinkled with red, black gums
swung scarlet torches from every bough, wild grape vines festooned
supporting trees with fluttering lace-of-gold, and crimson and bronze
berry-brambles had colored warmly under the first frost kiss. Close to
the little wire gate of the Dingle a tulip tree shook its burnished,
brocaded banners, and in and around its branches coiled a muscadine,
hung with glossy, purplish-black clusters that filled the air with
delicious, challenging fragrance.
With an unopened roll of newspapers in her hand, Eglah leaned for some
moments on the gate, admiring the superb vestments of yellow and red
that nature hung out to bar the cold--a small cloud island of ruby near
the horizon against which an acacia etched its slender lines, and
listening to the song of a mocking-bird, that rose like a flute above
the whistle of a partridge astray in feathery broom sedge. On the
orchard slope Mrs. Mitchell, basket in hand, groped and peered amid
tufts of golden-rod, hunting a belated brood of young turkeys. Eglah
passed through the gate, went into the mill, and found a seat on one of
the circular grinding stones. The wall had partly fallen on the west
side, and the glow of a sinking sun lighted the dusty, cobwebbed rafters
that upheld what remained of the roof. The chant of a portion of the
stream rolling from mossy rocks to the ruined, sluggish race was low and
soothing as a lullaby.
It had been a sad day, marking two years since the evening in the
library when Judge Kent had been stricken; the beginning of a slow
death. Dwelling upon the indelible incidents, an acute pain was added to
the chronic ache from which his daughter's heart was never free. While
missing her father sorely in her sorrowful isolation, she realized that
death had come at the behest of mercy. As long as he lived his enemies
could assail him at any moment; now he was comparatively safe under the
snow of his native hills. If it were possible to recall him, she would
not; she preferred to suffer alone that he might rest in peace. Two days
before she had gone for a few hours to Y---- to see in his favorite
church the recently completed tall, arched window, ablaze with rose,
purple, crimson, and emerald glass, erected by her, "To the glory of God
and in memory of Allison Kent."
Depressed and heartsick, she often sought the solitude of the mill, but
in the grey gloom of the rafters above her head a pair of wrens had
dwelt for several seasons, and now resented her presence, twittering
their protest. Opening the New York and Boston papers, she glanced over
one and laid it aside. Unfolding another, her fingers clutched the
sheet, where headlines had been reprinted from an English journal:
"RETURN OF THE 'AHVUNGAH.'"
"After an absence of more than two years, the 'Ahvungah' has
brought back the scientific explorers who, having investigated
the phenomena of Arctic midnights, are glad to return to less
rigorous temperatures. The second winter the vessel, while
frozen in, was lifted upon ice hummocks in Whale Sound. Deeming
the 'Ahvungah' fast until early summer, some of the party,
availing themselves of a continuously shining, two weeks' moon,
and in order to avoid sun glare later in the season, made a
sledging trip inland over the 'Great Ice,'--the _Sermiksoak_,
but the loss of their dogs cut short the journey. During their
absence the floe holding the vessel had been broken from the
shore-ice by some upheaval unusual at that season, and had
drifted many miles. While travelling on the 'ice-foot' to
overtake the 'Ahvungah,' the members of the sledging party
suffered very severely. Only two deaths occurred during the
long voyage; a sailor was drowned in attempting to jump across
a lead that closed suddenly after he fell, and the
meteorologist, Herr Sprotmund, succumbed to heart disease while
climbing a glacier. The 'Ahvungah' touched here only long
enough to land the surgeon, Dr. Klinehurst, and the mail for
America, then went on to The Hague. It was learned from the
surgeon that two gentlemen of the party preferred to remain in
Polar regions at least another year--Professor Roy, the
palaeontologist, and Mr. Herriott, of New York, who is much
interested in ethnography. Having studied the Eskimos of the
Greenland coast, they crossed to the west shore of Smith's
Sound, and will make their way slowly through Ellesmere Land,
hunting traces of an Innuit tribe they believe to be the
descendants of the Onkilon of Siberia. These gentlemen expect
to meet whalers next year somewhere along the west coast, but
should their plan fail, still another winter will imprison
them."
