"WHAT EYES HAVE YOU?"
The late azure twilights and early salmon dawns of June merged into July
with no more ado than a changed date line on the Colonel's morning
paper. Days were of little concern at Arden, other than being days--as
the library calendar now gave accusing evidence by pointing at the
previous May. Miss Liz, to be sure, was invariably aware when Sundays
came; being told by that unnamable pressure of peace which to most women
would proclaim the Sabbath even in places of utter solitude. Otherwise,
the weeks might be composed of Mondays or Fridays, since school had been
out.
Jane, this particular morning playing with Bip and Mac somewhat apart
from the Colonel and Brent who were engrossed in a game of chess, had
been critically alive to the Sunday habits of these two families which
had come to mean so much to her; especially in relation to the little
boy. Miss Liz not only supported her, but freely expressed her
indignation at the child's parental indifference, and that good lady's
tone was one of deepest injury whenever the subject was mentioned. For
she had indeed tried to awaken Bip's spiritual mind two days after he
was born, by sending him an embroidered bib with a baby blue motto: "I
thank the Lord for what I eat--Soup and mush and bread and meat!" If he
grew into an ungrateful man, she, at least, had done her duty! Bob paid
small attention to matters of church, and Ann had easily acquired the
negative enthusiasm of her father who frankly admitted he could not keep
from going to sleep, even during the best of sermons. Yet, although he
lived by this benighted declaration, he was known as a Christian
gentleman--of the kind whose hands were never so tightly clasped in
prayer that they could not reach his pocket.
Jane now looked up as, with a delighted laugh, the Colonel leaned back;
while Brent, in pretended irritation, mussed the chess men in disorder
over the board.
"Fifteen moves, sir!" the old gentleman cried. "That's a beat you'll not
forget!"
"It's the worst I ever had," Brent admitted. "You can't do it again!"
"I'll bet you I can, sir," the old gentleman declared, then whispering,
"after a julep!"
"Whew!" Brent gave a long, clear, incredulous whistle, and called over
to Jane: "Did you hear this boaster?"
But the whistle had a more subtle intention than emphasis, and within
doors Uncle Zack, dozing in a kitchen chair, became at once active. This
newly inaugurated signal immeasurably pleased the Colonel, who could not
himself whistle.
"Do either of you know it's Sunday?" she asked.
"By Jove, now, it isn't, is it?" Brent looked at her in concern.
"And I'm going to church," she continued. "Would you like to go,
Colonel?"
The old gentleman cleared his throat and began searching closely over
the table for his glasses, which weren't there.
"I should say he's just about crazy to go," Brent watched him. "Don't
speak for a minute, or he'll die of joy. How ingenious you are in
planning his amusements!"
"More amusement is coming, I should judge, from the dulcetness of your
whistle," she drily observed.
The men exchanged sheepish glances. Brent laughed.
"Admitted," he said. "But it was not you we were trying to deceive. If
you tell us how you knew, I'll tie the Colonel on a horse and let you
lead him to the altar. She must be a witch, sir!"
"She is, indeed. A charming one, who bewitched me the very first moment
I laid eyes on her--and there's been no change in my condition since,
madam," the old gentleman bowed to her with courtly grace.
"Then," Brent tried to corner him, "until you admit yourself de-charmed,
church this morning is your only alternative."
"It would be a very good place for your soul, young man," he sternly
retorted. "When I was a gay spark, ladies of--of almost the same
loveliness," he bowed again, "were kept busy weeks in advance accepting
my invitations to church, sir! The very rocks and rills of our beloved
Commonwealth would strike me dead, sir, if I had permitted so
enchanting an opportunity to escape!" And once more he bowed low before
her.
"Mistress Jane," Brent sprang to his feet and bent double with an
abandon that the Colonel's old bones would have resented, "will you
adorn my buggy as far as the meetin'-house?"
"You overwhelm me," she murmured.
"And, will you tell us, O gracious bewitcher, how you knew what I was
whistling for?"
"Help me up and I will," her hands went out to him. "When you whistled,
Uncle Zack yelled: 'I'se fixin' 'em!'"
