CHAPTER XXIX
AND SO THE LIGHT LED ME
He had been to see Sister Theresa, and Marian waswalking with him to the gate. I saw her quite plainlyin the light that fell from the lamp overhead. A longcloak covered her, and a fur toque capped her gracefulhead. My grandfather and his guide were apparentlyin high spirits. Their laughter smote harshly upon me.It seemed to shut me out,—to lift a barrier against me.The world lay there within the radius of that swayinglight, and I hung aloof, hearing her voice and jealous ofthe very companionship and sympathy between them.
But the light led me. I remembered with bitternessthat I had always followed her,—whether as Olivia,trailing in her girlish race across the snow, or as thegirl in gray, whom I had followed, wondering, on thatnight journey at Christmas Eve; and I followed now.The distrust, my shattered faith, my utter loneliness,could not weigh against the joy of hearing that laughof hers breaking mellowly on the night.
I paused to allow the two figures to widen the distancebetween us as they traversed the path that curvedaway toward the chapel. I could still hear their voices,and see the lantern flash and disappear. I felt an impulseto turn back, or plunge into the woodland; but Iwas carried on uncontrollably. The light glimmered,and her voice still floated back to me. It stole throughthe keen winter dark like a memory of spring; and soher voice and the light led me.
Then I heard an exclamation of dismay followed bylaughter in which my grandfather joined merrily.
“Oh, never mind; we’re not afraid,” she exclaimed.
I had rounded the curve in the path where I shouldhave seen the light; but the darkness was unbroken.There was silence for a moment, in which I drew quitenear to them.
Then my grandfather’s voice broke out cheerily.
“Now I must go back with you! A fine person youare to guide an old man! A foolish virgin, indeed, withno oil in her lamp!”
“Please do not! Of course I’m going to see you quiteto your own door! I don’t intend to put my hand tothe lantern and then turn back!”
“This walk isn’t what it should be,” said my grandfather,“we’ll have to provide something better in thespring.”
They were still silent and I heard him futilely strikinga match. Then the lantern fell, its wires rattlingas it struck the ground, and the two exclaimed with renewedmerriment upon their misfortune.
“If you will allow me!” I called out, my hand fumblingin my pocket for my own match-box.
I have sometimes thought that there is really somesort of decent courtesy in me. An old man caught ina rough path that was none too good at best! And agirl, even though my enemy! These were, I fancy, thethoughts that crossed my mind.
“Ah, it’s Jack!” exclaimed my grandfather. “Marianwas showing me the way to the gate and our light wentout.”
“Miss Devereux,” I murmured. I have, I hope, anicy tone for persons who have incurred my displeasure,and I employed it then and there, with, no doubt, itsfullest value.
She and my grandfather were groping in the dark forthe lost lantern, and I, putting out my hand, touchedher fingers.
“I beg your pardon,” she murmured frostily.
Then I found and grasped the lantern.
“One moment,” I said, “and I’ll see what’s the trouble.”
I thought my grandfather took it, but the flame ofmy wax match showed her fingers, clasping the wires ofthe lantern. The cloak slipped away, showing her arm’ssoft curve, the blue and white of her bodice, the purpleblur of violets; and for a second I saw her face, with asmile quivering about her lips. My grandfather wasbeating impatiently with his stick, urging us to leave thelantern and go on.
“Let it alone,” he said. “I’ll go down through thechapel; there’s a lantern in there somewhere.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” she remarked; “but I recentlylost my best lantern!”
To be sure she had! I was angry that she should sobrazenly recall the night I found her looking for Pickering’snotes in the passage at the Door of Bewilderment!
She had lifted the lantern now, and I was striving totouch the wax taper to the wick, with imminent dangerto my bare fingers.
“They don’t really light well when the oil’s out,” sheobserved, with an exasperating air of wisdom.
I took it from her hand and shook it close to my ear.
“Yes; of course, it’s empty,” I muttered disdainfully.
“Oh, Mr. Glenarm!” she cried, turning away towardmy grandfather.
I heard his stick beating the rough path several yardsaway. He was hastening toward Glenarm House.
“I think Mr. Glenarm has gone home.”
“Oh, that is too bad!” she exclaimed.
“Thank you! He’s probably at the chapel by thistime. If you will permit me—”
“Not at all!”
