A VOICE AND A TAPER FLAME
Brent, who for some days had not been gracious to the sight of Jane,
went out to meet her in a state of mind so dazed that it bordered on the
humorous. At heart most things were jests with this devil-may-care young
man (it may have been a trait cultivated through sheer necessity) and
whether Dale killed or were killed might some weeks ago have passed into
his continuous performance of human comedies and tragedies. But there
was a new element about this which shocked him to the foundation of his
nature, and the revulsion became more acute as he looked up into her
face smiling politely down at him.
He had watched her interest in Dale, and now guessed her depth of
disappointment when she were told how the mountaineer's career had gone
dashing into the black wall of ruin. But he had watched with a twinge of
jealousy which, as jealousy has the knack of doing, exaggerated both the
extent and kind of interest she may have felt.
Many opportunities had come to Brent, and it was not all his fault that
most of them had been neglected. His capacity for achievement was as an
arm perpetually carried in a sling; no one's fingers had untied the knot
and massaged the cramped muscles, nor had anyone's lips bidden him
strike the right sort of blow. His mother breathed his name when a
trained nurse had laid him down beside her on the bed; and that was the
only time he might have heard her voice. His father was a man so
threaded in the loom of finance that the rearing of a baby boy seemed
wasted energy for one of his activities. The governess whom he employed
to assume this duty came with recommendations; that was all--came with
recommendations. And the boy's days were without intelligent direction
of any kind.
The only trait in his character which this governess strongly developed,
was a desire to hide from every one his deepest and best impulses. Since
one day, when his four-year-old arms had clasped a homeless puppy hurt
by a passing wagon, and she had poked her finger and laughed at his
tears in order to keep his clothes from becoming worse soiled, his
generous side shrank back into itself and froze. Then he began to clasp
this newly bruised thing--a little boy's wounded nobility; so jealously
guarding it from the cruelty of other laughs, from other curled lips and
fingers of scorn, that few might have suspected it lived in him at all.
Later in life there appeared an object he might have cherished--the girl
of whom he had told Jane; but this did not leave the regret he tried to
make himself believe. He had never been able to rise above a lingering
disappointment because her fingers made no effort to untie the
knot;--rather, had she drawn it tighter by applauding those things which
inherently he realized needed rebuking. For in his soul lived a voice
comparing her to an ideal known only to his dreams--a being, somewhere,
who would tear off the sling with brave and loving hands, and not be
content to see him drift. His closely guarded better nature was
persistently pleading with him to face about, while her pouting lips
imperiously demanded his mornings and afternoons for her entertainment.
Then, very softly, a consciousness began to dawn upon this little
romance, showing its glitter to be the veriest tinsel; and, so it was,
in a make-believe fervor of self-righteousness, he pressed the pseudo
crown of martyrdom upon his brow and "stepped aside."
If the truth were known, his soul had many times craved
self-sacrifice--a hunger from which true men and women do not long
escape. So he hugged the imitation, knowing it to be an imitation, but
pretending it was real; before this false altar he "stepped aside,"
crying within himself that he had done a noble act, and knowing it was
counterfeit. The knowledge, not the sacrifice, was bitter; nevertheless,
this false altar sweetly fed his innate hunger--and, to keep the false
in an attitude of real, he dreamed more, drank more. In the three years
which had passed since then he retained only the love of drifting.
As he now looked seriously up into Jane's face he was swept by one
thought: tragedy, cruelty, disappointment were entitled to no place in
the atmosphere of her dwelling. With a pang he realized that Dale was
bringing them all to her. With a bound, something that was very far
from being false, awoke in his heart, whispering how she might be
spared. Then he perceived her still smiling down at him.
"Dreaming?" she asked.
"Fascinated," he murmured.
Without assistance she slipped from the saddle, exclaiming:
"My, but it's a lovely day!"
"Isn't it! Oh, you can't interrupt the Colonel and Dale just now," he
warned, seeing her intention. "They're hard at it. Come with me while I
tie your horse, and then let's go to your charmed circle and talk. Have
you forgiven my--er--shortcomings?"
