Book: A Spinner in the Sun

M >> Myrtle Reed >> A Spinner in the Sun




"I've wanted for some time to ask you," he began awkwardly, "if there
was not something I could do for you. The--the veil, you know--" He
stopped, at a loss for further words.

"Yes?" Miss Evelina's voice was politely inquiring. She thought it odd
for Anthony Dexter's son to be concerned about her veil. She wondered
whether he meditated giving her a box of chiffon, as Piper Tom had done.

"Believe me," he said, impetuously, "I only want to help. I want to
make it possible for you to take that--to take that thing off."

"It is not possible," returned Miss Evelina, after a painful interval.
"I shall always wear my veil."

"You don't understand," explained Ralph. It seemed to him that he had
spent the day telling women they did not understand. "I know, of
course, that there was some dreadful accident, and that it happened a
long time ago. Since then, wonderful advances have been made in
surgery--there is a great deal possible now that was not dreamed of
then. Of course I should not think of attempting it myself, but I
would find the man who could do it, take you to him, and stand by you
until it was over."

The clock ticked loudly and a little bird sang outside, but there was
no other sound.

"I want to help you," said Ralph, humbly, as he rose to his feet;
"believe me, I want to help you."

Miss Evelina said nothing, but she followed him to the door. At the
threshold, Ralph turned back. "Won't you let me help you?" he asked.
"Won't you even let me try?"

"I thank you," said Miss Evelina, coldly, "but nothing can be done."

The door closed behind him with a portentous suggestion of finality.
As he went down the path, Ralph felt himself shut out from love and
from all human service. He did not look back to the upper window,
where Araminta was watching, her face stained with tears.

As he went out of the gate, she, too, felt shut out from something
strangely new and sweet, but her conscience rigidly approved, none the
less. Against Aunt Hitty's moral precepts, Araminta leaned securely,
and she was sure that she had done right.

The Maltese kitten was purring upon a cushion, the loved story book lay
on the table nearby. Doctor Ralph was going down the road, his head
bowed. They would never see each other again--never in all the world.

She would not tell Aunt Hitty that Doctor Ralph had asked her to marry
him; she would shield him, even though he had insulted her. She would
not tell Aunt Hitty that Doctor Ralph had kissed her, as the man in the
story book had kissed the lady who came back to him. She would not
tell anybody. "Never in all the world," thought Araminta. "We shall
never see each other again."

Doctor Ralph was out of sight, now, and she could never watch for him
any more. He had gone away forever, and she had broken his heart. For
the moment, Araminta straightened herself proudly, for she had been
taught that it did not matter whether one's heart broke or not--one
must always do what was right. And Aunt Hitty knew what was right.

Suddenly, she sank on her knees beside her bed, burying her face in the
pillow, for her heart was breaking, too. "Oh, Lord," she prayed,
sobbing wildly, "keep me from the contamination of marriage, for Thy
sake. Amen."


The door opened silently, a soft, slow step came near. The pillow was
drawn away and a cool hand was laid upon Araminta's burning cheek.
"Child," said Miss Evelina, "what is wrong?"

Araminta had not meant to tell, but she did. She sobbed out, in
disjointed fragments, all the sorry tale. Wisely, Miss Evelina waited
until the storm had spent itself, secretly wishing that she, too, might
know the relief of tears.

"I knew," said Miss Evelina, her cool, quiet hand still upon Araminta's
face. "Doctor Ralph told me before he went home."

"Oh," cried Araminta, "does he hate me?"

"Hate you?" repeated Miss Evelina. "Dear child, no. He loves you.
Would you believe me, Araminta, if I told you that it was not wrong to
be married--that there was no reason in the world why you should not
marry the man who loves you?"

"Not wrong!" exclaimed Araminta, incredulously. "Aunt Hitty says it
is. My mother was married!"

"Yes," said Miss Evelina, "and so was mine. Aunt Hitty's mother was
married, too."

"Are you sure?" demanded Araminta. "She never told me so. If her
mother was married, why didn't she tell me?"

"I don't know, dear," returned Miss Evelina, truthfully. "Mehitable's
ways are strange." Had she been asked to choose, at the moment,
between Araminta's dense ignorance and all of her own knowledge,
embracing, as it did, a world of pain, she would have chosen gladly,
the fuller life.

The door-bell below rang loudly, defiantly. It was the kind of a ring
which might impel the dead to answer it. Miss Evelina fairly ran
downstairs.

