Mary M. Mears

“ The ocean spread out before her with its salt, fresh scent; its vivifying breath blowing upon the beach, piled up little hillocks of sand. Sitting on the sand, propped up on both arms, Rachel steadfastly regarded the ocean and her mind returned to Emil. The next day, being Sunday, Simon would, no doubt, follow her. Perhaps he would have received further news of Emil's mother. If she died, how would Emil bear it? As he had no philosophy, a great grief might wreck him. And what could he hold to? Not Annie,—Annie was a broken reed;—not herself,—Simon would not permit it. ”

“ In some women the love that has once stirred them, never becomes extinct; it is a flame that never completely dies, a fire of which some sparks always linger among the dead ashes. At a breath from that far-off source of all existence, a breath that quickens alike grain and fruit and human hearts, this spark leaps to renewed life in the sensitive, wounded and restless soul.
With the disingenuousness of a woman in love, with the timidity of a little mouse, Rachel had established herself under the eaves of an obscure garret in lower New York. ”

“ At another moment waves of melody, unnoticed, mounted insidiously like a tide and finally bore with them, like spume and tangled seaweed, something of the emotion from each overcharged heart.
Turning her head aside, Rachel felt on her cheek the cool freshness of the night which entered over some plants in a window-box. For moments together as she listened, it seemed to her that her misery was expressed poignantly by the music. Then as the motif altered, insensibly her mood changed. She thought of André from whom she had received a letter the week before. ”

“ When Simon leaned over her bed in the morning, he knew from her expression that she was alert to the muffled commotion below stairs—to those sharp hammerings, those stealthy treads, those silences—throbbingly alert, although there was no diminution in the radiance of her eyes.
"They have come, dearest," he said, and left the room.
Emil and Annie came forward. Never before at any time had they seen Rachel as she appeared to them now. The courage of her strong young face was mingled with a look of unutterable sweetness. She reached a hand to each. ”

“ Rachel's hair, escaping its bonds, streamed behind her; her skirts impeded her movements; yet wildly, excitedly, across that expanse of sand, she ran. And the blood beat exultantly in her veins and she felt that the goal toward which she was making was that fugitive band of colour that persisted, despite the drifting mist, at the end of the beach. Through this uncertain band of colour, the sky, elsewhere dull and scattered with clouds, appeared to be smiling with huge, mobile, kindly lips. Ah, if she could but bathe in the light of that understanding smile which the sky cast over the beach! ”

“ The wide lawns about Gray Arches still glistened with dew and birds sang in the branches of the trees. The notes mingled with the plash of the waves on the distant beach, and with that infinite murmur of sounds that came out of the sunshine, out of the grass, out of the shimmering distances of that smiling country, checkered in light open fields and in dark variegated woods. All around, everywhere, was vivid palpitating life.
Rachel with a huge pair of shears that flashed in the sun, was snipping dead roses from a bush of the late-blooming variety. ”

“ Enjoying the caress of the moisture on her face, Rachel walked on. The vigour of her childhood was in her limbs, the spirit of it in her heart, and she remembered her old turbulent longing for freedom. But love was the supreme liberator. And in an ecstasy, she drew herself together and her craving for this supposed liberation of the spirit was so intense and penetrating, that she wavered uncertainly as if about to fall.
At that instant, a voice, muffled by the falling of the rain and the soft plash of the waves on the beach, reached her. ”

“ But gradually the sombreness of a storm was created within her; though when she thought of the inventor she experienced little of the chagrin of a woman whom a lover has deserted. Rather, what she felt was a surprised resentment of soul. Emil St. Ives was ordained to understand her, and behold he had forsaken her! With eyes as clear as a child's, though shadowed by indefinable emotions, she often watched from the window the pigeons circling on pointed wings over the house-tops, and they seemed to her like a flurry of white letters tossed by a derisive hand through the sky. ”

