Home > Authors Index > Ellen Glasgow > Miller Of Old Church > This page
The Miller Of Old Church, a novel by Ellen Glasgow |
||
Book 2. The Cross-Roads - Chapter 16. The End |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
|
|
________________________________________________
_ BOOK II. THE CROSS-ROADS CHAPTER XVI. THE END In the middle of the afternoon Molly went into the spare room in the west wing, and stopped beside the high white bed on which Gay was lying, with the sheet turned down from his face. In death his features wore a look of tranquil brightness, of arrested energy, as if he had paused suddenly for a brief space, and meant to rise and go on again about the absorbing business of living. The windows were open, and through the closed shutters floated a pale greenish light and the sound of dead leaves rustling softly in the garden. She had hardly entered before the door opened noiselessly again, and Kesiah came in bringing some white roses in a basket. Drawing a little away, Molly watched her while she arranged the flowers with light and guarded movements, as if she were afraid of disturbing the sleeper. Of what was she thinking? the girl wondered. Was she grieving for her lost youth, with its crushed possibilities of happiness, or for the rich young life before her, which had left its look of arrested energy still clinging to the deserted features? Was she saddened by the tragic mystery of Death or by the more poignant, the more inscrutable mystery of Life? Did she mourn all the things that had not been that did not matter, or all the things that had been that mattered even less? Lifting her eyes from Kesiah's face, she fixed them on a small old picture of the elder Jonathan, which hung under a rusty sword above the bed. For the first time there came to her an impulse of compassion for the man who was her father. Perhaps he, also, had suffered because life had driven him to do the things that he hated--perhaps he, also, had had his secret chamber in which his spirit was crucified? With the thought something in her heart, which was like a lump of ice, melted suddenly, and she felt at peace. "Because I've lived," she said softly to herself, "I can understand." And on the opposite side of the bed, between the long white curtains, Kesiah was thinking, "Because I've never lived, but have stood apart and watched life, I can understand." Turning away presently, Molly went to the door, where she stood waiting until the elder woman joined her. "Is Mr. Chamberlayne still with Aunt Angela?" she asked. "Yes. He was on his way to visit her when Cephus met him near the cross-roads." For an instant she paused to catch her breath, and then added softly, "Angela is bearing it beautifully." Stooping over, she picked up a few scattered rose leaves from the threshold and dropped them into the empty basket before she followed Molly down the hall of the west wing to the lattice door, which opened on the side-garden. Here the rustling of dead leaves grew louder, and faint scents of decay and mould were wafted through the evanescent beauty of the Indian summer. While they stood there, Mr. Chamberlayne came down the staircase, wiping his eyes, which were very red, on his white silk handkerchief. "She bears it beautifully, just as we might have expected," he said "I have seldom witnessed such fortitude, such saintly resignation to what she feels to be the will of God." Molly's eyes left his face and turned to the purple and gold of the meadows, where webs of silver thistledown were floating over the path she had trodden only a few hours ago. Nothing had changed in the landscape--the same fugitive bloom was on the fields, the same shadows were on the hillside, the same amber light was on the turnpike. She thought of many things in that instant, but beneath them all, like an undercurrent, ran the knowledge that Mrs. Gay was "bearing it beautifully" behind her closed shutters. When her mind went back to the past, she remembered the elder Jonathan, who had perished in the fine silken mesh of the influence he was powerless to break. After this came the memory of the day when Janet Merryweather had flung herself on the mercy of the gentle heart, and had found it iron. And then she thought of the son, who had drifted into deceit and subterfuge because he was not strong enough to make war on a thing so helpless. He, also, had died because he dared not throw off that remorseless tyranny of weakness. Without that soft yet indomitable influence, he would never have lied in the beginning, would never have covered his faithlessness with the hypocrisy of duty. "You have been a great comfort to her, Mr. Chamberlayne," said Kesiah, breaking the silence at last. A low sound, half a sob, half a sigh, escaped the lawyer's lips. "A spirit like hers needs no other prop than her Creator," he replied. "It is when one expects her to break down that she shows her wonderful fortitude," added Kesiah. "Her consolation now is the thought that she never considered either her health or her happiness where her son was concerned," pursued the old man. "She clings pathetically to the memory that she urged him to return to Europe, and that he chose to remain a few weeks for the pleasure of hunting. Not a breath stains the purity of her utter selflessness. To witness such spiritual beauty is a divine inspiration." For the last few hours, ever since a messenger had met him, half way on the Applegate road, with the news of Jonathan's death, he had laboured philosophically to reconcile such a tragedy with his preconceived belief that he inhabited the best of all possible worlds. Only when suffering obtruded brutally into his immediate surroundings, was it necessary for him to set about resolving the problem of existence--for, like most hereditary optimists, he did not borrow trouble from his neighbours. A famine or an earthquake at a little distance appeared to him a puerile obstacle to put forward against his belief in the perfection of the planetary scheme; but when his eyes rested upon the martyred saintliness of Mrs. Gay's expression, he was conscious that his optimism tottered for an instant, and was almost overthrown. That a just and tender Deity should inflict