Outside stood Miss Mehitable. Unwillingly, in her wake, had come the
Reverend Austin Thorpe. Under Miss Mehitable's capable and constant
direction, he had made a stretcher out of the clothes poles and a
sheet. He was jaded in spirit beyond all words to express, but he had
come, as Roman captives came, chained to the chariot wheels of the
conqueror.

"Me and the minister," announced Miss Mehitable, imperiously, "have
come to take Minty home!"




XIX

In the Shadow of the Cypress

The house seemed lonely without Araminta. Miss Evelina missed the
child more than she had supposed she could ever miss any one. She had
grown to love her, and, too, she missed the work.

Miss Evelina's house was clean, now, and most of the necessary labour
had been performed by her own frail hands. The care of Araminta had
been an added burden, which she had borne because it had been forced
upon her. Slowly, but surely, she had been compelled to take thought
for others.

The promise of Spring had come to beautiful fulfilment, and the world
was all abloom. Faint mists of May were rising from the earth, and
filmy clouds half veiled the moon. The loneliness of the house was
unbearable, so Miss Evelina went out into the garden, her veil
fluttering, moth-like, about her head.

The old pain was still at her heart, yet, in a way, it was changed.
She had come again into the field of service. Miss Mehitable had been
kind to her, indeed, more than kind. The Piper had made her a garden,
and she had taken care of Araminta. Doctor Ralph, meaning to be wholly
kind, had offered to help her, if he could, and she had been on the
point of doing a small service for him, when Fate, in the person of
Miss Mehitable, intervened. And over and above and beyond all, Anthony
Dexter had come back, to offer her tardy reparation.

That hour was continually present with her. She could not forget his
tortured face when she had thrown back her veil. What if she had taken
him at his word, and gone with him, to be, as he said, a mother to his
son? Miss Evelina laughed bitterly.

The beauty of the night brought her no peace as she wandered about the
garden. Without knowing it, she longed for human companionship. Piper
Tom had finished his work. Doctor Ralph would come no more, Araminta
had gone, and Miss Mehitable offered little comfort.

She went to the gate and leaned upon it, looking down the road. Thus
she had watched for Anthony Dexter in years gone by. Memories,
mercilessly keen, returned to her. As though it were yesterday, she
remembered the moonlit night of their betrothal, felt his eager arms
about her and his bearded cheek pressed close to hers. She heard again
the music of his voice as he whispered, passionately: "I love you, oh,
I love you--for life, for death, for all eternity!"

The rose-bush had been carefully pruned and tied up, but it promised
little, at best. The cypress had grown steadily, and, at times, its
long shadow reached through the door and into the house. Heavily, too,
upon her heart, the shadow of the cypress lay, for sorrow seems so much
deeper than joy.

A figure came up the road, and she turned away, intending to go into
the house. Then she perceived that it was Piper Tom, and, drawing
down her veil, turned back to wait for him. He had never come at night
before.

Even in the darkness, she noted a change in him; the atmosphere of
youth was all gone. He walked slowly, as though he had aged, and the
red feather no longer bobbed in his hat.

He went past her silently, and sat down on the steps.

"Will you come in?" asked Evelina.

"No," answered the Piper, sadly, "I'll not be coming in. 'T is selfish
of me, perhaps, but I came to you because I had sorrow of my own."

Miss Evelina sat down on the step beside him, and waited for him to
speak.

"'T is a small sorrow, perhaps, you'll be thinking," he said, at last.
"I'm not knowing what great ones you have seen, face to face, but 't is
so ordered That all sorrows are not the same. 'T is all in the heart
that bears them. I told you I had known them all, and at the time, I
was thinking I spoke the truth. A woman never loved me, and so I have
lost the love of no woman, but," he went on with difficulty, "no one
had ever killed my dog."

"How?" asked Miss Evelina, dully. It seemed a matter of small moment
to her.

"I'll not be paining you with that," the Piper answered, "At the last,
't was I who killed him to save him from further hurt. 'T was the best
I could do for the little lad, and I'm thinking he'd take it from me
rather than from any one else. I'm missing his cheerful bark and his
pleasant ways, but I've taken him away for ever from Doctor Dexter and
his kind."

"Doctor Dexter!" Evelina sprang to her feet, her body tense and
quivering.

"Aye, Doctor Dexter--not the young man, but the old one."