“ In an ecstasy of tenderness, she received the old man back from the verge of a lonely, unattended death.
Simon Hart had dropped into a chair. His elbow was among the medicine vials; his hand over his face. Old David looked doubtfully from one to the other; after an instant, exerting himself, he caught at Simon's free hand and placed Rachel's in it. "There!" he sighed, and while they watched him, he settled back on the pillows, his lids drooping. Exhausted, he fell asleep, his parted lips giving to his face the aloof expression of death. ”

“ The imitation was admirable. Not a feature or limb stirred. The sun penetrated the worn silken shawl and vaguely defined her round little form. It gilded her forehead and chin and traced a line of humid light along the lids of the eyes the pupils of which were so obstinately contemplating Eternity. But what that celestial body could not accomplish with its bold steady gaze, was given to a mortal to achieve with a single glance. St. Ives bent over her.
The sphinx was lost in the woman.
Throbbing with delicious dread, Rachel gave him her eyes. ”

“ André nodded. He had attained his full height without losing the slimness of adolescence. "There's something I want to talk to you about," he said shyly.
But he did not broach the subject at once; instead he said tentatively as the two breasted the high wind which was all alive with the tang of the sea, and in which the girl's garments rattled like the rigging of a ship, "It's good of you to get her another pork pie; why do you do it?"
"Because," Rachel answered with spirit, "people once in a while ought to have what they want—if it's only pork pie." ”

“ At least, this was Rachel's fancy, and when she saw the bits of ice at the window ledges, she reached forth an arm and plucking them, dissolved them in her soft warm mouth, as if she would dissolve at the same time her grandfather's probable wrath. This wrath, being so justified, however, had something righteous in it, which Rachel was not slow to admit. Certainly it was not right that a man's living should be so hard a thing to win, and what was there for it but to exorcise these demons of wind and tide with language harsh enough to fit the occasion? ”

“ As David Beckett talked he raised his voice to a piping treble. Ships and the building of ships, this was his theme. And exalted beyond time and reality, he gave himself up to it, so that at last even Zarah was influenced. Its poetry began to work in his slower brain and his lips relaxed into a smile.
As the sun neared the horizon, the wind increased, and in every direction the shrubs bent before it with a writhing movement; and as far as the eye could see, an agitation ran through the coarse grass. From the sea came the steady moaning of the surf. It was as if the earth emitted heavy sighs ”

“ And Theresa, destitute of every feminine grace, gave herself airs on her handiwork as if it had been beauty of person and feature. They were a right curious pair; each with the same air of eager avidity, as if tormented by a keen desire to gain something, each with the same oily and ingratiating manner. Rachel detested Theresa even more than she had detested Nora Gage, and only consented to retain her because Simon seemed to desire it. In truth, Theresa worked in this house as smoothly and briskly as a shuttle in a well-oiled machine. ”

“ Small wonder then that the mother adored him,—that she saw in him a gifted creature not to be approached by the common run of humanity. It had come to be Emil's custom to visit his mother at least once in a fortnight, and, from the moment that they met, those thin hands of hers had power in their caresses to transform him. Under their gentle touch, the fire of his mind dwindled, the warmth of his heart grew; the genius of a world was submerged in the son of a mother. ”

“ The immense corrugated lenses flashed diamond tints of inconceivable brilliancy. There, in rims of living colour, in circles of crystal, that white gush of light that flooded the rocks below, was born. There was the glitter and clash of its nightly cradle. The tower creaked and the sea thundered like cannon, ghostly finger-tips tapped now and then on the glass; a night bird, allured by the radiance, beat out its brains on the costal.
Presently André descended to the whitewashed room just below the lantern and Rachel stumbled after him. ”

“ Annie waved one hand aloft. When she spied her husband on the beach, she waved the other hand. Her movement suggested flying.
"Conscious!" she cried, "she's conscious; she's going to get well!"
Emil gazed at her as at an apparition. His knees bent, he dropped in a heap on the sand.
Annie stooped to him: "It's life—life—life, Alexander!" she panted; "not death—life!" ”

