Athalie

"I seem to be speeding back toward my childhood," she said. "Every breath of this air, every breeze, every odour is making it more real to me… I wonder whatever became of my ragged red hood and cloak. I can't remember."

"I'd like to have them," he said. "I'd fold them and lay them away for – "

He checked himself, sobered, suddenly and painfully aware that the magic of the moment had opened for him an unreal vista where, in the false dawn, the phantom of Hope stood smiling. Her happy smile had altered, too; and her gloved hand stole out and rested on his own for a moment in silence. Neither said anything for a while, and yet the sky was so blue, the wind so soft and aromatic, and the sun's splendour was turning the very earth to powdered gold. And maybe the gods would yet be kind. Maybe, one day, others, with Athalie's hair and eyes, might smooth the faded scarlet hood and cloak with softly inquiring fingers.

He spoke almost harshly from his brief dream: "There is the Bay!"

But she had turned to look back at the quiet little cemetery already behind them, and a moment or two passed before she lifted her eyes and looked out across the familiar stretch of water. Azure and silver it glimmered there in the sun. Red-shouldered blackbirds hovered, fluttered, dropped back into the tall reeds; meadow larks whistled sweetly, persistently; a slow mouse-hawk sailed low over the fields, his broad wings tipped up like a Japanese kite, the silver full-moon flashing on his back as he swerved. And then the old tavern came into sight behind its new hedge of privet.

Athalie caught sight of it, – of the tall hedge, the new posts of stone through which a private road now curved into the grounds and around a circle before the porch; saw the new stone wall inclosing it ablaze with nasturtiums, the brilliant loveliness of the old and long neglected garden beyond; saw the ancient house in all its quaint and charming simplicity bereft of bow-window, spindle, and gingerbread fretwork, – saw the white front of it, the green shutters, the big, thick chimneys, the sunlight sparkling on small square panes, and on the glass of the sun parlour.

The girl was trembling when he stopped the car at the front door, sprang out, and aided her to descend.

A man in overalls came up, diffidently, and touched his broad straw hat. To him Clive gave a low-voiced order or two, then stepped forward to where the girl was standing.

"It is too beautiful – " she began, but her voice failed, and he saw the sensitive lips tremulous in their silence and the eyes brilliant with the menace of tears.

He drew her arm through his and they went in, moving slowly and in silence from room to room. Only the almost convulsive pressure of her arm on his told him of a happiness too deep for expression.

On the landing above he offered her the key to her mother's room.

"Nothing is changed there," he said; and, fitting the key, unlocked the door, and turned away.

But the girl caught his hand in hers and drew him with her into the faded, shabby room where her mother's chair stood in its accustomed place, and the faded hassock lay beside it.

"Sit here," she said. And when he was seated she dropped on the hassock at his feet and laid her cheek on his knees.

The room was very still and sunny; her lover remained silent and unstirring; and the girl's eyes wandered from carpet to ceiling and from wall to wall, resting on familiar objects; then, passing dreamily, remained fixed on space – sweet, brooding eyes, dim with the deepest emotion she had ever known.

A new, profound, and thrilling peace possessed her – a heavenly sense of tranquillity and security, as though, somehow, all problems had been solved for her and for him.

Presently in a low, hushed, happy voice she began to speak about her mother. Little unimportant, unconnected incidents came to her mind – brief moments, episodes as ephemeral as they had been insignificant.

Sitting on the faded hassock at his feet she lifted her head and rested both arms across his knees.

"It is all so perfect now," she said, – "you here in mother's room, and I at your feet: and the sunny world waiting for us outside. How mellow is this light! Always in the demi-dusk of this house there seemed to me to linger a golden tint – even on dark days – even at night – as though somewhere a ray of sun had been lost and had not entirely faded out."

"It came from your own heart, Athalie – that wonderful and golden heart of yours where light and warmth can never die… Dear, are you contented with what I have ventured to do?"

She looked silently into his eyes, then with a little sigh dropped her head on his knees again.

Far away somewhere in the depths of the house somebody was moving. And presently she asked him who it was.

