THE VIGIL IN THE SWING
WHEN I look back on that hot July day it seems a week long; so much was
crowded into it. After the ceremony we took Tippy up home in the machine
with the children, and then went for a drive. I hadn't realized how
tired I was till I sank back into the comfortable seat beside Richard.
Nothing could have rested me more than that rapid spin toward Wellfleet
with the salt breeze in my face. As we started out of town Richard
glanced at his watch.
"Only sixty-three hours more for this old burg," he announced. "I've got
it figured down to a fine point now. Even to the minutes."
"So anxious to get away?" I asked.
"Oh, it isn't that. I'm keen enough to get busy over there, but----" He
did not finish but presently nodded toward the water where a great fleet
of fishing boats was putting into port. They filled the harbor with a
flashing of sails in the late afternoon sunshine, like a flock of
white-winged birds. "I'm wondering how long it will be before I see
_that_ again."
I answered with a line from "Kathleen Mavourneen," humming it airily:
"It may be for years and it may be forever."
"Don't you care?" he demanded almost crossly, with his eyes intent on
the triple curve just ahead.
"Of course I care," I answered. "If you were a truly own brother I
couldn't feel any worse about your going off into all that danger, and I
couldn't be any prouder of you. And I think that under the circumstances
we might be allowed to put another star on our service flag, one for you
as well as for Father. You belong to us more than anyone else now."
"_Will_ you do that?" he asked quickly, and with such eagerness that I
saw he was both touched and pleased. "It makes a tremendous difference
to a fellow to feel that he's got some sort of family ties--that he
isn't just floating around in space like a stray balloon. It's a mighty
lonesome feeling to think that there's nobody left to miss you or care
what becomes of you."
"Oh, we'll care all right," I promised him. "We'll be a really truly
family to you, and we'll miss you and write to you and _knit_ for you."
He was in the midst of the triple curve now, with a machine honking
somewhere ahead, but he turned to flash a pleased smile at me and we
came very near to a collision. He had to veer to one side so suddenly
that we were nearly thrown out. For two years he has been so eager to go
overseas that I hadn't an idea he would have any homesick qualms when
the time came, but to find that he was hanging on to each hour as
something precious made me twice as sorry to see him go as I would have
been otherwise.
As we came back into town he glanced at his watch again but said nothing
until I leaned over to look too.
"How many hours now?" I asked. "Only sixty-one and a half," he answered,
"and they'll whiz by like a streak of lightning." From then on I began
counting them too.
There was a birthday letter from Barby waiting for me when I got home,
such a dear one that I took it off to my room to read by myself. The
package she mentioned sending was evidently delayed. As I sat in front
of my mirror, brushing my hair before going down to supper, I thought
what a very, very different birthday this was from the one we had
planned for my eighteenth anniversary. Still it had been a happy day. I
felt repaid for my wild rush every time I recalled Babe's face when she
saw herself for the first time in her wedding gown. Her delight was
pathetic, and her gratitude will be something to remember always, that
and the fact that I was a bridesmaid for the first time--and a Maid of
Honor at that.
Suddenly I came to myself with a start to find myself with my hair down
over my shoulders and my brush held in mid air, while I gazed at
something in the depths of the mirror. Something that wasn't there. The
altar and the bridal party before it, and the Best Man looking across at
me with that grave, wistful expression that was like a leave-taking. And
then his smile as our eyes met. It seems strange that just recalling a
little thing like that should make me glowingly happy, yet in some
unaccountable way it did.
Judith and George Woodson came up after supper. I was almost sorry they
did, for Richard had asked me to play the "Reverie" that he always asks
Barby for. He was stretched out on the leather couch with his hands
clasped under his head, looking so comfortable and contented it seemed a
pity to disturb him. He'll think of that old couch and the times he's
lain on it listening to Barby play, many a time when he's off there in
range of the enemy's guns.
They stayed till after ten o'clock, talking aeroplanes mostly, for
George got Richard started to describing nose dives and spirals and all
the wonderful somersault stunts they do above the clouds. He knows so
much about machines, having helped build them, that he could sketch the
different parts of them while he was talking, and he knows the record of
all the famous pilots, just as a baseball fan knows all about the
popular players. While he was up in Canada he met two of the most daring
aces who ever flew, one from the French Escadrille, and one an
Englishman of the Royal Flying Corps. It was his acquaintance with the
Englishman which led to Richard's being assigned to the Royal Naval Air
Service. He's to learn the British methods of handling sea-planes, and
he's hoping with all his heart that he won't be brought home as an
instructor when he has learned it. He wants to stay right there
patrolling the Channel and making daring raids now and then over the
enemy's lines.
It must have been torture for George to listen to his enthusiastic
description of duels above the clouds and how it feels to whiz through
space at a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour, because it was the
dream of his life to get into that branch of the service. His
disappointment makes him awfully bitter. Still he persisted in talking
about it, because he's so interested he can't keep off the subject. It's
a thousand times more thrilling than any of the old tales of knight
errantry, and I'm glad George kept on asking questions. Otherwise I'd
never have found out what an amazing lot Richard knows that I never even
suspected.
During the last few minutes of their visit I heard Tippy out in the
hall, answering the telephone. She came in just as they were all
leaving, to tell us it was a message from Belle. Aunt Elspeth was
sinking rapidly. The end was very near now. Uncle Darcy had asked for
Barby, forgetting she was away, and Belle thought it would be a comfort
to him to feel that some of the family were in the house, keeping the
vigil with him.
Tippy had intended to go down herself as soon as the children were
asleep, but little Judson kept waking up and crying at finding himself
in a strange bed. He seemed a bit feverish and she was afraid to leave
him. So Richard and I went. When Judith and George left we walked with
them part of the way.
