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Marie, a novel by Laura E. Richards |
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Chapter 8. A Flower In The Snow |
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_ CHAPTER VIII. A FLOWER IN THE SNOW The winter, when it came, was hard for Marie. She had never known severe weather before, and this season it was bitter cold. People shook their heads, and said that old times had come again, and no mistake. There was eager pride in the lowest mercury, and the man whose thermometer registered thirty degrees below zero was happier than he who could boast but of twenty-five. There was not so much snow as in milder seasons, but the cold held without breaking, week after week: clear weather; no wind, but the air taking the breath from the dryness of it, and in the evening the haze hanging blue and low that tells of intensest cold. As the snow fell, it remained. The drifts and hollows never changed their shape, as in a soft or a windy season, but seemed fixed as they were for all time. Across the road from Jacques De Arthenay's house, a huge drift had been piled by the first snowstorm of the winter. Nearly as high as the house it was, and its top combed forward, like a wave ready to break; and in the blue hollow beneath the curling crest was the likeness of a great face. A rock cropped out, and ice had formed upon its surface, so that the snow fell away from it. The explanation was simple enough; Jacques De Arthenay, coming and going at his work, never so much as looked at it; but to Marie it was a strange and a dreadful thing to see. Night and morning, in the cold blue light of the winter moon and the bright hard glitter of the winter sun, the face was always there, gazing in at her through the window, seeing everything she did, perhaps--who could tell?--seeing everything she thought. She changed her seat, and drew down the blind that faced the drift; yet it had a strange fascination for her none the less, and many times in the day she would go and peep through the blind, and shiver, and then come away moaning in a little way that she had when she was alone. It was pitiful to see how she shrank from the cold,--the tender creature who seemed born to live and bloom with the flowers, perhaps to wither with them. Sometimes it seemed to her as if she could not bear it, as if she must run away and find the birds, and the green and joyous things that she loved. The pines were always green, it is true, in the little grove across the way; but it was a solemn and gloomy green, to her child's mind,--she had not yet learned to love the steadfast pines. Sometimes she would open the door with a wild thought of flying out, of flying far away, as the birds did, and rejoining them in southern countries where the sun was warm, and not a fire that froze while it lighted one. So cold! so cold! But when she stood thus, the little wild heart beating fiercely in her, the icy blast would come and chill her into quiet again, and turn the blood thick, so that it ran slower in her veins; and she would think of the leagues and leagues of pitiless snow and ice that lay between her and the birds, and would close the door again, and go back to her work with that little weary moan. Her husband was very kind in these days; oh, very kind and gentle. He kept the dark moods to himself, if they came upon him, and tried even to be gay, though he did not know how to set about it. If he had ever known or looked at a child, this poor man, he would have done better; but it was not a thing that he had ever thought of, and he did not yet know that Marie was a child. Sometimes when she saw him looking at her with the grave, loving, uncomprehending look that so often followed her as she moved about, she would come to him and lay her head against his shoulder, and remain quiet so for many minutes; but when he moved to stroke her dark head, and say, "What is it, Mary? what troubles you?" she could only say that it was cold, very cold, and then go away again about her work. Sometimes an anguish would seize him, when he saw how pale and thin she grew, and he would send for the village doctor, and beg him to give her some "stuff" that would make her plump and rosy again; but the good man shook his head, and said she needed nothing, only care and kindness,--kindness, he repeated, with some emphasis, after a glance at De Arthenay's face, and good food. "Cheerfulness," he said, buttoning up his fur coat under his chin,--"cheerfulness, Mr. De Arthenay, and plenty of good things to eat. That's all she needs." And he went away wondering whether the little creature would pull through the winter or not. And Jacques did not throw the food into the fire any more; he even tried to think about it, and care about it. And he got out the Farmer's Almanac,--yes, he did,--and tried reading the jokes aloud, to see if they would amuse Mary; but they did not amuse her in the least, or him either, so that was given up. And so the winter wore on. It had to end sometime; even that winter could not last forever. The iron grasp relaxed: fitfully at first, with grim clutches and snatches at its prey, gripping it the closer because it knew the time was near when all power would go, drop off like a garment, melt away like a stream. The unchanging snow-forms began to shift, the keen outlines wavered, grew indistinct, fell into ruin, as the sun grew warm again, and sent down rays that were no longer like lances of diamond. The glittering face in the hollow of the great drift lost its watchful look, softened, grew dim and blurred; one morning it was gone. That day Marie sang a little song, the first she had sung through all the long, cruel season. She drew up the blind and gazed out; she wrapped a shawl round her head and went and stood at the door, afraid of nothing now, not even thinking of making those tiresome horns. She was aware of something new in the air she breathed. It was still cold, but with a difference; there was a breathing as of life, where all had been dry, cold death. There was a sense of awakening everywhere; whispers seemed to come and go in the tops of the pine-trees, telling of coming things, of songs that would be sung in their branches, as they had been sung before; of blossoms that would spring at their feet, brightening the world with gold and white and crimson. Life! life stirring and waking everywhere, in sky and earth; soft clouds sweeping across the blue, softening its cold brightness, dropping rain as they go; sap creeping through the ice-bound stems, slowly at first, then running freely, bidding the tree awake and be at its work, push out the velvet pouch that holds the yellow catkin, swell and polish the pointed leaf-buds: life working silently under the ground, brown seeds opening their leaves to make way for the tender shoot that shall draw nourishment from them and push its way on and up while they die content, their work being done; roots creeping here and there, threading their way through the earth, softening, loosening, sucking up moisture and sending it aloft to carry on the great work,--life everywhere, pulsing in silent throbs, the heart-beats of Nature; till at last the time is ripe, the miracle is prepared, and
There came a day in spring when the desire mastered the fear that was in her. It was a perfect afternoon, the air a-lilt with bird-songs, and full of the perfume of early flowers. Her husband was ploughing in a distant field, and surely would not return for an hour or two; what might one not do in an hour? She called her little friend, Petie, who was hovering about the door, watching for her. Quickly, with fluttering breath, she told him what she meant to do, bade him be brave and fear nothing; locked the door, drew down the blinds, and closed the heavy wooden shutters; turned to the four corners of the room, bowing to each corner, as she muttered some words under her breath; and then, catching the child's hand in hers, began swiftly and lightly to mount the attic stairs. _ |
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