Mistress Anne Part 32

It is because of this thing that is coming that I am begging you still to be my friend--to send me now and then a little letter; that I may feel in the night that you are holding out your hand to me. There can be no greater punishment than your complete silence, no greater purgatory than the thought that I have forfeited your respect. Looking into the future I can see no way to regain it, but if the day ever comes when a Blind Beggar can serve you, you will show that you have forgiven him by asking that service of him.

I am leaving my little Napoleon for you. You once called him a little great man. Perhaps those of us who have some elements of greatness find our balance in something that is small and mean and mad.

Will you tell Brooks that you are not bound to me in any way? It is best that you should do it. I shall hope for a line from you. If it does not come--if I have indeed lost my little friend through my own fault--then indeed the shadows will shut me in.

GEOFFREY.

Uncle Rodman writes:

MY BELOVED NIECE:

Once upon a time you and I read together "The Arabian Nights," and when we had finished the first book you laid your little hand on my knee and looked up at me. "Is it true, Uncle Rod?" you asked. "Oh, Uncle Rod, is it true?" And I said, "What it tells about the Roc's egg and the Old Man of the Sea and the Serpent is not true, but what it says about the actions and motives of people is true, because people have acted in that way and have thought like that through all the ages, and the tales have lived because of it, and have been written in all languages." I was sure, when I said it, that you did not quite understand; but you were to grow to it, which was all that was required.

Blessed child, what your Geoffrey Fox has done, though I hate him for it and blame him, is what other hotheads have done. The protective is not the primitive masculine instinct. Men have thought of themselves first and of women afterward since the beginning of time. Only with Christianity was chivalry born in them. And since many of our youths have elected to be pagan, what can you expect?

So your Geoffrey Fox being pagan, primitive--primordial, whatever it is now the fas.h.i.+on to call it, reverted to type, and you were the victim.

I have read his letter and might find it in my heart to forgive him were it not that he has made you suffer; but that I cannot forgive; although, indeed, his coming blindness is something that pleads for him, and his fear of it--and his fear of losing you.

I am glad that you are coming home to me. Margaret and her family are going away, and we can have their big house to ourselves during the summer. We shall like that, I am sure, and we shall have many talks, and try to straighten out this matter of dreams--and of sunsets, which is really very important, and not in the least to be ignored.

But let me leave this with you to ponder on. You remember how you have told me that when you were a tiny child you walked once between me and my good old friend, General Ross, and you heard it said by one of us that life was what we made it. Before that you had always cried when it rained; now you were anxious that the rain might come so that you could see if you could really keep from crying. And when the rain arrived you were so immensely entertained that you didn't shed a tear, and you went to bed that night feeling like a conqueror, and never again cried out against the elements.

It would have been dreadful if all your life you had gone on crying about rain, wouldn't it? And isn't this adventure your rainy day? You rose above it, dearest child. I am proud of the way you handled your mad lover.

Life _is_ what we make it. Never doubt that. "He knows the water best who has waded through it," and I have lived long and have learned my lesson.

When I knew that I could paint no more real pictures I knew that I must have dream pictures to hang on the walls of memory. Shall I make you a little catalogue of them, dear heart--thus:

No. 1.--Your precious mother sewing by the west window in our shadowed sitting-room, her head haloed by the sunset.

No. 2.--Anne in a blue pinafore, with the wind blowing her hair back on a gray March morning.

No. 3.--Anne in a white frock amid a blur of candle-light on Christmas----

Oh, my list would be long! People have said that I have lacked pride because I have chosen to take my troubles philosophically. There have been times when my soul has wept. I have cried often on my rainy days.

But--there have always been the sunsets--and after that--the stars.

I fear that I have been but little help to you. But you know my love--blessed one. And the eagerness with which I await your coming. Ever your own

UNCLE.

CHAPTER XIV

_In Which There is Much Said of Marriage and of Giving in Marriage._

EVE'S green-eyed cat sat on a chair and watched the flame-colored fishes.

It was her morning amus.e.m.e.nt. When her mistress came down she would have her cream and her nap. In the meantime, the flas.h.i.+ng, golden things in the clear water aroused an ancient instinct. She reached out a quick paw and patted the water, flinging showers of sparkling drops on her sleek fur.

Aunt Maude, eating waffles and reading her morning paper, approved her.

"I hope you'll catch them," she said, "especially the turtles and the tadpoles--the idea of having such things where you eat."

The green-eyed cat licked her wet paw, then she jumped down from the chair and trotted to the door to meet Eve, who picked her up and hugged her. "Pats," she demanded, "what have you been doing? Your little pads are wet."

"She's been fis.h.i.+ng," said Aunt Maude, "in your aquarium. She has more sense than I thought."

Eve, pouring cream into a crystal dish, laughed. "Pats is as wise as the ages--you can see it in her eyes. She doesn't say anything, she just looks. Women ought to follow her example. It's the mysterious, the silent, that draws men. Now Polly prattles and prattles, and n.o.body listens, and we all get a little tired of her; don't we, Polly?"

She set the cream carefully by the green cus.h.i.+on, and Pats, cla.s.sically posed on her haunches, lapped it luxuriously. The Polly-parrot coaxed and wheedled and was rewarded with her morning biscuit. The flame-colored fishes rose to the snowy particles which Eve strewed on the surface of the water, and then with all of her family fed, Eve turned to the table, sat down, and pulled away Aunt Maude's paper.

"My dear," the old lady protested.

"I want to talk to you," Eve announced. "Aunt Maude, I'm going to marry d.i.c.ky."

Aunt Maude pushed back her plate of waffles. The red began to rise in her cheeks. "Oh, of all the fools----"

"'He who calleth his brother a fool----'" Eve murmured pensively. "Aunt Maude, I'm in love with him."

"You're in love with yourself," tartly, "and with having your own way.

The husband for you is Philip Meade. But he wants you, and so--you don't want him."

"d.i.c.ky wants me, too," Eve said, a little wistfully; "you mustn't forget that, Aunt Maude."

"I'm not forgetting it." Then sharply, "Shall you go to live at Crossroads?"

"No. Austin has made him an offer. He's coming back to town."

"What do you expect to live on?"

Silence. Then, uncertainly, "I thought perhaps until he gets on his feet you'd make us an allowance."

The old lady exploded in a short laugh. She gathered up her paper and her spectacles case and her bag of fancy work. Then she rose. "Not if you marry Richard Brooks. You may as well know that now as later, Eve. All your life you have shaken the plum tree and have gathered the fruit. You may come to your senses when you find there isn't any tree to shake."

The deep red in the cheeks of the old woman was matched by the red that stained Eve's fairness. "Keep your money," she said, pa.s.sionately; "I can get along without it. You've always made me feel like a pauper, Aunt Maude."

The old woman's hand went up. There was about her a dignity not to be ignored. "I think you are saying more than you mean, Eve. I have tried to be generous."

They were much alike as they faced each other, the same clear cold eyes, the same set of the head, the only difference Eve's youth and slenderness and radiant beauty. Perhaps in some far distant past Aunt Maude had been like Eve. Perhaps in some far distant future Eve's soft lines would stiffen into a second edition of Aunt Maude.

"I have tried to be generous," Aunt Maude repeated.