Book: Flower of the Dusk

M >> Myrtle Reed >> Flower of the Dusk




"Well, if the villain is always foiled, you're surely not afraid, are
you?"

"I don't know's I'm afraid in the long run, but I don't like to have you
go through such things and be exposed to the temptations of a great
city."

"Why don't you come with me, Mother, and keep house for me? We can find
a little flat somewhere, and----"

"What on earth is that?"

[Sidenote: Apartments and Flats]

"I've never been in one myself, but Miss Wynne said that, if you wanted
to come, she would find us a flat, or an apartment."

"What's the difference between a flat and an apartment?"

"That's what I asked her. She said it was just the rent. You pay more
for an apartment than you do for a flat."

"I wouldn't want anything I had to pay more for," observed Miss Mattie,
stroking her chin thoughtfully. "You ain't told me what a flat is."

"A few rooms all on one floor, like a cottage. It's like several
cottages, all under one roof."

"What do they want to cover the cottages with a roof for? Don't they
want light and air?"

"You don't understand, Mother. Suppose that our house here was an
apartment house. The stairs would be shut off from these rooms and the
hall would be accessible from the street. Instead of having three rooms
upstairs, there might be six--one of them a kitchen and the others
living-rooms and bedrooms. Don't you see?"

"You mean a kitchen on the same floor with the bedrooms?"

"Yes, all the rooms on one floor."

"Just as if an earthquake was to jolt off the top of the house and shake
all the bedrooms down here?"

"Something like that."

"Well, then," said Miss Mattie, firmly, "all I've got to say is that it
ain't decent. Think of people sleepin' just off kitchens and washin'
their faces and hands in the sink."

"I think some of them must be very nice, Mother. Miss Wynne expects to
live in an apartment after she is married and she has a little one of
her own now. If you'll come with me we'll find some place that you'll
like. I don't want to leave you alone here."

[Sidenote: Under One Roof]

"No," she answered, after due deliberation, "I reckon I'll stay here.
You can't transplant an old tree and you can't take a woman who has
lived all her life in a house and put her in a place where there are
several cottages all under one roof with bedrooms off of kitchens and
folks washin' in the sinks. Miss Wynne can do it if she likes, but I was
brought up different."

"I'm afraid you'll be lonesome."

"I don't know why I should be any more lonesome than I always have been.
All I see of you is at meals and while you're readin' nights. You're
just like your pa. If I propped up a book by the lamp, it would be just
as sociable as it is to have you settin' here. Readin' is a good thing
in its place and I enjoy it myself, but sometimes it's pleasant to hear
the human voice sayin' somethin' besides 'What?' and 'Yes' and 'All
right' and 'Is supper ready?'

[Sidenote: The Blue Hair Ribbon]

"I've been lookin' over your things to-day and gettin' 'em ready. The
moths has ate your Winter flannels and you'll have to get more. I've
mended your coat linin's and sewed on buttons, and darned and patched,
and I've took Barbara North's blue hair ribbon back to her--the one you
found some place and had in your pocket. You mustn't be careless about
those things, Roger--she might think you meant to steal it."

"What did Barbara say?" he stammered. The high colour had mounted to his
temples.

"She didn't know what to say at first, but she recognised it as her hair
ribbon. I told her you hadn't meant to steal it--that you'd just found
it somewheres and had forgot to give it to her, and it was all right.
She laughed some, but it was a funny laugh. You must be careful,
Roger--you won't always have your mother to get you out of scrapes."

Roger wondered if the knot of blue ribbon that had so strangely gone
back to Barbara had, by any chance, carried to her its intangible
freight of dreams and kisses, with a boyish tear or two, of which he had
the grace not to be ashamed.

"Your pa was in the habit of annexin' female belongin's, though the Lord
knows where he ever got 'em. I suppose he picked 'em up on the
street--he was so dreadful absent-minded. He was systematic about 'em in
a way, though. After he died, I found 'em all put away most careful in a
box--a handkerchief and one kid glove, and a piece of ribbon about like
the one I took back to Barbara. He was flighty sometimes: constant
devotion to readin' had unsettled his mind.

"That brings me to what I wanted to say when I first started out.
I don't want you should load up your trunk with your pa's books to
the exclusion of your clothes, and I don't want you to spend your
evenin's readin'."

"I'm not apt to read very much, Mother, if I work in an office in the
daytime and go to law school at night."

[Sidenote: Ten Books Only]

"That's so, too, but there's Sundays. You can take any ten of your pa's
books that you like, but no more. I'll keep the rest here against the
time the train is blocked and the mails don't come through. I may get a
taste for your pa's books myself."

