The cable

THE winter slipped away, melting into spring, and Cis had not left Beaconhite. Increasingly interested in her completely transformed life, growing daily fonder of Miss Braithwaite, Cicely continued to serve Mr. Lucas happily in his office, finding the great matters constantly beneath her fingers more and more intriguing, going at night back into that peacefully beautiful house, into its books, its charming talk, its lofty ideals.

“I’m getting nicer and nicer!” Cis mocked herself one night in her own room, before her mirror. It was perfectly true; she was “getting nicer” and was becoming something far more than her adjective conveyed.

When June came Miss Braithwaite announced to Cis that she was to take a vacation of three months and go with her touring the New England coast and the White Mountains.

“I don’t know whether we shall go on up to Montreal or not; it shall be as we feel when the time comes. We will stop where we please, for as long as we please, and we will not measure our trip by miles but by satisfactions,” Miss Braithwaite said. Cis caught her breath in delight.

“Gracious!” she exclaimed. “What a suggestion! It is rather flooring! But how can I go? I’ll lose my job! Mr. Lucas can’t hold on to a secretary who is flying all over New England!”

“Easily,” replied Miss Braithwaite. “If you can broadcast a song by radio, you can broadcast a secretary by automobile! I’m not one bit afraid of your losing your job; besides, I’ve sounded Mr. Lucas!”

Cis laughed. “Trust you to secure yourself—and me!” she cried. “Miss Braithwaite, I’ll probably die of joy on the way; simply blow right up in the car.”

“Let us hope that the car will not blow up with you and me both in it!” retorted Miss Braithwaite, well pleased with Cis’s pleasure. “It is quite settled that we are to spend the summer on wheels. I want you to see the ocean breaking over the rocks of that coast, you who have seen the ocean only as it comes up on New Jersey sands. I want you to hear it cannonade into those rock-caves, and retreat from them in foam and spray. You’re too enthusiastic to miss a note of that vast harmony. Anselm Lancaster says if we go he will drive after us and join us somewhere for July and August.”

“How fine!” cried Cis, frankly delighted. “That will keep us from missing the hearth, if we are inclined to. Mr. Lancaster will make it homelike, and how nice it will be for you to have him there to talk to!”

Miss Braithwaite was regarding Cis sharply; she said:

“Nice for you, too, will it not be? In case I’m in a lazy mood, he can drive you to any point that you should see.”

“I’d hate to bother him,” said Cis. “But of course it will be great for me to have him with us. He’s no end good to me, takes me right in, because you do. Will he go alone?”

“He didn’t speak of anyone else; I don’t know. He’s extremely fond of that recent convert who was an Episcopalian minister, Paul Ralph Randolph. Paul is having a hard time; perhaps Anselm will ask him to go with him. Then it’s settled, Cicely. I’ve spoken to Mr. Lucas, but you’d better speak of it to him in the morning.”

Miss Braithwaite turned away as she spoke, and met Father Morley just coming in.

After a few words with him, Cis ran away to write to Nan, and Miss Braithwaite laid before the Jesuit her summer plan.

When she told him that Anselm Lancaster was likely to be added to the party, Father Morley lifted his eyebrows inquiringly, without a word.

“Yes, of course,” Miss Braithwaite agreed with him. “I see, but I don’t know, truly. I do know that the idea never crosses Cicely’s mind, and so, though I understand how and why the approaches to her mind are guarded against the entrance of the idea, still, it does seem to me that there can’t be ground for our entertaining it. It’s hard for me to believe in the novel heroine who has no suspicion that she is sought until the hero plumps himself down on his knees at her feet! I think, as a rule, a woman feels even the dawn of interest in her, the power of her attraction, before any onlooker can sense it.”

“If she doesn’t subtly suggest to him that he admires her?” suggested Father Morley, with his quizzical half-smile.

“You’ve been reading George Bernard Shaw!” cried Miss Braithwaite.

“Nonsense! I’m ashamed of you! Thackeray said it before he did, but in point of fact one needs to read neither of them to know that law of natural history,” said Father Morley. “Well, and if Cicely’s preoccupation were wrong, and our half-formed suspicion were right, how about it? Would it do?”

“At first I thought not, when it occurred to me,” said Miss Braithwaite. “I do not believe that two people can be happy together if the door to the deepest tastes and feelings of one will not yield to the hand of the other. To my mind it is madness to expect life to be anything but galling when it is lived in close proximity to a person to whom one may not speak of the things nearest to the heart whether for lack of sympathy in tastes or, still more, in principles. But I have come to think that, in this case, there would not be that lack; Cicely has an excellent mind, and rare perception; her big heart and loyal truth are rare. I am coming to think that it would do exceedingly well, and to fear that it may never happen. Would you approve it, Father?”

