CHAPTER IX
GRANDMOTHER’S STORY
Mallowbanks, January 8th.
Carin, my waiting one:
Play you are sitting in the firelight with all my family, and Keefe close beside me, and the rain falling outside. If the wind whistles down the chimney, it is, after all, not loud enough to drown my little grandmother’s voice, for it is a high and musical one, and rises above noises louder than itself. Very snug and happy we all are. It is a witching hour, and grandmother looks unearthly and shining, with her hair gleaming in the firelight like a silver cloud in the sun.
“Once on a time,” said she, beginning her story in the good old way, “there was an ancestress of yours, Azalea, my dear, named Dorothy Marshall. She was so gentle and sweet a woman that long, long after she was dead, the fame of her lived on, though no woman ever led a quieter life than she did. They say she had fair hair and dark blue eyes, with a complexion not pale, but golden, and ripe, full lips, and a beautiful dimple in her chin. In her youth she was a gallant horsewoman and she could sail a boat like a man. Indeed, it was the sea that she loved the best, though she grew up amid beautiful fields and was often in the mountains. But to be within sound and sight of the sea, and to have the smell of it in her nostrils, made her a happy woman indeed.
“That may have been one of the reasons that when she was only eighteen she married Samuel Bings. Now the Bings were a seafaring family if ever there was one. Twelve sons were there, giants all, and save one, each before he died became the commander of his own ship on the sea. They were merchantmen, these ships, in the carrying trade between Norfolk and ports all over the world, and to this day there are many strange things in our family which they brought from half around the world.
“Samuel was the fifth son and of them all the most like his father, who was a famous seaman and had been thrice around the world, and many times about the Horn. When Samuel and Dorothy were married there was feasting and dancing in the old Marshall home at Norfolk, and good wishes from high and low. They were so young, so handsome, so fortunate, that only one cloud could be discovered anywhere on their horizon, and that was that either they must be apart, or Dorothy must follow the fortunes of the sea with her husband. This she would gladly have done had it not been that her mother, whose only daughter she was, suffered poor health and could not endure to have her daughter leave her. So it was decided that Samuel was to make one journey more, for which he had signed, and that he would then give up his sailor’s life and conduct a ship chandlery at home.
“With that Dorothy begged him to go with her for one last journey over the mountains, that they might be together in solitude for a while. So he took his fine roan, Pacolet, and she her little mare, Bess, and they rode away for a wonderful month among the mountains, stopping where they pleased, and seeing the homes and plantations of their fellow Virginians, and everywhere they were entertained with great consideration, for two handsomer or more charming young people it would have been difficult to find. Moreover, Samuel loved his horse Pacolet better than anything in the world save his bride, and to feel this faithful and spirited steed under him, and to see the fair face of his love shining with health and joy, was, he thought, all that any man could ask of fate.
“So it was with a stout heart that at last he sailed away as commander of his elder brother’s merchantman, The Adventure, carrying cotton to France and tobacco to Algiers and gold to Constantinople. For you must know, Azalea, that at that time—I think it must have been about 1794, America did a good trade among the ports of the Mediterranean and even beyond. Perhaps, too, if you have read your history, you will know how the corsairs of the Barbary States preyed upon these merchantmen, so that it was necessary for America to place a fleet of battleships to guard the African coast in order to protect the merchant ships from the pirates. Notwithstanding this, many a ship was held against its will and its officers and crews made prisoners, and it was a common thing for notices to be read in American churches, giving the names of those in captivity in Tripoli or Algiers. Then would the friends and relatives of the imprisoned men raise money and buy them out again.
“But Samuel Bings had no fear. The Bings were brave men and subtle men, and they reckoned with their wits to keep them out of trouble.
“‘Keep heart of grace, Dorothy, my love,’ said Samuel when he bade her good-bye. ‘A year may pass, or a year and a half at farthest; then shall you see me home, and never more will I quit shore save by your leave or in your company.’
“But hardly had he put to sea when troubles came upon his bride. First her long-ailing mother died; then three months after that her father bade her farewell also. So she was left alone in the world. She had kin in plenty—though none of them were very near—who would have welcomed her to their homes, but they lived on plantations out of sight of the sea, and Dorothy had a mind to be where she could see it rolling in bringing the brave ships on it.
“‘What if The Adventure should land and Samuel come seeking me and I not be at hand?’ she said.
“So she chose her a house on the side of the hill that led up from the wharves, and from its galleries she could see every ship that came sailing into port. Here she made her a home, putting into it whatever was most beautiful or treasured from the old house of the Marshalls, and those curious things which the brothers Bings had brought her from China and Java and Japan and the South Sea isles; yes, and from the Bahamas and the Azores and the Canaries and the Hebrides and all the islands they had visited. Moreover, she made it her business to build a fine stable for her husband’s beloved horse, Pacolet, so that he was tended like a king’s horse, and every day she rode him to keep him in form, and she would take him to a certain place where they could overlook the sea, and the two of them would stand there like statues, watching the horizon for a sight of The Adventure.
