“That’s my story, Master, and we’ll not say anything more about it just now, for I dare say you don’t exactly know what to say. But at times I’ll talk of her to you and that will be a rare pleasure to me; I think that was why I wanted you to know about her.”
He did talk often to me of her, and I soon came to realize what this far-away woman meant in his life. She was for him the centre of everything. His love was strong, pure, and idyllic — the ideal love of which the loftiest poets sing. It glorified his whole inner life with a strange, unfailing radiance. I found that everything he did was done with an eye single to what she would think of it when she came. Especially did he put his love into his garden.
“Every flower in it stands for a thought of her, Master,” he said. “It is a great joy to think that she will walk in this garden with me some day. It will be complete then — my Rose of joy will be here to crown it.”
That summer and winter passed away, and when spring came again, lettering her footsteps with violets in the meadows and waking all the sleeping loveliness of old homestead gardens, Uncle Dick’s long deferred happiness came with her. One evening when I was in our “den,” mid-deep in study of old things that seemed musty and unattractive enough in contrast with the vivid, newborn, out-of-doors, Uncle Dick came home from the post office with an open letter in his hand. His big voice trembled as he said,
“Master, she’s coming home. Her father is dead and she has nobody in the world now but me. In a month she will be here. Don’t talk to me of it yet — I want to taste the joy of it in silence for a while.”
He hastened away to his garden and walked there until darkness fell, with his face uplifted to the sky, and the love rapture of countless generations shining in his eyes. Later on, we sat on one of the old stone benches and Uncle Dick tried to talk practically.
Bayside people soon found out that Rose Lawrence was coming home to marry Uncle Dick. Uncle Dick was much teased, and suffered under it; it seemed, as he had said, desecration. But the real goodwill and kindly feeling in the banter redeemed it.
He went to the station to meet Rose Lawrence the day she came. When I went home from school Mrs. Lindsay told me she was in the parlour and took me in to be introduced. I was bitterly disappointed. Somehow, I had expected to meet, not indeed a young girl palpitating with youthful bloom, but a woman of ripe maturity, dowered with the beauty of harmonious middle-age — the feminine counterpart of Uncle Dick. Instead, I found in Rose Lawrence a small, faded woman of forty-five, gowned in shabby black. She had evidently been very pretty once, but bloom and grace were gone. Her face had a sweet and gentle expression, but was tired and worn, and her fair hair was plentifully streaked with grey. Alas, I thought compassionately, for Uncle Dick’s dreams! What a shock the change to her must have given him! Could this be the woman on whom he had lavished such a life-wealth of love and reverence? I tried to talk to her, but I found her shy and timid. She seemed to me uninteresting and commonplace. And this was Uncle Dick’s Rose of joy!
I was so sorry for Uncle Dick that I shrank from meeting him. Nevertheless, I went over after tea, fearing that he might misunderstand, nay, rather, understand, my absence. He was in the garden, and he came down the path where the buds were just showing. There was a smile on his face and the glory in his eyes was quite undimmed.
“Master, she’s come. And she’s not a bit changed. I feared she would be, but she is just the same — my sweet little Rose of joy!”
I looked at Uncle Dick in some amazement. He was thoroughly sincere, there was no doubt of that, and I felt a great throb of relief. He had found no disillusioning change. I saw Rose Lawrence merely with the cold eyes of the stranger. He saw her through the transfiguring medium of a love that made her truly his Rose of joy. And all was well.
They were married the next morning and walked together over the clover meadow to their home. In the evening I went over, as I had promised Uncle Dick to do. They were in the garden, with a great saffron sky over them and a glory of sunset behind the poplars. I paused unseen at the gate. Uncle Dick was big and splendid in his fine new wedding suit, and his faded little bride was hanging on his arm. Her face was upturned to him; it was a glorified face, so transformed by the tender radiance of love shining through it that I saw her then as Uncle Dick must always see her, and no longer found it hard to understand how she could be his Rose of joy. Happiness clothed them as a garment; they were crowned king and queen in the bridal realm of the springtime.
The Understanding of Sister Sara
June First.
I began this journal last New Year’s — wrote two entries in it and then forgot all about it. I came across it today in a rummage — Sara insists on my cleaning things out thoroughly every once in so long — and I’m going to keep it up. I feel the need of a confidant of some kind, even if it is only an inanimate journal. I have no other. And I cannot talk my thoughts over with Sara — she is so unsympathetic.
Sara is a dear good soul and I love her as much as she will let me. I am also very grateful to her. She brought me up when our mother died. No doubt she had a hard time of it, poor dear, for I never was easily brought up, perversely preferring to come up in my own way. But Sara did her duty unflinchingly and — well, it’s not for me to say that the result does her credit. But it really does, considering the material she had to work with. I’m a bundle of faults as it is, but I tremble to think what I would have been if there had been no Sara.