Until this spasm of pain seized her heart, Eglah had not realized or
acknowledged that she cherished any hope, save that God would preserve
the life of the man who so completely renounced her. If she had vaguely
trusted time might soften and remove his bitterness, she understood at
last the mockery of a delusion that she had unconsciously indulged.
Above the evensong of the rippling water at her feet, rang his
passionate words that last day in the carriage: "I shall try not to come
home." To escape the possibility of proximity to her he had plunged into
unknown wilds, where only the trails of foxes, wolves, bears, could
thread the silent desolation, and at all hazards he would keep the
promise of his farewell note: "Your path in future shall be spared my
shadow." Wandering into the jaws of death, rather than see her again;
for how elusive, how slender, the chances of meeting whalers. As in a
mirage she seemed to see him on the colonnade at Nutwood, as he stood
looking with eloquent, happy eyes at her, assuring her father: "When I
know she is waiting at home for me, do you suppose all the ice in
Greenland can shut me away from her?" And now the Arctic Circle would
hold his chosen grave, because she could never cross it. The mail for
America held no word for her; but doubtless kind messages had come to an
old man whose sunken eyes would shine with delight over tidings from
"the lad."
To all of us come times when, self-surrendered to depression, some
psychic imp drags from mental oblivion and shakes fiendishly before us
ghoulish images long forgotten; and now, as purplish-grey shadows
gathered in the mill, Eglah saw that vision of "Were-Wolves," the souls
of wretched men fleeing from light, hiding in Polar midnight.
"Each panter in the darkness
Is a demon-haunted soul,
The shadowy, phantom were-wolves,
Who circle round the Pole.
Their tongues are crimson flaming,
Their haunted blue eyes gleam,
And they strain them to the utmost
O'er frozen lake and stream;
Their cry one note of agony
That is neither yelp nor bark,
These panters of the northern waste
Who hound them to the dark."
The voice of Mrs. Mitchell calling her name aroused Eglah, and she
staggered to her feet, swaying slightly as from a stinging blow. That
silent, yearning tenderness, to which she had gladly yielded for so many
months, now appeared an insult to her womanly pride.
Rejected and despised, abandoned forever, made by her husband's
repudiation a target for gossip and harsh comment, why should she love
him? Why, when too hopelessly late, had her heart so unexpectedly
followed him, refusing to relax its quest?
Gathering the scattered papers, she left the mill and walked toward the
house. As the core of an opal the west showed bands of pearl, beryl,
sapphire, rose, and when twilight stole over hillside and dingle, Venus
glowed in a violet sea, so large, palpitating, brilliant, she seemed a
golden torch flaring in interstellar currents, to light the way of the
thin young moon swimming beneath her. Did both torture the were-wolves?
At the gate Eliza waited, and putting an arm around the girl drew her
into the hall of the cottage, where a lamp hung from the low ceiling.
Under its light Eglah's face showed white and rigid.
"Little mother, I must ask you to leave me to myself to-night. This has
been a sad day in many ways. I miss my father, and one trouble of which
I never speak, even to you--the only one who loves me--presses heavily
upon me just now. There are the papers. You will find an account of the
return of the 'Ahvungah,' but Mr. Herriott preferred to remain another
year. Kiss me good-night, and ask God to take me soon, soon--to father."
The following winter was long and cold, with flurries of snow, and
rattling of sleet, and it proved monotonously dull to the two women shut
in the small house. The rooms were cosey, with curtains falling to the
bright carpets; and roaring fires of oak and pine logs reddened the
walls of the little parlor, where Eglah's upright piano enabled her to
banish, at times, gloomy retrospection. Twice Mr. Whitfield came for a
day and night, and cheered them with news of the outside world.
When the weather permitted Eliza to attend her Sabbath-school at
Maurice, she occasionally persuaded Eglah to play the organ for the
children, but she was annoyed by no obtrusive attention on the part of
sympathetic country people, whose warm hearts respected the heavy
mourning in which she was wrapped, and recognized her right to complete
seclusion. At college one of her favorite studies had been Spanish, and
without giving an explanation she now applied herself to it with renewed
interest. When Eliza questioned her, she referred vaguely to the liquid
melody that charmed her in Spanish poetry, and expressed a desire to
translate a volume which pleased her.