“The year passed with no word from Samuel. But Dorothy comforted her heart.
“‘Did he not say I might have to wait a year and a half a year?’ she asked.
“But the year and the half year went by, and it was two years, and then three, and nothing was heard of the ship at all. So a dark fear began to grow up in the heart of Dorothy, and she never missed her church, not only because she was devout, but because she thought that some time she might hear the name of her husband read as among those who were lying in one of the cruel Barbary prisons awaiting a ransom. But never a word did she hear, and the years rolled by.
“Then came the year 1801 and Tripoli declared war upon America, and Stephen Decatur was sent to deal with the treacherous governments of Tangier and Tripoli, and there, after his victories, he saw to the release of all American prisoners.
“‘Now, surely,’ thought Dorothy Bings, ‘my husband will return.’
“But he did not come, and though his brothers, always traveling, inquired at all ports if anything had been heard of him, they never were able to bring his waiting wife any word.
“Then the brothers, compassionate for her youth and her sorrow, bade her accept her widowhood with courage.
“‘Samuel is dead,’ they said. ‘He has died the death of a sailor and a gentleman, rest you sure. Be comforted, Dorothy. You loved him well and he loved you, but he is gone. Accept your sorrow and find another mate. He would be the last one to wish you to dwell here alone with your youth going and no child in your house to comfort you. We, his brothers, bid you seek new happiness.’
“And indeed the beautiful Mistress Bings might have had her pick of many gallant gentlemen. But though they sued her ardently, and though she was lonely with a loneliness beyond her words to express, she could not bring herself to be the bride of any one of them.
“‘For what,’ said she, ‘if I should wed me, and some day Samuel should come home, looking for me? What if he is eating his heart out now in some dungeon or on some lonely isle, dreaming of me and Pacolet, and I should take the horse and myself to a new master? No, no, I could never sleep quiet in my bed, nor Pacolet in his stall, were we false to him. He trusted us beyond all the world. We will be faithful.’
“So the years rolled by, and at last silver began to come in the golden hair of Mistress Dorothy. But her longing, instead of growing less, increased year by year, so that she did little else but watch the harbor and the wharves, and to every sailor man who came up the street, staggering from his long journey, she called:
“‘Pray pardon me, good sir, but have you been overseas? Then perhaps you will tell me if you saw anyway, in any port, a tall man with steel blue eyes, named Samuel Bings.’
“And the sailors, high and low, paid her courtesy, knowing her sad story, and respecting her for her steadfastness, and they would stop, hat in hand below her balcony, and tell her of their voyages, and of what they knew concerning the fate of missing men. But never a one of them, stranger or friend, could bring her word of the man she mourned.
“Because of this intercourse she came to know many, many sailors, and since she was one of those whom sorrow teaches, they trusted her and came to her in trouble, and brought her their joys, too. She was the friend to all, and since she had a liberal soul and a well-filled purse, she was enabled to help many a poor man in straits, and to send him on his way with a strengthened heart.
“At length, old age came upon her. She leaned upon a stick when she walked, and she must needs be wrapped in the rich shawls brought her from far lands, when she sat upon the galleries. But still her eyes were bright, and they were always seeking, seeking, and her voice was sweet though it quavered as she leaned over her gallery’s edge to question the men who came up from the ships.
“‘She will never hear from Samuel Bings this side heaven,’ the sailor men fell into the way of saying. And now she was so venerable, and her sad story was so widely known, that men coming to the port for the first time would question if she was yet to be seen, and they would salute as they approached, and would wait to hear the questions that she asked. She was to them like a ballad of true love, or a chant grown dear with use. Indeed, they made songs about her, and when they argued for true love, they were able to point to her. They venerated her silver hair, which had once been golden, and it was to the glory of Norfolk that she lived there.
“Then, one day as she sat in the sunshine, watching the harbor and noting the ships and the busy throng upon the wharves, and all the business that had become to her as her very life, an old, bent man, a sailor by his walk and dress, came shambling up the street. She never had seen him before, but no sooner had her eyes fallen upon him than her heart gave a great leap.
“‘Come to me,’ she called to the faithful servant who had been her companion since the days when she was a bride. ‘Come to me and hold me by the arm, for I must question yonder man.’
“So the maid supported her, and Mistress Bings got to the balustrade of her balcony, and leaning over it, called to the old stranger.
“‘Your pardon sir, but have you been traveling long and far?’
“The man lifted his cap, and as well as he could for his bent back, he looked up at the silver-haired lady on the balcony above him.
“‘Long and far, madam,’ he answered.