“Oh, yes; yes, indeed! I make it a rule to approve everything of that sort to which there is no actual objection. I’ve found that is the easiest way to an end that is sure to be reached, whatever I say,” replied Father Morley with his quiet smile, his eyes laughing at Miss Braithwaite’s chagrin at his provoking lack of enthusiasm.

“Well, I assure you it would be a lucky man who married Cis. She is a splendid girl,” Miss Braithwaite declared, as Cis came back in time to catch the last five words.

“I hope you’re talking of Cis Adair?” she cried.

“As it happens, I was,” said Miss Braithwaite.

“At least I’m a fortunate girl,” said Cis quietly.

Father Morley smiled at her with genuine admiration.

“It is always a lucky person who may truthfully be called splendid; assuming that it is luck that carves character, which is at least open to debate.”

“My funny little character lay down and let two skillful pairs of hands carve it,” said Cis with a grateful smile for these two people who had such a large part in her recent molding.

The summer passed in the way Miss Braithwaite had planned, a summer of such delight to Cis that each night when she lay down to sleep she wondered if it were really she, Cicely Adair, who was passing through scenes of natural beauty, such as she had never seen, in a luxurious car, with a companion who enhanced every beauty by her talk, linking it with other beauty, playing upon it with her wit and wisdom. When the mood was upon them they halted in a fine hotel, where Cis came into contact with a world that she had not known; where at night she danced in her pretty, thin frocks, her glorious hair the observed of every eye, moving to orchestras that played perfect dance music perfectly.

The girl drank deep of youthful joy and blossomed under it. She moved with a new grace added to her natural lissom, free carriage, and her face, alive with the interests filling her quick brain, transformed by suffering largely outlived, a temptation conquered, a soul at peace and knowing its way, was so attractive that no one ever stopped to consider whether or not she was beautiful.

Anselm Lancaster had fulfilled his promise and had joined Miss Braithwaite on the north shore, beyond Boston, in July. His roadster sometimes followed, sometimes preceded Miss Braithwaite’s large car, driven by her man, and Paul Ralph Randolph, the convert whom older Catholics were honoring for his sacrifices for conscience, with the ready admiration those born in the Church are quick to accord a convert, was Anselm Lancaster’s companion on the trip. Sometimes Miss Braithwaite rode with Anselm, Cis and Mr. Randolph in the big car; sometimes Cis went with Anselm in the roadster, while Miss Braithwaite welcomed Mr. Randolph to a place beside her and to the profound satisfaction which her wise talk gave the young man, hard beset on the new-old road, from which he had no temptation to turn back.

Thus they went through the loveliness of the Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine coasts, turned off into the White Mountain region, but omitted for this time the Canadian possibility. Thus they made their way leisurely down again, through the Berkshires, back to Beaconhite, just as the children were trooping to school, and the hint of summer’s passing, autumn’s approach, was in the air.

Miss Braithwaite was no wiser as to the future event which she had discussed with Father Morley than she had been in setting forth. Of Cis she was entirely sure; she had no thought in her mind of that which her friend considered for her. Of Anselm she was less sure, yet he gave her no actual ground for supposing that he perceived Cis in any different light from that in which Miss Braithwaite saw her as a dear, lovely, lovable and noble girl. Miss Braithwaite knew quite well that it is a totally other matter to want to marry a girl, than to see in her all sorts of desirable traits.

They had not been back in Beaconhite quite two weeks when two things happened to change the direction of Miss Braithwaite’s plans, and Cicely’s, no less.

An old friend of Miss Braithwaite’s, living in California, was desperately ill and begged her friend to come to her. Miss Braithwaite was going; she could not, nor would not refuse.

Then Cis had a letter from Nan imploring her to come back to her old home in October. There would be a little boy, or a little girl, there then whose godmother Cis, and no one else, must be. Nan implored Cis to come to see her before her baby was born, and to stay on to sponsor it at the font. Miss Braithwaite had intended leaving Cis her house and servants to look after while she was gone, but this news from Nan focused Cicely’s vague intention to return to her old home, and she decided to go back when Miss Braithwaite went away.

“You will come back to me, Miss Adair?” Mr. Lucas had said when she told him that for a while, at least, she would not return to her desk.

“I hope so, Mr. Lucas; I suppose so,” Cis said. “Miss Braithwaite wants me to come back when she gets home. If her friend dies, as seems likely, she will be saddened, and may need me a little bit when she comes home. I’m pretty sure to come back.”

“Whoever may be in your place, I will gladly exchange for you when you come,” said Mr. Lucas. “Promise me not to tell Jeanette a secret when you see her! I am not ready for them to know it, but you have a right to be told before you go. Your extraordinary choice of your Church when everything called you from her, impressed me to such an extent that I made up my mind to find out what was in her thus to raise people above themselves. I have been investigating it. I want to tell you, Cicely Adair, that I have found out.”

