“THE FLAG ON ITS JOURNEY”
Stumblingly Marcia made her way from the alley, and finding the nearest
livery stable, she had some difficulty in persuading a man to drive her
to Bluffport. During that ride she realized only one thing. The hand of
God had intervened and she was forever freed from the power of either of
the Morelands. Never again need she fear the Martin Moreland whom she
had last seen clutching the white flag and babbling over Rebecca’s
speech. Never again need she fear the sardonic smile, the merciless
cruelty of the beautiful boy, who, with the utmost politeness, had taken
the revolver from her shaking hands with a deep bow and a gay, “Permit
me,” and with no instant of hesitation had discharged it into his own
breast. He must have known that no escape was left him and that the
wrath of Jason would be as inexorable as Fate itself. He had preferred
escaping all of them in his own way. Abominable as he had been, Marcia
was almost stunned at herself as she rode through the night thinking
things over, to find that she had been unable, either when she stood
before him alone, or as she watched from the closet during the
appearance of Jason and Mahala, to keep from admiring Junior. She found
herself saying to the darkness: “What a wonderful man he might have
been! How lovable, how brave!”
It comforted her heart as they came down the main street of Bluffport,
to see a light in the back of the Bodkin Millinery, to know that there
was food and a warm welcome awaiting her. In a few minutes more she was
sobbing in utter abandonment on the narrow breast of Nancy. After she
had regained her composure and Nancy had done everything to comfort and
to console her, they sat until almost daybreak talking things over.
When she had rehearsed every detail of the day, Marcia lifted her head:
“I think,” she said, “that I am as safe at last as I ever can be. Jason
will never do anything to harm me. All the mentality Martin Moreland has
left will be occupied from now on with fulfilling the curse set upon him
by Rebecca. I truly believe that I have nothing further to fear.”
Nancy sat thinking for a long time. Then she looked at Marcia and said
softly: “And now, Marcia, will you listen to the minister?”
Marcia sat a long time in deep thought, and then she said quietly: “To
have the love of a good man, to have the home and the security that he
would give me if he did not know, might be a wonderful thing. But I
could not marry him without telling him, because, so surely as I did
not, some way, some of my graves would open and the dead would confront
me; and there is the child that I would not be considered suitable to
mother. The only way I can see out of it is for you and me to go on
together making the best that we can of life.”
It hurt Nancy Bodkin sorely to see Marcia suffer. She had a pang, too,
for the minister, but deep in her heart she was ashamed of herself for
the little throb of rejoicing that sprang up at Marcia’s words. She
might dismiss her remotest fear. Nothing ever could sever their
partnership or spoil their friendship; until one or the other of them
lay down in the final sleep, the Bodkin Millinery would go on doing
business and each of the partners would give to the other the undivided
devotion of a sincere heart.
When another winter had run its course, under the old apple trees of
May, Jason sat on a bench in the orchard with young Jason on his lap.
Kneeling in front of them, Mahala was playing a game almost as old as
babies. Holding up one pink, bare toe for every line, she chanted:
“This is a fat king, out for a ride,
This is a fair queen, close by his side.
This a tall soldier on guard with his gun;
This a fine lady who walks in the sun.
This is a baby curled up in his bed,
Here go all of them over your head!”
Jason and Mahala laughed together with gleeful shouts from the baby.
As she lifted her head to push back her hair, Mahala glanced down the
road and a flicker of white slowly coming beside the river caught her
attention. She said nothing, but she kept watching, and after a time she
recognized a tottering figure, bowed and stumbling along slowly.
The penetrant sun of spring was beating mercilessly upon Martin
Moreland’s old white head. When Jason realized who the traveller was, he
drew back repulsed, but Mahala arose, and as Martin Moreland came past
the odorous lilacs and across the grass toward them, she motioned him to
a seat. He refused to be seated, but he drew himself together the best
he could and made her a courtly bow.
In a wavering voice he said to her: “Beautiful little lady, you seem
strangely familiar to me, yet I do not recall your name.”
Fearing that her name might awaken unpleasant memories that would
produce such an attack as in her childhood she had seen Rebecca suffer
from, Mahala merely smiled at him and said: “Names do not matter. Was
there something you wanted?”
Martin Moreland tried to stand straight. He struggled till the pain of
the effort to think was visible on his face; but at last he gave up.
“There was a reason for my coming,” he said, “but I regret to say that I
cannot at the present minute recall it.”
In a low voice at her side Jason said to Mahala: “Send him away. I can’t
endure the sight of him.”
Mahala lifted her hand to silence Jason. Patiently she said to the old
man: “Maybe I can help you to remember what it is that you have
forgotten. Did you want to tell me something, or was it Jason?”
At that name Martin Moreland lifted his head. A flash of memory came
back to him.
“I want Jason,” he said. “I wanted my son, Jason. He is the only friend
that I have left in all the world. I am old, I am tired, I am tortured,
I lack food. I have come to beg of him only a crust of bread.”
Mahala went into the house. She brought food and drink. She helped
Martin Moreland to seat himself securely upon the chair she brought. She
tried to relieve him of the white flag, but he would not allow it to be
taken from his fingers. With one hand he clutched it tightly. With the
other he took the glass of milk Mahala offered him, but he was shaking
so that he could only lift it to his lips with her help. The food he did
not touch at all.
He rested a few minutes and then he arose and extended the white flag.
He lifted his face to the skies and with more strength and sureness in
his voice, he cried: “Behold the emblem of purity. Clean hearts may pass
under with God’s blessing. Come, ye workers of darkness, wash your
hearts clean by passing under the white flag!”
Mahala gently turned Martin Moreland’s face toward the road again. She
led him to the gate and pointed in the direction of Ashwater. “I think,”
she said, “that there are a number of sinful people coming along the
highway. No doubt many of them will be glad to pass under your flag.”
“Thank you, little lady,” said Martin Moreland. “Thank you. Now that you
suggest it, I believe that is the case. I will go forward in my work of
upholding the white emblem of purity. I wish you a very happy good day!”
Mahala went back and once more dropped on her knees beside Jason. She
put one arm around him and the other around the baby, and buried a face
of compassion against the hearts of both of them. Until it faded from
sight, they watched the bowed, lean figure trudging the River Road, the
flag flashing white in the sunlight.
THE END