Book: Flower of the Dusk

M >> Myrtle Reed >> Flower of the Dusk




"How long can you stay?" she inquired.

"Nice question," he laughed, "to ask an eager lover who has just come.
Sounds a good deal like 'Here's-your-hat-what's-your-hurry?' Before I
knew you, I used to go to see a girl sometimes who always said, at ten
o'clock: 'I'm so glad you came. When can you come again?' The first time
she did it I told her I couldn't come again until I had gone away this
time."

"And afterward?"

[Sidenote: Forgetting the Clock]

"I kept going away earlier and earlier, and finally it was so much
earlier that I went before I had come. If I can't make a girl forget the
clock, I have no call to waste my valuable time on her, have I?"

Assuming a frown with difficulty, Miss Wynne consulted her watch. "Why,
it's only half-past eleven," she exclaimed; "I thought it was much
later."

"You darling," said the man, irrelevantly. "What are you reading?"
Before she could stop him, he had picked up the book and nearly choked
in a burst of unseemly merriment.

"Upon my word," he said, when he could speak. "A cook book! A classmate
of mine used to indulge himself in floral catalogues when he wanted to
rest his mind with light literature, but I never heard of a cook book as
among the 'books for Summer reading' that the booksellers advertise."

"Why not?" retorted Eloise, quickly.

"No real reason. Lots of worse things are printed and sold by thousands,
but, someway, I can't seem to reconcile you--and your glorious
voice--with a cook-book."

"Allan Conrad," said Miss Wynne, with affected sternness, "if you hadn't
studied medicine, would you be practising it now?"

"No," admitted Allan; "not with the laws as they are in this State."

"If I had no voice and had never studied music, would I be singing at
concerts?"

"Not twice."

"If a girl had never seen a typewriter and didn't know the first thing
about shorthand, would she apply for a position as a stenographer?"

"They do," said Allan, gloomily.

[Sidenote: Preparation]

"Don't dissemble, please. My point is simply this: If every other
occupation in the world demands some previous preparation, why shouldn't
a girl know something about housekeeping and homemaking before she
undertakes it?"

"But, my dear, you're not going to cook."

"I am if I want to," announced Eloise, with authority. "And, anyhow, I'm
going to know. Do you think I'm going to let some peripatetic, untrained
immigrant manage my house for me? I guess not."

"But cooking isn't theory," he ventured, picking up the note-book; "it's
practice. What good is all this going to do you when you have no
stove?"

"Don't you remember the famous painter who told inquiring visitors that
he mixed his paints with brains? I am now cooking with my mind. After my
mind learns to cook, my hands will find it simple enough. And some time,
when you come in at midnight and have had no dinner, and the immigrant
has long since gone to sleep, you may be glad to be presented with
panned oysters, piping hot, instead of a can of salmon and a
can-opener."

"Bless your heart," answered Allan, fondly. "It's dear of you, and I hope
it'll work. I'm starving this minute--kiss me."

"'Longing is divine compared with satiety,'" she reminded him, as she
yielded. "How could you get away? Was nobody ill?"

"Nobody would have the heart to be ill on a Saturday in June, when a
doctor's best girl was only fifty miles away. Monday, I'll go back and
put some cholera or typhoid germs in the water supply, and get nice and
busy. Who's up yonder?" indicating the hotel.

"Nobody we know, but very few of the guests have come, so far."

[Sidenote: "Guests"]

"In all our varied speech," commented Allan, "I know of nothing so
exquisitely ironical as alluding to the people who stop at a hotel as
'guests.' In Mexico, they call them 'passengers,' which is more in
keeping with the facts. Fancy the feelings of a real guest upon
receiving a bill of the usual proportions. I should consider it a
violation of hospitality if a man at my house had to pay three prices
for his dinner and a tip besides."

"You always had queer notions," remarked Eloise, with a sidelong glance
which set his heart to pounding. "We'll call them inmates if you like it
better. As yet, there are only eight inmates besides ourselves, though
more are coming next week. Two old couples, one widow, one _divorcee_,
and two spinsters with life-works."

"No galloping cherubs?"

"School isn't out yet."

[Sidenote: Life-Works]

"I see. It wouldn't be the real thing unless there were little ones to
gallop through the corridors at six in the morning and weep at the
dinner table. What are the life-works?"

"One is writing a book, I understand, on _The Equality of the Sexes_.
The other--oh, Allan, it's too funny."