"Connor, the man of all work. I sent him to Spring Pond village to buy bed linen and bath towels. I ventured to install a brass bed or two in case you had thought of coming here with your maid. You see," he added, smiling, "it was fortunate that I did."

"You are the most wonderful man in the world, Clive," she murmured, her eyes fixed dreamily on his face. "Always you have been making life delightful for me; smoothing my path, helping me where the road is rough."… She sighed: "Clive, you are very wonderful to me."

Mrs. Jim Connor had come to help; and now, at high noon, she sought them where they were standing in the garden, – Athalie in ecstasy before the scented thickets of old-fashioned rockets massed in a long, broad border against a background of trees.

So they went in to luncheon, which was more of a dinner; and Mrs. Connor served them with apology, bustle, and not too garrulously for the humour they were in.

High spirits had returned to them when they stepped out of doors; and they came back to the house for luncheon in the gayest of humour, Athalie chattering away blithe as a linnet in a thorn bush, and Clive not a whit more reticent.

"Hafiz is going to adore this!" exclaimed the girl. "My angel pussy! – why was I mean enough to leave you in the city!.. I'll have a dog, too – a soft, roly-poly puppy, who shall grow up with a wholesome respect for Hafiz. And, Clive! I shall have a nice fat horse, a safe and sane old Dobbin – so I can poke about the countryside at my leisure, through byways and lanes and disused roads."

"You need a car, too."

"No, no, I really don't. Anyway," she said airily, "your car is sufficient, isn't it?"

"Of course," he smiled.

"I think so, too. I shall not require or desire a car unless you also are to be in it. But I'd love to possess a Dobbin and a double buckboard. Also I shall, in due time, purchase a sail-boat – " She checked herself, laughed at the sudden memory, and said with delightful malice: "I suppose you have not yet learned to sail a boat, have you?"

He laughed, too: "How you scorned me for my ignorance, didn't you? Oh, but I've learned a great many things since those days, Athalie."

"To sail a boat, too?"

"Oh, yes. I had to learn. There's a lot of water in the world; and I've been very far afield."

"I know," she said. There was a subtle sympathy in her voice, – an exquisite recognition of the lonely years which now seemed to lie far, far behind them both.

She glanced down at her fresh plate which Mrs. Connor had just placed before her.

"Clive!" she exclaimed, enchanted, "do you see! Peach turnovers!"

"Certainly. Do you suppose this housewarming could be a proper one without peach turnovers?" And to Mrs. Connor he said: "That is all, thank you. Miss Greensleeve and I will eat our turnovers by the stove in the sun-parlour."

And there they ate their peach turnovers, seated on the old-time rush-bottomed chairs beside the stove – just as they had sat so many years ago when Athalie was a child of twelve and wore a ragged cloak and hood of red.

Sometimes, leisurely consuming her pastry, she glanced demurely at her lover, sometimes her blue eyes wandered to the sunny picture outside where roses grew and honeysuckle trailed and the blessed green grass enchanted the tired eyes of those who dwelt in the monstrous and arid city.

Presently she went away to the room he had prepared for her; and he lay back lazily in his chair and lighted a cigarette, and watched the thin spirals of smoke mounting through the sunshine. When she returned to him she was clad in white from crown to toe, and he told her she was enchanting, which made her eyes sparkle and the dimples come.

"Mrs. Connor is going to remain and help me," she said. "All my things are unpacked, and the bed is made very nicely, and it is all going to be too heavenly for words. Oh, I wish you could stay!"

"To-night?"

"Yes. But I suppose it would ruin us if anybody knew."

He said nothing as they walked back into the main hallway.

"What a charming old building it is!" she exclaimed. "Isn't it odd that I never before appreciated the house from an esthetic angle? I don't suppose you'd call this architecture, but whatever else it may be it certainly is dignified. I adore the simplicity of the rooms; don't you? I shall have some pretty silk curtains made; and, in the bedrooms, chintz. And maybe you will help me hunt for furniture and rugs. Will you, dear?"

"We'll find some old mahogany for this floor and white enamel for the bedrooms if you like. What do you say?"

"Enchanting! I adore antique mahogany! You know how crazy I am about the furniture of bygone days. I shall squander every penny on things Chippendale and Sheraton and Hepplewhite. Oh, it is going to be a darling house and I'm the happiest girl in the world. And you have made me so! – dearest of men!"