“Oh, Mr. Lucas!” cried Cis jumping up with a radiant face. “I’m so glad, so glad! And I must tell you that you’ve no idea how much you’ll like the Church when you can stop investigating her, when you begin just to live with her! I’d no sort of idea how splendid she was! I’m so glad I have her, that now I think I didn’t sacrifice a thing then—though it did hurt at the time, and I came horribly near slipping off.”

Mr. Lucas laughed. “That’s not a bad tribute to your Mother, my dear,” he said, “though it’s a bit funny. I’m quite sure that I shall find her precisely what you say ‘when I begin to live with her’!”

Miss Braithwaite went to California. Anselm Lancaster took Cis to the train to see Miss Braithwaite off, and then, an hour later, put Cis on her train to return to her home.

“‘Always the best of friends,’ Miss Cis, like Joe Gargery and little Pip, aren’t we?” he asked, holding Cis’s hand for a dallying moment of farewell.

“Yes, indeed, if you’ll keep up your half of it, though I don’t know Joe Gargery, nor little Pip,” Cis said.

“That doesn’t matter; they were the best of friends; that’s the salient point,” Anselm said. “And I don’t want you to forget that so are we. You’ll come back this winter, when Miss Braithwaite comes?”

“I don’t know; I think so, if she wants me. I’ll miss her—and you—and the dear library; the whole wonderful house and my life in it, and all the kindness I’ve had, and the untellable things I’ve learned. Oh, I shall miss it all!” Cis choked.

“Only for a visit; you’re going only for a visit! Beaconhite holds you on the other end of a tether! Good-bye, Miss Cicely. I’m afraid the sunshine goes out with your hair.” Anselm pressed Cicely’s hand hard, put into her lap a book and a box of candy, together with a long box with a protruding ribbon over one side, all of which Cis had pretended not to see, though she knew quite well what their purpose was, and she felt a girlish satisfaction in being thus freighted and sped.

The train rolled out of the station, and Cis was on her way home.

It was a long, tiresome journey, but it gave Cis time to consider her history since she had made the same journey in the reverse direction. A lifetime lay between the journeys, it seemed to her. Basically she was the same Cicely Adair who had come to Beaconhite to try her fortune; in her on that day had lain the potential qualities and attitudes of mind which these months had brought out, but so tremendous had been all that had happened to her, so far-reaching in its effect—reaching as far as all eternity—that it was by no means the same Cis who was going back to Nan.

At the station, when Cis arrived in the growing dusk, a young man came forward to greet her. He was attired in such perfection that his effort to appear at his best positively screamed aloud to all passers-by. Cis did not know him, and, though he was bearing down on her, it was with a hesitation, in spite of his advance toward her, that spoke a like uncertainty in him. Only when he came quite up to her did Cis cry:

“Well, Tom! Tom Dowling! To think of my not knowing you! Nice of you to come!”

“I wasn’t sure of you, Cis,” said Tom uneasily. “You’re—you’re awfully different!”

“That’s true, I am,” said Cis. “But you’ve grown up since I saw you. You’re not bigger; I don’t mean that, but you’re grown up!”

“Right you are!” declared Tom with a slight swagger. “But I’m hardly any younger than you; don’t try to talk like a grandmother! Girls get old quicker. You’ve what is it? Side?”

“Goodness, is it?” laughed Cis. “Aren’t we going somewhere, Tom? We aren’t going to stay here all night, are we? It was good of Nan to send you to meet me.”

“Good! Of Nan! To send me!” Tom cried in a series of small explosions. “Gosh! As though a man had no mind of his own! As though Nan sent me, like a kid! I tell you, Cis, I’ve hardly been able to sleep since I heard you were coming, for fear I’d miss meeting your train! I tell you, Cis, it’s been hard sledding with you gone, and if I’ve grown old it’s from missing you, if you want to know!”

“Well, Tom! That’s a dear boy to remember Cis so hard,” said Cis, falling back into her old boyish way of speaking, association with the place and with the lad to whom she had returned, calling it out. But she found this earnestness of Tom’s wearisome, and devoutly wished that he had not been so loyal to her memory.

“Come over to the taxi stand,” said Tom. “Here, give over that suitcase. Checks?”

“One check, one small trunk,” said Cis yielding up her case and check to this protector.

Tom handed her check to an expressman, and gave him the address of Nan’s house. Then he resumed his way toward the taxi stand, holding Cis by one elbow.

As he put her into the cab, and entered it himself he said:

“Say, Nan has a son; three days old, he is. She wouldn’t let them telegraph you for fear you’d hold off coming a little. But she told me to tell you that she was so crazy to see you that it would do her more good to have you walk in than even to see the baby! And heaven knows, she’s wild over him, though, honest; he’s not such a much! I never saw one so young, and I think age improves ’em more’n it does wine.”

