FIRE OF LEAVES
Killing frost had come and given the blackening touch to garden and wild
hedge-row. Even the hardy chrysanthemums bowed their hoary heads, and a
snow-like rime covered the river meadows every morning. The flame was
already burning low in the leaf torches of the swamp maples, while the
oaks changed to wine and russet slowly, with majestic dignity and pride
of hardihood.
The modest crops the farm had yielded were divided, and Brooke’s portion
of hay, rye, corn on the cob, potatoes, and apples duly stored away under
Enoch Fenton’s argus eyes; while even this astute Yankee found nothing to
quibble at, so generous had been Maarten’s halving.
In fact, when the strange “farmer-on-shares,” after the sharing time,
prepared to plough up the corn stubble for burning and harrow the cleared
field, Fenton laughed half derisively, and said, “It’s plain to me he’ll
never make a farmer,—that harrowing job belongs to next year’s man.”
Still Maarten kept on at work, this last week of his stay, for that
mysterious source “they say” had informed Adam that the man was homesick
and would return to the old country, also that Bisbee knew it to be true
and he had bought Maarten’s portion of the crops.
So when, one afternoon of late October, Brooke, in a restless mood,
looking down the fields toward Moosatuk, saw the opal smoke of burning
brush, stubble, and leaves following the fence line just above the brook,
while a dark figure moved in and out, stirring and feeding the flames
with a trident fork, her feet followed her inclination to go and thank
the man who had worked for and halved so well with her, and wish him
God-speed.
Later, she herself would flit for a time, and though she desired to go,
yet she dreaded it. The pleasure season itself was waning, although many
of the hill people, especially at Gordon, lingered until Thanksgiving.
After this, winter would quickly close in, they told her, and as Rosius
would be in Washington executing some commissions, Brooke, urged by the
entire household, had agreed to spend the first two winter months there
with Mrs. Parks, to study animal anatomy under him.
As Brooke strolled slowly down the lane, Tatters, as usual, followed
her. At first, when Adam Lawton began to walk daily about the garden,
Tatters’ indecision whom to follow had been most amusing; but he had
evidently worked it out to his entire satisfaction by dog philosophy,
and convinced himself that the one who went farthest afield was most in
need of company, so followed her as at first, mounting guard again by
the master’s chair the moment of her return; and though he was kind and
obedient to Miss Keith, after her return, there was a decided tinge of
condescension in it.
Brooke reached the line of smoke and found that the fire was north of the
tumble-down wall, while Maarten was bringing rakesful of dry chestnut
leaves from under the trees, beneath which they had drifted half across
the hay-fields. These leaves he was using as kindling for the obstinate
stubble, piled in a long line.
As the breeze veered and brought the pungent smoke toward her, Brooke
walked back a few paces, dragging her feet luxuriously through the
leaves, and waited for Maarten to come down the line once more, that she
might speak. Then, as the time lengthened and he did not return, the
idea forced itself upon her that perhaps he was keeping on the outskirts
of the fire to avoid her or her thanks, either one or both, and feeling
humiliated, she turned nonchalantly to cross the hay-fields toward the
wood-lot, a customary walk of hers.
As she did so she scented something burning that was not the brush fire.
Glancing about, she saw that a thin tongue of flame had crawled out from
the brush heap, and was licking up the dry leaves all about, and that
the flaring line was scorching her wool and cotton outing gown and slowly
creeping upward toward her hand. For a second she tried to beat it out;
then, seeing the leaf fire spreading on every side and no way of escape
save through it, she tried to call, but fear muffled her voice.
Faint as the cry was, it was heard by Tatters, who was hunting squirrels
in the fence. Bounding toward her, he too felt the fire; circling it, he
flew straight across the brush toward Maarten, barking in a wholly new
and piercing key of pain and warning.
Running down the line, Maarten took in the situation at a glance, tried
to beat the flame out with his hands, and failed. Tearing off his loose
coat, he wrapped Brooke in it, and lifting her bodily, dashed over the
brush and wall, setting her down at the stream’s edge, where a few
hatsful of water put out the fire without even blistering her finger-tips.