I've seen many a moonlight night on the harbor before, when the water
was turned to a glory of rippling silver, but never have I seen it such
a sea of splendor as it was that night we strolled along beside it. It
was entrancingly beautiful--that luminous path through the water, and
the boats lifting up their white sails in the shining silence were like
pearl-white moths spreading motionless wings.
None of us felt like talking, the beauty was so unearthly, so we went
along with scarcely a word, until we reached the business part of the
town. There the buildings on the beach side of the street hid the view
of the water. Both picture-shows were just out, and the gay summer
crowds surging up and down the narrow board walk and overflowing into
the middle of the street were as noisy as a flock of jaybirds. George
and Judith left us at the drug-store corner, going in for ice-cream
soda.
When we turned into Fishburn Court, there on the edge of the dunes, we
seemed entering a different world. It was so still, shut in by the high
warehouses between it and town. We opened the gate noiselessly and went
up the path past the old wooden swing. The full moon shining high
overhead made the little doorway almost as bright as day, except for the
circle of shadow under the apple tree. Even there the light filtered
through in patches. All the doors and windows stood open. A candle
flickered on the high black mantel in the sitting-room. In the bedroom
beyond the lamp on the bureau was turned low.
Belle met us at the door, motioning us toward the bedroom. Coming in
from the white radiance outside the light seemed dim at first, but it
was enough to show the big four-posted bed with Aunt Elspeth lying
motionless on it. Such a frail little body she was, but her delicate,
flower-like sort of beauty had lasted even into her silver-haired old
age. She did not seem to be breathing, but Uncle Darcy, sitting beside
her holding her hand, was leaning over talking to her as if she could
still hear. Just bits of sentences, but with a cadence of such infinite
tenderness in the broken words that it hurt one to hear them.
"Dan'l's right here, lass.... He won't leave you.... No, no, my dear."
I drew back, but Belle's motioning hand insisted. "Just let him see that
you're here to keep watch with him," she whispered. "It'll be a comfort
to him."
So we went in. When I laid my hand on his shoulder he looked up with a
dazed expression till he saw who it was and who was with me. Then he
smiled at us both, and after that one welcoming glance turned back to
the bed.
We went back to the sitting room and stood there a moment, uncertainly.
Then Richard opened the screen door, beckoning me to follow. He led the
way to the swing, and we stepped in and sat down, facing each other. It
stood so close to the cottage that to sit there opposite the open
window was almost like being in the room. The glow from the lamp
streamed out across the grass towards us, dimly yellow. We could see
every movement, hear every rustle. Belle and the nurse tiptoed back and
forth. Danny went out and came in again. Then they settled back into the
shadowy corners.
Somewhere away up in the town, a phonograph began playing "The Long,
Long Trail." The notes came to us faintly a few moments, then stopped,
and the silence grew deeper and deeper. Nothing broke it except a
cricket's chirp in the grass, and now and then a half-whispered word of
soothing from Uncle Darcy. He crooned as he would to a sleepy child.
"There's naught to fear, lass.... All's well.... Dan'l's holding you."
Already she was beyond the comfort of his voice, but he kept on
murmuring reassuringly, as if the protecting care that had never failed
her in a long half-century of devotion was great enough now in this
extreme hour to push aside even Death. He would go with her down into
the very Valley of the Shadow.
As I sat there listening, dozens of little scenes came crowding up out
of the past like mute witnesses to their beautiful love for each other.
There was the day Mrs. Saggs found a nightgown of Aunt Elspeth's in the
work-basket with a bungling patch half-stitched on by Uncle Darcy's
stiff old fingers, and what she said about those old hands making a
botch of patches, but never any botch in being kind. And the day Father
and I, waiting in the kitchen, saw her cling to him and tell him
quaveringly, "You're always so good to me, Dan'l. You're the best man
the Lord ever made."
I do not know how long we sat there, but there was time to review all
the many happy days I had spent with them in the little cottage. Then
some very new and startling thoughts came crowding up in the
overwhelming way they do when one is drowning. It seems to me I grew
years older in that time of waiting. I had always been afraid of Death
before, but suddenly the fear left me. It was no longer to be dreaded as
the strongest thing in the world, if Love could thrust it aside like
that and walk on past it, immortal and unafraid.
I didn't know I was crying till two tears splashed down on my hands,
which were pressed tightly together in my lap. A little shiver ran over
me. Richard leaned forward and took my white sweater from the back of
the seat where I had thrown it, motioning for me to put it on. I shook
my head but he kept on holding it out for me to slip my arms into, in
that insistent, masterful way of his, till finally I did so. I hadn't
known I was cold till I felt the warmth of it around me. Then I noticed
that a breeze had sprung up and was stirring the boughs of the apple
tree, and my hands were like ice from the long nervous strain.
But even more comforting than the wrap which enveloped me was the inward
warmth that came from the sense of being watched over and taken care of.
The long vigil went on. Suddenly the nurse leaned over and said
something. And then--Belle pulled down the shade.
After a few moments Uncle Darcy came stumblingly out to the doorway and
sat down on the step, burying his face in his hands. Richard and I
looked at each other, uncertain what to do or to say, hesitating as the
two children had done so long ago, when the old rifle gave up its
secret. But this time we did not run away.
This time we went up to him, each with a silent handclasp. Then putting
my arm around the bent old shoulders I held him close for a moment. He
leaned against me and reaching up with his stiff, crooked fingers gently
patted my hand.
"Aye," he said brokenly. "She's gone ... but--_her love abides_! Death
couldn't take _that_ from me!"