"Since you"ve taken my heart," said she, "you"ll not want to give it back, will you? I think that would break it."
"I oughtn"t to have taken it!" said G. G.
And then on his face she saw the first shadow that ever he had let her see of doubt and of misgiving.
"Listen!" he said. "My darling! I think that I shall get well.... I think that, once I am well, I shall be able to work very hard. I have nothing. I love you so that I think even angels don"t want to do right more than I do. Is that anything to offer? Not very much."
"n.o.body in all the world," said she, "will ever have the chance to offer me anything else--just because I"m a kid doesn"t mean that I don"t know the look of forever when I see it."
"Is it really forever?" he said. "For you too?"
"For me--surely!"
"Ah," said he, "what shall I think of to promise you?"
His face was a flash of ecstasy.
"You don"t even have to promise that you will get well," she said. "I know you will try your hardest. No matter what happens--we"re final--and I shall stick to you always, and nothing shall take you from me, and n.o.body.... When I am of age I shall tell my papa about us and then we shall be married to each other! And meanwhile you shall write to me every day and I shall write to you three times every day!" Her breath came like white smoke between her parted lips and she stood valiant and st.u.r.dy in the snow--a strong, resolute girl, built like a boy--clean-cut, crystal-pure, and steel-true. A shot sounded and there came to them presently the pungent, acid smell of burnt powder.
"And we shall never hurt things or kill them," said G. G. "And every day when I"ve been good I shall kiss your feet and your hands."
"And when I"ve been good," she said, "you"ll smile at me the way you"re smiling now--and it won"t be necessary to die and go to Heaven to see what the gentlemen angels look like."
"But," cried G. G., "whoever heard of going to Heaven? It comes to people. It"s here."
"And for us," she said, "it"s come to stay."
All the young people came to the station to see Cynthia off and G. G.
had to content himself with looking things at her. And then he went back to his room and undressed and went to bed. Because for a week he had done all sorts of things that he shouldn"t have done, just to be with Cynthia--all the last day he had had fever and it had been very hard for him to look like a joyous boy angel--he knew by experience that he was in for a "time." It is better that we leave him behind closed doors with his doctors and his temperature. We may knock every morning and ask how he is, and we shall be told that he is no better. He was even delirious at times. And it is only worth while going into this setback of G. G"s because there are miracles connected with it--his daily letter to Cynthia.
Each day she had his letter--joyous, loving, clearly writ, and full of flights into silver-lined clouds and the plannings of Spanish castles.
Each day G. G. wrote his letter and each day he descended a little farther into the Valley of the Shadow, until at last he came to Death Gate--and then rested, a voyager undecided whether to go on or to go back. Who may know what it cost him to write his letter, sitting there at the roadside!
His mother was with him. It was she who took the letter from his hands when he sank back into his pillows; and they thought for a little that he had gone from that place--for good and all. It was she who put it into the envelope and who carried it with her own hands to the post-office. Because G. G. had said: "To get there, it must go by the night"s mail, Mumsey."
G. G."s mother didn"t read the letter; but you may be sure she noted down the name and address in her heart of hearts, and that for the girl who seemed to mean so much to G. G. she developed upon the spot a heavenly tenderness, mixed with a heavenly jealousy.
II
One day there came to G. G., in convalescence--it was after his mother had gone back to New York--a great, thick package containing photographs and a letter. I think the letter contained rouge--because it made G.
G."s cheeks so red.
Cynthia had collected all the pictures she could find of herself in her father"s house and sent them to G. G. There were pictures of her in the longest baby clothes and in the shortest. There were pictures posed for occasions, pictures in fancy clothes, and a quart of kodaks. He had her there on his knees--riding, driving, diving, skating, walking, sitting on steps, playing with dogs, laughing, looking sad, talking, dimpling, smiling. There were pictures that looked right at G. G., no matter at what angle he held them. There were pictures so delicious of her that he laughed aloud for delight.
All the stages of her life pa.s.sed before his eyes--over and over--all day long; and, instead of growing more and more tired, he grew more and more refreshed. He made up his spotless mind to be worthy of her and to make, for her to bear, a name of which n.o.body should be able to say anything unkind.
If G. G. had had very little education he had made great friends with some of the friendliest and most valuable books that had ever been written. And he made up his mind, lying at full length--the livelong day--in the bright, cold air--his mittened hands plunged into deep pockets full of photographs--that, for her sake and to hasten that time when they might always be together, he would learn to write books, taking infinite pains. And he determined that these books should be as sweet and clean and honorable as he could make them. You see, G. G. had been under the weather so much and had suffered so much all alone by himself, with n.o.body to talk to, that his head was already full of stories about make-believe places and people that were just dying to get themselves written. So many things that are dead to most people had always been alive to him--leaves, flowers, fairies. He had always been a busy maker of verses, which was because melody, rhythm, and harmony had always been delicious to his ear. And he had had, as a little boy, a soprano voice that was as true as truth and almost as agile as a canary bird"s.
He decided, then, very deliberately--lying upon his back and healing that traitor lung of his--to be a writer. He didn"t so decide entirely because that was what he had always wanted to be, but for many reasons.
First place, he could say things to her through prose and verse that could not be expressed in sculpture, music, painting, groceries, or dry-goods. Second place, where she was, there his heart was sure to be; and where the heart is, there the best work is done. And, third place, he knew that the chances were against his ever living in dusty cities or in the places of business thereof.
