Rose MacLeod Part 76

"Didn't I tell you I'd been dreaming? I saw them in crowds. Don't you hurry me, Billy. Let's sit here a minute and talk about old times." She blinked her eyes awake again and looked at him rea.s.suringly. "You mustn't think I don't want to go, Billy. I do. I'm a little tired, but I'm all keyed up to go. I'm perfectly sure we shall have a lovely time,--the loveliest time that ever was."

"The voyage will do you good," he said, in the same affectionate concern. "The maid will meet us on the pier. And once in London, you'll be the centre of the crowd."

"Fancy! And Electra shall come over from Paris, and you'll make love to me, to shock her. Billy, isn't it queer I didn't dream of Charlie Grant this morning?"

"Why, Florrie? Why should you?"

"Because they were all there, crowds of them I haven't told you about.

But not he. I suppose he was with Bessie Grant. Billy, it was when I gave him up, my life went wrong."

"Yes, dear, you told me so."

"It wasn't that I couldn't bear to lose him. I never broke my heart. It was because I made a bad choice,--a bad choice. I said deliberately I wanted the world and the things the world can give. Everything began when I gave him up."

"Time's going, Florrie. The parson will be there."

"Yes. Don't hurry me. Do you suppose we find things because we believe in them?"

"What things, dear?"

"Will Bessie Grant have heaven because she believes in it? Will she find him because she thinks he's there?"

"Come, dear, wake up."

"Well!" The old lady roused herself. The light came back to her eyes, the old smile to her lips.

"I'll tell you what, Billy," said she, "there's one thing I swear I never will forget. Living or dying, I never will."

"What is it?"

"I never'll forget you saw me an old woman and treated me like a young one. I never'll forget you did your best to bring back my lost youth.

And if there is a heaven and I set foot in it, and they bring up their archangels, I'll say, 'Away with you and your fine company. Where's Billy Stark?'"

But the light faded as she spoke and her face changed mysteriously, in a way he did not like. A clever thought came to him.

"Florrie," said he, "have you had your luncheon?"

"I guess not."

"Have you been sitting here ever since Electra went, dreaming and starving?"

"I guess so."

"Well, that's it. Now you get on your two feet and take my arm and come over to Bessie Grant's. And she'll give you food and coffee. Bless us, Florrie, we're not going to own we miss Electra's patent foods as early in the game as this!"

She smiled at him. "I believe I am hungry, Billy," she owned. "That's why I had my dream. They always have visions fasting. But it was a beautiful dream. I wish I could have it again."

"You wait a minute. I'm going to get you a nip of brandy." She was rising, and he put her back into her chair. "I know where it is." He hurried down the path, but her voice recalled him sharply.

"Billy, come back. Don't leave me."

He returned to her, where she had risen and was standing tremulously.

That same dire change was on her face, as if old age had pa.s.sed a sponge over it. Her eyes regarded him, in a keen questioning.

"What is it, Billy?" she whispered. "What's coming?" He put her into her chair, and she said again, "Don't leave me."

"I must." There were tears in his kind eyes. "Let me go one minute, dear. I'll get you something."

But her frail hand detained him.

"Sit down, Billy," she was whispering. "No, kneel--there--where I can see you. Keep hold of me."

He knelt at her feet, and she bowed her head upon his shoulder. He put her back gently into her chair, again with the determination to get the brandy; but her face forbade him.

"Florrie!" he called loudly.

No one answered. With the keenness of the shocked intelligence, summoned to record the smallest things with the same faithfulness as the large, he noted how the bees were humming in the garden. He and the bees were alive, but his old friend was dead.

x.x.xIII

In the hushed interval after Madam Fulton had died and Billy Stark had gone away sadly, knowing he should return to America no more, Osmond went to find Rose. He had seen her briefly, in the common ways of life, but it was evident to her that they were not to meet alone. Perhaps his mind had fixed itself inexorably against her, she thought, and he meant to see her only to say good-by. But even that contented her, if it must be. The splendor of their understanding abode with her and made his will seem easy. When the tide of new love went down, it would be another thing; but now it was at the flood, and the light of heaven shone in it.

He came walking through the garden, and she saw him come. Grannie sat out there among the hollyhocks, waiting for Peter. He had left his painting to bring her a gla.s.s of water from the house, and she rested in a somnolent calm. Grannie liked the suns.h.i.+ne, and to-day it was opulent and flooding. To Osmond, looking at her as he came, her serenity seemed even majestic. She had forgotten the world, he saw, and a smile brooded upon her face, that face where no evil pa.s.sions had ever dwelt, and where peace had lain like a visible sign for many years. As he pa.s.sed her portrait, he glanced at it in proud wonder because Peter had done it. To Osmond it looked complete as it was, and he found it another and only less beautiful grannie in the garden, with an added touch of life upon the face, something that did not lie there every day. It was a shade of sadness in the midst of the tranquillity, as if grannie also, in spite of her calm, had known great hungers. It tempered her childlike quality and made what might be called her character as enduring as time that had wrought it. She opened her eyes, when he neared her, and her smile came, the one that was for him alone and never failed him.

"What were you thinking about, grannie?" he asked her.

"A good many things," she said. "Florrie and poor Billy Stark."

"You'll miss her, grannie!"

"Not long, son. And I'm very glad she's gone. Florrie never was one to bear old age. She'd have had to meet it soon!"

Osmond smiled tenderly at the ingenuous implication, but then he bethought him it was true. Madam Fulton never had been old. Grannie put out her hand to his.

"I've been thinking of you, son, all the morning. I hoped you'd come."

"Yes, grannie. I couldn't come before."

"No. You look like a new man."

"I am a new man, grannie."

He gave the kind hand a little tight grasp, and left her. Peter was coming with the gla.s.s of water, and Peter, too, had a morning light on his face, only his was the look of the maker who sees the vision of fulfillment.

"Good picture, Pete," said Osmond.