A PAGAN THRUSH
All that next June day I worked in my garden, in a dream, my hands
performing their tasks mechanically. I ran the wheel hoe between the
rows of newly planted raspberries and blackberries, to mulch the soil,
without consciousness of the future fruit which was supposed to delight
me.
Avoiding Mike, who would have insisted on conversing had I worked near
him, I next went down to the brook below the orchard, armed with a
rake, brush scythe, and axe, and located the spot on the stone wall
which exactly faced my front door. I marked it with a stake, and thinned
out the ash-leaved maples which grew like a fringe between the wall
and the brook, so that the best ones could spread into more attractive
trees, and so that a semicircular space was also cleared which could
surround the pool, as it were, and in which I could place a bench, up
against the foliage, to face the door of the house. From the door you
would look over the pool to the bench. From the bench you would look
over the pool and up the slope through the orchard to the house entrance.
After I had the bench site correctly located, I saw that the four flower
beds which Miss Goodwin and I had made were at least four feet out of
centre, and would all have to be moved. But that was too much of a
task for my present mood. I left them as they were, and busied myself
with rooting out undeniable weeds and carting off the slash and rubbish.
My mind was not on the task. Over and over I was asking myself the
question, "Do I love her? What permanence is there in a spring passion,
amid gardens and thrush songs, for a girl who caresses the sympathies
by her naive delight in the novelty of country life? How much of my
feeling for her _is_ passion, and how much is sympathy, even pity?"
Over and over I turned these questions, while my hands worked
mechanically. And over and over, too, I will be honest and admit, the
selfish incrustations of bachelor habits imposed their opposition to the
thought of union. I had bought the farm to be my own lord and master;
here I was to work, to create masterpieces of literature, to plan
gardens, to play golf, to smoke all over the house, to toil all night and
sleep all day if I so desired, to wear soft shirts and never dress
for dinner, to maintain my own habits, my own individuality, undisturbed.
What had been so pleasant, so tinglingly pleasant, for a day, a
week--the presence of the girl in the garden, in the house, the
rustle of her skirt, the sound of her fingers on the keys--would it
be always pleasant? What if one wished to escape from it, and there
were no escape? Passions pall; life, work, ambitions, the need of
solitude for creation, the individual soul, go on.
"All of which means," I thought, laying down my brush scythe and gazing
into the brook, "that I am not sure of myself. And if I am not sure of
myself, do I really love her? And if I am not sure of that, I must wait."
That resolution, the first definite thing my mind had laid hold on,
came to me as the sun was sinking toward the west. I went to the house,
changed my clothes, and hastened up the road to meet her, curiously eager
for a man in doubt.
She was coming out of the door as I crossed the bit of lawn, dressed not
in the working clothes which she had worn on our gardening days, but all
in white, with a lavender ribbon at her throat. She smiled at me brightly
and ran down the steps.
"Go to New York--but see Twin Fires first," she laughed. "I'm all
ready for the tour."
I had not quite expected so much lightness of heart from her, and I was
a little piqued, perhaps, as I answered, "You don't seem very sorry
that you are seeing it for the last time."
She smiled into my face. "All pleasant things have to end," she said,
"so why be glum about it?"
"Do they have to end?" said I.
"In my experience, always," she nodded.
I was silent. My resolution, which I confess had wavered a little when
she came through the doorway, was fixed again. Just the light banter in
her tone had done it. We walked down the road, and went first around
the house to take a look at the lawn and rose trellis. The young grass
was already a frail green from the house to the roses, the flowers around
the white sundial pedestal, while not yet in bloom, showed a mass of
low foliage, the nasturtiums were already trying to cling, with the
aid of strings, to the bird bath (which I had forgotten to fill), and
the rose trellis, coloured green by the painters before they departed,
was even now hidden slightly at the base by the vines of the new roses.
"There," said I, pointing to it, "is the child of your brain, your
aqueduct of roses, which you refuse to see in blossom."
"The child of my hands, too; don't forget that!" she laughed.
"Of _our_ hands," I corrected.
"The ghost of Rome in roses," she said, half to herself. "It will be
very lovely another year, when the vines have covered it."
"And it will be then, I trust," said I, "rather less like 'the rose
of beauty on the brow of chaos.' The lawn will look like a lawn by then,
and possibly I shall have achieved a sundial plate."