Yes, I love Sara, and I’m grateful to her. But she doesn’t understand me in the least. Perhaps it is because she is so much older than I am, but it doesn’t seem to me that Sara could really ever have been young. She laughs at things I consider the most sacred and calls me a romantic girl, in a tone of humorous toleration. I am chilled and thrown back on myself, and the dreams and confidences I am bubbling over with have no outlet. Sara couldn’t understand — she is so practical. When I go to her with some beautiful thought I have found in a book or poem she is quite likely to say, “Yes, yes, but I noticed this morning that the braid was loose on your skirt, Beatrice. Better go and sew it on before you forget again. ‘A stitch in time saves nine.’”
When I come home from a concert or lecture, yearning to talk over the divine music or the wonderful new ideas with her, she will say, “Yes, yes, but are you sure you didn’t get your feet damp? Better go and change your stockings, my dear. ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.’”
So I have given up trying to talk things over with Sara. This old journal will be better.
Last night Sara and I went to Mrs. Trent’s musicale. I had to sing and I had the loveliest new gown for the occasion. At first Sara thought my old blue dress would do. She said we must economize this summer and told me I was entirely too extravagant in the matter of clothes. I cried about it after I went to bed. Sara looked at me very sharply the next morning without saying anything. In the afternoon she went uptown and bought some lovely pale yellow silk organdie. She made it up herself — Sara is a genius at dressmaking — and it was the prettiest gown at the musicale. Sara wore her old grey silk made over. Sara doesn’t care anything about dress, but then she is forty.
Walter Shirley was at the Trents’. The Shirleys are a new family here; they moved to Atwater two months ago. Walter is the oldest son and has been at college in Marlboro all winter so that nobody here knew him until he came home a fortnight ago. He is very handsome and distinguished-looking and everybody says he is so clever. He plays the violin just beautifully and has such a melting, sympathetic voice and the loveliest deep, dark, inscrutable eyes. I asked Sara when we came home if she didn’t think he was splendid.
“He’d be a nice boy if he wasn’t rather conceited,” said Sara.
After that it was impossible to say anything more about Mr. Shirley.
I am glad he is going to be in Atwater all summer. We have so few really nice young men here; they go away just as soon as they grow up and those who stay are just the muffs. I wonder if I shall se
e Mr. Shirley soon again.
June Thirtieth.
It does not seem possible that it is only a month since my last entry. It seems more like a year — a delightful year. I can’t believe that I am the same Beatrice Mason who wrote then. And I am not, either. She was just a simple little girl, knowing nothing but romantic dreams. I feel that I am very much changed. Life seems so grand and high and beautiful. I want to be a true noble woman. Only such a woman could be worthy of — of — a fine, noble man. But when I tried to say something like this to Sara she replied calmly:
“My dear child, the average woman is quite good enough for the average man. If she can cook his meals decently and keep his buttons sewed on and doesn’t nag him he will think that life is a pretty comfortable affair. And that reminds me, I saw holes in your black lace stockings yesterday. Better go and darn them at once. ‘Procrastination is the thief of time.’”
Sara cannot understand.
Blanche Lawrence was married yesterday to Ted Martin. I thought it the most solemn and sacred thing I had ever listened to — the marriage ceremony, I mean. I had never thought much about it before. I don’t see how Blanche could care anything for Ted — he is so stout and dumpy; with shallow blue eyes and a little pale moustache. I must say I do not like fair men. But there is no doubt that he and Blanche love each other devotedly and that fact sufficed to make the service very beautiful to me — those two people pledging each other to go through life together, meeting its storm and sunshine hand in hand, thinking joy the sweeter because they shared it, finding sorrow sacred because it came to them both.
When Sara and I walked home from the church Sara said, “Well, considering the chances she has had, Blanche Lawrence hasn’t done so well after all.”
“Oh, Sara,” I cried, “she has married the man she loves and who loves her. What better is there to do? I thought it beautiful.”
“They should have waited another year at least,” said Sara severely. “Ted Martin has only been practising law for a year, and he had nothing to begin with. He can’t have made enough in one year in Atwater to justify him in setting up housekeeping. I think a man ought to be ashamed of himself to take a girl from a good home to an uncertainty like that.”
“Not if she loved him and was willing to share the uncertainty,” I said softly.
“Love won’t pay the butcher’s bill,” said Sara with a sniff, “and landlords have an unfeeling preference for money over affection. Besides, Blanche is a mere child, far too young to be burdened with the responsibilities of life.”
Blanche is twenty — two years older than I am. But Sara talks as if I were a mere infant.
July Thirtieth.
Oh, I am so happy! I wonder if there is another girl in the world as happy as I am tonight. No, of course there cannot be, because there is only one Walter!
Walter and I are engaged. It happened last night when we were sitting out in the moonlight under the silver maple on the lawn. I cannot write down what he said — the words are too sacred and beautiful to be kept anywhere but in my own heart forever and ever as long as I live. And I don’t remember just what I said. But we understood each other perfectly at last.
