He went downstairs for his violin and Lynn moved closer to Iris.
Fraulein Fredrika retreated into the shadow at the farthest corner of the room.
Presently the Master returned, snapping and tightening the strings. It was not the Cremona, but the other. He sat down by the window and the moonlight touched his face caressingly. He was grey with his fifty years and more, but as he sat there, his ma.s.sive head thrown back and his hair silvered, he seemed very near to the Gates of Youth.
In a moment, he was lost to his surroundings. He tapped the bow on the sill, as an orchestra leader taps for attention, straightened himself, smiled, and began.
It was a rippling, laughing melody, played on muted strings, full of unexpected harmonies, and quaintly phrased. In a moment, they caught the witchery of it, and the meaning. It was t.i.tania and her fairies, suddenly transported half-way around the world.
Mystery and magic were in the theme. Moonbeams shimmered through it, elves played here and there, and shining waters sang through Summer silences. All at once there was a pause, then, sonorous, deep, and splendid, came another harmony, which in impa.s.sioned beauty voiced the ministry of pain.
As before, Lynn saw chiefly the technique. Never for a moment did he forget the instrument. Iris was trembling, for she well knew those high and lonely places of the spirit, within the borders of Gethsemane.
The Master put down the violin and sighed. "Come," faltered Iris, "it is late and we must go."
He did not hear, and it was Fraulein Fredrika who went to the door with them. "Franz is thinking," she whispered. "He is often like that. He will be most sorry when he learns that you have gone."
"This way," said Iris, when they reached the street. They went to the brow of the cliff and looked once more across the shadowed valley to the luminous ranges of the everlasting hills. She turned away at last, thrilled to the depths of her soul. "Come," she whispered, "we must go back."
They walked softly, as though they feared to disturb someone in the little house, but there was no sound from within nor any light save at the window, where the light of dreams streamed over the Master"s face and made it young.
VI
A Letter
Roses rioted through East Lancaster and made the gardens glorious with bloom. The year was at its bridal and every chalice was filled with fragrant incense. Bees, powdered with pollen, hummed slowly back and forth, and the soft whir of unnumbered gossamer wings came in drowsy melody from the distant clover fields.
"June," sang Iris to herself, "June--Oh June, sweet June!"
She was getting ready for her daily trip to the post-office. Once in a great while there would be a letter there for Aunt Peace or Mrs. Irving.
Lynn also had an intermittent correspondent or two, but the errand usually proved fruitless. Still, since Mrs. Irving"s letter had lain nearly two weeks in Miss Field"s box, uncalled for, it had been a point of honour with Iris to see that such a thing did not happen again.
Books and papers were supplied in abundance by the local circulating library, and the high bookcases at Miss Field"s were well filled with standard literature. Iris read everything she could lay her hands upon.
Mere print exercised a certain fascination over her mind, and she had conscientiously finished every book that she had begun. Those early years, after all, are the most important. The old books are the best, and how few of us "have the time" to read them!
Ten years of browsing in a well equipped library will do much for anyone, and Iris had made the most of her opportunities. This girl of twenty, hemmed about by the narrow standards of East Lancaster, had a broad outlook upon life, a large view, that would have done credit to a woman of twice her age. From the beginning, the people of the books had been real to her, and she had filled the old house with the fairy figures of romance.
Of the things that make for happiness, the love of books comes first. No matter how the world may have used us, sure solace lies there. The weary, toilsome day drags to its disheartening close, and both love and friendship have proved powerless to appreciate or understand, but in the quiet corner consolation can always be found. A single shelf, perhaps, suffices for one"s few treasures, but who shall say it is not enough?
A book, unlike any other friend, will wait, not only upon the hour, but upon the mood. It asks nothing and gives much, when one comes in the right way. The volumes stand in serried ranks at attention, listening eagerly, one may fancy, for the command.
Is your world a small one, made unendurable by a thousand petty cares?
Are the heart and soul of you cast down by bitter disappointment? Would you leave it all, if only for an hour, and come back with a new point of view? Then open the covers of a book.