A deep-drawn breath was her only answer, but the Piper looked up,
startled. Slowly he rose to his feet and leaned toward her intently,
as though to see her face behind her veil.

"Spinner in the Shadow," he said, with infinite tenderness, "I'm
thinking 't was he who hurt you, too!"

Evelina's head drooped, she swayed, and would have fallen, had he not
put his arm around her. She sat down on the step again, and hid her
veiled face in her hands.

"'T was that, I'm thinking, that brought me to you," he went on. "I
knew you did not care much for the little lad--he was naught to any one
but me. 'T is this that binds us together--you and I."

The moon climbed higher into the heavens and the clouds were blown
away. The shadow of the cypress was thrown toward them, and the dense
night of it concealed the half-open door.

"See," breathed Evelina, "the shadow of the cypress is long."

"Aye," answered Piper Tom, "the shadow of the cypress is long and the
rose blooms but once a year. 'T is the way of the world."

He loosened his flute from the cord by which it was slung over his
shoulder. "I was going to the woods," he said, "but at the last, I
could not, for the little lad always fared with me when I went out to
play. He would sit quite still when I made the music, so still that he
never frightened even the birds. The birds came, too.

"'T is a way I've had for long," he continued. "I never could be
learning the printed music, so I made music of my own. So many laughed
at it, not hearing any tune, that I've always played by myself. 'T was
my own soul breathing into it--perhaps I'm not to blame that it never
made a tune.

"Sometimes I'm thinking that there may be tunes and tunes. I was once
in a place where there were many instruments, all playing at once, and
there was nothing came from it that one could call a tune. But 't was
great and beautiful beyond any words of mine to tell you, and the
master of them all, standing up in front, knew just when each must play.

"Most, of course, I watched the one who played the flute and listened
to the voice of it. 'T is strange how, if you listen, you can pick out
one instrument from all the rest. I saw that sometimes he did not play
at all, and yet the music went on. Sometimes, again, he was privileged
to play just a note or two--not at all like a tune.

"'T was just his part, and, by itself, it would have sounded queer. I
might have laughed at it myself if I did not know, and was listening
for a tune. But the master of them all was pleased, because the man
with the flute made his few notes to sing rightly when they should sing
and because he kept still when there was no need of his instrument.

"So I'm thinking," concluded the Piper, humbly, "that these few notes
of mine may belong to something I cannot hear, and that the Master
himself leads me, when 't is time to play."

He put the instrument to his lips and began to play softly. The low,
sweet notes were, as he said, no evident part of a tune, yet they were
not without a deep and tender appeal.

Evelina listened, her head still bowed. It did not sound like the
pipes o' Pan, but rather like some fragment of a mysterious,
heart-breaking melody. Faint, far echoes rang back from the
surrounding hills, as though in a distant forest cathedral another
Piper sat enthroned.

The sound of singing waters murmured through the night as the Piper's
flute breathed of stream and sea. There was the rush of a Summer wind
through swaying branches, the tinkle of raindrops, the deep notes of
rising storm. Moonlight shimmered through it, birds sang in green
silences, and there was scent of birch and pine.

Then swiftly the music changed. Through the utter sadness of it came
also a hint of peace, as though one had planted a garden of roses and
instead there had come up herbs and balm. In the passionate pain,
there was also uplifting--a flight on broken wings. Above and beyond
all there was a haunting question, to which the answer seemed lost.

At length the Piper laid down his flute. "You do not laugh," he said,
"and yet I'm thinking you may not care for music that has no tune."

"I do care," returned Evelina.

"I remember," he answered, slowly. "It was the day in the woods, when
I called you and you came."

"I was hurt," she said. "I had been terribly hurt, only that morning,"

"Yes, many have come to me so. Often when I have played in the woods
the music that has no tune, some one who was very sad has come to me.
I saw you that day from far and I felt you were sad, so I called you.
I called you," he repeated, lingering on the words, "and you came."

"I do not so much care for the printed music," he went on, after an
interval, "unless it might be the great, beautiful music which takes so
many to play. I have often thought of it and wondered what might
happen if the players were not willing to follow the master--if one
should play a tune where no tune was written, and he who has the violin
should insist on playing the flute.

"I would not want the violin, for I think the flute is best of all. It
is made from the trees on the mountains and the silver hidden within,
and so is best fitted for the message of the mountains--the great, high
music.