"Spring it," he demanded.

"She's trying to have cornet-playing introduced into the public schools.
She says that tuberculosis and pneumonia are caused by insufficient lung
development, and that cornet-playing will develop the lungs of the
rising generation. Fancy going by a school during the cornet hour."

"I don't know why they shouldn't put cornet-playing into the schools,"
he observed, after a moment of profound thought. "Everything else is
there now. Why shouldn't they teach crime, and even make a fine art of
it?"

"If you let her know you're a doctor," cautioned Eloise, "she'll corner
you, and I shall never see you again. She says that she 'hopes,
incidentally, to enlist the sympathies of the medical profession.'"

"She's beginning at the wrong end. Cornet manufacturers and the people
who keep sanitariums and private asylums are the co-workers she wants.
I couldn't live through the coming Winter were it not for pneumonia. It
means coal, and repairs for the automobile, and furs for my wife--when
I get one."

"Come," said Eloise, springing to her feet; "let's go up and get ready
for luncheon."

"Have you told me all?" asked Allan, "or is there some gay young
troubadour who serenades you in the evening and whose existence you
conceal from me for reasons of your own?"

[Sidenote: A Pathetic Little Woman]

"Nary a troubadour," she replied. "I haven't seen another soul except a
pathetic little woman who came up to the hotel yesterday afternoon to
sell the most exquisite things you ever saw. Think of offering hand-made
lingerie, of sheer, embroidered lawn and batiste and linen, to _that_
crowd! The old ladies weren't interested, the spinsters sniffed, the
widow wept, and only the _divorcee_ took any notice of it. The prices
were so ridiculous that I wouldn't let her unpack the box. I'd be
ashamed to pay her the price she asked. It's made by a little lame girl
up the main road. I'm to go up there sometime next week."

"Fairy godmother?" asked Allan, good-naturedly. He had known Eloise for
many years.

"Perhaps," she answered, somewhat shamefaced. "What's the use of having
money if you don't spend it?"

[Sidenote: A Human Interest]

They went into the hotel together, utterly oblivious of the eight pairs
of curious eyes that were fastened upon them in a frank, open stare. The
rocking-chairs scraped on the veranda as they instinctively drew closer
together. A strong human interest, imperatively demanding immediate
discussion, had come to Riverdale-by-the-Sea.




VI

A Letter


[Sidenote: Discouraging Prospects]

Miriam had come home disappointed and secretly afraid to hope for any
tangible results from Miss Wynne's promised visit. Nevertheless, she
told Barbara.

"Wouldn't any of them even look at it, Aunty?"

"One of them would have looked at it and rumpled it so that I'd have had
to iron it again, but she wouldn't have bought anything. This young lady
said she was busy just then, and she wanted to come up and look over all
the things at her leisure. She won't pay much, though, even if she buys
anything. She said the price was 'ridiculous.'"

"Perhaps she meant it was too low," suggested Barbara.

"Possibly," answered Miriam. Her tone indicated that it was equally
possible for canary birds to play the piano, or for ducks to sing.

"How does she look?" queried Barbara.

"Well enough." Enthusiasm was not one of Miriam's attractions.

"What did she have on?"

"White. Linen, I think."

"Then she knows good material. Was her gown tailor-made?"

"Might have been. Why?"

"Because if her white linen gowns are tailored she has money and is used
to spending it for clothes. I'm sure she meant the price was too low.
Did she say when she was coming?"

"Next week. She didn't say what day."

[Sidenote: Waiting]

"Then," sighed Barbara, "all we can do is to wait."

"We'll wait until she comes, or has had time to. In the meantime, I'm
going to show my quilts to those old ladies and take down a jar or two
of preserves. I wish you'd write to the people who left orders last
year, and ask if they want preserves or jam or jelly, or pickles, or
quilts, or anything. It would be nice to get some orders in before we
buy the fruit."

Barbara put down her book, asked for the pen and ink, and went
cheerfully to work, with the aid of Aunt Miriam's small memorandum book
which contained a list of addresses.

"What colour is her hair, Aunty?" she asked, as she blotted and turned
her first neat page.

"A good deal the colour of that old copper tea-kettle that a woman paid
six dollars for once, do you remember? I've always thought she was
crazy, for she wouldn't even let me clean it."

"And her eyes?"