As he seized Brooke, crushing her to him in his speed, a fierce wave of
joy that banished all fear enveloped the girl from head to foot, and when
he put her down and she knew that the flames were extinguished, she was
still breathing hard, and could find neither voice nor words to thank him.
Glancing at Maarten, she saw that he was bathing his scorched, sooty face
and wrapping a wet handkerchief about his hands, also that the brush
fire had caught his beard and singed it all away.
At her exclamation of regret and pity, he turned, then stood upright
before her with folded arms, his eyes fixed directly on hers. In the
short interval the outline of his face had changed, solidified, and the
firmness of mouth and chin was revealed.
Brooke’s heart stood still, and then surged, in wild, clamorous beating.
“Lorenz!” she cried. “Lorenz! Oh, why have I not always known you? This
explains everything! Why did you come here like this? Why did you change
your name and turn into a labourer?”
Her voice had an unconscious reproach in it,—or at least the man so heard
it,—and a light that had gleamed through all the smut and scorch died
from his eyes; while half kneeling, half crouching, on the bank among
the bleached ferns and feathering seed-stalks, her hair fallen to her
shoulders, bright colour succeeding the pallor of fear, looking again the
gypsy ruler of the River Kingdom, Brooke waited for the explanation of
the man who stood before her. Slowly it came, and the voice, from which
the feigned accent was dropped, trembled at first, but grew stronger with
fervour every moment.
“Why did I come? To see you! Why did I come as a farm labourer? That is
to what I was born, back in the little tulip farm that I have often told
you of, near Haarlem. Also it was the only way that I might both be near
and serve you. My name is my own, as was that by which you first knew
me—Henri Lorenz Maarten—Lorenz being my mother’s maiden name, and by it
I was as often called in the days I spent with my uncle, who brought me
up, as Maarten, the name of my father, who died so long ago. In Paris my
friends reversed the titles, student fashion, to please themselves, and I
for the time became Maarten or Marte Lorenz.”
Why did he stand there, stern and aloof? Could he not read her thoughts,
Brooke wondered. Did he not fathom the deep undercurrent upon which her
questions had merely floated like bits of driftage?
No; what Maarten saw before him, as he looked, was that scene in the July
woods—a young woman with eyes cast down, the suitor with eyes aflame
pressing kisses upon her hands. That the man was dead did not obliterate
the vision. Maarten had resolved to make his own confession, complete and
unmistakable, and then to go his way.
Not knowing this, Brooke let her thoughts fly to him in eager questions.
“The picture! Tell me of ‘Eucharistia’ and the meaning of the light in
it, and how you found me here when the papers said that you had gone to
work and study in Brittany.”
“Did they say that? I did not know it, for I came direct from home, where
I had seen my mother. As to the picture, it is a long story. Shall I
tell it to you now or write it down and leave it when I go? You will be
chilled, perhaps, if you wait longer.”
“Then you _are_ going?”
“Yes, next week, my work now being done,” here he glanced across the
fields; “and having seen you, I must go back to my brush again, hoarding
the studies I have made. Oh, yes, I have worked—between times—painting
you always; such work is life to me.”
“No, do not write, tell me now,” said Brooke, wondering if the chill that
seized upon her spirit had its source from without or from within.
“Then I will tell you if you will listen to the end.” Brooke nodded
assent.
Maarten drew nearer, and half sitting, half leaning against the bank,
told his story.
“When I met you in the Paris studios, it was five years after I had
turned my back on England and the commercial life my father’s brother, a
London Hollander, had planned for me. I belonged in an art country, and
its traditions held me in its grip, not to be broken. I had fought my way
along and worked steadily, first at home, earning some praise, and yet
always when I felt success coming toward me, it passed me by. At first I
thought you one of the great flock of those young women who dabble at
art, as an excuse for greater liberty,—soon I learned better. You were
kind and frank; you never seemed to wait for flattery, but rather shrank
from it. Presently I came to think, ‘Here is a woman to whom one may not
only tell the truth, but who craves it.’ So I spoke my mind freely, as
you remember on that day at Carlo Rossi’s, when, with a dozen others,
you were trying to sketch a woman of the street, and catching poise and
colouring admirably, the face was still a blank, because you could not
fathom the meaning of her expression.”