"I'm thinking that the life we live is not unlike the players. We have
each our own instrument, but we are not content to follow as the Master
leads. We do not like the low, long notes that mean sadness; we will
not take what is meant for us, but insist on the dancing tunes and the
light music of pleasure. It is this that makes the discord and all the
confusion. The Master knows his meaning and could we each play our
part well, at the right time, there would be nothing wrong in all the
world."

Miss Evelina sighed, deeply, and the Piper put his hand on hers.

"I'm not meaning to reproach you," he said, kindly, "though, truly, I
do think you have played wrong. In any music I have heard, there has
never been any one instrument that has played all the time and sadly.
When there is sadness, there is always rest, and you have had no rest."

"No," said Evelina, her voice breaking, "I have had no rest--God knows
that!"

"Then do you not see," asked the Piper very gently, "that you cannot
help but make the music wrong? The Master gives you one deep note to
play, and you hold it, always the same note, till the music is at an
end.

"'T is something wrong, I'm thinking, that has made you hold it so.
I'm not asking you to tell me, but I think that one day I shall see.
Together we shall find what makes the music wrong, and together we
shall make it right again."

"Together," repeated Evelina, unconsciously. Once the word had been
sweet to her, but now it brought only bitterness.

"Aye, together. 'T is for that I stayed. Laddie and I were going on,
that very day we saw you in the wood--the day I called you, and you
came. I shall see, some day, what has made it wrong--yes. Spinner in
the Shadow, I shall see. I'm grieving now for Laddie and my heart is
sore, but when I have forgiven him, I shall be at rest."

"Forgiven who?" queried Evelina.

"Why, the man who hurt Laddie--the same, I'm thinking, who hurt you.
But your hurt was worse than Laddie's, I take it, and so 't is harder
to forgive."

Evelina's heart beat hard. Never before had she thought of forgiving
Anthony Dexter. She put it aside quickly as altogether impossible.
Moreover, he had not asked.

"What is it to forgive?" she questioned, curiously.

"The word is not made right," answered the Piper, "I'm thinking 't is
wrong end to, as many things in this world are until we move and look
at them from another way. It's giving for, that's all. When you have
put self so wholly aside that you can be sorry for him because he has
wronged you, why, then, you have forgiven."

"I shall never be able to do that," she returned. "Why, I should not
even try."

"Ah," cried the Piper, "I knew that some day I should find what was
wrong, but I did not think it would be now. 'T is because you have not
forgiven that you have been sad for so long. When you have forgiven,
you will be free."

"He never asked," muttered Evelina.

"No; 't is very strange, I'm thinking, but those who most need to be
forgiven are those who never ask. 'T is hard, I know, for I cannot yet
be sorry for him because he hurt Laddie--I can only be sorry for
Laddie, who was hurt. But the great truth is there. When I have grown
to where I can be sorry for him as well as for Laddie, why, my grieving
will be done.

"The little chap," mused the Piper, fondly, "he was a faithful comrade.
'T was a true heart that the brute--ah, what am I saying! I'll not be
forgetting how he fared with me in sun and storm, sharing a crust with
me, often, as man to man, and not complaining, because we were
together. A woman never loved me but a dog has, and I'm thinking that
some day I may have the greater love because I've been worthy of the
less.

"My mother died when I was born and, because of that, I've tried to
make the world easier for all women. I'm not thinking I have wholly
failed, yet the great love has not come. I've often thought," went on
Piper Tom, simply, "that if a woman waited for me at night when I went
home, with love on her face, and if a woman's hand might be in mine
when the Master tells me that I am no longer needed for the music, 't
would make the leaving very easy, and I should not ask for Heaven.

"I've seen, so often, the precious jewel of a woman's love cast aside
by a man who did not know what he had, having blinded himself with
tinsel until his true knowledge was lost. You'll forgive me for my
rambling talk, I'm thinking, for I'm still grieving for the little
chap, and I cannot say yet that I have forgiven."

He rose, slung his flute over his shoulder again, and went slowly
toward the gate. Evelina followed him, to the cypress tree.

"See," he said, turning, "the shadow of the cypress is long. 'T is
because you have not forgiven. I'm thinking it may be easier for us to
forgive together, since it is the same man."

"Yes," returned Evelina, steadily, "the shadow of the cypress is long,
and I never shall forgive."