Roger did not think it likely, but he was too wise to say so.

"And I didn't tell you this before, but I've made it my business to go
and see the Judge and tell him how you saved my life at the expense of
Fido's. I don't know when I've seen a man so mad. I was goin' to suggest
that we get him another dog from some place, and land sakes! he clean
drove it out of my mind.

"I don't know how you've stood it, bein' there in the office with him,
and I told him so. He's got a red-headed boy from the Ridge in there
now, and I think maybe the Judge will get what's comin' to him before he
gets through. I've learned not to trifle with anybody what has red hair,
but seemin'ly the Judge ain't. It takes some folks a long time to learn.

"Barbara's goin' to the city, too, to spend the Winter with that Miss
Wynne in the cottage that's under the same roof with other cottages and
the bedrooms off the kitchen. I don't know how Barbara'll take to
washin' in the sink, when she's always had that rose-sprigged bowl and
pitcher of her ma's, but it's her business, not mine, and if she wants
to go, she can.

[Sidenote: "Me and Miriam"]

"Me and Miriam'll set together evenings and keep each other from bein'
lonesome. She ain't much more company than a cow, as far as talkin'
goes, but there's a feelin,' some way, about another person bein' in the
house, when the wind gets to howlin' down the chimney. We may arrange to
have supper together, once in a while, and in case of severe weather,
put the two fires goin' in one house, which ever's the warmest.

"I don't know what we shall do, for we ain't talked it over much yet,
but with church twice on Sunday and prayer-meetin' Wednesday evenings,
and the sewin' circle on Friday, and two New York papers every week, and
Miriam, and all your pa's books to prop up against the lamp, I don't
reckon I'll get so dreadful lonesome. I've thought some of gettin'
myself a cat. There's somethin' mighty comfortable and heartenin' about
a cup of hot tea and the sound of purrin' close by. And on the Spring
excursion to the city, I reckon I'll come up and see you, if I don't
have no more pain in my back."

[Sidenote: Dr. Conrad's Automobile]

"I'd love to have you come, Mother, and I'd do all I could to give you a
good time. I know the others would, too. Doctor Conrad has an automobile
and----"

Miss Mattie became deeply concerned. "Is he treatin' himself for it?"
she demanded.

"I don't think so," answered Roger, choking back a laugh.

"It beats all," mused Miss Mattie. "They say the shoemaker's children
never have shoes, and it seems that doctors have diseases just like
other folks. I disremember of havin' heard of this, but I know from my
own experience that a disease with only one word to it can be dreadful
painful. Is it catchin'?"

"Not with full speed on," replied Roger. "An automobile is very hard to
catch."

"Well, see that you don't take it," cautioned Miss Mattie. The first
part of his answer was obscure, but she was not one to pause over an
uninteresting detail.

"You've warned me about almost everything now, Mother," he said,
smiling. "Is there anything else?"

"Nothing but matrimony, and that's included under the head of designing
females. I shouldn't want you to get married."

"Why not?"

[Sidenote: Welded Souls]

"I don't know as I could tell you just why, only it seems to me that a
person is just as well off without it. I've been thinking of it a good
deal since I've had these New York papers and read so much about two
souls bein' welded into one. My soul wasn't never welded with your pa's,
nor his with mine, as I know of.

"Marriage wasn't so dreadful different from livin' at home. It reminded
me of the Summer ma took a boarder, your pa required so much waitin' on.
And when you came, I had a baby to take care of besides. If I was welded
I never noticed it--I was too busy."

Roger's heart softened into unspeakable pity. In missing the "welding,"
Miss Mattie had missed the best that life has to give. Somewhere,
doubtless, the man existed who could have stirred the woman's soul
beneath the surface shallows and set the sordid tasks of daily living in
tune with the music that sways the world.

[Sidenote: "Un-marriage"]

"There's a good deal in the papers about un-marriage, too," resumed Miss
Mattie, "and I can't understand it. When you've stood before the altar
and said 'till death do us part,' I don't see how another man, who ain't
even a minister, can undo it and let you have another chance at it.
Maybe you do, bein' as you're up in law, but I don't.

"It looks to me as if the laws were wrong or else the marriage ceremony
ought to be written different. If a man said, 'I take thee to be my
wedded wife, to love and to cherish until I see somebody else I like
better,' I could understand the un-marriage, but I can't now. When you
get to be a power in the law, Roger, I think you should try to get that
fixed. I never was welded, but after I'd given my word, I stuck to it,
even though your pa was dreadful aggravatin' sometimes. He didn't mean
to be, but he was. I guess it's the nature of men folks."

