Part 74

Descending to personalities, Rosemary reflected upon the ironical Fate that had taken her father and mother away from her, and spared Grandmother and Aunt Matilda. Or, if she could have gone with her father and mother, it would have been all right--Rosemary had no deep longing for life considered simply as existence. Bitterness and the passion of revolt swayed her for the moment, though she knew that the mood would pass, as it always did, when she took her soul into the sanctuary of the hills.

Dispassionately she observed her feet, stretched out in front of her, and compared them with Mrs. Lee's. Rosemary's shoes were heavy and coarse, they had low, broad heels and had been patched and mended until the village cobbler had proclaimed himself at the end of his resources. Once or twice she had said, half-fearfully, that she needed new shoes, but Grandmother had not seemed to hear.

Father had meant for her to have everything she wanted--he had said so, in the letter which at that moment lay against Rosemary's bitter young heart. He would have given her a pair of slippers like those Mrs. Lee had worn the day she went there to tea--black satin, with high heels and thin soles, cunningly embroidered with tiny steel beads. How small and soft the foot had seemed above the slipper; how subtly the flesh had gleamed through the fine black silk stocking!

She wondered whether father knew. No, probably not, for if he did, he would find some way to come and have it out with Grandmother--she was sure of that. God knew, of course--God knew everything, but why had He allowed Grandmother to do it? It was an inscrutable mystery to her that a Being with infinite power should allow things to go wrong.

For the moment Rosemary's faith wavered, then re-asserted itself. It was she who did not understand: the ways of the Everlasting were not her ways, and, moreover, they were beyond her finite comprehension. If she waited, and trusted, and meanwhile did the best she could, everything would be right somewhere, sometime. That must be what Heaven was, a place where things were always right for everybody.

Gradually her resentment passed away. The impassioned yearning for life, in all its fulness, that once had shaken her to the depths of her soul, had ceased to trouble or to beckon. It had become merely a question of getting through with this as creditably and easily as she might, and passing on to the next, whatever that might prove to be.

The ground upon which she sat was cold and damp. Rosemary shivered a little and was glad. Release might come in that way, though she doubted it. She was too hopelessly healthy ever to take cold, and in all her five and twenty years had never had a day's illness.

A step beside her startled her and a kindly voice said: "Why, Rosemary! You'll take cold!"

Crimson with embarrassment she sprang to her feet, shaking the soil from her skirts. "I--I didn't hear you coming," she stammered. "I must go."

"Please don't," Alden responded. "Remember how long it is since I've seen you. How did you happen to come up here?"

"Because--oh, I don't know! I've come sometimes to see the vineyard. I've--I've liked to watch the people at work," she concluded, lamely. "I see so few people, you know."

Alden's face softened with vague tenderness. "Was it just this last Summer you've been coming, or has it been all along?"

"I've always come--ever since I was big enough to climb the hill. I--I used to steal grapes sometimes," she confessed, "before I knew it was wrong."

"You can have all the grapes you want," he laughed. "I'll send you a basket every day, if you want them, as long as the season lasts. Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I--I never thought," she answered. She might have added that she was not accustomed to the idea of any sort of gift, but she did not put the thought into words.

"Come over here, Rosemary. I want to show you something--tell you about some new plans of mine."

He led her to the group of workers' houses back of the pines. A great deal of repairing had been done and every house was habitable, if not actually comfortable. They had all been furnished with quiet good taste, and had been freshly whitewashed, both inside and out. There was a great pile of cots and a stack of new blankets.

"What is it?" asked Rosemary, much interested.

"The Marsh Tuberculosis Hospital," he answered. His face was beaming.

"I--I don't understand."

"Don't you? Well, it's simple enough. If I hadn't been all kinds of an idiot and blindly selfish I'd have thought of it before. One of the men who came to pick grapes this year has a wife at home with tuberculosis. All she needs is to lie on a cot outdoors and have plenty of fresh eggs and milk. He's coming to-morrow, with her, and his two children. The girl will learn housekeeping from mother daytimes and the boy will go to school. I have room for several others if I can find them, and I have people in town hunting them up for me. See?"

"Oh!" said Rosemary. "How beautiful! How good you are!"

"Not good," said Alden, shamefacedly, digging at the soil with his heel. "Merely decent--that's all." He took a spring cot out of the pile, spread a blanket upon it, and invited Rosemary to sit down.

"It is beautiful," she insisted, "no matter what you say. How lovely it must be to be able to do things for people--to give them what they need! Oh," she breathed, "if I could only help!"

Alden looked at her keenly. "You can, Rosemary."

"How?"

"I don't know, but there's always a way, if one wants to help."

"I have nothing to give," she murmured. "I haven't anything of my own but my mother's watch, and that won't go, so it wouldn't be of any use to anybody."