Faith Baldwin

“ Oh, little blue diary, it is well that I may shut away my moods and my mutiny between your covers! No one in all this house must be made sadder because of me. Not father, unfailing playmate, and tender; not Sarah, whose silent affection is like protecting arms about me. There's a great shaft of sunlight quivering across what I've just written. Incongruous, somehow. And I'm out of tune with the June weather and the birds just beyond my windows.
I must ask Sarah to bring me my first rose from my Sleeping Beauty bush. First roses are always the sweetest—like the kiss of Prince Charming. ”

“ Bill laughed at me and promises me more thrills when the racing season is on in New York. He says the Cuban race horses are a "lot of junk"—but he doesn't realize what it meant to me. No one can realize what it means to me, to be unfettered, to walk, to feel well, to be hostess in my own (borrowed) home, to be like other girls! It is no longer a miracle, of course. Nothing is, for very long, except perhaps—life. And I look back on all my invalid years with amazement: it seems a dream, a fantasy, remote and impossible. It is as though I had always lived—as now,—really lived, Daddy dearest! ”

“ In my heart, I harbor a timid ambition of one day showing them to Uncle John. If he would publish them, privately, I could send a copy to Richard Warren. After all—they were his: his and Cuba's and mine own.
Between tea and dinner, the days when Bill was not at home, I would walk. Sometimes with little Peter, or with Annunciata, sometimes alone, save for little Wiggles. Little by little I grew to know the natives by name and station: went, even into their one-roomed houses, dark and smoky, thatched with palm leaves, and odorous with charcoal stoves. ”

“ It was thus festively garbed that Father and Doctor Bill—by which name he shall henceforth be known, as some slight concession to his wizardry—settled me happily under my particular trees, there to await Mr. Denton's arrival. Sarah, at my insistence, smuggled a mirror into my hand and sleeve, and when I heard the smooth purr of the Denton motor, far up the road, I took one little peek. For if I am not allowed to be just an atom vain, what virtue is there in charming color schemes and frothing chiffons? Certainly, the negligée is distractingly pretty, and I am proud of Father's dress instinct. ”

“ Billy told me that you had been ill—but I didn't dream.—You're wonderful, Mavis," she said, "delicate and lovely as an orchid. I always feel clumsy and too highly-colored beside you. And you have been so kind and sweet—"
I grew very remorseful: my feelings toward Mercedes Howells had been anything but "kind and sweet." They had been distinctly critical and almost unfriendly. For the first time, I did not resent her easy use of my husband's given name: for the first time I realized the old truth that to know people is to like them. ”

“ And Wright, diffident, sensitive Wright, under his absurdities and his worldly airs? He would cherish her, I knew, and be good to her all his life: invest her with a never-failing glamour, make her his model and his sovereign lady: write madrigals about her: worship at her tiny feet. It was a very pretty little Romance....
They would never have pain in their love, I thought: never know undreamed of depths of agony and self-knowledge: never know secret shrines despoiled, the altars overthrown, desecrated....
I heard Peter's voice in the living room, and Sarah's asking where I was. ”

“ Wright picked up the paper and read the verse again. I watched him, in a curious mental state. Part of me resented bitterly that even so good a friend should have dragged out to the revealing light of day, my wistful secret of song: and yet, another part of me, back in my brain, said dully, "It really doesn't matter—now."
"I'm a better critic than I am a poet," said Wright, after a time. "I think you have a gift, Mavis. This," he flicked the paper with a thumb and finger, "has grace and delicacy. It's not good, of course,—not according to—well, say, Bill's standards,—but it has promise. ”

“ Wright was a very fortunate young person.
"I'm very fond of him, Silly," said I, "and Bill adores him. There, is that recommendation enough?"
She jumped up, in a whirl of skirts, and kissed me impetuously: held me a moment in the clasp of her strong, young arms, and then, her high heels clicking on the tiles, ran into the house.
"More than enough," she called over her shoulder.
But when, charmingly hatted, dragging the point of a butterfly sunshade after her, she went down the path between Bill and Wright, there was no sign of her recent agitation on that smooth, creamy cheek. ”

