The Bent Twig Part 47

She stood there, among the sun-warmed flowers, looking like a symbolic figure of youth triumphant ... and she felt herself to be in a black and windowless prison, where the very earth under her feet was treacherous, where everything betrayed her.

Then, out of her need, her very great need, out of the wide and empty s.p.a.ces of her inculcated unbelief, something rose up and overwhelmed her. The force stronger than herself which she had longed to feel, blew upon her like a wind out of eternity.

She found herself on her knees, her face hidden in her hands, sending out a pa.s.sionate cry which transcended words. The child of the twentieth century, who had been taught not to pray, was praying.

She did not know how long she knelt there before the world emerged from the white glory which had whirled down upon it, and hidden it from her. But when she came to herself, her eyes were dry, and the weakening impulse to tears had gone. She stretched out her hands before her, and they did not tremble. The force stronger than herself was now in her own heart. From her mother's garden there rose a strong, fragrant exhalation, as sweet as honey.

For more than an hour Sylvia worked steadily among the flowers, consciously wrought upon by the healing emanations from the crushed, spicy leaves, the warm earth, and the hot, pure breath of the summer wind on her face.

Once she had a pa.s.sing fancy that her mother stood near her ...

smiling.

CHAPTER XLIII

"_Call now; is there any that will answer thee?_"--JOB.

When she went back to the silent, echoing house, she felt calmer than at any time since she had read the telegram in Naples. She did not stop to wash her earth-stained hands, but went directly up the stairs to the locked door at the top. She did not knock this time. She stood outside and said authoritatively in a clear, strong voice, the sound of which surprised her, "Father dear, please open the door and let me in."

There was a pause, and then a shuffle of feet. The door opened and Professor Marshall appeared, his face very white under the thick stubble of his gray, unshaven beard, his shoulders bowed, his head hanging. Sylvia went to his side, took his hand firmly in hers, and said quietly: "Father, you must eat something. You haven't taken a bit of food in two days. And then you must lie down and rest," She poured all of her new strength into these quietly issued commands, and permitted herself no moment's doubt of his obedience to them. He lifted his head, looked at her, and allowed her to lead him down the stairs and again into the dining-room. Here he sat, quite spent, staring before him until Sylvia returned from the kitchen with a plate of cold meat and some bread. She sat down beside him, putting out again consciously all her strength, and set the knife and fork in his nerveless hands. In the gentle monologue with which she accompanied his meal she did not mention her mother, or anything but slight, casual matters about the house and garden. She found herself speaking in a hushed tone, as though not to awake a sleeping person. Although she sat quite quietly, her hands loosely folded on the table, her heart was thrilling and burning to a high resolve. "Now it is my turn to help my father."

After he had eaten a few mouthfuls and laid down the knife and fork, she did not insist further, but rose to lead him to the couch in the living-room. She dared not risk his own room, the bed on which her mother had died.

"Now you must lie down and rest, Father," she said, loosening his clothes and unlacing his shoes as though he had been a sick child.

He let her do what she would, and as she pushed him gently back, he yielded and lay down at full length. Sylvia sat down beside him, feeling her strength ebbing. Her father lay on his back, his eyes wide open. On the ceiling above him a circular flicker of light danced and shimmered, reflected from a gla.s.s of water on the table. His eyes fastened upon this, at first unwinkingly, with a fixed intensity, and later with dropped lids and half-upturned eyeb.a.l.l.s. He was quite quiet, and finally seemed asleep, although the line of white between his eyelids made Sylvia shudder.

With the disappearance of the instant need for self-control and firmness, she felt an immense fatigue. It had cost her dearly, this victory, slight as it was. She drooped in her chair, exhausted and undone. She looked down at the ash-gray, haggard face on the pillow, trying to find in those ravaged features her splendidly life-loving father. It was so quiet that she could hear the big clock in the dining-room ticking loudly, and half-consciously she began to count the swings of the pendulum: One--two--three--four--five--six-- seven--eight--nine--ten--eleven--twelve--thirteen--fourteen--

She awoke to darkness and the sound of her mother's name loudly screamed. She started up, not remembering where she was, astonished to find herself sitting in a chair. As she stood bewildered in the dark, the clock in the dining-room struck two. At once from a little distance, outside the window apparently, she heard the same wild cry ringing in her ears--"_Bar-ba-ra!_" All the blood in her body congealed and the hair on her head seemed to stir itself, in the instant before she recognized her father's voice.