"Possibly you will," said she, with a suspicious twinkle. "And
possibly you'll have remembered to fill your bird bath."
She turned abruptly into the house and emerged with a pitcher of water,
tiptoeing over the frail, new grass to the bath, which she filled to the
brim, pouring the remainder upon the vines at the base.
"My last activity shall be for the birds," she smiled, as she came back
with the pitcher. As if in gratitude, a bird came winging out of the
orchard behind her, and dipped his breast and bill in the water.
"The darling!" I heard her exclaim, under her breath.
We took the pitcher inside, and I saw her glance at the flowers in the
vases. "I ought to get you some fresh ones," she said.
"No," I answered. "Those shall stay a long while, in memory of the
good fairy. Now I will show you my house. You have never seen my house
above the first story."
"It isn't proper," she laughed. "I shouldn't be even here, in the
south room."
"But you have been here many times."
Again she laughed. "Stupid! But Mrs. Pillig wasn't here then!"
"Oh!" said I, a light dawning on my masculine stupidity, "I begin
to realize the paradoxes of propriety. And now I see at last why I
shouldn't have asked you to pick the paint for the dining-room--when I
did."
Her eyes narrowed, and she looked into my face with sudden gravity. "I
wonder if you do understand?" she answered. Slowly a half-wistful smile
crept into the corners of her mouth, and she shook her head. "No, you
don't; you don't at all."
Then her old laugh came bubbling up. "I suspect Mrs. Pillig is more of
an authority on pies than propriety," she said in a cautious voice,
"and, besides, I'm going away to-morrow, and, besides, I don't care
anyway. Lead on."
We went up the uncarpeted front stairs, into the square upper hall which
was lighted by an east window over the front door. I showed her first
the spare room on the northeast corner, which connected with the bath,
and then the second front chamber opposite, which was not yet furnished
even with a bed. Then we entered my chamber, where the western sun was
streaming in. She stood in the door a second, looking about, and then
advanced and surveyed the bed.
"The bedclothes aren't tucked in right," she said.
"I know it," I answered sadly. "I have to fix them myself every night.
Mrs. Pillig is better on pies."
The girl leaned over and remade my monastic white cot, giving the pillow
a final pat to smooth it. Then she inspected the shingles and old
photographs on the walls, turning from an undergraduate picture of me,
in a group, to scan my face, and shaking her head.
"What's the matter?" I asked. "Don't tell me I'm getting bald."
"No, not bald," she answered, "but your eyes don't see visions as
they did then."
I looked at her, startled a little. "What makes you say that?" I asked.
"Forgive me," she replied quickly. "I meant nothing."
"You meant what you said," I answered, moving close to her, "and
it is true. It is true of all men, and all women, in a way--of all
save the chosen few who are the poets and seers. 'Shades of the prison
house begin to close'--you know that shadow, too, I guess. I have
no picture of you when you were younger. No--you are still the poet; you
see aqueducts of roses. So you think I'm prosy now!"
"I didn't say that," she answered, very low.
"One vision I've seen," I went on, "one vision, lately. It was--it
was----"
I broke abruptly off, remembering suddenly my resolve.
"Come," said I, "and I'll show you Mrs. Pillig's quarters."
She followed in silence, and peeped with me into the chambers in the
ell, smiling a little as she saw Peter's clothes scattered on the floor
and bed. Then, still in silence, and with the golden light of afternoon
streaming across the slopes of my farm, we entered the pines by the
woodshed, and followed the new path along by the potato field and the
pasture wall, pausing here and there to gather the first wild rose buds,
and turning down through the cloister at the south.
As we slipped into the corner of the tamarack swamp my heart was beating
high, my pulses racing with the recollection of all the tense moments in
that grove ahead, since first I met her there. I know not with what
feelings she entered. It was plain now even to me that she was masking
them in a mood of lightness. She danced ahead over the new plank
walk, and laughed back at me over her shoulder as she disappeared into
the pines. A second later I found her sitting on the stone I had placed
by the pool.
She looked up out of the corners of her eyes. "I should think this would
be a good place to wade," she said.
"So it might," said I. "Do you want to try it?"
"Do you want to run along to the turn by the road and wait?" The eyes
still mocked me.
"No," said I.
