This Is a World of Spells

by Zona Gale

This Is a World of Spells

By Zona Gale.

THE bed, which stood on the second-floor piazza, was covered with a great comforter of down, bedight with pink roses, cunningly stitched about its edges with rose-pink wool, and tied with knots of rose ribbon. Near by was a white table set with a bowl of lilies, doing their utmost for the sake of the summer. And from among my pillows I could look away over smooth green to a vast bed of ferns, laid like a rug on the little lake’s border. Being ill in such a spot was, as I told Pelleas every day, a pastime which one must be perfectly well thoroughly to enjoy. Avis, with a rose in her hand, came out on the piazza. To walk in perfect harmony with her own appearance Avis should always have gone about carrying one rose, though indeed she was too simple to have supported the affectations of the window-saints, inseparable from their lilies. Avis was in a blue-print frock, and she moved with a beautiful dignity—the girlish dignity of the woman who is past her first youth and is delicately fulfilling its alluring promise. She was still slender, flowerlike, conformable; but the buoyancy and questioning and restlessness of her youth had been drawn finely out, as one hears a single strain of music persist toward meaning; and now she was simple and grave and—oh, so tender to every one. I had never seen her until, the week before, Pelleas and I had come down to Little Rosemont to be the guest of the Chiswicks, whose niece she was; and yet already she called me Aunt Ettarre—though I dare say that was partly because, being now past seventy, I seem more an aunt than a human being.

“Aunt Ettarre,” said Avis, laying the rose against my cheek, “a man wants to come here to-day to see you.”

“Ah!” said I with feigned interest. “And is he bringing seed catalogues, or felt slippers, or pills? When one is past seventy a strange man always means one or another.”

Avis shook her head.

“Not at all,” she said, and patted my lips with the rose in divine reprimand. “This is quite another kind of man. He has heard about you from Madame Sally and Miss Willie Lillieblade and Hobart Eddy and every one. He—he would be making a pilgrimage here to see you.”

“Ah, well now,” I admitted sadly, “I suppose I am a kind of relic—and they always do look up relics, and go miles to meditate on what they may have been. What is his name—this man?”

“Lawrence Knight,” answered Avis, and suddenly held the rose to her own face and, I thought—for a second, for a breath—averted her eyes from mine.

I was ill, and the physician had ordered perfect quiet, and I was on the second-floor piazza to avoid all excitement; but I protest that the moment I noted these signs in Avis my pulse quickened to normal—or subsided to normal; or did whatever aged, unruly pulses do.

“Lawrence Knight,” I repeated, to prolong the moment, “and who is Lawrence Knight?”

“He is a musician—a tenor,” explained Avis—rose in place, eyes anywhere but on mine.

“Young?” I demanded, like a savage.

“Not—not so very,” admitted Avis. “Older—older than I am.”

“I should like to thank him for his years,” I murmured. For I find that at my age I have no longer the courage to listen to certain divine nonsense about life that once amused me; and though all these young Blissfuls have, I do believe, a kind of hold upon the truth about living, it terrifies me to see Truth toyed with instead of worshiped; called divinity instead of deity.

“He wishes to come this afternoon,” said Avis, “and they think he may see you for half an hour, if you are willing. And Aunt Etarre——”

“Yes?” said I innocently, knowing well enough that I was now upon the verge of some solution of the whole matter.

“If he should come”—Avis hesitated—“you—you need not say anything to him, if you don’t mind, about my being here at Little Rosemont.”

I lifted myself somewhat on my pillows, and I saw how her face had glowed a heavenly color; but her eyes were quite serene now, and met my own.

“He doesn’t know I am here,” she went on evenly. “He telegraphed Aunt Ellen to ask if he might come, on the chance of seeing you. And she means to ask you. And if you should say yes, and should see him—would you not speak of me—please?”

