On the Face of the Waters

by Jennette Lee

 

ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS

AN OLD STORY WITH A NEW ENDING

By JENNETTE LEE

ILLUSTRATED BY KARL ANDERSON

SHE had been sitting in the dusk on the veranda, looking into the shadows and thinking that she would go in and read a little before going to bed. The house was very quiet. The children were asleep. Tom was at the club. The whole town was asleep in the moonlight as she looked down the shaded street. Not a soul was in sight. Then she fell to dreaming. The moonlight often made her dream. It was by moonlight that Tom had wooed her. She had been won in the enchanted land. Married life was broad daylight. But sometimes she slipped back to it again—to the land of shadows and beckoning and foliage with the moonlight sifting through.... The gate-latch clicked. She peered through the dusk, down the long yard. It was Tom—and some one with him. She watched the two figures, idly, incuriously, as they came up the path. Near the house one of them tossed away the end of a cigar. It fell among the flowers and glowed. They came up the broad steps slowly, a little lazily. It was a warm night, and Tom had grown stout. At the top of the steps he paused, looking back to the yard and pointing to something behind them, explaining it to the figure beside him. Then they turned and crossed the veranda to the little open-air room at the end.

She watched them as they approached, wondering whether she knew the man.... No, she had never seen him.... He was too distinguished for Burleighville.

“It's Ward Allen,” said Tom genially. “Think of my finding him at the club!”

The man bowed over her extended hand with exaggerated courtesy. It made her feel plebeian and commonplace. She was suddenly conscious that her hands were rough from the garden work and her collar crumpled. She withdrew her hand quickly, almost rudely, and motioned to a seat near by.

Tom drew it forward with a quick gesture: “Sit down, Ward. Sit right down. Make yourself at home. It's mighty good to get you here.” He seated himself on the railing of the veranda and surveyed his guest with satisfaction. “Just about the last man I expected to see,” he said sideways to Mary. His lighted cigar was in his hand and he put it to his lips, heaving a contented whiff. “I'd been talking to Burleigh, and I turned around, and there he was.” He smiled toward his guest, with a slow, broad smile that the moonlight broadened and softened.

The man's face returned it parenthetically. He was leaning back in his chair, looking into the shadowy yard:

“You have a beautiful place here.” He had turned to Mary.

She lifted her glance indifferently, studying the misty light: “By moonlight—yes.”

“At any time,” said the man politely. “You have done a great deal to it. I remember the place as a boy. No one would have guessed it would be like this.” He was still addressing her. But she made no response.

After a moment's silence she raised her eyes, almost perfunctorily. “Perhaps so,” she said.

Tom looked at her, the slow smile on her lips. “She don't enthuse over the place,” he said lightly. “The vegetable garden's her pet. Just wait till you see the turnips. Now the main thing I did here”—he waved his cigar comprehensively—“was to clear up the brush a little and close things in. That clump of cedars over there—one of the nicest things we've got. You ought to have seen it, all choked in and tangled up with grape-vines and bittersweet. It took a man two weeks to get it cut away and trimmed up. But there it is!” He surveyed it fondly.

Mary ... gathered her up, lifting her from the bed

“Very fine,” said the man, “especially from this point.”

“That's it. You see it, don't you? Same old block!” He looked at his guest affectionately. “We always did agree from the word 'go.'” He turned to his wife: “If you'd seen the way we tagged each other round, you'd 'a' thought we had one idea between us.”

“Damon and Pythias?” she said. She was wondering whether she might slip away into the house and read her book, after all. She was de trop in this reunion. The man's refined air annoyed her, and his deliberate, well-bred interest. No one would have—that Burleighville could have done a man like that.

Tom extended his cigar-case. “Take one,” he said, “Mary don't mind.”

The man refused with a gesture.

Tom bit off the end and searched for a match: “Damon and Pythias is the poetry of it. But I guess Siamese Twins is nearer the truth. We didn't sigh for each other soulfully, but we stuck like burs.”

The man from the city smiled a little. He had risen to his feet, putting aside his host's protest: “Not to-night, I mustn't stay. Aunt Esther will be sitting up for me. I mustn't spoil her beauty sleep.”

He turned to the woman sitting in the low chair beside him. “Don't rise, Mrs. Searle,” he protested as she stood up.

“I am going in,” she said bruskly. She felt helplessly rude. The man drove her to it—with his urbanity. With sudden contrition she held out her hand: “Good-night, Mr. Allen. Your coming back will mean a great deal to Tom. He has often spoken of you.”

He bowed low over the hand. “I count it a great privilege to know his wife,” he responded.

She withdrew her hand quickly. “Good-night,” she said.

