Part 4 (1/2)
”It has been a long time since you called me Elliot, and it sounds queer to give me the name of your boy. Why should you?”
”You are my boy, and my Eglah also; two in one, and my only joy in all the world. Don't argue, dearie; go to sleep.”
She lifted her into bed and tucked the silk quilt carefully about her, as though crib days had not ended.
”Ma-Lila, if we should all meet in heaven--and I do hope that somehow I shall get there--I am afraid I shall feel puzzled to know who really is my mother, because it seems to me I belong more to you than to anybody else except father; but then grandmother will certainly be there, and she will carry me straight to that special spot--the heavenly 'west-end'--where all the Maurices dwell, and hand me over to her Marcia: the beautiful one I never saw, my own mother, who would not wait in this world long enough to look at me.”
”Hush, my lamb! Good night.”
In the adjoining room she sat down at a table where books were piled, and opening one read a marked pa.s.sage:
”The story was told by the owner of a shop where was sold the amber-tinted syrup of malt given to young children when milk could not be obtained. A pale woman in white came very late for many nights to buy a cup of this syrup--_midzu ame_--but never spoke.
”One night, when she beckoned him to follow, he went with her to the cemetery, where she suddenly vanished in a tomb, and he heard a young child crying under ground. On opening the tomb there was found the corpse of the woman, and by her side a young infant smiling, who had been fed from a cup of _midzu ame_ in the hand of the corpse. The woman had by mistake been prematurely buried. The child was born in the grave, and love--stronger than death--compelled the ghost to provide nourishment for her baby.”
Eliza closed the volume and tossed it across the table.
”As if we needed old heathen j.a.pan to teach us the length and breadth and depth and deathlessness of maternal devotion, when we know from the Bible that though G.o.d in heaven forsook His Son, the earthly mother clung to Jesus!”
It was an intensely cold, windless, brilliant moonlight night in January, two years after she came to live in Was.h.i.+ngton, and when the clock struck eleven she heard a quick but cautious step in the corridor and a slight tap at her door. Mr. Herriott stood at the threshold and beckoned her to the head of the steps.
”Is Eglah asleep?”
”I think she is.”
”Come downstairs quietly.”
In the lower hall, where the lights burned brightly, she saw that he looked pale and troubled.
”Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, a terrible blow has fallen upon us. Mrs. Kent went sleighing with some friends, and the horses became uncontrollable. The sleigh was overturned, and poor Nina, thrown against a stone wall, was killed instantly. Will you do what is best when she is brought home?
Don't rouse little Eglah. I am going to find Senator Kent, who is in committee meeting, and break the news as gently as possible. Poor, dear Nina! So merry, so kind hearted! Laughing and chaffing me for my awkwardness when I tucked the lap robe about her feet.”
Once more death levelled a wall that in some degree barred Eglah from her father, and from that wintry night she dated the beginning of her happy reign over his undivided affection--a monopoly she had long coveted as the supreme privilege and crown of life.
CHAPTER V
”Has the success of the experiment justified the labor and enthusiasm you spent upon it?”
”Yes, Noel, the result far surpa.s.ses my hopes, and I am impatient for you to visit us, not only to understand fully the complete success of the work, but to receive the grateful acknowledgments of every member of the Order.”
”Then you bar your doors against me, because any expression of thanks is annoying, and the great pleasure I gave myself in deeding the property to you would be marred. Remember, Vernon, I am not a well-rounded character, measured by your ecclesiastical tape-line, and one of my ugly angles is aversion to thanks. If you have drained the marshland and reclaimed the house from mildew and mice you have made your neighbors debtors.”
”The same Noel Herriott of college days!”
”Only more so, if you please. Nothing human is immutable, and if a man does not improve he grows worse. By the way, is your reverence still 'Brother' Temple, or have you climbed the ladder of spiritual promotion?”
”I am always Vernon to you, but the world knows me as 'Father' Temple.
When will you come to us at 'Calvary House' and inspect the rich harvest from the seed you sowed? I long for the one thing you have withheld--your deep, hearty sympathy in my grand and holy work.”