A man well advanced in the sixties should not tax hisarteries too severely. I was quite sure that my grandfatherran up the chapel steps; I could hear his stickbeating hurriedly on the stone.
“If you wish to go farther”—I began.
I was indignant at my grandfather’s conduct; he haddeliberately run off, leaving me alone with a youngwoman whom I particularly wished to avoid.
“Thank you; I shall go back now. I was merely walkingto the gate with Mr. Glenarm. It is so fine to havehim back again, so unbelievable!”
It was just such a polite murmur as one might employin speaking to an old foe at a friend’s table.
She listened a moment for his step; then, apparentlysatisfied, turned back toward St. Agatha’s. I followed,uncertain, hesitating, marking her definite onwardflight. From the folds of the cloak stole the faint perfumeof violets. The sight of her, the sound of hervoice, combined to create—and to destroy!—a moodwith every step.
I was seeking some colorless thing to say when shespoke over her shoulder:
“You are very kind, but I am not in the least afraid,Mr. Glenarm.”
“But there is something I wish to say to you. Ishould like—”
She slackened her step.
“Yes.”
“I am going away.”
“Yes; of course; you are going away.”
Her tone implied that this was something that hadbeen ordained from the beginning of time, and did notmatter.
“And I wish to say a word about Mr. Pickering.”
She paused and faced me abruptly. We were at theedge of the wood, and the school lay quite near. Shecaught the cloak closer about her and gave her head alittle toss I remembered well, as a trick compelled by thevagaries of woman’s head-dress.
“I can’t talk to you here, Mr. Glenarm; I had no intentionof ever seeing you again; but I must say this—”
“Those notes of Pickering’s—I shall ask Mr. Glenarmto give them to you—as a mark of esteem from me.”
She stepped backward as though I had struck her.
“You risked much for them—for him”—I went on.
“Mr. Glenarm, I have no intention of discussing that,or any other matter with you—”
“It is better so—”
“But your accusations, the things you imply, are unjust,infamous!”
The quaver in her voice shook my resolution to dealharshly with her.
“If I had not myself been a witness—” I began.
“Yes; you have the conceit of your own wisdom, Idare say.”
“But that challenge to follow you, to break my pledge;my running away, only to find that Pickering was closeat my heels; your visit to the tunnel in search of thosenotes,—don’t you know that those things were a blowthat hurt? You had been the spirit of this woodland tome. Through all these months, from the hour I watchedyou paddle off into the sunset in your canoe, the thoughtof you made the days brighter, steadied and cheered me,and wakened ambitions that I had forgotten—abandoned—long ago. And this hideous struggle here,—it seemsso idle, so worse than useless now! But I’m glad I followedyou,—I’m glad that neither fortune nor duty keptme back. And now I want you to know th
at ArthurPickering shall not suffer for anything that has happened.I shall make no effort to punish him; for yoursake he shall go free.”
A sigh so deep that it was like a sob broke from her.She thrust forth her hand entreatingly.
“Why don’t you go to him with your generosity?You are so ready to believe ill of me! And I shall notdefend myself; but I will say these things to you, Mr.Glenarm: I had no idea, no thought of seeing him atthe Armstrongs’ that night. It was a surprise to me,and to them, when he telegraphed he was coming. Andwhen I went into the tunnel there under the wall thatnight, I had a purpose—a purpose—”
“Yes?” she paused and I bent forward, earnestlywaiting for her words, knowing that here lay her greatoffending.
“I was afraid,—I was afraid that Mr. Glenarm mightnot come in time; that you might be dispossessed,—losethe fight, and I came back with Mr. Pickering becauseI thought some dreadful thing might happen here—toyou—”
She turned and ran from me with the speed of thewind, the cloak fluttering out darkly about her. At thedoor, under the light of the lamp, I was close upon her.Her hand was on the vestibule latch.
“But how should I have known?” I cried. “And youhad taunted me with my imprisonment at Glenarm;you had dared me to follow you, when you knew thatmy grandfather was living and watching to see whetherI kept faith with him. If you can tell me,—if therean answer to that—”
“I shall never tell you anything—more! You were soeager to think ill of me—to accuse me!”
“It was because I love you; it was my jealousy of thatman, my boyhood enemy, that made me catch at anydoubt. You are so beautiful,—you are so much a partof the peace, the charm of all this! I had hoped forspring—for you and the spring together!”
“Oh, please—!”
