Front matter (continued 3)

"I'm hopeful," was her whispered reply; "but—in here"—she shook her head. Just then the new maid came from our house, and Mrs. Smith whispered again— "Go over quickly to the Baron; he's in his room. 'Twas he came for me. He'll tell you all. But he'll not tell his wife, and she mustn't know."

As I ran across the street I divined almost in full what had taken place.

I had noticed the possibility of some of the facts when I had left the Baron asleep on the parlor lounge, but they could have done no harm, even when Senda did not come, had it not been for two other facts which I had failed to foresee; one, that we had unwittingly overtasked our willing old nurse, and in her chair in Mrs. Fontenette's room she was going to fall asleep; and the other that the entomologist would waken.

XXI

And now see what a cunning trap the most innocent intentions may sometimes set. There was a mirror in the sick-room purposely so placed that, with the parlor door ajar, the watcher, but not the patient, could see into the parlor, and could be seen from the parlor when sitting anywhere between the mirror and the window beyond it. This window was the one that looked into the side garden. Purposely, too, the lounge had been placed so as to give and receive these advantages. A candle stood on the window's inner ledge and was screened from the unseen bed, but shone outward through the window and inward upon the mirror. The front door of the parlor opened readily to anyone within or without who knew enough to use its two latches at once, but neither within nor without to—the Baron, say—who did not know.

Do you see it? As he lay awake on the lounge his eye was, of course, drawn constantly to the mirror by the reflected light of the candle, and to its images of the nodding watcher and of the window just beyond. So lying and gazing, he had suddenly beheld that which brought him from the lounge in an instant, net in hand, and tortured to find the front door—by which he would have slipped out and around to the window—fastened! What he saw was the moth—the moth so many years unseen. Now it sipped at the saucer of sweet stuff, now hovered over it, now was lost in the dark, and now fluttered up or slid down the pane, lured by the beam of the candle.

If he was not to lose it, there was but one thing to do. With his eyes fixed, moth-mad, on the window, he glided in, passed the two sleepers, and stealthily lifted the sash with one hand, the other poising the net. The moth dropped under, the net swept after it, and the sash slipped and fell. Mrs. Fontenette rose wildly, and when she saw first the old woman, half starting from her seat with frightened stare, and then the entomologist speechless, motionless, and looming like an apparition, she gave that cry her husband heard, and fell back upon the pillow in a convulsion.

I found the Baron sitting on the side of his bed like a child trying to be awake without waking. No, not trying to do or be anything; but aimless, dazed, silent, lost.

He obeyed, automatically, my every request. I set about getting him to bed at once, putting his clothes beyond his reach, and even locking his balcony door, without a sign of objection from him. Then I left him for a moment, and calling Senda from the nursery to the parlor told her the state of the different patients, including her husband, but without the hows and whys except that I had found him in our garden with his precious net. "And now, as it will soon be day, Mrs. Smith and I—with the servants and others—can take care of the four."

"If I"—meekly interrupted the sweet woman—"vill go for se doctors? I vill go." Soon she was off.

Then I went back to her husband, and finding his mood so changed that he was eager to explain everything, I let him talk; which I soon saw was a blunder; for he got pitifully excited, and wanted to go over the same ground again and again. One matter I was resolved to fix in his mind without delay. "Mark you," I charged him, "your wife must never know a word of this!"

"Eh?—No"—and the next instant the sick woman across the way was filling all his thought: "Mine Gott! she rice oop scaredt in t'e bedt, choost so!" and up he would start. Then as I pressed him down—"Mine Gott! I vould not go in, if I dhink she would do dot. Hmm! Hmm! I am sorry!—Undt I tidt not t'e mawdt get.

"Hmm! Even I titn't saw vhere it iss gone. Hmm! Hmm! I am sorry!

"Undt dot door kit shtuck! Hmm! Undt dot vindow iss not right made. Hmm!

"I tidn't vant to do dot—you know? Hmm! I am sorry!—Ach, mine Gott! she rice oop scaredt in t'e bedt, choost so!" Thus round and round. What to do for him I did not know!

Yet he grew quiet, and was as good as silent, when Senda, long before I began to look for her, stood unbonneted at my side in a soft glow of physical animation, her anxiety all hidden and with a pink spot on each cheek. I was startled. Had I slept—or had she somehow ridden?