"I shall have that nigger shot," the Colonel cried in delight. "Suppose
poor, dear Lizzie had been here!"
"What time shall we start?" she turned to Brent, seeing Zack on his way
from the house, and somehow feeling that she could not stay just then.
Her aversion for this was increasing. She did not know how firmly, how
stubbornly, Brent had begun to shut down on his own indulgences.
"Any time you say," he agreeably answered. "Is it town?"
"No, the convent chapel."
"But--er--you'll forgive my wretched memory if I can't seem to recall
when these things take up?"
"Five o'clock, over there," she smiled.
"Five! I never heard of such an hour for church, did you, Colonel?"
"Most certainly, sir!" His affirmation suggested a long personal
acquaintance with such matters. "They always begin at five!"
Jane gave him a quick, twinkling glance, but only added:
"I thought the vesper service might be cooler, and a pleasanter drive.
We ought to start a little after four, don't you think so? And we'll
take Bip, and Dale."
"I wouldn't stop there," Brent moodily suggested.
"I think that will be enough for one day," she laughed. "They're the
principal ones whom--not who ought to go, you understand, but whom I
want to go."
"But Bip is too young," he protested.
"'Suffer the little children--'" she said prettily.
"He'll go to sleep!"
"Then you may hold him."
"Maybe he'll snore!"
"Then you have my permission to choke him," she laughed.
Yet, he was very much in a pout, and staring gloomily at the ground.
"You'll be awfully crowded," he said at last, "with Dale in the buggy,
too!"
"We'll take the surrey."
"And he'll be bored stiff!"
"Not from hearing complimentary things said to me," she gently rebuked
him.
"Oh, Jane, be a sport and let's go alone! I'm worth saving, ain't I,
Colonel?"
"You can't prove it by me, you rogue," the old gentleman asserted.
"I may think about it," she compromised, smiling over her shoulder as
she turned away.
They drew up to the table and arranged the chess board. Zack stood
waiting for the goblets, having no intention to leave these treacherous
exhibits again at large should a spirit of fatigue overtake the players.
So there was a prolonged pause while the men fortified themselves for
the coming fray, and when the Colonel noisily sucked the very last drop
through the cooling ice--and took a piece of this in his mouth to
crunch--he leaned back with a sigh of satisfaction. Zack, as he walked
slowly away, also sighed, but it held a curious mixture of perplexity
and anticipation: perplexity, because Brent had scarcely drunk a third
of his julep, and anticipation for an obvious reason.
"All the same," the engineer announced when they were alone, "Bip is too
young!"
"Of course, he's too young," the Colonel heartily agreed. "Anybody's too
young, or too old, or too something, when it comes to being third person
on such a pleasant prospect. I would stand no intrusion, sir!"
"I didn't mean just that," Brent flushed.
"Certainly not, you altruistic and good natured liar," the old gentleman
chuckled. "Come, sir; here goes pawn to King four! Now be on your
guard!"
"To King four," Brent replied, leaning over and pushing out his own
King's pawn.
They had not been playing many minutes when the Colonel, pausing to
light a cigar, looked up with a start of surprise. Brent wheeled about
and there stood Tom Hewlet, swaying awkwardly and weeping. It was
uncanny the way he had approached so near without being heard.
"Well, Tom," the Colonel asked sharply, "what do you want?"
"I just want to call it quits, Cunnel. I ain't done nuthin' to be locked
up for!"
"You're very drunk," the old gentleman thundered. "I'm surprised you
would approach my place in such a condition!"
"There wasn't no other way, Cunnel. I'm sorry, I am, 'bout what I aimed
to do--an' I won't no moh, if Mister McElroy'll let up! I'm a hard
workin' man, an' got a big fam'ly to keer for!"
"Do you know what he's talking about?" the old gentleman asked Brent.
"I told you some of it the other day--but I think an approaching
delirium tremens is partially responsible for this!"
"Ah, so you did! Tom, you tried to practice blackmail!" The Colonel's
eyes were glowering.
"But I ain't no moh," Hewlet turned his back and began anew to weep.
