"Lady dear, you must rock or you cannot live."
Aunt Rachel did not look up from her work.
"Rocking, I should not live long," she replied.
"We are leaving you."
"All leave me."
"Annabel fears she has taken away your comfort."
"Only for a little while. The door closes behind us, but it opens again."
"But for that little time, rock--"
Aunt Rachel shook her head.
"No. It is finished. Another has seen.... Say good-bye to your companions; they are very welcome to what they have had; and G.o.d speed you."
"They thank you, lady dear.... Will you not forget that Annabel saw, and rock?"
"No more."
Annabel stooped and kissed the hand that bore the betrothal hoop of pearls. The other hand Aunt Rachel placed for a moment upon the smoky head of the babe in the sling. It trembled as it rested there, but the tremor pa.s.sed, and Annabel, turning once at the porch, gave her a last look. Then she departed with her companions.
That afternoon, Jack and Flora had shaken down to wedlock as married folk should, and sat together before the board spread with the dolls"
tea-things. The pallid light in the great hall-kitchen faded; the candles were lighted; and then the children, first borrowing the stockings of their elders to hang at the bed"s foot, were packed off early--for it was the custom to bring them down again at midnight for the carols. Aunt Rachel had their good-night kisses, not as she had them every night, but with the special ceremony of the mistletoe.
Other folk, grown folk, sat with Aunt Rachel that evening; but the old walnut chair did not move upon its rockers. There was merry talk, but Aunt Rachel took no part in it. The board was spread with ale and cheese and spiced loaf for the carol-singers; and the time drew near for their coming.
When at midnight, faintly on the air from the church below, there came the chiming of Christmas morning, all bestirred themselves.
"They"ll be here in a few minutes," they said; "somebody go and bring the children down;" and within a very little while subdued noises were heard outside, and the lifting of the latch of the yard gate. The children were in their nightgowns, hardly fully awake; a low voice outside was heard giving orders; and then there arose on the night the carol.
"Hush!" they said to the wondering children; "listen!..."
It was the Cherry Tree Carol that rose outside, of how sweet Mary, the Queen of Galilee, besought Joseph to pluck the cherries for her Babe, and Joseph refused; and the voices of the singers, that had begun hesitatingly, grew strong and loud and free.
"... and Joseph wouldn"t pluck the cherries," somebody was whispering to the tiny Angela....
"_Mary said to Cherry Tree, "Bow down to my knee, That I may pluck cherries For my Babe and me._""
the carollers sang; and "Now listen, darling," the one who held Angela murmured....
"_The uppermost spray then Bowed down to her knee; "Thus you may see, Joseph, These cherries are for me."
""O, eat your cherries, Mary, Give them your Babe now; O, eat your cherries, Mary, That grew upon the bough._""
The little Angela, within the arms that held her, murmured, "It"s the gipsies, isn"t it, mother?"
"No, darling. The gipsies have gone. It"s the carol-singers, singing because Jesus was born."
"But, mother ... it _is_ the gipsies, isn"t it?... "Cos look..."
"Look where?"
"At Aunt Rachel, mother ... The gipsy woman wouldn"t go without her little baby, would she?"
"No, she wouldn"t do that."
"Then has she _lent_ it to Aunt Rachel, like I lend my new toys sometimes?"
The mother glanced across at Aunt Rachel, and then gathered the night-gowned figure more closely.
"The darling"s only half awake," she murmured.... "Poor Aunt Rachel"s sleepy too...."
Aunt Rachel, her head dropped, her hands lightly folded as if about some shape that none saw but herself, her face again ineffable with that sweet and peaceful smile, was once more rocking softly in her chair.
HIC JACET
A TALE OF ARTISTIC CONSCIENCE
INTRODUCTION
As I lighted my guests down the stairs of my Chelsea lodgings, turned up the hall gas that they might see the steps at the front door, and shook hands with them, I bade them good night the more heartily that I was glad to see their backs. Lest this should seem but an inhospitable confession, let me state, first, that they had invited themselves, dropping in in ones and twos until seven or eight of them had a.s.sembled in my garret, and, secondly, that I was rather extraordinarily curious to know why, at close on midnight, the one I knew least well of all had seen fit to remain after the others had taken their departure. To these two considerations I must add a third, namely, that I had become tardily conscious that, if Andriaovsky had not lingered of himself, I should certainly have asked him to do so.
It was to nothing more than a glance, swift and momentary, directed by Andriaovsky to myself while the others had talked, that I traced this desire to see more of the little Polish painter; but a glance derives its import from the circ.u.mstance under which it is given. That rapid turning of his eyes in my direction an hour before had held a hundred questions, implications, criticisms, incredulities, condemnations. It had been one of those uncovenanted gestures that hold the promise of the treasures of an eternal friendship. I wondered as I turned down the gas again and remounted the stairs what personal message and reproach in it had lumped me in with the others; and by the time I had reached my own door again a phrase had fitted itself in my mind to that quick, ironical turning of Andriaovsky"s eyes: _"Et tu, Brute!..."_
He was standing where I had left him, his small shabby figure in the att.i.tude of a diminutive colossus on my hearthrug. About him were the recently vacated chairs, solemnly and ridiculously suggestive of still continuing the high and choice conversation that had lately finished. The same fancy had evidently taken Andriaovsky, for he was turning from chair to chair, his head a little on one side, mischievously and aggravatingly smiling. As one of them, the deep wicker chair that Jamison had occupied, suddenly gave a little creak of itself, as wicker will when released from a strain, his smile broadened to a grin. I had been on the point of sitting down in that chair, but I changed my mind and took another.
"That"s right," said Andriaovsky, in that wonderful English which he had picked up in less than three years, "don"t sit in the wisdom-seat; you might profane it."
I knew what he meant. I felt for my pipe and slowly filled it, not replying. Then, slowly wagging his head from side to side, with his eyes humorously and banteringly on mine, he uttered the very words I had mentally a.s.sociated with that glance of his.
_"Et tu, Brute!"_ he said, wagging away, so that with each wag the lenses of his spectacles caught the light of the lamp on the table.
I too smiled as I felt for a match.
"It _was_ rather much, wasn"t it?" I said.
But he suddenly stopped his wagging, and held up a not very clean forefinger. His whole face was altogether too confoundedly intelligent.
"Oh no, you don"t!" he said peremptorily. "No getting out of it like that the moment they"ve turned their backs! No running--what is it?--no running with the hare and hunting with the hounds! _You_ helped, you know!"
I confess I fidgeted a little.