The Storyteller.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2354, 21 November 1908, Page 3 (Supplement)

The Storyteller.

REUNION. (By Florida P. Sumerwell, in “Aluusey’s .Magazine.”)

Mrs Ailing walked into Airs Tom Carrington’s cozy sitting-room decidedly out of breath, explaining and untying her wraps as she came. Mrs. Carrington'a greeting was as unaffect - edly cordial as it- had been every time these two women had met in the forty years through which their friendship had lived its sturdy, loyal, common-

place life. As tiny tots they hid neighbored through the palings that divided their respective yards. It is still told that once, alter a careful count of bruises on their fat, bare legs, one had offered to undergo an extra injury, so that they might have an equal number. ‘•Of course, you expected me sooner,” said the newcomer, ‘•but your ’phone was out of order, and I had promised to play bridge at the Og-

dons’. I would break ail engagement with the undertaker who was waiting * to bury me, but I have not the courage to disarrange a bridge-table at that particular house. Alter seeing the morniug paper, I couldn’t think of anything hut you. 'When Kate I-fazevton asked wh it 1 discarded from. I answered, ‘Aneurism of the heart.’ She smiled and said she wasn't surprised. I don’t think 1 shall be troubled with another invitation. 1 ievoked five times in three rubbers, which cost us fifteen tricks. If looks could kill, I should be in my burying-clothes. The women in our set were catty enough before they took up bridge; but now no man dares to throw a bootjack out of the back window at night for fear he might break up a bridge-party. ’Well, tell me all about it; I didn’t mean to talk so long.” The hostess’s hands shook as sue poured the tea, but she began at once:

“I am so glad to have you to tell. Of course, there was Tom; but he always goes to sleep.” Airs Ailing nodded. “I met them —” “Them?” asked her guest. “"Were there two?” “Yes, a man —”

“Go on, Jane; don’t let me interrupt.”

“They were at Alinnewaska last June. I arrived late in the aftermoon —too late to change my dress; so I tidied up a bit- and went into dinner. Every time I go Uway I am possessed with the idea that some one is going to attempt familiarity. No one ever did, but I never get over the idea. That day I felt it to an unusual degree. There is a certain

luxury in just letting oneself go, and

loathing the world at While I Sat with! my nose turned up, I saw Airs Lovell come in. The waiter bowed himself almost double and escorted her to my table. You know how stately she always looked. That night I thought her the most attractive woman I had ever seen. Her mourning' was the simplest, but it gave her a distinction all her own. “She took no notice of me, b;,r as soon as she was seated i began to feel large and ordinary—so much so, in fact, that when the waiter asked if I had ordered cabbage, I denied it flatly. Isn’t it queer that one would tell a falsehood just because a dainty stranger with beautiful bands sat opposite? It was absurd to keep looking at her, so I turned just as the ugliest man imaginable stood in the door; and for some unaccountable reason I wished he would sit with us.”

“Why, Jane!” said Airs Ailing

“It’s true —I did. And the funny thing -ia that he came. You know I

always was a little conceited for my time oi life, a aid I thought he had seen me looking at him ; -so" when bo sat down I felt positively embarrassed. fie lounged listlessly into his chair, and his glance fell upon Mrs Lovell. I never saw a face change as. his did. \\ hv, -Sophie, if you had spread roses over an ugly marsh, it could not have made a greater transformation. He simply devoured her delicate loveliness. His eyes would have called the dead, and in a sound she lookedi full at him. “‘Emil!’ was all she said, but the cry seemed to burst from the depths of an overcharged heart. A HlVtragedy was expressed in that one word. It was as if I had come sm daily into the presence of two. nuke souls, who, purged by some terrible grief, were re-entering a lost paradise.

