The Best Short Stories of 1915 Part 36

which every one has been singing, although he seems delightfully unaware of that fact. He was so courteous about insisting that I should play more, I ran through a bit of "Meistersinger,"--he seemed so truly a young _Walther_,--and then discovered another little song that he has not published, "Too Late for Love and Loving," full of a kind of pathos that it seems impossible youth could understand. But I suppose that is where genius comes in.

The rest of the letter was made of messages and the mild, small daily occurrences that are of moment to such as Miss Augusta Penfield.

That night, searching in an old secretary in his room for some missing notes, Mark came upon a little daguerreotype in a drawer. It was of a young girl, taken apparently in the late sixties or early seventies.

Something in the face, clear-eyed, warm-lipped, trusting, caught and held his attention. He turned it over to see if the girl's name was on the back, but the only inscription was a date in his Uncle William's writing, June, 1863. Poor Uncle William, who had been so full of promise, they said, but who had died from a bullet wound, a sacrifice to his country two years after the war!

Some girl that his uncle had loved, perhaps. The young man's face, dark-eyed, romantic, familiar to him through the old picture in uniform always on his mother's dressing-table, rose before his mind's eye. Perhaps Uncle William had taken the little picture away with him to the war. The date must have been just about the time that he had enlisted and marched away. He had gone without telling her perhaps; she could have been little more than a child. Perhaps he had never told.

Or they might have had their brief tragic happiness upon the edge of death, they two "embracing under death's spread hand."

He stared at the picture. It would have been easy to love a girl with those eyes, that mouth. A fancy came upon him to put Uncle William's picture beside the girl's, and impulsively he went back to the darkened drawing-room, groped for the framed picture that stood upon the mantel, found it, and carried it up to his room. Then side by side he studied the two faces.

His imagination began to reconstruct their story. He wished that he might learn more. He went back to the old desk. It might have been his uncle's. He opened a drawer; it was empty. A second and a third; the last contained some valueless miscellany, an old gla.s.s k.n.o.b a faded bit of worsted fringe, some papers. Poking under them, he actually found a package of letters. He picked it up, and with a little thrill of realization recognized his uncle's writing. The paper was old and yellowed with time. It had no address, but was sealed with red wax.

Scarcely expecting fulfillment of his romantic hope, he broke the seal and opened the package. There was no address on the first envelope. Some business memorandum, no doubt; yet nothing surely that at this late day he might not in honor examine. He drew out the closely written sheet and turned it over. After all the years his eyes were surely the first to read it. There was no name in the inscription. Uncle William's fine writing was very legible.

II

July 15, 1863.

My little love with the smooth hair and the great eyes, you do not know that I have the little daguerreotype next my heart. I stole it from Lucretia, and packed it among my things. How often I shall take it out in the long days ahead before the war is over and I can come back to tell you that I love you. You will wait for me, sweetheart. No other man shall be the one to make those clear eyes fall, to change them from a child's to a woman's eyes. I can see you as you stood there beside the sun-dial. "Fight a brave fight, William," you said, "and come back soon." You were brave and glorious. Your eyes were not even wet, yet you care enough for me to shed a tear. I know that, little Allison. We have been such good comrades, you and I. I looked back and saw you waving.

