The Choir Invisible Part 16

"A lifetime," he replied gravely.

"You are still living! Will you walk into my parlour?"

"Will you meet me at the door?"

It was so pleasant to seem gay, to say nothing, be nothing! She came quietly over to the fence and gave him her hand with a little laugh."

"You have holiday of Sat.u.r.days. I have not, you see. But I can take a recess: come in. You are looking well! Wounds agree with you."

He went trembling round to the gate, pa.s.sed in, and they sat down on the bench.

"How things grow in this soil," she said pointing to the garden. "It has only been five or six weeks since you were here. Do you remember? I was planting the seed: now look at the plants!"

"I, too, was sowing that afternoon," he replied musingly. "But my harvest ripened before yours; I have already reaped it."

"What's that you are saying about me?" called out a hard, smooth voice from over the fence at their back. "I don't like to miss anything!"

Amy had a piece of sewing, which she proceeded to spread upon the fence.

"Will you show me about this, Aunt Jessica?"

She greeted John without embarra.s.sment or discernible remembrance of their last meeting. Her fine blond hair was frowsy and a b.u.t.ton was missing at the throat of her dress. (Some women begin to let themselves go after marriage; some after the promise of marriage.) There were cake-crumbs also in one corner of her mouth.

"These are some of my wedding clothes," she said to him prettily. "Aren't they fine?"

Mrs. Falconer drew her attention for a moment and they began to measure the cloth over the back of her finger, counting the lengths under her breath.

Amy took a pin from the bosom of her dress and picked between her pearly teeth daintily.

"Aunt Jessica," she suddenly inquired with mischievous look at John, "before you were engaged to uncle, was there any one else you liked better?"

With a terrible inward start, he shot a covert glance at her and dropped his eyes. Mrs. Falconer's answer was playful and serene.

"It has been a long time; it's hard to remember. But I've heard of such cases."

There was something in the reply that surprised Amy and she peeped under Mrs. Falconer's bonnet to see what was going on. She had learned that a great deal went on under that bonnet.

"Well, after you were engaged to him, was there anybody else?"

"I don't think I remember. But I've known of such cases."

Amy peeped again, and the better to see for herself hereafter, coolly lifted the bonnet off. "Well, after you were married to him," she said, "was there anybody else? I've known of such cases," she added, with a dry imitation of the phrase.

"You have made me forget my lengths," said Mrs. Falconer with unruffled innocence. "I'll have to measure again."

Amy turned to John with sparkling eyes.

"Did you ever know a man who was in love with a married woman?"

"Yes," said John, secretly writhing, but too truthful to say "no."

"What did he do about it?" asked Amy.

"I don't know," replied John, shortly.

"What do you think he ought to have done? What would you do?" asked Amy.

"I don't know," replied John, more coolly, turning away his confused face.

Neither of you seems to know anything this afternoon," observed Amy, "and I'd always been led to suppose that each of you knew everything."

As she departed with her sewing, she turned to send a final arrow, with some genuine feeling.

"I think I'll send for uncle to come and talk tome."

"Stay and talk to us," Mrs. Falconer called to her with a sincere, pitying laugh. "Come back!"

Amy's questions had pa.s.sed high over her head like a little flock of chattering birds they had struck him low, like bullets.

"Go on," she said quietly, when they were seated again, "what was it about the harvest?"

He could not reply at once; and she let him sit in silence, looking across the garden while she took up her knitting from the end of the bench, and leaning lightly toward him, measured a few rows of st.i.tches across his wrist. It gave way under her touch.

"These are your mittens for next winter," she said softly, more softly than he had ever heard her speak. And the quieting melody of her mere tone!--how unlike that other voice which bored joyously into you as a bright gimlet twists its unfeeling head into wood. He turned on her one quick, beautiful look of grat.i.tude.

"What was it about the harvest?" she repeated, forbearing to return his look, and thinking that all his embarra.s.sment followed from the pain of having thus met Amy.

