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Marie, a novel by Laura E. Richards |
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Chapter 10. Vita Nuova |
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_ CHAPTER X. VITA NUOVA De Arthenay never knew how he reached home that day. The spot where he had been lying was several miles from the white cottage, yet he was conscious of no time, no distance. It seemed one burning moment, a moment never to be forgotten while he lived, till he found himself at the foot of the outer stairway, the stair that led to the attic. She might still be living, and he would not go to her without the thing she craved, the thing which could speak to her in the voice she understood. Again a moment of half-consciousness, and he was standing in the doorway of her bedroom, looking in with blind eyes of dread. What should he see? what still form might break the outline of that white bed which she always kept so smooth and trim? The silence cried out to him with a thousand voices, threatening, condemning, blasting; but the next moment it was broken. "Mon ami!" said Marie. The words were faint, but there was a tone in them that had never been there before. "Jacques, mon ami, you are here! You did not go to leave me?" The mist cleared from the man's eyes. He did not see Abby Rock, sitting by the bed, crying with joyful indignation; if he had seen her, it would not have been in the least strange for her to be there. He saw nothing--the world held nothing--but the face that looked at him from the pillow, the pale face, all soft and worn, yet full of light, full--was it true, or was he dreaming in the wood?--of love, of joy. "Come in, Jacques!" said Abby, wondering at the look of the man. "Don't make a noise, but come in and sit down!" De Arthenay did not move, but held out the violin in both hands with a strange gesture of submission. "I have brought it, Mary!" he said. "You shall always have it now. I--I have learned a little--I know a little, now, of what it means. I hadn't understanding before, Mary. I meant no unkindness to you." Abby laughed softly. "Jacques De Arthenay, come here!" she said. "What do you suppose Maree's thinking of fiddles now? Come here, man alive, and see your boy!" But Marie laid one hand softly on the violin, as it lay on the bed beside her,--the hand that was not patting the baby; then she laid it, still softly, shyly, on her husband's head as he knelt beside her. "Jacques, mon ami," she whispered, "you are good! I too have learned. I was a child always, I knew nothing. See now, I love always Madame, my friend, and she is mine; but this, this is yours too, and mine too, our life, our own. Jacques, now we both know, and God, He tell us! See, the same God, only we did not know the first times. Now, always we know, and not forget! not forget!" The baby woke and stirred. The tiny hand was outstretched and touched its father's hand, and a thrill ran through him from head to foot, softening the hard grain, melting, changing the fibre of his being. The husk that in those lonely hours in the forest had been loosened, broken, now fell away from him, and a new man knelt by the white bed, silent, gazing from child to wife with eyes more eloquent than any words could be. The baby's hand rested in his, and Marie laid her own over it; and Abby Rock rose and went away, closing the door softly after her. [THE END] _ |
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