Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

pyramid of hardwood sticks that had as their foundation a great chunk of resinous pine. A column of smoke arose, steady and dense, and then was dispersed by the sudden and furious blossoming of flowers of flame. In an instant the entire scene was changed. The ravine lay a cavernous gulf of blackness, while the branches of the near-by trees were flung out in fierce, metallic grandeur. The torches in the summerhouse became mere flickering sparks; the stars were blown out like birthday candles. The figures of the young men moving about the bonfire became heroic; their monstrous shadows strove together upon the rich tapestry of the evergreens. The air was full of music, of voices, of the crackling of flames.

Out of the shadow thrown by a chestnut tree in bloom Pheasant ran across the grass to Alayne's side. She seemed to have grown during those weeks of her imprisonment. Her dress looked too short for her. Her movements had the wistful energy of those of a growing child. Her hair, uncut for some time, curved in a quaint little tail at her nape.

"This freedom is wonderful,' she breathed. And all that pretty firelight and the fiddles! Try as I will, Alayne, I can't help feeling happy to-night.'

'Why should you try not to be happy? You must be as happy as a bird, Pheasant. I'm so glad we had that hour together this morning.'

'You've been beautiful to me, Alayne. No one in the world has ever been so good to me. Those little notes you slipped under my door!'

Alayne took her hand. 'Come. I am to go and tell Renny to be careful. Aunt Augusta is afraid we shall be burned in our beds.'

The three youngest of the Whiteoaks were in a group together. As the girls approached, Finch turned his back on them and skulked into the shadow, but Wakefield ran to meet them and put an arm about the waist of each.

'Come, my girls,' he said airily, 'join the merry circle. Let's take hands and dance around the bonfire! If only we could get Granny to dance, too! Please let's dance!' He tugged at their hands. 'Piers, take

Pheasant's other hand! Renny, take Alayne's hand! We're going to dance.'

Alayne felt her hand being taken into Renny's. Wakefield's exuberance was not transmittable, but he ran hither and thither, exhorting the guests to dance, till at last he did get a circle together on the lawn for Sir Roger de Coverley. But it was the elders who were moved to disport themselves, after a glass or two of punch from the silver bowl on the porch. The younger ones hung back in the shelter of the blazing pile, entangled in the web of emotions which they had woven about themselves.

Eden was not among them, but the vision of his fair face, with its smiling lips, mocked each in turn. To Renny it said: 'I have shown you a girl at last whom you can continue to love without possessing, with no hope of possessing, who will haunt you all your days.' To Alayne: 'I have made you experience, in a few months, love, passion, despair, shame, enough for a lifetime. Now go back to your sterile work and see if you can forget!' To Piers: 'You sneered at me for a poet. Do you acknowledge that I am a better lover than you?' To Pheasant: 'I have poisoned your life.' To Finch, hiding in the darkness: 'I have flung you, headfirst, into the horrors of awakening.'

Renny and Alayne, their fingers still locked, stood looking upward at the flamecolored smoke that rose toward the sky in billows endlessly pursuing each other, while after the crashing of a log a shower of sparks sprang upward like a swarm of fireflies.

In the glare their faces were transfigured to a strange beauty, yet this beauty was lost, not registered on any consciousness, for they dared not look at each other.

'I have been watching two of those sparks,' she said, 'that flew up, and then together, and then apart again, till out of sight-like us.'

'I won't have it so. Not till out of sight. Extinguished-if you mean that. No, I am not hopeless. There's something for us besides separation. You could n't believe that we'll never meet again, could you?'

'Oh, we may meet again! That is, if you ever come to New York. By that time your feelings may have changed.'

'Changed! Alayne, why should you want to spoil our last moments together by suggesting that?"

'I suppose being a woman I just wanted to hear you deny it. You've no idea what it is to be a woman. I used to think in my old life that we were equal

men and women. Since I've lived at Jalna it seems to me that women are only slaves.'

Someone had thrown an armful of brushwood on the fire. For a space it died down to a subdued but threatening crackle. In the dimness they turned to each other.

'Slaves!' he repeated. 'Not to us!'

the other side of the bonfire, which now blazed forth anew. He stood among his brothers, taller than they, his hair red in the firelight, his face set and pale.

Recovering herself, she looked across at him, thinking that she would like to remember him so.

In a pool of serene radiance Grandmother sat. A black velvet cloak, lined with crimson silk, had been thrown about her; her hands, glittering with rings, rested on the top of her gold-headed ebony stick. Boney, chained to his perch, had been brought out to the terrace at her command, that he might bask in the light of the birth

his wing. He slept, and paid no heed to lights or music.

