The Blue Window/Chapter 31
IT HAD rained drearily all the week, but there was nothing dreary in the atmosphere of the old farmhouse. The glow of Hildegarde's presence lighted it. It seemed astounding to the two aunts that her coming should have made such a difference. They waked in the morning to hear her singing, and all day long there was her laughter. Her youth and buoyancy made of every act an amazing adventure—of going through the nests for eggs, of setting the table, of gathering armfuls of autumn leaves, of foraging in the garden for the best of the wind-blown chrysanthemums, or of going down to the box for the mail.
"You'll take cold," her aunts warned her on a certain joyous morning when she came in with the newspapers and letters, her hair wet, her red raincoat glistening.
She shone upon them. "The gods will keep me until Crispin comes."
She was utterly frank about it, including them in her ecstasies. She had had Crispen's telegram and had lived since then on the heights. He was coming this very afternoon. Having made up her mind, Hildegarde's surrender was complete. The old aunts were almost afraid of such happiness. Her mother had been like that when she married Louis.
Hildegarde rarely spoke of her father. "I've pigeonholed him," she said once when his name was mentioned.
"Do you mean you don't think of him?"
"It hurts me to think of him, and I don't want anything to spoil my happiness with Crispin."
There was a strength in thus shelving the disagreeable which reminded them of her mother.
Olivia, probing a bit, asked, "Don't you miss the luxuries?"
Then Hildegarde voiced a great truth. "Luxuries don't count when people fail you. It is like sailing on a fine ship with a hole in its bottom. You don't care for the fineness—you just want—a raft—"
Aunt Catherine spoke with dry amusement, "I suppose Olivia and I are two planks in the raft?"
"You are two white sails on a lonely sea."
"And Crispin is your rudder?"
"Crispin!" Hildegarde flung a kiss upward from the tips of her fingers. "Crispin is the captain, the crew and the bo'sun, too! Aunt Olivia, do you think I am very silly?"
They did not think her silly. They thought her wonderful, although they did not express it that way. They never used superlatives.
In the mail which Hildegarde had brought was a letter from Sally. Hildegarde, sitting on the edge of the kitchen table, read it to the two aunts, who, each in a red-cushioned rocking chair, listened as if it were a message from a strange country. Never, never, had they lived as Sally was living in a world of high and romantic experiences. She spoke a new language, but they loved it.
Hildegarde, red as a rose, folded the letter. "Sally is taking a great deal for granted."
But not too much! The old aunts knew that.
"If we could have you until spring," Aunt Catherine ventured, "we should like it. But we want you to do as you think best."
Looking at the wistful old faces, Hildegarde said: "Don't worry. I'll stay with you through the winter. I'd like a wedding in May—" She caught herself up. "I am talking as if it were settled."
It was settled. In her mind and in theirs, as it had been in Sally's!
Hildegarde went to the train to meet her lover. The two of them returned in a heavy downpour. After the greetings were over, one of the aunts said:
"I am sorry it rains."
"Why be sorry? We love it, Hildegarde and I. With the leaves blowing."
Crispin had his arm about Hildegarde. It was beautiful to see them. They shed a rosy light over the dark old house.
From her shelter Hildegarde announced, "We are going for a walk."
"In this storm?"
"Why not? It is heavenly outside. And we'll be home in time for supper."
Well, if heaven for these two meant facing the elements there was no reason why they shouldn't. The old aunts watched the lovers go down the path. A sweep of wind buffeted them, swirled around them an eddy of leaves, lifted their umbrella. They turned their backs to the blast, saw the watchers at the window, and waved. They seemed to the two old creatures as vivid as a burst of sunshine against the dun dreariness of the day.
"Were we ever like that, Olivia?"
"Never, but Elizabeth was."
They had supper to cook and went about it. The rooms were dark, and they lighted the lamps.
"I hope they're not getting wet," Aunt Catherine said, as she drew the curtains.
