Book: Flower of the Dusk

M >> Myrtle Reed >> Flower of the Dusk




When Barbara and Roger went to meet them, the strange, new shyness that
had settled down upon them both effectually hindered conversation. Roger
began an awkward little speech of congratulation, which immediately
became inarticulate and ended in silent embarrassment.

But Allan wrung Roger's hand in a mighty grip that made him wince, and
Eloise smiled, for she saw more than either of them had yet guessed.
"You're kids," she said, fondly; "just dear, foolish kids." Impulsively,
she kissed them both, then they all went out into the sunshine again.

The minister's eyes followed them with a certain wistfulness, for he was
young, and, as yet, the great miracle had not come to him. He sighed
when he put out the tapers and closed the door that divided him from the
music of Autumn and one great, overwhelming joy.

[Sidenote: On the Way Home]

On the way home, neither Barbara nor Roger spoke. They had nothing to
say and the others were silent because they had so much. They left the
two at Barbara's gate, then Allan turned the horses back to the hill
road. They were to have two glorious, golden hours alone before taking
the afternoon train.

Barbara and Roger watched them as they went slowly up the tawny road
that trailed like a ribbon over the pageantry of the hill. When they
came to the crossroads, where one road led to the church and the other
into the boundless world beyond, Eloise leaned far out to wave a
fluttering bit of white in farewell.

"And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old,"

quoted Barbara, softly.

[Sidenote: O'er the Hills]

"And o'er the hills, and far away,
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, across the day,
Through all the world she followed him,"

added Roger.

The carriage was now only a black speck on the brow of the hill.
Presently it descended into the Autumn sunset and vanished altogether.

"I'm glad they asked us," said Roger.

"Wasn't it dear of them!" cried Barbara, with her face aglow. "Oh,
Roger, if I ever have a wedding, I want it to be just like that!"




XXIII

Letters to Constance


[Sidenote: Faith in Results]

Roger was in the library, trying to choose, from an embarrassment of
riches, the ten of his father's books which he was to be permitted to
take to the city with him. With characteristic thoughtfulness, Eloise
had busied herself in his behalf immediately upon her return to town.
She had found a good opportunity for him, and the letter appointing the
time for a personal interview was even then in his pocket.

Neither he nor his mother had the slightest doubt as to the result. Miss
Mattie was certain that any lawyer with sense enough to practise law
would be only too glad to have Roger in his office. She scornfully
dismissed the grieving owner of Fido from her consideration, for it was
obvious that anyone with even passable mental equipment would not have
been disturbed by the accidental and painless removal of a bull pup.

Roger's ambition and eagerness made him very sure of the outcome of his
forthcoming venture. All he asked for was the chance to work, and Eloise
was giving him that. How good she had been and how much she had done for
Barbara! Roger's heart fairly overflowed with gratitude and he
registered a boyish vow not to disappoint those who believed in him.

It seemed strange to think of Eloise as "Mrs. Conrad." She had signed
her brief note to Roger, "Very cordially, Eloise Wynne Conrad." Down in
the corner she had written "Mrs. Allan Conrad." Roger smiled as he noted
the space between the "Wynne" and the "Conrad" in her signature--the
surest betrayal of a bride.

"If I should marry," Roger thought, "my wife's name would be 'Mrs. Roger
Austin.'" He wrote it out on a scrap of paper to see how it would look.
It was certainly very attractive. "And if it were Barbara, for instance,
she would sign her letters 'Barbara North Austin.'" He wrote that out,
too, and, in the lamplight, appreciatively studied the effect from many
different angles. It was really a very beautiful name.

[Sidenote: Lost in Reverie]

He lost himself in reverie, and it was nearly an hour afterward when he
returned to the difficult task of choosing his ten books. Shakespeare,
of course--fortunately there was a one-volume edition that came within
the letter of the law if not the spirit of it. To this he added
Browning. As it happened, there was a complete one-volume edition of
this, too. Emerson came next--the Essays in two volumes. That made four.
He added _Vanity Fair_, _David Copperfield_, a translation of the
_AEneid_, and his beloved Keats. He hesitated a long time over the last
two, but finally took down Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ and the _Essays
of Elia_, neither of which he had read.