"Are the street-cars running already?" I asked.

"No," she murmured, producing a vial and looking for a glass. "'Tis I haf been running alreadty. Sat iss not so tiresome as to valk. Also it is safeh. I runned all se vay. Vill you sose drops drop faw me?" Her hand trembled.

I took the vial but did not meet her glance: for I was wondering if there was anything in the world she could ask of me that I would not do, and at such a time it is good for anyone as weak as I am to look at inanimate things.

"You got word to all three doctors?"

"Yes;" she gave her chin the drollest little twist—"sey are all coming —vhen sey get ready."

XXII

That is what they did; but the first who came, and the second, brought fresh courage; for the Baron—"would most likely be all right again, before the day was over"; our child was "virtually well"; and from next door-"better!" was the rapturous news. The third physician, too, was pleased with Fontenette's case, and we began at once to send the night- watchers to their rest by turns.

But there the gladness ended. At Mrs. Fontenette's bedside he asked no questions. In the parlor he said to us:

"Well, … you've done your best; … I've done mine; … and it's of no use."

"Oh, Doctor!" exclaimed Mrs. Smith.

"Why, didn't you know it?" He jerked his thumb toward the sick-room. "She knows it. She told me she knew it, with her first glance."

He pondered. "I wish she were not so near him. If she were only in here —you see?"

Yes, we saw; the two patients would then be, on their either hand, one whole room apart, as if in two squares of a checkerboard that touch only at one corner.

"Well," he said, "we must move her at once. I'll show you how; I'll stay and help you."

It seemed more as though we helped him—a very little—as we first moved her and then took the light bedstead apart, set it up again in the parlor, and laid her in it, all without a noticeable sound, and with only great comfort of mind to her—for she knew why we did it. Then I made all haste to my own house again and had the relief to see, as Senda came toward me from her husband's room, that he had told her nothing. "Vell?" she eagerly asked.

"Well, Monsieur Fontenette is greatly improved!"

"O sat iss goodt! And se Madame; she, too, is betteh?—a little?—eh— no-o?"

I said that what the doctor had feared, a "lesion," had taken place, and that there was no longer any hope of her life. At which she lighted up with a lovely defiance.

"Ho-o! no long-eh any hope! Yes, sare iss long-er any hope! Vhere iss sat doc-toh? Sare shall be hope! Kif me sat patient! I can keep se vatch of mine huss-bandt at se same time. He hass not a relapse! Kif me se patient! Many ossehs befo'e I haf savedt vhen hadt sose doctohs no long-eh any hope! Mine Gott! vas sare so much hope vhen she and her hussbandt mine sick hussbandt and me out of se street took in? Vill you let stay by mine hussbandt, anyhow a short vhile, one of yo' so goodt sairvants?" The instant I assented she flew down the veranda steps, through the garden, and out across the street.

I lingered a few moments with the entomologist before leaving him with others. He asked me only one question: "Hmm! Hmm! How she iss?"

"Why," said I, brightly, "I think she feels rather more comfortable than she did."

"Hmm!—Hmm!—I am sorry—Hmm!—Ach! mine Gott, I am so hoongary!—Hmm! I am so dtired mit dot sou-oup undt dose creckers!—Hmm! I vish I haf vonce a whole pifshtea-ak undt a glahss beer—hmm!"

"Hmm!" I echoed, "your subsequent marketing wouldn't cost much." I went down town on some imperative office business, came back in a cab, gave word to be called at such an hour, and lay down. But while I slept my order was countermanded and when I awakened it was once more midnight. I went to my open window and heard, through his balcony door—locked, now, and its key in my pocket—the Baron, snoring. Then I sprang into my clothes and sped across the street.

I went first around to the outer door of the dining-room, and was briefly told the best I could have hoped, of Fontenette. I returned to the front and stepped softly into what had been Mrs. Fontenette's room. Finding no one in it I waited, and when I presently heard voices in the other room, I touched its door-knob. Mrs. Smith came out, closed the door carefully, and sank into a seat.

"It's been a noble fight!" she said, smiling up through her tears. "When the doctor came back and saw how wonderfully the—the worst—had been held off, he joined in the battle! He's been here three times since!"

