The house seemed very quiet, though steadily, from a distant upper room, came the sound of a violin. For more than an hour, Allison had worked continuously at one difficult phrase. Colonel Kent smiled whimsically as he sat in the library, thinking that, by this time, he could almost play it himself.
Looking back over the thirty years, he could see where he had made mistakes in moulding the human clay entrusted to his care, yet, in the end, the mistakes had not mattered. Back in the beginning, he had formulated certain cherished ideals for his son, and had worked steadily toward them, unmindful of occasional difficulties and even failures.
Against his own judgment, he had yielded to Francesca in the choice of the boy's career. "Look at his hands," she had said. "You couldn't put hands like his at work in an office. If he isn't meant for music, we'll find it out soon enough."
But Allison had gone on, happily, along the chosen path, with never a question or doubt of his ultimate success. Just now, the Colonel was deeply grateful to Francesca, for the years abroad had been pleasant ones, and would have been wholly impossible had Allison been working in an office.
With a sigh, he began to pace back and forth through the hall, his hands in his pockets, and his grey head bowed. Before him was his own portrait, in uniform, his hand upon his sword. The sword itself, hanging in a corner of the hall, was dull and lifeless now. He had a curious sense that his work was done.
The tiny stream, rising from some cool pool among the mountains, is not unlike man's own beginning, for, at first, it gives no hint of its boundless possibilities. Grown to a river, taking to itself the water from a thousand secret channels, it leaps down the mountain, heedless of rocky barriers, with all the joy of lusty youth.
The river itself portrays humanity precisely, with its tortuous windings, its accumulation of driftwood, its unsuspected depths, and its crystalline shallows, singing in the Summer sun. Barriers may be built across its path, but they bring only power, as the conquering of an obstacle is always sure to do. Sometimes when the rocks and stone-clad hills loom large ahead, and eternity itself would be needed to carve a passage, there is an easy way around. The discovery of it makes the river sing with gladness and turns the murmurous deeps to living water, bright with ripples and foam.
Ultimately, too, in spite of rocks and driftwood, of endless seeking for a path, of tempestuous nights and days of ice and snow, man and the river reach the eternal sea, to be merged forever with the Everlasting.
Upstairs the music ceased. A door opened, then closed, and presently Allison came down, rubbing his hands. "It's a little cool up there," he said, "and yet, by the calendar, it's Spring. I wish this climate could be averaged up."
"Even then, we wouldn't be satisfied," the Colonel returned. "Who wants all his days to be alike?"
"Nobody. Still, it's a bit trying to freeze your nose one day and be obliged to keep all the windows open the next."
There was a long pause. The Colonel tapped his fingers restlessly upon the library table. Allison went over to the open fire and stood with his back to it, clasping his hands behind him. "What have you been doing all the morning, Dad?"
"Nothing. Just sitting here, thinking."
"Pretty hopeless occupation unless you have something in particular to think about."
"It's better to have nothing to think about than to be obliged to think of something unpleasant, isn't it?"
"I don't know," Allison responded, smothering a yawn. "Almost anything is better than being bored."
"You're not bored, are you?" asked the Colonel, quickly.
"Far from it, but I have my work. I was thinking of you."
"I can work, too," the Colonel replied. "I think as soon as the ground thaws out, I'll make a garden. A floral catalogue came yesterday and the pictures are very inspiring."
"Does it give any directions for distinguishing between the flowers and weeds?"
"No," laughed the Colonel, "but I've thought of trying the ingenious plan of the man who pulled up the plants and carefully watered the weeds, expecting the usual contrary results."
Luncheon was announced and they went out together, shivering at the change in temperature between the library and the dining-room, where there would be no cheerful open fire until the dinner hour.
"What are you going to do this afternoon?" queried the Colonel.
"Why, work, I suppose—at least until I get too tired to work any more."
"You seem to believe in an eight-hour day."
Something in the tone gave Allison an inkling of the fact that his father was lonely and restless in the big house. When they were abroad, he had managed to occupy himself pleasantly while Allison was busy, and, for the first time, the young man wondered whether it had been wise to come back.
The loneliness of the great rooms was evident, if one looked for it, and the silence was literally to be felt, everywhere. It is difficult for two people to be happy in a large house; they need the cosiness established by walls not too far apart, ceilings not too high, and the necessary furniture not too widely separated. A single row of books, within easy reach, may hint of companionship not possible to the great bookcase across a large room.
