Part 7

Chapter 74,142 wordsPublic domain

Edith squeezed her arm rapturously as they moved away. "I'm proud of you. Those pictures were hung only day before yesterday. Why, there's Joe."

Mr. Bently greeted them cordially. "Jackson came this morning, Edith, and I have asked him to dine with us Monday evening."

"That will be charming. Marian is coming to visit us over Sunday and I think they will like each other."

"I hope so," was Mr. Bently's rejoinder. "It's really good of you to come, Miss Reynolds, for I very seldom see you, and Jackson is a capital fellow."

"Come, Marian," said Edith, "you know we were going to make a call."

"Always going somewhere, aren't you, sweetheart?" and Mr. Bently smiled lovingly at his pretty wife.

"Never far away from you, dear," she answered and waved her hand to him as the crowd swept them apart.

"You're going to stay all night with me, you know," Edith said. "We'll stop at your house on our way back, and leave word with your mother--incidentally we can learn if any one has called."

It was almost dark when they reached Marian's home, and Edith waited in the hall, while she went in search of her mother. As she came down-stairs, Mrs. Bently held up a small white card, triumphantly. Marian's face flushed as she saw the name.

"_Mr. Thomas E. Drayton._"

"It's all right," said her friend, "just wait and see."

Friday morning, the servant who admitted Marian, said that Mr. Drayton had called the previous evening and left some flowers which Miss Reynolds would find in the library.

A great bunch of American Beauties stood on the table, and almost overpowered her with their fragrance.

"Dear, dear Tom! He _does_ love me," she thought. "I'll write him a note."

She sat down to her desk without removing her hat. "Perhaps I've been mistaken all along." The words shaped themselves under her pen: "My Dearest." Then she stopped and surveyed it critically. "Not in the present incarnation of Miss Reynolds." She tore the sheet straight across, and dropped it into the waste basket. Taking another, she wrote:

"MY DEAR TOM:

"The roses are beautiful. I am passionately fond of flowers--of roses especially, and I must thank you for the really great pleasure the 'Beauties' are giving me.

"Sincerely yours, "MARIAN REYNOLDS."

Over his coffee the next morning Tom studied the little note. "I wonder what's the matter. 'My Dear Tom'! 'Marian Reynolds' and not a bit of love in it. It isn't the least bit like her. I must go and see her this afternoon. No, I'll be hanged if I will, she had no business to be out," and he chewed a toothpick savagely. "I'll ask her to go to the theatre."

After much cogitation, he evolved a note which struck him as being a marvel of diplomacy.

"MY DEAR MARIAN:

"I am glad the roses give you pleasure. Will you go to the theatre with me on Monday evening?

"Yours in haste, "TOM."

Marian's reply was equally concise:

"MY DEAR TOM:

"I am very sorry that I have an engagement for Monday evening and cannot possibly break it. You know I enjoy the theatre above all things, and I am sure I should have an especially pleasant evening with you.

"Sincerely, "MARIAN REYNOLDS."

Tom grew decidedly uncomfortable. What the mischief was the matter with the girl! One thing was certain, next time he called, it would be at her invitation. But the following afternoon found him again at the house.

"Miss Reynolds is out, sir," said the servant as he opened the door, in response to his ring.

"I know," he responded impatiently; "I want to return a book I borrowed the other day."

"Certainly, sir," and the servant ushered him into the library.

He put the book in its place, and his glance, travelling downward met the waste basket. Marian's distinctive penmanship stared him in the face. "My Dearest!"

Mr. Thomas Drayton was an honourable gentleman, but he wanted to examine that waste-paper basket. He rushed out of the library, lest he should yield to the temptation, and said to the servant in the hall: "Say nothing of my having been here to-day, Jones."

"Certainly not, sir."

"The book is a joke on Miss Reynolds," he said putting a silver half dollar in Jones's ready palm.

"All right, sir, I see." And Tom went out.

Before he reached the avenue, he was mentally kicking himself for explaining to a servant. He had of course noticed the roses on the table, and he was very sure they had not been in Marian's room.