Aunt Olivia was arranging flowers in a bowl. Crispin had brought roses to Hildegarde—little saffron ones.
"Merry gave you violets, and so did Bobby," he had said, "but I remembered the old yellow rosebush by the gate."
"They were always Hildegarde's favorites," Aunt Catherine remarked now as she set the bowl in the center of the table, "and they were Elizabeth's. She liked them in this bowl, because it was blue."
The table looked really very festive. There were, to be sure, no silver pheasants, no Florentine lace, but the linen was spick and span, and the roses helped. The two aunts surveyed it with satisfaction. Then they went into the kitchen.
It was some time after that a knock came on the front door. The old women had little company, and most people entered by the back way. Aunt Olivia took off her apron and went through the living-room. She stopped to light the lamp in the front hall, then she opened the door.
Louis Carew stood there. He said at once: "May I see Hildegarde? I am her father."
"Hildegarde is out. Will you come in and wait?"
He came in and seemed very elegant and out of place in the plain room. Miss Olivia didn't know what to say to him; it was usually Catherine who took the initiative in conversation. She stammered, "I'll get my sister," and fled.
In the kitchen she spoke breathlessly, "It's Louis Carew."
"What does he want?"
"He asked for Hildegarde."
For a moment Aunt Catherine did not speak. Then she said, "Why should he come now to spoil her happiness?" She was untying her apron. "You watch the supper, Olivia."
Louis Carew was still standing when Aunt Catherine entered. In her old-fashioned way she said, "Won't you sit down?" but he waited for her to be seated.
She took a rocking chair, but she did not rock, and in spite of her clumsy plumpness there was something of dignity and distinction in her repose.
She began, "You want to see Hildegarde?"
"Yes."
"She has gone for a walk. It will be some time before she comes in. Is there anything you can say to me?"
"Has she told you she left Round Hill?"
"Yes."
"I am here to reason with her. I had common-sense on my side, but not tact. I want her to return with me."
"Why should she return?"
"Because she was precipitate, and because the farm is no place for her."
She knew what he meant. She knew that this house must seem to him crude, cheap and uncomfortable. That she and Olivia must seem common and stupid old creatures, that he shrank from the thought of such a home and such associates for his daughter. So she said at once:
"Hildegarde will not live on the farm. She is going to marry Crispin Harlowe."
Carew's hands clutched at the arms of his chair. "Has she promised?"
"Yes."
"Is he here?"
She nodded. "They are out now together."
"In the rain?"
"They don't know that it rains."
"Why not?"
"They are in love."
He laughed harshly. "They think they are."
"Put it any way you like," Aunt Catherine told him, "but there's this about it, they don't care whether the sun shines or the storm beats. They are young, life is before them, they are happy."
She spoke with a restrained force that startled him. She was not, he perceived, as colorless as he had thought. There was, indeed, something about her which, in spite of her clumsiness and lack of comeliness, reminded him of Elizabeth. It was, if he had known it, a spiritual quality which linked her with her sister. If she had not Elizabeth's vision, she had at least a sane sense of values. And she knew nothing of weakness. Her life had been hard, and it had made her strong.
He jumped to his feet and stood looking down at her: "Do you think I am going to let her marry Harlowe? What kind of future will she have with him?"
"What kind of future will she have with you?"
It was a fierce challenge. He met it almost with violence. "She will have the things which belong to girls of her class. Elizabeth wanted her to have them. She sent the child to me."
"She hoped for better things, and they have not come. And Hildegarde is glad to be with us again. She feels that her mother's spirit still lingers in this house."
He cast a half-fearful look about him. "Here?"
"Yes. The peace of her. The beauty of her mind and soul. She gave these to her child. You gave nothing but handsome clothes and a trip to Paris."
When he answered her, there was a touch of contempt in his voice. What did she know of life? This drab old dame! Shut within her narrow acres! "I can't expect you to understand. I am practical, and you are not. If Hildegarde marries Harlowe, she may have regrets. It isn't always wise to spurn the flesh-pots."
