Part 8

Slow torture held the girl in a remorseless gird. Dimly, she knew that some day there would be a change--that it could not always be like this. Sometime it must ease, and each throb would be sensibly less of a hurt--just a little easier to bear. With rare prescience, also, she knew that nothing in the world would ever be the same again--that she had come to the dividing line. One reaches it as a light-hearted child; one crosses it--a woman.

"No," said the Doctor, for the fiftieth time, "there is nothing you can do. Mrs. Irving and Miss Temple are not receiving. Yes, we expected it. The end was very peaceful and she did not suffer at all. Yes, it is surely a comfort to know that. The arrangements are all made. Yes, thank you, we have the music provided for. It was kind of you to come, and the ladies will be grateful for your sympathy. Who shall I say called?"

Behind him were the portraits, ranged in orderly rows. Some were old and others young, but all had gone the way that Peace should go to-morrow. Dumbly, the Doctor wondered if the same remorseless questioning had gone on every time there had been a death in the old house, and, if so, why the very floors did not cry out in protest at the desecration.

Life, that mystery of mysteries! The silence at the end and the beginning is far easier to understand than the rainbow that arches between. Man, the epitome of his forbears,--more than that, the epitome of creation,--stands by himself--the riddle of the universe.

The house in some way seemed alive, in pitiful contrast to its mistress, who lay upstairs, spending her last night in the virginal whiteness of her chamber. To-night there, and to-morrow night----

Doctor Brinkerhoff, unable to bear the thought, recoiled as if from an unexpected blow. Was it fancy, or did the painted lips of the young officer in the uniform of the Colonies part in an ironical smile?

* * * * *

"So," said the Master, as he opened the door, "you are late to your lesson."

"It is my lesson day, isn't it?" returned Lynn. "But I have only come to practise. My aunt is dead."

"So? Your aunt?"

"Yes, Aunt Peace. Miss Field, you know," he continued, in explanation.

"So? I did not know. When was it?"

"Sunday afternoon."

"And this is Tuesday. Well, we hear very little up here. It is too bad."

"Yes," agreed Lynn, awkwardly, "It--it upsets things."

The Master looked at him narrowly. "So it does. For instance, you have lost one lesson on account of it, but you can practise. Come down in mine shop where I am finishing mine violin. You shall play your concerto. It is not a necessity to lose the practise for death."

"That's what I thought," said Lynn, as they went downstairs. "She was very old, you know--more than seventy-five. There is a great deal of fuss made about such things."

Again the Master looked at him sharply, but Lynn was unconscious and perfectly sincere. He was not touched at all.

"You can have one of mine violins," the Master resumed, "and I shall finish the one upon which I am at work. The concerto, please."

At once Lynn began, walking back and forth restlessly as he played. He had long since memorised the composition, and when he finished the first movement he paused to tighten a string.

"You," said the Master,--"you have studied composition?"

"Only a little."

"You feel no gift in that line?"

"No, not at all."

"It is only to play?"

"Yes, for the present."

"Then," said the Master, changing the position of the bridge on the violin in his hand, "if you have no talents for composition, why do you not let the composer of your concerto have his own way? You should not correct him--it is most impolite."

"What--what do you mean?" stammered Lynn.

"Nothing," said the Master, "only, if you have no gifts, you should play G sharp where it is written, instead of G natural. It is not what one might call an improvement in the concerto."

Lynn flushed, and began to play the movement over again, but before he reached the bar in question he had forgotten. When he came to it he played G natural again, and instantly perceived his mistake.

The Master laughed. "Genius," he said, "must have its own way. It is not to be held down by the written score. It must make changes, flourishes, improvements. It is one pity that the composer cannot know."

"I forgot," temporised Lynn.

"So? Then why not take up the parlour organ? You should have an instrument on which the notes are all made. I should not advise the banjo, or even the concertina. The organ that turns by the handle would be better yet. To make the notes--that is most difficult, is it not so? Now, then, the adagio. Let us see how much you can better that."

