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Old Rose And Silver

<h1 id="id01861" style="margin-top: 6em">XVIII</h1> <h5 id="id01862">"LESS THAN THE DUST"</h5> The heat of August shimmered over the land, and still, to every inquiry at the door or telephone, the quiet young woman in blue and white said: "No change." Allison was listless and apathetic, yet comparatively free from pain. Life, for him, had ebbed back to the point where the tide must either cease or turn. He knew neither hunger nor thirst nor weariness; only the great pause of soul and body, the sense of the ultimate goal. One by one, he meditated upon the things he used to care for. Isabel came first, but her youth and beauty had ceased to trouble or to beckon. His father had gone on ahead. The delusion still persisted, but he spoke of it no more. Even the violin did not matter now. He remembered the endless hours he had spent at work, almost every day of his life for years, and to what end? In an instant, it had been rendered empty, purposeless, and vain—like life itself. Occasionally a new man came to look at his hand; not from the city now, but from towns farther inland. The examinations were painful, of course, but he made no objections. After the man had gone, he could count the slow, distinct pulsations that marked the ebbing of the pain, but never troubled himself to ask either the doctor or the nurse what the new man had said about it. He no longer cared. Aunt Francesca had not come—nor Rose. Perhaps they were dead, also. He asked the nurse one sultry afternoon if they were dead. "No," she assured him; "nobody is dead." He wondered, fretfully, why she should take the trouble to lie to him so persistently upon this one point. Then a cunning scheme came into his mind. It presented itself mechanically to him as a trap for the nurse. If they were dead, she could not produce them instantly alive, as a conjurer takes animals from an apparently empty box. If he demanded that she should bring them to him, or even one, it would prove his point and let her see that he knew how she was trying to deceive him. "Have they gone away?" he inquired. "No, they're still there." "Then," said Allison, with the air of one scoring a fine point, "will you ask-well—ask Miss Bernard to come over and see me?" Remembering the other woman who had come in response to his request, and the disastrous effect the visit had had upon her patient she hesitated. "I'm afraid you're not strong enough," she said kindly. "Can't you wait a little longer?" "There," he cried. "I knew they were dead!" As she happened to be both wise and kind, the young woman hesitated no longer. "If I brought you a note from her you would believe me, wouldn't you?" "No," he replied, stubbornly. "Isn't there any way you would know, without seeing her?" He considered for a few moments. "I'd know if I heard her play," he said at length. "There's no one who could play just the way she does." "Suppose I ask her to come over sometimes and play the piano downstairs for a few minutes at a time, very softly. Would you like that?" "Yes—that is, I don't mind." He was sure, now, that his trap was in working order, for no one could deceive him at the piano—he would recognise Rose at the first chord. "Excuse me just a minute, please." She returned presently with the news that Rose would come as soon as she could. "Can't you go to sleep now?" she suggested. Allison smiled ironically. How transparent she was! She wanted him to go to sleep and when he awoke, she would tell him that Rose had been there, and had played, and had just gone. "No," he answered, "I don't want to go to sleep. I want to hear Rose play." So he waited, persistently wide awake. Sharpened by illness and pain, his hearing was phenomenally acute; so much so that even a whisper in the next room was distinctly audible. He heard the distant rumble of wheels, approaching steadily, and wondered why the house did not tremble when the carriage stopped. He heard the lower door open softly, then close, a quick, light step in the living room, the old-fashioned piano stool whirling on its rusty axis, then a few slow, deep chords prefacing a familiar bit of Chopin. He turned to the nurse, who sat in her low rocking-chair at the window. "I beg your pardon. I thought you were not telling me the truth." The young woman only smiled in answer. "Listen!" From downstairs the music came softly. Rose was playing with the exquisite taste and feeling that characterised everything she did. She purposely avoided the extremes of despair and joy, keeping to the safe middle-ground. Living waters murmured through the melody, the sea surged and crooned, flying clouds went through blue, sunny spaces, and birds sang, ever with an unfailing uplift, as of many wings. Allison's calmness insensibly changed, not in degree, but in quality, as the piano magically brought before him green distances lying fair beneath the warm sun, clover-scented meadows and blossoming boughs. "Life," he said to himself; "life more abundant." She drifted from one thing to another, playing snatches of old songs, woven together by modulations of her own making. At last she paused to think of something else, but her fingers remembered, and began, almost of their own accord: [Illustration: musical notation.] Allison stirred restlessly, as he recalled how he had heard it before. He saw the drifted petals of fallen roses, the moon-shadow on the dial, hours wrong, the spangled cobwebs in the grass and the other spangles, changed to faint iridescence in the enchanted light as Isabel came toward him and into his open