"She doesn't spurn them," the old woman assured him. "I think there are times when she longs for them. But they would never satisfy her."
He dropped into a chair. "It is useless for us to discuss it. When Hildegarde comes, she can say what she wants to do."
"You mean to see her?"
"Yes."
There was silence for a moment, then the old woman said, "I am going to ask you, for the love you once bore the mother, to let the child alone."
The wistfulness in her voice disturbed him. He began to wish that he had not pushed this thing. This dark old house oppressed him. The thought of Elizabeth's spirit there to challenge him for his stewardship of her child gave him a shivering sense of uneasiness.
And this old woman with her hard strength made him feel a weakling. She made him feel that he had pulled the roof of his fortunes down on his head, when, as a matter of fact, the roof had fallen.
He wanted to escape. There were people who made him feel strong. Ethel, for example! She might be shallow, and her methods were obvious. But she was comforting—and she had none of these fantastic ideas about conscience.
Yet—there had been a loveliness about Elizabeth. There was a loveliness about Hildegarde!
With a real emotion in his voice, he said: "The best I have ever given to any one, I have given to Elizabeth and to her daughter. And I have—lost them—"
His haggard eyes met hers. She said gently:
"Some day—I think, Hildegarde's heart will come back to you."
But he knew that it would not come back. Not if he married Ethel. . . . He took his hat and coat from the chair where he had laid them. "Will you tell her I was here?"
"Tomorrow, perhaps. Not tonight. I should hate to cast a shadow on our little feast."
Through the open door he could see the homely preparations, the table with its clean white cloth and its saffron roses. Here there would be no men in dinner coats, no women in shimmering gowns. Just Hildegarde in her simple dress. Just Hildegarde. . . .
He bade the old aunt an abrupt "Good-night."
She heard his retreating footsteps in the hall. The outer door opened and shut, and presently the taxi coughed and sputtered on its way to the station.
The rain had stopped and there was a stiff breeze blowing—it blew so hard, indeed, on the hilltop where Crispin stood with Hildegarde, that only the great rock at their backs saved them from being swept before it like leaves from a tree.
The night had come, and the sky above them was an inverted sapphire bowl. The valley curving up to meet it was blue with shadows. The lovers on their hilltop seemed thus enclosed in a limitless sphere studded overhead with the brightness of the stars, and below with the lights of the countryside. They had a sense of the infinite, the eternal. They had walked in the rain, had taken refuge in the church, and had come at last in the clearing weather to the place which was dedicated to their meetings with the serene spirit which watched over them. They were young and ardent, and they had been wildly and humanly happy, yet now, for the moment, their happiness was glorified by the ethereal, the exquisite.
"Our marriage shall be forever," Crispin whispered. "I shall love you to the end of the world."
Perhaps because he believed it, it might come true. To Louis Carew love had been always the adventure of the moment. To Crispin it meant allegiance to an ideal. Thus the two starting from different points would arrive at last at different goals. As a man thinks shapes, in the main, his destiny.
"I shall love you to the end of the world," said Crispin therefore, and held Hildegarde close, and took the kiss for which he had asked when he stood by the gate a year ago.
Around them swept the murmuring breeze, and it seemed to Crispin that Elizabeth's voice said low in his ear:
"Hold her to your heart as I have held her."
When it was time for them to go, they raced hand in hand down the hill. Up the road they went, passing a taxi whose lights cast them into the shadow so that they were not seen by the occupant. Hildegarde did not know that her father was in the taxi. If she had known, she would have let him go. Her happiness did not include him. The time might come when she would forgive, but today she had forgotten him.
The two young people laughed as they ran. They came to the old oak under which Crispin had stood when he had first known that he loved Hildegarde. He stopped her there and kissed her. He kissed her again before they entered the warm little house. Life was wonderful. Everything was wonderful!
They opened the door and went in.
"Where have you been?" the old aunts asked them.
And Hildegarde said, "In heaven"—and opened her arms to them.
The End