Books: Old Rose and Silver
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Myrtle Reed >> Old Rose and Silver
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"Then," suggested Juliet, "why don't we give it away and give him just
as much as it cost, including our suits and the dogs' collars and
everything?"
"We have no right to give away a man-killer. 'The Yellow Peril' is
cursed."
"Let's sacrifice it," she cried. "Let's make a funeral pyre in the yard
and burn it, and our suits and the dogs' collars and everything. Let's
burn everything we've got that we care for!"
"All right," agreed Romeo, uplifted by the zeal of the true martyr.
"And," he added, regretfully, "I'll shoot all the dogs and bury 'em in
one long trench. I don't want to see anything again that was in it."
"I don't either," returned Juliet. She wondered whether she should
permit the wholesale execution of the herd, since it was a thing she had
secretly desired for a long time. "You mustn't shoot Minerva and the
puppies," she continued, as her strict sense of justice asserted itself,
"because she wasn't in it. She was at home taking care of her children
and they'd die if she should be shot now."
So it was settled that Minerva, who had taken no part in the fatal
celebration, should be spared, with her innocent babes.
"And in a few years more," said Romeo, hopefully, "we'll have lots more
dogs, though probably not as many as we've got now."
Juliet sighed heavily but was in honour bound to make no objections, for
long ago, when they arbitrated the dog question, it was written in the
covenant that no dogs should be imported or none killed, except by
mutual consent. And Minerva had five puppies, and if each of the five
should follow the maternal example, and if each of those should do
likewise--Juliet fairly lost her head in a maze of mental arithmetic.
"We ought to go into deep mourning," Romeo was saying.
"I've been thinking of that. We should repent in sackcloth and ashes,
only I don't know what sackcloth is."
"I guess it's that rough brown stuff they make potato bags of."
"Burlap?"
"Yes. But we haven't many ashes at this time of year and we'll have
still less if we live on mush and milk."
"Maybe we could get ashes somewhere," she said, thoughtfully.
"We'd have to, because it would take us over a year to get enough to
repent in."
"There'll be ashes left from the automobile and the suits, and if you
can get enough potato bags, I'll fix 'em so we can wear 'em at the
sacrifice and afterwards we can buy deep mourning."
"All right, but you mustn't make pretty suits."
"I couldn't, out of potato bags. They'll have to be plain--very plain."
"The first thing is to get this car into our barn, and write and tell
Colonel Kent where it is. Then we'll get our black clothes, and then
we'll shoot the dogs and bury 'em, and then we'll have the sacrifice,
and then--"
"And then," repeated Juliet.
"Then we'll have to go and tell 'em all what we've done, and offer to
pay all the bills, and give 'em the price of the car besides for
damages."
"Oh, Romie," cried Juliet, with a shudder, "we don't have to go and tell
'em, do we? We don't have to take strangers into our consciences, do
we?"
"Certainly," replied Romeo, sternly. "Just because we don't want to do
it is why we've got to. We've got to do hard things when we make a
sacrifice. Lots of people think they're charitable if they give away
their old clothes and things they don't want. It isn't charity to give
away things you want to get rid of and it isn't a sacrifice to do things
you don't mind doing. The harder it is and the more we don't want to do
it, the better sacrifice."
His logic was convincing, but Juliet drooped visibly. The bent little
figure on the blanket was pathetic, but the twins were not given to
self-pity. As time went on, the conversation lagged. They had both had a
hard day, from more than one standpoint, and it was not surprising that
by midnight, the self-appointed sentries were sound asleep upon one
blanket, with Romeo's coat for a pillow and the other blanket tucked
around them.
The red lanterns burned faithfully until almost dawn, then smoked and
went out, leaving an unpleasant odour that lasted until sunrise. The
rumble of a distant cart woke them, and they sat up, shamefacedly
rubbing their eyes.
"Oh," cried Juliet, conscience-stricken, "we went to sleep! We went to
sleep on duty! How could we?"
"Dunno," returned Romeo, with a frank yawn. "Guess we were tired.
Anyhow, the machine is all right."
When the milkman came in sight, they hailed him and purchased a quart of
milk. He was scarcely surprised to see them, for the Crosbys were widely
known to be eccentric, and presently he drove on. His query about the
wrecked car had passed unnoticed.
"If you'll stay here, Jule," said Romeo, wiping his mouth, "I'll go and
get a team and some rope and we'll get the car in."
"Can't I go too?"
"No, you stay here. It's bad enough to sleep at your post without
deserting it."