Of course Sara had to do her best to spoil things. Just as Walter had taken my hand in his and bent forward with his splendid earnest eyes just burning into mine, and my heart was beating so furiously, Sara came to the front door and called out, “Beatrice! Beatrice! Have you your rubbers on? And don’t you think it is too damp out there for you in that heavy dew? Better come into the house, both of you. Walter has a cold now.”
“Oh, we’ll be in soon, Sara,” I said impatiently. But we didn’t go in for an hour, and when we did Sara was cross, and after Walter had gone she told me I was a very silly girl to be so reckless of my health and risk getting pneumonia loitering out in the dew with a sentimental boy.
I had had some vague thoughts of telling Sara all about my new happiness, for it was so great I wanted to talk it over with somebody, but I couldn’t after that. Oh, I wish I had a mother! She could understand. But Sara cannot.
Walter and I have decided to keep our engagement a secret for a month — just our own beautiful secret unshared by anyone. Then before he goes back to college he is going to tell Sara and ask her consent. I don’t think Sara will refuse it exactly. She really likes Walter very well. But I know she will be horrid and I just dread it. She will say I am too young and that a boy like Walter has no business to get engaged until he is through college and that we haven’t known each other long enough to know anything about each other and that we are only a pair of romantic children. And after she has said all this and given a disapproving consent she will begin to train me up in the way a good housekeeper should go, and talk to me about table linen and the best way to manage a range and how to tell if a chicken is really a chicken or only an old hen. Oh, I know Sara! She will set the teeth of my spirit on edge a dozen times a day and rub all the bloom off my dear, only, little romance with her horrible practicalities. I know one must learn about those things of course and I do want to make Walter’s home the best and dearest and most comfortable spot on earth for him and be the very best little wife and housekeeper I can be when the time comes. But I want to dream my dreams first and Sara will wake me up so early to realities.
This is why we determined to keep one month sacred to ourselves. Walter will graduate next spring — he is to be a doctor — and then he intends to settle down in Atwater and work up a practice. I am sure he will succeed for everyone likes him so much. But we are to be married as soon as he is through college because he has a little money of his own — enough to set up housekeeping in a modest way with care and economy. I know Sara will talk about risk and waiting and all that just as she did in Ted Martin’s case. But then Sara does not understand.
Oh, I am so happy! It almost frightens me — I don’t see how anything so wonderful can last. But it will last, for nothing can ever separate Walter and me, and as long as we are together and love each other this great happiness will be mine. Oh, I want to be so good and noble for his sake. I want to make life “one grand sweet song.” I have gone about the house today feeling like a woman consecrated and set apart from other women by Walter’s love. Nothing could spoil it, not even when Sara scolded me for letting the preserves burn in the kettle because I forgot to stir them while I was planning out our life together. Sara said she really did not know what would happen to me some day if I was so careless and forgetful. But then, Sara does not understand.
August Twentieth.
It is all over. Life is ended for me and I do not know how I can face the desolate future. Walter and I have quarrelled and our engagement is broken. He is gone and my heart is breaking.
I hardly know how it began. I’m sure I never meant to flirt with Jack Ray. I never did flirt with him either, in spite of Walter’s unmanly accusations. But Walter has been jealous of Jack all summer, although he knew perfectly well he needn’t be, and two nights ago at the Morley dance poor Jack seemed so dull and unhappy that I tried to cheer him up a little and be kind to him. I danced with him three times and sat out another dance just to talk with him in a real sisterly fashion. But Walter was furious and last night when he came up he said horrid things — things no girl of any spirit could endure, and things he could never have said to me if he had really cared one bit for me. We had a frightful quarrel and when I saw plainly that Walter no longer loved me I told him that he was free and that I never wanted to see him again and that I hated him. He glared at me and said that I should have my wish — I never should see him again and he hoped he would never again meet such a faithless, fickle girl. Then he went away and slammed the front door.
I cried all night, but today I went about the house singing. I would not for the world let other people know how Walter has treated me. I will hide my broken heart under a smiling face bravely. But, oh, I am so miserable! Just as soon as I am old enough I mean to go away and be a trained nurse. There is nothing else left in l
ife for me. Sara does not suspect that anything is wrong and I am so thankful she does not. She would not understand.
September Sixth.
Today I read this journal over and thought I would burn it, it is so silly. But on second thought I concluded to keep it as a reminder of how blind and selfish I was and how good Sara is. For I am happy again and everything is all right, thanks to Sara. The very day after our quarrel Walter left Atwater. He did not have to return to college for three weeks, but he went to visit some friends down in Charlotteville and I heard — Mollie Roach told me — Mollie Roach was always wild about Walter herself — that he was not coming back again, but would go right on to Marlboro from Charlotteville. I smiled squarely at Mollie as if I didn’t care a particle, but I can’t describe how I felt. I knew then that I had really been hoping that something would happen in three weeks to make our quarrel up. In a small place like Atwater people in the same set can’t help meeting. But Walter had gone and I should never see him again, and what was worse I knew he didn’t care or he wouldn’t have gone.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 679