'Well to the life you create, and to day conflagration. But his head was under the passions you arouse in us. Oh, you don't know what it is to be a woman! I tell you it's nothing less than horrible. Look at Meg, and Pheasant, and me!'

She caught the glint of a smile.

'Look at Maurice, and Piers, and me!' 'It's not the same. It's not the same. You have your land, your horses, your interests that absorb almost all your waking hours.'

'What about our dreams?'

'Dreams are nothing. It's reality that tortures women. Think of Meg, hiding in that awful cabin. Pheasant, locked in her room. Me - grinding away in an office!'

'I can't,' he answered, hesitatingly. 'I can't put myself in your place. I suppose it's awful. But never think we don't know a hell more torturing.'

'You do, you do! But when you are tired of being tortured you leave your hell — go out and shut the door behind you, while - only heap on more fuel.'

we

'My darling!' His arms were about her. 'Don't talk like that!' He kissed her, quickly, hotly. "There, I said I would n't kiss you again, but I have — just for good-bye.'

She felt that she was sinking, fainting in his arms. A swirl of smoke, perfumed by pine boughs, enveloped them. A rushing, panting sound came from the heart of the fire. The violins sang together.

'Again,' she breathed, clinging to him, 'again.'

'No,' he said, through his teeth. 'Not again.' He put her from him and went to

She was very tired. The figures moving about the lawn looked like gyrating, gesticulating puppets. The jigging of the fiddles, the moaning of the flute, beat down upon her, dazed her. She was sinking lower and lower in her chair. Nobody looked at her. One hundred years old! She was frightened suddenly by the stupendousness of her achievement. The plumes of the bonfire were drooping. The sky loomed black above. Beneath her the solid earth, which had borne her up so long, swayed with her, as though it would like to throw her off into space. She blinked. She fumbled for something, she knew not what. She was frightened.

She made a gurgling sound. She heard Ernest's voice say, 'Mama, must you do that?'

She gathered her wits about her. 'Somebody,' she said, thickly, 'somebody kiss me- - quick!'

They looked at her kindly hesitated to determine which should deliver the required caress; then from their midst Pheasant darted forth, flung herself before the old lady, and lifted up her child's face.

Grandmother peered, grinning, to see which of them it was; then, recognizing Pheasant, she clasped her to her breast. From that hug she gathered new vitality. Her arms grew strong. She pressed the young body to her and planted warm kisses on her face. 'Ha,' she murmured, 'that's good!' And again, ‘Ha!'

(The End)

THE CONTRIBUTORS' COLUMN

A STUDENT of contemporary as well as early American history, James Truslow Adams spends a portion of each year in foreign residence. Last August his fresh and salty impressions on returning 'Home' caused many a more habituated Atlantic reader to examine as though for the first time our contemporary surroundings. This year while living in England he had a mind to reverse the picture, and in so doing brought to light a comparison not wholly favorable to our United States. Mr. Adams is the author of a standard history of New England in three volumes. Edward Weeks is a young Harvard graduate and, so he claims, an average motorist. Like most drivers he has had some close shaves' whose 'mighthave-beens' have given him pause to think things over. As A. Edward Newton will readily agree, Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach is the most tantalizing, most omnivorous collector of rare books on four continents. This paper is a representative chapter of his new volume which, under the title of 'Books and Bidders,' will soon be published by the Atlantic Monthly Press. In preparing her material, Mrs. Anne Miller Downes was fortunate in having the advice and guidance of several eminent doctors. That the subject cries for attention may be judged from the action of a recent Washington conference in organizing a committee of physicians, economists, and sanitarians to undertake a five-year study of conditions. Meantime we struggle to pay our bills. ¶Returned to London after thirteen years in Persia, A. Cecil Edwards, an Englishman, brought with him the materials for genuine native miniatures.