pain upon so lovely a being was incomprehensible to his chivalrous spirit. "Has any one told her about Blossom?" asked Molly. Kesiah shook her head. "Mr. Chamberlayne feels that it would be cruel. She knows so little about Jonathan's affairs that we may be able to keep his marriage from her knowledge if she leaves Jordan's Journey a few days after the funeral." "In spite of it all I know that Jonathan hated lies," said Molly almost fiercely. "Our first thought must be to spare her," answered the lawyer. "It was her son's endeavour always, just as it was my poor old friend Jonathan's. If you will come with me into the library," he added to Kesiah, "we will take a few minutes to look over the papers I have arranged." They moved away, walking side by side with halting steps, as though they were crushed by age, and yet were trying to the last to keep up an appearance of activity. For a minute Molly gazed after them. Then her eyes wandered to the light that shimmered over the meadows, and descending the stone steps into the side-garden, she walked slowly through the miniature maze, where the paths were buried deep in wine-coloured leaves which had drifted from the half bared trees on the lawn. Abel was coming, she knew, and she waited for him in a stillness that seemed akin to that softly breathing plant life around her. It was the hour for which she had hungered for weeks, yet now that it had come, she could hardly recognize it for the thing she had wanted. A sudden blight had fallen over her, as though she had brought the presence of death with her out of that still chamber. Every sound was hushed into silence, every object appeared as unsubstantial as a shadow. Beyond the lawn, over the jewelled meadows, she could see the white spire of Old Church rising above the coloured foliage in the churchyard, and beyond it, the flat ashen turnpike, which had led hundreds of adventurous feet toward the great world they were seeking. She remembered that the sight of the turnpike had once made her restless; now it brought her only a promise of peace. Turning at the sound of a step on the dead leaves, she saw that Abel had entered the garden, and was approaching her along one of the winding paths. When he reached her, he spoke quickly without taking her outstretched hand. The sun was in his eyes and he lowered them to the over-blown roses in a square of box. "I came over earlier," he said, "but I couldn't see any one except Mr. Chamberlayne." "He told me you would come back. That was why I waited." For a moment he seemed to struggle for breath. Then he said quickly. "Molly, do you believe it was an accident?" She started and her hands shook. "He said so at the end--otherwise--how--how could it have happened?" "Yes, how could it have happened?" he repeated, and added after a pause, "He was a fine fellow. I always liked him." Her tears choked her, and when she had recovered her voice, she put a question or two about Blossom--delaying, through some instinct of flight, the moment for which she had so passionately longed. "It was all so unnecessary," she said, "that is the worst of it. It might just as easily not have happened." "I wish I could be of some use," he answered. "Perhaps Mr. Chamberlayne has thought of something he would like me to do?" "He is in the library. Uncle Abednego will show you." He put out his hand, "Then good-bye, Molly," he said gently. But at the first touch of his fingers the spell was broken, and the mystery of life, not of death, rushed over her like waves of light. She knew now that she was alive--that the indestructible desire for happiness was still in her heart. The meaning of life did not matter while the exquisite, the burning sense of its sweetness remained. "Abel," she said with a sob, half of joy, half of sorrow, "if I go on my knees, will you forgive me?" He had turned away, but at her voice, he stopped and looked back with the sunlight in his eyes. "There isn't any forgiveness in love, Molly," he answered. "Then--oh, then if I go on my knees will you love me?" He smiled, and even his smile, she saw, had lost its boyish brightness and grown sadder. "I'd like to see you on your knees, if I might pick you up," he said, "but, Molly, I can't. You've everything to lose and I've nothing on God's earth to give you except myself." "But if that's all I want?" "It isn't, darling. You may think so, but it isn't and you'd find it out. You see all this time since I've lost you, I've been learning to give you up. It's a poor love that isn't big enough to give up when the chance comes to it." "If--if you give me up, I'll let everything go," she said passionately. "I'll not take a penny of that money. I'll stay at Old Church and live with Betsey Bottom and raise chickens. If you give me up I'll die, Abel," she finished with a sob. At the sound of her sob, he laughed softly, and his laugh, unlike his smile, was a laugh of happiness. "If you go to live with Betsey Bottom I'll come and get you," he answered, "but Molly, Molly, how you've tortured me. You deserve a worse punishment than raising chickens." "That will be happiness." "Suppose I insist that you shall draw the water and chop the wood? My beauty, your submission is adorable if it would only last!" "Abel, how can you?" "I can and I will, sweetheart. I might even make a miller's wife of you if it was likely that I'd ever do anything but worship you and keep you wrapped in silk. Are you very much in love at last, Molly?" The sound of his low laugh was in her blood, and while she leaned toward him, she melted utterly, drawing him with the light of her face, with the quivering breath between her parted lips. To his eyes she was all womanhood in surrender, yet he held back still, as a man who has learned the evanescence of joy, holds back when he sees his happiness within his grasp. "It's too late except for one thing, Molly," he said. "If it isn't everything you're offering me--if you are keeping back a particle of yourself--body or soul--it is too late. I won't take anything from you unless I take everything--unless your whole happiness as well as mine is in your giving." Then before the look in her face, he held out his arms and stood waiting. [THE END] _ |
||