"You slept, too," retorted Juliet, quickly on the defensive, "and I'm a
girl."
"Huh!" he sneered. The claim of feminine privilege invariably disgusted
him beyond words.
"Suppose people come by--" Juliet faltered; "and--ask--questions."
"Answer 'em," advised Romeo, briefly. "Tell 'em we've killed a man and
are going to suffer for it. We deserve to have everybody know it."
But, fortunately for Juliet's quicker sensibilities, no one passed by in
the hour Romeo was gone. He came from the nearest farm with an adequate
number of assistants and such primitive machinery as was at hand. The
car was not badly damaged and was finally towed into the Crosbys' barn.
Then they went into the house and composed a letter to Colonel Kent, but
put off copying and sending it until they should be able to get black
bordered stationery.
Two weeks later, clad in deepest mourning, the twins trudged into town.
At Colonel Kent's there was no one in authority to receive them and
their errand was of too much importance to be communicated to either
physician or nurse. Their own unopened letter lay on the library table,
with many others.
Subdued and chastened in demeanour, they went to Madame Bernard's and
waited in funereal silence until Madame came down.
"How do you--" she began, then stopped. "Why, what is the matter?"
"We ran over him," explained Romeo, suggestively inclining his head in
the general direction of Kent's. "Don't you remember?"
"And if he dies, we've killed him," put in Juliet, sadly.
"We'll be murderers if he dies," Romeo continued, "and we ought to be
hung."
In spite of her own depression and deep anxiety, Madame saw how keenly
the tragedy had affected the twins. "Why, my dears!" she cried. "Do you
think for a minute that anybody in the world blames you?"
"We ought to be blamed," Romeo returned, "because we did it."
"But not on purpose--you couldn't help it."
"We could have helped it," said Juliet, "by not celebrating. We had no
business to buy an automobile, or, even if we had, we shouldn't have
gone out in it until we learned to run it."
"That's like staying away from the water until you have learned to
swim," answered Madame, comfortingly, "and Allison isn't going to die."
"Really? Do you mean it? Are you sure? How do you know?" The words came
all at once, in a jumble of eager questions.
"Because he isn't. The worst that could possibly happen to him would be
the loss of his left hand, and his father is looking all over the
country for some surgeon who can save it."
"I'd rather die than to have my hand cut off," said Juliet, in a small,
thin voice.
"So would I," added Romeo.
"We're all hoping for the best," Madame went on, "and you must hope,
too. Nobody has thought of blaming you, so you mustn't feel so badly
about it. Even Allison himself wouldn't want you to feel badly."
"But we do," Romeo answered, "in spite of all the sacrifices and
everything."
"Sacrifices," repeated Madame, wonderingly, "why, what do you mean?"
"We did sentry duty all night by his car," Romeo explained, "and we're
taking care of it in our barn."
"And we've lived on mush and milk ever since," Juliet added.
"I shot all the dogs but the one with the puppies," said Romeo.
"She wasn't in it, you know," Juliet continued. "I helped dig the trench
and we buried the whole nineteen end to end by the fence, with their new
collars on."
"Then we burned the automobile," resumed Romeo. "We soaked it in
kerosene, and put our suits into the back seat--our caps and goggles and
everything. We took out all the pieces of iron and steel and gave 'em to
the junk man, and then we repented in sackcloth and ashes."
"How so?" queried Madame, with a faint glimmer of amusement in her sad
eyes.
"Juliet made suits out of potato sacks--very plain suits--and we put 'em
on to repent in."
"We went and stood in the ashes," put in Juliet, "while they were so hot
that they hurt our feet, and Romie raised his right hand and said 'I
repent' and then I did the same."
"And after the ashes got cold, we sat down in 'em and rubbed 'em into
the sackcloth and our hair and all over our faces and hands."
"All the time saying 'I repent! I repent!'" continued Juliet, soberly.
"And then we went into mourning," concluded Romeo.
Madame's heart throbbed with tender pity for the stricken twins, but she
wisely said nothing.
"Can you think of anything more we could do, or any more sacrifices we
could make?" inquired Juliet, ready to atone in full measure.
"Indeed I can't," Madame replied, truthfully. "I think you've done
everything that could be expected of you."
"We wrote to the Colonel," said Romeo, "but he hasn't got it yet. We saw
it on the library table. We want to pay all the bills."
"And give Allison as much money as we spent on the automobile and for
the suits and everything, and pay for fixing up his car," interrupted
Juliet.