But you trust life so fearlessly, child. You are only fifteen. At that age one cannot imagine death. I am twenty-three and am a man. I knew I must not speak. I knew it, though my heart was knocking against my sides for love of you. So I shall not send these letters. I shall send you a line now and then, but not of love. You will hear the news of me from mother and the girls. I shall write these letters just the same, and keep them, and if the day comes when those great eyes, those dear and wonderful eyes, give the promise my heart is waiting for, then I shall hand them to you to read, and you shall know how long and faithfully I have loved you. I shall not write you of the war and the long marches; those things will be in my home letters. To you I shall write only of ourselves, not as if I were in the midst of battle and sudden death, but as if I were at home in Beechwood, where my heart is, at my window overlooking a corner of your garden. I am there now, sitting at my window as I write. I have just caught a glimpse of you in your Sunday gown, the white-and-green striped silk, with the tiny lavender flowers scattered on the white ground. You were picking a spray of lemon verbena to take to church. I see you in the little green bonnet in the high pew beside your mother. You have the soul of a lover, my Allison. I know it when I see you smell the fragrant flowers. Little Allison, how you will love when your day comes! Your mouth, so young, so warm, so generous, was made to give all; your pure eyes for complete trust. You belong to me, my Allison, although you do not know it yet. Even as I write this, fear shakes my heart. Have not all lovers thought the same? So strong is the sense of possession in love, so impossible it seems to the human heart that we should give all and receive nothing. What if some one should rudely awaken your clear soul from its young sleep, lay hot human hands upon you, my rose, my little cool, white flower! I can not bear these thoughts. You are mine, and I shall let you sleep until the moment comes for love to knock at the door of your heart. There shall be no rude awakening. I shall speak first so gently, yes, you shall be roused slowly from that sleep of childhood. Then you will put your hands in mine and say, "William, I love you," just as you said to me to-day, "Fight a good fight." And I will take those dear hands and draw you slowly toward me and kiss you on your fine, straight brows, your serene forehead, that is like that of the angels in the Italian pictures father brought home from Italy. Then I will let you go. I shall not be too impetuous, lest I frighten you. And then some day you will say again, "Come home soon William," and it will mean that I am to go home to you.

Yours till death,

WILLIAM.

August, '63.

My love with the dove's eyes:

Why were you so shy when I met you to-day on the gravel path? I asked you where you were going. You would not stop; you almost ran past, like a little gray moth. I love you in that gray little gown; your little bare shoulders are pink beside it, like a spring flower beside a stone.

Why were you so shy? You are too young to have a lover. There is no one except the tow-headed Bowman boy across the street. It could not have been he. Then you went to the piano, and I heard you singing softly, "My Love is like a Red, Red Rose." What can you know of love, my little one?

I am jealous of life itself that must bring that change to you. I would delay that day. Not yet would I have the bud open for the hot sun to draw out its fragrance. I would keep you yet a while in the white, austere innocence of your youth. My little love, my child, the hour is not yet.

WILLIAM.

September, '64.

Where I sit at my window, sweetheart, I can see the corner of the grape-arbor in your garden. Do you remember the day we sat there, and I read you my story, and you listened, with your great dreaming eyes on the slippery leaf shadows, and your mouth stained with the purple grapes? And when I had finished, you asked me, "Why did Reginald think he had to die, William?" And I told you, "Because he loved Eleanor so much and she loved another man." "Then why didn't he love some one else, too? How silly they all were!" you said. You were too young to understand. I look in the eyes of the little girl in the picture, and she does not understand. The little girl is a year younger than you, and the green-and-white frock in the picture was torn and darned last summer. I remember how you looked, bent over your needle, your red lips a little heavy with unspoken protest as you sewed the long rent. What a child you always were to tear your frocks and get berry stains on your white ap.r.o.ns and scratch your fingers and arms with briers! And how I have loved each scratch and stain. My sweet, wild little Allison! Now perhaps you begin to understand, to wonder and dream a little. You may even have your dreams of lovers. You wonder yet with no intimation behind your clear eyes of what this thing is that incites men to courage or drives them to madness and death. Have you wondered yet if some day it will come to you? Or does it live still in that fair, fragrant world of your imagination as a tale that is told?

To-day you came home from your sewing circle, where you sewed garments for the soldiers, and when you came away you let me carry your package.

The sleeve of your little gray gown had been darned, and you had outgrown the dress. "It isn't pretty any more, but I mustn't have a new one," you said. "It is wicked for us to have new things when the soldiers are ragged and cold." And that look that is like tears came into your eyes. Oh, how I longed to kiss the hand you held out for your bundle at the gate! Not yet, Allison. You are just sixteen. You are a child yet. I must wait.

WILLIAM.

December, '64.

My Allison, I signed myself last your William, and I called you mine.

It is no bold a.s.sumption. Neither life nor death can make me other than yours, whether you will or not, neither can it make you any less mine.

Isn't it our George William Curtis who said that the land belonged to his rich neighbor, but the view was his? No matter if I never touch your dear hands save as a friend, my Allison, you will still be mine, because I have divined the fine mysteries of your spirit. I am your wors.h.i.+per and knight, whatever fate befalls us. "We needs must love the highest when we see it," says the new poet across the water. No truer words were ever spoken. So in that fine inner sense I am yours and you are mine whether you ever come to love me or not. To-day I found you chasing a b.u.t.terfly in the garden. What a child you are still! You brushed me as you ran past, then, as you turned, ran almost into my arms. Ah, my Allison, you did not know how it set my heart beating when that loose strand of your hair blew across my face! Your cheeks were flushed, and you drew back laughing.

