LOVE ETERNAL
The first warm days of spring had come to Rockhaven ere Mona and her
parents returned. The sunny slopes back of the village were growing
green, the tulips and daffodils in Mona's dooryard just peeping out, the
gulls on the cliffs nest-building, the fishermen painting their boats
and mending nets, Parson Bush, with two helpers, thanks to Rockhaven
stock, shingling the church, and life on the island budding forth into
vernal activity. No hint of Mona's proud life in the city and wonderful
triumph had reached those people, and the Hutton family were welcomed
back as returning from a pleasure trip.
It was Mona's expressed wish that no mention be made of her musical
ambition and its success, and as her desires were now law with Jess and
her mother, she was obeyed. Captain Roby had told them of Winn's
astonishing and unexpected visit before they set foot on the island; and
it was repeated by many others with sundry comments, all converging to
one end, Mrs. Moore's being the most pointed, perhaps, and therefore
best to quote.
"I think," said that well-intentioned gossip-monger to Mona, "he come
here to make ye a visit, more 'speshly, though he said he wanted to see
what could be done 'bout settin' the quarry a-goin'. He called on me,
and the only thing he seemed to listen to with any sort o' interest was
'bout you goin' away and when you was like to come back. I never seen a
feller act more love-struck than he was, an' more out o' sorts. He even
went a wandering over the island in the snow, like as if he was
demented."
All this was a revelation to Mona, and unaccountable. At first it
provoked her silent derision and increased the bitterness and almost
hatred which she had come to feel toward this erstwhile lover.
Mona Hutton was what country people would call a strange compound: a
product of a lone sea island, of its storms and the unceasing booming of
billows; of days, weeks, and months spent alone, where only the ocean
voiced eternity; of the whispers of winds in spruce thickets, of the
gorge and the cave where she hid herself; of her own moods, sad, solemn,
and contemplative. She had grown up close to God, but distant from man.
The flowers blooming in her dooryard, the wild roses clinging to life
between the granite ledges, the sea-gulls sailing over the cliffs, the
inward rush of the white-crested waves tossing the rockweed and kelpie
upward, and the starfish and anemones left by the tide had been her
playmates. She had learned to depend on these and her violin for
company. Lovers she had none, neither were other island young folk akin
to her. Between her mother and herself, also, was a chasm. It had been
opened when that unsympathetic mother forbade the violin in her house,
and was never afterward bridged. Jess only understood her. Jess, with
his quaint philosophy, tender heart, unselfish impulses, and love of
nature, had been her spiritual and moral mentor. To him had she gone
with her moods, and upon him lavished her childhood and girlhood love.
And then had come a new and strangely sweet illusion, a glow of new
sunshine warming her heart and adding a roseate hue to her thoughts. It
was unaccountable but charming, and seemed to lend a sparkle to the sea
waves, a more impressive grandeur to the limitless ocean, a tenderer
beauty to the moonlight. The gorge and the cave seemed an enchanted nook
in fairyland, and the old tide mill a romantic ruin.
Then had come the climax of this strange intoxication, the one ecstatic
moment when this magician over her thoughts, this Prince Perfect, had
entwined his arms about her and whispered, "I love you."
Repel him she could not, neither did she care to do so. It was to her as
if the gates of another world were opened; and in the wondrous thrill of
his lips she forgot herself, life, and God, even.
And then the cold and cruel message that said to her, "Forget me as I
must you." It was a summer-day dream, with no hope of renewal.
Then came the long fight against her own heart's desire, the months of
hopeless hope, and, at last, the will to win her way to the world's
applause.
He was there! He might, must, see or hear of her! He had said the world
would listen entranced if she had but the courage to stand before them!
And the old Carver will that was in her now nerved her to her trial.
And in the days and weeks of the strange new life while she hoped, and
yet feared, to meet him, that one thought was her staff. It was with her
by day and by night, a silent defiance of love, a revenge for her pain.
When the supreme moment of her trial came and she stood before that sea
of faces, only her young, trembling body was there, her every thought,
her heart and soul even, were back in the cave, and he was listening.
And it was because this cry of love, this thrill of longing, leaped out
of her fingers and spoke in every note of the songs she played, that she
won her triumph.
For the applause she heard, the flowers showered upon her, the money
received, she cared not at all. To reach him, show him what she could
do, ay, defy him even with the skill of her art, the majesty of her
courage, was everything.
And this was Mona Hutton, and now it was all over.
She had won her crown, fame was hers, the world of his city had bowed
before her, but he was not there, or if he had been, she knew it not.
For days this defiance of her own love lasted, and then a change came.
Little by little the leaven of his coming there softened her heart.
Perhaps he had been ill, or not in the city at all? Perhaps he had been,
as he wrote, discouraged and hopeless? Perhaps she had not understood
his letter? When love once sought excuses, they came in plenty, and she
began to upbraid herself. Why had she not sent him one word of love, one
message of faith?
And then this strange child of impulses, this girl of moods and
fancies, sombre as twilight in the gorge and sad as a whisper of sea
winds in the pine trees, betook herself away from even Jess to nurse her
heart-sickness again.
She had been proud and defiant when she faced the world, scornful while
pride lasted; now she was a contrite child, pitiful in her
self-reproaches.
Each day she went to the tower to live over that parting in tears and
heartache, and then to the cave, striving to recall every word, and
look, and smile of his.
A pilgrimage to the shrine of love! A journey to the grave of hope!
Sometimes she carried her violin, but its strings remained mute.
Sometimes she fondled and kissed the sea-shells and starfish, now dry
and hard, which his hand had carried to this trysting-place.
Sometimes--yea, often, had tears fallen upon the cold stone floor of
that nook, even as our tears fall upon the grass-grown graves of those
we have lost.
And then, one day, just as the twilight had darkened the gorge, and she,
hopeless and heart-broken, leaned against the cave's cold wall, she saw
him enter the ravine.
Step by step he climbed upward until the cave was reached, and then he
knelt before her.
"Forgive me, Mona," he said gently, extending his hands, "I have loved
you always," and as he gathered her close in his arms, God's whisper of
life and love eternal spoke from those granite walls.