"And can it be that she is going to pull through?"

My wife's face went down into her hands. "O, no—no. She's dying now— dying in Senda's arms!"

Her ear, quicker than mine, heard some sign within and she left me. But she was back almost at once, whispering:

"She knows you're here, and says she has a message to her husband which she can give only to you."

We gazed into each other's eyes. "Go in," she said.

As I entered, Senda tenderly disengaged herself, went out, and closed the door.

I drew near in silence and she began at once to speak, bidding me take the chair Senda had left, and with a tender smile thanking me for coming.

Then she said faintly and slowly, but with an unfaltering voice, "I want you to know one or two things so that if it ever should be my husband's affliction to find out how foolish and undutiful I have been, you can tell them to him. Tell him my wrongdoing was, from first to last, almost totally—almost totally——"

"Do you mean—intangible?"

"Yes, yes, intangible. Then if he should say that the intangible part is the priceless part—the life, the beauty, the very essence of the whole matter—isn't it strange that we women are slower than men to see that— tell him I saw it, saw it and confessed it when for his sake I was slipping away from him by stealth out of life up to my merciful Judge.

"I may not be saying these things in their right order, but—tell him I wish he'd marry again; only let him first be sure the woman loves him as truly and deeply as he is sure to love her. I find I've never truly loved him till now. If he doesn't know it don't ever tell him; but tell him I died loving him and blessing him—for the unearned glorious love he gave me all my days. That's all. That's all to him. But I would like to send one word to"—she lifted her hand—

"Across the street?" I murmured.

Her eyes said yes. "Tell him—you may never see the right time for it, but if you do—tell him I craved his forgiveness."

I shook my head.

"Yes—yes, tell him so; it was far the most my fault; he is such a child; such a child of nature, I mean. Tell him I said it sounds very pretty to call ourselves and each other children of nature, but we have no right to be such. The word is 'Be thou clean,' and if we are not masters of nature we can't do it. Tell him that, will you? And tell him he has nothing to grieve for; I was only a dangerous toy, and I want him to love the dear Father for taking it away from him before he had hurt himself.

"Now I am ready to go—only—that hymn those black women—in the cemetery —you remember? I've made another verse to it. You'll find it—afterward— on a scrap of paper between the leaves of my Bible. It isn't good poetry, of course; it's the only verse I ever composed. May I say it to you just for my—my testimony? It's this:

Yet though I have sinned, Lord, all others above, Though feeble my prayers, Lord; my tears all unseen; I'll trust in thy love, Lord; I'll trust in thy love— O I'll trust in thy love like Mary Mahgaleen."

An exalted smile lighted her face as she sunk deeper into the pillows. She tried to speak again, but her voice failed. I bent my ear and she whispered—"Senda."

As I beckoned Senda in, Mrs. Smith motioned for me to come to her where she stood at a window whose sash she had slightly lifted; the same to which the moth had once been lured by the little puddle of sweet drink and the candle.

"Do you want to see a parable?" she whispered, and all but blinded with tears, she pointed to the lost moth lying half in, half out of the window, still beautiful but crushed; crushed with its wings full spread, not by anyone's choice, but because there are so many things in this universe that not even God can help from being as they are.

At a whispered call we turned, and Senda, in the door, herself all tears, made eager signs for us to come. The last summons had surprised even the dying. We went in noiseless haste, and found her just relaxing on Senda's arm. Yet she revived an instant; a quiver went through her frame like the dying shudder of a butterfly, her eyes gazed appealingly into Senda's, then fixed, and our poor little Titania was gone.

XXIII

The story is nearly told. Before I close let me confess how heartlessly I have told it. Pardon that; and pardon, too, the self-consciousness that makes me beg not to be remembered as I seem to myself in the tale—a tiptoeing, peeping figure prowling by night after undue revelations, and using them—to the humiliation of souls cleaner than mine could ever pretend to be.

Next day, by stealth again, we buried the little rose-lady, unknown to her husband. We could not keep the fact long from the entomologist, for he was up and about the house again. Nor was there equal need. So when the last rites were over I told him, but without giving any part of her message—I couldn't do it! I just said she had left us.