Lynn played it correctly, and with intelligence, but without feeling.

"One moment," said the Master. "There is something I do not understand. That adagio is one of the most beautiful things ever written. It is full of one heartache and has in it many tears. Your aunt, you say, lies dead in your house, and yet you play it like one machine. I cannot see! Perhaps you had quarrelled?"

"No," returned Lynn, in astonishment, "I was very, very fond of her."

There was a long silence, then the Master sighed. "The thing means more than the person," he said. "Whoever is dead, if it is only one little bird, it should make you feel sad. But it waits. Before you have finished, the world will do one of three things to you. It will make your heart very soft, very hard, or else break it, so. No one escapes."

"By the way," began Lynn, eager to change the subject, "Doctor Brinkerhoff told me to ask you to come and play at the funeral to-morrow at four o'clock. He said it was his wish."

The Master's face was troubled. "Once," he said, "I promised one very angry lady that I would not go in that house again, and I have kept mine word. It was only once I went, but that was too much. Still, it was twenty-five years and more past, and she has long since been dead. Death frees one from a promise, is it not so?"

"Of course," replied Lynn, vaguely.

"At any rate, mine friend, the Herr Doctor, has asked it, even after he has known of mine promise, and, of a surety, he is wiser than I. I will come, at four, with mine violin."

Lynn took the long way home, his sunny nature deeply disturbed. "What is it?" he vainly asked of himself. "Am I different from everybody else? They all seem to know something that I do not."

* * * * *

Iris kept her long vigil by Aunt Peace, her grief too great for her starved body to withstand. At the sound of a fall, Doctor Brinkerhoff left his post and hurried upstairs. Margaret was there almost as soon as he was. Iris had fainted.

Together, they carried her into her own room, where at length she revived. "What happened?" she asked, weakly. "Did I fall?"

"Hush, dear," said Margaret. "Lie still. I'm coming to sit with you after a while."

She went out into the hall to speak to the Doctor, but he was not there. By instinct, she knew where to find him, and went into the front room.

He stood with his back to the door, looking down upon that marble face. Margaret was beside him, before he knew of her presence, and when he turned, for once off his guard, she read his secret.

"She never knew," he said, briefly, as though in explanation. "I never dared to tell her. Sometimes I think the lines we draw are false ones--that God knows best."

"Yes," replied Margaret, unsteadily, "the lines are false, but it is always too late when we find it out."

"Yet a part of the barrier was of His own making. She was infinitely above me. I should have been her slave; I was never meant to be her equal. Still, the thirsty heart will aspire to the waters beyond its reach."

"She knows now," said Margaret.

"Yes, she knows now, and she pardons me for my presumption. I can read it in her face as I stand here."

Margaret choked back a sob. "Come away," she said, with her hand upon his arm, "come away until to-morrow."

"Until to-morrow," he repeated, softly. He closed the door quietly, as though he feared the sound might break her sleep.

Iris was resting, and Margaret tiptoed down into the parlour, where the Doctor sat with his grey head bowed upon his hands. "She knows it now," he said again, "and she forgives me. I can feel it in my heart."

"If she had known it before," said Margaret, "things would have been different," but she knew that what she said was untrue.

"No," he returned, shaking his head, "the line was there. You would not know what it is like unless there had been a line between you and the one you loved."

"There was," she answered, hoarsely, then her eyes met his.

"You, too?" he asked, unbelieving, but she could not speak. She only bowed her head in assent. Then his hand grasped hers in full understanding. The false line divided them, also, but in one thing, at least, they were kindred.

"I wish," said the Doctor, after a little, "that we could hide her away before to-morrow. The people she has held herself apart from all her life will come and look at her now that she is helpless."

"That is the irony of it," returned Margaret. "I have even prayed to outlive those I hated, so that they could not come and look at me when I was dead."

"Have you outlived them?"

"Yes," answered Margaret, thickly, "every one."

"You hated someone who drew the false line?"

"Yes."

"And that person is dead?"

"Yes."