She shook her head sadly. "And I did so want to wade," she sighed.
"Really?" I asked.
"Really, yes. I won't have a chance again for--oh, never, maybe."
"Then of course I'll go ahead." I stepped over the brook, out of
sight. A moment later I heard a soft splashing of the water, and a voice
called, "I'm only six now. Oh, it's such fun--and so cold!"
I made no reply. In fancy I could see her white feet in the water, her
face tipped up in the shadows, her eyes large with delight. How sweet
she was, how desirable! I stood lost in a rosy reverie, when suddenly
I felt her beside me, and turned to meet her smile.
"How you like the brook," I said.
"How I love it!" she exclaimed. "Don't think me silly, but it really
says secret things to me."
"Such secrets as the stream told to Rossetti?" I asked.
She looked away. "I said secret things," she answered.
We moved on, around the bend by the road where the little picture of
far hills came into view, and back into the dusk of the thickest pines.
At the second crossing of the brook, I took her hand to steady her over
the slippery stones, and when we were across, the mood and memories
of the place had their way with us, and our hands did not unclasp. We
walked on so together to the spot where we first had met, and where
first the thrush had sounded for us his elfin clarion. There we stopped
and listened, but there was no sound save the whisper of the pines.
"The pines sound like soft midnight surf on the shore," she whispered.
"I want the thrush," I whispered back. "I want the thrush!"
"Yes," she said, raising her eyes to mine, "oh, yes!"
And then, as we waited, our eyes meeting, suddenly he sang, far off
across the tamaracks, one perfect call, and silence again. Her face was a
glimmering radiance in the dusk. Her hand was warm in mine. Slowly my
face sank toward hers, and our lips met--met for an instant when we
were not masters of ourselves, when the bird song and the whispering
pines wrought their pagan spell upon us.
Another instant, and she stood away from me, one hand over her mouth, one
hand on her panting breast, and fright in her eyes. Then, as suddenly,
she laughed. It was hardly a nervous laugh. It welled up with the
familiar gurgle from her throat.
"John Upton," she said, "you are a bad man. That wasn't what the
thrush said at all."
"I misunderstood," said I, recovering more slowly, and astounded by
her mood.
"I'll not reproach you, since I, a philologist, misunderstood for a
second myself," she responded. "Hark!"
There was a sudden sound of steps and crackling twigs in the grove behind
us, and Buster emerged up the path, hot on our scent. He made a dab
with his tongue at my hand, and then fell upon Miss Goodwin. She sank to
her knees and began to caress him, very quickly, so that I could not see
her face.
"Stella," said I, "Buster has made a friend of you. That's always
a great compliment from a dog."
She kept her face buried in his neck an instant longer, and then her eyes
lifted to mine. "Yes--John," she said. "And now I must go home to pack
my trunk."
"Let me drive you to the station in the morning," said I, as we emerged
from the grove, in this sudden strange, calm intimacy, when no word had
been spoken, and I, at least, was quite in the dark as to her feelings.
She shook her head. "No, I go too early for you. You--you mustn't try
to see me."
For just a second her voice wavered. She stopped for a last look at Twin
Fires. "Nice house, nice garden, nice brook," she said, and added,
with a little smile, "nice rose trellis." Then we walked up the road,
and at Bert's door she put out her hand.
"Good-bye," she said.
"Good-bye," I answered.
Her eyes looked frankly into mine. There was nothing there but smiling
friendship. The fingers did not tremble in my grasp.
"I shall write," said I, controlling my voice with difficulty, "and
send you pictures of the garden."
"Yes, do."
She was gone. I walked slowly back to my dwelling. I had kept my
resolution. Yet how strangely I had kept it! What did it mean? Had I
been strong? No. Had she made me keep it? Who could say? All had been
so sudden--the kiss, her springing away, her abrupt, astonishing
laughter. But she had not reproached me, she had not been righteously
angry, nor, still less, absurd. She had thought it, perhaps, but the
mood of the place and hour, and understood. That was fine, generous! Few
women, I thought, would be capable of it. Stella! How pleasant it had
been to say the name! Then the memory of her kiss came over me like a
wave, and my supper stood neglected, and all that evening I sat staring
idly at my manuscripts and stroking Buster's head.
Yes, I had kept my resolution--and felt like a fool, a happy, hopeless
fool!