The Quest of the Silver Fleece Part 40

Thus the beautiful cloth came to Zora's room, and was spread in a glossy cloud over her bed. She trembled at its beauty and felt a vague inner yearning, as if some subtle magic of the woven web were trying to tell her its story.

She worked over it faithfully and lovingly in every spare hour and in long nights of dreaming. Wilfully she departed from the set pattern and sewed into the cloth something of the beauty in her heart. In new and intricate ways, with soft shadowings and coverings, she wove in that white veil her own strange soul, and Mrs. Vanderpool watched her curiously, but in silence.

Meantime all things were arranged for a double wedding at Cresswell Oaks. As John and Mary Taylor had no suitable home, they were to come down and the two brides to go forth from the Cresswell mansion.

Accordingly the Taylors arrived a week before the wedding and the home took on a festive air. Even Colonel Cresswell expanded under the genial influences, and while his head still protested his heart was glad. He had to respect John Taylor's undoubted ability; and Mary Taylor was certainly lovely, in spite of that a.s.sumption of cleverness of which the Colonel could not approve.

Mary returned to the old scenes with mingled feelings. Especially was she startled at seeing Zora a member of the household and apparently high in favor. It brought back something of the old uneasiness and suspicion.

All this she soon forgot under the cadence of Harry Cresswell's pleasant voice and the caressing touch of his arm. He seemed handsomer than ever; and he was, for sleep and temperance and the wooing of a woman had put a tinge in his marble face, smoothed the puffs beneath his eyes, and given him a more distinguished bearing and a firmer hand. And Mary Taylor was very happy. So was her brother, only differently; he was making money; he was planning to make more, and he had something to pet which seemed to him extraordinarily precious and valuable.

Taylor eagerly inquired after the cloth, and followed the ladies to Zora's room, adjoining Mrs. Vanderpool's, to see it. It lay uncut and shimmering, covered with dim silken tracery of a delicacy and beauty which brought an exclamation to all lips.

"That's what we can do with Alabama cotton," cried John Taylor in triumph.

They turned to him incredulously.

"But--"

"No 'buts' about it; these are the two bales you sent me, woven with a silk woof." No one particularly noticed that Zora had hastily left the room. "I had it done in Easterly's New Jersey mills according to an old plan of mine. I'm going to make cloth like that right in this county some day," and he chuckled gayly.

But Zora was striding up and down the halls, the blood surging in her ears. After they were gone she came back and closed the doors. She dropped on her knees and buried her face in the filmy folds of the Silver Fleece.

"I knew it! I knew it!" she whispered in mingled tears and joy. "It called and I did not understand."

It was her talisman new-found; her love come back, her stolen dream come true. Now she could face the world; G.o.d had turned it straight again.

She would go into the world and find--not Love, but the thing greater than Love. Outside the door came voices--the dressmaker's tones, Helen's soft drawl, and Mrs. Vanderpool's finished accents. Her face went suddenly gray. The Silver Fleece was not hers! It belonged--She rose hastily. The door opened and they came in. The cutting must begin at once, they all agreed.

"Is it ready, Zora?" inquired Helen.

"No," Zora quietly answered, "not quite, but tomorrow morning, early."

As soon as she was alone again, she sat down and considered. By and by, while the family was at lunch, she folded the Silver Fleece carefully and locked it in her new trunk. She would hide it in the swamp. During the afternoon she sent to town for oil-cloth, and bade the black carpenter at Miss Smith's make a cedar box, tight and tarred. In the morning she prepared Mrs. Vanderpool's breakfast with unusual care. She was sorry for Mrs. Vanderpool, and sorry for Miss Smith. They would not, they could not, understand. What would happen to her? She did not know; she did not care. The Silver Fleece had returned to her. Soon it would be buried in the swamp whence it came. She had no alternative; she must keep it and wait.

She heard the dressmaker's voice, and then her step upon the stair. She heard the sound of Harry Cresswell's buggy, and a scurrying at the front door. On came the dressmaker's footsteps--then her door was unceremoniously burst open.

Helen Cresswell stood there radiant; the dressmaker, too, was wreathed in smiles. She carried a big red-sealed bundle.

"Zora!" cried Helen in ecstasy. "It's come!" Zora regarded her coldly, and stood at bay. The dressmaker was ripping and snipping, and soon there lay revealed before them--the Paris gown!

Helen was in raptures, but her conscience p.r.i.c.ked her. She appealed to them. "Ought I to tell? You see, Mary's gown will look miserably common beside it."

The dressmaker was voluble. There was really nothing to tell; and besides, Helen was a Cresswell and it was to be expected, and so forth.

Helen pursed her lips and petulantly tapped the floor with her foot.

