“THE WATERS OF QUIET”
Mallowbanks, January 21st.
_My own Carin_:
I no longer have a grandmother.
She has gone. She is dead; but we are trying not to grieve. We are
thinking of her as sailing on “the waters of quiet” to where her husband
and her beloved son await her.
It was her love for that dead son, my father, that brought about her
death. Soon after I wrote you last, we could see that a cloud was
settling over her spirit. She was very restless and could not sleep, but
would go wandering about the house if she were not prevented.
“I reckon ole Miss has got to studyin’ about Mars Jack again,” said Semmy
to me. Indeed, all of us in the house could see that this was so. She
became suspicious of us and thought we were watching her to prevent her
from going out to her boy. She thought he was living again, young and
wayward, with no friend but herself, and though she seemed to be
reasonable enough upon other subjects, in regard to that she was quite
insane.
Martha was set to watch her early and late, and when she was weary Semmy
or I took her place. She was sweet and gay at moments. One afternoon
she showed me her painted fans and her jewels, and told me they would be
mine, some day, and I was naughty enough to say:
“But madam grandmother, what shall little Azalea do with all those?
Don’t you think her little string of ‘Job’s tears’ and a peacock fan made
by herself become her better?”
That teased her, as I knew it would.
“My dear Azalea,” she said in her most earnest manner, “you are a true
Knox, and these jewels and fans will become you. Wear them, not only for
your own sake, but for the credit of your family.”
I like to think of those last days we spent together. They were dreamy,
and happily-sad—different from other days altogether. Keefe was
finishing her portrait, but we would no longer let her sit to him. He
caught her expressions from day to day and made studies of them, and
touched up the portrait by himself. It was wonderful to me to see her
sparkling, wrinkled, aristocratic face, at once so worldly and so
spiritual, growing out of the canvas. Then, when she told him that he
was to make a second copy of it, that I might have one for my very own,
you can fancy my pride and satisfaction.
Well, we had fallen into the way of locking the two doors that lead from
her bedroom, so that if she should be taken with one of her old wandering
spells and should try to slip by Martha, who had a cot in the room with
her, she would be unable to get out. I slept in the little dressing room
next to her that I might be of assistance to Martha should she need me,
and several times she did, for grandmother insisted on going out to the
old place at the end of the garden. Once she had her jewel case with
her, and insisted that Jack must have the jewels, because he was going
hungry and was sleeping by the wayside, while she and all the rest of the
family lived in luxury. It took me a long time to quiet her.
But she was so well guarded that we thought no harm could possibly come
to her. But the hour came when we all failed her. I cannot bear to
think of it. No one in the house can.
It happened this way. I had gone motoring with Uncle David and Keefe.
Aunt Lorena remained at home to be near grandmother, and Martha was in
immediate charge. But Martha is old, too, and though she is most loyal,
she does not always use the best judgment. At any rate, while Aunt
Lorena was down with the cook talking over Sunday’s dinner, Grandmother
sent Martha to call her. She said she wished to consult with her at once
upon some important matter.
So Martha, nothing doubting, went in search of Aunt Lorena, and when she
came back grandmother was missing. She had been in the little upstairs
sitting room, but she was not to be found there nor in her bedroom.
Unfortunately, Martha wasted a few minutes in looking for her on the
second story, and then she came trembling down to the first floor, her
old knees quaking under her, and looked there without success. Old James
had been tidying up the walk in front of the house—for there had been a
rain and a cold wind, and twigs and branches were lying all about the
ground—and he said she had not come out. So more time was spent in
searching for her all about the great rambling house. The servants began
looking in the rooms we never use, and then they ran up to the attic,
thinking she might be up there looking over her chests and boxes as she
likes to do sometimes. But she was not there either.
Then Uncle David, Keefe and I came home.
I had noticed as we swept around the drive which goes by the east wing of
the house, that a certain little side door opening into the garden, stood
ajar, which was curious for this time of the year. It is a door used
only in the summer time, and then usually by someone who wishes to escape
quietly into the garden without being seen by those in the front of the
house.
