A Speckled Bird Part 49

"He is not here. He went to Philadelphia yesterday."

"Then tell the Father Superior--he knows me--that the lady who gave the new altar wishes to speak to him about it."

"Father Superior is holding a mission in New York."

"Where is the sacristan?"

"'Free time' has just begun, and he has gone to look after his beehives.

I can call Father Phillips."

"No. I do not care to meet any of the Brotherhood who do not know me. I was here once with my father, and Father Temple has visited my house in the South. I came merely to look at the new altar, and bring some fresh covers to the sacristan. Do not disturb any one; this is 'free time,'

and I must not keep you. Please say nothing about me now. I shall go into the chapel--I know the way--and then return to my carriage."

He opened the nearest door of the chapel, bowed, and disappeared.

Before the carved panel in the centre of the altar she stood some moments, rejoicing that the sculptor had succeeded so well in reproducing the cherub heads running as a frieze between the columns.

From the box she shook out two pulpit-falls, one embroidered with iris, one with pa.s.sion flowers; then a chalice veil of shimmering white silk marked with a Greek cross. Beneath these lay a long altar cover of snowy linen cambric, "the fair linen cloth," studded with crosses along the centre, and bordered with annunciation lilies.

She smoothed and arranged it on the polished surface of the shrine, while a vision of an added seraph, standing _in memoriam_ at each end, shone before her. She recalled Tennyson's inscription in Westminster Abbey, where one wife, widowed by Polar perils, had set her tribute of love. To her the sympathy of the world went out, and the nations, sharing her long search, shared her sorrow.

Misunderstood and censured, Eglah bore her burden alone, and now, sinking to her knees, with her forehead pressed against the marble, she prayed that the wanderer in desolate lands might be guarded from every ill and brought safely home. Prayer always deepened her impression that he would return, and as she rose and loitered a moment in admiration of the chiselled stone, her sad lips whispered to her lonely heart:

"He will come,-- Ay, he will come! I can not make him dead."

Suddenly her heart leaped, then seemed to forget to beat. A voice rich, mellow, unmistakable, came from the arched gallery beyond the little oratory opening into the chapel:

"Roy, you are no baby, and my singing days are over."

A feeble, nervous tone answered:

"Herriott, you sang life into me that awful night after you carried me in your arms behind a snow drift, rubbed my frozen hands, and tied our last dog to my legs to keep me warm. 'It shall be light, it shall be light!' How the song soared and echoed in the terrible silence of the ice desert, as if spirits of the snow caught up the refrain! Do you remember that ghastly red thread of a moon on the glacial line above us, like a swooping b.l.o.o.d.y sickle? Even in my blindness that infernal moon haunts me still. Just then, as the echo died, out of the blackness, as if an answer to a prophet's prayer, the swift glory of the aurora swept down and enveloped us. You saved my life, and before you leave me here I should like to hear that song once more. I suppose I am childish yet, but in my blindness you might humor me. Who wrote that song?"

"You are such a hopeless pagan you do not recognize the Bible? It is an arrangement of two verses in the Old Testament: 'And it shall come to pa.s.s in that day, that the light shall not be clear. But it shall come to pa.s.s that at evening time it shall be light.' When I was attending lectures in Germany, one of the professors set the words to the tune of an old Latin hymn, and the students began to chant it. That night when I was obliged to keep you awake, it occurred to me. Roy, I can't humor you now, but I intend to take you and an old man at home down to Arizona to thaw the Arctic poison out of you. When we are stretched on a sunny mesa where the air quivers with heat, if you feel the need of more light, I promise to chant your song. I am not willing to abandon the goal that we were so near. If you had not broken down, we should have found those stone ruins with the inscriptions, and I intend to see them. After a while I shall fit out an expedition to suit myself, and if you can get rid of your horror of that baby moon that in your delirium you swore was a b.l.o.o.d.y scythe coming to cut your throat, I hope to number you among my impedimenta."

The purple curtain, caught back only during service, hung over the arch; but at one side a narrow aperture, close to the gilt organ pipe in the oratory, admitted outside light.

Irresistibly drawn by the voice that set her pulses surging, Eglah had gone to the arch, and grasping the velvet folds looked cautiously through the cleft between organ and curtain, across the small oratory and down the cloister. On a cot lay an emaciated man whose eyes were bandaged. By his side and fronting the oratory stood Mr. Herriott, his hands in his pockets.

He looked taller, rather gaunt, somewhat bleached in complexion, and the absence of mustache showed the fine curves of his peculiarly firm, thin lips. His eyes were lowered to the sick man's countenance, and the thick black lashes veiled their grey-blue depths, but over the handsome face had come a subtle change, etched by corroding memories. It was graver, colder, less magnetic.

As Eglah watched him her breath fluttered; involuntarily she stretched her arms an instant toward him, and her eyes lighted with a tender glow.

"My own Mr. Noel. My own!" was the unspoken claim of her heart, momentarily happy at sight of him. Then Mr. Herriott put his fingers over his friend's pulse.

