Myrtle Reed

“ Ten years of browsing in a well equipped library will do much for anyone, and Iris had made the most of her opportunities. This girl of twenty, hemmed about by the narrow standards of East Lancaster, had a broad outlook upon life, a large view, that would have done credit to a woman of twice her age. From the beginning, the people of the books had been real to her, and she had filled the old house with the fairy figures of romance.
Of the things that make for happiness, the love of books comes first. No matter how the world may have used us, sure solace lies there. ”

“ II “Mine Cremona” Lynn went up the hill with a long, swinging stride. The morning was in his heart and it seemed good to be alive. His blood fairly sang in his pulses, and his cheery whistle was as natural and unconscious as the call of the robin in the maple thicket beyond.
The German housewives left their work and came out to see him pass, for strangers in West Lancaster were so infrequent as to cause extended comment, and he left behind him a trail of sharp glances and nodding heads. The entire hill was instantly alive with gossip which buzzed back and forth like a hive of liberated bees. ”

“ He put down his violin and meditated, as many a man in that very room had done before him, upon the problem of the eternal feminine. Iris was incomprehensible. He knew that the letters had not displeased her; that, on the contrary, she had been unusually happy when they came. He remembered also that moonlight night, when, safely screened by the shrubbery across the street, he had seen her put the flower upon the gate-post and as swiftly take it away. He had loved her all the more for that quick impulse, that shame-faced retreat, and put the memory securely away in his heart, biding his time. ”

“ Defeat comes only to those who invite it.”
“I see,” said Lynn, again; “with all my heart I thank you.”
He went away soon afterward, insensibly comforted. Overnight, he had come into his heritage of pain, had lost the girl he loved, and in swift restitution found comradeship with the Master.
That stately figure lingered long before his vision, grey and rugged, yet with a certain graciousness—simple, kindly, and yet austere; one who had accepted his sorrow, and, by some alchemy of the spirit, transmuted it into universal compassion, to speak, through the Cremona, to all who could understand. ”

“ Outwardly, the world was just as fair, even though Iris had gone. Lynn walked away blindly, no longer dull, but keenly alive to his hurt.
From the crucible of Eternity, Time, the magician, draws the days. Some are wholly made of beauty; of wide sunlit reaches and cool silences. Some of dreams and twilight, with roses breathing fragrance through the dusk. Some of darkness, wild and terrible, lighted only by a single star. Others still of riving lightnings and vast, reverberating thunders, while the heart, swelled to bursting, breaks on the reef of Pain. ”

“ With splendid dignity, with exquisite phrasing, with masterful interpretation, the concerto moved to its end. It left her faint, her heart wildly beating. Through Lynn, Franz had worked out her salvation, her atonement; through Lynn full payment had been made.
When he came out of his room, she was in the hall, her face alight with her great happiness. “Lynn!” she cried. A world of meaning was in the name.
“I know,” he returned, but all the youth was gone out of his voice. At once she realised that he had crossed the dividing line, that, even to her, he was no longer a child, but a man. ”

“ Low, quivering tones came from the Cremona, like the sobs of a woman whose heart was broken. Suddenly, Iris knew that she belonged to Lynn—that through love or hate she was bound to him forever. Then, in a blinding flood came the tears.
Slowly the adagio swept to its end, and yet [Pg 314] she could not move. The music ceased, and yet the silence held her spellbound, vainly praying for the strength to go away. She heard the click of the lock as the violin case was closed, the quick step to the door, and the turning of the knob. ”

“ I fancy I see you now, with the scarlet signals flaming on your cheeks, but, Iris, I shall never intrude. It is for you to say whether I shall love you in silence and afar, or face to face, as I dream that some day I may.
“I want you, dear—I want you with all my heart. Of all the women in the world, you are the one God meant for me. ”

“ Iris had given back her dream, but a strong impression of East Lancaster still remained, and it was as though she had been there in the night. Suddenly she sat up in bed, with her heart wildly throbbing. Why not go back?
Why not, indeed? Why not take a flying trip, just to see the dear place again? Why not talk for a few minutes with Mrs. Irving, then slip upstairs for the emerald, the bit of lace, the feather fan, and the lonely little mother in the attic? ”