"We want to do everything," Romeo said, with marked emphasis.
"Everything," echoed Juliet.
"That's very nice of you," answered Madame, kindly, "and we all
appreciate it."
The stem young faces of the twins relaxed ever so little. It was a great
relief to discover that they were not objects of scorn and loathing, for
they had brooded over the accident until they had become morbid.
"Did you say that you had been living upon mush and milk ever since?"
asked Madame.
"Ever since," they answered, together.
"I'm sure that's long enough," she said. "I wouldn't do it any longer.
Won't you stay to dinner with us?"
With one accord the twins rose, impelled by a single impulse toward
departure.
"We couldn't," said Romeo.
"We mustn't," explained Juliet. Then, with belated courtesy, she added:
"Thank you, just the same."
They made their adieux awkwardly and went home, greatly eased in mind.
As they trudged along the dusty road, they occasionally sighed in
relief, but said little until they reached their ancestral abode,
dogless now save for the pups gambolling about the doorstep and Minerva
watching them with maternal pride.
"She said we'd lived on mush and milk long enough," said Romeo,
pensively.
"We might fry the mush," Juliet suggested.
"And have butter and maple syrup on it?"
"Maybe."
"And drink the milk, and have bread, too?"
"I guess so."
"And jam?"
"Not while we're in mourning," said Juliet, firmly. "We can have syrup
on our bread."
"That's just as good."
"If you think so, you ought not to have it."
"We've got to feed ourselves, or we'll die," he objected vigorously,
"and if we're dead, we won't be any good to him or to anybody else, and
we can't ever repent any more."
"I'm not so sure about that." said Juliet, with sinister emphasis.
"Nothing will happen to us that we don't deserve," Romeo assured her,
"so come on and let's have jam. If it makes us sick, it's wrong, and if
it doesn't, it's all right."
The following day, they voluntarily returned to their mush and milk, for
they had eaten too much jam, and, having been very ill in the night,
considered it sufficient evidence that their penance was not yet over.
XVIII
"LESS THAN THE DUST"
The heat of August shimmered over the land, and still, to every inquiry
at the door or telephone, the quiet young woman in blue and white said:
"No change." Allison was listless and apathetic, yet comparatively free
from pain.
Life, for him, had ebbed back to the point where the tide must either
cease or turn. He knew neither hunger nor thirst nor weariness; only the
great pause of soul and body, the sense of the ultimate goal.
One by one, he meditated upon the things he used to care for. Isabel
came first, but her youth and beauty had ceased to trouble or to beckon.
His father had gone on ahead. The delusion still persisted, but he spoke
of it no more. Even the violin did not matter now. He remembered the
endless hours he had spent at work, almost every day of his life for
years, and to what end? In an instant, it had been rendered empty,
purposeless, and vain--like life itself.
Occasionally a new man came to look at his hand; not from the city now,
but from towns farther inland. The examinations were painful, of course,
but he made no objections. After the man had gone, he could count the
slow, distinct pulsations that marked the ebbing of the pain, but never
troubled himself to ask either the doctor or the nurse what the new man
had said about it. He no longer cared.
Aunt Francesca had not come--nor Rose. Perhaps they were dead, also. He
asked the nurse one sultry afternoon if they were dead.
"No," she assured him; "nobody is dead."
He wondered, fretfully, why she should take the trouble to lie to him so
persistently upon this one point. Then a cunning scheme came into his
mind. It presented itself mechanically to him as a trap for the nurse.
If they were dead, she could not produce them instantly alive, as a
conjurer takes animals from an apparently empty box. If he demanded that
she should bring them to him, or even one, it would prove his point and
let her see that he knew how she was trying to deceive him.
"Have they gone away?" he inquired.
"No, they're still there."
"Then," said Allison, with the air of one scoring a fine point, "will
you ask-well--ask Miss Bernard to come over and see me?"
Remembering the other woman who had come in response to his request, and
the disastrous effect the visit had had upon her patient she hesitated.
"I'm afraid you're not strong enough," she said kindly. "Can't you wait
a little longer?"
"There," he cried. "I knew they were dead!"
As she happened to be both wise and kind, the young woman hesitated no
longer. "If I brought you a note from her you would believe me, wouldn't
you?"
"No," he replied, stubbornly.
"Isn't there any way you would know, without seeing her?"
He considered for a few moments. "I'd know if I heard her play," he said
at length. "There's no one who could play just the way she does."
"Suppose I ask her to come over sometimes and play the piano downstairs
for a few minutes at a time, very softly. Would you like that?"