II

THE sweet-peas hid him from sight till he was close upon her. She rose from her knees by the onion bed, looking to either side for flight. Then she advanced to meet him.

He wore a white linen suit with a straw hat and boutonnière, and he carried a light walking-stick. He was the correct gentleman. Yet he looked, somehow, oddly at home in the garden.

Mary took in the immaculate freshness, the crisp, shining hair and low-cut shoes, as she crossed the few feet of turf between them.

He lifted the straw hat, greeting her with a frank smile. “I came to see the garden,” he said.

She looked at him, a little puzzled, a little vexed: “Do you care to see it?”

“I came on purpose.”

“Very well.” She turned and led the way down the paths, pointing out the different beds with elaborate care and relating the history of each with a kind of dry precision.

The man beside her lent himself to her mood. His questions were curt and to the point, but full of interest. Gradually she thawed to them. The man seemed to know the difference between a cabbage and a cucumber. She showed him a new variety of endive that she was cherishing in a remote corner. “I'm afraid the cook will find it,” she explained. “I am saving it for Tom—for his birthday.”

“I am saving it for Tom”

“Just for Tom?”

“Just for Tom,” she said, smiling a little. “The rest of us may get a taste, but it is his treat. The whole garden is really for him,” she added with a touch of abandon.

The man laughed happily: “I thought he despised it.”

“He does—in theory. In practise he is very fond of it.” The tone held no cynicism, only frank amusement and affection.

The man looked at her. She wore no hat, and her hair was loosened by the wind and tumbled. A streak of brown earth lay across one cheek. She was not conscious of her looks, or of him. The contentment of the garden had come back to her. She was looking across it with shining eyes. “Shall we go back?” she said.

He glanced at a seat under the elm, near by, at the foot of the garden. “I could rest a little,” he said.

She smiled and led the way to the seat: “Tom always wants to stop here.”

“He shows good sense,” said the man. “He always had good sense.”

“Always,” she responded.

For a few minutes they sat without speaking. She was conscious that the silence made no demands. The man's super-refinement had vanished. She thought of it vaguely as a kind of romantic garment, appropriate for a moonlight stroll, but out of place in the sunshine. It seemed to have slipped from him. He was like the garden now, clear and clean-cut, with a hint of something tonic beneath. She smiled a little at the fancy. She was glad that she disliked him less. It would be pleasanter for Tom.

“My Aunt Esther is the most beautiful woman I know,” he said quietly; “beautiful in her way.”

She started and looked at him. Then her face broke into a smile. “Isn't she!” she said quickly. “I didn't suppose anybody else would see it. Tom calls her homely.” She laughed.

He smiled back: “I was thinking how she looked this morning in her flower garden, like a piece of porcelain—”

“Porcelain—?” Her voice lingered on the question.

“No—not quite—not porcelain, is it? I hadn't thought of that. It is more like—” He leaned back with closed eyes, his face intent.... “It's more like fine pottery,” he said at last, “like faience—the kind Palissy used to make—'”

She leaned forward: “With blue in it?”

He opened his eyes: “Blue and green, with a touch of pink on enamel—cream-white.”

“I know,” she spoke quickly. “And not too fine.”

“Not too fine—but very clear—and beautiful in its roughness.” He turned to her. “You never saw a piece?”

“No. But I know how it looks. I have seen her.”

He assented quietly: “Yes, you have seen her. She is perfect. I am glad you see it.”

“I have always seen it,” she said a little jealously, “only I didn't know the name.”

He nodded: “And I never saw it till yesterday.”

“She has always been like that.”

“A boy of fourteen doesn't have much use for Palissy plates,” he replied carelessly. “He cares more for what's on 'em—spiced cookies and succulent pies.”

She smiled a little: “Tom is always quoting them to me.”

He nodded: “Absolutely perfect. I never tasted anything like 'em. But she, herself—you ought to have seen her this morning—among those nice plump flowers, you know?”

“She has them all—money-flower, phlox, sweet williams, and hollyhocks, pinks and love-lies-bleeding, mullein-pinks, dahlias, bachelor's buttons, and rue.” She ran over the list, checking them off on her fingers and lingering a little over the quaint names.

He nodded. “Aren't they just right!” he exclaimed. “She was out there, working away on them, with her skirts pinned up, all clean and shining, and some little mucker—about so high—had wandered in the gate. She was talking to him and giving him flowers and kind of loving him, shy and stiff. It took Palissy all his life to find out how to make those plates,” he said suddenly. “He ruined his life for it. Burned his furniture in the kiln to fire them.”