"Brown and big, with long lashes. She looks well enough, and her voice
is pleasant, and I must say she has nice ways. She didn't make me feel
like a peddler, as so many of them do. P'raps she'll come," admitted
Miriam, grudgingly.

"Oh, I hope so. I'd love to see her and her pretty clothes, even if she
didn't buy anything." Barbara threw back a golden braid impatiently,
wishing it were copper-coloured and had smooth, shiny waves in it,
instead of fluffing out like an undeserved halo.

While Barbara was writing, her father came in and sat down near her.
"More sewing, dear?" he asked, wistfully.

[Sidenote: Writing Letters]

"No, Daddy, not this time. I'm just writing letters."

"I didn't know you ever got any letters--do you?"

"Oh, yes--sometimes. The people at the hotel come up to call once in a
while, you know, and after they go away, Aunt Miriam and I occasionally
exchange letters with them. It's nice to get letters."

The old man's face changed. "Are you lonely, dear?"

"Lonely?" repeated Barbara, laughing; "why I don't even know what the
word means. I have you and my books and my sewing and these letters to
write, and I can sit in the window and nod to people who go by--how
could I be lonely, Daddy?"

"I want you to be happy, dear."

"So I am," returned the girl, trying hard to make her voice even. "With
you, and everything a girl could want, why shouldn't I be happy?"

Miriam went out, closing the door quietly, and the blind man drew his
chair very near to Barbara.

[Sidenote: Dreaming]

"I dream," he said, "and I keep on dreaming that you can walk and I can
see. What do you suppose it means? I never dreamed it before."

"We all have dreams, Daddy. I've had the same one very often ever since
I was a little child. It's about a tower made of cologne bottles, with a
cupola of lovely glass arches, built on the white sand by the blue sea.
Inside is a winding stairway hung with tapestries, leading to the cupola
where the golden bells are. There are lovely rooms on every floor, and
you can stop wherever you please."

"It sounds like a song," he mused.

"Perhaps it is. Can't you make one of it?"

"No--we each have to make our own. I made one this morning."

"Tell me, please."

[Sidenote: Love Never Lost]

"It is about love. When God made the world, He put love in, and none of
it has ever been lost. It is simply transferred from one person to
another. Sometimes it takes a different form, and becomes a deed, which,
at first, may not look as if it were made of love, but, in reality, is.

"Love blossoms in flowers, sings in moving waters, fills the forest with
birds, and makes all the wonderful music of Spring. It puts the colour
upon the robin's breast, scents the orchard with far-reaching drifts of
bloom, and scatters the pink and white petals over the grass beneath.
Through love the flower changes to fruit, and the birds sing lullabies
at twilight instead of mating songs.

"It is at the root of everything good in all the world, and where things
are wrong, it is only because sometime, somewhere, there has not been
enough love. The balance has been uneven and some have had too much
while others were starving for it. As the lack of food stunts the body,
so the denial of love warps the soul.

"But God has made it so that love given must unfailingly come back an
hundred-fold; the more we give, the richer we are. And Heaven is only a
place where the things that have gone wrong here will at last come
right. Is it not so, Barbara?"

"Surely, Daddy."

"Then," he continued, anxiously, "all my loving must come back to me
sometime, somewhere. I think it will be right, for God Himself is Love."

The blind man's sensitive fingers lovingly sought Barbara's face. His
touch was a caress. "I am sure you are like your dear mother," he said,
softly. "If I could know that she died loving me, and if I could see her
face again, just for an instant, why, all the years of loving, with no
answer, would be fully repaid."

"She loved you, Daddy--I know she did."

[Sidenote: The Old Doubt]

"I know, too, but not always. Sometimes the old, tormenting doubt comes
back to me."

"It shouldn't--mother would never have meant you to doubt her."

"Barbara," cried the old man, with sudden passion, "if you ever love a
man, never let him doubt you--always let him be sure. There is so much
in a man's world that a woman knows nothing of. When he comes home at
night, tired beyond words, and sick to death of the world and its ways,
make him sure. When he thinks himself defeated, make him sure. When you
see him tempted to swerve even the least from the straight path, make
him sure. When the last parting comes, if he is leaving you, give him
the certainty to take with him into his narrow house, and make his last
sleep sweet. And if you are the one to go first, and leave him, old and
desolate and stricken, oh, Barbara, make him sure then--make him very
sure."

[Sidenote: A String of Pearls]

The girl's hand closed tightly upon his. He leaned over to pat her cheek
and stroke the heavy braids of silken hair. Then he felt the strand of
beads around her neck.

