CHAPTER XX
THE HIGHWAY OF THE ANGELS
IT was so late when we started home that the streets were deserted. Theonly noise was the hollow sound our own footsteps made on the boardwalk. Even that ceased the last half of the way, for we crossed over andwent along the beach, walking close to the curling edges of the tide.Several times we paused to stand and look at the path the moon made onthe water--wide miles of rippling silver, like a highway for the feet ofpassing angels.
I kept thinking of Aunt Elspeth as I looked. It took away my sadness tofeel that she must have passed up that radiant road. And everything--thewhite night itself--seemed throbbing with the words, "But Love abides!Death cannot take that."
I think Richard heard them too, for once as we stood looking back hesaid, "Somehow that belief of Uncle Darcy's changes one's conception ofdeath, just as that moon changes the night and the sea. It takes allthe blackness out. It gives ... Dad ... back to me again. It makes mefeel differently about saying goodbye to you all."
"I wish you didn't have to say goodbye," I exclaimed impetuously. "Iwish that this awful war were over and you could stay right on here."
"Without my having done my part to win it?" he asked in a reproachfulsort of tone.
"You've done your part," I told him. "And a big one. And I want you toknow before you go away what we think about it. Barby wrote to MissCrewes all about what you did up in Canada, and said, 'I am telling youthis in order that you may have another Sir Gareth to add to your listof knightly souls who do their deed and ask no guerdon.' Ever since thenwe've thought of _you_, as Sir Gareth."
Even in the moonlight I could see that he was embarrassed. He protestedthat we were giving him more credit than he deserved. Then to make lightof the affair he went on about how he hadn't begun to do his part. Hecouldn't feel it was done till he'd bombed at least one Hun. "A hundredHuns" was his slogan, and the number he'd set for himself to get.
We started to walk on again. I was making some teasing remark about hisbeing a bloodthirsty creature, when I stepped on the end of a brokenoar. It turned with me and almost tripped me up. He put out a steadyinghand, then slipped my arm through his to help me along.
"I know you're tired," he said as we walked on. "You had to rush throughall that sewing this morning, and there was the excitement of thewedding and tonight--the waiting. It's been a hard day for you."
His voice sounded almost as sympathetic and comforting as Uncle Darcy's.Away out across the dunes some belated home-goer began whistling. Clearand sweet the notes came dropping through the still night, as if blownfrom a far-off silver flute:
"Till the day when I'll be going down That long, long trail with you."
Instinctively we both turned to look at that shining path on the water,as if that were the trail, and stood listening till the last whistlednote died away. Then suddenly Richard put his hand over mine as it layon his arm, and held it close. After that there didn't seem to be anyneed of words. Somehow his very silence seemed to be saying something tome. I could feel it thrilling through me as one violin string thrillsto the vibration of another.
I know now, after the experience of that night, that I shall never beable to write the leading novel of the century, as I have long hoped todo. I shall never attempt one of any kind now, even a little mediocreone. And the reason is this:
The greatest thing in the story of any life is that moment of miraclewhen love enters in and transfigures it. It is impossible to describethe coming of Dawn on a mountain-top so that another really feels theglory of it. If he has witnessed it himself anything one could say seemsinadequate and commonplace. If he has never experienced such arevelation, all the words in the dictionary couldn't help him to see it.
If I were to put down here the few words Richard said as he was leavingme at the door, they might seem incoherent and ordinary to anyone else,but uttered with his arms around me, the touch of his lips on mine--how_could_ one put into any story the sacredness of such an experience? Thewonder of it, the rapture of it? And even if you did partially succeed,there would always be people like Tippy, for instance, to purse up theirlips at the attempt, as if to say, "Sentimental!" So I shall never try.
When Tippy, in her bathrobe and with a candle, came down the dark hallto fumble at the door and let me in, I didn't say a word. I couldn't. Ijust walked past her, so awed by the throbbing happiness that filled methat I couldn't think of anything else, and not for worlds would I havehad her know. If it had been Barby I would have thrown my arms aroundher and whispered, "Oh, Barby! I'm so happy!" and she would have held meclose and understood. But I felt that Tippy would say, "Tut, you're tooyoung to be thinking of such things yet." She has shamed me that way,making me feel that she considered me a sentimental silly young thing,several times in the past.
"Well?" she said questioningly, when I did not speak. Her waitingattitude reminded me that she was expecting me to tell her something.Then I remembered--about Aunt Elspeth--and I was conscience-smitten tothink I had forgotten her entirely. It seemed ages since we had leftFishburn Court, with the sadness of her death the uppermost thing in ourmind, but in reality it hadn't been more than a half an hour. But it hadbeen long enough for the beginning of "a new heaven and a new earth" forme.
My voice trembled so that I could hardly speak the words--"She's gone."Then I saw that Tippy attributed my agitation to grief. She questionedme for details, but there was little to tell. When we left noarrangements had been made for the funeral.
"How did Uncle Darcy take it?" she asked as we reached the top of thestairs. I told her, repeating his own words. My voice shook again, butthis time it was because I was remembering the stricken old figure onthe doorstep, pathetic loneliness in every line of it, despite the bravewords with which he tried to comfort himself. A tear started to rolldown Tippy's cheek. She made a dab at it with the sleeve of herbathrobe.
"Poor old soul!" she exclaimed. "Their devotion to each other wasbeautiful. Over sixty years they've been all in all to each other. Pitythey both couldn't have been taken at the same time."
A wonder came over me which I have often felt before. Why is it thatpeople like Tippy, who show such tenderness for a love-story when it isflowing to its end in old age, are so unsympathetic with it at itsbeginning. What is there about it at the source that Youth cannotunderstand or should not talk about?
At my door she waited till I struck a match and lighted my lamp. Iwondered why she held up her candle and gave me such a keen glance asshe said goodnight. When she closed the door behind her and I walkedover to the dressing-table, I was suddenly confronted by the reason. Theface that looked out at me from the mirror was not the face of one whohas just looked on a great sorrow. I was startled by my own reflection.It had a sort of shining, exalted look. I wondered what she could havethought.
I hurried with my undressing so that I could put out the lamp and swingopen the casement window that looks down on the sea. The air came cooland salt against my hot cheeks. The silver radiance that flooded theharbor streamed in across me as I knelt down with my elbows on the silland my hands folded to pray.
Presently I realized with a guilty start that I wasn't following myusual petitions. I had prayed only for Richard, and then, gazing down onthe beach where we stood such a short time ago, I re-lived that momentand the ones that followed. The memory was as sacred as any prayer. Itwas not for its intrusion that my conscience smote me, but it seemedwickedly selfish to be forgetting those whom I had knelt purposely toremember: Father and Barby, all those in peril on the sea, all thevictims of war and the brave souls everywhere, fighting for the peaceof the world. And dear old Uncle Darcy--in the very first hour of histerrible loneliness--how could I forget to ask comfort for _him_?
Stretching out my arms to that shining space above the water Iwhispered, "Dear God, is it _right_ for me to be so happy with suchawful heartache in the world?"
But no answer came to me out of that wonderful glory. All I seemed tohear was Uncle Darcy's quavering words--"_
But love abides! Death cannottake that!_"
And presently as I kept on kneeling there I knew _that_ was the answer:"Love that beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things"is God-given. Heartache and Death may touch every life for a time, butLove abides through the ages.