No allusion to Mr. Herriott or his home now passed her lips. Mr.
Whitfield's anxiety to understand the perplexing conditions, and Eglah's
unwavering reticence, led him to interrogate Eliza.
"Mr. Whitfield, I can't tell you what I do not know. Mr. Herriott's name
is never uttered by her, never mentioned now by me. She is so silent she
would certainly forget how to talk if she were not a woman. She intends
to go to Europe, and, as you know, keeps some business matters in
readiness, but no date has been fixed. You will be advised in time to
draw up her will, of which she talked to me about a week ago. The months
come and go, and the dear child is always as you see her, calm,
uncomplaining, with lips locked as a statue's, but I must say I feel all
the time as if I am walking over a grave that may suddenly crumble and
cave in under my feet."
Returning spring was welcome, and early summer brought once more the
solace and diversion of long rides through solemn, lonely pine
stretches, where only birds, nature's feathered syrinx, sounded in the
silence, happy as human children prattling to their mother.
A mute acceptance of the inevitable, as far removed from resignation, as
from pleading protest, had sealed Eglah's face in passionless repose,
pathetic and inscrutable. Inflexibly she maintained her resolve,
"--to fly no signal
That the soul founders in a sea of sorrow,"
and solitude was her refuge. A long delayed monument having been
completed at her father's grave, the desire to visit and inspect it
dominated her, and one hot day the two women went North. To the devoted
child bowed at the feet of a marble angel, the carved lips seemed to
whisper her father's farewell words of commendation and tender gratitude
for her self-sacrifice in his behalf. Did he know now all it had
cost--the branding humiliation, the fierce heart hunger she had found
only when she offered herself on an altar that crumbled beneath her?
When the slab was covered with white violets, and she had pressed her
lips to the name chiselled on the scroll, she put one hand on Mrs.
Mitchell's shoulder and pointed to a grassy plot at her feet.
"Little mother, I hope it will not be long before I can shut my tired
eyes forever, and when that happy day comes I want you to bring me here
and lay me close to father, at his left side. One other thing you must
not fail to do; after I am in my coffin be sure you take off my ring--my
wedding ring--and if Mr. Herriott be living give it into his hand. He
has wanted it back since the day he placed it on my finger, and only God
knows how glad I shall be to surrender it. 'So long as ye both shall
live' it is mine, but in the grave God gives us back our vows and sets
us free."
The cold, hopeless renunciation in face and voice was more than the
loving little woman could endure, and with a burst of tears she threw
her arm about the girl, pressing her to her heart.
"My baby, have you no mercy for me, that you talk so cruelly? I shall be
asleep by my Robert long before death calls one so young and strong and
beautiful as my own dearie. Please have some consideration for me, and
don't discuss such dreadful matters. I see from your eyes you want a
promise. Well, if I outlive you--preposterous--I will forget nothing,
provided you spare me all heart-sickening talk in future."
On the return journey Mrs. Mitchell wished to stop in New York, but
Eglah shrank from the possibility of meeting old friends, dreading
questions. As she intended to see her cousin Vernon Temple for a day,
she went on to the hotel in the city near Calvary House, where her
foster-mother joined her after a day's shopping tour in New York. At the
time of Eglah's visit of a few hours here with her father, and while her
cousin was at Nutwood, they had discussed plans for a new altar much
needed in the chapel, and during her residence at the Dingle she had
submitted a design duplicating in many respects a carved and pillared
shrine she and Judge Kent had seen near Avignon. The Father Superior and
her cousin gratefully accepted her offer, and before she started to New
England a letter announced the completion of the altar, and expressed
the hope that she would be able to see it. If Mr. Herriott never
returned, she locked deep in her heart an intention to make it a
memorial to him, the donor of house and estate to the Brotherhood. The
Provencal model was guarded by two seraphs; these she would add later,
if the White North kept the wanderer folded forever to her breast of
snow.
