Part 11

“Dead, darling,” Eastin astonished her by saying, throwing into his answer all the plaintive tenderness aroused by the reminiscence, and not noticing the fact that he had applied a term of endearment to the decorous matron before him. He perhaps would never have realized it, if a suppressed titter, in which his own children took part, had not called his attention to the fact. Then he recollected himself, and a hot flush rose to his face. He got up and left the room, not in the least comforted by the fact, that, as he did so, he heard his wife rebuking the children for laughing at their father. It seemed to put him in such a miserable position that the rebuke should be necessary, and that his wife, in giving it, manifested a degree of wifely dutifulness for which her friends gave her their admiration.

There were tears in his eyes as he took up his old slouch hat from the hall table and put it on, letting himself out into the sunlit fields where the birds made their music without calling contempt upon themselves, and where nature seemed to hold out her arms to him and to invite him to repose upon the only breast which harbored no disapproval or criticism of him.

One thing which had bitten deep into Eastin’s heart was shame at the lack of resolution and purpose, which had allowed him all these years to go on with this idle and aimless life. Once or twice he had made an effort to escape it, but those had been the occasions of the most painful and bitter scenes he had ever known. His idea of going forth into the world and making a career for himself with his music was the one thing his wife would not tolerate. She was afraid of what this break from his family might lead to, and she had all a country-bred woman’s horror of being pointed at as a deserted wife. It mattered little that her husband was separated from her in soul, compared to what it would be to have him separated from her visibly. It was pride--pride for her wifehood and motherhood--that made her feel so intensely on this subject, and she made no pretense of any more tender feeling.

If she had made it the appeal of love, even at this late hour, and had shown him that she wanted him to stay, because he was dear to her, he would have stayed and been happy. But his reason for staying was that when she told him that it was the one thing he could ever do for her or for her children--that neither had anything besides this to ask at his hands--her words, scathing and mortifying as they were, carried conviction, and he felt a moment’s divine thrill in making the sacrifice.

Another motive which prompted him to stay was a natural and unconquerable self-distrust, which warned him unceasingly that failure and disappointment were to be his lot in life. There was still a third motive--stronger, perhaps, than either of the others, and the one of all the three which he was most reluctant to own. This was a feeling deep in his soul, that a return to the conditions of life which he had once known would put him to a terrible test. His artistic temperament made him keenly susceptible to appeals to the senses, and during all these years his senses had been so starved that he was actually afraid to go willfully into places of temptation. A life of that sort would be infinitely more dangerous to him now than it had been before, for the reason that in youth he had always an ideal to live up to, and he had no ideal now. He had then been constrained to keep from self-abasement by the thought of bringing a clean body and soul to offer to the woman he would some day love. But the clear star of ideal love no longer shone for him, and the thought of what he might do if opportunity came was a powerful restraint upon him. This, with the two other strong reasons, was sufficient to bind him to the spot of earth on which his wife and children lived.

He was not without a real attachment to his family, and he was proud of the two healthy boys and the two rosy-faced girls in a deprecating sort of way, which implied his knowledge that he deserved the least possible credit for them. But these were quiet, serious feelings, which had more the nature of opinions than emotions. He had been acutely disappointed to find almost immediately after his marriage that his wife was in no sense a companion to him, and he had since become convinced that any possibility of a companionship with his children was out of the question.

So all those prayers had been in vain! There was pain intolerable in the thought, but he did not cease to pray. His one hope of getting his prayer was the intensity of its earnestness. It was, therefore, a shock that stunned his very soul to hear his wife say that she had been praying all the time that what he asked might be withheld. What more natural than that her prayers should have been granted, and his denied? She was a good and religious woman, who never omitted going to church or any religious duty. She was almost the support of the minister, and was generous in her gifts to missions and charities. He, poor old musician and dreamer, rarely saw the inside of a church, and when he did, he felt, as he said himself, like a poor relation admitted on sufferance. Often he played prayers on his violin, which he felt upbore his soul to God, and he sometimes passionately felt that if God would give him his heart’s desire he would make the remainder of his life an act of praise and thanks to Him.

When his fifth child was born--a girl--he felt for the first time an apathetic hopelessness about it. Since he had known of his wife’s daily prayer, his own seemed very useless.

