CHAPTER VI
THE ONE AND ONLY STAR
"Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky."
THAT'S Esther. She has been here two weeks, and all that time I've beentrying to write a poem to her which would do her justice. It isimpossible. So, since coming across the above line from Wordsworth, I'vesimply called her "Star" and given up trying. She likes to have me callher that.
She is so wonderful that it is a privilege just to be in the same townwith her. Merely to feel when I wake in the morning that I may see hersome time during the day makes life so rich, so full, so beautiful! HowI long to be like her in every way! Since that cannot be I try to liveeach hour in a way that is good for my character, so as to make myselfas worthy as possible of her friendship. For instance, I dust the hindlegs of the piano and the backs of the picture frames asconscientiously as the parts that show. I work overtime on my musicinstead of skipping practice hours as I have sometimes done in the past.The most unpleasant tasks I go through gladly, feeling that the rubbingof such, although disagreeable, puts a shine on one's soul in the sameway that a buffer polishes the nails.
At first Richard laughed at what he called my infatuation, and said itdidn't pay to take Emerson's advice and "hitch your wagon to a star."You have to jerk along at such a rattling gait to keep up that it soonwears out an ordinary mortal. But before he realized what had happenedto him his wagon was hitched as firmly as mine, and to the same star.
Esther loves to motor, so he takes her for a long drive every day whenhis cousin James doesn't want the machine. As he furnishes his owngasoline for such pleasure trips, he hasn't saved very much of his wagessince she's been here, to put in his "Going abroad" fund.
Every time I go to the Gilfred's, Esther passes me a freshly opened boxof candy. All the boys send it to her, but twice in the last week I'vebeen sure it was from Richard. The first one had a card lying on topthat she turned around for me to read. No name--just a pencilledline--"Queen Rose of the rose-bud garden of girls." But I knowRichard's handwriting as well as I know my own. Besides he learned thatvery quotation from me. The next time the card was printed instead ofwritten, but there was a pansy drawn in the corner, and the sentence wasin French.
Esther asked me to read it. She said she was so rusty in her French shewasn't sure she had translated it correctly. It said "Pansies are forthought." Then I remembered the pansy bed out by the Gilfreds' sideporch. Richard had a big purple one in his button-hole the other daywhen he came back from there. But that was no proof, of course, becauseI'd seen George Woodson with one, and also Truman Long. Truman drawsalmost as well as Richard and is always making marginal sketches onthings, but Truman never took any of the languages but dead ones.
But later on when Esther said she and Richard were going to read somefables together to help her brush up her French, I was pretty sure hehad sent that second box. I was altogether sure when he came over thesecond time with that same pansy in his buttonhole, so dry and dead itwas all shriveled up. I knew just how he felt about it, that it was toosacred to throw away. I feel the same way about whatever her fingerstouch. So just to let him know that I understood and sympathized like areal sister I picked up Barby's guitar and in an off-hand sort of waybegan to sing an old song of hers that he knows quite as well as I do.
"Only a pansy blossom, only a withered flower, Yet to me far dearer than all in earth's fair bower."
I hadn't the faintest intention of teasing him, but he seemed to take itthat way. He got as red as fire and shrugged his shoulders impatientlyand strode out of the room as if he were provoked. It seems so queer tothink of _him_ having any sentiment in connection with a girl, when he'salways been so indifferent towards them. Still, Esther is so star-like,so high above all other girls that I don't wonder that even he hasyielded to her magic influence.
All the boys are crazy about her. George Woodson spends most of hiswaking hours there. He sits around in the hammock with his ukelele,waiting for her to come out, and if they have an engagement and go offand leave him, he just sits and waits for them to come back. Truman Longhas composed a serenade dedicated to her that's really awfully sweet,and when they dance at the Gilfreds' of an evening the boys break in socontinually that Esther doesn't get to dance around the room withoutchanging partners. It must be heavenly to be so popular.
Babe Nolan has a sentence copied in her memory book which she says is atest of whether one is truly in love or not. She thinks it is fromEmerson. "When a single tone of one voice can make the heart beat, andthe most trivial circumstance associated with one form is put in theamber of memory. When we become all eye when one is present and allmemory when one is gone."