“I left them and camo outside. Their meeting had impressed me so deeply that I wanted to be alone. After walking along the cliff for a time, I went down to my old retreat on the ledge beyond the second sum-aner-house. No one in the place can se© me out there, because of the hushes that grow close up to the railing; so Lam always sure of solitude there. I sat and racked my brains for some solution of the scone at the table. The moon rose, and it w i'-. time to go in, when the lady of my meditations came down the path and Bat in the house behind me. S:he wa? ghastly white. Even, in the moonlight you could see her agitation. iyas twisting her hands and hit'

ing her dips, and before I could decide what to do she began to cry—not loudly, but so pitifully that, tike a goose, 1 cried, too. Lovers always did afft.ee me like peeling onions, and I felt reasonably sure of a romance when she began to cry. I was dabbling my eyes when that ugly, magnetic map arrived. “ ‘Harriot, Harriet, Harriet!’ he said, over and over and over, and every repetition was a caress. His presence seemed io- quiet her, and she i: u;bed her sobbing. He did not touch her, but kept- saying her name is if it was something holy. This must sound ..awftiky silly, but if you bad heard, bis wonderful voice it would have moved you as it- did me. iSophie, it would have thrilled a mummy in its tomb. [ did not wonder that her eyes never loft liis ugly, tender face.”

“Jane,” asked ALrs Ailing, “weren’t you ashamed to bo listening when they didn’t know you were there?”

“Of course; but jumping over the cliff didn't -appeal to me, and that was the only way of escape, unless 1 had gone prowling through their summer-house; so .1 had- to sit and listen. After a while she asked if lie had known she was at Alinnewaska. He laughed a tender laugh, as one might laugh at, a much-loved child, and said: •Harriet, Harriet, liow else would I, a busy-judge, be here at the beginning of June?’ Ho told -her that the trip would probably cost him the nomination for Governor, but that nothing counted with him against the joy of being with her again. “Those people of the soul-world get more out of this humdrum life than the rest of us. I can’t express it, but they are of a more ethereal type. Just imagine Tom or Horace giving -up a chance to become Governor of a big State for the sake of spending a week with us!

“She leaned her shapely head against the rough log behind her, and looked at him as if she never wanted to see any one else in tin's world. He turned away from her, and " asked abruptly : “ ‘When did- 110 die?’

“ ‘Six months ago.’ she answered. “ ‘Why did you marry him?’ The pain in his voice made her wince, but she seemed eager to tell him. “ ‘You never wrote, and you never came. Emil, Emil, I wanted you so! I would not be the first to break the silence. I missed you so 1 I missed you so l 1

“"Was that-,’ he asked, ‘why you married EovellF’

“ ‘lt- was just that. I was go lost without you, I knew that unless I took some definite action I Ami.Jd write, despite my pride. I hoped you would think I had iorgjzten. Hid you, Emil, did you think > alien’r care ?’

“ ‘No,’ he answered, and all the old magic was back .in that wonderful roice. ‘No, I knew.’ “She was as inconsistent as she was irresistible, and in an instant sho flashed at him : “ ‘lf you knew, how could you let me do it—how could you, how could you? You knew that in the end I always did as you wished.’ “He seemed to grow old as sho appealed to him, but he was as unyielding as she. “ ! l had no right to interfere. You threw my love away like a forgotten toy. I would never have written. You know 1 never did.’

“She turned to him with a little eager, tearful gesture, and, touching his dark cheek with her finger-tips, said:

“ ‘But you couldn’t forget me, could you, Emil, any more than I could forget you?’ “He took her slender hand and put it against his lips. I never saw such changes sweep over a face. Sunshine after a storm could not have made a greater difference. His eyes were like fairy-lamps that lit up and glorified some waste place of nature. He did not even kiss her hand a second time, but seemed to find infinite content in possessing it. Presently he spoke again: “‘I never forgot you, Harriot 1 . When I have forgotten to Jive, I shall still remember you.’ “Then they went up the steps, and L could see that he had taken her arm and, was helping her at every step. I was so stiff from sitting on the rock that I could hardly move. I was chattering cold, and choky and homesick. When I hobbled -up-stairs it seemed at though I’d attended my own funeral.

“The next day was cold and wet, so we three, got to know one another quite well. They called each other by their front names, and I learned that they had gone to school together. None of us knew any one else, and We were a very contented trio. “One evening, a week later, I. saw them start for a walk after dinner, so' I put out for my happy huntingaground on the ledge. The moon flared in the sky like a crimson rose in full bloom, -alid I was enjoying the silence, when they came into the suinmerhause. He. rolled his overcoat into a pillow to place behind her head, and leaned against the railing beside her. He did not speak for a while, but seemed trying to decide some seriou?

question. Finally lie lifted her chin until he could look into her eyes, told her that he would have to leave the next day, and ask her if she would marry him that night and go with him.