"Yes--that is, I don't mind." He was sure, now, that his trap was in
working order, for no one could deceive him at the piano--he would
recognise Rose at the first chord.
"Excuse me just a minute, please." She returned presently with the news
that Rose would come as soon as she could. "Can't you go to sleep now?"
she suggested.
Allison smiled ironically. How transparent she was!
She wanted him to go to sleep and when he awoke, she would tell him that
Rose had been there, and had played, and had just gone.
"No," he answered, "I don't want to go to sleep. I want to hear Rose
play."
So he waited, persistently wide awake. Sharpened by illness and pain,
his hearing was phenomenally acute; so much so that even a whisper in
the next room was distinctly audible. He heard the distant rumble of
wheels, approaching steadily, and wondered why the house did not tremble
when the carriage stopped. He heard the lower door open softly, then
close, a quick, light step in the living room, the old-fashioned piano
stool whirling on its rusty axis, then a few slow, deep chords prefacing
a familiar bit of Chopin.
He turned to the nurse, who sat in her low rocking-chair at the window.
"I beg your pardon. I thought you were not telling me the truth."
The young woman only smiled in answer. "Listen!"
From downstairs the music came softly. Rose was playing with the
exquisite taste and feeling that characterised everything she did. She
purposely avoided the extremes of despair and joy, keeping to the safe
middle-ground. Living waters murmured through the melody, the sea surged
and crooned, flying clouds went through blue, sunny spaces, and birds
sang, ever with an unfailing uplift, as of many wings.
Allison's calmness insensibly changed, not in degree, but in quality, as
the piano magically brought before him green distances lying fair
beneath the warm sun, clover-scented meadows and blossoming boughs.
"Life," he said to himself; "life more abundant."
She drifted from one thing to another, playing snatches of old songs,
woven together by modulations of her own making. At last she paused to
think of something else, but her fingers remembered, and began, almost
of their own accord:
[Illustration: musical notation.]
Allison stirred restlessly, as he recalled how he had heard it before.
He saw the drifted petals of fallen roses, the moon-shadow on the dial,
hours wrong, the spangled cobwebs in the grass and the other spangles,
changed to faint iridescence in the enchanted light as Isabel came
toward him and into his open arms. Could marble respond to a lover's
passion, could dead lips answer with love for love, then Isabel might
have yielded to him at least a tolerant tenderness. He saw her now,
alien and apart, like some pale star that shone upon a barren waste, but
never for him.
Another phrase, full of love and longing, floated up the stairway and
entered his room, a guest unbidden.
[Illustration: musical notation.]
He turned to the nurse. "Ask Miss Bernard to come up for a few minutes,
will you?"
"Do you think it's wise?" she temporised.
"Please ask her to come up," he said, imperatively. "Must I call her
myself?"
So Rose came up, after receiving the customary caution not to stay too
long and avoid everything that might be unpleasant or exciting.
She stood for a moment in the doorway, hesitating. Her face was almost
as white as her linen gown, but her eyes were shining with strange
fires.
"White Rose," he said, wearily, "I have been through hell."
"I know," she answered, softly, drawing up a chair beside him. "Aunt
Francesca and I have wished that we might divide it with you and help
you bear it."
He stretched a trembling hand toward her and she took it in both her
own. They were soft and cool, and soothing.
"Thank you for wanting to share it," he said. "Thank you for coming, for
playing--for everything."
"Either of us would have come whenever you wanted us, night or day."
"Suppose it was night, and I'd wanted you to come and play to me. Would
you have come?"
"Why, yes. Of course I would!"
"I didn't know," he stammered, "that there was so much kindness in the
world. I have been very lonely since--"
Her eyes filled and she held his hand more closely. "You won't be lonely
any more. I'll come whenever you want me, night or day, to play, to
read--or anything. Only speak, and I'll come."
"How good you are!" he murmured, gratefully. "No, please don't let go of
my hand." In some inexplicable fashion strength seemed to flow to him
from her.
"I think you'll be glad to know," she said, "how sympathetic everybody
has been. Strangers stop us on the street to ask for you, and people
telephone every day. Down in the library, there's a pile of letters that
would take days to read, and many of them have foreign stamps. It makes
one feel warm around the heart, for it brings the ideal of human
brotherhood so near."
He sighed and his face looked haggard. The brotherhood of man was among
the things that did not concern him now. The weariness of the ages was
in every line of his body.
