Part 10

“Milly told him what she had said to Cousin Jay, and they fixed everything in two minutes. Milly won’t write a word to Cousin Grace, because she’s just obliged to stay with old Mrs. Wood till her daughter gets back, and there’s no use in worrying her. I know you’ll let Milly stay here; and when Cousin Grace comes back, if she’ll make Cousin Jay behave, or go away, Milly will go home and wait to be married till her mother wishes. But if Cousin Grace won’t stop him, Milly’s going to marry Bobolink right off, in church, with just the clothes she has. And I think she’s exactly right.”

“She’s right to come here and wait for Grace to settle it,” I said; “and Grace will settle it right, I know.”

But I was half afraid, even as I said it. Cousin Jason has bent Grace like a reed from her babyhood, and almost—perhaps not quite—broken her. Could she stand against him, even if she would?

* * * * *

_June 9th._ Could she indeed? As if love couldn’t set the gentlest face like a flint!

We were all in here this morning, Milly and Caro both busy with a lace-y frock for the bride-to-be—“just in case she has to be a bride next week”—when I saw Grace driving up. I did not tell them she was coming, and her arms were around Milly before the child knew she was there.

“You darling!” said Grace; “you’ll have to forgive me dear, as Robert has done. He’s coming out this afternoon to take dinner and spend the night.”

Milly gave a little gasp, and then dropped her head on her mother’s shoulder and began to cry. Caro snatched up the filmy stuff they were working on, threw it over Milly like a bridal veil, and pirouetted around the two, crooning the dolefulest tune imaginable, her eyes dancing with fun. Grace looked up.

“Don’t stop petting Milly a minute,” Caro exhorted; “she’s a perfect heroine, and Bobolink’s a dear. I’m just singing a requiem for my jay-bird kin.”

“But, Mother,” asked Milly, sitting up, “how ever did you hear about it? And how did you happen to come home so soon? And when did you see—Robert?” She blushed beautifully as she called his name.

“Your uncle telephoned me night before last. I knew he had everything wrong, of course; but I was sure that enough was the matter for me to come home and see about it. It was all right to leave Mother, for Annie promised to stay, and Mary is coming the last of the week. So I telephoned Robert to meet me in town yesterday at twelve o’clock. I stayed there last night because there were several things to do in taking business affairs into my own hands again; and before I saw Brother Jason I had to think out clearly what I wished to say.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Yes, I went there first this morning.” She hesitated, a troubled look in her eyes. Milly drew her closer.

“Poor mother!” she said.

“It is your uncle who needs sympathy, dear, though he will not have it. And I know it is partly my fault, and partly the whole family’s, as well as his. We have all given up to him all our lives, under color of being kind and patient and magnanimous, and all that, when at the bottom we were just afraid to oppose him; and he—suffers.”

“O, Mother, I’m sorry!” cried Milly. “I’ll give up!”

“Now, Cousin Grace, I call that a shame,” broke in Caro. “No matter what you and Milly do, you make a fault and a penance out of it to shield him and hurt yourselves. It isn’t fair. He knows he’s outrageous, and he doesn’t care; and I just think he ought to be hurt, to find out what he’s been doing to other people. If he’s gone, do let Milly enjoy herself, for once. But is he gone, really?”

“He’s going,” said Grace. “I wanted him to stay, as my guest, and not as the master of the house. But he—he was very angry. He is to leave this morning, while I am here. He’s going back to his own house and live there all alone.”

“And a mighty good thing for him,” declared Caro. “When I used to indulge in tantrums like his, Mammy Lil always made me go stay by myself till I was what she called a social creature. I think I’ll go over and see Cousin Jason and tell him about it. I could always come back the second I was willing to be polite, and so can he. Think of Cousin Jason’s emerging a social creature! Butterflies and caterpillars won’t be in it. But if Milly isn’t to be married next week, when do we begin on the trousseau?”