As I looked at Avis, so tranquilly seated, so unwontedly and unwillingly lifting a veil from before the inviolable secret of her unrevealing eyes, so girlishly flushing at what I might be guessing, I felt suddenly as if new life had been poured in my veins, and I protest that at that moment I entered upon my recovery. Sometimes I have remembered how Herder, dying, said: “Oh, if some grand new thought would come and pierce my soul through and through I would be well in a moment”; and I, being a sentimental old woman, have been driven to prophesy that if, when I am dying, they will only bring to my bedside two lovers, timid or estranged, I shall find myself sitting robustly among my pillows, able to bid them kiss each other and meet life.

“Very well,” I said, with my eyes cunningly closed to conceal their eagerness. “Lawrence Knight. Not mention Avis. Half an hour. Pilgrimage to the relic. Now bring a book and read to me, and mind you don’t tell me what you bring.”

For I love to guess what it is that they read aloud to me; and I love not to know what dessert will come up on my tray. These two mysteries make the pastime of my hours.

Avis tossed the rose upon the roses of the slumber-quilt, and while I waited for her to bring the volume I lay looking toward the little blowing ferns, that were so frankly glad of the kiss of the wind. So frankly glad that one wonders how any living thing can ever fear to greet one whom he loves. To say nothing of avoiding him. To say nothing of not wishing him to know that one is at Little Rosemont. To say nothing—upon which I reminded myself that I was stupidly taking a great deal for granted in the case of Avis, and that I would better pay attention to what she was about to read aloud, looking a picture in the big willow porch chair.

Of what she did read I have but the very faintest notion, so deliciously engaged were my thoughts. But I remember that it must have been about Italy, for I bring back a picture of carved balustrades and sculptured terms set among the ilexes, or routs of Bacchanals and nymphs wreathed with bay, of painted figures “in love with an unearthly quiet.” And suddenly, like a kind of enchantment, this sentence caught at my fancy and enthralled me:

“‘This,’” read Avis, “‘is a world of spells; let us repeat some.’”

“Ah,” said I, well knowing that the pleasure of reading aloud is half in the interrupting, “so it is. A world of spells, indeed. And verily I believe that we have only to learn how to say them in order to bring to pass whatever we will, like the real fairies.”

“I wish you were right, Aunt Ettarre,” said Avis, letting her book fall.

“Ah,” said I airily, “for myself, I have any number of spells in which I believe infinitely.”

Avis looked at me curiously. I have an unconfirmed suspicion that she hardly knows whether to believe in me or in my complete madness.

“For example,” I pursued, “when I wish to see a rose, I walk in the garden. When I decide to sleep, I shut my eyes. When I feel the need of making some one happy, I contrive a little gift. When I am hungry for dreams, I open a book I know. I have never known these to fail.”

“Yes,” said Avis, “but——”

“Precisely!” cried I. “But if these are true of the things of every day that we know about, think how many must be true that we never even guess. For myself,” I added with some importance, “I am continually stumbling upon them.”

“Tell me what they are,” said Avis simply. (Oh, I hope that you have friends who accept your most extravagant fancies as simply as certain other friends accept your contented observations anent the wall-paper, the patent screens, the climate, and the like!)

“You must let me think about it a little,” said I. “Sometimes it is not permitted one to tell these things. Read on, my dear. I’m not delirious. Though how people can keep their senses with so many delicious things in the world waiting to be discovered, I protest I’ve no idea.”

So she read on about the rout of nymphs and Bacchanals, and I heard not one word; for I lay watching the little bowing ferns, so frankly glad of the kiss of the wind that one wonders how any living thing can ever fear to greet one whom he loves.

“Is he true and splendid like his name—this Lawrence Knight?” I broke out once, without in the least intending it; and my heart smote me when I saw how her face glowed a heavenly color as she forced her eyes to meet my own. “I mean will he amuse me?” I lamely patched it up; and hardly forebore to smile at her eager:

“Oh, yes,he will. I am certain that he will, Aunt Ettarre. I have never known so delightful a companion.”