"I think," said Allison, "that perhaps this house is too large for us.
Why should we need fifteen rooms?"
"We don't, but what's the use of moving again just now, when we're all settled."
"It's no trouble to move," returned the young man.
"It might be, if we did it ourselves. I fancy that Miss Rose could give us a few pointers on the subject of opening an old house."
"There may be something in that," admitted Allison. "What charming neighbours they are!" he added, in a burst of enthusiasm.
"Madame Bernard," replied the Colonel, with emphasis, "is one of the finest women I have ever had the good fortune to meet. Miss Rose is like her, but I have known only one other of the same sort."
The Colonel pushed back his plate and went to the window. Beyond the mountains, somewhere in "God's acre," was the little sunken grave still enfolding a handful of sacred dust. With a sudden throb of pain, Allison realised, for the first time in his life, that his father was an old man. The fine, strong face, outlined clearly by the pitiless afternoon sun, was deeply lined: the broad shoulders were stooped a little, and the serene eyes dimmed as though by mist. In the moment he seemed to have crossed the dividing line between maturity and age.
Allison was about to suggest that they take a walk after luncheon, having Madame Bernard's household in mind as the ultimate object, but, before he could speak, the Colonel had turned away from the window.
"Some day you'll marry, lad," he said, in a strange tone.
Allison smiled and shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.
"And then," the Colonel continued, with a little catch in his voice, "the house will be none too large for two—for you two."
Very rarely, and for a moment only, Allison looked like his mother. For an instant she lived again in her son's eyes, then vanished.
"Dad," he said, gently, "I'm sure you wouldn't desert me even if I did marry. You've stood by me too long."
The stooped shoulders straightened and the Colonel smiled. "Do you mean that—if you married, you'd still—want me?"
"If she didn't," returned Allison, lightly, "she wouldn't get me. Not that I'm any prize to be wrangled over by the fair sex, individually or collectively, but you and I stand together, Dad, and don't you forget it."
The Colonel cleared his throat, tried to speak, then stopped abruptly.
"I have been thinking," he continued, with a swift change of mood and
subject, "that we might manage a dinner party. We're much indebted to
Madame Bernard."
"Good idea! I don't know what sort of party it would prove to be, but, if we did our best, it would be all right with them. Anyhow, Aunt Francesca would give an air to it."
"So would the others, Miss Rose especially."
"I wonder why Aunt Francesca didn't marry again," mused Allison.
"Because her heart is deep enough to hold a grave."
"You knew her husband, didn't you?"
"He was my best friend," answered the Colonel, a little sadly. "How the years separate and destroy, and blot out the things that count for the most!"
"I wonder how she happened to be named 'Francesca.' It isn't an American name."
"She wasn't. Her name was 'Mary Frances,' and he changed it to 'Marie Francesca.' So she has been 'Marie Francesca' ever since, though she never uses the 'Marie.' That was his name for her."
"The change suits her someway. Queer idea she has about names fitting people, and yet it isn't so queer, either, when you come to think of it. Rose might have been named Abigail or Jerusha, yet I believe people would have found out she was like a rose and called her by her proper name."
Colonel Kent flashed a quick glance at him, but the expression of his face had not changed. "And Isabel?" he queried, lightly.
"Isabel's only a kid and it doesn't matter so much whether things fit her or not. I've promised to take her to the theatre," he continued, irrelevantly, "because Aunt Francesca wants her guest to be amused. I'm also commissioned to find some youths about twenty and trot 'em round for Isabel's inspection. Do you know of anybody?"
"I've seen only one who might do. There's a lanky boy with unruly hair and an expansive smile whom I've seen at the post-office a time or two. He usually has a girl with him, but she may be his sister. They look astonishingly alike."
"Bet it's the Crosby twins. I'd like to see the little devils, if they've grown up."
"They're grown up, whoever they are. The boy is almost as tall as I am and his sister doesn't lack much of it."
"I must hunt 'em up. They've already called on Isabel, and perhaps, when she returns the call, she'll take me along."
"Who brought them up?" asked the Colonel idly.
"They've brought themselves up, for the last five or six years, and I'm of the opinion that they've always done it."
"Let's invite them to the dinner party."
Allison's eyes danced at the suggestion. "All right, but we'll have to see 'em first. They may not want to come."
