Rose MacLeod Part 71

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Rose and grannie had been living in an atmosphere of calm. Something was not determined yet, and they had to wait for it. Osmond had not come to the house for his early calls on grannie, and Rose, awake in her room to hear his step, at least, listened for it with a miserable certainty of disappointment. Every morning she gave a quick look of inquiry as she and grannie met, and the old lady would say,--

"No, dear, no!"

She sickened mentally under the delay, and at last her heart began to ask her whether he would ever see her again. On the day she told grannie that she was going to Paris to settle MacLeod's estate, grannie said,--

"That's right. But you'll come back."

"I must come back. You must let me." It was a great cry out of a warring heart. "But I must see him before I go. May I send for him to come?"

"You must send for him, my dear, and have your talk," said grannie.

So it was grannie who gave the message to Peter, and afterwards told him Rose was to see Osmond alone. Peter walked up and down the room. He did not altogether understand.

"What is it now, child?" asked grannie.

"I wondered if Rose needs to see him. This is all so painful for her!

Why should she be bothered?"

"She must see him," said grannie. "It wouldn't be possible for her to go away without."

"She demands too much of herself," said Peter, stopping in his stride.

Grannie was smiling at him in a way that indicated she was very old and Peter was young. A wave of knowledge swept upon him.

"What is it, grannie?" he demanded. "What is between them?"

"You must let them find out."

"But what is it? I ought to know. Don't you see what I mean? I'm going to marry her, grannie, when all this is over."

Grannie looked at him in quick concern.

"Oh, no, Peter," she said. "No, you can't do that."

"Why can't I?"

"She doesn't love you, Peter."

"But she will. I can make her happy. I depend on showing her I can."

"That isn't enough, Peter."

"What?"

"To make her happy. You might make her miserable, and if she loved you, it would be all one to her."

"Tom Fulton made her miserable. Was that all one to her?"

"She isn't the girl Tom Fulton hurt. She's a woman now."

"Then what is it between her and Osmond?"

Grannie looked at him a few moments seriously. She seemed to be considering what he should be told. At last she spoke.

"Peter, I believe it's love between them."

"Love!"

"Yes, dear. She has a very strong feeling for Osmond."

"Osmond!"

Grannie got up out of her chair. She was trembling. Peter could almost believe it was with indignation against him, her other boy, not so dear as Osmond, but still her boy. Her calm face flushed, and when she spoke her voice also trembled.

"Peter," she said, "whatever we do, let us never doubt the kindness of G.o.d."

It was a little hard on Peter, he felt, for here was he, too, devoted to Osmond with a full heart; yet nature was nature, and life was life. He could not help seeing himself in the bridegroom's garment.

"Osmond is the greatest thing there is," he said. "But, grannie--" He stopped.

"I know, I know," said grannie. She was not accustomed to speaking with authority. The pa.s.sion of her life had all resolved itself into deeds, into a few simple words like the honey in the flower and the slowly fructifying cells. Now she stood leaning on her staff and thinking back over the course she had run. Osmond had been the child of her spirit because he was maimed. She had drawn with him every breath of his horror of life, his acquiescence, his completed calm. What withdrawals there were in him, what wrestlings of the will, what iron obediences, only she knew. There was the sweetness, too, of the little child who, when they were alone, in some sad twilight, used to come and put his arms about her neck and lay his cheek to hers, with a mute plea to her to understand. And now when Osmond had harnessed himself to the earth, G.o.d had let a beautiful flower spring up before him, to say, "Behold me."

G.o.d did everything, grannie knew. He had not merely created, in a s.p.a.ce of magnificent idleness, some centuries ago, and then, with the commendation that it was "good," turned away his head and let his work s.h.i.+ft for itself. He was about it now, every instant, in the decay of one seed to nourish another, in the blast and in the suns.h.i.+ne. He was ever at hand to hear the half-formed cry of the soul, the whisper it hardly knew it gave. He was the still, small voice. And He had remembered Osmond as He had been remembering him all these years. He had led him by painful steps to the hilltop, and then had painted for him a great sunrise on the sky. The night might lower and obscure it, the rain fall, or the lightning strike. But Osmond would have seen the sunrise.

And all grannie could say was,--

"It may not turn out well, dear, but it's a great thing for him to have."

Peter strode away into the garden. She followed him, in an hour or so, and asked if she should sit for him, and all that afternoon he painted on her portrait, with the dash and absorption of one who knows his task.

"Tired, grannie?" he asked at length.

"No, Peter."

"You're going to be a sweet thing with your white cap here against the hollyhocks," said Peter. "I must hurry. When it's done, I'll leave it for exhibition, and then I'll go back to France."

That night he strode away for a walk, and grannie betook herself to her own room. So Rose was alone when Osmond came. She had dressed for him, and she looked the great lady. There was about her that air of proud conquest worn by women when they are willing to let man see how much he may lose in lacking them, or how rich he is in the winning. It says also, perhaps, "This is the wedding garment. It is worn for you."

When Osmond entered, these things were in his mind because it was a part of his bitter thought that he had no clothes to meet her in. For many years he had seen no use for the conventional dress of gentlemen, and grannie had never failed to like him in his clean blue blouse. So he came in, as Rose thought at once, like a peasant of an Old World country. All but the face. What peasant ever wore a mien like that: the clarified look of conquered grief, the wistfulness of the dark eyes, the majestic patience of one who, finding that the things of the world are not for him, has put them softly by? There were new lines in the face, Rose could well believe; in spite of those appealing softnesses of the eyes, it was a face cut in bronze. She held out her hand, and he took it briefly.

"I had to see you," she said, rus.h.i.+ng upon the subject of her fears. "I am going away."

They were seated now, and Osmond was looking at her steadily. "But I am coming back," she smiled. "Please be glad to see me."