“I’m bound to say that you do not seem overeager for that companionship—” I muttered indistinguishably into the heart of the rose; and then a strange thing happened:

Out of the heart of that rose, just as unmistakably as from beloved lips, I insist that the idea came to me. Else, I put it to the fair-minded, how could it be that there occurred to me the possibility of a certain spell to lay upon this situation which Avis had partly revealed and I had partly guessed? Every one must see that the rose was responsible.

I lay still, turning the matter well in my mind—though I confess that my idea of considering anything is to marshal all the arguments that meet my favor, and to discard the opposing forces. I lay still, turning the matter well in my mind while Avis read on about ilex paths and hautboys’ voices. And over and over in my delighted thought beat rhythmically the magic sentence which holds something of my creed about life:

“This is a world of spells; let us repeat some.”

Presently my luncheon came up, a tray of fragile, painted china and a handful of lilies, and the necessary omelet and figs and toast. And then, when I had pretended to sleep for a little, and had shamelessly used the time to perfect my scheme, I begged Avis to come to me and make me splendid in my lavender dressing-jacket and lavender cap. Do you think that I did not smile to myself, in the happiest satisfaction, when I saw that she was wearing a little gown of tucked muslin with a burnished girdle that brought out all the gold of her hair and the amber of her eyes? I had never seen her so lovely. There was something in her face—a flush, a tenderness—and yet my heart was sad for the sadness of her eyes. Did she think to deceive me? Me, whose chief use in life is to penetrate the faint deceptions of lovers who pretend to have forgotten love?

“Avis,” said I, when the awning had slipped cool shadows over the recess where I lay, “is there anything that you wish very much—very much?”

She looked magnificent unconcern and stood rearranging the quilt o’ roses.

“Very much indeed?” she repeated musingly—as if we were not all a kind of catch-bag of wishes! Verily, that recollection has drawn me near to many an unpropitious stranger of whom I have thought: But if I could see his heart I should find it wistful of this little blessing, and that little hope, and many an innocent joy.

“Yes,” said Avis, “many things.”

“Then,” said I, “I will tell you the spell I have discovered. Do you promise to have entire faith in it?”

She promised, laughing, and I loved the unconsciousness of her persistent, reticent glances toward the driveway where at any moment Lawrence Knight might appear.

“That is the first step,” I said, as became an oracle. “Confidence is the very prince among spells. You remember,” I added, drawing from the bowl of ferns the rose that she had brought to me that morning, “the tree of Blush roses where this grew—the one by the turn of the path beyond the sundial?”

Yes, Avis remembered. And she paid me excellent attention, considering that she saw nothing but the drive. Is it not strange how the serene, grave heart of her flowered before me like that of a girl in the sweet of her shy, first love? I could find it in my own heart to believe that we are all a race of wizards, so potent is the Great Enchantment of which all are the keepers.

“Take this rose in your hand,” I directed solemnly, “and make a wish. But mind that it is the wish—that which you wish more than anything in this world. Isn’t that enough to make all the world at peace,” I cried, “to think that each of us carries about some great, secret wish to ‘drive along’ the days? I suppose the real test of one’s worth would be in that wish. Suppose we were all to tell our Great Wish,” I said musingly, “how much nearer humanity——”

Oh, and her face glowed with so heavenly a color that I protest I felt like a beldame who had wrested away her secret by my black art!

“But I shall not tell mine!” I cried with energy. “And just you wish yours in this rose, and then hurry down and sit for an hour—mind, for an hour, beside the bush where it grew. And when you come away—mind, not until you come away, you must read the motto on the sun-dial.”

Avis looked startled. “The motto on the sun-dial,” she said. “There isn’t any, Aunt Ettare.”

I regarded her as one who sits above all negatives. Did I not know that Pelleas, having found the dial mottoless, as no sun-dial has a right to be, had secretly, and all but by night, engraved a motto upon it, since our coming to Little Rosemont?