Deeply moved, Roger went over and kissed her smooth cheek. "Have I been
aggravating, Mother?"

Miss Mattie's eyes grew misty. She took off her spectacles and wiped
them briskly on one corner of the table-cover. "No more'n was natural,
I guess," she answered. "You've been a good boy, Roger, and I want you
should be a good man. When you get away from home, where your mother
can't look after you, just remember that she expects you to be good,
like your pa. He might have been aggravatin', but he wasn't wicked."

[Sidenote: Remember]

All the best part of the boy's nature rose in answer, and the mist came
into his eyes, too. "I'll remember, Mother, and you shall never be
disappointed in me--I promise you that."




XXII

Autumn Leaves


[Sidenote: Autumn Glory]

Summer had gone long ago, but the sweetness of her passing yet lay upon
the land and sea. The hills were glorious with a pageantry of scarlet
and gold where, in the midnight silences, the soul of the woods had
flamed in answer to the far, mysterious bugles of the frost. Bloom was
on the grapes in the vineyard, and fairy lace, of cobweb fineness, had
been hung by the secret spinners from stem to stem of the purple
clusters and across bits of stubble in the field.

From the blue sea, now and then, came the breath of Winter, though
Autumn lingered on the shore. Many of the people at the hotel had gone
back to town, feeling the imperious call of the city with the first keen
wind. Eloise, with a few others, waited. She expected to stay until
Barbara was strong enough to go with her.

But Barbara's strength was coming very slowly now. She grieved for her
father, and the grieving kept her back. Allan came down once a
fortnight to spend Sunday with Eloise and to look after Barbara, though
he realised that Barbara was, in a way, beyond his reach.

[Sidenote: What We Need]

"She doesn't need medicine," he said, to Eloise. "She is perfectly well,
physically, though of course her strength is limited and will be for
some time to come. What she needs is happiness."

"That is what we all need," answered Eloise.

Allan flashed a quick glance at her. "Even I," he said, in a different
tone, "but I must wait for mine."

"We all wait for things," she laughed, but the lovely colour had mounted
to the roots of her hair that waved so softly back from her low
forehead.

"When, dear?" insisted Allan, possessing himself of her hand.

"I promised once," she answered. "When the colour is all gone from the
hills and the last leaves have fallen, then I'll come."

"You're not counting the oaks?" he asked, half fearfully. "Sometimes the
oak leaves stay on all Winter, you know. And evergreens are ruled out,
aren't they?"

"Certainly. We won't count the oaks or the Christmas trees. Long before
Santa Claus comes, I'll be a sedate matron instead of a flyaway,
frivolous spinster."

"For the first time since I grew up," remarked Allan, with evident
sincerity, "I wish Christmas came earlier. Upon what day, fair lady, do
you think the leaves will be gone?"

"In November, I suppose," she answered, with an affected indifference
that did not deceive him. "The day after Thanksgiving, perhaps."

"That's Friday, and I positively refuse to be married on a Friday."

[Sidenote: The Best Day of All]

"Then the day before--that's Wednesday. You know the old rhyme says:
'Wednesday the best day of all.'"

So it was settled. Allan laughingly put down in his little red leather
pocket diary, under the date of Wednesday, November twenty-fifth, "Miss
Wynne's wedding." "Where is it to be?" he asked. "I wouldn't miss it for
worlds."

"I've been thinking about that," said Eloise, slowly, after a pause. "I
suppose we'll have to be conventional."

"Why?"

"Because everybody is."

"The very reason why we shouldn't be. This is our wedding, and we'll
have it to please ourselves. It's probably our last."

"In spite of the advanced civilisation in which we live," she returned,
"I hope and believe that it is the one and only wedding in which either
of us will ever take a leading part."

"Haven't you ever had day-dreams, dear, about your wedding?"

"Many a time," she laughed. "I'd be the rankest kind of polygamist if
I had all the kinds I've planned for."

"But the best kind?" he persisted. "Which is in the ascendant now?"

[Sidenote: An Ideal Wedding]

"If I could choose," she replied, thoughtfully, "I'd have it in some
quiet little country church, on a brilliant, sunshiny day--the kind that
makes your blood tingle and fills you with the joy of living. I'd like
it to be Indian Summer, with gold and crimson leaves falling all through
the woods. I'd like to have little brown birds chirping, and squirrels
and chipmunks pattering through the leaves. I'd like to have the church
almost in the heart of the woods, and have the sun stream into every
nook and corner of it while we were being married. I'd like two taper
lights at the altar, and the Episcopal service, but no music."