“‘Then I beg you of your goodness to come up here and talk with me a while.’
“The old man hesitated, perplexed at such an invitation. But she called again:
“‘I beg you of your goodness.’
“So he came, and she asked him to be seated before her, and then she fixed her burning eyes on him.
“‘Tell me, sir, have you in all of your travels ever met a man named Samuel Bings—a tall man with steel blue eyes, a sailor, every inch of him?’
“The old man stared at her a moment, and then started to his feet.
“‘Are you,’ he cried, ‘his wife, Dorothy? Had he a horse named Pacolet?’
“‘I knew it! I knew it,’ cried Mistress Bings. ‘As soon as ever I saw you coming up the street, I knew that at last I should hear of him. Oh, tell me, sir, is he living still?’
“The old man sank into his seat again and hung his huge head over his knees.
“‘No, madam, he is dead these ten years since.’
“‘Ah, dead,’ breathed Mistress Bings. ‘He is at rest, my Samuel. He is safe in his last bed. He suffers no longer. May God rest his soul!’
“For a little while she could say no more, only now and then crying to her maid:
“‘He is at rest. He suffers no longer.’
“Then, when she was calmer, she turned once more to the bowed stranger.
“‘For the love of God, sir, tell me all you know.’
“So he told her the story of how he had been a small planter in Jamaica, a man of English birth, and how a great tobacco merchant of that place had fitted out a ship to convey his produce to the Turkish ports, and how he, William Hull, had sailed with her, being minded to take a voyage. They had a fair crossing, and Hull said to himself that now at last he was living, now at last, he was seeing life. Then, off the Tripoli coast, the ship was attacked by corsairs and captured, and the captain and crew were thrown in prison. In time, the captain and all of his men save Hull were released, but Hull was of a restless and quick nature, and would not make friends of his foes. The jailors complained that he was quarrelsome; twice he tried to escape and was recaptured; and he openly vowed vengeance on Tripoli should he ever be a free man again and upon a ship of his own country. So, what with his hot-headedness, and the warfare that was on then between America and the Barbary States, he came under the notice of the dey, who, regarding him as a dangerous man, had him put in the dungeons below ground. For a time he was all alone, and he all but went mad in the solitude, but after a time there was need to put a dangerous murderer in his dungeon, and he was removed to another place, and thrown in with an old, half-crazed man.
“‘He had been a man of great stature,’ said Hull, ‘and it was easy to see, in spite of all his rags and filth, that he was a gentleman. He greeted me courteously when I entered, and I said to myself that now I should be able to hold converse with a fellow-being, but indeed, madam, it was little enough converse that we held. He could hold to one theme but a moment or two, and then he would fall under a sort of spell, and would sit softly mumbling to himself, as if he were going back over old scenes. Then he would arouse himself and call to me. And when I answered him, he would say:
“‘“Man, man, if ever you go free, for the love of God, search out my sweet wife Dorothy and my good horse Pacolet, and tell them I have not forgot.”
“‘Sometimes he would sob when he spoke these words, and sometimes he would call them at the top of his voice. Again he would whisper them, and often in his sleep I would hear him muttering: “My sweet wife Dorothy and my good horse Pacolet.”‘
“The old stranger stopped in compassion, for Mistress Bings lay with her face against the high back of her chair, as colorless as snow. But when she found that he had ceased, she motioned for him to proceed.
“‘This is the greatest day of my life, save one,’ she said, ‘and that was the day I became a bride. Do not fear for me. Finish your tale.’
“‘Nine years, lacking three months, we were together in that dungeon,’ continued Hull, ‘and then he died. A sudden cold, a closing of the lungs, and he was gone. He passed away in my arms, madam, very peacefully, and with his last breath he bade me carry messages to you.’
“‘And you waited all these years, man?’
“‘Madam, I knew nothing of the place he called his home, and though he often tried for hours at a time to remember, he could not recall them. Never, in all that time, did he talk lucidly upon any subject at all, save when he spoke of you and his horse, and then he said no more than I have told you. It was as if, finding that all things were going from him, he commanded himself to remember the two beings he loved.’
“‘Yet you knew his name, William Hull?’ said Mistress Bings.
“‘Aye, madam. When at last my old captain was able to secure my release, I begged him and the governor to go with me to the keeper of the prison, and there I told him that I had but one little favor to ask in return for the years of life he had wrenched from me, and that was the name of my companion. So he gave it to me—Bings. But he could not tell me from what American port he had sailed, nor would he give me anything of his story. To this day, madam, I do not know the fate of his ship or his crew, and I fear that this tragedy like many others, will be unrecorded to the end of time.’
“‘To the end of time,’ whispered Mistress Bings. ‘To the end of time is a long while, William Hull.’
“‘So long it will never come,’ said William Hull.