The talk passed into a discussion of clothes, and drifted about that interesting topic till time for them to go home. They found their house empty, except for the servants. Cousin Jason had gone, as he said, without eating again beneath his sister’s roof.

* * * * *

_June 16th._ I suppose the excitement of Cousin Jason’s deposition was a little too much for me: I’ve been curled up dead-’possum-fashion for a week. Now I’m uncurling again, and showing that, like the ’possum, I’m not so dead as I look. Caro came back, whether or no, and took charge of me. It is a great comfort to have her.

* * * * *

_June 19th._ A slow pull and a hard one. But I make it, inch by inch.

* * * * *

_June 21st._ Courage, patience and laughter—life would be impossible without them. Yet the first necessity, and the last, is love. If one only loves enough, one can fight anything, and fight always, while breath and consciousness last.

* * * * *

_June 24th._

_WHEN WINGS GO BY_

_A flash of wings across my window-pane!_ _Fallen these narrow walls; and sky-arched plain,_ _Fern-haunted pool, white foam of summer seas,_ _Blue, dawn-steeped mountains, dusk of forest trees—_ _All things free wings may seek, or near or far—_ _Sweep round this bed, where pain and stillness are._ _A prisoned life? When any moment brings_ _A far horizon, and the sense of wings?_

XI WHERE THE BATTLE WAS FOUGHT

_July 7th._ I have seen the woods in summer time again! It was winter when I left home for those three years, and winter when I went back; and, though one does not think of the country passed in a winter journey as dead—for the winter’s story of life reserved is as vivid as the summer one of life out-poured—yet one longs to see, far out-spread in breeze and sunshine, the close-shut life of the winter buds.

As soon as the doctor would allow it, the Peon and Caro brought me here. We came through the mountains nearly all the way—one long splendor of rhododendrons, wild phlox, azaleas, laurel, and briar rose, all in glorious bloom; and above them the green billows of the trees, with great masses of chestnut blooms for foam. And everywhere the mountains themselves, green and dark near at hand, and blue and faint in the distance; and between them the valleys, heaped with beauty and over-flowing with life.

The Boss and the Madam met us in Baltimore, and brought us to this heavenly place. My room is downstairs, with windows on three sides, and wide doors opening on a quiet end of the wide piazza, which nearly encircles the house. I can be wheeled there, straight from the bed, to a couch-like hammock, where a cranky back may be as comfortable as its own bad temper will allow; and my bed is under a long row of windows, just as it is at home. I can look out across the small plateau, occupied by the cottage grounds, to mountains, near and far, and to the glory of the sunset skies. And again, from the porch, on mountains, and slopes where the summer cottagers have set their beautiful homes.

I was ashamed to come here in this battered condition; when the Madam wrote for us I expected to be walking all about by the time I came. But they would have me, and the Peon and Caro were of the same mind. For myself, I can scarcely imagine a lovelier place to get well in; the loving-kindness indoors is as fine a tonic as the mountain air outside.

I have not seen any of the Peon’s family in all these years of my invalidism, but I find them in spirit just where I left them—and in body, too, for that matter; for health and love and happiness are a combination to defy time, and the heads of the household are still a bridal pair. Their youthful names for one another, long since adopted by the rest of us, suit their sunny middle-age as well as ever; so the “Boss” and the “Madam” they remain.

One of the daughters is married, and will make but a brief visit this summer. The other, known as Hazel-eyes, is the light of the big house; a quiet little body, wonderfully pretty, her mother’s shadow and her father’s adorer.

The Peon stayed only a couple of days, and went back to our empty nest. He is to go West before long, and will come here on his return to tell me all about David.

