Part 11

"You?" she said fondly; "you? Why, Lynn! Lacking the others, you'll always have me to do it for you."

"That," replied the Doctor, triumphantly, "disproves your own theory. If you are in earnest, begin on the morrow to instruct Mr. Irving."

Margaret flushed, perceiving her own inconsistency.

"I could be of assistance, possibly," he continued, "for in the difficult school of experience I have learned many things. I have often taken professional pride in closing an aperture in my clothing with neat stitches, and the knowledge thus gained has helped me in my surgery. All things in this world fit in together."

"It is fortunate if they do," she answered. "My own scheme of things has been very much disarranged."

"Yet, as Fraeulein Fredrika would say, 'the dear God knows.' Life is like one of those puzzles that come in a box. It is full of queer pieces which seemingly bear no relation to one another, and yet there is a way of putting it together into a perfect whole. Sometimes we make a mistake at the beginning and discard pieces for which we think there is no possible use. It is only at the end that we see we have made a mistake and put aside something of much importance, but it is always too late to go back--the pieces are gone.

"In my own life, I lost but one--still, it was the keystone of the whole. When I came from Germany, I should have brought letters from those in high places there to those in high places here. It could easily have been done. I should have had this behind me when I came to East Lancaster, and I should not have made the mistake of settling first on the hill. Then----" The Doctor ceased abruptly, and sighed.

"This country is supposed to be very democratic," said Lynn, chiefly because he could think of nothing else to say.

"Yes," replied the Doctor, "it is in your laws that all men are free and equal, but it is not so. The older civilisations have found there is class, and so you will find it here. At first, when everything is chaotic, all particles may seem alike, but in time there is an inevitable readjustment."

"We are getting very serious," said Margaret.

"It is an important subject," responded the Doctor, with dignity. "I have often discussed it with my friend, Herr Kaufmann. He is a very fine friend to have."

"Yes," said Lynn, "he is. It is only lately that I have learned to appreciate him."

"One must grow to understand him," mused the Doctor. "At first, I did not. I thought him rough, queer, and full of sarcasm. But afterward, I saw that his harshness was only a mask--the bark, if I may say so. Beneath it, he has a heart of gold."

"People," began Margaret, avoiding the topic, "always seek their own level, just as water does. That is why there is class."

"But for a long time, they do not find it," objected the Doctor. "Miss Iris, for instance. Her people were of the common sort, and those with whom she lived afterward were worse still. She"--by the unconscious reverence in his voice, they knew whom he meant--"she taught her all the fineness she has, and that is much. It is an argument for environment, rather than heredity."

Lynn left the room abruptly, unable to bear the talk of Iris.

"I wish," said the Doctor, at length, "I wish you knew Herr Kaufmann. Would you like it if I should bring him to call?"

"No!" cried Margaret. "It is too soon," she added, desperately. "Too soon after----"

The Doctor nodded. "I understand," he said. "It was a mistake on my part, for which you must pardon me. I only thought you might be a help to each other. Franz, too, has sorrowed."

"Has he?" asked Margaret, her lips barely moving.

"Yes," the Doctor went on, half to himself, "it was an unhappy love affair. The young lady's mother parted them because he lived in West Lancaster, though he, too, might have had letters from high places in Germany. He and I made the same mistake."

"Her mother," repeated Margaret, almost in a whisper.

"Yes, the young lady herself cared."

"And he," she breathed, leaning eagerly forward, her body tense,--"does he love her still?"

"He loves her still," returned the Doctor, promptly, "and even more than then."

"Ah--h!"

The Doctor roused himself. "What have I done!" he cried, in genuine distress. "I have violated my friend's confidence, unthinking! My friend, for whom I would make any sacrifice--I have betrayed him!"

"No," replied Margaret, with a great effort at self-control. "You have not told me her name."

"It is because I do not know it," said the Doctor, ruefully. "If I had known, I should have bleated it out, fool that I am!"

"Please do not be troubled--you have done no harm. Herr Kaufmann and I are practically strangers."

"That is so," replied the Doctor, evidently reassured; "and I did not mean it. It is not the same thing as if I had done it purposely."