“Yes, I remember,” Brooke whispered, half introspectively, as with hands
clasped over her knee she looked down toward the river.
“I craved your friendship, and you gave it. Then the time came when
it was too little for me; and I—what had I to offer? So I kept in the
background; my work grew stale, and for the first time I half regretted
the five years’ struggle, and might have given up save that, had I done
so, my mother’s pride and pinching, that I might become a painter, would
have been wasted.
“One day I went with some others from the Quarter to Fontainebleau to
sketch out of doors. Three of us had resolved to enter a competition. For
a week I had scarcely slept, for somewhere in my brain dwelt a picture,
that was growing, yet would not focus. All the morning I had wandered
about, and in the early afternoon, leaving the others, I threw myself
down under the oaks, quite in despair and wholly miserable.
“Presently I heard a footfall on the grass. Before I could turn, a
cluster of cool, golden grapes dropped in my feverish hand, and looking
up and backward, I saw your face, and in the smile it wore a ray of
light, of inspiration, pierced my soul. Before I had awakened from the
vision, you passed on and joined your scolding chaperon.
“As for me, as I lingered there, those grapes became as drops of
sacramental wine. I seized my brushes and hastily caught and kept the
vision as I saw it—for to me it was the divine awakening.
“For weeks I dreamed and painted as I never had done before. My comrades
laughed and said, ‘Is it love or genius?’ and old Rossi shrugged his
shoulders and asked, ‘What is the difference?’
“The picture finished, I sent it to the competition, and there your rich
Senator both saw and coveted it. I would not sell it,—no, never! Ah, then
I never thought to; but later my mother sickened, and the price would
more than buy her a good annuity. I thought again, and something said,
‘_She_ would have liked to help your mother, who is old and still plods
on the tulip farm behind the poplars, which she will not leave;’ and I
yielded, and I then resolved to follow you,—across the earth if must
be,—for lacking you, my inspiration fled.
“Through Carolus Ashton, the amateur, well known in the Paris studios, I
learned your whereabouts, and at the same time I chanced upon words of
your swift sorrow in a paper at a fellow-artist’s home.
“‘She has trouble,’ I thought. ‘Surely in some way I can aid her,’ and I
sent the picture of yourself as not too bold a reminder. Your little copy
of my picture coming in return, I said, ‘Now I may go; she did not resent
my painting us together,’ and hope gave me wings.”
“Ashton knew that you were here from the beginning, then, and forwarded
your portrait in the summer, and made no sign! How cruel!”
“Yes, he knew, and also one named Brownell; but do not condemn them, for
there is a silence in such matters that is as honour among men, though
almost strangers; it is as strong as woman’s love. Besides, what good
would it have done?”
“But the name you gave the picture? ‘Eucharistia,’” said Brooke, leaning
forward.
Maarten drew closer, and almost dropping on his knees, looked in her
eyes and took her hands in his, that were hardened by toil and blistered
by fire of leaves, both for her sake, and said, “The word has two
meanings,—‘a sacrament,’ and ‘thanksgiving’; you had become the first to
me, for this I gave the title ‘Eucharistia.’ It has become my name for
you, and—I still give thanks.”
Then, dropping her hands as that other picture in its setting of July
woods again crossed his inner vision, he stood, erect and proud, as one
waiting inevitable sentence, yet glad in the consciousness that he had
told the truth.
For a moment there was silence, and Brooke’s head dropped lower, until it
rested on her hands. At last Maarten regained himself: “And now that all
is told, what is there more for me to do here? What more for me to say?”
Slowly Brooke struggled to her feet, for in truth her clothes were damp
and heavy, though she had not before felt it. Standing there, she looked
up and smiled, and once again that shaft of light went forth from her to
him, as she said in yearning accents: “What more to say, Henri? All that
a man may say to the woman who loves him.”
“Eucharistia!” he cried, still holding back in blind amazement. “It is
not parting, then, beloved, but waiting for you and work for me!”
“No; work for you _and work for me_, for what else means the awakening?”
And placing her hand in his, she walked by his side along the border of
the stream, while the wind carried the news throughout the River Kingdom,
and Tatters, pushing himself between them, wagged his tail as he licked
the blistered fingers.