"You have on your mother's pearls," he said. His fine old face illumined
as he touched the tawdry trinket.

Barbara swallowed the hard lump in her throat. "Yes, Daddy." They had
lived for years upon that single strand of large, perfectly matched
pearls which Ambrose North had clasped around his young wife's neck upon
their wedding day.

"Would you like more pearls, dear? A bracelet, or a ring?"

"No--these are all I want."

"I want to give you a diamond ring some day, Barbara. Your mother's was
buried with her. It was her engagement ring."

"Perhaps somebody will give me an engagement ring," she suggested.

"I shouldn't wonder. I don't want to be selfish, dear. You are all I have,
but, if you loved a man, I wouldn't try to keep you away from him."

"Prince Charming hasn't come yet, Daddy, so cheer up. I'll tell you when
he does."

Thus she turned the talk into a happier vein. They were laughing
together like two children when Miriam came in to say that supper was
ready.

[Sidenote: Alone]

Afterward, he sat at the piano, improvising low, sweet chords that
echoed back plaintively from the dingy walls. The music was full of
questioning, of pleading, of longing so deep that it was almost prayer.
Barbara finished her letters by the light of the lamp, while Miriam sat
in the dining-room alone, asking herself the old, torturing questions,
facing her temptation, and bearing the old, terrible hunger of the heart
that hurt her like physical pain.

A little before nine o'clock, the blind man came to kiss Barbara
good-night. Then he went upstairs. Miriam came in and talked a few
minutes of quilts, pickles, and lingerie, then she, too, went up to
begin her usual restless night.

Left alone, Barbara discovered that she did not care to read. It was too
late to begin work upon the new stock of linen, lawn, and batiste which
had come the day before, and she lacked the impulse, in the face of such
discouraging prospects as Aunt Miriam had encountered at the hotel.
Barbara steadily refused to admit, even to herself, that she was
discouraged, but she found no pleasure in the thought of her work.

[Sidenote: A Light in the Window]

She unfastened the front door, lighted a candle, and set it upon the
sill of the front window. Within twenty minutes Roger had come, entering
the house so quietly that Barbara did not hear his step and was
frightened when she saw him.

"Don't scream," he said, as he closed the door leading into the hall.
"I'm not a burglar--only a struggling young law student with no
prospects and even less hope."

"I infer," said Barbara, "that the Bascom liver is out of repair."

"Correct. It seems absurd, doesn't it, to be affected by another man's
liver while you are supremely unconscious of your own?"

"There are more things in other people's digestions than our philosophy
can account for," she replied, with a wicked perversion of classic
phrase. "What was the primary cause of the explosion?"

"It was all his own fault," explained Roger. "I like dogs almost as well
as I do people, but it doesn't follow that dogs should mix so constantly
with people as they usually are allowed to. I was never in favour of
Judge Bascom's bull pup keeping regular office hours with us, but he
has, ever since the day he waddled in behind the Judge with a small
chain as the connecting link. I got so accustomed to his howling in the
corner of the office where he was chained up that I couldn't do my work
properly when he was asleep. So all went well until the Judge decided to
remove the chain and give the pup more room to develop himself in.

[Sidenote: "Pethood"]

"I tried to dissuade him, but it was no use. I told him he would run
away, and he said, with great dignity, that he did not desire for a pet
anything which had to be tied up in order to be retained. He observed
that the restraining influence worked against the pethood so strongly as
practically to obscure it."

"New word?" laughed Barbara.

"I don't know why it isn't a good word," returned Roger, in defence. "If
'manhood' and 'womanhood' and 'brotherhood' and all the other 'hoods'
are good English, I see no reason why 'pethood' shouldn't be used in the
same sense. The English language needs a lot of words added to it before
it can be called complete."

"One wouldn't think so, judging by the size of the dictionary. However,
we'll let it pass. Go on with the story."

"Things have been lively for a week or more. The pup has romped around a
good deal and has playfully bitten a client or two, but the Judge has
been highly edified until to-day. Fido got an important legal document
which the Judge had just drafted, and literally chewed it to pulp. Then
he swallowed it, apparently with great relish. I was told to make
another, and my not knowing about it, and taking the liberty of asking a
few necessary questions, produced the fireworks. It wasn't Fido's fault,
but mine."

"How is Fido?" queried Barbara, with affected anxiety.