“‘But he never forgot? My husband never forgot? In darkness and solitude and madness, he remembered me still?’
“‘Madam, it was his one joy.’
“‘Pacolet is long since dead,’ said Mistress Bings. ‘He is buried in a fine field, and a great bowlder is placed above his grave to mark it.’
“‘He loved his horse,’ said William Hull.
“‘May they meet in Paradise!’ cried Mistress Bings.
“‘What, madam, the soul of the man and—and a horse?’
“‘May they meet in Paradise,’ she repeated. Then she bade William Hull enter her house, and she feasted him well, and when he had finished, she asked him concerning his life and his work, and when she found that though old, and bent and broken, he meant always to follow the sea, a common sailor before the mast—the least of all the signed men because of his bent back—she cried:
“‘Not so, William Hull. You shall not so weary yourself. If you have a mind to stay on land, I will build you a snug house on one of my plantations; but if you prefer the sea, I will buy you a yawl, and you can sail from port to port along our coast here.’
“So at first William Hull spoke for the sea and the yawl, but when he learned that she would no longer live in the house that watched the harbor there being no reason why she should continue to search the faces of returning sailors, looking among them for the one she loved—but would go onto a plantation and live among her trees and flowers, he elected to live near her and to be her servant. To the end, he served her, and she guarded him, he for the sake of a man who, though bereft of his senses, was still an affectionate friend, she for the sake of the bridegroom who had never forgotten his love, and who had been snatched from the sunlight to wither in a dungeon all his days.”
That is the tale my grandmother told.
And all the while, Carin, I let my hand stay in Keefe’s. The fire fell low, the wind grew higher, and the story, you might have thought, would have made us sad. But it did not do so. Grandmother walked up the stairs to her room with her head lifted; I saw Uncle David and Aunt Lorena going down the corridor hand in hand. As for me, I could have danced. I do not know what Keefe thought, but I heard him singing “Annie Laurie” when he reached his room. I saw then that the story had risen above sorrow into joy, and when I went to bed I was very, very happy—happier than ever before in my life. It is wonderful to know there is really such a thing as true love in the world, isn’t it?
Azalea.
CHAPTER X
“THE WATERS OF
QUIET”
Mallowbanks, January 21st.
My own Carin:
I no longer have a grandmother.
She has gone. She is dead; but we are trying not to grieve. We are thinking of her as sailing on “the waters of quiet” to where her husband and her beloved son await her.
It was her love for that dead son, my father, that brought about her death. Soon after I wrote you last, we could see that a cloud was settling over her spirit. She was very restless and could not sleep, but would go wandering about the house if she were not prevented.
“I reckon ole Miss has got to studyin’ about Mars Jack again,” said Semmy to me. Indeed, all of us in the house could see that this was so. She became suspicious of us and thought we were watching her to prevent her from going out to her boy. She thought he was living again, young and wayward, with no friend but herself, and though she seemed to be reasonable enough upon other subjects, in regard to that she was quite insane.
Martha was set to watch her early and late, and when she was weary Semmy or I took her place. She was sweet and gay at moments. One afternoon she showed me her painted fans and her jewels, and told me they would be mine, some day, and I was naughty enough to say:
“But madam grandmother, what shall little Azalea do with all those? Don’t you think her little string of ‘Job’s tears’ and a peacock fan made by herself become her better?”
That teased her, as I knew it would.
“My dear Azalea,” she said in her most earnest manner, “you are a true Knox, and these jewels and fans will become you. Wear them, not only for your own sake, but for the credit of your family.”
I like to think of those last days we spent together. They were dreamy, and happily-sad—different from other days altogether. Keefe was finishing her portrait, but we would no longer let her sit to him. He caught her expressions from day to day and made studies of them, and touched up the portrait by himself. It was wonderful to me to see her sparkling, wrinkled, aristocratic face, at once so worldly and so spiritual, growing out of the canvas. Then, when she told him that he was to make a second copy of it, that I might have one for my very own, you can fancy my pride and satisfaction.
Well, we had fallen into the way of locking the two doors that lead from her bedroom, so that if she should be taken with one of her old wandering spells and should try to slip by Martha, who had a cot in the room with her, she would be unable to get out. I slept in the little dressing room next to her that I might be of assistance to Martha should she need me, and several times she did, for grandmother insisted on going out to the old place at the end of the garden. Once she had her jewel case with her, and insisted that Jack must have the jewels, because he was going hungry and was sleeping by the wayside, while she and all the rest of the family lived in luxury. It took me a long time to quiet her.
But she was so well guarded that we thought no harm could possibly come to her. But the hour came when we all failed her. I cannot bear to think of it. No one in the house can.
