Part 16

Sweet and soft and wonderful was the music that stole through the room. Mr. Leonard forgot his heartbreak and listened to it in puzzled amazement. He had never heard anything like it before. How could the child play like that? He looked at Naomi and marvelled at the change in her face. The fear and frenzy were going out of it; she listened breathlessly, never taking her eyes from Felix. At the foot of the bed the idiot girl sat with tears on her cheeks.

In that strange music was the joy of the innocent, mirthful childhood, blent with the laughter of waves and the call of glad winds. Then it held the wild, wayward dreams of youth, sweet and pure in all their wildness and waywardness. They were followed by a rapture of young love--all-surrendering, all-sacrificing love. The music changed. It held the torture of unshed tears, the anguish of a heart deceived and desolate. Mr. Leonard almost put his hands over his ears to shut out its intolerable poignancy. But on the dying woman’s face was only a strange relief, as if some dumb, long-hidden pain had at last won to the healing of utterance.

The sullen indifference of despair came next, the bitterness of smouldering revolt and misery, the reckless casting away of all good. There was something indescribably evil in the music now--so evil that Mr. Leonard’s white soul shuddered away in loathing, and Maggie cowered and whined like a frightened animal.

Again the music changed. And in it now there was agony and fear--and repentance and a cry for pardon. To Mr. Leonard there was something strangely familiar in it. He struggled to recall where he had heard it before; then he suddenly knew--he had heard it before Felix came in Naomi’s terrible words! He looked at his grandson with something like awe. Here was a power of which he knew nothing--a strange and dreadful power. Was it of God? Or of Satan?

For the last time the music changed. And now it was not music at all--it was a great, infinite forgiveness, an all-comprehending love. It was healing for a sick soul; it was light and hope and peace. A Bible text, seemingly incongruous, came into Mr. Leonard’s mind--“This is the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

Felix lowered the violin and dropped wearily on a chair by the bed. The inspired light faded from his face; once more he was only a tired boy. But Stephen Leonard was on his knees, sobbing like a child; and Naomi Clark was lying still, with her hands clasped over her breast.

“I understand now,” she said very softly. “I couldn’t see it before--and now it’s so plain. I just FEEL it. God IS a God of love. He can forgive anybody--even me--even me. He knows all about it. I ain’t skeered any more. He just loves me and forgives me as I’d have loved and forgiven my baby if she’d lived, no matter how bad she was, or what she did. The minister told me that but I couldn’t believe it. I KNOW it now. And He sent you here to-night, boy, to tell it to me in a way that I could feel it.”

Naomi Clark died just as the dawn came up over the sea. Mr. Leonard rose from his watch at her bedside and went to the door. Before him spread the harbour, gray and austere in the faint light, but afar out the sun was rending asunder the milk-white mists in which the sea was scarfed, and under it was a virgin glow of sparkling water.

The fir trees on the point moved softly and whispered together. The whole world sang of spring and resurrection and life; and behind him Naomi Clark’s dead face took on the peace that passes understanding.

The old minister and his grandson walked home together in a silence that neither wished to break. Janet Andrews gave them a good scolding and an excellent breakfast. Then she ordered them both to bed; but Mr. Leonard, smiling at her, said:

“Presently, Janet, presently. But now, take this key, go up to the black chest in the garret, and bring me what you will find there.”

When Janet had gone, he turned to Felix.

“Felix, would you like to study music as your life-work?”

Felix looked up, with a transfiguring flush on his wan face.

“Oh, grandfather! Oh, grandfather!”

“You may do so, my child. After this night I dare not hinder you. Go with my blessing, and may God guide and keep you, and make you strong to do His work and tell His message to humanity in your own appointed way. It is not the way I desired for you--but I see that I was mistaken. Old Abel spoke truly when he said there was a Christ in your violin as well as a devil. I understand what he meant now.”

He turned to meet Janet, who came into the study with a violin. Felix’s heart throbbed; he recognized it. Mr. Leonard took it from Janet and held it out to the boy.

“This is your father’s violin, Felix. See to it that you never make your music the servant of the power of evil--never debase it to unworthy ends. For your responsibility is as your gift, and God will exact the accounting of it from you. Speak to the world in your own tongue through it, with truth and sincerity; and all I have hoped for you will be abundantly fulfilled.”

IV. Little Joscelyn

“It simply isn’t to be thought of, Aunty Nan,” said Mrs. William Morrison decisively. Mrs. William Morrison was one of those people who always speak decisively. If they merely announce that they are going to peel the potatoes for dinner their hearers realize that there is no possible escape for the potatoes. Moreover, these people are always given their full title by everybody. William Morrison was called Billy oftener than not; but, if you had asked for Mrs. Billy Morrison, nobody in Avonlea would have known what you meant at first guess.

“You must see that for yourself, Aunty,” went on Mrs. William, hulling strawberries nimbly with her large, firm, white fingers as she talked. Mrs. William always improved every shining moment. “It is ten miles to Kensington, and just think how late you would be getting back. You are not able for such a drive. You wouldn’t get over it for a month. You know you are anything but strong this summer.”

Aunty Nan sighed, and patted the tiny, furry, gray morsel of a kitten in her lap with trembling fingers. She knew, better than anyone else could know it, that she was not strong that summer. In her secret soul, Aunty Nan, sweet and frail and timid under the burden of her seventy years, felt with mysterious unmistakable prescience that it was to be her last summer at the Gull Point Farm. But that was only the more reason why she should go to hear little Joscelyn sing; she would never have another chance. And oh, to hear little Joscelyn sing just once--Joscelyn, whose voice was delighting thousands out in the big world, just as in the years gone by it had delighted Aunty Nan and the dwellers at the Gull Point Farm for a whole golden summer with carols at dawn and dusk about the old place!

“Oh, I know I’m not very strong, Maria.” said Aunty Nan pleadingly, “but I am strong enough for that. Indeed I am. I could stay at Kensington over night with George’s folks, you know, and so it wouldn’t tire me much. I do so want to hear Joscelyn sing. Oh, how I love little Joscelyn.”

“It passes my understanding, the way you hanker after that child,” cried Mrs. William impatiently. “Why, she was a perfect stranger to you when she came here, and she was here only one summer!”

“But oh, such a summer!” said Aunty Nan softly. “We all loved little Joscelyn. She just seemed like one of our own. She was one of God’s children, carrying love with them everywhere. In some ways that little Anne Shirley the Cuthberts have got up there at Green Gables reminds me of her, though in other ways they’re not a bit alike. Joscelyn was a beauty.”

“Well, that Shirley snippet certainly isn’t that,” said Mrs. William sarcastically. “And if Joscelyn’s tongue was one third as long as Anne Shirley’s the wonder to me is that she didn’t talk you all to death out of hand.”

“Little Joscelyn wasn’t much of a talker,” said Aunty Nan dreamily. “She was kind of a quiet child. But you remember what she did say. And I’ve never forgotten little Joscelyn.”

Mrs. William shrugged her plump, shapely shoulders.