***

Laurence Binyon, keeper of prints in the British Museum, is an English poet whose quality has been abundantly recognized on both shores of the Atlantic. Equally versed in prose, parties, and party politics, Mary Agnes Hamilton is a London novelist, original talker, and an active member of the 572

Labor Party. For seven years and over, Henry Williamson has been living in a tiny hermitage on the Devon moors, the better to study the oldest inhabitants of the British Isles. A. E. Douglass is professor of astronomy and Director of the Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona. ¶A resident of Boston, Daniel Sargent makes his first appearance in our pages. ¶With his wide experience in the teaching profession, Dean Henry W. Holmes of the Harvard Graduate School of Education gives in this paper the fundamental conclusions drawn from the study of education through almost a quarter century. ¶In reading the story of the Reverend J. M. Witherow, it is well to remember that he is an Edinburgh minister of the Kirk and author of "The Test,' a contemporary parable published in the Atlantic a year ago and still discussed. At home Dr. Gustav Eckstein is an associate of the Cincinnati College of Medicine. Abroad his associations seem quite otherwise. When touched on the point by the editor, Dr. Eckstein

wrote:

I find no 'explanation.' And I've thought, too. I must simply admit it — I slipped. But yet I wonder about those 'moralistic friends' once they were 130 degrees to the other side of Greenwich. At least nothing is easier than to imagine them eating raw fish, drinking shotsu and, when evening fell, going with the doctor and the mayor and the Buddhist priest to hear the nightly dithyrambs. Why, the very Japanese constitution was written in the house-some say in the lap of a geisha. And a decent document, you may believe.

***

Esther Everett Lape is the very competent executive of the American Peace Foundation. Senators know her well and approach her gingerly. The Right Honorable C. F. G. Masterman is a scholar, publicist, author, M.P., a former member of Mr. Asquith's Cabinet in 1914-15, and in everything a Liberal.

[ocr errors]

This number contains the last installment of 'Jalna,' by Mazo de la Roche, the Atlantic Prize Novel. Those who have enjoyed their intimacy with the Whiteoaks may feel with us that they have come to the end of a visit but not of their acquaintance with this galvanic group. A family of such vigor must live on, and while Miss de la Roche busies herself with her writing board it is amusing to speculate on the future of Wake, Renny, Finch, Pheasant — and old Gran. For the benefit of those readers who may have missed an installment we print below a synopsis of the preceding chapters.

When Captain Philip Whiteoak and Adeline Court were married in India in 1848, they were the most brilliant couple in their military station. But the inheritance of property in Canada prompted Philip to sell his commission and bring his wife and infant daughter Augusta to Ontario. A great stone manor house was built and a thousand acres of wilderness transformed into the semblance of an English park. 'Jalna' the estate is called, after the military station where the couple first met.

The story is of the present time. Adeline, her husband long since dead, is an indomitable old woman, eagerly on the verge of completing a full century of life. She has two surviving sons, themselves old men: Nicholas, whose wife left him for a young army officer, and Ernest, a bachelor. Her daughter Augusta, by marrying a young Englishman who later inherited a title, has become Lady Buckley. A third son, Philip, is dead. His two marriages embarrassed the declining estate with six children. From the first marriage came Meg, the only girl, and Renny, now master of the cohesive little Whiteoak clan. From the second came Eden and Piers, now in the twenties, Finch, sixteen, and Wakefield, nine.

The relations of this pungent family are complicated and intensified by two further marriages contracted by members of its youngest generation. Piers arouses unbridled resentment and abuse by bringing home as his bride a girl of illegitimate birth. She is Pheasant, whose father, Maurice Vaughan, is a friend of Renny, and had been engaged to Meg until she learned of his fault. Eden in the meantime has upset Whiteoak tradition by writing a volume of poems. During a visit to his New York publisher, he meets Alayne Archer, a girl of sheltered and cultivated life, who, on the death of her parents, has become a publisher's reader. On the news of their engagement, the family at Jalna naïvely

conclude that the girl is rich, and the pair, arriving after their marriage, are extended a welcome in sharp contrast to the hostility shown to Piers and Pheasant. Alayne finds adjustment to the members of Eden's family peculiarly difficult. But, as her residence at Jalna continues, one figure presses into her consciousness with disturbing force. It is Renny, master of the clan. To this Eden is heedless. He is occupied with versifying, and with the unsophisticated Pheasant, whom he has succeeded in fascinating.

