Vistas of New York Part 23

Everything in this world had to be paid for; and perhaps she had sold her liberty too cheap. If it had not been for the furs, and for all the other things that her aunt had accustomed her to, she might have gone with him to Panama and nursed him when he fell ill. She felt sure that she could have saved him. She would have tried so hard! She would have put her soul into it. Her soul? She felt as if the sorrow of the past week had made her acquainted with her own soul for the first time. And she confessed herself to be useless and feeble and weak.

That was what made it all so strange. Why could she not have died in his place? Why could not she have died for him? She had lived, really lived, only since she had known him; and it was only since he had gone that she had known herself. She had meant to help him--not that he needed any a.s.sistance from anybody. Now she could help no one in all the wide world. She was useless again--a girl, ignorant and helpless.

Why could she not have been taken, and why could not he have been spared? He had a career before him; he would have been able to do things--strong things, brave things, n.o.ble things, delicate things. And he was gone before he had been able to do anything, with all his possibilities of honor and fame, with all his high hope of honest, hard work in the years of his manly youth, with everything cut short, just as if a candle had been blown out by a chance wind.

She marveled how it was that she had been able to live through the long days since she had read the brief announcement of his death. She did not see how it was that she had not cried out, how it was that she had not shouted aloud the news of her bereavement. She supposed it must be because she had inherited self-control, because she had been trained to keep her feelings to herself, and never to make a scene.

Fortunately she was alone when she learned that he was dead. She had been up late at a ball the night before, and, as usual, Aunt Cordelia had insisted on her staying in bed all the morning to rest. When she had finished her chocolate, Aunt Cordelia had brought in the morning paper, and had raised the window-shade for her to read, before going down for a long talk with the lawyer who managed their affairs.

Elinor had glanced over the society reporter's account of the ball and his description of her own gown; she had read the announcement of the engagement of a girl she knew to a foreign count; and then she was putting the paper down carelessly when her eye caught the word "Panama"

at the top of a paragraph. Then, at a flash, she had read the inconspicuous paragraph which told how John Grant, a very promising young engineer in charge of a section of the work on the ca.n.a.l, had died suddenly of pneumonia, after only two days' illness, to the great grief of all his a.s.sociates, especially of the chief, who had thought very highly of him.

The words danced before her eyes in letters of fire; and she felt as if an icy hand had clutched her heart. She was as stunned as if the end of the world had come; and it was the end of her world.

She did not recall how long she had held the paper clutched in her hand; and she did not know why she had not wept. It seemed to her as if her tears would be a profanation of her grief, too deep to be washed away by weeping. She had not cried once. Perhaps it would have been a relief if she could have had a good cry, petty and pitiful as it would be.

When Aunt Cordelia had called her, at last, to get ready for luncheon, she had arisen as if she had been somebody else. She had dressed and gone down-stairs and sat opposite her aunt and chatted about the ball.

She recalled that her aunt had said that there was nothing in the paper that morning except the account of the ball. Nothing in the paper! She had kept her peace, and made no confession. It seemed to her that it could not have been herself who sat there calmly and listened and responded. It seemed as if she was not herself, but another girl--a girl she did not know before.

So the days had gone, one after another, and so they would continue to go in the future. She was young, and she came of a st.u.r.dy stock; she might live to be three-score and ten.

As she stood there at the window, staring straight before her, she saw herself slowly changing into an old maid like Aunt Cordelia, well meaning and a little fidgety, a little fussy, and quite useless. She recoiled as she surveyed the long vista of time, with no husband to take her into his arms, and with no children for her to hold up to him when he came back from his work. And she knew that she was fit to be a wife and a mother; and now she would never be either.

What was there left for her to do in life? She could not go into a convent, and she could not study to be a trained nurse. There she was at twenty-one, a broken piece of driftwood washed up on an unknown island.

She had no hope any more; the light of her life had gone out.

She asked herself whether she had any duty toward others--duty which would make life worth living once more. She wished that there was something for her to do; but she saw nothing. She set her teeth and resolved that she would go through life, whatever it might bring, and master it for his sake, as he would have expected her to do. He was dead, and lying alone in that distant, lonely grave; and she would have to live on and on--but at least she would live as he would approve.

But whatever her life might be, it would not be easy without him. She had lived on his letters; and she had taken a new breath of life every month when his violets came. And now nothing would come any more--no message, no little words of love, nothing to cheer her and to sustain her. Never before had she longed so much for a message from him--a line only--a single word of farewell.

It was again the shortest day of the year, and it was to her the longest of all her life. But all the days would be long hereafter, and the nights would be long, and life would be long; and all would be empty, since he would never again be able to communicate with her. If only she believed in spiritualism, if only she could have even the dimmest hope that some day, somehow, some sort of communication might come to her from him, from the shadowy realm where he had gone, and where she could not go until the summons came to join him!

So intent was she upon her own thoughts that she did not hear the ring of the door-bell; and a minute later she started when the butler entered the room with a small parcel in his hand.

"What is it, Dexter?" she asked, mechanically.

"This has just come for you, Miss," he answered, handing her the parcel.

She held it without looking at it until Dexter had left the room.

Probably it was a Christmas present from one of her friends; and she loosened the strings listlessly.

It was a box from a florist; and she wondered who could have sent her any flowers on the day sacred to him. It might be Reggie, of course; but he had not done that for nearly a year now.

She opened the box carelessly, and found a bunch of violets. There was a card with it.

She took it nearer to the window, to read it in the fading light. It bore the single word, "Sweetheart."

She stood for a moment, silent and trembling.

"John!" she cried aloud. "From you!"

She sank into a chair, with the violets pressed against her heart, sobbing; and the tears came at last, plentifully.

Then she heard footsteps on the stairs; and in a moment more her aunt was standing at the door and calling:

"Elinor, are you ready? We are late."

(1910)

THE END