“There may have been no motto,” I observed. “How that was I do not say. But, if you do not look until the hour is up, you will find a motto on the sundial now. That will be the spell. And that will be the answer to the wish.”

“You dear,” said Avis, “what a born fairy godmother you are!”

“Wish!” I impatiently commanded.

So Avis took the rose and buried her face in its petals and wished—ah, and it was the right wish, the wish I suspected, the wish I knew. I could not doubt that. For I have read many signs, but none clearer than her eyes. Then she tossed the rose on the quilt, brushed my hair with her lips, and was gone just as my dull hearing caught from the drive the first thud of the feet of a riding-horse.

“Suppose I do not approve of him?” I thought in a tardy alarm as my hostess stepped with my guest on the piazza—but directly I touched his hand and looked in his face I knew that in the plan I purposed I had practised inspired precipitation.

Lawrence Knight took my hand and then sat in the willow chair by the bed and told me, so simply that I felt like some one else, that he had always wished to meet me. He added, still so simply that I found myself listening with a wholly impersonal air, that when he was in the cemetery at Clusium, he had gone to a tomb about whose inscription (in the days when I was able to write so that a few were deceived) I had made a kind of verse.

“I went there often,” he said, “because I was not in America and could not hope to see you. Once, in St. Myon, I barely missed you and I followed you and your husband to Cherbourg——”

“Why not to America?” I asked gaily. “Were you, then, an exile?”

The shadow in his face deepened a little. Ah, these “minor immoralities” of ours, these thrusts that we give to each other’s hearts when we do not know!

“Yes,” he said quietly, “I was an exile. Not by political edict or for conscience’ sake. There are other——”

He did not finish, and I caught up the rose that lay on the quilt, and turned it in my hand.

“Sometimes these pass,” I ventured gently.

He shook his head, smiling kindly at my commonplace of comfort.

“But one never knows,” I persisted. “I dare say there are all sorts of things true in the world if only one had the formula to discover them.”

“Yes,” he assented, “but one must learn the formula by blood and tears. And most of us miss it.”

“Formula!” I cried in a fine impatience. “Blood and tears! Yes, true enough. But out upon both where they are unnecessary. Do you know that I chose the word ‘formula’ because you are a man, and I always begin by talking science to men for fear they will not understand art? Throw away your search for formula and take to saying spells instead!”

Lawrence Knight nodded gravely.

“With all my heart,” said he, “if I could find the right spell to say.”

Was it not simple—I ask you whether ever in the world a great, distinguished man fell so neatly into the trap laid for him by a designing old woman? Yes, when one thinks of it, surely others have done so. How else have women achieved such a mighty reputation for guiding conversation and molding the opinions of salons? Partly by their toilets, no doubt, but largely by precisely such tactics as I, in my lavender cap and dressing-sack, had just practised. For here, in five minutes’ talk, we were within the borders of the Enchanted Subject which lay, I was certain, near the heart of this stranger. And for that matter, since in matters of romance I am a most interfering old woman, near my own heart too.

“‘This'” quoted I gravely, “‘is of world of spells; let us repeat some.’”

“With all my heart,” said Lawrence Knight again.

“Ah, well,” said I airily, “for myself I have any number of spells in which I believe infinitely.”

“I have no doubt of that,” he said gently, “or of their potency.”

“For example,” I pursued, “when I wish to see a rose, I walk in the garden. When I decide to sleep, I shut my eyes. When I feel lonely, I send for some one I love——”

“Is that so easy?” asked Lawrence Knight.

Was it not as if the great heart of the world spoke to me in his voice? Is it so easy? Ah, they go asking that in many lands!

“It is easier than people know,” I answered simply.

And I was preaching no doctrine to which my heart does not subscribe. I am old, and I have seen much magic; but I might have seen a great deal more if only people believed.