“ You knew that Guayabal is in a very unsettled state: you knew that Crowell had had trouble on his plantation: I told you there had been threats—demonstrations. I asked you not to run any risks. That is why, I suppose, when the opportunity arose, you deliberately ignored my wishes."
"You are very unjust," I said, fighting back the tears.
"I hope so," said Bill quietly, "but I'm afraid not. It seems as if we couldn't have a whole day of peace and friendliness under the same roof. I've tried my best, Mavis, to be as little in your way as possible—to make the best of a trying situation. ”

“ Father is big and grey and brown; Sarah is like New England, just before spring; very reticent, and most tender beneath a wintry exterior. She has been nurse and servant, mother and friend to me, since that day when, after the doctors had agreed that there was no open door through which I might escape into health again, they brought me back here to live out the rest of my life. And of course no category would be complete without a mention of Peter, who is quite the most delightful lover that ever a girl could have. ”

“ Presently the docks faded into a vari-colored blur, and Bill pulled me away from the rail.
"Good-by, Cuba!" I said, waving my hand for the last time, as I turned.
"You're not crying?" he asked, teasingly.
"No," I dried my eyes a little defiantly, "but I have loved it so. Color and warmth and sunshine," I said, watching the soft pastel shades of the shore line, where Morro Castle stood, dazzling in the light, its stone feet set in blue waters, "and I hated to leave, somehow—"
"We'll go back," said he. "No, don't go below. Sarah will unpack and settle for you. ”

“ At the luncheon table I found myself looking at Mercedes, half as if she were a stranger, half as if she were an old friend.
"I envy you and Bill, Mavis," she said, once, when Fong had left the room, "you have so much to make you happy. He's a very lucky man."
I smiled. It was not a subject on which I wished to be interrogated.
"And you," she went on, "are a lucky girl. He's awfully fine, that husband of yours." ”

“ Sarah, who must have heard me call out, for in my dream I wrenched my hands away and screamed, appeared at my bedside, like a familiar ghost. How I welcomed her, innumerable tightly plaited braids, and all! Breathe it not in Gath, but in this unpleasant fashion does Sarah achieve her crinkled morning coiffure! She tucked me in, secured a flapping shade, forced a potion of hot milk down my unwilling throat, and left me. So, finally, I slept again, to dream no more.
This morning a note came to me from Mr. Denton. So nice a man to have so wretched a relation! ”

“ Goodrich very much. I envy her Peter with a passion almost pain; and now I find myself envying her a school friend! Girls, young women, are almost as strange to me as men. Those I know in Green Hill are charming creatures and very sweet to me. They come to me with their knitting, their sewing, their love affairs. But a community of interests is not ours. As they chatter on, I can only wonder wistfully what it must be like to golf and swim, ride and play tennis, picnic and dance; to do all the "every day" things which they take so much for granted. ”

“ And then came a day when, little by little, people began to crawl greenly up from their cabins, shed their sweaters, and take an interest in life. Sarah among them. Poor dear, she had succumbed almost before we left the dock! Every dip of the boat, every rising and falling swell was met by her with the gloomy announcement that she wanted to die. Once, when I peered in at her, I found my husband sitting by her berth and answering quite gravely, her innumerable questions as to how they conducted burials at sea. ”

“ Nearing the house, I heard a tremendous crash, voices, and the sound of hurrying foot-steps. The wind was increasing in volume, and I fairly stumbled up the steps, almost falling. When my hand was finally on the door, it was wrenched open with violence, and I saw Bill on the threshold, very white, with burning blue eyes.
He caught me by the arm and pulled me into the room.
"Where have you been?" he said, furiously.
"Walking," said I, the ruins of my hat in my hand. ”