It happened this way. I had gone motoring with Uncle David and Keefe. Aunt Lorena remained at home to be near grandmother, and Martha was in immediate charge. But Martha is old, too, and though she is most loyal, she does not always use the best judgment. At any rate, while Aunt Lorena was down with the cook talking over Sunday’s dinner, Grandmother sent Martha to call her. She said she wished to consult with her at once upon some important matter.
So Martha, nothing doubting, went in search of Aunt Lorena, and when she came back grandmother was missing. She had been in the little upstairs sitting room, but she was not to be found there nor in her bedroom. Unfortunately, Martha wasted a few minutes in looking for her on the second story, and then she came trembling down to the first floor, her old knees quaking under her, and looked there without success. Old James had been tidying up the walk in front of the house—for there had been a rain and a cold wind, and twigs and branches were lying all about the ground—and he said she had not come out. So more time was spent in searching for her all about the great rambling house. The servants began looking in the rooms we never use, and then they ran up to the attic, thinking she might be up there looking over her chests and boxes as she likes to do sometimes. But she was not there either.
Then Uncle David, Keefe and I came home.
I had noticed as we swept around the drive which goes by the east wing of the house, that a certain little side door opening into the garden, stood ajar, which was curious for this time of the year. It is a door used only in the summer time, and then usually by someone who wishes to escape quietly into the garden without being seen by those in the front of the house.
“It’s a cold day for a door to be standing open like that,” I said to Uncle David.
“Curious,” he said. “Mr. O’Connor, as you go in, be kind enough to close it. It leads from the little coat room beneath the stairs.”
Keefe and I went in together, and then we heard the tumult in the house.
“We can’t find your grandmother!” said Aunt Lorena to me, showing her white face at the head of the stairs. With that it flashed through me at once that she had escaped by the side door. I flung off my motor coat and ran for the coat room and through the door into the garden. There, sure enough, by the narrow brick terrace was the imprint of her little shoe.
“Come, Keefe, come,” I called, for I felt there was great trouble ahead, and I wanted him to be with me, Carin. Yes, I can tell you, my dear, to whom every event, almost every feeling of my life, is known, that I wanted him above everyone else in the world.
It was almost dark by this time, and the two of us ran out, hand in hand, and down the gray garden in the mist. Nothing looked natural to me. The very shrubbery, wreathed all in white as it was, frightened me. The bushes looked like strange, unheard-of beasts, crouching to spring. And the whole place was so terribly still! I could feel my breath catching in my throat and strangling me.
“It is at the end of the garden she goes to meet him,” I managed to say through my throat.
“To meet whom?” asked Keefe. (I never had told him the story of my father.)
“Her dead son,” I gasped, and said no more. For how could I explain then? Keefe looked at me as if he thought I was out of my head, but I said nothing, and we ran on.
And then we came to the pool—the little sweet pool that is like the heart of the garden. The three swans were close to the shore looking at something dark that lay there.
And it was she, Carin. It was little madam grandmother. She had fallen with her face in the water, and it seemed as if she had not even tried to rise.
Keefe saw her and sprang to her and picked her up in his arms, and I came and looked at her.
“She has gone where she wished to go,” said Keefe. “She is with her son.”
“Yes, I am sure it is as she would like it to be,” I cried, and I held her hand in mine all the way to the house, and wondered if she knew I was glad for her—that I was congratulating her.
But, Oh, Carin, how one’s throat can ache! How one’s heart can hang heavy, like a weight! How one’s eyes can burn and head can throb, and how one’s thoughts can heavily turn and turn, like an iron wheel! Did you ever have a great sorrow? Oh, yes, I remember that you did, when your three brothers were lost in that horrible theater fire. Well, I have had a great sorrow before, too, when I lost my little mother. But I was so young then and so generally miserable, and life had been hideous for so long, that it was only one added pang. It was different from this. I seem unable to get that scene in the garden out of my mind. Grandmother seems still to be fluttering before those portraits of herself, or in among the cabinets in the drawing-room, or along the corridors, beckoning to her old Martha, or calling out to me: “Your arm, Azalea, please.”
The funeral was strangely quaint and beautiful. So many old people came—old friends from far away as well as near at hand, and I cannot begin to tell you about the curious coaches and carriages that some of them came in. The bishop preached the service, the funeral being held, oddly enough, in the old ballroom of the house—the room where grandmother had danced as a bride. But it looked very imposing and solemn on the day of her burial. It is paneled in dark wood, and all about it were candles burning in their sconces, and from grandmother’s coffin trailed a great cloth of gold and black brocade.
The bishop had a voice like an organ, and when I heard him reading:
“I am the resurrection and the life,” my sorrow seemed to lighten.
Everyone was very kind to me—much kinder than I had any right to expect. I had to meet many of the old family friends. It was really required of me, Aunt Lorena explained, for there were a number present on this occasion who had not been at my coming-out party. So, after the funeral, I was introduced to them.
