Part 6 (1/2)

[Sidenote: An Unfair Advantage]

”For yours, of course. I'll try to do as you want me to, Lady Mother. I have nothing to do but to make you happy.”

For answer, she kissed him again. ”I must dress, too,” she said.

When they met at dinner, half an hour later, neither made any reference to the subject that had been under discussion. Outwardly all was calm and peaceful, as deep-flowing waters may hide the rocks beneath. By the time coffee was served, they were back upon the old footing of affectionate comrades.h.i.+p.

Afterward, he read the paper while Madame played solitaire. When she turned the queen of hearts, she remembered the red-haired woman whom she had seen in the crystal ball. And they were not going away, after all!

Madame felt that she had in some way gained an unfair advantage over the red-haired woman. There would be no one, now, to take her boy away from her.

And yet, when the time came for her to go, would she want Alden to live on in the old house alone, looking after the hated vineyard and teaching the despised school? At best, it could be only a few years more.

Feeling her grave, sweet eyes upon him, Alden looked up from his paper.

”What is it, Mother?”

”Dear,” she said, thoughtfully, ”I want you to marry and bring me a daughter. I want to hold your son in my arms before I die.”

[Sidenote: Madame's Dream]

”Rather a large order, isn't it?” He laughed indifferently, and went on with his reading. Madame laughed, too, as she continued her solitaire, but, none the less, she dreamed that night that the house was full of women with red hair, and that each one was gazing earnestly into the depths of a crystal ball.

IV

April's Sun

[Sidenote: The Joy of Morning]

With a rush of warm winds and a tinkle of raindrops, Spring danced over the hills. The river stirred beneath the drifting ice, then woke into musical murmuring. Even the dead reeds and dry rushes at the bend of the stream gave forth a faint melody when swayed by the full waters beneath.

The joy of morning was abroad in the world. Robins sang it, winds whispered it, and, beneath the sod, every fibre of root and tree quivered with aspiration, groping through the labyrinth of darkness with a blind impulse toward the light. Across the valley, on the southern slope, a faint glow of green seemed to hover above the dark tangle of the vineyard, like some indefinite suggestion of colour, promising the sure beauty yet to come.

Rosemary had climbed the Hill of the Muses early in the afternoon. She, too, was awake, in every fibre of body and soul. Springs had come and gone before--twenty-five of them--but she had never known one like this.

A vague delight possessed her, and her heart throbbed as from imprisoned wings. Purpose and uplift and aspiration swayed her strangely; she yearned blindly toward some unknown goal.

[Sidenote: The Family Religion]

She had not seen Alden for a long time. The melting ice and snow had made the hill unpleasant, if not impossible, and the annual sewing had kept her closely indoors. She and Aunt Matilda had made the year's supply of underwear from the unbleached muslin, and one garment for each from the bolt of brown-and-white gingham. Rosemary disdained to say ”gown” or even ”dress,” for the result of her labour was a garment, simply, and nothing more.

Every third Summer she had a new white muslin, of the cheapest quality, which she wore to church whenever it was ordained that she should go.

Grandmother and Aunt Matilda were deeply religious, but not according to any popular plan. They had their own private path to Heaven, and had done their best to set Rosemary's feet firmly upon it, but with small success.

When she was a child, Rosemary had spent many long, desolate Sunday afternoons thinking how lonely it would be in Heaven with n.o.body there but G.o.d and the angels and the Starr family. Even the family, it seemed, was not to be admitted as an ent.i.ty, but separately, according to individual merit. Grandmother and Aunt Matilda had many a wordy battle as to who would be there and who wouldn't, but both were sadly agreed that Frank must stay outside.

[Sidenote: Rewards and Punishments]

Rosemary was deeply hurt when she discovered that Grandmother did not expect to meet her son there, and as for her son's wife--the old lady had dismissed the hapless bride to the Abode of the Lost with a single comprehensive snort. Alternately, Rosemary had been rewarded for good behaviour by the promise of Heaven and punished for small misdemeanours by having the gates closed in her face. As she grew older and began to think for herself, she wondered how Grandmother and Aunt Matilda had obtained their celestial appointment as gate-keepers, and reflected that it might possibly be very pleasant outside, with the father and mother whom she had never seen.

So, of late years, religion had not disturbed Rosemary much. She paid no attention to the pointed allusions to ”heathen” and ”infidels” that a.s.sailed her ears from time to time, and ceased to feel her young flesh creep when the Place of Torment was described with all the power of two separate and vivid imaginations. Disobedience troubled her no longer unless she was found out, and, gradually, she developed a complicated system of deception.