Master of the Vineyard Part 40

This, then, was G.o.d's way of revelation to him, but--to her?

The truth broke upon her with the vividness of a lightning flash. It was the way of revelation to her also, but how? She sat up in bed, propping herself back against the pillows, her mind groping eagerly for the clue.

During the past six years she had endeavoured constantly for a certain adjustment. Now it had come, but she herself was out of harmony. Were her feet to be forever set upon the ways of pain? Was there nothing at all in the world for her?

Alden, too, was awake and thinking. She felt it, through the darkness, as definitely as though he had been in the same room, with his face full in the light. He also was conscious of the utter hopelessness of it and was striving to see his way clearly.

Until then, she had not known how far his argument had swayed her, nor how much she had depended upon the thought that her husband would gladly accept the release she offered him. Her principles had not changed, but his possible point of view had not been considered before.

[Sidenote: Irrevocably Bound]

"'Until death do us part,'" said Edith, to herself. "Not 'until death or divorce do us part'; nor yet 'until I see someone else I like better'; not even 'until you see someone else you like better,' And, again, 'forsaking all others keep thee only unto me so long as we both shall live.'"

Suppose he had violated his oath, consented to accept freedom at her hands, and gone his way? Would not the solemn words she had spoken at the altar still be binding upon her? She saw, now, that they would be, and that whatever compromise he might have been able to make with his own conscience, to be legally justified later, she was irrevocably bound, until death should divide them one from the other.

She smiled sadly, for it was, indeed, a confused and muddled world.

Things moved crazily, depending wholly upon blind chance. One works steadily, even for years, bending all his energies to one single point, and what is the result? Nothing! Another turns the k.n.o.b of a door, walks into a strange room, or, perhaps, writes a letter, and from that moment his whole life is changed, for destiny lurks in hinges and abides upon the written page.

For days, for months even, no single action may be significant, and again, upon another day, a thoughtless word, or even a look, may be as a pebble cast into deep waters, to reach, by means of ever-widening circles, some distant, unseen sh.o.r.e.

[Sidenote: The One Affected]

All this had come from a single sentence. Louise Archer, upon her death-bed, had harked back to her school days, and, thinking fondly of Virginia Marsh, had bade her daughter go to her if she felt the need of a mother's counsel when her own mother was past the power of giving it.

Years afterward, during a day of despondency, Edith had remembered. The pebble had fallen deep and far and had become still again, but its final circle had that day touched the ultimate boundary made by three lives.

It had, of course, made no difference to Madame, but two men and a woman had been profoundly shaken by it, though not moved from their original position. They would all stay where they were, of course--Alden with his mother, and Edith with her husband. Then, with a shock, Edith remembered Rosemary--she was the one who had been swept aside as though by a tidal wave.

Poor Rosemary! Edith's heart throbbed with understanding pity for the girl who had lost all. She had not asked how it had happened, merely accepting Alden's exultant announcement. Now she hoped that it might have been done delicately, so that Alden need not feel himself a brute, nor Rosemary's pride be hurt.

[Sidenote: A Sleepless Night]

Then, through the night, came a definite perception, as though Alden himself had given her a.s.surance. Rosemary had done it herself, had she?

Very well--that was as it should be. For a moment she dwelt upon the fact with satisfaction, then, a little frightened, began to speculate upon this mysterious tie between herself and Alden.

The thing was absurd, impossible. She curled her short upper lip scornfully in the darkness. "You know it is," she said, imperiously, in her thought, as though in answer to a mocking question from somewhere: "Is it?"

She turned restlessly. All at once her position became tiresome, unbearable. She wanted to go to sleep, indeed she must sleep, for she had a long hard day before her to-morrow, putting her things into her trunks. Perhaps, if she rose and walked around her room a little----

One small, pink foot was on the floor, and the other almost beside it, when a caution came to her from some external source: "Don't. You'll take cold." She got back into bed, shivering a little. Yes, the polished floor was cold.

Then she became furious with Alden and with herself. Why couldn't the man go to sleep? It must be past midnight, now, and she would walk, if she wanted to. Defiantly and in a triumph of self-a.s.sertion, she went to the open window and peered out into the stillness, illumined by neither moon nor stars. The night had the suffocating quality of hangings of black velvet.

[Sidenote: Sitting in the Dark]

She lighted a candle, found her kimono and slippers, wrapped herself in a heavy blanket, and drew up a low rocker to the open window. Then she put out the light and settled herself to wait until she was sleepy.

The darkness that clung around her so closely seemed alive, almost thrilling, as it did, with fibres of communication perceptible only to a sixth sense. She marvelled at the strangeness of it, but was no longer afraid. Her fear had vanished at the bidding of someone else.

Why was it? she asked herself, for the hundredth time, and almost immediately the answer came: "Why not?"

Why not, indeed? If a wireless telegraph instrument, sending its call into s.p.a.ce, may be answered with lightning-like swiftness by another a thousand miles away, why should not a thought, without the clumsy medium of speech, instantly respond to another thought from a mind in harmony with it?

A subtle a.n.a.logy appeared between the earth and the body, the tower from which the wireless signalled and the thought which called to another. When the physical forces were at their lowest ebb, and the powers of the spirit had risen to keep the balance true, why was not communication possible always between soul and soul? And, if one lived always above the fog of sense, as far as the earth-bound may, what would be the need of speech or touch between those who belonged to one another?