“ With all the passion of her motherhood, she yearned to shield him; to eke out, in the remainder of her days, the remorseless balance against Lynn.
But in the working of that law there is no discrimination—the price is fixed and unalterable, the payment merciless and sure. There is no escape for the individual; it is continually the sacrifice of the one for the many, the part for the whole.
Try as she would, Margaret could not go back. She could not, for Lynn’s sake, take up the burden she had laid down, in the futile effort to bear more. ”

“ Would you live in the time of the Crusades and undertake a pilgrimage in the name of the Cross? Would you smell the smoke of battle, hear the ring of steel, the rattle of musketry, and see the colours break into deathly beauty well in advance of the charge? Would you have for your friends a great company of noble men and women who have wrought and suffered and triumphed in the end? Would you find new courage, stronger faith, and serene hope? Then open the covers of a book, and presto—change!
“Iris,” called Aunt Peace, “you’re surely not going without your hat?” ”

“ All the beauty of the world was a part of it—the sun, the wide fields of clover, and the Summer rain. Moonlight and the sound of many waters, the unutterable midnights of the universe, Iris and the beauty of the marshes, where her name-flower, like a thread of purple, embroidered a royal tapestry. Beyond this still was the beauty of the spirit, which believes all things, suffers all things, and triumphs at last through its suffering and its belief. ”

“ As the entertainment progressed, Lynn’s admiration of Iris increased. She seemed equally at home in Miss Field’s stately mansion and in the tiny bird-house on the brink of a precipice, where everything appeared to be made out of something else. She was in high spirits and kept them all laughing. Yet, in spite of her merry chatter, there was an undertone of tender wistfulness that set his heart to beating. ”

“ To Lynn’s trained ear, it was an improvisation by a master hand. He was lost in admiration of the superb technique, the delicate phrasing, and the wonderful quality of the tone. To the woman beside him, shaken from head to foot by unutterable emotion, it was Life itself, bare, exquisitely alive, tuned to the breaking point—a human thing, made of tears and laughter, of ecstasy, tenderness, and black despair, lying on the Master’s breast and answering to his touch. ”

“ Lynn was quivering like an aspen in a storm, and he breathed heavily. Through the majestic crescendo came that deathless message: “Endure, and thou shalt triumph; wait, and thou shalt see.” Like an undercurrent, too, was the inseparable mystery of pain.
Under the spell of the music, he saw it all—the wide working of the law which takes no account of the finite because it deals with the infinite; which takes no heed of the individual because it guards us all. ”

“ Iris ate mechanically, and went about her household duties with her former precision. On Wednesday evening, Doctor Brinkerhoff came, as usual, and Margaret’s eyes filled at the sight of him.
Bent, old, and haggard, he came up the path, longing for his accustomed place in the house, and yet dreading to take it. Iris met him with a pitiful little smile, and he bowed over her hand for a moment, his shoulders shaking. Then he straightened himself, like a soldier under fire.
“Miss Iris,” he said, “we are bound together by a common grief. More than that, I have a trust to fulfil. ”

“ Lynn went on, after a little. “I know now what I did not know before.”
The boy’s face was still white, but the look of hopeless despair was merged into something which foreshadowed ultimate acceptance. The Master still held his hand.
“If you are to be an artist,” he said, once more, “you must not be afraid of life. You must welcome it to its utmost cross. You must take the cold, the heat, the poverty, the hunger, the burning way through the desert, the snow-clad steeps, the keen hurt, and the happiness—it is all one, for it gives you knowledge. ”

“ But, Beloved, thou knowest that if it is I who must follow the Grey Angel, and still leave thee on the dusty road alone, mine grave will be no division. Life hath not taught me not to love thee with all mine soul, and Death shall not. Life is the positive, and Death is the negation. Shall Death, then, do something more than Life can do? Oh, mine Liebchen, do not fear!”
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The Autumn mists were rising and the stars gleamed faintly, like far-off points of pearl. At the bridge, they said good night, and Margaret went on home, wishing, even then, that she might bear the burden for Lynn. ”

“ The man was mentally broad enough to be amused at the eccentricities of East Lancaster, though his keen old eyes did not fail to discern that he was merely tolerated where he had hoped to find friends. Within the narrow confines of his establishment, he cultivated a serene and comfortable philosophy. To suit himself to his environment when that environment was out of his power to change, to seek for the good in everything and resolutely refuse to be affected by the bad, to believe steadfastly in the law of Compensation—this was Doctor Brinkerhoff’s creed. ”