"But the other gown?"

"Where is it?" asked the dressmaker, looking about. "It would make a pretty morning-dress--"

But Helen had taken a sudden dislike to the thought of it.

"I don't want it," she declared. "And besides, I haven't room for it in my trunks."

Of a sudden she leaned down and whispered to Zora: "Zora, hide it and keep it if you want it. Come," to the dressmaker, "I'm dying to try this on--now.... Remember, Zora--not a word." And all this to Zora seemed no surprise; it was the Way, and it was opening before her because the talisman lay in her trunk.

So at last it came to Easter morning. The world was golden with jasmine, and crimson with azalea; down in the darker places gleamed the misty glory of the dogwood; new cotton shook, glimmered, and blossomed in the black fields, and over all the soft Southern sun poured its awakening light of life. There was happiness and hope again in the cabins, and hope and--if not happiness, ambition, in the mansions.

Zora, almost forgetting the wedding, stood before the mirror. Laying aside her dress, she draped her shimmering cloth about her, dragging her hair down in a heavy ma.s.s over ears and neck until she seemed herself a bride. And as she stood there, awed with the mystical union of a dead love and a living new born self, there came drifting in at the window, faintly, the soft sound of far-off marriage music.

"'Tis thy marriage morning, shining in the sun!"

Two white and white-swathed brides were coming slowly down the great staircase of Cresswell Oaks, and two white and black-clothed bridegrooms awaited them. Either bridegroom looked gladly at the flow of his sister's garments and almost darkly at his bride's. For Helen was decked in Parisian splendor, while Mary was gowned in the Fleece.

"'Tis thy marriage morning, shining in the sun!"

Up floated the song of the little dark-faced children, and Zora listened.

_Twenty-two_

MISS CAROLINE WYNN

Bles Alwyn was seated in the anteroom of Senator Smith's office in Washington. The Senator had not come in yet, and there were others waiting, too.

The young man sat in a corner, dreaming. Washington was his first great city, and it seemed a never-ending delight--the streets, the buildings, the crowds; the shops, and lights, and noise; the kaleidoscopic panorama of a world's doing, the myriad forms and faces, the talk and laughter of men. It was all wonderful magic to the country boy, and he stretched his arms and filled his lungs and cried: "Here I shall live!"

Especially was he attracted by his own people. They seemed transformed, revivified, changed. Some might be mistaken for field hands on a holiday--but not many. Others he did not recognize--they seemed strange and alien--sharper, quicker, and at once more overbearing and more unscrupulous.

There were yet others--and at the sight of these Bles stood straighter and breathed like a man. They were well dressed, and well appearing men and women, who walked upright and looked one in the eye, and seemed like persons of affairs and money. They had arrived--they were men--they filled his mind's ideal--he felt like going up to them and grasping their hands and saying, "At last, brother!" Ah, it was good to find one's dreams, walking in the light, in flesh and blood. Continually such thoughts were surging through his brain, and they were rioting through it again as he sat waiting in Senator Smith's office.

The Senator was late this morning; when he came in he glanced at the morning paper before looking over his mail and the list of his callers.

"Do fools like the American people deserve salvation?" he sneered, holding off the headlines and glancing at them.

"'League Beats Trust.' ... 'Farmers of South Smash Effort to Bear Market ... Send Cotton to Twelve Cents ... Common People Triumph.'

"A man is induced to bite off his own nose and then to sing a paean of victory. It's nauseating--senseless. There is no earthly use striving for such blockheads; they'd crucify any Saviour." Thus half consciously Senator Smith salved his conscience, while he extracted a certificate of deposit for fifty thousand dollars from his New York mail. He thrust it aside from his secretary's view and looked at his list as he rang the bell: there was Representative Todd, and somebody named Alwyn--n.o.body of importance. Easterly was due in a half-hour. He would get rid of Todd meantime.

"Poor Todd," he mused; "a lamb for the slaughter."

But he patiently listened to him plead for party support and influence for his bill to prohibit gambling in futures.

"I was warned that it was useless to see you, Senator Smith, but I would come. I believe in you. Frankly, there is a strong group of your old friends and followers forming against you; they met only last night, but I did not go. Won't you take a stand on some of these progressive matters--this bill, or the Child Labor movement, or Low Tariff legislation?"

Mr. Smith listened but shook his head.

"When the time comes," he announced deliberately, "I shall have something to say on several of these matters. At present I can only say that I cannot support this bill," and Mr. Todd was ushered out. He met Mr. Easterly coming in and greeted him effusively. He knew him only as a rich philanthropist, who had helped the Neighborhood Guild in Washington--one of Todd's hobbies.