CHAPTER VIII. AT THE GATE OF EDEN
When Eric went to the old Connors orchard the next evening he foundKilmeny waiting for him on the bench under the white lilac tree, withthe violin in her lap. As soon as she saw him she caught it up and beganto play an airy delicate little melody that sounded like the laughter ofdaisies.
When it was finished she dropped her bow, and looked up at him withflushed cheeks and questioning eyes.
"What did that say to you?" she wrote.
"It said something like this," answered Eric, falling into her humoursmilingly. "Welcome, my friend. It is a very beautiful evening. The skyis so blue and the apple blossoms so sweet. The wind and I have beenhere alone together and the wind is a good companion, but still I amglad to see you. It is an evening on which it is good to be alive and towander in an orchard that is fine and white. Welcome, my friend."
She clapped her hands, looking like a pleased child.
"You are very quick to understand," she wrote. "That was just what Imeant. Of course I did not think it in just those words, but that wasthe FEELING of it. I felt that I was so glad I was alive, and that theapple blossoms and the white lilacs and the trees and I were all pleasedtogether to see you come. You are quicker than Neil. He is almost alwayspuzzled to understand my music, and I am puzzled to understand his.Sometimes it frightens me. It seems as if there were something in ittrying to take hold of me--something I do not like and want to run awayfrom."
Somehow Eric did not like her references to Neil. The idea of thathandsome, low-born boy seeing Kilmeny every day, talking to her, sittingat the same table with her, dwelling under the same roof, meeting her inthe hundred intimacies of daily life, was distasteful to him. He put thethought away from him, and flung himself down on the long grass at herfeet.
"Now play for me, please," he said. "I want to lie here and listen toyou."
"And look at you," he might have added. He could not tell which wasthe greater pleasure. Her beauty, more wonderful than any picturedloveliness he had ever seen, delighted him. Every tint and curve andoutline of her face was flawless. Her music enthralled him. This child,he told himself as he listened, had genius. But it was being whollywasted. He found himself thinking resentfully of the people who were herguardians, and who were responsible for her strange life. They had doneher a great and irremediable wrong. How dared they doom her to such anexistence? If her defect of utterance had been attended to in time, whoknew but that it might have been cured? Now it was probably too late.Nature had given her a royal birthright of beauty and talent, but theirselfish and unpardonable neglect had made it of no account.
What divine music she lured out of the old violin--merry and sad, gayand sorrowful by turns, music such as the stars of morning might havemade singing together, music that the fairies might have danced to intheir revels among the green hills or on yellow sands, music that mighthave mourned over the grave of a dead hope. Then she drifted into astill sweeter strain. As he listened to it he realized that the wholesoul and nature of the girl were revealing themselves to him through hermusic--the beauty and purity of her thoughts, her childhood dreams andher maiden reveries. There was no thought of concealment about her; shecould not help the revelation she was unconscious of making.
At last she laid her violin aside and wrote,
"I have done my best to give you pleasure. It is your turn now. Do youremember a promise you made me last night? Have you kept it?"
He gave her the two books he had brought for her--a modern novel anda volume of poetry unknown to her. He had hesitated a little over theformer; but the book was so fine and full of beauty that he thought itcould not bruise the bloom of her innocence ever so slightly. He hadno doubts about the poetry. It was the utterance of one of those greatinspired souls whose passing tread has made the kingdom of their birthand labour a veritable Holy Land.
He read her some of the poems. Then he talked to her of his college daysand friends. The minutes passed very swiftly. There was just then noworld for him outside of that old orchard with its falling blossoms andits shadows and its crooning winds.
Once, when he told her the story of some college pranks wherein theendless feuds of freshmen and sophomores figured, she clapped her handstogether according to her habit, and laughed aloud--a clear, musical,silvery peal. It fell on Eric's ear with a shock of surprise. He thoughtit strange that she could laugh like that when she could not speak.Wherein lay the defect that closed for her the gates of speech? Was itpossible that it could be removed?
"Kilmeny," he said gravely after a moment's reflection, during whichhe had looked up as she sat with the ruddy sunlight falling through thelilac branches on her bare, silky head like a shower of red jewels, "doyou mind if I ask you something about your inability to speak? Will ithurt you to talk of the matter with me?"
She shook her head.
"Oh, no," she wrote, "I do not mind at all. Of course I am sorry Icannot speak, but I am quite used to the thought and it never hurts meat all."
"Then, Kilmeny, tell me this. Do you know why it is that you are unableto speak, when all your other faculties are so perfect?"
"No, I do not know at all why I cannot speak. I asked mother once andshe told me it was a judgment on her for a great sin she had committed,and she looked so strangely that I was frightened, and I never spoke ofit to her or anyone else again."
"Were you ever taken to a doctor to have your tongue and organs ofspeech examined?"
"No. I remember when I was a very little girl that Uncle Thomas wantedto take me to a doctor in Charlottetown and see if anything could bedone for me, but mother would not let him. She said it would be no use.And I do not think Uncle Thomas thought it would be, either."
"You can laugh very naturally. Can you make any other sound?"
"Yes, sometimes. When I am pleased or frightened I have made littlecries. But it is only when I am not thinking of it at all that I can dothat. If I TRY to make a sound I cannot do it at all."
This seemed to Eric more mysterious than ever.
"Do you ever try to speak--to utter words?" he persisted.
"Oh yes, very often. All the time I am saying the words in my head, justas I hear other people saying them, but I never can make my tongue saythem. Do not look so sorry, my friend. I am very happy and I do not mindso very much not being able to speak--only sometimes when I have so manythoughts and it seems so slow to write them out, some of them get awayfrom me. I must play to you again. You look too sober."
She laughed again, picked up her violin, and played a tinkling, roguishlittle melody as if she were trying to tease him, looking at Eric overher violin with luminous eyes that dared him to be merry.
Eric smiled; but the puzzled look returned to his face many times thatevening. He walked home in a brown study. Kilmeny's case certainlyseemed a strange one, and the more he thought of it the stranger itseemed.
"It strikes me as something very peculiar that she should be able tomake sounds only when she is not thinking about it," he reflected. "Iwish David Baker could examine her. But I suppose that is out of thequestion. That grim pair who have charge of her would never consent."