[Sidenote: Two Views]

She and Alden "belonged," there was no doubt of that. She had, for him, the woman's recognition of her mate, which is never to be mistaken or denied when once it has a.s.serted itself. "Why," she thought, "will people marry without it?" The other mind responded instantly: "Because they don't know."

Marriage presented itself before her in two phases, the one sordid and unworthy, as it so often is, the other as it might be--the earthly seal upon a heavenly bond. But, if the heavenly relationship existed, was the other essential? Her heart answered "No."

Slowly she began to see her way through the maze of things. "Dust to dust, earth to earth, ashes to ashes." Then she laughed outright, for that was part of the burial service, and she had been thinking of something else. And yet--earth to earth meant only things that belonged together; why not soul to soul?

Warm tides of a.s.surance and love flowed through her heart, cleansing, strengthening, sweeping barriers aside in a mighty rush of joy. What barriers could earth interpose, when two belonged to each other in such heavenly ways as this? Step by step her soul mounted upward to the heights, keeping pace with another, in the room beyond.

[Sidenote: Edith's Revelation]

Out of sound and sight and touch, with darkened s.p.a.ces and closed doors between, they two faced the world together as surely as though they were hand in hand. Even Death could make no difference--need Life deny them more?

Then, with a blinding flash of insight, the revelation came to her--there was no denial, since they loved. Sense, indeed, was wholly put aside, but love has nothing to do with sense, being wholly of the soul. Shaken with wonder, she trembled as she sat in her chair, staring out into the starless night.

No denial! All that Love might give was theirs, not only for the moment but for all the years to come. Love--neither hunger nor thirst nor pa.s.sion nor the need of sleep; neither a perception of the senses nor a physical demand, yet streaming divinely through any or all of these as only light may stream--the heavenly signal of a star to earth, through infinite darkness, illimitable s.p.a.ce.

By tortuous paths and devious pa.s.sages, she had come out upon the heights, into the clear upper air of freedom and of love. Exquisitely, through the love of the one had come the love of the many; the complete mastery of self had been gained by the surrender of self; triumph had rewarded sacrifice.

[Sidenote: Her Understanding of Love]

Nothing was difficult now--nothing would ever be hard again. To go where she was wanted, to give what she could that was needed, steadily to set self aside, asking for nothing but the opportunity to help, and through this high human service renewing the spent forces of her soul at the divine fountains that do not fail--this, indeed, was Love!

Oh, to make the others understand as she understood now--and as Alden understood! In her thought they two were as one. Groping through the same darkness, he had emerged, with her, into the same light; she felt it through the living, throbbing night more certainly than if they stood face to face in the blinding glare of the sun.

The heart-breaking tragedy of Woman revealed itself wholly to her for the first time. Less materialistic and more finely-grained than Man, she aspires toward things that are often out of his reach. Failing in her aspiration, confused by the effort to distinguish the false from the true, she blindly clutches at the counterfeit and so loses the genuine forever.

Longing, from the day of her birth for Love, she spends herself prodigally in the endless effort to find it, little guessing, sometimes, that it is not the most obvious thing Man has to offer. With colour and scent and silken sheen, she makes a lure of her body; with cunning artifice she makes temptation of her hands and face and weaves it with her hair. She flatters, pleads, cajoles; denies only that she may yield, sets free in order to summon back, and calls, so that when he has answered she may preserve a mystifying silence.

[Sidenote: Her Estimate of Women]

She affects a thousand arts that in her heart she despises, pretends to housewifery that she hates, forces herself to play tunes though she has no gift for music, and chatters glibly of independence when she has none at all.

In making herself "all things to all men," she loses her own individuality, and becomes no more than a harp which any pa.s.sing hand may strike to quick response. To one man she is a sage, to another an incarnate temptation, to another a sensible, business-like person, to another a frothy bit of frivolity. To one man she is the guardian of his ideals, as Elaine in her high tower kept Launcelot's shield bright for him, to another she is what he very vaguely terms "a good fellow," with a discriminating taste in cigarettes and champagne.

Let Man ask what he will and Woman will give it, praying only that somewhere she will come upon Love. She adapts herself to him as water adapts itself to the shape of the vessel in which it is placed. She dare not a.s.sert herself or be herself, lest, in some way, she should lose her tentative grasp upon the counterfeit which largely takes the place of love. If he prefers it, she will expatiate upon her fondness for vaudeville and musical comedy until she herself begins to believe that she likes it. With tears in her eyes and her throat raw, she will choke upon the a.s.sertion that she likes the smell of smoke; she will a.s.sume pa.s.sion when his slightest touch makes her shudder and turn cold.

[Sidenote: Her Estimate of Women]

And, most pitiful of all, when blinded by her own senses, she will surrender the last citadel of her womanhood to him who comes a-wooing, undismayed by the weeping women around her whose sacred altars have been profaned and left bare. They may have told her that if it is love, the man will protect her even against himself, but why should she take account of the experience of others? Has not he himself just told her that she is different from all other women? Hugging this sophistry to her breast, and still searching for love, she believes him until the day of realisation dawns upon her--old and broken and bitter-hearted, with scarcely a friend left in the world, and not even the compensating coin thriftily demanded by her sister of the streets.

Under her countless masques and behind her mult.i.tudinous phases, lurks the old hunger, the old appeal. Man, too, though more rarely, guessing that the imperishable beauty of the soul is above the fog of sense and not in it, searches hopefully at first, then despairingly, and finally offers the counterfeit to the living Lie who is waiting for it with eager, outstretched hands.