"I'd forgotten you were so afflicted," she laughed, knowing he had no
reference to the dinner--that absolutely closed subject.
"I didn't know I was either, till you told me one day. In fact, you're
always enlightening me. How wonderful you must be to discover so many
things in a chap!"
"My insight is very clear," she observed, without enthusiasm.
"A vision filtered through such wonderful eyes should transform
everything to beauty," he smiled. "In a negative way I might feel
complimented."
"It would be so negative. How long will the Colonel and Dale be
closeted?"
"Lord knows. They've lots to talk about. Dale has reached a place where
the Colonel finds him exciting."
"Isn't he a marvel!" she exclaimed.
"Oh, he's a marvel, all right," Brent grumbled. "But his vanity will
surpass his great achievements;--don't delude yourself about that!"
"Well; you're an authority on that condition of life. Do you enjoy it?"
"If you'll give me more reason to be vain, I'll tell you."
She ignored this, and when they were among the cedars he began again;
not caring what he talked about as much as to be talking. He felt that
if he stopped, she might read through his depression.
"Do you remember the last time we were here? You lectured me for
loafing, and shooting woodpeckers. There were other things, but you
couldn't recall them at the moment. I've been doing some right stiff
thinking since then!"
"Retrospection is good for the soul," she smiled at him.
"On the contrary, retrospection makes for hollow eyes, and introspection
is tinged with bitterness. Keep your face to the future if you would
have your soul contented."
"And what is your future?" she archly inquired.
"These coming minutes while you are here with me."
"Really," she flashed him a rather bewildering look, "I did think for
once you were going to be serious!"
"I am serious," he dug the heel of his boot thoughtfully into the
tanbark. "I wish I weren't--or didn't have to be."
"Has something gone wrong--with the road?" There was a slight tinge of
irony in the suggestion.
"No, but something's gone wrong with the world. I wish," he suddenly
looked up at her, "that I could be as sure of laying a smooth grade
for--for my friends as I am for trains of coal!"
"Your friends might have to wait a long time before traveling about,"
she laughed, but there was a note of apprehension in her voice which
again put him on his guard;--and yet he could not help feeling that a
partial preparation was only fair to her.
"It wouldn't be a bad thing if some people never traveled about," he
smiled. "I might then succeed in keeping you here, and those hot-headed
mountaineers would stay back in their holes and rot forever, as they
ought."
"Oh, Brent," she exclaimed, in a hurt voice, "there is such a wealth of
splendid human material up there if we can only get hold of it! They're
all ambitious--if stirred!"
He waited, asking: "And what else?"
"Nothing else."
"But you didn't say anything nice about Dale!"
She laughed. "I thought you knew about Dale--and me; for I'm of the
mountains!"
"You didn't belong to those people," he murmured. "You're a spirit who
lived in a deep spring, and you just floated down with the brook. I
know, because I've dreamed about you. And I know, too," he shook off the
spell, "a little something about stirring the ambition of _real_ people
up there. I've seen it tried in a mining camp where a railroad has been
running for years! I've seen a fair and square company build model
cottages, and in every way try to improve conditions. It put in baths,
and the tubs were used for vegetable bins. It built a reading room, and
the walls were covered with charcoal pictures. Two men used their little
front porches for firewood, rather than pick up all they wanted a
hundred yards away. One winter coal took a jump. The mine had a bonanza
chance, and the men who had been making their two and a half dollars a
day, or thereabouts, could with the same hours' work pull down twice
that much. Did they? I'll tell you what they did: they laughed at the
superintendent and worked half time; they sat about the store and
whittled, saying that two and a half was all they needed. But they
forgot this quick enough when the union afterwards went in and told them
they ought to get twenty cents more! You'd have thought then that they'd
been on the verge of starvation for years, and the harrowing tales which
went forth about their 'wretched conditions' would have made you
laugh--had you known the facts. The union had photographs taken of the
two cottages without front porches, and sent them broadcast so the world
could see how capital trod upon its hire. Ambition? They don't know the
word deeper than its two first letters! And you've got to be ready for
many a disappointment here, too--let me tell you that!"