Of celibate organizations, Romish or Protestant, Mrs. Mitchell
distinctly disapproved, and she had listened with ill-concealed
annoyance and uneasiness when at Nutwood Vernon Temple expatiated upon
the noble work accomplished by Episcopal deaconesses in sisterhood
homes. She had always dreaded his influence over his cousin, especially
since her father's death. Calvary House was as the threshold of Rimmon,
and when the carriage approached it she exclaimed:
"I have no intention of going inside that monkish den. How a sensible,
level-headed man like Mr. Herriott could give away property for such
fanatical use passes my understanding. I may be an ecclesiastical
ignoramus; I certainly am a 'narrow Methodist'; but, my dear baby, I
can't broaden even to please you, and you must excuse me. I had a
catalogue from the great poultry farm that I hear is only a mile or two
farther out on this road, and while you see your cousin and examine the
things you gave the chapel, I will drive on and order some white
guineas. Here, don't forget your box of embroideries. I shall wait at
the gate for you."
The bell on the latch rang as Eglah passed under the gilt cross, and at
the front door the porter, a young lay brother, looked at her in
amazement.
"I wish to see Father Temple. I am his cousin, Eglah Kent."
"He is not here. He went to Philadelphia yesterday."
"Then tell the Father Superior--he knows me--that the lady who gave the
new altar wishes to speak to him about it."
"Father Superior is holding a mission in New York."
"Where is the sacristan?"
"'Free time' has just begun, and he has gone to look after his beehives.
I can call Father Phillips."
"No. I do not care to meet any of the Brotherhood who do not know me. I
was here once with my father, and Father Temple has visited my house in
the South. I came merely to look at the new altar, and bring some fresh
covers to the sacristan. Do not disturb any one; this is 'free time,'
and I must not keep you. Please say nothing about me now. I shall go
into the chapel--I know the way--and then return to my carriage."
He opened the nearest door of the chapel, bowed, and disappeared.
Before the carved panel in the centre of the altar she stood some
moments, rejoicing that the sculptor had succeeded so well in
reproducing the cherub heads running as a frieze between the columns.
From the box she shook out two pulpit-falls, one embroidered with iris,
one with passion flowers; then a chalice veil of shimmering white silk
marked with a Greek cross. Beneath these lay a long altar cover of snowy
linen cambric, "the fair linen cloth," studded with crosses along the
centre, and bordered with annunciation lilies.
She smoothed and arranged it on the polished surface of the shrine,
while a vision of an added seraph, standing _in memoriam_ at each end,
shone before her. She recalled Tennyson's inscription in Westminster
Abbey, where one wife, widowed by Polar perils, had set her tribute of
love. To her the sympathy of the world went out, and the nations,
sharing her long search, shared her sorrow.
Misunderstood and censured, Eglah bore her burden alone, and now,
sinking to her knees, with her forehead pressed against the marble, she
prayed that the wanderer in desolate lands might be guarded from every
ill and brought safely home. Prayer always deepened her impression that
he would return, and as she rose and loitered a moment in admiration of
the chiselled stone, her sad lips whispered to her lonely heart:
"He will come,--
Ay, he will come! I can not make him dead."
Suddenly her heart leaped, then seemed to forget to beat. A voice rich,
mellow, unmistakable, came from the arched gallery beyond the little
oratory opening into the chapel:
"Roy, you are no baby, and my singing days are over."
A feeble, nervous tone answered:
"Herriott, you sang life into me that awful night after you carried me
in your arms behind a snow drift, rubbed my frozen hands, and tied our
last dog to my legs to keep me warm. 'It shall be light, it shall be
light!' How the song soared and echoed in the terrible silence of the
ice desert, as if spirits of the snow caught up the refrain! Do you
remember that ghastly red thread of a moon on the glacial line above us,
like a swooping bloody sickle? Even in my blindness that infernal moon
haunts me still. Just then, as the echo died, out of the blackness, as
if an answer to a prophet's prayer, the swift glory of the aurora swept
down and enveloped us. You saved my life, and before you leave me here I
should like to hear that song once more. I suppose I am childish yet,
but in my blindness you might humor me. Who wrote that song?"