"He was well at last accounts, but the document was long enough and
complicated enough to make him very ill. I hope he'll die of it
to-morrow."

"Perhaps he's going to study law, too," remarked Barbara, "and believes,
with Macaulay, that 'a page digested is better than a book hurriedly
read.'"

"I think that will do, Miss North. I'll read to you now, if you don't
mind. I would fain improve myself instead of listening to such childish
chatter."

"Perhaps, if you read to me enough, I'll improve so that even you will
enjoy talking to me," she returned, with a mischievous smile. "What did
you bring over?"

[Sidenote: A New Book]

"A new book--that is, one that we've never seen before. There is a large
box of father's books behind some trunks in the attic, and I never found
them until Sunday, when I was rummaging around up there. I haven't read
them--I thought I'd make a list of them first, and you can choose those
you'd like to have me read to you. I brought this little one because
I was sure you'd like it, after reading _Endymion_ and _The Eve of St.
Agnes_."

"What is it?"

"Keats's letters to Fanny Brawne."

The little brown book was old and its corners were dog-eared, but the
yellowed pages, with their record of a deathless passion, were still
warmly human and alive. Roger had a deep, pleasant voice, and he read
well. Quite apart from the beauty of the letters, it gave Barbara
pleasure to sit in the firelight and watch his face.

[Sidenote: A Folded Paper]

He read steadily, pausing now and then for comment, until he was
half-way through the volume; then, as he turned a page, a folded paper
fell out. He picked it up curiously.

"Why, Barbara," he said, in astonishment. "It's my father's writing."

"What is it--notes?"

"No, he seems to have been trying to write a letter like those in the
book. It is all in pencil, with changes and erasures here and there.
Listen:

[Sidenote: The Letter]

"'You are right, as you always are, and we must
never see each other again. We must live near each
other for the rest of our lives, with that
consciousness between us. We must pass each other
on the street and not speak unless others are with
us; then we must bow, pleasantly, for the sake of
appearances.

"'I hope you do not blame me because I went mad.
I ask your pardon, and yet I cannot say I am sorry.
That one hour of confession is worth a lifetime of
waiting--it is worth all the husks that we are to
have henceforward while we starve for more.

"'Through all the years to come, we shall be
separated by less than a mile, yet the world lies
between us and divides us as by a glittering
sword. You will not be unfaithful to your pledge,
nor I to mine. Nothing is changed there. It is
only that two people chose to live in the
starlight and bound themselves to it eternally,
then had one blinding glimpse of God's great sun.

"'But, Constance, the stars are the same as
always, and we must try to forget that we have
seen the sun. The little lights of the temple must
be the more faithfully tended if the Great Light
goes out. When the white splendour fades, we must
be content with the misty gold of night, and not
mind the shadows nor the great desolate spaces
where not even starlight comes. Your star and mine
met for an instant, then were sundered as widely
as the poles, but the light of each must be kept
steadfast and clear, because of the other.

"'I do not know that I shall have the courage to
send this letter. Everything was said when I told
you that I love you, for that one word holds it
all and there is nothing more. As you can take
your heart in the hollow of your hand and hold it,
it is so small a thing; so the one word 'love'
holds everything that can be said, or given, or
hungered for, or prayed for and denied.

"'And if, sometimes, in the starlight, we dream of
the sun, we must remember that both sun and stars
are God's. Past the unutterable leagues that
divide us now, one day we shall meet again,
purged, mayhap, of earthly longing for earthly
love.

"'But Heaven, for me, would be the hour I held you
close again. I should ask nothing more than to
tell you once more, face to face and heart to
heart, the words I write now: I love you--I love
you--I love you.'"

[Sidenote: A Discovery]

Roger put down the book and stared fixedly at the fire. Barbara's face
was very pale and the light had gone from her eyes.

"Roger," she said, in a strange tone, "Constance was my mother's name.
Do you think----"

He was startled, for his thought had not gone so far as her intuition.
"I--do--not--know," he said.

"They knew each other," Barbara went on, swiftly, "for the two families
have always lived here, in these same two houses where you and I were
born. It was only a step across the road, and they----"

[Sidenote: A Barrier]

She choked back a sob. Something new and terrible seemed to have sprung
up suddenly between her and Roger.

The blood beat hard in his ears and his own words sounded dull and far
away. "It is dated June third," he said.

"My mother died on the seventh," said Barbara, slowly,
"by--her--own--hand."

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.