She caught his hand to her lips as he bent to kiss hers, and their faces came together in a swift and clinging embrace. Which left her flushed and wordless for the moment, and disposed to hang her head as she walked slowly beside him to the front door.

Out in the sunshine, however, her self-possession returned in a pretty exclamation of delight; and she called his attention to a tiny rainbow formed in the spray of the garden hose where Connor was watering the grass.

"Symbol of hope for us," he said under his breath.

She nodded, and stood inhaling the fragrance of the garden.

"I know a path – if it still exists – where I used to go as a child. Would you care to follow it with me?"

So they walked down to the causeway bridge spanning the outlet to Spring Pond, turned to the right amid a tangle of milk-weed in heavy bloom, and grapevines hanging in festoons from rock and sapling.

The path had not changed; it wound along the wooded shore of the pond, then sloped upward and came out into a grassy upland, where it followed the woods' edge under the cool shadow of the trees.

And as they walked she told him of her childish journeys along this path until it reached the wooded and pebbly height of land beyond, which is one of the vertebræ in the backbone of Long Island.

To reach that ridge was her ultimate ambition in those youthful days; and when on one afternoon of reckless daring she had attained it, and far to the northward she saw the waters of the great Sound sparkling in the sun, she had felt like Balboa in sight of the Pacific, awed to the point of prayer by her own miraculous achievement.

Where the path re-entered the woods, far down the slope, they could hear the waters of Spring Brook flowing; and presently they could see the clear glint of the stream; and she told him tales of alder-poles and home-made hooks, and of dusky troutlings that haunted the woodland pools far in the dusk of leafy and mysterious depths.

On the brink of the slope, but firmly imbedded, there had been a big mossy log. She discovered it presently, and drew him down to a seat beside her, taking possession of one of his arms and drawing it closely under her own. Then she crossed one knee over the other and looked out into the magic half-light of a woodland which, to her childish eyes, had once seemed a vast and depthless forest. A bar of sunlight fell across her slim shoe and ankle clothed in white, and across the log, making the moss greener than emeralds.

From far below came pleasantly the noise of the brook; overhead leaves stirred and whispered in the breezes; shadows moved; sun-spots waxed and waned on tree-trunk and leaf and on the brown ground under foot. A scarlet-banded butterfly – he they call the Red Admiral – flitted persistently about an oak tree where the stain of sap darkened the bark.

From somewhere came the mellow tinkle of cow-bells, which moved Athalie to speech; and she poured out her heart to Clive on the subject of domestic kine and of chickens and ducks.

"I'm a country girl; there can be no doubt about it," she admitted. "I do not think a day passes in the city but I miss the cock-crow and the plaint of barn-yard fowl, and the lowing of cattle and the whimper and coo of pigeons. And my country eyes grow weary for a glimpse of green, Clive, – and for wide horizons and the vast flotillas of white clouds that sail over pastures and salt meadows and bays and oceans. Never have I been as contented as I am at this moment – here – under the sky alone with you."

"That also is all I ask in life – the open world, and you."

"Maybe it will happen."

"Maybe."

"With everything – desirable – "

She dropped her eyes and remained very still. For the first time in her life she had thought of children as her own – and his. And the thought which had flashed unbidden through her mind left her silent, and a little bewildered by its sweetness.

He was saying: "You should, by this time, have the means which enable you to live in the country."

"Yes."

Cecil Reeve had advised her in her investments. The girl's financial circumstances were modest, but adequate and sound.

"I never told you how much I have," she said. "May I?"

"If you care to."

She told him, explaining every detail very carefully; and he listened, fascinated by this charming girl's account of how in four years, she had won from the world the traditional living to which all are supposed to be entitled.

"You see," she said, "that gives me a modest income. I could live here very nicely. It has always been my dream… But of course everything now depends on where you are."

Surprised and touched he turned toward her: she flushed and smiled, suddenly realising the naïveté of her avowal.