You understand, Carin, grandmother was not taken from the house after the funeral. No, she was left lying up in that splendid room, and downstairs the funeral guests were given some refreshments—for most of them had come a long way, and many were old—and then, at midnight, the old servants carried the coffin to the great vault that stands in a grove near the house, and Uncle David and Aunt Lorena and Keefe and I followed, and she was laid away with others of her family, my father among the rest.
There are cypress trees and hemlocks round about this vault, and they stood up black against the dark sky, swaying and crying. Not one of us spoke a word, and the only sound was the sobbing of the black people. I felt more like crying than I ever had before in my life—yes, I wanted to sob aloud and to call to grandmother to come back. Little sweet, proud, loving, laughing grandmother! But I kept very still. It seemed as if I could read Keefe’s thoughts and as if he were telling me to be quiet. So I said over and over to myself the last line of a lovely poem I read the other day. “‘O waters of quiet, go softly.’”
After so long a life, one must be glad to rest. I found out that night, Carin, how that death, like life, is sweet and all in the course of things and nothing to be afraid of.
Going back to the house I told Keefe that.
“Life is our comrade,” he said, “but death is our mother, holding out kind hands to us when we are tired.”
When he left me he—he kissed me, Carin. On the forehead. I shall always remember.
I did not leave my room the next day. I wanted to think. Old Semmy stayed with me. But I did not mind her. I like old Semmy. She rocks to and fro like the trees and seems to be waiting to give comfort when comfort is needed. And that is like trees, too. After my little mama died I used to wrap my arms about the trees up there on the mountain-side and weep and weep, and they were very kind to me—those great chestnuts and hemlocks. But now I am thinking out many things. I couldn’t have written to anyone save you. But soon I shall write dear Mother McBirney and Annie Laurie. (I have, of course, sent them word.)
Carin, tell me if you love me.
Azalea.
Mallowbanks, January 30th.
Oh, Carin-girl:
Other troubles have come to me—things I never dreamed of. I don’t know how to meet them. They aren’t things like death, that just have to be accepted with courage. No, they are things I have to decide about. I have to make up my mind what is right and what is wrong. I never knew before that it could be hard to do that.
This is the story: Two days after dear little grandmother was buried, I was told that the family solicitor would be at the house at three in the afternoon and that the will would be read, and I was expected to be present. So I put on one of the new black dresses that tell their own story, and when the time came I went down to the library. Uncle and auntie were there before me, and they introduced me to Mr. Lindsay, and then when the servants had come, he read grandmother’s will.
She was a rich woman, of course, but I had not guessed how rich, and she gave bequests to Martha and James which would make it unnecessary for them to work any more, with substantial remembrances to the other servants, and a fine sum to the college her sons attended, and then all of the rest she divided between Uncle David and me.
Only—
Only I was not to have mine—except for a small annuity—unless I married according to Uncle David’s wishes.
This, the will said, was not because of lack of affection for me or lack of confidence in me, but only because my early associations were such, and I was of such an impulsive nature, that I was in danger of doing something I would always regret. So she placed me lovingly in her son’s hands, and expected me to defer to his judgment in all things.
Aunt Lorena looked down through all the reading of the will, and when it was all over I tried to take her hand, but she wouldn’t let me, and it was Semmy who took my hand and led me away to my room. I lay down on my lounge and thought and thought. I could hear the winter wind shouting through the pines, and outside the twilight was stormy and bleak. Semmy wanted to build up a fire and to bring me tea there in my room, but I did not want a fire and tea. There was only one thing in the world that I wanted then, and I knew perfectly well what it was.
It was Keefe O’Connor.
And it was on account of him that grandmother had made that will. She had seen that we cared for each other. She had not wanted me to marry him. I knew then as well as when Uncle David had told me, that she particularly objected to him—that is, that she particularly objected to having him marry me. Not that he ever really asked me to, or that we would marry for years and years. Yet—yet I know that is what she meant when she made that will.
So now, Carin, I have learned my second great lesson this week. The first was, that there could not be life without death, and that if life is sweet, why so is death sweet too; and the second is that life cannot be sweet without liberty.
Yes, I know it is an old, old truth, and that I ought to have known it long ago. But to read a thing, or even to say it, is very different from realizing it.
I lay there asking myself if freedom meant more to me than anything else. And I decided that it did. It wasn’t Keefe, merely, that made me ask this question, or decide in this way. It was the whole principle of the thing. Should I sell my right to do as I thought best—to do the thing that would bring me happiness—for the sake of a fortune?
I did not go down to dinner. Semmy carried my excuses for me.
Then, a little later in the evening she came to ask if I would see Mr. Keefe in the writing room. That was the room, you will remember, where we all sat together the night grandmother told us the story about Dorothy Bings.