“ Blown upon by all the winds of heaven, with whisperings at every crack and meanings in its loosened timbers, "the barn" was André's retreat. Far from finding it dismal, he had only to light a fire in the cracked stove and whip out his fiddle; and henceforth, it became a cheerful and friendly abode. He was too close to nature to be rendered unhappy by mere loneliness. The booming of the sea against the cliffs and the sighing of the wind in the vastnesses of the sedgegrass, but lit in him a fiercer gayety. ”

“ Rachel, climbing out upon the wreck, sometimes felt the shallow water sucking between its timbers urging it to put to sea again; and, conscious of the tremble of eagerness in the poor maimed thing, she would pat the beams in passionate sympathy, and lay her cheek to them. Often she tried to dislodge the great hulk by placing her shoulder against it, and once, when the sea sucked off a plank and the tide flung it on the shore several rods away, she spent the following morning in hauling the dissevered portion back to the wreck and trying to hammer it into position. ”

“ Between the fine ardour of the youthful Cellini, as he approached his delicate metals after an irksome day in his father's shop, and Emily's grave exaltation as she seated herself at the bench, there was not the difference of a jot. The thing that we create matters nothing, the divine desire to create is all; and whether we design a medal for a pontiff's honour or a toy for a child's delight, the object is but a little door through which the soul wings to freedom. ”

“ Letting her glance fall again she studied the little bell-shaped barnacles, like tiny huts, which everywhere adhered to the rocks in settlements. As the water approached, one after another of the doors of these wee huts opened and a hand, vaporish, white as light, reached forth and gathered in the necessary provender. Everywhere, everything received what it needed to sustain life. She alone was starved.
With these thoughts surging in her brain, Rachel would make her way back to the barn. There, with cheeks puffed out, stooping over his work, she would find André. ”

“ When dressed in her best, didn't she look as well as Lottie Loveburg? To be sure Lottie had a rope of hair as big as your arm, but then, there were her eyes!
To glance in the mirror over her bureau at her own resources of face and figure was a natural action for a young thing in such harassing doubt. At present, however on the subject of her looks, Rachel had all of a child's ignorance. She was no more capable of appreciating the sensitive changeful beauty of her colouring and expression than a canary bird is of appreciating the beauty of its yellow plumage. ”

“ During the first weeks succeeding Emil's departure, Rachel looked feverishly for a letter. It seemed to her the intensity of her longing must cause one to appear. But none came, and finally she realized that none would come. She went about with a curled lip and a scornful eye. Nora Gage might run the house as she chose and cook as many savory dishes as she pleased, the girl did not care; she was indifferent even to her grandfather; but let the one or the other cross her will, and her anger blazed forth. These violent outbursts were nature's defence. ”

“ But the plum that tumbles into our lap without the asking is seldom as fine as the fruit we climb for, strain for, spend hours in thirsting after. Three weeks—and this fierce agitation of the senses had subsided. It was an excitement, a fever, which at the time had been augmented by so many equivocal influences; by the noise of the presses which had seemed to keep time to his pulses, by the gleam of the girl's jewels, by the softness of her attire, by the fact, more than all else, that she was his chief's daughter.
A whiff of sea air and Emil looked back on the affair with utter weariness. ”

“ Then, convulsed with sobs, she lay in the darkness and, stretching out her hands, whispered, "Grandfather, are you there?" Her despair was the deeper because of the fantastic conceit that old David's simple soul was kept away by the richness of her surroundings. Had she remained in the poor rooms of the tenement, his spirit could have found her readily, descending out of that patch of pure sky visible through the dormer windows, even as the souls of saints and angels descend out of the blue in old pictures. ”