Caro is restless and unusually silent, not doing herself justice among strangers. The child has been severely taxed in the last few weeks, and shows it plainly. The roses are all gone, and her eyes are tired and sad. She seems like a new Caro whom I must learn to know. I know I was ill for awhile, though not as ill as they thought; and she never saw me suffer that way before. But it isn’t that which clouds her bright eyes—it can’t be, no matter what she says, now that I am past the worst of it. I wonder will she ever open her heart to me about David. She used to tell me everything. I always said the test of my success in mothering her would come with her falling in love; if she came to me with that, I would know I had done my work aright. And now I see that I have failed. If I had been her real mother I would have known better how to reach her. It is a real motherhood to me, of course, but not to Caro—and perhaps not even to David. So I must lie here and wait, like any other outsider, till everybody knows how it turns out.

* * * * *

_July 9th._ Yesterday Caro wheeled me out to the line of locusts, which cuts this plateau in half and divides the Boss’s grounds from his neighbor’s. A song sparrow came to call at once, a dear little fellow, all streaks and music. They sing here all day long—they and the winter wrens.

A flicker has a clamorous brood in the tallest locust; they cry every moment, except when their wail is gagged by a worm. Their parents toil incessantly, but I should think their nerves would be on edge. The bluebird mothers, too, are hard at work, for there are dozens of bluebird babies to feed, and bluebird fathers never turn a wing or lend a bill to their upbringing. The babies are cunning, speckled things, their big round eyes ringed with white, giving them an expression of child-like wonder.

This afternoon I am out on my end of the porch, in the hammock. Caro has gone with Hazel-eyes and a party of young folks on an expedition to Bare Rock—a great shelf of granite which juts out near the top of the mountain to the north of us, and from which there is a wonderful view. The Madam is entertaining visitors on the other side of the porch, and I am finding the solitude I need a constant temptation to Grumpyish thoughts.

When one wants to bog down, there are always such unassailable reasons for doing it! I have faced Grumpy down and out about the pain. And I’ve done fairly well about the idleness; that isn’t a losing fight, at least. But I’m just bowled over about the children. And it isn’t altogether that they’re suffering, though that hurts. It’s because they’re suffering away from me, and I can’t do anything until they choose to take me into their confidence.

I’ve been lying here thinking how Grumpy must be enjoying my back-sliding till I’ve made up my mind to fight him to a finish on this also. They have a right to their secrets and to their own lives; it’s the right and natural way. I never repaid Great-aunt Letitia’s love to her, any more than she repaid her mother’s. You don’t pay love back; you pay it forward. The great-aunts paid their love-debt, not to their mother, but to me; and I’ve paid what I owed them to David and Caro; and Caro and David won’t pay to me—they can’t; they’ll pay it to children yet unborn. Why can’t I accept the law, and be glad? It’s trying to grab what isn’t one’s share that makes all the trouble in life, anyway. I’ve always said the most secure possession was the one carried in an open handle and free to fly at a breath: I’ll carry the children that way now. And for amusement, there are still the birds.

* * * * *

_July 10th._ As I lay on the porch this afternoon, facing the great mountain to the north, the long fingers of the westering light touched the foamy white tops of the chestnut trees, still crowned with their mist of bloom. The light slid across the hollows of the mountain-side, filling the long curves with dark green shadows, a soft, deep background for the maples of the nearer lawns, all golden green in the full sunlight, and for the silver of the wind-ruffled poplars. Locust trees are on every side, a survival of the native forests. Where the light is reflected from their leaves, they are a dark bluish green; but where the sun strikes through them, each leaflet is shining gold, and the long leaves sway at the end of every branch like giant fronds gleaming under some Midas touch.

But even the locusts are far away, across the many-acred lawn. The trees near the house are too young and small to shelter birds; and if I go out to the locusts their foliage is too light and too high to shade my eyes from the glare: so I have been missing the birds. If I could stay with the others it wouldn’t matter; but I must lie alone, and in silence, resting between lines when I write; and Grumpy is boring company. So I’ve been casting envious looks at a place across the road. A long hedge of blossoming privet hides everything but the tree-tops, but there are dozens of them; and wings flash in and out. It is a large place, larger than this; I know there’s a corner in it there I wouldn’t be in the way. The sense of something near and unknown, yet knowable, draws me daily. The Garden of Delight I call it, and listen for the songs which float from it, and long for its shade and sunshine.