"It's true," she said. "Every day I seem to become more and more entangled with you. I'm wondering whether I've already crossed the bounds of friendship, and how far I am outside. I can't seem to realise any longer that there is no bond between us stronger than preference… I was thinking – very unusual and very curious thoughts – about us both." She drew a deep, unsteady, but smiling, breath: "Clive, I wish you could marry me."

"You wish it, Athalie?" he asked, profoundly moved.

"Yes."

After a silence she leaned over and rested her cheek against his shoulder.

"Ah, yes," she said under her breath, – "that is what I begin to wish for. A home, and you… And – children."

He put his arm around her.

"Isn't it strange, Clive, that I should think about children – at my age – and with little chance of ever having any. I don't know what possesses me to suddenly want them… Wouldn't they be wonderful in that house? And they'd have that darling garden to play in… There ought to be a boy – several in fact, and some girls… I'd know what to do for them. Isn't it odd that I should know exactly how to bring them up. But I do. I know I do… I can almost see them playing in the garden – I can see their dear little faces – hear their voices – "

His arm was clasping her slim body very tightly, but she suddenly sat upright, resting one slender hand on his shoulder; and her gaze became steady and fixed.

Presently he noticed it and turned his head in the same direction, but saw nothing except the sunlight sifting through the trees and the golden half-light of the woods beyond.

"What is it, Athalie?" he asked.

She said in a curiously still voice: "Children."

"Where?"

"Playing in the woods."

"Where?" he repeated; "I do not see them."

She did not answer. Presently she closed her eyes and rested her face against his shoulder again, pressing close to him as though lonely.

"They went away," she said in answer to his question… "I feel a little tired, Clive… Do you care for me a great deal?"

"Can you ask?"

"Yes… Because of the years ahead of us. I think there are to be many – for us both. The future is so bewildering – like a tangled and endless forest, and very dim to see in… But sometimes there comes a rift in the foliage – and there is a glimpse of far skies shining. And for a moment one – 'sees clearly' – into the depths – a little way… And surmises something of what remains unseen. And imagines more, perhaps… I wonder if you love me – enough."

"Dearest – dearest – "

"Let it remain unsaid, Clive. A girl must learn one day. But never from the asking. And the same sun shall continue to rise and set, whatever her answer is to be; and the moon, too; and the stars shall remain unchanged – whatever changes us. How still the woods are – as still as dreams."

She lifted her head, looked at him, smiled, then, freeing herself, sprang to her feet and stood a moment drawing her slim hand across her eyes.

"I shall have a tennis court, Clive. And a canoe on Spring Pond… What kind of puppy was that I said I wanted?"

"One which would grow up with proper fear and respect for Hafiz," he said, smilingly, perplexed by the rapid sequence of her moods.

"A collie?"

"If you like."

"I wonder," she murmured, "whether they are safe for children – " She looked up laughing: "Isn't it odd! I simply cannot seem to free my mind of children whenever I think about that house."

As they moved along the path toward the new home he said: "What was it you saw in the woods?"

"Children."

"Were they – real?"

"No."

"Had they died?"

"They have not yet been born," she said in a low voice.

"I did not know you could see such things."

"I am not sure that I can. It is very difficult for me, sometimes, to distinguish between vividly imaginative visualisation and – other things."

Walking back through the soft afternoon light the girl tried to tell him all that she knew about herself and her clairvoyance – strove to explain, to make him understand, and, perhaps, to understand herself.

But after a while silence intervened between them; and when they spoke again they spoke of other things. For the isolation of souls is a solitude inviolable; there can be no intimacy there, only the longing for it – the craving, endless, unsatisfied.

CHAPTER XXIII

OVER the garden a waning moon silvered the water in the pool and picked out from banked masses of bloom a tall lily here and there.

All the blossom-spangled vines were misty with the hovering wings of night-moths. Through alternate bands of moonlight and dusk the jet from the pool split into a thin shower of palely flashing jewels, sometimes raining back on the water, sometimes drifting with the wind across the grass. And through the dim enchantment moved Athalie, leaning on Clive's arm, like some slim sorceress in a secret maze, silent, absent-eyed, brooding magic.