She looked at him quietly; then past him, down the long rows of vegetable beds. She had a quick sense of sunshine and gladness. No one in Burleighville had seen Miss Esther Farquhar like this. No one would have cared to say it that way.... She had come out to the garden for vegetables, and she found—had found—sunshine with warmth in it.

They sat a moment longer in silence. Then they moved back, down the paths of the vegetable beds, to the house. At the side door she paused.

“Will you go around and wait for Tom? I must make myself presentable.” She held up her stained fingers.

He looked at them and at her loosened hair and at the earthmark on her cheek. “You are not Palissy ware,” he said smiling; “you are a garden piece. I must find a name for it.”

She shook her head. “Naming is just a mania,” she said; “seeing is better.”

“I like to do both,” he replied contentedly. “No, I mustn't stop this morning. Tell Tom I'll see him to-night.”

He lifted his hat and passed down the walk to the gate, immaculate and white, swinging the little cane lightly as he walked.

In her room she dashed the water over her face and throat, removing the mark from her cheek and bringing little tendrils of hair curling about her forehead. She buried her face in the towel and lifted it, radiant. In the cool dusk of the room, after the light outside, she could hardly distinguish the familiar objects. She moved in a new world.... There were men and women like that everywhere.... Men who saw things and cared about them. And they looked like this man—conventional, uninteresting, prosaic. And one might meet them any day, just as she had met him this morning in the garden, without expecting it.

•••••••

She woke before the birds with something singing itself through the darkness—“Ward Allen, Ward Allen,” it rang—like little bells in the dark—“Ward Allen—Ward Allen.” She smiled to herself with quick joy and turned again and slept. When she wakened again the birds had taken up the sound. Tom, in the bathroom beyond, whistled it merrily. The children laughed it outside the door. It was a name of joy—a new friend. She had never had a friend—except Tom and the children. She threw open the blind and let in the light.

III

THE feet of the summer were winged. They brought swift messages. As the days flitted by, she had glimpses of a world of men and women and life—a world of insights, things unspoken, tranquil dreams and passion. She caught her breath sometimes.... The newness of it hurt her, and the sense that she had missed it always—without knowing. Then she grew wonted to it, accustomed to wake to a full day and to sleep between life and life. In and out of it, Ward Allen moved in careless, friendly ease. There was no question of him. He made no demands on her or on Tom. He was part of the swift new summer.

Then, one night, the moment came. She had been pacing the veranda, a smile of happy thought on her lips. Suddenly she paused. All about her, from side to side, stretched a glow, rosé-red and still. She gazed into it with startled eyes. In the midst lay something uncovered, mysterious.... She peered forward and faced a naked soul. She shrank back with a cry, back—back to the side of the house, covering her eyes.

When she came to herself the darkness lay about her, warm and breathing. With a sure instinct she turned to the open door and went swiftly up the stairs. At the door of the children's room she paused. Then she passed in and turned up the gas, softly, shading the light from sleeping cots. They lay tossed about in the warm night with hair moist and faces fresh She bent above them, smoothing the crumpled sheet and drawing pillows straight. A murmured, drowsy, response came to her—half words, out of dreamland, protest and the quiet sigh of relief—long-drawn and passing into sleep. She stood looking at them, looking.... So this was what it meant—this was what it had always meant. This was what other women faced—what they put in books. She turned sharply about to the light. Her hands were clasped behind her back and a little line was drawn between her eyes.

“She was ... giving him flowers and kind of loving him, shy and stiff”

She was thinking fast—faster than the summer had flown.... She—Mary Earle—she had done this thing! Her gaze was deep on it. Slowly the look softened. It was a sweet, familiar thing.... It was not a sin. They could not call it sin! She must think fast.... How was it? What had she done? She was walled about by it. Was there no way? Her breath tightened. A sound from the bed caught her ear and she turned about.

Little Mary was sitting up, holding out fretful hands.

“I'm firsty,” she said sleepily.

Mary brought the water and stood over her, smoothing the hot head on the pillow. The child opened her eyes and looked up—out of unfathomable dreams—at her mother. “Rockaby,” she said, holding up her arms.

Mary gathered the groping hands in her own, patting them gently. “Not to-night,” she said.

“Rockaby!” said the child imperiously.

Mary bent to her and gathered her up, lifting her from the bed. She threw a light shawl over the little figure and bore it down the stairs.... This is what she had come for. She could think now. Her arms did not reach out to blankness. They held the child close.

She carried it to the library. It was cooler there. She drew forward the big chair by the table and sat down. The light from the hall came in faintly. It fell on her and on the table covered with books—his books and hers and Tom's. Her eye traced them idly as she rocked..That was the new book on architecture that Tom brought home last night. He was going to enlarge the wing. Where would she be when it was done?