"Not at all the same thing."

At times, we put something aside in memory to be meditated upon later. The mind registers the exact words, the train of circumstances that caused their utterance, all the swift interplay of opposing thought, and, for the time being, forgets. Hours afterward, in solitude, it is recalled; studied from every point of view, searched, analysed, questioned, until it is made to yield up its hidden meaning. It was thus that Margaret put away those four words: "He loves her still."

They are pathetic, these tiny treasure-houses of Memory, where oftentimes the jewel, so jealously guarded, by the clear light of introspection is seen to be only paste. One seizes hungrily at the impulse that caused the hiding, thinking that there must be some certain worth behind the deception. But afterward, painfully sure, one locks the door of the treasure-chamber in self-pity, and steals away, as from a casket that enshrines the dead.

They talked of other things, and at half-past ten the Doctor went home, leaving a farewell message for Lynn, and begging that his kind remembrances be sent to Iris, when she should write.

"Thank you," said Mrs. Irving. "I shall surely tell her, and she will be glad."

The door closed, and almost immediately Lynn came in from the library, rubbing his eyes. "I think I've been asleep," he said.

"It was rude, dear," returned Margaret, in gentle rebuke. "It is ill-bred to leave a guest."

"I suppose it is, but I did not intend to be gone so long."

The house seemed singularly desolate, filled, as it was, with ghostly shadows. Through the rooms moved the memory of Iris, and of that gentle mistress who slept in the churchyard, who had permeated every nook and corner of it with the sweetness of her personality. There was something in the air, as though music had just ceased--the wraith of long-gone laughter, the fall of long-shed tears.

"I miss Iris," said Margaret, dreamily. "She was like a daughter to me."

Taken off his guard, Lynn's conscious face instantly betrayed him.

"Lynn," said Margaret, suddenly, "did you have anything to do with her going away?"

The answer was scarcely audible. "Yes."

Margaret never forced a confidence, but after a pause she said very gently: "Dear, is there anything you want to tell me?"

"It's nothing," said Lynn, roughly. He rose and walked around the room nervously. "It's nothing," he repeated, with assumed carelessness. "I--I asked her to marry me, and she wouldn't. That's all. It's nothing."

Margaret's first impulse was to smile. This child, to be talking of marriage--then her heart leaped, for Lynn was twenty-three; older than she had been when the star rose upon her horizon and then set forever.

Then came a momentary awkwardness. Childish though the trouble was, she pitied Lynn, and regretted that she could not shield him from it as she had shielded him from all else in his life.

Then resentment against Iris. What was she, a nameless outcast, to scorn the offered distinction? Any woman in the world might be proud to become Lynn's wife.

Then, smiling at her own folly, Margaret went to him, dominated solely by gratitude. Not knowing what else to do, she drew his tall head down to kiss him, but Lynn swerved aside, and with his face against the softness of his mother's hair, wiped away a boyish tear.

"Lynn," she said, tenderly, "you are very young."

"How old were you when you married, mother?"

"Twenty-one."

"How old was father?"

"Twenty-three."

"Then," persisted Lynn, with remorseless logic, "I am not too young, and neither is Iris--only she doesn't care."

"She may care, son."

"No, she won't. She despises me."

"And why?"

"She said I had no heart."

"The idea!"

"Maybe I didn't have then, but I'm sure I have now."

He walked back and forth restlessly. Margaret knew that the griefs of youth are cruelly keen, because they come well in the lead of the strength to bear them. She was about to offer the usual threadbare consolation, "You will forget in time," when she remembered the stock of which Lynn came.

His mother, who had carried a secret wound for more than twenty-five years, who was she, to talk about forgetting, and, of all others, to her son?

Gratitude was still dominant, though in her heart of hearts she knew that she was selfish. Lynn felt the lack of sympathy, and became conscious, for the first time in his life, that her tenderness had a limit.

"Mother," he said, suddenly, "did you love father?"

"Why do you ask, son?"

"Because I want to know."

"I respected him highly," said Margaret, at length. "He was a good man, Lynn."

"You have answered," he returned. "You don't know--you don't understand."