“It’s a cold day for a door to be standing open like that,” I said to
Uncle David.
“Curious,” he said. “Mr. O’Connor, as you go in, be kind enough to close
it. It leads from the little coat room beneath the stairs.”
Keefe and I went in together, and then we heard the tumult in the house.
“We can’t find your grandmother!” said Aunt Lorena to me, showing her
white face at the head of the stairs. With that it flashed through me at
once that she had escaped by the side door. I flung off my motor coat
and ran for the coat room and through the door into the garden. There,
sure enough, by the narrow brick terrace was the imprint of her little
shoe.
“Come, Keefe, come,” I called, for I felt there was great trouble ahead,
and I wanted him to be with me, Carin. Yes, I can tell you, my dear, to
whom every event, almost every feeling of my life, is known, that I
wanted him above everyone else in the world.
It was almost dark by this time, and the two of us ran out, hand in hand,
and down the gray garden in the mist. Nothing looked natural to me. The
very shrubbery, wreathed all in white as it was, frightened me. The
bushes looked like strange, unheard-of beasts, crouching to spring. And
the whole place was so terribly still! I could feel my breath catching
in my throat and strangling me.
“It is at the end of the garden she goes to meet him,” I managed to say
through my throat.
“To meet whom?” asked Keefe. (I never had told him the story of my
father.)
“Her dead son,” I gasped, and said no more. For how could I explain
then? Keefe looked at me as if he thought I was out of my head, but I
said nothing, and we ran on.
And then we came to the pool—the little sweet pool that is like the heart
of the garden. The three swans were close to the shore looking at
something dark that lay there.
And it was she, Carin. It was little madam grandmother. She had fallen
with her face in the water, and it seemed as if she had not even tried to
rise.
Keefe saw her and sprang to her and picked her up in his arms, and I came
and looked at her.
“She has gone where she wished to go,” said Keefe. “She is with her
son.”
“Yes, I am sure it is as she would like it to be,” I cried, and I held
her hand in mine all the way to the house, and wondered if she knew I was
glad for her—that I was congratulating her.
But, Oh, Carin, how one’s throat can ache! How one’s heart can hang
heavy, like a weight! How one’s eyes can burn and head can throb, and
how one’s thoughts can heavily turn and turn, like an iron wheel! Did
you ever have a great sorrow? Oh, yes, I remember that you did, when
your three brothers were lost in that horrible theater fire. Well, I
have had a great sorrow before, too, when I lost my little mother. But I
was so young then and so generally miserable, and life had been hideous
for so long, that it was only one added pang. It was different from
this. I seem unable to get that scene in the garden out of my mind.
Grandmother seems still to be fluttering before those portraits of
herself, or in among the cabinets in the drawing-room, or along the
corridors, beckoning to her old Martha, or calling out to me: “Your arm,
Azalea, please.”
The funeral was strangely quaint and beautiful. So many old people
came—old friends from far away as well as near at hand, and I cannot
begin to tell you about the curious coaches and carriages that some of
them came in. The bishop preached the service, the funeral being held,
oddly enough, in the old ballroom of the house—the room where grandmother
had danced as a bride. But it looked very imposing and solemn on the day
of her burial. It is paneled in dark wood, and all about it were candles
burning in their sconces, and from grandmother’s coffin trailed a great
cloth of gold and black brocade.
The bishop had a voice like an organ, and when I heard him reading:
“I am the resurrection and the life,” my sorrow seemed to lighten.
Everyone was very kind to me—much kinder than I had any right to expect.
I had to meet many of the old family friends. It was really required of
me, Aunt Lorena explained, for there were a number present on this
occasion who had not been at my coming-out party. So, after the funeral,
I was introduced to them.
You understand, Carin, grandmother was not taken from the house after the
funeral. No, she was left lying up in that splendid room, and downstairs
the funeral guests were given some refreshments—for most of them had come
a long way, and many were old—and then, at midnight, the old servants
carried the coffin to the great vault that stands in a grove near the
house, and Uncle David and Aunt Lorena and Keefe and I followed, and she
was laid away with others of her family, my father among the rest.
