Pelleas

“ And win me this fine circlet, Pelleas,
That I may love thee?'
Then his helpless heart
Leapt, and he cried, 'Ay! wilt thou if I win?'
'Ay, that will I,' she answered, and she laughed,
And straitly nipt the hand, and flung it from her;
Then glanced askew at those three knights of hers,
Till all her ladies laughed along with her.
'O happy world,' thought Pelleas, 'all, meseems,
Are happy; I the happiest of them all.'
Nor slept that night for pleasure in his blood,
And green wood-ways, and eyes among the leaves;
Then being on the morrow knighted, sware
To love one only. ”

“ Pelleas admitted justly, “nothing can be. All the same—”
“Pelleas!” I cried in despair, “we could have that young rector over here, and they could be married in the little round drawing-room—or in the rose arbour—or in the garden at large. Think of it—cream sherbet and little cakes afterward and us for parents and wedding party and all. Then you and I could go straight to Dudley Manners at Chynmere and tell him how it was, and I know he would forgive them. Pelleas! Can you really think of that dear child spending two years with an authority on plant life in Alaska?” ”

“ And there on my pillow I saw as she hastened away the great pink tea rose that had blossomed only that day from the rose plant in her own window where she had tended it for months.
Pelleas was in the library across the hall from the drawing-room where those two dear little people were. I opened the library door softly and went in and stood close beside his chair before he turned. Pelleas is not in the least deaf, as we both know; he is simply no longer distracted by small, unnecessary noises. ”

“ At a little before six o’clock Pelleas set out, I figuratively dancing on the doorstep with excitement.
“Pelleas,” I whispered him in the hall, “don’t you fail! Pelleas, if you fail, attractive as you are, I shall be divorced from you!”
He smiled confidently.
“I feel as if we were eloping ourselves,” he said, “and this is something like.”
Before the clock had gone six Nichola ushered into the drawing-room Cornelia Emmeline Ayres. In one glance I knew that I had not counted on her in vain. To do honour to me she appeared in full regalia of plum colour. ”

“ But though I held the flowers to my face I, who can even detect the nameless fragrance of old lace, could divine in them no slightest perfume. I held them toward Pelleas, dozing in a deep chair, and when he had lifted them to his face he too shook his head.
“It is strange,” he said; “I would say that they have no odour.”
“They’ve such a beautiful smell,” said the child, sighing, and took back her flowers with that which immediately struck Pelleas and me as a kind of pathetic resignation. ”

“ When one is seventy and closes one’s eyes it is wonderful how the whole world grows youthful. And when I had almost dozed that tender rustling brought me back so happily that I could hardly tell which was memory of that other little head upon my arm and which was now. At midnight and twice later when the baby’s food had to be warmed it was I who did this, and the old familiar helplessness of Pelleas in this little presence delighted me beyond measure. ”

“ For Pelleas and I, merely because we are seventy and white-haired and frightened to cross streets, are not near enough to death to treat each other so coldly as do half the middle-aged. I cannot imagine a breakfast at which we two would separate the morning paper and intrude stocks and society upon our companionship and our omelet. ”

“ He was a fine, handsome fellow,—Eric Chartres, this young lover of Lisa’s, and their sweet confusions and dignities were enchanting. Pelleas and I sat on the red sofa and beamed at them, and the little fire tossed and leaped on the hearth, and the shadows gathered in the corners and fell upon us; and on Lisa and her lover the firelight rested.
What a wonderful hour it was for our plain drawing-room, for so many years doomed to be merely the home of talk about war and rumours of war and relatives and their colourless doings and even about matches made for shadowy lovers whom it never might see. ”

“ At that we hesitated no longer but advanced boldly across the moonlit green. And when I saw that the figure in the portico wore a frock of pink and when I saw her lift her hand in a way sweetly familiar, I began to suspect that the time was not yet come when Pelleas and I were to vanish in such bright wise. Manifestly Pelleas had come to the same conclusion, for when he reached a broad, flat rock beneath a birch he beckoned me to sit there in the shadow where we could watch these strange offices. ”