Already into her garden had come the little fantastic creatures of the night as though drawn thither by a spell to do her bidding. Like a fat sprite a speckled toad hopped and hobbled and scrambled from their path; a tiny snake, green as the grass blades that it stirred, slipped from a pool of moonlight into a lake of shadow. Somewhere a small owl, tremulously melodious, called and called: and from the salt meadows, distantly, the elfin whistle of plover answered.

Like some lost wanderer from the moon itself a great moth with nile-green wings fell flopping on the grass at the girl's feet. And Clive, wondering, lifted it gingerly for her inspection.

Together they examined the twin moons shining on its translucent wings, the furry, snow-white body and the six downy feet of palest rose. Then, at Athalie's request, Clive tossed the angelic creature into the air; and there came a sudden blur of black wings in the moonlight, and a bat took it.

But neither he nor she had seen in allegory the darting thing with devil's wings that dashed the little spirit of the moon into eternal night. And out of the black void above, one by one, flakes from the frail wings came floating.

To and fro they moved. She with both hands clasped and resting on his arm, peering through darkness down at the flowers, as one perfume, mounting, overpowered another – clove-pink, rocket, lily, and petunia, each in its turn dominant, triumphant.

Puffs of fragrance from the distant sea stirred the garden's tranquil air from time to time: somewhere honeyed bunches hung high from locust trees; and the salt meadow's aromatic tang lent savour to the night.

"I must go back to town," he said irresolutely.

He heard her sigh, felt her soft clasp tighten slightly over his arm. But she turned back in silence with him toward the house, passed in the open door before him, her fair head lowered, and stood so, leaning against the newel-post.

"Good night," he said in a low voice, still irresolute.

"Must you go?"

"I ought to."

"There is that other bedroom. And Mrs. Connor has gone home for the night."

"I told her to remain," he said sharply.

"I told her to go."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted you to stay – this first night here – with me – in the home of my youth which you have given to me again."

He came to her and looked into her eyes, framing her face between his hands:

"Dear, it would be unwise for me to remain."

"Because you love me?"

"No." He added with a forced smile: "I have put on armour in our behalf. No, that is not the reason."

"Then – may you not stay?"

"Suppose it became known? What would you do, Athalie?"

"Hold my head high … guilty or not."

"You don't know what you are saying."

"Not exactly, perhaps… But I know that I have been changing. This day alone with you is finishing the transformation. I'm not sure just when it began. I realise, now, that it has been in process for a long, long while." She drew away from him, leaned back on the banisters.

"I may not have much time; – I want to be candid – I want to think honestly. I don't desire to deny even to myself that I am now become what I am – a stranger to myself."

He said, still with his forced smile; "What pretty and unknown stranger have you so suddenly discovered in yourself, Athalie?"

She looked up at him, unsmiling: "A stranger to celibacy… Why do you not take me, Clive?"

"Do you understand what you are saying!"

"Yes. And now I can understand anything you may say or do … I couldn't, yesterday." She turned her face away from him and folded her hands over the newel-post. And, not looking at him, she said: "Since we have been here alone together I have known a confidence and security I never dreamed of. Nothing now matters, nothing causes apprehension, nothing of fear remains – not even that ignorance of fear which the world calls innocence.

"I am what I am; I am not afraid to be and live what I have become… I am capable of love. Yesterday I was not. I have been fashioned to love, I think… But there is only one man who can make me certain… My trust and confidence are wholly his – as fearlessly as though he had become this day my husband…

"And if he will stay, here under this roof which is not mine unless it is his also – here in this house where, within the law or without it, nevertheless everything is his – then he enters into possession of what is his own. And I at last receive my birthright, – which is to serve where I am served, love where love is mine – with gratitude, and unafraid – "

Her voice trembled, broke; she covered her face with her hands; and when he took her in his arms she leaned her forehead against his breast:

– "Oh, Clive – I can't deny them! – How can I deny them? – The little flower-like faces, pleading to me for life! – And their tender arms – around my neck – there in the garden, Clive! – The winsome lips on mine, warm and heavenly sweet; and the voices calling, calling from the golden woodland, calling from meadow and upland, height and hollow! – And sometimes like far echoes of wind-blown laughter they call me – gay little voices, confident and sweet; and sometimes, winning and shy, they whisper close to my cheek – mother! – mother – "