She says she was all eye when she used to be with the One who wrotethose letters which are now in that bedpost somewhere in the SalvationArmy or the White Mountains, and she was all memory when he was gone.And if it happened that it was his voice which answered when she calledup the grocery where he clerked, she was all of a flutter, and couldn'tremember whether her mother told her to order starch or stove polish. Iwonder if I shall ever know that blissful sensation.
According to Babe's test I am sure of the last two items in Richard'scase. He certainly is all eye when Esther is present, and the mosttrifling thing she says or does is cherished in the amber of his memory.I can tell from the way he keeps coming back to them in a round-aboutway without mentioning her name.
Barby has noticed the difference in him, too. He doesn't come to thehouse as often as usual for one thing, and he talks about somethingbesides war. He doesn't mention Esther's name to Barby, but he brings upsubjects connected with her that he's never been interested in before.Things they've discussed at the Gilfreds', such as the differencebetween Southern and Northern girls, and what constitutes charm in awoman, and why angels are always painted with golden hair and nobodyever thinks of there being brunette angels with snappy dark eyes.
When I told Barby he was helping Esther brush up her French, she gave afunny sort of a groan, and said, "Of all the arrows in the little god'squiver that is the deadliest." When I asked what arrow, she said,"Conjugating a familiar verb in a foreign tongue with a----" Then shebroke off suddenly and asked what kind of a girl I thought Esther reallywas. She said if she were the right kind it would do Richard worlds ofgood to be interested in her, but she couldn't bear to think of the dearboy being disillusioned this early, or having his confidence inwoman-kind shaken by a shallow little flirt.
I told her that shallowness and coquetry were not to be mentioned in thesame breath with Esther. That while Richard's a nice boy, and feelingtowards him as I do, as if he were a real brother, I want him to havethe very best things Life can give him, I don't consider him fine enoughand noble enough for such an angel as Esther. With her lofty ideals onlya Sir Galahad or King Arthur himself is worthy of her.
Barby has met her several times, but only when there were a lot ofothers present. She had no chance to talk with her and see what a trulyfine and strong character she has. She could see only in a general waythat she is lovely and gracious. So, not knowing her as I know her, shereminded me again of that old prism of mine and the way I used to goabout with it in front of my eyes, putting rainbows around everything insight.
She asked if I was sure I wasn't looking at Esther in some such way,putting a halo of perfection around her that was largely of my ownmaking. She said she did that twice when she was in her early teens.Once it was a music teacher she was infatuated with, and once herroommate at boarding school. She looked upon them as perfect, and nearlydied of disappointment when she discovered they were only ordinarymortals.
It hurt me dreadfully to have her think my adoration of Esther wasnothing but a schoolgirl infatuation. She must have seen how I felt andshe must have changed her mind about Esther, for lately she has beenperfectly lovely about encouraging our intimacy. She says she'd like forme to invite her to the house often, and that I may have her here for aweek after her visit with Judith is over. And she suggested sever
althings we might do for her entertainment, such as a picnic at HighlandLight, and a motor-boat trip over to the weirs to see the nets hauledin.
* * * * *
An age has gone by since I wrote of the above plans. There has been nochance to carry them out, because the very next day Mrs. Gilfred went toBoston and took Judith and Esther with her for a week. Ever since theyleft I've gone around humming:
"What's this dull town to me? Robin's not here."
Only I change it to "My Star is not here."
The only thing that makes the loneliness bearable is that Barby has aguest, a Miss Helen Crewes, who is a Red Cross nurse. She is going toFlanders very soon, and she is up here resting. She gives "First Aid"lessons to Barby, Tippy and me in the evenings.
Tuesday when the Busy Bees met here she put on her uniform and wentdown and talked to the girls. She seemed so wonderful and so set apart,all in white with the Red Cross blazing on her forehead, and she talkedso inspiringly that the girls were ready to rise up and follow her tothe death. They didn't want to go home when the time came, but hungaround begging her to tell some more. And Minnie Waite said that ifanybody in town would start a Melting Pot like the one Miss Crewes toldabout to put your jewels in for the cause, she'd throw in her goldthimble and her locket and her silver friendship bracelet that needsonly one more link to complete it.