“ I had been several times to luncheon at the Country Club and had met a number of delightful Americans there. It was all very new and exciting. And so invariably beautiful! And I was absurdly glad that Bill ranked very high in the estimation of the other men, as a golfer. Watching remnants of the game from the long, wide Club-porch, I was astounded by the seriousness with which grown men pursued an innocuous white ball for miles and miles of green turf. Once, in the late afternoon, together with a party of several women including Mercedes Howell, I followed a match game for a time. ”

“ The dawn-birds were singing—in the room: in my heart.
"I love you," said Bill, and kissed my mouth.
I lay quite still then, between tears and laughter.
"It has taken you," I said, "a very long time to find it out!"
"It took me," he contradicted pleasantly, "about three minutes. From the very first—darling." 245
"Me, too!" said I, in utter astonishment. It was true. From the very first. I had fought a good fight, I thought, as I lay there in my utter content, against this heavenly surrender. I pity men who never know this wonderful release of self. ”

“ I turned the conversation in the direction of our coming dinner party and to a discussion of hibiscus-bloom. But all through that afternoon through the banter, the sparkling surface talk, of dinner that night, through the hours before I fell asleep, I was trying to adjust myself to the fact that it was, after all, Bill who had written The Lyric Hour; who had so beautifully said so many true and lovely things: who was a very high-hearted poet. ”

“ It was as if, for the first time, I had heard Richard Warren speak.
"I guess you're right," said the other man, after a moment of silence.
"Of course I am," answered Bill. "And so, the poets dream dreams too, and try to interpret other men's dreams: those which are built in brick and stone: materialized into steel: founded in a huge office building. The grim reality of war stands for dreams sometimes. Many inarticulate poets have gone singing to the bayonet thrust. ”

“ But I walked, Diary, I walked.
I am in bed now, after having been fussed over and made much of. I am sure Father is out sending wires! And Sarah pops in every two minutes to see if I am still alive. I am very much alive, and my whole soul is on its knees in gratitude. Now, almost for the first time, I believe that I am to be a cog in the Great Machinery again; and no longer a little broken thing, thrown out forever on the scrap heap.
I want to tell Richard Warren. ”

“ Bill, persuaded by neighbors that even May was bearable in Cuba, spoke of staying at least until the middle of April. I did not care. Father was still in Canada, and Green Hill would have been empty without him. It was a Lotus-eater's life and I was content. The sight of the great, purple orchids, fragile and almost unbelievably beautiful, clinging to the palm-trees, was enough to keep me happy for a whole day. To look from the windows through the luxuriance of the bourginvilla vines to the golden-freighted orange-trees was a rare delight. ”

“ Sarah bustled him out of the room, as one shoos chickens, and I lay back on my pillows and laughed. There is more to Sammy's melancholy than meets the eye. I seem to see Rosie Allan's fine Yankee hand in this. However, sooner or later I shall solve the mystery, for all Green Hill comes, now and again, to this peaceful room.
I've peeped into my new books, and nibbled at something which starts out by acting like a peach and ends up by becoming an apricot. And now I will write to my Fairy Godfather. For I have a Great Idea, Diary, which I will not confide to you until it has taken shape. ”

“ A new doctor has arrived in Green Hill!
Sarah told me so this morning when she brought in my breakfast. She set the tray down with an agitated thump, and after her strong arms had raised me a little higher among the pillows, she stepped back, folded her hands beneath her apron, and fixed me with a portentous eye.
"Now do try and relish your breakfast, Miss Mavis," she coaxed, "there's a good girl!"
An undercurrent of excitement colored her tone. I looked upon her with suspicion. But I know my Sarah. Like Fate, and the village fire-company, she is not to be hurried. ”

“ We smiled at one another, but suddenly the laughter left his eyes, and he bent to kiss my forehead, perhaps to hide his face.
"You grow more lovely every day, Mavis," he said, gravely.
Could anything be sweeter than a father who says all those little, lover things to one? I think not.
I laid my cheek against his hand. He has nice hands, quick to soothe and caress. Nothing is quite unendurable with father near.
"You should be a poet," I told him. "Sometimes I think you are, instead of a historian. ”