“Besides,” I added, “if these spells are true of the every-day things that we know about, think how many must be true that we never even guess! You, as a musician,” I cried triumphantly, “are bound to believe in the constant harmonies that are too fine for our ears. Why not go a step further—such a little step!—and believe in spells?”

“I do—I do,” he said, laughing a little. “I recant. I subscribe. Teach me.”

“Have you ever seen such a rose?” said I—and laid the great Blush rose in his hand.

He looked at it without smelling it—and from that instant I knew him to be a man of genius. The appeal of flowers to the eye is by far the finer, and I like to see a man obedient to it instead of to mere odor—but after all I would see a woman lift a flower to her face.

“Do you really wish me,” I asked boldly, “to teach you a certain spell—to bring you your heart’s desire?”

“I suppose,” said Lawrence Knight, laughing a little, “that no one in the world ever wished it so much.”

“It is very simple,” I assured him gravely. “I am certain that I know the spell. But you must leave me for a few minutes alone!”

“Ah,” he said chivalrously, “that is one trouble with spells: they come so high.” But I make no doubt that he was saying to himself: “Alas, this mad old woman! I should have come to visit her ten years earlier, at the least.”

“Leave me for a little,” said I, “leave me for as long as you shall decide. The spell will be wrought while you are gone. Suppose,” said I, making a splendid effort at unconcern, “suppose you go down to the garden, and tend the bush of Blush roses like this one—take this for a sample. And on the way back, after a little, I recommend that you read the motto on the sun-dial, at the turn of the path. Have you so much faith in my spells?”

Lawrence Knight stood up—ah, yes, he was true and splendid like his name, as Avis had said. He smiled down into my eyes, and his own were infinitely tender with that tenderness which bodied forth his spirit. He bent to kiss my hand.

“How few beautiful things,” he said, “they let us keep. Thank you for being one of them.”

You see, already the spell of this spell was come upon him!

He went away down to the garden, to the bush of Blush roses where Avis would be, for the hour was not yet spent. Presently they would read the motto on the sun-dial, together. Had I not kept troth? I had not so much as mentioned to Lawrence Knight the name of Avis. And when one makes a pilgrimage to a relic does he not expect to find some blessing descended upon him?

I lay there in the cool recess under the awning, with the sun and leaves making faint patterns upon the roses of the quilt. I looked away to the bed of bowing ferns, so frankly glad of the wind’s kiss that I wondered again how any living thing can ever fear to greet one whom he loves. And then I heard a step on the piazza, and Pelleas sat down beside my bed.

“Ettarre,” he said, and I saw that his face was flushed as in some delicate perturbation. I waited in pleasant expectation of some sweet secret of the garden which he is always surprising. Since Pelleas and I have grown old together the events of our days lie rather among plants than people, or so we imagine.

“You know,” he said with a kind of happy importance, “we wondered who would be the first to find our motto on the sun-dial.”

“Yes,” I said eagerly.

“Just now,” imparted Pelleas, “I came through the rose-garden. And at the turn of the path by the Blush-rose tree, I surprised—but I took care they didn’t see me—two lovers, reading the motto.”

“Lovers!” cried I in fine excitement. “How do you know that they were lovers, Pelleas?”

“Ah, well now,” said Pelleas, “I am not so old that I cannot tell two lovers—are you, dear?”

And at that moment we looked down upon the lawn. And there moving across the green toward the bed of bowing ferns went the two, Avis and Lawrence Knight, and the whole picture had about it such an air of Paradise that I turned to Pelleas with happy tears.

“Pelleas,” I said, “we are all in a kind of enchantment, aren’t we—aren’t we? To be happy one has only to find a certain spell, for oneself or for some one else. I am sure of it. Dear heart, what if we had never found it?”

He put his arm about me. and we sat so, watching the two who walked below.

“Say over the motto, Pelleas, please,” I asked him presently.

And he answered with the sun-dial words:

 

No rose is dead
That in this garden blows;
No hour is fled
That my dial shows;
True love is never sped;
"So the heart knows.