Part 53

Rosemary did not answer. She longed to be alone in her own room with the inlaid box, which now assumed a mystery and portent it had never had before, but it was almost midnight before, by the flickering light of a candle-end, she broke it open, smothering the slight sound with the patchwork quilt.

She hoped for stationery, but there was none. It contained an old photograph and a letter addressed to Grandmother Starr. Rosemary leaned to the light with the photograph, studying it eagerly. It was old and faded, but the two were still distinct--a young woman in an elaborate wedding gown, standing beside a man who was sitting upon an obviously uncomfortable chair.

The man, in a way, resembled Grandmother Starr; the lady looked like Rosemary, except that she was beautiful. "Father!" cried Rosemary, in an agonising whisper. "Mother!" Face to face at last with those of her own blood, dead though they were!

The little mother was not more than two or three and twenty: the big strong father was about twenty-five. She had never been shown the picture, nor had even guessed its existence. Since she was old enough to think about it all, she had wondered what her father and mother looked like.

Thrilled with a new, mysterious sense of kinship, she dwelt lovingly upon every line of the pictured faces, holding the photograph safely beyond the reach of the swift-falling tears. She was no longer fatherless, motherless; alone. Out of the dust of the past, like some strangely beautiful resurrection, these two had come to her, richly dowered with personality.

It was late when she put down the picture and took up the letter, which was addressed to Grandmother Starr. She took it out of the envelope, unfolded the crackling, yellowed pages, and read:

"Dear Mother;

"Since writing to you yesterday that I was going up north on the Clytie, I have been thinking about the baby, and that it might be wise to provide for her as best I can in case anything should happen to me. So I enclose a draft for eleven thousand five hundred dollars made payable to you. I have realised on my property here, but this is all I have aside from my passage-money and a little more, and, if I land safely, I shall probably ask you to return at least a large part of it.

"But, if the ship should go down, as I sincerely hope it won't, she will be sure of this, for her clothing and education. In case anything should happen to her, of course I would want you and Matilda to have the money, but if it doesn't, give Rosemary everything she needs or wants while the money lasts, and oh, mother, be good to my little girl!

"Your loving son,

"Frank."

In a flash of insight Rosemary divined the truth. The gold hidden behind the loose brick in the chimney was hers, given to her by her dead father. And she had not even a postage stamp!

But swiftly her anger died away in joy--a joy that surged and thrilled through her as some white, heavenly fire that warmed her inmost soul. Not alone, but cared for--sheltered, protected, loved. "Oh," breathed Rosemary, with her eyes shining; "Father, dear father--my father, taking care of me!" Then, in her thought, she added, without dreaming of irreverence, "I think God must be like that!"

XVI

One Little Hour

When she awoke in the morning it was with a bewildering sense of change. Something had happened, and, in the first moment, she was not quite sure whether a dream had not boldly overstepped the line into daylight. The faded photograph, propped up on the table at the head of her bed, at once reassured her, and Rosemary smiled, with a joy so great that it was almost pain tugging at the fibres of her heart.

To an outsider, perhaps, the two faces would have been common enough, but one of love's divinest gifts is the power to bestow beauty wherever it goes. The old man, bent with years, with the snows of his fourscore winters lying heavily upon his head, may seem an object of kindly pity as he hobbles along with crutch or cane, going oh, so slowly, where once his feet were fain to run from very joy of living. The light may be gone from his faded eyes, his dull ears may not respond to question or call, but one face, waiting at a window, shall illumine at the sight of him, and one voice, thrilling with tenderness, shall stir him to eager answer.

Or a woman, worn and broken, her rough hands made shapeless by toil, may seem to have no claim to beauty as the word is commonly understood. Sleepless nights, perchance, have dimmed her eyes, suffering and sacrifice have seamed and marked her face, but those to whom she has given herself see only the great nobleness of her nature, the royalty of her soul. For the beauty of the spirit may transfigure its earth-bound temple, as some vast and grey cathedral with light streaming from its stained glass windows, and eloquent with chimes and singing, may breathe incense and benediction upon every passer-by.

And so, for those to whom love has come, beauty has come also, but merely as the reflection in the mirror, since only love may see and understand the thing itself. Purifying, uplifting, and exalting, making sense the humble servant and not the tyrannical master, renewing itself for ever at divine fountains that do not fail, inspiring to fresh sacrifice, urging onward with new courage, redeeming all mistakes with its infinite pardon; this, indeed is Love, which neither dies nor grows old. And, since God himself is Love, what further assurance do we require of immortality?

Upon the two in the faded picture the most exquisite mystery of life had wrought its transfiguration. Vaguely conscious of the unfamiliar and uncomfortable chair in which he sat, the young man looked out upon Rosemary, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, with an all-embracing, all-understanding love. It came to her with a sense of surprise that father was only a little older than she was; he had paused, and she, receiving the gift of life from him, had gone on. And the little mother, brave in her white satin, with her long veil trailing down from her wreath of orange blossoms; she too, loved Rosemary; indeed, with a holy deepening of her soul, she loved the whole world.

The picture must have been taken very soon after the ceremony. Rosemary fancied that they had gone to the photographer's with one or more of the wedding guests, while the revelry and feasting still went on. And yet, so soon, into the woman's eyes had come the look of wistfulness, almost of prayer, as though she had suddenly come face to face with the knowledge that love, like a child, is man's to give and woman's to keep, to guard, to nourish, to suffer for, and, perhaps, last of all, to lose.

The mother-hunger woke in Rosemary a strange longing. What joy to serve this little mother, to whom her child was as unknown then as now! What ecstasy to uncoil the smooth strands of brown hair, take the white shoes from the tiny feet, destined to tread the unfamiliar ways of pain; to breathe the soft sweetness of her neck and arms! The big, strong father, lovably boyish now, appealed to her with a sense of shelter, for valiantly he stood, or had tried to stand, between his child and the world, but, from the other came something more.

"I think," said Rosemary, to herself, "that she must have kissed me before she died."

That day she went about her tasks as might a dweller from another planet, who had set his body to carry on his appointed duties, while his spirit roamed the blue infinite spaces between the day-stars and the sun. Early in the afternoon she left the house, without asking whether she might go, or saying when she would be back. She even had the audacity to leave the luncheon dishes piled in the sink, and unwashed.

At the foot of the Hill of the Muses, she paused, then shook her head. She could never go there again, though the thought of Alden now brought no anguish--only a great sadness. A mocking smile curled her lips at the memory of her futile struggles toward stationery and a stamp, that she might set him free. How could he be more free than he was, untroubled, doubtless, by even the thought of her?

She began to perceive, though dimly, the divinity that shapes our humblest affairs. In the search for an envelope, she had found her father and mother, as was doubtless meant from the beginning. Surely she had never needed them more than she did now! If it had been meant for her to have stationery, and to set Alden free in that way, it would have been mysteriously provided--she was certain of that.

She saw, too, that the way upon which we are meant to go is always clear, or at least indicated, at the time we are meant to take it; that guidance is definitely felt through the soul's own overpowering conviction. The struggle and the terror fell away from her like a garment she had cast aside, and for the moment she emerged into freedom as before she had come into love.

Deep in her heart she still loved Alden, but unselfishly. This new Rosemary asked nothing for herself, she only longed to give, though freedom might be her best gift to him. Harm could come to her only through herself; the burning heart and the racked soul had been under the dominion of Fear.