[Sidenote: A Little Old Book]

Behind these two books, which had stood side by side, there was a small,
thin book that had either fallen down or been hidden there. Roger took
it out and carefully wiped off the dust. It was a blank book in which
his father had written on all but the last few pages. He took it over to
the table, drew the lamp closer, and sat down.

The gay cover had softened with the years, the pages were yellow, and
some of them were blurred by blistering spots. The ink had faded, but
the writing was still legible. At the top of the first page was the
date, "_Evening, June the seventh_."

"I have lived long," was written on the next line below, "but a thousand
years of living have been centred remorselessly into to-day. I cannot go
over, though in this house and in the one across the road it will seem
very strange. I knew the clouds of darkness must eternally hide us each
from the other, that we must see each other no more save at a great
distance, but the thunder and the riving lightning have put heaven
between us as well as earth.

"I cannot eat, for food is dust and ashes in my mouth. I cannot drink
enough water to moisten my dry, parched throat. I cannot answer when
anyone speaks to me, for I do not hear what is said. It does not seem
that I shall ever sleep again. Yet God, pitiless and unforgiving, lets
me live on."

The remainder of the page was blank. The next entry was dated: "_June
tenth. Night._"

[Sidenote: No Other Way]

"I had to go. There was no other way. I had to sit and listen. I saw the
blind man in the room beyond, sitting beside the dark woman with the
hard face. She had the little lame baby in her arms--the baby who is a
year or so younger than my own son. I smelled the tuberoses and the
great clusters of white lilacs. And I saw her, dead, with her golden
braids on either side of her, smiling, in her white casket. When no one
was looking, I touched her hand. I called softly, 'Constance.' She did
not answer, so I knew she was dead.

"I had to go to the churchyard, with the others. I was compelled to look
at the grave and to see the white casket lowered in. I heard that awful
fall of earth upon her and a voice saying those terrible words, 'Dust to
dust, earth to earth, ashes to ashes.' The blind man sobbed aloud when
the earth fell. The dark woman with the hard face did not seem to care.
I could have strangled her, but I had to keep my hands still.

"They said that she had not been sleeping and that she took too much
laudanum by mistake. It was not a mistake, for she was not of that sort.
She did it purposely. She did it because of that one mad hour of full
confession. I have killed her. After three years of self-control, it
failed me, and I went mad. It was my fault, for if I had not failed, she
would not have gone mad, too. I have killed her."


"_June fifteenth. Midnight._

"I am calmer now. I can think more clearly. I have been alone in the
woods all day and every day since--. I have been thinking, thinking,
thinking, and going over everything. She left no word for me; she was so
sure I would understand. I do not understand yet, but I shall.

[Sidenote: Estranged]

"There was no wrong between us, there never would have been. We were
divided by the whole earth, denied by all the leagues of sundering sea.
Now we are estranged by all the angels of heaven and all the hosts of
hell.

"My arms ache for her--my lips hunger for hers. In that mysterious
darkness, does she want me, too? Did her heart cry out for me as mine
for her, until the blood of the poppies mingled with hers and brought
the white sleep?

"It would have been something to know that we breathed the same air,
trod the same highways, listened together to the thrush and robin, and
all the winged wayfarers of forest and field. It would have been comfort
to know the same sun shone on us both, that the same moon lighted the
midnight silences with misty silver, that the same stars burned
taper-lights in the vaulted darkness for her and for me.

[Sidenote: One Hour]

"But I have not even that. I have nothing, though I have done no wrong
beyond holding her in my arms for one little hour. Out of all the time
that was before our beginning, out of all the time that shall be after
our ending, and in all the unpitying years of our mortal life, we have
had one hour."


"_June nineteenth._

"I have been to her grave. I have tried to realise that the little mound
of earth upon the distant hill, over which the sun and stars sweep
endlessly, still shelters her; that, in some way, she is there. But
I cannot.

"The mystery agonises me, for I have never had the belief that comforts
so many. Why is one belief any better than another when we come face to
face with the grey, impenetrable veil that never parts save for a
passage? Freed from the bonds of earth, does she still live, somewhere,
in perfect peace with no thought of me? Sentient, but invisible, is she
here beside me now? Or is she asleep, dreamlessly, abiding in the earth
until some archangel shall sound the trumpet bidding all the myriad dead
arise? Oh, God, God! Only tell me where she is, that I may go, too!"