"Don't do nuthin' to me!"
Brent motioned the Colonel to let him speak.
"Tom," he said, "Mister Dulany and I have been looking for you, to buy
your farm, so you can move to Missouri where your brother is." He paused
so Tom could grasp this. "You don't have to sell, and we won't force you
against your will." He paused again. "But if you stay here, and want me
to let up on you, you'll have to stop drinking; and report to the
Colonel every day for a month--"
"For six months," the Colonel corrected.
"--for six months," Brent continued, "so he can see if you're sober.
Also, you must plow up your weeds and get the farm in shape. Either of
these plans is open for twenty-four hours. Take tonight to think it
over, and tell us tomorrow."
"Gawd, I'll go to Missoury if I can sell the farm!" he cried.
"That's better. How much is it worth, Colonel?"
"It's good land," the old gentleman answered. "I'll give a hundred and
fifty an acre, because it adjoins me."
"How much is it mortgaged for?" Brent turned to Hewlet, who seemed
surprised at the question.
"Nuthin'," he doggedly answered.
"You might as well tell the truth; we're bound to know it!"
"Nuthin', I said," he looked shiftily down. "'N' I don't take no hund'ed
'n' fifty a acre, neither--from no railroad!"
"The same old hold-up," Brent murmured across the chess board.
But the Colonel, still obsessed by the old aching worry, was just then
engrossed with another thought. Clearing his throat, he said--trying to
do it casually:
"By the way, Tom, where is Tusk Potter?"
"I don't know, Cunnel; I ain't seen 'im for a 'coon's age."
"Oh, nothing at all, nothing at all," the old gentleman hastily added,
as though Tom had asked why he wanted to know.
"Well, how about our proposition?" Brent inquired.
"It's wu'th three hund'ed a acre," he grumbled.
"One-fifty is our price, Tom. Think it over before we change our minds!"
"Aw, hell," he sneered, "you can't bluff me!"
"Get off of my place, you drunken scoundrel!" the Colonel, towering with
rage, sprang up reaching for his cane.
But Tom, panic stricken, had turned and fled.
Sighing, the old gentleman dropped back into his chair.
"Let me see--where are we!" he said, looking closely at the board.
"You'd moved your Queen to her Bishop's second, hadn't you? Ah, yes!
Then my Bishop takes your Bishop's pawn, and checks. Now, sir, watch
out! I'm coming after you in good earnest!"
As it happened no one intruded upon the drive to church. When four
o'clock came around Bip had taken Mac down on the creek with Bob and
Mesmie, to hunt under the stones for crawfish.
The Colonel disappeared shortly after dinner for his nap, and Brent sat
alone under the trees indulging several rather curious speculations. His
eyes were closed, though in no sense was he sleepy. He was thinking of a
force; a new, an entirely new force; a perplexing force that each day
more determinedly gripped and held him. He had at last taken his
character into his hands and was contemplating its remodelling.
There comes a time to the life of every man when he shall sit in hollow
solitude and gaze upon the error of his way. To some this may be at the
bud, with every outlook forward; to others, not till they are well along
the path of yellow leaves. For it is not man who makes this moment.
Circumstance, pure and simple, leads to his sublime communion, and
circumstance is of the earth. A man may sin, and keep on sinning with
never a qualm, till reality sends in the bill. Then it is as if he had
stepped upon a corpse at night, and he is shocked beyond his strength to
move. Whether this be the specter of public shame, of physical decay, or
the ruin of a fellow, and however far along the highway of his life it
may appear, there still must come that hour to each who has unworthily
yielded, when he stands appalled; that hour when he raises eyes and arms
in mute despair up, up--somewhere. This is God's hour; then is where His
mercy conquers. But grim realities are not required to touch all hearts.
It does not need the jail, it does not need the fiery lash of a ruined
woman's pleading, it does not need the death-bed of one beloved; because
the Kingdom of Earth is such that just a pair of eyes, a damask cheek,
the murmuring of a name at twilight, may grow beneath some magic dew
into a power that holds one hand upon the Throne and with the other
meets mankind. Love!--another son of God; sometimes welcomed, sometimes
cherished, sometimes flattered, sometimes crucified!