Once she had told him, how she had slept with one of the roses next her heart, and a thorn had pricked the flesh, making a red spot on a white petal. She showed him the rose with its tiny blood stain. He had kissed the flower and put it in a little memorandum book with a gold clasp. And he had told Marian, over and over again, what a horrid rose it was--to hurt his sweetheart. He smiled grimly at his own previous foolishness, and felt sure that none of the American Beauties would rest next to Marian's heart that night.

Miss Reynolds and Mrs. Bently sat in the latter's boudoir. Edith nodded sagely over Tom's note, and Marian was curled up in a forlorn heap on the couch.

"How does he usually begin his notes to you?"

"'My Dearest Girl,' or 'Dear Sweetheart,'" answered Marian.

"H'm! Well, my dear, you may depend upon it, he is 'beginning to take notice.'"

Sunday, Tom spent morosely at his club, and was so disagreeable that his friends were very willing to give him a wide berth. Marian was neither cheerful nor happy, and wept copiously in private, fancying Tom worshipping at the shrine of Miss Perkins.

Monday evening she and Edith dressed together. Marian had a new gown of that peculiar shade of blue which seems to be especially made for brown eyes and hair, and looked, as her friend told her, "simply stunning."

"Joe has a box at the theatre to-night. Isn't he lovely?"

Marian assented, but inwardly hoped that Tom would not hear of her being there.

Mr. Sterling Jackson was a very pleasant fellow, with an inexhaustible fund of humour. He devoted himself to Marian and looked unutterable things whenever opportunity offered. Handsome, he certainly was, and she was secretly flattered by his evident adoration. Tom didn't matter quite so much now.

At the theatre Marian sat in the front of an upper box beside Mrs. Bently. The devoted Jackson leaned forward and talked to her in subdued tones. After the first act, Edith whispered to her:

"Don't look, nor turn pale, nor do anything rash, but Mr. Thomas Drayton is down in the parquet with Miss Matilda Perkins." Marian turned white and grasped the rail of the box. "Don't faint till I tell you. He hasn't taken his eyes off you since he first saw you, and I don't believe he has seen the stage at all. Perkins is simply green with rage, and I wish you could see her hat. It's a dream in pink and yellow--an equine dream."

Marian's colour returned, and conscious of looking her best, she flirted outrageously with the ever willing Jackson, though she confided to Edith at the end of the second act, that she was "perfectly wretched."

"Nobody suspects it," returned Mrs. Bently, "least of all Tom. He's chewing Perkins's fan, and she's trying to draw him out."

For the remainder of the week Mr. Drayton studiously avoided the Reynolds mansion. Marian had been seen on the Boulevard with the odious Jackson, and Miss Perkins had suddenly lost her charm. Marian was always at home on Tuesdays. Next week he would drop in, in the afternoon, and see how the land lay.

Mrs. Bently had heard, through her husband, that Drayton had gone out of the city, and the intelligence was promptly conveyed to Marian.

The solitaire lay in a corner of Marian's chatelaine bag. She meditated the propriety of sending it back, but Edith would not hear of it. Her heart ached constantly for Tom, and she flirted feverishly with Jackson. "I am at home Tuesdays," she said one evening when he left her. "Come in for a little while and I will give you a cup of tea."

He came early and found her alone. They chatted for a few minutes, and then Mr. Thomas Drayton was announced. The two men were civil to each other, but Marian felt their mutual irritation, and was relieved when Jackson rose to take his departure. He crossed the room to Tom and shook hands. "I am very glad to have met you, Mr. Drayton. I am sure we shall meet often, if you find Miss Reynolds as charming as I do." He bowed politely to Marian and went out.

"The insufferable cad!" thought Tom. He shivered, and Marian hastened to the tea table.

"It's awfully cold outside," she said, "and these rooms are not any too warm. I'll make you some tea. You take two lumps of sugar, don't you?"

Tom said nothing. Marian's pretty hands hovered over the teacups, and he noticed that the left one was ringless.

"Don't you wear your solitaire any more, Marian?" His voice was strange and she was half afraid.

"Oh, yes," she responded brightly, "sometimes. The points of the setting catch in my glove though, and I am afraid of loosening the stone."