"I've often wondered," mused the Colonel, "why it is so much more pleasant to entertain than it is to be entertained. I'd rather have a guest any day than to be one."
"And yet," returned Allison, "if you are a guest, you can get away any time you want to, within reasonable limits. If you're entertaining, you've got to keep it going until they all want to go."
"In that case, it might be better for us if we went to Crosbys'."
"We can do that, too. I think it would be fun, though, to have 'em here.
We need another man in one sense, though not in another."
"I have frequently had occasion to observe," remarked the Colonel, "that many promising dinners are wholly spoiled by the idea that there must be an equal number of men and women. One uncongenial guest can ruin a dinner more easily than a poor salad—and that is saying a great deal."
"Your salad days aren't over yet, evidently."
The hour of talk had done the Colonel a great deal of good, and he was quite himself again. Some new magazines had come in the afternoon mail and lay on the library table. He fingered the paper knife absently as he tore off the outer wrappings and threw them into the fire.
"I believe I'll go up and work for a couple of hours," said Allison, "and then we'll go out for a walk."
"All right, lad. I'll be ready."
Even after the strains of the violin sounded faintly from upstairs, accompanied by a rhythmic tread as Allison walked to and fro, Colonel Kent did not begin to cut the leaves.
Instead, he sat gazing into the fire, thinking. Quite unconsciously, for years, he had been carrying a heavy burden—the fear that Allison would marry and that his marriage would bring separation. Now he was greatly reassured. "And yet," he thought, "there's no telling what a woman may do."
The sense that his work was done still haunted him, and, resolutely, he tried to push it aside. "While there's life, there's work," he said to himself. He knew, however, as he had not known before, that Allison was past the need of his father, except for companionship.
The old house seemed familiar, yet as though it belonged to another life. He remembered the building of it, when, with a girl's golden head upon his shoulder, they had studied plans together far into the night. As though it were yesterday, their delight at the real beginning came back. There was another radiant hour, when the rough flooring for the first story was laid, and, with bare scantlings reared, skeleton-like, all around them, they actually went into their own house.
One by one, through the vanished years, he sought out the links that bound him to the past. The day the bride came home from the honeymoon, and knelt, with him, upon the hearth-stone, to light their first fire together; the day she came to him, smiling, to whisper to him the secret that lay beneath her heart; the long waiting, half fearful and half sweet, then the hours of terror that made an eternity of a night, then the dawn, that brought the ultimate, unbroken peace which only God can change.
Over there, in front of the fireplace in the library, the little mother had lain in her last sleep. The heavy scent of tuberoses, the rumble of wheels, the slow sound of many feet, and the tiny, wailing cry that followed them when he and she went out of their house together for the last time—it all came back, but, mercifully, without pain.
Were it not for this divine forgetting, few of us could bear life. One can recall only the fact of suffering, never the suffering itself. When a sorrow is once healed, it leaves only a tender memory, to come back, perhaps, in many a twilight hour, with tears from which the bitterness has been distilled.
Slowly, too, by the wonderful magic of the years, unknown joys reveal themselves and stand before us, as though risen from the dead. At such and such a time, we were happy, but we did not know it. In the midst of sorrow, the joy comes back, not reproachfully, but to beckon us on, with clearer sight, to those which lie on the path beyond.
He remembered, too, that after the first sharp agony of bereavement was over; when he had learned that even Death does not deny Love, he had seemed to enter some mysterious fellowship. Gradually, he became aware of the hidden griefs of others, and from many unsuspected sources came consolation. Even those whom he had thought hard and cold cherished some holy of holies—some sacred altar where a bruised heart had been healed and the bitterness taken away.
He had come to see that the world was full of kindness; that through the countless masks of varying personalities, all hearts beat in perfect unison, and that joy, in reality, is immortal, while pain dies in a day.
"And yet," he thought, "how strange it is that life must be nearly over, before one fully learns to live."
The fire crackled cheerily on the hearth, the sunbeams danced gaily through the old house, spending gold-dust generously in corners that were usually dark, and the uncut magazine slipped to the floor. Above, the violin sang high and clear. The Colonel leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
When Allison came down, he was asleep, with the peace of Heaven upon his face, and so quiet that the young man leaned over him, a little frightened, to wait for the next deep breath. Reassured, he did not wake him, but went for his walk alone.