Part 48 (1/2)
”Good Lord! It's such a little thing to make a fuss about,” said Tucker, ”when you remember, my dear, that our levels aren't any bigger than chalk lines in the eyes of G.o.d Almighty.”
Cynthia regarded him with squinting displeasure.
”Oh, of course; you have no family pride,” she returned; ”but I had thought there was a little left in Christopher.”
Christopher shook his head, smiling indifferently. ”Not enough to want blood sacrifices,” he responded, and fell into a detached and thoughtful silence. The vision of Lila in her radiant happiness remained with him like a picture that one has beheld by some rare chance in a vivid and lovely light; and it was still before him when he left the house presently and strolled slowly down to meet Maria by the poplar spring.
The bloom of the meadows filled his nostrils with a delicate fragrance, and from the bough of an old apple-tree in the orchard he heard the low afternoon murmurs of a solitary thrush. May was on the earth, and it had entered into him as into the piping birds and the spreading trees. It was at last good to be alive-- to breathe the warm, sweet air, and to watch the suns.h.i.+ne slanting on the low, green hill. So closely akin were his moods to those of the changing seasons that, at the instant, he seemed to feel the current of his being flow from the earth beneath his feet--as if his physical nature drew strength and nourishment from that genial and abundant source.
When he reached the spring he saw Maria appear on the brow of the hill, and with a quick, joyous bound his heart leaped up to meet her. As she came toward him her white dress swept the tall gra.s.s from her feet, and her shadow flew like a winged creature straight before her. There was a vivid softness in her face--a look at once bright and wistful--which moved him with a new and strange tenderness.
”I was a little late,” she explained, as they met before the long bench and she laid her books upon it, ”and I am very warm. May I have a drink?”
”From a bramble cup?”
”How else?” She took off her hat and tossed it on the gra.s.s at her feet; then, going to the spring, she waited while he plucked a leaf from the bramble and bent it into shape. When he filled it and held it out, she placed her lips to the edge of the leaf and looked up at him with smiling eyes while she drank slowly from his hand.
”It holds only a drop, but how delicious!” she said, seating herself again upon the bench and leaning back against the great body of a poplar. Then her eyes fell upon his clothes. ”Why, how very much dressed you look!” she added.
”Oh, there's a reason besides Sunday--I've just come from a wedding. Lila has married after twelve years of waiting.”
”Your pretty sister! And to whom?”
”To Jim Weatherby--old Jacob's son, you know. Now, don't tell me that you disapprove. I count on your good sense to see the wisdom of it.”
”So it is your pretty sister,” she said slowly, ”the woman I pa.s.sed in the road the other day and held my breath as I did before Botticelli's Venus.”
”Is that so? Well, she doesn't know much about pictures, nor does Jim. She has thrown herself away, Cynthia says, but what could she have waited for, after all? Nothing had ever come to her, and she had lived thirty years. Besides, she will be very happy, and that's a good deal, isn't it?”
”It's everything,” said Maria quietly, looking down into her lap.
”Everything? And if you had been born in her place?”
”I am not in her place and never could be; but six years ago, if I had been told that I must live here all my life, I think I should have fretted myself to death; that would have happened six years ago, for I was born with a great aching for life, and I thought then that one could live only in the big outside world.”
”And now?” he questioned, for she paused and sat smiling gravely at the book she held.
”Now I know that the fulness of life does not come from the things outside of us, and that we ourselves must create the beauty in which we live. Oh, I have learned so much from misery,”
she went on softly, ”and worst of all, I have learned what it is to starve for bread in the midst of sugar-plums.”
”And it was worth learning?”
”The knowledge that I gained? Oh, yes, yes; for it taught me how to be happy. I went down into h.e.l.l,” she said pa.s.sionately, ”and I came out--clean. I saw evil such as I had never heard of; I went close to it, I even touched it, but I always kept my soul very far away, and I was like a person in a dream. The more I saw of sin and ugliness the more I dreamed of peace and beauty. I builded me my own refuge, I fed on my own strength day and night --and I am what I am--”
”The loveliest woman on G.o.d's earth,” he said.
”You do not know me, ”she answered, and opened the book before her. ”It was the story of the Holy Grail,” she added, ”and we left off here. Oh, those brave days of King Arthur! It was always May then.”
He touched the page lightly with a long blade of gra.s.s.