"Then," said the Doctor, very gently, "when you have forgiven, the line will be blotted out. The one on the other side of it may be out of your reach forever, but the line will be gone."

The idea was new to her, that she must forgive. She thought of it long afterward, when the house was as quiet as its sleeping mistress, and the pale stars faded to pearl at the hour of dawn.

The third day came; the end of that pitiful period in which we wait, blindly hoping that the miracle of resurrection may be given once more, and the stone be rolled away from our dead.

It was Doctor Brinkerhoff who had the casket closed before the strangers came, and afterward he told Margaret. "She would be thankful," Margaret assured him, and his eyes filled. "Yes," he answered, huskily, "I believe she would."

They sat together at the head of the stairs, out of sight, and yet within hearing. Lynn sat at one end, still perplexed, and shuddering at the unpleasantness of it all. His mother's hand was in his, and with her left arm she supported Iris, who leaned heavily against her shoulder, broken-hearted. On the other side of Iris was Doctor Brinkerhoff, austere and alone.

From below came the wonderful words of the burial service: "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." It was followed by a beautiful tribute to Aunt Peace--to the countless good deeds of her five and seventy years.

Then there was silence, broken by the muffled sound of a string being tightened to harmonise with the piano. Swiftly upon the discordant note, the voice of a violin, strong, clear, and surpassingly sweet, rose in an _Ave Maria_.

Margaret started to her feet. "What is it?" she whispered, hoarsely.

"Mother," said Lynn, in a low tone, "don't. It is only Herr Kaufmann. We asked him to play."

"The Cremona!" she muttered. "The Cremona--here--to-day!"

She lay back in her chair with her eyes closed and her mouth quivering. Lynn held her hand tightly, and Iris breathed hard. Doctor Brinkerhoff listened intently, his heart rejoicing in the beauty of it, because it was done for her.

Deep chords, full and splendid, sounded an ultimate triumph over Death. The music counselled acceptance, resignation, because of something that lay beyond--indefinite, yet complete restitution, when the time of its fulfilment should be at hand. Beside it, the individual grief sank into insignificance--it was the sorrow of the world demanding payment for itself from the world's joy.

Something vast and appealing took the place of the finite passion, seeking hungrily for its own ends, and in the greatness of it, with heart uplifted, Margaret forgave the dead.

XIII

To Iris

"Daughter of the Marshes, the winds have told me you are sad. If I could, I would bear it for you, but there is no way by which one of us may take another's burden.

"I wish I might come to you, but now, when you are troubled, I will not ask you for a signal, even for a flower on the gate-post. I would always have you happy, dear, if my love could buy it from the Fates--those deep eyes of yours should never be veiled by the mist of tears.

"Do you know where the marsh is, Iris? You have lived in East Lancaster for many years, so the gossips tell me, yet I doubt whether you could find it unless someone showed you the way. To reach it, you must follow the river, through all its turns and windings, for many a weary mile.

"Up in those distant hills, so far that I have never found it, the river begins--perhaps in some tiny pool of crystal clearness. It sings along over its rocky bed until it reaches a low, sandy plain, and here is the marsh. I was there the other day, just at sunset; my heart thrilled with the beauty of it because it is the beauty of you.

"How shall I tell you of the wonder of the marshes, those wide, watery plains embroidered with strange bloom? Tall, slender rushes stand there, bending gracefully when the wind passes, and answering with music to the touch. Have you ever heard the song of the marshes when the wind moves through the rushes and plays upon them like strings? Some day, I will take you there, and you shall listen, too, and tell me what you think it means.

"Here and there are pools, set like jewels among the rushes, with never a hint of growth. Sometimes you see a wide sweep of grass, starred with tiny yellow flowers, or a lily, surrounded by its leaves, drinking in the loveliness of the day and forgetting all the maze of slime and dark water through which it has somehow come. I think our souls are like that, Iris--we grow through the world, with all its darkness, borne upward by unfailing aspiration, until we reach the end, which we have been taught to call Heaven, but which is only blossoming in the light.