"Any crowd?"

Her sweet face grew very tender. "No," she said. "Nobody but our two
selves."

"We'll have to have a minister," he reminded her, practically, "and two
witnesses. Otherwise it isn't legal. Whom would you choose for
witnesses?"

"I think I'd like to have Barbara and Roger. I don't know why, for I have
so many other friends who mean more to me. Yet it seems, some way, as if
they two belonged in the picture."

[Sidenote: Right Now]

A bright idea came to Allan. "Dearest," he said, "you couldn't have the
falling leaves and the squirrels if we waited until Thanksgiving time,
but it's all here, right now. Don't you remember that little church in
the woods that we passed the other day--the little white church with
maples all around it and the Autumn leaves dropping silently through the
still, warm air? Why not here--and now?"

"Oh, I couldn't," cried Eloise.

"Why not?"

"Oh, you're so stupid! Clothes and things! I've got a million things to
do before I can be married decently."

He laughed at her woman's reason as he put his arms around her. "I want
a wife, and not a Parisian wardrobe. You're lovelier to me right now in
your white linen gown than you've ever been before. Don't wear yourself
out with dressmakers and shopping. You'll have all the rest of your life
for that."

"Won't I have all the rest of my life to get married in?" she queried,
demurely.

"You have if you insist upon taking it, darling, but I feel very
strongly to get married to-day."

"Not to-day," she demurred.

"Why not? It's only half past one and the ceremony doesn't last over
twenty minutes. I suppose it can be cut down to fifteen or eighteen if
you insist upon having it condensed. You don't even need to wash your
face. Get your hat and come on."

His tone was tender, even pleading, but some far survival of Primitive
Woman, whose marriage was by capture, stirred faintly in Eloise. "Our
friends won't like it," she said, as a last excuse.

[Sidenote: The Two Concerned]

He noted, with joy, that she said "won't," instead of "wouldn't," but
she did not realise that she had betrayed herself. "We don't care, do
we?" he asked. "It's our wedding and nobody's else. When we can't please
everybody, we might as well please ourselves. Matrimony is the one thing
in the world that concerns nobody but the two who enter into it--and
it's the thing that everybody has the most to say about. While you're
putting on your hat, I'll get the license and see about a carriage."

"I thought I'd wait until Barbara could go to town with me," she said.

"There's nothing to hinder your coming back for her, if you want to and
she isn't willing to come with Roger. I insist upon having my honeymoon
alone."

"All alone? If I were very good, wouldn't you let me come along?"

Allan coloured. "You know what I mean," he said, softly. "I've waited so
long, darling, and I think I've been patient. Isn't it time I was
rewarded?"

They were on the beach, behind the friendly sand-dune that had been
their trysting place all Summer. Thoroughly humble in her surrender, yet
wholly womanly, Eloise put her soft arms around his neck. "I will," she
said. "Kiss me for the last time before----"

"Before what?" demanded Allan, as, laughing, she extricated herself from
his close embrace.

"Before you exchange your sweetheart for a wife."

[Sidenote: More Secure]

"I'm not making any exchange. I'm only making my possession more secure.
Look, dear."

He took from his pocket a shining golden circlet which exactly fitted
the third finger of her left hand. Their initials were engraved inside.
Only the date was lacking.

"I've had it for a long, long time," he said, in reply to her surprised
question. "I hoped that some day I might find you in a yielding mood."

When she went up to her room, her heart was beating wildly. This sudden
plunge into the unknown was blinding, even though she longed to make it.
Having come to the edge of the precipice she feared the leap, in spite
of the conviction that life-long happiness lay beyond.

In the fond sight of her lover, Eloise was very lovely when she went
down in her white gown and hat, her eyes shining with the world-old joy
that makes the old world new for those to whom it comes, be it soon or
late.

[Sidenote: Beautifully Unconventional]

"It's beautifully unconventional," she said, as he assisted her into the
surrey. "No bridesmaids, no wedding presents, and no dreary round of
entertainments. I believe I like it."

"I know I do," he responded, fervently. "You're the loveliest thing I've
ever seen, sweetheart. Is that a new gown?"

"I've worn it all Summer," she laughed "and it's been washed over a
dozen times. You have lots to learn about gowns."