"What do you want with the b.u.t.terfly, Allison?" I asked. "You surely would not hurt it. If you throw your bonnet over it, you will break its wings."

You looked at me with your great eyes.

"I would not do that, William. I only wanted to see the gold spots on its wings."

"You can do that best without touching it, my dear," I said. "A touch will destroy its gold dust." You looked at me with your pure eyes and said,--like a little child, yet you are almost a woman,--"Oh, William, I would not break its wings." And then sharply a thought struck me like a pang. Can I perhaps see you better with my soul's eyes, Allison, if you are never mine? Would I break _your_ wings in touching you? Are you something too fine and fair for human experience? It came like a presentiment then that you would never be mine in the dear common human way. Can it be so, dear love? No, no; I would have you when the hour comes. Despite the angel in your eyes, you were made to make fair a home, to know in all its phases a man's love, to hold your children in your arms,--children with eyes such as you have now,--and teach them such things as pure beings like you can teach to children.

"Isn't it nice that they are b.u.t.terflies last, William?" you said.

"Suppose they had to grow brown and ugly and to move slowly, instead of flying, when they are old like people."

"It is like life and death," I told you, although G.o.d knows I am no preacher. Perhaps it is because my body is at the war while my soul is in Beechwood that I must sometimes think these thoughts of death.

Your eyes looked straight into mine then, with something like a reflection of heaven's light. Then again all at once they were a child's again, and you said: "Grandma's portrait in the hall is beautiful. She was sixteen then. But she isn't pretty any more."

"No, she isn't pretty any more, Allison, yet once like you she chased b.u.t.terflies in the garden. And that portrait was painted the year before she was married."

Why was it then that you turned away your eyes and the soft curve of your cheek grew pink? Perhaps it is always so with the young girl at the thought of love and marriage; but you are still a child.

"The b.u.t.terfly has flown away, Allison, and you never even looked at its golden wings," I reminded you, and you laughed and shrugged. "There will be another," you said. Yes, there will always be more b.u.t.terflies in the garden, and there will always be more lovers in the world for such as you while your sweet youth lasts, whether I live to woo you or not. That thought saddens me. Yet should I not feel it enough to have known and loved you? Suppose you had never been in the world, and I had loved some commonplace pretty girl instead of little Allison, with eyes like an autumn brook in the sun?

Oh, my dear, the time is long, and I grow weary with my make-believing.

I am a thousand miles away. A cold rain is falling. I could not bear it were it not for your voice in my ears: "Fight a good fight. Come back home soon, William." As soon, G.o.d pity me as I can. My country first, even if it robs me of life's dearest treasure. Ah, that I had dared before I left to speak the words in my heart, "Wait for me, sweetheart, wait till I come home; for it will be no true home unless you make it for me."

But I did not say it. The hour was not yet. Pray G.o.d it may come for us both, for never will another know how to love you as I do, my Allison.

YOUR FAITHFUL WILLIAM.

March, '65.

In battle, on the march, there has been no time for my letters, my sweetheart, and only in my dreams have I been able to fancy myself at the window overlooking your garden. But now there is a lull for writing.

We feel that the end is drawing near. And so once more I can trust my dream self back in Beechwood with you.

Last night I took you home from Uncle Alvin's. We walked slowly under the moon. The air was cool. You wore your little brown hood.

You are taller now, little Allison. I lingered at the gate when I said good night. You lingered, too, and for the first time I knew--I cannot say how--that your soft childhood was unfolding its wings to depart. Not that I dared even to linger over your hand, still less to pull off the brown mitten and kiss the little hand curled soft and warm within; but the eyes that you turned to me had a graver light.

Was it the sad news of the war, the death and tragedy about you?

Jolly d.i.c.k Burrows, Arthur and Henry, struck down, blotted out. These are aging times, my sweetheart. Had you the consciousness of me as anything nearer than your old friend Lucretia's brother? Some day life will bring to you this thing that tears at my heart. Some day not so far off now. Sometimes I wonder that I dare hope it will come to me.

WILLIAM.

April 10, '65.