FATE GRIPS HER LANDING NET
She sang her French roles in Germany and three times in _Siegfried_,
and was getting ready for Paris again when a long letter from Alice
Carter besought us all to come to Boston as quickly as might be. Old
Madam Bradley had been stricken suddenly with paralysis. One side of
her body was beyond movement, but the other was as yet unimpaired, and
by a series of questions they had found out that she wanted to see
Roger--and Roger's wife--before she died. Nor was this enough, for the
proud, afflicted old creature, when their ingenuity had failed, traced
left-handed upon a slate, with infinite effort, my initials: evidently
she wanted to make her peace in this world before she left it.
Margarita demurred a little and I, for one, should be the last to
blame her. Greater knowledge of the world and especially her
acquaintance with Walter Carter, who did not hesitate to blame his
mother-in-law, had taught her to appreciate Madam Bradley's neglect,
and her feeling for death had none of the sacred respect custom breeds
in us--at least outwardly. She had just begun to study _Lohengrin_ and
a charming week at a French _chateau_ with Sue had given her a taste
for the society she liked and ornamented so well. She suggested that
Roger and I should go alone, leaving her with Sue, and we (Sue and I)
trembled for the outcome, for she seemed rather determined, to us.
But we had not counted sufficiently on Roger's sense of what was right
and just. What might be considered a slighting of his personal claims
he could endure patiently; what was due to his family and position he
could not ignore. Quietly he cancelled Margarita's early contracts,
secured passage and dismissed the servants.
"Be ready to sail on Saturday, _cherie_," he said, "I want my mother
to see you very much, and Mary, too."
"Very well," said Margarita, round-eyed and breathing fast, and
Barbara Jencks clapped her hands noiselessly. She adored Roger, as did
all his servants and dependents, for that matter.
We reached Boston with the first early snows, and though his mother's
face was set and her hand steady as she laid it on his head, I think
they understood each other and were grateful from their hearts for
that hour of reconciliation. For Margarita the stately silver-haired
figure with immovable features and fixed, withdrawn gaze held some
unexpected and inexplicable charm. She kissed Madam Bradley willingly,
set the little Mary on her lap and beguiled the child with every
graceful wile to laugh and crow and exhibit her tiny vocabulary. She
sang by the hour, so that the gloomy house--brightened now, for the
baby's health--echoed with her lovely notes. Bradleys and Searses and
Wolcotts flocked to meet her and spread her fame and charm abroad; and
Roger forgot for a while the load he carried and seemed like himself
again. Even Sarah capitulated, and that before very long, too. I saw
her actually wiping away a tear as she watched Madam Bradley lift with
great effort her cold white finger and trace the outline of her
grandchild's face: the little Mary was the image of her father and a
fine Bradley, with only her mother's quick motions and mobile smile to
remind one of that side of her ancestry.
Of course Madam Bradley was not demonstrative, nor even cordial, from
any ordinary point of view, but from hers, and in the light of our
knowledge of her, there was a tremendous difference. Already she had
given little Mary a beautiful diamond cross and the famous Bradley
silver tea-service. Sarah had softened wonderfully, too, and seemed
to feel that since her aunt did not die, it was incumbent upon her to
pay her debt to heaven by burying the hatchet. I don't think I ever
quite did Sarah justice, so far as her feeling for Madam Bradley
went--she appeared to be deeply and genuinely attached to her and was
sick with anxiety when the stroke took her. She shared perfectly the
grandmother's feeling over the baby, and Margarita's good taste in
presenting Roger with such a perfect Bradley was set down to her
credit with vigorous justice. For she never forgave poor Alice for the
brown little Carters. Alice's children resembled their father, and
Sue's (almost grandchildren, in that house) were sickly and
comparatively unattractive; but Margarita's daughter, perfect in
health, beautiful as a baby angel, active, daring, and enchantingly
affectionate, satisfied the old lady's pride completely and she sat
for hours contentedly watching her sprawl on an Indian blanket on the
floor.
Either the comfort of renewed relations with her children mended her
health or the fatality of the shock was overestimated, for she did not
die, not then nor for many years, but lived, happier, perhaps in her
affliction than before it, for the bond between her and Roger and
Mother Mary, strengthened when she was preparing for death, never
loosened again, and more than once, a black-robed, white-coiffed
figure has visited the home of her father's like a slim shadow, and
carried with her one of the Church's greatest blessings, surely--the
healing of old wounds and the restoring of human loves.
PART NINE
IN WHICH THE RIVER FINDS THE SEA
Like a white snake upon the sands
She's writhing in the crispy foam,
She holds her soul in her open hands,
And now she staggers and now she stands,
And now she runs to her husband's home!
O I have seen a wife at rest,
That croons the babe upon her knee,
She lies upon her goodman's breast
As gentle as a bird at nest,
The mermaid's saved her soul from Sea!
_Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden._