"Will you think of this to-day?"
He locked up the house, and went slowly up to bed. Elizabeth found the letter the next morning. She stood in the bleak room, with the ashes of last night's fire still smoking, and the stockings overhead not festive in the gray light, but looking forlorn and abandoned. Suddenly her eyes, dry and fiercely burning for so long, were wet with tears. It was true. It was true. A little work, a little sleep, a little love. Not the great love, perhaps, not the only love of a man's life. Not the love of yesterday, but of to-day and to-morrow.
All the fierce repression of the last weeks was gone. She began to suffer. She saw Dick coming home, perhaps high with hope that whatever she knew she would understand and forgive. And she saw herself failing him, cold and shut away, not big enough nor woman enough to meet him half way. She saw him fighting his losing battle alone, protecting David but never himself; carrying Lucy to her quiet grave; sitting alone in his office, while the village walked by and stared at the windows; she saw him, gaining harbor after storm, and finding no anchorage there.
She turned and went, half blindly, into the empty street.
She thought he was at the early service. She did not see him, but she had once again the thing that had seemed lost forever, the warm sense of his thought of her.
He was there, in the shadowy back pew, with the grill behind it through which once insistent hands had reached to summon him. He was there, with Lucy's prayer-book in his hand, and none of the peace of the day in his heart. He knelt and rose with the others.
"O God, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of Thy Son--"
XLVIII
David was beaten; most tragic defeat of all, beaten by those he had loved and faithfully served.
He did not rise on Christmas morning, and Dick, visiting him after an almost untasted breakfast, found him still in his bed and questioned him anxiously.
"I'm all right," he asserted. "I'm tired, Dick, that's all. Tired of fighting. You're young. You can carry it on, and win. But I'll never see it. They're stronger than we are."
Later he elaborated on that. He had kept the faith. He had run with courage the race that was set before him. He had stayed up at night and fought for them. But he couldn't fight against them.
Dick went downstairs again and shutting himself in his office fell to pacing the floor. David was right, the thing was breaking him. Very seriously now he contemplated abandoning the town, taking David with him, and claiming his estate. They could travel then; he could get consultants in Europe; there were baths there, and treatments--
The doorbell rang. He heard Minnie's voice in the hail, not too friendly, and her tap at the door.
"Some one in the waiting-room," she called.
When he opened the connecting door he found Elizabeth beyond it, a pale and frightened Elizabeth, breathless and very still. It was a perceptible moment before he could control his voice to speak. Then:
"I suppose you want to see David. I'm sorry, but he isn't well to-day. He is still in bed."
"I didn't come to see David, Dick."
"I cannot think you want to see me, Elizabeth."
"I do, if you don't mind."
He stood aside then and let her pass him into the rear office.
But he was not fooled at all. Not he. He had been enough. He knew why she had come, in the kindness of heart. (She was so little. Good heavens, a man could crush her to nothing!) She had come because she was sorry for him, and she had brought forgiveness. It was like her. It was fine. It was damnable.
His voice hardened, for fear it might be soft.
"Is this a professional visit, or a Christmas call, Elizabeth? Or perhaps I shouldn't call you that."
"A Christmas call?"
"You know what I mean. The day of peace. The day--what do you think I'm made of, Elizabeth? To have you here, gentle and good and kind--"
He got up and stood over her, tall and almost threatening.
"You've been to church, and you've been thinking things over, I know. I was there. I heard it all, peace on earth, goodwill to men. Bosh. Peace, when there is no peace. Good will! I don't want your peace and good will."
She looked up at him timidly.
"You don't want to be friends, then?"
"No. A thousand times, no," he said violently. Then, more gently: "I'm making a fool of myself. I want your peace and good will, Elizabeth. God knows I need them."
"You frighten me, Dick," she said, slowly. "I didn't come to bring forgiveness, if that is what you mean. I came--"
"Don't tell me you came to ask it. That would be more than I can bear."
"Will you listen to me for a moment, Dick? I am not good at explaining things, and I'm nervous. I suppose you can see that." She tried to smile at him. "A--a little work, a sleep, a little love, that's life, isn't it?"
He was watching her intently.
"Work and trouble, and a long sleep at the end for which let us be duly thankful--that's life, too. Love? Not every one gets love."
Hopelessness and despair overwhelmed her. He was making it hard for her. Impossible. She could not go on.
"I did not come with peace," she said tremulously, "but if you don't want it--" She rose. "I must say this, though, before I go. I blame myself. I don't blame you. You are wrong if you think I came to forgive you."
She was stumbling toward the door.
"Elizabeth, what did bring you?"
She turned to him, with her hand on the door knob. "I came because I wanted to see you again."
He strode after her and catching her by the arm, turned her until he faced her.
"And why did you want to see me again? You can't still care for me. You know the story. You know I was here and didn't see you. You've seen Leslie Ward. You know my past. What you don't know--"
He looked down into her eyes. "A little work, a little sleep, a little love," he repeated. "What did you mean by that?"
"Just that," she said simply. "Only not a little love, Dick. Maybe you don't want me now. I don't know. I have suffered so much that I'm not sure of anything."
"Want you!" he said. "More than anything on this earth."
Bassett was at his desk in the office. It was late, and the night editor, seeing him reading the early edition, his feet on his desk, carried over his coffee and doughnuts and joined him.
"Sometime," he said, "I'm going to get that Clark story out of you. If it wasn't you who turned up the confession, I'll eat it."
Bassett yawned.
"Have it your own way," he said indifferently. "You were shielding somebody, weren't you? No? What's the answer?"
Bassett made no reply. He picked up the paper and pointed to an item with the end of his pencil.
"Seen this?"
The night editor read it with bewilderment. He glanced up.
"What's that got to do with the Clark case?"
"Nothing. Nice people, though. Know them both."
When the night editor walked away, rather affronted, Bassett took up the paper and reread the paragraph.
"Mr. and Mrs. Walter Wheeler, of Haverly, announce the engagement of their daughter, Elizabeth, to Doctor Richard Livingstone."
He sat for a long time staring at it.
* * *
CONTENTS
THE TRUCE OF GOD
by MARY ROBERTS RINEHART
I
Now the day of the birth of our Lord dawned that year grey and dreary, and a Saturday. But, despite the weather, in the town at the foot of the hill there was rejoicing, as befitted so great a festival. The day before a fat steer had been driven to the public square and there dressed and trussed for the roasting. The light of morning falling on his carcass revealed around it great heaps of fruits and vegetables. For the year had been prosperous.
But the young overlord sulked in his castle at the cliff top, and bit his nails. From Thursday evening of each week to the morning of Monday, Mother Church had decreed peace, a Truce of God. Three full days out of eac
h week his men-at-arms polished their weapons and grew fat. Three full days out of each week his grudge against his cousin, Philip of the Black Beard, must feed on itself.
His dark mood irritated the Bishop of Tours, who had come to speak of certain scandalous things which had come to his ears. Charles heard him through.
"She took refuge with him," he said violently, when the Bishop had finished. "She knew what hate there was between us, yet she took refuge with him."
"The question is," said the Bishop mildly, "why she should have been driven to refuge. A gentle lady, a faithful wife--"
"Deus!" The young seigneur clapped a fist on the table. "You know well the reason. A barren woman!"
"She had borne you a daughter."
But Charles was far gone in rage and out of hand. The Bishop took his offended ears to bed, and left him to sit alone by the dying fire, with bitterness for company.
Came into the courtyard at midnight the Christmas singers from the town; the blacksmith rolling a great bass, the crockery-seller who sang falsetto, and a fool of the village who had slept overnight in a manger on the holy eve a year before and had brought from it, not wit, but a voice from Heaven. A miracle of miracles.
The men-at-arms in the courtyard stood back to give them space. They sang with eyes upturned, with full-throated vigour, albeit a bit warily, with an anxious glance now and then toward those windows beyond which the young lord sulked by the fire.
"The Light of Light Divine, True Brightness undefiled. He bears for us the shame of sin, A holy, spotless Child."
They sang to the frosty air.
When neither money nor burning fagot was flung from the window they watched, they took their departure, relieved if unrewarded.
In former years the lady of the Castle had thrown them alms. But times had changed. Now the gentle lady was gone, and the seigneur sulked in the hall.
With the dawn Charles the Fair took himself to bed. And to him, pattering barefoot along stone floors, came Clotilde, the child of his disappointment.
"Are you asleep?"
One arm under his head, he looked at her without answer.
"It is the anniversary of the birth of our Lord," she ventured. "Today He is born. I thought--" She put out a small, very cold hand. But he turned his head away.
"Back to your bed," he said shortly. "Where is your nurse, to permit this?"
The child's face fell. Something she had expected, some miracle, perhaps, a softening of the lord her father, so that she might ask of him a Christmas boon.
The Bishop had said that Christmas miracles were often wrought, and she herself knew that this was true. Had not the Fool secured his voice, so that he who had been but lightly held became the village troubadour, and slept warm and full at night?
She had gone to the Bishop with this the night before.
"If I should lie in a manger all night," she said, standing with her feet well apart and looking up at him, "would I become a boy?"
The Bishop tugged at his beard. "A boy, little maid! Would you give up your blue eyes and your soft skin to be a roystering lad?"
"My father wishes for a son," she had replied and the cloud that was over the Castle shadowed the Bishop's eyes.
"It would not be well," he replied, "to tamper with the works of the Almighty. Pray rather for this miracle, that your father's heart be turned toward you and toward the lady, your mother."
So during much of the night she had asked this boon steadfastly. But clearly she had not been heard.
"Back to your bed!" said her father, and turned his face away.
So she went as far as the leather curtain which hung in the doorway and there she turned.
"Why do they sing?" she had asked the Bishop, of the blacksmith and the others, and he had replied into his beard, "To soften the hard of heart."
So she turned in the doorway and sang in her reedy little voice, much thinned by the cold, sang to soften her young father's heart.
"The Light of Light Divine, True Brightness undefined. He bears for us the shame of sin, A holy, spotless Child."
But the song failed. Perhaps it was the wrong hour, or perhaps it was because she had not slept in the manger and brought forth the gift of voice.
"Blood of the martyrs!" shouted her father, and raised himself on his elbow. "Are you mad? Get back to your bed. I shall have a word with someone for this."
Whether it had softened him or not it had stirred him, so she made her plea.
"It is His birthday. I want to see my mother."
Then she ducked under the curtain and ran as fast as she could back to where she belonged. Terror winged her feet. She had spoken a forbidden word.
All sleep was gone from Charles the Fair. He lay on his elbow in his bed and thought of things that he wished to forget: of the wife he had put away because in eight years she had borne him no son; of his great lands that would go to his cousin, Philip of the Black Beard, whom he hated; of girls in the plain who wooed him with soft eyes and whom he passed by; of a Jew who lay in a dungeon beneath the Castle because of usury and other things.
After a time he slept again, but lightly, for the sun came in through the deep, unshaded window and fell on his face and on the rushes that covered the floor. And in his sleep the grimness was gone, and the pride. And his mouth, which was sad, contended with the firmness of his chin.
Clotilde went back to her bed and tucked her feet under her to warm them. In the next room her nurse lay on a bed asleep, with her mouth open; outside in the stone corridor a page slept on a skin, with a corner over him against the draught.
She thought things over while she warmed her feet. It was clear that singing did not soften all hearts. Perhaps she did not sing very well. But the Bishop had said that after one had done a good act one might pray with hope. She decided to do a good act and then to pray to see her mother; she would pray also to become a boy so that her father might care for her. But the Bishop considered it a little late for such a prayer.
She made terms with the Almighty, sitting on her bed.
"I shall do a good act," she said, "on this the birthday of Thy Son, and after that I shall ask for the thing Thou knowest of."
After much thinking, she decided to free the Jew. And being, after all, her father's own child, she acted at once.
It was a matter of many cold stone steps and much fumbling with bars. But Guillem the gaoler had crept up to the hall and lay sleeping by the fire, with a dozen dogs about him. It was the time of the Truce of God, and vigilance was relaxed. Also Guillem was in love with a girl of the village and there was talk that the seigneur, in his loneliness, had seen that she was beautiful. So Guillem slept to forget, and the Jew lay awake because of rats and anxiety.
The Jew rose from the floor when Clotilde threw the grating open, and blinked at her with weary and gentle eyes.
"It is the birthday of our Lord," said Clotilde, "and I am doing a good deed so that I may see my mother again. But go quickly." Then she remembered something the Bishop had said to her, and eyed him thoughtfully as he stared at her.
"But you do not love our Lord!"
The Jew put out his foot quietly so that she could not close the grating again. But he smiled into her eyes.
"Your Lord was a Jew," he said.
This reassured her. It seemed to double the quality of mercy. She threw the door wide and the usurer went out cautiously, as if suspecting a trap. But patches of sunlight, barred with black, showed the way clear. He should have gone at once, but he waited to give her the blessing of his people. Even then, having started, he went back to her. She looked so small in that fearsome place.
"If there is something you wish, little maid, and I can secure it for you--"
"I wish but two things," she said. "I wish to be a boy, only I fear it is too late for that. The Bishop thinks so. And I wish to see my mother."
And these being beyond his gift, and not contained in the pack he had fastened to his shoulders, he only shook his head and took h
is cautious way toward freedom.
Having tried song and a good deed, Clotilde went back again to her room, stepping over the page, who had curled himself up in a ball, like a puppy, and still slept. She crossed her hands on her breast and raised her eyes as she had been taught.
"Now, O Lord," she said, "I have tried song and I have tried a good deed. I wish to see my mother."
Perhaps it was merely coincidence that the level rays of the morning sun just then fell on the crucifix that hung on the wall, and that although during all the year it seemed to be but of wood and with closed eyes, now it flashed as with life and the eyes were open.
"He was one of Your people," she said to the crucifix, "and by now he is down the hill."
[Illustration: Chapter Two]
II
Now it was the custom on the morning of the Holy day for the seigneur to ride his finest stallion to the top of the hill, where led a steep road down into the town. There he dismounted, surrounded by his people, guests and soldiers, smaller visiting nobility, the household of the Castle. And, the stage being set as it were, and the village waiting below, it was his pleasure to give his charger a great cut with the whip and send him galloping, unridden, down the hill. The horse was his who caught it.
Below waited the villagers, divided between terror and cupidity. Above waited the Castle folk. It was an amusing game for those who stood safely along the parapet and watched, one that convulsed them with merriment. Also, it improved the quality of those horses that grazed in the plain below.
This year it was a great grey that carried Charles out to the road that clung to the face of the cliff. Behind him on a donkey, reminder of the humble beast that had borne the Christ into Jerusalem, rode the Bishop. Saddled and bridled was the grey, with a fierce head and great shoulders, a strong beast for strong days.
The men-at-arms were drawn up in a double line, weapons at rest. From the place below rose a thin grey smoke where the fire kindled for the steer. But the crowd had deserted and now stood, eyes upraised to the Castle, and to the cliff road where waited boys and men ready for their desperate emprise, clad in such protection of leather as they could afford against the stallion's hoofs.
The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart Page 355