"But of all the radiant beauty of marshes, the best is this--that part of it which bears the purple flower of your name. In and out of the rushes, like the thread of a strange tapestry, it winds and wanders, hidden for an instant, maybe, but never lost. I have gathered an armful of the blossoms, and put my face down to them, closing my eyes, and dreaming that it was you--you whom I must ever hold apart as something too beautiful for me to touch--you, whom I can only love from afar.

"I have told you that I would come when the iris bloomed, but now, when the marsh is glorious with the purple banners, I dare not. It is not only because you are sad, though not for worlds would I trouble you now, but because I am afraid.

"Only in my wildest moments do I dare to hope--you were never meant for such as I. By day, I bow my soul before you in shame at my own unworthiness, but at night, like some flaming star which speeds across the uncharted dark, you light the barren country of my dreams.

"I think sometimes that I shall never dare to tell you; that it must be like this, year after year. If you knew your lover, who is so bold and yet so fearful, I think you would cast him aside in scorn. So it is better for me to believe, though that belief has no foundation,--better for me to hope than utterly to despair. Without you, I dare not think what life might be.

"Like the marsh, the years stretch out before me--a vast plain of which the uncertainty only is sure. They are full of strange pitfalls, of unsounded deeps and silences, of impassable barriers which I, disheartened and doubting, must one day meet face to face.

"Night lies upon it, and I cannot see the way. Storm beats upon me and turns me from my course. The clouded day ends in sunset, and the crystal pools, by which I thought to mark my path, become beacons of blood-red flame.

"The will o' the wisp leads me into the mire, where the rushes cling tightly about me and keep me back. But the night wind blows from the east, where the dawn sleeps, and on the strings of the marsh grass breathes a little song. 'Iris! Iris!' it sings, then all at once my sore heart grows strangely glad, for whatever may come to me, I shall have the memory of you.

"Like the flags that glorify the marshes and spread their elfin sweetness afar, you shine upon the desert wastes of my life. I can never wholly lose you--you are there for always, and graven on my heart forever is the symbol of the fleur-de-lis."

XIV

Her Name-Flower

Somehow, the days passed. Iris ate mechanically, and went about her household duties with her former precision. On Wednesday evening, Doctor Brinkerhoff came, as usual, and Margaret's eyes filled at the sight of him.

Bent, old, and haggard, he came up the path, longing for his accustomed place in the house, and yet dreading to take it. Iris met him with a pitiful little smile, and he bowed over her hand for a moment, his shoulders shaking. Then he straightened himself, like a soldier under fire.

"Miss Iris," he said, "we are bound together by a common grief. More than that, I have a trust to fulfil. She"--here he hesitated and then went on--"she asked me if I would not try to take the place of a father to you, and I promised that I would."

"I have always felt so toward you," answered Iris, in a low tone.

Lynn was quite himself again, and his cheerful talk enlivened the others, almost against their will. There was laughter and to spare, yet beneath it was an undercurrent of sorrow, for the wound was healed only upon the surface.

"It is hard," said the Doctor, sadly, "but life holds many hard things for all of us. Perhaps, if we lived rightly, if our faith were stronger, death would not rend our hearts as it does. It is the common lot, the universal leveller, and soon or late it comes to us all. It remains to make our spiritual adjustment accord with the inevitable fact. There is so little that we can change, that it behooves us to confine our efforts to ourselves."

"Life," replied Lynn "is the pitch of the orchestra, and we are the instruments."

Doctor Brinkerhoff nodded. "Very true. The discord and the broken string of the individual instrument do not affect the whole, except as false notes, but I think that God, knowing all things, must discern the symphony, glorious with meaning, through the discordant fragments that we play."

So the talk went on, Lynn taking the burden of it and endeavouring always to make it cheerful. Margaret understood and loved him for it, but she, too, was sad. Iris sat like a stone, waiting, counting off the leaden hours as something to be endured, and blindly believing that rest would come.

"Everything," said Margaret, after a long silence, "was as beautiful as it could be."