"Vernon promised to get back to-morrow, and the oculist will look after you until I can go home and see about my neglected household. In order to avoid press publicity and inevitable interviewing, I am keeping my return secret for a few days; and, clean-shaven and goggle-eyed, hope to reach my house unrecognized, where I can smooth out the tangles that years of absence tie. Later, business will force me to New York, and I shall be glad of a glimpse of my old club life, but meanwhile you will not be forgotten. Now, Roy, you must come in. One of the lay brothers will help me lift your cot."

As he advanced toward the steps near the end of the cloister, Eglah covered her face with her heavy veil, and went swiftly through a side door of the chapel, down the gladiolus-bordered walk to the gate, where the carriage waited. As she sank back in one corner, keeping her features veiled, Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l laid a hand on her knee.

"Well? Are you satisfied, and did the altar cloths fit? Did you find what you expected?"

She did not answer immediately, and when she spoke her voice quivered through the effort to strangle a dry sob.

"I found far more than I expected, and the altar is lovely. Everything I could possibly do that would have pleased father I have done. My father, my father, have I spared even myself! Memorial window, monument, the altar here, all are finished, and now nothing remains for my empty hands. My dear little mother, you are so good to me; you promised you would go abroad when I felt it best to start. At last the time has come, and I wish to leave America within the next week if possible."

After a moment a long, shuddering sigh made her voice unsteady.

"I have just seen Mr. Herriott--safe, strong, and well. He will never know I was so near; he could not see me. Accidentally I heard his voice, and looked through a curtain, and----"

Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l had drawn her into her arms, but the black crepe was held over her face.

"The public will be kept in ignorance of his return for a few days, and before his arrival is announced and people begin to question and speculate, I must be on the ocean. I was so close to him--so close--and yet----"

A wave of tenderness drowned words.

"Oh, my baby! Why did you not speak to your husband?"

After a struggle for composure she answered, with a cold, rising ring in her tone:

"He does not consider himself my husband. More than three years ago he willed we should be strangers. He built the wall of separation, of absolute silence between us, and no word, no sign from me shall ever cross it. He is within his rights. I dispute nothing. I claim only the privilege of helping him in his effort to avoid me, and I must have the ocean between us. He will breathe freely when he feels sure that by no possible accident the sight of my face can ever again affront him."

CHAPTER XXVI

"Willow Creek Plantation,

"Wednesday.

"Mr. Herriott.

"Dear Sir: Permit me to say at the outset that these lines are intended solely for your eyes, and I beg you will regard them as strictly confidential. If I were not so sure you are an honorable gentleman, they would never be written. On the 18th my foster-child and I expect to leave my little home at Willow Bend, where we have lived since her father's death. By her desire we go to Europe, and, as we shall remain there indefinitely, I should like to talk with you of some matters that concern you--matters I am unwilling to mention unless we are face to face. The railway station Maurice is near me, but if you do me the favor to grant my request, it would be better for you to avoid Y---- and come directly to Sunflower, ten miles north of Maurice. If you can be at Sunflower on the 17th, I will meet you there when the one o'clock train arrives.

Unless you come that day, it would be too late. You will see no one but me, and no one must ever be told I went to Sunflower, or saw you. My child is absent in Y----, and will not return until night of the 17th, when I meet her at Maurice. Do not write me. Do not telegraph me. I scarcely allow myself to hope that you will come, and if I do not see you I shall regret it for many reasons. If I fail in my conscientious effort to right a great wrong, it will not be my fault.

"Very respectfully,

"ELIZA MITCh.e.l.l."

Allowing two days' margin for accidental delays, Eliza indulged no doubt that this letter would reach its destination in ample time to enable Mr.

Herriott to keep the appointment, should he consent to meet her, and, after putting on a special delivery stamp, she mailed it at Maurice with her own hand.

The probability of a change of residence had been so fully discussed that preliminary arrangements had long been made; but the early date, suddenly fixed, necessitated great activity to insure readiness for departure.

Eglah's calm, listless indifference had given place to feverish impatience in expediting all preparations incident to the journey, and the perplexed and anxious little woman who watched her movements was rejoiced when business of importance called her to Y----, where Mr.

Whitfield was confined by gout to his room. Since the day at Calvary House, Eliza had observed a marked change in Eglah; the wistful, hopeless expression had vanished, and proud defiance settled on her face. While tortured by suspense, she had yielded to the tender yearning of her heart; but the sight of Mr. Herriott, safe, well, and strong, contentedly planning a future in which he a.s.signed no niche to her, stung her womanly pride, intensified her longing to evade forever the possibility of meeting the man who had so completely ignored and repudiated her.

Some delay in the preparation of papers Mr. Whitfield required her to sign kept her in Y---- longer than she had intended. He very carefully wrote her will, in which, following the trend of her grandmother's sympathies, she bequeathed Nutwood and adjoining lands as a Maurice Home "to childless widows of Confederate soldiers in the State." To Vivian and Maurice relatives of her own mother, who refused a.s.sociation with Marcia after her marriage, and whom Eglah had always avoided, she gave one plantation--Canebrake. To Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l Willow Creek Bend was left, in grateful recognition of her loving care; and all personal property, stocks, and bonds were devised to the vestry of her father's church, for the erection and maintenance of a memorial Chapter House.

Business concluded, she telegraphed that on the 17th, at eight P.M., she would reach Maurice, and wished Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l to meet her with the trap.