"I'm a willing pupil," he announced. "Shouldn't you have a veil? I
believe the bride's veil is usually 'of tulle, caught with a diamond
star, the gift of the groom.'"

"You've been reading the society column. Give me the star, and I'll get
the veil."

"You shall have it the first minute we get to town. I'd rob the Milky
Way for you, if I could. I'd give you a handful of stars to play with
and let you roll the sun and moon over the golf links."

"I may take the moon," she replied. "I've always liked the looks of it,
but I'm afraid the sun would burn my fingers. Somebody once got into
trouble, I believe, for trying to drive the chariot of the sun for a
day. Give me the moon and just one star."

"Which star do you want?"

[Sidenote: The Love-star]

"The love-star," she answered, very softly. "Will you keep it shining
for me, in spite of clouds and darkness?"

"Indeed I will."

The horses stopped at Barbara's door. Allan went across the street to
call for Roger and Eloise went in to invite Barbara to go for a drive.

"How lovely you look," cried Barbara, in admiration. "You look like a
bride."

"Make yourself look bridal also," suggested Eloise, flushing, "by
putting on your best white gown. Roger is coming, too."

Barbara missed the point entirely. It did not take her long to get
ready, and she sang happily to herself while she was dressing. She put a
white lace scarf of her mother's over her golden hair, which was now
piled high on her shapely head, and started out, for the first time in
all her twenty-two years, for a journey beyond the limits of her own
domain.

Allan and Roger helped her in. She was very awkward about it, and was
sufficiently impressed with her awkwardness to offer a laughing apology.
"I've never been in a carriage before," she said, "nor seen a train, nor
even a church. All I've had is pictures and books--and Roger," she
added, as an afterthought, when he took his place beside her on the back
seat.

"You're going to see lots of things to-day that you never saw before,"
observed Allan, starting the horses toward the hill road. "We'll begin
by showing you a church, and then a wedding."

"A wedding!" cried Barbara. "Who is going to be married?"

"We," he replied, concisely. "Don't you think it's time?"

"Isn't it sudden?" asked Roger. "I thought you weren't going to be
married until almost Christmas."

"I've been serving time now for two years," explained Allan, "and she's
given me two months off for good behaviour. Just remember, young man,
when your turn comes, that nothing is sudden when you've been waiting
for it all your life."

[Sidenote: The Little White Church]

The door of the little white church was open and the sun that streamed
through the door and the stained glass windows carried the glory and the
radiance of Autumn into every nook and corner of it. At the altar burned
two tall taper lights, and the young minister, in white vestments, was
waiting.

The joking mood was still upon Allan and Eloise, but she requested in
all seriousness that the word "obey" be omitted from the ceremony.

"Why?" asked the minister, gravely.

"Because I don't want to promise anything I don't intend to do."

"Put it in for me," suggested Allan, cheerfully. "I might as well
promise, for I'll have to do it anyway."

Gradually, the hush and solemnity of the church banished the light mood.
A new joy, deeper, and more lasting, took the place of laughter as they
sat in the front pew, reading over the service. Barbara and Roger sat
together, half way down to the door. Neither had spoken since they
entered the church.

A shaft of golden light lay full upon Eloise's face. In that moment,
before they went to the altar, Allan was afraid of her, she seemed so
angelic, so unreal. But the minister was waiting, with his open book.
"Come," said Allan, in a whisper, and she rose, smiling, to follow him,
not only then, but always.

[Sidenote: The Ceremony]

"Dearly Beloved," began the minister, "we are gathered here together in
the sight of God and in the face of this company, to join together this
man and this woman in holy matrimony." He went on through the beautiful
service, while the light streamed in, bearing its fairy freight of
colour and gold, and the swift patter of the Little People of the Forest
rustled through the drifting leaves.

It was all as Eloise had chosen, even to the two who sat far back, with
their hands clasped, as wide-eyed as children before this sacred merging
of two souls into one.

A little brown bird perched on the threshold, chirped a few questioning
notes, then flew away to his own nest. Acorns fell from the oaks across
the road, and the musical hum and whir of Autumn came faintly from the
fields. The taper lights burned in the sunshine like yellow stars.

"That ye may so live together in this life," the minister was saying,
"that in the world to come ye may have life everlasting. Amen."

[Sidenote: After the Ordeal]

It was over in an incredibly brief space of time. When they came down
the aisle, Allan had the satisfied air of a man who has just emerged,
triumphantly, through his own skill, from a very difficult and dangerous
ordeal. Eloise was radiant, for her heart was singing within her a
splendid strophe of joy.

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