"But I do understand," she flashed.

"You can't, if you didn't love father."

"I--I cared for someone else," said Margaret, thickly, unwilling to be convicted of shallowness.

Lynn looked at her quickly. "And you still care?"

Margaret bowed her head. "Yes," she whispered, "I still care!"

"Mother!" he cried. In an instant, his arms were around her and she was sobbing on his shoulder. "Mother," he pleaded, "forgive me! To think I never knew!"

They had a long talk then, intimate and searching. "You have borne it bravely," he said. "No one has ever dreamed of it, I am sure. The Master told me, the other day, that I must not be afraid of life. He said that everything, even our blessings, came to us through pain."

"I would not say everything," temporised Margaret, "but it is true that much comes that way. We know happiness only by contrast."

"Happiness and misery, light and dark, sunshine and storm, life and death," mused Lynn. "Yes, it is by contrast, but, as the Master says, 'the balance swings true.' I wish you knew him, mother; he has helped me. I never knew my father, so it is not wrong for me to say that I wish he might have been my father."

Margaret grew as cold as ice, and her senses reeled, then flame swept her from head to foot. "Come," she said, not knowing her own voice, "it is late."

Long afterward, in the solitude of her room, she took the precious thought from its hiding-place, and found it purest gold. It was as though all the bitterness in her heart, growing upward, through the years, had flowered overnight into a perfect rose.

XVIII

Lynn Comes Into His Own

At the post-office there was a letter for Mrs. Irving. Lynn took it, with a lump rising in his throat, for, though he had never seen her handwriting, he knew, through a sixth sense, that it was from Iris. Evidently, it was a brief communication, for the envelope contained not more than a single sheet. The straight, precise slope of the address had an old-fashioned air. It was very different from the modern angular hand which demands a whole line for two or three words.

In some way, it brought her nearer to him, and in the shadow of the maple, just outside the house, he kissed the superscription before he took it in.

He waited, consciously, while his mother read it. It was little more than a note, saying that she was established in a hall bedroom in a city boarding-house, where she had the use of the piano in the parlour, and that she was taking two lessons a week and practising a great deal. She gave the name of her teacher, said she was well, and sent kind remembrances to all who might inquire for her.

With a woman's insight, Margaret read heartache between the lines. She knew that the note was brief because Iris did not dare to trust herself to write more. There was no mention of Lynn, but it was not because she had forgotten him.

Margaret gave the letter to Lynn, then turned away, that she might not see his face. "I shall write this afternoon," she said. "Shall I send any message for you?"

"No," returned Lynn, with a short, bitter laugh, "I have no message to send."

Her heart ached in sympathy, for by her own sorrow she measured the depth of his. She knew that the elasticity of youth would fail here--that Lynn was not of those who forget.

"Son," she said, gently, "I wish I might bear it for you."

"I wouldn't let you, mother, even if you could. You have had enough as it is. Herr Kaufmann says you have always shielded me and that it was a mistake."

Had it been a mistake? Margaret thought it over after Lynn went away. She had shielded him--that was true. He had never learned by painful experience anything from which she had the power to save him. If his father had lived----

For the first time, Margaret thought of her freedom as a doubtful blessing. Then, once more, she took the jewelled thought from its hiding-place in her inmost heart. There was no hint of alloy there--it was radiant with its own unspeakable beauty.

Lynn went to the post-office to mail the letter. East Lancaster considered post-boxes modern innovations which were reckless and unjustifiable. Suppose a stranger should be passing through East Lancaster, break open a post-box, and feloniously extract a private letter? What if the box should blow away? When a letter was placed in the hands of the accredited representative of the Government, one might be sure that it was safe, but not otherwise.

Doctor Brinkerhoff was talking with the postmaster, but he left him to speak to Lynn. "Miss Iris," he began, eagerly, "you have perhaps heard from her?"

"Yes," answered Lynn, dully, fingering the letter.

"Is she quite well?"

Briefly, Lynn told him what Iris had written.

"It was kind to send remembrances to all who might inquire," mused the Doctor. "That is like my foster-daughter; she is always thinking of others. She knew that I would be the first to ask. If you will give me the address, it will be a pleasure to me to write to her. She must be quite lonely where she is."