Her flight had shaken the toque to an unwonted angle;her breath came quick and hard as she tugged atthe latch eagerly. The light from overhead was fullupon us, but I could not go with hope and belief strugglingunsatisfied in my heart. I seized her hands andsought to look into her eyes.
“But you challenged me,—to follow you! I want toknow why you did that!”
She drew away, struggling to free herself
“Why was it, Marian?”
“Because I wanted—”
“Yes.”
“I wanted you to come, Squire Glenarm!”
Thrice spring has wakened the sap in the Glenarmwood since that night. Yesterday I tore March fromthe calendar. April in Indiana! She is an impudenttomboy who whistles at the window, points to the sunshineand, when you go hopefully forth, summons theclouds and pelts you with snow. The austere old woodland,wise from long acquaintance, finds no joy in her.The walnut and the hickory have a higher respect forthe stormier qualities of December. April in Indiana!She was just there by the wall, where now the bluebirdpauses dismayed, and waits again the flash of her goldensandals. She bent there at the lakeside the splash ofa raindrop ago and tentatively poked the thin, brittleice with the pink tips of her little fingers. April in theheart! It brings back the sweet wonder and awe of thosedays, three years ago, when Marian and I, waiting forJune to come, knew a joy that thrilled our hearts likethe tumult of the first robin’s song. The marvel of itall steals over me again as I hear the riot of melody inmeadow and wood, and catch through the window theflash of eager wings.
My history of the affair at Glenarm has overrun thebounds I had set for it, and these, I submit, are notdays for the desk and pen. Marian is turning over thesheets of manuscript that lie at my left elbow, and demandingthat I drop work for a walk abroad. Mygrandfather is pacing the terrace outside, planning, nodoubt, those changes in the grounds that are his constantdelight.
Of some of the persons concerned in this winter’stale let me say a word more. The prisoner whom Larryleft behind we discharged, after several days, with allthe honors of war, and (I may add without breach ofconfidence) a comfortable indemnity. Larry has madea reputation by his book on Russia—a searching studyinto the conditions of the Czar’s empire, and, havingsqueezed that lemon, he is now in Tibet. His fatherhas secured from the British government a promise ofimmunity for Larry, so long as that amiable adventurerkeeps away from Ireland. My friend’s latest letters tome contain, I note, no reference to The Sod.
Bates is in California conducting a fruit ranch, andwhen he visited us last Christmas he bore all the marksof a gentleman whom the world uses well. Stoddard’slife has known many changes in these years, but theymust wait for another day, and, perhaps, another historian.Suffice it to say that it was he who married us—Marian and me—in the little chapel by the wall, andthat when he comes now and then to visit us, we renewour impression of him as a man large of body and ofsoul. Sister Theresa continues at the head of St. Agatha’s,and she and the other Sisters of her brown-cladcompany are delightful neighbors. Pickering’s failureand subsequent disappearance were described sufficientlyin the newspapers and his name is never mentioned atGlenarm.
As for myself—Marian is tapping the floor restlesslywith her boot and I must hasten—I may say that I amno idler. It was I who carried on the work of finishingGlenarm House, and I manage the farms which mygrandfather has lately acquired in this neighborhood.But better still, from my own point of view, I maintainin Chicago an office as consulting engineer and I havealready had several important commissions.
Glenarm House is now what my grandfather hadwished to make it, a beautiful and dignified mansion.He insisted on filling up the tunnel, so that the Door ofBewilderment is no more. The passage in the wall andthe strong box in the paneling of the chimney-breastremain, though the latter we use now as a hiding-placefor certain prized bottles of rare whisky which JohnMarshall Glenarm ordains shall be taken down only onChristmas Eves, to drink the health of Olivia GladysArmstrong. That young woman, I may add, is now abelle in her own city, and of the scores of youngsters allthe way from Pittsburg to New Orleans who lay siegeto her heart, my word is, may the best man win!
And now, at the end, it may seem idle vanity for aman still young to write at so great length of his ownaffairs; but it must have been clear that mine is thehumblest figure in this narrative. I wished to set forthan honest account of my grandfather’s experiment inlooking into this world from another, and he has himselfurged me to write down these various incidentswhile they are still fresh in my memory.
Marian—the most patient of women—is walking towardthe door, eager for the sunshine, the free airs ofspring, the blue vistas lakeward, and at last I am readyto go.
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