"I am so young," he wrote to her, "that I can begin at the beginning and learn to be anything--in time to be it! And so every morning now you shall think of G. G. out with his b.u.t.terfly net, running after winged words. That"s nonsense. I"ve a little pad and a big pencil, and a hot potato in my pocket for to warm the numb fingers at. And father"s got an old typewriter in his office that"s to be put in order for me; and nights I shall drum upon it and print off what was written down in the morning, and study to see why it"s all wrong. I think I"ll never write anything but tales about people who love each other. "Cause a fellow wants to stick to what he knows about...."
Though G. G. was not to see Cynthia again for a whole year he didn"t find any trouble in loving her a little more every day. To his mind"s eye she was almost as vivid as if she had been standing right there in front of him. And as for her voice, that dwelt ever in his ear, like those lovely airs which, once heard, are only put aside with death. You may have heard your grandmother lilting to herself, over her mending, some song of men and maidens and violets that she had listened to in her girlhood and could never forget.
And then, of course, everything that G. G. did was a reminder of Cynthia. With the help of one of Doctor Trudeau"s a.s.sistants, who came every day to see how he was getting on, he succeeded in understanding very well what was the matter with him and under just what conditions a consumptive lung heals and becomes whole. To live according to the letter and spirit of the doctor"s advice became almost a religion with him.
For six hours of every day he sat on the porch of the house where he had rooms, writing on his little pad and making friends with the keen, clean, healing air. Every night the windows of his bedroom stood wide open, so that in the morning the water in his pitcher was a solid block.
And he ate just the things he was told to--and willed himself to like milk and sugar, and snow and cold, and short days!
In his writing he began to see progress. He was like a musical person beginning to learn an instrument; for, just as surely as there are scales to be run upon the piano before your virtuoso can weave music, binding the gallery G.o.ds with delicious meshes of sound, so in prose-writing there must be scales run, fingerings worked out, and harmonies mastered. For in a page of _lo bello stile_ you will find trills and arpeggios, turns, grace notes, a main theme, a sub theme, thorough-ba.s.s, counterpoint, and form.
Music is an easier art than prose, however. It comes to men as a more direct and concrete gift of those G.o.ds who delight in sound and the co-ordination of parts. The harmonies are more quickly grasped by the well-tuned ear. We can imagine the boy Mozart discoursing lovely music at the age of five; but we cannot imagine any one of such tender years compiling even a fifth-rate paragraph of prose.
Those men who have mastered _lo bello stile_ in music can tell us pretty clearly how the thing is done. There be rules. But your prose masters either cannot formulate what they have learned--or will not.
G. G. was very patient; and there were times when the putting together of words was fascinating, like the putting together of those picture puzzles which were such a fad the other day. And such reading as he did was all in one book--the dictionary. For hours, guided by his nice ear for sound, he applied himself to learning the derivatives and exact meanings of new words--or he looked up old words and found that they were new.
As for his actual compositions, he had only the ambition to make them as workmanlike as he could. He made little landscapes; he drew little interiors. He tried to get people up and down stairs in the fewest words that would make the picture. And when he thought that he had scored a little success he would count the number of words he had used and determine to achieve the same effect with the use of only half that number.
Well, G. G."s lung healed again; and this time he was very careful not to overdo. He had gained nine pounds, he wrote to Cynthia--"saved them"
was the way he put it; and he was determined that this new tissue, worth more than its weight in gold, should go to bank and earn interest for him--and compound interest.
"Shall I get well?" he asked that great dreamer who dreamed that there was hope for people who had never hoped before--and who has lived to see his dream come true; and the great dreamer smiled and said:
"G. G., if growing boys are good boys and do what they are told, and have any luck at all--they always get well!"
Then G. G. blushed.
"And when I am well can I live where I please--and--and get married--and all that sort of thing?"
"You can live where you please, marry and have children; and if you aren"t a good husband and a good father I dare say you"ll live to be hanged at ninety. But if I were you, G. G., I"d stick by the Adirondacks until you"re old enough to--know better."
And G. G. went back to his rooms in great glee and typewrote a story that he had finished as well as he could, and sent it to a magazine. And six days later it came back to him, with a little note from the editor, who said:
"There"s nothing wrong with your story except youth. If you say so we"ll print it. We like it. But, personally, and believing that I have your best interests at heart, I advise you to wait, to throw this story into your sc.r.a.p basket, and to study and to labor until your mind and your talent are mature. For the rest, I think you are going to do some fine things. This present story isn"t that--it"s not fine. At the same time, it is so very good in some ways that we are willing to leave its publication or its destruction to your discretion."
G. G. threw his story into the sc.r.a.p basket and went to bed with a brand-new notion of editors.
"Why," said he to the cold darkness--and his voice was full of awe and astonishment--"they"re--alive!"
III
Cynthia couldn"t get at G. G. and she made up her mind that she must get at something that belonged to him--or die. She had his letter, of course, and his kodaks; and these spoke the most eloquent language to her--no matter what they said or how they looked--but she wanted somehow or other to worm herself deeper into G. G."s life. To find somebody, for instance, who knew all about him and would enjoy talking about him by the hour. Now there are never but two people who enjoy sitting by the hour and saying nice things about any man--and these, of course, are the woman who bore him and the woman who loves him. Fathers like their sons well enough--sometimes--and will sometimes talk about them and praise them; but not always. So it seemed to Cynthia that the one and only thing worth doing, under the circ.u.mstances, was to make friends with G.
G."s mother. To that end, Cynthia donned a warm coat of pony-skin and drove in a taxicab to G. G."s mother"s address, which she had long since looked up in the telephone book.