"You are such a hopeless pagan you do not recognize the Bible? It is an
arrangement of two verses in the Old Testament: 'And it shall come to
pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear. But it shall come
to pass that at evening time it shall be light.' When I was attending
lectures in Germany, one of the professors set the words to the tune of
an old Latin hymn, and the students began to chant it. That night when I
was obliged to keep you awake, it occurred to me. Roy, I can't humor you
now, but I intend to take you and an old man at home down to Arizona to
thaw the Arctic poison out of you. When we are stretched on a sunny mesa
where the air quivers with heat, if you feel the need of more light, I
promise to chant your song. I am not willing to abandon the goal that we
were so near. If you had not broken down, we should have found those
stone ruins with the inscriptions, and I intend to see them. After a
while I shall fit out an expedition to suit myself, and if you can get
rid of your horror of that baby moon that in your delirium you swore was
a bloody scythe coming to cut your throat, I hope to number you among my
impedimenta."
The purple curtain, caught back only during service, hung over the arch;
but at one side a narrow aperture, close to the gilt organ pipe in the
oratory, admitted outside light.
Irresistibly drawn by the voice that set her pulses surging, Eglah had
gone to the arch, and grasping the velvet folds looked cautiously
through the cleft between organ and curtain, across the small oratory
and down the cloister. On a cot lay an emaciated man whose eyes were
bandaged. By his side and fronting the oratory stood Mr. Herriott, his
hands in his pockets.
He looked taller, rather gaunt, somewhat bleached in complexion, and the
absence of mustache showed the fine curves of his peculiarly firm, thin
lips. His eyes were lowered to the sick man's countenance, and the thick
black lashes veiled their grey-blue depths, but over the handsome face
had come a subtle change, etched by corroding memories. It was graver,
colder, less magnetic.
As Eglah watched him her breath fluttered; involuntarily she stretched
her arms an instant toward him, and her eyes lighted with a tender glow.
"My own Mr. Noel. My own!" was the unspoken claim of her heart,
momentarily happy at sight of him. Then Mr. Herriott put his fingers
over his friend's pulse.
"Vernon promised to get back to-morrow, and the oculist will look after
you until I can go home and see about my neglected household. In order
to avoid press publicity and inevitable interviewing, I am keeping my
return secret for a few days; and, clean-shaven and goggle-eyed, hope to
reach my house unrecognized, where I can smooth out the tangles that
years of absence tie. Later, business will force me to New York, and I
shall be glad of a glimpse of my old club life, but meanwhile you will
not be forgotten. Now, Roy, you must come in. One of the lay brothers
will help me lift your cot."
As he advanced toward the steps near the end of the cloister, Eglah
covered her face with her heavy veil, and went swiftly through a side
door of the chapel, down the gladiolus-bordered walk to the gate, where
the carriage waited. As she sank back in one corner, keeping her
features veiled, Mrs. Mitchell laid a hand on her knee.
"Well? Are you satisfied, and did the altar cloths fit? Did you find
what you expected?"
She did not answer immediately, and when she spoke her voice quivered
through the effort to strangle a dry sob.
"I found far more than I expected, and the altar is lovely. Everything I
could possibly do that would have pleased father I have done. My father,
my father, have I spared even myself! Memorial window, monument, the
altar here, all are finished, and now nothing remains for my empty
hands. My dear little mother, you are so good to me; you promised you
would go abroad when I felt it best to start. At last the time has come,
and I wish to leave America within the next week if possible."
After a moment a long, shuddering sigh made her voice unsteady.
"I have just seen Mr. Herriott--safe, strong, and well. He will never
know I was so near; he could not see me. Accidentally I heard his voice,
and looked through a curtain, and----"
Mrs. Mitchell had drawn her into her arms, but the black crepe was held
over her face.
"The public will be kept in ignorance of his return for a few days, and
before his arrival is announced and people begin to question and
speculate, I must be on the ocean. I was so close to him--so close--and
yet----"
A wave of tenderness drowned words.
"Oh, my baby! Why did you not speak to your husband?"
After a struggle for composure she answered, with a cold, rising ring in
her tone:
"He does not consider himself my husband. More than three years ago he
willed we should be strangers. He built the wall of separation, of
absolute silence between us, and no word, no sign from me shall ever
cross it. He is within his rights. I dispute nothing. I claim only the
privilege of helping him in his effort to avoid me, and I must have the
ocean between us. He will breathe freely when he feels sure that by no
possible accident the sight of my face can ever again affront him."