Barby hasn't invited any of our friends to meet Miss Crewes yet, becauseshe's just off a hard case that nearly wore her out. She says she muststore up every bit of strength she can get from the dunes and the sea,for what lies ahead. So she sits down on the beach hours at a time, andgoes on long walks by herself. When I take her out in the boat shescarcely says a word. But in the evenings while she's teaching us firstaid bandaging, etc., she talks so thrillingly of her experiences andwhat her friends are doing over there that I could listen all night.
Barby made several attempts to get Richard to come over and meet her,but he hasn't been near here since Esther went to Boston. He alwaysmakes some excuse when Barby telephones. Barby says it would do him goodto meet a woman like Miss Crewes. That she'd wake him up out of thetrance he is in, and rekindle his old enthusiasms. Miss Crewes ismiddle-aged, for she's at least thirty-eight, and she's very plain,except when she talks. Then her face lights up till you feel as if alamp had suddenly been brought into the room.
I know now what Barby meant by trance. It is the same thing as being"all memory when one is gone." Yesterday Babe Nolan and I were walkingalong the street together, she eating an apple, when Richard drove bywithout seeing us. It was up along in one of the narrowest turns, wherehe had to pass so close to the board walk that the machine nearly grazedit. Yet he went by, perfectly unconscious of us. Never looked to theright nor the left, and never even heard when I called to him. Usuallyhe is on the look-out to wave his hand to anybody he knows. When he hadgone by Babe said:
"That boy doesn't know whether he's in the body or out of the body.Somebody ought to tell him about Esther Gilfred. It's a shame to let himgo on that way making a goose of himself."
"Tell him _what_ about her?" I demanded.
"Oh, that it's all a bluff about her brushing up her French. Shedoesn't know enough French to brush. All she does is to hold thedictionary while he reads. She can't even find the words by herself halfthe time. Besides she's years older than he is, although she passes forthe same age. And worse yet--_she's engaged_."
I was so furious that I contradicted her hotly, but she just looked atme over the apple she was biting into, with the calm, unruffled gaze ofan old Aztec. Babe can be the most provoking person at times that everlived. She prides herself on having a mathematical mind, and being exactabout facts and figures. The worst of it is she usually is, and will goany length to prove she's right. Although I know in this case she _must_be mistaken, it worries me in spite of myself.
She said that one day at the Gilfreds' they were laughing over some oldphotographs of Esther and Judith, taken when they were babies. On theback of one was written: "This is our little Esther at the age of sixmonths and six days." It was signed with her father's name and the date.Esther snatched it away and tore it up before anyone else saw it, but,Babe says, counting up from that date to this, Esther is all of threeyears older than Richard. She is twenty and a half.
And she said that twice while she and Viola were visiting in Yarmouth,their Aunt Rachel took them to a hop in Barnstable. Both times Esther,who was visiting in Barnstable then, was there with the man she'sengaged to. He's a doctor. They met at a house-party when he was amedical student at Harvard and she was at a finishing school nearBoston. Her aunt told Babe's aunt all about it. They've been engagednearly a year, but Esther won't have it announced because she says itwould spoil her good times wherever she goes. She'd never make any moreconquests. He's so busy establishing his practice that he can't pay herthe attention and give her the things that the other men do.
When Babe told me that I felt as if the solid ground were giving awayunder my feet. She seemed perfectly sure that what she was telling wasthe straight, unvarnished truth. And yet, I cannot, I _will_ not believethat Esther would stoop to deceit in the smallest matter. She is thesoul of honor. She _couldn't_ be sacredly betrothed to one man and thengo on acting exactly as if she wasn't, with another. Besides, I heardher say one day that she is just Judith's age, which is seventeen, andanother time that she was "heart whole and fancy free."
When I triumphantly quoted that last to Babe to prove she was wrong sheswallowed another bite of apple and then said, "Well, a coquette mightbe all that and at the same time engaged. And she _is_ engaged, and Ican prove it."
All I could trust myself to say was, "Babe Nolan, your remarks areperfectly insulting. I'll thank you to remember you're talking about myvery best friend and the very finest and sweetest girl I've ever knownin my whole life."
With that I drew myself up in my most freezing manner and walked off andleft her. I've wished since that I'd thought in time to hurl thatquotation from Shakespeare over my shoulder at her, but I didn't thinkof it till I was nearly home:
"Be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow, Thou shalt not escape calumny."
Those statements of Babe's were nothing but out and out calumny.