"_June twenty-first._

[Sidenote: The Hand Stayed]

"It is true that the path she took is open to me also. I have thought of
it many times. I am not afraid to follow where she has led, even into
the depths of hell. I have had for several days a vial of the crushed
poppies, and the bitter odour, even now, fills my room. Only one thought
stays my hand--my little son.

"Should I follow, he must inevitably come to believe that his father was
a coward--that he was afraid of life, which is the most craven fear of
all. He will see that I have given to him something that I could not
bear myself, and will despise me, as people despise a man who shirks his
burden and shifts it to the shoulders of one weaker than he.

"When temptation assails him, he will remember that his father yielded.
When life looms dark before him and among the fearful shadows there is
no hint of light, he will recall that his father was too much of a
coward to go into those same shadows, carrying his own light.

"And if his heart is ever filled with an awful agony that requires all
his strength to meet it, he will remember that his father failed. I
could not rest in my grave if my son, living, should despise me, even
though my narrow house was in the same darkness that hides Her."


"_July tenth. Dawn._

[Sidenote: Punishment]

"This, then, is my punishment. Because for one hour my self-control
deserted me, when my man's blood had been crying out for three years for
the touch of her--because for one little hour my hungry arms held her
close to my aching heart, there is no peace. Nowhere in earth nor in
heaven nor in hell is there one moment's forgetfulness. Nowhere in all
God's illimitable universe is there pardon and surcease of pain.

"The blind man comes to me and talks of her. He asks me piteously,
'Why?' He calls me his friend. He says that she often spoke of me; that
they were glad to have me in their house. He asks me if she ever said
one word that would give a reason. Was she unhappy? Was it because he
was blind and the little yellow-haired baby with her mother's blue eyes
was born lame? I can only say 'No,' and beg him not to talk of it--not
even to think of it."


"_July twentieth. Night._

"The beauty of the world at midsummer only makes my loneliness more
keen. The butterflies flit through the meadows like wandering souls of
last year's flowers that died and were buried by the snow. The harvest
moon, red-gold and wonderful, will rise slowly up out of the sea. The
path of light will lie on the still waters and widen into a vast arc at
the line of the shore. Cobwebs will come among the stubble when the
harvest is gathered in and on them will lie dewdrops that the moon will
make into pearls.

[Sidenote: Cycle of the Seasons]

"The gorgeous colouring of Autumn will transfigure the hills with glory,
and fill the far silences with misty amethyst and gold. The year-long
sleep will come with the first snow, and the stars burn blue and cold in
the frosty night. April bugles will wake the violets and anemones, the
dead leaves of Autumn will be starred with springtime bloom, May will
dance through the world with lilacs and apple blossoms, and I shall be
alone.

"I can go to her grave again and see the violets all around it, their
exquisite odour made of her dust. I can carry to her the first roses of
June, as I used to do, but she cannot take them in her still hands.
I can only lay them on that impassable mound, and let the warm rains,
as soft as woman's tears, drip down and down and down until the fragrance
and my love come to her in the mist.

"But will she care? Is that last sleep so deep that the quiet heart is
never stirred by love? When my whole soul goes out to her in an agony
of love and pain, is it possible that there is no answer? If there is a
God in heaven, it cannot be!"


"_October fifth. Night._

"It is said that Time heals everything. I have been waiting to see if it
were so. Day by day my loss is greater; day by day my grief becomes more
difficult to bear. I read all the time, or pretend to. I sit for hours
with the open book before me and never see a line that is printed there.
Oh, Love, if I could dream to-night, in the earth with you!"


"_October seventh._

"Just four months ago to-day! I was numb, then, with the shock and
horror. I could not feel as I do now. When the tide of my heart came in,
with agony in every pulse-beat, it rose steadily to the full, without
pause, without rest. I think it has reached its flood now, for I cannot
endure more. Will there ever be recession?"


"_November tenth._

[Sidenote: Death of Passion]

"I am coming, gradually, to have some sort of faith. I do not know why,
for I have never had it before. I can see that all things made of earth
must perish as the leaves. Passion dies because it is of the earth, but
does not love live?

[Sidenote: A Gift]

"If only the finer things of the spirit could be bequeathed, like
material possessions! All I have to leave my son is a very small income
and a few books. I cannot give him endurance, self-control, or the power
to withstand temptation. I cannot give him joy. If I could, I should
leave him one priceless gift--my love for Constance, to which, for one
hour, hers answered fully--I should give him that love with no barrier
to divide it from its desire.