“ Presently we all pretended to wake and talk a little; and then we saw Bessie and Henny coming back and at a sign from Pelleas we all shut our eyes again, though Pelleas appeared to awake very crossly and bade them go back and not disturb us unless they wanted to be great nuisances. So they ran back, and we laughed at them in secret, and Little Invalid sat happily holding the mysterious hourglass. And then a band began to play in the pavilion—a dreadful band I thought until I saw the ecstatic delight of Little Invalid, whereupon I discovered that there was a lilt in its clamour. ”

“ Pelleas said most wisely, “why there is likely to be some enchantment about. The more human you are the more wonderful things are likely to happen.”
That is true enough, and it was in very human fashion that next instant the figure in pink in the portico of the temple came swiftly toward us and took me in her arms. It was Avis, all tender regret for what she fancied to be her inhospitality and as perfectly the hostess as if it were usual for her to receive her guests in a white temple. ”

“ Pelleas cried, resolutely, “let us go anyway. We can walk beside the curb slowly. And after all, we do not belong to Nichola.” Really, [Pg 5] of all the pleasures of this world I think that the daring of Pelleas in moments when I am cowardly is quite the last to be renounced. I hope that there is no one who has not the delight of living near some one a bit braver than himself.
With one accord we slipped from the drawing-room and toiled up the stairs. ”

“ Pelleas went on, “I think we would come to a garden. Who ever heard of a love story without a garden? And it will be a ‘different’ garden from all the rest—the trees will be higher and the shadows will be made differently and instead of echoes there will be music. And there will be fountains—fountains everywhere; and when one has gone in the garden a fountain will spring up at the gate and no one can get out—ever. What do you think of that for a garden?” asked Pelleas.
“I think,” said I, “that the garden we will come to will be Miss Deborah Ware’s.” ”

“ Pelleas said meditatively, “I suspect people of ideas. They seem sometimes to have ideas when they have no minds. I dare say they are acted on by emanations.”
“But, Pelleas,” I said, “think of old Nichola going alone to that hospital on her Thursday evenings. [Pg 327] Think of her understanding that Helping is why, and quoting from Isaiah!”
“She believes,” Pelleas meditated, “that our sun is the largest body in all the systems and that our moon is next in size. But for all that she knows Helping is why. That the carpenter must encourage the goldsmith. ”

“ I saw Pelleas whirl in concern, and I was conscious of the instant lull in the animated talk. Then the [Pg 282] Scotch butler recovered himself and in full Highland costume, with bare knees, he sprang to his post quite as if this had been at the head of a mountain pass and threw wide the door.
“Upon my word!” I heard exclaiming a fine, magnetic voice, “upon my word, a party. Let us blush and withdraw.” ”

“ The sorrows, the estrangements, the failures, the ill-health, the little stabs at us, above all the cursed mistakes of my own—do you think we have not had these? Do you think we don’t know, Hobart? Do you think we haven’t paid, to the last farthing? Good God!” said Pelleas. “And yet we are not beaten. And we never shall be beaten, dead or alive. ”

“ Had I not, morning after morning, waited in that very drug store, amusing myself before a glass case of chest-protectors while Pelleas drank his egg-phosphate which he loathed? And so that handsome, curly-headed, long-lashed youngster who fizzed and bubbled among his delicacies with such dexterity was none other than Evan! Why, indeed, he was a friend of Pelleas’. Pelleas had given him a red muffler of his own only last Christmas.
I do not know whether you have what I call the quality of making mental ends meet when you ought to be concerned with soberer matters. ”

“ Sometimes I think that it is almost impudent to wonder about one’s friends when one is certain beyond wondering that they all have secret places in their hearts filled with delight and tears. But remembering what Pelleas had said that morning I did wonder about Miss Willie, since I knew that for all her air of spiced cordial she was lonely; and yet mentally I placed Miss Willie beside old Nichola and Hobart Eddy, intending to use all three as instances to crush the argument of Pelleas. ”