"Marian, don't you care for me?"

"Certainly."

"How much?"

"As much as you care for me, I think, don't you?"

He went over and put his arm around her. She shrank a little at his touch, but he pulled her down on the sofa beside him.

"Marian, darling, tell me what the matter is. I know I don't deserve you, and I'll go, if you say I must. Has that fellow Jackson come between us?"

Marian disregarded one of Edith's injunctions. "Perhaps it's Miss Perkins."

Tom said a very emphatic swear word, which does not look well in print, then buried his head in one of the sofa cushions. She was frightened and sank down on her knees beside him, her armor of self-defence vanishing in womanly pity. "Tom, dear Tom! What is it? Tell me!"

He straightened up and lifted her to the sofa beside him.

"I see, sweetheart, I've been a fool and a great deal worse than that. Can you ever forgive me?"

"One thing first, Tom, do you love me?"

"Marian, dear, I never knew until this last wretched week, just how much you meant to me. I am yours, body and soul, to do with what you will. I have no right to insult you, Marian, but will you take me back?" His voice trembled with the agony of love and pain, as she drew the solitaire out of the chatelaine bag at her belt. She held it silently toward him.

"Darling, is it good-bye?"

"No, dear, I want you to put it back."

And that evening, in accordance with instructions, the servant said to Mr. Sterling Jackson, "Miss Reynolds is out."

Träumerei

He stood at the side of the brilliantly lighted opera-house with a note-book and pencil in his hand. Would that interminable symphony never be finished? The audience listened breathlessly, but he, the musical critic of a thriving daily paper, only drummed idly with his fingers and stared vacantly at the people near him.

There was a momentary hush, the orchestra leader waved his baton, and the trained musicians, with perfect precision began the brilliant _finale_. The audience was unusually sympathetic, and for an instant after the closing passage all was still; then came a great burst of applause.

The leader bowed his acknowledgment, but the clamour only increased. The critic sank wearily into an empty seat and looked across the house. He started and grew pale, as among the throng of fashionables he saw a face that he knew--that he had known.

A sweet face it was too; not beautiful, but full of subtle charm and a haunting tenderness that he had tried to forget. He sat like one in a dream, and did not know that the orchestra was about to play the next number till its opening measures woke him from his abstraction.

Träumerei! Anything but that! Oh, God, this needless pain! And he thought he had forgotten!

He stood again in a little room which the autumn moonlight made as bright as day. Down below on the rocks was the far-off sound of the sea, and she, with his roses on her breast, sat before the piano and played dreamily, tenderly, yes, this same Träumerei that was now breaking his heart.

He had stood behind her, with his arms around her, his dark, eager face down close to hers, and whispered huskily: "Sweetheart, I love you."

And she had turned her face up to his and said, softly, "I love--you--too--dear;" and he had hugged her tightly to him and covered her face with burning kisses that were almost pain. And--that--had--been--their--betrothal. Then for a little while there was happiness--then there was a misunderstanding--and there--she was--and----

Up through those arches of light the clear, sweet melody stole. Had he forgotten? Had she? He seized his opera-glass and a quick turn of the screw brought her again close to him.

Yes, there were tears in her eyes; he could see the white lids quiver, and her lips trembled and----

With a deeper throb of pain than any he yet had known, the buried love came back, strong and sweet, as in those dear days when the whole world seemed aglow with love of her.

He rose and walked nervously around the shining circle and down the aisle to where she sat. His breath came quick and fast, he hardly dared trust himself to speak, but with a great effort he commanded himself and bent over her chair.

She looked up and her tear-wet eyes met his own. He whispered, hoarsely, "Forgive me--come out a minute--I want to speak to you."

Hardly knowing what she did, she followed him into the dimly lighted, deserted foyer.

With the last strain of that wordless love-sweet song, the dear old dream came back and, unrebuked, he put his arm about her once more.

"Sweetheart," he said, "I love you."

A soft arm stole round his neck, and she answered as of old,

"I love you, too, dear."