"I wonder if Constance would have left hers to her little yellow-haired
girl? I wonder if sometimes the joys of the fathers are not visited upon
their children as well as their sins?"


"_November nineteenth. Night._

"I have come to believe that love never dies for God is love, and He is
immortal. My love for Constance has not died and cannot. Why should hers
have died? It does not seem that it has, since to-day, for the first
time, I have found surcease.

"Constance is dead, but she has left her love to sustain and strengthen
me. It streams out from the quiet hillside to-night as never before, and
gives me the peace of a benediction. I understand, now, the blinding
pain of the last five months. The immortal spirit of love, which can
neither die nor grow old, was extricating itself from the earth that
clung to it.


"_December third._

"At last I have come to perfect peace. I no longer hunger so terribly
for the touch of her, for my aching arms to clasp her close, for her
lips to quiver beneath mine. The tide has ebbed--there is no more pain.

"I have come, strangely, into kinship with the universe. I have a
feeling to-night of brotherhood. I can see that death is no division
when a heart is deep enough to hold a grave. The Grey Angel cannot
separate her from me, though she took the white poppies from his hands,
and gave none to me.


"_December eighteenth._

[Sidenote: Day by Day]

"Constance, Beloved, I feel you near to-night. The wild snows of Winter
have blown across your grave, but your love is warm and sweet around my
heart. The sorrow is all gone and in its place has come a peace as deep
and calm as the sea. I can wait, day by day, until the Grey Angel
summons me to join you; until the poppies that stilled your heartbeats,
shall, in another way, quiet mine, too.

"I can have faith. I can believe that somewhere beyond the star-filled
spaces, when this arc of mortal life merges into the perfect circle of
eternity, there will be no barrier between you and me, because, if God
is love, love must be God, and He has no limitations.

"I can take up my burden and go on until the road divides, and the Grey
Angel leads me down your path. I can be kind. I can try, each day, to
put joy into the world that so sorely needs it, and to take nothing away
from whatever it holds of happiness now. I can be strong because I have
known you, I can have courage because you were brave, I can be true
because you were true, I can be tender because I love you.

"At last I understand. It is passion that cries out for continual
assurance, for fresh sacrifices, for new proof. Love needs nothing but
itself; it asks for nothing but to give itself; it denies nothing,
neither barriers nor the grave. Love can wait until life comes to its
end, and trust to eternity, because it is of God."

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A Man's Heart]

Roger put the little book down and wiped his eyes. He had come upon a
man's heart laid bare and was thrilled to the depths by the revelation.
He was as one who stands in a holy place, with uncovered head, in the
hush that follows prayer.

In the midst of his tenderness for his dead father welled up a
passionate loyalty toward the woman who slept in the room adjoining the
library, whose soul had "never been welded." She had known life no more
than a prattling brook in a meadow may know the sea. Bound in shallows,
she knew nothing of the unutterable vastness in which deep answered unto
deep; tide and tempest and blue surges were fraught with no meaning for
her.

The clock struck twelve and Roger still sat there, with his head resting
upon his hand. He read once more his father's wish to bequeath to him
his love, "with no barrier to divide it from its desire."

Hedged in by earth and hopelessly put asunder, could it at last come to
fulfilment through daughter and son? At the thought his heart swelled
with a pure passion all its own--the eager pulse-beats owed nothing to
the dead.

[Sidenote: Out into the Night]

He found a sheet of paper and reverently wrapped up the little brown
book. An hour later, he slipped under the string a letter of his own,
sealed and addressed, and quietly, though afraid that the beating of his
heart sounded in the stillness, went out into the night.




XXIV

The Bells in the Tower


The sea was very blue behind the Tower of Cologne, though it was not yet
dawn. The velvet darkness, in that enchanted land, seemed to have a
magical quality--it veiled but did not hide. Barbara went up the glass
steps, made of cologne bottles, and opened the door.

[Sidenote: The Tower Unchanged]

She had not been there for a long time, but nothing was changed. The
winding stairway hung with tapestries and the round windows at the
landings, through which one looked to the sea, were all the same.