She shivered a little and drew the child's shawl closer. Her eyes probed the books.... It ought not to come to one like this—without warning.... It suffocated her. She could not turn. Subtle coils tightened about her—one more turn and she would be fast. She stayed her breath, steadying herself against it. Slowly her heart settled to silence. The child's head rested lightly on it. The rockers had ceased to move. The big room loomed about her, shadowy.... It was not wrong—this thing in her heart, beneath the child. It was wonderful, mysterious, far-reaching—but not wrong.... She had never given it to Tom. It would never be his. But it was not wrong. Her heart rose and sang.... The books did not know. They were false. She was not a guilty creature—lost to her children and her husband. She held the thought of Tom firmly before her. Dear, blundering Tom! She was not false to him. Was a woman's heart so small a thing? She patted the head lying against her shoulder softly. Her heart had gone out to each new child with abounding love—but different for each. If she had not known him—Ward—Ward Allen—she would have missed a part of life—of loving.

She raised her eyes.

He was standing there, across the room, looking at her.

He came forward quickly: “Don't get up.”

He drew forward a chair: “I did not see you. I came in to wait for Tom.'

“He has not come.” Her eyes met his bravely.

“No. I will wait. Is she ill?” He motioned to the sleeping child.

“Only restless. She wanted to rockaby. I was going to take her upstairs.”

She did not stir, and they sat in silence. It was the familiar silence into which they often fell. Out of its mazes Mary tried to picture herself as the world would see her—if it knew. A guilty thing! She smiled a little in the dimness.

He looked at her: “What is it?”

Her answer may have halted a minute, but it came winged: “I was thinking how much I love you and how wicked the world would think I am.”

He leaned back motionless. After a long moment he spoke: “You will not be sorry.”

“No! I am glad every day—glad! I shall always be glad!' The words broke forth. They almost sang to him.

He rose slowly. “Yes, you will be glad—” He held out his hand. “Good- night, dear—good-by.”

Her hands were busy with the child, gathering it up. She did not look at him.

The child opened sleepy eyes. “'Night, Uncle Ward,” she said dreamily.

“Good-night, little girl.” He bent above her for a minute. Then he straightened himself. “You won't let it sadden you.”

She shook her head: “I am afraid I can't.” A smile held her lips. “I can't even feel guilty. I know I ought to—”

They turned. Tom's step was in the hall. He came in, holding out both hands: “Hallo, Ward. Just in time. Is she sick?” He turned to the child.

“She wanted her mother.” Mary's hand was on the tumbled head. Her eyes looked at the two men over it. “Ward's going away, Tom,” she said slowly. “He's going because I love him. I've just told him so. We want you to know it.”

The man looked from one to the other with hesitating perception. His slow bulk lifted itself. He loomed large beside them. “Don't joke, Mary,” he said. He had taken her hand protectingly.

“I'm not joking, Tom.” Her fingers closed about the big ones. “You've always loved him, you know.” She looked at him wistfully. If he failed them—

He nodded: “Yes, I've always loved Ward.” His eyes sought the other man's. “I've always loved him,” he repeated thoughtfully.

“And I've just begun to love him,” said Mary. “That's all.”

They moved apart by common consent. The balance of the moment hung poised.

The child lifted sleepy hands. “Muvver,” she breathed, and fell asleep again.

Above the child's head her eyes sought the two men. A sombre humor held their depths. “I am telling you the truth,” she said simply, “I know I ought not to say it. I ought to cling to Tom loyally, and eat out my heart in secret for Ward. But I don't feel that way. I love you both, and”—her voice grew deeply tender—“I love little Mary. And, please God”—the words broke with a little laugh—“I shall love a good many others before I die.'

The two men smiled—Ward subtly, Tom with a slow light in the eyes that watched her. “It's all right, Mary,” he said assuringly. “What you say goes.'

“It goes,” said the other in a deeper tone.

She lifted the child on her arm and held out a hand to him, swiftly:

“Good-night, Ward, and good-by. Some day you will come back.”

He moved away in the shadows. Only his voice came to them from the darkness.... “Good-by. Yes—I shall come.” His footsteps retreated faintly, dying away on the gravel walk outside.

She laid the child in his arms. “Carry her for me, Tom,” she said; “I am tired.”

He bent and kissed her. He kissed the child. “I feel as if something black had gone by us,” he said, thrusting his hand toward the darkness.

She took it in her own, drawing it about her close. “It has made a poet of you, Tom.” She laughed softly and moved toward the door. “Come away,” she said. “Come. We will keep it in the light.”