His eye did not moisten, but he paled, trembled, wiped his brow. Then I handed him the crushed moth, and he was his convalescent self again.

"Hmm!—Dot iss a pity she kit smashed; I titn't vant to do dot."

I thought maybe he felt more than he showed, for he fretted to be allowed to take a walk alone beyond the gate and the corner. With some misgivings his wife let him go, and when she was almost anxious enough over his tardy stay to start after him he came back looking very much better. But the next morning, when we found him in the burning fever of an unmistakable relapse, he confessed that the German keeper of an eating-stall in the neighboring market, for his hunger's and the Fatherland's sake, had treated him to his "whole pifshtea-ak undt glahss be-eh."

He lived only a few days. Through all his deliriums he hunted butterflies and beetles, and died insensible to his wife's endearments, repeating the Latin conjugations of his inconceivable boyhood.

So they both, caterpillar and rose, were gone; but the memory of them stays, green—yes, and fragrant—not alone with Fontenette, and not only with Senda besides, but with us also. How often I recall the talks on theology I had used sometimes to let myself fall into with the little unsuccessful mistress of "rose-es" who first brought the miser of knowledge into our garden, and whenever I do so I wonder, and wonder, and lose my bearings and find and lose them again, and wonder and wonder—what God has done with the entomologist.

We never had to tell Fontenette that he was widowed. We had only to be long enough silent, and when he ceased, for a time, to get better, and rather lost the strength he had been gaining, and on entering his room we found him always with his face to the wall, we saw that he knew. So for his sake I was glad when one day, without facing round to me, his hand tightened on mine in a wild tremor and he groaned, "Tell it me—tell it."

I told it. I thought it well to give him one of her messages and withhold the rest, like the unscrupulous friend I always try to be; and when he had heard quite through—"Tell him I died loving him and blessing him for the unearned glorious love he gave me all our days"—he made as if to say the word was beyond all his deserving, turned upon his face, and soaked the pillow with his tears. But from that day he began slowly but steadily to get well.

We kept Senda with us as long as we could, and when at length she put her foot down so that you might have heard it—say like the dropping of a nut in the wood—and declared that go she must-must-must! we first laughed, then scoffed, and then grew violent, and the battle forced her backward. But when we tried to salary her to stay, she laughed, scoffed, grew violent, and retook her entrenchments. And then, when she offered the ultimatum that we must take pay for keeping her, we took our turn again at the three forms of demonstration, and a late moon rose upon a drawn battle. Since then we have learned to count it one of our dearest rights to get "put out" at Senda's outrageous reasonableness, but she doesn't fret, for "sare is neveh any sundeh viss se lightening."

The issue of this first contest was decided the next day by Fontenette, still on his bed of convalescence. "Can I raise enough money in yo' office to go at France?"

"You can raise twice enough, Fontenette, if it's to try to bring back some new business."

"Well—yes, 'tis for that. Of co'se, besides—"

"Yes, I know: of course."

"But tha'z what puzzle' me. What I'm going do with that house heah, whilse I'm yondeh! I wou'n' sell it—ah no! I wou'n' sell one of those roses! An' no mo' I wou'n' rent it. Tha's a monument, that house heah, you know?"

"Yes, I know." He never found out how well I knew.

"Fontenette, I'll tell you what to do with it."

"No, you don't need; I know whad thad is. An' thaz the same I want—me. Only—you thing thad wou'n' be hasking her too much troub'?"

"No, indeed. There's nothing else you could name that she'd be so glad to do."

When I told Senda I had said that, the tears stood in her eyes. "Ah, sat vass ri-ight! O, sare shall neveh a veed be in sat karten two dayss oldt! An' sose roses—sey shall be pairfect ever' vun!"

XXIV

As perfect as roses every one were her words kept. And Fontenette got his new business but could not come back that year, nor the second, nor the third. The hither-side of his affairs he assigned for the time to a relative, a very young fellow, but ever so capable—"a hustler," as our fat friend would say in these days. We missed the absentee constantly, but forgave his detention the easier because incidentally he was clearing up a matter of Senda's over there, in which certain displeased kindred had overreached her. Also because of his letters to her, which she so often did us the honor to show us.