The great impulse of devotion which had entered her heart in the garden still governed her. Now she was not afraid. She did not think of running away. She only knew that she must find her father quickly and take care of him. Outside on the porch, the glimmering light from the stars showed her his figure, standing by one of the pillars, leaning forward, one hand to his ear. As she came out of the door, he dropped his hand, threw back his head, and again sent out an agonizing cry--"_Bar-ba-ra!_ Where are you?" It was not the broken wail of despair; it was the strong, searching cry of a lost child who thinks trustingly that if he but screams loudly enough his mother must hear him and come--and yet who is horribly frightened because she does not answer. But this was a man in his full strength who called! It seemed the sound must reach beyond the stars. Sylvia felt her very bones ringing with it. She went along the porch to her father, and laid her hand on his arm. Through his sleeve she could feel how tense and knotted were the muscles. "Oh, Father, _don't!_" she said in a low tone. He shook her off roughly, but did not turn his head or look at her. Sylvia hesitated, not daring to leave him and not daring to try to draw him away; and again was shaken by that terrible cry.

The intensity of his listening att.i.tude seemed to hush into breathlessness the very night about him, as it did Sylvia. There was not a sound from the trees. They stood motionless, as though carved in wood; not a bird fluttered a wing; not a night-insect shrilled; the brook, dried by the summer heat to a thread, crept by noiselessly. As once more the frantic cry resounded, it seemed to pierce this opaque silence like a palpable missile, and to wing its way without hindrance up to the stars. Not the faintest murmur came in answer. The silence shut down again, stifling. Sylvia and her father stood as though in the vacuum of a great bell-gla.s.s which shut them away from the rustling, breathing, living world. Sylvia said again, imploringly, "Oh, _Father_!" He looked at her angrily, sprang from the porch, and walked rapidly towards the road, stumbling and tripping over the laces of his shoes, which Sylvia had loosened when she had persuaded him to lie down. Sylvia ran after him, her long bounds bringing her up to his side in a moment. The motion sent the blood racing through her stiffened limbs again. She drew a long breath of liberation. As she stepped along beside her father, peering in the starlight at his dreadful face, half expecting him to turn and strike her at any moment, she felt an immense relief. The noise of their feet on the path was like a sane voice of reality. Anything was more endurable than to stand silent and motionless and hear that screaming call lose itself in the grimly unanswering distance.

They were on the main road now, walking so swiftly that, in the hot summer night, Sylvia felt her forehead beaded and her light dress cling to her moist body. She took her father's hand. It was parched like a sick man's, the skin like a dry husk. After this, they walked hand-in-hand. Professor Marshall continued to walk rapidly, scuffling in his loose, unlaced shoes. They pa.s.sed barns and farmhouses, the latter sleeping, black in the starlight, with darkened windows. In one, a poor little shack of two rooms, there was a lighted pane, and as they pa.s.sed, Sylvia heard the sick wail of a little child. The sound pierced her heart. She longed to go in and put her arms about the mother. Now she understood. She tightened her hold on her father's hand and lifted it to her lips.

He suffered this with no appearance of his former anger, and soon after Sylvia was aware that his gait was slackening. She looked at him searchingly, and saw that he had swung from unnatural tension to spent exhaustion. His head was hanging and as he walked he wavered. She put her hand under his elbow and turned him about on the road. "Now we will go home," she said, drawing his arm through hers. He made no resistance, not seeming to know what she had done, and shuffled along wearily, leaning all his weight on her arm. She braced herself against this drag, and led him slowly back, wiping her face from time to time with her sleeve. There were moments when she thought she must let him sink on the road, but she fought through these, and as the sky was turning faintly gray over their heads, and the implacably silent stars were disappearing in this pale light, the two stumbled up the walk to the porch.

Professor Marshall let himself be lowered into the steamer chair.

Sylvia stood by him until she was sure he would not stir, and then hurried into the kitchen. In a few moments she brought him a cup of hot coffee and a piece of bread. He drank the one and ate the other without protest She set the tray down and put a pillow under her father's head, raising the foot-rest. He did not resist her. His head fell back on the pillow, but his eyes did not close. They were fixed on a distant point in the sky.

Sylvia tiptoed away into the house and sank down shivering into a chair. A great fit of trembling and nausea came over her. She rose, walked into the kitchen, her footsteps sounding in her ears like her mother's. There was some coffee left, which she drank resolutely, and she cooked an egg and forced it down, her mother's precepts loud in her ears. Whatever else happened, she must have her body in condition to be of use.

After this she went out to the porch again and lay down in the hammock near her father. The dawn had brightened into gold, and the sun was showing on the distant, level, green horizon-line.

It was almost the first moment of physical relaxation she had known, and to her immense, her awed astonishment it was instantly filled with a pure, clear brilliance, the knowledge that Austin Page lived and loved her. It was the first, it was the only time she thought of anything but her father, and this was not a thought, it was a vision.