arms. Could marble respond to a lover's passion, could dead lips answer with love for love, then Isabel might have yielded to him at least a tolerant tenderness. He saw her now, alien and apart, like some pale star that shone upon a barren waste, but never for him. Another phrase, full of love and longing, floated up the stairway and entered his room, a guest unbidden. [Illustration: musical notation.] He turned to the nurse. "Ask Miss Bernard to come up for a few minutes, will you?" "Do you think it's wise?" she temporised. "Please ask her to come up," he said, imperatively. "Must I call her myself?" So Rose came up, after receiving the customary caution not to stay too long and avoid everything that might be unpleasant or exciting. She stood for a moment in the doorway, hesitating. Her face was almost as white as her linen gown, but her eyes were shining with strange fires. "White Rose," he said, wearily, "I have been through hell." "I know," she answered, softly, drawing up a chair beside him. "Aunt Francesca and I have wished that we might divide it with you and help you bear it." He stretched a trembling hand toward her and she took it in both her own. They were soft and cool, and soothing. "Thank you for wanting to share it," he said. "Thank you for coming, for playing—for everything." "Either of us would have come whenever you wanted us, night or day." "Suppose it was night, and I'd wanted you to come and play to me. Would you have come?" "Why, yes. Of course I would!" "I didn't know," he stammered, "that there was so much kindness in the world. I have been very lonely since—" Her eyes filled and she held his hand more closely. "You won't be lonely any more. I'll come whenever you want me, night or day, to play, to read—or anything. Only speak, and I'll come." "How good you are!" he murmured, gratefully. "No, please don't let go of my hand." In some inexplicable fashion strength seemed to flow to him from her. "I think you'll be glad to know," she said, "how sympathetic everybody has been. Strangers stop us on the street to ask for you, and people telephone every day. Down in the library, there's a pile of letters that would take days to read, and many of them have foreign stamps. It makes one feel warm around the heart, for it brings the ideal of human brotherhood so near." He sighed and his face looked haggard. The brotherhood of man was among the things that did not concern him now. The weariness of the ages was in every line of his body. "I have been thinking," he went on, after a little, "what a difference one little hour can make, a minute, even. Once I had everything—youth, health, strength, a happy home, love, a dear father, and every promise of success in my chosen career. Now I'm old and broken; health, strength, and love have been taken away in an instant, my father is gone, and my career is only an empty memory. I have no violin, and, if I had, what use would it be to me without—why Rose, I haven't even fingers to make the notes nor hands to hold it." Rose could bear no more. She sprang to her feet with arms outstretched, all her love and longing swelling into infinite appeal. "Oh Boy!" she cried, "take mine! Take my hands, for always!" For a tense instant they faced each other. Her breast rose and fell with every quick breath; her eyes met his, then faltered, and the crimson of shame mantled her white face. "Oh," she breathed, painfully, and turned away from him. When she was half way to the door, he called to her. "Rose! Dear Rose!" She hesitated, her hand upon the knob. "Close the door and come back," he pleaded. "Please—oh, please!" Trembling from head to foot, she obeyed him, but her face was pitiful. She could not force herself to look at him. "Forgive," she murmured, "and forget." The hand he took in his was cold, but her nearness gave him comfort, as never before. His heart was unspeakably tender toward her. "Rose," he went on, softly, "I've been too near the other world not to have the truth now. Tell me what you mean! Make me understand!" She did not answer, nor even lift her eyes. She breathed hard, as though she were in pain. "Rose," he said again, tightening his clasp upon the hand she tried to draw away, "did you mean that you would be my—" "In name," she interrupted, throwing up her head proudly. "Just to help you—that was all." He drew her hand to his hot lips and kissed it twice. "Oh, how divinely kind you are," he whispered, "even to think of stooping to such as I!" "Have pity," she said brokenly, "and let me go." "Pity?" he repeated. "In all the world there is none like yours. To think of your being willing to sacrifice yourself, through pity of me!" The blood came back into her heart by leaps and bounds. She had not utterly betrayed herself, then, since he translated it thus. "Listen," he was saying. "I cared—terribly, but it's gone, and my heart is empty. It's like an open grave, waiting for something that does not come. Did you ever care?" "Yes," she answered, with eyes downcast. "Did you care for someone who did not care for you?" "Yes," she replied, again. "And he never knew?" "No." The word was almost a whisper. "He must have been a brute, not to have cared. Was it long ago?" "Not very." "Have I ever met him?" The suggestion of an ironical smile hovered for a moment around her pale lips, then vanished. "No." "I have no right to—to ask his name." "No. What difference does a name make?" "None. Could you never bring yourself to care for anyone else?" "No," she breathed. "Oh, no!" "And yet, with your heart as empty as mine you still have pity enough to—" "To serve you," she answered. Her eyes