There are cypress trees and hemlocks round about this vault, and they
stood up black against the dark sky, swaying and crying. Not one of us
spoke a word, and the only sound was the sobbing of the black people. I
felt more like crying than I ever had before in my life—yes, I wanted to
sob aloud and to call to grandmother to come back. Little sweet, proud,
loving, laughing grandmother! But I kept very still. It seemed as if I
could read Keefe’s thoughts and as if he were telling me to be quiet. So
I said over and over to myself the last line of a lovely poem I read the
other day. “‘O waters of quiet, go softly.’”
After so long a life, one must be glad to rest. I found out that night,
Carin, how that death, like life, is sweet and all in the course of
things and nothing to be afraid of.
Going back to the house I told Keefe that.
“Life is our comrade,” he said, “but death is our mother, holding out
kind hands to us when we are tired.”
When he left me he—he kissed me, Carin. On the forehead. I shall always
remember.
I did not leave my room the next day. I wanted to think. Old Semmy
stayed with me. But I did not mind her. I like old Semmy. She rocks to
and fro like the trees and seems to be waiting to give comfort when
comfort is needed. And that is like trees, too. After my little mama
died I used to wrap my arms about the trees up there on the mountain-side
and weep and weep, and they were very kind to me—those great chestnuts
and hemlocks. But now I am thinking out many things. I couldn’t have
written to anyone save you. But soon I shall write dear Mother McBirney
and Annie Laurie. (I have, of course, sent them word.)
Carin, tell me if you love me.
_Azalea_.
* * * * *
Mallowbanks, January 30th.
_Oh_, _Carin-girl_:
Other troubles have come to me—things I never dreamed of. I don’t know
how to meet them. They aren’t things like death, that just have to be
accepted with courage. No, they are things I have to decide about. I
have to make up my mind what is right and what is wrong. I never knew
before that it could be hard to do that.
This is the story: Two days after dear little grandmother was buried, I
was told that the family solicitor would be at the house at three in the
afternoon and that the will would be read, and I was expected to be
present. So I put on one of the new black dresses that tell their own
story, and when the time came I went down to the library. Uncle and
auntie were there before me, and they introduced me to Mr. Lindsay, and
then when the servants had come, he read grandmother’s will.
She was a rich woman, of course, but I had not guessed how rich, and she
gave bequests to Martha and James which would make it unnecessary for
them to work any more, with substantial remembrances to the other
servants, and a fine sum to the college her sons attended, and then all
of the rest she divided between Uncle David and me.
Only—
Only I was not to have mine—except for a small annuity—unless I married
according to Uncle David’s wishes.
This, the will said, was not because of lack of affection for me or lack
of confidence in me, but only because my early associations were such,
and I was of such an impulsive nature, that I was in danger of doing
something I would always regret. So she placed me lovingly in her son’s
hands, and expected me to defer to his judgment in all things.
Aunt Lorena looked down through all the reading of the will, and when it
was all over I tried to take her hand, but she wouldn’t let me, and it
was Semmy who took my hand and led me away to my room. I lay down on my
lounge and thought and thought. I could hear the winter wind shouting
through the pines, and outside the twilight was stormy and bleak. Semmy
wanted to build up a fire and to bring me tea there in my room, but I did
not want a fire and tea. There was only one thing in the world that I
wanted then, and I knew perfectly well what it was.
It was Keefe O’Connor.
And it was on account of him that grandmother had made that will. She
had seen that we cared for each other. She had not wanted me to marry
him. I knew then as well as when Uncle David had told me, that she
particularly objected to him—that is, that she particularly objected to
having him marry me. Not that he ever really asked me to, or that we
would marry for years and years. Yet—yet I know that is what she meant
when she made that will.
So now, Carin, I have learned my second great lesson this week. The
first was, that there could not be life without death, and that if life
is sweet, why so is death sweet too; and the second is that life cannot
be sweet without liberty.