“ She scrubbed faces and cleaned floors and administered doses of medicine, and more than once Rachel had met her at the edge of evening, bringing home an infant in her arms. To see her depositing it where the breeze came in through the open window, cooing to it, directing its wandering attention to the sights and sounds of the church, was enough to bring tears to the eyes. Fate, so prone to interfere with the plans of nature, wins at best but a superficial victory when she attempts to extinguish the motherhood in certain women. ”

“ Symbolizing all the events of her meagre romance, these names, with all the accompanying address of which she had hitherto been ignorant, had the effect of maturing in Rachel all that is most imperious in human love. How little is required to move a woman's heart. The longing to see Emil took possession of Rachel like a fever.
The one o'clock whistle sounded a last melancholy note, and she inspected eagerly every figure that entered the factory. Why had she assumed that Emil was still employed there? As the stream of men grew less and presently ceased, the curve of her mouth became scornful. ”

“ Nora soliloquized, and took herself to the public parks,—anywhere to escape the atmosphere of gloom and terror that for her pervaded the apartment.
Simon Hart's continued absence awoke in Rachel a troubled amazement, the more, as her grandfather constantly asked for him and she had to invent excuses for his non-appearance; but she had little time for reflection as the household in the Street of Masts was now put to sad shifts. Poor folk are ever separated from want by the meagrest of protections. They are like soldiers cowering behind a crumbling embankment. ”

“ For Ding Dong, with his ears like huge excrescences and his legs that seemed to bend under the weight of his squat body so that he resembled nothing so much as a grotesque from a cathedral niche,—Ding Dong hung on his look with exactly as much attention as Annie. Despite the feeling of sadness that lurked far down in the depths of his being, Emil perceived afresh that it was a very good sort of world and that New York was a marvellous city. And his egotism began to spread its wings and his eyes to flash good humouredly. ”

“ Nothing is more uncommon, more unspeakably rare, than a life actually lived. Only a person who is at once an intrepid explorer and an inexhaustible artist, appreciating ever the value of extremes and of contrasts, in short a genius on every side, is capable of life.
Though Emil had a measure of this capacity, he was hopelessly adrift in a maze of stupidity; for men, save at exceptional moments, are such a very small part of themselves. So he encircled Annie with his arm and, bringing his face close to hers, kissed her. And Annie did not utter a reproach. ”

“ Scarcely cognizant of what she did, Rachel, like a feminine Crusoe, hovered over this bit of evidence on the sand. Like the legendary hero her consciousness of being alone was destroyed, but with different effect, for instead of an expression of surprise not unmixed with fear, her look was one of suspicious misery.
"That letter was never from his mother," flashed through her mind. "Old ladies don't make D's that way, so big and round,—but small and trembly. No, whoever she is, she's young. ”

“ Ives, timid, valiant creature, was incapable of not loving. For her first-born she entertained an affection purely maternal; for Emil, however, she harboured a feeling almost worshipful. The fact that she had borne him was to her a miracle ever new. He woke heaven in her heart and his love opened her soul as the sun's ray opens the flower. Neither husband nor elder son ever suspected the exquisite quality of her nature.
Edgar was a lad of fifteen when Emil was born. ”

“ During the summer and part of the winter, the bay is sprinkled far and wide with the sails of fishing dories. Into this pocket of the sea, always conveniently open, nature brings food for man in the form of marine creatures,—lobsters, crabs, and a clutter of fish. The bay, with its air of mild domesticity, is man's domain; the sea outside, God's alone.
Never the less the region in winter is harsh and unfavoured. The wind pipes down the chimneys and clamours on the crags and fairly howls in giant witch-fashion on the ocean. ”

“ The sun poured through the skylight and twinkled on the brass-work of his darling inventions, enthroned behind the glass of an old bookcase. Even while he slept, they peered out at him, these children of his active brain. And in every corner some mechanism was revealed, some cunning, complicated thing of joints and prisms.
Rachel completed her inventory, then her brows suddenly rose and her eyes with involuntary devotion fixed themselves upon Emil. ”