I said I would go, and I brushed my hair and went on down the stairs. Uncle David and Aunt Lorena were sitting in the library and they saw me, and called out to know if I was feeling better, and I told them quite frankly that I was not—thank them, very much.
So, with them looking at me, I went on to the writing room, and Keefe stood there by the door waiting for me, and we went in and sat down there, one on each side of the table. There was no firelight this time to cheer us. The room was so chilly that it made my teeth chatter, but I did not really think about that till afterward.
“Mr. Knox has told me,” said Keefe as soon as we were seated, “about your grandmother’s will. He has said that he hopes I will not make the fulfillment of its conditions difficult for you.”
“How did he know that you were likely to?” I asked.
“He could not very well help but know that, Azalea. Anyone who has seen me with you must have known that I loved you.”
“Then you do?” I said. “You do, Keefe?”
“Why should I need to take the trouble to say it?” he demanded. “Haven’t you known it from the first?”
“I have hoped it—sometimes.”
“Hoped it?” he said. “Haven’t you heard me say it?”
“Once—only once. But I thought that might have been an accident.”
Oh, Carin, what beautiful eyes he has! He took my hands in his there across the table. We knew quite well that Aunt Lorena could see us from where she sat, but we did not care at all.
“Did you promise my uncle that you would not make it hard for me?”
“No. I said if you wished it I would go away.”
“Forever?”
“Not at all. For the present. I said I would go away and give you a chance to make up your mind. Your uncle and aunt wish to take you to Europe with them. They want you to travel for a year or two. You will meet other men, men whose lives and training will make them fitter companions for you than I can ever be.”
“Keefe!” I said sharply. “Don’t muddle up facts like that. Your early training was propriety itself compared with mine.”
“Nevertheless, now you are a very rich woman. You bear the name of an old and distinguished family.”
“Not half so distinguished as the O’Connors,” I laughed. “Weren’t they kings in Ireland once?”
“But my name is not even O’Connor, as you know.”
“Well, whatever your name may be by rights, Keefe—and at this moment I have forgotten what it is—there is one word I cannot forget, and that is spelled L-I-B-E-R-T-Y. In America we have always had a regard for that little word. Perhaps we have preferred it to any in the language. Hundreds of thousands of men have died for it, and as many women have had broken hearts because of it. I’m not going to be behind them in my regard for it. I—have you asked me? I love you, Keefe. I’d rather be one year with you than twenty with anybody else. I shan’t mean anything to myself if I try to live my life away from you. I choose you, Keefe. I set the fortune aside and choose you.”
“No, Azalea,” he said, breathing as if he had been running, “no, you mustn’t choose yet. As your uncle says, it isn’t fair. I ought to go away—I ought to give you a chance to clear your mind. It isn’t clear now—”
“But I want you to stay,” I broke in.
And just then Uncle David came to the door.
“Nevertheless, Azalea,” he said quietly, “Mr. O’Connor, having finished both of your grandmother’s portraits, will be leaving for the North to-morrow.”
“Oh, but why to-morrow?” I cried.
“Because,” he said, still in that quiet voice, “it is best so. I sympathize with you, my girl. But believe me, it is best so.”
That is the way it stands, Carin. He has gone. It is very quiet here in the house. Miss Delight Ravanel has asked me to spend a week with her and I have accepted.
Always with love,
Azalea.
CHAPTER XI
A FRIEND
Monrepos, January 28.
Carin, darling:
Thank you for all your letters. You are very good to me. No matter how careless I am about writing, you never forget, you dear! And now I think I am to send you congratulations because you are engaged to that fine Vance Grévy. Truly, I think him one of the most interesting young men I have ever known. Moreover, he looks good, and true, and firm and enduring. Oh, little Carin, my own yellow-headed one, be very happy with him! I send you a thousand kisses and ten thousand good wishes, and I want you to know that if ever, ever I can do anything for you, I want to be allowed to do it. Please find something for me to do. You must not be so happy that you will forget me. I have always known there was a jealous streak in my disposition, and I am feeling it right now.
You say you have your ring? Your engagement ring! It’s not like other engagement rings? How nice! A pink pearl. Well, pearls suit you just as they do your darling mother.
I am so glad that she and your father like your Vance. Oh, fortunate girl! Always beautiful things happen to you. That, of course, is just as it ought to be. I hope they will keep right on happening to you all through life.
But, once more, in your happiness, do not forget your Azalea. For she is not very happy. No, though now she has much money and some friends—you, always, and Barbara and Annie Laurie, not to mention others—yet she is sad. Things are wrong—quite wrong.
I told you I was coming over here to visit Miss Delight Ravanel at her quaint old home, which she calls “Monrepos.” Aunt Lorena was quite willing I should come. She and I had a frank talk together, and now I understand many things that I did not before.