"Aye," said the Piper, "we'll forgive him together--you and I. I'll
help you, since your hurt is greater than mine. You have veiled your
soul as you have veiled your face, but, through forgiveness, the beauty
of the one will shine out again, and, I'm thinking, through love, the
other may shine out, too. You have hidden your face because you are so
beautiful; you have hidden your soul because you are so sad. I called
you in the woods, and I call you now. I shall never cease calling,
until you come."

He went out of the gate, and did not answer her faint "good-night."
Was it true, as he said, that he should never cease calling her?
Something in her spirit stirred strangely at his appeal, as a far,
celestial trumpet blown from on high might summon the valiant soul of a
warrior who had died in the charge.




XX

The Secret of the Veil

"Father," said Ralph, pacing back and forth, as was his habit, "I have
wanted for some time to ask you about Miss Evelina--the woman, you
know, in the little house on the hill. She always wears a veil and
there can be no reason for it except some terrible disfigurement. Has
she never consulted you?"

"Never," answered Anthony Dexter, with dry lips.

"I remember, you told me, but it seems strange. I spoke to her about
it the other day. I told her I was sure that something could be done.
I offered to find the best available specialist for her, go with her,
and stand by her until it was over."

Anthony Dexter laughed--a harsh, unnatural laugh that jarred upon his
son.

"I fail to see anything particularly funny about it," remarked Ralph,
coldly.

"What did she say?" asked his father, not daring to meet Ralph's eyes.

"She thanked me, and said nothing could be done."

"She didn't show you her face, I take it."

"No."

"I should have thought she would, under the circumstances--under all
the circumstances."

"Have you seen her face?" asked Ralph, quickly, "by chance, or in any
other way?"

"Yes."

"How is it? Is it so bad that nothing can be done?"

"She was perfectly right," returned Anthony Dexter, slowly. "There is
nothing to be done."

At the moment, the phantom Evelina was pacing back and forth between
the man and his son. Her veiled face was proudly turned away. "I
wonder," thought Anthony Dexter, curiously, "if she hears. If she did,
though, she'd speak, or throw back her veil, so she doesn't hear."

"I may be wrong," sighed Ralph, "but I've always believed that nothing
is so bad it can't be made better."

"The unfailing ear-mark of Youth, my son," returned Anthony Dexter,
patronisingly. "You'll get over that."

He laughed again, gratingly, and went out, followed by his persistent
apparition. "We'll go out for a walk, Evelina," he muttered, when he
was half-way to the gate. "We'll see how far you can go without
getting tired." The fantastic notion of wearying his veiled pursuer
appealed to him strongly.

Ralph watched his father uneasily. Even though he had been relieved of
the greater part of his work, Anthony Dexter did not seem to be
improving. He was morose, unreasonable, and given to staring vacantly
into space for hours at a time. Ralph often spoke to him when he did
not hear at all, and at times he turned his head from left to right and
back again, slowly, but with the maddening regularity of clock-work.
He ate little, but claimed to sleep well.

Whatever it was seemed to be of the mind rather than the body, and
Ralph could find nothing in his father's circumstances calculated to
worry any one in the slightest degree. He planned, vaguely, to invite
a friend who was skilled in the diagnosis of obscure mental disorders
to spend a week-end with him, a little later on, and to ask him to
observe his father closely. He did not doubt but that Anthony Dexter
would see quickly through so flimsy a pretence, but, unless he
improved, something of the kind would have to be done soon.

Meanwhile, his heart yearned strangely toward Miss Evelina. It was
altogether possible that something, might be done. Ralph was modest,
but new discoveries were constantly being made, and he knew that his
own knowledge was more abreast of the times than his father's could be.
At any rate, he was not so easily satisfied.

He was trying faithfully to forget Araminta, but was not succeeding.
The sweet, childish face haunted him as constantly as the veiled
phantom haunted his father, but in a different way. Through his own
unhappiness, he came into kinship with all the misery of the world. He
longed to uplift, to help, to heal.

He decided to try once more to talk with Miss Evelina, to ask her,
point blank, if need be, to let him see her face. He knew that his
father lacked sympathy, and he was sure that when Miss Evelina once
thoroughly understood him, she would be willing to let him help her.

On the way uphill, he considered how he should approach the subject.
He had already planned to make an ostensible errand of the book he had
loaned Araminta. Perhaps Miss Evelina had read it, or would like to,
and he could begin, in that way, to talk to her.

When he reached the gate, the house seemed deserted, though the front
door was ajar. It was a warm, sweet afternoon in early Summer, and the
world was very still, except for the winged folk of wood and field.

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