Brent clenched his teeth. In years his own outlook was across the
sprouting fields of life, but to his hope of winning Jane he could gaze
only back along the path of yellow leaves. He realized how truly this
was of his own doing, and unsparingly laid the blame at its rightful
place. With whatever sincerity he might curse his follies, with whatever
fierce pleasure he would strangle them for her sake, their abandonment
now could not weld that link which would have united the chains of their
destinies. Too late! The utter hopelessness of this made him groan
aloud, as he had the first night they met in the circle of cedars; then,
from a false and poisonous pride; now, from humility and a man's honest
grief.
The sound of wheels brought him back to the time and place. He looked
up, shaking off the spell; but his hands were tightly shut, as if he
might be gripping the last tatters of abandoned hope. With a quick
gesture he made as though to wrap them close about him, and then smiled
at the realism into which his earnestness was leading.
Jane was standing on the porch, waiting; and a darky had brought around
Brent's own horse and buggy. Some time before this, loud calls from the
house and faintly returned answers from the creek had apprized him of
Bip's shameless truancy; but he was fully expecting the mountaineer to
go with them until this very minute when he saw what character of
vehicle stood before the house. He arose and crossed to her, casually
asking:
"Where's Dale?"
Two lights crossed the lenses of her eyes, but no timer could have
caught them.
"Where?" she asked. "Who knows? He's so utterly oblivious to everything,
living in an age so long before the Christian era, that it would be a
paradox to take him into a latter-day church."
While speaking she had come down the steps. He helped her in and settled
himself comfortably beside her.
"Did you notice how he flew from the dinner table straight back to his
books?" she asked, as they turned out of the gate. "When I looked over
his shoulder a while ago he was with Cicero again. He adores Cicero!"
"I'm beginning to like old Cis myself," Brent forced a grin and let the
horse out a step. "Never knew he could be such a good friend till now.
Crawfish and Cicero!--henceforth my amulets!"
But he was not happy, and she knew it. To deceive her he was
play-acting, and she knew this, too.
The sun lay behind them, and the afternoon was rich with every enticing
charm. The chapel, in modest seclusion, stood off in the valley, and was
reached from Arden by a typical country lane--as narrow as it was
noiseless--rising and dipping through miles and miles of rolling fields
and woods. Its sides were thickly woven vines, and younger trees and
shrubs, which gave out a woody fragrance; especially in the cooler,
damper places sloping down to meet and pass beneath some small, clear
stream.
This valley was in its most languid mood. Bluegrass stood ripe in the
pastures, each stem tilting wearily beneath a burden of seed. Wheat was
in the shock, and its sheaves leaned against each other as though
fatigued with having brought so large a yield; while the golden fields
of stubble lent a softer tone to the sturdy corn, or the less mature
hemp and tobacco. It was a season when at morning the harvester's call,
or at noon the wood-dove's melancholy note, or at evening the low of
Jersey herds, were irresistible invitations to poetic drowsiness.
Brent slowly turned and looked at her. Up to this time he had been
speaking only of indifferent things.
"I think it is all I can do to keep from making love to you!"
Her heart gave a bound as she recognised, not the bantering, but a very
serious, Brent had spoken. Yet she managed, even if a trifle late, to
answer frankly:
"You already do so many useless things;--I wouldn't, Brent!"
"I call that a diplomatic master-stroke," he smiled. "But it's
insufficient."
"Then appropriate," she added.
"I accept your judgment," he slowly replied, "because your judgment is
fair. Insufficient is the very word, and appropriate to everything I've
ever done, or have a right to expect from you. I was thinking it out
this afternoon before we started. So you've rebuked me, Lady Wonderful,
better than you know."
She was not quite following this--rather was she hoping he would stop.