Yes, I know it is an old, old truth, and that I ought to have known it
long ago. But to read a thing, or even to say it, is very different from
_realizing_ it.
I lay there asking myself if freedom meant more to me than anything else.
And I decided that it did. It wasn’t Keefe, merely, that made me ask
this question, or decide in this way. It was the whole principle of the
thing. Should I sell my right to do as I thought best—to do the thing
that would bring me happiness—for the sake of a fortune?
I did not go down to dinner. Semmy carried my excuses for me.
Then, a little later in the evening she came to ask if I would see Mr.
Keefe in the writing room. That was the room, you will remember, where
we all sat together the night grandmother told us the story about Dorothy
Bings.
I said I would go, and I brushed my hair and went on down the stairs.
Uncle David and Aunt Lorena were sitting in the library and they saw me,
and called out to know if I was feeling better, and I told them quite
frankly that I was not—thank them, very much.
So, with them looking at me, I went on to the writing room, and Keefe
stood there by the door waiting for me, and we went in and sat down
there, one on each side of the table. There was no firelight this time
to cheer us. The room was so chilly that it made my teeth chatter, but I
did not really think about that till afterward.
“Mr. Knox has told me,” said Keefe as soon as we were seated, “about your
grandmother’s will. He has said that he hopes I will not make the
fulfillment of its conditions difficult for you.”
“How did he know that you were likely to?” I asked.
“He could not very well help but know that, Azalea. Anyone who has seen
me with you must have known that I loved you.”
“Then you do?” I said. “You do, Keefe?”
“Why should I need to take the trouble to say it?” he demanded. “Haven’t
you known it from the first?”
“I have hoped it—sometimes.”
“Hoped it?” he said. “Haven’t you heard me say it?”
“Once—only once. But I thought that might have been an accident.”
Oh, Carin, what beautiful eyes he has! He took my hands in his there
across the table. We knew quite well that Aunt Lorena could see us from
where she sat, but we did not care at all.
“Did you promise my uncle that you would not make it hard for me?”
“No. I said if you wished it I would go away.”
“Forever?”
“Not at all. For the present. I said I would go away and give you a
chance to make up your mind. Your uncle and aunt wish to take you to
Europe with them. They want you to travel for a year or two. You will
meet other men, men whose lives and training will make them fitter
companions for you than I can ever be.”
“Keefe!” I said sharply. “Don’t muddle up facts like that. Your early
training was propriety itself compared with mine.”
“Nevertheless, now you are a very rich woman. You bear the name of an
old and distinguished family.”
“Not half so distinguished as the O’Connors,” I laughed. “Weren’t they
kings in Ireland once?”
“But my name is not even O’Connor, as you know.”
“Well, whatever your name may be by rights, Keefe—and at this moment I
have forgotten what it is—there is one word I cannot forget, and that is
spelled L-I-B-E-R-T-Y. In America we have always had a regard for that
little word. Perhaps we have preferred it to any in the language.
Hundreds of thousands of men have died for it, and as many women have had
broken hearts because of it. I’m not going to be behind them in my
regard for it. I—have you asked me? I love you, Keefe. I’d rather be
one year with you than twenty with anybody else. I shan’t mean anything
to myself if I try to live my life away from you. I choose you, Keefe.
I set the fortune aside and choose you.”
“No, Azalea,” he said, breathing as if he had been running, “no, you
mustn’t choose yet. As your uncle says, it isn’t fair. I ought to go
away—I ought to give you a chance to clear your mind. It isn’t clear
now—”
“But I want you to stay,” I broke in.
And just then Uncle David came to the door.
“Nevertheless, Azalea,” he said quietly, “Mr. O’Connor, having finished
both of your grandmother’s portraits, will be leaving for the North
to-morrow.”
“Oh, but why to-morrow?” I cried.
“Because,” he said, still in that quiet voice, “it is best so. I
sympathize with you, my girl. But believe me, it is best so.”
That is the way it stands, Carin. He has gone. It is very quiet here in
the house. Miss Delight Ravanel has asked me to spend a week with her
and I have accepted.
_Always with love_,
_Azalea_.