Lynn told him. Her letter was at home, but every syllable of it, even the prosaic address, was written in letters of fire upon his brain.

"Thank you," said the Doctor, as he took it down in his memorandum book; "I shall write to-night. Shall I give her any word from you?"

"No!" cried Lynn.

"Ah," laughed the Doctor, "I understand. You write yourself. Well, I will tell her a letter is coming. Good afternoon!"

He moved away, leaving Lynn cold from head to foot. He was tempted to call the Doctor back, to ask him not to mention his name to Iris, then he reflected that an explanation would be necessary. In any event, Iris would understand. She would know that he did not intend to write--that he had sent no message.

But, three days later, it was fated that Iris should tremble at the sight of Lynn's name in a letter from East Lancaster. "I think he will write soon," Doctor Brinkerhoff had said. "Mr. Irving is a very fine gentleman and I have deep respect for him."

"Write to me!" repeated Iris. "He would not dare! Why should he write to me?" She put the letter aside and read over those three anonymous communications of Lynn's, making a vain effort to associate them with his personality.

Meanwhile, Lynn was learning endurance. He slept but fitfully, awaking always with the sense of choking and of a hand pulling at his heart. He saw Iris everywhere. There was no room in the house, except his own, that was not full of her and of the faint, elusive perfume which seemed a part of her. Sometimes those ghostly images haunted him until he could bear no more. Margaret often saw him throw down the book he was reading and dash outdoors. For an hour, perhaps, he had not turned a page, and the book was a flimsy pretence at best.

He had not touched his violin since Iris went away. More than anything else, it spoke to him of her. "Trickster with the violin" seemed written upon it for all the world to read. Dimly, he knew that work was the only panacea for heartache, but he could not bring himself to go on with his mechanical practising.

Summer was drawing to its close. Already there was a single scarlet bough in the maple at the gate, where the frost had set its signal and its promise of return. Many of the birds had gone, and fairy craft of winged seeds, the sport of every wind, drifted aimlessly about in search of some final harbour.

Strangely, Lynn rather avoided his mother. He felt her sympathy, her comprehension, and yet he shrank from her. She was gentle and patient, responded readily to his every mood, and rarely offered a caress, yet he continually shrank back within himself.

He had made no friends in East Lancaster, though he knew one or two young men near his own age, but he kept so far aloof from them that they had long since ceased to seek him out. He kept away from Doctor Brinkerhoff, fearing talk of Iris, or some new complication, and even the postmaster's kindly sallies fell upon deaf ears. He, too, missed Iris, and often inquired for her, though he could not have failed to note that no letters came for Lynn.

Almost in the first of the hurt, when it seemed the hardest to bear, he had wondered whether it could be any worse if Iris were dead. All at once, he knew that it would be; that the cold hand and the quiet heart were the supreme anguish of loving, because there was no longer any possibility of change. Swiftly, he understood how Iris had felt when Aunt Peace died and he stood by, indifferent and unmoved.

In tardy atonement, he covered the grave in the churchyard with flowers--the goldenrod and purple aster that marched side by side over the hills to meet the frost, gay and fearless to the last.

He saw himself as he had been then, and his heart grew hot with shame. "I don't wonder she called me a clod," he said to himself, "for that is what I was."

In the maze of darkness through which he somehow lived, there was but one ray of comfort--the Master. Lynn felt, vaguely, that here was something upon which he might lean. He did not perceive that it was his own individuality which Herr Kaufmann had in some way awakened, so prone are we to confuse the person with the thing, the thought with the deed.

Day after day, he tramped over the hills around East Lancaster; day by day, footsore and weary, he sought for peace along those sunlit fields. At night, desperately tired and faint with hunger, he crept home, where he slept uneasily, waking always with that hand of terror clutching at his heart.

He went most frequently to the pile of rocks in the woods, a mile or more from the house. There were no signs upon the bare earth around it; seemingly no one went there but Lynn. Yet the suggestion of an altar was openly made, from the wide ledge at the foundation, where one might kneel, to the cross at the summit, rude, stern, and forbidding, chiselled in the rock.