The afternoon was too enticing--too charged with a dangerous spell. She
saw warning signals being waved at her from all directions. The deep,
sincere tone of his voice was one; two little ground squirrels watching
them from a mossy ledge of rock--two white butterflies fanning a
lace-weed bloom--two majestic birds, with moveless, outstretched wings,
weaving graceful aerial figures far up in the sky--made only a part of
the afternoon which spoke to her. Everything which rested in the charm
of this day, waved to her sweet warnings!
"Do you know what the country is saying?" she asked quickly.
"What the country is saying?" he repeated after her.
"Yes, this country, all about us, everywhere! It's telling me something,
and I just wondered if you could be getting the message, too."
He pretended to be listening.
"I can hear a brown thrasher warbling to me how much we love you! Is
that what you mean?"
"I wish you would be serious," she said--being, in fact, very far from
the wish. "The day is so lovely, so abundant with a nameless something
which comes to so few days, that it's asking if you won't try not to
spoil it with silly misrelations. Can't you hear it, now?"
"There's no doubt about my hearing it now," he gloomily admitted. "I
suppose we should have brought Dale, after all!"
"Don't spoil it in another way," she laughed. "You're such a--I was
about to say kid, but that's slangy, and I detest it. You're
slangy--awfully, Brent--aren't you!"
In spite of himself his face relaxed into a grin. There was no resisting
Jane's appeals, and if she wanted now to be quiet, or talk about
anything under the sun, at this admirable day's request, he was, for the
time being, willing. He told her this, and it is one of the anomalies
of human infelicity that she felt a tinge of disappointment at his
ready acquiescence.
"I've always loved this lane," she murmured, after not too long a pause.
"Isn't it the soul of peace?"
"Peace? How can you?" he looked down at her. "See the struggle!
Honeysuckle, trumpet-vine, poison-ivy, wild-grape, alder--and everything
else which I can't name--crowding and tangling and choking out each
other's lives! You call it peace?"
They had reached a crest of a hill and, down in front of them half a
mile on, stood the chapel, so snugly placed that only its little cross
could be seen above the tree-tops, summoning the indolent country-side
to prayer. With her eyes resting on it, she answered:
"The approach to your devotions seems to have made you pessimistic."
"My devotions are here, at my side," he said in a low voice. "And my
pessimism is caused by the true glass of my nature being held honestly
before my eyes. It started cutting up this way today after you left us,
and ever since I've not been able to spare myself. I don't know how to
make you understand it--perhaps you don't want to understand it--but the
two sides of this lane seem so peculiarly expressive of my life that I
see no peace in them at all."
"The lane might not be so attractive without a medley of rioting
things," she answered dreamily. "Yet, it could be improved by cutting
out the poison-ivy!"
"If that were cut out of the lane I mean, there would be little left.
It seems to have taken possession of--of my lane!"
"Are there not gardeners," she smiled a wee bit tenderly up at him, "who
know how it could be done?"
"But I have no gardener." The wistfulness in his voice checked her
smile.
They were at the chapel now, and he drove beneath the grove of trees,
helped her down, and then unchecked and tied the horse near a few others
already there. She waited. Slowly they went up to the silent door, but
on its threshold he touched her arm.
"May I find a gardener?" He was looking down with a strong appeal in his
eyes.
"For your sake, do," she hurriedly whispered, and went in.
They were early, and the chapel seemed to be dozing in a cool gloom
which was softly set in motion as she glided, like a graceful shadow, up
the aisle. He followed with more sturdy strides. So very quiet and
vault-like was the place, that each worshipper there before them could
be heard turning to see who came; and when he finally stretched back in
the pew of her selection, the creaking of its heavy walnut joints let
loose the echoes of a hundred years.
She had knelt, but he sat back watching her. The slowly westering sun,
piercing the outside branches and filtering a gleam of rose through one
of the gothic windows, touched her raised face that was in no need of
color. And while she gazed upon the crucifix, he looked tenderly upon
her who was typifying the most lovely purity he had to that time known.
A man entered, carrying a babe, and demurely followed by his wife. They
sat in the pew across; the woman coughed, and again the nave, the
ceiling and the altar were filled with hollow echoes. But other
worshippers now came, and their arrival seemed fully to arouse the
little chapel for its service, dispelling its ghostly sounds for the
rustlings of life.