"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"

Down in the negro quarters on a Georgia plantation stood a quaint little log cabin overlooking cotton fields that were white with their snowy fruit. Born in slavery, living in slavery and apparently destined to die in slavery, yet old Joe was happy; for to him slavery was not bondage--only a pleasant way of being cared for.

His days of active usefulness were over. He had served long and faithfully in those same cotton fields, then as a house servant and later as a coachman. Now on account of age and the "misery" in his back, he spent his days in mending harness, telling stories to the children and making playthings out of the odd bits of rubbish they brought him.

His wife, Sally, was head cook at the mansion which stood in another part of the plantation, in the midst of trees and flowers. Down a little farther was a tiny brook that sang all the livelong day and turned back, regretfully perhaps, to wind by the window of old Joe's cabin.

"The Pines" was a most hospitable house and usually thronged with guests, for its young mistress had an indulgent husband and money sufficient to gratify every possible whim. Mrs. Langley she was now, but to old Joe she would be "Miss Eunice" always. He had carried her when she was a baby, watched over her when she was ill, and once when a pair of maddened horses dashed down the drive, utterly beyond their owner's control, he had snatched the unconscious child from almost under the wild feet, and--saved her life, they said, but the brave fellow had received internal injuries and had not been able to do much since.

"Yes," he said one afternoon, to an appreciative audience of pickaninnies and white children who sat together around his feet in a truly democratic fashion, "dat ar day war a great time fo ol Joe. I war jes agwine to de house wen I see dese yer hosses comin _ker-blip_! right whar Miss Eunice war a playin wid her doll-buggy. Dere wasn't no time to call her, so I jes grab her and run, an my foot ketch in de doll-buggy an I trow Miss Eunice ober my haid in some soft grass an den de hosses tram on me an I kinder lost my 'membunce. Pretty soon I fin mysel in de house an de doctor an ol Missis war a standin ober me. Doctor say, 'he come to all right,' an ol Missis, she jes stoop down an kiss ol Joe! Tink ob dat!"

"Den Miss Eunice come in, an ol Missis say 'come here dear, and see Uncle Joe. He done sabe yo life.' An den I lose my 'membunce again. One day Mas'r walk in an he say, 'Joe, here's yo papers, yo's free now, jus ez free ez I is.' I say Mas'r, I don't want to go away from you an Missis an Miss Eunice. I want to stay here on de ol plantation, along 'o my ol woman. And den he wipe is eyes an say, 'I'll gib Sally papers too' an Sally say, 'No Mas'r, me an Joe don't want to be free; we wants to stay here where we's happies' an Mas'r say he keep dose yer papers for us till we done want em. Dose was mighty fine times for ol Joe!" and he beamed at the children around his feet who had been listening with ever-fresh delight to the old, old story.

"Now play something, Uncle," the children cried, and Tommy Langley brought the fiddle that always hung in one corner of the cabin. His eyes brightened at the sight of the old brown thing, but he gently put the eager child away, saying, "No, honey, not dis time. I got de misery in my back wuss en eber. Go way, chillens, ol Joe's--so tired!"

They obediently trooped out of the cabin and the old man's head dropped on his breast. The gaunt grey figure twisted with pain, and he did not move until Sally came in to get his supper.

"Well, honey," she said cheerily, "how's yo back to-day?"

"Pears like de pain gets wuss, Sally," he replied.

"Nebber yo min, yo'll get better byme by." Coming closer she dropped a bundle of illustrated papers into his lap. "See wat Miss Eunice send yo, an look here!" She pointed proudly to her stooped shoulders, where a scarlet kerchief shone like a ray of light in the dim cabin.

Joe tried to smile, then said feebly, "Miss Eunice mighty good to us, Sally."

Sally assented, and moving quickly about the cabin, soon had the evening meal on the table.

"Come, Joe, move up yo cheer. Dis yere hoe cake done to de tu'n!"

"Pears like I couldn't eat no supper," he said, then gave a half-suppressed groan that betokened an extra twinge of the "misery."

"Po ol man," said Sally sympathetically, and she ate in silence, watching the kindly pain-drawn face, with ever-increasing anxiety.