He began to speak very slowly: "The last time I was here I boasted that I had yet to meet my first great defeat in life . . . that there was nothing stronger in the world than a man's will and purpose . . . that if ideals got shattered, we shattered them . . . that I would go on doing with my life as I had planned, be what I wished, have what I wanted."

"Well?" she urged, busy with her needles.

"I know better now."

"Aren't you the better for knowing better?"

He made no reply; so that she began to say very simply and as a matter of course: "It's the defeat more than anything else that hurts you! Defeat is always the hardest thing for you to stand, even in trifles. But don't you know that we have to be defeated in order to succeed? Most of us spend half our lives in fighting for things that would only destroy us if we got them. A man who has never been defeated is usually a man who has been ruined. And, of course," she added with light raillery, "of course there are things stronger than the strongest will and purpose: the sum of other men's wills and purposes, for instance. A single soldier may have all the will and purpose to whip an army, but he doesn't do it. And a man may have all the will and purpose to whip the world, walk over it rough-shod, shoulder it out of his way as you'd like to do, but he doesn't do it. And of course we do not shatter our ideals ourselves--always: a thousand things outside ourselves do that for us. And what reason had you to say that you would have what you wanted? Your wishes are not infallible. Suppose you craved the forbidden?"

She looked over at him archly, but he jerked his face farther away. Then he spoke out with the impulse to get away from her question:

"I could stand to be worsted by great things. But the little ones, the low, the coa.r.s.e, the trivial! Ever since I was here last--beginning that very night--I have been struggling like a beast with his foot in a trap. I don't mean Amy!" he cried apologetically.

"I'm glad you've discovered there are little things," she replied. "I had feared you might never find that out. I'm not sure yet that you have. One of your great troubles is that everything in life looks too large to you, too serious, too important. You fight the gnats of the world as you fought your panther. With you everything is a mortal combat. You run every b.u.t.terfly down and break it on an iron wheel; after you have broken it, it doesn't matter: everything is as it was before, except that you have lost time and strength. The only things that need trouble us very much are not the things it is right to conquer, but the things it is wrong to conquer. If you ever conquer in yourself anything that is right, that will be a real trouble for you as long as you live--and for me!"

He turned quickly and sat facing her, the muscles of his face moving convulsively. She did not look at him, but went on:

"The last time you were here, you told me that I did not appreciate Amy; that I could not do her justice; but that no woman could ever understand why a man loved any other woman."

"Did I say that?" he muttered remorsefully.

"It was because you did not appreciate he--it was because you would never be able to do her justice--that I was so opposed to the marriage. And this was largely a question of little things. I knew perfectly well that as soon as you married Amy, you would begin to expect her to act as though she were made of iron: so many pieces, so many wheels, so many cogs, so many revolutions. All the inevitable little things that make up the most of her life--that make up so large a part of every woman's life--the little moods, the little play, little changes, little tempers and inconsistencies and contradictions and falsities and hypocrisies which come every morning and go every night,--all these would soon have been to you--oh! I'm afraid they'd have been as big as a herd of buffalo! There would have been a bull fight for every foible."

She laughed out merrily, but she did not look at him.

"Yes," she continued, trying to drain his cup for him, since he would not do it himself, "you are the last man in the world to do a woman like Amy justice. I'm afraid you will never do justice to any woman, unless you change a good deal and learn a good deal. Perhaps no woman will ever understand you--except me."

She looked up at him now with the clearest fondness in her exquisite eyes.

With a groan he suddenly leaned over and buried his face in his hands. His hat fell over on the gra.s.s. Her knitting dropped to her lap, and one of her hands went out quickly toward his big head, heavy with its s.h.a.ggy reddish ma.s.s of hair, which had grown long during his sickness. But at the first touch she quickly withdrew it, and stooping over picked up his hat and put it on her knees, and sat beside him silent and motionless.