"I have been thinking," he went on, after a little, "what a difference
one little hour can make, a minute, even. Once I had everything--youth,
health, strength, a happy home, love, a dear father, and every promise
of success in my chosen career. Now I'm old and broken; health,
strength, and love have been taken away in an instant, my father is
gone, and my career is only an empty memory. I have no violin, and, if I
had, what use would it be to me without--why Rose, I haven't even
fingers to make the notes nor hands to hold it."
Rose could bear no more. She sprang to her feet with arms outstretched,
all her love and longing swelling into infinite appeal. "Oh Boy!" she
cried, "take mine! Take my hands, for always!"
For a tense instant they faced each other. Her breast rose and fell with
every quick breath; her eyes met his, then faltered, and the crimson of
shame mantled her white face.
"Oh," she breathed, painfully, and turned away from him. When she was
half way to the door, he called to her. "Rose! Dear Rose!"
She hesitated, her hand upon the knob. "Close the door and come back,"
he pleaded. "Please--oh, please!"
Trembling from head to foot, she obeyed him, but her face was pitiful.
She could not force herself to look at him. "Forgive," she murmured,
"and forget."
The hand he took in his was cold, but her nearness gave him comfort, as
never before. His heart was unspeakably tender toward her.
"Rose," he went on, softly, "I've been too near the other world not to
have the truth now. Tell me what you mean! Make me understand!"
She did not answer, nor even lift her eyes. She breathed hard, as though
she were in pain.
"Rose," he said again, tightening his clasp upon the hand she tried to
draw away, "did you mean that you would be my--"
"In name," she interrupted, throwing up her head proudly. "Just to help
you--that was all."
He drew her hand to his hot lips and kissed it twice. "Oh, how divinely
kind you are," he whispered, "even to think of stooping to such as I!"
"Have pity," she said brokenly, "and let me go."
"Pity?" he repeated. "In all the world there is none like yours. To
think of your being willing to sacrifice yourself, through pity of me!"
The blood came back into her heart by leaps and bounds. She had not
utterly betrayed herself, then, since he translated it thus.
"Listen," he was saying. "I cared--terribly, but it's gone, and my heart
is empty. It's like an open grave, waiting for something that does not
come. Did you ever care?"
"Yes," she answered, with eyes downcast.
"Did you care for someone who did not care for you?"
"Yes," she replied, again.
"And he never knew?"
"No." The word was almost a whisper.
"He must have been a brute, not to have cared. Was it long ago?"
"Not very."
"Have I ever met him?"
The suggestion of an ironical smile hovered for a moment around her pale
lips, then vanished. "No."
"I have no right to--to ask his name."
"No. What difference does a name make?"
"None. Could you never bring yourself to care for anyone else?"
"No," she breathed. "Oh, no!"
"And yet, with your heart as empty as mine you still have pity enough
to--"
"To serve you," she answered. Her eyes met his clearly now. "To help
you--as your best friend might."
"Rose, dear Rose! You give me new courage, but how can I let you
sacrifice yourself for me?" "Believe me," she said diffidently, "there
is no question of sacrifice. Have you never thought of what you might
do, that would be even better than the career you had planned?"
"Why, no. What could I do, without--"
"Write," she said, with her eyes shining. "Let others play what you
write. Immortality comes by way of the printed page."
"I couldn't," he returned, doubtfully.
"I never composed anything except two or three little things that I
never dared to play, even for encores."
"Never say you can't. Say 'I must,' and 'I will.'"
"You're saying them for me. You almost make me believe in myself."
"That's the very best of beginnings, isn't it?"
She was quite calm now, outwardly, and she drew her hand away. Allison
remembered the long, happy hours they had spent together before Isabel
came into his life. Now that she was gone, the old comradeship had
returned, the sweeter because of long absence. Rose had never fretted
nor annoyed him; she seemed always to understand.
"You don't know how glad I'd be," he sighed, "to feel that I wasn't
quite out of it--that there was something in life for me still. I didn't
want to be a bit of driftwood on the current of things."
"You're not going to be--I won't let you. Haven't you learned that
sometimes we have to wait; that we can't always be going on? Just moor
your soul at the landing place, and when the hour comes, you'll swing
out into the current again. Much of the driftwood is only craft that
broke away from the landing."
He smiled, for her fancy pleased him. An abiding sense of companionship
crept into his loneliness; his isolation seemed to be shared. "And
you'll stay at the landing with me," he whispered, "until the time comes
to set sail again?"
"Yes."
"And--after the worst that can come--is over, we'll make it right with
the world and go abroad together?"
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