“ Then she came up the steps slowly as if she were helping uncertain feet to mount.
“Halverson can’t get up so very fast,” she explained, and seated herself on the top step holding one little arm as if it were circling some one.
Pelleas and I looked at each other in almost shy consternation. We are ourselves ready with the maddest fancies and we readily accept the imaginings of others—and even, if we are sufficiently fond of them, their facts. But we are not accustomed to being distanced on our own ground. ”

“ It was not cold in the room, for we had kept the hearth alive all the night. When we were warmly wrapped and had drawn chairs before the fire, Pelleas brought from the closet that box filled with [Pg 188] the tender yellow muslins that Cedric had worn such a little time. I chose the white batiste gown that I had made myself, every stitch; and over his little nightgown we put it on Enid’s baby. He was very good, and crowed and nestled; and so we found the long white cloak that I had embroidered and a bonnet that Pelleas had once selected himself, all alone, at a shop. ”

“ Whatever happens you must have one of Nichola’s salads.”
I hurried downstairs longing to find Pelleas and to plan with him how we were to bring it all about; but Pelleas was still in conference with that young lover and they were walking up and down the path, heads bent, brows grave, as if the matter were actually one requiring the weightiest consideration. I stood for a moment at the hall window to watch them, with all my heart longing to cry out: Never mind the reasons. Look at the roses. It is perfectly easy to see what they think.
Instead I went to the kitchen to say a word about luncheon. ”

“ I was conscious of this when after breakfast one morning Pelleas and I stood at the drawing-room window watching a shower. It was an unassuming storm of little drops and infrequent gusts and looked hardly of sufficient importance to keep a baby within-doors. But we are obliged to forego our walk if so much as a sprinkling-cart passes. This is so alien to youth that it always leaves us disposed to take exception and to fail to understand and to resort to all the ill-bred devices of well-bred people who are too inventive to be openly unreasonable. ”

“ Was not that the living May breathing in a rigid and word-bound instrument of the law? And what a picture of Eunice Wells. Pelleas and I had sought her out, welcomed her, and bidden her on Christmas eve to dine with us alone and to grace our merry evening.
At five o’clock on the day before Christmas, just as Pelleas and I rested from holly hanging and were longing for our tea, Hobart Eddy was announced. I say “announced” because we usually construe Nichola’s smile at our drawing-room door to mean Hobart Eddy. ”

“ I was lonely when Pelleas was gone. I was sitting by the fire with Semiramis on my knee—an Angora cannot wholly sympathize with you but her aloofness can persuade you into peace of mind—when the telephone bell rang. We are so seldom wanted that the mere ringing of the bell is an event even, as usually happens, if we are called in mistake. This time, however, old Nichola, whose tone over the telephone is like that of all three voices of Cerberus saying “No admission,” came in to announce that I was wanted by Miss Wilhelmina Lillieblade. ”

“ That afternoon while Nichola was about her marketing, Pelleas and I undertook to telephone to our guests. When I telephone I always close my eyes, for which Pelleas derides me as he passes; and when he telephones he invariably turns on the light on the landing. Perhaps this is because men are at home in the presence of science while women, never having been gods, fear its thunder-bolt methods. ”

“ Sometime I shall write a letter to those who are of all men the bluest, and the substance of it will be: Go and put on the teakettle.
I sat by the fire while Pelleas, by devious ways of pantry and refrigerator, sought out the milk, and we were very merry over warming it, for it was a wonderful occasion. Pelleas spilled a great deal of milk on Nichola’s perfectly polished griddles—O, I could not have loved him if in such a pleasant experience his hands had been perfectly firm and indifferent. Nichola’s hands would have been quite firm. That brown old woman has no tremors and no tears. ”