King Arthur, Sir Lancelot and Guinevere were all in the Tower, as usual.
The Lady of Shalott was there, with Mr. Pickwick, Dora, and Little Nell.
All the dear people of the books moved through the lovely rooms,
sniffing at cologne, or talking and laughing with each other, just as
they pleased.

The red-haired young man and the two blue and white nurses were still
there, but they seemed to be on the point of going out. Doctor Conrad
and Eloise were in every room she went into. Eloise was all in white,
like a bride, and the Doctor was very, very happy.

Ambrose North was there, no longer blind or dead, but well and strong
and able to see. He took Barbara in his arms when she went in, kissed
her, and called her "Constance."

A sharp pang went through her heart because he did not know her. "I'm
Barbara, Daddy," she cried out; "don't you know me?" But he only
murmured, "Constance, my Beloved," and kissed her again--not with a
father's kiss, but with a yearning tenderness that seemed very strange.
She finally gave up trying to make him understand that her name was
Barbara--that she was not Constance at all. At last she said, "It
doesn't matter by what name you call me, as long as you love me," and
went on upstairs.

[Sidenote: An Unfinished Tapestry]

One of the tapestries that hung on the wall along the winding stairway
was new--at least she did not remember having seen it before. It was in
the soft rose and gold and brown and blue of the other tapestries, and
appeared old, as though it had been hanging there for some time. She
fingered it curiously. It felt and looked like the others, but it must
be new, for it was not quite finished.

In the picture, a man in white vestments stood at an altar with his
hands outstretched in blessing. Before him knelt a girl and a man. The
girl was in white and the taper-lights at the altar shone on her two
long yellow braids that hung down over her white gown, so that they
looked like burnished gold. The face was turned away so that she could
not see who it was, but the man who knelt beside her was looking
straight at her, or would have been, if the tapestry-maker had not put
down her needle at a critical point. The man's face had not been
touched, though everything else was done. Barbara sighed. She hoped that
the next time she came to the Tower the tapestry would be finished.

[Sidenote: In the Violet Room]

She went into the violet room, for a little while, and sat down on a
green chair with a purple cushion in it. She took a great bunch of
violets out of a bowl and buried her face in the sweetness. Then she
went to the mantel, where the bottles were, and drenched her
handkerchief with violet water. She had tried all the different kinds of
cologne that were in the Tower, but she liked the violet water best, and
nearly always went into the violet room for a little while on her way
upstairs.

As she turned to go out, the Boy joined her. He was a young man now,
taller than Barbara, but his face, as always, was hidden from her as by
a mist. His voice was very kind and tender as he took both her hands in
his.

"How do you do, Barbara, dear?" he asked.

"You have not been in the Tower for a long time."

"I have been ill," she answered. "See?" She tried to show him her
crutches, but they were not there. "I used to have crutches," she
explained.

"Did you?" he asked, in surprise. "You never had them in the Tower."

"That's so," she answered. "I had forgotten." She remembered now that
when she went into the Tower she had always left her crutches leaning up
against the glass steps.

"Let's go upstairs," suggested the Boy, "and ring the golden bells in
the cupola."

Barbara wanted to go very much, but was afraid to try it, because she
had never been able to reach the cupola.

"If you get tired," the Boy went on, as though he had read her thought,
"I'll put my arm around you and help you walk. Come, let's go."

[Sidenote: Up the Winding Stairs]

They went out of the violet room and up the winding stairway. Barbara
was not tired at all, but she let him put his arm around her, and leaned
her cheek against his shoulder as they climbed. Some way, she felt that
this time they were really going to reach the cupola.

It was very sweet to be taken care of in this way and to hear the Boy's
deep, tender voice telling her about the Lady of Shalott and all the
other dear people who lived in the Tower. Sometimes he would make her
sit down on the stairs to rest. He sat beside her so that he might keep
his arm around her, and Barbara wished, as never before, that she might
see his face.

[Sidenote: The Angel with the Flaming Sword]

Finally, they came to the last landing. They had been up as high as this
once before, but it was long ago. The cupola was hidden in a cloud as
before, but it seemed to be the cloud of a Summer day, and not a dark
mist. They went into the cloud, and an Angel with a Flaming Sword
appeared before them and stopped them. The Angel was all in white and
very tall and stately, with a divinely tender face--Barbara's own face,
exalted and transfigured into beauty beyond all words.

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