“I am going to ask you, Aunt Lorena,” I said to her, “if you truly like me. You mustn’t be polite, please, because that would not help me at all. You asked me to come here, and I came, and you have been very kind, and I have done the best I could. But lately there has been a change. You—you have not looked at me quite the way you used. Or at any rate, the understanding between us is not perfect. So let us speak out and say what we really think.”
A silly woman would have been disagreeable, probably, at having a young girl speak this way, but Aunt Lorena is not silly, and she is not disagreeable.
“Azalea,” she said quietly, “I truly like you. I am, indeed, happily surprised in you. I like you better as a house companion than I thought I could like any woman. For, to tell the truth, I am not a social person. If I have not looked at you in quite the old way, it is because I feel conscious of the complications that have arisen. I do not believe, Azalea, in trying to influence the life of another in the way that your grandmother has tried to influence your life. It is not right. I believe that everyone should be free in this world, so far as possible, and your grandmother has taken your freedom away from you.”
“Yes,” I said, “she has. But she meant to be wise and kind for me. I loved her, Aunt Lorena, and I always shall.”
“Are you willing to abide by the terms of her will? Are you willing to marry the man your uncle approves of—the man who will, according to your grandmother’s idea, bring credit to the family?”
She looked so intense and sympathetic that I couldn’t help laughing.
“I am willing to marry just one man,” I found courage to say. “I hope uncle will approve of him.”
“If you mean Keefe O’Connor,” she said in her high voice, “you will see that your hopes are not realized. Your uncle likes him very much personally, but your grandmother did not. Or at least, she did not approve of having him enter the Knox family. It was to keep him from doing so that she made her will as she did. She told your uncle that.”
Carin, was it very bad of me to laugh again. “Then,” I said, “I shall have to let the fortune go, Aunt Lorena.”
She lifted both of her thin white hands in warning.
“That is very easy for you to say, my dear, very easy indeed. You are young and do not know the value of money and of position and of an estate like this. It is the feeling that you do not realize these things, that made it necessary for your uncle and myself to ask Mr. O’Connor to—to absent himself—until you have had time to make up your mind. We want you to travel and to see the world. We want you to meet people and to have a chance to compare this one with that. But when we insist upon all this, it may seem to you as if we were opposing you and setting ourselves against your happiness, whereas, above everything else, we want to do what is for your best interest.”
She looked more solemn than ever.
“You are going against your own heart, Auntie,” I told her. “It is that which makes you seem so changed. Oh, don’t think about it at all. Just treat me the way you did at first. Love me, love me! Somehow, the other matter will straighten itself out. We have troubles enough without bringing any on ourselves.”
But she wouldn’t take the matter lightly. She seemed very much depressed. Uncle was very sad, too, partly on account of the loss of his mother, partly because he was made to act the part of a ‘stern guardian,’ when it is not in keeping with his nature. I feel sure he tried to dissuade grandmother from doing what she did, but he did not succeed. I think, myself, that if people at Mallowbanks had more to do they would be a great deal happier.
Well, anyway, I kept my promise to my nice twenty-seventh cousin, Miss Ravanel, and came away over to her, and was put in a quaint, bare, sunny room, and here I have been for almost a week. My chocolate is sent up to my bed in the morning; Miss Ravanel does not appear until ten. Then we meet in the morning room and she embroiders while I read “Lorna Doone” to her. She has been in England in the Lorna Doone country, and she interrupts the reading to tell me about what she has seen. It is very interesting. But, Oh, Carin, it is as if I were listening to something afar off, and as if the bright fire burning in the grate, the pale sunshine on the pines, the little room with its fantastic chintz, were all a dream.
It does not seem real at all to me. Is it because I am always thinking of something else?
Did I do well, Carin, to give up my life with Mother McBirney, my little busy, useful, struggling life, and to come here among my relatives, who are, after all, strangers? Yes, yes, I know that for a time I felt at ease with them, that to be among my own people brought me great delight. But now, suddenly, I seem useless and stripped of all that made life rich.
* * * * * * * * *
Carin, I have just been reading this over, and I never read anything more dismal. You remember that song of Jean Ingelow’s where the dove sat on the mast and mourned and mourned and mourned. Well, I sound precisely like that ridiculous dove.
I know if you were here you would give me a piece of your mind. So would Keefe. So would Annie Laurie. Actually I am glad none of you is here. Mercy me, how you would scold me!
It has occurred to me during the last minute and a half that I haven’t been treating my tremendously nice little hostess very well. And how good she has been to me!
I am going to reform. I shall ask her if she’ll not go walking—she loves to walk—and I shall suggest visiting old Mrs. Treadway, whom Miss Ravanel likes to look after.
Carin, forgive me for being such a dolorous creature. And you so happy, too! I wanted to do something for you, and I go and throw cold water on your sparkling day with a sighing, moaning letter. Shame on me.
I love you,
Azalea.