As twilight fell, the sufferer sought his couch, where he moaned and tossed restlessly, and the pitying Sally, stretched wearily on a faded rug near the door was soon fast asleep.

* * * * *

Up at "The Pines" all was light and laughter and music, for a crowd of young folks were gathered 'neath its hospitable roof and guitars and mandolins made the whole house ring with melody of a more or less penetrating quality. In the midst of the gaiety, Tommy stole up to his mother with a troubled look on his usually merry little face.

"What is it, dearie?" she asked, putting her arm about him.

"Mamma, I'm afraid Uncle Joe is going to die. His 'misery' hurts him awful."

"Is Uncle Joe very sick, dear? I knew he was not well, but he has always been ailing, you know. I'll have the doctor see him to-morrow."

"All right, mamma," and the little face grew bright again.

She kissed him tenderly and said: "Run away to bed, little son, the birds went long ago."

Tommy went off obediently, but Mrs. Langley felt worried about the faithful old fellow who had saved her life. "I'll see to him to-morrow," she thought and began to plan various things for his comfort and happiness.

A little later a pretty girl with a mandolin, said: "Do you know I feel like having a lark. Excuse the slang, please, but there's no other word that will express my meaning."

"Try a swallow," suggested a young man in a way that was meant to be funny. "There's lots of lemonade left in the pitcher."

She scorned the interruption. "I want a lark, a regular lark!"

"How would a serenade do?"

"Capital!" she laughed. "Just the thing! We'll take our mandolins and guitars into the moonlight and make things pleasant generally."

"But," said a maid with a practical turn of mind, "who is there to serenade? There aren't any neighbours, are there?"

"Give it up!"

"Ask Mrs. Langley--she'll know," and a smiling ambassador from the merry group, Mrs. Langley's own nephew, went to the fair-haired hostess who sat with her husband in the library.

"Aunty, who is there in this charming spot whom we can serenade? The girls think it would be fun, but we don't know where to find a victim in this isolated Eden."

Mrs. Langley rose quickly, and going to the little party, told them of old Joe and how she owed her life to those strong arms. She finished the story with an eloquent gesture that brought tears to the eyes of many, and added: "Go down to the old man's cabin and sing the quaint negro melodies he loves so well--that he used to sing to me when I was a little child. And take these roses with you; he used to love them so; you can throw them in at the open window."

As she spoke, she took a great handful of white roses from a vase and with a little pearl-handled knife, dextrously removed the thorns, then handed them to her nephew.

"How do we get there, Aunty?" he asked, with something like a tremor in his voice.

"Follow the brook," she replied. "It flows right under his window, and you cannot miss the place. I'd go with you, only I can't sing, and wouldn't be of any use." She smiled brightly at them as they went down among the shadows, then to the tiny brook that seemed like a musical stream of silver in the moonlight.

The party was strangely silent for one bound for a "lark," and by much crossing of the little stream that wound its tortuous way through the grounds, they came to Uncle Joe's tiny cabin in an unseen nook of the plantation. They grouped themselves under the window in silence.

"Now then!" whispered one of them. The mandolins and guitars played the opening strains of the sweet old melody, then their fresh young voices rose high and clear:

The old grey head turned feebly on its hard pillow, and Sally stirred restlessly.

Above the song of the brook that seemed like a tender accompaniment to the tinkle of the mandolins the music rose, and old Joe woke from his dream of pain.

Oh, light of the angels! Oh, rapture of the song! The familiar words brought back so much to the old man's listening soul!

The fragrant shower fell around him. He grasped a great white rose that was within reach of his hand and pressed it to his parched lips.

Out of the clouds was the chariot coming for _him_? Yes--wrapt in celestial glory.

The song died away, and the singers heard no sound within.

But the tired head fell back upon its pillow with a sigh of infinite content, the chariot came, and Uncle Joe forgot the "misery" and the roses alike in passing from supreme shadow to supreme dawn.

The Face of the Master

In a little town in Italy, there once lived an old violin maker, whose sole pride and happiness was in the perfect instruments which he had made. He had, indeed, a son, or rather a stepson, for his wife had been a pretty widow with this one child when he married her a year before.