Doctor Brinkerhoff understood at once. "Yes," he sighed, "and I am glad. I think it was as she would have wished it to be, and I am sure she was pleased because I shielded her from the gaze of the curious at the end." His face worked as he said it, but he took a pitiful pride in what he had done. Day by day he hugged this last service closer, because it was done through his own thought and his own understanding, and would have pleased her if she had known.

"Yes," returned Margaret, kindly, "it was very thoughtful of you. It would never have occurred to me, and I know she would have been grateful."

"Miss Iris?" said the Doctor, inquiringly.

The girl turned. "Yes?"

"She--she gave me a paper for you. Will you have it, or shall I read it to you?"

"Read it," answered Iris, dully.

"It is in the form of a letter. She wrote it one day, near the end of her illness, and gave it to me, to be opened after her death."

In the midst of a profound silence, he took an envelope from his pocket and broke the seal.

"'My Dear Doctor Brinkerhoff,'" he began, clearing his throat, "'I feel that I am not going to get well, and so I have been thinking, as I lie here, and setting my house in order. I have told Iris, but for fear she may forget, I tell you. All the papers which concern her are in a tin box in a trunk in the attic. She will know where to find it.

"'To her, as to an only daughter, go my little keepsakes--the emerald pin, my few pieces of real lace, my fan, and the silver buckles. She will understand the spirit of this bequest and will feel free to take what she likes.

"'The house is for Margaret, and, after her, for Lynn, but it is to be a home for Iris, just as it has been, while she lives. Her income is to be paid regularly on the first of every month, during her lifetime, as is written in my will, which the lawyer has and which he will read at the proper time.

"'Tell my little girl that, though I am dead, I love her still; that she has given me more than I could ever have given her, and that she must be my brave girl and not grieve. Tell her I want her to be happy.

"'To you, I send my parting salutations. I have appreciated your friendship and your professional skill.

"'With assurances of my deep personal esteem,

"'Your Friend, "'PEACE FIELD.'"

Iris broke down and left the room, weeping bitterly. Margaret followed her, but the girl pushed her aside. "No," she whispered, "go back. It is better for me to be alone."

"I am sorry," said the Doctor, breaking the painful hush; "perhaps I should have waited. I very much regret having given Miss Iris unnecessary pain."

"It is as well now as at any other time," Margaret assured him, "but my heart bleeds for her."

The clock on the landing struck ten, and Margaret excused herself for a moment. She returned with the Royal Worcester plate, piled with cakes, and a decanter of the port.

"I made them," she said, in a low tone; "she asked me to give you the recipe."

"She was always thoughtful of others," returned the Doctor, choking.

He filled his glass, and from force of habit, offered it to an invisible friend. "To your--" then he stopped.

"To her memory," sobbed Margaret, touching his glass with hers.

They drank the toast in silence, then the Doctor staggered to his feet.

"I can bear no more," he said, unsteadily; "it is a communion service with the dead."

"Lynn," said Margaret, after the guest had gone, "I am troubled about Iris. She is grieving herself to death, and it is not natural for the young to suffer acutely for so long. Can you suggest anything?"

"No," answered Lynn, anxious in his turn, "except to get outdoors. I don't believe she's been out since Aunt Peace was buried."

"You must take her, then."

"Do you think she would go with me?"

"I don't know, dear, but try it--try it to-morrow. Take her for a long walk and get her so tired that she will sleep. Nothing rests the mind like fatigue of the body."

"Mother," began Lynn, after a little, "are we always going to stay in East Lancaster?"

"I haven't thought about it at all, Lynn. Are you becoming discontented?"

"No--I was only looking ahead."

"This is our home--Aunt Peace has given it to us."

"It was ours anyway, wasn't it?"

"In a way, it was, but your grandfather left it to Aunt Peace. If he had not died suddenly he would have changed his will. Mother said he intended to, but he kept putting it off."

"Do you want me to keep on studying the violin?"

Margaret looked up in surprise, but Lynn was pacing back and forth with his hands clasped behind him and his head down.

"Why not, dear?" she asked, very gently.