“She caught his big hand between tiers and -spoke, but she was so agitated that I could hardly hear what she said. In a minute I made out that she wanted him to wait till the year of her mourning was over. Hebegged her not to send him away again; told her how empty-all the honors of his profession had been, because she had not shared them; how every night in the fourteen years since she had sent back his ring, her name had been the first in his prayers, her picture the last thing lie had looked at. He took the miniature out of his pocket and showed her bow worn the case had become, tie said that she had been the mastering passion of his life since he had been in knickerbockers, and that without her his future stretched before him an absolute desert. I knew lie was right in showing a proper, respect to her husband’s memory, .but I couldn’t sco how she could resist, when he begged so earnestly in that beautiful voice of his. Why, if Tom had ever—”

“But lie never did,” interrupted Airs. Ailing, “and neither did Horace. loot's get on with the story. How did she get out of it?” “Why sho threw the whole thing upon his shoulders —said he had always decided'tbe right thing for her to do ; and if lie believed it would be honorable for her to marry only six months after her husband’s death, she would do so.

“I have always thought that sho really hoped he would take her, anyway, ami jet the conventions go hang; but he rose, like the man he avas, and said be would wait, though the time seemed very long. “‘ln six months, thou, Harriot, I shall come.’

“•She put her slender, white arms around his neck and clung to him as if she could not let him go. He held her close to his broad breast end kissed her eyes, her hair, her lips, her brow, and her lips again. ‘Harriet, Harriet, Harriet!’ lie murmered, and his voice would have reconciled a lost soul to purgatory. ‘Wait- for me. mv own love —in six months I shat! come back!’

“He went up the steps and loft her sitting there alone. I couldn't stand it. I just walked into the summerhouse and took her .in my arms, and we cried together. I told her how 1 I had heard .and she said she knew 1 wouldn’t have listened on purpose. “You know, she came home with me and took that furnished house around the corner. .She has been in and out like one of the family, and I have loved her next to you. She wasn't much of a housekeeper, but the more helpless she seined the harder her servants worked. I never knew any one so preeminently lovable. After knowing her, I could understand how a inan cow'd -love her to the exclusion of everything else for fourteen years. She took at all as a matter of course, and I really don't think it ever occurred to her that every one was not equally fortunate. “Yesterday I thought of her all day. She had not been over, 'and I couldn’t get her out of my mind. It finally got on my nerves to such an extent that I left the pudding to Hannah to finish, and went around to see her. Her welcome always made me feel tint I was the one person on earth she really wanted to see, and yesterday sho was unusually cordial. Wo drank tea in -the library, and were as sociable as two tabbies. The clock had just struck five, and I was looking toward tbc window, when Harriot sprang ont of her chair and called, ‘Emi-1, Emil!’ just as she had done that first d.av I saw her. “For an instant a shadow seemed to flit across the light; but there was no one there, and Harriet fell where she stood —fell like a log. I ran to her, shrieking for help. The servants came and flooded the room with light. She was quite dead, but the radiance on, her face was too beautiful for earth. The doctor called it •'aneurism of tho heart.’ I stayed as long as I was needed, and then came home. At my door a newsboy ran fay, calling an extra. I bought one and road of that hideous accident near Chicago. Judge Harraden’s name headed the list of the dead. He was killed at .a quarter to five o’clock.” The two women looked -at each other.

“Wliat do you 'make of dtp” asked Mrs Ailing. \ “I don’t know,” replied her friend. “Ho said that when lie had forgotten to live he would still remember her.”

“It seems a pity she did not marry him up there, although I suppose 1 should have been- the first to censure her.”

Mrs Carrington wiped her eyes and answered : -“I can’t decide whether I would have it otherwise. They weren’t like the rest of us. I would have hated to see them grow into every-day., stupid married people. There is something very earthy about most married life. In nine oases out of every ten it’s potatos and chops and houserent and babies. I want to believe that his soul came for her, and that out there, beyond the limits of our understanding, they are h'apjpy r.t last, forgetting all the suffering that spoiled their dyes here,” .

“Wliv, Jane Carrington,” returned Airs Aiding, “how can you talk such nonsense? If a good husband and a nice home and half a dozen healthy children c -n’t make a woman happy, there is something wrong with her. That’s all 1 have to say!”