His wife felt more satisfaction than regret in the fact that Eastin scarcely looked at this baby, and never voluntarily held nor, indeed, touched it. He had given evidence of no feeling against the little creature, and had shown himself, as ever, gentle and tender of the mother’s weakness and pain, but there was a difference between his bearing toward this child and the others. The mother wondered a little why this was, but was far from suspecting the truth.

He showed the same indifference when the time came to choose a name for the baby. Heretofore, he had interested himself especially on this point. His wife had allowed him to call one of the girls “Adelina,” rather liking the name, but had rebelled at “Wolfgang” and “Sebastian” for the boys. In this instance, being left quite free, she called the child “Rose-Jewel,” the latter part being a family name of her own. When the name was told to the father he gave it a listless approval.

Eastin had aged within the past year. The period marked by his wife’s avowal to her friend had been the beginning of a change in him. His figure became bent and thin, his hair whitened, and he became more than ever indifferent about his dress. A dullness settled on him, also, that made him a sombre figure in that active household. Sometimes a consciousness of this oppressed him, and at times he would wish with a long sigh that life was over for him.

When Rose-Jewel was about a year old he happened one day to be in the room with her when she was taking her mid-day nap. The mother and other four children were out in the village. Walking across the room, he had had no consciousness of the baby’s presence until a pretty little chuckling sound caused him to look toward the crib. There he saw behind the wooden railings a face that was exquisitely sweet and merry, with cheeks rosy from sleep, and towzled golden hair, and a pair of beautiful great eyes that looked at him with love.

He stopped short, and his heart gave an excited leap. The child, of course, was familiar with the sight of him and was absolutely unafraid. He went a step nearer and bent forward over the crib. As he did so the baby smiled. It must be a hard heart that refuses to return the smile of a child, and Eastin’s heart was soft as wax to any sign of love. The baby smiled again, and this time the smile was accompanied by a repetition of the little gurgling laugh. Eastin’s face grew red, then pale, and he fell upon his knees beside the crib. A mighty impulse stirred his heart. It gave a great bound, as if it freed itself from cords that had held it in and from weights that had dragged it down. Words that leaped upward as if from its secret depths came in rapid whispers from his lips.

“Almighty God,” he said, “great Lord of all the earth, whose power is supreme, whose goodness to men is boundless, who gives to the ungrateful and unworthy as well as to the faithful and good! O great, and powerful, and merciful, and kind, and pitying God, give me in this child the desire of my heart! Give her the power to be what I have never been--the power to feed the hungry souls of men and women with the heavenly bread of music--the power to brighten their dark souls with its light--to ease their aching hearts with its divine consolations--to drown their restlessness in its peace! My God, my God,” he pleaded, shaking back the straggling locks of hair, as he had been used to do when he became excited in playing, and shutting fast his eyes, while his hands were clasped on the railing of the crib with a hard pressure that strained the muscles into knobs, “the power is Thine--Thou canst! Thou canst! I do believe--in spite of all my faithlessness--I do believe! I know that Thou hearest! I know this prayer of the poorest and most unworthy of Thy creatures goes straight to Thy infinite heart! O God, Thou hadst a Son! Thou art the Father of the Lord Jesus! In His name I ask! In the name of Him who said that those who came to Thee should in no wise be cast out!”

All the time that he was uttering these impassioned words the baby was looking at him in serene contemplation. Her little feet were bare, and she kicked them about and caught them in her hands, and wriggled her plump body from side to side, while she watched the strange motions of his head and eyes and lips as if it were an amusement got up for her benefit. As the last words were uttered, she laughed again--a little laugh that ended in a high, clear note that sent a thrill of ecstacy throughout the man’s whole being. He trembled visibly and his face grew pale with the thick beating of his heart. For a moment he was absolutely still. Then, for one instant, he raised his eyes, which were filled with tears, and his lips moved meekly. Then he looked down again at the child, bent his head over the crib, and began to whistle a low, sweet, stirring air. The little creature stopped at once her movements of hands and feet, and fixed her large eyes on him attentively. He whistled more gaily and quickly, and her face lighted up and answered with a look of excitement, which he saw with a bounding heart. Then he fell into a low, sad minor, slow and tremulous, and in a single moment her face responded. The smiles all vanished, and, as he went on, her eyes began to fill and she puckered up her little mouth to cry.