When the Madam came to sit with me I confessed my daft condition to her, and she went across the road to the Garden’s owners—two ladies who are friends of hers—and returned presently with the freedom of the Garden for me and my chair. I am to go tomorrow.

I wonder sometimes if people dream of the pleasure they can give through little things. To these ladies I suppose their bit of hospitality is a trifle soon forgotten; but to me it is pure delight. It will hearten me for my fight a thousand times, and lift me clear above the pain a thousand more. It is hard to keep steady when one is so happy. The long, filmy curves of wind-swept silver in the evening sky grow suddenly dim; and when they wheel me back to bed I am “fair lifted,” as the Scotch say, and wait joyfully in the darkness for such sleep as night may bring.

* * * * *

_July 11th._ The Garden of Delight! A close-shaven sward from which the tiniest bird stands up distinctly; and trees, and trees, and trees! Shrubs and vines, rose-beds, azaleas, tall altheas, clumps of iris, masses of old-fashioned lilies, tangles of honeysuckles on the fences, beds of early phlox, ragged robins, larkspur, and ferns—all things cool and quiet and sweet. In the dense shade of tall shrubs they have left me, the feathery locusts waving overhead, and before me a hitherto unsuspected vista of beauty—the long, long valley which leads to Gettysburg, with the mountains guarding it on either side.

Beyond the greensward lies a beautiful bit of wilderness—ferns and wild flowers under thick-set trees; beyond that, close-shaven grass again, then a bit of clover, and a tangle out of the very heart of the woods. And everywhere are birds. And I, who have longed for the woods for years, and who have never dreamed of finding them outside of the land of Make-Believe, I am here, far off, a thousand miles from everywhere, alone with the sky and the winds and the wild mountains, in a silence of upper air! One can bear one’s body in a place like this: it doesn’t matter that it cannot run, nor walk. One’s mind can run, and fly, and rise so high that the pain lies far below, lost, vanished, like a pebble in the valley when one looks from a free mountain peak against the sky. For one glorious hour I have run away from it—this pain that wrenches and grips; I have been free, free! And so my hope grows bold, and I reach out to touch that happy future when I shall be free in body as well as in mind: it will come—some day!

And oh, foolish one, remember, and learn! For the Garden of Delight was close at hand all the time, only I hadn’t the wit to reach it till my body was carried thither. But there is always a Garden, if one can find it—a Garden of Delight, hidden behind the hedge!

* * * * *

_July 15th._ The birds are not kind today, even here in the Garden. It is a grey evening, for one thing, and the light is bad for spying out secrets among the leaves. The weather is misty and damp, promising the rain we need; but everything is dry from recent heat, and the insects may be less juicy than usual, and not very tempting eating. Anyway, the birds are not here.

The mist, with the dim light of the evening sun upon it, spreads a film of silver over the blues and greens of the mountains. Down in the valley it deepens till all the colors are faint and soft, from the pale stubble of the nearer wheatfields all up the long valley between the mountains, to where the dim blue of the great battlefield melts into the dim blue of the sky above it.

It was down this Valley, over the road at my feet, that the men of the Southern army tramped after the battle was lost. My own kinsmen were there, following their great leader with the rest, as he passed through the Valley of Defeat. How much seemed lost to them, who can say? But to us of a later generation how plain it is that nothing was lost at Gettysburg which it were well to keep. The really priceless thing they brought away unharmed—the courage which could accept defeat, and turn, without a murmur, in the wreck of the old order, to the upbuilding of a new world. That was a struggle which the world even now knows little of, though it was as wide as the South and as long as a generation’s life-time. It was fought singly, and in silence, in each individual life. Each soul bled inwardly, and only God saw the wounds. But I have sprung from men who fought that fight. Let me look at the Valley, and learn.