In the midst of this Brent picked up a book of prayer, and on its first
page wrote: "And not for your sake?"--then passed it to her with the
pencil.
She read it, closed the place on the tip of her gloved finger, and
slowly raised her eyes full again upon the crucifix. The pencil slipped
from her lap and rolled beneath the pew, but when he moved to recover it
she shook her head;--and whatever the answer might have been remained a
secret between herself and the torn Christ.
Someone moved behind the chancel rail, touching with a lighted taper the
wick of each holy candle until the altar sparkled with a score of tiny
flames. She thought of his altar--his secret altar, and its tiny taper
flame.
Now the man across from them laid his sleeping baby in its mother's lap,
quietly and awkwardly arose, and tiptoed out. He appeared again in the
choir loft, removed his coat and waistcoat, spat upon his hands and
grasped the bellows handle. Over this once, twice, thrice he bent, as
though bowing before a symbol of the Trinity, and throughout the church
fluttered a low, trembling sigh of the organ, as it breathed its first
deep breaths of life since the morning service. It was not a mighty
instrument, but the nun who demurely came and sat upon the bench, now
touched the keys, and its harmonies held the little chapel in the grove
enthralled.
The sun was almost down as they turned homeward. It was the same drive,
except that the cool of evening was in the air, and a heavier fragrance
came from the tangles on either side.
"Forgive me if I'm quiet," she said. "I haven't been to church for so
shamefully long, and it so recalls the sweet years spent across there in
the convent, that--that I suppose I'm moody."
"I believe I understand almost how you feel. But do you know what I
thought when the light was shining through that window on your face?"
"Oh, please, Brent," her voice trembled, "I'm not a bit ready for you to
tell me anything you think about me--ever!"
He saw a mist in her eyes, and for awhile kept silent.
"I wonder why it is," he gently asked, "that men stand in such awe of a
girl's tears?"
"It isn't the tears, I believe," she tried to laugh, "but intuitively in
awe of the mysterious things which cause them. Women must be very silly
about it. I know I'm getting to be, for in all my life I've never wanted
to cry so many times as this summer. Maybe it's nerves. But sometimes we
do feel so helpless that just the sheer weight of sorrow, or the
buoyancy of happiness, will sort of press tears from our eyes, in spite
of ourselves."
"Which of those hidden forces has caused these?"
"Neither," she looked brightly up at him. "There aren't any tears, you
see."
After they had gone another mile in silence, he drily observed:
"Church hasn't left a very salubrious effect on us. It's made me feel as
desolate as a haunted house, and the only impression I brought away is
that a man must spit on his hands to pump an organ. Funny sort of a
stunt, wasn't it--having him come up out of the audience that way?"
"It didn't seem strange to me, Brent. You're probably too literal."
"There isn't such a tremendous scope for the poetic, when a rube wiggles
out of his clothes right in the pulpit, you might say!"
"Audience and pulpit," she gaily cried. "What a born churchman you are!
But, Brent," her voice grew wondrously sincere, "there was something
more to it: the simplicity with which that farmer, whose boots have been
in the soil for six days, could merge so actually into those things
which make for ideality! How few of us who cannot play an organ would
deign to offer ourselves as pumpers for its prosy bellows! Think of the
music we are denying ourselves, and others about us, merely because we
lack the kind of spirit to take off our coats and," she looked
whimsically up at him, "spit on our hands before the world!"
She knew that he was listening, but little suspected how much her words
had moved him until he spoke. There was a depth of passion in his voice
which she had never heard except upon that one day when he called her
as she was going toward the house.
"What eyes have you? To what white heights do you dare climb? You seem
literally to push away the clouds and gaze straight through that dome
which marks the farthest limit of my imaginings! You seem to tear it
with your hands, and look through!--you put your lips to the rift and
whisper with the angels!--and you always bring a little something back
which does men good! Oh, Jane, Jane! How honestly I wish--"
But he did not finish the wish, and in another few minutes they were at
Flat Rock, with Bob welcoming them and helping her to alight.