Here, many times, Lynn had found comfort. Someone else, whose heart swelled, burned, and tried to escape, had cut that cross upon the granite. Thus he came, by slow degrees, into an intimate, invisible companionship.

Herr Kaufmann had ceased to speak of lessons, though Lynn went there sometimes and sat by while he worked. The Master had admitted him to that high fellowship which does not demand speech. For an hour or more, Lynn might sit there, watching, and yet no word would be spoken. As with Dr. Brinkerhoff, there were occasional visits in which nothing was said but "Good afternoon" and "Good-bye."

Fraeulein Fredrika was always busy overhead with her manifold household tasks, and seldom disturbed them by coming into the shop. Lynn wondered if the house was never clean, and once put the question to Herr Kaufmann.

"Mine house is always clean," he answered, "except down here. Twice in every year, I allow Fredrika to come in mine shop with her cloths and her brush and her pails. The rest of the time, it is mine own. If she could clean here all the time, as upstairs, I think she would be more happy. If you like to come in mine shop when I am not here, I am willing. It is one quiet place where one can rest undisturbed and think of many things. Fredrika would not care."

Weeks later, Lynn thought of the kindly offer. A storm was coming up, and he remembered that the Master had spoken of driving to another town with Dr. Brinkerhoff. "I have one violin," he had explained, "which was ordered long ago and which is now finished. While the Herr Doctor visits the sick, I will go on with mine instrument and perhaps obtain one more pupil."

Fraeulein Fredrika answered his ring, and he asked, conventionally, for Herr Kaufmann. "Mine brudder is not home," she said. "He will have gone away, but I think not for long. You will perhaps come in and wait?"

"I will not disturb you," replied Lynn. "I will go down in the shop."

"But no," returned the Fraeulein, coaxingly. "Will you not stay with me? I am with the loneliness when mine brudder is away. You will sit with me? Yes? It will be most kind!"

Thus entreated, he could not refuse, and he sat down in the parlour, awkward and ill at ease. His hostess at once proceeded to entertain him.

"You think it will rain, yes?" she asked.

"Yes, I think so."

"Well, I do not," returned the Fraeulein, smiling. "I always think the best. Let us wait and see which is right."

"We need rain," objected Lynn, turning uneasily in his chair.

"But not when mine brudder is out. He and the Herr Doctor will have gone for a long drive. Mine brudder have finished one fine violin and the Herr Doctor will visit the sick. Mine brudder's friend possesses great skill."

Lynn looked moodily past her and out of the window. The Fraeulein changed her tactics. "You have not seen mine new clothes-brush," she suggested.

"No," returned Lynn, unthinkingly, "I haven't."

"Then I will get him."

She came back, presently, and put it into Lynn's hand. It was made of three strands of heavy rope, braided, looped to form a handle, tied with a blue ribbon, and ravelled at the ends. "See," she said, "is it not most beautiful?"

"Yes," agreed Lynn, absently.

"Miss Iris have told me how to make him."

Lynn came to himself with a start. "And this," she went on, pointing to the gilded potato-masher that hung under the swinging lamp, "and this,--but no, it is you who have made this for me. Miss Iris showed you how." She pointed to the butterfly made so long ago, but still in its pristine glory.

He said nothing, but by his face Fraeulein Fredrika saw that she had made a mistake--that she had somehow been clumsy. After all, it was very difficult, this conversing with gentlemen. Franz was easy to get along with, but the others? She shook her head in despair, and immediately relinquished the thought of entertaining Lynn.

She could not tell him that she had changed her mind, that she no longer wanted him to sit with her, and that he could go down in the shop to wait for Herr Kaufmann. Painfully, in the silence, she considered several expedients, and at last her face brightened.

"Now that you are here," she said, "to guard mine house, it will be of a possibility for me to go out for some vegetables for mine brudder's dinner. He will have been very hungry from his long ride, and you see it is not going to rain. You will excuse me for a short time, yes?"

"Gladly," answered Lynn, with sincerity.

"Then I need not fear to go. It will be most kind."