***

The publication of Agnes Miller's adventures at Ellis Island has brought on a hailstorm of letters congratulation, criticism, denials reasoned and unreasoned. Many of the most important officials concerned with the administration of the law have written us of their good practices and better intentions. And there is truth in what they say. There is no question that, since the adoption of the selective immigration law, great improvement has been made in Ellis Island. The officials are trying honestly and hard to administer the law. But behind the law are the tradesunions, fearful lest its administration may not be sufficiently rigid to scare away prospective immigrants, and wound about. in and out is the familiar red tape of bureaucracy, which in Miss Miller's case tied her hand and foot and held her, through no fault of her own, for four days a prisoner, rigorously segregated from her friends, and, in spite of repeated questionings, kept in ignorance (unfairly, we believe, and very stupidly) as to the cause of her detention. The law is no respecter of persons. The rough and ignorant peasant from Transylvania and the educated English schoolteacher are to be treated in the same way, while officials express their amazement that one should be so submissive and the other so recalcitrant! To be quite fair in this discussion, let us quote from the long arraignment of Mr. Wixon, Chief Supervisor of the Immigration Service, castigating Miss Miller:

[ocr errors]

In another section of the article under discussion, Miss Miller refers to the failure of the officer to acquaint her with the reason for being held. This may or may not be true, but at all events, if she was not so told, there are practical reasons why applicants are not given such

information. Oftentimes officers in examining applicants on primary examination develop sufficient evidence to justify denial of admission, but the primary officers themselves cannot under the law exclude.

To acquaint the applicant with the reason which has prompted the officer in holding him for further examination by a Board of Special Inquiry might fortify the applicant in a manner which would prevent developing the true facts by the Board, and as the Board record must stand by itself, applicants who should have been refused admission under the law would gain admission, particularly if the case were to go before the court on habeas corpus proceedings, as the courts will take cognizance of only such matters as appear in the Board minutes.

In that spirit seems to us the very nub of the difficulty.

Various officials write us that Miss Miller was highly nervous. It would have been a miracle if she had not been, but nerves are likely to play queer tricks when overwrought, and there is evidence on this point in her suspicion of the telegraph boy who did not deliver her message. We are very glad to exonerate the company and to congratulate the boy.

[blocks in formation]

'Welcome,

Miss Agnes Miller's article, Stranger!' in your August number contains a rather unwarranted reflection on the trustworthiness of Western Union messengers. It may be recalled that Miss Miller in her story says that, while she was detained on the Cedric, she was anxious to send a message to her sister in Cleveland; that by good fortune she encountered a Western Union boy, who came along the deck of the ship with telegraph blanks in his hand, and that she gave the boy a telegram and paid for it generously, but that her sister never received the message. She quotes a youth in the purser's window as saying of the messenger: 'I would n't trust him if I were you,' and adds her own comment: 'Whether the Western Union boy was dishonest, or whether the message was stopped by your system of espionage, I do not know.'

Here was something that we had to look into, and these are the facts as they turned out to be:

Miss Miller actually intended to address her message to her brother-in-law, Mr. Harold Worthington, care of Price, Waterhouse & Company, Cleveland, Ohio, but this is the way

she wrote the address: 'Worthington Price Water Cleveland, O.'

The telegram was duly sent to Cleveland, but no Worthington Price Water could be found there, and the Cleveland office promptly reported this to New York and asked for a more specific address. Miss Miller had signed her telegram simply 'Agnes.' There was no indication of her surname. Our New York office, therefore, wanting to do the best it could, sent a message as follows:

'Agnes, S. S. Cedric (Sender of message today to Cleveland, Ohio): Your telegram to-day to Worthington Price Water Cleveland Ohio undelivered Unknown Give some address.'

If the steamship people did not succeed in finding the Agnes for whom the message was intended, perhaps this is not to be wondered at, but in the circumstances it was all that could be done.

These details are perhaps not of burning interest to your readers, but it is important that the wrong impression which Miss Miller's article no doubt created in the minds of many of them concerning the reliability of our messengers should be corrected, if possible. The boys will appreciate it if you will find room for this little account somewhere in your magazine where at least some of those who read Miss Miller's article may have an opportunity to see it. Yours very truly,

J. C. WILLEVER Vice President, Western Union Telegraph Co.

***

Mr. Summerfield Baldwin writes us:

In the article, 'The Crucifixion of the Catholic Mind,' in the August Atlantic, the author has misrepresented the teaching of the Catholic Church as to the sacrament of marriage. Marriage does not imprint an irremovable character upon the soul as do the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders. This misrepresentation was made without malice, but the author none the less deeply regrets it, and humbly apologizes to all who have done him the honor to read his paper. He wishes also to thank those correspondents who have called his attention to it.

***

Why Pershing took the offensive.

ITHACA, NEW YORK

EDITOR, ATLANTIC MONTHLY
DEAR SIR:

You will of course receive a great many letters commenting upon the article, 'Pershing: 100 Per Cent American,' in the August Atlantic.

« EdellinenJatka »