The first few were brief, formal and colorless; but after some time they began to take on grace after grace, until at length we had to confess that to have known him only as we had known him hitherto would have been to have been satisfied with the reverse of the tapestry, and never fully to have seen the excellence of his mind or the modest nobility of his spirit. Frequently we felt very sure we saw also that no small share of their captivating glow was reflected from Senda's replies—of which she never would tell us a word. The faults in his written English were surprisingly few, and to our minds only the more endeared it and him. Maybe we were not judicial critics.

Yet we could pass strictures, and as the months lengthened out into years these winged proxies stirred up, on our side of the street, a profound and ever-growing impatience. O, yes, every letter was a garden of beautiful thoughts, still; but think of it! pansies where roses might have been; and a garden wherein—to speak figuratively—the nightingale never sang.

On a certain day of All Saints, the fourth after the scourge, Senda sat at tea with us. Our mood was chastened, but peaceful. We had come from visiting at the sunset hour the cemetery where in the morning the two women and our old nurse had decked the tombs of our dead with flowers. I had noticed that at no tomb front were these tokens piled more abundantly, or more beautifully or fragrantly, than at those of Flora and the entomologist; it was always so. I had remarked this on the spot, and Senda, with her rearranging touch still caressing their splendid masses, replied,

"So?—vell—I hope siss shall mine vork and mine pleassure be until mineself I shall fade like se floweh."

I inwardly resented the speech, but said nothing. I suppose it was over my head.

Now, at the table, she explained as to certain costly blooms about which I had inquired, that they were Fontenette's special offering, for which he always sent the purchase money ahead of time and with detailed requests. Whereat, remembering how she had formerly glozed and gilded the entomologist's unthrift, I remarked, one-fourth in play, three-fourths in earnest,

"A good plain business man isn't the least noble work of God, after all."

"No," said Senda, without looking up; and, after a long, meditative breath, she added, very slowly,

"Se koot Kott makes not all men for se same high calling. If Kott make a man to do no betteh san make a living or a fawtune, it iss right for se man to make it; se man iss not to blame. And now I vant to tell you se news of sat letteh from——"

"The other side," we suggested, and invited her smile, but without success.

"Yes, from se osseh si-ide; sat letteh vhat you haf brought me since more as a veek ago; and also vhy I haf not sat letteh given you to read. Sat iss—if you like to know—yes?

"Vell, sen I vill tell you. And sare are two sings to tell. Se fairst is a ve'y small, but se secondt iss a ve'y lahge. And se fairst is sat that I am now se Countess.

"So? you are glad? I sank you ve'y much. I sink sat iss not much trouble —to be a countess—in Ame'ica?

"Se secondt sing"—here a servant entered, and, it seemed to me, never would go out, but Senda waited till we were again alone—"se secondt— pahdon me, I sink I shall betteh se secondt sing divide again into two aw sree. And se fairst is sat Monsieur Fontenette vill like ve'y—ve'y much to come home—now—right avay."

We lifted hands to clap and opened mouths to hurrah, but she raised a warning hand.

"No, vait—if you pleass.

"Se secondt of sose two or sree sings—it is sat—he—Monsieur Fontenette —hass ask me—" Our hearts rose slowly into our throats—"Ze vun qvestion to vich sare can be only—se—vun—answeh."

At this we gulped our breath like schoolgirls and glowed. But the more show we made of hopeful and pleading smiles, the more those dear eyes, so seldom wet, filled up with tears.

"He sinks sare can two answehs be, and he like to heah which is se answeh I shall gif him, so he shall know if he shall come—now—aw if he shall come—neveh.

"O my sweet friend,"—to Mrs. Smith, down whose, face the salt drops stole unhindered—"sare iss nossing faw you to cry." She smiled heroically.

I could be silent no longer. "Senda, what have you answered?"

"I haf answered"—her lips quivered till she gnawed them cruelly—"I am sorry to take such a long time to tell you sat—but—I—I find sat—ve'y hahd—to tell." She smiled and gnawed her lips again. "I haf answered—

"Do you sink, my deah, sat siss is ri-ight to tell the we'y vords sat I haf toldt him?—yes?—vell—he tell me I shall se answeh make in vun vord—is sat not like a man?

"But I had to take six. And sey are sese: I cannot vhispeh across se ocean."