Rose MacLeod Part 61

"Yes. And the boy finds it comfortable to be with you."

"Oh, yes! It is because it is so exactly alike for us both. That is why we are so contented together."

"He will miss you when you are gone."

"Oh, but not as I shall miss him! He is so sure of things. He knows so well when the cord between us is holding. But I shall doubt. I shall want to hear his voice."

Grannie sighed again. She was a happy old woman in her certainties; but sometimes she felt tired, with the gentle la.s.situde of the old. She had been with Osmond through every step of his difficult way, and she had hoped some tragedies would be spared them both. Much as she believed in ultimate good fortune, she had to shrink from his desiring woman's love.

Yet this was to be. A little jealous doubt of the girl crept into her troubled heart. Was she light of love, a lady of enchantments who could appear out of nowhere and make all these strange happenings seem commonplace until her fickle destiny should s.n.a.t.c.h her away again, leaving hurt and mourning hearts behind? Grannie was humbly conscious that there were many things outside her world, exotic flowers of life her upland pastures did not breed. That they were poison flowers she could not well believe; but when her dear boy tasted the essence of them, she had to pause and sternly think it over, whether it was well.

"My dear," she said, "you must be honest with him." The gentle voice had steel in it.

"Honest? With Osmond? How should I be anything else? What reason--why, grannie!"

"Osmond is not like other men."

"He is better. He is like a spirit."

"No. He is only a man that's had heavy loads to carry. You mustn't be cruel to him."

"Grannie, I never heard you speak like that. You have been so kind."

"I am kind now, but Osmond is my boy. Do you feel to him as you did to Tom Fulton?"

"Oh!" It was a cry of pain. "What has Tom Fulton to do with it, to do with me?" the girl asked, in that hurt surprise. "All I want is to forget him. He made himself beautiful to me because he lied to me. The things I loved he said he loved--and then he laughed at them. But Osmond--what has Osmond to do with Tom Fulton?"

"You have made Osmond love you," said grannie. "That's all."

The chamber was very still. Rose could hear the ticking of grannie's watch beside her on the stand. Presently she spoke in a wondering tone.

"Love me? Grannie, is it that?"

"What did you think it was?"

"I didn't think. I thought it was something greater."

"There is nothing greater, Rose. Is there anything more terrible?"

The girl turned her face over, and dropped it for a minute on the hollow of the old woman's arm. Then she spoke, and to grannie's amazement she laughed a little, too.

"Oh, I never dreamed I could be so happy!"

"Happy! But is he happy?"

"He must be, if he knows it. Do you think he knows it, grannie?"

"I'm afraid he does, my dear," said grannie sadly.

"Has he told you so?"

"Not a word."

"If he does, tell me, grannie. Betray him. I need to know everything he knows--everything."

It was a new Rose, one none of them in America had yet seen. There were tumultuous yearnings in her voice, innocent insistencies; she seemed to be clamoring for life, the boon that it was right and sweet for her to have.

"He doesn't speak of you," said grannie. "What could come of it, if he did?"

"What could come of it? Everything could come of it. I shall write him by every mail. Tell him that. I will write him all my life, every minute of it from morning till night. And I will come back, soon, soon,--as soon as I have earned money to be honest on. Tell him that, grannie."

But grannie sighed.

"I am afraid you are not very reasonable," she said. "And I shouldn't dare to give him such messages. How do I know what they would mean to him? Why, my dear, you may meet some young man to-morrow, any day. You may want to marry him. What do you think Osmond would feel, if you wrote and told him that?"

"Why," said Rose, in a pained surprise, "you haven't understood, after all. But he will understand. No, don't tell him anything, grannie, only that I'll write to him every mail and that I shall come home. He will believe me. Now I must go and pack."

But grannie held her anxiously.

"I'm afraid I've made you troubled," she said.

"No, you've made me rich. I don't care what happens to me now. I can face it all. Dear, dear grannie! I thank you for forgiving me." She kissed the two kind hands, and stood beside the bed for a minute. "He comes to you in the morning, doesn't he? Tell him all that then. Only tell him I couldn't bear to say good-by. But I shall come back, and there will be welcomes, not good-bys." She went softly out, and grannie heard the closing of the door.

Rose, in her own room, did not begin at once to pack. She was alive again with the most brilliant triumph and delight. Her father's influence had slipped from her, and she stood there shuddering in the delicious cold of a strong wind of life. If she was to go forth, to make herself whole with her own destiny, she was going, not as the puppet of his will, but exhilarated by marvels. There were still large things in the world, strong loyalties, pure faithfulness. She felt like a warrior girded with a sword.

XXV

Osmond was sitting in his playhouse under the tree. He did not expect Rose to come, but he had things to think about, and in the playhouse he never felt alone. He was studying his own life as it had been and as it was. The past looked to him all submission and a still endurance. He marveled that a man could live so long and not look man's lot in the face. A thousand pa.s.sions had been born in him at once, and they seemed almost equally good to him because they were all so strong. He sat there drunk with the l.u.s.t of power and reviewing his desires as, one by one, they came and smiled upon him.

First he desired a woman, the one woman, Rose, not now romantically through the mist of dreams, but as the wild man wants his mate. Was that love? he asked himself, in this dispa.s.sionate scrutiny, and decided that, as men chose to name it, it was love. They crowned it with garlands, they sang about it and drank to it, but that was only to make it sweeter.

He remembered again the pa.s.sion of protection he had felt for her, the desire to slay whatever crossed her path. That was hate, he knew, and it seemed to him good. All these things were the forces that made up life, and life was a battle.

And then, as he did intermittently after every wave of thought, he remembered that Peter was in love with Rose, he recalled the gay certainty of the boy when he had said he could make her happy, and he saw her in Peter's arms. And this was jealousy.

At once he rose to his feet and listened. A step was coming nearer, heavy and halting, pausing for frequent rests. The familiar sound of it and the appeal of a presence not yet known made him knit his brows and peer forward through the dark. When the step ceased again, for an interval, he cried out, "Grannie!"

"Why, dear, you there?" called grannie.

He ran to her and put his arm about her, and so they came onward to the chair which had been a throne for Rose. When she had sunken into it, he began to scold her gently. She had not been so far from home for many a day. She had chosen night and a rough path. Why did she do it?

"I had to see you, dear," said grannie. "Maybe I didn't consider how hard it would be, but when I started out, I wasn't thinking much about my aches and pains. I had to see you. So I just dressed me and came."

"But, grannie, it's the middle of the night!"