She was looking at him earnestly, and in a few moments said: "I agree
with everything you say. I grant it all, every bit. But, Brent,
consider! A mother tells her little boy to wash his face, to read his
primer, and he doesn't. And the next day she tells him, and he doesn't.
And so on, for days and days, she tells and tells. It seems utterly
hopeless, but all the time she is persisting, and gradually bringing him
nearer to a sense of obligation. After ten or twelve years you will find
him stepping briskly on to admirable manhood; but it is because she has
never turned her back on him--she never faltered. See what Dale's sister
has done with patient perseverance! Surely, you would not get in a pout
and hold back the road simply because a few mountaineers are sometimes
obstinate little children!"
He felt the double reproach of this and began to smile, saying:
"I hadn't intended to tell you, but now you force me to it: the line is
twice as far along as when you were over here last!"
"Oh, you good-for-nothing--splendid!" she impulsively cried; but more
wistfully added: "Why wouldn't you have told me? Why do you try to keep
people from seeing when you do good things, and only show the--the not
so good?" He did not answer, and she spoke again with a new and delicate
caress in her voice: "You haven't deceived me utterly--there are times
when I've been tremendously proud of you."
"Jane," he said, and stopped. His eyes were looking deep into her own,
and while she gave him back look for look he seemed incapable of
continuing. But she turned away, somewhat confused, and slowly he
continued: "One time I discovered that in us all there is a secret
temple, with a very small but highly prized altar lighted by a tiny
taper flame, where we keep just our own little treasures--our wonderful
selves." She glanced up in some surprise, but this time he was staring
at the ground. "In some, its door is studiously, carefully locked; in
others, its paths of approach are overgrown with weeds and almost lost;
in others still, it is hard to find because it has been starved, or
hurt, or laughed at--but always when a certain current of thought or
sound sweeps by, that wonderful part of our souls upon this little altar
is set a-quivering. Old soldiers feel its pulsing at the booming of a
cannon; old women feel it at the laughter of a child; others know it is
there while beneath the spell of an orchestra, a breeze in the pines, a
bird's note, the fragrance of certain flowers, the caress of a voice.
You will forgive this unintentional preamble," he looked slowly up at
her, "when I say that your voice just now has been all of these things
to me--and more!"
"Oh, Brent," she cried, with a brave pretense at lightness, "if only you
weren't such a trifler! The dangerous thing about you is that you mean
this now--almost; enough, anyway, to give it a ring of sincerity. Were I
less sophisticated, I might go home believing it, and thinking what a
wonderful man you are starting out to be; but in the morning find my
ideals shattered, and on the ash heap!"
"You are so worldly, then?" he smiled.
But she had arisen and now stood at the entrance of the path, looking
slightly over her shoulder and ignoring his question with another:
"You say things are really hurrying?"
"Dulany is buying the necessary land in record time," he answered.
"But," she hesitated, pouting just a little, "that implies no work of
your own! Still, I suppose I should be thankful for whatever we receive.
And, oh, Brent," she now turned and looked seriously up at him, "if you
would only stop this wretched drinking! Tell me, why do you? What call,
or what cause, makes you? Is it to drug the mind into some sort of mock
rest, or the body into sleep, or the soul--ah, Brent, what does the soul
do when it is stupefied? The pity of it flares up in me like a great
scorching flame!"
He opened his lips, but could not speak. The words, their sincerity,
sympathy, and wonderfully strange appeal, came like an unfelt air; for a
second time setting a-tremble the tiny taper flame in that reliquary of
which he had told her. Another moment she looked appealingly up at him,
then turned toward the house.
"Jane!" His voice, hoarse and vibrating, held her where she stood. She
dared not see the face which her senses said had been driven white by
some tremendous feeling. So she waited, listening.
The smell of cedar buds was in the air about them; and wafted out on
this, as though it might have been just now brought up from the musty
depths of some old cedar chest, they heard the thin voice of Miss Liz
scolding one of the servants. Otherwise, the morning seemed to have no
life except the lazy drone of insects.
Again she started slowly to the house; but this time he did not speak,
and only watched until she disappeared.