He sprang to his feet and seized her in his arms, clasping her against his throbbing breast, and letting his tears fall over her shining curls. He knew now beyond any possibility of doubt that she had, in one sense, at least, the gift he coveted for her--an emotional susceptibility to the influence of sound. This was enough to make him feel that within his baby’s body there was a soul to sympathize with him. He believed, moreover, and the thrilling conviction seemed to give wings to his soul, that his child would show herself to possess the gift of music in the creative sense. Perhaps the little body, warm and moist against him now, possessed within itself that august mystery, a magnificent human voice, or perhaps these exquisite baby hands, pink and dimpled and satin, smooth, were some day to command at will the grand harmonies of melodious sound. Ah, God! it was sweet to feel that she was his--bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh--body of his body--soul of his soul!

She struggled a little in his constraining embrace, and he loosed his clasp of her and took her more naturally on his arm and walked with her to an open window. It was summer-time, and a bird was singing in a tree outside. He saw her face lighten as she heard the sound, and again his heart throbbed faster.

At that moment the negro nurse came into the room, and looked with astonishment at the picture that met her. The excitement through which the poor fellow had gone made him feel weak and tremulous, and he submitted quietly to have the child taken from him and carried away. His longing was to be alone, to utter in some way his thanks to the Father who had done this. In a few moments, almost unconscious of what he was doing, he found himself in his own little private place, the dairy. Here he shut himself in, and fell upon his knees. His prayer of thanksgiving was confused, incoherent, utterly insufficient. He rose in the midst of the mumbled words, took his violin, and began to play. It seemed to ease the stress of his soul, and as he played on, the tears overflowed his eyes. When he laid by the violin he went over to the piano and played great sounding chords. A strain of grand melody came into his mind, and he found himself composing a _Te Deum_--fitting the words to the sound as they came to him, and feeling himself wrapped in with ecstacy.

That was the beginning of the new life to Eastin. After that, he walked about the common, familiar scenes, and saw them clothed with an unfamiliar beauty; he felt the world, no matter where he came into contact with it, sweet and harmonious and full of delight. He was absolutely, absorbingly and sufficingly happy. The common life about him seemed suddenly glorified, and his heart expanded with an overflow of loving good-will to all the world, that made him see in his wife and other children attractions and good points which he had never seen before, or it may be, caused him to imagine those which had no existence at all, except in his new-made will to see only goodness and sweetness everywhere. He made timid efforts to interest and to be of service to his wife and children, and he was not perceptibly discouraged by the fact that his overtures were regarded with surprise, rather than appreciation, for he had in one little creature a refuge from every trouble, and a balm for every wound.

As time went on, Rose-Jewel showed every day new indications of a deep and extraordinary feeling for music, and occasionally, even in her babyhood, would pass from her high, clear laughter into a little carol of song, as spontaneous and incoherent as a bird’s, and as thrillingly lovely. One moment, he felt himself weakened almost to helplessness by the sudden ebb of blood from his heart; the next, as it rushed back, he felt himself strengthened with such might that nothing seemed too great for him to do or to be. He soon became aware of a necessity for vigilance, in keeping his precious secret. His devotion to the baby, of course, was observed, and he was horribly afraid of having its cause understood. He felt that trouble for them both would come of it. He knew how the mother would feel, and he had a deadly fear of being separated from his idol. He was relieved to find that his peculiar fancy for this baby was looked upon as a fad, for which his general oddness was enough to account. It was a matter of practical convenience to have so much of the care of the baby taken off the hands of the mother and the nurse, and so it was less commented on.

Perhaps it enhanced the delights of this companionship, that they were so often stolen. There was a delicious sense of mystery, in taking Rose-Jewel tenderly in his arms and walking off down the garden-path when nobody was looking, going into the little room, closing the door, drawing the curtain, and then, quite cut off from all the rest of the world, enjoying this most delightful of _tête-à-têtes_, where he played with absolute freedom and unreserve, to an audience that responded to his touch, whether light or hard, grave or gay, more sensitively than the most perfect instrument could have done.

To look into Rose-Jewel’s great delighted eyes, across his violin, and to see them gleam and glow with an emotion that corresponded absolutely to his, was, he thought, as keen a pleasure as he, or mortal man beside had ever known.

