Old Rose and Silver Part 39

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 s.p.a.ces, 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 s.n.a.t.c.hes 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:

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sion, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 h.e.l.l."

"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 k.n.o.b. "Close the door and come back,"