“Oh, Tom, of course she’s wild over her baby son!” cried Cis. “I’m going to be wild over him myself! He’s to be one third mine; Nan said so. He’s my godson, or will be, as soon as we can get him made so. What’s his name?”

“Matt, Matthew, for Joe’s father; I’m not keen for it,” said Tom. “Joe wanted it, and Nan always likes to please him, so it’s Matt. Nan wanted him called Cyril.”

“I like Matt better; Cyril is too dressy for Nan’s boy; she’s such a simple, dear little mouse!” said Cis decidedly. “Oh, Tom, here we are!”

“Well, Cis, dear, didn’t you think if the taxi went on running we’d get here?” asked Tom, intending to be humorous, and helping Cis out.

Nan held out her arms when Cis came up the stairs, running to her headlong.

“Oh, Cis; oh, Cis! I’m so glad!” Nan cried, and Cis kissed her with tears, repeatedly.

Nan a wife and now a mother! Not only for Cis had these months been full of changes. Nan had a son to praise God for, but Cis—what had she? Less? No; more! A son was another soul to rejoice over, but Cis felt that the creation of her soul was a wonder greater than ordinary birth.

Nan looked at her with appraising eyes, as Cis arose from her knees beside her, covered over the face of tiny Matt, held in the hollow of his mother’s arm, and fell back a step or two, looking down on Nan.

“Cis, you have changed! But it is all for the better!” cried Nan. “You don’t look one bit unhappy; your eyes are lovely, dear! and you are—what is it? Like a very fine, fine lady, Cis! You’ve written me of your lovely friend, that wonderful Miss Braithwaite, and her house, and her friends, but—what has happened to you?”

“Everything, Nan! I am happy, but I’m still more thankful. It has been a miracle-time for me, more so, even, than for you. I’ll tell you when I may; you must not be tired. I’m quite all right, Nannie; be sure of that,” said Cis.

“You look it,” said Nan slowly. “It will not tire me to hear it all to-night. Mother is here. Go down and find her, and have your tea. Joe will be home in a few minutes.”

Cis went down. Mrs. Dowling greeted her with her old manner of uncertainty as to what Cis might be about to do next, but it rapidly gave way to wonder, and then to constraint. Cis did not intend to produce any such effect, nor was she conscious that she did so, but about her was the fine atmosphere of Miss Braithwaite’s house, and her recent associations with minds and souls informed with knowledge, divine and human. Mrs. Dowling began half to fear Cis, and then to entertain a hope that Tom, whose infatuation for Cis had always distressed her, might find favor in the eyes of this charming girl, whose pretty clothes were worn with an air, whose pretty manners were wholly unconscious.

That evening Cis was allowed to spend an hour with Nan; she drew a low chair beside her, laid her godson, a roll of soft white wool, across her knees, and made ready to talk.

“Cis, dear, am I to know what happened?” asked Nan timidly. “I saw Mr. Moore when he was here, looking for you. I could not understand, but evidently he could not, either. What was wrong? Or do you mind telling me?”

“No. I expected to tell you, Nannie. I did mind writing about it. It is all right now; I am thankful to say that I’m happy, as I told you I was, and I can talk about it.”

Then Cis told, simply, but completely, the story of her engagement and its breaking, giving more expression to her own fight against temptation than she had ever done to Miss Braithwaite.

Nan listened with wide eyes, breathless, not interrupting. When Cis ended, with a long breath of relief that the story was told, Nan put out her hand and softly touched Cis, her eyes full of tears, but fuller of adoring love.

“To think that I used to be afraid you were not a good Catholic!” she said. “To think that I imagined that I was a better one than you were, I, who never in all my life suffered one little pang for my faith! Why, Cis; why, Cis, dearest! I’m so glad I know you! And I’m so glad that little Matthew will have you for a godmother! I am almost sure that he will be a priest, and may be a saint!”

“You little ninny-Nanny!” cried Cis, jumping up, almost forgetting the baby, but saving him from a fall by a clutch on the outer layer of his many envelopes. “You must be getting tired; a little light-headed! I’m going off. If ever you say anything so silly to me as that again I’ll cut your acquaintance, and ungodmother your son! So there!”

She kissed Nan good night, gave her little son to her, and ran off to her own room.

“They’re nice, good people, and Nan is a darling, always was, but—Beaconhite seems like home, not here, and no one here seems to me like anyone I ever knew well,” thought Cis; she looked sadly at herself in the mirror as she braided her glowing hair.

There is no exile so remote, no loneliness so profound as the return to old associations which have been completely outgrown.