With this gentle comrade, you may journey to the very end of the world and even to the beginning of civilisation. There is no land which you may not visit, from Arctic snows to the loftiest peaks of southern mountains. Gallant gentlemen will go with you and tell you how to appreciate what you see. Further still, there are excursions into the boundless regions of imagination, where the light of dreams has laid its surpa.s.sing beauty over all.
Would you wander in company with soldiers of Fortune, and share their wonderful adventures? Would you live in the time of the Crusades and undertake a pilgrimage in the name of the Cross? Would you smell the smoke of battle, hear the ring of steel, the rattle of musketry, and see the colours break into deathly beauty well in advance of the charge?
Would you have for your friends a great company of n.o.ble men and women who have wrought and suffered and triumphed in the end? Would you find new courage, stronger faith, and serene hope? Then open the covers of a book, and presto--change!
"Iris," called Aunt Peace, "you"re surely not going without your hat?"
"Of course not." The colour that came and went in her damask cheeks was very like that in her pink dimity gown. She put on her white hat, the brim drooping beneath its burden of pink roses, and drew her gloves reluctantly over her dimpled hands.
"Iris, dear, your sunshade!"
"Yes, Aunt Peace." She came back, a little unwillingly, but tan was a personal disgrace in East Lancaster.
Ready at last, she tripped down the path and closed the gate carefully.
Mrs. Irving waved a friendly hand at her from the upper window. "Bring me a letter!" she called.
"I"ll try to," answered Iris, "but I can"t promise."
She lifted her gown a little, to keep it clear of burr and brier, and one saw the smooth, black silk stocking, chastely embroidered at the ankle, as one suspected, by the hand of the wearer, and the dainty, high-heeled shoes. The sunshade waved back and forth coquettishly. It seemed to be an airy ornament, rather than an article of utility.
Half-way down the street, she met Doctor Brinkerhoff. "Good morning, little lady," he said, with a smile.
"Good morning, sir," replied Iris, with a quaint courtesy. "I trust you are well?"
"My health is uniformly good," he returned, primly. "You must remember that I have my own drugs and potions always at hand." He made careful inquiries as to the physical and mental well-being of each member of the family, sent kindly salutations to all, made a low bow to Iris, and went on.
"A very pleasant gentleman," she said to herself. "What a pity that he has no social position!"
She loitered at the bridge, hanging over the railing, and looked down into the sunny depths of the little stream. All through the sweet Summer, the brook sang cheerily, by night and by day. It began in a cool, crystal pool, far up among the hills, and wandered over mossy reaches and pebbly ways, singing meanwhile of all the fragrant woodland through which it came. Hidden springs in subterranean caverns, caught by the laughing melody, went out to meet it and then followed, as the children followed the Pied Piper of old. Great with its gathered waters, it still sang as it rippled onward to its destiny, dreaming, perchance, of the time when its liquid music, lost at last, should be merged into the vast symphony of the sea.
Lynn came down the hill, swinging his violin case, and Iris, a little consciously, went on to the post-office.
Standing on tiptoe, she peered into the letter box, and then her heart gave a little leap, for there were two, yes three letters there.
"Wait a moment," called the grizzled veteran who served as postmaster.
"I"ve finally got something fer ye! Here! Miss Peace Field, Mrs.
Margaret Irving, and Miss Iris Temple."
"Oh-h!" whispered Iris, in awe, "a letter for me?"
""Tain"t fer n.o.body else, I reckon," laughed the old man. "Anyhow, it"s got your name on it."
She went out, half dazed. In all her life she had had but three letters; two from her mother, which she still kept, and one from Santa Claus. The good saint had left his communication in the little maid"s stocking one Christmas eve, and it was more than a year before Iris observed that Aunt Peace and Santa Claus wrote precisely the same hand.
"For me," she said to herself, "all for me!"
It never entered her pretty head to open it. The handwriting was unfamiliar and the post-mark was blurred, but it seemed to have come from the next town. The whole thing was very disturbing, but Aunt Peace would know.
Then Iris stopped suddenly in the path. It might be wicked, but, after all, why should Aunt Peace know? Why not have just one little secret, all to herself? The daring of it almost took her breath away, but in that single, dramatic instant, she decided.