* * * * *

_July 18th._ The wind is at play in the mountains today, and sweeps up the Valley with a sound as of rushing waters, bending the trees before it. The long shadows under the swaying branches know not a moment’s rest; and the racing clouds shift the shafts of sunlight so rapidly from place to place that the very earth seems moving, like the lightest leaf. Few birds are abroad, save the robins, which battle against the unseen powers of the air, only to be blown like autumn leaves. A thrasher, dashed suddenly in front of me, began at once a philosophic hunt for worms—one place was as good as another, no doubt; but a young robin, the black of his crown still separated from the dark ear-coverts by bands of gray, crouches frightened where he falls. His half-drooped wings show a power which explains his venturing abroad; he is full grown, though not yet in full robin dress. He is learning the old lesson of the young: that there are things in life which not even grown-ups can do; and that his liberty is merely a liberty to adjust himself to forces which he cannot hope to control. No wonder he looks a bit dazed!

The Mistress of the Garden comes out presently to look after her flowers. Her face is good to see, and her voice to listen to. Her eyes have the look of one who dwells in that place of peace where happiness and sorrow are fused into one, and are known as equal essentials of the highest joy. She is a lover of Nature, too. One inevitably comes to be, I think, as one travels the long road to serenity of soul. One may observe Nature in youth, no doubt, and love it, too, somewhat; but the real sense of kinship with it is a matter of living, and of growth.

* * * * *

_July 25th._ Blessed be trees and sunshine, the open sky, and the free winds which fill it! And blessed be the freshness and promise of the new day, coming alike to the light-hearted and to those pain-weary and discouraged.

And the promise never fails. For, whether the new day brings escape or courage, relief or a growing power of patience, whether it means joy or peace, it brings good, and only good; and so through all the soul its _sursum corda_ rings with sweetness and command.

* * * * *

_July 28th._ After wheeling me over to the Garden yesterday afternoon, Caro left me, to join in an expedition to Bare Rock. When she had gone, I discovered to my horror that I had been deposited beneath the branch of a poplar tree on which some hundreds of caterpillars had just been hatched out. They were so thick that heads, tails and sides touched everywhere, as they lay on leaves and stems; not one could move a hair’s breadth without knocking off the others or climbing over them. What they thought of my proximity I had no means of finding out; but for me it was not a joyful occasion. I could move neither my chair nor myself; so I lay there, gazing up at the wretched things till I began turning into a caterpillar myself, and felt fuzz and wriggles sprouting all over me. But before the transformation was too far advanced to be checked, I heard Caro’s voice behind me.

“Mammy Lil, I don’t want to go walking. May I stay and talk to you?”

I had been feeling specially lonesome of late. I kept telling myself I was getting morbid from long illness and solitude; but it seemed to me that Caro almost avoided me. She waited on me most thoughtfully; but her errands done, she disappeared. There was no more of that dear companionship, when she used to sit near me, reading, or embroidering, while she sang dreamily to herself, or cuddled her head against mine on the pillows in a fellowship which needed no words. Children can’t possibly understand how bereft one feels, shut out. I knew she loved me too well to hurt me; yet I had missed her, under the same roof with her, more than I had missed David far away: the boy had never shut me out like that.

But her voice was different as she asked her question now. I remembered how, years ago, she used to come out of her periods of seclusion in the parlor “nice and social,” as she would sweetly announce, and confess her little soul inside out, clear to her very toes. Before I saw her face I knew the barrier was gone, and I was to have her confidence at last.

But, first of all, I craved deliverance from the caterpillars. Some of them had hunched themselves up ominously, as if they were about to jump down and float across my nose on silken threads. I was very unhappy indeed.

Caro squealed in horror when she saw my plight, and snatched me back from my impending doom. She wheeled me across the shaven grass to the edge of the wood-tangle, and sat on a rock beside me, facing the long Valley once filled with marching men—men who marched from the disaster of outward defeat to the victory of inner conquest.

“Mammy Lil,” she inquired presently, “do you love me any more at all?”

I turned my face to her without speaking. Her eyes filled with sudden tears, and she laid her cheek against my hand.