In time it became a positive, thrilling, marvelous certainty that Rose-Jewel had a voice--a clear, true, strong little voice that gave magnificent promise. Then came the other delight, when she was older, of teaching her to strike little melodies on the piano, and even to put her baby fingers on certain simple chords, as an accompaniment to her father’s violin. The very first time he made this effort, she caught at it with a quickness and delight which made his breath come almost suffocatingly. It became, after that, a part of their daily routine, to practice together. She was old enough to talk coherently now, and he often feared that she might betray their secret, but she seemed to have some wonderful intuition of the truth, and never even sang, except when alone with him.

What hours of stolen rapture the two culprits had together! Sometimes they wandered off and sat on the banks by the river-side, and sometimes he lifted her into the little boat, and, while she held the dear violin safely and reverently, he would row off into the stream, and there play to her while they drifted gently about. In this freedom of isolation he could play as it was impossible to play near the house, with an abandon of pleasure which set the child nearly wild with delight. Here, too, he would test and exercise her voice, with the greatest care not to strain it, and here, unseen by any eyes but those of the birds and the squirrels, they would put their arms around each other’s neck and give way to a passion of tenderness of which both the child as well as the man, would have been incapable in the presence of others. They were completely happy hours--happy enough to atone for every pain and deprivation which the past had held for him, or the future might have in store.

He did not complain of the past, any more than he feared the future for himself. His one thought was the child. When he speculated on her life to come, a timorous dread would, in spite of him, mix with the enthusiastic expectations of her dazzling success in the musical world. He would feast his imagination for hours, on the thought of this. It was not the splendor of music halls, nor the applause of audiences that he coveted for his darling. It was the power to touch the hearts of men and women, and to incite them to deeds of nobleness and strength, that should re-echo through the world.

Always, however, those dreams of bliss were poisoned by that haunting fear of what the counteracting influence of the child’s mother might be. It made him shiver with terror, when he thought of that bird of music which lived in Rose-Jewel’s breast, with its wings cut, and its song stifled by the cold chill of disapproval, and even a more active form of objection. He imagined the harshness and contempt which would fall upon that angelic child, if it should be discovered that she had inherited her father’s misfortune, and had been encouraged in its development by him. He thought of how broken and purposeless his life had been made by the cold and uncomprehending judgment of those about him, and he felt weak with cowardice at the thought of Rose-Jewel having the same ordeal before her. He was ashamed to feel himself powerless to help her in it. He knew that nothing short of stealing the child and keeping her hid would suffice, and that he could not do. All the world would consider him a monster, and he would feel like one. Besides this, his poverty would hinder. How could he take his little song-bird out to be a pauper with him? How could he even expect to keep such a voice as he foresaw in her, a secret? No,--God help the poor baby!--she must stay and bear the blow when it should come, and he, for his part, must do what he could to help her--feeble as his help would be!

He felt the danger coming nearer every day, for Rose-Jewel was now able to sing little songs with words and music, and the more he felt the keen delight her delicious little voice gave him, the more he trembled at the thought of discovery. It was wonderful how the child seemed to feel the necessity of secrecy, and how, baby as she was, she never gave any evidence of her musical gifts, except when with her father. Her childlike recollection of his warnings surprised him.

One day the two were down in the old dairy together. Eastin, with his violin was playing the air of “Comin’ through the Rye,” and Rose-Jewel was following him, with her lisping utterance, and clear, delicious voice, as she stood before him, her eyes answering the look of his, as definitely and truly as her voice answered his instrument. When he played the music to her baby pronunciation of the words:

“Every lathie hath her laddie, None they thay have I--”

and her thrilling little voice rose to the last high note, and took it with ease and held it, the man’s hand shook so that the bow dropped from it. For a few seconds, the only sound was that almost inhuman little treble voice, fine and thin as a hair, but so thrillingly sweet that it sent a long tremor all through Eastin’s limbs. Hurriedly putting down his violin, he held out his arms. The child flew into them, and as he swooped her from the ground to his heart, she finished, without accompaniment, the lines:

“Yet all the ladth they thmile at me, When comin’ thro’ the Rye.”

He hugged her close and hard against his heart. He had in her all that he cared for, all that he had ever sought or desired, his compensation for the bitter past, his sufficiency for the uncertain future. His heart was full of bliss.