In the chaos about her, a great sunlit rock had emerged. She laid hold on it and knew that she would not sink.

But now, _now_ she must think of nothing but her father! There was no one else who could help her father. Could she? Could any one?

She herself, since her prayer among the roses, cherished in her darkened heart a hope of dawn. But how could she tell her father of that? Even if she had been able to force him to listen to her, she had nothing that words could say, nothing but the recollection of that burning hour in the garden to set against the teachings of a lifetime.

That had changed life for her ... but what could it mean to her father? How could she tell him of what was only a wordless radiance?

Her father had taught her that death meant the return of the spirit to the great, impersonal river of life. If the spirit had been superb and splendid, like her mother's, the river of life was the brighter for it, but that was all. Her mother had lived, and now lived no more.

That was what they had tried to teach her to believe. That was what her father had taught her--without, it now appeared, believing it himself.

And yet she divined that it was not that he would not, but that he could not now believe it. He was like a man set in a vacuum fighting for the air without which life is impossible. And she knew no way to break the imprisoning wall and let in air for him. _Was_ there, indeed, any air outside? There must be, or the race could not live from one generation to the next. Every one whose love had encountered death must have found an air to breathe or have died.

Constantly through all these thoughts, that day and for many days and months to come, there rang the sound of her mother's name, screamed aloud. She heard it as though she were again standing by her father under the stars. And there had been no answer.

She felt the tears stinging at her eyelids and sat up, terrified at the idea that her weakness was about to overtake her. She would go again out to the garden where she had found strength before. The morning sun was now hot and glaring in the eastern sky.

CHAPTER XLIV

"_A bruised reed will He not break, and a dimly burning wick will He not quench_,"--ISAIAH.

As she stepped down the path, she saw a battered black straw hat on the other side of the hedge. Cousin Parnelia's worn old face and dim eyes looked at her through the gate. Under her arm she held planchette. Sylvia stepped through the gate and drew it inhospitably shut back of her. "What is it, Cousin Parnelia?" she said challengingly, determined to protect her father.

The older woman's face was all aglow. "Oh, my dear; I've had such a wonderful message from your dear mother. Last night--"

Sylvia recoiled from the mad old creature. She could not bear to have her sane, calm, strong mother's name on those lips. Cousin Parnelia went on, full of confidence: "I was sound asleep last night when I was awakened by the clock's striking two. It sounded so loud that I thought somebody had called to me. I sat up in bed and said, 'What is it?' and then I felt a great longing to have planchette write. I got out of bed in my nightgown and sat down in the dark at the table.

Planchette wrote so fast that I could hardly keep up with it. And when it stopped, I lighted a match and see ... here ... in your mother's very handwriting"--fervently she held the bit of paper up for Sylvia to see. The girl cast a hostile look at the paper and saw that the writing on it was the usual scrawl produced by Cousin Parnelia, hardly legible, and resembling anything rather than her mother's handwriting.

"Read it--read it--it is too beautiful!" quivered the other, "and then let me show it to your father. It was meant for him--"

Sylvia shook like a roughly plucked fiddle-string. She seized the wrinkled old hand fiercely. "Cousin Parnelia, I forbid you going anywhere near my father! You know as well as I do how intensely he has always detested spiritualism. To see you might be the thing that would--"

The old woman broke in, protesting, her hat falling to one side, her brown false front sliding with it and showing the thin, gray hairs beneath. "But, Sylvia, this is the very thing that would save him--such a beautiful, beautiful message from your mother,--_see_! In her own handwriting!"

Sylvia s.n.a.t.c.hed the sheet of yellow paper. "_That's_ not my mother's handwriting! Do you think I am as crazy as _you_ are!" She tore the paper into shreds and scattered them from her, feeling a relief in the violence of her action. The next moment she remembered how patient her mother had always been with her daft kinswoman and seeing tears in the blurred old eyes, went to put placating arms about the other's neck.

"Never mind, Cousin Parnelia," she said with a vague kindness, "I know you mean to do what's right--only we don't believe as you do, and Father _must_ not be excited!" She turned sick as she spoke and shrank away from the hedge, carrying her small old cousin with her. Above the hedge appeared her father's gray face and burning eyes.

He was not looking at her, but at Cousin Parnelia, who now sprang forward, crying that she had had a beautiful, beautiful message from Cousin Barbara. "_It_ came last night at two o'clock ... just after the clock struck two--"

Professor Marshall looked quickly at his daughter, and she saw that he too had heard the clock striking in the dreadful night, and that he noted the coincidence.

"Just after the clock struck two she wrote the loveliest message for you with planchette. Sylvia tore it up. But I'm sure that if we try with faith, she will repeat it ..."