met his clearly now. "To help you—as your best friend might." "Rose, dear Rose! You give me new courage, but how can I let you sacrifice yourself for me?" "Believe me," she said diffidently, "there is no question of sacrifice. Have you never thought of what you might do, that would be even better than the career you had planned?" "Why, no. What could I do, without—" "Write," she said, with her eyes shining. "Let others play what you write. Immortality comes by way of the printed page." "I couldn't," he returned, doubtfully. "I never composed anything except two or three little things that I never dared to play, even for encores." "Never say you can't. Say 'I must,' and 'I will.'" "You're saying them for me. You almost make me believe in myself." "That's the very best of beginnings, isn't it?" She was quite calm now, outwardly, and she drew her hand away. Allison remembered the long, happy hours they had spent together before Isabel came into his life. Now that she was gone, the old comradeship had returned, the sweeter because of long absence. Rose had never fretted nor annoyed him; she seemed always to understand. "You don't know how glad I'd be," he sighed, "to feel that I wasn't quite out of it—that there was something in life for me still. I didn't want to be a bit of driftwood on the current of things." "You're not going to be—I won't let you. Haven't you learned that sometimes we have to wait; that we can't always be going on? Just moor your soul at the landing place, and when the hour comes, you'll swing out into the current again. Much of the driftwood is only craft that broke away from the landing." He smiled, for her fancy pleased him. An abiding sense of companionship crept into his loneliness; his isolation seemed to be shared. "And you'll stay at the landing with me," he whispered, "until the time comes to set sail again?" "Yes." "And—after the worst that can come—is over, we'll make it right with the world and go abroad together?" "Yes." Her voice was very low now. "And we'll be the best of friends, for always?" "Yes—the best of friends in all the world." "And you'll promise me that, if you're ever sorry, you'll come straight and tell me—that you'll ask me to set you free?" "I promise." "Then everything is all right between you and me?" "Yes, but I'm ashamed—bitterly ashamed." "You mustn't be, for I'm very glad. We'll try to forget the wreckage together. I couldn't have asked, unless I had known about—the other man, and you wouldn't have told me, I know. It wouldn't have been like you to tell me." There was a knock, the door opened, and the nurse came in, watch in hand. "I'm sorry, Miss Bernard, but you can come to-morrow if he's well enough." "I'll be well enough," said Allison, smiling. "Of course," Rose assured him, shaking hands in friendly fashion. "Don't forget that it's a secret." "I won't. Good-bye, Rose." When she had gone, the nurse studied him furtively, from across the room. He had changed in some subtle way—he seemed stronger than before. Unless it was excitement, to be followed by a reaction, Miss Bernard had done him good. The night would prove it definitely, one way or the other. Allison slept soundly until daybreak, for the first time—not stupor, but natural sleep. The nurse began to wonder if it was possible that a hand so badly crushed and broken could be healed. Hitherto her service had been mechanically kind; she had taken no interest because she saw no hope. How wonderful it would be if that long procession of learned counsellors should be mistaken after all! Rose walked home, disdaining the waiting carriage. She had forgotten her hat and the sunset lent radiance to a face that needed no more. By rare tact and kindness, Allison had removed the sting from her shame and the burden she had borne so long was lifted from her heavy heart. She was happier now than she had ever been before in her life, but she must hide her joy from the others as she had previously hidden her pain —or tried to. She knew that Isabel would not see, but Aunt Francesca's eyes were keen and she could not tell even her just now. How strange it would be to wake in the night, without that dull, dead pain! How strange it was to feel herself needed, and oh, the joy of serving him! She thrilled with the ecstasy of sacrifice; with that maternal compassion which is a vital element in woman's love for man. Sublimated beyond passion and self-seeking, and asking only the right to give, she poured out the treasure of her soul at his feet, though her pride demanded that he must never know. When she went into the house, light seemed to enter the shaded room with her. No one was there, but the open piano waited, ready to receive a confidence. With a laugh that was half a sob of joy, she sat down, her fingers readily finding the one thing that suited her mood. The wild, half-savage music rang through the house in full, deep chords, but only Rose knew the words, which, in her mind, fitted themselves to the melody as though she dared to sing them: "Less than the dust, beneath thy Chariot wheel, Less than the rust, that never stained thy Sword, Less than the trust thou hast in me, O Lord, Even less then these. "Less than the weed that grows beside thy door, Less than the speed of hours spent far from thee, Less than the need thou hast in life of me; Even less am I." Upstairs, Isabel yawned lazily, and wondered why Rose should play so loud, but Aunt Francesca smiled to herself, for she knew that Allison was better and that Rose was glad. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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